Chapter Text
Megaera has been sent to the garden—what passes for the garden in the House of Hades. It’s all dreary moss and stone, nothing like the lush, verdant places the mortals call “gardens” on the surface, but that’s inevitable given the lack of light. It would take a tremendous amount of effort and probably magic to grow anything worthwhile around here, and no one has the time for that. Still, it’s peaceful—a respite from the House’s gloomy bustle without venturing all the way into foreboding Tartarus—and shades and chthonic deities alike use it for reprieve.
It’s currently occupied by Thanatos, Death Incarnate—at least according to his mother, Nyx. The information had come with an understated implication that Megaera should go out and introduce herself; Nyx has recently been insinuating that the two of them would make fast friends if only they sought out the time to meet each other. Easier said than done, given that both of them are frequently busy with their responsibilities to the Underworld and have little time to spare.
Still, Megaera has quickly come to understand how the Night Incarnate works. She is unfailingly serene, but she requires much from those around her, and her expectations and implications have a gravity all of their own. So here Megaera is, bare feet on soft moss, and there is Thanatos, floating about a foot above a good-sized rock with his legs loosely curled in front of him. He looks surprisingly young—Megaera herself resembles a mortal youth of just over ten years old, but Thanatos looks even younger. With one hand, he tucks his long white hair out of his face; in the other, he clutches a round shape of gray and gold and purple. He runs his thumb back and forth over the soft fabric, looking pensively into the brazier by the garden entrance.
“Hello,” Megaera calls, and Thanatos jumps. Or rather, he vanishes suddenly, the air sucking in around where he’d just been with a flash of green and gold. Megaera frowns. She’s not sure how she’s supposed to get to know Death Incarnate if he shifts away without giving her the chance to say two words. Before she can decide whether to head back indoors, though, a bell tolls somewhere and Thanatos reappears, standing in front of the rock now.
“Pardon me,” he says, his voice curiously flat. “I was startled.”
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Megaera informs him. She puts a hand on her hip and flares her wing. “I’m Megaera, First of the Furies. Nyx has been telling me that we should get to know each other.”
“Likewise. I’m Thanatos… but I guess you already knew that.”
“Yes.”
They stare at each other, neither sure what to do next. Frankly, Megaera has no experience with making friends. She has her sisters, of course, but there’s little hope of connecting with Tis, Alecto rejects every word Megaera says, and they haven’t heard from Aphrodite since the thunder-god took Olympus (not that there was any common ground there, either). Here, in the dark—in Nyx’s care—Megaera has begun to hope for something better, but that doesn’t mean she knows how to achieve it.
But if Thanatos didn’t want to talk to her, she supposes he’s just demonstrated that he could easily leave. And Nyx would want her to make an effort. So, with that in mind, Megaera ventures, “Is that a Mort you’re holding?”
“Oh. Yes.” Thanatos shows her the oblong shape, a rat plushie with a round purple nose and gold ears. It’s a Chthonic Companion, alike in size to the royal blue bat that Megaera lets dangle from a cord on her belt when she’s at home. She unties Battie now and walks forward to show her to Thanatos.
“I have one too,” she explains. “I like to carry Battie with me so she can see the House. I wonder if she and Mort know each other.”
But Thanatos’s brow furrows at that. “They’re stuffed animals,” he says, confusion in his voice.
Megaera feels heat come to her cheeks. “I know that,” she says. “I’m not a child.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I’m older than Lord Hades is.”
“So am I,” Thanatos responds evenly. “Although I notice we’re both carrying stuffed animals around.”
“And what of it?” Megaera snaps.
Thanatos frowns, his hand tightening slightly around Mort. “Nothing of it in particular,” he says. “Just… never mind.”
“Why are you carrying yours around with you?” Megaera challenges.
Thanatos pulls his feet up from the ground, floating easily. It makes him seem taller than Megaera, a fact which she ignores. He folds his arms. “I like having Mort with me while I work,” he says. “There’s just so much going on on the surface. Holding Mort helps me focus.”
