You're family, aren't you?

War preparations in full swing

Hades wanted to curse himself for his foolishness. Maybe, just this once, his idiotic baby brother had been onto something when he restricted gods from interacting with half-bloods. The last time he had been this distracted was before he had taken his Persephone into the Underworld, which happened good several millennia ago. Now another Persephone and Niccolo were messing with his head, and he hated it.

“I will murder your brat if she doesn’t manage to do that herself, Poseidon!” Hades growled at his younger brother through the Iris Message. “Do you have any idea how much mess she managed to create with her latest stunt?!”

“At least you’re not her father!” Poseidon retorted hotly, white and grey locks floating around his face. “It was pure coincidence that Delphin had been in the area, so I heard she landed on Ogygia immediately!”

Hades pinched the bridge of his nose. “That would explain why Bianca and Nico cannot reach her via shadow-travel.” He didn’t want to admit it out loud, but he had been worried to death Sephie had been snatched once again and taken by the Titan forces to Mount Othrys to finish what their Father had started months prior.

He didn’t often think about the mangled mess of Sephie’s soul-body connection he and Apollo patched together. It was stable now, after all. However, Hades held no illusions about Kronos’ intentions. There were very few reasons why would you try to damage that connection, and none of them were good.

“At least she’s relatively safe.”

“Relatively,” Poseidon agreed reluctantly, and a flash appeared in the background. Lord of the Sea winced, one more lock whitening out. “I’m sorry brother, I have to go.”

“May the Fates be with you,” Hades nodded in recognition. Poseidon had been fighting for the last six months, and the stress was getting to the usually laid-back god. Hades had only seen him show that age in Gigantomachy, when he purposefully aged himself to lull Polybotes into false sense of security.

“Thank you, and with you too.” With those words, Poseidon cut the connection, and Hades leaned back into his throne with a heavy sigh. The usual mountain of the paperwork had tripled in the last two days, and Lord of the Dead did not look forward to it.

Why, oh why did his niece have to blow up that blasted volcano?!

“Father-” Nico knocked on the open door not a minute later of the office before stopping dead in his tracks. “Father?”

“Niccolo,” Hades sighed, closing his eyes and shaking out the tension in his wrist. “What brings you here?”

“Sephie,” dark-haired boy answered, carefully wading through towers of paperwork to reach his father’s chair. “Do you need help, Father?”

“I will manage,” Hades shot a disgusted look at the newest pile of papers with a gold outline. He did not need to know how many demigods died in the last twenty-four hours due to the minor skirmishes with monsters. “What about Sephie?”

“Do you know where she is?” Nico asked, perching himself at the edge of the table not overflowing with files. “Camp wants to declare her dead, and my word is not enough since I can’t reach her.”

A bubble of anger appeared in Hades’ gut, and he let out a soft snarl. “Short-sighted, moronic children with over-inflated ego! You’re my son, and Sephie is your cousin; you would know the moment she entered my realm!”

“That’s what I’ve been telling them!” Nico mirrored his father’s indignation, but his face quickly transformed into a long-suffering expression. “But of course they wouldn’t listen. You’re eleven years old, kid,” Nico imitated one of the nameless campers in falsetto. “Your powers are not yet developed. I am son of Big Three – our powers don’t follow normal learning curve! Olympus, Sephie could make pipes explode when she was nine; Thalia electrocuted a creepy hobo that followed her when she was eight! Is it such a stretch to believe I can sense when a demigod’s soul enters the Underworld?!”

Hades shook his head, more than familiar with Nico’s complaints. He got them from every child he had ever attended the camp. “They never will. Mortals instinctively fear death, and do not even try to understand it.”

“Sephie and Uncle Poseidon do not seem to,” Nico admitted, tilting his head. “I mean, at Westover, she always talked about this place as ‘gloomy, but cool’, and Uncle didn’t seem bothered when he came here for my birthday.”

