All’s Fair in Fleeing Hell
Megaera is at the end of her wits with Zagreus’s escape attempts. A tip from Thanatos evens the playing field.
The first time that Zagreus strides into the final chamber of Tartarus, Megaera eviscerates him in seconds. He can’t even recall it happening—just a flash of pink, then he’s pulling himself out of the blood pool in the palace.
The fourth time that Zagreus attempts to exit Tartarus, Meg takes her time with him. He’s read about death by a thousand cuts in the archives, but the experience is much worse than he imagined. He knows she’s trying to make an example of him—as if anyone else would be stupid enough to do what he’s attempting—but the escalation feels…rewarding. He’s getting somewhere, and it must scare her.
The tenth time that he throws open the last chamber of Tartarus, Meg is actually smiling at him. He stops dead in his tracks to take it in. She doesn’t…do that, not really. It’s beautiful. Beautiful and utterly terrifying.
“Hello again, Meg.” Zag stretches. Maybe he can pass off the heat on his face as exertion. Maybe. She curls her tongue along the sharp edge of her teeth and drags her eyes up and down his form.
Gods above, grant him mercy.
“Zagreus.” She unspools her whip. The glowing pink braid coils languidly against the marble floors.
“No witty rejoinder for me this time?” He twirls Stygius idly, leaving trails of simmering heat in the air. The hellfire crackling in the braziers around them is achingly cold. He welcomes the touch of warmth.
“No time, I’m afraid.” She cracks her whip. The end zips right past Zagreus’s cheek before returning to her. A caress.
“Then I’ll make this quick.” He rushes her. Stygius sparks and pops as it collides with the extraplanar fibers of her whip. They trade furious blows, chasing each other across every surface of the chamber. Zagreus manages to flip over a wave of razor-sharp pink magic and gets blindsided by her whip latching onto his wrist. Stygius skids across the floor.
He reaches up with his free hand towards the captive one and she yanks his arm behind his back, winding the whip over his shoulders and around his waist until he’s dizzy. She tucks the handle into the layers and gazes proudly at her work—Zagreus bound, swordless, and confused.
“What now, then? Going to carry me back to Father on foot?” Zagreus spins as carefully as he can to stay facing her, feeling very much like a baby penguin on ice—or at least what he’s heard of them.
Her silence is unnerving. Megaera already has a shark-like aura about her—so do many of the Chthonic gods, if he’s honest—but she’s just…watching him. Sizing him up. His skin prickles where her gaze lands.
“This is hardly a fair fight.” He hops around to face her again. She chuckles at him, the sound bubbling from deep within her chest.
“It’s hardly a fight, Highness.”
“Meg—“
“I heard something intriguing the other day.” She drags her long nail down the length of his throat, then back up, chasing his pulse from its hiding place. He kinda wants her to palm the side of his throat, let him feel the full pressure of her touch, but he knows that he is not here to get what he wants—not this time, at least. He shivers and snickers a little at her touch, tossing his head a bit as if it’d dissuade her.
“A-alright, but what does that have to do with anythihing?” He clears his throat to purge the titters. He’s so frazzled by this change of pace that he can feel the ends of his hair beginning to sizzle. This is her game—always keeping him on his toes for better or for worse.
“Don’t interrupt me.” She tilts his chin up. He goes breathlessly quiet.
“I was walking through the House and mulling over just how much of my time that you insist on wasting. It would be to my benefit if I could properly dissuade you from even attempting to exit Tartarus.” Meg trails her finger along the pauldron of skulls on his shoulder.
“You can’t. You know that.” He furrows his brow. He thought they were past this. Unstoppable force versus immovable object, and all of that.
“That’s the problem. How do I convince the most stubborn, hard-headed, cocky man I’ve ever met to quit attempting the impossible so I can do my job in peace?”
“Tell me how you really feel—“
“Then I spoke with Thanatos.” Meg’s eyes gleam. Zagreus swallows.
“He can be quite forthcoming in the right conditions, y’know. He shared something most interesting.” She gives him a long look up and down and chuckles again. Something about this doesn’t smell right. Than would never give up anything on him—nothing vital, at least. What could he even share? That Zag is awful on the lyre? Everyone in the House and likely surrounding Tartarus already knows—
“So, Zagreus, I’ll ask you one last time. Do you still intend to leave Tartarus?” Meg plays with a piece of the whip coiled around his chest.
“Of course.” He doesn’t hesitate. He knows what he has to do. No matter how oddly nervous she’s making him.
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Meg grins again, that gorgeous unsettling smile that makes the hair on his neck raise.
Meg’s fingers worm beneath the whip, tapping along the bare plane of his chest. Those wicked pink claws are not just for show—he can feel their cruel points triangulating the precise location of his organs.
Disembowelment would certainly be a way to go.
She gives a gentle scratch over his abs and he shivers involuntarily. He bites his lip as the corners twitch up. Goosebumps flare across his skin. She digs her claws in…and Zagreus has the wind punched out of him in the strangest way possible.
She’s…tickling him. On purpose.
“Meg, wahahait!” It comes out far shriller than he intends. Zagreus’s head collides with her shoulder and he hops in place, trying not to lose his accursed balance.
“I’ll pass.” Her apathy somehow makes it worse. Her nails skim his torso and call sparks in their wake, literal jumping embers just barely visible beneath his skin. She coos at him.
