abraxaslogs | March open

Entry tags:

March open

Who: Zagreus and you!
When: After the Eplum event
Where: Horizon (& Zagreus's Domain specifically)
What: Zagreus finally visits Horizon
Warnings: NA

Immediately upon his arrival to Horizon, Zagreus's appearance had altered to align much more closely to how he appeared at home: red and black exomis adorned with three canine skulls on one shoulder, a belt made of more skulls, arms adorned with golden bands. And around his head a crown of fiery, ever-burning laurels. The only difference was the now the symbol of the Chariot had been etched into the metal greaves he wore above his fiery feet.

Driven by the compulsion to create, he had also swiftly begun construction of his Domain: a space for which the most immediately notable feature was the river of blood surrounding it. Perhaps you will dare to attempt to cross it.

[[ooc: Starters will be in the comments below! And if you would like a custom prompt, feel free to poke me at

blueflowers!]]

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"Yes, I think you and Hermes would indeed have quite the time, and no one else would ever be able to get a single word in," Zagreus says wryly. "And...wait, really? You know stories about me?"

Usually, the response Zagreus was most familiar with this place - even if someone was familiar with his family - what more along the lines of, 'who the hell are you?' Zagreus knew very well that he was not exactly well known. "Hang on, they're not the ones Orpheus tells, are they? Blood and darkness...look, if they're the ones you know, you should know that they are not accurate, I have never been torn to shreds by the Titans and Dionysus and I are most definitely not the same god, even if that is exactly what I told him."

This is what Zagreus gets, for playing a little prank. Consequences.

"Pity we haven't met yet, I'll have to remedy that." He says this with all seriousness. Though, hang on — "Though you're absolutely wrong, you'd get at least two words in. More than that's a bit much, really, unless you've an ego."

Kidding.

"Well, that's where you come in! Tell me in your own words. First, though, bit about me — I'm a traveler through time and space, I've visited loads of worlds out there, I'll visit loads more. Many species have their stories not entirely unlike yours or even the world we happen to inhabit now. Origin stories, some all rooted in absolute truth, some a combination of myth and legend. What I know about you is a mix — in one rendering, yes, the Titans indeed ripped you to shreds and Athena brought your heart to Zeus. Bob's your uncle and you're suddenly back to life as Dionysus. Though, you've cleared that detail up! Point is, I know you, but I don't know you so I'd absolutely love to know you."

Follow the logic.

"A traveler through time? That's an incredible power," Zagreus says, finding that a particularly fascinating idea. The space part was less so - many gods could travel across vast amounts of space in an instant, even if it wasn't a gift Zagreus possessed. But time? He'd never heard of anyone who could travel through that.

Except in the same way everyone else did, of course.

"And...well, you know of Mother and Father already. And...this is my home. The House of Hades. I was raised here, by the goddess Nyx." He pauses, and then adds: "And Father too. I suppose he counts."

For a given value of 'raising', at least. From the way Zagreus speaks of him, he doesn't seem to think very highly of Hades's parenting. Oddly though, he doesn't mention Persephone raising him.

"We do have a grand time, my old girl and I. The TARDIS — my ship. Beautiful blue box, her and I, off on one adventure or another." There's far more he could say, and he absolutely will because (as established) he loves to talk, but he's too curious about Zagreus at the moment.

"Nyx and Hades —" Yes, he does take note of the absence of Persephone. "There's a turn — plot twist, as they say." Someone says. Somewhere. "So! Raised by Nyx, separated from your mother, Persephone? And your father — he sounds a bit like the stories I've heard."

He's certainly heard about Hades and Persephone, their story quite well known, though what Zagreus tells him has already diverged from what he knows.

"Your ship is a box?" Zagreus says, blinking. "That's an...unusual design. How do you sail it?"

Because if it's a ship, obviously it must sail somewhere, right? Perhaps the Doctor sails across the Sea of Chaos.

"Mother...Mother left, after I was born. She thought I'd died." Or to be more accurate, he had died. But while Zagreus was happy to talk to the Doctor, he didn't necessarily wish to say everything. Not on a first meeting. "But we were reunited recently, and she's returned to the Underworld. When she's not visiting Grandmother, that is."

