Chapter Eighteen
Hermes
"Some day I'll eventually stop getting surprised by your plans." Pyrrha drily remarked. "But today is not that day."
After Ruby finished stealing an asteroid of all things, something she explained away as 'I needed it so I took it', resulting in Pyrrha throwing her across the Brass Fortress, she spent the following weeks slowly consuming the Cyclops forces into her hold. Pyrrha and Briares watched over every interview she conducted until she had an even dozen of them inside her pocket dimension. All of them understood in their limited comprehension (they'd never be intellectuals but they certainly knew their way around metal) that for them to survive longer than a few hours inside without having Ruby constantly protect them, their free will was no more.
"I'm surprised that's not your default mood whenever you wake up." The chosen dozen now had their own dark sky skin, speckled with the silver and green of the twin stars protecting them rather than the blinding white Ruby and Pyrrha's skin reflected. The pack of them would mine for a week before Ruby pulled their quarry through into the Brass Fortress for processing. While in her hold they discovered, after bringing in river waters to nurture them, that they didn't need anything, the white dwarf trapped in there with them keeping them nurtured, the energy drain negligible against the centuries of fuel still burning.
"It is, I just don't tell you about it or you'd worry." She sniped, watching the convoy a select few Hellhounds pulled behind them, laden with the extracted goods. Ruby certainly didn't mind using them as beasts of burden when they could easily pull far more than a civilian. Some of the larger ones dwarfed Atlesian Airships and were far too large to efficiently saddle even, with the smallest zipping around in balls of shadows Ruby took great enjoyment tracking.
"You're the only one under my care that I never have to worry about." They meandered across the black plains surrounding the Mansion of Night, following a Hellhound to a location Phlegethon only briefly touched upon and Nyx refused to elaborate on when asked about it. "In the eight decades after my death, you rose to power as an S-rank, fixing the political turmoil between the five kingdoms, and reigned in Yang. Your Aura core eclipsed mine several times over, at least before our ascension and your body has enough scars to rival mine."
Pyrrha stared at her Commander with wide eyes before a deep blush erupted over her cheeks. "Geez, Ruby, why don't you just kiss me already with how much you wax about me."
"We can schedule that for later." Ruby didn't miss a beat, not even when they crested a hill and came upon the dilapidated remains of a temple sheltered within a shallow crater. Pyrrha filed away her clinical response and stared up at the distant ceiling, trying to spot the entrance for this entire building to fall through and slam into the dirt yet the turbulent clouds and hazy air fought her vision. They all moved into the crater, descending into the temple and she winced at the state of it. The roof had long ago collapsed and barely any columns stood with a fine layer of black soot covering the original white, baked in over the centuries of high heat. In the middle of the columns, sat a suspiciously pristine black altar with a brazier sitting on top.
The Hellhounds finally sagged in relief and Ruby went to each one to help relieve them of their cargo and pet them on their noses, getting tongue licks in reply she accepted without question. The Cyclops moved all of it from the rudimentary carts into the space near the altar. Ruby watched them carefully and then dismissed the lot of them to return back up to the crater rim, all of them bowing without either of them ever instilling a form of reverence. The Hellhounds stuck around, massing into their typical pack just outside the columns and awaiting their new master.
Ruby grabbed a stack of coal she specifically brought along for this purpose and lit the brazier in the center of the altar with Yang's Semblance, a dull orange light flickering across the bleak landscape and casting long shadows. Whatever warmth they sought paled in comparison to the already omnipresent heat within the Pit yet Pyrrha stood transfixed by the embers drifting off into the sky. Ruby, as usual, ignored it and grabbed a bar of pure gold from the supplies she brought, holding it in the flames before speaking, "Hermes Argeiphontes, God of Trade, you are summoned. Accept this offering in good faith."
The flames grew into a towering inferno, lighting up the entire crater and searing anything close to it before rapidly subsiding into a smoldering campfire. On the other side of the altar, speaking into what looked like a miniature scroll, stood an athletic middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and a sly grin.
"I don't care if Demeter lost the shipment of fertilizer. One of her nymphs signed off on the document so I don't care about her warehouse logistics." He snapped the scroll shut with a flourish before composing himself, massaging his brow before the smile returned and he addressed her. "Now, what can I do for… you…?" He trailed off, eyes widening as he took stock of his location and the present weight of the Pit settled on him. His skin glowed a faint gold when he called up his divinity to abate the prison's hold on him yet never crossed the threshold of shedding his mortal form. "I thought my temple was destroyed at the end of the Silver Age."
