He looks at her with a raised eyebrow. "Yes?"

“I made you something! It should help with sunlight.”

She presents the sunglasses to him.

He stares at them for a few too many seconds to be comfortable. "What are these?" he asks, looking back up at her and not making any motion to accept them.

He is bad at emoting, this doesn’t mean he doesn’t like them. Her sunny smile remains.

“Eyewear that darkens to prevent too much light from passing. They go on your face.”

"...will this not just make it harder to see."

“Nope! Because I am clever and thoughtful! They react to,” UV radiation, “sunlight specifically and only darken when exposed to it. As you can see now, they’re perfectly clear.”

He stares at the glasses again for a few more uncomfortably silent seconds then takes them so he can peer at them more closely.

Then he lifts them to his face, guessing the purpose of the temples of the glasses correctly. He does look surprised when they go invisible, though. "Hmm. This might come in useful." Up at her again: "Thank you."

“You’re welcome! They can turn and stay visible if you’d rather, but I thought you’d find anyone asking questions irritating, so. They still work while invisible. Because magic.”

"Yes, I can see them working."

“I’m mostly just proud of my work and telling you things that are obvious out of excitement. I hope you like them! I’ll leave you alone now if you’d rather?”

"Do as you will," he says in his usual tone as he turns to stare at the Styx again.

...no, not his usual tone. He sounds, perhaps, maybe, a little mostly-undetectable bit... upset? Sad? Angry? Annoyed? Worried? Something.

She tilts her head.

"That didn't sound like a 'Yes, I'd rather,'" she observes. "I like your company and would like to stay if it wouldn't bother you. But I know I've been tagging along with you a lot already, so. It's pretty fair if you want some alone time."

"If I wanted you gone I would have told you so."

Wait that was a bit too honest.

"Oh! Okay." She melts into starscape, and fwoosh! Into his hood she goes, to her regular perch nestled next to him.

...that worked fine. Good. He's not sure why he expected it to not work fine. But it did, so he's fine.

........he successfully had a positive-rather-than-neutral social interaction with someone that isn't Zagreus? Hooray.

Hooray!

She does of course keep doing various projects in the background while staying with him, because she's herself, but she really does like his company. Or, well, any company, but he's not weird about it and doesn't expect her to do things besides keep him company, and is rather nice once it's understood he's bad at emoting.

He spends longer on that balcony than he usually does, though, and despite the lack of emoting from his body language the wind billowing his chiton starts getting a bit more aggressive over time.

She notices, but she doesn't really understand the mechanism by which his chiton and cloak blow in wind that doesn't actually exist, so she's not really sure what it means.

.... Wait a second. Where is Lord Hades? She hadn't noticed before, because she'd been busy working on her present to Thanatos, but. He's no longer at his desk.

And that's about when the "wind" suddenly stops, at the same time as Thanatos does have a physical reaction of a sort: he freezes, completely, not even the fake breathing gods do in human form, and stares at the river. His gaze follows its flow, turns around to the place Zag usually comes out of after dying, visible from the balcony, but...

...it is not Zagreus who steps out of the river.

"Um," says the little mote of starscape nestled beside him, and then that's all she can say, because. Because what.

Hades himself does not say a word, and neither do any of the shades or gods or demigods around. In fact, the whole House is taken by a sudden hush, as Hades disappears from their view walking past the petitioning shades towards his desk.

He walks around it, takes a seat, then bellows, "NEXT!" as if nothing's happened. Which breaks the spell and gets the line going again despite the whispers about what the FUCK.

What the fuck, indeed!

She can't help but notice that Zagreus is also not here, and... also not anywhere in the Underworld. She would know, she's approximately everywhere down here.

".... Zagreus isn't anywhere in the Underworld," she says softly to Thanatos, because she's better equipped to know this than he is, and probably he'd like to know that. "Did he try to stop Zag from leaving? And then..." Fail and get sent back? Holy shit what terrible parenting!

"...I knew he's not here. I think. I don't know how." He furrows his eyebrows. "...sometimes being a god is such a pain."

"Oh. Yeah, it is, isn't it." Because she herself is a god, she can't just go immediately running off to the surface to find him. She needs to be carried up. Metaphysically. Maybe she could try to break out on her own, but she doesn't particularly feel the drive to do so right now, and that'd be really difficult and she doesn't have an easy reset point like Zagreus does. And when he made it up to the surface, she wasn't with him, so. Instead she's just. Still down here.

She doesn't really know how to feel, actually. Upset, probably? She was kind of expecting that she'd be with Zag when he finally escaped the Underworld, but. Apparently not.

"I should get back to work."

"Oh. Uh, yes, of course, just let me section off this part of myself from the rest of me and we can go."

"...actually I think I would prefer to be alone, this time."

"Oh."

That's very reasonable, he probably needs time to think and freak out too, his boyfriend has left the Underworld and might not ever come back, but she's a little hurt all the same. "Right, of course, um." Off of his shoulder she goes, and into a proper person shape in front of him.

".... May I hug you before you go?" she asks, a little shyly.

"Of course," he says, and does a double take at how immediate his response was.

He doesn't regret it, though.

Argh. Feelings.

This earns a little brilliant smile, and then a hug.

Then he is free to depart to do his job.

Guh-dong.

Well.

There's still a lot of Asphodel to renovate, so. Off she goes to do that. And if she takes a while to sort through her feelings and what she wants to do before doing anything in particular, then that's perfectly normal. Gods work on a timescale of centuries, apparently.

Thanatos... has so many feelings.

He hates it when this happens but it's been happening so much over the past few years since Zag decided to start doing his thing. And then Yvette showed up a couple of years ago and that's even more feelings. And then she encouraged Zag to talk about feelings and to be honest Thanatos is wondering if he should take a hundred-year vacation from his breaks and just work nonstop, that sounds more pleasant than having feelings.

But it's never worked whenever he tried to stop them while they're happening. And he's tried. He's tried a ton. He can only shut them off when they're mostly not there already.

Inconvenient.

(Unlike his new glasses, which are very convenient, actually. The sun doesn't bother him nearly as much as it did, with them, and he's feeling even more thankful for them now that he's got to try them on. ...which just compounds the feelings.)

He is once more floating through a battlefield. Time is slowed around him again, but that also happens sometimes when he has so many feelings, so it is doubly slow now. This little nifty power he got from his cousin, Zag's grandfather, the titan Kronos, is not really a full power so much as an affordance to let him do his job properly. And apparently it considers that his emotional state is not conducive to the most efficient reaping of souls, which he honestly thinks is just making it a much bigger deal than it is.

Okay, one feeling at a time, then.

The first thing he wants to deal with is Zagreus. Zagreus, who... succeeded. He did it. He escaped the Underworld.

He's never coming back, not if he has the choice. Regardless of whether he finds his mother, he may be chthonic but he is not of death and he is not coming back.

