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“You must take him.”
At night before Hermes’ leery eyes stood Despoina herself, clothed in vests of night skies full of glittering stars, her shadowed dark hair tied back in a stripped snood. A mantle red as pomegranate – red as blood – wrapped a small boy cradled in her arms.
Hermes’ eyes squinted. Lady Persephone is never around aboveground this time of year, the time of falling leaves and borish snow. She should be beside Hades the King, deep down below. But her eyes displayed desperation as she held the boy – a small thing, no older than three years – to his direction.
“His name is Adonis”, his Lady continued. “He’s a child of myrrh. A son of his grandfather. Born out of woes of blood. He came with wild fire, incense burnt with wild lightning, a tiny little thing alone in dangerous woods. Wouldn’t survive had I not taken him in. But I cannot keep him.”
Hermes observed the boy as Lady Persephone gave him to his arms. The little thing was sleeping now, tiny hands resting under the side of his head. He looked so fragile, his body nimble and small and his skin white as unleavened bread, hair red as blood falling in waves down his tiny freckled face.
“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” commented his Lady. “He’s so adorable now. Adorable and innocent. I can see him growing gorgeous when he gets older – dangerously gorgeous. And powerful. The kind of gorgeously powerful which would vex my husband to no end. When flowers must bloom aboveground my Mother is watchful as I tread her trail. When leaves fall and the cold snow covers the world above my Husband is wary as I fall to his embrace. I wouldn’t think of falling in love with anyone other than him, or the Fates forbid with someone so young in the first place! But this boy, he’s…” she stopped, visibly ashamed.
As he cradled the thing in his arms, Hermes could see where his Lady was getting into. Of course the boy was beautiful, the way a small human thing could be beautiful at such young age. But he could feel the power coming from this boy. The way his tiny little body seemed to respond to living and nonliving things around, to the flow of the wind around them and the blades of dormant grass beneath the snow – and the other way around.
“He must be raised in liminal space, where life edges to death”, Persephone said finally, her tone somber. “The place you yourself dwell with your herding staff. Hermes, my loyal messenger and attendant, my brother… you must raise this boy under your wing. I see dark futures ahead of him. Not only in this life, but in future lives as well.”
And with this a shadow crossed through her, and the Queen of the Underworld disappeared through the dark. Hermes was left alone amidst the dreary snow, with a tiny small human in his arms.
Keep him away from my husband’s view. Was what Persephone’s message explicitly said.
But Hermes, of course, heard the implicit warning written between the lines: keep him away from my view.
Persephone is quite the strange goddess, Hermes knows. Unlike her mother, the Mother of Seasons (who at least had expected periods of seasonal depression), Despoina is unpredictable, Wild as Nature herself. You can never expect what she wants and what she will do – or what she’d expect you to do for her – at any time. And Hermes himself dons a lot of talents, able to do almost everything, a liminal god of liminal space constantly crossing the edge of life and death, able to tweak the unruly rules of Nature for his own gain.
But taking care of a human cub? This is way too much.
He sighed as he carried the little thing to his post at the edge of known world. He knew humans need to breathe and be fed much as Gods do, but what do these things eat again? Certainly not ambrosia and nectar. Do humans need to bowl?
Granted this thing was no average human. As this boy sighed in deep sleep over Hermes’ shoulder, he could feel the effect this sighing voice had on the world around, as if his breath were also the breath of the entire world. Very fitting the boy’s name was Adonis – vernacular tongue for Lord.
Hermes did what his Queen asked of him – raised this boy in liminal space, where life edged to death. It was quite difficult at first (apparently humans need a meal once each three hours, not once each three days) but he eventually got the gist of it. Granted Adonis was quite the easy boy to care for – so long you don’t lose sight of him, as he had a tendency to disappear into the wild to play with critters and birds.
Adonis was also quite the dreamy boy. He had what you might call a romantic, rosy-colored view of the world. A view which might get him killed in this ruthless, harsh world. At least he loved listening to Hermes’ tall tales (at least someone did).
He wouldn’t be caught admitting it openly, but Hermes had grown quite fond of this boy.
Despoina was right. This boy has grown gorgeous. Dangerously gorgeous. (And powerful.)
Adonis was in the edge of adulthood now – his nimble body grown high with wide lean muscles, his blood-red hair falling in silkly cascades down his back, his slate green eyes shining intense between thick dark lashes, his delicate mouth red as rose petals. Hermes couldn’t help but feel proud for the boy’s beauty, but also a bit jealous.
The boy also had an intense connection to Nature Hermes himself couldn’t quite understand. He reveled in the hectic state of wilderness. He felt the life of every blade of grass, every bird and bug, every beast in the wild as his own. He had an intense rich, sweet, beautiful voice, able to lure all living and nonliving things.
It was getting harder and harder for Hermes to keep sight of Adonis. He kept going deeper and deeper into the woods, as if lured by something. The boy was also quite fast. Perhaps Hermes shouldn’t have blessed him with swiftness. (He was tired of being way too ahead of the kid when simply going from one place to another. Why are humans so slow?)
He shouldn’t worry so much. Adonis was the Woods’ kindred. He wouldn’t be harmed midst wilderness.
Was when Hermes caught the quite surprising, but still worrisome sight of Adonis with… Persephone herself, clothed in glimmering dewy meadows, amidst blooming spring. Might not even have been the first time, for how his boy kept being absent for longer and longer each day, and for how… intimate they were with each other.
