…And one extended argument involving a lot of weapon pointing and threatening with feelers later, the situation is at least defused…

For now. Probably.

But Vulcan isn’t happy. Also, I don’t care. I have more important things to handle.

Like my wife’s ongoing panic attack. The altercation with the special guards or whatever didn’t help one bit.

And it didn’t help Sebelle either, or my attempts at any kind of familial interactions.

I finally get Hades stable by latching onto her with Dominate coupled with Bewilder and our bond… which I really don’t like doing now, not to her, and not just because she told me not to do things like this…

When she was still fully herself.

But I’m going to get her back. We’ve already made great progress… Now if only I could get her the rest of the way.

It’d be so much easier if I could just use mind control to fix this…

Maybe I could just suppress the specific problem… I’ve already tried riding in her mind as a passenger when this has happened, so I at least have an idea of what is happening…

She’s seeing lines. Specifically, marking where to cut. So much time was dedicated to making her a skilled torturer and executioner that it’s been ingrained into her. When she remembers herself enough, that gets exposed, and her revulsion and so forth kicks in, and she has another panic attack.

I’m not sure if it’s a conflict with who she used to be and she was forced to be, or if she still just can’t accept what she’s become. I want her to learn to accept herself…

But I’m not sure how. If I could just convince her to accept that she’s been trained to be a killing machine but that she has agency to choose not to use it, she’d be better for it. After all, I could probably eat all of the real right now, if I really wanted to.

Probably.

But I’m not going to. Why? Because she’s here. Her, and Livvie, and all the others.

I don’t want to lose them, so I’m not going to.

…

I’ve been holding my wife for some time now, and it would seem that she’s finally calming down…

Which is good. It’s very good. I hope that eventually we get this under control…

…It occurs to me that since I recovered her, I haven’t looked at her Status…

Or even read my System messages. When did I stop doing that?

…

…

Oh. Right. Nyx always reminded me to read them…

…And she’s still barely talking to me, unless it’s about her inventions and what I can do for them, and for her.

Which, whatever. I guess it’s better than nothing.

It’s still strange to think that if I’m her in a sense, she helped raise me – or re-raise me – after she and I were separated.

So I raised myself. Or she raised herself…

Either way, strange and difficult to process, and so I haven’t. Which I suppose is the status quo for me.

Anyway, I guess I’ll get to those messages.

…

Most of them are more or less what I expected; a massive stream of kill notifications, mostly for the mortals and mortal ascendants I’ve killed over the past few centuries.

There are a lot of them.

But when I finally get near the end… there are a bunch of global notifications about gods being lost and their mantles becoming available…

Which strikes me as strange since mantles aren’t singular to begin with. If I needed any more proof, I know for a fact that both Hades and Erebus have the Mantle of Domain: Darkness, so clearly more than one exists.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Anyway, after digging through those, I do find another strange one.

[Domain: Devotion effect has been applied!]

What the hells does that mean? Is that why my wife is so clingy?

…

Actually, is that why I’ve felt so dedicated to her and her recovery as of late?

Huh.

Well, I don’t mind it either way. She’s my wife and she belongs to me; it only makes sense that I’d work for her benefit. She would do the same for me.

…

…

And what does this global message about ‘the lovers’ or something mean?

…You know, I haven’t checked my own Status either, not in a while…

And sure enough, I have a new title, and a new trait.

[Devotion: Hades]

And

[The Lovers: Hades]

I wonder if I’ll find out what the hells those mean…

Although I could just use the words of creation to query the Record itself. I’m probably happier not knowing, but I’m going to look anyway.

…

Alright… Devotion is apparently just what it sounds like. It doesn’t really have much for special effects… although the descriptions of things in here aren’t always clear. I could probably look at the actual mechanics of it, but that’s way more involved than I want to get with it right now.

As for this ‘The Lovers’ thing… that’s a bit different. Apparently it’s a unique title pair, related to the Domain of Devotion… Well, maybe it’s unique for each holder of the Domain… or the Mantle of it… I’m not really sure. Either way, it seems to increase dedication or ‘devotion’, ha, between the Domain holder and those to whom they feel intense romantic dedication.

