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As the living sword goes to cleave her in two, Melinoë gasps out, “Return to shadow, now!”
The comforting arms of darkness whisk her home, her dress still in tatters. She kisses Frinos’ little green forehead, and dips into the back of her tent. Dora's there - Melinoë loves Dora, she really does, but she did not want to see anyone before she'd had time to get changed.
“Woah, Mel! What happened? Your dress is a little- and you're a little- are those teeth? Did you get eaten? Was it the cyclops?”
Mel blushes. She could probably have pulled off that lie, actually, but the pink in her cheeks gives her away instantly. “It wasn't the cyclops, Dora. I killed Polyphemus, actually - or, knocked him out.”
“So whose teeth have been in you, girl? And why are you blushing about it?”
Mel stammers. “I- uh- Heracles?”
“HERACLES BIT YOU? I THOUGHT- I thought he was on our side. Even if he sucks.”
“Oh. It's fine. I bit him back.”
After a second, Dora's eyes widen and her face shifts into a knowing smirk. “Oh, it was like that? You should have said, I'd have been so much meaner.”
She pokes at one of the bite marks on Mel's neck. “These are huge, girlie. How big is this guy?”
Mel turns around, looking for a dress that hasn't been ripped. “Big enough,” she says, with a quiet smile. She wraps herself in her healing magic, closing over the cuts and the scrapes that she'd acquired in her battles. What it doesn't cover is the bruises, and the collection of nail marks over her back. It's not deliberate - or at least she tells herself it isn't.
If she relishes the feeling of the bruises in her neck when she stretches, that's her business alone.
Moros isn't there when she leaves her tent, which she's grateful for. There's not anything so concrete between them that she feels guilty for her escapade, but she doesn't particularly want to see his face when he catches her like this, fucked out and covered in another man's bite marks.
Now if Doom Incarnate seemed like the jealous type, that would be a different story. But he'd probably be overly cordial and look at her with sad puppy eyes, and ask who her new beau was.
She imagines, briefly, describing Heracles as her beau to anyone, and bursts into laughter.
Nem is also absent from her post, which she has no feelings about either way, because Retribution Herself is a thorn in her side and a stealer of rewards and Melinoë does not covet the jealous glare that she would give every single tooth mark that the Son of Zeus had left in her. Nuh-uh.
Odysseus is there, standing looking at the garden. Just the man she had hoped to see - he had evidently had his fair share of romps with witches and goddesses alike, and she needs his advice. Or to brag. Or… something.
She waves at him, a cheery grin on her face. “Hey, Od!”
“Hello, Princess. How goes it?” He hasn't turned to look at her yet, admiring the six poppies that are growing.
“Bested Polyphemus,” is all she says.
He turns to look at her, congratulations on his lips, when his jaw drops in a pastiche of shock. “Please tell me you mean with weapons, Princess?”
She snorts. “Yes, with weapons, oh Master Tactician. Whyever do you ask?”
He stammers. “You've- you've got a little-” he gestures towards his own neck, somewhat awkwardly.
“Oh. Yeah. Had a run in with- you know this guy Heracles?”
His eyebrows climb up his forehead. “Princess,” he says. “I believe this conversation requires a trip to the Taverna.”
She grins. “Lead the way, Odysseus!”
After his first glass of nectar is quickly emptied, Odysseus puts it down on the table and looks at Melinoë. “Heracles. Really?”
“People keep asking me this. Really! He’s not half as bad as any of you think he is.”
“I met his shade, when I was still a man. He seemed- happy. Not about the hand he’d been dealt in life, but about his godhood. I wonder what changed.” He sighs. “The shades in Ephyra all tell me he’s best avoided - grumpy, disillusioned, violent. How did you end up-” he gestures at her neck, trailing off.
“Getting mauled by him? Oh, you know.” She grins at him. “A little bit of provocation.”
“Right. Of course, Princess, what I really wanted to know was-”
“I was very into it. But-” Odysseus’ eyes sharpen with suspicion, and Melinoë backtracks. “It wasn’t anything untoward - I just can’t work out how I feel about him. I thought - well. At first I thought he was just very annoying. Arrogant, too. Definitely not my t-”
“Eris?”
“-ype. Hm. True. That was different, though. She can be - sweet. Evidently I’m not just annoyed by Heracles, or I wouldn’t be in this state - I have to sew one of my dresses back together - but…”
Odysseus sighs. Oh, to be young again.
“Look, Princess,” he says, and he wishes he’d had the practice with his own son. “I can’t tell you how you feel about him. There’s a reason everyone avoids him, though, and I don’t know if getting past his demeanour is worth it. I can’t make any choices for you, though.”
She takes a sip of her drink, unsure how to respond. Odysseus carries on. “Whatever you do, just - stay safe.”
She snorts. “He said that too, you know? And then I won.”
Odysseus smiles, a private, secret thing. The princess hasn’t realised it yet, but he knows what the light flush across her nose indicates, the way her smile dimples her cheeks.
“I know you did, Melinoë. Maybe he’s good luck? Not,” he stresses. “That I would advise using your time for such deviances from the task.”
She looks appropriately bashful. “It hadn’t been on my plan, Od. It just- happened. Surely you’ve been there?”
“I… well. Yes. I’m not saying not to - you’re young! Live your life, just - don’t-”
“-let it get in the way of saving Olympus? Got it, Od.” She pauses to take a sip from her drink. “You had your run-ins with goddesses, right? Powerful witches?”
“You could say that. They were less - one of them trapped me on an island for seven years, one of them turned my men into pigs. It was… complex.”
“And you were married.”
“That, too. What I’m saying, Princess, is that this seems a far less difficult situation than my own were - you may just have to wait until you see him again. If he does anything-”
“-At least four people will be very willing to murder him, I’m sure. Honestly, you know I can take care of myself, yes?”
“No one has ever doubted that, I’m sure.”
Mel doesn’t quite believe him - Nemesis, Heracles, Chronos, Eris - but smiles anyway. “How about another drink?” she asks, and he barely has time to nod before she’s returning with another bottle of nectar.
The moon climbs high in the sky as their conversation turns less serious, the two of them talking tactics and exchanging tall tales of their exploits long into the night. Eventually, Odysseus stands.
“This has been fun, Princess, but I am aware that we both need to sleep - you especially. And you may want to heal some of those bruises before Lady Hecate returns. Or Moros.”
