Hera Quotes

Leo frowned at the giant's spire. "Can't we blow it up or something?" "Without me, you do not have the power," Hera said. "You might as well try to destroy a mountain." "Done that once today," Jason said.

Leo dropped into the pool and approched the cage. "Hola, Tia. Little bit of trouble?" She [Hera] crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. "Don't inspect me like I'm one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!

Hera: Ohh, Thalia Grace, when I get out of here, you'll be sorry you were ever born. Thalia: Save it! You've been nothing but a curse to every child of Zeus for ages. You sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friend Annabeth Hera: She was disrespectful! Thalia: You dropped a statue on my legs. Hera: It was an accident! Thalia: AND you took my brother

Annabeth's voice caught on the word friend. Percy was a lot more than that. Even boyfriend really didn't cover it. They'd been through so much together, at this point Percy was part of her--a sometimes annoying part, sure, but definitely a part she could not live without.

They both (Thalia and Hera) glared at her, and for three long seconds, Piper wasn’t sure which one of them was going to kill her first.

Indeed, "Hera said. ―Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again —my power. For weeks I‘ve grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form." ―So you‘re like a heat lamp,"Leo guessed. ―Or fertilizer.

Child of lightning, beware the earth, The giants' revenge the seven shall birth, The forge and the dove shall break the cage, And death unleash through Hera's rage.

You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos, and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind.” -Hera, goddess of marriage

Great victory requires great risk.

Jason muttered "And I saw something...Really terrible." "That was Hera," Thalia grumbled, "Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon." "That's it, Thalia Grace," Said the goddess. "I will turn you into and aardvark, so help me-" "Stop it, you two," Piper said. Amazingly, they both shut up.

Leo had seen Tia Callida in action; she liked knives, snakes and putting babies in roaring fires. Yeah, definitely let's unleash her rage. Great idea.

That was Hera. Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon.

Because I know you, Percy Jackson. In many ways, you are impulsive, but when it comes to your friends, you are as constant as a compass needle. You are unswervingly loyal, and you inspire loyalty. You are the glue that will unite the seven.

Oh, don't mind me! Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!

You're already married!" Hera protested. "To me!" "Curses!" said Zeus. "Er, I mean, of course, dear.

I hate to tell you this,” Jason said, “but I think your leopard just ate a goddess.

Ever since my famous battle with Python, I've had a phobia of scaly reptilian creatures. (Especially if you include my stepmother, Hera. BOOM!)

Zeus is the king, right? (Simone) He thinks he is most days. Personally, I think he’s a pompous ass who should be bitch-slapped by Hera at least once in his existence. (Xypher)

He’d pleasured Hera and a few thousand others, and when Hera learned about those thousand others…heads had rolled.

Goodness! Golly! Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus and Hera! Mary and Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne! Don't touch her! Grab her! Move closer! Run away! Don't move! Kill the snake! Leave it alone! Give it some food! Don't let it bite her! Lure the snake away! Here, snakey! Here, snakey snakey!

This woman is Pocahontas. She is Athena and Hera. Lying in this messy, unmade bed, eyes closed, this is Juliet Capulet. Blanche DuBois. Scarlett O'Hara. With ministrations of lipstick and eyeliner I give birth to Ophelia. To Marie Antoinette. Over the next trip of the larger hand around the face of the bedside clock, I give form to Lucrezia Borgia. Taking shape at my fingertips, my touches of foundation and blush, here is Jocasta. Lying here, Lady Windermere. Opening her eyes, Cleopatra. Given flesh, a smile, swinging her sculpted legs off one side of the bed, this is Helen of Troy. Yawning and stretching, here is every beautiful woman across history.

Traitor!" Hera shouted. "You meddlesome, D-list goddess! You aren't worthy to pour my wine, much less rule the world.

Persephone, grant me the foresight to know when I must let go my old life to start anew. Artemis, grant me the strength of your spine when you helped deliver Apollo, your own twin. Athena, grant me the solidarity in your sinews for which you were born in all of your armour. Aphrodite, grant me the kind of heart that always follows my passions true. Andromeda grant me the wish to never fall out of love with the night sky or the glisten of it’s stars. And Hera, grant me your fury, so I can remind my enemies I am not the weakness they perceive, I am the oncoming storm, I am war.

To his left was my buddy Hera, goddess of making Percy miserable.

The tone of the scream reminded me of Hera whenever she stormed through the hallways of Olympus, yelling at me for leaving the godly toilet seat up.

Once upon a time there was a wicked witch and her name was Lilith Eve Hagar Jezebel Delilah Pandora Jahi Tamar and there was a wicked witch and she was also called goddess and her name was Kali Fatima Artemis Hera Isis Mary Ishtar and there was a wicked witch and she was also called queen and her name was Bathsheba Vashti Cleopatra Helen Salome Elizabeth Clytemnestra Medea and there was a wicked witch and she was also called witch and her name was Joan Circe Morgan le Fay Tiamat Maria Leonza Medusa and they had this in common: that they were feared, hated, desired, and worshiped.

