THE GHOST KING

Initial post here to start the discussion.

Nico’s first interactions with his father are ones of shame and manipulation. Hades said he wished Nico had died instead of Bianca, that Nico was weak compared to her. So in addition to trying to get his sister back for his own reasons, he also is trying to do it to prove to Hades that he’s strong enough to do it

Compounding Hades labeling Nico as weak though is how Hades uses him to betray Percy when Percy is briefly trapped underground during tlo. Nico goes against his father to free Percy because Nico has a sense of justice and what’s right, but Nico is still verbally punished by his father for disobeying him. Nico eventually convinces his father to oppose Kronos, which then grants him some gratitude from the gods and his father. But the manipulation from Hades is a lasting, insidious thing and makes Nico bitter because he definitely doesn’t want to loose that part of himself that cares about others, but he begins to hate it as well. Which loops back into Nico’s feelings about Percy

Nico desperately craves his father’s approval. He wants to be seen as strong and capable, as worthy of the title of the son of Hades and child of the Underworld. But he is simply not able to do what his father wants him to do. Nico's innate nature and sense of justice, his instinct and drive as a hero direct him to forge his own way that does end up undermining what Hades says he wants Nico to be like. Whether or not this ends up ultimately impressing Hades I think is still up for debate

HoO is a lot too because the gods were fractured in that and Nico was intensely protecting Hazel to keep her from being sent back to the Underworld. There is the scene in HoO where Hades tries to say he’s proud of Nico and gives a warning? I need to reread that scene again but from what I remember the first time, I got the sense that Nico didn’t believe what Hades was telling him, at least in the sense of being proud of him. Nico is so used to disappointing his father that he doesn’t believe the praise when it comes.

instructions: describe     10     random     headcanons     about     your     muse     of     choice     that     will     rarely     ever     have     the     chance     to     naturally     come     up     in     threads.     Go     wild,     go     random,     go     meta! repost,     do     not     reblog!

1. Fast food and junk food are comfort things for Nico. When he was on his own and essentially homeless, those foods were some of the only things he could reliably get to eat. So yes, he does have a sweet tooth, but it was also how he needed to survive. 

2. Nico, of course, has fully returned to playing and enjoying Mythomagic. He starts to get back into it roughly after botl, and is keeping up with the new sets and game by hoo. The bite-sized information on the cards is helpful for him to manage with his dyslexia and he has memorized every single card he owns. And yes, most of his knowledge about the gods and mythical world does tend to come from Mythomagic.

3. After being trapped in the jar, Nico has claustrophobia. He can still tolerate being underground, but he is not a fan of being stuck anywhere else tight and confined.

4. Nico has a skull ring that he wears on his thumb because it’s a little too big for his other fingers. He tends to spin it around when he’s thinking. Other fidgets he does include pulling at loose threads on his clothes and tugging on his ear.

5. Like Hazel, Nico gets sea sick when he’s on boats. He doesn’t do too great with flying either.

6. Related to the previous headcanon, Nico is able to tell wherever he is when he is on land. Like Percy, it’s more positional, operating like an unlabeled GPS. Part of why he gets so disoriented and nauseous on the water and in the air is because he can’t tell where he is.

7. He has taken it upon himself to start helping usher the dead back to the Underworld after the Doors of Death were open. He will leave Camp on occasion during toa and onward to do this. He tries to help ghosts with unfinished business find peace in general too. 

8. At some point (most like post botl or even tlo), Hades gifted Nico a debit card that seems to have an unlimited amount of money tied to it. This helps him to get better food and places to stay in some of his wanderings.

9. Nico does have his own room in the House of Hades in the Underworld. Yes, some of his Mythomagic figurine collection is down there. Yes, the room is also a mess.

10. Roughly the way ghosts work in my writing is that there is an animus (aka a soul or a will, the more traditional idea of ghost) and there is the physical remains (skeletons, muscles, tissue, etc.). When a place is haunted, it’s generally by an animus which overtime loses the complexities of a person and weathers it down to simple emotions, sometimes one emotion. It takes a very strong will for a ghost to resemble who they were in life. (This erosion of personhood doesn’t really happen in the Underworld.) Conversely, reanimated skeletons like Nico generally summons are just remains given a new spark of energy rather than an actual independent will. Mashing a random animus into random physical remains is more in line with necromancy and considering very dark magic, both harmful to the animus and the remains because of the mismatch.

