Hermes told me, looking at the staff.
‘Tired?’ I asked him, gesturing
to a forever glen flooded with sunshine.
‘They want to travel. This place,
it has dulled.’ Hermes looked at me.
‘Dulled,’ I repeated softly, thinking.
Perhaps he was right.
There were few joys to be had
if you were a deathless thing.
If novelty did not visit you,
you must invent it.
‘We Must Leave Now’
It was not that I did not expect his words.
It was simply that they came so abruptly
after the life-shaking transformation.
He was already on his feet, looking at me.
‘We must reach the falls of night soon,
before they start seeking you out.’
He was right. If Styx visited my palace
and I was not within its obsidian walls,
she would first visit the Asphodel Meadows.
And, unable me to find me there,
she would think something had taken me
and send word to Hades
that I had disappeared, and even I
did not want to risk the wrath of Hades.
They said the most placid of Gods
hid the worst hurricanes
inside their divine blood.
I got to my feet and followed Hermes.
