19 - Honest Intentions

"I want the kid back - unsmoten - when you're done with him," Hades said, approaching his chariot as Hera's peacocks lined up under the brilliant rays of the sun. It swallowed all reflections as it sulked beside hers, a spiked and smoking contraption that refused to gleam beside its sister. Hera responded without gesture, having recovered the bulk of her serenity.

Over in the distance she caught sight of the shapes of Ganymede and Daedalus cutting through the sunset's rays, the younger man clambering over a ridge of rocks as the elder followed the sandy trail alongside.

"Am I to take it you've grown a soft spot for the boy?" she asked, a smirk finally nudging at the corners of her mouth. He turned to her in horror.

"What?! No way!" He waved off the idea like a bad smell. "He's just the first competent goon I've had in a thousand years - and he's not gonna run off and marry W-" Catching the warning in his sister's eyes, he swerved, "- your adorable and talented baby boy, Hercules."

She seemed pleased by that, and without warning a memory flashed up to the forefront of his brain of pulling her pigtails when they were children. She'd always gotten him back just as good. It had been a fun game, before she and all the other gods turned into such-

Hera gazed at his silhouette on the horizon. Though she had deliberately paid little attention to him on Olympus, she remembered him pink-cheeked and quick-witted. He'd been jumpy, as any mortal thrust among the gods would have been, but he'd networked well and she had vague recollections of his blond head moving through dinner parties and handing out capanes. Death had taken that wit and turned it into cunning, that charm into manipulation. She remembered Hades, back before the bestowment of his duties, being somewhat similar.

Though she reminded herself that perhaps those changes in Ganymede had more to do with what Zeus had done to him; she couldn't blame Hades' influence when her husband was the one he'd been hiding from. Her attention spun back onto Hades and she asked with sudden, urgent guilt; "How did he die?"

"It was a Hell of a thing, actually," Hades replied with a shrug, "Some crazy worshippers sent him down as a sacrifice. I didn't even know I had any of 'em left, for all the good it does me." Then, pausing to tap his chin, he added, "I really oughtta send 'em a gift basket."

As Hades moved into the shadow of the evening clouds, his glowing yellow eyes added a certain menace to his reply. "Trust me," he said. "I know what happened."

Ganymede's sandals conformed easily to the uneven rocks beneath his feet. His eyes followed the length of the horizon like a thumb along the blade, taking in the light and fresh air with what little time he had left, while doing his best to tolerate the old man hobbling along the sand beside him. His jaw set against the soft crunch of the second pair of footsteps until finally he drawled,

"Hm?" Daedalus looked up at him through grey eyebrows. "Oh, well... I told that wretched King Minos to feed him human food, but I fear he may have taken that too literally." Ganymede lingered on that concerning fact for only a moment before moving on - preferring not to ask things he didn't want the answer to.

Daedalus paused his steps. Ganymede, realising a moment later, paused on the rocks and glanced back over at him. "What?"

"Now hold on-!" Ganymede found himself back-peddling as fast as he could, "Not, like, 'loose' or anything!" He let out a sharp laugh. "Only an idiot would let that thing get escape into the wild!" But Daedalus vaulted up the rocks, grabbed his hands, and pumped it up and down so hard that it sent Ganymede's shoulder jangling in its socket.

"Hey-hey-hey!" Ganymede snatched back his hand. "These things detach!" He wheeled his shoulder and took a step away from him, the soles of his shoes slipping over the uneven ground. He eyed Daedalus as the old man returned to the sand and picked back up his walking stick. "But you're welcome?"

"Should he?" Ganymede's expression started to curl back in self-defense. "Hey, I've only had the thing for like, a week, okay? And I'm a shepherd, not a school-teacher - I haven't had time to bust out flashcards." The old man laughed.

"That poor creature," Daedalus continued, his countenance softening, his smile drawing closed. "Kept in darkness all his life, isolated... I often wondered what became of him." Ganymede's eyes wandered in the direction of Hades.

They came to a halt at the end of the rocks. Ahead of them, the sea winked and shimmered at them, the light filtering through the salt-flavoured air in geometric sparks. The sky pink, the sea a wine-coloured red, Ganymede took a deep breath as his hair lifted in the breeze.

"There are worse places to spend retirement, huh?" he said, turning to the sound of the old man's crunching footsteps.

"Oh yes," Daedalus said, pausing as they met the shoreline. He looked back over at the figures of the gods, their slightly inhuman silhouettes blurred in the dying light. "Though I doubt it'll last much longer."

"Hm?" Ganymede glanced down at him. "That's pretty morbid of you. But hey-" He clicked his tongue and shoved his thumb into his chest. "Speaking from experience, death's not that big of a deal." Daedalus gave a low hum, then glanced up to the sky as the sunlight faded and tiny points of light emerged from the purpling darkness. Ganymede's eyes followed, then a lurch twisted up his stomach when he saw that column of stars rising up between a parting in the clouds.

