Chapter Text
The competition was a distraction. In his heart of hearts, Poseidon knew this.
It was not often that he felt that immortal longing – not often that he allowed himself to recognise the deep ache between his lungs for what it was, Grief, and Want. But there were times that he could not escape from it. Times when that coarse grain of sand rubbed against his ribs and formed a bitter pearl that he could not ignore.
It was the same desire that had sent himself, his brothers, his nephews into their mortal lovers’ arms again and again and again, in the hopes that this time might be different. In the hopes that this time, a child might live.
So, yes, the competition was a distraction. Something he could make, something he could build, something he could pour his divinity into that would not turn pale and brittle as coral. That would not shatter into seafoam in his hands.
Zeus had given them a month. A month to create something worthy of a new city – as thought the mortals did not have everything they could ever want, as if children did not slip easily from between their thighs, once, thrice a dozen times over – the thought sent a low bitter grown thrumming through his chest and in the distance he twisted the clouds, twisted the waves up into a great storm, one part of his mind seeing to that chaos even as his hands twisted the curves of the fountain smooth. Not a moment too soon, he had just poured the last twist of power into the fountain when the part of him that was keeping track of such things felt his oldest niece step foot on the unnamed city.
With barely a twist of power he stood beside her. Beneath them the mortals dropped to their knees faces pale with awe and souls lifted in worship. Poseidon ignored their due, watching his niece out of the side of his eye, barely hiding the smirk on his face. His skin prickled faintly, a sure sign of his brother’s eyes on them and he flicked his ears back in irritation, rolling his eyes at his youngest brother’s ever-present overprotectiveness of his oldest daughter.
For all that Athena claimed cool logic and indifference, the tight grip she held on her spear, the proud arch of her neck, the wings that flicked faintly in excitement outside of mortal comprehension, they all gave her away. Poseidon grinned, full-toothed. He was not the only one of their family that enjoyed a good challenge.
As the greater authority, Poseidon stepped forward first to display his gift. With a bare flick of his hand the fountain appeared. He had not been wrong to think of it as his greatest creation. Made of the finest marble, polished to a smooth shine, the sides of the fountain held scenes of the greatest underwater battles, the mightiest feats of his people. In the centre three hippocampi gambolled together, stationary, their hooves and scaled tails still seemed to move, sending great arches of salt water up into the air to plumet back down into the waters surface. An everlasting saltwater spring, each spray of the water cast rainbows, fractals, shimmering across the fine spray of the disturbed water. Those who stared closely into those shimmering colours would see glimpses of far-off lands, and those who stepped beneath the arching waters would even be able to speak across great distances.
The mortals looked upon his creation with awe, as well they should, and the spokesperson of this town. A man with greying hair, the finest chiton and a name Poseidon had not bothered to remember stepped forward, reaching with awe into the fountain to cup the water and –
The mortal gagged, spitting water from his mouth back into the fountain. The ground rumbled ominously, scales flickering lighting-quick across his body.
“Forgive me, my Lord!” the mortal cried, dropping to his knees. “The waters are too salty, we cannot drink them.”
The fool, Poseidon felt his lips pull back in a snarl. They were not supposed to drink it. Did they think his divinity so poor as to only offer a pretty chalice to sate their thirst.
Sensing his fowl mood, Athena stepped forward quickly, wings rustling as she shot a considering glance towards him and Poseidon inclined his head in a nod. Let them see what the fools made of her gift, then.
Her eyes scanned the kneeling crowd for a moment, narrowing, before a spark of candlelight seemed to flicker across the grey, illuminating it from within.
His son, beloved Triton, had teased him of Athena’s gift. His grin had been sharp-toothed as he spoke of the whispers his land-bound messenger cousin had fed to him. An exquisitely lacquered amphora his niece had created, when opened it was answer the questions of the holder, offering wisdom and divine guidance. His niece did not call for her servants, did not bring forth this gift. Instead, his quick-eyes niece knelt and touched the ground, bringing forth a fine tree, of oval leaves and green fruits.
