Macaria

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CONTENT WARNINGS: MENTIONS OF PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL & SEXUAL ABUSE

Macaria, mostly referred to by her nickname Maci (pronounced MACK-ee), is the main character of the Elysium'verse... according to her. The daughter of King Hades and Queen Persephone, she is the Crown Princess of the Underworld, and the Goddess of the Elysian Fields. Maci is a short-tempered nymphomaniac brat, admittedly with several tragic backstories, sloooowly but surely becoming a better person over time… millennia… eventually.

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=Appearance= Maci’s physical appearance is that of a young woman in her early twenties despite being over 2,000 years old. She has light pink skin, violet eyes, and very long neon yellow-blonde wavy hair, which reaches down to her ankles when it’s not in her signature ponytail. She has fangs and pointed ears: two traits passed down from her father, while the rest of Maci’s color scheme matches her mother’s look. She is 6’0” tall.

Maci’s typical hairstyle features two face-framing pieces of hair, with the rest pulled back and up. True to the standard of the Underworld, Maci wears goth makeup, e.g. heavy black eyeshadow, exaggerated winged eyeliner, and black lipstick, and she is always dressed in black chitons, which are usually arranged to be extremely low-cut and formfitting.

An important part of Maci’s everyday outfit is her wide black choker necklace, sometimes stylized as a tied black scarf/fabric material. This choker disguises the faded remnants of a scar across her throat from centuries ago and she is rarely seen publicly without it.

Her signature chiton pin is a skull.

Powers & abilities
As a goddess, Maci shares the basic abilities most deities possess, such as full immortality, teleportation, and the ability to summon objects at will.

Maci is pyrokinetic and has the ability to create and manipulate fire, as well as (to a lesser degree) smoke. She is fully flame-proof and heat-proof and is able to completely burst into flame on command, or uncontrollably when emotionally triggered by strong emotion such as anger or fear. When “flaring up,” Maci’s eyes turn fully yellow, her skintone changes to orange, and her hair is overtaken by orange flame.

=Personality= Maci is fun-loving to a fault, aggressively outgoing, loud, and brightly cheerful with a wicked sarcastic streak. She is self-absorbed, always ridiculously flirtatious and very promiscuous, and she has no filter at all (she'll always share her opinions and thoughts regardless of how egregious or offensive they may be). Maci is unfortunately immature, and is not above throwing a fit when things don’t go her way or if she doesn’t get what she wants. In fact, Maci has an awful temper and short fuse and can blow up (literally) from 0 to 100 in anger on a hairline trigger.

It's worth mentioning that much of Maci’s overbearingly boisterous demeanor has been carefully constructed as a shell after a childhood and past history of neglect and abuse, and beneath that air of stuck-up confidence is a goddess who is insecure and desperate to be loved. She will do literally anything, absolutely anything, to win the fleeting attention of anyone; a ripple effect from being ignored and put down during her formative years. It is difficult to get her to seriously address and process the events of her past, as she would rather deflect either into bubbly dismissiveness and humor, or sulky anger.

But Maci’s best and redeeming personality trait is her overwhelming love and loyalty to her friends and her family. She is intensely, fiercely protective of all the people within her bubble and will do anything to keep them safe and at her side – and will raise hell on behalf of anyone who’s been hurt. To be loved by Maci is to be adoringly suffocated, and she is proud to have her Elysium palace stand specifically as a safe haven for her circle of loved ones.

=Pre-canon events & backstories= This section contains information about Maci from before the canon Elysium’verse began - events that have taken place essentially “offscreen,” but are still canonical to Maci’s history.

Early life & childhood, ages 0 to 10
Macaria is the only child of Hades and Persephone (“Seph”), King and Queen of the Underworld. Though initially reluctant to have a child, Hades conceded at Seph’s insistence, and Maci was born in the fall, several decades after they had first been married. Arrangements were made with Demeter to allow a temporary exception to the Pomegranate Agreement that dictated Seph’s seasonal location, permitting her to remain fulltime with baby Maci and Hades in the Underworld until Maci’s 5th birthday. For 5 years, the three of them were a close-knit family, and the little Princess, first of her title in the kingdom's history, was showered with unbridled love and attention from her parents and their subjects.

