Five hundred years.
It had once been a thousand.
The newest figure swirled through Megara's mind every time she went to sleep. It whispered through her dreams until the howling shades of the Underworld shocked her awake. She'd be a slave to Hades longer than her ancestors had ruled over Thebes. Her stomach recoiled at the thought, but it was her own fault. At the time, she'd thought what she gave up wasn't much, but now her tiny living quarters had space enough for a thin bed, which was really a box she'd put a cushion over. A far cry from the palace at Thebes, but no more unpleasant. Both were full of ghosts.
The longer she inhabited the Underworld, the more its gloom permeated her psyche. She was as much a part of it as any of the other twisted denizens conscious enough to recognize their fate. She knew to sing for Cerberus and laugh at all Charon's anecdotes. Thanatos had taught her his favorite Egyptian board games, and Pain and Panic knew better than to mess with her. Hekate stole her away for the occasional lunch appointment, and even though she knew it was an attempt to sabotage her boss, Megara was glad to pretend for a while that she had a friend. The illusion never lasted long, but it was a welcome relief from the reality of her death sentence.
"I'll get you a nice spot in Asphodel, dear!" the goddess would cackle whenever Megara expressed her foreboding. It was better than every time Hades promised her a doom with a view.
It was hardest to venture out of the Underworld and face the sunlight once again. In her angstiest teen years, she'd lived for the moonlight and shunned the sunlight because she thought it made her edgy. Now she scuttled into the shadows because she was embarrassed any time an Olympian might catch sight of her.
It was after a long afternoon of Hades-dodging that Megara closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against the cold, jagged stone wall of her "apartment."
Hades had laughed the first time he showed her the recess carved into stone that had just enough space to lie down in and store a few personal items. He'd claimed he was giving her an excellent deal, because all it cost was her soul. Ever since, he'd taken any opportunity to remind her that she'd been born in a palace surrounded by wine-purple marble.
Groans of despair and terror warbled through the fields. It wasn't supposed to be this way. The shades were supposed to be mindless and wandering, but they should be too numb for these displays of emotion.
Whoever spread that story either had a sick sense of humor or outdated information. She'd been there since the end of Junior Year, and somehow managed to graduate in spite of her "work-study program." Nobody knew she was a pawn of Hades, but she may as well be dead to anyone she'd ever known. It was better that way. The ones left behind could grieve if they still cared, but by now most would have forgotten her. She was the only one on the top of a heap. No Theban could spare the thoughts for just one girl.
Two years on and she'd made her own way as the only living human in the Underworld. She may even have been proud of herself if it wasn't so sickening. She'd almost soothed herself to sleep with these reassurances when a whoosh of hot air accompanied by the scent of brimstone hit Megara square in the face. She sat up, alarmed, all hints of sleep falling from her eyes.
"Hey, what's the buzz?" Hades grinned down at her. He filled up the entire excuse for an apartment he'd given her. While he was always smug, he seemed particularly smug with the knowledge that she couldn't evade him any longer.
Megara kept her mouth shut and shrugged off the question.
Hades went on without waiting for her to participate in the conversation. "Let's hope you're not busy– oh wait! You never are 'cause I'm the only social life you've got!" Hades reached down with a hand that became a smoke tendril. He lifted her off her bed by her chin so that she hovered midair, at eye level with him. "I've got a new strategy arrangement and you're the leading lady! Aren't you excited for this once-in-an-afterlife opportunity?" His eyes had become full, bulging yellow circles. He could snap her neck, but he was having too much fun.
"I'm quaking." She couldn't blink. It wasn't often that Meg was capable of setting aside some time for herself, but when she got it, she couldn't even do anything with it. Someone who wanted her neck snapped might have mentioned that.
"That's good!" Hades swung Megara out of the apartment in his smoke tendril, so that it was the only thing holding her up over the wandering spirits of Asphodel. "Because my team has to be the best and brightest! Part of that is showing up for work!"
"My sundial has this funny habit of not working underground."
"Oh! Well, in that case, why don't I assign one of my imps to always keep you on task? Would you prefer Pain or Panic?"
Don't show your fear, she reminded herself as she hovered over the jagged stalactites below her. There was no telling whether Hades would drop her or if he was just manipulating her with one of the only fears he was aware of. She smiled at him. "Don't you need those little pustules to entertain yourself? I'd hate to deprive you."
"They're errand boys. You're what I need if I want any real work done. And I do. We've got one year before the planets align, and for you to be so unreachable… It's almost like you've forgotten what team you're on. Afraid to get your hands dirty, princess?"
"Not at all. If I were, I'd never have broken into so many mausoleums for you. Do you have any idea how many snakes and spiders there were in there?"
A hideous smirk stretched Hades's mouth. "Keep some of that spunk for when I've enslaved the gods," Hades set Megara down on the floor of her quarters, gazing across Asphodel toward the skull he kept his office in. "I'll need you to watch them to make sure there's no post-uprising uprising."
"Chaos would be bad for business." Megara pulled out a comb and started work on her massive ponytail.
