My mother, Hera, was uninterested in Zeus, even with the promise of marriage. His family was the most powerful in our town of Olympus, and Zeus was handsome, young, and rich. He had a penchant for pursuing beautiful women long enough to bed them, but he always lost interest quickly. My mother, raised in an old-fashioned family, didn't fall for his charms. Hera wanted a marriage that stood steady, and didn't wilt at the sight of another blooming flower. If not love, Hera wanted steady companionship, a promise. 

     "Hera," Zeus would plead, clasping her hands. "You are the most beautiful woman, like a dove, like a field of wildflowers bathed in sunlight! Please, marry me, you would be a queen."  

     Flattery like that would have most weak in the knees, ready to accept Zeus. All women want things. Riches, pleasure, happiness. But Hera knew that Zeus only wished to cage that dove and admire her behind metal bars. He believed beauty is best kept chained, lest it turn into capriciousness and savagery. 

    Most men Hera knew were like that, including her father. Kronos was a bitter old man, who took her from her mother Rhea until there was nothing left. Thus was the fate for women, to be used as nothing more than tools under the guise of love. 

    Still, Hera refused Zeus. So he took the thing about her that he valued most. Not her beauty, but her innocence. He took advantage of her, and made it so that she had nowhere to turn to but him. And so they were wed, to cover up Zeus' terrible act, and Hera's shame. Cover a bleeding wound in jewels and it will still hurt.   

    My mother and father had four children, including me. My brothers Hephaestus and Ares, and my sister, Eileithyia. The four of us, and my mother, had roles to play. We were puppets to be moved by Zeus alone, pawns to make sure our family lived up to their name. My father never paid much attention to my sister and me. In Zeus' eyes women were to be seen, and not heard. While my brothers would sit by my father at formal dinners for his business partners, we were meant to serve. Make sure the drinks were always flowing and see to it that everyone ate to their heart's content. "Hebe, you should smile'', our mother would tell me, "Be quiet and good and don't embarrass your father." Though we tried to keep up the act of a happy family, we weren't perfect actors. 

    Some nights, when my brothers grew tired of our father's antics, they'd argue with him. Yelling and screaming and throwing glasses to the ground that they expected us to clean up. My mother would flee from the dining table, nursing a glass of wine in her hands while my brother and father fought a war. Run as far as she could from her husband, she would never escape the chains he had clamped onto her the moment he ravaged her. 

    She spent most of her days like that, drunk out of her mind but keeping enough wits about her to despise every movement my father took. Pretending to adore the gifts he'd shower her in, turning away when he'd bring another woman to his bed. The women in our family were always masters at silent rage.