(A small part of Thanatos's mind is saying that actually Zagreus is of death, because Zagreus is his and he is death.)

But is he? Zagreus is free, now. Thanatos reaps these souls, dying of war wounds, of battle, of combat, and it brings to mind all that has killed Zagreus, and all that he's survived. In hindsight he realises that he always knew, he always felt it every time Zag died. Partly as the god of death—he knows when anyone dies, or is about to die, they call to him—but he doesn't reap Zagreus, he just feels the call nonetheless. Zagreus can find his way to the Styx on his own, he doesn't need Thanatos's or Hermes's help. Part of it is just because he's been connected to Zagreus since long before he admitted his feelings. Being a god sucks and he thinks Lady Aphrodite is probably having a lot of fun at their expense.

Lord Zeus and Lord Hades and Lord Poseidon can wax poetic about being in charge of the world but all three of them are wrapped around her finger.

Zagreus isn't going to die, anymore, though. Zagreus is a god, he is immortal as a god, he is as unkillable as the titans who were quartered by the Olympians and sealed under the (metaphorical) earth, who could come back as soon as someone put them back together. And now that the things that were trying the hardest to kill him are no longer in his way, he'll just... live. God of life, Thanatos is sure of it despite Zag's denials, and he gets to live. Lord Hades cannot reach him on the surface, that is the price he paid to be Lord of the Underworld.

And Thanatos? Thanatos is the god of death. Thanatos does not live amongst the mortals, Thanatos does not live. What will become of him and of Zag, of their nascent relationship, of their existing relationship?

A broken leg that renders a soldier vulnerable to an axe. Someone falling from a horse, torso already cut most of the way in half by a sword, dead before he even hits the ground. An arrow, so many arrows. A concussion that damages the brain's blood vessels and floods the neuronal membranes, slowly but surely squeezing the life out of him. A boy not out of his teens, his lower body trampled by his own horse in a panic, not a chance of recovery. All deaths Zag would have survived, and will never face, forever on the surface.

...Thanatos can still feel him. He knows where he'd have to go, to find Zag. But Zag isn't dying, so is he even able to?

A punch, an actual punch, that shatters someone's airways and they choke in their own blood. A blade cutting clean through someone's femoral artery. A disembowelment that was not clean and not even very thorough, but this person is going to die of it anyway.

This boy wasn't going to die anyway, necessarily. Thanatos gets to his knee and inspects the wound—it's a tiny cut, relatively speaking, to the side of his stomach. It was mostly the momentum of the blow that pushed him off his horse and broke his shin so he can't walk. Couldn't, not without being seen and finished off. And by the time the battlefield is safe enough, he'll have bled too much. Bled to death.

Yvette could've saved him. Stopped the bleeding, healed the wound a little bit, told him to lay low until the dust settled and he could limp away in safety. It's one of those wounds that are only circumstantially deadly, that could've been fixed.

Thanatos has a bit of his sisters' understanding of the future. He can see the timeline of this man's life. The man would not die right now, but he'd surely die anyway. Thanatos could give him a push, make his heart stop earlier, just to spare him the suffering.

...he doesn't need to be the one to decide.

He touches the boy's hand and the boy can now see him.

The boy recognizes him for who and what he is.

“Lord Thanatos,” he whispers, and, and he’s not dead, not yet, he knows this because he still feels pain. It hurts. It hurts so much. The dead don’t feel pain. He’s heard of something like this happening, and so like a man reaching desperately for a lifeline, he says, “Your, your lady, where…?”

...so word's gotten out.

Well, it would. True rumours about the gods tend to spread themselves more quickly and reliably than they naturally should. Thanatos is not sure whether this is the work of some god or just the way the world is. He's not sure whether there's a difference.

"She is... not here. Not this time. I'm sorry."

“W-what? But, but I could, I could live, it’s not that bad, and I see you while I still draw breath, so…”

"I am here to offer you a choice. You will die today. I can take you now, stop your heart and guide you to Hermes; or I can wait. The hours from here will be painful, you will suffer, but you will only die when your body can no longer keep you alive."

“What kind of choice is that?!”

"The kind I would usually not offer. But 'my lady' has taught me that there are ways to be kinder, to ease the passage of souls into the embrace of death, without shirking my duties or thwarting the Fates."

He stares, unbelieving, then shakes his head.

“No. No. I can live. I’ll, I’ll wait. She’ll come. She will.”

Than shakes his head. "I'm sorry."

He releases the boy's hand and lets him return to real time. Then he closes his eyes, covers them with a hand, and lets out a long, shivering breath.

Why? He has taken thousands of people, more people than he could count, except that's not true, he could count all of them, he remembers every single person he has ever taken, he can never forget. So why is this so hard?

Something is missing. He has... gotten so used to it... He can't comfort the boy. He can't offer the boy false hope.

Because hope won't come today.

And it's his fault.

Death isn't as bad as mortals think it is. And it gets better, it's getting better. Because of hope. A hope he could never bring people, before, and then he could, and today he did not. He did not, because... because he wanted to understand how he felt about her. About hope. Because that's one of the other feelings.

Of course the god of death would be in love with the god of life. And of course the god of death would be in love with the goddess of hope.

It's... so obvious, when he thinks like that. He probably wouldn't have noticed, if he hadn't already known he was in love with Zagreus. And she made it happen, too, didn't she? Or helped along. Would they have worked, would he and Zag have found their way together, without hope? He doesn't know.

Gods don't change. Except for Zagreus.

And her.

...and, Thanatos guesses, himself, now.

But he can't go find her, now. He doesn't know why, but he knows that if he left to find her, too much time would have passed, and the boy would already be dead. There's something symbolic, here, but he's too steeped in it to see what it is.

Well. The boy can hope for life, and then he can hope for death, and hope will listen to one of those. And hope will build him a good death, a death that he doesn't have to fear. He doesn't know, yet, but his death... will be good. He will mourn his life, he will curse Thanatos's name, spit in his face, but... he will live again, in death, in a world that hope helped build.

It takes as long as promised, but the god of death knows his craft better than the petty wishes of a dying mortal. One of them is correct, and it’s not the mortal.

He curses her, too, before the end. For drawing out his suffering with a visage of a promise that never came true.

He doesn't have any words, when he comes back later (after, subjectively, a very, very long time and many other souls) to finally take the boy.

It does help, that death isn't as bad as the boy thinks it'll be. Thanatos is not doing an unspeakable crime to him, the way mortals often feel he is.

And he'll know this is it, this time, because there will be no pain.

He’s too angry to do anything more than glare venomously. If he’s thankful, not even the gods themselves will hear him admit it.

He doesn't have to spend much time with Thanatos, because Hermes soon shows up to take him, and time bends even lower before the messenger god.

And so off he goes, furious into the Underworld itself. Perhaps even as a shade, he’ll never see death’s lady. Since she’s apparently too busy to answer his prayers.