I hate Hera.

Zeus may have been the God of lightning and of thunder. But it was Hera who invented the rain

Will only looked at her. There had been light in his eyes on the stairs, as he'd locked the door, when he'd kissed her--a brilliant, joyous light. And it was going now, fading like the last breath of someone dying. She thought of Nate, bleeding to death in her arms. She had been powerless then, to help him. As she was now. She felt as if she were watching the life bleed out of Will Herondale, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

I’d missed my entire junior year thanks to some business we won’t get into (Hera) on account of some meddling gods (Hera) for reasons of a cosmic apocalypse (Hera).

This is the Propylon." He waved toward a stone path lined with crumbling columns. "One of the main gates into the Olympic valley." "Rubble!" said Leo "And over there - " Frank pointed to a square foundation that looked like the patio for a Mexican restaurant - "is the Temple of Hera, one of the oldest structures here." "More rubble!" Leo said. "And that round bandstand-looking thing - that's the Philipeon, dedicated to Philip of Macedonia." "Even more rubble! First rate rubble!

Some legends say that Hera's breast milk sprayed across the sky and created the Milky Way. I don't know. That seems like a whole lot of solar systems from just one squirt

Can we start with the cat?” I asked, sitting. CATS, Hera typed. PERSEPHONE IS MY INTERN. Persephone looked at me and mewed. “Paid internship, I hope,” I joked. OF COURSE, Hera typed back. WE’RE ANIMALS, NOT MONSTERS. I paused. “Do you actually get paid?” I asked my cat. YES. “How much?” MORE THAN YOU.

But seeing and doing nothing isn’t the worst thing,” Hera had said. “The worst thing is to see and not to care.

She couldn’t take her eyes from the dancing flame. No, this was so wrong. Candles should be used for meditation…for romance. Or on a birthday cake at least. So where was the cake? The present? The song? As he stepped closer to her—as the damned flame got way too close—she started singing. “Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me…” Marcus paused, looking at her in disbelief. See. I knew he didn’t have a sense of humor. “Happy birthday, dear Gabi”—she lifted her head and blew out the candle—“happy birthday to me.

Atlas said, 'Must my future be so heavy?' Hera said, 'That is your present, Atlas. Your future hardens every day, but it is not fixed.' 'How can I escape my fate?' 'You must choose your destiny.

Though at this moment she felt abused, abandoned, and ashamed of herself, Madeleine knew that she was still young, that she had her whole life ahead of her--a life in which, if she persevered, she might do something special--and that part of persevering meant getting past moments just like this one, when people made you feel small, unlovable, and took away your confidence.

Yeah, Hera was definitely channelling her inner Wicked Witch of the West that day.

She decided to make his life as terrible, tragic and complicated as possible, so that some day Percy Jackson would have a really hard time writing about it.

That little punk,” Zeus grumbled. “Prometheus armed the cockroaches.” Next to him, the goddess Hera said, “Uh, what?” “Nothing,” Zeus muttered. He yelled to his guards: “Find Prometheus and get him in here. NOW!

And yes, we broke up.' Grover bleated, 'really? But I heard - I thought -' 'You thought what?' Piper's voice remained calm and even. 'That we'd be together forever like Percy and Annabeth?' (...) 'Things change. People change. Jason and me - we started out oddly. Hera kind of messed with our heads, made us think we shared a past we didn't share.

Hera didn’t escape her father only to find herself in her mother’s role.

She had often wished for adventure, for old spells and wicked kings. But she hadn’t realized it would be like this—a fight for her freedom. And she’d always imagined that there’d be someone to help her—a loyal friend or a one-armed soldier or something. She hadn’t imagined she would be so … alone.

Hades, Hera, and Hestia!" Flynn curses, pointing up. "What in the Underworld is that?" "A She-Dragon." Everyone turns to me, and as much as I love having four handsome men gape at me in stupefaction, right now, I could do without.

Well, I'll just toss these cake samples if we're not going to use them," said Hermes, vanishing with the cakes. "Apollo?" Hera clutched at his golden breastplate. "Apollo, we can still have a party, right? When was it going to be? I'll act surprised, I promise. I will!" "Sorry, Hera...the fun just seems to have gone out of it now.

You'll find your destiny, and your hard journey will finally make sense. But first you must face many sorrows. I regret that, but heroes cannot be shaped any other way.

The Greek religion explained that diffuse band of light in the night sky as the milk of Hera, squirted from her breast across the heavens, a legend that is the origin of the phrase Westerners still use—the Milky Way.

