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happyk44 · 7 months

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My take has always been Nyx births them in Tartarus but sends them away to the upper world when they're old enough because she has seen the world below from the night sky and thinks it is beautiful and lovable, compared to the dark monstrous and screaming expanse of Tartarus, a chamber, a prison, a place of torture. She loves her children as much as the night sky, a boundless entity can. She would like them to experience the world the way she sees the mortals do, how other gods and spirits do. Running across cool grass as the sun dips and day fades into midnight blue and wine-dark purple. Laughing around a warm fire. Comfortable and safe from the monsters that lurk.

The eldest two are as boundless as she is, as boundless as their father. They take to mortal form more frequently than their parents but were not truly born of it. She remembers the strange sensation of creating a sunrise. Heat and daybreak rising over the murky ocean. The world was dark in the beginning. Then the sun came, Helios and his silly chariot, and so followed the bright of day to truly illuminate the world. The twins had been born hand in hand so entwined in one another she had not realized right away there were two of them. Even in their choice of differentiation, they were so similar - day and the bright upper sky. Hemera and Aether. Glowing light blue air and soft clouds with the sun shimmering nearby.

Then long after Charon came - the oldest of her personified children. Born with skin and bones and a quiet sullen demeanour. Like Hades who lives above. But Hades is reclusive and seems picky about who joins him. He is followed only by the dead. He is far too busy, nonetheless, to handle a child by his side - establishing his kingdom and building his home from the scraps left behind.

Yes, the Underworld is beautiful, cooler than Tartarus, more comforting to those with flesh, but less so than the upper world. That was created for those who breathe with lungs and have beating hearts, so when Charon is spry enough that he walks and runs and snaps at monsters that encroach upon his space, she guides him up and out into the wake of the night.

Shadows lick at his feet. His ever present father will keep watch when the sunrises and Nyx must set. Erebus agrees with her. Charon seems brighter, better up on top than far down below where only the most reviled of persons are chained and burned. The only screams he hears are from the birds chattering. He was born of night and darkness, so he says good night to his sister and his brother, and greets his mother with a cool good morning. He hunts sleeping animals with his father to guide his way. He prefers to fish from the nearby river, sit in the shallow, slower end of the rushing stream. He speaks aloud, knowing his family listens. He expects little response in return.

After him, Moros arrives. Dark and brooding. Where Charon is sullen and withdrawn, Moros is brash and engaging. He dips away from his older brother to bother nearby towns. He tips the scales, adjusts the poles. The way of the world swells and shifts around him. Knives miss the meat to be butchered and sever fingers. Bows slip free of knots and spill collected materials to the ground. The sickly sob. Children recoil in fear.

He is unbothered. He enjoys their detachment, their worries. As he grows, Charon finds him work with the elderly. It's important, he says, that you understand mortals. It is cruel to befit fear upon them all because you have no empathy. Nyx listens closely, Erebus at her side as their son speaks quiet. His monotone voice echoes across the open air. I have no empathy, but I have lived long enough to know that mortals desire compassion. And I have lived long enough to know that being feared becomes tiring in the end.

Moros adjusts. Still he brings doom, but the old are unworried. They know what is to come. The finality of breath. The stop of their hearts. The ceasing of their brains. They know that they will close their eyes and reawaken with Hades' hand outstretched for theirs. Without terror, they tell him stories of their lives. They spill their secrets as he cleans their laundry and cuts their food. He holds their arms as they take feeble steps around the home they wish to die in.

Sometimes he knows they will not and through him they know they will not, but he promises to carry them back and lay them to rest in the ground they own, the earth they cultivated. He is not capable of empathy. He barely understands sympathy. But compassion is there, in faintest amounts, and it is enough.

Thanatos and Hypnos bear witness to the night skies in the months that follow. It is almost amusing the difference between her boundless children and their fleshed out siblings. Daylight and bright skies versus the boy child who digs graves and the boy who bears doom, the boy who finds the dead as easily as he breathes and the boy who sleeps like a cat. the girl who watches battles with hunger and feasts upon the death the daughter who knows only misery and the boy who can only assign blame. She loves them all the same. She sees how mortals exile those who do not fit, who are dark but not cruel, and does not understand. Perhaps it is because she was not born into the world with a beating heart.

Only glittering stars and a spot for the bright moon.

It is quiet with the twins. Instead of bothering mortals, Hypnos spends most of his time attached to his twin's back, dozing off onto strong shoulders. Thanatos carries him like it is his job. Lifts him off from the ground without a word. He follows Charon into the woods each day. The dead come easy to him. More frequently that he had before, Charon carries bodies home to their new graves.

I can feel them, Thanatos says. When they're gone.

Do you hurt? Charon asks. Mangled bodies are not unfamiliar to them. Torn animals picked apart and rotting are commonplace. The state of their corpses indicate pain though. Charon worries.

But Thanatos simply lowers his sleeping brother to the soft grass below and says, No. It's strange. I don't notice them until they're gone. It’s like a call in my head. They could be near me and I would not notice until their end. He turns to his older brother digging another grave. Their souls. Their ghost. Do you see them?

Sometimes, Charon says. But not usually.

Thanatos is comforted by that. Sometimes is better than never. Hypnos never sees ghosts. But he sees other things in the moments he's awake. When they enter mortal towns, he'll gaze with half-lidded eyes upon the mortals that pass by and murmur into Thanatos' ear about their secrets. Their fears. Their days.