"Phlegethon mentioned this temple has rested here since just after the Lord of the Sky deposed the Lord of the Harvest." Ruby avoided mentioning any names for the moment. "This is the only fragment of the current ruling pantheon in the Pit, not counting the Lord of the Dead's dominion, and serves as a convenient meeting point."
He composed himself in a few seconds, carefully eying the pack of Hellhounds milling outside the perimeter. "I am Hermes, God of Trade, Thieves, and Messengers." He summoned the same gold bar the flames had eaten and weighed it in his hands. "An offering in 'good faith' doesn't involve me diving into the Pit usually."
"I understand you're one of the few gods that can freely enter and leave the Underworld without repercussion as part of your domains. This makes you a valuable ally. As God of Trade, you're even more valuable and I will negotiate for your services." Pyrrha handed her several sheets of parchment she compiled over the last few weeks and she laid them on the altar.
"You're not going to imprison me?" Hermes gasped and violently shook his scroll when it erupted in hisses. He stepped forward to look over the pages, tallying the massive amounts of supplies they had listed. Everything from luxury foodstuffs, computers, toiletries, and manufacturing equipment was listed, everything a functioning society needed to start up and keep on running in a self-sustained bubble. "This is a tall order, Miss…?"
"Ruby Rose, my partner here is Pyrrha Nikos. I'm fully prepared to pay for these supplies, in good faith as you mentioned." She gestured over to the cargo they had carefully transported over here. Each stack of gold glittered softly in the dying brazier, with the other refined metals joining them in a cacophony of colors. "Three metric tons of refined divine gold along with half a metric ton of divine bronze should suffice for most of these supplies. If you require more as a fee for your services, make it known."
Hermes genuinely choked this time at the ludicrous offer, mentally calculating the obscene worth of the pallet of metals arranged before him, and concluded he could get most of her supplies by barely making a dent in the Drachma worth equivalent for what he'd get selling this to the Plutonian Mint and Hephaestus. The few manufacturing machines would greatly cut into his profits yet the gold Drachma remained their currency for a good reason, divine gold worth hundreds of times more than their mortal counterpart.
"I regret to inform you that I don't serve Titans or their allies, Miss Rose. The Pit is a prison for a reason and it's against Hermes Incorporated policy to serve our enemies." He pushed back the stack of papers, a fake apology written all over his face. "Despite the obvious profit, I have to decline this contract, I'm sure you can understand."
"We're no allies to the Titans, Hermes, and although this doesn't make us allies, we share a common cause against them from what we're aware. Information isn't the easiest to come by in this Pit but the current ruling pantheon deposed the Titans and we're not fans of them either." Ruby stated and sliced her hand open on a knife, letting her red blood drip onto the black sands where the ground almost greedily ate it up.
"If you're no allies to the Titan then surely you'd want to leave this place? No one wants to remain in the Pit for longer than they need to. Olympus freely offers shelter and aid to those that stand against the Titans."
Ruby's cold laugh echoed around the crater and Pyrrha suppressed the goosebumps racing across her skin. There was no kindness in that laugh, the derision aimed down at the god enough to knock Salem from her throne. Whatever Ruby's third rebirth did to her, part of Summer survived and merged with what was left of the original Ruby. "And submit to a higher authority? We know nothing about Olympus or its goals. The Pit, at least, is a lawless domain granted to those with the strength to seize it and we'll succeed or fail on our own so for the moment we decline any alliance with Olympus." Pyrrha broadcast her thoughts about returning to this conversation in the future, refusing to countermand her commander publicly. A far more profound and immaterial voice answered in a whisper she couldn't decipher before Ruby answered. Another thing to investigate with the amount of time she spent in their shared soulscape. "However, we can swear not to aid the Titans for the duration of our agreement as a stipulation in return for your silence. We summoned Hermes, the God of Trade, not Hermes, the Olympian, for trade and nothing more."
"It takes more than gold to buy my silence." NDAs were extremely common in his business. "Movement alone costs much into the Pit and I've salaries to pay on top of the equipment. Another half ton of gold for the silence and make it one total for more… ease of procurement if you get my drift."
