Chapter Text
The face in the mirror was a little strange today. Rhea wiped off a smudge on the glass. The shape of it seemed odd in the cold morning light. In the winding dread in her stomach. She put her hand over that ball of churning concern.
Rhea had borne three daughters and three sons. Given birth to them. Lost them too. Loved and gave and gave and forgave. Until finally she left Kronos. Made a choice. Too late the choice. Three daughters and two sons too late. Doted on her last baby. Doted and spoiled and look how that had turned out.
She listened to her daughter Hera cry jaggedly behind the closed door of the guest bedroom. She wondered if this time Hera would stick with it. A mother's worry with a twinge. The drawn lines in her face seemed to say that she was a failure. She'd failed her children. She told that face, "When my daughter called me I went." She told the blue smudges under that faces' eyes, "I did everything I could." She told the silver strands of hair, "I fought in the war. I fought for my children." She reached out and touched the reflection of a scar on her right cheek. Faint. Hidden beneath curling hair if she wished. The glass reflected the burn scar on her right hand that would never heal. Battle wounds from her brothers Krios and Hyperion. The scars Kronos had given her wouldn't reflect on any mirror. Nothing so physical as a wound from a war. Those wounds felt years too late taken up. Even now.
The glass was smudged again. Oil from her fingers leaving light streaks on the mirror. She wiped it clean. She stopped talking to herself and went to go sit in her garden to give Hera the greater privacy to grieve.
Of course, her grand-daughter Athena was there. She had Zeus' nose and chin, but Metis' eyes. Metis who'd saved her babies. Metis who'd gone to the same fate as those babies. Athena wasn't wearing her armor. She wasn't carrying her leaf blade spear or wearing her helmet. She stood up and held out a cheerfully bright ceramic cup that steamed with chai spice. "Grandmother, I made you some tea."
Rhea eyed the cup warrily, but her throat was dry and it smelled perfect. She took it and Athena's smile curved. Rhea just as warily sat down across from Athena so easy and calm in Rhea's garden. The soft muffled sounds of Hera's weeping didn't leak so far out into the flowers. The only sounds in the gardens were birds in the trees and humming insects.
She wasn't going to say it. She wasn't. "Hera isn't going back to Zeus. She's left him for good this time."
Athena said mildly, "He's her husband. The king of the gods. He loves her."
A torrent of words struggled in Rhea's mouth. Zeus was a liar. A cheat. Cruel. Brutal. Jealous. "How can you support him?" The real burning coal lump in the throat.
Athena's perfect expression didn't change. Not a hair out of place. "He's the king of the gods. He protects us all."
This was so manifestly false that Rhea struggled to speak. To form words that would finally persuade Athena to see things as they were. "No. He doesn't. He… he… provoked a war with the Gigantes. Offered Hera as bait in his little war. People died for no reason but his vanity." Athena's expression didn't change. Rhea cast about for something else that would convince her. "He humiliates her constantly." She didn't mean to say what came next. "The earth teams with his bastards."
Athena's forehead didn't so much as crease over her mild sip of tea. "Hercules struck the blow that saved Hera from the giants."
Rhea paused. She stared at Athena. "Who?"
"Hercules," repeated Athena. She smiled pityingly at Rhea. "Didn't you hear? The hero Alcides is rebranding as Hercules now that he saved Hera in the war. And after all the horrible things she did to him. He's going to be elevated into being a god. Now that Zeus has won another glorious war and defeated the giants once and for all."
A war brought on, as always, by Zeus shoving his phallus in unwanted directions. She said as much and got another pitying look. "The Gigantes are monstrous. Violent. Murderers. Rapists. Serpents for legs. Gaia had them to revenge herself on the gods." Athena didn't sound like Zeus. Zeus didn't have that modulated and cultured a tone. But the words, they were woven straight from Zeus' cloth.
Rhea abandoned the cup of tea to the grass. It was tempting and delicious, but not worth it. She went inside to brew a cup of something bitter and black. Her motion's sharp. Too sharp. The guest door opened.
Hera's voice was softly-rough. "I heard voices."
Sadly, Rhea hadn't locked the door to the garden. Of course, Athena had followed her inside. "Good morning, your majesty." She bustled inside with yet more tea. She was going to say something that was going to convince Hera to give up. Give in. She was so very logical sounding.
The backdoor slapped the wall behind it with a boom. "I heard Hera left the rat bastard so I baked a cake." Demeter filled the doorway with the sunshine of her smile and the three merry tiers of cake balanced in her hands.
Hestia said mildly behind her, if hidden by Demeter's bulk, "I baked the cake."
"Pft." Demeter bustled into the room round and large and every step a heavy stepped boom. "I grew the grain and the cherries and got the chocolate from Quetzalcoatl. I got the milk from Hathor. I whipped the cream. But fine." She put the red and gold iceded tower down on the counter. "You baked the cake." She swept Hera up in an ivy armed hug. "Love you sis. Stay strong."
"Hestia, shouldn't you be tending your fire?" reproved Athena. "It's a sacred responsibility you've been given."
"Right," drawled Hestia in a cloud of smoke from eternally blue lips. "Given." She lifted the small clay box she was carrying by its handle. Rhea recognized it. Prometheus had given it to Hestia long ago. After Zeus flooded the earth for the first, if sadly not final, time. "My fire goes wherever I go." Hestia gave Hera a slightly less enveloping hug. "Hey, sis. How are you holding up?"
This brought on a gust of sighs. Twinkling tears on Hera's cheeks. Demeter rushed into that gap with a hearty slice of cake and an overly large cup of wine.
Athena stared at the cup. "It's 9 in the morning, Aunt Demeter."
"It's dumped rat-o-clock is what it is," said Demeter.
Athena sniffed down her patrician nose. Zeus' nose. "He is her husband and your king."
"He's the two-timing asshole who was dicking around with both of us." She turned to Rhea. "Mom, you want some cake? Wine?"
Rhea put aside her bitter tea. Poured it down the drain and offered the cup to Demeter. "I'll have a glass."
Athena made a strategic retreat. She was the goddess of strategy.
Rhea watched the tears dry on Hera's cheeks. She listened to her daughters' voices fill the kitchen. There was no guarantee of the future. But for now, there was a bloom of dawn in Hera's cheeks. The sparkle of stars in her eyes. She'd put aside the bridal veil she always wore. There was the hope of peace in the kitchen of the gods. Or at least one goddess with her daughters. Not strange at all.