Before they arrived at Heathrow, the two sisters had agreed that Melanie would be the only one to see her off. Neither of their parents would hear of the good news, for they were in the midst of the retirement, traversing through the wold like the protagonists of a French bildungsroman from the 1800s.

They didn't want them to suddenly become aware of that there was more going on in young Persephone's life now then the foolish daughter who studied music so hard her fingers were like brittle and her pockets devoid of drachm, and not the newly christened Rock Star she was about to become.

"Well, I guess this is it." Melanie mused, tears on the verge of streaming down her face as they embraced in the reception of Heathrow.

"Melanie. I'm only going to be gone until the end of the tour and the new single is recorded." Persephone reminded her.

In her older sister wisdom, she had also cleaned up all the paperwork on her end too.

The stipend she was given from winning was more than enough to pay off the rent for her crummy Cornish apartment for the next year or so while she was gone, which would make do as Melanie’s lodgings for the time being.

"I know. it's just-" Melanie suppressed a sniffle, “Tell Thanatos I said hello.”

"Mhmm, alright, and should I bring up the life sized body pillow that my sister has of him too?”

Much frustration and threats and proposals that they should swap places followed, but soon the two hugged one last time and then they were off back to their own separate worlds. University for Melanie, and the highest highs of the recording industry for Persephone.

She had packed very little, so security in truth was a breeze outside of explaining to the security guard what a Lyre harp was and that, yes, she had heard all about 10 Black Pomegranates and how their old Lyre player had broken up with them and how a new girl from Cornwall was now suddenly expected to take up the reigns and yes I might considering autographing that strange fold out poster you have of 10 Black Pomegranates if you let me through, and why does a security guard have a poster of a Nu-Metal Boyband while he’s at work?

As she sat in the lobby, Persephone began to wonder how she would actually from London to California. The terms and conditions had pretty vague on how she would get from A to B when it came to flying. Indeed, as the two sisters had gone through the the final paperwork of final preliminary signatures they'd struggled with the lack of detail.

There was a time and date to be at Heathrow airport, but no mention of what air-plane was going to take her there. She had waited for check-in to make mention of the ticket that was absent of the branding of any major airline carrier, but the steward, an elderly man with the sloped, contemptuous eyes of a hawk, couldn't find anything at fault with her ticket.

"Enjoy your trip Mademoiselle.” As he waved her through.

She had wanted to ask about how to proceed when it came time to board, but decided against it. There was a part of her that was thinking this was to be part of some larger recorded archive that would soon make it’s way into a documentary that highlighted the strange misadventures of a Cornish Lyre Player from her travels of Heathrow to playing out Sold Out Shows in Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

So she waited, and waited and waited and began to amuse herself on what Oscar winning movies might be available as she spent several hours in the plane. Perhaps last year’s Summer Blockbuster of Freddy vs Jason would be on offer, or perhaps she should console herself with a re watch of Revenge of the Nerds Part 3?

In truth, she wasn’t someone to sit back and ponder passively on a piece of medium like Film or Television, her mind constantly had to be stimulated in order to feel as though as she was alive.

Perhaps that was why she had gravitated towards Music in the first place, with Lyres and Ocarinas often kept her mind preoccupied when she might be troubled with dark thoughts that would cause someone to spiral into depression, sickness and self pity.

Music, despite all the troubles it brought, gave her a sense of agency that kept her moving forward in the world, and had led her to this once in a lifetime opportunity she was soon about to embark on.

She was also sensible enough to have the the foresight to bring something more exhilarating and moving than Revenge of the Nerds Part 3. A treasure trove of Greek Literature, mythology and playwrights had been steadily packed in her hand luggage. From the Iliad to Antigone to the fractured Myths of old, she found herself beginning to be lost with the old community of Gods and Heroes she'd known since childhood.

During her more turbulent years of adolescence, they’d been a source of comfort from what might've troubled her. With Achilles, Hercules and the rest of the demigods by her side, her spirit was always lifted by the time she was finished.

In the middle of her brief excursion into to the world of Oedipus and his mother issues, she saw the shadow of slight figure crop up in the reflection of her bookmark.

"Persephone Graves?" He asked. He was bespectacled, with a cane stick for a balancing act, and he was incredibly short. Even though she was still sitting, the tip of his bald head only came to her chin.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Charmed." Persephone answered, "I take it your my pilot?"

She wouldn't have picked him out to be a pilot, for he was dressed in yellow and green instead of the dark navy blue all pilots seemed naturally accustomed to embrace as a secondary skin. Nor did she expect him to have a cashier name tag, which was adorned with the words “HERMES.”

“What next, Athena and Aphrodite will be our Air Hostesses?” She thought, allowing that dark sarcastic side which she often kept hidden to come out.

“I am,” Hermes answered, with a suave confidence that Persephone didn’t expect, “Would you come along with me pretty please?”

“Sure, but only because you said pretty please.”

He smiled, and as the two began to walk Persephone noticed how she seemed to tower over Hermes. She wasn’t considerably tall for a woman either, maybe 5’6” at most, but she felt like she was a trailing a dwarf from Tolkien-esque legend, and not an esteemed pilot.

