Cupid and Psyche |Lesbian Version|

Hephaestus

No one celebrated the birth of Hephaestus. His mother, Hera, who had decided to give birth all by herself, had awaited with great eagerness, hoping for a child so beautiful, so gifted, that it would make Zeus forget his heroic swarm of children from lesser consorts. But when the baby was born she was appalled to see that he was shriveled and ugly, with an irritating bleating wail. 

She did not wait for Zeus to see him for fear of embarrassing herself. She snatched the infant up and hurled him off Olympus. 

For a night and a day he fell, and hit the ground at the edge of the sea with such force that both of his legs were broken. He lay there on the beach mewing piteously, unable to crawl, wracked with pain, but unable to die because he was immortal. Finally, the tide came up. A huge wave hurled him under its arm and carried him off to sea.

There he sank like a stone, and was caught by the playful Thetis, a naiad, who thought he was a tadpole. 

When Thetis understood it was a baby she had caught, she nursed him and kept him in her grotto. Day after day, the child grew and became competent with his handicraft for there was nothing else to do in the grotto under the sea. 

Hephaestus amused himself by making objects from the fish bones, crystals and minerals in the ocean. Thetis was amazed and delighted by the way the crippled child worked shells and bright pebbles into intriguing jewelry. 

One day when the gods held a great festival, Thetis appeared before them wearing a necklace Hephaestus had made for her. 

Hera noticed the ornament, and praised it. She, who was the Queen of the Gods but had never owned such a beautiful and unique piece, asked Thetis how she had come by it. Thetis told her of the strange twisted child whom someone had dropped into the ocean, and who lived now in her cave making wonderful jewels. Hera divined that it was her own son, and demanded him back. 

She came to the grotto and looked at her child, trying not to grimace at his looks. 

"You know I am your mother even you look nothing like me, but hear what I say, son, your skill in craft wins my favor and all of that you owe to me for I made you. As one of the immortals, you must come to Olympus with me."

Hephaestus had an innocent heart and was overjoyed to return to his mother and be able to please her with his works. He came to Olympus where Hera presented him to the gods. He did not come empty handed though. The gifts that he brought to them earned him great admiration.

Hera was spared from the shame of having an ugly child and gave him a broken mountain nearby, where he could set up forges and bellows. She gave him the brawny Cyclopes to be his helpers, and promised him Aphrodite as a bride, if he would labor in the mountain and make her fine things. Hephaestus agreed because he loved her, and excused her cruelty to him.

"I know that I am ugly, Mother," he said, "but the fates would have it so. And I will make you gems so beautiful for your tapering arms and white throat and black hair that you will forget my ugliness sometimes, and rejoice that you have taken me back home."

He became the smith-god, the great artificer, lord of mechanics. And the mountain always smoked and rumbled with his toil. 

He was also the Olympian god of fire, craftsmen, metalworking and stone-masonry. And the Olympians continued to rely on his masterful hands to forge their mighty weapons.   
Hephaestus forged the most powerful weapon of all: the Masterbolts of Zeus. He fashioned the three-forked thunderbolts with the hot furnaces of ever-raging Mount Aetna. The crippled god gave the inexhaustible golden and silver arrows as gifts to Apollo and Artemis for the day of their birth. 

Hephaestus also crafted the fearsome Aegis for his brave niece Athena. The shield which produced a sound as from a myriad roaring dragons, a hundred tassels of pure gold hang fluttering from it, tight-woven each of them, and each the worth of a hundred oxen. It was borne by Athena in battle and anyone who holds the precious aegis is ageless and immortal.