✶

It's a warm spring night. And contrary to what the fates think their strings tell them — this is not how the end of the world begins. There are crickets heard in the brush of the woodlands behind the convent. It's almost peaceful except for the crickets, the spring heat, and the last cries of a mother followed by the first cries of her child. Nothing else. This is not how the end of the world begins.

The scene is the end of something, however.

Ma-Eum labored for hours. The sisters had her in their most secluded room, far from the ears of the outside world. The Mother Superior told her they do not wish to hear the outcome. It was insulting enough to the other nuns that they had to bear the obvious sight of Ma-Eum and her sin for nine months. But Ma-Eum, after hours of labor, holding her daughter, does not consider any of this wrong.

Ma-Eum holds the baby girl to her chest and she wonders, remembering who helped create this little thing, if her daughter can already tell she'll never get to know her mother beyond a ghostly form...

My choice, Ma-Eum reminds herself, Mine.

Hades had agonized over it. He knew her end. Ma-Eum would die in an empty room with her heart in her hands. But it had been too late for her to choose another way then; she had a child growing in her and the choice to keep her was the second choice she had been given in her life. She hadn't chosen to be left in a convent. She hadn't chosen to bring the monsters—creatures the sisters rationalized as demonic and tangled to someone as sacrilegious as Ma-Eum—to the church's doorstep. For as long as she can remember, she never had a choice.

She had, however, chosen to love the chthonic man regardless of whether or not she'd get to see the proof of that love in the form of the child they made — her second choice.

✶

"This is my choice," Ma-Eum said to Hades the night she found out. He hadn't wanted to hear it, to allow it, but she persisted. She all but begged, "Mine. At least pretend to respect me enough to allow me this much."

"You will die for this choice."

A beat. "I know I will."

"I can't interfere with your fate again."

"No, no, not again."

"It means you will leave me."

"... I know that, too."

"No," Hades insisted, "You don't know it all."

"Is dying meant to be the end of everything? Everywhere? For all time?" Ma-Eum shook her head, "I don't believe that. You won't scare me with my own death. It's mine. I should be allowed enough grace to accept whatever comes with it."

"There are worse things than death, my heart. Sometimes it's more terrible for the people you leave behind," He tried again, careful not to reveal the whole truth. Prophecy. The fate they will curse this child with if she truly chooses to birth it. "You'd not only leave me... you'd leave behind our child to a world that sees chthonic beings as something to be feared." He held her hand tightly, "And they will always fear her."

Ma-Eum has been feared her whole life. He'd known that and played into those insecurities then, she was no fool, "Don't say that. You can't know that..."

"No one knows more than I."

"But that is — that's not right. They don't get to decide what she'll be before she's even born. How can they know that?"

"It's not our decision."

"Whose then?"

He said nothing.

Ma-Eum spoke again, "... Fate?"

Hades hesitated and in grief, had only nodded.

"That is too cruel," Ma-Eum sighed.

"My love," Hades said, "There is no kindness for us anymore."

✶

In the end, it had been Ma-Eum's choice to be where she is now, that much is certain. She knew of a few good ways to end this life. She believed it was her fate to go in the place of a daughter who'd help save the world one day.

She never thought — this broke oaths, her choice made the River Styx tremble — she never journeyed to Camp Half Blood. There was no scripture for this story, this path, this plight. She never traded her own holy room in the convent for a cabin bed without privacy filled with others who's godly parents were considered too minor to have the honor of housing their own children. She didn't care to know that part of herself, that part her immortal sisters urged her to take—don't look back! ("It's too late to tell Ma-Eum's story, far too late and it's much too sad...") Maybe she would've been oblivious to it forevermore—but the monsters came. The monsters always come.

"Foolish girl," A man suddenly lamented.

"You..."

Thanatos took a cautious step into the room.

