Chapter Text
When Eurydice arrives at Hadestown, stomach so full of food that she feels like she’s going to burst open at her poorly-sewn seams, she disembarks the train with a spring in her step. Hades had kept to his word, feeding her and the countless others on the train some of the most succulent food she’s ever had. Now, she’s being ushered into an office, an assistant pushing open the looming mahogany door for her.
“So I see you’ve made it,” Hades says when she enters, standing up from his chair. Smoothing out invisible wrinkles on the sleeves of his impeccably ironed suit, he asks, “How are you liking Hadestown, Eurydice? Were the amenities to your taste?”
Hades doesn’t even need to ask, really; for someone who’s been deprived of proper food and shelter for so long, everything that she’d been given on the train was sure to go above and beyond her expectations. Still, Eurydice nods; the last thing she wants is to get on her boss’ bad side this early into her employment. She catches another glimpse of her boss’ tattoo, but quickly looks away before he can catch her peeking.
“Just sign here,” Hades says, beckoning her over and sliding a contract over the desk, tapping on a line at the bottom of the page with his index finger. Gesturing to the inkwell and quill, he adds, “You can read the fine print if you’d like to, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Eurydice reads it all anyway, ignoring Hades’ occasional huffs of annoyance. After all, what does she have left to lose?
Sure that there isn’t anything that she’s unhappy with, Eurydice picks up the quill and, only after a moment’s hesitation, signs her name neatly on the line. Hades (can she refer to her boss on a first name basis now?) nods approvingly and holds out his hand; she shakes it. He’s got a firm grip, his hand relatively soft against her calloused one.
“Nice working with you,” Hades says, and he sounds pleasant; is it even possible for the god of the dead to sound pleasant? “Best get on the line, now. Time doesn’t wait for anyone, I’m afraid.”
“Wait,” Eurydice says, and she’s seriously got to stop interrupting people when they’re telling her important things. “Why- what are they singing about? The workers. I heard them on my way here.” She’d been a little creeped out, actually; they’d all sounded so monotonous. Part of her, however, had felt her heart beat a little faster at the mention of security.
“It’s a song about the wall,” Hades rumbles. “About building walls to protect what’s inside.”
And as Eurydice leaves the office with a pair of leather overalls in her arms, she thinks that she understands him.
***
He’s almost there. Orpheus is so close, and he knows it; he can see the smoke coming out of the factories, hear the crashing of metal against stone. He winces; it’s deafening. He wonders how Persephone can stand it; maybe she doesn’t, he deduces.
He’s tired and thirsty and he doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore; all he knows is that he wants- no, needs - Eurydice back. He forces himself to keep going, though, to push through despite the contradicting thoughts that are invading his head, because Orpheus is anything but a quitter.
Walking down the road that he’s all but paving as he goes, Orpheus does what he’s best at to curb his doubt and his fear; he sings. He sings his melody, the one that he promised Eurydice would work, and he’s suddenly reminded of how much he’s failed her.
Orpheus isn’t going to forgive himself for not being able to hear her when she called his name or for treating her like the second-best thing in the world. He’s going to apologise to her , he decides, approaching a brick wall that looks endless from his current perspective. Extremely profusely .
“A crack in the wall,” Orpheus hums to himself, crouching down low and poking at the bricks. “Where can I- ah !”
He immediately clamps his hand over his mouth, preventing himself from making too much noise. His arm is hurting again, but this- this isn’t the pain that he’d felt before in regards to his soulmark. No; this is an aching, a soreness that eats at his arm. A pain that’s branding instead of rewarding.
Orpheus dares to glance down at his arm, and-
“What?” he whispers.
His mark has drastically changed. Eurydice’s name has disappeared from its position inside the sunburst, leaving behind nothing but a blank space. He runs his fingers over the mark, then blinks repeatedly. There’s no way that this is real; he’s hallucinating, he tells himself. He’s just delirious, dehydrated from his journey.
Unfortunately, Orpheus isn’t seeing things, no matter how many times he slaps his arm- the red welt that he leaves is very, very real and very, very painful. His nameless mark is still there, glaring up at him. Something is very, very wrong, Orpheus thinks, and he starts to knock at the bricks more deliberately than he had before, a sudden sense of urgency flooding his veins.
He needs to get to Eurydice, and fast. If there’s one thing that Orpheus does know, it’s that time isn’t on his side this time.
***
The mines, Eurydice learns, are dark. Really, really dark, much more sinister than anything she’s ever known. Heavy pickaxe thrown over her shoulder, Eurydice warily follows the rest of the workers, her feet sliding around in boots that are at least a size too big for her.
