#zagaera

“Zagreus.” She unspools her whip. The glowing pink braid coils languidly against the marble floors.

“No witty rejoinder for me this time?” He twirls Stygius idly, leaving trails of simmering heat in the air. The hellfire crackling in the braziers around them is achingly cold. He welcomes the touch of warmth.

“No time, I’m afraid.” She cracks her whip. The end zips right past Zagreus’s cheek before returning to her. A caress.

“Then I’ll make this quick.” He rushes her. Stygius sparks and pops as it collides with the extraplanar fibers of her whip. They trade furious blows, chasing each other across every surface of the chamber. Zagreus manages to flip over a wave of razor-sharp pink magic and gets blindsided by her whip latching onto his wrist. Stygius skids across the floor.

He reaches up with his free hand towards the captive one and she yanks his arm behind his back, winding the whip over his shoulders and around his waist until he’s dizzy. She tucks the handle into the layers and gazes proudly at her work—Zagreus bound, swordless, and confused.

“What now, then? Going to carry me back to Father on foot?” Zagreus spins as carefully as he can to stay facing her, feeling very much like a baby penguin on ice—or at least what he’s heard of them.

Her silence is unnerving. Megaera already has a shark-like aura about her—so do many of the Chthonic gods, if he’s honest—but she’s just…watching him. Sizing him up. His skin prickles where her gaze lands.

“This is hardly a fair fight.” He hops around to face her again. She chuckles at him, the sound bubbling from deep within her chest.

“It’s hardly a fight, Highness.”

“Meg—“

“I heard something intriguing the other day.” She drags her long nail down the length of his throat, then back up, chasing his pulse from its hiding place. He kinda wants her to palm the side of his throat, let him feel the full pressure of her touch, but he knows that he is not here to get what he wants—not this time, at least. He shivers and snickers a little at her touch, tossing his head a bit as if it’d dissuade her.

“A-alright, but what does that have to do with anythihing?” He clears his throat to purge the titters. He’s so frazzled by this change of pace that he can feel the ends of his hair beginning to sizzle. This is her game—always keeping him on his toes for better or for worse.

“Don’t interrupt me.” She tilts his chin up. He goes breathlessly quiet.

“I was walking through the House and mulling over just how much of my time that you insist on wasting. It would be to my benefit if I could properly dissuade you from even attempting to exit Tartarus.” Meg trails her finger along the pauldron of skulls on his shoulder.

“You can’t. You know that.” He furrows his brow. He thought they were past this. Unstoppable force versus immovable object, and all of that.

“That’s the problem. How do I convince the most stubborn, hard-headed, cocky man I’ve ever met to quit attempting the impossible so I can do my job in peace?”

“Tell me how you really feel—“

“Then I spoke with Thanatos.” Meg’s eyes gleam. Zagreus swallows.

“He can be quite forthcoming in the right conditions, y’know. He shared something most interesting.” She gives him a long look up and down and chuckles again. Something about this doesn’t smell right. Than would never give up anything on him—nothing vital, at least. What could he even share? That Zag is awful on the lyre? Everyone in the House and likely surrounding Tartarus already knows—

“So, Zagreus, I’ll ask you one last time. Do you still intend to leave Tartarus?” Meg plays with a piece of the whip coiled around his chest.

“Of course.” He doesn’t hesitate. He knows what he has to do. No matter how oddly nervous she’s making him.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Meg grins again, that gorgeous unsettling smile that makes the hair on his neck raise.

Meg’s fingers worm beneath the whip, tapping along the bare plane of his chest. Those wicked pink claws are not just for show—he can feel their cruel points triangulating the precise location of his organs.

Disembowelment would certainly be a way to go.

She gives a gentle scratch over his abs and he shivers involuntarily. He bites his lip as the corners twitch up. Goosebumps flare across his skin. She digs her claws in…and Zagreus has the wind punched out of him in the strangest way possible.

She’s…tickling him. On purpose.

“Meg, wahahait!” It comes out far shriller than he intends. Zagreus’s head collides with her shoulder and he hops in place, trying not to lose his accursed balance.

“I’ll pass.” Her apathy somehow makes it worse. Her nails skim his torso and call sparks in their wake, literal jumping embers just barely visible beneath his skin. She coos at him.

“Tickling is cheating!” It’s all he can think to say. He can hear himself giggling and it’s only making him more jumpy. Her fingers catch this awful little spot near his hip and Zagreus throws his head back.

“Oh, so your rampant, unhinged escape attempts have rules now?” She chuckles at him and presses her fingers into her apparently new favorite spot. His arms flex and strain against the whip, but he’s well and truly stuck.

There’s a plushness to his hips and waist, leftover from a lifetime of libations from the gods themselves. Meg starts pinching and poking there with deadly persistence. He hiccups his way into a giggle fit and wiggles uselessly in her arms.

