29 - Honest Intentions

As he rolled, he saw what the kid meant - the Styx was crawling lower and lower, its black mud caking the walls, as the spirits finally found their way out.

The Lethe, however, continued surging over their heads, boiling with demons. The air rattled with the sound of roaches' wings, as creatures without throats or lungs laughed in hunger, cruelty and panic. Whispers of unknown language danced around their ears like flies.

Zeus roared and lunged again, a black shadow in the blood-red light. It electrocuted Hades; he threw himself forwards. "Oh no you don't!"

Claws yanked Ganymede from the oncoming punch. Knuckles laced with lightning buried themselves in Hades' gut and for the first time since he'd known him, Ganymede heard him let out a genuine cry of pain. Thundershock rocketed up Hades' spine and locked him tight, white light meeting red and blinding them to the twist of his silhouette.

"Hades!" Ganymede hooked the only arm he had left around his middle and felt static sting the roof of his mouth. As the lightning dispersed into the ground, he held on to him as tightly as he could. Zeus, having hit the wrong target, staggered to the edge of the platform. Ganymede clung to Hades as Hades forced his shaking arms to grip him back, and it was impossible now to tell who was protecting whom. Their big, yellow eyes stared up at Zeus, and as his unbalanced weight rolled beneath him he let out a roll of furious laughter.

"I suppose you were right after all!" he barked, his face a mask of what once was Zeus, now consumed by the ringing in his own ears and the whispers in his own head. "You've gotten the one thing I don't - a broken ragdoll!" He drew back his hand and a hooked, sparking, vicious-looking lightning bolt flashed into his fist. He leant back his weight as he prepared the final blow. "I hope he was worth it!"

Ganymede's face split into an exhausted smile.

"Ah..." His sharp and crow-like voice could be heard easily above the Cretans now. "Such a shame. It always gets you."

Those perfect, white teeth flashed. "Pattern recognition."

Something hooked around Zeus' ankle and yanked. It dragged his weight from beneath him, and with a sudden bellow of rage and horror, he tumbled backwards. Gravity swung, his weapon vanished, and the deafening sounds of the red waterfall rose up to meet him. As he fell, he caught a glimpse of Ganymede's disembodied arm gripping tight to the shepherd's crook. His loose hand wiggled its fingers at him.

In the infinite mercy of the silence still there beneath the chaos, the Cretan gods suddenly flushed up into the endless darkness - their spell broken. The red water surged violet, clean once more, as Zeus' body crashed through. He fell out the other side and the Styx caught him down below. It bulged and recoiled with his impact, then rushed forwards. It finally drained down to nothing but mud, taking the tumbling King of the Gods with it.

Hades and Ganymede clung to each other as they sagged to the dirt. There were no sounds of footsteps, no storming voices, and as he held on to Hades as tightly as a child, Ganymede realised that the river really had dragged Zeus away. Hades let out a tight groan of relief - a very rare emotion for him- and after a few tight breaths, he asked, "So, you got all your pieces?" Far in the distance, the sound of trumpets set the hairs on the back of Ganymede's neck alight.

He grasped out with his lone hand, then shoved his rogue arm back into its socket. "As many as I ever do." He snuck his arms beneath the god's back and tried to push him up. "Come on, man - we gotta move before this whole place collapses around us." Hades tried to ease himself onto his side, but Ganymede saw that the smoke surrounding him seemed listless, pooling more like cloth than ink. The caverns rumbled and the rocks still fell, and he noticed the stalactites above their only exit had begun to quake. Cracks laced up the edges of the channel's walls, starting and stopping like half-formed thoughts, as slabs of granite tumbled into the uneasy mud. He gave Hades' tunic a more panicked tug.

"Gimme a break! I'm tryin' here!"

Ganymede turned back to him. The god struggled to push himself up by his arms as his powers seemed to fade. Another barrage of rocks fell into the channel's opening in a wet crash, and above them the hanging stalactites loosened. One came loose like a tooth and sent dirty, lukewarm water spraying high into the air and over their skin.

"Aw Hell," Hades sank against the ground and snarled against his own effort. "Look, just get outta here, okay?"

"Oh no you don't!" Ganymede snapped. Underneath the sounds of violence he could still hear the trumpets echoing down the tunnel. He knew, he knew, that the cross was expecting them. "You are not dying here!"

"Who's dying?" Hades said, his voice growing loopier as his muscles gave the occasional, electrocuted spasm. It was impossible to tell how wounded the immortal being was, which only made Ganymede's heart pound harder. "I'm just gonna spend the rest of eternity in this stinking underground dungeon, no big deal."

