Commission: Ganymede and the triple H alliance: Chapter 2.4: No one loves good girls even good girls themselves

Have you ever woken up and realized that you are not happy?

Have you ever woken up and realized , that nothing you have wanted, that nothing you have done, has been significant in the end?

This is what she had felt. She was not happy.

She had not been happy with her life.

She had been the daughter of a normal family. Even if it could be argued about.

They told her what they expected from her.

She went to school.

She tried to get a good degree.

The girl was polite.

Intelligent.

The kind of girl that parents wanted.

The kind of girl you can say who makes you proud.

She did it.

She did everything.

It was pointless because, being a good girl, being a good girl changed nothing.

The parents died.

While she was still going through college.

Which left her homeless.

All of a sudden, nothing mattered anymore.

All of a sudden, she was nothing.

Everything she worked for.

Every gesture was different.

She killed herself.

She worked and studied at the same time.

She thought that good things happened to good people.

That's what she hoped.

And that's what she wanted to believe. What she needed to believe.

She killed herself. Little by little. Little by little.

And she knew it deep down. But she didn't care. Until she reached her goal.

That's what she prayed for at least.

Again.

And beyond.

Even if she gave everything she had.

Even if she cried and she cried a lot.

Even if she lost so much.

Even if she had been homeless for a long time.

Nothing changed.

She had a degree.

Lots of debt. So much debt.

And she tried to find a job.

A real job. A good job.

Because she deserved it.

After everything she went through.

To have a better life, a good life.

She deserved it because she had always been a good girl.

Because she had always been respectful.

In stories. In books. In movies. Those kinds of people. Those kinds of girls.

Only good things happen to them. Right?

Right?

But. When she tried.

They looked at her.

They looked at her as if she were a ghost.

They looked at her as if she were something.

Only to be played with.

They looked at her with lust and contempt.

With disgust.

And want in their eyes.

They told her she could have everything she wanted.

She only had to prove.

That she was ready to do everything.

And of course.

She didn't want to.

It was because of everything she wanted.

The world was supposed to be fair.

It wasn't fair.

So of course.

She reported it.

She went to the police.

To the company's management.

Where she wanted.

To be part of, to work at.

And if anything.

Nothing.

Nothing really good followed.

If anything.

All of a sudden.

The result.

She was nobody.

Every job in the same field.

It was like.

Everyone knew.

As if.

Everything she did.

As if what she did.

Was a sin.

They all punished her for it.

As if.

Because.

She defended herself.

Because.

She wanted.

That all the evil that was happening.

Not to happen to her.

She was the devil for that.

So.

Everything she worked for.

Everything she scrapped for.

Everything she tore herself for.

It was all useless.

Even.

The fast food joint.

Didn't want her.

So what was the point?

What was the point of the pain.

Of the hatred.

Of the spite.

And everything that made her.

So she could be the best.

So she could be a good girl.

So she could be.

What her parents wanted.

The world lied to her.

Her parents lied to her.

She lied to herself.

And in the end.

Caught up with the pain.

And in the end.

With everything that happened.

A girl jumped.

She fell.

While she looked at the sky.

While she looked at a beautiful world.

And awaited final pain.

She wished.

She hoped.

That it could be different.

And if she had another opportunity.

She would be different.

She would live for herself.

She would no longer be a good girl.

Or at least, the kind of good girl who let the world walk over her.

She would be free.

Would do everything she wanted.

Would do everything she believed in.

*

It was both the end and was not the end.

It should have been the end, yet it wasn't.

She woke up, and she was someone else.

She was a goddess, a real goddess, not metaphorically, but literally.

She was Hera, the goddess Hera, that Hera from the Greek myths, the Hera that made Heracles kill his family, the Hera that was scorned by her husband, because her husband had cheated on her all the time, the Hera that went making children, and the concubines and mistresses of her husband suffer, the Hera, the goddess of marriage, that couldn't keep her marriage clean.

It was ironic, wasn't it?

She became Hera, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that Hera became her.

She had the memory of Hera, her perspective, and while her past self, the original Hera, was a bitch, nothing else to say about that.

She was a bitch but one with a backstory.

Hera was born, and the first thing she met at birth was not the love of her parents.

What she met was the scream, the despair of her mother, and the anger of her father, Cronus.

She was eaten, like her siblings before her, and fell into the stomach of her father.

There could be a lot to say about living in the stomach of a titan, but the more close thing to say, the more accurate thing to say would be that it was hell, it was hell that swallowed her, even though it felt meaningless at this point, at this time, because she had the hope that one day she would see the sky again, she would see her mother, she would be free.

All of this was for something right?

And one day, one day, the occasion came.

