This is the complete form. Might change a few things yet, but here ya go!
On the Secret Genesis of Eris, part 4
It had been twenty three days. Twenty three dark and terrible days passed after Zeus went upward into the endless sky, arrayed for battle in his father's finest armor and upon the last functioning chariot of a Titanic era long since ended, seeking to bring an end to Nyx's mischief. Zeus had ordered all of the gods under his hospitality to enter into his lofty palace upon Olympus and not to leave, if they valued their existences, until his swift return, save only his brothers Poseidon and Hades. Their abodes beneath wave and soil were quite secure. Knowing their brother, in wisdom they had willfully remained in their own places, and even as Zeus had hurtled ever upwards into the darkening heavens a storm like no other before or since enveloped this ancient world.
To call it merely "a storm" is truly a disservice.
The storm is perhaps fitting.
The storm that filled every part of the sky with lightning and thunder and water and cruel winds.
The storm that shook the mountains and rivers into new places as even steadfast Atlas groaned and shifted from the impossible force of it.
The storm that covered the world in ruin and buried ancient titanic wonders beneath new-formed seas and mountains alike.
The storm that caused dauntless Helios himself to hide his face for twenty days; and three more in the horrific silence that followed,
just to be sure.
The storm whose darkness froze
all things upon the ground and slew
vast numbers of beasts and plants,
and also nearly slew all humanity,
for warning none had been given..
Now in darkness and silence, Hera, great queen of the gods, stood alone on the private balcony upon which she and Zeus had seen uncountable evenings become mornings. She had stood in this very place with him shortly after final victory over the Titans had been wrought.
Zeus had sworn to her profusely during the war that no more beautiful creature existed than she. The astute young goddess had soon noted that his praise, and often highly assertive affections, were always and only granted during the day as their band of siblings had journeyed ever on in their fateful quest. Hera had seen his gaze lingering upon unreachable Nyx countless times as they made camp in diverse locations on the seemingly endless marches.
He didn't sleep, she'd seen.
He'd look up towards Nyx.
Laying on the ground, yet,
Up and his steel... ready
Yet not Hera's
To assure herself of truly immortal fealty, and in ill-advised and youthful spite, Hera bade Zeus swear until she was satisfied that she herself was the most beautiful being he had ever seen. She demanded that The King of The Gods declare her superior beauty loudly in eternal oath before Nyx, HERSELF. Zeus knelt in otherwise private, but fervent, plea to Hera to be his great queen. He turned his face upwards and before both of their faces declared so until Hera took him as husband forever.
Five times over,
So did proud Hera bid
Young King Zeus, in glory
To swear thus facing Nyx
Only then did she accept.
And now the bitch had her fool husband, and Hera had far indeed to fall.
During The Storm the gods had all remained sufficiently cowed by the terrible power of it. In the three days of silence following where Helios yet hid his face much had been whispered, and within her own house wise Queen Hera missed nothing. Some believed Zeus dead, but Hera certainly knew otherwise. No, her unaging eyes could not see any sign of Zeus in the empty, impossibly dark vault above her, but Hera was a queen among gods and had other senses far more reliable than even her godlike vision. The Storm had passed, but her immortal spirit would surely know had her eternal husband Zeus, somehow, passed with it.
He was up there,
somewhere,
clearly spent
yet still spending,
far beyond his due.
And so Hera glared at the empty vault,
wondering, as ever wise wives should,
"What has that idiot of mine gotten into?"
Now again, all in one moment, she could sense his return, not in glory but by a secret way that was then known only to the royal pair, a relic wrought by mad Kronos himself, and that only he who was king could open. One that led instantly, from anywhere, to their chambers directly. It was never to be used, and before then had never been by any but the fallen Titan king, and some few times since in infrequent experiment by brave Zeus, while she and he privately played with their new-won spoils from the personal chambers of their wretchedly mad God-king father, and after which he never spoke of it to Hera again. It was the only thing Hera had ever seen Zeus seem to truly fear.
This was not the plan. None of it could be.
Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
Hera, turning with the sense of her king's presence,
Saw not the grand array nor proud stature of Zeus
Instead a wretched and ruined form from shadows
Did lurch forward and in mad frenzy fell upon Hera.
Zeus' flesh, but not mind, nor bearing, nor even might
Sought to subdue the Queen of Olympus, and failed.
No longer did Hera see her husband Zeus, instead
Only a weak and mewling form of withered flesh
And mind unable to order itsself, much less Olympus
This would not do.
She needs her king.
Instead a wretched
Broken thing, Zeus was.
Into the specter
of his foul father,
Into a form as that
Of horrid, old Kronos,
Zeus was now changed.