The people in front of her all have their heads hung low; maybe they’ve got neck issues, Eurydice thinks. Or maybe, a voice whispers, it’s from the weight of the world on their shoulders.
She’s not hungry anymore, she realises; hasn’t been since the moment she put the nib of the pen to paper earlier. The constant, incessant rumbling of her stomach has finally left her alone, so she mines. She hopes that she’s getting paid to do this; it’s hard work, and she’s soaked within minutes, the effects of the heat of the environment around her combined with the strenuous labour she’s performing.
With the deafening crash of pickaxe against stone ringing in her ear, Eurydice stops momentarily to wipe a bead of sweat off her forehead, panting. It can’t have been more than thirty seconds since she first started hacking away at the rock, but it feels like she’s been at it for thirty hours, what with the way her muscles are aching.
“You new here?” a woman with a head of corkscrew curls asks next to her, swerving to look at Eurydice as she continues to mine. “Keep working, sister. The last thing you want is to be falling behind. Can’t let the foreman catch you, eh?”
“Yes’m,” Eurydice says, and she turns back and keeps going, shrugging off the sudden pain that flares up in her arm as a side effect of muscle strain. Shuddering a little, Eurydice suddenly comes to terms with the fact that she does not want to know what being caught by the foreman entails.
She’s going to need a day off or a transfer, she thinks. She’s not built for work like this. But then she looks around at the others, sees their muscles bunching, and finds that none of them were actually built for work like this.
That night, when her shift’s finished, the woman who’d talked to her earlier takes Eurydice to an older part of Hadestown; more specifically an old, rundown wooden shack hidden stealthily- and strategically- behind an abandoned warehouse. “Where we go to forget,” the woman says, “and to remember.”
“Forget and remember what?” Eurydice asks, and the woman simply shakes her head and laughs. “You’re a cute one,” the woman says, clapping Eurydice so hard on the shoulder that she winces. “Now come on.”
And so Eurydice dutifully follows, weaving her way through the teeming crowd until she stops short in front of the liquor-laden bar, because there stands Persephone, pouring out glass after glass of moonshine with a grin on her face. "I should go,” she says quickly. She doesn’t know why, but her stomach starts to churn at the very sight of the goddess.
But she’s too late; Persephone’s already seen her, and the goddess is beckoning her over with a smile that’s, to a degree, pitying. “Hey, songbird,” Persephone says, her tone carrying a sad undercurrent that’s just prominent enough for Eurydice to catch onto. “Care for a little bit of alcohol?”
“What’s it do?” she asks, and she hates how vulnerable she sounds under the scrutiny of Persephone’s gaze. “I’m not a big drinker.”
“It helps,” Persephone says simply. “You wanna remember or forget?”
Eurydice ponders this for a moment. She thinks of all the suffering she’s gone through up above, of the aching in her arms, of the clawing emptiness that she feels in her chest despite being fed and properly sheltered, and quickly says, “Forget.”
She’s so lost in the foggy glass of murky liquid that Eurydice doesn’t even notice that her soulmark is now empty.
***
Everyone here- there’s something amiss about them, but Orpheus can’t exactly pinpoint what , which frustrates him to no end.
Their eyes, Orpheus notes, are soulless, as if their very essence has been sucked away by some otherworldly force. He prays with all his chest to Aphrodite that his love hasn’t turned into one of them yet, that her glowing, mischievous eyes are still alight with the fire that Orpheus loves so much.
He dodges in between the overall-clad workers, trying in vain to spot Eurydice’s head. A feather, he thinks. I need to find a white feather, tucked against black hair. It shouldn’t be as hard as it is, given how everything in the place is either black or a shade of dark grey.
He’s close, he thinks. He has to be. It’s stifling in Hadestown; it’s as if all the dirt and rocks and stones are caving in on him, crushing Orpheus’ soul. He needs to get Eurydice out of here as soon as he can. She’s ten times as tough as he is, though, so he’s not that worried about her.
(That’s a fat lie, the latter part.)
Sneaking behind an abandoned warehouse and careful not to speak to any of the other workers- his identity could easily be disclosed, and it’ll be over for him- Orpheus sneaks behind the many warehouses, occasionally peeking out in the gaps between them and scouting the area for any sign of a person who could be Eurydice.
