Dear Diary,

Y'know, when I first got here... No, after I first threw down with Diana, I was absolutely pumped to be the Ultimate Finding Out for every fuckin' Deity on the planet here and now. I was the embodiment of bodying bodies whose arrival boded ill for those they ought to be protecting. Yeah, for a bit I was worried about being the Bad Guy, but then the Battle of the Walls happened. I thought the world, the Deities, those with wealth and power had stolen my love away from me, and in losing my shit, I scared the living fuck out of my own side; the other side didn't have a side to be scared any more, really.

So I guess for a bit I kinda leaned into that. Slowly, maybe, but after I inhaled Sengann and licked Apollo pâté off my tentacles, I just stopped caring so much. Saffron and Marie both supported me no matter how bloody my hands got. Siobhan didn't even seem to really notice me until I was hip deep in viscera; even though I don't think that's what attracted her, it didn't turn her off or scare her away, either. By the time Diana broke her parole I didn't really have to think to do what I did to her. To torture her to death over the course of hours, from moonset to moonrise.

By the time I murdered... No, by the time I executed my brother Balor, I didn't even hesitate. What I did to The Morrigan, what I'm still doing to her, really, barely set off my villain alarms. Weird, I think the thing that really finally got me thinking that maybe I'd slipped a step too far down that slippery slope was the Mother of Water Panthers. Not killing her, she'd made it clear we were in a fight to the death. Not even eating her; honestly one of the only ways I can be sure some asshole Deity level enemy isn't gonna come crawling back is to eat them. Okay, I guess I could feed them to Fenrir or let Jormungandr nom on them a little bit, but both of them are still in lock up.

No, it was taunting her. Teasing her with the thought of letting some part of her survive, then snuffing that hope out just to add that little flair of despair to the flavor of her head cheese.

So I'm really kinda glad the next thing that came along wasn't a Deity in need of attitude adjustment, but one in need of help. Shit, I'm not entirely sure that Vyenemoinen was lying when he said I'd rescued the city of Boltophsberg from generations of enslavement to Loviatar. Not sure he wasn't lying, either, but thing is, even if he was lying, that doesn't mean he was wrong.

So yeah, I'm a hammer. Fuck, I'm not even a hammer, really, I'm a maul. But a maul is still a tool. You can use a maul to demolish a beat up old building that's unsafe for habitation, or you can use it to hammer in some pilings for a new foundation. There's also that other option of bashing some asshole's head so hard it prolapses their anus on the way out.

Maybe it's the kits, maybe it's the kids, maybe it's the time spent getting to know my Worshippers. Shit, it might even be me growing up and maturing as a person, healing some of my trauma and making peace with my inner Tomoko.

Nah.

At any rate, I've learned that I like building just as much as I like breaking. It's harder, obviously, but at the end I've got something to show for my effort, rather than a fleeting sense of satisfaction and a desperate need for a shower.

Probably why when Dolly's nemesis kicked open the doors to Hades' palace and shouted at me, I finished my Mineral Bonding, slowly pulled my tentacles away and lifted my hands up, open and still, and said, "tryna fix Hades' porch?"

She took a half step forward and glowered at me. An actual glower. You don't see quality glowering any more, but this woman definitely pulled it off. Honestly, I think maybe she was tryna be threatening and shit, but as I've mentioned a time or three, my sense of personal danger seems to have been a casualty of getting shot in the head. When I didn't react to her half step and mean face, she gripped her scepter and torch and barked out, "what have you done to my husband!"

Not sure what it was, but something clicked. Of course, a moment later I got confirmation of my sudden enlightenment when Marie took a tiny step forward, curtsied, and said, "Lady Persephone."

She also shot me a surreptitious look, one that didn't need any fancy telepathy to interpret. I bowed; not real deep or anything, at least in part because despite me putting on a fuckton of muscle since she was made, or maybe due to that, The Dress was still a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. Persephone's nose flared as I did, definitely noticing and not appreciating the view. "Nice to meet you, Lady Persephone. I'm Tabitha Diaz, Patron Deity of the Atlantean Inter-City Alliance. As for Hades, I haven't seen him since the summer before last."

Yeah, apparently between the girls tryna break free of their onerous confinement and Persephone's general stress level, that was not precisely what she wanted to her. Her eyes narrowed, and she spat, "what were you doing with him while I was away?"

