by James Welsh
When Zeus returned home to the palace a week later, he was stunned to hear the news. He strode through the corridors until he came upon Hera’s chambers. He swung the doors open to find Hera at the far side of the room. She was kneeling down in front of the hearth, smiling and watching her son play in front of the flames.
“Hera?”
The Queen turned and her smile vanished. “Zeus.”
She turned her back once more to her husband and watched her son intently. Zeus strode in and stood over his wife. He demanded, “How were you able to conceive?”
Without looking at him again, Hera said cryptically, “With a story’s help.”
“A story?”
“How else could I?” Hera said with a sudden sneer. She said nothing else on the matter, but Zeus knew she hated him. She loathed him for never being there, for never loving her as much as she loved him. She had every right to, he guessed.
He looked at the child, saw how his little legs were so twisted they almost looked broken. Disgusted, Zeus asked, “What happened to his legs?”
Hera looked sharply at him. “Are you questioning my son?”
“Well, what happened?”
“He was born this way. He was the best I could do, and that’s enough for him to be beautiful to me.”
Still, Zeus felt repulsed by the deformed child. He commanded in the voice he used for orders, “He will never be my son. I cannot be King of the Heavens with a child so ugly and ruined!”
He reached down to grab the child. Hera screamed and snatched the child away from his grasp. She snarled, “You will never touch him, never! I’m the mother and father, and I have every right to him!”
Zeus froze.
Hera continued, with a growl Zeus thought he would never hear from her, “He’s not yours and he never will be.”
With Hera between him and the son, Zeus could only glare at his wife. He then raised his hand as if to strike Hera, but he suddenly stopped when he realized that Hera didn’t flinch. He lowered his hand abruptly and said, “Fine, I’ll let you make a mockery of us! I’ll let your son be the joke of all who worship us! Those mortals below us, they look up to us, you know – they worship us for our perfection. We’re a diamond to them – do you want them to see the flaws?”
Still, Hera never moved. She didn’t move until Zeus left the room with a roar of frustration. She sat down shakily, and she wanted to cry. She did cry, but the reasons changed as she did. She cried, not out of sadness, but from her son looking up at her with his wide, silvered eyes. He jeered with his toothless smile and reached up for his mother with his tiny hand. Hera picked him up and, together, they watched the fire crackling in the hearth, watching the flames bend like grass in the wind.
“Isn’t it amazing, my little Hephaestus?” Hera said, over her son’s babbling, talking more to herself than him. “Fire is such a wonderful thing. It’s warm, it’s bright, it’s hypnotizing. It’s so peaceful that it makes you want to reach in and hug it.”
As to emphasize what she was saying, Hera held her hand over the flames, almost to the point that the fire licked her palm, her hand sweaty from the heat. “But the second you touch it, you’ll feel the burn. You can never touch the beautiful things in life – no one can.”
Hera hugged her child hard and burst into sobs. Little Hephaestus laughed at the flames and tried to reach out to them.