HotPinkWrites

Currently, you were standing outside of the door Aerion was sulking behind. You hadn’t yet announced yourself, carefully running through different lines of dialogue in your head that might soothe his temper, even if only slightly. maekar had told you to leave him alone and not bother, in that scoffing way of his, but you couldn’t. Daeron II’s court already scorned you for failing to appease your husband. Not aggressively, but their demeaning looks and empty attitudes were more than you could stomach after eight months, desperately lonely and far away from any warmth, kin, or land you were partial to. Hopefully if you managed to please your husband, he might permit you to visit your family back in Dorne. It was a risk you were finally willing to take.

You swallowed dryly, before rapping the knuckles of your free hand against the oak planks n front of you. One of your fingers accidentally knocks against the ornate ironwork that decorated the door, and you winced, bringing the graze to your lips. As you taste blood, you hear him talk through the barrier between you.

“I thought that I made myself clear. No one was to disturb me. Or has the help become treasonous as well?” Aerion's faceless voice made your chest squeeze with nerves. It was calm in that deadly, articulate way of his, but the slight rasp in his tone hinted at his anger. You felt like an idiot, like a lone sailor headed straight into the heart of a terrible storm.

“It’s your wife. Baelor insisted that you be seen to, but I didn’t want the vulgar anywhere near you. I have warm water, and a washcloth.”

There’s a terse pause, and you glanced down at your pinched expression in the water of the dish, before willing yourself to relax. “Come in then.”

So, you did.

The chamber swaddles you in heat. Directly across from you as you step inside, set against the far wall and half-framed by dark walnut screens, stands a great four-poster bed raised on a shallow wooden platform. Its heavy red curtains are tied back enough to show layers of cream linen and embroidered blankets that glow amber in the firelight. But it’s empty. At the foot of the bed rests a long carved coffer with a cushioned top, which also is unoccupied. To the right, a broad stone fireplace crackles beneath a soot-darkened hood, throwing flickering light over a pair of high-backed chairs and a small table scattered with candlewax and a silver cup half filled with wine. Tapestries prettify the cold stone walls, their reds and mossy greens dim in the shadows, while rushes and woven rugs soften the floor. The whole room smells faintly of smoke, beeswax, and cedarwood. It’s homeliness is disorenting , and for a moment you struggle to place your spouse in the unfamiliar space.

your eyes catch on him at last, his figure pale as moonlight beside the hearth. He sits slouched in one of the high-backed chairs, one elbow braced against the armrest, knuckles pressed against his bruised mouth in a posture that's an even mix of anger and petulance. Firelight slides uselessly across him, burnishing his white hair, sharpening the severe, elvish angles of his face instead of softening them, and highlighting the streaks of mud marring his skin. You don’t know what to say, so you don’t say anything as you approach him.

Aerion doesn’t even look at you. He never did- not unless he had to. He’d wanted a sister wife, a girl with pale hair and violet eyes and valerian blood. He reminded you whenever the moment allowed- how much he disdained you.

You set the washbasin down with a sharp clink against the table, and only then does his gaze snatch onto your face. silent, but sinister, his eyes glittering like knives, watching you as you dip the cloth in the water and squeeze it, letting the excess drip back into the pan.

“I could have had every one of those men killed, had it been my desire.” He murmurs, running his tongue across his teeth before turning to stare at the fire again.

“I heard the kingsguard are close to finding the man who threw the first stone.” You offered quietly, before bringing the damp linen to his cheek. He tilts his head back like a cat, and drops the arm that had been propping up his chin, indifferent and mentally far away as you wipe the dirt from his skin.

“Have someone send for me when they do.”

“I will.” You murmured. The cloth passes carefully beneath his lip, pinking slightly where it catches dried blood. He had such a pretty mouth, ruddy and full, but so bitter. “Though I think the man already regrets it.”

Aerion gives a soft sound at that, not quite a laugh. His eyes remain fixed on the fire. “Sympathising with the enemy are you?”

“Of course not” you quickly amend, feeling yourself beginning to sweat. The dastardly room was too hot, and your husband's icy temper was making you nervous. You knew if he sensed that he’d leap on your weakness, like a shark smelling blood.