Something about her posture told me that she wasn't really a fighter, and she wasn't really so much pissed at me as stressed to the bounds of sanity. Still, fighter or not, if she wasn't quite as ripped as me, that 'not quite' combined with having a solid foot an a half, maybe two feet on me meant that if she backhanded someone with either of her very much improvised weapons, whoever wound up on the receiving end would feel that shit. I lowered my hands a little, because holding them up seemed like some kind of an admission at that point, and quietly replied, "delivering a soul."

That interrupted her obvious inclinations toward mayhem. "You're a Psychopomp?"

I nodded and slipped an arm around Marie's waist. "Normally Marie handles that end of things for me, but now and then somebody needs a personal touch, yeah."

She stared at my arm, then looked up at Murder Mittens' face, her glare melting into something way less aggressive. "Marie?" My Wife nodded, and Persephone looked back to me. "You're destined to become a Maenad, then?"

Marie and I looked at each other, desperately trying not to laugh. I shrugged, Marie snorted, then said, "Probably Not."

The Queen of the Underworld looked at us, frowned again, and said, "no, yet so familiar?" I laced the fingers of my left hand through Marie's left claw, then raised our hands, spreading our fingers out. I swear at that point Persephone nearly did an empty mouthed spit take. "Does my nephew know?"

I chuckled and shrugged. "I mean, he got really, really drunk afterward, so he might have erased his own memory of the event, but he's the one who walked her down the aisle."

Marie just nodded and wrapped my arm back around her waist. Persephone sagged, and I realized I'd been right. Strong, pissed, and not somebody to take lightly, but not a fighter. Also, suddenly relieved and nearly collapsing with that relief. She took a deep breath to steady herself, let it out, and said, "if the Heir to Olympus trusts you enough to give you his favorite..." She trailed off, took another breath, and shook her head. I'd done that shit myself a time or two, tryna clear my brain of too much adrenaline when I needed to think. She looked around, stepped back, and waved us forward. "Come in, come in."

Marie and I walked through the door, and I stayed loose when she dropped the scepter and torch, jumped out the doorway, reached to the sides and dragged the doors shut. She grabbed up her impromptu weapons and shoved them through the handles, then realized that with the hinges more or less destroyed that wasn't enough.

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When i saw her glancing around looking for something heavy enough to blockade them, I asked, "do they need to open again any time real soon?"

She shook her head, so I just Mineral Bonded the doors until they were just another section of the wall. Worst case I'd Mana Blade them open again. When she realized what I'd done, she sagged even further. "Thank you."

"I'd ask if everything's okay, but between the messed up porch and how on edge you are, that'd be stupid even for me. How can we help?"

"I see why he likes you. No more hesitation than he would have." She seemed to argue with herself for a second, then said, "follow me."

She led us through the palace. The exterior had looked like a mix of temple and villa, but the inside seemed a little more like a combination palace and government records repository. Doors to rooms full of scroll racks, bookshelves, and even what looked like some pottery and rugs with super detailed messages on them lined the walls of the hallway she led us down. Signs of a struggle were everywhere, doors hanging half off their hinges, cracked walls, you name it. Very little blood, though, and nothing that looked like the kind of damage I'd expect from elemental Shaping or even weapons. Just impact damage.

That got even worse when she led us through what was obviously a throne room. Two modest thrones lay on a dais at the head of the room, one of them shattered, the other covered with blood. They both looked kind of like what I'd expect from my last visit to Hades. Obviously thrones, but not gaudy, not super fancy, just the sort of uncomfortable chair the boss sits in to let people know that yes, he's the boss, not a clerk who wandered into the throne room by accident.

Also told me something that the bloody chair, the smaller one, had a lot nicer cushioning.

We'd come in through a side door, and I realized why we'd come the long way when I glanced over toward the main entrance. Somebody'd slammed someone into the big doors there, knocking them off their hinges and wedging them into the door frame. The very cracked, foot thick stone doorframe.

She led us through a curtain covered door behind the thrones, and my amusement at the homey feel of the simple floral murals on the walls warred with the tension that rushed over me at the trails of blood on the floor. More than two. I tried desperately to remember if the two had any kids, and shame overwhelmed my relief when she led me through a pleasant little Zen garden into a large bedroom. Persephone rushed to where her husband lay on the bed, motionless, but my eyes were drawn to the monster fuckin' hound laid on a massive doggie bed in front of the fireplace opposite the bed.

Something had smashed the central head nearly flat, caved the skull in completely. The head on the right looked almost normal except for the jagged tears; the upper part of the head rested on the lower jaw, but the two weren't quite lined up, weren't connected. The neck had rolled a little to the side. The third head was just gone, the neck ended in a gory stump. I don't know why, but something about how the pup had been laid out, like he was just resting in front of the fire, lit a fire in me. I knelt next to him, laid a hand on his shoulder.

