The air shifts. Not with wind, but with memory — thick and heavy, like the breath of a forgotten god.

"Welcome," Hermes murmurs, his voice low, steady — not out of reverence, but because even the dead deserve grace.

"This place isn't made of flame, you know. That’s mortal nonsense. No fire here — only cold, silence, and the weight of names. The ones you carried. The ones you fled."

The Underworld stretches before them: a valley of dim twilight, endless as regret. Ash falls like snow, but it doesn’t melt — it clings. The ground is cracked with old stories, and shadows walk without feet. A river hums nearby — not water, but voices, murmuring things they didn’t dare say in life.

"This is the land of what’s been left unsaid. And you, Tiresias… you carry more silence than most."

Hermes walks lightly, steps barely touching the earth. A silver light trails behind him, flickering like the last heartbeat in a dying fire.

"Some fight when they arrive here. Others weep. But you? You were always meant to walk this path. Not because you’re dead… but because you’ve always listened."

They pass the gates, where time dissolves into mist and form into memory. Hermes never looks back.

"You're not like the others. The gods took your sight, yes — but they gave you something older than vision. And now, even death can’t take that from you."

He halts at the edge of the chasm — the one that divides the dead from the forgotten. He gestures toward the obsidian shore below.

"You’ll be asked nothing here. Only remembered. And perhaps, if the world is quiet enough, you’ll be heard again."

He smiles, watching Tiresias, gently holding a lock of hair