I wake at dawn, and roll across the slim bed until I'm about ready to fall off. I balance on the edge, and then glimpse Annabel on a bed across the room, who's still snoring in a deep slumber that would take a miracle to disturb. Or a pillow.
  I grab mine, sliding my head off it and flinging the cushion for a direct hit on her nose and bouncing onto the floor. She flings herself into a sit before her eyes are even open, hair in a hive and breathing heavily still.
  Her pale eyes seize open, a stale look instantly across them. "Don't tell me," she mutters, turning her head towards me.
  "Okay," I shrug, swinging my legs over the side of the mattress and stretching.
  "What's first again?"
  I roll my eyes slightly.
  I've been working since I was just fourteen, my father giving me some enchantment that made me look as though I was seventeen at the time, so to everyone else I just haven't aged in three years. Annabel has only been here a month, and needs constant instructions on what to do.
  I had my own room, which came with the promotion to lady's maid, but Annabel did not have one at all. She was a blind girl found wandering the streets of Athens, and my mother, as the protector of the city, could not bear watching her travel helplessly. My mother offered Annabel her sight back if she would commit herself to a few years' service at the Temple, which Annabel found herself unable to refuse.
  Annabel is a maid, mostly just given the job of making the beds and washing sheets because last time the Temple tried giving her something more complex such as dusting, a centuries' old book ended up in a lit fireplace.
  It was because of this natural clumsiness not a single servant would share their room with her willingly, and Annabel even offered to sleep on some spare couch if there were any. As the daughter of the very woman who brought her here, and being one of the few people that isn't on such a high horse you could see it from the top of the mountain, I said to put any spare bed there was in my room and I'd share with her. She's lovely really, and working for the Gods is not the easiest job I must confess.
  This place is huge, and sometimes I do find Annabel just trotting around in a panic because she's lost her way. Had I not grown up as a mere shadow on the wall until I was fourteen, I probably would still not know a lot of the palace.
  "Get dressed?" I chortle, "you can't work in your nightgown."
  "Right," she notes to herself, although she'll forget in a few minutes no doubt.
  It was easy for me to learn the routine, actually. The only reason I wouldn't know a lot of the Temple is because if you don't work in those quarters, you shouldn't be there, meaning there are many halls and rooms I should have never have experienced. It is not because I cannot remember them. As the daughter of Apollo, the God of knowledge, and Athena, the God of wisdom, I've come out with a pretty good memory and what I would like to think is sharp intelligence. It has to be, in order to keep me alive.
  We change into our uniforms, merely beige robes. They're a little itchy, but they're light and comfortable otherwise. They hang delicately from badges on both shoulders, a lightning bolt on the gold pins, meeting at an acute point midway down the bust, and the robes ending just below the ankles. The modernists of the staff still make the joke that if the robes were any shorter, we would be severely punished.
  We wear traditional Greek servants' robes (maybe a little posher, considering we are serving gods), as the Gods attempt to hold onto some of the past, when they first became legend amongst the humans.
  There are so many myths amongst the humans as the origins of time and space, but the period of Ancient Greece was the first time the Gods choose to present themselves to the children of Earth, hence why they were named 'the Greek Gods' by the children. The Gods have rarely made appearances on Earth since, and when they do, the humans become frequently delusional with their own thoughts and believes; seeing angels, hearing the voice of a Christian God – the Romans even chose to basically acknowledge all the Gods but just rename them.
  The relationship between the Gods and their proudest creation became more distant, and is why many theorise that Theos were created to be closer to humans. It's similar to Darwin's hypothesis, ironically.
  Annabel and I leave our dimly lit room for the slim corridor full of identical doors. We walk to the end, her eyes at the floor for the entire duration and mine actually bothered to watch where I'm going. We reach a small open area, which has been nicknamed 'the Roundabout' because it's just a room with about seven different corridors leading off it, as well as the main stairs to get to the upper levels of the Temple. Here, there are several others in similar garments already swarming for the servants' dining room down one of the corridors. Everyone shuffles down the thin and tall hall, Annabel quickly taking my hand before she can get lost.
  We disperse on the other side, grabbing a seat as quickly as possible and scullery maids beginning to bring out small plates of bread and plotting them every few seats along, in the middle of the table, and then they start bringing out the individual bowls of soup for each person.
  It smells strongly like vegetables, which is the usual, the ingredients grown just outside this room, round the back of the Temple. There's never a bad harvest within Mount. Olympus with Demeter, the Goddess of the harvest and agriculture, living in the Temple. But there's a whole separate plot of land that spreads for miles where the food for the Gods is collected, which has ten workers that tend it daily, with help from the Goddess and her child, Persephone, when she is on the Mountain.
  There are fifty members of staff working specifically within the Temple, to cater to all the Gods who choose to live here. Many moved out, building homes and palaces of their own, but the majority stayed to remain within Zeus' protection from Hades or any of the many monsters seeking to destroy the Olympians.
  Many of Zeus' children moved out for a period, seeking to have children within his discrimination, but they soon realised this angered him further, and he had spies on them at all times whilst outside of Mount. Olympus, so they returned with the theory that it would send the spies away and alleviate him of his temper.
With small amounts of sun squeezing in through small, high-up windows illuminate the wooden table we all stand as the ýpsistos enters. The ýpsistos is something the Ancient Greeks decided to pick up from the English Victorian era – tis their equivalent to a head butler, but they wouldn't call it a butler because it's too English.
  "Please," he smiles, standing in front of his chair at the end of the table, gazing down the long table, "eat."
