Notes: I blame Zeus: Master of Olympus for leading me to associate Hera with oranges. Now I can't find enough sources listing the orange as one of Hera's sacred plants, but some do so I'm just going to run with it. Also running with the whole thing about Metis' son being greater than the father and stuff. Mostly because it seems very plausible. Eh... never been much of a fan of an android pronoun being used to refer to the whole of humanity, but at least in this case I'm going to turn it to my advantage.

If you're still confused over the totally random pairing, this was written for the Mortally Immortal Couples Competition/Challenge on Percy Jackson and The Land of Writing forum. Head over there if you suddenly feel the urge to write a totally random pairing. ;D

Disclaimer: Not written with the intention of making any sort of monetary profit. No disrespect is intended towards the Greek religion.

paths not taken

o

There is another woman.

An immortal this time. Metis is her name, because for all that she may pretend not to care in public, in private she remembers every one of her husband's mistakes. Or with every one of them, she is reminded of her mistake. One of the two.

She'd thought she knew what she was getting into- and yes, she's become bitter and jaded because she hadn't predicted the extent to which little brother would test her control over murderous intentions.

It's not even the infidelity which bothers her as much as the fact that while he can go and plow his seed all over the earth, she is by duty bound to be faithful. Titles were important things, after all. She might not have respect for her husband, but the patron of marriages had to care about the holy union between a man and a woman.

Really, she tells her reflection as she locks herself into her temple in a fit of rage and melancholia, Zeus and his blatant disregard for all that is right does not even enter into the picture.

When the new woman is soon pregnant, Queen Hera is thoroughly unamused.

She is, she will admit, somewhat more amused when Zeus learns that Metis' son will be greater than the father and swallows her in a bout of panic.

The girl bursts her way out of Zeus's thick head, and she has the dubious pleasure of watching it happen.

Dubious because great that's another bastard she'll have to deal with, with those too-pretty twins already mutilating her last nerve.

Pleasure because it wasn't everyday she got to watch her son split her husband's head with a hammer, and in her opinion that was a form of entertainment at Olympus they really did not do often enough.

They called her Athena, and the mortals were already making songs about her. Grey-eyed Athene of the sharp spear and the sharper eyes, apple of her father's eye. Goddess of war and wisdom, spindle and olive. Athena wise, Athena brave. Athena who was, according to a few of the less literal of Apollo's prophet-poets (honestly, the boy and his sister had their fingers in everything), making a valiant but silent effort to not overthrow her father because she was clearly greater than he was and simply not in the habit of overthrowing her sire.

Personally, Hera thought it was all smoke and mirrors. Nobody who had power enough to defat Zeus would stand around trying to actively not tear him into little adulterous pieces.

"Stepmother."

Hera is tempted to throw a wave of energy at anyone who addresses her so, but she's queen of Olympus, not fisherwoman from Knossos. Instead she turns a cool gaze on the girl, her expression halfway between unamused and uncaring, eyebrows regal and raised just a little.

Athena, the perfect daughter, bows to her. (No such thing as a courtesy for the goddess of war, of course. Not that Hera would know anything about obeisance.) Compliments her on her choice of chiton, and her general magnificence.

Hera is too busy wrestling her face from astonishment and into non-expression to notice Athena's soft smile.

Athena, Hera admits grudgingly, is all right.

She sidesteps her pointed remarks about the sanctity of marriage and how saddening it is to see so many young Olympians eschew it for immoral eroticism or childless chastity with nothing more than a smile. The way she talks sometimes is frankly unintelligible and only the cyclopses or the muses or that little perpetually smiling upstart with wings on his sandals understands her. But Athena knows structure. She knows how important what Hera does is, she knows that queen of the gods is much more than an empty title with a terrible husband and emotional baggage.

The girl is the only one among the Olympians capable of understanding the situation. For that alone, she has Hera's respect.

Zeus is Zeus. There are more bastards.

Hera is Hera. She will not stoop down to his level, but she will make new levels of her own she can climb down to.

Athena is Athena. Forever watching, waiting and hardly speaking.

Hera is Queen, which is far from a bad thing.

Hera is a queen whose consort constantly disregards her role, her dignity and (Rhea help her) her feelings. This is significantly far from a good thing.

Hera tries to mask her grievances in cold disdain and scathing words, and once that get to be too much she rages and screams and turns those mortal bitches into things. This is quite likely a bad thing.

