When her light shines into existence, sprung from the aperture of her mother's womb and given life by beloved and dreaded Chaos, Rhea knows who she is:
The blood of Gaia, Earth-mother, and starry Ouranos the sky-lord. She is as beautiful as her namesake suggests, born with only two legs, two arms, two eyes, and the powers deserving of a Titaness – much to her mother's relief. Rhea, of course, is too young, too new, to know why anything else is such a danger.
But she is quick to learn.
In the days she waddles across the earth – Gaia's hovering hand to guide her – Rhea meets her sire. Ouranos sits amongst the silver clouds, fists clenched, face as blank as stone. He must study all new additions to the world he so meticulously keeps in line and Rhea is no exception.
His eyes are not kind and she knows immediately that he does not care for her.
Gaia does.
"Too much," says her elder sister, Phoebe, when a few years have passed and young Rhea has grown more. She is to be taken away to be raised on Othrys – a mountain so far in the distance Rhea would need to sit upon her father's lap to even catch a glimpse of it.
"Othrys," her mother spits back. "I suppose you control it now with Koios. But, in a decade, you will lose your seat, only for Krios to claim it back. Or Iapetus. Or Hyperion."
She should be doomed to the same fate of warring Titans attempting to reclaim a desolate pile of rock; Ouranos above it all, laughing at such a spectacle.
"She is too gentle for war," Gaia affirms in her boundless wisdom. "I will raise her alone. You have no need of her."
And so Phoebe leaves with empty hands.
And so Rhea stays.
Gaia tells her there is no reason to leave this place. The Earth Mother's nomadic ways have been put to rest – they have everything they need in the plains, she says. Rhea, of course, agrees. She doesn't yet know any better.
Rhea looks out to the blue pond at the center of her territory. She marks the hills towards the west and sea to the east, signifying its limits. Rhea finds herself resigned to it – this is the parcel of land she has been given and the parcel on which she will remain.
Centuries pass and she will refuse to think beyond it. She has no reason to.
Rhea was born on a midsummer's day, wailing beneath the slaving sun. And beneath the sun she can always be found, lounging on beds of wildflowers. Even her faithful lions distance themselves from their Titaness to find shelter at this time of day, unable to tolerate the heat. The same can be said of any other immortal beings frolicking around the grassy plains, as she is more than sure Hyperion would revel in setting anyone's skin to burn.
But this is her home and the heat is like a blanket, a comfort that even Gaia's womb had never provided.
Mother.
Rhea bolts upright. She stares at the sky, unable to judge quite how much time has passed. Time here either crawls at a leisurely pace or sprints at breakneck speeds. The air though, she realizes now, is too still for her liking. She can hear not one creature rustle for miles.
Rhea knows what that means.
She runs, a gazelle zipping through the grass. The wind rips through her hair, rocks cut at the soles of her feet. Yet she continues still, never slowing until she can spot her thatched home in the distance.
Rhea hesitates when it comes into view. Unnatural dust clouds swarm about the abode expertly crafted of thorny vines and mudbrick – a hobble compared to the grand fortresses her sisters occupy. The silence weighs heavily on her. Every nerve in her body screams at her to run away.
A crash comes from inside and Rhea dives for the door, throwing it open with a slam. But she goes no farther than that, a god blocking her entrance. A god with ashen skin, dressed in flaming robes and rattling bone armor. His eyes – a molten silver – burn holes in the girl's skull. He is no ordinary god, only hellfire made flesh.
She collapses at his feet. Her wailing drifts towards the merciless heavens unheard. Something in his eyes suggests that he would smile. Otherwise, emotionless, he steps over and sweeps out the door, nothing but a shadow.
Gaia does not take long to find her.
"Rhea, you know not to look at him!" She gathers her in her arms as any mother would but the Primordial's face darkens in a manner unbecoming of such. "But you never do listen, you stupid girl. I told you to stay by the pond."
