At the end of his journey, in the last Fateful fight against Lord Hades, Zagreus calls upon Death Incarnate.
His knuckles punch empty air when he calls. Malphon's Fists whirl around him like a cage, beating and sweeping in every direction, only to circle back toward their master at the last possible moment, whistling on air. The snow breathes its anticipation; the wind, stolen from the mortal edge, moans low.
With a glance to Mort, and a flicker of knowing eyes to Life himself, Death draws his scythe and leaps an arc toward the Lord Master's imposing figure, faster than he can feel, faster than a blink. The wind obliges, transporting him precisely to where he needs to be. And Death doesn't need to be told to thrust out his hand, nor given the instruction to bring his blade down, just as the Prince needs none to wield the Olympian pantheon through his fingertips. The defiance feels good. And as fire bursts and light bleeds forth, Thanatos is reminded of Life's destructive hand: the forces that shape Earth and sky.
The scant space between them shivers, immolating, a presence. (Their way of dealing has little to do with words; not at this stage.)
At the moment of impact, he can see on Zagreus' lips a barest quirk; he hasn't even time to look before the mighty fists wing toward him in a ruthless phalanx, points-down, swift as the wind. So swift that Death might be struck, too, if he knew not just what to do, just how to move; if he hadn't the instinct to grab a fist-full of space and leverage it to launch himself across the snow, orthogonal to Zagreus, before the Lord of the Underworld himself.
The wind shrieks in Death's ears. The wind bends to his will and carries his strike. Lord Hades falls rolling, cursing; Death's scythe and the Master's own bident scream as they torque and scrape and lance into the powdered snow. As the blade swings forth in a vicious arc, Zagreus' hand grazes his forearm; he must refrain from streaking swift fingers across that hand, instead committing to completion of the blow—
(—and it's the way that it instantly transforms from fighting tonot, copper blood on the air, in the snow, the galeforce of ice-wind and the crush of Surface gravity—)
(—and it's the way that it impacts, like wrenching an iron arrow-tip from his own pulsing heart—)
Even as he's transporting himself as quickly up and away, even then, Death senses Life's cheeky wink on the edge of his vision, slicing through veil of space and time as he flies, and drawing a tiny smile in return.
Thanks, Than, says the wind, fleeting as they part.
On the Surface proper, the sun greets Death with a sleek band of light, warm like a hand awaiting a grasp. Death enters the human world with a gust of wind that shakes the Earth and sets the mortals to scatter, but he dusts off his clothing and reaches out in offering. He glides toward them by their prayers, bowing his head and gesturing, telling them it's all right; you're going home, now. And recalling Life's quirked smile, thinks to himself, so are you, Prince. And perhaps this time, Fates permitting: your Lady Mother, as well.
He believes in this, as the sun shines down upon him; he believes in every one of the mortals with him—all of those new and sacred souls of mortal Greece and beyond, who might forget Death's gentle touch in their human fear of the same, yet always returned to his open arms. Now, they encircle, basking in Helios' gentle light, Persephone's flowers—what? Surprised, he peers up to see that he has (not consciously) transported himself to what is beyond doubt the Queen's domain. Wind-blown fields of irises, roses, crocuses, hyacinths, violets, night orchids; all flowers that the Queen had once painstakingly tended in her royal gardens.
And here, in this fertile oasis spared from Demeter's winter, Death touches the shivering shoulders of every new shade and walks with them, arms outstretched, to Charon's boat. Daring not to promise anything that he cannot give, Death instead blesses them with the highest boons that he can embody: a calming touch, a kind word, a safe and inviting presence. Most of these new shades are destined for the heavens, Ouranos or perhaps even Elysium; but a small scattering of them will be ferried into Hell, and there, too, Death will pray for their absolution.
At the winding river's edge, Charon nods to them in greeting; all as it always was, and all as it should be. One could almost forget the icy threat raging beyond these borders, outside the bounds of Lady Persephone's protection. And yet, the very air here is charged. Death passes the new dead over with a gentle touch and an awaiting hitch of breath, someplace in between fearing and hoping and knowing, a taut-pulled string, and just like that, the boat sets sail—
—and just like that, it all happens so fast: a gust, a gasp, and gravity releasing; the green-and-blue world warping and blurring all around him; the cold kiss of frost-wind; an entrance so sharp and quick as to pierce like a spear, like an object in the throat, like a fist around his pulse—
—Zagreus—
—He's won—
—He's here—
"Nicely done, Zag," Thanatos coughs, just before the howling forces him backward, going and gone, to allow Life space to occupy the realm of the living. No; that of Hell's Queen. And Life's presence so close as to reach out and touch, yet still so far: a ghost at the edge of this world he's departing. Infinitely charged. The air burning, blazing like a dying sun, not nature but preternatural, a promise—Fate. (Failing that, faith.)
