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.
This page details Maci's core traits and a deep dive into her extended backstory, before plunging into a lengthy narration of some cherry-picked events that she's been majorly involved with in the Elysium'verse. This page is NOT intended as a full list of everything that's ever happened in our OC RP world - just some choice plots that have featured Maci at the center. Escape the endless scrolling by using the Table of Contents to jump around!
✧*̥˚To find the ACTUAL full list of everything that's ever happened in Elysium'verse canon, that very bulletpoint timeline of the Elysium'verse can be found right here!*̥˚✧
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 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.
Most deities have powers or traits that are specific to the realm of influence they preside over. Maci is the Goddess of the Elysian Fields, or Elysium - the subsection of the Underworld that is bubbled off within a literal barrier of protection to serve as "heaven" in the Land of the Dead. But Maci's job as goddess of this place is minimal, as Elysium belongs to her mostly in appearance only, and is self-sustaining, requiring no upkeep or effort on her end (she insists, refusing to look into doing any degree of work ever). Maci's powers have nothing to do with the functioning of the realm itself. It's actually possible that she may possess an innate ability to control the magical barrier surrounding the land, but due to lack of interest, she's never looked into this, or any other way her powers could connect to her actual realm. The most realm-specific power Maci has is that the sunsets in Elysium are often pink, yellow, and purple - and that just may be a coincidence.
Why the flames, then? Hades, her father, has powers which are based in smoke, and as his offspring, this perhaps was the natural progression. Moreso however, at the time of Maci's birth, there also was no deity presiding over Tartartus, the pits of “hell” and hellfire of the Land of the Dead. This connection thusly appeared in Maci, as the child of the two rulers of the kingdom itself.
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. Maci's ideal state of being is to be unceasingly worshipped, clinging to her status as Princess and goddess and making sure you don't forget it.
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.
That all... explains but does not excuse her behavior, and many people upon first meeting her (and even quite some time afterwards) find her to be utterly insufferable. And those people are justified, completely correct to think so!
However, 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 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 was showered with unbridled love and attention from her parents and their subjects. She was a hyperactive and bubbly toddler fast accustomed to having everything she ever wanted, with everyone wrapped around her fingers all the time.
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 very different than what Maci was used to – 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, Maci did not take kindly to this. This first spring-summer was a six-month battle between a loud and moody 5-year-old Underworld Princess and her intensely condescending Olympian-bred grandmother.
For the next five years, Maci continued to travel with her mother seasonally, and each season was spent in increasing hostility: 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 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 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 traveling seasonally or stay fulltime in the Underworld. By then, Demeter had long since given up on ever taking her in as an Olympian, and was beyond relieved to be rid of the little brat when Maci obviously chose to remain home 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 Seph there.
During the first spring that she spent home, Maci was 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 together, Hades instead decided 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. She had broken up their fight by physically forcing herself between them and exploding. Immediately fascinated by both (and enamored with Thanatos especially), Maci had clung to them afterwards, and they all 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 disapproval 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 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 to make it worse, 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 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, when Persephone returned in the fall, the toxic environment Hades and Maci were constructing together snapped back to the illusion of peace. A silent decision was made to play nicely together in Seph's presence, but 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 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. She 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 silence, 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 for the first time, the simmering tension between her husband and daughter was too great to hide. She was overall disturbed and stunned by this shattered relationship coming out of “nowhere”, 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). 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. It had been long proven that giving Maci presents usually kept her satisfied.
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 magical barrier surrounding Elysium’s outskirts, installed by the Olympians ago and 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.
By now, something inside Maci was cracking, or it already had. She was 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 little kid. Part of her yearned to viciously lean into the perception of her created by her own family, and she did this when she traipsed the kingdom clutching her title of Princess like an obnoxious shield. But there was a part of her inside that was beginning to claw in desperation with 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 felt she'd 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, but she’d circled back to reminding herself that at least she was pretty. This was something she felt she could cash in on while she waited for Thanatos to realize she was available.
Without telling anyone what she was planning, that winter Maci gathered an insane sort of press conference in the Underworld and announced to the crowd that she was willing and ready to have sex with anyone who would have her. The audience 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 middle 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 alarmed – not over Maci’s visibly waning mental health in this moment, but merely 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. On the spot, Thanatos decided that he couldn’t risk anything or anyone getting in the way of everything he'd planned for years and seized the opportunity.
Thanatos appeared next to Maci and made a show of concerned outrage, beginning a hushed argument between them in front of the grumbling crowd until Thanatos told her that he’d 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, she lashed out at Thanatos for making fun of her, 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 began to date, and Thanatos insisted they continue as an open relationship to allow Maci to meet her goal of sleeping with as many people as possible. The sex addiction that would follow Maci for the rest of her eternal life well into the present day (and never resolved) began here, as she was instantly intoxicated by the rush of endorphins and easy attention that came with. Meanwhile, Hypnos acted 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.
When it happened Maci burst into flames and threw him out; he didn't argue and retreated to his home in Tartarus. Days later, when she could no longer stand being alone, and felt that the string of anonymous sex she was having was no longer a sufficient band-aid, Maci sought him back out and demanded answers. Thanatos was all syrup sweet apologies, promising it would never happen again and swearing he had no idea what had come over him. 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 suddenly cruel, and he began to neg her with sharp barbs and personal insults. 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. As he finally dropped all his pretenses, Maci at last met the real Thanatos.
Over the next few days, weeks, months, Thanatos carefully outlined their new dynamic. He explained he was in love with her; 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. When Maci 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 couldn’t 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. It was springtime by now, and Hades was not about to notice that anything was amiss in Maci's personal life. It was the time of year that Hades hardly noticed she even existed. When Thanatos began to wield his scythe against her too, Hades did not spare a second glance at the gory slashes Maci barely hid, proving Thanatos smugly right.
But though she was horrified to admit it, during these early months Maci was still in love with Thanatos, and she also couldn't stomach the thought of solitude. She was crippled by a fear of abandonment that had festered and grown by this time in her life. Thanatos plied her with niceties and the attention she craved, 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 over and over that at least he was better than no one. He also wasn't 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, though by the next year, Maci age 18, her adoration for Thanatos had at least finally 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 everything 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 him, she distracted herself by seducing anyone across the Underworld, building a new reputation for herself that she felt vaguely proud of. She spent all 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 spent 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 pay legitimate attention to 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 mutual abuse, they began to lean on each other more and more when Thanatos was not looming over their heads. Eventually, Maci 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. It was at least a year later (Maci now 19 years old) that he finally acted in response, though Maci suspected he’d known for much longer before. Thanatos was always annoyed each time he caught the two of them together innocuously, but the level of anger he reached when revealing he knew their relationship was more than platonic was beyond anything he’d ever shown. 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 could eventually knit back together over time. In unimaginable pain, barely even able to speak, Maci was now left as prisoner tossed within Thanatos’ Tartarus cave, 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. 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 through the modern day - though today that scar is only noticeable under close scrutiny, 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. During 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 goal, he was floored when Thanatos bragged to him exactly how his relationship with Maci would soon come to an end.
Hypnos had never stood up to Thanatos before, but he knew that he could not let this happen. As Thanatos cornered Maci alone to 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. While Thanatos was frozen in disbelief, Hypnos breathlessly explained what had almost just happened to her... and Maci's state of disassociation flickered. No deity had ever died before. The sheer, insane, terrifying gravity of the Fate that she 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.
He descended into an unhinged frenzy of rage and obscenity and lunged to hack violently at Hypnos, who was instantly overtaken. The scene unfolded before her in what felt like slow motion. Staring frozen in shock, it was here that it dawned on Maci what was happening and had happened; what Thanatos was doing to Hypnos and had done; 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 few years, forced herself between the twins and exploded.
Though Thanatos was in an uncharacteristic state of wild madness, redirecting his scythe wildly as Hypnos stumbled out of reach, Maci was now fueled by almost four years of her own stifled fury and she fended him off as a blazing inferno. Successfully forcing Thanatos back, 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 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 had 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 Maci sobbing 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 scumbag, 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 cruel of Seph in a way she usually was not, but armed this time with the full wrath of a wronged goddess she couldn’t care less. Hades, however, was quite comfortable with casual cruelty, and he insisted that Seph withdraw to 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 half-sister unfolding, but she also didn’t bat an eye. Firstly, Maci (who was quick to anger anyway) was holding a grudge against Olympus along with her parents, and, like them, was projecting upon the baby. Second, 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. Assessing the situation with judgmental and biased eyes, in Maci’s opinion, 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.
For 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 hardly slept, and as she got older, she never spoke; she just stared all day at her caretakers with 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 participated, at his goading, as her kid sister’s bully. Once Melinoe became a toddler, she took to following Maci or Hades all around, trailing behind them like a ghost, haunting the hallways they walked. 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 everything he had subjected her to. She convinced herself it was a necessary sacrifice to make, particularly since confronting the alternative was too difficult of a thought to entertain the guilt of.
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, speaking for the first time with a smile and a giggle. In her eight-year-old voice, she informed her big sister 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 somehow 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, each relieved to find the other in mostly one piece. Hypnos shared with her that though Thanatos was unfortunately still usually lurking over his shoulder, he had been forced to dial back his abuse since the truth had been revealed. Maci shared with him 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 was long over, and could never be resumed. That relationship had been born from a place of trauma and even the thought of getting together again was too triggering to consider. However, 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, and especially not because of the cruelties of Thanatos and Hades. Maci and Hypnos agreed to remain close friends, and they did ever after.
Maci, though stifling the litany of trauma deep within herself, and doing so for the next two millennia, now considered herself to be fully freed.
Two thousand years of Maci reestablishing her libido and reputation in her kingdom, dating many other random terrible people including the Lampad nymph Leuke, and just generally becoming more Maci with time, would pass. And then... at long last.
Beginning of canon content
This section begins the timeline narration of what is considered the very beginning of the events that make up the canon Elysium'verse as they relate to Maci. As the the RP world of the Elysium'verse has been running for more than a decade, there is a ridiculous amount of content to go through.
All of the plot points and narration that have been selected for inclusion on Maci's profile are plots that feature Maci as a main character - after a marked point, the focus of the Elysium'verse would shift to expand around some other characters instead of just automatically Maci. With this in mind, Maci's page is NOT a comprehensive guide to every single thing that's ever happened.
✧*̥˚To find an ACTUAL comprehensive guide to every single thing that's ever happened, a complete bulletpoint timeline of the whole Elysium'verse to the modern day can be actually found right here!*̥˚✧
Meanwhile on this Maci page alone, for organizational purposes this "beginning section" encompasses the storylines that the Elysium'verse did literally and singularly start with: Maci and Tory meeting and falling in love, continuing through to the death of OrigiMel-Melinoe. What follows is a summary rundown of the early Elysium'verse... presented once again as a narrative story.
Maci & Tory's main arc
Technically the saga of Maci and Tory is wholly ongoing in this entire OC world but specifically, the early story beats which make up the actual roots of what would continue into the Elysium'verse that exists in its current form today start here, with...
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 were strictly forbidden in the Land of the Dead, but as Princess, Maci figured that as usual she could do 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 they 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 introspective than he was 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 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 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, physically and mentally, but as long as he had her, he knew he'd be okay. Maci carefully helped to pick up all of the pieces of him that had shattered. She'd done it for herself so many times over the past millennia, after all. She became fiercely protective of him, dutifully clinging day in and day out, haunted with the knowledge that she'd almost lost him so easily (and refusing to dwell on the inevitable future that came hand-in-hand with loving a mortal human, pushing that thought to the back of her mind). Tory, despite his circumstances, was just as protective of her, a perfect match to cling back to her. Though Maci wanted to raise hell with her parents, Tory insisted that doing so could put her in danger or make the situation somehow 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 the most safe enshrouded in her arms and less of a target for the wrath of the gods hunting him. Her own wrath could wait. Maci did not return at all to the Underworld for several months.
