Fic: Colophon
Oct. 9th, 2009 07:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
knightwingsFanfiction: Colophon
Rating: Oh, PG.
Characters/Pairing: Hypnos/Thanatos, Strega, the whole cast?
Status: 1/1, 5, 175 words
Notes: Told from Hypnos’ POV. Mythology from across the world mentioned. Written by author who might be a little bit too involved in grammar related to programming language instead of English. Characters are not mine. Some elements are Andi's (specifically, the creating Cerberus part lol.) This is how a canon update might run like.
Also, for reference, a quick rundown of Greek mythology; may not be entirely informative because I'm going on memory, here:
Hypnos and Thanatos are twins, born of Nyx, the goddess of night, and siblings to a lot of other celestial beings of the negative inclination (of which the only exception is Amor/Eros (Love)). Moros is the personification of doom. Medea is a maiden who threw everything away for love and got nothing in return (Jason and the Argonauts). Nemesis is the goddess of vengeful fate. Castor and Polydeuces are the twins that have been deified to become the constellation Gemini. Hermes is the god of travellers. Sisyphus is a king who tried to escape Thanatos twice; the first by tricking Thanatos and locking him in a chest (Ares set him free because he can't win wars if no-one can die), the second time by convincing Persephone to be able to see his wife once again, but eventually he died. Hades punished him by making him roll up a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it tumble back down, for all eternity.
Herakles (Hercules) managed to keep Thanatos from rescuing Alcestis, wife of King Admetos, who offered her life in place of her husband's. Deidara is Herakles' final wife, and she unknowingly kills him by giving him a poisoned garment because of a rumor that she heard that Herakles has another lover. Herakles manages to build himself a funeral pyre and dies in it. Hylas is one of his male (younger) lovers, both warrior and cupbearer.
Colophon is a brief description, usually located at the end of a book, describing production notes relevant to the edition. (from Wikipedia)
*
You first see (with unseeing eyes) him again on Freya’s day, calling across oceans and continents with his own contingent of Olympian gods. Hermes, Artemis, half of the Gemini twins –
Twins. In the corner of this child’s psyche you occupy, you tremble.
“Well, Jin? Are they our enemies?”
Are they?
*
You were inseparable, once. Born before a concrete concept of the universe had even been made, him coming into existence just before you. Twins, as your mother (the great goddess of that sweet darkness, night) tell the both of you. Brothers. That's the equivalent term, in this language; such a mundane word for something that runs so deep.
Back then, you were never seen apart - you knew from the moment you set your sights on him that you would follow him, without hesitation, to the ends of Time and back. You also knew that he would do the same thing, if you asked. Even as your other siblings - Hunger, War, Sickness, the lot of them - even as they taunt you, because you're apparently the least malevolent, your brother stands up to them and tells them to be quiet.
Yours is the power to soothe, his is the power to lay to rest. His is that silver scythe, that one thing that mortals fear the most. Yours is that black mantle of temporary respite. You don't begrudge him anything, because that's the way you have been born and you understand perfectly that one cannot function without the other.
Yours is the level-headed calmness, his is the swift action of his death-swing. You're the voice of reason, he's the hand of recklessness. You remember that one time when your mother was still contemplating how to arrange things in that little 'universe project' of hers ("Erebus, be a dear and move that dimension a little more upwards?"), and you were both younglings - and you can't remember which one of you started it, but you clearly remember him throwing around the idea of a 'dog' at some point.
You had argued quite a bit as to where legs and ears and snouts would come in, and he says, "Why don't we put on a 'head'? You know, with eyes and such. You could even put the snout there. In the middle."
"Why just one?" You had replied. "Why not three?"
Your mother doesn't have the heart to void its existence after that, not after he throws his arms around the dog's neck and pleads with her not to. She just turns to you and tells you to look after your brother, and you tell her that you don't need to be told so.
That's what brothers do, after all.
Once is a very long time ago, you think, as your man-child summons you again, and you protect him.
*
"Why do they always run and hide when I approach? They're like back alley rats."
Because that's what they truly are, vermin. You know this, you've seen the progression from pinnacle of creation to this - this -
The capsules glint red and white in the light from the neon signs behind him (you), and Castor (that poor sod) takes them from Moros' hand. These children have their own interests, ever since the sky shone green and the moon cried red on that night ten years prior. Takaya's mind had been young, so very young and raw, and he himself knew the shortcomings of his creation.
The boy knows the circle of gods his brother had brought around him. Takaya is curious about their actions, and you listen halfheartedly to what you know is already a failed attempt to prevent the inevitable. They're trying to break that vicious cycle whenever Selene shines fully in your mother's embrace.
Dark Hour, Tower of Demise, Apathy Syndrome, The Lost; such foolish things these humans label them, to comfort themselves. Takaya - that stubborn, restless child, taken after that one prophet two thousand years ago - is faithful to your cause. You ensure it.
*
You have a new responsibility, once your mother had finished creating this universe that they spoke of. Sleep is essential to those who are weary but yearn not for eternal rest, and you go about this job quite happily. Life is scattered few and far in between, and those who need sleep are sparse.
And then your brother learns of his own responsibilities, and nothing is the same ever again.
*
Cerberus has reunited with his master, you notice. Takaya's information-gathering is excellent; the shadows of this city provide more than enough opportunities for the boy to do so. He doesn't even need your help with that - he tells you this himself.
"But, to erase the Dark Hour would be denying the very power they possess," he says, languidly, the cherry wood of his revolver's handle cool against his (your) palm. "We cannot tolerate that."
In turn, you let him know a little more about his protector, his Persona, and the truth is something that the boy tries in vain to explain to his fellow humans. Humanity turns a blind eye to those that it doesn't understand, ostracizes those that it doesn't like, much like how Castor shoves his hands in his pockets and turns away.
It doesn't concern him, he says, but you know Castor and his twin and you know that bonds like that cannot be broken.
*
Mortality is a concrete idea that all those who can create must breathe into their creations; you cannot know the value of life unless you know the value of death as well.
The human children build temples, sing odes, write epics for those up in Olympus. You don't mind this, because their petty affairs are not your concern; their dreams that you see when you walk across them is of no consequence. Man needs Sleep, Sleep does not need man - that is your philosophy. In time, from kindly you grow indifferent, just as your brother becomes more and more curious about them, just as he tries to be more friendly and approachable.