“There is a lot going on up there,” Megaera agrees begrudgingly.
“And…” Thanatos hesitates. “Look, Mother wants us to be friends.”
“She does.”
“So you can’t laugh at this.”
No promises, Megaera wants to answer. It’s what Alecto would’ve said if Megaera made a similar request, and then she probably would’ve laughed on purpose. But Megaera doesn’t particularly want to be like her youngest sister. So instead she says, “I won’t.”
Thanatos uncrosses his arms to look down at Mort once more. “The mortals I go up there to fetch… They’re afraid of me. Even though I look so young. So, sometimes I wonder if Mort can help them be a little less afraid.”
There’s a hint of a gold flush to his cheeks, and he doesn’t meet Megaera’s eyes. She doesn’t feel like laughing, though. Some soft and sympathetic corner of her heart twinges as she looks at Death Incarnate. “You don’t want to lord over them, do you?” she says. “Like Mort did, in the fable.”
At that, Thanatos does look up, his eyes wide and cornered. “I… didn’t say that.”
“Am I wrong?”
Thanatos holds her gaze for a moment longer before dropping his eyes to Mort again. “I don’t know,” he confesses, speaking slowly. “I’ve thought a lot about that story, ever since Mother Nyx gave Mort to me. Sometimes it feels like it’s about me, but… a different version of me. Someone who needed to learn a different lesson, or…” He shakes his head, and his hair slips into his face. Aggravated, he tucks it back behind his ear. “Ugh, I’m not making any sense.”
“No… you are. I get it.” Now it’s Megaera’s turn to look downwards at Battie. Her stubby pink wings—no good for flying great distances—flutter as Megaera sighs. “I wonder the same thing about Battie’s fable, sometimes. You know I was born on the surface, right?”
“I know that much,” Thanatos says. “Not much more.”
“The rest isn’t really worth knowing.” It’s not a pleasant thing, to be born from the first great wrong in the world. Megaera’s adolescence had been a feral time, roving the Earth with her sisters in search of evildoers to torment just to contain the demands of the ichor burning within her. “The important part is that Nyx invited me—my sisters and me—to live down here. And I like it better here. I can hear myself think. Sometimes I wonder if the surface was too much for me, if I just belong here.”
“Don’t you work on the surface sometimes?”
“Sometimes, yes. But knowing I can come back here when my assignment is over helps. I like having somewhere to rest.”
“I see.”
Thanatos looks at her, his pale gold eyes serious. And it’s almost uncomfortable. She’s never mentioned this to anyone. (Certainly not to Nyx, to the Mother Night in the story who insisted that Battie not overextend herself in search of the wide world that fascinated her.) She tosses her hair and flicks her wing. “Of course,” she says, “Nyx may have just given me Battie because I like bats. I take care of the ones in Tartarus sometimes, when I have the time for it.”
“Hmm,” Thanatos says. “That could be. I don’t know if I have anything to do with rats, though.”
“What about mice?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
But she thinks she hears something in his voice—a faint humorous tone. Experimentally, she lets a smile quirk at the corner of her lips and proposes, “Maybe Nyx is telling you that you should have something to do with rats.”
“Maybe that’s it,” Thanatos responds, and now she’s sure she hears something wry and amused in his words. “I’ll keep that in mind. Unfortunately, I think I’d better get back to work, but… it was nice to meet you, Megaera the Fury. I hope our schedules align again sometime soon.”
“I hope so too,” Megaera answers, and at first the words are just polite; but as Thanatos shifts away without another word, she finds herself meaning them. Wanting to see him again, sincerely. She looks down at Battie and wonders again if she ever ran into Mort on her travels through the Underworld. Or if perhaps the two can become friends now.
*
Of course, the same old problem remains: they’re both tremendously busy. Their paths cross occasionally over time, but actual social opportunities are limited. More often, Thanatos brings one of Megaera’s assignments to Tartarus, or comes to pick up one of the mortals she’s been tormenting on the surface. And they only get busier once some kind of eternal winter begins up there. Thanatos spends his time fetching famine victims; Megaera, reprimanding those who respond to the famine with cruelty. (Someone has to. How else will the mortals learn to solve their problems with kindness?) Their duties and the steady beat of routine carry them forward without many chances to see each other deliberately.