When Maci was 5 and this arrangement ended, she began to travel with her mother each spring/summer season to stay with her and Demeter during the traditional six-month span. Persephone and Demeter’s springtime cottage was a very different setting than the gothic kingdom that baby Maci called home – for one thing, each of the nymphs, led by the obnoxious crusade of Demeter herself, tried their hardest to convert Maci into the Olympian light. Already upset at having to leave her regular life and her father behind for no reason, Maci did not take kindly to this. The attempts to turn her against her dad and her home combined with Maci's misery at being uprooted turned the first year of her spring presence into a six-month battle between a loud and moody 5-year-old Underworld Princess and her intensely condescending and toxic Olympian-bred grandmother.

For the next five years, Maci continued to travel with her mother seasonally. Her spring-summer sessions were spent in increasing hostility, a combination of Demeter’s typical nonsense coming up against Maci’s short-tempered predisposition. Armed with the rage of a spoiled princess and actual literal pyrokinetic superpowers, Maci reacted to her grandmother’s mistreatment and the general judgment of the Olympians around her by acting out a reign of terror: picking fights, fighting back, and setting things on fire. Meanwhile, autumn-winter time back home was enjoyed as a life of luxury, doted upon by her reunited parents, and spending time with her closest and only friends, twins Hypnos and Thanatos. When Maci was 10 years old, Seph petitioned Demeter to allow Maci to make an active decision on whether she would prefer to continue travelling seasonally or stay fulltime in the Underworld. Maci chose to remain in the Underworld, where her perfect Princess life and friends were.

Adolescence, ages 10 to 17
By the age of 10, Maci had never actually known her father without her mother at his side. The version of Hades who existed when Seph was home in the fall was Maci’s hero; though always stiff in nature, he held a soft spot for his little daughter next to the spot reserved for his wife. Hades had also, of course, never been responsible for taking care of Maci without Seph there with him. It was easy to bounce Maci’s high-maintenance hyperactivity against Persephone, who was usually mellow, cool, and unshakeable. The disposition of Hades - easily irritable and short-tempered himself - was less equipped to handle Maci’s whims and moods without her there, and in the immediate aftermath of Seph’s first absence from them both, he did not have any interest in learning.

And so, during the first spring that she spent home, Maci was instead confused to suddenly discover that the springtime version of her father was shut down completely, and he had not chosen to invite her in. Rather than bonding to cope with the absence of Persephone from the Underworld together, Hades instead chose to ice Maci out, and retracted himself from her both emotionally and in presence. Daily, Maci found herself mostly alone within the halls of their palace, and her interactions with her father were short and cold. Reeling from this abandonment, Maci found comfort in the arms of Hypnos and Thanatos, who by this point had been her best friends for the past four years of her life...

✧*̥˚A brief interlude: Maci & the twins*̥˚✧

Hypnos and Thanatos, inseparable twin sons of Nyx and Erebus, had met Maci when she, age 6, had found them, age 11, bickering in the Fields of Asphodel. Immediately fascinated by both (and enamored with Thanatos especially), Maci had clung to them, and they had remained friends ever since.

Maci knew them the way everyone did: Hypnos, God of Sleep, a gentle, sweet kid prone to bouts of narcolepsy; and Thanatos, God of Gentle Death, very cool, suave, and charming even with a teenage sneer. But Maci, just like everyone, was oblivious to the truth of the twins’ dynamic: that beneath his carefully charming smile, Thanatos lacked empathy. His only goals were violence and power, and his darkest secrets were stained with blood and ichor even by this young age. Armed with a scythe and relentless cruelty since early in their childhood, Thanatos had already tamed Hypnos to cower behind him in fear, and for these past years while Maci fawned in what she thought was mutual friendship, he envisioned a future in which he could tear her down as well. Thanatos had quickly learned how to blend in by acting perfectly normal, even likeable, and Maci had no way of knowing who her best friend and childhood crush really was on the inside. And so...

