Work Text:
The spear pierces his chest, the prince spits out blood. He falls to the ground on his knees, the soul that has taken his life walks away quietly after having fulfilled our lord's charge. The rest of the souls stare, pick up their weapons, and wander in silence again through the Elysium.
And I, in the shadows, watch as Zagreus breathes his last before falling completely to the grass, surrounded by the cleanest air of the Underworld and the spectral butterflies that flutter everywhere. He is dead, I feel it. I should not be the one to take his body and bring it back to Tartarus, because it has not been a particularly peaceful death. But my sisters are not here.
And I prefer it to remain that way.
I walk slowly towards him, the butterflies move out of my way gracefully. I bend down. He is still bleeding, red blood like that of mortals. I have always wondered why. Zagreus is a god, son of gods, and his blood should be that which humans call ichor, golden and coveted by those who dwell on the surface even though it is poisonous to them. Golden blood, like mine.
I sigh.
And I lift him in my arms.
I barely feel his weight, like so many other times. I could take him straight home, but then my Lord Hades would have reasons to rebuke me. Though he has already done so. He insists that I must not help him, that none of us must do that. I feel no remorse, not anymore. I know Zagreus managed to surface and find his mother. And I also know that now it’s more difficult for him to advance through the Underworld. Like when he tried to escape the first time, so long ago. But he keeps trying, again and again, and again. And I can't help but feel... I can't help wanting to help him. I know that, deep down, even if my mother wasn't helping him already, I would.
The Lethe flows peacefully through the green fields and lush prairies of the Elysium. It’s there, in its crystalline, gentle waters brimming with pure oblivion that I lay the prince’s body. I do so with care, thinking of every peaceful face I have seen after taking a life in the mortal world. None of them has ever seemed so beautiful, and so tormented at the same time, as Zagreus’s. Touching those waters as I let the current submerge the prince and take him back to the Styx, gives me a chill of some bitterness. As if it were a reminder of what it can do, even though if I drank it, it would do nothing to me. Nothing can make Death forget who he is and what he does.
"Go," I murmur with my eyes fixed on the flow and Zagreus trail as he floats down the river. "I’ll see you at home."
Then I vanish and go back to court. He, however, will take a little longer to return, and wake up in time to climb those stairs, where the new souls go up to line up and wait for their trial. Hypnos is there, right at the entrance of the stairs, as always. He is sleeping, also as always, so I approach him in silence and touch his shoulder. He winces with a whimper, and yawns audibly, very audibly, without dropping his papyrus full of the names of all the dead who are coming and those who are yet to come.
"Thanatos! Oh my... I didn't hear you arrive, how are things going up there?"
"Fine." I should be ashamed to lie to my little brother, but I'm not. I keep visiting the surface, of course. Every day there are a lot of people waiting for me to skew his life, for the moirai to cut his thread. But also... I spend more time tracking Zagreus' increasingly invisible and dark passage through the Underworld.
"Ah, yes, yes, well, as usual then." He yawns again and rubs one side of his face. He glances at the Stygian pool, a few steps away from us. "He's taking longer and longer to come back, don't you think? Ah, yes! Come, come, about time, you too, you too, your name’s here!”
I look at the pool, then at Hypnos, who is checking out the newcomers without paying any real attention to me. That's the way he should do it every day. Maybe he's getting into it. Finally. Although... I've never asked him, it must be hard to spend your existence anchored in one place, checking names for eons when your job at birth is, or was, to put mortals to sleep. How did it have to be? How did he feel? It occurs to me that I could ask him about Morpheus, who does now, and for a very long time, that primordial work of watching over the sleep of human beings.
I don't do that. I know it would be insensitive.
"Take care, Hypnos." I say, with a barely audible whisper.
He calls out another name, and another one, and I feel him smile before answering me, with the same tiny thread of voice.
"You too, brother. And take care of him too."
I curve a little, sad, smile, and vanish again. I don’t want Lord Hades to see me. I pass through the whole house in a breath. Mother is not here. Achilles is gone. Dusa is cleaning the beams. Again. Megaera must have gone back to Tartarus. Orpheus, the always melancholy and sad Orpheus, is sitting next to the papyrus-filled throne of Lord Hades. He doesn’t sing. He plays a few strings of his lyre, but he does not sing. He sighs. I know that feeling, somehow. Then I appear in one of the corridors, next to the large balustrade overlooking the Styx. I touch the marble, tarnished and cold by the tireless and inexorable passage of time. I close my eyes. There is silence, an unreal silence broken by the cries of pain and suffering of all the tortured souls in Tartarus. But still, the silence is much greater than on the surface, where a strange and distinct wind blows and every creature that lives there moves and breathes, from the tiniest insect to the greatest of gods.
I like the silence but at the same time…
Steps.