There is such a narrow window For happiness in this life And if the past is anything to go by Everything is about to go slowly but inevitably wrong In a non-confrontational but ultimately disappointing way

I love to feel this bad because it reminds me of being human

Headache!" Zeus bellowed. "Bad. bad headache!" As if to prove his point, the lord of the universe slammed his face into his pancakes, which demolished the pancakes and the plate and put a crack in the table, but did nothing for his headache. "Aspirin?" Apollo suggested. (he was the god of healing) "Nice cup og tea?" Hestia suggested "I could split your skull open," offered Hephaestus, the blacksmith god "Hephaestus!" Hera cried. "Don't talk to your father that way!" "What?" Hephaestus demanded "Clearly he's got a problem in there. I could open up the hood and take a look. Might relieve the pressure. Besides, he's immortal. It won't kill him

Në rruget e tjera dëgjoheshin aty-këtu britma fatkëqijsh, që i zvarrisnin për flokësh, per t'i çuar në Degë. Fajësoheshin se gjatë mitingut të përmortshëm, në vend që të qanin a, së paku, të psherëtinin, kishin qeshur e, ndonëse ata bënin be e rrufe se s'kishin qeshur aspak e, përkundrazi, kishin qenë të vrarë në shpirt si të gjithë, por që as vet s'e dinin pse, e qara befas u qe kthyer në ngërdheshje, madje, shtonin se s'ishte hera e parë që u ndodhte kjo, askush nuk i besonte e, në vend t'i dëgjonin, i godisnin më fort.

Daddy, are you going to yell at us some more today?' Neary gazed down into her clear, guileless eyes. That was how he looked to her---a yelling machine. And she was prepared to accept more yelling because she loved him.

if you think she is amazing, you are the ordinary one ...

Often I look at the world And I am dumbfounded that anyone can function at all Given the kinds of violence that So many people have inherited from the past

And suddenly one of those moments of intense happiness came to her--a sense of the loveliness of the world--of her own intense enjoyment of that world.

Sometimes the true power is in the shadows. Someone who stays out of the light, and watches others shrivel and burn in its glare.

Then they’d unleash Hera’s rage, causing a lot of death. Well, that sounded fun! Leo had seen Tía Callida in action; she liked knives, snakes, and putting babies in roaring fires. Yeah, definitely let’s unleash her rage. Great idea.

There are two basic types of panicking: standing still and no saying a world, and leaping all over the place babbling anything that come into your head. Mr. Poe was the leaping-and-babbling king. Klaus and Sunny had never seen the banker move so quickly or talk in such a high pitched voice. 'Goodness!' he cried. 'Golly! Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus and Hera! Mary and Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne! Don't touch her! Grab her! Move closer! Run away! Don't move! Kill the snake! Leave it alone! Give it some food! Don't let it bite her!Lure the snake away! Here, snakey! Here, snakey snakey!

She had parlor house written all over her--a blonde pig who looked more like a whore than twenty-five whores, with a face like an overgrown doll's and a come-on smile as cold as a polar bear's feet.

It's at that moment that I can't help myself,even though she maybe hates me right now.I pull her in and kiss her the way I've always wanted to kiss her,a lot more R-rated and PG-13.I can feel her tense at first,not wanting to kiss me back ,and the thought of it breaks my heart.Before I can pull away,I feel her bend and then melt into me as I melt into her under the warm Indiana sun.And she's still here ,and she isn't going anywhere,and it will be okay.

Take that chance : even though this is hard, you'll get it in a peace. Leave that chance : i know it's easy, but you will always walk in regret

When people name cats, they usually do it in one of three categories: food, physical characteristics or mythology,” Morrison explained. “So, you name your cat Sugar, or Smudge, or Zeus. You went with mythology.” “What about people who name their cats for characters in fantasy books?” I picked up Hera’s food bowl from her mat, and got a smaller bowl for the kitten. “Gandalf. Sauron. That sort of thing.” “Covered under mythology.

Some years later, Zeus and Hera were arguing about who got more pleasure from sex: men or women. To settle the argument, they called for Tiresias, who had lived as both. Tiresias took the side of Zeus, saying that women’s pleasure was greater, and Hera, in her fury, turned him blind.

She knew the minute HE arrived. Felt the warm blanket of comfort reach out to her frozen soul....He made his way down the isle and sat next to her...he didn't reach out, didn't touch her...a single tear slid out from her closed lids and she blindly reached for his hand. He took her hand in more, gathering her close, arms coming around her warm and strong as her head sank down unto his shoulder and the tears finally came soaking the lapel of his wool suit. He offered her a perfectly white handkerchief...she stared at it and wondered who carries that type of thing anymore? He looked back at her and explained, "I'm old fashioned.

Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me. Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place they always ask me what is my religion. I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods. None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof. Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line.

The familiar Olympian system was then agreed upon as a compromise between Hellenic and pre-Hellenic views: a divine family of six gods and six goddesses, headed by the co-sovereigns Zeus and Hera and forming a Council of Gods in Babylonian style.

What are the thorns really telling her? It's why she won't let us see them, why she clings to them--or they cling to her--as though she got herself buried in a bramble thicket and she can't get out and we can't get in to free her.

