#hermes!reader

Tw : yandere themes, obsession, talk of pain, influcting pain, grafic explinations, devotion

Read at Your own risk

If You liked this ideas please let me know i was thinking of writing for a Male circe and Male Penelope too!

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Medus had long forgotten the warmth of touch.

His island was carved from curses—salt-bitten cliffs and jagged ruins, wrapped in a silence so deep it seemed to stretch into the bones of the earth. Nothing living set foot here without turning to stone. Nothing dared.

The gods had made sure of that.

He hated them for it—hated their cruelty, their false mercy, their endless games played from gilded thrones. He hated the messengers they sent even more—spineless little creatures who flinched beneath his gaze, dropping letters at the edge of the ruins before fleeing back to the skies.

They always ran.

Until you.

—

The first time you arrived, Medus tried to kill you.

You had landed lightly on the sun-bleached stones, wings flickering at your temples—half-folded in a way that shielded your eyes without him needing to warn you.

Clever little thing.

He had risen from the shadows, serpents writhing around his head, venom pooling on his tongue—already whispering the curse that would crack your fragile body into marble.

Then you laughed.

It was a low, lilting sound—like water trickling through ancient cracks.

“You always try to kill the ones who bring you good news?”

His breath caught, the curse stalling on his lips.

No one ever laughed at him.

No one ever dared.

—

He let you leave that day, half-convinced you would never come back.

But you did—again and again, always bringing small scrolls wrapped in fine thread. Letters from gods who still deigned to remember him. News of the world he had been cast out from.

You never looked him in the eye—always tilting your head just so, letting your wings flick down to hide the sharp glint of your gaze.

He hated that.

Hated the way you always kept that delicate barrier between you—just enough to protect yourself, never quite enough to be considered fear.

He wanted to see your eyes.

He wanted to see if they would widen in terror when they met his.

—

At first, he left offerings out of spite.

Small things—a bowl of honey, a few olives placed at the edge of the ruins. It was meant as mockery, a bitter echo of the old rites he no longer believed in.

But when you found them, you only smirked—running a feather-light finger along the rim of the bowl, tilting your head in that lazy, knowing way.

“You’re not as heartless as they say,” you murmured.

He crushed the next offering beneath his heel.

—

Medus hated the way you moved—always circling just beyond reach, light-footed and flickering.

You played with him.

Teasing, grinning, always one step ahead—like a little golden snake winding between his ribs.

He should have turned you to stone the moment you set foot on his island.

Instead, he began to wait for you.

He would watch the sky for the glint of wings, breath catching in his throat when he saw you flitting low over the cliffs—always arriving at dusk, when the light bled gold over the rocks.

He hated how the silence of the island felt heavier when you left.

He hated the way his fingers would itch to touch you—to feel the soft brush of feathers against his cursed skin.

—

The first time he prayed, he didn’t even realize what he was doing.

He caught himself whispering your name into the dark—soft, trembling, a plea buried beneath layers of venom and spite.

He offered figs the next day.

Then wine.

Then amber beads strung onto a thin chain.

You found them without fail—always tracing your fingers over the little offerings, never quite smiling.

“Careful,” you had murmured once, wings flicking in the dim light. “A god might mistake this for devotion.”

He clenched his fists so tightly his nails bit into his palms.

—

The worst part was how quickly you softened him.

You filled the silence without ever really speaking—sprawling on sun-warmed stones, humming half-forgotten hymns beneath your breath. You told him stories of the outside world, of gods bickering on Olympus and mortals spinning their little lives beneath the stars.

He pretended not to listen.

But he always did.

—

One evening, he found you napping beneath the crumbling pillars of the temple.

Your wings had folded low over your face—shrouding your eyes even in sleep. The soft rise and fall of your breath stirred the dust around you, casting faint golden motes into the air.

Medus crouched beside you without thinking—drawn to the warmth of your body, the faint scent of rain and sunlight clinging to your skin.

