The Oracle of Delphi was shrouded in an eternal silence: vines crept over the marble columns, and the shadows of laurel trees wove enigmatic patterns upon the ground.
Hera stood before the temple of the harvest goddess Demeter, her fingers unconsciously twisting the golden hem of her robe.
This was her third visit.
The first time, Demeter had smiled as she listened to Hera's plan to find 'true love' for her second sister. But her gaze had drifted to a bronze serpent coiled around a beam in the corner of the temple—the serpent sculpture's eyes were inlaid with emeralds that glowed faintly in the dim light.
The second time, Hera brought a list of male gods she had carefully selected: Nereus, the sea god; Boreas; even a few of the Norse gods recently reborn in the Underworld. Demeter took the sheepskin scroll, ran her fingers over the names, and suddenly chuckled. "Marriage... What an interesting system."
Her fingertips paused in the air, and from nowhere, a tiny emerald-green serpent materialized, slithered up her arm, and nuzzled affectionately against her cheek. Demeter stroked the serpent's body with her other hand, her movements so tender that a chill ran down Hera's spine.
The third time was today.
Hera took a deep breath and pushed open the heavy cypress door.
The interior of the temple was darker and more saturated than she remembered.
This was not the orderly abundance of cultivated crops, but rather the untamed profusion of a primordial forest. Vines hung from the ceiling bearing unknown berries; strange fungi sprouted from cracks in the stone floor, emitting a sweet, cloying scent of decay. Corners were piled high with grain, but upon closer inspection, tiny serpent sheds could be seen around the wheat stalks.
Demeter stood with her back to Hera, facing an altar at the deepest part of the temple.
Upon the altar was no statue of an Olympian, but a crude, seemingly primitive stone carving—a voluptuous woman entwined by countless serpents, her face blurred, yet radiating an ancient, primal authority.
"Second sister," Hera spoke, her voice thin in the vast, empty temple.
Demeter did not turn. She reached out a hand, and a white serpent coiled on the altar obediently glided towards her palm.
"Hera, my little sister." Demeter's voice was soft, carrying a cadence Hera had never heard before. "You are always so enthusiastic."
Finally, she turned. Hera caught her breath.
Demeter's face was unchanged—still the gentle, shy sister of her memory.
But her eyes, once so timid and sorrowful, were now deep as an ancient well, her pupils gleaming with a reptilian gold in the dim light.
What shocked Hera even more was the aura surrounding Demeter.
The essence of the harvest goddess was 'nurturing'—gentle, tolerant.
But the power permeating the temple at this moment was thick, primordial, carrying the fishy sweetness of the deep soil and the rustling whisper of hundreds of millions of roots spreading underground.
This power reminded Hera of a feeling she had when she would secretly leave Olympus as a girl, walking barefoot on the earth when she was still just a daughter of Kronos and Rhea—the thrill of being enveloped by the entire living world.
"I..." Hera's throat was dry. "I just hoped my sister could be happy. Our eldest sister chose her own path, but you are different. You used to be..."
Demeter laughed.
"There's no need to speak of the past. The past is meaningless."
She descended from the altar, stepping barefoot onto the moss-covered stones, making the earth tremble faintly with each step.
"But what is love, Hera? Is it obsession? Is it sacrifice? Or..." She stopped before Hera and reached out to touch her sister's cheek. Her fingertips were cold, tasting of earth.
"Or is it just a temporary fluctuation of mood, like snow melting in spring, like rain in summer—coming and going, leaving nothing behind."
Hera stood frozen.
She should have brushed the hand away, demanded answers, but some ancient instinct paralyzed her—the instinctive awe of a young creature before the primordial mother.
"Second sister," Hera heard her own trembling voice, "lately you've been... so fond of serpents."
"And are serpents not good?" Demeter withdrew her hand and let the white serpent slide from her shoulder, slithering across the ground.
"They are the most honest children of the earth. No hypocritical wings, no noisy song—only silent entwining, shedding, and rebirth. They connect life and death, the surface and the underworld, like roots."
She moved towards a side hall adjacent to the main chamber, and Hera subconsciously followed.
The side hall contained no furniture, only a massive 'bed' of fresh earth, covered with sun-dried ferns and petals.
Demeter sat upon the earthen bed.
"Hera, tell me," Demeter looked up, her golden pupils fixing directly on her sister. "Why are you so obsessed with 'marriage'? Is it because you've been trapped in that priesthood for so long you can no longer see other possibilities? Or is it because... you need to use others' choices to confirm that your own choices are not wrong?"
"I just—" Hera tried to defend herself, but her voice caught in her throat.
"Hush." Demeter raised a slender finger.
A few moments later, light footsteps were heard. A nymph in simple linen, wearing a wreath of wheat stalks, cautiously peered in. "Goddess, the wheat field to the west..."
Her voice cut off abruptly.
The nymph saw Demeter sitting on the earthen bed. She saw Hera, pale-faced.
Fear seized her instantly. She turned to flee.
"Come here." Demeter's voice was soft, but carried an irresistible force.
The nymph froze in place, then, step by step, she walked back as if she were a marionette.
Her eyes were wide, tears silently streaming down her face.
Demeter reached out—not for the nymph herself, but for the wheat-stalk wreath upon her head.
The nymph let out a short cry and collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
Hera finally found her voice, a surge of anger rising within her. "Demeter! What are you doing?! She is your servant!"
"She dedicates herself," Demeter said calmly. "Returns her life to the earth, gives her body to the cycle. Is that not the essence of agriculture? To grow, to mature, to be harvested, to decay, to grow again. Hades did well. Reincarnation has its place."
She stood, and in that moment, Hera saw clearly.
"You are not my sister." Hera took a step back, the power of marriage gleaming gold around her. "Who are you? Where is my second sister?!"
Demeter laughed.
The smile finally revealed its flaw: too old, too weary, carrying the memory of the Earth for hundreds of millions of years—this was not a look that Demeter should possess.
"Hera, my dear child," the being's voice shifted, becoming deeper, as if emanating from the very core of the earth. "Do you not recognize your own grandmother?"
Hera was struck as if by lightning.
Gaia.
The primordial Earth Mother Goddess.
Grandmother to all Titans and Olympians.
After Kronos was overthrown and Hades had broken the cycle of reincarnation, she had gradually fallen silent. It was said she had sunk into a deep slumber from excessive consumption.
"Impossible..." Hera stammered. "Grandmother Gaia has long been asleep. If you have awakened, why possess Demeter's body? Why use her like this—"
"Because awakening requires a vessel." Gaia, controlling Demeter's face, displayed an expression bordering on tenderness, yet profoundly unsettling. "And Demeter, my most gentle descendant—her priesthood is closest to mine. What is agriculture? It is merely the domestication of my surface skin by mortals. She serves the earth. Is it not the most natural cycle for the earth to temporarily inhabit her body?"