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You spring into existence fully formed, as you all do. One day, there is a river, and on it, a boatman. It is only natural. It is all you know.
Time is of no matter. You have no frame of reference for it. The mortals count it, you learn, as you ferry their ghostly remains across the Styx. They divide it neatly into seconds, minutes, hours. Days, months, years.
They live their lives after it, celebrate the passing of each year. They sit on the banks of the river, and as they wait for your arrival, they mark its’ passing with neat lines in the dirt beneath. They understand it, feel it, even after they no longer should. Even in a place where it is of no consequence. You learn many things from the shades you ferry, but never this.
You do not know how many seconds lie between your birth, and the first time you spot a sliver of gold.
It is just a flash of a moment, there and gone again. It is just a bright point of light; unlike anything you have ever seen in the underworld. You have no frame of reference for this either, the suddenness, the transience. Your own ignorance.
Never before have you come face to face with something you did not innately understand.
Your eyes linger on the place that glowed brightly just a moment – a second? – ago. Whatever it was, it is gone now, you are sure of that. And still, you stand turned towards it, your hands clenched around your oar, almost as if you expect it to return. Almost as if you could will it back.
You wonder if it was the sun, somehow. That all-revered celestial body the mortals mourn more than anything.
Have its rays reached beneath the earth for just a moment, just long enough for you to bear witness to them? What could have dragged it all the way to your shores? How could you bid it to return?
You have never experienced curiosity before. You have never experienced longing, either.
The gleam of gold returns, occasionally, but never long enough for you to steal more than a glance. It appears for only a fragment of time so minuscule the mortals have not even bothered to name it. A bright light, a new crop of lost souls.
Perhaps it truly is the sun, shining through whatever gateway that opens to let spirits pass to your realm. Perhaps the sight is a kindness, granted by your sister Fates. Perhaps it is simply a coincidence, whenever you manage to steal a glance.
Perhaps it is not meant for you.
In your travels across the river of the dead, you come across a myriad of things. Forgotten and lost to time, only privy to you as they float to the surface whenever your boat passes. You have no use for them, but some other inhabitants of the underworld usually do, and so you collect them, and you trade for them, even though you have no use for any of your earnings either.
It is simply custom. It is simply all you know.
It is one of your brothers, who first offers you coin he tells you is named obol in exchange for a centaur heart. It is a round plate of metal, smaller than the palm of your hand and stamped with the sigil of the house of Hades. You do not care for the sign. You might hold allegiance to the house, but not to their customs, nor their currencies. Or so you thought.
The coin gleams brightly even in the absence of light.
You accept it. Before long, word spreads amongst the denizens of Hades that you accept every trade offered to you in obols.
You do not know how tales of the underworld reach the mortals above ground. How they could possibly learn of your proclivity towards gold. How long it takes for their customs to shift and adjust. You simply know that they do.
Your existence has always been a trade. You have never ferried anyone for free.
Before, the shades offered you anything they could. Intricate weavings and delicate clay creations. Tunics and toys and treasures of any kind. Now, a single coin suffices.
You are glad for the change, as you watch your stash of personal gold grow ever brighter. You begin to keep it on you, adorn your fingers with it, wear it heavy around your wrists and neck. You stitch it into the lining of your robe and your hat, gild your treasured oar with it.
You still catch your sliver of gold on the banks of the Styx occasionally, brighter than anything in your possession, and you cannot help but admire the way you yourself now reflect that light, allowing you to bask in its’ shine for just a fraction of a second longer.
You do not know how many seconds lie between your birth, and the first time you spot the godling on the shore. You do not know how many seconds lie between the first moment you witnessed a glitter of gold and this one. How many years, how many eons. You have not begun to count time, yet.
All you know is that there is a new gaggle of shades on the riverbanks, and towering over them, an Olympian.
You have known of them, always. For as long as they have existed, for you were there first, and you suspect you will be here long after them. You have never caught sight of one.
It is only in this moment that you realize you have been trying.
He comes into focus as your ferry approaches, carried along by the current. First, he is simply a blinding light, your sliver of gold stopped in place for once. And then you drift nearer still, and it is not a light at all, but a man. Or something resembling a man, pretending to be a man, but closer related to you and your Chthonic siblings than any mortal living or dead.
Still, it is a different kind of divinity than the one you are used to, and you are drawn in like a fish to a lure. You had heard tales of your distant relatives on Mount Olympus from the shades, but not once had you imagined them. Not once had you thought they might be of any interest to you.
The god awaiting you has black hair and black eyes, dark as the deepest depths of Tartarus. His white tunic is interwoven with strands of gold, a delicate craftsmanship you could never manage, and it reflects his own shine, brightens the riverbanks more than you could have ever imagined. He glows with a vitality you had not considered possible, his bare skin radiant from within.
He carries a messenger bag slung across his shoulder and a golden staff in his offhand. His boots and golden crown of laurels are adorned with two pairs of wings, brighter still than anything else on him. You need no introduction to know him.
He offers one anyway.
“Hermes, at your service,” he begins, before your ferry has even landed. He is impatient, or overeager, the words tumbling from his mouth in a flurry. “Pleasure!”
