A/N: This chapter has actually been done for like… a weeks, but I put off doing major edits because the muse struck and I started the chapter AFTER this one. Because you never question when the muse cooperates with you, right? I also can't have you guys getting used to multiple updates a month for when my muse DOES decide to fly the coop again. ;p A couple new characters appear in this one, and I know a few people aren't going to like one of them. All I can say is trust me. They'll be more about this in another author's note at the end of the chapter.
First and foremost, as always, thank you to spartanguard for being the most kickass beta to ever exist. You have my undying love. Credit goes to distant-rose for eternally answering all my random af questions about greek mythology at one in the morning, as well as hitting me with what Hecate's scent would be in like .5 seconds after I asked. She also helped me craft Hecate's physical description like the boss ass expert that she is. (If you need a visual reference, it's Yennefer of Vengerberg from The Witcher). shireness-says was also a massive help by being a sounding board when my muse decided to question my outline.
Guest review: Oh, I'm so glad you were able to write more. I hope you are doing well with this whole pandemic going on. It is a nice reprieve in my evening to find this here to read. I check daily LOL. Seriously, at least once, sometimes more. I love your stories. This chapter was very interesting. It will be cool to see how Uncle Liam interacts with Erin and Eric. I'm not sure what this means for him. Will he be stuck then in the underworld? Is this not what the Mother Fairy meant for him to do? I can't wait to see what is going on with them.
And what is Blue missing? Where did she go? Is she the reason Mal got into Camelot? What message did Tink have? Poor Emma I really feel bad for her, and Killian. They have so much going on. I'm surprised Emma hasn't completely collapsed or had a mental breakdown from exhaustion and worry.
Great chapter! I can't wait to read more! I hope your creative mind will be able to come up with another chapter soon!
And of course, I'll be checking in often LOL
Thank you so much for my distraction, and getting to dive into your world here.
Stay healthy and happy and safe!
This totally made my day when I got it, thank you! I'm doing as well as one can who still has to work and lives in a state with a moronic governor, haha
This is absolutely NOT what the Mother Fairy meant for him to do, and you'll see her reaction to realizing he's not on Davy's ship any more in a chapter or two (re: there's some yelling at poor Hades) haha As for the rest, some of those questions will be answered shortly, others at the end. But they WILL all be answered. :) Thank you for reading and reviewing!
As always, enjoy, and reviews feed the muse!
Chapter 12: New and Old Friends
Wiping the blood of the now-dead hellhound on his leather pants, Eric sighed in exhaustion.
That was the third of its kind he'd encountered since waking up in this unknown realm twelve hours ago. While he'd personally never ran into one before, he'd heard enough tales about them to know what he was up against the moment he spotted the first one. They resembled dogs—four legs, ears, a snout, tail—but that was where any similarity between them and the friendly animals that people kept as pets ended. Hellhounds were massive creatures. Their shoulders alone reached his waist, and if any of them had stood on their back legs they would be as tall, if not taller, than he was. Black, mangled fur and red eyes that burned like fire were other unique and distinctive characteristics of a hellhound, not to mention the odor. The smell of burning brimstone emanated from them as if they had been born of it—which, according to every tale he'd heard, that's exactly where they'd come from—and Eric had found himself gagging on the stench as he fought them.
And true to all the tales he'd heard when someone summoned them from the depths of the Underworld, hellhounds were not docile or friendly.
The first two had gone down relatively fast and easy—or as easy as killing something half your size with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth could be—but this one had been an all-out battle for nearly ten minutes. The hellhound had taken him completely by surprise. The forest's overpowering yet pleasant scent of gooseberries and lavender, along with a lack of foliage on the ground, had enabled the creature to almost reach him before he'd even known it was there. In fact, the only reason he hadn't been mauled from behind was because the hellhound had given away its presence by snarling seconds before leaping at his exposed back. From the moment he rolled to the side and drew his sword Eric had been forced to go on the defensive, every move desperate and aimed at keeping the creature's snapping jaw away from his body rather than trying to land a killing blow. It was only by the grace of his ability to fight in confined spaces and a quick twist of his wrist that eventually resulted in him killing the hellhound.
Not that he'd gotten out of the encounter unharmed. Wincing against the pain that shot through his left arm as he tried to move it, Eric carefully examined the wound.
He could see the bloody slashes that the hellhound's claws had delivered to his bicep through the shredded remains of his shirt. They were fairly deep wounds, though thankfully the scratches didn't seem to go to the bone. Which was a miracle in itself considering the strength he'd felt when the massive paw lashed out at him. Ripping the lower half of his shirt sleeve off, Eric carefully wrapped it around the wounds and, using a combination of his right hand and teeth, tied it off as tightly as he could stand it. That would at least staunch the blood flow for now. It really needed to be cleaned and covered with something sanitary, but that would have to wait until he found water and another source for bandages.
A quick perusal of himself showed that the rest of his injuries were minor—mostly scrapes and areas that would most certainly turn to bruises later—and, sheathing his now-clean sword, Eric began to move.
There hadn't been a single sign of Erin over the last twelve hours. Pure and unbridled panic, the kind he hadn't felt since the night his parents were murdered, had set in when he woke up in a field of knee-high grass without her. He'd looked for even a hint of her presence for miles in every direction but had never found any. In fact, it appeared that no one other than himself had been in that field for some time. It was as if Erin had landed in a different location than he did, which—with his very limited knowledge on how portals worked—should have been impossible. Portals weren't sentient beings who picked where to deposit someone. If two or more people went through one they all landed in the same general area, and Eric knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Erin had fallen into the portal with him.
He couldn't recall the finer details of what had happened after the portal pulsated—he'd been blinded to everything except the agonising pain that erupted from his stomach and spread over his entire body like wildfire—but he could distinctly remember seeing her tumbling through the electric blue portal.
The fact that there had been no evidence of her or anyone else's presence in the field except his own quieted the worry churning within his gut only a little. While it meant that someone hadn't taken her while he was knocked out, it still raised the question of where was she? He wasn't going to find the answer to that standing in one place, however.
Praying he'd stumble upon Erin, or at least some sign of her elsewhere in this strange realm, Eric had started walking in what he hoped was an easterly direction as the night sky began to fade to gray.
