Zagreus, of course, does not defeat Lord Hades.

He does not defeat his Lord Father in that first revolution, nor the second, nor the fifth; but he wears his exhaustion like a crown, almost proud. Thanatos hears (though does not listen for) the tinklings of awe and admiration flowing through the Underworld's network of rivers: a constant-murmuring stream. He hears, too, of all the morbid details, from his unwitting sentinels—those spirits whose voices transcend every region, always returning to he who guided them here. From them, he learns the particulars of the Prince's every run.

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

A long time lapses before they again encounter one another at the House. Thanatos isn't sure whether this is an orchestration, or whether the Prince has finally discovered some decorum. He bristles at the words uttered when last Zagreus cornered him here, and wonders: were they truly heard?

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…

(Does Zagreus' absence signify that he is, for once, attempting to heed? Or is this simply another act of defiance?)

But after the eighth failure at the disposition of his Lord Father's bident, Death makes for Zagreus' bedchamber—in spite of every particle of better judgement, for all the realms an answer to what is just one more call. (For to Death Incarnate, who fields the cries of both deceased 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? How many more, so spared? The glass projects their faces, fixed and cold, gleaming with a kind of hushed knowing. Neither of 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 tinted 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."

He tsks, a small noise in the throat. "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. That 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."

Ah, but he had; though the Prince need not know it. "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 has the gall to look hurt. The abject openness of it only ignites Death 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?" The Prince's 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 grateful for it, that Zagreus can't see his eyes; his face might betray nothing through such careful construction, 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 come back bloody with a bottle of nectar, beseeching me to aid 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, eyes drawn to Zagreus' 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. "Will you concede that you would use me, too, then? Keep me under your belt, as any other tool? Just as those odious Olympians do, as they pit you against wretch and warrior alike."

Zagreus visibly winces. "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 are not."

(He speaks as though this is indisputable fact. As though the restive Prince's peace has not always depended on the amount of ashes in his wake.)

A flinch of fingers that resolve to fists. "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 Death can't quite choke 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!"

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. Watching him as he breaks.

"Going and getting yourself needlessly, ceaselessly maimed, killed...why do you think I would entertain it, risk my station, risk everything, meeting you out there, then back here to put you to bed like a house-servant? 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!"

Had either of them been looking, listening, they might have heard a soft metallic sheen, or else noted something a little soft, a little sinister, cast from the mirror's inscrutable face. But Thanatos only regards his fists; and Zagreus is only slumping where he lies, unable to look at him. Unable to look away.

"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 well to ordered routine, and many machinations of the House depend on him. Lord Hades receives his reports with a honed disinterest, there is no missing the unsound flares of rage that threaten just beneath his ill-tempered veneer. The denizens of the House make themselves meek to accommodate. For longer and longer stretches, the Master's desk sits unoccupied, leaving poor Hypnos to tend to the accumulating queue. And yet, more often than not, Sleep is soundly dozing when Death arrives—open mouth slopping over like the bubbling Pool. The very same pool that now sloshes and splashes with an unusual vigor, as if to daring for someone to spill its contents. Newly-sworn shades shiver whenever Death passes by; there's something fretful 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 toward his mother, whose omniscient eyes fix into his retreating back, an omen; playing at reassuring, with his kept face and empty eyes: don't worry, Mother—nothing is amiss, nothing departing the norm, nothing your watchful eyes have not already seen.

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

The room's occupant is long gone, of course, as he is now always, but it is not the Prince that Death seeks this night. The 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, heavy-ringed eyes with translucent centers, feverish and overbright in the vitreous glare. Lips like a stain smeared across his face.

Though he may look like one, Thanatos is no serpent. He moves like a butterfly, likely kisses like one too—breath-light and fluttering, tentative. Nothing like the Prince's 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 had held nothing back; it pulled forward instead, eager to seal what was empty, then pry it open again more forcefully. Perhaps it could be filed away as one more foible of manner: this inclination to lure so brashly in and again, simply for the crash—a strange way to dominate, yet nothing unlike him, and dreadfully effective.

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

Then, all of a sudden, the mirror sheens; the image now projected sears red-silver and gleaming, bodies entangled like legless creatures writhing. Zagreus' lips and Zagreus' embers, his head thrown back in rapture: a siren. And Thanatos can hear sounds: whispers and sighs, silken-soft and obscene, wrong—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 strung-up heart like a viper in wait.

Always. Always. Always, in wait.

The mirror asks him: which serpent are you?

Death flees from the chamber, not by way of magicked green light, but by his own two feet—utterly consumed 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 present, setting into a freshly skinned fish; its colorless flesh falls away in slices with a series of shings. The sound resembles the mirror's. He can almost feel its unblinking eyes on him here, too; but when he looks there is only Chef's knives, and the Broker's portrait on the wall, and the smallest scattering of mono-minded shades. The white noise filling his head dissembles 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. Each snake-strand of her hair undulating in interest. He blanches.

"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 requested—"

(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, shifts unsubtly into mortification. "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 a single arm. He hadn't noticed at all the absence of fur, vision so stained red as it is.

