[Though he had provided his true name and his true face to a certain hero deep in the depths of the Tempest, it has been centuries, if not millennia, since someone last called him by it. A real someone, that is, and not simply a phantom of his own creation. Hearing it now, his soul wavers for the barest blink of an eye, his brows arching in unobscured surprise.]
[Yet why is he surprised? There is nothing surprising about any of this, other than the timing, the circumstances, and a certain absent sense of triumph. He had lost. Yet despite that and his own waning memory of those halcyon days, the Hythlodaeus before him is real. He has no doubt. For who else could appear so pleased with himself for reaching such a conclusion about his current form? And at the worst of times!]
Of all the things you could have said to me, you're truly going to open with that?
[Wrenching his focus away from that mirthful smile, Hades scowls at the mother eft. The smaller creature has wobbled through the water and found purchase clinging to the other's side, yet the adult beast's displeasure still rumbles audibly.]
[A barrier? Or an enfeeblement perhaps...? Hades huffs, the sound hissing through clenched teeth.]
You're just as insufferable as ever.
[Though that is not necessarily a complaint. (It is a complaint.)]
no subject
[Though he had provided his true name and his true face to a certain hero deep in the depths of the Tempest, it has been centuries, if not millennia, since someone last called him by it. A real someone, that is, and not simply a phantom of his own creation. Hearing it now, his soul wavers for the barest blink of an eye, his brows arching in unobscured surprise.]
[Yet why is he surprised? There is nothing surprising about any of this, other than the timing, the circumstances, and a certain absent sense of triumph. He had lost. Yet despite that and his own waning memory of those halcyon days, the Hythlodaeus before him is real. He has no doubt. For who else could appear so pleased with himself for reaching such a conclusion about his current form? And at the worst of times!]
Of all the things you could have said to me, you're truly going to open with that?
[Wrenching his focus away from that mirthful smile, Hades scowls at the mother eft. The smaller creature has wobbled through the water and found purchase clinging to the other's side, yet the adult beast's displeasure still rumbles audibly.]
[A barrier? Or an enfeeblement perhaps...? Hades huffs, the sound hissing through clenched teeth.]
You're just as insufferable as ever.
[Though that is not necessarily a complaint. (It is a complaint.)]