The rotations continue, but Zagreus does not sleep. And for it, Thanatos does not rest.

On the Surface, winter rages; souls are restless; Death moves and works in double time. It provides a convenient, though toilsome, excuse for his more frequent and prolonged absences, and time lapses in this strange new normalcy for a period.

Lord Hades is himself rarely present at his desk, now burdened with both disrupting his son's increasingly-successful escape attempts and managing the resultant clerical work. No one among the House's number darescross him, and Lord Hades dares not betray that he is, in fact, grasping at straws; he dares not even mind his subjects, except to make a public demonstration of his own general displeasure, where before he might revel in an individualized scolding or personal admonishment.

Unsurprisingly, Hypnos is slacking even more than usual. In a well-intended but futile attempt at inspiring some ingenuity in him, Thanatos has taken to aggregating his lists. Their brief consorts always end in frustration, beratement, and a throwing of hands: not in violence, but in utter defeat. (Death truly doesn't know why he bothers.)

He hasn't the time to notice when his own paperwork begins to suffer.

Mother Nyx is the one to inform him, in her passive, cryptic way, that Lord Hades has requested his presence—that he wishes to discuss Thanatos' recent performance. The timing is atrocious: he hadn't any mind to linger that day (or night); the shades about the House had seemed too restive for his taste, huddled and quivering, fear stamped all over their simple faces. Even Cerberus, who lately has seemed as absent as he, is on this occasion both present and uncharacteristically anxious—all three heads alert and scrutinous, frisking about everywhere all at once, as if searching for something lost. When it is not located, the great hound huffs out a defeated breath, and lets those colossal heads droop.

Slow-dripping dread seeps into Thanatos' skin, just as Nyx presses a gentle touch to his shoulder—a wordless encouragement. Resigned, he steels his face cold and prepares a few words; he's got the rationale readied, having sealed his own fate some time ago. No time to despise himself for it now. Thanatos always did thrive under extraordinary pressure.

The Lord Master awaits him in the Administrative Chamber, which is easily deduced by the frenetic vibrations emanating from its stone door. As Thanatos treads a path toward his own doom, Achilles extends him a compassionate glance. It would give him cause for gratitude; but Thanatos can't bring himself to look too deeply, lest his resolve wane and wither to nothing.

"Thanatos," Lord Hades thunders, before he can even shut the door behind him; and every shade in the chamber is displaced in an instant from its chair. Thanatos is certain the whole House has heard his name, and now will bear witness to his own demise. He strives not to envision Hypnos' fearful cower, or Achilles' sympathetic grimace, or Nyx's impassive face. He trains his eyes instead on the Lord Master, in particular his massive hands, in which are respectively held a leaf of parchment and a feather-plumed quill; Thanatos can barely make it out as one of his reports. "I trust you have some inkling as to why I have called for this little audience."

"Yes, my Lord," Thanatos replies. Dipping his body in a downward arc; making himself a portrait of contrition. But not daring to preclude the Master from divulging Thanatos firsthand of his transgressions, he reveals nothing beyond these broad strokes. He only studies the floor, where the room's countless shadows swarm and congeal beneath his stone-planted feet.

"Your numbers should be more or less consistent from their norms, yet your reports of late have been both less frequent and lacking in quality. And if you think that your recent absences have not gone unnoticed, by myself or by others within this House, then you are a fool," Lord Hades scowls, and pointedly scratches at the parchment with his quill-tip. "Would you care to enlighten me as to where you have been?"

The punishing syllables do reach that well in him, pitting him face-to-face with consequence—with that spring of shame, bubbling and buried. Thanatos bids those words to draw up the water, lets them wash thick over his posture, just as he allows his head to submerge. At least in this, he can drench himself in the premise that all of his perfidies to the Lord Master's House have been simple failings, errors, mistakes. Self-made, rather than chosen. Small, correctible foibles, rather than fundamental.

Had he even the illusion of liberty to consider it, Thanatos might have wondered when and how it had all come to this. That he would so easily abandon all that he is, all that he has earned, for something that he's still quite unsure that he believes in.

