I woke up to the shining light of my nephew Helios. My head pounded as if a hammer was slamming into it. I rolled to my side and my gaze fell on a feminine sleeping form.

 

I remembered in this moment everything that happened and how in a moment of weakness, I had decided to copulate with the nymph named Philyra, how I had tricked myself into thinking it was Rhea when I knew deep down all along that it wasn't the truth.

 

Shame swept through my veins. All of this was the fault of Hyperion I wanted to scream but I knew that this thought was a falsehood.

 

I could have said no at any time. I could have gone back to Othrys. I could try to justify my past actions but it's not as if I had been forced, stripped of any agency.

 

At my side, The oceanid began to awake leaving the kingdom of Hypnos, the child of the night. I looked at her and had to restrict the disgust, the desire to puke I felt when I looked at her.

 

I felt stained in a way even the worst actions I took in the past with my children could not compare.

 

“Morning Kronos,” the nymph said. “I hope you liked last night as much as I did.”

 

I turned away from her. I knew that if I had continued to look at her, there were chances of me doing something a logical part of me thought that the Oceanid wouldn't deserve.

 

I felt her touch on my shoulder and I felt as if I had been burnt. “It doesn't have to be one time Kronos,” she whispered in one of my ears.

 

I stood up extracting myself away from her touch. “What's wrong?” she asked.

 

“It was a mistake, all of what happened was a mistake,” I told her. “I have a wife!”

 

“You had a wife Kronos,” she answered.

 

Shock spread through my body “How do you know?” I asked her.

 

She stood up and came close to me. Her face was millimetres away from mine. I could feel her soft breath. Vivid flashes of memories of what they had done swept through my mind.

 

“We all know of the king, of the Titan lord of Othrys that became a shadow of his once glorious self. Whispers in the winds, rumours in the Earth speak of the disappearance of the presence of Lady Rhea from the protective wards and from all of Othrys.”

 

She leaned forward, near my left ear “They speak of a king without a queen.”

 

I couldn’t stop myself. I erupted in mad laughter. I laughed as if it would be the last time I would be able to as if the funniest joke known to existence had been said to me.

 

She looked at me now with wariness as if she had finally realized that she was a fawn that had voluntarily jumped into the dwelling place of Kampe and other fool children of Nyx.

 

“You?” I spoke more amused than everything “You want to be Queen. You seriously think that because of one night we shared, I would make you queen?”

 

She hid her wariness and uncertainty behind a mask of self-assurance. Unfortunately for her, I had been able to see under it and nothing she would now do would be able to trick me “I am pregnant with a child my lord,” she spoke looking at me in the eyes.

 

That was all? That was her ace in her sleeve? A child. How stupid and idiotic of her. “You must be really new to the surface. Let me guess, you saw the oceans that your parents, my siblings ruled and saw no place for anyone else than them so you came to the surface world.”

 

I began to walk around her like a predator stalking its prey “Fortunately for you, you were beautiful. Even more fortunate, you learnt that you looked like my wife and if it wasn't enough good luck I'm sure you thought, your sister invited you to a feast where I'll be present to attend me. Unfortunately for you, there is just one thing it seems you didn't learn.  Do you know why my wife left?” I asked her.

 

“I don't, I don't know,” she admitted.

 

“It's the worst kept secret of all Othrys. I swallowed my children as if they were pigs,” I revealed to her.

 

I saw the horror in her eyes and how pale she became, how she took without thinking a step back. I took a step forward and she took another one back. It continued until she had her back to nothing, a single step remaining for her to plunge into the sea. “I bit into their flesh, their ichor erupted in my mouth like the sweetest delight, their screams a symphony to my ears,” I lied.

 

“I did it to the children of the deity I loved. I never tried to directly hurt Rhea because I loved her but you? You disgust me”. I put one of his palms on her belly, on the place where she said my child rested.

 

What she didn't know was that the prophecy about my demise only concerned children that I had with Rhea. It was a detail I had wanted to be sure of when I had learned it for the first time.

 

The girl though didn't know. She knew that even if she tried, there were no chances of her escaping a child of Ouranos. She was whispering prayers to who knows begging for her life.

 

I retreated away from her and turned away from her. Behind me, I heard her fall to her knees. “Don't play games that could easily be the cause of your end,” I told her.

 

My form began to shine gold and disappear in motes of golden light.

 

“What am I supposed to do about that child?” she yelled at me.

