Content warning: Sexually suggestive content

Part 3

Chapter 10

Sky

October, 1993

Pasdena, California

Beryl and Thalia had come to an understanding since their initial issues. The unending crying had almost ended Beryl's sanity. Despite their rough start, Thalia had become the best thing to ever happen to her. She knew every mother felt that way, but she felt it had to be true more for her than other mothers. The insufferable loneliness she had felt since Zeus had left her finally eased and she felt she was safe here with her daughter under the god's protection. More than that, she even felt a sense of purpose. This small little being needed her. Thalia stabilized her. Beryl for once in her life felt peace.

Their nightime habit of looking to the heavens had become a routine equally prized by both of them. Once Beryl's limited knowledge of the stars and their stories had stopped being enough to entertain Thalia, this being when the girl was 3 years old, the two of them found a constellation guidebook in their next wind spirit-delivered weekly supply box. After this occasion, the weekly boxes had transformed from a menial delivery to a small celebration. As if the wind spirits had seen their joy and wanted it to continue, small gifts from fresh blueberries for a pie Thalia was convinced she needed to try to one of Beryl's favorite movies on CD found their way into the boxes.

Despite her contentment, Beryl couldn't help but look back on the splendor of her life before she met Zeus. She often reminisced about those days with Thalia, indulging her daughter in descriptions of the acting roles she played, the places she visited, the people she met. To her daughter, the world beyond their small house must have seemed like a fairy tale.

But Beryl could never speak of Zeus to her daughter. She couldn't put her finger on a word for the pain thinking of the god inflicted. There was love, a bit of a faint pink glow on the memories of their time together. But if she looked too long, that pink deepend into rage. Betrayal. Darker things Beryl didn't want to dwell on. But Thalia never asked about her father - and why would she, the poor girl had only ever known her mother and had no reason to imagine what was missing. Beryl also often contemplated how different a mother she would be if she were living a typical life. Would she have been so close to her daughter? Gotten to know all of her beautiful - and many not-so-beautiful - quirks? Would she have had a chance to instill in Thalia her mother's sharp humor, painstakingly passed down as if in honor of her namesake muse? Beryl had struggled with substance abuse and liked to imagine that would have stopped of her own volition if she had discovered she was pregnant under other circumstances. As it were, their weekly rations didn't contain the substances she used to immerse herself in. For better or worse. Probably for better. She worried too about Thalia's lack of socialization with other children. She tried not to worry that if Zeus never let them out of this place, her lack of socialization would never matter.

So the days passed in peaceful monotony, each of them the other's only company beyond the animals, plants, and stars. Beryl wondered if this limited companionship is what strengthened her daughter's longing for those far away lights.

/

It was a particularly pleasant day today, and Thalia had woken Beryl early that morning to make banana pancakes. As Thalia had demanded to "be the chef", Beryl was left to stand idly by, offering suggestions and napkins as her daughter wrecked the kitchen. The resulting pancakes had been questionable at best but Beryl tried to smile through her grimace as she tasted Thalia's creation. Her daughter's proud grin framed in syrup didn't make it too difficult to crack a smile.

Several hours later, Thalia was now in the backyard playing with a ball while Beryl brought some order back to the kitchen. Humming a tune that had played in one of her more popular commercial roles, Beryl didn't notice when the erratic rhythm of the ball being kicked stopped completely.

Thalia's gut dropping scream immediately brought Beryl out of her reverie. The plate she had been cleaning lay discarded on the floor as Beryl turned on her heel to run to Thalia, only to be intercepted within seconds, the girl clutching her mother tightly. Terrified sobs shook her but she managed to form enough coherent words for Beryl to determine what Thalia had seen. Beryl ran outside in time to see a vampiric creature of nightmares, far worse than she had been able to piece together from her daughter's sobbed description.

The woman-monster's bat wings expanded around her as she flew above Beryl, eyes that contained an unholy glee meeting her own. For moments Beryl was frozen with fear but soon began screaming out for help to the wind spirits she knew were nearby.

\

Zeus returned for the first time in five years soon after the incident. Beryl presumed he would, and had done her best to tell her daughter about the man she was soon to meet.

"But I don't have a dad. I only have you." Thalia's voice, deep for a five year old girl, repeated stubbornly.

"Baby, I know it's hard to understand. But remember the stories I've read to you? Most children have a mommy and a daddy. You just have a very special, powerful dad who has had to... take care of really important business."

Thalia's face went hard, though brightness shone in her eyes that had only just gone dry from the terror of this morning. "For five whole years? He could never have said hello?"

The tears in her daughter's eyes threatened to make Beryl's own eyes fill with water. "He's a very busy man." She replied quietly, unable to meet Thalia's eyes. "But he'll be here any minute now. To make sure we're safe."

"What if I am too busy to say hi to him?" Her daughter's eyebrows scrunched together in the stubborn set she saw so often in the mirror.

"Don't scrunch your eyebrows like that honey, you'll get wrinkles."

"Ah, still just like Aphrodite, I see." Zeus's deep tenor made her jump nearly out of her skin and set her heart hammering. She saw the fright reflected on Thalia's face.