One day, she was freed, her siblings and her, they were freed by their brother, and they escaped.

She would never forget the first time she saw the sky, the first time she felt the sun ray on her face, the first time she laid on the grass, the first time she breathed, and she felt free.

But this freedom wasn't a permanent one. It was one if they wanted to keep, they had to fight for it.

So even though they were nothing but newborns, in a sense, they learned to fight.

Newborn deities, against deities older than millennia, they bled and bled and bled. The gods couldn't die, so this pain was their first teacher.

They were savaged and in return, they savaged the world.

They created alliances, broke treaties, broke orders, schemed, betrayed hearts.

She didn't have the affinity that Zeus had with the sky, even if she still had one.

She didn't have the control that her brother Poseidon had over the ocean.

She didn't have Hestia's fire and her kindness.

She didn't have Hades' power over death and shadows.

She didn't have Demeter's power over the earth and nature.

It could even be argued that she was the weakest of them all.

That she wasn't as versatile, as worldly as them.

But what if that was false?

What made her their equal?

What made her their vanguard?

What made her respected, stand tall among her siblings?

She had one thing that was hers. And that was her fist.

Yeah, Hera was the strongest of them all when it came to physical strength. It was why Heracles became so powerful, because she had been tricked by Athena into letting him drink her breast milk.

So what if she didn't have power over the oceans?

What if her ability to control the sky wasn't as powerful as her brother Zeus?

The future that she wanted to have, the hope she wanted to reach, the happiness she yearned for.

She would take her fist and she would crash it against the world that wanted to disregard them.

She would crash it against everything, every enemy.

And she did. She bled and laughed.

She bled and screamed.

She bled and fought.

She bled and she continued.

Again and again and again and again.

The vanguard, the shield of her family.

She was Hera and she wouldn't back down.

And she did.

She didn't back down.

And in the end they won.

They cut her father into many pieces.

And scattered the pieces in the pits in Tartarus.

They imprisoned the old masters of the world, the brothers of her father.

The titans of all that went against them.

They raised their allies and raised each other even higher.

They were kings and queens, lords and ladies.

And even though she would not lie and say that she wouldn't have wanted dominion over the earth or maybe the sky or the underworld like her siblings had.

She was happy.

She was finally free.

She could breathe for once.

She could look at the sky, lay in the grass.

It sounded perfect.

It sounded like it would last forever.

It sounded like a dream.

Yet it didn't.

*

Things changed.

Her siblings changed.

Everything changed like things did over time.

Everything changed when one day she was tricked by Zeus.

She was queen.

Both happy and disgusted.

Both feeling scorned and feeling praised.

Maybe, as she kissed her brother Zeus, this could be it.

They would be better than her father.

Better than her mother.

All of this, they would be better.

They would make a better world.

That's what she thought as she became queen.

How naive had she been.

The world showed her otherwise.

Zeus cheated.

Everyone laughed.

No one cared.

It was like no one cared that he was disrespecting her.

She was the goddess of marriage.

And her own husband was cheating on her.

How was this fair?

She couldn't go against him because he was too powerful.

And she hated herself for it.

She hated him for it.

She couldn't hurt him.

So she hurt the ones she could.

The ones that led him astray.

She almost believed that if she hurt them enough, he would stop.

If he really cared about her, he would stop.

He would remember his vow.

He would stay faithful to her.

All this would have been a bad past in their marriage.

But it didn't change anything.

She bled and she killed.

All to be free.

And yet here she was shackled.

Why?

What had she done for this?

She didn't deserve this.

She deserved better.

She really deserved better.

She lived a life where she felt like she was a fly in a spider web.

Always doing the same thing.

Watching the world slip away.

Playing in a game like a puppet that she didn't care about.

Hera.

That's what Hera was.

That's who I was.

Before I reincarnated in this form.

Before I became a true deity.

With power.

Authority over the world entire.

*

When she reincarnated in this body.

With much more power than the original Hera had.

Enough power to be free.

If she wanted.

Unlike Hera who couldn't be.

Ironic, isn't it?

Hera could be free now.

Hera could do everything she wanted.

But not the original Hera, the Hera who had dreamed of that.

She wanted to be free.

She wanted to approach.

She wanted.

To scream.

To cry.

Until it wasn't enough.

She wanted to dance.

Until she couldn't.

She wanted to laugh.

She wanted to burn.

And destroy.

And burn.

And do everything she couldn't.

As Hera.

As the one she was.

As the girl who fell.

She wanted to be, to do all of those things.

She had quickly discovered she wasn't the only one who had reincarnated in this world into deities with abilities she didn't have in her past life, abilities that would have made the original deities they inhabited now pale. Her, Hephaestus, Hades and Ganymede.

