Zagreus had fought through the layers of hell without batting an eyelash. Greeting his first taste of spring, he was completely overwhelmed. It felt...mortal of him. At first he felt his chest tighten, but then it was more like a dislodging. Years of calculations, grit, and a determinedness to win melted away from his heart, as just one fleeting feeling remained. He wondered if this was how Hope felt when it looked around and realized it had room to fly again with all the evils of the world now out of Pandora’s box.
There was something about the cold on the surface of the earth that felt alive. The cold of Tartarus was stale, eternal, unmoving. The cold of earth came with sensation. The shiver that moved up his spine as his bare feet touched the freshly fallen snow. The sounds of wild life--of any life--rustling through the evergreens. The delicious sting of his cheeks burning when the winter breeze whipped at his face consistently.
Zagreus had an eternity of lifetimes ahead of him, but here in this clearing he understood why mortal life was precious. It was as though its brevity forced every little bit of energy and passion it possessed to each and every moment it existed.
He had never made it this far in his escapes before, but greeting the winter on the surface felt like greeting a distant friend. One that he had been nervous to see again, anxious as to whether he still deserved their friendship. But as soon as his father had fallen for the final time, the scene before him was so expansive, Zagreus allowed him the sentimentality of believing it was like arms spreading wide just for him. To accept him. Thanatos’ warning to him rang in his ears.
“Whatever you’re doing, it had better be worth it.”
If greeting winter had been like greeting an old friend, then being introduced to the sensations of spring were like coming home to something. Another shiver wracked his body, undoubtedly not from the cold this time.
While breathing for the immortal was more a luxury than a necessity, Zagreus swore that the breath he took of this warm, sweet air was surely the deepest he had taken in all of his existence. Briefly he wondered if his infant body had felt half as lit up when Nyx breathed life into it. It was starting to become a cliché in his head, but truly the only way to describe how he felt was alive.
Zagreus would always remember the first time he held his breath, gazing upon Persephone at last. She was radiant. Her existence seemed to defy the reality of the rest of the world around her. Demeter, with her frigid blessings and boons, had seemed in synchronicity with the wintery scene that he had been first greeted with on arrival to the surface. But Persephone...it was like she transcended what the earth expected of her. In this realm it was apparent that nature followed Persephone’s call, not the other way around. His mismatched eyes stung, having never experienced such deep vibrant hues of green.
Zagreus had fought through the layers of hell without batting an eyelash. Greeting his first taste of spring, he was completely overwhelmed. It felt...mortal of him. At first he felt his chest tighten, but then it was more like a dislodging. Years of calculations, grit, and a determinedness to win melted away from his heart, as just one fleeting feeling remained. He wondered if this was how Hope felt when it looked around and realized it had room to fly again with all the evils of the world now out of Pandora’s box.
They locked eyes.
---
Once more cold grasped at him. This cold was not alive, but it was frustratingly more familiar. Zagreus grunted in pain, falling to a knee beside Persephone, beside his mother. He gritted his teeth and glanced up at her, eyes narrowing at her lips as it was already becoming difficult to hear what she was saying.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“Mother…” He fought back the heaviness behind his eyelids, struggling to continue to look at the goddess. Persephone’s radiant glow softened, her perfect hands coming up to his face. He hadn’t realized a tear had escaped his eye before feeling her brush it away. Zagreus wheezed, giving in to the desire to shut his eyes as he leaned into his mother’s embrace.
He would go and find answers, she asked of him.
He would return, he promised her.
With a final exhale, Zagreus’ body went still. The embers of his feet extinguished. In an instant, Persephone’s son lay dead before her once more.
---
Zagreus had become woefully familiar with the feeling of being submerged in the Styx. He imagined that this was how a shade perpetually felt. Floating and yet heavy at the same time. Aware of a consciousness, but not quite aware of concrete thoughts. Yet this time he sensed a presence. It was both with him and not with him. Sluggishly he reached out his arm, and soon his entire being was thrust out of the water and onto the cold steps of the Underworld.
Zagreus coughed, red sludge pouring out of his lungs and onto the floor. Breathing in the stale and cold air around him, he was reminded of how dead this place was. This cold was ancient, still, one that reflected millennia of absence of true life. It was nothing like the paradise he had been graced with above.
He shook out his hair, his robes. He patted down his sides to ensure his weapons and trinkets had made the trip back with him. Zagreus had a method to this madness of returning to life. He opened his eyes for the first time in this rebirth, unconsciously flicking to the banister above him.
Than.
The god of death floated along the railing, arms crossed as they often were. Thanatos’ hood was down, revealing the golden white locks that reminded Zagreus of the sun reflecting off of fresh snow. Too soon he was brought back to the memory of his brief escape, and Zagreus forced himself to look away. He wiped at his eyes, blaming the sludge of the Styx for the sudden stinging and moisture that was collecting there.