And then a mortal king imprisons Thanatos, throwing the Underworld and the surface alike into disarray.
Carelessly, stupidly, Megaera doesn’t even know it’s happened until after Thanatos is rescued. Until Nyx and Hades and Hades’ queen from Olympus, Persephone, bring the wretched sinner to the edge of Tartarus for his sentencing. The three Furies stand together, pointedly ignoring each other as they listen to the long list of Sisyphus’s crimes. Megaera’s fingernails itch the moment she lays eyes on the miserable shade, and as Hades delineates his sins, the feeling only grows. But when he describes the way Sisyphus deceived and imprisoned Thanatos, Megaera stops hearing any of it. She stops breathing. Black creeps in at the edge of her vision, and her divinity mixes with personal rage to fill her with an icy, grasping power like she’s never felt before. She speaks as soon as Hades finishes his lecture.
“With your permission, Lord, I will oversee his punishment myself.” He raises one black eyebrow, and Megaera wonders if she misread his pause, if he’d intended to keep speaking. But he does not stop her or propose an alternate plan, so she continues. “The rest of my responsibilities can be redistributed to my sisters so that I might devote myself fully to this task.”
Tisiphone makes an annoyed rasp at that, and Alecto is even less pleased. “What,” she hisses. “I’m not doing your job, Meg, your people are so boring.”
“I’m sure you can find ways to entertain yourself,” Megaera answers without looking at her. If there’s anything Alecto’s good at, it’s entertaining herself with bloodshed.
Besides, it isn’t up to her; it’s up to Hades, whose eyes narrow in thought as he considers Megaera’s proposal. He glances towards Nyx—not to his queen, Megaera notices—and some unspoken signal passes between the two of them.
“Very well,” he says. “See to it that you are thorough, Megaera. The mortals must not believe that they can cheat death.”
“I absolutely agree, my Lord.” They will not harm Thanatos again.
At Megaera’s command and with some help from Nyx, the shade of Daedalus fashions a private cell for Sisyphus. The wretch is chained to a boulder. He was a lazy, scheming king in life; Megaera intends to keep him too busy to scheme any further in death.
After Nyx enchants the sloped wall of the cell, before she can leave, Megaera stops her.
“Nyx? Where’s Thanatos?”
Her voice is not quite impassive, never quite as impassive as Nyx unfailingly is. The Night’s answering smile is gentle and almost unbearable. “He is working on the surface,” she says. “Sisyphus prevented the completion of his duties for some time, and Thanatos is devoting his energy to catching up.”
“I see.” That makes sense. Hypnos, Thanatos’s twin whose domain is sleep, cannot take over his responsibilities as easily as Alecto and Tisiphone can Megaera’s, after all. Charon, another of Nyx’s sons, handles some of it, but from what Megaera has heard, no mortal life had ended while Sisyphus had Thanatos entrapped in his own chains. There must be a lot to catch up on. “When you see him,” she says, “please pass on my regards.”
Is it too formal? It doesn’t seem to capture the depths of Megaera’s concern, or how shamed and horrified she’d been to hear that a mortal had dared to hurt Thanatos so. But there is approval in Nyx’s smile. “I will do so, Megaera. Thank you for your dedication.” Megaera bows deeply, and Nyx departs. Then, with a deep breath, Megaera turns towards Sisyphus, taking out her whip.
“You,” she says, sounding far older than her appearance but never as old as she truly is, “are going to push this rock up this hill until I tell you to stop. And don’t expect that to happen anytime soon.”
*
And so Megaera slips into the unflagging rhythm of work once more, her focus wholly devoted to making sure Sisyphus regrets what he’s done. By the time Thanatos shifts into Sisyphus’s cell with no warning but the toll of a bell, Megaera feels like she’s been at this for an eternity that would fit on the edge of a coin. She isn’t sure she’s looked up from her work since Nyx left. But even the ache of her muscles powers her, because it’s a sign she’s doing what she’s supposed to be doing.
