Chapter 11: Happily Married Life

Outside the river, Hermes was busy drawing circles on the ground and had even invited Iris to join him at some point, which she of course accepted... What, you expected them to just stand infront of the river like fools and wait for someone that might take about half a day to finish his bath?. Ha!, very funny, they might as well just draw circles on the ground.

"How long will it take to finish the bath?" Iris finally could not take it anymore and asked the ferryman, who was leisurely smoking his pipe.

The thing was, it had been almost about five hours, yet that ferryman was still smoking, was he not afraid of his health?.

"It usually takes longer than this, and also am immortal, a lil' smoke won't kill me" He said and took another drag, and puffed out another cloud.

Iris was starting to wonder if the fog around the river was not actually smoke from his pipe.

Hearing his answer, Iris went back to drawing circles on the ground with Hermes, who was actually using his scepter to draw.

"I thought that scepter was important to you, since you carried it everywhere you go" Iris decided to at least talk with someone as she waited for Doron, she was not even bothered if he could actually breathe in the river, she knew Lady Styx won't let Doron drown.

"It is, and it's not at the sametime" He replied as he drew what looked like a ranch that had what looked like cows grazing on the fields.

Iris just looked at him like, "Dude, which is it?".

"You see, when I was young, I stole a gods herd of cows and was later caught, and was of course punished for it, and you know that we gods aren't born but made, I also became a god, and that god had this misconception that I might seek revenge on him for what he did to me when I was young, so he gave me this scepter as a form of truce" He said as he drew another herd, but this time it looked like sheep, with what looked like wolves attacking them and their shepherd chasing the wolves away.

"I have heard of that,was it not Apollo." Iris questioned.

Hermes did not answer as he looked into the horrizon.

"We gods are really lonely creatures, we are also living beings with emotions to, and get bored, we gods were also once human, and as humans, power sometimes changes us..." Hermes said as he wrote something on the ground.

Iris read what he wrote and frowned as she looked at the ferryman hwo seemed to be acting strange all of a sudden.

'How certain are you something is wrong?' Iris asked as she opened her mind to allow Hermes to communicate with her telepathically. Hermes was a theif, so always having mind connections with him was just telling him to steal your thoughts, and she did not want that at all.

'He has been puffing out smoke like a train, what kind of smoker smokes that fast? So I assume that he is either nervous about something or he just loves smoking?, am not really sure since I can't really steal his thoughts.' Hermes responded.

Iris now looked at the ferryman and also realised that the way he was puffing out smoke was really fast, he was taking a drag of his pipe so fast that I was akin to steam train running down the tracks at blinding speeds.

'What do you think is wrong?' Iris was getting scared right now, if anything happens to Doron, she should not even think of dying.

'Marriage'

'...'

Iris did not know how to respond to what Hermes just said. What did he say, marriage? did some god some mortal or something? or is the ferrryman thinking of getting married? well good for him then, but what does this has to o with Doron...

It then clicked in her head, MARRIAGE!!? Did Styx marry Doron!?

Iris shot up from her squating position and looked at the ferryman that was puffing out smoke like some kind of steam powered turbine at this point.

Iris looked at the black river and suddenly wished that it was that black so that she could see what was happening in there.

"AYY! what the hell is going on down there!?" Iris was no longer as respectful as before when they arrived but was now furious. Why? That is because Doron was so special that not any goddess can just marry him on a whim! only goddess like Kali, Gaia, Nyx, or maybe Hela, but not a punny goddess like Styx who does not have any noteworthy ability to help Doron in the long run!.

"Mind your tone miss Iris" The ferryman cautioned, but if one listened closely, they would notice that his voice sound a bit shacky. 'Milady, what have you done!?'.

If the ferryman was to remove his robes, it was easy to see that he was sweating rivers due to his collosal size.

