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The Great Hall is empty.
And no one else seems to notice. Or, maybe they don’t care? Lord Hades nearly seems grateful for it, one stack of paperwork notably smaller than the other where usually it’s vice-versa. Mother Nyx is nowhere to be found, not unusual, and the Queen is in her garden, tending to it, something she does not usually have the time for when the line of unsorted souls trails all the way to the pool of the Styx. There is no line, though. There are no translucent turquoise travelers waiting for judgment in the decadent hall of the dreaded House. There are no Dead.
Hypnos notices, and it’s unusual for him, to notice, but he’s new-ish to his job as Greeter and the lack of a line makes him jittery, not relaxed as it maybe should. He should relish the break, shouldn’t he? Should relish being able to doze off, to enter his poppy fields of dreams without fear of his boss booming a command at him. Isn’t he practically the god of breaks?
But still, something is not right. Because no line means that something along the chain of cause and effect and subsequent death and afterlife is not where it should be, that maybe it’s broken in a place or two, and Hypnos’ family is so very, very involved in that chain. They’re practically present on every wrung of it, essence melted into the metal. Lord Hades, Queen Persephone, they only see the end of the chain, the dangly bit that hangs into their domain. They deal with only the last wrung. It’s the children of Night herself that have bent each of the metal rings together, that keep them intact.
Hypnos had never been a part of that chain. Death and Sleep are inexorably linked— mortals call them cousins wherein fact they’re twins. But Hypnos does not deal in death nor the ferrying of souls to the foul House. Not until recently, upon his appointment to his new position at his mother’s behest. Something about teaching him responsibility. Hypnos was just happy to be a new link in the chain that was his family. Just happy to be here (someone has to be).
Something is not right. Souls are not entering the house.
He asks Lord Hades about it. You should be grateful for the temporary respite, little god of dreams. It may be the only one we have for the rest of eternity. The former Olympian doesn’t look up from his paperwork.
He asks Queen Persephone about it. Oh, Hypnos, you’re doing a fine job in your new position! Don’t worry yourself over it— I’ll put in a good word for you to my lord husband, alright? She throws him a playful little wink that maybe would have been reassuring if something wasn’t wrong with death’s chain.
He tracks down his mother in the deepest reaches of the House, and he feels more tired down here, closer to his maker and his nature, and yet if there is anyone in the House who must understand that something is not right, it’s her. But she fixes him with the same distant expression as always and tells him in her quiet and all-surrounding voice, you must trust your siblings to do their jobs, my child, just as I am now trusting you to do yours. Not all of you lack such internal motivation to solve your own problems. I trust it will be sorted out in time, on their own.
The jab doesn’t hurt— it’s the truth, after all. What does hurt is that she so clearly sees that something is wrong and yet still does nothing. He feels like his chest may burst as he leaves back for the main floor.
He should be able to relax. He is always able to relax. But something is not Right. And so he seeks out who he thinks will be his easiest sibling to find.
Charon the Boatman leans against his oar, planted firmly on a bone-carved dock as his long, empty boat sits idly next to him in the River Styx. Charon hardly ever has time to lean.
Even so, relief floods the sleep god’s chest at the sight of his older brother, reassured, at least, that one link of the chain is indubitably in-tact. “Brother! So good to see you— you don’t happen to know why, uhhh, no one’s dying, do you? Or, are people dying and maybe you’re just finally learning how to slack on the job?”
“Ouuuuuuggggghhhh,”
“Okay, okay, not slacking on the job, I gotcha! So then, uh,” Hypnos shifts on his feet, kicking idly at a nearby human skull. It plops into the Styx, creating a ripple of red in otherwise still water. “Do you know? What’s happening?”
His older brother pauses, head tilting slowly to the side, like he’s listening, or thinking, and Hypnos waits patiently for a reply. “Hnnnnnnnnnnggg…”
“Checking in with Hermes? About the surface?” Hypnos supposes that makes sense. Charon himself spends little time up there compared to his Olympian associate, and it would be important in establishing where along the chain things are going so wrong. Maybe mortals are just doing really well right now. “Maaaaybe I can come…?”
