A/N: Hello! The name's Herculade, and this is my very first story submitted to this site. But you don't care about that (or if you do, then my profile page is a better place for that sort of thing), so let's get some basics out of the way:

This story is rated M for sexual situations, violence, and occasional language. It is based on my own perceptions of the characters of Greek mythology, which has been in the public domain for a couple thousand years now.

This first chapter could be considered an introduction. It is the opening of a multi-chapter fic which should be updated again within the next few days. It's shorter than most of the other chapters will be, and nothing is really happening yet, but this is a good way to kick off both the story and my membership with this site. But that's enough out of me until the end of the chapter, so happy reading!

Chapter 1: Night Thoughts

Deep in the heart of the Underworld, seated on a throne of ebony in a palace of black marble, Lord Hades sat and brooded. His dark, shoulder-length hair hung in his bright amber eyes as he slumped forward in his seat, one hand stroking the whiskers of his short, full beard. He was dressed in flowing black robes lined with silver, with a cloak and boots to match. His skin was fair in complexion, for no sun ever shone in his kingdom of the dreary dead.

This night, Hades remembered, was the eve of the spring equinox. Persephone, his wife, lay sleeping in her bed. On the morrow, Hades would escort her to Mount Olympus, where she would spend the next six months completely out of his reach. In a way, Hades would miss her; she was his bride, after all. But he also knew that the six months away from her would be six months of silence, six months of not hearing her curse him with her tender lips, six months of not witnessing the hatred in her bright green eyes.

Why did she hate him, he wondered. He had asked himself this question every day for years beyond measure, but still he had no real answer. Yes, he had kidnapped her and brought her to his kingdom. Yes, he had given her the six pomegranate seeds which bound her to him for half of every year. Yes, those things had been terrible, and he regretted them. But those were only two deeds out of many, and he had kept some hope in his heart that he could atone for what he'd done. But not to her. As far as Persephone was concerned, her entire marriage was defined by those two dreadful mistakes.

How easily she forgot the good he'd done for her. How easily she forgot that he had tried every moment of every day since to make up for what he'd done. He had given her everything she'd ever asked: a sprawling garden in the courtyard, the greatest of riches from beneath the earth, even a separate chamber in which to sleep because the thought of sharing a bed with Hades disgusted her. He had always listened to her advice and had always forgiven her mistakes (the Orpheus and Sisyphus incidents, for example). From the moment he became her husband, he had tried everything in his power to earn her love. But it was never enough.

Yes, he had hurt her once. But how many times had she hurt him since? What of her affair with Adonis? Or with Zeus, her own father? Hades had not resented her for those. Yet when Hades had tried to take lovers of his own to fill the void in his heart, Persephone had turned them into trees the moment she'd learned their names. No matter how hard he tried, Persephone would always be miserable, and in turn she made certain that hades suffered with her.

Hades reflected on these things, and as he did so, he felt tears begin to sting his eyes. Not tears for Persephone herself; after so many mortal generations, he knew better than to weep for her. These tears were for his own sake, tears for the Lord of the Dead upon whom no mortal or god would take pity. Whom no woman or goddess would love.

And tomorrow, the cycle would begin again. Tomorrow, he would bring Persephone to Olympus and leave her there for half a year. Tomorrow, he would bid his yearly farewell to a woman whom he'd sacrificed so much for, knowing all the while that she would be glad to be rid of him. Tomorrow, his heart would break again.

But tonight, he needed sleep.

Hades heaved a broken sigh and rose from his throne, his eyes still wet with tears that would not fall. He would not shed them; it was not his way. He was Hades: cold and powerful and inexorable, a perfect ruler of the shades of the dead. And yet, he mused as he quietly retired to his chambers, he was also something more. Something that made him feel even more akin to the dead than all his other qualities put together.

He was all alone, and not a soul in the cosmos mourned for him.

