A/N: There are a couple sentences in here written in different languages. I apologize for any errors as I am not fluent in the chosen languages and had to rely on Google Translations for the majority. Many thanks, however, to ViscountessAberowen for help with the Spanish!
Hecate knelt at the altar, sonorous and discordant music rising and falling in volume through the caverns of her mind.
"Πάρτε αυτά τα λόγια και ακούστε τα, πρώτα θεέ, για την ευλογημένη ειρήνη του αιώνιου ύπνου σας. Όπως ήταν πάντα. "
She felt the intruder before she heard or saw him. Did no gods have morals?
"Primer dios, toma estas palabras y escúchalas bendita sea la paz de tu eterno sueño. Como simpre lo fue."
She waited for her company to announce himself.
"Still at it, Hecate? And how old is that prayer now?"
Poseidon stepped from the shadows, the smell of salt and driftwood following in his wake.
"And how long has it been since you last prayed, Sea God?" Hecate kept a sliver of her aspect chanting as she turned. "Why have you come?"
"Cymerwch y geiriau hyn a gwrandewch arnyn nhw, duw cyntaf, am heddwch eich cwsg tragwyddol. Fel yr oedd bob amser. "
Poseidon slowly strode toward the goddess, trailing a finger along the pews as he walked. He halted in front of Hecate and brought his fingers level with his eyes, inspecting the dust.
"Must I have a reason to visit kin? Honestly, Hecate. Since when have you become so anti-social?"
Hecate glowered at the sea god. "I have never liked you, Poseidon. Or your progeny." The goddess cocked her head to one side. "In fact, I rather dislike your entire branch of the family. Though, Hades has become less deplorable over the centuries."
Poseidon's shoulders stiffened, and Hecate could hear his struggle to keep his words light and untroubled. "And what news of my brother? Have you seen him wandering in your Mist?" The sea god stared fixedly at the altar; a facade of carelessness settled on his features. "When should we expect his return? Shadow travel should not take this long."
Hecate felt her lips compress to a thin line.
"Ta dessa ord och lyssna på dem, först Gud, för den välsignade freden i din eviga sömn. Som det alltid har varit."
"Hades chose to not shadow travel. He tried to save his energy for what must come. Your brother will not return."
Poseidon let out a shuddering breath, and his face turned hard as he faced her. "So he chose to flee rather than admit to his being mistaken?"
Hecate did not speak. Her green eyes pinned Poseidon where he stood. She raised her arm, green Mist swirling and coiling about her. The Mist hugged her skin before she flung out her hand. It surged toward Poseidon, crashing to a halt before him and climbing to the ceiling, obscuring everything in his line of sight. Green and only green all about.
"Perhaps it is time to show you, Poseidon. Perhaps it is time you truly look upon our future and despair."
The green mist swelled at the ceiling before cascading in billowing waves back down to the floor. As it fell, the vision of the chapel faded from sight. Hecate and Poseidon stood in the absolute black of space. Unheard. Unseen. Unable to help as Hades- King of the Underworld, God of the Dead and Riches Beneath the Earth, Eldest Son of Kronos and Rhea- was torn asunder and his essence scattered along the cold and barren wastelands of Pluto.
Hades approached the outer atmosphere of his namesake planet with trepidation. The tittering laughter of the creatures that had plagued him since the outer rings of Saturn echoed eerily behind him. Several times he had lowered his guard, exhausted in a way he had not known since the ten-year war with the Titans. The creatures had feasted on him more times he had thought possible.
And he was weak. Weaker than he had thought possible. So exhausted was he that when Hades approached the bleak landscape of the Sentinel planet, he gave no thought as to why the invisible creatures hung back- why they did not follow him to land.
So tired was Hades he did not realize that the energy needed to leave the planet was no longer his to hold. Never had Hades believed he would enter into his grave without knowing the exact moment his foot touched upon the ground.
He only realized something was wrong when, standing on the planet's surface, he looked down and saw the sharp rise of angles and neat lines of non-Euclidean geometry. He stood on the outer edges of a simple circle, vast in its enormity. Eight bars, drawn outward, ended in another circle- not fully connected but capping the ends of the lines.
