Chapter Text
All right, I admit it. I was terrified to go back to Amaurot with Hades and Hythlodaeus. I would have preferred to face a thousand thousand downbursts and landslides and giant murder moths than whatever awful Prometheus stories were currently circulating about my death and return from the underworld. But Hades insisted he’d had more than enough travel for the time being, and he was still being sour about… everything and everyone, so I agreed to go with them.
Of course we arrived at the start of dinner hour.
Hades and Hythlodaeus dragged me by the arms through the densely packed crowd of people in the Macarenses Angle for what seemed like hours to find an empty table, and then I sat there trying to make my eyes focus again while Hythlodaeus ran off in search of food and Hades grumped in his seat. I hadn’t thought grump could be a verb as well as an adjective, but I was wrong. Or. Hades had powers of sourness that defied the limits of language.
“Did you really have to tell that fool that I was your nemesis?” he muttered. I couldn’t tell if he were upset about being my nemesis, or that I’d told Kleos about it.
“It got him to leave us alone.” I pointed out. I still felt dizzy from walking through the crowd. “He doesn’t even know your name, so at least he probably won’t run around demanding to fight you.” I sighed.
Hades gave a long-suffering sigh which I had more than likely earned several times over by now. “You couldn’t have chosen someone else?”
Hythlodaeus returned with several trays of food and sat down.
“I don’t know that many people. It was either you or Azem, and he wasn’t going to believe that one. Why are you upset about this? It’s like you don’t want to be my eventual downfall at all.” I said as Hythlodaeus handed me a plate full of fried dough and tried not to laugh.
Hades took a plate and glowered at both of us. “If anyone is going to be your eventual downfall, it’s you.”
I mean. Yes. Almost certainly. But. “I could hardly pass myself off as my own nemesis, now could I?” I muttered.
Hythlodaeus stifled a snicker. Poorly. “On the bright side, the continual crises should be over now. Which means Ithas will be free from constant search and rescue duty.” He beamed. “And there’s all sorts of things coming up in the Macarian District we should go to.”
I… entirely disagreed that this was a bright side.
“Yes, yes, but before that,” Hades drawled in an extremely self-important manner, “I am presenting my paper to the School of Aetherology next week, and you’re both going to be there.”
“Of course we will.” Hythlodaeus agreed mildly. “Why would you even think otherwise?”
At one of the nearby tables, I distinctly heard someone say, “You heard that Prometheus came back from the dead, right?” in a disturbingly excited tone, and I flinched.
“Returned from the underworld still fighting the hurricane, is what I heard,” their table-mate replied, and now I wished I really was dead. There was no way I could get back out of this crowd on foot. I couldn’t even stand up, really. I was going to have to teleport myself out of there with the chair. Like some kind of… of… furniture thief. And that would probably spawn its own terrible Prometheus story, and the cycle would continue unbroken forever.
“Ithas!” Someone shouted.
Iris made her way through the crowded square. She sat down with us, and her black adjutant’s mask miraculously emptied all the tables closest to us.
Truly the greatest hero on Etheirys.
“Oh dear, you look terrible.” She picked a piece of broken mask shrapnel out of my cowl. How long had that been there? “I know Azem says that challenges exist to be overcome, but perhaps you should take this one a touch more slowly?” She gave me a concerned look.
“I’m fine.” I was not. I definitely couldn’t have gotten out of my chair by myself yet. “I gather the report’s already been filed.” There wouldn’t be stories circulating about my return to life otherwise. Probably. I mean. There could. A lack of evidence had never stopped Amaurotines from talking about anything at any point in the history of mankind.
“Some time ago, yes.” Iris sighed. Hythlodaeus offered her a plate, but she declined. “I’ve been dealing with paperwork since. There are all sorts of formalities to be observed when one of the Fourteen intervenes in another’s affairs. It wouldn’t surprise me if Emmerololth never made an official request purely to avoid the bureaucracy.” I thought it was more likely because he’d suspected the culprit was one of his own children. But paperwork. Was also terrible. Yes. She gave me an apologetic shrug, “I fear that the moment the Convocation’s clerks spot your name in a report, they can’t help but tell everyone.”
I buried my head in my hands and groaned.
Iris patted my down-turned head. “I have to run more papers to the Bureau of the Secretariat. Don’t push yourself. You aren’t supposed to be around this many memories at once, and you know it.” She stood up and turned to Hades and Hythlodaeus. “Look after Ithas for me, would you both?” she waved and departed through the crowd again.
