The Child of Hera

Chapter 44-Hera

OooOoo!  This should be interesting!

The queen of the gods walked into the throne room of Olympus.  This was not going to be her favorite meeting.  She sat on her throne as she waited for the others to arrive.  She wasn't the first one there.  There was Athena, of course, she was always punctual.  There was Hestia, but just because Hestia was always there by the hearth.  A few minor gods, but that was it.

The other members of the council showed up promptly.  All of them looked either confused, distressed, or in Zeus's case, really really angry.

After everyone was sitting there, he boomed, "I assume you all know why I called this meeting!"

Most of the council shook theirs heads, looking confused.  Hera rolled her eyes.  This was going to take a while.

"SOMEONE," he roared, looking pointedly at Hera, "broke the vow!"

"Yeah, like you haven't," she answered, and it was true.  Zeus had had affairs with hundreds of mortal women.  He had nothing against her.

"That's not what he meant, darling," said Aphrodite in a sickeningly sweet voice.

"She's right, you know," said Athena.  "He's talking a bout the demigod affair pact made some two thousand years ago."

"Remind me what that was," said Apollo, and nearly everyone groaned.

"How thick can you get, Hothead?" Artemis jibed.

"The Demigod Affair pact was created to stop the gods from having affairs with demigods," said Athena, matter of factually.  "After a certain three fourths god was born and wiped out Atlantis.  It wasn't a problem until now, because the children of the gods are so like the gods themselves, that they always fight with each other.  No one wanted to, erm, get close to a demigod, because it reminded them too much of their godly parent.  There's a whole theory of physiology over  the matter, but I won't go into that now."

"Yes," said Zeus, "but someone clearly didn't bother about such an important pact!"

"Really husband?" Hera said exasperatedly, "Like you never broke your vow on the river styx!"

"Which one?" said Hades under his breath.  

Everybody heard.  It sent the room into complete chaos.  Hera just rolled her eyes again, and leaned back in her throne as she watched the most powerful beings on earth discuss a two thousand year old vow.

"Seriously, woman?!" Zeus shouted, after the room had calmed down.  "You had to go for one of Athena's kids?!"

"Well, technically speaking," said Athena, "he wasn't my child.  Just the offspring of my pure thoughts."

Everyone groaned again.  When Athena said "technically speaking," a long speech about the facts of the world was most likely about to take place.  But for once, Athena shut up.

The large marble room that Annabeth Chase had designed was silent.

After a while, Hera said, "How could you possibly be mad at me for having an affair with a mortal, after all that you've done over the centuries?"

"He wasn't a mortal," Zeus grumbled.

 "Yeah, yeah.  We covered this.  He was a half-blood.  Besides, you've know about it for awhile now.  Why wait until now to discuss it?"

No one answered.

"I mean, is it really that big of a deal that I had an affair with a demi-god?"

"Um, I think we already clarified," said Poseidon, "that the last three-fourths-god, single handedly FREAKING WIPED OUT MY FAVORITE CITY!!!"

"Poseidon," said Demeter, "that was one of yours."

The room was quiet again.

"So," said Athena, "what should we do about it?"

Zeus thought they should kill her immediately.

Demeter thought that she should eat more cereal.

Aphrodite went on a rant about how unfair it was that Luke Castellean came back to life and completely ruined what would be her next great story.  Hera's daughter was supposedly supposed to be impossible to match.

Artemis thought that they should force her to be a hunter.

Athena went through the pros and cons of keeping her alive.  She had already proved to be incredibly rebellious, and dangerous.  They couldn't be sure that she wouldn't join their enemies again, and work to defeat them.

They went around the room, each person with worse ideas than the last.  No one even thought to consider punishing Hera for her mistake.  Nope, just her daughter.  Classic gods.

Finally, Hephaestus said, "Why don't we just bring her here and discuss it?"

And that's how Hephaestus proved to be wiser than Athena for once.