Eleutherios Ch. 06: Hera (finale)

Author Note: You know the spiel by this point, hopefully, but: this is the sixth and final chapter of my Eleutherios series, exploring a retelling of Dionysos's origin myth through the perspectives of the six children of Rhea and Kronos. Thanks for reading this far, and please let me know what you think! I know it's been a weird as hell ride, and I'm excited to do more weird as hell stuff, so your input's super helpful! Love ya! - RC

Content Warning: domestic abuse (brief), grief

6. Eleutherios Trusted

Or, the Abdication of Hera

I sat on my throne and observed the shattered heavens.

They were quiet.

Light danced over the cracked marble walls, cast by the hearth in the grand hall. It was the only thing that danced upon Oulympos in those days after Eleutherios returned from Haides. No music graced our domain. No laughter, no cries of pleasure. There was not even a peep from Leto's nursery. She and the divine babes in her care had long since fled the mountain.

Everything went so wrong.

Zeus wasn't supposed to abandon us. Hestia wasn't supposed to vanish. Poseidon wasn't supposed to surrender his trident. Demeter wasn't supposed to soften. Haides wasn't supposed to release Semele.

Of course, poets will write, "great Hera sent Demeter, who sent Dionysos, who succeeds at everything." I know.

But I did not think he would succeed at this. I did not think he could succeed at this. It was a family-building exercise: bring Demeter and Eleutherios together, show some chagrin when it all falls apart. But it didn't fall apart. Eleutherios brought Semele back out of the dark.

Of course I did want to see her again, but I didn't get to do that, either. The Semele who left the Underworld was a new life. The spark of my dead lover came back, but my dead lover did not. Semele's soul settled into some human infant as they was born. I was left with a shrug from Eleutherios, who returned promptly to the mortal lands.

Themis tried to tell me something about "transmigration," so I threw a chalice at her, and she left.

"You should have put her in the sky," said Hermes. "That way you'd still have her, at least."

Dead heroes, demigods, and monsters adorn our skies as constellations--out of reach, but present. Unchanged. Hermes was right. I couldn't bear his smug commentary, so I struck him and sent him back to the Kyllene cave he crawled out of.

"Is this the other side of your love?" Maia asked me.

One of my Pleiad wives. Hermes's mother. I did nothing to her; she, too, left.

This continued. Thoughts raced as they all left, one by one. Was it me? Had I chased off Zeus, too? Had I snuffed out Hestia? Had I broken Poseidon's will, poisoned Demeter's heart, ruined the sanctity of Haides? I couldn't sleep, as Zeus before he left. I tossed and turned and none of our lovers could calm my restless mind.

One by one, my temper took them all out. My lovers. My family. My attendants. Everyone departed. Alone, I paced the fracturing halls until I wore the marble down to dirt, and then I sat. And sat. And sat, Zeus's empty throne to my side.

I sat, and I let my gaze linger on each of the other seats in turn, tasting their names on my lips.

"Hermes." The god of thieves did not answer.

"Hephaistos." The god of craft did not answer.

"Ares." The god of war did not answer.

"Athena." The god of wisdom did not answer.

"Aphrodite." The god of love did not answer.

"Demeter." The god of grain did not answer.

"Poseidon." The god of... horses? What was Poseidon god of, anyway, after forsaking his trident, power, and realm? Whatever he was god of, he did not answer.

"Artemis." The god of the wild did not answer.

"Apollon." The god of light did not answer. He had been the last to leave, perfect Apollon, all regretful smiles and gentle words. Yet even he could not bear me.

"Eleutherios."

"Yes?"

I stared dumbly for a moment before I realized that another's voice had actually answered. He stood in an archway, leaning on his staff, thickset and bearded, with the weathered complexion of a mortal vintner.

"You're here?"

"Seems that way," he said.

"Why?"

"Call it a fun mistake." He walked slowly to his throne, and took it, displeasure evident in his face. "Or maybe just a mistake. I never liked this seat."

"Why not?"

