By rights, any god with even a slightly thinner skin would no longer be able to keep up the act.
Forget an ordinary bird—under Hera's divine power, even an ordinary god would have long since been ground to powder.
Yet even now, what Hera saw was Zeus still playing dead.
And even more flamboyantly.
As she tightened her grip, he kicked out with his two little claws, and even stuck out that bright red little tongue on purpose.
Gracious Hera truly felt both angry and amused.
But she still could do nothing to Zeus.
So she gave a cold humph, and "fiercely" flung the "dead bird" to the ground, then turned to leave.
She had only just turned—had not yet taken half a step—when a strong, warm hand seized her fair wrist and held fast.
In the next instant, an immense force she could not possibly resist drew her back into an embrace incomparably familiar and incomparably solid.
The whole world changed in a heartbeat: clouds broke, sunlight poured, and in a moment the air was filled with thunder and the virile breath of the sky, wholly replacing the damp fragrance of earth and rain.
It was the chest she knew best, and forever most longed for—the most solid of all.
It was the sky gathering her in its arms.
The universe's most gentle, most melodious, most magnetic voice rose slowly by her ear, a thousand times lovelier than a lark's song:
"My most beloved, beautiful goddess—my Hera—why are you so cruel to a poor little bird that loves you most of all?"
"My love, do you know this tiny little bird would rather rest in your palm forever and ever?"
The slight fire in tender Hera's heart was doused like a sudden downpour, losing its kindling in an instant.
This was the god she loved most, this the embrace she longed for most.
Hearing words that moved the divine heart, her anger slipped away beyond control.
At the same time, boundless grievance and deeper ache welled through her like a tide.
She did not pull free from her beloved god's arms, but nor did she respond.
Her face was expressionless as she said in an icy tone, "Your Majesty the most noble God-King in the universe, the sole Supreme—why would you use such base means to humiliate a goddess?"
"Yes, Your Majesty the God-King may do as you please, may you not?"
"All things in this cosmos are yours for the taking. You are lord of everything. Whatever you wish to do is only natural."
Her voice held a barely perceptible tremor, full of self-mocking desolation.
"So long as you crook a finger, any goddess will at once throw herself into your embrace, shed her garments, let you toy with her at will, and bear you children."
"In the end she will even thank you with tears, grateful for Your Majesty's supreme favor, no?"
Hera slowly lifted her head and looked straight at the God-King she loved most.
Two pairs of golden eyes born of one source met, quietly holding each other.
In one pair burned love and desire hot as flame, and that rare compassion and guilt deep as the sea.
In the other lay a love as profound as the abyss, yet filled with endless broken heartache.
It was like rain falling on a mirror-lake, sending ripples ring upon ring across its surface—layered waves of soundless pain.
"Honored Majesty, great Majesty, supreme Majesty—who in the universe can gainsay your will?"
Her voice was even, but every word was bitter to the bone. "Why use such low tricks? If you want, I can even now shed my garments and give you all I am."
Zeus, hearing this, shut his eyes and drew a deep breath—then let it go.
He could only hold his beloved Hera all the tighter, pressing her closer to his heart.
Pressing his cheek to her fine, fair ear, he murmured in a tone most precious and most tender, "Hera, my Hera, my eternal beloved."
"I truly wish I could open my breast and let you see with your own eyes how sincere my love for you is—how I have longed for you to see how my heart is filled with your name."
"I truly wish to bare all my divinity and let you look well."
"To see whether my love for you is truly, forever engraved in the deepest part of my divinity; to let you see how your name shines resplendent at the deepest reach of my divine light."
"Hera, my Hera, my beloved, the light of my divinity, all of my gentleness."
"I know I have far too many faults, too much indulgence, and am unworthy in much."
"But my love for you is never, ever in doubt! I have never—and will never—equivocate, conceal, or hesitate. My beloved Hera—I love you!"
"I swear by the name 'Zeus': I will love my Hera forever and deeply! This love endures—undying and unchanging!"
"My treasure, my beloved, my supreme and most precious Hera—how very much I do not want you to suffer even the least wound."
Holding his beloved tighter, the God-King whispered in plea, "My love—what can I do to prove to you this love of mine? What can I do so you will believe my heart?"
