Chapter Text
The shade looked at the piece of parchment and grumbled. Around them, other, identical shades worked at identical desks. There was barely any sound in the room, except for whispers and rustle of papers. Achilles and Zagreus were the only petitioners there.
Achilles shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Zagreus would not even dream that such a thing was possible, but here they were - the legendary warrior nervously awaiting the decision of a simple shade.
No one could blame Achilles for being nervous - the parchment was the key to seeing Patroclus again and apparently something was wrong with it. If Zagreus had his way he would just take Achilles to Elysium but his father insisted that proper procedures must be followed. It was the subject of their first argument since Persephone’s return. Zagreus was ready for a long and arduous fight. He prepared a speech or two, about how Achilles served Hades for years and did not deserve to be made to jump through bureaucratic hoops.
The argument ended with one, devastating blow.
“You should be quite familiar with what happens to anyone who travels through the Underworld unauthorized. Should I disable our security and flood the Surface with restless spirits? So that Achilles can skip some paperwork? All he needs to do is file a petition for a pass, once it’s signed he can get a token and travel freely to Elysium. Orpheus managed to do it, surely the great Achilles can do it too!”
Once Zagreus told him that filling for a pass cannot be avoided, Achilles strangely deflated. Zagreus realized that, when it came to pen and paper, Orpheus might have been the more competent of the two. It took Achilles weeks to get the right papers.
Nevertheless, now they were finally almost at the end. Achilles had obtained his pass and all that remained was to get a token. Zagreus offered to come with him, so that he could escort Achilles to the glade where Patroclus waited for them.
Only there was apparently something wrong with the damn papers.
“Hmmmm…” the shade crackled, “You’re missing a signature.”
“It’s signed by Lord Hades himself,” said Achilles nervously.
“Yes, but it shouldn't have even come across Lord Hades’ desk without a signature from the director,” the shade looked up at them squinting, “I’ll be charitable and assume that this was an honest mistake, so I won’t make you start the entire process again. Just get the missing signature and bring it here again.”
“Lord Hades is a higher authority than your office director! His signature should be enough!” exclaimed Achilles. More shades looked up, hearing the commotion. Many grumbled, as if offended by the noise.
“You need two signatures. You have one. Go get the other one and then come back.”
Zagreus smiled his best I’m-your-friend-and-also-the-son-of-your-boss smile. He casually leaned on the desk.
“Isn’t the point of the procedure to obtain my lord father’s assent? I can personally assure you that we have that,” said Zagreus, putting his hand on his belt, where he kept a bottle of Ambrosia, “I’m sure we can come to an understanding.”
“Ha!” the shade crackled, with as much satisfaction, as a shade could have, “I knew you two were up to no good! Trying to go over the director’s head! But we are all loyal here. Leave now and don’t come back without a properly signed pass!”
The other shades murmured among each other. Zagreus somehow doubted they were complementing his good looks. He heard a few murderers and barbarians. That was not fair - he was destroying his fair share of shades during every escape/security inspection, but one could hardly murder occupants of the Underworld.
“Let’s go,” said Achilles and turned abruptly. Zagreus hurried to follow, grabbing the damned parchment from the shade’s desk.
“We will be back!” Zagreus screamed before the doors closed and left them in an empty corridor.
“Do you know where we can find that director?” asked Zagreus.
“We’re not going to him,” Achilles said and started to walk away in the direction of the exit from the Underworld Offices.
“What do you mean, we’re not going? You’d let something like this stop you from seeing Patroclus?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Achilles growled and did not stop walking away nor did he look back.
“Then explain it to me!” Zagreus took a few quick steps to get before Achilles and bar his way forward, “Don’t you think you at least owe me this after all I did to reunite you two?”
Achilles stayed silent for a while, but at least he did not continue to rush out of the office.
“That man wronged me and, in my anger, I have wronged him. If I go to ask for his signature there are two possible outcomes - he spits in my face or I will owe a favour to a man whom I killed and whose body I dragged behind my chariot. The former outcome is of course far more likely,” Achilles spoke quietly. If he thought that the confession would force Zagreus to stop questioning his decisions, he was wrong.
“And only one of these outcomes leads to you seeing Patroclus again. When he told you to risk it all, didn’t it also mean risking your pride?”
Achilles did not answer, just started walking again, forcing Zagreus to step aside.
Looking at his friend's back Zagreus wondered how he would tell Patroclus the news.
***
Zagreus died five times before Achilles came to him again (and when did he start measuring time by counting his deaths?).
