Chapter Text
“You ungrateful children!” Kronos had hissed in hatred as the Kronides stood before his prone body, soon destined to fade due to their prowess. “Unfilial, ignorant imbeciles! I give you existence and you treat me so?! I curse you! Never shall your children be born whole, becoming monsters or dying in your drying wombs! None will breathe and if they do, they will wreak destruction upon your lands!”
With those final words, Zeus struck his father down with his bolt, silencing the Titan forever. The hundred-year long war had finally reached its awaited end, its gods exhausted but victorious. They had feasted and celebrated, committing the day into memory and turned the mountain from which their father had been thrown off into their city, Olympus.
The elder gods had retreated, fading slowly and gently as new gods took their place.
The younger gods settled into their domains smoothly, as if they had always been intended for them. Zeus seized the Sky and kinghood. His sister Hera had claimed Marriage as her domain as well as Family, uniting them closer together. Hades had claimed the Underworld for himself and Poseidon the Seas while their gentle tempered sister Hestia had taken the Hearth and the Home, making Olympus shine with warmth. Finally, Demeter claimed Fertility and Harvest, bringing luscious fields and fruitful crops wherever she went.
The first gods had not yet realized the weight of their fathers words and would not see their gravity until centuries later.
Demeter had fallen first, plagued with an insatiable desire for a child of her own after seeing mortal mothers cradling their own babes. She had pleaded with Zeus for a child of her own. When the act was done, Demeter had started eagerly preparing her temples for her newest arrival, the divine city buzzing as her belly grew bigger with pregnancy.
However, something happened in the fifth month’s last moon. Demeter had suddenly crashed onto her side in the middle of a divine meeting, crying out in agony as she writhed on the previously pristine floors. She had been quickly grasped by her siblings, screaming in pain when they had tried to move her.
Panic seized the family as she remained in pure suffering for six days and nights, unable to keep even nectar down and tears flooding the mortals below.
“Shes too early!” She had cried. “She’ll be far too small!”
The goddess had been nearly torn apart by the birth and yet had smiled gently as her tiny daughter had been placed in her weak arms by Hera's trembling hands. Using the last bits of her strength, she had given her small babe the domain of Spring and Vegetation. Demeter had fainted soon after, overtaken by tiredness and her massive loss of blood.
Kore had been born prematurely, small for her age and plagued with bouts of fatigue and breathlessness. Frightened by her daughter's fragility, she had holed her child away to her temple, promising to let her take her proper place at Olympus once her baby had properly grown in strength and worship.
Only that day had never come.
Kore had been fine a moment before, exploring the fields and marveling at the flowers with slow steps.
The next she had fallen onto her side, breath too quick and yet too shallow as she gasped in pain in the grass.
Hades, who had felt her divinity fluttering in and out of existence akin to a flame, had immediately come to her assistance. He had hovered around her, gently soothing her and desperately trying to heal her.
He had sent futile messages to his brother. For once Zeus had arrived, Kore’s life had already faded from her body.
Demeter had screamed for months, crops fading constantly and starving out mortals. She had immediately blamed Hades, screeching that his deathly divinity had caused her already frail daughter to die. Thousands of mortals were sent to her brother, all starved out or aching from plagues she had placed on them. Her siblings had pleaded for her to stop but her grief had spiraled out of control, akin to a rabid animal. She had ceased, after a few years, her destruction. And yet, for three months of the year, the earth grew cold akin to her heart as she mourned her baby girl.
One difficult birth and tragic end had not discouraged other gods from wanting, however.
Athena was created next. Zeus, seized by a profound desire, begged his friend Métis into aiding him in her creation. She had agreed and once the deed was done, the titaness was with child. They had conspired to appoint the child the domain of wisdom as soon as she was born which Métis would relinquish easily. Months passed gently, slowly.
In a dream, Metis had foreseen that her child, if birthed from her own womanhood, would bring about immense destruction and pain. Frightened by the images of pain and despair she had been shown, she frightfully moved her budding child into Zeus himself to avoid such a fate, running off of Olympus.
