A thunderstorm rolled into Long Island the night that Thanatos met Thalia Grace.
Cracks of lightning sounded out in the sky, demigods were screaming in the distance, but it was quiet in the hazy way of the soul world as the life drained out of the young girl, fallen on her back on the hill. She wasn’t quite dead yet, still only dying, but she was far gone enough to see him, far gone enough for her spirit to talk.
“I think your father will be here soon,” he said quietly, because he wasn’t sure what else he could, faced with haunting blue eyes. He had a feeling she would’ve laughed at that, if she could’ve, if everything didn’t still hurt too fucking badly for it.
“He won’t. He doesn’t - he’s never cared. Are my friends okay?”
He tilted his head slightly, impassive, turning the question over in his mind. She stopped breathing, during that pause. Neither of them really noticed. “They will survive.”
“Good. They’re good.” A beat, then defensive: “I’m not scared.”
He raised a brow, still cold, kind enough not to call her bluff. “I never thought you were.”
“I want - I want to see my little brother again. It’s been so long.”
Ozone filled the air. He could feel Zeus approaching, the sharp hum of power.
“Jason Grace is not dead.”
She stared at him, wordless. And then she grinned as Zeus turned her into that pine tree, bloody and hopeful and shaky and so very bright.
It wasn’t a resurrection, but Thanatos couldn’t take her. And maybe he should’ve, but he couldn’t bring himself to hate Zeus for it, for breaking every rule for his family and no one else. Not for a child.
Thalia didn’t remember their conversation, of course. They never do.
Take Leo Valdez, for example.
That was certainly a death Thanatos wouldn’t soon forget. It wasn’t every day that he found a soul mid air, on top of a mechanical dragon, after blowing themself and a primordial goddess up.
Leo gave him a crooked, terrified smile when he saw him, trying to hide the way his hands shook. “You, uh, don’t need to waste your time. ‘M gonna be - I’ll be fine. I have a cure.”
“Did Asclepius tell you that it comes with a price?”
Something in Leo’s gaze was faraway and empty already, sharp. “...gods always make it hurt, don’t they?”
“Yes. We do.”
Leo forced a twisted chuckle, watching as the panel holding the cure slid open, as the vial appeared. “Guess I’ll probably be seeing you soon, Mr. Reaper.”
“You don’t want to.”
Leo nodded, watched the needle sink into his arm, detached. “It’s scarier than I thought it’d be," he said, and the serum burned in his veins.
Thanatos watched as the boy’s soul was dragged back into his body, pushed the dragon on course to Ogygia, and left.