But then you notice a trend: you, who does nothing more than tug men under into the solace of sleep, is favoured by more than that of your brother, whose name they fear and curse in the dark corners of their marble buildings. You brother, who had just wanted their favour and companionship, he who had done nothing but his job, is feared above all and is shunned by all living creatures.
You know what your brother offers is eternal rest, a privilege that they all have, at the end of their lives, and yet they refuse to accept that offered hand.
You don't understand how can mortals be so cruel.
*
You see him on the first minute of Freya's day again, in that hour trapped between night and day. He's with Olympians and spirits once again. Lucia is taken by surprise, and so is her child; but then again, they shouldn't, because you are a god and gods can do anything.
Takaya tries to reason with them, to make them see sense; when the Tower disappears, their Personae (manifestations of themselves, what a comedy, you think) will follow. Their purpose will crumble as that structure falls. No matter how hard they try to save the world, this earth that your mother has wrought is still sinful and wrong and vile because of those that walk upon it.
Your child is levelheaded. Justly so; you made him that way.
Moros traps them with twins of his more powerful fragments. You know that they'll persist, your sisters - the Fates - tell you so, but Moros seems to have fun with it anyway - where's the harm in that? That's what he likes to do the most, after all.
*
Indifference gives way to annoyance, annoyance gives way into anger.
Your brother stares at you with sad eyes and holds your hand when you two rest.
Don't fall into that pit, he chides, and you nod a vague promise, sinking back into sleep once again. When you wake up, he's gone, a lone black feather left in his wake.
*
You smell the scent of your brother drifting on the wind, you can almost see his scythe glinting in that pale yellow moonlight. He's still doing his job, after all this time -
You know that boy. Shinjiro, Takaya tells you, that boy with Castor standing by his side. The younger one reeks of Nemesis, your cousin once removed, and the faint scent of death is layered on the both of them. He is one of those who had taken Medea from your side (as you had planned; oh, such folly lies with that finicky god, Eros), and you settle back in your child's mind and watch as the tragedy plays out.
The swing of your brother's scythe has affected the both of them deeply. One is a killer, the other about to be. And he is so young to bear the weight of murder upon his shoulders, and he intends to relieve himself of it as soon as he can.
Good, you think. Let this festering world dwindle and let it rot.
Takaya, faithful one, cajoles the both of them, hoping that they see the truth that you have known since birth. Salvation in sweet death, in your brother's arms. Castor had been bound much like the same way you had been, but demigods have far less power that full ones, and the summoning had left him incomplete and restless and unhelpful.
The Kirijo Experiments had seen to that.
Your child aims his weapon at Castor's head, and demands to know the one who is similar to Medea. Nemesis, in her way of wishing divine retribution (and desperation, because the boy has just found out the crushing realisation that death is something that Shinjiro had accepted long ago, and now that comes from a silver bullet from Takaya's revolver and not through his own hands), lies and answers that it is him.
He wants death.
So he shall have it. Takaya fires again, and that foolish excuse for a human uses his body to shield him. The son takes death for his mother's host.
Foolish, miserable, human. Curiousity overwhelms you, and it channels into your medium, revolver still smoking in his hand. Why give up his life for another's? Foolish, but noble, and something that you've forgotten to feel a long time ago drifts across the back of your mind. Admiration.
Takaya runs, leaving Shinjiro and the rest of the new arrivals behind - and you can't linger to see if your brother is waiting to fetch him.
*
He's gone longer, and longer, these days. Mankind has grown complex enough to start killing each other in a larger scale, treating his fellowmen as nothing more than cattle to be slaughtered. The Trojan War is especially brutal, and in your waiting for your brother to return, you fall asleep once again.
When you wake up, that chap Odysseus had already gone home, but not him.
He returns, just as Aurora gives her reins over to her father, Helios, looking tired and bedraggled and lost. You rush out to meet him, arms taking his trembling form into your embrace as you both break down into tears.
Countless mortals had fallen by his scythe, he sobs. Those that he had watched over, those who had extended a warm greeting and a guiding hand had shunned him in fear. He's ignored this for the past millennia, but now, in this great war in their territory, he just can't -
He tells you about Sisyphus, and what he had done. You send Persephone nightmares for years, and Ares pleasant ones for the same period of time. You visit Sisyphus, once, in that dreaded part of Tartarus where the sinners suffer; and you ensure that he will never rest again when you suggest his punishment to Hades.
He tells you about Herakles, that pitiful excuse for a son that Zeus is so proud of, and how he prevented your brother from claiming Alcestis, of the house of Admetos. He had just been going about his work and this - ! This is unacceptable.
You know you can't touch Herakles now, not so openly; but when he's joined that band of adventurers they call the Argonauts, you strike. Not at him, but at that boy he is so fond of, and when your brother brings back to Tartarus that cupbearer's soul, you smile. Let that great hero know how it is to search and wait for that one boy that he loves so.
Years later, you tell one of your attendants to send just this one innocent dream to one of Deianeira's household - and you watch as the gossip mill runs and rumors set the house (and his body, so much later, when all is said and done) on fire.
Your brother looks at you once again, when he comes back, having just delivered Herakles to that palace of fools, Olympus. "Hypnos - "
"Shush," you tell him, and under the veil of sleep, he falls silent.
*
They are to defeat the twelfth Shadow today. After that, after everything - after a decade's worth of work -
You let Takaya fight; you protect him with as much power as the child's mind can possibly handle. You and Moros work together, even if for just a short time, as the siblings that you are. You know you are outnumbered against the Olympians, and Takaya realises this as the battle draws to a conclusion.
You don't care, you find out, because there is that one boy, that one with the velvet-blue hair, who harbors your brother's essence. You can feel it so strongly that you falter for a moment, when that boy stares straight at you with those blank grey eyes, like a slate, so identical to the ones that you manifest when you find the inclination to do so. In fact, in retrospect, that vessel (the Fool) bears a passing resemblance to your favoured body...
Takaya sets the cool metal of his revolver at his temple. If death won't come to him, then he will come to death.
You wonder how much of an influence you have really had on that child, because that is exactly what you've promised yourself, when your brother disappeared half a millennium ago.
