He's only been down here a couple of times but his impression so far is that this place and its patron are Very Weird and he should expect Some Shit.

This attitude likely leaves him underprepared for what will follow.

At first there's nothing out of the ordinary (except for how the whole place is pretty extraordinary in general): a floating isle of stability in the midst of the chaos, grounding Greek columns holding up nothing and with no walls, and the not-quite-overwhelming presence that is Chaos themself. But one thing does seem off.

Namely, the exits aren't there this time.

And after a couple of seconds, Chaos's presence itself seems to withdraw further than it has the previous times he's been here, and from about the same direction in the endless void above he came from...

...comes a man who could well be his brother.

Or something even weirder, actually.

He is wearing the same chiton, the Stygian Blade or a copy of it is hanging from his hip, his skin is similarly pale and his hair is similarly black and similarly adorned with burning laurels and his feet are similarly on fire and, when he looks up, his eyes are similarly a mismatched shiny emerald-green and deep black-irised red.

Yeah, definitely weirder.

He jumps to his feet fairly quickly and says, "In the name of Hades, what."

"...are you... me?" He shifts his weight like he's about to step forward, and his hand moves toward his own copy of the Stygian blade, and then he desists from this course of action and instead asks, "Zagreus, son of Hades? Bleeds red?"

"Well we are in Chaos," he says, a mix of exasperation and fondness in his voice. "Yes to the last two questions, I am not sure what either 'yes' or 'no' would mean to the first one."

"I'm not sure either," the other Zagreus admits. "This is, uh, more Chaos than I've found here so far."

"...it's, yeah, I think this is more Chaos than I'm used to. Nice to, uh, meet you? Me? I am so confused." He looks around at the air and starts very slowly pacing around the peaceable area, in a relaxed kind of stance that suggests he doesn't seem to consider his doppelganger a threat at all. "Uh, Master Chaos? I don't suppose there's a neat explanation forthcoming?"

(The feeling of dry amusement in the air is probably not just their imaginations. No other response seems to be forthcoming, though.)

"I'm going to take that as an 'I thought it would be funny'," he says, watching the other Zagreus pace around. "Though that's more of a why, less of a how."

"Yeah," he says, stopping the pacing and turning around to look at—himself?—again. "...not the same, though. We look a bit different? In some ways this is more confusing than if we did look identical."

"...you're..." He's frowning slightly in thought. "...I want to say—happier? Than me? More... more."

"I didn't want to comment on that bit, but... yeah. You remind me a bit of how—well—I guess we don't know much about each other other than we share a name and probably some biographical details. You remind me a bit of how I was around the time I started trying to escape the Underworld."

"...well, I recently started trying to escape the Underworld, so, that holds together. Uh... how's your relationship with your father?"

He laughs, at that, half in surprise. "My guess is it is not very unlike yours. Lord Hades is good at many things and one of them is being terrible as a father. As a boss, too, at least from my admittedly limited experience."

"Oh yes," he agrees emphatically. "I hate it. Telling someone to do something you know they're bad at and then berating them when they fail at it is just insulting them for your own gratification with more steps."

He laughs some more. "I could not have put it better myself. If he weren't so obviously angry and miserable all the time I'd assume he gets off on it. Maybe he does anyway."

Snort. "Oh, I did not want to think about that. He would get off on being angry and miserable, though, wouldn't he."

"He would. You said your started trying to escape recently?"

"Yeah. It's a slog but I'm getting better."

"I've been at it for a few years now. I'm almost there, so close I can taste it, but the Champions of Elysium are... proving tricky. And Father has no sense of fairness so I have to defeat both of them at the same time."

"Figures. Well, good luck. I haven't even met them yet, but I'll get there."

"And to you as well. I confess to a desire to ask you for all of the details of your life to see how well they line up. And to get to know you. At this point I think I would say I am... not you. In some important sense. I am not sure that makes sense?"

"...what makes you say that?" he wonders. "Not that I disagree. I still don't know what it would mean, for you to be me. But if you want to talk through all the details of our lives, I've got time."

So Zagreus unceremoniously lets himself drop onto his ass, legs stretched out before him, and leans back to rest some of his weight on his palms.

"I'm not sure. A vague feeling, I suppose. One of the things is that you look... I want to say warier of me than I am of you." He cracks a smile. "And it doesn't really look like you've been checking me out very much."

