The previous chapter and this one were supposed to be one but was too exhausted last time to write more. Hope the dialogue isn't weird. Wrote this listening to this song on repeat: https/youtu.be/v2hjr6gpQZk
He found his father on a Californian mortal Beach at the surface world. The Lord of the Oceans had switched from a mature god to the form of a young adult just entering their twenties. From his head until his head sprouted luscious curly hair.
The sky over them was dark and moody. The sea that could be seen from where they were were wild and raging showcasing the true feelings of their master Poseidon.
His father had noticed his presence but hadn't said anything. They stayed both of them in silence contemplating the world around them, a world built on suffering and cruelty.
"We made all of this" his father said finally breaking the silence his gaze lost in something that Triton couldn't see.
He continued" We created a world kinder, more beautiful than when we found it and yet in moments like those, I wonder if he shouldn't have been destroyed since the beginning".
The god finally turned his attention toward Triton. His eyes had changed Triton thought. Mortals had a quote saying that the eyes were the windows of the soul and that through them, you could discern somebody's true nature.
They were wrong on most things but not on that. Even when not in their divine, their true forms, the eyes of a divinity could show their true nature. It was the reason why even demigods were shown most of the time something that they could understand be it a colour or a pattern that they could understand or almost understand.
His father had inherited the eyes of his mother that also inherited hers from her mother, the earth itself. The Olympians may have inherited their cruelty and pettiness from their fathers but what made them dangerous was the fact that they were Rhea's children.
He had once asked his mother what did she fell in love with his father and she had answered by the fact that he had beautiful maddening eyes.
Watching his father in the eyes had always been difficult. It had always felt as if a nail was being forced into his brain. Not something debilitating but something unpleasant.
Now, looking at his eyes, it felt worse than before. He felt as if a jackhammer was hitting his skull again and again and again. More than that, he could hear whispers, their words unintelligible but oh so grating.
It reminded him of the past when a young Triton had looked his mother in her eyes and had even though he was a god lost consciousness for six days.
It felt like that but lesser. His father was changing, becoming something else which should have been normally impossible for a god except that this was what was happening.
Triton downed his sight from his father's eyes.
He could feel the elder god's gaze on him as if dissecting him, watching everything that made him to the atom.
The god sighed and turned his gaze away from Triton to watch the horizon." I'm sorry" the king of Atlantis said to his heir.
Triton stayed still like a statue. His father would have normally never done such a thing.
" For what?" Triton asked.
"For allowing the murderer of Pallas to go away when he should have paid for what he did" the sea god spoke.
Thoughts of confusion and hatred bloomed in Triton making him really feel since the end of the first olympiomachy a true emotion.
"Do you know that my father hadn't swallowed me at my birth? It's what the myths say when it's not the truth." Poseidon told his child changing the direction of the conversation.
"What are you talking about?" The conversation had taken a direction Triton didn't expect.
" My mother is before all a goddess of motherhood. It's in her nature to be a mother and mothers be it with humans, simple animals, monsters and even Gods protect their children". Poseidon grabbed a fistful of sand in the right hair and threw It in the air where it began to spin before beginning to take the shape of a woman.
Triton had never met her before but just by seeing her knew who it was. She was a beautiful woman Trifon had to admit. She had the royal and proud face shape of Hera, emanating from her even if it wasn't truly her kindness like Hestia. She also had given to the lord of the dead her eyebrows and to Zeus her hair. The eyes that she had were perfect replicas of those of his father.
His lord father continued" My mother loved us all but she was also the Goddess of the earth and nature and nature, the world itself had never been kind to differences".
"We were born something unfamiliar, new. We were born more than our predecessor's Titans. Kronos after dethroning his father had been prophesied by the daughters of Ananke to be a victim of the same fate" The god laughed "and here we were, newborn divinities already as strong as the most powerful titans".
"Our father saw in his eyes not his children but the cause of his doom and because of that hated us from the beginning. The wise titan king that was respected, and loved that had ushered a golden age had fallen into the grips of fear and paranoia".
The first figure that Triton knew of Rhea was joined by another with golden eyes.