“The olive tree,” Athena said, shooting a sharp glance at Poseidon who narrowed his eyes in turn. “The fruit can be eaten or turned to an oil which can be used as soaps or as fuel for lamps or torches. The leaves, too, have medicinal properties protecting against illness and reducing fevers.”
The gaze prickling against his shoulders turned smug and Poseidon sent a glare towards Olympus where his brother no doubt watched the show as his daughter was named patron goddess of the city of Athens.
“Well played, niece,” Poseidon said, stepping forward and clapping her on the shoulder, something warm and indulgent unspooling in his chest at her obvious delight. He would not punish the spokesman at this moment – he would not ruin his niece’s celebration with bloodshed – though he would have to find something suitably poetic and painful to use against the man in the future. A punishment for his ignorance and his disrespect of Poseidon’s gift. Spitting water back into the fountain. He should have smote the man where he stood.
Unseen and unnoticed in the celebration, a breeze blew through the courtyard, slinking through the branches of Athena’s new creation and knocking several leaves and olives into the fountain below.
They may not have seen them fall, but all knew when they touched the water. The fountain began to glow a brilliant white, and Poseidon doubled over with a bellow of pain as agony tore through his chest in thick, pulsing waves. The ground shook beneath him and Poseidon was barely aware of the unholy shriek his niece let out as she hit the ground. He felt his knees crumble, fingers digging into the trembling earth, storms and flood appearing across the land – a response to a desperate, familiar pain.
A hand, broad and eagle-sharp, dug into his shoulder yanking him back and through his convulsions Poseidon saw his brother’s lightning-blue eyes.
“What have you done!” Zeus demanded, his hand turned white-hot against Poseidon’s skin, the pain a mere echo of the suffering that rippled through him.
“This is not of my doing!” Poseidon threw the hand off, needle-teeth blooming in his mouth and fins flaring along his spine as he snarled in his brother’s face. He managed a single step towards the fountain before he buckled and collapsed to his knees. “I did not – we did not –”
He had wanted a child. He had crafted a fountain in want of a child. But he had not planned this. He had not intended – he had not – there was planning. No preparation. No domains carefully set aside to feed into the new child as it splintered into existence. He had not – they had not – he reached desperately for his domains, threading through them, desperate for something he could break off, that he could tear away from himself and feed into the child, into his child before –
The pain stopped.
If the ache had been bad, it was nothing on the hollow emptiness it left in its wake. Poseidon wailed, a deeper, familiar chasm opening inside himself as he knew the child was dead. He felt himself sprawl across the ground, curled foetal as he had been all those years inside his father’s stomach. Coastlines shuddered and were torn apart beneath the waves of his grief, island sunk and trees stripped bare by ocean waves as he flicked between forms, finned and hooved and many limbed as he sought to find a shape that would allow him to escape this tearing sorrow.
There was no escaping this.
Finally, he took his most familiar form, raising himself up on shaking arms, sweet ichor dripping down his throat – a bloody reward for his screams.
The humans were gone. Those lucky enough to escape at least, the others lay littered across the ground, their twisted shapes a testament to the Gods’ suffering.
Athena knelt on the ground, cradled against her father’s chest as he rumbled soothingly at her – comforting sounds she seemed to barely hear. Her eyes were red-rimmed, face pale beneath the tawny feathers that had sprouted across her cheeks. Her taloned fingers kneaded restlessly at the ground, craving the comforting familiarity of her loom.
Poseidon felt a twinge of guilt. This had not been his doing, his design, but he felt for his niece’s suffering. His niece who had been so afraid after witnessing her step-mother’s pains bringing Ares and then Hephaestus into the world that she had sworn a vow of eternal maidenhood that those agonies might never touch her.
“What happened?” Zeus said again, running his fingers through his daughter’s hair. The fractured lightning of his anger had faded but a rumbling storm still lingered in his voice. His daughter had been hurt. He was waiting to see someone bleed for it.
