I was wrong as it turned out. Dead wrong. By midday no one dared go out of
doors, and some were even beginning to say that the gods demanded a humann
sacrifice. If there is one thing the immortals are set against, it is human
sacrifice. So I didn't even think about what I was going to do when I
slipped out the back. I was going to stop the destruction. Some way or
another.
Once I was actually outside, it was all I could do to gape a bit. Twelve main gods, almost countless minor gods, and the winds. That's a lot of pandemonium in about six hours. That was about when I got seriously ticked off at my relatives. So what if you happen to rule creation! It doesn't give you the right to trample all over it when ever you feel like it. At that inopertune time I came into my power.
So I stopped time. I didn't notice until I saw a tree uprooted by Boreas, the North Wind. It was just hanging there in midair, stripped of all leaves. That wasn't that unusual a sight considering this sort of thing had been happening all day, but I became seriously confused when I was walking under said tree and felt absolutely no wind. Hesitantly, I reached out and touched one of the tumbling leaves hanging in midair. I felt like I had stepped into a painting or a tapestry depicting the might of the gods. But in tapestries leaves did not move. As soon as I brushed a finger against it, it trembled and fell to the damp ground. I went over to one of the outbuildings still standing, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. Sliding to the ground, I leaned my back against the rough boards and tried to gather myself. After a minute, I was pretty sure I knew what had happened, and as I began to grasp the possibilities a smile spread over my face.
I could go to any time in history I wanted to! I could change the outcome of wars, I could meet Hercules and Orpheus, I could watch the early wars of the gods and the Titans! But then my smile faded. I knew what I wanted to do. But before then I had to learn control. I spent who knows how long in that suspended time. I went back to when that town was one small house on a hill. Then I practiced making more specific jumps, narrowing it down from a century.... to a decade... to a year... to a month... then a day. The first few practices of jumps drained me to the point where I sometimes collapsed. And things went wrong often those first few tries. Once I almost was killed in the burning of a city. Another time I narrowly escaped being buried in a mudslide. But I kept pushing myself until I could jump a hundred days back and forth in a row without anything more than a mild headache. It was like moving an appendage I had never known I had before. And still I worked, because I knew of a huge wrong that only I had the power to set right. It would result in the undoing of my very creation, but it would serve the Earth and it would serve the Olympians.
Then I was ready. I had grown in that time, despite never really being in one spot. I was about eleven years old I think. Eleven on the outside, but on the inside I was fully a god for the first time in my life. I had it planned out perfectly. I went to exactly a week before that day, and walked into a village by a fateful field calling myself a swineherd. I used some gold I had left to buy a herd of pigs. I got out of there fast, before any questions could be asked as to why there was a swineherd with no pigs to begin with. I spent the rest of the day pacing the field, trying to figure out exactly where I needed to be the next afternoon.
When she ran in, I was ready. My mother looked so much younger than she did when I saw her. So... happy. And young. Zeus, I looked almost exactly like her. Crud. I had practiced traveling in time, but had figured out how to do almost nothing in changing my appearance other than dimming the radiance ogf the gods that was not only a dead giveaway, but could blind mortals. I panicked, and tried to change my appearance in a hurry. I ended up being rather tall, around fifteen with straight blond hair instead of my usual black. I had wasted precious time, and had to race to the chasm my father opened. I reached the edge of the chasm just as he grabbed my mother. I was too late to do anything, and I cried. Not because of the pigs that had fallen into the Underworld as the legends say of me, but because seeing the expression of shock and pure terror on my mother's face, too much like my own, snapped something inside me. What would happen to me if I stopped my own birth?
But if I did then there would be no winter. No one would starve as Demeter searched for her daughter, and there would be no grief. I had failed to stop the actual kidnapping, but I still could tell Demeter where her Persephone had gone and speed up the events that had led to her forcing Zeus to command Hades to give his niece back. There was only one problem. Even though I asked the rivers and the sun, no one could find her. Though the evidence of her search was everywhere. It was in the dying fields and the crackle of parched leaves. It was in the eyes of the people and all the ribs showing on the children. And it hurt me somehow. I could have stopped it. But in the end Demeter found me. And so I of course told my grandmother who had taken his daughter. But I was too late, and it still haunts me. Mother was of course condemned to stay with my father, and if you wish to hear what happened to her sould down there read the legends. It pains me too much to tell of it here.
At my failure I had no time to go to but where I had begun from. With a bitter heart I looked at the old destruction, so fresh. And all my fault. I raged at myself. At the world, but most of all at my family. This I could still stop. And with all my raw anger I gave Time what can onmly be described as a vicious yank, not even knowing where I was going. I suppose it's a good thing I landed where I did. Right on Mount Olympus, where the gods and goddesses of the panthenon were holding council of my recently learned of disappearance and resolving to search Greece until I was found. They must have been quite shocked to see the topic of the discussion pop out of nowhere into the middle of the court. I actually narrowly missed landing in the eternal fire. At the time I noticed none of this, only that here were the people I was most angry at. So I started screaming at them. Pent up rage and invective and intolerance. When I had run out of breath and unprintables, there was a horrible ringing silence. I stood there under the scrutiny of the Olympians, and that was when I realized just how stupid I was. I had just cursed out the most powerful creatures in the universe. For something I then realized had not been done yet.
