Chapter Text
They say that there are six great rivers of the Underworld, and that the river Styx, the river of hatred, winds around it nine times. They say that if you sail far enough out into the ocean, you will come to its banks at the end of the Earth. Charon, the ferryman, will take you across for a price, and woe to those whose family could not spare a coin for the pyre.
They say that the Elysium Fields offer an eternity, free from pain and labour, to heroes and those slain in battle. If they so choose, they may drink from the river Lethe, river of forgetfulness, and return to the upper air, born anew in fresh bodies. They say Phlegethon, river of fire, leads the way to Tartarus and the souls of the damned; as far beneath the Underworld as the Earth below the sky. And in between, they say, Cocytus, river of wailing, winds among the spirits of all the rest of humanity, including those unfortunate enough to die before their time.
They say many things, but really, no-one knows anything at all.
~*~
A small figure stood, facing the great gates of Hades armed with nothing but a lyre; her form, silhouetted against what remained of the light from the Upper World whence she had descended. With a tremendous groan, the aged hinges creaked open and Waverly Earp was granted passage into the perpetual darkness of the Lower Realm.
She carved her way through the cloying blackness, hemmed in by Hunger and Grief, Disease and Old Age, Greed and all the other afflictions of humanity that make their home in the bowels of the Earth. But as unseen eyes followed her in the darkness, and reaching hands stroked at her cloak, she forged on through the Halls of Hades with single minded determination, stoic in her silence, with Nicole as the beacon guiding her on.
Her footsteps echoed around her, a signal to any ears that she did not belong in this wretched place where no-one living was meant to step foot. And then an ominous rumbling joined in with the rhythm of her feet until they ceased to move, and Waverly stood still once again, peering into the dark depths beyond her. A foul smell pervaded her nostrils before a hulking form emerged, only visible for the density of its bulk against the surrounding gloom. Three great maws gnashed their teeth, dripping with venomous saliva as hackles, shaggy with spitting serpents, rose on a gargantuan back. The beast’s warning growls reverberated throughout Waverly’s bones as its terrible claws scraped threateningly on the unforgiving ground.
The tacit bard gulped. She had no sword at her belt, no meat that might appease such a creature, no convenient hero to solve the problem for her. But then she thought of Nicole, and the way she used to look at her. To Nicole she was a hero whether she was a renowned musician or a simple goat-herd. But to be the hero that her wife needed right now, her vow of silence must be broken. And so, uncertain for the first time in her ability to perform, Waverly dug deep into her soul for the memories that would aid her. And taking a deep breath, she unleashed her only weapon.
Her voice rang clear and true, but her fingers trembled as they rose to the strings of her lyre. As she began her accompaniment, the snarling stopped. Gaining confidence, Waverly surrendered to the music, revelling in how it felt to play after so long. She closed her eyes and the chilling darkness fell away. The Hound of Hell was reduced to a puppy in her mind’s eye, and she was transported to a grassy meadow beside a gurgling brook. Brown eyes and dimples warmed her heart and allowed her to translate feeling into sound once again.
Never before had this creature conceived of such a sound and its foreignness caused its six ears to flatten and a pathetic whine to escape from three throats. The sweet notes cleaved the heavy silence until they seemed as loud as the bells in a bell tower when one is beneath them. Putrid breath puffed against Waverly’s face as the Hound panted, but still she played, envisaging the scene of a young pup bounding through a meadow, carefree in the warmth of the sun. The great mass before her slumped to the floor, its ears twitching, a massive paw scratching one of its monstrous heads, while another yawned in drowsiness.
Carefully and ever so slowly, Waverly began to inch her way past six drooping eyes with their hell-fire irises, never ceasing to play. Her music worked as less of a shield and more of an embrace. She was almost clear when a substantial rope of fur and bone slammed down in front of her, causing her to pull up short and almost falter in her rendition. The same happed again and then again, and Waverly smiled. Had she just caused the guard-dog of the Underworld to wag its tail?
Widening her girth, she slipped past the beast and continued on to the shore of the Styx.
