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before her fury, even death himself pales.
/
Thanatos, god of the sort of Death that takes people gently and with soft words that are meaningless after the fact, looks all of twelve years old the first time he lays his eyes on the Lord Hades’ youngest daughter. She’s sitting with her mother and her siblings in the garden when he rushes through the gate and slams it shut behind him, dropping down into a crouch to hide as one of his older brothers runs past outside. The princess has stark white hair like her father’s, but the first thing he notices is her eyes ; they’re narrowed, but not at him, and dark brown, like the earth that makes up the Underground's sky.
Then, she goes and she asks him, "Are you runnin' away from Moros?"
He blinks, and shakes his head, pointing upwards even as his queen and the four heirs of Hell look at him. Persephone nods, once, and smiles. "He's gone, Thanatos. You can start talking now."
"Thank you, Ma'am." He says, to the Lady, and to the Girl he says, "That was Charon, Miss, not Moros. They do sorta look the same, though, I guess." Thanatos pauses, half a second. "Sorry for interrupting your lunch."
Zagerus, looking maybe sixteen years old to match his twin, leans forward and grins at him, all white teeth and laughing eyes. "What'd you go and do to that brother of yours, Deathling?"
The sort of smiles that he sends the prince in return is full of mirth and mischief. He runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head, like he really can't say, and the oldest heir of Hell tilts his head back and laughs. Melione holds a slice of pomegranate out to him like a peace offering, and he takes it.
“Come and eat with us, Thanatos,” Persephone says, gesturing with one hand to the garden around them, “Your brothers won’t find ya in here.”
The god, he who resides over the sort of Death that lays you gently down to sleep and makes sure that his brother gives you a good last rest, takes a bite of his pomegranate slice and nods, “Yes, Ma’am.”
/
Olympus is a bright, shining place, so unlike the Underworld that it makes their eyes hurt. The first time the heirs of Hell see it, their reactions are about like this : Zagerus and Melione curl into each other with the sort of resignation that comes with growing up in the dark with the dead, while Ploutos keeps fidgeting on his seat against the train car floor and his hands still in his lap at the sight of the white marble, and Makaria looks back at her mother and father with a sort of wonder and asks, “is that where the other gods live? The ones like Grandmama and Unc?”
Hades brushes her hair from the front of her earth brown eyes and says, “Your Grandma and Uncle Hermes don’t live up on the mountain, Ευλογημένος . They live on the ground beneath it.”
“Yeah!” Zagerus pipes up from across the car, leaning over the seat to tap his youngest sibling on the nose. “Remember, Grandmama’s farm is over that way.” He points out the window, somewhere in the distance, and the white haired child squints through the glass as though she can find their favorite spot from this far away. From her place beside her husband, Persephone laughs.
“You’re a little off there, Ζαγρεύς. Ma’s farm is a little more that way,” and she jerks her thumb behind her, smiles when her oldest son pouts, and says, “We passed earlier. Maybe we’ll stop on the way back.”
It is then that Ploutos speaks up from the floor of the train car, his voice cutting through the sounds of the train whistle blowing. "What are we goin' to the mountain for anyways, Da? I thought they didn't like ya up there."
And Hades doesn't answer, glancing sideways at his wife who gives him a helpless sort of shrug ; she doesn't know either. "I don't know, boy. Your uncle just said to come up, and I'm bound by the old rules to listen to him."
"But you're the oldest," Melione says, the first words she's spoken since they boarded the train, and he raises an eyebrow at her, so she repeats, "you're the oldest, Da. Why aren't you in charge of 'em, instead of the other way 'round?"
Hades runs a hand through his hair, white as white can be, and then curls his fingers over Persephone's, on the seat between them. She laces their fingers together in the time it takes him to find his voice again.
"I didn't wanna be in change, love. Poseidon wanted to live, Zeus wanted to rule, but I just wanted to be left alone."
"You're not alone though. You have Mama and Uncle Hermes and Hecate. . .” Ploutus pipes up and then pauses, thinking, “and you have us, don't you?"
"Yeah, love, I do."
/
Hypnos sits on the banks of the Styx with a mason jar of pomegranate wine half - buried in the sand next to him. The hateful goddess herself sits on the opposite bank, mirroring his every move. The boy cocks his head back and calls, "Hatred, what're you doing over there?"
"Ain't it obvious, Sleeping One?" She says, and pushes her blood - wine - strawberry - red hair out of her face with both hands as she keeps her eyes focused on the godling. "I'm waitin' for your brother, same as you."
