Hades

Chapter Two - The Underworld

Another of these doors (and the only other out of courtesy we shall explore for now, as the third was a private bed chamber, and the fourth was mysteriously cobweb-covered and obviously secretive) was a quiet little office just down another short stone-walled corridor, built for management duties. Within the stuffy, musty atmosphere that was scented from the candles, two people sat deeply absorbed in the cosy atmosphere of their own thoughts. One, recognisable as the strange young man in black who had retrieved the soul of Nanoe Izuki eleven years previously, sat in a dramatic ebony throne, his head in his hand and a look of abject boredom on his handsome face. He looked not a day older than when he’d rescued the rogue sunhat in the spring breeze.

The other, a young woman with pigtails, a round face and large grey eyes, sat typing at a desk nearby. Her pigtails were almost the same shade of pink as the bottle of nail polish acting as a paperweight for her files. Her workspace was surprisingly neat for the amount of work precariously stacked on it, but although every precisely filed cabinet and clean, dust-free shelf around the room suggested a woman’s touch, it was clear that this woman had her work cut out for her. The Underworld hadn’t started out warm and homely, but this particular woman was darn sure it was going to end up that way if she had a say in it – hence the ferns and spider plants in the dining hall that had been installed despite protest from the proprietor.

Her furiously fast finger-tapping flicks at the typewriter were occasionally punctuated by a heavy sigh from the young man sitting behind her. At the sound of his twentieth great, soul crushing, body-deflating sigh, the young woman could take no more and turned around, forcing a patient smile.

‘Master,’ she said brightly, ‘don’t you have any souls you want to collect today?’

Her master grunted a dismissive “no” without looking up, and so she tried again.

‘Then shouldn’t you go and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine? You’re looking a little pale.’

She regarded his white complexion with maternal concern, but he shook his head.

‘I don’t need fresh air or sun, Uxi, and as for looking pale, this is how I usually look; I’d think you’d be used to it by now. I want to stay down here and work.’

Uxi frowned. Work, he said? Unless The Powers That Be now recognised sitting on one’s backside and noisily exhaling as a profession, she failed to see how what her master was doing was productive in the slightest. Refusing to give up on the sliver of a chance he might be coerced into getting out from under her feet for a bit, she gave him a vibrant smile. ‘I know!’ she said, swinging side to side on her swivel chair, ‘you’ve been working so hard lately, why don’t you take some vacation time? You could go to the human world and travel around for a week or two. I hear it’s lovely this time of year, what with summer on its way…’ Her voice trailed off, a little wistful and sad.

The young man looked up at her, sympathy in his expression, before sighing once again and climbing to his feet. Uxi stared with barely concealed delight.

‘You’re finally going? Thank the heavens!’

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Didn’t say a word, Master. You’re hearing things.’

Amusement flickered across the young man’s face. ‘Are you that happy to get rid of me?’

Uxi softened. ‘Of course not.’ She was a very tactful woman; she had to be, as her master could be ridiculously sensitive. ‘But I do think some R & R would be good for you, you really do need to separate your work life from your private life…’

‘I concur with your diagnosis,’ he said, waving one hand as he trotted past the piles of paper and disappeared into the darkness. ‘Don’t wait up, and don’t forget to feed Cerberus.’