“See, Raven? That is the appropriate response. Thank you, Beth.” Dax grins.
“Shut it, dummy. You know insulting you is my love language.” Raven chuckles.
“What is that?” I squint into the distance.
“Is that a tortoise?” Jayden asks. “Or a giant turtle?”
“Probably a tortoise. I am not fighting a damn tortoise because a nymph defied Zeus and Hermes turned her into the first. Hades, what is going on?”
“What are you talking about?” Dax asks.
“That tortoise is more than likely Chelone the Arcadian mountain nymph who ignored the summons to attend my father’s wedding to the queen,” I say.
“What is she doing?” Raven leans forward.
“I think she’s crossing the highway, but tortoises are notoriously slow creatures because part of her sentence from my father was to carry her home on her back for eternity.”
“That’s an oddly specific punishment,” Greyson says.
“Her reason for ignoring Hermes was because she would rather stay home. It’s kind of poetic justice, I guess.” I shrug.
“Okay, so what do we do? We can’t run her over and I don’t think it’s a great idea to try to swerve around her in case she changes direction.” Jayden adjusts his grip on the steering wheel.
“I guess we watch her for a few minutes and see what she does.” I lean closer to the windshield.
Jayden inches the SUV forward as we grow closer to the huge tortoise. She turns toward us, watching as the vehicle approaches slowly, but doesn’t react like she understands what’s happening.
“I wonder if she was accidentally brought back like Chiron?” I tilt my head to the side.
“Maybe? If she’s been around since ancient times, then she would have seen the progression of man and would be scared of a vehicle coming at her, right?” Raven asks.
“This is too weird. She’s stopped now. How do we get her to move?” I unbuckle my seat belt.
“Maybe we can go around her.” Jayden inches the vehicle forward.
The tortoise backs up quicker than I would have thought possible for her and blocks our way. Jayden puts the SUV in park and slumps back in the seat.
“What now?” Jayden asks, frustrated.
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this but I’m going to go talk to a giant tortoise.” I grip the door handle.
“Not on your own. If she hates Hermes, she could try to fight you,” Jayden says.
“Yeah, I thought of that too. I just hope it doesn’t come to that. I actually think tortoises are cool,” I grumble.
“They are cool. I don’t want to hurt her either. Let’s try talking first. If she attacks, then we fight back but not before.” Jayden squeezes my hand.
“Agreed.” I move to open the door, but Jayden shadow walks to my door and beats me to it. “Show off.”
“Only for you.” He presses a kiss to my forehead.
Raven gags from the back seat and a giggle escapes me. Jayden is just too sweet for words sometimes. Raven doesn’t particularly care, like she said her love language is insults.
I turn my attention back to the problem at hand. The massive brown tortoise stares at me with curiosity in her intelligent eyes.
“Hi there, Chelone?” I ask.
She bobs her head up and down once and I take a step back into Jayden. She can fucking understand me. She’s just an animal, right? No, I need to remember that she was once a nymph before she became a tortoise.