~*~
Jeremy was having a slow day. Apparently there were no great battles being waged in the mortal world, and murderers were taking a day to sharpen their weapons. Maybe all the old people ate one too many green vegetables in their life time and the Fates decided that today would be the extra day they could cash in on their promised longevity. At any rate, when a lonesome figure did emerge from the mists, he certainly did not expect them to be alive.
Raising to his full height - which was not considerably taller than this newcomer’s, but Jeremy would take what authority he could get – he assumed the role of ferryman, first point of contact in the Underworld, and a man that all mortal souls sought to impress. No-one wanted to spend eternity on the wrong shore of the Styx.
“What’s up?” he asked. The stranger raised an eyebrow, appraising him with amusement. Dammit. That was not what he meant to say. “I...umm...meant...” he coughed, lowering his voice. “You are in the presence of Jeremy Charon. Who are you to come seeking passage across the turbulent waters of the river Styx? Only the dead may cross into the realm of Hades.”
“My name is Waverly Earp,” the stranger replied frankly, “and I am here to rescue my wife.”
“Wife, eh? I do love a good love story.” Jeremy sighed. Then he frowned. “How did you get past Xavier?”
“Xavier?”
“The dog.”
Waverly snorted. “Some dog!” She said. “Hell hound more like. Though he was quite sweet when he was sleeping.”
Jeremy grinned. “I know. Sometimes I like to rub his tummy and the little snakes on his back go all giddy.”
Waverly decided not to ask. “Mister Charon, I would very much like to seek passage aboard your vessel.”
At this Jeremy sobered slightly. He took a moment to look at the slimy rushes that lined the river bank before returning his gaze to Waverly’s eyes, still very much alight with the spark of life. “There are strict rules in the Underworld Waverly Earp, and you do not belong here.”
“Please. I understand that you ask a price. I can pay!” Reaching into her pocket she removed a golden drachma and offered it out to him. “I only seek an audience with Hades. I am sure that once I explain, any actions on your part will be forgiven.” Waverly begged with everything she had.
At the sight of the coin, far more precious than his normal obol, Jeremy’s eyes lit up, but he restrained himself from taking the offered gold. “You cannot reason with Death, child.”
“But I can reason with you.” Waverly persisted. “Tell me what I can do that will make you change your mind.”
Jeremy eyed her for a moment longer and took the coin. “Your wife,” he said as he rubbed the precious metal on his cloak, inspecting the shine in the watery darkness. “What was her name?”
A melancholy smile danced over Waverly’s lips. “Nicole Haught.” She answered softly.
“Ah, tall redhead?” Waverly’s head shot up as she stared at him. Jeremy chuckled. “I never forget a face. And she is quite the beauty.” Waverly nodded wistfully.
“Have you ever known love, Mister Charon?” the young bard asked.
Jeremy laughed and shook his head. “Love rarely sets foot in the Underworld, and if it does, it does not remain for long.”
“Do you consider yourself alive?” Waverly questioned.
“Being immortal, I am neither living nor dead. Why do you ask?”
“Because to know love is to know what it is like to truly live. To experience the fires of passion is to drink up life in all its glory! Let me tell you about Love and all its mischief. Perhaps I can bring some colour to the eternal gray that hangs over you.” She plucked a few strings of her lyre to pique the immortal’s interest.
Jeremy felt a burst of excitement in his chest. “Music!” He exclaimed, bouncing on his toes. Then, trying to school his expression into something more suited to his role, he said “Very well. Come aboard and teach me about Love. It is rare for me to be in such vibrant company and today is a slow day after all.”
Waverly climbed aboard the rickety boat. The wooden floor sloshed with fetid river-water that oozed from odd holes roughly plugged with scraps of cloth. Perching upon one of the many benches, she began her melody as the boatman pushed off from bank of the Styx and began the journey over hostile waters, further into the inescapable darkness.
~*~
Waverly turned away from the ferryman as he made his way back across the river, and pushed her way into the milling crowd of wraiths and shades that gathered on the far bank of the Styx, as if by staying there they could cling to some vestige of the Upper World. Once whole people, they were now merely impressions stamped upon the stagnant air, unaware of their surroundings.
