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Zagreus waited, and fidgeted. He scuffed his feet on the mirrored tile of the floor of the House, and felt a bit of vengeful delight in the sooty blemish left behind when he really pressed his toes into the grout, before remembering that Dusa would likely get an earful over it and be forced to buff it out. He sighed and crouched and rubbed at the mark with his thumb, and tried not to look too much like he was cleaning, lest he, ironically, get an earful over that.
He noticed when Achilles reappeared down the hall, but waited a bit before moving. At length, he straightened up, gave an exaggerated stretch, and walked nonchalantly in that direction, resisting the urge to look over and ensure that his father was otherwise occupied. The sheltering presence of the north wall was as familiar as an old friend; he didn't even have to look to know when he was in its shadow and safely out of sight. He dashed the rest of the way, skidding to a sparking stop and bouncing the last two steps, his hand already outstretched and his apology already at the tip of his tongue. "Sir, really, I'm-"
"I told you, lad, it's alright," Achilles reassured him, nearly inaudible. He produced a tightly-rolled scroll, small enough to be concealed by the bulk of his hand, and quickly passed it over. "Even if a hundred empty scrolls were to disappear overnight, I doubt the contractor would notice; they'll hardly begrudge me two or three every now and again."
"Well, there's that too..." Zag secured the letter under his belt, folding and tucking the fabric of his chiton around to conceal it and keep it from falling. Hopefully. "I just meant, you know. For losing it before. And in general. I didn't think it would be so hard to keep track of, and I got ahead of myself. I'll be more careful this time."
Achilles squeezed his shoulder gently and offered him just a touch of a smile. "There's no rush; we've nothing if not plenty of time at this point. And..." He hesitated a moment, and his brow furrowed with the sort of mentorly concern that always came with just a touch of implicit scolding. "Don't go too far out of your way, mind. You shouldn't hamper yourself on our account."
"Not at all! It's no trouble, I-" It was trouble; more often than not, the end result of these kinds of things was a premature death. Zag did them anyways. He didn't know yet how to neatly bundle all the reasons why into words. He just knew that it wasn't right that the double-edge of his bloodline should inflict itself on bystanders. He, at least, could both weather the blows and do something about them. He felt a responsibility to leave some happiness in his wake when it was all said and done. He coughed. "It's...the least I can do."
"If you say so," Achilles relented, his expression softening. He had long since resigned himself to much of the prince's stubbornness. "That you even offered means a lot; some time ago I wouldn't have even imagined..."
He trailed off. Zag waited silently and still, eyes up but averted.
"...When I write to him, I can almost-" The sound tightened and failed. He cleared his throat quietly. Another moment passed before he spoke again. "Well. I don't mean to imply that I'm not thankful for the opportunity, is all. I appreciate it - we both do, I'm sure."
Zag chanced looking back; he saw that Achilles seemed himself, and he felt some of the tension of trying not to be seen leave his shoulders. "I understand, sir."
"Is there no easier way, though?" The concern had returned, though it was now more curious than chiding. "You don't seem to run into this much difficulty when carrying contraband in and out of the House, for all that it's both fragile and forbidden."
"It's father," Zag said, grimacing somewhere between embarrassment and irritation. "Technically, everything I pick up out there, it's all in his name. If he cared to do so, he could confiscate anything I haven't already given away. He could confiscate...a lot of things, really." He wrinkled his nose and tried not to think too hard about that. "He could find this in with my things, and... No, it's too important to leave to chance."
Achilles sighed, and let Zag go. "Well, I appreciate the discretion, lad. Best of luck to you. Now," he said, louder, to echo around into the main hall. "It's about time you were on your way."
The tinge of hope in his normally tired expression was such that Zag didn't even notice his father's disparagement as he sped past on his way out.
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"Well I can't say I know much about either of them, all of that was a little after my time, you know," Sisyphus said in his usual meandering way, relaxing the bulk of his shoulder against Bouldy in a way that seemed half-bracing. "But what I can say is that it's awfully sweet, what you're doing for them there, Prince Z."
"Thanks, sir," Zag sighed, and took another bite of gyro. The going had been slow. He had brought Aegis for safety's sake; it leaned in a rubble-filled corner, glowering at him judgmentally, as if disdainful that he had managed to catch a few hits anyways. More than the pain, each blow had spiked panic - his eyes had skirted the ground with every jolt, searching for a flash of parchment in the gloom. He hadn't lost the letter yet, but he was only about halfway through Tartarus. He felt better and steadier the more he ate, though, his minor wounds stitching themselves shut and sealing away the anxiety as his strength came back. Fear was for the weak.
