Raven laughed cheerfully as he landed in the underworld, though he paused as he saw where he landed in the underworld. There was also the second issue of the fact that Izanami was missing.
He felt her go through the portal with him, spreading his senses out much farther he felt her near a now panicking Hades and Izanami. Hades especially.
He prepared to fly away and head to their direction, but paused as he felt something wrap around his ankle. A black tendril made up of… hatred?
"Well now, aren't you interesting?" Raven laughed as he blasted a bit of dawn energy at the tendril, but the tendril just, ate it up? No, it absorbed it. Now it was acting like a cat asking for attention, rubbing against his leg and purring, or the equivalent of it.
Only demonic like noises escaped it.
"Alright, I'll take you with me then." Raven declared as he went to scoop up the tendril as it gleefully moved to wrap around its arm, it couldn't stretch out much beyond another foot, and it seemed to be pouting.
"Well shit, you know what, I'll name you… Tarty. I'll come back and visit eventually." Raven declared as he marked the location in his mind and spread his wings and flew off, he ended up just missing a giant eyeball, only madness and a slight bit of clarity in it, forming from the tendril before turning back into ground.
As he flew, he ended up bumping into Hades and Izanami, he noted they were decked out in their combat attire.
"Why do you both look like you're going to war?" Raven asked confused and the two seemed to relax as they returned to their normal looking clothes and rushed Raven off to Hades palace.
•~~~~•
"and then I bumped into you two." Raven finished as Hades slumped back with annoyance.
"Why is it always you?" He asked himself rhetorically. He obviously knew trouble always found its way to Raven.
"What's the big deal?"
"The big deal, is that wasn't some bit of human hatred, that was Tartarus, like the underworld realm and primordial being Tartarus." Izanami said and Raven titled his head confused.
"So? I get they're a primordial being, but what's so special? There's tons of them around the planet sleeping away or staying uninvolved." Raven said as Hades sighed as he sat up.
"Listen, that's all true, there is several primordials just sleeping or letting things progress without their interference. However a couple millennia ago, Tartarus attempted something dire. I supposed a backstory would help." Hades grumbled as he remembered the story.
"Long ago, when humanity had just began exiting the caves they inhabited, forming their little towns and small cities. A bored and lonely being watched them, curious. He didn't invovle himself, but he watched. Then one day he found himself watching a particular human woman, he liked the human, so he mimicked and created a false appearance. He wanted to woo the woman." Hades smiled at that, it reminded him of when he himself saw Persephone.
"Tartarus slowly became a human, integrated himself into the town the lady lived in, befriended the townsfolk. Slowly charmed her. They started a relationship. Eventually he revealed his true self to her, and she stayed with him. A child was born between the two of them. A little human baby with the blonde hair of his mother, and the pitch black eyes of his father." Hades slumped down.
"Tartarus left to answer the call of Gaia, she asked for his presence. She attempted to copulate with him. He resisted her and ran off. However when he returned to the town, he only found burning buildings and dead bodies. The primordial being panicked. He rushed to his home, and came to a terrifying sight. His wife and son, both impaled on a pillar of stone, the familiar energy of Gaia inside it."
"He raged, he attacked Gaia, his rage fueling him had him almost destroy her essence and soul, however Chaos intervened. Stoping his son from destroying his sister. He wanted revenge, and he was denied it. So the divine being mourned his wife and child. He knelt at their graves, made by himself, every villager was given a grave by him. For five years he mourned their loss."
"It was then he had an epiphany. Hatred was the leading cause of this, negative emotions. So the great being decided to take in the negative emotions of all beings in the universe. It poured in, and for a moment every being in the universe was free of negative emotions, however they were too much for the divine being."
"However even he could only hold out for so long. For ten years no negative emotions existed, a golden period across the universe. However even he could not hold out for eternity, the negative emotions escaped him leading to dark times, and the great being fell to the madness of all those negative emotions. No mind, just a body moving on negative emotion and madness. Desire to reclaim those negative emotions."
"Tartarus was strong, enhanced by the madness and ten years of holding it all, so the two eldest of Chaos who could move around choose to take up arms. Nyx and Erebus locked themselves in the realm of their younger brother and decided to hold him in place. They kept him locked up, sacrificing their freedom for everyone else. Chaos had already casted his physical form off and could do little. So all that was left was for the eldest of siblings to restrain their tinged brother." Hades finished the story.
"Wow, so that tendril was a tiny piece of Tartarus escaping the pit. I'm not surprised it liked my Dawn energy, its practically soaked in my negative emotions for half of its makeup." Raven laughed as the other two rolled their eyes.
"Any who's, now that we're done with that part of the journey, I had a few questions for you." Raven said and Hades nodded his head.
"So is it possible for a person to have two human parents, but still have a divine parent also?" Raven's question certainly caught Hades off guard.