"I can't check you out," he jokingly complains, "you're too distracting, you keep—moving and then I think about whether I move that way, and what it would mean if I did—"

He shakes his head slightly and starts pacing the area, staying within easy conversational distance of Other Zag. Staying in motion helps him focus.

"Don't you feel that too?"

He starts to shake his head, then thinks better of it and switches it to a more ambiguous head wobble. "Sort of. Not enough to distract me. You don't move the way I do, I think."

"I'm starting to think that too. I'm starting to think... not sure." He paces a bit more, to see if it comes clear. "...do you... move, fight, dance, run, to get your head straight? Because sitting still makes everything stuck?"

"...not dance, so much. Or run, except while fighting. So yes to the overall category, no to some of the specific instances?"

"Do you... see things with your body first, like I look at you and I feel what it would be like to move like that, like when we met I wanted to know what colour you bled and I felt how to move to find out before I remembered about asking?"

At that the headshake is firmer. "No. I... think I see what you are pointing to and see how it could work but it doesn't, really, work like that for me."

"Yeah. I think that's what I'm seeing, on you, you don't... move like moving is your first thing."

He nods. "Looking is my first thing, I think. Not just with my eyes but yours, if that makes sense."

"...huh," he says, his stride lengthening slightly as he thinks it over. "Yeah. I think I see it."

"...also I have no idea why your legs are red but mine aren't and have never been so that is a bit of a giveaway," he says wryly.

"What?" He looks down. "I'm wearing leggings. Do you not... have leggings, where you come from? I thought you just weren't wearing yours, I sometimes don't."

"I... don't think I know that word. That is an item of clothing? But it's so... close to your skin."

"Ye...es? It's supposed to be fashionable to wear things that are a little unreal. I mostly don't care about that, I just like the colour. Goes nicely with this outfit, that trim band looks so stupid when it's right next to my plain skin." He pauses briefly as he processes the fact that he just told Other Zag he looks stupid. "Sorry."

He laughs. "I suppose that settles it, then, our differing fashion opinions have definitely sealed the matter of whether we are in some deep cosmic sense the same person. But I am very intrigued, how does it work, how do you put that on, I have never seen anything like that." Zag hyups forward, swinging his legs around so that he's kneeling rather than sitting on his rear and leaning in Other Zag's direction to peer directly at the... leggings, that was the word.

He thinks for a second, shrugs, and then turns his steps toward Other Zag and stops in front of him to show him how to take off leggings. "It's like this, see, they sort of stretch? Do you not have any clothes that work like this?"

(There are also things under his leggings but he is legitimately focused on the questions of interdimensional fashion here.)

Zag feels like he has implicit permission to let his eyes wander a little bit and so he does, in fact, let them wander a bit.

He really appreciates the sight.

But also he is actually very curious about these so-called leggings and most of his attention is going to them and not to the beautiful display of Greek divinity before his eyes. "We don't. Maybe the mortals could have something like that and I might not have heard of it? But no, I do not think I have ever seen such material."

"I don't think the mortals could have something like this, actually, it's like wearing floating ribbons or whatever, part of the point is that only a touch of the divine could make a thing like that work. D'you want to try them on?"

"...yeah, actually, if you don't mind?"

He hops to his feet and starts unclasping the kneeguards that would get in the way of him trying them on.

"You put them on like this," he says, demonstrating the bunching-up and then the pulling-up afterward, and then takes them off again to hand them over. "They're a little flimsier than good linen, they'll tear if you yank too hard, but don't worry too much about it, I've plenty more at home and it'd hardly be the first time something's torn up my clothes while I was out."

He tries it and after a couple of false starts manages it, mostly. He smooths down his chiton over it, checks himself out, takes a few tentative steps to test it and then, finally, grimaces.

"Yeah okay I was holding off on judgement until I tried it but I definitely don't see the appeal. It's all... tight. I mean, obviously it's tight, but..." How to phrase it. Oh, directly is fine, probably: "I don't love the way it constrains my cock."

"...huh," he says, blinking. "I hadn't really thought of it like that. I guess it would be weird if I wasn't used to it."

"...though now that I think of it that would have probably prevented some, ah... were I at all capable of feeling embarrassment they would have been embarrassing moments, related to it." Now to figure out how to take these off.

