Hythlodaeus's arms come around Hades, strong and tight and unhesitating, for a moment simply holding him near, getting used to the differences and similarities between how he remembers it felt to hold him and how it feels now.

The differences do not matter.

His love is unconditional. It ever was. But instead of a rushing river, he lets it be like a calm sweet lake where Hades can come back to and relax in dappled sunlight. To heal, though it may take a long time.

His fingers card through the unfamiliarly dark and short strands at the back of Hades's head with a steady familiarity. His face, where Hades will not have to look at it, twists with the pain of that absence of his own, and the awareness of Hades's. But unlike the day they parted, he does not shield his aether, instead letting its confusion be Seen, should Hades have the strength to look. He will be his strength, certain, but Hades is not alone, and will never again be alone.

"It has been. Such a long, long time.

"I am not leaving again." Quiet, and a little shaky, but absolutely certain all the same.

Whatever this place may be, whatever the reason for their being there, he will promise this. Walking away from Hades once was too much, nearly impossible, already. A second time, he will not walk that path.