The Elysium Palace
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 this realm she was not used to living in... but leaving Tory was out of the question. Maci (perhaps a bit selfishly) rationalized that if Tory was in her own domain with her, they could both feel more secure. When they discussed it, Tory agreed to let Maci sneak him into the Underworld to spend a few secret nights in the palace together. No one needed to know they were there while she recuperated, and Maci hoped that perhaps they'd be able to stay more permanently if she was successful at keeping Tory under the radar.
Hidden in the plain sight of the Underworld’s palace, Maci and Tory only managed to spend a single afternoon cuddled together before being discovered. It was Seph herself who approached, unfortunately. She was, of course, oblivious to the accusations she’d been framed for, only relieved to find Maci resurfaced after so many months off the grid, and so the unexpected reactions from her daughter and the... mortal inexplicably at her side blew Seph away. Maci was furious to see her. Months of the anger she'd set aside for Tory's sake were now rushing towards an outlet, and how dare Persephone have the audacity to stroll up to her room with a smile as if she hadn’t done the things she had?! In an explosion of utter rage and literal flame, Maci accosted Seph, her anger growing in power the more confused Seph seemed to be in response. Tory behind her had managed to redirect his initial surge of panic into his own level of fury and the two of them confronted an increasingly alarmed and baffled Seph who continued to insist she had no idea what either of them were talking about. When Tory demanded she stop pretending she hadn't been there, choking out details of his assault, Seph realized in horror what she was being accused of. She swore the unbreakable oath of the River Styx that she was innocent, and had not been the one to attack Tory in any way. She hadn't even been there.
The commotion abruptly ended as Tory and Maci realized that she had to be telling the truth - violating a Stygian oath with a lie would trigger retribution and arrest by the Furies, vengeful daemons whose many roles included upholding oaths sworn on Styx. The revelation was shattering, and Tory was overcome sick with grief and panic as Maci held him in spiking alarm. If Persephone hadn't assaulted him, then who had and why? Who among the realms considered Tory and Maci an enemy to attack and could shapeshift to do it? Why frame Seph as being involved? The sudden unknown reopened the wound that had greatly healed over the months that had passed.
As painful as the moment was, at least now they knew Seph was an ally and not an enemy, and belated introductions were made while together they tried to figure out what was really going on. (Though surprised that Maci was dating a mortal, Seph was not as averse to Tory as the typical Underworldian, for of course she was half-Olympian and spent half her time in the upper world, where living human mortals were much more commonplace to her. Now to Maci’s relief, not only was her mother not trying to kill Tory after all, she even seemed to like him.) Tory anxiously backtracked through the sequence of events from when he’d been attacked with some specificity, looking for clues as to who the actual culprit could be. The offender had looked identical to Seph, and their voices had sounded the same. It had known Tory’s name, known all about Maci, and had specifically taunted and mentioned both Maci and Hades with contempt. It had been capable of tremendous supernatural powers and abilities like phasing through the walls at will like a spirit, and controlling ghostly tendrils that had caused many of Tory’s injuries.
As Maci comforted Tory, those last two things gave Seph pause… Neither of them were abilities she had. These were the powers of phantoms - and were connected, obviously, only to a deity of phantoms themselves. Horrifyingly… there was only one of those. Though it seemed completely impossible that she'd have found the ability to do such a thing, the singular Goddess of Ghosts was certainly known for her vendetta against Persephone, and Maci. Grimly, Seph shared that she believed Melinoe was behind this. She set out to track Melinoe down herself after Maci made her promise not to involve Hades yet (Maci had left out his prior involvement in this whole mess, knowing it was very possible she’d lose Seph’s support when she inevitably took his side). With Seph gone, Maci tried to wrap her head around the enemy they were suddenly facing. Clinging to each other, Maci and Tory rationalized that she'd probably used Tory as an easy target to throw a bomb into Maci's family and turn them all on one another - but she hadn't counted on the two of them coming together as a couple on the other side because of it, immediately causing her possible plan to fall apart. But knowing Melinoe was out there unaccounted for was terrifying. She was unstoppable, ruthless, and everywhere. The Underworld no longer seemed like a safe place.
However, Tory also did not want to return to his home, triggered by the memory of what had happened there months ago. Trying to think of where they could stay instead, Maci suddenly remembered the existence of the palace Hades had given her over 2,000 years ago when she had turned 16. Though she’d never lived in it, she knew it was untouched still in the middle of the Elysian Fields. Maci brought Tory to the Elysium palace, explaining that nothing evil could cross the physical barrier that surrounded the land. Maci and Tory settled into the privacy of the palace, discovering it was in perfect condition after millennia, equipped with supernaturally infinite rooms that could morph at will to the whims of its residents. Though intending it to be a temporary haven, before long the palace felt like home. Informally, it became exactly that - Maci and Tory never moved back out.
First introductions of some of Elysium’s cast
As painful as it had been to return to the moment, discovering the truth of Tory's assault almost seemed to give it some degree of finality. The healing process was slow, yet as time continued to pass, Tory did continue to heal, Maci keeping him safe in her arms all the way. Seph was still hunting Melinoe across the realms of the dead and the living, but that chase was keeping Melinoe occupied and so for the many months that followed, they felt secure, and Maci and Tory's relationship only strengthened.
Throughout all of this, to Maci’s credit, even back when they'd first met each other, she had successfully restrained herself this whole time from completely jumping Tory's bones the way she usually did to anyone she found attractive. Initially she’d just been fully put off by his mortal status. Then, as time went on and her internal biases faded, Maci was both blinded by insisting to herself that their relationship was platonic, and also genuinely concerned that if she decided to even platonically have sex with him, maybe he would just accidentally drop dead - mortals were fragile, he could have a heart attack or something, she'd never slept with any of them herself, how was she supposed to know. Also, the legendarily ridiculous sex drives and default polyamorous promiscuity of the entire Greek pantheon were at odds with the shyer and toned down culture of Tory’s modern day mortal world (or maybe that was just Tory's specific personality? Maci couldn't be sure), and she worried about scaring him away. Then of course, when they had become an actual couple, Tory had gotten hurt, and all of Maci’s priorities had shifted accordingly.
But now Tory was in an okay place, and they were touchy-feely and together all the time, living in their own palace that had suddenly become their home. After an evening modeling for Tory as he painted a portrait of her, Maci finally (gently! GENTLY!) made a move and brought up taking things to the next step. Tory leapt at the opportunity, and they finally consummated their relationship. It took every fiber of her being not to overwhelm him completely, his first time versus her 2,000 years of unhinged insanity - and he was not completely overwhelmed... just the usual amount of... whelmed (no match for the stamina of a Greek goddess, to be expected, but a success nevertheless; Maci was so head-over-heels).
Now having entered a new era of enlightenment, Maci and Tory explored their environment, explored each other, and started to form some new relationships.
During this time period, the relevant formal introductions of some of the "original" Elysium’verse main cast included the following:
Pasi (& Hypnos, again)
Maci actually already knew Hypnos’ wife Pasithea “Pasi” quite well as she'd met her long ago when Pasi and Hypnos had first started dating. Maci of course had even been present at their wedding. (More information about all of those events can be found on Pasi's page linked above!)
Maci and Hypnos were still good friends, but over the past year, she’d been so distracted with everything going on with Tory that she hadn't kept Hypnos updated on anything that had happened since the day they had first run into each other in the main palace. Bumping into Hypnos and Pasi together in Elysium months and months later with Tory at her side again was a more fun introduction than the way the last one had ended, as Hypnos had excitedly told Pasi ages ago about the fire-wielding mortal Maci was toting around and she hadn't believed him. Plus, rumors were dutifully swirling around the eternally gossipy Underworld that Maci was in a relationship with a human who was alive and stashed in the Elysian Fields with her. Well - here he was, and here they were! Pasi was delighted to learn that the gossip (and Hypnos) was correct - Hypnos was astonished and highly amused to discover that Maci and Tory were an item, especially after she had insisted so adamantly months ago that they were just friends.
Pasi had been born an Olympian, before falling in love with Hypnos and descending to the Underworld to live with him many centuries ago. Again the Olympian attitude towards mortals was very different than the Chthonic viewpoints, and so Pasi was not as startled by Tory's entire being as most of the Underworld's residents were (including Hypnos, who remained fascinated with Tory's presence as a novelty). It was still incredibly unusual to find a living mortal down here and to find one who could wield fire like a god, but the only real shock that Pasi expressed was less so about Tory's species and more so that it was Maci of all people who had taken him on as her own. Behind Tory's back, Maci put up with a lot of giggly eyebrow wiggling from both Pasi and Hypnos that she was finally in love with someone who wasn't the absolute worst. Socializing more and more, they all bonded easily together, especially over what a tremendous asshole Tory agreed that Hypnos' brother was. It was on a double date sleepover with Maci and Tory present that Pasi shared the delightful news to them and Hypnos that she was expecting their first child, their son Icelos who would be born the next year.
Glaukos, then Oiolyka
As they settled into Elysium, Maci showed Tory all the nooks and crannies of her subsection of the Underworld. The Elysian Fields belonged to her but Maci, eternally flighty and too impatient to ever do real work, had always taken a hands off approach to running her own realm; Elysium was self-sustaining, anyway. One of her favorite places was the Isles of the Blessed, a offsite beach location deeper in the middle of Elysium that existed for the purpose of sorting lucky shades who'd been thrice reincarnated and achieved Elysium assignment all three - it was an exclusive paradise within paradise, Elysium-brand artificial sun shining bright every day. For the gods, the Blessed Isles was more of a resort spot, home to black-sanded beaches (everything in the Underworld, of course, defaults goth), cabins to stay in, and more aquatically-inclined Chthonic deities living in its waters.
It was here, with Tory in tow, that Maci first met Glaukos, a handsome fish-tailed god who had taken up residence within the underwater cave systems of the Underworld and its rivers. Just like Pasi, as unusual as it was to find a living mortal in the bowels of the Underworld Glaukos also did not bat an eye at Tory's existence in and of itself. This was because he himself had actually been mortal once - long ago, as a human fisherman, he had eaten a poisoned herb that had left him near-dead before granting his unexpected apotheosis into immortality. Diving as deep as possible, Glaukos had then lived happily ever after in the Underworld.
Maci had always been an outgoing type of person but was cursed with usually being vapid and insufferable, shallow and quick to anger. Many of the eternal residents of the Underworld avoided her like the plague. Nowadays, Maci's relationship with Tory had grounded her in a way, as his quieter and toned-down presence balanced and calmed down her very being (though admittedly he too was prone to hairline trigger anger that matched her own - they were, after all, a perfect matched duo). With Tory glued to her hip all the time, Maci also had a new and automatically interesting conversation starter holding her hand. Everyone in the Underworld knew her, or of her, and her reputations upon reputations as the fiery Princess... now that she had found Tory, Maci was a different and more approachable version of that persona. Pasi didn't count since she'd come with Hypnos (and Hypnos didn't count, as he'd come with her childhood) - so for the first time really, thanks to Tory, Maci found herself making some actual friends within the residents of her own kingdom. Glaukos was basically the first of these. He was pretty enough that Maci let herself and Tory pay attention to him when he'd come across them at the beach (changed persona or not, some things about her could not ever change).
