#ror hermes

'For those who wonder why we are all gathered here, Hermes here desires something, or should I say, someone, who cannot be his. Unless I allow it, and I will not.' he said the last word looking right in Hermes' eyes. The latter sighed.

'And why should I care about what you allow and do not?'

'It is simple, my Friend, I still live in (Name)'s mind, and as long as I do, it goes without saying she is mine.' he answered as if was patiently explaining something to a child.

'But I don't want this!' someone loudly said.

Everyone turned around. Here you were, wearing a white tunic as well. Hermes felt his cheeks burn and heart beating even faster. You were gorgeous, the clothing highlighted perfectly your curves, you had a silver necklace with emeralds. Your hair was pulled back in a loose braid with golden threads intertwined.

Both of you had the same reflex, to rush towards the other. But in an instant, Apollo was facing you, and his five friends were facing Hermes, blocking the way. Apollo grabbed your hand.

'My Dear, I do not make the rules.' he said with a cheerful voice before adding with a teasing smile. 'Actually, it kind of looks like yours. Why else would that poor soul undergo all of this otherwise?'

You were at a loss for words, and lowered your head. But at the moment you wanted to admit your ex was right, Hermes approached you. His so-called court had helped him push away Apollo's, and he was now by your side.

'I know.' Hermes said with a gentle gaze and a soft voice. 'You want to be with me, but you are afraid. But I am not like them, (Name). I will not constantly yell at you, weaponize my suffering, refuse to take your opinion into account, put you second because of my work, consider you inferior, be cold to you... '

He gently grabbed you by your waist with one hand and caressed your cheek with the other. You melted at the contact and smiled.

Apollo interrupted you with a chuckle.

'Neither would I, (Name). Furthermore, do you remember what you gained thanks to me? You cannot leave just like that.'

Furious and triggered, you turned your head and glared at him.

'Yes I can! All your attention and praises mean nothing if you cannot be faithful!' You spat with rancor.

'This is something we can work out.' Apollo said, raising his hands as if he wanted to mediate.

'No!' you said again, louder, firmer, before gazing at Hermes again. 'I choose peace of mind. I choose you.' you said with a sweet smile.

'Yet here we still are.' Apollo noted, shrugging.

'Then I accept whatever trial you will come up with.' Hermes said, looking right through Apollo's eyes before looking back at you, with a softer expression.

Your ex cocked a brow. 'Very well then. I challenge you to... A duel of lyre!'

As he finished his sentence, two golden lyres appeared in the air, each close to the two challengers. Both men grabbed their respective instrument. They inspected the objects, before staring at each other with a defiant expression.

Apollo was the one who started playing. He chose to play all of the Brandenburg Concertos, swaying and dancing in the process. His sisters and friends were cheering and clapping, which encouraged him even more. When he was done, he provocatively glanced at Hermes, as a sign that it was his turn.

With a cheerful and serene smile, Hermes stared at him, accepting his silent taunt, and began to play Air on the G string. Siegfried and Perseus were surprised by his outstanding performance, while Brunhilde and Athena knowingly grinned. Hera closed her eyes and swayed to the melody. Apollo's sisters and friends were surprised by Hermes' virtuosity.

After he resumed playing, he saluted Apollo and his people. And when everyone thought he was finished, he raised his head and confidently smiled before playing again. This time, it was 40 Sinfonie by Mozart. Everyone, his enemies included, was mesmerized by his skills. His eyes were closed, he was still smiling, his fingers expertly pinched the strings. When he was through, he bowed deeply again.

However, Hermes was far from done. As he rose, he began to play again, and chose the Danse Macabre by Saint-Saëns. This time, Hermes was not smiling anymore, and kept his focus on the strings. Then, to his allies' surprise, Apollo and Aphrodite started to sway to the rhythm. At first discreetly, then more and more vibrant as the music went on. Artemis widened her eyes upon seeing this, then turned around and saw Leonidas and Geirölul swaying as well, though not as much as the two others.

When he was done, this time, Hermes raised his head and stared at Apollo. Several violins appeared out of nowhere and began to play Apotheosis by Stravinsky. The latter widened his eyes and stared at his foe in pure shock, before collapsing, without a word. This was his silent surrender.

With a satisfied smile, Hermes turned his gaze towards you. Here you were, grinning and glowing literally and figuratively. Both of you marched towards each other before sealing the end of these tribulations with a passionate kiss. When you parted, Hermes cupped your face and looked at you in pure adoration.

Three years later

Dear Brunhilde, we hope you are doing well. Please find here a gift for little Aslaug, and a cordial invitation to our wedding, which is set on June 21st at 11 at...

Brunhilde widened her eyes upon reading her old friend's letter, barely paying attention to the giant stuffed rabbit she would later give to her daughter. Hopefully my Greek is not too rusty, she thought. Plus it has been so long, why not go there.