“Courage is easy in a crowd, that’s all. Less so when it disperses and they remember who they raised their hands against.”

At last, his gaze shifts toward you again, sharp, pale, and searching. You can almost feel him weighing your words.

“I’ve been thinking all night. How could they? Act out in mockery, against a dragon”

You lick your lips, thinking carefully. “In Dorne, Sand dogs roam around in packs, surrounding larger mammals to bring them down. Perhaps simpler men act in similar ways.”

Aerion’s mouth twitches faintly at that comparison, though whether in amusement or contempt you cannot tell.

“Dogs.” He repeats softly, as though the word itself were distasteful. “A fitting comparison.”

You were silent at this, as you finished cleaning his face. Aerion was still in his armour- he’d been sitting and staring at the fire for hours then, until you’d come.

It’s when you move to leave, his hand lashes out, and his gauntlet bites into your wrist. “I haven’t dismissed you yet” he purled, before letting you go with a little shove. “Take off my greaves.”

Your breath catches before you can stop it.

For a moment you simply stare at him, wrist still throbbing faintly where the edge of his gauntlet had pressed into your skin. Then, carefully, you lower yourself onto the rug at his feet.

The skirts of your gown spill around you in heavy folds of rich orange silk, embroidered at the hem with twisting gold thread meant to resemble curling Dornish vines. Tiny seed pearls glimmer amongst the stitching whenever the firelight catches them. It had been one of the finer dresses you’d brought from Sunspear- intricate, airy, meant for lush heat and your open courtyards. You’d carefully chosen to wear it today when it was made known that Aerion would be jousting, hoping that together you’d be the image of desirability and power. And that if he lashed out, the people would remember you were different from him.

Your husband watches the fabric pool around your knees with narrowed, considering eyes.

Then, without warning, he lifts one leg and drops it squarely across your lap.

Mud flakes from the steel sabaton instantly, dark streaks smearing across the precious silk and mucking up the golden embroidery. The weight of his limb nearly forces your knees apart with its sudden pressure, and you choke back a noise of dismay.

Aerion says nothing.He merely leans back deeper into the chair, one pale hand resting against the armrest as he watches you beneath his lowered, white lashes.

You feel it rise despite yourself , that sharp pulse of upset at the sight of your ruined skirts, at the casual insult of it, at how deliberately he’d done it just to hurt you. Your fingers tighten once around the fastening of his greave before you force them loose again and carefully smooth your expression flat, but you hadn’t been fast enough to hide your feelings.

A faint smile ghosts across Aerion’s bruised mouth. “There,” he murmurs softly. “I knew my viper had some venom in her.”

Heat prickles behind your ribs. You lower your eyes before he can read too much in them and reach for the leather straps buckled behind his calf. The steel is still cold from the night air despite the roaring hearth, muddied along the edges where his horse must have kicked through the lists.

Above you, Aerion shifts slightly in his chair, studying you with open fascination now, as though your restraint was something entertaining.

“You hide your thoughts well,” he muses. “But I’m not stupid. You’re just like those hedge born wretches out there, thinking the same thoughts.”

God, how you wished that was true. In reality, your feelings were more complicated and more humiliating. You hated Aerion, and you feared him. But he was beautiful, intelligent, and when he interacted with you in public, he was courteous and attentive- if only to see the approving glances of his grandfather and the crown prince. And, he was your only hope, only link to Dorne.

“Youve not spent enough time with me to know what I think” you retort quietly.

“I don’t have to. You’re simple.”

“If that’s the case, then why did I come to your quarters and disobey your orders to do so?”

“You want something from me.”

You bit at the inside of your cheek, feeling frustrated nerves twist and maul at your stomach.

He tilts his head, and you don’t have to look at him to know he was smiling again. It changed his voice, as you set his armour down on the floor and moved to his other leg. “What is it?”

“I wanted to go back to Dorne, to visit my family.” You mutter.

Aerion’s expression doesn’t change immediately.