Rhea's eyes linger on the gray mottled around her mother's neck, suspiciously in the shape of a hand. "He always comes after you fight with father," she musters out through gritted teeth. Her fists clench into Gaia's already tattered skirts. "He leeches onto your pain. Stop opening your legs for him. Stop feeding him."
"Stop questioning me," Gaia sneers all the same as she pulls Rhea to her feet. The girl recoils, arms tucked in tight to her chest.
Gaia's chagrin does not relent. "You're only a baby. What do you know of Chaos, the abyss? Of darkness and loneliness, of tireless work in bringing everything into Creation? You know nothing, girl. Absolutely nothing." She shakes her head and her gaze drifts to the open door. "Neither does your father. He wasn't there either, none of you lot of fools were. But Tartarus was. And so Tartarus will forever remain by my side, whether I want him there or not."
"If you cannot stomach fools cast me aside then," she says boldly and with no consequence. "But we both know you never will."
Two pairs of narrowed green eyes meet each other head-on. Gaia remains silent.
"You do it because you never want to be lonely again," Rhea continues. "Know that I can so easily choose to leave. Know that I can leave you here to rot."
Gaia slaps her hard enough to shake the earth around them. Rhea blinks, feeling her tears welling up but wills them not to fall.
The earth goddess takes a menacing step forward, her final blow yet undelivered. "Little Rhea fancies herself a woman now, does she? Yet I know a baby's words when I hear them. Just what I expect from you. But if you want to go? Go then."
The girl turns on her heels, bolting through the door once more just as her mother shouts, "You're bound to come back! You always do."
She doesn't get very far. Rhea passes the pond just as a black reptile slithers before her feet, tripping her in one fluid motion. She crashes into a bed of rocks, skinning her knees. The girl doesn't even bother to wipe away the ichor leaking out. Grabbing clumps of broken stones, she flings it in its direction. But the basilisk is long gone by then.
The girl groans, face towards the sky. Perhaps she imagines her lofty sire up there, hair black as the night and sky-blue eyes radiating a frigidness Rhea has never quite known. Perhaps he's watching her now, laughing at her.
"You can try praying to him but he'll never answer."
She snaps her head towards the sound of a man's voice, stumbling back in her haste. Not once has a visitor come to these fields without seeking Gaia's permission first and she cannot understand what this means.
Rhea pauses.
He is more boy than man, she corrects. His proud, smooth jaw is the testament to his youth. He lacks the trimmed beards of her Titan brothers.
But he is a Titan.
Rhea can feel it in her bones. He fails to exude the frightening yet weary aura of a Primordial like Tartarus or Ouranos. Yet he is powerful all the same – a little recognizable flicker that calls out to her very own.
He sits back in the knee-high grass, garbed in a dark yet lightweight tunic that leaves little to the imagination. She would think him Ouranos with his warrior's chest and regal face; his hair is dark enough and his skin fair enough, as well. But his eyes…
Gold.
Like the ichor running through her veins.
He speaks again in that voice: a deep timbre, quiet, inquisitive. But laced with a darkness Rhea herself cannot yet fathom.
"I never knew I had another sister." The look in his eyes, however, suggests more than mere curiosity.
"Nor I." Her own voice trembles. "A brother that is. But it is rare that Gaia allows me to leave."
"A shame. I would never forget a pretty face like yours."
Fool, Rhea chides herself. You studied him for too long. She stands, hiding her clammy hands behind her back. "I must head back. Before mother worries."
A lie. One he sniffs right away.
Kronos makes no move to get up. "Do you really want to go back there?" says he, flashing a lazy yet knowing grin.
She finds herself leaning in this time, not away. Her own question seems to burn right through her: just how much does he know?
He speaks again before she can respond. "Stay a little longer, let me drink in your radiance a bit more. This is an opportunity I will not waste."
"You don't even know my name," she snaps.
"Do you know mine?"
"No. Should I?"
"Perhaps," he muses, "someday I may very well be a well-endowed lord."
It is her turn to smirk. "Careful, or our brothers may very well catch wind of such treacherous words."