Hermes begins his walk. In a similar fashion to his current opponent's, he wears a long white coat with wool lining and big winter boots he is not used to, as the northernmost place he has been to was Stratford-upon-Avon. The walk is strange, to him it feels more like dipping his feet and ankles in the snow. But he has little time to adjust, as he suddenly feels trumendous pain on his neck. Simo, hidden somewhere, is shooting at him.

Hermes sighs in pain and does his best to hide. But another bullet reaches his hand. Starting to panic, Hermes looks for a shelter. There is none to speak of, but he sees a small mount, maybe one meter tall and runs to hide behind it. In the process, he gets another shot in the thigh. Restraining himself from cursing, he lies behind the small mount.

To make it more complicated, the wind begins to blow harder and gets colder. A muffled sound gets Hermes' attention. One of Simo's unforgiving shots, blocked by this snowy protection. Hermes inspects his wounds. They are not deep, but the blows to come will likely make some more serious damage to him the more he gets closer. Then another muffled bullet noise. Then another. Then another, which makes the mount begin to crack.

'Jesus Christ...' Hermes muttered.

He barely finished his sentence that he saw snow moving, as if something was crawling. Surprised, he repeated himself. This time, the snow takes the form of an arm with something that vaguely looks like a hand. Understanding what he can and has to do, Hermes sits up.

'Our Father who art in Heaven...'

A small, snowy figure rose from the snowy ground. Hermes carries on to recite the prayer, and starts to move forward. The more he goes on, the more figures arrive, taller, more precise. They have a human form, some wings. At first five, the number grows until they are enough to make a garrison. They circled Hermes and shield him from the snow and Simo's shots. Hermes keeps chanting Our Father, Hail Mary, and all the prayers he can remember. Finally, he spots a small red house.

When he enters the house, the angelic figures stop themselves, wave altogether, before disappearing. Inside, Simo is nowhere in sight. Hermes goes in several rooms ; the inside of the house is bigger than the outskirts suggested. On the ground can be seen several decorations, set in the wooden ground.

Suddenly, Hermes hears your voice. You plead Simo, urge him to talk to you. You confess your admiration for his resilience, his seriousness, you tell him you feel that is what was missing in your life. An anchor, a rock.

But Simo's voice interrupts yours, low, calm and unbothered. He has estimated he cannot be that person to you. He finds happiness in simple things, hiking, hunting, tending to his dogs. He knows this is not your world and that he cannot oblige you to live like this. The conclusion is simple, direct: both of you parting ways is the natural outcome.

His words are met with deep sobs. Hermes cannot accept that, he wants to find you, to comfort you. He keeps going until he finds a white room. It is mainly filled with a frozen lake with beautiful snowflakes glowing on the thin ice. In its center, it is broken, and the pieces formed some more gorgeous snowflakes floating on the surface.

There stood Simo, the rifle still in hand. He acknowledges Hermes' presence with a slow, long nod. Then, as if he had read Hermes' mind, he adds: 'She is not there, but you will find her soon. Move forward.'

Hermes complies and marches towards him. He steps on one of the snowflakes, which leads him where the owner of the house is standing. Once they are face to face, Hermes gazes down and Simo lifts his head and holds his gaze.

Qin laughs at what he regards as boldness, but adds those insolent words would not go unpunished, without disappearing.

Hermes lets out a small sigh before starting his ascension. He is not used to climbing, so the first steps are him making sure he has steady bases. His grip is strong, his legs are tensed by the focus.

As he gets used to the ascension, he eventually feels the sunlight and fresh breeze again. The top is still far, but a short glance below shows him what he has done so far.

He barely has time to smile as an arrow pierced the air, close to his ear, before disappearing in the void. Hermes widened his eyes and looked up. Some more arrows arrive. Thankfully, the aim is approximate.

Hermes manages to protect himself, then, by making a random movement, he finds out he can command the rock: the one above his head moves forward and shields him from a flow of arrows.

This new setting allows a good defense, and even makes the grip on the mountain easier. But this cannot last forever, so Hermes takes a risk. He looks at where the arrows come from. He cannot see Qin, but the crossbow which shoots an infinity of arrows.

Hermes takes a deep breath, makes a move which separate several stones from the mountain and throws them in the air, aiming at the crossbow.

They are too small and the aiming is not accurate enough. So he tried bigger, with less ammunition and repeated it. Better. With a sweaty smile, Hermes creates three more and manipulates them in the air. They successfully destroy the crossbow.

Finally, Hermes reaches the spot where the crossbow was, and goes past. He keeps a steady rhythm, sometimes helping himself with the rock moving ability.

But as if it was a sign it was too easy, suddenly Hermes ears a sound, as if knives were clashing. He raised his head and barely has the time to create a rock roof to protect him from the swords Qin is pouring out.

