Bonus Content - Charon POV II

Hey everyone!

For this month's bonus content, you voted for a backstory bit with Charon, including some hints at their past. So, here we have his initial arrival into the Underworld, with brief appearances by Hades and Hekate. 

(Note: Charon is referred to as 'he' throughout this short, because it is taking place from his perspective, and at the time they had not yet come to realize they were nonbinary and were using he/him pronouns exclusively. His correct 'present' pronouns are definitely still they/he.)

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The journey downwards was as desolate as he’d been led to expect.

The cold, at least, wasn’t really a problem for him, and in fairness his vision in the dark was highly developed. There was just enough light in the sloping passage to see color, still, most of it from behind, where the entrance was now just an irregular circle of light.

It felt, he imagined, like it must feel to be one of the condemned, marching down to Tartarus. A fate he had perhaps avoided by a narrower margin than he might like. Though… perhaps not. In the end, the gods were not angry with him, they were afraid of him. And he had the sense that the things they were afraid of all wound up down here, somehow, in the prison if there was a ground for it… and simply near it if there was not.

A strange hypothesis. One he had no way of validating as he was.

He stumbled a bit, over a stone he had not seen in the dark, catching himself on the wall of the passage. How strange it felt, to once again be troubled by things like stones. It was still a raw wound, the absence of so much of his power. Debilitating. It left him awkward, gangly, as unsure of his footing as a newborn fawn and all the more cognizant of how he should be able to move.

Eventually, the passage bottomed out, the tunnel opening up into something much wider. A cavern of the sort of scale only gods and titans ever required. There was a certain gravitas to it, even if it lacked the pomposity of Olympus. He somehow doubted there would be nymph choruses and centaur vanguards at his beck and call here, nor even the more humble creature comforts of the sun on his back and the wind in his hair. He had to hope that, if nothing else, the water wasn’t fetid.

He wasn’t optimistic.

Up ahead, a thin ribbon of red-orange encircled the whole of the cavern, or at least it seemed so, until it disappeared beyond his sight. He’d heard of this—the Phelegethon, River of Fire and first boundary of the Underworld. He supposed that would be the first person he talked to, then, unless—

Power lit up his senses. Tremendous, encompassing, like a star with its very own gravity. And, he decided after a moment, its own satellite as well, for there was a second presence. Not quite so overwhelming as the first, but formidable all the same, and more than enough to fell him in his current state. Was he to be treated as an intruder after all?

Well, so be it. If death came to him at the end of all this, perhaps he would deserve it. He would certainly not face it like a coward.

So he overcame the hitch in his step, putting one foot in front of the other and heading for the glowing river. Sure enough, as he drew closer, he could see two figures standing on the same side of it as himself. There was an obvious mismatch in height between them, but for all that they stood next to each other, as equals would, and he wondered for a moment if this was meant to be some odd mirror of Zeus and Hera standing before their thrones on Olympus. If so, one of the two should certainly be further back, and…

Well, they certainly didn’t look anything like Zeus and Hera.

It was not difficult to identify the Lord of the Dead, even if they had never properly met before. He was quite the looming presence, and for a moment, the Underworld’s newest resident wondered if perhaps he would have felt so small in front of this god even at the height of his power.

Unlikely, for he could not recall ever feeling small in front of anyone, then. But perhaps he would have been small, anyway.

He couldn’t put his finger on what quality of Hades made it so. It wasn’t his physical dimensions, nor perhaps even the palpable aura of power around him, contained but not imperceptible by any means. It seemed somehow as if it might have something more to do with the expression on his face, though how that was, he didn’t know.

The god of death looked nothing so much as serene. There was no trace of annoyance, or anger, or haughtiness on his face at all, not even when he drew close enough that they all had to be able to see one another. It was difficult to push back the strange sensation of relief this produced, but he managed it, telling himself he should not be relaxing so easily in the company of someone who would be his jailer at best.

The King of the Underworld’s companion turned out to be a small, heavyset person with their hair in immaculate twists, the color a gradient from black at the roots to white at the tips, their deep brown skin stippled with pale patches that somehow reminded him of those jags of light and color in the night sky—clusters of stars and novas and he didn’t know what else. He had heard of her, vaguely. Hekate, the so-called Last Titan. Awfully small for such a designation, but then the line between ‘titan’ and ‘god’ was so thin as to be nonexistent in some places, more a political difference than one of fundamental character.

He stopped several feet away from them. His legs and feet ached, and pain pounded behind his temples. He had been ready to face death here. Some part of him had wondered all along if that was really what Zeus was sending him to, banishing him unannounced to the Underworld, where his infamously-territorial brother lived. And yet from the looks on their faces he could no longer sustain the hypothesis.

The witch smiled at him, and though he knew he was no better than either of them any longer, he could not help but feel punched in the gut by it. Or… well, the reason eluded him, but his reaction did not. He stood as tall as his guise would allow him, lifting his chin.

Surprisingly, Hades ignored the challenge in it entirely. “So it is you,” he murmured, brows drawing together slightly. “I had thought I felt you enter, but I confess I was not expecting it. Would you perhaps like to come in for something to eat? The trip can be hard on the system.”

It was the politest way to say ‘you look like a wreck’ he’d ever heard. Certainly moreso than he’d ever expected to get.

“We’ll take you the fast way, so you don’t pass out,” Hekate added, a bit of a twinkle in her dark eyes.

He supposed that was also politer than he deserved, though by a much smaller margin.

“That would be…” There were a lot of words that could fill in the end of that sentence, but he wasn’t sure which to choose. Most would be far too honest. Eventually he settled on something noncommittal.

“—acceptable.”

Hekate snickered a bit, but Hades only inclined his head graciously. “Very well, then. Ah, but. If I may ask, what should we call you? I know the name you used to have, but… it seems as though you have lost it.”

Lost. Again much too polite. He wasn’t going to correct it, though.

“I suppose…” he expelled a long breath, longer than he meant to.

“Call me Charon.”