"You big idiot!" Ganymede yanked on the front of Hades' tunic. "There's a whole party going on out there and you're gonna miss it!"

Hades lay there as the flames on his head began to fade, and even if Ganymede heaved with all his might, the man's body lay as unresponsive as mausoleum slab. "Yeah... Well, you know that ain't the kinda party I get invited to anyway."

"Rrr!" Ganymede strangled the air with his hands as the rock fell around them, but as he watched the flames peter out, he saw with a growing twist in his stomach that they had come so close. "It's not fair!" He felt his eyes burn. "We gave it everything we had!"

A limp hand lifted, and Hades gave him a weak flip of his hand. "Go - if you run, you might still be able to make the mothership."

Ganymede's eyes widened, his jaw setting, as his chest filled all the way to the brim, then furiously overflowed. At first he couldn't move, locked by the choices he could no longer make - the win-conditions that could no longer be met, the successes now impossible to reach - but as he watched Hades' grey form battle its own weakness, love washed it all away.

He turned away from the stalactites as they broke free. They stabbed down into the drained Styx, mud bursting into the air with every half-ton slam of rock, and sealed them in forever. They were cut off from the song - the echoes all stopped.

He curled his knees beside him as he tucked a tendril of hair behind an ear. "Hey, I told you from the start - I wanna be down here." He wrapped his arms around Hades' chest instead. The god's arms looped heavily around him too. Then the words came out without his permission.

Hades's whole body paused. Then the loop of his arms suddenly tightened, pulling all the way around him.

"Those are some pretty big words."

Ganymede lay his head on his chest with the furious loyalty of a dog at a grave. "Someone ought to have said it."

Silence descended, and this time there was no resistance. Hades glanced down through pained eyes at the parting of Ganymede's blonde crown, and realised with righteous anger of his own that the kid was exactly right.

"... Maybe I love you a little bit too, kid."

Though he couldn't see it, Ganymede beamed wide enough that it squeezed tears down his cheeks. In the quiet sadness of his heart, he thanked God that they were here, and that the god of the dead had not been left alone forever.

And the sadness, he noticed, was not agony. Happiness was not the same thing as love, and love felt better. Love could exist beside sadness, beside grief, beside pain and even beside rage, and flooded it with meaning. A bubble of laughter swelled up from his heart, despite it all, and suddenly there was nowhere else he would rather have been. They were here together, all three of them; Ganymede, Hades, and the silence that loved them - the silence that was love.

He lifted his head to the sound of clattering gravel.

A familiar roar rendered the air apart, though muffled by rock, then the boom of impact blew a shockwave of dust into the chamber. Hades barely lifted his head.

Another blow sent larger slabs bowling forward. Ganymede's grin lit his face as he pushed himself up on Hades' chest. "Finally!" he laughed, "Here comes the cavalry!"

Hades stared at him, then managed a smirk. "No kidding?" He didn't quite know how to process good fortune.

Beams of green light streamed through holes in the wall as, with a final heave of his massive head, the Minotaur flung a boulder to the side and shoved the rocks with his thick hands. His ears flicked with hope as Pain and Panic poked their heads into the gap, their silhouettes haloed by the ambience behind him.

"Bet you forgot about us, huh?!" Panic said before skittering through the gap. Pain followed, tripped, and bounced over the rocks. As they ran for them, two plumes of smoke twisted them into rounder, fluffier shapes, and it was two sheep who scrambled onto the platform, dove into Ganymede's arms and bleated for joy. The Minotaur approached on the careful slope of its knuckles, following the sounds of joy.

Hades drew back as best as he could as the huge presence landed beside him..

"Hey-hey-careful! Watch where you're stepping!"

The Minotaur drew back a fist before he inadvertently stepped on him. Ganymede's soft laugh caught his ears and he lowered his snout towards it. The shepherd lifted up his hand and gave his snout a pat.

"You guys took your time," he said with a smirk. Panic huffed and folded his arms across his woolly chest.

"You try rowing over the Styx!"

Pain nodded. "Especially when the whole thing's sinking!"

"Okay, come on-" Ganymede guided the Minotaur to Hades and helped him lift the man up. "We've got to get to that door!"

"Hey, easy on the god of the Underworld!"

"Ignore him, he's had a long day."

They ran through the hole in the wall and splashed out into the light.