Once her ire has calmed and she shuts herself in her orangery, justifying to herself that it was their fault, not her husbands'. That they deserved it anyway. That the whispers and mutters and looks she gets from the Olympians complaining about her irrationality and her cruelty does not matter (Queen, Queen, Queen). That she is not hiding, not admitting she has no idea what to do about the situation; simply inspecting her oranges.

It is at this point that Athena typically comes in, bushing past her guards, trading her usually commanding stride for something softer, standing next to Hera and helping her trim her trees while speaking hardly a word.

This, at least, is a very good thing.

"Stepmother."

"Athena," Hera smiles as she plucks an orange from her sacred tree, "Have you been avoiding me? The blossoms were not even in bloom the last time you were here."

"Forgive me, my queen," Athena says, grey eyes not meeting hers, "I was… in a state of confusion."

The girl does look a little more roughshod than usual, her immaculate hair and armor showing minute (but clear) signs of neglect. It takes Hera a moment before she identifies the feeling creeping up her chest as concern- that has been absent for a very long time after all.

"Is something wrong?" Hera abandons her orange and sweeps to her stepdaughter, raising her face to meet hers. "I am Queen," she adds, the caveat of I can solve your problems going unsaid. Even her empty title comes with more power than most people can comprehend.

"I-" Athena's eyes close, "It will displease you."

Dread creeping up her chest, on the other hand, is all too familiar. Hera can think of a dozen scenarios involving her stepdaughter that will displease her, most of them going back, one way or another, to her husband.

Her eyes are still closed, Athena brave refusing to face whatever truth that scares her so.

The Queen stands there for a long time, still as a statue, her stepdaughters face in her hands. There is something in this moment that is on an edge, a sense of companionship and affection mirrored by hidden tendrils of what she thinks are betrayal and isolation. They stand on the blade, a whisper of wind enough to push them towards one side or the other. It is the tremble of Athena's lips that decides it- Hera has had quite enough of betrayal and isolation in her life as it is.

She lets go of her face, and motions her to the garden.

They do not speak of it again that day.

It does not take too long before whispers circulate in Olympus that the wise lady Athene has become- well. A lot like Ares, only less fire and more ice.

Hera doesn't actually see any of this – Athena is always perfectly polite, perfectly in control, perfectly wonderful whenever they are in her orangery – but she hears everything. Athena being constantly irritated and constantly in a temper. Snapping at Artemis and Apollo (she generally got along well with the twins), criticizing Hephaestus' work and being barely civil to all of the other Olympians, including Zeus.

Perhaps even especially Zeus.

(She gave Aphrodite a wide berth, however. Which was understandable, because Aphrodite could be patently infuriating even when you were trying to dress her down.)

The matters come to a head when what Hermes swears (incurable gossips, every one of them) started out as a perfectly innocent offhand discussion on spears and swords, ends in a fight that destroys most of the northwestern corner of Olympus and angers Zeus enough for him to consider exiling his favourite daughter. Only Hera's carefully offhand interference simmers his anger down enough to make him reconsider it.

Hera then decides that things have gone this way for long enough. Ouranos knew Ares needs sense beaten into him on a regular basis, but it is this newly violent Athena that concerns her. And really, she cannot let Zeus ruin the child's life in a fit of paranoid rage.

Athena will not look directly at her. Hera has to raise her stepdaughter's face to meet hers, cheeks cradled between her hands, before she feels the terms of address are equal to the situation.

"I," she says, "Am not my husband. You have my forgiveness, child. Now stop this foolishness and tell me what you have done."

There is a pause, nowhere near as long as the one before, but perhaps twice as poignant.

"Not done, my queen," Athena finally opens her eyes, "thought about, perhaps. Again and Again"

Hera is not sure what she has been expecting, but it is not this. Athena's eyes are not ravaged, defeated, enraged. Nothing is there apart from hardness tempered with justice; a decisiveness that is quintessentially her. She feels her lips quirk into a smile at that, the knowledge that her stepdaughter is not lost, merely hiding very well for some unfathomable reason. Hera's forgiveness is not easily earned (she is not sure, to be perfectly honest, if she even has it in her to forgive), but knowing that Athena is still Athena and not a pitiful imitation of her, she feels she is capable of much more than she realized.

Athena leans in, and presses her lips to Hera's.

This time, Hera is too busy being startled to notice Athena's swift exit, forgiveness or no forgiveness.

Despite what Athena my think, she is not angry.

She is, instead, fully prepared to instruct her stepdaughter on the matter the next time she sees her. That such behavior might be acceptable to disgruntled philosophers and poets, and heros and gods with no fear of censure. But unless eros flows between a woman and a man, it is not marriage. There would be no child, no structure, no symmetry. It's not right. It does not count.

