**In Olympus, nothing goes unnoticed for long. Especially when silence begins to last too long.**
At first, Hades' servant was merely a curiosity—an odd gift for a goddess accustomed to crowns and thunder. Someone who didn't speak, didn't smile, didn't move without explicit orders—not someone worthy of much attention.
But he stayed.
And in time, **what he didn't do** began to draw more notice than any grand gesture ever could.
---
Apollo was the first to speak up during a tedious banquet honoring Persephone's return.
"He's still there?" he asked, staring toward the back of the hall, where the servant stood motionless. "How many days?"
Hermes replied, mouth full:
"Months."
"And no one ever saw him eat?"
"Or sleep," added Dionysus, yawning. "I tried to get him to join a game. Not even a blink."
Apollo frowned.
"That's not natural."
"It's not natural for us either, darling," teased Aphrodite, swirling her wine. "Even the gods need distractions. That one is... a rock. And Hera seems content with it."
Athena, who'd been silent, observed:
"Have you noticed she acts different since he arrived?"
"Calmer," noted Artemis. "More practical."
"More dangerous, maybe," said Apollo. "A mute goddess is always a goddess silenced before something happens."
---
Slowly, the whispers spread like wind drifting between columns:
* "He didn't come from a temple."
* "She didn't raise him."
* "He doesn't speak. Doesn't feel."
* "Who's to say he's just a servant?"
* "Maybe he's gathering secrets."
* "Maybe he's a spell."
---
Aphrodite decided to test him.
At dusk, she approached the servant alone, holding a jar of perfumed honey.
"You don't eat, you don't drink, you don't react."
She came closer.
"Not even a breath of desire? Not a flicker?"
Nothing. He remained unchanged: upright, eyes open, the faded blue flower behind his ear.
Aphrodite brushed a finger across his arm—just to see. It was skin. But cold. No divine warmth. No perceptible pulse.
"Either you're dead... or you're beyond life."
She walked away more serious than when she arrived.
---
In the council, Zeus spoke.
Neither roaring nor shouting.
He spoke with the calm of one rehearsing.
"He's strange. Hera, you know that."
"Yes."
"We don't know what he *is*."
"He was a gift."
"From Hades. Doesn't that bother you?"
"If it were a trap, it would've sprung already."
"And if it already did... and you're inside it?"
Hera paused before answering:
"He holds no secrets. Only silence. We're the ones who forgot how to live with it."
Athena interjected sharply:
"Silence is useful when control is yours. But what if he's watching? Reporting? What *does* he see?"
For the first time, a hint of irritation flickered across Hera's face—not emotion, just interruption.
"What's there to report? That I wear less gold? That I no longer scold the lesser ones? If that's valuable information, perhaps the fault lies with us."
Zeus clenched a fist on the table.
"I don't trust him."
"You never trusted anything I didn't choose for you."
Silence.
---
That night, Hera did not return to her private chambers.
She stayed in the outer garden, seated beside the fountain. The servant remained motionless.
"They're afraid of you."
He said nothing.
"Not because of something you *do*. But because of what you... are not."
She removed the wilted blue flower from behind his ear. For a moment considered leaving it bare. Then plucked a white one from the bush and quietly replaced it—as she always did.
"They live by names, titles, and functions. You have none. And that unsettles them."
She touched her necklace, seemingly by instinct.
"Maybe because, beside you, I begin not to have one either."
It wasn't lament. Nor praise. Just quiet observation.
---
Days later, Apollo followed the servant.
He kept his distance, watching. Hoping to catch something: a suspicious gesture, a hint of rebellion, a spark of life.
But the servant only walked when Hera walked. Stopped when she stopped. Never looked at the sky, nor at anyone else. Never touched anything unless told.
"That isn't loyalty," Apollo murmured. "It's... programming."
He returned to his temple feeling that watching the servant was like staring at a dark mirror. Nothing reflected—but still, impossible to look away from.
---
Hermes tried to provoke with a joke:
"Maybe he *is* Hades in disguise."
Ares laughed. But no one else did.
Because deep down, the joke carried weight.
No one could say anymore *what* that servant truly was.
---
Hades himself remained silent.
When Zeus sent messengers to question the nature of the gift, he replied in one sentence:
"She accepted him. Not forced."
That was enough. Because everyone knew Hera accepted nothing she didn't choose.
---
One morning, Hera appeared in the main hall with the servant three steps behind her. No one spoke.
All eyes turned toward them—not with admiration, nor fear—but growing discomfort— as though something ancient was quietly being dismantled before them.
Hera crossed the hall in silence, her gown simple, no crown. The servant neither preceded nor followed too closely.
Yet his presence was undeniable.
And among all the gods of Olympus, none could say why it bothered them so much.