He reached out—fingers hovering inches from the curve of your temple, the fine feathers brushing against his knuckles.

He could have killed you then.

He should have.

Instead, he curled one feather between his fingers—tucking it carefully into the folds of his robe like a sacred relic.

He sat beside you until the sun dipped below the cliffs, letting the ache beneath his ribs hollow him out.

—

After that, he began to crave your presence.

He left offerings without thinking—pomegranates split open on flat stones, delicate chains strung with amber, bowls of honey tucked into shaded crevices.

He stopped praying.

He started pleading.

He dreamed of curling his fingers around your delicate throat—of pressing his lips to the curve of your wing where it met your brow.

He dreamed of breaking you.

He dreamed of keeping you.

—

“You’re a cruel little thing,” he rasped one evening, watching you toy with a handful of amber beads he had left for you.

Your wings flicked, eyes hidden behind soft feathers.

“And you’re lonely.”

His breath caught, venom burning on the back of his tongue.

He hated how easily you unraveled him—how you cut through centuries of bitterness like they were nothing at all.

He wondered what your eyes looked like.

He wondered if you would smile like that if you knew how badly he wanted to see them—if you knew how often he imagined pinning you beneath him, forcing your wings apart to drink in the sight of them as the curse carved you into stone.

He wondered if you would fight.

He hoped you would.

—

One day, he would break you.

He would strip the wings from your temples and press them into amber—his little golden creature, preserved forever.

Until then, he would wait.

He would leave offerings at dusk, whispering your name into the dark.

His name was whispered in reverence, carried by salt-laden winds across marble halls. The servants admired his patience, the suitors mocked it, and the bards spun songs of his unwavering heart—how he wove by day and unraveled by night, waiting for a husband swallowed by distant seas.

They saw the devotion carved into his silence.

None of them saw the cracks running beneath the surface.

But you had found them.

—

You came on wings of quicksilver—feathers flicking at your temples, golden sandals brushing across the stone. Your laughter echoed in corridors long emptied of joy, and your smile cut through the heavy silence like a knife through damp linen.

At first, you were only a messenger.

Another god’s servant sent to remind him of promises made under the weight of his crown. You brought letters from Odysseus—brief scraps of parchment, the ink smudged and hurried.

Penelios never read them anymore.

His fingers traced the folds of the parchment, but his eyes stayed locked on your wings.

No one had touched him in years.

No one had looked at him the way you did—half amused, half pitying, as if you already knew what he had buried beneath the loom and the hours stretched endlessly across marble floors.

“So patient,” you teased, leaning against the cool stone walls. “You must love him very much.”

He never answered.

You never pushed.

You only waited.

—

It was the silence that broke him in the end.

The long nights with nothing but the loom’s steady rhythm to fill the hollow ache beneath his ribs.

He began to wait for you—more than he ever waited for Odysseus.

The sound of your wings became the measure of his days. He learned the flick of feathers against stone, the whisper of wind stirred by your flight.

He left small offerings—honey tucked beneath folds of linen, feathers collected from birds in the garden. Not for the gods.

For you.

—

One night, when the moon hung low and Ithaca slept, he caught you lingering.

Your wings folded close against your temples, shadows pooling beneath the soft curve of each feather. For once, you looked... tired.

You didn’t tease him.

You only stood beneath the colonnade, arms crossed loosely, head tilted to the sky.

Penelios hated you for making him want.

Hated how his hands ached to reach for those wings—to count the feathers one by one, to feel the softness he dreamed of beneath his fingers.

“You should pray more,” you murmured without turning. “It would make the waiting easier.”

His throat closed around the ache rising inside him.

“I do pray.”

You glanced at him, sharp and knowing.

“To which god?”

He couldn’t answer.

You only smiled—like you already knew the truth.

—

The first time you found him crying, you thought it was for Odysseus.

You knelt beside him without a word, your wings half-unfurled to shield him from the cold night air. Your fingers brushed his hair, your voice softer than he had ever heard it.