Save for one insignificant fact.

The mere brush of Athena's lips make her heart flutter like a mortals', faster than Zeus ever managed on his best day with all his machinations.

It's lust, Hera finally decides. It's that little tramp Aphrodite flaunting her powers with no regard to structure or rightness. Again. And her poor stepdaughter, caught up in the harpy's web of deceptions.

Most of Olympus just looks on, somewhat vague and mildly amused, as Hera jettisons a laughing Aphrodite out of Olympus. The irrational queen strikes again. It won't last, of course (Zeus will bring her back as soon as he gets back from whatever woman he's been with for the past few days), but she can take the time to corner Athena and tell her that none of this is her fault.

She knows her place (she's queen, protector of all that is right), and she will set things back on their proper path.

Athena is a little subdued when Hera tells her about Aphrodite and her meddling ways. When she finishes, she stares at her hands for a moment, covered in the dirt of the orangery.

"Is that all?" she asks.

"What else is there to say?" Hera smiles at her, "Consider yourself freed from this… unnaturalness. And about time too- you will always be my favourite stepdaughter, but this was… disquieting."

Athena looks at her, grey eyes laden with less emotion than normal (Hera feels vindicated- Aphrodite played entirely too fast and loose with her powers over the things). When she finally smiles, it's just slightly bitter.

"Farewell, my queen," she says, and leaves the garden.

Hera is not a prophetess, but there's something in the manner she says it. Something that makes her think that this is not her taking leave of Hera, this is her leaving Hera. And then the moment passes, and she shakes her head. Aphrodite never knew when to quit.

o

"The Queen was looking for you."

Athena Brave did not, under normal circumstances, hide. But given recent events, she considered her reluctance to be seen justified. Trust Aphrodite to put a damper on her plans. Again.

"You're back," Athena says dispassionately, "A pity."

"Father Zeus could not bear to see me away," Aphrodite dramatically raises a hand to her brow, "The collective beauty of Olympus decreases by about three quarters when I'm not here. And we can't have that, can we?"

Athena ignores her. She often thinks that the biggest problem with Aphrodite is that people simply do not ignore her enough.

"I take from your hiding that your confrontation with the queen did not go well?"

Hard to ignore a person when they made your teeth gnash and your temple throb, but Athena made a valiant effort.

"A pity."

Athena gives up and looks at her. Eyes burning cold with disdain, stopped from being hate only by the fact that the goddess of wisdom did not have time for such emotions. "You did this."

"Hardly," Aphrodite snaps her fingers, and a seat draped in white and pearl spears, long enough for her to lounge on, "It was entertaining, I grant you. But the two of you did it all on your own. Perhaps if you had stayed longer, tried to talk to her more…"

"There was no reason for me to stay," Athena says, "She made her feelings on the matter very clear."

"Again, a pity," Aphrodite tuts and conjures a grape from thin air, popping it into her mouth, "Wisdom has no place in love. And I thought you were doing so well till then too - falling for Hera, of all people. You would have had a much easier time of it with Artemis."

"You disgust me."

"So many people claim. None of them mean it," Aphrodite smiles, "I am not our beautiful young prophet, but I think that if it had gone differently… Perhaps, our queen may have been a little less bitter. Our king, perhaps, a little less of a king. You are the child of Metis, after all. Greater than the father."

"That was Son of Metis, Aphrodite," Athena says straightening up, "And I have had enough of this nonsense. I will leave you to your ramblings."

"Are you certain?" Aphrodite calls after her, "Because Apollo was strangely closemouthed about the details."

Certain? No, of course not. There was always a possibility that she could have overthrown Zeus (a clash of pure power is hardly the start and end of any battle), but the sheer pointlessness of it is enough to make her not even consider it. What would she have done, ruling Olympus? Likely spent all her time dissipating petty rebellions and temper tantrums. Hardly something dreams were made of.

Athena loves her father, in her own fashion, but she is not blind to his faults. The way he treats the queen- a goddess all power and control and pride, eclipsing anything as inane as beauty- being the first among them. If she had reason to throw away her loyalties to him for her, if a woman she admired could have handled all the insignificant details that came with the crown of Olympus, then maybe-

Daydreams. Ridiculous.

She really needs to start taking this vow of chastity a little more seriously, she decides. Aphrodite was right- love and wisdom did not mix well.

o

End Notes: Not my first crackship or my first non-het ship, but definitely my first non-het fanfic. 8D Reviews are appreciated.