Half a day later it was still overcast—there hadn't been a single hint of the sun in all that time—and he now found himself trudging through the most unusual forest he'd ever been in. With their skinny trunks and drooping branches, the trees that surrounded him resembled weeping willows. But like the hellhounds, that's where the resemblance between these trees and every other weeping willow he'd ever seen ended. Their bark was a brilliant, almost glowing silver, and the leaves that hung on the curtain like branches were a deep, royal purple. The forest also didn't have the normal smells one would usually associate with woodlands. There was no earthy or damp moss scent—only the constant and calming smell of gooseberries and lavender filled the air around him. The entire setting reminded him of some of the more rural parts of Wonderland where brightly colored plants and unusual smells thrived, though Eric knew for a fact that wasn't where the portal had taken them.
Wonderland had its own built in protection barrier, and there was no way someone would have been able to summon hellhounds to that realm.
The sudden rumbling of his stomach brought to light another issue. Not only did he not know what realm he was in, or where Erin was within it, but he also hadn't come across an ounce of food since waking up. One would think with the scent of gooseberries surrounding him that the forest would be filled with them, but in the eight hours of traversing the unusual woodlands Eric hadn't seen a single piece of the fruit. He was going to have to find some form of nutrient soon though. He hadn't had anything to eat since their group stopped for dinner after escaping the Broceliande and, taking into account that he'd more than likely been knocked out for a minimum of six hours upon landing here, that would have been almost twenty-fours hours ago. He wouldn't be able to continue to search for Erin without substance—or water—for much longer.
With no other option open to him, Eric ignored the growling of his stomach and continued on. An hour later, just when he was about to climb one of the oddly colored trees and get some much needed rest, he heard the unmistakable sound of running water not far from his location. The speed of his steps increased until he was jogging more than walking, and a few minutes later his eyes landed on the source of the sound. A small river no wider than ten feet cut through the forest for as far as he could see in either direction, its meandering path a clear testament to the fact that it had been here long before the weeping willows that surrounded it.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he quickly knelt at the river's edge and moved to scoop some of the clear water into his hands.
"Don't drink that!"
In one fluid motion that was honed from over a decade of fighting, Eric stood and, drawing his sword, turned in the direction of the unexpected voice. A man of about his age, or at least no more then ten years older than him, with dark brown hair was running towards him at a breakneck pace from the south. He didn't seem to be a threat—his sword was still secured in the scabbard at his side, and he had alerted Eric to his presence before reaching him—but the stranger was the first human he had encountered since waking up here, and the man seemed to appear from out of nowhere. Every instinct that had helped him survive a life at sea as a pirate was screaming at him not to become complacent just because someone didn't appear to be a threat.
"Come any closer and I'll gut you!" Eric shouted, his voice hard and menacing as it filled the all too quiet air.
Realizing that his unexpected presence wasn't being met with a warm welcome, the man came to an abrupt stop ten feet from where Eric stood. "Easy there, tiger," he said, hands raising in a gesture of surrender. "I'm not here to hurt you."
"I would be dead a hundred times over if I took the word of every man who said that to me."
"Yeah, I get that," the stranger replied with an understanding nod. "Being a pirate is no different than being a thief in that regard. You have to question everybody's true intention that you come in contact with until they prove themselves, because the day you don't is the day you end up with a knife in your back."
Eric's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I never said I was a pirate."
"Didn't have to. I know who you are, Captain D'Harper."
He knew his name and rank. Normally Eric wouldn't have thought twice about a stranger knowing who he was. He had, after all, cultivated quite the reputation by attacking King Septimus' ships for seven years, and a pirate, particularly a pirate captain, lived and died by the weight of their reputation. It and loyalty were the only things that kept mutinies from happening and other, younger captains from attempting to take control of their ship. While he certainly wasn't as well known as Erin's father, his name still carried fairly far within the pirating world—even if he hadn't participated in the act of piracy in four years.
But this was different. He wasn't in Misthaven anymore, or any of the surrounding kingdoms. He was in an unknown realm, and an obviously strange one at that given the amount of hellhounds he'd encountered and their current surroundings. And this man, the first human he'd come across, just happened to know who Eric was?
Tightening his grip on his sword, Eric moved until the sharp point of his blade was no more than a mere inch from the man's chest. The fact that the stranger never flinched didn't go unnoticed by him.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Neal," the man replied calmly. "Neal Cassidy."
Eric sucked in a surprised breath as his eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline.
He knew that name.
"Neal Cassidy. As… as in Henry Mill's father?"
Without ever breaking eye contact the man nodded, and all Eric could do was stare at him. He didn't know much about Henry's biological father aside from the little bit Erin had told him over the years, but what he did know without question was that Neal Cassidy was dead. Had been for thirty years after giving his life to bring Rumple back and give the Charmings a fighting chance against Regina's half sister, Zelena.
The man before him, however, looked anything but dead.
"That's impossible," he murmured. "Neal Cassidy died."
The man chuckled. "Still am technically dead. All you see before you is a corporeal manifestation of my soul."
"A corp—" Shaking his head, Eric raised his sword that had begun to dip slightly as his mind tried to grasp the impossible. "No. You're lying. Neal Cassidy is dead."
"I'm not lying," Neal, or at least the person claiming to be him, replied. "And I can prove it."
"There's no way yo—"
Without warning, the man before him lowered his hands and stepped forward, effectively impaling himself on Eric's blade. He'd killed hundreds of men before in a similar fashion. He knew the sound it made as the steel part of his sword sunk into a body, how you could feel the resistance down to the pommel and the look that came into a man's eye while he was being stabbed. Yet none of that happened. There was no sickening sound, no resistance, and there was no pain in the man's eye. He simply smiled as a bright glow emanated around where Eric's sword passed through his chest.
Shocked, Eric took three stumbling steps back. His sword slid out of the man's body as he did to reveal a blade devoid of blood.
"I told you."
"That only proves you're a ghost," Eric shakily murmured, looking up from his impossibly clean sword to the man. "While that's… unnerving, to say the least, it doesn't prove you're Neal. For all I know you're another ghost masquerading as him."
The man smiled. "Well that certainly would have made Swayze's movie more interesting."At Eric's perplexed look, he waved his hand in dismissal. "Nevermind. Look, ask me something that only Neal would know."