Hands gripping tight onto the intricate, woven cord that straps his guitar to his back, Orpheus suddenly freezes, his eyes having caught on to something familiar. Instantly, he surges forward, fueled by nothing but plain adrenaline and love and something else; it’s almost a magnetic attraction, a force pulling him to her. Opposites attract, after all, he thinks, mind straying to the tattoo on his wrist.
He runs up to her and grabs her forearm; when she turns, Orpheus’ heart sinks, for her eyes don’t carry a single trace of recognition at all. She looks at him like he’s another stranger passing by on the street, irises dull and glossy.
“Come home with me,” he whispers, hoping with all his might that his voice can somehow light a fuse and set off the other memory bombs in Eurydice’s head. “Eurydice, please, let’s g-”
“It’s you,” she breathes out, and all the colour rushes into her again; it’s like the very sound of Orpheus’ voice has keyed open a floodgate. Reaching out to touch his face, her hands against his skin, she says, “It’s really you . Orpheus !”
“Eurydice,” he says, relief flooding his voice. Closing his eyes and exhaling a deep breath, he says, “Are you okay? I’m so, so sorry, Eurydice, I-”
“You came,” she says softly, putting her hands on his arms, “and that’s all that matters.” She traces circles on his skin with her fingers as if she’s still processing the fact that Orpheus has really kept true to his word and come to find her.
“Let’s go,” Orpheus says, tugging urgently on her arm. “Eurydice, let’s go. I finished the song; I can fix the world up above. Everything’s gonna go back to the way it should be.”
To Orpheus’ shock, Eurydice shakes her head, looking down at her boots. “As much as I’d love to,” she starts, and Orpheus is suddenly reminded of their first week together, when Eurydice was talking about the job at Hermes'. “I can’t , Orpheus. I-”
“Young man,” a voice booms, so deep that it causes Orpheus’ bones to rattle just the slightest bit. Gripping Eurydice’s hand tightly, Orpheus tries to look for the source of the heavy drawl, his gaze eventually settling on a suit-clad man that he’s been hoping not to run into. “I don’t think we’ve met before, have we? You’re not from around here, are you, boy? Might want to scurry back onto your side of the fence .”
Orpheus swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing slightly. He spots Persephone standing near Hades, her green frock swapped out for one made of lace the colour of obsidian. He tries to meet her eye, but she’s not looking anywhere near him; in fact, she’s looking everywhere but his direction. “I’ve come to take her home,” he says, attempting to sound brazen; he feels Eurydice squeeze his hand once. “I’m not going back up there alone.”
“Orpheus,” Eurydice says, shaking his hand. “Orpheus, you should go. Please, don’t-”
Hades looks like he doesn’t know what to say for a moment, face a carefully masked shell of emotion, before he breaks into a roaring, joyless laugh that practically shakes the earth both above and below Orpheus’ feet. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, boy?” Hades chortles, taking a long drag out of the cigar in his hand. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Someone with a song,” Orpheus says, in a sudden fit of bravery, shielding Eurydice’s body with his own. “Someone who’s still got a voice.” The silence that rings in his ears afterwards is deafening.
“She signed it herself, you know,” Hades says, his voice cutting abruptly through the quiet like a sharp blade. Puffing out a cloud of smoke, he adds, “I only buy what others sell. It’s a free market; you’d know if you lived around here, son. Shame, really, that you don’t.”
“No,” Orpheus says, and he turns to look at her, breathing hard. “Eurydice, please. Say that it isn’t true.”
Eurydice hesitates and looks away before saying, “I did. Just go, Orpheus. Please .” Still, she doesn’t loosen her grip on him, as if afraid that he’ll disappear forever if she lets go. Orpheus, despite feeling his heart shatter into two under the weight of his own guilt, refuses to back down. He’s leaving with her, whether Hades likes it or not.
But then Hades whistles, and a punch is thrown, and another, and another, and Orpheus can only shield his head in his arms for so long. He tries to stay frozen and wills for Eurydice to do the same so that he’s taking the brunt of the attack; he won’t let her get hurt again, not when he can prevent it.
The last thing he remembers before he passes out is the wet glint in Eurydice’s eyes as she’s pulled away by a pair of lace-clad arms, his own hands clawing desperately for her.
***
“Urgh,” he grunts, sitting up and rubbing at his throbbing temples. Orpheus feels like a crushed piece of glass under someone’s boot, his muscles aching with every breath that he takes.
He’s bleeding, Orpheus notes, from a very large gash just above his lip. And from a lot of other places, actually, but he doesn’t care; he needs to get to Eurydice. She’s still in there, behind the wall, pulled away by Persephone for a reason that his very addled brain can’t come up with at the moment.
