Hera had to admit, it was strange to witness Zeus being so...contemplative, or confess to any degree of remorse. He had always been proud. To see him like this made her wonder just had happened to him throughout all those years. He even seemed sincere in his taking accountability for causing her to leave. He had never done that before, not even when she had confronted him with clear evidence of his affairs with hot tears of rage in her eyes. It almost hurt to see him like this, so downtrodden and vulnerable. The last time she had seen him in such was a state had been during the war with Cronus, long before he had actually become king of the gods. They had all been malleable and inexperienced back then, young gods just barely touching the depths of their power. Hera had been rather furious though upon discovering her domain had been marriage of all things. It had taken poor Prometheus weeks to convince her there was any importance or validity in her preordained field. It hadn't helped that her brothers, save for Hades, had been amused by her sulking.<br/><br/>Strange that Athena would tell him such a thing. It wasn't as if she were the most diplomatic of gods, though in comparison to her husband, perhaps that wasn't so ludicrous. The years had also mellowed her, slowly drained the bitterness and rage from her soul and cleansed it, showed her a Hera she thought was gone. She had to give credit to her staff for that. From the beginning the experience had been "humanizing" to say the least. There was something liberating about no longer having to be the stately queen and goddess, something she hadn't felt since she was a wild-haired young maiden. The younger ones were particularly persistent when it came to getting her out of her comfort zone, though they had quickly found night clubs were a terrible idea after she had proceeded to  terrify a number of men, aided by the fact that gods had a higher tolerance for alcohol than mortals, even if there had been a diminishing in that capacity. Her poor staff still couldn't convince her to wear pants of any sort for the life of them, Hera had always found the damn things too constricting and uncomfortable. She just took the comments and sidelong glances when she complained about the cold in stride.<br/><br/>Hera could not fight the smile that spread across her face when he changed the subject and began discussing her shop.<br/><br/>"Half and half, really," Hera answered as she made her way back to her desk. "Eileithyia suggested I use one of my epithets, and that was the one I chose. Eris vouched for Aigophágos, as a more...Spartan connotation. Personally, I just didn't think it rolled off the tongue quite as nicely. But we both know she has a tendency to be unorthodox. And as for the staff, the answer is yes. I've worked closely with most of them for a few centuries now and needless to say I grew attached to them. So in return for their service, I grant them immortality, though I grant them all the right to decline, but only a handful have done so over the years. They either came to me on their own or I just so happened to come to them at the right time, usually after they were left standing at the altar. I wouldn't mention who you are to them, though. Their way of cheering me up has often been to mock you."<br/><br/>At minimum, Hera opened her inbox to find comedic images lampooning Greek myth, and often Zeus, twice a week. She supposed it was their way of trying to show her that in the modern mortal consciousness she accruing greater favor (or at least sympathy and understanding) than her husband. Hera herself had always felt somewhat conflicted on the matter. As vindicating as the mocking of her husband's promiscuity was for her, it was hard to distance herself from the fact that there was an actual god as the butt of the joke. A god she had fought alongside, loved and married, a god with whom she had five children. Five children who actively took part in the spread of those jokes themselves. Ares was especially fond of making them, though he and his father had never been that close. Eileithyia would attempt to stifle laughter, but she too contributed. Hebe only refrained for the sake of her husband. To think that her once powerful husband was now the laughing stock even in university Classics departments...it was somewhat sobering.