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She was young. She was supposed to be the youngest anyway, she was meant to be the last. From the bushes along the beach the elder god hid. She was so close to Poseidon’s domain, so far from hers, from the mountains and land, sitting on the shifting sand of the beach.
He smirked as he prowled, shifting his form to look old, wizened, poor and needy. Just the kind of person she was meant to help.
“Please.” He croaked dramatically, willing his dastardly smile to stay down. “Can you help me?”
He wasn’t expecting her to looks so young. Compared to his age, she was practically an infant. But the large, moonstone eyes, the fine gold hair, the unblemished silky looking skin-
If she wasn’t already a goddess, she’d be the next Psyche. She could defiantly give Aphrodite a run for her money.
She looked child like, curious. Tourmaline pink lips parted slightly, cheeks dusty from the wind. Then her moonstone eyes shrunk to slits.
“You are from the mount.” Her voice is high in tone but low in pitch, traveling over the sea air like distant wind chimes.
Hermes’ smirk stretched across his face as he human form changed from an old man into a young one. He couldn’t even bring himself to be mad she had caught his act.
“You’re smarter than you look.” He drawled, edging closer. She didn’t raise up to greet him. If it was any other god, they would have punished her for her insolence. Luckily for Dīs, Hermes wasn’t one for formalities. “Such an instinct for a young one.”
She eyed him cautiously, still sitting. “I am the goddess of gems, you are the god of thieves.” She stated. “I will always know when you are near.”
Ah, another something Zeus had forgotten to tell him. But it made sense, the young thing should have a decent advantage against him and his worshippers.
Hermes shrugged, and sunk down into the sand next to the young deity.
“You are far from your temples.” Hermes said, relishing the sea breeze. The temples of Dīs were small and few, made of stone and fused with metal, outside mines and jewel traders’ tents. They were humble hovels, with offerings of simple bread for sustenance and small stones to be turned into gems. She was a new god after all, not many knew of her unless told by Delphi when they seek fortune or in the dreams Morpheus plants in the mortals sleeping heads. They didn’t know what to offer her, she didn’t know what to take. “The entrances grow cold without you.”
She sighed, drawing her knees to her chest, her simple dress sliding down her legs. “Many don’t deserve my bounty.” At the confused look Hermes have her, Dīs continued. “I go to the mines, to bless who work hard, but then whatever I give them is taken by men who don’t deserve it.”
Hermes smiles fondly. She reminded him of Demeter, who also blessed those who toil for her gifts. She was naïve, unsure. Her father god had sent her to this realm with the rising sun of her birth, giving the grown child to Apollo to take with him to the humans.
(He heard Apollo sneered, his gold hair glinted in the sun and he clutched the child god in his arms, green eyes alight. He heard Apollo hissed a curse to Zeus for abandoning another child, for creating another to deal with a problem that he should have dealt with. He heard that Apollo blessed his new kin so that her gifts glimmer in his sun’s light, that Apollo is fiercely protective of Dīs the way he is with Artemis.) (Maybe it was a good idea to approach her at night while Apollo is asleep.)
She was so unknowing of her own stature, with no guidance or help from the other. Hermes almost wanted to trick her into giving him riches, or to take her to the forges of Hephaestus and parade the child in front of the crass god. He almost wanted to ruin her naïvety; he almost wanted to preserve it.
“What do they call you?” She questioned. “When you look like them, I mean. When you walk among them, what do they call you?”
Many gods live among the people, Hermes was no different. Where better to fulfill his duties as the messenger and thief than where all the people and riches are?
“I have a name for each face. But when I am like this, I am called Leonidas.”
Dīs’s nose scrunched as she smiled. “You look nothing like a lion.” She giggled.
Hermes breathes a laugh. “Then what, young one, do I resemble?”
She peered at him with thoughtful eyes, and Hermes was thankful he choice his (in his humble opinion) most beautiful human form.
“Kind of like a fox. Kind of like a wolf.” Hermes smiles sharply at the comparison. “Kind of like a thief.”