❝ i didn’t fall from olympus, i stumbled gracefully. ❞

❝ you pray, i manifest. ❞

❝ zeus could never handle my notifications. ❞

❝ i light candles just to feel dramatic, not divine. ❞

❝ do i look mortal to you? ❞

❝ apollo called. he wants his spotlight back. ❞

❝ i don’t need thunder to make an entrance. ❞

❝ poseidon texts in waves. literally. ❞

❝ my therapist says i have ‘too much god complex’. ❞

❝ athena told me to read more. i told her to chill. ❞

❝ i’d smite you, but i’m on break. ❞

❝ nectar? no, that’s just iced coffee. ❞

❝ i heard chaos is hiring again. ❞

❝ i only curse people in lowercase. it’s aesthetic. ❞

❝ hermes ran off with my wi-fi again. ❞

❝ divinity looks better under bad lighting. ❞

❝ you can’t out-petty a goddess. ❞

❝ i flirt like a siren and disappear like hades. ❞

❝ this toga has pockets. your move, mortals. ❞

❝ artemis blocked me for calling her ‘moon girl’. ❞

❝ i whisper prophecies but everyone just hears ✨vibes✨ ❞

❝ being immortal is exhausting. the group chat never dies. ❞

❝ i turned my ex into a constellation. visibility matters. ❞

❝ aphrodite said ‘self-love’, so i took it literally. ❞

❝ zeus has main character syndrome. ❞

❝ don’t tempt fate, she’s already texting me back. ❞

❝ i once cried so hard i made a river. aquarius behavior. ❞

❝ mortals invented taxes. that’s why we stopped helping. ❞

❝ ambrosia tastes like chaos and bad decisions. ❞

❝ i don’t hold grudges. i engrave them in marble. ❞

❝ oracle said ‘touch grass’. rude. ❞

❝ i cursed a guy once. now he’s a motivational speaker. ❞

❝ eternal life, but make it fashion. ❞

❝ medusa wasn’t wrong, just efficient. ❞

❝ i don’t need lightning. i am the flashback. ❞

❝ apollo keeps sending me poems. i keep leaving him on read. ❞

❝ it’s not wrath if it’s deserved. ❞

❝ i miss when offerings were wine, not vibes. ❞

❝ call me delphic, i give mixed signals. ❞

❝ i tried humility once. didn’t suit me. ❞

❝ chaos is my comfort zone. ❞

❝ i don’t answer prayers, i curate them. ❞

❝ you mortals gossip like the fates aren’t listening. ❞

❝ i forgave you centuries ago. still petty, though. ❞

❝ i turn heartbreak into mythology. ❞

❝ my altar has LED lights now. modernization. ❞

❝ i don’t need wings to ascend. just caffeine. ❞

❝ wine first, omens later. ❞

❝ call it divine intervention. i call it multitasking. ❞

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 son   of   hades   he   saw   was   a   lithe   man   on   the   other   side   of   the   war.   the   uniform   didn’t   fit   him   right;   it   swallowed   him   whole   instead   of   fitting   to   the   frame.   his   hair   was   matted   to   his   head   so   tight   that   he   almost   looked   as   though   he   was   wearing   some   kind   of   nighttime   swim-cap.   verso   couldn’t   make   out   his   eye   color;   the   distance   between   them   was   too   great,   &&   the   man’s   face   too   gaunt.   he   could   have   been   the   same   age   as   the   son   of   zeus.   he   could   have   been   ninety.   it   was   impossible   to   tell. then   the   man   was   moving,   shambling   between   distant   heads.   a   call   went   out,   then   new   dead   joined   the   fresh   dead:   skeletons   clawed   their   way   to   the   surface,   parting   through   blood-soaked   mulch   &&   dirt   like   overeager   fans   in   a   mosh   pit.   then   verso   had   to   get   to   work. he   had   never   caught   the   other   demigod’s   name.   with   such   little   to   go   on,   he   knows   now   that   the   man   will   likely   remain   as   nothing   more   than   a   nameless   shade   in   the   back   of   his   mind.   looking   at   the   only   surviving   child   of   hades   before   him,   verso   starts   to   think   that   their   dour   disposition   must   be   hereditary.   ( all   of   their   mothers   were   probably   funeral   directors. ) the   quip   about   summoning   gets   a   snort   out   of   zeus’   second   greatest   mistake.   ❝   wow,   five   year   old   birthday   parties   ??   you   better   run   high   prices   for   that.   it’s   a   party   &&   a   family   reunion   all   at   once,   after   all.   ❞    his   gaze   roams   from   the   demigod   to   the   street   and,   for   once,   doesn’t   return   to   the   kid -   boy   -   demigod   he’s   talking   to.   if   a   spawn   of   hades   wanted   him   dead,   he’d   be   dead;   he   can   afford   to   take   in   the   scenery   of   the   street   —  &&   to   make   sure   no   nearby   monsters   are   hankering   to   take   advantage   of   two   children   of   the   big   three   being   in   the   same   place   at   the   same   time. ❝   fair   enough.   ❞   he   doesn’t   really   care   if   the   kid   is   a   tourist   or   not;   he’s   not   here   to   start   shit   or   dunk   him   into   tartarus,   &&   that’s   good   enough   for   verso   right   now.   he   slides   his   hands   into   his   pockets   &&   fidgets   with   the   lid   of   a   hidden   cigarette   cartridge.    ❝   full   disclosure:   no   idea   around   this   city.   couldn’t   tell   mainstreet   from   mugging   alley.   ❞   he   clicks   his   tongue,   rolls   the   next   words   around   in   his   mouth   for   a   beat,   then   glances   at   the   younger   demigod   in   his   peripheral.   ❝   but   if   you   want   a   tour   guide,   i’m   good   at   mental   maps   &&   apparently   give   people   whatever   the   hell   ‘scary   dog   privilege’   is.   something   about   scaring   muggers   away   or   shit   like   that.   ❞

