Chapter Text
The silver of the dagger weighed heavily in her hand, as step after step trunched forward. All the while, his face was painted in her eyes, every crack, every shade of colour projected from the light. Those colours that had been drained from his soul the moment Thearis got her hands on him, his resignation evident, he had been tired. She knew it well. He had been ill, he had been reincarnated more times than she could count, but in the end? It had been their fault. They had taken too long to find an answer, too long to perfect it.
“Elena, he will live again. I know it.” Amris said, a hand rested on her shoulder.
“Yes..” She had replied, her own hands shaken with anxiety, “Yes. We will get him back.”
From Kheros’ jungle, they had been startled with deja vu, the grasses arranging themselves how they had previously, with one stark difference - that Peter was not among them.
“Amris, this is from my dream, this meadow.”
“Yeah? Where did it go from here? It will lead us to him, dreams always do.”
“The mountains, the highest ones.”
All the time, they walked. Mostly in silence, except to clarify the direction, but the sun did not fall. In fact, it seemed to watch, softening her rays to allow them comfort, hanging by the dawn’s horizon, inching through the sky. Kheros had been right, Idis had stopped her travel on this day, spreading out the minutes, allowing time enough ten times over. Elena traced the carvings of the rock as they traveled, searching the sediment for anything to help, but all she found there were scrapes, cuts from the loose stones. Yet, they did not wince, no tears fell from the pain, a welcome shock, something to knock her mind from the endless loop it had trapped itself within.
“Elena, there's nothing here..” It snapped her focus from the surfaces of the mountains, only to be met with the edge. Today, the fear of the drop was suffocating. She had fallen from heights triple this without a glance, a blind dive into the void, but today, the void was just that, nothing.
“That's the dive to the underworld.” She said, peering into the blackness. “It’s so fucking high.”
“We’ve both done this fall hundreds of times, what’s once more?”
“What if he’s not down there? What if he’s already gone?” She was shouting, now, panic rising through her throat from her heart.
“Elena, you’d know if he was gone.” Amris assured. “Now, this is the last hurdle.”
She was right, Peter haunted her like the spectre he is, if that presence had left, even for a moment, she would have known. But even then, doubts clouded her consciousness, and her knees could not hold her, falling into Amris who wrapped her arms around them, like a child. And then she was truly falling, Amris had tipped over the edge, holding her tight. At the absurdity, she could do nothing but laugh.
“Amris, you sick fucker!”
“You wouldn’t have jumped otherwise!”
Together, the fall did not seem so far, the rush of the air did not seem so strong. The underworld did not seem so dark. The sands under their feet shifted as they stood from the descent, and Life fumbled with her pack.
“Okay, Kheros gave us these,” Amris said, extending one bundle of cloth to Elena. “They’re commoner’s clothes, a cloak, a robe, maybe. To blend in.”
She was right, shrouding herself and Elena in brown fabrics. “The ferryman shouldn’t see us here, but play dumb if you must.”
All Elena could do was nod, and keep walking, because he was within reach.
-
Map clutched between his fingers, mind racing, Peter had hurried to the breach.
“Hey! You!” the voice had frozen him in place, rooting him to the floor. “Where are you hurrying to?”
“Nowhere.” he lied, spitting out the syllables.
“Look at me, kid.” his shoulder seared in venomous pain, claws dug into the muscle to force him to turn. He was met with dripping acid from teeth, a pair of eyes glowing toxic green. “I asked where you’re going.” It’s only when Peter’s own gaze locks onto the emblem on his chest that his heart sinks. The Guards.
“I already told you,” Peter said, teeth gritted, “nowhere. Now back the fuck away.”
“Got an attitude now, have we?” He spat, “How about you get there like this?”
Even in the underworld, the land of the tortured, he could not scream. As much as the searing agony spread through his flesh as the Guard’s claws retracted, he could only afford a single gulp of air until the claws had been replaced across his chest in three ugly gashes, spitting ichor and blood through his shredded shirt. He could not scream, too much attention that way, even as the boot was placed in his back, kicking him forward into the sand, forcing the grains into his skin. He could not scream, could only stumble onwards.
-
“What will you do?” Amris had asked, as their trek led into its home stretch.
“Hm?”
“When he’s out, what will you do?”
“I think I will just.. Hold him, for a while. Then? Anything we want to do.” Elena said, eyes cast forward, a smile playing on the edge of her lip. Her hair had been thrown back with her hood, as the wind picked up into a whipping storm, but her steps did not waver, stride level, even when the cold started to sink into her bones.
“Elena? Is that you?”
Is that you?
Whispered across the expanse, as weakly as she had called for him in the end, but she had caught it.
“Amris, he’s here. Peter? Follow my voice!”
When he emerged on the horizon of the underworld, she almost did not see him. Blended within the sands of time run dry, fighting the wind, but he was there.
“Peter! My love!”
“Elena? Gods.. Elena!”