Melinoë blushes. When she goes back to her tent, she does not heal the bruises. The ache of a bruise lingers in her abdomen, the nectar making her mind a little hazy. She sits, cross legged, and tilts her head to one side and then the other, stretching out the muscles of her neck. The bite marks stretch as she rolls her neck in a circle, the joints popping softly. She stretches both hands above her head, pushing her shoulders back, and then pulls each arm across the front of her chest, the muscles in her shoulders pulling taut, and then relaxing.
With her feet together, she leans forward, aiming to touch her head to her toes. The position is meant to stretch her lower back and legs, but more than any muscular relief she feels every minor injury from her- her encounter with Heracles, every bite and scratch and bruise, the deep-seated muscular ache that comes with being well-fucked. She’s still wet - or maybe wet again, at the memory, at the renewed sensations. Without underwear, the dampness of her cunt finds its way onto her thighs, and who is she to deny her own pleasure?
She powers through her stretches, relishing the way every movement of her legs reignites the ache inside her, how the fingernail marks in her back sting a little in the cool night air. The memory of Heracles’ hands on her waist has her holding back whimpers, her hips rocking without her permission. Without undressing, she puts a hand between her thighs, bucking her hips against the heel of her own hand.
She’s over-sensitive, both from the alcohol and the day’s escapades. The memory of Heracles’ voice in her ear is doing more to bring her pleasure than any of her actual touches, though the rocking of her hips increases, making small, wet noises with every pass. There’s something about the deep, low, rumble of his speech, the breathless way he had spoken to her - the little gasp, when she had sunk her teeth into him.
The fact that he’d let her do that. The fact that he’d submitted to being marked by her - would those marks still be there when she next saw him? She falls back onto her bedroll, legs splayed. Her hand - already wet from her arousal - goes straight to her clit, rubbing slow circles. Her legs twitch minutely, her nerves overwrought. Her other hand absently goes to her nipple, pinching it through her dress. The ghostly feeling of a bruise lingers there, a reminder of Heracles’ mouth. Of his lips, softer than she had expected. It would be easy to say that he kissed like he fought, all power and plunder, and there was an element of that, but underneath it had been a tenderness, a softness that had had Melinoë weak at the knees. The contrast between the sharp pressure of his teeth and the softness of his hand on her back, the feeling of his tongue along hers.
God, what a mouth.
A finger dips into her entrance as she imagines him, on the floor, between her legs. The nips he would leave as he kissed up her thighs, the scratch of his beard. With a muttered “ Askion kataski! ” she conjures a smooth pillar of light, just soft enough squeeze, and a little damp at one end.
She pushes it into her cunt, using a little magic to make it pulsate without her having to think. Her fingers return to rubbing lightly over her clit, savouring the slight soreness inside her. How his tongue might feel on her clit, how those same lips that had kissed her so roughly, so sweetly, would feel on her most intimate skin, how it would feel to be once more subject to the Son of Zeus’ single minded focus. She absently changes the shape of her conjured aid, making it slicker, more mobile. The approximated tongue fucks in and out of her, and a little more power creates suction, as if someone was there, mouth on her clit. Her now-unoccupied hand goes to her breast, pinching and squeezing.
Heracles’ mouth had been there, too, sucking and biting, just the right side of painful. The dull ache of a bruise lingers, adding to the sensation that radiates across her torso. His eyes looking up at hers, his mouth on her breast, how he might sound - the memory of his mouth at her ear, his mutters of “I’m close,” the way he had laughed when he insulted her, rich and dangerous and hot.
“ You,” he had said, the second time she encountered him, with surprising contempt. “Things are about to turn ugly, and I require neither assistance nor witnesses, sister."
The low rumble of his voice and that stupid nickname had done her in. She hadn’t admitted it to herself at that point, but every time she fought alongside him her mouth went dry and her stomach fluttered with something a little stronger than rage.
“I'm passing through. And I'm not leaving here until the traitors to the House of Hades lie broken at our feet.”
" Hah! Fine, then. We'll each earn our share. Though the lion's share is coming with me." His bitter laugh, his bravado, had spurred her on like nothing else, an as-yet-incomprehensible desire to impress him, for him to look at her.
She had won that contest, determined to prove him wrong.
“Call it even,” he had said, and she had laughed. So unwilling to admit his defeat - though it had been close. The next chamber had seen her fall, beset by an onslaught of shamblers, but she had returned home grinning.
The memory of his growl has her bucking her hips, grinding into the toy, returning to his imagined mouth on her. He’d hold her hips down, force her to take whatever he gave her - her fist in his hair would be no deterrent. She feels the warmth of an impending orgasm start to coil in her belly, remembering again how helpless she’d been in his arms, how he could have done whatever he wanted to her. She craves the feeling of powerlessness, the way he had been able to so easily throw her around, the way he had then glazed a gentle hand over her hip. The ghost of gentleness under all the teeth.
She comes to the memory of him penetrating her, the sensation of utter fullness, the way it had punched out her breath, her thoughts, everything.
With a cry that surely echoes a little too loudly, and a finger pressing into the prominent bruise on her throat, she rides out the aftershocks, banishing the conjured toy, now shaped like a (slightly smaller) replica of Heracles’ cock.
Sated, and maybe a little embarrassed at the noises that had undoubtedly escaped her tent, she sleeps.
The next night sees her delving deep into the underworld, keen to continue her winning streak against Chronos. She’s sore, even after having banished the visible bruises from her skin - the love bite on her breast stays there, prominent against her pale flesh. But she hefts the axe anyway, descending into the underworld with the lion fang displayed proudly on her dress.
The first boon she sees is Aphrodite’s, the pink heart glimmering in the moonlight. Mel inhales sharply through her nose before accepting, slightly afraid of what the goddess is going to say to her.
“So, darling,” comes her saccharine voice. “A little birdie told me that you’ve had a very intimate encounter with the fearsome Heracles? Is that why you're avoiding Ephyra today? Honestly, I question your taste, but he is strong! And so heroic, or so they say. I still think he reeks.”
Melinoë takes her cast boon, shaking her head. Olympians. She feels a little offended on Heracles’ behalf, but there's very little she can actually do about it; Aphrodite can't hear her response, and she's not petty enough to offer the Goddess an onion just so she can respond. So she hefts Zorephet, and turns towards the spindles that have spawned, cleaving easily through them.
Hecate does not comment on it at the start of their battle, and Melinoë mistakenly believes that she has gotten away without her mentor also poking her nose in her sex life. When Hecate falls before her axe, however, she does not return to shadow immediately. Instead she fixes Melinoë with a severely arched eyebrow, and says to her two words. “So… Heracles?”
