The Lady of Night let out a deep sigh and said softly to Hemera: "Hemera, stay with me for a while. Your Mother must teach you properly!"
"Mmm… Lately your Mother has learned a great many very useful things. I'll teach you all of them now, and when Zeus next comes to the Underworld, then…"
The Lady of Night leaned to Hemera's ear and began to whisper.
The more Hemera listened, the rosier her already fair and luminous face became.
By the end, even her dainty earlobes and her long swan-white neck were tinged with a bewitching blush.
When the veil the Lady of Night had cast quietly dissolved, the two—Mother and daughter—stood side by side once more before the gathered children.
Nemesis and Tyche stole a glance at each other.
Naturally, they too could sense upon this elder sister that all too familiar, intimately kindred aura.
Hecate, meanwhile, looked quietly at the slightly odd expressions on her Mother and Sister's faces, her eyes growing all the more puzzled, and all the more curious.
Lost in a bower of gentleness, His Majesty the God-King, immersed in the distinct tenderness of the chill lone moon within Selene's lunar domain, forgot the passage of time entirely.
By the time his wits returned to the high ground, the charming clear moon was already gone, leaving only a trace of laurel fragrance faintly lingering at his side.
The cool, moist touch that remained in his palm left him wanting more, but the seemingly cool, in truth passionate, goddess was nowhere to be seen.
For a moment he felt a distinct sense of loss.
He drifted for a while, still dwelling on the Moon's sovereign—on that unique coolness and tenderness.
The bright moon lived up to her name; her every move defied Zeus's expectations.
After sending the God-King to the highest heavens of delight, though her divinity roamed the skies with her beloved God-King, she forced herself to rally, mustered all her divine power, and—under her beloved children's help—quietly returned to her lunar realm.
As for the matter of a wife's rank to the God-King, she did not breathe a word.
The aloof Mistress of Pure Radiance did not care for that (not really).
She cared for realities.
She wished to be Zeus's most exceptional goddess.
She would never leave the God-King any handle by which to control her; she would always hover at the edge of his grasp.
Of course, exchanging locks of hair was still a must!
Thus, among the God-King's golden tresses, there now gleamed a fresh new hue.
It was the brightest silver, identical to the eternal silver radiance of the moon.
At last the sacred domain began slowly to fade.
Zeus shivered all of a sudden and came fully back to himself out of his reverie—only to realize that a full thirty days and nights had passed.
He lounged lazily upon that great bed of flowers. The goddess's fragrance still lingered; he still loathed to rise, his thoughts drifting on.
Of the universe's four fundamental sources—matter and antimatter, dark matter and dark energy—the dark matter and dark energy were now wholly under his command.
And the supreme authority of "omniscience"—spirit, wisdom, memory, and fate—also shone within the source of his divinity.
Not only that, the sources of love and desire, love and beauty, likewise lay within his grasp.
As for the basic elements that constitute existence—earth, fire, water, wind, air—the Fire's sovereign, Hestia, had long since willingly placed her authority under his dominion; the four winds were his most loyal vassals.
Earth goes without saying—it lies under a single god's control; that can wait.
Aether, the upper air, can wait as well; all unfolds within his control.
As for water, split in two by Uranus—fresh and salt, Inner Sea and Outer Sea—Zeus had long since laid complete plans.
These basic elements are important, but for him, who already reigns over the universe, they are nothing to rush.
For now, there is no god who does not obey the God-King's command.
Under the Heavenly Order, he, as God-King and ruler of all, can wield all of it himself.
Uranus was Lord of Spirit; once stripped of love and desire, he became the "Firmament" and rose aloft.
Zeus's authority of the "Sky" was born of Kronos's encroachment on Uranus's authority.
"The Firmament" is the conceptual body of "heaven," while the "sky" is the concrete scope and expanse under that concept.
With Uranus in a state no different from death, Zeus is the absolute master and sovereign of the vast heaven above.
As for the universe's four fundamental forces—after obtaining the Great Thunder, he now held them all. Now only "gravity" remained greater in Gaia's hand than in his.