Isolated but not ignorant. Oceanus is the eldest of the Titans, his domains encompassing the seas encircling their homeland. The land remains split between their four warring brothers: Koios to the north, Krios to the south, Iapetus to the east, and Hyperion to the west. There is no room for any other and they will not take kindly to a young, undisciplined immortal seeking his own rule.
His eyes only darken at the sight of her feline expression. "Smart girl." She wavers a bit, fearing she has made him more enamored. "Your name?"
The Titaness chews on the inside of her lip before responding. "Rhea."
"Like the flow of a river. Tranquil on the surface – a good deception for the current underneath."
A current, yes, she nearly tells him. But you can neither see its depth nor magnitude. "And what do I call you, brother?"
A gentle wind flows in from the east, coaxing a shiver despite the sun beating down on them. His silence holds for what seems like an eternity, a much longer pause than her own.
"Kronos."
Rhea cannot recall the last time Sky and Earth joined. They must have reunited once before, when she could hardly walk and Gaia had sent her to the sky palace of noble Aether and graceful Hemera.
Though the progeny of the sky-father, Rhea had never felt at peace amongst the heavenly clouds. It was the Earth she longed for, having never been separated from Gaia's breast until that moment.
But Hemera had laid a gentle hand on Rhea's tear-stricken face, telling of Gaia's predicament in bringing forth a new babe. It was then that little Rhea feared being replaced, trapped in the heavens forever, until Hemera offered her assurances.
No one could ever replace you.
And it must have been true, for upon her return, this babe Hemera had spoken of was gone with the wind, leaving no trace of its existence.
"When will I meet her?" Rhea had asked while being scooped up into her mother's arms.
Gaia, in her wisdom, had already known what the girl was alluding to. "He is fortunate to have passed Ouranos's test. Theia came to take him away."
Her eyebrows furrowed. "Did I pass the test?"
And Gaia had laughed at her. "Yes, little one. But you are here because you are very special to me."
Rhea had been pleased with that answer and she hadn't spared her new Titan brother a second thought.
Until now: golden eyes that haunt her dreams, the first of many. And, after a night of poor sleep, she is far from content sitting at her mother's side outside their hobble.
"It's easy," Gaia insists, the wind flowing through her black tresses, her golden hand worming through freshly tilled soil.
"There is no point to this exercise," the young Titaness utters in her frustration. She has no time for these lessons that bore her, not when she can be out in the fields running wild and free away from her mother's hovering gaze. "I cannot do all the things that you can. Best to leave at that."
"And I have no need for your abilities to surpass my own, Rhea," her mother soothes, though her stern tone is only a breath away, ready to reprimand at a moment's notice. "Do not make such a comparison. Otherwise, you will always be doomed to fail. So long as you are competent in mastering the little gifts I gave you, that is enough."
Rhea rolls her eyes. "I suppose you want me to try again."
"Again."
She starts, slowly this time, touching her fingers to her lips. The Titaness heaves a gentle sigh, taking from the reservoir of magic beneath her flesh, so much of it still so untouchable and locked away within, and breathing it into her palm. It swirls, sparks, volatile and untamable. Just like her.
Just like me.
Rhea worms her fingers into the dirt again, eyes shut.
"Good," says Gaia. "Focus. Feel the world – feel me – beneath you. I will always be there, ever permanent."
She hardly listens, her mother's voice as distant as the wind. Her essence descends, searching, searching…
Found.
With all her might, she heaves her claws back to the surface. Glittering crystals burst forth from the ground.
Rhea beams. "There. Are we done?"
Gaia's eyes shimmer. For a moment, Rhea thinks it might be a mother's pride that she sees, certainly a rare sight from the Earth Mother. But it disappears when she looks to the sky.
At the sound of Gaia's short intake of breath, Rhea follows her mother's gaze to the horizon beyond. Thin clouds swirl – a mixture of red and gray – into a funnel formation, reaching out towards the earth.
"What is it?"
It takes Rhea a moment to realize the strange formation moving across the landscape – getting closer.
"Ouranos."
