Thanatos tells himself that he reaps a great fulfillment in embodying Death—in his revered place in the natural cycle of being, his blessings that herald a new beginning, a shepherd in the end of days—but it is not quite true. Personal gratification comes second to the strings that bind him, a predestined fidelity to the sacred-cursed role bestowed to him by those estranged sisters, the Fates. Thanatos has never questioned this station, in any facet of existence. But he has, over the vast-stretching reaches of time, lost interest in such mundanities as pride for a job well done (and so has his Master lost interest in holding Thanatos in any regard of esteem—for there need be no special bearing for one who so meticulously performs his duty, in absence of praise or complaint).
(And the rest? Well. Even if it may have lost some of its novelty, Death cannot deny that there is satisfaction in searching and rearing and tending his charges. And beyond this...the saving of said souls does beget its own reward.)
Yes, he would like to fancy himself a reaper, chaser—and yes, the god of merciful death always reaps those whom he chases. Except, except—
The bottles collect like so many lost souls. Thanatos doesn't touch a drop, would rather face the fate of his wards than be caught imbibing off-duty, let alone something so precious. The heaven-sweet smell of nectar taints him where he goes—pruning and processing and protecting lost souls, keeping an ever-discerning eye. Zagreus doles them out freely, waving away each time his offers of reciprocation, asking only for one thing in return:
"Thanatos. Please… help me sleep."
(This domain is yours), thundered Lord Hades' voice, autarchic when Thanatos had woken into existence—shattering that primordial all-touching silence, roaring heavy in his ears. It resounded through him, the first Fated voice to tell him that he was a blessed god, with a sacred charge: the one to bring death swiftly, sweetly, favored among men. The people would adorn his likeness with butterflies and poppies, gentle and soporific; and he would feel them, their conscious wishes and desires, and cradle their psyches within the core of his being.
Thanatos thinks of these things every time that he is greeted by that same scarred-and-savage face emerging from the death-blood river to the House of Hades' shore, one red eye probing like a soul in search. He thinks of this as he swats Hypnos' flitting queries away—as insolent as ever. And of the Prince? Their conversations flow just as they did on that first occasion after he left, cordial but always with that disapproving undercurrent, Thanatos biting back his bruising tongue and Zagreus biting back his sense of shame and each of them pushing the other further, until the sweet-scented bottle is inevitably brandished and with it, the request. It is Zagreus' imploring face that does him in each time.
(Thanatos fulfills his duty, and blesses Zagreus with rest.)
Zagreus is ever-persistent. That is nothing new, and has always been something of a thorn. But now, he is in kind flagrantly motivated, and the combination is destructive. Thanatos hates it when he disappears, when he knows that he'll be made to follow like a haunt. Keeping a close guard as he ferries the dead, fields their ceaseless calls and clamors—because if Zagreus insists on being foolish, then at least Thanatos can still come save his hide. (He knows to expect this call now, as well.)
The wayward Prince does find him, in his attempts to reach the Surface. When he is caught lurking, in whichever realm, traversing from room to precarious room, Death veils his real purpose by imposing a challenge: who among them can strike the most foes?
Zagreus never retreats from this challenge, no matter how wounded or deprived of sleep. They spar to the obliteration of all that moves, a magnificent spectacle of divine light. Whichever Infernal Arm that he wields, Zagreus battles in beatific design—whole spectrums of colors emitted by his hand, every element bestowed by the gods, and Achilles' teachings guiding his strikes true. He flies about in a fury, unleashing radiant death blows that interlock around him in sharp splendid swirls, forming fearsome lattices that vanquish countless seas of foes.
He has not ever witnessed such passion from the Prince, just the same as Death has never felt so alive. In such novelty, there is a modicum of consolation. (Or, failing that, just enough motivation to continue this rebellion against his better judgment.)
When he and Zagreus do battle, the rage, the fervor and the thrill of the hunt overtake him—fervent ice-sharp licks that burn up in Zagreus' flame. When he is engaged in work, or else wandering by his lonesome, the fear—and with it, the increasingly building resentment—both flatten to a line, and existence coalesces to duty alone. The cold sensation that suspends in his chest vanishes, as if cindered to ash, leaving an empty vacuum that cannot be filled, no matter how many souls he saves. Thanatos comforts the shades that would be doomed, in life, to interminable unrest—no respite, no peace, no sleep.
