Lion Head Mesa insolitus

Nephele ran her tongue across her nose, feeling the pull of scars across her face with every expression.

Reality is not what I fear. Being dragged into conflicts I cannot escape unscathed, again, is. She had held her story to her chest for so long, the blood that ran in rivulets through her fur, the scars that stained every inch of her psyche.

I know. I arrived too late to save her. She cleared her throat.

Asphodel is one of three. She left her rock to stand over a patch of bare, loose dirt, raising her paw.

Elysium, Asphodel, Tartarus. Elysium is for those vaulted heros, demigods, beings of prophecy. She drew a small circle, scratching out the crude shape of a lake with an island in the middle.

Tartarus. Where the demonic rest, the Titans, those who have burned the gods. A deep pit you can never climb out of. She drew a crude canyon.

And Asphodel. The fields of the forgotten. Where people like me go, ordinary in every way, not prophecized heroes. She drew a few squiggles to indicate a field.

All of this presided over by Hades. God of the Dead.