Your ferry stills before him, and you busy your hands with the ropes that bind you, ever so briefly, to solid ground. Smoke spills from your open maw, and so does a sound that might be your name, to some, and might be senseless groaning to others.
Hermes chuckles, a foreign sound. "'Course I know who you are, boss. We've been working hand in hand for forever."
With the ferry stilled and tethered, the shades begin to file onto it neatly, each holding out a single coin to you. Hermes is a curiosity, but not enough so for you to forget your purpose. You accept your pay, even as your attention never leaves your visitor.
“Apologies for the late introduction,” he goes on, his tunic and hair fluttering in a breeze that does not exist. “Always had to run, you see.”
You do not see. You have never had to rush anything, are unfamiliar with the concept. The god of swiftness vibrates before you, as if his entire being is opposed to his current state of stillness. His wings flutter restlessly, the air around them flickering golden.
It must have been friction, all those times you spotted him before. It must have been his wings, flurrying so fast they briefly set the air alight. You stare at him, gaze fixed on his blurry edges.
“You’re wond’rin why I stuck around this time?" Hermes goes on, undeterred by your silent observation. "Got a message to deliver. Down below.”
He produces a golden obol from nowhere and holds it out to you between his index and middle finger. “Thought I could hitch a ride. Seein’ as we’re professional associates and all.”
You watch as he plays a trick with the coin, the way it disappears from between his fingers and reappears in the palm of his other hand an instant later. The showmanship is not meant for you, if the way he seems unaware of his own fumbling is anything to go by. It is simply a way to keep his hands busy. You think he must be unfamiliar with stasis.
You think he does not fit into your world.
You think you might be glad to witness him a few moments longer. And then, to be rid of him.
So you accept his coin, and you allow him passage on your ferry. And he sits, for what you think might be the first time in an eon, all the way to Asphodel.
He hops off there, before the final stop, which should be an impossibility, but there is little that divinity does not grant. On the far shore, he turns on his feathered heel, and throws you a grin across his shoulder. The shine of his teeth reflects the burning fire of the overflown Phlegethon.
“Keep the change.”
There is no reason for him to continue using your services. You'd shown him the route through the underworld, however inadvertently, and with his wings and swiftness, you know he could make the trip on his own, in half the time. And still, he returns.
There is no rhyme or reason to his trips to the underworld. No pattern you could ever predict. Sometimes he is needed in the deepest depths, in the house itself. Sometimes he jumps off your ferry before you even reach Elysium, a trip so brief you cannot by rights take his coin. Sometimes, he waits for you at the shore with every other flock of shades and sometimes, you do not see him for an eternity.
The only consistency he offers you is his inability to stay quiet for long.
Sometimes, he brings you news of the surface. Tales of whichever mortal is disrupting the world order. Which king, which prince, which lowly shepherd it is this eon that manages to hold the interest of Olympus. Sometimes he babbles away about the intricacies of his own family, about feuds and friendships and affairs. Sometimes he tells you of the latest happenings in the house of Hades in hushed whispers, tilted towards you so no shades will witness his indiscretions.
And you cannot not repay him. It is your nature. It is all you know.
He has found a place on your ferry for himself, has claimed the frontmost bench, the one closest to you. The shades were always too frightened of you to come so near, but he lounges there, as if he was up on Olympus, enjoying a lavish gathering of the gods instead of a ferry ride through the underworld.
The tale he's picked out this time is of the spawn of Hades, and all the troubles the fire-footed toddler causes for his house. You'd seen the child, briefly, stillborn in his mother's arms before you'd ferried her, too, as close to the surface as you could. Now, the boy is growing through some twist of fate or another, and the mother is in exile, and you could not tell her, even if you knew where she settled after you aided her escape.
It is still a relief, to hear of the prince. You do not reside in the house of Hades, but you belong to it in some intangible, indefinable way, as much as any other Chthonic god. And the boy will surely grow to be an equally troublesome, full-grown godling before long, and you expect it will be helpful to remember a past where he was nothing more than a child, leaving singed footprints in the carpet of his father’s office. For your sake, and his.
The story continues uninterrupted all the way until your boat approaches the shores of Asphodel, where he is to seek out a long dead nymph and you are to set up your shop for a little while, before continuing to the house itself. As you drift ever closer, he rights himself but does not jump ship the way he used to the first few times he’d made use of your services. Instead, he watches as you navigate the current, his bronze skin nearly glowing as it reflects the fire of the overflown Phlegethon.
Always had to run, he'd said, the first time he'd stayed to make an introduction, but he seems less and less eager to, as of late. Instead, he waits until the ferry is tethered before he slings his messenger bag across his shoulder and once again picks up his golden scepter from where he'd propped it against the stern. And then, as the ferry stills, he is once more Hermes, herald of the gods instead of Hermes, traveler through the underworld.
He regards you with eyes darker than deepest night and you think once again of nature, and trade. He'd handed you a single obol before stepping foot on your ferry, and you'd repaid him with a ride. He'd regaled you with information of the prince, and the inner workings of a house you so rarely visit personally, and you must repay him for this, too.