There are some parents that would get their kids a pony for their birthday party, there are other parents who want things to be a bit more exciting. Not that Nico has actually summoned the dead for a birthday party, but it's not like he's advertised his services either. Frankly, Nico wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if someone took him up on the offer. He's met more than his fair share of odd people in graveyards, present company nowhere close to being excluded.

The tangent is almost enough to distract him from his purpose, but it doesn't fully remove his plan from his mind. Not quite. Not that it's much of a plan, but... he's heard rumors. Stories of another child of the Underworld somewhere in New Orleans, but those stories are muddled with time and--something else.

From where the pair of demigods stand at the moment, Nico has a guess that they're at least in the right general location. With the sense of death in this place and it not being directly in a graveyard, he has a guess that something, or maybe even someone tied to the dead was in this area. It could have been Hades, he wonders doubtfully, head drooping down to watch the toe of his shoe scuff at the cobbles below, but there's more than just the Greek dead in a city like New Orleans.

Either way, two such powerful demigods really shouldn't stay in one place for too long. That's just begging to attract attention. Kronos's army might have fallen, but that doesn't mean the monsters are fully gone.

“ i hope this is not too presumptuous of me, uhm. . . ” there's a pause somewhere in his solemn stance and quiet words when he realizes he still doesn't know the fellow's name (something he'll have to remedy soon) but it vanishes as quickly as it came, carried off by the evening breeze. “ do you find satisfaction in your calling? i reckon it is not the easiest path one might undertake, yet surely a most respectable one. ”

because, all in all, beings like him are the backbone of everything there is.

“ what i mean to ask is, does it ever weigh on your spirits? having to deal with those who come after death. . . do you ever find yourself. . . saddened after a long day? ”

Blinking slightly in surprise when the question comes, his head straightens again, considering the question. It's not one he has ever had to consider before, but then again... "It is what I was made to do," he says, brow furrowing slightly as he tries to explain the deep sense of contentment around his soul about the subject now that it is broached. "And it is a service sorely needed."

conrí's  horse  knows  where  they're  going,  so  he  turns  the  head  in  his  arms  to  face  the  prince,  entrusting  the  straightforward  course  to  his  mare.  the  detached  head  retains  a  flesh-like  quality,  despite  the  obvious  way  it  simply  cannot  be  true  flesh.  not  with  how  long  he's  been  like  this. 

“i  have  been,  yes,  though  not  for  very  long.  my  path  often  takes  me  through,  as  i  cannot  take  the  ferry  to  the  main  entrance.”  even  if,  for  whatever  reason,  both  duláchan  and  ferryman  were  okay  with  a  mounted  horse  in  a  boat,  charon  is  drenched  in  gold.  the  very  thought  makes  conrí  curl  his  lip  in  disgust.  gold,  like  running  water,  is  not  a  friend  to  him.  and  he  would  be  remiss  to  ask  the  ferryman  to  change  his  ways,  simply  for  an  impossible  passenger. 

no,  he  will  take  the  long  way,  and  continue  to  be  grateful  that  his  bridge  remains  responsive  to  his  presence;  none  may  cross  but  he  and  his  mare,  and  it's  arched,  so  as  to  not  interrupt  charon's  passage  and  keep  conrí  from  being  any  nearer  to  the  river  than  he  has  to. 

But even despite such security measures, a few spirits and even a greater number of mortals still wish to find other ways in and out of the Underworld, pursuing some fruitless quest or another most likely, seeking to defy the inevitability of Thanatos no matter how foolish. It seems especially daring to Nico to try to use the garden and bridge belonging to the death deity when that is the explicit goal, but from Nico's understanding, the mortals are desperate.

Simply walking away from here does not seem to fit the accounts from the publication. Then there's the fact that the kid is being intentionally vague in his reasons for traversing the forest alone and his destination if he were to walk away, well... "Obviously."

"Two days is a long time to wander around in the forest," he agrees instead, just managing to keep his face blank as the man seems to bounce off of thin air. "And that is... interesting."