"You know, it's not that bad. The Asphodel Meadows—probably where you're going, sorry, bud, I don't think Elysium is for you—but they're looking pretty nice! Not on fire at all anymore. You might have fun! You'll meet lots of new people. Speaking of new people, here they are. Toodles!" Hermes says at the speed of light while he guides the new soul through non-spaces between spaces.

The place he's taken to is an underground riverbank. The cavern they're in is ridiculously huge, the kind of place that'd need to be placed either very deep underground or inside a mountain, if it followed the strict mandates of physics. But it doesn't.

There is what seems to be a temple of sorts, made of metal, jutting out of one of the cave walls, with bronze stairs leading down from its imposing closed doors to where he and other recently dead people are. There seem to be about twentyish other people, and most of them aren't talking to each other, with a handful of groups of two and three and this one couple plus their baby. Everyone has a sort of ethereal, not-quite-human quality to them, the little blemishes and imperfections that one accrues through life gone or smoothed over, everyone's idea of their self influencing what they look like more than the mandates of biology.

And by the river is the boatman, Charon himself, standing tall and motionless by his barge. A soft plume of purple smoke wafts from his skeletal mouth but he does not move like he's breathing at all.

He had time to make sure he had something to pay Charon, before his death. Since it took a while. A drachma should be more than enough to cover the cost for crossing the river of Styx.

Strange, though. He would have expected this side of the river to have more shades, begging for small coinage to pay for their passage.

There don't seem to be such beggars here. Perhaps the stories were false? But when the boatman of the underworld says Ḧ̶̡̪͓͙͉͎͇̫̳̗̘̈͜͜ͅę̸͙̠̬͙̦̦̲̏́̌͝g̸̛̫͕͔̺̩̤͔̻̜̺̫͉̘̦͐̅͂̏́̌̉̿͊͝͝h̴̬́͂̍̌̓̍̇̊̈́̂́̔̀͋l̴̨̜̦̞̭͈͙͚͙̞͍͎̲͚̈́̅͊́́̍̋̐͜͝ą̸̪̰͚̠̳̼̟̣̩̂̀ǎ̸̛̛̻͌̉͗͛̐̍̿̏̔͛͘̕a̸̫͂͂̏͗̍̐̾́̂̿͊̐̓̕͘͘͝a̵̧̟̪̻͙̗͐́̋̎̇̇̕ͅa̶̢̢͉͎͉͚͕͋̍͆̇̍̎͘͜͜h̵̛̥̻̤̺̝͙͔̬̤̼̻̗͙̟͕̅̎̿̒̎͐̉̓̽͠ and the shades start boarding his barge he does make sure to collect obols from every one of them.

The couple with the baby look somewhat nervous about this, though, and seem like they almost expect Charon to refuse them entry, but he accepts their money with no complaint.

How lucky for them. ... Or maybe not, but it's not like it matters to him much, does it. Nothing really matters anymore.

He'd had dreams of exchanging his drachma for several obols and paying for other shades' passage, once. When he was alive. From a mixture of having just been through a truly shitty experience, and there being no obvious need to barter with the ferryman himself for someone else's passage means it really doesn't matter. If Charon wants to keep the five obols worth of extra payment, that's fine by him. The dead only need money the once, as he understands it.

Nope, Charon is definitely giving him his change. Not taking any more than he needs to.

Great. Now he has no idea what to do with his extra obols, then. If there were any beggars he’d hand them off, but there aren’t. He could scatter them on the riverbank for someone else to find, but there’s no guarantee they’d be picked up by anyone in need. So there isn’t anything obvious to do with the coins besides pocket them. So he does, and gets onto the boat.

Once everyone is on the boat, Charon steps onto it himself, lowers his oar, and pushes it into the water.

The gigantic cavern does not seem to have any ways in or out other than the temple he saw and wherever this river is taking them. The water flows along lazily, and where it meets the end of the cave it grows foggy though some light can be seen from that direction implying that this would be "outside", whatever that means in the Underworld.

They spend a few seconds in fog, with the pattern of light suggesting they're going through a tunnel towards the light, but when they're finally out the river has become fog. Or clouds, or something. Regardless, it is no longer regular water.

And the "outside" is, clearly, the Fields of Elysium. There is a long, golden fence that stretches on for miles to either side of them; behind them, the place they came from is a hill, or mountain, getting very quickly too foggy to discern its height; and up ahead is a gate that opens to let them into the proper Fields. Charon continues to push with his oar, slowly, as the world unfurls ahead of them.

It's beautiful, of course; large fountains in the shape of mermaids pour more cloud-water down into the river, beautiful busts and sculptures of heroic deeds, lovely brooks and meadows and ponds with water nymphs, the occasional fish breaking the surface of the Lethe almost playfully, and of course, the houses. The houses are almost palaces, themselves: big, luxurious, well-decorated, wide open. Other souls of the dead mill about, converse, rest in the shade of the plants that block the fake sun in the fake sky while drinking wine and reading books, reciting poetry, sparring, making love, running. It's truly paradise.

The dead man doesn't expect this to be his stop. Hermes himself had said as much, and besides, even by his own judgement, he wasn't particularly heroic in life. Certainly not in death. But he'll look out upon the Fields of Elysium and think bitterly of what could have beens, if death's lady had been there when he'd wanted her. Maybe he could have gotten in here.

Maybe.

And maybe he wouldn't have liked it so much. When Charon stops at a small wooden pier with steps leading up into an imposing temple, a group of three friends—clearly warriors—start to step out of the boat, only to have Charon stop one of them.

    "Hey?"

Ȟ̷͇̲̤͔̾͒̕r̵̢̡̟̣͎̣̓͊̈́̀̈ȁ̸̧͈͔̀͘g̴̰̓̈́̽̀̓̕ḧ̶̻̯̪͍́̉͆͊̀͒͘̕e̷̡̙͙̥̪̣̺͒̿̂̐̄ę̷͓͎͗e̵̢̛̪̦͍̦͛͛̓̄̍͠ͅe̴͈̬̠̔͊̅̍͛̄̚͜͜h̶͙̀.̵̢͎̝͖̥̞͌̏̓͜͝

        "He's with us," says one of the friends, who didn't get barred by Charon.

    "Are—do you mean I don't—I'm not going to Elysium?"

