workers’ hymn
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i will follow you into the dark by blue_is_very_confused for kaslynwrites
Fandoms: Hadestown - Mitchell
11 Aug 2026
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Summary
Hades thinks a better purpose is work. But Orpheus knows that his better purpose is Eurydice. He holds onto that as he signs his name and is taken to the River Lethe. He knows exactly what drinking from the Lethe will do to him, but he could never forget Eurydice. He can forget everything else—the station and bar, Hermes teaching him how to play and how to sing, even his own name—but he can never forget Eurydice.
So he drinks.
Wait for me, he wants to tell her. It won’t be much longer now. I’ll find you. I promise.
//
Orpheus reaches Hadestown, but he doesn’t even get the chance to find Eurydice. He’s discovered, beaten, and taken to see Hades. Hades corners him into a contract, and because he’s desperate to see Eurydice, Orpheus agrees.
They find each other, but not in the way either of them might have hoped.
Series
- Part 1 of workers’ hymn
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Summary
The girl examines his face closely. “But you’re going to keep writing it.”
The boy takes a breath. He nods.
The girl lets go of his hands, stepping back. Hugging herself, she asks, “What’s wrong with being careful? What will he do to you if you don’t listen to him?”
Heat flares in his gut. “It doesn’t matter what he’ll do,” the boy snaps. The girl flinches away from him, looking hurt, but the boy doesn’t care. He just wants her to understand. “Don’t you see?”
//
Orpheus works on the song.
Series
- Part 2 of workers’ hymn
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Summary
The boy doesn’t move for a moment, and that must be a moment too long for Hades’s liking. One of the women steps forward, props her heeled boot on the boy’s chest, rolls him onto his back, and presses down hard on his stomach.
He can’t even cry out. The pressure steals the air from him. He just stares up at the ceiling with his mouth open, choking on the sound he can’t get past his lips.
But he does what he’s told. He lifts himself to his knees and elbows. Then to his feet. He can’t stand up all the way, so he walks hunched over his abdomen, or else he thinks he’ll collapse again.
—
or, orpheus suffers wounds from his beating, but he pretends they don’t exist as best he can.
(day fourteen: broken bones; day seventeen: bleeding through bandages; day twenty-four: ignoring an affliction; day thirty: internal bleeding)
Series
- Part 9 of blue’s whumptober 2026
- Part 3 of workers’ hymn