"Well, she looks it, on the outside. Chameleon circuit!" As if this explains everything. He offers no further explanation, if only because he tends to be of the 'yes do simply keep up with my brain' sort. However, he does add, "We sail through the stars, though not with actual sails. The TARDIS shifts out of physical space, into the time vortex, and phases back in where I tell her to go."

After all these years, he still believes he has any modicum of control at all over the TARDIS.

"It'd look a bit like she disappears and then reappears somewhere else in time or space."

He's happy to talk about his travels, of course, and he does at least clue in a bit that Zagreus isn't ready or willing to tell him every detail of his life. Fine, fine! Understandable. He supposes. Even if he'd prefer hearing everything.

"A sort-of-sad story with a happy-ish ending, oh, I love those! Making up for lost time, no doubt, I'm sure. Well, before all of this —" Vague gestures with his hands. "But now you're parted again. So retract the happy ending, let's call it happy waiting, to be continued. Back — eventually — with dear old mother, sort-of-okay father, and...Grandmother, where does she rank? Demeter, is it? Lovely sort?"

"I...don't know what either of those words refer to," Zagreus says, owing to the distinct lack of both chameleons and circuits in the Underworld. And yet despite this, the rest of this explanation does in fact make sense to him.

"Oh, you use shifting! Well that does make sense," he says, nodding with understanding. "Your box must be quite impressive then, to be able to shift through time as well as space. Than can shift all over the world, but even he can't do that."

And knowledgeable as the Doctor is, he likely will be able to deduce that 'Than' is a reference to Thanatos - Death Incarnate himself.

"Grandmother Demeter is..." Zagreus pauses, thinking of how to word this. "She cares for me and Mother a great deal. She's shown me warmth and kindness. and I'm thankfully to have been given the chance to get to know her. But I know Mother always found her rather overbearing, and...she didn't take Mother's disappearance well. She's not someone you wish to cross."

Edited 2024-03-29 23:25 (UTC)

"I'll show you sometime! A close approximation of my TARDIS is here. Not perfect, not by any stretch, but far better than nothing at all. Pity your lad Thanatos couldn't see it here, we could exchange notes."

Not that he would actually wish anyone else to be brought here, but the unapologetically curious part of him can't help wishing he could easily meet the whole lot of Zagreus's family and associates of the...Underworld...other realms. Something like that. And nothing at all is an alternative he really can't fathom at the moment when it comes to his TARDIS. He'd be going even madder than he is already. It's hard enough for this wanderer among the stars to be trapped here, forced to live out one day after another in linear time — dreadful.

"I'm good with grandmothers! I'm good with people, more to the point. I don't make it a habit to cross anyone. I'm sure we'd get along." Technically, he never intends to cross anyone, but...it sometimes just goes that way. Sometimes he's just far too him for some people's liking.

"Have you been settling in alright here? Much as anyone can."

"I'd be honoured to visit your vessel mate," Zagreus says. "Than is usually a bit difficult to wrangle for social calls - he's always rather busy - but...if he were here, I'd love to see what he thought of it too.

Selfishly, Zagreus too wished Thanatos were here. And Megaera, and many others of his friends and family. Or at least, he wished he still had his visits back home where he could talk to them.

"I'm sure you would," he says, laughing. "And...I think Grandmother is thawing considerably, now that Mother is back. She's allowed the eternal winter to end now! Something which I'm sure the mortals on the Surface very much appreciate."

You'll have to forgive him, Zagreus, the Doctor's brain goes faster than anyone else's and he's usually doing loops and cartwheels and darting ten steps ahead, back again, and then in a circle, so...sometimes the most obvious thing is missed completely.

"Thanatos," he suddenly repeats, even though he said the name already. Now it's actually clicking. "Than. Good old Than — can we say that, good old Than, or would he very much not appreciate it? By which, yes, we absolutely need to say it. You understand me. Anyway, he's no more important than the lot of you, I'm just a big fan of what I know of him and all of you. We'd have to go down a line with my autograph book."

