Hera

Year: 2093 - Greece

The hum of engines cut through the Aegean dawn as the small aircraft descended toward the coast of Attica. Inside, the young pilot adjusted her controls with practiced precision, her eyes fixed on the rising marble pillars below. The site of Hera's temple-long abandoned, worn by centuries of wind and war-stood scarred against the landscape, scaffolding climbing its sides like veins on a wounded titan.

To the villagers, she was an anomaly: a 24-year-old with her own aviation company, a woman who could have lived in luxury, yet chose to spend her youth rebuilding the forgotten homes of gods most had stopped worshiping. Where others saw relics of the past, she saw promises worth restoring.

Each stone she placed, each column she raised, was her quiet form of reverence. She did not kneel in temples with incense or chant hymns to curry favor. Respect was her offering-measured in sweat, time, and devotion to memory.

What she never knew was that her hands, her persistence, and her unshaken loyalty had not gone unnoticed. From the shadow of the clouds, Hera watched.

The goddess of marriage, who had seen temples crumble and faith scatter, found herself pausing. Not at the stone, not at the shrine, but at the mortal below.
A woman who gave without asking, who honored without seeking.

And when Hera descended, unseen to mortal eyes, she found the girl turn briefly, as though sensing her. Their gazes almost met-until the mortal bowed her head and stepped away, deliberately refusing to look closer.

It was that act of avoidance-not fear, not flattery-that caught Hera's breath.