He was never truly here for this part. The weight of being a psychopomp was usually left to Hermes or his children. Lord Hades has demanded it of Thanatos this time, though, to go to the mortal realm and bring back his child. It was news to him the way it seemingly hadn't been to his own mother—Nyx urged him to follow Hades' order, she never said how, but Thanatos had a name in his mind:

          Kang Ma-Eum. Sister Soledad. Age twenty-four.
          Daughter of Hecate.

          Hecate?

          Thanatos stiffened.
Gods.

Ma-Eum spoke again, "A daughter of Hades born into the world this night," She said it like it was pitiful, eyeing the squirming bundle. "Do you know what occurs on this day? St. Marks Eve for some... the Underworld uses it as the procession of the dead, I'm told." She smiled like a thought came to her mind. "I'm sure he'll make her help with it when she's old enough. It's not beneath her..."

"Are you... hurting?" Thanatos asked.

Ma-Eum laughed. It sounded more like a breathless, surprised little gasp, "I'm always hurting."

"Good." He replied. Thanatos didn't feel the shame that someone else might have felt in saying that. This was the woman who had been enough to tempt Hades himself. To curse a innocent child to a fate so horrid for a brief love affair, Death himself must stiffen. Kang Ma-Eum, Sister Soledad or whatever her name may be could stand to hurt for a few more moments. "Means you are still here."

"I suppose I deserve it," Ma-Eum said.

He turned to look out the window. "It matters not to me."

Thanatos heard heard the young woman behind him, singing softly to herself, rocking the baby in her arms: "This is how you hold your child. This is how you seal her fate." Her laughter, however hysterical, was thick with tears. "Why didn't he—" She gasped in pain, the baby letting out a small cry then as well, "Why didn't he come himself?"

Death did not know either.

"The true reason."

"Fate, if you'll believe it."

"He should have come," Ma-Eum seemed panicked. "He should be here... I don't know if I can keep—" Her face contorted in pain once more. She doubled over, still holding the baby to her.

The brick walls of the convent room groaned and creaked as if they were shifting. Time felt too slow. Ma-Eum glowed, and for a brief, terrible moment, Thanatos thought he could see through her right to where the golden light was shining out from under her skin. Then the light faded and the walls were assembled back into their original place. Ma-Eum was dim and dying once more.

Thanatos' mind roared with interest. "What was that?"

"It won't be long now," Ma-Eum said, her chest heaving up and down with each breath, "I won't be able to hold myself together any longer."

"You... "

"Hades should have been here—"

"What have you done?"

Finally, Ma-Eum looked at him. "I wanted to live."

"Will it be worth it now?"

"No," Ma-Eum confessed, "Perhaps not." She looked down at her baby and hummed a tune that made the skin on Thanatos' arm prickle with discomfort at the grief in it. "Hades will love her, won't he? He has to... look at her. How could he not love her?"

Thanatos sees the shadows around the child. "Would it matter?"

"Yes."

"Why? You know the end."

"I did not know," Ma-Eum snapped. Her features were lovely and lethal. They softened again, "I didn't know how it would end... he couldn't tell me. I only knew someone would go and I was fine with it being me. Hecate's daughter of all people—the girl who birthed a savior—but I didn't know..." She cut herself off then. "He has to love her."

"But would it matter—"

"It will always matter."

Thanatos didn't think now was a good time to tell this mother that her child was a finite thing in his lords infinite life. It would be terribly easy to love her, her little face, her one gold eye and the black sclera that reminds him of—Stop. It would also be very hard for the House of Hades to love this child the way mortal children are supposed to be loved. No, Thanatos thought to himself, now was definitely not the time to tell her.

"Do you still want to live?"

"Am I selfish to say no?"

"You are selfish nonetheless."

"I think," Ma-Eum said, "You're right."

"Of course I am. I'm not here to spew kindness for you," He said plainly, stepping towards her. "I'm here to take you along to your judgement. That's his kindness, the only one he can offer you now."

Again, the walls felt like they were shifting and Ma-Eum's skin start to glow as if there were surges of light inside her begging to be released. The floors shuddered under his feat and the wind howled against the stone on the walls outside of this lonely room. Something was not right.

