Legends Cower ✔️

Legend

Kirret 371 // 2 // 495OWL

My mother loves telling me of a story that her mother said that her father had told her, that his father had heard from his mother's mother. I guess you could call it a legend now, but it's not anywhere close to that. It's true. Apparently.

The legend goes that long ago - far, far longer than my great grandmother can remember now - there was a time when the mighty Olympus touched the ground.
The mortal heroes bearing the old gods' coats of arms could walk freely through the towering colossal pillars and even stand before Zeus without fearing his unbending wrath.
Achilles was the world's great defender, Aphrodite was the world's greatest threat.
It was both a golden age and an invisible - but none the less fallible - dynasty that would come to crumble, as all great civilisations do.

Legend says that once there was a time when the gods of old walked Our Earth and fell in love with our mortals.
Great gods like Ares and Athena would take the best among us and lead them to the innermost chambers of Olympus.
These mortals would raise the half-deities to be the strongest and bravest they could be, but like all things mortal, they too succumbed to the seduction of death.

My great grandpi always smiles when I ask him if he ever wanted to meet the heroes of old, that old knowing smile that one can only develop with experience. He says that he used to dream of one day going back to Our Earth and touching the stones that supported the ever expanding pantheon. We both know he never will, but that doesn't mean we can't dream.

Legend says that Our Earth used to be a hospitable environment, before the building blocks holding it together were destroyed.
The stories speak of a time when breathing in oxygen was a thing that people had almost no control over. A time when trees were cut down for a thing that people could write on. A time when people starved and had to work multiple jobs to keep afloat.
The stories, the darker ones, tell of a time when countries, races and religions would fight.
The ones we are told at home say they fought for peace. The history textbooks we've all memorised say that they fought for oil and for power. That civilian deaths were considered collateral damage.

Our Earth, the old one that my Nani was born 7439 light years away from, was already a broken world by the time we had made it our home, and we didn't help with our intervention. We ruined every resource the gleaming gem in a sea of madness had to offer.

Hidden somewhere in my lovely Nani's room, I know she has three things that have been in our family for generations.
Two I've seen in person.

One, she calls it a tablet and it looks like what I have now, only it's very obviously much, much older.
The second is called a book, and this one I've seen on only one occasion.
It's far too fragile for her to touch for very long and when she does, it is with the utmost solemnity. She tells me that it was her great great great grandmother's diary and contains information that, if given to the government, would cause Olympus to turn it's course around and head straight back to where it came from.
I don't think Olympus will ever change its plans. We are going to keep going until we reach the end - and the end is always nigh.

The last, I have never seen, and I doubt I ever will.
She says it's called a compass.

~~~

What happened to the legends?
The many gods of old?
Did they decide to leave us?
Did we decide to fold?

What happened to the legends?
The many ruling high?
Did they decide to kill us?
Did we decide to die?

~~~

600 words