Lina Inverse sighed, watching at the rain fall outside her high-rise apartment. It fell like an ocean full of holes, able to drench the foolish venturing soul within seconds, regardless of protection that the wearer may have. Mist rose softly from the ground where fat raindrops slapped the pavement, the heat within the black pavement evaporation the moisture into a fog that obscured the most brightly colored sights. The short redhead sighed again, leaning her hear on her hand, supported by the white-paint windowsill. Her mane of fiery tresses pulled into a tight French twist, not a single hair escaping. Anywhere.
If the watcher would look close, he may notice there wasn't a single wrinkle over her perfectly tailored suit, anywhere, even though she had been wearing it all day. It was a perfect almond shade over the entire garment, neatly creased in all the right places and none of the wrong. A perfect set of peacock earrings hung from her ears, their bright colors of blue and green somehow not clashing with the rest of her upright ensemble. The pin holding her hair in place also sported a peacock feather, its cool hues striking in her bright red mane. She kicked off the blue heels and collapsed into her overstuffed red velvet chair, sinking into the cushions as the deep pile of the velvet caressed her skin. You may notice that the suit still did not wrinkle, the skirt did not hike up her legs, or the hair fall from it's place under the questing pile of the cushions. You may notice that her face showed no signs of the powder of makeup, though her skin was all one perfect hue with the cheeks delicately blushed. You may notice there things -- you probably wouldn't. not many did, Lina realized a while ago. Because people tend to ignore what they don't believe, or can't accept. Lina was simply a perfect lawyer, nothing more. Or less, as the case may be.
She stood, and as she walked gracefully as a cat towards her kitchen, she... changed. Think of it as a mixture of a morphing program on the computer and a flower opening in fast forward -- she simply melted into another form, her clothing changing as she did. Her long hair unfolded from its constraining knot, falling down her back like a waterfall of fire, and her perfect business suit merged with...something to form a dress of pure white cloth held back by a maroon sash tied in loops around her waist and hips. The crowning touches were the delicately pointed ears and the peacock pin behind her ear. This form radiated power, like a panther with its claws drawn in and its teeth covered by a smile. It was of awe-inspiring beauty, a holy light followings her as she walked.
Or at least it should have. It used to. Back when the world was a little bit younger, and the religions... a little bit different. Back when belief was fueled and carefully tended by the great gods, back when the Romans conquered the world...
Back when Hera had power. Now she didn't even show up on the spellchecker on the computer that she thankfully had enough power to keep from crashing every five minutes. Now she barely had more power than she had in her very form, which would remain in her until her last scrap of being was burned, until the last book holding the last of her many names was burned. It gave her only the ability to change her form, her sacred powers of intuition and true sight.
Hera sighed once again, flopping onto her now gold chair, wishing for the millionth time that century that she had only one believer, one real, true believer, who would actually think of her as a goddess and not a myth. Oh, there were certainly there were ones trying to work long dead magic, calling on her name to fuel the fires of power, but they never counted. Pagans used to try to keep her existence alive -- now she was only half believed. Certainly, they still had their ceremonies, which gave her the little power she had, but they didn't really believe. No one really, truly, believed in her anymore. She was merely a godling now, and the only reason she hadn't been stamped out by something more powerful was either out of respect for what she had once been, or because she wasn't even worth the time anymore. The most she could do with her powers now was to keep things from falling into entropy, and maybe a small miracle every year or so. She was a human with talents, and she hated that.
When she had ruled alongside that moron, Zeus, (whose name did show up in spellchecker, much to her resentment) humans had been little better than cattle. She hadn't cared about them other than for power, and they had worshipped her with lives, giving her all they could under fear of her wrath. She had been happy...
Well, not entirely. She had been married to that moron and hated every minute of it, but he was always off on earth seducing (raping) another human. She had pretended she didn't care -- she hadn't wanted to marry him in the first place. She had worked for praise and power from the humans, and they had given it to Zues. She hated that, too, because although she actually performed miracles and worked for power, he did nothing. And he had so enjoyed it, too. Sometimes he hadn't even tried to hide the fact he was off with another human and not with her.