✧*̥˚Anyway*̥˚✧

With Hades pulling away during this first year, Maci pushed closer to Thanatos and Hypnos, spending even more time than usual with them at the House of Nyx. Hades grumbled some disapprovals that Maci would interact even tangentially with Nyx’s ridiculous tangle of offspring – but he allowed her to do as she wished without any real interference, perhaps grateful to have her out of the way. His aloofness frustrated Maci to no end, and even more so when Seph returned that autumn like nothing was wrong. Unwilling to “ruin” the somewhat normalcy that had finally come back with her parents reunited, Maci didn’t mention the past six months.

When her mother left again the next year and Hades withdrew once more, Maci’s frustrations skyrocketed within the first few weeks of spring and turned into rage. She quickly realized that Hades noticed her again only when she was acting out, and Thanatos, who had been observing the fracture forming since last spring and sensed an opportunity presenting itself, enthusiastically encouraged Maci to continue picking fights with her father. Attention was attention even if it was reprimanding. Hades was temperamental to begin with, and was growing more irritated with Maci's behavior... personality, and presence, day by day. He fell for the bait she laid each time when she instigated arguments, and by the age of 11, Maci had decided to believe that the best and only way to interact with her father was by provoking him into yelling at her, for otherwise he refused to give her the time of day. Once again, Persephone returned in the fall, and the toxic environment Hades and Maci were constructing together snapped back to the illusion of peace. Hades did not wish to upset his wife - Maci did not really wish to upset her mother - a mutually agreed upon silent decision was made to play nicely together in her presence. Still Maci became a little louder, a little cockier, a little meaner, knowing that Hades would never engage while Seph was home. By the time Seph left again and Maci was 12, the situation continued to worsen. Maci made it a point to be as difficult as possible while interacting with her father, and Hades responded by childishly bickering back.

In the background of Maci's life by this time, she was heartbroken to discover that Thanatos was formally dating his first girlfriend, a timid goddess called Amechania, “Amey.” Unbeknownst to Maci, their relationship behind the scenes was a nightmare, but Maci was oblivious, and only concerned with how her friendship with Thanatos would be affected. In between causing a ruckus in the palace with Hades, she vented constantly to a beleaguered Hypnos about her frustration and jealousy. Hypnos knew about Maci’s crush on Thanatos - he also knew what Thanatos was really like – and as well, he suspected that Thanatos and Amey’s relationship was not as perfect as it seemed. But Hypnos was a victim of Thanatos’ abuse behind his own scenes and was terrified to intervene beyond trying to gently nudge Maci away from him, a hint that she refused to pick up on. When Amey suddenly disappeared within the next year, Maci (now 13) was only relieved that perhaps Thanatos would notice her.

Thanatos, by now 18, was in fact noticing her, just not in the way that she was hoping. He was biding his time until she was older and taking the opportunity in the meantime to continue to groom and manipulate her over her head. Maci and Hades’ relationship continued to worsen. Thanatos and Maci (and Hypnos, third-wheeling in helpless rising horror, usually quietly nursing hidden scythe-wounds) spent more time together as Maci began to avoid being near Hades in the palace. Thanatos agreed wholeheartedly when she stressed that her parents did not care about her, and encouraged her to keep rebelling against them, reminding her that at the end of the day, her real family was found right here – in him, her best friend. While Maci was 13, Thanatos introduced her to his second girlfriend, another shy goddess named Sophrosyne, “Sophie.” Maci, jealous of another potential wedge between her and Thanatos, made it a point not to get along with her. Maci was building quite a reputation for herself within the Underworld as a temperamental terror wielding all the power of a royal title, and Sophie mostly avoided her, cowering strangely at Thanatos’ side instead.

Months later, Maci was irritated to be pulled aside by Sophie urgently, just the two of them for the first time. Sophie was babbling insanity, something weird about being in danger, and Maci being in danger – nonsense about how Thanatos was not what he seemed, and that both of them needed to get away before it was too late. But Thanatos only seemed confused when Maci told him what Sophie had said, and she was smugly delighted when Thanatos agreed that his relationship with Sophie had probably run its course.

