Chapter Text
All gods suffer in silence, they know that their eternities always end.
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February 27, 1997
Eos heard crows screeching from high in the fog enshrouded mountaintops. Her fingertips ran around the rough contours of the cliffside she sat on, legs swinging freely over the edge. She felt no fear, there would be no end for her unless she chose it.
She wanted to cry, but her tears were gone. The weeping of days past had drained her dry, and her body was wrecked with unshed sorrows. She stared at the ground beneath her, thousands of feet away, but still so heartbreakingly close.
She heard the padding of her husbands footsteps on the ground behind her, and she motioned for him to sit beside her. “It would be so easy to end. All we would have to do is choose it. We could fade so quickly.” Her voice sounded empty, the world had taken so much from her. She was slowly breaking, the once tiny fractures that littered her body now spreading, shattering becoming an inevitable outcome.
“We’ve lasted so long and lost so much.” She laughed bitterly and continued. “Leaving would be a kindness.”
Astraeus sighed and took her hand. “I know. I lost her too, I know how it feels.” His voice trembled, he was so afraid of losing her too. “How much it hurts. But please, don’t give up yet. Just - just try. Just stay.”
Eos hummed and looked out over the mountains once more. “Darling, I’ll stay as long as you want me to. Anyways,” She smiled a bit as she continued. “She would be so disappointed in me if I left you here all alone.”
He laughed and hugged her tightly to him. “She would, wouldn’t she.”
She giggled and wiped away a tear. “You know, she always said to stay with your favorite idiot.”
Astraeus smiled. “Oh, and you think that she meant that I was the idiot? Well, beautiful, I have some bad news for you.”
She rolled her eyes at him, and the knot of sorrow slowly eased in her chest. “Darling, I think you know who she was talking about.” She rested her head on his shoulder and went on in a near whisper. “What do you think she would want us to do?”
He thought quietly for a moment before replying. “I think...I think that we will figure it out as we go. I think it’ll be okay.”
She smiled once more, and with a flash of light, they were gone.
-
Present day
Kore yelped as Aphrodite pulled her hair into a particularly tight braid. “What was that for?” She reached up to loosen the braid and the older goddess slapped her hands away.
“Hey! No touching the artwork, peasant.” She popped her bubblegum and kept on braiding. “Maybe if you would learn to braid your own hair, I wouldn’t still be doing this.”
“That doesn’t mean that you try to rip the hair from my scalp! You know that hair pulling hurts.” She frowned and shifted in her seat.
Aphrodite grinned down at her. “I bet you wouldn’t mind if a certain son god pulled your hair, huh?” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Kore groaned as she blushed. “Oh gods, Aphrodite. What’s wrong with you? You know that this is just a date, right? It’s not I’m gonna do the horizontal tango with him on a first date.”
“Well, hopefully, you never do anything with him. He is actual garbage, and you deserve the best. Which he is the opposite of.” She tapped Kore’s head. “Move to the right a bit.”
“Why are you even going on a date with him? You are so out of his league.” “Well,” She said as she brushed a stray strand of her dark curly hair behind her ear. “I just want to try dating for once, and my mom approves of him, so…” She trailed off.
Aphrodite sighed. “Out of all the guys your mom could approve of, it had to be him.” She stood back to admire her work. “Alright. Kore, I think this is as good as it will get.”
The young goddess smiled at her friend. “It looks beautiful. Thank you.” Kore stood and grabbed her jacket and scarf from her friends chair and walked to the door. “Alright, wish me luck. I’m gonna need it.”
-
Kore walked down the New York sidewalk, lost in thought and muttering to herself. “Hi, I’m Perseph - wait no that sounds dumb. Maybe I should use Kore...but everyone calls me Kore. Ugh, what is with these stupid names!”
Her mother, in all of her infinite wisdom, had named her Persephone and the proceeded to only call her and introduce her as Kore. The poor had no idea why, though she suspected that it had something to do with her mysteriously absent father. Luckily, it didn’t affect her much, as she usually completely forgot about her real name.
She was so wrapped up in her own mind that she walked straight into a wall. At least, that’s what it felt like to her, since it completely knocked her to the ground.As she laying on the ground, contemplating just who would built a wall on the middle of a sidewalk, an enormous furry face suddenly obscured her vision and began to sniff her.
Kore decided that she must have hit her head harder than she thought, because now she was seeing three dog heads instead of one. “Huh.” She remarked aloud, carefully pushing herself off of the ground. “There’s no way that I hit my head hard enough to see a three headed dog, right.”
She squinted suspiciously at the beast. It’s head (Heads?) towered above her, and it seemed to be friendly, if it’s wagging tails were anything to go by. Her next actions spoke a lot about who she was, as they were extremely impulsive and not at all thought through.
“Hello,” She cooed, reaching up to scratch under the gigantic dogs chin. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? You’re the best boy, yeah?” The dog suddenly bent down and began to excitedly lick her face. She laughed and tried to push him away. “Ew, yuck, your spit got in my mouth, gross.”
She finally got the giant dog to calm down and then nodded as she made a decision. “Well, you seem like a perfectly nice dog to me. I guess you can live with me until we find your owner, okay?” She unwrapped her scarf from around her neck and looped it through the dog’s giant chain collar.
“Huh. It’s says that your name is Spot.” She smiled. “Nice to meet you, Spot.” Kore patted his head again and turned around and began walking home with her new giant dog, weaving unaware through a crowd of shocked and terrified looking pedestrians. As she strolled into the last car on the subway, she wondered why it wasn’t as crowded as usual. “I guess I should tell Apollo that I can’t make it.” She thought to herself as the subway began moving.
“There’s no way I can just show up to a date with a gigantic dog and act like that’s perfectly normal. And how in Gaea’s name am I going to get this enormous dog into my tiny college dorm?”
-
Hades frowned as he watched Hecate hang up another “Missing dog” poster.
“Hecate, are you sure that these will work? I don’t think anyone who sees a giant three headed dog’s first thought will be to call the number on a random poster.”
“Ugh.” The goddess of magic rubbed a hand against her shorn brown hair and turned towards him. “Look, I get that you don’t get out much, but everyone uses these. It’s how mortals find animals.”
“Hm.” He glanced over at the god of death. “Thanatos, what do you think?”
The ashen-faced god tilted his head. “I am afraid that I can offer no opinion on the matter, my lord, as I am blind.” He didn’t bother to hide the snickers in his voice as he high-fived Hecate.
Hades leveled him with a look. “You can tone down the sarcasm over there. I simply wanted to know if you thought that it would work.”
Thanatos laughed. “Calm down my Lord. It must be hard for you to be more uptight than the god of death.”
“Yeah, take that massive stick out of your butt.” Chimed in a giggling Hecate. Hades’ scowl deepened, causing his messy black hair to fall in his eyes.
“I don’t have a stick-” He was cut off by Thanatos and Hecate loudly whispering about how desperately he needed to get laid. It was the fifth time they had laughed about his lack of action that day. “Okay.” He sighed, throwing his hands in the air. “That’s it. I give up. I’m done and I’m going home.”
He turned and walked away, completely ignoring his friends yelling at him to get a girlfriend. Hades smiled fondly as soon as he was out of sight. They might be immortal pains in his butt, but they were his pains in the butt. With his estrangement from his family, those two nerds were all he had left. He wouldn't let them know ow much that they meant to him, of course. That was just asking for incessant teasing.
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