Hera thinks of the maternal line: Gaia, Rhea and now Hera. The goddess who created the world, the goddess who nurtured it and the goddess who will protect it. But stronger than that line is its dark twin: Ouranos, Cronus and Zeus, who only care for what they can take.

The mirror sighed and spoke in a tone tinged with melancholy. Its language was old and not of any of the worlds known or unknown. What you dream, what you darkly desire, Find it by trial or by fire. Seek it high and seek it low, Search the skies or the realms below. Look everywhere but beware, The deepest magic, the strongest spell Will not change what the stars foretell.

With a low groan he slammed into her pussy one last time as he emptied himself inside her.As his hot warmth filled her she felt her knees go weak.

Even in poetry I forgive you nothing not even your new empire of grief.

They yoked themselves to a car and drew her all the long way through dust and heat. Everyone admired their filial piety when they arrived and the proud and happy mother standing before the statue prayed that Hera would reward them by giving them the best gift in her power. As she finished her prayer the two lads sank to the ground. They were smiling and they looked as if they were peacefully asleep but they were dead. (Biton and Cleobis)

The marriage of Zeus and Hera can hardly be reframed into a "happy one" and yet Hera is the Goddess of marriage. Hera and Zeus could be described as quarrelsome predecessors of the Holy Family. For the Greeks they symbolized marriage par excellence.

The forge and dove shall break the cage. Wasn’t that the prophecy line? That meant Piper and he would have to figure out how to break into that magic rock prison, assuming they could find it. Then they’d unleash Hera’s rage, causing a lot of death. Well, that sounded fun! Leo had seen Tía Callida in action; she liked knives, snakes, and putting babies in roaring fires. Yeah, definitely let’s unleash her rage. Great idea. Festus kept flying. The wind got colder, and below them snowy forests seemed to go on forever. Leo didn’t know exactly where Quebec was. He’d told Festus to take them to the palace of Boreas, and Festus kept going north. Hopefully, the dragon knew the way, and they wouldn’t end up at the North Pole. “Why don’t you get some sleep?” Piper said in his ear. “You were up all night.” Leo wanted to protest, but the word sleep sounded really good. “You won’t let me fall off?” Piper patted his shoulder. “Trust me, Valdez. Beautiful people never lie.” “Right,” he muttered. He leaned forward against the warm bronze of the dragon’s neck, and closed his eyes.

It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like longer with everyone watching him. The silence was heavy, and for so many ADHD demigods to sit still listening for that long, Jason knew the story must have sounded pretty wild. He ended with Hera’s visit right before the meeting.

Because I know you, Percy Jackson. In many ways, you are impulsive, but when it comes to your friends, you are as constant as a compass needle. You are unswervingly loyal, and you inspire loyalty. You are the glue that will unite the seven.” “Great,” Percy said. “I always wanted to be glue.” Juno laced her crooked fingers.

As polytheism is in religious belief reflected in the recognition of moral complexity, so henotheism in religious practice is reflected in the recognition of moral diversity. To worship different gods is to align oneself with different ideals, and to embrace different moral standards. The example of the mother and the judge shows one way in which this works out in practice. The mother places parental love above impartial justice, while the judge does the opposite. In the language of Greek Paganism, the mother bows to Hera, the judge to Zeus Dikaios, and both are right to do so.

The moon’s three phases of new, full, and old recalled the matriarch’s three phases of maiden, nymph (nubile woman), and crone. Then, since the sun’s annual course similarly recalled the rise and decline of her physical powers – spring a maiden, summer a nymph, winter a crone – the goddess became identified with seasonal changes in animal and plant life; and thus with Mother Earth who, at the beginning of the vegetative year, produces only leaves and buds, then flowers and fruits, and at last ceases to bear. She could later be conceived as yet another triad: the maiden of the upper air, the nymph of the earth or sea, the crone of the underworld – typified respectively by Selene, Aphrodite, and Hecate. These mystical analogues fostered the sacredness of the number three, and the Moon-goddess became enlarged to nine when each of the three persons – maiden, nymph, and crone – appeared in triad to demonstrate her divinity. Her devotees never quite forgot that there were not three goddesses, but one goddess; though, by Classical times, Arcadian Stymphalus was one of the few remaining shrines where they all bore the same name: Hera.

The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow.

Part of her—a small but defiant part, the part that still remembered her girlhood fantasies—desperately wanted to trust him, but the stronger part remembered how he had thoughtlessly cast her aside. “We can’t always have what we want, Marcus. You must accustom yourself to disappointment.” As I have. The unspoken words hung between them. Marcus’ mouth twitched. “But there you are wrong, my love. I always get what I want.

When the boy was grown and out hunting, the goddess brought Callisto before him, intending to have him shoot his mother, in ignorance, of course. But Zeus snatched the bear away and placed her among the stars, where she is called the Great Bear. Later, her son Arcas was placed beside her and called the Lesser Bear. Hera, enraged at this honor to her rival, persuaded the God of the Sea to forbid the Bears to descend into the ocean like the other stars. They alone of the constellations never set below the horizon.

