Chapter Text
There is a certain timelessness that can be ascribed to feelings that draw from a deeper layer of the mind. Remembrance is kindled. A spark of recollection, that the soul might hold where the mere surface of oneself could not.
A burning scent of torchlight and ash drifted from below.
Moments, eternalised. But is not every individual a moment, eternalised in snapshots strung together by change? Evocative emotions pinning a figure to an unwilling canvas, the home wrecked by its despair?
“Tín oikían mou ánoixon, tás skolikódeis pýlas sou.”
The only sweet release from living; drifting. Where Life and Death separate, defiant in their quiet exhale. Only, there was no breath. No sleep. Naught, but a singularity of despair numbed by the misunderstanding that Life needs Time. Only Death, after all, is waiting.
"Sýndesón mou tín apelpisían prós sín kaí afísomen minythínai tín anámnisin.”
Something stirred. Deep, below where the promise of blood could not reach anymore, rumbling, there called a voice.
“Oikodomeí teíchi anámeson tón echthrón mou kaí emoú, stégasón me ek tís kataigídos.”
One drop, plunging into the deepness of the dark, that permeated All Which Below.
Delusion and change, glitter and gold.
Captured in eternity and nothingness, a Prince awoke from his timeless slumber to the pulsing call of blood.
Blood, like a scream. Blood, the oath of family. Blood, rushing like a river.
“Erotó se, ánoixon tín kardían sou prós tín zitoúsan thygatéra pálin.”
A single lock of gold, tugging deeper and deeper and deeper–
“Red? The spell didn’t say—what in the..! Selene’s grace…”
Breathless.
Zagreus gasped, submerged. He was floating in a cauldron of blood.
The last thing that Zagreus remembered, before his apparent grandfather had decided to capture all present and quite incidental family of Father dearest in a timeless moment of forever, was Thanatos grabbing his hand.
It was a surprising choice of public affection by his standards, even if under pressure. That meant something. Everything.
So when Zagreus stood up in the pool of red liquid that desired him more than life itself did, he checked his hand.
“Blood and darkness,” he sighed. The imprint of a deep purple butterfly faded in the pale din of light.
“Than…” The whisper escaped him, barely. He was acutely aware of the fact that a significant amount of time had passed, and that it had been Death’s desperate measure, breaking the infinite loop of time, as endings are wont to do, that had allowed him to be here, rather than stuck in forever.
He looked up. Perhaps he’d been a bit distracted, now wondering how he’d managed to ignore all the wide eyes leveled at himself, as well as the drastic changes in environment.
Several figures were gaping at him.
A blonde Goddess, with a glittering green eye familiar to him, the other hidden by the curtain of her bob. Ghostly apparitions, in sheens and colours that he remembered, but some hidden and misshapen, afraid. A hulking Goddess in the distance, stepping ever closer and drawing a sword from the sheath on her hip–hey, that was Stygius!
The green (green!) glow of their surroundings distracted him immediately from his befuddled indignance, vaguely aware that he should keep his eye on the dangerous deities ogling him, but too curious to care.
There was plantlife all around them, darker than he remembered from his brief stints to the mortal realm, as well as dim moonlight shining in from above.
He was standing in a cauldron, and around him hung shinies and baubles of all kinds, but distinctly different from what his father would find dignified. Hades would likely call it suitable for a witches’ hut.
Which, looking at all the moon affiliated decorations he could immediately pick out, was likely not too far off.
Zagreus figured it would be polite to step out of the cauldron, then.
The green-eyed Goddess drew a sharp breath. Zagreus tried to shake off the blood without getting any on her chiton. He realised how much he was standing out, but perhaps someone could lend him something—
“Brother!” The Goddess swept forward, blonde swathe of curtain flown back and revealing another, damning eye. Red, smouldering.
Melinoë. His baby sister. Now a grown, beautiful and dangerous looking Goddess.
She was in his arms before he could take another breath, and then found he couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything but feel the warm rush of blood through his body, and same through hers, close.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered when his lungs resumed. It didn’t quite capture the feelings that he was feeling, bubbling and harsh and hopeful and terrified beyond his comprehension, but it was a start.
.
.
Melinoë jolted back quite suddenly. “I–what was I thinking–I don’t know you at all, and–and it must be a lot for you too–”
Zagreus let her retreat to arms’ length, but kept his warmth close. There was a poignance to it, the admission of a stranger who was supposed to be his sister, but he remembered how his mother had once heard the same sentiment from him, despite the fact that he’d spent mortal lifetimes searching.
Mother had managed.
He chuckled. Her eyes grew wide at that. “I’m here now, aren’t I? Suppose we have ample time to change that, if we wish.”
She–Melinoë laughed, unexpectedly watery. “Yes, yes I’d like that.” The desperation leaked from those words like an open wound, holding him there, as if to say don’t go. Don’t go, please.
He felt something in his chest heave, and then crack. Now, at least, she wasn’t the only one. Warm liquid dripped down his face, and it wasn’t blood for once.
“Can I–” he asked through uneven breaths and gritted teeth, because even profound feelings had never managed to shut him up.
Melinoë didn’t wait for him to find the rest of his sentence, and flung herself into his arms again. Alive. Powerful. Trembling. She was saying words to him that he couldn’t hear because he could only feel in this moment. Her arms around him. Her face in his shoulder. Fingers squeezing into his chiton on his back.
They may have stood there for minutes, hours. It did not matter. Not anymore, because time had failed to separate them now.