"...d'you need any help with that—and should I not ask about your embarrassing moments—"

"As I said, I do not feel embarrassed about them, but Thanatos tells me he feels embarrassed on my behalf when I talk about them to him so—would you? And no, thank you, I got this," and he does in fact got this, after another false start.

"I think I'm more curious than I'm afraid to hear embarrassing things."

"Do you have an Achilles?" And here's his leggings back, Zag does not want that thank you, his wang will swing freely.

He accepts them and starts putting them back on. "Yeah?" he says, clearly confused about where this is going.

"I was... very infatuated with him, when I was young and he was teaching me to fight. And when I got not-so-young that infatuation turned, ah, more carnal. Achilles tried to hide how terribly embarrassed he was and told me such physiological reactions were perfectly natural but I think he knew they were not entirely only physiological.

"But I believe I had a bit of a strong association in my mind between fighting and... that. I died more than once to letting my guard down in some of my escape attempts because of that association and its effects in me.

"Perhaps put more plainly, my dick has at times distracted me enough for a shade to get a lucky hit in."

"...oh. Yeah, that's happened to me too, when I left the leggings off. The part about my dick distracting me to death. Not the getting all carnal about Achilles—really? He's objectively lovely, I don't deny it, but—really?"

"I don't understand your confusion well enough to be able to help with it," he says, flopping back down onto a seat on the ground.

"I can't... want someone who I see as a teacher or a threat. I don't think. And you can?"

He puts his own knee guards back on.

"...huh. Yes, and from what I have been told mortals often do have such relationships between mentor and mentee, which Father has of course used as ammunition to berate me with, being like a mortal.

"I don't think it would have been remotely a good idea, mind you. He was just... the first person to show me affection, I suppose, and I was young and foolish.

"Well, there was Thanatos, but if yours is like mine you'll know what I mean when I say he doesn't count."

...blink blink. "Your Thanatos... shows affection?"

"In a fashion. He is not so skilled at... even knowing what his feelings are, let alone expressing them, so the sort of thing he will do is help with some task and then vanish, or bring something up he thinks I would find neat he saw somewhere and then get embarrassed and vanish again if I point that out."

If Other Zag is paying attention he'll notice this affection is very very much mutual, here.

"Oh."

He takes a few seconds to process this, and starts pacing again along the way.

"So... oh, it's going to be much harder to tell whether they're the same person, or whether they just—rhyme—like you and I do—" Pace pace pace. "Did you ever—I asked him his favourite colour once, and he said he'd have to think about it, and then ten years later by which point I've forgotten about the whole thing he pops up and says 'light grey' and fucks off again, and it takes me all day to figure out what he was talking about—?"

Zagreus cracks up. "Yes."

He laughs. "Maybe they are the same, I don't know. Or maybe that's just part of the rhyme. Tell me a story about yours, maybe we can find something different."

"Hmm... something from before the escape attempts, probably. Ah, this one time when Hades was still attempting to make me, what did he call it, 'develop a work ethic' by working at the records, Thanatos showed up one day, chatted to me for a little bit about something innocuous, vanished, and mysteriously all my work was done for that day. ...night—period of time."

"Oh!" He thinks about it. "Oh, that did happen. I didn't notice until later and then I thought I might be going mad but Thanatos is a much better explanation. Hmm, let's see... oh, did yours ever spend a weird amount of time just watching you from the shadows at all hours? I never did get a straight answer from him on what that was about. It was after that fiasco with Meg—did you have a fiasco with Meg—I started seeing him out of the corner of my eye all the time, and then he'd disappear when I looked straight at him. He's mostly left it off these days, or maybe he's just gotten better at hiding, but for a good long while it was like having an extra shadow."

"...that didn't happen, huh. I did have a Meg fiasco, yes—nice to know Lord Hades is still that much of a piece of garbage across other, uh, whatever they are, worlds? Anyway, he used to do something a bit like that to me when we were younger but it wasn't all the time, it was just some of the time for a bit."

"It was definitely all of the time. I wonder what the difference is? Maybe something about him, maybe something about us? It can't just be something about what happened with Meg, because yours was following you around like that earlier and mine wasn't..."

"This could just be because you and I are different people so he relates differently to us."

"Could be. But I still want to know why, you know?"

"Yeah. It seems you don't have a close relationship with yours? That makes it harder to suss it out. Mine is my best friend, I could spend all day—night—whatever—talking about him."

"I know mine but I wouldn't say we're close. I wouldn't say I even know what it would mean to be close with him."

