In the beginning I created heaven and the earth.

Aoide stood, head bowed, hands clasped at her stomach.

I separated the earth from the water, the day from the night.

Aoide nodded, the images playing out in her mind.

Everything in this world is because of me.

Aoide wondered where this was going.

Something has been born, something hideous, which needs beauty. Its soul is pure.

Aoide's mouth formed an 'o' of realization.

You will share your music with what my messenger will show you.

Aoide fell to her knees and pressed her forehead to the tips of her fingers, which lay spread out upon beneath her.

Do not restrain yourself, or I shall intervene.

Aoide was still and silent.

---

Hermes sat cross-legged on a marble pedestal, his hands resting on his knees.

Follow me.

"Yes," Hermes said, and directions flew in his mind.

Earth.

"Europe," Hermes continued, seeing himself flying with a figure in his arms. "France. Rouen."

Here.

"Yes."

Hermes's eyes popped open, and the blue and brown maps in his irises danced between his eyelids. Before him stood Aoide, her eyes endless as they bored into his.

He shifted under her heated gaze, realizing the form in his arms in his vision had not been clear for a reason. Had it only been two centuries since they had been together, wrapped in each other's embrace? Hermes wondered if the past two hundred years she'd spent with Apollo was as long as the two hundred he'd spent without her.

Hermes rose from his perch on the pedestal, the wings on his golden boots and helmet flapping slowly. Aoide leapt up to him, pushing off of the pedestal, and he held her in his arms and plunged down, down, down.

To Earth, and Europe; France, Rouen.

Here.

Aoide's legs swung; Hermes held her under the elbows and knees. His strong hands caressed her waist, and she looked out in front of her with graceful indifference.

---

It was nighttime in Rouen when they arrived, and everything was covered in a thin fog. Hermes slowed as they entered, the water peppering Aoide's hair, and his own.

There. In the distance.

Aoide rolled from Hermes's arms and landed lightly on the dirt road, her white skin shining eerily in the fog. She started hesitantly towards a cottage where faint cries could be heard.

There.

Aoide nodded, and moved forward. Hermes followed, hovering along behind her. She stopped in front of he door, and the voices reached her ears clearly.

"He's spawn of the devil! He doesn't deserve life! Have you seen him? Have you?" Aoide opened her mouth in distress at the screeching, shrill voice and lifted her white hands to cover her ears. Hermes flinched when the loud, metal clang of something knocking over was followed by the sharp cry of an infant.

"Marie! Control yourself! This is a child, nothing more."

"Madeleine, he is the devil! His face—"

"It is no fault of his," the second woman, Marie, said. A silence fell, and then Marie spoke again. "I will watch him tonight. You sleep."

Quiet, and Aoide's hands fell to her sides.

Now.

She put her palm to the door, but Hermes grasped her arm. "Let me." He stepped in front of her, and she followed him into the dark house. Three doors led off from the sparsely furnished room.

That one.

Aoide went to the middle door and saw inside of it a wooden crib. Slight noises came from the door at the left: the rustling of pans, the creaking of an old floor. Aoide ignored those in favor of the whimpering shape in the crib.

Two steps forward, and she saw the infant. Hermes handed her a small, clear vial of crystalline water, and moved ahead of her to look at the child. Instead of the steady gaze Aoide expected, he quickly recoiled from the crib.

"Do not look at its face, Aoide," he warned. She knew not to question him when he used that tone, so she closed her eyes and let Hermes lead her hands to the child's mouth.

Her fingers moved around the delicate skin and lips, but one side was wrong. Dips in the face, a sharp bone— she felt it was hideous. Shaking slightly, Aoide brought the vial of water to her own lips and sipped a tiny amount. Tilting next against the child's tiny mouth, she heard it swallow.

"He drank it all," Hermes told her. Aoide nodded, and then she began to sing to the child.

---

Hermes never could forget the sound of Aoide's voice, but it was still a fresh shock and relief to hear it. She could sing from high to low, sounding equally like a human male or female.

As she sang to the babe, she sang in her deepest voice, the heavenly sound flowing into the little one's ears. Its eyes opened wide and stared at Aoide, wriggling under the blankets and cooing at her.

After a short minute, Aoide silenced herself, and then both of them heard the command.

More.

Aoide's shock was quite apparent to Hermes; no one ever gave gifts to mortals more than Aoide just had. And now she was to give more? She was silent, and then her voice seemed to be ripped from her.

Her eyes popped open, her hands clawing at her mouth raggedly as her voice sang from someone else's accord.

Hermes stared between her and the boy who was now still in his crib, his eyes wide in his horrible face. The baby began to hiccough as he was washed in the sound, and Hermes felt all of Aoide's deep singing leave her.

Shock ran through him as well when he realized what was happening. All of Aoide's deeper voices, all those considered masculine by the mortals, were being given to this boy.

And all Hermes could think of was how Apollo could now sing to her in his boyish voice, and she would only be silent, unable to rebuke him for his unholy voice.

Aoide's eyes then fixed on those of the infant boy in the crib, and she raked his face, and fell in a dead faint, her voice echoing in the tiny room.

Footsteps sounded outside of the door, and Hermes lifted Aoide, angel of music, in his arms and flew away, back to Heaven, where they belonged.