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Those in the choir were always much braver than most scholars. The students of Mensis read books and did minor rituals, the choir had more hands-on practice with the Great Ones and their children.
Though Hypnos had long since gotten rid of his Mensis Cage, he kept his uniform. Hermes had kept his Choir uniform as well, mostly because neither could find a change of clothes that fit either of them. One was weirdly tall and the other oddly short, and their only connection was a cleric beast, who wasn’t really a cleric beast but did look like one.
Large horns that were not quite deer like, with long white shaggy hair that covered all but the large decorative neck piece made of gold. Even more jewelry was draped across him, pieces of gold hidden by thick fur and guarded by sharp wolf teeth in a large maw. He was still relatively human-esque, being able to stand on his legs and understand human speech even though he couldn’t speak.
After Charon had become a beast, and Thanatos had gone off to be a Hunter’s Hunter, Hypnos had nothing left. Hermes had already given up on his family, who strode above the ruins on their luxury and carefree attitudes. The only ones who cared were too afraid or too cautious to get their hands dirty and help deal with the beast plague.
Both were left with nothing. A scholar and a choir left only to care for a beast in what remained of the Upper Cathedral. It didn’t help that Hypnos was only there because he was collateral, kidnapped for being a scholar from the school of Mensis. Though they had let him go when the night had begun and everything had gone to crap.
Erebus brushed against his consciousness, touching and prodding. Distracting him from listening to the man beside him as he rambled on about one thing or another. They sat against Charon as he slept, the great beast taking deep breaths that lifted them up before slowly lowering them with each exhale. Hypnos lay on his front, face pressed into his brother's fur, Hermes sat cross legged, hands accenting the story he told; about some holy lady he had met that seemed a bit off her rocker.
The man had traveled quite a bit before joining the choir, and even after, he had continued the habit. Going about the town's different parts and doing errands whilst delivering any mail that his family could apparently not get delivered any other way. He moved as fast as he spoke, and it was a wonder that Hypnos kept up at all.
“You know, we should eat something! We can’t sit here sulking all night after all.” Hermes declared, standing up elegantly and brushing himself of imaginary dust. Hypnos followed after inelegantly, keeping himself hunched towards his chest, out of the way and kept away from anything nearby.
The older man led him down hallway after hallway, walls of stone and wood passed in a haze as the maze of the Upper Cathedral deepened. But then they stopped in a dark but open room, a storage room of sorts, clearly holding foods and perishables. He stayed in place as Hermes lit nearby candles, casting yellow and orange light about the room; banishing shadow. He bustled about the room, grabbing several items before depositing them on the counter in front of Hypnos in a flurry of movement. The pile consisted of bread, a bread knife, several different jams, and an arrangement of fruits that he recognized but did not care to name.
“You know, you have that odd sense around you like you’re not all here, something calling to you?” Hermes absentmindedly questioned as he began to cut the bread. “I know you scholar types from the school are all about keeping yourselves safe from getting your brains turned around and about by the Great Ones but you don’t have your cage on you at all! Though you're a friend of my cousin right? Zagreus? Heard he's doing well as a hunter, he’s dating your twin brother right? You’re all good kids, though that Thanatos fellow can be a bit stuffy, no offense.”
A brightly colored jam was then spread atop a slice of bread before it was passed to Hypnos. He took it gingerly, biting into it hesitantly before brightening up at the taste of strawberry, and taking more large bites of it. Hermes followed suit with his own bread that he had coated with a heavy layer of honey.
“Yeah, Zagreus is my best friend! I bet he’s killing beasts left and right out there with how the moon’s looking, but Nyx and Than are probably looking out for him.” He replied with his mouth half full, having regained some semblance of speech with some food in him. Things always looked less bad when your stomach was full afterall. “I think it’s a bit late to put on the cage.”
Than would probably be angry with him for that. For letting a Great One sink itself into his flesh and blood, Erebus might have been a kind being but Scholars were not supposed to allow such a thing to happen. They were supposed to contact the ancient gods, not sign up to be adopted by them.
“Thought so. You’ve got the weird air about you, what did you do to get claimed by a Great One? I’ve always been a bit iffy about all that, as much as having answers to why and how and what; is all good and dandy, but the price you have to pay seems kinda expensive.” The older man rambled, continuing to talk as Charon walked in, nose loudly sniffing them out even as he entered the room.
His eldest brother's head flopped heavily against his side, purple glowing eyes gazing up questionably at him. That earned him a slice of bread, snuck carefully from the table to the beast's maw, Charon rumbled in gratitude. When he stood up, large clawed hands dragged Hypnos with, who allowed himself to be held carefully in the beast's large arms. Maybe he had grown too used to it happening when his eldest brother was human, constantly bringing Hypnos and his siblings that his mother pushed away closer to himself.