He starting to regret accepting a message from Zeus to get here, because the latent lightning beneath his skin is making all of this worse somehow. His only comfort is knowing his mighty relatives can’t actually see him. Hopefully. Probably.

“Can’t we act like adults? Please?” His grin takes on a nervous wobble when her nails touch down yet again upon his skin.

“You first.” Her eyes glint wickedly in the firelight. With a flourish he can’t quite track, his arm gets yanked above and behind his head, leaving the right side of his torso completely exposed, collarbone to waist. Uh oh.

Zag can only imagine what he must look like. Maybe somewhat like Dusa, utterly flushed and frantic. Gods above, he’s giggling into the shoulder of a Fury. If Hades could see him, he’d filet him and send him through the Styx on principle.

Her fingers skitter under his arm ever-so-gently, like a spider in a web. Zagreus cackles.

“Hm. Seems promising. What do you think?” She presses her thumbs into the divots of his ribs.

He glares and belly-laughs in response—that’s definitely cheating. She only knows about that spot from Thanatos, which isn’t fair. He’s not quite sure about the logistics around killing Death himself, but he’s certainly going to try it the next time that they meet.

Meg tries pressing her thumb where his chest meets his ribs, just beside his pec, and he chokes sharply on an inhale.

“Megaera. Meg.” Zagreus fixes her with the most composed, imploring look he can manage. “I’m sorry, alright?”

“Right. Just to be clear, you’re not sorry when I’m touching you here?” She starts tickling his stomach again and he folds faster than one of Charon’s expended wells. It just…it tickles, okay, and her nails are dismantling every functioning neuron he has.

“No, I am! I ahaham!” He shrieks. He’s used to dirty tricks, but even then, he gets to fight back. It’s not fair, being at her mercy. Their whole thing relies on the push and pull, not the…squeal and writhe. Which he’s doing in spades.

It’s also not fair the way that his knees betray him, because he falls to the ground much faster than he would like. It gets him away from Meg’s hands for a second and he gratefully gulps in air, but then he sees her eyeing his feet—

Oh, absolutely not.

“No! Nohoho, waitwaitwait—Meg, truly. Please. I’m sorry.” He holds up his hands in the best surrendering gesture that he can manage. She smirks and drags a finger up the sole closest to her. The lack of oxygen has dimmed the hellfire a bit, letting her poke at him lightly with only a mild hiss of pain.

Zagreus squeals at an earth-shaking pitch and tries to roll away, but Meg grabs a coil of the whip and stops him.

“That bad, hm?” She kneels over him, blotting out the braziers burning in the chamber.

“Alright, you’ve had your fun. Let me up?” Zagreus shimmies against the ground. Meg leans close, close enough for him to smell the thick scent of ambrosia on her breath.

So she did drink it. Point to Zag.

“If I untie you, are you going to surrender?” She raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

“No, but I will go easy on you.” He grins.

“Gods, you’re insufferable.” She kneels beside him. The coils of the whip loosen around him and he starts to sit up, but then he’s yanked into the air by his ankle and right into her grasp.

“Gotcha,” she smirks. She raises her hand to his foot again and panic takes over—he kicks her in the shoulder with his free foot, using the momentum to flip out of her grasp. In a flash, he dashes to Stygius and kicks the sword up into his hand.

“At least give me the dignity of a death by your hand?” He holds the blade up between them, but it feels more like he’s hiding behind it.

“Don’t say I never did anything nice for you.” Meg shakes her head, but the fond smile on her face doesn’t melt.

…

“My prince.” Hypnos gives an exaggerated bow. Zagreus shakes out the blood of the Styx in a way that would make Cerberus proud.

“What’s got you so…animated?” Zagreus tilts his head.

“Who, me? Nothing, nothing—say, is there a comedy club in Tartarus that I don’t know about?” Hypnos chews on the end of his quill and looks up with wide, innocent eyes.

“…not that I recall. It’d certainly lighten the mood.” Zag works out a knot in his shoulder. Even reformed, he swears his lungs and limbs still ache.

“Right, right. It’s just interesting because—“ Hypnos leans forward, his unassuming grin suddenly predatory— “It says here that you died of laughter.”

Zagreus’s skin burns. He opens and closes his jaw a little, eyes darting around. Hypnos gives a warbling laugh. He yelps when his scroll disintegrates in a rush of hellfire.

“Jeez. Tough crowd.” Hypnos reaches forward and flutters his fingers under Zagreus’s jaw. He giggles, startled, and smacks his hand away. Hypnos laughs again and watches him flee the throne room.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been more grateful that Hades isn’t here.

