Hades' Knight

Daughter of Zeus

Zeus’ personal throne room

The next day

Elena’s P.O.V

A loud crash woke me up from my sleep. My eyes slowly opened to a blurry room decorated with bright colours of white and gold. As my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I made out a tall figure rushing towards the grand golden throne in the centre of the room. His glowing aurora was one that could only be present around one figure. Zeus. I rose from the hard wooden bench that I was lying on just as Zeus slumped in his personal throne. Zeus let out a loud sigh that echoed throughout the room and sounded like ten thousand hooves stomping through the night. My guess was that he was frustrated from his recent meeting with the gods. Actually, I knew that he was. I already knew what had happened at the meeting. After all, that was just what I was dreaming about. I decided to play the blind, worried card on him, as I started walking towards him. My feet generated a calming tone on the polished stone floors like a tweeting bird does as it collects nectar from a flower.

“Dad? What’s wrong?” I could tell that my worried tone had the desired effect on him.

He turned to face me in his giant throne. His face was one that I had rarely seen on him. It was a mix of great hurt, sadness and frustration with tones of anger hidden within it. “Elena…,” his giant voice was filled with regret as he spoke to me. “The gods are so blind it saddens me to see them like this. My brother Hades wishes to join us from the underworld once again, otherwise he will unleash his anger on the innocent mortals. Poseidon blames me for this. He says I am being too harsh to not only Hades, but to him. Am I Elena? Is that what I have become? Am I the one who is going to cause the death of millions of innocent lives?” My father, the great Zeus started sobbing in his great throne. His normally imposing presence felt only frail and weak as he spoke his next words. “Tell me Elena. Where have I gone wrong?”

I was momentarily speechless. I knew Zeus better than most people, but I had never seen him, my own father in such a helpless state. From dreaming about the meeting, I already had a few ideas about what could be done, but wether my father would allow me was another question. I decided to press him on the matter while he was in this weakened state. “Father, if I may, I have a few ideas.” My father suddenly looked up at me with a sparkle of hope in his eyes. “Tell me Elena. Please, what do you suggest?”

It took me a few minutes to gather my thoughts and to build up the courage to ask him. “I saw that Hades with shadowed by someone at the meeting. My only question is why is Hades proposing this demand now? He has been in the underworld for decades and suddenly, out of the blue, he wants to be released? It doesn’t make any sense, unless, he has found someone to fight his battles for him.”

Zeus was stunned by my answer until he realised I had special dreaming abilities and he understood what I was saying. The great throne room was deathly quiet. I could almost hear the cogs ticking away in the great god’s brain. “Yes, Xavier…a mortal by birth, but Hades has given him some special powers.”

 I pictured the former earthling in my mind. His short dark, brown hair that was neatly arranged around his soft blue eyes and his….My thoughts suddenly ended when I caught Zeus’s eyes staring down at me. “You better not be thinking about what I think you are,” he said sternly. Before he could dismiss the proposal before I had even suggested it, I quickly told him what I wanted to do.

“No!” He boomed. “It is too dangerous. I will not allow my only child to risk her life for my problem. I created this and I need to fix it…myself!” Zeus cut off my further protests with a wave of his hand. “You are only a half-god. You do not have the necessary powers to be able to protect yourself if you end up in trouble.”

I decided to play a card that I was hoping to avoid. “What would mother say?” I replied harshly.

“Don’t you dare play the mother card on me….”

I cut him off with a voice that for once was louder than his. “Before she died mother placed me in your care. She wanted you to continue to raise me with the love and care a daughter needs, but she also would want me to serve you in your time of need. Don’t you think this is now? Hades is threatening to ravage war and you want me to sit on the sidelines and watch innocent people and Olympus be destroyed?” My words cut through him like a deadly knife. I knew I had hit a place in him that there was no turning back from now. He looked at me for a long moment before sighing his next words.

“How are your abilities developing?”

“Need I tell you that? You have been watching me develop them every day. You have seen what my dreaming powers are capable off, let along my other abilities. Plus, I’m one of your best at wielding a staff and the best woman archer in the whole of Olympus!”

The last statement made Zeus chuckle to himself. “Of course you are my Elena. Go! Do what you must. If you can get this… Xavier to at least follow you, bring him to me. I will show him the light in the darkness Hades has imposed around him.”

A large smile crept across my face and I rushed into Zeus and absorbed him in an enormous bear huge. He stroked my hair back and gazed gently into my eyes, whispering, “Please be careful Elena. If anything were to happen to you…”

I cut him off replying, “I’m a big girl now dad. There comes I time where you need to let me make my own decisions.” My words seemed to bring great sadness into his giant heart, but also ignited a fire of hope that sparkled in his eyes.

“Go now child. Do what you must. Bring peace to Olympus.” Zeus’s last words followed me out of the throne room and down the hall to the armoury. I will make you proud father.