Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hestia had five days before Gaia and Ouranos whispered poison, true poison, but poison nonetheless, in her father's ear. She had five days in the sunlight, reaching for the warmth of it, as if some innate part of her was drawn to it. Once, she nearly fell into the hearth because the flames entranced her and she couldn’t yet capture or control them, protesting when her mother caught her and pulled her away. Five days in the light, in the warmth of her parents' arms, with her mother drowning her in kisses, sleeping curled up on her father's knees. Five days she would later consider both some of her most treasured memories and the purest, most cruel torture, for from them she understood what might have been.

What never would’ve been allowed to be, both by Gaia's contrivance and her father's pride and fear.

There was only her and Kronos in the room when it happened; a moment of sitting in a patch of sunlight, a puzzle before her, made to look like the world. Pieces slipping into place as she shaped out the Mediterranean and the lands around it, and then the sunlight was cut out by her father's shadow. Greater than it should be, but Hestia missed that until she looked up, smiling and expecting nothing but the kind presence and supporting hand of her father. He towered - more than he should - his eyes were terrible - no warmth there - his hand was too big - it locked her within the prison of his fingers and she was too startled to scream.

It was dark, then, and lonely, and Hestia could feel the whole crushing weight of her father bearing down on her, trying to make her smaller than she already was, reduce her to nothing. She was old enough to hold herself up against him, to survive if not break out, and it gave her something to focus on rather than where she was, and where she wasn’t.

She was so very alone.

Later, much, much later, her mother holding her for the first time since she was swallowed and rocking her like she was the tiny child she looked to be, Rhea whispered into her hair as she clutched her close. Her mother’s voice was raw enough to cut the air, and Hestia found out Kronos had pretended ignorance when Rhea couldn't find their firstborn daughter. There was a thought that came with that. A quiet wonder if those memories she had of her father appearing sweetly kind and attentive, loving, were as true as she remembered them, or if all of that had been, even before he had an excuse to get rid of her, a shadow play for Rhea's sake. She had no idea, and she didn’t wish to know. As painful as those memories were, as guilty as it made her to think of them as precious, she didn’t want them altered by a darker truth, if there was one.

She did not love her father, but she was far too attached, even now, to this insubstantial memory of him to give these memories up to any sort of truth. They'd kept her company before there was any other company to have inside Kronos.

Hestia tucked them away in the back of her mind and embraced her mother, already tall enough to do so with her arms around her mother's waist, settling easily into an age that was almost hers, and at the same not at all as old as she should be. She didn’t feel old enough for anything she wanted to do, and yet she felt far too old to just flutter helplessly around her siblings. They were small still despite that all of them should surely be older now that they were outside of Kronos and the cosmic weight of his divinity trying to grind them into nothing, to take some part of them back into himself.

Hera she helped to place on a rock, the little goddess slapping Rhea's hands away and refusing their mother’s help and she was toddler-sized still. Demeter she could help tuck up the clothing she was trying to get into, none of what had been brought suitable for child-sized deities, and Demeter, at least, let Rhea tie a belt around her waist. Hades took her hand to help him stand up, looking up at her with pale, serious eyes and between one breath and the next he went from around five to barely younger than herself, not yet quite into the age where humans might go into puberty. Poseidon chased her off with a loud disagreement that he needed any help at all, which was nicer than the shove and punch he'd given Zeus.

Zeus.

Hestia turned to look at him as she dropped the loincloth she'd brought Poseidon on the ground beside him. Watched this youngest of her siblings, who was also the oldest among them at the moment. He came walking back through the trees, carrying a load of wood, tall and dark-haired and pale-eyed like Hades, though his wasn’t by any measure as quiet and serious as Hades' were. Zeus was bright and strong and moving easily with his long limbs, secure in their weight and reach, in his own strength and ability. He certainly didn’t need help, even less to light a little fire. But it would give her something to do, and Hestia walked up to him, touching Zeus by the wrist as he reached out towards the intended-to-be firewood he’d dropped on the ground.

"Let me," she said, and watched him look at her with a consternated expression, briefly flicking towards mulish and maybe defensive before he blinked, then nodded.

"... Okay." And then he smiled though he'd almost looked insulted before, perhaps realizing that it wasn’t that she thought him incapable. Hestia would rather not have such indulgence, for again she would want to be able to help Zeus, not be given yet more help, but she also won’t refuse it. If making fire was all she could do for him, then she would do it.

It did take her a couple tries, which was deeply frustrating. More than that, it had her hands trembling, and soon Poseidon started laughing until both Demeter, Hades and Rhea told him - in various tones of voice and politeness - to be quiet. Zeus laid a hand on her shoulder and when she glanced up to him, he nodded, serious enough. He squeezed the shoulder in his grip, and Hestia exhaled - realized she felt calmer now, that the pause had given her the push she needed to focus.

It got them their fire, but it left Hestia feeling all the more unmoored. If she could not properly help her newest brother, and instead needed his help, what could she even do for - with - him, then? If there was no need for her care... Hestia did honestly not know how to conceive of a relationship with her new brother without that. It wasn’t just what she was used to, it was what she wished to do, to be able to provide.

Weeks later, they're talking about leaving. They have not only an immediate destination after Crete, but a potential third one as well, and while Hestia understood, she didn't like it. They've been holing up in the cave on Mount Dikte since they arrived, and to her it had... not quite become a home, but it could be one. She could make it one, with her siblings around her, Demeter helping her quietly when she wasn't training, not just to control her powers, but to fight, as zealously as their brothers were. Compared to Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, Demeter refused any partners at all in the beginning.

Hera, Hestia could understand, for Hera was too small to offer an effective sparring partner. Their mother… Hestia wasn’t sure why Demeter refused, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t because Demeter didn’t trust her. Hestia had no interest in fighting, but Demeter wouldn’t learn as well if she wasn’t fighting against someone, and luckily, after Hestia helped her once, Demeter had progressed to have Hades assist her. Poseidon, too, just in the last week, but half the time the ground trembled and groaned as they clashed and no one could figure out if their powers were complimentary and resonating off each other or if the two were having an argument. Rhea ended up telling them to stop, for now. They couldn’t afford to be found so soon.

To make entirely sure they weren’t, they were, then, moving from here. It made sense, but Hestia has felt a creeping tension under her skin growing since the decision was made. She didn’t want to leave. Crete wasn't just beautiful and distant from Mount Othrys, it actually could be a home. It had sheltered Zeus as he grew up, and surely the island had space for all of them as well. Hestia had been considering arguments in that vein for the last couple days, but then Zeus managed to make the whole thing worse.

"Hera can't come with us," Zeus said, standing up next to their burned out fire one morning, as stern as a nineteen-year old god could look, which, with his flowing hair, clean cut, swooping features and slim chin, wasn't very.

"What?" Hera and Hestia's voices blended into a single, incredulous shout, the loudest of the five and there were surprised stares on her but Hestia couldn't find it in her to care. How could he do this? How could he suggest something like this, to separate them? Her whole being rebelled against it as fiercely as she had had to resist Kronos to remain as she was right after she was swallowed. This was worse than leaving a place that could be home. This was destroying what home she - they - did have!

"Mother---!" Hestia turned to Rhea, but she was standing next to Zeus and shook her head, light catching like skipping sparkles on water in her dark, curly hair.

"I agree with him. Hestia, darling, you have to un---"

"Why?" Hera hissed, shoved herself up, so small. Then not so small, the whole of her heaving as she went from toddler to eight years and then, for a single, shining moment there was a stately, radiant and terrifying young woman of twenty standing before them, trembling hands fisted at her sides. Unable to hold it, that version of Hera collapsed like a dying star, and she ended up only five. Hera did not, at least, immediately slip back into toddler-aged. This was the problem though; she was the youngest-appearing out of all of them, and for all the weeks since they were disgorged, she hadn't been able to seem older than ten for more than a couple hours at a time.

"That is why you can't come with us," Zeus said, slow and annoyed, as if the whole thing should be obvious as he gestured to Hera. "You woke up as a baby this morning, and you've been flickering between toddler and six-seven all morning. You're too vulnerable like this. If we were fighting monsters or animals, no matter how divine, I wouldn't care, you would be able to take those as well as any of us, but this is going to be a fight against our father. The current ruler of the sphere, and any Titans standing with him!"

His annoyance falling off while he spoke, Zeus ended his argument with firm, ringing conviction. Hestia gritted her teeth, her stomach turning. It wasn't that Zeus was technically wrong, for like Hera was right now, she was the most vulnerable one among them. This despite not being the youngest of the siblings swallowed by Kronos, for Poseidon, though lagging behind the older three, was more stable than she was. It would take effort, attention and additional precautions to keep Hera safe until she had stabilised and could train properly. Apparently Zeus didn't seem to think it worth it to do this together, as if the only solution was to send Hera off until she was ready to come back, firm and strong and older, and it rubbed Hestia wrong.

"I will---!"

"Send all three of them away!" Poseidon burst out, slapping his knees where he sat by the fire. "That'd be better anyway, and Hestia isn't going to fight."

He wasn't wrong, and Hestia flushed, some part of her rebelling against this as much as she was against Hera being sent away. Separating them wasn’t the solution. Besides, she had things to offer, even if she would rather not fight. She did! Hestia twisted on her feet to look between Poseidon and Zeus, flustered and angry, but Poseidon was already being yelled at by Hera and Demeter. Relieved someone was backing her up, Hestia glanced to Rhea. Their sturdy, usually calm mother looked torn between frustration and stunned helplessness and briefly Hestia was stunned herself. But this was the first real argument between them, wasn’t it? Rhea hadn't been there for the only other real argument they’ve had, and that hadn't really turned out like this, anyway. On top of that, Rhea hadn't had the chance to raise them all together, so she had no practice in how to defuse fighting, didn’t know, like she should, what tack was best to take. This situation simply wasn't what it would have been like if they'd been allowed to grow as a real family---

Hestia flinched at that thought at the same time as Hades stepped up beside her, a hand on her shoulder.

"Quiet!" That, though, wasn't only Hades raising his voice. Zeus' shout rolled above, through, with his older (and younger) brother's, and they stared at each other for a moment. Hades eyed him narrowly, then tipped his head, allowing Zeus to go first. Hestia, once more, felt unaccountably betrayed.

"Only Hera has to go," Zeus said, shooting Poseidon a glare. "Hestia can do as she likes, but she's not as vulnerable as Hera is and she has other skills we'll need, if she doesn't want to fight and still wants to stay. Demeter can obviously fight."

She... Hestia blinked, surprised. She hadn't expected that. Why hadn't she expected that?

He talked highly of Metis, and while Hestia had no idea if Metis was a warrior or not, it wasn't for any potential martial skill that Zeus valued Metis, completely aside from his being in love with her. And still Hestia found herself surprised to hear Zeus say she didn’t have to fight if she didn't want to, but also that what skills she did have would be valuable. Her skills were not, after all, the same as either a warrior's or Metis', but Zeus could, apparently, still see their worth. Hestia eyed Zeus, still not willing to give up the tension twisting in her limbs, in her gut, just because he might have given her this, for it was the minimum amount of respect she surely was worthy of.

Zeus still looked as impenetrable and composed as he always had and she didn't know what to do with that or how to relate to him, but that he could see the worth that did exist in skills like hers... It did make her feel a little better. She wasn't yet sure whether she shouldn't go with Hera, though, for if Hera was vulnerable here with them, they couldn't just send her away alone. Especially not so now that they were about to engage in open war with their father and anyone who sided with him.

Demeter, meanwhile, stared at Zeus, still flushed with offense and her brilliant eyes like molten bronze. After a beat, she huffed and crossed her arms over her chest and nodded sharply. "I think he's right. Don't look at me like that, Hera! I don't like it, but he's right."

"Hestia, Hades---!" Hera turned to Hades, then looked to Hestia, and Hestia, though she doubted Hera wanted anything like a hug at the moment, still swept over to kneel next to her, hands on her little shoulders. Her skin was so soft and sweet-smelling under Hestia's hands, the same as the perfect wavy locks framing Hera's face, short enough to bounce with every little movement. She didn’t want to lose this. Not so soon, not at all.

"He is right," Hades said with a shake of his head, coolly subdued and his gray eyes dark and troubled, but he was clearly not going to take their side to spare either them or himself the discomfort of being separated if wasn’t in their best interest.

Hestia felt something crumble inside of her, hearing that, but she finally had to give in to the inevitable, to the truth of it. She squeezed Hera's shoulders and resisted the urge to pull her little sister close against herself.

"Even so, Hera can't be sent away alone, to live out in the wilderness! That wouldn't make her any safer than if she stayed here. I'll go with her if that's what we need, but if there's no safe place, I don't see the point in separating us!"

What she wanted, Hestia realized just then as Rhea stepped past Zeus and came to kneel in front of her and Hera, hesitantly holding her hand out, was to have a place, was to make a place, where no one needed to be sent away for safety's sake. The place should be where safety was had, where the vulnerable could go and be protected if needed, and whether Hestia would like to fight or not, she would fight for that. It wasn't as if she would need to do so right on the battlefield, but if it came to it, of course she would.

Hera's little face screwed up and though she was glaring at their mother through shiny-wet, welling eyes, she still clutched onto that hand, without actually pulling away from Hestia as she did so.

"Darling little Hera, I would rather have you stay with us, believe me. But it'll be safer this way, and," Rhea raised her gaze to Hestia, smiling sadly, "if you want to go with her, Hestia, you can, but it won’t be necessary. Now that we've come this far, I felt it safe to ask if Oceanus and Tethys would be willing to offer Hera sanctuary, and they've promised to be her foster parents for as long as she might need it. She'll be safe."

Safer than any of the remaining five, in fact. Hestia quietly wondered why Oceanus and Tethys weren't an option for Zeus, but she didn't voice this question aloud. Instead she squeezed Hera's shoulders as the little goddess glared at their mother.

"I don't want to," she snapped, pouting and tears still spilling down her chubby cheeks, but she made no other objection when Rhea took her in her arms to leave with her.

The shivering pop in the air from the lack of pressure from Hera's divine presence, growing, upset, unstable, made more than just Hestia flinch. It wasn't any comfort that all of them shared a look, lost and uncertain - even Poseidon - now that they'd gotten this far, though Hestia quickly looked away from Zeus' guilty expression. It was an expression hidden so quickly behind firm determination it could just as well not have been there, and a bubble of resentment took up space in her insides.

Hestia stared after Rhea and Hera until they were long gone, and while she could feel it as Zeus came up behind her, reaching out, she didn’t move. He didn't touch her, and when she still didn't turn around, he left shortly after, without saying anything. She would forgive him, she knew. The reasons were sound, but she still didn't like them, and she felt raw. She already missed Hera's presence and divine essence, and she hated that she couldn’t know if Hera was safe, was well, was growing and settling into herself. She didn't like it, but she knew that was, unfortunately, not the most important thing here.

What was most important was Hera's safety and their ability to keep themselves safe.

What was important to her too, though, was her relationship to her siblings, and Zeus was still an enigma to her, even after this. She just wished she could know how to interact with him, what she could do for him. He valued the skills she could bring to their nascent rebellion, but that wasn’t how she would like to approach her brother. She wanted, or at least would like, something more than that. She wanted to know him, wanted to know what he, personally, needed that she could help with, not what he, in general, might need for their goals to be fulfilled.

Hestia finally got the beginning of answer a day before they were to move to Mount Ida in Asia as their second destination and hiding spot. They have little to pack, of course, but the loom she, Demeter and Rhea have made needed to be dismantled so it could be brought with them. Clothes were something they did need, and more than just what they were wearing, so a loom had seemed only practical to make. It was also safer if such things that they needed were taken from Mount Othrys as rarely as possible, and something like a loom would easily be missed. She was putting the loom weights she and Hades had made into a bag when she spotted Zeus cock his head, get up, and leave. No one else seemed to care that he was walking off, but Hestia couldn’t help but keep looking up until he was almost out of view. She finally stood up - almost jumped out of her physical skin at the hand on her shoulder, and looked over to Hades.

"Good. Someone should go after him," he said, a weight in his voice that reminded Hestia of a couple days ago, when Zeus had asked Hades to come with him. Neither of them have revealed what they did, or what happened, but whatever it was, clearly it'd given Hades some sort of insight - and concern, given his expression. Hestia smiled, relieved she wasn't the only one to think Zeus might actually need help, that she wasn't the only one to care, and went after him.

They crossed half of Crete in short order, Hestia almost losing sight of Zeus several times, but if nothing else she did know his presence by now. She might not know Zeus' mind much yet, but he was bright and irrepressible and a fount of power, and so easily tracked. Even the one time she did lose him he wasn't hard to catch up to, and she finally found Zeus in a clearing, squatting next to a one-horned goat lying on the ground. It was sprawled out on its side, as lazy and relaxed as if in sleep, and seemed utterly unperturbed at the bronze knife held with trembling hands to its throat. Hestia could see that the goat saw the knife, but the animal eyed it with calm, and the glance it turned to her, looking beyond Zeus to where she was standing at the edge of the clearing, almost seemed exasperated. Sympathetically so, but exasperated.

It was a baffling scene, and though Hestia had intended to watch quietly, without making herself known, she now stepped forward.

"Zeus, what---"

"She thinks it will help," Zeus said, his voice a mockery of steadiness as it cracked in the middle and his hands briefly shook harder before he stilled them. The point of the knife skates through the thin pelt of the goat's neck, but didn't cut even the most shallow of slices into the skin. "That I'll need--- need her skin, to fight our father, to protect us."

Hestia opened her mouth to say it's an animal, what does it know about such things, how could it talk to you? but she snapped her mouth closed with a click of teeth. She stared across the clearing into amber eyes nearly glowing in the shadow cast by a nearby plane tree. An animal, yes, but certainly more than that. Divine animals were still divine, and this one was exactly that. It would know, and would, probably, even be correct in what its skin could or couldn't do for them, for Zeus. She stared, standing there, then looked back to Zeus. At his slim, but broadening shoulders and trimly muscled back that was so tense it looked like the muscles would snap if he so much as shifted.

His hands were still trembling.

She’d never seen him like this before. Since he rescued them, he'd been a whirlwind of force, of unconquerable, cheerful drive, keeping them afloat, pushing them forward. He might be rubbing some nerves wrong with his brash confidence and easy smile, literally driving apart while forging together, but such was probably just the nature of the thing.

