The noonday sun had began to droop back toward the world by the time he felt the first sudden jolt of familiar energy from nearby, and getting closer. It was as if he had suddenly been struck by one of his father's lightning bolts, a swirling blend of emotion and bodily change sparking inside him, setting aflame an ember that had been lying dormant within him since the mass exodus from Olympus. Even those around him, immortal or no, would probably have noticed some change in the way that the bearded traveller now held himself - erect and proud, though relaxed and at ease, as a wild jungle cat awaiting its prey and chance to pounce - his eyes moving through the thinning crowds of assorted humanity, from figure to figure as the feeling, the [i]spark[/i], only grew in intensity.

It would be quite impossible for any mortal to feel what and how he now felt, perhaps the closest being the reuniting of loved ones at an airport times a thousand, even then they could not fathom the knitting of links in both the seen and unseen realities moving about them. True, the Fates no longer used the old methods of the threads and the scissors, having been ousted along with their kith and kin all those years ago, but the feeling which now reached Hermes was very much comparable to the weaving and reconnection of a gossamer web that had long ago been not only broken, but completely and utterly sundered from the centre to the farthest edges; this could only have been possible if, as the servant of both God and Olympus expected, more than one of his brethren had made their way not only to Greece, but to Athens and the Parthenon along with it.

Not only had more than one come, from multiple corners of the Earth, but at least four of them even now drew toward his open and outward position. Yes...he could sense them, the musical, the beautiful, the bitter and - what was that? A slightest blip on the godly radar, weaker than any of the others but older too, [b]far[/b] older. This last signature especially made him curious, for as weak as it was it was still there, and it was not one of his family that produced this near imperceptible pulse either.

[color=ffecd0][b]"It's been a long time."[/b][/color]

Now the spark had become a full and glorious fire, the perfect voice one he had not heard in far too long, but one that he inwardly and outwardly rejoiced to find again addressing him. Before he could reply, unbidden but already within his minds eye, flashes of events of the past came to him, and Hermes could not help himself but smile; images of the stealing of Apollo's cattle when he was still an infant, or when he and the god of music, plague and healing had lain together with the same woman on the same night...what was her name again? Ah, Khione! A rather lovely princess of Phokis, who bore Apollo a son named Philammon, but one his offspring that Hermes had eventually forgotten to question him about. It occured to him that, truly, most deities were terrible parents. Then again [b]he[/b] had fathered his fair share of children, including his only immortal son Pan, that hoofed rascal, a child that he still missed - and the only Olympian to ever find his final death.

Although this thought process took no longer than a few seconds of time, the way mortals thought of it, it took considerably longer for Hermes to peer up at the blazing form of his half-brother. Who knew that a god could cry? Indeed, even as he realised that divine tears were forming in the corner of his eyes, he help them back and, with a force of will, finally looked up into the amber gaze of the majesty that was Apollon, his mortal and immortal forms blurring and shimmering through one another and allowing Hermes to see them both as one and the same. To anyone viewing them, it would have appeared as if two old friends were reconnecting, but to those able to [i]see[/i] it was so much more.

For that matter, what 'Adam Pascal' now saw looking up at him, or should that rather be who, would be as different as the middle-aged man he had approached...though somewhat more familiar; sitting on the rock would be an adolescent boy, what the modern world called a 'teenager', beardless and with curled tresses of golden colour streaming from beneath a winged cap placed firmly upon his head, his athletic build - more than comparable to that of his older counterpart who now stood before him - barely concealed by a tunic with a golden hem; where would he be without his 'badges of office' though? The winged sandals strapped to feet, and his golden [i]kerykeion[/i], the wand of a herald, where his hiking stick had been before.

With a sharp intake of breath, and a wide smile of perfect teeth, Hermes rose to greet a god he had always been close to.

"Phoibos, of you even the swan sings with clear voice to the beating of his wings, as he alights upon the bank by the eddying river Peneios; and of you the sweet-tongued minstrel, holding his high-pitched lyre, always sings both first and last. And so hail to you lord! I seek your favour with my song."

His smile widened into a grin as he quoted a better known verse of Homeric Hymn at his immortal counterpart, his arms spreading wide to embrace the god of both disease and healing, bringer of death but also of life, in doing so he bought his mouth closer to the others ear and whispered, "it is good to see you brother, but I believe we are not alone in this reunion."

Releasing Apollo from his embrace, one oddly strong for such a youthful god, something they each knew about he supposed, Hermes raised his wand (or hiking stick as it may look) to gesture nonchalantly toward the always identifiable Aphrodite and, some way beyond her, having slipped into the background and shadow in somewhat of a hurry, the limping form of the smith-god.

"It has been [b]too[/b] long, my friend. Far, far, too long."

[@ravenDivinity]