It's my birthday today! I got books. I am satisfied.

Wpov

I don't understand how someone could mistreat him! He's innocent!

Nico looked up at me as I held him close to my chest.

"Mew."

Awwwwwww

My heart seemed to explode.

"I love you, Nico."

Only later did I realize what I had said.

Nico started purring as I stroked his back.

"Your so fluffy!" I squealed.

"""""""""""""" Npov

Did he just say he loved me? Surely not. Surely a king wouldn't love a neko....right?
That has to be right.

"Your so fluffy!"

"Meow."

"Awwww!"

A few people were staring at the King, royalty, holding a neko.

"What's he doing?" Some whispered.

"I don't know." Others answered. "Seems weird to me."

"Yeah. Why would he hold a neko?"

"Maybe he has a job for it to do and he needs to hold it before it can leave."

"Maybe it has something to do with him becoming king."

They all whispered it as if they didn't want the king to hear.

Then a girl came up to us. She was a neko.

"Did you say Nico Di Angelo?" She asked.

"Yes, why?" Will said.

"Well, I'm Hazel and my brother, Nico, was taken from me when we were small. Is this him?"

What?! Hazel?!

I looked up at her.

Yes, this was Hazel. Hazel Levesque.

You may be wondering why we have different last names.

Well, our parents had been dating but hadn't actually gotten married when they took us. But she was like a sister anyway.

"Yeah, this is him."

He smiled at me before setting me on the ground. I turned human.

"Hazel? Is that really you?" I asked, still not quite convinced that this was her.

She hugged me, "Yes, it's me. Oh my gods I can't believe I found you!"

I laughed, "I thought I'd never see you again!"

I looked at her and she was crying tears of joy.

We hugged for a few minutes before Hazel pulled away, turning to Will.

"You took him!" She yelled at him.

"No, Hazel, look. His dad did. Will didn't even know nekos were taken from their homes. He thought we were born here."

"Well, he didn't do anything to free you guys."

"Yes, he did. He set the nekos free."

"Then why are you still here?"

"It's a long story."

"I have time." She said, tapping her foot.

"Fine. Well the day he freed us, I....I hadn't left yet. One cat attacked him. Well, uh....oh gods, you don't know about Bianca, do you?"

Hazel paled, "Where is she?"

I looked at my feet. "She attacked the king....and I....i haven't seen her since. She's dead."

"No! No, she can't be! She-she- dead! That's not possible! Something must be wrong! She can't be dead!"

"Hazel, I would have seen her. She's dead."

Hazel had tears running down her face. "Oh gods....I can't believe she's dead...."

"I'm sorry, Hazel."

I hugged her.

"So how long has she been dead?"

"A couple weeks after we arrived."

"You've been alone here all this time?"

I nodded, "Until Will came anyway."

"Wait....so he's your friend?"

"Well, yeah, I mean, he seems to be the only one that doesn't want to kill me if I talk."

"What do you mean?"

"Yeah....uh, there are these rules that nekos have to follow. One is that we can't talk until commanded to do so."

"How many rules are there?"

"Hundreds."

"Hundreds?!"

"Yeah. Didn't you know people don't like nekos?"

"Well, yeah, but hundreds of rules for us to follow? That's a little too much."

"Yeah, well, here wasn't really anything I could do. Anyway, so I didn't want this cat to go through what Bianca did, so I attacked it. Being hurt is better than being dead, right? So I attacked the cat, and after it left, Will asked if I wanted to run away with him. So we ran into the woods-well Will ran into the woods, he was carrying me. We set up camp and slept there for a day but this guy named Octavian didn't like nekos. So he threatened to tell the king where we were if I ate with them. But Will didn't let me eat by myself. So Octavian told the king where we were and the next day the king arrived. He-he slapped Will. But that made me mad so I...."

"You what?"

"I attacked him."

Hazel gasped.

"And so I'm not supposed to attack royalty or talk to them or look them in the eye and so he sentenced me to death-"

"He sentenced you to death?!"

"Uh....yeah."

"When?!"

"I was supposed to be killed today at noon."

"Supposed?!"

"Yeah. Hold on. I'm getting to that part. So anyway Will was becoming king today. At noon. So our plan was that I would procrastinate for as long as I possibly could." I looked at Will, "This is the part you didn't know."

"What happened?" Hazel and Will said in unison.

"The people in the cell across from me heard our plan. I had helped them get out of their cell, so they helped me stall. They protected me. Then this other girl helped and I wasn't killed and then Will came in and then I ran here."

I could tell Will wanted to say something but held back.

"Who were the people that helped you?"

"Percy, Jason, Piper, Frank, Leo. The girl that helped me later was Annabeth. Wait! Look! They're over there."

The group was heading towards us. We introduced Hazel and told them she was my sister, and they each introduced themselves. But this time there were was two new people with them.

The first person was a girl with dark brown hair that was in a braid.

The second was....
(A/N: DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN)
Everyone's favorite blonde-haired, blue-eyed Octapus, Octagon, Octavian.

Yeah. That's right. Octavian was with them.

He snarled when he saw me. "I thought they killed you already."