"Know this: I am willing to share with you my everything."
"My universe, my sky, my thunder, my throne—I am willing to share them with you; my edicts, my radiance, my order, all my reward and punishment—I am willing we should share them both."
These burning, heartfelt words fell on Hera like a gentle, massive stone, pressing her mood still heavier.
She did not doubt Zeus's heart.
Only—should the fidelity of love, the expectations of a woman, the principle she had honored all her days—really be betrayed?
The God-King sensed his beloved's heaviness and struggle. He paused slightly, then smiled softly—a smile shorn of all frivolity, leaving only a warmth gentle enough to melt snow:
"If you still will not believe me, then I shall again become a little lark, and from this day on sing at your window every day. I will sing until the first ray of every dawn lights all Olympus. In any case, you will never shake me off."
Hera's butterfly lashes trembled at last.
The first ray of every dawn—
This line, like the softest feather, plucked with perfect precision at the string named "longing" deep in her heart.
It soothed that tender heart already riddled with wounds.
All the authority and glory her beloved God-King promised—none of that mattered to her.
What she had wanted from the beginning was only the mornings when they might lean close to each other.
Only that simple togetherness.
The most radiant Lady of Heaven listened to her beloved God-King; her heart was filled with inexhaustible emotion—and torn by inexpressible pain.
Sourness, bitterness, endless grievance—all gathered in that moment into a sea of suffering that could not be crossed, and drowned her wholly.
The last pillar upholding her divinity gave a groan under sweet, storming waves and broke, inch by inch.
All the strength of her body and her resolve slipped away like sand through fingers, beyond recall.
She could never—never—refuse her beloved God-King.
Because she loved him so very, very much.
Their names—and their fates—had long been bound together, tight, in eternal time.
Speak Hera's name, and Zeus cannot be apart from it; speak the eternal God-King's, and Hera cannot be left out.
The eternal Queen of the High Heaven, Lady of the endless Kingdom of Heaven, the supreme Lady, Queen of all gods, the Great Mother on the golden throne…
Hera, in golden sandals, slowly lifted those flawless arms unmatched in the cosmos and, with the last of her strength, gently—gently—embraced her beloved God-King.
With a heartbreak tremor, like a sigh, like a whisper, the words flowed from her rosy lips like a soft wind:
"Your Majesty… you hold thunder and order. Your radiance draws the gods' reverence. What you will is almost all possible; but what I will—can never… be."
"Zeus… my eternal beloved… why—why? Why did I fall in love with you?"
"My Lord, tell me… why must I bear this most painful torment?"
"You let my divinity sink in your great, oceanic, sweet love—yet you… why must you make me bear a suffocation I cannot breathe through?"
"Why… why?"
"Hera…" For all Zeus's silver tongue and fair words, he could say not a word in his defense now.
He could only hold his beloved Hera with all the love in him, as if he would meld her wholly into himself.
He could shield Hera from every wind and sand, and yet the greatest pain and torment had been given her by this amorous God-Lord with his own hand.
And even in all-knowing, all-powerful majesty, he could do nothing against it.
In this eternal love, he was, in the end, the more selfish, and Hera the one who bore all.
"My love—I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"
For the first time, the supreme God-Lord spoke an apology from his heart. Toward no other goddess would he feel such deep remorse.
For he knew well that the only root of what Hera had borne was her noble, flawless, singular fidelity of love for him!
Hera drew a deep breath, as if to exhale all the weariness of her soul.
She wished to speak of it no more, wished no more to think on pain.
With effort she stilled her heart and asked softly, "Zeus, my love—tell me then. Why did you come to me?"
With endless love and guilt, the amorous God-King bowed his head and kissed the fragrance hidden in her hair.
In a voice so soft it was almost a plea, he answered low, "My Hera—I… I can no longer endure my love for you… Please—please refuse me no more. Be my wife."
"I do not ask you to agree now… only that you let me stay in your heart—let me stand there, to wait until you come, or call me to come to you."
Bright Hera started at this.
The wind stopped.
She gazed quietly at her eternal beloved, and in those golden flames of his pupils saw only her single, sole image.
She recalled how, standing countless times atop Olympus, she had looked out upon the boundless earth and sky.