"The Titans had been strong," his father said" but they were the weakest children of their mother Gaia with Ouranos, the sky. Their father saw them as disappointing things but didn't throw them in Tartarus because he at least wasn't also scared by their powers and strength like with the elder Cyclops or the Hecantoncheires".
Triton continued to listen attentively. After all, his father if not never rarely ever talked of the before of Olympus. What the god was telling him were things most Gods didn't know unless they were high enough in the hierarchy made by Olympus or they were part of those events.
"Gaia loved her children more than anything" the god narrated" She couldn't accept to be with somebody even if she was also their mother that could hurt her children so she left and would found comfort and her tears dried by the upper air itself. They would together make one child".
The sand figurine of Rhea had now exposed from her back tendrils of green light." this child will be called Rhea and her parents made sure that she inherited from each of them almost everything".
"Primordials are to gods what we are to mortals his father said while pointing to foolhardy humans with boards of wood trying to ride the waves produced by the wild ocean.
"How could the titan Triton even with a weapon gifted by their mother be able to reach and hurt The sky itself?" the sea lord asked him.
Mortals going against Gods even minor ones Triton thought always ended by one thing, by the demise or punishment of the mortal. The only way for a mortal to fight a divinity and even have a slight chance to win was either being of divine descent themselves and/or" having the help of a divine being" Triton whispered.
"Bingo," the god said. "The one that helped the Titans at the request of her mother was Rhea. Rhea was the only reason why the Titans hadn't had all their essences dispersed all over the world.
"My father," the Olympian continued "had never been the strongest or the wisest of his siblings. What made him stand off from his brethren was his cunning. He saw the power of my mother and knew that with it, no one would dare to go against him".
"It sounds a lot similar with..." the sea prince stopped his sentence. His father that had appeared calm all this time was gone. The mask had been broken and left bare before the world the hatred and madness of his father.
The god was now standing and tempestuous winds were blowing. The mortals that were riding the wave had lost control and fallen into the raging ocean trying to not drown. His hair behind was blowing in the wind like a demented beast. Triton had forgotten for a moment that the god he was talking to was one renowned for his changing and mercurial moods.
Triton took a step back. The God may have never directly hurt him even after the Olympiomachy but he looked as if he would this time.
Triton readied himself for a possible attack. Poseidon looked as if he wanted to tear him in many pieces but something stopped him. maybe it was his sanity regaining him or for another reason, the God calmed himself and sat back on the sand.
The God continued to talk as if nothing had happened." Kronos when Hestia was to be born knew that he had to trick Rhea into allowing him to end the menace that his children represented to him".
" He made her believe that the children coming from their union were deformed, cursed, suffering and tainted. what kind of mother the titan king told her she would be if she had allowed her children to live a life of immortal agony."
"My mother, " Poseidon said "had learnt to trust and love her husband. After all, he was kind, handsome, brave and he had told her that he loved them. She thought that he would never lie to her".
Pallas had been Triton light since her birth. Triton couldn't understand why others be they gods or mortals could hurt their own children, and not want to care for them.
Texts when talking of the mother of Gods always talked of kindness, of how she loved her children and was torn apart each time she had to give a child to her husband. They talked of her as an innocent, loving, tragic and powerless figure when if anything his father was saying was true, it was all the contrary. She hadn't been the victim. She had been an accomplice.
" So what changed," he asked his father," you told me that you hadn't been swallowed like your siblings before you."
His father pointed his eyes"What changed was that I was born with them".
The elder god continued" I was born with my mother's eyes, unlike my other siblings which meant that I wasn't malformed. I had also inherited from her. Eyes are the window of the soul and mine were just like hers. Admitting that I was deformed would mean that she was too".
The rhea in the sand now had a baby in her arms. She was dotting on him.
"My mother gave to trick my father Kronos a foal that she had infused with divinity. He saw nothing wrong with it". The god's eyes were clouded as if he was relieving the story while he was narrating it.
"Rhea gave me to be raised in secret by a spring nymph. Her name was Arne".
I"What happened to her" Triton questioned.
"She died" The thunder accompanied the words of his father.
