Archive of Our Own ^beta

The worst part of asphodel wasn’t just being dead. It wasn’t even the boredom, although that did get to her fairly often.

It was the loneliness. The isolation of being surrounded by hundreds and thousands of people, tormented her by the fact they would never speak to her in any meaningful way. She should have gotten used to being alone by then. She already spent her whole mortal life that way, but she didn’t.

She always kept her eyes open, and she always kept her hopes up. That was all she could do to fight it. That was probably the only reason she saw her, and the only reason she saw something was different with her. She wandered around, not like she was lost, but like she was just observing her surroundings.

“Who’re you?” Hazel called out to her.

Hazel usually wouldn’t ask any spirit that, seeing as none of them ever had any memory, but this girl was different. She looked much more lively, though she clearly wasn’t. Her skin was warmly saturated with a deep olive tone, and she was much more alert. Even stranger, the girl actually responded.

“I should be asking you the same thing.” She spoke formally with a slight accent, maybe Italian. Even though she was certain she’d never met her in her own lifetime, there was a familiar ring to her voice. She introduced herself, “Bianca. Bianca DiAngelo.”

“Hazel. Hazel Levesque.”

She folded her hands politely until the girl, Bianca, reached hers out to shake, which she did out of principle. When a white girl actually wants to shake your hand, you don’t question it. Her hand was warm by underworld standards.

She had tried to hold her mothers hand, but it was like touching ice. She may have been a complete stranger, one who never knew the impact she really had on her daughter’s life. She eventually just stopped trying. She couldn’t stand seeing her mother like that. The more she longingly stared at her glassy dead eyes, the longer she regretted it. At least she was at peace.

Hazel meanwhile, was forced to live with the guilt of every thought and action she’d ever had. Every mistake she ever made would haunt her for as long as she “lived”. Which was supposed to be forever.

“You're not really dead, are you?” Bianca asked with disbelief, her hand lingering just a little longer than she was used to.

Hazel wished she had the privilege of being truly dead. Remembering her past life almost felt worse. Bianca was the one who didn’t seem dead. She was almost lively, as if she had embraced her own demise with open arms. She was fine with being here.

“No, no, I am.” She corrected, earning her another skeptical look, “Pluto is my Father. I remember everything, but all these other spirits here, they don’t.”

Bianca had a look of realization wash over her.

“Oh. My father would be Hades.”

Hazel recognized the name, her father Pluto's more well known Greek form. Did that make them related somehow? She could hardly even picture that. They obviously didn’t look anything alike, save for the warm yet creepy smile Bianca gave her, which bore an uncanny resemblance to her own.

“That would make you my sister.” Bianca said curiously, “You know I always wanted a real sister.”

Hazel went quiet. She silently soaked in the title, her real sister. Bianca didn’t even know her or all the horrible things she had done, but she still wanted her. Of all the girls she could have shared her blood with, she wanted her. She didn’t know how to react. She didn’t know what to say. She was too overwhelmed with emotions she hadn’t felt in who knows how long. She hadn’t felt anything in such a long time. This was what being happy felt like. Real, foreign, happiness.

“I had a brother,” Bianca continued making small talk, seeing as Hazel was just too stunned to do much speaking, “But it’s just not the same.”

“Well, girls do mature faster than boys I heard.” Hazel recalled awkwardly.

That was what she learned in class, and it seemed to be about as true as facts came. It was always the boys pushing her around. At least girls had the decency to keep their problems with her to petty gossip and rumors.

“Maybe. Maybe us girls are just better at pretending we’re not still immature. Did you ever have any brothers or sisters Hazel?”

“No, just me and my momma. And now you I suppose. Two dead girls from the god of the dead,” Hazel joked dryly, “ain't that something.”

“I won’t be dead for much longer. I’m afraid I’m only stopping through. I'm actually going to be reborn soon enough.”

A small part of her was just a little disappointed. Of course she’d want Bianca to be happy and at peace with accepting her death, but would it really kill her to stay for just a little while longer? She hadn’t had anybody to talk to in so long. She didn’t realize just how lonely she was until she was ready to beg on her knees for a near stranger just to talk with her for a bit.

“How’s that?”

“I was supposed to be in Elysium, but my brother Nico, he won’t leave it alone. He won’t accept that I'm not coming back to him, that he can’t bring me back. If I’m anywhere in the underworld, he’ll drive himself mad trying. He’s got to move on. For his own sake.”

Hazel never had a little brother, or any siblings for that matter, so she couldn’t relate. Bianca was technically her sister, and that meant Nico was technically her brother, but that didn’t feel like it should count. It wasn’t like they’d be exchanging letters anytime soon.

What was Bianca’s point in meeting her if she was just going to leave? It felt like the universe was just playing more tricks on her, playing a game of “Make Hazel Levesque's life miserable”. It was giving her one nice thing just to rip it away.