In short, even missing most of her memory, Hades is still desperately in love with me apparently, although I’m not sure what exactly I’ve done to earn that.

…

Wait, there’s something else in here too…

Or rather something changed.

[True Demon Empress, Bane of All Mortals]

Huh. Yeah, that isn’t ominous at all.

***

Relaxing is easy enough at home, in my castle, in my room.

After the fiasco at my wife’s old home, nobody was in the mood for more family matters or any kind of socializing in general… which is why we’re now under the covers even though nightfall hasn’t yet come.

Livvie seemed to have sensed my intentions because she was already here waiting and clipped onto Hades as well.

And then we all laid down together and simply relaxed.

Which is probably why I let my guard down and slipped into sleep, but not without dreams.

A strange dream.

After all… who dreams about what they’re currently doing in the waking world?

Well, mostly. My second first wife is nowhere to be seen, and instead Olive and I are clinging to each other, covers rumpled and tossed about.

I definitely know what that means, I remember this kind of scene clearly… but that doesn’t mean I’ll acknowledge it.

But we’re not alone either. A small strange creature is curled up on the corner of the mattress. A quick use of Identify – which apparently works in this dream – tells me that it’s apparently some kind of imp.

Whatever that is, not that it matters.

I have a clear feeling that even this is a state of normalcy. The small creature is… a pet of sorts, not much unlike Philip I suppose, although my past self didn’t view it as such. It was simply something that was there, coexisting in the castle, cleaning up table scraps and generally staying out of the way otherwise.

Which is why she let it live. Indifference.

There wasn’t any point to killing it. It was so weak that the experience it would have offered was nigh unnoticeable. And so it continued to live, and follow me around.

After some time spent in this bliss, I wake and blinking blearily find mytself back in my normalcy, with a wife on each side.

The one difference is the succubus curled up on my lap as though Philip on Omorth.

“What are you doing?” I ask quietly while prodding the demoness awake.

“Mmm? Is it morning already?”

I sigh, restraining the cloud of ash that threatens to scatter. “No. Not even close. But seriously, what are you doing? I banned you from this room. So whose dreams are you in now?”

“What?” she blinks. “I’m not in anyone’s dreams. I don’t need to be. I can passively feed from them just by being nearby.”

“Which you’re not supposed to be. We’ve been over this.”

“Oh, don’t be so stubborn!” she coos while crawling up my body to wrap herself against me from the front, promptly pressing her lips on mine despite my resistance.

“By the gods, why the hells are you even like this!?” I snap.

“Because I wanted to be like you!” she quietly snaps back.

The pink demoness glares at me as my thoughts grind to a halt.

“Woah. What? Stop. Let's stop right there. Seriously. What?”

I...

What is she...

Hmmm...

Wait. I do have some hazy memories... about...

“...The imp. It was you, wasn’t it?”

“So you do remember. Yes, Astraea, ‘the imp’.

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Honestly? I'm not sure. I thought Taran was… I thought you were…”

Eros lets out a massive sigh. “I evolved, obviously. It was disappointing when you didn’t even notice, you thought I was some other demon! Do you even understand why I followed you around? Do you understand why I've done anything at all? Because I don't think you do. I barely understood any of it back then, but stupid weak little me accidentally winds up in the castle of the demon lord, the mighty Astraea herself! And then, instead of being eaten or crushed for the spectacle or something even worse, you just... kept me for some reason. And then you were so amazing!”

She gently pushes off into the air above me and does a little overdramatic spin for some reason and hugs her arms tightly to her chest before continuing. “So powerful, and yet so disinterested in power... always doing whatever you wanted, taking whatever and whoever you wanted... consequences be damned. You were amazing.”

And then her smile fades as she floats closer, until our faces are only a few inches apart.

“You were too amazing, so of course I looked up to you. I wanted to be like you.”

I…

See.

She was Astraea’s pet.

MY pet.

Now that she’s found me again, she wants back what she had, or so it would seem. And I’m not sure I can live up to that expectation.