“Goodbye, Teacher!” she says, dashing for the passage.
Which won't open until Hecate has left. Oops. She really hadn't wanted to have this conversation.
“Nice try, Melinoë,” Hecate says, “But that won't work until I give you the cinders.”
“Can we have this conversation at- at any other time? Please?”
Hecate sighs. “I assume Odysseus has already told you not to waste your time with such activities?”
Melinoë nods, quelled by embarrassment.
“Then, I shall merely say that I approve of him more than Eris. Do be careful, Melinoë.”
The next person to bring up Eris was going to get slapped. Honestly, you have one fling with the Goddess of Strife and lead to a massive blow up argument when she breaks your little heart and all of a sudden everyone decides that they need to peer review whoever you sleep with.
Chronos is lingering outside of Erebus, dark and irritating as ever. “Try all you like, my girl,” he intones, sepulchrous, “but the outcome of this night shall be no different from the last.” Melinoë flips him off, much to his offence - no matter, she offends him enough already. At least Chronos hadn’t mentioned him. Her evil grandfather asking her about Heracles would have forced Melinoë to submerge herself in the Rift of Thessaly and never resurface.
Or to just kill him. Again.
She drinks from the fountain after he leaves, swapping the now-expired Fang for Zeus’ bangle; his boons pair nicely with Aphrodite's, and he's going to show up eventually anyway.
She fights her way through a handful of Shellbacks to accept his boon, his laugh in her ears less mocking than expected. “So, Princess,” he says. “Someone told me that you've gotten rather close with my son? Good luck with that one, he's been rather resistant to making new friends lately. Though I suppose friends probably isn't the right word, is it…”
Fucking gods. Frustration lends her feet wings as much as Zeus’ lightning does, and she dashes through Oceanus almost literally, felling Scylla in record time. That's another person she's grateful hasn't mentioned Heracles to her, though at this rate it's only a matter of time.
The Mourning Fields, and Aphrodite's mirror, bring her even more embarrassment. Her boon is the last of the area, having already given her a centaur heart and an advancement on her path of stars - Selene had not mentioned Heracles, but had given a knowing smile nonetheless.
The Gods do not normally speak to her more than once a night, so imagine her surprise when she picks up the boon and Aphrodite’s voice rings out from it anyway. “Hello, darling!” she says, grinning impishly. “Lord Zeus and I have been having a good long chat ! You and young Heracles have given us a lot to talk about, you know?” Melinoë is already blushing before Zeus pops up as well.
“You really have, young lady! Why don’t you have a boon, for all the entertainment you’ve given us. All’s fair in love and war, isn’t that what they say?”
“I don’t-” Melinoë says, but the two of them have disappeared. “Love him,” she finishes anyway, taking the boon. It sounds like the truth, at least for now.
Battling Cerberus wipes all of the breathless pining from her chest. Nimble as she is, she can’t quite manage to dodge every one of his attacks - flipping out of the way of one paw sees her caught in the erupting ground, avoiding the summoned monsters’ attacks sends her directly into his jaws.
She gets caught on his teeth, tearing through her leg down to the bone. The muscle shreds like paper, and she has no way to heal herself - with one death defiance gone already, lost to a shadow spiller, she really can’t afford to be so unable to dodge him. There’s something about the night that just feels cursed, feels wrong, like she’s constantly caught on the back foot.
Cerberus goes down, though. Eventually. She flings a knife towards him, jealously guarding the last bit of her life. She hates the way he sounds when the miasma of misery sloughs off him, the pathetic little whimper. He didn’t deserve any of this - none of them did, but the damn dog least of all. She’s going to pulverise Chronos, one day. And soon.
Not that day, though. She deviates from her path in Tartarus, and falls to a Vierophant. It’s a bitter feeling - Chronos’ first victory since she’d first beaten him. It was going to come eventually, but did it have to be now?
She returns to the crossroads, shoulders slumped, misery scrawled across her face, and falls into a corpse-like slumber.
—
On the surface, Heracles broods. When he’d said he couldn’t get enough of the gods, he hadn’t meant like this.
Melinoë. His sister-in-arms, the thorn in his heel, naive and beautiful and the only person to best him this side of the afterlife.
He should probably spend less time thinking about her, but ever since that first meeting she had traipsed around his mind like a particularly stubborn mule. Or - no, she was more elegant than that. But she had lingered, like a mist, like a curse.
The City of Ephyra was not full of beautiful things, so Heracles of course had noticed the arrival of the Daughter of the House of Hades. She had lurched into the city, saffron silk dancing around her thighs, blonde hair falling neatly at her shoulders. She had brandished a staff, and been the first person to look at him with neither pity (the gods) nor dread (everyone else) in many moons.
Obviously, none of this was going to end well. He’d looked at her, alight with power, and thought Well, this is the last thing I fucking need. Heracles had no need for coworkers, n o need for goddesses, and no need for liabilities.
Melinoë had looked him in the eye, and told him the dead would answer to her, and he decided that, maybe, what he did need was a little friendly competition.
Not that there had been anything friendly about the contest that was his second meeting with her - Melinoë had fought like a forest fire, never still for a second, firing spells as if they were effortless. To her, maybe they were - Heracles had heard enough rumours to know he could never comprehend the extent of her training.
She had won by nipping in and killing the last shambler right under his nose - an impressive feat against anyone, really, but especially him. Not that he would betray these emotions; “Call it even,” he had murmured, and stalked off into the night.
To say he was unaware of her eyes on him would be an unsubtle lie. He knew, logically, that the Daughter of Hades watched him with intent, both in and out of combat, trying to see something through the walls he had up. He didn’t know why.
He didn’t know why he looked back, either. She had walked like she knew his gaze followed her everywhere, straight spined and proud, neck curving neatly into her shoulders, the muscles of her back flexing as she fought.
Their third meeting made it a little… clearer, maybe. He had accepted at this point that there was very little he could do to keep her out of Ephyra, but that did not mean she had to get close to him. It was a shame, almost, but what use would a companion be in such a war? What use would another person he could fail be?
She had offered him nectar, though, and hailed him as though his Godhood mattered. “Great Son of Zeus,” she had said. “I offer you this gift of Nectar, that it may quench your thirst as you labour for the gods. They must be grateful for your might.”
