For the most part Hermes is unpestered by the Fates: it’s not that he’s immune, but they know he knows about stories and inevitability, so it’s a better show to watch him resist an ending he knows is coming than to push him towards something he would have done anyway.

“Anybody got a match?” asks a runaway with wildly cautious eyes, and while he could warn Orpheus not to take hold of her until he knows how to keep from losing sight of her, instead he just starts humming like a train from far off. This may still become a tragedy but it is a love song first, and maybe it will turn out this time, so he will sing it again and again and again.