Zeus was known to be very sexual and to not really consider faith to be all that important. As a result of that, he had conceived children by at least forty-three women but Hera, his wife.
Hera on her end was known to be very jealous and vengeful; not only against her husband's escapades and offspring with divine, mortal, nymph or other mothers. She would show her nature to any mortal who dared offend her in any situation, too. She was most specifically known to have a very intense hatred against Aphrodite, for having been considered prettier by Paris, whom she consequently hated more if possible.
Zeus had fathered about eighty children during his escapades, but there were presumably more that no one ever knew about. One of these unknown half-gods would be Amaltheia, Zeus' daughter with Oedipus' prettiest daughter Ismene. His adventure hadn't been that long after Ismene's sister Antigone had given her life for their brother and Haemon, Ismene's lover, had followed her to Hades' Underworld.
At the age of fourteen, Amaltheia already appeared to be more stunning than her mother or any other women that lived in Thebes. Inhabitants even compared her beauty to Aphrodite's.
One day, the sea born goddess of love, beauty, sexuality and fertility came to hear this. She felt simply enraged and decided to go eye that so said stunning young girl herself… disguised, of course. She never could have realized back then in what situation this would get her. She couldn't have guessed.
So it happened that at the weekly open market at the agora in Thebes, goddess Aphrodite had managed to disguise herself as an ordinary slave girl. Some soot onto her face, and a dirty plain scarf hiding her perfect golden locks, next to old grayish tatters, succeeded in not making her attract attention between the other poor girls that worked hard to earn that little.
Under the zoom of the dirty white scarf, Aphrodite's eyes continued going back and forth trying to catch sight of a supposedly exceptionally stunning young girl. Of course it couldn't be that a simple… teenager even possibly defeated her, Aphrodite, in beauty. Oh, the easiness of exaggerating…
However, then a very low man's voice mentioned that name: Amaltheia. Instinctively, Aphrodite turned around to look, even though it easily could have been any other young woman with the very same name. That wasn't very uncommon in Thebes or anywhere else in Ancient times.
Something within the very proud Aphrodite burst upon taking in the appearance of the young, happy looking Amaltheia, though, as people naturally seemed to let her through with her two girlfriends. She nodded at them kindly. Of course she wasn't prettier… yet Aphrodite's jealousy was being roused almost immediately. How could it possibly be that any simple, mortal girl could have such beauty, even though still incomparable with her own?
Aphrodite's immense jealousy led her to reveal herself. The dirty white scarf wafted off, golden curls cascading down her back. All mortals' terrified gazes were immediately directed towards the burning fire circle of pure jealousy surrounding the goddess' figure.
"You!" Aphrodite's voice echoed over the agora towards Amaltheia, impolitely pointing at her with a finger, whose nail was a just perfect shade of bright red. Even though almost everyone felt very apt to momentarily direct their gazes towards the girl, only a handful of them did. What could you anticipate if you even momentarily turned your back towards that woman surrounded by fire?
"Aphrodite!" Another very powerful male voice interrupted, briefly announcing the appearance of Zeus himself. Eyes widened possibly even more upon seeing the King of Gods suddenly materialize into their midst. "You better not dare touch my daughter."
Hera of course wasn't deaf high at the Olympos, carefully listening along to the conversation down on Earth.
Back at the entirely aghast crowd filling up the agora of Thebes, a small chubby man nudged his way through until finding himself directly facing the Highest God. That man must have had immense courage. "Amaltheia's my daughter," he said, loud enough so that everyone could hear it. His gray eyes briefly diverted towards young Amaltheia, as he intuitively shielded her with his own body. "Mine, and my pretty wife Ismene's," he continued, eyes now wandering towards an indeed very pretty woman in mid-thirties that found herself nearby.
"Soterios," Ismene weakly voiced. "She's not…" Tears immediately poured down her pretty face.
"Ismene, what are you saying?" Soterios questioned, momentarily turning his head to face her. Ismene quietly walked near her family, heart beating into her chest.
"Soterios. She's not…" she uttered.
"Oh, dear. Have you gone entirely insane?" Soterios called, running forward towards his wife and roughly putting both of his hands upon her shoulders, shaking her. "Ismene, what do you mean? Everyone here would agree that she's such fitting resemblance of me!"
"She's not your daughter."
Soterios remained quiet for a little while, then reached up with his hands to plunge them into his hair, only to tear whole locks of it, eyes shifting to a look of near insanity, as he couldn't keep himself from riveting around, looking at Zeus for… something.
"I'm sorry," Ismene whispered, still crying.
Soterios wearily looked around him in despair, feeling betrayed by everyone. Without thinking, he suddenly reached for his dagger. "Father, no!" Amaltheia's shrill cry sounded, as she immediately ran forward to do something, but already had he run the length of his weapon into his heart, and fallen down on the agora lifeless. Both Ismene and daughter Amaltheia, and a couple of others' eyes filled with heavy tears.
Then Ismene suddenly ran forwards for her husband's dagger. Zeus, however, blocked her way, trying to protect Ismene from herself… while trying to keep both eyes upon a still very fiery Aphrodite as well. Both Ismene, and daughter Amaltheia were certainly in need of him… his ex mistress needing protection from herself, and their daughter from his jealous, sea born daughter.
Right then, another divine figure announced herself. Hera didn't exactly look that happy, either. Within less than a jiffy, Ismene became perfectly motionless against Zeus' chest. Gasps sounded here and there when slowly, Ismene retracted, and started pulling her hair against her will, being forced to it by Hera's doom to eternal mourning. Ismene had been doomed to rid herself off every single strand of her curly brown locks... and when having pulled the very last hair, she would suddenly get back all she had gotten rid of earlier, much like being forced to live like an ordinary funeral woman, but that for the rest of her existence; for every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year…
Hera panted with pure rage, nostrils flared. People instinctively stood back, too scared to take a run for it, and risk being caught by Hera's spell like Ismene just had. She paid but no attention to Amaltheia, who by now sank down onto the cobbles, and merely remained sitting up by the support of her two girlfriends.
