Just a random something that I was rolling around in my head and typed out in a few hours.

If I owned PJO, I would wake up. Because I would be dreaming. It would be a good dream, yes, but not a real dream. *sigh*

Nico di Angelo was in a bad mood. Again. The reason? There was none. He had no idea why he was in a bad mood, nor why he was sulking about it. All that was important was that he was sulking at all, right? Because without him being all emo, I would have no motive for him to go down to the Underworld at just the right time and enter in a pointless story that wastes valuable time that I could be using to work on my books, but I don't.

Anywho, he was in a bad mood, he went down to the Underworld, he decided to wander around in Asphodel, blah blah blah. And then he met the girl.

Wait! Stop! Don't leave! No, this is not a Mary Sue story. I swear by the Styx. Now, maybe if she'd been a little older and a lot less hyper and not totally dead (last of the three options matters by which Mary Sue author is writing it) and if Nico had been so totally romantically OOC that it makes the reader want to do a facewall, and if the plot had not been like the one which I am about to introduce after this insufferably lengthy run-on sentence, then yes, this might have been a Mary Sue story. But it's not, so sit down, shut that piehole, and finish reading.

Anywho (AGAIN) he was just randomly wandering around in Asphodel for no good reason when he decided to sit down under a tree. For no good reason. He started reflecting on how his life sucked and how nobody liked him and how he would be better off dead like the shades that were roaming the field and all of those other completely OOC thoughts that the pathetic writer was making him think. Then he snapped out of it and started reflecting on something better suited for his ADHD, actually-quite-cheerful character. He wanted a cheeseburger.

Then he suddenly heard a voice. (OH MY GODS! Suddenly! That must mean that the reader should be surprised!) He looked up. Sitting in the tree above him, perched on one of the branches, was a girl.

She looked about five years old, but who could tell with dead people? Her short curly hair might have once been blond, but now it was foggy like the rest of her body. Her ragged gray cloak, which was the standard uniform for Asphodel shades, had been cut short, just below the knee. Her thin bare legs dangled out and swung idly.

"Hey," she repeated in a voice surprisingly loud and clear for a shade.

Nico stared at her. Her form seemed more solid than most of the mortal shades in the field. More solid, and…brighter. A demigod, he knew. Probably a daughter of Apollo, judging by her appearance. How long she had been dead he had no idea. "What are you doing up there?"

She rolled her large, clear blue eyes as if the answer was obvious, which it kind of was. "Sitting in a tree. Duh."

"Why might you be sitting in a tree?" inquired Nico slowly, forgetting about his bad mood for the sake of some pathetic dialogue.

"Because I'm bored!" she answered in the same "you're-stupid-and-I'm-gonna-rub-it-in-your-face" voice. Then her irritated expression cleared and she swung down from the tree like a monkey, landing lithely on the dry dirt ground next to him. "Do you want to alleviate my boredom?"

Her grin was creeping him out and she was getting uncomfortably close. Even dead, she exuded a weird aura of light and happiness –– and a lot of hyperactivity. It was rather unnerving. Nico slid slowly away. "No."

"Please?" she asked, leaning closer.

"No," he replied, sliding away.

"Please?" Her eyes were getting unnaturally wide.

"No." Puppy eyes didn't work on him, even when they came from dead people.

"Please?"

"No."

"Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

"Ugly no with a brussel sprout on top."

She giggled and sat back on her heels. "You're funny."

He frowned. "No I'm not."

"Yes you are, fart face."

"No, I'm not, and I'm not a fart face."

"Yes you are." He didn't know whether she was talking about him being funny or him being a fart face. He decided that it didn't matter.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you –– wait, what?"

The shade girl started giggling again. "Haha, gotcha! I win!"

Nico's brow furrowed. He was getting officially creeped out. "Okay, yeah," he said, trying to slide away, "you won, so I'm just going to go –– "

"No, you're not!" Fast as a flash, her spectral hand lashed out and clamped around his wrist, pulling him back down to the ground. "I'm not not bored yet! You have to stay here with me until I'm not bored, and I'm still bored."

"What –– " Nico tried to protest, but somehow he knew that resistance was futile.

"Now," the shade girl said in her little-kid voice, "we're gonna play games first. What do you wanna play? I know how to play 20 Questions, Would You Rather, Truth or Dare, Concentration, and the Who Can Fit More Of Their Foot Into Their Mouth Contest."

"Not the last one!" burst Nico instantly.

She frowned. "Yeah, I don't like that one either. Feet don't taste really good."

He cracked a smile. "You don't say."

"Hmm." She took on a serious, "deep thinking" look. "Well, since I, ah, keep losing track of numbers whenever I play 20 questions, I don't want to play that. And Concentration's really hard too because I don't like concentrating and I keep repeating stuff and I'm not supposed to. And I'm not good at Would You Rather. So we'll play Truth or Dare. Do you know how to play?"

