Seasons don't fear the reaper

[controlsthedie]

Who: Thanatos & OTA
Where: sleeper/passenger car hallways, greenhouse, training gym
When: Kazoo, Day 2 or 3 (after Jack's "Musical" Mayhem, before dance)
What: Death is being a dork: chores, flower growing, sword practice
Warnings: none

Chores: Death approaches the dust

[ A new month means a new type of chore assignment, apparently. At least this one doesn't need someone coaching Thanatos on what to do. He takes to the passenger area first, dressed in the train's standard blue hoodie and cargo pants to keep his own stuff clean. (Zagreus wanted to wear red not blue, so Thanatos just gave him the spare red hoodie he had.) Floating towards the ceiling with a feather duster in his hand, Thanatos gets to work.

Thanatos may not have paid much attention to Dusa while she worked (or at all really...), but he knows that she was always up high dusting the rafters. Sorry if he startles anyone going through a door to see legs dangling down. He's dusting the top of the door frame. ]

Greenhouse: Thanatos's Poppy Pot has sprouted!

[ Done with chores for the time being, Thanatos has returned to his usual way of dressing (chthonic death god style) and is crouched low to the floor. Mort is perched at the edge of a pot. They stare at nine tiny points of green pushing out of the soil. Thanatos is smiling, awestruck. (An expression that wasn't as rare when he was a godling days ago.) ]

They sprouted… they actually sprouted....

[ Thanatos speaks softly as if he fears being too loud would bring destruction upon them. Green. Growth. Life. He thought they would never sprout. They would never grow. Yet, here they were. Poppies, his and Hypnos's shared symbol, growing in this pot. Nurtured by Death of all people. ]

What do you think, Mort? Do they need more water?

Training gym: Trying not to float like a butterfly

[ There should be a mission coming up soon, and Thanatos is determined not to have a repeat of the last time. He had lost his powers, his divinity, and had become useless. He would have been a liability if other passengers hadn't come to his aid.

Gods, if Thanatos froze like that while Zagreus needed his help.... No. That's not going to happen. He's going to make sure that he can still fight, still protect… well, more than just Zagreus. It's still strange to think that he's developing a new role for himself on this train.

He summons his sword, not his scythe, and sets his feet upon the ground. Thanatos starts with a few basic motions when he notices he has company. ]

Pardon me. I'm not taking too much space, am I?

Comments

[controlsthedie]

[ Thanatos realizes he has company not by sight or sound but his innate sense of death from being Death Incarnate. He's been around warriors before. Sometimes, it is possible for one to reach an old age and not die by a blade. Even those mortals didn't have the sheer amount of death that Thanatos senses. How the hell can someone rack up those numbers? Maybe he'll get to see.

Thanatos floats upward a small ways and moves over towards the wall. Then he places his feet back on the ground. (It's only after that realize that he could have just walked.... That is why he's practicing.) Thanatos returns to a fighting stance. ]

I just started, so you would be waiting a bit.

[yondu]

[Oh, well, fuck gravity then, he guesses. He's still getting used to seeing that kind of thing: only a few magic users could do that back in his native universe. And hoo, he's heard some stories about some people.]

[He straightens the cuffs to his leather coat as he adjusts to get out of the way.]

What world you from? Not too many fellas I know just decide the ground ain't worth their time no more.

[He starts going to a few different dummies and putting small stickers on them, like the type you'd use to mark items. He's making targets for later.]

[controlsthedie]

[ Fuck gravity when one's a god. Zeus has probably tried that. ]

Gaia is her name, though to be more specific, I am from the Underworld, Hades, Tartarus. There are many names I could use.

[ Thanatos takes a few practice steps. His strikes are singular, forceful, definitely intending to be one hit attacks. ]

[yondu]

[Oh, well. Good. More gods on the train. How is it even doing that.]

...Yeah, okay.

So are you a 'souls' guy or a 'punishment' guy or all of the above. I don't know how it works. You're definitely not strikin' like a punishment guy, that'd finish someone off quick.

[At least this guy, maybe from warrior bearing alone, seems less of a conniving dick than Ego was.]

[controlsthedie]

[ Thanatos would like to know that too, but from past experience... it's not that hard to trap a god. ]

My duty is to bring the souls of those who died gentle deaths to the Underworld. I don't choose my assignments nor do I judge them. Those responsibilities belong to others.

... Although, when I do free the dead from their bodies, I do so quick and painless.

[ Honestly, Thanatos doesn't know where he fits in this man's descriptions. ]

[yondu]

[He sort of wishes that his own death had been quick and painless. Sometimes he still feels the cold seep into his bones when things are too quiet.]

[Hell, what a thought.]

'Gentle' ones, huh? That mean illness or accidents?

[He takes a few steps back from the dummies that he's rigged, and figures, well, he's in front of a god so like, the guy could kick his ass by default. It doesn't matter what he can do. So he starts to whistle, and his arrow drifts up from its holster to loop slowly in the air. It's Death. There's no beating Death, no matter the point of origin.]

[A sharp whistle and it starts tearing through those pinpoints he's marked on those dummies. He's definitely focusing enough to indicate he's aiming the thing, too. It's not autopilot.]

