"And then came the day, unlike any other... in a place hidden by time and space. When the Fated pushed against the strings of fate. The sea. The storm. The bull. The owl. The sun. The oracle. The shadow. The archer. The thief. The herald. The harvester. The psychopompos.
To fight foes that no simple demigod could withstand: time-controlling conquerors, cursed soldiers, jotuns of earth, and masters of evil. The Fated vanquished them all. And finally, when the world was at peace, the heroes built lives of their own.
The sea and the owl fell in love as did the bull and herald. The shadow found his light and the thief stole the heart of the harvester. The storm became a gentle breeze as the sun embraced her in her entirety.
And one by one, the children of the Fated came to be... Children who would one day become a new generation of heroes.
But for now, evil lurked within the darkness. The Titan King and the Crone wanted nothing less than the destruction of the Olympians and all that opposed them. But the Fated stood in their way. Thankfully, their defeat was inevitable.
And as the Fated stood victorious at the hearth of Olympus, they smiled at the world before them and the world smiled back. Because they knew that hope survives best at the hearth."
The words were sickening if he was being honest. The little nursery rhyme that plagued his mind like the song of a siren luring him to his death.
As if there were any truth to the words. The Fated? Please, they were fated to die. Kronos and Hekate would place the world back into the hands of its rightful ruler.
He'd make sure of it. It wasn't like the world could get any worse. It was disgusting how the world seemingly believed that the gods were the better rulers. Look at them now, hiding behind masks as the world destroys itself.
If they stop hiding, then their precious Pan wouldn't have faded away. If they stopped hiding, they'd be stronger than what they were. They made it so laughingly easy to push against the so-called Fated. How could they win a war with such weak warriors?
Did they think that the demi-titans would fight for their cause? Look at how they treated them. As if they were gum at the bottom of their shoes. As if they were scum. As if their lives did not matter in the silence. They treated them as if they were a mere disease. Forced them to hate a part of themselves for reasons out of their control.
And Chiron did nothing about it. "Blind" to all the disparity between them all. As if he couldn't see. He was suspicious of them also. It's why he forced them to live in the academia dorms instead of cabins. But even he couldn't have all the blame placed at his feet.
There were, after all, no cabins for their parents to place them. And Hermes as the jack of all trades, the god of travels, the most welcoming of them all... his children turned their backs on them. Turning their nose up at them, rain slurs down on their beings... "stranglers and freeloaders", they taunted them.
Why would they fight for the Fated? Why would they fight for Olympus? Why would they fight for them when the people born of their image treated them like this?
An entire kingdom had been built and hidden by magick, infused by the power of the primordials and the olympians and the essence of the Fated themselves, just for their precious children to grow old. They gave them special training at the sea, attempting to chip away at the spell he and the others infused into the very air of their precious little camp.
They spoke of unity and being better than the generations before them. They spoke of being a family, but how— how could any of them be a family when most of the demi titans' loved ones were trapped in prisons. The fair lady, Calypso, supported her father and she was punished. How could they be a family when they were trapped in a prison themselves? And what was their crime? Being born?
And what was their plan to raise them as child soldiers to kill and slaughter their own family? What kind of family was that?
No, it was better to hand the reins back over to Kronos. Let him raze the world to the ground and renew it back to the Golden Age. It was better to give it back to someone that didn't hide behind false claims of love.
He could feel his anger growing within himself as he looked over the stupid camp. Locked away into his dorm room awaiting the lunch bell... another difference between the children of titans and gods. He ate the academia's canteen while they feasted in a dining hall.
Even when the strange visitors from Castellan came by with their offerings of change and unity, they were still placed under severe scrutiny. The demigods didn't want to get too close to them whenever they practiced. Staring at them in suspicion whenever they showed any skill with the powers they were born with.
The people from Castellan thought they were being oh so helpful, yet whenever they left back to their nice and safe kingdom... the facades dropped and it was a never ending cycle. Not that he particularly cared as he and the few siblings that they managed to "save" continuously wove their spell around them all.
Saved because the gods were cruel and he knew that the ones his mother did not save were burned at the stake as if it were the reemergence of the salem witch trials. Just as usual for the gods to punish innocents for something that they might do. They may have the god of oracles in their throne room, but they could not see that they were falling into self-fulfilling prophecy. They would be their own downfall and he would have a front seat.