“He will come home,” you whispered.

Penelios flinched beneath your touch—because it was not him he was crying for.

It was you.

It was the weight of longing pressing against his ribs until he could no longer breathe. It was the shame curling hot in his chest because he no longer cared if Odysseus ever returned.

All he wanted was this—your hands tangled in his hair, your feathers brushing against his skin.

He bit down on the sob rising in his throat and let you hold him in silence.

If you felt the way his breath caught each time your wings flicked, you said nothing.

—

After that night, he began to pray in earnest.

Not to Poseidon.

Not to Athena.

Only to you.

He left offerings where he knew you would find them—small bowls of honey on the windowsill, sprigs of lavender tucked beneath his pillow.

He never asked to touch your wings.

He only watched them—counted each feather like a sacred relic, traced their shimmer in his mind when sleep refused to come.

—

One dusk, he found you asleep in the garden—wings curled around your head like a living veil, golden lashes flickering against your cheeks.

He knelt beside you, heart hammering against his ribs.

He could have touched you then.

He could have traced his fingers along the curve of your feathers—hoarded their softness the way he hoarded every glimpse of you.

Instead, he left a bowl of honey at your side and walked away with his hands clenched into fists.

—

You woke to find the offering and smiled—slow and knowing, like you had felt his gaze lingering in the dark.

Your wings flicked, catching the sunlight.

He should have hated you for that, for the simple fact You are alive and not helping his husband back home

Instead, he began to leave offerings in secret—silent devotion wrapped in trembling hands.

Not prayers.

Promises.

—

If Odysseus ever returned, Penelios would unravel the loom thread by thread.

He would shatter every vow he had ever made beneath the weight of his name.

He would give up the kingdom, the crown, the songs woven around his waiting.

He would lay himself bare beneath your wings—silent and trembling, begging you to stay.

He would worship the curve of each feather, the breath of your laughter echoing in empty halls.

He would burn every letter from Odysseus.

He would let Ithaca crumble to dust.

And if the gods ever took you from him—

He would curse every star in the sky until Olympus itself cracked beneath the weight of his devotion.

You would never belong to him.

Tw : mention of killing, yandere themes, dark content

Read at Your own risk!

Yandere genderbend circe x hermes!reader

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The first time you landed on his island, Circe tried to kill you.

It was instinct—something feral and unthinking, a reaction to the unwelcome presence of another god invading his solitude. His staff had been raised, his lips had begun to form the words of a spell that would twist your form into something small and weak, something lesser.

But you had only laughed.

Not out of arrogance. Not out of defiance. But something light, something effortless.

A laugh like the sound of the wind through the trees, like the sea kissing the shore.

Like you belonged anywhere and everywhere.

And somehow, Circe had found his hand lowering.

Somehow, he had found himself listening when you spoke.

Somehow, you had stayed.

And then you had returned.

Again.

And again.

Bringing messages, trinkets, news of the outside world. Sometimes, you simply came to rest. To stretch your wings beneath the sun, golden and glimmering, an unnatural thing in a place like this, but beautiful all the same.

Circe had watched from a distance at first, wary, suspicious.

But time passed, and he found himself accustomed to you.

To the rustling of your wings.

To the way you smiled at the waves.

To the easy way you moved through his world without fear.

It was unnatural, how quickly you settled into his life.

How quickly he let you.

It took him far too long to realize that he had begun waiting for you.

That when the wind whispered of a visitor, he looked up hoping it would be you.

That he had begun offering things to you.

A goblet of fine wine. A meal prepared with his own hands. Trinkets left in the places you liked to sit.

It was subtle at first. Nothing you would question. Nothing he would have to acknowledge.

And when you took them—when you smiled, accepted, thanked him with that easy warmth that no other god had ever given him—he felt something simmer.

It was not enough.

It would never be enough.

And then, one day, as you stretched in the sun, arms raised above your head, you sighed and spoke.

“I pity poor Penelope.”

