Thanatos isn't an optimist, but that is a relief on some level. There is something, no matter how shaky, helping the mortals out for those necessities of life. They aren't just dead from starvation or dehydration... or even just a lack of breathing. "I do not think many of us are aware. Even if it had been mentioned before, nothing this clear. We knew the tethers are unstable, like when they disappear from the train, but the meaning beyond that hadn't been fully explored."

He looks at his hands, and Mort scrambles down his arm to sit in his palm and peer up at him with his dark eyes. Are they not really physically here? "I know being a god makes my situation different, but if studying my tether would help, I offer myself."

If only for the sake of the other gods on the train, like Zagreus, like Persephone, like Death even though she does not consider herself a god.