She wonders where they see her - in rebellious wives, she hopes, in the iron souls of powerful queens, in resilient girls who find the strength to keep going. Even when they no longer worship at her altars, she won’t disappear. The mortals that determine their own lives, and she will carry on. Immortal and ageless, reinvented a thousand times, remade for a thousand narratives, throneless and wandering, but forever the ruler of her own destiny.

I want to take you to the river that runs behind my house and show you where the dark water vanishes between the rocks but I can’t because nothing runs behind my house not even a lonely commercial highway I want to stand with you on the edge of a lonely commercial highway waiting for the jumper cables that will restart this engine and take us somewhere far beyond the confines of this poem

To Hera O Royal Hera of majestic mien, aerial-form'd, divine, Zeus' blessed queen, Thron'd in the bosom of cærulean air, the race of mortals is thy constant care. The cooling gales thy pow'r alone inspires, which nourish life, which ev'ry life desires. Mother of clouds and winds, from thee alone producing all things, mortal life is known: All natures share thy temp'rament divine, and universal sway alone is thine. With founding blasts of wind, the swelling sea and rolling rivers roar, when shook by thee. Come, blessed Goddess, fam'd almighty queen, with aspect kind, rejoicing and serene.

I ought to have guessed that a person like her--a person who you could tell had a deep inner certitude of self which comes from being all of one piece, of not being shreds and patches and old cogwheels held together with pieces of rusty barbed wire and spit and bits of string, like most of us--I ought to have guessed that that kind of person would not be surprised into answering a question she didn't want to answer.

Hot.” The last word, barely a whisper, lost itself in my hair as he pressed his lips to that spot just below my ear that can, apparently, flip the off switch in my brain. Before I realized it my hands were inside that jacket, stroking the hard planes of his chest and stomach. And then, as if moving without any prompting from me they reached down, undid his belt, pulled it loose, and…“Ahhh, that feels great,” I moaned.“I am completely grossed out over here!” Cassandra informed us.Vayl, who’d been peering down at me with an expression of utter disbelief, stared at Cassandra over the top of my head. “It is not what you think,” he assured her.“As if I’d do something that disgusting,” I said, pulling away from him, but keeping the belt, because the buckle relieved the itching so much better than fingernails. I continued using it to scratch the inflamed skin across my stomach as I sat down by Cassandra. “You are pathetic,” she told me. “I’d get all offended, but I’m pretty sure you’re right.

The value of money is not the only thing that might evaporate once people stop believing in it. The same can happen to laws, gods and even entire empires. One moment they are busy shaping the world, and the next moment they no longer exist. Zeus and Hera were once important powers in the Mediterranean basin, but today they lack any authority because nobody believes in them. The Soviet Union could once destroy the entire human race, yet it ceased to exist at the stroke of a pen. At 2 p.m. on 8 December 1991, in a state dacha near Viskuli, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accords, which stated that ‘We, the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, as founding states of the USSR that signed the union treaty of 1922, hereby establish that the USSR as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality ceases its existence.’ And that was that. No more Soviet Union.

As an example, when Zeus is dallying with the nymph Io, Hera spots them, so he turns Io into a lovely white heifer. Hera, not fooled, seizes the cow and places her under the guard of a giant named Argus Panoptes (“All-Seeing”) because his body is covered with one hundred eyes (making him, quite literally, the first private eye called in by a wife to intervene in a case of adultery). Zeus sends in the god Hermes to tell him a boring, endless story, which gradually puts Argus to sleep, one eye at a time; then Hermes kills him and frees Io. Not done, Hera sends a gadfly to chase Io (an apt choice for hassling a cow), which stings her all the way to Egypt. Hera takes all of the eyes from Argus’ corpse and puts them on the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock. Take away the fanciful elements and the metamorphoses, and you have a classic story of an unfaithful husband confronted by an angry wife who tries to get even with the other woman.

When Athens loses its hold on its empire, Hera still sees Athena: a grey-feathered owl tilting its head in the town square where men debate philosophy and rationality, striving for sense and understanding; or else a flash of silver in the eyes of someone stacking another roll of papyrus in the public library, the teacher calling his students to lessons, or the woman demonstrating how the loom works to her attentive daughter. At the lush, rolling vineyards, she sometimes thinks she spots the laughing eyes of Dionysus in a jovial winemaker selling his wares. In the forests, she's convinced she catches a flash of Artemis, running in pursuit of a stag, or else she recognises her determined jawline in a defiant girl. In smoky forges, where blacksmiths wipe the sweat from their brows, she feels the patience of Hephaestus; and she is certain that Ares still runs wild on the battlefields, filling every fighter's heart with his destructive rage. Hestia is there, of course, in every kindly friend, at every welcoming hearth. She wonders where they see her - in rebellious wives, she hopes, in the iron souls of powerful queens, in resilient girls who find the strength to keep going.

