A/N: Hello everyone! Here's a retelling of Hera's life on Olympus and the day she threw Hephaestus off Olympus. Hope you'll enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Greek Mythology, I am only writing this for entertainment.
She was the goddess of marriage and family. Ironically, her marriage to Zeus could be described as a nightmare, and her family was steadily falling apart.
When she was much younger, Hera had a lot of dreams. She dreamt of a happy marriage to a man who would love her (and only her), who would make her feel wanted, who wouldn't break her heart. She dreamt of a big happy family, surrounded by children who would appreciate her.
After Zeus cheated on her for the first time, those dreams were quickly put aside. That first time was the most painful one. Her heart broke irremediably, and she knew that things would never be the same between her husband and herself ever again. The trust in their relationship was gone, so was the close bond that they had shared over many centuries.
At first, she couldn't help but blame herself, wondering what she had done wrong for things to turn out like that. After a few times, she stopped blaming herself. She had known since the beginning (even before their wedding) of Zeus' unstable love life and short attention span, and had refused his advances for that very reason, until he humiliated her into marrying him. Still, she had hoped that things would be different. She had hoped that he would love her enough to never cheat on her. She was mistaken. His cheating had practically become a normal occurrence in their couple, as well as their frequent arguments and the many nights she cried herself to sleep.
Hera quickly found herself surrounded by the numerous offsprings of her husband, all who were extremely powerful and that fit the definition of perfection. She envied Athena the most. She wished that she had been the one to bear this exceptionally remarkable goddess (Athena had no mother, Zeus swallowed Metis when she was pregnant, Athena was born fully grown from Zeus' head). For now, Hera had two children from her union with Zeus: Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, her eldest child, whom she was proud of. Eileithyia bore a strong resemblance to her mother, they had the same beautiful, wavy, dark brown hair and perfectly shaped eyes, that were a striking dark blue like Zeus'. She had a calm and nurturing personality and would always step in to comfort her mother when needed. And then there was Ares, the god of war. Athena's domain was also war, but she was the goddess of strategy and wisdom as well. Ares lacked all these attributes. The only thing he was interested in was war, full on blood-shedding, violent war, where no wisdom is required. His domain reflected his personality: he was reckless and hot-headed, the exact opposite of his sister Eileithyia. He loved his mother dearly but rarely let it show. And of course, Hera loved him because she was his mother, but his arrogant and anger-filled behavior made him very hard to be likeable in the eyes of his parents, especially when his impulsive decisions were compared to Athena's wise ones.
Progressively, Hera became the cold and bitter Queen of Olympus. She transformed her sadness into anger – anger for her stepchildren, her husband, and above all, anger for the women her husband had seduced. She knew that most of them were innocent, but she couldn't help it, she had to do something, otherwise she felt that she would go mad. Besides, for a queen, anger seemed like a much more expressible emotion than sadness. She was the Queen of Olympus, she told herself that had to be strong, she didn't want any pity. She bottled up the rest of her emotions, only allowing their release in the form of tears when she was alone.
Her unhappiness grew, so did her ambitions. Hera wanted another child. A perfect baby, much like Athena. Only, she didn't want Zeus' help. She wanted to prove him that she was fully capable of producing a perfect child all by herself, like he had when he had given birth to Athena. Yet, this was even more complicated: Zeus had swallowed his pregnant wife Metis, while Hera had to get pregnant without any help. The difficulty of the task did not discourage Hera. With sheer determination, power and a fair amount of jealousy, after a few months of extreme concentration and willpower, she became pregnant. For the first time in eons, she felt happy. And she felt respected by the other Olympians. Not out of fear, but out of genuine admiration for what she had managed to achieve. For nine months, she felt like her family was whole again.
The pregnancy was not an easy one. The birth was even worse. She was in labor for two days; two days of excruciating pain. Even Eileithyia couldn't manage to ease her mother's pain or quicken the process. Finally, baby Hephaestus was born and placed in the arms of an extremely exhausted Queen of Olympus. Through half closed eyes, Hera had stroked her son's head, nursed him and sang him a lullaby to ease his crying, but ignored why all the goddesses in the birth room looked uneasy, some of them shot almost mocking glances at her newborn. After about half an hour, when she had regained enough strength, Hera truly looked at her son for the first time and had to stifle a horrified gasp. While her other children had been born beautiful, this baby had purplish wrinkled skin, crooked legs, and bald patches on his head. Hera didn't know if this had been the result of the complications during birth or caused by the fact that she had conceived this baby alone but favored the first hypothesis. She had to bite her lip to keep from crying as she saw the mocking glances of the goddesses (except her daughter, who looked genuinely concerned). All the admiration she had earned had disappeared within seconds.
When Zeus came to see the newborn, he let out a booming laugh and asked Hera if this was some kind of a joke. Surely the beautiful and powerful Queen of Olympus couldn't have given birth to that monstrosity. Hera firmly stated that there was nothing funny about her son's unfortunate appearance, and she would love her son no matter what the others thought. Zeus laughed some more and only told her no to except any help caring for this atrocity, before leaving the room.
The next few weeks were beyond horrible. Hephaestus did not stop crying, no matter what Hera did. Eileithyia and Athena tried to help, but to no avail. Apollo examined the baby, but he was perfectly fine health wise, except his legs and more normal looked but still wrinkled skin. Every minute of the day, Hera had to endure snarky remarks and mockeries about herself and her child. She had post-partum depression and became more and more depressed each day, until she was barely able to get out of bed to care for her child. Hephaestus was still crying, the mockeries never ceased (especially Zeus') and Hera's head started to fill with extremely dark thoughts regarding Hephaestus. Everything was much worse than before.
She started to wish that he had never been born. She wished that he had never existed. She wished that she could get rid of him, but quickly shook that last thought from her head. She was his mother, she had to care for him no matter what.
Then one day, she completely lost it. She had been crying all night long along with her son. She was completely helpless, sleep deprived and disoriented. She didn't know what to do. Hephaestus was two months old, but the torture didn't end. She decided to pick him up and take him outside, thinking that the morning air and sunlight would soothe the both of them. She walked to the edge of Olympus, where the rising sun could be seen the best, and started singing and gently bouncing her son. Just as he calmed down, the other Olympians started waking up. Some of them, seeing their Queen, went to greet her. Soon, they had all gathered around her, talking with each other and with Hera. Hermes did the mistake of asking mockingly what Hera planned for her freaky baby' future, as someone like him could not possibly have a rank among the perfect Olympians, to which the newly calmed down Hephaestus started wailing again in his mother's arms.
That's when the Queen of Olympus went mad, and after quite a few insults and screaming, she threw her son off the edge of Olympus on impulse before anyone could react. Gasps of shock and bewilderment rose. It took her a few seconds to realize what she had done. She knew it was too late, but she almost dove after him, until Ares grabbed her arm. With a bone-rattling cry of "Hephaestus!" she collapsed to the ground and started to weep. Zeus picked her up and carried her to her chambers, where she sobbed for days and refused to get out of bed. Deeply ashamed of their previous behaviors that provoked this disaster, the Olympians took turn caring for their Queen and apologizing profusely, but it was too late, the damage had been done. That day, along with her son who would grow up far away from Olympus, Hera lost a part of her heart. The remaining pieces ached constantly.
Out of all her regrets, that was her biggest and most painful one.
A/N: What are your thoughts? Don't hesitate to favorite and review, and please tell me if you'd like me to turn this into a multi-chapter story exploring Hera's life on Olympus