And back to his mentor, the greatest of the Greeks.

He'd probably argue against that characterization.

"Hello again, lad."

"Hello, sir. ...I'm not sure how to segue gracefully into this so please excuse me for the lack of grace. I met a shade in Elysium called Patroclus, and he told me to, should I ever run into you, ask you why."

"I, you've met him? How is he...? No, nevermind, it's not any of my business. Not anymore. 'Why'...? I... am afraid I cannot say. Not because I don't want to, but. There's a confidentiality agreement I'm under that I don't dare break. Just... I was a fool. But my foolishness should not damn him, too, understand? I suppose that's... the closest I can get to why."

"I... see? If, sir, may I ask, who... is he?"

"A good man. A wise man. Wiser than I, certainly. ... I loved him. Love, I should say, because I still do. And always will."

Oh. Oh. So he's the one... Achilles said, a while ago...

"I see. I will... let him know of your words, if I run into him again."

"I... appreciate the thought, lad, but things are a bit more complicated than that. It's for the best if he just forgot about me."

"...sir, he... He was sitting right by the Lethe. He could have if he wanted. And..." Gods, how do you bring this up. "He had a statue. Of you. It was... very, very tall."

".... Ah. That... does have certain implications, doesn't it." Sigh.

"I think he still cares very much about you, sir."

“You’re set on this, aren’t you lad.” Sigh. “I must warn you not to bring any of this up with your father. You know how set he is on sticking to every letter of a deal, and at least this way Patroclus is in Elysium."

"I am very good at not telling my father things," says Zagreus, tapping the side of his nose.

"Heh. Yes, I suppose he's earned no loyalty from you, and you have had quite a lot of practice. Well. Then if you must send him a message, then. Tell him I'm sorry, but this was the best that I could get. For both of us. And send my regards, and... all my love."

"I will, sir." Zagreus ducks his head in farewell and walks off; he feels like probably he should not let Achilles think about that for longer and change his mind again. Count his victories, and all.

"So what I took from that is that I need to get a job from your father and talk him into the value of employee time off and letting them visit loved ones," says Yvette, wryly.

"Is it?"

"I don't see another obvious way to do it," unless she fights his dad and becomes queen of the Underworld but she's not saying that out loud, "And I do actually want to try and make the Underworld better. Especially Asphodel, with the flooding and my ability to eat the not-lava."

"I just don't see how you could do it. What's in it for father?"

"A more efficient workforce? More people willing to actually work for him? People are actually worse at their jobs when they don't have the ability to take time off. Statistically. They're people, not machines, they like being treated like them and they're more willing to commit to something if they feel like they can trust the system they're committing to."

"Maybe but if they are physically forced to keep working regardless they don't need to want it."

"You can spend all of the effort required to force your workers to do the exact parameters of their job, but that's a lot of wasted effort, and furthermore, people are useful when they're not being forced to do things? As they are, I mean. If they feel like they can figure out better ways to solve problems with less work, if they can talk to each other and compare what they're doing in each of their jobs and gain different perspectives on, I don't know, paperwork organization schemes and the like, if they can go, 'actually this job you're asking me to do is dumb, this isn't even necessary for anything you want,' everything becomes a lot more efficient! I don't have the statistics here to prove any of this, but I can and will get them and show your father that it is actually more efficient. Thus why I kind of think I should get a job from him."

"...well, good luck. When I say 'physically forced' though I mean the contracts themselves are self-enforced, to be clear. They can't... break the contracts. Even if they try to."

"That's horrific and I hate it!" she says, extremely brightly. "But you can't physically force them to go above and beyond in their job, can you? Just fulfill the bare minimum of it. Otherwise the Underworld wouldn't be as much of a mess as it is."

"Right. Pretty much. Do people... do that?"