Not wanting to let on that he wasn't exactly an expert when it came to Neal Cassidy, Eric quickly wracked his brain for anything Erin would have mentioned about Henry's father. And then it hit him—a single, brief scene she'd talked about from one of the books Henry had penned. It was a moment no one else but the real Neal could know because no one else had been there to witness it. In fact, the only reason Erin's family knew it had happened was because of the powers bestowed to Henry as the Author, and it had only been mentioned to him in passing when Erin was telling him her parents' story.
"Neal uh… he sent a message to someone that told them to find Emma and bring her back to Storybrooke. Who did he send it to and what did he say to the seagull that delivered it?"
"It was Killian," the man replied without hesitation. "I sent him the message."
"And what was said to the bird?"
"Find Killian Jones on the Jolly Roger. Find Captain Hook."
A beat of silence passed between the two men before Eric lowered the tip of his sword to the ground. "It's really you," he murmured. "You're Henry's father."
The man—Neal—smiled. "In the flesh. Well, not really, but you get the gist."
"But that's… I—"
He watched through increasingly clouded vision as worry suddenly flashed across Neal's face. "Hey, are you okay?"
He was definitely not okay. How could he be? He was conversing with a bonafide dead man for Hera's sake.
"I—"
"Buddy?"
As a wave of dizziness washed over him, Eric dropped his sword and took a stumbling step to the side. Or at least he thought he did. It was hard to tell when everything but him seemed to be locked into place.
"Eric!"
"I think I'm going to faint," he muttered seconds before his world went dark.
"Gaia help me," Hades groaned as he leaned back in his onyx throne. Beside him, Hermes breathed for the first time in perhaps two minutes and loosened the white-knuckled grip he'd had on his staff.
"That was close."
"You're telling me," the Lord of the Underworld said with a heavy sigh.
These mortals were going to be the proveriable death of him. They'd been in the Underworld for half a day and had already come close to dying or being stuck in the realm of the dead forever at least two times each. The latest incident, which he and Hermes had been watching through the large, ornate scrying mirror that stood in front of his throne, was Captain D'Harper almost drinking from the Lethe. They'd been checking in to see how he was faring in the Underworld when he stumbled across the river as it wound its way through Hecate's forest. Hades had been on the verge of saying to hell with The Gauntlet and resigning himself to asking for Asteria's forgiveness for all eternity when the captain moved to scoop the water in his hands.
Luckily, it hadn't come to that.
"At least Neal got there in time," Hades said, only half paying attention to the scene now unholding in the scrying mirror of the two men conversing while D'Harper pointed a sword at Neal.
"Small miracles," the messenger of the gods murmured. "I wasn't expecting the boys to move that fast."
"They're motivated. Love and loyalty doesn't end with death, after all." Taking a sip of the red wine he'd been neglecting since realizing what the captain was about to do, he added, "Magnificent idea about the food, by the way."
Hermes shrugged. "It was the quickest solution I could come up with under a time crunch."
"Well, it's perfect," he replied. "They're going to need to eat while here, and they can't touch any of the Underworld's food. I'm trying to undermine a fairy, not aid her."
How they were going to get substance to the mortals had been the largest obstacle he and Hermes had had to overcome in the days after he'd opened the portal. By an ancient law that predated even him, any visitor—divine or otherwise—who partook of the Underworld's food was forever bound to the realm. It was how he and Persephone had outwitted her controlling mother and Zeus' demands eons ago.
While the Underworld's food was obviously off limits to the princess and captain, they were still mortals. They needed food to survive, and there was no way they could go their entire stay in the realm of the dead without it. Especially considering they would need all their strength to pass The Gauntlet. Hermes had been the one to suggest giving them the offerings that were left at temples in the Upper World, and it was a brilliant plan. The mortals were fed and it ensured neither of them would become trapped in the Underworld.
Not that there weren't a hundred other ways that could happen.
"How is the princess faring?"
"Fairly well, considering she landed in the Mountains of Despair." A flick of his wrist had the image of Neal and D'Harper disappearing in a cloud of blue smoke. When it cleared, the mirror showed them Princess Erin as she sat eating in a cave. "Although there was still a moment when she first got here where I thought I'd have to intervene in order to keep a 4,000 year old prophecy intact."
"We both knew there was a high probability that you'd have to at some point during this." Tilting his head as he looked at the scrying mirror, Hermes added, "How did she bring herself out of it?"
"She accidentally enchanted a token to be tethered to the captain."
The messenger of the gods let out a low, astonished whistle.
"Well that's impressive, even with knowing she's a Twice-Blessed Child."
Hades hummed in agreement. Enchanting objects and tethering someone to an item were feats any mid-level magic user could accomplish. But to do both simultaneously, and without a piece of hair or drop of blood from the person that had been tethered? It was impossible. Even Hades, a divine being whose scope of power was only matched by Zeus and Posiedon, had needed something from the twins to tether them to his portal. Yet the princess had done it without so much as blinking an eye or even meaning to.
He truly had been worried that his wife's idea of getting both her and Captain D'Harper out of the Underworld had gone up in flames when Princess Erin sunk to the floor of the mountain pass after discovering her captain wasn't with her. In order for both of them to leave they needed to first survive the perils of the Underworld and find each other, a task which couldn't be completed with the princess curled up on the ground in defeat.
Of course, that was the objective of the Mountains of Despair.
The darkest part of the Underworld—both literally and figuratively—they were devoid of all light even during the 'day' that came over his realm, and were designed to extinguish a person's hope and will to keep moving. Every mortal who went there, save a select few, had succumbed to the hopelessness and loneliness that permeated the air like a living entity. They would wander the maze of mountains until perishing, adding to the sense of dread for future souls as their bodies turned to bones where they'd dropped.
Not that the princess would have ever truly become another victim of the mountains. Completing the prophecy she and her brother were tied to—the very one Hades had witnessed being written all those centuries ago—was too important an event for him to allow her to waste away there like all the other mortals that had come before her. If she'd been unable to pull herself out of the despair he would have had no choice but to intervene, which would have immediately caused them to fail The Gauntlet and left Captain D'Harper trapped in the Underworld.
Thankfully the princess' magic had unknowingly saved her captain from a fate worse than death.