“Why do you come through here then?” She asked. “What are you doing down here when you should be back up there?”

Bianca should’ve been reliving a new life, not wasting her time down in Asphodel. It seemed like the least interesting part of the underworld she could be visiting. Dead trees, dead people, Hazel would do anything to get out. She didn’t think spirits could travel through the different realms of the underworld at all. Maybe there was a way for her to leave somehow.

“Just curious is all. It's funny actually, it was like a little gut feeling, telling me it was important, before I go. Now I can see why.” Bianca made a small gesture at her with an open palm, like she was something worthy of paying attention to.

Hazel never thought herself very important to anybody. She made her feel special, but she wouldn’t elaborate on what she meant. What made her important enough for Bianca to come find her?

Maybe Bianca could tell she was lonely. That she just needed a friend, any friend. Bianca bravely sat down on the ground, getting the rich gray soil all over her Sunday best. Hazel quickly followed suit.

“That being said, tell me about yourself, Hazel. How old are you?” Bianca asked her, flooding her with questions she never thought she’d have to answer. “What did you do to end up here? What happened?”

She never thought somebody would ever ask her. Tell me about yourself. What even was there to say? She never had any friends but Sammy. Then she lost him. She spent the last year of her life in the dark, a cold and lonely wasteland. Her mother cursed her. Then she got the both of them killed.

“I don’t like to talk about it much.”

“I don’t mean to pry.” Bianca apologized, “I just figured after being here so long you’d want somebody to talk to.”

“How do you know I’ve been here so long?”

For all Bianca knew she could have died last week. Whenever that was.

“Everything about you feels older. Your accent, your clothes, they’re just much more old fashioned. Almost reminds me of when I was a little girl.”

Hazel didn’t think her clothes were that childish, but she never did get to hit a big growth spurt to outgrow the same dresses she had been wearing for years.

Bianca herself didn’t look too much older than her, around 13 years old. Even her dress wasn’t much different from something she would have worn. With the round frilly collar and puffed sleeves, she wouldn’t have doubted the idea that they had possibly lived in the same decade. The only thing that threw her off was the futuristic looking silver coat she wore over it. Expensive furs lined the hood and it almost sparkled. It didn’t look like anything she had seen in her lifetime.

“What year was it when you…passed.” Hazel asked.

“It was just 2008–but I was born 1930. I was 12 when it happened. It’s a long story.”

Her assumption was only about half right, but what she couldn’t take her mind off was that future year. Bianca somehow got to live in a time that, had everything panned out the way it was supposed to, they probably would have been dead by.

“2008? Right now?”

“Roughly. I think a few years have passed since then, but it’s hard to tell.”

The year seemed so far away and foreign, like something from a book on the drugstore racks or a science fiction radio program. It was hard to even process. Sixty seven years. Over six decades of history, gone to her.

She wanted to know everything, the technology, the people, but she knew she would only upset herself if she did. She would only find herself bitter on everything she missed. Biana, who she could only assume was of some kind of Mediterranean descent—her complexion, hair and accent being dead giveaways—greeted her not only with kindness, but treated her as an equal. Maybe Bianca was just odd like her, socializing where she shouldn’t.

She didn’t want to be rude asking. Bianca had been more than polite keeping her company when she didn’t have to. It seemed impolite to ask why she was talking to her. This was the underworld after all.

In the underworld, color didn’t seem to divide people as much as it did in the living world. They were all just husks of their former selves. For some people, maybe it was a good thing. Black, White, Indian, it didn’t matter. Nobody could remember who they were or where they were from, so they couldn’t care to remember any prejudices they might have had.

After seventy years passed without her, she wondered if the same was true for the living world. There was no way things had stayed the same after so long. There was no way a girl like Bianca would talk with her so casually unless something had changed.

“Did you ever meet many colored folks, Bianca?” She asked bluntly. “When you was alive?”

It was a simple question, there was no right or wrong answer. She was just curious. Did or didn’t she?

She hadn’t met a lot of white folks in her own lifetime, at least not very personally. It was always just her and her mother at home, and that seemed to be the only place she felt any sort of safety. That and the stables, where she wasn’t supposed to be. She hardly had any friends, white or otherwise. Bianca was so polite, she wondered if she saw any color in her at all. Did she even know?

Bianca looked just slightly uncomfortable at the question, fixing her hair like she didn’t quite know what to say.

“What’s wrong?” Hazel asked.

“Nothing, you're fine, it’s just that people don’t really say that anymore. Colored, I mean.” She twisted a loc of her thick hair around her finger. “But yes, I did in fact.”

It took a minute to process what she was even hearing. If not colored, what else did people say? Did they just stop bothering with labels all together?

“Really?”

“Really. I’ve met all kinds of people. When were you—born—exactly?”

“28’.”

Bianca gave her a small “oh” and looked as if she had just pieced together a puzzle.

