Since he was a boy, Hera could scarcely keep any weapon away from Ares' grasp. She had even more trouble keeping him away from people.
Ares had difficulties with others. She had only ever felt comfortable leaving him with Zeus, herself and, of course, Enyo. Anyone else and there was sure to be some sort of… incident.
Now, even she did not feel comfortable in his presence. He was too much like his father, too much like his sister and entirely too much like herself. He had his good qualities, as did Enyo, Zeus and, as she liked to think, herself, but it was like a drop of oil in an ocean. Ares was a melting pot of her and Zeus' worst qualities, heated and molded by a twin sister who had much less supervision than himself.
Hera had thought that Ares and Enyo, her twins who had come into this world together, would curb each other's rage. That they would balance each other out, almost akin to a double negative. Instead, they had nurtured and fed the embers that burned greedily within them. When she had finally noticed, it had been too late. Infernos had settled in, burning anything in their way. Her twins' hearts and souls included.
She did not like to speak to him, did not like to meet his red eyes that had once seemed so familiar. It was not uncommon for her to wake in the middle of the night, covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat, feeling a sense of terror she had not felt since her father had opened his mouth far wider than she had ever thought possible. She remembers nothing in those moments, only that feeling and the image of her son's eyes smoldering in an empty vacuum of black.
Hera does not like her son at all, and she prays to her sweet mother to forgive her for that.
But she does love him, which is why she finds herself here, in his personal gymnasium.
It had not always been Ares'. The training grounds had been built around the same time as the marketplace, which was to say a millennia before her son was born. Originally, her husband himself had gathered and trained a hodgepodge of satyrs, centaurs, mortals and the occasional cyclops to put down anyone causing an inordinate amount of trouble. The Minoans or the Macedonians or whoever else decided they must be crowned king of another small island in the Peloponnesian.
But then Ares had taken a liken to it. And then anyone with any bit of sense knew to stay far away. Especially after the last poor soul who wandered in her.
Hera shudders. Zeus' damn eagles still would find and bring him pieces of the corpse, wherever it was. They'd only managed to find his head so far.
She might do well to follow the example of her subjects. She was not confident that her son would not do the same to her.
It was a blessing in disguise that he was not here now, Hera decides. She was still unsure what had drawn her to this place, this once glorious beacon of strength and solidarity of her kingdom. She takes a long look around the grounds. Yes, she was most fortunate that Ares was not here.
But then she turns around, and she is met with those red eyes that send tremors throughout her heart.
"Hello, Mother." Ares says. His voice is low and gravely, and he says each syllable with that slow, precise cadence of his that always unsettles her.
"Ares." She greets him quickly. A touch too quickly. "How are you, my son?"
He stares down at her for moments that feel like hours before brushing past her. "I am… dreaming." He says, back toward her as he inspects the gymnasium.
"Dreaming?" Hera questions before she can think, and she mentally smacks herself. She needs to leave. She needs to leave now.
"Yes." Ares murmurs as he crouches down. "Dreaming of the great war to come." He grabs a handful of sand and watches it trickle through his fingers. "It is close, you know."
"I know nothing." She declares. "Only that any war that may come might yet be avoided."
Ares shakes his head as he stands and turns back to her. "No, no, no." He tuts mockingly. Just like herself. Just like herself. "Trust in your son, the War God." His eyes feel like maggots crawling across her skin. "War is coming."
"Then we will face it as we always have. As warriors." Is all Hera says. Is all Hera can say. She wants to leave. She wants Ares to stop wants his eyes to look anywhere but at herself.
"Warriors." Ares repeats slowly. "Once, maybe. But even then…" He shakes his head with disappointment. "I fear that, even when mortals conquered entire nations in our name, this council only ever saw war as necessary. And now…" He trails off dangerously. "Now it is to be… avoided." He finishes tightly.
Hera opens her mouth to speak, but no sound escapes.
Ares continues, unconcerned. "I have tried for many, many years to guide this council to the truth, to free its clouded minds. There is… such beauty in war." His face twists into a snarl. "But you cannot see it."
"I-" Hera tries to speak, but she blinks and Ares is suddenly so much closer than before. She can feel the heat rolling off him in waves.
"Do you hate me, mother?" He says suddenly.
"No." She says immediately. "No, I-"
"Do you hate what I bring, mother?" He cuts her off again as he takes a step toward her. "Do you hate what I am?"
"No." Hera shakes her head emphatically. "I love you, Ares. I love y-"
"STOP LYING TO ME!"
And then she cannot breath, as Ares' hand is clenched around her throat and she is lifted several feet in the air. Her feet dangle uselessly as she looks through blurry eyes to her son, strangling her with nary a glimpse of empathy in his eyes.