Gently, she touches her mother's shoulder. "I don't understand. Is he angry with you?"
Gaia purses her lips, eyes still on the wild horizon. "Your lesson for today is over." She stands and helps Rhea to her feet. "You must leave and I must… prepare."
"For?"
The goddess opens her mouth as if to answer but quickly decides against it. "Go," she says finally.
Still, Rhea lingers, confused and a bit hurt at being left out on the plains. Even though she had desired such a thing but moments ago. "Where?"
"Far," is her mother's only answer before the door closes on her.
The funnel grows closer. Rhea's jaw clenches at the sight. With arms crossed, she heads towards it, though aware it was Gaia's intention to have her run in the opposite direction.
Her heart thunders in her chest as she grows near. Not even a half-mile off and the wind whips through her hair, sends it flying.
Inside the funnel, the clouds thicken and a face appears. Though formless, lacking in definition, it seems familiar. She has seen him in her own noble features, small details she couldn't quite place until now.
Ouranos.
Without warning, the hem of her skirt lifts off the ground. Rhea pushes it down as quickly as she can. But, before she can wonder if it was his intention, the face of her father disappears back into the center of the whirlwind.
Skin crawling, Rhea finally sprints towards the pond. She curses out her frustration, her exhaustion.
"I would not think such words befitting a lady such as yourself."
The Titaness slowly turns her head to find Kronos seated by the lakebed. She cannot say she is excited to see him, but at least there will be a witness if the Sky-father comes for her. It isn't a true comfort for Rhea – Ouranos can do whatever he wants and he is rarely deterred once his mind is set on something – but it is the only one that can be mustered up on such short notice.
"You again." She purses her lips. "Does mother know that you're here?"
"Contrary to what you may think, Gaia does not make it a habit to keep an eye on her children. We are too far and too numerous." The full weight of his gaze settles on her. "She rather put most of her attention on you. Though I would not blame her."
Her cheeks burn and she loathes him for it. "Why are you here?"
"The Earth whispers to me."
Rhea scoffs before Kronos can elaborate. A superstitious fool. Of course, she has never doubted her mother's prophetic powers before, having heard them from Gaia's very own mouth on more than one occasion. But she was never one to breathe in sulfurous smoke from volcanic vents in the ground in an attempt to perform her very own palm reading.
His eyes narrow. "And why are you here? Why be out here all on your own without our mother in-toe? From what I gather, you seem distressed when she is not in the vicinity."
"She would not tell me," Rhea answers, too perplexed to be offended by her brother's last statement. "Something about… Ouranos. About preparing for his arrival."
His eyes shutter with realization. "I see."
Rhea kneels, leaning in closer to him. Her voice softens. "I don't…"
A smile tugs at his lips. "The Sky yearns to embrace his woman, the Earth Mother," he says slowly, as if it should be apparent. "It is very clear why she did not want you around for that."
Her eyes widen and her embarrassment is far more apparent than before. Little fool, in more ways than one. "I—"
"The maiden of the Phrygian plains," he cuts her off with a chuckle. Kronos leans back to survey her. "She is a true maiden after all."
Rhea finds it difficult to look at him when he says this. Her eyes take to the sky instead – now having faded into hues of orange as the sun dips below the horizon at a leisurely pace, purple clouds creeping forth as Nyx comes to set the world to rest. All of it a rare sight to behold.
"It's beautiful in a way," she admits with cheeks still flushed. "Hyperion and Helios can take their time now that father is… occupied."
Kronos says nothing further, but she can feel his stare.
And so Earth and Sky join once more. And once, as Gaia had told her long ago upon Rhea's first flowering, is all it takes.
It is not long before Gaia's belly swells with new life. And, though it is Gaia who will be a mother once again, it is Rhea who finds herself reinvigorated.
She volunteers to perform the errands in the Primordial's stead: traveling along time-worn routes to spring up trees and flowers, gathering ingredients for spells, teleporting to Theia or Phoebe's domains bearing messages. The tasks vary by day, but the nights do not.