Again they bonded easily - with their specific situation, Glaukos was one of the very rare deities who could relate to the mortal experience, and Maci and Tory jumped at the chance to have him as a resource. Goofy and chatty, Glaukos was fun in a cute, dorky way. Despite his tail and gills, he was not restricted to the seas and could slither around on land. Still, rather than hang out exclusively inside the dryness of Maci and Tory's palace (or in their pool or bathtubs), Glaukos introduced them to a magical artifact in the form of a necklace that could transform the wearer into a merperson adapted to living underwater. Both with and without Glaukos as a guide, Maci and Tory were able to, for once, set aside their pyrokinetic aversions to water to enjoy some mermaid adventure dates.
As Maci and Tory's relationship continued, eventually Maci broached the topic to Tory of expanding things between them in a new way. By this point, Maci had rekindled herself and the two of them were all over each other all the time. Maci had spent much of this recent time in their relationship explaining and reiterating how the entire Greek pantheon enjoyed widespread polyamory and approached sex in a much more casual way than mortals typically did. Sleeping around with your friends was just what the gods all did. Though long ago Maci had taken this to the extreme, at the end of the day she was only slightly more insatiable than your average Greek god.
Maci had no desire to cheat on Tory - she wasn't actually an Olympian in that way. Half the fun would be in keeping Tory at her side, in her firm belief that Tory's meagerly adorable mortal self had no idea what he was missing. Opening the floor to comments, the thought was slightly out of Tory's comfort zone at first but the assurance that they could be together, and that he was still Maci's number one no matter how many twos and threes they added, was enough for him to cautiously agree to explore a third person together with her. The safe option that they settled on for this first threesome amongst them (the first ever amongst the one million more with one million people that would follow in the future) was Glaukos, so once again Maci and Tory jumped at the chance to have him.
Eventually Glaukos introduced Maci and Tory to Oiolyka, a sea nymph he'd just met and was crushing on. Maci and Tory meeting her had been preceded by weeks of Glaukos' gushing. Spunky and cool, Oiolyka became fast friends with the three of them and Glaukos formally asked her out before long, making two sets of couples to continue hanging out together and now double date with and without necklaces. Eagerly, of course at Maci's lead, Oiolyka was also adopted into the experimental circle that she and Tory had established, widening Tory's comfort zone just a little bit more when she became the signature fourth in the first ever foursome (of many to come in the future as well) amongst them. Maci and Oiolyka became good friends at some point after they'd all slept together multiple times. Nymphs of the upper worlds were give-or-take when it came to Underworldians, many of them were uppity if they considered themselves Olympus-adjacent enough. Oiolyka was not one of those, very grounded, and also punk-y enough to blend in with the goths and get along with Maci herself. (More information about Glaukos and Oiolyka's lives together can be found on their respective pages; click their names here!)
Jesse
With Tory's impromptu move to the Underworld, he hadn't left much behind in the mortal world. One such was his only friend, Jesse - the person who'd summoned Maci from Tory's phone during that fateful night, so many months ago.
Maci had only met Jesse once before that night, only just long enough for Jesse to suspiciously clock the puppy-dog eyes that Tory had aimed her way every time he'd thought no one was looking, and long enough for Jesse to have thought of her when Tory had gone through a crisis. From the events of that night Jesse, a sunny, easygoing person who had bafflingly aligned himself at Tory’s dark and moody side since their childhood, had earned himself an immediate spot in Maci’s heart too. Now that he lived in the Underworld, Tory kept in touch with him through the long distance of an entire realm apart until eventually Maci offered to sneak him into the Underworld to visit and hang out in the safety of the Elysium palace, too. She’d already broken the rules with one mortal, why not two? Besides, Melinoe was still on the loose, Hades somehow had not lashed out again with his weapon of Thanatos yet, and since retaliating at the vulnerable people indirectly around Maci clearly their go-to, it was perhaps safer for Jesse to start spending some time in Elysium with them. Tory was Maci’s one mortal exception, but Jesse had already earned her trust to be let in, too.
More infinitely adventurous than Tory was, when he wasn’t hanging out in the palace Jesse spent the other half of his Underworld time wildly running around exploring all over Elysium, only stopping at the barrier’s edges when Maci reminded him that he was definitely accidentally killable if he went off somewhere without supervision.
Jesse’s open running invitation into the Underworld stood concurrently with Maci and Tory getting closer to Glaukos on a platonic and physical level. As Jesse was already one of the rare people Tory had let down a wall around, when given the option of sleeping with a new third, Tory and Maci approached Jesse to be the new one to slot between them. He didn’t think twice at all before leaping at the opportunity, and becoming Maci's second ever mortal exception.
Skipping ahead a little bit in this narrative, it's worth mentioning now that Jesse would become so intimately inseparable from Maci and Tory that he was formally asked to live with them permanently within the palace on Valentine's Day of the next year. There would be a number of people that Maci would go on to meet and adopt into her arms, under her roof, and in her (their) bed; not ever formally dating, just elevated and loved as super-special friends with benefits. Again, the pantheon's standard trend. The palace would continue to be populated with these people Maci latched onto along with Tory, eventually all conglomerating together into one interchangeable family unit as the years continued on... within this special category, Jesse was the first of Maci's little adopted pets, the very beginning of their trend. (Though Maci and Tory's relationships with Hypnos and Pasi, and Glaukos and Oiolyka, would continue with importance - none of the four of them ever moved in!) Jesse would even go on to later marry Laphi, another of Maci and Tory's palace residents discussed in the section below. (For more information about Jesse and his life in Elysium, please visit his page linked through his name!)
Hades finds out about Tory
It was quite some time later that Maci heard Seph had finally captured Melinoe, who’d been evading her in a twisted cat and mouse game for the many months that had passed. Relief swept over her and Tory both to know that Melinoe was being imprisoned in Tartarus where she would be unable to hurt them or anyone again. Though the well-being of mortals was so inconsequential on a divine scale that harming them held little weight when it came to meting punishments, impersonating and framing the Queen of the Underworld was definitely a crime.
Maci could only hope that Seph had not gotten too specific when informing the King as to why after all this time Melinoe was being arrested. Seph did seem to like Tory and approve of their relationship, so surely she wouldn’t bring unnecessary attention back to Tory. After the initial ambush by Thanatos that Hades himself had orchestrated, Hades had since left them alone and Maci was optimistic that while they were tucked away in Elysium, maybe he’d never engage again. Her optimism fizzled when, a short time after Melinoe was arrested, Maci was unexpectedly summoned to the main palace by her father.
To Maci’s irritation, it was not only her father in the throne room, but Thanatos too, annoyingly at his side. Hades regarded her only with his usual demeanor of cold contempt as he asked her to explain about the mortal Melinoe had used Persephone to attack. If the color drained from Maci’s face, he did not seem to notice, going on to elaborate that Seph had told him Melinoe’s attack had been random, but Thanatos had brought to his attention that he’d seen Maci with that same mortal – so what was their connection? Had she known what Melinoe was planning or what her motivation had been?
Maci did not know what to make of this... pretend act of obliviousness. He obviously knew that she knew Tory, he had been the one to send Thanatos to beat him up just before Melinoe’s own attack. Angry at this taunting show of mock innocence Hades was angling at, Maci snapped at him to stop playing dumb; obviously Maci knew him and he knew it, and that his stupid little plan months ago had backfired and only brought them closer. Maci loved Tory, and she was never letting him go no matter how much Hades disapproved of their relationship. She was prepared for the worst reactions, gearing up to yell back as Hades surely was about to throw a fit, but – instead, Hades looked utterly, completely, and genuinely shocked. Something wasn’t right. With a sinking feeling, all alarm bells going off, Maci shot a glance to Thanatos still standing there – and as she caught one look at the smug look of amusement on his face, she immediately realized what had happened.
Thanatos had lied. Months ago, he'd lied. He had attacked Tory on his own. Hades had nothing to do with it and knew nothing about him… or at least, he hadn’t, before she had told him herself, just now. Maci had been gearing up for a fight she thought she was already in the middle of, not one that was just starting now, and this plus the shock of playing into Thanatos' hands knocked the wind out of her. For once Maci was struck speechless, caught so off guard as Hades finally processed what she had said and erupted in fury. Now that Hades did finally know, his reaction upon learning that his daughter was in love with a human mortal was just as Maci had always known it would have been anyway. He found it unacceptable, he accused her of humiliating the kingdom once again, he demanded that she stop at once, and he threatened to put an end to it himself. But as much as she'd prepared for exactly this for all this time, in these current circumstances Maci was so flustered that for once she could barely hold her own in the argument. She escaped the situation at last by beseeching Seph to intervene and then immediately poofing away, leaving Seph behind to try and calm her seething, screaming husband down.
Maci fled back to Tory in Elysium, where she broke the news to him that things were bad, and Tory was probably in grave danger. On the verge of panicking, she explained Thanatos himself had been after him for his own ulterior motives, and to make things worse, now Hades would probably be pursuing him for real. As Tory held her and tried to calm her down, he finally expressed some slight confusion over why Thanatos was out to get him... all this because he was kind of a douche and Tory was mortal? Hades, though irrational and cruel (and not that this was a real excuse but), at least had a standard of a kingdom to uphold - but what did Thanatos care?
Maci had spent centuries brushing past her trauma in the most unhealthy of ways, never really facing it head on. Despite how interlinked Maci and Tory were, part of her had hoped to never even have to tell Tory the truth about what she had gone through at Thanatos' hands. But if Thanatos was trying to hurt him, Maci felt it was her fault and Tory deserved to know where this apparent grudge was coming from. Tearfully, Maci finally told Tory about her full history with Thanatos, the way things had started and how they'd ended - then quickly talked Tory down from charging after Thanatos and strangling him then and there with his own two hands. Though Maci did admittedly swoon at the gesture, Tory's own two hands were mortal and Thanatos had almost killed him already without even trying to kill him. There would be no vengeance to be had right now. Besides, Hades was a bigger problem at the moment - sending Thanatos and a dozen Keres to beat Tory up had been just in line with anything Hades would try to do, and it was reasonable to expect a similar, actual assault pending. Tory could be hurt again, and it would be Maci's fault.
Tory reassured her that he didn't care what happened to him so long as he could stay by her side, swearing that none of this was her fault. He would never leave her, and he told her over and over. They would be okay as long as they were together. But with everything going on, all at once the reality of Tory’s mortality began to fully dawn on Maci at long last. The days that followed found Maci consumed with anxiety and rare reflection. He would never leave her – but he would leave her. It was the nature of being human, the curse of being only mortal – her curse, for falling in love with him. She’d known when she’d met him what it meant, but it hadn’t sunk in before now; not really. Now, days crawling by, while Maci clung in Tory’s arms, stared at his worried face, and listened to his impossible promises to protect her forever, she tried to imagine what it would be like for her when he aged and passed in the natural cycle of things. In the blink of an eye, he - in a fraction of her eternal lifespan, he would - She was just supposed to let him go, let him fade away into nothingness for the rest of eternity?
Maci could not, and would not live in an eternity that Tory was not a part of. Absolutely not. She had never been so sure of anything before. Once she knew, she knew, and Maci popped the question to him - would Tory consider becoming a god for her? She would immortalize him the way the Olympians did. And then, maybe they could even get married. Tory agreed to consider it. In his own heart, he already knew the answer would be yes.