"Jesus, Zeus, don't scare us like that!" Beryl barked at the massive presence now occupying the doorway to Thalia's bedroom. After a moment the initial surprise subsided to relief and ... other things. Just the sight of her lover set her heart racing as if she were 25 again.

"It's good to see you, too, Beryl. And Thalia! What a beautiful young thing you've grown into!" Rather than go to her newly-discovered father, Thalia stood somberly in a corner of the room, staring Zeus down in a way only a child unaware of the power of the man in front of her could accomplish.

"Not easily impressed then, eh? I brought you something." In his hand, Zeus held out a storm cloud in miniature. Thunder and lightning warred inside it impossibly. "This is a handful of the clouds supporting Mount Olympus. Only one of my children could hold such a thing and maintain its power. A small taste of what's to come."

Thalia starred at it, entranced. She slowly walked forward and used her two small hands to cup the cloud. Though she said nothing, her eyes widened in awe.

"There now. Run along and play with it. I've matters to discuss with your mother." Thalia merely raised an eyebrow at the dismissal.

"Whatever you have to say applies to the both of us. Thalia can hear it too." Beryl's heart was racing. She didn't want to delay what she knew was coming. A small taste of what's to come. "Are you finally taking us to -"

Zeus held up his hand, cutting Beryl off instantly. She felt her heart drop to her toes. "Beryl, my love, I have not come to take you both to Olympus. I am sorry. What I feared has come to pass. My wretched brother, Hades, has discovered you and the child here. He knows that I have now broken the vow that held me and my other brothers. And I am not the only one. All three of us now have children by mortal women, despite being bound by the Styx against it. Who knows what consequences are to come of it..."

Beryl was speechless. If Hades' hellish minion hadn't been enough to convince Zeus to bring them somewhere more safe, what was his purpose in coming here? The vow had been broken for years now? If they were not going to Olympus, where else could be more secure? Seeing the confusion and fear on her face, Zeus reached out to cup Beryl's cheek. Finally, the hard mask he had been wearing since he'd appeared in her house slipped a bit, revealing sadness and an immortal weariness that did not bode well with Beryl.

"Why are you here, Zeus?" Beryl couldn't help leaning on her experience playing soft, sweet women. She pressed her cheek into Zeus palm and peered up at him through her eyelashes, imploring him. Begging with her eyes for an answer that wouldn't break her heart.

"I've come to bring Thalia to Olympus, my dear. Only Thalia."

Beryl was not acting when she fell to the floor, unconscious.

\

Thalia peered down at her unconscious mother, terror driving her heart to a thundering speed.

"Move aside, child. I will make your mother right again, don't worry" The huge man told her in his thundering voice. Never having heard a man's voice before, his tenor was endlessly fascinating to Thalia. As was his large beard and the peculiar cloud he had given her.

When Thalia tentatively moved away, Zeus scooped her mother into his arms as easily as she had once scooped Thalia up. Before he had gently laid her on the bed, Beryl's eyes had begun to flutter open. And after the initial cloudiness of regaining consciousness, rage and indignation claimed her mother's eyes. Thalia had seen that look a time or two - or a lot - when she did things not approved of by her mother like when she broke her "before times" hand mirror on accident. But never had she seen her mother's face this intense. Thalia backed away a couple of steps.

Beryl locked eyes with Zeus and spoke in a voice Thalia had never heard. Deadly and low and full of venom. "You mean to tell me that you've come to take away my daughter - the one thing I love in my life - and leave me here. Alone."

"My dear - "at Beryl's look, Zeus cast his eyes down and shifted from an appeasing tone to an unmoving one. "Beryl. This is the way it has always been. Gods interact on occasion with the mortal world but never stay. Cannot stay. That is the lot the Fates have given us. This is the way it must be."

But Beryl was not ready to back down. "The lot you were given?" She lets out a derisive snort, sitting up taller in bed to stare down this man who had given and taken away everything. "What happened to Mr. Almighty? Mr. I'll show you the world and protect you from it's every danger? You were supposed to be my hero. You were my hero. And after all that, after showing me all of these amazing things you can do, bragging about how of all the powers in the world you rule them all, how can you submit to the will of your brothers and those Fates?" Her voice dripped with acid and her words were hissed with all the terror and injustice she'd endured her entire life. The anger in Beryl seemed only to solidify the will of the cold god before her.

"You think I am almighty? I never have been and never can be. If I were, maybe things would be different. The world different, too. But I am not. I am the sky and lightning given flesh, if I wish to take it. What you cannot understand is that I am not the man you want me to be. I am not a man at all. I'm no more man than the wind is. I am the power people call the skies, and by the Fates I was given human will, but do not mistake me for human. This is why we have children with mortals. To have a mortal will and no way to enact it on earth is quite a pesky thing. The children of the gods are our way to act out our will on Earth. To fight our fights, to keep our names and honor alive in the mortal realm. We are bound by the laws of nature and fate."

