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Cool air. Green grass. The Lethe shuffles along under a bridge behind Zagreus; pale light flickers from torches that can only pretend to be the sun. It’s over yet again. Zagreus blinks. The grip of his shield dissipates into a nearby unknown, and at his feet he sees gemstones like glittering fruits. He bends down to pick them up. This is something he immediately regrets.
The gemstones find his way out of the grass and into that unseen space where he keeps everything, but it hurts. His arms burn. His legs feel like they’re screaming. Zagreus winces, urging himself to stand upright and stay that way. His knees and parts of his chest are scorched black. He needs to stop letting these crowds of Splitters blindside him again. He may have a shield Zeus himself has wielded, a shield closer to Chaos than all other things that sprung from them, and it covers him in only one direction. How could he face the Champions of Elysium like this? He turns his gaze towards the chamber’s exits. When the curled cross of a Centaur Heart lights up over one, he wastes no time looking at the other. Zagreus slams his pain aside as if he were using his shield and dashes right up to the door. Grass burns beneath him, stone scratches the soles of his feet and he stops to will it open—before then, talking bursts from behind the plated gate. Zagreus stalls. He furrows his brow and keeps listening. They aren’t discussing tactics in there before he shows up, are they? Or have the Exalted Shades of Elysium finally gotten intelligent enough—or maybe desperate enough—to do that? Zagreus narrows his eyes. Whatever happens, he’ll do what he does best. He stretches out a hand and the glass orb above the door shatters, gate falling into the ground. He runs through the tunnel between chambers, Aegis’ handle fitting into his grip—
It’s a fountain chamber.
The talking stops as soon as Zagreus sees the room itself, leaving nothing but the bubbling of water that doesn’t cause memory loss. He slows down. Aegis flashes out of sight. The water glints, glimmering in its basin. What a relief. Zagreus walks up to the fountain, taking the Centaur Heart laid neatly on its rim. He takes a bite out of the upper right edge; the give of the flesh under his teeth alone is enough to make him feel lighter, a little more capable, if no less injured. The rich flavour pours stamina into his core. Then, approaching the fountain, Zagreus kneels and cups his hands. When he drinks, it is sweet and cold in his mouth. The burning quiets in his limbs. The scorches fade from his skin. He almost feels as good as new—for real this time, more than with just the snack alone. He’ll have the strength for Asterius and the other guy after all. And he’s remembered his lesson with Splitters, hasn’t he? Zagreus keeps drinking, cool tranquility filling him up gulp by gulp before the water vanishes. The chamber exit unlocks and he looks to his left. In front of the door is a pair of shades, muttering.
So these must have been the voices. Zagrues watches them; one of them looks like any of the other shades he could find in Elysium while the other is a lanky gold streak against the eye, as tall and bright as a candle. They’re wearing an Asphodel cloak and a strange cloth knot on their neck. Zagreus raises an eyebrow. This is the guest musician his lord father permitted into Elysium for a day? What could the shades need a musician for? The Elysian shade claps the one from Asphodel on the shoulder, and together the two float out of view. There’s a short bit of muttering. It sounds rhythmic. Then, sweet chords pour into Zagreus’ ears like intangible nectar, and it flows like nothing he’s ever heard before.
He doesn’t run right out the door like usual. Instead, Zagreus walks slowly towards the shades. The one from Asphodel is sitting at some strange wooden box, taller than him; when Zagreus tilts his head to catch a glimpse of the other side, he sees a row of small black and white switches the shade presses to make music. The song that comes out is gentle, flowing, melancholy. It circles over the distant sound of the Lethe. And the Elysian shade has a stick and something on their shoulder—long and wooden with strings? Neither of these are instruments Zagreus knows anything about. But the Elysian shade puts their stick to the strings and a melodious cry comes out, high and bright. It holds the hands of the song on switches and the mixture is exquisite. Now this is a reason to stay a little longer. Zagreus stands there and listens. It’s nothing that could rival Orpheus and Eurydice, but it makes him understand why a soul from Asphodel might be allowed up for a little while. It’s these strange contraptions that make sounds softer than a lyre, as sweet as the water he just drank—and, possibly, the Asphodel shade’s warm and whispering voice. The song itself has begun.