Maci never saw her again. He was dating another girl by the next year, Hesychia “Hess,” the mute Goddess of Silence, and soon took residence in one of cave constructed homes of Tartarus, his twin and girlfriend always at his side. Maci resumed anguishing jealously in the background, made all the harder by the fact that she was spending nearly every waking moment with Thanatos and Hypnos (and now Hess, always silent, looking more haunted by the day). Maci, now age 14, could not stand to be in the same room as Hades. The palace shared by just the two of them sat with uncomfortably tense energy thick enough to be cut with a knife, only ever broken by screaming arguments that usually ended in Hades throwing her out of the palace, or Maci storming out of her own accord, ending up at Thanatos’ cave or Nyx's house with the twins either way. She would slink back days later and repeat, all the moodier from Thanatos’ continued relationship with Hess. The following year, with Maci now 15, Seph came home and the simmering tension between her husband and daughter was too great to hide for the first time. She was perturbed by this, though she felt Maci’s outrageous attitude was blatant even to her (and in Seph’s eyes, Hades could do no wrong, despite clearly being in the wrong). Seph was stunned to see this shattered relationship sprung out of, she felt, nowhere. Trying to mediate between both sides without picking a side, Seph orchestrated an offering of peace on hers and Hades’ behalf, authorizing construction on a palace of Maci’s own in the subsection of the Underworld that belonged to Maci herself, the Elysian Fields, land of the blessed dead.

The Elysium palace was completed by Maci’s 16th birthday and presented as a gift to her with Hades’ name on it. It stood tall in the depths of Elysium, a natural safe haven due to the natural magical barrier surrounding Elysium’s outskirts, eternally enchanted to keep out anything evil. But Thanatos (who could not cross the barrier and could not let anyone find this out) pointed out to Maci what a slap in the face this gift was, a clear message that her parents wanted her out of their sight and out of their life. Maci was incensed. She refused to set foot in the palace, lashing out with accusations of the theories Thanatos had placed in her head. Instead of doing anything to reassure her, Hades was instead furious at this most egregious display of disrespect, a last straw among last straws. The fight that followed, and the cruel words that were exchanged, was their worst to date.

Something inside Maci was cracking, or it already had. She was 16 years old and living in active hostility with a father who despised her openly when he wasn't pretending she didn't exist, a mother who was somehow choosing to stay neutral between them – this life now was an echo of the turmoil her grandmother had put her through when she was a young child. Somehow this had become all she had ever known. Part of her yearned to viciously lean into the perception of her created by her own family, and she did do this outwardly when she traipsed the kingdom of the Underworld clutching her title of Princess like an obnoxious shield. But although she had created a bubble where anyone who met her would rather tell her yes than risk her reputation of wrath, there was a part of her inside that was beginning to claw in desperation; a frantic, anxious need to be loved, really loved, and actually seen by someone, anyone. This feeling continued to simmer under her skin. She could not bring herself to enter the Elysium palace even once the dust settled from hers and Hades’ fight, as the thought of its halls suddenly felt too utterly empty for her to bear being alone inside it. Maci began to fear that Hypnos and Thanatos, particularly Thanatos, who she adored more than anyone, would only ever see her as a child tagging after them. When Thanatos and Hess broke up (a relationship longer than his normally were, though she too disappeared after their split) and Maci’s friendship with him only continued the same as ever, her anxieties increased.

She knew she was pretty, and noticed every time she was noticed - she had never dated anyone, but she suspected that the personality she put on within the Underworld was probably what caused most people to recoil from her. But Thanatos knew her like no one else did, and she had always tried to be her most true self around him. If even her true self was unlovable, what then? Hypnos tried to talk sense into her - she was too young, now only just shy of 17 years old, he reminded her, and besides, it was for the best that she stay as far away from Thanatos as possible. Maci only insisted that Thanatos certainly seemed to reciprocate her feelings - and there was no one else that seemed to like her, even platonically. Fueled by anxiety and almost 17 years of emotional betrayal, it dawned on her the circumstances that she had created for herself. The desperate, frantic feeling inside began to overwhelm her.

