Chapter 6: The Choice Made

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”

William Penn

Cronos paced back and forth in his chamber.

For all his rage at his father and wife, time had dulled that wound. The enormity of his decisions after becoming king were weighing more and more heavily upon him. He was starting to wonder if he was making the right choices.

With Aether, Cronos had good reason to consume him. Ouranos’ taint needed to be removed from the world. It had been necessary.

Hades, as Cronos heard Rhea call the child, had done nothing wrong to him. If Cronos did to Hades what he did to Aether, he would be playing into the hands of the Fates. But if he gave Hades the throne, would he not be giving into their hands anyway? Was there a right choice to make?

He wrestled with the choices he might make, the consequences of those choices, and where it would all lead. He could not find an acceptable answer. In the end, he was torn between his fear of prophecy on one hand and not becoming like his overthrown father on the other.

Maybe it would be easier to just let go. The strife could be over if he just relinquished his throne.

The room was silent, save for the whispers of his conflicted conscience. Cronos leaned back, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, searching for the answers that were not there. The flickering torch flame mirrored the flicker of doubt in his heart; he had no solution to the dilemma.

Expelling the air from his lungs, he went to the nursery. Three baby girls had been raised in the room. He felt no threat from them because the Fates had foretold that only his son could depose him. The girls were innocent in all of this. Harming them would be wrong because, in the end, they were his children.

Looking upon Hades, Cronos saw himself in the small little deity. Was Hades not his child as well? Caressing his son’s cheek, Cronos considered what it would mean to consume him as he had Aether. Hades was his son, unlike Aether.

Hades glowed with a light unlike Aether, as if divinity flowed through him more naturally than in Cronos. Rather than be jealous, Cronos felt a bit of pride in Hades’ might. Hades’ gifts were a reflection of Cronos. To eat him would be a betrayal of the ideals he held when he fought his father.

Those thoughts sunk deep into his mind, imbedding there. Harming Hades would make Cronos just like Ouranos. That was enough of a condemnation for Cronos to leave Hades to rest.

Morning came and went in a blur. When she went to the nursery, Rhea was surprised Cronos had not devoured Hades as he had Aether. He did not appear to speak to Rhea, nor did he readily ignore her. Rhea found that her husband was sullen but not vindictive towards her or her child.

As the days went by, Cronos did nothing. That gave Rhea cause for concern. She seemed so sure that Cronos would eat Hades as he had Aether. Finding the baby alive was a surprise, but Rhea was not sure if it was a welcome one or not. Rhea felt, since Cronos was not being antagonizing to her, that she was safe enough to go to Gaia.

The Primordial Earth deity looked out at the ocean where Ouranos had been castrated and murdered when Rhea appeared in an instant. The blood and other fluids from the battle had long been washed away by the ever-moving waters.

“He has not eaten Hades,” Rhea informed Gaia.

Gaia did not reply quickly; rather, she surveyed the Realm of Greece with her preternatural sight, which allowed her to see far and wide. While the gift of magical foresight was not hers to have yet, she could see more of what was happening in the world. She watched, despite Cronos’ erratically sabotaging actions, her Titan children filled Greece with more divine children than she could imagine.

“That might be for the best,” Gaia remarked, aware of Rhea’s shock. She was too busy smiling at the lands of Greece to fully care for Rhea’s vengeful mind.

“How? How can you do that after we have started preparing Hera to be the next Queen,” Rhea said with bewilderment.

“You are a mother,” Gaia said distantly. “I see how you care for Demeter, Hera, and Hestia. Even with your disdain for Cronos, you want what’s best for them. I want that for Cronos.”

“Even after what Cronos has done? To your husband? To my little Aether? To me?” Rhea exclaimed. As she cried, tears of pain rolled down her face.

“Yes, Rhea, even now, after all of his poor behavior, I want him to be better,” Gaia answered magnanimously. “But if he has it in him to walk away from his evil path, should we not forgive him? He is loyal to you, which is so much more than Ouranos was with me. He helps his siblings cultivate our Realm. We are not doing what other Realms do from what I have heard from Hyperion. We have so much beautiful potential. We should be glad for the chance for change, not destructively sabotaging it by plotting against our king.”

Rhea stared at Gaia in disbelief but said nothing. How could her mother just abandon their plan? She considered shouting, railing at her mother, but Rhea knew, in her heart, that her words would fall upon deaf ears. She would not waste the effort.

Defeat ran over her body, and she knew there was nothing she could do. Without Gaia, all of Rhea’s ambition would be for naught. She turned from her mother, preparing to return to her mountain palace.

“Daughter,” Gaia said to her daughter’s back. She did not need to look into Rhea’s eyes to know that her withdrawal of support hurt Rhea. “Let go of your anger towards Cronos. I think that is how we move forward. Cronos did not let go of his hatred of Ouranos, and it was poisoning him just as your hatred of Cronos is poisoning you. If Cronos has let go of that evil, you must too.”

