Chapter Text
"Before we do this..." said Zagreus within the mirror. "You're certain there's no other way? You've nicely asked Grandfather to stand down, that sort of thing?"
"We're far past level-headed conversation here." said Melinoe. "I can't imagine he'll be more amenable to persuasion in your time than mine."
"Fair point. You really think this spear of Father's has the power to destroy a deathless Titan?"
"It shall in just a moment, so hold it close. *May Earth and Night and Darkness hear me now: Bring true death for the deathless by my vow. Dissolution of Time!*" said Melinoe. "Go, Zagreus. I've done everything I can here. And we'll see each other again. Some other time than this, perhaps. For now, farewell."
As Melinoe exited the mirror and returned to the realm of the physical, there in Zagreus's former bedroom, she was relieved to see Hecate standing beside her. "Headmistress, are you alright? When Chronos had captured you, I feared for the worst..."
"The Titan ambushed me in a moment of weakness. I will need to redouble the wards upon Erebus to ensure it does not happen again. But, fear not for me... What of Prince Zagreus?"
"I spoke with him. He'll be slaying Chronos shortly, and... are you certain that this will work, Headmistress? Do we truly need to slay Chronos in two times at once?"
"The Titan of Time does not exist in a linear fashion. Slay him in the past but not in our present, and he will continue to exist here, then fill the past with his assumed presence. Slay him in the present and not the past, and he will reconstitute with the assumption that he will continue to exist in the future."
"It certainly seems complicated. But regardless of what happens, I hope that we will still keep our memories of each other. Won't slaying the Titan in the past mean that we would never have met?"
"Mm. I would rather that you have memories of your childhood with I as your family's handmaiden, Melinoe, not your mentor. Do not ever place me on the level of importance as the relationship with your mother and the rest of your family. T'would be better if you forgot all of me and none of them."
"...yes, Headmistress. I suppose that you are correct." Melinoe breathed with anticipation. It would not be much time before both would need to return to shadow; Chronos's reconstitution slithered on slowly, but she could feel already its effects, an aura that gradually grew suffocating and which threatened to trap her here if she was not careful. "...Zagreus should be done by now."
"I must return to the Crossroads, Melinoe. Do not linger here for much longer."
Melinoe nodded, and Hecate was gone. She waited a minute more. Already there had begun the small reversions and accelerations in the scenery around her; the erosion of gold as if ground through a thousand years, then its sudden reconstitution, then reversion into molten forms, before it would eventually settle back into the defaced House of Hades. "Zagreus, where are you? ... Oh no. If he was captured by the Titan, then... Why isn't he gone? Why is he continuing to regenerate?"
She heard the scrape of a scythe across the floor outside in the hallway, and she gripped Descura as her thoughts brimmed with fear. Again she felt that suffocating aura and her thoughts slow; the lull to complacency and time itself dimming to a dull pace, until in the next instant the monstrous black hands of a half-dead Titan burst through the walls and she frantically returned to shadow and she was back at the Crossroads once more.
She was in a panic as she rushed out from her tent and to Hecate. "Headmistress, Chronos is still reconstituting. I-I told Zagreus to slay him, but I don't understand what occured. The Titan should be dead now, even if that would have caused..."
Hecate sighed. "It's clear that your brother has not done as asked - just as likely he was slain by the Titan himself. But if there is a setback or something that we have done wrong, then we will endure it as we always have."
"Do you think it's likely that Chronos, even in the past, was strong enough that he may have...?" said Melinoe fearfully.
"Let us not come hastily to conclusion, Melinoe. For now, your task remains the same."
"...yes. Find the Titan. Slay the Titan."
"Aye. See if you cannot contact that *brother* of your's once again. Perhaps he can tell you directly what occured."
Hecate said so evenly, yet Melinoe knew she was frustrated at Zagreus; she had never taken well to her orders being disobeyed, but neither would she ever allow herself to say anything distasteful of Melinoe's family. In her prior life she had been the handmaiden of the family; now she seemed a sort of custodian, a curator of what they had been; she considered her role as Melinoe's mentor not only preparation for her task but to ensure that she had only good conceptions of the family she was to save.