He manages to struggle to his feet but his best efforts are futile; he ends up landing on his ass when he falls backwards, the headache pulsing in his brain not helping him in the slightest. Hades, Orpheus thinks, has underestimated the power of the will of man, but as he tries his hardest to get up, Orpheus begins to doubt himself and his own ability. He quickly shakes the emotions out of his mind; no , he thinks.
With a bit of effort, Orpheus finally manages to stand, shakily reaching for his guitar. He does what he does whenever he’s lost and unsure of his next move; Orpheus sings. And slowly, slowly, the very tangible wall before his eyes begins to split in two. He hears his voice reverberate through the bricks, carried through the breeze.
He starts to hear the other workers sing his melody, start to question the truths that they’ve all been fed their whole lives, and Orpheus staggers through the wall, steps over the bricks, walk-running through the streets in hopes of finding Eurydice again. To his disappointment, he doesn’t get very far before he comes face to face with the king of the Underworld, nearly slamming right into Hades’ chest.
Mouth open, Orpheus braces himself for the worst, but all Hades says is, “Don’t know if you’re brave or stupid, son, but you’ve got nerve, coming back here.”
“Guess I’m a mix of both,” Orpheus shrugs nonchalantly, his chest rising and falling repeatedly, a betrayal of how he really feels on the inside- panicked and not at all ready to physically face the king a second time.
“Well,” Hades spits bitterly, “neither ends well, poet. Take it from an old man.” Glancing around him at the wild-eyed and bewildered workers, Hades asks, “Is this your doing?” Although Orpheus can’t see the god’s eyes behind his dark pair of frames, he can hear the ire in his tone. He’s going to get smote , Orpheus thinks, his feet rooted to the ground below him, before he can say goodbye .
“ You ,” Hades snaps, and Orpheus flinches slightly, turning away from Hades. “You insolent mor-!”
“Hades,” Persephone says, and it’s sharper than Orpheus has ever heard it; he hadn’t even noticed her presence up until then. “ Don’t .”
And as the two of them look at each other, a silent moment of understanding passes between the two of them, one that’s so full of years and years of secret glances and stolen moments; one that Orpheus can’t really decipher yet. But Hades sighs, and a bit of the fire leaves his gaze.
“I’ll tell you what,” Hades says, rubbing his hands together in a way that sends a shiver down Orpheus’ spine. “Since my wife,” he says, turning around to briefly fix Persephone with a look, “is such a fan, I’ll give you five minutes to plead your case. Explain why you left your soulmate all alone in the cold, hmm? Clinging on to nothing but herself while you were obliviously living in your own world.”
Orpheus balls his fists at his sides, swallows down the guilty anger that wants to come spilling out of him, and nods once, albeit jerkily.
“Come on, then,” Hades says, turning and slinking through the city. Orpheus follows the king, watching as the workers all part to form a path for the two of them, trailed by Persephone. He desperately looks around for Eurydice, but she’s nowhere to be seen; he prays that she’ll come soon. He needs to see that she’s safe.
Eventually, Hades leads Orpheus over to a clearing, standing aside to give the boy space. Persephone quickly moves to stand by Hades’ side, giving him an encouraging- and apologetic, Orpheus notes- smile. “Go on,” she mouths, indicating towards the microphone stand that has miraculously appeared a few feet in front of him.
Change the world , Orpheus thinks, adjusting the stand awkwardly to his height and checking that the strings of his guitar are all in tune. Save Eurydice. Bring her home. The king had tried to crush his dreams, but Orpheus would always find a way to see how the world could be. He always would. He still can’t help the feeling of nervousness that worms its way into his ear, though.
Orpheus strums his guitar once, his fingers making the shapes of familiar chords, and all at once, his nerves are calmed. He opens his mouth and he begins to sing the melody he’s worked so tirelessly on.
The scenery around him begins to warp. The tall, looming factories become trees, overflowing with blooming flowers; the barren ground becomes a field of red carnations, swaying gently on a summer breeze that carries with it the scent of fresh honey.
He sings of a love gone cold, of a love that has burned to a crisp, of a love that has disappeared right under the unsuspecting eyes of the king. A love, Orpheus thinks, that is all too similar to his.
When he’s finished, his voice hoarse from the falsetto notes, Orpheus sees Hades wrapped in Persephone’s arms, the two of them moving like the carnations in the field he’d summoned earlier with his music, holding each other in a trance. They’re vulnerable like this, delicate when handling the other.
