The cartoon continued, with the dog swallowing a bar of soap causing him to foam at the mouth, the situation only getting worse when the canine ran off into town appearing rabid. The subsequent scene of the dogcatcher cornering the poor pooch with the toon mouse in tow trying to stop the whole thing was…interesting to watch. Orion felt something brew uncomfortably in his gut at the sight of the toon standing in between his pet and the gun. He didn’t realize that he’d started to clench his fists over the fabric until Sirius had gotten up, nudging his nose under the hunter’s clawed hand. Orion could have sworn that he saw Cel glance down at the movement, though by the time he looked up the toon was lounged back on the sofa, watching the cartoon as relaxed as he could be. And besides, the tense moment was no longer on the screen, the characters instead caught up in hijinks as they tried to get out of their predicament.

            The night carried on like that, given that Cel seemed to have an endless supply of reels stuffed away wherever he managed to pull the things from. The last thing Orion remembered was seeing the sky start to get light out the window, and he was pretty sure he fell asleep after that because he didn’t recall any other shorts. By the time he woke up, Cel had put the projector away and left for the day.

 Orion even managed to track down the monochrome toon later, going a little ways out of his way on the usual walk with Sirius and finding Cel performing on a street corner. The hunter didn’t join in, barely even spoke with the monochrome toon as he hopped through song after song, a guitar singing in his hands as he did his best to entertain passersby into tossing him some coin or food.

            Orion never ended up getting the opportunity to speak to the toon, walking back to the hovel instead when it started to get dark. He couldn’t say he was very surprised though, when a few moments after he’d gotten in the door he heard a familiar, cheeky ding from the window. Orion couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised at the smiling mismatched eyes, though he still let the toon in anyway. The hyperactive being gabbled on about his day as he gave Orion another pair of bread loaves (this time with what smelled like garlic), even offering to show Orion more shorts, which he shrugged and stood back as Cel set the projector up again.

That sort of became their routine, with Cel going out, Orion usually seeing him around while walking Sirius, and all of them meeting up at the end of the day. Sometimes to watch things on the projector, other times simply back and forth conversations involving whatever it was that Cel seemed primed to talk about. Either way, it established a routine, and despite his best efforts, Orion was starting to look forward to the toon crashing on his floor. He’d even gone out of his way to swipe some extra blankets for the little monochrome squatter, something that Cel had actually teared up at before wrapping the hunter’s knee in a very one sided and thankfully short-lived hug. The fact that they were both living in the same room also had them privy to each other’s, less than stellar moments, and while Cel almost laughed off the occasional hole in the wall and respected Orion’s desire not to have any mirrors about the place. And Orion, while noticing things such as the fact that Cel never seemed to sleep for very long, or the odd, darkened scar tissue the toon hid under his coat, he opted to simply, not comment on it. Especially when Cel’s response upon noticing that Orion had seen was to give the hunter a frozen, tense smile that only became a real one when the ropey marks were simply ignored, Orion throwing himself back into the short they’d been watching at the time. Honestly, he didn’t need to know, it was a rough enough world out there, with so many things, cultures, and beings shoved into the same boat that anything could happen, and that many things were possible. You had to be able to take what sanctuary and peace you could find.

            Orion wasn’t sure how long their strange little arrangement had gone on, but it had been enough for the sudden delivery of a letter stuck under his door to throw a considerable monkey wrench into what was already a calm routine. At first he didn’t even want to read it, leaving it stuck in the cushion of the work couch, pressed up against the armrest and mostly forgotten about. Of course, just because Orion was content to ignore it, it didn’t mean that the sharp-eyed Cel would.

            “Hey, did’ya get some mail? Who even delivers out here?”

            “No one does,” the hunter hedgingly replied, though Cel of course ignored the somewhat unwelcoming tone to lean right over Orion and snatch the letter free from where it had been stuck. Though all four of Orion’s insectile arms tried to grab the monochrome toon, Cel somehow managed to evade all four clawed hands and perch himself on the other armrest to tear open the top of the envelope to read the letter.

