Hermes | Book 1

: 34 :

They were flying.

Chapter 34

"I'M SAFE," she said with a convincing tone of calmness. "Don't worry about me, daddy. I'm staying with some of those friends I told you about, remember? Hermes is with me too and we are having lots of fun exploring."

She hated sounding so childish, but this was her only facade and as much as she hated it, it was her only cover.

And this is what I've become, Asta thought to herself bitterly as she spoke more reassuring words with a sense of childish wonder. I valued my sanity the most and now I'm forced to don a madman's cloak.

"I'll be back very soon," she promised.

A lie, a lie, a lie.

"Don't worry about me, daddy. I'm really truly safe."

Such a liar.

"Madness is a beauty, Athena. And you," Dionysus said, raising his glass in toast," you, are chock full it."

Asta raised her palms over the glowing circle on the wall and watched with detached fascination as it turned red, then blue and then finally green.

"Message has been sent."

She slowly let her hands drop by her sides, waited for a moment, and then opened the metal door adjacent to her.

Rhea looked up from whatever she was reading on the table and gave her a wide smile, the peacock feather painted on her left eye scrunching up with the motion. Asta smiled back, a full and unrestrained motion, and nodded a little curtly when the former asked her about the conversation that went inside the room.

"Dad, was little worried." Asta said with a sigh and proceeded to let the plush sofa that Rhea sat in, swallow her in its depths. Immediately, Rhea's warmth and the smell of overripe peaches assaulted her along with the feeling of drowning as she sunk deeper and deeper into the folds of the wine colored sofa.

Rhea's bangles jangled without a rhythm as she firmly grasped Asta's left arm and forced her into a straighter position. Pain shot through her, but Asta did not react to the mistakenly inflicted pain and simply rested her head back and looked at the starry ceiling.

"Did you leave without telling him?"

"I may have mentioned it in passing." Asta tried not to sound sheepish, she really did, but the sternness in Rhea's tone reduced her to a child meekly seeking for forgiveness.

"Asta," whispered Rhea a little sadly.

"I know, Rhea." Asta shifted slightly to look at the elder girl who had been watching her all this while. Rhea looked at her with an emotion that was just a second away from fondness and lifted her henna covered fingers to ruffle Asta's unbound hair.

The red haired girl looked back up on the ceiling, but instead of starry patterns, all she saw was peacock feathers and a worn out emerald headscarf.

Calloused fingers ran through her hair with a gentleness that she hadn't experienced for a long, long time. Somewhere, deep down at the core of her heart, strings of emotions wrung together in a tangled mess and a sense of deep and profound sadness filled her being.

"Thank you," Asta said once again, watching her lips move on the mirror that was placed in front of her.

From behind her, Miriam gave her a motherly smile, but said nothing.