"Uh. I... don't know. Cultural indoctrination? It being the norm?" She gives a little helpless shrug. "Not being divinely hot?"

Zag lets out an undignified snort. "I don't know how much divinity has to do with that! Have you seen Achilles?"

"I have seen Achilles! He is hotter than average for mortals." Pause. "... By a significant margin. Possibly being dead helps, I don't see why people's shades wouldn't get to be as hot as they want instead of having little mortal imperfections and wrinkles from aging."

"I suppose he was also half god. ...his old mortal lover did not look half bad either, though."

"Well, maybe he set the bar with his prettiness before taking a partner. Maybe Patroclus is hotter as a shade than he was when alive. I don't know. I'm just saying that as I understand it, the average mortal is not as aggressively hot as just about everyone I've seen here is."

"I suppose Orpheus is not, ah, divinely attractive."

"There you go. A lot of the mortals Than's seen haven't been divinely attractive either, but. Also most of them were kind of dying at the time, so. ... Reasonable for them to not be at their hottest."

Zag grimaces. "Yeah. Uh. Yeah."

"Sorry. Too dark?"

"No, I mean, they all come here. I just... got reminded of how they all have to come here. And then can't leave."

"Yeah. Kind of why I want to get a job from your dad so I can improve the place."

"Mmhm. That would be nice."

"Yeah. But I think I'll stick with you while I'm thinking. At least partially, anyway. I'll leave part of me here in case I want help with designing my shiny new Chthonic form from someone besides you."

"Sounds good. Well. Ready to go, then?"

"Hmmm." She sections off a bit of herself to go do something else. ... Hide under Zagreus's bed, actually. She still doesn't feel like being social with anyone but him. Then the rest of her disappears into starscape and returns to his shoulder skulls.

"Ready!" she announces.

The other door in his bedroom leads to a spacious terrace with a view to Tartarus. A few choices of weapons are floating near an edge, and the glass case with the godly trinkets has an instance of itself there.

    In the middle of a terrace there is: a skeleton. Animated. It perks up at the sight of the god. "Hey, boyo!"

"Skelly! Good to see you."

She should probably announce herself. Okay, yes, she can do that. This is clearly a friend of Zagreus that is supportive of the whole escape thing. She lights up a little eye from one of the shoulder skulls.

"Hello! I'm Yvette, nice to meet you."

    "Oh! Hello there! Got a new friend to help ya?"

"Sure did!"

   "More is always better. Say, new friend, what do you think of beatin' me up?"

"... n...o?" she says, confused.

    "Aww, not even a little bit? Gets a bit stale, I mean, you know boyo here can spice things up but it's not the same as a whole new person!"

Zagreus is just grinning here, don't mind him.

".... is this a kink thing...?"

    If a skull can look confused this one does. "A what?"

"I... Nevermind. Not at this time, thank you."

This talking thing? Yeah, no. Eye goes dark and she can resume hiding.

"We're just passing," says Zagreus now that the amusing part is over. "I'll crack your skull once or twice later, though."

    "I'll hold ya to it, boyo!"

With the amused grin still on his face, Zagreus makes his way to his glass cabinet to look for a godly trinket.

She is so confused. So, so confused. So quiet and confused.