A deep, guttural groan from beside him pulled Hades from his thoughts, and he looked to see his nephew holding a hand against the side of his head.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Someone's trying to contact me," Hermes answered through clenched teeth.
"You're a god. Can't you ignore them?"
Squeezing his eyes shut, the younger god shook his head. "Whoever it is they—they're powerful."
Hades huffed. "Probably Hera needing you to find what mortal's bed my brother is currently residing in," he muttered disdainfully. He had never understood either of his brothers' tendencies to stray outside their marriages.
"No, it—" Hermes winced as whoever was praying to him clearly raised their voice. "It's the Mother Fairy."
It was Hades turn to groan as his head tipped backwards against the onyx throne.
"She knows, doesn't she?"
"Ah, yes. She does."
Wonderful, Hades thought. He had hoped she wouldn't find out about the Twice-Blessed Child and her Companion being here so quickly, but that had obviously been a naive desire. Of course she would have known from the moment it happened. She was intricately linked to the two mortals, after all. One more than the other.
"She's… demanding that I ask you to visit her. Apparently she has tried contacting you all day but you haven't answered."
"Well that certainly wasn't by mistake. I do have a job that requires a fair bit of my attention," Hades muttered. "I can't drop everything to pay a fairy, even her, a visit just because she asks. Ignore her for now."
"That's—" Hermes winced again. "Uranus! That's easier said than done."
Rolling his eyes, Hades reached over and grasped his nephew's arm with his free hand. A blue aura momentarily surrounded Hermes, and as he let go it dissipated and the messenger of the gods opened his eyes.
"What did you do?"
Hades shrugged nonchalantly. "Simply cloaked you from her prayers. Don't worry, you'll still hear whoever else needs to get in touch with you."
"Hades…"
"Yes, Hermes?"
"Cloaking me from hearing her isn't going to stop her. You know that."
"Of course not," he replied. "But I'm a god. Mortals don't demand to see me, and I take exception to any who think they can."
Hermes raised one strawberry blonde eyebrow at him. "Need I remind you she isn't a mere mortal?
"She's still not divinity."
"True," the younger god conceded, "But I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out that if you ignore her for long, she will go to Zeus."
"Oh, trust me, I am more than aware of that," Hades muttered, his mind flashing to what had happened the last time he'd ignored the Mother Fairy's request for an audience. "Don't worry, I'll speak with her soon."
"It's your hea—"
A sudden, loud bang had both gods looking towards the front of Hades' throne room. The massive doors made of pure iron and that stood nearly twenty feet tall were thrown open against the palace walls, and in the very center of the doorway stood Hecate.
The Goddess of Magic had sharp, angular features that wouldn't have looked out of place within the Elvish race, with high cheekbones and full lips painted blood red. She wore a flowing black gown with a wolf pelt cape around her shoulders, the colors of each almost perfectly blending in with her midnight black hair that hung half way down her back. A multitude of necklaces and rings adorned her neck and fingers, the gemstones in each one glittering menacingly in the torchlight of the throne room while the large, ruby earrings that dangled from her ears swayed violently as she strode up the dias to where Hades' throne sat. Her eyes, a vibrant and piercing purple, were heavily accentuated by black kohl and were currently burning with fury.
"I should skin you alive!" she seethed, pointing a finger with a long, red colored nail at Hades as she came to a stop next to the scrying mirror.
Taken aback by the anger radiating off the goddess, Hermes looked to his uncle.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing," the Lord of the Underworld replied defensively, which earned him a scoff from Hecate.
"Nothing?" she parroted back to him, venom dripping from the singular word. "He screwed up my enchantment spell!"
Hermes' eyes widened as Hades held up his hands in a palacating manner.
"Hecate, I merrily tampered with—"
"You completely altered it!" the goddess shouted. "Last night was supposed to be a crescent moon!"
"Yes, but a full moon gives off more light."
"And?! If you need more light you do something else! I created that enchantment on the ceiling to give the souls here some comfort and normalcy. Not for you to alter on a whim!"
Hades sighed, the sound long and full of resignation. Very few people in this world—in any world, really—would have the nerve to speak to him like Hecate currently was. In fact, if it was anyone but her talking to him like that, he would have already lashed out. This exchange, however, was simply a normal part of the relationship that they'd had for eons now. Hades highly respected the goddess before him, to the point it was her he had gone to for help when Demeter threw her tantrum, and he knew her bark was worse than her bite.
At least where he was concerned. While he was technically more powerful than her, he knew Hecate could hurt him if she really put her mind to it. He'd seen first hand what happened when someone underestimated her and her abilities.
"Hecate," he began softly, "I had no other choice at the time. The princess needed to be able to see."
Confusion momentarily interrupted the goddess' fury and her brow furrowed. "What princess?"
Hermes made an incredulous noise in the back of this throat beside Hades. "You didn't tell her?!"
He sighed again, this time the sound coming out as a long, suffering one. "It's like everyone around here forgets I have a time consuming job," he murmured. "Yes, Hermes, I forgot to mention the current situation to Hecate."
Hecate narrowed her eyes. "What situation have you gotten yourself into this time, Hades?"
"The kind where I'm not completely sure I can come out a winner," he replied honestly. Draining the rest of his red wine, he told her everything: Maleficent's visit to the Underworld, how she'd gotten him to open the portal by calling in the promise he'd made in naivety, his efforts to thwart her plan, Persephone's idea to let the mortals take The Gauntlet, the things he'd done thus far to try to help them—he laid it all out. When he was done, Hecate continued to stare at him in silence for a long moment before speaking.
"Sweet Gaia," she murmured to herself with a shake of her head. "You really are waist-deep in a sticky situation, aren't you?"
"More like drowning in one," he said with a strained smile. "There are very few things working in my favor right now, and I'm not completely convinced that I still won't have to step in at some point and trap Captain D'Harper here forever."
That was something he hadn't voiced to a single soul except his wife in the letters Hermes secretly ferried between the two of them during this time of year, but he trusted the Goddess of Magic enough to tell her. He knew she wouldn't try to use his moment of honesty and vulnerability against him at some point in the future.
Hecate waved a dismissive hand at him, the gems in her rings glittering brightly with the movement. "You don't know that for certain," she replied. "They're mortals. They may yet surprise you."
