Rhea fidgeted with the swaddled bundle in her arms. For the immortal life of her, she could not remember what one was supposed to do with these things. Her motherly instinct was not helped by the fact that it was a rock.

Of course, she doubted whether any mother who could watch dispassionately while her husband ate her children had instinct. Certainly none of the motherly variety.

Ever since she had let her Styx cursed brother Prometheus chat with her almost a year-and-a-half ago, she had been nearly obsessed with the idea of being in charge. He had dangled a possibility in front of her, the possibility of power—fresh meat before a ravenous beast—the possibility of dominion over even Cronus, and her world had rolled in on itself. Before Prometheus had put the idea in her head, she had been content. She was queen of the Titans, second in command only to Cronus. She had tried to go back to the way things were before; she had tried to be content; she had tried to not care that she was at the beck and call of Cronus with his overbearing manner and violent tendencies. But now that very “second”, which before had made her smirk when the other gods bowed before her, stung hard at her liver: twisting, searing, and devouring. She should be second to no being, mortal or divine. She should be first.

She shifted the bundle, it was uncomfortable. She did not have a great imagination: this was the best plan she had been able to come up with—wrap a stone in a cloth and pass it off as her newest baby while the real thing was safely hidden away on…oh dear, where had she put him?

Even with her limited imagination, she knew it was a weak plan. Fortunately, her cranium with its two lonely brain cells looked positively crowded next to the void that was Cronus’ head. Not that that made him any less powerful.

“Rhea!” The prime fool himself had come.

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“Y-yes, my lord?” Rhea kept her composure, trying to make it seem like she wasn’t harboring any seditious intents.

She shifted her weight twice. She brushed her immaculate curls out of her face four times. She stuttered when she parted the curve of her red lips to speak. She felt her whole body—every gorgeous dip and line—begin to shake.

“So you’ve had another son?” Cronus flexed his muscles and looked self-satisfied.

“We’ve had a-another s-son, yes.” Rhea’s breath was coming is little gasps now.

“Well, give him here.” Without waiting Cronus snatched the bundle out of her arms.

What followed is better left un-described: how Cronus’ jaw seemed to unhinge, how it swung wildly back and forth as it lowered, how his cheeks flapped as though in a gust of wind as they widened to either side until they were the grotesque maw of a fish, curved out beyond its bone structure, how the whole time his body quivered and his eyes rolled madly around, first to the sky, then the ground, then toward Rhea herself, but never saw anything, and how—all the while—a hideous laugh echoed up from the cavernous chest so that it seemed a madman far back in a gaping cave. Into this ghastly chaos the disguised bundle flew, ending the scene with the impression of a snake as the king of the gods swallowed the son of his intelligence.

In a moment, all was as it had been—except that Rhea no longer held the swaddled stone.

Cronus was again the picture of royal power. Every black hair on his head was placed perfectly, like a well trained army on the field of his scalp. His bulging muscles, slid back and forth under shining skin—up his arms, across his bare chest, and down to his waist where they were finally obscured by what seemed to be a common exomis held on by a simple belt, both of which, despite their plebeian nature looked to Rhea like the very robes of the universe.

As for herself, Rhea felt that her cheeks must now contain the full color from, not just her face, but all her body. During the spectacle she had trembled in a way that she had not any of the five previous times. Even now, she felt that he must realize the difference; the stone had felt different in her arms, it couldn’t but feel different in his stomach. Three…four…five breaths.

Nothing.

“What a wonderful dance we do.” Cronus said with the silky smile of a predatory feline.

“What a powerful lead.” Rhea replied.