Bonus Content - A Message

Hello everyone!

As you voted for in the poll last month, we have here a scene with Hermes. Like the others I've been doing in this slot recently, it features our boy during the time Seph is unconscious, and in his case, during the delivery of some very unpleasant news to a very concerned Demeter. I hope you enjoy it. :)

------------------------------

Hermes really doesn’t want to be here. Especially not doing this.

But theoretically, it’s his responsibility. He’s the one who can come and go freely between Olympus and the Underworld. He’s the one who can carry the message. The letter lies heavy in his bag; an out. If he can’t or won’t deliver the news in person, his uncle will pick up the hardest part for him, just like always. He’ll have laid it all out as truthfully and rationally as possible: without trying to cover up the severity of matters, but without undue panic.

Perfectly, in other words. The kind of perfection that takes him long and painstaking hours of torturing himself over phrases and what they mean, and consulting Hekate and Charon and Daeira about whether he’s meeting his responsibility of clear and honest communication. Because Demeter is Seph’s next of kin, and in the absence of Seph themselves to tell anyone otherwise, they’ve decided it’s best to notify her of exactly what occurred.

Zeus probably will if they don’t, and she doesn’t deserve that, even if her parenting is a bit dubious at times. Most patenting is a bit dubious at times. The kind Hermes got definitely is. He wonders if he’d feel more prepared to handle this properly if it had been better.

Can you be prepared to handle something like this properly? What would that even mean? He’s supposed to be the one who knows stuff like this, almost instinctively, but quite suddenly he can imagine how difficult his uncle or Pyri must find everyday interaction, and he respects them so much more for being able to muddle through it somehow.

Demeter’s manse looms large in his vision, and it only gets larger as he lands. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that Seph’s mother is not just Seph’s mother, but also one of the most powerful and prominent goddesses on Olympus. Mostly because his interactions with her have always been in the former capacity and not the latter. Demeter is someone who scolds him for mischief and invites him into the kitchen for a sampling of the fruit harvest and talk about how pleased she is with Seph’s powers and how they’re coming along. Right in front of them, of course, with him egging her on with questions just to see how embarrassed he can make his best friend.

This is… not going to be like any of that. Not even the scolding. It’s so much worse than that, and so… indirect, in comparison. Any anger she has will probably be directed other places; she’s reasonable enough not to expect Hermes to bodyguard her child, and even if he tells her he tried and failed, which is true, she won’t lay the blame for that at his feet.

And still this feels so much worse than any of the times he’d had to fess up to something he actually had done.

He knocks on the door, which is answered by a familiar blue nymph. Mystis had been looking after Seph since they were a child, and was often one of the first people they had to plan to avoid in pulling off various hijinks. She smiles warmly at Hermes, but it fades quickly when he can’t quite bring himself to return it, and as many servants often do, she switches quickly to formality, just in case, bowing briefly.

He wishes she wouldn’t, but he can’t exactly tell her not to. Not right now.

“Lord Hermes,” she says in her low voice. “Have you a message for Lady Demeter?”

“In a manner of—yes.” He corrects himself. Technically, it’s not really a message, at least not unless he takes the coward’s way out and lets the letter do the talking for him, but it’s not such an important distinction that it will matter here. He just needs to get in to see her, and considering his messages for her lately have been letters from Seph, she’ll want to see him very quickly if she thinks he has one of those.

Mystis gives him an odd look, but nods. “Very well. Please wait here while I inform my Lady.”

He’s unsurprisingly ushered into Demeter’s study not two minutes later, feeling rather quite unprepared still but knowing he has to do something. That’s what happens when you get close to people—it brings you all kinds of problems, and makes you do all kinds of difficult things that you might rather avoid.

Needless to say, Hermes has mixed feelings about all of it, and especially about the way Seph’s been looking at him, lately.

Demeter is seated behind a large desk. She’s almost as perfectly put together as always, and it’s the almost that brings Hermes up short. Gods don’t need to sleep, strictly, but he can tell Demeter has been running herself ragged from the faint bruising beneath her eyes. It’s probably a lot worse under the tinctures she’s using to conceal it and give her skin an even appearance. Either that or she’s using magic, and it’s slipping. It doesn’t matter which—that and the dark curls falling loose from their pins are more than enough to remind him of something important.

