oh take me back to the start

^^It had been almost a year. Almost a year of his body this way, of the four legs and dogged appearance and the drape of fur across his body. He didn't like it still, bitter and melancholy and missing what had been his. His - his realm, his rule, his home. The King of the Underworld slipped from the borders of Winterheart without so much as a word under the guise of making for another patrol. And he was - he was focused on checking the scent trails, edging along the borders for any interlopers, wanting to ensure that Cerberus had been there recently, since he had not.

And yet he was drawn towards the lake just past his land, just as he had been when he had first woken up here.

There had been the start of so much, and Hades sometimes wondered if this was some bizarre, long stretching dream. What was he seeking? Why did it feel like his days had blurred into some myriad of color and sensation he couldn't pluck from the mire? Hades took a long drink and let the water run down his throat, his head tipped back for a moment to let the cool water reach his skin. When he straightened his head back he saw her - red, a look he couldn't ever forget.

Where anger had once blossomed, instead, Hades found himself more passive. “@Minthe.” He said her name softly, and there was the question there - was she okay? Had she stayed safe?
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 Her life was a roiled river, the days an endless murk of distant memories and a bitter present. She'd long since laid her suspicions that this was some elaborate punishment or prank to rest. Hades was many things, but he'd never been that cruel. In her time as a wolf she'd learned how to cope, treading the waters of survival, head slipping beneath the surface during the harsh winter months. 

 Her frame was a skin-wrapped skeleton, fur lusterless and matted. She hadn't even known where she was going, that her paws had carried her back to the temperate ground she'd been reborn from. The name didn't make sense and neither did the voice. Looking up, crimson eyes wavered as she struggled to focus on the other wolf. 

“Hades.”

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^^She barely looked like herself. There was no one else it could be, however, with her venom sting markings and the painting of her rage written across her pelt. She looked disheveled, moreso than he had ever seen her in any form, and he thought back to how they had met so many years ago. He was careful as he approached her and gave her a wide berth. It was equal parts for her protection and his own. No matter how she looked he knew she was capable of a great deal and he was on guard.

He had not only himself but the pack, after all, and under the weight of his crown he always had to be on edge.

“What happened to you?” He stopped a few feet from her and that was when his gaze softened. She was thin, thinner than he'd ever seen her, and her normal brilliance was dulled to a lackluster sort of grime. There was no bitter bite of anger at her presence near his pack, instead, he felt that same sort of responsibility as when they'd first met. “Tadpole,” Her nickname came out without even considering it. “- you look like you've been through hell.” And, as it often did, it felt like it was his fault.



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 “Don't.” She rasped, his pity a noxious weed that begged for cutting. “Don't call me that.” 

 His presence here, looking the way he did, only solidified her assumptions that she'd been wrong to blame him for this particular damnation. A mutual curse, then. Still - he looked far better than her. This form seemed to be agreeing with him, as they all did. Bastard.

 “We're in hell, or haven't you figured that out yet? You always were slow on the uptake.”

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^^His eyes narrowed at her biting remark, the way that she spat her venom at him, like she'd poison him with just her words. “Minthe” He corrected, but he still stared down at her. He only felt the bite of guilt, that he had cast her out to ensure Persephone's favor and happiness - with little regard for the red woman.

He had to remind himself that she made her choices, too.

“I miss home, but, no one knows how to get back. I've made the best of what I could.” As he often did he moved with a purpose immediately - but in the aftermath he was left to shoulder the blame squarely himself despite anyone else's contributions. “Catching a kill too risky for you? Wouldn't want you to break a nail.” He teased then, with the slightest uptick of a smirk. It wasn't said in malice, more, his own brand of testing how she might respond to him helping her.


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 Ah, but was catching her temper too risky for him? 

 The auburn she-wolf snarled, lunging forward despite how sickly she was, all snapping teeth and vermillion hate. She stopped just short of his muzzle, fangs bared and hackles raised, a shadow of a threat, a whisper of angry defiance when she yearned to be a shout. 

 “I'm glad you find this so funny. I'd like to see you survive alone. You never could.”

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^^
And there she was. Expelling whatever precious energy she did have left to puff and snap in his face. Hades' hackles raised in response, the King staring down at the nymph who seemed so unaware of the difference in their heights or the ease it would be for him to overpower her like this. “Did I not before?” Hades asked her bitterly, he could remember so many years of solitude and the bitter way it had felt.

He had survived because he could not die; what Fate held for him was vastly worse.