Charon had told her that this region of the Underworld was unofficially named Purgatory. The in-between. Not Elysium, not Tartarus, but a hell of itself. Purgatory is where Waverly would find Nicole. Having died unfulfilled she was destined to wander this plain for eternity.
Waverly could not stand that thought, and as she looked at all the wretched figures around her, tears streaked her rosy cheeks. She saw young men who died before their time, the faces of their grieving mothers illuminated as their funeral pyres burned. Maidens who had yet to come into the blush of adolescence and know what it is to be a woman. Poor souls for whom life proved too hard, their fates sealed by their own hands. The victims of disease. People who were once husbands and daughters, mothers and brothers, but were now one in thousands of gaunt faces, their names fading from history as the weather eroded them from their tombstones and memory failed.
Waverly tried not to look out for red hair in the crowd. She must first petition Hades if she had any hope of liberating Nicole from this place.
As she made her way to the House of Hades, emotion brought forth song from her lips, and music poured from her as if from a fountain. The throng of shades divided as she approached. In the blissful fields of Elysium, great heroes raised their heads in rapture, and in the depths of Tartarus, even the Revenants ceased their screaming to listen. And when she reached the abode of the ruler of this desolate kingdom, the doors swung open of their own accord.
~*~
Hades looked at Waverly Earp, and Waverly Earp looked back.
The figure sitting carelessly in the throne in front of her was not what Waverly expected. Not at all. Slim, but average height, long brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Female. Her legs were kicked over the arm of her great stone chair but she turned, rooting them on the ground as Waverly approached, footsteps echoing in the cavernous chamber.
“Wynonna Hades, at your service.” The figure said with a smirk, inspecting her up and down. Her voice was neither soft nor cold, commanding nor understanding. “What brings you to Purgatory, darlin’?” As Waverly is about to speak, she continues. “Wait, let me guess. You are here to ‘rescue’ - I believe that is how you put it earlier - your wife?”
“Yes ma’am.” Waverly replies warily.
Wynonna chuckles, turning to a doorway off to the side. “Hear that Doc? Her wife needs 'rescuing'!”
From an adjoining room a second character emerged. He had a large moustache shadowing a small smile. “Perhaps we should provide better welfare to the inmates.” He said wryly.
“Inmates!” Wynonna cackled. She turned back to Waverly. “You want to rescue your dead wife, Waverly Earp?”
The word ‘dead’ stabbed through Waverly’s heart painfully and made her flinch. “How do you know my name?” She asked, trying not to be intimidated, and upset at being mocked.
“You are Waverly Earp, pupil of Apollo, disciple of Dionysus, daughter of Calliope, must I go on? All this formal nonsense bores me. Basically you are a damn good musician and word gets around. Even to the Underworld, Miss Earp, not to mention I overhear everything that goes on here. In my domain.” She leant forward with the air of a cat watching a canary. “Jeremy always was a soft touch, but I am afraid it is going to take more than a tragic love story to persuade me to release your Nicole. I’m sick of all the wailing in this place. And please for the love of myself, do not start singing. This is not a damn musical.”
Waverly remained silent. Her eyes flicked to the moustached man standing beside Hades’ throne. Wynonna noticed.
“Ah, let me introduce you to my husband John Persephon Holliday. But we all call him Doc. He ate one pomegranate seed too many and is now destined to spend half the year with me and the other making grain grow upstairs. How’s that for tragic?” Doc snorted and Wynonna elbowed him in the side.
The ruler of the Underworld rose from her stone seat. “Hell that thing’s uncomfortable.” She grumbled. Striding stiffly into Waverly’s personal space, she began to circle the young bard. “You do understand that no-one has ever left the Underworld before? Except that Odysseus fellow. Oh, and maybe that goody-two-shoes Aeneas. But they don’t count because they weren’t dead.”
“I understand that your kingdom is the most enduring on Earth, and Death cannot discriminate between mortals.” Waverly replied levelly. “We are all owed to you and we all end up here eventually.”
“Damn straight.” Said Wynonna smugly. “I am the most powerful god. Even Zeus cannot prevent me from taking what I am owed.”
