Quiescence

A/N In this story, Athena is Hera's daughter. The reason for that will be explained later.

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"Let's not procrastinate. I'll do it now. And I see you so much sooner."

They echoed in his mind, reverberated through his soul. These, the last words he had heard her say. His Hera. His brave and magnificent beloved Queen. Without hesitation had she taken the sparkly blue crystal from his hand and let the gravity of the Mortal World get the hold of her, pull her inside of the Portal like so many times before. This time to seal it from her side, to shelter the fragile beings of the planet Earth.

With his heart almost stopping, he had seen her falling down through the whirling blue skies towards the ground, the fear in her lovely eyes, which she so eagerly was trying to hide. They had reflected his own dread and he had wanted to call out for her to stop. To come back to him! But too late, the Portal had closed and faded away until nothing remained but the glistening stars in the sky. Shut until he and he alone would chose to use the Red Crystal to open it again.

It was nothing they had ever done before, a hard and conceivably dangerous act. However these was dangerous times and the demand high for daring plans. The Malaikin, their old alien arch enemies, had been back and more numerous and resourceful than ever. Once again had these malevolent and pugnacious beings set their eyes upon the Human realm, steadfastly convinced that they were going to invade it this time. The only thing standing in their way had been the little group of guardians called Olympians.

The battle had been lengthy, terrifying and unforgiving; but the defenders had been successful thanks to the brilliance of Athena's strategies. Like so many times before, the Olympians had triumphed, they had annihilated the Malaikin attackers to the very last one, eradicated them, not letting anyone of the foes return to where they had come from, and bring home the news of how they had been defeated.

Zeus walked across the shiny, black and white squared floor, past the octagonal pool, where the almost unnaturally still water reflected the starlight, and stopped by the edge of the landing. Here two pillars higher than the rest carried a gilded vault. Way up in the air it arched and glittered softly in the many lamps and lanterns that lit up the night. Looking down from the edge of the broad stairs and out over the vast gardens, he felt the balmy night wind lift his long, white cloak and billowing it widely behind him. He rested a hand on the cold white marble of a pillar, rubbing his fingers slowly across the slick surface while lifting his face, gazing up in the sky towards the point where the Portal used to be. Now there was nothing, but a faint, dark speck in the sky, the jetty which had used to hold the rounded opening to the Earth Side.

It was time to open up the Portal again. Let Hera come home. He just hoped she was all right. That the fall through the realms and the forces of the closing portal hadn't harmed her.

"Darling," he said. "I'm coming to you. We'll be together again, and everything is going to be fine. The after-war quiescence of Olympos can need something to shaken it alive again. Like your vibrant spirit."
By these words, Zeus leaped out from the landing, like a shining comet he traversed the sky and headed out in the airless, weightless space where the shadows became harsh and the only thing heard was his own heartbeat. Relentlessly pointing out how lonely he was without his beloved by his side.

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Landing hard on the rocky ground of the Olympos mountain slope she felt the air slam out of her lungs and her lower arms lash out to take the lot of the impact. The next moment she found herself dropping the primary blue crystal and seeing it roll away from her down the tuft-covered hillside, pulled by gravity into the chasm below.

"No!" she reached out to grasp it, but too late, and as it fell away, a flash of blue sapphire light blinded her before she closed her eyes.

No! Not again!

It was the third night in a row now the dream had come to Hannah. Every time it had been just the slightest more detailed, a tad more clear and consistent. Details coming in focus like on an analogue film in a developing liquid. In spite of that she could still not remember the name of her blue eyed beloved up in the skies. He meant everything to her, and it was obvious the feelings had been mutual, because he had been so very reluctant to let her go.

Still there are certain things in life you just have to do, and this had been one of them. Hannah and her nameless love had to protect this world from these mysterious and malicious Malaikin. That very word sent shivers down her spine.

"We have sighted their ships," the woman with the flying blond hair was saying, her radiant sapphire eyes apprehensive and her striking face marred with her worry. "They are several times more of them than the last wave, the one we just hit back, and which cost us so much. This time I've no doubt that the Malaikin know of our strengths and of our weaknesses. They'll be so much harder to defeat now."
"Don't despair, sister," the raven haired man was saying, and as he turned towards her, the deep red of his cloak reflected off his face, giving it a horrid, crimson sheen as if being drenched in blood. "You see, we know theirs too. We can kick them all the way back to that dirt rock they call Malaika and send them the message, that we are sick of their puny weapons and tiresome attacks."

