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Chapter Text

Athena hadn't expected the first bolt to actually strike. Or the second.

By the third, she wasn't capable of expecting.

The sand under her fingers felt crisper than she remembered. Or perhaps Ares had changed the sand, but she likely would have noticed before she wound up on the ground. The air smelt fresh and slightly sweet. How had she gotten on the arena floor to begin with?

"You dare to defy me?"

Odysseus. On the island- On Ogygia, with Calypso.

"No one beats me!"

Shipwrecked there, after Zeus destroyed the rest of his fleet for slaughtering one of Helios' cows, because, for all she told Odysseus to put his emotions aside, she had not put her pride aside.

Forced to the edge of a cliff, ravenous rocks resting below, in the midst of a storm.

"Thunder, bring her through the wringer."

Telemachus. She had met him once when he was twenty days old, and once when he was twenty years old. Odysseus had trusted her twenty years ago, even though she had given him no reason to. He had let her hold his son. No matter how many times she had pushed him away to arm's legnth, he continued to smile at her and reach out, for reasons that even now she could not begin to fathom, to offer her friendship that she in no way deserved. She was a tool to be used and a weapon that would be wielded against against friend and foe alike. At least in this way, she might be useful.

"Show her I'm the judgement call."

The Ithacan royal family deserved to be reunited. In an act of egotism and hubris - the admission still made her skin crawl, but objective reality cared not one whit how she reacted - she had abandoned her friend and then in a revolting mix of self-pity, shame, and stubbornness, she had refused to even attempt reconciliation. She could have guarded the wind bag while Odysseus slept. Nobody would dare steal from a goddess. He never would have encountered Poseidon. She could have prevented a decade's worth of tragedy and did not. Now, one hundred and eight pathetic excuses for men invaded Odysseus' home. Telemachus stood no chance; even with her help, the fight against Antinous had scarcely lasted thirty seconds once Antinous ceased the fight-talk. She had to make this right. 

"The one who makes her kingdom fall."

And then, like a bird appearing over the horizon and swooping down to land upon a tree, pain emered and started to grow. It started on her right shoulder and spread outward until even her teeth hurt.

Her mind could focus on little else at that point. She had to get Odysseus off that island. Wounds burned as she pushed herself up to one arm. How long before he ended up on that cliff again? Next time, would he follow through? She felt each individual grain of sand, but she would not scream. If he jumped, it would be because she failed him at any turn and pretending to blame Zeus or Poseidon or Calypso would mean nothing. She would never allow it, never allow the deflecting of blame she so clearly deserved. If he died, she would have killed another friend. The world tilted and threatened to pull away when she forced herself to stand, and disoriented and dizzy as she was, she could tell her body was swaying. She hated it. And hated the feeling of so many gods watching her in a moment of weakness. Odysseus needed to get off that island. "Let him go, please!"

She took a step forward, irrationally hoping it would be more than a stagger. In hindsight, approaching her father's throne had been the worst possible choice in that moment. But her voice only barely scraped past her throat as she begged and he had to hear her; Odysseus must leave Ogygia. "Let him go-"

In a mercy she had not earned, the first bolt of lightning sent her mind from her body, leaving her collapsed on the ground for the second time that century.

A warmth enveloped her head, hints of it peeking into her shoulders. Before she had the time to properly appreciate it, it vanished. She heard a deep shouting, a crackling of lightning - she braced for another strike. She could do little else at this point besides hope to survive the storm. It came.

This time, Athena woke to a numbing cold. Her mind flailed about, searching for something tangible to grasp onto. Her mission. Free Odysseus. And lightning. So much lightning. A low baritone voice echoed around her. Zeus, she realized, as the words came into clearer definition.

"-king," he was saying, "Of course, Hera, you understand why I had to do this to her."

Hera's opinion meant nothing. It should have meant nothing, but it still pulled at something internal in a way Athena would prefer not to confront at the moment, but could not muster the energy to push away. 