"Yeah, I see what you mean. ...after I'd been trying to escape for a while he showed up one time and stopped time for both of us so that he could berate me for leaving without telling him goodbye, then he helped me kill the shades trying to find after me, and then he gave me a Centaur Heart and disappeared. Sometimes I suspect he's the one who leaves the random Hearts I find. He was bewildered and offended by the idea that he could've been sent by Hades to stop me.

"And he's been... doing that since then, occasionally showing up and being cryptic about what he's thinking, helping me kill shades, and leaving.

"He's openly defied Farther in front of his staff, took a lot of time off work to just spent with me, opened up about many of his feelings...

"So, that. Kind of. Is what it looks like."

Is it obvious yet he's very in love, because he's very in love.

"I've never caught mine having a feeling I could see. But I think you might see more than I do."

"Thanatos might just be a very difficult test case, anyway, I don't know how we'd be able to tell just from talking whether they're the same. I wonder if Master Chaos would allow either of us to visit the other's world."

"...huh. I suppose it's worth asking. But wouldn't it confuse everyone enormously?"

He grins. "Yes, it would."

He laughs.

"All right. Let's confuse everyone in your world, then, if you're volunteering. Master Chaos, may we?"

There is once again the presence and the feeling of amusement, and an exit materialises.

" And Master Chaos, it would be hilarious if the first person we ran into outside were your grandson." Then Zagreus hops to his feet in a single motion then strides over to and into the portal.

Zagreus follows.

There's the familiar feeling of disorientation, a shifting of perspective, and then...

...they find themselves in a garden. The grass is soft green and the ground is adorned with occasional berry bushes and tall flowers. The place they're at seems to be a small meadow surrounded by ruined stone architecture covered by overgrowth, and the burbling of a fountain can be heard not too far away.

"...where... are we?"

"The Fields of Elysium, home to the great mortals, champions and leaders and sculptors and poets. Those who have distinguished themselves and been set apart from their peers as a reward for their achievements."

Why, yes, Zagreus does find the whole arrangement his father set up for organising mortals distasteful, why do you ask?

He nods heavily, agreeing with the undertone.

"I expect I'll be just about useless up here, but I'll help out anyway, of course."

"If you see a ball of butterflies either run like hell if you don't think you can dodge the butterflies or kill it with prejudice, the statues are also hostile, and if you kill a shade and it leaves fiery ghostly remains kill those too or they might reform."

And with that in mind they can set off. Given that Zagreus had immediately cleared the surroundings of shades, Hades is probably still gathering more forces to send his way, so at least for the moment the walk is peaceful and uneventful. Zag's gait is the same relaxed, unhurried gait he was adopting in Chaos when he was pacing the floor.

Zagreus walks in Zagreus's wake, keeping a sharp eye out for danger, whether of the forms his rhyme-self described or other ones. It's definitely beautiful here.

It doesn't take long.

The short-lived portals they're used to start popping up around them when they get to a sufficiently large clearing and from them emerge shades unlike any Other Zagreus has seen. They are fully humanoid, their bodies made of glowing blue ectoplasm and their weapons—many weapons, bows and swords and shields and spears—are gold and pink. In addition to those, there is a chariot in gold, red, and purple, a mischievous face carved in front of it and no one manning it. That does not seem to stop it from charging in their direction as soon as it "sees" them.

This Zagreus shifts from the relaxed stance to a battle-ready stance at the speed of thought, sidestepping the chariot and with a single motion dashing towards one of the bow-shades and slicing at it.

He's trying to be cautious and pay attention and take Other Zagreus's advice, but that goes straight out the window in short order.

His fighting style is... interestingly similar to Other Zag's, and interestingly different. They had the same teacher and it shows, and many of the little habits of movement they have are similar, but the difference between 'moving first' and 'looking first' is becoming very apparent. This Zagreus does not do broad strategic analysis. He flings himself into the path of danger without waiting for his conscious thoughts to catch up, and they don't, and it doesn't matter because he doesn't need them, his body can do all the work.

That aside, he is definitely not as good at this as Other Zag. Less experienced, less polished. He's managing to hang onto his life so far, but it's a close thing.

This Zag fights a little bit like he's puppetting his body from afar, like he is a chess piece and the battlefield is a chess board. Every move is trying to bring him to a more advantageous board state, or at least not a less advantageous one, and just like in chess you sometimes sacrifice your pieces. He isn't reckless but he does make choices about what to do that will predictably lead him to get hurt, and he's fine with that.

