Eros

Chapter 1

Do you know how love was created? Do you know why it is sometimes the greatest and strongest force in the world, how it can put an end to wars and hatred, but how it can sometimes break and even destroy some people? His story began long, long ago, before the great king sat on his throne, before the two races clashed, before the world was created, at the beginning.

Now, at the beginning there was nothing. Only darkness. Darkness that filled the empty void, into every crevice, every vein of the universe. Yet, darkness never prevails. Even after the billions of years it had consumed the void we now call the universe, the darkness did not stay. From the darkness came another diety, Chaos.

Chaos did not replace darkness, as even though darkness would end, it would come back. Rather, it was formed from it and now Chaos filled the void. And, soon after, from Chaos came three other deities. These were: Gaia-personification of the Earth, Tartarus, personification of the Underworld and Eros-personification of Love, for without love, there was no creation.
Now, in all of Gaia's being, there was only one place the deities favourited, a small land in which they named Greece. Gaia gave Greece the clearest waters, the bluest skies and an ample source of food, water, animals and anything else they could possibly want.

However, the next events that took place in Greece changed its history forever. From Gaia, with the personification of the skies, known as Ouranos, came a race of beings called the Titans. The Titans were led by the first child called Kronos. Kronos murdered his father with a scythe for bringing pain unto his mother.
When he had his own children, he feared that one day they might overthrow him and his fellow Titans. So, he ate them, every single one until his wife Rhea could not bear it anymore. When she had her next child, she hid it away from Kronos and instead gave him a rock. In consuming the rock his other children came out from his mouth.

Now, the race of children that came from Kronos and Rhea were called the Olympians. The leader of the Olympians was Zeus, who was the child Rhea hid from Kronos. In a great war, the Titans and Olympians battled out for who would take the throne and the Olympians succeeded. Zeus took the throne, he also murdered his father with the scythe, just like what had been done to his father before him and put it on Tartarus.

Now, Eros was not acknowledged because of these events. In the Golden age of Greece, there were temples and statues built for the Olympians, but not for Eros. They did not know of his true power or what he was capable of. They took love for granted. Because of this, Eros took an inkling of himself and it fell on Mount Olympus, where the gods lived and looked after the mortals in hope of changing the way that people saw him-mortals and immortals alike.

Now, Eros' entrance onto Mount Olympus did not go as he planned. The drop of Love fell into the stomach of Aphrodite, none other than the goddess of Love. The droplet became her baby soon after, and she rejoyced-as did the other Olympians. She had a feeling to name the baby Eros. However, Zeus was told a prophecy about Eros, that he was too distraught to tell anybody, but he knew what he had to do to the baby. He burned Eros with Greek fire and threw him off Mount Olympus - much to Aphrodite's horror. She tried to save him from the clutches of the fire, but Zeus had found out and stripped her off her powers until he saw fit.
Nonetheless, Aphrodite had love inside of her that no one could take from her and she gave some of her love to a married couple passing by who found Eros and saved him from the fire, who named the baby Andrew.

Thirteen years had passed. Andrew lived with the couple, thinking they were his parents, who raised him and taught him all about the gods, how they ruled over the mortals and how they controlled them. They told him how Greece was created, and that the primordial dieties chose Greece as their ruling country. Often, they made sacrifices to the gods so that the they were happy, as they believed the gods could change their fates in an instant.

Andrew loved his parents as much as they loved him. They would tell him myths-some that frightened him to the bone while others had mysterious morals. The gods could not find Eros hence they assumed that he was dead.

One day, Andrew's mother and father left for a trip overseas to collect some artefacts from other countries as his father was a merchant. Once they were on the boat, out to sea, Poseidon, Lord of the Seas, knew exactly who they were and sent a wave that drowned the boat and killed the parents as a punishment for Aphrodite for not listening to Zeus and saving Eros.
When Andrew heard the news, he was deeply saddened and one day, when he was collecting herbs, found that his house was destroyed by bandits. With no hope left, Andrew cried to the gods for help and only one listened-his own mother, Aphrodite.

She did not know what to do and sought a solution from Athena, goddess of wisdom, strategy and sewing, to name a few, she was also a daughter of Zeus. Athena was very fond of the child and agreed to help Aphrodite. She told her to keep him in the forest, far away from the other mortals and where he would not be found by the gods.
She also told her to give him a weapon and an animal for a companion. So, Aphrodite did exactly that- she led him into a forest far away from the mortals, she gave him a staff as a weapon, a blue bird as a companion and without advice from Athena, gave him a necklace with her face on it so that he would know her and maybe even return to Olympus, despite the consequences.

Stay tuned for the new chapter, updates every week!