Macaria

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CONTENT WARNINGS: MENTIONS OF PHYSICAL/EMOTIONAL & SEXUAL ABUSE, RAPE, VIOLENCE, MURDER, SUICIDAL IDEATION, CHILD ABUSE - PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION

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.

 File:Maci.png

=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, and even crucial, to Maci’s history. Presented as a short biography... into narrative story. Ahem:

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, about a century 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 to get the attention she craved. 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. A mutually agreed upon silent decision was made to play nicely together in Seph's presence. Still Maci became a little louder, a little cockier, a little meaner, knowing that Hades would never engage while his wife 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 never questioned why, only bickered immaturely 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,” who was actually one of Thanatos' own distant sisters from Nyx's endless brood. 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 privately pulled aside by Sophie. 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 with her in one of the cave constructed homes of Tartarus. 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, either way ending up with the twins in Nyx's house or at Thanatos’ cave. She would slink back days later and repeat, even 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. 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 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; THIS SECTION IS A TOUGH READ, PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION' 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, 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 they 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 had always been 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 beyond what always existed as his personality. Unfortunately, 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. This black choker accessory would become part of her signature look forever, even long after the scar on her neck had faded from time.

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 secretly clung to each other whenever they could, but both had numbly accepted that there would be no reprieve from this and Thanatos' constant surveillance. The passage of time was a blur. In public, 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 ever guessed the truth.

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. Though Hypnos had grown up listening to Thanatos talk about this 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. 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. Hypnos breathlessly explained what had just been about to happen to her, with Thanatos frozen in stunned disbelief... and Maci's state of disassociation flickered. No deity had ever died before. The sheer, insane, terrifying gravity of the Fate that 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 descended into an unhinged frenzy of rage and lunged for Hypnos, who was instantly overtaken. Screaming obscenities as he summoned his scythe from the ether, Thanatos 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; again she was snapped back to sudden reality. 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 unraveled madness that instead of trying to extinguish her, he only redirected his scythe wildly 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 his 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. Successfully forcing Thanatos back – he was thrown completely off by both of his puppets rebelling at the same time, though he was still fighting as if 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 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
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 wanted to be safe rather than sorry at this point. Hypnos did not argue), and before a court made up of the King, Queen, and the Primordial Titan-goddess Nyx, summoned as Thanatos and Hypnos’ mother, Maci finally revealed the truth, leaving no details out.

The list of shocking accusations would have seemed almost impossible to believe if Seph herself had not witnessed Thanatos at his worst. In fact Thanatos, even while held now within the constraints of thorning vines, was no longer bothering to hide his chilling demeanor. As the three elder divinities listened to Maci explain the sequence of events with Hypnos timidly chiming in when prompted, their 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 – at first, he managed to be skeptical, but 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 next 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 her father to unconditionally support her, but by the end of this conference, it was still clear that something needed to be done, and all eyes turned to Lord Hades to announce 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. He sent everyone out of the throne room and Maci, with some anxiety, faced her father one on one.

Hades was quiet for a long time. 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, 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 him to do to fix this now? Hades 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?

Though Hades' words were callous, it almost seemed as though he had not yet fully made up his mind on what to do, or not do. For once, Maci did not respond to Hades’ provocation with matching vitriol. Instead, with another piece of her shattering inside, Maci tried to plead to Hades' sensibilities as her father and not just the King, begging him not to do this to her. But the longer Hades went on without responding, the more Maci's temper began to boil, rising in sheer desperation even while tears welled in her eyes. Finally she snapped at him that it was some move to send everyone away first, lest Persephone find out what a heartless fucking monster he was - the second the words were out of her mouth, Hades' gaze turned ice cold, and Maci knew she had sealed her own fate.

He reconvened their conference. Before Hades could issue his final decision, Nyx had the quick audacity to address them and plead for mercy for her son (just the one, ignoring the other who had suffered at his hand). Maci never knew whether Hades’ decision was drawn from this final request from the influential Nyx, or from her own last conversation with him; either way to the shock of everyone gathered including Thanatos himself, Hades formally announced that Thanatos would be free to go.