Honestly, his relationship with the gods was less one of gratitude than some twisted mutual obligation; they held the leash around his neck, he in turn was given leave to slake his blood-thirst. Realistically, they had needed him more than he needed them, but still the burden of fealty was on his shoulders.
He'd laughed at her, then, at her lavish praise. Not loudly, not mockingly, it had just amused him.
“Saves me having to find another bottle for when next I have to prove my fealty,” he had told her, genuinely not intending to drink the proffered beverage. She had frowned a little, subconsciously, and in the moment he couldn't quite compute why that made him feel so-
Why that made him feel.
“Here, something for your trouble,” he had tacked on, breaking a fang out of the lion skin he wears, and tossing it to her.
“No trouble at all,” she had responded, a soft smile illuminating her face. She had had it pinned to her dress, the next time they had met, and it had taken a little too much effort to not react. It was nice, having something of his on her.
In the present, he laments her absence. He had kept the nectar, and now runs an absent minded thumb over the glass curve of the bottle in his bag. The night has been quiet - Chronos’ forces gather, as always, and he sinks ships throughout the rift, but there’s no real urgency to it. They rise from the depths again, anyway. His entire existence, his mortality and his godhood, have been spent pursuing pointless victories, at the behest of a family that cared only because of his power.
He crushes some monstrous corpse beneath his club, barely thinking about the fight, and notes the sun beginning to creep over the horizon. There's no beauty in it, not really - over another skyline, maybe there would be, but here the sun just illuminates the scale of the war, the wreckage of the drowned fleet, the crumbling walls of Ephyra.
He returns to the corner of the city he has made a house in, and removes the cork from the nectar. Screw fealty. He takes a long pull from the flask, liquid gold filling his torso with warmth, and thinks of the last time he saw Melinoë.
Not the sex, exactly - though that is part of it, his remembrance of the warm, wet heat of her, of her voice in his ears, of her nails in his biceps, her teeth in the base of his neck. He still has the marks, covered and coveted underneath the lion's skin. He remembers the aftermath more, though - his hand carefully possessive on her waist, the way she had washed her hair in the fountain. The way he had looked over at her in the moonlight, and, ever so briefly, wanted to wash it for her. She had kept trying to talk to him, like it had mattered, like the beauty of the stars or her fear of facing Polyphemus were things that should concern him.
He had still told her to stay safe, though, hadn't he? And Polyphemus had fallen before her blades that very night, he knew. His attempts to drive her off had been futile before he'd ever put his mouth on her; now they would be utterly useless.
Or all the more effective, he thinks, heart chilly. A little coldness in the right moment, and she would probably never speak to him again, safe from the fate of everyone who had ever gotten too close to him.
Ignore for a moment, if you will, that Melinoë is immortal, and beloved of Hera, and has far bigger problems to worry about than the inevitable curse of Heracles’ affections.
(He can admit it to himself, if only while hazy from alcohol; he cares for her. She lights up every night that sees her.)
Think instead of Amphytrion, of Megara, of Heracles’ sons, and the immortal weight of grief.
Think of reasons to avoid said grief, to avoid the fates that have befallen every other person he has looked at with tenderness. It’s not worth the risk, in his mind. It was a mistake - he should never have touched her. She should never have wanted him to.
He resolves, the next time he sees her, to make his position on the matter clear; it cannot happen again. His sleep is bereft of nightmares, for once, and his resolve almost lasts until he wakes.
—
Melinoë grabs the twin flames of Ygnium, the Iridescent Fan, and starts the trek to Ephyra. In retrospect, maybe taking the relic of the goddess who detests Heracles the most was unwise, given Olympus’ current obsession with commenting on their- entanglement, but it’s far too late now.
“Take it from me, dear,” opens Hera, and Melinoë holds her breath. “Don’t listen to your heart. I know it’s difficult, as the blasted thing tends to be very loud. But if you heed it, it’ll lead you straight to your mistakes more often than not. Ask Heracles about that, by the way - you really should know what happened to his first family, if you’re going to be so close to him.”
Engagement ring is a fantastic boon. Would it be too much for Melinoë to ask, for everyone to get along? She’s not going to ask Heracles about his family, at least not tonight - if it’s worth her knowing, then he’ll tell her, and if he doesn’t trust her enough, then it’s fine. It’s fine.
It’s fine.
Once again, her first stop is Medea. The witch raises a shrewd eyebrow at her when she enters, finishing her incantation.
“Good evening, Melinoë,” she starts. “How have your recent trips been?”
“You know exactly how they’ve been, Medea. Or at least, everyone else does.”
“I know that you beat Polyphemus. Your last trip to the underworld I know little about… and I figured you were probably tired of everybody else’s comments on your other activities.”
“Honestly, yes. Zeus and Aphrodite and Hera have all felt the need to comment on it, and even Selene was giving me looks! And don’t pretend you didn’t raise your eyebrows me when I came in, you obviously have thoughts -”
“Calm, Sorceress,” Medea says, and Melinoë embarrassedly realises that she has been shouting. “I do have thoughts, and most of them can come down to this: at least something made him happy! Don’t be surprised if he refuses to speak to you for a bit, though. Some rather awful things happened to his companions, when he was a mortal. He’s very closed off.”
Melinoë stammers, not having expected this. Medea continues. “I figured something was going to happen - now, I wasn't expecting to be able to hear it, but I imagine most of us have seen or done worse. You’re young! Enjoy yourself - goodness knows that you haven’t really had much chance to, what with everything going on.”
“I- thank you, Lady Medea. I apologise for my outburst, I am a little-”
“Stressed? Confused? Overwhelmed? Annoyed with every single Olympian deciding they have to talk about your sex life?”
“Yes! All of these things. They’re very - useful, and they’re my family, and I do just wish that they would keep their noses out of it, rather than giving me all of their opinions and telling me how much fun they’re having talking about my sex life.”
Medea smiles a shrewd smile, and sighs. “That’s life with the Olympians, I’m afraid. Look at it this way - at least none of them can bring hell on either of you for it.”
Melinoë hadn’t really been afraid of that. She’ll talk to Heracles about it. Or not! He probably won’t talk to her, given what everyone’s been saying.
“Anyway, no point in trying to change the past. I've several more unspeakable transgressions against nature here for you, take one,” she stills for a second as Melinoë picks her curses, and gives her a solemn nod. “May all your foes be damned, Sorceress.”
