Chapter Text
Hera had been married to Zeus for over five thousand years.
He had been impossibly charming, and handsome, and he had made her laugh. And, of course, he had been the king of the entire cosmos.
Her sister Demeter had warned her against marrying him. She had had a daughter with him, Persephone, but it had not kept him faithful to her.
But Hera, with her warm brown eyes and perfect hair, had been even more beautiful than her sister---and more ambitious, too. She had convinced Zeus to marry her, and make her Queen of the Heavens.
She had believed that she, with her mind for ruling, her beauty, and her charm, would keep him faithful forever.
And for three hundred years, it had.
Hera had had five children with Zeus. The first two had been twins, one boy and one girl. The girl, they had named Enyo. The boy was Ares.
Both were gods of war, and Zeus and Hera had initially believed that they would bring honor to the family.
Nothing had been further from the truth. Enyo and Ares were loud, destructive, and, worst of all, common. They acted less like a princess and prince and more like a pair of common mortal soldiers.
Ares played in the dirt, like he was not a god at all, and initially acted like he was practically mortal himself. He did not seem to understand that it was inappropriate for him to engage with mortal children on their level, or to fight with them personally when they angered him rather than smiting them from afar. He tore his clothes, broke the furniture--even when he wasn't trying to--and spoke like a common slave.
Enyo was nearly as bad. Like her brother, she was loud and destructive and improper. She dressed like her twin, refused to wear the proper dress of a girl, and took up arms just like Ares had. She had no interest in becoming a wife or a mother, no matter how often Hera tried to convince her of its importance, and encouraged her twin in whatever he did.
Ares and Enyo had been seven years old, physically, when Athena had burst from her father's head.
Athena was the product of Zeus' first marriage, to a Titaness named Metis, whom he had divorced and absorbed after learning that she was to bear a son who would overthrow him.
She had emerged as a maiden of about fourteen, and calmly announced that she was to be the goddess of wisdom, crafts, government, weaving, and war as strategy.
Zeus had eagerly granted all of her demands, and within the week declared her his favorite child.
Hera had been displeased. Here was a daughter who behaved like a princess--beautiful and dignified and proper.
Here was a war goddess who was what she had wanted Ares to be--clever and calculated, well-spoken and well-behaved.
Athena plotted strategies and led mortals to victory. Ares and Enyo fought in the dirt, came home with wild hair and split lips, and called mortals their playmates.
Eileithyia had been born shortly after Athena had arrived. Unlike Ares and Enyo, she was polite and well-behaved, and did not come home covered in dust, blood, and ichor.
But she was shy, timid, and self-effacing. She hid from ceremonies and parties, and spent more time tending the hearth with her Aunt Hestia than acting as a princess.
And she, too, was entirely too familiar with the mortals.
Then Hera had found out about Leto. Ares had stumbled onto the truth by accident, and had blurted it out to his mother.
Hera had been furious, and heartbroken, and had immediately accused Zeus of infidelity. Zeus had told her that she was being ungrateful, and that he wouldn't have cheated on her if she had been a better wife, and if their children were more like his perfect Athena and lovely Persephone.
Then he had banished Ares for telling her the truth, sending him off to Thrace with Enyo to become proper war gods.
The soldiers of Thrace had treated their child war gods less as deities and more like living weapons. And Ares and Enyo, who had never acted like proper gods, let alone divine royalty, had adopted the people like they were family.
Ares was a killer by age ten. Already stronger than any mortal man, he killed anyone who would threaten his new family, and beamed when he was praised as a warrior without compare.
Enyo was allowed to act exactly like her brother, and delighted in being treated as another soldier.
And both took commands as if they were not gods at all.
They did not aspire to rule or to command, and fought on the front lines with common soldiers as readily as they fought alongside generals and kings.
By the time they were twelve, they could shatter armies together.
Thrace adored them. And they adored Thrace.
