shanastoryteller:

The
first time he hears of Orpheus is when Ares comes to him, in spring, when his
wife his gone. Ares only comes to him when his wife is gone.

“Apollo
has a son,” he says, dark eyes darting around like there’s something chasing him.
There is always something chasing the god of war, and many of them now reside
in Hades’s realm. No matter how many times he’s tried to reassure Ares that
he’s safe here, he doesn’t believe him.

“Apollo
has many sons,” he returns, dry. He reaches out and places two fingers under
Ares’s chin, sees the bone-paleness of his skin against the rich red-copper of
the younger god’s, and swallows. “You look tired.” Crescent purple bruises are
carved deep beneath his eyes.

Ares
doesn’t shrug off his touch, but neither does he lean into it. “I,” he finally
meets his gaze, and Hades smiles, warm. Ares’s lips twitch up like he wants to
return it, but can’t. “I haven’t been sleeping. There’s a war in the East, and
they’ve been invoking me for weeks. I think I need to go there.”

He
knows. There’s been hundreds of new people in his realm every day. Thanatos and
Charon haven’t slept in weeks. Neither has he, for that matter.

“What
will you disguise yourself as this time?” he murmurs, “Another general?”

That
was the wrong thing to say. Are’s eyes go impossibly distant, and his skin gains
a sickly grey hue. His hands aren’t shaking, so Hades has no reason to take
them in his own. He can’t decide if he’s disappointed by that or not. “No. I –
no. Just a foot soldier. Less guilt that way. Less – less. Just, less, that
way.”

Less
nightmares, less fear, less blood on his hands. Less of the constant,
inescapable battle-fury that keeps him alive, but also keeps him from sleep,
even on his best days. When Zeus declared his son the god of war, this probably
wasn’t what he had in mind.

Hades
hopes it isn’t, at least.

“Be
careful,” he says, and Ares flinches.

He
grabs Hades’s wrist before he leaves though, and squeezes it so tightly that it
would snap if Hades was a mortal man.

There’s
that, at least.

~

Persephone
wears not the vibrant red that marks her as queen of the underworld, but the
soft green that names her the daughter of spring. She sits on a smooth rock in
the middle of the sea, her curly dark red hair brushing her bare shoulders.
It’s the last day of summer. She goes home tomorrow.

Demeter
does not strain to keep her daughter at her side anymore. Now she’s merely
content to keep her away from Hades.

“Were
you waiting long?” a voice like lapping waves asks in her ear, and Amphitrite
sits at her back. She presses a kiss to her shoulder, and her long green hair
tumbles down Persephone’s front and blends into her dress.

She
tilts her head, allowing Amphitrite to trail salty kisses up her neck. “No.
Have trouble sneaking away from your husband?”

She
snorts. “I do not sneak.”

“You
said you had news from my husband,”
Persephone reminds, does not allow herself to become distracted. Not yet.

“About,
not from,” she uses a single claw to cut through the back of Persephone’s
dress. It falls down to her hips. “They’ve been waging war for months. A bloody
horrible thing. And rumor is Ares was in Hades’s realm. People are saying that
Ares sends the dead to your husband as tribute.”

People
are idiots. Besides, she likes Ares. She does not mind that he visits her
husband; she only wishes he would visit her as well. “Is that all?”

Amphitrite
shrugs then bites at Persephone’s ear, “Won’t you come to the sea with me? My
palace has many places more comfortable than this rock.”

She
leans back, pulling Amphitrite down with her, and does not answer.

She
is not Poseidon. She does not forget that Amphitrite possesses, but is not to
be possessed, and she dares not follow this personification of the sea itself
into her domain.

Amphitrite
loves her. She may not give her back.

Persephone
is not Helen either. She will not be the cause of any wars.

~

Thanatos,
the boy who Hades still calls Icarus, sits with his head in his hands. 
Hades reaches out and absently runs a hand up and down his spine, thinks not
for the first time that he must have been a sight to see with his golden wings,
for that glorious moment before he fell. “Persephone should be crossing the
shore soon. Why don’t you go and wait for her?”

“I
know what you’re doing,” he says, voice muffled, “Styx can bring her. Or she
can walk herself, since there’s not a thing in this realm stupid enough to
attack her.”

Hades
leans down and kisses the top of his spine, “She likes it when you’re there to
help her off the boat. Please?”

Icarus
turns and glares at him. Hades kisses him below his left eye, lets his lips
linger on the delicate skin there. “You’re cheating,” he accuses, a blush high
on his cheeks, “this is cheating.”

“Stop
working for a couple hours and go get my wife,” he commands softly, “The armies
of traumatized dead will still be here when you return.”

Icarus
listens ­– finally – and slips away to the river.

Hades
looks back over the map. The problem with the dead is they never go anywhere,
so his realm only gets bigger. He’s going to need get Hecate so the two of them
can raise another city at this rate.

There’s
a push in the air, and he startles. No one enters his realm without permission,
but he recognizes the outline of the person trying to push through, and allows
it. Ares tumbles from the air, and into his arms. He’s covered in blood, his
long black hair is soaked through with it.

“Not
yours, I assume?” he asks, gripping Ares’s forearms. He’s strung so tightly
he’s nearly vibrating.

“I
wish it was mine,” he says, somewhere between a scream and a sob. Hades
wishes this was the first time Ares had come to him like this.