And the god of sleep raises an eyebrow at her, every bit of subtlety he has left in the sand with his jar of wine. "What kinda business do you got with my brother, Lady?"
Styx smiles the sort of smile that makes Hypnos want to get up and leave before the ferry every gets across the water and laughs. "None," she says, "that you need concern yourself with, boy."
"You don't look that much older than me."
"Oh, Sleep, I'm older than the rivers themselves." She pauses, and tilts her down to look into her waters. "But, no one remembers that, anymore, do they?"
"Does Charon know that?" He asks, and realizes how stupid of a question it is the moment it drops from his lips. Of course Charon knows that, he knows everything that passes through the waters of Styx. It's his job.
“Do you really think your brother so stupid as to ask my age, Sleep?”
“No, Lady. I don’t.”
And the hateful goddess only laughs, the sound echoing in the silence of the Underground around them. Styx laughs, and Hypnos takes another shot from the bottle of the pomegranate wine, half buried into the sand.
/
“Maka? Meli? It’s not real funny anymore, come on!” The oldest prince of the Underground blows his coal black hair out of his eyes, a futile effort that is wasted when the curly locks just fall gently back into place over his forehead, and heaves a loud sigh. “Mama’s going to skin me alive if we don’t get back to the house soon! Come on!”
There’s movement in the trees ahead of him and he lets out a huff before surging forwards, intent on chewing out his sisters the entire way back to Grandma's farmhouse, when he runs directly into a slightly taller girl with a bow slung over her shoulder, her hair wild and messy around her scalp. There’s half a silver circlet hanging crooked on the top of her head, and she scowls down at him and reaches up to fix it.
“Watch it, kid. Don’t you know you’re supposed to be quiet when you're hunting?” The girl asks, and Zagerus makes a face at her and takes half a step back. “Sorry,” he says, and points towards the Harvest Goddess’ farm, “I’m just lookin’ for my sisters so my Ma don't --”
“Your Mom lives back there with Demeter?” She cuts him off, raising an eyebrow. “You some sorta satyr or something?”
The godling makes a face again, confused. “Do I look like a satyr to you, Miss? I ain’t got no horns, do I? M’ names’ Zagerus, my Mama’s name is Persephone.”
"Persephone? What, did she and Uncle Hades finally have kids?"
"Well, yeah. Did you say Uncle Hades?"
"Yeah. I'm Artemis."
"Oh! I know who you are!" He sounds excited, as he rocks back on his heels and then forwards again. "My mama told me that you drive the moon when Miss Selene wants a break, and you got a twin just like I do."
The goddess blinks, once and twice, and then her shoulders start to shake with laughter. She grins down at him. "Yeah, kid, I guess I do. Where're your sisters at?"
"I dunno. We were playin' hide - and - seek but its gettin' dark and Mama said to get home before dark. Mister Erebus ain't all that nice, ya see, and --"
"Alright, alright, I get it. Come on, I'll help you find them."
"You will?" Zagerus smiles, teeth bone - white. "Thanks, Miss Artemis."
The dark haired goddess just laughs again, holding out her hand to the younger deity and looking around the woods. They start walking.
"Hey, Miss Artemis?"
"Yeah, kid?"
He pauses. "Do ya think you can show me how to use that bow of your's?"
Artemis blinks once, and then she starts to laugh. "Yeah, kid. Whenever you want."
/
He stumbles blindly down the path of Olympus, his non - existent eyes still feeling like they're burning from the inside out and when his younger sister grabs him by the arm and yanks him away from the edge of the path with an exclamation of "Ploutos, watch out!" that is when it hits him : he will never see again. The godling stops, and feels his sister turn to stare at him, worried ( he's never been able to do that before, never been able to feel what the people around him are doing . . . he guesses that it must be the god in his body catching up with it's loss of sight ), and says, "Ploutos? What's the matter?"
He listens to the sound of his mother's gasp at the sight of him, and hears his father move forwards and almost doesn't flinch when the God of The Dead grasps his face in one hand and tilts it back. When his father speaks, it is with a deathly quiet voice that he has never heard him use before. Hades asks him, "What did he do to you, boy?"
That is when he cracks ; the godling takes in a trembling breath and he breathes out a sob, and it takes him a few moments before he says, voice far from clear, "He -- he burnt away my -- my eyes, Pa. I -- I can't see -- I can't see nothing."
His father says nothing, and then his hands is gone from his son's face and he hears his mother say, "Hades!"
