As Heracles neared the end of his Twelve Labours, he faced a challenge as mythical as any before:

To retrieve the golden apples of the Hesperides, sacred fruits of immortality,

Nestled in a garden at the edge of the world, tended by nymphs and guarded with fierce loyalty —

By Ladon, the coiled serpent-dragon with a hundred heads and no need for sleep.

Heracles had heard whispers of this beast:

Its scales shimmered like starlight; its voices murmured warnings in a hundred tongues.

Some said he tricked Atlas into fetching the apples while he bore the sky —

But in older, rawer tellings, Heracles faced the beast.

He approached the Garden's gates, hidden in twilight mist.

There, Ladon uncoiled, a mountain of sinew, hiss, and ancient rage.

No sword could pierce him, no flame could daunt him —

But Heracles, son of Zeus, bore strength not meant for mortals.

With no armour save his lion's hide, he lunged.

The dragon surged — necks snapping, voices wailing, tails lashing.

They grappled like titans in the gloom: god-born man against divine beast,

And as he had with the Nemean Lion, Heracles strangled — crushing breath from Ladon’s coils.

The Hesperides wept as the serpent fell, bleeding starlight into their sacred grove.

But Heracles, relentless, climbed the branches and plucked the apples, golden and gleaming,

Turning back only once to regard the dragon's fallen form —

Another trial ended in brute defiance of the impossible.