Another Task

Chapter 8: Another Task

21 July 2000

I had never been very self conscious, but even if I had been, such a character flaw would have been literally stripped away from me very fast.

Four days of heaven. That was the only way I could use to describe what had happened to me. I felt the tyrsus disguised as a cork necklace rest heavy on my chest, it was my only item of clothing, and thanks to that, Dionysus had become my favourite deity.

Seconds didn't pass in the garden, it was always dusk, and I measured time through the cycles of hunger and 'sleep' with the Hesperids.

Or, I would have, if I hadn't drunk myself into a stupor with the immortal beauties whom I had gifted an apple to. I fed on fruits and beauty, bathing in a warm natural source of water and rolling with them over the lush grass.

I had left my clothes with my backpack and the pruned branch of the Golden Apple Tree near the hedges, some part of my mind knew that I could leave the garden only at dusk. But the dusk of the mortal world wasn't something I could be aware of while staying in the garden. Frankly, I knew that Thalia and Luke were to arrive sooner or later, and soI had enjoyed my vacation.

They would arrive in four days. For me, time had lost any meaning, it felt like weeks had passed since I held the sky, and I remember seeing Chrysothemis pruning hedges and trees, Asterope giving new life to the plants that dared shine a tiny bit less than they could.

There was a subtle song going around, made of whispers and promises and shifting colors and stretching shadows. It was the voice of the garden itself, no scratch that, it was the voice of the magic permeating the air, of the intent of the Hesperids of taking care of it.

Hygieia enjoyed plucking the fruits from trees or bushes, we dined on them, feeding each other, while Lipara was the one to plant new flowers. From where she took the seeds, I had no idea.

I had seen each of them occasionally sing to Ladon, to keep him appeased, even if he looked nervous anytime they came too close. And by nervous, I meant that more than half of his heads were awake and looking atround.

It had the effect of making me nervous. A lot. Ladon was the unholy son of Typhon and Echidna, and it was a being of nightmares. I stood as far from the tree as I could, and I fuzzly remember the nymphs of sunset laughing at me. I remember laughing too.

After ages, or barely a few hours since I started drinking with them, I felt something at the edges of my memory. I opened my eyes and saw trees stretched against the eternal dusk.

But while the sky felt right, a part of me recognized that it had no right to be, something was amiss. I missed seeing the moon, and Atlas' daughters deserved at least a casual 'hello'. With the stars hidden, I simply couldn't.

The tall and lush grass was all around me, while a few feet away Liparia was resting, her naked body loosely splayed in sleep.

She looked smooth and perfect as a sculpture. She sighed in her sleep, and I chided myself for the thought. I knew she was nothing like cold stone. She was warm and supple, the smoothest marble grindstone by comparison, and the caramel color of her skin was of a beauty beyond human.

I blinked. Beyond human. I repeated the thought to myself, and I started recollecting the strands of my psyche.

My hand reached out to touch her, but I stopped myself, not wanting to disturb the perfect scene before me and being grateful for every second that I could dedicate to find again my thoughts.

In my pride and carelessness, I had forgotten an old truth: Do not trust the appearances.

Yes, the Hesperids were beautiful and harmless, Ladon would kill only those who dared take from the tree, there were no poisons in the air or in the water, the wine was a gift from Dionysus... in other words, there were no direct threats to my life.

And like an idiot I didn't consider that everything can potentially kill me. I realized.

It was understandable, I had been on a high since holding the sky...

...holding the sky? What the fuck?

My mind was in disarray, I couldn't exactly remember... Icarus, my name is Icarus.

My thoughts slowly regained their previous sharpness.

Lipari's lips parted and sighed, making a sound like a dove. I remembered the touch of those lips. I ached, and forced myself to look away from her soft, flower-petal mouth.

Her closed eyelids were patterned like a butterfly's wings, swept in whorls of deep purple and black with traceries of pale gold that blended to the caramel color of her skin. The shadows on her features were soft like velvet, promising rest, reminding me that she wasn't human. As her eyes moved gently in sleep, the shadowy pattern shifted, as if the butterfly fanned its wings.

I ate her with my eyes, knowing that I should quit while I was ahead.

Something in my mind screamed at me, but I was bemused by the motion of her eyes beneath her lids, the shape her mouth made, as if she would kiss me even while she slept.

I was going to go mad, or die.

