part 2.

@prcxidiike

ICHOR-RIDDEN, DIVINE-DRIPPED ! sheCASTS shadows in theMOST delicious of ways – aGREAT force, an INSURMOUNTABLE wreckage.FLOWERS line her gown, though they seemSTRANGE ( blackETCHED into black fabric,MISPLACED, sad, tragic) – anHOMAGE to the half of herself she wears NOT now. hands areCLASPED before her, spine straight,REGAL, and gaze castOUTWARD to rotting landscape.

           ❝ a dreamOR a secret? HMM. ❞ her thoughts trip and STIR for a long moment, then coalesce into a SINGLE form. ❝ aCHILD. a beautiful little BABY. ❞

“Mmm.” Euryale murmured, with a rueful little twitch of her lip. “I suppose Alecto and her friends aren’t quite the image that springs to mind when you think of children.”

She’d heard poets sometimes describe the Eumenides as Persephone’s children. She’d never plucked up the courage to ask directly - Alecto, Megarea and Tisiphone were touchy at the best of times - but it would have made sense, metaphysically, that the scions of the underworld should be madness, vengeance and death.

Of course, the underworld hadn’t been empty when Hades had taken up residence. Nyx had resided there already, and, if Keto’s rendition of that particular story held water, she’d been like the old lady who’d lived in the house next door to Hades for years and years when he moved in. By that analogy, perhaps Alecto and her friends were like the gang of rather wild teenagers who lived on that dark street - not inimical to Hades and his way of doing things, but icons of an older, more feral kind of justice.