Through these weeks, Hestia found that while she still loved all her siblings, Zeus included new as he was, she'd also learned new things about them since they'd been disgorged, for such a short time as it'd been. They're actually living, now, as compared to just existing, survival in the most pared down form, and they were all able to stretch where before they'd been so small, so helpless, that with only each other to hold to, clinging had been the only choice. It had been the only thing they'd wanted, or been able to do, sharing the same situation. So while Zeus had been a little exhausting to her, and exceedingly confusing and somewhat frustrating, he was hardly alone in that. Poseidon was an aggravation more often than not, and Demeter, though loved, sometimes shut down so unexpectedly Hestia had no idea what to do with that.

Zeus was more than someone who took decisions she didn’t like, though. Hestia crossed the clearing slowly, kneeling down behind her brother. He had lived more years, certainly, and yet he seemed so young right now. She's been so uncertain what he might even need of her, and here, then, there was something she could do.

Hestia almost said I will do it, but as she looked at the goat, she knew it couldn't be her. It had to be Zeus, for whatever reason. Maybe exactly because this goat meant so much to him, and he would need her in the coming battles. But just because it had to be Zeus, did not mean it had to be him alone. She draped one arm around his shoulders, and they were trembling, just faintly enough to feel, though not seen. It was like a vibration under his skin, his essence quaking with the need of the act, the reluctance to go through with it, and then she wrapped her other hand around his. His hands were larger than hers, but between crossing the meadow and now, hers have become a little larger than they were this morning. She might appear to be the same age as her little brother, now.

"You can do this, Zeus." She leaned her head in next to his, squeezing the hands under hers. "I'm here. You don't have to do this alone."

The goat sighed as Zeus' hands slowly stopped trembling as he glanced to her, then back to the goat. In return for the stilling of his trembling, there was a wet shimmer to Zeus' eyes, spilling over into fat tears rolling down perfect, tanned skin. Zeus finally drove the knife into the goat's neck, Hestia's hand around his, adding weight to the slicing cut so it actually penetrated.

She did not bleed red, this goat, and the land under them trembled with her dying breath.

They prepared the skin together, working quietly. Zeus had stopped crying, had stopped trembling by now. Still, as Hestia stood up with the pelt in her hands and draped it over one of his arms and the shoulder there and stared into gray eyes coloured like an overcast day - she knew what days like that looked like now - she knew this wouldn't be the only time he might need support.

It was actually a relief, for as much as she felt a little guilty for it. There were things she could give support and help to Zeus with. He'd seemed so impenetrable before, but he was no more or less than what they all were.

She wrapped her arms around her little, older but little, still, brother and hugged him close, and though Zeus scoffed a half-laugh, protested she was being ridiculous, he hugged her so hard that if she were mortal she would've broken. They stood there under the deepening and lengthening shadow of the plane tree until it was dark, which was when their mother found them.

"Children? What are you..." Rhea trailed off, watching the two of them, and smiled, relieved at whatever it was she was seeing. Then she looked to Zeus again, noticing the goat hide draped over his side, and frowned instead.

"Zeus? Are you all right?" Clearly she knew what - who - that goat had been, in general for Crete, and more importantly, in specific to Zeus. And Hestia, as she watched Zeus smile like there was nothing wrong, like he and everything else were completely fine, understood the other half of what she'd already seen of Zeus. His easy brightness was as much true as it was a projection of what he wished to show, what he believed, so that it could be true. It did not necessarily mean it actually was true, and it didn't mean he might not need support. So, as Zeus stepped away from her with great, overbearing dignity, Hestia decided to give in to an urge.

"Nothing to worry about, Mother. Hestia helped me with a ta---! Hestia!" he squawked as she yanked him close, messily kissed his cheek and ruffled his hair, and she laughed until she could be sick from his tone, his expression. Zeus’ eyes were soft like feathery down now, completely contrary to his seeming offense and that, she decided, was how she'd like to see them most often. And if it couldn't be often, because Zeus needed to be that driving, impenetrable force for the war, she would simply have to make sure he had the space and place for those moments of vulnerability to happen when they could. She’d wished for somewhere to make a home already, and the urge was only strengthened from this. It’d be a safe one. She’d make sure of it.

The walk across Crete back to Mount Dikte in the darkening twilight was made with no darker talk between them than the emerging stars, Zeus' arms around her own and their mother's waists, Hestia's arm around his shoulders. It was comfortable, in a way she couldn't have claimed to feel with her little brother before.

As they walked, a second conviction grew in Hestia’s heart; Mount Ida in Asia would be the last of the temporary hiding spots for them. Mount Olympos would be not just for the war, but permanent. They deserved that.

Chapter Text

Demeter had a couple hours before darkness swallowed her. She spent them in her mother's arms, soaking up ambrosia and milk, and smiling at the blooming myrtle by the window.

She asked what it was, and though some part of her might already have known when Rhea named it for her, the name of the plant settled in her mind like a gift. It was important. She watched the swaying leaves from the safety of her mother's soft, rounded arms. The shifting greens of them, the delicate blooms nearly glowing in the sunlight; the scent from the flowers seemed a near physical thing, and Demeter was so entranced her mother fell asleep long before she did.

She did not fear when the door opened and a towering god came in, for what did she have to fear? The Titan was as unfamiliar as he wasn't as he strode across the floor; the closer he came the more familiar he became, and Demeter was reaching for her father when he stopped by the bed. He smiled at her, but his blue eyes were dark. So very, very dark, and he was also in the way of her view of the window. She was about to ask him to move, or maybe to pick her up and carry her to the window so she could have a better look when he reached for her, scooping her up gentle as anything in a hand that was... much too large, she was sure. He wasn't this large just a moment before, was he?

She didn't get a chance to ask why.

Demeter screamed right before the darkness snapped her down, right before there was something hesitant and un/familiar reaching for her in this nowhere place, and it was only later, much later, that she found out Rhea had awoken thanks to that scream, and that Kronos had asked her where their newborn daughter was.

They'd gone looking, husband and wife, and Rhea had shaken in the same grief that was now guilt as she held her daughter for the first time after getting her back, her mother whispering apology on apology that she should've gotten suspicious before Kronos managed to swallow her.

Maybe she should have, and maybe Demeter was a little slow to embrace her, but after she finally wrapped her around her mother and Rhea's were around her, she found she couldn't let go and did not wish to do so. She sank into the hug and the warmth of her mother, which were exactly how she remembered them to be, and found in herself only a slowly boiling anger for her father.

He was the guilty one, here. He tricked her mother, he tricked her, and Demeter swore she'd never be tricked like that again.

The problem was, now that the five of them were out of that small, dark space trying to wear them down into nothing and soak them back up into itself, there was a sixth to take account of. The other five she knew, more or less. Knew the shape and feel and mettle of, in an intimate if not exhaustive way. The weeks passing by only confirmed that knowledge. When Poseidon became annoying, Demeter expected it, though perhaps not the sheer force of him. When Hera's temper exhausted her, she had a basis for it already. Zeus, however... Demeter looked out over the flat, open ground in front of the cave where she was standing at the mouth of it, leaned against the rough rock, to where Poseidon leaned close to Zeus, his blue eyes glittering sharply. He had to lean up to reach Zeus' ear, and Demeter smothered a smirk at the sight as Poseidon scrunched his nose, eyes darkening briefly before he boosted himself up on tiptoe. Zeus himself, after a brief, smirking moment, also leaned down to meet him partway. Poseidon whispered something, too low for Demeter to hear from this distance, and Zeus burst out laughing, loud and wild and easy, as if he had no fear of being overheard. He slapped Poseidon's back so the younger-but-older staggered half a step forward, and then Poseidon twisted around and launched himself at Zeus.

They landed on the ground with a loud thump and rolled around until Poseidon was pinned under Zeus, the younger wriggling and struggling but failing as of yet to free himself. Demeter noticed that if Poseidon's limbs were longer, and if he were heavier, his sharp feet or clawing fingers would surely have turned the tide. Right now, though, he wasn't not old enough to do anything but lose, but by the brief, straining flicker between barely-twelve and fifteen, he might soon be.

Zeus helped him up, laughing again, and Demeter left them to it.

It wasn't that she didn't like them, for she did. Or maybe would, when it came to Zeus. The two of them were dark-haired and radiant, energy and power practically shining from them. Literally, sometimes, but that was as it was with all of them. They were also exhausting, in their own way, but that had nothing to do with Zeus and Poseidon specifically. Even Hestia, who she could work beside easily as proven with the loom they've made, liked to talk. She wasn't loud, but Demeter has found that nonetheless it made her tired after a while, no matter how much Hestia's warm presence otherwise comforted her. In comparison Hades was quieter, easier, and she didn't become tired sitting next to him, but he was so reserved she ended up straight up bored after a while.

Sighing, Demeter looked down to find Hera coming up to her, as fierce in her face as the look in her eyes was, and she knew what her little sister was about to demand.

"I'm helping you."

Not a question. Not a request. Demeter suppressed another sigh and nodded as she offered her hand.

"Okay. But it has to be flax plants, you understand?" Demeter said as that little hand clutched her fingers and Hera, briefly, almost looks thirteen instead of six as she looked up at Demeter, a haughty, huffy little pout on her face.

"I'm not stupid, Demeter."

No, Hera wasn't stupid. She also didn't like being told 'no'. The issue was, Hera was having the most problem of them all, next to Poseidon, of growing, of settling and of controlling her nascent divine powers. The bigger problem than that was, if she didn't train it would take her even longer to do any of those things. So Demeter shoved down her annoyance - it wasn't as if she didn't have problems with this as well, though not to the same extent - and allocated at least a little time to let Hera help her and try. Demeter just did not have a lot of patience in general, not like Hestia had. Not even Hades had that much patience, Demeter knew. He was just very good at suppressing any annoyance until he couldn't any more. Something she envied him for, as she wasn't as good at that as he was, and she would really like to be. They both liked things to be As They Should Be, the difference being that Hades liked rules and laws and listened to Rhea far more than any of them did. Demeter, on the other hand, had a very decided idea of how she thought things should be, how she wanted them to be, and well...

"What did I say, Hera?" Demeter sat back on her heels, swallowing most of the edge in her tone so it came out as exasperation, barely voiced.

They'd been working for the last hour, and the formerly tidy field of scattered stands of flax plants that Demeter had wanted to expand to fill the whole field now had pomegranate bushes all over as well as a couple green, whip-like shoots of plane and chaste trees near the stream at the end of the field, as well as numerous spring flowers. It was very pretty, but it was most definitely not what they needed. Certainly not what Demeter had been planning. They needed enough flax plants to make more clothing, not... this. Demeter wanted to be patient, wanted to be able to help Hera with this, because it did delight her to see the light of understanding or accomplished pride on the little face, but right now Demeter didn't have the energy to deal with it.

"I can do it! It's just hard to find the right ones!" Hera scowled, which would be adorable normally and if Demeter wasn't the one faced with Hera's offended defense, as if it was her fault that Hera couldn't do this. It wasn't hard to Demeter, to feel for the right plants - even in the earliest days of weeks previous, finding the plant she wanted wasn't an issue she’d had with her powers. Flying, instead, proved to be harder, the lack of ground underneath her feet made her loose all direction, and she knew she couldn't scold Hera for this, really. Couldn't expect the same precision of her as she did of herself. But this had been going on for weeks, now, and Hera could train elsewhere.

"I know it can be tricky," Demeter managed to say with enough even tone that Hera didn't immediately fly into anger, "but you'll have to train elsewhere. Take one of the flax plants with you and---"

"I don't want to do it elsewhere!" Hera stomped her foot, and was suddenly all of three-four instead of six. Demeter gritted her teeth, nearly boiling over with a lash of angry, unsettled energy, nearly ruining the whole field all by herself. She took a breath, though unnecessary, and let it out - the pure, simple physicality of the gesture helped, surprisingly. She then twisted around to stare at Hera, shoved her hand into the ground and dug out one of the nearest flax plant shoots and shoved it at her. Hera had to use both of her little hands to catch and hold the clump of earth and plant.

"Over there, Hera." They glare at each other for several seconds and Hera stomped her foot again, but Demeter didn’t budge. Finally Hera turned around and stomped all the way over to the patch Demeter had designated her.

Demeter was so tired.

Which wasn't helped when Poseidon came over the next day. She wouldn't mind it, really, if Poseidon could help her at all, but he seemed to have no easy hand in the powers needed for this. She also wouldn't mind it if Poseidon could sit still and quiet for a while like the other three siblings - Zeus excluded because she didn't know if he could and she suspected not - but he couldn't. He had to talk, he had to move around, he mocked and teased and argued, and more to the point, he was loud about every single one of those things. Not even his charm and the smooth waves of his dark brown hair, like fresh-tilled earth and eyes like the sky could help mitigate all of that. She finally chased him off, frustrated and even more tired than yesterday, which meant that when she felt the approaching, bright presence behind her she scowled at the earth her hands were buried in, frustrated for more than one reason.

"I told you to go away, Poseidon!"

"Not Poseidon!" Zeus said with a laugh and sat down, uninvited. Demeter glared even harder at the ground, which withered the plants closest to her hands until she took a breath, exhaled it. The field might be full of flax now, but they were growing badly and slowly, and she didn't know how to fix it. The earth wasn't the problem, but like her attempts at flying she was proving to be utterly terrible in trying to coax the right sort of weather where she wanted it. Maybe she would be better at it in time, but right now, when she needed it, she couldn't, and her frustration only made her worse at it.

"Then just be quiet," she snapped without looking up, and tried to urge the earth to give more to make up for what the sky wasn't giving.

Zeus gave a loud, offended scoff, and she expected a tirade to follow. Demeter was so focused on her work that it took her a while to realize that the presence next to hers had softened and stilled, and that Zeus had said nothing at all since she last spoke. Blinking, she turned a cautious glance sideways to catch Zeus sitting with his legs stretched out, supporting himself on his hands and his face turned to the sky and the sunlight, eyes closed. There was a faint breeze that made his waves of dark hair ripple, and he looked content to just... sit there. She could almost take him for Hades like that, but compared to Hades, whose presence was always so quiet it was hard to tell how much power he actually embodied, Zeus wasn't quiescent. Even stilled as it was, even the air around her older-but-also-younger brother rather vibrated with power, held in check but unable to be restrained. It made the air around Zeus lighter, sent a flicker of eldritch shimmer about his head and shoulders.

Yet he was sitting so still all of that could just as well not be happening at all.

Briefly, Demeter was so surprised all the air escaped her, and it was only then that Zeus opened his eyes and cut a glance to her, smiling somewhere between smug and sweetly pleased. As if she'd given him something pleasant, but he was also terribly proud over rendering her speechless.

Then he decided to ruin it.

"You need more rain," he said, and while the factual tone didn't actually carry even a hit of mocking, Demeter pressed her lips together, flushing with the rush of emotion, physically as well as with her power, and it sparked its own light about her. As if she didn't know that! It might be surprising that Zeus could tell such a thing, but now Demeter was out of surprise. This was the last thing she needed right now!

"I can work around it," she said past gritted teeth and turned back to the earth, but Zeus shifted beside her - of course he couldn't be still any longer - got up on his knees and put his hand to the earth again. She looked up, words on the tip of her tongue, burning in her mind, wanting to chase him off from her spot, this dumb, annoying boy who didn't know her, didn't know what she could do, had not grown with her in unimaginable darkness with the weight of power pressing down, straining to just stay alive. None of those words or feelings came out. Instead Demeter said nothing as she watched Zeus tip his head back again, eyes closed and a little furrow between his brows. He looked so serious.

The sky grew from bright blue and decorated in fluffy little clouds to overcast in minutes, thunder growling in the distance. Out over the ocean, the sky was heaving blue-black, but here over the land it was a soft, dark gray. The rain, when it came, was a gentle drizzle, slowly wetting the earth without crushing the plants or washing earth and needed nutrients away. Out over the waves, there was a dark curtain of rain hammering down.

"Not the usual way I give Crete what it needs," Zeus said, a bright, toothy smile on his face that Demeter couldn't decipher when she looked at him again, "but it should work."

He was so certain about that, but he also wasn’t wrong, and Demeter looked around her field of flax as it took the water and her power and grew to blooming out of season in minutes instead of months. This was what she's been trying for, this whole time.

"I... guess so, yes," Demeter said, floundering, and Zeus laughed - bright, easy, victorious, and then he flew to his feet, pulling her up by her hands with him as they got progressively wetter.

"Dance with me!" Zeus exclaimed, eyes bright and matching the cloudy sky, thunder rolling again through the air, lightning striking out over the ocean.

"Zeus, what---" Demeter protested, but not so much Zeus couldn't pull her into the first couple steps, and by then the energy of him, of the land, couldn’t be denied as it suffused her and she just... went along with it.

It wasn't until she laughed, breathless and light, that Demeter realized what was happening, what she was doing. There was her hands in Zeus', the two of them twirling under rain that now fell harder, but not hard enough to ruin the earlier work. Abruptly, Demeter brought them to a stop and yanked her hands back. They burn, and she still felt light. Awkward, she flexed her fingers.

"I--- need to go talk to Mother," she said, voice tight, higher than she would like, and turned on her heels and fled. At least the flax field was ready to be turned into fibers now, as soon as it had dried up.

She didn't talk to Rhea when she did find her mother sitting in the cave, working on adjusting Hera's clothing to fit her better since it seemed she wasn't going to catch up to her other siblings as quickly as the rest had been growing older. None of them might be as old as Zeus was just yet, but they were getting closer. Her mother looked up, pale, gray eyes - like Hades', like Zeus' - widening at the sight of her, and Rhea shifted aside on her seat, holding an arm out.

"Demeter..?"

Demeter sat down, wound an arm around Rhea's waist and leaned against her, and though she opened her mouth, she closed it again with a snap. Their mother loved all of her children. Their mother loved Zeus, with a doting force that was obvious. Demeter wanted to resent Rhea, resent Zeus, for that, but Rhea have had more time with Zeus, even if not as much time as she surely would have liked. As she should have had, with all of them, if Kronos wasn't as he was. More than that, Rhea trusted Zeus. Demeter pressed her lips together and stared at the work spread out in her mother's lap, her large, soft hands working away with needle and thread.

Demeter did not trust Zeus.

Did not trust him to defend her, did not trust him not to falter at the wrong - or right, to him - moment. Did not trust him to be quick enough, strong enough, earnest enough in any gentleness shown, like what had just happened in the flax field. Most of all she didn't want to trust him, but her little brother was hard to resist. He unfailingly asked her to go harder when she let him be her partner while training, told her not to hold back, grinned at her with wild eyes and bruised jaw whenever she did let go, and threw himself at her and gave her what she gave him, but without any hint of resentment. He was so loud, and yet he could be so very quiet, even when overflowing with all that energy.