The idea finally fought its way through to my conscious mind, and I felt every hair on my body stand suddenly on end. I had a moment of perfect, clear lucidity that resembled coming up for air and quickly closed my eyes.

I had seen immortals before, I had seen her and her sisters as soon as I stepped into Hera's garden, and my mind didn't fall under the captivating appearences.

But it wasn't that, or better, not just that. I was seeing more. The four Hesperids didn't look so captivating before our shared edonism...

Behind my eyes, the Hesperid distracted me. The sweet breath. The soft breast. The urgent half-despairing sighs that slipped through hungry, petal-tender lips..

I don't doubt for a second that it had, quite naturally, deprived men of their faculties in the past. I, however, knew myself to be quite sane. Or at the very least, I knew that I was the only one to direct my thoughts. Madness had come to play with me with my chat with Atlas, I had started pretending, but soon I had found myself ensnared in my own web. It was something worthy of future investigation.

I briefly entertained the notion that I was insane and didn't know it. Then I considered the possibility that I had always been insane, acknowledged it as more likely than the former, then pushed both thoughts from my mind, reminding to myself that until my madness brought me to try to fly into the fucking sun with wings made of wax, I could deal with it.

But why did my mind return to me only in that moment? Why not before? Why not later? Then I felt it, a subtle shift in the air, a ripple in the magic of the garden, a change in the quality of the light I had grown used to.

Lipari's light frown made clear that she felt the same. I looked around, taking notice of the passed out nymphs around me while I rose from the ground and walked away.

Dionysus, thank you. I was grateful, for the wine, over which I had bonded with Atlas and thanks to which I had disabled the first alarm system of the garden. I was thankful because of the slight madness that had allowed me to accomplish great things like holding the sky and shagging four nymphs.

I had the feeling I had forgotten something, but it didn't come to mind, and I knew that trying to remember wouldn't make it come up any time sooner. I shrugged, What will be, will be. I thought briefly.

I didn't know how did I manage to be so attuned to the magic in the garden, either because of my blood, for the long period of time that I had spent in there, for what I had shared with the nymphs, but what I had felt the first time I walked on the lush, magic grass, paled in comparison to what I was able to understand now.

I could feel the constant breathing of the plants and the ever working fatigue of their roots, my eyes naturally landed on the ripest fruit. In the same ethereal, not explainable, complex, mysterious way, now that I had somehow regained all of my faculties, the sky unnerved me.

I didn't feel excedingly powerful, or suddenly donned with a new undeniable right to rewrite the laws of reality, I was still myself, only... more aware.

The celestial sphere went from the golden pink of the west to the dark purple of the east, the shades were undeniably beautiful, even charming, but I wanted to see the sky that I had held, not a single state of it.

Suddenly, I came to realize that I was in a cage, one without walls, without bars, and worst of all: without reasons to leave.

But I have to. I reminded myself. I didn't need to leave. I want to. The world was big and mysterious, things to see, things to do, knowledge to steal, to earn, battles to be fought, enemies to be turned into friends, friends to turn into brothers, fates to break, gods and immortals to annoy.

"I am free." I whispered to myself what I realized was my first truth, my first commandment, the first brick of the foundation that was my identity.

Whatever half wish to stay back with Lipari, Hygieia, Chrysothemis and Asterope whitered away in my mind. I regained control of my thoughts and walked away from the sleeping nymphs, wary of waking them.

I shook my head, my memories were slow to return, and with a grimace I remembered offering my only apple to the nymphs in order to... well, it had been a blatant conversation starter to reach the manly purpose of having sex. I was... conflicted.

I wasn't exactly hating my lust, since I didn't regret what was likely the best experience of my life so far, but Hades, maybe I could have kept for my lonesome self a single slice?

No use thinking about it now. I reminded myself, walking toward the disturbance I had felt at the edges of my perception.

I ducked under branches and weaved through flowerbeds, ignoring the path made of flat fluvial stones. I didn't wrap myself in Mist, it was unnecessary, the garden knew me and somehow it aquiesced my need for beeing unseen, likely knowing that I wasn't sneaking around in order to steal.

It says something about my life that I manage to think that a garden knows my intentions with a straight face. I noted dryly.

After several minutes, I reached the origin of the disturbance, and seeing the cause, I let out the breath I had been holding and stepped out from among the trees a big grin plastered on my face.

"Icarus!" Thalia called me first.

I waved my hand: "Yo!"

"You're here! Why would you be here?" Luke sounded tired.

