And now for Hestia's chapter! I don't own this, I am unworthy, you know the drill.


Sometimes Hestia wondered how her family managed to function. She really did. Zeus had barely been restrained from blasting his brother to bits after it was discovered that Eris was just trying to cause trouble. Poseidon had demanded an apology, Zeus had responded rather rudely, and now none of the Big Three were speaking to eachother.

For as long as she could remember, her siblings and their many offspring had been fighting, arguing, and attempting to kill each other (which was pointless, of course, since they were all by definition immortal). And usually it was over the most childish things: "Fish are cooler than birds." "Fish are slimy!" "Well at least you two have sacred animals." "Boars are the best." "Shut up Ares, no one cares about you or Piglet!"

And so it went, on and on, for thousands and thousands of years. And Hestia, as the kindest and most conciliatory of the gods, found herself functioning as a kind of live-in therapist.

She heard about all the gods' problems. Hera came to her to talk about Zeus' latest affair with that blonde skank from Sparta. Hephaestus told her about all his plots to trap his wife and her lover. Athena visited her whenever she felt the other gods had done anything idiotic (Athena came to visit her a lot). They all came to Hestia whenever they needed to vent, wanted advice, or just had some juicy gossip.

That was in the old days, though. Now, most of the gods were so busy that they didn't even have time to chat with her. They would greet her warmly when they happened to see her, but most of the time she went unnoticed, forgotten in the wake of problems like the Titans and Gaea.

Even at camp, none of the demigods paid attention to her anymore. Most of them didn't even see her as she tended to the fire daily, and if they did, they certainly didn't say anything to her. The only thing that kept her from fading was the percentage of all the sacrifices dedicated to the other gods that she got. No one ever sacrificed just to her any more.

No, wait, that isn't true, Hestia chided herself. There was one boy, the son of her favorite brother. He had seen her, and he had come to speak to her. She remembered being so shocked when she discovered that this little, hyper demigod had actually noticed her, was actually talking to her. Even if the boy was just prattling on about hit points and laser beams and other nonsense, it was so nice to have someone to speak to.

Hestia smiled as she thought how her nephew had changed. He had grown from a (frankly annoying) little boy to a courageous young man. She had taken a special interest in him ever since his first day at Camp Halfblood, and she would help him now that he had been captured. She would help guide Percy Jackson to where Nico was being held before it was too late.

It's nice to have something to do again, Hestia thought. It's nice to have a purpose. She didn't blame her family members for forgetting about her, but she worried about them and was afraid that they had lost their way. Mostly she just missed them.

Just as that thought occurred to her, two people burst into the central throne room (everything is so dramatic on Olympus, no one ever calmly enters a room). They were arguing, of course. Hestia continued to tend the hearth, expecting whoever it was to continue arguing and pay her no attention. She was startled, therefore, when she heard Hera yell, "See, I told you Hestia would be in here!"

Shocked, the goddess of the hearth turned to look at the two people more closely; sure enough there was her sister, seething, and Hephaestus, who looked a little insane, what with his eyes gleaming and his beard on fire.

"Hestia! Have you heard of this…this monstrous show that my son has seen fit to broadcast around Olympus?"

She had, of course. She knew all about "Father Knows Nothing"; in fact, she thought the whole scheme was one of Hades' more brilliant ideas. She kept this to herself as she managed to reply gravely, "Indeed I have, sister."

"Then you can understand why I am demanding that Hephaestus cancel it before…before he embarrasses Zeus further?"

"Oh you just don't want your precious dignity hurt, you lying windbag. Hestia, I've been trying to explain to her that even though I do have some control over the Olympus television channel, I don't actually have the ability to manage the programming…" Hestia smiled at her nephew as he continued his very technical explanation of why he couldn't cancel the show. She knew he was making it up as he went.

As Hera began threatening to throw her son off Olympus again, and Hephaestus accused his mother of "exuding bovine malice", Hestia couldn't help but shake her head.

She had heard variations of this argument for centuries. And while most people would probably have been irritated at having to listen to these two gods' problems, Hestia didn't mind. She was just glad her family remembered her again.


So a little more serious this time, but hopefully still good. Also, the bovine malice quote comes from the movie Tamara Drewe. The rest of the insults and other petty things the gods say I came up with on my own.