Zagreus throws himself right back into it, instantly. But of course, this was to be expected.

It's a peculiar thing, how each new revolution has contributed to what has become something of a dynamical system, one in which Zagreus is the central attractor. All trajectories migrate back to him, and the manner by which they do has become somewhat predictable. Somewhere in time, someplace in the cycle, this has become absolute. Death himself is no exception to this law.

When they meet, there is always some sort of exchange—information, aid, power, banter; a proper back-and-forth that feels almost routine. So much so that Thanatos can simply carry on doing, and when it is bearable, thinking, knowing that he will soon be called, and when he is not, this means he is due to approach Life himself. Drawn in to the manifold. They've gotten it down to a science, now.

The thing about being a part of a greater system is that most of the time, it brings a form of peace. In Death's line of work, this is a necessity, for all systems are subject to some stochasticity, and stochasticity is the harbinger of anxiety. But unexpected events are not always unfavorable, and Thanatos is getting better and better at expecting them. He supposes he has Life to thank for this, too.

For this reason, it surprises him little that Zagreus, fresh off the victory of discovering his lord Father's portrait of the Queen, would toss himself right back in with no regard for his own needs, or so much as a word. What does surprise him, though, is being called right at Elysium's border, in the life-leeching butterflies' preferred domain, when the Prince is so close to the end. But a closer inspection reveals a heavily worn face, sunken by shadow, and clunky movements hindered by bone-deep weariness. And so, Death lingers.

"I can see that you haven't been sleeping, Zag," he scolds, with a click of his tongue, after the fray has been won.

Zagreus pauses in the middle of clumsily re-slinging Coronacht to his back, holding it aloft like a piece of junk wood. He scrunches up his face for a few beats, then rolls his shoulders back to receive Thanatos' gaze, and with it, his criticism. "Thanks for answering me, Than," he murmurs. His eyes are lidded and wan, and his expression decidedly fond. "Say…carry me to the Styx, won't you?"

Thanatos blinks, one-two, dumbfounded. Beyond the stochastic—no amount of anticipating the unexpected could have prepared him for this. "Are you not going to go forward…?"

"I think this time…I'll pass," Zagreus says, voice low and husky. He sways closer to him, close enough now that Death can breathe him—iron and sweat-musk and exhaustion. Exhaustion that slouches his body toward ruination. Strength leaks from his dehydrated bones. Every fiber shred of muscle holds a nameless ache.

Another minute passes in silence, and then Zagreus' fingers are skimming the tightening gap between them, coming to rest on Thanatos' arm.

"It's just, you're right, you see. I'm rather—" he coughs. "tired."

"What happened to making sure to take care of yourself properly?" Thanatos asks, and with the last word Zagreus' sunken-in expression collapses into a slow, cracked smile: long and drawn-out and crooked, a humbled kind of acquiescence. A rather spectacular show of growth, for one who is still a bit touchy on the subject of his own limits.

"My own fault," he mutters, quietly smiling, letting his eyes fall shuttered in resignation. "And…sorry, Than. I didn't tell you how it went, up there…I thought I could get through to her this time, I really did, but—" He coughs again, fine red shine staining his hand. "Ah. I've just been going and saying all sorts of things, all out of place, haven't I…? Should've told you sooner. Should have been…a better…"

"It's all right," Death reassures, though in a bit more flayed a tone than he would like. After all, he recognizes that feeling—that heavy blend of weariness and self-frustration, and not just from recent experience. To make up for this, he gives a dismissive wave of the hand, before daring to adopt a quizzical expression. "Why go back now, though? That's quite unlike you, don't you think?"

He smiles, impish. "Heh, well…I'll need to have the perfect argument if I'm going to convince Mother once and for all to come back here. Have to be well-rested and sharp for that, eh Than? But besides that, well…I wouldn't mind getting a bit more time with you, as it were."

