[i]"Re...da...na..."[/i]

Once again you lay vanquished upon the earth, staring up at the face of Hades. 

This time is different. He has not come to take you. He has not dressed in funeral black and murderer's crimson, and he wears a gentle smile as though you remind him of someone. You are tired but there is nowhere left to go; the future stretches out ahead as a place of silence and softness and sleep, unnumbered days spooling out with no beginning and end. The burden is lifted and cast aside - the certainty of your failure is undone. He did not believe in you. Day by day, week by week, year by year, you proved him wrong.

So certain was his doubt that other ships have set sail even as your voyage continued. Each of them failed, stormwracked, lost. He thought you were lost too when you vanished into the Rift, gone where all his greatest hopes came to die. He never thought to hear from you again.

He embraces you. It feels like a collapse; an intention to simply lift you to your feet, but the physicality of it cracks a shell grown brittle with time. You feel his tears upon scars where once you felt blood. You feel hearts beat, no longer just yours. 

"Thank you," he said. Then the God of the Dead simply cries. 

*

The Gods gather in the clouds above. Zeus comes, white toga over onyx-black skin, hair like a thunderstorm at midnight, with a softened Hera holding her arm with a gentleness of hard-won trust. Poseidon comes, impossible colours crammed into a weathered cloak, the smallest possible condensation of humanity. Mars comes, bold as brass, and Minerva slinks with the stench of petroleum. Hestia was here already, hoodie raised, and Dionysus scratches patterns in the mirror even still. Artemis sits still, fingers flexing against leather gloves a size too small, and Apollo smiles at the one sun left to him. Only Aphrodite and Demeter are missing - though what could have driven them away from this soft little world is a mystery for the ages.

They shine down, present and distant. Nobody on this world asks them questions, and so they do not speak. Their shrines still gleam on mountain tops and in dark places; their statues lie forgotten and untended. The swords of divine power are still all about, gently rusting.

And then the strangest thing of all.

They bow their heads and give their blessings.

The clouds gather still. Wedding bells ring out. The Earth passes another day without earthquake or meteor or war. The mad find the words they need and all the virtue humanity needs falls freely from the skies. With no prayer or acknowledgement from the people below, the Gods give; they give as freely as they always have, as freely as the soil and water and sun always has. Though no bargains are struck, the world turns. Though no sacrifices are made, the world turns. Though no coin flows, the world turns.

One by one they step down from their cloud in the evening sunlight, each of the gods holding a candle. They pass in a procession, one after another, pausing as they pass the heroes who crossed the galaxy. A last chance for prayers, questions and farewells in the face of a passing eternity.