The dark Underworld was not the only place for unpleasant thoughts this night. The gilded halls of Olympus harbored their own restless soul.

Hera, Queen of the Gods, lay awake in her palace. The moonlight which spilled through her bedroom window gently illuminated her slender figure, draped with sheets of purple silk. Long black hair cascaded across her pillows. Blue eyes as deep and as beautiful as the sky stared out into the night. The moon was full and bright, bathing all beneath it in its gentle glow. The stars glittered like precious jewels in the sky. It was an absolutely perfect night – a romantic night.

Hera could never sleep on nights like these.

On nights like these, her husband Zeus would leave the golden halls of his palace without a word to her, and he would not return until the dawn. Hera would go to bed without him, trying desperately to sleep, but unable to shut her eyes because she knew exactly what Zeus was doing. While she lay there alone, her husband was hidden away, limbs entangled with the newest of his endless string of paramours.

Hera wondered what her husband's latest conquest looked like. Was she a mortal or a goddess? A nymph, perhaps? Was she beautiful? Was she even a woman? Zeus had already covered the entire spectrum of potential lovers several times over, so Hera couldn't say she would be surprised no matter what he slept with. Frankly, she didn't care anymore. It was something to contemplate as the familiar bitterness set in, but it was not what kept her awake at night whenever Zeus was gone. No, the thoughts that haunted her were even worse.

Hera turned away from the window and stared with regret at the empty space beside her. Her entire life had been defined by Zeus's lust, ever since the beginning of his reign. Hera hadn't been at all interested in him then (in fact, she'd had her eye on another young god) but she had been naïve and unprepared against Zeus's wiles. He had appeared at her window in the form of a cuckoo bird of all things, and she had taken the bait at once. When she'd held the bird to her bosom, Zeus had revealed himself and ravished her where she stood. As the goddess of marriage, Hera had been forced to wed the god who had stolen her maidenhood. She was doomed to remain faithful to a husband she did not love, and to add salt to the wounds, she could only stand idly by while Zeus bedded anyone and everyone who caught his eye.

She suspected that was why he married her in the first place. He knew he would need a queen to rule beside him, but any other woman would have tired of his neglect and left him. But by choosing the patroness of marriage, Zeus had taken a wife whose divine responsibility it was to remain faithful to him, regardless of how much she wished otherwise.

Living in this fashion had made Hera bitter. She could not confront Zeus directly; a few days of dangling from the sky with weights chained to her ankles had taught her that. So instead, she directed her rage toward Zeus's lovers and his bastard children. It was her only outlet for her frustrations, and it soon became her all-consuming obsession. Whenever mortals spoke of her, they spoke only of how she'd hounded Heracles or tormented Leto, how she'd arranged the deaths of Callisto and Semele. Hardly ever did they speak of how she presided over Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece or aided the Greeks during the Trojan War.

Hera hated what she had become. She hated her envy and her bitterness. She hated the eternal quest for vengeance which drove her still. It had taken over every facet of her life, and no matter what else she put her hand to she would always be seen as the spiteful wife of an adulterous husband.

These thoughts of a wasted life brought tears to Hera's eyes, but she refused to shed them even in the privacy of her own bedroom. No matter how angry or remorseful she was, she was still Queen of Olympus. Life had made her bitter, but it had also made her strong, and she was not about to show weakness now. Not even to herself.

With these things still weighing heavily on her mind, Hera finally drifted off to sleep. But her sleep was fitful and plagued with dreams, and when she awoke the next morning, her pillow was stained with tears.

A/N: Well, that's that. We get an inside look at our main characters and a sample of what to expect in coming chapters. I'm trying to make the gods three-dimensional and fit together well, but this is at its heart a Hades/Hera story (an underappreciated little pairing, I think). Take that however you will.

Reviews of any kind are always welcome, so feel free to share your thoughts. I'm probably shooting myself in the foot by saying "any kind," but I'm willing to go out on a little bit of a limb here.

-Herculade