She didn't understand him.

In comparison to not wishing to open herself for trust (though she knew that would better if they were supposed to fight together, to actually win), Demeter did wish to understand Zeus. He seemed irresponsible and too bright, yet he dedicated himself to infiltrating their father's court for Rhea's wish to have her other children back, and picked them all up, waiting until the very last moment until Poseidon was disgorged before he left, risking capture. She knew it was because of Rhea; she confronted Zeus about it shortly after they'd just barely started to settle in their bodies, glaring up at a little brother that was as of yet a lot taller than she was. He'd proclaimed with infuriating confidence that he didn't do it because he needed them. He'd done it because he wanted to make Rhea smile, because he wanted to know them. Zeus was at once full of smug, self-assured superiority and a surprisingly sweet desire for connection.

Demeter didn't understand him, and she didn't trust him. The truth was, she wasn't sure she dared to. She did not want to be so vulnerable when the first man she’d trusted so swallowed her up at the first opportunity given to him.

As such, when she found herself facing down a monster after they've only recently relocated to Mount Ida in Anatolia from Crete, right after Zeus had left to fetch them some water from a nearby stream, she thought, oh, of course. It bellowed, this creature, pawing at the ground with a monstrous hoof that glimmered of adamantium in the light, while the air was filled with the rasping rattle of scale against scale as the snaky length of its lower body twisted and slid behind it in coil after coil. The horns glimmered with sharpened bronze at the ends, and there was a distinct smell of sulfur, accompanied by smoke, coming from its nostrils.

On the whole, it was a nightmarish mesh of bull and snake, and whatever it was, there was the weight of true, primordial power in its heavy body.

Demeter shifted her weight and steeled herself, knowing she was alone in this. She and Zeus had gone quite a distance so they wouldn't make too much of a mess and noise, physical and well as metaphysical, too close to their camp. Too far for her siblings - Zeus discounted - to come quickly enough if she called. She would have to do this alone. She just wished she could warn the others that Zeus had tired of his charade, or even if there weren't one to start with, had decided he really did not need them for the assault on Kronos and didn't want any rivals or complicating connections.

The creature charged and the land heaved with Demeter as she dashed to the side, aiding her in her flight. She twisted around to attack, but before she could so much as breathe in power the monstrous snake-bull bellowed. Higher, sharper, than before, a cry of protest and pain, and it staggered across the ground past her, leaving gouges deep as small ravines in the land from its hooves and coils.

Beyond stood Zeus, the air livid with power, sparking between Demeter's teeth and lifting the fine strands of hair on her body. "You okay? Why didn't you fucking call for me?"

He was angry, but mostly seemed worked up over the possibility that he might have come too late. Demeter stared at him, at the halo of his dark hair, floating slightly around his shoulders, his eyes so bright they seemed colourless, and she could, almost, cry. She did not. She sniffled a little, sucking in an unsteady breath, and shook her head.

"Just thought everyone was too far away for a moment," she said, offering up a sliver of the truth, and Zeus briefly looked genuinely upset as well as angry. It hurt more than she thought it would, so she quickly hurried over to him, holding a hand out. "Together?"

Zeus glanced between her hand, the monster, then to her face, and grinned toothily. Demeter realized he wasn't as tall as he was just earlier today, realized she might be, bar a year or two, almost as old as Zeus was, now. The realization settled her even more, and when he took her hand, letting her feel the weight of him, she squeezed it tight and he answered the same way.

"Don't hold back, okay? I want to see what you can do."

She could trust him. Demeter smiled as something unwound, unleashed deep inside, opening up and letting in, and the ground beneath them trembled in answer.

"You too," she said, and they launched at the monster at the same time as it steadied itself, turning towards them with mad fury in its eyes.

They came back to camp with the creature’s skin, hooves and horns, and all of them get a piece of armour and their first, if crude, weapons.

Chapter Text

Hera's first moments were with the scent of the sea and flowers on the air and the sound of a river nearby. She watched the lowest, thinnest branches of a chaste tree with their oval leaves dance in a breeze as she laid between her mother's shaking knees.

She did not know why her mother was shaking as she fought to stand up so soon after birth, why her voice was shaking, her hands were shaking, shushing her when Hera wasn’t crying, asking her to be quiet, please be quiet, Hera, darling. Quiet.

She wasn't making a sound, not after her first attempt at asking, but the repetitions frustrated and confused her. It didn’t get any better when Rhea attempted to swaddle her, her hands still shaking, for that made the procedure of it take all the longer, made the fabric catch and chafe against her. Hera started to fuss, squirming and trying to smack Rhea’s hands away. Her mother got more upset, Hera got angrier, and finally she twisted. Still quiet, she kicked away from her mother's hands and staggered to her feet, running off towards where the edge of the twilight-dark shadow cast by the tree was melding into the gathering dark.

She ran right into a pair of legs. Hera looked up at a giant, at his furious expression, the swell of his essence and terrible eyes, and screamed for her mother.

Her mother didn't reach her in time. She could feel her hands behind her, could feel a swipe, a punch against the god's - her father's - chest just missing her dangling feet, and she tried to match, to copy, but he ignored them both. She clawed his cheeks, but he closed about her as unforgiving as Rhea’s body had struggled to give her up to the world. The darkness wasn't as scary as Hera thought it might be, but the fussing of other hands, these not shaking or jostling her, were welcome still. Just a little, and later she would regret having fussed so much with her mother.

At the moment, what was worse than anything else was the pressure, the weight on her, a small, dark space that ought to be vast but felt like she was being crushed.

Later, with early spring sunlight on their heads, rain scent on the air, and her mother's arms around her, Hera and Rhea both cried. Later still Hera would be angry and not be quite sure as to why, but right then and there, there were only tears and the warmth of her mother's arms like she never got to feel them before. She did not mind the shaking, not immediately so anyway, and when those longed-for arms became too confining, too heavy, she wriggled and slipped away - easier when she was so small. Hera ignored Rhea's crestfallen expression since their mother had other siblings to greet, to touch, to welcome the presence of again, to reassure herself they are all there. She didn't need to linger, and Hera shouldn’t hog their mother.

She slipped away from Hestia, stepped around Demeter - too many people, not enough space - and almost ran straight into a pair of long legs. Her heart squeezed, then, angry at herself, she shook her head. Coming to a stop, Hera tipped her head back and stared up at Zeus.

He should be the youngest of them, and some part of her resented that he looked so old, was so tall. He was almost two decades! Another part of her resented that he didn't look old enough. He looked like a baby more than she did! (False.) Soft, sleek features and high cheeks and who would think to trust this boy with anything at all, even less rescuing them?

"What?" Thick, dark eyebrows, the most serious-looking part of Zeus that gave her newest brother some sort of gravitas, arch up on his high forehead, and Hera scoffed and turned on her heels, stomping back to the little knot of her siblings around their mother. She almost regretted it, for, again, there were way too many people here, too close, too many presences. Strangely enough Zeus' essence hadn't wrapped around her like a crushing weight, even if it had practically thrummed with weighted power. Her mother’s and other siblings’ did smother her, concerned with her safety, with her being there, and Rhea swept her up in her arms, hugged her close. Hera squirmed and wanted to protest, but the tremble to her mother’s body, so solid and vast otherwise, kept her quiet. Wondered instead why she was the only one so tiny, still - all the others looked anywhere between five and ten.

It was a question that lingered and gnawed on Hera's patience in the coming days, but worse was the place they chose to hide in, even if it was only temporary. It was a cave. Not a very small cave, given, but Hera hated it. The rock weighed down on her, pressed in, and the ceiling, though it arched high above even Rhea, felt too low. She wanted a house, a home, some place filled with pillows and drapery and high columns to keep the ceiling up, furniture one could sit on without having to sit on a rock, or lean back against a stone wall or a tree.

A cave was not a home, and Hera felt hemmed in, cold, small. It reminded her of the inside of Kronos, and she hated it. Only the fact that they were on a mountain helped somewhat, for the view outside was breathtaking. Hera really would rather spend all the time outside, wind against her face and the sky arching up above her, if a cave was her only other option. The others always fetched her back for night, however, and often otherwise too, huddling up in the cave worried that they would be found to soon. She hated it. She hated all of it. They needed somewhere better, somewhere defensible, somewhere larger.

Poseidon's proclamation a couple days later that they need to kill their father spurred Hera's thoughts further while that initial argument disappeared behind settled tempers and days passing. Watching as Demeter, Hestia and Hades worked on loom weights for a future loom that would give them more clothes than the ones they were wearing, and clothes that would not be missed since they wouldn’t have been taken from Mount Othrys, Hera kicked her feet against the rock she was perched on, feeling it crumble a little more every time her heels hit. She wished she was the one to suggest killing their father, if only because Poseidon had been downright obnoxious about it. The way he'd talked about Metis enraged some part of her and she couldn't put a finger on why. She kicked harder, shattering part of the rock.

"Hera..?" Hestia asked, not the only one to have looked up, and on the other side of the little meadow, Poseidon and Zeus paused in the middle of their 'sparring'. If that was what it was supposed to be called when they'd been arguing earlier about something, and Poseidon had then lashed out and she didn't care about the rest. All of them were looking at her, and the only thing Hera didn’t like about that was that she hadn’t finished thinking yet, didn’t have enough words right that moment. It made her feel lacking, like the situation was getting away from her.

Rhea sighed, somewhere behind her, having come back yesterday with more refined nectar and ambrosia even if that wasn’t strictly necessary since they could easily subsist off the raw versions, and there'd be honey soon, too. Hera ignored her mother's disappointment, suppressing her frustration over that, too, over how she simply couldn't seem to grow like all the rest. It made them behave as if she needed minding, as if she needed telling, and Hera had quickly found she hated other people telling her what to do.

"We need a better place," she said, drawing all of herself up, as much as that was which wasn't a lot for someone who seemed all of four, maybe. "A nicer place. Not a cave."

We, she said, but really meant 'I', because no one else seemed to mind this, aside from the uncertainty of the situation.

"We will," Rhea said as she came to kneel next to Hera, a huge, thick arm coming up around her, so large in comparison both because her mother was tall but also because she was just... there was a lot of Rhea, and she was warm and round and soft. Hera loved it, and hated it, because she felt smothered and closed in very quickly every time, and she didn't actually want to hurt her mother by squirming away all the time. "But this will have to do for now. We'll be moving soon, Hera."

Rhea smiled encouragingly, enormous hand gently rubbing Hera's little arm, and Hera eyed her mother narrowly, hope kindling.

"To a fortress? Some place that's actually a house?"

"Hera..." Rhea closed her eyes, Hera’s name a bare murmur, and Hera drew herself up again, but Zeus got there before she could explode and before anyone else could try to head her off.

"It's going to take time to build something like that," Zeus called across the meadow, and she could see the eyeroll even from here before he focused on her, gray eyes bright, piercing. Challenging. "And until you can control yourself and are growing steadily, we can't afford that."

This was her fault? Hera hopped down from the rock, incandescent. She hated him, hated his stupid, pretty face and hated his unbridled energy, the wild, deep beat of his divinity. Hated that he didn't know what it meant to be small, to be crushed and have to resist it. Hated that no one was telling him what to do - that wasn't entirely right, Zeus spent a year being told what to do, being their father's cupbearer so he could rescue them, but right now Hera didn't care.

"I'll show you!" she shrieked, which only proved Zeus' point, because she was heaving from inside out. Nothing was settled and she was acting far worse than the child she appeared to be, but it wasn't fair! Even Poseidon appeared to be at least ten by now.

"Hera, please!"

There was arms around her, large, soft and honey-smelling, and there was Hestia's hand in her hair, combing through the short, bouncy curls, and Hera struggled until she slumped, exhausted and, mostly, ashamed at herself. This was not becoming of a goddess, especially not when she really was older than she appeared to be.

"Hera, darling, it won't be for too long," Rhea said, soothing, coaxing, and Hera screwed her eyes shut, unwillingly squeezed a couple of tears out and hid them by twisting around in her mother's arms, burying her face in her bosom. She was lying, Hera knew she was. "In fact, I think..."

Rhea trailed off, but Hera didn't bother to move, or to really listen to the murmurs around her, or even to Zeus getting, at least momentarily, scolded. She didn't care. She just wanted to grow up, catch up with everyone else, so she could not feel so small, and no one could tell her what to do.

It took six years and two foster parents before Hera really got to that point, but while that was frustrating, at least she had grown enough to take it with some equanimity, and to not, at least in this, compare herself to her siblings. She was strong, and powerful, and so what did it matter that it took her a little longer to get to where she should’ve been all along? She would really rather not admit sending her away was the right decision, but... Hera knew it was, and if anything else would've meant not growing up with Tethys and Oceanus, she would now say she wouldn't want it. She wouldn't give up her foster parents, or the experiences and years of growing up in their palace at the bottom of the Caspian Sea. She would admit it to Rhea, and might possibly tell Hestia, but no one else would hear it from her lips.

Especially not the one who got her sent away.

Ironic, then, that Zeus was the first of her siblings Hera met when she came to Olympos the first time. She wasn't sure if this was a disappointment or if was only suitable that it’d be Zeus to be the one to be standing under the archway of the wall's gate. It wasn’t a very impressive wall, really. Only twice as tall as Zeus was, it was more suitable to give a moment's warning than truly capable of warding off any assault. It informed her loud and clear before she saw the rest of the place what she was facing by coming here.

A war. A camp more than a fortified palace. Determination, if not desperation.

But what she was also seeing past the open gate and Zeus, past the winding road that was, at least, properly paved, was a glimpse of at least one building in the distance. Buildings, which meant high ceilings and open rooms, windows and air, not rock closing in on her. For that, Hera would put up with much, even if it undoubtedly would be a step down from her foster parents' palace.

She stopped in front of Zeus and they eyed each other for a silent, tight moment. Hera’s divine essence was stable and firm about her, closely held. Zeus’ essence was both exactly how she remembered it - thunderously deep, wild and strong - and also not at all, leashed closer about him than it'd been before. It only made it more obvious how powerful he was.

"You've grown up," Zeus finally said and Hera raised her chin reflexively, narrowing her eyes and setting her lips in a thin line for the lingering look he gave her.

Yes, she'd grown up, finally. Finally she would be able to get back at her father and nothing would stop her. Not even this arrogant young man ogling her, who looked more interesting than he did at nineteen. Zeus looked more settled, too, for all that he'd seemed the most collected and capable of them back then. More formed now, as if he had actual shape aside from youthful brightness and determination. There was real weight to him, a broadness to his shoulders to set off the still elegantly trim waist, but that didn't mean Hera was any more pleased for the look he was giving her than she'd been pleased listening to Poseidon open his stupid, giant mouth and mock any input Metis might have as valuable by the fire. Or pleased that Zeus had said she had to leave, even if she could indeed admit to herself that it had been necessary.

She drew breath as the memory spurred nascent annoyance and defensiveness, not eager to hear anything of being sent away again. She was ready to launch an attack so he couldn't refuse her entrance and her place to take part in this war, but once more Zeus got there before her.

"Spear?" he offered, holding out the one he'd been holding himself, leaning some of his weight on it. Hera faltered, looking between the shining length of lethal bronze and her brother. Spear, he said so very nonchalantly, as if he hadn't been the one to send her away. "Or we can get you another weapon if you'd prefer that. Unless you want to stay back with Hestia, holding Olympos."

There was no judgement in Zeus' voice as he listed up the possibilities of what she might wish to do, where she could offer her hands and skill and power. More than that, though it wasn’t what she’d want to do, when he said holding Olympos, he said it with a weight that revealed he knew that was important too, that if their secure base fell to an ambush or attack, they would need to scramble to fortify themselves somewhere else, supplies lost. Hera... hadn't expected this. Maybe she should have, with the way he'd defended Metis and said that of course Demeter and Hestia could stay when Poseidon had wanted to send all three sisters off. Reality was, though, that Zeus had been and presumably still was, in love with Metis, so why wouldn't he defend Metis to Poseidon? Clearly that hadn’t been all there was to it, and clearly he'd meant it when he’d said it was obvious Demeter and Hestia should stay, and that Hera could come back as soon as she was ready.

Too, she'd discounted - forgotten - that back when he'd taunted her about her inability to fly, he'd been challenging her, not disparaging her. Had challenged her to come up and get him until she'd unthinkingly done exactly that, and he'd laughed and grabbed her and flown around in dizzying twirls and somersaults. She'd been angry, back then, and frustrated over being mocked, but he hadn't been mocking her, had he? He'd been pleased she'd managed to master that skill, at least, for it was one she hadn't lost again unlike her waffling age, unlike any other power that came and went. He'd been pleased for her, and, she realized then, that had probably had him wait longer than he otherwise might have done before he said she had to be sent away.

Hera almost forgave Zeus the searching, appreciative look he'd given her earlier for these realizations. Especially so as the only thing on Zeus' face right now was questioning focus, edging towards annoying demand for her answer so he could slot her in somewhere in the war effort. Poseidon's attitude wasn't shared by the youngest-but-also-oldest among them, even now when Zeus and Poseidon had had six years to mesh - as well as to clash. Clashing was probably more likely, honestly.

With a sudden lack of a need to defend her determination to participate in the war, Hera shifted on her feet, a bit at a loss. She looked between the spear in Zeus’ hand, up past him to the tempting buildings beyond, and did devote a moment of consideration to other weapons, then steeled herself.

"Spear," she said, thrusting her hand out. Zeus handed the spear over with nothing but pleasure on his face, and again Hera was, for a brief moment, surprised. He really meant what he’d been saying.

"Great! Let me show you around, and then we can all sit down. Mother told us you were coming." Zeus threw an arm around her shoulders and strode off, completely ignoring Hera's soft noise of outrage for his presumption and only laughed in response. In that, he was no less grating now than he'd been back then, but the easy confidence was charming - reassuring. And, much like back then and even more so, Zeus' divine essence did not wrap around her, did not weigh her down until she felt crushed under it, even when she wasn't trying to push him away. Instead it remained just outside of her own, threatening weight that never fell, never came so close she might be worried it might fall on her. He better not think he could order her around unless she agreed with what he was planning, however.

