Chapter 122 – House Affairs
[1 year later]
After taking regular beatings from Achilles for a full year and leaving serious denting on the floor of the training room, Zagreus finally senses something. With all of his soul and effort, he manages to carve out a portion of his Father’s authority within the Underworld for the briefest moment of time, dematerializing in a blaze of fire and brimstone to reappear less than a meter (3ft) away.
“Good lad!” Achilles shouts in excitement. Zagreus’ passion for learning the dash was infectious, so he didn’t mind hitting him nonstop for hours on end for a full year.
Zagreus is stunned. Ever since the first day, he felt like he was close to learning the dash, but it actually took him an entire year of hard work. Needless to say, it would have been even more satisfying if it was all the result of his own hard work and not stealing a part of his Father’s power. He could still taste the bit of sulfur at the tip of his tongue, something that his Father leaves plenty of after teleporting himself outside of the House.
Achilles dashes forward as well to pat his back. “You know, we all get our power from somewhere. You’re a godling, Prince Zagreus. Unless you grab a piece of Authority for yourself, you’ll have to rely on the natural affinity to the Underworld that you get from your Father.”
Zagreus turns around, gets into the sprinter's crouching position, and feels for that connection again, to propel himself forward rapidly. From there, he can continue into a run, which will carry none of the velocity of the dash, or come to a full stop. He comes to a stop and watches the tiny embers of fire and brimstone drift in the air around him. Grasping a floating piece of ash with one hand, he grits his teeth.
“Achilles, why can’t I have inherited my Mother’s power? Why did it have to be him?!”
Achilles leans on his spear and replies, “Beats me. If anything, I’d say you look more like a mortal than someone from the Underworld.”
With his eyes lighting up, Zagreus asks, “Now that I can dash, do you think I can visit the mortal realm?”
“Hm?” Megaera overhears what Zagreus says as she enters the training room. “You better not let your Father hear that or he will beat you halfway to Death. You need either your Father’s trust or some official duty to go to the mortal realm. Your only duty at the moment is to do the paperwork you leave abandoned every day.”
Megaera is a 2m (6.5 ft) tall, beautiful blue-skinned Erinyes, one of the three Fury sisters, who were all born from the drops of the spilled blood of the Titans. All the Fury sisters are mentally unstable to some degree due to their origin, but Megaera is just stable and trusted enough by Nyx and Hades to be granted entry into the House of Hades, unlike her sisters. Being fully devoted to her work of whipping shades and causing endless pain to sinners, Megaera holds a strong respect for the work ethic and power of her Mistress, Nyx, as well as Lord Hades by association.
Zagreus shivers slightly in fear as he remembers the taste of her whip on his body each time they train. In spite of this, he grins at her and picks up a spear. Achilles always tells him that pain is only an obstacle, so he takes it to heart. Megaera licks her lips and shucks out her whip, which looks like it has shed so much blood that it has a permanent coating of purple and red liquid from her victims in motion around it.
She swings and her whip tries to sting his hand to get him to drop his spear. Even a single swing from her sends the whip to attack the same spot multiple times, so Zagreus has to either dodge or keep in mind to deflect each successive undulation of the whip that goes for him. It is now that he recalls an important fact, if he was better at dashing, he could dodge out of the way of her attacks much easier. Swatting the whip away several times, he keeps his guard up.
‘Sure enough, Megaera started to use her magic. What’s she so mad about? Paperwork is so drab. I really am hopeless at it.’
Zagreus puts his attention on the slow-moving shots of magic and swipes each one, negating it from doing any damage, but due to focusing too much on the magic shots, he gets lassoed by Megaera’s whip. Achilles chuckles and advises, “Make sure you learn from your losses, lad.”
The whip passively inflicts pain upon him wherever it touches, but he only groans and grits his teeth as Megaera picks him up and brings him back to the office where he’s supposed to be doing paperwork. Zagreus squeezes out between pained groans, “Meg.. you’re the subordinate of my Mother.. right? You.. don’t have to listen to my Father.. Guh.”
Scoffing, Megaera plops him on a series of desks among dozens of scholarly looking shades also completing paperwork. “I know I don’t have to. I’m doing this for your own good, Zagreus. What will people think if they find out the son of Hades is a talentless freeloader? It would be disgraceful.”
Leaning into Zagreus’ ear, Megaera whispers, “Do some work and I’ll let you use my whip on me.”
Opening his eyes wide, Zagreus immediately buries his face into the papers. The sounds Meg makes when he whips her make him feel strangely good! Unfortunately, only a few minutes after Megaera leaves, he realizes that he had recommended for a group of charitable nuns to be sent to the torture pits of Tartarus. That’s not right. Erasing what he had written, he recommends them to the lava fields of Asphodel. He had heard Megaera talk about the witch coven there. Nuns and witches would make great friends.
Sure enough, he hears the booming voice of his Father shortly after. He had messed up, as usual. “Blast it all.” he says as he drops his head on the desk and ignores his Father’s summons.
Hypnos floats into the office room with droopy eyes and calls out, “Prince Zagreus? Oh, where art thou, Prince Zagreus? Lord Hades sends me to deliver the harshest of scoldings!”
Hypnos is the 1.7m (5’6”) tall God of Sleep and the twin brother of Thanatos. He shares his brother’s grey skin and white hair, carries a perpetually indolent temperament, and wears red robes with a very thick, comfy looking cape that he often naps on while floating. He serves as an attendant to Hades, making sure that everyone who died, which appears on his list, ends up in the Underworld as a shade. This is an exceedingly difficult task when he sleeps for most of his waking hours.
Floating with half-lidded eyes, he looks around for less than a second before he yawns and says, “Can’t seem to find him. Oh well. Time for a nap.”
