There was the slope, and the mass, and the hill. It was all there had ever been, down there in the grey of death. There were times when he thought there might have been once been more to his existence: impressions less than memory, but slightly stronger than a wish. The concepts of sunlight and warmth, of having someone care about him, a warm hand reaching out...
He had been a king, hadn't he? He almost believed that was true, in those rare moments when the mass was almost at the crest, phantom muscles straining because one more push, one more and he would be free. His labors would be ended. He could... he wasn't sure. It just had to be better than this, than failing over and over, watching the mass roll back down the slope and knowing that his existence would consist of almost reaching the top, over and over.
For eternity.
Or until someone came.
Someone must have loved him once. Respected, at the very least, if he had been a king. What had he done, to place himself in this pit? Forever climbing out, never succeeding, always chasing after the mass to make one more attempt, and one more, and one more...
Had he been such a terror that all who had been his subjects would prefer this for him? No family, no friends...
He was almost at the top. He was always almost at the top, until he was not. Almost free. Almost about to fail.
"You."
He looked up.
All was grey, down there in the dark. The small horse was just as grey, but... there was something soft about her. A suggestion of a brighter world in the fur, and the liquid quality of her eyes.
"You shouldn't be here," the small horse wearing the blue half-toga said, in a voice as dull as death. "You shouldn't be suffering like this. You never did anything to deserve it. You're innocent."
He stared at her, through the sweat which was forever falling into clouded eyes. Tried to believe.
She came over the crest of the slope. Trotted down towards him, hooves never coming close to slipping.
"You're innocent," she repeated. "And now you're going to be free."
The mass nearly slipped as he stretched out a shaking, dirt-covered hand towards her. Needing to touch...
She head-butted him.
He fell backwards, almost rolled. The mass took the cue as gravity assumed its normal duty, heading right towards him --
-- and the little horse was in the way.
The mass stopped. Frozen against the minimal weight of her form.
"Let's go," she said. "You're free."
And foot by foot, she pushed the boulder of his torture all the way up the slope and over the rise, never to be seen again.
He stared at the slope for a while. At the place where the boulder wasn't. A boulder which, to be fair about it, had probably never done anything to deserve him.
"Er," Sisyphus finally said. "...thank you...?"
He's been Holmes'd
Maud will leave no stone unturned in her quest for justice.
Did Maud just liberate THE BOULDER, and in doing so, unknowingly free Sisyphus? What would Hades say?
Boulder and Bouldy, together at last.
I would not have guessed "lingering Tartarian taint" as a reason not to touch Holder's Boulder, but I suppose it's sort of adjacent.
Yup, makes enough sense. That boulder was unjustly enslaved to punish a man who tried to cheat Thanatos (greek Death)
Huh, ain't that a thing...
Maud, what have you done? I get it that you are upset that the bolder is being forced into this but the guy who was pushing it needs a good scrubbing by the Elements, at best.
To paraphrase another pony fic, also about liberating someone from hell. In this case Princess Celestia speaking to Bogey Mare, the worst serial killer in Equestrian history.
“Suppose, somehow, that all the pain that you had caused had not repaid a hundredfold in your centuries of torture. Even then, what possible good would it do anyone for me to give you what you deserve?”
10650311
I don’t much care what Hades would say tbh. The Greek gods were a bad lot.
10650559
Really? Because as I recall the worst he did was screw things up by imprisoning death for a bit. That’s not exactly eternal punishment material. More ‘you idiot don’t do that again.’
Especially, of course, when he’s so broken by the torture that he can’t even remember who he is let alone learn anything from it.
10650654
Hades stays all the way down in the Underworld because he hates his family as much as you do, and for basically the same reasons. He doesn't bother meddling in mortal affairs because he ultimately owns everyone's souls regardless.
He's the exception, is what I'm saying.
10650654
Don't forget that he also scammed Persephone in order to escape from the underworld the first time. He was also a pretty bad king even before then.
10651437
Huh, scamming Persephone was the second attempt the way I heard it told. But either way I don’t hold tricking the gods against him. Particularly because they tend to be dicks to mortals.
Him being a bad king I don’t remember. He’s a clever dude, I’m surprised.
Either way though, I find the idea of any kind of hell even existing to be deeply offensive so...
On his rounds of the underworld, Hades found Sisyphus sitting midway up the mountain. He traveled down, and stood before his charge.
“Have you completed your task?”
“No, a small horse came to free the boulder.”
“How?”
“She came to push it out of Tartarus”
“You know the horse was female?”
“She wore a toga, in a feminine style.”
“And she freed you from the boulder?”
“No. I was nothing to her. An impediment, an obstetrician. She freed the boulder from me.”
“You never once cursed the stone. You invoked the name of every god, and mortal, in new and inventive ways. But you never once called out against the rock?”
“There seemed to be no point,”Sisyphus said, “in cursing a fellow prisoner. Less so, now it is gone with its little pony companion.”
“And yet, you remain.”
“The task is not complete.”
Sisyphus pulled a pebble from the ground, and held it up. He examined it, before casually tossing it over his shoulder. He went back to feeling the ground.
“We slid and fell so many times. I felt each chip, each gouge on its surface. Are the fragments not part of the whole?”
He pulled another pebble from the ground, looked at it, and smiled. He stood, and carried it to the summit. He carefully laid it down on the highest point. He turned, but stopped in thought. He reached back down, and picked up the fragment again. Without crossing the summit himself, he reached out and dropped the pebble as far on the leeward side that he could. Satisfied, he made his way back down to continue his search.
“Do you intend to scour the entire mountain,” Hades asked, “for flints and stone-chips?”
“Would you permit me to leave if I didn’t?”
“It will take you an eternity.”
“No, it will take a very long time. I’ve got an eternity in which to do it...”
10650654
hades didn't give him that punishment, hermes tricked him into doing it. If he ever gets the thing to stay he ascends. Also Sysiphus was an ass.
10652305
That's brilliant.
10652305
An obstetrician?
Continuing with the afterlife theme: V1 from ULTRAKILL is invited to the next match game panel, because Trixie hopes that getting a being from a different universe will improve her chances. Its response, upon being translated from binary, turns out to be "ALSO MURDER".
10650917 "Least shitty Olympian god/demigod" is SUCH a low hurdle to clear.
10650654
I know its been years but do you remeber the fic?
10652099
Yes Sisyphus was a bad king. Clever does not mean kind. However I agree. No one deserves hell.