That was something still left to see, and Hera wouldn’t know the truth of it until she’d been on Olympos for a while. That she could wait for, however, and now that she was here she could, would, add her own opinions if she thought Zeus or the others were lacking. But, at its most simple foundation Zeus was indeed capable, for all that he could be terribly aggravating. Zeus would, hopefully, get them where they needed to go. If nothing else Hera knew he’d let nothing stop him.

Not even any presumption of where a woman belonged or what she ought to be doing in a war.

Sniffing, Hera shrugged her shoulders, but not so harshly as to force Zeus' arm off them and determinedly lengthened her steps to match his longer legs. She refused to ask him to slow down; if he was giving her weapons with such easy assumption of her obvious place in the forefront of the war effort and ability to fight, Hera would not ask for concessions. She might be the last to join them - of the siblings or at all, she wasn't sure - but she would not be the weakest. She never had been, she never would be. As they walk, she found she didn’t much mind the weight of Zeus' arm around her when it was simply hanging there while he gestured with his other hand as he talked. He explained their position, who of the Titans had joined them lately, excused the somewhat rough state of their camp - because it really was a camp, with only one building aside from the central hall with hearth and a throne and seating along the walls. Everything else would have to come later, after they'd won.

And they would win.

Anything less was unthinkable with what they'd suffered at Kronos' hands and essence. Anything else would be an insult to their power, combined and singly. Hera had doubts, in the beginning, through the years with Oceanus and Tethys. Had even contemplated the possibility of having to break off on her own if she wanted anything done, but as she listened to her little brother talk, the weight of the spear in her hand became as certain as Zeus’ voice, and she could no longer hold onto those doubts.

It felt surprisingly good.

Chapter Text

Hades was born with his mother's screams in his ears.

She cursed, threatened, swore the most terrible vengeance of earth and sky that she could hand him - no. Not him. His name was in there, among those screams, but this was not about him, Hades realized. He didn't have much time for that understanding, or for taking in his name and claiming it as his own, as one set of hands, gentle and soft, desperately clutching at his flesh so hard even divinity couldn't keep it from bruising, were swept aside for another pair.

Not a pair; just one hand.

Monstrous in size, it trapped him in its grip, and Hades was too small, too slow, too weak and unformed in power to fight, both for himself and for his screaming mother. He still tried. The unformed wave of power almost allowed him to slip out and back onto the bed below, tearing gouges out of the hand grasping him. Almost; it only clutched tighter in answer, ignoring the ichor welling up. Tightened until he couldn't help his gasp of pain. He regretted it as his mother cried again, then she cursed once more as she reached for him and was pushed away.

Who was doing this? Who was allowed to do this?

Where was his father?

He only understood that his father was right there, that it was his father doing this when, faced with roiling darkness reaching for him, Rhea begged Kronos not to swallow his firstborn son. His father only laughed, the sound vibrating around him, and then there was nothing. Nothing but a vague sense of not being alone, of hands and essences reaching for his, larger than he was but only barely any more formed.

Later, his mother crying too much to so much as whisper, her shaking hands feeling out his features as much as she was clutching his face, small in her grasp but it helped him stop wavering in age under that gentle grip. He settled at just barely five, though some part of Hades knew with certainty he should be older, far older, than that. His mother pulled him close, voice breaking through apologies she didn’t need to give for it wasn’t her fault. Listening to her, Hades realized his birth was the first one Rhea was chained down for. She’d tried to reach him nonetheless, but the chains had been too short. She'd been locked inside after Hera's birth, but to ensure she wouldn't be too troublesome as she birthed her and Kronos' fourth child, Kronos had had her chained to the bed.

He wasn't yet strong enough to fight and defend himself, his siblings, or his mother, but Hades vowed he would be.

Partially because he refused to be vulnerable like that again, partially because he never wanted to hear his mother scream in such pain and fear and anger even one more time. Partially, too, because being rescued by your youngest sibling, no matter that he appeared well over a decade older than any of them at the moment, just didn't feel right. Zeus’ actual or apparent age doesn't matter; Hades was older and so he, if anyone, should be protecting them.

Zeus didn't appear to need much protecting, though.

He was solid and strong, far more so than any of the five of his siblings that he picked up and flew away to Crete with after Kronos vomited them back up. Maybe not an impressive rescue, but it’d been dangerous, and Hades wasn’t sure if it was because of Zeus seeming lack of awareness of the danger that both pulled Hades to his youngest brother but also repelled him. Need he worry so little because he didn’t just believe, like Poseidon did, that he was strong enough to take any comers, but knew so, or was it just overconfident projection? Hades had no idea how to relate to Zeus. Zeus was, plainly speaking, hard to read for all that his bright confidence, easy command and equally easy smiles should make him clear as glass. He should be obnoxious - and he was, but then, so was Poseidon, and Hera wasn’t less frustrating sometimes. Both of those Hades had already vaguely known and more firmly quickly learned though, compared to Zeus.

Like right now, proving all three of them exhaustingly obnoxious.

"Come up here then," Zeus taunted, bright-eyed and smug, where he was floating above the tree-tops, smirking down at Hera. "If you know what you're doing."

"Zeus---" Hades started, then cut off as Zeus looked to him, eyebrows arched and the look in his eyes surprisingly serious. Hades stayed silent from the sheer surprise of that look, despite that he felt he had a responsibility to keep everyone else in check.

Meanwhile, Hera launched herself off the ground and did not, as Hades had expected, immediately fall flat on her face. Zeus' distraction almost got him Hera's whole tiny body slammed against him, but he avoided her just barely. Laughing like a loon, he grabbed her and launched both of them into aerial acrobatics. Just watching had Hades dizzy and Hera screeched in protesting rage. He was about to tell Zeus, and actually do it this time, to knock it off when Poseidon came barrelling through the air. He did collide with Zeus, but he also collided with Hera, who glowered at him... and then both younger-but-should-be older siblings ganged up on Zeus. He did surprisingly well to defend himself, all three of them ending up on the ground with Zeus sitting on Poseidon and Hera trapped in his arms, red-faced but laughing. At least until Poseidon demanded Zeus get off, that was.

"You were saying?" Zeus looked to him, smugly pleased while ignoring Poseidon's increasingly loud demands to be let up, and Hades didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. And then, because he also didn't know what to do, left to help Hestia instead.

But this wasn't all Zeus was, whether that was a useful method of teaching or just obnoxious, working Hera and Poseidon up for nothing. There was also the way Zeus leaned in after Rhea had scolded him for working Hera up over where they could and couldn't hide, head bent through it all. He took it surprisingly gracefully, though he'd looked mulish just a second before, and now his focus seemed to be elsewhere entirely.

"You have an idea of where we can go, later?" he asked, serious and attentive. Hades both appreciated it and also felt like he should've been the one to ask their mother that question while Zeus was still sulking over his scowling, because that seemed to be how this should have gone. Rhea, for her part as she stroked Hera's fluffy curls where the smallest of them was still hidden against her bosom, frowned up at the sky.

"I need to have a look at it, but it's on a mountain as well. It should have a hearth ready to fortify and made a focus." She looked around the four of them, a gaggle of divine children and teenagers appearing anywhere from nineteen to twelve, Hera in her arms the only one who seemed to be no more than barely five. "I'd forgotten about Mount Olympos until now, but Eurynome and Ophion, when they briefly seized power before I and Kronos took it, chose to establish themselves on Olympos for much the same reason as we chose Mount Othrys. Mountains are focal points in the aether generally, but some more than others. We're going to Mount Ida in Anatolia first, no matter what Olympos looks like, however."

Zeus, despite what Hades, again, might have expected and for as often as he liked to make the decisions, did not protest their mother's proclamation. Instead, it was Poseidon who huffed, skinny arms crossed over an equally narrow chest.

"Why shouldn't we go to Olympos as soon as possible, if it's as you say? That'd be better than another cave and more time to fortify it before we launch our first attack!" There was an edge to Poseidon's voice Hades couldn't figure out why it was there, or what it meant. It wasn’t unfamiliar, as Poseidon levied it at nearly everyone equally, but it always gained a slightly different edge whenever he questioned their mother. It was the same tone he’d used when he'd talked down about Metis.

Zeus' eyes darkened and he seemed to swell at Poseidon’s jab, and suddenly all of Zeus’ even-handed focus was gone. Hades decided to head this off - for all that Zeus could be mature, he really didn't take it well when Rhea or Metis were implicitly or explicitly insulted or questioned. They didn't need another outburst, and one probably far more violent than Hera currently had capability of being.

"Because all of us still need to be better settled," Hades said, louder than he usually would be, then lowered his voice when no one interrupted him, staring at Poseidon and crossing his own arms over his chest as well. "And going to a focal point of power, even one not used in a while, is a practical declaration of war. Doing so before we're ready would be stupid."

Hades sharpened his stare and Poseidon finally looked away with a grunt, his blue eyes dark.

Unsettlingly dark.

He was the only one of the six of them to share Kronos' eye colour, and all of them had seen their father's eyes dark and perversely hungry, angry and wanting. Not just to defend himself or his rule - Hades had no idea if that darkness had always been in their father, or if swallowing the first child had awoken something far more terrible in him, and if it hadn't stopped being just about the prophecy somewhere along the way. It made Poseidon uncomfortable to face, sometimes, when his moods darkened. Though for features, Demeter might be just as similar for she shared their father's hair colour. It was reddish-gold and rich and soft, and Hades had seen Hestia flinch at least once when the light hit Demeter's hair just right. Or wrong. Hades himself was the only one to share the arrow-straight, flat fall of hair with him. None of them, luckily, shared enough facial features with Kronos that any other sibling had to be left flinching away from someone else for the bare appearance of them.

"And we don't even know what Olympos looks like," Zeus said, starting out sharp and pointed and only reined in into something less likely to cause defensiveness to flare up again when Hades transferred his glare to him, instead.

They stared at each other for a beat, then Zeus dipped his head in a half nod, collecting himself and straightening up. He gave in in the same breath that he took command, and Hades had no idea how he was doing that.

"So it would be far better for Mother to go there first, so we know what we're working with and can prepare before we get there. As soon as we do, we'll be able to call anyone who will join our side to Olympos, but for that we still need to be fully prepared and ready."

It would be easier if Zeus was all hot air and aimless flailing, but he was no fool in his words, and even if some of this was Metis talking, Hades didn't doubt some of it came Zeus himself. It made him hard - impossible - to ignore and talk over. That would be easier for Hades, would let him settle somewhere he felt he should be, but that Zeus, by dint of his easy command and commanding presence, had at least partially taken. Undoubtedly he hadn't even noticed he'd done so; he was just speaking his mind, and when he actually controlled himself the weight of the words and the truth of them came through sharp and clear.

Hades wondered if it would have been the same if they'd gotten to grow up beside and with each other. Even if it had been, he would, surely, have been better able to deal with it, would’ve known where to slot both it and Zeus in relation to himself.

Now, he didn't, and since everyone had calmed down by now, he left for a nice grassy cliff further up the mountain. He needed some peace and quiet anyway, and so what if this was a little like retreating? He just… needed some time. Of course, while Rhea didn’t stop him, Hestia came running after him. Hades caught her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead, then turned her back around and continued alone.

It wasn't until a handful of weeks later, close to their leaving, that Hades got a better sense of what to do with both himself and Zeus. Zeus, who’d been disappearing for the better part of the day the last two days, and Demeter was so suspicious it was only Hestia's quiet words urging patience, if not trust, that kept things from exploding. Poseidon didn't care - or if he cared, it’d been turned into aggressive non-caring ("Zeus can do whatever he wants, why should I care?"). Hera wasn’t present to have an opinion, gone to Oceanus and Tethys since a couple days by now, but Hades imagined she would both be suspicious and pleased by Zeus' lack in presence in equal measure, since it would mean he'd have less opportunity to boss her around.

... Hades missed her more than he thought he would, for she's`d been a constant presence, much like Hestia and Demeter, since he'd fallen into the crushing pit of their father's insides with them. It felt like something was missing without her, for all of her jagged parts, but that didn't make having sent her away any less of a good decision. Hestia was deeply unhappy about it, still, though, and there was nothing to do about that other than, perhaps, distraction. He didn't get a chance to set that thought into action as Zeus came up to him, late morning sunlight pouring down on them all where they were scattered around outside their cave hideaway.

"Come with me."

Hades stared up at Zeus, feeling a bubble of exasperation edging into offended incredulity for what was plainly just a straight-up order.

Grunting, he contemplated ignoring Zeus entirely - Poseidon was smirking at him from the shadows of the cave mouth, smugly amused Hades had just been treated to the same assumption the rest had at some point. But, he couldn't say he wasn't curious. Zeus had been disappearing, and while this might not be related to that, if it was... Well, he’d asked only Hades to come with him, and didn't even seem to be waiting for either a reply or Hades actually coming with him, as he was already crossing the meadow.

So Hades contemplated remaining here, distracting Hestia like he’d intended, just to show Zeus he couldn't just order him around.

Hades' curiosity won out.

He followed Zeus halfway across Crete in quick, flickering steps, eating up miles and miles of ground with each. They ended up at the outskirts of Knossos, and Hades was practically slapped in face and essence both with the crowd, the joyful-solemn exuberance of so many humans. Almost, he shied back. Almost, he turned back entirely - his siblings and mother were one thing, to be around them all the time. Even with their presences and essences more or less unwieldy and wild as they learned and grew, Hades was reasonably comfortable with them. This was something else entirely, despite that they were only mortals. There were a lot of them, though.

Zeus paused for the first time to look over his shoulder, and there was something fleeting - a tension, maybe - in his eyes that evaporated the lingering offence of Zeus ordering him to come with him. Whatever this was, it was important. It made up for both that as well as his own discomfort - mostly. Besides, Hades was starting to wonder if Zeus’ obnoxiously presumptive command at the moment might have at least partially been as much his natural behaviour as, maybe, nervousness.

Hades would, at this time, withhold judgement until later.

"Coming, still?" Zeus asked, and Hades drew himself up, nodding tightly and caught up to Zeus. Feeling terribly put out that Zeus had noticed his hesitation. On the other hand, he hadn't called it out, or given any possible reason for it, fake or actual, and that was a relief.

"Why are we here?" Hades leaned in close to Zeus even if he knew they would be unheard if they didn't wish to be heard. He just didn't quite trust his own powers yet, and so took extra precaution. Zeus glanced down and smiled, wide and easy. Still, there was that fleeting tension, like a bird passing across the sun, in his eyes again. What reason Zeus would have to be concerned in the middle of a crowd of celebrating mortals was a mystery.

Something that wasn’t a mystery at all and more of an aggravation was that Zeus had to look down to meet his gaze. It rankled. It didn't feel quite right that Hades both looked two or three years younger and was shorter than Zeus. It just didn’t feel natural. He could only hope that when he finally settled he would gain both height and years. The problem was that just because he should be older than Zeus didn't mean he would necessary be taller than him in the end. But he had hope of it, if only for a petty wish to force Zeus to look up while he threw his orders around. Make him work a little for it.

"I've been participating in these celebrations since I was little," Zeus said, watching the humans around them, the street, the flower garlands strung between buildings and around windows as they wound their way up towards the palace's festival grounds. "I thought you should see."

See what? And why only him?

Hades frowned, wondering why not the rest of them as well? Wouldn’t this be the perfect moment to give them all a chance for insight into their little-and-older brother, who’d lived eighteen years out of their father's sight and one under it, serving him his cups until there was opportunity to strike. But no, instead there was only Hades here. In the end, he didn't ask why that was so, if only because he didn’t feel like fighting against Zeus’ determination to “show” him… and maybe it wouldn’t help whatever that tension was that he kept seeing flashes of, either. Hades didn’t actually want to make Zeus more uncomfortable.

They reached the festival grounds then, festooned with garlands of flowers. There was a bull at one end, still tied, and there was a handful of young boys and girls at the other. Zeus gave him another smile, too toothy to be easily confident, and Hades opened his mouth – snapped it closed as he watched Zeus wave up to a little knot of men and women up on the balcony overhanging the grounds, wondering at the easy gesture and the faint tension he could absolutely see wrapping like morning mist around Zeus’ back. Despite that, his little brother walked off with all apparent confidence to join those youths, leaving Hades standing in the shadow of a pillar and the overhanging, wrap-around balcony above.

Bull leaping.

Hades watched, and did not understand the point. It seemed recklessly dangerous as the young humans - looking no older than he or Zeus appeared to be - took their turns over, next to, the bull. They’re mortal, they could die so easily, be injured even easier, and the bull was huge and heavy.

The crowd was anxious, cheering, breathlessly tense.

And then, as Zeus stepped forward and the air around him was fire and light, flickering about his head and marking him for what he was, it was clear everyone saw it, too. Hades stared, dumbfounded, while the humans around him fell silent. Reverent and anticipating, all the way down to the land.

The land.

Crete itself was solemnly quiet, waiting for something, deep down into the foundations of the island. What was Zeus even doing? What was the point of this?

Zeus made one leap, and the crowd drew a breath. Held it, the only noise the thunderous echo of the bull’s hooves.

The second---

There was no second.

The wailing started even before Zeus let the bull run him down, staring straight at the animal, head raised, expression determined, lips pressed thin. Hades felt the impact of solid bull against what should be too-solid immortal body in his bones, his very divinity. There were broken bones and spilled ichor, and this shouldn't even be possible. Whatever he thought, Crete turned flush and heavy with life under Hades' feet as it soaked up the ichor, the trace amounts of fleeing divine magic.

But there was a reason their father had swallowed them young. Gods did not die, not as such, not easily. But there were a few, small, ways they could be killed. There were also a few, small ways they could survive such attempts on their existence.

Hades stared as the singing and wailing crowd lead the bull away while Zeus came to stand in front of him, ichor-spattered and bruises already quickly fading from where there'd been broken bones protruding from his smooth skin just moments earlier.

Hades stared, breathless and furious.

"How long has this been going on?"

Did that matter? He didn't know. He had to ask it anyway.

"Since I was nine," Zeus said with a shrug, nonchalant, but the eyes locked on to Hades’ were heavy like a waiting storm. "I think Crete deserves it."

Arrogant, obnoxious Zeus was standing here and telling him I think Crete deserves it, and the land under their feet was swollen with divine essence, bled straight out of Zeus' young, immortal body.

Hades did not want to see this. Did not want to know this. But...

"Don't think you can do that later," Hades said, staring hard at Zeus, at the spatter of drying ichor, turning bronze-tinged as it coagulated from its liquid gold, then finally started to flake off. Hades imagined the hot fury of his stare made the ichor dry faster, until the only traces of it left was sticking to Zeus' kilt.

