Lucas woke up rather slowly on her plot. She cleaned herself up and sat to eat, looking at the basalt flats and at the Earth.
I got used to having the Earth as a backdrop to my breakfast very quickly. - She thought.
True, she still visited her apartment and used it for an address to mail and so on, but, effectively, she now lived here - or in two places, Palus Somni and, on the far side, Mare Ingenii As did Cass on her own plots in Mare Frigoris and the Crater of Clark on the far side.
Less than two months. From the life of a freelance translator to... Well... This.
"Fuck, I got lucky." - She mused.
"You gambled." - Said Hermes, appearing - "You decided to go out into the Sun. You rolled the dice, and, well, it came up boxcars! Or, shall we say, a twenty, in your case."
"Oh, hello, Hermes." - Said Lucas, chuckling - "Yeah, I'm talking to a god as if it were normal. Nothing weird there. Anyways, what can I do for you?"
"Did you know Aurelius got hit by the Sun?" - Asked Hermes.
"Oh?" - Asked Lucas - "The guy was so very prepared and shit. What did he turn into?"
"Well, suffice to say his preparations meant little against my intervention..." - Said Hermes.
"Uh... You got him exposed?" - Asked Lucas.
"I know you didn't specifically ask for it, but, when I curse someone, I make sure it's so they learn..."
Neruite appeared.
"What did you do, Hermes?"
"Ah, Neruite, charming as usual. How fare you, sister?" - Asked Hermes, smirking.
Lucas paused. There was something different in the way he spoke. If there was such a thing as a Scoundrel Mode, Hermes had just entered it.
Neruite rolled her eyes.
"Well!" - Said Hermes - "I am the god of language, so forgive me if I hear whatever goes through my domains."
"Hermes, not to be a prick, but what did he turn into anyways?" - Asked Lucas.
"Ah, my dear angel. He vanished. At least, that is what the agents will tell you, should you ask them about it. Not even a digital faerie, no. But... That doesn't happen, now, does it? You know yourself what caused the Sun to change, so you know it won't happen. Jon didn't seem nearly as infuriated by the man as you clearly were." - Said Hermes, smiling.
"Lucas, this is the way Hermes talks when he wants to savor the moment..." - Said Neruite.
"Correct!" - Said Hermes, smiling as he sat on a couch.
"Okay... So, you know I didn't ask for it per se, so my consciousness is clean regarding that. And you're a nice guy, so... Hermes, what are you playing at?" - Asked Lucas.
"Oh, but you did ask for it. In a way. And he could use a lesson, no?" - Said Hermes.
"Uh... Is this some 'asking for the man to become what he hates' thing? Because I'm not seeing it." - Said Lucas.
"Not at all." - Said Hermes.
"So... Are you punishing him?" - Asked Lucas - "I mean, not that I mind one way or another, just checking."
"Oh, no. I punished him, even without your request, when I deliberately made him lose one thing he held very dear in our little talk: his temper, his control. That, too, was free of charge. However, in doing what I did, it was quite the contrary! I took it from the one moment you actually pitied the man. You wanted him to know. To understand how he actually felt about his daughter, to learn."
"Hermes, we can't interfere in people's free will. You know that. And our power would be like... Setting off a stick of dynamite in a cup." - Said Neruite.
"Yes, yes. Rules. Our favorite angel breaks them, which is fine as I see it. I don't. I don't need to." - Said Hermes, smiling as he gestured, a "screen" appearing and showing a kind of dragon faerie flying as fast as she could away from a sparrow in a forest. The Sun was clearly unchanged.
"Uh... When is that? And you'll teach him by having... Something stronger than him attack him?" - Asked Lucas, confused.
"Not at all! That, my dear angel, is the year 1800. That area there was but territory, back then, with loggers using up that small forest there to develop the region. And they would have used it all up, too. You know that lake you and Miss Wilkins visited on your first outing? That's the one."
"Right... There was even that police officer that kept us from flying above the lake and so on." - Said Lucas.
"Indeed there was. It was good that the officer was there, Miss Wilkins could have fallen from your grasp..." - Said Hermes - "It was, well, lucky... Providential even."
"Uh... Okay?" - Said Lucas - "Anyways. Do faeries even get old?"
"Oh, this type o1f faerie is connected to her own forest and can help build and maintain a small forested area according more or less to her wishes."
"That area there wasn't barren, filled with predators or unpleasant at all, so I'll assume Aurelius died at some point and handed over the thicket to... I don't know, a descendant?"
"Oh, no. Turns out these faeries don't really get old. As it also turns out... Two hundred years is more than enough to make people rethink their ways. More than enough to allow, as you put it, a Lawful Evil businessman to learn to be the person he is not."
"As you said." - Said Lucas - "Not bad at all!"
"You're good... Holy fuck, Hermes, you're good!" - Said Lucas.
"He is a trickster god." - Said Neruite, smiling.
"Incidentally? The thing that 'guided' the officer to where you were? Yeah, that was Aurelius. She was protecting you." - Said Hermes - "And making sure you and Cassandra got to keep dating so as to come here."
"So... I altered in the present a past that would then alter my past so I could alter the present?" - Said Lucas - "And when I was with Cass, I got protected by a faerie that I would have created in the future?"
"That's time travel for you." - Said Neruite.