“Mostly the point, I suppose.” He reached out and punched the strands of blonde away from the milky white complexion. He was a thief, he could steal a touch. “What do they call here, here in this realm.” If Hermes were to anger Apollo (because it is such fun to), the best was was to do it the only time he couldn’t watch Hermes. At night. Not like Artemis would rat him out.
Dīs stares at him, like a frighten rabbit, the moonlight making her eyes glimmer. “They call me girl.”
Hermes scowled. “You are a god, they should call you by a name.” The insolence and ignorance of man would surely be their down fall eventually, Hermes was sure. If they could not even notice a god so poorly disguise as one of them, it was no wonder they needed the aid of Ares and Athena in war, if they’re that stupid.
Dīs shrugged. “Most don’t even know my name as a goddess, why should they give me a name as a human.” She mused idly, running a finger through the sand.
Hermes, always a such a weak man for pretty things, placed a solid hand on her slim shoulder, expecting warmth, but instead was greeted with a coldness only found from beneath the earth. “A god is a god, regardless of belief.”
The first rays of sun were peaking from the horizon. Soon Apollo with his quiver of golden arrow would be here, and no doubt be furious at Hermes for even touching Dīs. So he rose to his feet, small wings unfurling from his sandals.
The young thing looked distress. “You’re leaving?”
Hermes looked down at the girl oddly. “Apollo will be here for you soon.”
Her lip curled upward in displeasure and buried her feet in the sand.
“Apollo comes everyday.” He reminded. Apollo is far more reliable than he ever was or would be.
“… he also always leave.” She mumbled into her knees, curling into herself further.
Hermes suddenly understood why the goddess was so far from her temples, why she sat in this beach so close to Poseidon’s domain. She was waiting for Apollo. One of the few gods who had ever talk to her, the only one who was a constant.
Hermes scowled. He had always hated how some of the higher gods discard the minors. They were just as important. Might not have been as powerful or well known, but when the mortals had a specific need, they didn’t go to the ancient twelve. People seeking vengeance didn’t go to Ares, they went to Nemesis. People wanted a good heist, they went to Nox for cover, not to him for skill when they already had it. Minors shouldn’t be underestimated or casted aside.
Dīs reminded him much of his own younger sibling god. Nemesis when young was confused and angry, needing much help and a guiding hand to lead to proper godhood.
Hermes peered at the new god below him. Apollo had many duties, probably not have many moments to spare to Dīs. And he knows Zeus wouldn’t bother to come down to her nor bring her to him. The other gods paid the young one no mind. He scowled at the thought. Dīs truly was created just to be discarded.
He sighed heavily as the sky slowly woke as Apollo pull the sun toward the surf, towards the child god with sad eyes and blunt words.
His scarred hand (many mortal thieves had scarred hand as those they try to steal from often carry knives) laid on the crown of pale gold hair. “I’ll be back.” He promised.
Dīs’s eyes looked at him distrustfully and Hermes smiled with pride. Young gods often are too naïve to be distrustful. This one was a fast learner.
Then, as Apollo crested over the horizon fully, Hermes departed.
—-
Hephaestus barked a laugh as the hammer struck the molten metal on the anvil. “So she’s cute?”
Hermes tolled his eyes. “She’s a child.”
“Immortality and godhood negates things like that.”
Hermes nestled further into the soft pillows on the floor and stretched out. “She has no one to teach her. Imagine what I could do.” He mused aloud, eyelids slipping closed.
Hephaestus lifted whatever he was working on (probably another sword for Ares) and hummed in thought. “You could get me free gems for my embellishments.”
The thief god hid a scowl at the suggestion. The idea of taking from Dīs for someone else left a bad taste in his mouth.
“They don’t even have a name for her yet. She hadn’t even made one for herself.”
Hephaestus shrugged. “I was there when Zeus breathes life to her.” He said lowly, distracted. “Hades offered black coal to Zeus so he could have his domain split between his children.”