“Yes!” The bard continued enthusiastically. “Even Zeus does not have the power to raise the dead. But, surely, if you are more powerful then Zeus, then you could?”
Hades stopped pacing abruptly. “Oh no, no, no you little minx. I see what you are doing. Atlas might not be able to bear the weight of my ego, but it is not so big that I have lost my head. No resurrections are happening today. No way.”
“But why not?” Waverly pushed. “What power exists that is superior to yours and could prevent you from doing what you want?”
“Chaos, my dear child. The reminder of what the world once was and how if we all did what we wanted, Chaos would reign once more.”
“Even if it was just one time? Just once to prove your dominance?”
Hades took a threatening step forward, hell-fire flaring in her icy eyes. “Watch yourself, Miss Earp. I do not need to prove anything to anyone. Least of all you. A mortal playing at being a demi-god.”
“I am sorry, I meant no disrespect.” Waverly bowed her head deferentially. At this, Doc came forward, laying a restraining hand on Wynonna’s arm.
“Perhaps we should bring the girl here and see what she has to say.” He suggested. Wynonna remained silent for a minute, staring at Waverly with a hard, penetrating gaze. Finally she nodded.
The sound of a series of large metal doors unlocking and reclosing throughout the house could be heard ominously, until another entrance to the room opened and Nicole stepped through.
She wore the same clothes she died in and walked with a limp where her leg should be broken. The swollen bite on her forearm was still visible, and Waverly felt sick. This was a pale imitation of her brave Nicole. A shade who had no consciousness and did as others bid.
Rushing towards her, the bard stopped just short of touching her, not wanting to feel her hands pass through thin air where there should be warm skin.
“She cannot see you.” Doc said gently, coming up behind her. “Taking away their awareness is a mercy in this land.” Waverly did not acknowledge him, simply drank in the face of her beloved.
Then Wynonna clicked her fingers and Nicole blinked her deep brown eyes. A frown formed on her perfect features and she began to look around, perplexed, before her sight landed on Waverly and a dazzling grin split her face, bringing light to the dark cavern. “Waves.” She breathed. She reached out a spectral hand that passed straight through Waverly’s arm, and tried again with the same result, until fear wormed its way into her expression. “Wait. I should be dead.” Looking at her hands and the walls around her she murmured “I am dead.” Suddenly her head jerked up in panic, “You’re here too! You’re not dead are you? Please don’t be dead.”
Waverly’s lip wobbled as she tried to keep her tears at bay. “No, no, I am okay Sweetheart. I am here for you.” She said.
“For me?” the redhead repeated in awe.
“Yes. Yes of course for you.” Waverly was crying now. She couldn’t help it when she knew that Nicole could not imagine that anyone would go to the ends of the Earth for her.
“Okay,” interjected Hades, “I think we have established who is here for whom. Now darlin’,” she addressed Nicole with a fake smile, “Can you give us any plausible reason as to why we should let you return to the Upper Air with your lover here?”
Nicole looked uncertainly to Waverly, who nodded in encouragement. Demurely she began thus: “I have no special talents, unlike my love here. I am a simple person, and certainly in no position to dispute the judgement of the Fates. But Waverly deserves a companion in life who loves her unconditionally.” Subtly Waverly shook her head at the mention of love, and Nicole swallowed, changing tack. “I cannot speak for my wife, but I know her better than I know myself. If she is willing to enter the Underworld on my behalf, she would willingly end her life to be with me in death, and I can think of many people on the Surface, immortals and humankind alike, who would mourn her loss when she has so much music still to give. If you let me go, I will return to you again. There is no avoiding it. But please, loan us a few more years to teach folk what hope is.”
Waverly smiled. “Perhaps if music brought them a better life, they would wail less in your company.”
Wynonna snorted. “I doubt it.” She muttered. Doc leant in and murmured something in Wynonna’s ear. “Let us confer.” Hades said, turning her back to the pair. Nicole shifted closer to Waverly and the bard wished more than anything that they could hold hands. After some time and lots of gesticulating between the two immortals, Wynonna faced them, rolled her eyes, and sighed. Doc looked amused.
