Chương 830: Day Eight Hundred And Twenty-Eight

Dear Diary, Y'know, it's nice to be reminded now and then that not every person given power turns into some kind of horrifying caricature of themselves. Yeah, I know I've talked about it before, the idea that power amplifies everything about a person, and stupid little flaws they had can wind up blown up into outright horrifying atrocity. Thing is, not everybody who's given power commits atrocities.

I have no idea how much of that is due to important shit like checks and balances, how much is due to some decent people having flaws that are less atrocious and more obnoxious when amplified, and how much is due to some people being less susceptible to power's inherent ability to amplify flaws. I'm just glad that I've maybe got some role models who haven't gone all atrocity central when they got power, because that means that's not my ultimate, inescapable fate.

So yesterday, after sleeping for well over a full twenty four hours, then playing with my kids and their pets for an afternoon, I stepped back to Hades' place only to have his triple noggin doggo interrupt the royal couple makin' bacon in the kitchen. Not a euphemism, by the way, I slipped the skillet off the heat when I realized Cerberus wasn't gonna be letting Hades off the floor any time soon. The two of them made much over their returned canine companion, hugging and ruffling his fur.

Eventually doggo let Hades off the floor, at least far enough to sit up and lean against the counter. At that point I cleared my throat the tiniest bit, and both Hades and Persephone started, looking guiltily up at me. Not anything like serious 'being caught' guilt, just the general guilt of decent people realizing they've left a guest standing there waiting while they totally ignored them. Blend has its downsides, I guess.

Y'know, fuck that, I wasn't really upset, and they got to welcome best bois back right away without it being super weird for them to have me standing there watching. I mean, I was standing there watching them, totally heartwarming, ten out of ten, would revive doggo again, but like I said, they both seem like decent people, and they'd literally forgotten a guest standing not ten feet from them.

"Apologies, Mimic, I..." He went silent when I raised a hand.

"No need to apologize. Not for that anyway. Also, call me Tabitha?"

"But... Of course, if you prefer your true name to remain hidden." He nodded sagely. Entirely un-sagely I grabbed one of their kitchen chairs, a long legged taverna style thing with a normal length back, and straddled it, leaning my elbows on the back.

"Nah. Nothing like that. I'm not tryna hide that shit any more. Honestly, I've been trying to be more public about it, because I figure maybe that'll get some folks to talk rather than coming at the Alliance ready to throw down." Hades tensed at that, although Persephone didn't, oddly.

"As you wish, Tabitha Diaz." I sighed.

"Yeah, we'll get back to that. For the moment, though, couple other things I've been meaning to talk to you about. Both of you for one of them." Now both of them sat there, equally tense, while Cerberus whined a little and his tail slowed.

"How's Jonathan doing?" At Hades' look of slight confusion, I poked my brain and, wonder of wonders, remembered Jonathan's surname.

"Jonathan Adamos? Dude who got turned Undead by your nephew's bad aim and turned back before I delivered him to you?" Hades wrinkled his nose.

"Oh. Him." I looked a question at him, and he sighed and shrugged.

"He's remarkably unpleasant, but not actually particularly prone to evil. A few of his family here rejoiced when he joined them. His wife, two of their children, both of whom died in the plague." He paused as if arguing with himself, then nodded.

"Do you know what happened to their other daughter?" I took a deep breath, let it out.

"If she was little? Too little for the Master Lich to turn into some kind of Undead pawn? She's probably one of the ones I Healed. All of them got adopted. Some by Maenads, but mostly by folks in Lancaster." I stopped, thought about it.

"If she didn't die in Calverton, but left with the refugees, same thing applies, although some of the folks there might have moved back." He nodded.

"I'll let them know. Jonathan himself will likely complain, but his wife deserves better than not knowing." I shrugged.

"Yeah. Sounds like he's an asshole, but not the kind of baby back bastard who would deliberately become an Undead. Unlike the Master Lich." Hades tensed again, and I shook my head.

"We'll get to that." I turned to Persephone.

"You're a nature Goddess, right?" She nodded.

"I am the Goddess of Spring, and Lady of the Underworld." I rolled my eyes, chuckling.

"Yeah, I get it. Titles. Thing is?" I waited until they both leaned in just a little.

"Titles don't mean shit. What you do with them does." Before they could do more than splutter a little, I cut in with, "Franklin, for example, was an Archmage, but all he used that for was fuckin' with people to aggrandize his own name. On the other hand, my Kitten let our new pa..." I paused, remembering, then shrugged.

"Our new Concubine throw up what I suspect was her biggest Global Spell yet, just to make sure the Spell and the Lady herself stuck around."

"That's an odd thing for an Archmage to do." I shrugged.

"Yeah, but it's a very Kitten thing to do. She's more concerned with practical shit than having smoke blown up her ass." I grinned a little.

