Hades and Persephone

Chapter 16: Not Again

Hades flinched more at the noise than at the pain- his entire body numb. In a blink he turned and slapped Atropos. Nails barely scrapping her paper-thin flesh, still tearing two scratches into her cheek and across the nose.

Before he could do any more damage, Thanatos appeared in a torrent of shadow, his brother at his side. His wings still sheathed in ice and his face raw around that patches that stuck there. Restraining any god is difficult but restraining any with a realm is far more challenging.

Both him and his twin tackled their king at the same time. Hypnos jumped and latched onto his torso while Thanatos drove into his waist with enough force to topple him.

Hades opened his mouth in what could only be described as a growl. His eyes bright and feral; literally red with anger. The mistake did not go unnoticed as Hypnos poured a liquid down his open mouth.

He hacked as the ethereal silver liquid went down his throat without permission. It looked- and tasted- like liquid smoke. Moments later his eyes dropped. His heart all but stopped as sleep consumed him.

*****

Hades woke up on his stomach. A mixture of tears and ash stickied his face. He rolled onto his back, still in the Fates' home, and nursed his pounding head. Worse than any hangover or concussion combined. Yet, strangely, he felt light. Or was it empty?

The Fates busied themselves by cleaning up the damage. The loom was, thankfully, intact. The spools as well, though some of the threads broke under the strain of falling debris. Hypnos flew around, helping to reinforce the cracked and breaking ceiling. He almost mistook the twin for Thanatos, before realizing he was still frozen and sitting beside him.

Hades surveyed the damage around him- done by him. The ceiling had caved in places, the beams rotted into almost nothing. One wall was all but collapsed. Each step that he could see- and presumably all the others in the building- had craters wherever he had stood. The windows, strangely, were unharmed but coated in layers of burned tapestry. And the tapestry....

Lachesis had a bloody rag tied around her face so that she could work. It was still clear that it had collapsed but the blood seemed long dried across her lips and chin. Matching trails of tried blood traveled down the sides of her neck and under her clothes. The cuts the thin crescents of fingernails but from where he did not know. At least, until he looked at his hands.

*****

Atropos took her sweet time beating on the already beaten god. She kept on swatting his back with the carpet beater. "Don't. You. Hit. Your. Elders. Boy." She punctuated each syllable with a hit. He was too numb to feel it, however

Too numb to feel.

Too numb to respond.

*****

It was not even a single golden thread. Nor was it half of one, like it's counterpart.

Hades had expected it a new form of parasite; one that had realized killing its host served no purpose. A parasite the learned how to leech instead of consume. That's what he saw as he studied what was left of the tapestry before him. The fray wrapping itself- strangling- the other threads.

That's what he saw every time he looked at the tapestry.

What he did not see until now- until he had definitive proof by Kore falling into the Styx and surviving- was that the parasite was all but. She was not even a fray.

Not anymore.

The thread was multicolored, not simply gold like every other god. And as it was fed into the loom it was whole. Broken pieces of a million different threads supporting her.

Demeter's was not.

Demeter's was the parasite he had imagined.

*****

"What are you doing here," Hades asked.

Persephone noticed how he just sounded... hollow. "Thanatos brought me."

Hades snorted. "Why? What good does it do by you being in this house?" His face dropped, and with it his voice. "Come to think of it, what good has it done by you being down here at all."

If she heard it, Persephone didn't react. "He needed to speak to the fates and I was bored so he brought me." She took a seat next to the god on the floor.

Truthfully, she wanted to see if the rumor was true. The god of the dead completely forgoing his work to fix a rug.

Thanatos took over the responsibilities Hades shunned. And all she saw by coming here was a desolate house- inside and out- with a pathetic Hades sitting on the floor, lost in thought.

He watched as she settled down beside him. Her knees tucked under her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs.

"You should leave, then. I can't imagine watching me repair a tapestry is very entertaining."

"I think I can deal with it."

Stubborn- "LEAVE."

Persephone scrambled away from god more out of instinct than conscious decision.

He didn't care.

He couldn't.

Not again.