G̷̡̢̯̟͍̜͒͝h̸̨̹̮͊e̶͎̽k̶̨̛͎̭͈̫̮̈́̈ā̷̢͔͍͖̗͓͇̪h̸̡̢̥̦͍̜͕̅i̸̘͖͙̙̼͉̖͓͘ȋ̶̞̹͈͓̇́̀͒͗ͅi̷̧̧͑̋̀͆̿̐͘h̷̨̢̰̻̻̜̱͕͆̈́̏̇̒͋̈́̀h̶͉̪͒̏̕.̶̡̡̲̥̆͌ͅ

    "Wait, no, come on, man, you can't—"

But Charon shoves him forcefully with his oar so that he falls onto his rump, back in the barge, and says, sounding pissed off, Ò̸̡̡̘̝̪͊̔̽k̴͙̳͙̭̎͆̅͋l̷͓̪̬̠͌̋̈͌ã̷͎̖̯̱͎̮̥̳̒͌̅̇͠g̵̮̺̤̪͖̘͐́h̸̨͖̲̫͗̈́̌̽͗͛e̵̛͚̟̩̭̼͖̍̎h̵̡͍̥̽̔͝h̷̛̘͇̰͈̱̱̩͒̔͆͌̅.̴̛͕̤̱̍̑̚͝

    "—forgive me, Lord Charon. I was out of line."

        "Atrokos?"

    The man forces a smile and says, "Don't worry about me, friends. I—guess I wasn't sufficiently heroic." He tries to chuckle but it's a bit too reedy to be any convincing. He swallows dryly and clears his throat. "It—it has been an honour serving with you."

            "Atrokos, you can't..." says the third one.

    "The gods have made a decision," he replies. "I—I'm sorry. But, um, live your best—afterlives. Okay?" He clears his throat again, and blinks several times. "I'm sure you will be very happy here."

The other two throw Charon an absolutely venomous look, to absolutely no reaction, but they recognise the folly of challenging a god in his domain. They look at their friend, but he turns around and takes a proper seat on the boat, and when that's done Charon pushes the riverbank away again, so that the barge can go on its way.

Atrokos... is shaking a bit. Apparently that's a thing you can still do, after death.

That’s the gods for you. Weighing in from on high, with no care towards the people they hurt. He looks away, towards the river of clouds.

“You have time to drink of water from the Lethe,” he says to Atrokos in an undertone, while still not looking at him. “If you’d rather forget. It’ll likely be the only chance any of us get.”

He startles. "What?" Then the words catch up with him and he turns to stare at the river. "Oh," he says, weakly.

How the fuck do you make a decision like that on your way between the Fields of Elysium and the Asphodel Meadows, that's not enough time to decide something like that. He's looking vaguely sick.

The man from the one couple whispers something to his wife then walks over to Atrokos and puts an arm around him, which is what tips him over to breaking down crying.

Well. He tried. And it's not like he'll drink from the river himself. Even if he does kind of want to forget the pain of his own death, there are too many other things he'd like to remember.

The boat continues its slow ride. At some points the non-Euclidean nature of the river and the entire Underworld becomes a bit more obvious, when they can see bits of the river in the distance that seem like they should be upstream of where they are but which they never went through, or when going past a large house leaves them in a completely different area of the Fields and no way to see the place they were at just a moment ago; this is probably for the best, as the Fields do seem to be large enough that if they were to ride along the entire length of the Lethe (if such a thing even makes conceptual sense) this trip might take unbearably long.

But soon enough they are going through another set of gates and approaching another hill/cliff/mountain's entrance, the water fogging it up enough that they can't see beyond. The Asphodel Meadows are probably just over yonder.

The cavern darkens as they pass, until it's so dark it seems impossible to even see their fellows in the boat. From ahead, there's a faint glow that brightens as they get closer, warm and welcoming. Then they turn a corner, and the light catches in the river itself. Or, to be more precise, it comes from the river itself. It continues to brighten as they proceed, until it's the brilliant orange glow of flame. They have reached the river Phlegethon.

What follows is surely the Aphodel Meadows. Its entrance is not as ostentatious as Elysium's, and clearly built for a bit more volume of traffic. It rises from the fiery river with an efficient practicality of sturdy stone, with only minimal accenting in bronze instead of gold. The cobblestones on the path from the docks are a simple and plain grey, unassuming and practical. The rock (solid, not cobbled together like the road) that makes up the walls of the buildings and the banks of the rivers is a deep, muted purple. At a glance, it's rather intimidating, but...

... care has clearly been taken to make it feel more cozy and welcoming than the starting color scheme implies. Warm fluffy carpets the color of rich gemstones, comfortable looking park benches, careful accenting of lighter colors to balance out the dark. Instead of great carvings depicting fantastical events and brave deeds, there are cute little white stone and bronze park benches, and large decorative mushrooms kept in some of the (many) vases and pots around. All lit by little streams of fiery water carefully diverted from the main flow, to make decorative fountain designs or rivulets of fire, or pouring eternally into little containers that look and cast light like lanterns. Contained in the lantern-alikes, the light given off is changed from a fiery orange to something else, blues and reds and greens and purples and even a bright and cheery yellow, evocative of something festive, here in the deep dark. The welcoming building ahead of them has various sections, neatly labelled by (colored) banners, denoting HOUSING ASSISTANCE and EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES and REUNION ARRANGEMENT and GRIEF COUNSELING and BARTER AND TRADE and many others, further on and in.

Compared to Elysium, it's bustling and lively. There are clearly places where one can get away from the crowds, little quiet stone gardens lit by small streams of flame and decorated with less precious gemstones, but. ... This isn't necessarily a bad fate, either. Its denizens don't seem unhappy or bored.

Atrokos is looking mostly resigned by the time they get there, but he does show some interest when he sees all of that. Charon slowly pulls up and, when they're close enough, gestures in the direction of that building. No wretches on the barge, today; everyone's last stop is here.

M̵̨̘̯̭̘̫̈́́̈e̸͉̭͇̱̼̪̹͆̅́̅͗̌̀k̸̨̤͇̪̖̪͚͖͒͌͛͒̕͝ḫ̸͎̰̖̘̀̽͛̽͊ͅa̷̛̹͖̳͂̋̓̊̓̉ą̵̨͋̎̈̕ͅa̸̢̧̲̘̠̞͑t̷̡̡̡͉̩͕̞̹̀͛̀̿̎ẖ̶̛͇͖͓̬̣̍̐́͊ͅh̸̢̛͓̭̞̫͔̖͑͐͆͝ͅ is what he eloquently says, and once all of the shades he's transporting are off the boat, he pushes away back the way they came, ever so slowly.

The couple with the baby talk for a moment then go immediately for Housing Assistance. Atrokos stares numbly and looks clearly tempted to go for Grief Counseling but decides this would be Bad so he instead makes his way to Employment Opportunities.

But they're all stopped by a tiny shade holding a little bowl. "Hello!" it says cheerfully. "We are collecting any money you might have leftover to help any souls that could not bring their own buy passage in anyway. If you have anything to spare, it would be appreciated!" And based on the look of dawning understanding on the faces of the couple, they were probably recipients of this fund, up there.

.... Oh. There's one shade who has more money than he needed, and didn't know what to do with it. Okay. Sure.

In go his five obols to the bowl. He gives the tiny shade a little tentative smile.