Adonis was growing up, Hermes remembered. So what if his little boy moved on from underneath Hermes’ wing. He should be allowed to live a happy, fulfilling life.
And Hermes wouldn’t be bothered much if it were with any other girl. Or boy, or anyone else. But Persephone? He only hoped Hades never found out.
Despoina’s warning still rang in his ears. Dark futures ahead of him. Not only in this life, but in future lives as well.
At Fall Hades the King came to take Persephone back to down below. An occasion once each year – but this time Adonis watched from a corner his affaire fade through the edge of life to death.
Hermes tried to deny the boy guidance to the Underworld. He wanted to follow his Lover to down there. He knew Persephone still loved Hades. But he still deeply loved her. And he kept annoying Hermes with the possibility (Mister Hades is a Mean Old Boss etcetera etcetera, as if Hermes himself didn’t know that already). Hermes eventually gave up and guided him to the Yonderside.
Back then the Underworld wasn’t as it is today. There were no cinder bricks or razor wires; no walls of iron and concrete. It was still a murky, cavernous place of mist and mud.
Adonis’ journey was quite easy. He didn’t need a coin, as he wouldn’t go venture far past the Styx. Or a piece of cake, as he wouldn’t need to face Kerberos on his journey. He wouldn’t go deep down the Underworld; just enough to meet her, by the banks of milkly Lethe. And it wouldn’t be his last journey either.
He kept going down and down, many times without Hermes’ notice. At each end of week, between each phase of Moon, Adonis and the Lady of Death would meet by the milkly river, he’d take out her stripped snood and unbind her long shades of shadowed hair down, and they would have each other midst deathly blooming blossoms – flowers back them blooming milkly white, and only there and then where they danced through the ground, grown out by Adonis’ silkly voice. Flowers which would then up above be called Poppies – or Windflowers.
Windflowers. Blooming beside the Lethe. Must have been what denounced the affair to the King.
Hermes and his way too loose and too soft heart! He should have grounded the boy. No matter how hard Adonis bugged him out. It would be for the boy’s wellbeing.
Folk songs will tell you about a “wild boar”. Adonis was absently hunting in the wild aboveground when he was chased and killed by a “ruthless wild boar”.
But Hermes knew the truth – as Hades himself told him, the dreariest and dullest sermon Hermes was forced to listen. They’re going to wait by the Lethe, right where windflowers bloomed. They’re going to distract the boy with a mirror trick and corner him. And tear him apart, limb for limb.
Hermes was not fast enough to save him.
Adonis’ limbs were splattered through Lethe’s bank. His blood painted the ground – the windflowers, then milkly white, were now coloured blood-red like his silkly long red hair.
Hermes could only watch in despair as Despoina cried over the scattered limbs. She gathered the boy’s heart while Hermes couldn’t do anything other than guide his soul – a glimmering wisp of gust in the air – to the other side of Lethe.
Rumors say blood-red windflowers still grow through that place. Persephone herself can be frequently found there. You might find her helming a certain Speakeasy, where she gives windflower liquor to Shades temporarily suspend their grievous toil as they forego their past lives more and more.
Hermes grieved Adonis as he grieved nothing before. Curse him for growing way too attached to this boy. Why must mortals be so fragile. How could they be just smashed and teared apart like nothing. He swore he would never get too close, too attached to anyone again, especially to a young, frail mortal like that.
But he knew his heart wouldn’t have the last of this boy.
“You must take him.”
Ten thousand seasons have passed since then. At dusk before Hermes’ dreary eyes stood Phoebus himself, clothed in vests of wolfskin, cloaked in mantles of ravenfeathers, covered with a cloak of glistening scaly snakeskin. His radiant, glowing face was undiscernible midst his long beams of golden shining hair flared in all directions through his head. Gleaming golden bow and quivers with shimmering silver and golden arrows were strapped to his back. A mantle red as ripened fruit – red as blood – wrapped a small boy cradled in his arms.
Phoebus Apollo shouldn’t be around here this time of year, the time of falling leaves and borish snow. He should be far away up North, hibernating midst glittering Hyperborean light. But his fiery white eyes displayed stern worry as he held the boy – a small thing, no older than three years – to Hermes’ direction.
“His name is Dionysos”, his old friend continued. “He’s a son of Earth’s seed. Born before his time. He came with white lightning blazing against the ground, a small being alone midst a dangerous world. Wouldn’t survive had I not taken him in, in a chest nurtured by a starlit serpent. But I cannot keep him.”
Hermes observed the boy as Apollo gave him to his arms. The little thing was sleeping now, tiny hands resting over the side of his head. He looked so fragile, his body nimble and small and his skin white as unleavened bread, hair dark as night falling in waves down his tiny freckled face.
“He’s quite the sight for the eyes”, Apollo commented. “Even at such young age. But he’s also bestowed with sheer, raw power. He has this… effect on everyone and everything we can’t quite understand. I could barely save him from being brutally killed by his own relatives, him at such tender age of three. He’s dangerous, and must be kept on liminal ground. I see him growing even more beautiful, and even more powerful.”
As he cradled the thing in his arms, Hermes felt the power again – the way the boy’s tiny little body responded to living and nonliving things around, to the flow of the wind around and the blades of dormant grass beneath the snow, and how everything around him, again, seemed to respond back.
