He didn’t know how long he had been in the darkness. Time wasn’t an easy notion for an immortal, but the lack of movement or company made time interminable. His eyes were covered by a thick blindfold. His feet chained, he could barely move and Pluto’s power kept him from porting away. Hermes knew when he was stuck. He just didn’t like to admit it.
He was nothing if not a trickster. Caelus and Melinoe’s plan seemed like a gas and a half, a way to stick it to the gods that always looked down on him as a lowly messenger. He would have reveled in Pluto, Zeus and Poseidon brought to their knees. After centuries of their ridicule, he wanted nothing more than to stand over them and spit down in their faces.
But Caelus had betrayed him and nearly killed him. Then he abandoned the battlefield and left Hermes to face the consequences. Pluto didn’t waste time in sentencing him to the dark despair of his new existence. He doubted his wife’s daughter suffered as dread a consequence despite her role in recruiting him to the plot.
She was on his list now. Hers was just another name for him to one day stand over and torture.
In the distance, he heard movement. His ears immediately perked up and he gazed around the room as if he could actually see anything. He didn’t know how long it had been since he had any contact with anyone. The silence had played tricks on his mind. Even a god could hear voices.
For a moment, he thought the noises were also in their head. But as he heard the continued fall of steps, he realized this was no fantasy. A visitor was coming. He didn’t know why or who, but at this point Hermes didn’t care. He would accept Pluto’s torture if it meant contact with another being, god or man.
He heard the creak of a door opened in the distance. His eyes went blind as light flooded into the room for the first time in forever.
Heavy footfalls echoed across the floor. He couldn’t make out the figure as his eyes adjusted, but he was broad-chested, almost impossibly so. His massive frame featured no fat, but was the build of a man that could lift the very world.
“Atlas?”
“Nay, half-brother. But it seems you and I have much to say to one another.”
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