And then Jin - Moros' child, host, vessel and friend, even - grabs at Takaya's wrist and saves him from suicide.
You can't linger once again, to watch as the Olympians wrap it all up together neatly. But you are satisfied, anyway, because when the clock strikes midnight, everything will fall into place.
*
Man declines steadily, you observe. Civilization rises and falls but those who build it become crueler and more barbaric in time. You sleep longer, at times, just to avoid those dark ages (not waking up for about two hundred years), and when you waken you find your brother next to you in bed with an arm slung around your waist and his breath fanning rhythmically into the nape of your neck.
He's becoming tired, you can easily see that. Gone are the days when he easily smiles, when his face is still unmarred by worry-wrinkles, when his palms were still soft and uncallused from that bright steel scythe. He comes home, sometimes, with a frown on his face and a refusal to speak for days, weeks, months, silently going about his work as always.
It is also around this time that you discover that the Reaper and your brother, two separate personalities, are merging more and more. You find him, one day, metal helm fastened tight and breathing so harshly that the earth trembles, longsword in hand, dripping in blood. What was once a recessive persona, called up only to deliver death to those who deserve a terrible one, is now so uncontrollable that your brother suffers because of it.
You rush to his aid, pressing your forehead against that cool metal helm (just as he did to you when you were but children, just as you do to him whenever he is the Reaper), and you wish with all your heart that he would calm down. He does, and this time, when he breaks down, there are no more tears left to cry with.
And yet, those filthy vermin dare to curse his name more.
You yearn for a way to solve this, to make everything better, and one night, your mother calls your brother and speaks to him in private.
This time, he flies back into Tartarus in a rage, screaming something about leaving. It's the first time in your entire existence that you truly panic, which is remarkable for someone who is well-known as the calmest god in the known universe.
"What are you saying?" you cry out, as you follow him out of your abode and into the middle of your poppy fields, swaying blood-red in the eternal moonlight of your side of Tartarus.
Thus he explains the Fall to you. You realise that it's not only you who notices your brother's sudden influx of work; your mother wants to end everything and start it all over. Which is the best idea you've heard in all time - but your brother shakes his head .
With that, you can feel your heart stop.
"The Fall won't happen unless I'm there with a physical manifestation," he says, back turned to you. "And I have no intention of letting that happen."
"The mortals deserve it!" You scream, the words clogging up in your throat, and you stamp some of your poppies to the ground in frustration. "They only hate you, even for all that respite that you offer! Let mother kill them and start anew!"
"No." That single word seems to carry around the entirety of Tartarus. "I'm leaving."
"You cannot - " You falter, because the mere thought is unthinkable. You've been inseparable since time immemorial, and he always comes back to you - " - You cannot possibly mean that, Thanatos."
"I do." Still he does not show his face. "I've made my decision."
"You cannot mean leaving me!"
With that you wish so sorely (and yet not) that you can take it back, but your brother's wings stiffen and his hands clench into fists.
"I'm sorry."
And in that moment, you realise, that you love him with all your heart, body, and soul (if you had one), way beyond what you've felt for any of your romances, way beyond how brothers should love each other, way beyond how your mother loves her own lover.
"But I love you," you say brokenly, dropping to your knees and feeling, for the first time, the sting of tears rolling down your cheeks.
"I know."
And you can do nothing but watch as he fades into the wind, turning back just as his face disappears, you never knowing what his last expression was.
*
You help silence those who stand in the way, when your child and Jin takes back Medea's bearer. She seems to have been brought back to her senses, but you can sense Eros already has her in his grip.
No matter. You will rectify that. At the right time, of course.
*
You never manifest your own body again, when your brother leaves. There are still people dying, across this putrid world, which means that he is still working - but he never shows his face again, and his trace is always too faint to follow.
That bastard.
Kindness to indifference, indifference to annoyance, annoyance to anger. And now, anger deepens into hatred, as you lounge in your abode and lose yourself in your poppies, your plants, and the pleasant haze that their essences bring.
And then, one day, Lachesis shakes you awake, unsmiling, silent. Nyarlathotep and Philemon had thrown their dice once again.
You don't give a damn, you say, turning over to fall asleep and most like sleep through the next five hundred years. But the Allotter murmurs something that sounds like 'the Fall' and you sit up immediately, only to find that she's no longer there.
You consult your mother, she of black hair and alabaster skin, but then you find out that what she once was is not the same now. She's grown tired, of that endless chanting that man does to summon her, and as a warning she creates a pocket of time and space with her essence populating it.
You think it's beautiful, when she shows it to you. Selene hangs her moon high and perfectly round, pale yellow moonlight shining upon blood and black coffins of those humans who are trapped. Those who have the barest opportunities of surviving the Fall are cut down right then and there, and it isn't before long before your mother will embrace this horrible world in her wings and breath into it new life.
The casualties don't matter, anyway.
*
You let Takaya pull the trigger on Hermes, to see this one death so close that you will have an opportunity to see your brother take away his vessel's last breath.
But then, Medea is still foolish Medea, even after all these years, and Eros' hold on Chidori still proves true. She dies breathing life into Junpei Iori, but there is no Reaper in sight. Nothing. Which means this is not death for the girl; somewhere in the world a part of her still lives.
Takaya doesn't know this, and you do not bother rectifying that. That shadow - that parody of Hermes - that Junpei controls strengthens with the life-energy Medea bestows unto him, but at this point, you know it doesn't matter. Because their leader, the boy with the blank eyes and endlessly-shifting psyche takes a minute step forward, and you can hear the Reaper roaring inside his head.
A little more time, you think.
Your man-child tenses as Jin gets hit with an elemental spell, and he pulls out his revolver, but the former calms him down and tells him not to forget his (your) mission. Takaya knows that there is no way that anyone can stop the Fall, so they leave, complacent.
*
You find a boy, guarded by two other waifs, each one bound so tightly to each other that they would rather die that let the others get hurt. He's small and emaciated with dirty blond hair, living on the streets on the detritus of human society, cornered and picked up by (bullies) an organised operation.
