"Run off again?"

Hera jumped, not quick enough to compose herself. Instead, she ignored her moment of weakness by turning around immediately, giving him a pat curtsy.

"I did not know you were seeking me out. How did you find me?"

"You don't come to Court. But you do know that I always seek you out." He grinned. "I'm very persistent."

"Aren't you very busy, as well?" she asked. Only Hera could ignore his panting after her with such willful blindness, like she'd ignore a giant standing between them in the room. Stubborn, but not wholly convincing…

She sat back at the loom, working the threads up with her hands like there was no King before her. He wouldn't have her ignore him, so he strode toward her and put his hands over hers, snatching them away from her task, and turning her to face him. She demurred, her eyes remaining lowered.

"Why did you leave, darling girl?" His thumb scraped over her bottom lip, the possession in the gesture more than inappropriate. She didn't chastise him, but she leaned out of his grip and her eyes now darted to his challengingly.

"I apologize, Brother. I will be more mindful of your expectations in the future."

He hated when she called him 'Brother'. And she knew that he hated it. He grasped her chin and tilted her face up towards his, every exquisite detail of her so close.

"I am your King. Refer to me as your King," he commanded.

She smiled innocently, having a unique talent to make innocence seem so brazen. Her hair was long and free, slightly tangled where it fell over her shoulders. "Of course, my King. What am I to you, but a humble servant?"

He didn't care to respond with words. The challenge in her made him come undone, but he was forced to control himself, because he would do anything, if she would only touch him.

He couldn't scare her. He could give her no reason to run off, but no power that existed could put his passion for her at bay. He leaned in, painstakingly slow. He made sure that she knew what he was about to do and he gave her time to welcome it, or not. Her eyes fluttered closed, and he kissed her on her mouth for the first time. He was tender, sweet, but he still expected that she might bite him for the presumption.

Whether she wanted to surprise him or whether she might have liked kissing him, she didn't do what he expected. He took a breath, but didn't draw away, their foreheads touching before he dipped into her mouth again. She allowed him. She let him slip his tongue into her mouth, and to wrap his arms around her while he kept kissing her, unable to stop once he understood she was willing.

He had anticipated this moment with his whole being, but all his imaginings paled in comparison. In a rush, he pulled her fully against him, so she'd feel him and quite suddenly, it was more than a simple kiss. She did bite his lip then, bringing her hands up to his face and dragging her fingers against his cheeks while his came up to tangle in her flowing hair. He lost all control when she took a breath in his mouth and he shoved himself against her lewdly. It was a dreadful mistake, for she shot away from him immediately, her cheeks flushed and a hand against her mouth.

"I apologize," he said, after watching her reaction for a beat too long. "I have no control where you're concerned."

"You aren't sorry, my lord. But it's true that you have no control," Hera responded, and her gaze broke as she said aloud the thing that was between them and prevented her from taking her place. "Am I to suppose that this is different? I cannot."

"You will," Zeus growled.

"I won't!" She turned away from him. "Go."

"You enjoy tormenting me," he realized.

"I won't answer that," she said. But she already had answered: she knew the power of his attraction and she wouldn't give in to him. And he would obey her because of it.

"If you know that, Hera," Zeus said before doing as she bid, "then you also know that you will be mine. And holding off my affections will not end them. My pursual will not end."

Her eyes lingered on the doorway long after he was gone. Fear was welling up in the deepest part of her, but she wouldn't show it. She set her chin, and refused to partake in it.

"Good-bye, Zeus..."

GXGXGXGXGXGX

Hades was entranced, and his darkness wended its way to the grass where she sat, throwing her into the beautiful shadows, porcelain and pastel. She took a chilled breath as she plucked a flower, looking around her to see nothing and being quite unafraid. She didn't know why it had suddenly become so cold: it was the power of his domain and his glamour.

When he came to her, her eyes were soft and hazed. He reached out his hand from the chariot and she grasped it trustingly, as if nothing else would have been the proper action. To hurt this beautiful and perfect thing would have been the eternal death of him. He would keep her safe and well, and he would have his Queen.