Hermes nodded. Before Dīs, there was Pater, another young god. But rather than left to his own devices, Pater was brought to the forged where Hephaestus worked, and together, between the god of metal and metalwork, the two made many beautiful pieces together. But Pater had ever rarely left the mount, Dīs had rarely ever been on it.
“You forged Pater’s form, didn’t you?”
“Hades provides the steel, I just made the shape.” Hephaestus replies gruffly.
Hermes smirked. “It was quite a nice shape.” He teased.
The forging god scowled and glared at the thief. “Do you really want to start this while I’m holding a hammer?”
The thief laughed and held his hands up in surrender. “I don’t judge you, it’s just an observation.” Hermes thought of Dīs’s brother. His young face and bright smile and the fact he had Hephaestus wrapped around his little finger and didn’t even know it. “But I have no favor for gold as of late.”
This time, Hephaestus smiled widely and teasingly. “Precious stones on your mind?”
Hermes immediately thought of moonstones and pink tourmaline then scowled at his mind betraying him.
Rumbling laughter rolled from the chest of the forging god like thunder. “I don’t judge you.” He echoed. As his amusement dies down, he sighs. “Know that Apollo cares fiercely for her.”
Hermes rolled his eyes. Hephaestus always was so dramatic when it came to Olympic gossip. “How fiercely?”
Hephaestus stopped mid swing and looked to Hermes with curiosity. “You… weren’t there, were you.” He places his hammer down fully.
The thief sat up entirely. Hephaestus rarely ceased working to tell a tale, when he did it was it was of grave importance.
Hephaestus sighed heavily and made his way to his friend, joining him on the floor. “Mortals are losing faith in us.”
Hermes scoffed. Of course they were, as soon as they were out of a war or in times of peace the mortals always forget the gods that gave them prosperity.
“Zeus wasn’t planning on taking it lying down this time.” Hephaestus continued. “He asked Apollo to neglect healing the people and to have Delphi return to the mount.”
Hermes scowled in confusion. “Why?”
The other shrugged. “If they only believe in time of crisis, the Zeus was going to make a crisis. But Apollo refused.”
Of course he did. The sun god was a boring goodie goodie with a bleeding heart that spilled light.
“In turn, Zeus convinced Hades that his domain was still too vast divided between he, Persephone, and Pater. Even the more minors of Hecate and Thanatos had such a small hold in the Underworld.” The forger shrugged, laying back down his hammer to the floor to fully face his friend. “Hades had decided to create Dīs to even out the power hold in his domain. A good idea in case any minors tried to over throw him.”
Hermes nodded in understanding. “Zeus thought if a new goddess, especially one who oversees a thing of wealth, were to emerge…”
“Then the never ending crisis of low funds would make the mortals flock to her.” Hephaestus scoffed. “But I heard she’s stingy with her hoard.”
“She says those who reap her jewels don’t get to keep them, they get taken away.” Hermes replies, absentmindedly.
Hephaestus tilted his head in confusion. “You’ve actually talked to her? Without Apollo turning you into his new quiver?”
The thief god shrugged. “The night isn’t Apollo’s domain.” He answered.
The other smiled widely and laughed. “You should be the god of loopholes.”
“Themis already hates me, no need to give her more of a reason.”
The hammering continued as the conversation ended.
The sound of light footfalls echoed off time with the sound of the hammer. Soon, Pater wandered into the open forge, soft fabric falling off his shoulders and hips as his bare feet padded quietly against the floor.
Hermes regraded the young god with a casual wave of his hand, and Pater smiled and nodded back in return.
“What a coincidence.” Hermes drawled slowly. “We were just speaking of your sister, Pater.”
The young god perked up, looking between his mentor and the guest. “You’ve met Dīs? What is she like?”
Hermes looked curiously to Pater. Hephaestus looked sideways to the thief god. “Dīs was sent down before Pater had a chance to meet her.”
Hermes scowled deeply. He hated Zeus a little bit more now. He couldn’t imagine having never meeting Nemesis; especially if it was by Zeus’s intervention.