"If I have to, I will." Zeus met Hades' eyes with his chin, nose, raised, as if this was a question of superiority. As if he hadn't just said I think Crete deserves it, and Hades understood what else Zeus was saying.

Because this was Zeus revealing he was entirely willing to bleed himself out to win, to keep them all safe, and Hades understood the other part of why he was the only sibling here to see this. Zeus knew he was the only one of their siblings who would (unfortunately) understand this in a way that might be useful. The realization aged him about a hundred years in a second and he had to suppress a groan. Perhaps now he matched the age he should be - he didn't have a clue - but more importantly at least his stupid little brother realized someone ought to know of this terribly dumb impulse Zeus harboured.

And no, it didn't matter that Zeus had lived more years physically, he was definitely the younger one between them, and he was most definitely stupid. He needed someone to look after him. Well then, Hades would do precisely that. (Hadn’t that been what he’d wanted, in some way, anyway?)

"You won't have to," Hades said, pronouncing it with graven face and grave weight, all his divinity behind that statement, and neither of them acknowledged the trust given, the vulnerability shown. Hades settled into a sense of long-suffering exasperation as Zeus smirked, gray eyes twinkling.

"Relax, Hades."

It would carry him far as the years passed.

Chapter Text

Poseidon was aware of crying before he was even fully out in the world, and he screamed in confused, protesting defiance for it.

He wasn't something to cry over!

A hand caught him, gently pulling him out the last little bit, and the gasping cries and hiccuping tears turned to pleading. Pleading in among a metallic jingling, jarring into clanking every other moment.

Poseidon fell quiet, frowning up into blue, narrow eyes, dark with some emotion while the giant fingers feel him out, following tiny, perfect limbs. Almost distracted, another jarring jangle drew Poseidon’s attention and he twisted around in the huge hand to see chains, to see his mother trying to reach for him but unable to, so tightly did the golden chains hold her.

The room was fairly swathed in them in service of chaining down a goddess who ought not to be able to be chained, her nature against such things. That wasn’t right. Twisting around again to stare up at his father, Poseidon yelled once more, but for another reason entirely, and bit the nearest finger. It availed him little. He was too small, too soft, too weak. And yet, if his mother couldn't protect him, he would have to do it himself.

But he couldn't do that yet, no matter how he struggled, and so Kronos swallowed him.

At least the landing was gentle, though he quickly squirmed away from the hands holding him, deciding he would need no help, even less from the nearby presences warm and encompassing in a way similar to his mother.

It wasn't a decision much changed later, though a lot less later than for his other siblings, when they were finally free of their father's crushing insides. Rhea reached for him after finally having let go of Hades, her hands trembling much like they’d done back then. He let her. He held her by the hips and let her touch, stretching up to kiss her cheek when she bent down to practically swallow him in her embrace, but they were perfunctorily gestures. She hadn’t been able to protect him, and doubtfully would be able to do so now either, and they both knew it.

Poseidon didn't hate her, however. Maybe he resented her a little, but it was a fleeting feeling. Mostly he pitied her, his poor mother, remembering the chains he'd seen, how small she'd seemed among them, no matter that she towered over him where she was standing in front of him, large arms wrapped around him, and might still do so even when he's grown.

She could not protect him, and so he did not trust her.

Did he trust his little brother? Poseidon wasn't sure. Zeus had lived a year under Kronos for an opportunity to rescue them and had accomplished it. Zeus had also picked them all up, waited until they were all out, and had left only after that, with all five siblings in his arms when it was clear they wouldn't be able to escape by themselves, not immediately anyway. So he might trust him, for at least Zeus had been able to do something their mother hadn't.

It was just that Zeus was obnoxiously tall, and looked unfairly so many years older. It honestly angered Poseidon, and even more so that Zeus looking like that brought a vague sense of safety, even now that they're here on Crete and he did not need Zeus to carry him any longer and he was getting older, if not quickly enough. He should be older than Zeus! He should be - hopefully will be - taller than him! That he wasn't aggravated Poseidon something fierce, chafed against him in new, unfamiliar ways. Besides that, Zeus' presumptive command of the space around him as well as his words, and the assumption that what he was saying was of course right was even worse.

Like right now.

They were sitting in a circle, huddled up in a cave on Mount Dikte. There was only the six of them, Rhea having reluctantly left for the moment, to make sure the false trail Metis was leading would keep them safe.

They were all eyeing each other, no one speaking up. Of course there was reason for that, since it'd been two days, if that, since they were brought here. They've all just barely settled enough to have actual ages, to walk without stumbling over their own feet, to breathe the chilly spring air in the two mornings since and marvel over it. Not that Poseidon would admit that that was what he'd been doing, but at the very least he wasn't alone in doing so.

But all of that, as necessary as it'd been to happen and still was, because none of them were as old as they ought to be, meant they were ignoring important matters. Avoiding them, perhaps for fear that thinking too hard about them would draw attention to them somehow. But not talking about them won’t help anything. What they needed to do was to settle what needed to be done, because all of them surely knew they couldn't stay here, hiding, for the rest of eternity. So finally Poseidon grunted as he looked up from the flames of the fire they were sitting around.

"We need to kill him," he said, proclaimed, honestly, his voice filling the cave, the fire flickering from the nascent weight of his words. Not enough, but it felt pretty good. "It's not like he's going to just let us be."

"Of course we need to kill him," Zeus said, annoyance or condescension in every line of his body, heavy in his voice, and Poseidon glowered at him from across the fire, drawing breath and anger both, but Zeus continued, voice ringing brightly around the fire and against the rocks. "But it's going to be a war, against all of the Titans who don't join us, not just a fight against our father for our right to stay alive. It won't be that easy."

They all - except Zeus - flinched when he called Kronos that, when he acknowledged who and what that Titan god was to them. Poseidon gritted his teeth, hands tightening into fists. He couldn’t be flinching like that just for their father being named their father! He was, had to be, strong. No one else was going to be so for him, for relying on rescues would undoubtedly mean disappointment at some point. Zeus might have rescued them once, but Poseidon didn't want that vague sense of safety into something he depended on. Even if Zeus might honestly intend to always be there to provide a rescue, Poseidon didn’t want it. He was, should be, older! He shouldn't be depending on anyone at all, even less someone that should be younger than he was. So seeing this brat, the youngest of them regardless of how many physical years he'd lived outside of their father's stomach, unflinching in the face of reality grated on him just as much as his own reaction had.

"So we hit first, and fast, and get him out of the---"

"We need to plan, and prepare," Zeus said loudly, both interrupting Poseidon and talking over him, his gray eyes dark, "Metis knows what she's doi---"

"Oh, you're listening to Metis? What does she know?" Poseidon scoffed, incredulous.

Metis? One of the Titans? How could he trust she wouldn't betray them, just because he loved her, just because she’d helped their mother escape? How could he trust her when the woman who should most reliably have protected them hadn't been able to? Zeus flushed, teeth gritted and bared as he glowered at him. Poseidon smirked, soaking both Zeus’ anger and his own sense of satisfaction up. At least it all felt very satisfying until voices rose again, but this time it wasn't Zeus who spoke up.

"Shut up, Poseidon!" Hera piped up, small and furious where she was perched on a stone Hestia had to put her on after she protested sitting in Hestia's lap. Despite that she was clutching one of Hestia's hands, her chubby toddler legs swinging against the rock as she smacked her heels against her seat. He'd thought it would be Zeus, rushing in to defend his lover, the way he'd looked, still did, but no. It was Hera, but not only Hera.

"Why wouldn't she know?" Demeter huffed, eyes narrow as she stared at Poseidon from his right. "She's clearly smart."

For a moment Poseidon was flabbergasted that any of his other four siblings wouldn't be on his side since they were the ones who had suffered the most here. All of them have been kept in limbo, squashed small and unable to grow as they should have, because of their father. Why were they siding with Zeus when he was advocating to wait to take their revenge. Advocating trusting a Titan that wasn't their mother, as little as Poseidon wanted to trust Rhea. She was still their mother, and he didn’t think she would give them over to their father, not after going through this effort; that was just ridiculous. But she hadn't been able to protect them, so why would she be able to do so now?

No one else seemed to see it that way, though, for Hera's little face was scrunched up from brows to chin and Demeter was staring at him with her brown eyes hard and narrowed. Hestia didn’t say anything, but even her soft, genial face was drawn.

"More than that, she's cunning," Hades said, frowning a little. "Has been able to trick Kronos several times, now."

Demeter nodded, looking to Hades with a pleased lightening to her expression and Poseidon rolled his eyes, but he settled, grumbling. He could guess where this was going, though it was an alien realization; Demeter would only get angrier if he continued to insist that they shouldn't listen to Metis because she was... well. She. A her. Poseidon still thought it was only smart to be wary, even if Metis had managed to both help spirit Rhea out of Mount Othrys and devise the drug that Zeus served Kronos to vomit them back up.

"Exactly." Zeus smiled at both Demeter and Hades, pleased and soft-eyed, and Poseidon suppressed a scoff only by Hades tipping a look his way, shaking his head slightly. Calling Zeus out on being in love and that being the reason why he trusted and listened to Metis would only have them arguing again. But maybe Poseidon wanted that, wanted a fight. Especially a fight with Zeus, because that'd be easier than having to admit that being in love wasn't Zeus' whole and entire reason for listening to Metis. He listened to her because she was capable, smart, and cunning, but to Poseidon, wasn't that all the more reason not to trust her, then?

He just didn't like leaning on anyone else, even barely his own siblings, and Metis seemed barely better than Rhea in this case. Zeus excluded out of that 'barely' just yet, despite the proof of what he'd already done to help them.

And, though he wasn't going to say so unless there was an opportune moment where it might fit and be convincing, that 'barely' towards his siblings, especially some of them in particular, started to slide more and more towards 'not' as the days after their escape turned into weeks.

Not because there was anything wrong with them, not because he was learning things that made him think he couldn’t trust them. No, it wasn’t anything like that.

All of them except Hera had settled into some age that, if not enough for them to be ready for battle, would soon take them there. None of them, even Poseidon, who had to admit to some issues in that department, was younger than ten, and most days he could push between twelve-thirteen consistently. Hera couldn't even pretend towards a ten year old appearance for more than a couple hours at a time if at all. That, for all that Zeus being older rubbed Poseidon wrong, seemed just as wrong, but in a different way. Hera should be older than he was. She’d held him while they were being crushed, holding herself up above him when he needed respite and Hades needed more space. He, in turn, have shoved her as they've argued, in whatever fuzzy way such things worked in there, for it wasn't life as they were living now, but something more indistinct and unformed. Barely an existence that Poseidon now was already starting to be unable to comprehend. But they hadn't, either, been completely quiescent and unable to do nothing but focus on not being reabsorbed.

So it didn't seem right, that Hera was curled up between his legs, sleeping for a little bit with her head pillowed on his thighs as he combed a hand through her short cloud of curls. She was small, and soft, and vulnerable, and she shouldn't be. He knew he could rely on her, because he have had to do so before, but now? This little girl, divine or not, wouldn't be able to do what she did before. Not before she'd grown back into herself and the age that should be hers.

Poseidon didn't want to see her hurt, if she couldn't grow enough in time that she was still small when they launched their first attack. Something which he hoped would be soon, because he was practically itching for it. If they wait, what couldn’t Kronos have been able to do in the meantime to bring to bear against them? He also just wanted to punch their father in his stupid face and see him shocked the children he’d tried to reduce back to himself were now coming for him.

They could do none of that if they had to protect Hera, however.

"Here you are," Hestia said as she squatted down next to him, offering a bowl filled with pieces of ambrosia, and Poseidon almost jumped. He'd completely missed her not just leaving the cave, but crossing the little meadow out in front of it. Not because Hestia had no divine essence of her own, for she did. The more the days pass, the more it could be seen like a soft light just under her skin, shimmering about her hair and in her eyes, warm and bright. The difference to the other siblings was that Hestia’s was so subdued and soft it was easy to miss. Even little Hera, even Hades as reserved as he was, had more of a presence than the oldest-but-youngest of them did.

"Uh--- thanks," Poseidon grunted, a little awkward, but took the bowl easily enough. Hestia had gone from simply taking what supplies of refined ambrosia and nectar Rhea could bring and doling it out to doing her own thing with them. In the last couple days she’d started trying to further refine the raw versions they could more easily get their hands on, since that came from all of them in reaction to the world around them.

Maybe it wasn't necessary, to eat like this or to eat it more prepared, but it sure was enjoyable. It also made the cave and the arching, empty sky above them more tolerable.

"Make sure Hera eats some of that too," Hestia said with a little smile, reaching out to brush a hand over Hera's head, through her curls. So mindful of her comfort that she didn't wake her yet. Hestia was mindful of all of them, really, focusing on the cave, the fire, the loom she, Demeter and Rhea have built.

Comforts, not things like weapon or armour, none of which they have yet.

Not that those comforts were exactly unnecessary ones, but Hestia was the only one out of all six of them who had done no training towards actual fighting. Even Hera had, in the moments that she was old enough it was useful for her to do so and not just training to master her powers.

"Yeah, sure," Poseidon said, shrugging, because there was no reason not to. Hera could sleep a little longer, though. He paused right between sticking one of the ambrosia pieces in his mouth and Hestia getting to her feet again and looked up. "Do you think she'll catch up soon?"

Hestia, Poseidon was pretty sure, probably had the best idea out of all of them how they’re all doing, aside from their mother, and their mother was currently with Hades, so he couldn't ask her. Not when Hera was sleeping on his legs and he can simply ask Hestia, who was right there.

So maybe it wasn't just Hestia who was soft, but Hestia was a lot softer than he was, and he could afford to be soft right now. It wasn’t something he was all the time. Hestia, as she paused and looked down, warm brown eyes softening as her gaze fell on Hera, proved Poseidon's point. Proved it far worse when she answered.

"No," she said with a sigh, melancholy and maybe a little worried, but not concerned as such, "she won't. But it doesn't matter, we'll take care of her until she does."

Hestia smiled at him and went back to the cave, which meant Poseidon was free to grimace at her retreating back, his expression and thoughts unseen and unnoticed.

‘We’.

They couldn't afford that.

If Zeus have been right about anything at all so far, it was that this would be a war. Against any Titans that didn't join them, and most importantly against their father, the ruler of the sphere. There was no way they’d be able to afford to split attention and power in the way Hera would need! Hera wasn’t the only one, though.

Hestia would need it too, Poseidon was sure. She wasn't training to fight, not like Demeter was, and that was all well and good. Hestia could do as she liked, but if she wasn't going to fight she'd be as much of a liability as Hera was. They couldn't afford that, and more than that, Poseidon didn't think he should have to split himself like that. It’d risk both his own safety, the success of their future war, and everyone else’s safety, too.

If he couldn't trust them to even take care of themselves, how could he trust them to make sure they win?

His suggestion that Hera and Hestia - and Demeter, because Demeter could keep the other two safe - leave together when Zeus said Hera couldn't stay didn't go down as well as he thought it would, and it soured him. It was the obvious solution, and he didn't understand what Zeus thought Hestia would be able to do that’d be so necessary to the war effort she didn't have to leave if she didn't want to. What could she do, for herself and for them, while also not taking part in the fighting at all?

This was going to doom them all, and it was going to be Zeus’ fault, and he couldn’t even take pleasure in that for it wasn’t like he necessarily would survive if the others didn’t. Going off alone wasn’t an option either.

He said nothing about that, and neither Hestia nor Demeter left with Hera. That was bad enough, but on top of that he had to suffer Zeus' arrogant presumptions during the last couple days on Crete, as well as afterwards, while they holed up on Mount Ida in Asia while their mother checked out Mount Olympos.

At least, even with the questionable decisions he’d taken so far, Zeus, as obnoxious as he was, did not require any of Poseidon's help in anything or any way he wasn't already willing to give.

Zeus didn't need him to protect him, or provide for him, or guide him. He didn't need to rely on Poseidon, and that, no matter how annoying he was, made up for the rest a little. On the other hand it was weighed up against the fact that Zeus clearly didn't think he needed to listen, and he also just as clearly thought everyone else should listen to him. He was younger! It didn't matter that Zeus had lived more years physically, why should Zeus not listen to those of his siblings, and specifically himself, who were older than he was?

It was aggravating shortly after rescue, and it was aggravating now. No matter how sure he was that Zeus’ decisions about their sisters would end up spell disaster, that was in the future and Poseidon would rather have some proof of failing now rather than when it’s already too late. So he kept poking for soft spots. There had to be some that wasn’t his trust for Metis. Zeus wasn't perfect, and for all that he so far had shown that he might be capable enough he could be relied on in some things, Poseidon didn't trust that. Didn’t want to trust it. So he kept poking, and, more than that, he kept fighting with him. They'd be in a war soon enough, and if Zeus faltered for that, what was even the point, then?

Zeus was a good sparring partner, and an annoying opponent, because he won most of the time. Only because he was taller and stronger just yet, though, and Zeus wouldn’t always be either of those things. Poseidon's solution was just to fight him for longer and longer, especially after he did find something that he was pretty sure would be to Zeus' detriment; he didn't fight as dirty as he could.

So they'd been wrestling for hours, rolling around on a particularly grassy spot neat the cave they were currently hidden away in. He still couldn’t defeat Zeus, because even if Zeus didn't use his fingers or teeth when he could, he was relentless. Just refused to give up.

On the other hand, this time Zeus couldn't defeat him either, if only by a breath and copious luck... As well as Poseidon fighting the sort of dirty Zeus wouldn't use every time Zeus should've won. As frustrating as it is that he hadn’t won yet, it was also reassuring, in a strange way. Zeus was pissed off at his methods, demanding he stop and Poseidon refusing to listen. Zeus didn’t break off the fight, though; he just kept throwing himself back in to continue. Yet he didn't adapt said methods himself. It wasn’t like Zeus was stupid, Poseidon knew he was a quick study. So he didn't understand why Zeus just wouldn’t do what he was doing, and that just made him all the more determined to win, this time.

Hestia tried to call for them to stop, Demeter said they were being stupid, Hades had stood watching them for a while before he'd rolled his eyes and left, and yet they persisted. It’d been, what..? A couple hours, by now, but they are divine and tireless.

"Give up, curse it!" Poseidon grunted, breath strained less thanks to exertion and more because he needed to breathe to talk while he was also trying to do other things, other far more important things.