The message was unmistakable. Even the humans are better than you, Hera dear. I'd rather play with them than my wife, because that wife is you. She'd found herself striking against the poor girls out of pure spite, knowing it wasn't their fault and not caring. She was angry, hurt, and resentful -- and couldn't do a damned thing to Zeus. And he knew it. Which made her even angrier.
But she still had power. She may have been miserable, but she wasn't mortal. She couldn't die. She didn't have to work to eat, of all things, and she hadn't lost track of all the gods. She'd still known where the hell (literally) Hades was, for instance, and she didn't constantly get sick from Hephestius and Demeter courting each other.
They, at least, seemed to enjoy their new status. They were eternally young, and hadn't really cared much about their power in the first place. They went by Gourry and Sylphiel now, and Hera, or Lina, now, ignored them and the happy couple for the most part. They made her a bit queasy, and extremely jealous.
Hera didn't deal well with jealousy.
When Aphrodite left Hephestius for Ares as soon as Zeus disappeared, making his law null and void, Demeter had been there to comfort him. They had fallen in love over the past few centuries, and had finally been able to try and win the other's. So had come the endless "You hang up. No, you hang up. No, I insist..." of gods between the two, and Hera had just about tried to disbelieve in herself if it would stop the agonizing sweetness.
"Well, at least they're happy," Hera said to her peacock, who chose that moment to strut into the room. "it's more than I can say, after all. I wonder what happened to everyone else, though?" Some had died -- it was the drawback of wars and being mortal. Hera had never really cared about human bickering until now, but finding your life in danger when you thought you couldn't be killed certainly did something for your ego. The day Hermes died was a reality check for everyone, and they soon took more care of their hides. Aphrodite and Ares had gone off to be king and queen of some tribe in the amazon, and were actually worshipped. Lina really hated them -- they were perfect. Aphrodite was always better at being "womanly" than Hera was, at being everything everyone else values, and Ares was strong and perfect. Hera would never admit anything about it, however. Not how she wished she could be like the goddess of love, or how she wished she could roam battlefields and change their outcomes, or be what everyone else thought was perfect -- no. She was glad she wasn't like that, glad she was unique, glad she was herself.
"You don't believe me, do you?" She chuckled as the bird beside her let out a quiet squawk that was so like a cat most humans didn't even know she had a bird in her apartment. The peacock tilted it's head at her and stared through its skeptical eyes at her. It new the truth. Hera sighed. "I seem to be sighing quite a lot, haven't I?" She said, shaking her head, her long strands of pure sunset sliding like water over her shoulders. "Well, at least I have something to do tonight, other than watching the two lovers court eachother. I think I have a lead on where the hell Hades it. No pun intended." The peacock looked up at her with curiosity, and she smiled. Hades had been one of her closest friends on Olympus -- not that gods had many friends. They didn't really need them. But they hadn't fought, so that was something. And they had grown closer as their power decreased. But while they grew closer than they originally were, Hades was pulling himself out of reality, the loss of power making him more and more bitter, quiet, resentful. He had one day disappeared altogether, and no searching on Lina's behalf would yield results of his whereabouts.
But being a lawyer had its privileges. She had the best detectives searching for him for twenty years, and they finally had something of the antisocial outcast.
Why should he be social, anyway? Zeus had put him in charge of hell, giving him no access to Olympus, and had made him an outcast then, as well. He had only the souls of the dead for companions -- no wonder he had stolen Demeter's daughter. That had proved a mistake -- but the girl was dead anyway. It didn't really matter anymore. Hera folded in on herself once again, becoming the ever- perfect lawyer miss Lina Inverse. She opened the door as her hair twisted itself into the ever-perfect French twist remarked on at her office, and headed to the Museum of Art.