The Underworld had never been so bright, nor had it ever been so alive. Spirits flew past them in a torrent of white, all laughing with shock and awe as the sun shone on them for the first time. Pain, Panic and Ganymede pushed the boat into the dregs of the river as the Minotaur lay Hades down against the prow. Panic bounced on top of Pain, they grabbed Charon's staff and pushed, and Ganymede crouched behind them. He turned to Hades and whispered,

"How're you feeling?"

"Like a million dollars," Hades coughed. "Remind me the hurry again?" Ganymede laid a hand on his chest and looked up at the road ahead. They would be racing the ebbing tide.

"You want out of this gig, right?"

"I mean, now that you mention it."

"Well... I've found your retirement."

Hades' expression twisted with skepticism as he pulled himself into a lop-sided lean, his hand clutching to his side. "Run by me where you got this scheme?" He glanced all around him at the fleeing souls, no longer the sole lamprey oozing along the ocean floor but one thrust into the centre of a coral reef - suddenly surrounded by cries of life and colour and shoals of light. He recoiled from it.

"Just trust me, man," Ganymede said and wobbled to his feet. Hades grabbed his hand to keep him steady, and with a glance the plan was sealed. None of them would be separated again.

Ganymede turned to his fluffy helmsmen. "No offense boys, but you're not gonna get us there in time."

"We're doing our best!" Panic replied, his voice loopy with exhaustion.

"I know!" He grinned to them both. "I'm promoting you to navigators!"

The Skull rose over the horizon, vast and glowing, as the Minotaur shot them towards their final stop with the power of a freight train. The river had sunk so low that above them the banks rose over their heads and the Styx itself was barely a creek of green slime.

"Okay!" Pain called out, "Get ready to brake!"

There, above the white-hot rock of the Skull, stood the open door. Spirits still streamed through in a white and sweeping river, singing with laughter and embracing one another when before they had just been weeping alone. The doorway took them all, the source of a love so dense that Ganymede couldn't tell whether it existed as its own force, like heat, or whether the joy in his heart might actually be a part of it. It felt like the heart he had been born with was finally returning to the rest of it, like it had always been a part of something bigger than he was. Choirs filled the air with so many layers of so many hallelujahs that their hair (and fur, and wool) stood on end, and somewhere right at the back of that wall of music played one adored and adoring bugle.

Silhouetted by the light, the chariot of Apollo hovered. Its horses' wings lowered its wheels into the mud.

Brakes proved unnecessary. Their keel hit ground as the final souls left the river, and they were all thrown forward into a splattering heap.

Staggering upright, Ganymede lifted Pain and Panic up by the wool before dashing to Hades, who let out a groan as the Minotaur hauled him back upright. When Hades grasped out for support, Ganymede made sure he was beneath him. He took Hades' weight on his shoulder.

"You guys made it!" Hermes flew down on black-winged heels, his bugle in his hand. "Boy, were we worried!" Ganymede felt Hades recoil, but Hera dropped to the mud and tottered through the mire. She threw her arms around Hades' shoulders.

"Woah!" Hades' hands flew up into the air and froze above his head as Ganymede ducked out of the way. He hissed at him, "What now?!" With the raise of an eyebrow, the kid mimed a stiff midair hug. Though he didn't look especially pleased about it, he lowered down his arms and hugged his sister back.

And then suddenly they were both squeezing as hard as they possibly could, for the first time since they were children.

Fold by fold, step by stop, a staircase of light unfurled down to the ground - not mechanically arranged, but given like an outstretched hand. Ganymede heard that voice again - words spoken only to him, private, profound and entirely for him - and his heart gripped with a yearning as it sounded so familiar.

Somewhere beyond them, at the end of a trench cut deep into the much, the dazed and heavy form of Zeus shook mud from his beard. Too confused to process anything going on around him, he slapped back on his palms and wondered where the heck he was.

A heavy flap of wings and flash of bright white fur caused Hera to draw back from her embrace.

Hercules' heavy sandals splashed down into the mud. He raced over to her, leaving Pegasus to stare at all that was happening, as his statuesque profile carved fingers of shadow through the light. He took her by the elbows as Hera ran to him, her veils pulled around her by the stream of so much movement. "My darling! What are you doing down here?"

"Dad - have you seen him?" Then, as he craned around him in a slow roll, he took in the whirlpool of Heaven spiralling all around them. The doorway as bright as the sun, the golden stairs, the distant sound of trumpets and the singing - something in him recognised it, but he couldn't fathom it at all. "What is this?" The sound of dragonfly wings buzzed up behind him.

