Hey! I'm back.

So this is the last chapter.

It's truly been an experience with all of you. Thank you for all your support.

Hopefully, I was able to do the ending justice and resolve things in a satisfactory way. Feel free to tell me what you think!

Enjoy, leave a review, and all that.

Thanks!

Tartarus.

Orion opened his eyes, found himself back in the hellish landscape, and abruptly realized that he had trouble breathing. He felt like he still had an arrow in his throat, even though it had disintegrated when he did. His chest constricted. He had trouble seeing straight. What's worse was the overwhelming dread.

He needed to get out. He needed to-

Welcome back, my son.

Orion froze.

Gaea told me about your...adventures in her domain. I am proud of you.

Tartarus.

It wasn't often that the Pit decided to take on a consciousness. That description didn't quite fit, since the ability to make decisions was in itself based on the assumption of consciousness, but he digressed. It wasn't often that the spirit of the Pit made any effort to communicate to anyone. Even the last time he had been there, when he had been the disgraced son, the naive one who had thought that he had a chance among mortals and gods, Tartarus had been silent.

To speak to him now…

I hope you see, now, his father said. Rest. Recuperate, and when you're ready, return to the surface world. You alone amongst your siblings have that ability.

Rest.

Orion didn't think of Tartarus as particularly conducive to healing. It was the source of a lot of trauma, actually. Still, he found that he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. He didn't have much of a choice on...anything, really. The best he could do was to heal really, really fast and get out of Tartarus as soon as possible.

And then he'd be in his mother's clutches again.

There was no getting away. To stay in his father's domain meant staying with monsters. Cruelty and violence and festering toxicity. To go to his mother's domain meant sunlight and hope and manipulation and mother knows best.

More toxicity, in other words. Less overt, perhaps, but all-encompassing all the same.

Hysterical laughter threatened to bubble out of him. He forced it down. That was his existence now. Being shuttled between two horrible parents who would make him pay dearly if he displeased them.

And he couldn't get away.

"Thank you, Father," he said tonelessly. "I will do that."

Silence. His father's presence was gone.

That was a good thing. He had an old friend to visit.

"And here I was hoping I wouldn't see you for at least another decade," Damasan remarked in his signature gruff manner.

Orion grinned, "Nice to see you too, Damasan."

"Orion!" A voice that is distinctly not Damasan called.

Orion's stomach turned to lead. The last time he had heard that voice, he had been stabbed through the left kidney by its owner. Why the left kidney? He wasn't sure. But it hadn't really mattered when he was bleeding out from it.

He schooled his expression. "Enceladus. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

He not-so-subtly reached for his hunting knife.

"Peace, brother," the other giant made a pacifying motion. "We were informed of your actions back on the surface. There's nothing to fear from me, now that we're on the same side."

Reduced to just our Mother's puppet, you mean. And I can't even escape this anymore because I have nothing to turn back to and I don't want to turn back to my old friends because they turned against me and I hate them and it's too late, anyway.

"Right," Orion gripped his knife tight. "Now if you would excuse me-"

"There's something else," he cut him off. "Stop hanging out with the weakling."

"Weak- Damasan?" Orion stared at him as if his brother had suggested that he give up breathing. "You are hardly in a position to judge the company I keep, brother."

"You're one of us now," Enceladus insisted. "You should act like it. Not everyone is convinced that you've actually joined our righteous cause, you know. It's in your best interest to cut ties with him."

"He's your brother," Orion pointed out.

"Anyone who doesn't fight with us is no brother of mine," Enceladus said bluntly. "Are you my brother?"

Orion saw red. "Get out."

"He's useless," Enceladus said, like an idiot with no sense of self-preservation, "What do you possibly have to gain from-"

Orion struck. The blade tore through the other giant's armor. The taller giant stumbled backwards in surprise. It was possibly quite comical, considering that Orion was half his height, but never let it be said that Orion's experiences as a Hunter didn't give him an edge in fighting.

"What part of 'get out' do you not understand?" he hissed in his ear.

"So you're going back again?" Damasen asked. The giant sounded wistful.

"Yes. I think this is as long as I can risk without raising suspicions about my loyalty," Orion sighed. "I will see you again soon."

"No you won't," he said bluntly. "You're given an opportunity to go back. Don't waste it."

"Yes, brother." He wanted to say something. Something about how much he meant to him. Something about how Damasen was the one kind thing in all of Tartarus, and how much he appreciated that kindness, even if he had joined the rest of their brethren and turned against the Gods. The words got stuck in his throat.

Damasen embraced him. "I will miss you too, brother. I don't approve of what you're doing, but promise me that you will live, and not let our Mother reduce you to just her puppet."

"I will try." He was...confused, to be honest. About how he should feel. Or think. He resented his Mother for trying to mold him into her pawn. But she also gave him the means of revenge. But he didn't want to leave Damasen, either. But he wanted to leave Tartarus.

What did he want? Because he sure as Tartarus didn't know.

"Tell me a few good stories when you come back," Damasen said, oblivious to his inner turmoil.

Orion pulled away and flashed a smile.

Then he stepped out of the hut and began his climb.

Oh, look, he thought with dull excitement. It's me again.

Life (life?) as a constellation gave him a rather detached view of things, and his existence as a separate entity from his current worldly self gave him enough degrees of separation to realize what a fucking idiot his current self was.