"Thank you!" the shade says, brightly. "Your donation will ensure five more souls can get here without any trouble." The other shades that came with him on the boat don't seem to have any extra, but this one smiles brightly at them nonetheless. "On behalf of the Lady Ebuette I would like to apologise for the current state of the Meadows, we are going through renovations so some things are still under construction or being changed as we speak, but it is all so that the Meadows gets to be all it can be! Do you want any guidance in your new home?"

"Lady Eh...bwhat? How do you even pronounce that?" he asks, because that sounds absolutely foreign to him. "Uh. How does... housing work, here, I was expecting Asphodel to be a bit more, um. Empty?"

"Oh I'm not sure I'd have called it empty, but the river overflowing did cause some problems a while ago," they say, thoughtfully. "Anyway! I can take you inside to show you how housing works? The basic idea is everyone gets a small amount of free living area, multiple people living together can add their amounts, and the size and number of public facilities increases with population."

"Oh. Uh. Okay, sure."

So he is led to the Housing Assistance area where the couple and baby are talking to another shade behind a counter who looks extremely excited to be there and who is showing them 3D illusions of possible living arrangement layouts. There are two other shades in line behind them, and then him.

Illusions of houses that could be? ... Huh. That's not something mortals could have in life. Not with any true, solid certainty, not from nothing.

What was that house that he wanted to build, when he got home...? Maybe he can get to see it after all.

Elsewhere (and also sort of there, too, though she's not paying it much attention) the Lady 'Ebuette' has... mostly sorted out her feelings. Some of them, anyway. Which is to say: she does in fact want to escape from the Underworld, at some point, but she's not in any sort of rush, and doesn't want to burn that bridge before her work is done down here. And if she does attempt escape, she'll do it in a less direct and breaky way than Zagreus managed it. That seemed like a lot of work, and like it'd actually hurt her more than it does him, in the long term. He died and just got better, she gets her body destroyed and loses ground and resources, some of which she has trouble replacing.

This means it'll probably take her a while to see Zagreus again, but, well. Things were still a little awkward between them. They sort of patched things up before he left? This enforced space might be for the best. She hopes he enjoys it up there, she's glad he's not trapped in an abusive home anymore.

But Zagreus's absence notwithstanding, there is at least one other reliable and reliably friendly (...in his own way) god that shows up in the House of Hades again, every now and then, just staring at the Styx.

And she feels like chatting! And maybe also asking him a question of utmost importance.

"Hey, Than?" she asks, appearing beside him. "Can you pronounce my name."

He looks at her and a teensy, tiny, microscopic smile tugs at the edges of his lips. "Yvette," he says.

“Well, congratulations! You have a mystical power that few others can manage to accomplish!” She huffs, then flops to float dramatically in the air, like she’s lounging. “I keep trying to coach the shades on how to say it, and it’s not going well. Probably I should figure out a Greek name of some sort, but how does one name oneself?”

"I think I have a suggestion."

“Do you? Okay, yes, help please, I really want to stop dying on the inside every time someone butchers my name.”

"Elpis."

“Elpis? That’s… hope?”

He nods. "You."

“Wh. That’s. … I mean, I’m an eldritch goddess from outside of your world entirely, I just wandered in, it doesn’t make sense for me to neatly fit into your, your. Oh gods I’m absolutely the goddess of hope aren’t I.”

"I think you are."

“You’re absolutely right, it feels right in a, a god way. I stave off death, make the afterlife a nice place to go, help people reunite with loved ones… damnation.” Huff. “And you’re very smug about figuring it out before I did, aren’t you.”

He folds his arms and smirks. "They'll know your name, too, now. The mortals. So now they'll be able to say it."

“That’s a yes, you’re absolutely smug. Hm. Yes, all right, since it’s so… accurate. Heh. Hope is an eldritch being from beyond the bounds of the world itself in Greek mythology. Kind of accurate, this whole cosmology loves its tragedies.”

Thanatos opens his mouth to say something but then his attention is immediately grabbed by something else and he literally teleports 180 degrees rather than actually turning so that he can stare at the river Styx while holding the railing between him and it with a (heh) death grip.

"... Hm?" she looks at the Styx, spots what he did, and then grimaces. "Oh, damnation, I just had to go and open my big, stupid mouth."

He spends a while in the blood-red water, just floating there, motionless. Not really like him at all.

But eventually he has had enough of this and gets to his feet to stride towards his father.

Hypnos startles awake. "Hey! You're back! How long's it been, now, a month? And you died of... nothing? Nada? Nothing at all?"

"I can't right now, Hypnos," he says tersely without even slowing down.

She wants to go immediately hug him, right this instant, but, um. He looks like he’s about to go yell at his father? So maybe she should, er. Wait a bit.

Thanatos is also not immediately running but he is floating over to spectate from a distance.

He stops before the desk and says, "You knew."

"What is it you're prattling on about, boy?"

"You knew this would happen. You knew I couldn't stay up there for very long. That even if I escaped I'd end up here again, like I'd never left."

"Stop spouting nonsense, boy. You cannot escape, I have told you this many times already, no matter how much you fight."

"—what? I did escape! I killed you! You died, same way I always do, and I escaped and—"

"Hah! You, defeat me? I do not have time to indulge your overwrought imagination, boy."

"...you cannot be serious. So all of this, all of it, was just so I wouldn't find her? And now I did you're gonna pretend it never happened?"

He slams his fist on his desk. "Silence! I will not have you continue your delusional ramblings in my halls! Unlike you, I have actual work to do, and will hear nothing more about your childish dreams. Leave my sight right this instant before I make you."

...

.......

............

"Very well, Father. I apologise for my outburst. It will not happen here again."

Then he turns around and calmly walks away towards one of the gates of the House.

Okay now it’s hug time. She zips over to him as a puddle, then rises from the floor with her arms outstretched.

“Hi,” she says, softly.

He looks incredibly angry for a moment before his brain catches up with who exactly that is and what's happening but when it does he substantially relaxes. "Hi. Sorry you had to... see that," he says as he steps into the hug.

(Thanatos, in a demonstration that the whole death knell and light show are literally just for aesthetics, silently appears nearby and leans against a wall.)

“Oh, don’t be.” Huuuuug. In an undertone: “He’s been pretending nothing happened since you left, you know. Just went right back to his paperwork, but very angrily.”

Then she unhugs so Thanatos has some space to... well, maybe not hug him, but. Have some sort of interaction with him?

Thanatos is bad at those.

Zag is somewhat less. "Hey, Than. Guess you won't be able to get rid of me all that easily, huh?" he says, scratching the back of his head.

If this were a thing gods could do Thanatos would be choking on his spit right now. "—get rid of you! Zagreus, you have no idea—"

"I'm sure it would've occurred to you that there was nothing stopping you from finding me eventually, other than yourself, and then I would've seen you again."

Why didn't he visit Zag? He's feeling kind of like an idiot now.

Well, she couldn’t manage to go visit him, so.

"I'd have gotten around to reminding him, eventually," she assures.

