"No," Cyd whispered, more to himself than to the silent, towering bronze fortress behind him. He adjusted the strap of his pack—now a normal, manageable size after Hephaestus had somehow repacked it, removing only the "excess" (mostly Chiron's poison herbs, replaced with more practical rations and a single, incredibly sharp knife of divine make). "I'll become who I want to be."
Another departure. Always moving.
He cast a final, lingering look back at the immense, humming citadel of the forge. The last day had been… surreal. After his collapse, he'd woken not on the hard floor, but cradled in softness, his head in Hephaestus's lap. For an entire day, the goddess of the forge, the architect of Olympus's weapons, had simply… stayed. She'd fed him broth with a rough, unpracticed tenderness that was more endearing than any courtly grace. He'd stammered that he could manage, that he didn't need to be a burden, but she'd dismissed him with a wave, stating she was bored and he was a marginally more interesting project than recalibrating a celestial orbit.
He hadn't protested. How could he? To be tended to by a goddess, to feel the cool weight of her hand on his forehead checking for fever that couldn't exist, to see her scarred face soften in concentration as she tried to spoon food without spilling it… it was a memory he knew would haunt him in a very specific, dangerous way.
"Staying here wouldn't be so bad," he murmured aloud, the ghost of her citrus-and-ozone scent still in his nose.
CLANG… CLANG… CLANG…
The familiar, rhythmic heartbeat of the forge resumed from deep within the mountain of metal, louder and more insistent than before. It was the sound of the world returning to its proper axis, of divine industry carrying on. It felt like a dismissal. A gentle, but firm, move along.
"Right. Getting carried away isn't my style," Cyd said, shaking his head as if to clear it. He looked down at the pure white bracer on his left wrist. It was cool and light, barely noticeable. "I've got a 'blessing' to earn. Several, in fact."
He slapped his own cheeks, the sting sharp and focusing. "Alright! Time to go! A little direction in life is good!" He forced a sunny, determined grin onto his face, the expression feeling brittle and false. "Even if the direction points straight off a cliff."
The alternative was to sit down and weep. And he'd done enough of that in his first years with the Gorgons.
He turned and strode into the edge of the vast, volcanic badlands that surrounded the forge, aiming for the distant line of green that marked a proper forest. He had no plan. Olympus was the seat of the gods, the obvious place to find them. It was also utterly inaccessible to mortals. That left one option, as depressingly vague as it was: wander. Hope for a divine encounter. The gods were fickle; if they didn't want to see you, you could sacrifice a hundred bulls on their altars and get nothing but indigestion. But if they did…
Cyd's step faltered. His survival-honed senses prickled a half-second before his eyes registered the anomaly.
A young man was lounging on a low tree branch ahead, one leg dangling. He wore a practical, short traveler's chiton and a broad-brimmed hat with small wings on it. In his hand was a slender, serpent-entwined staff—the caduceus. He was watching Cyd approach with a grin that was equal parts friendly and shrewd.
"Uh…" Cyd began, his mind racing through identification protocols. The hat. The staff. The aura of effortless motion, even while sitting still.
"Hey there! I'm Hermes," the young man said, hopping down from the branch with a gymnast's grace. He landed without a sound. "No need for titles. Just Hermes is fine."
Cyd stared. The God of Messengers, Travelers, Thieves, and Commerce. One of the Twelve Olympians. And he was just… here.
"Lord Hermes," Cyd said, bowing his head automatically. "What… brings you here?"
"Eh, cut the 'Lord' stuff. Makes me feel old," Hermes waved a dismissive hand, his eyes doing a quick, appraising sweep of Cyd from head to toe. It was a merchant assessing value, a thief casing a mark. "And I'm here because I've got a bit of a situation. But!" He held up a finger. "You've been leaving me little offerings for, what, eight years now? Figs, honey, the occasional shiny pebble you found. It'd be pretty crummy of me to just show up, ask for a favor, and bounce. Bad for business."
His gaze dropped pointedly to the white bracer on Cyd's wrist. A knowing glint entered his eyes. "Help me out, and I'll give you what you're collecting. A genuine Hermes-brand blessing. Sound like a deal?"
"You… know about this?" Cyd's hand flew to cover the bracer, a futile gesture.
"Pfft, of course I know!" Hermes laughed, slinging a companionable arm around Cyd's shoulders. He was surprisingly solid. "Don't look so spooked. It's not a crime to want a god's favor. Though the specific favor you're after… that's a little extra. Makes things interesting." He leaned in conspiratorially. "And I, my pale friend, am the official messenger of the King of the Gods. News is my business. I get the memos before the ink's dry."
"Does… everyone know?" Cyd asked, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"Pretty much. But relax!" Hermes gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze that was a little too hard. "A mortal asking for blessings is Tuesday. The scale of what you're asking for? That's a novelty. The others are gonna make you work for it. They get bored, see? Long immortal lives, not enough good drama."
"So you're here to… provide the drama?" Cyd said dryly.
"Me? I'm here to offer a mutually beneficial exchange!" Hermes protested, looking wounded. "I came to you. And my ask isn't even that hard! Succeed, and I might even be able to help you… acquire… another one of those shiny blessings you're after." He winked.
"Really?"
"Cross my heart! I am many things—swift, clever, a dab hand at acquisitions—but I am not a liar." He placed a hand over his heart, his expression solemn.
---
Twenty minutes later, in a sun-drenched meadow that was currently undergoing divine artillery bombardment.
"I'm leaving."
Cyd's voice was flat, devoid of all emotion. He turned on his heel and began walking briskly back the way they'd come.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Come on! This is a golden opportunity!" Hermes hissed, darting forward to grab the sleeve of Cyd's tunic. His usual bravado was looking a little frayed. "He's just… a teensy bit agitated right now. But the principle is sound!"