Tired as he is, Zagreus' eyes still manage to flash brilliantly from their shadowy frames; enough to burn a red-green hole right through him. Heat lances him, snaking. He rifles through words, the starts of sentences, trying to settle on something to say, unwilling to trust himself not to sound completely stupid. The gale of tension only blows over when Zagreus lapses into another bout of coughing. This also forces his fingers away, that searing touch. Thanatos can't tell whether this is a relieving thing or a regrettable one.

"So you'll—pah—take me back, then?" the Prince stutters. He sounds a bit sheepish now, a little embarrassed, even with a voice hoarse from strain. Still, those eyes glitter. "You could even stick around awhile, you know. If you want to, that is."

(He will always marvel at this, it seems. At Zagreus' incredible gift for candor.)

That thought carries him over to the next moment—something to seize upon, to draw from. He clears his throat. "All right, Zag, I can take you, if you want. But in return, I need you to tell me something."

Zagreus' brows pick up; his mouth tweaks in interest. "What—hem—might that be?"

"What possessed you to kiss me, back then? In Asphodel?"

Zagreus is silent at first, like he hasn't heard the question properly. His hand, which since their contact broke has been hanging rather listlessly, twitches in mid-air, ending in a restive slur of fingers; his sleepless eyes, so bottomless and bright, sink shut, and he emits a tiny hum before speaking.

"Well, it was…that challenge, it was…exhilarating, and fun…and I'd nearly forgotten about fun, and honestly I was really quite happy to see you, and...I could hear Eurydice singing." He strains to speak, panting breaths as he forces the words, one by one. "And—well, I suppose I acted on my whim. I think…my body knew that I liked you, before I myself did…" He wipes his mouth, and speaks low when he voices the rest: "I do regret not asking for permission, Than. Forgive me…?"

Death turns his cheek, unable to look, wanting to make a thousand statements, to ask a thousand and one questions; but his tongue feels swollen and useless in his mouth, and so he manages to reduce them all down to simply "Don't worry, Zag. Will you rest now, for me?

With that, in a graceless tumble, Zagreus is Thanatos' arms. Sleep's breath takes to him like a gentle touch, seducing him into slumber. And as Death carries the dormant Life steady, it is as if there is suddenly a marked change in momentum—in the shifting geography between them. As if this implicit admission has suddenly opened a new course into strange new waters, boundaries uncharted. An entirely new system. Continuous, and not discrete.

"Let's go home," Death tells him, in barely more than a whisper, knowing full well that Zagreus can no longer hear.

The Styx, of course, is this time denied. Thanatos opens a direct path to Zagreus' bedchambers instead, a much more favorable route. The vacant room silently accepts the pair of them. It has an ominous, overchilled feel, in spite of the ever-growing clutter of comfort items. The cold ambient air diffuses into Thanatos and sinks, settling past the skin and deep into bone. Carrying the Prince to his bed feels a little like fumbling in the dark. Each step feels more perilous than the last.

He is only assuaged once Zagreus is properly arranged and settled into the ocean of blankets, his body neatly covered so that only his neck and chin protrude. His hair fans passively out onto a set of fine silk-soft pillows. Seeing Zagreus slumbering so sweetly spikes a knot in him, an odd mingling of pleasure, pride and relief.

"Here I am, taking care of you again," he mutters under his breath—sharp but not unkind. "I suppose I missed it." He has never admitted as much to Zagreus, or himself; but there is no other here to hear him, so he can afford this.

In the corner of his eye, the night-mirror gleams. Thanatos turns his gaze to it, and it glitters passively in response, an invitation. Narrowing his eyes, he baits his breath and approaches the mirror with a practiced placidity, remembering his previous interactions with it. Perhaps—ah, but no. He harbors no explicit expectation, nor any indecent intent. But perhaps the mirror can provide him again with some direction, an answer to the swirling mess of feelings inside him. Whether by way of judgment, or by arbitration.

He studies his reflection in the mirror's eyes and wonders, passingly, when the color there had faded. Wan skin and eyes feeble and jaundice-yellow, like a trodden blossom, dying. His mouth tastes sour; when he licks across his teeth, he can taste no metal there.

(No. He does not have indecent intent.)

What do you seek? The mirror asks, knowing.

