Disclaimer: Oh, how I yearn to claim the mystery and enchantment of Ancient Greece as my own. Come to me, O Meriones...
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The reflection within the mirror was ghastly.
The violent grey streaks beneath her eyes were vivid, as she had once been, lost amongst her beloved woods, before he had come to her. The dulled lustre of her hair, the faded vibrancy of her complexion, tore at her breast. How she was now presented was not how she was meant to look. She was a goddess, yet it was surprising how little that entailed in moments such as these.
So Hera wept, locked away within her room, with firelight blazing its heat into her listless skin, far, far the demands of her husband and the perversions of his court.
He had left her. Again, he lusted for some half-blind island woman, the daughter of an idiot king. Again, she would remain to clear away the shattered fragments of his folly; she would provide shelter for the pregnant girl, arrange protection for her, deliver the babe, suffer the scorn of the mortals who knew nothing for her effort. Vengeful Hera, they would say, when the woman died; vindictive, rebellious Hera.
She prodded the pane of her looking-glass, tracing the path of that terrible, all too familiar lone tear as it slipped, warm, from her cheek and onto the cold granite of the ground.
"You should not cry," Hera told the phantom who stared at her. "It changes nothing. You are too beautiful to cry."
"He does love you," she said. "I know that he does. He may not realise it, but he does. He loves you."
The woman within the limpid window revealed a broken smile. Her robe was deeply purple, a majestic tone, befitting a ruler, and it contrasted viciously with her pale skin, the sharp protrusions that jutted from the planes of an anguished face.
"He will return to you, I am certain of it," Hera assured the silent ghost. "He is your husband. If he does not, you have me - do not worry."
The woman said nothing.
"They see how he stares after you, when you refuse him. Only you, only you are brave enough to speak the truth. Even gods cannot deny this," Hera said. Bitterness crept into her thin whisper, as delicate as threads of gossamer. "Even those who share his bed cannot deny this."
"You are his sister. You are his wife. Men shudder when the feel your wrath, your decision to punish," she said, the shadows a tangible weight upon her shoulders. "He should treasure you." And then, it rained, and Hera was blind, blind to all.
When the woman within the mirror wailed, Hera's heart was split into two, her only thought, how brutally tormented the screams were.
The keening diffused into the depth of the darkness; outside, where the living dwelled, the women wept and the children then born died within their mothers' arms.
Girls trembled upon their marriage beds, and the sense of emptiness was inexplicable.
Hail, Hera, Queen of gods.
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I hope that I have not greatly offended the tastes of my audience.