Heroes and Mothers

Heroes forget their mothers in the talks they give poets who record their deeds on scrolls. All types of info about the magical horses they tamed and the princesses they rescued then left on desert islands to die. Plenty of details about the way they chopped the head of the tyrant and left his body to be devoured by scorpions in the sun. Even contract language about the percentage of the profits to be shared by the writer and hero are included, with a small cut given to the loyal partner, who's still smarting from having an arm eaten by a Hydra. Nowhere do mothers get their thanks; instead they're made into constellations later by the gods, after the jealous divine queens realize their all-powerful husbands impregnated the mothers so long ago and sends a snake to strangle them or an army of carnivorous cockroaches to eat them alive. Then, they sit in the night doing laundry forever, hanging a sheet of stars in the galaxy, while their sons ride the heroic hippogriff above them, getting the limelight even after their deaths, which have everything to do with their faults, ones they regret putting on paper, ones no book advances can solve or give them immortality while keeping them alive.