Nerd Paradise

Unable to wait any longer, Danny began to ask her what the note said, but Sam spoke first.

“Danny, you’re… you’re the Ghost King.”

The instant those words hit him, it was like something clicked in Danny’s mind. Memories flooded back to him. Ones that he hadn’t even known he’d lost. Back when he had first met Thanatos, the god had called him “the King of the Ghost Zone.” Hades had, too. And it had been brought up again, during one of his first training sessions with Thanatos. He also remembered now that he had tried to tell his friends, shortly before his trip to Camp Half-Blood.

But… somehow, he had forgotten. All of those moments had disappeared from his mind, and he hadn’t even realized it until just now.

“Dude!” Tucker exclaimed, just as shocked as Sam was. As Danny was. “You’re the King of the Ghost Zone? And you never told us?”

“I-I—” Danny didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t—”

But Sam interrupted him. “He didn’t know, Tucker.”

“What do you mean, he didn’t know?” Tucker spluttered incredulously. “How could he not know?”

As an answer, Sam handed the paper to Danny, and Tucker leaned over his shoulder to read it as well. The note was written in a loopy script, with swirls and curves that Danny found annoying, and he wasn’t even dyslexic like Sam was. But as he read the message scrawled on the parchment, Danny realized that Clockwork had helped him in more ways than one.

Daniel is the Ghost King, and has been ever since his victory over Pariah Dark. But there are some who seek to take the throne from him and instate their own false ruler. They have silenced the spirits of the Ghost Zone, forbidding any to speak the truth of what has happened.

I cannot tell you who these people are, but I can tell you that they are powerful. Their false ruler has the ability to manipulate Daniel’s mind. Repeatedly, they have altered his memories, making him forget his title over and over again, so that he may not retaliate. So that he may not fight back.

But there is hope. They are strong, but their hold over him is not absolute. Please, do what you can to remind him when he forgets. With the help of his companions, Daniel will be able to reclaim his throne when the time comes.

Danny felt like he was staring right through the paper, his eyes not quite focusing on the words written across its surface. He heard the sounds of the laboratory equipment whirring and beeping, and the ancient water heater hissing faintly in the closet, but none of it seemed to register in his mind.

He… he was the Ghost King, wasn’t he? He knew that… he had known that. But someone didn’t want him to remember that. Someone was deliberately messing with his memories.

But why? If they wanted his throne, why didn’t they just come out and fight him? Why did they have to mess with something so personal? Something so terrifyingly important as his literal memory? How could they do that? Who could possibly have that power?

“Man… that’s crazy,” Tucker breathed.

“Understatement of the year, Tuck,” Sam replied, and then she turned her attention to Danny, her expression sympathetic. “But that explains the memory loss that Clockwork mentioned.”

“No, seriously!” Tucker continued as he threw his hands up in the air, clearly agitated. “This is crazy! How do we know they’re not listening right now? How do we know they’re not going to wipe his memory right this instant?”

In an attempt to prove his point, Tucker grabbed Danny by the shoulders and looked intensely into his eyes. “Danny, tell me what we were just talking about.”

Danny frowned. “I-”

“Do it!” Tucker shook him frantically. “Tell me!”

“I’m—”

Tucker sighed loudly and hopelessly. “I bet you already forgot.”

Irritated, Danny reached out and grabbed Tucker’s shoulders. “I’m the Ghost King and someone is messing with my memories,” he stated flatly.

Tucker blinked. “… oh. You do remember.”

In response, Danny scoffed and knocked Tucker’s beret off his head. Tucker whined as he picked his hat up from the floor and dusted it off, but Danny paid him no mind as he turned his attention to Sam. She looked thoughtful, her hand resting on her chin as she stared at the shut doors of the ghost portal.

Before Danny could ask Sam what she was thinking, she spoke. “I think I’ve got it.” She looked at Danny. “I think you lose your memory every time you enter the Ghost Zone.”

It was a bold claim, but as Danny thought about it he realized that Sam was onto something. He did go into the Ghost Zone often, and if the people messing with his memory were residing there, kidnapping and silencing ghosts and generally being up to no good, then maybe that was the only time they were able to affect him. To get inside his head and make him forget.

“Clockwork said the power these people have isn’t absolute,” Sam pointed out. “Maybe they can’t affect him when he’s in the human world.”

“Maybe…” Danny muttered doubtfully. Sam’s theory was a start, but there wasn’t any way to prove it. He couldn’t exactly remember when he had forgotten something, now could he?

“Hey.” Tucker reached over and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t sweat it, man. We’ll remind you as many times as we need to.”

“Absolutely,” Sam nodded.

Danny gave both of his best friends a grateful smile, relieved beyond words that they were there to help him. “Thanks, guys.”

“Here,” Tucker grinned as he glanced around, as if looking for something. “Let me grab a marker. I’ll write it on your forehead.”

