Chapter Text
Kronos had three children. Three sons. In order of eldest to youngest, their names were Aidoneus, Poseidon, and Zeus. It was thought that all of Kronos’s sons were incredibly powerful, gifted with the capability to take down the God of Time and hence why two of the three received such awful punishments for even just daring to exist. Swallowed by their own father and forced to sit there in darkness, until the day came that the youngest decided to rescue his older brothers from the dark pit where no light even entered. Zeus.
Zeus came to be the King of all Gods after the tyrant Kronos was locked away. Overlord to the skies, God of Lightning. Overthrew his own father almost single handedly and rumoured to be the most powerful God in all of Olympus, the Underworld, and the mortal realm.
Poseidon, his older brother, became King of the Oceans and Islands. God of the sea and waters. Truthfully, it could be argued that Poseidon was just as powerful as his little brother, but he was far more laid back. He was not interested in being King of Gods, nor the power and responsibility that came with such a title. Olympus itself also hardly interested him. Living within his kingdom's boundaries with the occasional visit to his brother’s powerful city, as well as the trading boundaries he could accomplish, was enough for him. His brother could take all the glory, he was just glad that their old man was in a pit in the ground. Literally.
Aidoneus… Neither brother spoke of Aidoneus. Not to each other, not to anyone else. There was a strict almost unspoken rule in their respective realms. No words were to be uttered about their eldest brother.
Zeus had sworn he’d seen a sign of something when he’d rescued Poseidon. Swore when he tried to reach his hand in he’d felt fingers brushing again his own. His eldest brother. locked away for 13 years inside of their father. Their mother spoke of him fondly, said he was full of wonder and promise. Her first born, his eldest brother. His brother. He could’ve sworn he’d even seen a hopeful glance in the dark. Then Kronos’s jaw had snapped shut and any weakness he had been showing vanished and the two Gods, one only 15 and untrained in his power and the other having just been reintroduced to sunlight after several long years without it, had no choice but to flee. It had been the only chance they had to rescue their brother… and it had been blown. Several more times they tried but Kronos was not letting his guard down again. Zeus may have rescued Poseidon, but Aidoneus was lost. The youngest son of the tyrant promised to get his eldest brother one way or another.
After they had finally managed to defeat his father, weaken him to the point of surrender and exhaustion with Zeus unlocking his own titan form, the young God was full of rage and desperation. The want and need to have the only family that remained. The anger of having his brothers snatched away from him by the very man who had a hand in their creation, whether he liked it or not. Zeus thrust his entire arm down the tyrant’s throat, using his spare hand to force his jaw open so far everyone within miles could hear it painfully crack. He searched and searched, growing more and more frustrated, but came back with nothing. There was nothing. No Aidoneus.
Full of rage, Zeus looked to the man that was his father, pulling his empty hand out yet again. it was covered in ichor at this point, painting his purple skin golden. His eyes were glowing and it only furthered his look of hysteria.
“Where? Where is he?! I know he was here, I saw him! Stop hiding him from me!”
The only thing Kronos did was laugh. He laughed despite the pain and exhaustion. It was a twisted kind of laugh. As if he had nothing else to prove. As if he knew that Zeus could never get the information out of him, as he no longer had nothing to lose. He had already lost. The ichor oozed from him as he laughed, broken jaw making his mouth unable to close. His eyes showed that he had found at least one form for twisted enjoyment out of all this.
Zeus continued to search for longer than was comfortable, it wasn’t until he lost the ability to keep his titan form that he was forced to give up by Hera and Poseidon stopping him from climbing in there to find that last person he hadn’t managed to save. He needed to save everyone. he had to. That was his brother! Kronos laughed still.
He continued to laugh all the way to Tartarus.
The five gods and goddesses achieved many things that day. It was a day to be celebrated, it was a victory. But at least one thing was lost. One God would never be saved.
The two kings refused to talk about their brother and everyone else continued that silence. After two millennia, the name Aidoneus was hardly more than a school kid legend about a ‘secret third brother to the royal family’ that was ‘hidden away and never spoken about’. Older Gods knew the truth but would never say, both because they didn’t want to and partially because they were afraid what punishment would fall on them if they were heard. Besides, even them were starting to wonder if there had ever actually been a third brother after all, or if there was just Zeus thinking he saw and felt something he didn’t. What other proof was there of his existence? He would have appeared in Tartarus by now if he were inside of his father, he couldn’t be still strong enough to contain him, and if he had escaped before the tyrant was taken down, then he wouldn’t have stayed hidden for long. He would have reached out or been found.
Aidoneus may as well have never existed. His name was lost in whispers of ghost stories and never muttered otherwise. Aidoneus was a ghost.
It was on an uneventful warm summer's day, same as the last few days that came before, a peculiar crystal formation deep within a wooded area cracked from within. This formation had been there for years. hundreds… perhaps even thousands. It had been there when the forest trees were hardly saplings, and now it extended for miles without a sign of mortals in sight. It was too untameable and dense for them to step foor in quite yet. Fauna near the partially moss-covered rock looked over in curiosity, the crack having been so intense that it had shaken the ground beneath their feet. A nearby doe brought her head close, sniffing, before another large crack appeared with a large thud and shake, causing her and the rest of the nearby fauna to vanish also. The moss and nearby grass and foliage that had surrounded and start to grow over the crystals started to brown and die as another crack appeared. The thumping continued. Once. Then twice. Until suddenly, a midnight blue arm painted in stars revealed itself from within the mass, nails sharp and desperate for escape as he flailed around a little. Birds flew from nearby trees, crying out a warning all throughout the area and, finally, the first son of Kronos (yet the last to be saved) managed to shatter his self-made prison and sit up, taking his first deep breath in over a millennia.
That was the interesting thing about ghosts. They never stayed dead for long.