━━━never meet your heroes
.・゜゜・───・゜゜・．
Jason carried the three ashore, where the man in purple was waiting.
Hercules was handsome, with curly black hair and coppery skin, lean and strong but not hulking. Callahan swallowed, turning away to catch the white sails of the Argo. Hercules was handsome, but Cal had a thing for dumbass black-haired boys and genius-level blondes.
The three landed at the edge of the surf. They approached slowly, careful not to make any threatening moves. Hercules watched them with no particular emotion as if they were some form of seabird he had never noticed before.
"Hello," Piper said. Always a good start.
"What's up?" Hercules said. His voice was deep but casual, very modern. He could've been greeting them in the high school locker room.
"A lot, dude," Callahan responded, turning again to glance at their ship. The minor god cracked a smile, and Piper swallowed.
"My lord Hercules, I'm Piper, that's Callahan, and that's Jason--"
"Where's your lion skin?"
Callahan winced and glanced at Hercules, expecting to find him pissed and glowering. Instead, the god had cracked a smile that seemed exasperated in a fond way.
"It's 90 degrees out," He leaned against his club like a walking stick, "why would I wear my lion skin? Do you wear fur coats to the beach?"
Callahan muttered every Sunday under her breath and watched as Hercules's eyes glanced at her.
"I guess that makes sense." Jason sounded disappointed. "It's just that the pictures always show you with a lion skin."
Hercules glared at the sky accusingly like he wanted to have words with his father Zeus. "Don't believe everything you hear about me. Being famous isn't as fun as you might think."
"Tell me about it," Piper sighed.
Hercules fixed those brilliant blue eyes on her. "Are you famous?"
"My dad...he's in the movies."
Hercules snarled. "Don't get me started with the movies. Gods of Olympus, they never get anything right. Have you seen one movie about me where I look like me?"
Piper had to admit he had a point. "I'm surprised you're so young."
"Ha! Being immortal helps. But, yes, I wasn't so old when I died. Not by modern standards. I did a lot during my years as a hero...too much, really." His eyes drifted to Jason. "Son of Zeus, eh?"
"Jupiter," Jason said.
"Not much difference," Hercules grumbled. "Dad's annoying in either form. Me? I was called Heracles. Then the Romans came along and named me Hercules. I didn't really change that much, though lately just thinking about it gives me splitting headaches..."
Cal found herself glancing back at the horizon for a third time, squinting at the sunlight before she returned to the conversation.
"At any rate," Hercules said, "if you're Jupiter's son, you might understand. It's a lot of pressure. Enough is never enough. Eventually, it can make a guy snap."
Callahan hummed. She had seen it enough times with Percy to know that it's true.
The god's eyes slid over her quickly before turning to Piper. His dark eyes glimmered in the harsh sunlight, dark and not quite sane. Callahan's eyes flit over to the girl beside her out of concern.
"As for you, my dear, be careful with sons of Zeus," The god sighed, eyes raking over Jason's blonde hair, "If I know one thing, it's that all children of the Big Three are dangerous."
He stared back at Callahan, and his eyes looked so much like the paintings that used to scare Cal as a kid, one's like Saturn Devouring His Son. She swallowed and shuffled back to avoid his creepy gaze.
"So, Lord Hercules," she said, "we're on a quest. We'd like permission to pass into The Mediterranean."
Hercules shrugged. "That's why I'm here. After I died, Dad made me the doorkeeper of Olympus. I said, Great! Palace duty! Party all the time! What he didn't mention is that I'd be guarding the doors to the ancient lands, stuck on this island for the rest of eternity. Lots of fun."
He pointed at the pillars rising from the surf. "Stupid columns. Some people claim I created the whole Strait of Gibraltar by shoving mountains apart. Some people say the mountains are the pillars. What a bunch of Augean manure. The pillars are pillars."
"Right," Piper said. "Naturally. So...can we pass?"