The image of that something, its taste on his tongue, is what calls forth the deluge of excuses. "Lord Hades, winter's hand is relentless upon the mortal realm, and many souls suffer for it." He does not speak the name of that cold hand's precipitator; he would not dare invoke the Lady Demeter aloud in Lord Hades' house, and certainly not in his presence. "It has made my work arduous and difficult, sire. I hoped that I could, perhaps…ease the torment of those souls, just a little. Lend a touch of comfort to their passage. It has, I confess, taken up more of my time, and for it my efficiency has suffered. I assure you, sire, I will no—"

"Enough," the Master roars (and in truth, Thanatos is somewhat surprised that he's deigned entertain him for even so long). "Your responsibility is to secure the journey of your charges here, to my realm. To Charon. To me. Your touch alone is what is needed for this. You have no duty to them, otherwise. Is it not so, Thanatos?"

"Yes, my Lord." Painting himself again, returning to the portrait, portraying nothing but most solemn remorse. "Forgive me."

The Master scoffs, a raucous rumbling, and sets the parchment down to attend to Thanatos in full. It should make him feel perhaps more foolish than he does, smaller than he does; but Thanatos feels only relief, for to be so regarded means that he is believed. "Your work has always been exemplary, and so this time, I shall be graceful. We have always shared a special understanding, I should think, you and I. I trust we shall not need to meet like this again."

"No, my Lord."

(One final furtive glance; one final bow. One final partition of sorrow and regret, and it all will end.)

"Good," Lord Hades says, and just turns his enormous cheek to return his hostile gaze to the chittering working Shades, still abuzz with suspense and reacting with a cacophony of dissonant expressions. Thanatos takes it as permission to retreat; but just before he can, Lord Hades turns one red eye back to him. "Thanatos. Before you take your leave, I would ask of you one question."

Death is a wall, inviolable, absolute; not so unlike his Fated role. "What would you ask, my Lord?"

"If it should come to pass that you found yourself wrought between your sacred duty, and your own personal desires," booms that formidable, fearsome voice (and the 'p' of 'personal' lodges in his throat, reverberating in the cavity there, liable to cause an avalanche in Thanatos' chest), "which of these would you choose?"

A beat; a query, pitched only internally; then clean, calm resolve, and self-imposed rigidity. "Of course, I would choose my duty, sir. The duty to which I am sworn."

Lord Hades doesn't even look at him; most of the foulness has fled his face, in favor of a lording disdain; but stormclouds loom just beyond the façade. When he dismisses Thanatos with a jerk of his great arm, half of the chamber's shades scatter; and Death, unable even now to temper his own benevolence, affords them a pitying eye.

"Yes, I thought as much. You may go."


Lord Hades' warning changes very little in practice. Thanatos only becomes more efficient, and consequently, more conflicted. The price is his own suffering, but suffering in the physical sense has always been tolerable. Internal conflict is easily buried beneath external effort, and so Thanatos thereafter never misses a report. Exhaustion does, in rare instance, win over: at infrequent times, he will wake from a slumber that his body has not chosen. Barring that, he is vigilant; he hangs his threads purposefully about the House, ensuring, if nothing else, that he is seen.

From these strategic visits, Thanatos gleans precious tidbits of information: that Zagreus is closer to fulfilling his goal; that Zagreus has taken it upon him to restore and repair the entire House; that Zagreus has, in fact, been looking for Death, when he returns. But out there, on his runs, Zagreus does not call for him; and so Thanatos lurks in shadow—minding, for the lack of mending.

Thanatos surrenders to the cycle, and in so doing, to the Prince's wishes. But even so, he still has to remind himself that Zagreus, Life, is no lost soul; and he, Death, is not his warder. That to aid Zagreus is a foolish and senseless and treacherous endeavor. That to save him is fruitless and not worth the effort; for no matter the outcome or the cause of death, there can be no resolution, no absolution, no gentle hand to ferry him to what should be an irreversible end. There can be no pyre, no singing of doves, no temple tribute, no arms outstretched in offering, no clamor, no call. There is always the promise of bloodshed and violence, but no ending, no mourning. No sign, after the fact, that blood had been spilled at all. No one to see or hear or feel it has happened, save for Thanatos himself, and only within his own heart.