It wasn’t written in Greek, this much is clear. The foreign syllables melt in Zagreus’ ears. He strains to remember days or nights at his father’s language classes, that procession of stern and gentle shades all drilling basic conjugation into Zagreus. He remembers missing more than a few tests from oversleeping. He remembers how insistent his father was that a Prince of the Underworld speak the tongues of every shade. Zagreus doesn’t really know if the classes helped. For all that lousy teaching and how fast even a slow song like this goes, more than a few of the words drip out of Zagreus’ grasp. There could be subtleties in every line and he wouldn’t appreciate a single one of them. Still, Zagreus understands the basic meanings of sentences. A few lines tell him nothing at all but the next ones flow in perfect clarity. He knows for certain that he hears “don’t leave me”. And he knows the piece is about death, which he’ll never truly understand from the mortal standpoint, but that doesn’t make the song any less sweet. Zagreus stands there stunned. He hears the shade’s voice gain strength in Elysium’s quiet. It continues to build until it, the song on switches and the song on strings all break into a soar—a specific part of the melody, previously wistful, now about as bright as the surface sun. Oh, the sun. Zagreus remembers that he’s missing work for this, stopped right in the middle of his shift. There are Brightswords to beat and vermin to vanquish. But wasn’t Zagreus meant to be erratic, anyways? The sun-soaked climax of the song takes flight around a handful of high notes, as bright as the surface and a thousand times warmer. It sighs once then twice, before dying down into the muffled river. Quiet holds Elysium once again.
And then Zagreus claps.
The Elysian shade looks over and bows, while the shade from Asphodel freezes, stands and then bows. Zagreus walks over to the pair.
“Shades, that was amazing,” he tells them. “I hope you don’t mind that I stayed and listened, do you? I was only passing through but I couldn’t force myself to leave. Not for something so wonderfully played!”
“Why, thanks, Your Highness!” says the Elysian shade. “You should really thank my friend over there, though. He composed this one. Hey, Hans, tell him all about it!”
Hans blinks and straightens, before bowing deeply once more. One moment, two moments pass. He doesn’t rise. Zagreus raises his eyebrows. If this is how Hans treats him, Zagreus hopes with all his heart that the poor shade never needs an audience with his father.
“Oh, um,” he begins, “you really don’t need to do that. Rise?”
Hans bends until he floats upright again but bows another time. “Please forgive me,” he says. “I’m not used to talking to royalty, or to gods.”
“That’s perfectly all right,” Zagreus answers. “It isn’t every day you meet somebody who’s both, is it? Here, let me introduce myself: I’m Zagreus.”
“Ah—nice to meet you, um...”
“Prince, if you really need to use a title for me. But don’t worry about it, okay? I’m just a traveller passing through. We can skip the formalities.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Your Highness. I’m very pleased you liked my song. I’ve been working hard to rehearse it. Do you want me to play another? Or to play it again?”
“No, that’s all right! I’m actually...quite busy right now, as it were. But tell me something: you wrote that song, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I wrote it for my sister. My little sister. The song is my message to her.”
“Oh. Would you like me to bring her the message for you? If she’s another shade, then I can easily find her around here.”
Hans shakes his head. “You’re very kind, Your Highness. However, she’s still alive.”
Two members of a family, separated by the divide between life and death. Zagreus feels the sparks of an idea come alive inside him, eyes widening, but he bites his tongue before he can say a word. A nagging voice tells him that it isn’t his place.
“That must be difficult,” Zagreus says at last.
“Yes. I can only wait for her time to come—and keep making music while I wait. But, speaking of time, is it okay if I go back to rehearsing? I have a few other pieces to practice. I don’t want to keep my friend waiting, either.”
“Don’t let me keep them waiting, either! I know whatever spectacle you two will be playing at, you’ll play flawlessly. I’ll stop by if I have the chance, okay? It’s been a pleasure getting to know you, Hans. I hope you and your sister will see each other soon.”
“Thank you for the kind words, Your Highness. Have a safe journey!”