Sisyphus hummed and smiled genially. "See, now, your highness, you're already looking leagues better."
"I feel better. As always." Zag offered him a genuine smile. "It means a lot to me that I've been able to run into you so often out here, sir. Especially those first few times I tried to leave, it felt like..." He felt his lips turn tight at the corners with the remembered bitterness in Meg's eyes, the chilled oblivion of the Styx he hadn't yet been used to. "Well, I won't trouble you with the whole story, but a lot of people were upset with me, and I didn't realize how nice it would be to see a friendly face.
"You and Bouldy there always have a listening ear..." Zag cast an instinctive glance over at the boulder's impassive stone face, smiling but definitely lacking anything resembling ears. "Er...well, you get what I mean. I'm grateful for it, is all."
Sisyphus reached over and patted him on the back in a way that was probably supposed to be gentle; Zag tried not to choke on the slice of tart red vegetable (or fruit?) that he was in the middle of swallowing. "Sometimes all we need is for someone to listen for a little while. I'm just glad I can help - I can't say I appreciated it much when I was alive, but if I've learned anything after all this time down here, it's the value of hospitality." He gestured to the less defined personalities drifting around the chamber; a few of them offered amorphous smiles.
"Sure, sure," Zag coughed, throat still a bit rough. "I wish I had something more to offer you-"
"Nonsense, you cease that sort of talk at once, your highness. Bouldy and I are just grateful for the company, and perfectly comfortable otherwise, and we won't have you worrying over us any longer than necessary. Will we, Bouldy?"
Bouldy said nothing, though Zag felt suddenly a bit more like leaving. He slid down from the crumbled pillar he'd been sitting on, wiped his hands on his chiton, and checked that the note he bore was still safely tucked away. "Right, well, I guess I'll be on my way then."
"Alright Prince, it was nice seeing you! Be safe out there," Sisyphus offered with his usual mild cheer.
As Zag approached the door, his stomach, comfortably full though it was, nonetheless sank at the wine-dark symbol gleaming there. He had invited Artemis' influence precisely to try and avoid this particular character - clearly it hadn't worked. He sighed and rested his hand against the stone paneling in front of him.
"By the three Fates...No. Just, no."
The symbol shifted, the door opened, and Zag felt one of his limited second chances slip away. He still had a long way to go.
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It was hopeless; he knew that as soon as he opened his mouth, but he couldn't help it. "Just this once, Meg, think of it as...a training exercise or something, you can hit me anywhere else, just not-"
"Fool," Meg spat, and Zag's throat tightened around his words in a way that...wasn't entirely unpleasant, though it wasn't the time or place for that- "I don't know how many times I have to tell you that I'm not your practice partner. And I'm certainly not here to help you run idiotic errands. I will kill you."
Somehow Zag found it easier to settle bravado over his worries when threats of physical violence were involved. He smirked, and tried a different angle. "Alright, sure - but could you still kill me without hitting around, you know-" He gestured vaguely to his entire torso. "here, or so?"
"This isn't a game, Zagreus," Meg said darkly. "And I won't be baited by you." She pulled her whip tight between her hands with an ominous crack and then shook it loose in preparation for a fight.
Zag sighed more heavily than he needed to and rolled out his shoulders, stiff from absorbing so many blows against his shield's pitted face. "Isn't there some saying about not beating up the messenger?"
That managed to get something resembling a smile out of her, the tilt of her lips sharp as a bat's wing. "Never heard of it."
She lunged. Zag dodged. Cowering behind Aegis felt somehow wrong when it was Meg, even with the safety of Achilles' letter on the line. Despite that the recent outcomes of these fights were so uneven as to be humiliating at best and insulting at worst, there was still something to be said of the dance - violence was Meg's specialty. Avoiding death by a hair's breadth was quickly becoming Zag's.
Maybe it was the extra care he was taking to stay out of her way, or maybe he just wasn't tracking the tail of her whip as closely as he normally would've. But he could've sworn that, when it did strike, the lash only ever caught him sharply across his face, or wrapped itself around his ankle or his arm, dragging him to the ground and into the range of a brutish wretch. He allowed himself to imagine that might be on purpose, that he'd been listened to even a little bit; the minute the smile touched his lips, though, Meg grimaced and came at him with more ferocity than before, as if to chase the brazen assumption from his thoughts.
The fight after that was vicious and short. The final crack of polished metal on skin evaporated Meg's hold on the shades massed in the arena, pulling them back to the depths.
"Good...luck..." she sighed with the last of the breath she had, before she, too, sank lifelessly into the darkness that crept in to claim her.