Upon seeing Metis gone, he had been disappointed that their sneaking around had not succeeded in a child but accepted that the titaness had simply left.
It all started as a headache.
Just a headache, thrumming behind the king's eyes, an ever present annoyance.
Until steadily he started to get nauseous when he stood from his throne, his nose bled iquor and he had been rendered unable to walk straight.
His family hovered nearby, worried for his state as he cried at the immense agony in his head. They had all tried to soothe his ailing body with varying but little success. Now laid on his beds chambers in agony, he pleaded for them to end his suffering through wet eyes.
He had begged Poseidon to do so with his trident. The immortal had agreed but when his weapon almost graced his younger brother's forehead, he found he could not do it.
Grimly, understanding Zeus' agony and desire to let go of it, Hades grasped the trident and split his brother's skull with it.
Ichor poured but a full grown, armoured woman emerged from his fractured head.
But his Athena had also been born frail.
She was so thin, too small to fit in the thick armour she had been born in. She shrieked in pain the second she gained awareness, screeching when Hera had removed a piece of her chestplate and found her bones snapping like brittle twigs. When she had finally gotten her out of the thick shell, she had wailed with all her might until Poseidon had started to heal her.
Métis, having heard of the birth, ran back to Olympus and gave her small daughter complete control over the domain of wisdom, fading to allow her Athena to survive another breath. The child had finally quieted, making little noises of pain as she was carried to her new chambers.
She grew stronger with age and the worship mortals gave her, and yet Zeus always kept her by his side in fear of her keeling over.
Two difficult births were still a coincidence however.
A few centuries afterwards, Hera and Zeus had gotten married in the biggest wedding the world had ever seen, both left absolutely beaming and the weather pure for nearly a full year.
Seeing Athena and the beauty of childbirth, Hera had seduced her dear husband one day, despite his warriness at the worrying pattern, to impregnate her. Soon, she grew round, shining light on all who looked at her. Zeus had been endeared by his happy wife and had stuck to her side like glue all whilst hiding his uncharacteristic fear.
Everything in the pregnancy was going as it should, until one day in the sixth month, pain had hit her suddenly, making her keel over and vomit out her own ichor. She hadn’t even been able to be moved to her chambers, crying whenever anyone had tried to even pick her up. Her husband's touch burned from where he had held her hand.
Ares, in consequence, was born out of his mothers incandescent rage and suffering, ripping out of her so violently Zeus had not believed she would survive and would instead fade right before Olympus's eyes.
Immediately, Zeus had soothed the screaming child with the domains of War and Courage, making the babe quiet so as to be laid to sleep in his exhausted mothers arms.
The words of the Crooked One hung over them heavily. But they had refused to believe in such a thing. Not yet.
Years passed, and Hera grew restless. Desire for another child clawed at her chest like a deadly vice, making her toss and turn for fifty nights in her marital bed. Finally, unable to resist, she had snuck away from Olympus and her husbands and childrens watchful eyes with an excuse of taking a small vacation on her own to replenish her strength. She had pooled her power to produce another miracle, like Zeus had received from the Fates in the shape of Athena.
She hid her growing belly in a small temple dedicated to her divinity to strengthen herself, only accompanied by her most faithful worshipers. She endured pure torture, writhing on the altar while biting back her screams of agony for eight days and eight nights.
Finally, at the ninth day’s dawn, Hephaestus was born. But oh, he had been frail, breath shuttering in and out of his body like it hurt him to be alive. Disoriented by her blood loss and her elation of having borne a new child, she had stumbled out of her temple to inform her family of their beautiful new addition.
Brain scrambled, she had not even thought to assign him a domain, limping about the wilderness until she had reached a cliff to call onto her lord husband. Only, when she raised the child to present him to the skies and to her love, her arms failed her. Severely weakened by the strenuous birth, she watched in muted horror as her baby slipped out of her hands and down a steep cliff.
Hera roared in agony as she fell onto the ground, her screech of desperation and fear alerting her entire family of her distress.
She didn't even notice when her husband appeared along with her softest sister, gasping and clawing her way forward as if to follow her child off the cliff.