 

“In the end, it's your choice. Terminate them before they are born if you want. Raise them if you want. Just Don't expect me to one day take care of the result of my greatest error,” I said to Philyra before reappearing in my chambers in Othrys.

 

Even though I would always regret this night, even though I could try to say that it was the fault of my brother, a part of me couldn't stop to say that it was all Rhea’s fault. If Rhea had still been there, nothing would have happened with the Oceanid. If Rhea was still there, I would not feel as if my heart had been savagely extracted from my chest.

 

Things couldn't go on like this. I could not let grief over something I could never have again, heartbreak over her, stop me from going forward.

 

This time, it had just been an overreaching Nymph. Next time, it could be worse. Would I fail my siblings because Rhea was mentioned? Fail them more than I already had?

 

Rhea, I knew would always be my first and only love but it was time for me to stop thinking about the past. Time always marched forward. Dreams were lies, ungraspable things made to cope, to escape from reality.

 

 

I looked at myself in a mirror. I looked at the golden ichor I could still see on my skin. I ignored I accusing reflections of five pairs of eyes. Kronos walked away dismissing them. My form stopped before an obsidian throne, one he had left. A throne that was more than a physical thing, it represented Othrys, the Titans and our golden age.

 

I sat on it. Vigour and strength flooded my bones. An old weight, the one from the false sky that I had almost forgotten made itself known. I closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Heavy are crowns” my father had told him. That was alright. Kronos was used to enduring. Kronos opened his eyes back to the world. It was to stop dreaming.

 

 

                              *Scene*

 

Things went back to almost the way they were before. When my siblings had seen me on my throne, they had acted as if it was a familiar sight, even though it was something that hadn't occurred for more than a decade.

 

For a decade, I had neglected my duties, my siblings, and my throne because I had been stuck dreaming and I had forgotten what mattered the most. I felt that the only good thing that had resulted from following Hyperion had been remembering this fact.

 

I made sure to fire all the servants of my palace and replace them, something I should have done a long time ago because it had become clear that they heard and talked too much.

 

If it had been up to me, no one except myself, my siblings, and Atlas would have been permitted to enter my palace but Phoebe and Mnemosyne had talked against this idea so I accepted to support the presence of servants.

 

I made sure when I was back that a special organization was created to spy,  control and monitor the people of Othrys. They answered only to me.

 

They searched among the population for any signs of dissent and its source before crushing it. Through them, I conveyed messages, things I wanted the subjects of my realm to think.

 

Even though the population has always been obedient, precautions could never be errors. Astraios, my direct nephew Had held resentment in his heart for all the elder titans.

 

I was sure that he wasn't the only one. If Astraios hadn't drunk too much, I would have never known and that ignorance, that lack of control over the things that could harm me and my siblings was what I feared.

 

My sister Mnemosyne would say that it was not necessary, too cruel but what she could not understand, what I hadn't understood until now was that cruelty and violence were a necessity, that they were the barebone of stability and order.

 

Yet even with all of my actions, even with everything seeming to go in the right way, I still felt uneasy.

 

I didn't know why but something in my mind whispered to me that something was wrong. I had gone to Phoebe and Koios but they had been unable to help me.

 

It went to the point that I tried to peer into the rivers of time even though it meant attracting hisattention, becoming both more and less. My only finding was that my sight had been deliberately obstructed, something that could only be done by a greater being.

 

I felt like an ant being played with by greater beings. I felt like Fate was laughing at me, playing with me as a child would do with a doll. I knew that even if I had known, that nothing would change. In the end, everything bowed to the will of Ananke, the Great Serpent.

 

Hyperion had decided like he always did to organize a celebration, an endless one that would last for weeks he had said. Hyperion said that our subjects felt scared.

 

For the first time Since thousands of years of our reigns, the borders of Othrys were closed, the king had been the cause of the demise of his heir, an heir that had before erased her direct cousin from existence, while at the same time hurting thousands with her flames. One of the Uranides that had also fought against the Skyfather didn't leave her domain anymore, and the Queen of Othrys had also left.

 

Hyperion went on to state, that he wanted to distract them and make them forget for a brief moment because when all of those things were taken into consideration together, it made our kingdom look unstable and a visibly unstable kingdom was one that no one was truly loyal to, something that could be dangerous.

 

Even though we, as children of Ouranos and Gaia were by far the strongest beings in Othrys, as we had shown with our father, even ants with enough fear and despair could kill a god.

 

It was while that celebration happened that I saw him. He looked young and not in a young-looking-because-chosen-to-do-so. It was the kind of youth that could not be reproduced perfectly, that was real and not made.

