Athena sat across from the human that her Auntie Hecate suggested she see. Apparently the young woman was a doctor of the mind, watched over by Hecate Herself, and she was treating creatures of all sorts, everyone from vampires to faeries to, yes, Gods. There were rumors that the woman even had Thor as her patient once a week. He was working on anger issues, or so the gossip of the Gods declared. Her specialty, however, was battered women and abused children. That was no wonder, being a child of Hecate. Humans always shared traits of the Gods their souls were attracted to and Hecate was the ultimate champion of women and children, especially if they were hurt at the hands of men. If the doctor fought for justice for people who could not get justice for themselves, she was worthy of respect. Still, it was difficult for Athena to open up to anyone at all, least of all a human. The woman did have a sweet smile and kind eyes, the eyes of a woman who was hurt herself once upon a time. Human though she was, she was also a Witch, another effect of Hecate no doubt. She knew these Gods in a way that humans nearly forgot in the two thousand years of a monotheistic religion inserting itself into nearly every culture of the world. The woman’s connections with the Gods of old was something to work with.
“You seem extremely tense. There is nothing to be nervous about. My name is Dr. Lieberman but you can call me Emily. Your paperwork says that you are Athena, daughter of Zeus and...the Titan Metis? Hmmm…” Athena knew what the woman was thinking. Even humans believed She sprang from Her father’s head, ridiculous as the story was, and so often Metis was taken out of that story completely. “What is your occupation? Besides being an Olympian, I mean. What are your specialties?”
“I am Athena, as you said, and I am a Goddess of both war and wisdom. I am an inventor of many things, including democracy. I watch over the underdog, as humans say. I also seek out justice when I can and for justice I will fight, always. I am also the Mother of Athens, of course.”
Emily smiled again and that smile seemed to put Athena at ease. This woman was good to her core. She truly wanted to help and she did not care what world or realm you came from, if she could help you, she would. That was a beautiful thing for a human. Often, they couldn’t even help one another if one had a different pigment or a different religion, let alone helping someone from a realm long believed mythical. She could trust Emily. And in that moment, she felt as if Emily might be the only creature from any world that she could trust. “What would you say is your greatest struggle right now?”
Athena sighed in a way that seemed to deflate her from the inside out. “Please do not mention this to any other human. My auntie told me that doctors of the mind cannot say anything about their patients to other humans which is the reason I am sharing it but...well...it’s a bit startling.” Again, Athena sighed. She couldn’t believe herself in that moment but she did feel as if she was weighed down by this information as much as she was by her father’s betrayal. “There is a great war coming, a war of the Gods. Not a war between us...not at all...in fact, we are all coming together, including the young Jesus and the God of his father’s underworld. This is Ragnarok just as it was predicted so long ago. I know how the legend says this ends for the Norse but we had no such legend and even if we did...prophecy is never set in stone. It is merely a look at what might come. You know tarot so I don’t have to explain that to you…”
When Athena’s words trailed off, Emily almost asked her how she knew that she read cards but that would’ve been a silly question. She is a Goddess, after all. “I knew of this war already. Between you and me, Thor cannot stop talking about it.”
“Is he fearful?” Athena questioned. She thought of this war often and she felt as if, given the prophecy, the Norse had to be more on edge than the rest of them.
Emily chuckled, genuinely amused. “No. In fact, he says he cannot wait. He says this will be more exciting than anything he has seen in a millennia.”
For just a moment, the worry left Athena’s eyes and she laughed with the kind doctor. Flipping her hair back from her face, she relaxed against the chair and shook her head. “Males are such fools, are they not? Gods, men, birds, it does not matter. It is always the same with them...all war, no wisdom. If you want both, you need a Goddess.”
Something about her statement struck a nerve with the doctor. “I suppose you are right about that. So is it this war that is troubling you?”
“Of course I am troubled by it. It should be the heaviest thing on my mind. I should be conferring with Goddesses and Gods from all over the world talking hypothesis and strategy. But I recently had everything I believed to be truth scattered to the winds and for the first time in my long life, I want to act entirely out of rage. I am rational. Emotions are not where I decide from because emotions do not make for good decisions. Yet now when I need my rational mind the most, when the future may hold a literal death of everything that lives right now including the Gods, I cannot think rationally because I am filled with a rage that is consuming me as nothing else ever has. Each time I try to think of the battle to come, I can picture only the brutal slaughter of my father. I see it clearly. I stand over him, my spear sticking out of that rock he calls a heart, his face made unrecognizable by blows from my shield….and I love that thought. I love it as I have never loved a thought of war. This is why I’ve come to you. I may yet kill him and he certainly deserves it for all he has done to us...but I cannot kill him now. There is no time and he might yet be useful. Please, help me.”
