Labors of Love II

When they confirmed that Aphrodite left the House of Eros, the two mortals remaining pondered on how they will get to the Underworld without them dying.

"She must want me dead." Psyche told Sayo, who was pacing back and forth the fountain of her spacious garden. She was trying to remember the details on how they will be able to go there. After a few more minutes of stressful demonstrations, she finally got it.

"We gotta find a tower where we'll have to jump." Sayo said, much to Psyche's shock.

"What! So our only way there is through dying?"

"No, hun. Just watch and learn. You're okay, you're pretty."

"YOU'RE STILL HERE! WAIT UP!" Sayo heard the familiar voice of her companion Rexis, who was running to them breathless. "WHHAAAIT UHHP!"

She smirked. "Done dreaming?"

His friend responded in between huffs of taking air inside his lungs. "Fucken….nhaasty dream." He then held up his hand, which carried on some things. Before Rexis actually left, he got a couple of fist-sized jewels from Aphrodite's room and leftover cake made by the invisible servant of the house, which the goddess didn't like on her regular diet. "I recall….haahh….We need this shit….I think." 

"How about my husband?" Psyche curiously asked.

"Still out. BRB later, I guess."

Sayo crossed her arms and assessed the current situation. She then decided on the best possible course of action. "Let's go to hell together. Let's find us a tower."

Once again, despairing of their task, the trio climbs to the top of the highest tower they can find, planning to throw themselves off. 

"Are you sure about this?" The princess nervously asked.

"Yeah, wait for it. You'll do anything for love right? Ew." Sayo replied with a light look that says 'gross.' 

The tower, however, suddenly breaks into speech, and advised them to, "Travel to Lacedaemon, Greece, and seek out the place called Taenarus, where thy will find the entrance to the Underworld."

The tower offered further instructions for navigating the deathless way to the Realm of the Dead. "The airway to the Vent of Dis is there, and through the yawning gates the pathless route is revealed. Once you cross the threshold, you are committed to the unswerving course that takes you to the very Doors of Death. But you shouldn't go empty-handed through the shadows past this point, but rather carry cakes of honeyed barley in both hands and bribes for your boatman."

The speaking tower warns them to maintain silence as they pass by several ominous figures: 

"Beware of thee: Three times you will be asked for help. You must harden your heart to pity, refuse, and go on. From a lame man driving a mule loaded with sticks, a dead man swimming in the river that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead, and old women weaving." 

These, the tower warns, "will seek to divert you by pleading for help. You all must ignore them. The cakes are treats for distracting Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog of Dead, and the bribes, for Charon the ferryman, so you can make a return trip."

"Thank goodness you're smart enough to bring these treats, Rex. You aren't too useless, after all." Sayo commented towards her friend. Then, she turned to Psyche. "Any idea where Taenarus is?"

"I do know where it is. I'll lead the way. It's not so far from Corinth. But, from here, going there is quite hard." Psyche looked down sadly from this dilemma.

"It's okay, you're pretty. Help will come." Honestly, Sayo doesn't like it that much, but sure, being pretty had its perks. Psyche must be growing on her now because of her redundant remarks on her beauty, to the point that she's now sounding very sarcastic about it. But whatever.

Sure enough, help did come in the form of Zephyr. "My winds caught of the woes of my lady. Tell me, how may I be of service to you?"

"Lord Zephyr, take us to Taenarus, where the Doors of Death are found."

"Pardon?"

"To Taenarus, stat!" Sayo replied this time, clearly, with a sense of urgency. Zephyr had no choice but to follow their demands, despite his inner hesitations and doubts about that place. 'Are they going THERE?'

The God of the West Wind carried them into his cool breeze, and they reached Taenarus, no problem. When the god left, with a rather 'sorry' expression on his face, the three of them looked for the possible place where the Vent of Dis can be found. "Here." It was Psyche who found it first.

They entered through that narrow gap, and when they went deeper into that crevice, they found themselves in front of a river whose waters are the colors of oil. "This is Styx." Rexis gulped his remaining saliva, remembering the previous experience he had in the Underworld. 'Oh crap, I'm going back in, dammit.'

Someone was ferrying towards them, and of course, it was Charon, the boatman. "Yer all alive." Was all he said.

"Yo, mah man, indeed we are." It was Rexis who approached him with faked confidence. "We wanna visit the Queen. Remember me from last time, yeah?" 

Charon already ferried countless of souls to the Underworld so you can't expect him to remember every single one of them. "No."

'Sigh. This old man's such a pain.' Rexis thought to himself. So he just got out his trump card. "How about – thiiiiis? You want this, right?" He flashed the perfectly-cut emerald at the boatman. Charon tried to reach for it, but unluckily for him, Rexis is a tall guy who plays volleyball, and toyed with him by lifting the jewel further up.

"Fine." Charon finally relented with a tone of pure disgust.

"That's mah good man!" Sayo furrowed her brows as she saw Rexis patting the boatman's shoulder like they were old friends. As they journeyed along Styx, the forewarned creatures sought their help. First was a guy carrying heavy load.

"Please, let me in, I'm already too old and I just want to finally rest in peace in Lord Hades' Realm."

They ignored him, with a heavy heart. Next, was a dead man swimming like Phelps in the Styx. He poked the boat.

"Please, just hold my hand and pull me across. I don't have anything to give to the boatman."

Again, they ignored him, despite feeling very sympathetic towards his breaststroke struggles.

The next vision of three old women weaving wasn't really asking for help, rather, they looked at them menacingly. One was spinning some thread, another was guiding the thread, and the last one was holding some scissors. That final old lady cut the thread, and the three of them realized that these women were sending them a message – a message of death. "They're the Fates. Damn their scissors." Sayo muttered under her breath. They were the hardest to ignore.

When they reached the main lobby of the Underworld, Charon was compensated with the emerald, and was told by them to wait for them when they'll exit from this place. "That constitutes another payment." Was all he replied.

Cerberus barked like crazy at them, but Rexis pulled out the leftover cake he got from Aphrodite's room in the House of Eros, and gave the same to the three-headed dog. "That's a god boi!" That made it easier for them to finally get in.

Sayo: "Girl, we gotta have to separate now. This loser and I have another thing to do. Go fetch that beauty cream yourself."

Psyche: "I – I think I can do it alone. Thanks for accompanying me here."

Sayo: *Thinking that they have no choice but opted not to say it out loud*

Rexis: "Right, what do we do here again, Sayo?"

Sayo: "Let's find the 'One man, a lone one, suffering an endless struggle, ye must aid'. That's what Delphi said."

They both went on separate ways – Psyche, off to get some beauty cream from Persephone, and the pair of Rexis and Sayo, off to find the 'lone man' the prophecy was talking about.

****

Author's Notes / EDIT:

I'm sorry, this chapter has been erroneously locked by an editor. I'm not yet supposed to go premium but this happened and it can't be undone. I hope you understand. It's a glitch, and I sincerely apologize if you guys thought the locks will start on a later date.