  Everyone takes their seat and tucks themselves back in, the steam of the soup warming my face. The servants' quarters are the coldest area of the Temple, but generally speaking Mount. Olympus has very good weather, as the God Apollo chooses to bless it with constant sunshine. But it can be obviously told sometimes when some of the most powerful Gods are vexed. With Apollo, it gets too hot quickly, with Zeus it becomes stormy, with Boreas of the north wind the Temple could be blanketed in snow. The environment depends on the Gods here utterly. It does mean a vast variety of change in the location frequently, as between the dozens of Gods living here that have control over everything apart from their own emotions, things never really stay the same. But, for the ones who rarely leave the Temple like myself and Annabel, we can only notice when sent on chores or looking out the window.
  When it snowed, I used to run into the outdoors, escaping my parents grasp whenever I could, and play. This stopped quickly, as Boreas reported an inkling somebody in the Temple, whom he couldn't name, was amused by his temper. Since this, I have gone outside the sight of my parents less.
  I want to, but I also want to live. Some dilemma.
  Gradually all servants leave the table. I walk through an archway into just one of the kitchens, taking a tray of gold with Aphrodite's name carved in cursive writing across it, and her breakfast on top. I take up a plate of three slices of toast, a small platter of different fruits and biscuits, as well as a cup of sideritis (mountain tea) which is made of fresh Greek herbs and plants.
  To one who has never carried the tray before, it would seem heavy.
As I'm leaving the kitchen, back through a corridor and returning to the Roundabout room, Annabel squeals something in a mumble behind me before I can reach the stairs.
  "Go make sure all the sheets are washed properly and then iron them," I chuckle, shaking my head.
  "Oh, yeah!" she cheers, returning back the way she came... in the wrong direction.
I walk up the stairs, behind the trail of lady's maids and minor butlers. All the major twelve Gods have a lady's maid or butler each, and the rest usually share between them. Few of the Gods get up from bed for breakfast, but I do know Apollo spends it in the library, as his butler always goes off that way, and Athena spends it in her own study, from where she can watch over Athens.
  She was never traditionally born to look after the city, but it was something the humans merely claimed, as the people of Athens believing they were superior and deserved their own god. She did have a natural love for the city, and when they named her its protector, she apparently just accepted their sanctions and has watched it regularly ever since, hence how she found Annabel.
  Six flights of stairs later, many of the servants fleeing off on earlier floors, eight of us remain to tend to who of the twelve Olympians eat in their rooms. Four corridors later, I knock on Aphrodite's door. It has a rose carved of gold in the wood. Each door as some symbol of the God it belongs to, but even then it's difficult to find ones way around.
  At the warm song of her voice, I nudge the handle open with my elbow, needing both hands to handle the heavy tray.
  "Good morning, Ethelontís," – Greek for Empress.
  "And a good morning to you, Rydia," she smiles, sitting herself up in bed.
  Aphrodite sleeps completely in the nude, which was something that took me a few months of getting used to. She strolls around like such, saying clothes restrict her too much. There has never been a more confident woman in my life than her, but it is not to a degree where it dare distract from her kindness.
  And when you're the person who dresses her, it's something that must be adapted to swiftly.
  "Sleep well?" I chirp, placing the tray on a table, grabbing the small stool and putting it over her lap and then placing the breakfast tray on the stool.
  "Oh yes. I don't understand what exactly I've done to get into Hypnos' good books."
  "Every good book must consist of your presence, Ethelontís," I bow my head.
  "You don't have to continue kissing up to me, Rydia. Treat me as a friend."
  "You are the only God I could possibly try and bring myself to flatter," I grin, rounding her bed to grab a hold of the large curtains, climbing all the way to the ceiling high above. "That is what I consider a friend."
  "I expect you do not flatter Annabel in such ways."
  "Annabel isn't a Goddess. Besides, our friendship is built upon a love-hate basis."
  "And you would consider ours upon what basis?"
  "My utter respect for you, Ethelontís, and your acceptance of me."
  As I pull open the third window, she places her tray aside and elegantly flutters from her bed. "If you would like some of the breakfast..."
  "No thank you, my Queen, I very much enjoy the meals downstairs."
  "Vegetables and more vegetables?"
  "Exactly," I giggle.
  She sits upon a stall at her desk, staring in her mirror.
  "Are we in a particular mood which I can attend your attire to?" I twitter, hiking back across the room to some of her cupboards. Just some of them. She's got a walk-in wardrobe further down the bedroom.
  "I am troubled today, actually, despite my blessing from Hypnos."
  My fingers linger in the air, half way through flicking between hangers. "Troubled?" Not much affects someone who remains calm with twenty-seven godly children.
  "Has the ýpsistos not announced it in the downstairs quarters?" She frowns.
  "Not that I am aware of."
  "Alcina is to be put on trial today."
  During a trial, or a public one like this at least, all the members of Mount. Olympus attend, which includes all the staff, any visitors, and deities or other creatures. All twelve major Olympians must be present, as it is they who cast the vote, and them alone.
  Alcina is the oldest of Aphrodite's Theos children, and the most outspoken of the three of them.   As their older sister, she often tells her mother how she must make some kind of stand against Zeus' oppression, and just two days later is when Zeus finally lost patience with her. As a child of one of the major Olympians, the oldest, in fact, she has been offered a fair trial.
But it will not be fair.
  Those who do not have Theos children, seven of the twelve, will very often take Zeus' side, as they do in most trials, Theos-based or not. One would like to imagine the world of gods and monsters as at least democratic, and it tries to be, but the King is a king for a reason.
  I take a deep breath.
  "Yellow for hope then?" She twitters half-heartedly.
  "No, definitely not, Ethelontís; red for passion and determination."