Zeus laughed, eyes bright and wild, the air around him light and dancing, as if he couldn't be run ragged or exhausted even aside from his immortal, divine nature. It was infuriating. It was, again, in some strange way reassuring, that persistence. It would be more reassuring if the idiot would fight as he could. As he should, because he really, really should.

"Never!" Zeus ducked, grappling him about the waist and they went down to the grassy ground once more, another in a row of uncounted such tumbles.

This time, though, Poseidon had an idea. Something that would hopefully let him win, because he was getting tired of this but he refused to just give up - and he could tell that if they kept doing this, Zeus would definitely win. He had more experience, he knew how to use his strength. But that was all. Poseidon refused to consider the possibility that his little brother should have more power than he. But aside from that it was clear that in order to win he'd have to lose.

Zeus would never see that coming, so faking a loss it was.

Poseidon wriggled, strained without pushing for another couple moments. Let Zeus trap him until he slumped to the ground with a sigh and patted it, scowling up at Zeus' triumphant expression. Smug fucker. It was hard to hold a grudge entirely, because there was no mocking in that triumph. It was just that Zeus was so overbearing in it it. Again, pissed Poseidon off as much as the fact that Zeus was - should be - younger and was so overflowing in his power when he should have been the one to have to fight to catch up.

"Well, finally."

Laughing again, Zeus got up and offered him a hand. For a beat, Poseidon stared at it, surprised to be offered it at all, reluctant to take it for reasons that had nothing to do with who was offering it. It was just a hand, though.

Finally he took it, and it didn't matter that his dominant hand was bound up in that grip as he got to his feet and promptly punched Zeus in the face, toppling him. He followed with his body, heedlessly throwing himself against Zeus, and after that, his trusting little brother so easily tricked, it wasn't hard to pin him down.

Easier, too, with unexpected added bulk as well as years, landing him just barely younger than Zeus himself currently was.

"What the--- Poseidon!" Zeus cursed, and now it was Poseidon’s turn to laugh. Surprisingly, while Zeus did struggle and could get nowhere at first, Zeus ended up laughing as well. Poseidon was nearly brought up short by the ringing sound, almost eased his grip up. He'd have been furious, if it had been him. "You're an asshole. Fuck you."

Zeus didn't sound particularly upset, though he was clearly annoyed despite his amusement. Poseidon laughed all the harder for it, surprised that it came out genuine. Finally, secure and smug in his definitive win and added years, Poseidon got off and up onto his feet. Offered Zeus a hand - ducked away from the punch thrown and yanked Zeus close, thumping their chests together and trapping him in a half-hug. Poseidon smirked, pleased to notice that while Zeus might be built broader than the rather more slimly built Hades, Poseidon was far heavier than he now that he’d gotten older.

"Nuh-uh. If you think you can use that trick I just used on you, you're stupider than you look. For being smart enough to trick our father, you can be really gullible," Poseidon said, eyebrow arched. The insult was soft, and Zeus, after bristling a moment, smiled lopsidedly.

Poseidon knew what was coming before Zeus opened his mouth and sighed, but bore it. He supposed Zeus deserved to say it.

"Metis knows what she's doing, Poseidon. She's taught me a lot."

Even the lyrical softening of Zeus' tone and expression didn't aggravate Poseidon right now, because if nothing else, Zeus didn't stop fighting. Not even when Poseidon had had him down, firmly pinned, had he stopped trying to fight.

So maybe, despite that he didn't fight as dirty as he could, should, Poseidon could rely on him a little.

Chapter Text

Zeus' first memories were of his mother's retreating back, and the warm arms of the nymph holding him. They were of the buzzing of bees and the taste and smell of honey and goat milk.

They were of being put into a crib and, as soon as eyes and backs were turned, hopping out to go sleep next to Amaltheia, ear and cheek pressed against her stomach - her presence was vast, for such a presumably simple animal, and Crete breathed with her. The memories were of the piercing cries and weapons' rattle of his nymph nurses' companions. Those made sure he wasn't heard the time he flew up and banged his head so hard on the cave's ceiling it crumbled, cracks spreading out across the ceiling and he shrieked, loud and childish, for the pain. They made sure he could run through the mountain forests of Mount Ida, through the meadows and across the streams, without being seen, longer legs, taller bodies around him, the flash of bronze from the spears and giant shields blinding in the light.

It should be simple; a warm, comfortable protection like any child should grow up with, meant to keep them safe from simple harms. But Zeus knew what his unknown and unseen father would do if he found him. Knew what he had done to his older siblings, knew what he was and had been doing to his mother from the few times through the years that she dared to come to see him. Not that Rhea would want him to know that, but Zeus, while young, was attentive.

Rhea's drawn expression came from the necessity of hiding, from running, ever a teasing lure for the wanting Kronos, but there was also loss in her cloudy eyes, carved around her eyes and mouth, and fear every time she touched him, clutched him close to her warm, soft body. He would make sure she wouldn't have to look or feel like that again. He'd make sure she'd get to hold his siblings again, he’d make sure Kronos won’t be left his apparent victory. Would make sure Kronos hadn't helped bring forth those unknown older siblings only to take them back for fear of what they might do. Ridiculous fear; it was just what all children at some point were supposed to do, wasn't it?

The Kouretes taught him their dance much like Ida and Adrasteia taught him other dances, less military in form during his first couple years. Zeus soaked it all up; dancing both let him express all that energy as well as being fun.

When he was six, he left Mount Ida for the first time.

His whole troupe of nurses and guards went to the spring celebration dedicated to his mother - under a name he didn't recognize her by - in Knossos. Their father was tall, with thick arms and a warm smile, eyes like the honey, and Zeus stopped worrying about the man his nurses have talked so sweetly of, but he hadn’t been able but to feel apprehensive about. It got even easier to trust at least a little when Melissus tried to stop him from jumping down onto the courtyard, citing safety. He would clearly prefer if Zeus stayed up on the balcony, stirring no more but an awed hush and stolen glances from the crowd below, for they could all see what he was. Zeus just can’t help himself, however.

Besides, shouldn’t they get to see what it was all the trouble was about? Should get to see that even gods had to grow up, were born with childish hearts and minds and needed protection? Should know who the Kouretes had been making the racket for through the last couple years, the racket they were falling into now as they stepped up into the dance played out on the courtyard beneath the royal balcony.

Zeus hadn't planned on joining, really, but everyone was quiet and tense and hushed, and he didn't like it. This should be a celebration, surely, not what almost seemed like mourning, and he wouldn't have it.

"Zeus!" Ida cried as he leaped down from the balcony, almost falling over the railing as she lunged after him, but he laughed, and the sound of it mas lost to the Kouretes' singing, to the stamping of their feet and the wild, rhythmic banging of swords against shields.

Someone handed him a long knife, another gave him a lid - it was a little insulting, but he wasn't tall enough, his reach not great enough, for the full-sized swords and large shields Paionios, Epimedes and Iasios were wielding. The knife and the lid would have to do for now. He leaped in to join them between one step and the next, raising his own voice, higher, lighter, sweeter, than the Kouretes' deeper cries.

This was probably reckless.

The whole of Knossos seemed to hold its breath for what might come next, and Zeus ignored the glares of his three guardians around. They didn’t stop singing or dancing, and they didn't need to stop.

Zeus went unheard.

And why wouldn’t he, among the noise the Kouretes were making? Soon the festival ground of the palace courtyard was lit with the light shimmering around Zeus' head, his locks swaying with every leaping step, and there was the smell of sweet spring flowers, thicker than before, from the garlands strung around columns and around the balusters of the balcony. Soon, as the dance wore on, the tension eased. Someone started clapping in time with the leaping beats of the dancers' feet, and then more took it up, a rumbling, echoing counterpoint to the ringing, rattling thump of weapons and feet.

Zeus smiled, wild, pleased, and even Epimedes cracked a reluctant little smile as Zeus looked up to meet each of the Kouretes' gaze in turn.

Afterwards, Adrasteia patted him down, squeezing his shoulders as if she wished to shake him but either couldn’t make herself or didn’t dare to. When she spoke, it sounded more like the hissing of a snake than an angrily upset nymph. "That was dangerous!"

Still, the next year Zeus joined them again, and the solemn, guarded mood during the dance fell away even quicker this time. It was fun, the dancing and singing. It sweetened the celebration back to what it should be. His mother deserved a happy and festive celebration, even if she couldn’t be there to see it, didn’t she? That was his firm conviction, and the spring festival stayed such for another two years, uncomplicated and happy.

Zeus was nine the first time he died.

Not that he knew that was what was going to happen when Gaia whispered to him that he should participate in the bull leaping from the shadow of the column behind him.

Iasios and Paionios were lounging against the next pillar over, splitting their time between watching the youths entertaining the crowd and, watchful always, looking around the courtyard as if they expected an assault. Zeus had been fascinated by the bull leaping from the first time he saw it at his first celebration, and had asked more than once if he couldn't participae. 'When you're older, maybe', had been the predictable answer, as Zeus, annoyed but not so rebellious had subsided with that.

But not even the authority of Melissus as Crete's king stood over that of Gaia herself, now did it?

"It will keep you safe for a while longer yet, for you're growing stronger by the day, Kronides," Gaia murmured, her voice a deep, trembling echo in his bones, but also the fragile rustle of the breeze in his hair and in the flowers strung around the grounds. "The Kouretes and your nurses can't hide you forever, and this will make you harder to find."

"... How?" Zeus whispered, though it was clear he could probably have shouted and Paionios and Iasos wouldn't have heard him right now. That should probably have been a warning sign, and if Zeus was older, if he was more experienced, he might have known not to go along with this. But he trusted Gaia. She had helped his mother give birth to him secretly and helped make sure Kronos would see nothing but a baby when he swallowed the rock Rhea had swaddled as a substitute for Zeus.

"You're already tied to Crete, but not deeply enough. Engaging in this part of the celebration will make sure some part of you joins the land," Gaia said and gave him a little push. Zeus staggered forward and caught himself, but didn’t stop. Instead he quickened his lengthening his steps as he ran out of the shadow cast by the balcony and dashed through the crowd. Behind him, Paionios and Iasos shout at him to come back, and further down through the crowd, where Epimedes was coming back with Ida and Adrasteia, there was more yelling.

Zeus didn't listen.

None of the youths arranged to meet the bull dared to stop him, and Zeus didn't let any of his guardians reach him before he threw himself at the bull, too giddy at getting to do this thing which he’d wanted to try since he was six.

It wasn’t like it was hard, for it was a leap he easily made.

Should have made.

Instead the ground jerked under his feet at the same time as he leaped, and the air itself slammed against him, thickening like the sky before a storm. The bull wheeled, bronze-hooved, bronze-horned. Its heavy head cracked full into Zeus' side and he fell heedlessly to the ground. Even if a nine year old god weighed more than a nine year old mortal, the bull was a bull and it weighed like Crete itself.

Zeus had no air to cry out, had no voice, had no chest.

The earth swallowed him, rose up to embrace his aching, empty body while he was still lying on sun-drenched, hard-packed earth in a flower-festooned courtyard.

He could feel himself, and he could feel Crete. The earth was soft and rich, becoming richer as he fell through it, trying to reach for the surface, for the sun, touching only the roots of growing corn and fruit trees, touching only underground springs until there was nothing to touch but mist.

At least nothing hurt any more.

It was dark, clammy, and cold however, and Zeus found little interest in staying where he’d landed when he got his breath back. So he started walking, but he had no idea of where to go. It was tiring – far more tiring than anything he’d ever done before, but whenever he sat down, afraid and lonely, he was soon back onto his feet. No matter how tired he was and no matter how little he knew where to go, he didn't belong here. That was reassuring, and somehow gave Zeus a trickle of awareness of the direction he needed, slowly walking upwards. At least when he could find a sense of direction, anyway. It was hard to even know where you needed to go when you didn’t know where you were, and there was no one to ask. Even when he could see better, the shadows he glimpsed avoided him, and he couldn't understand the whispers he sometimes heard.

He understood where he was, but also why he didn’t belong; the bull might have killed his physical shell, but it hadn't killed him, and not enough of him had bled out into Crete for his essence to have scattered too much. It wasn’t death such as a mortal would’ve experienced, and so Zeus walked, through clammy mist and over marshy ground, the darkness heavy but not impenetrable.

When he woke up three days later, rejoining the majority of his essence with his body where it was laid out on its richly carved tomb slab with a seizing jolt, Gaia was right there. She picked him up in great, all-embracing arms, ignoring his trembling and butterfly-heaving chest. She carried him out into the sun and sat down, combing earth-smelling fingers through his hair until he could stop hyperventilating as if he needed to breathe and couldn't remember how to.

He wished it was his mother here, holding him, her hand in his hair, not Gaia.

For a while, those hands was all he could feel and he hated it. Anything would be better than that. The light was blinding, Gaia’s presence overwhelming, and, beyond that… Crete was flush under, before him. That was Zeus' first, real sensation that wasn't Gaia and he latched onto it with all he had. It brought some calm to his still-whirling essence, something to focus on that wasn’t the deity that’d practically killed him herself. Rich-smelling earth, far heavier with corn and potential fruit than it had been a couple days ago was stretched out all around him. Heavier and richer than it had been before he bled, and Zeus paused at that realization. Whether this would keep him safe or not, it had at least benefited Crete itself.

Zeus blinked, digging his fingers into the earth and grass around him, flexing them there and then tipped his head back and met Gaia's dark brown eyes, shot through with lighter flecks, like honey or pale bark lit by sunlight.

He hated her.

"Thank you, Grandmother Gaia," Zeus said as if he didn't actually hate her now, as if he had no reason to hate her fingers in his hair, the sturdy, soft offering of her thighs propping him up, the sweet shadow she cast over him as she looked down.

If nothing else she was still here when he woke up, and took him out of the dank-smelling cave the tomb was in. But he hated her, even if this was necessary. He wasn’t sure if it truly had been, but even if it was, he hated her, hated that she didn't warn him, hated that she didn't explain anything at all of what would happen to him, and he certainly no longer trusted her. He would listen to nothing Gaia had to say from hereon out, unless it was prophecy or something of similar weight and import.

Zeus went back to Mount Ida as soon as he could move again, though his steps turned slower and slower the closer he came to the cave that had been his home for nine years. There were no Kouretes around, and the air was so still and quiet it seemed like there was no one at all around and his heart, which couldn't stutter, did so anyway. Then Amaltheia bleated, and Zeus stopped there, on the flat ground before the cave, and tears well up.

"Zeus!" Ida cried, joined by Adrasteia as they come running out of the cave and he tried to swallow his tears, tried to straighten up and raise his chin, but the second one sweet-smelling set of arms was around him and pulled him close, he was crying.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry--- she told me, told me, that I should---"

It was a bad excuse, and Zeus jumped as Adrasteia pulled him away from Ida, clasping him by the cheeks to turn him around to face her. Now, he was surely going to be scolded and he would deserve it, too, for Adrasteia’s expression was fierce and her eyes burned.

"Don’t be sorry," Adrasteia hissed, shaking him a little by her grip, then embracing him in turn, while Ida threw her arms around both of them. Not wanting to be left out, Amaltheia pressed her horned head against Zeus' side. "You're young, Zeus. Of course you'd listen to Gaia. We were hoping to wait until you were older, and hoping something like this might not be necessary at all."

Oh.

He sniffled, then buried his face against Adrasteia's soft bosom and resolved this would be the last time he was so trusting. Resolved that it would be the last time someone had to console him like this. At least it wasn't for nothing, this whole, awful thing, but he could care less about it keeping him safe, honestly. It seemed far more important that this had helped Crete, which had been sheltering him since he was born, at great risk.

For that, if nothing else, he would do it again.

Zeus ended up unable to sleep in the cave, when it was finally time to retreat to it as the day died. Couldn't even step inside, especially not when the disappearing sun made the shadows inside all the deeper. It made him think of those three days when he was lost, and fighting to go back. He slept outside instead, under the leaves and stars, for nearly a full year. It was a little like when he was a baby, sneaking out to rest his head against Amaltheia's furry hide and warm side and with the sound of buzzing bees in his ears.

When the spring celebration came again, he joined the dance, threw himself into it with abandon he’d never really felt before. Because he knew what would come next, if not that very day; the next day was full of dancing and feasting around the xoanon the Knossians call by his mother’s name.

The day after that... He almost froze at the edge of the crowd gathering for the bull leaping, but after taking a breath Zeus forced his feet to move.

At least he knew what was coming, this time.

No one yanked the ground out from under him, and he made five whole leaps in defiance of it all before he let the inevitable happen. Not because he necessarily needed to, but for Crete. This was for Crete, and therefore it was worth it. That was what made it easier this time, and it didn't take him three days to go back. It took him hours, the mist barely reaching insubstantial fingers to embrace him before he was rising, determined.

The year after that it took him no time at all, and the mourners had no body to carry. He liked it better that way. The tomb was creepy.

Later, when Zeus had had years more of growing and it was time to start doing something about his father, the tomb had become amusing and the deaths, as always, were for Crete, and only for Crete. He didn't want to attach any part of that to Gaia, and so he didn't. Fifteen years after he was born Rhea introduced Metis to Zeus, giving him another teacher. Metis, who became far more than that, and at the spring celebration the year after, that second day became a lot more special to him. Those couple years were far too short and few, but on the other hand Zeus was eager to do something about his father, and so he was eighteen when he attended his last spring celebration, Metis by his side the whole way.

She waited a short distance away as he said his goodbyes to the Kouretes and daughters of Melissus, sitting facing the ocean while Zeus crossed the little meadow, Amaltheia trotting along by his side. All of them were definitely pretending like there were no tears threatening to fall, but Zeus could at least pride himself that for him, they were very unlikely to spill over.

"This is for you," Zeus said, smiling at his nurses before he glanced down to Amaltheia. She cocked her head and then sighed loudly, but he could feel her content agreement. He slid a hand along the horn closes to him a couple times, and then snapped it clean off.

"Zeus! What are you doing! How can you---"

"It's all right, Ida," he said with a shake of his head, serious and relaxed while he rubbed the broken nub of horn to make sure it really didn’t bleed and then cleaned out the broken-off horn. "Amaltheia wouldn't have let me do it if she wasn't fine with it. Here."

He held the horn out, and finally Adrasteia who took it after the two nymphs spent several moments glancing at each other, dubious and frowning. She turned it around in her hands, much larger now than it was on Amaltheia’s head, and then tipped it over. Grapes and pomegranates spilled out, grain following after like a golden waterfall, and the nymphs gasped.