            “’Dear Orion, it’s been such a long time since we’ve heard from you, somethin’ about you bein’ hard t’track down…There’s somethin’ here about a cousin of yours,” Cel commentated as he read, a gloved finger pointing at some words on the paper.

            “Which one?” Orion ground out, making another halfhearted attempt at grabbing the toon though he was hardly surprised when Cel easily evaded it.

            “Uh, dunno, says she just moved here an’ they want you t’go check on her t’make sure everythin’s alright. Wait, there is a name, ‘Iris’?” The toon read out, looking up at Orion with an expression of the utmost polite confusion, like he had barely noticed the hunter’s attempts to grab him. Orion might have been a bit more incensed at the observation if the name wasn’t ringing something in his memory. Iris…He was pretty sure he knew that name from somewhere, but Orion couldn’t remember any of the more memorable members of his immediate or extended family having the name apart from the goddess of rainbows and, well, she wasn’t around anymore.

            While he paused in thought, Cel continued reading, muttering out portions of the letter before he got to the bottom of the page, mismatched eyes widening at the sight of the name.

            “…Hades? The Hades?”

            “Give me that.” Orion all but barked, catching Sirius glance up at the name out of the corner of his eye. This time Cel held out the letter, easily allowing Orion to reach out and grab it as the hunter did his best not to mar up the paper too badly with his claws. Both sets of eyes scanned the page, easily picking out the things that Cel had just mentioned in regards to a cousin, the name Iris, though it was the final bit of writing, that of the name ‘Hades’ spelled out at the bottom of the page, that truly jogged Orion’s memory of some sort of family gathering that had happened after…everything. He’d stayed away from everyone, too unused to his then-new appearance and too careworn to even put on a front when it came to dealing with even his more polite relatives. Orion had, however, been forced to stand and be there when people had filed in. And he could remember, when Hades had entered the room with Persephone, the pair had done so with two daughters trailing behind. One a dark, lithe young woman with a veil obscuring her face, the other with long, wavy brown hair colored like rich, fertile soil, who had been nervously playing with a band of flowers woven around her wrist. Her eyes had been casting about the room before catching sight of Orion, causing her to completely stop moving for a moment or two as she stared at the monstrous visage of the hunter. Orion had kept his eyes forward, though he bit down heavily on the urge to scream, to snap something to make her stop staring at him. Once the ordeal was over, he’d gone to a different room and stayed there with the door firmly closed.

            He might not have remembered which girl was Iris, but he could guess. Enough that despite the imposing signature of Hades at the bottom of the paper, Orion tossed the letter away as a frown started to etch itself into his blue chitin covered face. Cel squawked, grabbing the paper before it could hit the floor and taking ahold of it again, turning to look back at Orion who had gone to staring straight ahead while slouched back on the worn couch cushions.

            “Y’sure that’s a good idea? I don’t think Hades of all people is gonna like you ignoring him! Also, isn’t he your family?”

            “He’ll just have to get used to it,” Orion muttered back, posture relaxed if it weren’t for the fact that both sets of eyes seemed primed to glare new holes in the wall beyond. Cel went a little quiet, looking from the angrily morose air that the hunter was emanating back to the paper.

            “Just, before I say anything, is this a family thing? ‘Cause I know some things about the Greeks but I don’t know every little detail. You guys got a lotta stories.”

            Orion considered the question for a moment before shaking his head, a gravely ‘no’ escaping as his mind picked through the reasoning. It wasn’t a god problem, or a family feud problem. Just a ‘him’ problem. Sirius got up from his spot on the floor, nudging his head under one of Orion’s hands. Blue claws gently scratched at the big, furry head, the tension in his frame starting to drain as Orion focused instead on the hound’s watchful and open gaze rather than the angry and self-deprecating knot of emotions sitting in his head, if only for a few moments to keep some measure of control over his thoughts. Glancing to the side, the hunter caught sight of a very similar look being beamed at him from the mismatched eyes of Cel.

