For @messageforyou

[refusetofight]

“Achilles!”

“Yes, Lord Hades.”

“There are visitors at the gate. See them to the audience chamber.” Hades sets down his quill and pushes up to his intimidating height to head to the chamber in question—an austere and drafty room reserved for private conversations with his fellow gods and artfully designed to honor xenia, while still uncomfortable enough to encourage brevity. Mortal shades and house staff are rarely allowed entry. “And send my wife along as well.”

Achilles bows and strides off to do as he’s told. After his brief infusion of Hades’ power in the arena, he can well imagine the clarity with which his master sees his realm and all that stirs within it. Particularly divine guests at the threshold of his halls, toeing the invisible boundary he placed to prevent gods from entering without his approval. (Shades and other lesser creatures can more or less come and go as they please; he could care less.)

With the grinding scrape of cold iron and stone, Achilles pushes open the House’s gate to behold ...

“Lady Athena, Lord Hermes. Please, come in. Be welcome,” he says after a very brief, shocked pause. He leans on rigid formality to hide his relief at the sight of Hermes safe and well after two months and only one brief letter. This is short lived, quickly replaced by a fresh bout of apprehension; why have he and his sister come to see their uncle?

Once they’ve been ushered to the cavernous audience chamber, Achilles finds Persephone in her garden—with Zagreus—and summons her as well. She smiles, dusts the dirt from her hands, plucks clinging leaves from her peplos and asks her son to continue weeding. Zagreus looks chagrined as he works at a particularly stubborn patch of crabgrass.

After two more short detours—one to task Dusa with preparing guest chambers, another to request food and wine from the chef—and Achilles finally positions himself outside the imposing double doors, ready to receive orders and steer away would-be eavesdroppers. All while he’s desperately straining his own ears to hear snatches of conversation.

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[messageforyou]

Hermes is excellent at keeping a neutral smile on his face when he sees Achilles again. He bows his head politely with a cheerful, "Hello there, my good shade." Athena, ever formal, purses her lips in gentle disapproval of Hermes' familiarity before bowing her head as well.

"Achilles, Greatest of the Greeks. It's good to see you again."

She glances from the corner of her eye at Hermes as if to say, That's how you're supposed to greet a heroic house guard. Hermes cheerfully ignores her and greets the other familiar faces in the House with similar cheerful familiarity.

Something that Achilles might notice while he's ushering the gods to the audience chamber is that Hermes is wearing a new necklace that sits on his collar. It almost looks like he's made a necklace of the charms that used to be on his messenger bag.

There is a similar exchange when Hermes and Athena see Persephone. Athena gives a formal greeting worthy of meeting a queen in her palace, and Hermes cheerfully takes Persephone by the hands and kisses her cheeks when she expresses her unabashed delight at seeing him well. Once more Athena purses her lips in gentle disapproval, but there's an indulgent light in her eyes. Like a normally strict mom letting her child get away with something after a near death scare.

When the gods retreat to the audience chamber, it is dead quiet. Athena herself in an abundance of caution wills the walls to hold all sound. Wisely, as usual, because what they talk about is grave. Despite Athena's disapproval of his familiarity, Hermes' frank and sincere manner helps a lot in stopping Hades from categorically refusing to hear them further once he understands what they're thinking of.

But evidently, the walls aren't infallible, or perhaps they trust Achilles, because little bits of the conversation leaks through.

Hermes breaks a personal rule and openly talks about the family baggage--"Uncle, I know that the Titan war still haunts you all. We don't want to be in the same position you were in. We want to stop this before it gets worse." His sincerity in acknowledging the pain of his forefathers and appealing to their mutual desire to never see such bloodshed within their family again, added to Athena's even-keeled and factual statements acknowledging their fathers' increased volatility and the inevitability of confrontation if it continues, is just enough to convince Hades to consider their position. Persephone is more amenable, but she hesitates still, stating that their primary responsibility is to their charges in the Underworld and she would have to discuss everything with her husband.

Hades grudgingly agrees to allow his niece and nephew to stay while they negotiate, and at first suggests that Achilles be assigned as Athena's escort, but Athena is the one to say, "I believe Achilles would be better suited for my little brother, Uncle."

"'Thena, I promise nothing is going to eat me while I'm here, with or without a heroic escort," Hermes says dryly with the air of someone who's had to put up with much more fussing than he'd like.

"I think Achilles would be better suited for my little brother," Athena says a little louder, ignoring Hermes. Hermes doesn't protest any further, because he's made a show of not being too eager to have Achilles all to himself (and he'd really like Achilles all to himself). Persephone is the one to chuckle indulgently, agreeing to have Achilles escort Hermes instead.

"Know that you're both completely safe here," Persephone says with compassionate understanding. "But I understand why your sister would feel a little protective right now, all things considered."

And with that, Hermes and Athena are dismissed, Persephone choosing to be the one to walk with them out of the chamber and ask Achilles if he would summon Orpheus to tend to Athena and escort Hermes to his guest chambers.