A comment on AO3 made me realise I needed to recap my god hierarchy. Think British Royal Family, but with the Kronos/Rhea Bloodline.
Tier 1 Olympians: Hades, Zeus, Poseidon.
Tier 2 Olympians: The female siblings - Hestia, Demeter and Hera. The grandchildren of Kronos and Rhea (Zeus has many, many children. The main ones are Ares, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes and Hercules. Poseidon has 10 children including King Triton. Hades only has Mal). Aphrodite is in there too because she came from Uranus' blood hitting the sea and wasn't part of the war.
Gaia & Rhea: Mothers of the gods, no real thrones, their power is in persuasion and Nature.
Tier 3 Olympians: Everyone with godly blood but on the fringes (e.g. less than ½ god). This is when you start going into minor deity territory, and they get closer to being on par with Ben's family.
Mythical creatures from Greek Mythology don't technically outrank mortals, but they have a certain mystique that makes people feel like they do. Mythical creatures from fairytale lore are just 'normal people' in Auradon. The irony is lost on natives, but the Olympians take full advantage.
A worked example:
Athena, Hermes, Hercules, Mal and King Triton are all second generation Olympians.
Athena and Hermes are much, much older, born right after the War and are full gods. They inherited some of the thrones left by the Titans and are full working Gods.
Hercules, Mal and King Triton are all demigods.
Hercules is the youngest son of Zeus (and not Hera). His kids have titles because their grandpa is King of the Gods, but they know they're going to need to get real jobs one day.
Triton is the middle child of Posiedon. He has his own throne and his own stuff to deal with so only really goes back to Olympus on holidays.
Mal is the only child of Hades and heir to the Underworld. Her kids will be directly in line and will be working royals and working gods on both sides of the family (cause let's not pretend we don't know my conclusion?)
Hades.
"Following their final victory, the three brothers divided the world amongst themselves: Zeus was given domain over the sky and the air, and was recognized as overlord. Poseidon was given the sea and all the waters, whereas Hades was given the Underworld, the realm of the dead. Each of the other gods was allotted powers according to the nature and proclivities of each. The earth was left common to all to do as they pleased, even to run counter to one another, unless the brothers were called to intervene."
First, there was Heaven and Earth.
And then came Chaos. Capital C.
You know that feeling, when things are about to go to shit and you're just here for it? That feeling, it's chaos.
Small c.
Chaos is what makes things human. And we're drawn to that, Mallie, far more than any of the other gods.
After the War, when we defeated the Titans and took their thrones, my brothers and I, we split our father's empire.
Zeus got the skies, Poseidon got the seas, and I got the Underworld.
It was our only chance at peace. If we split it, no one would ever be all powerful.
My grandmother, Gaia, didn't like that plan.
She was the Mother of Nature, she came from Chaos. She thrived on it.
She was vengeful and powerful and unforgiving.
She enjoys initiating family arguments.
It started with my father. But it won't end there.
...
My father, Kronos, was the youngest of the Titans. He was jealous of his father's power. And Gaia, in one of her moods with her husband, convinced my father to overthrow and castrate him.
With Uranus out of the way, my father was free to rule as Master of the Universe. My mother, Rhea, was still second to her mother.
Things were good, really good, for eons. It was the Golden Age of our House.
But things began to change within my father. He became obsessed with power. Paranoia was his constant companion. And when Gaia warned him he'd be overthrown by his sons, just like he'd overthrown his father…
He ate us.
I didn't see the light of day until I was twenty one, in human years.
Remember, he wasn't...a person. He was a celestial being.
He ate us, but we were just trapped...somewhere else.
We had nannies and tutors and what I thought was a perfectly normal life. My sisters used to talk about a world outside, with trees and animals and our mother. But Posiedon and I, we only ever knew the darkness.
Then my mother got sick of having her kids eaten. Eventually.
She plotted with Gaia, in a good mood that millennia, to save the next baby. She fed Kronos a swaddled rock, pretending it was Zeus, and our grandmother raised him in a cave, where he'd never be found.
Then when he was eighteen, by human standards, he planned our escape.
We were the children of Titans. We came out fighting. The War was brief but bloody. When I imprisoned most of the Titans in Tartarus, we took their thrones.
We made them pay for what they did to us.
History's written by the winners, Mallie. Always remember that.
A million different choices could have been made, and none of this would ever happen.
There were twelve Titans.
And now there's twelve Olympians.
...
The family squabbles didn't stop when we took power.
It's been the same story for millennia.
Gaia gets bored and spins a Story that we all have to follow.
