Hera would always be the first to admit that she was not the perfect mother. It was when those adjectives took a much more dramatic tone, such as "horrible" or "dreadful", that she took issue with. Eileithyia had once called her "The most unfit creature for motherhood, bereft of any tenderness or kindness." and really, Hera had been young and rebellious herself once, but that one had hurt.
She would happily maintain to her children that, compared to her own, Hera was mother of the millennia.
Her siblings had quickly made amends with Rhea, even before the Titanomachy was well and truly finished, but Hera could never find that same mercy within herself. Once you're deep within your father's stomach, growing rapidly from infant to toddler to child to adult, darkness is all that awaits you, only broken up with the occasional sibling you never knew about falling down to join you. You're unable to tell whether it's day or night, powerless to conceptualize what either of those things even really mean or how they ever popped into your brain to begin with. You're forced to lull yourself asleep to the rhythm of your father's steady, uncompromising heartbeat, while the organ itself hangs within your view. Left to this fate, you have quite a decent amount of time to ruminate on the mother that condemned you to it.
You're forced to confront such thoughts as: Does it really take until the sixth child to rebel? Wouldn't- and Hera really cannot understate the amount of poisonous, loathing hatred that surrounds this particular quandary- one child eaten by your husband be enough? Or even the second? Once the third is swallowed whole, it might be prudent enough to just stop having children.
And really, if your best attempt at deception was just a particularly baby-shaped rock, you might've looked for one a touch sooner. Perhaps, once again, after the first child is consumed.
All this was really to say, Hera did not like her mother very much. And hate is such a strong word, much overused and not really felt, but if Hera only had to use one word to describe her feelings toward Rhea, well…
Zeus would never hear of it, not in his presence. As far as he was concerned, their mother was a saint, and she was worthy of all the riches, praise and glory that he could give to her. Every Sunday, he would have brunch with her in the dining hall. Hera would always make sure to make herself scarce during these times. Truthfully, she feared that she lacked the self control to even act somewhat cordial with her mother.
Which was exactly why it was so troubling to find herself standing outside of Rhea's ranch house door.
This was different than when she had entered Ares' gymnasium or Hephaestus' forge. Hera still had no idea what had drawn her to those places. No, she knew well enough why she was here. But that did not matter. No matter how badly she wished to calm the storm in her mind, she had been quite confident that she would never look to her mother for respite.
But she was wrong. Much more than wrong, she was apparently willing to break a personal vow that had lasted thousands of years. She was becoming… erratic. Unpredictable, even. All the things that she had accused Percy of seemed to apply to herself as well.
Hera frowns. And where was he now? She turns her gaze to the horizon and peers beyond the clouds. Washington, apparently, making a spectacularly poor attempt at espionage.
She shakes her head and tries to refocus herself. He would be fine. He had to be fine, he'd promised her before she'd left last night. If for no other reason than that he was too stubborn to die.
Unless her husband decided otherwise, of course.
"Hera? Come in, dear."
The door swings open, an invisible force inviting her inside. It certainly doesn't feel very inviting, more like standing in front of the iron gates of a mausoleum. Her first thought is to leave, to end this foolishness and retain her dignity, but Poseidon's words crawl into the back of her mind and give her pause.
Thousands of years, and your first instinct to conflict is still to just run."
Hera snarls to herself and enters the lion's den.
Her mother has gone through great lengths to adapt alongside the mortals. Her residence is a prime example, as the quaint ranch house nestled between the Rockies tries its utmost hardest to portray a sense of normalcy, to impress upon any guests that its owner is as base and simple as the farmland that surrounds the structure.
Rhea has not done enough, though. Not for Hera's eyes. No farmer owns a pair of boots as spotless as the ones that rest next to the entrance, nor do any own as expensive a wine as the one that sits in her mother's glass. Her couches look well-worn and heavily used, but they only look as such, as they are woven with a silk so fine that even Athena could not have created it. The dark red flannel Rhea has garbed herself in is not even cotten, but thousands of interlaced sphinx hairs.
She has done much, yes, to lower herself this far into shameful austerity, but the taste of a queen is easily recognizable to Hera.
"Hello, poppet."
Hera takes a long, deep look at her mother, relishing these last few moments of silence before she relinquishes another piece of herself. How cruel to be born the daughter of this thing, to see that each perfect part of herself was her mother's first, that even the Titaness' raven-black hair and golden eyes cannot obscure their identicality. How cruel to be the only one of her siblings to so strongly resemble either of their parents. How cruel to inherit half of Rhea's domains and all of her authority with none of her reverence. How cruel to be nothing but a shadow, desperately clinging onto the light that birthed it, hoping beyond hope to become what it is cast from.
