Prelude
The war had been long, and many aspects of human nature had been destroyed. Millions of humans had died, in all lands of the earth. But they could not concern themselves with mortal concerns now. Zeus had forbidden it. The mortals would live, as they always had.
How thier uncles had escaped was anyone's guess, but they had. The very pits of Tartarus could not hold the monstrous Titans. But that was long ago. Dreams of the past had long plagued his deep slumber. As had the words of Zeus just before he had slept. We must slumber, or the mortal world shall surely be no more than a battlefield for Immotals. Let us sleep, Brothers and Sisters. Let the mortals live thier short empty lives without us.
Or course, many of the Olympians had vehemently opposed this, but Zeus' word was law. He had the support of few, but they were undeniably the strongest of the gods. His brother Hades, fatigued from the millions of deaths he had to manage, had already been almost asleep. His sister Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth, had also agreed, for the sake of humanity. And the last to agree had been Athena. And her decisions were never contested.
So he slept, with his two brothers, and his three sisters, and his eight nieces and nephews. The other gods, nymphs, satyrs, naiads, and other nature spirits had already been either so weakened they were nearly dead, or were sleeping off the war. They had thought the world better off without them, without Immortal wars. Zeus had said that this one was the last. So they slept.
In hindsight, they would have thrown themselves into Tartarus before leaving the mortal world for good.
Flashes. Explosions, sounds so loud any mortal within three leagues would die from them. Pain, great pain, then relief as his body healed. He saw the war again, through new eyes, seeing all of his mistakes. The death of his favorite son, Althes, and his wife's great loss. She had wept so much, the ocean had nearly flooded all of Athens.
He shifted uncomfortably in his sleep. The dreams had never stopped. Even in sleep, though, he was a god. He felt the passing of time. More than four thousand years. Almost nothing for a god, but far more than a lifetime. He knew the Titans, all of them, had been killed. Or, at least, thier mortal bodies had been.
Many millenia before the war, in the Second Immortal War, the god Hades had stumbled across the most dangerous weapon even created. Or, he had discovered a new use. The clawed hooks he used to rip away mortal souls, could of course be used on gods. But Gods had immortal souls, and could not fade. But Athena then had the idea that would change Immortality forever.
Could not an immortal soul be removed? Without thier souls, the Titans would be little more than mortals to them. And so they had used her plan. They had met on the battlefield, and the Titan Coeus had been captured. Hades ripped his soul from his body, and sealed it in his weapon of power. His great staff now housed his immortal soul. His body, which was immortal, could never be destroyed. So it was locked deep under Mount Olympus.
But the other Titans quickly adapted to this curse, and used it on many of the younger gods. First fell Dionysus, then Hermes, then Artemis. The war continued for many years, and all of the younger gods fell, thier souls locked in thier weapons of power. Only the six elder gods and goddesses, the sons and daughters of Kronos, we still standing. The Lord of time was nearly alone, with only his brothers Oceanus and Hyperion still standing.
The last battle was cruel. The goddesses kept Oceanus and Hyperion busy while Zeus, Posiedon and Hades defeated their mighty father. But in the battle, hades and zeus both lost thier souls. Hera and Demeter were likewise ended. But Oceanus still stood. They fought on, and Hestia fell quickly. Then, with thier last breaths, Oceanus and Posiedon locked each other away in the same manner. The gods and Titans were no more.
Or so they all thought. In thier weapons, thier souls lived on. But they were soon aware of a release. Thier children, mortals concieved by thier power, could use thier weapons. They found them, and when they touched thier mighty parents weapons of power, thier mortal souls melded with those of their parents. They became gods.
And so did the Titans. They rose again, and the Last War had raged for several millenia, before they had all either died, or they slept.
And as they slept, they dreamed of the world they had left behind. They lost all semblance of life. They cared not in thier dreams of the dangers mortals could pose to their kingdoms in thier absence. And they slept restlessly, unaware of the evil the mortals had sown.