Hera. In a word, terrifying. With her perfect curls of cascading gold and her cold blue eyes that can see though any lie. I am, in a word, terrified.

I'm Echo by the way. I live with all my nymph sisters at the base of Olympus. I'm the resident storyteller here and it's been said that I'm one of the most interesting nymphs around.  Not sure how I really feel about that, but I guess I just roll with it.

Now generally I hang out with
Zeus, he's always dragging us down to the mortal realm to go chase down some human he likes or show off in some stupid feat of strength.

But recently Hera has been going nuts trying to find all of Zeus' secret girlfriends. So instead of thinking, "Oh maybe I should stop cheating on my wife and try to be a better husband," he has the bright idea of sending me into the lion's den to distract Hera with my stories.

That's where I am now, staring down the Queen of quite literally, everything.

"Well?" Hera's sharp voice cut through my subconscious and snapped me back to the present. "What happened to the merchant's daughter?"

"Ummm, technically she's a trader's daughter," I said stalling for time to make up the ending.

"I don't care if she's a leather-maker's daughter, finish the story," Hera said impatiently.

I really want to finish the story, but all I can think about is how Hera tossed her baby out the window when it came out ugly.

"Well you see, the truth is that Almana's father didn't want her to marry the shepherd boy. So he slipped a vial of poison into his drink....."

                 *************************
I have told her twelve consecutive stories today. Twelve! How does this woman have  time to sit around and listen to me? I mean it's not like I have a life to live and about a bajillion other things I would rather be doing. Not to mention it's terrifying contemplating what would happen if she found out I was just distracting her.

"Excuse me milady," I say softly. "There's to be a dance at the olive springs tonight and I was hoping to make it."

Hera's face remains hard and emotionless as stone, and for a second I'm terrified she's going to have me thrown in the dungeons for...well I'm really not sure what for. But to my relief she breaks out into what I believe was meant to be a smile (with her you can never tell).

"Of course my dear Echo, I didn't mean to keep you all day. Your stories have a way of dragging me in. I guess they show me the life I wish I always had."

I inwardly roll my eyes, zero sympathy. Women have undergone far worse than having a cheating husband. Women of the day are being raped, abused and murdered. But no, poor Hera, I'm sure Zeus is just awful.

Well to be fair, Zeus is awful. But in an annoying kind of way, not a cruel kind of way.

Ok fine, maybe I feel the smallest smidgen of sympathy for her. Half of me wants to smack her upside the head and tell her that she doesn't need a man to give her happiness and that she can make her own. The other half of me wants to smack her and tell her to stop being a stone cold bitch. I don't do either of these things, instead I thank her for allowing me to serve her (I nearly choked on the words) and left as quickly as I could.

Before heading to the party, I stop by the meadow where I live, to change out of the heavy, formal dress I had been wearing. I slip on casual nymph wear, flowy, white and comfortable silk. I unpin my hair from the tight twist it had been in, and I let my long, blonde hair fall down my back. Have you ever had your hair tightly pinned for 12 hours? If you have, you know the incredible feeling of finally letting it down. Your scalp kinda hurts, but in a good way.

Now I was ready to go unwind from the most stressful day in known history. Zeus really owed me now.

I walked into the grove by the olive springs. There was a fire burning, everybody was either sitting around the fire talking or stuffing themselves with food. There were satyrs, nymphs, naiads, dryads and even a few humans.

As much I wanted to join in with the celebrations, I was mentally drained and so I crept off to the corner and collapsed into the crystal clear water.

The olive springs are by far my favorite place to relax. Humans really are odd, they avoid cold water and getting their hair wet, but us nymphs, we relish in it.

I closed my eyes and let myself sink under the placid water. The cool water enveloped me and it's restorative properties began soothing my mind.

I sunk deeper and deeper into the darkness, the further I went the more relaxed I became. Until finally I reached the bottom and sleep took hold of me.

I awoke to my friend, Ayana shaking me. Did I mention nymphs can breath underwater? Probably should've said that earlier.

Anyway back to Ayana. She's one of my best friends, and I've known her all my life. She's a bit of a gossip, but she's got a heart of gold.

I know right away that she wants to ask me all about my day on Olympus serving the Queen. I roll my eyes and motion for her to leave me alone and let me sleep. She promptly grabs my arm and begins dragging me towards the surface.

I inwardly groan. But I figure I should come out anyways, let it never be said that Echo missed a party because she was sleeping. My whole reputation would be gone.

Ayana and I surfaced together and I braced myself for her barrage of questions. But all I heard was silence, and she had a concerned look on her face.

"Are you all right?" Ayana asked softly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Sleeping during a party just isn't like you. I pulled you up because I'm concerned."

"And?"

"And I really want to hear about your day! But mostly I'm concerned," she said trying to sound concerned.

I let out a laugh. I wasn't tired anymore, the spring had restored my stamina. I was amused and touched that Ayana took the time to worry about me. "Ayana, you can ask me about my day."