Without pause, Ruby accepted. "In return for quality supplies delivered promptly, and your silence, we give you four tons of divine gold and a half-ton of divine bronze, this I swear by Nyx's name." Phlegethon had briefed her on the River Styx and oaths sworn on her waters yet if one river could keep gods to their word, then her mother would hold them to it even better. Her agreement with Nyx after all didn't need her as a binding conduit, both of them capable of enforcing their ends of the bargain.
Hermes paled considerably at the mention of her name as the Pit thrummed in power, a black shadow racing from the crater's edge to wrap around Ruby to drape across her shoulders. Enormous nebulous wings blanked out the crimson clouds and Hermes took a step back at the presence of the protogenoi, cursing himself out for answering summons at an unknown location. If he lived through this with his sanity intact, he'd have to review his contract with Iris and then ream out the Fates to see if he could disconnect himself from his old temple. The Hellhounds surrounding the temple howled in unison at their mother's presence, prompting Hermes to flash out at the humongous threat.
No amount of gold was worth getting involved with a protogenos.
He immediately found himself slamming back into the marble of his temple, Nyx's laughter booming through his mind. The Pit's dark tendrils wrapped around him and suppressed his divinity, keeping him trapped. Suddenly his chances of survival dwindled into the single digits, nothing save for another primordial enough to counter Night's presence.
"Do you realize what you've done?" Hermes whispered. Pyrrha off to the side sighed at the antics and dispersed her metal sphere into several rings of orbiting shards. On top of that, both of them were suddenly wrapped up in the midnight star with a vast concentration of stars centered around their eyes. Nyx slunk from Ruby's form and materialized into her androgynous form, shrinking down her wings and leaning on the possessed puppet of Ruby. No human could survive standing near her and he needed to do some quick thinking to survive long enough to warn Olympus of this growing threat.
"Nyx is here as a binding agent." Ruby's midnight skin sank away, revealing her slightly more haunting black eyes. "We've heard far too much about Olympians breaking their oaths and she is slightly more of a deterrent than a river and this way, we both stick to the ends of our deal." Ruby let a smile grace her face.
Ruby, did you really invoke my name to seal on contract with an Olympian, just to annoy me and enforce a deal?" Nyx grasped Ruby by her hair and pulled her head back to stare down at her prey. It wasn't like she had much to do when sequestered down in the Pit, not that she'd ever admit that to her fellow Primordials, Chaos having automated pretty much everything when they disappeared somewhere. She had five nebulas bet against Thesis they were off in a water park on the other end of the civilized universe. Her gaze switched over to the shaking Olympian, shadowy tendrils surging forth to wrap him in a cocoon. Her voice echoed violently around his head, golden ichor dripping slowly from his nose. Ah, Hermes, the lifeline of Olympus' logistics and one of the best thieves on your planet. Very little can escape his reach.
"Phlegethon named him the God of Trade so it was an obvious pick. It was either him or the Queen that rules over the Amazons."
Really? Nyx's form shrank until she stood at Pyrrha's height, shadows coalescing together into a more corporeal body and dress. And here I thought it was to cripple Olympus. Hermes seized up at that and Nyx finally released her hold on him, realizing he was a second away from a stroke. Relax godling. We mean no harm. They're actually here to make a deal with you or I'd have crushed them by the same oath they swore.
"L-l-l-ady N-n-nyx, it's-s an h-h-onor to me-e-t you." With her binding released, he positively shook under her presence and Pyrrha took pity on the god. "Nyx, either restrain your power or go away. I doubt you actually need to be here." Hermes managed to suffer through his surprise any mortal dared speak to a god, let alone a protogenos, like that and survive, only to get another surprise when Nyx only rolled her eyes and the oppressive shadows surrounding them all receded into her. Fine, kill my fun. Happy?
"Enough to finish this deal without Hermes shaking like a rattle? Yes." Ruby didn't need an all-powerful being draped over her egging on her worst tendencies. Summer alone did enough of that and she already knew without having to ask that Ruby gave her command over the Brass Fortress to protect those under their care, Ruby off within their soulscape experimenting with powers they knew very little about, still dealing with the repercussions of her death and identity disorder despite wearing Summer's face with a tad more sarcastic sadism she couldn't quite pin on Mask, Summer, or Ruby. Although, Yang did get far more bloodthirsty and acerbic with age so maybe it was a Branwen thing. They even had their eyes change color after a traumatic event so she added it to her ever-growing list of questions.