“I have survived horrors you couldn't dream of Tadpole, but you always loved to throw that in my face, didn't you?” He bared his teeth, a low growl leaving his lip to match her fury and remind her of the strength of his own. He had been trying to extend an olive branch - and yet Minthe, ever guided by her wrath, had to snap it.

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 “And what about what I've been through?” She bit back. He had the luxury of immortality - her life was rife with torment from the start. Hers was an acute pain where his was chronic. 

 “You like to play at loneliness but you had people around you, so many loyal sycophants.” Hecate, Styx, even his god damn dogs. And now? She could smell the myriad of scents on his fur. “You may have known solitude once, but you're strangers now.”

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^^
No, it was worse than that. What she imagined on him made his eyes close as the King visibly controlled himself. He would have pinched the bridge of his nose if he could. “No - not like you think.” There was a bitterness to his tones, admitting that while things looked nice enough, it wasn't what she thought. “My family was here for a time. Most are gone now. I don't know where.” And he'd tasted what it was like on Olympus - to be near each other constantly, to know the wamrth of day to day interactions.

Zeus no doubt had found Hera and Hebe and taken them off, far from his reach, and only Ampitrite's contrition kept Poseidon from finding his own watery claim. Athena, Hermes, they'd both gone to wherever they were drawn to. So many had been there, so few remained.

“What about what you've put yourself through, Minthe? It never had to be like this.” It didn't have to be bitter and painful, it didn't have to hurt. And yet he still couldn't look at her and not feel the sting of her words or her anger. He couldn't look at her and not feel the bitter guilt of it all.

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 That rankled. She paced backwards lest her biting words took flesh with them. “What have I put myself through!? You sent me away, Hades. You made me leave. All to protect that little sunspot of a slut.” 

 Alone, it seemed. Not quite. Though there was a tawdry triumph in his floundering. “Shame about your family. Couldn't keep them interested? You're good at that.”

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^^Hades gaze was still set right on her, bitter and unyielding despite her bite and venom. “You never could face the consequences of your own actions.” He had done what he had to when she had disrespected the Queen of his forest. And what would Persephone say? Surely she would have some input in this conversation, but, shamefully he couldn't bring himself to summon her.

“They've never worried about me.” And she knew that. She'd seen him sulk plenty of times, other than the occasional joy of his nieces and nephews in their youth he rarely had positive interactions with his family without some sorts of strings attached. “Although Poseidon is still about. You always preferred his company to Zeus'.” Why he even bothered, it didn't matter. Not knowing at her core she'd reject anything he attempted to do.

“I never wanted it to be this way.” The King finally admitted, taking a deep breath before he let it out slowly. “You don't actually think that's what I wanted, right?” ^^

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 She sneered, flashing teeth. “You didn't? Then what did you want, Hades?” He had a curious way of showing his concern, as anemic for her as it may be. Eschewing the irony of her own harsh love language, Minthe backed further away from him, his presence a weight her shriveled shoulders could not bear. 

 When she spoke again it was with a weaker voice. “You didn't want me, that much was clear.”

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^^ Her venom didn't stick this time, not in the way she was trying to make it. He didn't close the distance between them again, letting her move as she felt she needed to. “You weren't here, Minthe, and it wasn't like I wanted to just....” He let out a harsh sigh, bitter and tangled in his emotions. He'd always struggled to face them, and thinking that at one point he'd imagined that they were everything he'd ever have....

“I didn't understand anything that happened - and I still don't. But it wasn't because of you.” He wanted to clarify that, he needed to clarify it. “I know I hurt you. I never wanted to.” He had to own that, to bare his burdens, to take responsibility for his part in things. After everything they'd ever been through, didn't they both deserve that from each other?^^

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 The words stuck in her throat, lodged up against a tight tunnel of self-righteous pride. “I know I hurt you too.” Acknowledgement, but not an apology. It was the best she could give him, though it was still less than he deserved. Whenever she thought back to the moments of her life that were the brightest, Hades was a part of every one. The nothing they were now did not erase the something they were then. 

 “We've always been two broken things.” Even when brought together there would still be cracks. Holes for the love to slip out, for the hatred to slip in.

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^^ Even this, he understood, was a carefully brokered moment. They could only be so honest with each other when they had lashed out and hurt, and it was in that pain that they were left raw and vulnerable enough for the truth. He sighed and let his eyes close, his features softening enough that he didn't scowl at her and the tension in his body had relaxed a bit. “We managed together,” He added after she had spoken. It made sense. Somehow, they made sense even in their hurt.