"I love you." She whispers over and over again through short, agonizing breaths as she claws at his hand desperately. But it is for nothing. He is stronger than her. He has always been stronger than her.
Ares takes a deep breath through his nose, and for a moment, Hera thinks that this is finally the end. But Ares decides against her murder, and she falls to the ground in a pathetic ball.
"I love you." She keeps whispering like a prayer. "I love you, Ares. I love you." But he is not listening anymore as he stalks toward a training dummy. "I love you." She says one last time before bringing herself to her feet and turning around.
"I would not find you here again." Ares says suddenly. Hera stops moving, but she dares not turn around. She waits for more, a threat, an insult, anything. But it seems that Ares has decided that his presence is enough of a deterrent.
He is right.
She continues to the exit. Ares was wrong. He will always be wrong. Hera hates many things. She hates her husband. She hates his children that are not hers. She hates the rain and she hates the feeling of a sword in her hand.
She hates that she loves Ares most of all.
"Perseus."
Hera quite enjoys the way he jumps at her voice. The boy quite literally leaps out of his bed at the sight of her. She watches him grip his pen before relaxing as he meets her eyes. "Oh. Hey." He says, rubbing bleary eyes. "No offense, but can whatever this is-" A yawn breaks through. "Can whatever this is wait till tomorrow? We, like, just got back."
She only glares at him in response. Honestly, the nerve of the boy. Truly, his arrogance knew no bounds.
The boy rolls his eyes. "Oookay." He mumbles. "So, what is it?"
She ignores his blatant disrespect and plasters a benign smile on her face. "I have come to collect on our deal." She says and takes a moment to look around his cabin. Fishing nets hung from the rafters, swaying gently from an invisible breeze. Seashells lined the walls and the whole cabin smelled faintly of the ocean. It was not to her taste, but it was decidedly… cozy.
Her own cabin was in far worse shape. She had only visited once, shortly after it was erected, and had quickly decided that one visit was enough. The ambience was exceptionally depressing, and the interior design was just dreadful.
"So, d'you want me to kill a monster or something?" The boy asks as he sits back down on his bed. "Because I gotta tell you, I am not in monster-killing shape right now."
"No." She says. "I require something much simpler. I need you to bring me the fleece."
"The… fleece?" The boy says slowly. "The golden fleece?"
"The very same." She affirms with forced patience. Perhaps there was some brain-sucking amoeba the boy had acquired in the Sea of Monsters. She refused to believe anyone, even her brother's child, could be this obtuse.
"Chiron has it." The boy says. "And we need it. Monsters have been-"
"The circle of protection can be restored without the fleece." She waves his concerns away impatiently.
"But Thalia-"
"Means nothing to you." She snaps before reigning herself in. "Your protection will be ensured, just get me the fleece."
"Thalia will die!" He pushes back at her, standing to his feet.
"She is already dead." Hera glares at him, her temper quickly fraying beyond repair.
"Then why do you want the fleece?" He glares back at her. The nerve.
"That is not your place to ask. We had an agreement." Hera reminds him.
"I didn't agree to kill anyone."
"And if it was a monster?" She takes a step towards him, unsure if she means to throttle him or not.
"But she's not a monster." He says, so confidently and so wrong. "She's a person. A tree." He shakes his head. "Somewhere in between I guess, but she's not a monster."
"Not all monsters appear as such." Hera says numbly.
The boy's eyes flash with understanding. "Look, I get it. She's Zeus' kid, but-"
"Do not," She spits out, and she feels herself unraveling by a thread. "Do not dare to try to empathize with me."
"I'm not." He holds his palms out to her. "I'm just saying, I understand-"
"You understand nothing!" She all but screams. "Just get me the damn fleece!"
She stands before him, shoulders rigid and taking short breaths. But the boy is not intimidated. No, he sets his jaw and stares at her defiantly. "No." He says.
Hera confesses to finding herself taken completely off guard by that. "What?" She whispers.
"Ask me to do something else, anything else." He pleads, he begs. "Just not that. Don't ask me to do that."
The world seems to move terribly slow. "But you must." She says. "You must."
"Go take it yourself if you want it." He waves his hand to the door. "It's not like I can do anything to stop you."
"I cannot." She says brokingly. The ancient laws were quite clear on that. Cold, unfiltered rage fills her then, and she whirls back around to the filthy beast who dares defy her. Hera moves nose to nose with him, close enough to see every line on his face. "You asked me about my pain. You asked me what I wanted. No one has ever done that before." She seethes, the words spilling out before she can think. "And you deny me."
Her words seem to hit him like a blow to the face, as he physically recoils away from her. "That may be what you want," He says softly. "But it's not what you need."