Zag wiped blood from his eyes and wordlessly reclaimed his father's bounty. He was careful to wipe his hands on his chiton before checking that the paper he had come this far for was still securely in place. He took stock of his injuries again. He tried to ignore the way the shadows shifted at the edges of the torchlight.
It wasn't so easy to keep posturing once the fight was over. He absentmindedly laid a hand on the arm of one of the imposing statues flanking the door as he passed. "Thanks, Meg."
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He'd been standing on the dock in Asphodel long enough that he was starting to actually feel the heat pressing up against the soles of his feet. That probably wasn't a good sign. It was a kindness from the Fates, that they allowed him any knowledge at all of what was to come, but he had pushed that kindness as much as he could for now, trying to avoid this very gift. There were no other options; he sighed and boarded the boat.
The ride to the next patch of scorched earth rising from the molten currents was long enough for him to string together a request in his head; the fight that followed was long enough for him to forget again what he'd planned to say. Dionysus' blessing gleamed before him, seeping fragrant smoke and distant laughter. A direct, if turbulent, line to Olympus that he had no way to refuse. Not gracefully, anyways.
He extended a hand, preparing the connection. "Olympus," he began. "If you can hear me over there, even just a little bit, I would really appreciate maybe laying off on the wine in this instance, I, er..." He was hardly about to start being forthright with the Olympians now. "I need to stay sharp if I'm going to get out, after all. Please, and thank you," he added, and waited.
The channel opened, a wash of pleasantly cool air and the sudden joyous burst of music and merrymaking heralding the appearance of Dionysus, though nothing more than the appearance. He laughed and shaded his eyes to peer more closely into the deep darkness far beneath the earth. "Zaaag, hey," he drawled. "I know you said something just now but I've got to be honest, man, I couldn't understand one bit of it, you have really got to get some better lighting down there!"
Zag took in the gleaming lava and the silence around him and reflected dryly that his side was not likely to be the issue here.
Dionysus squinted and leaned closer, as if it would make a difference. "Hey now, what's with the long face? Your sour old dad got you down, is that it, well I know just the thing to brighten up your day down there, and here it is, direct from me to you!"
With a snap of his fingers and a "Have fun, man!" that was nearly swallowed up by a wave of cheers from the immaterial crowd, the connection was broken.
Zag felt the familiar weight of a boon settling around his shoulders before seeping into his limbs and pooling below his feet. Wine collected around his toes and soaked into the ashen ground when he shifted his weight. "Really? No choice this time, even, just going to give me-...Ugh," he trailed off, resigned. Nothing was ever allowed to be easy.
When he attempted a tentative stride forward, half-hop and half-lunge, the eager splash of purple reached almost up to his knees. Going anywhere quick was out of the question. He walked as quickly as he dared to the boats moored nearby and set off for the next island, hoping beyond hope that an opportunity to discreetly wash away this "blessing" would present itself before too long.
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The chambers passed in a blur of red and black. Without Aegis, he wouldn't have lasted more than one fight with so little mobility. As it was, so much of his attention was on keeping his feet rooted to the ground that he hardly noticed what it was that he was fighting. He pressed himself against walls and lashed out as best he could; he found himself, rather suddenly, in the Hydra's chamber, too distracted even to grace its head(s) with a quip. He turned his back to the scant cover in the room, and fought on.
When his father's voice boomed at him from the pitch black upper reaches of the passage into Elysium, Zag just waved it off, halfway hoping the gesture was seen. He drank from the fountain, washed the sweat from his face and delighted in the sudden cool of the air and ground. A small offering from the Styx served well to sever his agreement with Dionysus, blood-dark water clouding the wine around his feet until it soured and dissipated. He straightened up and took a few steps, then cleared the rest of the length of the hall in two quick dashes, laughing with relief.
He'd made it to Elysium.
He sat on the overlook for a while, opening the pocket he'd made from his chiton just enough to ensure that the letter was still in one piece. It was beginning to look rough around the edges, despite his efforts - crumpled in places, stained here and there with bits of red or black, ichor or ectoplasm. One of these days (or nights) he'd have to see about digging up a proper bag of some sort, if this was going to become a regular pastime. It figured that Hermes would have the right idea when it came to hauling mail all over the place.
Zag dangled his legs over the edge of the cliff and swung them back and forth in the balmy air. He thought of the look in Achilles' eyes when he'd set off. He sighed. He got back up.