And he would like to say that this blooming intention that he is now experiencing was not in any way a premeditative thing, but the pleasant weight of the ambrosia he carries (hidden in his clothing, with him at all times) would betray this. He has been waiting for an opportunity to emerge, whether this has been a conscious inkling or not. Those jeweled eyes wink when his thumb brushes over the bottle's lip, as if to encourage. The crystal emits an extravagant luster that reflects off of the mirror's face like a prism; the sweet smell of warm, dark honey fills his head. He takes one long, lingering look at the sleeping Prince before removing the stopper with a pleasing pop.

Drinking from that bottle is like diving headfirst into a dream. The amber liquid overtakes his senses and swirls in his body, shaping him into something he is not. He sways a half-step; the yellow of his eyes projected back through the mirror sharpen to a brilliant, alien gold, twin to the ichor coursing through his body, his open veins, head and cheeks and four limbs, pooling in the abdomen. It feels like a rapture, forbidden; too intoxicating to be immoral, or at least enough to stave any concern for morality.

Sourceless light dances about the night-mirror's surface; it looks almost pleased, satisfied. And then, the image reflected there changes: it now shows to Thanatos a handsome pair of ghosts, one an exaggerated semblance of himself, the other a magnificent spirit of fire. His likeness glows ash-pale in the dim not-quite-light, the juts and knobs of him prominently accented. Zagreus', by contrast, is an inviolable beauty—soft-edged and saturated, like the finest of paintings. Standing half-dressed and proud in rich, livid fabric, the halo of his laurel forming a half-moon crown in the tangled cloud of night-dark hair, gleaming gold and vivid red—red as a bleeding heart.

Thanatos presses his fingers into the glass, hard enough to burn, though the pressure barbs him with sweetness instead. As he does, his shadow-self combs through shadow-Zagreus' hair—just as it had been with their true counterparts, mere moments ago. The figures entwine, coiling (captivating). There is nothing of the Prince's whimsical savagery in his shadow's manner. This Zagreus is a shifting storm beneath his hands, elemental Olympian essence made real. Not submitting, but sparkling: effervescent with life, and rigid with unheeded arousal.

(The sight of it arrests him, sharp through the pleasure-haze, a knifing realization—how? How has he lived and breathed, carried on and existed, with such a being occupying his head? How has he known such restraint? Where is the stop-gap? Where are the fault lines?)

To merely watch is unendurable. Thanatos pulses with the urge to touch—that need which is always so quickly smothered by the urge to struggle or smooth or shout, those urges he's long suppressed with all of his being. But now, livened by the fever-sweet pull of ambrosia and bared before the mirror that knows his soul, he surrenders. He cups the shadow-Zagreus' flushed cheek; but as soon as his fingers make contact, its gaussian body disintegrates into lightbeams and smoke. His fingers slip through ephemeral flesh, his thumb sliding cleanly through the figment's jaw.

Pain and arousal are ever intertwined. Now, though, that same pain has given way to a murky kind of fear. An apprehension. An anticipation.

What do you seek? The mirror asks, once more.

(Does the enchanted glass show him his Fate…?)

Tongue logged with honey, Thanatos narrows his eyes, and answers: "A resolution."

The cold surface reflects back his own gold-flushed face, thoughtful. Looking at him as though daring. All that distance away, the true Zagreus snores peacefully, in blissful unawareness.

Then, like a portend, the mirror's image blurs and bursts into a living shot of flame, rising upward like a smoking geyser. The fire produces no heat, or light—the mirror instead seems to glow on its own, but no glare projects to Thanatos' skin, or bounces about the room behind him. Yet somehow, he can feel it still, like hot breath against his skin. Breaching the ambrosia's cloud-thick fog, through to the careful veneer of calm beneath, the unplacated raw nerves at the very center. Asking. Answering. Calling (Thanatos!).