Their dreams.

Within the wisps of sleep, Hypnos descends. He coaxes the tired to rest, coaxes babies to calm, settle the elderly and sick down for their final night. Sometimes Oizys reaches out and so he settles inside the soft world of a mortal mind, slipping through their cloud-like subconscious and drawing out what they hold back.

Processing fears is important to living life, he realizes. In waking moments, he speaks with his brother about nightmares. In sleeping dreams, he slips them along. Most dreams are simple days. He likes to watch from the side, a hidden audience. Even the most mundane is entertaining.

Then Ker comes along soon after. She is sharp-toothed and mean. Violent death and bitter disease. There is nothing mundane with her. Only seeking the vicious and cruel. She feasts on the flesh of the dead, hovering near Thanatos as he counts down the seconds to the last beat of a heart.

But she does not join them at meals. Her bloodied mouth is hidden away. The bits of skin dug under her nails are scrubbed after every meal. She knows her nature is unlike the others. That she is worse. She crowds around battles with a hunger for the flesh that will be slain. She brings plague with a single touch.

Maybe she would feel better if she was not looking at her counterpart in all things dying. Thanatos is calm and unbothered. He does not itch for blood. He does not split at the seams and feast on the dead. He is calm and collected, almost a mimicry of Charon's sturdiness. She is only a girl hungering for anguish and devastation. She cannot end a life with her own hands. But she can encourage it, and so thoroughly she does.

Charon settles beside her. Water spills over their feet. Why do you split?

Feels better, she says. There is so much inside me. I need to be more to let it out. Her reflection in the river flickers in twain. Mortals think that there are more of her than there are. The Keres, they call her. But she is just Ker. She separates into many, sloughing off her other selves like old skin, and encircles the bloodied crowd. Is it bad?

No, Charon says. Just new.

I like myself, she says. But others don't. It's annoying. She grimaces. I wish I could be better.

You are what you are. With his nail, he scrapes away a fried bloodied mark across her cheek. Do not be disappointed that others cannot handle you. The ones who can are the ones who matter. We all like you. Why do you think we don’t?

Their bodies do not sever in two, in fourths, in tens, in thousands. They do not drag corpses back home to devour because the food on the table is barely edible to them. They do not force disease on those trying to recover from painful wounds, encouraging them to fail, to suffer, to die. Mortals do not recoil with a terrified immediacy they do not understand when her siblings walk by. Even Moros has more to him than the doom he spreads.

She does not.

Maybe I don’t like myself, she considers. It’s hard being this way. There is no one else.

Charon’s arm is comfortable around her shoulders. Affection always feels so fleeting. Though she recognizes that she pulls away. It feels foreign to her as it is given. Out of step with who she is. But she does not pull away. Instead she leans into him and feels the water rush around her feet. It is cool and forgiving. She is hot and merciless.

It’s true. We will not understand you or the viciousness in your heart, Charon tells her. But we are not unsettled by you. You are why battles end. Without pain, without struggle, there would be no need to speak for peace. If all deaths were as calm as falling asleep, then people would keep fighting. But blood spilled, mortals hacked apart, watching your friends suffer beside you, delivering the dead in pieces back to their homes - that is what forces peace.

She tilts her head up and considers his words. I didn’t think of that.

Nobody does, he says. But it is true. Without death, fighting would never end. And without violence, peace would never be wrung. Whether by compromise or submission. He splashes her ankles with water. Eat with us, Ker. We miss you at the table.

The twins and Ker grow and venture far and wide. They sit beside battles and watch quietly. They walk through towns and villages. Hypnos murmurs sleepy words about dreams of freedom in the beaten and belittled. Ker manufactures suffering and bloody ends, horrible spouses and egregious people falling down stairs. Thanatos brings calm to the old and sick.

Charon disappears in the days they are gone. Months go by in search. Eventually, they find him, guided by their mother and father. He is beneath the earth, beneath their feet. They fly over raging waters and approach the god who has employed him.

He is working, Hades says. So, no, he cannot go free right now. But you are welcome to stay.

Oizys and Momus are born next. Erebus coddles them more than she does. But he is in every nook and cranny. He sees distress trapped in locked closets, follows bare feet as they run from screams and swords. The two fight with bitter words. When they come of age, Charon returns to the upper world. The family home welcomes him with a familiar coolness and wisping darkness.

He is a sharp-tongued mediator for the fighting twins and forces them apart with calloused hands and snarling eyes. They always silence themselves when he snaps. They become accommodating to their brother who drags fallen bodies out from the trees and buries them in plots around the home. When he appears, Momus holds back his bitter blaming screams and Oizys keeps tight her welling eyes and breaking heart.

It is under him that they learn to shift. It is not perfect. Momus is reviled by god and mortals alike for his sharp-tongue. He complains about poorly chosen words, critiques every appearance, laughs at sloppy form. It is helpful to some - those who wish to change. Who are unbothered by his mocking tone. But people are more emotional than he cares for. There are several lives lost to his cruel words. Like the two before him, he has no capacity for empathy. He is unable to learn sympathy and compassion is out of reach.

Who cares, is his most common phrase, spoken every time his sister asks him to become softer, gentler.

