“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know if it is the same at all. If, if…”

A thousand pardons, Lord Hades. Please, he begs your patience. Let him collect himself. Let him screw his eyes shut against the searing vision of Lethe. Just minutes ago, he was whole. It’s not something you can keep looking at if you’ve got to keep moving forward. And he’s got to. He’s [i]got[/i] to. But the river is so wide, and he’s never felt so small. If he stares too long, the idea of it will fill him past bursting. What was he saying? Grab onto the thought. Hold onto it for dear life, and don’t be swept away, silly sheep.

“If I go now, I go alone. If I am back here in a few week’s time, then, that’s a few week’s time. That’s at least time enough to talk to Vasilia. With time to spare. Who knows what else we might do? Then, when we Reach the rift, [i]we[/i] will have reached the Rift.”

He still can’t look. But he turns to where he remembers Hades standing, all the same.

“That has to be enough to make it different, right?”

************************************************

Vasilia runs the rich, vibrant blue through her hands. Her fingers speak to softness, but had she been listening when they were just a guest’s robes? Blue shouldn’t look so good on her. “Thank you, but. I don’t wear an honor higher than Captain anymore. Though not even that, these days. But if we’re talking in the old days...”

“I had triumph. Oh, I had more triumph than anyone could believe. I mentioned the inherent advantage of the Glaive? The style at the time drew heavy inspiration from our Plovers; hulking walls of armor, slamming into each other until one of them yielded. Then there was me. Armored only enough to prevent serious injury, leaping circles around my enemies, and piercing any weakness with laser-accuracy. I practically revolutionized single combat overnight. To the crowds, I was more than just a new face, I was [i]their[/i] face. I could speak to the common citizen far more than any of the more sheltered elite that I regularly tore apart. I spoke to a future they longed for. Not to mention I was a [i]fiend[/i] in the ring. Not one opponent faced me that didn’t have some button I could push, some weakness I could exploit in delightfully entertaining - and effective - fashion. ‘Sensation’ would be putting it lightly. My name was on everyone’s lips, that first Olympics. I earned my seat, and then some.”

“Alethea was not so lucky. Her family bet everything they could afford - and then some they couldn’t - on her debut, and she bombed out completely. But my star was rising so rapidly, I managed to catch them on my ascent. Her family came under my house’s protection and care, and I took Alethea on to manage my affairs. Of which I had [i]considerably[/i] more than I did a few weeks prior. Have you ever found the stakes for sleeping late turn into a matter of life or death overnight? Honestly, I think I would have been swallowed up alive without her. I...well, I hardly thanked her enough at the time, but she managed me just as often as my business. She could do that, you know. Say things that only a lifelong friend could get away with, when I needed to hear it. And Clarissa...”

Her hand already rests on an apple. To hold, to contemplate, to toss in the air, to stare long into while judging all the various ways that one might actually eat the thing, to take long, savoring bites. She draws her hand back. And pushes the plate away.

“Ah, well, she won her share of medals too, of course. She was, she was there, too.” The words disgust her as soon as she hears them. “No, no, that’s all wrong. Ugh, honestly, why do stories have to lay things out with words? As if everything can be so neatly sorted out?!”

The Furnace Knight offers no wisdom. Only patience. Patience long enough for the quiet to arrange her thoughts, and lay her ears low.

“My apologies for my...outburst, sir Knight. This section is...difficult. To explain. Difficult to explain. Alethea had her hands full managing my estate. We only really saw each other on business, in those days. Meanwhile, Clarissa and I both attended the Senate, exhibition matches between the Games, public events, speeches, training together...sometimes quite late at night, even…” Her breath came shaking. A hole in her heart throbs. “We were young. We were all we’d ever known. We clicked [i]so well.[/i] We each kept waiting for the other to stop pushing, and, the next day, we would be back to preparing speeches as if nothing had happened. She never said anything. I never said anything. Then we’d have a late night attending the theater and it was all over again. And again. And again, again. Never complaining, yet never remarking long on it, and neither of us giving the other the opening to change it. Gods, what, what idiotic little messes we were.”

Her knuckles clenched white against fistfulls of blue.

“I suppose, no one ever taught us how important it was to put things down in those troublesome, blasted words. For all I knew their power. Perhaps [i]because[/i] I knew their power. Perhaps, I was just a young coward, coming into their fear. If all you’ve ever done is win, how terrible the thought of losing...”