Facing the endless expanse, she had wanted to give up countless times.
She would not hate, for she held that the opposite of love is not hate but "no feeling."
Yet the god before her would never let her "feel nothing."
Even hatred—she could not do.
With a tragic smile, she looked into Zeus's unwavering eyes and said faintly, "Zeus, oh Zeus… am I not already in your arms?"
"Say no more—please, say no more…"
"Let it be… let it be…"
"My God-King… my Lord… my Father… my everything… let it be."
"Take me… say no more of the rest… let it be."
Before the words had fallen, the golden crown upon bright Hera's brow—a symbol of fidelity and pride—slipped quietly free.
It made no sound, only settled upon the grassy earth, rolling among fragrant flowers,
until it was gently caught by a petal.
She transgressed her noblest divinity.
Only for that incurable love.
She gave all she was to her beloved God-King.
With grievance—without regret—and without hate.
The supreme Father of Heaven, at last, possessed the great Mother of Procreation.
——
In that instant the whole universe heaved with the vastest aether-tide!
Its waves churned like the wildest billows, stirring a wild cosmic storm, and with unprecedented force shook the universe entire!
Boundless golden cloud gathered from the void, in unprecedented thickness and splendor, and utterly veiled the world of existence!
Endless, immeasurable, limitless sacred golden lightning flashed madly within the cloud.
A thunder that never ceased, roaring with joy and delight, resounded through every corner of the cosmos!
Gold-white lightning, upon the black vault, embroidered a supreme, gorgeous marriage crown!
And the warm power of fertile procreation rose from the deep of the earth and spread the infinite world into the most dazzling wedding gown!
The four winds of all quarters shifted their pitch and became a grand string ensemble sounding the music of heaven!
All-colored clouds gathered from among the stars to weave an endless wedding veil most resplendent!
A vast rainbow containing the colors of all existence wound into a lover's knot—the emblem of the eternal covenant!
At that moment the star-river of the whole, boundless cosmos—the endless stars—were guests at this sacred wedding, lifting high the lanterns of their blessing for Father and Mother of Heaven!
The sacred network of the Heavenly Order revealed the strands of its most primal weave, and upon its holy loom, with eternity for witness, wove this unique, sacred marriage-bond!
The thunder of the Great Father God descended from the universe's highest place—no longer the awe of destruction, but become a holy golden rain of light that held the codes of unending life, falling tenderly upon the limitless world Hera represented, hungry for vitality.
The Great Mother Goddess had become a limitless "Sea of Procreation" that bore all sources of life.
It was warm and deep, rolling with the primal embryos of all life—the richest, purest essence of life in the cosmos.
Her power became a warm, moist life-mist rising from that sea.
Like a canopy vast beyond measure, it spread gently and firmly to receive heaven's sacred favor.
All the universe trembled fiercely at this most sacred union!
Not out of fear, but from a supernal ecstasy at returning to the origin and reaching utter harmony!
This was no carnal rutting, nor even a simple joining of concepts and laws!
It was "yin" and "yang," "hard" and "soft" driving the cosmos' motion; the "power that grants form" and the "matrix that bears the ten thousand things"; the supreme Great Father God and the sovereign Great Mother Goddess in the greatest holy unity!
The Great Father God supplied for every living being the most sacred order and bounds.
The Great Mother Goddess poured into that order a life-stream that never ceases and overflows with vitality.
The light-threads of the Heavenly Order were rewoven, and the pattern that signified "existence" was given a new, tough strand named "growth."
The universe was no longer a cold mirror gazing at itself; it learned to reach out and to grow within.
It learned to turn "possibility" into "becoming."
From now on, life would no longer be a wild, lawless sprouting in chaos, but a thriving multiplication beneath sacred order.
And order would no longer be a cold, rigid frame of rules, but an organic whole full of life's vigor, ever evolving.
Thus the universe entered a golden age that was orderly and abundant in the true sense!
A great epoch of thriving procreation!
Then the "holy thunder" struck at last into the "Sea of Procreation."
Golden "light of law" poured in an instant into the deep "Sea of Life."
The sky's order and life's derivation; the masculine will and the feminine bearing; the mingling of Great Father and Great Mother—at that moment reached the most perfect harmony of creation!