And all of a sudden, it all becomes clear. Why he feels so compelled toward the wayward Prince. Why he feels so compelled to abandon all things—duty, pride, the comfort of stubbornness—for the sake of him. Not for defiance, or triumph, or even love; but for truth, for, for faith, for the sake of believing. For a vision, one that he has (always, perhaps) subconsciously carried. To see how Zagreus stands in the world. To see how the world stands around him. To see what kind of world that could be.

So long Death has lingered, in enamoration of that vision, that promise of life itself. Is it not for that vision that he is still here, ever drawn to that Life? Ever called to Life's aid? Is it not for the sake of that grand rebellion, for that sheer, recalcitrant force of will? It must be so—for every time Zagreus, that rebel force made incarnate, defies his lord Father, defies him—every time he cheats Death and dives in that red river, every time he meets a sword or chokes on Surface air, every time he meets the Lady Persephone—he grows into something more. Something greater than he is. He grows into a sin worth believing.

And it would seem Death is ready to believe.

"Alright," says Thanatos. Slowly. Softly. True. "Alright."

The dark desire rises in him like the mirror's tongue-flames. It tears his gaze away and rotates his heel. Thanatos, wan eyes narrowed under semi-shuttered lashes, strides purposefully back to Zagreus' bed, and blesses him once more with divine protection: a prayer-whisper of fingers threading through hair, giving his answer with each delicate touch.

Zagreus sleeps for quite a long time, with affectionate fingers lingering on his temple. Thanatos is already gone when he wakes, but his touch, his voice, left after-images behind—a question, a vision of fire, a handful of words. Emerging from that sleep feels like new hope, new vigor, has been suffused into his skin, charging his bones; and when he licks his lips, they taste almost sweet.

Zagreus doesn't have to call him again. This time, he need only follow Death's instruction.

Thanatos' feet take him deep into Asphodel's heart, that antechamber of unaddressed want, insidiously frothing with molten rock and squelching Phlegethon fire. Lagoons of it boiling open, wild and unfettered, like all the emotions he's ever felt here. It's as if the atmosphere is egging him on, raw heat urging with a single-minded insistence of untold potency. Thanatos glides in an undisrupted momentum, not bothering with teleportation, and souls scatter in all directions—away from the lava, away from him. Their white chatter spews in his ears, a shrill, constant refrain to keep counsel to the drum-beating of his heart, louder and louder with every subsequent chamber.

Then, with just one more open door, that pulsing percussion gives to a full splendid symphony—joined by a soft, secret, seductive melody, which could only belong to Eurydice, and the unmistakable humming of life.

It actually feels different, this time.

Zagreus is light itself, a fire, one that takes flight and spreads, feeding on nothing at all—neither air nor wood nor divine magic. The heat he generates simply through movement is palpable, lapping at Thanatos' skin in waves. The chamber is filled with a pleasant warmth that steadily rises to a swelter. The sweeping shadows born of Aegis' dance shift hypnotically about the walls. This fire—his fire—it is a being with its own majesty, a thing apart. Eurydice's song is amplifying now (the siren's call no more a suppressible whisper), approaching the intensity of that fire itself, becoming the Song of Fire—Zagreus' Song. It is lovely, and mighty—it is a soliloquy of triumph and redemption, a promise of resolution, of absolution. It speaks not of past or present, but of the future, of a glory not yet fully realized. It seeps into the core of Thanatos and spreads, as if a dark cloud has been dispelled from his mind, everything is suddenly illuminated in a moment of blinding, beautiful, terrifying clarity, and he sees—

"Thanatos!"

"Zagreus."

There is nothing else needed besides this initial address: the flashing of blades, and an exchanging of names. Death approaches Life, as it always has been; and their challenge commences, and each one of them gives it their all.

When it is done, an equal number of fiends have been laid to waste between them. Zagreus burns in the pyre that he has himself made, crimson silk and charred flush, swathed in an ember shroud that burnishes before Thanatos' eyes. His feet ignite where they touch; his teeth glint like hot coals in his mouth. And then, there they are—those red hands held out in offering. Offering not nectar, and not ambrosia, but Zagreus in his entirety.