The living call to him, when not feeling spited, with adoring words; they beseech him with virtuous petitions (Please, Lord Thanatos, bless my ailing father with a peaceful sleep; please, Lord Thanatos, grant an end to the suffering of our indisposed). Thanatos answers their prayers; Thanatos, ever-watchful, lurks and listens in wait. For the entreating voices of the faithful, and for the weary, wayward Prince to come home.
After all—
(What is one more soul?)
The first time, Thanatos had been so engrossed in clerical work as delay his alarm when Zagreus—ah, so he's returned home at last—clambered up to his post, a bottle of something pressed into his hand. His lips flapped, then flapped some more, pleasantries and platitudes that touched Death's mind too late. Thanatos recalls scowling as the gift was thrust blindly upon him. And he recalls that he should have been angry—should have been seething and stricken with rage, or else flown into fury at this transgression, this utter indiscretion, this impudence the name of such a futile cause. But he had not. As he looked upon Zagreus' wrecked form, he found himself quartered by panic instead.
The Prince—bloodied and broken and burned as he was, and washed up red with the Styx's tears—had borne little of his usual cheer, but relinquished the bottle with an odd sort of zeal. His eyes, normally so spirited, were solemn: fire-and-ice clear, alive and flickering behind wet, tinted lashes. Something in them—pain? Or ire? Which only stoked Thanatos' fear further, fear and dread for the ruinous spirit before him. Flying from the hateful river like he'd been set aflame.
Death recalls more things, such as the way Zagreus greeted him with a gasp; the excuse he's rattled ("For challenging me, back there"—of course strange, as the Prince was not in the habit of doling out random gifts; and the unsteady nod he'd given in the direction of the bottle. Nectar;a spoil of extraordinary rarity, yet there it sat in his outstretched palm, emitting a passive fruit-and-honey-sweetness even with the stopper lodged. At the time, Thanatos had not the acumen to ponder by what illicit means it might have been acquired, between Zagreus' disconcerting state and the way that it dissolved Death's customary dry wit.
"You've found me, this time," he'd grunted at last, and slowly pocketed the bottle. The Prince had touched to his shoulder then, a tenuous itch of battle-worn fingertips. (He remembers by the way he, so typically inflexible, shifted where he stood.) "How did you get this? What would you have me give in return?"
"Thanatos, please, I need your aid," was all the answer he received, all that Zagreus could manage, very nearly a whine. This servile tone, and the desperate appeal in his face, laced hollow-point stitches up Thanatos' spine.
"What do you wish of me?" Death sighed, and curled his arms further into himself; the Underworld's pervasive chill, and something besides, leached from him warmth and vitality like a plague. Anger, cold rush as from a spring, propelling to his throat. You left; you'll leave me again, and you already know that I'll follow; there is nothing more that I can give you. This he fiercely wished to say, but pretend was a folly for mortals.
"My bedchambers. Come—" and fumbled the rest, just as those clambering legs stumbled a blood-trail that led to the very place. It left Thanatos little choice but to follow, his heart threatening to escape his mouth.
In Zagreus' bedroom, a phantom air rose to greet them: crackling and final like the bones of the dead. These chambers had never been so spacious as one might have expected to belong to a Prince of Hell, yet they were hardly spared of fineries. And of course, Zagreus would fancy himself a purveyor of creature comforts; he would have his decorations, there a third-full decanter of pilfered wine on the side-table, there a grand bear-skin to warm his feet. Bedecking the bed was some fine material more luxurious than silk, peeking from where the rich blue covering was pulled back. Afar, the Prince's great glinting mirror, looking on them in disdain, or perhaps it had been discernment—
"Than. My armor. Please—"
Even so indisposed, Thanatos' body and face remained stone-still (eyes wan and wanton from an armored countenance). Zagreus had blindly reached for his unyielding forearms, and failing, loudly groaned and pawed at the pauldrons and chiton, sputtering, "I can't—"
"Be still," Thanatos ordered, and was obeyed at once. Then, softer: "I will do it."