Zagreus' Fated power of rebirth is no tragedy—nothing so pure, or beautiful, or lasting. Each death is silent and unmarked and ugly—the whistling edge of a flashing scythe, heard only by Thanatos' ears.

Zagreus does not call him with words, but Thanatos feeds on stolen bits of his presence—only to confirm that his Life still defies him, to sequester the evidence for himself. This need calls him more than any human benediction. And it is that urge which, on this occasion, leads him to Tartarus, where the Prince is swiftly discovered.

The chamber glows green, as does Zagreus himself; Artemis now guides his arrows swift. They fly everywhere, an impossible number, homing like insects. Not a one misplaces its mark. As Thanatos observes this, a figment concealed in shadow, he is struck with a vision of mortal spring—tree-branches swaying in immense emerald woodlands, brushfires teeming with life, with live energy, wild. The magic seems to pierce even the void from where he observes, like an unseen arrow; Zagreus, its center, is beautiful, terrible, a divine force. His body, swathed in a candescent red, weeps into the background and makes it appear as if his head, his limbs, are separate to his body. He jumps from wretch to wretch like a feral beast, once caged and so long provoked, set loose as a calamity upon all that moves.

Zagreus weaves and breathes and becomes that magic, that energy that grants his boon. As he darts effortlessly about the chamber, that verdant vitality makes him appear as if he is fast floating. As if he is going to float away.

(Has he not already…?)

Watching Zagreus do battle is like watching a Surface forest burning, like a most effulgent culling, devastation and new creation entwined. An explosion turned to purest silence, sublime violence, something inspired and baleful, beautiful in its own destruction. Something to be dreaded, venerated, awed. And Thanatos is a god , made not for aweing but for being awed; and yet he falls each time before this altar, hand held to the forge.

From the Prince's feet flows a trail of living fire. Thanatos hems and haws, circling, mired by the flame; unable to disclose himself, to stand before that heat. Even from here, he is more than divine; he is life made flesh, a marvel to put all Olympus to shame. Thanatos swallows thickly; he can't see Zagreus' eyes, the dark bags, the deep lines that would turn his distraction to concern and upset. Though he can't see it proper, he can envision it clearly: shadow-sunk eyes and the ghost of a mouth, worn thin and threadbare, ragged round the edges. Looking like he's in need of a thousand years of sleep.

The fear is the spike that breaks the spell. It snaps Thanatos out of the moment, out of his own lapse of discretion. The fear is what reminds him of where he is. Of where he stands.

Watching Zagreus do battle is like watching a crumpling body, a slow crash, the mouth of a new shade just hinging to open. Raw emotion released in not-quite-a-scream, but something that Thanatos would inevitably feel—a rasp to the ribs, rattling the cage from inside, plunging deep, deeper, until it explodes like a flare in his throat and vanishes as fast in a plume of smoke.

(The absence-of-ache is what hurts him most: those agonizing moments of anticipation, just before his chest caves in.)

He wishes—fleetingly, traitorously, infuriatingly—that he could see Zagreus. That Zagreus could see him. That Zagreus could sense him. That Zagreus could need him. (A bite sharper than the point of any arrow, sinking into his bones, coring him from the inside.)

But Thanatos still has many souls to save, and Zagreus is still alive with purpose; so he just inhales, exhales, and goes back to work.


Death had discovered that Life was beautiful on a nondescript day (or night) in what could be called adolescence.