Ares
locks his wrists around Hades neck and pulls him down, knocking them both to
the floor in his exuberance. His mouth connects to Hades’s, slick and tasting
like sulpher and metal. “I have to go back soon,” he gasps, dragging his lips
along the edge of Hades’s jaw, “they’re invoking my name. Distract me until
then.”

He
still has hours until Persephone will return home, and besides she would not
deny him this. “Okay,” he whispers, and when he rolls them over they’re no
longer in his office, but his bed. Ares keens and strains his body up towards
Hades, and he grabs the young god’s wrists and pins him to the bed. “Do not worry,”
he says, and Ares’s whole body glistens red with blood that isn’t his own. “I’ve
got you.”

Ares
relaxes, just the smallest amount, under his hands.

He’ll
take what he can get.

~

She
can tell Ares was there before even steps foot in her palace, and knows it for
sure when she enters her bedroom to find her husband naked on their bed and
covered in blood.

“How
is he?” she asks, and he startles, having been so deep in thought he hadn’t
noticed her.

“Persephone,”
he greets, his whole face going soft as he pushes himself up. He holds out a
hand to her, and she doesn’t hesitate to drop her cloak and crawl over the bed to
him. She hikes up her dress and straddles him, arms crisscrossing behind his
neck. She kisses him slow, licks over the places where Ares had bitten his
lips. “I’ve missed you.”

She
rolls her hips downward, and is gratified by the way his hands flex on her thighs,
“As I have missed you, husband.”

She
kisses mortal blood off his skin, and tries not to worry too much about the man
who left it there.

He’s
survived every war since his birth, and he’ll survive this one too.

~

Aphrodite
enters his realm, her hair piled atop her head and held together with copper
pins fashioned in the shape of delicate flowers. “Apollo has a son,” she says,
biting at her bottom lip.

He
and Persephone share a glance before he says, “Apollo has many sons.” He feels
as if he’s had this conversation before.

She
quirks her lips in a half smile, “This one is different. He plays the lyre, he
plays it better than his father even. He plays it so well that – that there are
rumors that he can sooth any beast to sleep. And,” she adds, even quieter, “that
Ares himself is soothed by his playing.”

“Why
are you telling us this?” Persephone asks coldly. Hades places his hand on top
of hers. They like Aphrodite, after
all.

“Because
I know Ares cares for Hades,” her eyes flicker over to him, “and I believe
Hades cares for him as well. I – I could not accept his proposal. My love was
not the peace he thought it would be. But I wish him well.”

“We
can neither kidnap nor kill a son of Apollo,” Persephone says. Hades feels
compelled to add that they shouldn’t want
to either, but he can already tell this is a situation which is quickly
going to spiral out of his control, if it hasn’t already.

Aphrodite
raises a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, then lowers it when she realized
her hair is already up. “He loves a mortal girl, Eurydice. If she were to die,
he would be beside himself in grief. Enough to take his own life, even.”

“Really,”
Persephone says flatly.

Aphrodite
continues, “Then he would be a subject of your realm. You could compel him to
help Ares, could you not?”

“I
have subjects, not slaves,” he says, “I can’t make him do anything.”

Persephone
puts her hand on his arm, eyes bright. “I have a better idea.”

~

Aphrodite’s
plan had merit, but this is better. Smarter. It gives Apollo less reason to be
upset at them later, since his son comes to them now on his recommendation. Although
he’s far too attached to all his limbs to dare cross her regardless.

Orpheus
bargaining with her husband now, and she’s given Hades strict instructions,
that Orpheus must agree to play in their courtyard for eternity if he fails. He
won’t cross her either, even if he wants to, even if he’s not totally
comfortable with this plan.

She
knew when she married him that he was too soft hearted for his own good. It’s
half the reason she married him in the first place.

For
now she circles the girl that the half-god had been so willing to risk
everything for. She’s attractive enough, but plain, and she has no particular
talents nor is she overtly clever. “What makes you so special?” she asks, when
she sees nothing but an average young woman.

Eurydice
smiles then, and she’s much prettier that way. “He loves me,” she answers, cheeks
flushing. She hesitates, but asks, “Will you really let him take him me back?”

“As
long as he listens, as long as he leaves the underworld without looking back at
you, you are free to follow him and return to the world of the living,” she
agrees, but knows that will never come to pass.

Orpheus
loves her too much to risk leaving without her, and his doubts will overcome
his hope. He will look back, and become trapped here forever.

~

The
window of one of the spare rooms is open, and the most beautiful playing comes
through. Hades sits at the edge of the bed, and reaches to run the back of his
finger across Ares’s cheek.

The
war still rages. A war always rages. Yet Ares sleeps, the bruises under his eyes
becoming lighter by the day.

He
turns toward Hades, straining in sleep for his touch. Hades hesitates, but his
realm is stable enough for now. He slips beneath the covers, and almost immediately
Ares curls into his side, tangling their legs together and pillowing his head
on Hades’s chest so he can feel Ares’s damp exhales on his sternum.

There
will always be another war, and Ares cannot stay. But for now he sleeps
peacefully in Hades arms, and that will have to be enough.

~

Persephone
sits in her garden in the courtyard, listening to the same beautiful song.

“This
one is my favorite,” Eurydice says, seated besides her and beaming.

She
glances over to Orpheus, who grins wide as he performs a love song for his
beloved wife. Behind him is the cottage tucked in the corner of their courtyard
where Eurydice and Orpheus live.

“Mine
too,” she says.

Hades
was too soft hearted for his own good. She’d known that when she married him.

gods and monsters series, part xi