Zagreus, of course, does not defeat Lord Hades.

He does not defeat his Lord Father in the first cycle that he challenges him, nor the second, nor the fifth; he wears his exhaustion like a mantle, almost proud. Thanatos hears (but does not listen for) the inklings of awe and admiration flowing through each of the realms, a constant-murmuring stream. He hears, too, of all the happenings: the particulars of every run.

(He's damn near made friends with the blasted Minotaur—)

A long time elapses before they again encounter one another at the House. Thanatos isn't sure whether this is an orchestration, recalling the words he'd uttered when last Zagreus cornered him there; does Zagreus' absence signify that he is attempting to heed, for once? Or is it just another act of defiance?

Go about your business, Zag. What if Lord Hades saw us chatting like this, now? I risked everything by helping you out there, and still you failed…

But after the eighth failure, Thanatos makes for Zagreus' bedchamber in spite of every drop of better judgement, for all the realms an answer to what is just another call. (For one who fields the cries of both the dead and living, Zagreus' voice in need rings the loudest of all.)

The bejeweled mirror harkens them, as always. How many times now has Thanatos lain Zagreus to rest, for it to bear witness? The glass projects their faces, fixed and cold, gleaming with a kind of hushed knowing. Neither among them offers words for anything that has transpired, though Thanatos, still scathing, strangles the urge. Zagreus sinks into his bed like a stone, telltale bottle clenched in one hand.

Thanatos pointedly ignores it, but lets his fingers touch to skin. Zagreus affords him a small, sheepish smile.

"I do appreciate you doing this, Than. I know I've not made it easy for you."

"Yes, well. Hurry and remove your things. I cannot stay here long. The Lord Master will soon return."

Zagreus' fingers are already meeting metal and bone, unclasping the three-headed bulwark that shields his heart, stripping himself of clothing, working steadily down. The winking little bottle, now settled somewhere at his side. "You didn't come to find me," he remarks; his voice sounds strained. "These last few times."

"You had no need for me." You were determined not to sleep, and so gave me no rest, and some other things besides, Thanatos does not say.

At this, Zagreus appears hurt. The abject openness of his face only ignites Thanatos further. "Must there always be a need?"

"If you must so stupidly continue this pursuit," Thanatos retorts, "you will have to rest more often, Zagreus." He stays his hand, the slender ridges of his knuckles grazing Zagreus' temple, and draws a stern, cold line with his lips.

Zagreus lets forth a weak peal of laughter, crackled and blunt and so much different than the lively gale to which Thanatos is accustomed, or was.

"I suppose you would like that, eh Than?" Zagreus' tone is an indecipherable codex; there's no cipher or key that can get to the heart of what might be embedded within it. With his armor so removed, Zagreus' eyes flutter slowly and restively shut, like a butterfly's wings. (And Thanatos is actually glad that he can't see his eyes; his face might betray nothing, but his pupils, the psyche—)

"Tell me what I am to you," he spits, unable to bear it any longer.

Zagreus' eyes fly open in an instant. He looks as if he's been stunned, or else knocked square to the cheek by a lout. "What?"

"You ignore my petitions and you spurn my advices, only to wash up bloody with a bottle of nectar to beseech me to help you on your insipid quest. Then gone again, before I can blink. Now you've reached your natural limit, struck down by the hand of your father, yet I know you'll be back to the Temple before night or morning. And then, you dare—" (the ghosts of whispers but not words, and the faintest brush of fingers, Zagreus' eyes at his lips; still daring not to speak it, for to say would be to seal). "I grow tired of this chase, Zag, and this cruel game. If I am to help you to sleep again, you will give me this in return. You will tell me what we are."

"I—I can't, Than. Right now—there's no time. There's never enough time. I don't have the luxury to stop a moment and think—"

"There is always enough time, Zag. We have nothing down here but time."

The truth pierces like no other weapon. Zagreus slumps; his hand falls limply to his side. The silence stretches, tense as Orpheus' strings.

"So," Thanatos says at last, "you would use me, too, then. Keep me under your belt, another tool. Just as those odious Olympians would, as they pit you against wretch and warrior alike."

Resistance. A flinch of fingers. "My intention was never to abuse your gifts, Than, or to compromise our friendship." Discomfort. An ache. "It wounds me to hear you say that. And I can't really say that I'm not using my relatives, just as they may think they are me—"

"Yes, I suppose it wounds you, and never mind my opinion on the matter, is that right?" Thanatos sneers. "Blood and darkness, Zagreus, their power consumes you. It's changed you. Turned you into something you aren't."

"Don't speak as if you can understand me, Than. I don't ever mean to make light of your support, but I told you that my mind won't be changed. Even if you choose to give up on me, like Meg, even if you have no further intention to help—I cannot relinquish my quest." (And Thanatos can't quite swallow the visible recoil, like the flick of a whip, that those words strike in him.)