They feed him, along with almost a hundred of other young souls, vile, disgusting, and violations against nature. Things that directly interfere with his mind - and this is how you find him. Screaming for help, yelling in his head where nobody could hear him plead for his life or for his sanity. And then those Enhancers kick in, and they amplify his call for anything, anyone to save him - and you are drawn, because those pills are manufactured and passed through some arcane process that constitutes a crude summoning.
You are trapped. In this state of incorporeality, you realise that you are all too vulnerable -
Too late.
You are incarnated (incarcerated) as a blindfolded doll, attached to wings that pulse red whenever he summons you. You find out that Moros and Medea had been incarnated as well.
There are restraints on the chairs. Those who are here are not afraid to use them.
You learn to loathe the name Kirijo, in time. Loathing deepens into hatred, hatred festers into obsession, and you swear that you will burn out that family lineage when the time is right.
Years later, as your child sleeps under your wings, you realise that someone else had been summoned from an entirely different plane. Because you recognise that roar that shakes the foundation of the building where you are held hostage.
Takaya is inquisitive, along with his peers, and when they sneak up to where they think the explosion came from, you can feel your heart stop when you recognise that metal helm and those chains that dangle a foot from the summoning circle etched on the floor.
The Reaper - he is summoned as the Reaper and that is the worst possible state that your brother could be summoned in, but before you can lash out and call your brother's name, Takaya is tugged back by the collar and brought to another room, along with the others. You can't linger because of the connection between you and Takaya, and you can't scream when your brother's aura disappears altogether.
You analyse the situation, using all of the powers available to you to do so, calling on your mother's name (who is furious and missing her two children) and drawing on your own strength. It dramatically reduces the lifespan of everyone in the building, and it takes an extraordinary amount of power that would take years to recover, but the last thing you see before your own domain claims you is the acid-green night sky, Selene glowing brightly in her majesty. The magical backlash destroys your child's prison, and it destroys the Kirijo patriarch as well, he of the sinister smile and honeyed promises.
You summon the others - gods, deities, Olympians - at random, incarnating and imprisoning them as something like what you are now, because your pawns need to survive long enough to gather all the broken pieces that make up your brother.
Takaya becomes your piece de resistance. The child is charismatic, and he has no illusions about what the Kirijo group had done to him. Through your whispers in his ear he learns to develop a fatalistic attitude, one that would suit your needs the most. A pawn is not afraid to be sacrificed for his king.
You tell him about your mother's sweet repose, of the salvation that her sweeping hand will offer. Freedom from this parody of an existence that had been granted to him by the Kirijos - this interests him, but what interests him more is when you tell him that both his friends would be saved through the gentle swing of your brother's scythe. This time, Eros' chains work to your advantage, because Moros and Medea will now protect you with their lives.
You tell him that your existence is a blessing from her, proof of her existence and her love and her yearning for mankind to be saved.
(Lying is so easy, so natural, so simple.)
Ikutsuki is easy enough to convince, with a well-placed dream filled with treacherous promises of power and sweet whispers of deceit; the young research assistant is obsessed with the arcane. When the laboratories fall under the rage of the Reaper, he rebuilds it, and gathers within a contingent of children, each able to call upon one of the Olympians you've bound to this earth years earlier. He uses them, as you've implied, to find those fragments of your brother and piece them back together.
He thinks that he'll be the Prince. You know that Atropos will cut his string along with the great loom of humanity.
You don't care.
And so, with that, you wait.
*
The shadows finally gather and coalesce, and that familiar presence tugs at you.
You brush off an old skill and dreamwalk across these mortals, going from dream to dream by association, if only to see -
And you stumble upon that boy from earlier, the boy with the blank eyes, the boy who had harboured your brother after all this time. His dreams are layered and crystallised thinly, illusions of the ever-shifting personae in his mind. He had attracted most, if not all, of those gods you had summoned, and you draw back in horror when you realise what this boy truly is.
Philemon seems to want to win this bet so.
Takaya is more human than him, at the very least. You continue on, sifting through those dark cobwebs in the corner of this wildcard, (poor boy, born and molded and manipulated into his role) and you see something that makes your metaphorical heart shrivel up and wither away.
Your brother has manifested himself, as a seventeen-year-old human boy, and he's acting like he doesn't know that he is the god of Death, like he isn't your twin who left you. He's charming and sweet and very popular among the ladies, and he's taken quite a shine to the wildcard whose dreams you're now violating.
Something bubbles up, hot and viscous in your chest, and you flee.
Some nights later, you realise what that feeling is. It's one of your siblings, that sharp-tongued woman with a cruel laugh: Jealousy.
*
You sleep in the prison of your child's mind, come when you are called, watch events when you fancy them. Takaya moves of his own accord, and more and more people are drawn to his way of thinking. You know that this won't be enough, but you know that in the immediate future, the seeds that he had planted will bear fruition.
Medea - Chidori - is refreshing in her apathy. Moros, no, Jin, keeps Takaya tethered to the ground and is so mischievous that he rivals Loki. He's usually the one who brings laughter into their daily lives, and for that, the two other children are grateful.
One day, when the moon is a mere crescent in the night sky, Jin comes running, bearing the news and rumors of another group like them, like Strega.
From the dark corners of Takaya's mind, you feel yourself smile, as the final act of this great comedy begins.
*
It's ironic, you think, that the mechanical maiden that Pallas Athena protects would be the one who restores your brother's sense.
Takaya is all too enthusiastic to meet the one whom you tell him will usher in the Fall. He's too trusting, right now, and it's easy for you to take over his consciousness and lock it down, just for this one meeting.
Moonlight Bridge, the mortals call this place, and in your mother's spell the concrete is splattered with blood and lined with coffins. You pick your way across these impediments, Takaya's lithe frame coming in handy as you walk quietly through the night.
He's perched on the edge of a railing.
You recognise that yellow scarf; you've seen your brother wear it when scarves were first created by those filthy creatures he loved (loves) so much. Your footsteps don't echo through the silent night, but he looks back over his shoulder with an expression of surprise etched clearly on his face.
You hold out your arms, joy surging through what passes for your heart; he is here and he is whole and nothing will ever separate you again.
But Thanatos doesn't move, and he just stands there, surprise dissolving into apprehension, apprehension dissolving into horror.
"Hypnos," he asks, anguished. "What have you done?"