The ghost of warm blood pulses over his fingers when he breathes the last breath of Surface air, just before the dark comes to claim him. Soon this world will be little more than a vibrantly-colored slash, a sea of wildflowers in every direction. "Give Lady Persephone my regards," he whispers to the sky.
Which returns: You can do it yourself, soon.
And Thanatos gasps, to the same effect as had caused the vision of Zagreus' grin, crystalline in his mind's vision, sharp star-teeth bared like a secret.
Saith the sky: I've got a feeling. This time.
It must be some auditory mirage, a flight of fancy born of the spinning world around him, beyond his grasp; there's nothing to hold on to, anymore. Only the pull of Lord Hades' realm below, and the lingering spirit of Life's burning touch.
He finds himself transported to where the darkness takes him, to its source—the epicenter of that very same little garden, so long hidden from view, and to its secret keeper. When he arrives, she is there—Night Incarnate, Death's mother. Smiling sphinxlike, as if she knows. As if she has been waiting for him, for some time.
"Ah, yes, my son," Nyx nods in approval from her place among the vegetation, languorously disposing of an errant weed. "You have come, too, in advancement, I trust?"
"What is this, Mother?"
When Death's feet meet moist earth for the first time in ages, long-untilled memories choke any more articulate thoughts. Every which way around them the garden flourishes, restored entire from how he has known it; where there was only trampled dust and darkness, now eternal flowers bloom, vibrant blossoms of all colors. The whole space is heavy with the perfume of promise, like a reminder of something lost: so long has it been since Death and his brother Sleep had sought refuge here, in awe of their Queen in her life-giving glory, tending to her verdure—the most colorful, effervescent place in all of Hell. And their mother, a shadow, lingering among the carefully constructed rows: smiling secretive smiles, observing the young godlings as they played.
The ancient goddess crouching primly before him pauses, straightens, peers closely at her bewildered son; then, face softening imperceptibly, steps forward to address him directly.
"I am making preparations," she tells him—plainly delivered, yet unpatronizing. "Have you not felt it, child? The call from your sisters?"
And that still-winding thread around his heart tightens, and his eyes slightly widen, though not enough to conceal—indeed, few things can conceal themselves from Darkness itself, and least not one among Darkness' children. He swallows, and remembers, feels—gravity, Surface pull, Earth's scream, Zagreus' voice, Lady Persephone's breath. Surface flowers. String around his heart. Strings binding his throat. Fate.
Not only faith, but Fate, in earnest.
"This is their doing?" he sputters. "Have you foreseen it?"
Nyx's strong stance doesn't falter. She is regal standing there, sovereign and ancient, invoking a harrowing beauty. Lilies spill from her every side, adorning her hair and painting her face bone-white.
"I do not weave the future, no do I possess the same talents that your sisters granted to our Queen," she non-answers, gesturing toward the blooms adorning her left. "But this much, at least—preserving that which belongs to this realm—lies within my purview. These flowers will, I hope, provide a suitable gift for our Lady's homecoming. This House has so missed her, as has its gardens."
"So you have," Death mumbles, head bowed, awed. "Mother, I think I…that I felt it too. On the Surface, but…is it really true? She is coming?"
Silence, a beat; then Night carries on.
"Now is the time for rebuilding, my son." She stands, long black hair rippling as she does—just as it had spilled around her as Night bent to scoop and swaddle him when he was such a young thing, still so fearful of Fate, and for those who might taunt it. Shadows crawl and congeal beneath her feet. "From the nothing void your father Master Chaos left, the mortals built upon the Earth; we gods and goddesses might think ourselves grander, yet what prosperity has come lately of this place? What good has come from the endless destruction?"
A tiny, hapless noise emits unbidden from Thanatos' desert throat.
"Ah, yes, but you know the answer, my son. Life. Life has always been the key." Night's eyes drift shut and her arms unfurl, petals from her stalk. "Faith, Thanatos. You must have faith in this, in him. Soon shall come the dawn of a most glorious homecoming."
As if sensing his cataclysmic menagerie of thoughts, she adds: "There is much goodness in you, my son, even if it is a different sort of power you were granted by your sisters. Death, after all, is what makes life precious. This is upheld as law by the wisest among the mortals. Your good nature, and your gentle touch; these are gifts as well. Have faith in these, too."
She gestures to the patch of earth she has just finished tending, and his eyes follow. There, unsmothered by rubble and debris, a new crop of flowers blooms: poppies, bright red and flawlessly beautiful. Beaming, gentle Death's mother strides toward him, thrice-stricken by awe this night, and cups his cheek—a soothing touch, uncharacteristically domestic, and peculiar for one so aloof as the Night. But that soft touch incites him, like a sign unto the faithful, and Thanatos believes. Or perhaps it's only that he is now much improved in faith, as a concept.