He knew that it would not be without their struggles as that godforsaken nursery rhyme suggested. The mysterious Fated ones were strong. But—The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap. A single choice shall end his days. Olympus to preserve or raze. The children from Castellan were interesting, especially those born from the eldest gods. There were only two. The daughter of Zeus had taken one step into land and the entire camp shook. She fell to the ground unseeing and unconscious. King Zeus, himself, had emerged from the heavens.
He and his siblings could admit to being intimidated by the sight of him. Gone were the golden locks that he was stated to bear in the days of the beginning... instead his hair was dark as the stormy sky itself. Every step he made a boom of thunder sounded in his wake. His eyes were made of pure lightning before it settled into an almost calming sky blue.
This was power.
The king of kings.
This was a monster.
The jailer of the world itself.
He spared them no glance as he took his daughter into his arms before ascending back to the heavens. The only thing that was left in their place was a small pine tree. The others couldn't feel it, but he was magick in itself. The tree formed a barrier around the camp. He was slightly surprised to see that it included the demi titans before the realization struck him.
Zeus probably thought that they had something to do with his daughter's form. He was punishing them. Caging them in to destroy whomever he believed to be the assaulter. He couldn't fool them. And strangely, the ones from Castellan had not seemed too bothered.
It was almost enough to consider bringing them in except–they were to leave and go as they pleased. Back to this safe place where they had family and friends. Yet here they were slaves to the gods' so-called mercy being kept under lock and key. It would grant none of them any favors when they raze the world to the ground and recreate it in Kronos' image.
How could they believe that they were happy here? It was as if they were all clones of Atlas, holding the world that Olympians fashioned the world to be on their backs. Being thrown scraps like they were mere animals.
How could they claim to be uniting them when he and his siblings could not train with their mages? Not that they would... they needed no one to learn their magical signatures and realize it was they that created the airborne spell. They were only thankful that the dryads, druids, and satyrs were much too afraid to be near them to check.
And yet for all his complaining... he could not deny that only one truly tried to include them in everything. One that was originally from their camp and not from Castellan. His eyes tracked her across the yard as Persia skipped towards the dining hall.
She would be a perfect contender to get their plan rolling.
Persia was not as bubbly and naïve as many people would claim. She knew that it was better to be underestimated. Her mother was the goddess of deep waves. Most didn't pay attention to how dangerous that could be until they were stuck in her grasps.
It was so laughingly easy to fool anyone that laid eyes on her. It's how she found more secrets than what she knew to do with. She knew that the queen of castellan was rumored to have an affair with Apollo and Hermes. She knew that her children weren't actually her kids despite them living inside of Grandfather and Grandmother's cabins. She knew that her younger cousin Percy had a crush on about half the camp.
She definitely knew that the people from Castellan hated the camp.
From their first day there, they had looked and scowled at everything around them. She at first thought it was because the child of Zeus had fainted when she made it. But she learned from her Uncle Triton and placed many hearing bubbles into the air. They hated what the camp represented.
They wanted to change them, but Persia did not understand why. They were perfectly fine as is. Though maybe it was because of the relations between the demigods and demi- titans. Persia didn't understand what the problem was though it may have something to do with the simple fact that she was born during a time where the discourse between the two were okay?
There was, after all, still animosity between the land-dwellers and the sea-born. She got called fish face on more than one occasion. But the people of Castellan were worried about something else. Worried of retaliation that would follow.
Did they believe that the demi-titans were going to chop them up and swallow them whole? It didn't seem like it. They hated whenever someone scathingly stated that to any of them.
In a way they were like a beacon of hope. Like the nursery rhyme about the Fated that the sirens used to sing so long ago. She doubted that they were. They behaved like fools. No... they pretended that they were older and wiser but she could sense that they were out of their depth.
Especially her aunt and uncle... they looked at her as if she were a ghost.. As if she didn't see the features she and her aunt shared. As if she didn't already have to suffer such looks from those at sea. As if her face was not the reason that her mother changed her name in the first place.
She had been free of her mysterious aunt's shadow only to be thrown right back in. Gods above, why couldn't people just see her as she was. It was almost like the demi-titans worried about what she could do instead worrying about who she was. She and her aunt were different. She knew it to be true. Persia was the sea while her aunt was the storm.
She hated it so much.
[And when they eventually came to her, she accepted their proposal with open arms.]