Zeus had screamed in terror, taking his wife for dead with how much ichor stained her clothes. Only the sight of her digging her nails into the dirt propelled him to action. Taking her into his arms, he listened as she wailed.
Then she pointed at the open air beyond the cliff, beyond words as she screeched in pain. Zeus had tried to soothe her, confused, whilst Hestia had pounced into action and slid down the narrow cliff.
The goddess of the Hearth had cooed sadly as she had found the child, a babe still stained with its mothers ichor. Mournfully, she had wrapped him up in her softest cloth, biting back her own golden tears.
A ragged exhale had startled her, making her gasp for only the shadows to hear.
She had emerged, a tiny body carefully cradled in her arms and smiling brilliantly as Hephaestus glowed with his new, given domains: Blacksmithing and Fire from her hearth.
The couple had wept happy tears as the infant was transferred into their loving arms, yet their eyes wetly glided back to his poor little feet, turned inwards and downwards. It would assure he'd never walk without pain.
She had been forbidden from having any more children after that. Hera, headstrong as she was, had of course tried, but all that had resulted was monstrous, misshapen animals and deformed children devoid of their important parts. And even when the child looked plump and complete, with ten fingers, ten toes, a nose, ears and eyes, they had been blue. Dead before even being born.
Hera had broken after this repeated cycle, quieter now. Sometimes, all she did for years was stare out of her and her husband's room, gaze set beyond what Zeus could see.
But still, their family had expanded.
Aphrodite had appeared suddenly, a force of nature born from the severed genitals of their grandfather and of sea foam. She had emerged from the sea a beautiful and grown woman, quickly taking her place as the goddess of Love and Beauty. Her birth had taken years to ferment into what she had become, but it had been the soft passage of time that had allowed her such an uncomplicated nativity.
But that simply wasn't enough.
Zeus had been incapable of resisting the idea of more children. Unable to put his wife through such pain once more, pain that had nearly snatched her and Hephaestus away from him, he had turned to the titaness Leto for a solution.
Drinking a potion of her making, he had been the one to endure the pains of birth once more.
Seized with such suffering, he had barely made it back to Olympus before collapsing. Hera, finding out his trickery, had nearly killed Leto before being pulled back to her loves side as he wailed golden tears until even his divine throat went raw with pain.
He ached violently for thirty moons before his arms violently tore open, gore spreading across the room as twins emerged from the spilled ichor. Frightened at their sudden life, both children had fled out of Olympus onto its deep forests, Zeus’s cries and pleas accompanying them.
He had been inconsolable for months afterwards.
Until the twins had suddenly reappeared in his throne room, claiming to have slayed a Python and taking archery as their shared domain. While they had been fairly weak, they had quickly discovered their other domains and were fed constant attention by their divine family so as to alleviate the pain that struck their joints whenever they ran. Apollo claimed the Sun and Artemis the Moon, the perfect pair.
Hermes was next in line. After many miscarriages and monstrous children, many Olympians had been too heartbroken to keep engaging with mortals and divine alike.
However, Maia, the cunning nymph, had desired a godly child. Sneaking into the king god and queen’s rooms, she had gently cut the man's ankle to collect ichor into a small bowl, creeping away like a thief in the night.
Two months later, and after a terrible birth, Hermes was born as a small child and Maia became a shell of what she once was. She could barely move, having her fellow nymphs take care of her and Hermes' needs. The last shred of her consciousness was devoted to giving Hermes her Cleverness and her Thieving, making him glow with divinity before her eyes as Maia had faded into her own mind.
Zeus had gasped on his throne, clawing at his leg as he screamed. The pain slid from his healed ankle onto his chest, making it ache fiercely once more. Gasping through the familiar pain, he had ordered his children to search far and wide for their new sibling.
Hermes had, a few hours after birth, killed a tortoise and made a lyre from its shell. Then, that very evening, he had slipped away from his birth place to Thessaly, where he had spotted beautiful cattle. Assured that it would strengthen his mother and make a grand gift, he led the cattle away skillfully, devious and cunning.