"Hera!" Aphrodite exclaimed, indignantly.
"Aphrodite."
"I seriously wonder… how could you possibly doom anyone that loves so much that she's willing to give her earthly existence untimely for love!"
"And I, Aphrodite," Hera replied. "I seriously wonder how you could possibly think to have any right to even open your mouth; you, who was driven by pure jealousy to come here, and began this fight!"
"I?" Aphrodite furiously breathed, her eyes shifting to red. "Who just doomed an entirely innocent woman?"
"Innocent?" Hera questioned. "An entirely innocent woman wouldn't have shared the bed with my husband!" She yelled, making Aphrodite snort inaudibly.
"Hera, cannot you even see that he isn't that innocent himself? Oh, cannot you see that there's nothing but lust that has brought us here – the insatiable lust for anything female and beautiful of your husband?"
"Enough!" Zeus interrupted, letting go of the doomed Ismene and getting in between both goddesses, lightning coursing across the skies above them, that made the people emit whimpers, yet pinned them to the cobbles at the same time. Being caught by a spell in their back didn't sound appealing.
Neither goddesses would give up, though. Neither of them were scared of Zeus, either. "Maybe you were just one of the many women in row who once made his–" "Should I actually care about what you emit; you, who cannot even distinct love from lust, let alone its truthfulness off its fake appearances! Maybe you have had too much of either or both with Dionysus that you have forgotten what you de facto represent!"
Furious, Aphrodite immediately left Thebes, returning to the Olympos – and maybe to Dionysos – before doing things she would be regretting later on. She couldn't allow Hera the joy of catching her on doing something that totally didn't represent love… like murder.
Hera laughed, in triumph. Aphrodite, however, had put something into motion into the goddess' mind. Hera never had thought about the possibility of maybe just being one of the many Zeus had put his senses on once upon a time, and had never really loved, but only lusted after. Hera wondered if maybe she could have suppressed this thought.
She only now realized that the main reason for her hatred against Aphrodite was that she could make the older goddess feel so vulnerable just by her presence, because her words were very usually true, and painful.
Her presence only reminded her of the blindness love carried within itself, because every one of Zeus' mistakes had made the edges of her self-value crumple… yet her love for him wouldn't yield.
She sighed, looking at a desperate, crying Amaltheia. That's when the oh so mighty Hera let her guard down. She quietly lowered her eyes, and realized that she must have fooled herself every time that she had shown 'forgiveness' for Zeus' many mistakes. She hadn't really been forgiving anyone in fact, but shifting her passions to entirely innocent mortals who hadn't had any chance but obey to Zeus.
She must have forgotten about the real guilty one in everything. She had just been too proud to show her feelings of hurt to anyone, instead letting her anger rise high and blame others for his mistakes to feel better; to have punished for being hurt, even though never had it been the right one to get the consequences.
Hera's eyes fixed upon the young, beautiful girl. And Hera herself knew that this girl would carry the scars upon her forever, and never be as pretty anymore, for it would be readable into her eyes and every motion. Hera wasn't dumb.
Hera looked at her husband from the corners of her divine green eyes, wondering if things maybe would have been different, or could be different, if Zeus ever saw something else than his wife's jealousy and anger.
This wasn't the way. She couldn't go on existing like this, Hera thought upon looking down at Zeus' daughter – entirely innocent. Aphrodite's words rang into her head.
Both her and Zeus' eyes trailed towards Amaltheia – who by then lay curled up in between her father's lifeless body and insane mother, crying hard. Hera's eyes briefly flickered towards her husband.
His own green eyes flickered towards her, and surprisingly noticed a hint of tears into her eyes. Never before had Zeus seen his Hera shed even one tear. He merely watched as she slowly waved her arm towards Amaltheia and her mother, whose doom was being lifted by just that.
Zeus incredulously looked at his wife, wondering where this had come from; what had caused her to put her jealousy and anger aside. "Hera?" He voiced, much softer than anyone had ever heard come from his mouth before.
Amaltheia, and Ismene both lifted their eyes towards Hera. "Thank you," Amaltheia voiced. That's when Ismene's eyes shifted to her husband's lifeless body, Amaltheia's following. A new flow of tears ran along her brightly flushed cheeks.
"I cannot reverse that," Hera whispered to Amaltheia particularly.
"Hera," Zeus said, looking into her light gray eyes.
"I shouldn't blame her for your mistakes," Hera whispered, turning around. "I have blamed others long enough. I'll just have to live with the fact that you'll never change; that indeed I have been just one of your…" She couldn't voice it.
"Hera," he repeated, kindly taking her arm. Hera slowly raised her eyes to him, tears now running along her cheeks as well. "You aren't. You're different. You're–" "Why aren't I enough then?"
Zeus's eyes lowered, as he suddenly realized how much his escapades must have hurt her deep inside. "You are. I love you," he whispered, looking down at her waiting for any response to this.
Hera's eyes connected again with his, as the heavy dark blue clouds broke apart above them. "What?" She questioned, sniffling.
"I love you."
That's when the sunshine broke through and enlightened the agora of Thebes pleasantly. A couple of surprised cries sounded, making both gods look aside to see the earlier lifeless body of Soterios twitch and come to life again.
"I love you, too."
When Amaltheia looked aside again to where both gods had been standing mere instants before, she only noticed a nearly perfect rainbow into the horizon.