In that moment the whole universe was wholly clothed in a radiance of glory unlike any before.
In that glow were the golden sacred tracings of thunder and the mist of fragrance brimming with life.
The stars swayed for it, shedding silver blessings; the seas stilled their surges and sounded a deepest hymn.
On earth, every bud burst in an instant; every unripe fruit hastened to a full sweetness; the air was rich with the sweetest breath of birth and procreation!
This was a union beyond the flesh! The final resonance and fulfillment of the cosmos!
All things, all beings, fell into the deepest ecstasy born of life's source!
For from this day the world held a new "right"!
Zeus, the supreme King of Heaven! He is Lord all-knowing, King all-powerful! He is creator of existence, maker of order! He is eternal motion's very energy, the One who springs from all and stands above all!
His thunder is not only a tool of destruction—it is a holy light that cleaves chaos, creates all things, and brings forth life!
His embrace is the covering of the Great Father over the limitless universe, the protection and rule of justice and equity over life!
Hera, the solemn, loving Mother of Procreation! She is mother of life, giver of the gift of living! She is the driver of endless evolution, the fount of the universe's advance! She is the gentle mother who bears all beings, the embodiment of eternal evolving life-force, the supreme Great Mother by whom all existence moves forward!
She is rich soil, receiving heaven's rain and light; she is the ocean of motherhood, bearing forms without number; she is Lady of the Sky, granting the holy right of procreation and evolution to every living thing!
Their sacred union was the perfection of the cosmic law itself!
It opened a great era in which order and life, power and procreation, father-right and mother-right were fully fused—so that all things might prosper and create beneath a sacred frame!
Their union was the grandest sacred wedding in the history of the universe's evolution!
The whole world leapt from a static "being" to a dynamic "becoming"!
In that ultimate harmony—the sacred mingling that stands for creation's source—at the deepest confluence of their divinities, a nameless point of light was kindled.
Bearing the highest mystery in which "the will that grants form" joins "the potential that bears all things," a great deity began to be conceived.
The great Mother of Procreation took that seed of light into her womb and gave it endless vitality.
The Thunder-Father God forged for it a heartbeat in rhythm with the universe.
Abundance wove it a warm swaddling; Order set up for it a firm mold.
The old God-King's supreme authority of "Creation" in Hera's womb was sublimed and conceived anew.
The supreme God-King poured in the authority that defines form, sets rules, and crafts with exactness.
The loving Great Mother poured in the mother-source power that bears without end, gives life its vigor, and turns conception into reality.
It was "possibility" caught by "reality"; a "blueprint" presented in "matter"—the first sacred ring of the anvil!
It was the great power by which "energy shapes matter" and "law builds form"!
His name—Hephaestus!
The wise master of "creating all things, and crafting for all creation"!
The God-King's firstborn son!
Firstborn of the supreme Great Father God and the sovereign Great Mother Goddess!
The great god of creation whom all civilizations shall forever revere!
He was the old God-King's supreme authority, rewoven by the God-King Zeus's supreme order, and then sublimed and conceived anew in the Great Mother's womb—a brand-new great god!
From the Mother's boundless life he drew an inexhaustible power of creation; from the Father's thunder of order he received a rule precise to the hair's breadth.
He shall take "rules" for his crucible, and "will" for his hammer.
He shall smelt scattered "materials" and "elements" into tangible "implements" and "forms."
He shall cast fleeting inspirations that pass in the void into things that living beings can grasp.
Where he walks there shall be miracles that can be repeated.
Where he goes, inspiration will not flash away, and great works will not be only song.
Because of him, "creation" will no longer be a privilege of the gods alone, but will become a "craft" that can be taught, a "process" that can be preserved, a "path" that can be passed down.
Because of him, all living beings may at last grasp the rules set by the gods and bind all that wanders between heaven and earth!
His birth signifies that, after the supreme gods' union, the universe has gained an inner, inexhaustible, inheritable creative power.
From then on, civilization could be forged; art could be born.
Beyond "procreation," the world would add the brilliant luster of "craft" and "culture."
This is the ultimate meaning of the Great Father and Great Mother's coupling: father and mother interflow, yin and yang interlock, abundance and discipline attest, survival and creation advance each other.