"Mother." Her voice does not sound quite like it should, uncertain and almost raspy. Perhaps because she cannot believe that she had just greeted her mother.
Rhea just smiles. "There's no need for any nervousness, my lovely. I'm just so glad to see you here. Let mommy pour you a glass." Her mother rises from her plush throne and takes a golden chalice from her wine cabinet.
Hera shakes her head quickly. "There's no need. I have questions, you will answer them and then I will be on my way."
She cannot be certain if Rhea is ignoring her or is just off in her own world, one where Hera visits quite regularly to chat and drink and waste time. "Now, you always liked your reds, isn't that right? Let me see here…" Her mother taps a dark red nail to her chin. "Ah! I'd been waiting for an opportunity to use this."
She frowns as the Titaness uncorks her chosen bottle and pours a generous amount into the cup. She was always doing things like this, living in a fairytale where everything was fine and everyone loved each other like the happy family they were meant to be. She would have to play along too, lest her mother fall to tears.
Once she started, she never stopped.
She accepts the chalice, though with no intent to actually indulge in it. The scent wafts into her nose. Lemnian in origin with grapes from Thoas' own garden, aged for nearly three thousand years.
Hera's favorite.
"It's so nice of you to drop in, my love. Unexpected, of course, but so nice!" Rhea takes a deep drink. "How is Zeus? This trade war with Atlantis and that ugly business with my siblings had him so stressed last I saw him." Her mother means only two days ago, and that "ugly business" is Kronos rising to kill them all.
"He's quite well." Hera smiles tightly and lets her eyes drift to the chalice in her hands. Perhaps it would be needed after all. "The kingdom, the power and the glory are his, forever and ever. Just as you'd planned."
Her mother's lips twitch downward for only a moment, but it's enough for Hera to see that she had wounded Rhea with her words, and she feels a warmth pool in her breast. "There was no plan, really. Only the faintest traces of rebellion and an overabundance of luck."
"Don't sell yourself short, mother." Hera flashes a toothy grin, well aware that it's one Rhea has seen every time she has looked in a mirror. "It takes such ingenuity to do what you did, and such courage too. To think, you might've chipped a nail while looking for that rock." What was that foolishness about playing along? Forget that, Hera would take what she wanted and break her mother along the way.
Rhea frowns fully, setting her cup down with a slightly shaking hand. "My daughter, you of all my children should understand, a queen does not question their king."
"Then what is a queen?" And Hera had always thought she'd known. A queen was her mother and a queen was herself, and what they did dictated what a queen was supposed to be. But what if she no longer wished to follow the path she had made for herself? "Is a queen an accessory, to adorn their king's arm and nod at his words, to sit prettily on a much smaller throne than his, and our seat hollow where his is full and rigid, a wife when he wants to fuck and a mother when he wants a child, but a china doll when he wants anything else? A mouth for show only and not to actually speak?"
"Yes! A thousand times yes! A queen is whatever her king wishes her to be!" Her mother answers sharply, before folding back in on herself with visible shame. "But always a queen, my love, do not forget that."
"Hm." Hera hums. "Yes, I can see quite clearly that that was always enough for you. What is a child to a crown? What is a family to a kingdom? What is unconditional love to absolute control?"
"You always make me sound so awful." Rhea whispers, wrapping her arms around herself. "I'll always be awful to you. Everything I've done to try and make amends, all the apologies for things I can never take back, and even Hades drops in when he can." Her mother's voice breaks at an awful crescendo, but all Hera can hear are beautiful choirs singing of victory. "But it will never be enough for you."
"Not enough?" Hera repeats in disbelief. "I'm afraid you overestimate yourself, mother. To even be that, you would have to be much more than you currently are. As it stands, you are not even worthy of recognition." Hera's eyes flash hazel, and she clamps her emotions down to retain her composure.
"Is that it, then? I'm an ant, dust in the wind, fully and thoroughly beneath you?" Rhea snaps, her own eyes flashing golden in response.
"You are nothing to me." She responds blandly, letting her tone speak as much as her words do. "You have been nothing to me, and I cannot say that I see a future in which you will ever not be nothing to me."
And Hera drinks her wine.
"Drink my wine." Rhea whispers, her face carved from pain. "Torture me with your words. I'll never stop trying, you know? I'll always try to make you happy."
"Of course. 'Tis a queen's duty to her subjects." She lifts her chalice above her head. "To your health. Long live the queen."