“The leaves of my gift fell into Uncle’s fountain,” Athena said dully. She did not look towards the fountain. “The divinities of the two gifts must have mingled somehow and…” she trailed off, turning her face into her father’s chest.
“A child,” Poseidon said faintly, and his voice was the crack of the waves on rock. The shattering of the storm. “Our child.”
His gaze drifted to the fountain, barely aware of his brother’s anger fading slightly in the face of their shared torment. The memory of so many dead children. And now, one more.
Athena still looked away, still could not look at the fountain, but Poseidon had to – he had to see – it was his greatest curse. He always had to look. No matter how many came stiff and still and pale he had to cradle their still bodies at least once, before they were consigned to the earth forever.
A body floated in the water of his fountain. Poseidon did not need to breath, his heart did not need to beat, but he found his breath catching anyway, felt his heart lurch in his chest. He loved Triton. He loved all of his children. The one who had lived, and the ones who had not. But none of them, none of them had ever shared his look like the boy drifting in the fountain did.
He was…a small thing. Far smaller than Triton had been at his birth, he could have been mistaken for a mortal in size. He bore the form of a young man. Past childhood, but limbs still bearing the round cheeks and gangling limbs of a youth not yet fully grown. He was bare and his tanned skin had been leached of colour, taking on a faintly greyish hue and – Poseidon saw with a pang of sorrow – scars littered his body. The kind of scars that should never taint the skin of a newborn. His birth must have been agony, Poseidon mourned, if only he had acted faster, if only he had – but these were old recriminations. So rarely was there anything they could do. So rarely could they save one.
“I am sorry, my son,” Poseidon rumbled, part of him aware of Athena’s flinch at the confirmation of her only child’s gender. “Rest now.”
The body twitched beneath his hand and Poseidon let out a startled keen, snatching his hand back as the body convulsed, flailing in the water.
Sea-green eyes – Triton’s eyes, Poseidon’s eyes – snapped open, hazed with confusion and fear. Red lips parted, uncaring of the water that flowed over them.
“Dad?”
XXX
All of Olympus had felt Zeus’ rage.
Their father’s fury had rattled the foundations of their heavenly home, storm clouds swirling into existence in a bare moment, the air crackling with lightning that had not yet been called. Hera had disappeared into her private chambers, accompanied by her attendants. Ares prowled the halls, his blade shifting in his hand, shield, to spear, to kopis to makhaira and back again. His lover, in dove form perched on his shoulder, cooing comfort and warning into his ears. Dionysus, the youngest of them, sprawled on his chair, his careful nonchalance betrayed by the tight grip he had on his goblet and the way his wine-dark eyes flicked around the toom as though the threat would reveal itself if he just looked hard enough.
Apollo felt his sun grow brighter, bright enough it would have scorched the earth if his father’s clouds had not stood in between. His attention flickered to his twin, out in the wild in wolf form, far from home but safe and untouched by whatever had engineered their father’s rage. A whisper beside him and Apollo’s hand lashed out, grabbing his most slippery brother by the back of the neck.
“What do you know?” he demanded.
Hermes squirmed uncomfortably in his grip, usual fanged grin missing from his face. “No more than you,” he said sourly, the wings on the tips of his ears flicking. “Father has told me nothing. He has not summoned me. Uncle and Athena were competing for the city were they not? Perhaps they chose uncle over our sister.”
Apollo flicked a glance up at where the storm clouds swirl, raking the fingers of his free hand through his blonde hair and forcing down an agitated, rattling hiss, “Well, someone must know something. I don’t think I’ve felt father this pissed off since –” he paused, feeling himself jerk a step to the side as an urgent summons wrapped python-tight around him and pulled. “Father has summoned me,” a beat, just long enough for curiosity to kindle on Hermes’ face before a second pull, this one bringing with it a faint whirlpool brine. “As does our uncle – I must go.”