Oizys is still pain, she is still distress. Her heart still breaks easy and she cries more often than most. But she becomes kinder to herself for her limited emotional range. It is not her fault that this is how she must be. It is not her fault that this is what she has been chosen to represent in the world. Her tears do not make her weak.

Pain is necessary, she says as she wraps the broken bone of a sobbing child. It teaches us not to jump from trees, and where to draw the line with others.

She finds broken men with battles still screaming in their minds. Their bodies are automated. Every movement is meant to survive, to carry on, but their minds hold memories that keep them from being alive. She finds broken women, broken mothers, broken children. She finds those who hold back the tears and smile as though nothing is wrong. Those who need to let go and breathe. Those who need to cry. Who need to admit to the pain they are in, the anguish they have witnessed, the distress coming from the things they have experienced.

When the emotions release, when the pain flows, she crafts suggestions from the wisp of shadows. Run. Confront. Kill. Talk. Change.

Live.

I believe we are trapped in our natures, Charon had said in the bright of day as he dug a deep hole and she held a shattered girl's hand.

Her body was bloodied, slowly creeping towards utter cold. Her eyes had been glassy, unfocused. The world slowly slid from her view. Oizys held her hand to take the pain because certain things should never have been experienced. Not in anyone, but especially not in children this young.

But that doesn't mean we cannot change what our nature means, her wise older brother had said. I take the dead. I don't know why. I just always have. But I chose to do different than just steal them away from their homes. There are dead out there that will never be claimed. I will claim them. I do not need to claim that which dies at home or in a lover's arms. I will claim the left behind, the slaughtered hunter, the forgotten traveler, and I will give them a grave to rest.

Momus had scowled back rude words but Oizys held tighter the young girl's hand and listened hard.

You both can be better. You do not have to be perfect. You do not have to be nice. Moros certainly is not. Ker as well. But you can be and do more than you think of yourselves right now. He laid his shovel to rest on the ground and reached for the slackened girl. There was no life left in her. It had bled all over Oizys lap. There is more to the world than your base instincts, little ones. Yelling that others are at fault and crying from the distress of being screamed at isn't all you have to do. Look inwards. Think. He laid the girl to rest in the grave he dug. I believe in you.

Charon speaks these words to all his siblings. When Nemesis arrives in a flurry of wild black hair, she tracks across the plains of Tartarus, even in her pudgy youth, and declares pain of those she discovers in chains. She leaves the wasteland far later than any of her other siblings, both older and younger. She is endlessly embittered by the faults of mortals. Reluctance to leave their home cloaks her.

Find your order, Charon says. He has lived long, seen and met many. Dike could help. She loves justice, as much as you crave punishment.

Dike is a beauty on earth. Like her father, the crowned king of sky, she embodies order and justice. Humanity is as far as her range extends. But Nemesis can work with that. Social norms become her focus. Convention and custom are her loves. Remaining steady in tradition is gripped tight in her hand. She offers suggestions with a ruthlessness that Dike sighs through each time. Some are accepted easily. Many mortals need to be struck down by their own hubris. But others are argued about between the two.

Humanity and what it entails holds closer to Dike's heart than Nemesis'. She is capable of seeing what her father, her mother, and what Nemesis cannot. A mortal who kills to be free from pain defies convention, but does not deserve the ruthless retribution Nemesis would befit upon a mortal who kills for enjoyment.

Nemesis is always befuddled by her love's explanations. The logic is sound, she understands the point. But it never quite clicks the way it should. But she remembers Charon holding her hands and telling her that she is bound to what the world had decreed upon her, as are the others.

Hemera and Aether do not understand why their siblings prefer the dark. Moros cannot perceive how it is cruel to tell people of the vicious way they will one day die, nor does he understand why it is not appropriate to bury them in so much doom they drown themselves to escape. Ker does not comprehend that others do not feel overwhelming rage. How calm for mortals in the rest of death and sleep is unwanted by their siblings befuddles Thanatos and Hypnos. Why people repress their pain is something Oizys will never comprehend. And Momus will never understand why Olympus banished him from their golden floors for his various criticisms.

None of them ever understood why Charon chose to bury strangers either. They followed when he ventured out and helped him carry back bodies he found. Animals too rotten to eat, people no one came for. They watched as he dug holes. As he wrapped them in clean cloth and buried them. They did not understand why. But they understood that he had to, and so he did.

You punish because you must. People fear punishment because they fear our sister. If she can continue on despite the pain that being feared brings her, I know that you can. They will never understand why you choose the retribution you choose. And you will never understand why they beg for something smaller. But you do not have to. You just assess their point of view. He laughed quietly and squeezed her hands. Or ask Dike to explain it to you.

In the years that follow Nemesis's final departure from the family home, Apate and Dolos spring out from the shadows with mischievous grins. They spread lies and tall tales in their youth. They find villages and scam, decrying potions and balms in replace of medicine. Death abounds. So Charon settles them into the dirt and tells them they can do more than harm.

There is no demand to stop being cruel. After all, Nemesis still jumps to ruthless violence in her ideas for retribution. Momus does not know how to be kind with his words. By nature, Oizys is cruel to mortals. Moros still approaches strangers with a bitter grin and watches them cry in grief and terror from their ensuing fates. But cruel is not all they must be.