She had let Amris fall behind, now. Her boots left heavy prints in the ground as she ran for him, and this time he did not flee from her, stumbling forward into her grasp. And for once, he felt complete. His shoulders heaved with breaths as he stood in her arms, holding onto her like the light in the dark. Elena let their knees bend, holding him tight as they sat in the sands, the top of his head saturated with her tears.
“You found me.. We never even got to the breach..” She whispered into his hair, laughing with relief.
“I could hear you talking, I had to follow you.” He replied, breath caught in his throat.
It was only then that she noticed the blood.
“Peter, you’re bleeding, what happened?”
“An asshole guard caught me on the way, it’s alright, i’ll be alright.” He said, though his chest gave him away, as she pulled away to survey him, his wounds had blackened like the underworld, his form flickering in and out of translucency. But this time, she was ready. All the while holding onto his hand as he held back a cry, fumbled in her bag for vials of golden life.
“No, Elena, I can’t.” He choked, steadying her hand as she held up the vial. “It won’t help now.”
“Peter, please.. I can save you, this will save you.” She pleaded, “Let me save you.. I beg you, Love, please.”
“All it will do is string out what we both know will happen.” Peter said, as he placed a kiss to her knuckles, “The dagger, Elena.”
“No.. No, Peter I can’t.” she could feel the silver weighing in her pocket, this is not the end for us, it can't be.
“You must, darling, you must.”
The sands of the underworld had been well saturated, the golden ichor soaking into them as the glass shattered. In the mortal realm, it is customary for the lamb to see the blade, and she had always been one for customs; the metal glinted with the dimming moonlight, but Peter had only looked at her, his gaze unwavering.
“Why?”
“I would have died either way, Elena. At least here, I get to die in your arms.”
“I love you, Peter, in every lifetime.”
“In every lifetime.”
Her hand shone with scarlet, as she had placed the blade into his heart. Both faces stained with tears. Peter had sat against her, curled into their chest, and Elena had held him that way until his breaths stopped rising. Only then did she grasp him tightest, as his presence began to fade, that spectre she had felt no longer watching, as his body slipped away once more, his soul destroyed.
As she had on the mortal plane, she wept. But now, there was no mother to dry her tears, no destruction to soothe her. Only the vast emptiness of an underworld, with no light of hope in the distance. Only when Life’s hand fell on her shoulder did she move.
“He’s gone, Amris. He’s fucking gone!”
“I’m sorry, Elena, you did not deserve this.”
“This is all Thearis’ fault! If she hadn’t been so fucking selfish!” She screamed, steadying at the weight of the blade in her hand. “Amris, you need to leave, now. Do not witness what is to come.” she did not look at her, only the blood dripping from the silver.
“Elena, I can’t do that.”
“Fine. Just stay out of the way.”
What is left to stop a god from becoming a devil, when there is nothing to lose? What stops the tides pulled by the moon, or the rays of the sun? What stops the raging onslaught of justice, avalanching down the mountains? Life followed this force of destruction, helpless to stop what was to come.
Elena did not run. Did not scream any more. Only stepped forward, again and again and again. When the wall stood between her and Death, she made her own way in, blowing a hole large enough for any soul to leave, but she only continued her death march. When Guards flung themselves at them, there was only blood of the mortal souls, torn apart by consecrated silver. It is too easy.
“Thearis!”
“Yes, Creator?” She said, wicked grin plastered across her face, watching the broken approach, saturated in blood.
She said nothing, only bared their teeth like a rabid dog, and lunged. She was not sloppy, was not off form, even as Thearis wove through the air, she pursued like a bloodhound, until Death reached the top of the wall. Nowhere to run. She had not seen Elena change course, until the singe of metal bore itself between her shoulder blades, and the pair fell in a tumbling heap to the ground, only one standing from the impact.
Death did not breathe again. The Creator’s shoulders rose and fell in heaving breaths, subsiding only when she let the dagger fall to the sand. It’s then that her grief weighs the most, because it does not feel better. Those responsible are gone, and it does not feel better.
“Elena, I’m sorry.” She feels the cold sting of metal around her neck, hearing Amris’ voice. “I wish it did not have to be this way.”
In a flash, the underworld is gone. Replaced with the blinding light of the weaving room, the fates. Three women whose hands are deep within their work pull their pieces from their looms, allowing the world to stand still, turn to her.
“Creator. You know why you are here, I suppose?” It is jarring, their speech. A swooping thing that left even the most charismatic disoriented.
“Please..”
“We gave you leeway, plenty more slack when you wanted to play house with a mortal, but destroying souls forever? Murdering Thearis? It is too far.”
She could do nothing but watch, listen. Rooted in place by shining divine steel, steel she had forged millennia ago. Nothing but feel the tears slide down her cheeks, choke out sobs.
“Elena, Creator. You are sentenced by the fates to final execution.”
Final execution. Their words swing like a gavel, their word is destiny. She smiled, then, as that same silver approached, pressing as spikes into her flesh, searing with holy judgement. She did not scream, did not plead for her life, only smiled, as stake after stake pierced through her, a final blow to the heart. She smiled, because they would be together at last, in destruction. Returned to the aether.
In every lifetime.