“Huh? Oh… I found some stuff, big descriptions on how to talk to The Darkness. Erebus is nice, though he’s not very talkative.” Hypnos joked, easily sidestepping anything that could force him to talk about how he had failed. The other man laughed at his words but held an air of sympathy around him, like he knew something sad that the other didn’t.
Later, deeper into the night, Hypnos found out what Hermes seemed so sad about. Erebus had his own realm, a distortion of the ones that humans lived in of course, but a realm nonetheless. His own plane of existence that enshrouded his being, and clung to Hypnos as if it had been sewn into his clothing. Fake versions of people and beasts roamed the city, bodies made of paper but just as deadly as actual beasts to any poor soul that was actually alive.
The Great Ones were odd. They were supernatural beings with unlimited power and knowledge, but were so similar to a cat with empty nest syndrome. Erebus tugged at him from the inside, making him feel small and weak like he was a child all over again. His humanity seemed to drip away from him, drop by drop splattering on the floor.
Pitch black hands reached down from the ceiling, connected to sickeningly long arms bent at odd angles or seemingly without any true joints at all. Some held him, resting on or grabbing at his shoulders, one he held in his hands studying the odd thing. Others acted soothingly, rubbing at his back that wasn’t pressed against the couch he had claimed, two or three kept patting at his knees which felt limp and weak. Most others busied themselves with the room, arranging things or adding more pillows and blankets to the bed. Some of the pillows were brought to him directly, and the hands surrounding him, some as big as his head, would pick him up gently to put the pillows beneath him.
He’d feel more comfortable with the space if he hadn’t just been kidnapped by a Great One with a bad case of empty nest syndrome. Erebus had remained gentle, even after opening up what looked like the entrance to hell beneath him while he listened to Hermes and Charon have a very one-sided conversation.
From his vantage point he could easily look down onto the streets and see the things roaming around. Said things included Zagreus, who he had lost sight of as the hunter drew further to where Hypnos was kept. Than had joined him in the fight, Hypnos couldn’t understand why, his job was to hunt the Hunters! Not fight alongside them, though as a Scholar, he was breaking a lot of rules and going against a lot of different peoples opinions for what a Scholar should do. So maybe he didn’t have a lot of room to talk
Though it wasn’t as if the Great One had any bad intentions, soft presses filled his mind, slipping him from this strange reality once again in an attempt to soothe. Any stress he had was washed away, and he was not kept uncomfortable, the spot in him that Erebus took up grew by the minute. It was like a pen that bled ink all over while he wrote a signature, deep dark marks that claimed him as a child of The Dark. All sense of time slipped from him in this place, the moon in the sky did not move, the stars winked like eyes but did not soar across the sky.
“Hypnos, brother!” Than yelled, leading him back to reality just in time to watch his brother barrel through the room towards him. Any attempts to slash and cut through Erebus’ dangling arms only caused them more grief as the Great One turned his attention towards them.
“Than!” Hypnos yelped with shock as his twin was dragged upwards, his scythe not doing much good at close range. Zagreus wasn’t fairing better, his short sword-like saw barely keeping him on the ground as he fought his way forward. “Stop! Put him down please!” He begged, standing from his couch to raise his arms upward, halting the efforts of Erebus as the hands around him rushed to steady him.
A deep echoing sound came from the pitch black void above, a question that Hypnos could just barely understand as the voice rattled through his head.
“Yea, they’re my friends.” He barely managed to mumble, head beginning to spin and balance deserting him. Gingerly Erebus lowered him back onto the couch, all previous energy that was left in him had been used to stand. Now it was naptime. He could only hope that his new dad didn’t decide to kill Than and Zag while he was passed out.
He woke up about what he could guess was an hour or so later. Cradled in his twin's arms, who seemed to be shooing away any help Erebus offered. They were laid out on the bed, swaddled by pillows and blankets that were placed there earlier, Than clung to him like he could be lifted away at any moment.
“Hypnos, tell it to stop.” His twin ordered, pulling him closer to the other's broad chest that acted wonderfully as a pillow. He could feel muscles flex as Than swatted away the ink black hands reaching towards them. Zagreus was not so lucky, having been tied with fabric to a nearby chair that seemed a bit small to being holding the hunter in place.
“It’s fine, we’re all fine.” Hypnos slurred sleepily, hand grasping out towards one of the appendages. Several of them circled around his hand, latching on like clamps. Although they didn’t hurt, the texture felt like ink and silk mixed together without having the consistency of liquid. His twin pulled his arm away from the grasping hands, tucking it against his chest with most of the rest of him.
“You shouldn’t let it touch you. Who knows what it could do.” He growled, Than had gone back to rearranging him and keeping Erebus away. Curling Hypnos into his lap in a possessive manner, he never was very good at sharing even when they were children. Erebus let out a rumble, spooking Zagreus and Hypnos both though his twin remained unaffected, perhaps because he couldn’t hear him.