Ma-Eum went very still. "Oh, God," She whispered. "She's coming."

"She?"

"I couldn't hide us when I was—" She looked down at her baby and shook her head sadly, "I can't let her take my daughter. I should not have promised what I did... it's no use now. She's coming."

Thanatos knew then.

"You summoned your mother," He gestured to the walls and her glowing skin, "You wanted to live but you repressed your magic for all these to keep your mother and sisters away. Yet, despite that, you called on her."

"I made a choice..."

"You finally let your magic in."

"And now, she's making sure it is going killing me."

"You were meant to die ten months ago." He looked at the sleeping newborn, and felt something akin to sadness, "Instead you cowered from your end and you had a child, going against your fate."

"Cowered..." Ma-Eum smiled. "I am not afraid to die."

"What did she promise you?"

Ma-Eum didn't meet his eyes.

He pressed, the consequences already shifting in flashes through his mind like a terrible vision, "Are you sorry for what you started?"

She looked at him. "Would it matter if I was?"

Thanatos had no answer.

"This is how," Ma-Eum whispered out, "You hold your child." She made a soft, sad noise. Her hands shook but she still held her daughter firmly. The baby was sound asleep now. "This is how you end your world..."

Maybe Death will tell Hades how Ma-Eum was scared in her last moments. She would rather have him say she was angry. Because she was so very, angry.

Thanatos narrowed his eyes. "You offered your daughter to your mother. The child as her property — just for your life."

"She won't have you," Ma-Eum spoke to her baby, shakily rising from her bed to set the girl in a small cot. "You must not forgive me for the life I've left you. Never forgive me. I am to blame. Your foolish, selfish mother... I am so sorry," She leaned down and kissed her tiny head, speaking low in her own language. "Sae-Bom. Eat lots of good things and stay healthy. My pretty daughter... hold onto your heart."

Ma-Eum let the tears fall down, but her voice did not waver. She was shivering. She whispered some more, in Greek this time, raising her hands over the child and touched the walls. Thanatos watched the walls shake subtly again as Ma-Eum chanted ancient magic to keep this convent as safe as she could for the baby. The glow in Ma-Eum kept growing and the sweat began beading on her sickly forehead. He thinks, faintly, this woman is still a sight to behold even when she's reaching out for Death's hand to walk the long way they had to go.

"Even if your mother and your sisters are unable to come into the holy grounds here," Thanatos said, just to tell her, "You cannot keep the child safe from everything. She is only a half chthonic. You're still leaving her alone."

"I've given her what I can."

"The monsters will still come."

Ma-Eum looked back at the child. "Monsters always come."

He knew Ley Lines on this Church only meant more than the usual visit of monsters. More energy for this Chthonic child. More hardships. More awfulness for her to endure.

She clutched herself as her knees buckled. Her internal glow kept growing more and more. "She is almost here." Ma-Eum reached out, on her knees, for Death himself. Her hand shook as she held it up for him. "I'm ready. I won't fight it this time."

The baby pierced the silence with a wail.

Ma-Eum turned, ready to go to her.

Thanatos grabbed her arm.

"Don't." He told her. "It's a kindness."

"Sweet Death," She called him. Tilting her head as if she spoke to a child, far softer than she spoke to her own, Ma-Eum, in heavy grief, said, "Didn't your lord tell you?" She turned to look at her baby. The moonlight spilling from the window had caught the tears that streamed down her cheeks as her bottom lip quivered. "There is no kindness anymore."

In an empty convent room, Death gave Kang Ma-Eun the first kindness in her lifetime.

( Reminder: This was not how the end of the world starts...)

✶

In the end when she came for a child, there was nothing.

All that was found?

                      Shadows.

authors note: rubs hands together cuz i wrote a prologue that i'm not vaguely disappointed of haha / also welcome to ASYSTOLE!! i have crawled out of my grief stricken slump and found wow! pain is very constructive! and. i found that death ? death is so finite. grief however, is very infinite. imo — it will never end. this story is just gonna center around that i fear