Ignoring the hysterical sobbing of Maci next to him, Hades issued a proclamation to serve as a restraining order, barring Thanatos from interacting with her ever again. This would serve as Thanatos’ singular punishment. Then, ignoring the furious disbelief of Persephone on his other side, Hades went on to issue a further proclamation – citing Maci’s clear inability to responsibly handle herself, effective immediately until further notice the Underworld’s population as a whole would be ordered to embargo her, and in fact anyone caught interacting with her would be personally imprisoned. As Maci wailed and screamed and pleaded to deaf ears; as Seph sat disgusted and outraged at her husband but unwilling to override him; as Thanatos bowed to the King, recollecting himself at once into his simpering, smirking demeanor; as a horrified Hypnos was ushered away by him and Nyx, still tethered to his brother with no end in sight; Hades offered no apologies, and he exited without looking back.

And with that, the saga of Maci and Thanatos' initial "pre-canon" history, and generally the overall sequence of events that inform the crucial components of Maci's character, is considered to officially end here. Thanatos would actively re-enter Maci's life after about two millennia had passed, now within the narrative of the Elysium'verse's canon storylines.

Maci would remain in Hades' forced isolation for the next eight years before circumstances (also pre-canon, briefly discussed in the following section) finally allowed her embargo to lift. She would then carry on into the rest of her life as the person this history had formed her into, the version of Maci who exists currently - all of it neatly compartmentalized inside of her, but quietly fueling absolutely everything about her personality, behaviors, and decisions.

✧*̥˚Maci literally would not begin to deal with any of the emotional or mental effects of her childhood and adolescence until about 2,000 years later, throughout the canon Elysium'verse.✧*̥˚

The birth of Maci's half-sister
AND AGAIN- PLEASE MIND THE CONTENT WARNINGS - SPECIFICALLY RAPE, CHILD ABUSE, MURDER

Immediately following Hades’ verdicts, Maci spiraled while she was trapped alone. Solitude had always been her worst nightmare but try as she might to escape it, the Underworld was fearful of the wrath of the King and no one would even speak to her. Only Hypnos tried, but she was terrified that Hades would retaliate against him, and against her deepest wishes she forced him away. So, left alone, she unraveled at the seams.

Meanwhile, the rumor mill of the Underworld was spinning. Although Thanatos had gotten off scot-free from his crimes, the news about what he had done to the Princess still spread, and his reputation did take a blow (though not completely – many Underworldians did not believe it could be true, or even loathed Maci enough to side against her if they thought it was). These rumors eventually even made their way up to Olympus. Due to the way Hades had chosen to handle the situation, there was also rare conflict going on between him and Persephone, and the rumors of this had reached Olympus as well. It was literally only a mere couple of months after this had all happened that Zeus, King of the Gods and notorious absolute fucking psychopath, spied a unique opportunity. He shapeshifted to disguise himself as Hades and pursued Persephone under the guise of their reconciliation, successfully violating her before revealing the truth of his nasty trick. Devastated, Seph returned to Hades and their spat was promptly forgotten. Then she found out that she was pregnant.

The magnitude of this event was actually enough to briefly unite Seph, Hades, and Maci together as a furious trio, even despite all that had just taken place – Maci jumped at the chance to push back her own trauma and distract herself with her mother’s. Though Seph was enraged, she forbade Hades from retaliating against his brother and starting an all-out war, and Melinoe, the daughter of Zeus and Persephone, was born that winter as an ironclad palace secret between the three of them. Melinoe’s appearance was strange – her skin-tone was stark ivory white on one side, and pure pitch black on the other. The plan all along had been to throw her to Olympus for the Olympians to deal with the consequences of their actions, but Zeus was disgusted by her clearly Chthonic appearance and refused to take her. Outranked by the King of the Gods, and then following the discovery of a specific prophecy from the Fates, Hades and Seph begrudgingly agreed to keep Melinoe around.

The absolute minimal level of care was provided to her; they were unable to take revenge on Zeus directly and retaliated against him by dealing with Melinoe in a cold, neglectful way. It was uncharacteristically cruel of Seph, but with the wrath of a slighted goddess she could not bring herself to care. These actions however were more in line with Hades’ typical way of being, and he insisted that Seph withdraw and allow him to be Melinoe’s primary caretaker (or lack thereof). Hades kept her in the Underworld year-round as Seph resumed her seasonal travels. Meanwhile Maci watched the neglect of her baby sister unfolding, but she too did not bat an eye. Firstly Maci, quick to anger anyway, was holding a grudge against Olympus along with her parents, and, like them, was projecting upon the baby. Second of all, Maci’s memory of her own childhood was of being kept at emotional arms-length anyway (her earliest years of normalcy were forgotten and buried under the abuse she’d suffered), and she felt that well, Melinoe was not being harmed – just not loved.