Thanatos looks the same as ever when he arrives, long white hair framing a youthful face and Mort tucked into his hood. Megaera is a little surprised, secretly, that he hasn’t aged at all; if someone had hurt her like they’d hurt him, she would have done everything it took to become an adult, dangerous and unconquerable. But maybe that’s what Mort would do, not Thanatos.
“Megaera,” he greets her, his face unreadable.
“Thanatos,” she says. “Wait here.”
With a flap of her wing, she lifts herself into the air and halfway up the hill, to where Sisyphus is struggling with his boulder. He’s near where he usually fails, and she doesn’t want that happening while Thanatos is here. With a snarl, she informs him that he isn’t welcome at the bottom of the hill right now; that there will be severe consequences if he slips. Severe-er than usual. The wretched king nods assent, struggling against the weight of his eternal burden, and Megaera descends again.
“He won’t interrupt us,” she swears to Thanatos.
Thanatos’s gaze flicks up the hill, and then back to her. He’s holding Mort in one hand now, fingers sunk into the gray fur and thumb worrying the softer texture of his belly. When he meets her eyes, his lips stretch briefly in a strained attempt at a smile.
“Thank you,” he mutters. “I’m… fine.”
She isn’t sure she believes him. “He’ll never dare to hurt you again, Thanatos. None of the mortals will, not when they hear what I’m doing to him.”
“You’re right, I think. Your sisters are getting the news out, and the mortals are… very scared of you.” He looks down at Mort. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to be sorry.” Megaera tosses her head, hair rippling across her back. “I don’t mind if they’re scared. They’re supposed to be afraid of me. That’s my job.”
“I see.” Thanatos’s eyes narrow. For a moment, he doesn’t say any more than that. But he doesn’t leave, either.
Feeling awkward under his stare, Megaera casts her gaze around the room. It… feels like she hasn’t looked around in a long time. There’s a family of bats in the corner, and Megaera wonders how long they’ve been stationed there, how long she’s failed to notice them. Has it been so long that these ones wouldn’t even recognize her?
Finally, Thanatos speaks again. “Even if it’s your job, you’re not just a terrifying force of vengeance, right?”
Megaera tears her eyes away from the bats. “As far as the mortals are concerned, I am.” Thanatos continues to look dubiously at her, and she says, “Seriously, it’s what I’m for, Thanatos. Living in the Underworld means I can take breaks when I need to, and I have somewhere to go home to, but when I’m at work, I need to be terrifying.”
He still doesn’t look convinced. “Just how long do you usually work, though? Mother says you haven’t been home since all of this started.”
“I don’t need a break right now,” Megaera says. Not directly an answer to his question, but she thinks it’s close enough. He doesn’t seem to. Her certainty falters as he eyes her still. Megaera just wants him to understand the feeling within her, the urgency and the rigid drive that pulls her down a single path, but it feels like he wants something else from her and she doesn’t know what. For a moment, there’s an awkward frustration between the two of them.
Then Thanatos sighs and tucks Mort back into his hood.
“Well, I don’t mean to sound too much like my brother, but make sure you rest sometime, all right? You can’t work yourself to death. I should know.” Is he making a joke? It lands oddly, and Megaera isn’t sure how to respond. After a moment of strange silence, he adds, “I need to get back to work.”
“Of course,” Megaera says. Although shortly after he shifts away, the boulder crashes down the hill with Sisyphus in tow, and Thanatos’s recommendation is driven out of her mind by the unending demands of her responsibility.
*
He keeps stopping by after that, in the coming years. At first, Megaera tries to explain that she has things under control, that she’ll never let Sisyphus become something to be feared again. But he insists that’s not why he visits. So then she considers the possibility that he wants to see a more active punishment carried out for his humiliation at Sisyphus’s hands. Thanatos does take her up on that offer, once, but he shifts away without a word before she puts her whip away, and she elects to not make the offer again. And still he visits.
