It would be a lie - or perhaps not a lie, but an exaggeration - to say that Theseus regretted his actions in Crete.

He did what he had to do. Athenian youths had been dying, year after year, and it was his duty as the prince to put a stop to it. Athens did not have the military might to take on Crete, especially not when Crete seemed to have the support of the gods, so they had to fight with subterfuge, had to go to Crete and take out the monster that prompted the sacrifice of fourteen young men and women every seven years. Theseus had volunteered to be part of the third group of sacrifices, and he'd led every one of them back out of the labyrinth and to safety. He'd only been able to do so because he'd slain the monster at the maze's center.

When he was older, he realized the true fault had never been with the Minotaur, but with the king who had trapped him and demanded a human sacrifice to feed him; he'd wished that he'd killed Minos instead. When he was even older, he understood that he never would have escaped Crete alive if he'd attacked the king, but he still wished there had been another way. But the Minotaur he had known had been mad and violent, and Theseus knew he had been the one killing the previous sacrifices. In the situation, there had been no other option that would have kept everyone safe.

So it would be an exaggeration to say that Theseus regretted his actions in Crete. He had done what he had to do. It had not been the heroic adventure he'd thought it was when he was young, but it had been one of the ugly realities of being responsible for his people. He was not proud of it, but he knew it had been necessary.

Still, he did not like to think on it too much, now that he was in Elysium with Asterius, so he very much did not appreciate it when the hellspawn opened one of their fights with the question, "How did you two become so close, anyway? Didn't Theseus kill you?"

The question had been directed at Asterius, but Theseus jumped in anyway. "Perhaps you simply cannot understand the power of a bond of friendship such as the one we share!"

"What- Are you saying I don't have friends?" the hellspawn demanded, looking affronted. "I have friends! I probably have more friends than you!"

Theseus scoffed. "The number of friends is irrelevant! The quality is what matters! You could never fathom the depth of the bond between myself and Asterius!"

"My question wasn't even for you!" the hellspawn cried. "I was talking to Asterius!"

"If you question Asterius, you question me! I will answer you with the point of my spear!"

"I was just- Oh, never mind!"

The hellspawn remained an irritatingly good fighter, although Theseus was certain he would have stood no chance against them without the assistance he somehow managed to finagle out of the gods. As was his despicable custom, he focused his fighting on Asterius first while Theseus tried to stop him from afar, preferably without hitting Asterius or being hit by him. It was never enough, though, not anymore, and Asterius fell.

"You blackguard! How could you!"

"It's not like you didn't kill him too!" the hellspawn retorted, throwing those awful stones at Theseus before attacking him with his sword. Theseus blocked the blow with his shield, but he knew the hellspawn would likely leave the fight victorious; it had been a while since Theseus had managed to defeat him. Sure enough, with the help of some very irritating lightning, Theseus found himself dissipating into nothingness. He hoped that whatever was beyond them that kept preventing the hellspawn from escaping would make it hurt.

And, in those moments between nonexistence and existence, Theseus found himself remembering a dark labyrinth in Crete.

"It's not like you didn't kill him too!" the hellspawn had accused, and as little as Theseus liked to think about it, he was right; Theseus had killed Asterius once, long ago, with his own bare hands. In the story, Asterius had been the monster and Theseus had been the hero, but in truth, Asterius had been a victim, and Theseus had been a frightened prince trying to survive and solidify his place at home. It had not been that long since he had arrived in Athens, carrying an old sword and a half-rotted pair of sandals, and his position had not been strong, not yet. If he could slay the Minotaur, if he could keep Athens from having to sacrifice fourteen youths a fourth time, then perhaps he would be accepted. Perhaps the threats against his place would cease. Perhaps the Pallantides would have no successor in their attempts against the throne.

On one side of the scale had been Theseus's pride and desperation, and the souls of twenty-eight dead Athenians whose true killer would never be punished for it. On the other side had been Asterius, only turned into a monster because he had never been given a chance to be anything else. Theseus didn't think the scales balanced. He didn't know if they ever truly would. And yet, he also did not know what else he could have done, that night in the dark labyrinth, when he came face-to-face with a creature who would have slain him and eaten him if given half a chance.

Asterius now was so different from the creature he had been. Theseus wondered what he might have been, in a better life.

He hadn't even managed to keep the throne, not forever. He was celebrated when he returned from Crete alive, and he took the throne, but in the end, he lost his grip on the throne, and he was thrown from a cliff. His father fell from a cliff too, but he threw himself off it (and that was Theseus's fault, it was because of him), and Theseus was pushed. Killing the Minotaur did buy him some time, but it didn't buy him the lifetime he stole.

When he reformed, it was on the banks of the Lethe, and Asterius was waiting for him. He reached out a hand to help Theseus from the waters, and Theseus accepted, as always. "We fought well, king," Asterius rumbled as he heaved Theseus onto dry land.

"We lost," Theseus retorted. With anyone else, he would rage about the hellspawn or vow vengeance or cry that they had been cheated, and he would even do that with Asterius most of the time, but now…

Asterius snorted. "He is a god. We can't expect to win every time."

