No More Olympus

Chapter 26

When Athena opened her eyes back up, she was in a white void. Arachne, Jacob and the park were long gone, and an echoey silence replaced the sound of the hydras rampage.
She looked down at herself to find her golden armour and blue dress had vanished and had instead been replaced with a simple white chiton similar to what she would wear on her days of relaxation back on Olympus, but most surprising when she looked down at her hands, she found her skin was glowing a faint blue like her body was some sort of glow stick.
"Hello!" Athena called out to the nothingness.
Her feet were bare and felt as if they were standing in some sort of warm, soft foam that enveloped her up to her ankles.
"Is anyone there?" Athena shouted.
When no one responded, she sighed.
"I don't suppose there's an instruction manual on how to get out of here," she mumbled to herself, "Compared to being trapped in a silent void, I'll take fighting a giant spider lady any day of the week."
"Who's there?" A woman's voice called out from the void.
"Um..." Athena hesitated, considering her options, "My name is Athena. Who am I speaking to?"
"Athena?" The voice repeated in disbelief.
The source of the voice emerged from the fog.
She was dressed almost identically to Athena with the same white chiton dress. Only hers was considerably more wrinkled.
The white cloth was almost the same colour as her skin which was ghastly pale and contrasted heavily with her chocolate brown hair that had grown long, unkempt and full of tangles in the years left unattended.
She looked up with piercing green eyes at Athena and marvelled at the blue glow that surrounded the goddess but, oddly enough, did not surround her.
"It is you!" She said, her voice hoarse yet filled with delight, "Lady Athena, I can't believe it!"
"Oh my god," Athena's eyes widened as the brown-haired girl leapt for joy.
She knew this girl,
Back in the glory days of Olympus, the Titan God of Primordial Fire Prometheus, who had always been sympathetic to the newly flourishing mortal race, decided to bestow a gift. He taught them how to make fire.
Now Zeus, who believed that the mortals should only be indebted to him, decided to retaliate. He gathered the Olympians and asked them to help him with a project. He wanted to create a leader for the mortals, someone who would guide them to a new and brighter future.
So they decided to pluck a nameless adolescent mortal off the street and turn her into a leader of men.
Athena gifted her with new beautiful clothes she wove herself to present to the world her newfound status.
Aphrodite taught her how to present her natural beauty to attract followers.
A young Hermes educated her in all of the practical jokes he had worked out and thus taught her how to scheme and be clever.
By the end of the day, eleven Olympians had bestowed a gift upon her, leaving Zeus the honour of the final gift.
He gave her curiosity. He introduced her to the wonders of the world that surrounded her and a desire to find more.
That was one of the few times Athena could recall being proud of her father for choosing such a wise gift.
Then curiously, before she descended from Olympus, Zeus gave her one last gift, a simple bronze pithos that she was told to never open under any circumstances.
Rumours ran rampant across Olympus over what could possibly be inside the small jar. Hephaestus claimed Zeus asked him to forge a container that could 'hold anything' and that truly anything in the world could be hidden within, which they saw as remarkably unhelpful information.
After only a few days, the gods began to notice previously non-existent plagues had begun to burn through the mortal population, as well as strange, irrational, violent behaviour from a select few mortals.
Athena and Artemis spent days tracking these new evils to their source and eventually came across the same girl as before, sobbing next to the open jar.
The story soon spread through both Olympus and the world, becoming a cautionary tale for countless generations to come, with the box that held such evil eventually taking the namesake of its owner.
"Pandora," Athena said, "Oh great mother Gaia, Pandora!"
"Yes," Pandora cheered as tears welled up in her eyes, "You remember me, someone remembers me, and a goddess no less!"
"How are you here?" Athena questioned, "I thought you were dead. We all thought you were dead,"
"In every way that counts, I am," Pandora shrugged.
"What happened to you?" Athena asked.
"Well, after what happened with the box, I tried moving on, living my life," Pandora explained, "I had a daughter, Pyrrha was her name. It meant fire."
She smiled with pride at the thought of her child.