Hermes sighs, but notices that unlike the arrows who were shot one by one and had different paths, the swords are like a cascade. So he takes a deep breath, creates himself a bigger step so that he stands there on his two feet, three walls for extra support, then he takes his time to strengthen his roof, then clenches his fists and lifts them in the air.

This proved to be effective and the cabin ascends quickly. But the more time passes, the more swords fall. Hermes notices the swords still damage his roof. He does his best to keep it together, his instinct tells him if he stops, there may be even more swords that would destroy his cabin.

The focus makes him sweat hard, but is proven effective, as he manages to see he has almost reached the top. With one last movement, the cabin gains speed and suddenly, they are above the top. Swiftly, Hermes casts away the rock walls and lands on the plateau, facing a smiling Qin Shi Huang.

The latter has shiny black armor and a spear. Hermes lowers his eyes and sees a halberd. 'I feel generous, I will let you have that, and let you try - he put the emphasis on this word with a smirk - to touch me.'

Hermes quickly grabs the weapon, and immediately strikes with his weapon. 'I do not worry too much, as you were unable to hit me with any of your weapons.'

Qin dodges and smiles. 'You know, this is different this time, you will not be able to defend yourself with some earth magic tricks. This-' he interrupted himself before striking his foe and hurting his shoulder, '...is more physical.'

Hermes restrains himself from cursing. Qin attacks again and Hermes has a hard time: the spear's strikes are both powerful and fast, and maintain him mid range. But fortunately, the blade of the halberd is thicker and heavier, which allows a good deflection of Qin's blows.

Slowly but surely, Hermes manages to block the spear's strikes, then aims at Qin's right leg, who loses his balance. Hermes uses this time to destroy the wooden shaft by putting all his might in his stomp, he then grabs the tip and throws it away. But Qin manages to regain some balance and punches Hermes' jaw.

Qin also breaks the shaft of his enemy's weapon. However, Hermes still has in his hand its upper part with the blade. Now that Qin is close, Hermes lungs at him with what he has left of the halberd and strikes every spot he can. Arms, belly, chest, neck, until the armor crumbles.

The shock of the strikes makes Qin lose his balance and collapse. In a last furious, raging blow, Hermes pierces his left shoulder, nailing him to the ground.

'So?' Hermes says, panting heavily. Qin gives him a painful smile. 'Fair enough, this is the end.' Then another voice can be heard. Yours, this time. You are crying and speaking to Qin Shi Huang. You tell him he makes you feel worthless, incapable of taking care of anything.

The latter cocks a brow, but nevertheless complies. As he arrives at Tesla's level, a loud noise can be heard. Right where Hermes was previously standing, a bronze orthodox cross had fallen. Tesla giggles and tells Hermes it was a sign he had to come, and enthusiastically starts to explain what he needs from him.

This carries on for what feels like hours, and for several other devices: an electric generator, a rotary converter, then the infamous Tesla coil. For all of these, Hermes dutifully listens, asks valid questions, even shares Tesla's enthusiasm.

But as time goes by, Hermes feels energy leaving him. His limbs get sore, his muscles tense. Another time he takes more time to follow Tesla, another cross falls close to where he was a few moments ago and injures his shoulder. Tesla shrugs and grabs Hermes' arm to lead him to the next experience.

Hermes yanks back his arm to tend to his bruised shoulder, but suddenly froze. Before them is a giant archery target. In the center, a human sized doll is tied. But Hermes looks closely and widens his eyes. The doll is actually a clone of himself.

Instinctively, Hermes turned around and jumped on Tesla. Good thing he did, because Tesla was aiming at the giant target what looked like electric arrows. Fortunately, the clash between the two men made the projectile deviate from its planned path and landed next to the doll's head and released one of the ropes.

As Hermes keeps fighting to restrain Tesla, the latter keeps trying to aim at the replica. He manages to shoot in its foot, and Hermes feels a tremendous pain at the same spot. Tesla uses this moment to aim again, but Hermes, gathering all his survival instinct, grabs his enemy's hair and headbuts him with all his might.

Tesla collapses on the ground but Hermes knows this will not be enough. He uses the little time he gave himself to find some rubber. He finds some gloves he forcefully put on a still hazy Tesla and some tape to keep them in places, before grabbing the very same ropes that restrained his double self.

Tesla pants and huffs at Hermes, blaming him for not letting properly finish this experiment, though he notes based on his injuries, he still got some data. Then suddenly the two men hear two voices, Tesla's and yours. His tone is enthusiastic, passionate, while yours is miserable, defeated. You tell him you respect his calling, but refuses to be second to it.

Hermes manages to dodge most of the blows. The more he does, the more Susanō's jaw clenches. But Hermes has no time to rejoice, he cannot find around any weapon, and all the random items he comes across break when used as a shield.