Whether it was the mirroring of heaven and earth, or the entanglement of father and mother; the opposition of light and dark, division of above and below, the boundary between existence and void, the conversion of matter and energy… all of it.
As of today, what this third-generation God-King lacks most—one could say the only thing—is that most ancient, most primordial, most fundamental authority that signifies "matter" and "existence" itself—the Mother of All.
But Zeus was in no hurry.
He had nine hundred ways to deal with Gaia—fully nine hundred!
As for this union with the Mistress of Eternal Pure Radiance, the eternal God-King was not only generous in granting his beloved goddess abundant honors; he himself benefitted greatly as well.
As the Sky, the Great Thunder is the most direct manifestation of his might.
But sun, moon, and stars are an even more direct manifestation of his supreme honor and glory!
The Lord of the starry host, the giant who governs the cosmos's framework—Crius—his three children were all die-hard vassals of Zeus.
But among the stars, the sun and the moon—"yang" and "yin," the essences of stellar radiance and celestial bodies—had not yet come directly under his hand.
Note well: in this universe, the moon truly shines by herself!
Selene is Mistress of "Pure Radiance"!
And this "pure radiance" refers to those special stars in the universe that emit gentle light.
The world's moon is a special conceptual celestial body—not a satellite or planet, not even a star in common terms.
The world's Moon contains immense energy in herself! She is by no means a little satellite bright only by reflecting the sun!
Since Uranus brought forth the cosmos's framework, Crius, and then the Lord of celestial bodies, Hyperion, and the Mother of Radiance, Theia—later he also transformed the roots of "light" and "day" into the radiance of stars.
Later still, Zeus redistributed honors and defined a brand-new order.
Thus the radiance of the stars in this universe was divided in two.
One is "blazing stars," whose sovereign is Helios.
The other is "pure-radiant stars," whose sovereign is Selene.
The Lord of celestial bodies, Hyperion, represents the essential existence of all stars and heavenly bodies; the two of them represent the most important and foundational stars—and the two luminous cycles of the universe.
They represent day and night, radiance and pure light, warmth and coolness, yang and yin.
And for the Sky to possess the bright moon is, in essence, to gain deeper understanding and mastery of the laws of "celestial bodies." Even if it is only half, it is enough.
Before this, Zeus's control had not been direct. He gave commands from above and had Hyperion and the rest exercise the celestial authority.
Though he was a supreme administrator as well—having rights of management and use—he did not grasp their every essence completely.
He could come to understand them gradually, but the process would be long; to know the full essence of a law is no simple task.
A deep union with a goddess is precisely the principle by which the goddess opens the law's underlying "code" and hands over the control key—shaving off the countless ages it would otherwise take to know a law through and through.
Thus, his union with Selene amounted to Selene sharing everything of the celestial law with him directly.
Thereafter, the celestial law held no secrets from him.
Thus the Sky's authority once more grew greatly—brought to perfection.
Though for the God-King as he is now, this growth is merely the gilding of refined gold.
Zeus smoothed out his thoughts at last and let out a long breath, sitting up from the bed of flowers.
In his "sage time" he thought it best not to go straight to find his beloved Metis just like this.
Better to return to his own temple first, set himself in order, and then go.
To go to Metis like this would be too disrespectful to her.
Because of weaving the Heavenly Order, Zeus had been away from her too long.
Then came the Assembly of All Gods, and, once adjourned, he still had not gone to her first thing.
And here he was, out and back again—with two fresh locks of hair, of two different goddesses, in his own!
Even thick-skinned as Zeus was, he felt a little sheepish!
Zeus glanced over his private divine channel and saw that seven or eight goddesses had sent him hundreds of messages.
The flashing red dots of the unread messages made Zeus's scalp prickle; he even shivered.
He rose hastily and decided—lie in wait!
As things stood, better to wait in his own temple.
As for those truly angered goddesses who refused to come on their own, he would go to coax them in person later.
Quietly (so he thought) returning to his grand temple, intending to lie in wait, Zeus found that someone had been lying in wait for him.
The gracious, lovely Clymene—having seen from a distance the God-King drifting back leisurely toward the temple—hurried to meet him.
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