The author has essentially warped all of Greek myth to her own purposes and asks the reader to not take much of it seriously.


Maka hides among a small copse of trees, trying to keep her chariot and all four of her horses from being horribly conspicuous. Zeus had advised her to come in style to 'look like bank'- whatever that means- but she feels more stupid than anything. All around her in every direction is pure living gold, field after field of perfectly ripened wheat fluttering in gorgeous waves. Four horses the color of black eternity and an underworld chariot aren't exactly natural.

Soul Evans is a young man- though his age is somewhat hard to determine- with flaxen hair and eyes like the reddish soil he stands on. He fluidly swings a scythe in precise, systematic strokes. Admittedly, he is very handsome. Then again, Maka may just be enraptured by the mortal realm; she can't remember the last time she'd been here, and had forgotten what fresh air tastes like.

Zeus likes to dress up whenever she visits the mortals. Today she's a lovely doe, her coat glossy and iridescent. Her hooves and little snout are delicate and refined. She nearly prances through the field to a humble mill house beyond, which sits next to a happy brook.

As Kim passes Soul through the field, the young man gives her a dubious look. The doe waggles one ear in his direction, expectant. Soul realizes the appearance of the creature for what it truly means, and haltingly inclines his head. Kim bounds away, smug, to visit the boy's brother.

Assuming he only speaks for his own ears, he muses to the sky, "If they start dating again, I'm totally moving out." He wipes his forearm across his brow, shouldering his scythe. His eyes boredly flit across the horizon, and that is when Maka's eyes lock with his.

"Crap," she says to the trees.

"What the hell?" he exclaims, taking his scythe into both hands, defensive. "Who trespasses on my brother's grounds? Show yourself!"

Grimacing, Maka slowly reveals herself, stepping out of the shadows of the trees. Her cloak catches on the tall wheat as she comes to stand before him. His grip on his weapon relaxes, surprised the trespasser is a short woman in a black cloak. "Yeah. Hi? Um. I'm Maka."

Soul blinks, the scythe shifting in his hands as he regards her. "M- Hades?!"

She waves a hand. "No, Hades is where I rule. It's a common misconception. My name is Maka."

"Um... " He bows a little, appearing unsure of how to conduct himself. "Are you… are you okay?"

"What?"

"I mean, you look a little pale…"

Maka looks to the side, stammering. "Y-yeah, I don't get out much." She takes a deep breath, damning her sister in the back of her thoughts. "SAY, I'm- Are you… single?"

He gives her a blank look as a breeze rushes through the acres of wheat around them. "What?"

She bites her bottom lip, floundering for some courage to continue. "I mean. I. Um. You're… pretty?"

Squinting, Soul turns turns his head slightly, as if trying to determine whether he is speaking to an apparition or just a lunatic. "Are you hitting on- wait, why was there a question mark after complimenting me," he mutters.

Maka places her hands on her face and scrubs violently, frustrated. "No, okay. Would you like to go to hell sometime?"

To her dismay, a mortal outright laughs at her (courageous, she might add) attempts at wooing. Soul says, catching his breath, "For a goddess you're pretty uncool, huh?" He realizes a moment too late that he'd just insulted a daughter of Rhea, and he cringes just half a second before Maka smacks him with her thick schedule book.

While he cradles his head and grits out apologies, prostrate, Maka murmurs, "Hades is a warm place by default so any lack of 'coolness' I may have is to be expected."

Soul gets back on his feet, using the scythe to help him upright, and gives her a wary and overall agitated look. "So, uh, since a goddess is- for all intents and purposes- hitting on me-"

"Was that a pun?"

"N-no? Just... why would a queen bother with me, of all people?"

Maka pulls her cowl a little further over her forehead, as if it may hide her from the sun's gaze. "You, ah, were recommended."

Puzzled, he asks, "By whom?"

Clearing her throat, Maka points a finger skyward at the blazing sun.

"The sun," he says thinly.

"Helios sees everything that transpires on the earth."

