Curse Of Hades: Essence Of the Reborn

A "pleasant" surprise

"Who am I performing for? And why do I perform such a spectacle we call 'life'?" A young girl had asked the elk god once.

"Life is a stage with a thousand unseen judges, but the theatre remains empty for nobody to witness our play. We are stuck in an eternal loop of overdoing our performance in order to appeal to the nonexistent judges and spectators, yet when the play ends, we are captured by the feeling that we didn't do enough."  He responded.
C

onfusion was only but a moment lasting years, until it all made sense in the end when it was too late.

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The first thing Belmira sensed when she woke up, was the putrid stench of death and dying. She let out a displeased groan as she buried her head in Tyfos' chest, but it did nothing to appease the smell.
She opened her eyes, and finally got the energy she needed to turn around and face whatever was emiting the smell.

When she turned around, her eyes were met with the furious red eyes of the giant wolf guardian, Aides.
She jumped and let out a fearful scream as she shook Tyfos awake.

-"Tyfos! Tyfos wake up! Tyfos!" She shouted, but Aides immediately bit down on her torso and moved her away from the forest nymph with relative ease. The ruckus woke Tyfos up, and she saw the blurry figure of her mother running away with her lover in her jaw, and she started running after her, with her owl following as well.

-"mother Aides! Mother Aides! Tyfos wants you to release the mortal human!" The owl screeches and claws at Aides' fur, causing the wolf of death to howl in mild pain and release Belmira from her jaw, dropping her on the forest floor.
Tyfos, seeing the faint blur of Belmira's person, ran towards her and kneeled down to inspect her. However, her mother was not as pleased as she thought.

-"Tyfos! Stay away from the human! They can carry diseases and other dangerous... Things..." Aides exclaimed in disgust. 

-"and never in my years have I met someone with such hypocrisy." Lysander retorted, his hooves making loud thuds as he emerged from the depths of the forest.

-"Lysander!? How dare you call me a hypocrite!? All I'm doing is keeping our daughter safe-" she growled, but was quickly interrupted by Lysander's angry bugle.

-"protecting!? Keeping her safe!? That must be the most unfunny joke I have heard coming from you! Aides,  don't you know that we were once humans!? We both roamed this earth as humans! Our daughter is human! Don't you see how hypocritical you sound this very moment!? We may be gods in this life, but in our past life, we were the very things we have grown to hate!" The smaller god shouted, stomping his hoof onto the grass, creating a wave of plants almost engulfing the ground under them.
Aides let out an angered growl, and howled into the morning sky, causing a wave of decay to neutralise the wave of life.

Belmira and Tyfos, seeing and hearing the two forest gods disputing, got up and started running away from the scene.
The two girls ran, and Belmira tried to lead Tyfos to the string she used to guide herself in the forest, but the string had seemingly... Disappeared. She panicked and held Tyfos' hand tightly, and the two ran across the forest, trying to find the exit while the owl followed them behind, as if it were a silent protector. Their footsteps made distinct pitter patters on the grass and dirt, and in the distance, a hunter's ears easily picked up both sounds of the forest gods fighting and the girls running.
The hunter, with an arrogant smirk, turned around to face his partners.

-"my companions! Which pre do we catch first? Two girls, one of them being a legendary nymph, or two gods who are said to have the wrath of Hera herself?" He said with a voice that was filled to the brim with smugness. His companions laughed, one of them raising his hand.

-"a good woman is better than an immortal god! Think about it! A god can never die, it can come back and avenge itself in the most cruel way. But a woman? A woman can provide endless pleasures, she has all of the traits we men wish for! Beauty, intelligence, compassion, fertility, all things we would want in a good wife!" The man shouted, and all of the hunters cheered in agreement. Although one hunter did not cheer along.

He was rather young, and looked to be around his early twenties. The look in his oak brown eyes indicated disappointment and discomfort. Just as he was about to stand up and go back to his tent, the lead hunter got up and gripped his chestnut hair, pulling him back in the group.

-"come on Nikos! Can't enjoy a little fun? Or are you really that boring to be around?" The lead hunter taunted him, with that same arrogant smirk.
Nikos, the young hunter, pushed him away and stormed off to his tent.

-"ugh, he's no fun!" One of the hunters complained and rolled his eyes, crossing his legs and taking a swing of his flask of wine. The rest of the hunting party laughed at Nikos as he hid in his tent, and cracked jokes about how he was too much of a coward to even capture a rabbit.

-"yeah yeah, but at least he can navigate us through the forest pretty well." One of the hunters said with a chuckle, and snatched the flask of wine from the other hunter, and took a big gulp of the liquid.
The rest of the group laughed, and the lead hunter announced he would capture the two women in the forest.

He stood up, put on his gear and grabbed his equipment, which were a bow and arrow and some rope. He waved his companions goodbye and walked with confidence and triumph, while Nikos was filled with a sense of unease, and snook out of the camp to stalk the lead hunter, filled with worry for the two women that the lead hunter was after.