*
Endnotes: We assume Shadows come from Nyx. Also, we assume that Hypnos isLelouch, that magnificent bastard a dick. ):
Rating: Oh, PG.
Characters/Pairing: Hypnos/Thanatos, Strega, the whole cast?
Status: 1/1, 5, 175 words
Notes: Told from Hypnos’ POV. Mythology from across the world mentioned. Written by author who might be a little bit too involved in grammar related to programming language instead of English. Characters are not mine. Some elements are Andi's (specifically, the creating Cerberus part lol.) This is how a canon update might run like.
Also, for reference, a quick rundown of Greek mythology; may not be entirely informative because I'm going on memory, here:
Hypnos and Thanatos are twins, born of Nyx, the goddess of night, and siblings to a lot of other celestial beings of the negative inclination (of which the only exception is Amor/Eros (Love)). Moros is the personification of doom. Medea is a maiden who threw everything away for love and got nothing in return (Jason and the Argonauts). Nemesis is the goddess of vengeful fate. Castor and Polydeuces are the twins that have been deified to become the constellation Gemini. Hermes is the god of travellers. Sisyphus is a king who tried to escape Thanatos twice; the first by tricking Thanatos and locking him in a chest (Ares set him free because he can't win wars if no-one can die), the second time by convincing Persephone to be able to see his wife once again, but eventually he died. Hades punished him by making him roll up a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it tumble back down, for all eternity.
Herakles (Hercules) managed to keep Thanatos from rescuing Alcestis, wife of King Admetos, who offered her life in place of her husband's. Deidara is Herakles' final wife, and she unknowingly kills him by giving him a poisoned garment because of a rumor that she heard that Herakles has another lover. Herakles manages to build himself a funeral pyre and dies in it. Hylas is one of his male (younger) lovers, both warrior and cupbearer.
Colophon is a brief description, usually located at the end of a book, describing production notes relevant to the edition. (from Wikipedia)
*
You first see (with unseeing eyes) him again on Freya’s day, calling across oceans and continents with his own contingent of Olympian gods. Hermes, Artemis, half of the Gemini twins –
Twins. In the corner of this child’s psyche you occupy, you tremble.
“Well, Jin? Are they our enemies?”
Are they?
*
You were inseparable, once. Born before a concrete concept of the universe had even been made, him coming into existence just before you. Twins, as your mother (the great goddess of that sweet darkness, night) tell the both of you. Brothers. That's the equivalent term, in this language; such a mundane word for something that runs so deep.
Back then, you were never seen apart - you knew from the moment you set your sights on him that you would follow him, without hesitation, to the ends of Time and back. You also knew that he would do the same thing, if you asked. Even as your other siblings - Hunger, War, Sickness, the lot of them - even as they taunt you, because you're apparently the least malevolent, your brother stands up to them and tells them to be quiet.
Yours is the power to soothe, his is the power to lay to rest. His is that silver scythe, that one thing that mortals fear the most. Yours is that black mantle of temporary respite. You don't begrudge him anything, because that's the way you have been born and you understand perfectly that one cannot function without the other.
Yours is the level-headed calmness, his is the swift action of his death-swing. You're the voice of reason, he's the hand of recklessness. You remember that one time when your mother was still contemplating how to arrange things in that little 'universe project' of hers ("Erebus, be a dear and move that dimension a little more upwards?"), and you were both younglings - and you can't remember which one of you started it, but you clearly remember him throwing around the idea of a 'dog' at some point.
You had argued quite a bit as to where legs and ears and snouts would come in, and he says, "Why don't we put on a 'head'? You know, with eyes and such. You could even put the snout there. In the middle."
"Why just one?" You had replied. "Why not three?"
Your mother doesn't have the heart to void its existence after that, not after he throws his arms around the dog's neck and pleads with her not to. She just turns to you and tells you to look after your brother, and you tell her that you don't need to be told so.
That's what brothers do, after all.
Once is a very long time ago, you think, as your man-child summons you again, and you protect him.
*
"Why do they always run and hide when I approach? They're like back alley rats."
Because that's what they truly are, vermin. You know this, you've seen the progression from pinnacle of creation to this - this -
The capsules glint red and white in the light from the neon signs behind him (you), and Castor (that poor sod) takes them from Moros' hand. These children have their own interests, ever since the sky shone green and the moon cried red on that night ten years prior. Takaya's mind had been young, so very young and raw, and he himself knew the shortcomings of his creation.
The boy knows the circle of gods his brother had brought around him. Takaya is curious about their actions, and you listen halfheartedly to what you know is already a failed attempt to prevent the inevitable. They're trying to break that vicious cycle whenever Selene shines fully in your mother's embrace.
Dark Hour, Tower of Demise, Apathy Syndrome, The Lost; such foolish things these humans label them, to comfort themselves. Takaya - that stubborn, restless child, taken after that one prophet two thousand years ago - is faithful to your cause. You ensure it.
*
You have a new responsibility, once your mother had finished creating this universe that they spoke of. Sleep is essential to those who are weary but yearn not for eternal rest, and you go about this job quite happily. Life is scattered few and far in between, and those who need sleep are sparse.
And then your brother learns of his own responsibilities, and nothing is the same ever again.
*
Cerberus has reunited with his master, you notice. Takaya's information-gathering is excellent; the shadows of this city provide more than enough opportunities for the boy to do so. He doesn't even need your help with that - he tells you this himself.
"But, to erase the Dark Hour would be denying the very power they possess," he says, languidly, the cherry wood of his revolver's handle cool against his (your) palm. "We cannot tolerate that."
In turn, you let him know a little more about his protector, his Persona, and the truth is something that the boy tries in vain to explain to his fellow humans. Humanity turns a blind eye to those that it doesn't understand, ostracizes those that it doesn't like, much like how Castor shoves his hands in his pockets and turns away.
It doesn't concern him, he says, but you know Castor and his twin and you know that bonds like that cannot be broken.
*
Mortality is a concrete idea that all those who can create must breathe into their creations; you cannot know the value of life unless you know the value of death as well.
The human children build temples, sing odes, write epics for those up in Olympus. You don't mind this, because their petty affairs are not your concern; their dreams that you see when you walk across them is of no consequence. Man needs Sleep, Sleep does not need man - that is your philosophy. In time, from kindly you grow indifferent, just as your brother becomes more and more curious about them, just as he tries to be more friendly and approachable.