"It's Heaven, man!" Hermes popped up at his elbow. "Your dad's gonna be around here somewhere - but I gotta warn you..." He glanced around, and caught the mud-covered body of his former boss as he pushed himself upright. "He might be a little confused." Then, with a little midair flip, he added, "And you know what? I know nobody asked, but I'm really feeling this new change in career."

"Wait-" Hercules' head jolted to face his mother's. "Does this mean you're leaving?" A dart of Zeus-like thunder flashed behind his eyes. "But I only just found you again!" His attention swung to take in the joy and peace around him - barely seeing the goggle-eyed sheep and threadbare, mud-covered denizens of the Underworld - and anger flared up in his chest. "What was the point of everything if you're just going to-!"

Hera's warm hands took his jaw and guided him down to face her.

"I love you, my darling," she said. The steadiness in her voice cracked as tears streamed down her cheeks. "Now and always." His eyes travelled down her, and finally he noticed the dirtiness of her mortal clothes, the way her mortal boots were caked in mud, and the mortal warmth of her hands against his cheeks. He cupped her hands with his own far larger ones, then held them tight. "If you want me to," she gasped, "I'll stay with you for the rest of my life."

His eyes, the mirror of hers, squeezed shut.

He heard a crow-like murmuring from somewhere behind him, and at first it sounded so happy that he didn't recognise it. Then it rose to a shriek of laughter and he realised that it belonged to the shepherd boy whose acidic tenor had been levvied with so much fury against him. He remembered what he had said, what Hera had claimed, and it dawned on him that he held the only key to his mother's captivity. And that she had been in captivity, no matter how willingly she had resigned herself to it.

He opened his eyes again. "Go be free, Mom," he said. "You've waited long enough, right?"

Love overwhelmed grief as Hera gazed through a hot and quaking veil of tears at the greatest thing she had ever created. She wanted to stay, to shadow him forever, to be with him for all the years she had missed and more, but he was right. She had shadowed those she loved for centuries, and in the end... he didn't need her.

Through some miracle, her voice remained steady as she spoke the cliche. "I'll always be with you. Far more than I ever was before."

He threw his arms around her. She squeezed with all her might, but the grief of parting didn't seem so bad - after all, it would be temporary. Hercules was needed here. His family needed him, his wife needed him, the entire nation needed him, but he would have his time. They would be together again.

They parted, though it lingered for as long as it could. She could not turn first, so he was the one who finally looked away. Instead he ran towards his father.

"Hercules?" His deep voice, familiar and warm, and innocent again, stared up at him. "What's going on?"

The stories he had heard made him pause, and for a moment his heart resisted. The almighty king of the gods had always seemed so grand to him, so worthy, and he had been so proud to be his son. He had loved him with all his heart, but now it was clear that he had loved a grandiose and self-involved lie. Seeing his mighty father covered in slime and blind to the joy flinging itself all around them, he dared to realise that this man had let him down.

Hercules cast one final glance at his mother, at Hermes, at the god of the dead, and then at the pale, ghoulish shepherd boy whose smile now beamed as brightly as the sun.

He was gazing up at Hades with adoration, but it was an adoration that knew him. There was no naivete in the love that radiated from him and bathed the unworthy god of the dead, and at first he didn't know how he could tell - he had never been good at judging the sincerity of other people. Then, with a creak, it became obvious all at once.

Ganymede had not chosen to love Hades at all. He had chosen to allow what was already inside of him to come out, without qualification, without cost, and without fear. It wasn't naive because it wasn't weakness, because it could not be used against him. Something shifted in his own chest.

He turned back to his father and gave him a cocksure grin.

"I'll figure it out with you when we get home."

Hermes flipped on his heels and threw his fist into the air. "Alright babes! Let's get outta here!" He swung around, lighter than he'd ever been. "Ladies first?" The messenger of the gods, the god of shepherds, and the re-instated god of the crossroads, held out his hand to Hera. Her eyes met his, half-hidden behind his sunglasses, and she dared stretch out her hand.

"Will it even let me in?" Her mind returned to Perachora and all those statues of herself, to a lifetime as Zeus' vassal, and to all her foolish pride. Hermes leaned in and gave a subtle nod towards the ruler of the Underworld still staring at the door like a tourist staring into the sun.

"I don't think that stuff matters anymore."