I don't know how long I've been standing here, not looking at anything, and listening to nothing but the incessant gurgling of the Styx. The steps are impatient and I can almost feel the lightness of the flames, jumping, and burning at his feet. He is back, at last.
As always.
I open my eyes, the prince is at my back so I turn around and face him. His hair is still dripping water, but his injuries have closed. I blink. There, on his chest, not long ago, a wound had shone with radiant red blood.
"Hey, my face is up here."
I look up. It's funny, because the prince is a head shorter than me, and yet I've managed to look down past his neck. I am about to blush with shame. Fortunately, the feeling lasts for a second. Zagreus is there, in front of me, fresh as a living flower. He smiles as if he hadn't just been killed, and had to try one of his escape attempts again. As if he didn't have to face all those souls again, Megaera and her sisters, the Hydra, and Theseus, Astherius, the sewers full of rats, and his father...
He smiles as when he was a child and did some innocent mischief, to Lord Hades's displeasure.
"What is it?" I ask with a flat gesture, trying to hide curiosity. Whether or not I have failed to do so is something he does not let me know.
Zagreus hands me a little bottle, full of amber liquid. I know perfectly what it is, it's not the first time he has given me one of these. Why he does so is also beyond my understanding. I know that he is spreading them around, after getting them with sweat and blood in the inhospitable dungeons of Tartarus. Even if his motives don't make sense to me, my chest is filled with a warm, welcoming feeling. It reminds me of when he was a child, and he would look for any item, useless by the way, everywhere so that he could give them to me when I came home. Even then I didn't understand what drove him to do that, although over time I've become used to it.
And now he is no longer so young that he has to pull your mantle to get your attention. It is enough for him to appear in the room wherever you are. I think. No, not even that. It is enough for him to exist.
I glance at the bottle, then at him.
"You know I shouldn't accept it," I say. "And yet you insist on giving it to me."
"Yes, and you know it's a token of my appreciation."
I'm about to snort. Appreciation. Bribery, I'd say. But anyway, I reach out and grab the bottle from his hand. And for a moment my fingers brush against his skin, warm as a living being, and I hold my breath. And I notice that he holds it too.
"Thank you." That's all I can say.
Zagreus shakes his head, still smiling, but softer and... tender. I feel the warmth of his hand now devouring my body at a terrible speed. That shouldn't happen. He shouldn't make me feel this way. It is unfair. I have to vanish.
"I’m sorry." I murmur. I pull just the edge of my hood, in a vain attempt to hide my gesture. "I have to go."
And I leave. I don't want to see his expression of bewilderment, disappointment, and sadness because I have run away from him again. I couldn't stand it.
I can't stand it.
The bottle is so small that I can turn it between my fingers. I haven't drunk it, I haven't drunk any of the ones I have. I keep them zealously, like a treasure, if Death is allowed to have treasures. I know that mother drank hers to the health of the prince after wishing him good luck before one of his escapades. I know that Meg drank hers, not so secretly, in the canteen. Dusa hasn't kept hers either, drunk some time ago behind a curtain. Hypnos keeps telling me how sweet nectar is and how much he missed it. I, on the contrary...
I feel that if I drink it, I will lose something that connects me to him while he is away.
I sigh.
And I hear a gurgle.
Someone emerges from the Styx, by the stairs on the other side of my balustrade. Zagreus crawls up the steps, stands up and shakes off the water, just like Cerberus would do. He flicks his hair back with one hand and his eyes closed. And I stare at him, in silence, from afar, feeling as if the terrible heat of Asphodel was exploding in my chest. It lasts for a moment, because the prince immediately trots away down the corridor and I lose sight of him.
He hasn't even seen me.
I hide the bottle between the folds of my mantle and wait for Zagreus to turn the hallway corner. Usually, when he returns from one of his escapades, he inevitably talks to Hypnos, and then seeks Achilles' advice. What he does next varies, and depends on who he meets along the way. Orpheus, the shades, Cerberus and his own father, Megaera, Dusa. My mother... I don't usually let myself be seen, but this time I wait with some urgency for him to show up.
But he doesn’t appear.
I walk towards the hallway end, where Achilles serenely contemplates the clusters of blue and purple flowers falling on us, a reform by order of Zagreus that gives a touch of color to the court.
"It seems that this time he is not in a good mood." Achilles says, partly absorbed, partly to me.
That makes me worry. A little. Zagreus, in a bad mood. No way. I vanish and appear before the door of his room, where more bouquets hang and make their petals fall on those who walk by. I hear the rumor of a crowd of souls commenting on how beautiful they are. I agree with them. They are beautiful, and evoke in me a sense of peace, a calm and a strange feeling of closeness that I cannot explain. I sigh, again and I enter the room slowly, without knocking, and with some apprehension about meeting the prince.