Zagreus reclaims the nectar, pinched between forefinger and thumb, and, doleful but assured, offers it again. "Here, you can take possession of the bottle. Call it a token of thanks. I need nothing in return—"

"I have no use for your nectar, Zag!" What must I do to get you to understand? That the only thing I've ever wanted is for your own safety, your well-being!"

The bottle knocks cleanly out of his hand and shatters into a thousand crystal splinters, spilling precious liquid onto the floor. It snakes like a serpent-river and bleeds, leaving a sickening trail of fluorescent gold. Shards of pellucid glass blink up at Thanatos like eyes.

"Do not seek me here again. If you wish to sleep, you may consult Hypnos." He turns his cheek, the hard bone forming a grim line, severe. And stands, cold and a little lost; a reaper without a harvest. Looking back at Zagreus now like the mortal winter. "The next we meet, it will be as enemies."

Death disappears like a blistering wind (leaving Zagreus sleepless and mournful).

In Zagreus' grown-and-growing absence, and the Lord Master's in kind, the House becomes a burnt-out shell.

Try that he might to return little, Thanatos is bound by creed to do so; he has molded himself to well-ordered routine, and many machinations of the House depend on him. Lord Hades receives his reports with a honed disinterest, but no one can deny the unsound flares of rage that have increasingly seized his demeanor, of late. For longer and longer stretches, the Lord's desk sits unoccupied, leaving poor Hypnos to tend to the accumulating queue. And yet, more often than not, Hypnos is soundly dozing when Thanatos arrives—open mouth slopping over like the bubbling Pool, which sloshes and splashes now with an unusual vigor, as if to daring for someone to spill its contents. Newly-sworn shades shiver whenever he passes by; there's something different about meeting the End face-to-face, even after one is already dead.

Thanatos circles the House like a wraith, exchanging now and then a few words: a cordial tiding to Achilles, a brief consort with Meg; he wades through his brother's cheered jejune ramblings, trying to wedge in a sliver of sense; he nods in respect to his mother, whose omniscient eyes fix into his back like an omen; reassuring, with his kept face and empty eyes, don't worry—nothing is amiss, Mother, nothing departing the ordinary, nothing your eyes have not already seen.

On the day (or night) that he goes to Zagreus' bedchamber, Nyx is nowhere to be found.

The night-mirror regards him and projects back a fine likeness: sleek and lean-muscled and pale as a serpent, cheeks flushed a pallid yellow, the color of old gold. Pale hair and pale skin and silver-white scars, and a wan, jaded face, weary heavy-ringed eyes with translucent centers, feverish and overbright in the vitreous glare. Lips like a stain smeared across his face.

He moves like a serpent, and likely kisses like one too—light and tentative and fluttering. Nothing like Zagreus' swift steady fire. The mirror's burnished purple eyes look shrewdly upon him; Thanatos feels his pulse pick up pace, rising and falling in a quick-cycling rhythm. Zagreus' kiss held nothing back; it pulled forward instead, eager to seal what was empty, then open it again more forcefully. Perhaps it is just one more foible of manner, to lure so brashly in and again, simply for the crash—a strange way to dominate, yet nothing unlike him, and terribly effective.

(Life; blood; a fire. Life wills and weaves and floods and overtakes. Death is only an absolute. Death has no need for domination.)

Then, all of a sudden, the mirror creaks; the image now projected sears red-silver and gleaming, bodies entangled like legless creatures writhing. Zagreus' lips and Zagreus' breathing, his head thrown back in rapture, a siren. And the voicings and sighs, silken-soft, obscene, rushing—monsters born from shadow and from wicked want, now crawling their way to the glassy surface. Perhaps Thanatos looked too deeply, and now beholds his own demise; he screws his eyes shut and draws himself to a line, and feels the hot ghost of red blood on him.

(This—was it all by design? When he was born, bawling and white—was he already damned?)

The slithering ice-fire simmers in his veins, blue-gold that mingles to a sickly green, coursing a stinging river that winds and whines. Pain and arousal are ever intertwined, have been so for as long as memory permits—coiled and locking like a pair of snakes. And the hatred of self, that shame-sneaking third, rising in his throat as from a pit, striking his heart like a viper in wait. Always, always, always in wait.

The mirror asks him: which serpent are you?

Thanatos flees from the chamber, not by way of magicked green light, but by taking to his own two feet, taken by the instinct to run.

His feet carry him on a direct path to the lounge, which is mercifully mostly vacant; Chef, of course, is there, setting into a freshly skinned fish, whose colorless flesh falls away in slices with a series of shings. He can almost feel the eyes of the mirror here, too—but when he looks there is only Chef's knives, and the Broker's portrait on the wall, and a smallest scattering of mono-minded shades. The white noise filling his head removes any thoughtforms that they might have had.

He's only just stopped panting when the Gorgon maid descends from nowhere, a shock of serpentine green and too-giant eyes, wide with something approximating alarm.