"You're naked!" Thalia accused me at the same time.

"Oh, yeah, that too."

"Put something on!" she ordered me, blushing scarlet, but I noticed that she didn't turn around and kept looking at me.

I nodded, recognizing the validity of her request, and walked to the hedge, finding the bundle of clothes that I had thoughtfully left near the exit.

Where are my backpack and the pruned branch of the tree? I frowned, something was itching at the edge of my thoughts. I remembered working on the wood, and I remembered using it as a aid to walk after the crucible that holding the sky had been.

I scratched my head while looking around. Maybe is near another part of the hedge? I wondered and started walking clockwise, my eyes scanning my surroundings.

A hand clamped on my shoulder: "What. Are. You. Doing. Here?" Luke bit out, Thalia was looking at me expectantly.

"Looking for my stuff." I answered blankly.

"So you didn't somehow find a way to precede us to the location where we have to complete our quest?" Thalia sounded sarcastic.

"Luke's quest." I answered without thinking about it. Courious, the hedges behave almost like smoke. I wonder, if I hop through will I find myself in the Mount Talampais Reserve?

I kept walking, the other two demigods following me: "Well, I clearly won the race to this place, but like Luke loves repeating, it's your quest, I wasn't invited, was I?"

The son of Hermes snarled something and stomped into the garden, his eyes blind to the beauty of the place,leaving Thalia alone to deal with my passive-aggressive snark.

"So you're not helping us?" She asked sardonically.

She already knew my answer, and that helping wasn't the point.

"I hope Luke has enough sense as to not awaken anybody, the nymphs are KO, so they won't rise the alarm, but dragging on yourself the ire of the dragon is suicide." I continued walking, sad for the absence of the branch, which was arguably a priceless treasure almost on par with the apples.

"It's not our first rodeo, you know." She rolled her eyes: "What are you looking for?"

"My stuff." I answered non committally.

"And why should your stuff be along the edge of the Garden? No, scratch that, why were you naked in the first place?"

I knowingly ignored her question and she smacked my head. Not happy with the result, she zapped me.

"Oi!" I protested "Why would you do that?!"

"Because you disappeared without saying anything to anyone, dumbass! And don't ignore my question!" her tone had turned somewhat steely, and I felt her trying to exercise some kind of authority over me. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow, noticing that she hadn't even done it on purpose, and my mind shrugged off her command effortlessly. I am free.

"I K. the nymphs." I answered, letting her find her own answers.

Since I was still walking the edge of the Garden and I wasn't looking at her, I couldn't see her expression. Even so, her baffled face made a clear jump to the forefront of my mind. I could almost see her brain trying to link KO nymphs with my being naked, and failing at it repeatedly.

Then in her head it clicked, and she was reduced to a spluttering mess for a couple of seconds, before pulling herself back together: "Yes, comic relief so harsh that has them laughing into uncounsciousness." she tried to tease me.

"I saw you staring before, trying to downplay your reaction is futile..." I teased over my shoulder, ready to give up my search.

I earned myself another zap. "Yow! Fucking Hades, Sparkles, contain your lust!"

I had turned to face her by then, with a playful smirk on my face and the admittedly inflated ego of a sixteen years old who had just finished a 4 days long sex marathon (even if I was counting the numerous occasions in which I remembered doing other stuff in it).

Before she could school the blushing outrage that proudly danced on her face, a nightmarish choir of horror cut whatever levity we were having.

GROOKKRAGRORR

It wasn't a roar, oh no, neither a thunder or a rockslide. It wasn't even an earthquake, Hades, I was dreaming of hurricanes and tsunami. But the reality was much worse.

The ground shook and the air thundered, suddenly turning heavy and oppressive, above the canopy of the garden, I saw a flowing glint of scales, my ears too busy with the chours of hissing rumbling to hear what Thalia was saying.

Ladon sounded pissed. Or just awake: it was a horrible situation either way.

Thalia and I shot through the well cared for trees and flowerpots, our feet skipping us from a flat stone to another in order to not waste momentum against the slightly damp ground. My hand instinctively brought out the dagger that I had used to freak out Atlas from the sheat where it was secured.

Thalia's shield blared to life and her spear was crackling with the promise of lightning by the time we reached the center of the garden. The tree stood uncaringly, the wound caused by the relatively small branch Atlas had ripped away was still glistening with golden resin, and I distractedly wondered if it was akin to ichor.