"You came," he babbles, tugging on his chiton. "Like you said. You—I had a dream. And before you say it—it wasn't Hypnos, it was you. I know it. It was so real. You told me that you'd come find me here. You said you had something—something to tell me."

"Is that so," Thanatos muses, sheathing his scythe, sheltering his rising disquiet with sternness. "I suppose this must mean that I have some domain over dreams, after all."

Here, Zagreus dares to crack a smile. "Good news, I hope…?"

The question makes everything, all at once, real. Ichor stains his face gold, and hotter than the harsh heat that surrounds them. Anxiety rears its snake-fanged head, coiling in him, barbed-tongued. He looks downward, paralyzed. Suppressing, in everything, the overwhelming instinct to flee.

"No, Than, don't," Zagreus says, breathless, his glazed eyes suddenly too far away. "Come here," he implores, and Thanatos (though with eyes still fixed on the groundfire left by his smoldering feet) does. "Than," he says, quieter. All traces of playfulness are now gone. Now a breath separated, Thanatos makes no movement, nor returns his gaze; but he doesn't flinch or wince when Zagreus slowly takes hold his hand and brings it to his mouth, touching to his knuckles, one kiss for each. And at this, the last of Death's hard shell melts away, and he softens—not just his eyes, but all of him. Unfolding, unfurling, opening to the answer.

"Zag," Thanatos chokes, and didn't know if it is by Zagreus' heat or his own fear; but fire, now summoned, is too hard to deny, and so he simply allows it to swelter them both, strike them both, outlining them in blazing white—licking up his body and pulling him in closer, until they are a thread apart, bodies diametric, aligned.

"Look at me," he drawls, almost desperate. Leaving Thanatos no choice but to obey.

"I asked Mother Nyx, a while back," Zagreus coaxes him, peering, gently probing. "Why you always run away."

He swallows, stiff with the effort of maintaining focus, of bearing himself before those burning eyes. Of remembering the reason why he is here. "So I have heard, or in a matter of speaking. And what did Mother say to you?"

"She said you run because you want to be chased. Because you want me to chase after you."

"Zag, look—" Thanatos starts, and Zagreus visibly reacts to the strain, the roughness in that voice, his eyes wide in recognition, his pupils dark; and he stops then, because this he knows, this he understands, running Zagreus to underground, that familiar impulse that pulses in him. "I—" Thanatos stammers, and curses the inability to complete the thought, to bring the resolution he's clawed his way here for—

"Well, I'm chasing after you now," Zagreus murmurs. The words shimmer on a breath, as if they are themselves breathing, living; perennial beings flicking into existence and out just as fast, taken up by the Phlegathon. "I'm sorry it took me this long to do so. I...I know it's a lot to take in. I want to make it simpler for you, or try. If you don't want this, I'll understand. The choice is yours entirely. But if you do want this...if you want me..."

Then Zagreus is reaching, a quiver of fingers, the ghost of a touch to Death's parted lips, and a question: asking, this time, for permission.

"Can I, Than?"

In the end, it takes no more than a look—no more than to simply behold the entreaty of Life's beautiful face, the face that infuriates and strips him in turns. That face, that gaze darting from lips to eyes and back again, halts any objection that Death might have had without preamble. Though Thanatos cannot, will not find the words, he gives his answer in the only way that he can think to—by closing his eyes, and remaining in place.

Zagreus' kiss is swift and uncompromising. Soft and flame-warm and chapped, a welcome concert with his fluttering fingertips, the deep sigh he exhales into Thanatos' open mouth. (A small, muted crash at their feet.) As they part, they share breaths; Thanatos' hot and empty and wanting, but Zagreus' imbued with silken-silver words, just exhaled into his open mouth—

"I like you, Than."

Slowly, as though he is in possession of all time that ever was, Zagreus closes his fingers around Thanatos' trembling wrist, pulling it gently but firmly away from his chest, holding it aloft. It seems nearly ethereal in Life's grasp, smooth and fine-boned and pale, delicate, the pulse of it throbbing beneath his hot-padded thumb. Asphodel hurtles on a crash-course around that point of contact, careening. A feverish feeling, like a sickness, like time poisoning his skin, reducing everything down to the thunder in his ears and the heat swimming in his head and that vibrant, skipping rhythm against his skin, and the most fleeting memory of words exchanged long ago—

Right now—there's no time. There's never enough time.