But Charon shakes his head with two great sweeps of his wide-brimmed hat, which Hypnos expected, but which still somehow hurts, just a little, and without even another guhhhhhhh Charon steps back onto his boat and is off with a wave of his oar.
Standing alone on the dock besides the House of Hades, Hypnos wishes, not for the first time, that Thanatos were here.
He retreats back into the house, for there is nothing else to be done, and minds his station, though there are no souls to register. He wants to doze off, at this point. He wouldn’t mind a brief snooze, at least as respite from the current feeling of Wrong flooding his chest like the great river Phlegethon. But the flooding is too much, and the flooding feels, distantly, like it’s also becoming a pulling. A pulling? Towards what?
The God of Sleep closes his eyes, tries to focus on the feeling, but it’s just barely there, escapes his fingers like he’s trying to hold water. He huffs, tries again, and still there is nothing. Mother might know what the feeling is, but what had she told him? Trust it will be sorted out? He should at least try that, he supposes. There is no reason not to trust it will be sorted out.
Well, no reason other than the Wrongness. And the slight unease Charon held himself with on the docks. And now the Pulling.
Eventually Hypnos does manage to live up to his namesake and drift off, though not as deeply as he thinks he should be able to, not as comfortably as his mind usually allows, not as restful as his field of poppies and his dark cave he visits between spells of wakefulness. That tugging feeling is worse here, but for the sake of trusting it will be sorted out he does not dare follow it. Not here.
The next time he wakes, Charon is back outside the House on the docks. Hypnos is the sole occupant that goes to greet him (and what an excellent greeter he is). “Oh, you’re back! What did Hermes say?”
He’s genuinely surprised when none other than Hermes himself steps off the boat from behind Charon in place of the Boatman answering. The wing-footed god steps lightly, nearly seeming to glow amidst the dreary half-light of the Underworld. Somehow Hypnos feels sleepier just looking at the Olympian, buzzing with energy as he always seems to be.
“Why, if it isn’t Lord Hypnos,” the god hums, twirling his Caduceus idly before planting the end of it firmly in the ground. Despite being far from his domain, Hermes gives off a perfect air of confidence, of I-Belong-Here-ness. And he does, Hypnos reminds himself. Of all the current Olympians, Hermes is the only one to bother with the Underworld, god of boarders and boundaries that he is. The only one to count himself among the chain links. “It’s been a long while. Word on the river is you got a promotion recently.”
“I did, I did!” Hypnos sings back, though he can’t keep a note of jitter out of his voice. If Hermes is here, if whatever is happening on the surface is serious enough for an Olympian, psychopomp or not, to venture this close to the House, this couldn’t be good news.
There’s no hiding anything from the God of Trickery, and his smile falls as quickly from his face as it appeared, its usefulness spent. He throws a glance to Charon, who merely nods, and Hermes takes a half-step forward. “Listen, is your boss in? Urgent business.”
“Erm, he may have been at his desk? I didn’t check, but um, wait, wait, actually!” Hypnos waves his hands around, spurred on by urgency. “I need to know! What’s happening. I need to know what’s happening! …Charon?” He turns to his older brother with what he hopes is a convincing enough look. The Wrongness demands it.
Both psychopomps pause, another glance is exchanged, and, much to Hypnos’ relief, Charon nods again. Hermes runs his tongue over his teeth, a quick movement, like a beast preparing to strike. “The thing is, Lord of Sleep, someone’s not doing their job up on the surface. Like, really not doing their job. The mortals, they’re…” he pauses, a rare stretch of silence for the god, taps his foot twice, continues, “…well. You provide them a service too, don’t you? Don’t you feel it?”
Hypnos certainly feels something. Is it from the surface, from mortals he provides with sleep and dreams and respite and peace? Since moving into the House with his mother, he’s been farther from the surface than his cave by the Lethe was, and so prayers and offerings and good dreams from the surface drift to him less often than they used to, though he always felt confident in his ability to do his job just as well from all the way down here. But, now? He’s certainly still doing something right. He can feel them asleep, can feel their dreams warm and fuzzy in the cavity of his abdomen, same as always, as easy as sleeping usually is. That’s not what’s wrong here. He pushes deeper, feels his connections to mortals like a thread, and closes his eyes.