As Melinoe rushed out to the training grounds, she heard one of the innumerable insults Nemesis always seemed to hurl at her when she was walking past. Onward she continued through Erebus, then Oceanus, the Mourning Fields, and further into Tartarus. Nothing had changed, but for when she saw Chronos upon his throne once more.
He said: "I had almost thought that I would not reawaken after last night, my girl. Presuming that this is not an intentional bit of torture, perhaps you have learned that to slay a feral beast such as Typhon is an easier task than to slay Time itself, hm?"
Melinoe gathered herself. "I only wish to put you through as much pain as possible before I finally destroy you utterly. We shall see when I decide to use that power upon you."
"Ah, but you forgot, my girl. You will need to succeed every time. I only need but succeed once."
But again Melinoe succeeded, and again she came to the Mirror of Darkness, projecting herself into it.
She heard Zagreus muttering: "Well, she was probably angry at first, but now that she's seen it all work out for the better..."
"Prince Zagreus? Zagreus?" she said.
Zagreus seemed surprised. "Oh, hello. Hadn't thought I would be hearing from you again. So, everything should be fixed now, correct? How has Grandfather Time been treating you? Well, I hope."
"I... Zagreus, nothing has changed here. Wait, Grandfather Time? But... you slew him when he was weak. He should no longer exist here."
"... Right. About that, Melinoe. I found Chronos, reconstituting as you claimed he would be. I offered him the choice to either be a part of this family, or I would drive the point of Gigaros through him repeatedly. He, obviously, acquiesced to the former. Under strict watch, but I certainly doubt he'll be able to-"
"You did- what?!"
"Have you not noticed how amicable he's become in your time? I would think he had taken to the whole grandfather thing by now."
"I asked you to slay the Titan, and you instead brought him home?!"
"...hm. Doesn't sound as if any of that has happened to you, then. If you haven't noticed the effects of that, then... you're saying that my actions haven't affected your time. Well, that certainly seems to put a damper on your plan to deal with Chronos, then. I hope you aren't mad at me that I decided not to kill him in his utterly defenseless state."
"If your actions can't affect my world, then that would mean... oh no. No, have I cast it wrong? Who are you?"
"I might as well ask you the same question. You know, you arrive unannounced into my dreams and tell me all sorts of things, then order me around against my beliefs, all due to your... witchy time-manipulating magick, is that it? Really, with how overbearing you are, it feels as though I'm talking to the old man and not my little sister."
The phrasing little sister stabbed at Melinoe. She felt loosening in herself all frustration and anger that her life had taught her to keep restrained, and had she known her father, she would have recognized the tone with which she now said: "These things would not have gone wrong if you had not disobeyed me! I gave you a simple task, where I am the one who has had to do all of the difficult work for it, all the risk to my own being, all of the incantations and decades of study, and then, forced as I am night after night to do *this* while my family is tortured in Tartarus, you refuse to bring an end to it all!"
"By killing our own grandfather? Look, Melinoe, under the circumstances, I find him rather agreeable currently, so-"
"Under the circumstances, he has our family trapped, Cerberus tortured, the House of Hades defaced, and Olympus under siege! What Prince of the Underworld are you that you would not choose to put an end to this?!"
"But that isn't real to me, sister. What I have here is. It wouldn't be the first time that a strict and rage-driven sorry excuse for a parent could be reasoned with, and even grown to be liked. You have your circumstances. I have mine. Now, if you'll continue to yell at me, we can continue this another night, but I would prefer to talk rather than argue."
Melinoe breathed. "... What do you mean by that? Who did you reason with before? Surely not anyone in our family. Headmistress has always told me the House was a place without all of this. Somewhere peaceful and welcoming. A little bureaucratic, perhaps, but..."
"Well, I'm not one to disagree with powerful witches that I don't know, but have you considered that she may want you to believe that rather than be telling it accurately?"
"I suppose... yes. I can believe that. I've known so little of our family that I've only received it from others."