Hades watched Maci suspiciously, unbeknownst to her. He knew that how he was choosing to handle Melinoe was wrong – but he didn’t know if Maci would realize it, as she was recovering from the Thanatos debacle and still on edge from being deprived of all socialization. He feared that if Maci decided that she could connect with Melinoe over their shared mistreatment by him that they could unite against him. He had not shared with Maci the details of Melinoe’s mysterious prophecy, either – the gist of which stated that Melinoe would grow to become either the embodiment of all goodness, or the manifestation of all evil, but just one, and only time would tell which. As Melinoe grew into toddlerhood Hades bit back bile and extended an olive branch to Maci, softening his demeanor to her completely - Maci by this point was so fragile that she did not think twice, and leapt at the opportunity to finally warmly reunite with her dad.

Hades’ course of action was to make Maci complicit in Melinoe’s neglectful abuse. Melinoe was a bizarre child. Even as a newborn, she never cried and never slept, and as she got older, she never spoke; she just stared all day at her caretakers with her huge blue eyes. Even though Melinoe was inoffensive, Hades encouraged Maci to be cruel to her. Maci did not want to lose her father’s sudden approval, and gleefully participated as her kid sister’s bully. When Melinoe learned how to walk, she took to following Maci or Hades all around, and their actions escalated from shooing her away to even locking her out of sight within the palace. Sure, Maci should have known better, and… she kind of did; but she told that voice in the back of her head to shut up. The unhappiness of Zeus’ bastard child came second to Maci finally at long last getting to bond with her father and experience his remorse after all that he had subjected her to. She convinced herself it was a necessary sacrifice to make.

For a total of eight years, Maci and Hades primarily were responsible for “raising” Melinoe – Seph wanted absolutely no part of her life, and refused to even interact with her. Through these eight years, Maci remained isolated from the world outside the palace with her father as her only companion, and through these years, Melinoe was consistently mistreated, but Maci and Hades' relationship seemed great. And then… that prophecy…

Only time was going to tell which destiny Melinoe would fulfill; time, and, as it turned out, the environment she was raised in, a detail the Fates had not mentioned. A catalog of kindnesses and cruelties were intended to be used as a gauge by the two souls that lay dormant inside of her, but after eight years of constant neglect and endless cruelty, the cosmic scales had tipped so far in one direction that Melinoe, age 8, no longer even needed to grow up to decide which direction would take control. On a random day, it was Maci who bore witness to the physical manifestation of all evil taking control of the physical vessel it had been sharing this whole time, and Melinoe came into her powers.

Melinoe, a whole new person, addressed Maci - oh, she could talk now. She spoke with a giggle, the smile of a child plastered upon her face, and with her eight year old voice, she informed her that she was now leaving to wreak violence and bloodshed upon the mortal world. She would never forgive Maci, or Hades and Persephone, for what they had done to her. When Maci moved to stop her, the sheer force of the power that Melinoe now wielded sent her nearly flying across the room. She left and would begin her role as Goddess of Ghosts, Evil Incarnate – for the millennia that followed, she frequently pursued minor revenges upon Maci and the King and Queen, violences and horrors while using helpless mortals as pawns and props. Melinoe would actively re-enter Maci’s life after about 2,000 years had passed, now within the narrative of Elysium’s canon storyline.

For now, after Melinoe had departed, Maci’s relationship with Hades immediately crumbled apart. Melinoe’s turn to evil served as a wakeup call too little too late and Maci was horrified at the role she’d unwittingly played, but Hades would not hear it, and instead began to blame Maci both for Melinoe’s rise in power and for allowing her to escape. Maci realized she’d been played by her father. With eight years having passed, even while secluded within the palace, Maci had regained the ability to put on a show of bold confidence, and she had fucking had enough. Melinoe had been the palace’s dirty secret, and now she was clearly going to be a problem for the kingdom and anyone who encountered her. Threatening to expose the fact that Hades was the monster who had made her, Maci demanded he lift the embargo that still stood and let her do as she pleased - she had no love left for him, and intended to gladly stay out of Hades’ way. Annoyed at how all of this had gone on, Hades agreed. Eight years later, Maci's isolation was over.