“My brother had long been the only connection between Olympus and I, and he never quite developed the aversion for the underground the rest of our family shares.” Hades shrugged. “And he is one of the only gods who is completely in tune with their realms. As for Poseidon’s children, they are almost as misunderstood as mine,” Hades explained. “More than a few of them – Sephie included, I suspect – have had a gift for creating earthquakes, and were shunned for it.”

Nico’s eyes widened. “By gods…” he whispered, a note of terror entering his voice. “So I wasn’t imagining things, when I felt Labyrinth shake hours before the eruption!”

Hades shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. It isn’t a common gift in Poseidon’s line – creating storms and hurricanes seems to appear more often – but when it does happen… it rarely ends well. Remember the earthquake of 1906?” Nico nodded. “One of Poseidon’s children got a little too ambitious, and tried to raze Mount Tamalpais.”

“i***t,” slipped out of Nico’s mouth, and Hades chuckled at the mortified blush on his son’s face.

“i***t indeed,” Lord of the Dead agreed. “Not only he failed to do so, he also managed to label every one of his future siblings with that gift as ‘dangerous’. Sephie will have to fight to be accepted after that fact is revealed.”

“I’m not sure she knows, though,” Nico speculated with a deep frown that did not belong on the face of an eleven-year-old. “And even if she does, I doubt she can control it.”

“Oh, I believe she knows,” Hades shook his head. “But I think she’s scared of it, and not without reason. Earthquakes are very, very difficult to control or focus, for that matter.”

Nico sighed. “Don’t we know. But, you didn’t tell me. Where is Sephie?”

“Ogygia,” Hades said after a few seconds of deliberation. “Calypso will send her on her way soon.”

“Ogygia, from Odyssey?” Nico wanted to clarify. “That Ogygia?”

“Yes,” Hades nodded. “Don’t worry, Calypso’s curse only works with male heroes – Sephie will only find a good friend in her.”

Nico nodded and disappeared in a burst of shadows, leaving his father to go back to the mountain of paperwork the eruption of Mt. Helens caused.

~

The battle of Labyrinth, as the demigods started to call Kronos’ invasion of Camp Half-Blood, was a painful remainder of how fragile Nico, Bianca and Sephie were. For all the allure and beauty the mortality granted them, it also cursed them with the lifespan that will be cut far too soon by the immortals’ standards. He will never forget Nico’s screams as he woke up from yet another nightmare about the demigods he had killed in the battle, nor Bianca’s hollow, glassy eyes as she played with her dagger in front of the enormous fireplace in the kitchens.

But, most importantly, he will never forget tears in Sephie’s eyes as she limped into his throne room, her peplos finally replaced by a chiton. He had never seen anyone, be they mortal or immortal, resemble his mother after the first Titanomachy so much. She looked like an empty shell that had been shattered then haphazardly put together, and it tore at Hades’ heart. It was the sole reason he invited her to spend a week with his children in the Underworld. Normally, Poseidon would be all over her, but he was under the siege in Atlantis. The rumors were, he walked out of the Winter Solstice meeting to stop it, and never returned, and Hades was worried about him.

A knock sounded on the doors of his bedroom.

“Come in,” Hades called quietly, and Sephie slipped inside, silent like a ghost. “Sephie?”

The girl didn’t respond, gliding over to her uncle’s bed and sitting on the edge. Hades was starting to get worried.

“Sephie? Are you alright?”

Sephie still didn’t respond, but she did move, until she was laying down at Persephone’s side of the bed, curled in a ball.

Hades watched the whole thing with mounting worry before he scooted over to her, gently tugging the sheets from underneath her.

“Don’t.”

The Lord of the Underworld stopped with trying to cover her niece. Her voice was hoarse, and Hades could hear the distant tears she was not letting spill.

“You’ll catch cold,” Hades argued gently, trying to cover her again, only for the girl to bat the fabric away.

“I deserve it,” she mumbled, and in that moment Hades threw all propriety and decorum out the proverbial window. Scrambling across the enormous bed, the immortal caught the mortal into a hug and pressed her back against his chest, opening the dams in the girl.