I swallow.
He is there, in front of the giant mirror that my mother gave him. I don't know if he's really looking at himself, or just standing there in silence. His red eye glows, while his green eye seems to be sunk in absolute melancholy. It saddens me suddenly to see him like this, instead of hearing him argue with Lord Hades. I take one step, and another, and another, until I come closer and see part of my reflection in the mirror. He sees me, and is surprised. A little. For a tiny second. Then a smile emerges on him, a soft and weak one, just for me.
Just for me.
But I sense it.
He's not fine.
And I can't help thinking about when he was a child, and his father yelled at him for anything, because he was in the middle of something important and Zagreus distracted the shades that were working in administration with his incessant babbling. He inspires anxiety in me but also tenderness and an atrocious and terrible desire to embrace him. I barely sigh, for a third time, and lift an arm a bit. Zagreus' frown and chin tremble a little, and shorten the steps that separate us.
And he hugs me. Strong, as if he were afraid that I would vanish again, right under his nose.
I breathe in and feel in him the surface cold, the fresh smell of grass, salt from the sea in his hair, the aroma of ripe and juicy fruit. I also smell the fire from the Hades, sulfur and blood. Red blood. I press my lips and I hug him back, gently. And when my fingers and hands touch his clothes and skin, Zagreus shivers. He rests his forehead on my shoulder, on my collarbone, and squeezes me.
“Than…” He whispers.
His voice is so tiny, weak and soft that I can't help but dip my fingers in his hair and caress him. I hold my breath. I can't believe I'm hugging him. Just like that, after precisely having avoided it for... I don't even know how long. It's something precious, warm... Is this how mortals feel? I don't know. I don't mind not knowing. He's there, I'm there. And Zagreus is about to sob. I can feel it. I lull him with an unintelligible hum. It's something I've done before, although, again, he was much younger than he is now. My fingers brush and caress his hair, his nape, touch the skin on his neck, and he shivers again.
“Than.” he says once more.
“Tell me,” I mutter. “Tell me what happened.”
Zagreus takes a deep breath and presses his fingers on my arms. His tact is ardent, and I miss it when he breaks away from me and lets me go, with his head down as if he were extremely ashamed and nervous. He seems so helpless. I know he feels lost and lonely even though everyone, except obviously his father, is helping him to get out of here as often as necessary. He’s alone up there, every time, even if I show up from time to time.
Then I remember the bottle, and the torch comes on.
“Hey,” I say, and I make a knowing face. “Want a drink?”
I show him the little vial of nectar. Zagreus sees it, raises his eyebrows and looks at me, curving a tender smile that makes my chest fill up again with that fire the prince carries with him.
"You still have it," he says with a hint of teasing. I don't know whether to be offended because he thinks I don't care about his gifts, or because I know he wants to make fun of me. I decide not to take the bait.
"Of course, I have all of them." I answer seriously.
“Really?” He crosses his arms.
Yes, he’s making fun of me, exultant because he knows I care. I frown and I make the gesture of going to put the bottle away again. Immediately Zagreus opens his eyes wide and rushes to stop me, grabbing my wrist. It's an impulse, I know. But I like it. I like that about him. I can't afford to be impulsive, so I drink from the prince's impulses, like when I ask him to step aside but he insists on getting into the middle of the fight until he gets stupidly hurt.
Oh, gods… I think as he still grabs me and runs his fingers up my forearm. Oh, Eros, brother, what have you done to me?
Zagreus notices my trembling and looks at me, with a strange intimacy that attracts and scares me at the same time. I feel the desire to disappear, but I know that it would hurt him. And today I don't want to, I can't and I mustn't do that to him. He may have noticed, because he sighs with a pleading gesture on his face.
"Please, no, don't go." He whispers to me. No, he begs me. "Don't go, Than, please..."
He is so close, so , so close...
"I'm not leaving." I assure him. Don't be afraid , I think, I'm sorry . “Do you still want to have that drink?”
He nods and releases me. As he does so, I turn towards the door of the room to go to the canteen, just across the big hall. Then he gasps.
"Wait! Can we...?" he hesitates, just for a second. "Can we go to the arsenal? It has a great view of Tartarus and we can... We can be alone. Well, except for Skelly! He's always standing there waiting for me to hit him with one of my weapons."
I stare at him in silence, his babbling seeming oddly funny to me. I blink, wanting to let out that chuckle is bubbling in my chest. Then I shake my head weakly, for he is hopeless, and I accompany him to the armory, his yard. Be alone... The truth is that he is right, there are not many occasions inside the house where you can be alone with someone. There are always shades going around everywhere, the canteen is always full, or you meet someone in the corridors. And he wants to be alone with me.
I'm touch.