Ages 17 to 20... Thanatos.
'ONCE AGAIN, REMEMBER, BUT SPECIFICALLY HERE... CONTENT WARNINGS FOR EMOTIONAL, PHYSICAL & SEXUAL ABUSE. I’M SERIOUS THIS SECTION IS A TOUGH READ' Maci was now 17, and was being eaten alive by gnawing desperation. She had begun to mentally survey what she possibly had to offer to make anyone like her, and circled back to reminding herself well, she was pretty. She was really pretty judging from the way anyone looked at her when they thought she wouldn't notice, before cowering away from the intimidating Princess, and she realized that this was something that she could cash in on while she waited for Thanatos to realize she was available.

She did not tell anyone what she was planning, and that winter, with her parents preoccupied with each other and paying no mind to her whereabouts, Maci gathered together an insane sort of press conference in the Underworld to announce to the crowd gathered that she was willing and ready to have sex with anyone who would have her. The crowd of Chthonic entities did not actually seem to mind the thought of taking the virginity of a teenager clearly in the midst of a manic breakdown, but Maci's announcement was at first met with silence and hesitation, for if this was some sort of trap laid by the royal family, surely anyone who touched her would be subject to the wrath of the King and Queen. While they were slowly realizing that Maci was in fact completely serious - though again, clearly, in the midst of some sort of episode - Maci's flirty speech was interrupted by Thanatos.

Thanatos was always discreetly monitoring Maci for his own ulterior motives and he had been in the crowd that had formed. He was horrified at what Maci was doing, but not out of any concern for her well-being. Rather, he was alarmed at the thought of the ultimate prize he had spent so much time carefully shaping and grooming giving herself away to anyone who wasn’t him. Though the circumstances at the moment, he felt, were not exactly ideal – he would have preferred more time, as toying with Maci’s unstable emotions had become one of his favorite hobbies, and besides he had only just very recently disposed of Hesychia – he quickly decided on the spot that he couldn’t risk anything getting in the way of everything he'd planned for years, and he seized the opportunity.

Putting on his best protective gentleman’s face, Thanatos appeared next to Maci and made a show of concerned outrage. Maci complained at him trying to stop her, and a hushed argument between them ensued in front of the grumbling crowd until Thanatos told her that he’d rather keep her safe by sleeping with her himself. Finally stunned into acquiescence, Maci allowed him to teleport her with him back to the palace.

Once they were alone and the shock wore off, she lashed out at Thanatos for making fun of her just to get her away from the crowd. But Thanatos (who knew exactly how to talk to her and what she wanted to hear), assured her that he wasn’t joking. He told her that sure, doing all of this was… unhinged, but who was he to stop her from doing whatever she wanted to do? She was the Princess, after all. And if she was dead-set on sleeping with random people – sure, why not, but also… why not let that first random person be someone she knew and trusted, instead? Tearfully, Maci confessed that she could not possibly allow him to have sex with her out of pity, for she was in love with him, and always had been. And Thanatos, playing her like a fiddle, replied that he’d always loved her too - that was all it took.

Maci and Thanatos were now dating and Maci was thrilled to officially call him her boyfriend. Thanatos had also insisted they continue as an open relationship to allow Maci to meet her initial goals of sleeping with as many people as possible, and over the next few weeks, Maci worked her way through the crowd of perverts who’d been ogling her on the day they'd gotten together, and then on and on. The sex addiction that would follow Maci for the rest of her eternal life well into the present day began here, as she was instantly intoxicated by the rush of endorphins and easy attention. Meanwhile, Hypnos was acting weirder than he ever had now that Maci and Thanatos were together, perhaps, in Maci's opinion, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She chalked it up to jealousy (at Thanatos’ expert assessment) and paid him no mind.

Thanatos hit her for the first time about a month and a half in.

Shocked, furious, when it happened Maci burst into flames and threw him out, to which he retreated to his home in Tartarus. Days later, when Maci could no longer stand being alone, and felt that the string of anonymous sex she was having was no longer a sufficient band-aid, she sought him back out and demanded answers. Thanatos was all apologies, syrup sweet and ashamed of “whatever had come over him,” promising it would never happen again. Desperate to bury this and move on, refusing to acknowledge the glowing red flags and with no one else to turn to, Maci had Thanatos swear an unbreakable Stygian oath that he would never hit her again. He did swear this on Styx as asked. This was in fact the only time he would ever hit her through the rest of their relationship.