"O-oh! Thanatos… hi! Um, are you okay, y-you look… quite frazzled… maybe I could get you something to drink, or tidy up a little more…? I only just finished cleaning up Cerberus' hair a little while ago, you know, after his Highness ordered—"

(Tiny breath-pitched sounds and still-wriggling hair, like sips of Surface air stabbing, impaling him like fangs—how fitting, to die by snake-bite after all…)

Dusa, finally abating her verbal assault enough to notice his stone-silence, appears mortified. "Oh, I-I'm sorry, sorry, I shouldn't have asked! That was really rude, please forgive me! Anyway, gotta get back to work now, s-so—!"

"Zagreus commissioned this?" He breaks at last, extending aimlessly a single arm. He hadn't noticed at all the absence of hair, vision so stained red as it is. (Mind not ever what you see.)

"O-oh, yes, the Prince paid the House Contractor, and the House Contractor assigned me!" She spins on an axis, thrice in rotation. "Haha, it looks so much nicer in here now, don't you think? I think Miss Nyx will be happy, too! Whenever she gets back from…wherever she is!"

Dusa's hair worms and weaves nervously in place, the restive sphere of her bobbing. Thanatos says nothing, but watches the snakes, blankly—waiting for the needle teeth to pierce him right where it hurts most. (Like an arrow to the heart.)

"Well, I-I've certainly stayed too long, now—! So sorry to disturb you, Th-Thanatos, sir, and I hope your next trip here is pleasant! Bye-bye!"

She ascends as she came, quick with a rattle that shakes him to the core of himself. A portend.

For a few more moments Death lingers, suspended in time, before the rushing in his ears gives way to the rising sea of voices. He's nearly forgotten that there are souls still screaming. Yes, that's right—the voices hurt him, too. The voices hurt, him, always. (Let the voices ground you.)

The Surface bends for him when he arrives; cold air feels like scales in his chest. He gestures grandly with his hands, guiding, bringing them to their rest. As his arms orchestrate and his scythe dances, Thanatos glimpses a slice of his own forearm. The skin there is smooth and unbroken. He curls in his fingers and digs in his nails, carves in little crescents until he feels pain; but not a drop of red ever appears.

As Life emerges and sputters and falls, so too Death must fail. Such is the Cycle.

And indeed, many cycles (each synchronically shattered by Lord Hades' bident), and many many more deaths, occur before Death finally relents, and propositions another challenge.

Thanatos corners Zagreus again in Asphodel (or perhaps it is the other way round, were he to be entertaining the score), where their encounters are to-date the greatest in number—whether this fact is by dint of Thanatos' work and the relative number of souls here, or due to some latent appreciation of Zagreus dashing through fire, he cannot (will not) deign to say.

He mightn't hesitate at all, if not for the sight of Zagreus' form—sweatdrops clinging in a sparkling veil to his skin, hair almost invisible where blood and water drench it, enveloped by a corona of light—and he himself, lambent where the magma hits him, reflects off him, turns him to an exalted effigy.

Ah. He's let Aphrodite guide his weapon, let her magic into his heart. This time.

Such a vision of splendor could be marred only by the sharp fatigue that blemishes his undereyes, and the faintest thread of unsteadiness. (And Thanatos thinks, how cruel—that as little as a centaur's heart and bite of food could temporarily stave even these, the ineluctable need for rest, for healing. How awful, that death can be so stymied, the inevitable end so painfully prolonged.)

Life, yes, might will and weave and flood and fight; but Death always and again approaches.

"Thanatos," Zagreus thunders, never without greeting. "Couldn't leave me be?" The words are teasing, but the tone has a hard edge.

Thanatos calls down his scythe and Zagreus braces the heart-seeker, as if to prepare for the sharp-sweeping moon that has brought so many to rest. But Thanatos' strike does not come. Instead Thanatos lets his head hang; as if in agony, he extends his hands. Palms open, long fingers uncoiled and splayed, blue blood coursing in rivers to the ash-violet skin. His scythe lingers, hovering beside him.

"Zagreus. Please," Thanatos begs. "Stop this quest. Return home."

"You know I can't, Than." Zagreus casts his eyes down; his lets his body go lax, a show of vulnerability. Aphrodite's light is blinding; Zagreus could nearly be blushing. His voice becomes quieter, gentler, a haze. "I'm so close."

"Return home, and finally sleep. Without my aid. You have already made clear that you don't need me. If it is true, then…"

"Than..."

"I cannot bear to see you this way. Battered and beaten in turns, unending. Dead and born again, in constant cycles. Passed to and fro among those damned Olympians like some weapon, some child's toy, only to succumb to the wrath of your Father." (Even now, carefully avoiding his name; but indeed also the 'Lord' with it.) "Then washed up and plunged back again. No rest. No sleep. I cannot bear to see it any longer. Return home, and sleep at last, and leave me to exist in peace."

"Than, wait. You have it wrong. I—"

But Death is already gone. (He compares Zagreus to starfire and flame, but Thanatos is shadow and silver; though Zagreus may try to rope him, too, he never can get a good grasp.)

Thanatos isn't there when Zagreus finally, finally defeats his Lord Father.

