nealuchi | bodies of permanence

Title: bodies of permanence
Fandom: Hades
Character(s): Zagreus, Achilles
Pairing(s): None
Genre: Drama
Word Count: 202
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Zagreus asks Achilles something about the vermin he's killed.
Notes:

“What’s on your mind, lad?” Achilles asks, when Zagreus returns to the House with a pensive expression.

Zagreus doesn’t even look surprised to be read so easily. “It’s… you know the vermin infestation in the Temple of Styx?”

An unexpected start. “I do.”

“When I kill them, they just… stay there. Lying there with their bones sticking through their fur and their guts spilling out. Does every living thing do that, when they die?”

The question takes Achilles aback for a moment, before he remembers that: right, almost nothing in the Underworld leaves a trace behind. Wretches and shades disappear into nothing. For as many battles as Zagreus has won, this is the first he’s seen of corpses.

“They do indeed,” he says. “Humans and animals alike. Some are worse to look at depending on how they died, but it’s never a pleasing sight.”

“So not only do you have to live with the fact that you’ve ended someone’s one chance - as far as you know - but the reminder just… sticks around.” Zagreus shudders, and his voice lowers, as if confessing something shameful. “I like fighting. But I don’t think I’d like killing other people very much.”

“That is for the best.”