“Here,” he says, sitting on the cliff border with views to the Tartarus.
I glance at my back. That strange skeleton is there, faking he's minding his own business, but in the very instant I look at him while Zagreus is opening our bottle, he winks at me and gives us his back. This time I smirk for real. Zagreus offers me the first drink of nectar. I accept it, and again, without meaning to, our fingers brush against each other. That rubbing is as sweet as the nectar itself. I drink, one little sip only. Then I offer him the little bottle back.
We drink in silence, contemplating the long path Zagreus has to go up during his attempts to escape. I can't imagine what it must be like, to fight against everyone who wants to please Lord Hades, to fail, to get up again, to keep fighting, to fail again, to try again... I have never failed, not like that. I have been fooled sometimes, eluded, but I, per se, have never failed to do my job. I remember how frustrating it was to chase Sisyphus, one of the most shameful episodes of my career, and how satisfying it was to finally catch him, and send him to Tartarus for his rightful punishment. But I understand that Zagreus is not doing his job. That this is no work, not his task, not his purpose in existence.
Or maybe it is?
I drink another little ship, lost in my thoughts. Maybe. Who decides the gods' fate? My sisters? Who determined that they would decide such things?
"Thank you," Zagreus suddenly says.
He is looking ahead, into the distance, with the little bottle of nectar in his hands. He looks calmer, but not much better than before. There is a strange sadness surrounding him. I know it has to do with his mother, and the surface. But I don't ask, I don't pressure him. If he wants to tell me something, he will. I want to think that he will.
"You don't have to thank me for anything," I mutter.
He snorts.
“Of course I have to…” he replies, nudging me.
I let go a weak hah! Then he laughs and gets up. The bottle is in my hands again, without having realized that he has given it to me. He has one last drink left. The courtesy drink. I feel that warm feeling in my chest, I sigh and I drink. The liquid flows down my throat, like lava from Asphodel, as I have never been burned by the nectar of Zagreus.
I also get up.
"Well, I think I'll try again," he announces cheerfully, in a louder voice, making the skeleton planted there turn towards us, and gives him a series of rather inappropriate advice about which weapon Zagreus should take this time. I approach the center of the armory a little, while Zagreus walks among the different artifacts. It is interesting, and fun, to see and hear him argue with the skeleton, and even to see him take any of the weapons to throw them against the poor pile of bones before putting them back. Anyone would say that they don't get along, but a single glance and a single exchange of threats tells me that Skelly is, so to speak, one of the few real friends Zagreus has in the house.
Finally, he decides on Coronacht, the heart seeking bow. Hera’s bow, queen and mistress of Olympus.
He tries a few shots against the skeleton, for the fun of both. Then, still laughing, Zagreus approaches the huge metal and glass container, inside which are... I come closer to have a look.
Ah, his keepsakes.
He glances at me, and he doesn't even seem to think about it. He reaches out and grabs one of the small objects. I raise my eyebrows.
My butterfly.
Zagreus clips it to the top of his tunic, like a fibula. And again, again damn it, the heat explosion burns my whole body. It is not fair. He smiles at me and, with his bow in his hands, turns around and goes to the window through which he always escapes. On the lintel, there's a burning mark, and a papyrus rolls up in flames in front of him. I follow Zagreus and read the contents. I frown a little, while he lets out a sigh of annoyance.
"Well, I guess it would be too easy otherwise, wouldn't it?" he mumbles.
He touches one of the clauses of the contract with his finger, it lights up with a burst and the papyrus rolls up by itself. He looks at me again, and suddenly he seems more nervous.
"Wish me good luck?" He makes an almost childish pleading gesture.
I roll my eyes but… a strong desire comes up and makes me, without questioning, without thinking, cup his face, bend over and kiss him lightly. It's fast, it's soft, and it's as sweet as the nectar we've been drinking. He doesn't have time to react, I break away from him before he can kiss me back. He blinks once, slowly, like a poor idiot, and half opens his lips as if he were going to say something that he has suddenly forgotten.
“Good luck,” I whisper. “Go, I'll come and help you as soon as I can."
I know he wants to kiss me, I know he wants to do it with all his might, but the fire in the window burns more intensely, impatiently, and makes Zagreus grunt in pain, take a deep, annoying, puff and turn towards the frame. I watch as he jumps outside gracefully, where the same enemies he has already destroyed again and again are waiting for him. I breathe out a sigh and wait to hear the terrible yet delightful sound of the shades screaming in frustration at being defeated. Then...
"Well, about time,"
Skelly's voice is mocking, but also sincere and definitely pleased. I look at him with some irritation and he winks at me again, with those strange red eyes of his. I decide to ignore him and I fade away.
And from the darknesses, I follow Zagreus’ path, waiting for him to need my help.