Five years ago, Emily could not have believed she would ever ask the question she now asked but still, it was necessary. Folding her hands together before her, she questioned, “Why do you want to kill your father?”
“He is a liar, he rapes women, he cheats at everything he does, he is a chauvinistic pig, and he even spread that chauvinism to humans, changing the stories of the Goddesses to make the strongest among us look weak. You’ve heard the story of my birth?”
“Mitis turned into a fly, he swallowed her with you inside of her, she built you a shield and your vest, and as you grew someone had to split his head open so you could emerge fully grown and ready for battle?”
“Stupid as that story is, even I’ve believed it all of these years. It was all lies. Metis is my mother, yes. Metis was a Titan, yes, but all else in that tale is horseshit. He trapped her in a room with chains and stones made by my mother herself under false pretenses and he kept her there until he figured a way to transfer all of her power to me. Then he slit her throat. I don’t even know what he did with her body. After Hecate told me the truth, she made me remember things...many things I long repressed. I did not know it was possible for someone to convince you that the memories of your mother are not real but that is what he and Hera did to me. Hecate used to sneak me into that horrible room to be with my mother when we could get away. I was on the verge of womanhood, the time when I needed her the most, when he slaughtered her in cold blood. I would talk of her often, missing her always, and they would call me stupid and tell me I was making her up because I was motherless. Hera was never a mother to me, that is certain. She hated me. But she could not be unkind to me because Zeus would never tolerate that. All the time I thought it was because I was his favorite and he loved me so much when, truthfully, it was because he is scared to death of me. Everything he did to my poor mother was done from that fear of me.”
After a brief pause, she went on. “ I was not the only one he made weak in his stories. You can find a tale more resembling the truth in the very first story about Hecate, where it spoke of how Zeus laid gifts at her feet and all of that. But no story tells the truth. She is a daughter of Uranus and Gaia, the heavens and earth, and she is able to walk between each realm with ease. She is probably the most powerful deity among us. It is she who will rule, as she should have all of this time, if we survive this battle. In later stories it is told that Zeus allowed her to be free when the other Titans were subdued or destroyed but Zeus has never allowed my auntie to do a damned thing. She put the three brothers in charge of heaven, the sea, and the underworld so she could focus her time on the humans. She loves humans as I do. She favors women and children but she will show kindness to a man who stands up for a woman or a child. She will also destroy a man who hurts them. She is the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, the Goddess above us all. She is the matriarch of our pantheon. And he tried to make her weak? He also told lies on my uncle Hades. He has made him out to be a terrible beast when, in all truth, he has the softest heart and the kindest soul out of the three of them. Hecate says he took after his grandmother, Gaia, her mother. She said she was kind to her deepest core. Do you know that saying about the God of the Underworld who is the Comforter and Consoler? That is Hades.”
She was about to stop when she remembered another of his great lies. “ He even lied about the rape of Persephone. She was never raped or kept against her will! She went down to the Underworld because her mother told her to never go there and it made her curious. Hades had to call upon Hecate to escort her home and by the time Hecate arrived, the two were in bed together, mad with love for one another. Hecate was content to leave them alone to their love and happiness but, as we all know, Demeter was not about to let that happen. You see, if Persephone stayed, she could not return to the earth and Persephone was the center of Demeter’s world. She was angry, yes, but more than that, her heart was absolutely broken and in her loneliness she allowed nature to wilt and die. She did not care. When Hecate tried to console her, she said, ‘Let everything I created be with the dead as my child has chosen death over her mother!’. Hecate returned to Persephone and she told her of her mother’s grief and its effect on the earth causing Hades to beg Persephone to go home...but she refused. So Hecate told them to give her six months and she promised that when she returned, she would have a solution. She gave Demeter that same promise. And then she came to me. It was I, along with Hecate, who came up with the compromise that Persephone lives her life by. It seemed to be the only way.”
This was perhaps the most shocking revelation of them all. The stories all spoke of Hades as if he were a kidnapping weirdo who hung out with the dead and did not care whom he caused pain to and it was strange to think of him as a soft- hearted comforter to those who come along the River Styx to recharge their souls for the next life. “Are they still in love, Persephone and Hades?”