Be smart, Athena, you are still the goddess of wisdom. Right. In a hostile situation without allies and without hope of fighting back, she had only her wits and words. Zeus struck her because she had stepped out of line. She tried to pull her legs to her chest to appear as small as possible, and her body obeyed slowly. Sand had wormed its way into her clothes and shoes, so no part of her was free from the grating sensation of sand against open wounds. Despite her efforts to the contrary, a soft grunt of pain escaped.

"Are you intent on wasting my time this evening, Pallas Athena? It certainly took you long enough to wake."

"No-" she started, only to find the word flopping out of her mouth without tone and barely comprehensible.

"You will look at me when I am speaking to you! Open your eyes!"

Panic flared as for a moment, she physically could not manage it. When she had, she almost wished she hadn't. The only light came from the soft glow of the moon and a few pinpricks of stars, but it was still enough to make her head pound. She- she could not think about any possible impact on her mind from the lightning. She might start crying, which not only had she not done in front of a living being in several millenia, but her father also loathed. She had never made the mistake of crying in front of him, and she did not intend to start now.

"OPEN THEM!" Zeus roared. 

Athena didn't remember closing her eyes, but she had. She pried them open again. Zeus loomed over her, his dark gray hair swirling around his head. Lightning jumped between strands. It rippled down his clothes and across his arms, currently crossed across his chest.

A slender hand appeared on his right arm - Hera, judging by the peacock-feather patterns on the sleeve. "She doesn't need her eyes open to listen. She'll probably be able to focus better with them closed, too."

Confusion swirled. Zeus just said Hera agreed with- with everything-, so why would Hera try to make things easier for her? The idea flickered to mind a half-second later. She had to grasp at it, too, drawing it in and forcing it open. Ah. She knew this strategy. They had likely rehearsed while she was unconcious. Zeus would act overly harsh, then Hera would rephrase what he said and dress it up in a kind tone and flowery words to get information or agreement or something out of her. Athena wanted to sleep. She- She was so tired. She would just agree with Zeus from the beginning. Save herself from deciphering the motive behind each line in Hera's gaudy speech. 

"I have repeated myself enough for one evening. She will listen and she will do it with her eyes open."

"Of course, Father," Athena replied. Her tongue seemed to have come alive again, at least, even if it only seemed to want to last a few syllables.

"Did I ask you?" Zeus demanded, dislodging Hera's hand and turning violently back towards Athena.

"No, Father. I am deeply sorry." 

"As you should be. Regardless. Your precious mortal has been released. Unlike you, I understand that games are games. I do not try to leverage them for personal gain. As an example, I have upheld my end of the bargain. You have failed yours. You are never to attempt to shame me in such a way again. Is that understood?" 

Odysseus! He was free! "Yes, Father," she replied, trying to keep the joy out of her voice. He would be home soon. Where he belonged. And she had finally managed to do something right. 

"Ah, yes, two more things. First, your punishment is yours alone. Should anybody attempt to help you in any way, I will strike you again and reduce you to this state, and I will do the same to them. It has already happened once."

Already? She could not breathe. Who? It- it must have been that warmth earlier- Apollo. 

Apollo, please, I didn't mean to! But she knew he could not hear her.

"I am a gracious king, though, and since this infraction technically occurred before I announced this rule, I took mercy on Apollo. He only suffered a light shock. Technically speaking, you did this to him by looking so pitiful he felt the need to intervene. But surely you know enough to handle everything on your own, don't you?"

Tears welled in her eyes. No. No! No crying now. And Apollo. She- She hadn't even asked. Why? She pushed people away to keep them safe from the aura of destruction that seemed to have attached itself to her at birth, but they got hurt anyways. Apollo was only the latest to be added to the list. Her voice must not shake. "Of course I am, Father." Minor success on that front - no worse than it had been, at any rate. She couldn't go near any of them. At all. She would lock herself away in her palace, truly relegate herself to her domains and her domains only. She could not hurt anyone else. They would finally be free of her. She wasn't stupid; she knew they didn't want her around. This way, they would be safe and happier.

