The next day
Maeron woke up early like every morning even though he always went to sleep very late
Standing in front of the window he looked at the sun rising
"Always beautiful to see the sunrise," he said admiring the scene
'He isn't actively looking to see what she is up to this time. Her action of yesterday must have put them at ease,' he thought not feeling any sneaky gaze of Apollo the one who had for habit of spying on everyone for his father,
"I need to stop waking up so early," he said walking away
After his bath, he came back into the room and changed clothes
During all that Hera was still sleeping on her bed, he looked at the disheveled goddess with a little smile before coming near her
"I'm going out, will be back soon,"
"Hmm, Okay!" she responded half asleep, before continuing her sleep
Maeron knew that she would remember what he said once she woke up
"Woosh"
After that, he disappeared in one of his portals
Maeron reaped in front of a three meters door made of iron blocking the entrance of a cave
'A little ordinary contrary to most of the massive doors encrusted with jewelry of Olympus' he thought pushing it open before walking inside
'The inside is bigger than expected,' he said walking inside, there were no changes to the inside of the cave, it was cold and gloomy, the floor was uneven and hard to walk on, and you could easily trip if you weren't careful,
"I guess that this is his way of saying get the fuck off,"
Maeron arrived at a beautifully crafted circular stairs leading toward the dept of the mountain
The more he went down the hotter he felt the atmosphere become hotter, he could hear the regular sound of metal striking against metal
He finally arrived at his destination without any trouble
"Absolutely no security, no workers, only him," he said walking inside an open space
'Very spacious, impressive,' he thought admiring the place,
There were beautiful sculptures made of precious metal decorating the place.
Precious metals perfectly ordered on one side, on another side, things like mystical things like the horns of a unicorn, scales of dragons, feathers of Phenix and so many other rare materials around
There were swords displayed here, shields elsewhere, spears and so many more
"Crack, crang," the sound of a weal attracted Maeron's attention, he could see above him wheels turning activating a machine that filled a basket of iron before it started to move toward the ceiling toward a man
A man sitting in a wheelchair hammering a sword without lifting his head
After admiring the work of that artisan for a few seconds Maeron walked inside after taking a few precautions
"Who are you?!" asked a hoarse voice without turning around
"Me, I'm just one of your dear admirers, nice to meet you," he said with a smile
"Hm!"
Maeron could see that the sentence had some effect on the blacksmith as he stopped hammering the iron in front of him for a split second before resuming his work
"Compliment, rare, and always good to hear, who are you? What do you want? Are you maybe a new god?!"
"A new god huh," after a little pause he continues
"Nah, I'm technically older than you, plus we often talk I'm disappointed that you don't recognize my voice,"
Hearing those words Ephaestos finally took his attention away from his work and looked behind at Maeron
His face was finally visible to Maeron,
"You are not as ugly as I thought," He said candidly
"What!!" he exclaimed a mixte of surprise and indignation
"I heard that you were hideous, hard to look at, so I expect some kind of abomination, but you aren't as ugly as I thought you to be. You're ugly but that's it, nothing special,"
"I don't know how I should react to such behavior," said Hephaestos
"Well, I bet I'm better than most of the people leaving her,"
He let out a scoff before talking
"So you are Maeron, the one that has been murmuring all those strange ideas at my ears at night, You are as handsome as you said you were,"
"Always good to hear a compliment but you should pay attention to your choice of word, it could cause some confusion!" Maeron said
"Hm! What do you want?!" he asked again seriously turning around to hammer his sword once more his demeanor seemed casual and dismissive but Maeron knew that he was on his guard, he could see that from the way he was holding his hammer, he was on his guard
"You use that technique of telepathy to talk to me about the behavior of the gods against me for a few days now, trying to pin me against them. Why?!"
"I want you to join my side, I intend to enact a revolution here in Olympus with me at the top, and I want you by my side, Ephaestos, your help, and your powers will be indispensable to me," said Maeron seriously
"A revolution! And who are you exactly, I do not know who you are, this is the first time we see each other, what legitimacy do you have to contend for the throne, are you even strong enough to fight for that position, who is on your side, so many points and there is so much more to ask!"
"Hahaha..." Hearing the words of Hephaestos Maeron started to laugh uncontrollably, he was ecstatic
"Why are you laughing, have you lost your mind?!" asked Hephaestos but Maeron continued to laugh for about a minute before finally stopping
"Sorry, hu, I'm very sorry for my outburst, this is just that I imagined things to be quite hard, and complicated, I expected a hammer on the head or something like that, your willingness to listen to me and ask so many questions put me in a good mood,"
After that Maeron finally looked at Hephaestos let me show you a little bit of why I'm so confident in myself,
Saying that he released a massive amount of divine energy. That energy was so vast, so potent that it made Hephaestos shake in fear and stupefaction
contrary to what people thought the blacksmith isn't a weak god, to be able to accurately create a weapon suited for its user he had to know many things about that person and the extent of his power and energy is very often the key to weapon adequate, so he was used to evaluated the energy of god, and very few among all the gods including his father were able to make such an expression on him
'He may have as much if not more power than my father,' he thought
"Yes I do," said Maeron which made Hephaestos suspect that he was still reading his mind
"Power is very important in Olympus, and my power is my strongest trump card," while he was saying that he saw the eyes of Hephaestos dart toward the entrance of his workplace
"Are you waiting for someone? No need to be that nervous, no one outside of this room felt anything of my little demonstration," those words made Hephaestos realize exactly what kind of situation he was in
"If you want to know if I have people on my side, then yes, I have people on my side, very important ones, here in Olumpus and bellow on earth among the humans and halfgods, did you know that this place has absolutely no ^protection, I mean others than Apollo, and once you have managed to find a way to bypass his sight you can go where you want quite freely," Maeron said to Hephaestos who pondered about the truth of those words
"I guess you're right, but this isn't as easy as you make it sound, to escape the sight of Apollo and invade Olumpus is a crazy idea,"
"Well I didn't invade the place I was born here," Maeron revealed which surprised Hephaestos
"Don't make that face that's true, I just escaped after so that I don't get killed, "
"Speaking of face, I can fix yours," he said he saw Hepaestos's body tremble hearing that
"Don't joke with me, I'm a god, not some human whose body can be modified like a simple sculpture," he growled, his face had been the source of shame, and calamity for him since his birth, he grew up resenting that face, and even now it wasn't easy to love himself, and that was one of the things on what Maeron was counting on
His lack of self-love
"I know how sensitive you are with that, but this is the truth, I can also fix your back and allow you more than just a few minutes of walk every day, all those things are quite easy to me,"
"You even know that I can walk a little too, who are you really?!" he asked in astonishment
At that new question, Maeron smiled and unleashed another wave of energy, but this time Maeron's divine energy was vast and calm, it spread above them.
Hephaestos noticed immediately and lifted his head, what he saw left him speechless
"C-Cloud, the sky, a real sky," he said looking at the bly sky that had appeared above him
"Only my father has the power of the sky!"
"This is a pleasure to meet you, Little brother"