Ganymede stuck his staff in the mud and gestured to his flock. "Get going! We've got a whole new start!" The anger that had always been inside of him finally cracked and fell away. His heart felt so big that it could have embraced the whole world.

With bleats of glee, Pain and Panic bounced in circles around his ankles. "We get to go?!"

"Of course!" Ganymede laughed. "Go!" They trotted to the stairs with curiosity.

Then as if spurred by a private call inside of their own souls, that trot became a gallop. Pain and Panic raced for Heaven as they saw, in one holy moment, that they hadn't been born from Hades' grief but had in fact been given to him, and had been gifts the whole time.

At the very top they gave each other one final look that held a lifetime of togetherness, then paused for their family, bathed in light.

The Minotaur, blind though he was, could still sense the tugging inside of him. He moved towards it, but not before reaching out to run a hand over Ganymede's head. Ganymede spluttered at the sudden weight, then, laughing, he threw his arms around the Minotaur's neck. "Hey, you made it too!" The great wall of fur and muscle hugged back, swinging Ganymede off of his feet in a loose drag of limbs. A soft breeze rustled his fur, the gentle call of open fields and sunlight he had never known.

Ganymede was dropped, laughing, into the mud as off the Minotaur thundered. Eyes alive, he jumped to his feet and turned to the final member of his family. His grin faded. Hades stood alone in the muddy basin of the river, and quietly watched them leave.

Ganymede stepped towards him. "Hades?" Hades turned his head away as fast as he could, his shoulders raising against this farewell.

Dirty river water splattered up Ganymede's ankles as he ran to his side. His hand grabbed the god's elbow as he splashed through the puddles to look at him. With his back to the light, Hades' face seemed even darker and his eyes, like undersea lanterns, all the yellower. "What's wrong?" he asked. Hades stared at him as if he'd gone insane.

"Come on, kid," he said, his voice a croak, his heart resigned to loneliness all the worse because it had - for one moment - known something else, "You and I both know that thing's not here for me."

"Oh yes it is!" Ganymede gripped onto him tighter. "We're going together!"

"How?" Hades turned to him. "How does that make any sense?" Shaking Ganymede off, he pressed both of his hands to his chest. "I'm kinda very clearly supposed to be down here! Me and this stinking basement have kind of a matching vibe going on, you know?"

Up went Ganymede's brows and out cocked his hip. He folded his arms, crook between them, and his snakelike weight shifted.

"Where was this attitude before? Haven't you spent the last thousand years trying to get out of this stinking basement?"

Hades recoiled with a curl of his nose. "That's different!"

Ganymede's pupils flickered across the look in Hades' eyes. He snatched the god's hand and yanked them away from the light.

"What're you-?!" Hades offered no resistance.

"Hey!" he called out. "Sorry Herc - can I get a real quick aside?"

Hercules glanced up and travelled from Ganymede to the absurd image of Hades holding his hand.

"Hey, don't look at me," Hades replied, "Kid's got a grip like Atlas." Ganymede looped back and shoved him forwards.

"Hey! Still your boss!"

He popped his head around Hades and gave Herc a broad, admittedly dazzling grin. "So," he began, "My friend here wanted to say something - would you mind hearing him out?"

"What." Hades glanced down at him but Hercules, whose day couldn't get much weirder, left his father propped against the wall of the riverbank and approached them in bewilderment.

"I mean..." he said, "It better be good, but sure."

Ganymede rested a hand on Hades' back, while Hades glared at the stupid eighteen-year-old bozo who'd cost him so much.

Did he feel guilt? Maybe not, because even now he felt pretty justified in trying to use any means necessary to get out of his prison. It was either kill this guy or spend eternity locked in the darkest reaches of known existence, and who wouldn't make that same call? But now, when those darkest reaches had been unlocked all by themselves, he couldn't bear to stand so close to the light.

So maybe it wasn't guilt he was feeling; maybe instead it was unworthiness. The wretched, forgotten god at the bottom of the world, the least favourite son and the least favourite brother, the tolerated blowhard - he didn't want to go up those steps because unlike those guys lounging about up there, he'd regrettably spent his whole life seething in resentment. He didn't want that resentment going up there. He didn't want his anger, his bitterness or his greed going up there. Instead, it seemed like a better deal for everyone involved if he stayed here. They'd have more fun without him.

"Hey, Herc," said Ganymede, noting that Hades seemed to have frozen, "Hades isn't a total dick all the way through, right? I mean... if it wasn't for him my life would be significantly worse."

