Chapter Text
Deep within the unrelenting darkness of Tartarus lies the occasional quiet fountain. It is here that the oft-injured Prince Zagreus takes a moment of respite from the wanton ransacking of his father’s realm.
Zagreus thought the old man was being unfair at this point. Could you really call it ransacking if everything in Tartarus was already dead?
Bright red blood streamed down his shoulder from a nasty numbskull bite. It coated his hands and made his grip on his sword slick and unsteady. Thank the gods he’d found his way to a healing fountain.
He stepped through the entrance, expecting the usual blissful silence, only to see that someone else had come to visit the fountain. A young woman sat on the edge of the nearby pools in an entirely black peplos, with bright gold pins at her shoulders. Her thick black hair ran wild. The sight almost reminded him of Nyx, perhaps as she had been in the beginning.
The young woman trailed her bare feet through the water. They were stained black, as if she’d been burned and left to char. She did not take notice of him. Zagreus cleared his throat; the sound echoing across the stonework. She made no sign that she’d heard him.
“Um… hello.” Zagreus ventured closer to the fountain. “I didn’t know anyone else visited these fountains. I’m—”
“Prince Zagreus.” Her voice sounded rough and broken in several places, as if she’d rarely had cause to use it. When she raised her head to look at him, he could see that her eyes were entirely, inescapably black. Streams of black tears ran down her face like spilled ink.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. Are you… are you alright?”
She lifted her feet out of the water, but made no move to stand. “You’re the one trying to break out,” she said.
“I… yes. I am.”
“Then you should be quick. No good can come from lingering in a place like this.”
“You mean a peaceful fountain where there aren’t any wretches out to kill me?”
“Too much silence can be worse than a battlecry, highness." Bitterness crept into the honorific as she said it. "Now, drink your fill and go.”
He found he could not find a reply, so he did as she said and returned to the dangers that awaited him. He racked his mind for who she could possibly be or why she might be in Tartarus of all places. Maybe Achilles would know.