Chapter Text
It took twenty minutes to walk to the edge of the River Styx. Bianca knows because she counted. She was bored, she had been walking for the past like- she actually still didn’t know how long it had been.
At the edge of the River Styx it was loud . Not loud like the wails of the lost souls. That had been sharp and high pitched and painful. This was a hum from the earth, rattling up and shaking her bones. It may not have been painful but it was violent.
Grey dirt fell into its rushing rapids. This was the final challenge, then they would just have to get up the stairs to the doors of Orpheus and then they would be free. They would be free to go home again.
“How do we get across?” Hazel asks, her eyes locked on the river. Bianca looked across. There was no chance that they would be able to jump it. Not here at least. Bianca looked down the stream then up stream.
“We can find somewhere else, where it isn’t as dangerous.” Bianca headed upstream a little farther away from the edge than she had been before. Bianca knew a tiny bit about the River Styx, like it would kill you if you fell in. It rips your soul from your body, dissolving whatever there is of your physical form and swallowing your soul so it becomes a part of the river. It's painful to say the least.
They walk about a mile upstream, carefully paying attention to the wobbly, twisty, sides. Then there was a small part where the two sides dipped together at an angle. It was still about a 20 foot jump, but everywhere else was closer to 40 or 50 so this was probably the best they were going to get.
“Okay, Hazel, you have to listen carefully.” Bianca kneeled down in front of the little girl because she needed Hazel to know how dangerous this was and what risk they were going to take. “We have to be very careful with this, because we can’t touch the water. We're going to jump from the sides of these two ledges.” She pointed towards the two sides of the river.
“What happens if I miss? What if I fall in?” Hazel whispers, her voice a shaky.
“You won’t miss, I'll be on the other side to catch you.” Bianca reassured her, but it only seemed to make Hazel more scared.
“What if you fall in?” Bianca was surprised at how fast she had been able to come up with an answer to that.
“Then, you need to go back to the field with all the spirits. Talk to them, be their friend, help them live, and before you know it Nico will be here to get you.” Bianca said. Trying to pretend like she had some idea of knowing what she was doing. A part of her was telling this story to try and trick herself into believing that Hazel would be fine.
“Here take this.” Bianca undid the ribbon that held her fathers helm of darkness. “Use this to hide yourself until Nico comes and when he does, the second you see him, you run up to him. Tell him, ‘I am a friend of your sister, Bianca di Angelo, she thought we would be friends. Do you want to be friends?’ Okay?”
Hazel's lip trembled and she swallowed hard like she was trying to keep down a sob. “Okay.” Bianca tried to smile as genuine as she could. She ruffled Hazel's curly hair and stood up tall looking across the River to the other side.
“Don’t jump until I tell you.” Bianca told her Hazel nodded one more time and Bianca made her way to the ridge and did her best to ignore the horrible sound of the rapids.
She stepped back and took the stance to run and jump, and just as Bianca was about to go she froze.
Mind you she did not freeze because she was scared, she froze because she felt a tug. For a short moment she had thought it had been Death again. She almost turned around and rushed over to Hazel so she could take the helmet and engulf them both in darkness, but then she realised that this tug was not normal.
The hold Thanatos had was a lot more powerful. Like his claws were wrapping you in a straight jacket and you had to rip yourself out before the buckles locked and you were thrown in a cell. The pull Bianca was currently experiencing was nothing like that.
It was soft, like small arms wrapping around her, quietly asking if they could be hugged back. Bianca was almost tempted to. The sweet gesture made her want to sob. What a kind little thing. How could she not care for him, and protect him, and she needs to get back to him, she needs to actually hug him. She wanted to throw up because this was Nico trying to get her attention.
“Bia? What’s wrong?” Hazel asked. That made things worse. Nico used to call her Bia.
“Nothing, I'm okay!” She said with fake cheer in her voice as to not scare Hazel.
She could go. She could go see Nico, tell him what she’s been planning. That she would be there soon, that she would be back and they could hang out and he could teach her Mythomagic and they could be brother and sister again. Everything would be fine! But she also didn’t want him to see her like this.
She didn’t know what she would look like in the real world, what if she looked like a corpse? And even if she didn’t look like a corpse, how much better would it be if she was a spirit? She was dead no matter what. She didn’t want to appear like this in front of her brother.
Bianca ignored the pulling. She would see her brother soon, then she would get her hug. She steadied her shaky legs and ran. At the edge of the river she kicked off. She held her breath and the feeling of her heart freezing took over her.
She landed on the other side rolling a bit as she collided with the ground. She huffed and her face cracked into a wide smile. She had made it! She nearly began to kiss the ground until she remembered Hazel was on the other side of the river waiting for her.
