“Abimelech asked, would it not be better to be ruled by one man, rather than seventy? Remember that I am your blood, your brother, your son.”

When the younger gods fought amongst themselves, turned knives and teeth against their children, I took pity on the oldest and hid her away in the far reaches of my kingdom where ever the light cannot reach. I taught her the oldest ways, the language that can only be spoken in the darkness, the spells that brought motion to an unmoving world.

Both of us were built for love, and loyalty, but even then her future pressed down upon her like so many atmospheres of water. Constancy itself, she would never find constancy, nor in shape nor mood, but find herself exiled among the rivers of the air, the mutable, everchanging tides of the heavens. Married now to a man, now to a bull, now to a flicker of gold, she will learn to change herself, into smaller things, flies that bite, eyes that peep from a feather’s end.

We took her in, as I said, my man and I, and gave her safety, a bed, the knowledge we had. Time, most of all: time after her double wombing, time before marriage taught her petulance, time to be herself, to be alone, to owe no one nothing and be owed nothing in return. We had space; no greater kingdom save the earth itself, no less need than the night that came before and will follow after. We had many daughters, and she, Queen of the Gods, was but one among them.