The twins sidle alongside Ares, who knows Charon well. Apate guides spies into enemy lines. Acting becomes a passion of hers. After all, what are elaborate performances if not deceit of the audience? Dolos sits on friendly territory and pushes whispered suggestions from the shadows. Make it seem like you are retreating, he sighs into a general's ears. Draw them out into the open with a subtle trap. Surround them. Destroy them.

It is more enjoyable to them than scamming the masses, than telling them silly lies with elaborate words that make them believe in things that don't exist. There is a sense of accomplishment when their side wins the battle, wins the war. There is a sense of pride when Ares pats their heads with his heavy warm hand. They do not follow him everywhere. They want more than war. So they dabble in politics, in petty family squabbles. They still sell scams and spread rumors. But often they draw back to Ares' side with mischievous grins and help his chosen heroes win wars.

Geras is born with wrinkles and frail bones. His skin sags off the muscles that never truly grow. Youth annoys him. Hebe is his sworn enemy long before they ever meet. But Charon holds him as he breathes hard and reminds him of the genius in age.

I was stupid when I was young. I'm older now. Wiser. More mature. He holds his little brother's wizened frame gently. Listen to the stories of the people. Sit with your brother when he visits his dying friends. There is no permanence or perfection in being young. You are a reminder of change, of inevitability, of maturity. I would not be able to tell you this without having lived and grown through so much before me.

Immortals don't age, Geras huffs bitterly. His voice is cracked and gruff, like an older blacksmith who has breathed in too much acrid smoke.

Everyone ages. We simply are not bound by it. Shapeless. Formless. If we want to look young, we can do so. If we want to look strong, we can do so. It is a blessing. He strokes Geras's thin hair. And much like curses, blessings can be taken away.

Geras sighs and sinks into his brother's stable hold. I don't know how to make myself look different.

Then don't, Charon says. You know how, little brother. We all do. But you do not want to look young. It is not who you are.

Then who am I? What am I? Geras cries. I want to be a child, not an ugly old man. I do nothing for the mortals like the others. I don't bring the day, I don't let them know that the end is near and they should prepare. I do not allow them to feel their hurt. I do not enact punishment and I do not win wars. I am just old and tired.

As I said, you are change. People become different over time. They learn and change, they age and grow. And you are inevitable, even to the gods. You are the reason Moros has friends. You are the reason Oizys creates mourning. You are stories told to grandchildren, you are the head of the household, you are the matriarch, you are history. You are a reminder of the end, and you are a goal for the sickly, for the soldiers in battle, for couples so deeply in love. Charon presses his lips dryly to his brother's wrinkled temple. And you are my brother. You have purpose in that alone.

Eris is hardened to the world when she leaves Tartarus. As always, Charon takes leave of the Underworld and guides her hand-in-hand through darkness and grass to the family home. She is a bitter thing. She finds fault in all things. Constant conflict is demanded of her. When he does not fall to her huffing ways, she grows louder and rougher. But Charon has been steady and stable since birth. Her need to sow problems over nothing does not rile him.

Calm down, he says when she slaps food off the table for being too cold, or shouts that he mended her clothes incorrectly. She cannot calm. It is beyond her. Still he holds her shaking hands and guides her down to a seat on the floor. Relax your breathing. Search for what settles you and utilize that.

Like many of the others, Charon brings her to Ares’ side. War does not settle her, not fully. Still, she finds solace in Ares and in Enyo, her preferred companion. Enyo enjoys the bitter sensation of discord, the craft of competition that awakens in Eris’ presence. Eris is no stranger to being cared for despite how she is, but it is odd to see it reflected in the face of someone who is not her family.

They bicker and argue over anything. Eris is always the instigator, but Enyo happily throws the first blow. Hands beat against faces. Blood bleeds into spit on the ground. Bruises bloom against skin. When the fight is done, they grin and breathe and move along. They are often joined by Ker, bringing horror to the soldiers who spot her flying above right before the final blow.

She spreads trouble outside of battle. Apate and Dolos pull her into their lies and trickery. Arguments follow her subtle instigating words. The twins pull strings behind yelling backs. Momus brings blame and she pushes hostility. The ensuing breakdowns are always so fun to watch. Harmony and peace, a sense of calm, does not befit her. But in carefully placed antagonism she finds a settlement, what Charon spoke of with gentle words, and it is enough.

The last to find life on the outside is young Philotes. Her siblings think she is strange. Even from birth, she is unlike any of them. In Tartarus, she befriends monsters, even the cruelest of punished souls. She hugs with abandon, and smiles wider than any of them thought was possible for their faces. She is not sharp-toothed, and she is not mean. She is not relaxed with sturdy sullenness. She is bright and joyful.

Charon does not bury forgotten bodies around her, nor does he hunt creatures as they sleep. Death upsets her. Violence is rejected. Ker and Thanatos find no fault in her eschew of their nature. She does not fault them for being as they are. It is harder with Eris, but only on her side. Trouble and conflict slides off Philotes’ shoulders like rain. It does not make her angry, or have her spit bitter words. Eris finds that vastly annoying. But despite their stark differences, Philotes loves her family without question.

Darkness does not suit her, though she walks through shadows as is her birthright, and does not shy away from the depths below as her companions in the clouds of Olympus do. Making friends is easy for her. She finds her way to the mountaintop from smile to smile, and hug to hug. The Graces adore her joyful nature. Pasithea finds amusement in their traded places - her born of Olympus to descend to the depths, and Philotes born of Tartarus to ascend to the golden skies. She does not join their numbers, but attends to their needs. It is a contented life filled with love, with friends, with good sex.

