Chapter Text
Hundreds of purple, translucent butterflies follow in Death’s stead, waiting for the next soul to join their group. Thanatos hardly ever lets the horde get this big before dropping them off, but he’s in a hurry. Zagreus—he can feel the Prince tearing his way out of Elysium, probably suffering through Theseus’ many monologues by now. Rarely is the duo of man and bull victorious over Zagreus these days, so Thanatos expects he will be on the surface soon enough. Then he’ll die, again, probably by something ridiculous; again.
And Thanatos wants to know all about it. He wants to sit on the chaise the Prince so graciously had ordered for him, and rest, listen to his naive lover go on about the happenings of the small patch of mortal realm he’s able to travel to. And correct him, if need be. The man hardly knows what a snake is, despite his best friend having many of them atop her green head.
“Idiot,” Thanatos sighs, lovingly, and the reaped souls flutter across his shoulders, attracted to the softness in his heart despite fearing him for most of their lives. The tug at his chest is dull, meaning death is close but not quite ready. It’s only when he’s late that the screams become unbearable, their threads taught and strained, ripe enough for the Fates to cut.
Thanatos should take these home, then, if he is not needed at the moment. Someone is bound to start whining for him once he drops them off; might as well take a short break away from the sun. He’s beginning to feel ill.
Preparing to shift, he gestures for the souls. They crowd around him, blanketing him, quiet and soft in the way some latch onto his skin and clothing. A few perch upon his scythe, and Thanatos swats at them—kindly, of course.
“I need that,” he murmurs, and the small creatures shift to sit atop his hand instead. Not any less inconvenient, but he cradles them to his chest anyway, picturing the Underworld and welcoming its darkness.
As soon as he feels the pull of the Underworld drawing him in, something plucks at his conscience, like a tap on the shoulder. Not a scream, nor a cry, just...something else. An acknowledgement of sorts, so tiny and small, as if to say ‘I’m over here’. It’s so distracting it breaks his focus, pulling him in a different direction. He can’t stop it; his wings have sprouted and he’s shifting, dragging the souls with him. In a quick flash of green and a few waves of nausea, his feet land on what he hopes to be the familiar marble flooring of the House. It’s not.
On the soles of his feet, Thanatos recognizes the grainy feel of wood; a cheap and easier alternative for mortals and their homes. And upon opening his eyes, he is in one; a mortal home. A small, rundown cabin. Not the worst he’s seen, but certainly not the best. It’s simple, cozy even, despite layers of dust. With the amount of fur rugs and blankets, he can imagine this place would be useful during the upcoming winter months. But as it is nearing the end of summer, the temperature in the little house is close to unbearable. It’s difficult to breathe, and Thanatos waves his hands, urging the restless butterflies to make some space. They do, scattering around the cabin with curious flaps of their wings.
Curious himself, Thanatos wanders for a bit, following that strange feeling from before, which has grown from a small tap on his shoulder to blunt and harsh jerks to his chest. It leads him to the other side of the home, towards what he assumes to be the kitchen, the space so limited it only took a second to float over there. And in the middle of the cramped space is a makeshift cradle, blankets splayed open. Leaning over it, Thanatos’ eyes widen, a strange sensation blossoming in his chest.
“A baby?” he muses, and the quiet of his words manage to capture the attention of the wayward souls. They flock to his side, crowd around him and the ominous cradle.
Thanatos...doesn’t deal with babies. Older children, occasionally, but not babies. They are too young and underdeveloped to stay in the underworld, where they will continue to stay as they are with no one to help them grow. They were like pets and animals in that way; Death didn’t reap them, and neither did his sisters. Upon their grave, they just simply stopped existing. Gone.
Why, then, is Thanatos drawn to this one? Even as he leans down further, studying the sleeping child, he can clearly see that it is breathing. Perfectly healthy. Not a single thread out of line. So why…?
Just then, the child awakens, moving its little arms as if it wants to scrub its eyes but doesn’t know how. Scrunching its nose, the baby blinks once, then twice. Gold meets gold, one doey and bright and new to the world, the other a cold pale, dulled from centuries of living. Thanatos can’t breathe.
Was gold a normal color for mortals? And...could this one see him? No. That’s impossible. No mortal could see Death until it was their time to go, until Thanatos had the authority to reap their souls into the form of a butterfly, like the ones—
Like the ones currently dancing around the child’s head, eliciting a joyish gurgle sound that Thanatos assumes is supposed to be some kind of laugh. The majority of the dead souls stay put, seemingly peering over Death’s shoulder, too nervous and not as bold as the few who twirl around the human child.
Thanatos frowns. “Stop that.”
He isn’t sure which he is referring to—the child or the dancing souls—but both stop nonetheless. To his amazement, the baby peers its big eyes up at him again.
“How?” Thanatos grips the sides of the cradle and pulls himself closer, hovering horizontally over it. Scanning the child from head to toe, he searches for an answer, for a hidden clue of the Fates. “How can you see me? And them?”
His only answer is a high-pitched coo as the tiny mortal stares at him dumbly, spreading its fingers in a way that only someone who didn’t know how to use them would. It reaches out for him, almost touching his nose, and Thanatos rears back with so much force he nearly hits the ceiling, the cradle teetering back and forth from the sudden push. Thanatos is swift to float back down and stabilize it, an automatic apology on his lips for such ill-mannered behavior. But the child, having not understood what just happened, sets forth the most expressive frown Thanatos has ever seen.
Its golden eyes squeeze shut.