If you dare tell me he’s Odysseus’s son as if that’s some sacred charm, I will scream,” she answers, clear as the ringing of the hollow drum. “I will wail and rend my hair, the whole thing. So help me, Hera, I will do it.” Sweetheart, I whisper, I’m here for it. Many is the time my husband has returned from his frolics and I’ve turned on the waterworks, rent my garments, flung myself upon the ground and sworn that I shall die, scratched at my eyes, drawn blood from my celestial skin and beaten my fists against his chest. It doesn’t change his behaviour long-term, but at least I get to embarrass him some tiny, tiny fraction of the way he humiliates, demeans, dishonours and diswomans me. So you do the wailing; I’ll bring the olives.

THE COUNCIL WAS NOTHING LIKE Jason imagined. For one thing, it was in the Big House rec room, around a Ping-Pong table, and one of the satyrs was serving nachos and sodas. Somebody had brought Seymour the leopard head in from the living room and hung him on the wall. Every once in a while, a counselor would toss him a Snausage. Jason looked around the room and tried to remember everyone’s name. Thankfully, Leo and Piper were sitting next to him—it was their first meeting as senior counselors. Clarisse, leader of the Ares cabin, had her boots on the table, but nobody seemed to care. Clovis from Hypnos cabin was snoring in the corner while Butch from Iris cabin was seeing how many pencils he could fit in Clovis’s nostrils. Travis Stoll from Hermes was holding a lighter under a Ping-Pong ball to see if it would burn, and Will Solace from Apollo was absently wrapping and unwrapping an Ace bandage around his wrist. The counselor from Hecate cabin, Lou Ellen something-or-other, was playing “got-your-nose” with Miranda Gardiner from Demeter, except that Lou Ellen really had magically disconnected Miranda’s nose, and Miranda was trying to get it back. Jason had hoped Thalia would show. She’d promised, after all—but she was nowhere to be seen. Chiron had told him not to worry about it. Thalia often got sidetracked fighting monsters or running quests for Artemis, and she would probably arrive soon. But still, Jason worried. Rachel Dare, the oracle, sat next to Chiron at the head of the table. She was wearing her Clarion Academy school uniform dress, which seemed a bit odd, but she smiled at Jason. Annabeth didn’t look so relaxed. She wore armor over her camp clothes, with her knife at her side and her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. As soon as Jason walked in, she fixed him with an expectant look, as if she were trying to extract information out of him by sheer willpower. “Let’s come to order,” Chiron said. “Lou Ellen, please give Miranda her nose back. Travis, if you’d kindly extinguish the flaming Ping-Pong ball, and Butch, I think twenty pencils is really too many for any human nostril. Thank you. Now, as you can see, Jason, Piper, and Leo have returned successfully…more or less. Some of you have heard parts of their story, but I will let them fill you in.” Everyone looked at Jason. He cleared his throat and began the story. Piper and Leo chimed in from time to time, filling in the details he forgot. It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like longer with everyone watching him. The silence was heavy, and for so many ADHD demigods to sit still listening for that long, Jason knew the story must have sounded pretty wild. He ended with Hera’s visit right before the meeting.

There is something almost religious about the call of the sea, the connection we feel that transcends the mundanity of daily existence. It simultaneously reminds us of our smallness and our interconnected- ness. It awakens within us the eye of the artist, the voice of the poet, the soul of the mystic. It reignites an awareness that beyond this lies something vaster. The water, pulled by the moon, ever-moving but ever-remaining, seems to speak to something elemental within us in ways we can barely find expression for, yet find ourselves driven to try, nonetheless. It has inspired storytellers, artists and musicians of many cultures and genders throughout history. The sea sings through us…if we let her…as we in turn channel ourselves through her.

What troubled people especially was not just the tragedy--or even the needlessness--but the element of fate in it all. If the Titanic had heeded any of the six ice messages on Sunday . . . if ice conditions had been normal . . . if the night had been rough or moonlit . . . if she had seen the berg 15 second sooner--or 15 seconds later . . . if she had hit the ice any other way . . . if her watertight bulkheads had been one deck higher . . . if she had carried enough boats . . . if the Californian had only come. Had any one of these "ifs" turned out right, every life might have been save. But they all went against her--a classic Greek tragedy.

When I came back from lunch and found out you'd been reassigned to Nick, I went up to be certain that you were doing all right. Mary told me that you'd just gone into Nick's office, so I opened the door and looked in to see if you needed rescuing. There you were-smiling angelically at him while you gave him messages from other women and turned down his offer of an 'affair.'" Resting his head against the back of his chair, Jim closed his eyes and laughed. "Oh Lauren, you were magnificent! I was just about to leave when you pushed him too far and told him you'd call him when your daughter was of age, so that he could, er, initiate her,as I gather he initiated you?

