Chapter Text
Certain mornings were considered sacred by Athena, especially those in which she could delight herself with a steaming hot mug of tea while casting her gaze towards the window that faced the enormous and beautiful and sleepless city of Amaurot. She had a smile on her lips—sweet and serene—and sat on a comfortable chair that threw away all that fatigue of having slept little to nothing at all. Yes, she could surely fall asleep right this instant and she wouldn’t have disliked the idea, not with a sight so serene as Amaurot’s busy life.
“People look like ants from this high up.” she murmured with a subtle tone.
Sitting across from her was Hephaistos, her husband: a tall man, esteemed by many in Amaurot and nearby, professor of the Words of Lahabrea at Akadaemia Anyder and Speaker of the Convocation of Fourteen. Much like Athena, he too held a mug in his hand, although with a different content inside: bitter coffee, one of those that was possible to recognize from its smell alone at distance—so pungent and strong…and so bitter! Such a strong caffeine odor reached Athena’s nostrils and she revealed her distaste with a facial grimace that she ensured to make disappear a second later.
Upon hearing her words, Hephaistos looked away from the newspaper he had been reading to cast his attention outside the window, to observe from above those little ants—as Athena had called ‘em—go on with their life, unperturbed by their presence. He snorted, finding it quite amusing, before taking another sip of his coffee. The aroma was so strong that he muffled a hiss through his teeth.
“But I prefer Amaurot at night, with all the beautiful lights, and the people still awake and walking around as if it’s day! It’s three in the morning, where are you possibly headed, that late at night!”
“You forget that we used to be the same way.”
“That you had to sneak out and escape your mother’s strict gaze to run away with me.” Athena exclaimed, recalling the memory as if it was something that had happened just yesterday. She had, obviously, exaggerated it: no one was running away from nothing, but she could be true regarding his mother’s strict gaze …well, strict opinion of her, truth be told. His mother had built in her mind an interesting, and offensive, opinion towards Athena in which she expressed her distaste towards her very clearly and without filters. He recalled Athena always laughing it off whenever it was brought up, ending the sentence with: I adore your mother and her silly fantasies! , almost as if the pinch didn’t really affect her at all. Hephaistos was aware that—in Athena’s mind—she depicted his mother as some sick woman who liked to spit out nonsense, when, in truth, his mother was perfectly sane of mind, but it never truly bothered him. Whenever she laughed like that, brushing away any and all rumors thrown at her face, it made him feel slightly uneasy.
“And our nightly escapades,” she continued. “always led to the same park, to the same kiosk, to the same restaurant, to the same theater…almost as if Amaurot is in truth a small town, like Aspetos .”
“I don’t recall you ever complaining.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining! I loved each and every single of our dates. I just wish we could, you know, turn back time.”
Hephaistos raised his eyes to catch Athena still looking out the window, and placed his mug down. “Turn back time? And by how much?”
Athena shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps before Erichthonios was born, or perhaps before we got married. You know, that period in time when we couldn’t sit apart, not even for a second.”
“I don’t think much has changed since then. Well, apart from work, and duties, and responsibilities…”
“Exactly!” and she placed her mug down onto the table with quite enough force to cause a little spillage. “So much has changed! We both have work, and we both have duties, and we both have responsibilities! It would be nice to—you know—have none of that, even for a day.”
“Are you suggesting a date ?”
“Maybe I am.” Athena sighed, resting her back against the backrest of the chair. Or maybe it was her fatigue speaking. Such a sudden reaction was quite rare from her that she caught herself off-guard, almost shocked by it for having failed in keeping it together, but the source of this sudden outburst came from an entirely different source. A distraction was what she needed, aside from a good night’s sleep. “Nothing extraordinary, I would be content even with a simple walk by the river.”
“And yet, I feel as though there is more that you’re not telling me.” Hephaistos hummed, his tone still calm despite witnessing his wife’s burst. He placed the empty mug on the table and folded the newspaper to set it aside. He, then, cast his full attention on Athena and waited for words to flow out of her mouth. But Athena, in her own little corner, seemed completely elsewhere: with her eyes still at the window (but now hardly even focusing on anything in particular) and her thumb being gently nibbled (a tic she had for as long as she could remember that Hephaistos had noted in his mental archive as a clear involuntary reaction for when she was nervous), Athena shifted on her seat and crossed one leg over the other. It was clear that something was gnawing at her but she didn’t seem to be willing to let it out.