"History would beg to differ," Hermes added, which caused her to roll her eyes.
"It doesn't mean it can't happen either. Persephone obviously thinks they can make it, and I learned long ago not to question your wife's faith in something—even if it is the most outrageous of outcomes." Adjusting her wolf pelt cape, Hecate took a deep breath. "You've done the best you can given the circumstances, Hades. If it all falls apart and you're forced to keep him here, well… We'll deal with that then."
"So you're not mad at me anymore?" he dared to ask with what his wife would have called a too-innocent smile.
Hecate huffed in frustration. "Oh, I'm still furious at you. It's going to take me six months at minimum to fix the enchantment, and I'm going to expect jewels—lots and lots of them—to compensate me for my time and effort. But… I understand why you had to do it. Is there anything I can do to help with the current situation?"
"Nothing that wouldn't violate the terms of The Gauntlet, unfortunately," he said with a shake of his head.
Bafflement flickered across Hermes' face. "Doesn't giving the princess a light source while she's in the Mountains of Despair break the rules?"
"No. I didn't give her the light source. I… merrily altered her natural surroundings to provide one."
"That just sounds like you're splitting hairs on the definition of giving," Hecate pointed out, "And you're doing that again with allowing the two souls from Elysium to help them."
He rolled his eyes as a deep sigh filled his lungs. "Perhaps, but both are still within the parameters."
"Barely," Hermes replied with a scoff. "It's playing fast and loose with the rules you and Persephone set forth when you created The Gauntlet, and I don't have to tell you the consequences that will happen if you meddle beyond that line again."
Hades scowled darkly at the open and brazen way his nephew spoke to him, but said nothing to refute the other god's words. Not that he really could. He was walking a fine line with how he'd interfered twice now, and as much as he hated to admit it, Hermes and Hecate were right. It was something he couldn't do again if he wanted to save both the princess and captain.
"Speaking of The Gauntlet and its rules," he said at length, "Were you able to talk to my ferryman yet?"
"I haven't." At Hades' raised eyebrow, Hermes shrugged his shoulders. "What? The princess and captain have been in the Underworld for less than twenty-four hours. It takes time to pin down a ferryman. Every time I sense him on the Isle of Souls he's gone before I can get there, which says a lot considering I'm the fastest being in the realm."
"Well clearly not," Hecate quipped, to which Hermes shot her an angry glare. "If the mortals survive the perils of the Underworld they're going to need a guide."
"I am aware of that, Hecate," the younger god ground out through his teeth. "If you have a better idea on how to catch him on the island, I'm all ears."
"As a matter of fact, I do. Charon mentioned this morning that he'd received word from Davy Jones that he'd be bringing some souls in four days time. He always makes a stop at the island afterward so you just have to wait for him there."
"And remember what you can and can't tell him," Hades added. "We're cutting this close. If Davy Jones submits to the request, there are conditions that must be met before he can do so, and those conditions are rapidly approaching."
"I know," Hermes replied with a sigh. "I have a few errands to run for Posiedon and then I'll head directly to the Isle of Souls."
Hermes extended his wings and, amidst a cloud of white feathers, disappeared from the throne room. As Hecate moved her arm to translocate herself—no doubt to grumble about her ceiling enchantment to Thanos or Charon—Hades stopped her.
"Hecate?"
"Yes?"
"There is something I need you to do."
The goddess raised one delicate eyebrow in amusement while crossing her arms over her chest. "Is that so?"
"I need you to alter the enchantment so the full moon stays until the princess and captain hopefully reach here."
All amusement vanished from her beautiful face in the span of a single heartbeat, and she glared at him.
"Hades—"
"It's one of the only ways I can help without breaking the rules," he implored. "I am desperate to not have to seek Asteria's forgiveness."
Hecate stared at him for a long moment before sighing in resignation. "Fine. But you owe me, Unseen One."
With a flick of her wrist she too was gone amidst a pillar of fire, and Hades once again leaned back in his onyx throne as he watched a familiar, shadowed figure approach a now sleeping Princess Erin.
"Eric? Hey! Come on buddy, wake up."
Slowly opening his eyes, Eric found himself laying on his back and looking up into Neal's very concerned face.
"W—what happened?"
"You fainted," Neal replied matter of factly. "Although I'm not surprised you did considering the lack of food and water in this area."
Eric raised an incredulous eyebrow at the man hovering over him. "Yeah, it was completely starvation and thirst that made me faint and not the fact that I was talking to a dead guy," Eric muttered dryly, which earned him a chuckle.
"That probably didn't help matters, no. How are you feeling?"
"Fairly well, all things considered."
"Good. Let's get some food in you before you pass out on me again, and I'll clean that wound while you eat."
After helping him up and into a sitting position against a nearby tree, Neal began rummaging through a cloth sack that Eric hadn't even noticed the other man carrying earlier. He quickly produced two bundles of fabric that were tied with string and handed them wordlessly to Eric. Each one contained an assortment of food—hard jerky, cheese, apples, and a handful of blueberries—and without having to be told twice he began eating as Neal removed the makeshift bandage wrapped around his arm.
"Seriously though," Neal began, "You picked that random moment in the grand scheme of my life to verify who I was?"
"Everything else about you is well known or could be found out someway," Eric replied around a mouthful of apple. "Only the real Neal would have known that."
"Touche, but how do you know about it?"
"Henry is the Author, and part of the position is being able to know about all the moments that make up whatever story he's writing at the time. Even if he wasn't there to witness them." Taking another bite of apple, he added, "This might be the best meal I've ever had in my life."
Neal laughed. "I can imagine. Damn, buddy. What took a swipe at you?"
"Bloody hellhound."
"Ah, yeah. Nasty buggers." Pulling a large water skin from the same sack, Neal poured a little over the red claw marks on Eric's biceps before holding it out towards him. "Here. You need to drink too. Go liberally with it, though. That's all you've got for right now."
Accepting it with a murmured thanks, Eric took two long pulls from the blessedly cool liquid as Neal undid the brown scarf from around his neck and carefully began redressing Eric's wound. When he was done, Eric offered the water skin to him.
"Do you want some?"
"Don't need it."
"Oh. Right, the whole dead thing."
