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“Ok” Hermes thought to himself as he ran on the water away from Calypso's island. “She didn’t seem to take the news well,but no matter,will of the gods and all that.” Now he was headed for Aeolus’ sky island. Aeolus’ home was always pretty tricky to find since it moved around a lot but Hermes was able to find it in a minute after his second loop around Greece.
“Dawling?” Cired Hermes as he made his way onto the island.
“Hermes?!” Replied a jovial high-pitched voice.
Then in a blink the impish deity with cloud hair had wrapped themselves around the messenger god.
“By us, How long has it been? A century, maybe two?” Aeolus asked,
“More like two and a half dear” Hermes corrected, “As much as I’d like to stay and chit-chat the years away I’m, unfortunately, here on a spot of business.”
“Oh? What kind of business?”
“The Odysseus case.”
“Ah” Aeolus replied knowingly, “What do you need my help for?”
“Well,” Hermes started, He was more used to giving help than receiving it, “Poseidon isn’t happy about the verdict and is throwing a hissy fit just outside of Ithaca. Zeus wants me to talk the fish down. But we both know he won’t stop until Odysseus is dead.” A smirked appeared on Hermes’ face
“I was thinking that we could even the odds and steal Posedion’s storm.”
Aeolus thought for a moment then they broke into laughter.
“The look on Poseidon's face when I steal his storm AGAIN will be priceless!” Aeolus exclaimed
“Alright let’s do it!”
Aeolus rushed deeper into their home and quickly returned with an empty bag. It looked like a plain leather bag with the only thing of note being some words on it. It was in a language that no mortal could understand but read: “WARNING! Wind Bag do not open! Unless really funny.”
“So? How are we going to do this? Are we going to attack head on? Maybe we could get a siren to distract him! OR-” Aeolus started at speeds rivaling gale force winds.
“I already have a plan dawling.” Hermes interrupted “But A plus for the enthusiasm. Let's go, I'll explain on the way there.”
The two gods started to fly from the sky island to Ithaca,While Hermes quickly explained his plan: “I’ll approach Poseidon and distract him,While you sneak in the back and use the wind bag to steal the storm!”
“Won’t he see us coming?”
“Nah,He’ll probably be too focused on the dramatic speech he’ll give Ody.”
“Ody?” Aeolus asked with a smirk
“Yes. Something wrong with that dawling?” Hermes asked defensively
“No, not at all” Aeolus laughed to themselves
As the pair approached the island of Ithaca they saw Posedion’s storm. From above it looked like a big mass of twisting gray storm clouds. As if stewing in their own angry thoughts. Hermes approached as Aeolus started sneaking behind the mass of clouds.
“Oh Poseidon!” cried Hermes in a sing-songy voice
“What do you want?” Responded Poseidon's cold,angry voice as the tall long haired sea god emerged
“Zeus wanted me to tell you to back down.” Said Hermes
“If this was so important why doesn’t Zeus come down himself?”
“Oh come now dawling, We both know that if the gods actually talked face-to-face I would be out of the job!” Hermes half-joked “But in all honesty dawling you should back down. It’s for your own good.”
“My own good?!” Poseidon scoffed “Odysseus is a mortal coward who couldn’t do a THING to me!”
“Yeah but I could do something.”
“What?”
Then before Poseidon could react more properly Hermes punches him in the face.
“You’ll regret that puny messenger!”
“They all say that,but regret never seems to catch up.” Hermes said as he landed a flurry of blows. For a while Poseidon tried his best to fight Hermes off himself until: “ENOUGH!” Poseidon cried as a water tentacle came out of the water and pulled Hermes away from Poseidon and flung him into the storm.
As Hermes landed in the storm he saw Aeolus still working on gathering the storm. They were pulling on various winds and putting them into the bag.
“Think you can hurry up the process dawling?” Hermes asked
“I’ll try. This storm is a lot stronger than the last one I stole from Poseidon.” Aeolus responded
“Well, do you have any quick advice?”
“Keep your enemy closer than your friend” Aeolus said somewhat distracted
“I can work with that thanks dawling” Hermes said
Poseidon entered into the storm but before he could get a good look around Hermes tackled Poseidon back outside the storm. Hermes and Poseidon fought. Hermes tried his best to keep Poseidon out of the storm. But it is hard to win a fight against a sea god on his home turf. It was inevitable that Poseidon would get the upper hand. As Poseidon held Hermes in his grasp he said “You’re lucky I like you nephew. Or else I might have killed you for this transgression.”
“Well,” Hermes said, coughing up Ichor “Gods can’t die.”
“Either way you’ve lost”
“Who said I was trying to win?” Hermes said with a smirk
Poseidon then looked up and saw his storm was gone.
“I did it Hermes! Now let's go!” Aeolus cried obviously proud of themselves
“Well that's my cue to leave. But that was a nice little spar there dawling” Hermes said as he got out of Poseidon’s grip.
“I do say though this all was a lot of fun. We should do this again sometime, Seidy” Hermes said as he flew off.
“HHHEEEERRRRMMMMEEEESSSS!” Poseidon yelled
Within the hour Hermes and Aeolus were back on the sky island.
“Ugh this was my favorite vest too.” Hermes said looking at his ichor stained vest. He waved his hand and the gold spots disappeared.
“That’s more like it!” Hermes said.
“I’ll need to spend some time on reinforcing the bag.” Aeolus said, “I’ll send some winions to you when I’m done.”
“Thank you very much Aeolus. Now if you’ll excuse me I have a very sad man to go help.” Hermes said
“Before you go Hermy, is it ok if I ask something?”
“Of course”
“Zeus didn’t tell you to steal Poseidon's storm right?” Aeolus asked
“Yes” Hermes said sounding unusually formal
“Then why are you putting so much effort into helping this mortal?”
Hermes stopped and looked off into the distance for a little while until he said “You know what Aeolus, how about I treat you to some Olympian gossip; I bet you don’t get a lot of that out here.” At the mention of gossip, Aeolus came closer as Hermes continued, “Odysseus is my great-great grandson.”
“Does he know?” Aeolus asked concerned
“I don’t think so. And I think I’m fine with it that way.” Hermes said as he started to leave again “This little heart-to-heart has been great but I have to go. Sad great-great-grandson and all that.”
“Ok, make sure you keep in touch!” Aeolus called after him
“Of course I will dawling!” Hermes called back as he left.