She sobbed openly, brokenly, repeating the names of all the fallen demigods on both sides like a chant. Interspread with the names were curses hurled at Fates, her father, her grandfather, her uncles, and herself. Hades only clutched her harder, letting her fall apart in safety of his arms.

“W-why d-don’t y-you h-hate me, uncle?” Sephie hiccuped after a few minutes.

“We’re at war, my dear niece,” Hades explained, feeling his heart constrict. By the Creator… the last time he felt so much emotion was before the Trojan War, when he was still celebrated as kind, but stern ruler of the dead. Then again, he was very, very young back then. “Death is a normal thing. If you win, no one will ask how many you have sacrificed.”

“No one but you and my heart, you mean,” Sephie shook her head, curling even further into a ball. “I can hear their voices, you know. Asking me why didn’t I spare them, why didn’t I save them.”

“Cease that line of thought,” Hades ordered, but he wasn’t harsh with his tone. “You did your best at that moment. How many chances were given to those that turned away from Olympus? How many hours did your friends at Camp spent training for the war? You cannot save everyone, Sephie. Fates cut their strings – there was nothing you could do.”

“Yeah, right,” Sephie snorted. “Some hero I am – not even able to save her own friends-”

“Stop it!” Hades cut her off. “This war started long before the humanity started inscribing their history! You were simply born at the wrong time, to a wrong parent, and therefore marked for the leadership in war. Accept it, or by the Fates, I will throw you into Phlegethon until those notions vaporize from your seaweed-filled head!”

Sephie giggled hysterically, despite the seriousness of the words. “S-seawe-ed f-filed?!”

Hades chuckled as well, a little mortified, but glad to hear Sephie laugh again.

“Yes, seaweed-filled, brat!”

Sephie exploded into uncontrollable laughter.

~

As awkward as their conversation had been, it helped clear the air a lot, and by her fifteenth birthday, Sephie finally looked more like the girl Hades had met three years ago in the dirty Manhattan apartment.

“Thank you,” Poseidon said without preamble as he walked into Hades’ throne room on Sephie’s birthday, again without giving his older brother any prior notice.

“Learn how to knock, Kelp Brain,” Hades shot back, but couldn’t deny the gratitude did not feel nice. “And you’re quite welcome, whatever are you thanking me for.”

“Doors are overrated,” Poseidon waved away the complaint. “And we both know why am I thanking you in private.”

Ah. The two brothers had not yet saw fit to inform their paranoid little brother of the fact Sephie spent a lot of her time in the Underworld, and just how close they were.

“You have nothing to thank me for,” Hades shrugged. “I hate seeing Sephie cry. It was like watching Mother Rhea right after the first Titanomachy.”

“That bad?” Poseidon winced. All six siblings had banded together, leaving their domains unattended, to console their mother in her grief for the family she still held dear, even after everything that had transpired.

“Yes,” Hades sighed, tracing the rim of his Helm. “Thank Olympus I managed to drag her out of her pity-party before she sank any deeper, but it wasn’t a pretty image. She blamed herself for the deaths of demigods.”

“I know,” Poseidon sighed as well, leaning on his Trident. “I talked with her just before I came here. Her mercy and compassion will get her killed one day.”

Hades decided not to comment on that, although he had to agree with his brother’s frank assessment. Sephie was far too kind sometimes, and even though she could not forgive betrayal, she could still mourn those she had once called family.

“How is her body-soul connection?” Poseidon asked out of the blue, and Hades blinked at the sudden shift.

“Stable. It’s far from what it should be for a demigod, but it’s stable. She will not be hindered in employing her hydrokinesis.”

“Hydrokinesis,” Poseidon repeated with a slow nod of his head. “And geokinesis? Don’t look at me like that, brother,” the Sea Lord chastisted his brother when he spotted a shocked look on Hades’ face. “I had feared for a long time she would inherit the gift of Neptune bloodline.”

