Small Twists of Fate

Chapter Eight

Hades sighed as he heard the cries of his infant guests. It had been a...strange time he'd admit, having to get used to the thought of infants in his Underworld.

Sure Panic had his son but the sunspot was rarely if ever in the Underworld. Granted, the Underworld wasn't the most child friendly of places so Hades didn't blame Panic for the lack of sunspot.

Especially since that would have only led to questions that Hades wasn't entirely sure he wanted answered. Like how did Vanessa of all people decide to have a child with Panic? And more importantly, why did the Fates insist on providing circumstances where Hades was forced to ponder that?

Still, having the sunspot around might have made adjusting to three infants in his Underworld a bit easer.

"Seems someone's unhappy about something?"

Hades' head sprung up from the reports he had been working on as he heard the new voice whisper in his ear. It couldn't be...

"Steph?"

"I thought I'd come down here when I noticed that you weren't at the portal," Persephone said with a small smile. "I already put my bags in our room so you don't have to worry about that."

"Your arrival was today?" Hades asked, shaking his head. "I could have sworn I told Pain to put it on the calendar..."

"Even if you did, you're not going to yell at him or maim him for not doing it," Persephone said. "You've got three babies in the Underworld now so there's no sense in making them afraid of you."

"Steph, chances are the babies are going to leave the Underworld sooner or later. What does it matter if they're afraid of me?"

Persephone gave her husband a look, as if asking if he had truly just asked that question. "Hades, you and I both know that you would never purposefully make a child afraid of you. You didn't even try to scare Hercules when he was a child, you wouldn't try to scare a child not related to you. Especially a child of the Isle. The adults are one thing, as you've said they've made their bed."

Hades sighed and held Persephone close to him. He didn't want to argue with his wife, not when she'd been gone for so long. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," Persephone said, almost melting into his touch. "Ariel says hi by the way. I saw her during a royal function at the sea."

"Why the sea?"

"One of her sisters had a child with Jim Hawkins. You remember, one of the 'possible' Isle residents until he got a royal pardon," Persephone explained and Hades nodded. It made sense though, Ariel would want her little niece or nephew to make sure their father was around after living her life without her mother.

Besides, acting up as a teenager wasn't exactly something that deserved to condemn the man to a lifetime on an Isle of villains. Though, the ringmaster was on the Isle as well and all he was guilty of, in Hades' mind, was running a circus.

Note to self, find a way to ask Posideon if either Ariel or Eric have something against circus folk, Hades thought.

"Andrina wanted to make it clear that the sea would always be a part of her life," Persephone added, pulling Hades out of his thoughts.

"...I thought Ariel was the first of the family to fall in love with a human? Shouldn't she...?"

"From what I've heard from both the Auradon and Olympus gossip grapevines, Queen Ariel and King Eric are waiting to produce an heir until Ariel's spent a bit more time as a human. Andrina is still opting to live as a mermaid so her daughter Jamie will have the ability to switch, a gift from Triton."