Echo: The Girl That Time Forgot

The Queen of Heaven

Hera. In a word, terrifying. With her perfect curls of cascading gold and her cold blue eyes that can see though any lie. I am, in a word, terrified.

I'm Echo by the way. I live with all my nymph sisters at the base of Olympus. I'm the resident storyteller here and it's been said that I'm one of the most interesting nymphs around.  Not sure how I really feel about that, but I guess I just roll with it.

Now generally I hang out with
Zeus, he's always dragging us down to the mortal realm to go chase down some human he likes or show off in some stupid feat of strength.

But recently Hera has been going nuts trying to find all of Zeus' secret girlfriends. So instead of thinking, "Oh maybe I should stop cheating on my wife and try to be a better husband," he has the bright idea of sending me into the lion's den to distract Hera with my stories.

That's where I am now, staring down the Queen of quite literally, everything.

"Well?" Hera's sharp voice cut through my subconscious and snapped me back to the present. "What happened to the merchant's daughter?"

"Ummm, technically she's a trader's daughter," I said stalling for time to make up the ending.

"I don't care if she's a leather-maker's daughter, finish the story," Hera said impatiently.

I really want to finish the story, but all I can think about is how Hera tossed her baby out the window when it came out ugly.

"Well you see, the truth is that Almana's father didn't want her to marry the shepherd boy. So he slipped a vial of poison into his drink....."

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I have told her twelve consecutive stories today. Twelve! How does this woman have  time to sit around and listen to me? I mean it's not like I have a life to live and about a bajillion other things I would rather be doing. Not to mention it's terrifying contemplating what would happen if she found out I was just distracting her.

"Excuse me milady," I say softly. "There's to be a dance at the olive springs tonight and I was hoping to make it."

Hera's face remains hard and emotionless as stone, and for a second I'm terrified she's going to have me thrown in the dungeons for...well I'm really not sure what for. But to my relief she breaks out into what I believe was meant to be a smile (with her you can never tell).

"Of course my dear Echo, I didn't mean to keep you all day. Your stories have a way of dragging me in. I guess they show me the life I wish I always had."

I inwardly roll my eyes, zero sympathy. Women have undergone far worse than having a cheating husband. Women of the day are being raped, abused and murdered. But no, poor Hera, I'm sure Zeus is just awful.

Well to be fair, Zeus is awful. But in an annoying kind of way, not a cruel kind of way.

Ok fine, maybe I feel the smallest smidgen of sympathy for her. Half of me wants to smack her upside the head and tell her that she doesn't need a man to give her happiness and that she can make her own. The other half of me wants to smack her and tell her to stop being a stone cold bitch. I don't do either of these things, instead I thank her for allowing me to serve her (I nearly choked on the words) and left as quickly as I could.

Before heading to the party, I stop by the meadow where I live, to change out of the heavy, formal dress I had been wearing. I slip on casual nymph wear, flowy, white and comfortable silk. I unpin my hair from the tight twist it had been in, and I let my long, blonde hair fall down my back. Have you ever had your hair tightly pinned for 12 hours? If you have, you know the incredible feeling of finally letting it down. Your scalp kinda hurts, but in a good way.