Rhea breaks even more, her bottom lip beginning to tremble uncontrollably. But her mother has more strength than she dared think, and though her eyes water, no tears fall.
Yet.
"What do you want, Hera?"
"It's quite simple, really." And she's quite glad to focus on what she had really come here for. "Did you love father?"
Rhea's obviously taken aback by her words, blinking owlishly for a moment. "Well, yes, of course."
"Always? Even when he had fallen so far, when he was so much less than what he had started as?" She surprises herself with how badly she wishes to know, though she knows exactly why she asks.
Her mother frowns, almost as if she cannot comprehend this line of questioning. "You know as well as I do, Hera, that love does not end exactly when we want it to. If I could not love your father for who he is, I could always love him for who he was." She does not like the faraway look in her mother's eyes, does not like the touch of romance in the air, as they discuss her psychotic warlord of a father. "Memories are such tragic things. The feelings last much longer than the images that evoke them do."
"There was never a time where you did not love him?" She is unable to keep the smallest amount of desperation out of her voice, and her mother notices. Damn her.
"There were times that I hated him. Times where I refused to even speak his name or stand in the same room with him. There were times when I prayed to my sweet mother to end my torment, to release me from this divine coil." Rhea smiles mournfully. "Such hatred can only ever be born of love."
"Foolish." Hera whispers in stunned outrage. "How have you walked this earth for so long to be nothing but a fool?"
"I am proud to be a fool." Her mother smiles, her blindingly white teeth glinting in the sunrise. "To be a fool is to trust and be trusted, and you are rarely ever disappointed, as everything is wonderful to a fool."
A lance of murderous rage flashes through Hera at her mother's ignorant, selfish words. But she has but one more question, and though it takes more strength than she believes she has, she locks her heart away for the moment. "Were you ever unfaithful to him?" She asks through clenched teeth.
Her mother laughs at that, and it is another part of herself that is nothing more than a cheap copy. "Of course not. That would be-" Rhea's eyes flash in horrified understanding. "Foolish." She finishes quietly, bringing her hands to her mouth. "Oh, my sweet girl," She whispers. "What have you done?"
"I've done nothing." Hera snaps. "Nothing that your or my husband has not, or your or my siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins."
"Hera, you are a queen." That word has never meant less than it has at this moment and if had thought her mother was close to tears before, she was sorely mistaken. "Such behavior is- It is unthinkable. A queen cannot- A queen cannot do this."
"The Queen of the Titans cannot." Hera growls. "The Queen of the Gods does as she pleases. She is not her mother, nor will she ever be, and she has long made peace with that."
"Oh, no." Rhea whispers madly. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hera, it is not too late. You can still-" Her mother suddenly looks sharply at her. "You have not lain with him, have you?"
"No!" Hera spits, and she hates the blush that rises to her cheeks from even thinking of that, and she hates even more the want that is attached to it. "Not that it's any of your business!"
"Your safety is my business!" Rhea all but wails, and the tears fall freely now. "One war is already coming, must you start another from within?"
"I must do nothing." Hera says. "I do what I want."
"You'll kill us all." Rhea sobs, shoulders shaking. "Do you think his rage will end with your life? His mind will shatter, mania will overwhelm him. Your father-" She breaks into unintelligible cries.
"Then perhaps you saved the wrong child," And it is impossible to explain how good it feels to say that aloud. "As all his authority was gifted to him by your choice."
Hera decides it's time to leave. She had her answers, and perhaps they were not what she had hoped, but that did not make them matter any less.
And really, it feels quite good to do something that her mother has never done, as there is no fear of comparison. This was all born of herself, and that was so much better than what she had hoped. The consolation of not being the only unfaithful queen was heavily outweighed by being the first.
"Not a word of this to him." Hera finishes her cup and places it on the coffee table as she rises. "Though I highly doubt my name ever comes up during your little chats."
With that final barb, she turns and walks to the entrance, more out of symbolism than anything. It will be more than satisfying to literally close the door on her mother.
"I love you, Hera." Her ears prick up as she hears her mother's small, whimpering voice behind her. "Mommy loves you."
"I know, mother." Hera sighs deeply. "But 'tis a love I cannot accept, nor the golden strings that come attached with it." Percy's face flashes in her mind. "I deserve… better."
Rhea weeps.
And Hera smiles.
what happens when the worst person you know, who has genuinely been through some horrendous shit, meets a good person who tells her that shit isn't her fault?
does she:
a) rise above it and change for the better
b) sink deeper into her wickedness
c) become an awful combination of both