Time skip
Hestia pov
Hestia walked through the forest, ducking under branches and stepping over roots. She had been walking for quite some time, having grown tired of her family's constant bickering over how the world would be divied up between them now that their father had been defeated.
Flashback
"As leader of the rebellion against our father, I believe that it is my rightful place to be King of the Gods." Zeus Proclaimed from his hastily constructed throne.
They all sat in the soon to be throne room of their new palace on the top of Mount Olympus, pillars and houses made of beautiful white stone tiles were already under construction.
Some of the Gods shifted uncomfortably at his proclamation, their eyes shifting towards the two gods sitting beside Zeus.
One of which was Poseidon his eyes holding a hint of barely controlled anger, "now brother," he started in a dangerously calm voice "you may have led the rebellion, but without me Oceanus would have destroyed our armies with his storms."
Zeus stood up, his eyes sparking with anger while his hands began to literally spark with electricity. "What are you saying brother? Do you think just because you defeated some ocean deity while I fought Father, that means you deserve to be King over me?"
"No Zeus." Hades said, taking the opportunity to join the argument "Poseidon is trying to say that you only led the rebellion, but without help you would have failed in your attempted attack on Father's palace on Mount Othrys." he turned to the rest of the assembled Gods with open arms "and I think that I out of everyone here helped the most and therefore deserve the throne more than anyone here."
Zeus turned to face his brother Poseidon joining him at his side, both had gotten even angrier and looked like they were ready to summon their new symbols of power, they were the weapons that the Cyclopes had forged for each of the brothers when they were released from their prisons.
"And what is it that you did Hades?" Zeus snarled "what did you do during the rebellion that makes you more deserving than me."
"Or me" said Poseidon in the same fashion.
Hades stood up as well, his dark eyes were alight with black fire "while the two of you were fighting in single combat, I was leading our family." he said gesturing to the Gods around them, who were sitting rigged in their seats, waiting for a fight to breakout between the three brothers. " and most importantly." he continued, his voice rising with every word " I led our armies against the hordes of monsters. I am the one who made sure that every single one of our family survived the war you started Zeus."
Zeus tried to interrupt but hades would not let him.
"I leapt to Ares aid when you, in your anxiousness to fight Father left him exposed to an attack from Krios."
And so the argument continued, each God proclaiming his heroics and degrading the proclamations of the others. That's when Hestia, brave little Hestia who had been the eldest God born of Rhea and Cronus stood up from her seat. Her normally soft amber eyes were bright with fire, the normal calmness was replaced by disgust.
The fire in the center of the throne room responded to her emotions and began to intensify, growing hotter and hotter as it nearly rose to the incomplete ceiling. The rest of the Gods watched in shock at the actions of the normally level headed Goddess, but still the three sons of Cronus continued their arguing ignoring the continuously growing fire.
Hestia lifted her hands upward and the fire responded, three tendrils of fire leapt forward each wrapping around one of the arguing Gods. and with a flick of her hand Hestia willed the flames to slam the three Gods back into their seats and held them there.
"What is the meaning of this Hestia?" Zeus bellowed in anger.
Said Goddess walked to the center of the room her eyes never leaving those of Zeus "I have grown tired of hearing you all argue over something so insignificant."
"INSIGNIFICANT." yelled Poseidon.
The flaming tendril picked him up and slammed him yet again into his seat, with so much force the chair was nearly broken in half. "Yes Poseidon, insignificant." Hestia said, her flaming gaze shifted from Zeus to Poseidon "you think that just because you fight for something that means that you deserve a reward? What about the soldiers who died fighting for you three to even have the opportunity to become King."
Hestia gestured around to the incomplete palace "we sit here in a palace built on the corpses of loyal soldiers, loyal soldiers that will never return to their own families, and yet here you are arguing over a shiny new toy. I for one will not stand by and watch you disgrace their sacrifice with your childishness."
The flaming tendril receded back to the fire which had returned to normal levels, the three Gods sighed in relief as the on their body began to heal. While Poseidon and Hades seemed to have listened to her and had calmed down Zeus had not, he quickly stood up from his throne his master bolt primed and ready in his now free hand.
"You dare to lecture me sister about how to act." he yelled at the tiny Goddess "you stand here and tell me about how people sacrificed themselves for our cause, yet while the rest of us were fighting you were sitting beside your precious fire."
"Husband." warned Hera the newly wedded wife of Zeus.
Zeus of course ignored her warning.
"No wife, I shall not stand idly by while I am being insulted by some useless girl."
"USELESS!" screamed Hestia "I'll show you useless." and started to storm out of the throne room, pushing on the doors so hard that they fell off their hinges, calling back as she did so "let's see how long people will follow you without me there to comfort them."
Flashback over
Hestia shook her head side to side, trying to clear her head of the memories. She had always been loyal to her family, even after being eaten by her own father she still didn't hate him. In fact the only reason she had sided with her siblings over her father was because of how he had treated their mother, Rhea.
