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

delayed response bc mods never got back to me on my question

[obliviouspatriarch]

[He doesn't quite know how his works yet, but he's not going to go against someone's wishes if they didn't want help.

Though the name of the flower is unfamiliar to him, which makes him all the more curious.]

Poppies? I don't think I've seen them or even heard of those flowers where I come from, or the place I was sent to before coming here. What are they like?

[controlsthedie]

They're small flowers. They come in different colors, but red is the one we identify with the most.

[ Red like the River Styx. Like mortal blood. ]

They have properties that can cause sleep, and too much can cause death.

[obliviouspatriarch]

Red? That's a pretty colour for a flower!

[And deadly too by the sounds of it.]

It's both a poison and can be used for medicine to make someone sleep then? That sounds useful on top of being pretty.

[controlsthedie]

Are red flowers rare in your world?

[ He hadn't expected that the color would be something that interesting, though he did bring it up. ]

[obliviouspatriarch]

Oh no, not at all! They're very common in the world I'm from, and even the one I stayed in before I showed up here.

[Flowers even grew on the people in that previous one at one point.]

[controlsthedie]

This isn't your first time being taken from your original world? There are a couple of people like that on this train.

[ His roommate is one of them. They don't have any flowers on them though. Just their soul in a lantern and a metal arm. ]

[obliviouspatriarch]

[A shake of his head, but curiosity piqued as well. He'd have to meet some of those people and see where they came from.]

It's not my first time, no. The place I was before is what did this [he points to his ears as one of his nine tails shifts] to me.

[controlsthedie]

You didn't normally have those? It's not as strange to see half-creature, half-human in my world.

[ He won't elaborate how some of them come into being. Seriously, don't ask. ]

[obliviouspatriarch]

No, I'm a human, or was until this happened. Although this isn't my original body, that one was torn to shreds over a decade ago before I was summoned into this one. This body didn't have the ears and tails until I lived in the world that did this to me.

[He really shouldn't just drop that he's died once already and came back without an explanation.]

[controlsthedie]

This train really makes death more complicated than I've ever had to deal with back home.

[ Dying multiple times and reviving almost seems simple compared to the various ways he senses on the train. ]

How many powers exist to steal a person from one world and put them into another?

[obliviouspatriarch]

Is death a complicated thing where you come from then? Dying should be simple, you die and don't come back. Normally.

[Walking corpses are strange enough, but wouldn't that happen anywhere there's resentful energies?]

Two, at least by my count and experience with them.

[controlsthedie]

That's how it's supposed to work unless you're an immortal god.

[ And then it's a constant trip back to the Pool of Styx for servants of the House of Hades and the Prince. ]

It's more than two. My cabinmate was from another place between their original world and the train.