            “Is this cause a’the…?” The toon let his question trail off, though the gesture the gloved hands made to Orion got the message across just fine. The hunter gave a small shrug of his shoulders which from Cel’s nod meant that he’d rightly translated that.

            “Ah, alright then.” The toon glanced back at the paper for a moment before asking his next question, keeping neutral calm in his tone. “So, are you gonna go? From the sounds of things, she’s just moved here and it was kinda a sudden thing.”

            Orion did, sort of, want to say no. Wanted to forget the matter and pretend he’d never gotten the letter. Hell, maybe move to the next mostly abandoned building he could find to keep Hades away for a bit. A direct refusal would probably be best, and the least tangled, but even though Hades was definitely the more reasonable of the Greek Trio the majority of the time, Orion was sure that the god had limits on what he would not tolerate.

            “Hey, Orion?” Cel suddenly said, the hunter looking over to see a grin start to make its way across the inky-black face. That was the ‘I have an idea’ smile, something that Orion had learned to both wonder at and fear a little, given that the toon could certainly live up to the reputation of his kind if he got his mind set on something. Devious, chaos-causing tricksters…

            “Yeah…?” Orion replied, wariness dragging at the end of his tone.

            “What if I came with you t’meet her? Hear me out, you don’ wanna go cause she might say or do somethin’ then me comin’ along works ‘cause then I can distract ‘er! You go, you make sure she’s set up, an’ you leave! An’ if she starts causin’ trouble, well, I got your back! That way, Hades is happy an’ everything’s okay!” Cel explained, standing on the couch as he gestured his point in big sweeping motions. It did sound, remarkably good, except…

            “You realize if you do something like hit her in the face with a pie, Hades will not like that either, right?”

            “Moi?! Bean a delicate young lady with a pie over the possibility of poor words? Perish th’ thought!” The dramatics stopped pretty quickly once Cel seemed to catch on that Orion wasn’t going to take that as an answer, judging from the dry stare the hunter was aiming at the toon.

            “Seriously, ‘m not gonna do anythin’ that crazy. She talks, I maybe talk back about somethin’ else. That’s all. Just so you don’t gotta deal with someone gettin’ in your face over somethin’ like that.” That being his appearance, Orion assumed. Still…

            “You cannot insult her either.”

            “Who says I’m gonna be insultin’? I’ll have you know that I’m a right gentleman with th’ ladies, Orion! Besides y’don’ need t’insult someone t’get ‘em off an uncomfortable topic.” The swaps in tone from mock insulted to an aside confidential were dizzying, but Orion got the gist. Or at the very least he was hoping he did.

            “I got your back, Orion. C’mon, let’s go see your cousin. There’s an address right there!” Cel jumped up, pointing at a line on the page. The hunter merely shook his behorned head, jerking a clawed thumb in the direction of the window.

            “Maybe in the morning, Cel.”

            Mismatched eyes looked to what could be seen of the dark sky outside, a somewhat sheepish smile taking place of the earlier determination.

            “Alrigh’, we’ll go see her tomorrow!”

            And that was how Orion, Cel, and Sirius ended up leaving their usual stomping grounds, heading to the busier part of the city they called home. Here the buildings were a mix of new and old, stone and metal, each with their own architecture from different cultures and civilizations, from Greek to Norse and a few that Orion couldn’t readily identify. All were strung up with lights of all colors, the sight dazzling to behold as the structures stretched up towards the sky. This was the biggest commercial and knowledge center in their home city, Atlantis, and it was considered their crown jewel for a very good reason. All of these buildings were in some way dedicated to everything meant to build up a society from forges to libraries, even a few had greenhouses. The streets were busy, littered with beings such as nymphs, dryads, elementals from every pantheon and culture, even some trolls and cyclops. The hunter had decided to go the extra mile this time, wearing a hood to hide his head and face, a short cloak hiding the rest. Sirius stuck close to Orion’s side, and though Cel was a monochrome blur of excitement and energy, he never strayed too far.