Rhea returns by nightfall, taxed by her travels but determined to keep to her ritual. Gaia remains in bed, having spent most of the day at rest, though her hands continue to weave new creations into existence.
Rhea sits by her side, her hands creeping to her mother's stomach to feel the lively movements of her unborn sibling. The life within always seems so eager to greet her.
"Why I send you so far and wide," Gaia muses. "It's never so active when you are gone."
Rhea only smiles. "Perhaps he likes me more."
"Perhaps." Gaia raises a brow. "He?"
She nods, confident in her reveal. "Watch."
Her mother hums, but no argument comes. This is the most peace the two have had in years. "I fear that when you become a mother you will put the rest of us to shame."
Rhea holds Gaia's gaze. "When he comes do not send me away. I would be by your side."
"Little Rhea fancies herself a woman now." Her words lack their bitter edge compared to the last time Rhea heard them. "Very well."
She makes good on her vow.
The labor lasts for three days and three nights, with Gaia's bloodletting screams just as relentless.
The Earth trembles all around them. Rhea keeps a hand on her mother's belly, while her eyes remain glued to the widening space between her mother's thighs. The ichor flows in waves and Rhea remains mildly horrified until a hand greets her.
And another.
And another.
And then a dozen more at least.
With one last groan, the babe slips out from between Gaia's bloody thighs and Rhea catches him. The ichor stains her hands and his stormy cries are deafening, but the girl doesn't care. Even past all the limbs and heads she only sees perfection.
She turns back to Gaia. "You did it, mother. A boy."
The goddess chuckles as she lies back down into the mat. "We did it, Rhea."
She watches her mother for the rest of the day – listens to her as well – as Gaia shows Rhea how the babe is nursed, and soothed, and held, and coddled. She listens as her mother tells her stories of Rhea as a babe, so incredibly demanding but sweet.
"I shall name him Briares," Gaia says after a time, when the promise of sleep has dulled their speech and already claimed Rhea's new brother.
"Briares," the Titaness nods, her own body growing heavy. Finally realizing that she has not rested for days. But, on this rare occasion, she feels at peace. Almost as if whatever trouble that had once brewed between her and Gaia has now been mended.
But a peace not destined to last.
It takes only a day for Gaia to weaken. She stays close to the bed, never moving more than a few steps and only to grab a hold of Briares. But there comes a point where even that proves too difficult and Gaia cannot stand at all.
A nervous Rhea flutters around the home like a hummingbird. "The weather outside is strange today, mother," she says in the doorway of their home, the entrance cracked to catch a peek of the world beyond these thin walls. Her brother lies cradled in her arms, still dozing.
Her mother says nothing, her eyes already half-closed.
"The sky is black," she continues, attempting to ease the constant waves of anxiety plaguing her in the face of Gaia's strange affliction. "It's too early for Erebus and Nyx to ascend. Phoebe has yet to stir the moon to action."
"Get inside. Stay close," the goddess murmurs, sickness slurring her words together.
More dutiful than normal, Rhea shuts the door, her frown a permanent fixture on her face. "Is something wrong?"
Her eyelids flutter as she tries to sit up. "The blackened sky – it is Ouranos's decree." Her mother lets out a little moan of pain. "The babe is not to his standards."
The test. He has not passed the test.
"What does that mean?" She skitters to Gaia's side, placing a free hand on her forehead. "Mother, you're burning."
The goddess tries to slap her hand away but her arm falls without warning, lacking in energy. "He gives me the fever. Ensures I cannot fight back," she sneers, though having since lost her bite. "Do not fight him, Rhea. For your sake and mine."
"Who—"
The door cracks open, straight down the middle. Rhea screams and her fright is not entirely unfounded. Stepping through the threshold, his gaze still as terrible as from the day of their last meeting, comes Tartarus.
"Why is he here?" she retorts, throwing herself back against the furthest wall. "Why has he come back?"
Gaia offers no response.
The dark Primordial cranes his head at the hundred-handed child.