Melinoë leaves. Her foes are damned, that night, falling before her like chaff from a seed. She picks up two centaur hearts, an upgrade for her Hex, extra magic, and another of Hera’s boons with barely a scratch on her. And with no sign of Heracles.
She goes through the last passage, and- there he is. Tall and swarthy and spattered in gore, Heracles crashes to the ground. He gives her a nod, but says nothing as enemies start to spawn around her. A blast of Melinoë’s cast links all of her foes, and she heads to battle, blasting them with fire. Heracles’ raised eyebrows when felling one tombstone also knocks down five shamblers has her grinning, confident in her victory over her enemies, and, more importantly, over him. He puts up a good fight, but is unable to match her speed, her range, the spinning flames of her weapon, perfectly adapted to her sorcery. The last enemy falls, and she grabs her golden reward.
“I win,” she chirps, grinning at her- her colleague. “Off your game today, Heracles? A little distracted?” It's basically the same line again, but it worked last time, didn't it?
Heracles’ eyes follow her like a hound to a fox - have been following her the whole time, really. He looks hungry, looks a little wild. Want hits Melinoë like a fist to the gut. It's only been two days - she's still sore. She doesn't really care, not when he's looking at her like that.
So when Heracles snorts his derision and turns to walk away, Melinoë is more than a little surprised. Not so surprised, however, that she can’t trap him in a spell. His foot hovers in mid-air when he realises he can't exit the circle of her cast, and he turns to face her.
“Are you not even going to talk to me, now?” she says, and drops the cast. If he wants to leave that badly, at least she'll know where they stand - far away from each other.
But he doesn't leave. He just keeps looking at her, eyes golden even in the blue night. “What's there to talk about, Witch?” If he acts like it didn't happen, maybe she'll realise exactly what he is. And then maybe she'll leave, like she should.
Of course, if Melinoë typically behaved as she was meant to, none of this would have happened, would it? She steps towards him, hand outstretched as it had been to Toula. She always had liked cats. “How's your night going? Are the Olympians making as much fun of you as they are of me? What's your drink of choice?”
“My night is fine. My relatives are as irritating as ever. What I drink is of no concern to you.” He's not going to let it happen again, even if he wants it, even if he wants her. And not even in mundane, carnal ways, though that's probably all he'll get. He'd like to speak to her for more than a scant handful of minutes; he'd like to tell her his myths, fill out the stories that she has doubtless heard from others; he'd like to see her, just once, without the grime of battle on her.
But he will evidently never have that, and she will evidently never want it, and even if-
It would all go down in flames. It happened to Megara, and to Hylas, and to Deianira, and Heracles was not so naive as to hope for a different outcome this time.
“You don't need to be so cold, you know?” she says, eyes shrewd and shining. “You didn't strike me as the type to stop seeing me as a person just because-”
“It was a mistake, Sister. It shouldn't have happened.” It bites at him to say it, and bites at her to hear it just as much. “I'm sorry,” he finishes, turning to leave.
“Stop lying to me, Heracles. It's unbecoming of you.” Her voice turns sharp, and he turns back.
“If it was a mistake, you wouldn't be trying so hard to stop me from wanting it,” she says, moving into his space - when did she get so close? When did she get so beautiful?
“We get to know each other, you'll live to regret it,” he says, as if it wasn't too late for that. “Happens all the time.”
“Tough shit!” she says, eyes aflame, hand flying towards him in exasperation. “I'm not asking you to marry me, I'm asking you to not run off like a coward because you-”
“Debased you in public?”
“That's not- stop putting feelings in my mouth, you wretch.” She's so close he can smell her, the ozone tang of magic and the iron tang of blood. He has to be able to respond - there has to be something to say to end this, to piss her off so badly that she'll leave, that she'll stop being so close and unafraid of him.
He looks down at her. He opens his mouth, sure that he's going to speak, say the perfectly cruel sentence he needs to. Never let it be said that he'd learnt nothing from his stepmother.
“If you don't want me, you really need to stop looking at me like that,” she says, accusing hand practically on his chest, and instead of speaking, he kisses her. So much for his resolve.
Melinoë’s hand melts into his chest, and he pulls her into him, his hands firm and gentle on her exposed back. She kisses him with the same fervour that she does everything else, all heat and all power. It leaves him feeling just off-centre, the same way her spells do, like his reality has been tilted a single degree to the left.
Fucking hell. He's got it bad.
He pulls away from her, and she whines, pathetic and high pitched in the back of her throat. His knees do not tremble. “There's a corner of the city,” he murmurs, “with a little more privacy. Fewer monsters.”
“That sounds an awful lot like an invitation, Son of Zeus,” she says, and her voice is too low to match the teasing expression on her face. “Taking me home, are you?”
It's not really a home, per se, but it'll do - he sleeps there, it's dry, there's a bed that he can lay her down into, which he does.
The sheets smell like him, but that might just be him, all over her, kissing her with a slow, lazy intensity. His canine catching her plush bottom lip, his tongue brushing against hers as they exchange kisses. One hand goes to her waist, the other bracing against the thin mattress so he doesn’t crush her under his bulk. She leans up, into him, hungry and wanton. She grinds against his knee, slotted between her thighs, her gasp muffled into his mouth as he pushes back against her.
Melinoë’s hand finds the back of Heracles’ neck, pushing the impenetrable Lion’s skin off of his head. She tangles her fingers in his hair, soft and silken despite his living conditions. She grips, tugging on the blond strands, and his mouth falls easily to her neck, sucking a dark bruise at a spot under her jaw that has her trembling. Her other hand goes to his shoulder, and she pushes, hooking a foot under his knee to roll him over, placing herself neatly in his lap.
He goes willingly. Melinoë knows that there is no way she could have moved him if he didn’t want to be moved, but pushing the slayer of the Nemean Lion around runs a thrill up her spine anyway. He looks up at her, eyes a little wide, mouth a little open in shock. Her hair is messy, floating around her head like a halo, and sat astride his hips she is resplendent, face and chest flushed, lips swollen and spit-slicked. Touching her feels like defilement, so he places his hands back on her waist and pulls her down into him. Maybe it’s a mistake.
One worth making, though. She bucks her hips into his, feeling the warmth of him below her, how he’s already hard, panting, all for her. She grins, a little savage round the edges, and takes his hands in hers, pushing him back on the bed. She’s not quite tall enough to do this properly - Eris had been smaller, easier to manhandle, but his obedience means… something. She keeps expecting a comment, a zippy one-liner about her lack of strength compared to him, but he just obeys. “Keep them there,” she says, sitting up straight on him, looping her hair back into a ponytail. He doesn’t move, even though she really expects him to.