 

He had electric blue eyes that reminded me of the agony of lightning travelling through his veins.

 

He had soft features that would be expected to be seen as a deity of beauty. He had hair so dark that it seemed almost azure. Worse than everything, he looked familiar, as if he was a missing piece to a puzzle I had been trying to decipher.

 

The young god looked like me and I had to restrict myself from summoning my scythe. Something in me cried out both in fright and longing looking at as I looked at the youth.

 

“Who is he?” I asked pointing to the young god to one of the wandering servants.

 

“He's the child of an Oceanid and apparently one of the baseborn children of lord Hyperion,” the servant said the head bowed.

 

Maybe I saw things where they were nothing, maybe I was too paranoid but dread filled me when I watched the boy as if I was in front of a threat.

 

I could not let the young god disappear. I turned towards the still-bowing servant “From now until the end of the celebration, this boy will be the cupbearer of my siblings and me. Inform him of his new station and prepare him for his new duties,” I said to the servant.

 

“Your desire will be done my lord,” the servant said before walking toward the young god with blue eyes.

 

A cupbearer was someone who was always supposed to be in the presence of his masters. It'll allow me to observe the young god. In case my instincts were right, my scythe would be plunged into the flesh of the blue-eyed deity. If that wasn't the case, nothing would happen to him.

 

 

                              *scene*

 

The name of the young god, The young god who was our new cupbearer was Dios. His siblings hadn't understood my decision but they had accepted it.

 

They looked at the young god and deemed it impossible for him to be a threat. The young god was always on my right side with a giant Urn full of Nectar that he would serve each time he was called.

 

More than being a cupbearer, the young god had a sharp and vast intellect with which he created incredible stories and tales for my siblings and me.

 

He knew how to use his voice to charm, comfort and inject vigour in those who listened to him when he was singing.

 

When he danced, it felt less as if it was a corporal action and more like The unfolding of a masterpiece full of grace, a craft that could not be attained even with thousands of years of work. None of his movements were wasted. No tension could be seen or felt through his frame.

 

I was able to see how Dios by his actions, his presence and his beauty made lust and infinite desire bloom into the eyes of my siblings.

 

I felt pity and guilt when one morning, I saw ugly bruises on the pale flesh of the young god and saw him walk with difficulty as if he had been injured.

 

The joy and the looks Hyperion and Theia gave the young child made me understand who were the culprits. I had asked the young deity why he hadn't tried to heal from the marks, the remaining signs of what happened. Dios  would answer “I didn't because your Lord brother and his lady wife wanted me to keep them.”

 

“Doesn't it anger you?” I had asked. “Don't you wish that it hadn't happened?”

 

“It is the way of the world, my king,” Dios had answered.

 

“That wasn't an answer,” I told him.

 

I looked at him, at his blue eyes that had become hollow, to his vacant stare as if he was a doll reminiscing about past things. His innocence, the one that permeated him had been marred like black paint that had been launched on a canvas of white. He looked broken and Kronos didn't know why but my heart lurched in agony at the sight.

 

Something in me wanted to hold the young god in my arms and tell him that nothing would ever hurt him again, that he was safe. The Words of comfort I wanted to give stayed stuck inside As Dios walked away called by one of my siblings, he walked like a god going toward annihilation.

 

The following day, another bruise was added to the skin of the young deity. Even with those marks, signs of violated flesh, Dios walked with his head held high continuing to serve my siblings and me, sing and dance for us.

 

My trust or maybe it was pity for the young God grew. My doubts about Dios began to diminish day after day until they disappeared.

 

I had seen Dios as inoffensive, too soft and meek, incapable of hurting in any way others. I had seen him as the kind of person who would always accept the wickedness of the world and instead of fighting it would bow to it.

 

I had been wrong. I should have known how even a lamb when feeling hopeless would fight until the end. I should have known that acceptance didn't mean fear.

 

It had been evident that we had grown to trust Dios. We had also grown prideful. We had thought that with most of us present, nothing could happen.

 

We were the Titans, reached beyond their station and felled a primordial god. We were the Uranides, children of Gaia and Ouranos, immortal rulers of Othrys and poison would be the beginning of their end.

 

 

I would later remember laughter, vivid light and a drink before a mind-breaking pain made itself known to me.

 

I remember burning from the inside. I remember vomiting for what felt like an eternity.

 

When I began to come back to my senses, it was to see to my horror five figures, five faces that had haunted me and that I had hoped to never see again.