Danny laughed and gave him a playful shove. “Knock it off, dude.”

“We need to be careful. Even more than usual,” Sam told them as she cast a wary glance around the lab. “Like Tucker said, you never know who might be listening. Just as humans can enter the Ghost Zone, ghosts can enter the human world. And we don’t even know who these people are.”

Danny nodded. Sam was right, as usual. “And just to be safe, I should stay away from the Ghost Zone as much as possible.”

Sam grimaced at the thought. “That’s not gonna be easy with your… hero work.”

“Yeah,” Tucker agreed. “And how on earth will we find Ellie now? There are only two places she could be. Here in our world, or out there in the ghost world. That makes us lose half our search area!”

“We don’t have to find her,” Danny revealed as he recalled what he had seen at Clockwork’s tower. “I know where she is.”

His friends looked at him, clearly confused and perhaps a little frustrated at his sudden change in demeanor. After all, he was the one who had been worried sick about Ellie in the first place.

“Explain,” Sam ordered, her voice turning cold and hard. “Because if we just went on that dangerous, hours long expedition for no reason—”

“No, no!” Danny said quickly. “I didn’t know until we talked to Clockwork! He… he reminded me of something.”

“How?” Tucker asked bewilderedly. “All he said was that she was ‘somewhere safe.’”

“She is,” Danny said. “She’s… under his protection.”

The confused expressions on his friends’ faces only grew, so Danny rolled up his sleeve, revealing his apprentice mark (he had started wearing long-sleeve shirts regularly to cover his mark, since they brought up fewer questions and concerns than an elastic bandage did). He looked at the black lettering on his pale skin, and then up at his friends. “Ellie is Clockwork’s apprentice.”

Both Sam and Tucker’s mouths fell open in surprise.

“So… now there’s two of you?” Tucker asked. “Two Phantoms? Two apprentices?”

“Yep,” Danny said as he pulled his sleeve back down. “Well, I mean, now that I think about it… I don’t know how many apprentices are out there.” It wasn’t something he had ever thought to ask his mentor. Maybe he should.

If Thanatos would actually respond to him, anyway. Which was something he could focus on, now that Ellie was no longer at the forefront of his mind.

“But how is she Clockwork’s apprentice?” Sam wondered.

“What do you mean?” Danny asked her.

“Aren’t apprenticeships, like, a godly thing?” Sam pointed out. “Didn’t Ha—I mean, the king of the Underworld have to officiate your apprenticeship?”

She was right; Hades had been the one to do the whole apprenticeship ceremony thing. And now that Danny thought about it, that didn’t seem like something Clockwork would’ve waltzed over to the Underworld to do.

So how did that work? Danny didn’t know. But there was someone he could ask.

-------------------

Danny knew that shadow-traveling by himself was dangerous. He had only done so once before, and had been scolded thoroughly for doing so by his mentor. But said mentor had not spoken to him in a week now, despite Danny’s repeated attempts to contact him. So that left Danny with only one option: to go to the god’s home himself and refuse to leave until Thanatos spoke with him.

Was this a good idea? Probably not. But Danny had tried everything he could to contact Thanatos. He had even asked Sam for help, but she had refused. Apparently she’d had her own less-than-pleasant experience contacting the god in the past.

Anyway, Danny had done what he could to make contact with his mentor (like the good little apprentice that he was), and his mentor hadn’t answered. So technically, this was Thanatos’ fault, not Danny’s.

At least, that was Danny’s reasoning, and he was going to stick with it. Would Thanatos be happy with his reasoning? Most likely not. But it was a little too late for Danny to back out when he suddenly appeared in the shadows that clung to the ceiling of the death god’s home, and proceeded to fall a good twenty feet to the floor below.

“AAAAAHHHHH—”

Danny’s scream was cut short when he crashed into the mountain of pillows right next to where Thanatos was sitting, causing the god to jump back in surprise and crack his head on the cave wall behind him.

Whoops.

“Danny, why?” Thanatos growled as he gingerly rubbed the back of his head.

Danny, after quickly making sure he hadn’t broken any bones, opened his mouth to answer. But he froze as he realized there was someone buried in the pillows, only a foot or so from where he had landed. The person rolled over, knocking some cushions aside as they did so, and Danny was surprised to see a young guy with pale skin, curly blonde hair, and a simple white chiton, still fast asleep despite Danny’s scream of terror. He also had little white bird wings behind his ears, which was… odd.

“Uhh…” Danny backed away from the stranger, who had begun to snore loudly. “Sorry, who…?”

“That is my brother, Hypnos,” Thanatos answered, seemingly annoyed by Danny’s surprise visit. (Or maybe he was just upset about hitting his head.) “This is his home, as well. And it is extremely rude of you to drop in unannounced.”

As soon as the phrase left his mouth, Thanatos’ eyes widened ever so slightly, and he facepalmed. “And no, I did not mean that as a joke.” He looked up again, and it was clear to Danny that Thanatos was most definitely annoyed. (And not just because he had hit his head.) “Why are you here?”