Zagreus peeks from an overly conspicuous position behind a bookshelf to see Hypnos gone. Sneaking back outside, he has no idea where to go now. The training room is on the other side of the House and he would have to pass by his Father to get there. His recent learning of the dash excites him though. If.. he can make it past his Father without him noticing. Gulping, his heart beats furiously at the thought of pulling a fast one on his old man.
Approaching the corner, there's a wide range that he would have to cross, about 15m (50 ft) of distance, to pass through the main hall and get beyond his Father’s line of sight. Without any thought to how silly his actions are, the 13-year-old Zagreus gets into a sprinter’s crouch position just outside of his Father’s line of sight. He listens for when he hears the scrawl of his Father’s quill against paper, then dashes forward!
His supercharged nerves manage to propel him to do two more dashes while running without even getting back into the crouching position. Breathing heavily as he runs into his room, he smiles gleefully and sprawls on the bed. ‘I win, old man!’
~ ~ ~
Meanwhile, Hades has eyes on his son the moment he pops out from behind the wall. It’s impossible not to notice when he leaves small plumes of ash in the main hall. ‘That technique of Achilles.. So he learnt it.’
Nyx floats over and gives an ‘I-told-you-so’ smile to Hades. “Our son has some talent for martial arts."
Snorting, Hades admits, “He’s not bad.”
Nyx replies, “Why insist that he do paperwork when you know it’s useless?”
Hades refuses to be honest with himself or anyone else about why he hates Zagreus, so he ignores her. Nyx’s hair expands to form an artificial veil of Night over the desk space and she hovers her body next to her roommate. She speaks in a soothing tone, “Shall I lend a hand again to relieve your frustrations, Hades?”
Groaning a bit, he ponders how long it’s been since he last had sex. A full 13 years, the entire lifespan of his son. That’s how long his lover had scorned him. He knows what Nyx’s play is. She wants him to treat Zagreus better or at least try to ignore his antics, in return for some sexual relief. As if he’ll put down his godly pride for-! “Would you prefer my feet?” she asks.
Hades blushes abruptly. “..Yes, let’s go with that.”
Nyx hums nonchalantly and reaches down to undo Hades’ belt with a stoic face. She’s seen plenty of mortals have sex for hundreds of thousands of years, so even though she’s a virgin, she knows what to do. However, regardless of her vicarious expertise, she doesn’t have the temperament to become sexually excited. She is, for all purposes, the ultimate ice queen. This trait has led to many misunderstandings between her and the Olympian gods, which she finds too bothersome to correct since she doesn’t care to know them better.
Hades cannot help but get sexually excited to see his domestic partner unwrapping his enormous cock. Ironically, despite the fact that he’s never had sex with Nyx, his elder brother Zeus thinks Nyx is his wife. This particular misunderstanding is truly priceless.
Imagining how much his older brother burns with jealousy at the thought of him engaging in sexual activities with this insanely powerful woman sets Hades off. It is no secret that his brother desires powerful women of high status. Zeus even goes down to the mortal realm to cuck kings and make queens fall in love with him for fun, after which Hera’s jealousy invariably ruins the lives of everyone involved, much to Zeus’ displeasure.
Nyx floats up higher and her silky smooth toes begin to stroke his cock. Hades relaxes and figures that maybe he can overlook the boy’s transgressions for a time.
~ ~ ~
A few hours later, Zag is back in the training room behind his bedroom working on making his dashing second nature.
Nuwa stares venomously at Megaera in Zagreus’ bedroom. All her hair-snakies focused intently at her nemesis in anger. The snake girl and the Fury had never gotten along, mostly because Nuwa liked the company of shades and Megaera scared them all away without fail. Megaera especially likes torturing the shades that have begun to simp on Nuwa.
In Megaera’s view, the residents of the House of Hades ought to be asserting their authority more instead of befriending their wards. Her sisters are good torturers, but terrible conversationalists, so she is eager to show Nuwa and Zagreus the glory of pain. Nuwa just needs more convincing.. with a whip.. when Nyx and Zag aren’t around.
“Hisss!” Nuwa tries to look intimidating, but her 3 year old form is absolutely tiny compared to Megaera’s Titan-descended body. “Move aside, squirt.”
Megaera walks through Nuwa’s bodyblock and bumps her over, causing the toddler to fall. She mischievously states, “I’m commandeering Zag’s bed.”
“No! My spot! I sleep!” Nuwa jumps on Megaera’s leg and hooks herself around it. They both end up on the bed. Ignoring the snake girl latched onto her attempting to bite her skin with her defanged hair-snakies, Megaera takes in Zagreus’ scent. Although she is thousands of years old, she feels an inexplicable attraction to the boy.
She likes to watch him smile when he dotes on Nuwa. She likes how he can be cocky at times. She likes how he added new life to the stagnant, work-obsessed House of Hades. She likes how his weak whip strikes feel on her skin. No one but Nyx knows that he’s the only one that she allows to whip her. It was utterly embarrassing to be caught fraternizing with the boss’ son by the boss herself, but surprisingly, she was only told not to take it too far.
Then again, she always had some doubt that Zagreus is not Nyx’s son. He is simply too weak compared to her other children. Megaera isn’t clear on the specifics, but she thinks that other children of the boss gained their Authority upon birth. He looks more like an Olympian than a Chthonian, if she considers it from a stranger’s perspective. That doesn’t matter though. He belongs here in the House. He is theirs.
“Grrr, Meg is a meaniepoo! This is my bed..” Nuwa starts sniffling like she’s about to cry.
As merciless as ever, Megaera replies, “Shut up, you incorrigible baby. It’s Zag’s bed.”
(A/N: Bit more exposition :D)