Though Tory insisted that if anything, he should propose to her properly (and give her a ring, for gods' sake), they became informally basically more-or-less kind-of-sort-of betrothed, agreeing to keep their potential plans a secret for safety until they'd made some more finalized choices. In the meantime, Maci began to dream about her perfect royal wedding. Their possible marriage and Tory's possible pending apotheosis could also have the added benefit of gifting them the formal protection of Hera, Olympian Goddess of Marriage and Aphrodite, Olympian Goddess of Love; the annoyance of having to plead to Olympians was probably a necessary sacrifice to keep both Tory and her entire relationship safe. With Tory on the verge of taking the step to formally leave the mortal world, he and Maci visited his mortal home for one last time. Even though the thought of doing this and staying with Maci forever thrilled him, the decision to leave behind his mortal life had a strange, final weight to it; a feeling of closing the chapter of a book forever. Always introspective, Tory asked Maci to give him a little bit of time that afternoon by himself to think about and mark the transition of his entire lifespan into something that would exist above a timeline.
Maci & Tory get engaged
When Maci returned to pick Tory back up, she arrived just in time to catch none other than Hades there with him.
They were in the throes of an argument - Hades must have appeared just as Maci had left, the few minutes all he'd needed - and before Maci could even react, Hades had grabbed Tory and descended back to the Underworld with him. Before blindly charging after her father, Maci actually called her mother first. But Seph was utterly unhelpful, back to her typical bias in trying to somehow defend Hades' actions, urging Maci not to jump to the worst case scenario. Besides, it was spring, and Persephone reminded Maci that she could not return to the Underworld. Fuming, Maci abruptly gave up the argument, as talking to the brick wall that was her mother was only wasting time. Maci left Seph floundering there and set after Hades with no idea where he could have gone, only knowing that Tory was in danger and time was of the essence. She frantically tore through the Underworld everywhere she could think to look. Finally, she found them, tangled in an altercation on the edges of the cliffs of the Phlegethon River.
By "altercation" - the situation Maci burst in upon was Hades in the middle of attempting to murder Tory, having summoned twin arms of solid smoke from his own bank of powers, and seizing Tory straight off the ground to strangle him to death. Maci was always quick to anger, but this was absolutely too much. Tory belonged to her and no one was taking him away. Before Tory was whisked away by Violent Death herself, Maci slammed her father with a wall of flame that knocked him back and knocked Tory free, collapsing him back upon the ground to catch his breath.
Hades and Maci’s relationship over the years had never been good but him trying to actually physically kill the love of her life was so far beyond a line being crossed that Maci immediately knew the tatters of what was left between them as father and daughter were now up in flame forever. This was something she would never forget. They screamed back and forth at each other, Maci shielding Tory from the scale of Hades’ powers with her own display of fire, but Hades would not back down. Snarling that he’d never let them stay together, that Tory was destined to rot amongst the rest, Hades called upon his own kingdom at his will to crumble the rock of the cliff’s edge and sent Tory careening to his death. Maci lunged for him, nearly tumbling off the cliff herself – and missed.
And then all at once she and Tory found themselves safely grabbed – dangling off the edge of an entire cliff, but no longer falling, at least. It was the thickest entwined spread of flowered vines that Maci and Tory had ever seen, summoned by a springtime Persephone, who had thought Maci’s last words over and finally decided for once to take her daughter’s side.
Seph of course was the only person with any influence over Hades, and she was hardly ever angry at him – so showing up now in the middle of spring FURIOUSLY was the final key at last to getting Hades to surrender his murderous attempts, leaving him struck speechless at her appearance there. Backpedaling frantically before his outraged wife, Hades got an earful from Seph as she demanded he leave Tory alone at once or risk destroying their own marriage. From the heap they were collapsed together in, Maci and Tory watched Maci’s parents quarrel in front of them, slightly shell-shocked themselves.
As the adrenaline of the scene finally wore off, Maci broke down in Tory’s arms; he was shaken too, and the two of them clung desperately to each other in frantic tears, both wrecked and trying to reassure the other. Seph and Hades were in the background while through Maci’s weepy babbling Tory asked her to marry him as soon as possible, to deify him as soon as possible, to let him stay forever to prove Hades wrong. Hades was utterly disarmed in Seph’s presence and in the face of her stubborn wrath, so now was the perfect time to get the hell out of there - they poofed away to the safety of the Elysium palace, leaving Seph to deal with the aftermath of Hades.
Maci's biggest fattest Greek wedding
Maci and Tory were quickly secretly married on paper by Hera and Aphrodite for safety reasons following this last murder attempt, as this union tied them together into a sacred bond under the protection of those gods. Though not foolproof, at least now the continued actions of trying to break them up would come with some powerful Olympian consequences, after Maci had batted her best eyelashes and pleaded to the appeal of spreading love and marriage within the dark dank Underworld. Former Olympian Pasi, who'd worked for both goddesses in the past, had also put in a good word on their behalf. Now that this was out of the way, they began to plan a bigger wedding.
By “they,” this was all Maci. Tory had scrounged together enough of his own money to buy Maci a pretty ring at his own adamant insistence, and he was content to have her as his bride with his ring on her finger. Maci – though delighted to have Tory on her arm as husband – was absolutely not satisfied with JUST this and set about planning the largest and most obnoxious wedding that she could possibly have. She enthusiastically spread the word about the royal wedding that was going to overtake the Underworld, reserving all of Elysium as a venue. The guest list included… absolutely anyone and everyone who wanted to come and could cross the magical safety barrier of Elysium to get in.
Tory, of course more reserved than the super social butterfly that was his now on-paper-wife, bit back a significant degree of social anxiety to go along with Maci’s dream wedding. Inviting literally every single person in the entire Land of the Dead did sound like a nightmare, but also was a blatant enough political stunt to rub in Hades' face to announce the incoming Underworld Prince that Tory found himself agreeing to let it happen. (Of course Maci’s bubbliest, whiniest insistence helped too. It's worth mentioning that around this point in their history is where the signature Maci and Tory dynamic began to form – Maci enthusiastically and-or aggressively doing the most insane shit; Tory with his head in his hands next to her doing damage control). He had least had his pick of some of the mortal world’s greatest and ghostliest musicians to play as a wedding band.
Word spread throughout the Underworld of Maci and Tory’s wedding to be, spurred along by invitations that were fluttered throughout the kingdom. This was how Hades learned that Maci was to be married, though the traveling invitation explicitly stated he was not under any circumstances welcome to attend. Before he could attempt to murder Tory again, Seph finally smugly informed him they were actually already married, and Tory was soon to be deified by the will of the Olympians who’d married them. Begrudgingly furious, Hades backed off. Thanatos and Melinoe also found out this way how badly their schemes and plans had blown up in their faces to directly result in solidifying Tory within their lives forever. With the wedding and the happy couple safely sequestered away in Elysium, there wasn't a thing either of them could do about it.
Both Maci and Tory's circle of friends combined at this point was extremely small and consisted mostly of the mutual friends they'd just made, so their unconventional wedding party was basically just made up of Oiolyka and Pasithea, Glaukos and Hypnos, Jesse as well. Persephone herself agreed to officiate the wedding, which would conclude with Tory's formal Coronation. Maci's wedding dress, just as obscenely dramatic as one would expect from her, was gothic black, a gown for the Princess of the Underworld. For once, Tory shed his mortal jeans and clothes and dressed draped in a formal caped chiton outfit, fitting of his own pending title - a look that, from here on out, would start to work its way into his daily wardrobe.
On October 16th, Macaria and Tory were officially married before the eyes of thousands. As planned, the short ceremony was led by the Queen of the Underworld and once their union was made, she declared Tory officially as the Prince of the Underworld to cheers from the massive crowd. As Tory, misty-eyed and slightly overwhelmed in Maci's arms, accepted the royal crown bestowed upon him, Persephone with the combined blessings of Hera and Aphrodite finally elevated Tory to godhood. The searing light of growing immortality burst upon them and faded to reveal and announce Tory, divine, his new skin-tone brightened to warm orange - one of the happiest days of Maci's life (and thankfully, she liked his new color palette).
If they'd thought the crowd was loud before, the uproarious celebration when Tory's divinity had taken hold knocked that prior cheer out of the water. The denizens of Elysium plus visiting guests had put aside their reservations about Tory's (now former) mortality in exchange for receiving a new Prince, a new God within the pantheon, and a new excuse to party. The reception followed, and, just like the groom, became also immortalized forever, as the most insane, out of control, wild party that the Elysian Fields had ever seen in its history... a running joke to this day within the Elysium'verse.
Additional introductions of Elysium cast “originals”
Maci's first and main storyline with Tory sort of “ends” with their wedding, as from this point onwards began the official expansion of the Elysium'verse into the OC world that it is today, where we began to add to our cast more broadly. Before moving on to the next section of this “Beginning Canon Content” area, a brief interlude to discuss Maci's relationships to an additional three important characters introduced at this time immediately following the wedding.
Laphi
Tory had found a gardener to revamp the Elysium palace grounds and courtyard shortly after the wedding, now that Maci's palace formally belonged to him as well. Completely confused as to where Tory had found a gardener in the Underworld, Maci's memory was jogged slightly when Tory explained he'd come from the main palace - a minor god named Ascalaphus. Recognizing the name, Maci was baffled. She had been certain he had been turned into an owl centuries ago.
Turns out he had indeed been turned into a screech owl centuries ago - but centuries ago around like, two days later, he had been promptly turned back, and then continued to live adjacent to the main palace to tend to Seph's orchards and gardens in her off-seasons. Ascalaphus (“Laphi”) had definitely met Maci before this afternoon in Elysium, as he'd lived by and worked in the main palace for literally her entire life but Maci insisted she'd never seen him before and a formal introduction was made. Laphi's de-owling back in the day had left him with several permanent owl-like traits in his humanoid form, as well as an ability to shapeshift back and forth from screech owl to god at will. Now that Maci had decided to notice him, she was promptly enamored and at the first opportunity, whisked him away from his garden commission into bed with her and Tory.
Laphi’s disposition was different than the partners Maci had already explored with Tory thus far, as he was much less personable and even quite curmudgeonly, having grown accustomed to spending most of his time shifted into an owl to avoid being social. But Maci was charming, and Tory at her side was learning to be, and once he’d fallen into bed with them Laphi never left. The grounds of the Elysium palace were fully redone, with Maci and Tory giving Laphi (armed with his employ of Flower Shade assistants) free rein to do whatever he thought would look best - in between he spent more time with the Princess and her Prince, even meeting and befriending their mutual friends.
Once again narratively jumping way ahead, Laphi would eventually accept Maci’s offer to move into the palace with them, the excuse of being closer to the gardens he maintained being spoken aloud, and the unspoken eternal offer to continue hooking up with the both of them in the background. The invite was sparked initially when Maci learned that during the gaps in their time together, Laphi had been wooed by Jesse, who was living by then in the palace with them himself. Before long, Laphi and Jesse would become an official couple. Since Maci had long prior arranged for the two of them to sleep together in foursomes well before they’d ever hung out on their own without her, to the modern day Maci continues to pride herself on being the one to single-handedly matchmaker them together. (For more information about Laphi's life and family in the palace, please visit his page linked through his name!)
Eury & Epi
A few months after the wedding, Maci and Tory met another minor god when he crossed paths with them in Elysium. Despite his vaguely creepy appearance and the literal actual corpse of an entire vulture draped upon his shoulders like a shawl, the god was surprisingly friendly when he introduced himself. His name was Eurynomos, God of Decay, or “Eury” for short. He was actually somewhat familiar with them already: Maci because, everyone knew the Princess, and Tory because, well, now everyone knew the Prince - but Eury had actually been present at their wedding, too. Despite not being much of a party person himself, apparently his husband had urged him to attend for fear of missing out. Maci admittedly found the entire thought of his realm to be quite gross, but she was flattered by how highly Eury spoke of her fairytale princess wedding, and that overruled her initial judgy disgust. Maci quickly endeared to him and his polite baby-faced cuteness. Flirting with him during this very first meeting, she next was thrilled when Eury agreed to hook up with her and Tory, so long as they retrieved his aforementioned husband to be with them as well. The only caveat was - Eury’s husband could not actually get into Elysium, and so they would have to go to him.