A few days later, Maci was with Thanatos when out of nowhere his mood turned uncharacteristically cruel, and he began to neg her with sharp barbs and personal insults. He was instigating deliberately, and Maci was successfully triggered into anger, her emotion-fueled powers setting ablaze again. But this time Thanatos was ready, armed with a theory he had been working his way up to testing: immortal deities did not need oxygen to function – but fire did. He strangled her until the fire went out, and Maci found herself choking literally beneath him, in a state of shock as Thanatos assumed the upper hand. He had always had the upper hand, and as he finally dropped all his pretenses, Maci at last met the real Thanatos.

The shift happened so fast that over the next few days, weeks, months, Maci’s head stayed spinning, reeling in disbelief and horror, as Thanatos carefully outlined their new dynamic for her. He was in love with her, he explained; he’d always been in love with the blind adoration and worship she held for him, though now he loved the look of fear in her eyes much more. Maci tried to break up with him – he refused. That wasn’t up to her. Still shell-shocked, she sought out Hypnos – he followed her to him with his scythe, and revealed, as Hypnos sobbed and bled, that Hypnos also didn’t make decisions of his own.

Maci’s brain refused to process the cruelty that was being inflicted upon her by her best friend, the love of her life, the only fucking person who had ever seemed to care about her. In fact, Thanatos seemed to enjoy reminding her that there was no one else beyond him – maybe just Hypnos, but Thanatos also seemed to enjoy torturing him in front of her now that they were all openly on the same page. It was springtime by now, and Hades certainly was not about to notice that anything was amiss in Maci's personal life. When Thanatos began to wield his scythe against her too, Hades did not give a second glance at the gory slashes that Maci was barely hiding, proving Thanatos smugly right.

Yet somehow, the thought of being alone seemed more unbearable than her current circumstances. Though horrified to admit it, Maci knew she was still in love with Thanatos. Half the time, Thanatos plied her with niceties and the attention she craved, perhaps taking pleasure in the way he could easily dictate the rise and fall of Maci’s hopes, and she remained wrapped miserably around his fingers even when his faux kindness turned viciously cruel. She told herself that at least he was better than no one. He also wasn't actually keeping her prisoner in the formal sense, and the terms of their open relationship still stood. Publicly, Thanatos still acted as the Underworld's darling, and he and she both knew no one would believe her if she tried to tell anyone what was happening. In her spare time, Maci numbly took solace in endless random sexual escapades, grasping after any fleeting moments of pleasure and affection that she could manifest.

This all went on. It was now the next year, Maci age 18. By this time, her adoration for Thanatos had faded. Maci was far from the docile plaything that he was trying to force her into being, and she found the indignant energy to snap back; verbally, physically. Thanatos could overpower her every time, and it was worse when he was angry, but she felt that it was worth something to piss him off, at least. The gravity of the nightmare she was living in began to sink in whenever Maci was alone with her thoughts, so she did everything she could to avoid ever being alone. When she was not with Thanatos, she distracted herself by seducing anyone across the Underworld, building a new reputation for herself that she felt vaguely proud of. She spent all of her time in random beds or with Thanatos and was rarely at her home palace - and whether or not her parents noticed that she was a touch more withdrawn, a touch angrier, a touch cagier; whether they had heard the rumors about her activities; Maci never knew, as neither of them ever addressed her about it.

She also began to spend more time with Hypnos. He had always been a part of Maci’s life as her second best friend, but it was only now with the first spot open that Maci really started to notice him. Eventually at Maci’s insistence, Hypnos admitted to her the scale of which Thanatos had been terrorizing him for their entire lives. He also confessed that he’d suspected Thanatos’ plans for her and regretted that he hadn’t tried harder to get her (or anyone prior) away from him before it was too late. Maci was stricken with the realization that Hypnos had been truly at her side while she had taken him for granted. Bonding through their now mutual abuse, they began to lean on each other more and more when Thanatos was not looming over their heads. Over the past recent years, Maci had mentally rewired herself in such a way that eventually she pushed their deeply trauma-bonded friendship into something more, and Maci and Hypnos began to date, secretly, behind Thanatos' back.