"Really?" Hercules still seemed as though Pegasus had kicked him in the head, which was fair all things considered. But a smirk then spread across his face. It was hard to hold on to his own resentment in the face of so much warmth. "I guess you guys did help Mom, too."

Hades blinked at him in judgement and disbelief. Naive.

Hercules looked to Ganymede, then to Hades. Taking a deep breath, he strode forward and held out his hand. "Thanks for... being a part of all of this."

Hades stared at the hand. "What're you, nuts?" A small hand tugged at his robe.

"Take it!" Ganymede gave him an ineffective shove.

He slapped their hands together. There was no show this time, no divine pact or any bargains to be sealed, but nevertheless something shifted. His eyes widened. A little warmth crept into his heart. When it did, it allowed him to maybe feel a little bit sorry for himself. Though he was well aware, and always had been, of what had been stolen from him - he'd spent so many years seething over what he 'should' have had - he'd never really grieved. He had always despised himself too much to realise that what he deserved wasn't material power or position, but gentleness that had never been given to him. What he really did deserve, he'd never dared ask for. And he'd always thought it would come at a cost.

The moment he admitted that maybe he was sad - deeply, grievously sad - it was safe to admit that maybe the kid wasn't so bad after all.

Agony and relief hit him all at the same time, and finally he managed to say what Ganymede had wanted him to say - and he meant every word.

"Look, Herc - can I call you Herc? - that whole... Olympus immortality... baby-killing... accidentally-dropping-a-column-on-Meg thing... all of it..." He took a deep breath, but pride had never really been his vice (he could grovel like a champion) so the words came... relatively easy. "I'm... sorry. If we ever did a redo, I'd try to be a little less of a jerk."

Ganymede, still poking out from behind Hades' elbow, looked to Herc. "Good enough?"

Hercules let out a baffled laugh. "Good enough."

All the heavens seemed to ring out as Ganymede's bright laugh filled the air, and he pushed Hades' back to steer him towards the staircase.

Ringing filled the air, and as the rest of the heavens looked down, the hems of their grey uniforms glowed gold. The light swept up like a candle flame burning parchment, eradicating the old to replace it with something new.

Ganymede let out an ugly squawk as Hades swung him up into the air, sparkles of gold trailing behind him.

"Look at you, kid!!" cried Hades.

He landed, laughing, back onto his feet. Eyes dancing, he spread his arms and gestured at his best friend. "Look at you!" Their robes were white, trimmed with gold, brighter than Olympus and wholly, totally their own.

Light burst from beneath the sash of Hades' robe.

"Woah!" He plunged his hand beneath his collar and yanked it out. Ganymede's thread of life, the twisted sprig of twine taped together in the middle, shone between his fingers. Bright cackling erupted behind them.

"It's about time!" came Lachesis' voice.

Three twisted old hags rushed so playfully to their sides that they practically danced. Dressed no longer in black robes but in Hawaiian shirts and sandals, they looked ready for their hard-won vacation. Clotho plucked the string from Hades' fingers and pulled out a golden ball of yarn so bright that it seemed to be a miniature version of the door itself. She tucked it in, nice and safe.

"Now!" she proclaimed with excitement, "Back to where you belong!" With a smile so profound that her toothless mouth looked almost beautiful, she tossed it up into the air like a basketball. The ball of all the world's immortal souls flew up into the air, into the stream of souls, and unravelled into one long, glowing thread. The current of spirits tugged it away as it spun on and on.

"Good job, Hades," croaked Atropos. Hades blinked down at her.

She clapped him on the arm, and then they ran for it. Ganymede had never seen three old women move so fast - they raced like children up the golden steps. He let out a bubble of laughter, as Hades stared in a sort of happy bewilderment.

The god's hair flickered to a golden yellow. Ganymede snickered.

"That's brave, going blond at your age."

Hades spoke to him with an endless and abiding love in his chest. "Shut up, kid."

The bugle sounded as Hermes - also in white again - flew up into the air. The light grew brighter in excitement, and Hera called out in joy, "We're ready!" Hermes swept down to do what he had wanted to do so many times before. As she gave her son one final kiss farewell, he dove for her, lifted her up into his arms, and hurtled towards the light. He had so many stars to show her.

Ganymede looped his arm through Hades' and set his crook onto the first step. "Okay, team!" he called, with a wide and stunning smile, "Let's go!"

At the very top step the Minotaur threw back his head. His bellow shook the canyon with gratitude and the closest thing to a laugh Ganymede had ever heard him make - the closest thing to a song.