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It's an itch in his skin, deeper than the surface, ever present. Sleep doesn't remove it, and it can't be scratched.
For a long, long time, he ignored it. Chatted with Achilles and Hypnos and Thanatos, avoided Hades the best he could, played with Cerberus to get his mind off it, but it's never gone. As sure as he breathes, as sure as he sees, it's there, always there. This sense of not belonging, and he looks at himself in the mirror of night and sees his eyes, one from Hades, and the other...
He looks nothing like Nyx, he thinks, after he found out. His other eye is nothing like Nyx.
And he listens to shades and looks out at Tartarus and gets licked by Cerberus. He argues with Hades, sleeps a lot, and looks more at Tartarus.
No one gets out of here. No one escapes.
But Achilles gifts him the shards of a sword long broken, and it sings to him. He's no blacksmith but with the sword's song in his heart, he weaves those pieces together, back until it is whole once more, and it sings its name to him.
Stygius , it sings, and beckons anew. With me you could take on the world. The Underworld.
And he starts to believe.
It's not an itch, it's an ache. It's consuming his waking hours, more and more of them spent training with Stygius, so right in the heft of his hands, swings falling perfectly as though its handle was designed for his palm. A stylus with which to carve his name on the world, but how? Whom does he fight?
Then he looks out on Tartarus, for a thousandth time. Death cannot be fought. Death is inevitable. The Styx only flows one way, all the way to House of Hades, landing at the foot of the master to be counted by Hypnos and join the hoards but-
Charon goes both ways. You are not bound to the whims of a river, you the god not yet, but soon. You, the son of Hades, Prince of the Underworld. With me, we can fell mountains, move tides.
We can go upriver .
Nyx knows. Nyx knows all, very few gaps in her far reaching knowledge, and she pulls upon forces he thought unattainable. He tells no one, not as he draws his last glance over the entirety of Tartarus and attempts to plot his path up, and out.
And he jumps, Stygius singing at his side, baying for blood, for mercy, for revenge, and thinks-
There is no escape. But when has he ever played by the rules? If they do not suit he shall write them himself, on the walls of Tartarus with the blood of his enemies, and he will be the one to escape.