The name seemed to make Persephone wonder if she was perhaps being transported by the Greek God of Travel too. Did people named after Gods and Goddesses seemed predisposed to stick together, despite their differences in life gender and height? Her and Melanie, 10 Black Pomegranates and now her and this strange, diminutive air plane pilot. It was a strange though to have, and something that seemed to only grow in size as Hermes lead her from the lobby, into a nearby landing strip in the backyard of Heathrow, where her aircraft awaited her.

"This has to be a joke right?"

"Why would it be a joke?"

"There's no way we're going to cross the Atlantic in THAT thing."

"But of course we are," Hermes smiled, "It's been through more perilous journeys than the Atlantic, believe me.”

This aircraft was a strange beast all together. At first, glance it looked like someone had dabbled a fighter jet in feathers - No, in fact it was almost what a layperson would consider a plane to have looked like if they had lived in antiquity. Yes, there was a faint outline of a plane somewhere beneath all the fur, but it felt like the design had been out etched out on papyrus and studied by marking the patterns of the great birds that flew overhead.

Persephone trembled, and her high heels began to buckle under the stress of what awaited her.

"Oh come on, it's not going to be that bad," Hermes reassured her, “I’ve taken many people to meet 10 Black Pomegranates this way.”

She sighed, and realised, that of course, a band with a following like 10BP would have their own personal air chauffeur.

She took his hand, and slowly she found herself stepping aboard this strange plane, which had more in common with Apollo’s chariot rather than a modern aircraft. The inside of it felt like fluffy lucky dice, which Persephone hoped meant that their voyage across the Atlantic Ocean would soon be a success.

“So, tell me all about your Lyre music.” Hermes said, as he put the plane on autopilot once they had departed from Heathrow, “I’m quite a fan you know, of string instruments.”

"You play Lyre too?" She asked. Normally, being British, she wouldn't entertain a conversation with a stranger like this, even if he might be her pilot. But as she found herself growing restless in the Co-Pilot’s seat, without any in-flight entertainment to keep her mind distracted, she felt grateful to be sided with another lyre player.

He had, in fact, been proficient at playing the Lyre once, but it hadn’t been passed onto his son who was more content play the Pan Flute while he frolicked with young groupies as a Roadie for almost every Black Metal band under the sun.

Orpheus, had been a friend of a friend of a friend, and it was Hermes who had done the initial connection that brought him into the fold of the band Hades was carving out known as 10 Black Pomegranates. Hermes had first met him as a chaplain in training, under the guise that he could learn Lyre Music if he was willing to play along with the hymns of the Greek Orthodox Church. They did so, and then the two had set off in different lives once his training was complete and with a world class Lyre background.

Hermes, the Greek Chaplain, remained in Athens with his son and his wife, and soon developed a passion of flying in his spare time, along with regular contact in the world of Opera, where a solemn figure was lurking as he put together a band while looking for a Lyre player. Hermes soon had the two meet, and 10 Black Pomegranates was born.

“I’m kinda like the Brian Epstein of 10 Pomegranates.” Hermes mused.

“Mhmm, I’m not so sure about that.” Persephone replied. She wasn’t quite sure if she believed anything about Hermes story. At. All. It sounded so convoluted, and so oddly specific as he weaved himself into the genesis myth of the Biggest Rock Band on the planet right now, that Persephone couldn’t help but feel that it was concocted by a miserable old git as he worked all alone in the this cramped mechanical air pod.

Whatever, she may have felt about the air pod, it had certainly held up it’s weight when it came to actually flying, and not spearheading her and Hermes into an early, watery grave. When the conversation began to drift, and Hermes found himself unable to get anything out of his usually sassy companion, the two coalesced the rest of the flight into a comfortable silence. Persephone had one point pulled out a copy of Edith’s Hamilton Mythology, and began to go through the stories and the rhymes and the pictures which had once been at the forefront of her childhood. In another life, if the love of the Lyre hadn’t taken hold so early, she might’ve become a Classicist, and had winded up elsewhere, possibly studying for her PhD at the point in Cambridge, Oxford or even Harvard.

Of course, she could've been both at some point, but the constant currency of time always seemed to nick at her ankles. Everything she did in life was measured in time, time and how much it would cost to do, time and much much would it cost to learn, time and much she could save by owning very little, which freed up even more time to do the things that she had always wanted to do. Most of her time had been fretting over whether or not her creative pursuits could feed her as well as fulfil her in this strange world. Labouring from creative pursuit to another, her head was often fizzled into a mess before she came to her senses and suddenly found a Children’s Lyre Teacher job before she was cast aside by her landlord into the Mean Streets of Newquay.

Of course, this was also underlined with another reminder: Death! For someone with the second name Graves, she had constantly began to ponder on her mortality. In truth she had always wanted to do something that mattered, and not just lurk in the shadows as a Children’s Lyre Player. Persephone Graves was such a fitting name, for a woman who seemed to constantly be plagued with the thought of entering the Underworld sooner than she’d expected. Perhaps she had already died somewhere before this, and now Hermes was escorting her to the Underworld in a sort-of-but-not-quite-modern-fashion.

It was the last thought she had, before drifting into reverie, and away from the Sisyphean Task of trying to climb the recording industry’s mountain with a couple of dudes who named themselves after Greek Gods.

Then she awakened, and found that Hermes had already landed the air plane at the foot of the River Styx that was Los Angeles International Airport.