“I’m good!” Bianca shouted and Hazel must have heard her because she smiled and gave her a big thumbs up with her arms stretched out. Bianca went back to the side and dug her heels into the ground so she had a sturdy stance. “Okay! You're good to jump!” Hazel nodded. She went to the edge and instead of jumping she flung the helmet across the river.
Bianca barely dodged the metal. It rolled in the ground but Bianca didn’t pay it any mind. Hazel stepped back like how Bianca had done and then she ran and then she jumped.
Bianca lunged forward and grabbed onto Hazel's arms. She fell to her stomach and Hazel hung down, just above the rushing river. She used all her strength to pull Hazel up. Dirt from the edge fell into the water and it sizzled like a pot of boiling water. Whatever heart she had was pounding now, so much so that it hurt. Bianca pulled with all of her strength and after a terrifying struggle and Hazel digging her feet into the Styx river bank as a boost, she finally climbed onto the solid ground away from the water.
After a moment of panting, the beating of her heart became too much. Bianca grabbed Hazel and hugged her as tight as she could. This was an odd gesture, especially for Bianca, but she had been so scared. She had been so scared that Hazel might slip, or she would lose her grip and fall in. She could have lost Hazel.
“It’s okay, we did it.” Hazel huffed, clearly trying to comfort Bianca who was nearly in tears at this point.
“We did it.” Bianca replied, softly. Hazel moved back a little bit and smiled so wide Bianca would have thought it was impossible if she hadn’t seen Hazel do it right in that moment.
“We did it!” She cheered, throwing her hands in the air in celebration. The fear left Bianca, she smiled, they had done it! She did the same as Hazel and they both whooped so loud their voices rang out louder than the river.
“Come on!” Bianca gets up and pulls Hazel with her. “We’re almost out of here.”
They walk, and walk, and walk. They had already walked for hundreds of miles across the Underworld, and Bianca was tired but now that they were so close, Bianca was near running. Soon the world started to fold together, the two sides crashed in on one another into a little pipeline that Bianca could barely get through. It felt like the Underworld was actually trying to stop them, but it was already too late because Bianca could see the stairs.
They cut through and when Bianca places her foot on the step the world warps once again. It goes back to normal, it goes back to how it is supposed to. She could nearly feel the tears in her eyes again. Hazel raced past her with a smile and Bianca blinked away the tears and ran after her.
They ran up the stairs for a while. Maybe an hour, Bianca didn’t know how she wasn’t out of breath. Maybe because she didn’t have any breath to lose. After walking for hours it seemed like they hadn’t gone anywhere. That was the point wasn’t it though? Her dad had created this path to torture Orpheus. Make it take as long as possible so Orpheus would turn around. Make him give up. Her dad was a psychopath. Hurting her like how he hurt Orpheus. Trying to get her to give up and turn around. She wouldn’t do that.
It took six hours until they saw something different. The cold, dark, black brick walls began to lighten into a grey, and then a white. The steps became wider and the two of them were able to walk side by side now. The steps got longer, becoming more like a platform and the world around them seemed to light up gold with each step. It set a feeling of hope in Bianca. She didn’t like it. She didn’t trust it.
Bianca took her last step in front of the large wooden doors that looked to be halfway done turning into rock. Her heart was racing just knowing what was on the other side. She was scared to even touch it, fearing that she might explode or something. Hazel tugged on her sleeve, as if to pull her back to reality, which Bianca was thankful for.
She tried her best to smile, to seem confident, but it was really just a front. She was terrified, because she was just starting to consider all the other possibilities of what would happen if she pulled this door handle. She swallowed hard and made a silent prayer to- she didn’t quite actually know who. Artemis? Her father Hades? God? None of them had ever really listened to her before but for a bit of hope she prayed anyway.
The doorknob was cold but that didn’t deter Bianca. She twisted the knob and pulled. Light shone through the cracks. It was so bright you might’ve thought the sun was hiding right behind it.
The door was shut again. She tried to open it again but the same result. Again, again, again, again, sunlight, sunlight, sunlight, sunlight. She choked down a clump of air except it didn’t feel like anything really, she could just tell that if she had a moment to do anything other than continuously open this door tears would be streaming down her face by now.
With every try, she failed and she couldn’t do anything. It wouldn’t work. She was stuck here- she couldn’t do anything, because the door, her dad, wouldn’t let her fucking leave this place. Bianca screamed swears at the door, at her dad, in whatever language she could think of. She hated her stupid life or death or whatever it is that she was currently experiencing. She hated the gods because her dad had doomed her with this life, Artemis had thrown her onto a quest she wasn’t prepared for, and God never protected her family like she had always begged for.