“Uhh, well—” Danny stammered. He hadn’t meant to make such a… dramatic entrance. He had planned to, like, knock on the door or something. But he wasn’t that good at shadow-traveling just yet, and as such had ended up a little… off course. So whatever greeting or excuse he had been planning to say didn’t seem quite right to say now. “I-I was wondering… you haven’t talked to me in, like, a week now. And you were acting weird the last time I saw you, so—”

“Have you thought that, perhaps, it is none of your business, Danny?” Thanatos interjected sharply.

For a brief moment, Danny was ashamed, but that feeling quickly turned into a frustration of his own. “Well, excuse me for worrying about you.”

“Yes, excuse you. I am a god, Danny. I do not need—”

A pillow whizzed by Danny’s head, so close that it nearly grazed him, and struck Thanatos squarely in the face. Danny didn’t even have time to turn around before another one whacked him in the back of the head, though with not nearly as much force.

Startled, both mentor and apprentice turned to see Hypnos slowly sitting up, his solid silver eyes heavily lidded with sleep as he glared at the two of them.

“You two do know that this is the pillow cave, right?” Hypnos yawned. “For sleeping? Not arguing.”

The god then turned his attention to Danny, and he rubbed his eyes before giving the halfa a nod. “Nice to finally meet you, Daniel. I’m Hypnos.”

“Oh. Uhh, hi,” Danny said sheepishly, his ears burning with embarrassment. “I’m… really sorry for waking you.”

“He sleeps all the time, Danny. He’s fine.” Thanatos grumbled as he picked up the pillow that had hit him and hurled it back at Hypnos, who caught it easily and flopped backwards into the mountain of cushions, hugging the pillow to his chest.

“You two need to sort this out, but don’t do it in here,” Hypnos mumbled as he dug a blanket out of the mound below him and pulled it over himself. “I need my beauty sleep.”

Thanatos stood and shook out his ruffled feathers. “Danny. Follow me.”

Danny waved goodbye to Hypnos (who had already fallen back asleep), and clambered down from the pillowy mountain, hurrying after Thanatos as the god made his way out of the cluttered room.

As Danny followed his mentor through the winding paths of the cave, he noticed small birds flitting about overhead. He vaguely remembered seeing them the last time he had been here, and he wondered why they were even here in the first place (as the Underworld didn’t seem like a place where birds would be). He almost wanted to ask, but his mentor didn’t really seem up to talking at the moment; he hadn’t said a word to Danny—or even so much as looked at him—since they left the pillow cave.

So Danny trudged along quietly behind the god as they walked through the entry hall and out of the cave entrance. And once they made it outside, Danny came to a halt as he was greeted by a field of wildflowers.

On the banks of the River Lethe was an assortment of different flowers. Danny recognized a few of them, such as lavender and poppies, but he didn’t know much about plants—that was Sam’s thing. Butterflies with vibrantly violet wings flew among the plants and around the cave entrance, and one even landed in Thanatos’ hair. But the god didn’t seem to mind, or even notice as he leaned against the stone wall and closed his eyes.

Danny felt a pang of guilt as he looked at the god. The annoyance had faded from Thanatos’ face; now he just looked tired. He had repeatedly ignored Danny’s attempts to contact him, which had upset and worried Danny more than a little. But maybe… maybe Thanatos had just wanted to be left alone.

Well, it’s a little too late to leave now, isn’t it? Danny thought guiltily to himself. I’ve already invited myself in… and Hypnos kicked us out. So I guess now’s as good a time as any to talk.

Not wanting the let the uncomfortable silence stretch out any longer, Danny spoke first. “So… you have a brother?”

Thanatos took a long moment to answer. “Many,” he said at last. “Many sisters, too.” Then he opened his eyes and glanced over at Danny. “Did you not learn this at Camp Half-Blood?”

“I mean, yeah, there was a Greek Gods 101 class at camp,” Danny shrugged. “But they didn’t really mention anything about the Underworld ones. Except for Hades and Persephone.”

Thanatos shook his head, as if he was disappointed. “Of course not. I see not much has changed since ancient times.”

At Danny’s confused look, Thanatos gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s nothing. And besides, that isn’t why you came here.”

It wasn’t a question.

Danny folded his arms and huffed in annoyance as he turned away. “Yeah, well, sorry for barging in or whatever. But ghosting me like that wasn’t cool, you know.”

Silence followed for a few seconds. And then Thanatos spoke.

“… what?”

Confused, Danny looked at Thanatos, and saw that the god was even more confused than he was. In fact, he looked downright bewildered, as if Danny had just spoken to him in complete gibberish.

It was then that Danny realized Thanatos may not know modern slang.

“I did not turn you into a ghost,” Thanatos told him earnestly.