 

 

“Brother,” they called Dios and at that, moment I realized Rhea had tricked me. The ones that the prophecies had marked as the end of our reign, the harbingers of the end of the Titans were before me.

 

They turned to look at my siblings and me and fear seized my heart. I could still feel the poison inside me. Even though I was burning it from the inside with my divi,nity I was for now vulnerable.

 

I think that I would be able to do anything to protect my siblings or me if my children decided to attack us.

 

We had been saved by the arrival of Atlas who had felt that something was amiss and barged into our throne room accompanied by soldiers.

 

My children decided to flee upon Atlas's arrival, by transforming into birds. No soldier was able to successfully prevent them from escaping.

 

It would be the beginning of a war that would last ten long tortuous years where I would lose everything, the first Titanomachy.

 

The day after, I would order the mobilization of every one of my subjects in Othrys. I looked at them from a high balcony. They were innumerable. It looked as if they were more numerous than the stars.

 

I could see amongst them children and adults, humans, Nymphs, Neuris, Daemons, Potamois and Titans of the second generation. Their chatter echoed everywhere like a thunder strike.

 

I looked to my right side where I knew Atlas’s gaze would meet with mine and nodded. Atlas nodded back before giving a signal to his soldiers.

 

The noise of the crowd was cut short by a string of resonating sounds, ones of steel

of steel against steel.

 

I used my authority over the winds to enhance the sound of my voice “I've assembled all of you here due to a grave and important menace that threaten us, one that could mean the end of Othrys, our beloved kingdom!”

 

Whispers of fear began to rise from the crowd “More than two decades ago I received a prophecy that foretold my end, and the end of Othrys.”

 

“It can't happen!” screamed members of the crowd.

 

“There must be a solution!” they shouted.

 

Without me having to say it, The soldiers of Atlas knocked their spears against their shields dissipating again the noise of the crowd.

 

“The prophecy,” I continued after the crowd turned silent “showed me who would be the culprits. Those culprits, those that would destroy our Kingdom and all of its prosperity were my own children! I prayed to every higher being for it to be false. When my wife Rhea gave birth to our first child, Hestia, I committed a grave mistake. I loved her, and with that love, I nearly brought doom to everything I held dear. My daughter permanently erased her own cousin from existence, from reforming her own cousin, I knew I was wrong when she hurt thousands in that action and didn't care.”

 

I took a breath, closed my eyes and took another deep breath before reopening them. “At that moment, I did what was necessary, what I should have done. I looked into the eyes of my firstborn and swallowed her for Othrys, for all of you! I did that action again and again and again because it was necessary!”

 

“Many saw and still see it as cruelty but those who dare to judge me, I want to ask them what else could I have done!?! What else could have done to not have the ichor of my own children plastered on my skin?!” I yelled.

 

“What else?!” I repeated. I looked at the crowd and saw most of them looking at the ground in shame. They must be thinking about their whispers, their rumours and how stupid they were.

 

“Unfortunately, things didn't end here. The menace, the reason why I brought all of you here is that my children whom I thought I had permanently dealt with have been set free to the world at large due to treachery,” I shouted at the crowd.

 

I saw understanding and fear bloom in the features of my subjects. “They are prophesied to bring the end of this era, of the reigns of the Uranides and it seems that we have already lost. The clever thing to do would be to wait for our annihilation.”

 

Murmurs of concern erupted from those below him. “That would be the clever thing, the wise thing but the truth is that I'm not wise. We, Uranides fought against our father, a primordial, the sky itself and we won! We did the impossible, the unthinkable. I think, no I know that we can make another miracle. I don't care about what fate had decreed! I don't care about what Ananke has written into the fabric of reality! I won’t let myself fade away without a fight! I won't let what we all built be destroyed! I will fight until the last drop of Ichor into my veins is extinguished!”

 

My voice rose in volume “I ask you, would fight not for me or my siblings but for Othrys? Would all of you fight for your siblings, kin, parents and friends? Would you all fight with me so that the Golden Age that we all built endure?”

 

“We will fight”, “we will fight”, “we will fight”, WE WILL FIGHT” the crowd chanted.

 

I would not allow my golden age to end. It didn't matter who I would face. I would crush everything that barred my way.

 

 

                   

                       

                                 *scene*

 

All of Othrys was in a frenzy of activities. After my speech, almost the entire population enlisted to fight against the threat to their livelihoods.

