Artemis
"Look!"
It was the early morning, and all the inhabitants of the Olympian Palace were gathered at the main entrance, staring at what seemed to be gilded replica of Hera's throne sitting outside the door.
"Who could have put that there? No one knows where Olympus is except for all of us." Hecate said.
"Who cares? It's gorgeous!" Hera said, sitting down.
"Well, at least get up so we can move it inside. You don't want to sit out here all day." Poseidon said.
Hera tried to stand up, and her excited expression changed to confusion. "I can't."
"What do you mean you can't?" he asked.
"I mean, I'm stuck to this chair! I can't stand up!" She continued struggling to get out of the chair, to no avail.
I heard giggling beside me, and looked up to see half the people there suppressing laughter, including my mother.
"You." Hera glared daggers at Leto. "You did this, didn't you?"
Mother struggled to shake her head through her now full-blown laughter. "I wish I had. This is great!"
"You little- This is not funny! Somebody get me off this thing!"
I was laughing too, at this point.
"Wait." Ares, one of the gods I wasn't very familiar with, crouched down beside the throne. "You see that symbol right there? 'Eta'. That's H."
Hestia, Hades, and Hecate fell silent.
"I didn't do it. I wouldn't even know how to do it if I wanted to." Hestia said after a few moments.
"Neither would I." Hades said.
Everyone stared at Hecate.
She rolled her eyes. "Alright, I'll admit this does seem like something I would do. But I would never make an idiotic move like putting my own initial on the chair!"
"She really wouldn't." Mother agreed.
"It probably stands for 'Hera'. Whoever sent it must have had a whole set of trap chairs to send to different people, and they marked them with their initials to make sure they got the right ones." I suggested.
"That makes sense." Demeter said.
"Then this person must be found!" Hera exclaimed.
"Okay, but in the meantime what are we supposed to do?" Demeter asked.
"Let's just go back inside, she'll be fine." Hecate said, walking back into the palace. Most everyone followed.
"What? Come back here!" Hera shouted, but everyone but my mother and myself were already out of hearing distance.
"I was actually going to go hunting this morning." I said.
"Oh that's fine, Artemis, just be careful." Mother said, kissing the top of my head before walking off.
***
Clang!
I frowned at the noise. I was in the middle of the woods, there shouldn't have been any metal there.
I walked in the direction of the sound, and found a bronze hatch in the middle of the ground. I would've just ignored it, if not for the symbol on it- η. Eta.
"It couldn't be..." I flipped up the hatch and jumped down, landing in the middle of some kind of workshop.
"Hello?" I called.
The metallic noises that had been coming from the other side of the room fell silent. Then a boy walked out from behind a series of shelves in the back, and glared at me. "Who are you? What are you doing in here?"
"I'm Artemis, the Goddess of Archery. I just-"
"A goddess?" He scowled. "So the Olympians sent you."
"No one sent me. I just happened to find you here. But it was you, wasn't it? The chair?" I asked.
He turned away. "You can't prove anything."
I laughed. "No, we're not angry. Well, Hera is, but it was harmless. Funny, to be honest. Although, if I may ask, how did you find our mountain? We're really trying to keep our location a secret."
He was still frowning, but he turned back toward me. "The Nereid Thetis showed me the way. One of her sisters, Metis, was in league with the Olympians."
I nodded. That made enough sense. "Any particular reason for playing a practical joke on the Goddess of Family?"
He looked almost sad for a moment, then shook his head. "It's nothing, really. Happened ages ago."
"In that case, as much as I dislike Hera, would you mind releasing her?"
He glared again. "No."
I frowned. "But you just said-"
"It's complicated."
I sighed. "Will you at least come back with me and explain the situation? I don't want anyone else getting blamed."
He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. "Alright. Fine."
When he pressed a button on the wall, the already-open hatch widened to the size of a doorway, and a staircase descended from the edge of it. I climbed up and began to lead the boy toward Olympus.