"I'll show you," Zagreus offered weakly, visibly wincing at the wheezing tone; Thanatos bit back a smile in spite of it all, wryly tugging at the corners of his lips. Refreshing, to see any measure of self-awareness still in there. Zagreus' hand eclipsed his—still tarnished by the red mar of water and blood—and guided it to the concealed catches of his pauldrons.
(Death had recalled, fleeting like a flick on the wind, a time when this stunned him as nothing so had—a red-bleeding Prince, life in his veins, though not mortal. He'd thought then, perhaps vainly, that little more could catch him off his guard, as much as could sway him. Zagreus' mirror might surely laugh at that.)
"Here," Zagreus said, softly, and Thanatos' fingers flexed to the place where the bone and metal fused, the hefty piece of armor coming loose in his hand, letting the cloth beneath flow freely, as if by his wish alone. That which remained was no issue, and Thanatos did as he was silently beseeched, baring red-wet dripping skin and a constellation of gashes, the bruised contours of bicep and pectoral. And though loath to admit it, there he had found himself wishing again: wishing not be awed by those hard coils of muscle, or taken by the still-bleeding scars.
(He was not. He was awed; he was taken; his mouth parched; his heart thrummed; his eyes darkened, blown glassy and wide.)
When Zagreus collapsed, enervated, onto the bed, the mirror flashed a faint, ethereal gleam—as if to wink in omnipotent judgement. Zagreus' body lay crumpled and spent as a freshly-smote scoundrel, blue blankets flooding an ocean around him; Zagreus' blood cast a web-streaking stain on the unblemished silk of his sheets; and when Death deigned to look, Zagreus' face was beholding him. Zagreus, with those cheeks flushed with life-blood, looked upon Thanatos as would mortal to god, as a soul in agony would pray for gentle death. His face, a supplication.
"Zagreus," Death muttered, a low and lonesome sound. "What is it that you need from me?"
"Sleep," came the choked reply. "Please. Whatever you must do. Anything to get me to sleep."
He opened his mouth, shut and opened again. "Hypnos—"
"No. You," Zagreus coughed, like a bubbling spring; a fine stream of red mist suspended in air. "Want it to be you. Please. You can…right?"
(Truthfully, Thanatos hadn't been certain. But he recalled many prayers for relief of the infirmed, many instances of invalids bereft and barely-breathing, unable to eat or move or speak, bound to the Earth by will alone; he recalled granting their loved ones Death's touch of respite, and freeing those souls from their torment.)
It was not so very different.
"Close your eyes."
Zagreus obeyed; the pallid lids shuddered, long lashes dancing like fluttering wings. Thanatos stood over him, a guarding shadow. As Death's blessed and burnished fingers slowly brushed the Prince's brow, those red, red lips parted once more, though Zagreus' eyes remained firmly shut.
"M'sorry that I, I didn't...tell you. I couldn't—risk—"
The mouth of divine slumber devoured what remained of his words. As he slept, Zagreus wore an expression of profound peace.
After, Death made to take his leave. The Prince's newfound peace couldn't reach him, and there was scarce little time to contemplate any thought or feeling that might have stirred from the sight. Less still to consider the gravity of his actions, or the surety of retribution if Lord Hades was to ever discover them. He would doubtless now be behind on work, and for it many souls would suffer. Before he could vanish, though, the great mirror struck a gleam to his eye. Purple-jeweled and golden-framed, the unmistakable magic within had seemed faintly familiar, at once comforting and unnerving. He charted a silent path to it, coming as though beckoned.
What do you seek? the glass seemed to ask.
(Thanatos had no answer, then. He hardly has one now.)
They meet in Tartarus' sprawling bowels, after the next few rounds of death are dealt—he's learned Megaera's patterns, now, but she still takes a chunk of him from time to time. Zagreus emerges from her battle-room sanguine, as much from spilled blood as by Ares' aura; the flame-cracking ire sparks about him like the Fury's whip. His hair, drenched, plasters to his face in sheets. Already Tartarus' damned are launching themselves upon him, Numbskulls and Wringers and Pests; they clash foot to blade, now haloed in a pink-blooming haze, Aphrodite's magic failing to weaken the horde enough for Zagreus to find space to breathe.