 

I entered the throne room to see the armour-clad form of Atlas and my siblings. They were almost all there “They didn't come?” I asked even if he already knew the answer.

 

My siblings looked at each other before Iapetus answered “They won't. Neither Oceanus nor Tethys would come. We also learnt from a loyal Oceanid that they have ordered all denizens of the sea to come back to the sea.”

 

I sighed “I expected that from Tethys. This means that we can't count on the sea in this war,” I concluded.

 

“A war?” said Hyperion. His armour lit up in a golden blaze “I won't let it become one.”

 

Hyperion rose from his throne  “I know where they are. I asked Phanes and he answered me.” He began to walk away “I'll come with you,” I told him.

 

Hyperion stayed still, his back turned toward me “You won't brother.”

 

“Why?” I asked. “They are my errors, my responsibility.”

 

“I agree with my lord uncle my king,” Atlas said.

 

“you have to understand brother,” Mnemosyne spoke, “that you are Othrys, you are the Titans and the Titans are you and I don't say it in a poetic way.”

 

She extended her left hand and opened her palm. A miniaturized version of Othrys appeared hovering in the air “The laws we made, the authority that had been granted to us, the land, the people, even we are linked to you Kronos.”

 

The image of Othrys began to morph into my face. I inspected the image “How?” I finally asked.

 

“It's because of mother or maybe it would be more accurate to say that it is because of what she did,” Mnemosyne said.

 

“Kronos, our authority is not one that was given to us or that we were born with. It is something that we usurped. The mantle ruler has been yours since the moment your scythe plunged into our Father's heart” Iapetus explained.

 

“What Mother has done, can be seen as recognition, as an acknowledgement of you succeeding our father. You chose that day to share that authority with us but according to the laws of Khaos, you are the actual proprietary. If anything happened to us, it would be salvageable but if your children were able to do the same thing to you as you did to our father or something similar we would all be affected,” spoke Themis.

 

“We connected ourselves and our children to Othrys by accepting its law into our very essence. Othrys made us greater than what we were in many ways but it also made us vulnerable,” said Iapetus.

 

“Kronos,” the voice of Hyperion boomed. “It has always been you that had to fight, it has already been you that had to suffer and do things you hated for us. I'm tired of this state of affairs. I ask you this brother do you trust us?”

 

“I do,” I answered without batting an eye.

 

“So for once, let us bear your sins, let us bear your weight. As long as you believe in us, we won't lose!” spoke Hyperion.

 

The rest of his siblings all stood up from their thrones. “Maybe this will just take a night or maybe a millennia. We will never give up on Othrys, on you Kronos,” said Theia.

 

“So for once, let your older siblings do what needs to be done my King,” spoke Koios.

 

“It's not as if I could convince you, can I?” I chuckled. “I'll be here in Othrys waiting for each of you. I swear before Khaos, the Heavens and the Earth that I won't join you on the battlefield against my children in this war.” I felt a little smile bloom on my face “Even after all these years, I'm still not as good at communicating as I would like to. I try to show it by my actions but I want you to know, that I love all of you. You have already made your king proud. Your goal is to crush my traitorous children and come back. That's an order!”

 

“Yes my king,” they answered before they all left the throneroom in waves of blurring light. I sat on my throne. I put my elbow on one of the golden armrests of my obsidian throne and leaned on my fist. I closed my eyes. I would wait here until they all came back. I ignored the doubts and the whispers of time in the back of my mind. My siblings would win, and everything would be alright.

 

                            *scene*

 

The war against my children lasted 10 years. In the beginning, it seemed as if it would have been a short thing.

 

After all, it was the world against my children, Othrys against six children. They may have been my children with Rhea but they had been painfully young, and unaware of the ways of the world, and of war.

 

They should have lost and there were multiple times when reports and my gaze indicated they would, but each time, something would happen, and circumstances would change. Allowing all of my children to escape, survive, and continue fighting.

 

Worst, they made allies. People who hated the reign of my siblings and me, ancient enemies who had been imprisoned, opportunists, joined the banner of Kronos children.

 

The presence of the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclops they had freed gave them a chance to fight back for the first time rather than flee.

 

I saw how Hestia’s flames swallowed hundreds of thousands of immortals not even leaving ashes behind her.

 

I saw how Demeter and Poseidon only by themselves superseded the authorities of the members of my army over the earth.

 

I saw how Hades opened gashes into the void of Khaos before throwing in my soldiers.

 

I saw how Zeus made the earth and sky tremble with his lightning bolts reminding me of a primordial god.