Ares took to the rough common soldiers like a wolf with his pack.
Enyo was a she-wolf, and even more ferocious than her brother. She delighted in being praised for her ferocity, and in never having to wear a dress.
Neither one seemed to notice or care that they were treated as front-line fodder as often as not.
They learned to fight as mortals did. They learned that mortals were their pack, not subjects. They laughed and ate and talked with common soldiers, and came home covered in blood like any mortal would have. They killed in person, not from a distance.
They did not act like royalty. They did not even dress like royalty.
And soon, they barely remembered they were royalty.
While her twins were off learning to be mortal peasants, Hera had given birth to Hephaestus.
Zeus had been off with Leto, laughing and making merry, as though he had no wife at all.
Hephaestus had been the most hideous child she had ever seen.
And Hera, convinced that his ugliness was a sign of the fact that her husband had poisoned their marriage, threw her ugly infant from Olympus, so that no one would know her shame.
Ares and Enyo were so thoroughly adopted by Thrace that they actually had had to be forced back to Olympus at fourteen.
They did not want to leave the battlefield. They did not want to leave their pack.
And when they were marched into the halls of Olympus, they looked around in bafflement, like common soldiers who had no use for finery.
Ares had been pleased to see Hera, but he had greeted her with the rough salute and then the embrace of a common soldier, come home to his peasant mother from war.
Enyo had spat on the floor and said that she refused to wear jewelry.
They did not want to be in the palace.
Enyo sneered at everything--the fine dresses of the women, the nectar and ambrosia, the beautiful architecture, and the courtly manners. She swore like a camp follower and outfought most of the gods.
Ares stared at the grandeur like a beggar who had never seen finery, snuck out of his room to sleep in the ashes by the hearth, and kept asking Hera if she was sure he was supposed to be here.
And then, while all of Olympus mocked the pair of peasant soldiers who had come back from Thrace, she learned that Leto was with child by her husband.
Furious, she sent every monster and terror she could think of after her rival, and forbade any land from allowing Leto to give birth upon it.
She tasked her wolf-twins to follow Leto for her as well, and make sure she could never rest.
They had smiled and all but fled Olympus, eager for an excuse to return to the hunt.
And somehow, somehow, Leto had still triumphed. She had found the island of Delos, which was as yet not attached anywhere, and there she had given birth to Apollo and Artemis.
Eliethiya, Hera's own daughter, had slipped behind her back and helped her to give birth.
Unlike her twins, Apollo and Artemis were beautiful, cultured, poised, and radiant--and beloved everywhere.
Zeus adored them.
And Ares and Enyo accepted being outshone with a shrug, and asked to return to Thrace.
Hera had forbidden her twins from leaving. She was determined to civilize them, and set Eliethiya to the task to punish her for aiding her rival.
Eliethiya was terrified of them both, and they were baffled by her.
The wolves did not know what to do with a sister who was a lamb.
Ares adored her, but he adored her like a peasant might.
Enyo tried to teach her to use a sword.
By the end of the first week, all three of them slipped away from Olympus and went on a trip across Greece.
When Hera found them and dragged them back, Ares and Enyo had decided that Elitheilya was part of the pack, even if she did not have fangs, and Elitheiya had befriended a village-worth of peasant women.
Now Hera had three children. Two of them acted like soldiers. One acted like a midwife. All three acted like peasants.
None wanted to be royalty.
Zeus barely remembered that they were alive.
Athena ignored them entirely as she created governments and led kings and generals to victory.
And Apollo and Artemis were praised everywhere for their beauty and brilliance.
Ares and Enyo were loved only in Thrace. Eliethiya was honored by peasants, and largely ignored by the great.
Hera had to half-force them to accept worship and sacrifices.
Ares still abandoned silk sheets to sleep at the hearth.
Enyo refused to wear jewelry or dresses.
Everyone mistook Eliethiya for a serving maid, because she dressed like one.
Hera wanted to scream.