When it happens, he is tending to souls on the Surface; there is no other there aside from Death and the wind, but when Zagreus' flame departs the realm of the dead and enters the realm of the living, Thanatos feels it at once. And oh, perhaps it shouldn't stupefy you, says the wind; except there's really no such stir, no spark of shock, no rustling to be had save for its unremitting breath. For no god is god of nothing, and what is Zagreus but pulsing blood, and what is blood but Life itself?

He did it. He won. He actually succeeded.

Thanatos isn't there when Zagreus defeats Lord Hades; but the Surface resounds with his presence, a quaking, tangible and alive, now spilling over as smooth water so bespoiled by stone. Breached by an untamed spirit, one who only half-belongs. The world howls.

It has only just rained, and humidity poisons the air like a curse, filling Thanatos' nose with the dark scent of damp soil, the too-sweet green of all the growing things. If he tracked it past the initial discomfort, he might unearth the musky drift of damp bark, the sharp tang of crushed grass, the faint perfume of flowers, unfurled as to drink.

The fresh souls that greet him where he is posted might herald him with no cry, afford him no token resistance; but here, in this place, the voices of the living storm Thanatos like Earth's violent seas—now clear waters, now murky, adoration, objection, compliance, defiance. The voices of Life, charging, churning, unending. And that cursed whipping wind, a barbed lick over the pounding surge, whispering to him what he already knows.

Life forever rebels and revolts. Life chafes against the chains of Fate, til Death might one day end the chase.

From his nameless location where he shepherds his stream of nameless charges, Thanatos tips now his head to the caliginous sky, whose caustic clouds rain down tears and diamonds. And thinking then only of his far-removed sisters, someplace equally unnamed, perpetually weaving and working (perhaps methodical like him, or perhaps more like Hypnos, inventing outcomes like whims in a dream), he sends them his address.

"So. This is the plot you have chosen, is it…? Or is it that you've been foiled, as well?"

The Fates do not answer, but the wind laughs and laughs.

Thanatos (blustered and blue in the face) curses his way back to the Underworld.

He refrains, as before, for as long as he can withstand, from traversing back to the House.

The shades seem more sprightly, just slightly more vivacious, but not one of them utters the Lord Master's name; their floating is still aimless, their expressions lukewarm, blissfully undaunted by the doomsday soon to come. Achilles, ensconced in his corner, is scribbling something on parchment, and for a brief moment the scratching is all Thanatos hears; then like a clap of thunder, from over the way, a loud crack snaps the still and vibrates through the entire House. The shade nearest to Thanatos ascends in a flash, three cubits clear off the ground.

The scene that awaits him in the grand hall is enough to rattle the dead: Megaera, in full bore of her Fury title, leaning long and imposing and baring her teeth, and Thanatos' droopy-eyed brother above her, neither foot touching the floor. A miracle that he could look so diminutive, even as the act of floating made him taller than them all.

When Hypnos sees that Thanatos is there, he partway-suppresses a yawn, before baring his teeth as well—greeting his brother with a jubilant grin.

"Say, Brother, wow, you're back! How's the Surface this time? Sure hope you haven't been worrying about me, everything's been in tip-top shape! Why, hardly anyone's come through the Pool in days, or nights, 'cept for Miss Megaera here—"

"Would you like to try that again, Hypnos?"

"Yeah, you've been coming through an awful lot lately! Thanks for waking me up this time! Oh, not that I was sleeping, of course. I was just taking a little break!" Hypnos beams at the bristling creature before him, an image of flower and light; the sight of it burns Thanatos' eyes. "Did'ja get a chance to try out that thing I suggested last time yet? You know, attacking Zagreus from behind when he's using the shield?

"You're a disgrace," seethes Meg, the long flay of her whip protruding garishly from her folded arms like some demonic tail. "Maybe I ought to smack your head into this wall, see if makes you any more attentive. Might even knock some sense in there, help you give more useful tips."

"It sure might, Miss! See, looks like you can give yourself some good advice, too!"

Between the smoldering prickle in Megaera's eye (a candle he's seen lit many a time) and Hypnos' simpering smile, Thanatos very nearly snorts. He very nearly forgets why he's there in the first place, forgets the disaster that hasn't yet struck—the Master Lord Hades nowhere to be seen, and the Underworld still all intact, permitting Meg can help but to lay waste to the House, and everything in it, with her whip.

"Heyyy, Brother, you look kinda tired!" Hypnos' high voice pipes from nowhere and as sudden, jetting up yet unspoiled from the thick fog of tension. "Even more than usual, y'know? I bet sleeping a bit more would help!"

His brother's puerile tone rings hateful in his ears, a brusque and unwanted indication. Thanatos takes flight on a fierce green flame, before he can do what Meg or Lord Hades has not.

The whole of the Underworld feels Lord Hades' wrath, when it finally comes.

He erupts, a cataclysm, out of the Pool, twisted and hunched, thick knots of muscle coiling and uncoiling as he pulls himself up like a mythic beast. One claw-hooked bear hand swiping, the other brandishing the bident, broad chest and trousers matted with silver and the Styx's rage, clenching and unclenching himself in an unbroken loop.