Achilles’ hair was in disarray, his coat rumpled. He looked like he had not slept since their last meeting. Yet in his eyes there was a new glint of determination.
“Will you come with me?”
Zagreus grinned and rose from his seat in the lounge.
“You know the answer, sir.”
“I still think it is hopeless, but you were right. For Patroclus I need to try.”
“You’ll have to do something with your hair before we go see Patroclus.”
The first obstacle on their journey came in the form of the very first shade they encountered in the Underworld Offices. They asked for directions to the director’s office, but it insisted that they needed to schedule a meeting with a secretary first. The secretary stubbornly demanded Achilles’ personnel file to even consider scheduling a meeting and sent them to the archives. The head archivist was delighted to inform them that the file was actually held in the department of Spirit Resources, together with Achilles’ contract.
The Spirit Resources were, of course, on the opposite side of the Underworld Offices. Nevertheless, the directions the archivist gave them seemed to be long enough to loop around the offices at least two times.
Wherever they went the shades grumbled unfriendly. Zagreus started to realize that, whoever the director was, he had the loyalty of every one of his employees.
Finally, by complete accident, they reached their destination. At the end of a corridor there was a door standing slightly ajar with a plaque proclaiming “DIRECTOR OF THE UNDERWORLD OFFICES”.
Zagreus could hear voices coming from the room behind it. There was something familiar about it, but he could not place it.
“We can only take so many passengers that cannot pay. Charon does not work for free. If they are tired of waiting, remind them that they should be glad they made it to that side of the Styx. I can personally assure them, being a shade trapped on the Surface is a much worse fate.”
Achilles winced.
“Maybe we should really schedule a meeting. I don’t think it’s the best moment…”
“And waiting won’t make it better,” said Zagreus and pushed Achilles forward. They both stumbled through the door.
The office they entered was cluttered, all available surfaces filled with boxes and stacks of paper. Despite that it was not messy - even the most precariously high piles of parchment straight, every box labeled and scrolls laying on the overflowing shelves in neat rows.
The man sitting behind a massive desk frowned at them. To Zagreus he looked more like a statue than a real, once-living man. The cape he wore draped gracefully over muscular arms. A braid, not a hair out of place, fell across his shoulder. His armour was polished, gleaming even in the dim light of the few candles lit around the office.
“I don't believe we had a meeting scheduled?” the man asked.
A shade, with whom the director talked just a moment ago, rose from its chair.
“Leave! You have no right to be here! Leave!” the shade hissed angrily. Zagreus recognized it as the secretary who sent them on their wild chase for Achilles personnel file.
“Whatever their business is, I believe we should talk about it without an audience. Go, my friend, you have your tasks,” the director spoke softly.
The shade was visibly displeased, but the order did not need to be repeated. When it left the man tensed, as if preparing himself to run.
“Is Lord Hades displeased with my work? Is that why he sent you?”
“Actually we came to get this signed,” Zagreus said and slowly put the parchment on the desk, his every move watched. The director eyed the paper suspiciously.
“It's a pass to Elysium,” added Zagreus and that finally made the man pick it up but he did not look at it.
“You're going to see Patroclus there?” asked the director and there was so much longing in his voice that Zagreus wondered if the three of them were involved in some kind of a love triangle.
“I am, if you sign it. So could you do it? Please,” Achilles said, the last word thrown in quickly, as if it escaped his mouth against his will.
There was a moment of silence as the director started to read the parchment.
“So…” Zagreus spoke up when he couldn't bear the silence any longer, “You know I just realized I don't know your name.”
“Hector,” the man said, not looking up from the pass.
That gave Zagreus pause.
“Hector… the Director?”
“Trust me there is no joke you can make that I haven't heard before,” Hector gestured at the paper, “This is already signed by Lord Hades?”
Achilles shrugged uncomfortably.
“Can you blame me for trying to avoid this meeting?”
“No, I suppose I cannot,” he said and put the pass back on his desk. Zagreus held his breath.
In a few strokes of a pen Achilles’ greatest wish has been granted. He picked up the parchment as if it was fragile, disbelief clear on his face.
Zagreus beamed.
“Thank you so much! If you ever need anything…”
“I'm just doing my job. There was nothing wrong with the pass so it was my duty to sign it.”
“I'm sure it could've been lost in one of those piles of paper for all eternity. So Zagreus is right. I owe you my gratitude,” Achilles said, holding on to the precious parchment with both hands. Hector looked away and busied himself with some other papers laying on his desk.
“Now, I have to go back to work, if you don’t mind.”