"Whatever you might need from it, it will give you," Zeus said, "much like you did for me."

He immediately turned and strode over to the Kouretes, for no matter his certainty before, if he lingered any longer he actually would cry. That would just be embarrassing. He clasped their hands and pressed his forehead to each of theirs in turn. His hands now matched theirs in size, and he was taller than even Paionios.

Zeus left Crete without looking back, and Metis got him into Mount Othrys and his father's confidence. Not that there was much trust he needed to gain there, for Kronos was sure he had nothing to fear. Well, let him think that. He would know what fear was, soon enough. Not soon enough for Zeus' taste, as soon as he realized Rhea had stopped running from his father and had even returned to Mount Othrys a little before he arrived. As relieved as he was - though he wouldn't admit to it - for her presence, seeing his mother sit stiffly, her gaze distant, next to Kronos infuriated him. Determination and cold anger propelled him through the year, kept his hands graceful and patient around the decanters and cups instead of reaching for weapons that would do little anyway.

Only Metis' encouragements and cooling advice kept him from acting sooner, from making sure Rhea wouldn't have to suffer Kronos any longer than she already had.

Silently, Zeus wondered if there would be anything of his siblings left to save, after so long. It wasn't like anyone else had done something like this before, and they have no idea how it worked on divine essences, even less those as young as his siblings'.

Not that it mattered if there wasn't anything left; the attempt would be made. For his mother's sake, and for his siblings themselves, too. They deserve that much.

So Zeus tried to be patient. It was just that he couldn't tell what Metis and Rhea had him waiting for.

He couldn't tell, that was, until one evening where Kronos took the cup he was handing him without looking either at him or the cup, and Zeus realized that this was the first time that had happened. His unknowing father was paying no attention at all as he sipped from the nectar, and Zeus stared, feeling spellbound somehow. Slowly, he looked up, past Kronos where he was stretched out on the couch, to Rhea on the other side of him. After a year, her spine was still as stiff as ever even if she was seated as close to him as any wife should be. Gray eyes met and his mother smiled faintly, more in the shift and light in her eyes than any movement around her lips. Zeus didn't even do that much, but the tension he’d been carrying in his shoulders and spine for so long slid down to settle in his gut like ice melting from a mountain glacier in spring, heavy and overflowing.

It was time.

Zeus, even as eager as he was, didn't immediately rush over to Metis. Or well, he did, but not for the reason of getting the emetic she'd made, unless she might think it would be time to use it. He could see it go either way; act now, when there were so many in attendance, which was both a risk and an opportunity, or act later, tomorrow morning, perhaps, when there would be less Titans present. Mount Othrys' megaron only had one entrance and exit, which wasn't ideal for a quick escape, which was another thing to consider, too. This feasting hall had one long wall open to the air, columns the only thing interrupting the stunning view of the night sky outside. Whatever happened from here on, the need to celebrate this step was too great and he needed to do something. Zeus leaned towards his father, this awful, overmastering ruler of their sphere, and didn't take his decanter to smash it in Kronos' face for having a hand on Rhea's knee.

"Can you spare me a moment, my lord?"

His father didn't even look at him, flicking his fingers out from the grip on his cup in silent agreement, and Zeus, at least, did not need to make any pretence about what he was doing or who he was going to.

He and Metis had been hiding their relationship in the beginning, but halfway through the year Metis had decided it might be worth the risk of exposing themselves, and since Kronos had been terribly amused by the idea that the otherwise so cunning and calculating Metis seemed to have fallen so hard for a pretty, young and youthful lesser god that she'd just had to introduce him at court and get her lover (husband) a position, it'd worked out fine. Better than fine, probably, since that made more than just Kronos stop wondering why, and how, about Zeus' being in the palace.

Zeus crossed the floor with thoughtless eagerness, and quite rudely but uncaring shoved himself in beside Metis in the dance, smirking at the huff from Theia. Mnemosyne, on the other side of Metis, only laughed and quickly pulled Theia away, leaving him and Metis alone for the moment. Not that they were the only ones here, for the hall was full, but it mattered little. What mattered was Metis' hand in his, her glittering blue eyes and soft brown hair, the tilt of her smile.

"Did you see?" he whispered, leaning in, up, to kiss the corner of her mouth. He was taller now, and while he might yet end up taller than her by chance and Metis certainly wasn't as tall as his mother, she was not among the shortest of Titanides, either.

"I did, I did." Metis voice was sing-song, the smile almost sweet, but there was a downright vicious edge to the light in her eyes. She squeezed his hand and reached to take his other one, changing their dance into something more intimate. "And I see you have understood, too."

Zeus beamed, pleased to have pleased her with his understanding. He must have been a terror this past year, but with no precise explanation, what else could have been expected? On the other hand, he probably would have scoffed and not thought waiting for this moment would have been worth it. He would still have done it, deferring to Metis' cunning and Rhea's will, but he wouldn't have believed it was necessary. He could see now, from Kronos' nonchalance having turned his presence and his service into something near invisible, that it had been necessary. The complete and utter surprise from an attack would afford them more time to act, for it wouldn't be understood to be coming from Zeus immediately.

"Tonight?" he asked, then paused before continuing. "Or tomorrow?"

He wanted it to be tonight, but he was yet not so certain of which of the options would be best. He just hoped Metis wouldn't think it far better to wait longer still, just to ensure Kronos really did not expect anything. Not that he'd necessarily been expecting anything from anyone, not even Zeus, before this, but he'd been more aware of him up until now.

"Tonight," Metis said quietly, shaking her head. "Perhaps it would serve to wait, but the longer we wait the less we can be sure your siblings will be fine."

Would they, though? He hoped so, but... The oldest of his siblings, Hestia, would have been inside their father for quite a long time by now. It wasn't, after all, just the nineteen years it'd taken him to grow up and get here that his older siblings had been inside Kronos. The doubts crept back in, though Zeus only nodded firmly. Tonight, then. That was all they could do, and after that, when his siblings were all out and had settled, they could do something about Kronos. It wasn't as if he was going to leave them be just because his children were now free of him. No, that would be all the more reason to come after them, since that was several times more the chance for the fulfillment of the prophecy he'd tried to avoid.

"Be as quick as you can, love," Metis whispered as she leaned in, kissing his ear and then, because she was terrible and they were making sure no one wanted to look or listen too closely to them, she nibbled on his earlobe, drawing a rumbling moan he just barely locked in his chest from Zeus. "And do not look back, do not wait for either of us. We will come when we can. Rhea will most probably be waiting for you."

They twirled and he dipped her, Zeus kissing Metis while she was bent over. He clutched her hand, her waist, with no little force, desperate like a young fawn struggling for its legs to trip along after its mother and quite ruining his show of bravado so far. Luckily Metis only met that with a fierce kiss of her own, and when he yanked her upright and they parted, in the dip between two of his fingers there was a small, just barely coagulated drop of something nestled.

He knew what to do with that.

Zeus passed Rhea on the way back to his post, and his chosen greeting was a tip of his head along with a low-lidded flash of a smile that had Kronos snorting when he came back and picked up the partially full jug.

"Bold, and stupid. My wife would hardly be interested in a slip of a boy like you." Kronos smirked at him, full-toothed and condescending, then drained his cup. He immediately held it out, and Zeus could only hope Metis' drop of potion had already dissolved into the nectar.

He didn't dare look - couldn't look, for that would look strange. Only poured the cup full and ignored the squeezing clench of his stomach with the awareness that there was a thin layer of nectar still left at the bottom of the decanter. What if that was where the emetic had all been left? What if too little had dissolved in time, leaving his father feeling queasy, but not forcing him, down into his very essence, to empty himself? What if--- Zeus, his hands tight on the jug and forcing himself to ease up on that grip, watched Rhea trail across the floor towards the side open to the air, stopping here and there for conversation. Seemingly unconcerned and aiming for nothing more but a breath of fresh air.

"Oh, I know, my lord," Zeus said with a shrug, pouting ridiculously; he knew it made him look younger. "She's made that plenty clear, but you have very good taste and I can't help but hope to tempt her."

Metis was already gone, Zeus noted when he stole a glance around. He couldn't catch sight of her anywhere in the hall. That was good, but it would have been reassuring with a last glimpse of her.

"Maybe if she was still as fond of drinking and feasting as she seemed to have been before I came here, I might have been able to trick her into indulging me." Perhaps he was going too far. The aim was to distract his unknowing father, not invite him to a fight - not that Zeus didn't want to fight him, but he needed him to drink, not to wish to punch his cupbearer in the face. Kronos turned a sharp, blue eye towards him, looking him up and down.

"Like I said," he said, amused, and a dangerous sneer colouring his voice as well as his face and the glitter in his eyes, "you're a child, boy. Metis might enjoy the pleasures of a willowy youth, callow and eager to learn and not mind your fumblings, but Rhea needs more meat than that."

Zeus somehow didn't turn gold-tinted crimson - from rage or embarrassment he couldn't tell. Luckily whatever did slip past his control seemed to satisfy Kronos and he settled back on the couch, his cupbearer dismissed from his attention now that the amusement he'd offered was over. Zeus stared up at the ceiling until he could look down and not give in to the need to bodily throttle his father. He might not ever have seen how his mother preferred to party - all he'd heard since he came here was how wild she had been, how much she usually enjoyed feasts and celebrations compared to how withdrawn she'd become since she came back - but he was sure Kronos hadn't known Rhea's full mettle since long before Zeus was born. Not with how he'd treated her after she'd realized what he was doing to their children.

Soon. He - they - would fix all that soon. Very, very soon, in fact.

Kronos sipped from his nectar while Rhea reached the columns and passed out into the darkness beyond, like the moon disappearing behind clouds. Zeus, though he knew his mother had been too far away and there were too many other divinities in here for him to have felt her presence anyway from this distance, could still have sworn he felt her disappear.

Now, he really was completely alone for the first time since he came to Mount Othrys. Hecate had been sent away early tonight, young as she was, and while Themis might still be around, Themis had never been much for festivities as he'd understood it, and she wasn't present.

There was only him, a hall full of potentially-hostile Titans, and his father, the ruler of the sphere, calmly drinking his nectar sip by torturous sip.

Zeus glanced to him, taking in the straight fall of his hair, like a red-gold waterfall spilling from the silvered adamant wreath he wore, the cold blue eyes and narrow lips that could look deceptively soft when he smiled and seemed genuinely pleased or happy. There was only him and his father... and his five siblings, somewhere inside there. Hopefully, anyway. What would they be like? What did they look like? These weren't unfamiliar questions, and now that he seemed to be close to getting some answers to that, Zeus was having trouble just standing here and waiting for the moment he would find out.

How much longer now?

What if it didn't work?

What was he going to tell his mother, if it didn't? Or if it did and there was nothing to rescue? That was a possibility, as unwanted of one as it was. Not one that either Rhea or Metis had acknowledged closer than Metis' comment just earlier, and Zeus himself hadn't ever brought it up, but it was one.

What if---

Kronos shuddered, a tremble going through him like an aspen shook by wind, and his expression screwed up. He looked like he'd eaten something mortal and rotten, his skin going from richly tanned to taking on a slightly yellowish, sickly hue. Zeus put the decanter down, reaching for Kronos.

"My lord, wha---"

"Don't touch me!" Kronos snarled and shoved himself off the couch, swaying on his feet. He'd gone from tanned-yellow to pale-yellow, looking vaguely like butter if one wanted to be unkind. Around them, the closest Titans were starting to notice and turn towards the head of the hall, to their swaying lord and master holding a hand to his mouth. Then to his forehead, his chest. Stomach. "I---"

Zeus yanked off the blanket draped over the couch and leapt forward, catching the first thing that came out when Kronos bent over, heaving.

Was quite bewildered to be holding a stone, his hands smarting from the force of the impact. Stone. Oh. The stone his mother had substituted for him to give to Kronos. There was no time to do anything but shove the stone aside, further onto the blanket as the first actual and insubstantial, tiny thing that was as much disgorged from Kronos' mouth as it seemed to spill directly from his body came out. As Zeus clutched the bundle to his chest, it went from something wriggling with no real shape to a baby, no more than hours old if that, and Kronos went to his knees, the floor quaking under them. There was no fear of being shoved away, so Zeus squatted close, snatching the second like he had the first, though with more knowing intent this time, while his hands shook.

Babies. Infants.

It shouldn't be surprising, maybe, but this wasn't what he'd expected. Would they have to hide for another eighteen years? How were they supposed to do that, considering the effort that'd gone into keeping him hidden? Kronos would now be aware all six children were alive and somewhere in the sphere, on the Earth, which was different from how it'd been as he grew up. His galloping thoughts didn't make him miss the third, or the fourth as they were disgorged, Kronos heaving like he was ejecting part of his own self with every child vomited up, and maybe he was. It'd serve him right.

The fifth and last, days older by appearance than the others, came after two heaving shudders that had the whole of Mount Othrys sway and heave around, under them, and Zeus snatched the dark-haired baby up and tried to hold onto all five of them, clumsily wrapped up in the blanket.

It wasn't easy, for the weight in his arms shifted every now and then, becoming heavier one moment, then nearly weightless the next, and he could tell at least one or two of his siblings were briefly older than just newborn babies before they became small again. This wasn't good. This wasn't what he'd thought would happen at all. Not that he had any idea how he would have corralled five adults, or teenagers, or anything at all if they wouldn't have been able to immediately move by themselves, but this wasn't good in a different way from that.

No matter. He'd deal with it.

"You---" Kronos hissed, looking up from where he was still heaving, and Zeus skittered away from the reaching hand with a toothy smirk. Those blue eyes were livid now, practically boiling lava in their sockets as Zeus rose up in the air and clutching hard enough onto his cargo there was squirming, which of course just made him tighten his grip.

"Know your days are numbered, Father! And any who choose to join us when we strike will be rewarded, keeping their honours or given new ones if they have none!"

It seemed unwise to linger much longer, even as Kronos fell over trying to get to his feet, heaving still as nectar followed the same path his children had. It didn’t matter any longer. Zeus tore through the air as he flew across the hall, past the columns and out into the night air, turning sharply and aiming south. Drew clouds and driving rain and stormwinds in his wake and all over the land to hopefully hide his direction and final destination. He found himself laughing wildly for the success and the possible danger still, relief both spurring him on and making his flight somewhat unsteady.

He had no idea how they were supposed to do anything if his siblings were mere infants, but as he looked down and counted all five, just to reassure himself, Zeus was sure they'd manage, somehow.

Chapter Text

Sometimes she wished she could say she'd seen warning signs, but in honesty; she'd noticed none. Perhaps the fact that Kronos had been the only one willing to castrate their father should have been one alone, but he'd been trying to please their mother - what was wrong with that, truly? And so Rhea had joined herself to Kronos with nothing but pleasure, and while he might sometimes forget hers, it was rare and negligible. She thought little of it when he thrilled her so much otherwise.

Her first pregnancy came as a flush of delight and warm expectation, and Hestia's birth was easy, if long. It was the only one that ended up being such, but she wouldn’t know that yet. Five days of spoiling her darling baby girl, her firstborn, five days of warmth and light.

Then it was like she'd been punched in the heart, burrowing deep into her very essence. It shouldn't be possible to not feel Hestia's divine essence anywhere, even such a young and newly formed one, but Hestia was nowhere to be found or felt.

It shouldn't be possible.

"Where is she?" Clinging to Kronos with one hand and the other clutching at her stomach, as if she could somehow feel the child by whatever connection her womb might still have to her, Rhea quaked. Kronos took that hand and squeezed it, capturing it against his chest and drawing her in for a kiss to her forehead.

"We'll find her, Rhea."

At the time, the intensity of his bright eyes had been reassuring.

Her pregnancy with Demeter was plagued by anxieties, assured by all that she should not worry - she was a goddess, after all. She would not lose the child in birth or give birth to an infant already dead. But she'd already lost one, unfound and unmarked, as if she'd never even existed, so why should she not possibly lose another?

Demeter's birth was easy and short. She wasn't relieved in the least until she held Demeter in her arms, though it was a reassurance that seemed pale when Hestia had disappeared after five days. The real, live and warm little body in her arms did buoy her some, however. She didn't - couldn't make herself - hand Demeter off to nurses to feed her nectar and ambrosia, and instead did that herself, as well as her breast. Just for additional security.

And yet Rhea woke up with a scream in her hears, trembling against her skin, and her husband standing over her, consternated darkness in his eyes.

"Where's our daughter?"

Where was Demeter?

She could not be found, as gone as Hestia was, without a trace. Still, the warmth of Demeter had been against her skin when Rhea had woken up, the echo of her high, wailing shriek still in her ears. How could she just be gone and Kronos not having seen where their daughter went when he was right there? She could not. She could not. Suspicion that felt like betrayal and awful paranoia, like a lack of trust for the one person she should afford all trust, rose up inside of Rhea in the days, weeks, after Demeter's disappearance.

Rhea stared at her husband's broad, bull-like back, solid like the earth, vast like time, and feared something that should be impossible.

She did not want to not trust, but he had to convince her to use their bed as it was meant, and it took years for that. He had to soothe her as the pregnancy grew, and yet she woke up with screaming nightmares whenever she shared the bed with him.

And so, with the rotten taste of suspicion in her mouth, Rhea left Mount Othrys as the first contraction hit her. A precaution only, surely. An experiment, though she wouldn't admit that to herself. A worry, bitten deep like blackest permafrost in her heart. However guilty that made her feel, Rhea crept out like a thief in the night because of it. The mainland wouldn't do. She went farther and farther, until she landed on Samos. It was a beautiful island, and the life of it reassured her for a precious moment. This was a good place to give birth. Still, despite that it was a good place, Rhea was still racked by her growing worries, tension that refuses to leave, and when Hera dropped between her knees, already wriggling, drawing breath for noise, she was quick - perhaps too quick - to shush the girl, to try and still her.

It wasn't enough.

One moment, there was only her and Hera, angry and growing angrier, confused as to why her mother wouldn’t let her ask about her surroundings, wouldn’t let her move about the shaded patch under the chaste tree. Rhea wished she could soothe but dared not until she could be sure her suspicion was only that, suspicion, and unfounded at that.

The next moment, Kronos stood right beyond the edge of the chaste tree's bough, and Hera ran right into his legs in her flight to sate her curiosity.

It should be sweet, this meeting of newborn daughter and father.