All at once, Hypnos understands.
There is a YANK as millions of souls SCREAM.
They’re screaming for release they’re screaming for guidance they’re screaming because they’re stuck, held fast to their rotting corpses, left behind, dead but not, not dead in a way that is wrong wrong wrong wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong WRONG—
Hypnos’ eyes fly open. He doubles over. He gasps.
And Hermes and Charon watch, mouths hard lines, a gravity now felt by all.
After another moment of catching breath he didn’t think he needed, Hypnos glances up at the two, all startled eyes and heavy limbs. “They aren’t dying.”
“They aren’t dying,” Hermes repeats, as solemn as Hypnos has ever heard him. “And it’s not from my brother War, my Lord. Nor your sisters Strife nor the Keres.”
“Peaceful deaths.”
“Yes.”
“Thanatos.”
“Yes.”
Hypnos feels like the ceiling of great Tartarus may collapse, that the flames of River Phlegethon from Asphodel above should come spilling down onto them, that the River Lethe may follow after in a grand collapsing that will wash away this Wrongness and lull them to forget. His river, that had always been Hypnos’ river. With Sleep comes Forgetfulness. But there is no washing away this Wrong, not when a chain link has disappeared entirely. Thanatos does not slack off. Thanatos is not late.
The Twin of Sleep will not sort this out on his own. If he were to, it would already be done.
“Don’t tell Lord Hades,” Hypnos hears himself say, and in his ears it sounds distant, but loud, like Mother’s voice. “I think, I…” something eases slightly in his chest. Yes, this is the right thing to say. “I think I’m supposed to find him?”
He expects some pushback. Naturally. He doesn’t have a reputation as a reliable servant of the House, however recent the promotion. He sleeps, often, and he lounges, nearly as often, and he gets distracted, nearly as often as that. Pushback would be justified. He doesn’t even bother bracing for it.
Instead, Hermes looks to Charon, and Charon looks to Hypnos, and after a long moment, the Stygian boatman nods exactly once.
It’s hard keeping the excitement to himself, because now hardly seems the time, but despite himself a huge smile briefly threatens to split the God of Sleep’s face. “I know just where to start, you leave it to me, those mortals will be dead before you know it! Wait, well—” backtrack, hang on— “the mortals that are supposed to be dead, of course!”
“Hnnnnnnng—”
“I know, I know,” he waves his brother off with a huff, then turns to Hermes, who has been standing there watching them both with a newly returned grin. “Er, Lord Hermes, thanks for the visit, and I’m sure your work will be picking up again reaaaal soon! Because I,” he jabs a thumb at his own chest with pride, “am going to go take a nap.”
~ {+} ~
He hadn’t returned to his cave in his corporeal form in quite some time.
It’s a favorite spot of his to go in his sleep, to visit when he drifts off to his own special domain. And yet being there in body, in person, is different. Stronger.
It sits between two branches of the River Lethe not far from where they split, a misty, rolling water that splashes up onto its banks in a gentle way. Forgetting is ever so gentle. No shades visit this part of Elysium, a spot just for a young Hypnos, and poppies red as mortal blood spring up in beautiful bunches all around the mouth of the cave, which is so dark there is no difference between closed eyes and open.
Not that Hypnos needs to see in here. He knows the layout of the cave better than he knows the shape of his own form. He steps off Charon’s boat with a quick thanks and a wave, traverses his sacred poppies with bare feet, and enters the cool darkness. His obsidian bed is not hard to find from there, and when he lays down his head, his namesake comes almost instantly.
He hadn’t always been alone in here. Thanatos used to come to visit him. They were closer, once, before sacred duty pulled them gradually apart. They would spend impossibly long nights here (or, whatever counted as night in the Underworld), admiring the Darkness their mother had created, staring off into it and talking quietly for hours as the river flowed lazily outside. Hypnos misses that. That is what he thinks of, of his brother’s voice in the Darkness, nigh above a whisper, as he drifts off into slumber.