Charon waits for the call of his mother to let him know that another has joined their ranks but it does not come. He does miss, sometimes, the family home when it was filled with the life of another. He will settle there in his free time. The beds are clean, the pantry clear, cobwebs nonexistent. The passage of time does not encroach upon the home he built for his siblings. It does not rot the stone, nor the cloth. The house remains steady, stable, as he is.

Sometimes he walks down to the river. He will sit in the slow and shallow end under the night sky, feeling shadows wisp at his arms. There is no preference between his old and new homes. The Underworld suits him. Macaria who took him down to the depths and gave him his boat is there, his best friend. Styx rushes by as he floats. They speak casually amongst each other. The world is forever dark in the Underworld. It is cool. It is calm.

While only a few of his siblings live with him among the poplar trees and obsidian stone, the others do visit with annoyed huffs from Hades but nothing else in complaint. They join their mother and father in the heated wasteland of Tartarus. They visit the family home. They did not live there all at once, and they never will. He raised them to be independent, decisive. To be better and do more than they thought they could. Their home was a place to grow, and they have. It is no longer necessary for them. For him.

But it is always nice to walk through familiar doors and find his siblings talking amongst themselves. Lounging on cushions they used to sit on when they were much smaller, much younger. Eating at the table, sneaking bites of each other’s food. Playing the games still left behind on shelves and tables.

He never worried about what it meant to be the oldest made of flesh and bone. When he had followed Macaria down below, he did not mean to leave the three behind. They had ventured out, as Moros did. When days pattered by with no return, he thought they had found their own place in the world. Seeing them standing strong and hard-headed in front of Hades and demanding his return was more than amusing. Warmth cut through his heart.

Ferrying souls is his purpose. Watching the entrance when the Underworld is open is his purpose. It is what he has done from the beginning, carrying corpses home and laying them to rest, finding internal settlement in river water rushing beneath him. He is the ferryman and the gatekeeper. Carrying souls across the rushing river. Keeping eye on the doorway and forcing out those who try to push in without reason.

But as he always said, there is more to them than the base instinct of their nature. Like holding hands with little siblings as he walks them to their home, and guarding them from mortals and monsters and gods who do not understand what beauty exists in the dark.

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happyk44 · 8 months

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Here's how it goes. You are five children in tight quarters. Four of you have never known life without another person by your side. The oldest of you remembers and hates it. It is hot and humid. There's a rock. The rock is pretty nice. You were expecting a sixth kid.

Good to see your mom finally learned something.

You play games together. You have dreams about the world outside the darkness and the tiny light of flame from your oldest sister's fingertip. Then you go up and out. Splattered on the ground in ickiness. Your father is is throwing up and some boy holding a gold plate is standing in front of you with wide eyes. Your youngest sister punches him out the way and you run.

You run and run and run and run until there's nowhere left to go. You get clean from a river. The youngest boy soaks in it deliriously. You are all happy for him. He's found what he dreams of - even if only a small version of it. You pull clothes from a clothesline and get dressed. You cut your long messy hair with knives instead of lowering your head into stomach acid and it is quicker than you've ever known.

It is blisteringly bright outside. You are unfamiliar with light, and distrusting of heat, but it's still pleasant. You can see the trees and the sky and the grass.

The light gives proof you are free.

You hide when the darkness comes. The moon is bright, but you are haunted by years of sitting in pitch black. Is he swallowing you up again? Is the darkness his threat? Your oldest brother doesn't mind the darkness, has never truly been bothered by it, and watches you while you sleep. Your oldest sister builds a fire from branches and leave and the flame on her hand.

You know they will protect you. They are more a mother and father than you have ever known.

You awake and regroup. The boy comes back. His hands are raised above his head and he tells you what he knows. He is your brother, the youngest of you all. He was hidden by your mother. Replaced with a rock so he was not swallowed whole. He is the one that freed you from your father's belly. He wants you to join him, to battle your father, your family, to win and truly be free.

Disbelief hits you first. Then jealousy. Why did he get freedom, and you did not? It does not much approach the older two - your mother could not have known. Swallowed one, but surely he wouldn't swallow two. Swallowed two and set a pattern.

He never should've swallowed three.

It takes a while but you agree, following tensely behind this boy. Your mother sees you and cries. She is so happy. You are not. You do not know this woman. The oldest two do not have parents. The younger three only know the oldest girl and the oldest boy. But you all smile and tell her that you missed her too. You did not. You never knew her. All you know is that she handed you over and let him swallow you, one, two, three, four, five.

Still you stay and prepare to fight.

---

You are the oldest of six teens. Your life did not begin with kindness, but still you are kind. You clean your siblings' wounds from battles fought, and make dinner for them. You listen to their fears and pains and hold them close when they are scared. You fight with fire-laden hands meant for warmth and cooking good soup. You yearn for the day you can run across plains, barefoot and happy, to discover new places, instead of to fight.

Loneliness was a bitter thing when you were born. Alone you sat in darkness until the first boy fell. He was tall for his age, and unnaturally quiet. You found solace in him. A companion. He is your closest friend, the first you seek out.

