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See, here's the thing about gods. Once they're here, once they're firmly fixed in the minds of men, it's really hard for them to die. Scholars will tell you that they were the ancient people's way of explaining things that they didn't understand, but here's a secret.
Are you ready?
They're real. All of them. And they all have stories, and lives, and things that keep them clinging to the skin of this world.
Now. You know Achilles, the hero of Troy, right? But what about his mother, the Nereide Thetis?
This is her story.
Thetis has 49 sisters, most of their names lost to time, but Amphitrite grew up and became Queen of the Sea, something Thetis is both pleased and worried about, because...you've met Poseidon, right? Exactly. (There's also Eurynome, but this story doesn't involve her, at least not right now.)
Anyway. Right. Thetis. She can tell the future, she can shapeshift, she is the leader of the Nereides. She has a lot of things going for her, including two Olympians who hope to make her their wife. But if there's anything that'll put a man off, it's hearing a prophecy that his son will grow up to be greater than him. So they ran as fast as they could in the other direction, and found her a nice mortal man to marry, because at least that way, the kid couldn't grow up to outshine a god. (His name was Peleus, and he's not terribly important, but Thetis still remembers him fondly. And without him, she wouldn't have her son.)
That baby boy became her world, and her maternal instincts reared up in a wave. She tried to make him immortal, she held him in the fire and rubbed him with ambrosia. She also dipped him in the river Styx, hoping to make him invulnerable, and it worked. Except for that one famous spot. Peleus eventually made her stop the business with the fire, and she left his house. Achilles got handed off to Chiron, and that hurt, because it was her job to raise him, godsdammit, not some centaur her gods-mandated husband chose.
Now, here's where things started to unravel.
You remember how Thetis could tell the future, right? Well, prophecies are only awesome if you're the one making them, it turns out. And can you blame her for retreating to a dark grotto under the sea after she heard the one about her son?
Go to Troy. Acheive glory. Die there.
Stay at home. Have a family. Be forgotten within a few generations.
She knew which one her son would pick, and a little part of her died that day.
She did everything in power to keep him alive: dressing him like a girl, giving him advice, bargaining with the gods for favors and new armor. But...well. You know how the story ends. Paris. The arrow. The death of a hero.
Thetis came out of the sea, weeping and carrying the amphora given to her by Dionysus. (She knew she should find it odd that she didn't find it odd that he'd given it to her, but, well. Prophecies are far-reaching.) She listened to the dirge sung by the Mousai, beautiful and haunting and so terribly, terribly sad. She wouldn't let anyone else collect his bones for burial, going so far as to lash out at those who tried to help. She went back into the sea with his bones, and that was the last anyone saw of them.
You'd think that, after losing her son, there would be no more joy in her life. But that wasn't so. Achilles had a son, Neoptolemus, who would go on to be king of Eprius. He looked just like him, too, strong and handsome and stubborn, just like Achilles had been. Thetis watched over him until he died, and then...
What then?
If you asked her, she'll tell you she wasn't sure what happened to her in the interim. She doesn't really remember what happened in the years before she came to America, it's all hazy snatches of memory. But leaving Greece was like waking from sleep, even if it scared her a little. But at the same time, there was nothing keeping her there. No son, no sister, no nieces and nephews. They called America the 'land of oppurtunity', and she figured, why fight it?
Now let's fast forward to the 20th century. She's a well-established American citizen, even if she does have to keep changing her identity every so often, and moving before people realize she doesn't age. She's living in New York now, and it's a bright sunny day in April. She's thinking of going down to the beach later, because if she doesn't, she tends to get very grumpy very quickly. And she almost doesn't notice the man who walks past her, on his way to who knows where.
She stops dead. Turns around. Feels her heart hammer in her chest.
She calls his name, very quietly, almost hesitantly. Watches his spin stiffen. Sees him turn his head.
Their eyes lock, and everything comes crashing back in brilliant clarity. That silent look says volumes. 'I missed you. I love you. I thought I'd never see you again.' He's still bigger than her, and his strong arms pull her into a hug, and she knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she has found her son again.
And if he notices that she's crying from joy, he doesn't say anything.