Rhea didn't get a lot of sleep as she was woken up by Hecate when she was sure that Selene was still up in the sky. Nevertheless, she got ready and followed the Goddess out of her cottage, now wearing grey and green robes, starting to reassemble the other Deities of the Underworld.

They arrived back into the town, but this time Hecate led her to somewhere that looked a lot like Iapetus' workshop only considerable bigger. Rhea didn't look around to much before her eyes were stole by a mighty in-work piece.

It was a magnificent ship, made of guayacan wood, ornamented with beautiful silver and iron rosettes and the faces of Nyx and Erebus, reassembling the ones the mortals tried to build to ride over Pontus and Thalassa, but this on actually looked functional.

Right in front of it were standing two men, looking like they were debating about something. Rhea easily recognized Thanatos out of the two, but the other one baffled her, she couldn't remember seeing him at the meal and there was something to simple, to strange about him. She didn't even feel when Hecate took her hand and led her to them.

Thanatos didn't think twice as he embraced Hecate before turning to Rhea and using his polite salute like she hadn't seen him getting undone by Dolos just the former night. Although the idea of embarrassing the God a little smiled to her, she couldn't help but turn her attention to the strange man before her.

Looking closer at him, he looked even more simpler with his copper skin, calloused features and a mess of black hair and beard. He was wearing an unusual black, wool coat and he seemed more than nervous as he noticed her.

"Rhea, this is Charon, the navigator" Thanatos' calm voice informed more, even though it seemed like his answer only brought her more queries rather than answers.

"Navigator?"

"Yes my Queen, I used to navigate over the seas and oceans back when I was alive." Charon replied, seeming like he had eaten his nervousness raw.

It took Rhea a moment for it to loudly click inside her mind.

"You're a mortal." she announced in awe. "But how?"

"My Queen, this is the Underworld, this is the place Underworld where all mortals end up after they die" Thanatos explained after he and Hecate had a good chuckle.

"So you are working with deceased mortals"

"We never really put it like that- but since we have to share the domain, we really use their help" the God stated, gazing at the mortal before him.

"You see, when mortals first die, they end up at the borders, before all five of our rivers." he started, only to be interrupted by Hecate.

"But, the Styx is the only one of them which forms a full cycle, so they only have to cross her to get here." the Goddess explained, only for her future words to be stolen by the God.

"The problem is, the Styx is more rather a sea than a river. We tried to find different ways to help them cross it and a ship seems to be the most efficient one."

So that would be it. The souls of mortals would be navigated through the Styx by Charon and his mighty ship, the cost being one single obol. But the mortals will lie, they'll say that it was only a mere boat that transported them to their eternal lives, they will say that the Underworld Deities are rich and greedy, asking for more gold, even though they already had so much, they won't know how poor they really are, starving themselves everyday, waiting for a small piece of Ambrosia granted my Mother Earth.

At the workshop, Rhea watched Hecate and her Lampades as they enchanted the ship with protective wards, whispering unknown incarnation and dancing through the rituals. They told her that it must be done so the ship wouldn't be burn by Styx's acid water.

"It will need a name." She told Charon, who standing right next to her, reading some scrolls.

"What?" He asked surprised, raising his head from the tangled writings.

"The ship, it will need a name."

"You're right..." It took him a few moments to continue, but finally said "What about Aiónios?"

Eternal

"Beautiful" Was her only response with a sweet smile on her face and went back to watching the ritual, the massive differences between the Lampades and Hecate almost making her chuckle. The nymphs, who Rhea counted to be around a dozen, had pitch black skin - Hecate had told her after all, that like Prometheus' mortals, they were created by Gaia out of the soil of the Underworld - and muddy, grey coloured eyes, reassembling the waters of the Styx. Most of them had short, curly hair, kept in several thigh braids, a simple, golden circlet placed on top of their heads. They were slightly shorter than their lady - about which Rhea found that she was actually considered pretty tall compared to other Gods - but appeared stronger, having buff, but still starving, bodies, making Hecate almost look like a stick.

After all the songs got sang and the dances got danced, Hecate walked back to Rhea, this time followed by her suite, but weaved them off as she approached the Titaness.

"It seems like not only your mind is important over her" Rhea told her with a grin on her face.

"Of course not, how could you underestimate me in such a way?" Hecate replied with a sarcastic arrogance.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have"

"Perhaps you shouldn't have"

They both laughed like the Heavens weren't about to fall on them in any moment, like she wasn't commander over a kingdom that was slowly dying out of starvation while drowning in riches, like she didn't married a mad, power hungry king who stole her own children from her, like they were just two mortal girls, waiting for Atropos to finally get bored of them and mercilessly cut their strings.

- rose