But Hermes also felt some kind of recognition. The way this boy rested on his arms – almost like he held this same boy this same way long before, in a past life.
“He must be raised in liminal space, where life edges to death”, his old friend said finally, his tone somber. “The place you yourself dwell with your herding staff. Hermes, my brother, my loyal old friend… you must raise this boy under your wing. I see dark futures ahead of him. Not only in this life, but in a future life as well.”
And with this a light flashed through him, and Phoebus Apollo faded through the light. Hermes was again left alone amidst the dreary snow, again with a tiny small human in his arms.
Hermes let out a weary sigh. What’s up with seasonal Gods thinking he would make a good human caretaker. Didn’t he swear off close emotional attachment to those things about a thousand years ago?
Was Apollo playing a prank on him? Payback for the Cow Heist, it must be. Hermes’ lyre he crafted on a whim wasn’t that good, after all. Apollo got tired of playing that crap. He’d surely enjoy the irony of the god of Truth and Laws playing a prank on the god of Trickery and Lies. In the form of a “message” for the god of messengers.
Still, it was quite out of character for Apollo to play a prank like that, especially during this dreary time of year. Especially a prank of this nature. Apollo was known for being quite the papa wolf. Every semblance of stern demeanor he had would instantly melt the moment he got near any kind of cub, human cubs included. If he really couldn’t keep that boy…
If there was one thing Apollo was famous for, it’s for how he never lied. His words were his truthful words, there were neither flattery nor deceit with him.
Hermes couldn’t get out of his mind, though, the idea of his bosom friend chuckling at this situation. Especially if Hermes’… impressions about this boy were correct. Impressions Apollo, being the god of Prophecy, certainly knew.
He again carried the child to his post at the edge of known world. As this boy sighed in deep sleep over Hermes’ shoulder, he could again feel the effect this sighing voice had on the world around, as if his breath were also the breath of the entire world.
Compared to Adonis, Dionysos was a rather nebulous name. It came from an old, forgotten dialect of ancient-tongue, meaning something like Nysian deity, or Young god.
Hermes did what his old friend asked of him – he raised this boy in liminal space, where life edged to death. He tried to do it right where he failed with Adonis – for a start, not bestowing the boy with swiftness. Well, only a little of swiftness, enough so the kid could keep up with him (Why are humans so slow?), but not so much Hermes struggled to keep an eye on him.
Hermes wanted to believe, he wished to believe, his little boy had a second chance. His boy deserved to live a long, fulfilling life, no intrigues, no dismemberment cutting it to a halt.
Oh, he knows it’s unnatural for a god of trickery and rule-bending to be this strict and stern. He knew he might have done a lot of it wrong again, because Dionysos grew up fickle and rebellious. He reveled in the hectic state of wilderness, even more intensely than Adonis. He made a point of escaping Hermes’ sight deep into the Woods whenever he could.
Hermes won’t repeat the mistake of thinking he could carry this boy’s Fate entirely on his hands and his hands alone – he coerced every Nature spirit he knew nearby to keep an extra eye on the kid.
Please don’t fall in love with any gnarly seasonal goddess on my back, he silently prayed every time he lost sight of his boy in the woods. And don’t even think of stepping foot in the Underworld for any reason or another. I do not want to lose you again.
Much like Adonis before him Dionysos was the dreamy boy. He had the same romantic, rosy-colored view of the world – the view which got Adonis killed.
No matter whatever he did, though, Hermes couldn’t expel this view away from him. Anytime he tried to ground the boy with a realistic tale of morals, Dionysos immediately blustered it with a butchered version of the song (a “fix-it song” or whatever it’s called) or some kind of absurd joke. When he didn’t just fall asleep during the middle of the tale, that is.
Hermes wished Apollo was here. He at least knew how to sing tales of morality and teach values for young fickle, disinterested boys. Alas he’s seldom seen around those last days.
Dionysos still loved to hear Hermes’ most ridiculous tall tales, though. What’s up with god-touched boys and their strange taste in songs.
Unlike Adonis, though, Dionysos was graced with a childhood friend. Some company he could have other than Hermes’ many worries and ridiculous tall tales.
The boy’s name was Ampelos – ancient-tongue for “grapevine”. A young Satyr, a child of Wilderness. Dionysos has grown very close to this boy – very close.
The two boys played a lot in the wild near Hermes’ edgepost. They danced and sang ridiculous joke songs and played pretend a lot together. They clowned a lot with each other and engaged in a lot of wild hijinks not even Hermes, the god of hijinks, could keep up with – perhaps for how they were less trickery for trickery’s sake and more… sheer insanity.
(One day they set Hermes’ edgepost on fire. It was not fun.)
But the kids also had a disturbing tendency of going deep down the woods – beyond the known woods, where the eyes of no nature spirit nearby could follow.
“Don’t get lost in the Woods!” he warned them anytime they would play nearby. “If you two get lost remember to call me! You know the call!”
He made a point of following the boys whenever he could, though.
Hermes was right on his bad hunches about the beyond wilderness.
One day the boys ran deep ahead – to a wilderland right where life edged to death. Life grew in strange shapes there, vines coiling around trees like snakes.
Hermes caught sight of them too late.
Dionysos was on his knees on the grass, curved over his friend – his friend’s body, limp and lifeless. The blood of Ampelos tinted the ground with a deep shade of red, colouring the green prisms of fruit through the vines ripe dark.