They'd just finished playing (the little Prince's favorite game—"catch-me-if-you-can"); and though Death played like the whole notion vexed him, the Underworld had seemed just a little less gloomy, a little less morose for it. When he was later called to the fragmented edge of the Surface realm, morning had just broken; the new day was dewlit and soft, like the burst-open flesh of a ripe pom—summer-sweet and bursting with seeds. The sun hung a tender, benign presence at the edge of the horizon, and Thanatos recalled a sensation of falling—from the sky, from his body, from himself. Falling from this very place, this fanciful, frightful mortal world in which morning chased night and the sun warmed the moon, and where Death had only just realized that Life was beautiful. And Life's smile was bright and his hair like a breeze, bleeding gold at the edges, a crown. And from Life flowed hot blood, red as Eros' cheeks, red as a human heart; whereas all that came gushing from Death's wounds were plumes of black nothing, smoky and insubstantial, dissipating quickly in open air.

And Thanatos naturally struggled to unravel and rationalize what he felt, to work out the morality of this new harrowing truth. It felt like a flash-flood, like the Styx roiling, like being flayed by ropes made of water and heat. Too strange to be good; too good to be right. Violating. Unethical. Irredeemable. Wrong.

The Styx roared for him that day. He'd looked in desperation to the rushing red river, then at his trembling hands, before plunging them into the cold undertow. As he did, he thought of Life's lingering traces—the hot flush that lit Life's cheek, the restless hum of Life's fiery feet, the bursting fruit of Life's red, red lips. And from these unbidden thoughts flowed new imaginings: those lips on Thanatos' cheek, his collar, his heart, the crease of his thigh. He jerked his palms from the stream, quickly as though burned; and when he looked again at them, it was as if he'd been left with an all-new skin, foreign and raw and aching, holding him suspended on a dangling thread.


Thanatos' resolve, and evidently Zagreus' as well, holds steady for the next seven deaths. The causes of those deaths iterate (one death by attrition, one death by fire, one death by Lord Hades' bident, and four deaths by choking Surface air), but the sleepless lines on Zagreus' face rarely so do, and the stabbing omen in Thanatos' chest never does.

But just after that fateful seventh stab, one variable stands out: an alarming difference.

Zagreus calls out his name, this time.

Death is already ensconced in his favored position, some distance from Achilles, when the Prince washes in and announces his presence. No time to fluster or flee, or even to acknowledge the lethal drum of his pulse. The Styx freshly dews Zagreus' skin, running over it waxy, streaking the ash-white with an ethereal luminescence. It envelops his jaw and cheekbones, sharp and sleek as a blade's edge, highlighting a regal face. He looks much like something out of a painting, more brush-strokes than hard lines, more marvel than matter. Shifting in silhouette, as if ready to delve right back in.

Thanatos' heart sinks at this sight. At this stage, he expects it; expects the running, the fleeing, no matter whether he's been called. Expecting Zagreus to dive right back in without looking; expecting all rumors of him searching to be false tales. It would be that his ears would be the last to fail him. But he can still hear those flagrant crashing footsteps, making not for the courtyard, or even toward Hypnos (who fails to notice, as he is fast asleep). No, instead those flaming feet rush in a direct path to precisely where Thanatos is standing.

So profound is his own disbelief, and so intense the Prince's gaze, that Thanatos doesn't even realize he's reaching with his arm—hand splayed out and shaking, likely containing nectar, poised to cajole or bribe him.

"What do you want, Za—"

But then he looks downward, and in that open palm lies not nectar, but something else entirely. A flower—a poppy, sweet-scented and soporific, narcotic. Thanatos recognizes it instantly; some removed part of him wonders that the smell did not first reach his nose. An artifact from the Surface, like a star with curling round edges. Shriveled and shrunken, but still showing the barest vestiges of life. The stem has now withered, dry and effete like straw; the petals, wrinkled and faded, are an intoxicating red.

"It's an offering," Zagreus says, his face deathly serious. Then comes the rattling, each word fleeting, as though trespassing: "Erm, I know they aren't exactly suited for down here, things from the living world, nor could I find enough to make you a crown, but—"

It should be long past inciting Death, this—Zagreus, his candor, his injudicious way of tugging at strings, of imposing his whims so egregious and flippant. Yet here he is, once more flayed by the fool Son of Hades, who would plunder and parcel not just from this realm, but from the realm beyond, too. Doling out sacred treasures like they're in constant supply. Conferring holy gifts like a common mortal.