He found out, of course. Maci didn't know how long he had actually known for, suspecting it was longer than he was letting on, but it was at least a year later with Maci now 19 years old that he took action about it. Thanatos was always annoyed each time he caught the two of them together innocuously, but when he revealed he knew their relationship was well beyond platonic, he reached a level of actual anger that was well beyond what always existed as his personality. It was not difficult for Thanatos to twist this new dynamic back under his control. As an act of humiliating punishment, he forced Maci and Hypnos together; each terrified that the other would be hurt, they had become each other's biggest weaknesses. On this night, Thanatos used his scythe to slit Maci’s throat, nearly decapitating her.

Gods cannot die, and even what would normally be considered a grievous injury will eventually in some way knit back together over time. In unimaginable pain, barely even able to speak, Maci was now left as prisoner tossed within the Tartarian cave Thanatos usually lived in, though he did not come or go and had whisked Hypnos away with him. Maci’s worst fear was to be alone, after all, and this was a punishment. No one came looking. The wound Thanatos had slashed into her healed tortuously slowly - when it was eventually “healed” enough for Maci to collect herself and leave, she disguised the horrific injury with a scrap of black fabric torn from her own chiton, tied around her throat like a choker. Not knowing where else to go, she looked for Thanatos, hoping at least Hypnos would be with him, and Thanatos promptly collected her back under his wing.

Through this second wave of their “relationship,” the occasional manipulative kindnesses he had sometimes tossed to her were no more. Thanatos was now bitter and cruel to Maci all the time. The resistance Maci had spit back upon him during those early years was also fizzled away - Maci quietly disassociated through each day. Thanatos' levels of physical violence escalated to include the occasional breaking of bones in addition to his ever-present scythe, and he now forced Maci and Hypnos together often. They still clung to each other secretly when they could, but both had numbly accepted that there would be no reprieve from this. The passage of time was a blur. Publicly facing, Thanatos was somehow still all smooth charm, and though he was always flanked by a trembling Hypnos and an uncharacteristically docile version of Maci, no one tried to intervene.

The scope of Thanatos’ abuse came to a final crescendo sometime after Maci was 20 years old (maybe even beyond that, as she had reached two decades and stopped counting her immortal years). Unbeknownst to Maci, Thanatos had secretly procured a poison that he believed could strip a deity of their immortality - this had always been a long-time dream of his. Thanatos still considered Maci to be his ultimate prize, and she was the perfect candidate to be the first god Thanatos could kill. Though Hypnos had grown up listening to Thanatos talk about his impossible dream, he was floored when Thanatos bragged to him exactly how his relationship with Maci would soon come to an end.

Hypnos had never, ever successfully stood up to Thanatos before, but he knew that he could not let this happen. And as Thanatos cornered Maci alone to innocently insist that she drink the glass he’d prepared for her, both Maci and Thanatos were equally shocked when Hypnos burst between them and shattered the poison in the nick of time. As Hypnos breathlessly explained what had just been about to happen to her, Maci's state of disassociation flickered. No deity had ever died before - the sheer, insane, terrifying gravity of the Fate Maci had missed by mere seconds crashed upon her as a weight heavy enough to launch her back into her senses. Then Thanatos snapped back into his senses, too.

Maci was pushed aside as Thanatos lunged for Hypnos, descending into an unhinged frenzy of rage, screaming obscenities as he summoned his scythe from the ether and began to hack at him violently. For a second, Maci was frozen in place, the scene unfolding before her in slow motion. Slowly it dawned on her what was happening and had happened; what Thanatos was doing to Hypnos; what Thanatos had just tried to do to her - everything that Thanatos HAD done to her - and Maci, shoving down the fear that had consumed her for the past three years, forced herself between the twins and exploded.