"There is a ritual used in the olden times. A man or woman would offer up something to a divine being and they would temporarily possess the person as the two copulated and the child would be born with a portion of golden ichor in their veins." Hades explained as he flicked his hand and summoned a book that he handed over to Raven.
"Gods don't have DNA, we're just our divine essence and soul given a physical form. Divine Spirits of the highest order. So when a divine being has a child they split off part of their essence and mixes it with the DNA of the being they are copulating with. They make their essence replicate DNA. It's an automatic thing now, but in the early days, the being would have to split their consciousness into two parts, one to copilate and one to handle the forming of the fake DNA." Hades explained how demigods came to be.
"However the ritual automatically did this by binding part of the divine beings essence to the one they were possessing and thus what was there mixed and became a child." Hades finished up.
"I see." Raven said as he finished reading the whole book in moments and tossed it back over to Hades.
"So what did you come here for, someone you know have golden ichor in their blood?" Hades asked with a knowing tone.
"Yeah, Izanami already confirmed they're a demigod based on the quantity of ichor here, but it was a Greek ichor, so I wanted you to match the aura and tell me which divine being it is." Raven explained as Hades nodded his head in understanding.
"I see. I should be able to pinpoint which divine being it is if I've met them." Hades started thinking on which one it belonged too. He assumed it was either Raven's apprentice or those two dead apostle twins.
"Izanami already compressed their aura into a crystallized form, so it should be easier to recognize." Raven said as he reached into his pocket dimension and pulled out the crystallized aura and tossed it to Hades who immediately recognized the aura as he caught it.
"Huh. I… I never expected her to have a child." Hades said shocked as he held the crystallized aura.
"Oh?" Raven asked as a smirk formed on his face. "Drop the gossip my friend." Raven leaned forward interested.
"Hestia, my eldest sister. The lone Divine being to not have children. I'm honestly surprised she had a child considering she is bound to her duty almost for eternity on Olympus." Hades said and Raven titled his head as he thought on who Hestia was in myths. Plus what Hades has told him about his favorite sister.
Hestia, eldest child of Kronos, Titan of Time. Greek Goddess of The Hearth, Home and Domesticity. Associated with architecture and sacred fire. Possesses a finger in hospitality as well.
In ancient times she had no temple for she was in every home and every city through the sacred hearth. She has a Roman equivalent, Vesta.
Vesta and Hestia were similar, but Vesta had a temple of Vestal Virgins who were seen as essential to the protection of Rome. She also had another temple in The Roman Forum where a sacred fire was perpetuatally kept burning. The fire had symbolized the stability and well-being of Rome.
Hestia was also known as one of the three eternal three virgins.
Hestia, Artemis and Athena.
Originally she had no intention of remaining a virgin, but when Poseidon and Apollo sought to marry her, she choose to avoid the future conflict between the sun and sea, she approached her youngest brother, Zeus, King of The Gods, and asked to swear for eternity to be a virgin. The king accepted the oath.
Hestia almost lost her virginity during a party where she had slept in a garden after tiring herself out, Priapus, god of fertility, gardens and male generative power, saw her and attempted to assault her, however a nearby donkey brayed loudly and awoke the goddess who screamed alerting the other gods and forcing Priapus to flee.
She willingly handed over her throne on the council to Dionysius to avoid conflict and maintain harmony. She instead choose to focus on her duties as The Hearth Master.
Over all, Hestia was a good person and considered one of the few good people to come out of the Greek/Roman Pantheon.
"So why would she abandon Rose? It's not like there's some dumb rule stating she can't raise her child. Especially since she didn't break her oath on the Styx to remain a virgin." Raven inquired and Hades sighed.
"Hestia's role is a special, even among the divine. Hestia The Eternal." Hades spoke with a bitter tone. "She alone keeps the flames of the divine burning. She may take momentary breaks, but a flame will always need attention. Hestia is eternally bound to keeping the flames alive." Hades explained and Raven titled his head.
"If the flames went out?"
"The end of an era. The day the flames go out, this era of Greeks shall begin its countdown for the next generation of divine." Hades admitted and Raven went wide eye.
"That's scary." Raven admitted as he imagined it.
"Indeed. My dear sister choose to take up that task, selfishly for her eternal life. She will eternally watch the flames that burn and show her precious family will live on." Hades said with admiration.
"So she is bound to Olympus most her time then." Raven said and Hades nodded.
"Correct. She can't even afford to split herself into multiple places for long without worry or risk." Hades added on and Raven hummed.
"So she can temporarily at times leave though?" Raven asked and Hades nodded.
"Good to know, thanks for the help, I got something to accomplish now." Raven decided then and there as he fell into a portal and returned to Hogwarts.
"Hey wait a minute-" Hades sighed as he looked at the couch, Izanami sat annoyed there. She opened her own portal up and entered it, a tick mark on her forehead.
"Well he's dead." Hades laughed before sighing and vanishing into shadows to Olympus, he might as well warn his sister of what's to come so she's prepared.