Okay, Thanatos definitely didn’t know modern slang.

“That’s not what ghosting means,” Danny explained. “It’s, like… when you just stop talking to somebody without telling them why. Which is what you did. To me.”

“… then why didn’t you just say that?” Thanatos asked him.

Danny facepalmed. “Look. I… I’m sorry,” he said as he dropped his hands, letting them fall to his sides as he took a step back and leaned against the cool stone. “For showing up unannounced. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Thanatos’ voice softened slightly. “You are not entirely at fault. I should have responded to your attempts to contact me. It is… understandable that you were confused by my earlier behavior.”

Danny nodded, then looked over at his mentor. “I am sorry, though. I just… I wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

A hint of a smile graced Thanatos’ face. “Thank you, Danny. That is very kind of you.”

Though he was relieved that Thanatos no longer seemed to be upset with him, Danny wasn’t sure how long that would last. Especially with what he was about to ask.

“Why did you call Danielle ‘Dianthe’?”

Thanatos’ mood changed instantly, but not as strongly as before. Instead, his shoulders drooped as he looked away, and it seemed he was intent to just stare off into space and avoid this conversation completely.

But Danny wasn’t going to let that happen. “Hypnos said we need to sort this out,” he insisted. “Which starts with you telling me what’s going on.”

No response.

Annoyed, Danny pushed. “You just up and left for a week, without saying a word! I think you owe me an explanation.”

Thanatos scoffed and arched his brow as he glanced at Danny from the corner of his eye. “You sure are one obstinate mortal, aren’t you? If you behaved this way with any other god, you would have been set on fire by now.”

Danny paled at that information, but he didn’t back down. And after a moment of tense silence, Thanatos continued.

“Since you are likely not going to drop the subject…” Thanatos paused, as if to give Danny a chance to discredit the claim. Danny just stared at him expectantly, and Thanatos sighed in resignation. “I mistakenly called your… ‘cousin’ Dianthe because… she looks exactly like her.”

Danny had only heard the name Dianthe twice before: once during that strange dream he’d had after his first training session, and just the other day, when Thanatos had called Ellie by that name. He didn’t know who Dianthe was, but as he studied the haunted look on Thanatos’ face, Danny could only assume that she must have been someone incredibly important to him.

“Who’s Dianthe?” Danny asked hesitantly. The last time he had tried asking who Dianthe was, Thanatos had shut down and left, much like he had when he met Ellie.

But this time, he didn’t leave. He didn’t answer immediately, but when he did, his voice was quiet, and he had a faraway look in his eyes. “She was Hades’ first mortal child.”

“First?” Danny repeated, surprised. “Like, first first?”

Thanatos nodded. “The very first. In more ways than one.”

That caught Danny’s attention. “What do you mean?”

At last, Thanatos turned to face Danny, his expression one Danny had never seen on the god’s face before. Melancholy, perhaps? “She was my first and only apprentice. That is, before you came along.”

Danny froze. Dianthe was Thanatos’ first apprentice? As in, the apprentice that Thanatos never wanted to talk about, no matter how Danny tried to broach the subject?

“Wow,” Danny said lamely as he wondered how to proceed with this seemingly delicate subject. “That’s… cool.”

Thanatos shrugged. “If you say so.”

“And Ellie… looks just like her?” Danny asked.

“I never forget a face,” Thanatos muttered quietly in response. And then he blinked. “How… how is she, anyway? This… Ellie?”

“Oh. Uhh, she’s… fine.” Danny rubbed the back of his neck as he looked away, the mere memory of his recent Ghost Zone adventure bringing with it a wave of exhaustion. “She’s, umm… it’s a bit of a long story. But she’s okay.”

Thanatos nodded. “And how exactly is she related to you? Because I highly doubt that you two are cousins.” The god looked slightly disturbed. “She didn’t have a soul.”

Though surprised by that fact, Danny thought about it for a moment and realized that it made sense. “Well, she’s actually my clone. And though Vlad may be an evil genius, I don’t think even he would know how to clone a soul.”

Now it was Thanatos’ turn to be surprised. “She’s your what?”

Danny proceeded to explain everything he knew about Vlad’s cloning attempts, from the bedsheet ghost attacking him at the mini-golf course to meeting Ellie for the first time. Though he left out the whole feeling-like-he-had-somehow-met-her-before thing, because it just sounded kind of crazy. Besides, maybe it was just a natural feeling that anyone would’ve had when they met their clone for the first time. How was he supposed to know? He continued his tale with the Frankenstein-esque ghost attack that had followed, and Ellie revealing her powers, and then everything that had happened afterwards. It was a lot to go over, even when summarized, but Thanatos was a patient listener and waited until Danny had finished speaking before he asked any questions.

“Why is this man so… obsessed with you, Danny?” Thanatos asked him, clearly perturbed by Vlad’s… well, shenanigans felt like a severe understatement. Especially after the whole clones and kidnapping ordeal.