On the other side of the clearing, Lipari, Hygieia, Chrysothemis and Asterope were standing with expression that cycled from outraged to amused. Thankfully, they were dressed, and as such I managed to bring my eyes back to the more important detail of Luke giving proof of his extraordinary prowess in dodging. His sword flashed from time to time, but only to redirect a bite.

It was extraordinary, the sheer momentum the son of Hermes was keeping up to be able to do so had to be staggering, coupled with the speed through which he kept rolling, jumping running and sweeping, it was beyond what I ever imagined him capable of.

The worring part, was that neither Thalia nor I were the kind of fighter that never got hit. She with her shield, and I with my stubborness, we both used tanking the enemy's blows as an opening, and from how she was grinding her teeth together, she realized it immediately.

My knife was returned to its sheat and the Mist rolled over the monster who was still sporting several bruises and cuts gifted to him by Atlas.

Say what you want, but the old fucker hits the hardest. I grinned, recognizing the might of my... acquitance.

Soon enough, incorporeal images of Luke started to weave their way through each other, the original son of Hermes, and the heads of Ladon.

Following my lead, Thalia had turned her attention to the sky, which had clouded, despite the constant that was the eternal dusk we were fighting in.

"We need to leave before the sunset outside ends, or we'll be trapped with four pissed nymphs and the most horrible thing since Steve Buscemi." I rattled off to Thalia, referring to Ladon. She took a moment to consciously ignore the comparison before sighing in agreement.

"Our plan was a dash and run either way." She muttered.

Random sounds of things that weren't there started echoing across the clearing, courtesy of one of my newest tricks, while I bit down on my tongue to avoid cursing the sheer stupidity of them both.

Feeling my discomfort and sheer disgust, she amended: "Well, my plan to shot an arrow to rip an apple off was discarded for wathever reason."

"Apples explode when hit by an arrow." I deadpanned. Unless this world is a crossover with Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

The sudden lightning blinded me for a moment and then the thunder drowned Thalia's answer. If not for her blush, I would have deemed the timing a coincidence.

"Luke!" She shouted as soon as the thunder faded, "We need to run, we'll try again, but we need to go!"

That had the unfortunate consequence of placing us in the same league of the thief in the eyes of Ladon.

While its serpentine body was still coiled around the trunk of the apple tree, its heads were placed on top of very long and strong necks, and as such both me and Thalia had to throw ourselves aside when like twenty deadly dragon heads started biting off the ground where we had stood not a second before.

We ran around the clearing, mirroring each other, Thalia using her shield to great effect to stall the beast when it came too close, and I weaving illusions to take my place while my body turned invisible. Somehow, at least five pf Ladon's heads kept following me around, if because of luck or because they knew my general position, I didn't know.

Somehow, in all the madness that an enraged Ladon was, we managed to regroup at the edge of the clearing.

Unfortunately, we were still in range of the scaly motherfucker, who fell on us like a landslide.

I jumped over a head that had lunged to eat me holding my breath, avoiding the poisonous exhalations from the deadly mouths eager to swallow me whole while I slid under another, the sheer terror I was feeling battling with the exhilaration that simply staying alive was filling me with.

My knife had been tailor made by the Aephestus' kids: I had no idea how, but they had managed to make blend of steel and celestial bronze, and while its effectiveness against monsters was greatly reduced, I could use it to skin the animals I occasionally hunted in the forest around my secret lair. It had a saw section on the edge, a long blade and a curved point. A glorified butcher's knife, nothing more, but it could cut small branches as well as ropes. It was a multi purpose knife, and in the madness that I was experimenting, I found out that it could penetrate wonderfully between a scale amd the next, briefly giving me an anchor of sorts on a neck that I found myself riding.

I dodged, spun and jumped. I pushed off Luke that used the momentum I gave him to bury his word into a gleaming, hungry eye, causing the head holding it to reel back in pain, effectively stopping several other heads from swarming us.

Academically, I knew that Ladon had one hundred heads and that there was no way in hell they could all fit around us, since each one was at least as big as a minivan.

And yet at least 85% of his heads fit perfectly around us.

Thalia managed to occasionally stall a single head with her shield, while her spear kept calling on lightnings that she freely shared with the scaly motherfucker intent on killing us. Luke and I were more or less accessories to her awesomeness, even in those moments, I could recognize it without shame.