"How might I serve, Mother?" he asks, resolute.
Nyx, for her part, only smiles.
In those final gravid moments of anticipation, Death ruminates on the marvel that is change.
He supposes that he'd always known Zagreus would one day rebel; it was more a matter of time than anything. There was never a question of intent, for it is in Life's very nature to revolt, to test the bounds, to fight for its own sake. In the midst of all of the displaced longing and all of the pain, it had been reassuring to see this potential realized at last. A solid fact to hold in the hands; a predestined truth to clench the fingers upon. Scholar's gold.
It had required more to believe that Life would (could) one day succeed in defying the Fates; but in retrospect, this had been an error of hubris. After all, Life actualizes rather than dreams. Life fulfills and achieves. Life is the dawn, the day, the winds of purpose, the gold sands of promise. It is no wonder that Zagreus can rouse in Thanatos thoughts of each of these things, and more besides.
Under the long-oppressive mantle of darkness, the Underworld has existed in a kind of eternal stasis, sleepy and indolent save for its chittering shades—a lost world, deceptively docile in slumber. Without the Queen's light, it has become a graveyard, filled with ever-flooding whispers of death, the sands of time flowing in stasis. Time in and time out; time sworn to an archaic duty and creed, in service to a kingdom that has become obsolete.
He can't put it to words, but in those final moments, Death knows that this corrupt cycle is finally breaking—and by the very same hand that has breached his own heart. It's the way that every long-untouched corner of the House now seems to explode with color and motion. It's the way fire dances in Zagreus' eyes, or the way shadows amplify Nyx's quixotic smile. The one that says have faith. And so though he may not be privy to the particulars, Death knows two things in absolute: that a new and gloried future is arriving, and that he must have faith.
And the breaking of the cycle is nothing like Death could have expected, yet so much more than he could have ever come to hope for. It's the wild anticipation, growing, gnawing as the minutes and moments spiral down to the eleventh hour. It's the stirring of the shades, his sentinels, their cries blurring to one voice. The looming expectation that is writ upon every inhabitant—a blueprint in excitement, white, chattering and wonderful. It's the way that long-lost excitement moves him, blustering him about to and fro like the wind, in every which direction Death tries to go. The Queen is coming, whisper Tartarus' stone walls, heaving, teeming with wretches, their voices, their fear. The Queen is coming, flutter Asphodel's souls, like curtains of fire, roaring their exhilaration. The Queen is coming, hum Elysium's exalted, their echoes pitched to and hushed up by the Lethe. All of it, lingering to reach Thanatos' ears.
He has faith because he must. Because there is no going backward from here. The Queen would be coming, and of nothing has Death ever been so certain (for the souls of the dead are the most zealous gossips of all).
On the day (or night) or reckoning, all the Underworld is singing but the House is none the wiser. Death is not actually present for the moment of reckoning, instead tending to the last of Charon's charges at the Surface edge at sunset; but oh, how he feels it: like the gentlest pricking of rose-thorns, petals pillowing his cheeks, and then—absence. The overwhelming flavor of something lost, a departure. And apropos of nothing, Thanatos lapses into a peal of laughter. "Blood and darkness…he's done it," he murmurs, tossing his head skyward as an eruption of color spills across the mortal world's horizon behind his head, yellow melting into orange into red. "He's actually done it."
A gust of breeze rustles past, just lifting the heavy, drooping heads of the small blooms at his feet, and across the way Death's brother shields his mouth with a hand. Snapping on instinct, Thanatos jerks his head, thinking that swift Hermes might be loitering there; but instead there is only the wind. The very same wind carries Charon's boat downstream. For a brief moment, they lock eyes, and from Charon is eked the slightest of nods. And so Death returns in an instant back to the House, to its narrow foyer—to where the darkness, and the wind, bid his heart to go.
And there, encircled by near every soul in the place, is Lady Persephone herself—a golden, glorious thing among the House's shades, near-monochrome by comparison. Her face wearied, but warm. Her prodigal son (looking incredibly pleased) and Lord husband (eyes cast firmly down) flanking; but Death's eyes seek her and her alone. And Death cannot help the weightless, buoying feeling that overtakes his whole body as he falls to his knees and dares peer up to behold her, as towering and radiant as the day she left. Breathlessly, he crawls toward the Queen and kisses her hand; and his heart pounds a resounding, worshipful chorus when she beams at him bright and bold as a field of new blooms, and says:
"Oh, Thanatos. You grew up."