Circe did not care about mortal women. Did not care for the stories of the weak things that men left behind. But he knew that name.

The wife of Odysseus.

The mortal that Odysseus had abandoned.

He said nothing, only watched you, only waited.

You looked at him then, smiling, eyes thoughtful.

“She waits for him, you know. It’s been years, but she waits. I try to help Odysseus when I can, speed his journey along. It’s the least I can do.”

Something snapped.

It was a quiet thing, a slow-burning thing, but it was there, sinking into his skin like poison.

You—his Little careless bird—helped him?

Odysseus? That wretched man?

A king, a warrior, a fool?

Circe said nothing, only hummed in response. But later, when you flew off, when your wings spread wide, catching the sun, he followed.

Not in body.

But in magic.

In whispers and scrying spells, in the soft pull of the world that told him where you would be.

And when he saw you laughing with Odysseus, offering guidance, speaking to the man as if he were worthy of your presence—

Circe ached.

With jealousy. With rage. With the unbearable knowledge that you would always be free.

That if you wished to leave him, you would.

That if you wished to never return, he would have no way to stop you.

No way—

Until he saw it.

A single, delicate feather, knocked loose by the wind, drifting from your wings to the earth below.

Circe’s hand shot out, grasping it before it could be lost.

Soft. Perfect. Yours.

It would be enough.

It would be everything.

And so he worked, pouring over ancient texts, whispering incantations into the dead of night, weaving a spell so deep, so tangled with fate that even you—a god of motion, of freedom, of sky and wind and sun-would not escape him.

You would never know.

Never notice the invisible thread that tied you back to him, that pulled you closer when you strayed too far.

Never know how often he watched, how often he waited.

And when you returned, unaware of the magic that now bound you, Circe smiled.

For the first time in an eternity, he felt at ease.

Until you spoke of Odysseus again.

Until you sighed and said, “I hope he makes it home soon.”

And Circe realized—

Odysseus had to die.

Not just Odysseus.

All of them.

Every foolish mortal that stood beside him, that traveled with him, that took your time, your words, your attention.

He would turn them into pigs.

He would end them.

And when he was done—

You would only have him. And who knows, with the free time that You now had maybe he could finally, finally take It a step further, yes...

He could provide everything You wished for in this island, he's sure anyone would love to settle down here...

Tw : yandere, mentions of Hurt, idea of death, yandere themes!

Read at Your own risk!

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Night’s Claim on the Wind

The night was young, deep, and endless.

Nyx had watched mortals for eons, listened to their whispered confessions beneath the stars, and seen their passions flare and die like fleeting embers. They were nothing but echoes in his eternity, brief distractions at best.

Yet, tonight, something caught his attention.

A mortal woman with wild, wavy brown hair stood in the middle of a moonlit field, her hands clenched into fists, her voice trembling with fury.

"I saw you!" she snapped, rage spilling from her like waves crashing against jagged rocks. "I saw you with another!"

A red-haired nymph lounged against a tree, smirking at her with lazy amusement. He didn’t deny it.

Nyx scoffed from his place in the shadows. Mortals. So predictable. "So pathethic. A mere mortal, thinking that that war crazed idiot will be a perfect husband"

He was about to leave when a soft fluttering noise caught his ear.

A laugh—light, teasing, like the wind playing through golden fields.

His gaze snapped to a figure perched on a nearby branch.

She was smiling.

A woman with golden wings sprouting from her temples, delicate yet strong.

She was watching the lovers’ quarrel with undisguised amusement, kicking her legs in the air like a child entertained by a street performance.

Nyx recognized her immediately.

A daughter of Zeus. A messager god. Or better said THE messager one, always leaving feathers.

He narrowed his gaze. He had no love for Olympians. Their meddling was endless, their arrogance unbearable.

Yet, as he turned to leave, he heard it again—

That laugh.

It followed him into the darkness.

He told himself she didn’t matter.

That she was nothing more than another winged annoyance flitting through the realms, barely worth his notice.

But she kept appearing.