Ampelos climbed the tree so he could collect this vine for me, Dionysos sniveled. I tried to stop him. But he was always so… reckless.
Dionysos wept over the corpse of his dead friend. Around them, as if bursting from his tears mixed with Ampelos’ blood, blood-red windflowers bloomed through the ground.
Hermes couldn’t do anything but comfort his boy, cradling him as he sobbed face sunk onto his chest.
“Could I revive him?” Dionysos implored, weepy. “Could I… rescue him from death?”
“No, you cannot”, Hermes answered, rueful. “Death is a final destination. Nobody can return from it.”
“You can travel to the realm of the Dead and back”, Dionysos remembered, insistent. “Can you… can you get his soul back?”
Hermes sighed. If Ampelos’ soul was travelling through the realm of the Dead right at this moment, Hermes himself would know. He would feel the boy’s spirit there, deep down below. He in his underworld aspect would be the one to guide him there. Alas, Hermes could feel no soul like Ampelos’ down the Yonderlands. The souls of Satyrs never went to the Underworld, directly reincarnating to wild plants or critters instead. Those… vines must have absorbed his spirit.
Although he was thankful Dionysos wasn’t asking for himself to descend Downside. Hermes dreaded the idea of his boy stepping his foot deep down that place. Again.
Hermes had an inkling Dionysos would eventually meet the Underworld, though – sooner or later.
“Dionysos”, he finally said, with a gentle but stern voice. “What do you think about both of us returning home now? You could play with mixing drinks.”
Hermes guided Dionysos back home. The boy, though, brought the vines of blood-red fruit with him.
Dionysos also endowed this intense connection to Nature Hermes still couldn’t understand. He felt the life of every blade of grass, every bird and bug, every beast in the wild as his own. He also had this intense rich, sweet, beautiful voice, able to lure all living and nonliving things.
And, much like the boy before him, he grew gorgeous. Dangerously gorgeous (and powerful). At the edge of adulthood his nimble body grown high donned lean wide muscles, his hair so dark it tinged dark purple against the light of night and day, falling in silkly cascades down his back. Hermes recognized the grape green eyes shimmering intense between thick dark lashes, the same delicate mouth red as rose petals.
As Dionysos grew – and Hermes felt at once proud and jealous of his beauty again – his impressions about this boy sounded more and more correct each time. He thought about the Transmigration of souls, and a faint wisp of breath Hermes himself guided to the other side. A certain one – ten thousand seasons ago.
Hermes’ hypothesis was only a hypothesis, a game of dices thrown blindly to the air, but he dreaded the idea it might be true.
Dark futures ahead of him. Not only in this life, but in future lives as well.
As his boy grew up, Hermes discovered Dionysos had quite the way with drink mixing. He could pick up any kind of fruit, any series of natural fluid and cook up something truly wondrously magnificent.
His main product, though? The liquor of vining blood-red fruit, the blood of his dead friend. Something Hermes didn’t expect him to make. Something his boy made in desperation, the very day his dearest friend died midst a bed of blooming windflowers.
Something neither of them, god of commerce or god-touched boy, expected it to be so successful.
The blood-red liquor spreading around the world they called wine. A drink bitter and sweet and sweet in its bitterness, getting not worse but better and sweeter as it aged. It had also an intense inebriating effect, blurring your senses and your mind, as if your soul left your body behind.
It had an intense, alluring taste almost nobody could quite explain. But Hermes could. It had the same intensity, richness, sweetness of Dionysos’ alluring, beautiful voice. It also endowed the bitter sweetness of his sorrowful tears – the blood of his own Dearest.
Hermes was of course thankful for the stuff getting so popular – few things a god of commerce could love more than such good business. But he also got increasingly wary. Success also brought envy, and rivals. The higher his boy got on the unruly trade chain, more were the people looking for his fall.
He wondered if it would’ve been better if Dionysos had intrigues with gnarly seasonal goddesses instead.
Between one of their business travels Dionysos, while stranded on an island (a very long story involving pirates), had met a girl. Not the Goddess of Spring/Queen of the Underworld this time, for Hermes’ relief. The girl’s name was Ariadne (old-tongue for “Pure”, “Maiden”). She was a child of mazes, and a girl of royal cradle – her father was a Judge and Keywarden of the Underworld.
When Hermes retrieved Dionysos from that island, Dionysos brought the girl with him. (Yes, he asked the girl to come home with him. Immediately after meeting her. Hermes was there and he saw everything. If Hermes weren’t an immortal god he’d throw himself into the ocean to drown.)
Dionysos and Ariadne had a natural, but lavish wedding among the woods, Ariadne frocked in an elaborate saffron gown, guests with gleaming vests dancing as a crown around the newlyweds as they swayed with each other, never stopping touching each other in one way or another. At their honeymoon they had each other on a bed of windflowers midst the wilding woods, beneath a glittering night sky.
They loved each other like no mortal had loved before – and they intensely lusted for each other as well. They could never let go out of each other for any moment longer than a sun’s note. Hermes knows he frequently walked on them being… well.
(He was happy for them, of course. Still he couldn’t help but think of when he wandered by his yonderpost at the banks of wailing Cocytus deep down below, and walked on both Hades and Persephone being… don’t think about it.)
Autumn vesper was settling through the horizon when Ariadne died.
