Pointe Shoes and Spider Webs

105. Independent

...

"I'm not a Zephyr." It's just past noon and nobody in the living area was ready for the bomb Daphne just dropped.
"What?" Natasha frowns and leans forward in her chair to put her glass of water on the coffee table.
"Zephyrs are a fairy tale." Daphne scratches the back of her head, unsure how to explain it properly. She sniffs once and tries to ignore the frustrating itch on her back. "Somm has been manipulating shit for thousands of years."
"What are you then?" Tony cocks an eyebrow and crosses his arms. Daphne clears her throat.
"Anyone ever heard about... Charon?" Steve perks up.
"The ferryman?" There's a glimmer in Daphne's eyes and she nods.
"Care to elaborate?" Tony adds. Steve turns his head to Tony and sighs.
"Greek mythology stuff," he says with a nod. "Charon is the ferryman who guides the souls of the dead over the Styx to the Underworld."
"Wait-" Sam sits up in the bar stool. "You mean the 'put a coin in the mouth of your deceased loved one so they can pay the ferryman' guy?" Both Steve and Daphne nod.
"That guy," Steve confirms. Bruce rubs his chin.
"What's he got to do with you?"
"I am... eh... I am a Charon."

Loki, who has been rather quiet up until now, moves to sit up straight.
"I know of nearly all creatures and beings and I have never heard of this... Charon- in any other context than the ferryman you speak of."
"That's Somm's doing."
"Why would he erase the true meaning then?" Daphne sucks at her teeth and shrugs nonchalantly.
"I'm the only one who can kill him." The room stares at her in an awkward silence. It's like she just revealed who killed J.F. Kennedy. She halts her thoughts and glances at Bucky. Oh, right.
"Can't the Hulk just rip his head off?" Tony quips, trying to lighten the mood. Daphne shakes her head.
"He's – what you'd call – immortal."
"Well, if you can kill him then he obviously isn't immortal," Natasha scoffs.

"To give you the short version:" Daphne pauses to collect her thoughts. "Some sorcerers manage to gain eternal life. That creates an imbalance, because, well, fuck, everyone has to die at some point. Nothing and no one should be immortal." She glances at Loki, who nods understanding. "Death can't reach the sorcerers who never die. So, Death created Charons who, only if they want to help Death, are capable of killing the immortal sorcerers."
"And if someone's not a sorcerer but immortal?"
"As far as I've been told, not every sorcerer is immortal, but all immortals are sorcerers. Or magic users of some kind." Daphne glances at Peter. "Charons are sorcerer killers. I... I bring them to Death, I guess."
"Wai-wai-wai-wait." Sam leans forward, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "So, you're like... The Grim Reaper for sorcerers?" Daphne snorts.
"Essentially, yeah."
"And the overstimulation..." Tony thinks out loud.
"...Is how I kill them." Daphne frowns. "At least, I think so. Death didn't really tell me how it works, but that's my guess."

"Then why would Somm want you right at his side?" Peter finally speaks. The corner of Daphne's mouth curls down for a second.
"He wants no one to know that there is something or someone out there who can kill him. And what better way to do that than to erase all knowledge on Charons, replace it with the Zephyr story and make sure that you can keep a constant eye on the one and only being in the universe that could kill you?"
"And the channelling stuff?" Steve asks with a frown.
"I mean we've all seen it, so that's probably just a side effect from being a Charon. I can still give power, Death told me that. I just... Won't give enough to kill."
"So, Somm wants to make you worship him to make sure you won't kill him," Bruce theorizes with a frown. "And he gets to be all-powerful by making you give him the magic you're supposed to use to end him with."
"Yep." Daphne pops the p. "He's been doing that to Charons for thousands of years."
"Kind of a slap in the face of Death, if you ask me," Tony quips. Daphne nods.
"Oh, yeah. But Death was... Really civil about it, somehow. If I don't want to kill Somm, I don't have to, basically. They'll just make another Charon a few hundred years down the line and ask them to do it. And if they don't, the cycle continues. The immortals don't die anyways, so there's no need to hurry."