Another part of her dream – or was it a memory – had remained this time. Hannah recalled those two – the brother and the sister - and she felt deeply moved. Tears almost sprang out from her eyes. The fighters – the yin and the yang. So different and yet so alike. She had sensed a strange kinship with this duo, a desire to reach out to them and hold them.

Hannah had googled the word Malaikin finding little of use and she had waded through the vast ocean of information about the gods of Olympos, finding more, however it had been hard to sort and structure it and try to apply it to her dreams. One evening, she found herself writing the name Zeus in a notebook, trying to discern if it made her feel anything. Nonetheless the descriptions and the images of the godly king didn't really fit her recollection of the man in her dreams. All those images of a bearded, enthroned god said her absolutely nothing. Other than that long beards were so not her type.

Too soon the holidays were over and life was returning to normal programming and with it the work, friends, the gym, and all the other things Hannah filled her days with. When her family had died, she had inherited a small amount of money. So upon returning from Thailand and her mourning period, only to find that she had lost her job while being away, she had used the money to make an old dream come true. She had started her own publishing company. Bou-ken (adventure) Publishing was importing manga from Japan to Sweden and she and her two Japanese partners did most of the translations. It wasn't flourishing, manga wasn't as hot as it had been about six years ago, but she did fine. She could pay for her Japanese translators, for the printing and distribution of the paperbacks and for some marketing. And she made enough for the down-payments on her parent's penthouse, so she could keep that one as well.

Since Hannah worked mostly from home, one of her ways of meeting people was the Wednesday After Work with the Small Business' Guildhouse. The Guildhouse was located in a small 18th century building on a narrow, cobblestoned back street at one of the many lesser Stockholm islands. It was a three-story, yellow sandstone building of the appealing but insignificant kind which the Guildhouse shared with a cosmetic surgery's clinic and a jazz record label.

It was here Hannah networked, found out the latest 'who's doing what' and tied new contacts. Or just socialized. This first Wednesday of the new year was no exception. Entering trough the blue inner door to the Guildhouse's part of the building, the first things she became aware of were the clammy warmness, the smell of wet clothes in the foyer and the buzz of a plethora of voices from the inside. The premises were bathed in a welcoming and mellow dusk of red and orange lights. Some left-over Christmas decorations still hung from the half-open glass doors leading in the main room, however they looked sad and forlorn, as if they knew their days were numbered.

After shredding her outdoors clothes Hannah made her way through the thong of people and up to the bar, where she hiked up her short, pin-striped pencil-skirt, climbed a high chair and ordered a beer from the small-statured and bald middle-aged man who had been working there as long as she had been frequenting the place. Sten, which was the name of the bartender, was fast to fill up her glass, remove the excessive foam with a plastic stick and handing over the beverage in return for her cash money. Then she found herself conversing with Simon and Benny, two men who were working with diving tours, in the pacific during winter time and in the Stockholm archipelago during the summers.

"So what are you doing at home in January," Hannah asked Benny and drank from her beer, the mellow, slightly bitter liquid invigorating and relaxing her.
"I became a dad on boxing day, so naturally I had to come home." The athletic 30something man swept away strands of long, blond hair from a weathered, angular face, a tattoo of an owl glimpsing on his forearm as the shirt collar slid back. "Lina and I had since long decided we wanted to have li'l Sandra in Sweden, so Lina has been living at home now during the last months of her pregnancy and then I came up in mid-December to not miss the birth."
"Congratulations," Hannah smiled, raising her glass, watching the light refract in the golden beverage.

As he too raised his glass, Simon's trade-mark toothpaste grin split up his sun-burnt face. He was still not 30 and naturally looked less worn yet also less world-wise than his older colleague.
"So we decided to close the shop for the holidays," he cut in. "And I took the chance to return to the old land and see my folks as well. You know, I haven't been at home for Christmas since 2006. I've almost forgotten it got this cold."
"This year is far from the worst," Hanna said. "You should've been here in '10. I swear, it was like Hell frozen over. So how are Lina and Sandra?"
"Oh, they're fine. However Lina's been complaining about the strangest dreams. Oddly clear and persistent. And about Greek gods!"

