Kindle
Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and the Olympians belongs to Rick Riordan
The gods can take on any form they desire, but Hestia has always preferred that of a child. While not the most common choice, it's certainly not unusual—Lady Athena herself occasionally takes on a similar persona—but such youth has always seemed a bit of a strange choice to the others.
Nico di'Angelo asked her about it once, but Hestia merely smiled and gave him a cheerful non-answer before sending the young hero on his way. A goddess must have her secrets, after all.
Hestia knows that she is different from the other Olympians. They murmur amongst themselves and glance her way when they are unaware that she is listening, worrying quietly for their estranged relative. They are afraid, Hestia knows, that she will wither, fade into the background until one day she simply isn't anymore. It seems a relevant fear, but Hestia can't bring herself to worry.
The twelve throned may fret, but Hestia never has been and never will be in danger of fading. Long after her name as disappeared, when her legacy is all but forgotten and no one pays the slightest attention to the small child guarding the coals, Hestia will remain. Her powerful siblings and aunts and uncles are all prone to fits of anger, or rage. Time and again they will rise and demonstrate their power to those who dare contradict them. They are the protectors, the fighters, the warriors. Hestia is the reason.
She is the warmth that keeps the weary moving on the coldest of days. She is the family that waits at home with baited breath as their beloved trudges off to a battlefield of untold horrors. She is the child that waits for news of events that they are too young to understand, the daughter who yearns for her father and the son who doesn't get it. She is the youth, the bright and promising future that has yet to come. She understands, even when others have forgotten, that the future will always hold the most hope.
And yet, just as she is the child, so must Hestia be the adult. When the others are tired and weary, when the Olympians are so filled with secrets and mistakes and regrets that they have forgotten their purpose, Hestia takes them in. Be they mortals or demi-gods or Lord Zeus himself, Hestia will wrap them in her warmth and calm them with her voice. She will remind them of their reason, of the hearth that waits for them at home.
Lady Hestia is always welcoming, always open, always warm. She does not turn away or discriminate against any, for there is always a place somewhere. It is not her job to fight or to lead, but she is watching and she is waiting. Wherever hope remains, Hestia will stay to kindle the flame.