The Lord Master charges a warpath through his House in a direct, scorching, silver-bleeding line to his private quarters, pausing only to shake the foundation with a bellowing roar. The shades of the House evaporate into nothing; Hypnos looks as if he might faint; Achilles' eyes fixate firmly at his feet. The court musician clutches his harp tightly as to protect it. The very bowels of the House seem to rattle, and Lord Hades treads a path of fire, leaving a smoking trench of destruction in his wake. The master bedchamber door slams with a resounding thunder.

(A long, long while later, when the dust has transiently settled, the duty-bound Gorgon girl will gingerly poke at the rubble and quiver, doing nothing, for once, to restore it.)

Death, now just stood at the side of his mother, watches the House as it burns. The Lady Nyx spares no words, but her lips curve minutely upward, as if pulled by an invisible string. And staring deep, deep into the eyes of the fire, Thanatos' mind and ears both do something that is very rarely afforded, and go utterly, blissfully blank.

As Life emerges and triumphs and overcomes, so too Death must relent. Such is the Cycle.

Zagreus corners Death in the Hall, at his usual station. His chiton encloses around him like a king's cape, vivid-red as he dashes in a clean sweep toward the railing, halting in place at the last possible instant before his body can make impact. Zagreus is a zephyr, whistling on air (his namesake nowhere to be found). The Anemoi take up Thanatos' heart-strings, pulling him one way from every limb. Something deep, deep within Thanatos rustles.

The bottle is already there in his hand.

This time, Thanatos accepts it without protest. Zagreus lights up like the mortal sun. (Thanatos wonders, in flare of caprice, whether Helios feels envy.)

In greeting, he says the only thing that comes to mind. "You took Lord Hades down." You really did. Suddenly, the light's too blinding. Thanatos lets his eyes drift shut.

Zagreus scoffs, like a vibrating spring. He taps his foot. Such a spectrum of sentiment, in one tiny sound. Consternation. Rebellion. Amusement. Pride. "Seemed only fair, in the grand scheme of things. He slew his own parents at some point, right? I think the Fates enjoy this sort of thing."

(Somewhere, some place in time, he knows that his sisters are laughing.)

When he opens his eyes again, all Thanatos sees is red: red eye, red blood, red heart, red life.

"Come on, Zag. Take some credit where it's due."

And Thanatos' way of warring has little to do with words, so he's a bit stunned when Zagreus flinches at these ones—head pointed downward, too abruptly earnest. Almost looking like he'd prefer a strike, or a handful of punches, instead of an honest stab at kindness.

"I—I met my mother. She's alive and well. I'm truly sorry, Than. For all of the trouble."

Zagreus' face is half-cast in darkness. Zagreus' face dispels his anger with a glance. It's not haughty, or teasing—it draws him closer, closer like always, closer to his limit, the upper bound of what Thanatos can bear. Then, just when he feels like he's about to burst, Zagreus closes their distance and pauses, one hand braced against his shoulder. He lets his hand linger there, feeling the muscle shift taut and tense, and Thanatos lets him do it for one long moment. Thanatos closes his eyes again, trying to memorize what he can of it, of everything that surrounds him. The clack-clacking of Zagreus' sandal. The hush thundering in his ears. The featherlight, unbroken line Zagreus traces from his collar to his arm.

Then, like a tolling, the next wave of death—so loud, louder even than the pulse of his heart. The sound of crying souls, shattering the spell.

Rescinding from that touch feels like being tossed headfirst into the Styx, like being drowned, like water filling up his insides just to flood back out again, leaving him vacant and aching. His mouth opens slowly, deliberate; the emptiness hangs him, a drip on his tongue.

"You'll forgive me if I keep my distance for a little while." His voice is weak, but he holds himself upright and firm. "I think you have some issues to resolve." Gestures listlessly to Zag's sleepless eyes; because this time, drenched with the longing as he is, he cannot bring himself to ask or offer.

Zagreus, mercifully, seems to understand; but there's something mercurial still in those eyes, something hostile and volatile and beautiful and true, seizing Thanatos' throat like a squall. "Yeah, I do. I'll try my best for you, Than."

"Try your best for yourself. And watch yourself, Zag." His lips form the rest in the shapes of the words (very nearly a prayer to Hypnos himself).

Beyond each of their purviews, at the far end of the Hall, an ever-cognizant Achilles stands still as marble, silently observing, and thinks a scattering of fragmented thoughts; sadness in his eyes, dark and inscrutable, obscured under his cloak. Though he makes no move, and not a sound, his eyes and ears transport him to the roiling waters just outside the tent, the glistering fleet of Achaean ships, the far-off gates of Troy, Patroclus' adoring face as he plays the lyre for him. The entrenching sorrow of memory, and a heart across stars—something forever beyond his reach.

Now I know how to make you follow me everywhere.

(Love and loneliness pierce like an arrow; in the anguish, there is solidarity.)

The prayers of the faithful bring him no relief.