One of the first things Maci did was reunite with Hypnos. He was overjoyed to see her, and that she seemed like she was doing okay. She too, was relieved to find Hypnos in one piece. He shared that Thanatos was unfortunately still around, and still lurked at Hypnos’ side, but now with the truth of him exposed, he had at least thankfully dialed back the abuse. Maci shared that for the past eight years she’d been raising her secret half-sister who had been born double-souled and was now running rampant within the mortal world as the embodiment of evil that Hades had forced out of her. (Surely Hades hadn’t expected her to actually keep that a secret). Catching up on all that they had missed since they had been separated, their meeting ended with an assessment of where they stood, as a couple and as friends.

They mutually agreed that their romantic relationship needed to end. That romance had been born from a place of trauma and they both unequivocally felt that even the mere thought of having sex with the other again would be too triggering. But they had been through too much together and known each other for so long that neither could bear the thought of losing the other permanently, especially not because of Thanatos and Hades. Maci and Hypnos agreed to remain best friends, and they did ever after.

Maci, though stifling the litany of trauma deep within herself, now considered herself to be fully free.

Two thousand years of Maci reestablishing her libido and reputation in her kingdom, dating many other random shitty people including the Lampad nymph Leuke, and just generally becoming more Maci with time, would pass. And then... at long last.

=Beginning of canon events= This section is a timeline narration of each of the main events of the canon Elysium'verse that Maci has been involved with, from every plot to character relationship. There's a lot here - the RP world of the Elysium'verse has been running for more than a decade - so buckle up!

The very beginning
 Approximately 20 years ago… 

Over the past two millennia, Maci had picked up a habit of committing acts of mild vandalism when she was bored and often spent time setting small things on fire, usually topside in the mortal world while no one was around. It was during one of these excursions, standing in a mostly empty park and moodily watching a shrub burn down, that Maci found herself unexpectedly approached. She was immediately standoffish, but the mortal who’d come up to her, looking to be about her physical age and dressed just as edgy goth as she was, had no intention of shooing her away. Instead, not even batting an eye at her six foot glowing pink appearance or all the fire, he simply dropped a couple deadpan remarks about pyromaniacs. Sarcastically bantering back, Maci was vaguely intrigued enough by him (and found him mildly cute enough, for a mortal, to be worth her time) to allow the conversation to continue... and then was actually intrigued by him when he revealed that despite being mortal, he also possessed the ability to create fire, a supernatural power inexplicably passed on throughout his family history. Maci introduced herself, and thus made her first ever human mortal friend. His name was Tory. She explained to him how to get in touch with her again, a quick tutorial on how to beseech a goddess - he explained to her what a cell phone was.

Maci and Tory connected immediately over similar styles and sarcastic predilections. They had quickly bonded while snidely standing over flame and as they continued to constantly talk and text, they were soon best friends. After a couple thousand years, Maci was not used to purposely keeping someone around who wasn’t ogling her with ulterior motives; with that and, since she’d never had any interest in sleeping with mortals before and was not about to start, her usual over-the-top demeanor was temporarily cooled down, replaced by genuine fascination. Tory was new to the world of the gods, having not realized that they actually existed outside of mythology books and old stories from his childhood. For her part, Maci had no experience with living mortals either. Tory was less fragile than she'd assumed mortals would be, and despite his intimidating appearance and flatly sarcastic demeanor, beneath that Maci found that he was kind, and seemed to like her in a genuine, down-to-earth way. The edges he put on were carefully constructed as protection; Maci could relate.

She began to enjoy explaining things to him about the world she came from, the revised mythology from the mouth of someone who’d been there. He enjoyed listening to her, dryly amused at the wild stories and to know now that they were all real. She eventually explained to him that the mortal-deity disconnect on her end was because, despite the famous myths he knew of being filled with stories of gods interacting with mortals, that was only Olympian culture and not the Underworld’s. Unlike Mount Olympus, mortals were everywhere in the Underworld – that is, the dead souls of them as shades, filling the spaces of the Underworld as its primary import and livestock. In the Underworld, it was unheard of and even taboo for Chthonic gods to truly interact with and form relationships with the topside breathing meatsack versions of mortals prior to their inevitable deaths. She'd never realized she could have anything in common with any of them (Tory was only mildly offended, he joked) and eventually sheepishly apologized for judging so harshly. Tory was normal! He was actually more enjoyable to spend time with than most of the entities she'd lived her whole life around. In fact, mortal or not, Maci felt she'd never quite connected with another person so immediately as she did Tory, and he, though quieter by nature than she was, felt the same. They were so different from each other, but also so alike. Their relationship remained strictly platonic, which was a strange first for Maci; if both of them both quietly, privately, thought the other was pretty hot, well that was no one’s business but their own.