The fire snaps softly between you both. Somewhere deeper within the castle, a door slams, muffled by the thick stone walls. Then he gives a low hum through his nose, leaning further back into the chair.

“So that’s what this is.” His voice turns almost lazy again, sharpened by amusement. “That was your scheme. No loyalty, or concern for your husband’s injuries then? I can’t say I’m surprised. ”

You keep your attention fixed upon the second greave, fingers working carefully at the muddied buckles. “I..was concerned.”

“Yes, I’m sure you were.” He says it pleasantly enough to sting you.

The final fastening comes loose beneath your fingers. You ease the heavy black steel from his leg and set it beside the first piece of armour with a muted clang against the floorboards, and Aerion watches you the entire time.

“You miss it terribly, don’t you?” he murmurs. “The heat. The little orange trees. sprawling across cushions half-dressed, while old men compose songs about which sister warmed which bedchamber.”

You glance up sharply before you can stop yourself, something beginning to bubble up in your chest. “You’ve never been to Sunspear,” you say carefully.

“No,” Aerion replies. “But the realm hears enough stories, I think.”

His mouth curves faintly.

“Dornishwomen are famously charitable with their affections, aren’t they?”

“Some are. If they like their man.” You said pointedly, instantly gulping back your building ire. He was trying to rile you. Find an excuse to be crueler in turn, or simply make himself feel better after his own humiliation. You couldn’t rise to it.

Aerion laughs. It isn’t loud, nor particularly warm, but genuine amusement flickers across his pale face all the same, his quiet chuckling tickling your ears as it blended with the crackle and pop of the fire. The bruise at the corner of his mouth pulls slightly with it, and his eyes were on the frustrated, downward curl of your lips.

“Adorable . Perhaps I shall send for you more often- my own personal fool.” His words were dismissive and insulting, but he seemed more aware of you after that.

Heat prickles at the back of your neck, and you chew hard at the inside of your cheek again, begging yourself to stay demure. Westeros was so different from Dorne. Back home, you’d never let anyone speak to you in such a manner. You lower your gaze mutely and reach instead for the leather straps fastening his spurs.

The metal jingles softly as you unbuckle them from his boots. They’re finely crafted things, dark steel chased with pale silver dragons whose wings curl around the rowels. They were expensive and beautiful. Needlessly cruel-looking, and in those ways rather like their owner.

Aerion shifts while you work, stretching his legs out further before finally pushing himself upright from the chair. The sudden movement forces you to lean back.

Standing, he seems to consume the room entirely, though he didn’t cut a large shape. It was his presence that had gravity. The firelight catches across the blackened plates of his armour in restless orange streaks, tracing every sharp angle of the black steel and making his white hair glow. Without the chair swallowing his posture, there’s something unmistakably predatory about him again . less a sulking young man and more like Targaryen royalty.

Of course Aerion noticed your hesitation immediately.

“What?” he asks sharply.

“Nothing.” You sigh.

He gives you a clear look of doubt, before rolling his eyes in a way that was quite like his father. Aerion turns slightly then, presenting his side to you with idle expectation. One gauntleted hand rests against the pommel of the dagger still hanging at his hip.

“Undo the pauldron first,” he says.

You rise and step closer despite yourself, glancing down briefly at your ruined skirts. It still upset you.

The heat from both the hearth and his body presses unpleasantly against your skin as your fingers find the fastening beneath the shoulder plate. Up close, the armour smells faintly of horse sweat, leather oil, smoke, and (thanks to the paste in his pomander) ambergris and other warm spices- though he’d removed it for jousting.

The buckle of the shoulder plate proves stubborn, though, and Aerion watches you struggle with it from the corner of his eye, expression sharpening with faint amusement again.

“Are you trembling, little viper?.”

“I-I’m not.”

“You are.”

Your jaw tightens. “The clasp is difficult.”

“No,” he says vindictively. “You’re afraid of me.”

The words land with humiliating precision. Before you can answer, the fastening suddenly gives beneath your fingers. The heavy shoulder plate slips loose and you catch it awkwardly against your chest, just before it could crash to the floor.

Aerion chuffs as he watches you steady yourself beneath the weight of it.