Danny shrugged. “I’m not sure. He’s, like, super-obsessed with my mom and seems to think I would want to be his son, or something? It’s… another long story.”

Thanatos hummed thoughtfully. “Do you need help dealing with him?”

Danny didn’t know what Thanatos meant by ‘dealing with him’, but he couldn’t imagine that it meant anything good. “No, I… I can handle it,” Danny said with a chuckle. “Vlad may be the definition of ‘crazed fruitloop’, but he’s not really that big of a threat. Most of the time, at least,” Danny added as he thought back on the latest mess Vlad had put him through.

“He kidnapped you, Danny,” Thanatos reminded him flatly. “And made clones of you.”

“Yeah, well…” Danny ran his hand through his hair and sighed loudly. “I just don’t need any more trouble at the moment. There’s Vlad, sure, but then I was worried sick about Ellie, so I went looking for her, and then I learned about some group of ghosts that’s trying to erase my memories, and—”

“What?”

“Huh?” Danny blinked. “Oh, yeah. I don’t even know what’s going on there, but apparently someone’s trying to take my throne and make me forget about it, because apparently I’m the Ghost King! Did you know that? Wait. Yes, you did know that. You’re the one that told me.”

Danny dragged his hands down his face and groaned. Perhaps it wasn’t just Thanatos’ radio silence that they had to talk about. Danny had a lot going on, too.

Danny dropped his hands and gave Thanatos a tired glance. “I imagine you ‘dealing with him’ would end up causing me some sort of trouble, yes?”

Thanatos seemed to think about it for a moment before giving a vague shrug.

Danny sighed again. “I can handle Vlad. Honestly, he’s the least of my worries right now, believe it or not. He’s probably busy rebuilding his lab at the moment, and I’m headed off to camp in less than a month. And Vlad doesn’t know that I’m leaving, or where Camp Half-Blood even is, so he’ll be out of my hair for a whole summer while I train, and I’ll be able to kick his butt when I get back, just like I always do. Easy peasy.”

Thanatos didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t say anything. Which was fine by Danny. Vlad wasn’t who they were there to talk about. “Anyway, about… Dianthe.”

“What about her?” Thanatos muttered quietly.

“Well… how did you meet her?” Danny asked. He supposed that was as good a place as any to start.

Thanatos thought for a moment. “Hades had me watch over her when she was little.”

Danny found that to be a little odd. “Why?”

“She was his first mortal child,” Thanatos repeated. “He was worried about her well-being.”

“So he sent the Grim Reaper to look after her?” Danny deadpanned.

Thanatos looked thoughtful. “Well, when you put it that way, I suppose it is a bit strange.”

“Okay,” Danny hummed. “So Hades sent you to keep an eye on her, but why did you take her on as an apprentice? You took me on as an apprentice so I could, like, help you with all the ghosts and stuff. Did she also have ghost powers or something?”

 For a moment, Thanatos seemed to ponder how to respond. “It’s a bit of a long story, but… I did it to protect her.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Danny pushed. “You gonna… explain that?”

Thanatos said nothing.

“Okay, then.” Honestly, Danny was surprised Thanatos had revealed as much as he had. For the time that Danny had known him, the god had been pretty secretive. And whenever the topic of his last apprentice came up… “Why did you wait so long to take on another apprentice?”

Thanatos looked down at his hands, and Danny could see the pain in his eyes. He didn’t honestly expect Thanatos to answer, but the god did. “I… it destroyed me, when Dianthe died. I did not want to go through that pain again.” He clenched his fists. “I still don’t.”

“Oh.” Danny thought for moment, before gently asking: “Is… every death hard for you? Even though you’re… y’know. Death?”

Thanatos shook his head. “No. The passing of life has always felt… right to me, in a sense. It is the natural order of things. But her death…” His voice caught in his throat, and when he spoke again it was no more than a whisper. “It was not right. It was not meant to happen. Not like that.”

“But… aren’t you the one that collects the souls and all that? That means you collected hers, right?” Danny reasoned. “Couldn’t you have just… not collected hers?”

Thanatos answered stiffly, as if it pained him. “There are rules to death, Danny. I know that better than anyone. And even if… even if I had decided to break the rules, I was not the one who reaped her soul.”

Danny was surprised to learn that. “But… I thought…”

There was a faraway look in Thanatos’ eyes, as if he wasn’t quite there. But then he blinked as he seemed to focus in on the conversation again, and when he spoke, he spoke matter-of-factly. “There are other psychopomps. I may be the overall god of death, but I am also the god of peaceful death. As such, I collect the souls of those who pass peacefully. There is also Ker, or the Keres, who collects the souls of those who pass in battle or an otherwise violent manner. There are Phonos and Androktasia, or the Phonoi and the Androktasiai. They help Ker gather the murdered and slaughtered, respectively. Then there is Makaria, goddess of blessed deaths. She gathers those who died valiantly and are more often than not destined for Elysium. And finally, there is Hermes. He is an Olympian, but he helps occasionally, when there is too much to be done by the rest of us. Such as in times of famine, plague, and war.”