There was no guarantee that he would even stumble upon Patroclus. The passageways through the Underworld, after all, turned according to a mechanism that none but Daedalus could hope to understand. In place of understanding, and to pass the time, Zag had superstitions - pass to the right of these statues, go left when you see moss on the top of a pillar, hop across the Lethe instead of walking over the bridges. It could never be said that he didn't try.
The precise strikes of the Exalted warriors were somehow less concerning than the more frenzied attacks thrown at him by the lower wretches - more concerning for his health, perhaps, but less likely to destroy what he was carrying. He focused on parrying their blows, and moving down his list of small tweaks of fate. Stand in this spot when the doors open, wave to Charon in his shop, turn-
He recognized the symbol on the door. Relief almost took his knees out from under him.
"Patroclus!" He ran as quickly as he could through the door and up the stairs, into the secluded grotto that had become so well-known to him over the course of his escapes. "I brought something for you-" His hands fumbled with the folded corner of his chiton as he jogged over the bridge; when he finally looked up, letter in hand, Patroclus met his gaze levelly, his expression somewhere between questioning and pained.
"You're more...boisterous, than usual," he intoned. "I was rather enjoying the silence, such as it is."
"Sorry," Zag said, trying his best to sound sheepish despite his excitement.
"I don't suppose you've simply found another of those bottles to pawn off on me. Though I suppose I wouldn't complain if you had." Patroclus' gaze flickered briefly to the roll of paper, curious but subdued.
"Yeah, this, this is-... Here." Zag cleared his throat and passed the note over, waiting until it had changed hands to speak up again. "From Achilles, sir."
Patroclus hummed neutrally and inspected the paper for a long moment before unrolling it. His eyes danced along the text; his expression didn't change, until he reached a spot near the edge that had been smudged black and illegible. His brows pulled together for just a moment.
Zag leaned forward, just enough to see the last few words of the line. "...'for you'," he offered, as helpfully as he could.
It apparently wasn't enough. "How much of this did you read, exactly?"
That tone wasn't an accusation, per se, but it was worryingly inscrutable. "Er..." Zag took a moment to consider his wording. "I wanted to be sure the message got to you, even if I lost it again, or-"
"'Again'?"
"This was only the second try! That's not that bad, all things considered." He flushed a bit under the scrutiny.
Patroclus seemed to be searching for something in Zag's face, or in the way he held himself. "You needn't go to such lengths for our sake, you know."
It's my father's fault you're apart. "I know; I'm always passing through anyways. I just figured, I may as well."
Patroclus didn't say anything else, only gave him another long look and then went back to reading. Zag shifted uncomfortably, passing his weight from foot to foot until at length he saw something soften in Patroclus' expression that made him feel just a little bit more justified in the breach of privacy.
"You know," Patroclus said as his fingers rolled the paper back on itself. "I was fortunate enough in my life to learn to write, as was Achilles, although he didn't take to it with much enthusiasm. Most never learned; our stories and our messages were spoken, or sung, and remembered as such, without ever being written or read."
"Wow," Zag breathed; it had taken him dozens of re-reads between chambers to memorize even the relatively brief message Achilles had written. To remember things after hearing them only a few times...he remembered stories he had been told as well, of course, though only ever in the broadest strokes. "Did people not forget things all the time? Details and such?"
"Any skill you grow up learning will feel natural," Patroclus answered simply, and set the letter aside. "Though certainly those with sharper minds would sometimes fall into work suitable for such talents. Messengers, or bards."
"I can't imagine it myself," Zag admitted.
Patroclus granted him a ghost of a smile. "You have shown something of a talent for it, though, nonetheless. Why not give it a more proper try?"
Zag blinked. "...Sorry, you mean-"
"Well, if you're going to try to memorize our letters anyways, a bit of practice wouldn't be amiss."
"I-"
"And in the end, it's likely easier than trying to carry something like this-" Patroclus indicated the scroll. "-through the bowels of the Underworld."
"I...!" Zag interjected and, hearing that no more conditions were forthcoming, tentatively let out the rest of what he was going to say. "...Can try."
"Very well," Patroclus said, with the weight of an unspoken deal being signed. "Listen carefully, then."
Zag listened. Twice.
He left the chamber significantly more pink around the tips of his ears than usual.
The blush followed him, somehow, through a less than pleasant death and all the way back to the House, and earned him something suspiciously like a teasing look from Achilles.
He didn't dare to say what he remembered above a whisper, and as far as possible from any gossiping shades; he felt vindicated that, by the time he had finished speaking, he was sure he could see some color in Achilles' cheeks as well, impossible though it might be.
(And by the time he was ready to leave again, there was another - thankfully written - message waiting for him.)