“So you haven’t been back on the surface, this whole time?” he asks one time, a while later.
“No,” Megaera confirms. She’s left the cell a few times: Zeus had some grudges he wanted addressed, and the order came down to Megaera (she does not know whether from Nyx or Hades) to design their particular punishments. So she had, decreeing an eternity of unquenchable hunger for the cannibal Tantalus and torment upon a flaming wheel for the lustful hospitality-breaker Ixion. And because this makes them her responsibility as well, she occasionally checks on them. But she always comes back to this cell, to Sisyphus and his boulder. He treats her every absence as a reprieve, even if she makes him pay for it when he gets back, and she simply can’t allow that. She can’t. She swore to make him suffer eternally, and she won’t go back on her word.
Thanatos combs his hair back from his face with one hand. (Mort is stationed inside his lowered hood, and almost falls out, but Thanatos notices just in time to catch him and tuck him back into place.) He shakes his head as if chasing away an unpleasant thought. “I’m almost jealous,” he admits. “I’ve never been able to stand it up there, the sun and all the noise and the cold…”
“Still cold up there?”
“Constantly.”
“Hmph. I don’t miss that.” Not that warmth would have made it much more tolerable for her. “Too bad you can’t get a job working down here instead of up there.”
She expects a sigh of aggravation from Thanatos at that. They’ve reached the point, she thinks, where they can gripe about their duties and wish things were different, because at the end of the day or night both of them can be relied upon to do what needs to be done. But there’s something in Thanatos’s frown that doesn’t feel like solidarity.
“Is that what this is about?” he asks slowly.
“What what’s about?”
“This… focus of yours, on Sisyphus.” He crosses his arms tightly, looking at her face and then away. “It’s not just a way to avoid working on the surface, is it?”
“What?” Megaera stares at him, feeling herself go pale with indignation. “Of course it’s not. How dare you?”
“I didn’t mean it as an accusation,” he says mollifyingly, but Megaera’s not in the mood to be mollified.
“Is there something in the air today? Alecto was just here with her own ridiculous theory about why I’m doing this.”
“What was her thought?”
“It doesn’t matter. It was ridiculous.”
Even more ridiculous now that Thanatos has shown up and opened his mouth. Alecto thinks Megaera is focusing on Sisyphus at the expense of the rest of the Furies’ joint responsibilities because she fancies Thanatos. Which she doesn’t. Not like that. Megaera isn’t even sure that that’s something she’s capable of; she’s never felt any sort of inclination in that direction, and it’s not exactly the kind of feeling one expects from a deity of vengeance. Alecto had only asked, Megaera is sure, because if it had been true then it would have made prime ammo for needling her with.
“Why do I need a reason for this?” she demands of Thanatos now. “Sisyphus is a bastard and an evildoer. He knew before he died that he’d already earned this place many times over, and he tried to avoid his fate by targeting you. It’s my job to make sure that he regrets that for the rest of eternity, and that no one else is stupid enough to try what he tried.”
“I know.” Thanatos’s gold eyes burn in his face. “But as much as I’m grateful for your diligence, I never asked you to do this, Megaera. And I don’t think Mother Nyx did, either. She tells me you volunteered yourself.”
“Is there something wrong with that?” Megaera sneers.
“Not if you handle the task responsibly,” Thanatos retorts. “But I’m not sure you are. You’ve been out here for years. You haven’t returned to the House once. I understand this is your job right now, but… I thought there was more to you than just this. I thought you…”
He trails off, looking away abruptly. Megaera fights the temptation to stride forward and loom over him. “You thought I what?” she asks in a low voice.
“Never mind.” He shakes his head. And before she can assure him that she does, in fact, mind, he says, “I should go,” and shifts away so abruptly that he leaves the air trembling.