"The fuck happened here?"

Persephone looked up at me, almost like she wanted to snap at me for grieving a dog when her husband lay unmoving, but then she just shook her head. "I don't know. I arrived late this year. Mother... Wanted a few more days. I thought I'd surprise him. Had this made," she plucked at the ruin of her teddy. "Arrived here in the bedroom to find it empty. I figured he was just working late, as he's wont to do when I'm away. I'd sent the nymphs to take over at the office before I arrived, so I thought he'd be home."

She paused, ran a hand along Hades' face. Right then his chest rose slowly, then settled back down. "I didn't go looking until morning. I'd waxed so wroth with him. Thought I'd find him flirting with the nymphs in his office or something." She snorted. "Not that he's ever done more than joke with them since..." She trailed off.

"Has he woken up since?" She shook her head. "Has he eaten anything?"

She shrugged. "I haven't left the palace, and he never keeps much food when I'm not home."

I stepped over and looked down at him. One oblong goose egg ran from his brow to the top of his skull above his ear. A ragged wound split the far side of his head, with jagged bone showing through it. At least half of his long, graceful fingers showed signs of being broken, then pulled out straight. "Your work?" She nodded. Bruises covered his face, his shoulders, his chest. One of his feet looked like somebody had stomped it flat to the floor, the arch shattered. I took a deep breath and held out my hands. "May I?"

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing more in confusion than distrust. "You're a Psychopomp and a Healer?"

I smiled at her. "Phileo Academy training. We're lots of things."

She looked like she felt some kinda way about Phileo, but after a moment just nodded and said, "yes. Please."

I slipped a surreptitious tentacle around my own waist to feed me Mana, then Shaped an Assess Health.

Assessment For: Hades, Pluto, Dis Pater Target Type: Divine Biped (Olympian) General Health: Critically Injured Conditions: Comatose, Concussion, Contusions, Major Fractures, Minor Fractures Recommended Treatment: Stabilize, Healing Coma, Regrow Bone, Heal Injury, Rest, Observation, Specialist Consultation Granular Assessment Data: Activate: ( Y / N )

"Well. Shit. Gimme a second." Siobhan, look at this please?

I pulled more Mana, Shaped Healing Coma, which didn't really seem to do shit, but I trusted Saffron and Siobhan's Assess Health not to fuck me over. I pulled as much Mana as I could without glowing and Shaped it into a Stabilize, which I dropped into his shoulder, since that seemed the safest place to touch a naked dude in a bed with his wife watching. Then I hit him with the mother of all Heal Injuries, enough that his finger bones and skull glowed as things shifted back to where and how they ought to be.

While I did that, Siobhan flipped open the granular data and paged through it. After a bit, she whispered, he... He is beyond my knowledge, Mistress.

I sighed as Persephone stared at me, wide eyed. Well. Fuck. Do we have anybody who knows more about Souls than you?

She hesitated, then very quietly said, I will see him to your side, Mistress.

Don't push yourself, Darling. You've got a bean to protect.

Strange how emotions could come through with such clarity, even subtle ones. Calm, quiet resignation filled her mental voice when she said, I am aware. It may take some time to convince him.

Take all the time you need, I'll keep Hades breathing until then. With that I turned to Persephone. "That's about all I can do. I've sent for somebody better at this than me."

She touched Hades' face where his wound had closed up with almost no trace of a scar, held her fingers there while he breathed again, slow and deep. "I scarce credit anyone could do more than you have. What... Who..." She shook her head and went silent.

I maybe might have blown a gasket at that 'what' once upon a time, but I'd lived through that moment when all that remained of my love was a scrap of bloody cloth. I'd walked away from Bonnie's room without ending everything. I just sighed, smiled, and said, "brute force only gets so far. I've sent for somebody with more Skills."

Marie pulled a simple chair over, sat down, and pulled me into her lap. Persephone looked like she might say something, although whether about rearranging her furniture or not getting her a chair I don't know, because she caught herself, shut her mouth, and laid down on her side beside Hades, one hand interlaced with his, and stroked his hair while we waited.

Time passed oddly in Hades, although I had nothing better to do than track the sun. Just before it hit its midday height, I felt my Ice Pop pulling on her connection to me. Before I could even thing to stop her, she stepped to my side.

I'd expected her to send Canta, or maybe show up with him in tow.

I did not expect her to show up with Hailee held to her by a papoose, her hands clutching those of Docs Z and Glass.

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