"So, when you say 'everything', do you mean, like, even my-"

"P-probably." At his appalled face, she hurriedly adds, "That's not why you were recommended, though! I think." Maka brings a hand to her mouth, uncertain. It had been Zeus who'd set this up, after all. "...Probably."

He flushes, equal parts embarrassed and infuriated. "Don't suppose you can put in a word or something to make days shorter?" he mutters.

Maka scratches her nose, suffering from second-hand embarrassment. She tries especially hard not to let her gaze drift towards the lower half of his body. "This realm is designed for the long summer, so the sun has a busy schedule. The upperworld is not my jurisdiction, I'm afraid."

"Right. Of course not," he mutters, running his fingers across his scalp and checking them, as if looking for blood.

This whole situation has gone sour- not that it was very sweet to begin with. "Ah, but, um? Hades is another realm entirely! There is no sun in the underworld."

Soul tilts his head, curious despite his present mood. "So, it's always night?"

"Um, not exactly. Nyx does visit sometimes, though. Hades is neither day or night. Oh, but it's not entirely dark, either! The souls of the dead give off this really pretty fluorescence that's easy on… the, uh…"

Soul's head is still in that tilt, and he wears an expression she can't read. She's so out of practice with conversing with the living- she must be boring him with her rambling, but he won't mention it in fear of being smote.

"Anyway," she murmurs. "You could visit sometime. If, um, you wanted. You'd be welcome anytime, really."

Looking behind him towards the mill house for a moment, he turns to face her again and says, "Do I have to be dead?"

Maka's hands flail around, appalled. "Wh-what no!" She shakes her head so vigorously that her hood falls off to her shoulders. "No, you would be a guest! No deaths required. Gosh I would be a crappy date if I made you DIE to have lunch, great Olympus!"

He's trying to stifle his laughter behind a hand. Maka puffs out her cheeks, crossing her arms over her chest. "What's so funny?"

"If I'd have to narrow it down, I'd say… you're a spaz."

"What?!"

He dodges her planner this time. "Is that really your face?"

Maka halts in the middle of a swing. "Are you insulting me?"

"Ah, no- Zeus manifests in other bodies so I'm just curious."

She scoffs. "I don't see the point in all that. I'm myself- I shouldn't have to be other things." She shifts uncomfortably as he scrutinizes her. "So, about lunch." She blushes as she makes her offer. "Are you interested?"

Soul's smile is crooked as he wipes sweat off the back of his neck. His eyes roam across her race and her hair, and she gets gooseflesh though she's standing in direct sunlight. "Well, I-"

"NO," shouts someone from across the field. All around them, wheat begins to wither and curl as Wes Evans tromps to them. Soul rolls his eyes. "The answer is 'no'. 'Farewell'. 'Go away'-"

"Wessss, you're killing the wheat again."

"My dearest brother will not marry a GODDESS OF DEATH. An Olympian at that! Nothing would be more fruitless and filled with heartache!"

"I'm not actually an Oly-"

"She didn't propose, man!" Sighing, Soul plants the butt-end of his scythe into the ground so that it may stand upright on its own. "I think she just wants a hookup-"

Wes splutters. "HOOKUP?!"

"Hook-up?" Maka repeats, confused.

Soul glances at her, eyebrows knitted together. "You mean you weren't trying to seduce me?"

"Sed- DO I LOOK LIKE ZEUS?"

"Well, no, but-"

"I was wooing you!"

"W-" Flabbergasted, Soul exclaims, "How was that obvious at all?! You said I was 'recommended' by the friggen' goddess of peeping toms, and invited me to 'lunch'- Wes, STOP wilting the crops, for the love of-"

Meanwhile, as the three of them cycle in rounds of spluttering indignance, Kim bounds past the group, bee-lining for Maka's chariot while trumpeting, "ABORT, ABORT," before stealing her ride and leaving without her.

It's a special day when Maka has to pay her own ferryman to get to her realm. She swears off family, relationships, and big-mouthed mortal boys, no matter how pretty they are.