But then you notice a trend: you, who does nothing more than tug men under into the solace of sleep, is favoured by more than that of your brother, whose name they fear and curse in the dark corners of their marble buildings. You brother, who had just wanted their favour and companionship, he who had done nothing but his job, is feared above all and is shunned by all living creatures.
You know what your brother offers is eternal rest, a privilege that they all have, at the end of their lives, and yet they refuse to accept that offered hand.
You don't understand how can mortals be so cruel.
*
You see him on the first minute of Freya's day again, in that hour trapped between night and day. He's with Olympians and spirits once again. Lucia is taken by surprise, and so is her child; but then again, they shouldn't, because you are a god and gods can do anything.
Takaya tries to reason with them, to make them see sense; when the Tower disappears, their Personae (manifestations of themselves, what a comedy, you think) will follow. Their purpose will crumble as that structure falls. No matter how hard they try to save the world, this earth that your mother has wrought is still sinful and wrong and vile because of those that walk upon it.
Your child is levelheaded. Justly so; you made him that way.
Moros traps them with twins of his more powerful fragments. You know that they'll persist, your sisters - the Fates - tell you so, but Moros seems to have fun with it anyway - where's the harm in that? That's what he likes to do the most, after all.
*
Indifference gives way to annoyance, annoyance gives way into anger.
Your brother stares at you with sad eyes and holds your hand when you two rest.
Don't fall into that pit, he chides, and you nod a vague promise, sinking back into sleep once again. When you wake up, he's gone, a lone black feather left in his wake.
*
You smell the scent of your brother drifting on the wind, you can almost see his scythe glinting in that pale yellow moonlight. He's still doing his job, after all this time -
You know that boy. Shinjiro, Takaya tells you, that boy with Castor standing by his side. The younger one reeks of Nemesis, your cousin once removed, and the faint scent of death is layered on the both of them. He is one of those who had taken Medea from your side (as you had planned; oh, such folly lies with that finicky god, Eros), and you settle back in your child's mind and watch as the tragedy plays out.
The swing of your brother's scythe has affected the both of them deeply. One is a killer, the other about to be. And he is so young to bear the weight of murder upon his shoulders, and he intends to relieve himself of it as soon as he can.
Good, you think. Let this festering world dwindle and let it rot.
Takaya, faithful one, cajoles the both of them, hoping that they see the truth that you have known since birth. Salvation in sweet death, in your brother's arms. Castor had been bound much like the same way you had been, but demigods have far less power that full ones, and the summoning had left him incomplete and restless and unhelpful.
The Kirijo Experiments had seen to that.
Your child aims his weapon at Castor's head, and demands to know the one who is similar to Medea. Nemesis, in her way of wishing divine retribution (and desperation, because the boy has just found out the crushing realisation that death is something that Shinjiro had accepted long ago, and now that comes from a silver bullet from Takaya's revolver and not through his own hands), lies and answers that it is him.
He wants death.
So he shall have it. Takaya fires again, and that foolish excuse for a human uses his body to shield him. The son takes death for his mother's host.
Foolish, miserable, human. Curiousity overwhelms you, and it channels into your medium, revolver still smoking in his hand. Why give up his life for another's? Foolish, but noble, and something that you've forgotten to feel a long time ago drifts across the back of your mind. Admiration.
Takaya runs, leaving Shinjiro and the rest of the new arrivals behind - and you can't linger to see if your brother is waiting to fetch him.
*
He's gone longer, and longer, these days. Mankind has grown complex enough to start killing each other in a larger scale, treating his fellowmen as nothing more than cattle to be slaughtered. The Trojan War is especially brutal, and in your waiting for your brother to return, you fall asleep once again.
When you wake up, that chap Odysseus had already gone home, but not him.
He returns, just as Aurora gives her reins over to her father, Helios, looking tired and bedraggled and lost. You rush out to meet him, arms taking his trembling form into your embrace as you both break down into tears.
Countless mortals had fallen by his scythe, he sobs. Those that he had watched over, those who had extended a warm greeting and a guiding hand had shunned him in fear. He's ignored this for the past millennia, but now, in this great war in their territory, he just can't -
He tells you about Sisyphus, and what he had done. You send Persephone nightmares for years, and Ares pleasant ones for the same period of time. You visit Sisyphus, once, in that dreaded part of Tartarus where the sinners suffer; and you ensure that he will never rest again when you suggest his punishment to Hades.
He tells you about Herakles, that pitiful excuse for a son that Zeus is so proud of, and how he prevented your brother from claiming Alcestis, of the house of Admetos. He had just been going about his work and this - ! This is unacceptable.
You know you can't touch Herakles now, not so openly; but when he's joined that band of adventurers they call the Argonauts, you strike. Not at him, but at that boy he is so fond of, and when your brother brings back to Tartarus that cupbearer's soul, you smile. Let that great hero know how it is to search and wait for that one boy that he loves so.
Years later, you tell one of your attendants to send just this one innocent dream to one of Deianeira's household - and you watch as the gossip mill runs and rumors set the house (and his body, so much later, when all is said and done) on fire.
Your brother looks at you once again, when he comes back, having just delivered Herakles to that palace of fools, Olympus. "Hypnos - "
"Shush," you tell him, and under the veil of sleep, he falls silent.
*
They are to defeat the twelfth Shadow today. After that, after everything - after a decade's worth of work -
You let Takaya fight; you protect him with as much power as the child's mind can possibly handle. You and Moros work together, even if for just a short time, as the siblings that you are. You know you are outnumbered against the Olympians, and Takaya realises this as the battle draws to a conclusion.
You don't care, you find out, because there is that one boy, that one with the velvet-blue hair, who harbors your brother's essence. You can feel it so strongly that you falter for a moment, when that boy stares straight at you with those blank grey eyes, like a slate, so identical to the ones that you manifest when you find the inclination to do so. In fact, in retrospect, that vessel (the Fool) bears a passing resemblance to your favoured body...
Takaya sets the cool metal of his revolver at his temple. If death won't come to him, then he will come to death.
You wonder how much of an influence you have really had on that child, because that is exactly what you've promised yourself, when your brother disappeared half a millennium ago.