“She’s nice.” Hephaestus continued. “At least from what Hermes says. She’s cautious and fair.”
Pater smiled, relieved. Hermes could imagine the worried the young god must have been, not knowing his sister but knowing she was on the earth with no one there for her…
“Apollo sees her with the rising of his sun.” Hermes murmured. “She’s isn’t alone.”
This seemed to further placate Pater, who leaned against Hephaestus’ back adoringly.
“And you too have seen her?” The young god questioned.
Hermes nodded.
“What does she look like?”
Hermes looked carefully at Pater. His hair was brown and short, skin bronze and smooth, eyes wide and dark. The opposite of Dīs.
Dīs was obviously made from gem, Pater from metal.
“Her hair’s like white gold.” Hermes started, trying to stick to descriptions that Pater would understand. “And long. Her skin is pale and her eyes are wide.” A pause. “Like the cooling pools.”
“Big and blue?” Pater guessed. His eyes dewy.
Poor Pater, never meeting his sister. Hermes had heard that Pater was forged with a soft heart; knowing his sister is out there without him must kill him inside. Especially considering that Pater wasn’t to go on the mortal plane. He could shuttle between the Underworld and Olympus, but Hades was very specific that his son wasn’t to be on the mortal plane.
The young god turned around fully to wrap his arms around Hephaestus torso. The forger grunted in acknowledgment of the affection, in turn Pater smiled dreamily onto the tanned skin of the older god’s back.
The scene was too sweet for Hermes’ taste, so he turned away, thinking of the goddess on the ground and her cold temples.
—-
Hermes found Dīs laying in one of her makeshift temples outside a mine entrance. It was the perfect size for her, almost like a coffin from Angel’s Land, where they worship the wild land gods.
The god laid down on the ground along with her, next to the hovel.
There was silence between the deities, as they listened to the crickets sing and the sounds of the nearby town.
“Do you even have temples?” Dīs asked, picking up a piece of coal from the ground and playing with it between her fingers.
“I have alters. Easier to build and dismember to move around. Good for messages and thieves.”
“Maybe I should have alters instead.” She mused, rubbing her thumb along the uneven edge of the coal.
“Well,” Hermes sighed, turning to face his companion, “your temple is about the size of an alter, so you’re halfway there.”
Dīs scoffed and stuck her leg out, kicking Hermes. “Be nice.” She demanded lightly. “Why are you here this time? You can’t trick me when I know who you are.”
“That almost sounds like a challenge, young one.” Hermes teased. “How about you and I make a wager?”
“I’m young, not stupid. Athena apparently blessed me with common sense.”
Hermes could stop the laugh that broke from his throat. “Did Dionysus bless you with dramatic snark?”
Dīs laughed along with his. Light and airy and musical to Hermes.
As the laughter settled down, Dīs new silence was anxious.
“You have a question, young one?” Hermes guesses, settling back into the hard soil.
Dīs hesitated for a second before asking, “Do I really have a brother?”
Hermes stalled. Did Dīs really not know about Pater? He knew she’d been with the mortals longer than she’s been with gods, but surely some one had the good graces to tell her of her brother?
Dīs misinterprets Hermes’ silence for anger, rather than confusion.
“It’s just that Apollo said, um, insinuated that I have one. A brother! I mean…”
Hermes sighed heavily at the ignorance of Zeus.
“You do.” Hermes answered. “We all are related in someway, all brothers and sisters one way or another…” he hummed, noting idly Dīs staring at him intensely. “But you and Pater are created as siblings. Twins even, like Artemis and Apollo.”
Dīs’ eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “How?”
“I don’t know. Magic makes things they way they are. I’m not Hecate I don’t get it either.”
She laughed again, scooting out from out beneath the alter and laying closely to him, arm to arm.
She radiated coldness. It echoes the chill of her mines. Hermes quickly loves the feeling, he want to always feel it.