“Oh, yes. But Persephone has never been completely happy. When she’s with her husband, she knows her mother grieves even still and when she’s with her mother, she is always missing her husband. But it was the only way to have them both. So every six months Hecate, the only Goddess who can take others between the worlds of life and death, goes down to get Persephone or she goes to bring her down...If it were not for her, the little bit of joy Persephone has would not exist. She even has to eat seeds of the pomegranate, a fruit related to death and rebirth, to get back down each time. Could you imagine going through all that just to go home? I talk to my sister through messages that go between the worlds with Hermes. He, too, can travel between heaven and the underworld. I’ve also long communicated with Hades in that way. He is certainly not what Zeus has made him out to be. If anything, that horrible man that Zeus accused him of being is actually more like Zeus himself. He slandered us all to grab more and more power from himself but now that Hecate has been forced to truly see the damage he has done in heaven and on earth, she is taking back the crown that is her’s once more. I know she will want to do this without violence but if violence is needed, she will allow it and I’ll be happy to help. In the meantime, though, how do you suppose I can clear my mind of that dream in order to focus on the battle ahead? Bear in mind, if we lose this battle, your world will end as well, so it is very important that you help me. That was no threat. I merely need you to see the gravity of the situation.”
Emily thought for a moment, closing her eyes so she could recall everything she ever knew about the Goddess before her. Her likeness in paintings and sculptures made her look manly when nothing could’ve been farther from the truth. She was absolutely gorgeous, wearing a black tee shirt ripped a little down the front, black pants, and black boots that came to her knee. Her makeup was flawless...literally out of this world. Even her nails looked professionally done, though they were kept short. Emily suspected this was to keep them from getting in the way of anything physical she might need to do. That thought brought her toward a temporary solution. “Your fantasies about your father are completely understandable right now. He has betrayed all of you and he betrayed you worst of all. But you are right to see them as a distraction. Have you ever seen a human gym? With the punching bag and the weights and such?” Athena nodded ‘yes’. “I know of a vampire that made such a bag for his kind to hit in preparation for the battle the vampires fought here on earth not so long ago. Perhaps you, crafty Goddess that you are, could prepare such a bag for yourself.”
Oh, yes, Athena liked her indeed. Smiling a genuine smile for the first time since the visit started, Athena clapped her hands together in praise. “Ah, Dr. Emily, you are very good at this. It has been so long since I’ve had a challenge and there is nothing that will clear my mind quite like a challenge. How long should I wait before I return to speak with you?”
Emily couldn’t believe she wanted to come back. Pulling up her schedule for the month, she saw an opening just after Thor’s appointment at the start of the following month. “I don’t think I need to see you once a week because you are stable over all. Let’s say you come back one month from today at four in the afternoon, my time?”
Athena did not have the heart to tell her that once she returned to Olympus, she had no way of telling human time. Instead, she stood up and shook the doctor’s hand, happy to have met such a smart and good female doctor. Athena felt as if she could tell her everything about herself, even memories she couldn’t find until recently. And perhaps in time she would. “I hope you have the most beautiful month. Please try to find some joy outside of your office, Dr. Emily. I meant what I said earlier about this world ending. None of us can promise we will win. They say that what we are fighting comes from the very earth itself, that they are creatures more powerful than any one of us. We will fight until none of us are left standing. I do not doubt that. But as you can tell from that election three years ago, the side that is right does not always win. So enjoy every single day as much as you can. And remember...helping the Gods as you are doing is helping to tip the scales in our favor. Just try…” She lowered her voice as if it were a secret, even leaning closer toward Emily as they both stood in the doorway, “Just try not to work too hard on Thor’s anger problem until it’s over as we all need him to be angry.”
Emily chuckled as she watched Athena go. In the hall was a beautiful middle aged woman wearing a gorgeous black floor length bohemian dress. At her side slept three huge black dogs with service animal vests on. A spark went through Emily in that moment. As she locked eyes with the woman, she knew who it was, her beloved Hecate, the Goddess she worshiped from the age of twelve. It was She and no other...come to take Athena back to Olympus. She wanted to ran out toward her and “fan girl out” as the teenagers say, but she couldn’t do that. If Hecate wanted to speak with her, she would come on her own. Closing the door behind her, she locked it for just a moment as she fought to catch her breath. Her life had become unrecognizable as of late. Though she was not certain, she always felt that it was Hecate leading the Gods to her door. It was the strangest calling a person could have and sometimes she felt as if she were taking too much time from battered women and abused children but it was as Athena said. If she did not allow these Gods to come and talk about their problems with her and they lost the war they all spoke of because they were too distracted, there would be no world at all, much less battered women and abused children. Once this war started, she would have a little time, even if the world eventually ended, to go back to what she was meant to do.
Emily usually worked well into the night, even after going home. But she thought of what Athena said before she left and when Perry, the divorced dad of two who still had literal nightmares over his wife’s imagined affair (the accusation that ended his marriage even though Perry discovered in the process of divorce that there was never an affair at all...), left an hour later, Emily decided she was going to the cool little cafe/used book store that recently opened about fifteen minutes away. She passed it every single day for the last six months going to and from work and every day she swore she would get there...soon. Well, there truly was no time like the present.
Moral of the story: Sharing knowledge makes everyone more intelligent.
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