An Unearthing of Goddesses

An Unearthing of Goddesses Part 33

"Daughter. What brings you to my bathtub?" Zeus took another puff on his cigar.

Anya raised an eyebrow. "Humor me and call me by my name."

He threw back his head in laughter. "Anya. Always a strong one. You think I don't know all my children by name?"

"I think you don't know me at all. And I don't want to know you."

"You judge me harshly."

"You deserve harshness. Much like you treated my mother." Her eyes grew dark.

"I gave your mother everything she could desire."

"After you took her innocence. You forced yourself on her, after you ingratiated yourself by appearing as a beautiful peafowl, with emerald-green plumage and a mesmerizing display of your fanned tail." She waved her hands and opened her fingers wide.

"It was the mating dance; I was smitten by her beauty and youth."

"My mother was not a peahen. She was bathing in a pool outside her village. An innocent girl. You committed an act of violation. She was shunned by her people, ostracized for a baby outside of wedlock. She had to leave and never go home again." She spat out the words.

Zeus shrugged. "I made sure she was taken care of. She wanted for no earthly needs. If she had asked, I would have destroyed her old village."

"She would never have asked such a thing! She would rather have died herself. She wanted only for the love of her family." Anya lowered her eyes into the pool.

"And she had a family after all. A man came along I recall, leaving you with a bevy of brothers."

"My stepfather. Yes, a good man. She was fortunate, as was I. None of this lessons your guilt. I have despised you my entire life for it." She lifted her chin in defiance.

Zeus sighed deeply, rubbing his head with the towel.

"I cannot erase the past. I have erred, it is true. If the consequences are the hatred of my offspring, then I must endure that. But I am not sorry for your existence. You are a celestial, among immortals. They are humans. What your mother lost, she gained in her sacrifice in bearing you— that her progeny would become a goddess."

Anya struck out at the water, causing an erratic splash all the way across the pool that doused Zeus's cigar.

"How dare you!" she cried. "How dare you elevate your life above theirs? My human mother and father, my human brothers – their short lives on Earth were worth more to me than anything immortality could ever offer. They showed more love, more selflessness, more kindness than anything you and your Gods could ever feel. You use others, you play with their lives, you discard their world like a hotel room you've used, before moving on to another, better world."

Zeus put his damp cigar on the pool's side calmly. "Is this about the rift? Hera warned me you had been nosing about. There were rumors you'd even acquired a starstone in a daring bank heist."

"I did not steal the starstone. There was no bank heist, though I did liberate a friend from an illegitimate prison sentence. Good practice, as it turned out, since I'd soon need to break out of my own imprisonment, by you. And why was that?"

Zeus smiled. "That was not a real imprisonment – only a slight delaying tactic. I wasn't ready to talk with you yet, that's all. I wanted to enjoy my bath."

He dipped his head under the water and reemerged, shaking his head like a sheepdog.

"I can still avenge your old village, you know," he said, waving his hand over the bath water. "One sweep of my hand and a monsoon will take it out, even if the deed was centuries ago. You're aging well, by the way."