The Wings of Olympus

Zeus, throned on his celestial summit, watched Hermes with an expression that hovered somewhere between exasperation and a flicker of something akin to pride. The boy, barely out of his swaddling clothes and already a legend, was a whirlwind of untamed energy, a spark of chaos in the otherwise ordered cosmos. The cattle incident, the lyre’s debut, the subsequent, almost comical, negotiations with Apollo and the other gods – it had all happened in a blur of divine swiftness. Now, the true weight of his lineage, the blood of Zeus himself, began to press upon the young god.

“Hermes,” Zeus’s voice boomed, a sound that resonated through the very foundations of Olympus, yet held a careful note of measured authority, “you have proven… resourceful. And swift. Uncommonly swift, even for one of divine blood.”

Hermes, perched on the edge of a cloud that shimmered with the iridescence of a dragonfly’s wing, grinned. He was already itching to be off, to feel the wind whip through his hair, to chase the horizon. “Resourceful? Swift? That’s putting it mildly, Father. I practically rewrote the rules of ‘impossible’ before breakfast.”