Through Maci and Tory’s immediate hesitation, Eury sheepishly explained that the “no evil things allowed” setting of the Elysian Fields’ magical barrier kept some gods out based on a technicality. The Underworld was home to many deities who presided over realms of darker, nastier things, who also usually skewed sort of morally dubious themselves as a cause-and-effect. The non-discriminating barrier of Elysium boxed all of them out just in case; better safe than sorry. One of those deities was Eury’s own husband, who was Epiales, the Daemon God of Nightmares.
For some reason, Maci and Tory took Eury’s explanation completely at face value despite never having met him or his nightmare spouse before. Eury just seemed so sweet and harmless, and also of course Maci’s brain was not located inside her head. Fortunately, this set up was not a trap! Eury was being genuine. Their home together was in Tartarus and Maci and Tory poofed back with Eury to meet Epiales for the first time as well.
Eury’s appearance and realm had been offset by his sweet demeanor, but meeting Epiales “Epi” for the first time was the exact opposite experience. Despite his devastatingly pretty looks, Maci and Tory found that the god Epiales embodied his realm with an air about him that was downright unsettling. Though perfectly polite, there was a sharp edge lurking in his smile and a gleam of something dark in his literally reptilian eyes. An interesting red flag was generated by the fact that Epi coolly assured them Thanatos himself would never dare to set foot here in their Tartarus home and that they were perfectly safe from at least him at the moment (like, what about him was keeping Thanatos away, and also, why phrase that last part like that). But Eury seemed so sincere, so much his opposite, and with him having been married to Epi for apparently centuries and centuries, his unflinching presence at Epi's side was enough for Maci and Tory to suspiciously put aside their reservations. They slept with him anyway, obviously; they were going to either way. The imminent threat of potential danger was less of a priority to her than exactly how stupidly attractive Maci found both of them to be. Thus a cautious friendship began, at first held at tentative arm's length.
Jumping ahead in this summary - though she ultimately remained dazzled by his appearance, Maci remained suspicious of Epi for a little bit longer than Tory did, in the long run. Eury’s constant unwavering loyalty to Epi continued to reassure them both that Epi was someone they... probably, sort of, could trust. Eventually during one of their many sexual escapades with Eury and Epi, they learned that the pretty face Epi wore was merely a shapeshifted presentation that disguised a more monstrous daemon shape: Epi's “true” form. Although this secret version of Epi was terrifying and feral, Maci learned that around Eury, he was entirely harmless. Eury had tamed him through the course of his marriage, and since Epi, animalistic the way daemons typically were, viewed Eury as his mate, he was utterly devoted to him in every single form. Seeing this firsthand, Maci's perception of Epi finally clicked and shifted accordingly, to something that was much more adorable. Over time, Maci also learned that Eury and Epi's relationship had began when Eury had been going through a frighteningly familiar period of terror with none other than Thanatos himself, again, years after Maci's time had come and gone. Epi had intervened and made an enemy out of Thanatos, as one of the few singularly terrifying gods who could actually intimidate him. Maci had already come around to appreciating Epi and Eury, but learning this was a whole new level of bonding, common ground through shared trauma.
As the narrative timeline of the Elysium’verse would continue: Epi and Eury would eventually cross the barrier and move into the palace following a sequence of harrowing events. In the course of this future, Maci would discover that beneath the veneer of his realm and the intimidating presence he held, Epi was a person who was deeply emotionally vulnerable; that in truth Epi was solely held steadfast always by Eury, who for centuries had called every shot in the relationship despite their demeanors suggesting the opposite. Epi, and of course Eury, eventually became another of Maci's closest friends: another set of her most cherished palace residents. Under her roof during the years that would follow, Eury and Epi together would establish their family to enmesh among Maci and Tory's. (For more information about Eury and Epi's past and future Elysium history in the palace, please visit their pages linked through their respective names!)
The death of OrigiMel (Maci's involvement prior)
This section details the second “big” storyline that took place within the early Elysium'verse. At this point, Maci and Tory were the only real main characters of the Elysium'verse, with everyone else just existing to support them, but following the events of this section, an informal shift took place to include and centralize many of the other characters and their own storylines. Of course, Maci would remain as a central figure to basically every plotline that would arise, but her own page here is restricted to things she has been more directly featured in.
The events of this section “conclude” the beginning era of the early Elysium'verse as a good cut-off point, and to create an entirely new heading to follow for this Wiki's purposes, as the threads involved with this plot were the final big events to take place before any of Maci's children were born. For now, the following headings detail Maci's involvement in Melinoe's personal larger arc...
Thanatos' (first) revenge
CONTENT WARNING REMINDER, SPECIFICALLY HERE – FOR EXTREME VIOLENCE AND ASSAULT
While Maci enjoyed her new happily married life with her new deified husband, making friends across Elysium, the enemies that they had made continued to stew. Namely, Thanatos was still fuming that not only had the plans of Melinoe he’d trusted failed in the first place; those plans had failed so badly that this shitty mortal Maci was carrying around had been permitted to achieve immortality to be a part of the Underworld forever. Maci and Thanatos’ history from millennia ago remained one of the only times that Thanatos had failed to get something he'd wanted - specifically, Maci's death. Now Tory too had escaped and cheated death - Thanatos wasn't handling it well. Though Maci’s continued intact existence had always been a slap in Thanatos’ unhinged face, Tory's apotheosis was a last straw, and actually marked at this point the beginning of the slow, full unraveling of Thanatos' composure that would culminate in his eventual defeat in the distant future.
For now, Thanatos assessed that Maci’s alignment with the former-mortal had brought her all of the disgusting ‘’happiness’’ she enjoyed now, and that Tory’s own force of will had kept him alive against all odds himself. Thanatos’ attack on Tory months ago had been a play to bother Maci – now, as Thanatos fully blamed Tory for how wrong everything had gone, raging at his perceived humiliation, the obvious answer to get under Tory’s skin was to go about things in reverse. This time, Thanatos resigned himself to lash out at Maci as his revenge.
Maci was oblivious to all this that was going on. As far as she was concerned, Thanatos had never made another move on them and Melinoe was imprisoned, so, out of sight and out of mind. She was living it up in paradise with her dearest kitten Tory (a pet name she’d adopted for him through the course of their relationship), building a family of friends and having great sex all the time. There was nothing that could possibly go wrong, until it did, and on a random day, Maci was beseeched by her mother.
Thinking nothing of it, Maci left Tory to teleport on her own to answer the call, but instead of the main palace Maci was quite confused to find herself in the disturbingly familiar setting of Thanatos’ Tartarus cave. Her mother was nowhere to be found... it was only Thanatos, brandishing his scythe and grinning horribly. With a start, Maci realized that he held at his side the ghost-constructed puppet Persephone that Melinoe had created to send after Tory – behind the scenes, Thanatos had visited Melinoe in her imprisonment and learned some handy tricks. Before Maci could react, leave the scene, call anyone to her side, Thanatos stabbed her, viciously enough to immediately bring her to her knees. Thanatos' careful calculated graceful villainy was starting to indeed disintegrate and this was an example, as there was no calculated grace about the way Thanatos attacked her. He continued the barbaric assault until Maci was unconscious and then some, ichor splattered across his cave.
When enough time had passed for Tory to notice it was strange Maci hadn't returned, he beseeched Seph himself to find out what was taking them so long. Seph didn't know what he was talking about and she hadn't called Maci anywhere, so Tory tried to beseech Maci himself - and discovered he couldn't connect to her. Immediately, Tory knew something was horribly wrong. With Melinoe trapped in Tartarus and Hades secure in the alibi of being by Seph's side, there was only one possible culprit left.
When Maci awoke, she was dazedly startled to find herself riddled with injuries in a hospital setting - and having lost about three days of time to unconsciousness. Tory was at her side and he dissolved into relief once she'd woken up. Maci had limited memory of what had happened to her this time around, and Tory filled her in: that he'd gone to find her and there she was, horrifically injured in Thanatos' grip for the apparent sole reason of making Tory angry. Tory was angry - but now, Tory was a god, too. Grimly, Tory confessed to Maci that he'd felt his own powers surge and feed into the rage he'd felt, and that Thanatos, Death Himself, was no longer any type of threat to him. For in an utter explosion of fury and his new divine ability, Tory had fought Thanatos and won, discovering in the process his very own Fated realm - Tory was the God of the Blood Feud, the very same hate fueled grudge that they both held against Thanatos for his crimes. The very act of loathing Thanatos gave Tory power. He could never hurt Maci again.
Tory had taken Maci to Olympus with Seph to let medical god Asclepius help her, and though the injuries she'd suffered were horrific, they begged Olympian Apollo to accelerate the healing process, which he partially did in a single rare moment of kindness. Meanwhile, Thanatos was left with his newly broken limbs and spine to rot in his cave in Tartarus as he deserved. Maci returned to her palace with Tory, slightly shaken from the ordeal, but piling that feeling neatly in the mental storerooms of the rest of her Thanatos-related trauma to deal with later (never). Tory's act of protective wrath touched her so deeply that despite it all, Maci was on top of the world. Now finally, Thanatos had been dealt with. They no longer had to worry about him.
(Or... so they thought; of course Thanatos would return; later.)
Melinoe's revenge & reset
CONTENT WARNING REMINDER, SPECIFICALLY HERE – MURDER
However, the chaos of their distant enemies was not close to ending, not yet. Word spread around the Underworld about how the new prince Tory had dealt with Thanatos. For a long time prior, and particularly before anyone knew the things he'd done, Thanatos had enjoyed a popular, untouchable status, both from his own charisma, and also because he was Death Incarnate, driving powerful force of the Underworld. Long ago when news had first come out about his history with Maci, his social standing only slipped slightly - horribly, Maci was mostly disliked in her own kingdom, and Thanatos' harm of her did not make or break too many opinions. As time had gone on, Thanatos' behavior continued or worsened... now there was Tory. The Underworld liked Tory once he had become a god. With the update of Thanatos making a public attack on the Princess, and hearing of Tory's retaliation, it put several things in perspective: one, that Tory was a force to be reckoned with, a darkly powerful entity who'd just immediately proven himself as able and worthy to rule the kingdom of the dead - and two, Thanatos had probably deserved the beating he'd been given. Public opinion, for the first time, was not on his side.
But as that word spread, it eventually reached the recesses of Tartarus' jail section, where Melinoe learned what Tory had done to support his wife. Thanatos was an ally to her, plus she despised Tory and Maci, and so on his behalf Melinoe was offended. Unbeknownst to Maci and Tory themselves, Tory's newfound powers were no actual match to the sheer force of evil ability that Melinoe contained within her. Truth be told, tiny little Melinoe was in actuality one of the strongest, most powerful entities in the entire Underworld... and though it was the King and Queen's order that had placed her in Tartarus, she remained there simply because she chose to be. Summoning all of her abilities, Melinoe walked straight out of her prison. She was the Goddess of Ghosts - the jail of the ghostly kingdom could not possibly contain her. The first thing she did was arrange for Thanatos to be healed, knowing this too would piss off the Princess and Prince.