Instead, it confirmed all of Rhea's darkest fears.

"You---!" Snarling, hands shaking, Rhea got to her feet and tore Kronos close so she could stare him down, fire in her hands, eyes, heart. "You have... they, all this time---! How can you be doing this!"

There was, again, no trace of their daughter, not a flicker of presence. All Rhea could sense was Kronos, her husband and brother's towering divinity, as familiar as her own self and, up until now, loved. Kronos stared down at her with blank incomprehension, as if he couldn't fathom why this should warrant such a response.

"I am not giving up my throne and rule for anything, Rhea. Gaia and Ouranos warned me one of my children would take my place. I'm making sure none can. Let's go home, now."

Home?

"I," Rhea hissed, practically quaking with fury, and the whole of Samos shook with her, the ocean beyond raised waves taller than any titan in response, "am going nowhere with you!"

She shoved him away and turned, intent on leaving. Kronos, instead of letting her go, compounded his crimes and fell on her, turning them both around. She turned into fire, into a lion and an eagle, into raw power, and yet there was always her husband there, inexhaustible. Between every change he got them one step closer to the shore, and finally, Rhea already tired from having given birth, no chance to rest, and the shock of understanding still ringing through her like the whole universe was a bell that had been struck, he got a grip on her that she could not break. With that, he took a flickering step, two, and they'd crossed the waters and were back on the mainland. Yet another, and they stood on the threshold of Mount Othrys' palace. Kronos, unheeding, unpitying and uncaring of anything but possessing what he considered his, dragged his wife through the corridors and, after shoving her through the bedroom doors, locked them.

Rhea, great daughter of Gaia and Ouranos, didn't let that stop her. She was not meant to be contained and locked doors meant little to her. It meant more that Kronos refused her leaving, and that there were more and more locked doors between her and an exit to clear, unbound air. It meant more that he ignored the simple solution to 'no child of mine shall take my place' and didn’t leave off seeking the marriage bed. It meant more that he ignored his wife's violent disinterest in indulging his desires when they now both knew what the end result would be.

It meant far more that when, contractions shaking her, Kronos had help of several of his brothers to drag her back to the bedroom when she'd almost managed to escape. Her pleas meant nothing to them; they stood outside the doors while her husband guarded her birth as much as he held her down for it.

Rhea didn't get a chance to hold Hades properly at all, didn't get a chance to properly name him aside from screaming at her husband to leave their son be, attempting to yank the newborn close to her, attempting to tear those giant hands away from their tiny, perfect, firstborn son.

Afterwards, he still did not let her go.

Unable to leave, Rhea turned to retreating as deep into the space allowed her and locked every door behind her as they were locked to her. It kept Kronos out, for a while, and though it was respite, the whole of her was withering with the denial of air and earth and the wild presence of animals, of the flow of cosmos itself - the cycling beat of power within her was no longer enough, cut off as she was, both by her own design and against her will. The vast emptiness was too great, and Rhea opened the doors again, by need if not by want. She did not welcome Kronos back into her arms or the small space allowed her. She fought, when she was not too exhausted by the constraints to let him do as he wished. She tried, still, to escape, for it was the very nature of her to not accept the chains - metaphorical only as they were, but Rhea feared they would turn out to be very real soon.

There were no visitors except for Kronos, and she had no idea what he might have told anyone to justify this, but he had his brothers to back him up. Then, surprisingly, Metis somehow managed to slip past all the locked doors, coming in secret. She’d been driven by concerned curiosity, but after it was by furious compassion. With Metis, Rhea got some hope, and the two of them almost managed to secure Rhea's escape a couple months before the birth of her fifth child.

Almost.

The chains went from metaphorical to both metaphysical and all too terribly physically real. Rhea spent the last month of her pregnancy chained to the bed.

She was tired. She'd had five pregnancies and no children to show for it, her arms and heart equally empty. More so, for divine essences did not die, as easily or at all, like mortals did, and even less so like mortal babies were wont to do. Mortal pregnancies were lost so easily, their offspring killed even easier, and this was not a thing divine pregnancies or offspring once born were prey to. Kronos had found a way, and introduced grief the Deathless Ones had never known before to his wife.

At least this time, she and Metis had more time to plan. It just wasn’t enough time to avoid a sixth pregnancy.

This child wouldn't be swallowed like the rest. Rhea swore it, and cursed her husband and brother silently with every breath, but otherwise did nothing that would give cause for the chains to be brought back into use, at all, but especially too early. Both she and Metis were leaning on the assumption of a pregnancy's full time to trick Kronos. Pregnancies lasted nine months. That was what they did, unbending time at least for the blessed immortals; mortal pregnancies suffered from the vagaries of chance and could last both less and more time than that. So Kronos would expect it to take nine months before his sixth child was ready to be born.

This one, however, wouldn't. This time, they were ready. This time, the plan would be perfect, would work.

Yet Rhea feared as the contractions shuddered through her two months too early that Metis had, in the end, decided to not go through with it, that it wasn't worth the risk. Shame and relief both flooded her when the door opened and Metis helped her to her feet through another contraction. Metis followed her to the southern end of Lakonia, standing on one of the beaches looking out over the bay. Metis, after squeezing her hands, told her she would find Gaia and tell her Rhea needed her advice, and then she left.

This, too, had reason; if Kronos figured out Rhea had help, it was better no one was with her for him to find said help. If he figured out it was Metis, better Metis not know where Rhea had gone.

So Rhea went to Crete by herself, and hid away in a cave like a shaking hind, terror for the child she was bringing forth, terror for her husband racking her limbs. Terror and anger. She would not let him touch her again, as soon as she could make sure he wouldn't be aware their newest child was alive, and where. She bit down on her screams and gave birth silently, worried even the slightest of noise out of her would draw Kronos' attention. She was nearly scared out of her wits when Gaia reached up through the earth to catch her newborn - a son, her Zeus, her bright and darling youngest. Smaller than he should be, but while divine essences were strong and flexible and grew quickly, there were still some limits, and two months early was two months early.

Rhea took her baby in her arms but didn't dare to give him her breast or even ambrosia from her own hands while Gaia gave her a small stone, as large as Zeus was, and told her how to prepare it, to give it to Kronos wound up in lies he would believe and enchantments that would have him see what he wanted to see.

She did not want to, but she had to leave, and she had to leave alone.

Rhea left Zeus there in the darkness of the deepest part of the cave. She sang him asleep, so quietly it was barely a breath of a sound. Peeled his tiny fingers away from her one large one, set him down on part of her discarded clothing and left, but - and whether that was luck or Gaia taking mercy, she met a nymph partway down the mountain. Zeus would not grow up alone, without guarding hands and kind intent, and Rhea stood tearless on the beach of the southernmost tip of the land they called their own, far away from precious, sunlit Crete and her even more precious son, hidden away in the middle of mortal noise. She didn't stay there, for as far away as she’d taken herself. It felt too close to Crete, to Zeus, still, and so she ran, divine steps eating more ground than any mortal fleeing ever could.

She reached the plain between a lake and Mount Cithaeron before Kronos caught up with her. She cursed him as he yanked her to a stop, cursed him as he tore the swaddled stone clutched in her arms, lunged at him with her knees still shaking. Missed the stone, watching it be swallowed with a ghostly sound that would be an infant's scream in Kronos' ears but was only the breeze through through the grass for her. She almost stayed too long, watching him swallow the trick child, but managed to dodge the hand reaching for her.

Unburdened, she fled.

Not back to Crete - she could afford to be found, but her son could not if her husband found out he had been tricked. This way, too, he would be distracted with her. Years, she ran, hiding on briefly in chosen places, high mountaintops and deep caves.

Rhea returned to Mount Othrys only much later, closer a time when Zeus would be ready, closer to when the curses she'd hurled on Kronos' head several times over would be fulfilled. He would suffer for what she had suffered, and he would regret doing this to her, to their children.

This time, she had better luck avoiding both his hands and bed, if only because she had a plan. She made her avoidance coy and taunting, instead of desperate and fearfully angry, which, she noticed, strangely made him more patient in trying to win her over instead of immediately catching her and locking her up. It would have been amusing, it would have been fun, had this been something that she'd tried to tease arousal out of him when they were younger. Now, it was cold, hard necessity. It didn't kill his desires, unfortunately, and with Rhea tauntingly out of reach, but as, seemingly, part of a game instead of thoroughly rejecting him, Kronos temporarily went elsewhere until he could get his hands on his wife again.

Luckily Rhea found him and his poor paramour, but not before they had lain together at least once. She could only hope this was the only time, that interrupting Kronos and Philyra wouldn't lead to someone else pregnant with a child the Titan would be intent on devouring, but as her husband fled across the meadow as a stallion and Rhea lunged forward to catch Philyra by the arm, she had a feeling it wouldn't be that easy.

"Queen Rhea, please! I was ju---!"

"Quiet." Rhea squatted down while Philyra tried to tug up her clothing with one hand and awkwardly shield herself with the other. Even squatting Rhea was a little taller than the sitting Oceanid. "Philyra, listen to me. If you get pregnant, find a way to delay the birth."

"I... what?" Philyra was still pale, was still trembling, but she was finally looking at Rhea with a focused, if utterly bewildered expression, her eyes intent instead of nearly glazed over in panic for her imagined punishment. Punishment, for what? Rhea could not care less about the infidelity, at this point. Her concern was for Philyra, was for any potential offspring she may have, so that neither Philyra nor her child would suffer what she had.

"There is a prophecy," Rhea said tightly, letting go of Philyra now that she seemed unlikely to run off at the first chance to do so and force Rhea to chase after her to explain the problem. "A prophecy told to my husband by Gaia and Ouranos, that a child of his will dethrone him."

Rhea and Philyra stared at each other, and slowly a frown etched itself between lovely brown brows. "But haven't you---"

"Been pregnant?" Rhea smiled, grim and exhausted, not so much as a sliver of humour in her expression or her voice. "I have. Six times now, no matter what he'd claim. My husband has seen fit to swallow every child as they were born to safeguard himself and his position, but hasn't felt any need to stop entertaining the marriage bed. Or any pleasures to be found outside said marriage bed."

Philyra, poor Philyra, stared at Rhea and slowly grew wide-eyed and paler still, paleness which then edged into a sickly pink-tinged yellowish colour. Now it was her turn to clutch at Rhea, forgetting the pile of her clothes and her damning nakedness. It wasn't like it mattered.

"Lady Rhea, what do I, I---! What if I am pregnant?"

"Like I said, delay it any way as you can, until Kronos is no longer on the throne to feel threatened by any child you might bear." Rhea took one of Philyra's hands and squeezed it, then laid both of their hands over the messy pile of clothing that half-concealed Philyra's flat stomach. "I do not want to see you suffer what I have, Philyra."

Philyra, staring at her, shuddered like a delicate aspen shaken by an autumn storm wind coming down the mountain and nodded. Rhea stood up, and while she looked over her shoulder as Philyra whispered her next couple words, she didn't stop walking away. "I'm sorry, my queen."

That was the end of Rhea's delaying tactic, but luckily Metis brought Zeus to Mount Othrys only a week later. Not that that saved her the displeasure of her husband's presence in bed, for they couldn't act immediately, even if he suspected nothing from his new cupbearer. That there was a limited amount of time for her to suffer this helped, though. Every drop of moment echoed loudly as it fell into the cavern of collected time.

Kronos might not know it yet, but he would soon enjoy nothing at all.

The only thing Rhea wished was that she could've waited to see Kronos disgorge her children when it was time to act, wished she could've stayed to help. Instead she left, again, however little she wanted to leave Zeus alone in that hall that was yet full of divinities, and made sure the path was clear. She went to Crete, waiting for Zeus on a beach and hoping, aching with it, that it was only Zeus she would see next. Zeus and her babies, free at last. She would pace, but it felt like every glance away from the sky might spell disaster, and so Rhea stared at the sky worriedly until she spotted her youngest. Alone? Relief practically punched her as he came down from the sky she saw that while he was technically her youngest, he was right now the oldest, holding a handful of infants in his arms.

The wide-eyed, slightly harried look he threw her didn't diminish the radiance about him, both of victory and plain divinity, but the suppressed panic was obvious as he laid his five siblings down on the grass beyond the shore. Looking up at her with his brows scrunched, Zeus gestured to them, then back behind him, then threw his arms out.

"I lost the stone," he said, and then looked startled that this was what had come out of his mouth first. He shook his head sharply, long, fine black hair lashing his shoulders. "No, nevermind that. Why are they still small?"

For small they were, his five older-but-younger siblings. Right now they looked no older than day old babies, if that, though both Hestia and Demeter, as well as Hades, were flickering between that age and looking to be toddlers. Rhea could cry - she did cry after she reached out to squeeze Zeus' shoulders and kiss his cheek, then drew him close for a hug. She let go so she could kneel down to touch each child in turn and then, though she couldn't choose but had to, picked up three and let Zeus carry the other two.

"Give them a couple days, Zeus. The way they have been constrained, growing and yet not for years, doesn't lend itself to stability of their essences." She wiped her eyes and found a smile for him, then lead the way from the beach and over the land, towards Mount Dikte. "Now that they're out, now that they're free, we should see them gain age quickly. You see some of them already are."

She felt like she was about to shatter apart for the tender, fearful relief in her chest. They were sleeping, right now, but when they woke up... Rhea didn't know how they would react, and she feared it, as much as she also wanted it.

She should have acted quicker, understood sooner, done...

The memory of chains, of days, weeks, years and years of locked doors and wandering around the same couple corridors and rooms punched her in the chest in a similar but entirely different manner from her fearful hope for the future of her children, and Rhea swallowed a noise, gasping. Then Zeus was there, trimly muscled arm pressed against her own since his hands were busy, and his eyes were as fierce as a sky awaiting a storm.

"He won't get them, Mother. Or you."

Zeus was radiant, and Rhea only wished he would not have to be, not in this way. She also hoped he would let his siblings see more than that radiant front, as true as it certainly could be. He was more than that, she knew that much even with how few chances she'd had to be with him as he grew up. Snatched moments only, amounting to barely more time than she'd had with Hestia for those few, golden days before Kronos first acted. She'd get more time now, but even that was spoiled by the need to hide, the fact that her children weren't what they ought to be.

That their unstable age slowly shifted upwards as the weeks passed and gave her some small taste of what life might have been like with all six of them was a small consolation considering the time lost.

Fifty years. Fifty years in total, fifty years since she'd first given birth to Hestia. She wasn't about to tell that to any of them, she didn't see what it would help, but the loss of it throbbed through her like the beat of her divine essence, the pulse of the ichor inside of her.

Sending Hera away willingly might have made her cry if she'd let herself, but that would help no one, and so she didn't. Not until she'd handed Hera over to Oceanus and Tethys, anyway. She paused on a stretch of western shore to the Caspian Sea, the palace of Oceanus and Tethys hidden underneath the surface, sat down on a rock and caught the tears she couldn't hold in her palms.

Then she went back to Crete and stayed until they had all moved to Mount Ida in Asia, another place beloved to her. There, she introduced her children to Hoplodamos and Anytos, two of Gaia's lesser known children who'd been of great help to her in the years after she'd given birth to Zeus. Secure that all of them - though Hestia still seemed little interested - now could get more knowledgeable combat training if they wished, Rhea turned into an eagle and flew back towards their heartland. Not that she wished to, for it felt far too close to Mount Othrys, to Kronos. If she was to make sure Mount Olympos might be of any use to them, however, she had to actually go there and inspect it with her own eyes and essence.

In the service of that, then, Rhea winged her way across the ocean, skating northwards far beyond the bubble in the aether that was Mount Othrys at a distance, and finally reached Olympos.

It was quiescent, and so much so that she almost flew past the earthly Olympos without a thought and had to turn back, circling the mountain until she found a trickle of power in the aether. She followed it, and between one beat and the next, the towering core of Olympos rose up before her, startling in its size. With another few beats of her wings, Rhea flew up along the shadowed eastern side of the mountain, the clouds wreathing her in cool mist and the aether sparkling against her feathers. She shed them in the same movement as she landed, and stood at the edge of a low wall that wasn't for defence, since Eurynome and Ophion had never gotten that far, but rather merely marked out the protected, beating heart of Olympos, a divine version of a sacred precinct’s temenos.

Stepping over the wall, Rhea shivered at the cool brush of aether and shook a trickle of nectar from her fingertips, then had to pause to squeeze excess oil out of her hair, sweet on her fingers and staining the grass around her feet reddish with a hint of sparkling gold as the light hit the drops. Quiescent Mount Olympos might be, but it practically thrummed with power.

It looked much like Rhea remembered it from the brief, chaotic "visit" she and Kronos had made, way back then. The megaron stood, sturdy and unconquered, though the hearth inside was cold, colder than stone cast in perpetual shadow should be, since it was supposed to be lit by physical fire as well as the core of divine such.

There were the foundations of a couple more buildings spread around the megaron, and then the one main building that Eurynome and Ophion had had time to add. It was a good start, certainly, and not so much built that it would be a hardship to tear away the foundations and move them as one wished if it came to that. It would be a good place for her children, she thought, standing between two columns in the megaron's portico and watching the slope down towards the low wall that marked the border of the temenos. Maybe even good enough to stay here after however this conflict evolved, instead of taking over Mount Othrys. It was a place that Rhea doubted they were so very eager to take command of. The children might not remember Mount Othrys and its palace – Rhea hoped Hestia didn’t, anyway – and while they might feel no shadow walking the palace’s corridors, Rhea shivered at the thought of returning. A new place for a new rule was better, wasn’t it?

Perhaps there was some small amount of petty, smug pleasure at the thought as well, that the last evidence of Ophion and Eurynome's attempt at taking power instead of her and Kronos would be taken charge of by her children.

Smiling, Rhea did make sure to walk the perimeter of the temenos wall, following it the whole way around, even through the spots of forest and where the wall fell away for sheer cliffs rising up. She ended up by the same point she'd stepped over the wall originally, watching up the slope she'd looked down along from the megaron's portico.

There was power here, like she’d noted, and the mountain was practically thrumming with it, however quiet for now. Even if Mount Olympos hadn’t been so flush with it it could still have made a good permanent place of power; it was all in how one built one’s core. But more than that, with only relatively minimal work Mount Olympos would be a well-fortified place that would protect her children, and it had a lot of space for growth. She'd been doubtful, when she'd first remembered Olympos, but now Rhea was convinced.

The mountain wasn't just suitable to stand against a war, it was suitable to build a kingdom on.