“The Hephaestus cabin would soon finish the command of the dozens of spears. The Hermes cabin already finished placing urns of Greek fire all around the camp near bodies of water,” Ethan Nakamura said to Chiron.

 

“Good, what about the tasks given to the Ares and Athena cabins?” Chiron asked the young demigod.

 

“They are still working on it but Clarisse thinks it should be ready before Dusk.”

 

“Good. That's good.” Chiron’s gaze focused on the demigod more precisely the little tics and almost perfectly hidden behaviours he was showing.

 

His skin was placid and Chiron could see the beginning of dark circles forming under his eyes.  He could see how his eyes were moving in every direction as if searching for a threat. Ethan had grabbed one of his arms with another without realizing it.

 

“You’re doing a good job Ethan, you're all doing good,” Chiron spoke softly. “I'm proud of all of you.”

 

Chiron watched how the eyes of the demigod widened. Chiron watched the curtain unravel before Ethan schooled his facial expression.

 

“Thank you Chiron, I'll go tell and help the others.” Chiron watched as the demigod left. This had been one of the first times Chiron had said such a thing out loud. He had always thought it but had stopped expressing it outside the confines of his mind for a long time. Chiron wished he could do more but he wasn't allowed to.

 

He wasn't supposed to get too close, too attached but with the current situation, he felt that the demigods under his care needed this feeble reassurance that they mattered, that In the end even in the darkest times, they were not alone.

 

 

 

Chiron was called many things all along his long existence. Centaur, Kronide, bastard, teacher, father. He was the one who taught heroes how to survive the cruel world they were born in.

 

He was the one who saw how pathetic, how demeaning their lives had been and decided to change it.

 

Chiron did because he could understand them. Most of them were the results of lust-induced trysts. Most of them were unwanted, vulnerable, and alone.

 

Chiron was the unwanted son of the most cruel deity who existed. He was the son of a mother who chose to fade over raising children she only saw as a source of shame.

 

He had wanted to change things. He had done his best in the beginning. Everything seemed so hopeful, seemed so better until he failed.

 

Chiron was a reminder to his half-siblings, the Olympians of their worst moments. He was almost the physical replica of their father. If they hadn't been against hurting each other, Chiron knew he would have long been suffering a torment worse than Prometheus.

 

He was their brother but he wasn’t at the same time. He wasn't a child of Rhea. He hadn’t been born in the Titanomachy still nursed in the stomach of his mother. He hadn't been there for them the moment they needed help and because of this, he would never truly be a part of their family.

 

A little part of him even to this day yearned for it, for recognition, for acceptance but Chiron was old and the wisdom given to him by his age was that it would never truly happen. He would always be at best an outsider and at worst a servant.

 

Even then, Chiron had tried with all his might to improve the lives of demigods. He had tried even though it had been hard, even though it had directed the ire of immortals and mortals toward him.

 

It had been hard but it had been easier than it was now. He had been an immortal and whether people recognized him or not, a child of the Titan king was not one easily denied.

 

Power was the only universal currency and Chiron had it in spades. He hadn’t been as strong as his siblings but he had been strong enough to be able to stand proudly amongst the Olympians.

 

Time like it was in its nature to do so passed and brought changes. Chiron gained, lost, learned and loved. He gained friends, students and descendants.

 

If only they knew how each of them had made him proud. If only he had been able to say more to Achilles, his grandson how proud he had been? If only he had been able to say to Heracles that the mad things surrounding him weren't his fault.

 

Chiron had not been able to do this. He lost them and lost one of the most important things he could have lost, what made Chiron Chiron.

 

Pain, unimaginable pain had coursed through his body. That day the poison of the Hydra cursed him with his touch, he understood that immortality meant nothing before suffering, before misery and cruelty. Chiron chose to die to escape from his torment and in doing so, He lost his divinity, his Immortality.

 

He wished that he had stayed in the sky as a constellation. He wished he wasn’t removed from the heavens at the will of his siblings and their children.

 

Chiron had given up his divinity and that made him weak. They all knew this, this made them gleeful. Chiron hadn't chosen to come back. He was forced to.

 

He was forced to come back lesser, humiliated, an immortal without its immortality, a god without any divine power, a god stripped of his essence, of what truly made him.

 

He wasn't strong anymore to protect. He wasn't strong anymore to change things. The only thing, the only true choice he had been left with was to obey.

 

Obey like a slave, obey like a mortal. Chiron had loved teaching but his changes, him losing his divinity made him loathe it with all his heart.

 

He loved teaching because he thought that he was making things better. He loved teaching because he liked to give his students the necessary tools, the necessary knowledge not only to survive but to thrive!

 

The Olympians didn't want this. They didn't want their children to be independent from their will, from their schemes. The Olympians wanted an army, they wanted slaves and Chiron was supposed to be the one sending those children to the slaughterhouse.

 

They all were so hopeful, trusting in parents who didn't care, who would never truly care about them, ready to discard their lives at any moment just to feel a speck of pride when they were children.

 

Children even with divine blood had no place on a battlefield. Children even with divine blood shouldn't have to fight monsters as old if not older than the current civilization.

 

Unprepared Children who were purposefully trained by him, by Chiron to be ignorant, to be weak and vulnerable.

