Venting (tag: Hades)
Hera was no longer livid. She had also moved past furious, enraged, choleric, incensed, outraged, fuming, and wrathful. She was not however beyond being affronted, provoked, chafed, galled, resentful, or downright pissed off. She was in a better frame of mind than she had been immediately following that disastrous family dinner in which Zeus was nothing but an ass, and a complete and utter ass at that, but her mood was still foul enough that she was aware of it. Oh, nobody had said anything; they probably thought they didn't dare. They were probably right. But Hera had made herself a promise, and she intended to keep it.
Ages and ages ago, farther back than Hera cared to think about, back near the beginning of the marriage, Zeus had been able to rouse her passions better than anyone ever could. At first, that had been fantastic. Because her passions had been full of love and lust and all the wonderful things that a new bride should feel. But the honeymoon hadn't lasted, and when it ended, it had ended in a spectacular fashion. It hadn't been that her passions for Zeus had cooled. They burned just as hotly as they always had, but they'd been funneled into destructive and hateful things. Hera had done things she did not like to remember doing. All because of Zeus and his uncanny ability to get under her skin. He still did it, even now, for good and bad, he still made her blood burn.
It had taken Hera some time to gain control of herself, to learn how to walk away from the unreasoning anger her husband could cause. It had not happened overnight. She'd slipped a few more times. But she kept working on it, she kept trying, she kept evolving her process until she could hide the passion in her heart under a layer of ice that cracked only rarely. Because she had promised herself that she would never let Zeus have that kind of control over her again, she told herself that it was up to her to keep from giving him that power. She'd come damn close to breaking that vow at the dinner.
And she was still angry enough that she could feel it eating at her from the inside, like toxic acid in her organs. She couldn't get it out of her system, she couldn't seem to get past the disappointed anger that kept rising up like some zombified emotion that she couldn't quite kill. Thus far, she hadn't been able to purge it from her mind and heart, and though she was going through the usual routines that normally helped, it was only keeping the anger at bay rather than eliminating it all together.
Her next step was not one she took often. Perhaps, though, it would do the trick. At the very least, she would have a sympathetic ear. One that she did not have to worry about gossiping later, nor did she think venting her spleen would lead to a change in attitude or perception of Zeus. Hades already knew what their brother was like. He was also one of the very few that Hera trusted, to a certain extent. Enough so that she could relax and be more herself in his presence. Truthfully, he was her favorite brother.
She was never telling Zeus that.
Charon was easy to bribe, as always. Hera liked to think that it was because he respected her, not that he was so corrupt that any bag of gold would get transport across the Styx. Certainly, Hades wouldn't allow that. But she might have to mention it to her brother, just to be certain. Cerberus, however, was always a problem. And not only because he drooled. Drooled. Hera made a disgusted face at the left head as a long string of gummy saliva dripped from the mouth.
Out of courtesy, she called both mentally and aloud, “Hades, my dear brother, I wish to enter your realm. Will you allow me passage?” Under her breath she muttered, “And get your drooling dog out of my way?”