“Wait –!” Hermes lurched in alarm as Apollo dropped him, and as Apollo took to the skies he felt some of his brother’s essence follow and latch on, coiling around Apollo’s wrist. He glanced down, his brother looked up at him, a small golden snake, wrapped around Apollo’s arm and blending in with Apollo’s golden jewellery. He raised his eyebrows.
“Father is already furious. If you get caught spying I will not protect you from his anger.”
The snake that was his brother twisted around his arm in an almost human shrug, a small tongue flickering out to taste Apollo’s pulse. The summons around Apollo yanked again, squeezing firmly this time, an unspoken warning that Apollo headed. With less than a thought he flickered out of existence, reappearing at his father’s side.
They stood in the wreckage of what had once been a fairly beautiful courtyard. Mortal bodies were scattered across the floor, though Apollo barely spared them a glance. If one of them had been the cause of father’s wrath they would not have died so cleanly.
Close to the centre of the courtyard, Poseidon’s gift – Hermes and he had snuck into Poseidon’s workspace during the construction and been soundly exiled – sat. crouched inside the fountain, his godly form diminished to almost a quarter of his usual size, Poseidon sat, coiled around something that Apollo could not see. His skin swirled with bioluminescent patterns, bulbs of yellow light appearing and disappearing in mesmerising patterns across his body as he whickered softly to whatever he held. Athena perched against the side of the fountain, leaning as close as she could to whatever secret Poseidon protected. Her pupils spasmed erratically, narrowing to fine pinpricks before dilating until only a thin sliver of silver was visible around those black depths.
“Father –?” Apollo asked, approaching cautiously. Zeus was still, a respectful distance from the fountain, though it was clear from the way his body coiled forwards that there was nothing more he wanted than to lunge forward and close the gap. “What has happened?”
“Something…unprecedented,” Zeus said, a deep frown on his face. For a moment Apollo took it for an extension of his father’s rage but looking closer it was clear that there was a deep worry in his father’s expression. It sent a shiver of fear down Apollo’s spine, and above the sun shone brighter.
“Leaves from my gift fell into Uncle’s fountain,” Athena said, absently, her gaze never flickering from its narrow-focus. Apollo’s eyebrows raised, gaze flicking to the tree certainly not one he had seen before and – wait, tree? Hadn’t Athena been working on some fancy amphora, before Apollo could ask Athena continued, “When the gifts mixed it seems they created…” she trailed off, the tips of her wings flicking towards the bundle that Apollo could now see was squirming slightly.
Around his wrist Hermes contracted into a steel shackle, grinding his bones together painfully for a second before the pressure disappeared.
“A godling,” Hermes’ breathed, appearing as Apollo’s shoulder. His form flickered for a moment, shifting between a mass of wings and reptilian coils before he flicked back to himself. His eyes, clear blue as a summer sky locked onto the bundle and Apollo followed his brother’s gaze, the bundle had shifted, fabric giving way to angry green eyes that peered out of a tan face, glowering unhappily at Uncle as the boy struggled against the tight grip he was held in.
“Impossible,” Apollo breathed, the weight of prophecy pressed down against his brow for a moment as those green eyes locked onto him, the spark of something like recognition appearing in them. He forced the feeling down. He did not have time to prophesise, not when something impossible was happening before him. “…A trick?” he murmured, but no. He could feel his Uncle’s divine essence within the child and, far fainter, an echo of his sister’s.
A new, impossible godling.
Apollo wasted a moment allowing the thought to sink into his mind and then he lunged forward, power already surging into his hands.
He remembered his own birth, and his twin’s – how they had flickered like shades, neither real nor not until they had found the hunt, and secured the first of their domains. Remembered Triton, the way his bones had broken upon his birth, his wails of pain immortalised in the whistling echo of the sea-wind against the cliffs. He remembered Dionysus, the only of father’s demi-god children, their father’s essence poured into him like a faucet and still born too-thin and too-pale beneath the deep bruises that bloomed on his infant form like wine stained across fine cloth.
