Alexa wanders from Cerberus to Cerberus, meeting each of their eyes in turn. Civilization after civilization ends in their eyes, and it dawns on her that she doesn't recognize most of them. A hundred guttering candleflames, a thousand bygone styles, all remembered here and nowhere else.

Humanity seeded the cosmos. Their hands touch every planet, their servitors litter every continent.

How many times over, she wonders? How many empires? How long since humanity fled Gaia for safer waters?

And yet…

"I don't think you're right," she says, finally.

She continues to stare at each set of demises in turn, each set of canine eyes, but now with purpose. Searching.

"Or. Hmm. 

"You're right that everything [i]ends[/i] here. Civilizations end. Empires are overthrown. Even the greatest buildings end in decay and ruin. Nothing lasts, remember that you will die, and so on. Hades collects the bounties, and the universe moves on.

"But that doesn't make it its purpose.

"An artist writes a symphony. They die, and in time, all manuscripts decay and are lost. None recall their work but the dead. Was it written to decorate Hades' realm, or is that simply the end result?

"A couple love each other. They share their time, make memories. Travel. Build families, touch lives. In time, one and then both die. Was their love nothing more than a monument for Hades?

"Yes, things end. We all end up here, in the afterlife. Hades collects his due of all. And maybe you're even right of empires and kingships and power.

"But small scale? On the personal level? That doesn't rob the things we do of their meaning. There's worth in building, even if it falls. There's value in loving, even if the relationship ends. There's joy in living, even when we die."