You need to stop broadcasting your thoughts so loud Pyrrha. Ruby interrupted her inner monologue. I'm aware Nyx wants something from me but I will handle her. On the other hand, you're correct. My judgment is compromised and it's why I remain in our soulscape.
Oh yeah, lemme quickly shield my thoughts like I've been doing since I was born.
Who has the acerbic wit now? Pyrrha firmly believed Ruby was rolling her eyes somehow. After this, we'll both go into our shared soulscape. I have theories we need to test, not only about myself but the warped reality in there.
Now, little godling, do we have a deal or are you reneging? Hermes knew he'd never survive the fallout, from either decision. He already made the decision before Nyx got involved. To turn back now invited her to rip his reputation apart, especially on such a high-profile deal with a massive profit. He did not, and could not, have Nyx prowling outside the Underworld and provoking a war. Not because she'd cause one but because his father would never stand her presence, especially with the Titans stirring again. Sure, he hadn't yet sworn to uphold his end of the bargain but he also highly doubted he'd ever leave if he didn't. Accepting it also damned him, having to supply an unknown, unable to so much as hint at what he learned here with Nyx looming over him.
That alone would destroy him far before the resulting war.
With as much dignity as he could muster, he finished the oath and his divinity receded from protecting him, the Pit sparing him from its oppressive presence. Nyx's bindings crept into him instead, latching on tight and sealing the oath into his essence. He flashed out the moment that was complete, taking his payment with him.
Ruby immediately turned to Nyx and asked, "What do you want?"
Nyx smiled carelessly, pulling more of a black hole into her form to sustain the void staring back. You move from your fortress for the first time in months and you go to one of two places not under protogenoi control. She didn't so much as explain how she knew that and Ruby wasn't going to ask, already tuning out Pyrrha's dimming indignity at the invasion of their privacy. My children are still my children, even if they're yours to care for. Still, I see you were serious about your goals, beyond the star you captured.
"You talk a lot, have you realized that? It's almost like a monologue."
You realize the only other being I regularly talk to is my husband, who makes the dead sound lively. Great, the sarcasm was a general Pit thing then, and if she stayed longer than she fully expected to have devolved into a ball of it. Pyrrha bashed her head with her spear for the moment, regretting whatever she did on Remnant that sent her to spend eternity with a psychopathic abomination. I appeared to screw with the Olympian by coincidence only because said husband needs a situation handled and we don't have demigods to throw at the problem.
"Oh goodie," Pyrrha shortcircuited at that, leaving Ruby to her negotiations and petting the first Hellhound she found. They at least made sense, sorta. Ruby smiled amused at the middle finger she got. "I need a nebula."
You don't even know the mission and you ask for the next step up from a star. Careful, abomination, I might almost start liking you. A miniature nebula appeared in her hand briefly. As you know by now, Tartarus acts as a prison and a few of the more… tenacious Titans are getting uppity and annoying both the Pit and Erebus with alliance requests, both peaceful and threatening. Loathe as I'm to intervene with my nieces and nephews power struggles, listening to them whine is far more of a challenge.
"You're the literal embodiment of this universe and struggling with tiny godlings in charge of domains." If Ruby said that anywhere near a rainforest, she'd instantly transform it into an arid desert. With her easy subjugation of the one Titans, the rest of them likely weren't any stronger. Phlegethon whispered the name of the Harvest Lord as the strongest of them all yet Time was nothing more than a physics problem waiting for a solution with creative applications of Aura. Compared to the Nothingness nipping at the edges of their soulscape and the still undiscovered inimical force hiding somewhere, she retreated to the same apathy the protogenos held for anything not them.
Ananke is not a sibling I wish to challenge, nor can I blast them from existence without having to absorb their domain, something I already had to do when you obliterated Krios and transferred his domain of the Stars and Constellations to me. Hmm, so that's what eventually happened with this dimension's domains. They didn't so much as cease to exist once fed to the Nothing but conceptually, they still had enough energy to tide the beast hiding out there. Still, that it could feed on concepts and not just physical energy like the star she subsumed meant whatever it was, really did violate conventional physics.