It shouldn't incite Thanatos so, just as it shouldn't reach his heart, this prayer, this offering of peace. And yet, and yet…it does. It reaches in with hooked fingers and grasps, squeezing and straining, stealing the breath from his lungs. And so, Thanatos permits his defenses to be lowered, and reaches for the gift. Zagreus' forearm is still freshly marked, the scars there now just beginning to silver. How long before they would fade entirely, leaving no sign that he had ever met a blade at all?

When their fingers meet, Zagreus shuts his eyes for a small moment—red-tinted lashes casting long shadows on his skin. The lids are bruised and sunken from lack of sleep. Thanatos wills himself not to curse, not to smite him right where he stands, carry him straight to his bed.

Instead, he clears his throat, then again, and looks to where his feet are planted. Dull and devoid there, next to Zagreus' embers. For one long moment, he regards the vivid crimson star in his hands, and thinks of how the dying thing reminds him of its gifter. Cruel, yet so kind; ruthless, yet sweet; and beautiful, even so determined in tempting its own limits. He offers no thanks for it, unable to form the words; but relents, softly, slowly: "Tell me, then."

Zagreus' eyes fly open, his expression startlingly different—a full spectrum of sentiments there, all with a foundation of hope. All trace of exhaustion wiped from his face. "Tell you what, Than?"

"Your mother," he rasps; addressing the Prince's shoulder, inquiring with the same preternatural calm; but he knows that the words sound serrated, strained. "Is she well? Are you…Have you had…discussions?"

Zagreus looks black as if he is concealing in his face; his red eye burns from that shadow, a strange, slow smolder that almost hurts. "We have. I discovered that Father kept my existence secret from her. That she fled Olympus to come here. She didn't like it up there. They don't know…" He pauses, looks downward, barely a sigh. "I'm going to bring her back, Than. I know I can bring her back here again."

"I suppose you can," Thanatos mutters quietly, an admission to himself more than an acquiescence to the Prince. But the words taste bitter, and so he appends: "I suppose you will."

Zagreus' jubilant face might be reward enough, but beyond it…the slow dropping of armor. How strange, that something so imperceptible could feel like one's sigh in his final moments before death. And so Death waits, breathless.

"We've been talking about a lot of things, even though I can't stay up there for long." As Zagreus speaks, his tone softens more and more, remitting some of its hard edge; his green eye now flashes, colored with something like remorse. "It was my fault she left, Than. I was stillborn—I learned it from Nyx, the story of my birth, how I narrowly escaped dea—".

The silence crashes over, sudden, like a slamming door. An all-hushing force. The silence is consuming, battering, a war-drum, a weapon. Zagreus' face blanches. Death's chest constricts.

Any number of beats pass, swallowed by that pregnant force, before Zagreus dares to breach it. "Thanatos," he slowly intones, each syllable pronounced in dripping clarity. His voice has a curtailed edge that Thanatos can feel; his face is whiter than winter's hand. "Mother said—I was told—it was my understanding that Mother Nyx—"

He can't complete the thought. Thanatos' eyes are fixed firmly on the floor, on Zagreus' flitting, ember-spitting feet. His body hanging, a tenuous thing, as if tempting a cliff's edge. He feels distinct from it, separated from it, from his slow-parting lips, as he quietly says: "Your understanding would be correct."

Zagreus' eyes are widely enough open to lure Thanatos in as to fall; all of his body twitches, the limbs aimlessly swaying, staring without reverence as if Thanatos is in possession of some terrible, impenetrable secret. Which, perhaps, is not so untrue. "But, back then, you would have been around, surely? I know you must have known her, before...And you're Death, merciful Death. Did you…" he swallows. "Were you there? Did you see it? Feel it? Were you...called?"