And then Jin - Moros' child, host, vessel and friend, even - grabs at Takaya's wrist and saves him from suicide.
You can't linger once again, to watch as the Olympians wrap it all up together neatly. But you are satisfied, anyway, because when the clock strikes midnight, everything will fall into place.
*
Man declines steadily, you observe. Civilization rises and falls but those who build it become crueler and more barbaric in time. You sleep longer, at times, just to avoid those dark ages (not waking up for about two hundred years), and when you waken you find your brother next to you in bed with an arm slung around your waist and his breath fanning rhythmically into the nape of your neck.
He's becoming tired, you can easily see that. Gone are the days when he easily smiles, when his face is still unmarred by worry-wrinkles, when his palms were still soft and uncallused from that bright steel scythe. He comes home, sometimes, with a frown on his face and a refusal to speak for days, weeks, months, silently going about his work as always.
It is also around this time that you discover that the Reaper and your brother, two separate personalities, are merging more and more. You find him, one day, metal helm fastened tight and breathing so harshly that the earth trembles, longsword in hand, dripping in blood. What was once a recessive persona, called up only to deliver death to those who deserve a terrible one, is now so uncontrollable that your brother suffers because of it.
You rush to his aid, pressing your forehead against that cool metal helm (just as he did to you when you were but children, just as you do to him whenever he is the Reaper), and you wish with all your heart that he would calm down. He does, and this time, when he breaks down, there are no more tears left to cry with.
And yet, those filthy vermin dare to curse his name more.
You yearn for a way to solve this, to make everything better, and one night, your mother calls your brother and speaks to him in private.
This time, he flies back into Tartarus in a rage, screaming something about leaving. It's the first time in your entire existence that you truly panic, which is remarkable for someone who is well-known as the calmest god in the known universe.
"What are you saying?" you cry out, as you follow him out of your abode and into the middle of your poppy fields, swaying blood-red in the eternal moonlight of your side of Tartarus.
Thus he explains the Fall to you. You realise that it's not only you who notices your brother's sudden influx of work; your mother wants to end everything and start it all over. Which is the best idea you've heard in all time - but your brother shakes his head .
With that, you can feel your heart stop.
"The Fall won't happen unless I'm there with a physical manifestation," he says, back turned to you. "And I have no intention of letting that happen."
"The mortals deserve it!" You scream, the words clogging up in your throat, and you stamp some of your poppies to the ground in frustration. "They only hate you, even for all that respite that you offer! Let mother kill them and start anew!"
"No." That single word seems to carry around the entirety of Tartarus. "I'm leaving."
"You cannot - " You falter, because the mere thought is unthinkable. You've been inseparable since time immemorial, and he always comes back to you - " - You cannot possibly mean that, Thanatos."
"I do." Still he does not show his face. "I've made my decision."
"You cannot mean leaving me!"
With that you wish so sorely (and yet not) that you can take it back, but your brother's wings stiffen and his hands clench into fists.
"I'm sorry."
And in that moment, you realise, that you love him with all your heart, body, and soul (if you had one), way beyond what you've felt for any of your romances, way beyond how brothers should love each other, way beyond how your mother loves her own lover.
"But I love you," you say brokenly, dropping to your knees and feeling, for the first time, the sting of tears rolling down your cheeks.
"I know."
And you can do nothing but watch as he fades into the wind, turning back just as his face disappears, you never knowing what his last expression was.
*
You help silence those who stand in the way, when your child and Jin takes back Medea's bearer. She seems to have been brought back to her senses, but you can sense Eros already has her in his grip.
No matter. You will rectify that. At the right time, of course.
*
You never manifest your own body again, when your brother leaves. There are still people dying, across this putrid world, which means that he is still working - but he never shows his face again, and his trace is always too faint to follow.
That bastard.
Kindness to indifference, indifference to annoyance, annoyance to anger. And now, anger deepens into hatred, as you lounge in your abode and lose yourself in your poppies, your plants, and the pleasant haze that their essences bring.
And then, one day, Lachesis shakes you awake, unsmiling, silent. Nyarlathotep and Philemon had thrown their dice once again.
You don't give a damn, you say, turning over to fall asleep and most like sleep through the next five hundred years. But the Allotter murmurs something that sounds like 'the Fall' and you sit up immediately, only to find that she's no longer there.
You consult your mother, she of black hair and alabaster skin, but then you find out that what she once was is not the same now. She's grown tired, of that endless chanting that man does to summon her, and as a warning she creates a pocket of time and space with her essence populating it.
You think it's beautiful, when she shows it to you. Selene hangs her moon high and perfectly round, pale yellow moonlight shining upon blood and black coffins of those humans who are trapped. Those who have the barest opportunities of surviving the Fall are cut down right then and there, and it isn't before long before your mother will embrace this horrible world in her wings and breath into it new life.
The casualties don't matter, anyway.
*
You let Takaya pull the trigger on Hermes, to see this one death so close that you will have an opportunity to see your brother take away his vessel's last breath.
But then, Medea is still foolish Medea, even after all these years, and Eros' hold on Chidori still proves true. She dies breathing life into Junpei Iori, but there is no Reaper in sight. Nothing. Which means this is not death for the girl; somewhere in the world a part of her still lives.
Takaya doesn't know this, and you do not bother rectifying that. That shadow - that parody of Hermes - that Junpei controls strengthens with the life-energy Medea bestows unto him, but at this point, you know it doesn't matter. Because their leader, the boy with the blank eyes and endlessly-shifting psyche takes a minute step forward, and you can hear the Reaper roaring inside his head.
A little more time, you think.
Your man-child tenses as Jin gets hit with an elemental spell, and he pulls out his revolver, but the former calms him down and tells him not to forget his (your) mission. Takaya knows that there is no way that anyone can stop the Fall, so they leave, complacent.
*
You find a boy, guarded by two other waifs, each one bound so tightly to each other that they would rather die that let the others get hurt. He's small and emaciated with dirty blond hair, living on the streets on the detritus of human society, cornered and picked up by (bullies) an organised operation.