He’s done it, Orpheus thinks, when he hears the pounding around him slowly dull down to a hum. When Hades looks him in the eye and hums the melody, baritone a stark contrast to his own tenor, Orpheus feels something shift. The world has been brought back into tune. Bewildered, he glances around, eyes wide.
And standing there to his right, tears in her eyes, is Eurydice, looking prouder than she’s ever been. Rushing over immediately, Orpheus wraps Eurydice in a tight hug, sending her spinning around and around; if he could find a way to forever preserve this moment, he would. “You did it,” she says, stars in her eyes. “You really did it, Orpheus.”
“I did,” Orpheus breathes, burrowing his face in Eurydice’s hair; she still smells faintly of the land up above, of earthy pine needles and snow so cold that it could freeze your nose off. “I did. What do I do now?”
The answer that comes out of Eurydice’s mouth is sure and insistent. “Take me home,” she says, and Orpheus smiles wide.
***
They both slip off to a secluded spot, away from the prying- and slightly hungry- eyes of the other workers; Orpheus’ song must’ve done a number on them, she thinks, if they’re looking at him like he’s a saviour- which he is, but it’s still a little off-putting. Eurydice manages to find a little empty clearing a ways away from where the king and queen of the Underworld are dancing like a newlywed couple, her hand wrapped tightly around Orpheus’ clammy one, and motions for him to sit.
Now that she finally has the time to get a good look at him, she realises that he’s bleeding everywhere; this must be the result of what Hades had gotten the workers to do to him earlier. “Gods,” she breathes. “Orpheus, are you okay? Are you hurt anyw-”
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” he says. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
She shakes her head no.
“Then why is your name gone?” Orpheus asks. When Eurydice fixes him with eyes full of confusion, he shows her his tattoo. She reels back a little, pupils dilated. “What?” she asks, horror in her voice. “How-”
And when she checks her own, she notices that his name is gone from her moon, too. “How did this happen?” Eurydice asks blankly, voice thick. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Orpheus admits.
Eurydice draws in a sharp breath; this can’t be good.
“I'm going to find firewood when I get back,” Orpheus says suddenly, to Eurydice’s surprise. “I’m so sorry, Eurydice, for not prioritising you and hearing what you wanted to tell me.”
She sits there for a moment; it’s been a long time since anyone’s bothered to apologise to her. Eurydice decides to push her chances because she’s got nothing to lose, really, so she stokes the angry fire burning in her belly and says, “Well, what about the trees? The birds? The river?”
But Orpheus looks so stricken and guilty that she can’t help but forgive him then and there, the fire immediately stomped out. “I don’t need those,” Eurydice says, clasping his hand in hers. “I only need food when I’m hungry, fire when I’m cold. And you, of course. I need you , Orpheus.”
“So do I,” Orpheus murmurs, gently pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I’ve missed you so much, Eurydice. I’m never letting you go again.” He pauses, before adding, “Hades; he’ll let us go, right?”
Despite herself, Eurydice bursts into a fit of giggles. “Why wouldn’t he?” she says. “Did you even get to see his face after he joined in? He can’t say no. Not when you’ve just fixed his marriage.” And apparently, her laughter is infectious, as Orpheus can’t help but chuckle too.
“Alright,” Orpheus says, after a while. “Let’s go.” Helping Eurydice to her feet, the two of them begin to make their way out of the clearing, hope the only thing thrumming in their veins, when-
“Stop,” Hades booms, and Eurydice can’t help but flinch. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Up,” Orpheus says. A beat, and then, “We can go, right? You’ll let us?” Eurydice crosses her fingers at her side and prays. She can’t remember the last time she did something like this, actually.
The king pauses, and says, “On one condition. The boy walks in front and the girl walks behind. If you look back,” Hades says, directing this next part at Orpheus, who visibly tenses, “She stays in Hadestown forever, and there’s nothing that you can do about it. I’m not a very lenient man.”
“But-”
Orpheus is silenced by the king’s sharp, icy-cold glare. He looks unsure about this, as if afraid that it’s a trap or some sort of cruel trick, a false glimmer of hope. Giving his hand a reassuring squeeze, Eurydice says loudly, “Alright. We’ll do it.”
When Hades blinks in her direction, Orpheus looks at her with a million emotions flickering through his eyes, but she simply nods once. “We can do this,” Eurydice says insistently, jaw set with determination. When Orpheus still fixes her with a glance that’s more confused than anything, Eurydice whispers in his ear, “I think I know why our soulmarks look different.”