That frank stare strips him of his general feeling and leaves him utterly exposed. Naked and fragile, like the thing in his hands. "I was a child when you came into being, Zag. A godling, still."

"Then, you…you didn't…?"

Thanatos sighs, defeated, and spins the poppy's stem in his hands. "I was there, yes. At Nyx's side. Your Lord father, beside us, too. Beside himself."

Zagreus' restive foot taps a maddening pace, spilling ember where it agitates the floor; but his silence compels Thanatos to continue.

"Mother worked tirelessly. It was a…long ordeal. I was scarcely old enough to know what I was doing. I had not the power that I do now," he says. His voice is quiet, strained. "Yet I do recall…the brightness of that soul of yours, rattling in your tiny body like wind to a flame. I remember how I felt drawn to that light…and I remember thinking, wishing, that it might not burn out. Asking my mother. Beseeching her."

Zagreus sucks a breath.

"Do not mistake me. It was Mother Night who gave you life. But…" His lips purse shut, as if to swallow what remains of that thought, before parting, slowly, once more. "It was from the moment you were born. You have been daring to defy destiny, my sisters, the Fates, me, from the very moment you were born. Zagreus.

"Your little body was wrinkled and almost translucent, only turning red as you struggled and fought. Red blood—something only mortals possess. Something no other god has. Red blood…alive. You fought to be alive, you are alive, you live and die like them, and I feel it each time. I feel that fire, that flickering flame extinguish, only to re-ignite blood-and-darkness-knows later. And I suppose that I've had untold time to get used to it, and yet…every time that I feel your flame die, it feels—that is, I remember—"

"Than," mouths Zagreus, more the outline of the name than its sound. His lips are parted and white, cracked where they split raw like the poppy's petals. Thanatos is filled by an abrupt urge to gnaw at his own, to abrade the delicate skin there. But he doesn't, if only to sustain the momentum to speak. He lets his eyes fall shut.

"I remember how you looked…tiny and helpless, sputtering, choking, gasping—and I remember how I felt. As if it were me. As if I, myself, was dying."

When he dares look again, Zagreus is looking back at him with an unbearable face, and Thanatos simply can't take it, just like he can't take the tearing in his chest, like shredded scraps of parchment raining down; he turns away from that face, stifling as best he can manage the urge to run from it altogether, to flee and vanish from it.

"I think about it every time the Styx takes you," Thanatos says quietly, eyes trained firmly groundward. "No, ah…that's not quite correct. I feel it, Zag. It puts me right back there, that unknowing panic. Only now…it's become so much worse."

And oh, it hurts, to lay down his armor, to expose his heart now, bare and unprotected. And he knows that Zagreus is surely far from satisfied, must have a thousand and one more questions to which Death has already implicitly consented, by virtue of accepting his gift. He wants to look back at Zagreus now; knows that if he were to look toward the Prince, what he'll see will not be the face of a helpless babe, but cheeks pale and sunken around the bones of a handsome face, with stitched trails of scars open and weeping.

And in that same instant, Death's throat would close with that same agony, what might be the very soul essence of heartbreak. A desire, a wish so painfully buried, like a coarse grain of salt—balanced deep in the throat, never once swallowed. Keeping the flesh tender, agitating the wound, preventing it from ever healing. But has not Thanatos learned to live with that pain, because to do otherwise would be unforgivable? A sin even Death himself could not bear?

"I must go now," he whispers, the sickly green pall already gathered on his knuckles. "But—thank you. I am grateful. For the...gift."

Zagreus makes no move to stop him; but as he feels his body start to take flight, he just catches the soft-edged smear of a tiny, hopeful smile, almost secret, on the Prince's face.


Thanatos' heart is calm for some time after this departure, and the humming of the Underworld is unusually quiet. He keeps the poppy flower close to his chest: a thing that by all logic should be long dead, yet lives through Life's bestowed vigor, even in Death's hand. A pleasant perfume still flows from its pollen, peaceful and placid as a butterfly's kiss; and though Death stops just short of confirming it with his own eyes, he is confident that the Prince is finally sleeping.