The god scratched his fashionable beard. "Well, I have to give you the standard warning about how dangerous the ancient lands are. Not just any demigod can survive the Mare Nostrum. Because of that, I have to give you a quest to complete. Prove your worth, blah, blah, blah. Honestly, I don't make a big deal of it. Usually, I give demigods something simple like a shopping trip, singing a funny song, that sort of thing. After all those labors I had to complete for my evil cousin Eurystheus, well...I don't want to be that guy, you know?"
"Appreciate it," Jason said.
"Hey, no problem." Hercules sounded relaxed and easygoing, but his shoulders and eyes looked like a void, swallowing and dark.
"So anyway," Hercules said, "what's your quest?"
"Giants," Jason said. "We're off to Greece to stop them from awakening Gaea."
"Giants," Hercules muttered. "I hate those guys. Back when I was a demigod hero...ah, but never mind. So which god put you up to this—Dad? Athena? Aphrodite?" He turned to smile at Piper, "with your looks, I'm pretty sure that' your mom."
There was something so wrong about a man like that saying it to a teenage girl. Callahan watched Jason's shoulders stiffened. He opened his mouth and before she could stop him,
"Hera sent us."
The whole island changed. It remained startling blue skies and white sands, but it felt violent, forceful, and angry.
Hercules stiffened, eyes narrowing and the air around him churning with electricity, "Hera sent you?"
"We hate her too!" Piper yelped, pulse jumping, "We didn't want to help her, but she didn't give us much choice--"
"But here you are," Hercules said, all friendliness gone. "Sorry, you two. I don't care how worthy your quest is. I don't do anything that Hera wants. Ever."
Callahan swallowed down the rising nerves, watching silently as Jason protested the change in Hercules's demeanor.
"But I thought you made up with her when you became a god."
"Like I said," Hercules grumbled, "don't believe everything you hear. If you want to pass into the Mediterranean, I'm afraid I've got to give you an extra-hard quest."
Jason blinked, "I--but we're brothers. I understand--"
"You understand nothing," Hercules said coldly. "My first family: dead. My life was wasted on ridiculous quests. My second wife died, after being tricked into poisoning me and leaving me to a painful demise. And my compensation? I got to become a minor god. Immortal, so I can never forget my pain. Stuck here as a gatekeeper, a doorman, a...a butler for the Olympians. No, you don't understand. The only god who understands me even a little bit is Dionysus. And at least he invented something useful. I have nothing to show except bad film adaptations of my life."
A heavy feeling settled on her shoulders, a thick sense of dread rolling between the teens as sparks of electricity danced off of the god before them. Nothing was going the way it was supposed to, and Callahan held back a sigh when Piper's Charmspeak filled the air.
"That's horribly sad, Lord Hercules." The girl's eyes danced over to Callahan beside her, "But please go easy on us. We're not bad people."
Callahan thought she'd succeeded. Hercules hesitated. Then his jaw tightened, and he shook his head. "On the opposite side of this island, over those hills, you'll find a river. In the middle of that river lives the old god Achelous."
Hercules waited as if this information should send them running in terror.
"And...?" Jason asked.
"and," Hercules sighed, "I want you to break off his other horn and bring it to me. "
"He has horns, of course." Callahan muttered, "Wait, other horn? Dude--"
"Figure it out." He glared hard at the demigods, "Here, this should help."
He tossed a little book at them, Jason's hands snapping up to catch it. The book's glossy cover showed a photographic montage of Greek temples and smiling monsters. The Minotaur was giving the thumbs-up. The title read: The Hercules Guide to the Mare Nostrum.
"Bring me that horn by sundown," Hercules said. "Just the two of you. No contacting your friends. Your ship will remain where it is. If you succeed, you may pass into the Mediterranean."
"And if we don't?" Piper asked, pretty sure she didn't want the answer.
"Well, Achelous will kill you, obviously," Hercules said. "And I will break your ship in half with my bare hands and send your friends to an early grave."
Jason shifted, and Callahan glanced back over her shoulder to the big white sails of the Argo II.
"Couldn't we just sing a funny song?"
"I'd get going," The god's voice was cold, eyes alight with a chaotic fire, "Sundown. Or your friends are dead."
"No pressure," Callahan whispered under her breath.
━━━never meet your heroes
.・゜゜・───・゜゜・．
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