But now he sits in shadows and sinks into dirt. He hears whispers that no one else can, and brings home pulsing orbs he leaves in his room. None of you can touch them. They pass right through your fingers when you try. When you ask, he tells you that they have been calling to him, asking him to take them home. He tells you that they are still asking for home.

"Where is home?" you ask, afraid of the answer.

"Not here," he says. He looks down to his bare feet and curls his toes into the stone floor. "But I think it's down. Deep down."

The deep down is dark and frightening. You remember it, walking to find allies in your imprisoned uncles. It is different from your father's belly, but encompassing all the same. It is not warm. It is not soft. It is not comforting. It is not home.

But you hold back your protests and squeeze his hand. You are scared of loneliness. It is a cold and empty thing. But you love your brother, and he desires the dark. Your middle brother desires the wet of the ocean, which you cannot stand, and the littlest one wants power and a throne. Your youngest sister will stand by him, creating structure and order and perfectly positioned paintings in the aftermath of this war.

Maybe Demeter, the middle sister who digs her hands deep into dirt and talks to trees and dandelions, will come with you. Surely she will want to travel across plains. Discover new nature. Discover new worlds. Meet new people.

Never to be alone again.

You are the oldest boy, the second born of six children. You have never known loneliness. Not physically. You have always had someone by your side. But they do not understand you. Even in the darkness you knew you were strange. Your dreams did not line up with theirs, covered in shadows and whispers and confinement.

Your older sister holds your hand and you smile, thinking of how she will not come with you to where you must go. It calls to you. It always has. These people that roam may not know about you yet, still worshipping the old gods, the ones who have faded away, but when they fall, it is you they call to. Of course they do. Your predecessor isn't around to take them in anymore.

You have not know quiet in all your years. The sounds of dying and dead never ends. In the night, you go and find them. You bring them back to a quiet hutch and set them down. You are not ready for your post yet - the battle has not been won. But it sits waiting, far beneath your feet.

It is a secret you will tell no one, save for a young girl with flowers in her hair and smile brighter than the stars. You will tell her because she will understand what it meant to be given a name that is not yours. Your mother named you in hope and awe, yet when your sister whispered, "Who are you?", you did not answer. You waited in silence.

And quietly and suddenly, you knew. With brilliant clarity, you knew.

"Hades," you said, and years later, people, both the ones who worship the old gods and the ones who your youngest brother has made out of dirt and clay to know nothing but the six of you and your victories - they will confess to one another, "I am scared of Hades", and they will mean both man and home.

Your family fears the darkness. You oldest sister and the following three knew nothing but the pitch black. They still do not trust it. And your youngest brother shines brightly static yellow light. He gazes upwards to the sky. You gaze down to the depths.

They will not follow you.

But you have a duty to follow, the calls to answer. You are not afraid of the dark, and when the war is over, you will descend and finally feel alive.

You are the third-born of six children, the second girl, the one who should never have been swallowed. You remember the pity on your older siblings' faces when they held you close in the darkness, only illuminated by the flames of your oldest sister's fingertips. The pretty light calmed your crying and fear.

You remember how it felt to escape the castle. To feel the earth beneath your sticky feet. It swells with you. Everything breaths. You talk to plants and they do not answer, although your family thinks they do. But you talk because they are alive. Because they respond. You can feel it in your veins.

Your oldest brother understands. Your second brother does too. But they are so different from you. You don't know how, but you can just tell. Something is different.

People call you Gaea, the earth, and you think, No, that's wrong. You are the earth, but you are not the earth. You are Demeter.

And you are unsure.

You fight militantly. Distance is your friend. You can feel the enemy patter against the ground, feel the way the trees sway and move. When you pull back your bow, your uncle isn't even in your sight. But the arrow lands dead center and he falls.

The arrow splits and wood crests and grows. Roots drag him down. Spilt blood is drank, water consumed. The very air in his lungs his stolen from his chest as he is devoured by your nature. Every nutrient in his body is taken as the roots spread within him and the tree grows.

You are not the earth. No, the earth fuels itself. You are a separate creation. Like your sisters, you think. Your brothers are different. They are limitless. But you, your sisters - you follow rules. A plant needs water and air to grow. You could not force it to grow without it.

It is in your victory do you consider what you will be. Your garden is not pretty. It is practical, important. Each row of plant exists within structure. Too close and one may steal from the other. Too far and they cannot share. Include certain herbs to deter bugs. Till the soil to renew the earth. Do not overwater.

Bury your uncle and let the grain feast.

You are the fourth of six kids. The second boy. The middle child.

Like the ocean, your moods are everchanging. Your oldest brother is the only one who can always quell them. Your youngest brother riles you up too much. It's his fault, you think, when they yell about your fighting. Look at the wind on the sea, how it builds the waves to fight.

You love your oldest sister. Of all your sisters, she is your favourite. She opposes you, warm and calm to your wet and wild, but still she sits with you and soothes your wounds.

Sometimes you worry something is wrong with you. You do not feel pain the way they do. And you are needy. Even more so than the oldest, who was alone for so long until your brother came along. You have known people all your life. Even freed of your father's belly, they have not left your side. And yet you cling. You hold on. They struggle to escape, but you hold them tighter and tighter.

Your older sisters are tactile, but they do not cling the way you do. They do not pull the others in and demand they stay.