•~~~~•
"Raven." Rose greeted, though perhaps with a bit of confusion as he appeared out of a portal into the hospital wing.
"Rose." Raven greeted in return before he picked her up bridal style as she went beet red and he walked out of there and to somewhere more private.
A room in one of the towers unused and vacant.
"Have you ever wondered about your flames? The orange/red/green ones." Raven clarified and Rose nodded her head.
"They aren't magical in nature, I think." Rose said and Raven smiled at her. She felt butterflies in her stomach.
"Correct. They aren't magical in nature. They aren't elemental based… oh no, they're so much more then that. No, for they are divine in nature. Rose my dear, you are a Demigoddess." Raven said dramatically as he brought out some of the blood he took from her.
"How?" She asked and he smirked as she went red, again, and waved her hands. "No wait! Don't you dare say anything!"
"I wasn't going too." He smirked at her, because he was clearly lying.
"Anyways, you're situation is special." Raven said as he felt Izanami arrive in her cat form as she bit his hand and he raised an eyebrow at her as she glared at him and he sighed. A single yoink had her sitting on top of his head.
"Special?" Rose asked confused and perhaps slightly annoyed. Why was her life like that? Always something special! She just wanted to be normal…
"Normal is for chumps!" Raven declared seriously. "No, I am not reading your mind, it's just obvious what you were thinking." He added on happily.
"Look, we'll revisit this part of the conversation later, but let us focus on the current moment. To simplify, the divine beings had found a way to procreate with mortals, and so came about Demigods. However this process was annoying and they'd rather focus on the procreation part. So they devised a new method, mostly for those who were less horny." Raven gave a simple explanation.
"A ritual. Someone could perform a ritual and a divine being would inhabit the body of a person, and if they procreated, a being with divine blood would be born, typically 2/3's whatever the mortals were, and 1/3 divine. However as the first child of this divine being, you were born with a bit more then half of your blood divine in nature. Look and see if you can spot the golden flakes here." Raven said as he held up the vial of blood.
Rose did indeed see the golden flakes.
"Golden Ichor, the lifeblood of the divine beings of the third generation of Greeks." Raven explained softly.
"So I have a third parent?" Rose asked with confusion and hurt. Plus a lot of anger starting to simmer. Plus overwhelming sadness.
"Don't burn out on me yet firecracker." Raven grinned as he flicked her forehead as she pouted up at him, she was thankfully shaken out of her fonk for the moment.
"You are special like I said. You are the daughter of Hestia, Master of The Hearth." Raven said as he began explaining everything.
•~~~~•
"So she didn't abandon me?" Rose asked hopeful and Raven smiled gently at her, a touch emotional, for he also suffered from mommy issues.
Those who thought it an issue could eat a nuke worth of magical energy to the face. Times ten.
"No, if she had the choice she would be raising you. Would you like to meet her?" Raven asked supressing the jealousy he felt, he didn't need such petty emotions to ruin the moment.
"Yes." She said and Raven waved his hand as the corner of the room changed in a lounge like area with a large hearth burning with soft orange flames.
"Here's a pass for any classes for the rest of the week. I will let your professors know about the situation, to a degree that you will not be emotionally capable of attending." Raven said casually writing out a pass.
"Now, sit in front of the Hearth and pray. Pray to Hestia, to your mother. Now this is something I believe you must handle on your own. Have a doll of me for comfort." Raven snickered as a miniature doll f himself formed in his hand and he handed it to her and ran off through a portal to let the staff know that Rose would be unavailable for the rest of the week, thankfully it was already Thursday.
Rose held the doll tight to her chest and moved to the hearth and knelt down and prayed.
"Hestia, mom, if you can hear me, will you please talk with me?" Rose asked desperately and suddenly the flames in the hearth rose up higher and slowly started escaping it and took on the form of a being made of fire.
Slowly the fire took on a physical form of a human. Pale skin, red-orange hair and soft glowing orange-gold eyes.
"Mom?"
"Yes my dear daughter, it is I. Come, let us have a talk." Hestia said softly as she sat them down in the lounge chairs.
"Let me tell you a story of your birth. It all begins after James and Lily Potter got married."
•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•
Sorry for the wait on this chapter. Hestia is considerably one of my favorite beings in mythology, and as a good person in mythology too, I thought it only fair I actually get her history correct you know? So I spent some time doing a bit of research on Hestia.
Anyways I always found it interesting on how I was going to approach the issue of a virgin goddess giving birth.
I could have gone with the Percy Jackson route and had them be mind babies, or fire babies, in this case. However I decided instead to go for the semi-possession route instead as that gave a bit more freedom in regards to handling it.
Always, I'm tired and need sleep, I haven't slept properly in nine days, so I will leave this here.
Until next time!
Hope you enjoyed!
Bye~
-Voidy, The Tired Insomniac
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