Chapter Text
It happened early in his dash through Asphodel. Perhaps it was due to being distracted by the lovely ladies of the Witches’ Circle, or being laden with a boon of Chaos which increased the damage he took and quite a lot of damage he did take, or perhaps it was even due to the frustration of getting stuck behind a structure in the magma, but finally he managed to sidestep it and dash forward-- into a slash of green not unlike that of Artemis’ boons. One he could not, unfortunately, avoid.
Looking back, he’d never heard the witches make any sort of discernible noise throughout all his escape attempts, but in that moment they’d sounded positively horrified and even perhaps a little bit concerned . How sweet of them. He’d have to remember to leave some nectar for them to enjoy the next time they respawned. That is, if he ever made it back to Asphodel.
Currently, though, Zagreus, son of Hades and Persephone, Prince of the Underworld, god of blood and of life, was falling face first toward the ground. He didn’t have the time to do anything but to turn and roll into the fall and, rather unexpectedly, bodily slam into someone else.
Beneath a grunt and angry words that followed, Zag heard the tell-tale sound of something hitting the ground and rolling toward him. Instinctively, he grabbed it and held it out to the person he’d collided with, trying to blink bright spots from his vision.
“Sorry about that, mate. You dropped your, uh… ball?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, it was chaos. Mortals-- dying mortals? --were yelling, an older mortal woman was shouting at him to warn someone, the person who he’d knocked over who… wasn’t quite mortal, but wasn’t quite dead, was snarling at the dying mortals to kill him. It was all quite confusing, really.
Zagreus was unsteady on his feet, twisting around swords and spells and arrows with just a sliver to spare. He still couldn’t see and he was having to rely on the sounds of heavy feet on tile, on the sounds of sharpened arrows cutting through the air, on the telltale crackle of magic heading towards him. Or...
Something was off . It was much too bright, almost as if he’d already made it to the surface and the sun his cousin ever so dutifully brought up every morning was flushing his skin in a way that Meg loved to make fun of, on the rare occasion the Styx didn’t take the burn away.
Magic wasn’t only being thrown at him now, no, it seemed to be lancing up his arm from the sphere? It was hot, was getting hotter , and all Zagreus could see was the same green as before.
He couldn’t even curse before it, quite literally, blew up in his face.
Zagreus awoke kneeling. It wasn’t something that was particularly out of the ordinary, nor was waking feeling as if his entire body had been shred to ribbons by Meg’s whip. What was new, however, was the weak, metal manacles about his wrists that even Skelly could break. He didn’t think Meg would ever resort to using something as easily escapable as rusted and pockmarked mystery metal to restrain him, but perhaps it was a test of his own restraint?
It was strange, though. Lingering magic, magic that wasn’t Meg’s or Than’s, magic he couldn’t pinpoint as belonging to anyone he knew, lanced its way up from his palm to his wrist, deep into his bones and beyond. Sharp enough to distract him from the chill that seeped in from the wooden doorway, into his skin and muscles from the frozen stone beneath him.
Any thoughts on what Lady Demeter was doing here or why there was a door were interrupted as said entrance was quite loudly thrown open. In stepped an armor clad mortal who, now that he was paying full attention, was not alone as four others surrounding him sheathed their blades and returned to attention. Behind her followed another draped in cloth and chain, her expression a near match for Father’s on his worst days.
“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.” She’s circling him now and, had he not been around Meg for so long, he may have even been slightly intimidated.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t.
“The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.”
“...Well, that’s not especially new. Although, I’m not entirely sure what it has to do with me. Seeing as I did not, in fact, attend it. The conclave, I mean. If there was an issue, I’m sure the lovely shades with administration would be willing to file a complaint for you?”
Clearly, something Zagreus said was very, very wrong, because the woman’s fist slammed into the side of his face but nary a second later. The inside of his cheek split against his teeth, red blood pooling and coating his tongue in an oh so familiar way.
The mortal, though, did not seem satisfied. Her muscles tensed beneath armor and skin and Zag readied himself to flow into the hit, but it did not come. The other woman had a leather gloved hand grasped tightly over the first’s forearm, frown slicing its way across her features gruesomely.
“Cassandra, we need him,” Spoke the mortal, before turning to him with a dark intensity, “Do you remember what happened? How this began?”
It hadn’t yet occurred to Zagreus to think about how, exactly, he ended up in this predicament. He’d been in Asphodel, yes, and then… It was as if he was trying to access a boon after purging it; it should have been right there , easy for him to tap into and use, but...
“I’m sorry, dear Lady, but, I don’t recall even arriving at… wherever here is. If I could tell you more, I would, truly.” Zag tried for a smile, which quickly fell off as pain radiated out from the foreign magic attached to his palm. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”
He was just a hit with Cassandra, it seemed. Had the hand on her forearm not been gripping so tightly, she would have doubtlessly struck him yet again. Clearly, his words were working against him. Either she thought he was lying or she just wanted to kill him and be done with it.
“ Ugh .” She shared some similarities to Meg, it seemed. Then Cassandra turned to the robed woman, “Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take the prisoner to the rift.”
The woman, Leliana, caught Cassandra’s eye for a heavy moment before inclining her head and turning away, metal greaves clanging surprisingly softly against the stone floors. Now that he thought about it, the armor on those around him seemed to be lacking any and all chthonic iconography. It seemed stained and worn and made of the same pockmarked metal that was surrounding his wrists.
It was as Cassandra jerked his arms about to undo the restraints that his confusion truly caught up with him.
“I’m sorry, I feel like I don’t quite have the full picture here.” He said, doing his best to roll his wrists beneath the rope about them.
Her dislike was nearly tangible as she spoke, “It will be easier to show you.”
Zag’s muscles cried out as he untucked his legs from beneath him, barely getting a moment to stretch into the pain before Cassandra started dragging him forward, not looking back even as the soldiers behind drew their swords once more. He hadn’t yet extended himself to his full height before Cassandra guided him straight into the path of a lit brazier.
“ Ow .”
Her only response was a disgruntled noise which, rude, but understandable.
Thankfully, he had time to duck beneath the door frame and-- why was everything so small ? Zagreus was not used to being tall, or even average height, so to be in such a structure where he had already had to lean so far forward as to not hit himself? It was strange, to say the least.
He was drawn through the doorway and the chill was even more biting now. So distracted he was by the cold that he didn’t notice the few full-footed steps he’d taken on an entirely non-flame resistant rug. At least, he didn’t notice until the scent of burning wool reached his nose and he had to bite the inside of his cheek and reopen the wound Cassandra had given him to keep from cursing.
He’d have to offer to get the rug replaced, later, once he got all of this sorted out. For now, though, Zag merely resorted to walking on the balls of his feet, hoping he didn’t burn too much of a weaver’s hard work.
Cassandra let go of his arm, briefly, to push open doors of a size he was used to seeing, before promptly pulling him forward once again, and--
Oh.
This… this is the surface.