Hades Aidoneus goes up the mountain for the first time in a thousand years.
/
They play a game on the train ride to the Underground ; it's a tradition that started with their children and neither of them have the power of will to put a stop to it.
Neither of them want to.
Hades places a domino on the table and Persephone blinks once and she laughs ; her husband stares at her like she's gone mad, and maybe she has, because then she says, "Zagerus would've used a different piece and tried to argue that it was the right one."
Hades just looks at her in utter silence for a long moment before he replies with a soft, sad smile gracing his lips, "And Melione would've argued with him, like it would've made a difference. Stubborn brat."
"She got that from you."
This time, Hades is the one to laugh : a deep sound from the back of his throat that Persephose doesn't think she's heard outside of his taunts for a hundred years. "Did she, Lover?"
"She did." The goddess says, and she really smiles at her husband for the first time in fifty years without a drop of alcohol in her system. "She did, and you damn know it, Lover ."
"If you say so, Wife. If you say so."
They do not speak for the rest of the ride, game forgotten on the table between them.
/
He is hunting with Artemis when it first sets in. They've climbed a tree to better see the animals they're tracking the movements of and he slips and he falls and it hurts so much more than it really should. Artemis seems not to care when she yells his name and it scares the deer into running away, and she scrambles down the branches to lean over him when she breathes out, "Deathling?"
He blinks up at her slowly and says, voice ragged like she's never heard it before, "It hurts -- hurts, Huntress. It's -- it's not supposed to -- hurt, is it ?"
She places a hand on his forehead and snatches it back immediately. His skin feels like he took a swim in the River of Flame before he came up to the surface to hunt with her, and she has no idea why. The goddess of the Hunt and of Maidens tilts her head back and yells for her brother and when he appears in a flash of light so bright it momentarily blinds her, she says, "Brother, help him."
"What happened to him, Sis?" The Sun asks the Moon and the Moon only shakes her head. "We were hunting, and he fell, and now he's like this. He should be fine, why isn't he fine?"
Apollo places his hand against the oldest Prince of Hell's head and does not draw it back at the heat. He closes his eyes and Zagerus mumbles something that sounds vaguely like his grandmother's name and she lifts her head to stare in the direction of the Harvest Goddess' farm. It's too far to make it there with him like this.
"Artemis." Her brother says, softly, and that is when she looks back down at the Deathling and it occurs to her that her friend is no longer moving. Her breath hitches and she breathes, "Zagreus?"
He does not reply, and Artemis takes in a breath and breathes out a sob and her brother takes her hand and says, "I'm sorry, Art. I'm sorry."
The Sun and the Moon bring his body to the Lady Demeter's farm and they do not stay long enough to hear what she tells her daughter. They hear the Spring scream when she sees her son, still as bone, on the porch of her mother's house and Apollo kisses his twin on the top of her head before he leaves her alone in the middle of the woods again.
/
He doesn't go with his brother to collect souls very often, because the living are far more complicated than the dead tend to be. He is not a Death God, he is not even close.
But, just this once, he is glad that his brother has dragged him to the Overground. He is glad because he's found himself standing in front of a goddess with poppies braided into her blonde hair and he watches her smile at him and she says, "Hello, Sleeping One."
Hypnos blinks, and smiles back, and says, "Hello, miss."
His brother yells his name and he feels the shadow of raven wings fall over him as he watches a butterfly land on one of the flowers in Pasithea's hair. He smiles at her again, and then he follows his brother into the sky.
The goddess laughs when she sees the poppies he's left growing in the grass around her ; she adds them into her braids.
Thanatos makes jokes the entire way home, and he only shuts up when Hypnos mentions something about Makaria and a locked garden gate. It's his turn to laugh.
/
Melione is sitting in her mother's half - dead garden by herself when she sees him. Her barely older brother appears on the ground in front of her stone bench and she can only blink at him for a few moments before it clicks in her brain. Her brother is dead.
"Zagerus?" She asks, and she reaches out to touch him before she remembers that she can not. She tries anyways and her fingers pass straight through his cheek. She watches him shiver.
"What happened to me, Mel? What happened?"
"I dunno, Zag. You're dead."
"Oh." It's all he says, and she climbs off the bench to sit on the ground next to him. The harder Melione tries not to notice that she can see straight through him the more she does.
Neither of them say anything for the longest while, and their silence is only broken when she starts to shake with built up tears. Melione says her brother's name and her voice cracks and there is absolutely nothing he can do to comfort her.
He can't even touch her.