 

I saw how Hera created curses and scourges that even Nyx would baulk at and inflicted those curses on her enemies.

 

I saw how the world bent with each of Poseidon’s steps. I saw how just for a moment the sky turned into an ocean. I saw how the young god laughed and continued to fight even as his body was broken, and viciously tore through my army, how he made their ichor boil from the inside.

 

 

I learnt with fright that after each confrontation, my children grew stronger. Each fight made them bolder, more violent, more powerful.

 

My armies won fewer and fewer victories. Little by little, my children were able to force stalemates, and then they began to win.

 

 

Worse than everything, Titans of the second generation, the descendants of my siblings joined them. Helios and Selene betrayed them plunging the entire kingdom of Othrys into darkness by creating an eternal eclipse.

 

Prometheus and Epimetheus joined my children soon after. They would not be our last kin to join them like with Hekate.

 

I had to watch unable to do anything due to the oath I made to my siblings how my children began to win the war.

 

It began when they found a way to trap Iapetus by isolating him from the soldiers under his banner. The immortality that permeated all of the denizens of Othrys was fuelled by both me and my brother.

 

My authority over time made sure that the denizens of Othrys didn't grow older and they stayed in perfect physical condition.

 

The role of Iapetus’s authority was to make sure the soul would be unable to leave the body due to an exterior factor.

 

Such a system was only possible because of their shared authority over Othrys and their respective domains. It was a kept secret only known to my siblings and I.

 

My children shouldn't have known but were able to learn the truth through Hecate who was able to discover it with her magic.

 

Iapetus was strong and his domain made him a nightmare to fight against but even Iapetus with all of his strength could not fight against all my children and win.

 

In the end, the one who was left bloodied and defeated in a pool of Ichor with weapons nailing him to a rock was my older brother.

 

I heard that Lapetus was tortured for 3 successive months at all times without begging or trying to betray Othrys. When they realized they could obtain no information from Lapetus, they decided to get rid of my older brother. Fortunately, Iapetus was spared from Hestia’s flames.

 

Unfortunately, The way that my children found could be seen as more cruel. Sometimes death and annihilation were better because existence especially an immortal one could be more than tortuous. My children decided to open a path through the Earth to the Pit under the Earth Mother before throwing Iapetus into Tartarus.

 

The disappearance of Iapetus from this plane of reality was enough to break the system that had been created by him and me.

 

Where before the force of Othrys had a chance of winning, The stripping of our troops’ immortality turned the conflict into what seemed like a one-sided slaughter.

 

Our soldiers had always been immortal. They didn't fear the end because it was something that could never come to them as long as we, their lords Titans were present but with their newfound mortality, with the fall of one of us, with the spectre of Thanatos planning over them. Almost all the soldiers that remained fled from the conflict in existential terror. Those that didn't were slaughtered like animals by my children.

 

Themis did the unthinkable. Themis who I thought would never bend, betrayed us. Her betrayal marked the beginning of the end. If spitting on everything we fought for wasn't enough, she tricked Mnemosyne, Dione and Theia by delivering them to our enemies.

 

I would learn that Theia had fought back and for that, her body was so savagely brutalized that my sister had chosen to fade to escape from her agony.

 

Mnemosyne and Dione didn't fight after that and I didn't blame them but seeing what happened in the age of Olympus, maybe not fading at that time was the mistake.

 

All of my other siblings began to fall one by one. The weight on my shoulders increased each time as an indicator of the demise of one of my siblings.

 

With each minute, each day, each month, and each year that passed, the downfall I feared came closer and closer.

 

I didn't feel fear. He didn't yell at the Heavens or the Earth. I didn't complain about the unfairness of the world.

 

For the first since the departure of my siblings decades ago, I opened up my eyes. My gaze fell on my six children. “You have lost Father,” Hestia said softly. Gone were the soft empty golden eyes replaced by cold ones. It was as if I was looking in a mirror. “Give up while you still can and we will be merciful.”

 

I looked at the anger and hatred simmering in the eyes of my other children and how stiff they were. I focused back on Hestia and looked into her eyes and found something I wouldn’t have expected to find. I could not stop the laugh that escaped from me. I laughed as if my daughter had said the funniest joke ever told. I laughed as if I would never again. “Is that love I see in your eyes, sweet daughter of mine?”

 

I finally stopped laughing “Let this be my last lesson to you as a father.  I have many regrets, Hestia. I wished for a lot of things that could have never been because Ananke decided it. The only thing you can do is go on. No matter what sin you commit, no matter how much you regret, no matter how much you want to stop, never stop. You have to go on even if it's unbearable for those you love and that is the truth I've chosen.”