It may have been heart failure, or some kind of woeful internal bleeding. It might have been snakebite. Only thing Hermes knows is how he was late to save her, when he saw a weeping Dionysos sobbing over his wife’s limp, lifeless corpse.
It was woefully unexpected. Alas Hermes, a patron of Medicine, kept forgetting how fragile those mortal things were.
Again Hermes couldn’t do much else than comfort his boy, as he sank his face on his chest and shed a river of tears over his runnervest.
This time, though, Dionysos had different ideas.
“Please bring her back to life” he pleaded to Hermes desperately. “Her soul went down to the underworld, right? You… you could bring her back.”
“My boy, we already talked about this. We cannot bring anyone back from down there. We cannot interfere with the Wheel of Fate. We must let the cycle of Transmigration take its course, or else the whole world around would decay down to total disorder. If my boss caught me bringing anyone back from the Dead, he’d…”
“If you can’t bring her back from the Dead”, Dionysos held, determination flickering in his grape green eyes, “I will.”
Hermes’ heart sank down his chest.
“Dionysos”, he answered with the sternest tone he could find. “You know very well, my boy, you cannot simply descend to the Underworld and come back. Nobody can. Let alone bring someone back from the Dead!”
“But I love her!”, the boy cried. “I… I don’t want to just… lose her forever. Like I lost…”
“Dionysos, my boy” Hermes tried, somber. “you know very well I am terribly worried for you. You know what happened last time a mortal like you descended to the Netherrealms…”
“I will be careful”, Dionysos insisted. “Please, please just let me go down there. Please let me… let me at least give goodbye to my Ariadne.”
Hermes let out a long sigh, giving up. He knew this day would come, sooner or later.
He hated the idea of his boy stepping foot on that place. Or the idea of his son being dismembered and brutally killed – again. But he knew he couldn’t just confine his boy to here Up Above, to his post at the edge of known world. And Hermes, the god of dice games, knew how it was futile to fight against prophecies.
Dark futures ahead of him. Not only in this life, but in a future life as well.
With a sorrowful stance, Hermes guided Dionysos down to the Yonderside.
The Underworld wasn’t quite the murky, cavernous place of mist and mud anymore. But it still wasn’t the famous walls of iron and concrete either, the cinder bricks and razor wires. At this time you’d find a thousand big stone boulders in medievalish constructions, ghouls marching one place to another in thick heavy armors.
Compared to Adonis before him, Dionysos had a much more difficult journey. He had to get past and evade and trespass armored ghouls and beastly hounds. He could hold them still and distract them, though, with his beauty, his silkly sweet voice, and his swiftness as he danced in wild steps through the Netherrealms – blurry, a windmill, he’s only a Dancer no longer, he’s Dance himself.
As he sang and danced in steady notes and steps, all Shades couldn’t help but follow him in his wilderness. Hermes knows it for how he saw and felt all those Spirits sliding out from their cycles of Transmigration only to follow the young god-touched boy in his wild trail, his Ariadne another Shade among them.
Dionysos in bravery and determination arrived Hades’ palace. Sat respectively in thrones of hardstone and frozen stalks the King and Queen of the Underworld gaped flabbergasted at the wild parade through their courtyards.
Hades was ready to pulverize this boy and his sheer insolence. But Dionysos holds, he came in peace. He’s here and he’s about to leave; he requests to bring his wife and Dearest, his Ariadne, back from the Dead.
Hades almost fell out from his throne laughing.
“Oh, seriously?” he chuckled as he shed tears. “Young man! Nobody can bring anyone back from the dead! You have to be thankful for how you’re amusing me, or I could just order my subjects to tear you apart like I did with…”
“Hades”, Persephone glared at him with stern eyes. Hermes wondered if she thought of Adonis as the beautiful young man with long waves of hair and intense green eyes stood in front of them, robed in a silkly purple gown. “Hades, my husband, please. Let the boy speak. I am interested in what he has to say.”
“Please, please, mister Hades” Dionysos continued. “Ariadne is my love and light. I love her. I love her with the inmost depths of my soul. I love her like the sea loves the sand, like the Earth loved the Starry Sky. I love her as I love nothing else in any world I could know. Like… like you, Lord of Death, love your own Dearest, Persephone.”
Hades’ pale face was instantly shaded red.
“Don’t test my patience, son…”
“Hades”, Persephone’s voice was firm and stern.
“I will give you anything in return!” Dionysos snapped, quickly. “Anything you can request from me, I’ll bestow to you. I promise. I swear in the name of Styx.”
Just for effect, a thunder rumbled through the windless world.
Hades stroked his chin.
“Interesting”, he pondered. “Anything. Anything I can request from you.”
“Yes, my Lord”, Dionysos assured.
“Well…” he thought for a moment. “If you really want your Dearest back among the living. I will request from you your most prized possession… or, you might say, your dearest possession.”
Hermes bit his tongue.
As a god of Business, Hermes saw where Hades wanted to get with his deal. His dearest possession. If Ariadne really was his utmost Dearest, and Dionysos really loved her like he loved nothing else in any world, this deal was a dead end. His dearest “possession” was Ariadne herself. No material gift would equal her, and it wouldn’t be right to give the soul of a living person in return – if Dionysos had a living person close to him by then. Other than Hermes himself, who was already bound to Hades.
Hermes felt disgusted with the idea of Love being reduced to a transaction. Although it was completely on brand for his boss.