“Why?”
“Because-” Eurydice hesitates, fidgeting with her overalls, “I think I died, Orpheus, when I signed the contract. Something happened and I unknowingly bound myself to this realm. That’s what happens when your soulmate dies, right? Their name disappears.”
“I think so,” Orpheus whispers. “So-”
“So,” Eurydice says, “when we make it out, shouldn’t the names reappear? Technically, I’m not gonna be dead anymore, so-”
“I think I get what you’re saying,” Orpheus says, after multiple beats.
Eurydice rolls her eyes, grinning slightly despite the situation that they’re both currently caught up in. “Only took you five seconds,” she teases. “Just keep an eye on the mark, alright? I’ll be behind you this whole time. I promise.” She gives his hand another squeeze.
And Eurydice’s gonna stick to that promise. To her, they’re not just words, spoken so quickly that they seem to dissipate in the air the moment they leave her mouth. No, promises to her are chains , tangible gold links forged with sheer willpower.
“I promise, too,” Orpheus whispers. “I’ll keep walking, no matter what happens.”
(Eurydice can only hope that Orpheus means what he says, and that this promise isn’t tossed out the window like all his others.)
“Wait for me?” Eurydice says.
“I will,” Orpheus replies, and she pecks him once on the lips before motioning for him to show her the pathway out of the darkness.
***
The road to hell is paved with good intentions; that’s what Hermes used to tell him all the time, anyway, when he was younger.
Orpheus is starting to think that the road out of hell isn’t paved at all; he nearly trips over his own feet five times. He’s the only one who’s walked this road twice, and he’s not eager for a third trip.
He can’t hear anything, save for the crunch of shoes against dirt. It must be part of Hades’ condition, Orpheus bitterly realises, that he can’t hear the sound of his beloved behind him. Even though he’s confident that Eurydice is just a few paces away, he can’t help but begin to feel the smallest sliver of doubt infiltrate his brain.
He keeps his eyes firmly attached to the mark on his arm, praying that he’ll be greeted with the welcome sight of Eurydice’s name engraved inside his tattoo again. One foot in front of the other , he thinks to himself, hands gripping his guitar strap. You’re almost there, Orpheus.
And the voices that had constantly purged his thoughts on his first journey down this path return, but they’re louder and far more frequent this time.
Orpheus should be appreciating their presence, actually, given how they’re the only things that he can hear, but he’s leaning towards not paying them any mind. Not when the voices are telling him to turn around and check if Eurydice’s there; he can’t let her down again, and he’s not going to.
So Orpheus continues walking, cradling his arm and hoping that he’ll feel the stabbing sensation soon. He can catch a glimpse of sunlight out of the corner of his eye; has he been walking this long? Picking up the pace, he starts to stumble, skittering upwards like a moth drawn to light. He’s so close. He’s so close, damn it.
“Eurydice,” he calls, and he doesn’t care if she can’t hear him; he needs to get it off his chest. “We- We’re almost there! I can see the sun!” And he feels himself get stronger and stronger with each step that he takes, his tattoo glowing a tad brighter than it had just moments ago.
He’s at the mouth of a yawning cave now, the same place where he’d initially started his journey. Limbs trembling from exhaustion, Orpheus steps over the threshold, the invisible line drawn between the realm of the living and the land of the dead.
He expects something; a sudden blow of numbing pain, anything, but it doesn’t come. He wants to turn, now, to see if he really has been alone this whole time, but-
He feels a shove at his back, and when he lands right on his bruised ribs, groaning in pain, he realises that Eurydice has landed on top of him on the grass, both of them now staring at the other in disbelief.
“Did we make it?” she gasps, and Orpheus can feel her heart pounding rapidly against his own, two beats that don’t quite sync up but produce the steadiest drumming Orpheus has ever heard in his life. Shaking like a wet dog that’s just come in from the pouring, pouring rain, Orpheus lifts his arm, and smiles wide when he sees that his mark has once again been restored to its previous state.
“We did,” he says, breathing hard, and the two of them simply lie there on the green blades of grass, stacked on top of the other like pancakes on a plate, hysterically laughing in a meadow full of newly-sprung springtime flowers. And here, where no one can touch them but each other, Orpheus and Eurydice are one, celestial bodies bound together by a force stronger than gravity; something right at the very heart of the world.
(Because, Orpheus thinks, as he kisses Eurydice- slowly, just how she likes it- fate has always enjoyed pulling a few more strings than necessary.)