The three variants are low relationship (zero gifts - five gifts); high relationship (six gifts - nine gifts); "became close" relationship (ten gifts).

At low relationship, the conversation is as follows. I apologize but I don't have screenshots for any of these; I'm taking the text from the files.

Megaera: Beaten. By you. Without the help of Nyx's mirror. You humiliated me. And now you've come to rub it in, I guess? Well, go on, then. Not like you can shame me any more. Zagreus: Meg, what is it going to take for you to quit treating me like I'm incompetent? Have I not grown even a little since we met? You were supposed to teach me something; what does that make you? Megaera: Tsch... why don't you raise your voice a little louder so that all the House can hear. Is that what you want? For everyone to know that you're superior to me? Zagreus: You're not hearing me, Meg. I know it sounds a little disingenuous considering we keep fighting to the death and all, but... I never meant to hurt you. Megaera: You give yourself far too much credit, Zagreus. Leave me alone.

At high relationship:

Megaera: Beaten. By you. Without the help of Nyx's mirror. You humiliated me. And now you've come to rub it in, I guess? Well, go on, then. Not like you can shame me any more. Zagreus: Meg, that isn't why I'm here, you know that isn't how I am. Why can't you see it? All I've ever wanted was to prove myself to you. Megaera: Tsch... you think that you can prove yourself to me by winning in a fight? Zagreus: Sometimes I think that I can never really win with you, Meg. If I held back, what would you have thought? Megaera: If you think you know me so well, Zagreus, then you ought to know better than to keep this conversation going with me, now.

(Yeah, that's "high relationship.")

At became close relationship:

Megaera: I can't believe it, Zag. I thought for sure that Nyx's mirror was the only reason you could beat me. I knew you'd changed to some extent, but... not this much. Zagreus: I had to see if I could do it, Meg. I've learned so much from you, I... thought maybe this was a way that I could prove myself to you. And to myself. Megaera: Prove yourself, to me...? You must not be as comfortable in your own skin as you let on. I can't decide if I like that about you. Now leave me alone while I give it some thought.

Which... it's better, right? It's better. It's maybe not great, still. But they are trying.

I mean so let's take this from the top. At low relationship, the conversation is fairly acrimonious on both sides. Feeling humiliated by her loss, Meg lashes out, and Zag snaps in return that if Meg's going to keep treating him like he's incompetent, it's only a reflection on her, who was supposed to teach him something. In this version of their conversation, we see the shadow of the relationship Hades pointedly engineered between the two of them raise its head, and if I were ever asked to textually back up my certainty that Meg, not only Zag, contributed to their breakup, I think I'd cite this. Meg's lack of respect for Zag is clearly a longstanding point of tension. Here, Zag feels like he's done something that ought to earn him her respect, only to be... what? Meg's first line is largely about her own insecurities rather than her opinion of Zag, but at the same time, the assumption that she should be superior, that that's the natural order of things, is baked into it. It's a serious blow to her pride that Zag has upset that natural order, and she's projecting her shame into an assumption that Zagreus is here to pettily gloat. Which is insulting, and Zagreus reacts from that place of insult.

But in his second line, as if he notices her pain, Zag is able to disengage from his anger a little (his portrait shifts from his angry "Defiant" one to his "Empathetic" one), realize that their communication is going a bit awry, and tell Meg that he doesn't mean to hurt her. This does not have the effect he possibly hoped for, and before Meg tells him to hit the bricks she says that he gives himself too much credit--by thinking that he has the capability to hurt her. Now this is a pattern with her, throughout their redeveloping relationship, even at max relationship, even once they're back together: Megaera repeatedly states that Zagreus can't hurt her. Here, it has a clear implication that she thinks Zagreus beneath her, not worth getting hurt over. ...It's absolutely belied by her humiliation in the rest of the conversation, but the scorn with which she makes the assertion is cutting and unkind.

Although... I do wonder. Especially given Zag's statement that he "never meant to hurt [her]"--that doesn't sound like he's just talking about his neat trick of getting past her darkness-free. He's referring to their past, almost certainly, and at 0-5 gifts this is well before he gets around to a proper apology or even his feelingsdump (feelingsdump, er, I'm sorry, "building trust", the "we need to talk" conversation, follows gift#6, the last nectar). What I wonder, sometimes, is--when Megaera says that Zagreus can't hurt her (boy does she love to say that.), if part of what she's saying is that Zagreus is not the only person contributing to the poor relationship between them. This is a thought on a different topic, I guess, and I'm not saying that in this conversation, she suddenly has a flash of insight that she's being kind of shitty and chases him away for that reason. Sincerely, I do think "I'm too good to be hurt by Zagreus" is an emotional habit she has for a sizeable chunk of time--perhaps one she developed as a reaction to their breakup, or as a shield against it as she saw it coming--and is what she means here. But maybe it means something else later. I certainly hope so. Because boy. she really loves to say it.