My tricks with tbe Mist were useful, but they were just that, tricks, and Luke was noticeably slower than before: he was starting to grow tired. Thalia was the one doing the lion's share of the 'keeping us alive': both attracting Ladon's attention and proving herself tough enough to require several dozen heads to work together.

Our fight for survival found a balance of sorts, with Luke and I supporting the daughter of Zeus, who started to call the shots: "Let's retreat, but keep your backs toward the edge of the clearing!"

There was neither time nor reason to discuss her orders, so we started retreating, flashes oflightning and Thalia's shield as our cover.

I was focused on avoiding dying, so my eyes couldn't follow the other two demigods' movements, but suddenly, I heard a slam. Luke was hurled over my head and slammed against a tree.

"Luke!" Thalia called, but there was no answer. At least he was tossed in the right direction. I considered.

I managed to find a way back to the slumped body of the demigod, accurately avoiding the several extremely deadly attacks of Ladon. Could I have punched the dragon with the sane strenght that allowed me to hold the sky? Maybe. But a life and death situation wasn't the place to experiment with the possible applications of my newfound will. In any case, I doubted it: holding the sky had been a confrontation between my identity and the latent desire of Ouranos. My will had overcome, for a time, the distracted, half-hearted wish of the sky to fall. Punching had nothing to do with testing my will, and as such, I would probably only end up hurting myself.

Or I could pull a Nepero from HunterXHunter... My mind distractedly offered while I took the uncounscious form of Luke over my shoulders.

"Thalia! We need to..." I started to call her back when...

KRABOOM

Like when we first arrived at the camp half blood, the world had gone white for an istant before my ears started hating me.

This time however, I wasn't facing Thalia when she broke the sky apart, thusly keeping my sight. A tug on my shoulder later, I found myself running at her side towards the black marble path that led to our exit.

For roughly two minutes, we half dragged, half pushed oureselves: Thalia busy covering our asses with a veritable lightning storm I wasn't aware she could summon, I busy holding Luke and twisting the Mist in order to confound Ladon as much as I could.

By then, I was dead on my feet, and I could barely recognize the patch of grass in front of me from the one behind, but Thalia must have kept us in the right direction, because soon enough, the air lost its shimmer, the grass stopped singing, the leaves stopped whispering, and the world felt... dimmer.

My heart clenched in sorrow at the loss, before my mind actually started working again and I slumped in relief. I let Luke fall down from my shoulders and started looking around, noticing with mild surprise that we were close to one of touristic point of access of the Mount Tamalpais State Park, just behind a few trees, a position secluded enough to not grab the attention of a tourist.

I eyed my rescuers-companions critically, ascertaining their wounds. I hoped to find none.

Luke was still K.O., but beyond a bump on his head, he looked fine, he wasn't pale nor he was losing blood, so it was fine. Thalia was panting, her back against a trunk, her shield folded back and her collapsable spear held tight in her right hand, her black hair slick with sweat, a bloodied grin on her face...

Bloodied? I stopped, paling dramatically when she spat a glob of blood on the side.

"Shit." she cursed, while I ran at her side: inspecting her closely. The only open wound that I could spot was a deep gnash on her right thigh, sign of her only mistake. But why is she spitting blood then?

"Don't go all mother hen on me, it's only a scratch." She protested against my examination, opening a leather pouch and popping down an ambrosia cube.

"Thalia, why the fuck would you spit blood if the wound is on your leg?" She wasn't taking notice of the situation's seriousness.

"It was the side of the tooth, he didn't manage to bite me, only cut with the unbelievably sharp side of the fang." She rolled her eyes: "And another head skull bashed me, nothing to worry about."

Spitting blood is plenty to worry about. I tied quickly a bandage on her most grevious wound, and without further fanfare, I checked again Luke, who was still busy enjoying Morpheus' realm.

Thalia passed me a small vial of nectar, that I forced him to swallow, massaging his neck to make sure he would not suffocate: "Why do you think he charged without thinking?" I asked Thalia, who shrugged, busy trying to stand.

"He needs to grow up." she replied almost grimly, and then, she chose that exact moment to fall back to the ground, her eyes fluttering, like she was trying to force them open.

I flung myself to her side holding her head while I checked for other injuries: "Thalia? What happened!?" I touched her forehead and bristled when I felt it burning with fever. Caught by a sudden doubt, I undid the bandage on her leg, finding it sizzling.

"One hundred venomous heads of dragon, obviously." I breathed out.

Exactly when I had started to relax, everything went to shit. Classic.