 

I stood up from my throne and began walking toward my children. My form began to break and explode violently from the inside. I opened the door in the centre of my essence and drank from the waves of time. I drowned myself in them attracting his awareness. I retreated only at the moment I felt that drinking more would change me in an irredeemable and unspeakable way, warping me into something that I would never come back from. Strength and power that was easily a hundred times greater than what I had when facing my father filled me.

 

 

 

Like a butterfly shedding its cocoon, I erupted from my mortal disguise to reveal my true form. Instead of allowing my form to tower over the sky, I compressed it to stay at eye level with my children. Thunder shook the Heavens and the Earth bathing the world in an eerie purple. “I am Kronos, King of Otrhys, brother of many, and slayer of Uranus and the chains of Fate will not stop me! I am Kronos and today, I will engrave in your minds my traitorous children the oldest emotion, your inheritance, fear!” my voice boomed.

 

My children had taken fighting positions. I extended my left arm and summoned in my palm my adamantine scythe. I took a step and with it, Gaia itself bent.

 

 

                               *scene*

 

The fight between us ended the way I knew would even if I didn't want to admit it, choosing to rage against it until the end rather than accept the impotence of all of my actions before Fate.

 

My fight against my children lasted for six days. Each of our strikes tore the landscape around us. Each of our attacks made the world scream in pain.

 

The sky was set ablaze crying tears of ashes, and gigantic plants bigger than mountains came to life life only to die moments later.

 

We tore at each other, with each strike filled with out maddening desire to end the other. Our battle raged across, within, and beyond the Earth, moving through it as if it were non-existent.

 

The Earth itself could not contain our fight. We made each other bleed in the cosmos and created world-swallowing storms.

 

One moment we were fighting in the center of Phanes trying to consume entirely the spark of divinity that animated each of us.

 

Then in the next the replica of Selene's body that had been created by Rhea would be destroyed when I ran Poseidon’s face from the surface of it to its core before my son shattered the false moon to free himself.

 

The giant planetoid I had created would not escape the fate of its moon. A horizontal slash that meant to behead me from a blade sheathed in the lightning of Hera

would bisect it in two.

 

Its remnants would be used by Demeter and Hades as projectiles against me. We continued to clash with savagery consumed by our hatred and madness.

 

It was a tale as old as time, siblings against siblings, children against parents. Love could not resolve everything. Regrets would not change anything yet as my brain was carved out by Hestia's delicate fingers enveloped by fire before regenerating, as Hades opened a portal of darkness to redirect an attack into another galaxy that extinguished a star a quarter the size of Phanes in order to protect his siblings. As Poseidon, who looked so similar to her used his own body as a shield for his siblings before making my Ichor turn into lethal blades from inside my body, Demeter countered each of my attacks using her authority over nature. As Zeus still a child but so grown and strong for his age, threw a lightning bolt bigger than a mountain and that left space screaming towards me, I could not suppress inside a feeling I would have never thought he could feel towards his children, those who will ensure I would lose the most important things for me, I could not suppress the pride I felt.

 

My siblings, I could see their spectres in each of my children as if I was looking into a twisted reflection. Hades looked like Iapetus. Their faces seemed identical when they frowned.

 

Zeus looked like an unholy mix of me and Dione. He had the same features as her from the lower side of his face. From the higher side, he was my replica. The only difference was his blue eyes which he probably inherited from being the grandchild of two primordial sky gods. I could now see it now. How could he have missed it?!

 

Demeter took directly from my mother and my sister Mnemosyne. It was as if Gaia had chosen to create a lower Avatar and added Mnemosyne into the mix.

 

Poseidon looked so much like her that it was painful. Each time I looked at him, the Heart I thought he had lost a long time ago tugged painfully. He also looked like Tethys, though less than Rhea but the resemblance was there if you knew where to Search.

 

Hera looked like Theia and Phoebe. I could see in her nose that was a mix of the ones my older sisters had. Her other traits looked like the ones I  had but were more refined.

 

Hestia, my greatest Love after Rhea and my siblings. Hestia, sweet Hestia, the one that would give me handmade gifts. Hestia that looked so much like me. Hestia that I had promised to protect. Hestia that I should have swallowed since the beginning.