The sun was starting to go down and she hadn't found a place to stay yet, after walking a bit farther she came to a small clearing. There was dried blood and fur splattered everywhere, something big had fought here that much was obvious from the amount of blood and damage to the tree's. But there was also something else in the clearing, a cave entrance was just visible under the plants that had grown over it, she now had a decision to make.
For one the sun was still going down and would soon be gone, leaving her in the dark with whatever creatures lurked in this forest, secondly while she was a powerful goddess, and was fully capable of defending herself, she was still alone and wouldn't be able to fight forever.
So with her mind made up, she entered the clearing, parted the plants covering the entrance and walked into the dark cave.
It was the smell that hit her first. It smelled like old, rotting corpse, a smell she was unfortunate enough to have been regularly acquainted with it as of late. She covered her nose with one hand and summoned some fire in her other hand. The fire didn't illuminate much of the cave, but it did a good enough job for her to walk safely without fear of unknowingly running into something.
Turns out the cave was much larger on the inside then it looked on the outside. The entrance she had walked through led to a slowly descending hallway that connected to a much bigger cave. It was here that Hestia discovered the source of the smell, dozens of animal carcasses littered the ground, some had been here so long that they were no more than bones while others looked more recent.
Keeping up the flames in her hand was starting to wear on her, so she rummaged through a pile of bones picking the oldest and driest one she could find, and holding it out like a torch, lit it on fire. The bone torch flared to life revealing more parts of the cave.
The carcasses were not the most disturbing part, nor was it the sheer amount of them, no the most disturbing part was the size of the bones themselves. A giant skull with a single eye socket in the middle of it sat in the corner, beside that was the skull of one the giant stags that lived in the mountains nearby. And then there were the human bones, mountains on mountains were stacked along the walls on either side of her.
"What kind of beast could do all of this." Hestia thought to herself as she discovered even more bones, that's when she heard something growling menacingly behind her. She turned around and dropped her torch in fear of what she saw.
Back on olympus
Hera sat alone in the now completed throne room of Olympus when suddenly a blinding silver light burst to life in front of her. Soon the light subsided revealing Artemis, in full silver hunting garb with her bow slung over her shoulder.
"My Queen." Artemis said, bowing.
Hera nodded, the concept of being Queen of the gods was still strange to her. "You may rise Artemis." the goddess did so instantly.
"Why have you summoned me here?" she asked.
Hera got up from her throne, motioning for Artemis to follow her which the goddess did. Together they walked around the palace, the nearly completed houses and shops shone in the fading sunlight. Soon they arrived in a small garden.
"What do you see when you look at these." Hera asked, motioning towards the plants.
Artemis knelt down and studied the plants, but found nothing that made these plants different from any other plant.
"I don't know what you mean Queen Hera, these are just plants. There's nothing special about them."
Hera sighed "you are just like your father, only looking at the surface and ignoring everything else. And soon we will be punished for that behaviour."
"What do you mean by punished."
Hera bent over and plucked a plant from the garden, a small purple flower with a yellow center. "It's amazing how these survive, it requires there to be the right amount of soil the right amount of water, and only there can they succeed. Do you understand what i'm getting at?"
Artemis shook her head, this conversation was making her head hurt.
"We are like this flower." she said gesturing towards the flower in her hand "it's alive and well, thriving in the perfect conditions."
She placed the flower back in it's place in the garden "humans are like water to us, showering us with praises and sacrifices that make us stronger every day. But just like the flower, without the soil to catch the water and keep for us we will die." she then turned to the young goddess of the hunt. "Without Hestia here to keep the humans content and happy, they will soon grow restless and stop sacrificing to us, and when they do that then we will start to fade into nothingness."
"Zeus doesn't realise this and is content with Hestia being gone, in fact he already plans on having his son Dionysus replace her on the council after he becomes King."
Artemis's face scrunched up in disgust, she had met the son of Zeus before and had concluded that he was the epitomization of everything she hated in men. "What can we do to stop this from happening?"
"You must go out into the world, track her down and bring her back here before it's too late."
Artemis nodded and started walking out the door, but turned around when she heard Hera calling out to her.
"Be careful out there Huntress, my father may have been defeated but I sense that a great evil still lurks out there, waiting for time to strike."
Artemis nodded and flashed out of the palace, reappearing in a familiar clearing.
"What is it my Lady?" asked Zoe her lieutenant of the hunt.
"Get the hunters ready, we leave at dawn."
Zoe nodded and ran off, barking orders to the rest of the hunters. Artemis fiddled with her her bow string, the words of Hera ringing in her mind, she couldn't help but shake the awful feeling that Hestia was in trouble.
/
A/N: so what do you think? Next chapter will have some action and will be longer. I just wanted to get this chapter out since it's been awhile since I last updated this story.