Megaera stares at the space he’s just vacated, agitation beating against the inside of her chest and the back of her teeth like an animal in a cage. He didn’t even leave her with a proper parting shot to fight back against. So she only stares, and then with stiff, jerky movements takes out her whip and makes her way over to Sisyphus. Back to her work. There is always more work to be done in the Underworld.
*
Sometime later—not very much later—Megaera sits rigidly in the lounge of the House of Hades, feeling the cautious hidden glances of the shades upon her back. They will have heard the lecture she just got. They know better than to stare, but Megaera will not reveal the way shame burns within her by glaring back at every hint of nervous curiosity. She directs her gaze instead at the Featured Houseservant board. At Thanatos’s face. The painter didn’t bother to conceal how uncomfortable Thanatos is sitting for portraits, and his image looks over the lounge with a grim, awkward attempt at a smile.
But if she resents the portrait, the arrival of Death Incarnate in person only leaves her feeling petulant. Thanatos tries to sit down at her table, and she scowls forbiddingly.
“Really?” she asks. “You think now’s the time?”
“Mother thinks now is the time,” he answers. “She told me I’d find you here.”
“Oh.” They look at each other for a moment, but Megaera has to admit, “I guess you’d better sit, then.”
“That was my thought,” he says, and he does. The shade working at the bar brings them each a cup of heavily watered wine and skitters away. Megaera drinks hers, not sure what exactly Nyx means for them to say to each other.
“You tattled, didn’t you? You had me recalled,” she says at last.
Thanatos grimaces over his own cup. “I don’t think I would put it that way, but yes. After our last conversation, I spoke to Mother Nyx.”
“And told her what?” Megaera grips the edge of her seat, looming forward. “That I’d taken that job to get out of going to the surface?”
“No.” There’s confusion in his voice. “Why would I say that? You told me that wasn’t the case.”
“…It wasn’t.”
And it wasn’t what Nyx had lectured her on, either, so truly Megaera had already known that Thanatos’s complaints must have lain elsewhere. She sits back in her chair, feeling like a reprimanded child.
With quiet urgency, Thanatos says, “I just told her that I was worried about you, Megaera. That I feared you were pushing yourself too hard.”
“...Tsch.” That is what the lecture had been about. About knowing her limits—recognizing when she needs a rest. If the lecture had come from anyone other than Nyx, Megaera would have insisted she knew how to do that. But apparently not.
Thanatos has Mort out again, ruffling the soft fur of his belly, and Megaera’s heart is seized with envy. She hasn’t seen Battie in so long. She didn’t even pay attention to the real bats while she was out there—generations of them, grown and died without her notice, without her care. All of a sudden her shame and embarrassment wear away, leaving a deep exhaustion, and she feels shaky and exposed. She wishes Thanatos weren’t here. She’s glad he is.
“I don’t understand what happened,” she says, putting weight into each word so that her voice doesn’t tremble. “I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.”
“But it was your own choice to—”
“I know. I don’t need more lecturing right now, Thanatos.”
He stops, conflict on his face. “I didn’t mean to lecture.”
She knows that too. Megaera shuts her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. She can’t get carried away. That’s the whole problem. She can’t let herself get carried away.
She opens her eyes again and tells Thanatos the truth. “When I heard about what Sisyphus did to you, I almost lost control. I was so angry for your sake. And for all this time, I’ve let that drive me. I called it responsibility and duty but it was self-indulgence the whole time.”
Thanatos speaks slowly when he answers. “I think I’ve known that,” he says. “I meant it when I said thank you back then, but…”
“But I got carried away,” Megaera finishes for him. She gives a faint derisive laugh. If only she’d ever been a real child, someone who’d had time to make mistakes before they mattered rather than sitting here in this strange in-between. If only she had Battie with her: confident, curious Battie who worked herself to exhaustion without ever realizing it. She sighs and doesn’t look at Thanatos. “Remember when we talked about our fables?” she asks.
“Yes, I remember.”
“I think this was me flying too far,” Megaera admits.
Thanatos doesn’t have anything to say to that. And, honestly, Megaera doesn’t need him to say anything. But he stays at the table with her, and she’s glad for that.