He is painfully injured and low on health; Thanatos can plainly see this. A hollow victory, then, and one with a cost. Triumphant though the restless Prince might have been against Meg, he'll hardly last much longer now.
Death extends from the wall, a shadow. Their duel ensues without an acknowledgment of words, though Zagreus looks relieved to see him. Thanatos' scythe begets certain, sweeping death; the wretched foes fall to his mercy in droves. Zagreus, calling upon his iron-forged strength, or perhaps simply stubborn resolve, fights with an admirable vigor; the goddess of love blesses his heart-seeker, each of Coronacht's arrows finding a home.
As the Fates would have it, the Prince manages to win the challenge; but not without consequence. He stumbles, listless and sallow with fatigue. Blood congealing thick over a wide gash at his collar, lance-shaped and etched deep, deep into the living tissue.
"Than," Zagreus mutters when it is finished. He manages a small smile, cornered as he is, vermin to Death's trap. "You've come."
"I haven't," Thanatos retorts. Already gliding, a shimmer on water, to where Zagreus sways on the wind. Only Varatha keeps him upright.
He frowns. The webbed lines that frame his eyes crease. "My eyes would tell me otherwise."
"They lie. What you see before you is an apparition."
Zagreus coughs, but the sputter conceals something softer, blunt-edged; a chuckle. "I never took you to be one for jests, Than."
"I am an apparition, Zagreus," he repeats, and reaches out that same hand, blessed and glowing faintly green. "Now. Sleep."
He does. Zagreus, bested, drifts solemnly and sound into Death's embrace. Thanatos carries him silently home.
Where once their talks had been distinguished by livened redress—playful banter, acrid wit—they now exchange little more than the same handful of words, over and over and over.
Thanatos begs Zagreus to resist the influence of the gods that would seek to use him, to refuse their calls and embrace his own strength. He pleads with him to quell his own craving for freedom, and to temper his lust for answers and truth. But Zagreus is determined to make it to the Surface, no matter how he pleads—no matter how many warnings that such raw, divine influence will only twist and corrupt, like Chaos leaking out from inside.
He begs Zagreus to temper the desire that springs from inside him, to stop the ever-flowing fountain, because he is Fated to fail. Thanatos knows that to defy Hades is impossible, unthinkable— and so he pleads with Zagreus to swallow his hubris and put an end to this ridiculous quest, because he cannot bear the logical outcome (even more than he can't bear the sting of being left behind, again and again and again).
He begs Zagreus to stay in the Underworld. He tells him it is for his own sake: the Underworld is vast, and he still has much to learn and a great deal of strength to gather before he can hope to reach the Surface. (He doesn't—can't—tell him that it's as much for the Underworld's safety as his own: Lord Hades harbors the potential to rend the very fabric of this realm to shreds, and would, in the name of righteous fury.) Thanatos pleads with him to keep within his sight, to keep content and composed and rested.
(He begs Zagreus to stay to prevent a cataclysm from taking place, the ruination of them all; and because the Prince's frantic footsteps and the Prince's grim face remind him too deeply of another devastating departure, long, long ago. He pleads with him to keep in sight so that there need not be any more disasters, no more blights upon this realm or that. Speaking nothing of how he himself does not rest, for there are always more souls to reap.)
Thanatos begs Zagreus to rest, as he cannot. He begs Zagreus to sleep.
But Zagreus does not cease his assault, nor spurn the power of the Olympian gods. Zagreus defies his Lord Father's commands, and in turn, Thanatos' wishes. Their conversations devolve to the surety of denial and the cloying promise of nectar, and then they start to wane completely. Zagreus carries doggedly onward, and Thanatos nips at his heel.
(Perhaps this, too, is Fated. Thanatos's hand lays him to rest, each time that he fails.)
The Prince of Hell grows slowly stronger.
He now makes an easy grave of the fire-and-ash lakes of Asphodel, disposing of great swaths of the unremarked shades that reside there. Absolving their sins, vanquishing their existences by his hand. Yet the blighting has its limits: Zagreus is even now bested on several occasions by the many-headed Beast of bone, and at times caught astray by a Gorgon or witch; most iniquitous of all is the magma, boiling, bursting with the desire to cinder all that it touches. The Phlegethon buries him, one and again; its fiery maw hurtles him back to the Styx, each scorching excursion tempering his power.