Zelgadis was carefully cleaning a helmet when he heard the footsteps in the hall. He snorted angrily. Zelgadis held the common view of many museum curators: bad enough people had to wander in during hours and ask stupid questions, wearing out the artifacts with looking at them, but to come in after hours -- Zelgadis was severely annoyed. He pushed up the unneeded spectacles on his nose that helped him to blend into the background and avoid the morons who thought themselves artistic for coming to the museum and stalked towards the main hallway. He was ready to stare at them angrily for a while until they went away in fear (it took about two minutes, really, and then only if they were extremely iron-willed) when he felt a burst of holy power. Not enough to notice for many beings, but this close you couldn't miss it.
Damn.
Just what he needed -- someone like Aphrodite, constantly trying to bring him back in the name of love, only to expect him to fawn over her like everyone else. He didn't need them trying to interrupt his comfortable reclusiveness, and didn't want them to. He didn't want to remember his power -- it hurt enough that he had lost it in the first place. Why didn't they just leave him alone? Every time he saw them, it reminded him of what he once was.
Zelgadis quickly hurried the opposite way.
"Oh, no you don't, Hades. Get your sulking butt back over here." Zelgadis winced, turning slowly to the voice he only half recognized. Hades slowly unfolded from his human guise and glared at the goddess from beneath him midnight hood. His icy blue hair showed from beneath the cowl, and his diamond eyes flashed angrily.
"You think perhaps I may have had a reason for disappearing?" He said hotly, letting the sarcasm drip from every word. "I do not wish to be found. Leave me now, fallen one. I -- "
"Oh, shut up and say hello, you big fake. Don't pretend you don't want to talk to me." The goddess -- no, Hera, Hades recognized her now -- stamped up to him, her footsteps silent as only the breeze could be. "I have been looking for you since you disappeared, the least you could do is say hello. You think it's been all sunshine for me?" She looked like the little ball of fury she was, and woe betide the man that crossed her. Hades sighed in defeat, not letting it show how secretly please he was that she cared enough to find him. He had been miserable the first few years, thinking she wasn't the friend he thought she was because she didn't look for him. Then he had just tried to forget.
Well, he had hidden well. Hades mentally kicked himself for assuming that she would be able to find him in the first place. "Sorry," He said annoyedly, smiling slightly and Hera glared at him with indignation, "I hadn't known you would take time from your precious self to bother caring." Hera snorted with contempt, and he found himself shrinking under her ruby eyes.
"Of course I did! I've been looking forever! I thought you cared enough for your friends to tell them where the hell you were!"
"Friend. Singular. I haven't had much practice, Hera."
"Neither had I." Hera glared for a moment, then the excitement she had buried inside burst out in the form of a hailstorm of questions. Hades hid a smile and answered them as best he could. At least, until she started asking the extremely personal ones. Such as, have you had any half mortal children yet?
"No. No. Yes, I have. No. I'm a curator. Yes. No, I don't think I should get a real job. No. No. No. NO! Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to -- what do you mean, an insensitive jerk?? I -- no. No, I haven't. Yes. No. Yes."
With every pointed question he grew more and more impatient, and the robes about him grew more and more gravity-resistant. Hera ignored it. She either didn't notice, or more likely, didn't care. She continued blithely on, missing any and all cues to shut up and leave him alone.
"Well, come on. We have reservations at the Hyatt hotel a few blocks down. I would suggest wearing something slightly formal." Hera folded into her more mundane existence again, hair circling into a tightly knotted bun at the nape of her curved neck, her silk gown tapering into a midnight black evening gown. "Well? Come on."
"What if I don't want to?" Hades asked dangerously, pitch robes billowing with power. Hera laughed, her voice a trickling waterfall over polished rocks in the spring.
"You don't think I was only asking you those questions to get you angry, do you? I placed a homing spell on you -- I'll find you anyway. This way you can't disappear on me again." She smiled at his dumbstruck expression, holding out an arm.
"Shall we?"
Part 2 | Fanfiction