When he saw himself emerge from Tartarus (and what a concept that was) for the first time, he realized that something had changed. His grasp on sanity and morality had been looser, and he had a lot less qualms about, say, slaughtering innocent animals for no particular reason. Or killing women whom he had probably never met.

He wasn't exactly unsympathetic, per se, to his current self's plight. At least, he didn't think he was-he wasn't that removed from his sense of identity that he could claim objectivity over his own actions. Perhaps he was too harsh, and his two selves had deviated so much that their worldviews had become unconsolable, he couldn't be entirely sure.

But back to his current self.

Tartarus was harsh. He had reasons for wanting to avoid it, and perhaps the constantly oppressive environment was enough to twist his mind and memories.

But wanting to kill independent women for one person rejecting him? Where did that even come from? If he thought the reason women rejected him was that they were too "independent," and he was targeting them in order to terrorize them into becoming more dependent on males, then perhaps it was less about maximizing his chances romantically, or him taking out his wrath on unsuspecting mortals, and more about him having an issue with the concept of consent.

He should probably be grateful that he was placed in the constellations when he did, to be honest. He liked to think that he treated women decently. At least, in comparison to some men (he had chatted with some of the old timers in the stars and he did not appreciate the way some of them talked about women). He was friends with Artemis and her Hunters. Surely that meant that they approved of his attitude?

But even if it did, what does it actually say? A different voice, a far more cynical one spoke up. He might value women and girls more than the average man, but did that mean he was unbiased? He had remembered meeting the Amazons, at one point. They had been fierce, violent, and tended to treat men as second-class citizens. They had made him feel uncomfortable. But he had felt perfectly comfortable in a gender-flipped version of that society. Normal, even. Sure, he didn't really approve of the more questionable things men did, but he didn't really bat an eyelash at the less obvious ones, either. Barely noticed, even.

Orion frowned. Where did that thought come from? He didn't need to have an identity crisis as of right now.

Perhaps he was given too much time alone. Best not to think about it.

And he went back to calling his physical self an idiot. Earthly-Orion definitely needed to stop. Whether it was by an internal or external force remained to be seen.

Dying was an interesting experience, Zoe thought.

She was suspended in the very stars she admired on a nightly basis. Unless there were clouds. Or human light pollution. Or if it were obscured by trees.

It was poetic, really. Loathe as she was to admit it, perhaps Artemis did pick up something from her brother.

She had felt the rest of her essence depart for the Underworld. She wondered if she'd achieve Elysium. She hoped so.

The other constellations were flocking toward her. They seem excited for someone new.

She greeted Callisto first. She embraced the bear as she nuzzled up to her. "It has been a long time, my friend," Zoe said. "And I'm so sorry for what happened."

Callisto buried her snout further in Zoe's shoulder as if to say that it wasn't her fault.

Someone cleared their throat behind her, and centuries of experience had her pulling out an arrow and nocking it before she was fully aware of what was happening.

"Zoe," Orion said, somewhat awkwardly. "How have you been?"

The other constellations were mainly doing damage control from that point.

It had taken the combined efforts of Callisto, Cassiopeia, Perseus to restrain Zoe from unleashing the full extent of her fury on the constellation, and a very hurried and panicked explanation from Andromeda regarding the nature of constellations for her to stand down from her murderous intent. The newest constellation now stood, awkwardly brushing at her clothes and looking somewhat apologetic.

"So it was not thee who cut down my sisters?"

"...No." Orion said, looking wary.

Zoe took a few minutes to digest that. It was difficult to see Orion as anything other than the enemy, now that they had spent millennia trying to kill each other.

"Zoe," Orion approached, cautiously. "Are we...good?"

"I will need time to think," Zoe said, stiffly, before turning around and leaving. It was about as much leniency as she was willing to give. But she was in no hurry. She didn't really have a time limit.

"Zoe," the man whose name she wouldn't mention looked at her. "This is a surprise."

"I would say so," Zoe said flatly. "You wanted to be a hero, dost thou not? So much so that thou omitted anyone who did not fit thy invincible image. Now I am exactly where thou are."

"Look-"

"I do not want an explanation," she interrupted. "Thou had made your choice millennia ago. Thou did not make me who I am; that would be giving thee undue credit. I had lived my life. A fulfilling one, at that. Thou might have set me on that path, but thou did not define it."

Hercules raised an eyebrow. "Is that all?"

"Yes," Zoe said, bluntly. "This is a farewell, and I would prefer to never see thee ever again."

She turned on her heel and left.

"So, Olympus is still around," Orion remarked.

"...Yes, it would appear so," Zoe said. The two of them were on speaking terms now, at least, though not all the friction had been resolved.

"Your successor did well," Orion noted.

"Of course she did; surviving thee was the first test, which she passed with ease," Zoe prodded.

Orion winced, but didn't comment. "I do hope he'll be taken care of soon."

"Yes, as do I."

A pause.

"Have you ever thought of more...permanent solutions to this problem?" Orion asked.

Zoe tilted her head, "What dost thou mean?"

"Like, not banishing him back to Tartarus. Like transforming him into a form where he could not harm anyone. Or demotivate him from wanting to kill people in the first place."

"And how dost thou suggest we do the latter?"

"I was thinking of therapy, actually. Gods know we all need some…"