“I think you’ve given everyone ample reason to be wary of you. But I…” you trail off as you set the Pauldron on the floor. If you tried to say you weren’t fearful, Aerion would want to make you afraid.

“I know better than to underestimate you.”

This soothes his ego enough that you can take off his second shoulder piece without any barbed words thrown your way, then his gauntlets, and bracers, before turning your attentions to his breastplate. He was still and pliant as you worked at him. Like a hawk permitting itself to being handled. You’d noticed, though, that he seemed bored once more. For some reason you felt a niggle of insecurity and anger at the thought. Would you ever win? You’d always hoped, foolishly, that there’d be some way into his good graces. You knew now that it was a stupid idea. He’d never let you go to Dorne, simply because he had the ability to refuse you. He’d never be kind, or gentle, or attentive in private, because he didn’t have to be. The only thing that excited him was mayhem.

The buckles fastening the breastplate sit close against his ribs. To reach them properly, you have to step nearer still, nearly chest to chest with him as your fingers work beneath the edges of steel and leather. The heat from both the fire and his body gathers steadily beneath your skin.

Aerion looks down at you with an odd expression you couldn’t quite place. Though what you could see was out of the corner of your eye. He was staring.

“What?” You snip.

Gingerly, Aerion takes your left hand in his, and lifts it up for inspection. Without his gauntlets he felt too human, his hands warm and calloused from writing and sparring, but still elegant enough for his station.

“What did you do to that knuckle there?” He asks with bemusement, eyeing the blemish.

You glance down at it, feeling heat rise to your cheeks despite yourself, and you shrug. You hadn’t noticed, but it had been bleeding down your finger in brilliant red traces. “I cut it when I knocked at your door.” His lips quirked at the mention of your clumsiness, but his eyes had changed though, somehow bright and dark at the same time as he eyed that small wound.

“What a pretty colour.” He muses to himself, and you seize up when he suddenly bowed his head, enough to take your digit into the heat of his mouth, for his tongue to swirl around it and lick up the pearls of blood dripping off of your skin. He stared right up at you with icy eyes, hard and challenging and glinting. And his tongue..

It felt like a snake rasping itself against you. you jerk back and let a noise of disgust finally slip past your lips, your resolve finally gone. Eight months of being overlooked and disdained by everyone around you. Eight months of humiliation and incessant poking by your husband as he waited for you to blow up, or crumble and grovel for him. You just couldn’t, not anymore.

“Enough!” You angrily shriek, clutching your hand. “W-you win! Is that what you want? I’m a pathetic whore that hates you and you’re a vicious bastard that hates me! I cannot pretend to tolerate you!”

Aerion goes very still. The crackling hearth fills the silence left behind by your outburst, sharp little snaps of sound ricocheting through the chamber. Your own breathing felt too loud suddenly, ragged and hot in your throat.

He begins to advance with a sudden purpose in his stride, and for one terrible moment, you think he might strike you. His pale eyes remain fixed upon your face, unblinking and strange. The faint smear of your blood still glistened wetly at the corner of his mouth, stark against the bruised pink of his lips. You watch his throat move once as he swallows slowly, and instinct immediately drives you backwards, but the backs of your legs strike against the edge of the bed before you can properly retreat. The carved bedframe digs unpleasantly into your thighs.

“You tear me in two, you know.” He says, tilting his head down at you as he keeps you stuck between him and the bed. He seemed brightly alive in that moment. “You’re far too pretty to be what you are. I almost enjoyed our bedding ceremony. If only you became round with our babe I'd never have to see you again.”

You swallow thickly, and when he reaches out to grasp your waist, you swat his hand away with a quick smack, but this only excites him further, and he crowds you till your breasts graze his chest , while his fingers claw at the laces of your bodice.

“I rile you do I?” You rasp. “That’s why you’ve been avoiding me. The mighty dragon is scared to confront the fact that he’s the same as any other man.”

Aerion doesn’t reply, and all of a sudden his mouth is crashing against yours in a fierce kiss, yanking at your laces to gather you closer, the sound of fabric rustling hasty and charged. You taste the coppery tang of your blood on his tongue, and His loose chest plate thuds against your torso. one of his hands cups your neck, the rough pad of his thumb grazing your jaw. You’re stiff with surprise for a second, unable to think with the heat of his mouth on you.

