Cry of the Moon

Chapter 8: The New Earth

I will concede to this point: the Gods kept their word down to the last drachma. The Titans that had fought for them, such as Helios, Eos, Epimetheus, Prometheus, Styx, and all the others, kept their positions in their individual areas and were even given palaces on Mt. Olympus next to the Gods. Zeus's last act in the war had been to blast a crater in the top of Mt. Othrys, destroying the royal palace and making Mt. Olympus the tallest mountain in the world. He had then removed the roof of the cavern the Gods had been living in on Mt. Olympus so the land felt like another planet sitting above the clouds.

The Gods decided on their realms based on the positions available after all the Titans who had not stood with them were stripped of their roles. Zeus took the sky, naming himself the God of the sky, weather, and kings, as well as King of the Gods, being that he was the eldest and therefore the role was his.

Poseidon took over from Oceanus as God of the sea, and also took on the title of God of Earthquakes and chariots, although I've never been entirely sure what power being God of chariots earned him.

Hades, who had started a relationship with Lady Styx during the war, pronounced himself in love and followed her down below the Earth. He became God of the dead and the Underworld and he and Lady Styx ended their relationship less than a year later.

Demeter, ever fond of scythes and other sharp blades, took on the role of Goddess of agriculture and the fertile Earth. She built her palace in the mortal world and began helping the land that had been destroyed by the war flourish once again.

Hera became the Goddess of marriage and started searching for a husband among the Gods and Titans. I've always felt she was one of the more useless goddesses, especially considering how her own marriage ended up turning out. That is a story for later though.

Hestia, to my great joy and relief, held to her world and convinced her siblings to make the hearth a neutral territory for anyone seeking shelter or sanctuary. She took on the role of Goddess of the hearth, home, and hospitality and made it clear that anyone of any race would be safe and welcome at her hearth, and if anyone broke the rules of sanctuary, they would face her wrath.

As for Kronos and the Titans that followed him, they were punished in ways I could never even dream of. Atlas, the general of Kronos's army, was chained to a cliff in the garden of the Hesperides and forced to hold up the sky for the rest of eternity.

My father, Hyperion, was thrown into Tartarus and forced to spend the next 1,000 millennia suffering in a pit of molten lava. Because of his help in the end of the war, no matter the fact that the information was forced out of him, he would be allowed to walk free in the mortal realm with none of his powers after his sentence was served. For most of the other Titans, along with my mother, their punishment was to be locked in Tartarus until the end of time, servants of the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires who had suffered greatly at their hands.

As for Kronos, his worst nightmares came true. This is something important to know about prophecies: they always come true. No matter how much you try to fight or avoid them, you will only be causing that future to come to be. In the end, Kronos was chopped into pieces with his own scythe. Zeus cast the pieces into the abyss of Chaos, a nothingness so deep not even Kronos could return from it.

As for me, I continued to drive the chariot of the Moon across the sky each night. As thanks for my help in the war, Zeus granted me the ability to split my mind and literally be in several places at once. This allowed me to have one part of my mind flying the chariot at night while having the other on Mt. Olympus working to keep relations between Titans and Gods fair. Titans that had fought with the Gods wanted more than a palace on Mt. Olympus and tensions had already begun building. After a particularly heated meeting between Oceanus and Poseidon where Poseidon had tried to cast Oceanus from his realm, Zeus asked to meet with me privately to talk.