Far more immensely than Nyx and perhaps Ananke and Thesis could.
"My forces aren't anywhere near online to consider waging war across Tartarus, let alone lock down the borders to the Lord of the Dead. In a few years perhaps, I'll have the numbers to establish a zone of control enough to deter the Titans from bothering both myself and you three."
I'm not asking for a war against the Titans, she drawled. Simply a hostile meeting where you threaten them into compliance. You'll dissuade three of them, maybe five of them at most. She waved off the actual number without care. In and out, twenty-minute adventure.
"You mean it'll take more like twenty weeks!" Pyrrha yelled from across the temple, surrounded by a pack of Hellhounds all squabbling over each other for a chance to get scratched. "Extort her for everything she has Ruby!"
Nyx wrapped her in a shadow and flung her off into the distance. Where she expected her hellhounds to immediately turn and swarm her, they instead all chased after the red comet. Ruby felt the tug in her direction if she focused on it, knowing she rebounded just fine and would return to the Brass Fortress once she detangled from the mass of Hellhounds baying for her affection.
"She has a point. You're coming to me, a neutral skilled party, for a long-term tracking and hostile negotiation mission. Fate won't let you interfere directly and you've no demigods within Tartarus to challenge the Titans directly." She sat down and crossed her legs, drawing in the black sand. "Krios is handled, Oceanus and Tethys reside in the mortal world, and the Harvest Lord is scattered across the sands. Of the latter's inner circle, only Koios, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Theia are imprisoned here and have enough power to annoy one of you, none of which have known locations.
You're immortal. Nyx deadpanned and Ruby had to give the argument to her. So often she had to negotiate with her Council to keep her forces funded, and now, she had the means to perpetually keep them alive, healthy, and equipped without the need for money and without having to bow to a lesser power. Nyx continued at her nod. Koios is the most reasonable, Hyperion and Theia are usually together, and Iapetus shelters with Pallas and Perses in their Coliseum. That one may take time to negotiate. Other Titans that may cross your path are the missing Rhea, Phoebe, Eos, Helios, and Selene. They haven't been seen by anyone since the Titanomachy and Tartarus doesn't bother tracking them. The lesser Titans won't even pose a problem for you and may even stay away from you.
"And the nebula I need to sustain these forays into the Pit? Dissuading that many Titans will drain not only me but my entire forces that rely on my energy to exist, not to mention the Pit itself won't help for its neutrality."
"You'll have your nebula, my little abomination, don't fret. No doubt it'll power your engines for eons to come and you'll never have to bother me for pieces of myself again. A smaller one will suffice until you finish your task. I can't have you running away now can we?" Her lips curled into a devious smile, a ball of light coalescing in her open hand. Across their soulscape, they felt the endless energy pulsing, the Nothingness biting at their heels and demanding tribute.
"My word is my bond Nyx." The primordial sent over the nebula and Ruby popped it into her mouth. The force outside her realm siphoned a portion off immediately, first retreating back to the outskirts and then rippling aggressively when it realized what Ruby accepted generated its own power. The other force within her realm resonated with it, singing a sad song when it realized the chains she placed on it yet did nothing more to help bolster the borders. "The Titans won't bother you for millennia once I'm through with them."
Nyx disappeared with a cackling laugh, the crimson sky deepening briefly at the Pit's acceptance. Ruby detached from her mortal body and settled the nebula into the sky above their soul stars. Clamping them into place, she retreated back into reality and shuddered as she opened the tether. The familiar dark skinsuit appeared and her eyes glowed bright white before abating immediately, Pyrrha going through the same phenomenon.
The Hellhounds didn't give a damn and swarmed her regardless, emboldened by the strengthening of her mortal body, and covered her in slobber. She let them practically maul her to not anger Nyx and certainly not because she missed Re'iyah.
She eventually wiggled her way free under Pyrrha's knowing smile and with a touch, tore open a singularity and moved them into their soulscape. They could worry about a proper term later once they had forces within their new home. They appeared in their normal forms despite not having limitations on appearances here, Pyrrha flashing a fresh hoodie on and Ruby discarding her gear and leaving her comfy bodysuit. Above them hovered their binary stars, red and green tainting the desolate rock they arrived on a vibrant yellow with the white dwarf hovering far closer. Off to the side, the vast cloudy nebula colored the sky in hundreds of other colors, bringing a smile to her face. With a thought, Ruby tapped into it and recreated the Forever Falls, forcing their souls to diminish and make the dwarf the primary light source.
