“I’m not talking to you.”

Prometheus had heard Rhea say that before. What she really meant was, “I want to yell at you a whole lot so that you know I’m very very upset.”

He sighed.

“What,” Rhea’s voice exploded in the kind of tempest that makes whole forests topple—the kind of yell that only a very irate goddess could produce. “did you make me do?!”

She paused as if waiting for an answer, but Prometheus didn’t bite.

“Raise Zeus, you said. You’ll rule the universe through him, you said. He’ll be at my beck and call, you said. Well, do you know just how often he becks when I call?”

This time she really did seem to want Prometheus to say something so he raised the inside edge of his eyebrows and said. “Never.”

“Never! Not at all! He gives me zilch! That spoiled brat won’t listen to his mother for the duration of a rotten fig!”

“It’s a royal shame.” Prometheus put on a tragic air much the way some beings put on cloaks. “He probably doesn’t listen to you because he’s too busy listening to his father.” He paused for a beat to maximize the effect of his joke. “scream, that is.”

“If you’re trying to console me,” Rhea ground out, “by pointing out how much worse Cronus has it, then I suggest you stop before I show you how many ways a Titan’s skin can be removed.”

“Too many, I would imagine.” Prometheus deadpanned. “Look, Rhea, I don’t know what went wrong. He’s not entirely to my liking either, but he is still a Hades full better than Cronus.”

“He runs you ragged on fools errands.” Rhea snorted. “Cronus at least let you be sovereign unto yourself.”

Prometheus paused.

“That’s not true, sister. Yes, I have duties now, we all do because the government is more than just a tyranny of debasing feasts, now. Rather than just rule, he’s actually trying to run the planet.”

He didn’t mention Epimethius. No matter what cattle or goats or sheep Zeus demanded in sacrifice, he was civilization itself next to Cronos, who wanted the human to be the cattle. Rhea knew about Epimethius’ existence now, everybody did, but she apparently hadn’t made the connection between him and Prometheus’ goals yet. Prometheus wanted to keep it that way as long as possible, for fear that she would decide to take her ire toward Prometheus out on his mortal son. To that end, he used the verbal weapon that he had invented in his first thousand years of godhood: the subject change.

“Did Zeus have any outside influences while he was on the island? Perhaps someone else found him while he was there and subverted him away from you in the middle of the night?”

Rhea gave him a quizzical look. “How should I know? I wouldn’t be caught dead on that island.”

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Prometheus blinked. Then he blinked again. Then, because he wasn’t sure whether the computational power of just two blinks was really enough, he blinked four more times in rapid succession.

“You…” He started to speak then stopped, thinking he must have misunderstood, then he started again. “You mean to tell me…You mean tell me that you didn’t stay on the island with him?”

Rhea looked at him as though she were affronted with the very idea. The Queen of heaven, living on dirt surrounded by water?! The idea!

“You didn’t stay every possible waking moment with him? You didn’t even visit him in your spare time?” Prometheus could not fathom a parent who didn’t care about their child at least as much as he had.

Rhea looked for all the world like a petulant goddess. Her face clearly said, why should she? Wasn’t it enough that she had birthed the little beast and protected him from his father and seen to it that he was hidden somewhere safe and given plenty of food to eat? Isn’t that what it meant to be a good parent?

Prometheus stood in dumb astonishment.

Rhea said, “I don’t see why I should have been expected to visit that spoiled little brat.”

Prometheus blinked four more times.

“You…” He was too astonished to speak. When he had made his plan to save Epimethius by overthrowing Cronus by convincing Rhea to raise a more powerful god through the gift of childhood who would one day be able to take over to be a more equitable ruler for all who are and who would be, he had not accounted for Rhea’s total lack of motherness. He hadn’t expected it to be well developed—he himself had tried to leave Epimethius to die in a valley somewhere two or three times before he had discovered his own father-ation—but he at least expected it to be extant.

“You just neglected him on an island by himself for fourteen years and now you’re wondering why he wont listen to you?”

“I didn’t neglect him.” Rhea spoke like a petulant child herself. “I had Mellissa and Amalthea check on him almost every day.”

“You” Prometheus, somewhat uncharacteristically, spluttered. “You had a nymph and a goat check in on him almost every day?! Do you even know what responsibility is?”

Rhea had started the conversation irritated with Prometheus, now she was starting to feel attacked which only made her defensibly irritate.

“Of course I know what responsibility is.” She snapped. “Before you came along and ruined everything, I was the queen of the universe. I was responsible for everything.”

“And you mother as well as you ruled.”

Rhea didn’t seem sure whether that was a compliment or a jibe. Finally, she settled on jibe.

“If I were still queen.” She hissed in a deadly voice, “I would—”

“You would be the same royal mess that perfectly reflected the rest of the celestial court of fools.” Prometheus tiredly rubbed his hand over his face. “Look, sister,” he tried to sound reconciliatory even though he currently loathed her ineptitude with every drop of icar in his veins. “You messed up. You left the next king of the universe to raise himself, and all things considered, I think he turned out pretty well. But he’s not the masterpiece of justice and mercy that I had hoped for any more than the impressionable fawn that you wanted.”

Rhea’s eyes narrowed as she realized, perhaps for the first time, that Prometheus had never intended her to have the any sway over Zeus’ ear at all.

“But,” Prometheus continued, “there is one thing that worked out absolutely as effectively as we had both hoped: Zeus is one powerful son of a Titan.”

The implication was clear, Zeus was here and he was here to stay.

Rhea was still glaring daggers at Prometheus and he wondered whether she had comprehended at all her own culpability in the way Zeus had turned out. He doubted it. But, then, it wasn’t as bad as it could be. Zeus was certainly maladjusted and a social disaster, but he was well minded and stouthearted with equitable ideas and ingenious reforms. And though Prometheus’ current problems seemed like a mountain of trouble, he still recognized that he was in a far better place now than he had been before. Zeus was demanding in his need for oblations…but, though mankind may yet starve, but that was preferable to the indignity of a well masticated death.

Prometheus turned his back on Rhea and strode away.