Chapter Text
“That’s the end of it,” huffed Zagrues.
He watched with a sense of pride as the wretches he'd cleaved to pieces with nothing left of them but their embers flickering away at his feet. Zagreus became familiar with Tartarus thanks to his many misadventures there. The ever-changing and rotating chambers of the underworld still had something predictable about them. You walk in, bludgeon some foes until the gateway opens up and move on to the next chamber. Do this enough times and eventually, you'll end up where you want to be.
In his case, where he needed to be was the surface.
One needn’t clarify why a Chthonic God - a god meant for the inner depths of Hades - was not permitted to walk the lands of the living. And clarify, many did try many a time… But the young Prince, stubborn in his ways despite his youth, wanted what he wanted.
He unearthed, some time ago, a secret that his family had been safeguarding. Zagreus never felt he really belonged. He never felt like he was meant for the endless desk-sitting and parchment-pushing that his father slotted him into. He couldn’t shake the idea that there was something more to him – and indeed, his destiny – than others let him believe. The secret in question held the very truth of Zagreus' identity, his blood, his lineage, and his family. With a carefully orchestrated plan, Zagreus extricated this information from personal letters locked away in his father’s desk. His real mother was up there on the surface. Hence why the obstinate Prince ran away from the House of Hades to attempt to reach her. He wanted to know that there really was something more for him than his life with his father dearest…
His first attempt he tried to keep secret. To keep quiet. He hadn’t the faintest clue what was waiting for him outside of the house he’d grown up so - hard to say comfortably, as he really did not - in. Zagreus failed this attempt to reach his mother, with Hades himself rallying the underworld denizens against the Prince. Failure amounted to a gruesome death (or what could be considered death for a god) and rebirth within the River Styx. Zagreus determined that failure only meant ‘stopping’. And since he couldn’t really die, he’d never have to stop. His days – or nights – were spent repeating the same cycles. Attempting to escape, dying, reviving, and trying again.
After a while, it became common knowledge that Zagreus had been making consistent attempts to escape Hades. Most despised and resented it. Of course, they would, considering what doing something like that meant. He was attempting to escape the shackles of godly responsibility to ‘play family’ on the surface, like some mortal would do. His father made it more than clear how much of a disappointment Zagreus was. He wouldn’t tolerate these little adventures. Hades, having a multitude of his own problems and responsibilities, made it a top priority for everyone on duty to get a handle on his vociferous son. If something was Hades’ problem - well, it was everyone else’s problem too.
Zagreus very quickly became quite unpopular for it.
Try as he may to dissuade his son, he could not succeed in stopping Zagreus short of personally beating him into cinders - and as irony would have it, Zagreus would revive and continue anyway. Hades could neither sway nor punish his son out of it. He had other responsibilities and duties to take care of. Hades had his own problems with the endless complaints and ‘fix-its’ demanded from the shades. He eventually resigned himself to believing that Zagreus would just give up eventually. As any good father ought to, Hades hoped that failure would crush the Prince’s dreams instead.
We already know what the young Prince thought of the word “failure”. A word that he readily and enthusiastically jettisoned from his vocabulary. And so he arrived in the now with this adopted attitude. He learned the workings of Hades and got a little further through the chambers each time. He got progressively stronger. Smarter. Every death and resurrection played their part in aiding the godling in his goals. After all, practice was the forger of genius and results… eventually.
Zagrues stood looking at the door that separated him from the next chamber. He was dripping with sweat, and his muscles ached. He glared at the gateway before him, preparing.
“Let’s do this…”
He bounced on his heels, kicking his resolve into gear. The sparks flicked about as his heels met the deathly cold stone tiles. He shook his head to cast out the thoughts of doubt from his mind. He took a deep breath, abandoned his sensibilities and got his head fully in the game.
All that to go to waste in the end, for poor Zagrues was bested in a way he had not expected.
“Well, this is awkward…” Zagreus thought aloud.
An awkward and very sexually charged confrontation at the border of Tarturus knocked the flame from his step - quite literally, too. Zagreus had not expected his father to call on an old flame to hinder him. More awkward that she took up the job so willingly.
“I’d rather be on your bad side than his…” Megaera was a direct woman. She made no effort to hide how she felt about the Prince’s new hobby horse. Not that Zagreus could blame her. Things ended off rather… badly, when they were ‘involved’. He hoped there was still some affection between him and Meg for her to allow him to just… he didn’t know… walk by without a fight? He clicked his tongue in frustration. He felt bad about how things ended, but he also didn’t want this new awkward tension to get in the way of his goal.