Neal shrugged. "It has some perks."
Recorking the water skin, Eric sat it beside him and popped the last of the blueberries into his mouth.
"So, if you're still not alive, how am I seeing you? Does that—am I dead?"
"You're not dead," Neal quickly assured him. Securely tying off the scarf, he moved from his kneeling position to sit cross-legged next to Eric. "You are still verymuch alive, as is evident by the fact that you're still able to bleed and are currently eating. As for how you can see me… Well, seeing what is essentially a ghost is a normal thing here."
"Where is here?"
"The Underworld."
Eric's eyes went wide, and he made a choking sound as he tried to swallow the blueberry. "The what?!" he asked, his voice high and strained.
"I'd say that's an appropriate response to finding that out."
Finally swallowing the blueberry, Eric cleared his throat. "But that—Wait." Eyes going wide, he stared at the remaining food in his lap in horror. "The food. Isn't… isn't that why Persephone has to spend half the year here? People are bound to the Underworld forever if they eat its food, right?"
"Easy," Neal murmured, momentarily resting his hand on Eric's shoulder. "Technically, yes. If a living soul eats the food of the Underworld, they're trapped here. But this food isn't from here. It was brought from the Upper World—where you live. It's perfectly safe for you to eat."
Taking a deep breath, Eric leaned back against the tree. Well that was a relief. He'd obviously heard of the Underworld before. It was an intricate part of every religion, particularly the one that was practiced within the kingdoms of the Enchanted Forest. Everyone knew of its existence and the tales of the dark, brooding god that oversaw people's souls once they'd passed on. He just didn't understand why he would be here when he wasn't dead.
The memory of an electric blue light along with blinding pain briefly flashed through Eric's mind. "The portal," he murmured. "It must have been an opening to the Underworld. We were trying to figure out who—" Panic instantly ceased him, and the piece of jerky he'd been holding dropped unceremoniously into his lap. "Erin! She fell into the portal with me. Have you seen her? She, ah… she's a strikingly beautiful woman who comes up to about my shoulders with blonde hair and green eyes?"
"I know who she is, but I haven't seen her."
"Where do you think she mi—" Cutting himself off, Eric blinked in surprise. "Wait, you know who she is? Didn't… didn't you die two years before she was born?"
Chuckling, Neal nodded. "Yeah, I did. One of those perks I was talking about is being able to check on loved ones every now and then. I've seen her over the years whenever I looked in on Henry."
"Oh." Well that made sense. "So you know that she's…"
When Eric trailed off, Henry's father nodded once again. "One of Emma and Killian's kids? I know."
Erin had once told him that, after rescuing Henry from Neverland, there had been some tension between Henry's father and her own. Something to do with Killian's intentions towards Emma and Neal's own desire to rekindle the relationship that had produced Henry. She'd never went into extraordinary detail, but she'd told him enough for him to get the impression that Neal hadn't been very happy with Killian being a part of Emma's life. But there wasn't the slightest amount of anger or resentment in the man's words. In fact, there wasn't any emotion. It was said simply as fact, like he'd just told him what the weather was like.
Interesting.
"Do you, ah… Do you know where she might be?"
Neal shot him a sympathetic look. "I'm afraid not. The Underworld is vast, and there's a number of places she could have landed. If you want to find her, my best advice is we head towards Hades' palace. There's a very slim chance we'll run into her, but even if we don't, he'll know how to locate her."
"Sounds as good of a plan as any." Taking a bite of jerky, he added, "How did you know where I was, or that I was even in the Underworld? And who I am?"
"Hermes paid me a visit in Elysium and told me you had arrived, along with where you'd entered and who you were. As well as being the one to give me the food for you to eat. With the surrounding mountains, I knew the only direction you could go would bring you through the forest, so I headed this way."
"And Hermes knew I was here because…"
Neal shrugged. "He didn't say. Normally I'd find that highly suspicious, but from the few times I've interacted with him, it doesn't surprise me. He's a very secretive god when it comes to certain things, particularly affairs of the Underworld."
Continuing to chew on the jerky, Eric nodded. He'd hoped finding out where the portal had taken them would answer a lot of questions, yet it had only served to create more. Why had a portal to the Underworld just randomly opened in Camelot, and who could have done it? The obvious answer to that was Hades, of course, what with him being the ruler of the realm, but Eric wasn't sure what the God of the Dead's motives could have been in doing so. And then there was the matter of Hermes. While he was glad to have the company—even if talking to a dead man was still unnerving—why had the messenger of the gods told Neal where to find him? Why not also tell him where Erin was?
"We should find you some shelter," Neal said while standing, pulling Eric from his thoughts. "It'll be night soon, and the last thing you want is to be caught out in the open by a hellhound when it's dark. Bastards can see even better then."
Glancing up, Eric saw that the bits of gray sky he could see through the silver tree was already beginning to darken to an almost charcoal color. Neal was right—he definitely didn't want to fight a hellhound in the dark. He'd barely made it out of the last encounter with one, and that had been in broad daylight. Wrapping the remaining apples in the fabric they'd come in—the only bit of the food he hadn't scarved down—Eric placed them back in the cloth sack and stood up. As he did, he caught sight of the river and, recalling what he had been about to do when Neal showed up, frowned.
"You said we had a limited supply of water, but there's a perfectly good river right there."
"Only if you want to forget everything you know," Neal replied while picking up the closed sack. "That's the Lethe. One drop of it and you lose your memories forever."
"Oh. Yeah, I've heard about that myth. Guess I better not do that."
Henry's father chuckled. "Why do you think I came barreling in and shouting instead of introducing myself calmly?"
"Fair point. And uh, thank you for saving me from that fate."
"Don't mention it."
Situating the water skin across his body—and mindful to loop its rope across his uninjured side—Eric asked, "Why are you helping me, by the way?" When Neal only stared at him, he added, "I mean… I'm grateful for any assistance I can get in navigating the bloody Underworld, but you don't know me. We clearly never met while you were alive and, aside from me being a friend of your son's, there's nothing that connects us."
He watched as Neal took a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm repaying a debt to an old friend. I don't know if you know this, but I, uh… I spent some time with Killian as a kid. Lived with him, actually, on the Jolly Roger."