Berly's mind was knocked blank by this barrage of information. She'd thought she'd known what she was getting into with Zeus. Thought she understood that while dangerous and powerful, Zeus was no less untouchable than any human king. It was what was implied. He'd wooed her as a human and treated her as a queen. Grasping for a cohearant response, Beryl glanced to her daughter and could practically see the gears turning in her small mind trying to comprehend what had just come out of her father's mouth.

"So. You're telling me …. That I had a child … with a storm cloud?" Not Beryl's wittiest remark but the thought was the only one that could form in her raging mind.

"Now you're getting it." Zeus's face relaxed incrementally as they eased back into a semblance of their old bantering dynamic.

"Well that explains why she cried so much as an infant." And even Beryl couldn't help the smile that cracked the steel of her face. Zeus gave her a soft smile in return.

"So does that mean I can turn into the sky like you?" Thalia's first words in what seemed like hours. Beryl could see in her face she was not grasping the full reality of what was to come. The idea of leaving this house would be so foreign to her - how could she possibly understand?

"No, daughter." Zeus replied with a hint of fatherly humor on his face. "But I can teach you to harness its power."

"I think a harness would fall out of the sky if I tried that." Thalia's remark brought Beryl to tears at last and she grabbed her daughter tightly to her chest before she could see them. Her tears soaked into Thalia's night black hair as she held her so tight she didn't know if she'd be able to let go.

\

Beryl had put Thalia down for a nap after making the two of them lunch, and led Zeus out into the living room.

"So when are you taking her from me?" Beryl demanded coldly, wanting him to feel just how badly this hurt her. That despite the humor she'd used to ease the tension for Thalia's sake, she was not okay with this.

"The sooner the better. Any time spent beyond Olympus increases the threat of one of my brother's minions finding us." Her coldness met unrelenting steel. Though Beryl thought there may be some remorse, Zeus hid it well. "In fact I came here in my Roman aspect today in an attempt to throw any pursuit off the scent. But that will only do so much. There is a reason I am putting you through this pain, Beryl. I am not a sadist, but if Thalia remains in the mortal world she will be targeted relentlessly. Not to mention that raising our children in our domains were the terms of my brother's agreement."

"Well, what are you waiting for then? If you're going to rip my heart out, do it quickly."

"That's what I intended to do. Not rip your heart out, of course, but to make this quick. But seeing you again, Beryl… is harder than I anticipated. I am reminded of why I risked so much to be with you."

At that, a flutter of hope flew through Beryl's stomach. This, she could work with. She shifted her demeanor ever so slightly, easing back into old habits.

"What do you mean?" Beryl tilted her head slightly, mouth open just a bit as she peered up at him with sorrow-filled eyes.

"Do not think that I did not greatly enjoy our time together. So few mortal women have captured my attention for as long as you did, my dear." He took a step closer. Close enough to brush his fingers along her cheekbone. Beryl's skin prickled at the contact. Half in anticipation, half in revulsion at what she was trying to make happen.

"The time I spent with you was the best of my life. I don't want it to end like this." She tilted her head up slightly, inviting him in, and only a second passed before he was on her, pressing their bodies together feverishly. And with as much passion, Beryl responded with her own body. While Zeus - Jupiter, at the moment, she supposed - may have spent millennia seducing women, Beryl had perfected the art of using her body to speak far more eloquently than words could portray. Beryl had learned how to use her body as a weapon. To win arguments, influence other people's thoughts, and to gain her fame. And often with no more than several looks and soft touches.

But nothing about this was soft. This was the battle of a lifetime and Beryl had no intention of losing. She had never lost on this kind of battlefield. She knew her odds were slim, but to keep Thalia with her, she would do anything to convince this merciless god that she was worth keeping around. For her daughter, she would go to Olympus, be second to Hera, serve as consort to Zeus or in whatever other capacity he would allow. For Thalia, she would win this battle.

"Take me with you." Beryl whispered between kisses. "You could have this - have me - on Olympus."

"I'll have you now. We can discuss anything more later" And he led them into the bedroom.

\

Beryl woke in her bed, rolling over to meet the body of the sleeping god next to her, only to find it empty. Cold. Her heart plummeted out of her stomach into the icy depths of hell as she raced out of bed to Thalia's room where she had left her beloved daughter sleeping. Just to find the bed empty.

Beryl did not even get to say goodbye. With a scream that cracked her throat, she felt her heart break in two.

Author's note:

Hi guys I'm baaaaaaack! After a very long break I felt the itch to write again. And it's strong. I've spent several hours slightly reworking the story (returning readers will see a change in order in things and some other minor changes). I spent hours yesterday doing some story planning and let me tell ya big things are in the works! I've got some really exciting plans for where this is going to go including exploring the premise of the gods (morally, literally, and otherwise), pushing characters to the breaking point emotionally (I have plans for ~dark Percy~), and exploring the role of motherhood and family ties. Going forward, we're going to be rotating between the Underworld, Olympus, Atlantis, and the mother's POVs… buckle up!

Please leave me any advice, criticism, or other comments below, I really appreciate them!

Love,

Biblioquisition