"No," she blurts out. Rhea cradles the baby on her hip, her clawed hand outstretched and pulsing with a golden light. "No, I won't let you!"
In the timespan of a blink, Tartarus appears before her suddenly and grabs her wrist. Hellfire made flesh. The contact singes her to the bone and Briares is torn away before she can retaliate. Her brother screeches. His hundred arms flail, hands grasping for Rhea, for Gaia, but to no avail. Without giving any thought to self-preservation, she dives at Tartarus.
A single point of his finger stops Rhea in her tracks. The walking void finally sets his withering glare upon her.
Rhea's bloodcurdling screams cut through the plains for miles, loud enough that even Ouranos must finally hear her. This is the worse than the last time, she thinks before the pain reaches a point where words are beyond her. It has to be worse.
Her body trembles as if caught in its own earthquake. The air in her lungs turns to sulfur and she chokes on her own screams.
Gaia vaults up from her bed. "Tartarus, please!" She falls to his feet – not that would have had the strength to stand otherwise – and clenches at his scorching robes. "Spare her, please," she begs and Rhea has never seen someone as resilient as the Earth Mother brought so low. "Do what you came here to do and be gone!"
His hand lowers and the convulsions cease.
Gaia collects Rhea in her arms and weeps. "I'm sorry. I should've sent you away," she whispers. "I'm sorry."
Tartarus steals one last thing before parting ways with them: a single tear dripping down the goddess's cheek.
Just as he dematerializes, Rhea sits up, gasping. "The child, mother. Briares."
Gaia shuts her eyes in frustration, clenched fist pressed against her chest as if she knows her next words will go unheard. "Rhea. Don't."
She stumbles out from their hobble, away from the goddess, her mind a fog of pain. She hardly registers her mother crying after her.
At one-point, Rhea must have collapsed because, in the next second, she finds herself on all fours, unable to move, screaming for Tartarus. For Briares.
Rhea climbs to her feet again, clings to whatever strength she has buried deep down, and runs. She cannot be sure where to: Tartarus is no longer in her line of sight and she herself has never journeyed to the Underworld.
But I have to try.
She does not get far when a boom sounds across the nighttime sky. A load drops into the plains before her and she throws her hands up to shield her eyes from the dust kicked up in its wake.
"Rhea," says a familiar voice. Hands wrap around her forearms. "Don't go any farther."
Kronos.
Her head whirls, still stinging. "Tartarus. If he returns to—"
"Let him be," he says, his voice firm. "Follow them, try to interfere, and Ouranos will brand you as a traitor. That's even if you can outsmart dreadful Tartarus. Either path ends with you burning in the Pit alongside them."
"I care not!" she hisses, struggling against him. "Unhand me!"
"Don't be foolish. Gaia would not want this; it is why she sent me running after you," he speaks quickly, though his explanation does nothing to placate her. "You will stay," Kronos snaps finally.
She bristles. "And who are you to decide what I do? A coward."
He jaw clenches. "Rhea…"
"Only a coward would do nothing. You sit by as a brother of yours—" she, of course, doesn't miss the small sneer that permeates his lips in suggesting their relation to the hundred-handed child "—is taken by that thing on the orders of our sire. That I cannot forgive."
The anger fades and a wall goes up, cloaked at first with an emotion she does not recognize. "What would you have me do, little one?"
"Anything but stare at me with…" Rhea conflates a little, her voice dipping into barely more than a whisper. "With pity."
Kronos shakes his head. "You should not love them. To be loved is not their fate."
And yet I will all the same, she wants to tell him, but the words stick in her throat. She falls to her knees, her arms wrapped around her chest so that every reverberation of a sob she can feel it twice-fold. To wallow in that pain – exactly as Tartarus would want.
Kronos kneels before her and she is not sure why she finds comfort in this. Rhea feels his fingers lightly tap the edge of her jaw, signaling her to look at him. "Be at mother's side. Soothe her loss with your return before she rips this world apart at the seams."
Rhea does not have to energy to be ashamed of the tears lining her eyes. "She would be right to do so."