[controlsthedie]

Illness, old age, some accidents, hunger, hypothermia, natural causes... It might be easier to think of it as the ones which aren't violent.

[ So he may not reap those who die in battle, but he reaps what happens around them. It's a very busy job with few thankful for it being done in the first place.

Thanatos has to stop his own practice to watch that arrow dart around, hitting the dummies in their intended targets. He hopes it's not blasphemous to think, but it's almost like Lady Artemis has given this man a blessing. Or... perhaps Apollo given that he is whistling. ]

I can see why you needed the space.

[yondu]

[He catches the arrow by his head easily. If he knew better, he'd probably appreciate the sentiment. Centaurians were hunters by tradition and by nature.]

I'm pretty good at hittin' what I aim for. I'm just bein' a little bashful about it. Don't want to get the wrong people interested.

[Probably doesn't have to worry about that from Death, right?.]

So... where does it lie if you was fightin' somethin', and you won? But then you died real soon after of somethin' natural.

[As much as being spaced is natural. He's back at it with the stickers, finding different dummy spots this time.]

[controlsthedie]

[ Death has his own methods, and while he's practicing his sword a certain way, he's not looking to add anything else to his arsenal. That's more War's deal. Thanatos would actually prefer people dying less. Especially a certain one. ]

That would fall under my responsibility. Your death was not caused by the battle but by natural causes.

[ Dying in space from it being space would be a new one, but it would still fall under his domain. Technically. ]

[yondu]

[He pauses then. Well, yeah, it makes sense that Death would know how he died.]

[He taps his arrow against his leg as he works through an emotion that surges through his head. So far he's been kind of riding under the impression he's still alive somehow. Maybe just for this place, though. That sentence alone seals it. He definitely kicked off out there, with the cold seeping into his bones and the air stolen from him.]

Not long before I went, a bunch of my crew passed. They got thrown out an airlock by some real bastards. Somewhere between violence an' just the damn universe havin' it's way with 'em.

Would they end up yours?

[No hate or anything there. Just a sad sort of question from a Captain who really misses his good men.]

[controlsthedie]

[ Thanatos doesn't know how Yondu died, but natural causes are natural causes. He knows that Yondu has died and has been surrounded by a lot of death. It's a number that's unfathomable for a mortal to have. Thanatos almost questions if he's sensing something wrong.

But the man has asked another question, hasn't he? Thanatos thinks about the situation presented. ]

I do not know what an "airlock" is, but from what you've said, that sounds more like a violent death, murder. Their souls would still be brought to the Underworld but by another. Hermes, perhaps. And then they would eventually travel into the Underworld through my brother, Charon.

[yondu]

They got thrown off a starship. Means that they froze an' suffocated at the same time. Like... bein' drowned in pure ice. That's what it feels like.

[All the way down into their bones.]

Well, maybe somebody'll do right by 'em. [Rocket saw what happened, right? He'd tell someone. He was a little asshole, but he also understood. Maybe he'd get that those were good men, too.]

Sounds like y'all got a hell of a bureaucracy system set up.

[controlsthedie]

[ He imagines it like facing the full brunt of Demeter's wraith. Hopefully, the deaths were quick. ]

That would be a fitting way to describe it. I'm part of upper management. My brother's similar to an independent contractor.

[yondu]

My people had a god? The kind that came with angels an' demons. I don't think I actually much believed in it until I showed up here. Figured any of those what people believed in were Asgardians or Celestials. People, just real strong an' full of themselves.

[Because there are enough gods and such from different religions to make him truly believe.]

Shows me a thing or two to think. So y'all got followers or do you just play it low-key?

[controlsthedie]

[ Those sounds like gods all right. ]

Other gods have their followers and temples. Most worship and give offerings to them. Death... not so much. Unless it's to ask me to stay away, but I'm not the one who chooses when people die.

[ Which just means even more that it's pointless for mortals to give him any kind of honors. ]

[yondu]

I was pretty much made for clearin' battlefields so I'm figurin' I got some god to apologize to for the workload.

[He takes a few steps back and uses the arrow again, timing himself mentally to see how tight he can make the turns, how quick he can rip through each target. He catches the arrow beside of his head again.]

Y'all ever get in arguments with other people's gods or is it just you where you come from?

[controlsthedie]

[ Does he mention that a god might have influenced people to start a war? Because that sounds like Ares could have played a part in it. ]

No, we don't tend to interact with other people's gods as you put it. Godly affairs are usually among ourselves.

[ He's not saying they cause their own problems and argue amongst themselves, but he's leaving it plenty open for that interpretation. ]

[yondu]

[It would sound in line with everything else he knew.]

Yeah, I get that. Sometimes you gotta worry about your own dramatics before you can mess with some other fellas.

And I figure the bigger you live, the more comes out of a bad situation for y'all.

[And gods would live big. It's hard to imagine what sort of problems Death comes across.]

[controlsthedie]

[ Since Yondu is practicing while talking, Thanatos resumes practicing his grounded sword work. ]

I focus on my duty for the most part. The mortals continue to die regardless of what goes on, and they still need to be guided to the Underworld.

[ Which has actually been turned upside-down with its Prince trying to escape it against Lord Hades's wishes. ]