Had he always been this sensitive? Something long buried within Zagreus had finally sprouted at the surface. He had always been filled with passion, with anger, with drive. But these new feelings that kept overtaking him--the longing, the despair--for the first time Zagreus believed it really were possible for a mortal to die of a broken heart.
He was grateful to see Hypnos pretend to remain asleep, no energy left in him to tell the tales of his success turned utter failure. He wandered down the hall, the red velvet curtains and half lit chandeliers not nearly doing enough to make Zagreus feel like this was a home. Nyx cast her eyes down, seemingly knowing better than to address this return. Orpheus looked up from his post, a sad yet acknowledging smile on his face.
Did every damn god in this Hell know better than him?
Zagreus clenched his fists. Though each rebirth came with a revival of his vitality, he had never felt more tired. He acknowledged no one. He kept his wet eyes focused on a point far away from him as he slowly made his way to his bed chambers.
---
“You look like you’ve been dragged through Hell.” Zagreus was surprised by Thanatos beating him to his chambers, and irritated by the god’s poorly timed sense of humor.
“What are you doing here, Thanatos?” The god in question raised his eyebrow at the use of his full name. He released his magic, feet coming to stand on solid ground. Even without floating, Thanatos stood a full head taller than Zagreus in stature, a fact that Zagreus was even more aware of given their proximity.
The god of death kept up his usual silent routine, eyebrow still cocked, arms still crossed over his broad chest. Zagreus stubbornly looked off to the side of Thanatos, realizing that looking straight at him would require looking up at the god. He had faced enough humiliation for one day.
The silence was broken not by either of them, but from the sounds of the clumsy Dusa outside of the room. While she was likely just dusting as usual, Zagreus’ hand was already at the hilt of his sword. He jolted at the sensation of icy cold fingers wrapping over his own. Losing at their game of chicken, Zagreus finally glanced up at Thanatos, swallowing tightly when he saw the pity in the god’s eyes.
“Zag--” Zagreus slapped Thanatos’ hand away on reflex, casting his glance away once more. He expected the god of few words to silently leave. Instead, he heard Thanatos release a deep sigh.
“Zag,” he tried again. “You look like shit. Would it kill you to get some rest before you go out there again?” Well, just about everything else in these realms had killed him so Zagreus couldn’t be sure. He released the hilt of his sword, arms crossing in front of him so as to mirror his guest.
“You know I can’t, Than.” He chewed at the inside of his cheek. “Resting would feel like accepting defeat.” His eyes now lingered at his own reflection in his mirror, for a brief moment mistaking his gaunt appearance for one of a shade’s.
“Well you sure look like you’ve already been defeated.” Damn mind reader. Thanatos’ tone was flat, so why had it felt like the words pierced into Zagreus’ chest more harshly than Theseus’ lance? He scrubbed at his eyes with the backs of his hands, not recognizing that the pathetic little whimper echoing in the chamber had come from him.
“Stop.” He whispered harshly, slapping away the icy hand that had just barely grazed his shoulder. “Enough of your pity!” Zagreus stared up at Thanatos with purpose this time, ignoring the way his own eyes swirled with tears and self-loathing.
“Zag.” Did this damn god know any other words? Zagreus froze in place at the weight of that single syllable. Thanatos approached more deliberately this time, gently tugging at Zagreus’ wrists to pull his hands away from his face. “You know I’m incapable of feeling pity. I’m...death.”
This time the joke did warrant a small chuckle from Zagreus, though it was a hysterical one. A sensation overcame him not unlike how it felt to sink into the Styx. He was at once floating and heavy, aware and yet unaware. Thanatos was still staring at him.
“Okay.” Zagreus fell forward, allowing his head to be caught by the bare part of Thanatos’ chest. The other god’s skin was so cold Zagreus swore he could breathe it in and feel it in his lungs. It was absurd, to lean against something that simultaneously felt so cold and yet so alive--
Zagreus’ sorrow burst out of him in earnest. The dots connected so quickly that he thought he might die again just from the shock of how quickly his sobs came barreling out of him. Thanatos continued to say nothing, arms wrapping around Zagreus, holding him to his chest as he cried.
“I met her, Than. She was beautiful. So beautiful, so alive--”
His recountings and ramblings of meeting his mother at last poured out of Zagreus until he was out of breath. He only realized that they had moved when he felt Thanatos lower down, the god of death sitting on the edge of the bed with Zagreus now being pulled up and onto his lap.
Zagreus allowed himself to be held, allowed his god to wrap up him and offer the chilling, utterly alive comfort that only Thanatos could provide.
They might have stayed like that for hours, it could have been days. At the moments when Zagreus felt tempted to ask Thanatos about work, he would feel the faintest press of lips to the top of his head and the question would disappear. During one of these insistences, Zagreus felt bold enough to tip his head up and give those lips a different target.
Breathing for gods was a luxury. But Thanatos was generous enough to not question his prince each time he seemed to purposefully wait for Thanatos’ exhale to kiss him. Zagreus hummed, filled over and over again by his own living winter.
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