He turns his grin towards her, then. "Sometimes he does need a bit of that. Anyway, so, uh, I think you were righter than you thought, huh?"

“Well, of course. … what was I right about, though, I need you to narrow it down.”

"When we met. One of the first things you told me was that I was... metaphysically stuck here. Turns out I just can't be on the surface for very long. I died of being chthonic."

He could probably try harder to pretend that's fine but actually it's not fine and he doesn't want to pretend.

"—oh, Zag..."

“Oh, that’s not, I didn’t think it was in that way, I, um.” Well now she wants to sink into a puddle and disappear. “… Sorry,” she mumbles, to the ground. “I thought once you were out you’d be fine, not. Not this.”

"It's not in any way your fault. And," he adds with more force, "I'm going to keep fighting. I found her, do you understand? I found Persephone! She hadn't even known I existed! She told me I died when I was small, and not in the way where I come back! My," twitch, "father never told her that he got me back. Somehow."

"...and I don't even understand why he did. It's not like he even likes me."

"You died? That's why Persephone left?? ... Huh. Well, um, congrats on that not sticking?? But then is there any reason for her to not just come back, then?"

"I don't know. There's something she's not telling me, and Hades is a lost cause. I don't know why she'd want to, it sucks here. That was unfair. And you're making it much better." Pause. Squint. Grin. "With her around you could grow plants in Asphodel. I think that would be very nice."

"It would be, and for the record it's bullshit that I can't manage to grow anything besides mushrooms down here when I can literally conjure sunlight-!" She realizes she's going on a tangent, and she coughs. "Anyway, I don't think to live, just, um. It might be nice for her to come visit her son, you know? Instead of you having to go fight your way through the whole entire Underworld to see her."

"Well if only Father weren't hell-bent on protecting whatever stupid secret—" He runs a hand through his hair. "I should definitely ask Nyx—wait. Her mother. You mentioned something about her mother, from your world?"

"—her world?"

"Oh, uh - I have memories from a mortal who lived in a world that had Greek mythology. Which has been somewhat accurate and also missing quite a lot. Uh, let's see, her mother was -"

A dark shadow covers the trio.

"Child," says Nyx, softly.

This was directed at her, and furthermore was kind of terrifying, hi Nyx, you're scary!!!!! You scare her!!!!

"Mrpp?" squeaks the eldritch goddess from beyond the veil, who is very sure Nyx could squish her like a tiny, tiny bug.

"I would not presume to tell you of that which you may or may not speak, but I would offer a word of caution. The crowded halls of Hades are, perhaps, not the place."

".... Yes ma'am I'm sorry ma'am."

Which means they are onto something. "Nyx, please, I... You know me. I'm not untrustworthy. You know this wouldn't all have happened if I could just know. Can you not tell us? Elsewhere, if not here?"

Nyx considers him, then shakes her head. "It is not a matter of trust, child, for you already have it. But I have meddled in these affairs enough, and possibly more than I should have. So I'm afraid I cannot do more. I risk unbalancing things if I overstep more than I already have." She floats over, and presses a kiss to the crown of his head. "But know that I believe in your ability to settle the matter in the best way possible."

...well that makes him feel all warm and fuzzy. "Alright. Thank you, Nyx. ...did you know? Or suspect? That I'd die, on the surface. And... do you know why I died, and why I survived, does it have anything to do with that?"

"Zag—"

"I know, I know, sorry, I shouldn't ask, I just..."

"There are things in this world not even I know, things larger than even I, and so I did not know that you could not truly leave this place. Or..." and the pain leaks into her voice, soft and understated but nonetheless present, "Or perhaps I didn't want to know, because I knew it would pain you. In that paradoxical way that becomes obvious to our kind once it's put to words."

"...oh. I understand." He pauses to consider his words for a moment. He glances at Yvette and Than, then lowers his voice a bit. "Nyx, I... Persephone is one of the people that made me, and I don't know her, but I want to, and I want to understand myself, and her. I want to get to know her. And I could never have done this, any of this, without you. This, and so many other things. She is my mother, but she is not my only mother."

"I am glad to be so beloved in your heart, for you are in mine as well." She smiles at him, just a little. "So tell me, now that you know your journey above is fated to end here... would you still go? To find her, and speak with her again, and see the world above for what it is once more, fleeting though it might be?"

"Yes," he replies immediately. "As many times as it takes. More. I would go for the sun. I would go for the birds. I would go for the wind. For her? Yes, a thousand times." Then he smiles. "And, who knows, maybe with all of this fighting I'm gonna eventually become god of escaping the Underworld. That'd be fun."

"Then you know all you truly need to in order to see the path ahead, do you not? Use well what brief time you have, whilst you can. As mortals do."

He smiles more broadly. "As mortals do. Thank you, Nyx."

"You're welcome, my child."

And then, quickly as she appeared, away she vanishes.

"I am so incredibly glad your mom is so nice."

Both of them turn to look at her. "You... are?"

"Yep. Excellent goddess mom, with truly a frightening amount of power. Probably at least some percentage of the way to being kind of my mom, too."

Thanatos, Death Incarnate, Destroyer of Worlds, the End, the Ultimate Fate, the Inescapable, blinks at her. "I suppose."

"Okay but I actually do want to hear about what Yvette had to say so should we go somewhere more private? Than's room, maybe?" Not his own room because they are still awkward.

"Right, yes. Uh, sure, if Than doesn't mind hosting. Or mine, mine would also work, I think I have more space?"

Than shrugs and death knells them into Elpis's room.

"Guh-dong..." Zagreus mutters to himself.

"It's more straightforward if you just say you missed him, you know," snorts Elpis. "Okay, so! Persephone's mom! Demeter. I know she's really upset about her daughter being missing and unleashes winter upon the world because of it?"

"I miss him every second of every day," Zagreus sighs.

Than blushes gold but does not let this stop him. "Lady Demeter, goddess of the harvest and agriculture, the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. Lady Persephone is her child? The story of how she arrived in the Underworld was never clear, but she did seem to love Lord Hades."

"Winter is the cold season, right? The surface was cold everywhere... except around my mother's farm."

"It... has in fact been winter for a long time, now that you mention it."

"It has," she agrees. "As I understand it, in the mythos I know, it's winter until Persephone is returned to Demeter? And then Persephone has to split her years between her husband and her mother, which causes the seasons. That's... about where my knowledge ends, I think."

"Nyx acted like this was important somehow, Grandmother's identity. And you said that in your world Mother had been kidnapped here, but she is clearly not here. Lady Demeter is so upset when her daughter leaves that she causes winter, in your world's stories, and Mother isn't in Olympus, so Grandmother probably does think her daughter is missing.

"Does that get us... anything?"

“… Your father is mad at Zeus for some reason, right?”

"...yeah...?"

