The more Demeter thought, the more helpless she felt. The towering resentment and grievance that had surged to the heavens slowly dissipated at last within her elder sister's warm embrace.
When her mood cooled a little, a trace of guilt arose instead.
She snuck a lift of her green eyes, darted a glance at her sister's gold-red eyes burning with sacred flame, then quickly looked away, not daring to meet them—like a little deer who had erred yet was still unbearably stubborn.
Hestia sighed softly in her heart and held her tighter.
"Be good," she whispered at her sister's ear in the gentlest tone in the world. "Those golden clouds and rosy lights in the sky are but blossoms stirred by a gust—hardly a great matter."
"We are one family. If we sit down together and slowly untangle the threads, things will come right."
"My dear sister, remember—only family matters most in this world, and only unity makes a true family."
She paused, her fingertips lightly brushing Demeter's hair. "Our dear Hera could accept Metis, and Metis, most magnanimously, has accepted everyone. Why, then, should you lock your own heart against it now?"
Demeter pressed those green-tinted lips together; her fine willow brows knit tight, and she murmured in a wronged voice, "But… but I was clearly here first!"
That childlike protest filled Hestia's eyes with helplessness.
It seemed her words had been said in vain.
This good sister's temper was still so stubborn. Sometimes, that was no good thing at all.
Fondly, she pinched her sister's dewy-soft cheek and said gently, "But you must know, in that moment when we were cut forth again from our Father Cronus's body, the first one Zeus beheld was Hera."
"Perhaps at that very moment, the goddess He would love most for all His life was already set."
At this Demeter's small hand clenched into a fist.
Her knuckles blanched, and in that instant her fierce unwillingness and her resentment toward Father Cronus reached a new peak.
Hestia held her beloved sister softly and continued her gentle counsel. "Demeter, Demeter—my dear sister—Hera is our closest sister; we share one line; our divinity springs from the same source."
"You are the most compassionate of goddesses; she is the kindest. A family is like a hearth, and we sisters are the firewood that keeps its flame."
"If the firewood splits with jealousy and lets the cold wind in, what will be extinguished in the end is our shared warmth."
"We and Zeus are the closest of all—we are one family of gods. If we can live together with Zeus in happy fullness, why quibble over a little precedence in name?"
"Does Zeus not love you? Look at you—so dear—who could not love you? He loves you most as well."
"Love is an ocean, Demeter, not grains of wheat that can be counted in a palm. What differs between drowning in a ten-thousand-mile-deep sea and drowning in a ten-thousand-and-one-inch-deep sea?"
"In our eternal lives, how trifling is that one part in ten thousand of love?"
"You can accept and forgive Zeus's changeable heart; why fret over so tiny a difference?"
"In any case, we shall always be the closest of sisters, always united in love. That minuscule difference is light enough for the wind to carry—why care so much?"
At last, under her elder sister's gentle comfort, Demeter's heart eased a little, and the shine in her eyes drew back.
Yet her soft face still held unmelting grievance. "I clearly—clearly wanted to bear Zeus His firstborn—but now…"
Hestia gave Demeter a fond scolding look. "Silly sister! You've always been the keenest and cleverest—how can you fail to grasp the simplest truth now?"
"Is who is Zeus's firstborn truly so important? Know this: whoever is the God-King's firstborn, Zeus is forever the eternal God-King."
"Yes, perhaps bearing the God-King's firstborn weighs the love 'a little more.'"
"But if, for the sake of this 'first,' you wound our sisterhood and divide our family, Zeus will be saddened thereby."
"Wouldn't you then lose more of Zeus's love? Is that not putting the cart before the horse?"
"You must know—the order of children does not decide the parents' love. What truly decides it are the children's own conduct and character. Why cling to a hollow name?"
At this Demeter started and looked a bit enlightened.
Yes! She'd nearly reversed the very goal!
Hestia went on, her voice now turning grave. "Moreover—would you bear a child merely for a title? Is that fair to a child not yet born?"
"A child should be the crystallization of your love with Zeus, the sweetest fruit that naturally sets when your bond has reached its time."
"He should not, from the very beginning of his bearing, have to shoulder the profit-seeking and expectation that belong not to him but to his parents."
"Otherwise—my dear sister—what a selfish and terrible thing would that be?"
"My beloved Demeter—you are the gentlest, most loving of goddesses. I know your heart holds not only your truest love for Zeus, but your deepest love for all living things."
"I am just as certain that in the depths of your divinity there abides the most selfless, most precious, deepest mother-love for your future child."
"My dear sister—when your emotions are churned in a storming sea, what you must do is not rush with the current, but grow calm and let your heart return to its proper place."
"Please listen closely to the divinity of your 'Mother of the Earth'; listen to the voice in the deepest place of your soul."
"Does the Earth withhold her nurture for which seed fell first? Does she withdraw her vast, selfless love because a blossom opens late?"
"Do you truly wish to hurt Hera? Do you truly wish to make Zeus unhappy? Do you truly wish, for a moment's fixation, to lay upon your most dear future child a heavy chain he ought not bear?"
"My sister, think it through. Love is forbearance, not harm. In romance and in motherhood alike."