They feed him, along with almost a hundred of other young souls, vile, disgusting, and violations against nature. Things that directly interfere with his mind - and this is how you find him. Screaming for help, yelling in his head where nobody could hear him plead for his life or for his sanity. And then those Enhancers kick in, and they amplify his call for anything, anyone to save him - and you are drawn, because those pills are manufactured and passed through some arcane process that constitutes a crude summoning.
You are trapped. In this state of incorporeality, you realise that you are all too vulnerable -
Too late.
You are incarnated (incarcerated) as a blindfolded doll, attached to wings that pulse red whenever he summons you. You find out that Moros and Medea had been incarnated as well.
There are restraints on the chairs. Those who are here are not afraid to use them.
You learn to loathe the name Kirijo, in time. Loathing deepens into hatred, hatred festers into obsession, and you swear that you will burn out that family lineage when the time is right.
Years later, as your child sleeps under your wings, you realise that someone else had been summoned from an entirely different plane. Because you recognise that roar that shakes the foundation of the building where you are held hostage.
Takaya is inquisitive, along with his peers, and when they sneak up to where they think the explosion came from, you can feel your heart stop when you recognise that metal helm and those chains that dangle a foot from the summoning circle etched on the floor.
The Reaper - he is summoned as the Reaper and that is the worst possible state that your brother could be summoned in, but before you can lash out and call your brother's name, Takaya is tugged back by the collar and brought to another room, along with the others. You can't linger because of the connection between you and Takaya, and you can't scream when your brother's aura disappears altogether.
You analyse the situation, using all of the powers available to you to do so, calling on your mother's name (who is furious and missing her two children) and drawing on your own strength. It dramatically reduces the lifespan of everyone in the building, and it takes an extraordinary amount of power that would take years to recover, but the last thing you see before your own domain claims you is the acid-green night sky, Selene glowing brightly in her majesty. The magical backlash destroys your child's prison, and it destroys the Kirijo patriarch as well, he of the sinister smile and honeyed promises.
You summon the others - gods, deities, Olympians - at random, incarnating and imprisoning them as something like what you are now, because your pawns need to survive long enough to gather all the broken pieces that make up your brother.
Takaya becomes your piece de resistance. The child is charismatic, and he has no illusions about what the Kirijo group had done to him. Through your whispers in his ear he learns to develop a fatalistic attitude, one that would suit your needs the most. A pawn is not afraid to be sacrificed for his king.
You tell him about your mother's sweet repose, of the salvation that her sweeping hand will offer. Freedom from this parody of an existence that had been granted to him by the Kirijos - this interests him, but what interests him more is when you tell him that both his friends would be saved through the gentle swing of your brother's scythe. This time, Eros' chains work to your advantage, because Moros and Medea will now protect you with their lives.
You tell him that your existence is a blessing from her, proof of her existence and her love and her yearning for mankind to be saved.
(Lying is so easy, so natural, so simple.)
Ikutsuki is easy enough to convince, with a well-placed dream filled with treacherous promises of power and sweet whispers of deceit; the young research assistant is obsessed with the arcane. When the laboratories fall under the rage of the Reaper, he rebuilds it, and gathers within a contingent of children, each able to call upon one of the Olympians you've bound to this earth years earlier. He uses them, as you've implied, to find those fragments of your brother and piece them back together.
He thinks that he'll be the Prince. You know that Atropos will cut his string along with the great loom of humanity.
You don't care.
And so, with that, you wait.
*
The shadows finally gather and coalesce, and that familiar presence tugs at you.
You brush off an old skill and dreamwalk across these mortals, going from dream to dream by association, if only to see -
And you stumble upon that boy from earlier, the boy with the blank eyes, the boy who had harboured your brother after all this time. His dreams are layered and crystallised thinly, illusions of the ever-shifting personae in his mind. He had attracted most, if not all, of those gods you had summoned, and you draw back in horror when you realise what this boy truly is.
Philemon seems to want to win this bet so.
Takaya is more human than him, at the very least. You continue on, sifting through those dark cobwebs in the corner of this wildcard, (poor boy, born and molded and manipulated into his role) and you see something that makes your metaphorical heart shrivel up and wither away.
Your brother has manifested himself, as a seventeen-year-old human boy, and he's acting like he doesn't know that he is the god of Death, like he isn't your twin who left you. He's charming and sweet and very popular among the ladies, and he's taken quite a shine to the wildcard whose dreams you're now violating.
Something bubbles up, hot and viscous in your chest, and you flee.
Some nights later, you realise what that feeling is. It's one of your siblings, that sharp-tongued woman with a cruel laugh: Jealousy.
*
You sleep in the prison of your child's mind, come when you are called, watch events when you fancy them. Takaya moves of his own accord, and more and more people are drawn to his way of thinking. You know that this won't be enough, but you know that in the immediate future, the seeds that he had planted will bear fruition.
Medea - Chidori - is refreshing in her apathy. Moros, no, Jin, keeps Takaya tethered to the ground and is so mischievous that he rivals Loki. He's usually the one who brings laughter into their daily lives, and for that, the two other children are grateful.
One day, when the moon is a mere crescent in the night sky, Jin comes running, bearing the news and rumors of another group like them, like Strega.
From the dark corners of Takaya's mind, you feel yourself smile, as the final act of this great comedy begins.
*
It's ironic, you think, that the mechanical maiden that Pallas Athena protects would be the one who restores your brother's sense.
Takaya is all too enthusiastic to meet the one whom you tell him will usher in the Fall. He's too trusting, right now, and it's easy for you to take over his consciousness and lock it down, just for this one meeting.
Moonlight Bridge, the mortals call this place, and in your mother's spell the concrete is splattered with blood and lined with coffins. You pick your way across these impediments, Takaya's lithe frame coming in handy as you walk quietly through the night.
He's perched on the edge of a railing.
You recognise that yellow scarf; you've seen your brother wear it when scarves were first created by those filthy creatures he loved (loves) so much. Your footsteps don't echo through the silent night, but he looks back over his shoulder with an expression of surprise etched clearly on his face.
You hold out your arms, joy surging through what passes for your heart; he is here and he is whole and nothing will ever separate you again.
But Thanatos doesn't move, and he just stands there, surprise dissolving into apprehension, apprehension dissolving into horror.
"Hypnos," he asks, anguished. "What have you done?"
*
Endnotes: We assume Shadows come from Nyx. Also, we assume that Hypnos is