The mortals invoke feelings that Thanatos doesn't recognize, that are too painful to begin to entertain. Even if he knows their names, the swells that arise from the fog of his soul are cold and strange and unfamiliar. They writhe, like figments, shadowed and shapeless against the blue-weeping skies. Not like the contents of his own heart, the ones he casts down and away—the emotions, their figures, seem to warp and waver in him, as though manifesting a violent struggle. As though they are foreign agents. As though they do not belong.

Unlike the emotions, the words the mortals choose are a soliloquy he knows well. A stream of invocations and intercessions, rotated with blasphemy and sworn resentment. Their offerings, however charged, help him become himself again; they tether him back to his course and creed. Death. Demise. Departure. Deliverance. From the mortals' prayers, and from the dying's wails, Thanatos forges his purpose.

The Surface air around him bites his hands, cracking as it freezes. Hurry, his mind urges as Demeter's icy hand rains down. Falling snow dots teardrop burns in his skin. Winter settles into his bones.

The souls are as restless as he is. The newly dead are screaming, shrieking, even now searching, their memories and feelings ringing clear and sharp as bells—profound indignation, unrest, confusion, destitution, and deep, deep longing. He inhales the sharp tang of Earth's mulch and metal, the all-eclipsing kiss of frost; he feels, rather than hears, the static of Zeus in the air, the crack of it against his skin.

"Hurry," Thanatos says again, and thrusts his scythe into the ground. He leans heavily against it, trembling. "Follow, now. I'm here to take you." Each word is an effort.

Earth's night swiftly approaches. Thanatos, for a screeching second, looks wildly for his mother, who abandoned this realm a long, long time ago. Instead, his desperate eyes meet Charon's face, and a swirling plume of purple smoke.

Thanatos departs without a word.

Night comes to Death in the courtyard, in a rare moment of disquieting calm; even the punch-bag of bone has not yet reanimated. When his mother comes to him, he's overlooking the balustrade, peering down at the grim shades of green licking Tartarus' austere interlocking walls, those climbing and chemiluminescent flames. Though he can hear the ever-ticking whirs and whines of clamoring shades—and doubtless Mother Nyx can as well, or perhaps she's well and truly mastered that illusive skill of filtration—he steps to his side, and accepts her presence without protest.

It oughtn't to refresh him now, to listen to the far-off screams of the damned in place of the animate prayers of the faithful (not any more so than the abominable bawlings of his own mind). It oughtn't to bring any shade of relief, the transition, the handing off, what once was vibrant and breathing turned to wretched devils made of shadow, souls relinquished to their natural outcome, their natural consequence of being. Though Death still can hear them cry, or whisper, his onus to them ends with their lives, and with this, there is peace—a slivered stretch of borrowed time. And yes, Thanatos had learned long ago that they—and, indeed, their entire world—were all living on borrowed time. Unlike him, so like him, warden and ward, questioning still—what is existence, if not time barred and bartered?

Thanatos stands in silence at his mother's side, each in herald of the other, and wonders again whether he is now, as ever, doomed to live out this eternity with too maudlin a psyche. The quiet never lasts, here or in the mortal world, and even just beneath him monsters are calling for rest. Tartarus will already be burning by the time the creatures leap for him. Endlessly cycling, endlessly dutiful, and Zagreus there in the center of it all. Alive. Beaming.

There is no escape.

It's only when he thinks of Zagreus' face, swallowed by death-black hair and lit aflame by that one burning eye, that Nyx's ghost-hand touches his shoulder—a whisper.

"Thanatos, my son. Might that I cannot discern their contents, the fury of your thoughts reaches me even from the farthest corners of the House. What ails you, child?"

"You need not concern yourself on my account, Mother." The response is automatic, a variation on a theme; his eyes remain cast firmly forward, though he does not shy from her touch. "I am only taking a moment to rest."

"Yes, and this I am pleased to see, for often I fear you work yourself too hard. But forgive my meddling, though you seem quite unrested even here."

"It's nothing more than work, Mother." Nothing that you need let worry you. "I don't like or mean to cause trouble for you. Please, pay me no mind. There are many important matters in the House more deserving of your attention."

"I see. Then I hope you shall honor my meager request for you to take care of yourself." Nyx's face seems to loom even where his eyes can't see, heavy-hanging and white like the mortal moon, drawing his thoughts like its servant tides. As enigmatic and haunting as darkness itself, and as all-knowing. "And pray, how fares Zagreus?"

Though he had half-expected it, Thanatos turns his body, too, away from her then, as the sun from night encroaching, if for no other reason than to sheathe his disrespect. The words spill from his mouth like water, a cascade. "He has not yet returned, as you surely know. You humor his vagrancies, Mother. I had the mind to avoid the subject entirely, as it is not my station to question you. But if you are so inclined to aid him, you could at least enlighten me as to what you might hope to accomplish in it."

"Oh, my son, but you forget your place. Though you may roam where you please, I am not ignorant to the comings and goings of my children. Zagreus has always enjoyed my full support, this much is true. But his journey is his own, and he has others besides me who would help him along." And Thanatos, so cornered, turns to face his mother—and in so doing, his shame. "Is it not so, Thanatos?"

