Choosing Life

Chapter Five

Why am I doing that again? Oh right! For Mal.

"This is Olympus and I'm still a God am I not?" Hades asked.

"Well...of course..."

"Besides, I...I wanted to talk with you."

Zeus stared at Hades in what Hades presumed to be shock. Though to be fair, Hades likely would have done the same thing if the positions were reversed.

"Hades!"

"Poseidon?" Hades asked as Zeus continued to stare dumbfounded. Sure enough their middle brother was making his way over to them. "What are you..."

"Persephone told me you were coming so I figured I'd make sure no fireballs or lightning bolts made their way toward Gwendolyn or Markos," Poseidon explained. "But...what brings you here?"

"Did Persephone not tell you?"

"All she said was you were coming to talk to Zeus, though to be fair I didn't exactly ask for more in the way of details after I heard that."

"Right, right," Hades nodded and sighed. "I...Gods this is hard. I lived on the Isle of the Lost for more than twenty years, so what I'm about to say isn't exactly something I'm used to but...I want to bury the hatchet."

"What?"

"Wow did I start speaking Latin or something?" Hades chuckled as his younger brothers stared at him in shock.

"No. No you didn't," Poseidon shook his head. "But...why?"

"First off, Po-Po, you know perfectly well there's no hatchet to be buried with you," Hades said, using the old nickname he had for his brother. It was one of the few nicknames that he actually liked and weren't used as a way of expressing his dislike of the person he was speaking to or about. "Actually a lot of people on the Isle might not have been alive if you hadn't sent your fish folk over to us and for that, I'm forever grateful."

"Because I didn't add to your workload?"

"I like my free time and not just because I like being able to see my children," Hades said. "I have another title that I'd like to work on but all people know me as is the God of the Dead. Just one person using the title of God of Wealth, is that so hard?"

Poseidon shook his head. "There's something more to this, isn't there? I know you Hades, you don't just bury the hatchet."

Hades sighed. "Alright. But before I say it, I need you two to promise you won't spill anything to say, the press?"

"Why would we spill anything to the mortal press, Hades?" Poseidon asked, Zeus still understandably shocked.

Honestly, if Zeus wasn't a God, Hades might have been concerned that his youngest brother had died from the shock of Hades wanting to talk to him.

"Okay fair point," Hades chuckled before growing serious once more. "But then Poseidon, you need to not spill anything to Uma."

"Is everything okay with Mal?"

"How did you—?"

"Uma and Queen Mal are as thick as thieves after all, if you've asked me to keep something from my granddaughter it's likely regarding Mal."

Hades sighed and nodded. "Mal's pregnant," he said and he couldn't resist the proud grin from growing over his face.

He expected polite congratulations, even a bit of enthusiasm from Poseidon.

What he did not expect was Zeus walking forward and giving him a hug so big that it lifted Hades from the ground.

"Whoa! Okay, we are not there yet," Hades told him and Zeus put him back down.