In the dim, quiet office of the Underworld, where the air was heavy with incense and the faint scratch of a quill echoed against shelves upon shelves of ledgers and scrolls, Hades sat hunched over his desk.
His penmanship was exact, neat, and deliberate, every stroke reflecting a mind accustomed to order.
His silver hair styled neatly as the violet glow of his eyes flickered in concentration.
He looked so utterly absorbed that the rest of the world seemed to vanish, as though only his work existed.
Across the room, sprawled languidly on a couch carved from black obsidian and cushioned with soft crimson fabric, Aphrodite was not nearly so serious.
She had picked up a slim volume bound in cheap leather, a mortal work smuggled from the world above.
The moment her eyes began scanning its lurid words, she broke into giggles.
Her laughter rang like silver bells in the gloomy office, startling in its brightness against the stoic silence of the Underworld.
