CRONOS has escaped.


"Have you known how yet?"

"No..."

"Time is running, Zeus. We cannot waste any more."

"I've tried."

"It is only treachery that let him out of the gallows."

"Even if it were, I do not know who would have."


"What now? Another harvest has passed, another year."


"Zeus..."

"I will do it."

"...you can't."

"Hush those tears. I have to. It is only the way."

"It will put us quicker to the ashes."

"We can buy the time."

"...Zeus."

"It is the only way..."

"...it is insane."

"This world has been insane, it is into us if we will be corrupted as well."

"We shouldn't have done it..."

"Do not blame yourself. It was I that led us into this..."

"You are mad. He is a brute."

"Your worries will kill you, Hera."

"It will if you put him on the void that you leave!"

"He is the only choice."

Hera wailed, anxiety passionate on her face. She gripped on the hair behind her ears and rocked back and forth, her knees not leaving the carpeted floor.

Zeus looked on to the salmon sky. He was worn down with the familiar stress. His goddess wife had become invisible behind him. There was nothing more he could say that would console her. She had become soft and soiled in agony and it was him that fed her to those monsters. Time, indeed, was lapsing. He recalled the misty words like a song that goes about his head:

From your banquet of betrayal I saved a morsel of your own dish...yes, for you to taste.

He needed to vanish to the dust. He needed to die.


It broke him to see her. Athena was a passionate one, she is the jewel to his crown, and he loves her as the love he bore for a daughter. And here she is, made up with a smile on her lips and adoration on her eyes that hid the depression lurking beneath.

"Father," she bent to kiss his brow. He kissed her cheek and she perched on the side of his bed.

"You look lovely," Zeus said. She had always been a beautiful one. Not as golden as Aphrodite, but she had silver in her eyes that glittered like seashells, muddy brown hair that luster like copper and fire in daytime, and full lips like petal folds and dimples on each cheek. Athena was fit for a diadem than any other diety. She was forged from steel and stone and molded with a flower gardener's hand, she is a warrior and a fairy enigmatically fused in one shell.

She looked away, towards the balcony that displayed the setting sun and spewed a color of burning coals. Apollo was near to returning.

"You should see the clouds, father. They're much more lovely."

"Oh they are,"

"You're not looking at them."

"But I know they are,"

Athena sighed and looked down. "You called for me,"

"I did. You know why." He gave her the glassy stare that dissipated her inch by inch.

But her lips dripped avarice. "It will not happen."

"Athena," Zeus covered his feeble hand on hers. She flinched. "It must."

Her stomach coiled as if venom spurned and she revolted. Immediately she snapped and stood at the balcony. "You are madder by the day."

"I am dying, Athena."

She turned to him, fierce as the goddess she is and eyes burning, "You only need to bend the knee and all this will cease."

And so it hit him. She does not understand the order of it all. She was yet a child, a child said to be loyal to her duties and innocent to the falseness of this world.

"Bend the knee, father," she suppressed the pain that breaks her every time she laid eyes on him now sick on his death bed.

"You denounce your throne, put a devil on your stead and for what? The night you laid the laurels on his head, he has not even bothered to gratify you! Laid nectar and ambrosia on the table and forced all to be merry while you lay here like a corpse." She broke in tears, "I endured it, father. We all have. He is careless and hateful, and no one loves him. Only he knows where his whoring leads him, his warmongering, his..."

Zeus could only hear on, closing his eyes.

Athena sniffed after a bitter sob and straightened her stance. "And now you are bidding me to be his queen."

"You are the most fit." Zeus' voice was small.

"I might slit his throat,"

"Do that and you've doomed us all."

She choked back tears and anger in a gulp.

"Athena..." Zeus pleaded, "your wisdom leads you thinking I am true. If not you would not be despaired."

"There are others." She bit her lower lip, "Aphrodite, his bitch. They've had children."

"He needs a queen, my child. Not a muse. Queens will lead their husbands when they go astray. They fight for their Kings. They remind their kings of their duties. Muses are weak, and stupid. They merely flaunt their beauty and sleep and drink with their Kings and do not care whether their husbands are ill. Ares is ill."

"Let him die of the illness."

Zeus fell silent.

Athena gripped on the railings of the balcony. Joy had abandoned her and laid her on a bed of a viper. "This is too much."

Father stilled, unspoken and hapless. He rested his eyes and called off all hope. "Be it as you wish, my child. I am tired."

The goddess looked at him and very sight of him crumpled her face. She walked towards the bed and squeezed herself on her father's side. Taking his hand, she achingly embraced it on her neck, her shoulders trembled in pangs and eyes oozed with tears. "Have I been disobedient, father? Are you punishing me?"

A tear slipped from Zeus' fading sky eyes. "Oh Athena, oh how you doubt me..." he spread his fingers on her cheek. "You know how much I love you, child. You know it. I am not punishing you...I am trusting you. You are all that's left to rule with your brother and lead him to our salvation—your salvation. Oh daughter," he moved both hands to pull her into his chest and she curled by his side, her slippers not minded to be removed as it touched the sheets. "It has to be him, child, you know why."

Athena nodded. Ares was the legitimate son. Zeus had hundreds of sons, and it happened his only son with his queen acted more of a bastard than his bastard brothers.

"And he, you said so, is displeasing."

"He is a worm." Athena spoke bitterly, her voice muffled by the cloth on her father's chest.

"And the birds are about to peck on him, child. We will not have that." Zeus continued, squeezing on her arm. She trembled. "He will hold Olympus to sort these plagues. And he will not—cannot—do this alone. He needs guidance. He needs you."

"He needs my cunt and my belly, the rest of me will be thrown to his dogs."

He kissed her forehead, almost smiling. "Will you let that happen, sweetling?"

She shook her head. "Why can't we have more time, father?"

"I am now the time, sweet one."

She tightened her embrace on Father.

"And I am fading. I have failed you. I have put this on you, and this is redemption."

"You are a good king," she sniffed, "but I hate your womanizing. You should stop that. Perhaps it will save you.

Both chuckled. He was smiling now. He was always amused of her daughter's bluntness.

"The good does not always prevail, child. Not in a place where evil feeds. Cronos—my father—has cursed me with this illness. I am thankful he has not materialized yet, or else I would not have survived his blow. We fought him, his escape. You know that." Father recalled. "That day I felt his hurt and ire for our betrayal—his children's betrayal. Bestowing me his mercy as his son, he did not kill me. But he dealt with me. And you know it all."

Again she broke into tears and thought of centuries of memory she would never go back to. Oh mercy! She prayed for the first time, and innocent of whom to. She would have broken that vow, she was willing if it were for Olympus, but oh gods...oh gods no...she thought of whom to be subjective with and her stomach coiled with nothing but feisty ire.

The dark scarlet eyes that bore the weight of blood, the sacrilegious mouth, the love for harlotry. He was plain evil: sitting on her...their...father's throne and licking the blood off his favorite dagger.

Gods be damned!


athenares

would love to read your thoughts

xx