Eric vaguely knew of that and the details surrounding it, and he gestured for the other man to continue.
"Anyway, it didn't end… amibicaly. At all. Killian made a bad decision and, well, truth be told, he only made it because I reacted negatively to something. I didn't know then what I know now—or what I found out after death—and if I had, I would have reacted differently to the situation. I'd like to think I would have, at least." A sad, strained smile pulled at Neal's lips. "He was kind of a father figure to me during that time, and we never… I never got to truly make amends with him before I died. Plus, I've seen what he's done for Henry. I—I want to repay that. All of it. Taking care of me and being a better father to Henry than I ever could be. Or was. If helping you helps his kid in anyway, then I'm going to do it without hesitation. I owe Killian that much."
"A valid reason," Eric murmured. "I'm sorry for questioning your motives."
Neal dismissed his apology with a wave of his hand. "Nawh, man, it's fine. I'd be questioning my motives too if I were in your position." Hiking the sack over his shoulder, he nodded in the direction he'd originally come from. "If we follow the Lethe for about a mile that way, there's a protective grove we can spend the night in. Hellhounds can't cross into it unless they want to be turned back into brimstone, and we can continue on at first light."
As Neal started walking, Eric took his own deep breath and glanced around the unusual forest. He could only hope that, wherever Erin was in this godforsaken place, that she was at least safe.
Erin grunted in pain as she all but collapsed against the back wall of a cave she'd stumbled upon a few moments ago. Unbuttoning her vest, she carefully slid it and the left side of her shirt down to get a better look at the deep gashes running across her collarbone.
Fucking chimera.
She'd just entered this mountain range—after spending almost all day traversing more open land with dead grass and decaying flowers—when the damned creature had attacked. It had leapt from behind a pile of huge boulders without warning, and she'd barely dodged the first plume of fire it unleashed in her direction. Most of the twenty-minute fight had been just that. The chimera's serpent tail spewed fire as its lion head snapped viciously at her, and Erin would narrowly avoid both of them while trying to sink her sword into it or hit it with her magic. Chimeras, however, were extremely agile creatures despite their massive size, and the most she'd been able to do with her magic was nick the goat's head that protruded from its back.
Which had only served to anger the chimera even more and caused it to charge her.
The reckless and intimidating maneuver had momentarily thrown even Erin, a seasoned fighter who had been trained by both her father and grandfather, off her game. Within seconds, her sword had been knocked from her hand and she'd found herself on her back, pinned beneath the chimera's front, massive paws and desperately trying to keep its jaws away from her face. Erin's magic, having sensed her fear and desperation, lashed out instinctively. She hadn't even formed the thought to use it when she felt the familiar humming in her veins. Before she could blink, a bright light was exploding from her palms, and then the chimera was lying dead next to her.
"Good riddance," she muttered to herself as she healed the wound with her magic.
She was so tired of this bleak and desolate realm. The terrain was colored in shades of black or gray, and everything within it was dead or on its way to dying. Even the sky was depressing. Not once over the course of the entire day had she seen a hint of the sun. It played with a person's mind and caused dread to constantly be lodged in their chest. Erin still hadn't encountered a single person since coming out of that first mountain range, nor had there been any signs of a city, town, or even rural farmstead. Nothing. Despite the skeletons she'd seen in the mountain pass, and the screams she'd heard coming from that black void in the earth, Erin was truly beginning to believe she'd landed in a human-less realm. Or at least one where people didn't live very long once entering.
Except, of course, for herself and whoever was following her, Erin thought after healing her wound and reaching for the cloth sack she'd dropped next to her. She had yet to actually spot them, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt someone was watching her as she made her way across the realm.
She'd first had the sensation of being watched earlier that day. After leaving the clearing with the circle of onyx stones and screams of pain, she'd run for damn near half a mile before she felt safe enough to resume a stumbling walk. When she could go no further due to sheer exhaustion—she'd been awake for twenty-four hours by her calculations at that point—Erin had climbed one of the blackened trees and passed out. It certainly hadn't been her ideal location to rest. The leafless trees afforded her no protection from anyone who might stumble across her, and there was also the high probability of her moving in her sleep and plummeting to the ground below. But there had been no other option available to her aside from sleeping on the ground, and at least she had a fighting chance if someone tried to climb the tree to get to her.
Upon waking sometime around noon—or what she could only assume was midday considering the sky remained overcast—she'd carefully climbed down and found a cloth sack waiting for her at the base of the trunk. That certainly hadn't been there when she went to sleep. A careful examination of its contents showed food—jerky, cheese, apples, and blueberries—along with a full water skin and a torn off piece of parchment that simply read 'From a Friend.'
The appearance of the sack had unnerved her. Whoever had left it had gotten close to Erin without her ever knowing it, and as far as she could tell in her sweep of the immediate area, they'd also left no trace of themselves behind. The only footprints she had found were her own. And what did they mean by 'friend?' As far as she knew, she didn't know anyone here other than Eric—hell, she still didn't even know what realm this was—but Eric wouldn't have just left her a supply of food and vanished. No, he would have woken her up, or at the very least waited for her.
Every survival instinct she had was screaming at her not to eat or drink the contents of the sack. For all she knew whoever left it could have poisoned the stuff. Her grumbling stomach and the beginnings of another headache, however, reminded her it had been over twelve hours since she last ate, and the prospect of leaving it behind while possibly not coming across any more had her tentatively eating the food.
She'd ate as she walked, and that was when she'd felt it for the first time—the sensation of someone watching her. It had persisted throughout the entire day, but no matter how many times she'd tried to ascertain where the person was, she never saw a single sign of them.
Biting the last remaining bit of jerky she had, Erin pondered that dilemma.
She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone was watching her. That feeling wasn't one a person could easily confuse as another feeling, and she'd had her fair share of experience over the years with it. It did raise two questions, however, the first being who was following her. It certainly wasn't Eric—there was no reason for him to follow her without letting his presence be known. The 'friend' who had left her the food and water or an enemy were the likely candidates, though her instincts leaned more towards the mysterious friend. Whoever it was hadn't moved to attack her all day, even in areas where they could have easily ambushed her. But that led to the second question—why follow her if they weren't an enemy? Surely a friend wouldn't care if she saw them or knew their identity.