“Hypnos, how did you get here?” Zagreus finally spoke, previously remaining silent, probably to give the twins some privacy. His cap had been knocked onto the floor, and the fabric keeping him in place was mostly being held by the weird ink-silk hands.
“Oh… Erebus brought me here. Took my legs right out from beneath me!” He giggled, shaking Than slightly, his twin seemed to be contemplating the appendages hanging from the ceiling. He had stopped swatting them away, letting them get close but not allowing them to touch him as they tended to Hypnos. They fixed his clothing, righting his shirt that was by now without a tie, some pressed against his chest, feeling the bond that now ran through his blood.
“Hermes said that some kind of hole opened beneath you.” The hunter explained as he attempted to get a better look at the duo from where he was. Concern was clear in his voice, but why would he be concerned about little ol’ Hypnos? “Mate to be honest, you reek of Great One, and we're in Erebus of all places! What did you do?”
“Ah, well after I was sent to The School of Mensis by mom, and Than stopped talking to me… I guess I got a bit concerned haha! I always heard about the Great Ones, everyone kept saying how becoming enlightened was the most important thing. And so I thought… I thought… I…” Thinking was too hard. Why was everything so hard to do? Why did it come so easily to everyone but him!
“Shut up. Stop talking like that.” His twin demanded, holding Hypnos like he wanted them to become one being and not two. He guessed that it wasn’t very comfortable, he had always been skin and bone, no fat or muscle in sight to cushion his siblings from being poked by elbows. Than would always be his opposite; smarter, stronger, taller, and loved by their mother where Hypnos, as much as he liked to believe otherwise, was not.
“Sorry!” Another odd giggle escaped him, he wasn’t quite aware what was so funny but soon his high-pitched laughter turned into sobs so perhaps he didn't have to wonder. He pressed himself further into his twin's body, pathetic cries muffled by the fabric of the other's shoulder. Hands gripping harshly at his brother's back, surely disgusting Thanatos with how clingy he was being, how gross he was.
“I am here now, brother.” Was his reply instead, calm and collected. Once again gently rearranging them so that Hypnos lay comfortably against him, no longer pressing himself desperately against his twin. Callous covered hands rubbed gingerly against the back of his head, carding through white wool like hair
“That ritual room we found, that was you? The place was a wreck mate!” Zagreus sounded shocked, though his eyes strayed from the scene before him to eye Erebus’ dangling arms nervously. “It looked like someone died there.”
“Yeah. Choir interrupted it, some of them didn’t get out of the room in time,” Hypnos mumbled, tears still slipping down his face as he moved the bare minimum away from his twin that would allow him to look at his friend. Zagreus had always been so nice, though he caused - and got into - more trouble than what Hypnos was used to with his other siblings.
“We.. had heard that the choir and those from Mensis had begun to fight, petty squabbles from what I understand, but I didn’t think you were a part of it. Is that why you were with Hermes?” The hunter’s hunter asked, leaning his head down to nose at the white curls that rested atop his brother's head.
“Mhm! They didn’t even bother to keep me locked up!” Everything seemed funny all of a sudden again, it wasn’t even Erebus’ doing! His emotions felt fluid inside him, sloshing about from one shape to another in seconds. Though Than seemed to have caught on as well, and he peered down at his twin with an odd expression that Hypnos couldn’t quite decipher.
“Zag, why is he acting like this?” Thanatos sounded like he was interrogating their friend and not just asking a simple question. Like Zagreus was keeping answers from him on purpose just to spite him. That thought pulled more giggles from Hypnos, who attempted to stifle them in his brother's chest.
“I don’t know, if Erebus is claiming Hypnos as his, then who knows what might be changed.” The Hunter observed the subject of conversation, all in all, he looked mostly the same. Hypnos was still stick thin, still bundled in oversized scholar clothes, still held securely and protectively in the arms of his twin. “These are also some of the symptoms of shock.”
“It will be alright Hypnos, I am here now. But we must leave this place.” Thanatos attempted to pull the both of them out of the bed, but didn’t get very far when Hypnos was a limp weight against him.
The Hunter’s Hunter compromised by sitting his twin up against the bed frame at the edge of the bed, and making his way towards Zagreus on the other side of the room. Erebus’ hands released his cloth ties once he started to shoo them away, gaining him quiet thanks from the now free Hunter. Together it was easy to get Hypnos to stand and walk with them, the odd pitch black hand following them from their source somewhere above.
Erebus did not fight them but did little to aid them, simply assisting in keeping Hypnos upright and walking. Luckily most if not all of the beasts that plagued the place had been cut down, leaving them a clear path to escape.
The roofs above were shrouded with darkness, but the walls leading up arched and curved in differing patterns across the rooms.