He has two game pieces this time, though, and although he cannot control Other Zag he can still account for him and organise things with his apparent capabilities and skill in mind. Other Zag will occasionally find This Zag actively redirecting shades his way or away from him, and things work out... better than they would otherwise have, probably.

He is very good at reading moment-to-moment intentions on Other Zag and not very good at picking up on long-term strategic plans or objectives. They do seem to work well together, though, even though Other Zag keeps having to save his ass when he gets in over his head.

And soon enough they've cleared the surroundings of the dead, only slightly worse for wear. "You know, it never occurred to me that watching another me fight would be hot but it kind of is."

He looks surprised, then thoughtful. "...you know, I bet it would be, if I wasn't too busy fighting to think about it."

"You could watch me next time if you like."

But then everything goes still, the omnipresent soft shimmer in the air is gone, and the death knell sounds.

"Thank you, Master Chaos."

Thanatos appears in a puff of rapidly dissipating smoke, floating a foot above the ground and holding his scythe in one hand, looking...

...honestly probably more relaxed than Other Zag has ever seen him. "Miss me, Zagreus?"

—then he notices the other Zag and immediately adopts a much more reserved and closed off expression that is much more typical. "...two Zags."

"Two Zags!" the other Zag agrees cheerfully. "It's Chaos's fault somehow. We're not sure what's going on, but we're getting along all right so far."

Thanatos looks between the two of them and... experiences some emotion, based on the minor twitches of the muscles on his face.

Zag is not used to thinking of Thanatos as readable, but he makes an effort. ...no, he's really not sure.

"I'm the other one," he offers. "You probably already know that, but just so it's clear."

"What does that mean."

"When I arrived in Chaos he was there. Apparently we have, like, very similar histories and such, but different personalities, and it's not clear the other people he knows are like the other people here—as in, I don't know if his Thanatos is like you or if he's just similar to you in the same way I'm similar to the other Zag."

"Oh."

"My grandparent likes their games, I suppose."

"He's kind of mad at Chaos for making things complicated," Zag explains in a stage whisper to Other Zag. "And he's having some emotions about the existence of two Zags and what he'll do about that."

"One Zag is enough. One Zag is too much, sometimes."

"That's fair enough," says Other Zag. "I don't mean to get between you two or anything."

"I'm not worried about that."

"No? What were you worried about then?"

"Doesn't matter. Shall we?"

"He means 'let's go kill some shades'," This Zag translates again.

"Sounds good to me," he says, grinning. "Be warned, I'm not nearly as good at it."

"By the way we share the kill counts," he tells Thanatos.

"—wait, no—"

But his handle on time had already begun to slip and once it resumes passing at its normal speed the shades start appearing and he can no longer protest.

Violence time? Violence time.

Thanatos's violence takes the form of "slow but certain". He sometimes dooms individual shades, and a few seconds after that they just die of no apparent cause; other times he dooms an entire area and then everything in it dies instead.

Zag steals kills, though, and in fact goes out of his way to kill one of Thanatos's targets so the kill will count in his favour instead.

It's not a very efficient murder method, overall, but he seems to be having loads of fun.

This Zag mostly leaves that sort of thing to the other Zag and just runs around doing normal murder instead, but occasionally he'll snipe a doomed shade if one crosses his path. It is fun.

The whole thing is less efficient than it could be but the addition of Thanatos does still make it more effective, and they're soon done with this wave of the dead.

"We win," Zagreus singsongs.

"You cheated." But he lands on his feet and produces two copies of the familiar heart-shaped enchanted jewel to offer the two Zags.

This Zag is not entirely sure he earned this, but he's hardly about to turn it down. "Thanks."

"I'll see you later."

Poof and he's gone.

"That's Thanatos all right. Not sure if it's the same Thanatos, but he sure rhymes."

"Damnation," he says without heat. "I'd hoped it would be more obvious if you met him. Oh, well." He brings the Centaur Heart closer to his own to absorb its vitality.

Zag does the same.

"If I had to guess I'd say he's a rhyme and not a - copy, but I don't know if that's just because we rhyme so it feels like that's normal."

"We don't know that it's not, maybe everyone just rhymes. Although our history is a bit too similar for that, hmm..."

"Yeah. Maybe we should be looking to see if we can find places where our history is different?"