Years later you will sit on the rocks and watch as a riptide drags a poor child down and you will understand why you cling.

Your siblings are more elegant than you, more firm, and steady. You run across the earth and struggle to stay upright. It's like your feet were not made for the ground. They fight sharp and deliberate. Each strike is pointed.

You do not fight.

You play.

It's all a game, the whim of the tides. Despite your stocky shape, you are fluid and flexible. Let them run then drag them back. Let them breathe then let them drown. Or spear them viciously. Rip them to shreds. Make them watch the others die in terror, knowing their time will soon come and you do not care how much they beg.

It's your laughter they hear last, booming loud like the crash of the waves in a storm. It's not your fault. You don't know what pity is. You cannot understand it. The ocean does not give life to those who live outside of it. The ocean is salty impure heaviness. Survival must be fought for in the cold and wet.

In the time that comes, when the war is over, you will feel languid and calm for the first time in your life. You all have won. There is no pious uncles, no bitter father to destroy. But soon your oldest brother, the only one who can calm your destructive moods, disappears into shadows and darkness. It appears open and endless to the eye, but you felt the confining walls the day you stepped in.

You do not like confinement.

But the others are still here in the house you've made a home, so you remain a lapping tide. But your littlest brother and sister leave to the mountains and the skies and you cannot follow them that high. Your earthern sister who came just before you leaves for the inland. For pure water wells and settled dirt and people willing to learn. You try to follow but she bats you away in horror and disgust.

You don't know how to handle this. This isn't what is supposed to happen. They are not supposed to leave. You cling to them, and they stay. Their skin grows heavy with your weight and they stop fighting.

They don't leave.

All you have left is the oldest of you all, and you follow her diligently. She tries to still your shifting moods, but it's hard. People get hurt and you cannot care. But she does. She cares so much and you do not understand why. One day you wake up and she is gone. The fire is out, and the people you were with have vanished too. You call out for her and she does not respond.

You scream, angered, that those who were yours have left. They have escaped your wet hands and dried your dew off their skin. They have vanished to places you cannot follow.

They have abandoned you.

You sink into the deep and dark and free and build a new life. Your uncle, a crochety man who did not fight on his brother's side, will tell you it is your time, that the age of Titans has ended, long live the age of the Gods. He will crown you king. The kingdom stands before you, a rule you have never wanted, but now crave. These people belong to the ocean, to you. The water holds them down, gives them life.

They can never leave.

You are the youngest sister, the fifth born. People call you strict and cruel. However, your oceanic brother adores your vengeful nature and watches eagerly as you fight. Blood hits your clothes and you grimace. You prefer when things are clean and neat. Tidiness is important.

Your siblings are all entrenched in nature - fire, death, earth, ocean and sky. But you do not see nature. It is a pretty thing in the background of the picture. Today you are violent, but in the future, you will have more meaning.

Women are not well seen in this world, often ignored unless desired, dismissed and put to the side, unless important. Your brothers stand out too much, and your sisters are too entranced by their nature - the oldest to comfort and give warmth, the second to nature and grain. So you are the one who ventures out to the villages that your enemies peruse. You are the one who blends in with the castle staff, who listens in on war plans, and steals secrets.

You are the one who leads your brother to your father.

You are the one who watches him die.

You know that when the war is over and your time has come, you will be much more than a quiet face ducked down and scurrying across halls. You will do much more than drag men to their knees in the thick of night and make them bleed across your knuckles for disgracing the name of family with their lecherous ways.

In the years that come, you will have a warring son and people will laugh at his bloody ways, assuming he comes from his father, the man who won the war. But you know that he comes from you, blood across your knuckles and carrying battered women safely home.

You are the youngest of six. When you are but a babe, your mother holds you on her knee and tells you of your siblings. In the darkness of your father's belly, you know that they wait for you to rescue you them. You think of them often. You wonder if they know of you. You imagine how grateful they will when you save them.

When you take your first steps your mother hands you a sword. It is bigger than you are and your fist is small and chubby. Still you learn. You train every day. You learn every weapon you can. Your mother visits and reminds you of your duty - save your siblings, destroy your father, inherit the world.

You rarely leave home. It's dangerous, the nymphs say. Be careful, your mother whispers. Tell no one of your truth, the Kouretes demand.

Fear comes crawling in swift and unbearable. Your mother leaves you with texts for your future, so you may be a good and honorable king. The nymphs tell you of your father's nature, so you will not make his mistakes. Every day you train, every day you learn, and every night you stare empty at the cavern ceiling, terror building a home in your head.

What if you fail? What if you cannot win? What if your siblings do not think you should be king? What if you do something wrong and you are overpowered like your father? You reassure yourself every morning. Of course, you will win. Of course, your siblings will believe you to be king. You will be a good and honorable king. Your people will love you. No one will wish to knock you off your throne.

But still every night you fear.

You meet your father in person for the first time, dressed as a lowly cupbearer. He is not as fearsome as you once imagined. He looks normal. Part of you is distressed by this. Your fear eats it up.

Still, confident and sure, you hold out his goblet and watch as he drinks. Your siblings come up, unclothed and covered in grime. They are all pale and horribly thin. Their hair is matted and unclean, chopped strangely at the ends, as if burnt instead of cut.

You prepare to speak, to usher them to safety as your father still vomits behind them. But the tallest girl, taller than you, throws a fist you were not suspecting, and down you go, and off they run.