"It's... a long story. But my father - and your's, I suppose - had a difficult time in the not too distant past. We came to blows over it several times. I despised him. Had I ever thought to slay him? Once or twice in anger. Thank the gods I hadn't the ability to."
"Truly?" Melinoe frowned. "It saddens me to hear of that. I couldn't imagine how hard that was on our mother."
"...oh, she was, er... never mind. But for the old man. Is he perfect? No, of course not. In fact, he surprises me each night with new ways to like and dislike him. But we have made it better between us. Between ourselves and Olympus. Between myself and my mother. And I would ask that you consider that no one in our family matches the perfect view that you have of them, which is precisely why I doubted that Chronos would match the monstrosity that you claimed him to be."
Melinoe was silent, and she felt frustrated. She wondered what she might have felt in his position; likely she would also have not taken orders from a random dream-witch to kill a family member who had never personally wronged her.
"Melinoe, are you still certain that he can't be reasoned with? Even if I can't affect your future, apparently, I would still rather help."
"... I'm running out of time. But I'll ponder what you have said. It isn't as if we have any other option now, it seems."
"You really are ever the optimist, aren't you? Well, I suppose I will see you next time, then. But do give it some thought."
She felt again that aura of Chronos's reconstitution and returned to shadow. She awoke in her tent, then sighed as she turned and cuddled Frinos, smooching its forehead. As she went out to Dora, she asked: "Dora, do you think even the monstrous may be bargained with?"
"*I CANNOT BE BARGAINED WITH, WITCH, UNLESS YOU INTEND TO PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD!*" haunted Dora, then switched to her normal demeanor. "Uh, that's a heavy way to start a conversation, Mel. What's got you thinking about that?"
"We've... encountered some setbacks in our plan to kill Chronos. My brother, the one I was communicating with, seems intent that he can be reasoned with."
"Wellll, if you keep beating him down, he's gonna get tired eventually. Maybe you two will get so bored of fighting that you'll start talking instead. Find some stuff in common. Hey, doesn't he have a scythe? And you like gardening..."
"The thought of finding anything at all in common with Chronos is more frightening than all of your hauntings combined."
"Thaaaat gives me an idea."
Melonie needed to speak to Hecate next. "Headmistress, I've returned with news from Prince Zagreus. He claims that he threatened Chronos in his time, but he's brought him in as a member of the family, rather than slay him. It doesn't seem that his actions can affect us here."
Hecate sighed, but she was not surprised; it was a wonder Melinoe had even convinced Zagreus to take Gigaros. "That would match well with the Prince as I knew him. He had never met an eons-long grudge that he did not immediately want to resolve through talking."
"You don't seriously mean for me to attempt to convince Chronos, do you? What could we possibly say to him? Surrender or we'll continue to be unable to kill you?"
"Stay your hesitation, Melinoe. Our task is to subdue the Titan, but it need not be the path of vengeance which we take to that goal. ... As much as I share your discomfort. T'were it my decision, I would rather plant Gigaros in the Titan 'fore he could speak a word."
"Perhaps there is a way by which I could travel backwards in time myself?"
"No, Melinoe." said Hecate almost too hastily. "We tamper enough with the Fates' designs by contacting Zagreus. Let us not give them another reason to look askance at us once they return."
"Yes, but..."
"If we are to convince Chronos that there is another way, then we must show it to him. More than show, he must live it. He must be deeply submerged in its reality, as much as our own. I trust you understand what I am speaking of."
"You mean to use my power as the Goddess of Nightmare to delve into the abyss of Chronos's subconsciousness. To make him dream of this alternate life."
"Very astute. But you must be certain that when you do so, you clear your mind of vengeful thoughts. If there are nights where you cannot do so, then do not do so at all. To manipulate the mental realm is far more challenging than to manipulate the physical, and it requires a far clearer head."
Melinoe nodded, though she had not a single idea of what to implant into Chronos's mind. Further complicating this would be that she could not merely implant a dream or nightmare into another and stay detached from it; she needed to be there herself, as much a character as any other part of it, affixed to her role and unable (without extreme effort) to extricate herself from it.