Maci discovered Melinoe's escape only when Seph approached her and Tory in a panic. There was an influx of shades pouring into the Underworld well beyond the rates that were intended, and each of them were injured in the exact same way: the way Tory had attacked Thanatos. Melinoe was loose in the mortal world and was on an uncontrollable murder spree. Even more distressing, no one could account for the whereabouts of remaining mortals like Jesse and his family, Tory's mother - Tory insisted on going after Melinoe himself, especially since Maci still had lingering injuries from Thanatos' assault. She remained the only goddess he was still afraid of, but newly deathless, he was certain he could defeat her too, and absorb his hatred of her into his own realm of power like he'd done with Thanatos. It was a revenge he'd been long craving. Worriedly, Maci let him go, and she stayed back with Seph, meeting with Glaukos around the River Styx to look for anyone they knew in the pile of shades pouring in.
Tory returned to Maci following the confrontation, believing himself to be victorious. With the help of Epi, Tory had gone up against Melinoe and left her subdued, plagued with nightmares that Epi had lent out to his Prince. Now, in the quiet of their palace, the emotional aftershock from the battle hit him - Maci helped him process this face off, and they believed at last another enemy had been defeated. Despite this, over the span of the next month Tory took pity on Melinoe, haunted by the guilt of the mental destruction he'd done his best to inflict upon her, and disturbed by the dark place in his mind he'd gone to to make it happen. In a moment of mercy, Maci and Tory lifted the curse he and Epi had placed upon her after. Even with the nightmare curse lifted, Melinoe remained in an unconscious, sleep-like state, unable to wake. Maci and Tory figured this was fine, and if she did ever wake up, surely this ordeal had taught her a lesson. Tory's altercation with Thanatos had subdued Thanatos successfully, after all, and scared him permanently away. Melinoe would probably cower from him now as well.
But Melinoe was not of the same stock as Thanatos. Where he was petty and vain, Melinoe was uncontrollable, unstoppable evil. She'd been angry to start with; now she was furious. After being woken up by evil goddess ally Eris (teaming up with Thanatos, but secretly to Maci and Tory) Melinoe awoke at long last - and vanished, slipping back to the mortal world for preparation and finally reappearing when she summoned Tory for round two. Maci allowed him to go again, but not without a great deal of concern for both his physical and mental well-being. Tory was tough shells upon tough shells yet Maci knew he was more fragile than he let on, especially considering his history with Melinoe. Still, he was adamant, and adamant on leaving her behind to protect her. As it turned out, this time Maci's concern was warranted.
Before long, she found herself beseeched to Tory's side, and teleporting to him she was faced with an absolute horror show. Tory - inconsolable with grief - bawling before Melinoe, who hadn't a care in the world as she twirled and giggled. She had allowed Tory to summon Maci, knowing by that point it was already too late. Before them both: the mutilated corpse of Tory's own mother, killed by Melinoe's very own hands. For this had all been a set up to her final revenge, compounded by Tory's first retaliation. In front of Tory's very eyes, Melinoe had trapped him, killed his mom, and then sat back for her re-arrest, confident she'd already won. With Maci now there on the scene, horrified at the sight, Tory's panic and sorrow turned to fury, his already unstoppable rage further fueled by the power he now held. As Maci tried to process the pieces of gore in front of her, Tory attacked Melinoe, tearing and tearing at her until Maci snapped herself to action and dragged Tory away from her. As Tory clung to Maci and sobbed, the remnants of Melinoe were left soaked in ichor. Unable to die just like any goddess, Melinoe clutched in her hands her very own heart. Tory had torn it straight out.
In the aftermath, a shattered Tory arranged to stick the unconscious and maimed Melinoe in one of the cages that hung over the Phelegethon River. Melinoe had proved herself to be nearly unstoppable, and she couldn't be left "loose" - her severe injuries would give enough time to figure out what to do with her. But Tory was in no shape to pursue her again, while arrangements were made to deal with the death of his mother. Even worse, in the land of the dead, the consolation and peace that may have come with meeting her shade in the Underworld had been stolen from him. Melinoe's method of murder involved hypnotizing her victims into a trance, and collecting their ghosts as zombified prisoners. Tory's mother was now one of her brood, and there was no chance Melinoe would release her. In the afterlife itself that Tory and Maci ruled over, the spirit of his own mom was lost forever.
Maci refused to accept this as an answer and resigned herself to finding some way to force Melinoe to let her go. At Tory's insistence (in fact he'd wanted to join her, but Maci forbade him absolutely), she arranged to send Epi after her to find some way to intimidate Melinoe into letting her go. Maci went with him for backup. Together, she and Epi tracked down the broken doll that remained of Melinoe, weakened and thus still held tight in her makeshift prison. Epi's conversation with her creeped the hell out of Maci - by this point, Maci considered Epi only an acquaintance to be wary of, and watching him in his full God of Nightmares glory did uh, not help this opinion of hers - but even she could not deny it got the job done. At the end of it, Epi had threatened to erase Melinoe's memory by calling Lethe, Goddess of Forgetfulness, which would surely allow the long, long buried good side of her a chance to surface. This was Melinoe's only real fear, and she hastily complied with Maci and Epi's demand. Once Maci had collected Tory's mom's shade safely under her care, smugly Epi left with Maci... to call Lethe anyway. Melinoe's crimes could not go unpunished. She would finally be stopped.
After returning his mother's shade to him, Maci took Tory with her and Epi back to Melinoe with Lethe in tow. Melinoe's memory was indeed erased, and as predicted, the hold that her evil half had kept on her for millennia finally slipped away. Melinoe became blank again - a new opportunity to allow her good half to triumph. All of the shades she held within her grasp were released all at once from their trances as well. In a split second decision, Epi decided to adopt Melinoe straight from the banks of the Phelegethon, and took her home with him to raise as his and Eury's daughter. She would indeed eventually transition into the good half of her and keep that hold through the modern day, taking on the new nickname "Meli" to differentiate between before and after. (For more information about this event, and Meli's future with Eury and Epi together please visit the hyperlinks here through their names!)
As a conclusion to all of this chaos before Epi escorted Meli away, since they had been informed Melinoe had repaired Thanatos before her demise, Maci beseeched Thanatos to where they stood amongst the banks. She got to take smug pleasure in the way Thanatos automatically flinched away from Tory. Pointing to Melinoe as an example of what could happen to him next, Maci and Tory together forced Thanatos to swear on the Styx that he would no longer harm the residents of the palace. He complied.
Now it was finally actually all over. (Or... was it? Well - for now.) And thus a new era began...
Canon content disclaimer
Congratulations, you have reached the 2/3rds mark!
As mentioned way way above and again before Melinoe's final arc here; this point marks a noted shift in the Elysium'verse, where prior every single thing that happened centralized Maci (and Tory with her) as the singular two main characters. Once OrigiMel-Melinoe became Meli, living under Eury and Epi's roof, the focal point of the Elysium'verse OC world shifted to include more characters in the spotlight, the first canon content where Maci didn't always make a speaking appearance in.
Maci's role in the Elysium'verse was and continues to be central, like Tory's does, as the building blocks of this world was created off their shoulders. However on her own Wiki page, it is kind of impossible to continue to narrate other people's events where Maci was only tangentially involved instead of going through any of her own development, as it would just go on absolutely forever. In short, much content is "missing" from these next narrative beats, as it's simply not relevant to a Maci-specific character page.
✧*̥˚Again, a complete comprehensive timeline of the entire Elysium'verse from beginning to modern day can be found right here!*̥˚✧
The following plot points narrated here have been selected for inclusion based on Maci-relevance, united under the common thread of...
Maci's children (canon content, cont.)
In the current Elysium'verse, Maci has a total of nine children: this number includes her four biological children, four stepchildren, and her one adopted daughter. The headings below are organized in chronological order.
From this point, instead of delving deep into the continuing appearances and storylines of other characters that may take place between these scenes - (such as future arcs like Loki's arrival in Elysium or Ganymede's, where information about each can be found on their linked respective profiles) - Maci's page concludes with these following arcs surrounding her and her kids. The culmination of Maci's current development up to the modern day Elysium'verse really wraps up with Chal's series of events, though her current youngest kids Celos and Py are included at the end to keep these headings in timeline chronological order.
Neo
Neona, Neo for short, is Maci's firstborn, conceived shortly after the events last detailed with Meli and Eury/Epi. Currently, she's 17 years old. From birth, Neo was destined to become the new Goddess of Gentle Death as Thanatos' replacement, a Fate that over the years has come with some mixed emotion and complicated feelings from Maci. This section details Maci's pregnancy with Neo to a core event in Maci's motherhood journey, concluding with a summary of where Maci and Neo have stood and currently stand through Neo's life.
Maci's pregnancy
Between the series of events from when the former "OrigiMel" Melinoe had been adopted to when she had turned officially to her good side and embraced her new family, Maci and Tory's old friends Glaukos and Oiolyka had also become parents, giving birth to quadruplets. Maci and Tory had been happily married for a year now, and with Thanatos neutralized on his best behavior (to their beliefs), as they watched Glaukos and Oiolykya with the "quads," Eury and Epi with their unequivocal daughter Meli - even Hypnos and Pasi with their son Icy - baby fever slowly started to take over. It was temporarily staved off by the pile of puppies Maci and Tory adopted together (all of whom, in the modern day, have been immortalized to live as psychopomps in the Underworld), but this was a mere band-aid, and the longer they spoke speculatively about it, the more both of them began to dream fully about creating a child of their very own.
Like most death-adjacent gods, and as Princess of the Underworld inherited presumably from her father, Maci knew she was infertile, though the apothecary of the Underworld plus several Olympians had potions to fix that. It was how she'd been conceived in the first place, after all. Maci had always thought of her sterility as a convenience to swerve around any accidental pregnancies while she'd slept around for millennia, rather than anything to dwell upon, as she'd never thought in her life that she'd ever want to be a parent. But, she'd also never thought in her life that she'd find herself settled down and married, much less to someone like Tory - Tory turned everything upside down for her all the time, in the best way. Suddenly, cradled in his arms day in and out, the thought of creating a baby that was half hers and his occupied her mind completely. Though Maci was incredibly anxious by the thought of being pregnant, and all the changes that would come with it, after much discussion she decided the pros outweighed any cons, and they came to a delighted conclusion.
Once Maci had spiked herself with one of those handy deux ex machina fertility potions, they began to try for baby in active earnest. Very fast, Maci found herself quickly pregnant, and they informed the collection of friends they'd thoroughly gathered by now that their baby was expected in the coming October.
Though Maci's pregnancy to start with was not the easiest for her, since she found it incredibly difficult to deal with nausea, her appearance changing, and her already normally tumultuous emotional state being rocked with new pregnancy hormones, everything was overall going as smoothly as it could. Hoping and praying for a baby girl since day zero of their baby-making project, Maci and Tory were delighted when this was confirmed by Ilythia, Goddess of Childbirth, and they named the child-to-be "Neona," Neo for short.
As Neo continued to grow, Ilythia had warned Maci and Tory that in deity pregnancies, sometimes a divine baby's powers could develop so strongly in-utero that they could affect the powers of the carrying parent, often in small ways, like losing the ability to teleport temporarily. Indeed, when Maci was about four and a half months pregnant, she was panicked to discover that her godly powers were very much slipping from her grasp. Her panic only increased when her pyrokinesis fire abilities went out at once as Neo's mysterious realm of ability grew. In addition to the hormonal meltdown state she was usually in nowadays, Maci found herself weaker and colder, and the joy of carrying their baby began to fade. But... the worst was still yet to come.
Maci collapsed for the first time when she was five months pregnant with Neo, scaring the absolute hell out of Tory - and herself, once she'd regained consciousness. For she had not fainted, and her appearance slumped upon the ground was not one of someone peacefully asleep. The color had drained from her cheeks, the breath had stopped from her lips, and her heart had silenced from her chest. Maci had become the picture of death, an illusion only broken by the knowledge of her own immortality. Tory had not been able to wake her. In a panic he'd called absolutely anyone in the palace, then Ilythia, Seph. Ilythia confirmed that Neo, kicking happily away within Maci's womb, was perfectly fine. It was Seph who recognized the symptom, recalling that Nyx, when she'd carried the God of Gentle Death (none other than Thanatos himself), had fallen into a similar spell on and off throughout that pregnancy with him and his twin.
