reparations from the irredeemable | [ hades ]

[dars]

HADES LOCHLAN

He isn't easy. He hasn't ever been, really. He recalls standing in the garden with his mother as she painted, how they'd been lost in innocent conversation. He recalls how his guard was down, and he spoke freely. Too freely. He recalls revealing his desperation to succeed, his need to succeed. He remembers the look on her face, how sad she was. She was always too feeling, his mother: too warm to have raised such a cold spot in the room. That's what Hades Lochlan was: a chill. A shiver down the spine. The presence that makes you walk faster after turning out the hallway light. A ghost, with so much unfinished business and such a stubborn disposition that it had reclaimed its physical form in him, no more than a sixteen year old who was hopelessly ambitious and endlessly hungry.

He remembers her reaching out to him, her artist's fingers as deliberate and gentle as always, and grasping him by the arm.

"Your ambition frightens me, Hades."

It is, after all, his namesake to overthrow kings perched on mountains. He'd only shrugged her off of him and plopped a few more pomegranate seeds into his mouth.

"It should."

It hasn't gotten any easier and the eternal hunger still beckons him ever-forward. The hole within craves more, still. Always forward, never back. Always up, never down. Closer and closer to the peak. Closer and closer to the throne. Closer and closer to the white-hot heat of the sun. He is too much to handle and he knows it and it's why he never seeks them out. It's why he never does it as a point. It's incidental- the nature of a scorpion to sting. He is eternally reckless with hearts handed to him. That's why he's never asked for one to be left to his care. Because Hades Lochlan has not ever been one to... feel. Not at this deep of a level, no, he finds himself out of his depths.

Astrid sends him a newer, better prototype of the seelies he invented for her, and he's just as fueled by the sentimental excitement as he is by his competitive nature to do even better. And he smiles as the thing as it awakens next to him. Cinder crackles curiously at it as it slowly lifts from the grown, its galaxy colors brightening to fill the room. Blues and purples that bleed into pinks and yellows. Gradually, specs of white begin to dot the cosmic fog that floats in the middle of the room, and the galaxy pattern begins to swirl. But it wasn't enough like this, no. His intention is not just to give Astrid a gift of her own, no. His intention is to give her an even better gift. In the final moments before it is entirely formed, three yellow horizontal lines appear at its center. The two short ones up top open to reveal glowing eyes, and the longer line on the bottom curls into a small smile.

"Good evening, Nebula*," he says to the creature. Its eyes squeeze shut in excitement and it whirls in a circle as a cosmic bell-like noise emits from within it.

He's never been one to feel, so he doesn't know how to express it himself, so this is the closet he can get. He isn't easy. Maybe he won't ever be. But he wants to be now, that's the difference. He comes on too severe and he says things regardless of if he should or not. He spreads himself too thin, and even here, even when there is no more up for him to go, he climbs. If his feet won't let him, fine. He's rich and brilliant. He'll draft up wings.

He stands outside her door, powerful and powerless, Nebula floating over one shoulder and Cinder over the other. He rings her doorbell, catches a wisp of the vodka on his breath. He shouldn't be doing this now, but he's already made it known that he made two personalized gifts- this one for Astrid, and the alligator mutt he had delivered to Petelia Quartz. He can't give one gift and not the other, that'd be weird. Imagine his fellow co-junior gamemaker getting a gift from him, but not Astrid. Not the one who-

She opens the door and he doesn't smile, but he means to.

He lets her recognize him, and then Cinder, and then-

"She was supposed to connect to your LyfeWatch to sing lullabies for you when you get tired, or need to sleep," he says, "but I got drunk and fucked the coding so now she just sings lullabies to herself when she gets tired. I thought you might find it endearing, so I kept it."

He hands her the owner charm- a bracelet with a glowing fuchsia star- and watches as Nebula's bell-toll voice chirps with refreshed excitement.

He's coming on too strong again. He always does, and he can feel it. Unsure of what to do, he turns in the opposite direction to leave.

<sup>[set immediately after the 87th, this is just his thank you to astrid and her other jr gm, petelia, for their collective games experience]
* Nebula, a Seelie upgraded with custom one-of-a-kind Galaxy skin and facial software, made for Astrid [ ✨ zozo. ]
** Florigator, a flowery albino alligator mutt based on Gemma, made for Petelia [ @fabulousraven ]</sup>