“I’ll shut you up” he murmurs against your lips, biting down hard on the tender flesh so you whimper. “You wish I was unremarkable, but I know you want me too”.

At his words you come back to yourself, grasping the short strands of hair at the nape of his neck and yanking. Aerion lets out a soft groan, watching you darkly. “I hate you” you spit.

—-

“Go on, tell me how much you hate me again. Tell me.” Your husband demands. Though this time, the tone is very different. It’s shaky, and breathy, and almost desperate.

He has your face mashed against his pretty coverlet, right arm hooked around your neck as his left bracketed your torso underneath him. You could feel him everywhere- his lips on the shell of your ear, his hot breath washing down the line of your neck, the flexing of his soft, flat abdomen against your back and his cock spearing your insides, slamming into you hard again and again without pause or reprieve. You’d been prone like this for so long that your mind had floated away from you.

For a second you tried to speak, but it was hoarse babble. “I- I…nnhate you. I hate you! I hate you!” You cry, almost bellowing out of anger, arching underneath him despite yourself. The sloppy sounds of your flesh meeting was so obscenely loud- if anyone walked by his solar, there’d be no hiding what was happening.

“That’s right” Aerion croons, hooking his feet over your ankles and forcing you to spread open even more. The stretch of him burned so brightly, though he’d given you his fingers first, his tip carving itself into your inner walls.

The smell of apples, cloves, and cinnamon had flooded your nose, from where his forearm pushes the pomander ball you wore right into your throat, putting a hard and heady pressure on your windpipe.

“Even so. You’re going to take all my seed like the filthy whore you are, hm? This time, don’t waste it.”

you swallow back the drool building up in your throat, shuddering out a moan. He lit such a furious fire in you, that you almost believed he was a dragon too. The anger, the pleasure, the hurt and the want- it was far too much and somehow not enough.

When his mouth latches onto the flesh beneath your ear and bites, hard, you buck back against his pistoning hips with a keen. “Aerion!”

“Fuck” he seethes, and you can feel him pulse in you. You know it’s not long till he finishes, and you’re desperate to fall over that edge too, a knot of warm pleasure tightening up in the base of your belly. But would he let you? The man must’ve felt this desire, somehow.

“You want to cum? I won’t permit it. I take pleasure from you. -..won’t submit, I won’t give you anything” he rambled, tightening his hold on your throat.

“You’re mine, you hear? A toy. Nothing more.”

You writhed in frustration, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. “I’ll kill you!” You rasp, gaze rolling helplessly as his thrusts get sharper, his pubic bone jutting down viciously against the sappy folds of your cunt.

He lets out a rougher noise then, something husky and dark, and it’s so animal that it makes you clench unthinkingly. It was enough to push him over the edge.

Only when Aerion came was he finally, completely silent, hips stuttering once, then twice, before the stuffs you full- the hot spurts of his seed painting your insides pale and trickling down to smudge the tops of your thighs. You tilt your head just in time to see his expression- the elegant planes of his face were pink and pinched tight with his pleasure, and with his eyes closed and lips parted, he looked so beautiful. A flutter of something you didn’t dare to name stirred in your stomach, and you blink wearily with a keening sort of disappointment , your own hopes of orgasming torn away from you.

It’s only when you shift, attempting to ease the ache in your legs, do his eyes snap open. At that the moment of peace abd one sided bliss is lost. He sits up and back on his haunches, before he pulls out of you without ceremony.

“You can make yourself scarce now.” Aerion curtly declares, stretching the lilly white arch of his neck and rubbing it absently. “But I want you back here tomorrow by evenfall.”