Whenever she descended into the Underworld, guiding souls with the practiced ease of a true messenger, he would catch glimpses of golden feathers fluttering in the dim torchlight.

At first, she said nothing to him.

Then, she started to linger.

A word here. A joke there.

And then—the children.

Hypnos and Thanatos, his twin sons. The first, the god of sleep, constantly yawning and swaying on his feet. The second, the god of peaceful death, eternally brooding, watching everything with the intensity of an old soul trapped in a young body.

The first time she saw them, her wings twitched.

Then, she smiled.

"Look at you two," she had murmured, crouching down. "So small. Are you sure you’re gods?"

Thanatos scowled. "We’re not small!"

But she only laughed and stretched one golden wing out, letting the candlelight shimmer off the delicate feathers.

"Maybe not, but you are wingless," she said with a wink. "That means I could probably outfly you."

Thanatos crossed his arms, unimpressed. "I don’t need wings to collect souls."

"Maybe," she conceded. "But I could teach you to fly anyway. When your wings grow in."

Thanatos blinked, staring at her intently.

For a god of death, he rarely expressed wonder.

But at that moment, he did.

"Really?" he asked.

She nodded. "I promise."

It was the first time Nyx saw his son actually like someone.

And somehow, it irritated him.

More irritating still?

He found himself making sure the night was thickest when she traveled, so she would be safe.

And then IT came

Nyx felt the shift in the balance of power before it happened.

A disturbance in the heavens.

A threat.

To his son.

By the time he arrived, the scene was already set.

Zeus. A thunderbolt in his grip.

Hypnos. Small, trembling, clutching his tunic.

And her.

She was on her knees, wings wrapped tightly around the child, shielding him completely.

Her golden feathers shook with each breath, but she did not move.

She had closed her eyes, waiting for the strike.

She was prepared to die.

For his son.

For him.

Something broke in Nyx at that realization.

He had lived longer than the stars. He had seen civilizations rise and fall. He had never once faltered.

But now—

Now, he felt something dangerous.

Something unshakable.

And he would not allow it to be taken from him.

Nyx descended.

The night followed.

Darkness swallowed the sky, pressing down like the weight of the abyss itself.

The thunderbolt in Zeus’ grip flickered.

And then, in a voice that made even the heavens tremble, Nyx spoke:

"Never touch my child."

The words cracked through the silence, more powerful than any curse.

Zeus froze.

Nyx turned his head slightly, his emerald gaze locking onto the trembling girl still shielding Hypnos.

And then, with all the certainty of fate itself, he declared—

"Or your daughter, in this matter."

Silence.

Zeus' grip on the thunderbolt tightened.

Nyx's lips curled in wicked satisfaction.

"It’s a good thing that you are here, Zeus."

The King of the Gods twitched. He knew what was coming.

But it was already too late.

Nyx’s smirk deepened.

"Because this is the only time I will tell you: Your daughter has proven herself a dutiful and loving mother. Therefore, I want to make her my wife."

The air stilled.

The weight of his words settled over the heavens.

And then, with finality—

"And I will make her my wife."

Zeus’ face twisted in barely concealed rage, but he did not strike.

He would not dare.

Nyx turned back to his soon-to-be wife, his fingers grazing the trembling edge of her wings.

And as she looked up at him, eyes wide, breath uneven—The shadows wrapped around them both, pulling them into the eternal night—

And enjoy!

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We have talked about hermes!reader, lively, lovely, someone that mortals and gods alike love, but who was She before She became a messager too, what was the life before She learned the tricks from her father, Hermes himself.

Even the strongest were once kids, even the strongest were once frail, and that's how fate comes and goes.

.

.

.

In the shadowed hours before dawn, the air shimmered softly as Hermes crossed the veil between the immortal realm and the mortal world. Gods were forbidden to tread where their mortal children drew their first breath—an ancient law to keep the fragile threads of fate untangled. But Hermes, the fleet-footed messenger, the god of boundaries and secrets, could not resist.