And then, he is Everywhere. And so is the Wrongness, the Pull, and he feels now that it is not just a pull from mortals above, and he knows this because it is also coming from below. Above there are the screams of the stuck souls, even louder and more numerous now, but below… something softer, gentle. The wingbeat of butterflies. A brother’s whisper. White hair like dried bone and stardust. And a fear so sudden and so aching that Hypnos wakes up with a start, sits straight up in the obsidian bed, curls plastered with sweat to his forehead. He knows where to go.
~ {+} ~
His brother is in Tartarus. So close, all this time! What a fool Hypnos is!
But you’re the only one looking, a little voice that sometimes feels hurt by his mother’s objectively true observations tries to argue, but now isn’t the time, anyways. Hypnos has a very important job to do. He’s following a gentle pull that is becoming less gentle as he goes. Tartarus is an ever-shifting labyrinth of tortured shades and terrible conditions, of howls of pain and screams for mercy, but Hypnos doesn’t care about that. His brother is scared. His brother needs his help. His bare feet slap the stone floor as he navigates the maze with divine ease, for it is faster than floating, and any wretch unfortunate enough to feel that now is the time to enact revenge on a Chthonic deity for their eternal punishment collapses in a fitful state without even a second glance. Hypnos has a very important job to do. His brother needs his help.
The pull leads him further into the depths of Tartarus. Hypnos has never been this far into the lowest floor of the Underworld, at least not outside of Charon’s boat. The Styx does not flow through this part of Tartarus, deep pits in the ground filled instead with the flickering green of the eternally damned. The pull is getting unbearably strong, a tug or a yank, so much so that Hypnos is nearly stumbling. He has a job to do. He has a job to do. Fix the chain. Save his brother. Fix the chain. Save his brother.
The Fear and Wrongness are practically blinding by the time Hypnos enters the next chamber, and he knows instantly that he is Here. There are no other souls in this room, it is quiet, and it is empty, and that does not happen in Tartarus. This is where the Wrongness is. In fact, it’s in the pit ten yards from where the God of Sleep stands. He does not feel in control of his own legs as they bring him forward. Step. Tug. Step. Tug.
When Hypnos looks down into the pit, several interesting things happen at once.
The first is that he finds his brother.
Thanatos, God of Death, Twin of Sleep, is crumpled in the center of pit, which sits ten meters deep, wide, and long. He is crumpled, and he does not move, and his long stardust hair is splayed out around him as if he were sleeping, and Hypnos knows he is Not Sleeping. He is crumpled, and he is chained. Golden chains, familiar, safe, supposed to be safe, are pinning his arms tightly to his side, are holding his legs together, are wrapped around him in a way that is wrong, wrong, Wrong.
The other thing that happens is that Hypnos whites out.
Well, maybe he does, he thinks he does, for there’s no better way to describe the flash of blinding light that knocks him off his feet, the way his head spins, the way he is falling, because— wait, no. No, he is still awake. That is not what happened.
What happened was something that has not happened in so long that Hypnos had forgotten the sensation of it. Mistaken it for falling. Hypnos is not falling. Hypnos is flying.
Hypnos is flying, and he lands in a hail of white feathers and soft down next to his brother, and does not have time to think on that further as his hands fumble for—
No, that will not work, his hands go to the chains and it hurts, of course it hurts, those chains are meant to bind the worst of the worst, to drain and to hurt and to contain until arrival at the House. And now they ensnare his brother, his poor, dear brother, who is Not Sleeping, who now, up close, Hypnos can see is coated in the black ichor of Chthonic blood, can see the places where the chains press into skin so hard that bones have shattered under pressure. Hypnos rips his hands away from those golden chains, and he whines, frustrated, scared, he has to help, he has to help, his poor brother, his poor poor Thanatos—
Something whispers off to his left. Hypnos turns his head. Thanatos’ scythe lies discarded on the ground.
