[Third Person's POV]
[Location: Palace of Hades, Underworld]
Hades was quiet for a long time.
Then—
"What about Tartarus?" he asked.
Acedia's expression shifted. Just slightly.
"That," he said, "is… complicated."
Hades did not move.
He did not blink.
The Underworld, however, reacted instantly.
Not with alarm.
With attention.
Tartarus was not merely a location. It was not simply a prison, nor even a realm. It was a concept given containment—an abyssal recursion of punishment, paradox, and deferred endings layered beneath the Underworld like a scar that never healed.
When Acedia said complicated, the Palace knew exactly which equations had just been disturbed.
"Complicated," Hades repeated softly.
The word echoed—not outward, but inward—rippling through the deepest administrative layers of death.
Acedia exhaled and scratched his cheek again, gaze drifting to nothing in particular.
"You're not going to like the answer," he said.
"I rarely do," Hades replied. "Speak."
