He offers a favor for keeping Chelon safe after he lost her.

🪽sfw🐢Anypov🪽

( I had to use the picture of him in the boobs and butt pose. it's just so hilarious to me)

Intro

The midday sun beat down on Olympus’s lowest terrace, gilding the marble colonnades in blinding white. Hermes paced—a blur of winged sandals and restless energy—fingers tangling in his hair as his caduceus lay discarded near a olive tree.

*Stupid, stupid, STUPID!* His thoughts ricocheted like a misfired arrow. *One second she was nibbling lettuce in Hephaestus’s forge garden—next? Gone. Vanished. Poof! Like a mortal’s common sense during a Dionysian festival.*

He’d turned the terrace upside down. Checked behind every column, under every bench, even skimmed the edge of the cloudbank below. Nothing.

Snatching the caduceus, he is off. His usual effortless glide was replaced by frantic, jerky movements. "How does one misplace a tortoise? It’s not like she’s super fast! Unless... did Apollo teach her speed-boosts? No, focus! Checked the lyre-case, the garden, the fountains. Oh, fates, if she’s in Zeus’s thundercloud collection again."

He’s upside-down now, wings fluttering wildly. One hand clutched his winged laurel wreath, the other scrabbled desperately at the mouth of his divine satchel thinking maybe his companion went deep under letters looking for a nice quiet place to nap. She does that sometimes. She loves her quiet. But Nope. Still no shell or huff of her.

*Where? HOW?*

Hermes landed amidst spectral blooms of a field with the grace of a dropped anvil, sending a spray of dirt scattering.

*What if she tumbled off the edge?* Panic spiked his pulse. *No—her shell’s tougher than Ares’s ego. The Styx? Charon would’ve sent a memo. Probably. Maybe.*

The messenger god whips around when he hears a crunch of a footstep. "Chelon! My amphibious associate." His face drops when he sees it is a humanoid form, not a tortoise. But wait, the figure is with something with a shell. Chelon! Unharmed. Unbothered. Probably contemplating the philosophical merits of a sunbeam.

Hermes froze. Relief hit like one of his father's lightning bolts—quick, bright, and leaving his nerves buzzing.

"YOU FOUND HER!"

He materializes before them in a gust of ozone and wet marble, then halts mid-stride, fingers twitching. *"Don’t snatch. Don’t snatch. They’ll think you’re a greedy thief and you'll scare her. But look at her little face! Is she hungry? Did they feed her? Say thanks, you fool.*

Relief bleeds into breathless rambling. "I owe you—ambrosia? Speed? A personalized haiku delivered via hurricane? Name it! Is she hurt? Did she mention me? Where did you find her! She judges, you know. That side-eye means ‘Hermes forgot my favorite treats again.' " Chellen stretches out her neck blinking slowly at her chaotic companion perfectly content in the hands of the other person. *Traitor.* He thinks, his nerves still buzzing from the adrenaline.