With no small interest, Captain Delano continued to watch her---a proceeding not much facilitated by the vapors partly mantling the hull, through which the far matin light from her cabin streamed equivocally enough; much like the sun---by this time hemisphered on the rim of the horizon, and, apparently, in company with the strange ship entering the harbor---which, wimpled by the same low, creeping clouds, showed not unlike a Lima intriquante's one sinister eye peering across the Plaza from the Indian loop-hole of her dusk saya-y-manta.

You know how much Annie loved pearls. She owned some incomparable specimens…the most marvelous, I believe, that ever existed. You also remember the almost physical joy, the carnal ecstasy, with which she adorned herself with them. Well, when she was sick that passion became a mania with her…a fury, like love! All day long she loved to touch them, caress them and kiss them; she made cushions of them, necklaces, capes, cloaks. Then this extraordinary thing happened; the pearls died on her skin: first they tarnished, little by little…little by little they grew dim, and no light was reflected in their luster any more and, in a few days, tainted by the disease, they changed into tiny balls of ash. They were dead, dead like people, my darling. Did you know that pearls had souls? I think it’s fascinating and delicious. And since then, I think of it every day.

HAZEL WASN’T PROUD OF CRYING. After the tunnel collapsed, she wept and screamed like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. She couldn’t move the debris that separated her and Leo from the others. If the earth shifted any more, the entire complex might collapse on their heads. Still, she pounded her fists against the stones and yelled curses that would’ve earned her a mouth-washing with lye soap back at St. Agnes Academy. Leo stared at her, wide-eyed and speechless. She wasn’t being fair to him. The last time the two of them had been together, she’d zapped him into her past and shown him Sammy, his great-grandfather—Hazel’s first boyfriend. She’d burdened him with emotional baggage he didn’t need, and left him so dazed they had almost gotten killed by a giant shrimp monster. Now here they were, alone again, while their friends might be dying at the hands of a monster army, and she was throwing a fit. “Sorry.” She wiped her face. “Hey, you know…” Leo shrugged. “I’ve attacked a few rocks in my day.” She swallowed with difficulty. “Frank is…he’s—” “Listen,” Leo said. “Frank Zhang has moves. He’s probably gonna turn into a kangaroo and do some marsupial jujitsu on their ugly faces.” He helped her to her feet. Despite the panic simmering inside her, she knew Leo was right. Frank and the others weren’t helpless. They would find a way to survive. The best thing she and Leo could do was carry on. She studied Leo. His hair had grown out longer and shaggier, and his face was leaner, so he looked less like an imp and more like one of those willowy elves in the fairy tales. The biggest difference was his eyes. They constantly drifted, as if Leo was trying to spot something over the horizon. “Leo, I’m sorry,” she said. He raised an eyebrow. “Okay. For what?” “For…” She gestured around her helplessly. “Everything. For thinking you were Sammy, for leading you on. I mean, I didn’t mean to, but if I did—” “Hey.” He squeezed her hand, though Hazel sensed nothing romantic in the gesture. “Machines are designed to work.” “Uh, what?” “I figure the universe is basically like a machine. I don’t know who made it, if it was the Fates, or the gods, or capital-G God, or whatever. But it chugs along the way it’s supposed to most of the time. Sure, little pieces break and stuff goes haywire once in a while, but mostly…things happen for a reason. Like you and me meeting.” “Leo Valdez,” Hazel marveled, “you’re a philosopher.” “Nah,” he said. “I’m just a mechanic. But I figure my bisabuelo Sammy knew what was what. He let you go, Hazel. My job is to tell you that it’s okay. You and Frank—you’re good together. We’re all going to get through this. I hope you guys get a chance to be happy. Besides, Zhang couldn’t tie his shoes without your help.” “That’s mean,” Hazel chided, but she felt like something was untangling inside her—a knot of tension she’d been carrying for weeks. Leo really had changed. Hazel was starting to think she’d found a good friend. “What happened to you when you were on your own?” she asked. “Who did you meet?” Leo’s eye twitched. “Long story. I’ll tell you sometime, but I’m still waiting to see how it shakes out.” “The universe is a machine,” Hazel said, “so it’ll be fine.” “Hopefully.” “As long as it’s not one of your machines,” Hazel added. “Because your machines never do what they’re supposed to.” “Yeah, ha-ha.” Leo summoned fire into his hand. “Now, which way, Miss Underground?” Hazel scanned the path in front of them. About thirty feet down, the tunnel split into four smaller arteries, each one identical, but the one on the left radiated cold. “That way,” she decided. “It feels the most dangerous.” “I’m sold,” said Leo. They began their descent.