Tables, chairs, silver knives and plates, Hermes throws them all at Susanō, to no avail. Remembering the two first fights were won with more than physical prowess, he grabs a Turkish hat, and a crucifix, and aims at his enemy. Still no result.

In a desperate attempt, Hermes throws what he assumed were stones at Susanō. They hit his face and actually made him bleed. Hermes widened his eyes and looked for more. But now he can look and feel them more precisely, they are actually snails!

Hermes actually laughs when he sees this, much to Susanō's anger, who shouted a few expletives, mainly in Italian, but also some in German too. He then charges at Hermes with all his might, who feels he would certainly die if he was hit.

But it is not a real issue, as Hermes does the only thing he has not done yet: jumping and going on a tree. From down there, Susanō tries everything, sword blows, chain tosses, provocations, insults, but Hermes does not move.

When he is done, the sun is getting up. A pleasant breeze is blowing. Then at some point, both Susanō and Hermes hear your voice. You tell your then boyfriend you refused to be with such a stubborn person and that rarely in your life you had felt so unheard.

They jump on Hermes and grab him. They crush him. Hermes wants to scream, but the sudden change of scenery stops him. Now they are back in the house. This switch keeps happening and Hermes has a hard time adjusting between the vibration damages and the creatures' hits.

Hermes tries to fight Beelzebub when they are in the house and the creatures in the lab. But the vibrations scratch him and mess him up. As for the creatures, he does everything he can to push them away: he hits, stomps, crushes what he can with his bare hands. He manages to incapacitate several, but there are just so many to just use strength.

He even let himself be hit by the vibrations to gag and puke on the creatures. This happens to be quite effective, as some creatures actually melt and disappear. But there are still too many to pull this stunt.

Back in the house with the vibration attacks, suddenly, some voices cut the sound. They belong to (Name) and Beelzebub. They sound happy and enthusiastic, they talk about many things. Then a detail calls Hermes' attention. Beelzebub mentions Stefan Zweig's writings. He is taken aback then gets an idea: just wait.

When they switch to the lab, the creatures are still attacking and grabbing him. He does his best to ignore their screams and check if he can hear something else. Indeed, he can hear (Name) and Belzeebub's voices again. This time, (Name) is pleading, desperate. Belzeebub alternates with soft, seductive and enraged, mad, as if he was possessed. Then he becomes more desperate, begging.

Hermes understands this conversation will be a pattern then looks at the creatures. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes then waves at them. He does not react to those who are still grabbing him and just waits. He does his best to relax all of his body and not make any move.

Eventually, the grabs on his limbs disappear. Hermes opens his eyes to find they are no longer in the lab. They are outside, the house is behind them and they are on the beach. Beelzebub is standing in the sunlight - dawn or dusk, who knows - by the sea.

During the wedding, there is a waltz, and Hermes invites you to dance. You expertly follow his lead and do not trip at all. This impresses him, and he learns you had class when you were a child and actually went six times to Austria, including four times in Vienna.

After the wedding, you meet again. The fourth time you see each other, Hermes thinks he wants to date you. From the moment he says that, he suddenly finds himself in an arena. A man theatrically appears and introduces himself as Shiva, (Name)'s first boyfriend from middle school. Behind him are six hidden silhouettes.

Shiva then explains since he expressed the desire to date you, he has to face your seven exes. He refused to elaborate and immediately lungs at Hermes. He manages to dodge but has barely the time to celebrate: Shiva is blasting fire with his four fists!

Shiva's movements are brutal and precise, Hermes barely escapes from the second blow. By making a circular movement in an attempt to defend himself, he notices some fire comes out as well.

Hermes then tries to strike back using his technique, but Shiva deflects his attack with a wide, cruel grin. But it is no big deal, as Hermes tries again by mimicking the movements of his opponent and produces a stronger fire.

Hermes manages to defend himself pretty well, but he is searching for a tactic to win. Suddenly, he hears a loud, horrible voice which resonates in the whole arena. It is Shiva's voice, who shouts expletives that would make a sailor blush. Then another one comes out, yours. At first desperate, its vocabulary soon becomes the same as Shiva's.

Hermes is taken aback by the deafening voices, but soon notices Shiva's demeanor has changed too. His moves are less coordinated, his pace is more irregular, and his aim is less accurate. This reminds him of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the agni kai between Zuko and Azula. A smile appears on his face. Even though he does not have a Katara with him, he has a plan.

Hermes stops casting fire and chooses to run at his foe. He only uses the fire technique to dissipate Shiva's attacks. It is easier said than done, as the closer he gets, the bigger the fire blasts are. But he manages to do so nevertheless, and when he reaches him, Hermes performs the chi blocking technique. Once Shiva is no longer able to use fire, Hermes kicks his groin, and once his enemy is on the ground, he chains his four arms.