Although they had a lot of bad, there had been enough good. Enough that he'd wondered what she would be like as his Queen, enough that he had wondered if she would actually accept him and all his flaws in permanence.

Now that time and distance had tempered some of those wounds, he didn't think of her with contempt. He could see her as she was; hurt and alone, lost in this world where he had hunkered down and tried to do what he could. “You deserved better than me anyway.” ^^

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 When she laughed it was barking, a harsh sound that grated against the bare-bone trees. “Oh, Hades. That's the stupidest thing you've said yet.” 

She looked up, his blue eyes a soothing well she wished she could slip into. Instead, she turned away, her pace limping and hobbled as she moved to go. “I don't deserve a thing.”

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^^Her laughter didn't enrage him as it once might have, her red gaze so striking compared to his own. “Come now, Tadpole,” And another time he might have whispered it against her cheek. “I've said a lot of stupid things.” How was she so quick to pick? How was she so sure? He let out a sound when she stood and turned to go, his eyes traveling along the familiar rise of her hips but seeing the near cruel tightness of her skin there was unsettling to him.

He could almost feel it, every motion took energy he didn't think that she had to give anymore.

Wasn't death his realm anyways? There was a rustling and a sound beyond her and his attentions were snapped from her frame and to shrubbery in the distance. The King stood and moved to her side, his nose brushing her shoulder tenderly before he nodded towards the distance. If they were to work together, to actually try, they could manage this basic task, couldn't they?


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 She felt the faint brush of his nose across the jutting bone of her shoulder and she was jostled roughly back in time. They were in the Underworld, cerulean hues deep and shadowed among the buildings, the lamplights sparkling like stars. There was that same familiar brush as he draped his jacket over her shoulders to keep out the cold. The small gesture a quiet claim, quiet care. 

 Minthe could smell the rabbit, still snow-fluffed and white. Biting back a whine as her stomach twisted, she lurched forward clumsily, darting into the bracken after the chance of a meal.

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^^
His touch moved across her shoulder, testing for any sort of reserves on her, settling briefly between her shoulder blades. Before he might have collected her hair in one large hand, lifted it carefully from her neck so it didn't tug or get trampled under the jacket. His touches tended to be gentle, despite his outward persona, and despite the rage in their embrace sometimes. It seemed an eternity ago. They were truly different people.

He could feel in her the quick response as she caught sight of the prize and she surged forward. A year of hunting in this form hadn't done her as good as it had him, his long limbs moving with confidence, death stretched out to claim it's shadowed prize. “Wait,” He crooned it out and grinned - no matter what he might have said otherwise he had come to enjoy this.

He was death to the life that Persephone offered, he the bite of Winter, she, the birth of Spring.

It was most natural to him and he almost reveled in it - surging forward, past Minthe, his body an elegant fluid motion. He was rarely called graceful by the other deities. It wasn't his forte, even in his youth he hadn't been exactly given room to grow and to move. This life was different though, and the grace he extended as the hare caught sight of his blue body cutting the pale winter world and took flight and he turned just as naturally with it.

He could see in the hare's goal, aiming for a burrow not too far away; did they have their young this early? Was it full of kits? “There!” He shouted, and hoped that she saw it too. If she spotted the warren there might be even more to hold her over.

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 He'd spared her the shame of total charity, but the meal still felt like a handout. There was the briefest moment of hesitation, a flickering thought of refusal before she knelt and set upon the food with ravenous glee. 

 It was more than she'd had in weeks, having subsisted off of carrion and half-frozen rodents. She closed her eyes, savoring the warm rush of blood and the energy it carried to her. When she was finished, she swiped her tongue across her mouth, the stain hard to notice on her auburn fur. 

 “You always did have a knack for adaptation.” Minthe sighed, giving him one last glance before she rose to her feet. “Goodbye, Hades.”

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^^There was some baser part of him whose blood ran just as hot watching her devour the flesh of another. He'd always had tendencies for the things others shied away from. Hades watched her eat and felt the satisfaction as she recovered some much-needed nutrition. He longed to see her healed and well, full of some sort of fire like she always was.

But Hades had to release the idea that it was his responsibility. That she was his responsibility.

“Stay safe, Tadpole.”

He rooted himself to the spot and let her go - because there was little else he could do right then, or that she would even let him.


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