Love That Waits

“We are lucky,” Zeus said, leaning back on the balcony of the marble palace, “we are lucky that we do not hate each other.” 

Hera couldn't quite hide her smile. She had hated him - by the Fates, how she had hated him! - but that hate always returned to love after a couple of centuries. His mortal lovers died, for mortals always do, and for a sweet generation or so, he was hers, all hers. Until he found another mortal woman to bless with his presence. 

But it was no good to reflect on resentment.

“We are lucky indeed.” Hera leant on her husband’s shoulder, gazing out into the summer. They were as high as the skyline, and all the world was spread out below them, a great green feast to be enjoyed. The king and queen of the gods looked down at the white towns among the fields and forests below, delighting in the little movements of the mortals, even if they had forgotten all about Olympus and the gods that lived there. 

Unlike the other gods, Hera had learned early on what it meant to be forgotten, to be put aside for an easier beauty, a path that asked no questions, that did not talk back. She did not take modernity so hard, not like her husband. Looking up at him, she could see a stray grey hair in his black beard, small brown lines about his tanned brow. He was ageing, for all his luck. 

Zeus turned to her, eyes stormy like thunder, flashing like lightning. He smiled. “Why do you look at me so strangely? As if I were a stranger?”

“You have always been strange to me.” Hera couldn’t help but blush, and Zeus laughed, a sound like a summer storm. She angled her face away, as if to soak up the sunlight, but really she was hiding. Even now, he made her heart flutter, thousands, millions of years of being together. He made her feel like a girl as well as a goddess. 

“I suppose I am strange.” Zeus conceded, his voice drained of humour. “You have always forgiven me my strangeness, even when I did not deserve it.”

A cloud passed over the sun, casting a silver shadow over Olympus. Down below, Hera saw a woman look up, frowning, taking off her dark sunglasses to peer at the sun accusingly. 

“You are a god.” Hera whispered to her husband. She placed a gentle hand on his dark fist, “you deserve my forgiveness, and more. You deserve my love forever, until I am no longer there to give it. May the Fates allow my love until Apollo no longer rides his chariot across the sky, until the Halls of Hades are full, until there is nothing more to be seen.”

That made him smile. Praise was scarce these days for Zeus. The sun bathed the world in yellow gold again, the clouds gone as if they never were, as if this were the beginning of the world and all was light, where bronze and marble reigned, the earth still rich with colour.

Hera watched as the mortals went back to sunbathing, as if time were not coming for them. She wondered if mortals loved more fiercely than gods, simply because there was less time to do so. Her age made her feel fickle, changeable, fitful. She was a bird in a gilded cage, and her will was something she couldn’t quite tame. It would bite to get its way if it could. Immortal, yes, but unpredictable. All thoughts of luck were gone - everything was too still, the sun too high, the heat too much to bear. She wanted time to come for her, while there was still some of the old, mighty goddess left. 

“Am I different?” She suddenly turned to him, heart bitter with doubt. “Am I changed from the way I was - when we first met? All that time ago? If we are speaking the truth to each other today, then tell me.” 

“It is certainly a great change if you are doubting yourself.” Zeus said gently. “I thought I was the doubtful one. You are as steady, as sure as the foundations of this palace.” He gestured to the marble columns, the balcony, the door that led to their bedchamber and through that to their matching thrones of gold and marble. “I thought you were sure of your love?”

Hera shook her head. “I am, of course I am. But that is the only thing I am sure of. It is myself which wavers, my will, my power. I am fickle, Zeus.”

“Come with me.” He said, offering her his arm. Reluctantly, Hera took it. It was like walking arm in arm with a mountain. A handsome mountain, she thought. 

Zeus led her through the marble halls, through their bedchamber where the silk covers were still unmade, through the throne room, and through the echoing corridors to the gardens, high on Olympus, where everything bloomed in constant spring. 

They stopped on the white steps, before the lush grass that grew among the polished stone pathways, before the tall trees that bore her favourite pomegranates. A fountain of nectar, built from cream bricks, stood in the centre of the garden. Hera had found her joy here, playing with her son Ares between the trees, laughing with her daughter Hebe, sitting quietly as her son Hephaestus told her about a new invention. She smiled at the memories.

Zeus smiled in turn to see Hera’s happiness, though she did not see it. It was a rare thing to catch the Queen of the Gods so unguarded, even now, when all enemies had been defeated, when all wars had been fought and won. Like with him, ruling had had its way with her. Time had had its way. 

It was a struggle for Hera to pull herself out of her nostalgia, her mind hazy with old sweetness, but she soon remembered her doubt like a cold grip at her throat. “Why are we here?” She asked, looking up at Zeus.

“You have never changed, my love.” Zeus told her. “You are as stubborn now as when you first refused to marry me, concerned for your honour in the face of a young god like myself.”

Hera frowned at his words, and began to interrupt. 

“And rightfully so.” Zeus continued, “you were ever noble. A goddess and a queen before our marriage, and you would have remained so had I fell.” 

“But you did not.” Hera squeezed his arm, her annoyance forgotten. 

“No, but never did I worry for the fate of you or our children in the event of my death, for I knew you to be their best defender, more capable than me at times. Never was there a stronger daughter of Rhea, never a more prosperous child of Kronos. You bloom always, like these flowers. You are generous, like this fountain. You are warm like the sun, and just as constant. You were never more beautiful than you are now. You are evergreen, like the trees before you.”

“You do not think I have changed? We were so young...it was the beginning of everything...how could I not be different?” 

Zeus shrugged. “If you are different, I haven’t noticed. You are still the young goddess that saved that cuckoo, not knowing it was me. I see that same mercy in you, that same love, every day.” 

A warmth spread through Hera’s chest, blanketing the cold, soothing the pressure that had lain heavy on her head like a crown, and she knew it to be love. Not the young love, the love that drive young people to mad things, young men to war, young women to marriage, but the aged love, the love of two people who have known each other for so long that their souls begin to intertwine, and every fear, every hope, is of one mind and one heart instead of two. It is the love of a million years, and Hera would not change it, for she had never felt so safe as she did then.

“You know,” Hera smiles coyly, “I would not mind spending forever with you, as it seems I must anyway. Your charm seems to hold up against millennia.”

“You do not miss having a young husband, then? A young king?”

“No.” Hera says, looking around at all they have built, at the prosperity that grows around them even now, at their home of gold and marble, at the earth that is kept safe, that lives a long life. “No, age has made you beautiful. It has made us both safe.”

“Safe.” Zeus chuckles, seeming to test the word in his mouth. “Now, ‘safe’ is never a word I thought you would use to describe us. We were soldiers for so long. I never thought we would win.”

“Hmm.” Hera muses, holding him close to her side. He is strong, her constant. “Neither did I.”

The King and Queen of the Gods stay there until the sun sets, dipping behind the mountain inn a fiery orange trail. And why should they not watch it? They have time. Time to love each other, and to remember. They have waited so long to be safe, to allow themselves the truth between each other, and now it is time who will do the waiting. And it can wait, and wait, and wait.