“Athena,” Hephaistos continued, his tone softening with the hope of reassuring her. “have you been sleeping lately?”
“No, I have not.” She admitted, rolling her eyes ‘til they fell on Hephaistos’s face. “I have not because—” and then, she sealed her lips, as if stopping herself before she overturned everything. She thought carefully about how to phrase her words and decided to calm down before she accidentally ruined everything. “Because my thesis is not coming along the way I intended.”
“And what is your thesis about?”
Athena shook her head. Another tic that Hephaistos had noticed from her was that she tended to look away a lot when there was something she couldn’t say—that she intended to keep private—or that she pulled at the left lobe of her ear, or when she chewed the inside of her lower lip, or when she bit her own fingernails…all these involuntary tics were considered—by himself—the way of primary communication that aided him in understanding his wife better. Thanks to them, Hephaistos knew when something was amiss. Right now, Athena was having all of the listed ones.
“You know, most mistakes develop when the mind is not well rested, or trained. By not sleeping, you are not giving yourself and your mind the recharge needed to help you think. You know how many times I have told you that thinking is one of the greatest efforts that our mind makes, and if you push this mind of yours without even giving it time to rest, it is as if you were running an infinite marathon. And do you know what the great thing is? That this infinite marathon does not exist and that you can stop and catch your breath whenever you want. But you have to stop. So, today, I want you to rest.”
“No, Hephaistos…you do not understand. I cannot rest. I need… more time .”
“You have all the time you require. Even if you rest for a few hours, you’ll still have plenty of time.”
But Athena kept shaking her head, and huffing. “NO! I said no ! No, no!”
Hephaistos was silenced, just like that. Nothing prepared him for the sudden raise in tone from his wife, tossing away his request like it was crumpled paper into the trash. In seeing her react that way he felt his heart clench. He stood up and grabbed the empty mug with a stern expression on his face — the very same expression that everyone knew him with.
“I will not force you to open your heart to me, Athena, and I will not drag the words out of your mouth. But the obsession of your work is bordering on insanity and it is making me feel like a mere insect in your line of focus for not being able to help you. You may toss away my pleas all you want but I would be glad if you, for once, would let me in .”
“Last time I did you simply repulsed me.”
— — —
— — —
In the deepest chambers of Tartaros a fury was unleashed that was much greater and perhaps more frightening than the creatures that populated the facility, but no one could hear her and perhaps this was a good thing. Athena, in a fit of rage, threw away numerous pieces of paper, vials that broke at the first contact with the floor — releasing a strange liquid that was lost in a few seconds — potions, concoctions, and whatnot, all without caring about anything. Her face was completely red with veins that seemed to be about to explode at any moment. Jars containing strange organs were also thrown into the air, but Athena seemed to have lost her sense.
“Flawed! Disgusting! No, no! No!”
Years and years of hard work and research thrown away as if it were nothing, sand collected and then dropped. The office was filled with papers fluttering in the air and smelled of ointments.
“How am I supposed to create the perfect being if we— we —are flawed!” Even from her tone she was unrecognizable, the seemingly lovely and gentle woman now transformed into a ferocious beast by her baleful wrath. “There is no hope! There is no chance that guarantees that I can birth a marvelous and flawless creation when I—like any other gods damned soul on this gods damned star—was doomed from the very beginning! All my hard work, all my years spent searching and researching…” her hands grabbed the auracite , a piece of black rock that was capable of housing vast aether reserves, and threw it carelessly across the room, before slouching over the desk and sobbing along her vanished hopes. “...all but a waste of time.”
The rock fell to the ground but did not break. It was so bulky that it would have first cracked a wall and then perhaps scratched a little on impact. It had begun to glow a little, emitting a faint light that caught Athena's attention. The woman wiped away the tears around her eyes and watched the rock light up more and more. It was such a beautiful rock, her aether seemed to react to it, swirling around in a soothing waltz.
“What is it? What do you want?” she asked, her voice slightly broken, approaching the rock. She spoke to it as if it were a sentient being, as if it could speak in turn. Athena took it in her hands and held it to her chest as if she were holding a newborn, watching it just as a mother watches her child fall asleep in her arms. The rock gave off a certain warmth that reassured and calmed her a little, she felt her aether bonding with the rock in a strong grip, and this bond seemed to give her the answers she was looking for.