“Nono, shush,” Thanatos tries, leaning closer once more, but it’s too late; the tears have fallen, and the most heartbreaking sound rips from the child’s surprisingly strong set of lungs. It wails, and it’s like Thanatos can feel its hurt, its loneliness, right underneath his ribs, pushing against them. It tears at his own soul, and he wants nothing more than to coddle the baby as his own mother once coddled him. He almost reaches for the tearful creature, but quickly pulls back.
He can’t. He can’t physically touch mortals. Not ones who are fated to live longer. And this little one, as far as Thanatos can tell, has an abundance of life left in it.
But whatever Thanatos can’t touch, the butterflies can, and they swarm the crying child as if showing Thanatos what must be done to soothe it. They twirl in its dark hair, nuzzle its neck, even fluttering upon the child’s nose. It is amusing watching the baby use it’s harmless arms to swat and bat at the gentle creatures tickling its face, even more so at the frustrated whine as it grows more annoyed than scared. What isn’t amusing, though, is the wetness in the child’s eyes and the helpless pout upon its lips. The urge is stronger now, the urge to pick the baby up and cradle it in the arms of Death, soothe it’s cries with slender fingers instead of the ticklish flutter of tiny wings.
Maybe...maybe Thanatos can use his gauntlet? Perhaps just to catch the tears running down the sides of the mortal’s face, probably flooding its tender ears. It is Thanatos’ bare skin that harms humans, afterall. This he knows purely by accident. But his gauntlet—
Before he can act on the idea, he picks up a nearby voice. No, voices. Talking, right outside the cabin, growing louder and louder.
“...can hear…it can’t be.”
A male voice, and the other—
The entrance to the home opens, followed by a hissing “shut up!” as a man and woman march through with heavy steps. Thanatos barely acknowledges them, only breaks his attention away from the crying baby for a second. He spares them a short glance—just regular mortals, nothing special—before returning to his main concern. The child grew louder, more frightened, but if its parents have arrived, perhaps it was time for Thanatos to go.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, and this time he does reach into the cradle, the harmless butterflies scattering and making room, some latching onto his gauntlet as Thanatos catches a tear with one of its claws. The child quiets into sniveling whines, curiosity getting the better of it as it stares wide eyed at the shining silver against its face. Thanatos almost smiles. He hovers close, peering into the golden orbs one last time. “It’s okay. Your parents are here.”
“No.”
If it weren’t for the souls’ abrupt shift in movement, Thanatos would have thought the child spoke. He does, for a split second, staring wide-eyed at the bundle before him, but he only receives babbled nonsense in return. Then the child’s eyes shift along with the butterflies, no longer interested in Thanatos’ gauntlet but instead pausing somewhere above him, where the souls have since resided, curling around him in waves, as if protecting him. Protecting the child.
Thanatos can feel his skin prickling.
Reluctantly, he retracts his covered hand and straightens, ignoring the miniscule fingers yearning to catch his gauntlet as he pulls it away.
I’ll be right back, he wants to say; anything to keep the loneliness from creeping back into those innocent eyes. But he can feel...something is wrong.
He finally turns towards the voice from before, and barely has enough time to move out of the way of a furious woman, the souls scattering as she practically runs right through them.
“No, no, no, no! How! ”
Thanatos’ shoulders twitch as the woman clutches the cradle so harshly the wooden support creaks under her grip.
“Is he—?” another voice says, and Thanatos watches as a man shuffles behind her, almost scared. Thanatos hadn’t bothered with them earlier; he had taken their entrance as a sign for his departure. Now, though, he observes their plain dress, and the travel bags draped over their shoulders.
“He’s still alive!” The woman cries, voice breaking into an angry shriek. “Cursed wretch! Why don’t you leave us?” She rattles the cradle, violently , and the man rushes to her side as if he couldn’t believe what she had just said. He peers over the woman’s shoulder, and as the child begins to cry once more, Thanatos struggles to hear what the man says next, his words quiet and afraid.
“That’s not possible...we’ve been gone for weeks.”
Death has never allowed anger to hit him so swiftly. He has succumbed to frustrations on a whim, yes, but anger? It was always slow to take him, building up over a week's time at most, gradually prodding at his patience and his feelings. Even when his love had taken to leaving the Underworld without so much as telling him, Thanatos could recall feeling betrayal first, then sadness and loneliness and finally, after a time of frustration, anger. But never has he been so incised that it was uncontrollable, overtaking the very foundation that coined him the name Gentle Death.
As he exists in this mortal home, invincible to all but one, he can feel rage coursing through his very being, boiling the golden ichor that deemed him a god. He is hyper aware of everything, of the clothes on the man and woman’s backs, the dirty sacks of cloth wrapped around their shoulders, and the month old dust lingering in the house. The isolated anguish in the child’s eyes.
Understanding dawns on him, unrelenting in the ways in which it crushes his chest and constricts his lungs.
He wills himself to the mortal realm, solidifying his figure until his shadow overtakes the two mortals and darkness blankets the windows, blocking Apollo and anyone else from witnessing the wrath of Death. Even the souls bound to his being try desperately to fly away, some fluttering to shield the child from what is to come. Death’s fury is wild and untamed, corrupt and smiling at the pervasive smell of fear. He yearns to see it on the faces of those he hates, but his patience is wearing thin. Thanatos can’t stand to allow these two wretches to live a second longer.
“Forgive me, sisters,” are his final words, an apology to the Fates for ruining their fine work before raising his scythe.