—-
1925
—-
The rest of the world is celebrating, but Ares sees a war on the horizon. He says in less than a half decade, a Great War would be raged.
People haven’t believed in them for ages. They’re mentioned fondly, like they’re relics that broke years before hand. So as their people spread out into the world, the gods are forgotten.
Hermes wishes he could bring himself to be angry at the humans. Truthfully he’s more angry at the gods.
They fought amongst themselves and let the humans forget, so wrapped up in their own problems they forgot about the world they ruled. Left unattended, their worshippers found gratification elsewhere.
Tired of everything, many of the gods left Olympus, left Greece, and lived among the humans.
The minors left first. Abandoning their realms and finding their place among the people that once prayed to then. The only one who stayed was Themis, guarding the underworld and judging them, keeping her promise, even if all her siblings left her behind.
Hestia was the first major to leave. Olympus was no longer his home, he had no reason to stay.
Hephaestus followed quickly after, bringing the last minor god with him. He and Pater live happily in the Erin’s Land now, living by human names and human lives, quietly and far away from the mount. The forging god renamed himself after a Christian angel and Pater after a Christian character from their book.
Micheal and Nathaniel. Mick and Nate. How mundane.
Then there was Dīs.
She left when Apollo couldn’t see her, when there was the rare night that Hermes didn’t visit. She was gone, her shoddy temples cold in a way that made Hermes ache. Apollo raged, he screamed as his sun scorched the land to a point that Demeter struggled to remedy it. Apollo blamed everyone, Zeus and Hades and Hermes, he cried and beat his fist against the entrances of Dīs’ mines, the only place on earth his light couldn’t touch. He begged Hermes to find her, begged Artemis to hunt her down, egged Hecate to do something-
And Hermes mourned. He let his little goddess hide, let her build a life for herself before he sought her out. Let her find things out by herself the way she always had, let her make her own mistakes if it killed him and let her emerge from her own ashes as something new. Not even knowing where she was killed him. For decades he let her be.
He busied himself with his own new life. He and Nemesis left the mount together, brother and sister, hand in hand. Started their own adventures in Angel’s land and reeked havoc there. Hermes forgot how much fun being a trouble maker was. He nearly forgotten his own name, his sister name.
Together they weren’t Hermes, god of thieves and messages, and Nemesis, goddess of revenge; they were Leonard and Lisa.
He was sure to keep a lion’s name, to keep his favorite face, just in case Dīs sought him out, so she would know.
But years have passed and her moonstone eyes haunt him as he rests. A disconnection had settled in his chest, made him feel like he was almost happy but not quite, like he was grasping at fog. He pondered if he should try and find her, she’s always been so bad at hiding, when Apollo appears to him.
Hermes was walking around a shore at night, enjoying the moon without Artemis coming down and sticking a silver arrow in him when her brother appeared.
His human form looked like a mirror to his purpose of godhood. His hair gold as sunlight and skin tanned from light. Eyes green and bright and mouth harsh.
“You’re called Leonard now?”
He shrugs. “Hermes gets weird looks.”
Apollo rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s better than Oliver.”
Leonard laughs at the absurdity of the situation.
“Better than Sheila.” Oliver continues.
Leonard stilled. “Your sister’s new name?”
The god of the sun shakes his head and the god of thieves swallows.
“… you’ve found her?” Hermes asks shakily, hands trembling in memory of silk fine hair and soft pale skin.
“She found me. She’s in the place where these people leave their prisoners.”
Hermes blanched. “The fuck is she doing in Australia?”
Apollo reared back in shock.
Hermes sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Oh, get with the times. Humans are vulgar, so now are we.”
Apollo pouted and continued. He often brushed off Hermes’ dramatics.
“There’re mines in Australia. She’s taking a page from Pater back a few decade when he was on that American coast.”
Hermes recalled the gold madness in the western American coast that Pater inadvertently created. That was the first and last time the ancients went to the Americas. Since then they’ve resided in Europe and their territories. They were careful not to step on any other ancient toes, especially ones not from their mount. Hermes often forgot how many of them there were. Different gods for different beliefs, all existing either unworshipped and forgotten or exalted and remembered. Hermes tried not to feel jealous.