"It was hers. It should be hers." He rocked a little, as if Hestia's old spot were physically uncomfortable. Finally he settled, and shrugged. "But that's an old grudge. What can I do for you, Hera?"

What could he do for me? What could anyone do for me? I looked down at my cracked hands, at the fingers that had let him out of Zeus's thigh all those years ago.

"I don't know."

"Hmm."

We sat in silence. The sun and moon chased each other across the sky countless times as we lingered wordlessly in that place. We were other places, too: he in every party, I in every wedding, invoked together not infrequently. But for most of an age I sat alone with Eleutherios upon Oulympos.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked, at length.

I nodded, throat dry.

"Why did Dad leave?" I didn't answer immediately. "Like, I get that gods do dumb shit all the time, and have all these misadventures. But I've seen him once, at my induction into the Dodekatheon. Where was he before that? Where has he been since?"

I heard something snap, and only when I looked down to find the source of the sound did I realize that the arm of my throne had fractured in my grip.

"I don't know," I said, after I calmed my breathing. My face was hot. My eyes stung.

"You don't have any guesses?"

The tears and anger flared simultaneously. I lost myself. Drawing myself to my full height, I filled the halls with a storm that would have made my absent husband proud.

"Listen here, you little shit," I snarled. "What do you want me to say? That I turned Zeus into a mother, and his fear of motherhood chased him from the mountain? That I should have let you turn to ash in Semele's womb? That if it weren't for you, the King of Heaven would still rule and Hestia would still tend this hearth and Poseidon would still pull at Gaia's skirts?"

"Yes," he said simply, and the white receded.

I blinked.

"Yes?"

"Yes," he repeated. "If it's what you feel, you should say it. If you just hold it in, no one can help you."

"Only Kronos can help me."

He chuckled. "Kronos could end me, certainly. But Kronos can not bring your Semele back. Kronos can unmake, but even he cannot undo. He marches forward. You must do the same."

I fell back into my seat.

"How?"

"The same way you always have," said Eleutherios. "With peacock feathers in your hair and love in your heart, proceeded by those you protect. You are a good queen, Hera, and a terrible mourner."

I hung my head as I listened to my lost lover's son.

"You know, I've journeyed far and wide," he continued. "I've been to every corner of the world, spreading my grapes and my cult. I've been all over Oulympos, and I've even been to Haides. Maybe you heard."

I squinted at him through my tears.

"Funny thing wandering the expanse of creation, you run into a lot of aunts and uncles. 'Children of Rhea,' they call themselves. And they have a lot in common. Sometimes, they even admit it. Here on Oulympos, I heard it from Hestia. On earth, I heard it from Poseidon. In the Underworld, I heard it from Haides. Resentment and exhaustion. They built a new order after the previous collapsed. And it wasn't perfect."

"You presume," I tried, "to tell me of my siblings' struggles? To use the name of our mother against me?"

"Well," Eleutherios said, softly, "have you talked to them yourself?"

I bit my tongue and tasted ichor.

"Here's the thing, Hera. You are Rhea's children. And the new order is mutable. They all changed. Even Demeter chose to be kinder, though she has yet to find that grace for her own son."

"You call their abdications change, and present it with a pleasant tone, but the order hasn't changed. It has broken."

Eleutherios rose at this, for the first time in an age. He walked away from the hearth, to the balcony and the grand vista of the heavens beyond. He extended a hand toward distant peaks, pale pink skies, and thin white ribbons of cloud.

"Does this look broken to you, Hera?"

It did look broken--black fractures wormed across the expanse--and I said so. He smiled sadly, exhaled, and produced a small mirror from his robes. He walked back to me and held it before me.

"What do you see?" he asked.

I looked into the mirror, and if I thought I'd cried earlier, I was wrong. As I beheld myself, tears poured down my cheeks, but not just from my eyes--from all the cracks and fissures of my being. That black tracery was doubled in the mirror, crossing even my eyes.

"The world looks broken to you not because it is, but because your lens has cracked."

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"You called my name," he said.

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"I called a lot of names."