Zeus put his dick somewhere he wasn't meant to, and suddenly Hera's sending mutant snakes after babies and smashing every vase on Olympus.
Gaia decides she isn't happy with how the War played out and tries to kill us all one random Tuesday afternoon.
I got bored, and was sick of being stuck with the hard work, so I staged a little rebellion. Just a little one. Tried to kill your cousin.
He bounced back.
Water under the bridge.
It's all pretty stable now.
Mostly.
Until Gaia gets bored again.
...
Sixteen years ago. The Isle.
"Is there a reason I woke up to find my wife and daughter gone?"
EQ jumped when the kitchen burst into flames, clutching the blue haired toddler to her chest in a rare show of maternal instinct.
Maleficent barely looked up from the herbs she was chopping with an oversized knife. A quick glance at the counter told Hades his wife was preparing a protection spell.
Hades growled when she didn't respond. Maleficent smirked. EQ paled considerably.
"I'm going to go...somewhere else." EQ looked between them warily, and he could feel his wife's best friend's fear. Whatever was going on, EQ knew exactly what it was, and she did not want to be witness to the fallout. Keeping one year old Evie close, EQ skirted around the flames and out the door with all the grace of a true queen.
"Took you long enough." Maleficent slammed the knife down once they were alone. She grabbed the counter, her knuckles going white as she glared at the cauldron.
He knew what she was doing. Willing her magic to work under the barrier, trying to find a loophole that would let her practice. It wouldn't work. Not for years. Not until Malia accidentally weakens the curse during a growth spurt, giving only her mother a sliver of freedom.
Hades looked at her incredulously, gesturing to the broken grandfather clock in the corner, "It's 7am, M!"
"And Malia, evil little thing that she is, normally wakes up at 4am."
He hated to admit, she had a point.
As a god, he didn't really need much sleep. Neither did Malia. So he normally stayed up with the baby while Maleficent slept - whether that was during the daytime or evening hours depended on her scheduled chaos.
Yesterday was daytime chaos.
He'd had meetings on Olympus. He didn't know if she'd stayed home with the baby in the mineshaft, or if she'd gone out scaring people and kicking kittens and the like. He didn't really care, either. He didn't own her.
He came home, they had dinner, she went to bed and he joined around 2am once Malia settled. It was disgustingly domestic. And he kind of liked it.
Until he woke up, alone.
All Maleficent's things were gone. All Malia's clothes and the few toys he'd snuck in from Olympus, gone.
No wife. No baby. No note.
Another cupboard caught fire.
Maleficent didn't even blink.
"Dada!" Malia cried when the light from the flames woke her. Her face lit up when she spotted him, and she reached up, her little hands grabbing the air impatiently. His heart melted at the sight, even if his temper was still flaring.
"I'm sorry I thought our eight month old gave us the night off?" His tone was scathing as he crossed the room to lift Malia out of her stroller, hugging her to his chest.
The baby fisted his T-shirt in her hands instantly, burrowing into his neck, then letting out a happy little sigh. Growling, Malia's reaction sending him fully into attack mode, he added, "I wasn't expecting my wife to take off in the middle of the night. Although maybe I should have noticed, given that sleeping next to you is like snuggling a glacier. The bed was pleasantly warm this morning."
Maleficent's eyes narrowed, and Hades' heart slammed against his rib cage when he felt Mal's lifeline change beneath his fingertips.
It was blurry, far away, but it was more than he'd ever been able to see before.
Everyone had a Story. The fixed points in time that made up their life. Some were predetermined. Others were the result of choices.
As a god, he was subject to two very strict rules about Stories.
First, he could never see his own Story. Or any fixed points he played a part in. He'd broken that rule with Hercules, and it hadn't gone well.
Secondly, he could not influence a fixed point in time that he wasn't part of. Nothing he did could change the outcome. Like when Beasty decided to create the Isle - Hades had gotten himself a seat on the Council and made many, many remarks about what a terrible idea it was. But the Isle was a fixed point in time. Nothing he said could change it.
If he could see Mal's lifeline, even if her Story was a little fuzzy...
It meant he wasn't a part of it.
His breath caught in his throat as the flames grew wilder.
He looked at Maleficent now, really looked at her.
The cunning smirk that was never far from her lips was replaced by a blank mask of indifference.
Her eyes, normally so full of passion, were muted. Guarded.
She was back in her world domination cloak. He hadn't seen her wear that indoors...since before they found out about Malia.
It was not a good sign.
"What the fuck, M?"
The temperature of the room dropped at least twenty degrees. Maleficent simply rolled her eyes at the venom, knowing the lack of reaction messed with him most, and picked up the knife and chopping board, pushing the herbs into the cauldron. "Your grandma dropped by for a visit."