“It’s okay Bia, we can figure something out.” She hated Hazel for not being Nico.
“How? This was our only way.” She sobbed. She fell to the ground with her head pressed against the cold freedoms she was being denied. She scratched at the wooden door. If she was alive right now her fingernails would be split back and her hands would be covered in the blood from it.
“There has to be something else right?” Bless Hazel for remaining positive but lord she needed her to stop talking. She wanted Hazel to leave her here, Hazel could find a different weird sort of life down here. Bianca did not have a life down here, she had nothing down here. Everything important to her was just behind those light filled doors.
“Bia, please-” Hazel's voice was weak. “We can still get out of here, I promise we can, we just need to think of something else.” If Bianca rolled off the platform what would happen?
“I’m going to stay here.” Bianca said. Her voice is hollow with dread.
“No Bia please you have to get up! Staying still won’t do anything, you have to keep moving.” The words barely meant anything. “GET UP BIANCA!” Colour shot out of the walls. Right next to Bianca's head. She could see the shimmer of the rare gem from the corner of her eye. She turned around to face Hazel.
She had that horrible look in her eyes again. The one she had in the cave when staring down her mother. Tears stained her face and the more tears that fell the more gemstones appeared. Suddenly Bianca was crying for a new reason.
Even though Bianca, this entire time, had been focused on Nico, getting back to Nico no matter the cost, she had grown to care for Hazel. Even if that care was very small, it was held extremely close to her heart. She didn’t want to be the reason Hazel cried.
“I sat by my mothers tree for decades until you came and got me. I am not going to let the same happen to you.” Bianca nodded slowly. Hazel nodded once and confidently. She whipped the tears away quickly. “Now, there has to be some way out of this place. Like a hole in a fence or something.”
A hole in a fence. Bianca had heard that before. Thanatos had a hole in a fence. Something he always needed to guard because leaving it alone would be a one way ticket to chaos. The Doors of Death. The thorn in the side of the entire Underworld. A painful thing to reach but once there can grant the dreams gods can’t. A second life.
“The Doors of Death.” She huffs with hope crawling back into her bones. She flips around, wipes the tears from her eyes and grabs her bag to start looking through it. The book. She needed that stupid, wonderful book. Gods, why was it being difficult? It’s like the thing was intentionally making sure she couldn’t grab it.
She finally got her hands on it and flipped it open. Doors of Death were in chapter seven. She flipped through the pages quickly, slowing down when she saw the giant number indicating what chapter she was on. When she finally got to the page she started speed reading.
“The Doors of Death. The thorn in the side of the entire Underworld. A painful thing to reach but once there can grant the dreams gods can’t. Life. The doors are made of Stygian iron and are always locked shut unless the God Thanatos is using them. The doors are impossible to reach or even locate. The gods do not even go there because they fear it.” Every bit of hope left her body once again.
Of course the only other exit is so horrible that gods not only hate it, but they fear it. Not to mention even if she wanted to go she couldn’t even get there. “Stygian Iron? Is that a metal?” Hazel asks curiously. Bianca isn’t sure if she heard her right because why would Hazel be interested in that right now?
“Yeah- kinda. It’s weird, Greek, magic stuff.” She remembered learning about it during the two months she spent cooped up in her fathers palace learning about all this stuff. This new world she had been apparently a part of.
“I think I can feel it.” Hazel admits.
“What?” Bianca stared at her once again but anger began to boil because this isn't funny to her. It wasn’t funny because Bianca wanted to go home and her friend was joking about it, trying to weed in false hope again.
“I can feel precious stones, remember?” Hazel speaks up. Each one of her words becomes a little more confident than the last. “Ever since I got here I felt this strange pull. Like I was one half of a magnet.”
“You could lead us there?”
“I think, I don’t know where it goes and wherever it does go it's going to be bad.” Hazel said it like she was trying to warn Bianca but it didn’t matter. She was already sold on the idea.
“It can’t be that bad. We're already dead, it's not like we’ll die again.” Bianca exclaimed. Hazel hesitated, twirled her hands, looked at the door and her face fell. She sighed, defeated, and looked Bianca dead in the eye for possibly the first time.
“Let’s go.” Bianca couldn’t believe it. “We need to get down though.” Hazel looked down. Bianca followed her gaze and realised she could not see the bottom. It was just a dark pit.
“Come on, Hazy!” Bianca said with a newfound joy. “Lead the way!”
They began to descend that stairs again and Bianca felt the urge to scream. Her father could see her if he wanted to. He could see that she was turning around and she wanted to scream at him to say that she was not turning around because she gave up. That he didn’t break her, and that she was only turning away because she had a new path to walk now.