"Mother—"

"Do you know, my child, that indeed Zagreus approached me not the last I saw him, and came with a litany of questions, some among them invoking your name?"

Anger, forked and white hot, flaring in his throat like flame. "What did he ask, then?"

"I am not at liberty to say much of it, I should think. However, it may be of interest to you that he expressed concern about your temperament of late. He seems to fear for your distress, as do I, and wished that you might rest more."

"That fool has no awareness—"

"Yes, and so we discussed it. I do sense your exhaust, my child, as plainly as Chaos your thoughts, I suspect. But hear, Zagreus asked of me many questions. He also wished to know why it is you will not face him."

"Oh, is that so? And I suppose you had a lovely chat all about the pleasures of running?"

(And there, swiftly rising like racing feet, before he can stop them, thoughtforms, shaping, running just as fast—running as Thanatos runs where whim and whimsy could scarcely follow, running simply to feign for a few stolen seconds that everything is, was as it should be and nothing aches. Running like when they were children, about the gardens and through the halls, either scant seconds or aeons ago depending on how one counted, chasing Zagreus or being chased by Zagreus and…

—memory, a flood, running, running just to run, running for the necessity of running, running for the feeling of fleeing on a fleeting wind, an agent of the nothing dark, running to duty, running from duty, running from himself, running and running and—)

"Mother," he chokes, his voice breaking, black enclosing. "Are you—?"

"Ah… fear not, my ever-ruminating child." Nyx grants her son a sly, slanted smile that instantaneously melts his fleeting thoughts and clicks something in his chest, like a key sliding in a lock. "I told him that one who runs is merely hoping to be found."

(In the breath of the chaos that amplifies her words, the cries of mortals-once-lived race through the courtyard, calling to him; but of course, he is already gone. All that there's left there to find is Night Incarnate, coyly smiling, and the still-jumbled skeleton, stained red with vestiges of blood.)

(Memory becomes a flood.)

Death, as a babe, never had a friend. His new mother spoke kindly, in her far-off manner, rifling her hands through the small boy's pale hair; she gave him wings and bangles and bracers like the ones she once had, in that time long ago when she still hung the moon. He knew no father, but the gruff moaning Boatman taught him every way of ferrying the dead, while the most civil of the punishing Furies taught him the meaning of mortal sin. And his dope-faced twin brother, whom he looked after—he taught Death the curse of caring. And from that initial well came the blood-spring of emotion, and with it the need for efficiency: how to hear without listening and field without feeling, and how to carry shrieking souls to and from the red-dripping river without spilling a drop, or ever falling in.

So it was, and Death learned to be diligent. Until the time that Life appeared.

And Life, Death never could understand. He couldn't breathe when the infant in front of him gasped for air, struggling and choking for the right to exist. He couldn't breathe when Life emerged unscathed, or when Life reached for his hand. He wanted to reach out, too, and trace the chubby pink line of Life's cheek, feel the velvet skin beneath his fingers. He couldn't have known what that meant, and the few words that his mother allowed were never really enough.

But Life, that fire, it was like he'd always known. Keen contrasting eyes and a quick clever grin, a playful toss of his hair when it fell into his face. His playful way of speaking, his love of provocation. They would wander by the gurgling Pool that expelled new souls, and Death would come to wonder at Life's like-colored blood. Life urged him to eat when Death grew too absorbed in study; Life dragged him to the gardens when Death became too sallow. They exchanged words simple and leisured, hummed excited back and forth, tensed anticipation on them. Antithetic. Diametric. Life and Death each chased the other, sharing secrets and smiles.

Of course, this was a while after the lessons had begun. They each had their tutelage, warfare and passivity. Life needed no training as to emotion; life was emotion, raw and untempered. Only to channel it proper—such was the Warrior's way. But Death, that conduit of profound mortal pain—he required the explanations behind the power.

He canted his head thoughtfully when Nyx told him that 'happy' was a sweet-bubbling rush that swept through the body and left one giddy, and that 'sad' was a lump that burned in the throat. He took meticulous notes, committing every detail, of how 'fear' filled the mortals with a displacing numbness that threatened to turn them to statues, and how 'bored' distorted and warped the whole world, until every minute dragged like eternity.

One morning or evening, in the chilled, tranquil air of the former Queen's prettiest garden, Death came to Night like a whisper, uneasy (shifty, like he'd rather be anywhere else), and asked her what 'love' was.

Nyx told him of an invisible cord, as strong and unbreakable as steel, that tethered two living souls together; and from that cord unraveled a plethora of other feelings: joy when the souls are together, sorrow when they are apart, deep pain when one of them suffers, and hope for one another's safety, for something of a future. She explained to him how those cords yoked together couples, and brothers, and families, and friends, no matter how far apart they might be; and how this was something so powerful, so overwhelming, so divine, that people would do anything for it, including die.

"I have never experienced it for myself," Night had said; but Death, with his wisdom and discerning heart, knew her words to be false.

