"If I wanted I could just kill every shade at once. It would be... unsporting."

"That's fair. It is more fun if there's a bit more of a balance. Then do you not want me to use my gravity powers to drag shades into your death circles?" The last part is a little teasing.

"...no, I do, let's make it a challenge for him."

"I am happy to oblige!"

Guh-dong.

"Death is inescapable," he says with some finality as he arrives in Elysium.

"Than!" says a beat-up looking Zagreus, lighting up like Christmas came early.

“And me! Hi, Zagreus.”

Is she suddenly nervous now? Yes. Is that going to show? Hopefully not!

She does feel a little bad about not helping him with this escape attempt, but. … but he flirted with her!

"Ready, Zag?"

"—what, seriously, after what I said?"

"Beat us and maybe we can talk later."

"Both of you?"

“I did say that I’d help him next time around!” she says, brightly.

His hand tightens around the hilt of his sword. "Bring it on," he says, and by the time the first shade shows up it has already been split in two.

She feels complicated things, but it is still nice to watch two pretty boys kill things. And she’ll try not to think too hard about any of this right now, because feelings are scary and she doesn’t want to.

To no one’s surprise, her gravity effect dovetails nicely with Than’s circle of death.

It does.

But now that she's fighting on his side, she might notice that when he said he "threw" the fight, maybe what he meant instead was that he got too distracted watching Zagreus melt through the ranks of his foes with more ferocity and grace than even Lord Ares himself would manage.

And regardless of whether Than could actually kill every shade in sight instantly if he wanted, he does not, and actually Zag just straightforwardly wins, "Forty-three" to Thanatos's

"Twenty-one. You're getting better at this."

"Or maybe I'm just very, very motivated."

It’s kind of hilarious that Thanatos is too distracted watching Zagreus to really get properly into the contest.

But also: wow she feels awkward and superfluous here, she kind of wants to go hide under the bed again! It probably doesn’t mean anything that Zagreus flirted with her, he’s clearly in love. Which kind of hurts a bit, actually. Maybe that’s why her feelings are so complicated right now.

She’s tempted to tease Thanatos about what he keeps getting distracted by, but. Actually she’ll just. … stay quiet. And keep her complicated feelings to herself.

He looks at Yvette's shoulder spot, then, though. "Hey, uh, how about you, though, are you okay? I realise I didn't ask earlier and I figured you just wanted time to think but if you're not comfortable with what I said I can back off, it doesn't need to mean anything if you don't want it to."

Oh. Great. She’s being directly addressed.

… unhappy squeaking sound? Yes. Unhappy squeaking sound.

"...or we don't need to talk about it? I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I, ah, have been learning I have a tendency to act before I think in ways that hurt others."

"Have you, Zag, really? What gave you this impression?" Than asks, landing onto his feet and folding his arms.

"Meg, you, Yvette, Hypnos, Achilles..."

Words. She should probably words. She should probably words, but all she wants to do is hide under the bed and maybe cry.

Weirdly enough, when she starts the words they don’t seem to stop.

“Zagreus, I went from complete isolation to drowning in people,” she says, a little hoarsely, “I was overwhelmed and thinking and just wanted something simple to do, and you, just. Piled more on? You haven’t sorted things out with Thanatos and you go and act like I’m a shiny new toy to flirt with and. That’s just. Were you at all thinking about me, or were you just distracted by how apparently I’m hot?”