A joyous laugh reverberated about as Pyrrha ran about with abandon, feeling the grass and light rays touch across her skin for the first time in what felt like months. Her boots went flying and she laid down just to enjoy the moment. Ruby even created dirt and she never thought she'd ever miss fresh dirt.
"This garden is only the start of our shared world but it's built on a fundamentally unethical idea." Ruby sat by her side and moved her head onto her lap and despite almost feeling like a child, Pyrrha allowed it. "When I attempted to steal Koios's domain to fix my health, I overstepped on two occasions. My body couldn't handle the mantle of the stars and constellations and burnt my mindscape to cinders so I used the last gift Salem gave me and sacrificed it to the no-space, the void she left within me when I offered my eyes in exchange for peace, except there was something… else there already."
Pyrrha knew this story, Yang having told her about their pasts in confidence on a nondescript night when they lay in bed together. For Ruby, her sight was nothing but a price she chose to pay, a disability to work around later when the war ended. But this was the first time she heard of something else residing just outside of their soulscape.
"Salem miscalculated when she severed Ozpin's fragment of divinity and ripped open a hole with nothing to fill it, the same nothing that hunts around the borders of this new world. That same nothing however is the only reason I survived, the only reason we're now both immortal as long as I can sate its hunger. It's not sentient from when I've seen and isn't really a hunger but more of a tithe it demands to keep from eating this world in turn along with our souls."
Pyrrha stiffened at that, eyes snapping open after having fallen into a lull and accusing Ruby of betrayal. Ruby ignored that for now and continued petting her.
"This brings me to my second overstep. What I did to Koios was a use of force where I took everything from the Titan to suit my selfish needs. That's my theory on what created this world in the first place and isn't anywhere within the Greek pantheon according to Phlegethon. That act was a perversion, an act this Nothingness feeds on and I absolutely refuse to condemn anything or anyone further to that and I'll have to live with that mistake for the rest of my days."
Pyrrha spoke after a long minute of silence. "That's why you asked to protect my soul instead of taking it without my permission. Why the idea of taking my willpower from me is entirely abhorrent."
"That act, your consent and acceptance, spawned an inimical force to counter the Nothingness, something so entirely opposite to the first force that I can sense actual confusion from it despite not having anything resembling human emotions although I really don't have a baseline for them to be honest." Her captive audience snorted at that. "The first force expects me to take without permission and the second one came about because I ignored the first and chose to ask, yet this world still exists, just at the cost of stars instead of lives.
"You mean...?"
"Genocide, maybe. That's one thing I learned the Nothingness thrives on although I don't know why it does or why it hasn't consumed us for my folly, or whether it's just a byproduct of attempting to sustain life in a place not designed for it. Energy, sentience, life, potential, any of these may sate it. I can't exactly ask it directly, unfortunately." She clenched her fist tight enough to draw blood. "The one dracaena I committed to this experiment and stripped of its will I handed over fully as the thought of commanding an empty shell made me violently sick."
So that was the week when Ruby disappeared and she felt a dull creeping ache behind her heart. She often meditated and left the daily runnings of the Brass Fortress to her, poking and prodding at the metaphysical pocket dimension. With how beat up and positively disgusted she sounded at the very idea, she didn't have to warn her to stay away from this aspect of their new power. Unless forced to for their benefit, she'd never use it again and because she allowed Pyrrha access to her realm as an equal, she had to stay away from it too.
"That's why I bargain with Nyx for stars, the same initial celestial bodies that created this world to sustain it, the nebulas acting as nurseries and forges for more. My accident pulling you here revealed that I can take people without stripping their wills, much like how you only allowed certain Cyclops passage here despite not knowing the alternative." She pushed Pyrrha to sit up and carved a passage deep into the land. "That makes you a good person Pyrrha."
"Thanks." Pyrrha wrapped her in a surprise hug and held her tight, the broken remnants of Ruby's psyche taking a dozen seconds to stutter a return hold. "What's down there?"
"The other force. It's finally settled and solidified enough with the placement of the nebula, almost waiting for us to find it. Shall we?" She held out her hand and Pyrrha grabbed it with a wide and hopeful smile.