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

And there, trapped in the heat-hold of that slow, deliberate movement, Thanatos is finally struck, like a comet to the face, by the need for time. Why Zagreus so toils just to secure more of it, to grasp and steal as much as he can, even here in Lord Hades' realm; for even here, there is not enough. Not enough time, just as there's not enough urgency, not enough contact. All those impossible years it had been—not enough. Winter, attacking. More work. Souls, clamoring. More effort. Desire, suffocating. More restraint. A godling, crying, dying, battling for breath. Life, straining, fighting. Death, chasing, grasping. The cycle, unending. Never enough time. Never enough.

It is astounding, really, the clarity with which he can recite the timeline of it, the chronology of every buried inkling and every unspoken feeling, every whim and opportunity squandered by his own stubborn sense of shame. Thanatos has been thrashed, again and again, by this desire, the desire for this touch, for this Life; and now, to be offered that for which he has, across aeons, so desperately ached, and which he has so vagrantly self-denied—to have it open and wanting within his grasp—it is simply…utterly…

(Unbearable.)

With a movement like the arc of a sweeping blade, Thanatos' trembling fingers brand Zagreus' jaw, grasping, positioning his head upward. Sliding over and down a line to the neck, shaking, coming to rest at a gnarled knob of spine. Zagreus allows it (allows, this is allowed), just as he allows his arms to encircle Thanatos' body, sealing him closer, sealing him in. Releasing and at once binding, bodies crushing together, moving as one unit, a singular, discordant rising and falling of pummeling chests and still-heaving ribs and lips finding a pattern, a synchrony.

The sensation of it becomes its own entity, swirling about him, filling his mind and squeezing his eyes shut. He surrenders to it, that heat; enough to exhume him, to make ashes and dust of his body. Like consuming the magma, like swallowing the sun, and he'll devour it hungrily, let himself asphyxiate. Simultaneously not enough and too much: every scorching breath, every slick brush of tongues; the pooling heat below his waist, more ravenous than any of Asphodel's lakes. More exquisite than the feeling of flying, or even of ending a soul's suffering… and when Zagreus shifts, growls into his mouth, shudders and arches against him, Thanatos is already irrevocably ignited.

Zagreus tastes sweet, sweet and searing-hot and golden, and Thanatos just. Wants. Scraping that want in him, molding, shaping, doing his utmost to force time to slow to stillness, to dissolve around them into the resigned air.

"You," he rasps, tonguing, tasting. "Running from me. Attempting to leave me; but letting me chase you, run myself ragged. Calling for me, asking for my hand, needing me, then pulling right back again. Getting yourself maimed and killed down here, and making me to witness. Letting the Surface take you. Denying me that."

"Whoa—Than, hang on—" but then Thanatos' palm is sliding to his hip, slotting them together perfectly, almost painfully rigid; and Zagreus gasps brokenly at the contact, unable to finish.

"Never stopping. Never heeding. Never listening to a thing I say. Never minding every risk I take, every time I meet you here. Everything on your terms. This, too—to think, how long I have waited, how many ages I have suppressed my feelings, only for you to tell me like this. Touch me like this. Give me no time. You are incorrigible, Zagreus."

The fire guides Thanatos' lips, his words, every last grievance of which he has dreamed of speaking, but could never summon the strength to convey. The fire, Zagreus' fire, imbues in him a strength like he has never known; and Eurydice's voice is still singing his muse.

"Than," Zagreus breathes, the syllable hushed out like smoke in one breathless rush, choked by the sweltering air. Just barely pulling back, but enough to deliver that bite he's been seeking. "Slow down. It's all right. Be present. Be with me."