Which actually doesn't exist at all, but still, he's just making his excitement known.

"As for your Grandmother, well, to be expected in some ways, I suppose. Separated as they were, it can make anyone go a bit barmy. How have you been here? How long have you been here, more to the point?"

Zagreus laughed. "Knowing Than, he'd probably say 'Tsch' and try to brush it off. But secretly...I think he'd be quite touched. Outside of the Chthonic gods, he doesn't really get a lot of appreciation. But he should. He works hard, and...he's important."

To Zagreus too, on a personal level. Not just to the general quiet running of the universe. But he was definitely important there too, of course.

"As for how long I've been here..." At this point, Zagreus's eyebrows furrow as he tries to figure out how to answer the question. "I think it's been...a month? I'm sorry, I'm still not very good at how mortals keep track of time. Or...keeping track of time at all, really."

"He's absolutely important! Everyone is — I've yet to meet anyone who isn't important in all my years, but some have a certain extra special weight to their existence, of course. You can tell him I said that when you see him again," he grins brightly, as though his approval would mean anything to Thanatos.

"As for time — oh, trust me, I understand. It's been dreadful for me, honestly. Time moving normally, all linear and boring. I'm not used to it, I go anywhere in time I want to, so this — it's stifling. You've been here long enough to know a bit, there we go."

"I will," Zagreus promises, a faint smile on his face. He likes this Doctor. He rather wishes that he could introduce him to Than. And to Meg, and everyone else back home.

"What is it like, traveling through time?" Zagreus asks. "It must be quite the experience. Also I do wonder a bit about the logistics. If you travel to the past, do you become yourself from that time or do you exist separately?"

Of course, the Doctor believes that he'd be absolutely impeccable company. And if it were possible, he wouldn't necessarily ask Zagreus if he could tag along and be introduced, he'd simply...well, invite himself.

"Oh, that," said with a cheeky grin. "Bumpy, straight off! But we're usually having the time of hour life, my friends and I." He can't resist a good pun, and he tries to enunciate the word clearly enough, his intention being to draw a laugh if he might be at all able to. "Logistics can be a snarl and if I meet my younger self, I can create a paradox." He'll leave out that his younger self(ves) have many different faces. "Though most paradoxes resolve themselves, by and large. For me, though, I have the gift of knowing exactly where and when and how and all the particulars. Handy, that, when you're a Time Lord."

It takes Zagreus a moment - mainly because in the Underworld concepts like 'hour' don't really mean much - but when it clicks, he does laugh.

Once he listens to the rest of the explanation though, he says: "'Time Lord' - is that the name of your pantheon?"

Because of course, he assumes that the Doctor must be a god. With the power to control his journey through time? Surely that's a divine ability. Not to mention there's just...something about him. Something ageless that rather reminds him of his own divine friends and family.

Pantheon. Well, that's a new one. Actually — no, it isn't. A time or two (...or more) through the long years, others have thought of him as a god, godlike, something of the sort. He tends to recoil at the notion and though he's well aware of his failings, he's blind at times to how his boasting and posturing at the worst creatures the universe contains might, at times, mimic the blind arrogance of a deity. Or, at the least, a more ordinary(ish) sort of man just really quite full of himself.

"Species," he clarifies. "I didn't choose the name, though. Lacking panache!"

And never mind that there aren't any others left. At least — that he knows.

"...Species?" Zagreus says, blinking briefly. "You mean...like nymphs? Or giants?"

Zagreus has never heard of anything like a time nymph before, but...well, there's a first time for anything. Maybe that's closer to what the Doctor is?

"Well — sort of there, yes. Nymphs and giants I know of, at least, are their own species. My people were humanoid in features, with a few important physiological differences, of course. Two hearts, respiratory bypass system, thirty brains, and a partridge in a pear tree," he deadpans.

"Time Lords...only observed all of time and space, stood back and watched. I took a different approach." Which is probably the biggest understatement of at least this current century, depending on timelines and all known or unknown universes.

Perhaps that little reference of the Doctor's would land better if Zagreus knew the song Twelve Days of Christmas. Or what a 'respiratory bypass system', 'partridge', and 'pear tree are'. So instead, the Doctor just gets a bit of a blank look in response.