Once I was actually outside, it was all I could do to gape a bit. Twelve main gods, almost countless minor gods, and the winds. That's a lot of pandemonium in about six hours. That was about when I got seriously ticked off at my relatives. So what if you happen to rule creation! It doesn't give you the right to trample all over it when ever you feel like it. At that inopertune time I came into my power.
So I stopped time. I didn't notice until I saw a tree uprooted by Boreas, the North Wind. It was just hanging there in midair, stripped of all leaves. That wasn't that unusual a sight considering this sort of thing had been happening all day, but I became seriously confused when I was walking under said tree and felt absolutely no wind. Hesitantly, I reached out and touched one of the tumbling leaves hanging in midair. I felt like I had stepped into a painting or a tapestry depicting the might of the gods. But in tapestries leaves did not move. As soon as I brushed a finger against it, it trembled and fell to the damp ground. I went over to one of the outbuildings still standing, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. Sliding to the ground, I leaned my back against the rough boards and tried to gather myself. After a minute, I was pretty sure I knew what had happened, and as I began to grasp the possibilities a smile spread over my face.
I could go to any time in history I wanted to! I could change the outcome of wars, I could meet Hercules and Orpheus, I could watch the early wars of the gods and the Titans! But then my smile faded. I knew what I wanted to do. But before then I had to learn control. I spent who knows how long in that suspended time. I went back to when that town was one small house on a hill. Then I practiced making more specific jumps, narrowing it down from a century.... to a decade... to a year... to a month... then a day. The first few practices of jumps drained me to the point where I sometimes collapsed. And things went wrong often those first few tries. Once I almost was killed in the burning of a city. Another time I narrowly escaped being buried in a mudslide. But I kept pushing myself until I could jump a hundred days back and forth in a row without anything more than a mild headache. It was like moving an appendage I had never known I had before. And still I worked, because I knew of a huge wrong that only I had the power to set right. It would result in the undoing of my very creation, but it would serve the Earth and it would serve the Olympians.
Then I was ready. I had grown in that time, despite never really being in one spot. I was about eleven years old I think. Eleven on the outside, but on the inside I was fully a god for the first time in my life. I had it planned out perfectly. I went to exactly a week before that day, and walked into a village by a fateful field calling myself a swineherd. I used some gold I had left to buy a herd of pigs. I got out of there fast, before any questions could be asked as to why there was a swineherd with no pigs to begin with. I spent the rest of the day pacing the field, trying to figure out exactly where I needed to be the next afternoon.
When she ran in, I was ready. My mother looked so much younger than she did when I saw her. So... happy. And young. Zeus, I looked almost exactly like her. Crud. I had practiced traveling in time, but had figured out how to do almost nothing in changing my appearance other than dimming the radiance ogf the gods that was not only a dead giveaway, but could blind mortals. I panicked, and tried to change my appearance in a hurry. I ended up being rather tall, around fifteen with straight blond hair instead of my usual black. I had wasted precious time, and had to race to the chasm my father opened. I reached the edge of the chasm just as he grabbed my mother. I was too late to do anything, and I cried. Not because of the pigs that had fallen into the Underworld as the legends say of me, but because seeing the expression of shock and pure terror on my mother's face, too much like my own, snapped something inside me. What would happen to me if I stopped my own birth?
But if I did then there would be no winter. No one would starve as Demeter searched for her daughter, and there would be no grief. I had failed to stop the actual kidnapping, but I still could tell Demeter where her Persephone had gone and speed up the events that had led to her forcing Zeus to command Hades to give his niece back. There was only one problem. Even though I asked the rivers and the sun, no one could find her. Though the evidence of her search was everywhere. It was in the dying fields and the crackle of parched leaves. It was in the eyes of the people and all the ribs showing on the children. And it hurt me somehow. I could have stopped it. But in the end Demeter found me. And so I of course told my grandmother who had taken his daughter. But I was too late, and it still haunts me. Mother was of course condemned to stay with my father, and if you wish to hear what happened to her sould down there read the legends. It pains me too much to tell of it here.
At my failure I had no time to go to but where I had begun from. With a bitter heart I looked at the old destruction, so fresh. And all my fault. I raged at myself. At the world, but most of all at my family. This I could still stop. And with all my raw anger I gave Time what can onmly be described as a vicious yank, not even knowing where I was going. I suppose it's a good thing I landed where I did. Right on Mount Olympus, where the gods and goddesses of the panthenon were holding council of my recently learned of disappearance and resolving to search Greece until I was found. They must have been quite shocked to see the topic of the discussion pop out of nowhere into the middle of the court. I actually narrowly missed landing in the eternal fire. At the time I noticed none of this, only that here were the people I was most angry at. So I started screaming at them. Pent up rage and invective and intolerance. When I had run out of breath and unprintables, there was a horrible ringing silence. I stood there under the scrutiny of the Olympians, and that was when I realized just how stupid I was. I had just cursed out the most powerful creatures in the universe. For something I then realized had not been done yet.