"Others wanted to come, but they put their faith in me," he said. "I asked them to let me try to help you."

"Why?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure. Maybe it's guilt, or duty. Maybe I should have turned to ash in Semele's womb. I didn't want to grow up without a father, or to replace Hestia. I wish I'd met Poseidon before he became depressed, and that Demeter had the resources and stability to love her son, and that Haides had started the transmigration of souls so much earlier. But I can't control any of those things. All I can do is this." He gestured to the mirror, then swept his arm out to encompass the hall. "All I can do is be here for you."

"You can't fix this?" I asked, pointing into the mirror, at the horrid wreckage I'd become.

"My time among grieving humans suggests that only you can fix it," he said. "And it won't be easy, and it won't be quick, but we're gods, right? We have time."

"Will they come back? All the gods I sent away?"

"Most of them," he said cheerfully.

"Even Themis?"

"Themis..." Eleutherios hesitated, looking past me for a moment. "Themis never left, Hera. She's standing right behind Dad's throne, where she always does."

I turned around, and indeed, there she was.

"I thought you--"

"I can't leave, love." She smiled sadly. "I am Law. I am the pillar of the order, and I am not of Rhea's line. I can't change."

Eleutherios sighed loudly. I looked between him and Themis, unsure what to think, unsure what to say, unsure what to do, trapped between all I had done and all I wanted to do.

Finally the god of revelry pocketed his mirror, turned around, and made to leave the hall. Just in the archway, before disappearing from sight, he stopped and leaned heavy on his staff.

"She can't change, Hera. That does not mean that she can not be changed."

And with that he was gone.

I sat in silence, looking at Themis, at the bruise on her cheek where my chalice had struck her an entire era earlier. Themis was one of Zeus's earlier wives, and, by extension, one of mine. But after the war, we had rarely been intimate. She had become more and more an unmoving fixture of Oulympos, as Zeus and I had wandered, taking new lovers.

"You're still here," I mused.

"Yes, we've established that." Themis seemed to think this was all very obvious.

"Do you miss Zeus?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I do not 'miss.' I merely know, and tell."

"Do you know where he is?"

"Yes. He lives as a one-legged swineherd on Crete. He is a coward."

I stood. If Zeus was a coward, what was I? I hadn't run and hid like he had, but by chasing everyone else from Oulympos I had effected the same result.

"I'm a coward," I said.

"You have been," Themis agreed.

"But I might be changing?"

"It is in your nature," she said.

Something raced through me, a jolt of fear, of possibility, of love. "So if I weren't a coward..."

"... you'd still be you."

"Just, not a coward." I took a step toward Themis.

"Yes."

If I weren't a coward, I could approach my mistakes. I could fix them. My gaze lingered on the Titan's bruise. I'd already changed her once. I reached out with trembling, incomplete fingers, afraid the cracks would spread from me to her.

Themis did not flinch.

And as my fingertips touched her bruise, she did not crack. She did not shatter. Instead, my fingertips healed. They knitted themselves into solid digits, bereft of gaps and omissions. And beneath them, her bruise faded.

"I'm sorry," I said, and I meant it.

"I know," Themis said, because she merely knows, and tells.

I reached out again, with both hands, to take hers.

"I'm so sorry."

"I know."

"Do the others know? Hermes, and Maia, and everyone who fled my moods?"

"Most of them," she said, echoing Eleutherios's answer to the question of who would return to Oulympos.

"Not everyone," I said softly.

"No," Themis said. "Not everyone."

"Not everyone will be back."

"Not everyone."

"But that doesn't mean that Oulympos is broken?"

Themis shook her head.

"Why didn't you say anything, while I sat here alone?" I asked.

Themis hesitated. Then, "I couldn't change you."

I leaned forward and fell into her embrace. I felt my body parts snapping together, realigning and fusing as she held me.

"You're not changing me?" I asked.

"It's all you," she insisted.

I looked up at Themis, and saw my face reflected in her deep eyes. Many cracks remained.