At least the desire to not just stand back and watch is rather more understandable to Zagreus.

"You like to be more active, I take it," he says.

He's quite used to those blank stares, honestly, even from people who do understand his references. But even though he's quite aware — generally — what people and creatures from different times and places all about the universe should understand at any given point, he tends to just say whatever pops into his mind in any given moment. Which could be why people think him strange...

But onto the next thing!

His travels, yes — "I get around, yes. Bit of sight-seeing out there in the big multi-colored, multi-faceted, complex and beautiful universe. Stop off on occasion if people ask for me, then onto the next place! Being stuck anywhere as long as I've been here isn't how it's supposed to go."

For anyone here, of course.

"It must be a big change for you," Zagreus commiserates. "I suppose my experience is rather the opposite. Usually I can't leave the Underworld for very long at all. I've only ever seen a bit of the area around the entrance to the Temple of Styx, so...I've never been able to see this much of the Surface before. This kind of freedom isn't usually available to me.

"It's taken a bit of getting used to. I'm glad for the experience. But if I'd spent my life always being able to go wherever I please, only to find that one day I couldn't any more...I think that would be rather difficult."

Is it rather difficult? Is he going a bit mad(der) by the minute, by the hour, by the day (in that dreadfully linear way that time moves here)? No, no, definitely not. Not even close. He's absolutely fine, never better, no one needs to worry he'll tilt off and lose his grip, or anything at all.

Then again, the Doctor has never lied to anyone better than he lies to himself, so. There is that.

"Oh, you know—" He waves a hand in the air, not quite finishing that thought. "I have my moments. But you, Zagreus — are you finding it odd a bit? Well, odder than the very notion of being here at all. But it's the most freedom you've known and you're not here by your own choice. The pros and cons of forced transdimensional displacement, as it were."

"Yes, of course I am," Zagreus says - because while the Doctor might be reluctant to admit to his own difficulties, Zagreus is not. "I've never lived on the Surface for longer than a few hours. Or something like that, I think. When I said it's taken getting used to...that's a bit of an understatement, really. I like the Surface, but...it's not a place I'd choose to live all the time. And I miss my family, and my friends. I miss Than and Meg."

There's a reason that over in the East Wing, Zagreus has put up portraits of all the people he cares about. Perhaps if the Doctor had had a little more time to snoop uninterrupted, he'd have stumbled across them.

"But I suppose...I don't know if I'll ever get an opportunity like this again. This is probably the only chance I'll ever have to experience what the Surface is like for myself. So...I'm trying to enjoy it. Besides, if I really didn't want to be here I'd just go find a way to die so I could wake up back home!"

Because, you know, that's how Zagreus usually gets home.

"Naturally," the Doctor adds, as though he can relate to the missing of family and friends. Thing is, he can, but rather than elaborate on that, he shifts away from seeming to understand too well. "Anyone would. Or — many here, in fact, from what I've gathered."

He supposes for himself, he doesn't dwell to think on it much if only because while he misses everyone he's ever loved — friends and family alike — being separated from them is the inevitable progression. He doesn't presently have anyone to go back to, but there's an ever present ache for his beautiful ship, his home, the one who's tended him all these years as he dashes about the universe.

"You'll get back to them, though, promise. I'll make sure of it," the Doctor gives a little affirming nod. "In the meantime, this is absolutely an adventure to take advantage of while we can. Less with the dying bit, though, because it doesn't quite work like that here."

That's one way in which Zagreus and the Doctor's experiences are different. Zagreus might be similarly long-lived - but he's not used to the people around him really dying. His friends and family are the immortal and the already dead: barring very unusual and unlikely circumstances, Zagreus expects them to be around forever.

Some of them, like Chaos, have been around forever.

"You will personally, will you?" Zagreus says, with a small smile of amusement. "And don't worry, I'm used to dying. I do it all the time! In fact I'm pretty sure I hold the record by a very, very large margin. Though - what do you mean, death works differently here?"

March open

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Shall we wrap up around here?

good to put a bow on it! 🎁