"No, no, the right kind of chaos is better than the ridiculous operation my dear old brother is running off Olympus! A little prank here and there makes it all a bit more fun! Nobody has even noticed how I cursed Dionysus to become this pathetic pink caricature of himself about a century ago!"
"I wonder how Ariadne feels about that."
"Any day now, she'll take me up on my offer to become my divine consort. I've got nothing but time to wait her out, and when I'm king, all the goddesses will be fighting over me."
The thought of Athena, Artemis, and Hestia joining in on this fantasy of his was almost funny.
"If I didn't know better I'd say you poisoned Dionysus so you could get to his wife."
"That was only half of the idea. He was such a stuck-up pretty boy. Theban royalty, you know?"
"Unbearable."
"Now the real sticking point was how he was born mortal after one of Zeus's wilder nights, and still became a god! Can you believe the audacity?"
"That must be frustrating," Megara remarked, focusing in on a tangle near the end of a curl.
"And then– then! —He makes a mortal girl his divine consort and they get to be happy and immortal together forever!"
"What a shame."
"But it'll never happen again because the Fates and I got together and lobbied the gods so nobody can become immortal just because someone wants them to! Dionysus robbed me of a whole line's worth of dead people!"
"The audacity."
"Exactly! But now he's learned to stay out of my way. Thebes will never give me that big a headache again. Without a patron deity, I'm in charge by default."
"I don't know what we'd do without you."
Thebes had been cursed since its founding. The fact Hades liked it that way was no surprise, but she had to wonder what her life would have been like if her siblings hadn't died before she met– well. No need to think about that.
"I do. It would've been theater and wine and a bunch of lazy intellectuals running things and arguing with each other," Hades said with a shudder. "But at least I got you out of that particular asset pool."
Megara flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. "Seems like your investment paid off. So what is it you want me to talk to this time? A five-headed peacock? A giant poison-spitting rabbit?"
"Centaur. He's a river guardian, and commands all the nymphs in his vicinity."
Megara shuddered to think how a centaur might control a nymph, but kept her features smooth. "And he's supposed to help you, how? Harassing Aphrodite?"
"Let me worry about that."
With a sigh, Megara got to her feet and dusted herself off. "Well, if you think it's best, O Oneness. One question, though: if this centaur decides to do the completely predictable centaur thing and carry me off to do whatever he's been doing with those nymphs, what's the backup strategy?"
"Come on, Meg! I thought you said you were a big tough girl, right? What's got you so scared?"
Nothing she wanted to describe to him.
"There are a few structural issues with the plan, is all I'm saying. I'm not built for what a centaur would want to do with me. I'd be down here a bit earlier than planned and my shade would be frozen in an embarrassing position forever."
"Oh, please. I can't keep my star player off the field for something as trivial as that!"
"Don't you have anything else I can bother? Maybe I'll get eaten instead of railed into oblivion."
"What? You're not telling me you're afraid of a little action? How long has it been for you?"
"Long enough to let me know I can live without it."
"In this business, you've gotta know when to do what it takes to succeed, my little flower." Hades bared his teeth in a smile. "If you can't handle it, there's always somewhere else we could make use of you."
"How useful can I be, exactly, if I get my insides pulled out or I get pregnant with a centaur baby? Are you gonna be paying for my maternity leave?"
"Yeesh, don't say things like that. Fine, I'll cut you a deal. I'll be in the forest waiting for you to earn a two-year discount on your freedom, and if there's anything that egregious going on, I'll show up to collect you. But you've got to seal the agreement or you're on your own."
Exactly as much help as she'd suspected. "Fine, but at least give me your list of candidates so I can strategize. Maybe there's someone's name I can drop so this guy sees me as a potential business partner instead of a warm body."
Hades snapped his fingers and a scroll appeared. "You'll be meeting all these star candidates, anyway. They're about as fed up every time Titan Smitin' Day rolls around as I am."
Megara scanned the scroll. "You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel, aren't you? I bet the Olympians will shake in fear when they hear you've got a sphinx and an overgrown sea bass. Were you expecting them to have a riddle contest underwater to decide who rules Olympus?"
The flames on Hades's head flared red with warning. "Watch yourself sweet cheeks. The Sphinx might just recognize you as related to the guy who slew his cousin."
"At least we know I can outsmart him, eh? Or was he meant for Athena?"
"Let me worry about that. The sea monsters are Pain and Panic's assignment. You'll notice I marked your assignments for you."
The letter Mu was indeed written beside a few notably male names. "After this, I'm swearing off manhandling. It's the most disgusting part of the job and it's just plain degrading."
"More degrading than slavery?"
"It just makes the whole thing even less bearable. If all you wanted was a girl to seduce monsters, you'd need enough of us to incubate your next generation of monsters and still be useful."
"Again with the visuals!"
"How do you think I feel? And where would losing me leave you? Either doing your own dirty work or relying on Pain and Panic. Good luck with that, by the way."
"Fine! You have a deal. River Guardian first, then we cut back on the monster dates. Are you happy?"
"I'm never happy, but I'll take this consolation prize. Now will you please get out of my face? Apparently, I've gotta get dolled up for a dream date."
"See that you do," Hades gave her a once over then disappeared without further comment.