Death catches himself mending and minding, gathering wool where before he had no need for thread. Now, though, those threads furl and wind and snake over him, about him, in him—cross-stitching his throat, both lobes of the lungs, twining a parcel of his increasingly unsettled heart. Whether these are the machinations of his ever-meddling sisters, or products of an ill-founded web of obligations, newly-woven...Thanatos cannot say. But he wields not the power to snip with scissors and has not the time for dedicated study; so he minds them, mends them, and swiftly moves on.
He lurks and watches and listens for the whispers, the puerile words of freshly-reaped shades, rustling like a shaking of branches. It is Zagreus' name that they whisper. More than once, Thanatos leaves trinkets behind, in a continued insurgence against good sense—the heart of a centaur, a scattering of obols. And at times, when they meet up and spar, Zagreus flashes him something violet and gleaming, along with his telltale grin—the butterfly keepsake that Death had once given him, what now seems to be eons ago. Every time, it invokes the image of the Prince's night-mirror; every time lacing those perilous threads taut and tauter still, until no capacity for breath remains.
Thanatos minds and mends and represses the guilt that comes with every new treason, every new concession. Rather than suffer these things, he indulges in sympathy, even when there should be none to be had—knowing where Zagreus has no cause to perish, where exhaustion and not weakness is his only adversary.
(Those glittering wings haunt him, leave a stain across the sclerae. He wonders whether Zagreus has ever once attempted, in earnest, to clear a single chamber without taking any blows.)
Death challenges him once more, in an iron-hot chamber that smells of sulfur and burning dust. A deep lagoon flows in the shape of Thanatos' cowl, an inlet of lava that snaps at their feet. Smoldering air and fire scintillate about them, and Thanatos' scythe swipes a steady baton, a shimmering chorus of death turned to music. Beyond, breaching the bounds of walls and borders and false pillars, Eurydice's ethereal voice sings their muse. The Prince's Twin Fists drum a steady percussion; foes deflect off his knuckles in an effulgent blaze, and the shattered souls cry a despondent lament before returning to whence they had come. Their eyes blink from existence like so many stars, coal-dark and flashing with some inkling Death fails to comprehend. The music voices their repose, a dolorous requiem.
Zagreus wins the challenge; and this time, he basks in victory, wearing the strident wreath of sound and sparks that encircles him like a halo of thorns. Artemis' magic delights about him, drenches him in deific pearlescence, burns his eyes fierce and living, his hair a sun-blessed curtain cast in forked flame. He beams with an empyrean presence. He looks like a prophecy.
(A promise of redemption? Or a certainty of failure?)
And then, Zagreus turns to Thanatos as if it's nothing at all—as if he hasn't just mantled the Earth and sun, forces that the Prince has not even seen. His dog-tooth grin stabs right to the groin, a surge of light-magic and sound, and Eurydice singing still.
"Good bout, Than. Let's go again soon."
The words pierce a hole in Death's chest. That face still stirs his body; he curses the tremulous thing, rendered so fragile by such a ridiculous smile, incensed by its insolence. The heat-haze plumes scorching his face suddenly sting like pelting ice, the breath of winter that so often spurred the agonized callings of many mortal souls—destroying their crops, stealing their weak and weary, now settling into Thanatos' heart like a curse.
"Again," Death spits, making no attempt to subdue the storm that plagues the white-hot center of his chest. "Then, you still will not heed. Nor cease this undertaking."
"I told you I won't." (And oh, the nerve of him, to sport such a look of genuine bewilderment. To wield it, as any other weapon.)
"Yet you expect me to come to your aid. To chase. To seek you, each time. To keep you from the bleeding edge of death, or else to hunt you down."
The Prince's head hangs, voice quiet. "I don't expect those things of you, Than."
"Yet you expect me to bring you rest." This time, a barbaric edge serrates the words, echoes them off the far walls too harshly—strident, abrasive. Scraping stones, churning below the rivers of Hell. "Tell me, have you ever even stopped for a moment to consider why you cannot go to sleep?"
Zagreus throws up his hands. "I can't know that. A test from my uncles. A curse from my father. Whatever it is, I can't say."