"She knows if she wants that, there are three of us who will be there with the hookah." Persephone blinked, a look of genuine surprise on her face.

"You'd tolerate two others near your woman?"

"Nah." Her expression melted halfway to smug before I cut her off with, "three of them snuggle her right along with me every night, and there's a handful who've experienced her insane Bedroom Skills with my full knowledge and blessing. Shit, I think our agreement is she tells me if shit's going down, so I might at any moment get full sensory head pron if somebody appeals to her just the right way." I paused, letting Persephone's train of thought tip back onto the rails.

Then I kicked it off again with, "I guess maybe she's just ruthless enough to use those Skills to solve diplomatic situations with somebody who doesn't appeal. I'm not sure if she'd show me those or not. Not like she'd be hiding them, just that they're probably not worth knowing about." I paused, thinking about it.

"Wait, no, she'd definitely tell me, just so I didn't get blindsided by some asshole being all 'hurr hurr hurr, I've seen your woman's O face' and shit. Which, if said asshole actually did, I'd definitely get the full sensory. She knows I'm totally into that shit." The two of them had both gotten pretty red faced by this point. Eventually Hades managed to say, "how libertine."

"Eh. I prefer progressive. But she's my Wife, my partner. Not my property, not my slave. Same goes for Marie." Hades blinked, then smiled.

"The two of you made it official then?" I nodded.

"Some good news, then." This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Yeah. Lots of good news from across the pond, if you've been paying attention. Well, okay, you're not really invested in the whole 'more people dying' thing, are you?" He did that one shoulder shrug thing.

"More Souls here in Hades means more power for me, but it also means more responsibility. More Souls to care for, to look after until they decay or are reborn." I sucked my teeth a little.

"Yeah, at some point I gotta pick your brain about that. The afterlife thing. I need to build one for my people at some point, I think. More than one, maybe?" I shook my head before I could go off on yet another tangent.

"At any rate, I want it to be maybe a little less, uh, gloomy." When Hades looked the tiniest bit annoyed at my choice of adjective, I said, "yeah, I get it, you don't have much choice. Or, well, you didn't."

"How do you mean?"

"If I remember your deal with your brothers," another sudden tension in his shoulders, "you're lord of the Underworld. Everything beneath the surface. Right?" He nodded.

"So if I were to just turn all of your realm into a series of valleys, it wouldn't be your realm any more?" He paused for a moment, then shook his head.

"It would not." I nodded.

"That's what I thought. But you've got, like, caves and shit that lead here, right? Entrances and exits for those not able to Translocate?"

"Yes."

"Okay then. Could you have windows?" That left them both a little confused.

"Windows to where?" I smiled at them.

"The sky."

"Who would..." I shook my head as I interrupted.

"Not what you need to worry about."

"Then what do I need to worry about?"

"For purposes of this particular question? Whether you want some skylights. More to the point, if Jolene there wants some skylights. Y'know, to have a little garden down here, maybe some nice trees or some shit like that."

"My name is not Jolene!" I shrugged.

"It's a song about a beautiful woman. Could be about you." She might have blushed a little.

"Look, I'm a certified girl kisser, and all I'm gonna say is that your man has himself some good taste in women, you especially. Now, you want some skylights?" She looked a question at Hades. The kind of question that wasn't so much a question as a request. Looked surprisingly like the way my Kitten looked at me when pie, floggers, or platinum blondes were involved. Really too bad we hadn't found a platinum blonde dude yet; I really wanted to see how she reacted.

At any rate, Hades just sighed, looked at me, and said, "what must I do?"

"Tell me that you want a couple skylights, tell me where you want them, and give me permission to put them in." He nodded.

"I would like skylights into my realm. Let's just begin with one, though. Above the gardens behind the palace, please?"

"Permission?"

"Granted."

"Wait right here." I stepped up to the roof of the Palace, then reached over with a couple of my big tentacles. One wrapped around the other to hold the roof steady, then the other pushed upward. I hopped up above to some really nice rolling grassy hills. Here and there men and women, mostly men, walked around wearing togas. A few more walked around not wearing togas. All of them looked a little surprised to see me, and looked very surprised when I pulled another tentacle over to hold the ground down.

I smiled at them, made sure nobody was in the way, and extended a couple yard wide Mana Blade up from my central tentacle below. A few of the folks screamed and ran as the ground held flat by my tentacle smoked, then ruptured as the Mana Blade poked through. Before I withdrew it, I Scried on my old world. I knew what I wanted, although oddly I had more than one choice, because apparently folks had seen the glass pyramid I wanted and copied it. Some better, some worse.

I picked one that looked to be the right size, yoinked it across, and settled it down atop the still smoking hole as I retracted the Blade. Then I Mineral Bonded the pyramid in place.

