CRIMSON AND CLOVER ━ silena beauregard

iv. hector doesn't get paid enough

SNEAKING PAST the Doors of Death would be easier when you had a goddess on your side. At least, that was what Florine thought would happen. But in real life, gods don't help their children. She got slapped in the face with reality.

"Goodbye," said Hera before vanishing in a flash of peacock feathers.

"Ugh," said Florine with a scoff. "Figures she'd just explain the plan then dump us out here all alone to do it by ourselves when she can just kill any enemy that could harm us with a snap of her fingers. Mothers, am I right?"

But Silena was sitting on the ground, rocking back and forth with her knees pressed to her chest. Her brown locks fell over her eyes, which held a slightly crazed look in them. "Life. . . we get another chance to live?"

Florine frowned. "Only if we make it past the Doors of Death. But yeah, looks like we're not stuck being dead after all. Also, get up. We don't have all day, you know."

"Sorry, it's just— I wish Beckendorf had this opportunity," whispered Silena. "And now I have to wait another lifetime to be judged. . . if I can see him again, that is."

Florine rolled her eyes. "Stop it. If you really wanna get back here as fast as possible, you can do a couple feats worth of Elysium and then kill yourself. But we can't do that yet, now can we? First we need to get past the Doors of Death. Then we can talk Elysium and Beckendorf."

"You're right. Of course," mumbled Silena. "What do we do first?" Florine could see she was struggling to stay focused, the prospect of returning to life was too much for her, it dangled itself in front of her like a carrot hanging from a stick. It was tantalizing and it was torture, especially since they hadn't even any clue of how to escape the Underworld. Hera was helpful like that.

"Okay. Well," started Florine, "the best I can think of is we need to find out where the Doors of Death actually are. I know they're in Tartarus," she winced at that, "but for the most part, I don't know how we're going to get there."

Silena smiled. "Why don't we ask Hector? He works here, doesn't he?"

"Yeah. . ." Florine shrugged. "Not a bad idea. Let's ask him."

Beaming, Silena trudged in front of Florine towards the pathway back to the ticket booth.

"What do you kids want? Also, I thought you were judged already, what the heck are you doing back here?" Hector exclaimed, his monotonous voice switching up slightly in surprise, eyebrows quirking up. "Haha, heck, Hector," he mumbled loud enough that Florine and Silena heard. "I'm so friggin' funny."

Silena laughed softly.

Florine kept scowling.

Silena cleared her throat. "Um, sir, we just wanted to ask you for the directions to the Doors of Death. Totally unrelated to why we're not in the Fields of Asphodel right now, by the way," she added, giggling.

Hector groaned. "So now mortal spirits are escaping, too, not just monsters? Great. Just great. I am not envying Hades right now, just think of the paperwork. Thank the Fates my job is just stamping a bunch of dead people's tickets and letting 'em in."

"So? The Doors of Death?" cut in Florine. "Where are they?"

"Heck if I know," Hector said, with a chuckle again at the similar sounding words. "I work at the ticket booth here, Hades doesn't really trust me with that kind of classified information."

A few harpies walked by. "Oh my gods, I can't believe that new Hot Topic opened up on North Street. We totally have to go once we get through the Doors of Death—" one of the harpies was chattering.