Chaos ensues. Evasion is easy but still takes time. By the time you are free of the castle and your father's roaring rage, the sun has set. You climb to the top of the mountain you've lived your entire life under and call out to Selene. She rides her chariot across the sky and returns with helpful news.

Your siblings do not trust you. You don't understand. This is nothing like how you planned it to be. The plan was simple: you tell them of yourself, they are grateful and come with you, you prepare them as you have been prepared, and the battle commences. They obey your every word and listen thoughtfully to your plans.

They understand that you are a great leader, and will be a good and honourable king.

But they are not doing what they are supposed to. They are whispering amongst themselves, while the shortest girl hold fire in her hands and the tallest boy keeps a steady eye on you. They are not coming with you. They are not following the plan.

They are not listening.

It takes too much time for them to agree. They meet your mother and seem... strange. Surely, they should be more excited. She has told you about them in deep detail, from every hair on their head to the specific colour of their eyes, to the way they looked when they fell, and the horror she felt for being unable to protect them. She loves them dearly. Why are they standing so stiff in her hold?

Your siblings are nothing like you expected. Every day they continue to ruin the carefully crafted dream you put together. Your brothers are strange and different from you. They don't feel the sky in their lungs, or appreciate the birds. The oldest is too silent and unsettling. He is stronger than you expected, and makes enemies fall to dust beneath his fingertips.

His capabilities terrify you. Your fear eats it up. What if he desires the throne? it whispers. He is the eldest.

I will be the one to kill our father, you argue. I will inherit the throne.

Surely he would be more fit to kill your father, your fear laughs. He is entrenched in death and darkness. You are bright and loud. He will see you coming, but your bother will be a surprise.

Luckily, the oldest seems uninterested in ruling. But the others listen to him in a way they do not listen to you, and it angers you. What if they tell him to take the throne? Would he do it? Would he demand it?

Would he kill you for it?

Your other brother is a nuisance. He doesn't stay within the lines. He is wild and wicked and never listens. You repeat your plans over and over again. Everyone agrees. Then he runs forward, laughing loud and giving away your position each time.

He is vicious and angers easily. A simple disagreement turns into a bloody fight in a minute. Then he laughs it off, easygoing and calm, before clinging to your back like an octopus. It is baffling and bizarre. The others shrug and tell you he has always been like this. You cannot understand.

Your sisters are better. Although the youngest argues with you on everything. When your plans fail, she cuts in and creates a new one. Days pass, plans fail, and suddenly she stands tall and demanding, telling you that you are wrong. Her plans work. It makes you bitter.

You have planned and plotted for this war since the day you could walk. You know that your plans can win this battle. It is not your fault that your siblings do not listen.

But you grit your teeth and accept her assistance. She's rigid and off-putting sometimes. But she's pretty in the early moonlight. Fascinating when she's focused. Sometimes you feel you are the same - order, neatness, structure.

Justice.

You follow her once and watch her threaten a wealthy man for forcing his young wife to acknowledge his concubine's children as proper heirs and care for them as her own. You do not know which upsets her more - the concubine or the husband's actions. But you feel warm when she drops him to his knees and threatens to return if he does not make it right.

Truthfully you don't understand what she sees so wrong about the situation. But the fire in her voice and the fearful trembling of her victim invigorates you nonetheless.

The second-born sister is better behaved, albeit more stubborn. Still you get along fairly well. You do not understand her fascination with bread. You understand she starved for many years, but... it's just bread.

The oldest of you all is most soothing. But when she stills the fights that break out, she does not default to your opinion. She wants to hear everyone, both sides of the argument and witnesses. Even when the nautical one is involved, despite the fight nearly always being his fault. It is not your fault he doesn't listen and must be corrected every time.

She tries to relax you in your frustrations, but you do not understand her conviction to hear everyone out. And you do not understand it when she tells you you were wrong.

You do not understand many things about your siblings.

You begin to fear you do not understand many things about the world.

Still you win. Your father is defeated by your very hands. You cut him into pieces and box them up to bury across the plains of Tartarus. Even if he escapes, he will have many long years to piece himself back together. And even if he manages that, he will have no chance of escaping Tartarus.

You retire to the home you have made with your siblings in these last few years of war and it is strange. There is nothing on the horizon, no impeding responsibility to look towards. Your destiny has ended. The crown on your head feels too heavy. You hold it in your hands and stare at the glistening metal. Your reflection is warped and distorted.

You don't know what to think.

Is this how your father felt, you wonder. Did he destroy his father and take his crown only to find it felt too heavy and he could not see his face in the glistening metal? Did he feel hollow and strange inside? Did he not understand the world either? Is that what made him cruel?

You place the crown aside and dispell those thoughts. You are not your father. You are better than him, greater than him. His defeat by your hand proves that.

Careful, your fear laughs at the back of your mind. Your father likely thought that too.

#did i spend approximately 3 and a half hours writing this?? yes #am i super tired?? yes #have i forgotten to feed the cats and turtles bc i was hell bent on getting this out?? yes #am i gonna go back and check for errors?? NO FUCKING WAY IM DONE #anyway #happy talks greek mythos #my writing #my fanfic #zeus #hades #demeter #hera #hestia #poseidon #kisses kisses kisses #my original work

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