So, you pick from your own robes a medallion, and hold it out to him without words. It is bright gold, as is any accessory you wear on your person, palm-sized and engraved with the symbol of Chthonic wings. You'd found it floating in the Styx, most likely a long-forgotten offering to the house, or possibly to you, but time and river water have washed away its original meaning. Now it will be his, and his alone.
'Trade,' you do not say. 'Coin for information.'
After all, he needs no explanation. He understands you implicitly.
His head tilts nearly imperceptibly. "No need," he says. "You've already paid."
It is your turn for confusion. Smoke spills from you, and with it a noise that might be nonsensical to most, but that he rightly interprets as confusion.
“Your time, boss,” Hermes explains, “is more valuable than you think. At least if you ask me.”
And still, he accepts the medallion. When you see him next, it is pinned to the belt around his waist, adorned with colorful tassels, shamelessly displaying his belonging to the underworld, and by extension, to you. Not so much an admission of allegiance as an admission of being. Of his Chthonic nature. And the tale he brings you is of Zeus' less than favorable reaction, retold with a sly grin spread across his face.
You suppose you must have paid him more than fairly.
For eons, you have traded in coin, but with Hermes, you return to the old ways, give him trinkets and treasures in equal measures. A golden bracelet, spanning the entire expanse of his forearm, in exchange for a story about this epoch’s tryst between Zeus and Hera. A centaur heart, for his retelling of the sacking of Troy. A hammer of the famed craftsman Daedalus, as thanks for the tale of your brother Death's most recent misadventure.
A ring from your own hand, when he tells you he's found the hiding place of Hades' missing queen.
It must have been countless lifetimes, since the first time he'd waited for you on the shore. It must have been centuries, or eons, or whatever other word the mortals have come up with to describe something they will never understand. It must have been forever, when you decide to ask why he returns to you.
Hermes lounges in your ferry, his legs propped up over the stern wall and his feet dangling dangerously close to the surface of the river. He had delivered a message to a long-forgotten hero in Elysium, and is now waiting patiently for you to disassemble your shop so that you may ferry him back to the surface. It is a sight you are intimately familiar with.
"'S quiet," he says, simply, by way of explanation. "It's not often quiet, upstairs."
You cannot help but remember the first time you'd met him, truly. The way he'd babbled, the way he'd laughed. It was never loud, here, before him. You tell him as much.
Hermes laughs at that, so brightly you think the sight of him might blind a mortal. You dread the time when he will have to leave again. For the first time since you'd learned his name, you suspect he dreads it, too.
"'S a fair trade, don't you think? Peace for me and life for you."
It does not seem like a fair trade at all. But if he is willing to offer more than he receives, who are you to tell him no?
Still, some things must be repaid, and you scan your remaining wares for what you might give him, later, when he inevitably recounts this epic or that for you as you return him to the surface. Before you manage to come to a decision, you hear a flutter of wings from his direction, and turn to face him once again.
Somewhere in the span of one instant to the next, he's righted himself. Now, he stands aboard your ferry as though he belongs there, and you stand opposite him, on the shores of Elysium, your feet rooted in impossibly green grass in a reversal of your first ever meeting.
"I can't accept payment this time, boss," he says, as if he could read your thoughts. "I already have what I came for."
Smoke spills from your open mouth and you make a sound that you know he understands to mean, "Peace for you."
Hermes face splits into a grin, his teeth shining sun-bright. You are reminded, suddenly, of that track of gold you'd caught, lifetimes ago. The way his echo had been enough to intrigue you and sustain you in equal measure.
You cannot imagine surviving on just aftertastes, ever again.
Before you, Hermes, god of swiftness and travelers, god of orators and merchants, god of thieves, unceremoniously rips one of the tassels from his tunic and holds it out to you in the palm of his unblemished hand. It is the finest piece of handiwork you have ever seen, golden thread woven so delicately it flows like water with the most minuscule of movements.
"And life for you, my dear associate."
You do not think peace is worth so lavish a payment, but accept anyway. He'd accepted every single payment you've offered him, even though you both knew it was mostly courtesy on his part. You can do him this courtesy, too.
You reach out your hand to pluck the tassel from him, but he is swifter than you, moves into your space in the blink of an eye. Before you even manage to react, he stands before you, one of his hands curled around yours as the other places his payment in the palm of your outstretched hand.
He has never touched you before. You stare down at the point of contact, the garish clash of his vital, bronze color and your deathly white. Where his skin touches yours, you feel nothing but heat, the kind that would burn a mortal from the inside out. It burns you, too, in a way that ignites within you a desire to hold your hand into this divine flame for all eternity.
And then, with another blink of an eye, he is gone from you once again, returned to lounging on the bench he has claimed for himself. Spread out across the hard wood comfortably, with his tunic in disarray, the hem of it riding up ever so slightly to reveal more of his thigh than you have ever seen.
"To our continued business," he says, full of cheek.
Your hand still burns with his phantom heat, and there is that thought again: You cannot survive on just aftertastes.
"To our continued business."