Rhea said nothing at first. “I don’t hate him, Mother.” She disappeared in a flash of light. The grand mountain of the divine accepted her once more to her home. Knowing Gaia, and no one else for that matter, would hear her emboldened her to add the simple truth of her plan:

“I just have no intention of allowing him to escape punishment.”

They had come into the world from the carnage of the first glorious battle, unaware of their purpose at first. In the beginning of their consciousness, the sisters were obsessed with rage and fury.

Though all were from the same ichor, each was different. One had white-blonde hair and wore a comfortable outfit of blue, black, and gold. She was Megaera, grudging, and craved an unrelenting resentment.

Another had gold and black hair; her clothes were black and red. She was Alecto, unceasing, and would go on forever to torment and battle whoever stood in her way.

The last had the thinnest skin over her skeleton and wore a green hood that covered her. She was Tisiphóné, vengeance itself. She would go out and find justice through retribution.

Together, they would be called the Furies, who had come into the world through the death of Ouranos. They served only their desires. There was no king for them to recognize. No power could place a hold on them yet.

Some might say they were the unorthodox children of Ouranos and the Fates, serving as a perverse reflection of the pure daughters of Nyx. Perhaps they existed as revenge for the Fates using Ouranos. They could have been born of Ouranos’ spirit of rage at his moment of death with his ichor as the medium for arrival.

Rage was their collective first sensation. These three sisters craved justice for their father’s death. The retributional desire burned in their very veins. A pulse within them resonated, pushing them forward to fulfill that crusade. Luckily for them, their father’s murderer had begun to walk in the Mortal Realm of Greece.

The decision of Hades’ fate was not an easy one to make for the Titan King.

To clear his head, Cronos ventured into the lands of Greece. Though he ruled over the luscious green domain, his mind was preoccupied by the potential consequences of eating Hades.

His circumstances would have been so easy if Ouranos’ throne had gone to Crius or Hyperion instead of him. Wishing for that possibility was fruitless though. The more he thought about it, the more Cronos realized that he was meant to rule. Hyperion was never around, in love with both Theia and his pilgrimages to other lands. Crius had become a recluse in the aftermath of the wounds inflicted upon him by their father. If Crius had ever been meant to rule, it was before Ouranos maimed Crius from hands to elbows.

Cronos had to be the Ruler. He was the only one who possessed the power to command the respect of his siblings while also having the focus to care for the Realm.

Because he cared for Greece through the years, there was not much to do. Cronos helped guarantee no one became too possessive. Other beings came from Gaia (as she was as fertile as the lands); Pontus was one. Gaia could not tell if Ouranos’ diluted blood in the water made Pontus or if it were her tears of mourning her husband’s death, but Pontus emerged from the sea as its pure manifestation. Because of his possessive nature over the waters, it was inevitable for a clash with Oceanus.

Cronos had to establish that even if Pontus was the ocean, Oceanus ruled it. Arbitrating a peaceful arrangement between the two powerful beings was Cronos’ job. As more creations came into the world, he wondered what other jobs he would have.

That was one of the beautiful qualities of life that Cronos knew his brother Iapetus adored about Greece. Iapetus’ childlike fascination was something Cronos could almost find contagious. With so many possibilities and potentialities, it would be wrong for Cronos to steal the chance at life from Hades. Even if the small deity did not die in his stomach, the Titan knew that existing in a belly was not living.

Maybe he could give the throne to his son. Cronos could raise him up to be better than he was. Cronos could be a better father to Hades than Ouranos was to him.

In this distraction state, Cronos did not notice three shadowy figures flying towards him.

They struck at him without fear or concern. Their blows landed true, slashing and slicing at his skin. Ichor ran down the cheek of his face from the cut. On his left shoulder, the attack from the others was not deep enough to break his skin, but it was enough to capture his attention.

Cronos turned to see his attackers. The Three Furies flew around the gargantuan Titan like gnats before a man.

One of them had claws coming from her back. They were all winged creatures, and their hands were sharper than Cronos’ scythe. Cronos grabbed the side of his head and felt warm reddish gold ichor drip down the side of his head and on the two fingers that touched it.

He looked up to see these three terrible women and growled, “Have you come in a new visage, Sisters of Fate?”

“Do you hear that, Sisters?” the center figured guffawed. His ignorance brought her more joy than anything else in her life. “He thinks we’re the ones who look through time!”

The other two let out long bursts of laughter. “Of course he does, Megaera,” said the hooded one. “His success blinds him. He believes the old powers are the only ones that matter.”

“Too true, Tisiphóné,” added the last. Even as they spoke, the sisters started to spread out, making it as difficult as possible for Cronos to harm them

Megaera laughed out, “He is a foolish King, Alecto.”