The Beginning of the End (J. Grace)

X: So... some of the Gods care

I suppose that I should stop looking into Elara and Jason's thoughts and feelings for a moment, stop watching them for now as I believe it is my turn to speak. Not for long, don't worry.

Up on Olympus, Zeus rages, Hera sulks, Poseidon fumes about his son's sleeping state and Demeter anticipates the return of Persephone. Athena complains about her Roman counterpart, Ares tries to start fights every moment, Aphrodite squeals like a fan girl as she watches two people she wants to fall in love with one-another and Hephaestus quietly yet proudly watches Leo build the Argo II. Artemis is no-where to be seen, Hermes flies around stealing random yet useful things, Dionysus moans about demigods and not being allowed wine and Apollo screams into a mirror asking why he is so hot.

Everything is perfectly normal.

However, we have been forbidden to go down to Earth, causing most of the Gods to be furious (they want more kids but don't want to pay child support) and Zeus couldn't care less about what they think.

My sister, Hera, has a plan that she has put into action. The first part is something none of us could stop her from doing (taking Jason away from his camp and putting him into Camp Half-Blood), but she did not have Poseidon's consent to take his son away.

That is why we are here, at the council for the Gods, waiting on Zeus's judgement on the matter.

You know, I remember a time when the goddess of queens, wives and marriage was a powerful woman. She would race across the Earth with us in her carriage, laughing, raising mountains, sprinting through forests and oceans, whispering words of affirmation into the hearts of crest-fallen mortals whenever she passed through a city.

She used to be free. She used to be mighty. She used to be joyous. She used to be exciting.

Now... well, now look at her:

Folded in on herself, timid, unable to speak her mind, caged, supressed, weak, dying.

My blood boiled every time I remembered that she was no longer the goddess of women and kingdoms, that she was no longer a comfort, that her beauty was no longer renowned.

Now, she was just... Hera; the goddess of, what? Marriage? Wives? Queens? What poets in Ancient Greece and Rome sang of those? Clytemnestra was the last true Queen of Greece and she was killed to Zeus's joy and Hera's sorrow: the final act to breaking my sister.

It was Zeus. It was always Zeus.

From the day he forced her to marry him, she was supressed. She became nothing. Her power was stripped from her. Her freedom taken away. Her glory crushed. Her domain changed.

No one will think kindly on her now. No one will because Zeus wants it that way: he doesn't want anyone to see her with any sort of interest out of fear that she will cheat on him as he has done to her so, so, so many times before.

What is the point?! She cried to me night after night, day after day in the years after their marriage. Why am I still here if he does not treat me as his wife? And, he takes everything from me! EVERYTHING!

I would sometimes break down crying with her as I held her in my arms, an attempt to comfort. Although, what could be done? It was Zeus against her and we all know who is the stronger God now: he took her strength, her power. What does poor Hera have left?

Now, I looked on at her from my hearth in the centre of the gathering of Gods. She wasn't smiling or laughing as she once was, though she wasn't crying and flinching at every movement as she did after the marriage. She was just... there. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Olympians!" The king of Gods called into the hall, voice booming as loud as the thunder he brings. I still wonder how Jason and Thalia came from him; they are both so much better in every way possible. "It has come to my attention that there have been some interferences with the lives of our demigod children."