Dionysos, on the other hand, kept glancing down to his hands interlacing with one another. Hermes thought he saw a tear sliding down from the boy’s eye, glimmering in the dim luminosity of the Netherrealms.
“I… I think I can give to you what you demand, mister Hades”, he said finally. “Just… wait a moment.”
Hermes watched intently as his boy took a deep breath, held his hands down to the ground, and started to sing.
His silkly sweet voice filled through underground. He sang about hardened hearts of kings melting and softening to love, of Hades meeting Persephone in her mother’s garden and feeling instantly smitten, “only a man”. As he gestured his hands in circular movements and sang longing and soft, but also stern and steady words, a sap of vine burst through the hard floor, crawling through the ground around his feet. Not any vine: the vining blood-red grapefruits that made Dionysos’ famous wine. The blood of Ampelos.
Dionysos shed tears furiously now. He wasn’t the only one. Glimmering tears escaped from the King’s and Queen’s eyes. Hermes himself let a tear escape from his own.
“That was… good”, Hades said finally.
“It’s not finished”, Dionysos answered back, quite nonchalantly despite the red through his eyes. A part of Hermes’ mind wondered how this song would be like when finished.
Dark futures ahead of him. Not only in this life, but in a future life as well.
Hermes wondered if there were a way to muffle his own mind.
“What… plant is this?” The king asked, curiously.
“Ampelos”, Dionysos replied. “Grapevine. Perfect to make wine.”
Persephone raised her head, interested.
Hades raised an eyebrow.
“Wine?”
“A wonderful drink!” Persephone said, significantly eager. “Hades, you should taste it. A drink bitter and sweet, sweet in its bitterness. Not worse, but better and sweeter when aged.”
Hades stared at her, blankly, though his slightly curved eyebrow betrayed a shade of interest.
“It also has this inebriating effect”, Persephone continued. “Blurring your senses and your mind, as if your soul just left your body…”
“…I am interested”, Hades affirmed.
“Thank you, Lady Persephone.” Dionysos’ cheeks were as red as his eyes. “So…” he continued, hesitantly. “Deal? Can I get my wife back?”
Persephone glared at Hades with a glance half dour, half pleading.
Hades pondered for a minute.
“You know what, I could use some kind of… trademark product”, he said, finally. “A new kind of pull to my deals. Young man, you are permitted to guide your Dearest, your Ariadne, back to the upper world. But first… I’d like to ask you to teach me and my wife how to make this wine, please.”
Hermes was a bit upset with losing domain over the wine business. He was thankful, though, for his boy and his wife being able to tread safely out of the Underworld.
Dionysos and Ariadne again walked aboveground, holding the hands of each other. Again they had each other on a bed of windflowers midst the wilding woods, beneath a glittering night sky. (And Hermes again accidentally walked on them. May some things never change.)
No matter how good Dionysos’ wine was, though, or how many tears he shed as he grieved his former friend – his former Dearest – his debt with Hades still wasn’t fully paid. All the Gods below and above know, bringing anyone or anything back to life is a violation of the most ancient, most sacred law. You must not interfere with the Will of the Fates.
Perhaps Hades wasn’t entirely pleased with doing this – Hermes knows how demanding the Fates can be. But he couldn’t be entirely sure.
Hermes should’ve expected that one coming.
Dionysos had sworn in the name of Styx, anything Hades could request from him, Dionysos would give it to him. Hades had requested for the young man’s dearest possession. There was another thing, another “dearest” gift Hades would… request out of him.
Again, Hermes wasn’t fast enough to save him.
This time there was no “wild boar” rumor. It didn’t happen at the banks of Lethe, at the edge of the Underworld. But it happened, again, in a bed of windflowers.
This time it happened right here, Up Above – right in the bed where Dionysos and Ariadne had each other, beneath a glittering night sky. It was also night when it happened, but the world was foggy and the sky was blurry with thick dark clouds.
First there were the knucklebone dice, like the ones Hermes used for divination, on the ground by the side of Dionysos’ bed. He might have seen them when awakened middle of night, may have been worried about Hermes himself as he got up slipping away from his bed and his sleeping Ariadne’s arms.
Second there was a golden Apple, picked out from the fruitstand at the post’s kitchen and resting on the ground, coruscating through a bite taken out with mortal teeth. Hermes never let his son eat those. Those were Apples of Immortality, borrowed (Totally Not Stolen) from the western Vesperlands; Hermes usually ate one before long travels. If he let Dionysos eat one of those the boy might get even more fickle.
Third, cloth jointed dolls scattered through the ground ‘till the exit door. The kind of dolls Dionysos and Ampelos used to play with together.
Fourth, a ball of rusty metal on the grassy ground. The ball they used to throw and toss around together.
Fifth, a spinning cone rough with rustic beats. Dionysos and Ampelos used it to play and sing joke songs together.
And last, a spinning top, the Bullroarer they wildly danced to as they did their many, many insane wild hijinks (and trashed and burned Hermes’ edgepost. Hermes is Completely Fine with It, Seriously).
Hermes let out a long, weary sigh as he collected each of those toys. How could he be so senseless. Dionysos turned over a giant piece of his heart when he gave his blood bail to the King of the Underworld. He still deeply, dearly missed Ampelos. That’s how they have lured him.
Hermes’ heart sank even more when he tripped over a round, flat surface of polished bronze right by the flowerbed – a mirror. Maybe not the same one, but still woefully similar to the one they had used to lure Adonis at the banks of Lethe down below. The gleaming surface was smudged with powdered white chalk.