Hades looked up and saw a grotesquely bloated woman, skin a maggoty white tinged green, standing at the center of the design. Weighing at least 600 pounds, she would tower over mere mortals. In place of arms and nose, tentacles writhed and squirmed like fat, tuberous worms. Five perfect cupid's-bow mouths at various points across her face were marred and made hideous by random clusters of fangs. She wore a yellow and black silk tunic, the colors resembling a mottled and fading bruise. A black fan-much like those worn by women in the Shang dynasty- and six sickles hung from a length of black rope belted about the woman's enormous middle.
Her mouths smiled, yellowed fangs bared.
Come to me, little god.
Hades froze. The smiling creature grinned wider yet.
The pain will only be for a short eternity, child. Come.
Hades, shaking with an effort to remain still, took a step forward. And another. And again until he stood mere feet away from the bloated woman. The trunks on either side of her body raised in a mock salute, and the tentacle sprouting from her face danced backward and forward, the picture of joviality.
Pale starlight, weaker than the most sultry twilight on Earth, lit the bare expanse between the two beings. A scattering of pebbles caught Hades' attention, and his eyes flicked to the side, his head still frozen in place.
Large, grayish creatures squatted and shifted, surrounding the pair. Oily skin glistened in the faint starlight—a quivering mass of short pink tentacles sprouted from the tip of their snouts.
Do not mind them. They will be upon you shortly enough.
The woman didn't move so much as she appeared in front of Hades, no longer ten feet away but a hair breadth's distance from the God of the Underworld.
And it was as if Hades was waking up. He recalled every nightmare he had ever dreamt as a god: his very first terror-filled vision and the subsequent whispered and begging prayers of his brother and sisters as they wallowed in the belly of their father. Darker and more vast than Nyx and Tartarus, Erebus and Eros. Beyond the reach of Chaos in the dimension that held Earth.
His first memories: the vast darkness on the horizon. The Crawling Chaos orchestrating the depravity of madness from corners and reaches of the universe far-flung and impossible. The jarring sound of fluted music. The threat beyond perception. And always, the gods' whispered pleas: "Πάρτε αυτά τα λόγια και ακούστε τα, πρώτα θεέ, για την ευλογημένη ειρήνη του αιώνιου ύπνου σας. Όπως ήταν πάντα."
And Hades was afraid.
I have grown weary, little godling. You are vermin. Your worshippers are fleas crawling on the back of rats scurrying about the heavens of your planet.
The bloated woman's skin stretched and blackened, hardening as the black and yellow dress shifted and slid upwards across the body, transforming bright and red. The thing was taller than Hades in his most godly form. Three hoofed feet sprouted from the base of the black insect-like torso, and three arms ending in glistening claws formed through multi-jointed twists and cracks. A long, blood-red tentacle undulated atop the white mass where the bloated woman's head had been moments before. Bone spines protruded from along the back, burned black like charcoal.
The thing raised upward on its legs and howled, a long and keening cry, shrill and harsh as a bird call. The creatures surrounding the god of the dead rushed forward.
Hades did not know how long he fought against the creatures, against the creeping fear and increasing exhaustion. Each time a creature fell, another rose to take its place. The being that used to be the bloated woman skittered about the swath of land, whipping its red tentacle in a frenzy and howling into the dark.
There was no fanfare when it ended. No shock. Time did not stop- it ticked on, relentlessly, uncaring.
The three-legged being came to a stop in front of Hades and muttered words in a language he hadn't heard but in his darkest nightmares.
The sensation that followed was like stretching after a long sleep- a sloughing of snakeskin.
And then- pain. Undiluted and unending. Sharp and dull all at once, pervading and building in intensity.
In a last, desperate attempt to stall the increasingly inevitable, Hades sequestered the smallest part of his consciousness from the whole of his essence and fled. Taking his pain, hope, and guilt- guilt that came with the hope that his son would be able to withstand the coming suffering for the sake of all of existence- and taking all of that, the lord of the underworld escaped the howler in the dark and heard it speak through his mind:
It is time for all to wake.
Poseidon collapsed to the stone floor of the chapel, now taking comfort in the words Hecate whispered at the altar.
"Why did he not fight with everything? Why not-"
Hecate cut him off. "He did what was required, Poseidon." The goddess crossed to the sea god and knelt beside him. "If he had accessed his divine form, we- the whole of existence would have ceased. The sacrifice would have ended and not in our favor. Do you not remember how vulnerable we are in our divine form? How true and pure our essence is in that moment?"