(Mind not ever what you see.) The tinny voice of a shade trickles through, its owner sagely guiding the rabble along.

"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 restless sphere of her bobbing. Thanatos says nothing, but watches the snakes, blankly—waiting for those needle teeth to pierce him right where it hurts most.

(Like an arrow to the heart.)

"Well, I-I've certainly stayed much 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 Death to his core.

For a few more moments he lingers, suspended in time, before the broadband rushing in his ears gives way to a rising sea of voices. He's nearly forgotten that there are souls still screaming. Somehow, yes, he'd forgotten—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, a Chthonic conductor: guiding the souls 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 unmarred. 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 only to be snuffed out, so too death must collect. Such is the Cycle.

And indeed, many cycles (each synchronically shattered by Lord Hades' bident), and many, many more deaths, occur. Except that though Life may die, in myriad gruesome and painful ways, he does not ever truly disappear. And it is not Death who comes to collect him, but the Styx.

Many revolutions so pass before Death finally relents, and propositions another challenge.

He corners Zagreus again in Asphodel (or perhaps it would be 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, the relative proportion of souls here, or due to some latent appreciation of Zagreus dashing through fire, he cannot (will not) say.

He oughtn't hesitate, and wouldn't, if not for the dismantling 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 the Prince himself, statuesque: lambent where the magma hits him, reflects off him, turning him into an exalted effigy.

Ah. Realization dawns. He's let Aphrodite guide his weapon, let her magic curl its pink fingers over his heart. This time makes thrice, by Death's own observation. Perhaps he's (she's) a favorite. It should not sting.

But, what a sight. Such a vision of splendor could be marred only by the sharp fatigue that blemishes those sleepless undereyes, and the faintest unsteadiness of those embered feet. (And Death 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 approaches, in the end.

"Thanatos," Zagreus thunders, never foregoing greeting. "Couldn't leave me be?" The words are teasing, but the tone hard.

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 wide open, long fingers uncoiled and splayed, blue blood coursing in rivers to the ashen skin. His scythe, lingering, 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, like music. "I'm so close."

"Return home, and 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 ceaseless 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 honorific with it.) "Then washed up and plunged back down again. No rest. No sleep. I cannot bear to suffer 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 has already gone. (He compares Zagreus to starfire and flame, but Thanatos is solemn shadow and silver; though Life might try to wrangle him, too, he would not get a solid grasp.)


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

When it happens, he is tending to new dead on the Surface. Charon has not yet arrived; there is no other there, save for Death and the wind. But when Zagreus' flame departs the realm of the dead and enters the realm of the living, Death feels it at once—vicelike, in the strings that tangle and bind his organs. (Oh, but this shouldn't stupefy you, O Death,) taunts the wind; except there is no such stir, no snap of those threads, no spark of shock, no rustling to be had save for its cold breath. For no god is god of nothing, and what is Zagreus but pulsing blood, and what is blood but Life itself?

Blood and darkness. Life. He did it. He truly succeeded.

Thanatos isn't there when Zagreus defeats Lord Hades; but the Surface still resounds with the Prince's 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.

And then, the mortal world howls.

It has only just rained, and humidity poisons the air like a curse, filling Thanatos' nose with the dark, damp scent of moistened soil, the sickly-sweet glut of all the growing things. A little like iron, blood—the Prince's scent. If he tracked it past the initial discomfort, he might unearth the musky drift of rain-struck bark, the sharp tang of crushed grass, the faint perfume of flowers, unfurled as to drink.

The fresh souls that greet him herald Death with their many cries, the same token resistance; joining them, the voices of the living storm him like Earth's seas—now clear waters, now murky, adoration, objection, compliance, defiance. The voices that compose life's fabric: charging, churning, unending. And persistent with them, that cursed whipping wind, a barbed lick over the all-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.

And from his nameless location where he shepherds his streams of nameless charges, Thanatos tips his head to the caliginous sky—of Uranus' making, whose caustic clouds now rain down tears and diamonds. And thinking then only of his far-removed sisters—someplace equally nebulous, perpetually weaving and working (perhaps methodical like him, or perhaps more like Hypnos, inventing outcomes like whims in a dream)—he sends up 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. Reminding Death of everything that haunts him in flashes.

(The descent. His scent. The sin.)

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, scribbles a sentence on parchment, and for a brief moment this scratching is all that Death hears; then like a great clap of thunder from over the way, a loud crack reverberates through the whole 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 adornment of her Fury title, leaning long and imposing and baring her teeth; and Death's droopy-eyed brother drifting above her, neither foot touching the floor. A true marvel 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?"

"Well 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 singes 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 that wakes you, hm? Might even knock some sense into there, learn you some 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, Death 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 everyone 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!"

Death's 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.


All Hell feels Lord Hades' wrath, when it finally comes.

He erupts, a cataclysm, out of the hateful Pool, twisted and hunched, thick knots of muscle coiling and uncoiling as he hoists himself up like some 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.

Then, the Master charts a warpath through his House in a 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 or fix it.)

Death, now just stood at the side of his mother, watches the House as it burns. 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. They go utterly, blissfully blank.