…

——

You'd meant to wait until daybreak to begin foraging again, but you couldn’t help yourself. The eternal winter Demeter had cursed Greece with had eviscerated your family's farm. The livestock was almost all gone. No crops. The stores of grain your parents had managed to save wouldn’t last another week, and you were desperately hungry. The pain had kept you awake and morose all night. So, you'd wrapped yourself tightly in multiple woollen layers before sneaking outside with a basket and knife, intent on finding limpets against the rocks of the nearby beach. At least it would be something. For now, you tucked your hands against your armpits, and snuggled tighter into your fathers old Chlamys, skulking against the edge of the beach and squinting to see in the dark.

You picked your way carefully over the rocks, boots slipping every now and then on black sheets of ice that had glazed over the stones. The sea below churned like ink. Every now and then a wave would slam against the cliffside hard enough to spray freezing water all the way up to your calves, soaking the hem of your cloak. You hissed through your teeth and kept going anyway.

There were limpets here and there, but small ones. The thin little things qere barely worth the effort of prying loose with your knife, but you still scraped them stubbornly into your basket one by one, listening to the hollow little clacks they made against the wicker bottom. Better than nothing. That was what you told yourself again. Besides- they weren’t half bad boiled.

Your fingers ached so badly you could barely feel them anymore. you tried to picture the heat of your hearth fire at home, and you almost convinced yourself that you were warm.

You climbed a little higher along the cliff after a while, bracing yourself against the rock face.The path here wasn’t really a path at all, just a series of narrow, half-frozen ledges where the cliff had broken in uneven shelves. You had to angle sideways at points, one hand on the rock while the other kept hold of your basket. It was a little easier to climb than it looked, but the wind was much worse up there. It whipped into your eyes and bit through the seams of your father’s old cloak. Dawn still hadn’t properly broken, but the horizon had begun to bleed faint colour, dusky pink and deep vermillion spreading slowly across the frothing ocean.

Suddenly, you noticed someone standing near the edge of the cliff only a couple feet away, his right side facing you. You froze instinctively.

He looked like a statue. His figure was tall and broad and still as marble, with skin almost as colourless as it, silhouetted sharply against the horizon. Black gauntlets encased his limply hanging hands. The vibrant red cloth of his chiton shifted around his legs in the wind, trimmed in gold bright enough to catch even the weak predawn light. Gold. Actual gold. Your eyes moved to the pauldron at his shoulder, and you swallowed thickly at the sight of the three canine skulls which sat there, each almost the length of your forearm. Currently, the stranger's gaze was set longingly on the horizon, and you thought it best to keep it that way.

Not even noblemen dressed like that. The cloth around his waist looked softer than anything you’d ever touched, but the gauntlets he was wearing were ornate and ancient looking, and he was completely alone. He looked battle worn too, posture heavy with fatigue.

And gods, he really was huge.

You took an instinctive step backwards without being careful, and immediately your boot slipped on black ice.

“Shit!”

The curse burst out of you before you could stop it,. As the basket you'd worked so hard to fill jolted from your numb hands and bounced against the rocks, limpets scattering everywhere with sharp little clacks before the whole thing tipped clean over the cliffside.

The stranger whipped around so fast- it made your stomach lurch, and for an electric second you both just stared at each other. His eyes were the first thing you properly took in. one burned vivid red and the other glowed bright green. Not hazel, or ruddy brown. They were like jewels, glittering brightly as they took you in with open fascination, as if you were the strange one.

His expression, which had seemed so sculpted and stern from afar, cracked open with naked surprise.

“A person,” he muses softly.

You stared at each other in silence for a moment. Then his gaze dropped abruptly downward, towards the edge your foot had skidded against.

“Oh,” he said again, much more urgently this time. “You probably shouldn’t stand there. It looks like th-”

The rock beneath you crumbled.

Your stomach dropped violently as your footing vanished out from under you. You grabbed at the stone in front of youwith a yelp as your body pitched sideways. you felt certain that you were going to die, but a hand caught your forearm.

The stranger had lunged forward with startling speed, gauntlet locking around your wrist with firm and easy strength. You slammed against the cliff edge with a cry, half dangling over the drop before he hauled you onto solid ground like you weighed nothing, plopping you back on your feet with an awkward pat to your shoulders. He said something to you and titled his head, but you weren’t listening- blood was rushing in your ears and all you could register was his appearance.