"Greek gods," Hannah almost coughed on her beer. "As in Zeus and those people?"
"You know about them?" Benny lifted a groomed brow.
"Well, yes, I've read some." she shrugged. "Mostly work related. Care to tell what those dreams are about?"
"Don't think she's crazy, but she dreams that they come here again. Back to Earth, I mean. And they want something, but Lina's not sure what it is they want."

Evidently she was not the only one having these dreams. Putting down her beer, Hannah thought it over. Perhaps she wasn't that special, perhaps there was no certain connection to the man in the starry sky. Perhaps what she dreamt was just things somebody else had experienced and which several people all over the world kept on dreaming now. In a way it made her sad. On another level, it made her – expectant. Maybe there was something going on after all.

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"You started the Facebook group 'Dreaming of Olympos'," the talk show host Maia Terrada turned to the blonde lady in her early thirties who had just taken her place in the sofa next to the ice hockey pro who had been interviewed earlier. "Now, why is that?"

Snapping awake from her semi-doze, Hannah reached for the remote and cranked up the volume, almost spilling her cup of cooling herb tea. Now, this was exactly what she wanted to hear. As the camera shifted and the guest came in view again, the legend beneath her on the screen was shown, 'Elizabeth Lund'.

"I began to have those dreams in June," came the reply, Elizabeth Lund's Dalecarlia accent barely audible. "During Midsummer I talked about them with some friends, and it turned out to be more than I who kept receiving them. So I started a group where we could discuss them, and today we have more than 3500 members. And not just from Sweden, but from all over the place."

"What is it you and the other members on the site keep dreaming?" Maia Terrada asked.
"All kinds of things, with the Greek Gods being the lowest common denominator. Mostly it's about them turning up and showing their willingness to help. With all kinds of problems. My own dreams have been evolving around the snags I've been having with my own writings. My children's books. Others in the group have been given relational guidance. On woman was advised against buying the house she and her husband were considering getting. As it turned out, the house was faulty in so many ways. The technical examiner, who they employed, told them that it might take another million to just make the place habitable."

"And which gods have been coming through to you?"
"Mostly Athena and Apollo," Elizabeth Lund replied. "But also Poseidon now and then. And Zeus once."
"Zeus is the king of the gods, right? It must've felt very special to be visited by him?"
"Yes it was, very exciting!"

Hanna shifted in the sofa. Those names, she got flashes of faces as she heard them. Apollo – tall and blond, with a self-assured smirk in a handsome face. Poseidon – light brown, long hair brushed back over chiseled features, eyes shifting in colours from green over gray and turquoise to the deepest of blues. Quite a bit more solemn and mature than the lighthearted Apollo. Athena...

"We have sighted their ships. They are several times more than the last wave, the one we just hit back, and which cost us so much. This time I've no doubt that the Malaikin know of our strengths and of our weaknesses. They'll be so much harder to defeat now."

That had been Athena!

"Mother, do you think we can beat them this time?"
"Dear child, we have to try at least, that's what we're here for after all," she took the tall and strong woman in an embrace, felt her arms encircle that athletic body she knew so well, inhaling her almondy scent. Her brave daughter despairing, that wasn't like her. It filled her belly with uncomfortable little jagged things. "If you don't believe we can beat them with mere force, then we have to deploy one of those clever plans of yours, don't you think so?"
"You trust too much in me having a plan, what if I lack one this time?"
"No, you don't, Athena. Just let it come to you. I know you can."

"How was Zeus?" Maia Terrada wanted to know, leaning slightly forward in the sofa. She wore a too tight pink and white striped top and Hannah noted how her generous front zone was almost on its way of escaping the insufficient textile confinement. Embarrassing, did the viewers really need to see more of her milk chocolate skin?
"He was remarkable," the interviewee replied. "Nothing like all those pictures of bearded old men. He was like, eh, he was youthful and handsome in a way, however old and wise in another way. Strong. Hard to explain, but I really got the feeling that if someone can save the world, then he's the one."

"Is it a religion now, to re-vive the old Hellenic faith?"
"I wouldn't really call it a religion. To me those gods out there, they are for real. They are nothing for churches and priests and dusty old books. They are there for the general people. For the little people. Like you and me."
"And why is that, Elisabeth?"
"Because they come to us directly. They come to us in our dreams, and thus shortcutting all this need for holy men and interpreters! We don't need to go somewhere special on a special day to pray to them, we don't even have to pray to them. We can just talk, the way you and I here are talking. Ask questions."