“Well, he doesn’t seem to be the greatest at consent? And Persephone probably was actually kidnapped? So uh. Maybe he tried to set his brother up with a date in, well, I suppose not literally the worst way possible, but still not a great way. I don’t know, I’m thinking of what possible results could be so great and terrifying that Nyx wants to avoid them, and. Demeter going to war with Zeus qualifies. Going to war with Hades would also be bad, but realistically speaking, probably less bad because… their circles of divinity don’t really intersect. It’d be uncomfortable, inconvenient, but not world shaking. Whereas Demeter and Zeus are both up there together, and need to get along with one another to not cause massive ecological strife.”

"But Lady Persephone did seem to like it here. And to..." Pause. "Lord Hades was less... the way he is... when she was around. And she seemed to enjoy being in his presence. She used to talk about improving the Underworld, and then she was... just gone.

"Zagreus came after that, so no one suspected she was his mother, but if he was dead for a while..."

"When I saw her on the surface it did seem like she was where she was by choice? Maybe she didn't like Father so much and left him... Wait, but she said she left because of grief over me and I don't think she was lying.

"So, Zeus kidnaps her because... because she liked Hades? And Hades was mad about the unwanted gift? But it he was less the way he is now around her then he couldn't have been mad about her being around..."

“Maybe also mad about presenting a woman as a gift at all? His hiring policies are extremely fair. Plus, you know. ‘Congratulations, I’m setting you up with a date, no her mother doesn’t know and will blame you for it if it gets out, also you can’t say no because she’s here already, you’re welcome?’”

Zagreus snorts. "Yeah, that'd piss Hades right off alright."

"Mother will not confirm any of this."

"Persephone might."

“Right. So, chop chop, prince, you’ve the impossible to do a second time!”

"Right-on! But I'll need a ride out of here."

"...Zag, you are the most impatient god I have ever met."

She snorts. "I was teasing, there's no need to go literally right now. If nothing else, I think I want to tag along with you this time, if I can get away with it."

"The Olympians are all over me and Than also helps me, I don't see how you being there would make anything worse. Hades is already trying to kill me anyway."

“Oh, I know, but I kind of want to actually have Hades know and tolerate it through the awesome power of bureaucracy. Maybe make the excuse of cataloging the damage as it happens.”

"...you're going to submit a form?" That's hot. "That's really cool."

(Aaaah.)

“I have already out paperworked your father before! It’s fun, I want to do it some more. Hmmm. Maybe pointing out flaws in the security systems I see, if he’s not convinced? Though the danger in that is making it worse next time, so…”

"He's already been making it worse so this wouldn't be too different. Just probably more effective."

“Yeah. I just uh, kind of don’t want to help him trap you down here just out of my own vanity. But I also… don’t think you can be trapped down here.”

"I cannot."

"Right. So. With your permission, I'd like to propose to Lord Hades himself that he let me come along with you to catalogue your destruction, and possibly also pinpoint weaknesses that you have exploited. Because ultimately no matter what he does to try to stop you, it's futile, and you're getting out anyway."

"I would enjoy watching his reaction tremendously but I feel like doing that would be counterproductive so I'll need a blow-by-blow later."

"Can do! I can even do accurate audio and visuals."

"Cool! ...I still need a ride out, though."

"Do you? This seems like a good moment to practise your phasing."

"What, are you gonna just leave me alone here until I figure it out?"

"..... This seems like it's flirting. Oh, darn, you know what, I have some forms I definitely need to go fill out right this instant. With this particular part of me. I guess I better leave my rooms completely unattended for the foreseeable future while I go do that. Don't make too much of a mess of the place, but have fun!"

And poof goes the goddess of hope, with a little giggle. She can get out of here just fine.

Zag lifts an eyebrow.

"—no."

"No?"

"No."

"No what?"

"I'm not—we're not—doing anything here. Or at all."

"...wait, at all?"

"Zag—gods, sometimes you can be so clueless. You confess your love to me, then you fight through the hordes of the dead all the way to the hall of heroes, then I confess my love to you and we kiss and then you're gone on the surface for weeks—"

"...you could have visited!"

"That's not the—Zagreus, I'm death. If I visit you on the surface it's just for a little bit, it's a break—"

"That's always the case anyway!"

"Sometimes I truly do not know if I'm being too hard to understand or if you're just being obtuse. I don't want to have to teleport away and figure everything out on my own, I'm tired of doing that, I've been doing that for weeks. I need you to—to—I need you."

"...right. Take us to my room?"

Guh-dong.

Zagreus takes a cross-legged seat on his bed.

"Okay. Tell me what you're feeling."

He scoffs and drops to his feet, folding his arms and looking away. "If only it were that easy."

"Can I try to guess?"

He nods.

"...well, come here. On the bed. And get rid of the sharp bits, they might be fun some other time but now is not the time for sharp."

Thanatos turns to look at him again and hesitates for a second but then complies, phasing his gauntlet and shinguards and scythe and—everything, really, he's only left with his chiton and a belt.

Zag's only sharp bits are the shinguards and he gets rid of those, too, making the way his skin fades into fire about halfway down his calf visible. Once Thanatos is sitting there, himself, looking kind of awkward, Zagreus pulls him around so they're facing each other then grabs both of Thanatos's hands in his.

"It... freaked you out. We were just done working through the way me wanting to leave made you feel insecure, and then I... succeeded. You had no time to think about what that meant, what that meant for you and for us, we didn't have any time to see where we'd settle and things changed out from under you. You were... nervous... upset... scared? You were scared. That... not that you couldn't reach me, you knew you could reach me, but that... the possibility was... only theoretical? No, not that, but something like that. You're death, and—oh, come on—"

"Zagreus, if it were any more obvious it would be biting you in the face. I was right about Yvette being Elpis and I am right about you being life."

"—Yvette is—ohhhh she totally is, how did I miss that—"

"Same way you continue to miss the obvious about yourself."

"...fine. So you're worried that there's going to be some metaphysical severance here, something we're not expecting, if I am life and am on the surface then that's—that's the kind of separation that matters, to gods. And the way it'd manifest for us isn't clear but it wasn't going to be good.

"So you were pretty relieved when I showed back up here. Meant I still had a connection to this place. To you. And you're... feeling sad. Guilty? Guilty. You're feeling guilty about how relieved you feel. Oh, Than..."

Thanatos closes his eyes and breathes deeply, slowly, steadily.

But he doesn't say anything.

"Than, I... I left. I left the Underworld. Against my father's wishes. Against the order of the universe itself. If the universe decides, if your sisters decide, that they're going to get in the way of us, then so much for them. The only people who get to decide what happens to us is us, alright? I'll break whatever laws of nature I need to to make that true."

"That's quite the change from—no. Sorry. I should move on. You already apologised."

"Than, it's fine to feel what you're feeling, even if you think it's dumb or irrational. I did hurt you deeply, and even if I apologised you still get to feel betrayed and you still get to be mad at me."

"I'm not mad."