And Zeus had another child with a nymph named Maia.
Maia was nearly as timid as Elitheiya, but her son, Hermes, shone like quicksilver.
At a day old, he stole cattle like a professional thief. At a week old, he was full-grown, and the beloved messenger of Olympus.
Zeus declared him the best of his sons.
And Ares laughed and clapped his quick-witted half-brother on the back like a common soldier.
Hera gave birth to Hebe, her last child, not long after Hermes arrived.
Elitheiya helped deliver her sister, and adored her from the start.
Ares and Enyo looked at their tiny sister in awe.
Ares dubbed her Tiny, and sang to her like a peasant boy.
Enyo promised to kill anyone who came close to her.
Hera tried everything to raise Hebe to be a proper princess.
It did not work.
Hera had so many responsibilities that she could not always watch her daughter--and the nymphs she assigned to be nurse maids eagerly handed the child over to her siblings instead.
Eliethiya became Hebe's mother in all but name, no matter what Hera said or did.
Ares taught Hebe how to play like a peasant child.
Enyo snapped at anyone who came near her.
And both of the wolf children attacked any threat.
Hebe, her last hope, played in the mud. Ares and Enyo took her to Thrace as often as they could, where she was doted on by the common soldiers.
Eliethiya took her to the mortal mothers she had befriended, and Hebe played with them as equals.
By the time Hebe was seven, she dressed like a maid, and knew how to use a sword.
Zeus asked Hebe what she wanted her domain to be when she was thirteen.
Hebe had smiled and asked to be a cupbearer.
The hall had laughed. Hera had flushed in humiliation.
And Zeus had granted Hebe's request.
Ares, Enyo, and Eliethiya celebrated in earnest.
The other Olympians snickered at the peasants' brood of Hera.
Hephaestus returned shortly after Ares and Enyo reached full maturity.
He provided thrones for all of Olympus--and trapped Hera on hers.
Ares and Enyo had tried to break her chains, but failed.
Ares had tried to force Hephaestus to release her, and had been soundly burned by his control of fire.
Hebe and Eliethiya had pleaded softly, and promised that he might live with them on Olympus.
Zeus, who had been impressed by the boy's craftsmanship, had agreed to the arrangement, and Hera had been set at liberty.
And so the children of the Queen of Heaven were known by all.
The wolf, who chose to sleep in ashes instead of silk sheets, came home covered in blood, and fought in the fields like a mortal.
The she-wolf, who spat on all ceremony, swore like a camp follower, drank like a soldier, and delighted in destruction.
The midwife, who spent her days aiding peasant women, and dressed like one too.
The blacksmith, covered in soot and smelling of flame, hideous in face and crippled in body, who spoke like a craftsman and dressed like one too.
And the cupbearer, who adored all her siblings, dressed like a serving maid, and could fight nearly as well as the wolves.
They were not royalty. They were gods only by descent. And they did not seem to care that they had disgraced their mother.
And Olympus laughed at them.
They laughed as simple-minded Ares revealed that he had never learned to read.
They whispered in amazement as Enyo rejected any suitors who came near, not with quiet dignity like Athena and Artemis, but with swords and curses.
They snickered as Eliethiya talked about her friends, those peasant mothers, like equals.
They laughed at Hephaestus' limping gait and ugly face.
And they took advantage of Hebe. Even the servants assigned her work, and she never complained.
The children loved each other deeply. They saw each other as family.
Enyo threatened to kill anyone who mocked Hephaestus.
Ares defended Hebe when she was derided as a servant.
Eliethiya comforted them all, and tried to teach Ares his letters.
Ares stumbled through the lessons like a child, and learned little, but he smiled at her gentle tone and beamed when he finally learned to scrawl his name.
And Zeus took more and more lovers. Mortals, nymphs, and goddesses alike, he embraced, and left Hera alone.
Alone with her peasants' brood, who had no use for crowns.