He wished he could get these thoughts out of his head – the same Shades who deep down below followed and danced to Dionysos’ wild trail, made his wild parade through Hades’ courtyards, now there Up Above to dismember and brutally murder him. Hermes wasn’t even sure how Hades managed to project Shades to the world of living, though he suspected the chalk had something to do with it. Or perhaps the chalk was only for disguise (not even Hades could be that cruel). Also, is it Hermes’ mind or is this strange scent on the air… beans?
Hermes arrived at the clearing beside the gurgling river, windflowers swaying to the soft breeze. His old friend Phoebus was already there, collecting the bloodied, scattered limbs of his murdered son. Apollo tried to conceal it, but Hermes could see he was weeping as he gathered the somehow still-beating heart, blood-red as the windflowers around again stained with thick blood.
Again, Hermes couldn’t do anything other than guide Dionysos’ soul – the same glimmering wisp of gust he guided a ten thousand seasons ago – to beyond the banks of Lethe.
Hermes deeply blamed himself for not being able to save the boy a second time. If only he were fast enough… only a bit faster…
Part of him wanted to blame the Fates above. Why couldn’t they just give this boy a long, happy fulfilling life with a wife and family, no gnarly intrigues, no gruesome dismemberment?
But Hermes had the impression he knew the answer.
Thrice ten thousand seasons. This is how long the Transmigration would take until a world’s denizen were free from the Grievous Cycle, had they lived a good, fulfilling, virtuous life thrice in succession. Adonis-Dionysos already lived twice a life, didn’t he? Sure most would not call Adonis virtuous – with all the gnarly intrigues he had, he would be the kind of Soul awaiting punishment otherwise. But he was already punished, wasn’t he? When he got dismembered, when he got brutally killed. Hermes cared about this Shade, this wisp of gust in the air too much to believe otherwise.
Dark futures ahead of him, Despoina decreed, a long, long time ago. Not only in this life, but in future lives as well.
Dark futures ahead of him, Phoebus has prophesied. Not only in this life, but in a future life as well.
Future lives. A future life.
Deep down, Hermes knew he wouldn’t have the last of this boy. He hoped his third – and hopefully last – chance went well.
“You must take him.”
Another ten thousand seasons have passed. Twice before a Deity came to give this boy to him – Hermes never thought about his mothers, mothers this boy had never met, as they disappeared with lightning the moment he was born, or even before so. This time, the mother herself came to give her child to him.
At brisk of dawn before Hermes’ tired eyes stood Calliope – the oldest of the Muses, daughters of Pieros, and a friend of his. She was weak and frail, her thin malnourished body covered with shredded blue rags, traces of glitter through her tattered dress – a travelling showgirl’s garb. Her body was bruised with bursting internal wounds.
She could barely stand as she gave the boy – a small thing, no older than three years – to his arms. Again wrapped in a mantle red as pomegranate, red as ripened fruit, red as windflower petals – red as blood – though this time embroidered with delicate black and white incuses.
As Hermes cradled the sleeping child in his arms, he recognized those tiny hands, this time resting on the boy’s chest, right over his heart. He still looked so fragile, body nimble and small, skin white as unleavened bread, hair the color of sweet honey falling in waves down his tiny face. But Hermes still recognized the power, the familiar way the boy’s tiny little body responded to living and nonliving things around, to the flow of the wind around and the blades of dormant grass beneath the snow, and how everything around him, once again, responded back.
“His name is Orpheus”, Calliope said with a faint, faltered voice. She could barely keep herself standing, using a table in the Station’s bar as support as she tried to steady her arms over it. “He’s a child of river. Born from bitter ground. I…”
“Don’t force yourself”, Hermes tried to warn her. “Calliope, you must rest.”
He guided her to an available guest room in his Station’s Inn, with one arm giving her support and another cradling her child.
“I tried to raise him, to give him nourishment, a good life”, she sniveled weakly as Hermes helped her lay onto a bed, “but I can’t. Times have been so hard since my husband, his father, died in the war. I could barely feed myself.”
Hermes let out a sympathetic sigh. Times have been so hard since so long. The world has changed so much through the last ten thousand seasons – since Hades’… “discovery” of wine. As his empire of liquor and mined goods expanded at cancerous speeds, oil and steel crushing through everything.
To starters, Hermes’ edgepost at the end of known world was now a railroad Station. At least he could helm quite the nice Inn.
“Hermes”, Calliope coughed on her deathbed, faintly. “Hermes, my dear friend… light of my life. Please, please take my son with you. Raise him as your own. Give him a good… happy… fulfilling life.”
Hermes wished he could save Calliope right at this moment. He is one of the Patrons of Medicine. The only Patron of Medicine around – his old friend Phoebus hasn’t been seen around since a long, long time.
But he knew he had to let her go. Give her a final ticket, to her final destination way down Hadestown. Mortal lives must die. Her life’s thread has been cut – he could feel it being snapped through the air right at this moment.
You must not interfere with the Will of the Fates.
Hermes could only watch, mournful, his friend’s body succumb on her deathbed. He said nothing as he gave a final ticket to Calliope’s soul, a gust of air boarding the train to her final rest.
Orpheus. A name even more nebulous than Dionysos. May be related to Orphōs, a hermaphroditic penumbra-dwelling fish. Or Orphné, ancient-tongue for Dark of the Night. Or Orphanós, abandoned, bereft.