"I'm certain a lot of people at home there in the sofas would want to understand how you know that this is real and not just fidgets of imagination."
"One proof," Elizabeth Lund said, uncrossing her legs and also leaning forward in the sofa, as if to better reach both Maia Terrada and the viewers, "is that we have 3500+ followers in our Facebook group. 3500+ people of which most hadn't heard a word about this movement when they started to receive their dreams. Quite a few of them didn't even know the Greek gods, or at least very little of them. These people came to us because they recognized their own dreams in what we were discussing. Came by the word of mouth. If we wouldn't have been there, they would still have been dreaming. And I believe there are many more out there dreaming, who haven't reached us yet. That so many people independently have these dreams must – at least in my eyes – be the proof that this is very real."

"Tell me one of your dreams, Elizabeth," Maia Terrada asked and the interviewee launched into a long and elaborated story about meeting Athena in a garden to some old castle. Meanwhile Hannah leaned back, closed her eyes and let the voice from the TV trigger other memories.

"This is a great plan, Athena!" she said and gazed at the stunning woman from the corner of her eye, while they walked down a small path meandering through the beauty of the Soulful Garden. Athena moved with a feline grace, no edges to her body- or hand languages, it all flowed like water, elegant and animated. Her snow white tunic was beautifully tailored, leaving one shoulder bare and snug at her slim waistline, before it flouted out over her long, elegant legs, her sandaled feat taking nimble steps down the white-pebbled path.

To the left of them grew the ever blossoming cherry trees of Persephone and to their right the grassy ground sloped down to the canal, where the water was floating ever so slowly, reflecting the beauty around them. On the other side, beyond more cherry trees, stretched the sun-drenched, poppy-filled meadows all the way to the bluish hills in the distance.

"It's the best one I could come up with, however it doesn't feel failsafe," Athena admitted. "We're going to need a back-up strategy. A last resort if the Malaikin break through and threaten the mortal world. We have to stop them from even reaching the Portal."
"Or we can close the portal," she heard herself say and Athena stopped dead in her tracks, turning to stare at her. For a while the only thing heard was the chirping of the birds and the faint rustle of wind through the trees.

"That's impossible," Athena finally said, sighing and shaking her head, despair showing in those eyes which were so much alike her fathers.
"No, Athena. Not if we bring the Blue Crystal to the Other Side while the Red remains here. We could hide the blue one at Olympos Beneath. So if the Malaikin should against all odds find the Red, they cannot use it. Only Zeus can."

"Only Zeus can... yes, that is true." Tilting her head, Athena seemed to think things over, before she suddenly straightened up, her whole being becoming more erect and focused.
"Zeus," she called out. "Father! We need your advice! We believe you can save us!"

"That's why he's referred to as Zeus Soter – Zeus the savior," Elizabeth Lund finished what she had been reiterating. Hannah realized she had lost the last four or five minutes of the interview, and now Maia Terrada let trough the commercials. Never mind, the whole interview would be able to repeat on the web within minutes, where Hannah could catch up with what she had missed.

Reaching out for the remote, she turned the TV off and then she stood and walked over to the window. Stockholm was still drenched in rain, this weather was running on repeat, like a jagged old LP record getting caught in a track. The rivulets of water running down the window shattered the images and lights, turning the city into a surreal and endless canvas of lost sequins – or stars.

So much more starlights than in real life. The shadow across his face was hard, rendering half of it in complete blackness, the way it did where there was no air. Still the remarkable beauty of his features was intact. A sad smile played around his lips, twisting them just a bit before disappearing again, as if it had never been there.
"You have the blue one?" he asked.
"I do," to underline her words she brought up the fist-sized gemstone, the stars catching its wondrous surface, sending rays of blue all over, speckling his beloved face like unusual tears, so utterly beautiful. So unusually sad.
"Do you recall how to do it?" he asked of her.

"Now I finally know your name," Hannah whispered as she rested first her shivering hands then her forehead upon the cold glass, feeling its chill almost invade her brain, shaking the resting goddess inside of her out of her quiescence. "Yes, I remember you, love. You are my Zeus!"