Zagreus took it for the final dismissal it was, and turned to leave the room, ready to tease Achilles as soon as the doors would close behind them. It was not as hard as Achilles’ dramatics suggested it would be. Zagreus was also determined to show Hector his gratitude, even if he would have to force the director to accept it.
“Actually…” Hector spoke up just as Zagreus was about to push the door, “Did you… Did you mean that? You would grant me a favour?”
“Yes,” said Achilles. The two warriors simply looked at each other for a moment, then Hector turned to Zagreus, apparently feeling more comfortable addressing him instead of his old enemy.
“You'll be going to Elysium soon?”
“As soon as we can get that token.”
Hector fidgeted with the end of his braid for a moment then rose from his chair.
“Could you take something to Elysium? It would mean a lot to me to have it delivered.”
“Of course,” Zagreus said smiling. Hector hesitated for a moment then turned to a stack of boxes behind him. He grabbed one labeled “TOYS, WOOD” and put it on his desk.
Zagreus came closer to the desk to peer into the now opened box. Achilles stayed where he was, near the door.
The box was filled with wooden animals, each carved with meticulous detail. Horses, bulls, dogs, birds, even a goat or two.
“Is it a gift for someone?” asked Zagreus.
“For my son,” Hector said, picking through the contents of the box. The perfectly collected, statue-like director was gone, replaced by a nervous father.
“I didn’t know you had a son,” Achilles said so quietly that Zagreus was not sure if Hector heard him. If he did, he gave no sign of it, holding up a figure after a figure and discarding each one back to the box. Zagreus also picked one up and frowned. It was a dog, sitting attentively with pointed ears. Around its neck was a collar made of a strip of leather.
“I carve them during meetings. Only the less important ones, of course,” Hector explained looking at the dog, “But I don’t really have anyone to deliver them to Elysium so they just lay in boxes and gather dust.”
“I think I had one just like it… only it had three heads of course.”
“Oh yes, I gave it to you. Lord Hades used to bring you to my office sometimes when you were a child.”
With sudden clarity Zagreus remembered the nice, sad man who let him build forts with boxes and sang him lullabies sometimes. He remembered being so happy with his wooden Cerberus because father would not let him sleep with the real one. He also remembered crying when he was told that he could no longer visit the man.
“I think you’re just making him sadder, Zagreus. It will be best if we let him focus on his work.”
“But why?” whined young Zagreus clutching at his wooden dog.
“Because you’re starting to grow up and his son will never do that.”
“Why?” asked Zagreus again but Hades’ patience for his questions had run out at that point. Not long after that Achilles became his teacher and the wooden dog was replaced with a wooden sword.
“Are there many toys in Elysium?” asked Hector, forcing Zagreus to focus back on the present, “Maybe it is foolish to want to give Astyanax another toy, if he already has a lot of them?”
“I can’t say I’ve seen a toy there. It’s just full of trees, waterfalls and meadows. And I’m sure he will be happy to get a gift from his father, no matter how many toys he has.”
“But which one to choose…” murmured Hector, holding a bull in one hand and a horse in another. Both were beautiful. The bull was carved in the moment before a charge, powerful muscles bunching on its back. The horse was in full gallop, a long mane blowing in the nonexistent wind. Before Zagreus managed to say that it was no trouble to take both figures, or even the entire box, Hector had thrown away the bull. It landed in the box with a dull thud.
Zagreus put the dog figure down and accepted the horse.
“Is your son the reason why you work here?” Achilles asked suddenly. Zagreus didn’t notice him coming closer. Apparently Hector also didn’t because the question made him flinch a little.
“It would explain why you are here. I expected you to be brought to Elysium as soon as your funeral pyre stopped smoking.”
“Such things are not spoken of openly, as you must know.”
“And you must know that I have a similar contract…”
“Maybe we can help you!” exclaimed Zagreus, “I had Achilles’ contract altered so that he can visit Patrocus, why not yours as well?”
“No! My contract is fine, I do not wish to change anything. Please just deliver that horse to Astyanax, nothing more.”
“He will have it soon. I’m sure he will love it,” Zagreus chose his word carefully, dropping the subject of the contract for now but not promising to leave it be. He had already decided that something had to be done about it and soon - he could not stand aside when a parent was separated from their child. There was no time like the present.
“Thank you. Now please excuse me, but I truly need to get back to my work,” said Hector and straightened. With a flick of his wrist he fixed his cape, so that again it draped perfectly around his shoulders. There was no sign of the vulnerability he has shown before, the statue of a hero was back.