*Nico just laughed bitterly, tears still streaming down his face*
Nico: the gods don't help you without taking something of equal value, Telemachus. trust me, the gods I KNOW? they take, and they take, and they take, and they take some more . . . till you can't break no more . . . *and yet somehow, Telemachus, Hermes, and any other immortal or god watching the crying boy had a feeling that he wasn't referring to them- more like, a version of them that (with how Nico had made it sound the entire time he'd been in this plain of reality) they would NEVER want to become*