“How is he?” Apollo demanded, appearing in the fountain, uncaring to find himself ankle-deep within the water as he reached for the godling’s face. “How long ago was he born, what domain’s does he hold?”
“None,” Poseidon answered, petting restlessly at the boy who continued to attempt to wriggle free. “We were surprised – before I could reach one for him the pull ended.”
“Impossible,” Apollo breathed again. He tilted the boy’s face – and it truly was an exquisite face – side to side, ignoring the boy’s angry yelp and the strange sounds that he made as Apollo sent a thrum of power through him searching for signs of decay. Demeter’s every attempt had withered into dry husks of corn, Hades’ had gone cold and still until eternal night had clouded their eyes and stone had claimed their flesh. Who knew how this child of his Uncle and Sister might suffer.
The boy swatted at his hands, scowling harder as he attempted to jerk his head away from Apollo’s grip. Distressingly he could feel bruises blooming on the boy’s too-soft skin as Apollo did not let go and he immediately sent a surge of warmth through his fingertips, smoothing the damage as soon as it formed. He could feel the water of the fountain attempting to answer the boy’s distress and could also feel his uncle’s power soothing the waters before they could turn violent. More of that incomprehensible babble spilled from his lips a startled blush spreading across the new god’s neck and cheeks as Apollo pushed the blanket to the side.
The boy was covered in scars, as though he had battled the fates themselves to be born. Burns, cuts – clean from a blade, and jagged from claws, there was even a distinctive raised starburst on his palm from some sort of poisoned stinger. Apollo trailed warm fingers across the old wounds, but despite how hard he pressed, he could not wipe the scar tissue away.
“Well,” Poseidon asked sharply, the skin around his mouth bulging strangely as teeth appeared and disappeared within his jaw, an anxious clicking rattling between his jaws.
“He seems stable,” Apollo said, hardly able to believe it himself. The child showed no signs of the degradation the other newborn gods had experienced, showed none of the pain either, from the way he had began kicking at his father’s chest, giving up on his attempts to squirm out of his father’s tight hold and instead trying to climb over the older god’s shoulder to freedom. “The scars cannot be erased, but I do not think they cause him pain,” he hesitated, reluctant to bring up the other thing he had noticed. Particularly when he stood so close to uncle, who may yet lose control once Apollo –
“And his mind?” Athena demanded at his shoulder, interrupting Apollo’s musings.
Apollo yelped, almost slipping on the smooth marble beneath his feet, not having noticed his sister sneak up on him during his examination. Athena glowered at him, a soft crooning rising in her throat as her eyes tore away from Apollo and inevitably, back to her son. For his part, the boy just blinked incomprehensively at his mother, flinching back into his father when she tried to reach for him, more nonsense tumbling out of him.
Athena’s wings drooped, lips pursing tightly as she turned to Apollo who froze like a mouse under her owl-eyed gaze. “He has not spoken a true word since he awoke. He does not recognise his own –” her voice cracked slightly. “He does not seem to understand where he is, or what is happening. His mind…it is confused.”
Apollo winced. It would be the sort of bitter irony that grandfather’s curse seemed to favour. The children of Poseidon turned to seafoam, the children of Zeus never to draw breath, the children of Ares to die, never born, their mothers’ killed before they could carry to term no matter how his fiery brother conspired to protect them. It would make sense. A child of wisdom, trapped in their own incomprehension. Never to understand, never to know.
But – there was not emptiness behind the boy’s eyes. Whatever was going on, there was intelligence there. Apollo rocked back on his heels, observing the godling. Restrained in his father’s indulgent arms the boy huffed angrily, crossing his arms and sinking down. There was something wry in his expression as he resignedly babbled something at them.
The words were wrong, vowels stretched too long in places and in others barked too sharply. But in amidst the nonsense, he thought he heard ‘Apollo’, and not long after, ‘Athena’.