"And then she got infected with one of the plagues I released," Pandora continued, her expression turning tragic, "It was one of the worst ones too. She got covered in tiny little bumps and couldn't even open her eyes, then I remembered something I heard Hephaestus say when I was on Olympus with you all, that all you needed to lock something in the box was a worthy enough sacrifice. So I tried it, I found the box and asked it to take my daughter's disease from her and the only thing I had to offer that was significant enough..."
"Was your soul..." Athena realized.
"And it worked," Pandora chuckled with sadness in her eyes, "It worked, right?"
"It did," Athena assured her, "Pyrrha lived to have six children, three sons and three daughters, she passed surrounded by all of them."
"Good," Pandora nodded, "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Athena said, "Pandora have you been by yourself this whole time?"
Pandora's entire body perked up at this question.
"No!" She said excitedly, "I mean, I was for a while and then one day I had a friend, follow me."
She grabbed Athena by the hand and led her further into the fog.
They eventually stopped in front of a small dark cloud the size of a bush pulsing with lightning and floating amongst the foam on the ground.
"Lady Athena, meet Stormy," Pandora introduced with an innocent smile.
Athena looked at Stormy quizzically.
"Are these Zeus's powers?" Athena asked.
"No clue," Pandora shrugged, "He just showed up one day."
"And you named it Stormy," Athena questioned, "Why exactly?"
"We got close," Pandora explained, "It seemed only fitting to give him a name."
"You got close?" Athena raised her eyebrow.
"Yeah," Pandora nodded, "He's a really good listener, great to talk to."
"Pandora, what I'm about to ask you does not have a hint of sarcasm attached," Athena said cautiously, "Does Stormy ever... talk back?"
"No, of course not," Pandora chuckled, "He's a storm cloud. That would be absurd."
"Would match the rest of my day, though," Athena mumbled to herself.
"Lady Athena?" Pandora began, "Can I ask you something if I may be so bold?"
"It's just Athena now," she replied, "But go ahead."
"What are you doing here?" Pandora asked, "What could a goddess want with my box?"
Athena chuckled.
"What's so funny?" Pandora asked.
"Nothing," Athena shrugged off, "I've just spent too much time with Aphrodite, that's all."
"So why are you here?" Pandora repeated.
"Some mortal who didn't know what he was doing found the box and opened it," Athena explained, "And it just so happened to be filled with some of our most powerful monsters. I need to put them back before people realize what they are."
"Mortals who don't know what they're doing," Pandora repeated with a tragic smile, "And here I thought I would be the last one of those, so you're here to close the box. Are you prepared to make the sacrifice necessary?"
"I am," Athena nodded, "Anything to put it back the way it was."
"Well then," Pandora said, holding her hand out against the horizon, "That's up to you and the box now."
A small blue flame began to flicker through the fog.
"Just go out and touch the flame," She explained.
Athena stepped forward, cautiously approaching the fire.
"Lady Athena," Pandora interrupted, stopping Athena mid-step, "I may just be a mortal who doesn't know much, but may I say something?"
"Of course," Athena smiled.
"This box was designed to hold anything," Pandora explained, "But it can't contain everything. Sure you can store an entire continent's worth of monsters, diseases and madness in here, but there are some things that can't hide in something as simple as a bronze pithos even one as powerful as this one."
"Like what?" Athena asked.
"The truth," Pandora answered, "Nothing can contain it. Once it's out there, it's out there. No memory spells, gods, or magic containers can put it back where it came from; the only thing any of us can do is live within it, or risk destroying the world around us, the people around us or ourselves."
"Pandora..." Athena began, "I'm sorry for what the Olympians did to... no,"
She caught herself and paused for a moment before continuing.
"I'm sorry for the part I played in what happened to you. As much as I hate to admit it, every crime that was committed happened under my watch, and for the most part, I did nothing about them when I could've, and I knew better, and it's about time that I admitted to myself that I wasn't the black sheep of my family. I was just another face in the flock."
"Thank you," Pandora smiled, "For not forgetting me."
"I've been trying to forget for too long," Athena admitted, "Now it's time to embrace some memories."
She then reached out her arm, stuck it in the flame and made her sacrifice.