"Your inability to care for yourself is no one's fault but your own, Zagreus."
That haughty, defiant face is briefly breached by a twinge of defeat, eyes cast down to the Knuckles. (Authentic? Or another from the arsenal?) Slowly, the Prince traces the path of a fissure with one white-braced hand, as if expecting the Arms to punch back. When no blow comes, he clucks with his tongue, and Thanatos fails to suppress a flinch. Then Zagreus reaches fast for something at his hip, freed fingers seeking—
"Here. Will you at least take this?"
He produces a bottle; a cloying scent emanates from its stoppered end, as though by magic. Thanatos can smell it where he stands. Cordial-sweet and potent, the nectar claws his nose and stabs at his eyes.
And Thanatos still does not balk, can't (in his own quest, and in this, too). How many times now has he disappeared, only for Zagreus to come persistently back? How many times, indeed, has Zagreus defied Death? No, Thanatos' bitterness has degraded slowly, a steady attrition, and his self-respect with it. It has, somewhere amidst the chaos, vanished to the mercy of specter and splendor; defiance and fierce resolve; begrudging admiration for this fool Prince. This Prince who awes him with this newfound purpose; this Prince who taunts him through Hell and around again.
So though he would like nothing more than to temper this vagary, too, he cannot. He reaches for the bottle, resigned. And sighs, knowing that with this, the cycle will continue—uninterrupted, revolving around and around like the Styx's infinity, until one of them either perishes or comes to see sense.
(And Thanatos knows the former is hardly a possibility, unless Lord Hades himself bids it.)
"And what do you want for it, this time?" Death bites, bracing with the effort not to fold so quickly. "You have no need for my power now, nor so much as a centaur's heart, bloodied as you are. Clearly, you are still here—"
But before Thanatos can complete this thought, or even find the space to blink, Zagreus is kissing him square on the mouth. His red-streaking fingers leave trails of sharp points, stabbed everywhere at once—swiping the back of Death's neck like a ghost, pressing desperation to his slackened jaw. Zagreus kisses him breathless, reckless, impetuous, invoking Chaos. The force of it nearly transforms him to a shade.
When they part at last Thanatos might as well have been struck (though Eros is nowhere to be found)—stunned still, he grazes the stain on his throat where Zagreus' fingers had been, his blood-and-iron lips, hot and hard like a burn. Asphodel turns on an axis around him, with Zagreus' feinting form at the center. He doesn't even register the parting of lips, the poising of tongue as to speak.
"That's for—"
Thanatos vanishes in an instant, leaving not a trace.
A long, long stretch passes before they next meet.
Thanatos buries himself in work, returning to the House only when needed. The souls of the mortal realm clamor for his sparing touch, and Death welcomes the simple gratification of relieving their woes and sending them to their peace. The Surface shimmers with their temperaments, by turns fearful and joyous, now settling into the post-harvest season. Thanatos reaps their memories too, and with them the colors and sensations of Earth: now the frigid whippings of a blustery day, now the tranquil cloak of a warm one, only to be eclipsed by several spells of gale winds and blooming frost. It seems this day, Demeter is hungry. The bitter cold brings death and famine, and there is much, much work to do. Mortals reach for him, in suffering, in offering; their prayers become his guiding light.
As mortal deaths are inevitable, so are shade whispers inescapable. The dead feed him their stories, spring to cold-touching river, supplying fresh streams of intel that reveal the machinations of Lord Hades' only son. Thanatos doesn't listen for it, only because he has no need to. Word always reaches his stead in one manner or another, uttered from shades spanning fledgling to ancient—and lately, of higher and higher acclaim.
It is from the mouth of a former Hero of Thebes that Thanatos first hears the name "Theseus."
"Felled, by the Prince's hand…"
"Yes, the King of Athens…"
And so when Thanatos seeks him again at last, it is there in the beautiful fields of Elysium, in that hallowed haven where the Champions of Earth clash mettle to might for the endless entertainment of exalted souls. It takes the space of an instant to absorb from the teeming souls sprawled among the emerald fields that yes, it is true—Theseus and Asterius are slain at last, bested in a double-man fight to the death, to the witness of every soul in the place. And now, the intrepid Prince has returned for a second go of it.