Hades eyes narrowed, "And what the fuck did Gaia say now?"
Nothing good ever came from an unexpected visit from his grandmother. The woman - and he used that term very loosely - thrived on causing mayhem. It had been a few hundred years since her last escapade. Egypt had never been the same.
Gaia had taken a shine to Maleficent immediately. Almost as though she saw a kindred spirit.
It made him deeply uncomfortable.
"Does it matter?" Maleficent slammed the chopping board and knife down, the anger cracking her indifferent facade.
The look she gave him would have made a weaker man drop to his knees and beg for mercy.
Too bad that man wasn't him.
"You left with my child in the middle of the night, of course it matters!" Hades snapped, the flames shifting from blue to red.
He moved closer, keeping the island between them in case she decided to fight dirty. Or do something crazy like grab Malia from his arms and run.
Maleficent glared cooly. She was silent for a long moment, long enough that Hades thought she was going to freeze him out. Do whatever she was planning without a word. But then she whispered, "You should have told me what your family have planned for her."
Gaia.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
As the eldest child of a Tier One Olympian, there were certain things that were expected of Malia. Demigod or not.
Hades hadn't had those conversations with his brothers yet. Malia wasn't even a year old. Her powers were only beginning to manifest. She'd sent a fireball at Panic yesterday because he didn't get her bottle fast enough, then cried for an hour because she'd scared herself.
She was just a baby.
Her cousin Athena already had War. So he was thinking she'd be a good fit for chaos. Or maybe vengeance. But that was years from now. She wouldn't get her crown until she was eighteen.
It was a blink and a lifetime away.
"Oh I don't know Mr. I-Can-See-Your-Lifeline. You tell me." Maleficent's tone was mocking, cruel. A distraction from the betrayal she thought he'd dealt her. "Don't tell me you can't see her Story."
"I can't. I'm in it."
Maleficent's right eye twitched. Mal's lifeline began to take shape in front of him.
He'd lied, and she knew it.
He was losing his family right before his eyes. And he was powerless to stop it.
Nothing he did could influence these points in time.
Nothing.
That knowledge didn't stop him fighting for them.
"Don't do this, M." The words hung in the air between them. He wasn't sure if it was a threat or a prayer.
Maleficent ignored him, picking up another root to chop. The protection spell was against him, Hades realised with a jolt. His grip on Malia tightened. He suddenly noticed the way her hair felt, brushing against his skin, and committed it to memory.
He couldn't lose her now. Not when he'd just got her...
They continued their impasse for what felt like an eternity. Maleficent chopping angrily. Hades burning a hole in the side of her head.
She broke first.
"You knew!" she screeched, launching the knife in his general direction. It went wide, lodging itself in the wall six feet away. Her aim was terrible without magic, he didn't even need to deflect it, "You knew."
"It's her Story, M. I can't change it!" He knew there was no point in arguing with her. Whatever his grandmother had said, she believed it. She'd made her choice. And that choice meant he could now see a handful of Mal's fixed points in time.
Her first spell.
Her first kiss - Harry Hook, really? The little urchin was a charmer already, and he was only eighteen months old.
Leaving the Isle at sixteen.
Sitting on a wall kissing a boy with sandy coloured hair. True Love's Kiss.
He was going to miss it all.
Unless he could find a loophole.
Digging into her lifeline, he tried to focus on the key points. Mercifully, there were still blank spots, proving that he was still part of her Story somewhere.
Some things were blurry, like they weren't quite fixed yet. Almost like it wasn't clear if he'd be involved or not.
What he could see told him that she would be powerful. That she'd have the power to unite a broken world.
He could see that her future was nothing to do with her being a demigod and everything to do with being her mother's daughter.
Switching tact, he focused on Maleficent's line. It was a lot clearer. No interference from him on that front.
He watched her descend into a new type of evil. Driven by paranoia and fear instead of arrogance and entitlement. After watching an encounter where fourteen year old Malia almost beat her mother in a staring contest, watching how Maleficent cheated to keep the upper hand, he turned back to his wife - she was still his wife for now - in disbelief.
Her cheeks flushed with anger when she realised where he'd been looking, even though she didn't know what he saw.
"You're scared that your kid's going to be more powerful than you?" Hades spat, rolling his eyes. He couldn't help himself, still trying to salvage things as he warned her, "That's how my father fell."
"You're missing the point." Maleficent dismissed his warning with a wave of her hand, "Gaia-"
"Did what she always does," he cut her off angrily, turning away to pace the room.