During a moment when Maci was awake, she and Tory asked Nyx what she knew about this strange effect and what it could mean. With a degree of shock, Nyx shared that throughout her hundreds of pregnancies with hundreds of children over the millennia, this death-like trance had only ever occured during the pregnancies for just two gods: Thanatos, Gentle Death – but also Violent Death Ker, one of Nyx’s firstborn daughters. The symptom was indicative of a special power called the Touch of Death: the extremely rare and exclusive ability to instantly stop the heart of any mortal by mere contact. The only two deities that had ever had this power, in all eternity and existence, were Thanatos and Ker, and after consulting anxiously with the Fates their growing hypothesis was confirmed. Baby Neona was going to be a Death goddess. Maci was carrying Thanatos' own replacement.
Bearing the very child who was now prophesied to take over the divine role of their most hated enemy unlocked a new emotion of smugness mixed with terror, though fully processing this news was delayed by Neo's growing powers in utero ruining Maci's life. They discovered that each time baby Neo was awake, her uncontrollable powers were triggered to knock Maci out completely into this terrifying pseudo-comatose state, over and over. After about a month of this psychological torment, hell for both Maci and Tory, Maci had reached her mental breaking point. She and Tory begged Ilythia to supernaturally accelerate the pregnancy to bring Neo out faster, which she did, thus adjusting Maci’s due date from October to July. The staggering overnight difference in pregnancy stage was a small price to pay in exchange for this pending relief.
On July 31st, shortly after midnight, Maci gave birth to perfect baby Neo, and she and Tory were immediately in love with her. Introducing her to the rest of their palace family (with the advanced notice of Neo’s Touch of Death, they’d apotheosized their now-former-mortal friend Jesse to prevent any accidental untimely deaths), everyone else who met her was in love, too.
The kidnapping of Neona
Maci and Tory had not kept Neo a secret from the rest of the Underworld, through Maci's pregnancy nor after she was actually born. There was no use in even trying to hide her, since rumors had spread like wildfire even before an official announcement had been made - Maci and Tory did make an official announcement before Neo's birth, as half of those rumors involved speculation on who the father of the baby could possibly be. Tory didn't take kindly to that. Another announcement followed once she was here, and the undoubted spitting image of her father (but in pink).
The information about Neo's realm-to-be was also spread throughout the kingdom, as it had throughout Maci's whole pregnancy. This was something that they hadn't publicized, but going to Nyx had been enough for word to leak, since her offspring tended to lurk - and it was juicy gossip. Everyone knew there were only two Death Gods, now and forever. A third was unprecedented. Without anyone even privy to the hints the Fates had given Maci and Tory, citizens of the Underworld were reaching the same correct conclusion anyway. Thanatos had committed many crimes over the years and perhaps it was finally time that he paid the price for strutting around without consequence. Had a god ever been stripped of their realm before? The Underworld was excited to find out.
The word of course got back to Thanatos, neutralized by Stygian oath but still always watching, and he felt the stirrings of panic for the first time in his life. He, too, felt the sands of his own hourglass running out, and knew in his gut that the end was approaching - what that meant, he didn't know. But he sensed his impending demise all the same. This panic blended with rage, and early in Maci's pregnancy, as these rumors had cycled, Thanatos formulated a plan that was more batshit unhinged than his previous acts of villainy had been. If Maci and Tory intended to defeat him through their child, then he would meet them on their very own playing field. If his Fate was to disappear - fine. In his absence, he'd leave them with something - someone - to remember him by.
A mere month after Neo was born, Maci and Tory were summoned unexpectedly by Nyx of all people, who seemed positively haunted when she met with them. She informed them that Thanatos had just revealed to her that together with his ghastly sister, Ker, he had created a child.
As Maci and Tory nearly panic-incinerated Nyx's entire home, she went on to elaborate that somehow, against all odds, this child was not an infant - he'd brought his (at the time) son to her home to gloat, revealing that despite being born mere months ago, they'd supernaturally aged the child up to be about 11 years old. For the first time, Nyx had seen Thanatos for the maniac he was - this visit had been so off the rails, Thanatos' usual disguise of charm fizzled fully away even before his mother - and when they left, she had instinctively called for Maci to report this news. The child's name was Chalasmos, and though Chal's appearance was ashen and bloodshot, Chal seemed to be every bit as evil as his father. Chal had the power of a triggerable basilisk-like stare, able to "freeze" a person in helpless place with a mere glare.
The character development and main story arc of Chalasmos specifically (Chal for short) would take place many years later. Most of which involves Maci as well, and can actually be read by jumping slightly ahead to Chal's section in Maci's headings or visiting Chal’s page directly (linked again here) - including, crucially, Chal realizing she was actually a girl and coming out as transgender. But back then, and here at the time, Chal existed merely as a mysterious and ominous new weapon Thanatos was crowing about, nothing more; sending Maci, Tory, new baby Neo, and their friends of the palace on high alert lockdown. By the time this new development was unfolding, baby fever had continued its rampage throughout the Elysium gang, and Jesse and Epi were both currently pregnant. Ushering Epi and his family from his Tartarus home and into the palace for the first time while his abilities were weakened by his and Eury's baby, Maci and Tory hunkered down, anticipating that Thanatos would try make a move to attack one of them any day now.
Instead, Thanatos caught Maci and company off guard - by striking out not at any of them in the palace, but at the goddess Lethe, seemingly out of the blue. During the many gaps of time Maci'd lost to unconsciousness during her pregnancy with Neo, Tory had undertaken a project of his own and worked with Lethe to locate the three goddesses Thanatos had terrorized and vanished away before he'd dated Maci. Sophie, Hess, and Amey. When he had found them, injured and traumatized, Lethe had assisted in helping them voluntarily erase the worst of their memories of what Thanatos had done, allowing them to start anew. With Tory and Maci safely in Elysium, and the Styx oath he'd sworn to leave the palace untouched, he had lashed out in (what Maci assumed was) his revenge and come after non-palace resident Lethe with his scythe. As they sought medical attention for her, they rationalized that Thanatos must have assumed that Lethe was a "safe" person to attack; that since she didn't live within the palace, she didn't fall under the umbrella of his Styx oath. Tory and Maci summoned the Furies nevertheless. Lethe was an ally of the palace, and surely this counted as a violation. The Furies agreed.
The Furies set after Thanatos with the assurance that he would quickly be found - and he was, arrested safely away in Tartarus for breaking his oath. Once they had dropped him off and left, Maci and Tory arrived in Tartarus to process and interrogate the Underworld's newest prisoner - information about any pending evil plans, the whereabouts of the child he'd just created, et cetera. They had left Neo (now about three months old) in the care of her newly immortal uncle Jesse to babysit. But speaking to the imprisoned Thanatos... something was not right, as his demeanor seemed different than what they had come to expect from him. The reason for the dissonance became quickly apparent - for the deity that the Furies had arrested was not Thanatos. Eris, pseudo-Olympian Goddess of Chaos, known shapeshifter, and a longtime friend of Thanatos himself, had disguised herself into his form to throw the Furies off his tracks. Confused and furious, Maci and Tory summoned the Furies back to the jail. The Furies were enraged at being tricked and took over this new interrogation - had she been the one to stab Lethe, coincidentally her own daughter, as a boon for Thanatos, too? More urgently, Thanatos was still on the loose, and in this chaotic mess, the reason for all of this confusion and deception became quickly apparent when Maci and Tory felt themselves being beseeched by an unfamiliar patron. Vanishing to answer the call, they found themselves teleported to Jesse's side.
Jesse was alone - Neo was gone - and he was injured, collapsed in a pool of his own ichor. Frozen in place where he was sprawled, the remnants of the stun-gaze curse that Chal could inflict still lingered upon him.
These shenanigans with Eris had been a mere diversion. Neo had been kidnapped.
In the moments of panic that followed, what with Neo missing and Jesse grievously injured and pregnant, the stun curse from Chal faded and Jesse awoke. He choked out the confirmation of what they all already knew: Neo had been taken by Chal and Thanatos, who'd ambushed and attacked him after somehow getting through the barrier, beseeching Maci and Tory as they left so they'd find the gory aftermath faster. Maci only needed to hear this once, and she did not give a second thought about her next action. Maci vanished to find her daughter, and take Thanatos apart with her bare fucking hands.
(An addendum - as Maci rushed to find Neo, Tory stayed back with Jesse cradled in his arms and before he could do a single thing about Jesse's injuries, the two of them watched together in utter shock as his wounds knitted back together seamlessly. As it turned out, Jesse's newfound divinity came with a special new power of healing and regeneration, both for him and - absorbing of course Jesse's own magically healing ichor in utero - his unborn baby. A completely horrific way to discover this ability! But Jesse, and unborn baby Lenore), were fine.)
It did not take Maci long to track Thanatos down, checking the places in Tartarus she knew he lurked. She felt no hesitation searching for him, no shadowed fearful memories creeping in to haunt her – the only thing she felt was all-consuming fury, tearing like a bullet through the realm to save Neo from harm. She found him in his old cave home, the place she’d once been discarded inside when he’d slit her throat millennia ago. Neo was locked inside a cage, bawling – but so far, uninjured. Thanatos was waiting for her, holding his scythe and grinning his signature grin. Flanking Neo’s prison itself was Chal, spindly and pressed to the wall, with his stone-faced, seven-foot-tall mother Ker looming over them both. Ker, though violent and terrifying by nature of her very realm, had never done anything specifically against Maci and company, but she was here now to supervise as a seemingly villainous ally, glowering darkly and dripping “blood” the way she always did. With adrenaline coursing through her veins, Maci forced herself to think rationally for one of the very few times of her life. There was no way to grab Neo without Thanatos or Chal or Ker tearing Maci apart as she broke between them all, or even without one of them descending upon Neo herself if she lunged for Thanatos now. She needed an opportunity to distract them all, a diversion the same way they’d led her away from Neo in the first place.
Tory or the Furies themselves would probably be tailing behind her shortly once Jesse was taken care of... Until one of them appeared or she could figure out a better plan, Maci chose to stall by engaging with Thanatos, who was smug and wanted to gloat. She listened to him, flared up but restraining herself with gritted teeth, skin crawling and simmering with anger as Thanatos preened – on and on, about how he'd ruined her life long ago and had now created a son who could do the same to her very own daughter one day. That no matter what she did to him, his own legacy would now haunt her forever - that perhaps here and now, he’d make Chal stun her so she’d get to watch as they ripped apart her baby as a family, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
Tory appeared.
The interruption to Thanatos’ monologue was a mere split second of three heads turning to see Tory's entrance; a brief hesitation appearing in Thanatos’ eyes, for the last time he’d gone toe to toe with Tory he had lost horribly. But that second was the exact “in” Maci had been waiting for, and in the singular moment that Thanatos had allowed himself to be distracted, Maci tore his scythe from his hands. She allowed her restraint to vanish. In Neo’s name, inferno blazing, Maci descended upon him with his own scythe and hacked. Thanatos was not fast enough to stop her.