Zagreus, when Thanatos arrives, is already waging war—a menacing specter in the center of that great green expanse where he has met his preternatural end no fewer than twelve times before (no, Thanatos was not listening, nor counting, nor suffering this). This beautiful, haunted place, where winged insects leech life and turmoiled chariots charge forth their wrath. This time, as before, Death orchestrates a grand entry: sweeping circles of doom that cull souls on a staggering scale. The Prince, by all visible measures delighted to see him, slices through the vegetation with an animal grin; around him, about him, he draws arcs of his own with the holy shield Aegis, dancing in a flurry of bright-blinding death.
The flame-wheels all die brilliantly, a chorus of fulgent and flickering fire that careens from the walls and sparks to the ceiling like rain from the heavens. Zagreus, laughing, tilts back his head—fittingly, the Huntress' name on his lips. He lets the gold-and-verdant light reflect off his dampened skin, glisten in the heat-whipped wisps of hair, pour into his open mouth. Then sees himself reflected in Thanatos' scythe and whoops.
Thanatos knows the Surface both through his own travels and by the memories of his wards. He knows the color and saturation of life in the mortal realm. The color of summer's sky, of trees, of the high and blazing sun. Zagreus battles like life itself, like passion and rage and Chaos controlled. He forges his victories in fierce yellow jolts, arching green spires sent forth by the Shield—mauve smog and gold dust and red, red blood. The room's inhabitants are all laid swiftly to waste, even the lethally beautiful imposter-insects, who shrill pitifully as they perish.
(And Death can recall the first time that he'd relented so much as to give chase, to corner Zagreus here and confront him with words—he's stood idle as the Prince took long lashings from Tisiphone's whip, as his body was blown back by the Hydra of bone; he's watched Zagreus die in scores, and brought his down gentle hand each one, with naught but ill-gotten bottles to show for his shame. But Zagreus has grown ever stronger, more defiant, and blessed. Blessed by gods of much higher status than he. Zagreus hardly needs him, here and now; yet, he is here.)
"Your resolve has grown fearsome, I see," clips Thanatos, a bladepoint-hint of consternation sharp on his tongue. The metal creak of his scythe, freed from its sheath, which slices—slices the still-distending hush of death.
"That's hardly the only thing that's fearsome," Zagreus snarls, a guttural predator purl that ought to have put Thanatos instantly on alert, and then all at once he is rapidly approaching: Aegis clattering from his open hand, fingers touching down first, grasping Thanatos' shoulder. Curving in an arc, a single jerked movement, to hinge over Thanatos bared leg to thigh, the other foot planted, unsteady—then as sudden, toppling as though felled, wearing a look of unspoiled serenity.
Death's heart throbs a pulse in his throat, beat after beat, vibrations suspended in air. He can hear Zagreus' strained breathing, see the labored rise-fall of his chest where he lies slain, not by enemy hands but by sheer exhaustion.
He recalls the beasts of mortal Earth. There are no cats in the Underworld, which perhaps is why the rats roam free (though their existence here remains an enigma, even now). Zagreus is ever, in this place, a rat—like the pests great and small who lurk about the Temple where Thanatos dares not tread, endlessly searching for breadcrumbs of truth. And though Thanatos might fancy himself keen to the chase, he can hardly take up the mantle of cat, not in this circumstance. Where the Prince is concerned, he proves a lousy hunter.
Perhaps Zagreus is both beast and prey, each in dogged pursuit of the end of the other.
Though the Underworld's damned may cower in his wake, no animal or ghost or god is unruled by sleep. Now Zagreus' lips are parted and his eyes lidded half-open (remember, remember those lips' hard seal, the frenetic touch of fingers), his dark hair strewn artfully by invisible wind, arms outstretched as if in offering.
Thanatos, in this moment, yearns for strength to reject it. He yearns for power to end the cycle. He yearns, foremost, to disappear.
He does none of these things. Instead, he scoops Zagreus up like a mortal man would his bride, and carries him swiftly back to his bed.