Danny had struggled to listen after the mention of the name Makaria, because the moment he heard it his core did a somersault in his chest and began thrumming so loudly he could barely hear his own thoughts. It was like… it was trying to tell him something.

But what?

He shook his head. Had he even heard that name before just now? He wasn’t sure. So what did it matter? His core was just… being weird again. That was all.

The thrumming of his core faded away as quickly as it had appeared, and as Danny pondered over what Thanatos had said, he noticed something that didn’t make sense to him. “Wait a minute. You told me that you were the one who came to collect my soul. Personally, I don’t think that my… my death was very… peaceful.”

Thanatos nodded in understanding. “I do not only collect souls who pass peacefully. I also collect the souls of all children. Being the god of peaceful death, I am one of the… kinder psychopomps.”

“Well, I haven’t really met any other… psychopomps, so I’ll have to take your word for it.” Danny said after a moment.

Thanatos nodded, and the two of them fell into silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence, it just… was. Like neither really knew what to say next. The Lethe burbled gently as butterflies flitted around the flowers blooming along the river’s banks. From within the depths of the cave behind him, Danny could hear the quiet chirping of birds. It was peaceful, and still.

Danny only wished his mind was as still as the scene around him.

He had too many questions, and asking them had only created more. Yes, Thanatos had finally opened up about his first apprentice. But at the same time, he had still been incredibly vague. Danny still didn’t know why exactly she had become Thanatos’ apprentice in the first place, or how she had died, or what Thanatos meant by her death not being “right”.

And if her death wasn’t right, but Thanatos hadn’t been able to prevent it… then what was the deal with Danny?

“Well… what about me?” Danny asked quietly. “My accident… and that weird transformation, during our first training session. Both times, I almost died. But you… saved me? I mean, kind of. If there are rules to death, then… why am I still here?”

“Because it wasn’t your time to die,” Thanatos answered simply. “The Fates have something else in mind for you. As for what that is… I suppose we will wait and see.”

“Wasn’t it the same for Dianthe?” Danny asked, his voice growing louder with… what, he wasn’t sure. Fear? Frustration? Distress? “You said her death wasn’t right, but you couldn’t do anything to save her. So why save me? Why…?”

Why do you care?

Woah. That… wasn’t Danny. It…

It was that voice again. The one that had spoken to him back in that cave, in Dan’s timeline. He had felt inklings of it here and there since then, but it hadn’t spoken so strongly in a while.

Danny put a hand to his chest. It was ice cold, and it felt like his core was burning, but… not painfully. It wasn’t painful at all, yet at the same time… it ached terribly, like an old wound. Like he was… forgetting something.

Thanatos spoke then, startling Danny from his thoughts. “I could not do anything to stop Dianthe from dying, but… I could do something to stop you from dying.”

Danny looked up at the god beside him, and the expression on his face was one Danny couldn’t quite place, but judging from the tone of his voice… it was hurt.

“It may not be obvious to you, but I am not the most welcome of gods,” Thanatos continued quietly. “Even among other gods. As such, the number of people who like me is rather few. And it is the same in return. I do not care for most people, be they god, mortal, or anything in between.”

Thanatos’ voice was barely above a whisper, and Danny felt terrible for asking those questions in the first place. He wasn’t even sure why he had asked them.

“I have not had an apprentice in a very long time,” Thanatos went on. “And apprentices are… a very sacred thing. A god does not just… take one on and then cast them aside like… like a-a fish carcass!” Thanatos’ voice rose as he threw his hands up in exasperation. “An apprentice to a god is…”

Thanatos trailed off, seemingly frustrated as he struggled to word what he was trying to say. Danny just stared at his shoes, feeling absolutely awful over the turn the conversation had taken. He had wanted answers, but… he hadn’t meant to push Thanatos so much.

Thanatos took a deep breath; he seemed to have regained his composure (what little had slipped, anyway), but there was still a raw edge to his voice when he spoke again. “An apprentice is not quite a god’s equal, but it is perhaps the closest a mortal will ever get to being one. An apprentice’s duty is to assist a god in their work. For Hephaestus, that is someone who reads his blueprints and give insight on his designs. For Artemis, that is her lieutenant, who leads her hunters while she is away. And the Oracle of Delphi has always been an apprentice of Apollo.”

Another deep breath. “Dianthe, to me, was…” Thanatos paused, and after a moment of thought a sad, melancholy smile formed on his lips. “Where do I start? There wasn’t much that she could do, as a mortal. She served as my head priestess, and performed funerary rites for those who had no one to do them. She represented me as needed in the mortals’ traditions. For festivals and the like. But…” Absentmindedly, Thanatos clasped his hands in front of him, interlacing his fingers as if he were imagining holding someone else’s hand. “Most importantly, to me… she was my… friend.” His grip tightened, his knuckles turning white. “More than that.”