She backhands him across the face for his remark and watches him crash into the wall above his bed, landing face first in his cushions. "I grow tired of your presumptuousness." She sneers at him as he lifts his head, blood trickling from his nose down to his blue sheets.
She should kill him, she thinks. But for some reason, she finds that she doesn't have it in her. Not even a curse. Maybe it's because, even as he holds his surely broken nose, his eyes are only full of sadness and regret, not hatred. "Our transaction remains incomplete." She says instead. "You will not refuse me again."
She does not bother to wait for a response, but just as she's about to leave, the boy speaks. "If you could fix the protection, why did you send out a quest?"
She turns to him, a cruel smile curling on her lips. "The gods have better things to do than worry about the little problems of their bastards."
Hera takes her leave, enjoying the memory of the plain expression of pain on Percy Jackson's face.
The boy starts to sacrifice to her again, delicacies that he should not have access to. He sends her A1 cuts of New York Strip, whole tins of caviar, perfectly seasoned barbecued brisket and artisanal cheeses.
She sends him nothing in return. Not a thought of thankfulness or gratitude or anything. It does not matter. He continues sacrificing. Every day.
It does make her wonder, however, as only one item is constant, day after day.
How did he know how much she loved pomegranates?
Once again, Hera finds herself in a place that she hates, intending to speak with a son that she does not like.
This instance was even more baffling. Whatever else she felt about Ares, she still loved him. He was her son, her baby boy, and he would always remain so.
Hephaestus was nothing. A mistake. An aberration in the world that she was forced to deal with every day.
Yet here she stood, in his forge. And only paces away, hidden in the shadow, was Hephaestus himself hammering a blade on his anvil.
He is aware of her presence, she knows. He had been aware since she had entered, and that had been almost an hour ago. She has contemplated turning and leaving every other second, but something has compelled her to stay.
Something is wrong with her, she decides.
"Are you lost, mother?" Hephaestus says, apparently tired of waiting for her to explain herself.
"Do not call me that." Hera snaps before she can think, and she begins to wonder if she only came here for a fight. For some reason, that doesn't feel right.
Hephaestus chuckles, the sound echoing and mixing in with the steady thump of his hammer on the forge walls. "Thousands of years later, and you are still unwilling to accept your son."
She is eternally grateful she cannot see him. It somehow makes his words less effective. "You are no son of mine." She says. "Merely an experiment. A creation."
Hephaestus hums with amusement. "And what great work you have done, mother."
She scowls to herself in the darkness. "Do not test me, imp."
"You are in my forge." Hephaestus refutes. "It is you who is testing me." He tosses the sword he was working on to the floor, the crash reverberating across the room, and begins again with a different one. "Did you come here just to insult me?"
"I do not know why I am here." She says honestly, daring to hope that maybe he would give her a reason. Perhaps a fight would not be so bad after all.
"I do." Hephaestus declares. "You wish for an answer to a question that keeps you awake in the small hours of the morning."
"Enlighten me." Hera says, feigning disinterest.
"You wish to know how something as perfect as you," His hammer seems to start to ring louder in her ears. "Birthed something as monstrous as me."
She scoffs. "I have made peace with that long ago." She lies. "We all make mistakes when we are young."
"I know why." Hephaestus ignores her, the hammer coming down once more, then silenced. Hera finds herself deeply uncomfortable almost immediately. "I believe you should know as well, to put an end to your suffering."
"I do not-" The ringing of the hammer, louder than ever before, causes her to bring her hands to her ears to mute the sound.
"There are those that claim to know you." Hephaestus strikes his hammer down again and again, each strike louder than the last. "They claim to know your cruelty, to know the pain you cause and the agony that you inflict. They are wrong."
She falls to her knees, clutching her head in her hands as her mind begins to spin. Each blow is like a nail driven directly into her brain.
"But I know. I know because I was there." Hephaestus' voice raises to the volume of his hammer. "I have seen your sickness at its source. Your ugliness wrapped itself so tightly around me that I could not escape it. Even as you brought me into this world and threw me so very far away from you."
The hammer stops suddenly, and the silence is such a blessing that she almost begins to cry. But then the forge is filled with light, and the darkness that she had coveted falls away.
She is forced to look at Hephaestus. To really, truly look at him. He is ugly. Eyes bulge out of their sockets, skin flaps loosely around his face and his skull is completely caved in on the left. He is ugly, and she had always known that. But the color of his eyes, the shape of his lips and freckles on his cheeks are new. New, but not really. They are her own.
"Look unto me, mother." Hephaestus spreads his misshapen arms out. "See what you have created."
She turns and runs as fast as she possibly can. She has no destination in mind. She sprints through the tunnels of the forge, like a child fleeing from a monster in their dark.
But there were no monsters to run from. Only two sons that would chase her endlessly. They would never let her rest.
Hera weeps.