Apollon had remarked on the loss of his cattle, but had been far more concerned by his missing family as to bother. However, upon hearing a delightful melody traced with small amounts of divinity, he had emerged in Piera and found himself face to face with the small thief. He looked weak, breath labored, but the child had smirked and, with a silver tongue, made a deal with Apollo. His cattle for the strange new instrument. Reluctantly intrigued, the man had agreed.
The second they shook hands, Apollo had known. Divinity poured out of the boy's skin. Whisking the child away, he had been brought to his rightful place on Olympus. Hermes had been received with pure joy and the immortals had feasted for days for this celebration of life. Zeus had, in the hopes of strengthening him, given the domain of Trade and Commerce which made him glow for several days afterwards.
Diyonysus was the last.
Semele, the lovely princess of Thebes, after quite a lot of begging to Zeus who had taken up her companionship, had been allowed to carry a child.
In a vision, tainted by dark edges, there had been whispers that she could become the god king's true love if she asked him to reveal his form to her and that any of his begging not to was out of shyness. Eagerly, she had waited until the next night to summon him.
Making him swear on the Styx to obey her request, Zeus had done so under the illusion that his gentle lover would request something like a new palace or new jewels. Instead, he had been blindsided by her request of seeing his true form. He had tried pleading with her, begging her not to ask this of him, but Semele had remained stubborn.
Reluctantly, Zeus had shed his skin, revealing a form which mortals were never meant to gaze upon.
The princess of Thebes had been turned to ash immediately. Mournfully, he had traced her ashes with his eyes until his gaze caught onto the fetus that had miraculously survived. Impulsively and hurriedly, he had opened his own thigh and sewed the child into his leg to assure its survival.
The pain started a month later. He had started to violently limp and could not hide it from his lovely wife. Hera had been furious he had hidden such a thing from her, but had still tended to him dutifully.
Finally, three full moons later, Dionysus had ripped out of his leg a babe, screaming as he felt pain upon his first breath. He had been soothed by his father and stepmother, both forcing healing upon him and marveling at the first demigod child to survive birth. He would be the only one, unbeknownst to them.
But once more, he had been born incredibly weak. Bouts of long, intense fevers and fatigue ruled his childhood though he remained safely on Olympus. The gods had been wary of turning him into a god in childhood in fear he wouldn't survive the transformation.
Zeus let Dionysus gain strength as a human until his teens. Then, he ascended slowly.
That was not to say it was devoid of suffering. Dionysus had screamed himself raw as he shed his mortal skin and regrew tougher, immortal one. He had screeched for seven days and nights before finally growing fully divine.
Exhausted from the shared strain, Zeus had shakily given him Theatre and Madness.
Seeing the suffering brought upon by children, Artemis had quickly sworn an oath of maidenhood after Dionysus’s birth, followed closely by Hestia and Athena.
Years passed like this, failed attempt after failed attempt.
Poseidon and his wife Amphirite had succeeded in making their own child, though the queen had nearly lost her own life to birth Triton. The godling had been hidden under the sea for centuries until he had been deemed strong enough to survive the surface.
Only Hermes, out of all the god kings children, succeeded in making a child. Pan, tiny and weak with his little hooves flimsy as toenails and nearly peeling off, had been hastily given the Wilds as a domain by Artemis herself and Shepherdom by a wailing Hermes.
The satyr had strengthened over the years, but still had been heavily discouraged from trying to produce children of his own as he would likely not survive the ordeal.
Years passed like this. More and more godly children were born dead, stained in their parents life blood as they were laid to rest.
Mortals resulted in much the same. Demigods were either born monsters (destined to be killed by their own divine family or the divinely sponsored) or never even took a breath before they needed to be buried.
Mortal heroes filled the void somewhat by being their chosen, but it was incomparable to having children.
Nothing was comparable. They had not sired children in so long in this fear, unable to bring themselves to killing them or seeing their breathless bodies. A longing and somberness plagued Olympus for years, a desire for something they could not have.
However, the Fates would not allow this to remain.