“Now, you can turn back like a good little man, or I can send you back the painful way. What’ll it be?”
Zagreus cleared his throat, “...I’ll have to go with the painful way.”
“A man after my own heart.”
It was a pretty quick fight. Out of the many things the two indulged in, violent and brutal combat was not one. His pride, as it usually was with Meg, was utterly destroyed, and he awoke under the ever-familiar warm waters of blood, feeling rather abashed.
“I knew she was passionate about her career… didn’t realise that she was so passionate about killing me.”
As if this whole escaping from hell thing wasn’t already overly complicated…
He pulled himself to the surface, gasping as the waters gave way to the stagnant air, and combed the blood from his hair and flicked it away. Zagreus waded through the bloody waters and down the great hall, his father too busy – and too angry at him – to pay him any mind.
A little frazzled from his defeat, he thought a short rest and reflection on his last battle would do him wonders. He could plan how he’d tackle fighting Meg if she showed up again.
Upon entering his room, he found Meg meandering, eyeing his various trinkets and belongings. When she noticed Zagrues, she straightened up, a strange glint in her eyes. Something… uncomfortable for the prince. He was all too familiar with the Fury and her minute mannerisms. She was angry. Which is why he was surprised to see her here now. Furies were not creatures prone to forgiveness or reconciliation.
“Come here.” She ordered.
“Meg… what a surprise. Again. What is it?... What's the matter? Wait. Why are you looking at me like that?”
She put on an authoritative smirk and rhythmically tapped her whip against the palm of her hand. “Shut up with your idiotic questions and get over her. Right now.”
Zagreus cleared his throat, suddenly not having anything to say.
The fight at the edge of Tarturus was… definitely intense. How was he to realistically expect a reaction like this? It was odd, out of character, but who was he to look a gift Fury in the mouth?
If she were offering… Well demanding… Who was he to say no?
“Oh…” was all he could manage.
As far as passion goes, Meg was a brutal, demanding, dominant, and insatiable lover. The bed-games she enjoyed reflected her personality to a fault. Controlled, exact, and punishing.
It was such that Zagreus perhaps felt a bit out of his element with her. Embarrassed. She enjoyed being the winning force in any entanglement. Here, he didn’t feel the need to win. But pain upon pain made him tired and worn. He couldn’t say he didn’t have fun, though. He always did in a way. He sighed when it was over. With relief? He wasn’t really sure, but definitely from hard work.
This entire day - or night - was hard work. Just a moment of rest - one he’d intended for himself - seemed sweeter than any sip of ambrosia.
He wished she would stay. She never had, and didn’t seem to give any impression of staying now. He wasn’t about to blame her. It was a complicated situation, after all.
They’d had quite a lot of each other in times past, and it was only recently that she’d withdrawn with the unkind things that transpired in the interim of Zagreus learning about his family’s secrets.
Perhaps she hadn’t quite reconciled her opinions of the prince.
She was getting herself dressed when she suddenly froze, thought through something (Zag could almost hear the cogs in her head spinning), and then asked the question that had been hanging around in her mind.
“You’re not going to stop this, are you?”
“No...” he admitted, voice raspy.
He felt the change more than saw it. Something in her attitude stiffened. As if that one little word had brought her to a firm decision on something that she’d been on the fence about.
“Then you and I don’t have anything further to say to each other, Zagreus. Not anymore.”
Out of all the misdeeds the prince had committed, was this really the one she’d hang his head up on? Was this simple “No” the final nail in the coffin that cemented the end to their confusing and turbulent relationship?
She grabbed the remainder of her things and walked off without skipping a beat or turning to look at him. This wasn’t the last he’d see of her, of course. But this was the last moment of civility she’d grant him - of that he was almost certain. But what matter were ornery girls and upset fathers when there was something else on the line?
Zagreus just lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He massaged the stress from his eyes and groaned.
It was a rough couple of hours.
As he originally intended to do before the surprise visit, Zagreus thought about his progress so far and all he’d learnt. He wondered what more was to come. Would all his friends come to resent him as Meg had? He sure wasn’t setting a good example to anyone as far as being a prince was concerned. All of this loss and familial turmoil would be worth it when he was standing with his mother - of this he was sure. Even though he couldn’t imagine how that would be… what she’d say. What he would say… Just that he wanted to reach her and know her… and find out why all this turned out the way it did.
He hoped that all his misery was just a product of misunderstanding. Gods above only knew what he would feel to discover it was all by design.
He hoped it wasn’t.
Because then all the pain and hardship of growing up in Hades would have meant absolutely nothing at all.