"You are the noble Mother of the Earth; every living thing upon the earth is your child. At times, your gaze should see more—and farther."
As she spoke, Hestia lifted a fair hand, and the ever-burning holy fire within the temple, following her gesture, unfolded sharply before her into a vast, clear mirror of sacred flame.
Light and shadow flowed within. Through that fire-mirror, one could clearly see the newborn humans on the mortal world, now growing sturdy.
Little tribes like points of fire scattered across the plain; one person after another like busy little ants.
They labored upon the vast earth for survival and for posterity.
By now, humans had many children.
The older ones could even follow their mothers to gather fresh berries.
These children, living upon a broad and flourishing world and bathed in the radiance of ten true gods, learned and grew even faster than their parents.
Yet the bodies and lifespans of these second-generation children were far inferior to those of their parents.
Though humanity's origin in matter was most extraordinary, in the end they were but mortal beings.
There was no "aether air" in the mortal world for gods to breathe.
They knew no cultivation; long feeding on mortal things, however deep their origin, the merciless passage of time would wear it away until it returned to the mortal—flesh.
Still, for now this would be quite a long while—
Because—
His Majesty the God-King often sent down golden rains of grace upon the whole universe.
This boon was excellent beyond measure!
It was humanity's origin—almost the only large-scale supplementation all could share—and the effect was astonishing.
In fact, after several years, many odd things had occurred, yet the origin in the bodies of the first-generation humans had not diminished but increased…
Except for those who bore children.
Bearing children, rather, consumed origin the most.
Their descendants were much inferior to them.
The second-generation humans, though pure-blooded children of the first,
were born upon the dust, raised upon mortal food, and received far less grace and gift than their parents. Their bodily strength was, naturally, inferior.
The mirror shifted to a mother and her daughter.
The mother's frame was clearly taller and stronger; the daughter seemed more delicate—but her eyes were more lively than her mother's, filled with curiosity for the world.
Demeter gazed upon those second-generation humans in the fire-mirror—slimmer and more easily tired than their parents—with a mother's pity in her eyes.
Yet though the second generation was weaker, their hunger for wisdom and knowledge, their desire for learning and improvement, far surpassed the first.
Much of the knowledge the first generation had stored had already turned to instinct for survival and was passed directly to their children.
And swift growth, weaker bodies, and shorter lives gave these children an inexplicable urgency, driving them to study harder and strive further.
In this, truly, the first generation was not their equal.
After all, the first generation were born as robust young adults, long-lived and slow to age; they felt little the passage of time.
Coupled with constant care by the gods and little crisis of life and death—save for a few—their enthusiasm for learning was, naturally, lower.
Watching, Hestia smiled. "You see, Demeter—this is mortal civilization. In loss there is gain. Bodily decline is exchanged for hunger of spirit. Perhaps this is the price—and the hope—of mortal civilization."
A breeze swept the forest seas upon the fire-mirror; the image cut back to a broader world.
Though humans faced much unknown in the world, their society now was not full of troubles.
Having just stepped onto the road of civilization, under the personal teaching of ten true gods, and holding to the sacred, just order of the most good and most beautiful God-King Zeus, what they learned were the noblest of virtues.
And indeed they lacked not for what they needed to live, nor faced overwhelming crisis.
Not carefree, perhaps, but rarely burdened so heavily by "worry" that they could not lift their heads.
As yet, even the concepts of "evil" and "bad" had not truly arisen.
Though, due to the limits of civil progress and the inability to form large collectives, they had long since separated into many small tribes, living apart,
still, at present, all interacted on equal and friendly terms.
For now, all were much the same; there was no class differentiation in any real sense, and what they possessed was alike.
The weak humans, facing the world, needed more to huddle together for warmth, and so harmony and equality were natural.
Among all tribes, inward and outward, there was no grabbing, no deceit, no oppression, no prejudice, no hoarding; the general atmosphere of life was most simple and sincere.
Yet, having separated, differences had already begun to arise.
Tribes far apart had almost no contact at all.
Their directions and pace of development naturally differed.
Most obvious were language and symbols.
Linguistic unity depends upon frequent, stable communication. When people speak often, pronunciation and vocabulary stay aligned.
Once communication frequency drops, languages evolve apart and gradually become different tongues. Lack of exchange is the most basic precondition for linguistic divergence.
And in developing, language continually innovates and also, through contact, fuses and reconstructs.
Language is thus slowly divided by these deep roots—and one can be sure such differences, and all sorts of differences, will only grow.
For similar reasons, the differences in "symbol" have grown greater still. The two feed each other, interinfluencing; it is certain they will be wholly different ere long.
Different regions bring different habits; as development proceeds, unique civilizations and cultures will arise.
After that, it will be hard to live together so harmoniously.
But that will take at least two or three generations; for people now it is very far off, and none thinks such distant thoughts.
Already, there is a concept of "leaders."
Those more curious, more courageous, better at thinking and learning, and more diligent—under the gods' teaching and aided by certain strokes of fortune—have begun to stand out.
Prometheus and the others were, after all, only eleven gods—and now only ten.
They, too, needed helpers to share the work of teaching.
Thus, the "leaders" of each tribe came into being.
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