“Good boy,” she murmurs, sotto voce, leaning back down to press a kiss into the corner of his mouth. “If they move, I’m tying them down, understand?” She pauses before doing anything, giving him time to object, to draw a line in the sand here.
He nods. His hands go to the rough wooden headboard. “Yes, Sister.”
His voice is still strong, confident. Melinoë’s going to change that. She unfastens the lion paws, unwrapping the tail from his neck to push the cloak off of his shoulders. Goosebumps pimple his now-exposed skin, rushing up to meet her breath as she ducks down to his neck, kissing the scars that linger there. “I expected you to have more to say, you know,” she says, biting down on his collarbone, “but you went down so easily.”
“I won’t win anything by complaining,” he says, ending on a sharp inhale as she pinches a nipple between two fingers. “And… not much to complain about.”
Melinoë’s kisses trail down his stomach, tongue laving over the firm muscle of his core as she kneels between his legs. She bites into the inch of soft flesh above his waistband, following along the dark hair scattered across his skin with her lips. His muscles twitch under her attention, abs jumping when she traces sharp nails across the skin. Her hands go to his leathers, making quick work of the clasp that holds them closed. His cock is straining at the thin white undershorts he wears, a damp spot already visible. It jumps, when she presses her nails into his side and pulls her hands to the waistband, fingers leaving red marks in their wake. She hooks a finger below the waist, and presses a biting kiss just above it.
And then she waits.
He looks down at her, eyebrows crinkling together. “What?” he asks, with absolutely no sense of decorum.
“What do you mean, what?” says Melinoë, barely suppressing a grin. She’s going to make him beg.
“You stopped.”
“Do you want me to start again? To touch you again?”
“Yes.” He tries to keep the desperation out of his mouth, make his voice level, but he can’t manage it - his hisses with it, all air and no thought.
She bends down, mouth scant millimetres away from the head of his cock. He relaxes back into his position, expecting that to be the end of things, when she stops, and says “Are you going to ask nicely?”
Heracles, of course, has never asked nicely for anything in his life, and is not particularly accustomed to begging. His leg comes up behind Melinoë’s neck, effectively pushing her face into him, if a little clumsily. She retaliates with a flick of her fingers, conjuring ropes to keep his ankles down before sinking her teeth into his thigh. “I said nicely. ”
He glares at her. “No.”
“Come on, I’m sure you can do it. Say please?” She sits astride his legs again, just too far down to give him anything to even think about grinding against, though his hips buck up anyway. Her nails carve red lines into the meat of his thighs, soothed only by the pressing of kisses, just close enough for the stimulation to be utter torture.
“Just- touch me already,” he says, panting. She pulls away, leaving only her hands on him
“Beg.” She grins with all her teeth, relishing the sight before her: Heracles, flushed, a sheen of sweat on his skin, almost-naked before her. His lips are swollen, his hair a mess, sweat-frizzy flyaways forming a halo.
“Please,” it sounds gruff, but she can hear the tremor in his voice. Just a little more, just have him a little more desperate. She tugs down the waistband of his shorts, his cock bobbing up to hit his stomach, already leaking precum.
“Melinoë,” he gasps, the first time her name has left his mouth. “Please, just put your fucking mouth on me, for the love of the gods, just touch me, ah - damn it.” She obliges, taking the head of his cock into her mouth, and his speech devolves into rapidfire mumbled curses.
She pulls back and licks at the tip, tasting the bitter-salt of his precum on her tongue. She licks a stripe up the shaft, running her tongue over the head, and with a flick of her fingers, releases his ankles. His legs twitch, but stay in their place. She pulls off.
“Good,” she murmurs, practically into his skin. “Stay still. Let me take care of you.”
Melinoë’s mouth returns to his cock, swallowing down - maybe a third of him fits into her mouth, her lips stretched fully with the size of him. His hips jerk into her, head of his cock knocking into the back of her throat. She gags, sucking an aborted breath through her nose, and pulls back a little before going down again, hand coming up to stroke the base.
Heracles flexes a hand on the headboard, fighting the urge to wrap it in Melinoë’s hair, to guide her, push her pretty little face into the base of his cock and fuck up into her throat. She pulls off, and looks at him, lips plush and wet with a mixture of saliva and precum. She kisses the head while looking at him, doe-eyed and flushed. She comes off again with a pop, a string of saliva still connecting them. “You’ve been so good for me,” she says, voice soft as velvet. “Why don’t you move those hands?”
One goes immediately to her hair, flicking the tie out before Heracles grabs a fistful of her blonde locks, tugging lightly at the roots. The other goes to the base of his cock, the head batting against Melinoë’s lips. She wraps her mouth around him again, taking him into her as deep as she can, and he pushes her further, filling her throat completely. He bucks his hips into her, fucking her face until tears start to spark in the corners of her eyes. She pushes further, as minutely as she can, trying in vain to take him to the base - his hand encircles her head, the other, now unoccupied, gripping the sheets.
Melinoë swallows around him, drool leaking from the corners of her mouth, trying to push further, but finds herself unable to. She can feel the minute bucks of his hips hammering into the back of her throat, surely to leave a mark. Unable to breathe around him, she tries to pull her head back and off of him. He pushes her down, subconsciously, the smell of him filling her nose, the weight of him filling her throat, leaving her lightheaded and breathless. She taps a hand against his hip, even as the lack of air has her mouth watering, her cunt wet. He lets her up, after a beat, a murmured “Sorry, Sister,” spilling from his lips unapologetically.
She smiles up at him, pupils blown wide. Her hand wraps around him, jerking him off over her face, tongue out. His litany of moans hasn’t slowed, desperate “please, please”s mixed in with her name, mixed in with breathy, punched out gasps. His cock twitches in her hand when she slows her movements, his orgasm edging ever closer. “I’m-” he bites out, and her mouth is back on him, tongue sliding across the base of his head obliterating the words from him. She pushes her mouth deeper, hollowing her cheeks, and he tightens his grip on her hair, moving her up and down his cock with ease.
She swallows around him, nails digging into his hip, and he comes with a deep groan. She pulls off, his come in her mouth, a string dangling from her lips, and closes her mouth before swallowing. Her dress is ruined, saliva and come and sweat staining the yellow fabric, and he sits up, cradling her head with one hand and unfastening the neck with the other.