Unless there was a reason they didn't want her to know who they were.
Continuing to eat, Erin sighed heavily. She couldn't help but think that this would all be easier if Eric were with her. While having someone to travel across a bleak landscape with and aid her in fights would be a plus, what she really needed right now was the comfort his presence always gave her. He'd know what to say about everything—the desolate world, the mysteriously appearing food, whoever was watching her, how they were going to get home—and he'd be able to keep her from focusing on all the negatives by just being him.
She'd give just about anything to see his smile.
At least she knew he was still alive. The enchanted dubloon in her left hand was still beating with the rhythm of his heart, and she tried to draw what comfort she could from that fraction of a connection with him.
After polishing off the jerky and what remained of the water, she placed her sword across her outstretched legs and settled in more comfortably. She'd told herself when she found the shallow cave that she'd only use it to rest for a bit, heal her wounds, and eat. Exhaustion was beginning to pull at her bones once again, however, and as the gray sky outside began to darken, she closed her eyes and fell into a deep slumber.
Carefully, so as not to alert Erin of his presence, Matthew moved into the cave he'd seen her disappear into an hour ago.
There were better ways to have done this. Neal probably should have appeared to her and he to Eric, but Matthew was a weak man. It had, after all, been six years since he'd laid eyes on Erin in any other way than the ivory fountain that Persephone granted him access to once a year. While he loathed that she was in the Underworld—he still didn't understand why she was, but Hermes had assured him that would be revealed in time—he also couldn't pass up the opportunity to see her again in the flesh. Even if she didn't know he was there.
Hermes had been surprised at that decision. The young god had also seemed to understand Matthew's reasoning, however, without him even having to explain.
Erin had undoubtedly changed in many ways since he last saw her, but he knew the core of his wife had remained the same. If he revealed himself to her, she'd be flooded with guilt. He'd seen how hard she'd taken his passing, and he knew from his brief talks with Melinoe that nightmares about the event still plagued her. Matthew couldn't do that to her, not even for the sweet, simple desire of hearing her say his name once again.
Instead, he'd simply been following her since Hermes translocated him to her position six hours ago. He had kept his distance, always mindful to stay hidden and with no less than thirty feet between them at all times, but he was certain his clever wife knew something was watching her. There had been times when she seemed to stop to get her bearings or munch on the food he'd left her when he first came upon her sleeping, and he'd seen her stealthily glancing around. As if she was expecting to find something that shouldn't be there.
He'd damn near blown his own cover, however, when she fought the chimera. There had been a moment in the fight when the three headed monster knocked her sword away and pinned her down, the jaws of its lion head snapping dangerously close to her face. Matthew had almost run from where he was hiding to aid her, but just as he had started to move, a blinding, white light had surged from Erin's hands where they were trying to hold the monster's front legs at bay. The chimera had fallen dead, and he had breathed a sigh of relief.
Mathew came to a careful stop as he reached the back of the cave.
The natural formation didn't go very deep into the surrounding mountains, and the last, remaining light from the Underworld's gray-colored day filtered in enough for him to be able to see the sleeping form of his wife. She was leaning against the back wall of the cave, her legs stretched out in front of her, and her sword lay across them with her right hand loosely gripping the pommel. The daughter of a pirate and thief who knew to always be alert, he thought with a small smile.
She was still as beautiful as he remembered her being, even covered in dust, dirt, and dried blood from the wounds she'd healed with her magic. He'd last seen her like this only six years ago, but he could instantly tell all the ways she had physically changed. Little things that he hadn't been able to notice when looking into Persephone's fountain. Her jaw was sharper, the slight roundness of youth it had had even at twenty-one gone, and even beneath her shirt and pants he could tell there was more muscle. No doubt from spending extended hours on her father's ship.
Or had Killian and Emma given her her own? They'd been talking about doing that when he died, but he wasn't sure if they ever had.
The sudden twitching of her left hand had him holding a nonexistence breath and preparing to bolt. Erin's head rolled from the back of the cave to her left shoulder, and she sighed deeply before murmuring a name in her sleep.
"Eric…."
Ah, yes. Eric D'Harper, the other living soul currently in the Underworld and the man he'd seen Erin dancing with when he used Persephone's fountain a little over a week ago. Hermes had confirmed that as well as the man's name when he'd come to Elysium to tell him and Neal about their arrival. He'd be lying if he said the existence of the pirate captain also didn't play into his decision to not let Erin see him.
While Hermes hadn't explained to them why they were in the Underworld, he had told Matthew and Neal that Erin and the captain needed to make their way to Hades' palace and, once there, would go through The Gauntlet. The messenger of the gods had also explained what that was and that, more than anything, had cemented Matthew's decision.
Erin couldn't be fixated on the past if she was to get through The Gauntlet. She had to focus on the here and now, as well as her future. From everything he'd seen, Eric D'Harper was that future.
He continued to watch her sleep for more than twenty minutes, soaking in every detail of her while he could. When he was certain he was pushing his luck, Matthew silently laid the cloth sack of food and fresh water that Hermes had given him beside her and began his slow, careful retreat from the cave.
A/N: For all you eagle eyed readers, no, the bit about Hermes having not talked to Davy Jones yet (despite there being a scene in the previous chapter with him doing so) was not an outline fluke. The two major plot points of this story (Erin/Eric in the Underworld, the Heroes trying to find them) are running on separate timelines. In Emma and Killian's plot, it's already been 6/7 days since Erin and Eric fell into the portal, whereas for Erin and Eric, that happened only last night for them (as of this chapter). It's something a few of you might remember I did in Days of Future's Past (Erin and Liam were only in the past for a handful of days, but a month or two had passed in their home time). Don't worry—it's all carefully marked out on a calendar in my planning doc! We don't wing this type of thing in my house, haha
And, yes. As I said before the chapter started, I know a few of you are probably like, 'God, why is NEAL showing up?' I know not everyone likes him, and again, I'm asking you to trust me. I'm not going to hero-idiolize him like A&E did, but he's also not a villain in this universe. The Neal you'll see in this story, and what I hope I was able to convey even in this chapter, is… self aware. Despite ending up in Elysium, he doesn't view himself as a hero, and he's learned quite a few things after almost 30 years in the Underworld. So just stick with me.