"Soothing her anger does not mean she will forget." He leans in to whisper in her ear. "The child was not the first to be banished to the Pit. Noble blood or otherwise. But, perhaps, he will be the last."
Rhea has never seen Gaia with Kronos. Nor has she seen him in her home, and perhaps for good reason.
She keeps her eyes averted, her attention drawn to avoid Gaia's wrath. She decides to mend the holes in her gowns – no matter how small – in an effort to keep herself busy. None of it helps as Rhea feels his eyes glued to her every move.
Rhea muzzles the part of herself that wishes to scream at him to leave, that she has not forgiven him for Briares's abduction and he has no right to be near her let alone look at her ever again. But the sane voice in her head reminds her that he is Gaia's guest. Though for what purpose, she cannot say.
He is not the only one who comes.
It is Iapetus first. He must be her eldest brother, Rhea thinks, for he is so large. Large enough to grab her by the skull and crack it open like a nut. But he pays her no mind – he brushes past her without greeting, following Gaia into the next room far away from nosy Titan girls – and for that Rhea is grateful.
He leaves all the same.
It is only the beginning of the stream of visitors:
Oceanus comes next and also ignores her. Then Hyperion, who looks at her with such clinical curiosity it is as if he is trying to picture how she might look set aflame. Koios she finds the opposite; his visit must be the shortest of them all but the goose flesh rises up and down her arms for several hours later. Krios follows, his glinting black eyes sparkling with a hunger she has never seen before. To be quenched by no food, no water on Gaia's earth. It is a look that makes her cheeks warm and guts tighten.
She cannot run away fast enough, despite the piles of quartz sprouting within her home. Gaia always leaves behind quartz when she's scheming, her elder sister, Theia, once told her. Whatever these schemes are, Rhea is clearly not privy to them.
None of her brothers ever return to her home, save Kronos.
Sometimes he arrives too soon for mother to notice, her gaze on the blue sky with too much trepidation. And sometimes she forgets Rhea seated in the corner tending to flowers, in her room counting lions' teeth.
But Kronos never forgets. No matter how many words are whispered in his ear by Gaia, no matter how many times Rhea moves and tries to ignore him, his gaze tracks her. The foreign flames that ignite within her are perhaps a hundred times worse than whatever Hyperion might have had in mind.
Though she is a fool to assume Gaia never notices their behavior.
"Why does Kronos look at you as if you're the answer to all of his problems?" Gaia asks her one night when Rhea has set herself to growing moonlace just outside their entrance. "I do hope your maidenhood is still intact."
She rips her hand free from the dirt, color rising in her cheeks. "My maidenhood is none of your concern," she retorts. "Who am I to keep him from staring? Who am I to know what foolish thoughts are floating about in his imagination?"
Gaia only hums. A spire of glowing metal punches straight through the topsoil, startling Rhea. It reeks of the Earth's core.
"What is that for?" she asks but isn't at all surprised to meet Gaia's glare.
"None of your concern," her mother affirms. "Tend to your flowers and tend to your lions. If Kronos decides to start staring again, make yourself scarce. We have business to attend to and I need him focused."
"It's not my fault!"
"I never said it was, yet my words still stand."
Gaia returns inside, remaining there for what seems like ages. Day and night, she spares not even a glance Rhea's way, hunched over the unknown metal pulled from the ground, melting it, molding it.
So many weeks pass that Rhea has difficulty keep count. Until one morning the metal is gone. She prays it's a sign that her life will finally return to normal.
Before the dawn even rises, Gaia orders her to vacate the house. Rhea protests, of course, but her mother becomes more insistent than usual.
The air remains unremorsefully frigid. She has time to see the sunrise now but, still, Rhea can't help but fume by the shimmering water of the pond.
She finds sunrise unusually beautiful this morning – as if caught in the throes of passion. With a blush blooming on her sun-kissed skin, Rhea knows the meaning of her mother's request to leave so soon.
Ouranos's arrival.
