STARTER CALL / PLOTTING CALL : HADES, LORD OF THE UNDERWORLD
press the ♡ for a starter ! and reply a ☀ to this post if you would like me to pop into ims to plot out something before i write the starter! mutuals & nonmutuals welcome !!
but he’s a hero, you know. the strong kind, the hold-up-the-sky kind, the too-good-for-this-world kind. he’s a hero, and he doesn’t deserve this.
because he is kind, too-good-for-this-world kind, and i think that’s what makes him a hero. his heart is too big, and he carries it in his hands and i think it’s as heavy as the sky anyway and even if atlas was never a hero, he is.
and he’s a hero, and he doesn’t deserve this, but we all know how this story ends and even if you rip out the last page it doesn’t stop the story from ending.
he’s a hero, he is, and one day it’s going to kill him. because his heart is too big, and he carries it in his hands, and no one can hold up the sky forever.
— heroes are only heroes until it takes its toll // p.s.
What’s it like? Being the brother of the ruler of the universe?
Hades snorts, rolls his eyes. “Exhausting,” he answers simply. These mortals and their ridiculous questions. Zeus— ruler of the universe? More like ruler of ’making Hades clean up his messes’. “He’s my little brother, and he’s the biggest myth-o-maniac in the world. Have you seen the god lately? He’s not exactly winning any contests for ‘best body on Olympus is he?” If he didn’t love his mother so much, he’d curse her name for making him swear on the River Styx to look after the Zeus. “And let’s get one thing straight—— he’s only KING of the gods because he’s a cheat. I chose the Underworld as my domain because I couldn’t stand all that godly drama.
So you actually like being the god of the dead?
A look grows on his features, one that is quite obviously meant to hide his annoyance but does little to really do so. “Yes.” Hades huffs, his mouth growing stiff before he shrugs. “In the beginning I admit that I had grand aspirations to take my father’s place. I was the ELDEST SON. I felt that it was owed to me, but as much as I love my siblings,” shaking his head, his expression now turns rueful. “And I do. An annoying amount. As much as I love them, our time spent together in Cronus’s stomach was enough to last a lifetime.“
“The underworld is much more my speed. It’s quiet. It’s beautiful once you get to know it. I have my dog, ” at this Cerberus stretches and trots over to his master, hopping into Hades’s lap as if he is a lapdog rather than a three-headed doberman pinscher. Hades, for his part, looks nothing but used to the weight, grinning as he scratches each head behind their ears. “Who’s a good boy, boy, boy?” Looking pack up the interviewer, he explains with a short laugh. “He gets jealous if you only talk to one head. Anyway, I have my dog, the furies, a whole slew of other, much more quiet, godly neighbors. Now I even have a wife!”
“It’s a good life, no matter how often my brother likes to imply I’d rather have his.”
And your wife? The whole kidnapping thing?
“OH MY GODS,” the god sighs, dragging a tired hand over his face. “You heard about that, too? I did NOT kidnap Persephone. If anything she kidnapped me! ” Hades raises both hands, Cerberus on his lap looking almost miffed just at the mention of the goddess’s name. “Look, it’s a long story. Phoney wanted some space from her mother (not that I can blame her) and hitched a ride on my chariot down to the Underworld. We fell in love. Demeter threw a fit, and now Phoney spends most of the year above ground and three months with me. It isn’t so bad. It’s not like I can’t visit, and I do. A lot. We’re happy. That’s that. ”
The interviewer sits himself across from her, with view of both Susan and the London street behind her. It’s a fluff piece, just a sort of get to know your neighbor bit for the university paper. Still, the idea of being interviewed is always appealing, made her feel just oh so cosmopolitan. “Tell us a little about yourself,” the reporter asks first.
Susan settles into her chair, crosses her legs at the knees gracefully as she leans into her elbow resting on the table. She smiles genteelly as she ponders the question. “I’m Susan Pevensie. I’m from Finchley. I have three siblings, an elder brother and a younger brother and sister.” She pauses, chuckles a bit at herself. “That all sounds terribly boring, doesn’t it? Anyway, I model at Harrods, you know, the department store? It’s not hard work, or fulfilling, really, but it pays well enough and gives me plenty of time to do what I like. I used to read often, but now I live much more in the moment.
My friends and I, we get together every Friday night to primp before heading out on the town. It’s a riot! My family doesn’t really approve—— at least my siblings don’t. Mum and Dad are just happy to see me happy. I’m much closer to them than to my brothers and sister now.”
“Were you ever close to your siblings?” he asks next.
“Oh, yes! Though, it seems like AGES ago now,” the genteel smile slips, only for a moment and just the barest vulnerability peeks through before she averts her gaze, looking out the window. “ I don’t think there was anyone as close as we were. We played this——— this game. That we were kings and queens of a magical land with talking animals and mystical creatures straight out of myth.
Our people called me The Gentle Queen because I couldn’t stand to see anyone hurt. I still can’t. We were so happy, trying to rule as well as we could. Our subjects were our closest friends, and I tried to be a mother for the others. I almost forgot what my own was like. It was during the Blitz, you know.” Shaking her head slightly, as if to wake from a dream, she turns back to the interviewer with a wry chuckle.
“Funny how real it seemed. I suppose all childhood fantasies are. It’s a shame that we aren’t as close anymore, but they’re so——— so stuck in their old ways. I want to live NOW, and they want to live in the past. I think they resent me for it, but I just can’t do that to myself anymore.”
And lastly the boy looks up at her, and somehow the question seems, well, so serious. “So where are you now?”
“London,” she quips readily, looks to her nails for a moment before pausing to sweep her hair behind her shoulder. There’s a moment where she can’t help but think of lush emerald forests and iridescent fins against sparkling seas. Her radiant southern sun. Her subjects. “I’m happy. I wouldn’t change things. I have my parents. I get to be a daughter again, a girl who goes dancing. I used to be so resentful. Stuck in the past, but I don’t want to be like that anymore. I want to be Susan. Just Susan. ”
in calormen, narnia has always seemed a WASTELAND------ a place of never-ending winter and the direct opposite of their idyllic heat. but when the winter did end, when the thaw occurred and word reached the tashbaan of a civil war, of new rulers, rulers who looked like them rather than the giantess jadis, it only became more mysterious. now that fatima is here, surrounded on all sides by this strange country, practically everything astonishes her, from talking beasts to magical creatures to nearly every custom being similar but just different enough to throw her off.
now, finding herself alone with one of their queens, fatima has to ask. “ your majesty, ” dipping low into a calormene curtsy, she addresses the regent, words coming out stiff with nerves. “ your cordial, was it truly a gift from a djinn ? ”
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