"Short high level overview, thought Nyx was my mother, was taught how to fight by Achilles at Father's instruction, befriended Thanatos, Father had Meg 'make me into a man'," accompanied by a flash of anger crossing his face, "I trampled all over her feelings and she broke up with me, Father tried to instill a sense of discipline and responsibility in me by subjecting the poor shades in archiving to being managed by me, Nyx and Hypnos helped me find out about my mother Persephone, I confronted Father about her and he pretended not to know what I was talking about, I started trying to escape. Anything stand out?"

"...mostly what stands out here is an absence—I was a violent bully until the Meg disaster and it sounds like you weren't."

Zag did not see that one coming! Uh, good on Other Zag for being so thoroughly reformed?

"I wasn't," he agrees. "But that's a difference between us again rather than anything about the others, I feel?"

"Seems likely. But knowing that now, I think my Meg disaster and yours probably went... differently."

"...yeah, probably."

But also here are some shades to interrupt them.

Violence time again!

This Zag is definitely taking a harsher beating than the other one, but so far he's still keeping up.

"So, my expectation here is that we can probably hold on until the Coliseum," says local Zag, "and then Theseus and Asterius will wipe the floor with us afterwards. We could just die here if you want but seeing Theseus in his natural habitat might be... informative... about yours."

"...oh? I've never met my Theseus. But sure, let's try for that."

"I was really excited about meeting him, I'd heard much and more about him, but... Well, you'll see."

More violence!

He's pretty content to wait to find out what Other Zag is talking about. In the meantime, he is learning so much about Elysium! Mostly that it's very lovely and full of deadly hazards!

Most of the deadly hazards are to be fair specifically put there by Lord Hades, it's probably just lovely full stop otherwise.

As predicted, they get to the gates of the Coliseum in not too many pieces, though Other Zag is noticeably much worse for wear than This Zag. After making sure no opportunity attacks are forthcoming, he pushes the gates open and steps into the arena.

Inside are, as usual, the Champions of Elysium: Asterius, the Bull of Minos, and...

A golden haired man with glistening muscles and a glittering smile. Theseus, once-King and founder of Athens.

"We meet again, fiend! And..." He looks at Other Zag. "... fiend??! What manner of foul joke is this, for a shade to have a shade of his own? Is this some narcissistic attempt to even the odds for you? Well, whatever wicked witchcraft is responsible for this offensive display will not save you! For I, Theseus, Champion of Elysium, am worth a thousandfold of you and your shadows, so summon all you like! It will not save you!"

... he blinks.

"All right, I see what you mean," he says to Other Zag, ignoring Theseus.

The bull snorts. "Get ready, little ones. Good luck."

Perhaps making this man even more annoying is the fact that Theseus, Champion of Elysium, who will not stop showboating for this crowd is... actually very good at his job, and has basic abilities of observation. Like, one of the Zags being less experienced than the other.

Other Zag is about to have a really bad time. All of those annoying shades that had shields and could only be attacked from one direction? Yeah, he has that. Except he has a spear, and he hits so much harder.

This Zag tries his best to get in Theseus's way to deflect him but isn't very hopeful.

Especially since Asterius is also good at what he does and can help the King by preventing This Zag from helping Other Zag.

Yeah no, this is way out of his league.

He hangs on long enough to get one (1) hit in, and then Theseus smashes him flat.

He does get to hear what Theseus has to say before the river Styx takes him.

"And now your tricks show their value. Which is none at all!"

The odds properly unevened once again, it's now time for the unflattened Zag to have a bad time.

Nah, fuck this. "Sorry, Asterius, I'll give you better game next time," he says, and then stabs himself with his own sword.

This Zag knows This Theseus well enough to know that, actually, that was the one thing that would most annoy Theseus. They have an audience! Where is This Zag's showmanship!!!!

".... You are right, to fall on your own sword rather than face me!!! Begone, coward, and never return!" he says, but it's very obvious that he's put out by not getting to kill him personally.

...that was funny actually.

Well, back to the House of Hades, then.

Zag is waiting for Other Zag in the pool, mostly because he'd feel weird about trying to talk to anyone who knows Other Zag without a blatantly obvious visible signal that he's a different person. More blatantly obvious and visible than red legs.

It doesn't take long for This Zag to emerge. "Hello again," he says, with a small smile. "Theseus was very put out that I killed myself."