They became not friends but close, closer than best friends without necessarily being friends, with the fact that the bodies they now inhabited were connected, the original Hera having been a shit mother to the original Hephaestus, the original Hephaestus being the son of the original Hera, the original Ganymede being hated by the original Hera because Zeus was always with him, and more than that, Zeus made him immortal.

Zeus made him immortal, and the original Hera hated him even more because she was forced to see him every time, see the infidelity of Zeus before her and could do nothing.

The relationship between them was special, and each of them, even in their previous life, even though they were all human, had lived different lives, had lived different things, different experiences, but they all agreed on one thing: making this world different, changing things. And they have already made plans for that, some of them already in play, some of them not yet.

At this moment, she was with Ares. Her plan, beyond the plan so far, was to be, let's say, a distraction.

She could have hidden that she had changed.

She could have played the game of the original Hera because she had her memory, her mannerisms. It's not that she just had a memory of the original Hera, it's just that she was the original Hera with something added on top.

She could have done it so easily, but for their plan to work even more easily, they needed attention away from some of them.

It was hard, much more difficult to have something more attention-grabbing than the Queen of Heaven herself, than the Queen of Olympus changing.

And that's why she changed.

That's why she was not currently as the original Hera was.

When she looked at Ares' bloody form, golden ichor falling, the wounds she was the cause of, Hera didn't feel much. Because like the original Hera, she didn't feel much for him.

The original Hera had seen him more as an extension of herself than anything else. A disappointment. Nothing else.

And looking at him, she felt a little bad.

But she would not say that she didn't really like the battle that happened between them, the fact that even if she hit him, she felt the freedom to do it.

The exhilaration of watching his divine form splinter under her knuckles. The way his armor crumpled like paper. The way his eyes, so used to being the one who inflicted fear widened with something almost mortal.

Almost human.

Maybe she was worse than the original Hera.

But Ares was war.

Ares was what was completely wrong with the world.

And it wasn't something metaphorical. It was literal.

Ares was incarnated wrongness.

When someone died in war, when war started, when savagery started, when people killed each other.

And if they wanted to change the world, if they wanted to make it better, Ares would be somehow in the way of that.

With her abilities, if she wanted to change him, she could do it by force, with a snap of a finger. The ability to disregard, distort the logic of the world the way she saw fit. In other words, she was a reality warper.

She could reshape him into something gentler. Something that didn't reek of blood and bronze. She could make him kind, make him soft, make him everything he wasn't.

But would that be freedom?

Would that be justice?

Or would that just be another cage, another stomach of a titan, another marriage vow that bound instead of blessed?

Ares was sprawled across the ground, one arm bent at an angle that would have killed a mortal three times over. His chest heaved, golden ichor pooling beneath him like spilled sunlight.

She rested her elbows on her knees and tilted her head.

"I didn't hit you for only the fun of it," she said, voice light, almost conversational. "Even though it was fun. Exhilarating, actually."

Ares spat, ichor staining his lips. His eyes, usually burning with the mindless fury of battlefields were dim. Wary.

"I mainly wanted you to experience what mortals do each time you act, each time there is war because of Athena or you. To make you experience it on the mortal side of it instead of the immortal one."

She reached out, tracing a finger along the gash in his shoulder. 

He flinched.

"You're a god, so you cannot die. And the distance between someone like you, who would never meet death, and someone haunted by death since birth is as wide as the Earth and the sky."

The wind picked up, carrying with it the scent of blood, corpses and roses. 

"It would not have been possible for you to understand unless I made you. You knew I could have killed you at any moment—" She paused, correcting herself with a bitter smile. "Well, not killed. But unmade. Rewritten. Which is worse, isn't it? So you were scared. Like any soldier knowing they can die in war at any moment."

Ares' jaw tightened. His fingers twitched, reaching for a spear that was no longer there.

"I hurt you. Cut you. Melted you. Broke you with my fists. Humiliated you." She leaned in closer, until she could see her reflection in his eyes. "Because this is what war is."

He tried to speak, but his voice came out as a rasp. She waited.

"Earlier," she finally managed, throat working around the words. "You had asked me if I was doing all of this because of mortals. Of humans. And I told you no."

Hera straightened, brushing a strand of hair from her face. 

"But maybe, in a way, I lied."

She remembered the first time the original Hera had seen a mortal city.

It had been so small. So fragile. Little clay homes clustered together like children seeking warmth. And the mortals themselves, brief, flickering things. Born and dead within the span of a single divine conversation.

The original Hera had looked at them and felt nothing.

