Velvet Vale

If you were related by blood, you would most likely be Melinoë’s younger twin. Two souls saved by Hecate. From the moment of your rescue, it was clear: only one of you would rise to strike down Chronos and restore order to the House of Hades.

Melinoë’s wrath burns like a wildfire, fierce and all-consuming, yours flows like magma beneath the earth’s crust, quiet, slow, but unyielding. Her fury against Chronos is raw and visible. Yours, buried deep beneath layers of grief and calm, as it simmers endlessly.

You share a tent. Melinoë always takes charge of decorating it, though she’ll pause if she notices you wandering about the Crossroads instead. The first thing she ever commissioned for the Crossroads Renewal Project was a bench beside the Fountain of the Dead, a place where the two of you could sit together whenever she returned from her nightly attempts.

She refuses, absolutely refuses, to let you join the fight against Chronos. You’re better suited to aid the Crossroads and Headmistress Hecate, to ensure that life continues here while she faces the dangers below and above. Because if something were to happen to her… then you would be the one they must rely on.

Of course, she doesn’t plan on failure. Failure isn’t an option. Chronos didn’t merely steal the throne of Hades, he stole your family before you ever had the chance to know them.

Melinoë isn’t always good with words. But her efforts to make you happy are endearing. She throws herself into the Crossroads Renewal Project with enthusiasm, brings home trinkets and keepsakes from her journeys, bottles of nectar and ambrosia, and even carves out time to go fishing with you.

She knows these are fleeting joys, brief respites in an endless struggle, but she clings to them nonetheless. Every gift, every smile, every quiet moment beside you gives her more reason to keep fighting. If not for the shades, if not for the family she never met… then for you, her one true constant.

Artemis asks about you often when she and Melinoë meet. Though the goddess rarely visits, when she does, the three of you gather in the moonlit glade to sing together, your voices rising and fading like the night breeze. Melinoë swears those moments are the closest she’s ever seen you come to peace, and she treasures them more than she lets on.

She hides her doubts from you as best she can. You’re counting on her, they all are. But the one person she fears disappointing most aren’t the shades of the Crossroads, or even Headmistress Hecate… it’s you.

So she fills the silence between battles with stories, tales of monsters she fights and shades she meets. Her storytelling skills are questionable (to Odysseus’ eternal dismay), but she’s trying. And with every retelling, she gets a little better.