 

Chiron was supposed to make sure they didn't realize the discrepancies between what they were taught and what truly was.

 

Chiron would never teach them how the Ambrosia they used to heal themselves could be used for so much more. The gods made sure he erased from every book at camp the possibility of mortals ascending because of ambrosia, the literal food of the gods.

 

They would never truly be able to learn how to properly make a binding oath! An oath on the Styx only affected mortals or the gods who dwelled in the Underworld.

 

They would never be able to learn how to use their powers to do things that could only be said to come straight from the myths themselves.

 

Their parents could uproot mountains, make all plant life die, provoke wars just by thinking about it and yet they didn't see how strange it was that they were unable to do at least one per cent of those feats.

 

Chiron had been forbidden to teach them the secrets of the world, the real laws of this cruel world that only wanted to destroy them. He wasn't even allowed to show them how to tap into, to realize their own potential.

 

The current generation of demigods was both the weakest and the strongest. Even after losing his divinity, Chiron could still glimpse into their souls, into what they could be.

 

Chiron, trainer of heroes?! Ah! Such a joke. Chiron keeper of the status quo would be more accurate.

 

He knew that hatred brewed in the hearts of some demigods. He could feel change, great change coming. Even with the world supposedly ending with the lord of the sea raising the dead, Chiron felt as if this was just the beginning of the storm.

 

He just hoped in the end, what would come crawling out of the ashes would be something better than this current world.

 

He hoped that when he would be struck by destined death, it would be before the coming of better days.

 

He was dead he realized, dead for a long time. He was just the walking corpse of something that should have been left alone in the dark void of the cosmos.

 

“Lost in your thoughts?” the familiar voice of Dionysus uttered at his side. The god had appeared from the ether occupying where once had been nothing.

 

“We’re at war and war always makes me think more than I would like to,” he answered the young Olympian.

 

His gaze stayed fixed on the entirety of the camp, of children training with weapons, of innocence shed before time.

 

“You didn't change Chiron. You always hated all of this,” Dionysus chuckled at his side.

 

Chiron wouldn't say he trusted Dionysus but he felt at ease around the Olympian. Dionysus still remembered him as a kronide, as a divine centaur. Dionysus still remembered him as his teacher. There was also the fact that a long time ago, they had been more than friends, closer than brothers.

 

“I should have killed the boy the moment I saw him. He's only trouble,” the god spoke.

 

“It wouldn't have changed anything,” Chiron answered softly. “The lord of the Oceans would have made sure the whole world felt his grief but more than that, you and everything you care about would have been his target.”

 

“Maybe it would have been the case but it wouldn't be as bad as it is now. I knew he cared about his children but I never would have thought he would go so far Chiron”.

 

“No one has expected this to happen. He's called unpredictable and wild for a reason.” The only similar thing Chiron could remember was Persephone and Demeter.

 

Nature, reality screaming as parental love made the Earth and its denizens bleed and die painfully. Gods were naturally destructive and their love when they did love was only a reflection of this, too wild, too strong, too cruel.

 

Even then, maybe if all gods had cared like this, maybe if gods loved all their children the same way Demeter and Poseidon cared about theirs, maybe the world would be a better place, maybe Chiron wouldn't feel like such a monster.

 

“Do you fear what's coming?” he asked Dionysus.

 

“Gods don’t fear old friend,” the Olympian said softly.

 

Chiron reformulated the question “So then, how do Dionysus feel?”

 

“…Scared, Scared Chiron. I'm not scared of what could happen to me. I fear what could happen to my children. It's in the nature of mortals to eventually die but even then, I had hoped to give them a long peaceful life.”

 

“What are you going to do?”

 

“Nothing Chiron, I can do nothing.”

 

“You can Dionysus. We're all slaves but even slaves can choose between life or death.”

 

“That’s cruel coming from you Old friend. You weren't like this before.”

 

“Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't and became like this. Dead children change your perspective on things.”

 

He turned his gaze toward the dark clouds covering the sky. He could almost taste the water in the humid air “Do what your heart believes in before it's too late.”

 

A chuckle escaped from Dionysus “What happens when it's too late Teacher of wisdom?”

 

“You become me, Dionysus. You become a husk. Your children will die but you can make sure they won’t die on a battlefield.”

 

“Their absence will be noticed. There would be consequences.”

 

“There are always consequences to love Dionysus. This is why it is hard to create yet so rewarding.”

 

Chiron walked to one of the walls where hanging was a long silver spear. He removed it from the wall and began to leave the great house.

 

“Where are you going?” Dionysus asked behind him.

 

“Fighting,” he simply answered. “After all what kind of teacher doesn’t help his students?”

 

Chiron ran his mortal form limited but still superior to most things. Faster than an arrow, he reappeared at the border of the camp a spear lodged into the head of a walking corpse.

 

With two of his horse legs, he crushed into paste other attacking corpses. Chiron moved as one tried to skewer him with his sword before using his spear like a bat, Chiron caved his skull in. Chiron loved fighting. At least, like this, the only one who could be hurt would be him. Chiron loved fighting. It allowed him to forget the thousands of children he had sent to the grave because he had been a coward.