His heart hammered against his chest as he slipped quietly into the dim room where she lay. The flickering light of a single candle cast trembling shadows on the walls. There, swaddled in thin cloth and silence, was his daughter—so tiny, so impossibly frail.

Hermes knelt beside her cradle, his gaze falling first on the faintest hint of wings at her temples—tiny, translucent, so delicate they seemed woven from moonlight and breath. Wings like his own, but smaller, weaker, like fragile leaves barely clinging to a branch in a storm.

The god who had outrun time itself felt a cold knot twist in his stomach. Here was his blood and breath, and yet she seemed to hover on the edge of the world, quiet as a whisper, as still as the dawn itself. He reached out with a trembling hand, cradling her fragile form against his chest.

In that moment, the might of Olympus, the cunning of Hermes the trickster, the speed that bent the wind—all seemed useless against the frailty of a single mortal child.

He held her close, feeling the rapid, faint beat of her heart beneath his fingertips. A flicker of fear, deep and raw, gripped him—the helplessness of a god facing the mortal fragility of life. Would she make it through the night? Would she live to run free beneath the skies he so loved?

His breath hitched, and for the first time, the messenger of gods was silent, his usual mischief and lightness replaced by a heavy, trembling stillness.

"Please," he whispered, voice breaking, breathless as if the very act of speaking would drain him of strength. "Give me... a sound. A flutter, a cry, anything. Show me you’re here. I need you to live."

He pressed his forehead against her soft temple, where those fragile wings fluttered faintly, barely there. "You have to live. You must live—not for the gods, not for the mortals, but for me. So you can help me deliver the messages no one else can carry. So your wings, small as they are, will carry the weight of the impossible."

His fingers trembled as he wrapped his arms tighter around her, the god of transitions and boundaries feeling the unbearable weight of hope and fear all at once.

"For you, I will break the rules, cross the lines I am forbidden to cross. I will be here, silent and unseen, until you can fly on your own."

And so, in the stillness before dawn, Hermes, the swift-footed god, held his daughter close, trembling with the fragile, fierce hope that she would survive the night—his first and most precious secret, delicate as the wings at her temples, fragile as life itself.

.

.

.

The candle’s flame danced low, as if it, too, was holding its breath. Outside, the wind whispered against the shutters, carrying with it the hush of a world not yet awake. But inside the quiet room, time seemed suspended—held still by a god’s arms and a child’s shallow, fragile breaths.

Hermes sat on the edge of the cot, still cradling his daughter as if she might vanish into mist if he let go. His fingers, calloused from centuries of carrying staff and scroll, were now trembling, barely brave enough to touch the warm, too-small curve of her back. She hadn't moved, not once, since he had arrived—not a cry, not a stir, not even a twitch of her tiny, translucent wings.

He rocked her gently, not even noticing the rhythm in his own motion. The words that slipped from his mouth were barely words—just sounds, scraps of prayer not meant for Olympus.

“You can’t go,” he murmured against her hair. “Not yet. You haven’t even seen the sky. You don’t know what the wind feels like on your face, or how fast we can run together. You haven’t laughed yet. You have to laugh, little one. That’s the rule. You can’t go until you laugh.”

And then he felt it—that sudden stillness in the air, colder than before. No rustle, no sound, just absence. A silence so clean and deep it scraped across the bones.

Hermes didn’t stiffen.

He didn’t turn.

He simply pressed his daughter closer to his chest, his chin resting lightly on the crown of her head, and whispered, voice raw and near-breaking:

“Thanatos, please.”

Behind him, the shadows shifted, deepened. The air seemed to draw itself inward, holding its own breath. The god of death had come.

Thanatos had entered countless rooms, dim and sorrowful, but none where a god had already arrived ahead of him. None where the air clung not with despair, but with trembling hope. And never had he seen Hermes—clever, quick-tongued, ever-smiling Hermes—like this.

Hermes didn’t look back at him until that moment.