Its purple eye is staring at Hypnos.
Hypnos has never laid hands on Thanatos’ scythe before.
It’s a mindless task, in the end. He grabs for it, and before he can think anything through, how he is supposed to sever chains so tight they break bone with a weapon so large, said weapon is moving on Her own, and She frees her Master in one full arch of a swing, and Thanatos’ golden chains of binding explode into a thousand individual rings.
What is there left to now do but hold his brother? To cradle his head in his lap?
“Thanatos?” Hypnos whispers, for nothing but a whisper feels appropriate suddenly in this horrible place. He holds his brother’s head in his hands, gently, turns it to the side, looking for something, anything, everything. His scythe has been set again to the side. “Thanatos,” he repeats. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you, Thanatos.” He runs a thumb across his brother’s bloody forehead, trying to get the long strands of white off his closed eyes. A feather lands where Hypnos’ thumb was.
All at once, Thanatos’ golden eyes snap open, and he sits up so suddenly that Hypnos lets out a surprised yelp. The God of Death doubles over, clutches his chest and hisses, and Hypnos thinks, for the first time, what the Pull from above must feel like for his twin. If Hypnos could hear the to-be-dead screaming, then they must be shattering the eardrums of Thanatos.
He’s right, he’s sure he’s right, because Thanatos is trying to push himself from Hypnos, is trying to stumble to his feet despite the injuries to his form, despite dried and fresh ichor and dark bruises on pallid skin. “—need me, gods, need me, stuck, they’re stuck, I can’t—” he’s stuttering, reaching for the nearby scythe, but Hypnos thinks he knows what to do, instead. Another thing that feels Right, today, amongst the Wrong. A wing, white, impossibly soft, shoots out to block Thanatos’ path, and when his injured brother turns to face his twin with wild eyes, as if noticing him for the first time, Hypnos just gives him his sleepiest of smiles.
“Rest now, brother. It’ll be alright.”
And with that, with a Rightness, Thanatos’ eyes slip closed again, and he lands on the soft down of a brother’s gentle wing. Sleep cradles Death and weeps.
~ {+} ~
In the end, it’s Hermes that catches the escapee. A king of some polis who had angered the Olympians enough for them to get Thanatos involved in his capture. Hermes had caught him halfway out the Temple of Styx after deceiving Death and fancying himself properly out of danger by then. What an idiot, Hypnos thinks, without remorse, as he watches the Furies lead him into the Hall, bound by in-tact chains and the threat of whips. Hermes had dropped the king off at the docks by the House with a rueful wave, then had thrown Hypnos an extra wink meant only for him. He could definitely understand what Charon sees in the god, in that moment.
News of Thanatos’ capture and subsequent return spread through the House faster than Hypnos had thought possible. Even without the steady flow of souls, Hypnos had felt like every set of undead eyes were on him when he had Blinked back to the House with his sleeping brother in tow, his wing vanishing as soon as he understood that he and his brother were safe. Mother Nyx had taken Thanatos away to the recesses of the House without another word, urgency in her step, while Hades did what he did best and demanded an explanation, which Hypnos was too happy to provide, even if his Lord and Master didn’t appreciate the God of Sleep getting sidetracked every other sentence.
Now, the trial of the mortal who attempted to cheat death is in full swing, and yet Hypnos finds he can not stay focused. It is not due to a still-present pull of mortals above, made slightly better by Charon, Hermes, Ares, and a few of Nyx’s other children apparently working together in the interim of Thanatos’ recovery. They’ve been doing their best with soul reaping, enough so that the occasional distressed or disgruntled soul is arriving somewhat steadily at the basin of the Styx again. No, nor is it due to Hypnos already knowing the full story as Hades recounts it for evidence, apparently not trusting Hypnos to do a well enough job with the retelling, which is fair. He knows he should be paying attention, that the punishment of this man is something he should care about, this man that tricked and hurt and bound and left his twin, and yet. And yet.
A gentle pull, a butterfly’s wings. Hypnos is drawn, again, to a space below, and when he slips away from the trial occurring in the Great Hall, no one notices his absence.