"Well, pick another word, then. The point is, you shouldn't be trying to fight what you're feeling. Accept it. Live with it. It's yours. Maybe you don't like it, of course you don't like it, but it's still a part of you and you'll understand yourself better if you stop trying to resist it. But if you want rational reasons for it, once someone is hurt they get a flinch response, everything that reminds them of the way they were hurt almost hurts the same way again. That's how we all are, mortals or gods. And it's not until the hurt doesn't happen for a long time that we get used to it, that we really accept that it's not gonna happen, inside.

"And... maybe I'm not the right person for it, but if I am, you can just ask me. You can ask me to reassure you, to tell you I'm not leaving you, as many times as you want, as many times as it takes. I'll tell you again and again, every time you feel insecure or afraid or anxious. It's not a cost, to give you comfort and happiness, it's part of the whole deal. Whatever we are, whatever we'll get to be, a very important part of it is that we're both there for each other. Good or bad, thick or thin, high or low." He lifts Thanatos's hands up to his face, cold knuckles against his warm lips, and kisses them. "I love you, I always have, and I always will."

He blushes. "How could you know that?"

"Well, you knew I was the god of life, I know this. I just do. But you don't need to trust me. Just watch me be there for you, day after day, forever."

"...okay."

Zag kisses his hands again and then says, "Now tell me the other thing."

"How can you even—it's pointless to ask. Uh..." His blush deepens. "I'm in love with Elpis."

"—of course you are. Death, in love with life and hope. That's such a cliché. Have you told her?"

"Of course not!"

"Are you gonna?"

"...maybe. Someday."

"What made you realise?"

He lifts one hand up to the side of his face and pulls his glasses off, making them visible again. "She made me these. They... help with sunlight."

"...I've never seen anything like this before. —wait, put them back on."

He does.

"—can you not make them visible while they're on your face?"

He can.

"...man you look hot with these. Eighty percent sure she made them to look good on you on purpose."

"...I 'look hot' in them?"

"Yeah. No idea what it is, it's like this weird alternate universe jewellery and it works. I mean, you already look incredibly hot all the time anyway, whenever I see you I want to—"

"Shut up." Blushing again.

"Why don't you make me?"

And this is the invention of the "make me" trope.

Elsewhere, someone is filling out and submitting forms! First one: she is really sick of people not being able to pronounce her name, so in fact she will submit a form about accepting/abiding by the name ‘Elpis’ instead. This doesn’t require any kind of approval or anything, the general consensus of the Underworld is that she can be named whatever she wants, but she does like having the tidy paper trail. It’s a neat way to disseminate the information quickly.

Then, for the harder one! This is a work proposal for recording of security footage of Prince Zagreus’s escape attempts. Located from his shoulder. As in, she just goes with him and keeps track of the damage he does. Without direct interference in either direction, though with a clause that she will probably still talk because she is herself.

After submitting this one, she waits to be inevitably called to Hades’s office. It shouldn’t be long.

It's not.

"What are you trying to accomplish with this?" he asks without preamble.

“I think it will be much more helpful to the overall efficiency of the improvement of the Underworld’s security if you can directly see what exactly Zagreus is doing, and get immediate information about which parts exactly he’s ransacking, instead of having to come back later and pick up all of the pieces and figure it out from what’s left behind,” she says, brightly.

"And why would you want to help with that? Do not think I have missed the fact of your dalliances with him."

“A couple reasons! One being that there are in fact things in Tartarus I don’t want getting out, I’ve read the archives and no thank you. But I also want to run rampant on the surface doing various hope related things, and think that my best shot is probably to just be carried up there by the expert. And also I think Zagreus would like the company.”

He narrows his eyes. "...'hope related things'."

“Relating to mortals. Stop plagues, end wars, save lives, maybe introduce antibiotics, generally lessen Than’s workload and poach from him more indirectly instead of just directly.”

"That seems like it is entirely outside my jurisdiction." The request form floats up in front of his face again and he rereads it then sighs and signs it. "Very well. But if you aid Zagreus in any way you will also be hunted."

“I would expect nothing less!” says Elpis, brightly. “Thank you for your time and attention.”

"NEXT!"

And away she goes!

She’s still giving Than and Zag alone time, but she is aware of the window Zagreus usually uses to escape. She can go send part of herself to hang out there with Skelly, while the rest of her continues to do her job.

"Hey there!" says Skelly. "Heard ya been makin' a name for yourself 'round these parts!"

“Hey! I have, rather literally in one case. Thanatos figured out that I am in fact a goddess of something.”

"Good on him, that boy's always had a good head on his shoulders. Say, don't suppose you've changed your mind on the subject of beatin' up yours truly?"

… She snorts.

“Yes, all right. So I can be ready if I ever want to blast Theseus again.”

"That's the spirit! Let's get this party started!"

It’s surprisingly fun, to attempt to blast Skelly to smithereens with various flavors of god power. She’s much more of a squishy spellcaster than Zagreus’s up close and personal brand of destruction, but she is very creative with fire, radiation, gravity and space warping, and a few more esoteric powers that even she doesn’t fully understand. But it’s pretty good at breaking things! Whee!

But she is indeed correct that Zagreus will soon be there.

"Well hello, there. Having fun?"

“Yep! And I am officially permitted by your father to accompany you on your adventures out of here, provided I do no direct helping whatsoever. So, it’ll just be my charming company.”

"Funny how he never set any such restrictions on Thanatos. Old man knows he needs him."

    Skelly reforms into his upright position and lifts a skeletal hand in a wave. "Hey, boyo! She's packin' a mean punch, here, shame she can't help ya."

"Can't win them all, can we, Skelly?"

"He'd be fine without me. But now he's got a conversation partner!"

She floats over, pats Skelly on his head, then turns to starscape and goes to hang out in Zagreus's shoulder skulls. Hello, shoulder skulls, it's been a while!

And then over the balcony railing and downnnnnnnnnnnnnnn to Tartarus.

...where a small snow mound awaits. "That's new," he murmurs as he approaches it. "In the name of Hades, I accept this message!"

"I understand, young Zagreus, that you would seek to leave that bitter darkness for this bitter cold? Quite honestly I fail to see why. But I'll aid your plight, why not? For I can offer plenty of assistance, and you soon shall grow fond of it, I think."

"...ah. Grandmother."

“Best not to say that too loudly, Zag. … but yes. It’s kind of sweet that she’s helping you.”

"Perhaps she heard of my killing Hades? Except, no, if the Olympians knew of my success they certainly wouldn't still be helping. Let's see, what is she... oh, these look interesting." He is always particularly fond of boons that improve his magic, since he trusts himself when it comes to physical combat, so he will try this one here.

"Very well. Good luck in your travels. I will be looking forward to your success, should it ever happen."

And her presence's gone.

"Thank you, Grandmother, you somehow made that sound extremely creepy, didn't you." He rolls his shoulders then turns his head slightly to the left. "Ready, then?"