Poseidon rubbed a hand over his weary face and nodded. "What can we do?"
Hecate turned to look at the sea god. His face was ashen gray. His mouth pulled downward and, for once, he looked his age: an old and wizened man, brought down by the passage of time and the knowledge that all things, in the end, die.
"Hades' self-sacrifice has given us time. We can do nothing but continue on the path we have chosen. And support our children as they are placed in harm's way. It is long past the time when there was something we might do."
Hecate turned back to the altar and raised her voice in supplication once more. She bowed her head and closed her eyes as she heard Poseidon-God of the Seas, Earth-Shaker, second son of Kronos and Rhea- fall to his knees and pray, his voice one syllable behind hers.
"Take these words and listen to them, first of Gods, for the blessed peace of your eternal slumber. As it ever was."
Night settled across the expanse of beach in Will's dream. Nico decided it looked even more beautiful than it had the last time.
Nico sat beside Will on the damp sand, hands intertwined. Will rested his head against Nico's shoulder.
"It was all a waste, you know. All of it." Will looked out across the waves crashing quietly against the shore.
Nico didn't look down but asked, "What was?"
Will shrugged. "The whole trip. Hazel and Lou and everyone came back a few weeks ago. They couldn't summon Lamia. They couldn't even get a response from Hecate. Lou and Hazel say she's usually pretty good- well, better than the other gods, at least- in communicating with demigods."
Will shrugged again. "So, none of it even mattered."
Nico turned and placed a kiss in Will's golden hair and then moved his shoulder, urging Will to sit up.
"It wasn't a waste, Will. They tried. That's all any of us can do."
"Yeah. Right."
Nico let go of Will's hand to shake the demigod's shoulder. "I mean it, Will. You have to-"
"It's really peaceful out here, you know?" Will gazed up into the night sky riddled with stars.
Nico sighed and looked out over the water. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."
"I wish you weren't dead." Will refused to look at Nico, blinking back tears as he observed the stars. "Everyone does. Hazel and the others left for New Rome yesterday. I think they hung around for as long as possible, but Dakota said they needed to come back. I guess being away for so long...did you know you've been dead for twelve weeks, Nico? Everybody said that it would get easier- that it wouldn't hurt so much- once time…."
The tears started to fall from Will's eyes, and he scrubbed at them angrily with the back of his hand. "I didn't even get to say a proper goodbye."
Nico took Will's hand in his again. "Is anyone going to try to find Leo?"
Will shook his head. "Hazel mentioned that it was your task to complete. That children of Hades are bound to their quests even after death." Will laughed bitterly. "But, she can't even contact Hades, let alone you. So who knows what's even going on with your quest anymore."
Nico hesitated to speak. Surely now was the right time to let Will know he wasn't truly dead? That he might not be alive, but, well, he existed? The son of Hades opened his mouth to speak but, unbidden, Claymore's warning sprang to mind: "I know it's tempting to overstay once you're past that door, but...try to remember, you're no longer living- you're a Mistform. That small bit of hope can keep someone hanging on and...well, the living need to move on, alright?"
Nico bit his tongue, his chest aching with the genuine want of being with Will back at camp, sitting in a canoe just enjoying each other.
But Will needed to move on. He needed to be happy. And holding out for a Mistform who couldn't exist without the ability of another boy was not a viable option.
Nico cleared his throat. "Hazel tried to talk to my dad?"
Will nodded. "Yeah. But, he disappeared the same day you-" Will's voice caught in his throat before he forced the words out of his mouth. "The same day you died."
Nico and Will both looked up at the sky again as they heard echoing footsteps.
"You're waking up." Nico smiled softly.
"It's just not the same anymore." Will's shoulders slumped, and he blinked back tears as he looked at Nico's hand in his. "It's not."
Nico pressed a kiss to Will's temple. "I'll see you in your dreams, Will. Please- take care of yourself. For me."
Will didn't have a chance to nod before waking up, and Nico was left standing in the Mist, all vestiges of a beach a fading memory.
A/N: Hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Any guesses as to who the Bloated Woman/transformed creature could be? Until next time.