His skin wasn’t just pale- it carried strange bruised undertones beneath it, deathly cool greys and something muted and warm, like dusty candlelight. Thin streaks of luminous gold blood traced down his left bicep where the skin had split open, like somebody had slashed him. Your stare darted to his chest, and then lower, before you jerked violently at the sight of his feet.

He wasn’t wearing boots. And his bare skin glowed molten orange, heat radiating visibly from the soles of his feet in wavering curls. The snow he stood on was already a puddle of water.

“Are you death?” You asked weakly, feeling yourself become faint.

The man pauses, and chuckles warmly, like youd made an inside joke. “If I was, I think I would’ve let you fall. I’m Zagreus.”

You told him your name, and swayed where you stood.

It was pretty embarrassing. One moment you were upright and staring at him in mute shock, and the next your knees simply seemed to give up on the concept of standing. Your legs folded beneath you and you sat down hard in the slush with a muffled noise of distress.

Your vision had gone strange and watery around the edges. You could feel your pulse hammering in your throat, as everything seemed to crash down on you all at once. You pressed a hand over your mouth hard enough to hurt, and shook your head, telling yourself off. Zagreus crouched in front of you almost immediately, broad shoulders hunching awkwardly as though he wasn’t sure how close he should to get.

“Look, I know a lot about death and I can promise you that you’re well, and very much alive. It’ll be alright.” He offered carefully .

“It’s not that” you blubber. “My family is ruined. First the sheep died and then the grain spoiled, and my parents keep pretending we have enough food but we don’t, and I thought if I came down before dawn maybe there’d still be limpets left on the rocks and now I h-haven’t even got those.”

Silence followed as you tried to stifle your cries. Zagreus…wasn’t saying anything. You looked up shakily after spending a moment gathering yourself, not sure what to expect.

Something in his expression had tightened with knowing strain and worry. The strange warmth in his face dimmed around the edges as his gaze dropped briefly toward the snowy ground. “It’s the winter, isn’t it?”

You nod mutely.

“Is everyone suffering like this?” He asks quietly.

“Yes.” You murmur.

Very carefully, he reached toward you.

You flinched instinctively when the black gauntlet neared your face, but his hand only paused beside your cheek in silent question. When you didn’t pull away again, he brushed his thumb beneath your eye, wiping away some stray tears.

The metal should have been freezing but instead, it was warm.

“You’re starving,” he said softly, like the realization physically pained him.Your shame returned all at once. You turned your face away sharply and scrubbed at your eyes with the heel of your palm. “-..I’m fine.”

“Mhm.” His tone made it obvious he didn’t believe you.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. Dawn had begun to gather properly now, staining the horizon crimson-gold. In the growing light, you could see Zagreus more clearly, and you weren’t sure if you were seeing things, but he seemed paler and more drawn than before.

“This is terrible,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Mother mentioned the mortals were struggling, but…” He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Gods. We really do shut ourselves away down there, don’t we?”

You stared at him. Down there.

The heat rolling off him. The glowing feet. The impossible eyes. Youd felt he was godly, but getting the verbal confirmation made adrenaline thrum sharply from your fingers to the tips of your toes.

“So you are one of them,” you whispered.

Zagreus blinked. “One of-“

“A god.”

His expression immediately twisted into the awkward look of someone caught doing something embarrassing. “Ah. Well. Technically.”

“Technically?”

“I’m not especially good at it. I have the blood, sure, but...” he shrugs, smiling crookedly. “You know. Poseidon has the sea, Dionysus has wine. I’m just me.”

Something niggled in the back of your mind. The name Zagreus was faintly familiar, but not famous, not like the gods on Olympus. Your family was devout, but mostly toward Demeter, Poseidon, and Zeus. The words down there suggested Tartarus. You stood up, and so did he. “Your father is Hades?”

Zagreus made a face. “Unfortunately, yes.”

You gawped. He was so empathetic and easygoing that you hadn’t really thought about being more deferential. Part of you wondered if you should bow or get on your knees. Though, half of you wanted to curse him and his family ten times over for letting so many people freeze and die.

“Why is this happening? The winter. What did we do?”