"And finally - if any mortal, in any way, learns of the events of these games, they will be killed immediately. Do you understand?"

...

...

"Yes," she whispered meekly. I'm sorry, Odysseus. An apology is the least of what you deserve, but I can't even give you that, because you have always been so smart. It doesn't take a genius to recognize lightning scars. You would know what happened here immediately. And then he would kill you, but it would be because of me, so I would have killed you. And all your friends. It's almost funny, how not killing you is the bar I must meet. I'm sorry you didn't have a better mentor, a better friend. I'm sorry for wasting your time, for plaguing your life, I'm sorry for failing at everything that mattered to you. You were right and you are still, I am alone and it's all I deserve.

"Oh, and be out of here by morning, will you? Ares would hate to see his training grounds covered in ichor."

Right. Yes. She was lying on the ground, and everything hurt, and if Odysseus wanted to hear anything from her, it wouldn't be a mess of self-pity.

The arena was their shared training grounds, technically, although Athena would likely not be able to spar for weeks or months to come, at least not well enough to compete with Ares at his full strength. "I will." 

"Do recover quickly," Zeus added with a small smirk, "your mind is a great use on Olympus, when you know better than to turn it against your own." The world faded in and out as Zeus spoke. She did see him turn and leave, though, and felt her body relax slightly.

Athena would wake up and leave before anyone saw her, before she had a chance to put anyone in danger. She would find- It was so cold here.

Focus, Athena. You need a plan.

She would find a way to her palace, and then assess her injuries from there. She would heal quickly, and then find a way to convince Telemachus to hate her, so that he would not have any interest in figuring out what happened. Or- perhaps Odysseus would do that for her. She had manipulated Telemachus, honestly, not telling him the full truth. That was the only reason he called her a friend, she was sure. He deserved better. 

The plan may have been overly-ambitious for her current state, but she would execute it. If only to avoid hurting anyone else. She had come short of that expectation so many times before, so she really had no chance of succeeding again, but please, fates, just let her...

She didn't even have time to finish her thought before the freezing cold dragged her down again.

To put it simply, Hera would quite like to skin herself at the moment. Failing that, she would like a long bath scalding enough to burn away any remnants of the evening. When Zeus had taken her hand earlier, after demanding that she return to the arena, and declared that of course she understood his actions without bothering to ask her, she had felt sick to her stomach, especially because she had seen Athena tense as he said it. And she couldn't do anything to contradict him, even though she did not understand a fraction of what he had done.

She had loved him, once, but far too often these days, love turned to blinding rage. She had given into it far more times than she would care to admit.

Zeus had stridden off half a minute ago. Hera took a moment to gather herself, unable to tear her eyes away from Athena, who was lying on the ground, likely unconcious again.

I'm so sorry, Athena. With a deep breath, Hera made her way out of the arena, away from the charred sand, and towards her own palace. At least she got to be alone tonight. The path was familiarly, and all too perfectly, smooth. She wished it would roughen or do anything to reflect the needless violence played out here tonight, but it was only a road, and so it did not.

Now she felt sick again, for leaving Athena alone on the ground. Any efforts to assist would have been in vain, but she still could not shake the guilt.

Hera had never particularly cared for Athena, although since she was a child from Zeus' previous marriage as opposed to one of his affairs, there was no significant animosity between them. They had worked together during the war, but after that, Athena withdrew from most life on Olympus. Always reading, crafting, or fighting, that one, and never sparing a thought for any interaction that did not involve at least one of the three. Never sparing a thought for anyone other than herself.