Hermes mulled over the discovery of bright eyed goddess. “Why tell me.” He questioned. “No offense, but you liked me as much as thief likes a cop. You especially hated me around her.”
Apollo’s eyes slanted. “You’re a terrible influence.”
The thief smirked. “Was. Can’t have havoc around the mortals.”
“I don’t think you not using your magic makes you a better person.”
“It doesn’t.”
Apollo gave a small smile and hummed. “I’m telling you because you and she-“ he cut off, the words tangling his tongue in a way that Hermes reveled in. “She liked you, where as she didn’t like many of us.”
“Oh, so few hold her favor, our darling Dīs.”
“Stop being an ass or I won’t show you where she is exactly.”
—-
“You know, I don’t think I’ve actually seen her yet.” Nemesis mused as Apollo pulled his chariot across the sky to whet Dīs was hiding. She threw her begrudging brother a swarmy grin. “Think do recall you describing her. ‘Tourmaline cheeks and fine gold hair-‘ I nearly forgotten the poetry you waxed!”
Hermes leveled his sister an unimpressed stare. “She’s a goddess, of course she’s beautiful.”
“You’ve never deceived me like that.”
“Your ego is big enough without me stroking it.”
Her playful smile turned sharp like a knife’s blade and she jabbed a well manicured finger into his side. “I’ll get you back for that.”
Hermes had no doubt she would.
Apollo landed the chariot where it looked to be an abandoned field, with several large cave openings miles away and a small bungalow with a fence made of sticks lining the property some hundred yards away.
Hermes threw the sun god a confused look. Apollo sighed heavily and gestures to the shack-like abode.
“Her feeling on human haven’t changed much. She still distances herself from them.” He explained. Hermes nodded in understanding. Dīs detested the greed of humans, naturally she avoids them (he just never though she’d avoid him).
Nemesis stayed behind with Apollo, not only to give her brother the privacy he wanted, but also to make up the years she was unable to pester the archer.
So Hermes made the trek to the house alone, listening to the other’s conversation peter out the further he walked away.
The door was plain, the whole house was plain on the outside. It seems Dīs kept her humbleness all these years. That made the thief feel better, that something small yet paramount about Dīs remained the same after so long. That her purpose of godhood hadn’t turned her into the selfish hoarder of her bounty many thought she would become.
He rose his hand to knock, but the door opened never before his knuckles had the chance to touch the wood.
Dīs stood their, wide moonstone eyes and small mouth upturned tight smile, like she was trying to appear nonchalant but failing. Her skin was darker, far more tan that the milk white skin ages ago, turned from the unrelenting sun here. Her hair was wild like the bush, wirey and frizzy but white white blonde. She looked well. Healthy and happy and Farr more real and tangible than when she was when she was younger. She looked like an in-between of god and human.
“I wonder what to greet you as, old friend.” She greeted
He smiled. “I supposed as you always have.”
Her eyes twinkled, brimming with mirth. “You still don’t look like a lion.” Neither moves from the doorway. “But my name’s meaning hasn’t changed either, so who am I to judge.”
“You still look like a girl.”
“And you still look like a thief.”
The disconnection was gone. The fog was caught.
Dīs smiles up at him, young and new but old and familiar.
“Hello,” She said suddenly, thrusting her hand foreword. “My name’s Sheila.”
Hermes grasper the hand gently, contemplated kissing the back of her hand the way he does to mortals to make them swoon but decides against it because Dīs isn’t the mortals he fools with. “Hi,” he whispers because there’s no space between them anyway, the way they gravitated to each other subconsciously they way they used to. “I’m Leonard.”
Her nose wrinkles as she laughs lightly. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”
The sun burned brighter, maybe because Apollo was irked, or because the cool of the woman in front of him made the difference more prominent, but either way didn’t really matter.