Pluto and Hades fought for dominance for a second, making Hades close his eyes as he pushed his Roman aspect back down.

“Why?”

“She’s my first daughter,” was Poseidon’s simple reply. “Most of my sons had the control over storms. It would make sense for Sephie to inherit the ‘Earthshaker’ part of my title, to complement them.”

Hades nodded. “Like Bianca and Nico. Bianca is far more skilled in shadow and Mist manipulation, but Nico is the true Ghost King, like his half-brothers.”

“Exactly like that.” Poseidon went through his mostly white locks. “I have to go back to Atlantis. Oceanus and I called for a day of truce to honor the dead, but I don’t trust him anymore than I can throw him.”

“Then go, brother,” Hades bowed his head. “I will watch over our impetuous girl.”

A small smile appeared at the edges of Poseidon’s lips, and he dissolved into a fine sea foam. Not a moment later, Athena burst inside.

“Uncle Hades!”

Hades flinched before sitting up straight. Athena rarely paid social visits to the Underworld, and never when Persephone was not there.

“Yes, Athena?”

“Can I count on your armies to help defend Olympus?” Goddess’ normally neatly styled hair was in complete disarray, her armor strapped over her short peplos showed scratches and blood splatters, and the bronze tip of her spear was no longer bronze, but gold from ichor and monster dust.

“Athena, sit down.” Hades employed his favorite tactic of lulling his visitors by his voice into near-trance state to get Athena to relax, creating a throne for her to collapse in. “Now tell me what do you need, and what is going on.”

Athena took a deep breath, a soft smile appearing on her face, before she focused again on her uncle.

“We won’t be able to count on the majority of the powerful minor gods,” Athena started. “Hypnos, Morpheus, Hecate, Nemesis, the like. Children of Zeus will remain mostly neutral, and the Titans are slowly escaping their prisons. I resealed most of the second-generation ones, but those of the Twelve that were sealed…”

Hades winced. Resealing the original children of Ouranos and Gaea, was not a task he could accomplish without his brothers, so he was now forced to priorise.

“Iapetus is far too gone for my seal to be effective,” Hades relayed the situation. “Krios and Hyperion can be let out – Hyperion is a prideful hothead, and Krios is meek, demigods will be able with them. Coeus is a problem – I’ll concentrate on him and Phoebe.”

Athena bit her lip. “Hyperion is a very good fighter, and Krios may be meek, but he will pose a challenge. And Iapetus…”

“If Zeus or Poseidon were free to assist, I’d be able to seal more of them,” Hades sighed. “Unfortunately, your father is busy with rallying our allies and brokering truces with other pantheons, and Poseidon is under near constant siege. Coeus is their main thinker, and Phoebe has a gift of foresight. I seal them, I lower the chances of my Father taking over Olympus the moment he decides to do so.”

Athena acknowledged the truth in his words with a nod. “Very well. And the armies you command?”

Hades thought about it. He and his children were far more accepted in the camp than before, mostly due to Sephie’s enormous influence, but he was still reluctant to just join in. What had Olympians done for him and his children? Barring Hestia and occasionally Poseidon, nobody tried to include him in anything. They left him in the shadows, to rule the dominion of dead, and refused to even visit him for short periods of time.

But Sephie, and Nico and Bianca…

“I will let them out, under the command of my son,” Hades finally granted. “But he will answer only to Persephone Jackson and I. No one else. Is that clear?”

Athena’s quicksilver eyes brightened, then narrowed as she processed all the implications of that statement. Good, Hades thought, leaning back into his throne. He had meant for her to recognize just who was the one responsible for his support. Let’s see how eager the Council would be to get rid of Sephie now, when two of three sons of Rhea stood behind her.

“It is not an unreasonable request,” Athena said after a few moments. “It will be granted.” She stood up and turned to go, then stopped. “Thank you, Uncle.”

Hades didn’t bother hiding a wide grin: pride may be strong in his niece, but not strong enough not to thank him, and boy did he love the fact he was the one they needed.

“You’re very welcome, Athena.”