And, if Rhea knows her sire well enough, her presence could very well spark his short temper. Best to not be caught in the crossfire again this time. She can smell the crackling ozone from here, knowing it must be stronger under the roof where her father lusts for her mother. Surely an affair to avoid at all costs.
An indignant scream – no, roar – quickly banishes those thoughts into oblivion. Rhea jumps to her feet when she senses something wrong. The birds crowing in the field for their morning meal sense it too and they take flight, wings beating furiously as they flee.
She turns towards the direction of Gaia's home and three things happen in that moment: deafening thunder crackles across the cloudless sky, the horizon turns a frightening shade of red, and a sudden, terrible gust of wind makes her fall.
In the chaos, she screams for her mother. Rhea claws her way back to her feet, eyes barely open as the dirt and leaves whip through the air. The wind blows hard enough to peel skin off bone.
And then nothing.
The wind stops, as does the thunder. Only the sky does not change.
Rhea runs, knowing something terrible has happened. Panic, however, leaves no time for speculation.
She slams face-first into what seems like a statue. Strong hands steady her.
Not a statue.
Kronos stands before her, black garments painted with ichor. Ichor, she realizes, that is not his own. From behind him – straight from her and Gaia's abode – wild cheering erupts.
"What did you do?" she retorts, unable to peel her eyes from the ichor splatter. "What did you do!?"
"What I had to," Kronos responds. He doesn't let go of Rhea, not even as she attempts to reel away.
Blinking rapidly, she says, rather sharply, "What are you doing?"
Kronos begins to walk and she still does not comprehend at first, her mind oddly blank.
"I struck a deal with Gaia," he says with the utmost calm. Rhea digs her feet into the ground but he remains unperturbed. "All the moons I spent in your home, it was for one purpose only. Kill Ouranos in exchange for our sire's crown… and you."
Her heart plummets into her stomach. "What?"
The first half of his statement Rhea alone can barely process: Her father? Gone just like that? She never cared for Ouranos, no, but the idea of him falling to Kronos's blade is frightening in and of itself. Especially when this same man has her in his grasp.
In exchange for our sire's crown…and you.
She shrieks, "No! Let me go kinslayer."
Kronos shrugs. "Suit yourself." Before she knows it, he picks her up like a doll, throwing her over his shoulder.
"What are you doing?!" The scream becomes stuck in her throat. "For the love of Chaos, I am no toy!"
"No, you are not," he agrees simply. "You will be a queen."
"Queen of what? Your bed?"
"Amongst other things," he remarks.
Her panic surges and sours. Rhea does the only thing she can do in a moment like this: she bites him.
Her teeth sink home; Kronos throws her down quickly, eager to be rid of her. The young Titaness lands on her ass. She scrambles back, refusing to take her eyes off of him.
His own gaze narrows. "Gods be good, you truly are a wild creature."
"And you a brute," she spits as he comes to kneel before her. She shakes from anger, a raging lion still. "But how could I expect anything else after what you've done?"
Kronos only laughs, outstretching his hand to brush against her burning cheek. Perhaps it is a day of the unexpected because Rhea most certainly does not expect him to kiss her.
Her initial instinct is to freeze but anger burns through her, boiling her blood. Even more so when Rhea finds his hand prodding her breast through her silk tunic.
She slaps his face, hard, just as Gaia might have taught her. But, of course, it only makes him laugh harder this time.
"Get away from me," Rhea seethes, but she knows his grasp is too firm. But before her thoughts can stray elsewhere, Kronos's penetrating gaze consumes her every thought.
"I am patient when it suits me," he says, the humor having vanished. His tongue swipes at his bottom lip and, to her shame, Rhea cannot help but stare. "I will take my time with you, sweet Rhea. I will let you play your games – deny me all you want, though it is well within my rights to take you here and now."
"Without prior consent, my right is to loosen a tooth of yours at the attempt," she threatens, though they both know her words ring hollow. She could do next to nothing to stop him and now she knows no one will come to her aid. Not even Gaia.
"Even so," he says with eyes half-lidded. "Our fates are tied. You cannot change that."