"The breaks will linger," she said. "Some may never reknit themselves. Losing Semele and Zeus cut you the worst. But there are older cracks, you know. Kronos hurt you here"--she touched a dark fissure just over my heart--"in a way not dissimilar to the way in which Zeus hurt Eleutherios with his cowardice."

"We're all like this, aren't we?" I asked, pulling back. "It's because our father ate us."

"Please," said Themis, a coy smile on her face, "are you going to give all the credit to one man?"

I smiled back, and things started to slowly get better.

I took Themis to bed, and, as my body ached, we explored each other tenderly. I remembered the feeling of Law upon me, not just its word, and I remembered that there was still love for me in this world. That it had been standing right behind me and off to the side this whole time. We lay together for a night and a day, my body slowly healing with my heart, my eyes clearing of grief's cataracts, and then we rose and wandered Oulympos.

We strolled up and down the slopes for days, visiting Apollon's old ranch and Helios's stables. We approached the edges of the realm, crossing all the beautiful gardens of the divine. When our feet tired, we retired to my chambers, where we made love. We feasted together, just the two of us in the grand hall. We talked late into the nights, Themis describing things and me doing my best to describe things as well: my fears, my disappointments, my sorrows. Zeus didn't even return for Semele's rebirth. Description was a good frame. I had to merely state things, and Themis would nod. Time passed.

One morning, feeling whole and in love, I took Themis by the hand, and, dressed in nothing but sheets, we walked back to the grand hall, to the seat of Olympian power.

I drew her up onto the dais and walked to the high thrones at the center. Zeus's, immaculate, untouched in an age, stood in sharp contrast to the half-wreck of mine.

"Hephaistos can fix that," I said, and then I sat in my seat.

Themis stumbled forward as I did, because I hadn't let go of her hand.

"Hera, what--"

"Sit," I said.

Themis's eyes went wide. "I can't," she said. "A Titan, on the--"

"Sit," I said.

"I can't," she said, bent forward over the throne, straining back, her hand shaking in mine. "I really can't."

"Love," I said, "you are my wife. You are the Law of the world. You are fit monarch."

She said nothing to that but continued shaking.

"Do you not want to sit at my side, my equal in the rule of Heaven?"

"... I do."

"Well then."

I tugged, just a little, and the resistance vanished. Themis spun as she fell forward, and landed perfectly seated on the primary throne of the Dodekatheon. Zeus who? She looked at me fearfully, as if to confirm that I had witnessed her commit a crime, and then something passed over her face and she smiled.

"You changed me," she said.

"It was Eleutherios who showed me the possibility. Hestia raised a good boy," I declared.

"She didn't try," said Themis. "She tried to raise a menace, a thorn in her family's side."

"Then she failed spectacularly," I laughed. The eternal fire in the hearth jumped a bit at that, as if Hestia herself were present, listening and shaking her fist at me. I sighed at the thought, and then I squeezed Themis's hand.

"Now that I'm Queen of Heaven," she mused, after some moments, "I ought to speak up more."

"Please," I said. "Is there anything on your mind?"

"So many things," she said, joy dancing in her eyes. "But most importantly, what the fuck is up with you all calling Apollon 'the best of us?' You know he has an equal sister, right?"

I started laughing at the absurdity of it. Why was that a thing?

"Yes, I know Artemis," I said, gasping for breath, "and she's--"

"She's what?"

I spun to look at the speaker. It was Artemis, hunched over on her throne, picking at a toenail.

"She's great," I said.

She looked up at me and grinned. "Damn straight. Now are you going to wait for everyone to just mosey on back at their leisure like I did, or are you gonna convene your court? I'm not one to stand on ceremony, but doesn't Themis's induction deserve a full room?"

I nodded at this, and opened my mouth to begin calling the names of the Dodekatheon.

Themis stayed me with a hand on my shoulder.

"I've always wanted to do this," she said, so I sat back and let her, just basking in the pleasure that filled her face as she summoned our family.

Eleutherios swaggered last into the room, as if he owned the place.