Or all of the above. Which was completely on brand for how Calliope tended to name anything.
As this boy sighed in deep sleep over Hermes’ shoulder, he again felt the effect this sighing voice had on the world around, as if his breath were also the breath of the entire world.
This time Persephone was closer to the boy as he grew up, tending and caring for him during Summer, three months each year – as Spring didn’t happen for a long time. Hermes tried not to think much about how they both had… a thing in a past life. He wondered if Persephone still remembered it, and if she did, he wondered if she saw doting and caring for Orpheus as making up for her indirect involvement in Adonis’ brutal death.
Hermes himself, though, can’t help but think of past lives – and worries – when watching his boy Orpheus as he grows up.
Orpheus revels in the hectic state of wilderness, much like the boys before him. He again has this intense connection to Nature Hermes will never understand. He feels the life of every blade of grass, every bird and bug, every beast in the wild as his own. He again has this same intense rich, silkly, sweet, beautiful voice, able to lure all living and nonliving things – including Hermes himself.
He again had a childhood friend he grew very close to – again a Satyr, a child of Wilderness, named Aias (ancient-tongue for “Of the Earth”), alias “Jax”. Again they constantly played in the wild around Hermes’ station, dancing and singing ridiculous mock songs and playing pretend, fooling around with each other and engaging in a lot of wild hijinks Hermes could never hope to keep up with. Both boys played constantly with those same seven toys – Hermes’ divination dices they kept snitching somehow (why did he bestow Orpheus with full swiftness again?), mock-golden apples, jointed dolls, ball of rusted bronze, cone, spinning top, and mirrors.
As Hermes watched the boys play around, he tried not to think too much about Dionysos crying over Ampelos’ limp, lifeless corpse at the wilderland where life edged to death. He’d be worried about them both, again, getting lost deep in the woods. If there were still woods like those around anymore.
As he watches his boy grow, Hermes notices how gorgeous he is growing up again – gorgeous, dangerously gorgeous (and powerful). His nimble body again growing high with wide lean muscles, his long hair – not blood-red or night-dark this time, but honey-coloured in silkly waves cascading down his back. Those same river-green eyes shining intense between thick dark lashes, the same delicate mouth red as rose petals. Hermes again feels at once both jealous and proud of his boy’s beauty.
Orpheus also has a tendency to disappear into the wild (what is left of the wild anyway), to play with critters and birds (the few still around). He likes to climb top of trees to sing to birds directly. Hermes had to teach the boy how to climb correctly.
For seemingly inexplicable reasons Orpheus seems to be drawn to that very bed of windflowers, beside the gurgling river – the same one Dionysos and Ariadne had each other on, beneath a glittering night sky. The same one Dionysos had been lured to, to be brutally dismembered under a foggy night sky. So many times Hermes just caught Orpheus laying down there, face sunk down on the grass, amidst the blood-red windflowers swaying in the breeze.
Like Dionysos before him, Orpheus has also quite the way with drink mixing. He can pick up any kind of fruit, or herb, or bulb, any series of natural fluid and cook up something truly wondrously magnificent. Hermes only hoped there would be no liquor out of a friend’s blood, or any kind of blood bail this time.
And Orpheus is, of course, quite the dreamy boy – even dreamier than both boys before him, if that’s even possible. His view of the world is even more romantic, even more rosy-colored than it ever was before. He spends a way too significant time of his way too short mortal life reading and listening to fairytales, folktales, even composing a few of them on his own, on his lyre – Apollo’s lyre, Hermes’ lyre. The lyre came with the boy when Calliope gave the child to his care. It had been so long since Hermes has last seen his old bosom friend… he’s steadily more worried.
(At least Orpheus still loves to hear Hermes’ ridiculous, outdated tall tales. Hermes will always be glad someone does.)
When Orpheus meets the girl frequently roaming around the Station – Eurydice. A last promise Hermes did for his lost friend –, and asks her to come home with him immediately after meeting her, much like a certain boy before him – Hermes can’t do much but pray to the Fates above, please, please, may it turn out this time. Please let this boy live a good, happy, fulfilling life for once, please. He has suffered enough.
When – after a cold, ravaging storm devastated everything and killed his Eurydice – Orpheus came to him pleading to, again, guide him to the Underworld, Hermes tried to goad the boy out of it – You’ll find another muse somewhere! – as he was not ready for all of that again. He didn’t want his son stepping foot in that place again, dying brutally as a result. He deserved to live a long, happy, fulfilling life here Up Above, a last remnant of lively gust as the world around fell apart to devastating storms.
But Hermes knew he has to let his son go. Even if Hadestown today is not the same as the misty, moist Underworld from two past lives, or even the stern medievalish fortress from one past life. If he wished for this gust of air he grew to call his own son, entrapped – entombed – in a body, to escape the Grievous Cycle and live a good life after so much sorrow and hurt, he must let him die and be reborn one last time.
So he guided Orpheus down to Hadestown one last time. But this time Hermes didn’t keep himself distanced, watching from afar – this time he followed his son by his side, singing together with him as Orpheus raised his silkly soft voice powerful and strong, the walls around them rumbling loudly as they echoed his song.
As the Underworld’s walls creaked open splitting apart to Orpheus’ powerful song, blood-red windflowers bloomed through the ground.