Heracles runs a hand down Melinoë’s bare arm, fingers wrapping around her wrist, and he kisses her. He can taste himself on her mouth, on her tongue, salty and bitter and hot. He pulls away. “Okay?” he murmurs, hand coming out of her hair to rest on the back of her neck.
She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Swallowing, she tries again. “Yes,” her voice is hoarse, her words breathy. “Fantastic, yes, okay, brilliant.” He cuts off her babble with another kiss, soft and sweet, before laying her back onto the bed, and stripping her dress from her with gentle hands. His mouth follows along the newly-exposed skin, pressing gentle kisses into it. He tosses it on the floor in a neat pile, and grabs her a waterskin.
“Drink,” he says, and his mouth returns to her neck with a vicious kiss. “Let me take care of you,” he says, into her skin. Up close, she smells like almond milk, and pomegranates, and clean salty sweat. His tongue goes to her skin, and she tastes sweet too, smooth under his mouth.
Melinoë gasps, hand coming up to card through his dark blonde hair. “So sweet to me,” she murmurs, more thought than word. Heracles’ mouth finds her nipple, sucking at the peak while his free hand goes to her other breast, perfectly fitting the palm of his hand. She grips the soft waves at the nape of his neck, savours the scratch of his beard against her bare ribs, the way he moves so easily with her hand. His mouth follows a trail down her abdomen, biting kisses along her ribs, her sternum, below her navel. He rips off the scrap of her underwear, quite literally - the fabric tears under his hands - revealing the golden curls that cover her cunt. He bites her inner thigh, sharp teeth leaving an imprint, and parts her legs with his hands, exposing her. She is, as always, breathtakingly beautiful. He looks up at her from between her legs, not yet touching her. This close, she smells divine, sweat and sex and a little blood.
The temptation is there to hold off a little, to tease her, to drag it out and keep her in his bed for longer, but he’s not so selfish. He licks a stripe up her entrance, tasting her, sharp and salted and red and wet. She bucks up into his face, and his hands go to her waist, pulling her down into his mouth. She’s so small underneath him - his hands wrap around her with room to spare, but nothing about her feels fragile. Magic sparks around her fingers, errant lights flying as the pleasure makes her lose control.
Seeing Melinoë like this, perfect hair mussed, ever-controlled power spilling from her hands, from her mouth, feels like an enormous privilege. Heracles, for a moment, wishes he could have it longer, wishes he could keep her - not in such a possessive way, but he can’t work out how else to think about it.
He’s not going to wake up next to her. He needs to get that through his head.
“Stop thinking so much,” she says. “It’s- ah! -stressing me out.” He laughs into her skin, and her hands fist in his hair, pushing his face into her. He goes oh-so-willingly, mouth hot on her cunt, lips wrapping around her clit and sucking, a finger sinking easily into her. She gasps, arching off the bed and into his face, the broad flat of his tongue giving her firm pressure. She hadn’t expected to be so close already, but when he pushes a second finger inside of her, hitting her g-spot with utter precision, she can’t really find the brain capacity to complain.
Melinoë’s whines crescendo, her high pitched keening mixing with the slick slide of Heracles’ fingers in and out of her, the wet noises of his mouth on cunt. She knows she sounds obscene, but half of these noises are his fault, the wet sounds of his tongue on her vulva, the muffled slurp as he sucks on her clit, all force and all focus and all hot, terrible sensation. Her knees close around his head as an orgasm rocks her body, clenching her abs and leaving her cunt fluttering. Heracles doesn’t let up, swallowing her wetness as he pushes further into her cunt, nose pressed to her clitoris as his tongue joins his fingers inside of her.
A second orgasm rattles through her as he digs his nails into her skin, pulling her into him with a single hand on her hip. Her hips twitch, her grip on his hair tightening as every nerve in her body sings with pleasure. Heracles’ mouth stays on her through the aftershocks, her legs trembling with the overstimulation.
He brings her to her peak twice more, in the same fashion, just his smart mouth and clever fingers and an apparent lack of need to breathe. He pulls off of her, and she slumps into the mattress, boneless and exhausted and sated. Her hand goes to his cheek, damp with her arousal - his face is a mess, his pupils blown, his lips red, his skin shiny with sweat and saliva and Melinoë’s own slick.
He's hard again, just from the way she sounded underneath her, and he kisses her, again. She still tastes like him, and all he can think about is how it will linger, how the rest of her journey tonight will be tainted by him, by the memory of him in her mouth, of his mouth on her, the bruises scattered across her skin. He wants- he wants everything. Tonight, though, he’ll settle for claiming her another way.
Apparently in the same mind, she puts a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him flat back onto the bed, and seats herself in his lap. She wraps her hand firmly around his cock, thumb swiping over the head as she moves her hand up and down. He twitches in her hand, uncomfortably close to coming already.
“Wait,” he pants out, and her hand slows. “I want- I want to be inside you.”
She leans down and kisses him again, hot and wet and desperate, sucking viciously on his tongue. “Say please,” she says, grinning impishly.
Instead, he kisses her, hand wrapping around her neck, thumb brushing her pulse point. Gods, that tongue. Those hands. Everything about him, the size and the power and the gentleness, the fact that she can feel the head of his cock just below her belly button as she melts forward into the kiss, makes her shiver.
“Please,” he murmurs into her lips as they break apart, foreheads pressed together.
She nods, dumbstruck, and rises onto her knees, the hand that isn't supporting her weight positioning him at her entrance.
Her mouth drops open in a silent gasp as she sinks down onto him, head tossed back in ecstacy. The line of her jaw, the column of her throat, the divot between her collarbones, he wants to run his hands all over them, to put his mouth all over her, to taste and bite and mark and have anyone who looks at her know that she is his.
“A little,” she gasps out, “help, please? It's so- it's so-”
He cuts her off with hands on her hips, pulling her down on him, thrusting upwards to hilt himself fully inside her. “Haven't been able to stop,” she babbles, “thinking about you. Made myself- ah -come three times, last night, thinking about you, inside me, you're so good, so big, I've never- I've never-” His finger finds her clit, rubbing once, sharply, and she cries out.
“If you keep talking like that, Witch,” he bites out, “I’m not going to last.”
She grinds her hips into him, achingly full. “I don't, ah, care,” she says. “I want to feel you, I want you inside me, want your come, fuck, Heracles,” she trails off into a litany of desperate pleas and moans, and it takes an immense force of will for him not to finish inside her right there.