For him, this is difficult and inconvenient. He’s worried about Seph, but ultimately he knows they’ll be fine, because he knows them, and knows his uncle, and everyone else in the Underworld. Demeter… doesn’t.

This isn’t just difficult for her. It’s terrifying.

He swallows thickly, but she is the first to speak.

“What news, Hermes?” she asks, and to her credit, her tone is as firm as it’s ever been, without the hint of a waver.

He clears his throat, trying to get the thick feeling in it to go away. She looks so hopeful, like she’s expecting a letter from Seph. She probably is; they’ve been pretty good about writing to her, even if they aren’t always unambiguously excited to be doing so.

“Uh, well.” Already he stumbles uncharacteristically, and Demeter frowns outright.

This isn’t right. Hermes draws himself up to his full height. “Lady Demeter.” Another soft hem, another lurch forward. “I’m here to let you know. Seph is okay, they’re going to be fine, but—”

“What have they done?” Her voice is low, edged with fear that sounds like anger. “What have they done to my child?”

“Nothing!” Hermes raises both hands in what he hopes is a placating gesture. Somehow this is already going very wrong. “Nothing. It wasn’t—Kronos released a couple of Giants, and—”

“Giants?!” Now there’s no mistaking her terror for anything else; it parts her lips and widened her eyes, and she has never looked so real to him, so imperfect. That terrifies him, too, because Hermes doesn’t know what to do with real, or raw, or genuine, and right now Demeter is all of those things instead of barely one of them.

She’s never been more like Seph than now, when she simultaneously stands from the desk and leans on it for support, her knuckles turning white as her arms shake. “Giants. I need—please, Hermes. Tell me. Tell me they’re alive.”

He nods vigorously. That much he can do. “They’re definitely alive,” he says. “Unconscious, but they’ll recover.” He chances mentioning someone in particular, in hope that her credibility as a magician and healer will outweigh whatever distaste Demeter feels at hearing her name. “Hekate says so, and she’s never wrong about stuff like this. It’s just… there was a confrontation. Seph was amazing, it’s just that Eurytus was—”

“Eurytus.” Demeter’s voice is thready, passed beyond panic to something fainter. Hermes really hopes she doesn’t pass out or something. What’s he supposed to do if she just… faints? Can gods faint? Nymphs can, Seph did, but he’s never seen it happen to a full-blooded deity before. “My child… you are telling me my child fought Eurytus. Could none of you keep them any safer than to allow such a thing to happen?”

The anger’s back. Hermes can’t keep up with the revolving door of emotions. He tried, he really did, but now it’s time to let someone else take over. So he digs the message out of his bag, still pristine, and sets it gently on the edge of the desk. “That’s, uh—Hades explains everything there. They’re going to be okay, Lady Demeter. And… even though it wasn’t the best situation, they handled themself really well. You should be proud of them.”

That’s probably the last thing she wants to hear, and honestly, whatever she has to say in response to it is the last thing he wants to hear so…

Sketching a quick bow, Hermes flees while she’s still distracted, staring at the letter like she wants to burn it. That was definitely neither his finest nor most mature moment, and he immediately feels guilty about leaving her like that, but… what’s he supposed to do? He has a terrible track record with worried mothers, and he doesn’t know how to handle all the complicated things going on in Demeter’s head. She has to have way better people to talk to about this than him. Hestia, maybe. Hestia would have the answers—she always seems to.

He’d go see her himself if he didn’t think Demeter was going to need her presently. Instead he runs his hands down his face, surprised when he feels his fingers trembling.

Damn. Damn it all. Seph is suffering, and he doesn’t know what to do with what he knows about Charon, now, and nothing makes sense.

And worse—well, not worse, but still pretty bad—he’s still the same coward he’s always been, hiding in the safe shadow of his uncle.

Great. Nothing's changed at all.