“Tickling is cheating!” It’s all he can think to say. He can hear himself giggling and it’s only making him more jumpy. Her fingers catch this awful little spot near his hip and Zagreus throws his head back.
“Oh, so your rampant, unhinged escape attempts have rules now?” She chuckles at him and presses her fingers into her apparently new favorite spot. His arms flex and strain against the whip, but he’s well and truly stuck.
There’s a plushness to his hips and waist, leftover from a lifetime of libations from the gods themselves. Meg starts pinching and poking there with deadly persistence. He hiccups his way into a giggle fit and wiggles uselessly in her arms.
He starting to regret accepting a message from Zeus to get here, because the latent lightning beneath his skin is making all of this worse somehow. His only comfort is knowing his mighty relatives can’t actually see him. Hopefully. Probably.
“Can’t we act like adults? Please?” His grin takes on a nervous wobble when her nails touch down yet again upon his skin.
“You first.” Her eyes glint wickedly in the firelight. With a flourish he can’t quite track, his arm gets yanked above and behind his head, leaving the right side of his torso completely exposed, collarbone to waist. Uh oh.
Zag can only imagine what he must look like. Maybe somewhat like Dusa, utterly flushed and frantic. Gods above, he’s giggling into the shoulder of a Fury. If Hades could see him, he’d filet him and send him through the Styx on principle.
Her fingers skitter under his arm ever-so-gently, like a spider in a web. Zagreus cackles.
“Hm. Seems promising. What do you think?” She presses her thumbs into the divots of his ribs.
He glares and belly-laughs in response—that’s definitely cheating. She only knows about that spot from Thanatos, which isn’t fair. He’s not quite sure about the logistics around killing Death himself, but he’s certainly going to try it the next time that they meet.
Meg tries pressing her thumb where his chest meets his ribs, just beside his pec, and he chokes sharply on an inhale.
“Megaera. Meg.” Zagreus fixes her with the most composed, imploring look he can manage. “I’m sorry, alright?”
“Right. Just to be clear, you’re not sorry when I’m touching you here?” She starts tickling his stomach again and he folds faster than one of Charon’s expended wells. It just…it tickles, okay, and her nails are dismantling every functioning neuron he has.
“No, I am! I ahaham!” He shrieks. He’s used to dirty tricks, but even then, he gets to fight back. It’s not fair, being at her mercy. Their whole thing relies on the push and pull, not the…squeal and writhe. Which he’s doing in spades.
It’s also not fair the way that his knees betray him, because he falls to the ground much faster than he would like. It gets him away from Meg’s hands for a second and he gratefully gulps in air, but then he sees her eyeing his feet—
Oh, absolutely not.
“No! Nohoho, waitwaitwait—Meg, truly. Please. I’m sorry.” He holds up his hands in the best surrendering gesture that he can manage. She smirks and drags a finger up the sole closest to her. The lack of oxygen has dimmed the hellfire a bit, letting her poke at him lightly with only a mild hiss of pain.
Zagreus squeals at an earth-shaking pitch and tries to roll away, but Meg grabs a coil of the whip and stops him.
“That bad, hm?” She kneels over him, blotting out the braziers burning in the chamber.
“Alright, you’ve had your fun. Let me up?” Zagreus shimmies against the ground. Meg leans close, close enough for him to smell the thick scent of ambrosia on her breath.
So she did drink it. Point to Zag.
“If I untie you, are you going to surrender?” She raises an unimpressed eyebrow.
“No, but I will go easy on you.” He grins.
“Gods, you’re insufferable.” She kneels beside him. The coils of the whip loosen around him and he starts to sit up, but then he’s yanked into the air by his ankle and right into her grasp.
“Gotcha,” she smirks. She raises her hand to his foot again and panic takes over—he kicks her in the shoulder with his free foot, using the momentum to flip out of her grasp. In a flash, he dashes to Stygius and kicks the sword up into his hand.
“At least give me the dignity of a death by your hand?” He holds the blade up between them, but it feels more like he’s hiding behind it.
“Don’t say I never did anything nice for you.” Meg shakes her head, but the fond smile on her face doesn’t melt.
…
“My prince.” Hypnos gives an exaggerated bow. Zagreus shakes out the blood of the Styx in a way that would make Cerberus proud.
“What’s got you so…animated?” Zagreus tilts his head.
“Who, me? Nothing, nothing—say, is there a comedy club in Tartarus that I don’t know about?” Hypnos chews on the end of his quill and looks up with wide, innocent eyes.
“…not that I recall. It’d certainly lighten the mood.” Zag works out a knot in his shoulder. Even reformed, he swears his lungs and limbs still ache.
“Right, right. It’s just interesting because—“ Hypnos leans forward, his unassuming grin suddenly predatory— “It says here that you died of laughter.”
Zagreus’s skin burns. He opens and closes his jaw a little, eyes darting around. Hypnos gives a warbling laugh. He yelps when his scroll disintegrates in a rush of hellfire.
“Jeez. Tough crowd.” Hypnos reaches forward and flutters his fingers under Zagreus’s jaw. He giggles, startled, and smacks his hand away. Hypnos laughs again and watches him flee the throne room.
He doesn’t think he’s ever been more grateful that Hades isn’t here.
When he catches Meg’s eye while strolling past the lounge, he walks just a little faster towards his room.