"And when was the last time we did win?" Theseus spat. He wasn't angry with Asterius, he was rarely ever angry with Asterius, but he was angry. He was filled with anger and embarrassment and guilt, and he wanted to fight, he wanted to win, he wanted to do something right-

"My king," Asterius said, his voice far gentler than Theseus deserved. "Do you wish to spar?"

Normally, Theseus would love to spar when he was in this sort of mood. But the hellspawn's words still echoed in his ears - "It's not like you didn't kill him too!" - and the thought of raising a weapon against Asterius made him feel ill.

"No," he ground out through gritted teeth. "I wish to go home."

"Ah. You're thinking about what the short one said."

Asterius had always been able to read Theseus well. Too well, especially given that the last thing Theseus wanted to discuss with him was anything that the hellspawn said.

"I never think about anything that daemon says," Theseus blustered, his voice rising in volume. "Comes, Asterius. Let us return home."

"I do not blame you for my death, king."

Theseus tried, he tried not to respond, but he couldn't help it. "How could you not? I was the one who killed you!"

"Do you think living in the labyrinth was any sort of life?"

No, of course not, but still-

"I could have freed you," Theseus said wildly. "I could have killed Minos, the real monster. I could have-"

"If you had tried to free me, I would have killed you and anyone else I came across," Asterius said flatly. "If you had tried to kill Minos, his guards would have killed you first. I know what I was in life. I know what he was. You had no other choice."

Asterius was not the only person Theseus had killed. He was not even the only good person Theseus had killed. And yet it stuck with him the most, perhaps because Asterius lived at his side; what he had done was unforgivable.

"My king," Asterius said quietly. "Who I am here is not who I was in the mortal realm."

"Perhaps you could have been!"

"Perhaps once," Asterius allowed. "But think of when you first brought me here. Do you remember? Your memories are probably sharper than mine."

Theseus remembered. He remembered reaching Elysium and finding it wanting. He remembered deciding to find Asterius, remembered thinking that maybe that could fill the strange emptiness in his chest. He went to the House of Hades, he made his case, and he was told that, if he could find Asterius in the maze of Erebus, then he could bring him back to Elysium.

Theseus was practiced at finding the Minotaur in the maze.

He searched Erebus, he didn't know for how long, and then finally, he found Asterius, huddled and filthy. He grabbed his arm, and they were transported to Elysium as Hades had promised, and then...

"You killed me," said Theseus quietly. He'd almost forgotten. "You killed me over and over."

Asterius had been half mad, and perhaps part of him recognized Theseus as his murderer; he'd been wild, furious, deadly. Theseus hadn't fought back, and he'd been spat onto the shores of the Lethe time and time again. It was sheer luck that Asterius hadn't found his way to anyone else, either luck or perhaps divine intervention. Whatever it was, Asterius had eventually calmed, and Theseus had gotten through to him, explained things to him, fed him and bathed him and clothed him. Asterius had still been rough and touchy and occasionally violent, but it had been better after that. It was hard to judge time in the Underworld, but Theseus thought it took about two weeks for him to speak for the first time, and that was the true turning point; the violence diminished, the rage subdued, and it was then that Theseus thought he and Asterius began to become friends.

"If we had still been living," Asterius said, "you would have stayed dead the first time I killed you. I would never have been able to heal without you."

"But I-"

"You killed me in life," Asterius said. "I killed you in death, many times. You saved me from the labyrinth, and you saved me from Erebus. You owe me nothing, king."

The actions didn't add up in Theseus's head in the same way they seemed to add up in Asterius's, but he didn't protest. Asterius was the one who had been hurt, Asterius was the one who had been killed, and if he saw fit to bestow his forgiveness upon Theseus, Theseus would honor it.

"The splendors of Elysium do not compare to you," Theseus told Asterius. "It would mean very little to me without you in it."

Theseus was prone to self-doubt, and he knew Asterius was too. But the one thing that Asterius never doubted was Theseus's love for him. Theseus could doubt Asterius at times, could halfway convince himself that Asterius had never and could never feel as Theseus did, but he didn't think Asterius had ever done the same.

He was right to have faith. Theseus's love had never wavered.

"I would never have been here if not for you," Asterius said. "I would not want to be."

"You deserve Elysium as much as I do," Theseus said. "Perhaps even more-"

"I will not hear you speak of yourself like this," Asterius interrupted. "I do not blame you for my fate, so you cannot blame yourself."

"I suppose that is fair," Theseus admitted. He sighed, then did his best to force his usual cheer. "Come, Asterius! We should practice for battle, so that next time, we may slay the hellspawn with ease!"

His voice didn't quite sound the same as it usually did, but Asterius didn't say anything about it, merely nodded with a smile.

"I will follow you wherever you go, my king."

"Then we shall return to the arena!"

Asterius reached out for Theseus's hand. Theseus took it, and he couldn't help but smile. The hellspawn may have tried once more to drive a wedge between them, but he had failed, as he always would. Theseus had his demons, and he knew Asterius did as well, but this would no longer be one of them.

Theseus had done many things in life. Some he was proud of, and some he was not. But he no longer had to live by those rules. He no longer had to be that king, that would-be hero. In the Underworld, he could be something far simpler. He could be himself.

And if that meant he could walk hand-in-hand to the arena with Asterius, he thought that was what he most wanted to be.