(Memory becomes a flood. Thanatos pulls himself, soaking, up and out of Mnemosyne's mouth; and lets the mortal voices, their emotions and their whims, carry him back to the Lethe.)

Thanatos doesn't see Zagreus at all in the House, nor hear a single calling-out for sleep, and the fact doesn't surprise him; if anything, he's more surprised that it doesn't. Emerge from the Pool that he may, Zagreus lives and breathes for a handful of stolen seconds—for the promise that he might see Lady Persephone again.

And so memory, indeed, and the fast flood of noise, becomes their charted course. Their encounters diminish to a handful of sharp sounds—scythe and sandals scraping harshly on paved stone and iron and shimmering grass, weapons at the ready as shades encroach ever closer, and the familiar restive voice that still rings out each time that they meet:

"Thanatos."

(A pearlescent glow to his skin now, grotesque, plain to the eye of one who dwells half in darkness, half not—and so it is, and so it must be, for where before he'd had no more than two outcomes to mull, Thanatos must now withstand a full hostile spectrum. Zagreus goes to the Surface; Zagreus returns underground; Zagreus dies by fire; Zagreus dies by air.)

Memory haunts him, a collection of words, exchanged like a clashing of blades.

Even I'm beginning to fear you, I think. Seems I don't know you as well as I thought.

There is but one denominator—pain, and eternal lack of sleep. Intwined one and the same, burden to them both.

(Memory, a flood.) Life and Death. One and the same.

What are you doing back here, Zag? You made it out.

Thanatos remembers when it was different. When the constraints that bound him were but absolute.

Well. At least that poisonous Surface air can ensure that this chase will be kept to one realm.

Home is never going to be the same for me, Than. There's no use trying to pretend.

All that either of them ever does is pretend. What did you expect?

This time is no different, yet is not the same. The ice in Zagreus' voice reeks of Surface air. From the spot where he lingers in Elysium's vibrant fields, by any depiction a hero, he never has looked less like himself. Standing with that puffed-out chest like he has never lost a war.

(Memory. Time. The cycle. A flood.) And Zagreus, eternally fighting.

"You don't fight fair," he breathes as they spar, not to his heart but to the one who holds it—he can feel the fingers curled around it, their prying and tugging around the phantom pains that haunt his chest, cold and calloused and this side of familiar. Zagreus, by his face, doesn't hear, though maybe he sees. Still, he pushes on (faster). Life emerges the victor.

And how strange, how bane, that Thanatos would still feel himself moved, pulled so taut by something he cannot see. An anomaly without shape, or color—only a vividest crack in the monochrome (and one that could hardly be classed as an anomaly at all, for how can it be when it's been there from the very beginning?)

He should probably recognize it as an epiphany or a revelation or something, but it's nothing Athena would smile upon. (And all of a sudden, just as all along, the insight is clear: he is following his heart, and it's doing a better job at outrunning him than Zagreus is).

"Good bout, Than."

(Memory. Time. The Cycle. A flood.) And each of them, eternally running.

The words trigger something. "Still running from yourself, I see. How's that working out for you so far?"

"I have to see my mother, Than, as long as she's alive and well. You still live at home with yours. You don't know what it's like."

(Memory.) Mother Night, in the courtyard. "Mother Nyx was like a mother to you, too. And this is how you repay her." (A flood.) One who runs is merely— "You should be ashamed of yourself, and learn your place."

(Time. The Cycle.) "Wait—"

When the whirling voices start to thread and weave together in Thanatos' ears it's only for the worse, because they still have no component of sense; just tones and inflections and words so comprehensible it makes him want to scream, as well. He knows those voices, knows those feelings, just like he knows the hands caging his heart (like the flutter of red that sparks up to greet him at such times as these, when his efforts at control so spectacularly fail).

The world shatters again in slow motion, and Thanatos is hurtling away, disappearing on a breath from the beautiful opaline fields where Zagreus' flame still flickers, faltering as if in threat to burn out.

And Asphodel is cold and lonely and everyone is crying, and if Zagreus ever does manage to take his own advice and wait, Thanatos can only hope that he can summon strength enough to keep the mercy to a minimum, because another eternity of heartbreak is more than he can stand. Only to end the Cycle, a billion million lifetimes of nothing but Earth-shaking noise and soul-crushing sound, doomed to haunt him in this realm and beyond, and the perpetual throbbing of hollow-pointed thoughts, pricking, puncturing, always hurting, and never fully realized. Sound and a still-shaded world all around him, rustling and flame-cold like the contents of his chest. A better god than he might find power and purpose there, but here there's only purgatory, and eternal pain. (He'd choose fire and brimstone over this hell every time.)

But then, he dares not think, but insight still bubbles a spring inside him—what else is there to expect from Life? Time passes, here and in that world above—summer becomes autumn becomes winter becomes spring becomes summer. Life emerges and Death gives chase. And Demeter rages on, leaving me to the aftermath.

And so it is; and so it must be; and so, no one rests, and least not the dead.