"Persephone," he whispered.

In Hephaestus' forge, Hera stiffened, a tenseness that had her son looking up from the designs he was drawing up for her. "Mother? Are you well?"

She cast eyes below them, waiting a moment before relaxing again. Then, she spoke uncertainly. "Yes. I had a …foreign feeling …but it has passed."

GXGXGXGXGXGX

"Hera?" The former Queen was pleasantly surprised to see this daughter; Hestia and Demeter were always more frequent visitors to her residence. But when she saw the way that the girl trembled, she knew something must not have been right.

Rhea stayed far away from Olympus, for her, that place was best forgotten. And if something had occurred, she was ignorant of it.

But then, she thought, if something had happened on a grand scale, Hera would not have been the first child at her door …this must have been a more personal problem. Her suspicions were confirmed when her youngest daughter flew forward, falling to Rhea's lap and burying her face in the folds of the Titaness' skirt and wetting it with fragrant tears. "Mother, please let it not be true!"

"What then?" Rhea asked kindly. "What's this, darling?" She had never seen Hera inconsolable before. The girl was much more like to dissolve into a rage of a tantrum than a sobbing one. But when Rhea touched her arms to pull them apart to see her face, the Titaness drew back, staring at the goddess' fallen head. "Oh."

Hera had come into her power. And it was not a mean power.

"I haven't a choice, have I?" Hera pleaded with her mother, grasping her hands.

"With what?"

"He's been looking at me lately, following me and staring and—and kissing me! I've been so afraid! He's made it plain that he wants me, and Demeter and the rest say so—that he's wanted me since his rise, but he's just been waiting!"

"Darling …who?"

"ZEUS!" Hera cried hysterically. "But I've only just begun to have control over my abilities and he's known! He's known all along what I was to become and he's just been waiting for the—"

Rhea pried her hands as gently from her daughter as she could and raised them to calm her. What had Zeus done? What could he have possibly done to put one of her girls in this state? "Hera. You need to order these events. I don't understand what you mean."

"But you do! You know, better than anyone," Hera said miserably. "He wants me for his Queen. He won't leave me alone!"

"You want him to leave you alone?" Rhea asked, reeling from the information she was receiving. It should not have been a surprise to her that this was Hera's sorrow, for hadn't she undergone the same thing? The new King, the youngest son, craving the youngest daughter, always a match in love and in power. It was an old story, told again and again …and it hadn't ended well yet. Clearly, Hera was no stranger to the idea, if her distress was any indication. Hera was far wiser than she had been at the same age.

Hera shook her head, her auburn hair tumbled and uncharacteristically tangled as she pushed it out of her face. "I—I don't think so, but I can't think! No, I don't want him! He's a philanderer, Mother! He hasn't been faithful to a single woman since he came into the world! But I…" her voice dropped low, "we were…"

"You were what?" Rhea prodded softly.

"…he's mine, Mother," she confessed torturously. "Whether I want him or not. Because…" she suppressed a cry. "It seems that I must be his queen. I feel almost …compelled by it. Was it like that for you?"

If Rhea wasn't so distraught by her daughter's words, she might have been amused. Even if Hera was called to such heights, she could still see that her daughter was a girl who was largely ignorant to such feelings, discovering what confused and frightened her.

"Darling, you've never loved anyone, have you? Is it possible that you are confusing your attraction to him for compulsion toward him?"

"I can't love him, Mother. He'd…" her voice was so filled with disgust and revulsion that it was no wonder she was confused. "He'd desecrate our marriage vows!" She threw herself away from her mother bitterly, thinking on some grievance. "Dear Hestia, she says she will be a virgin for always. And do you know what Zeus said to her? That he will protect her vow! He swore it already!"

Rhea tucked her hair behind her ear, smoothing it a little. "You don't want to be a virgin forever, Hera," she reminded her. Not even being away from Olympus could make Rhea blind to the gossip that Hera was currently the most coveted bride in the immortal sphere, and that while she acted enigmatic, she was very much open to marriage. No daughter of hers could hide her desires from her mother.

