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The Titan had been a person once. (He was pretty sure.)
She had been part of a community. They had a parent. Siblings. Niblings. Friends.
Children.
(Now a mountain of skulls.)
A name.
(The name was practically forgotten, without anyone to use it.)
He had walked on solid ground, bathed in salty seas, and slept under the stars.
But then the Archivists came. To "collect."
(To burn.)
And the Titans battled. The Titans battled and they sought to protect and safeguard the future.
But it wasn't enough.
(Unless, unless an egg survived the fiery hunt and a baby would someday hatch and manage to stay hidden. But all the broken shells and skulls made it hard to hope.)
And she fell.
A Titan's life was long and its death was slow.
His body decayed, blood and flesh turned to ooze and sludge.
(And compost.)
Sand and silt from the sea washed up against their bones, and together, with the rot, became land.
The Titan was now more place than person, and when his brain finally liquified, he found himself in an in-between space of liquid and cubes through which he could watch and observe for the first time since his eyes dried out and were ultimately eaten by tiny insects he'd hardly noticed in life. (The Archivists had missed them too.)
New life emerged from death, and the Titan became a home for more than just maggots.
Mostly plants and bug demons at first. (Some kelp and seaweed and algae had survived the Archivists' fires and the flies evolved after eating him.) Long tubes with beaks explored his eye sockets, and the sensation echoed in his sort-of-a-body in the Realm of Cubes.
Other demons and witches descended from creatures who came through her blood from other worlds — furry beasts and flying birds and talking two-leggers too. As they ate the plants and other creatures growing from her, her body made them her own and shared her power.
The Titan didn't mind being a home. The Titan didn't mind being nourishment.
They did mind being a resource, something to be mined.
Eventually, the witches and demons had discovered the magical power that still survived in Titan blood. His blood.
Some were kind, thanking him for the shelter and magic he offered. They returned their own bodies to the Isles, as food and fuel for future life. This — this was fine. He was a place — and perhaps something of a god — to them, and he missed being a person, but this was fine. They used him — what was left of him — but it was good to be of use. Through them, he connected worlds and fueled inventions.
Others just took and took, extracting as much of her as they could for power and profit. To them, she was a thing. And while it was possible to be a thing and still be respected, these witches and demons (and at least one human from Beyond) only thought of themselves.
The Titan scowled as that human invoked her as he abused the life he drew from his brother's corpse and sought to destroy all the wonderful life (and magic) that came from hers. (In a way, the demons and witches were her children too. She hadn't hatched them, but she nourished them all the same.)
The Titan smiled as they saw their Titan baby, alive and well and commanding armies of toys and making bread puns.
And when a different human — his baby's sister — joined him in the Realm of Cubes, slipping away into Death, he felt almost like a person again.
Briefly.
Before he gave one last gift of magic and his own heart finally, finally stopped.