"Will canceled it. With the help of them." I gestured to the rest of the group.

"You helped him survive?!" Octavian said, resembling a fish. (A/N: or an octopus)

"Well, yeah. Why wouldn't we?" Jason said.

"He's a neko!"

"So?" Piper asked, arms crossed.

"So he deserved to die."

"No, he was trying to protect Will."

"I'm not talking about attacking the king. I'm talking about how he looked me in the eye, and he spoke to me! I didn't even give him permission!"

"Who cares?"

"I care!"

"Octavian stop it!" The brown haired girl slapped him. "I'm Reyna, by the way."

"I'm Nico Di Angelo."

Octavian stormed off and I felt someone take my hand. It was Will.

Hazel looked at our hands curiously, but didn't comment on it.

Piper smiled smugly. 'I told ya so' she was obviously thinking.

'He doesn't love me' I tried to send back, but it's hard to say that using just eyebrows.

'Yeah, right'

They made small talk, but I added very little to the conversation.

"So, what's going to be your first law as king?"

"I'm going to make it illegal to treat nekos badly."

"Good. Otherwise we would just have to keep causing havoc and chaos and stuff." Leo said.

"Yeah. Did you do that for my dad?"

"Oh, yeah. He hated us."

"Then you guys are amazing."

"Yeah, we are pretty great." Leo grinned. Piper elbowed him.

Eventually they left. That's about when a slow song came on.

"King William, will you lead this dance?" Someone said from the crowd.

He glanced at me before taking my hand and leading me onto the dance floor. I was too shocked to say anything. I saw our friends smile.

"Will, I don't know how to dance!" I worried.

"It's okay, just do what I do." He said, smiling.

I bit my lip as I tried to copy what he did. A few more couples joined the dance.

Percy was looking at Annabeth, as if wondering if he should ask to dance with her.

"Will, people are staring...."

"They're looking at how beautiful you are."

I blushed and looked at my feet.

I looked back over and saw that Percy was walking over to Annabeth. He said something and she smiled. They came onto the dance floor.

"I ship it." Will grinned.

Hazel was turned around, talking to Leo. Frank was making his way up to her. He looked worried. Just as he was about to tap her shoulder, he decided against it and sat down in a chair, sighing. I felt bad for him.

Soon I noticed Piper and Jason were dancing too.

How are they so good at this?!

"Nico?"

I looked up at him. "Yeah?"

"I-uh-ever since I thought I was going to loose you yesterday, I figured out I like you, I-uh...."

He didn't finish his sentence. He must have gotten too nervous.

I watched as Frank worked up the courage to tap Hazel's shoulder. She turned around and saw him. He asked something and she laughed and hugged him before they headed out onto the dance floor. Frank looked overjoyed.

Now Leo was alone, and after a little thought, he headed up to a girl that was also alone.
Leo asked her something and she smiled. They too started dancing.

The song was coming to an end, though. It probably only had one minute left.

I messed up and looked up at Will to see if he cared. He didn't. He just laughed happily.

"Nico....I....I really like you and uh....I was wondering...." He looked at his feet. He said something too quiet for me to hear.

"What?"

"I was wondering if you would....go out with me....? Please?"

I looked up at him, shocked. "W-what?"

"I was wondering if you would go out with me." He looked nervous.

I was so surprised that I felt like I couldn't speak. I said something that sounded like, "Merg?"

Will cocked his head to the side I bit, waiting for my answer.

"I-uh...."

He looked worried.

"I'm sorry," I said, tears forming in my eyes.

"Oh...." he said. The song ended. I ran out of the room, leaving Will standing there sadly.

You're going to leave me, I thought, or someone will take you from me.

I'm sorry, Will.

------time skippé------
I was sitting in the room of empty neko cages. I had tears running down my cheeks.

He's king. He didn't really love you.

Then why would he ask me out?

Just so that it hurts more later, when he leaves you. After all, why would a king, the richest person in the kingdom, want to date a neko?

What if he really did love me? What if I just made him hate me?

He already hated you.

No, he said he loved me!

He was lying.

Oh.

This is why you can't let anyone get close. They'll either leave you-

Because they're a king and I'm a neko

-or they'll be taken from you-

Like Bianca.

I tried to compose myself. I heard footsteps outside.

"I told you he doesn't love me, Piper." It was Will talking.

"I know, I'm sorry. I thought he would be nicer than this. He's a jerk, Will, forget about him."

"But that's the thing! He's nice! He's not mean!"

"He is. He's a jerk. Forget about him."

Will didn't say anything, so I assumed he nodded.

"Let's go somewhere to eat today, we can invite anyone you want. That way you can get your mind off Nico."

"Yeah. Okay. By the way, congrats on you and Jason."
"Thanks."

They kept talking but I couldn't hear them. They were too far away.
You ruin everything.

Heeyyyyyyyyy, another chapter!
In case you didn't know, I'm writing another story named Solace right now!
I honestly wouldn't read it right now because you're reading another fanfiction, and I hate switching to another when I'm already reading one.

Well, I think that's all so I'll include the word count down here:

2021 words