Let's talk about the variant at high relationship next. You could get this variant anywhere between the last nectar ("We may be immortals, but we're older now") and having given her the second-to-last ambrosia ("I wish I could do over how we started"). Once you give her the last ambrosia (when they drink together), you're in the territory of the final variant.

Meg's still cranky; her first line is the same as in the low relationship variant. It's Zagreus, who is at this time in the process of trying to get back in her good graces, who is less testy in response. I'd say he's clearly still hurt by her response, but he doesn't express that hurt by sniping back at her this time. Instead, he opens up, trying to make his intentions more clear, reminding her that he isn't the type to gloat. He all but says that he wants her respect. And he doesn't get it, here. Frankly, this variant is not much of an improvement on the low relationship one. Meg is less openly insulting, but it's clear that she still doesn't want to be having the conversation.

My thoughts on this variant are similar to my thoughts on some of the ambrosia conversations--and I say this as the most dedicated MegZag shipper you will ever see--in that when I see this, I'm not sure why Zagreus bothers. If, like he says, there's really no action he could take here that wouldn't end in Meg being peeved at him, what is he reaching for? He wants to prove himself to her--why? Is her approval worth having here? When Meg says (to cite the gift nine/third ambrosia conversation) that it's just a question of whether Zag is worth her time, why is it positive that Zagreus's wistful response is to ask her if he is worth her time, then?

Let me start bringing in the became close relationship variant here, starting with the last line of it, because Meg's response to Zagreus outright stating that he wants to prove himself to her is emotionally very similar to her response to Zag asking her if he is worth her time. In both cases, she seems to... not soften, exactly. She seems taken aback. She sees Zagreus's desire for her approval and his vulnerability that he lays bare in front of her, and in both cases, her response is one of uncertainty. She wants time to think about it on her own. She has kept hardening herself in response to the pain of their earlier failure (not every relationship that doesn't work out is a failure but I am quite certain she felt this way about theirs, if only because she was supposed to shape Zagreus a certain way), she hardens herself verbally and defiantly right in front of Zag's damn face, and he answers with wistful vulnerability. She tells him he can't hurt her, and he answers with "OK. But do you care about me? Could you?"

I almost wonder if Zagreus's vulnerability makes Megaera ask herself the same questions that these conversations make me ask myself. That remark she makes, that she's not sure how she feels about Zagreus's insecurity--I wonder if she's seeing how she's contributed to it, and needs time to figure out how to respond more kindly. And not just "more kindly," but in a way that's better for him. In the became close relationship conversation variant, Meg starts off in a much better mood, and offers the approval that--as we've seen in the other variants--Zagreus wants so keenly. However, when he states that as an outright motivation, I think she questions that influence she has on Zagreus, and wavers on whether or not it's a positive one, and wants to withdraw to sort out... everything about that situation. It's not an emotionally vulnerable response, maybe, but I do get the sense that it's a compassionate one.

These two are not perfect. They're coming from a background of a relationship that was arranged for them with the explicit intention of forcing Zagreus to mature--a setup that implicitly (if Hades didn't go ahead and make it explicit which, lbr, he very possibly did) defines Megaera as more mature and therefore superior. That relationship fell apart--and how could it not, with a setup like that--and some time has passed, and now they're stuck in a loop of fighting each other to the death. It's not ideal! But they cared about each other, back during their first relationship. Zagreus outright tells us that he caught feelings. Megaera talks around the same admission--through the rigidness with which she tells Zagreus and herself that they can't return to the way things were, that it isn't possible; through her admission, when Zag says he wishes he could change how they started, that she too "wish[es] for a lot of things." They cared-past-tense and they care-present-tense, but they still have emotional habits from the past, from the imposed hierarchy of their first relationship, and even in the most positive variant of Meg's response to the darkness-free victory, even in some of their biggest steps forward, we see some of those habits rear their head. It's something they have to work on and will continue to work on, I think.

And it's not a hopeless process. One of the best in-game contrasts to this dynamic is (of all things) when Megaera notices that Zagreus has made it onto the Featured Houseservant board. She remarks that never in her wildest fantasies did she imagine that Zagreus would make it up there. Zagreus, I think, doesn't know how to respond to that--he picks up the "wildest fantasies" thread rather than the compliment, bless this horny little man--but Meg is undeterred and points out that he really should be proud of such an achievement. And I think this is the perfect solution to the dilemma that is Zag's desire for Meg's approval, because Meg's uncertainty over that, her sense that it's an insecure concern, is justified. So here, she's showing that she respects his achievement but emphasizing that it's something about him, something he can and should feel intrinsic pride over, rather than just taking pleasure in her extrinsic approval.