"Does your mistress want to go against all the gods on earth and even the primordial gods!?" Iris was literally yelling at this point. If Hermes was able to notice this, even though he was not a god incharge of watching over the scrifices and is part of the gods that are not supposed to know about the names or locations of the sacrifices at all, she only did this because Hermes was a good negotiator, and was able to freely enter the underworld when he likes, she could have met Hades but... He was Hades, she was scared of being of kidnapped like one goddess.

There were other gods, but these gods were primordials and can't be controlled by her like other gods like Hermes.

There were many gods she could not just order around.

"That is my mistresses problem to deal with, and I will follow her decision." The ferryman said with conviction on his face, but inside, he was already crying. He just wanted to ferry the dead to the gates of hades to be judged by the judges of the underworld, nothing more, nothing less.

Iris said nothing more and as she looked at Hermes, who finally stopped drawing on the ground.

"Territorial override, The den of Hermes"

Hermes raised his arms as Temple appeared behind him like a mirage in the dessert, as the area around him started growing grasses and trees, as the temple looked to be covered in vegetation.

"This is the best I can do for you" Hermes said as he sat down on the grassy plain and looked at Iris with the same smile plastered on his face. Iris just noded and summoned a root from the ground that also came with looked like a sword.

Iris took the sword and pointed it at the frryman and spoke.

"As the Hostiam Custoduis to the child of Rhogog, and with the power bestowed on me by the guardian gods, I declare that the ferryman and his master The Goddess of the Styx, as traitors to the world."

And to acknowledge her declaration, the aword in her hand glowed a neon green.

Hermes who saw this was surprised, and shocked.

'That boy is that beings son!? No wonder Zeus said not to oppose Iris anything she does.' Hermes felt like he was so stupid talking to that boy about good and bad and about sins, was he stupid, he would have gone to his past self and slap him silly.

The ferryman, who also heard what Iris said was also shocked. He knew that for them to not want this boy to die, and were willing to exchange his soul in the underworld with the souls of demigods, then he was really high profiled, but not like this! 'Milady, you have f*cked us up.'

The ferryman, also took his giant looking scythe and got ready to take Iris on.

"You will regret this!" Iris yelled as jumped high up into the sky to be in the ferrymans line of sight, and released a downward slash to his body, as a green wave flew from her sword heading to the ferryman who blocked the blow with handle of his scythe and was not prepsred by the force that followed the strike so he was pushed back, as his large boat shook on the river.

Iris did not waste this opportunity and went for his legs, and released another wave of green energy that looked like crescent moon that aimed to amputate the legs of the ferryman.

The ferryman who just recovered from the shock instantly saw the wave and jumped upwards to dodge the crescent moon, and the wave hit his boat and left a deep gash on his boat as black water started leaking inside. The ferryman was shocked yet again by the power of the blow as his boat was not made of normal wood and could even withstand a nuclear blast.

His shock was long lived as dodged another crescent moon to his neck.

'This form is bad' The ferryman thought as he instantly shrunk down a height of three meters and got ready for another attack from Iris, but did not expect his scythe that shrunk with him to split into two, this shocked him again and this time it cost him as his chest was pierced by Iris's green blabe.

His body instantly lit like a christmas light as he felt his life force being drained into the sword.

The ferryman got huge again and Iris who was not expecting this was hit with huge amount black blood and was almoat pushed into the river Styx.

The gigantic ferryman looked at the wound on his chest and felt scared. He was so close to dying at that point, as the wound that looked small before now looked gigantic with his collosal size as blood flowed into the river Styx and pale hands came out of the river around the blood and it seemed that the souls in the river were happy with this blessing that literally fell on them.

Iris now that had black on her body and a bleeding ferryman looked at each other with vigilance.

"What is going on here?" They both heard the voice of a woman as lady Styx came out of the river with Doron in her embrace like his a treasure that she was afraid to let go.

Doron on the other looked like he was drained of all his nuitrients as he looked like a walking skeleton.

Hermes, Iris and the ferryman looked at this with shock on their faces, well not Hermes as he gave Doron the "Your the man look".

Iris was even more in shock. 'Where they doing it for that long?'

The ferryman just fainted... Maybe he just lost too much blood.