His fingers rub at her clit as his hips buck minutely into her, the wet heat of her around him the only sensation that matters, the only sensation that has mattered since his ascension to godhood. Melinoë slumps forward into his chest, unable to keep herself upright, pressing an absent-minded kiss onto the skin. She's unbearably sensitive, overwrought and fucked out and desperate for him, clenching around his girth.
His hand travels to her back, covering her almost entirely. She's not delicate, not really, but she feels fragile under his hands anyway. Gods.
He really shouldn't be doing this. But she whines as he fucks up into her, and he can't bring himself to care.
“Beautiful,” he mutters, hand going into her hair, and whatever response she gives is muffled into the broad expanse of his chest.
His other hand moves round, squeezing the plush cheek of her ass as she grinds into him. Every movement of him over her g-spot sends sensation sparking through her body, bringing her closer to her peak. “I'm close,” she murmurs, “Please, I’m so-”
“Come for me,” he says, voice rumbling through her ribcage. “Come for me, Mel, I want to feel you.” His movements become faster, his every thrust rocking her body against his, and she comes clenching around him with a low, breathless gasp. He comes inside her in that same moment, spilling hot and virile against her cervix.
He stays inside her, unwilling to pull out, to disturb anything about the moment. He smiles at her, properly this time, and she pushes herself into a seated position.
Her thumb runs over his cheekbone, touch light, and she pushes a few errant strands of hair behind his ear. “C’mere,” she murmurs, and he sits up properly.
She kisses his damp mouth, tasting herself on him, soft and sweet and slow. Either one of them could claim it to be a moment of passion, but the air is heavy around them, the quiet of the room feeling so much more serious than that following a simple hookup. He's still inside her. Neither of them move, and he kisses her again, and again, and again, languorous, savouring the way she leans into him, his hands cupping her jaw. She ends the kiss to breathe, and shifts just enough for him to pull out of her, wincing a little. She's never quite going to get used to that, to the size of him, to the delicate way he handles her.
She buries her face in his chest, exhausted, and he lays back down on the bed, holding her in his arms. She's so aware of the insurmountable task that awaits her, in that moment - Polyphemus, the fleet, whatever awaits her at the foot of Olympus, but it can wait for these next ten minutes. It’s tempting to sleep, to stay there forever, but she knows she can’t. Her and Heracles both have their obligations, no matter how little they want them.
Loyal to a fault. Isn’t that always the problem?
She runs her fingers over his chest anyway. She can have this small moment of peace, before she returns to her task.
Heracles looks down at her, at the peaceful expression on her face, so different from how he normally sees her. It’s unfair, really, all the pressure on her.
Not that he can do anything about it. “Why is it you?” he asks, without really thinking.
“Why is what me?” There's a small, confused wrinkle between her eyebrows. He does not kiss it away.
“Why do you have to be the one stopping Chronos, helping Olympus, all by yourself. It took-”
“-Six of the olympians to bring him down the first time, I know. I’m the only one who can, Heracles. That’s all.” She looks sombre, and he can’t help but hate himself a little for bringing it up. “I am the Daughter of the House of Hades. The underworld answers to me - no one else can find their way into Tartarus. I must defeat the Titan, and free my family, and restore order - and no one else is coming up to help Olympus.”
It’s a mammoth task to put on the shoulders of anyone, even a Goddess. Heracles is familiar with mammoth tasks, though. Even when unfair, there is no real way to turn them down.
“I wasn’t suggesting you stop, Sister,” he says, arm around her. “I was just… curious. It is always us who end up at their beck and call.” The disdain in his voice makes it clear that he speaks of Olympus, of the Gods that Melinoë calls family. Maybe he shouldn’t be so bitter, but Heracles hails them as kin too, even if only by the curse of his bloodline.
“Define ‘us’?” she says, and isn’t that a loaded question.
One that won’t be answered this night, as Heracles heaves a sigh and says “Half-breeds. Those of us with mortal blood, not so confined to a realm as the Gods might be. We get their power, but seldom their luxury.” He’s bitter, too bitter, and is fully aware of that fact.
Melinoë smiles up at him, nose crinkling. “Have you ever lightened up?” she says, ripping a laugh from his chest.
“No.” He’s smiling, though - or at least, the lines at the corners of his eyes have deepened. “Don’t you have a task to get back to?”
Melinoë sighs. Gods forbid he actually talk to her about anything real. “Are you really that eager to see the back of me?” she asks, and does not want to hear the answer.
“The sun will rise, Sister. You work best under the dark. I’m keeping an eye.”
She hadn’t expected that - the consideration. His hand is still between her shoulder blades, holding her to his chest. He’s warm underneath her, the slow steady beat of his heart audible. It feels safe.
She can’t stay. She knows this. She kisses him once more, because she can, because she shouldn’t, and she stands.
“I’ll be off, then. Polyphemus will fall,” she says, all cold iron will. “And then, Chronos.”
Heracles looks at her through narrowed, contemplative eyes. They will fall, he knows it. Who wouldn’t, under her magic? He understands the Olympian’s faith in her, even as it rankles him.
He had been so dedicated to his duties, once. These days, he simply performs them because it is easier than stopping.
Melinoë leaves with a smile tossed over her shoulder, dress and body both spelled clean. Heracles stays.
“Stay safe, sister,” he says, as she passes through the door, and he does not touch her this time.
It was definitely a mistake. What is it they say - once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern. He cannot let this become a pattern - she is a distraction, and he puts her in danger, and… well. He's not had a good track record with getting to keep nice things.
And - she’s a Goddess. She carries Hera’s fan, she bears her boons, she honours her as family, the very thing that Hera stole from him. He fights the forces of Chronos, sure, but Melinoë fights to restore her family’s power. It’s technically Heracles’ power, too, but his relationship to his Olympian blood is contentious at best.
He really should have learnt to stay away from her. The red-blooded daughter of Hades, the Sorceress Disciple of Hecate, soft-hearted and motivated and brilliant. Everything that he is not. Even his task - the endless slaying on monsters - is not borne from a true desire, from a purpose to serve. It’s just better than not doing anything - Melinoë speaks of saving her brother and freeing her father and seeing the end of Chronos’ rule, while Heracles simply uses the bloodshed and the combat as a way to stave off the memories.
He will not remember the horror on Megara’s face. Not this night.
He can avoid Melinoë. If he sees her, talks to her, maybe he will fail, again. Not seeing her should be easier.
Not easy. But easier. As the tale often goes.