"Oh but I don't really want to know," she said attempting to sound disinterested. I know she really does care and she's acting like she doesn't so that she won't hurt my feelings. Folks, I got one of the good ones.

But she could only keep it up for so long before she finally burst with questions, "What's her hair like? Is she really as intimidating as everyone claims? Did she talk to you? Is she gorgeous?"

I burst out laughing as Ayana fired question after question. "Ayana, Ayana slow down. How about I just tell you about my day."

So I began telling her all about Hera and her cascading golden hair and her cold blue eyes. Eventually I finished and Ayana went on about how jealous she was. We laughed and talked the evening away.

But there was a nagging of doubt in my stomach, something no magical spring could soothe. At the time I dismissed the feeling, but I know now it was guilt. Guilt that I was lying to a woman so that her husband could run off with pretty mortal girls.

"Yeah, so anyway he's now obsessed with this chick named Europa," Ayana said, summarizing her day. "I think her father's the King of Phoenicia or something."

"Fascinating," I said, feigning interest.

Ayana giggled, "What is Aika doing?"

Ah yes, Aikaterine, my other dear friend. We call her Aika. She's the bad bitch, I'm the story-teller, and Ayana's the gossip, and together we are a very dysfunctional friend group.

I look up and see Aika standing on one of the tables singing her heart out to one of Apollo's newest hits.

Me and Ayana look at each other for a split second before collapsing into fits of laughter.

"Whoo hoo! You go girl!" Ayana shouted. 

"You know she's totally lip-syncing," I said.

"Oh I know."

"And we probably shouldn't encourage this."

"Nope, definitely not." She held it together for a few seconds before we both started dying of laughter.

Aika finally got down from the table, but not before throwing a glass of grape juice at some poor dryad.

"Ooh, I've got eyes on her target," Ayana said excitedly.

"You know Aika's love life is really none of our concern."

"Mhhmmm, it is incredibly amusing though."

I abstain from the gossip for as long as possible before finally breaking. "Ok who is it?"

"Brown hair, blue eyes, in the corner, he's a human."

"Ooh those are rare, it's always either blue eyes and blond hair, or blue eyes and red hair."

"I know, he's a looker alright. Makes me want to go challenge Aika for him."

"That'll be the day. We both know that you could never beat her when it comes to boys."

"We don't know that," She said indignantly, and proceeded to splash me. "I'm going over there to prove you wrong."

"I'm watching," I said with a chuckle.

She pranced over there and clumsily attempted to defeat Aika. I snorted as I watched her try to show off to him.

But my thoughts quickly wandered back to Hera.

Enough! I told myself. You are going to stop feeling sorry! You are going to go over there, get hella drunk and socialize. I proceeded to do just that.

At about three AM, a young satyr started calling for a story and soon everyone joined him.

So I sat down and began spinning a tale about love and betrayal and happy endings.

Happy endings. All my stories had them. But I began to wonder, if they were real.

***************************
I was walking home at seven AM, incredibly tired and desperately in need of sleep.

Suddenly the air felt dry and full of electricity. Then there was a burst of lightning in the clouds.

Somebody put there hand on my shoulder. I groaned, I knew exactly who it was, nobody else would've bothered for a such a dramatic entrance.

I turned around to face Zeus, King of Drama.

"Well how did it go?" He asked, looking like a hopeful puppy.

Whenever I'm in this man's presence there is one thought going through my mind, what an idiot.

I groaned again, "Couldn't you have just asked Hera?"

"No, that would've made her suspicious."

"Ugh, everything makes her suspicious. In terms of how it went, it was nerve wracking. But she did seem to enjoy the stories," I admitted.

"Yes!" Zeus shouted, sending lightning flashing though the sky. "Hera: zero, Zeus: one."

"Ugh," the bright light made my head hurt. "I am willing to do this three days—

"Three days!" Zeus interrupted. "You have to do it at least five days a week!"

I shuddered at the prospect of spending five days a week with Hera's stony eyes burning into my skull. "I am not doing anymore than four days a week. But only if you swear to me that if Hera discovers this you will protect me and my sisters."

"I swear it."

"Swear to me on the River Styx," I said seriously.

"Oh, well, umm, I guess I swear it on the River Styx."

"You guess you swear it?!"

"Fine, I swear it on the River Styx that I will protect you from Hera in anyway that she wishes to harm you or your sisters."

"Very well, I will continue distracting her with my stories then."

Zeus gave a brief nod before disappearing in another very dramatic bolt of lightning.

I trudged home to my meadow and collapsed on the cushiony grass. Though exhausted I couldn't sleep, instead I stared up at the stars and wondered what exactly I had gotten myself into.

[I hope you liked it! Please remember to comment and vote and all advice is appreciated! Also if anybody would be interested in designing a cover for this please pm me! Thank you for reading!] ps. Aikaterine is Ancient Greek for Katherine