He hummed thoughtfully. If they were names, it was perhaps not that the boy could not comprehend but merely that he did not understand. And, in that case…
“Brother,” he said lightly and felt, not just Hermes’ but his father’s still present attention snap to him. “Holder of language. Come here. Do his words mean anything to you?”
Hermes leaned forward, eyes still lingering in fascination on the new godling. Hermes was the youngest of them bar Dionysus, Apollo remembered. He had been present at very few births, and none of his children had made it past their first sunset. His mouth opened, taking several shallow, scenting breaths.
“Okay, that’s fucking creepy,” the boy said, raising an unimpressed eyebrow before craning his head back. “Seriously, Dad? We’re just going along with this?”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” Hermes hummed, rolling the godling’s words around his mouth. “It’s definitely language. Though not one that I know. I could figure it out. But it would take time, and I would have to hear a lot more of it.”
“That is all,” Poseidon said eagerly, leaning forwards and running a proprietary hand through his son’s hair. “The scars, the language. He is healthy otherwise? There are no other signs of decay?”
Apollo hesitated a fraction too long. Athena bristled, wings mantling outwards, feathers brisling around her shoulders as a horse rattling cry started in her throat. Uncle’s eyes flashed flat and black as a shark’s, the pressure of the deep suddenly wrapping around Apollo’s shoulders.
“Speak!” Poseidon ordered.
“He is healthy!” Apollo squeaked, throwing his hands up in surrender and feeling relief sigh through him as the pressure eased. “He seems perfectly healthy in all ways but one. I – sister, uncle,” Apollo cringed slightly, hoping that neither of the two would chose to shoot the messenger. “The boy, he is mortal.”
Poseidon rocked a step back, tucking backwards against his face as though to hide from the terrible truth. Athena bristled higher, eyes snapping like thunder as she turned on him.
“That is impossible,” she said, “He is the child of two gods – he cannot be mortal!”
Apollo did not answer, merely reached out and grabbed the boy’s hand, pressing a sharp nail in just deep enough that they could all see a bead of crimson will up on the boy’s skin. The boy said something sharp, something scolding – and how novel, who truly scolded Apollo these days but for his sister and his divine father – gentling, Apollo’s thumb brushed the blood away, wiping the small scratch away with it.
A deep mournful croon echoed from Poseidon’s chest, the boy’s face furrowing into a frown as he looked up at his distressed father, placing a small hand on his cheek.
“It’s okay, son,” Poseidon said, dropping a kiss onto the boy’s forehead. The boy looked startled, pressing his hand against the spot as though he thought he might have imagined it. “I will take him to Atlantis. He will be safe there.”
“Uncle, you can’t,” Athena cried, lunging forward and placing her hand on their uncle’s arm. “I cannot stay so long beneath the sea. A child should stay with his mother.”
“You can always visit,” Poseidon murmured, his gaze enraptured by the impossible, vulnerable son in his arms. “It is better for him to be safe.”
Apollo could not help but share in a fraction of his sister’s despair. New gods were ever so rare, and Olympus had not seen this much excitement in decades. Poseidon would disappear with his new fascinating impossibility, and they would see neither again for years, if not decades. Not until the boy was fully fledged as a god in his own right. Poseidon rocked back on his heels, as though he intended to do just that.
“Father!” Athena cried, whirling on their father, desperation colouring her cry.
“Now, brother,” Zeus said, starting forwards and resting a comforting hand on Athena’s shoulder. “There is no need to be hasty. The boy should come to Olympus, of course. Where he can be surrounded by his family. Our sister and brothers would love to see him, the first god child born in over a century. Apollo says the boy is well, there is no need to hide him away beneath the waves.”
Poseidon snorted bitterly. “Well? When blood runs through his veins instead of ichor.”
Father laughed lightly, offering his brother a sharp grin that had the boy in his arms freeze prey-still.
“It is only mortality,” Father said, prowling forward lightly. “After all, mortality can be such a temporary affliction…We can fix that.”