Zagreus smiles to both of the shades before reaching out to the door—the next chamber promises Obols this time—and sprinting onwards. Yes, he’d like to have a safe journey too. But that’s something only he can ensure as he dashes over the crawling Lethe, swords grazing the ground behind him. He has to slam into this Strongbow, block their friends’ arrows and then get right back to bludgeoning said Strongbow with Aegis. He has to hunt the other down with fire in his legs and a cold gaze. Still, as red and black stain the Elysian grass and Zagreus weaves around the pulse of another battle, he thinks about what he did not say—he thinks about what he knows. Bonds can cross worlds. He’s seen mortals that connected. They can have something between them, even with the Underworld keeping them apart, like Eurydice and Orpheus or Achilles and Patroclus. Why not Hans and his sister? So what if the distance is a little more? Zagreus sets his sights on an errant Exalted soul and tosses his shield at them, a cry breaking into the temperate air as the soul turns to shreds. He follows his next thought, but a barrage of arrows follows him; no, he has to focus. Only when the room goes back to quiet does he keep thinking.
It’s about those feelings, too. Someday these feelings of mine will flutter down into your hands, Hans sang, and if you touch them, they will melt from the tenderness of your life. The words cling to Zagreus between chambers. They can’t be true. Can they? He wants to think they’ll melt into the skin, not away. Into the blood. They’ve got to go someplace they’ve already been; he wants it to be just like the other song he knows, as he runs through the gate and it shuts behind him. Zagreus reminds himself yet again that he isn’t a mortal. It’s easy for him to think these things when death is just a recurring swim through the Styx. Still, he has to hope he’s right, at least for gods. Hoping was what brought him to Mother’s cottage. If he makes that hope into shield-strikes, bloodstones and cries to his Olympian relatives—if he makes it into nectar and ambrosia for them—Zagreus doesn’t know how this thought ends, flicking his first prism of blood into the unknowing back of a Voidstone. But if Hans has to keep making music, then Zagreus has to do this. It’s all he can do. He can’t stop feeling.
~*-*~
This is what Zagreus does not know:
Back in the House of Hades, Persephone walks the West Wing and looks at the decorations. The rug is new; most other things aren’t. That pot has been on that pedestal since she was pregnant with Zagreus. Has he ever almost knocked it off like she has, only barely noticing in time before it teetered onto the ground? When he comes back, she could ask him. She could say everything she never thought she could say to her “dead” son. She knows what his favourite foods are, and can approximate what surface vegetables he would hate the least if he could stay long enough up there to sample a selection. Tomatoes, perhaps? What kind? Persephone smiles. Her son is a young man now. He’s a young man with a heart that could carry him to her cottage over and over again, even with the entire Underworld in his way—a heart that convinced her to want to grow a unified family. Where would she be without that determination? Where would she be without those feelings, reaching from another world?
Elsewhere, in that place where all the shades wear the same kind of cloak as Hans, Eurydice does not sing. She thinks about Orpheus. She was so certain she had all she needed without him—cooking tools, a hearth, her voice—and now the trace of a different kind of song rings inside her. It’s just a name. It’s his name. It’s absurd. She still has the rest of this life or whatever she should call it. Of course it wasn’t the first thing Eurydice wanted, not when their eyes locked on the way out of the Underworld. Of course some part of her never followed into Asphodel after that mistake of his. Now the truth can’t be drowned out anymore, and with her lover’s name comes an old song of his on her lips, and Zagreus just had to bring him up in conversation and—
Elsewhere, at the exact time Hans changes songs in that Elysium fountain chamber, Alice starts preparing for a show of her own in her Taipei apartment. She has a hard song picked out. It’s got six flats, a tempo to be reckoned with and a middle section that tires her wrists out. Still, today is a day for rehearsing. The sun is high in the sky, the air is temperate and her friends are warming up their voices. She can feel her brother with her, too. It doesn’t matter if he isn’t in this very room. These things are as the song goes. Alice hears it humming in her mind, deep in her heart, and in her fingers just before she begins her warm-up scales. Your melody becomes a part of my whole world—
Elsewhere, imprisoned in the deepest depths of the Underworld, Orpheus makes no music but his mind hums. The notes flow despite him. The words soar inside him. It’s in the blood, oh, it’s in the blood. Loves in your life live ever on.