The old man noted the imperceptible twitch in his eyes. "You noticed the new star too?" he asked. Ganymede's throat bobbed as he swallowed.

"Saw it? I think I met it." Turning back to Daedalus, he was shocked to find the man beaming all the way across his beard.

Ganymede slipped from the rocks and landed in the sand. Brushing errant particles from his calves, the skull glinting on his tunic, he said with growing annoyance, "People need to stop being so damn cryptic. You're as bad as the Fates. I mean-" He straightened up and cocked his hip to the side, folding his arms across his chest. "What am I supposed to tell Hades? It's really hard to scheme when every old coot in the world keeps gazing wide-eyed at the sky and going-" He widened his eyes and hushed with feigned delight, "'Oooh, any moment now things are gonna change. Not right now, your life still sucks, but any moment now!'" He narrowed his eyes at Daedalus. "I need a prophecy I can take to the bank - I'm not looking to end up like Oedipus."

Daedalus chuckled. "Fair enough, but I'm afraid I have no information to give. All I know is that I'm pleased to see it."

"An oracle told me in my youth," the old man replied without delay, encouraged but not rushed, "That I would not pass to the next world until a new star appeared in the sky. It has happened now, and I welcome him as I would an old friend."

"Right..." Ganymede gave a nod, his tight body language starting to loosen again. "Your knees don't work so good anymore, gettin' out of bed's a chore. You've done every sudoku booklet on the island - time to go, right?"

Daedalus shook his head. "I have someone waiting for me. Or, I most certainly hope they haven't forgotten me in my absence." Ganymede's face flushed green with guilt and he turned his head quickly back to the gods and their chariots.

"Not at all," the old man replied. "I have learned to... appreciate the impudence of youth." He watched Hera, Ganymede watched Hades. Silence rode in on the sound of the waves.

"Don't ask me to be nice to Hera," Ganymede said. His lowered voice had lost its flippancy as eyes determinedly ignored the pink shimmer in the distance.

"Nobody has any right to ask that of you," Daedalus replied. "I have the sense that your anger is righteous." Ganymede clucked his tongue and flapped a deliberately fay hand at him.

"An old man who facilitated Olympus fully fucking me over," Ganymede sniffed, but then waved a hand to accept it. "But sure."

"Let your anger be in service of love." Ganymede's attention shifted once more from Daedalus to the figure of Hades on the horizon. From this far away he could just about see the silhouette of the god's sharp teeth as the words rolled over him. "And may God be with you."

Ganymede clung to the rim of Hera's chariot with gritted teeth. Hair streaming out behind her, Hera kept her eyes on the horizon as sunlight dawned over Thebes, as if a lantern were being slowly raised above it. It had been easy to stand in Hades' chariot - the guy drove with purpose but without a whole lot of urgency - but Hera's sharp flicks of the reins betrayed how quickly she wanted this over and done with. The world whizzed beneath them, the square patterns of the fields blurring to stripes.

She snatched herself around with ferocious speed, but as he tumbled backwards she caught herself. Drawing herself together and adjusting her veils, she replied, "Absolutely not."

Ganymede kept his white-knuckle grip on the chariot, springing back like a boxer ready to make a return from the ropes, but then he caught the look on her face. A more conniving woman would have known to keep her gaze steady and would know to keep the terror out of them. His grip slackened enough to allow blood back to his knuckles as he considered what a thousand years of marriage to a man like Zeus would do to someone. Even Hera probably didn't know how much of herself had been replaced by armour braced against the impact of her husband.

"I just mean-" He blew more hair from his face. "-Good for you guys! I mean, especially for Hermes!" She glanced back at him. "He's batting way above his average - what is he, like four-foot three? And-!" Internally he begged for someone to stop him. "I know it ain't my place to say, but you're a-!"

Hera's hand landed on his shoulder and his mouth snapped blessedly shut. Her eyes had found a twinkle again, and she was smiling.

"You're far too kind," she said. Her hand dropped to take back up the reins, but her eyes remained on him. A look of anguish passed over her brow. "I owe you a greater apology than I can possibly give."

That was true enough. And yet the moment she said it, he knew he had no further demands. "Hey." He shrugged. "We're all just trying to survive this, right?" He caught her glancing at him out the corner of his eye and the youthful softness now starting to permeate her being. There was a part of her, he could tell, that was still a little girl - a part of her still preparing to be a young mother, not the matriarch of an adult family, as if she'd preserved a part of herself for the life she'd wanted at the very beginning.

He stepped closer to her, sliding his feet carefully over the chariot while trying not to think of the height. They both looked straight ahead. "I'd have screwed over a lot of people real hard if it could have gotten me what I wanted," he said.

Hera's shoulders settled as she looked over the corrugated silhouette of Thebes for the mansion owned by her son. "What changed?" she asked as she prepared to land. Ganymede's eyes glanced up to the sky.