Zagreus blearily wakes in the arbitrary night-mornings with gentle hands in his hair, ghostlike fingers working into the matted strands, brushed reverently over his neck. He wakes to imprints on his skin, shades of soft breath, traced comfort: a lullabye, a sweet-drifting dirge. Zagreus wakes to Death's gentle touch and, with vigor restored, looks about the chamber blindly, seeking him each time; and each time, Death is gone like a dream, leaving only faint lingerings of his peaceful embrace.
The unrelenting cycle continues.
Thanatos bears witness to the Prince's growing strength, slow-gathering and charged like lightning from the mighty hand of Zeus. He bears witness as Zagreus razes his way through Tartarus; through the fire-and-ash plains of Asphodel, with its wretched, writhing souls; then up to the fields of Elysium where the heroes and warriors and kings bid him welcome with so many swords. Every time wielding a different weapon; every time brandishing a different face.
Hades' booming voice rumbles the Underworld's crust, leaving deep cracks in the mantle. Zagreus climbs and climbs, spitting fire from his feet and mouth and chasing Surface air. He and Death hardly speak anymore, but Death beholds his full glory when they spar, and when he catches the Prince at war—making of mockery of Heracles in Asphodel, wrenching the point of his sword into the Champion's gut. The former king of Athens spews like a fountain each time, sputtering vitriol from a still-leaking mouth; the minotaur yet rages blind, trapped in this labyrinth of unending time, doomed to fire and forget in rotation, until next Zagreus returns. And return, he does—again, and again.
He's been cycling without dying, of late.
Each time, each cycle, the Prince channels another divine quirk—the caustic green of the Huntress; the drowning jaws of the eternal Sea; the swirling black tides of Chaos himself. The most recent encounter had been no different. There, Zagreus invoked the god of fraternization, of folly and frivolity. Poison shrouded his foes in a noxious-sweet cloud, dripped from his open mouth like wine—bleeding, violent, violet, from every open pore.
He's made the gods his arsenal.
The Prince has devised a plethora of means by which to harness the Olympians' boons, a suite of stratagems to suit his design. He's uncovered secrets and unearthed a new system to obtain for himself whatever it is he seeks. Whether seeds or coin or precious life-water, nothing remains beyond his reach any longer. And when Charon's pockets become suspiciously fat, Thanatos surmises instantly the reason. (Foolish of him, perhaps, to think that he might be the only one so roped into Zagreus' schemes.)
Death, ever skulking, tends to his shades, knowing that Zagreus is only biding his time, gathering strength and resources, lining every piece perfectly into place. The brash blights, the unplanned charges against more formidable foes—these, for at least the time being, have ceased. The only son of Hades has forged and fashioned himself a formidable creature, against all obstacles, and yet; and yet…
Zagreus, cycling the Underworld endlessly, does not rest. Still, he does not sleep.
He's barely lost any stamina, this run—his skin and flourish appear healthy, the sole source of concern a red-streaking line to his striking arm: thin and bright like a dying star. Even now, it begins to clot. And again, that irksome flash, that tugging at Death's heart—it's a wonder that deities can bleed at all, no matter in which color, can toil and pain and suffer as mortals do. It is something Death would never have thought to ponder, until having seen it, touched it, for true.
(Perhaps there is no art to the Fates' cruel design.)
No, Zagreus is not so weary, this time; yet Thanatos remains ever watchful, because Thanatos' duty is to bring respite. He is bound by that duty, so will go where he's needed. And where he is not needed he'll keep a close watch, lest he become so.
(The ghost of Zagreus' lips, like a prayer, upon his.)
The song of the Fates lilts ever closer; Thanatos' ears are filled with the humming of anticipation, the disquieting thrum of galvanizing souls. Each time, each cycle, they grow ever more giddy; their exuberance electrifies the air, no matter to which realm he goes. And Thanatos cycles them in his own right—each realm, each room, all of the spaces stolen between his Fated duties. For he knows—intimately, as Lord Hades' voice rains down condemnation—that he cannot return home, either. He cannot go back now, because so long as Zagreus is still fighting, he will need Death—he will need Thanatos, as an arrow needs a pulsing heart.
(Somewhere amid the ever-flowing stream of time and place and Fate, Cerberus unleashes a mighty yelp.)
Zagreus approaches the Temple of Styx.
Zagreus approaches the Surface.