Over time they were close enough friends that as a treat Maci decided to sneak Tory into the Underworld for a tour. After all, she had spent so much time with him in the mortal world, and she was beyond ready to return the favor and show off the kingdom she ruled over. The living are strictly forbidden in the Land of the Dead, but as Princess, Maci figured, as usual, she could do and get away with whatever she wanted, and they did sneak in and out with Tory still breathing and unscathed in the end. There were two notable events that occurred during this adventure.

First, Maci had brought Tory into the main palace, slipping him in to show him around when she knew Hades was occupied in meetings, for she knew if Hades found out she'd brought a living mortal to the Underworld, he would lose his mind, and their relationship had not improved in two millennia. They ran into Hypnos while they were there. An unusual and fun surprise, Maci finally got to introduce her two best friends to each other… and then, Hypnos remembered that he was only in the palace because he’d escorted Thanatos to meet with Hades. Before Maci could whisk them away, Thanatos was there. He played clipped nice as he met Tory but Maci (sweating bullets) knew Thanatos was the absolute worst person to discover (as he put it himself, directly to Tory's face while smiling sweetly) “[her] new pet mortal.” Despite the new palpable tension in the room, Maci played cool right back, though she through gritted teeth asked Thanatos to kindly please holy fuck do not say anything to Hades. As he exited, it was pretty clear that leaving crucial information in the honor system of Thanatos’ hands was probably something that would come back to bite them later. Tory’s immediate impression of Thanatos was, correctly, that he was a real asshole, and he was mildly stunned when Maci reluctantly admitted that he was her ex-boyfriend before quickly changing the subject.

When they moved on from the palace, Maci resumed her guided tour and brought Tory to see the Phelegethon River, an Underworld river which flowed with pure fire instead of water. As two pyrokinetics, neither Maci nor Tory were fond of swimming in water, but swimming in fire was a different story. It was then that notable event number two took place – unbeknownst to Maci, it was here and then that Tory quietly realized that he was head over heels in love with her.

Maci had no idea that Tory went home that day believing that she was so far out of his league that it wasn’t worth possibly jeopardizing his friendship with her to tell her the truth, when surely she would reject him anyway. Little did he know that Maci was completely in love with him, too – though she, less in tune with her own emotions than Tory was with his and unaccustomed to genuine relationships, had not processed her feelings around him to be anything more than platonic. Though she adored him, each of them entangled in mutual “platonic” obsession by this point, Maci had never considered the possibility that she even could fall in love with him, as Tory was so different than anyone she’d ever gotten involved with. On the surface, their friendship did not change, while behind the scenes Maci daydreamed about Tory at her side, as Tory in the meantime filled up his sketchbooks with portraits of her.

By now, Maci was one of the rare people (if not the only person) in Tory’s life who’d been able to peel back the exterior he carefully constructed around himself - stoically deadpan, moody and antisocial – to expose, just between the two of them, that he was caring, shy, and sweet; that all of his poised demeanors had been built to cope as best he could with a rough past. But even Maci would have been shocked to hear Tory’s internal monologue: his self-conscious anxieties that he was barely good enough to be even friends with her: an actual goddess humoring some mortal nobody.

The knowledge that her powerful parents of literal legend could never approve of him didn’t help. Their day in the Underworld had proven it, where even though he hadn’t met the King and Queen themselves, every single person they’d run into had reacted to Tory’s presence with disgust and disdain. It was amusing to Tory and Maci at the time, enjoying together the way everyone seemed to squirm in horror at his out of place aliveness, but as time went on and Tory had fallen into pining behind Maci’s back, the memory became a grim reminder that they could never actually be together. He worked hard to try to convince himself he was just lucky enough to call her a friend, counting his blessings that within his comparatively short lifespan, at least he’d get to enjoy being around her for a short wink of her eternity so long as her family never really found out. And if in his wildest dreams, Tory imagined that things could be different... no one really needed to know that; it was safer that way.