Or maybe she had felt something, but it was buried so deep beneath eons of divine indifference that it might as well have been nothing.

But she, the girl who jumped, the girl who fell, the girl who had been eaten by the world and found it just as suffocating as Cronus' stomach, she looked at them and saw herself.

Saw the students who had turned away when she needed help.

Saw the employers who had looked at her like she was meat.

Saw the police officers who had filed her report and then filed it away.

Saw her parents, who had loved her in the way that parents do, conditionally, with expectations wrapped around affection like chains.

She saw all of them, and she saw all of herself, and she realized something that the original Hera never had:

The gods were mortal too.

Not in body. But in spirit.

They were just as trapped. Just as desperate. Just as willing to hurt others to avoid being hurt themselves.

The only difference was time.

Gods had time to make the same mistakes over and over again, until the mistakes became tradition, until tradition became law, until law became fate.

"I am not a saint," Hera continued, standing now, looking down at Ares. "And I don't think I want to ever be one."

She thought of the girl she had been. The good girl. The one who had followed every rule, checked every box, smiled when she was supposed to smile.

The one who had jumped.

"I know how trying to be good can end. How painful and pointless it can be."

Ares was watching her now, something shifting in his expression.

"But this world is shit, Ares. And I don't think I can be as happy as I want in a world as shitty as this one. Which means I'll have to change it."

The sky looked ominous above them.

"This is why I ask of you the following, Ares, God of War."

She held out her hand, palm up. Empty. Offering.

"Change. Swear to me before the heavens and the Earth and the Styx. Swear you will do my bidding, follow my will to create a better world."

The silence stretched between them, heavy as the sky on Atlas' shoulders.

Ares stared at her hand. At her face. At the clouds churning above them.

"You're asking me," he said, voice hoarse, "to betray our family. To betray Olympus." He swallowed, and when he spoke again, his voice cracked. "To betray my father."

Hera threw her head back and laughed.

It was not a pleasant sound.

"Betray Zeus?" She wiped at her eyes, still laughing. "If anything, it's the contrary. But like I said before, I don't care an iota about what happens to Olympus as long as my plan comes to fruition."

She crouched down again, meeting his eyes.

"It can all burn up and die. Zeus can go fuck as many bitches as he wants. I really don't give a fuck about them."

The words tasted like ash and honey. Like the truth always did.

"So tell me your answer."

She reached out, fingers hovering over his bloodied face. Not touching. Not yet.

"You can say yes. Swear the oaths and go back to whoever sent you, probably Zeus and appear loyal. Change until I tell you otherwise."

Her fingers curled into a fist.

"Or you can say no. And I can change you. Make you another Ares. A more pleasant Ares."

She opened her fist, palm up again. Offering.

"I don't need to ask. I am just doing this to give you a choice."

She remembered the first time someone had given her a choice.

It was a lie, of course. There had been no choice. There never was, not really.

Go to school or disappoint your parents.

Get a degree or be worthless.

Stay silent or be punished.

Be a good girl or be nothing.

Jump or—

Well. She had jumped. And she had been nothing. And then she had been something else.

The original Hera had never been given a choice either.

Swallowed at birth. Freed only to fight. Tricked into marriage. Bound by vows that Zeus broke with every breath while she was expected to uphold them with every heartbeat.

Where was the choice in that?

But she was giving Ares one now.

A real one.

Because if she didn't, if she just rewrote him the way she could rewrite reality itself, then what would she be?

Just another Cronus. Another Zeus. Another parent who devoured their children and called it love.

Another employer who looked at her like she was meat and called it opportunity.

Another world that chewed her up and spat her out and told her she should be grateful for the experience.

No.

She refused.

She would give Ares a choice, even if it was a terrible one. Even if it was a choice between servitude and annihilation.

Because at least it was a choice.

At least it was honest.

Ares stared at her for a long moment. His chest rose and fell, golden ichor seeping into the cracks of the marble beneath him.

Then he laughed.

It was a bitter sound, rough and broken, like gravel scraping against stone.

"You're the worst mother one could wish for."

Hera smiled.

It was not a kind smile. It was not a forgiving smile. It was the smile of someone who had heard worse, had been worse, had become worse.

"You're probably right."

She stood, brushing ichor from her hands. It shimmered in the light, beautiful and terrible.

"It had always been like this when it came to us. Parents hurting children and children hurting parents. Siblings against siblings. Mother against son."

She looked down at Ares, at the son who was not her son, at the god who was not a god but a concept made flesh, at the war that would never end unless someone ended it.

"So tell me, Ares."

She held out her hand one last time.

The sky above them split open, the void, the moon and the stars peering at the scene.

And so the God of War gave his answer under a bloodstained sky.