As Apollo raises the sun into the sky, I know that yet another day of painstaking, unending, mundane meetings lies ahead of me. Being King of the Gods and Lord of the Sky and Thunder has its perks sometimes, but most of the time family politics get in the way of me enjoying my powers.

You see, no one on Olympus ever gets along. Why is that, you ask me? Curses if I knew. If I did, do you think I would WILLINGLY sit through all these boring political meetings? I’d rather have Hades visit than do that! (My brother doesn’t always see…eye to eye with myself or the rest of the gods on Mt Olympus. Something about not having a seat on the Council. I mean, he gets to visit on the winter solstice, isn’t that enough? Big baby, doesn’t like playing in the land of the dead all year long apparently.)

Did I mention how many arguments go on here? For any of you who fight with your siblings, imagine fighting with several hundred of them. Or, on the bad days, several thousand. Those titans and other immortals never considered the mayhem they would cause by having so many children. And dealing with them has fallen on my shoulders, since I am the “King of the Gods”. The title comes with great honors, respect, blah blah blah. Oh and lots of food sacrifices from mortals (yum!). But all this arguing makes me cranky most of the time. Hera says I sulk in the corner most days, but she’s wrong. Lord Zeus, the King of the Gods, Lord of the Sky and Thunder, DOES NOT SULK. Hmph. Dwell on things, sure. But sulk? ME?

Never.

……

Oh dear.

As I rise to start my morning (hopefully on a positive note for once), I notice that, once again, Lord Zeus is sulking in the corner. Sorry, “dwelling on things”. In my opinion, he enjoys acting moody and overcast. On his worse days, the storms he creates from his foul moods are almost unbearable for the mortals; how I wish I could shield them from their suffering.

As Hera, Queen of the Gods, I often intercede on the prayers and petitions of mortals and immortals alike in place of my dear husband. He is so busy; I often voice my concerns to him about him being to overworked and stressed. But he ignores my pleas, sweeping them aside as no more than “a wife’s worthless woes” Whenever he says this, I tell him he is spending too much time with Apollo. He doesn’t like when I tell him that. You see, Apollo thinks that every moment, every minuscule event that takes place, is worth writing a poem or song about. It doesn’t matter if he’s in the middle of a battlefield, marketplace, or a debate on Olympus. If the mood “pleases him”, he drops whatever he is doing and breaks out into rhyme. To summarize, Apollo is not anyone’s first choice to pick as an ally in, well, anything. Sweet boy, though.

Lightning flashes, across the sky followed closely by the sound of thunder booming.

Oh dear, not again…