“After much deliberation we have agreed to grant you a second chance at life, if only to get you out of our hair. Try not to aggravate any spiders this time. We do, however, have one condition Waverly Earp. As you return to the Surface, your wife must follow behind you at all times and under no condition are you to look upon her until the sunlight touches your face.”
Waverly and Nicole looked at each other, beaming in disbelief. “Thank you!” breathed the bard. “Thank you so much!”
Wynonna nodded curtly, discomforted by such eagerness. “If you go this way, you’ll avoid my baby Xavier, the three-headed dog.” She pointed to the passage Nicole had emerged from. “Right, right then left and then straight on ‘til morning.” She winked.
As the two figures receded from view, Wynonna turned to Doc and whispered “I bet you ten drachmae that the bard cannot resist a peek at her ‘precious Nicole’.” She said the last part in a high pitched voice.
“You’re on.” He whispered back.
~*~
Waverly followed the dark tunnel, the sharp incline beginning to make her legs burn. She could feel Nicole’s presence at her back, but doubt started to niggle at the edges of her mind the further they continued. What if she was imagining it? What if Nicole wasn’t there? What if something in the darkness snatched her away?
“Nicole?” There was no reply. The bard stopped abruptly. “Nicole?!” Her voice broke with desperation and her neck strained with the effort to keep her head facing forward as she reached out blindly with her hand before remembering that she would not be able to feel her. Her breaths started to come in sharp pants and it took a moment to calm herself down. Hades’ words echoed in her head. Under no circumstances must she turn around. It was probably all some kind of cruel trick designed to make her fail. Perhaps Nicole’s consciousness had once again been taken from her.
Then, as she tended to do in any difficult situation, she began to sing, hoping this would act as a guide for her beloved. She sang all of her wife’s favourite songs and interspersed them by simply talking to her. Telling her about the journey here and how much she missed her. How she could barely function on her own anymore, and all the things they would do when they got to the Upper World.
When light could finally be seen at the end of the tunnel, Waverly had to prevent herself from running. Somehow it seemed to take forever just to cover the last one hundred metres, like walking on deep sand. And when the sunlight splashed upon her face like warm water, still she walked until she was far enough from the opening to even contemplate the risk of turning around.
She stood frozen, looking out over a lake with unseeing eyes. She had no idea where she was, and she didn’t care. Her whole being was focused behind her for any sign of life.
And then she felt a hand upon her arm, turning her around into solid arms, and she was enveloped by the scent of vanilla as she pressed her face into familiar auburn hair and sobbed with happiness. The hand began to stroke her hair, and a soft, warm voice murmured reassurances to her until she had gathered herself enough to pull back and look up into the face that made one thousand ships unfurl their sails in her heart. Gentle thumbs wiped the traces of tears from her face.
Both women laughed with glee.
“You are extraordinary, Waverly Earp.” Nicole whispered, resting their foreheads together.
“I never thought I would hear your voice again.” The bard choked out. “I would rather be deaf for eternity.”
“No.” Nicole soothed. “I am here now, thanks to you, and I am not going anywhere ever again. You’re stuck with me.” She placed a kiss on the shorter girl’s nose.
“I’m so sorry that I didn’t believe you.” Waverly began to cry once more, resting her head against Nicole’s chest. “I was so stupid.”
“Shh, none of that matters now, okay? I don’t blame you for anything.”
“No, it does. It does matter. I promise I’ll always listen to you.”
“And I you. I should not have gone off alone. It was reckless. So from now on we stick together, yes?”
“Oh, I am not letting you out of my sight!” Waverly huffed out with a watery chuckle. Nicole pressed another kiss to her forehead before hooking a slender finger under her chin and nudging her head up so that their lips could meet. Their mouths glided together in a silken caress, re-learning the shape of one another, as their hands did the same on their bodies.
~*~
Waverly introduced Nicole to travel, and they explored the world, bringing light to all races, all nations that were graced with their presence. People would talk of the lovely lyre player who could prevent wars and cure illnesses. Word travelled of her mysterious companion, tall and beautiful with fair skin and auburn hair. And rumour spread of the love they held for each other; the kind of love that brought hope to people’s lives.
FIN.