“… oh!” Danny blinked in surprise. “Like… a girlfriend?”

Thanatos grimaced at the word. “That’s… not quite it.”

Danny stared at Thanatos’ clasped hands as he tried to think of another word. Wife, maybe? Could gods even marry mortals? “… soulmate?”

Thanatos didn’t seem to react at first. But then, from the corner of his eye, Danny noticed that the indigo and violet feathers along the bottoms of Thanatos’ wings seemed to lighten in color. Just a touch. Had they always been that dark, though? He hadn’t noticed until now, but… they had been almost black when Danny had first dropped in.

A soft, more genuine smile graced Thanatos’ face as he quietly said, “I like that word.”

A brief silence fell over them, leaving Danny to process what he had just learned. He… certainly hadn’t been expecting that. Nothing about Thanatos seemed to indicate that he was the ‘romantic’ type of guy. Or god. But Danny supposed that it made sense why Thanatos had been so closed off about the whole thing in the first place. Danny wasn’t much of a romantic guy himself (he had only kissed a girl once (and that girl had been Sam, and she had been clear that it wasn’t a real kiss)), but… he imagined that losing someone that important was pretty hard to talk about.

“Dianthe’s death…” Thanatos began, drawing Danny’s attention away from his thoughts. “It was my fault. I have never forgiven myself for it. So on the day of your first training session with me, when you… transformed, and started to die… I could not let that happen.” Thanatos looked at Danny then, and his expression was strangely thoughtful. “I reason with myself that it is because you are not meant to die, as I had thought on the day I first met you. But sometimes I wonder if perhaps… it was just selfishness on my part.” He looked away, his hair falling so that it obscured his face. “It had been millenia since I’d last taken on an apprentice. I couldn’t let this one end… the same way as the last.”

“So why did you choose me?” Danny asked him quietly. “If you don’t want to risk losing another apprentice, then why take on another?”

Thanatos brushed his hair aside, and Danny saw that thoughtful look on the god’s face once again. “That is a difficult question for me to answer, Danny. But I suppose the best answer I can give is… it was the right thing to do. Fighting one’s prophecy is never a tale that ends well. That, and…” For a moment, Thanatos seemed to not know what to say. Then he reached out and, to Danny’s surprise, ruffled the halfa’s hair. “I think… Dianthe would’ve wanted me to be there for you,” Thanatos said softly. “She would have loved to meet you. And I think you would have liked her.”

Still surprised by Thanatos’ almost fatherly display of affection, Danny could only nod. “Y-yeah. I… think so, too.”

Thanatos nodded and dropped his hand, and a few seconds later Danny spoke again. “… thanks,” he said quietly. “For talking to me.”

After a moment, Thanatos gave a nod. Danny didn’t really know what to say next, but as he opened his mouth, a purple-winged butterfly suddenly fluttered over and landed on the tip of his nose.

“Okay, I gotta ask: what’s with the butterflies?”

“The Ancient Greeks believed that butterflies were the souls of the departed.” Another butterfly landed on Thanatos’ shoulder. “As such, the butterfly is my sacred animal.”

Danny couldn’t help but giggle at that. At Thanatos’ questioning look, he blushed. “Sorry, it’s just… I dunno, death is supposed to be all dark and scary, but your sacred animal is butterflies?”

Thanatos rolled his eyes, but when he spoke there was a hint of amusement in his voice. “Did you know that butterflies love the taste of rotting flesh?”

“… I’m sorry, what?” Danny went cross-eyed trying to look at the butterfly on his nose; the feeling of its tiny legs on his skin was suddenly a little unsettling.

“Yep,” Thanatos said, popping the ‘p’. He leaned over and pointed at the insect on Danny’s nose. “That one right there is known as the Purple Emperor Butterfly. Most butterflies just enjoy the taste of rotting meat, but this one actually eats it.”

Even though they were quite a distance from the pillow cave, Danny was sure that his shriek of disgust woke up Hypnos.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We promised ourselves we would never say “blinked in surprise” again because it’s, like, really dumb, but it really did describe Danny’s reaction just about perfectly here.

And as a heads up, we do have a solemn chapter coming up soon. In it, a child dies of leukemia and Danny collects his soul. We understand that it’s a sensitive topic and it can be tough to read about, but it is somewhat essential to Danny’s future role in this story.

This story is about death. Danny is the apprentice to Death and as such will be dealing with a lot of death, not just old people or villains. There will be loved ones, children, men and women both old and young. Really heartwrenching scenes. If you find this difficult to read, we’re just letting you know now that this will be an overarching theme and will be central to this story.

Let us know what you think of this chapter, and thank you again for reading our story. We love you guys! See you next chapter!