"My mother even after all of this still loved my father. She thought that he also didn't know better. She asked him one year after my birth about the proof of his allegations against their children. They had the first dispute of their marriage. In it, Rhea slipped the fact that she hadn't given me to be swallowed. How do you think my father reacted Triton"?
"He got angry" the younger god guessed.
"He probably did" agreed his father "but he didn't show it. He apologized to my mother, and talked about freeing my siblings now that he knew the truth. He played the role of the perfect husband for three months".
"I feel a but coming". Triton said
"Indeed spoke the god. All of that was a ruse, a way to trick my mother and he succeeded. She brought him to the sanctuary where I was raised by Arne. He did nothing on the first and second visits when he was with my mother. The third time, he came alone and broke the promise he made to his mother. He tried to swallow me but Arne tried to act".
Triton didn't need to be told to know how it ended. Kronos was the titan and had as a weapon a scythe made by a primordial that could hurt others' primordial.
"Arne was killed by the scythe of the titan king and I was swallowed really this time by my father. My mother when she learnt what happened left Ortis pregnant with Zeus and you already know the rest of the story Triton" his father finished.
Triton had to admit that It was a captivating tale but "What are you telling me this father".
The older sea god sighed" Imagine eternal torture, a place where a second is as long as a thousand years, where every moment is painful torture because you are being submerged by the acids inside your father's stomach. Such things can make even immortals go mad. Maybe it's the reason for the behaviour of my siblings and me". We're probably all mad.
The eyes of the god had turned into shining emeralds. They were showing him visions of the past, visions of suffering, of happiness, of the future.
" And then came Zeus. He freed us from our torment. We bled all of us together. It was us against the world. When it was hard, we would talk about what we would do when we won. We talked about making sure that the world we will create will be a better one where parents protected their children. We promised to each other that we would always protect each other, that we would always be a family". At the end of his sentence, the voice of the god sounded broken as if he was restraining himself from crying.
Triton imagined the elder Olympians younger dreaming and talking about making a better future, a better world, to always being there for each other. The past them would have probably chosen to fade if they saw their futures selves
"You still didn't tell me the reason why was the point of you telling me all of this Father".
His father sighed" I loved Pallas me too triton. She was my granddaughter."
"Don't you dare tell me this Father" Triton spat with a voice filled with venom. "If you had loved her, you would have pushed for the punishment of Zeus".
"What did you want me to do Triton? Zeus was my brother. I loved him and deep inside even after all of this, I can not bring myself to stop loving him. I already lost my granddaughter at the hands of my own brother when we promised each other that we would be better. He did worse than our father. He swallowed his child and her mother. He succeeded halfway." the kronide sounded tired.
"And look how it bit you back father. Without Mother's intervention, you'd be dead. You're the only one still thinking of family, of the past. Except for Hestia, all of your siblings stopped caring about family. They only crave one thing, power but you already know that".
"Yeah, I know". The god sounded defeated.
"I wished things were different Triton but even with all my power, I can not solve the problems afflicting me".
Clouds Triton noticed had begun to drift away as if called. Triton focused on all of the drips of water in the USA. They were controlled by a divine presence, one that almost felt identical to his father except way weaker and not divine enough.
He turned toward his father. He smiled and radiated Pride.
"Is this the work of your half-blood?"
"That's the work of my boy" the older god answered proudly.
"It should be impossible at his age by a demigod of his caliber unless he's special. He's the child of the great prophecy, isn't he?
His father shrugged" maybe he is, maybe he's not".
The world shook as if a nuclear bomb had been detonated not too far away. " I watched you Percy and you made me proud," his father said to the empty air
The attention of his father went back to him and Steel entered in the voice of his father" "You'll have what you want Triton. In less than ten years, you'll have your vengeance".
His father even though it wasn't well known could see through the waves of time. He even had a name, Poseidon Epoptes, the watcher that was worshipped in the past because of his future sight. Apollo didn't have the monopoly on being able to see the future in their pantheon even if it was what a lot of people thought.
Triton had festered in his hatred for millenniums. He could wait for a mere decade. For once, since the death of his daughter, a true and happy smile bloomed on the face of Triton
