#ffxivwrite2022 #ffxiv #prompt #endwalker #shadowbringers #ancients #hythhades #worldunsundered #spoilers

warnings: implied bullying/blackballing due to prejudice

general: endwalker/shadowbringers spoilers ; the ancients were poly af, change my mind ; watch me make this shit up as i go along in 3, 2, 1…

adjective

• (of a task, duty, or responsibility) involving an amount of effort and difficulty that is oppressively burdensome.

#hythhades #ancients #worldunsundered #ffxiv

“Hyth…”

“No.”

His companion pulls away, leaving behind an empty space and cold, smooth silken sheets. He watches, rapt, as Hythlodaeus pulls his long, lilac hair out of its’ rumpled braid, smooths it between pale hands, then re-braids it, slowly and deliberately, with quite a bit more concentration than required.

“Hyth, please.”

Oh, how Hades despises being reduced to begging, but what else can be done? If begging is necessary to get them to understand, to see, to stay with him—then beg he shall. The humiliation of prostrating himself before his lovers is eminently preferable to shouldering this burden alone.

Alone he would be doomed to failure.

He’d already failed to convince Freyja and Odinn; the memory still stung when he recalled it. Which he did all too often, like a canker in the mouth—it could not be ignored.

Hythlodaeus huffs a sigh. “No. Ask all you like but it’s never going to happen.”

Hades flops against the pillows, petulant as a toddler, “You and your sister are the most self-sacrificing fools I have ever met. If I didn't know better I might believe this dramatic savior act of yours a misguided attempt at upstaging her.”

Hythlodaeus goes still for a moment, clever hands frozen mid-stroke on a particularly rumpled lock of hair, “What makes you say that, my love?”