The world's "life" would henceforth have "order"; and the world's "order" would henceforth serve "life."
From this day the universe's evolutionary rhythm was shifted to a new frequency.
From now on, a great era of prosperity and procreation was formally opened.
Creation was granted a form that could be learned; life was endowed with an order that could be continued.
All things, all beings in the universe smiled.
For all things had their living, and all beings their hope.
A great age of eternal flourishing—ever procreating, ever creating, ever evolving—had begun.
Praise Zeus!
Praise Hera!
The deep communion of the Great Father God and Great Mother Goddess lasted a full three hundred and thirty-three days of perfect cycle.
Throughout those three hundred and thirty-three days the entire universe was wholly veiled in the greatest and most splendid auspicious portents since the beginning—portents full of life and the harmonious resonance of order.
Only when Zeus and Hera parted did those endless auspicious signs ebb slowly away like a tide, leaving on the firmament a long, warm afterglow of rainbow.
Zeus still stood where he was. The thunder of heaven and earth had long since faded like a far surf; upon the broad plain there was only He, one god.
With his fingertips he lightly stroked the lock at his brow—the purest golden hair, the same color as his own, that he had stubbornly begged to keep.
Feeling a warmth that seemed not yet wholly spent, He felt a loss within.
The God-King was still recalling the love and the beauty poured into each other in that span of three hundred and thirty-three days—things that made all his divinity drunk, deep.
In that deepest communion He could feel Hera's love clearly—a devotion that could wholly enfold His boundless divinity.
Pure and flawless, steadfast and singular, the soft chant of that deep love still echoed in the depths of His divinity, like a morning star that never goes out at night's end.
Hera had already returned to Olympus, to her Temple of Procreation.
Seeing Asteria together with Leto, she knew at once why Asteria had left—but she bore no blame.
Who can gainsay the beloved God-King's will?
She sat alone upon her throne and stared in a daze.
She could feel the sweetness and joy within—feelings that could not lie.
Yet her heart was still like a lake's surface pelted by rain, throwing ring upon ring of ripples—unable to grow calm.
She did not know how to face Zeus, much less how to face the other goddesses—especially those she respected, both goddesses and friends.
Perhaps they would not mind—perhaps they would meet her with generosity and breadth.
But she minded.
She minded the principle of "fidelity," and the longing for "togetherness."
She could not refuse Zeus.
Yes—by no means could she refuse Zeus, nor could she lie to the truth in the deepest place of her heart.
But she would never stake any goddess's happiness and dignity as the footnote to her own.
So she could only, with immense resolve, flee from Zeus for a time and hurry back to her temple, to sit quietly here.
Because her heart was a tangle.
The child in her womb—the God-King's firstborn son—though his divinity and authority were complete, had not yet been born; he still slept, being borne.
As the supreme Great Mother Goddess, the birth of her first child was fated to follow "ordinary childbearing"—this was to set a baseline for all beings.
This time would need a full cycle of a "holy twelve-month."
That year was a reverence to great mother-love.
And it would suffice to bear this child—already strong beyond compare—to an even greater perfection, an even greater might.
The Lord of "Creation" was about to appear.
When the Lord of "Creation" descended, all dreams of civilizations concerning tool and method, form and principle, plan and craft would at last gain hope and a future that could be inherited, replicated, and widely spread.
During the three hundred and thirty-three days of Zeus and Hera's union, many goddesses throughout the universe changed countenance together.
Whether or not they had known "Zeus loves Hera most" before, they now understood.
For this time the stir was the greatest, and the time the longest!
And every god could sense that the great God-King had in no way concealed it—he had, with something like a proclamation, bestowed upon the goddess of Procreation both His firstborn and that crucial, very special authority of "Creation."
Even though this divine son was not yet born, none of it was any secret.
In the Underworld, a certain great goddess of Night—most unwilling to have her name revealed—though she had long suspected that Zeus loved Hera most, still looked as black as pitch at that moment.
The shadow beneath her throne of night seemed to deepen by several degrees—a chill and terror as if to swallow all.
Beside her, the gentle, tender Hemera, looking upon her Mother's face, so grim it seemed water might drip from it, felt rather afraid.
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