A memory came to her that had left her with a bitter taste in her mouth for days... no, months! And it was even before she wed. Hephaistos, then much younger and carefree, completely infatuated with her, was sitting on the bench in the gardens of the Akadaemia Anyder discussing with her a thesis that Athena had released to the Words of Lahabrea. Before submitting it, however, she had asked for his attention to correct some grammatical errors, when, in reality, she wanted his input first of all. She was biting her lower lip and her long, thin fingers were shaking with anticipation, her blue eyes watching Hephaistos's as he read the thesis with an expression...well, with his usual expression. As he turned the page, Hephaistos glanced at her quickly and immediately continued reading. It wasn't exactly a long thesis, but rather three pages of an introduction to a research she wanted to start. Her enthusiasm seemed to fade, however, as Hephaistos drew to a close without even giving her a hint of...well, a reaction, you know! In fact, when Hephaistos closed the folder with the thesis inside and placed it on the bench next to them, Athena's smile disappeared completely.
“Well?”
“Well what ?”
“What do you think?” she was mere seconds away from shaking his shoulders violently .
“Well, I think it is a well written thesis. I have not countered any spelling errors. Great grammar, absolutely impeccable syntax and lexicology. However, I do not consider it a valid topic to submit for a project initiative that is…” and he was really struggling here to find the right words. “... unachievable .”
Athena stopped completely, her body as if paralyzed. She looked at the thesis, then back at Hephaistos, then back at the thesis. She grabbed it and slapped the second page in his face, where it explains with extreme accuracy every single step to make sure that the theory has a basis, a foundation .
“It’s all written here! You have obviously not read carefully. Read it again, please!”
Hephaistos took the paper from his face and carefully placed it with the others in the folder. He then cleared his throat.
“Many before you have sought the same answers to their crazy questions, and all of them, crazy as they were, had to give up. I admire your tenacity and determination but I tell you with my heart that—”
“So, I’m crazy , is what you’re saying.”
“No. I’m saying that it is futile to reach for something that simply cannot be reached. I mean, it is foolish to believe that immortality can be achieved. It's scientifically impossible to stop the aging of multicellular organisms…and I’m sure you know this.”
“You don’t even want to give it a chance. You have only read theories, but what about the facts ? What about proof!”
“There is no proof, simply because there cannot be one! Athena, my love, allow me to explain it to you. Bodies go through two big changes: the first is that the cells in the body stop working, and the second is that the cells become cancerous with age. Trying to manipulate one of these mechanisms will only enhance the other, therefore the body's death is either due to cancerous advancement or cell damage. As you can tell, no matter how many tests they might have done, they would cease to exist because of, well… ”
Athena didn't answer. She simply silenced Hephaistos by regaining her thesis and rising from the bench. She didn’t look at all pleased with his input—because it wasn’t something she expected from the esteemed Lahabrea of the Convocation of Fourteen. Someone like him, she thought, would be the first to jump at such a notion.
Hephaistos, feeling his beloved’s emotions running amok inside her heart, feared for their relationship as a strong force gripped at his core and left him breathless—the same feeling of missing a step while walking down the stairs; his heart was shaking just as much.
“I hope my words haven't ruined anything between us, Athena. Regardless, you know you have my full support in whatever you want to do. However, I would like your actions to be done with the sake of the star in your thoughts, as it is our duty.”
“Sure…Yes, the star. Of course.”
The rock—the auracite—dug up the memory like a fine discovery but it only made Athena feel even more furious than she already was. Instead of throwing things at all corners and flipping the room upside down, she quickly scampered on the floor to collect the papers she so carelessly threw into the air—now wet and ruined by the fluids that pooled across the floor—and stacked them together, unfazed by her fingertips stained by said fluids.