“You do look a little green,” Hythlodaeus noted, slightly concerned.
“That’s mostly the moth ichor.” I sighed. Iris’ terrifying Aura of The Convocation had actually made things so much better. The crowd immediately around us had thinned to a level that merely made my head hurt.
“We could take all this and retire to the park,” Hythlodaeus suggested. “It’s far less crowded at this hour. And it would be quieter, as well.”
Hades nodded and started gathering up food. Hythlodaeus immediately stood and offered me his arm to help me get out of the crowd. So I leaned on him like a crutch while we made our way out of the Dread Macarenses Angle and out to the park surrounding Akadamia Anyder.
I hated to admit it, but I did feel infinitely better in the park. Hades picked a spot under one of the trees. Which I noticed for the first time actually looked well. Not. Shedding leaves, or dead, or turning the wrong color. We sat on the grass, which also looked well. Green and uniform in growth.
Had Emmerololth really told Venat I would never recover?
“So, the faculty verified your findings, then?” I asked Hades. I wondered if Azem would actually come to hear it, too.
“They did.” Hades sounded smug. “After no small amount of review.”
“Was there ever any doubt?” Hythlodaeus sounded amused. “In the meantime… I may have to ask the two of you for some assistance later.”
I gave him a quizzical look.
He picked at his fried dough in an almost perturbed manner, which was downright alarming coming from Hythlodaeus. “Yes, well, the list of tasks given to me by the Most Honorable Emet-Selch contains one or two feats which I am completely incapable of completing. And he will not take no for an answer.” He sighed. Sighed. As if he were. Somewhat upset. That never happened.
I glanced at Hades to see him in a similar pose of shock and horror to mine own.
“You hardly have to ask.” I said, finding my voice.
He brightened a bit. “Oh, not now.” He waved a hand dismissively. “For the moment, we are doing absolutely nothing. We’ve clearly earned it.”
Hades snorted, which I took as some form of agreement on the matter.
I polished off my plate of fried dough and took a dumpling.
“Ithas!” Someone shouted for the second time in the last few minutes. I was starting to think I preferred it when nobody knew who I was.
Actaeon came sprinting across the park towards us. Hades immediately bristled at him, like a defensive hedgehog. I really. Don’t know why he thought that was effective on anyone. Who out there was afraid of hedgehogs?
He stopped and gasped for breath. “I’m so glad you’re all right! My mentor told us all the news of what happened.” He sat down on the grass in spite of all Hades’ attempts to repel him through glaring alone. Maybe. That would’ve worked better if he’d had his mask and cowl off. “Nobody’s sure what we’ll do now that Machaon’s gone. She ran everything.”
Foresight was a pretty useful power for an administrator. Less for a healer, or a medical researcher. I could see why she hadn’t been as good at those skills as her siblings.
“Surely things will be better without the constant stream of casualties flooding in from all over?” Hythlodaeus asked, attempting to offer Actaeon a plate, which Hades immediately snatched out of his hand in a fit of pique.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, ending the catastrophes was for the best,” Actaeon agreed emphatically, not even noticing the plate incident, “and the plotting. And the backstabbing.” He sighed wearily. “I’ll be glad when things settle down again.” He brightened suddenly, “I can’t believe you tricked the whole Eleventh Domain to catch her in the act. Now that’s something out of a Prometheus story, if I’ve ever heard one.”
It was my turn to sigh at that.
“Don’t you have patients to attend to?” Hades asked in a voice that could wither oceans.
“Nope!” Actaeon rose to his feet, however, and brushed grass off his robes. “I’m on my way home, actually. I’ve a long shift ahead of me tomorrow. I’ll see you later, Ithas!” he said, and waved farewell before heading out towards the aetheryte.
Hades made a disgusted noise as he left, and Hythlodaeus stifled a laugh.
“If all the interruptions are at an end for the moment,” Hythlodaeus returned all the emptied plates to the aether and flopped dramatically back into the grass beneath the tree, “I highly recommend trying this, Ithas. Hades spends half of every day this way. It’s an overdue part of your introduction to Amaurot.”
I laughed and stretched out on the grass beside him. Hades joined us after making an irritated noise in the direction Actaeon had gone, and then we all watched the light fade and the stars emerge from the twilight over the towers of the city.