Fear Not Sleep, For It Is Sweet [a long time ago, Erebus] (tag: Hypnos)
The Underworld was not a cheerful place. It could be beautiful, and it could be thrilling, but cheerful it was not. Bright colors fought hard to survive, voices had a slight shadowy quality to them, redolent of mist. It was much larger than could be conceived by the mind, spanning from the entrance where the psychopomps entered to deliver their charges and to the deepest layers of Tartarus, the pit where the damned and deadly were confined. Between those two points there was enough to fill a world. One with a population that was constantly expanding, never diminishing. The Underworld, after all, was a final resting place, not a destination spot. Very few who went in ever went back out.
It was a cool world of grays and blacks but also a world of riches. Dig deep enough, search long enough and there was gold, silver, and platinum. There were rubies and sapphires. All the riches that came to be from the pressure and heat of the deep earth were there. Hades wasn’t called the Rich One without reason. Certain people could discuss at great length who had come off the worst in deciding how to divide the spoils of the Titan’s War but there were definite benefits to ruling the Underworld.
For a young goddess, however, shiny metals and stones could only prove fascinating for so long before she was pushing them aside with a foot. Carrying the form and mind of a child, though in human years her bones would have already turned to dust, Melinoe considered the entire Underworld to be her personal playground. The Asphodel Meadows where she played hide and seek, the five rivers where she learned to skip rocks, Elysian Fields when she wanted to sit at the feet of heroes and listen to their tales. Tartarus she did not often venture into, that was not a place for games and delights. The screams of the damned hurt her ears, and sometimes when the imprisoned Titans noticed her, they began to roar with the voices of thousand enraged beasts.
No, Tartarus was not for allaying boredom.
It was inevitable that she would eventually turn up in Erebus. Her explorations were known to most by then, a fearless kind of arrogance that only children can wield when they consider everything they see as an extension of their house. She was a small child, somewhere elusively between seven to eight in mortal years, half white and black as if someone had taken paintbrush to her and changed their minds midway. Behind large, solemn eyes was a surprisingly sharp mind as only precocious children can come to carry when they are raised in unorthodox places with a parent they almost barely saw and another who often didn’t know what to do with them.
As most great explorations in the past had begun and in the future would commence, Melinoe’s started with a step. Distances weren’t insurmountable if they were taken one step at a time. So though it took considerable time, she eventually discovered the gray temple standing in the shadow of Styx’s. It had no doors. Not that security was a prime concern in the Underworld when it came to breaking in, it was breaking out that was the problem. Still. No doors.
Melinoe considered this an anomaly. Anomalies had to be explored. Sometimes they were fun; sometimes it was something her father needed to know about. She moved stealthily, quick to stick to friendly shadows at sudden movements or sounds. Darkness was her friend, made it easy to come and go. Even the best of goodhearted children knew a good sly trick or two. She employed them then, slipping off sandals to move on light bare feet as she maneuvered her way into the unknown temple, eyes drinking everything in parts. Whoever’s temple this was, they sure did enjoy laying down.