“You damned fool, you don't know that my research is only and exclusively for the good of this damned star! If only I wasn’t the only one who thought so, you would have understood, but you're just an idiot who doesn't understand anything! And they made you Speaker of the Convocation of Fourteen!? Truly our star cannot be in more incapable hands! We’re all doomed! Our governing body is composed of a bunch of kids dressed up as adults at a grown-up party!” As she stacked the papers together, the auracite shimmering faintly at the table next to her, she shook her head and clicked her tongue several times. Oh, if these walls could talk …Blabbering like this, mouthing off without someone hearing was something that Athena found herself doing more often than she dared to admit in these closed walls, and something that she apparently enjoyed doing from the looks of it. It took her such a strong reserve of energy to put on that sweet and lovely facade, to just smile and nod as if nothing had happened whenever Hephaistos spoke, to accept any form of affection from her husband and her coddled and annoying son. Every simple task required her so much energy that whenever she entered her private laboratory, she felt like crumbling down hysterically—especially now that she discovered that, after all these years, Hephaistos might be right. That, after all these years, she had just wasted her time…and her life. Oh, her life …she threw it away like she discarded those papers a moment ago. She had married a man who saw herself completely different from her own perception of her, and had conceived a child with him who, despite having undergone some alterations due to her experiments, had not given her any interesting fruits, or the answers she sought. If anything, his aether was significantly weaker than that of a common Ancient child and he tended to cling to her almost obsessively (which Athena found most intoxicating). One misfortune after another, each single event in her life accompanied by the realization that, in the end, she was nothing more than a simple and ordinary married woman with a child. And a mad fool in the eyes of her husband.
Despite everything, the rock continued to shine, now more than ever.
— — —
— — —
“She got the sickle from among the farmer’s tools in the barn and proceeded to cut off all of the big plant of wheat. On the ground lay nicely cut wheat, ready to be gathered and threshed, but the newest and downiest of Mrs. Hen’s chicks set up a peep-peep-peeping in their most vigorous fashion, proclaiming to the world at large—but most particularly to their mother—that she was neglecting them. Oh, poor Red Hen! She felt quite bewildered and hardly knew where to turn! Her attention was sorely divided between her duty to her children and her duty to the wheat, for which she felt responsible. So, again, in a very hopeful tone, she called out: “who will help me thresh the wheat?” But the pig with a grunt said “not I” , and the cat meowed “not me” , and the dog barked “don’t look at me!” So, the Red Hen, looking rather discouraged, said: “Well, I will, then.” And so, she did.”
It was not even midday and Erichthonios had requested a story, and as fate would have it, it was the story of the little red hen. Athena, rolling her eyes, grabbed the book and watched the boy climb onto the sofa to sit next to her. He was small, his age could be counted on one hand, he was weak and miserable, so much so that Athena could easily squeeze him like an orange! She smiled sweetly at him as he nestled against her and stroked his hair with the gentleness of a mother. She could relate to this story a little, especially today when she had to stay home with Erichthonios and watch over him, instead of hiding in her office, because Hephaistos was dragged away by an unexpected meeting, and so was his cousin since they worked together.
This little red hen, so overworked and crashed by her duties of worker and mother both, without anyone lending her a helping hand. But when she manages to deliver a delicious result of her hard work, everyone wants a piece of it! It was still a mystery to her why Erichthonios liked this story so much: the child laughed sweetly at the pictures in the book, pointing to the hen and exclaiming: “She looks like Fifi !”
Fifi was a little phoenix that Hephaistos had created for Erichthonios. Since this was a concept that still needed a lot of tweaking, Fifi was a much tamer version of the one Hephaistos had in store. Fifi was just a red bird, if one could say that: an annoying red bird that flew around the house like a bug that couldn't be gotten rid of. Athena hated that bird, simply because it constantly reminded her how much this house smelled more like her husband than it did of her. Yes, in this house she was nothing more than a miserable fly obscured by the many works of Hephaistos. And now that damned bird too!
“I know! She looks exactly like Fifi!” Athena responded sweetly, giving Erichthonios a warm smile, before resuming her reading.
Erichthonios was very fond of Fifi and his favorite pastime was chasing the bird around the apartment, giggling loudly as he tried to catch it. Athena had slain the bird about ten times, and most of those times it was on her own volition...also because it was really impossible to get rid of it because the phoenix would come back to life a few seconds later—another incredible brand of Hephaistos’s fabulous skills. And it was this very characteristic that lit a small flame inside her, a flame that soon became a fire, fueling her hunger for curiosity at the sight of Erichthonios holding Fifi in his arms. In that moment she saw the perfect creation, the union between mortal life and immortal life — a thin and weak soul approached by a being that could not die in any way, a perfect being that defied the laws of nature. Could this be the answer she has been searching for all this time and that has always been right in front of her? Could this—this very moment—be the beginning of her rise to godhood? A smile stretched her lips, her hand sank into the orange locks of her beloved child who had fallen asleep next to her with Fifi in his arms. The bird, as if disturbed by the woman's actions, raised its neck and looked straight into her eyes.