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When Thanatos feels the call of Mort and sees the brightness of the snow-clad surface, he expects to be caught in another sparring match between the King and Prince of the Underworld. Not that he objects. It’s a wonder that any of the residents of the House ever believed that Zagreus would be suited for a life in the administrative chamber, filing papers. In battle and blades and blood does the love of Thanatos’s immortal life come alive.
But that isn’t where Death Incarnate finds him today. No, the Prince of the Underworld is kneeling at the border where softly fallen snow gives way to green verdure. A cottage sits, somehow both modest and splendid, amidst an overflowing garden. This must be where the Queen lived while she was thought missing; Thanatos has never laid eyes upon the place himself until now.
“Zagreus?” Thanatos says.
Zagreus smiles. “You came.”
“I always do,” Thanatos answers, because he always has, and he always will. He would go anywhere under the gods’ watch and beyond if Zagreus asked it. The pull of something stronger than duty used to frighten him, and he had never known fear. “Why did you bring me here?”
“I wanted to ask a favor.” Zagreus’s arms are crisscrossed with cuts that weep red blood even now that the fighting is done, a contrast to the white snow dotting his hair. “You’ve never seen my mother’s cottage, have you?”
“Not until now.” Thanatos takes in the garden again. It’s much like the garden the Queen kept, and now keeps again, on the outskirts of the House of Hades, only bathed in the light of Helios that he finds so unbearable. Green instead of doused in Mother Nyx’s purple light. Zagreus is incongruous in red against the verdure; a reminder that he can’t live here, that he belongs to the Underworld, that the time they share on the surface is limited.
As if hearing his thoughts, Zagreus clutches Thanatos’ chiton like a lifeline. “Than,” he says, soft and fervent like a prayer, “when I die up here, it always hurts. Won’t you give me a gentle death this time?”
“As you wish,” says Thanatos, because that is the only answer, because he could never truly deny Zagreus.
He guides the Prince to lie down, among the green nurtured by a mother who thought she had lost him. They are already running out of time, as Thanatos can tell; Zagreus is visibly unwell now, collapsing with relief into the bed of grass.
“Do you ever die with your eyes closed?” Thanatos asks. “Mortals think it’s the gentlest way to go. Like sleeping.”
“You know I don’t sleep much.” Zagreus grins lopsidedly and then lets his mismatched eyes, akin to the Underworld’s gemstones, flutter shut. “But it can’t hurt to try, can it?”
It can’t hurt to try; it seems to be Zagreus’s approach to life as a whole. Thanatos had never dared to think that way before he knew the Prince, before he fell in love, before he knew what it meant to dare at all. Now he thinks he understands, if only a little.
But then what of Zagreus’s ask on this dawn? Has he always felt the sharp pain of the call of the Styx, on top of the existing wounds he’d incurred, and cursed it without letting his anguish show? The thought pains Thanatos, even though physical anguish is foreign to him, even though everyone in the House undertakes a sacrifice for duty. All the more reason to give Zag respite quickly.
Thanatos abandons his scythe; it helps direct his power, but he doesn’t truly need it, not now. Instead, he cups Zagreus’s face with both hands, anchoring himself where their skin meets. There is no one in the meadow but the two of them, in this moment shielded from prying eyes. He’s never seen Zag be this still, and though tranquility doesn’t suit him as much as the fervor of battle does, there is a beauty in the statue-serenity of his features.
In the silence, emotion makes Thanatos irrational. So he leans down and kisses Zagreus’s feverish cheek, a sharp contrast to the chill of the air. And he wills that Death meets his lover through the softness of pleasure and not pain.
When he pulls away, Thanatos could swear on the Styx that he sees Zagreus mouth thank you.
He watches the Styx claim his lover’s body and reclaims his scythe. He is alone, in the harsh brightness of the snow and warmth of the green foliage. Zagreus’s red blood still stains both, and his own grey hands.
As gentle Death, Thanatos has seen many lovers separated by the blade of his scythe, and the anguish of the soul left on the surface, however temporary the farewell might be in the grand scheme of time. He thinks he understands them more than ever before, but more than anything he is grateful that he was able to give Zagreus a moment of peace.
Death swallows the lump in his throat, and returns to the House.