He still didn't have enough control to turn the flames off, so he walked through them. Malia thought this was hilarious, trying to catch the fire in her hands. The knowledge this would be the last time this happened sat heavy on his shoulders, like the punishment they'd served Atlas. "She rocks up with her manipulations and half-truths and the self-fulfilling prophecies that she spins on a whim. I don't see why you're afraid-"
"I am terrified!" Maleficent cried, all pretence of anger gone. Hades stopped mid-step, slowly turning to face her.
She was pale, even by fairy standards. Her eyes wide and honest and...terrified.
"If she's going to be the most powerful being in all of Auradon, she needs to be prepared for a War." Sighing deeply, steeling herself for a bad reaction, Maleficent focused on a point just over his shoulder as she added, "And that's not going to happen on Olympus."
"Did you forget how I got my throne?" Hades' eyes flashed black, and Maleficent gasped when she finally met his stare. He was scaring her, he knew that, but this wasn't the time for pulling punches.
If she wanted to leave, he wasn't going down without a fight.
He let the War play out in his mind's eye, the bloody battles, the fields soaked with blood. Standing with his brothers on one side, facing their father and his allies.
He showed her everything.
Maleficent cursed entire kingdoms.
He wiped out entire races.
She was the ant. He was the boot.
"This is what I mean!" Maleficent tore her gaze away from his, shaking her head violently to dispel the images. She threw her hands in the air, her cloak billowing, casting a shadows in front of the flames. "That doesn't work here. You have no idea how things work here. You grew up in a void. You fought gods. Malia...she's fighting a different fight. You don't know what she needs!"
"So what, you're leaving?"
"I already left." Maleficent froze after the words left her mouth, as if she was shocked she'd finally said them out loud. And Mal's lifeline became fuzzy again, just for a moment. But then as she closed her eyes, it became clear again. Her whisper was a plea, "I won't let you make her weak."
Hades looked away, to the floor, holding Malia tighter.
He'd never been able to deny this woman anything.
Could never make her do anything either.
She'd never bend to his will. And he wouldn't want her to.
Gaia strikes again.
He didn't move when Maleficent sighed heavily, or when she crossed the room. He knew what was coming.
She was going to take Malia. She was going to reach out and lift the baby from his arms, and he was going to hand her over without a fight. And then he'd smoke out, without looking back. And then he'd find his brothers and break some shit. It was the perfect time of year for earthquakes.
Surprising him - one last time - Maleficent stepped into his arms. She wrapped one arm around his waist and placed her other hand on Malia's back. It was the most proactive affection she'd shown either of them months. Normally, they communicated in double sided barbs and insults. Fighting fire with fire. Other times, she reluctantly accepted his affection.
The fact that Maleficent, Mistress of All Evil, was initiating affection...
He should probably check that Tartarus hadn't frozen over.
Instead, he pulled her closer, resting his chin on top of her head, between the horns. She still fit perfectly in his arms. The ice to his fire.
They stood there in silence as the kitchen burned around them. Hades was not going to be the one to pull away first, starting his wife-imposed exile.
Malia, confused by the shift of emotion in the room, leaned back and shouted, demanding her parents' attention. She joined in with her own fire, creating little purple fire bubbles that lasted a few seconds before bursting. She laughed, clapping her hands excitedly.
He'd need to put a blocker on that if he wasn't going to be around to train her.
"You get her when nothing ties her to this earth anymore." Maleficent whispered, shifting to lay her head against his shoulder. She reached out to move a curl out of Mal's eyes. It was the first time Hades had ever seen her do something so...motherly. She sounded almost sad as she offered, "Isn't that enough?"
...
Mount Olympus is Auradon's closest neighbour.
The mountain sits along the southern border. The origin of everything.
Even as the Stories became myths, and the myths became cautionary tales, Olympus continued to stand.
Silently judging, always within sight.
My family...they pretend that they don't really interact with mortals.
Poseidon hasn't been seen for centuries.
I quietly collect my souls.
Zeus has a habit of getting mortal women pregnant every couple of hundred years, but it's been a while.
To anyone in Auradon, the gods of Mount Olympus are just some mysterious ruling class living next door.
Like an ant and a boot. It was only a matter of time before someone got squished.
When your mother and I separated, I had no choice but to come down off the mountain.
When King Beast wanted me to bring back his dead, my price was a seat at his table. I didn't realise just how helpful it would turn out to be.
Auradon likes to think my attention sets them apart.
The question no one thinks to ask - what does the God of the Dead want with Auradon?
The better question is - what does Auradon have that I want?