"But Zeus wouldn't do that for me, don't you see?" the young goddess maintained stubbornly.

"Oh, Hera! Zeus isn't in love with Hestia. Marriage is…" her eyes took on a faraway look, "marriage is protection in a different way. If Zeus wants you as his Queen, then he will protect you in that way. He honors those under his protection, and you would be dearest to him. You must think of it in a different way. That's all."

Hera looked up at that, her strangely-colored eyes looking a thousand years older than they should. "As Father protected you?"

GXGXGXGXGX

Kore was laid on the softest bed she had ever lay on, her surroundings crisp and cold-looking. But she was so warm! She knew she should have been afraid; nothing was familiar to her.

Not Kore…

Suddenly, her name felt wrong, in this place.

What was this place?

GXGXGXGXGXGX

The King had wandered into his wife's gardens to find her with her arms full of a goddess of Earth, who was visibly hanging on by a thread. Even Hera's peacocks were keeping a wide berth of Demeter, who emanated a slight frost and was muttering to herself some obsessive mantra.

"Darling, I promise we'll find her. If she had died, I'd know it!" Hera insisted to her sister. Demeter pushed off Hera and Hestia's petting hands and snarled at the Queen.

"You'd not be so calm were this Eileithyia or Hebe! There are so many fates worse than death! If she's in pain! If she's suffering!"

"If she is, I have no sense of it!" Hera interrupted. "And I would feel it, I've been sensing out only for her ever since—"

"Why must this have happened?!" Demeter wailed, falling back into her sisters' arms. "She was all that I had!"

Zeus already couldn't bear it anymore. He had begun to feel ill when Demeter invoked Eileithyia and Hebe, and it had only grown from there. He turned away, but it seemed that Hera had known he was there after all and followed his discreet escape, leaving Hestia to tend to Demeter.

"Zeus…"

"I didn't know she was here," Zeus said, keeping his back to her. "I didn't come for anything urgent."

"But this is!" Hera said, grasping his arm and pulling her to face him. Her mouth dropped slightly when she saw his face. "Are you well, my love?" She reached up toward his face, but he snatched her hand out of the air, holding fast and swiftly changing the subject.

"How is Demeter?"

"She's terrible." Hera glanced back in the direction they had come, hearing distant cries. "I fear this will become a much larger problem if Kore isn't found soon. I don't understand it."

"What?"

"How she could have just …disappeared like that? Demeter has always kept her so sheltered…"

"Maybe that was the problem," Zeus said grimly. In his own guilt, he couldn't help but cast out for other excuses. "The child was never alone, never able to have her own experience. You never did such an injustice to yours, most sensible mothers wouldn't…"

"Are you saying that Kore ran off?" Hera asked, shaking her head. "She wouldn't have, Zeus. She might have felt limited by Demeter, but she's too …sweet-natured to cause her such anxiety!"

As Hera spoke, it truly occurred to Zeus that his wife knew his daughter with Demeter better than he did… That observation must have occurred to Hera as well, because she tilted her head towards him.

"You know, she's your child too… You haven't expressed much worry over this. You don't need to hide it for my sake."

Zeus rubbed his face tiredly. "She's my blood, Hera. But you know she has never really been my child… Perhaps it was Demeter's words before, realizing that they could be applied to me as well. If this were Hebe or Eileithyia…" he trailed off, knowing she would understand his meaning. For the moment, he didn't take into account that he knew where Kore was …because even if he hadn't, it still wouldn't be the same.

Demeter had been the girl's only parent. Zeus had allowed that, too.

"And also, there are greater implications here, though I know that you are more concerned with our sister," he continued. "Demeter has spread an unseasonable frost on the whole earth in her depression. Many will die if she does not get this under control…"

"I will speak to her," Hera said apprehensively. "But I cannot pretend that I believe that will do anything …all the more reason we need to get Kore back!"