The lucid, rational part of Billie wanted to laugh. Here she was, out in the woods of middle-class suburbia, with a man’s fingers inside her panties, inside her, a climax of unimaginable force trembling at the edge of her grasp. And the man who now plied her and played her…a prostitute. A gigolo. A beloved brother and son and uncle, and a suspect, with too many secrets and too much sexual prowess. A man she was falling in love with. The impossibility of it, the crazy, twisted potential swept over her, then ebbed, lost in the surge of unbelievable pleasure that built and built within her like strings drawn too tightly across a fine-tuned instrument. She would die from this, die and scatter into a million fragments and drift like dust on the wind.

Is everything okay, Vi?” She swallowed, setting the rest down. “It’s perfect…” She wrapped her blanket around her and went to Jay’s chair. She leaned over him, her curls falling around hre shoulders like a dark curtain. “You’re perfect.” She smiled as she collapsed on top of him, kissing him. He groaned and pulled her closer, making room for her as the kiss deepened. She’d wanted to be in control but had too quickly lost the upper hand. Her breathing became uneven, and she pressed herself against him, squirming to get coser. The warmth between them spread through her like a fever, making her restless and impatient. He stopped her then, before there was no going back, drawing his face away to create the most microscopic fissure between them. “You taste like tacos.” Violet gasped as she tried to catch her breath. “What?” She blinked, trying to gather her thoughts. “Really, Jay? Is that a complaint or something?” He shook his head. “Of course not.” “Good. Because this is: I hate it when you stop like that.” She pushed herself away from him and sat upright, crossing her arms in front of her. “Come on, Violet, that’s not what I meant.” The dazed look in his eyes only made Violet feel slightly better. She was glad he was at least a little bit bothered. “It’s just that I wanted to talk to you…you know, before we got distracted.” “God, I really am the guy,” she glowered, but her shoulders slumped. He hauled her toward him, dragging her into his arms. “Stop it. You are not the guy.” He kissed her on the mouth, ignoring the fact that she wasn’t kissing back. But as annoyed as she was, it was hard to stay mad. Especially here…now. It truly was magical. So when he pulled out the Oreos and dangled them in front of her-a peace offering-she shook her head and sighed. “You’re impossible.” But there was no real fight in her words, and she couldn’t stop her lips from twitching when he grinned down at her. He took her reluctant smile as surrender and settled back, bringing her with him until they were curled up against each other.

Cecily let her cheek fall to Leta’s shoulder and hugged her back. It felt so nice to be loved by someone in the world. Since her mother’s death, she’d had no one of her own. It was a lonely life, despite the excitement and adventure her work held for her. She wasn’t openly affectionate at all, except with Leta. “For God’s sake, next you’ll be rocking her to sleep at night!” came a deep, disgusted voice at Cecily’s back, and Cecily stiffened because she recognized it immediately. “She’s my baby girl,” Leta told her tall, handsome son with a grin. “Shut up.” Cecily turned a little awkwardly. She hadn’t expected this. Tate Winthrop towered over both of them. His jet-black hair was loose as he never wore it in the city, falling thick and straight almost to his waist. He was wearing a breastplate with buckskin leggings and high-topped mocassins. There were two feathers straight up in his hair with notches that had meaning among his people, marks of bravery. Cecily tried not to stare at him. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever known. Since her seventeenth birthday, Tate had been her world. Fortunately he didn’t realize that her mad flirting hid a true emotion. In fact, he treated her exactly as he had when she came to him for comfort after her mother had died suddenly; as he had when she came to him again with bruises all over her thin, young body from her drunken stepfather’s violent attack. Although she dated, she’d never had a serious boyfriend. She had secret terrors of intimacy that had never really gone away, except when she thought of Tate that way. She loved him… “Why aren’t you dressed properly?” Tate asked, scowling at her skirt and blouse. “I bought you buckskins for your birthday, didn’t I?” “Three years ago,” she said without meeting his probing eyes. She didn’t like remembering that he’d forgotten her birthday this year. “I gained weight since then.” “Oh. Well, find something you like here…” She held up a hand. “I don’t want you to buy me anything else,” she said flatly, and didn’t back down from the sudden menace in his dark eyes. “I’m not dressing up like a Lakota woman. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m blond. I don’t want to be mistaken for some sort of overstimulated Native American groupie buying up artificial artifacts and enthusing over citified Native American flute music, trying to act like a member of the tribe.” “You belong to it,” he returned. “We adopted you years ago.” “So you did,” she said. That was how he thought of her-a sister. That wasn’t the way she wanted him to think of her. She smiled faintly. “But I won’t pass for a Lakota, whatever I wear.” “You could take your hair down,” he continued thoughtfully. She shook her head. She only let her hair loose at night, when she went to bed. Perhaps she kept it tightly coiled for pure spite, because he loved long hair and she knew it. “How old are you?” he asked, trying to remember. “Twenty, isn’t it?” “I was, give years ago,” she said, exasperated. “You used to work for the CIA. I seem to remember that you went to college, too, and got a law degree. Didn’t they teach you how to count?” He looked surprised. Where had the years gone? She hadn’t aged, not visibly.