According to Bianca, who she doubted had any reason to deceive her, everything was different. She couldn’t help but feel just a little bitter. Of course she’s happy that things are better for everybody else, but what about her? All that freedom she’d never get to experience for herself that she had to hear about second hand.

Bianca seemed uncomfortable with discussing the topic any further. Being from the same decade herself, she couldn’t blame her. It was always a sore subject she felt like she’d rather change. She didn’t want to keep dreaming about something she’d never have.

“I was 13 when it happened—when I—When I died. You had asked me earlier.”

Bianca gave her a pained look, and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

Bianca had been nothing but sweet to her, she couldn’t have asked for a better friend and sister. Everything she went through was never her fault. She couldn’t quite figure out what she was getting at.

“What have you got to be sorry for? you haven’t done nothing to hurt me.”

“You died too soon.” Bianca said empathetically, “Your life shouldn’t be over yet. You were so young”

“So was you!”

Bianca gave her a pained look. One that said she was a lot more mature for her age than she should have been. She understood things Hazel herself probably never could.

“My time was short, but it was done. It was finished.” Bianca said wisely, “Yours isn’t.”

“But that don’t make no sense.”

She hated how immature she sounded, pouting over just the thought of being left alone again.

“You have big things coming for you. I can tell.”

“What, down here? Nothing happens down here.”

“I don’t know how exactly, but Father does like to bend the rules.”

She held her face in her hands, and Bianca slid an arm over her shoulder. She patted her back gently, as if trying to break the panic out of her.

“You’ll stay a little longer, won’t you? I mean, if he don’t care, you’ll stay a while right?”

“I can’t.” She felt Bianca’s hand on her back tense. “I wish I could, maybe get to know you some more… you won’t forget about me will you?”

Truth be told, Hazel didn’t know if she was forming new memories in Asphodel. Nothing interesting that would even be worth remembering ever happened. Bianca was an exception to that. With the way this place was designed, she just didn’t know.

Rather than admit that, she instead said, “I don’t see how I could.”

She felt herself start to cry. She didn’t mean to get overly emotional, but it had been so long since she’d seen a new face, let alone one who was just like her. She had memories to share, emotions and kindness she never saw from anybody. Everything down in asphodel was dead, but with Bianca, she felt just a little less so.

She was like a warm beacon of light between the fog and dead trees. It was so lonely, and now she had to leave, already. She hardly even knew her.

She never grew up with her, but she was her sister, and by blood no less. This white girl from the other side of the world. In another life, they could have been closer. In another time period, they could have been like real sisters, sharing each others company.

Hazel would never have that chance to grow up with her. To do each other's hair, pick out each other's outfits, help out in the kitchen together, watch the sun rise and fall over the city.. Whose mother would they have lived with? Bianca's mother must have been a lovely woman to raise such a kind daughter. Maybe if her own mother had a little girl like Bianca, she would have been a little happier with herself.

She was mourning all over again, for another life she never had. She mourned for Bianca, dead only a year before her. She mourned for Bianca’s brother, who would never again see how wonderful his sister was. She mourned for her mother, for herself and the relationship they never had.

“I’m real sorry, I don’t mean to cry,” Hazel palmed at her wet eyes.

“It’s okay. I really am sorry I can’t stay. I know how much you need somebody, but it just can’t be me.”

Hazel wanted more than anything to pull her into a tight hug, and tell her that everything would be okay for her, but it wouldn’t. They were both dead, and even that couldn’t keep them together.

“You’ll remember me too, won’t you?” Hazel begged.

She knew that wasn’t possible, it was dreaming at best. She was going to be reborn, she knew that. A new life meant new memories. It meant starting from scratch. It meant none of this would ever matter.

Bianca didn’t really answer the question.

“Whatever happens… just know you're important, Hazel.”

Just with that, she was gone. It almost didn’t feel real. Her head pounded, everything feeling fuzzy. she couldn’t tell if Bianca had walked away, or just vanished. She didn’t have anything to remind herself of their brief interaction, no special object or token to keep. Just the feeling.

The feeling of knowing she could have had just one good thing, and the reality of knowing that she couldn’t never actually have it.

Maybe some day she’d see her again. It was just wishful thinking, she knew that. They’d always be worlds apart, only their own deaths connecting them with a thin line that had just been severed.

She had to grapple with the fact that only her memory would satisfy the missing space where she should have been. She would draw her face in the dirt, over and over again, just so as not to forget it. She would forget everything about her; except her face.

Some day a boy her age, bearing a startling resemblance to her would stop by. He would desperately call her name to no avail, and she would forget she had never heard it.

He would be inevitably disappointed. She'd be disappointed when she wouldn’t be able to recall the name on the tip of her tongue, as if none of it had ever happened.

She wouldn’t be able to tell him about their brief meeting. She would have already forgotten it. She could never form new memories in asphodel. She could only drag up the old ones, and Bianca never played any part in those, no matter how much she wished she would have.