First: Prologue

Previous: Chapter 38

Out of the broken trust from the proto-portal incident and the emotional pain and confusion resulting from hospital stays and years lost in those places; something new sprang. The cut was the cut and there would likely always be a scar left there even when it had healed. But the infection? The infection is a separate thing from the cut as it can be killed with medicine or prevented. But the cut will still exist whether it gets infected or not. And if you don’t treat it well the more likely it will be to get infected. The cut still exists, the infection is only making it worse, or fatal.

So it’s not just about how his trust was broken in regards to his relationship with Jack. It’s that Vlad Plasmius has hatred stored in the bank of his heart at a compound interest rate. Each time he thinks about it, he relives it. And therefore his hatred of Jack keeps on multiplying and folding on top of itself as every time he is reminded of it, it is not only like it has happened all over again. It is like Jack has done it all over again. So each time he remembers the story; the more it changes. Little by little as it gains layers from new memories perhaps not of it. But about it.

Memories are what shape people into who they are. Like it or not experiences shape people, and memories are records of those experiences. So each time things get a tad bit more distorted, until, years later, how he knows and remembers the experience has infected who he has become beyond any recognition.

And to top it off when accidents happen it’s not likely they’re complete total accidents. Often times what that means is: “the party responsible didn’t mean to do that, your honor.”

There’re often times variables in the accident that could’ve been avoided if other people had been more careful.

Suppose you stepped on a rake and hit yourself in the face with it. The rake never would’ve been there to be stepped on by unsuspecting people if someone had not left it lying in the grass.

And the guilty party might’ve had their own reasons for leaving it out. They thought no one else would’ve been near the rake. They simply forgot to pick it up and put it away. But either way you spin it (and you could be completely in the right) it was a mistake on their part so (on the first time around that happens) they would get treated with more grace than with someone who had done it intentionally or had made the same “mistake,” a second time. And by that time it ceases to be a mistake anymore. Although none of these situations will ever absolve them of the responsibility to pick up after themselves so other people don’t get hurt.

The proto-portal accident is in the same vein. Jack should’ve been paying attention to see if anyone were still inspecting the portal. Or if anyone were in its “line of fire” as it were, before he turned it on. “Jack could’ve done this, Jack could’ve done that. He’s an idiot. Why couldn’t he be more vigilant that day? That jackass must’ve meant to do this to me. I bet he’s glad I’m gone so he can take Maddie for himself.”

That type of blame game could work all ways around too. “Maddie was there too, she should have done something and been paying attention too.” But Vlad loves her so of course she isn’t and wouldn’t be the one he’d assign blame to.

Heck, Vlad could even be blamed for his accident as well. “He shouldn’t have been inspecting it at that particular moment. It’s all his fault he got his face scrambled up. And besides it gave him ghost powers! He should feel grateful we created a machine and turned it on without double checking if anyone was still looking first. And he’s rich all thanks to us. So really, he should be grateful for it.”

And then you add Danny’s accident on top of all that. After the proto-portal accident you’d think they would be more careful when designing another one. And in their own home. Where they are raising their children no less!

If I were Vlad at that point I’d feel as if Danny turning half-ghost were evidence of Jack (or Maddie, but he has a bias for her) doing this shit on purpose. After an accident happened how could they not have a bazillion measures in place to make sure that never happened again? Because, if so, did Vlad’s accident mean anything to them? Did him getting his life put in shambles not warrant caution?

Does he even matter to them?

At that point Jack might as well have ruined his life on purpose. And it would be easier to attempt to murder or defame Jack and take his family for himself if he had a free conscience to do so. The underdog who’s life got scrambled by his jealous conniving “best friend” takes back what is rightfully his. What a sweet inoffensive picture of heroism on Vlad’s imagination.

To be honest though, I’m not sure Jack and Vlad could ever be buddy buddy again. That, I think, would be like killing the infection and thinking that the cut has been healed completely alongside it. The cut would still have to undergo its own healing process after the infection is gone. And there would probably still be a scar even then. And if it got infected so easily before it’s not unreasonable to think it might get infected again. That is, Vlad could and probably would backslide every now and then and would have to forgive Jack over and over again. I also don’t think forgiveness means being buddy buddy with the person who hurt you, absolving them of responsibility, or even trusting them with stuff you know they’re unreliable with. (Lab safety.) Forgiveness means letting go of hatred and resentment so specifically you can live freely. Vlad could stop making up schemes to “take back what has been stolen from him.” He could make new friends and meet a new girl and maybe have his own kids if the time came.

I’m not saying that forgiveness where you can be friendly and kind to your assailant doesn’t exist, isn’t real, or isn’t incredible. But I think it’s too big a step to imagine Vlad taking. Or at least Vlad in the present moment. But I do think Vlad could come not to carry hatred and resentment in his heart anymore while still acknowledging what is was for what it was.