Getting together after a sequence of horrible events
 AKA - Thanatos & Melinoe re-enter the narrative 

CONTENT WARNING REMINDER AGAIN, SPECIFICALLY HERE – FOR VIOLENCE, RAPE, MENTIONS OF SUICIDAL IDEATION, MURDER – THIS SECTION IS ANOTHER REALLY TOUGH READ, PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Months ago, when Thanatos had accidentally met Tory and promised that he would not say anything to Hades, he did stay true to his word. Instead, Thanatos had reported straight back to Maci’s half-sister Melinoe with absolute glee.

The two villains were “friends,” each nursing a thousands-year-old grudge against Maci specifically – Thanatos, who had tortured her for three years and gotten away with it, but still considered his failure to successfully murder her to be his biggest loss; and Melinoe, mistreated by Maci in her before-times and now possessed by the incarnation of the darkest evils. For Maci to insanely adopt some living human mortal as her newest toy was not only an egregious sin in the culture of the Underworld, but also the absolute easiest bait for anyone looking to hit her where it would hurt. She had handed them a weakness on a silver platter.

Though Thanatos’ immediate inclination was to simply kill Tory and be done with it, Melinoe insisted that there were worse ways to kill him off besides just slitting his throat with a scythe. Tory was an easily accessible pawn to them, where any misery and psychological torment they could inflict would trickle down to Maci. On Melinoe’s end, she felt that she could specifically use him as a way to rip apart her “family” of Hades, Seph, Maci, and began to scheme a convoluted plan. First, she sent Thanatos after him.

Maci didn’t suspect anything particularly out of the ordinary when Tory went the day without answering any of her texts, and when he finally picked up her phone call the next day, he did not fully tell her that yesterday, he’d been jumped. Thanatos, armed with a posse of Keres daemons, had cornered and attacked him – as the Keres held him down, Thanatos smugly informed Tory that he’d been sent on special mission from Lord Hades himself as warning that he should remove himself from his daughter’s life immediately. Thanatos told Tory that although Hades was allowing him to stay alive for now, he’d personally wanted a message passed along to him. Hades’ alleged “message” left Tory with two broken arms and several broken ribs.

Thanatos was lying, of course - Hades had nothing to do with this assault. But Tory had no reason to believe otherwise, and could not bring himself to admit to Maci that her own father (supposedly) had been responsible for causing such harm. He… also could not bring himself to not answer the phone when she’d called, even though it was starting to become clear that his friendship with her was putting him in direct danger. Tory brushed aside the details of his “accident” to her when Maci discovered he was healing in casts. She was horribly concerned even without knowing the truth of what had happened, but Tory was deliberately vague. His own well-being was less of a concern to him than the thought of throwing Maci deeper in the middle of Hades' apparent personal vendetta against him; he'd resigned to handle it himself without a word to her. Tory didn't want to end their friendship, as he was still so in love with her even while healing the broken bones he'd gotten in return, and beyond those quietly selfish reasons, he was also unwilling to upset her by blindsiding her away. Still, he worried that Maci’s father could retaliate directly against her instead if he found out they were still spending time together and reluctantly, he did begin to distance himself from her. Tory used his healing injuries as an excuse for not being around her in person, telling himself it was the best means to protect her, though they continued to stay in touch by phone. Maci remained blissfully unaware that he was purposely pulling away or why, assuming he was just flustered from getting hurt and trying to fuss over him despite protests; she eventually acquiesced to the fragile mortal healing process at his insistence.

Unfortunately, this distancing from Maci left Tory vulnerable by the time Melinoe set her own awful plan into motion, as he was still severely injured, and now mostly alone. As the incarnation of all evil, Melinoe still felt that just killing him by her own or Thanatos’ hand was not enough. On top of trying to cause specific anguish to Maci by targeting Tory, Melinoe was also aiming to drive a direct wedge through Seph and Hades’ relationship. She had decided on a terrible scheme to accomplish both goals at once, hoping that the end result would cause blame and chaos, and hopefully, for no other reason other than devastating Maci, even drive Tory into taking his own life.