He descends down into the depths of the House, where the children of Nyx keep their quarters dark and quiet, undisturbed by the upstairs hustle and bustle of the already-dead. Down he floats, deeper still, until the gentle pull brings him to the curtained entrance of his twin brother’s room.
Hypnos has never bothered knocking before, and certainly won’t be starting now, so he does what he does best and inserts himself somewhere he probably shouldn’t; he enters his brother’s room.
There are no walls, not like the upstairs rooms, and yet Hypnos understands it to be singular room, as always, the Dark of Night expanding in all directions, the twinkle of something like starlight lighting up the space with a gentle purple glow. Thanatos is awake, sitting up in his bed, reading a parchment of paper. He looks up at Hypnos’ arrival.
Hypnos does what any rational twin brother would do and takes a running leap onto Thanatos’ plush bed, the owner of which groans in annoyance, scooting out of the way as to not be landed on. A very normal and Right interaction.
“How are you feeling?” Hypnos chimes once he’s settled on his belly, kicking his legs up behind him and resting his chin in his hands. It’s like they’re kids back in the cave again. If Hypnos ignores the circles under his brother’s eyes, the still-healing bruises and marks littering his corporeal skin. Yeah, if he ignores those.
To his credit, Thanatos sounds just as annoyed as he always has. “I was feeling fine, restful even, until you entered. How is it the god of rest has that effect, do you suppose?”
Hypnos purses his lips and gives a rare scowl. “You were not resting! I saw you reading something!”
“I said I was feeling restful, not that I was resting.”
“What were you reading?” Hypnos sings, rolling over onto his back and looking at his brother upside-down, now.
Than glances down at the parchment, now set off to his side, and he looks tired, and small, and Hypnos is reminded of a crumpled form at the bottom of a pit. “Reports. From Charon. Just about how… things are going, without me. I still… feel it,” he pauses, trying to find the words, eyes still downcast. Hypnos waits, patiently. His brother takes a deep breath in. “There are souls still waiting for me, up there. But Mother commanded me to rest, a bit longer.”
“Ah-HAH! And you weren’t resting!”
“Yes, you caught me, I was not resting.”
“I could help with that!” Hypnos sits up and gives his brother an impossibly earnest look, because he means it, and he wants to. He wants to help. “I-if you need to, I mean, I could—”
“I know,” Thanatos interrupts, but not unkindly. “I know. Actually, I— while I have you here,” another long pause. Hypnos resists the urge to hum a little tune. “I wanted to thank you. Charon told me what you did, how you found me practically by yourself. I… do not know what would have happened, if you didn’t. And I’m grateful. I think Mother wishes to express her gratitude, as well. I’m sure she will, once things are more… sorted, in the House.”
Hypnos doesn’t know what to say, to that. Has Thanatos ever thanked him for something before? Has Mother?
He must look a little slack-jawed, because Thanatos clears his throat pointedly and nudges Hypnos with his foot. “Are you done gawking? If I promise to rest now, will you leave?”
He composes himself enough to nod enthusiastically. “Oh, yes, if you promise, definitely!”
“Then you have my word.”
“And, uh, did you say you needed any help? Falling asleep?”
Maybe because of how eager Hypnos sounds, maybe because he doesn’t have the energy to protest too loudly, Thanatos looks as though he is considering it. But then, he shakes his head slowly. “I’m tired enough that I doubt I’ll need the help, honestly.”
Hypnos nods, he understands. The pull is gentle and things are returning to Right. Things are alright. “Maybe, at least, some good dreams. I think that would be nice.”
Thanatos looks at his brother, golden eyes meeting, Death looking to Sleep looking to Death. “I… suppose that would be alright. It may be nice,” he contends.
Content with that answer, Hypnos stands, stretching his long arms above his head with a signature yawn. He turns to leave, waves over his shoulder. He has a very important job to do. “Sleep well, brother.”
“Sleep well, brother.”
One chain destroyed, one chain repaired, Hypnos leaves the chamber of the God of Death.
~ {+} ~