 

‘How did we get here’ I thought before I had to erect a shield to protect myself from her flames. They burnt through it and attacked my right hand like a virus trying to consume all of my arms. I cut the member with my scythe and with another movement made my scythe swing at my daughter’s face. She tried to dodge but was unable to do it completely making the adamant blade of my scythe rake on her left cheek and take an eye.

 

A punch in the gut by Hades sent me flying away from my oldest child who was slowly regenerating instead of instantly like at the beginning of the fight.

 

‘I had been right,’ I thought while cutting in half a mountain thrown at me by Demeter. Just behind the now-split mountain appeared Poseidon and Hades.

 

Poseidon tried to skewer me with his trident and Hades tried to do the exact thing with an ominous weapon made of darkness. I used my authority over time to glance at where the attacks would connect before dematerializing the body parts that would be touched.

 

I launched a corrosive wave of time at my children. ‘A million years should be enough,’ I thought before sending it to my children.

 

Their skin began to decay as if they were mortals and on the verge of death. I knew that it would slow my sons just for a millisecond but ‘sometimes milliseconds were enough,’ I thought before materializing a new arm and trying to bisect my two children in two with a horizontal strike towards the left before I had to retreat due to Hera attacking my previous position.

 

Hadn't my siblings and I fought in the past even though they were scared for a better future, for a better world?

 

My thoughts were halted by a punch that sent me flying back to Gaia’s body. Hadn't we wished to create works where children would not have to shed their innocence?

 

Hestia was over my falling form. I could see how her fire-covered fist came closer and closer. My grip over my scythe tightened. I used my authority over time to slow it almost to a standstill yet she was still moving.

 

I directed my scythe towards the neck of my daughter.  The tip of my weapon pierced her flesh and I saw how slowly blood began to erupt yet she continued.

 

A push was all that was needed yet why couldn't I!? My gaze fell on an inconspicuous thing, on a bracelet of pearl that adorned the hand holding my scythe.

 

“Father, this is for you,” a 2-year-old Hestia told me giving me a bracelet of white pearls held by a thread of black hair. It was easy to see it was done by an amateur yet to me it looked like one of the most beautiful things in the universe.

 

 

“I was told by one of the Oceanids that it's something to be given to the most important person in your life. It's meant to show how you'll always be there with them, that wherever they go and whatever they do, you'll still love them. I know that it doesn't look the best-” I interrupted by hugging her.

 

I felt her lean into my embrace “I love you too Hestia. You deserved a better father but I want you to know you're my biggest Pride and it will never change.”

 

“You promise?” she said.

 

“I promise Hestia. No matter what may happen in the future, I want you to know it'll never change. You're the only thing good I've brought into this world.”

 

‘Of course, I was destined to lose’ I thought with a smile. I had already lost the moment he faced Hestia without my siblings. ‘Sisters, brothers I’m sorry I failed all of you’ I thought. I watched how it came closer and closer.

 

At that moment when I would lose everything, I could only feel serenity. ‘Rhea’ I thought. I knew she would hear me even if she would not answer ‘Look at our daughter,’ before Hestia’s fist sent me burning, careening towards the ground like a fallen star.

 

I let the flames consume me. In the end, I was both a bad brother and a bad parent. I wished he could change it all.

 

That was my last conscious thought before the mind-breaking pain of the fire stopped any more thoughts.

 

My fall to the earth made it quake. I realized in his agony that I had fallen on the tallest mountain where his castle, the centre of Othrys once stood. I could only glimpse ruins, the shadow of something once glorious.

 

I felt them land at my side not a long time after. I felt my scythe being removed from the remnant of my left arm before I felt more burning pain as if I was being attacked from the inside out.

 

I felt each agonizing second when my body was cut again and again, each cut making my strength bleed away.

 

I knew right now that if he called for him, for one of the serpents, I would be able to escape the miserable Fate I knew my children had reserved me but I was tired and also how could he allow himself to flee, leave when I was the reason for the demise of my siblings when all the disasters that ended Othrys were the results of my sins?

 

I felt weightless, almost like a feather before beginning to fall. “Goodbye Father,” were the last words I heard before my mind gave up and everything became black.

[So, I joined the Darkside (Patreon). I don't think that words should be indefinitely locked behind a paywall so it's fine if you don't want or can't subscribe. I'll continue to post the way I used to. Right now, on the Patreon, I have three chapters in advance of Demiurge and Infernal Comedy. My Patrons will be able to vote directly on decisions that affect my stories, on which stories should be written and even ask for chapters of a certain number of words. Here is the link: https://www.patreon.com/Eileen715 /author]