...Well, that was neither fair nor true. When it came to Athena and the other Olympians, it was a mutual disengagement. Ares was the only god she spent any significant time with of her own volition - Zeus demanding her counsel at any and all hours of the day, then dismissing her after she rattled off enough facts and strategies hardly counted - but while Hera was no goddess of wisdom, she would have to be quite the fool to not notice how many times Athena had distracted Zeus from any anger at Ares with some petty matter she knew Athena cared little for. If only someone could have intervened for her the way she had done for Ares.

Truthfully, Athena being the one struck had little bearing on Hera's rage - only the fact that Zeus would strike any of his children, that he would react with such rage and deny Apollo's healing. On how many of the occasions Athena diverted Zeus would he have ended up striking Ares if Athena hadn't? When Athena healed, Hera resolved to properly thank her.

And Apollo - Zeus had shocked him, too. Apollo deserved better from Zeus and he deserved better from her. Hera had hounded his mother, then refused to let her give birth. When Apollo and Artemis first came to Olympus, Hera ignored them. She hated what they represented: a sickening implication that she had failed by not preventing Zeus from cheating. She suddenly froze, now most of the way to the stairs leading up to her palace.

If she was the god of lightning, would she have hurt them the way Zeus had hurt Athena tonight? She would like to think not, but she had used the fullest extent of the power she did have against their mother, didn't she? She did not know how she would have acted back then. In truth, she feared the answer. She certainly would not now, at least, and she could derive some semblance of comfort from that. She began to walk again.

But yes, Hera had ignored Apollo until one day, when someone - likely an angry Titan - unleashed a particularly vicious beast on Olympus that had ambushed her in her sleep. Zeus had slain the beast almost immediately, but he could do nothing for her wounds. In that moment, she cursed her past self for shunning the god of healing, because he certainly would not help her now. Then, without comment, Apollo entered and began to heal her. When she asked why, he merely replied that he believed grudges should be left in the past. Several years later, Hera managed to swallow her pride enough to apologize. Apollo did not believe her at first, quite understandably, but as Hera made explicit efforts to make him and Artemis feel welcome, he began to trust her more. She now saw the twins as her children just as much as she did Ares, and Apollo seemed even more eager than her to let the past rest.

When Zeus raised her son from the ground, electrocuted him, and then threw him across the arena like a disposable sack, Hera wanted to strangle him for hurting Apollo. Apollo, who made it his oath to first do no harm, was forced to watch his father undo all his work and falsely call it his fault. To make it worse, Hera knew Apollo would take the burden of the entire night upon himself. Did Zeus not realize what he was doing or did he not care? She couldn't decide which was worse. Hopefully, Artemis was nearby, but Hera feared Apollo would never lose the guilt until Athena healed.

She had reached the stairs, now, and she absent-mindedly pulled a pomegranate from one of the trees that lined the pathway up. She allowed the juice of the fruit to run over her palms and stain them, a show of imperfection she allowed in order to counter Zeus' projected normalcy. A brilliantly-colored peacock walked up to her. Normally, she would stroke the back of the peacocks' heads, but the peacock would not appreciate juice on its feathers. It settled for walking alongside the stairs, occasionally having to duck under the bows of the pomegrante trees. Zeus would want them trimmed soon; they were getting long and unsightly. For that reason, she would perhaps let them grow out a little longer. Yes, she decided, she would only cut them once Athena healed and life on Olympus returned to normal.

And things would return to normal - she understood the others' worry, and felt great sympathy herself, but she had come of age in her father's stomach, with no water, food, light, or space to move around. She knew divinity lacked boundaries.

None of her thoughts came in any sort of orderly fashion, although that seemed about right, given the events of the evening. She did not even want to think any more and she doubted any of the others did, either. Sleep would not wash away anything that had happened, but she held onto the hope that Zeus would relent by morning. (She knew it was childish, even then.)

In moments of tragedy, everyone looked to the leaders. Hera had great authority on Olympus, second only to Zeus, and he had quite clearly demonstrated he could not be trusted. Hera would be a proper queen this time. A figure of stability and someone to trust. Fates only knew how many times she had failed to be so before.