"HERMES! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE!"
The voice that boomed across the meadow was magnificent, musical, and brimming with apocalyptic fury. It was followed by the sound of the air itself being torn apart. A streak of pure, condensed sunlight—an arrow burning with the fury of a solar flare—screamed across the sky and it detonated fifty yards away. The sound was a deafening CRUMP-WHOOSH! A miniature sun bloomed on the horizon, followed by a rolling shockwave of heat and light that flattened the grass in a perfect circle and sent a mushroom cloud of vaporized earth and superheated steam boiling into the azure sky.
Cyd didn't run instead he dropped into a low crouch, covering his head with his arms. "I think 'agitated' is underselling it!?" he yelled over the ringing in his ears. "I think he wants to use you as a tow-rope for the next millennium!"
"He does! He specifically mentioned dragging me behind his sun-chariot for a full circuit!" Hermes yelped, adopting an identical crouch next to Cyd. "Behind the sun chariot! Do you have any idea how many layers of divine sunscreen that would require?!"
"What did you do?" Cyd peered through his arms at the god of thieves.
"Borrowed his lyre! It was a simple loan! The return process just… hit a minor snag." Hermes held up his thumb and forefinger, indicating a microscopic gap.
Cyd looked past him to the source of the ongoing celestial wrath. At the far end of the meadow stood a figure of breathtaking beauty. Golden hair that seemed to capture sunlight, a face of sculpted perfection currently twisted in rage, a muscular frame clad in a short chiton. In his hands was a bow of gleaming gold, and he was nocking another arrow that glowed like a fragment of the sun itself.
"SHOW YOURSELF, YOU WING-HEELED MENACE! I, APOLLO, GOD OF THE SUN, OF MUSIC, OF TRUTH, SWEAR BY THE STYX I WILL FUSE YOU TO THE NEXT COMET I SEE!"
"He sounds like the lyre is more than a 'little' broken," Cyd observed.
"It's… in several pieces," Hermes admitted, looking genuinely contrite. "I tried to replace it with a replica! I worked really hard on it! But he took one look and said it 'lacked soul' and 'offended the very concept of harmony.' He has standards."
Cyd began sidling away, putting more distance between himself and Hermes. "Lord Hermes… I appreciate the offer. Really. But the blessing can wait. I have a strong aversion to being used as kindling for a solar flare."
"He won't hurt you!" Hermes insisted, scuttling after him like a desperate crab. "He's mad at me! You're… you're under other protections! Besides, he might be grumpy, but he's not a monster. He's the god of healing too, you know! Swear on Dad's beard, he won't lay a finger on you." He gave a wobbly thumbs-up. "Help me smooth this over, and not only do you get my blessing, you get my patronage. I'll have your back. Messenger's honor."
Cyd stopped. He looked from the panicked, earnest face of the trickster god to the incandescently furious Sun God currently scanning the tree line for targets. He knew the myths. Hermes and Apollo had a… history. As an infant, Hermes had stolen Apollo's sacred cattle, and placated him by inventing the lyre. The theft of the lyre and its subsequent breaking was a new twist, but the dynamic was ancient.
Apollo wasn't just a ball of rage. He was a god of arts, of reason (sometimes), of prophecy. Appeasing him required more than an apology; it required something that spoke to his domains. Something… novel.
An idea, fragile and insane, began to form. It was based on a memory from a world that shouldn't exist here, of an instrument whose very sound was a lament, a cry of the soul.
"I might… be able to try something," Cyd said slowly, rubbing his temples. "Hermes. Have you ever heard of… an erhu?"
Hermes blinked. "A… what now?"
"It's an instrument." Cyd knelt in the dirt, using his finger to sketch a rough shape: a long neck, a small cylindrical body, two strings. It was crude, based on half-remembered museum exhibits and old movies. "It doesn't make the harmonious, structured music of a lyre. It's… raw. Emotional. It tells stories of loss, of longing, of deep feeling. It's the sound of a single human heart given voice."
Hermes stared at the drawing, his quick mind whirring. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face, replacing the fear. This was his language: novelty, cleverness, the art of the deal. "A new sound… for the God of Music, who just had his favorite old sound broken…"
"Exactly. You don't replace the lyre. You offer something completely different. Something he can't compare. An apology that's also a… challenge. A new frontier for his art." Cyd leaned closer, lowering his voice to a whisper as another solar arrow turned a distant copse of trees into a pillar of fire. "Here's what you need to do. First, the materials: the body needs to be resonant wood. Cedar, maybe. The membrane over the soundbox… it has to be special. The skin of a python sacred to him? Something with meaning. The strings…"
He laid out the plan, cobbled together from fragments of cultural memory and a deep understanding of what might intrigue a bored, creative, furious deity.
Hermes's eyes grew wider with each detail. By the end, they were sparkling with manic excitement. "That… that could work! It's audacious! It's disrespectful in the most respectful way possible! He'll either adore it or incinerate us on the spot, but he won't be bored!" He clapped Cyd on the back hard enough to stagger him. "You're a genius! Okay, materials! I know just the python! And I know a dryad who owes me for returning her lost acorn! Stay here! Don't get shot!"
In a blur of motion and a gust of wind that smelled of distant roads and ozone, Hermes was gone.
Cyd was left alone in the meadow, the heat of Apollo's wrath baking the air, the white bracer cool on his wrist. He let out a long, slow breath.
Well, he thought, sinking back into his defensive crouch as another sun-arrow traced a burning line across the sky. I wanted divine encounters. Be careful what you wish for.