Nico had a brief but terrifying flashback of the time the girls of the Aphrodite cabin had kidnapped the hottest guy from each cabin and locked them in theirs to play Truth or Dare together. Being the only guy in the Hades cabin, he had been their only option. (Not a bad one, they had said. Being not just the only guy in the Hades cabin but a guy in general, he of course did not know what this meant.) He involuntarily shuddered. "Yeah."

"Okay," she said, satisfied. "I'll go first." She sat and waited. A silence drifted over them. "Well, go!"

"Go where?" He actually didn't mind where.

"Not to a place, dumbo. Go, ask me 'truth or dare'!"

"Oh," he said, rolling his eyes as if he should have known. What had he gotten himself into? "Okay, fine. Truth or dare?"

"Dare," she answered instantly.

Nico thought for a moment, then he said, "I dare you to go behind that tree and close your eyes."

She blew a raspberry. "Too easy. You gotta do a better dare than that!"

"Well, it's a dare and I can't think of another one. Maybe I'll think of one while you're behind the tree. Now go."

The shade girl eyed him suspiciously. "Well, you dared me…okay." She stood up and walked behind the tree. When her eyes were closed, Nico silently got up, turned away, and started walking very quickly towards the long grass where he knew he could hide.

"Hey! I told you to stay with me!"

He froze and turned around. The shade girl was standing next to the tree with her hands on her tiny hips. "You were leaving."

"I dared you to stay behind the tree," said Nico, uselessly trying to save himself.

"Yeah, but you never said for how long," she replied mischievously, sticking her tongue out at him. "Sit down. Your turn. Truth or dare?"

He didn't want to think about some of the dares a girl like this could cook up, so he went with the safe side. "Truth."

The shade girl blew another raspberry. "You're boring. All right. Are you a demigod?"

Nico wasn't really expecting this one. "Umm…yeah."

"Which one?"

He hesitated. "Nico di Angelo, Son of Hades."

"Caitlyn Tate, Daughter of Pollo," the shade girl replied crisply, sticking out her hand as if to shake.

Nico cracked a smile as he took her hand. "You mean daughter of Apollo?"

Caitlyn almost jerked his arm out of its socket when she shook. "Yeah, whatever. My turn now."

"Okay, truth or dare?"

"Well, since I already did dare, I have to do truth at least once in three tries. At least, that's what my brother told me. He was just a mortal. Half-brother. I'ah think he's still alive, dunno. He was two years older than me and I died four years ago."

"How did you die?"

"No! I can't answer that! That's not a real Truth or Dare question!" She said Truth or Dare like it was one word, Trutherdare.

Nico was confused. "What?"

She took on a tone like she was talking to a much younger and simpler person. "It's not a real Truth or Dare question," she said, "because Truth or Dare questions are yes and no only."

He was even more confused. "But you didn't ask me a yes or no question."

"Yeah I did, stupid. I asked you if you were a demigod, and you said yes, and then I asked which one, and you answered. The second one was optional. I asked it just 'cuz I felt like it."

"Okay, then. Will you tell me how you died?"

"No! That's not a real Truth or Dare question either!"

"It's yes or no."

"Whatever. Now ask a real question, Pico di Angelly."

Nico snorted. "Pico di Angelly?"

"What? That's your name," she said with a proud smile.

"No it isn't."

"Fine then, Fart Face."

"That's not either."

"Okay, Death Diaper."

"Neither is that."

"Sure thing, Sergeant Stinky."

"Wrong again."

"Whatever, Prince Poopbrain."

"Nope, Queen Constipation."

Caitlyn froze, then her grin grew larger. Two could play at this game, so long as both members were complying. "So the duel of the dirty mouths has begun, General Underpants."

"So it has, Princess Potty."

And so they dueled with their immature vocabulary of potty talk until both of them were laughing and rolling on the ground and attracting the stares of several million confused shades and three rather weirded-out Furies.

The Furies themselves sat perched in the tree, unseen by the two demigod potty talkers, who were currently debating on who won the potty mouth contest. It was one of the strangest sights anyone had ever seen in the Underworld, excepting that one time when Thanatos found that nacho chips went very well with the cheese fondue found in the Fields of Punishment, which had been an extremely strange sight and would probably stay as the strangest. But this one that was playing out in front of the three Furies right now was awful close.

"Should we break it up?" asked Tisiphone as she sat with her two sisters.

Alecto and Megaera exchanged a glance, then looked back down at Nico and Caitlyn, who were now going at it in a full-scale tickle fight. "No way."

"So see you next weekend?" asked Caitlyn when Nico grew hungry and had to go back to camp.

Nico hesitated. Who knew if he'd even be alive next weekend? Then he looked down at the hopeful shade with the pretty blue eyes. In a little less than two hours, she had become the little sister he'd never had. Little sisters were much different than older ones, that much was for sure.

"I'll try, Stinkbrain," he said before stepping into the shadows.

Now where in Hades did THAT seriousness come from?

Meh, it's probably just my angsty side wanting to come out.

Kudos to anyone who gets the references to a certain animated movie!

I know you guys are going to want me to continue this. I just know it. But I'm sorry to say that this is a oneshot unless I get a really good idea. Knowing my crazy life, I probably will.