All of Thanatos' usually careful calculated graces and techniques were out the window. He was in such an uncharacteristic state of madness that instead of trying to extinguish Maci, he only redirected his scythe wildly onto her as Hypnos stumbled out of reach. But Maci was now fueled by more than three years of her own stifled fury, and she fended him and the scythe off as a blazing inferno, burning hotter and hotter. The feeling of resigned acceptance she'd felt she had no choice but to settle into was gone; the opportunity to escape was here and now, otherwise she and Hypnos would both perish. Now successfully forcing Thanatos back – he was unraveling, thrown completely off by both of his puppets rebelling at the same time, but still fighting to kill – Maci urged Hypnos to flee to the palace and bring back help. He returned with Persephone, who only understood what Hypnos had been trying to frantically explain in the throne room once she saw the horrifying scene of violence still unfolding. Infuriated, she peeled Thanatos off of her daughter with an endless cascade of vines summoned from the underearth. The veneer of normalcy Thanatos always put on in front of everyone was shattered, completely gone even in front of the Queen herself, and he howled and fought as he was restrained. Restraining Hypnos too for good measure, Seph rushed to Maci, who now extinguished and collapsed.

And then it was over.

The immediate aftermath of Thanatos
After medical attention was issued, Thanatos and Hypnos both were collected to the palace as prisoners (despite Maci’s insistence that Hypnos had nothing to do with this – they were known for being inseparable, and Seph would rather be safe than sorry at this point. Hypnos did not argue). They were brought before court made up of the King and Queen, Maci the Princess, and the Primordial Titan-goddess Nyx, who'd been summoned at once as Thanatos and Hypnos’ mother. Before this audience, Maci finally revealed the truth. Confessing to her parents what Thanatos had been subjecting her to was one of the hardest things Maci had ever made herself do, but she told them everything.

The list of shocking accusations would have seemed almost impossible to believe if Seph herself had not witnessed Thanatos at his worst, and besides Thanatos even here, held within the constraints of thorning vines, was no longer bothering to hide his demeanor of cold cruelty under any masks whatsoever. As the three elder divinities listened to Maci explain the sequence of events, Hypnos timidly chiming in when prompted, the reactions varied. Nyx seemed… appropriately horrified, but strangely did not protest the descriptions of Thanatos’ behaviors. Seph was visibly furious and heartbroken, devastated that Maci had gone through this, especially without anyone realizing. As for Hades – though at first, he managed to be skeptical, the evidence of Thanatos’ crimes in Maci and Hypnos' clear injuries could not be denied, as well as Seph vouching for what she had personally seen. Staring into Thanatos’ unrepentant icy glare, Hades too settled into anger that such a betrayal of the royal family had occurred.

Maci chafed at the fact that her word alone was not enough for Hades to unconditionally support her, but by the end of this conference, it was still clear a decision needed to be made on what should be done, and all eyes turned to Lord Hades to mete the punishment that Thanatos should face. But Hades suddenly seemed troubled in a different way, and after a period of terse silence, he unexpectedly requested to speak to Maci alone. Sending everyone out of the throne room, Maci proceeded to face her father one on one with some anxiety, the first time they had done so in several years. Hades did not seem happy as he solemnly began to explain to her that since Thanatos was a Death God, one of only two in eternity’s existence, he did not think there was anything he could comfortably do to punish him, lest he risk the collapse of the functioning of the Underworld. Then, as Maci listened in dull horror unable to believe what she was hearing, Hades turned on her with exasperation and frustration in his voice. He demanded to know how could she choose to get involved with this situation, knowing Thanatos was essentially untouchable? What exactly did she expect Hades to do to fix this now? He turned vicious, falling back into their pattern of relationship after all this time - had she done this on purpose to make a scene and be the center of attention again, wasn’t that just oh so typical of her? And for that matter how dare she prostitute herself across the Underworld, making a fool out of the King? He spat that he had always assumed she could take care of herself, but now it was clear that she was not capable of it, and again, what did she possibly expect him to do now that she had ruined her own life, and allowed Thanatos to take advantage of her stupidity?

For once Maci did not respond to Hades’ provocation with matching vitriol. Hearing all this, she did not have it in her to put on a show of rage. Instead, with another piece of her shattering, Maci

=Beginning of canon events=

Palace residents
=Children & step-children=

Relationship with Chal
=Trivia=