In fact, no one tried to stop her. Tory was in sync with her and as Ker and Chal stared at Maci’s assault on Thanatos, Tory had already broken through Neo’s cage and summoned the Furies back, another split second. Perhaps Maci was unstoppable, but Ker didn't even try. Only Chal attempted to rush forwards to save Thanatos from this unceasing assault, but was quickly restrained back by Ker herself, impaling Chal’s shoulder with her entire clawed hand to slam Chal back against the cavern’s wall. When the Furies appeared to collect Thanatos, the actual Thanatos this time, Ker vanished with Chal still in her gory grasp, never to be seen again (or… would they?).
Maci was still going, scything apart the god who’d harmed them over and over and over again for more years than she could count, now her daughter too, with hysterical violent wrath. She continued well after Thanatos was incapacitated, until Tory pried her off of him, pried the scythe out of her own hands, and clung to her - the adrenaline fueled anger and panic finally ebbed. Covered in the ichor of Thanatos and clutching their baby, all three of them in tears, Tory and Maci watched the Furies collect the maimed remains of an unconscious Thanatos, before they returned home. Thanatos was now finally, finally, finally imprisoned away.
Maci & Neo's relationship
Neo's kidnapping had been more traumatizing for Maci and Tory than it had been for Neo, who grew up to forget that this had ever happened during her infancy. For several months after the event, both Maci and Tory struggled to take their eyes off of Neo ever, nor let her out of their arms. Time went on - they did both eventually recover, though the memory of the event, particularly the horrible monologue Maci had heard from Thanatos before Tory had come, the echoes of Thanatos' words, would haunt and effect Maci well beyond the worry of her daughter's safety. This is an important fact for much later - particularly in reference to the resurfacing of one specific godling...
So Neo got older and Maci, to her credit, did not helicopter her despite the brief urge at first to continue to clutch and cling in Neo's early toddlerhood. Tory as the voice of reason at her side helped. Neo was so independent and fearless even as a baby that soon, clearly, it was impossible to even want to smother her down and confine her. Toddler Neo was a bubbly joy, though she liked to stare at people - through people, more like, a piercing gaze that only intensified as she got older. Still, even the looming knowledge of the realm Neo was Fated to inherit did not dampen or alarm Neo's spirits or Maci's spirits... during these early years. With Thanatos now actually gone, Maci and Tory knew that the Fates' plan all along would come to fruition, and Neo certainly wielded the power they'd known she would, capable of instantly killing anything remotely mortal - plants, pets, and yes, one day, mortal humans. Sure, the Death Gods preceding her had all turned bad, and Maci didn't like that Neo's destiny aligned with theirs, but when Maci looked at her sunny little baby, there was no scythe to cower from: just a pair of twinkly violet eyes that matched her own. Maci - still having never properly dealt with anything to do with hers and Thanatos' history - had already stifled back another layer of trauma that had stacked up from Neo's kidnapping and had "moved on," in her opinion. Knowing that Neo would actually walk in Thanatos' footsteps would not affect her relationship with her daughter, said Maci firmly to herself.
Neo's scythe
Neo continued to grow up. By the time Neo was 10, many things had changed in their family - for one, the palace residents had expanded, now including other adults, and many other children, and even specifically new siblings of Neo's: her little brother Rasmus, and half-siblings Eisa and Einmyria (all of which are discussed, as they pertain to Maci, in the following sections). Chal had also, by this time, resurfaced and been captured by the palace in an off-site Elysium location in an unfolding project to turn her to the "good" side. Maci's emotions surrounding Neo's future realm had already started to bubble thanks to her annoyance and disapproval about what was going on with Chal, a sore spot given her history with Chal's father. Then, the day after Neo's 10th birthday, Maci and Tory were approached by Nyx, who requested that they come to her home urgently.
At Nyx's home, Violent Death Ker - the now officially singular Death after Thanatos had been “killed” at Loki’s hands several years before (detailed here across Thanatos’ and Loki’s respective profiles) - was demanding to meet Neona now that she had come of age. Retorting that she had absolutely not come of age, and that Neo's training would begin at the age of 15 and not 10, Maci and Tory insisted on a compromise, allowing Ker to meet and speak with Neo just briefly, under supervision. Maci and Tory brought her there. For a short moment in the form of an out-of-body psychic link, Ker did speak to her, and then promptly vanished by dissolving into a puddle of blood.
Before Maci's horrified eyes, Neo proceeded to kneel to this puddle, and pull from its depths a black-handled scythe of her very own. It was a twin to that which Thanatos had famously carried.
This was the beginning in canon of Maci's carefully teetering tower of stifled, buried, compartmentalized trauma stretching back from many hundreds of years in the past, finally beginning to disintegrate. Neo was elated to have her scythe, something that she recognized intrinsically as a birthright - even as Maci visibly shrank back from it. Maci could barely stand to look at the thing, every fiber of her being screaming in alarm. Logically, within the tiny reasonable part of Maci's brain which often did not get a say in her behavior, Maci knew that the simple symbolic weapon was entirely separate from the daughter she loved and cherished, and so too was the specter of the villain who had tormented her. These three variables had little to do with each other. But Maci was not thinking rationally. She was so distressed anyway by Chal's rehabilitation project that the presence of Neo's scythe was too much for her to bear. During this time, Maci's psyche crumbled. The collapse had been coming for millennia.
With the elation of receiving her scythe and thus, intrinsically, unlocking within herself the first stages of her future Death Goddess role, Neo didn't even notice Maci's reaction right away - not really. At 10, Neo knew that the god who had preceded her was a villain who'd hurt her parents and family, and she'd even seen the aftermath of Thanatos' last attack before his death some years before. Even at this young age, Neo was intelligent and perceptive, and so she did immediately and obviously know that her mother wasn't going to like the gift Ker had given her. Still, Neo was immediately attached, that Fated piece of her soul connecting immediately, and so at first, she didn't realize how severely Maci had cowered away... not just from the scythe, but from Neo herself, a recoiling that Maci was barely conscious of.
Maci gets therapy
Maci's interactions with Chal during this very time period are detailed moreso within Chal's section here on Maci's page, but suffice to say she was already handling herself poorly on a daily basis, while meanwhile Neo was beginning to happily train under the weapon-master god Enyalios to learn how to properly wield her scythe. Maci shut down completely. Though she'd known the Fated role Neo was destined to fulfill since before she was born, now the mere sight of her own daughter proudly wielding a duplicate of the very weapon that had caused Maci so much harm brought back anger, distress, and anxiety that she'd thought she'd already dealt with long ago. In truth, Maci had always been in denial of the fact that she had never actually dealt with any of the aftermath from Thanatos' hold on her, breezing past the trauma she'd endured to "deal with later.” "Later" was a time she never intended to reach.
Reeling from this tidal wave, grappling already with the concurrent situation going on with Chal's presence, Maci's relationship with Neo suddenly became laced with a tension that had not been there before, and this tension persisted over the course of most of the following year. The logical sliver of Maci's brain was no match for the overwhelming cascade of triggered anxiety that consumed her. To the alarm of her family and friends, Maci’s normally bubbly, flirty personality vanished into a ghost of herself, hollow and angry.
Though Maci’s deep-rooted anger was pointedly directed at Chal from a distance, where Neo was concerned, Maci withdrew from her, hesitant about confronting the reality of her daughter's realm and terrified of lashing out at her. Neo had never been particularly clingy and was now occupying her time with Enya's weapon training, so she happened to remain oblivious of her mom's sudden distance for several months until it became too obvious to not notice. The way Maci cowered whenever Neo tried to share the details of how she'd spent her day was unmistakable - the unsteady numbness that had replaced Maci's normally warm personality was blatant. Attempting to make her scythe less terrifying for Maci and the other palace residents who flinched from it, Neo had her scythe customized into rainbow gems and purple metal, but even still when the project was complete Maci could barely look at it.
During this time, intervention upon intervention was had. At first patiently, as Maci disintegrated, Tory held fast by her side, insisting again and again to her petulantly deaf ears that there was no way out but through. Burying the trauma of her past with Thanatos had never really worked and had now been forced to the surface, too great and overwhelming to return from whence it came. Maci had to deal with this, if not even just for herself but also to spare her daughter from being affected. Face the scythe, face Thanatos’ rehabilitated child, face Neo the predecessor. But Maci on a good day was stubborn – Maci in pieces was incapable of seeing reason.
In 2017, Tory (urged by Loki and Bel’s insistence) nearly begged her to go to therapy. Maci’s behavior was not only concerning to all those who knew and cared about her, but was now actively impeding progress being made through Chal’s rehabilitation and Neo’s own burgeoning death goddess training. Drawing from the half of her that had receded into anger, Maci reacted to this plea explosively - again. Tory was pregnant at this time with Epi's twins Skio and Kora, and had no energy to argue with her again about doing the right thing to help herself and everyone else, nor the patience to enable her avoidance of dealing with this - again. When Maci's tantrum, which had culminated in a full screaming argument between two short-tempered deities, was complete, she stormed away to sulk and hide in the main palace. Tory, at his furious wits end after almost two years of this, let her go after Loki and Epi confirmed she was fine.
Neither of them had reached a resolution to this last argument when Neo, age-10-turning-11 at the time, came to Tory and Maci in tears - a rare sight for Neo, who was often stoic and calm. These tears and this breakdown from her daughter was the catalyst at last for Maci to snap to some sort of sense. Neo had never cried quite as hard as she had that night, at least not since she'd been really little, and Maci was gutted with the realization that Neo had come to know she herself was a source of Maci's disintegration. Maci agreed to speak at last to Epione, the Olympian therapist who had helped Epi the previous year, about her anxiety over Neo's scythe and all of the re-opened trauma that had come about as a result.
Though Maci's therapy journey to make amends with Chal proved to be an ongoing challenge beyond this time period, opening up to Epione helped repair the fraying edges of her and Neo's relationship. Maci had agreed to see her after being shocked by Neo's breakdown, but admitted in her own words during her first sessions with Epione that the reasons she was there amounted basically to making her daughter and her husband happy. Step one was coming to terms with wanting to heal for her own sake and not someone else's - step two was for Maci to come to terms with what a "healed" version of herself could even look like. Thanatos and his legacy had inflicted so much upon her early life that now, face to face with assessing the damage done, Maci was terrified of who she would be be if that was all stripped away from her. Slowly, as Maci replayed both in words and memory theater what she had survived through long, long ago, Maci began to make peace with the notion that moving past it all - changing - didn't mean changing into something unrecognizable.
Raz
Maci's stepchildren
Eisa & Einmyria
Skio & Kora
Chal
Celos & Pyralis
Trivia
- The name “Macaria” is Greek for “blessed,” a weirdly ironic name for the Princess of the Land of the Dead. The horrible truth is, Maci's name was actually chosen by Demeter, who wryly suggested it in sarcasm when faced with a newborn Maci cast in daemonic flame. Seph and Hades were so darkly amused by this that they selected the name on the spot, a backstory that uh, says a lot about the people who Maci'd been raised by.
- Maci has a phobia of needles and sharp objects. Despite this, she's mustered the courage to collect a total of six piercings - her ears, her tongue... elsewhere, and... elsewhere.
- Despite Maci’s open marriage, Hypnos remains the literal only one of all of her friends with whom she has never slept with, other than during the period of time in which they had been a couple. This count does include Hypnos' own wife, Pasi.
- Maci's crest and symbol as a goddess is an icon of a black narcissus flower engulfed in flame. This image can be found as obscure ancient Grecian art among ruins of religious structures from mortal Chthonic cult leaders of the past, in paintings and furniture across both palaces of the Underworld, in the form of a necklace within Maci's personal jewelry collection, and tattooed on the ass cheeks of several residents of the Elysium palace.
- Maci is a horror movie aficionado, despite being otherwise put off by most mortal content. Thanks to her most of the Elysium palace kids have seen every mortal classic horror movie at the ages of "way too young."