"And what if she's gone for good?" Zeus replied, a slight note of panic in his tone. "Or if we find her in less-than-ideal circumstances? Is our sister to lay a scourge on the earth the likes of which we've never seen before? Will the innocent suffer for this?"

"Zeus, I don't know!" Hera cried, unable to be unaffected by his valid concerns for the greater good. "But I'd rather just find the girl and worry about what happens next after that! What good does it do to speculate? I can't sense her, nor did I ever sense her death, I don't know where she could possibly—"

She went rigid. She went rigid with some sudden inspiration and Zeus caught her to him, looking down into her face, stroking her cheek. "What?!"

His wife inhaled, her eyes looking past him to the landscape behind. "I sensed it, Zeus. When I was with Hephaestus, asking for a new bath, I sensed her go…"

"What do you mean?" Zeus shook his head, feeling his heart begin to pick up and pushing her back from him to arms' length so that she wouldn't feel it. "What did you sense? She's alive, isn't she?!"

"Of course, but…" Hera searched the ground, calling up the memory, lost to all else. "It was as if something clicked into place…"

Zeus almost rolled his eyes, feeling that her words weren't much more than babble. "I don't understand you, my love…" he fairly snapped. "What fell into place? How did it involve Kore?!"

"Kore," she whispered. Her eyes shifted slightly out of focus and Zeus huffed, his impatience disintegrating any distress. "That's what doesn't feel correct… I…"

She half-turned toward where Demeter and Hestia still sat and Zeus stilled her movement, pulling her back toward him. "No, you must speak with me. Tell me what you mean!"

Her head snapped up toward him, now scrutinizing his expression with more clarity. "It's nothing for you to worry about. Why are you so insistent? You—"

Her mouth dropped, but Zeus' hand covered it before she could say any more and he grabbed her up, transporting them both out of the garden.

Well, now she was annoyed. She didn't manage to wriggle away in time to escape his trick, so instead her hands beat his chest several times before he was able to let her go safely. She stepped away from him, now in his apartments. "What is the meaning of this?" she said furiously, forgetting her suspicions in her alarm. "Why did you bring me here?"

"Surely not such an unhappy place," Zeus muttered in turn. She hit him again and he looked at her warningly. "Have peace, Hera."

"I'll 'have peace' when you tell me the meaning of this! Could we not continue a civilized conversation where we were?"

"Not to be overheard," Zeus said.

"It was only my sisters!" Hera said, exasperated.

"And they are party to our marriage, are they?"

"What has this to do with our marriage?!"

"Nothing!" he said quickly, seeing that he had already gotten her wheels turning. "But the girl's disappearance is fast becoming a trouble that will require our interference, if Demeter's actions have anything to show for it."

Hera glanced up at him briefly, confusing her train of thought, to his relief. "I already told you that I'd speak with her…"

"Yes, be very kind, my Queen," Zeus said sarcastically. "In the hopes that kindness will be enough."

"But why did you take me here so suddenly?" Hera persisted, ignoring his distraction because it was too late for her not to mark it as suspicious, for she knew him too well. "And to what end? Demeter and Hestia were not even within earshot!"

"We were within earshot of Demeter's cries," Zeus responded. He turned away from her and paced a few steps, so she was unable to see his expression. A half-truth was the only barrier against his wife, for the moment. "I …do not enjoy hearing her so distressed."

That was more than a half-truth. The goddess' wails brought on such a repulse within him that he would have desired to escape it even if Hera hadn't been so close to discovering the plot. He knew his wife was bound to catch on to their brother's actions, having dominion over female goddesses that way she did. But discovering it so soon would bring about ruin for Hades and the Olympians as a whole.

He had successfully distracted Hera, but perhaps to evade the discovery, he should just take her into their confidence.

She would understand, better than any other being, why this must have been carried out...

Hera glared at him when the silence stretched on. "Well if that's all, my lord, I suppose I'll take myself back to my gardens, since you can't bear her cries."

He didn't have the courage to call back to her, and the opportunity crumbled to dust.