"I can't," he snarls. "You're going to leave again, at any moment. And if not you, I'll have to—I'll be called up again. And after that—I might not have the courage. So there isn't any time—"

Zagreus' voice is quiet, thoughtful, imploring; his hand on Death's nape like a searching wind. "You're not actually going anywhere…are you, Than?"

And Thanatos feels himself deflate then, because doesn't have a way to articulate it, that pervasive cold and dripping dread, like dank blood-water from the hateful river, that still fills the void inside his chest—still rising with every new cycle rotation, every death and rebirth, every iteration of the dynamical system that binds him. Reaching him no matter to where he traverses, Surface or Underground, with Zagreus ever at the center. Reaching him even here, in Asphodel's heat. Reaching him even now, with the Prince's boiling arms still firmly caging him.

"No," he finally chokes. "I'm not."

"Neither am I, Than," Zagreus whispers. "I promise. So…you don't have to wait any longer, okay? Not if you don't want to. You don't have to suppress how you feel, anymore."

Zagreus pulls back again, enough to peer up at Death with glazed-over eyes, the red just dimly flickering. His chest heaves, as if every breath draws his strength. The red slant of his chiton cuts the cream of his chest, scar and muscle working thick over bone—healthy now, not broken. He steers himself upward and his lips, red and swollen, find Than's again. Coaxing his mouth open; silencing his shrieking thoughts. Death tastes Life's assurance, and lets himself be tethered, tempted. Zagreus kisses him and then again, tongue brushing lips and swirling in one long, searing stroke, drawing from his lips a hiss of breath. Time flits and flies and flows about them. And when he at last draws away once more, to look into Thanatos' eyes, he sees it: Life, that fire, that blessed face. Blessing him with absolution.

No. This is no blessing; it is an expression of dark, untold want, and an unspoken oath for the future.

Eurydice's siren song pours over them like divine light from Olympus, golden and lovely, draping like the dawn. Like that golden Surface morning, too long ago, when Death realized how beautiful Life truly was. That same beauty that faces him directly now, alight, smiling as Death touches fingers to Life's pulsing heart, digs each of them in like he's promising, too; leaving moon-shaped welts and flakes under the nails, and marveling the red that they leave behind. Singing hot like blood, overflowing and emptying him out. As if trying to convert all those wasted aeons into touch, and touch into negative time—the distance between contracted to finger-lengths, spatial nothingness. Nothing to separate them, evermore.

Zagreus returns his promise in the firm line of his jaw in one more indolent kiss, long and slow and languid—promising all the time in this world, and in the one beyond. As though nothing exists outside of this boiling room—no duty, or obligation, or consequence, or shame. Only desire in all colors and tones, from breathless to fearful, made all the more potent with the sort of greed that can only come from a gratification that has been so, so long delayed.

"We've got time, Than," Zagreus exhales when they part at last. "We can take all of it that we need. We can take our time."

Thanatos, saturated, considers these words, and closes his eyes: allowing himself a brief illusion of simplicity. A whisper; a whim; a want. Almost like being called, which—yes. At last.

"I have to go," he breaks, hating how much it resembles a whine, how much it likely reflects in his face. "Zag."

"It's all right," Zag smiles. "She's coming, Than, I told you. I'm going to make it happen. You know, don't you? I'm not leaving. And you're not, either. I wouldn't let you get away from me so easily, now that I've got you."

It is not perfect and it is not enough, this incendiary beginning, but Death supposes that he can accept it. He'll accept it, so that at least for the next stretch of time, he will have something more to anticipate than the cold kiss of Earth's winter wind. He can't take Zagreus with him, or follow him there; but he can take this, can pour into the Prince of Life all of the promise of next time, so that he might return to call on Death again. And that next time, the next cycle, perhaps little in practice will have changed; but though they'll be right back to where they started, now they will have this new grand thing sparked between them. A grand new attractor.

The next time, the next cycle, will continue their story; and the system will keep on evolving.

For now, Death concedes, as he feels himself called—this is acceptable. For now, he likes Zagreus back, and they have time. And so the fear can be left behind here to burn, wholly consumed by the fire—leaving in its ash the solemn promise of another day, another night.