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“I know you’re not the same man as the one in my story.”
Emet-Selch schooled his expression as he was startled from his reverie by the strange visitor to Elpis. It was well past midnight as he nursed a long-since cold mug of tea, hidden away in a quiet corner of the visitors’ abodes. He had tossed and turned for hours that night, unable to find even the faintest semblance of rest, mind awhirl with the preposterous story the visitor had told them. Emet-Selch scoffed, waving a hand dismissively at the man in the doorway. “Your “story”, as you put it, is a ludicrous fabrication, so I hardly see that it matters how you’ve chosen to portray me.”
“It matters,” the visitor said as he took a seat opposite Hades. What little he could see of his face in the low light was tired and drawn, deep circles under his eyes and a slumped posture that betrayed a level of exhaustion that Hades wasn’t sure he himself had experienced. His nails were bitten short and ragged, catching on healing scabs on his hands as he fidgeted. “It matters because, for now, we are working together. It matters because every time I look at your face or hear your voice I need to remind myself that you’re not the person who committed those deeds, no matter how much you may resemble him. But you want to protect your people and I want to protect mine, thus for now our goals align.”
Emet-Selch looked up at this, fixing the visitor with a raised brow as he sipped his tea before setting it aside with a grimace. “You claim to know me, yet if you truly did you would know that I could never commit the atrocities you have described. If your tale is truth, surely with forewarning we can prevent this tragedy. Nothing is beyond the power of the Convocation. We would find another way,” he hissed, biting back the surge of disgust he felt for this creature before him, soul stretched thin and weak and powerless. There was no way he could understand the power the Convocation held, that all their people held. Maybe to him it was the end of days but it could be managed, would be managed. If it were the truth, Emet-Selch reminded himself.
The visitor fixed him with a sad, contemplative stare. “I know you, Hades. I know what you would do for those you love, even if you yourself do not.” With that, he stood, leaving naught but a tightly-wound coil of dread in Emet-Selch’s gut.
Where had the stranger learned the name Hades?