"Nothing to see here, just some basic home remodeling. Please move along!" Then I stepped back down to the kitchen, retracting my tentacles. The royal couple and their doggo were nowhere to be seen, so I stole four pieces of bacon and walked out the back door munching on one. I found the pair watching Cerberus run around going absolutely berserk barking at the sunbeams infiltrating from above.

"Hey boy!" He looked over, and I tossed each of him a slice of bacon. Hades facepalmed.

"Now he'll never let me make bacon again without wanting some." I put on my best shocked face.

"You weren't giving him some? For shame! Bad doggie daddy!" Persephone snickered.

"You like it?" She half smiled, then gestured to the very center of the sunbeam coming down through their new sunroof. A small cluster of plants with star shaped yellow flowers had already sprouted.

"Thank you."

"Now I'll need to build a mother-in-law suite." Hades mock-grumbled. She smacked him on the arm.

"Now perhaps I can stay longer." He smiled.

"Trust my loving wife to remind me of the good side of things." I smiled at the byplay, then sighed and plonked my ass down on a boulder in what used to be entirely a rock garden.

"Yeah, I hate to interrupt your house expansion plans, but I've got one more thing to talk to you about." They both looked over.

"Hades specifically." Persephone bristled a little, and I shrugged.

"You can stick around if you want, I'm not looking to ride your stallion." I paused, glanced back and forth between the two of them.

"Although I gotta say, between you and the nerd boy, I might be tempted to call my wife to watch if you wanted to go all hentai after we're done talking." She huffed at that, but Hades laid a hand on her forearm, and she frowned but subsided.

"What do you wish to talk about?" I slumped, not really tired, but not wanting to ruin a scene of domestic tranquility with shop talk. Or anything worse. But I'm a mature adult woman who does what she has to, even when she doesn't want to. Kinda wished I could promise myself I'd take advantage of the royal couple after, just as a treat, but they didn't really look all that into the open thing. Kinda like Larry, really. Shit, Hades reminded of me of Larry in a few good ways.

At any rate, I shook my head to disperse my funk and said, "Tartarus." He opened his mouth, then froze. I got the impression he'd wanted to deny everything, then thought better of it.

"What do you know?" I nodded.

"Fair question. Not too fuckin' much. I know that all the Titans were imprisoned there?" He nodded.

"I know that the Alliance has had what looked like three Titan Jotnar hybrids attack our coastline recently." The rocks around Hades cracked in sudden cold that radiated from him. I stayed loose and still, but Persephone leapt over to protect her plants. I realized right then that this wasn't any kind of attack; this was just Hades maybe losing control of his temper, one he kept under lock and key.

"That. Bastard."

"Who?" He opened his mouth, closed it.

"Look, man. I don't know what your part, if any, was in all this. If you're a victim, which by the dents in your skull and your poor pup's premature perishing lead me to believe, just tell me. Prior to this I had no beef with you, I don't see why it would have to start here." He chewed air for a second, then muttered, "it is a family matter." I thought for a second.

"Your parents break free or something?" He snorted.

"None can 'break free' of Tartarus." I nodded.

"Okay. But unless there are the kind of shitty barred gates a Titan or Jotnar lady could press her hoo hah against to eject her crotch goblin through, somebody's gotten Titans out. Well, Titan Jotnar babies. Or, I dunno, maybe they smuggled some Titan's wedding tackle out?" Hades almost choked at that.

"No. No, I..." He hung his head.

"I no longer control Tartarus." Persephone's gaze jerked to him.

"What?" He turned to her.

"It is a family matter."

"And I am not family?" He shook his head, then nodded toward me. Persephone snorted.

"That one has done more to keep our family together than your brothers, nephews, or nieces." He slumped, almost deflating as the rocks around us cracked from the cold.

"He... He wrested control from me. Beat me down, here in my place of strength, and stole part of my Portfolio."

"Who." He looked up, distraught. I looked pointedly at Persephone, then at Cerberus, who stood between the two, whining. Hades maybe misunderstood my glance, because he frowned a little belligerently, but I cut him off before he could do something we'd both regret.

"Look, man, I get the whole family thing. But two important points you're kinda missing, I think."

"Those are?"

"First of all, your real family are the ones who stand by you. Who support you, who take care of you. Not the ones who leave you lying in a puddle of your own blood after killing your dog." He grimaced and winced, but stayed silent.

"Also? If you claim somebody as family, and they go bad? At that point, if you can't talk them out of it, it's your responsibility to help stop them." He sat there, the ground around him frozen, until Persephone quietly said, "she is right, husband." He winced. I quietly whispered, "you tried to stop him. Tried to talk to him, refused to help him, didn't you?" He nodded.

"Who?"

"Poseidon."