Using her collection of murdered shades as putty, Melinoe sculpted a Frankensteined entity that looked identical to Seph in form and function, and set it loose after giving it “life” in undeath. The imitation goddess-creature broke into Tory's home, masquerading as Persephone looking to both “cheat” on her marriage and “teach a lesson” to Tory for not ending his friendship with Maci. Wearing Persephone's face, it assaulted and raped Tory, who was already weakened by his prior injuries and was no match against the powers the entity had been infused with. The entity dissipated back into nonexistence afterwards, leaving Tory half-dead, traumatized, and believing that it was in fact Maci's own mother who had done this to him.

Maci received a phone call from one of Tory’s only mortal friends, Jesse, through Tory’s own phone: something had happened, Tory was hurt and refused to talk about it, and she was the only person he knew of who that Tory might open up to. Alarmed, she teleported immediately to his home, arriving just as Tory was realizing she’d been called without his knowledge. Before he noticed she was standing behind him, Maci had already accidentally caught the tail-end of Tory’s panicked explosion that she couldn’t be here, that her own parents had been the ones to attack him - yelling, he'd confessed the truth that Hades had orchestrated his first assault, and, just days ago, Persephone had violated him next.

As Tory finally discovered with horror that she'd overhead and Maci staggered in shock, her initial reaction was fury towards her parents. Though unbelievable to hear at least her mother accused of such a thing, Maci knew she could not really put it past them to commit such acts and was consumed with rage knowing Tory was being truthful. (To the best of his and their sincere knowledge.) However, her fiery anger quickly extinguished with Tory crumpling in front of her. For all of Tory's shells upon shells that Maci had peeled through, she'd never seen him cry, much less break down so completely. There would be plenty of time later to kill her fucking parents, but Tory needed her now. Maci followed and embraced him, finding herself at a loss for words besides a shaky apology; then they were both in pieces. Tory stammered that he'd never meant for her to be involved and find out about any of this - she replied that of course she'd protect him but she'd never wanted him to get hurt, and why would he ever risk his life instead of telling her the truth about her parents trying to kill him - he confessed that he loved her.

Hearing Tory say it, plaintively and simply in words, was all it took for it to finally click for Maci herself. She loved him. Of course she loved him too. She almost couldn't believe it had taken her this long to realize it, and staring back at Tory (who was anxiously waiting for a response, stuttering that he'd understand completely if she never wanted to see him again) Maci found herself all at once completely overwhelmed with the love she could now put a name to. Tory's expression, as she finally managed to faintly reply that she loved him too, was of such abject disbelief that she repeated herself, now confident, more sure once the words had left her mouth. Hesitantly, they embraced each other... gingerly, she kissed him. It finally dawned on Tory that she'd really said what she had, that Maci was being serious - in the midst of the devastation, the cloud lifted and cleared into reciprocating joy as he kissed her back. They clung in each other's arms for the rest of that night, weepy and exhausted and, for the first time, together as a couple.

Already quite codependent when they were just friends, Maci and Tory immediately became inseparable. Tory was still fragile, mentally and physically, but as long as he had her, he would be okay. She carefully helped to pick up all of the pieces of him that had shattered. Maci remained at his side day in and day out, unwilling to abandon him on his own despite how tough he tried to act. Maci was fiercely protective, dutifully clinging to him, haunted with the knowledge that she'd almost lost him so easily - (she refused to dwell on the inevitable future that came with loving a mortal human, pushing the thought to the back of her mind) - Tory, despite his circumstances, was just as protective of her. Though Maci wanted to raise hell with her parents, Tory did not want to risk her putting herself in danger or making the situation worse. She didn't put up much of a fight before agreeing - she didn't want to leave him in any way, not when she could keep him safe and enshrouded in her arms. Maci did not return at all to the Underworld for several months.

But though cohabiting with Tory was wonderful, for he was wonderful, eventually the confines of staying around the clock in the mortal world began to chafe upon her. She felt homesick despite it all, paranoid and uncomfortable in the realm she was not used to living in... but leaving Tory was out of the question. If Tory was in her own domain with her, they could both feel more secure. Tory agreed to let Maci sneak him into the Underworld to spend a few secret nights in the palace for Maci to recuperate - no one needed to know they were there, and Maci hoped that perhaps they'd be able to stay more permanently if she was successful at keeping Tory under the radar.

=Trivia=