39: Exhausted.

On Livejournal, I'm doing the 100 Moods writing challenge. Basically, I've got as long as I want to write one hundred fics about Greek Mythological characters. (You can view my list here - but be warned that things there can be anything from PG to 18.)

This fic is mood #39, and is about characters from the Greek Myths: Zeus, Thyone (later known as Semele) and Hera. Note that Zeus doesn't actually feel for Thyone what he thinks he feels, though.

*

Her hands spread out across her belly, protecting her unborn child even as she sleeps. Zeus watches her with an odd expression upon his face: naked adoration. He loves this woman, he truly does (he must do, for he is even considering divorcing Hera and making her his new queen). She whimpers in her sleep and her hands become fists, and he leans forward and gently holds her hands in his until she rests back again. She will give birth any day now, he assumes – she is simply huge.

“Lovely, isn’t she?”

Zeus whips around, his hands crashing out, and sending hissing streaks of lightning through the air. The other—Hera, he realises, and feels his heart fall in his chest—sends the slivers of lightning to the floor with the brisk wave of her hand, for she is his equal. He clenches his hands, and glares furiously at her. What does she want? he wonders.

Hera frowns at him. “Really, Zeus, is that any way to treat me? I know we’ve had our rough patches recently, but we are still married.” She doesn’t so much as look at Thyone lying on the bed behind him, but he can’t help himself glancing quickly back. (He realises how strange it is that he is so concerned for another’s safety, that he would look to her before even to himself, and waves that disconcerting thought aside before it can take root in his mind.)

“Hera,” he begins, imploringly. “Please don’t do this.”

She is shocked at his tone; he can see it in her eyes. (And he can see himself in her eyes, half-crouched toward the bed, body twisted in Thyone’s direction; protecting her, loving her, and willing to defend her against Hera, even at risk to himself.) He glances away from her, tears blurring his vision. He really, really does love Thyone, and Hera’s being here could well end all that: his lovely wife was, as always, jealous of his continuous affairs.

No more, he promises himself. After Thyone, no more. If she will let Thyone live (oh; let us be together, Hera, please?), I won’t touch another man or woman. I won’t, I won’t!

“Do you love her?”

His stomach clenches at Hera’s words. (No, not her words; at her tone. She sounds so lost, so defeated, so broken – he can hardly bear it.) “I think so,” he whispers, turning his back on Hera to gaze at Thyone. She remains oblivious to them both, sleeping peacefully, caught in Morpheus’ elaborate, lovely world of dreams. “Yes. I do. I love her.”

Hera does not comment that Thyone is his great-granddaughter, or that she is half-human. She does not point out that she is his wife, and thereby entitled to destroy this woman and child. (And he isn’t sure how he would react if she tried to do so; would he attack Hera, his heartbroken, beautiful wife? He couldn’t, but neither could he allow Thyone and their child to die. He loves her too much to let that happen.)

“Have you revealed yourself to her?” He turns to her and makes a sound of surprise – at the softness of her voice, at her proximity, at her question. He knows why she asks, though; for a god to marry a human, that human must be able to fully accept who he is, and to do so she would have to see him in his true, thunderous glory.

“Would you ever forgive me if I did?”

She surprises him again: she takes his face in her hands, and kisses each of his cheeks. “I would still love you,” she says quietly, and disappears. He gazes down at Thyone, and suddenly he feels exhausted. The tiredness sinks into his muscles, his limbs, his bones – it weighs him down until he collapses beside Thyone’s bed, holding his head in his hands.

Hera had all but given him her blessing. They would part on amiable terms, and she would still love him, and he would raise his child with his new wife, and he would never, never stray again. (But there are risks, he quickly reminds himself – and indeed, there are. If she doesn’t accept me, I can never see her again.)

He doesn’t know how long it is until he stands. All he knows is that the sun is rising outside the room, and that he has come to a decision. He will reveal himself to Thyone, regardless of the consequences. His love for her demands that much, at least.