When he did, it wasn’t with defiance or fury.

It was something far worse.

It was pain.

Unmasked. Unhidden. The pure, sharp ache of a father staring into the face of the inevitable.

Thanatos faltered.

Not out of fear—death does not fear gods or men—but from something else. A quiet understanding passed between them, wordless and heavy. This wasn’t a soul ready for passage. This wasn’t a life finished. This was a thread barely spun, and already fraying.

Hermes closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them again, and with a voice like wind through autumn leaves, he spoke once more:

“Just… not tonight.”

Thanatos lingered.

Then, without a word, he stepped back into the darkness—and was gone.

Hermes let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and it came out shaky, broken.

He held his daughter tighter, rocking her again, gently, as though movement alone could keep the silence from stealing her away.

The candle’s flame flickered once, and steadied.

And far away, above the clouds, not even the stars dared speak.

.

.

.

The sun had not yet risen when Hermes appeared at the threshold of Apollo’s sanctuary. The god of light and prophecy sat in stillness, golden eyes half-lidded in the half-light of early dawn. But even before Hermes spoke, Apollo knew he had come not as a herald, not as a brother of Olympus, but as a father.

Hermes stepped into the chamber, his arms still wrapped protectively around the bundle of cloth and quiet breath, as if the act of letting go would undo her completely.

"Apollo," Hermes said, his voice stripped of its usual quicksilver charm. It was hoarse, hollow. "Tell me what to do."

Apollo looked at him, and then down at the child in his arms—so small, so pale, and nearly motionless, save for the faint flutter of translucent wings at her temples. Even Apollo, healer and god of the sun, felt a twist of unease in his chest.

"She won’t last the day,” Hermes said, almost choking on the words. “I’ve held her all night. I… I don’t know what else to do."

There was a pause—long and ancient, like the silence before an oracle speaks.

“I could give her ambrosia,” Apollo said quietly, stepping forward. “A draught of the purest kind. It would change her. Burn away the mortal weakness. She would become one of us.”

Hermes stiffened.

“That’s not always how it works.”

Apollo didn’t deny it.

“She’s half-mortal. If her body rejects it—”

“She’ll die,” Apollo finished for him.

Hermes stared at his daughter, rocking her slightly, as if the movement alone could stall the choice. Her breathing was shallow, barely there. Even the soft flicker of her wings seemed to weaken.

“And if I do nothing,” he whispered, “Thanatos will take her anyway.”

And suddenly, he felt it again.

That chill in the air.

That impossibly still silence.

Thanatos was near.

He didn’t see him—didn’t need to. His presence was like a shadow behind the heart, never touching, but always near.

Hermes turned back to Apollo, desperation etched into every line of his face.

“Do it,” he said. “Now.”

Apollo nodded solemnly, retrieving a crystal vial glowing faintly with a pale golden light—the essence of the gods, the blood and breath of divinity.

Hermes took it with hands that shook. He hesitated only a second longer, cradling his daughter close and brushing his lips against her temple.

“Little one,” he breathed, “I hope you forgive me.”

He tipped the vial gently to her lips.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then she stirred. The faintest twitch of her fingers. A flutter of wings at her temples like sparks catching wind. Her eyes squeezed shut—and then her mouth opened—

And she wailed.

A loud, full-throated cry, wild and clear, the sound of life bursting into the world.

Hermes nearly collapsed.

He dropped to his knees, pressing her against his chest, his tears hot and unashamed as they spilled down his cheeks.

She was alive.

She was alive.

The sound of her crying filled the chamber like music, like prophecy fulfilled, like the wind rushing through the heavens after a long, dry silence.

Apollo stepped back, allowing the moment its space.

Hermes clutched her close, tears falling freely now.

“Thank you,” he whispered, to her, to Apollo, to the stars, to no one and everyone at once.

The god who once danced between realms and laughed at fate now wept for joy like a mortal man.

And behind them, unseen and silent, Thanatos turned and vanished—for now.

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