‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻Ψ༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙
In the vast silence above the clouds, where thunder rolled like distant war drums and the air crackled with the scent of ozone, ambrosia, and the faint, restless salt-tang of storm-tossed seas, the three brothers had gathered upon a dais of storm-wrought gold and marble veined with starlight. The youngest lounged upon his throne with the careless sprawl of one who believed the cosmos itself had been crafted for his comfort, lightning playing idly about his fingers, coiling and uncoiling like restless serpents eager for release. His gaze—sharp as an eagle's, bright with the arrogance of unchallengeable height—swept the mortal world far below with proprietary amusement, as though every life beneath was a toy placed there for his diversion.
To his left stood the middle brother, trident planted like a challenge against the marble, sea-foam still clinging to the hem of his cloak as though he had only just risen from some triumphant drowning. His presence carried the ceaseless surge of tides, restless and unpredictable, eyes the shifting green-blue of storm-tossed waves, laughter ever-ready to break into roaring surf that mocked anything stable or still. Beside him, almost unseen against the brilliance of the clouds, stood the eldest—cloaked in shadow that seemed to drink the light itself, his stillness heavy as the weight of earth and all that lay buried beneath it. No crown of laurel or bolt adorned him; only profound quiet marked his dominion, ancient and unyielding, solemn as the final breath of the dying, a silence that made the others' noise feel suddenly childish.
The youngest spoke first, voice resonant with the authority of skies and oaths, a smile curling like summer lightning across his lips—too knowing, too pleased with itself.
"I have watched the maiden of Enna," he said, leaning forward, sparks dancing between his knuckles like courtiers at his command. "She ripens like the first pomegranate of the season—bright, untasted, guarded too fiercely by her mother's hand. The world above grows restless for want of her. Spring lingers overlong, a spoiled child refusing to yield the stage; the earth forgets its deeper rhythms, choking on its own sweetness like a garden overgrown with ivy."
The middle brother snorted, a sound like waves smashing against cliff faces in petty triumph. He shifted his trident, sending a deliberate spray of brine across the marble that hissed where it touched the youngest's lightning.
"Restless? Speak for yourself, thunder-lord. The seas have no complaint with endless bloom—my waves cradle every fallen petal like a lover's tribute. More flowers mean more garlands drifting on my currents, more nymphs dancing on my shores like foam given fleeting form. Let the girl stay above if she wishes. There are pleasures enough without meddling in harvests—nymphs fleeing across every shore like startled deer, only to find my tide waiting, patient as the moon pulling them back."
The youngest's eyes flashed, a brief, dangerous flicker of storm that lit the dais like a warning flare.
"Fleeing," he repeated, the word dripping with venomous delight, sharp as a hawk's talon. "Like Amphitrite fled from you, a white sail vanishing over the horizon while you raged like a tempest denied its harbor? Your 'pleasures' leave trails of pursuit and reluctance, brother—wreckage strewn across the deep like broken promises. And you dare speak of meddling when your tantrums sink continents and drown cities for a slight?"
The middle brother's laugh boomed, deep and rolling like breakers over a wreck, though a shadow of old rage crossed his wave-green eyes, dark as the trench where light dies.
"Reluctance? Pot calling the kettle storm-black, you who sit enthroned in the heavens yet cast shadows longer than night. What of Leto, wandering homeless across earth and sea like a leaf battered by gales, pregnant and desperate, denied even a barren rock because your jealous queen hunted her like a storm chasing its own echo? Or Metis, swallowed whole like a bitter pill to escape the prophecy of your own downfall—wisdom devoured so no child might eclipse the sun-king? At least my pursuits end in queens beside me, enthroned on coral and pearl. Yours end in fear, concealment, and the occasional pyre of ashes when your glory proves too bright for mortal flesh to bear—like a lightning bolt mistaking itself for enlightenment."
The youngest's smile sharpened to a blade, lightning coiling brighter, the air itself growing heavy with charge, thick as the moment before the sky splits.
"Enough," the eldest said, the single word falling heavy as stone into deep water, silencing the crackle and roar alike—a silence deeper than any abyss, swallowing their barbs like earth reclaiming ruins.
He continued, voice measured and unyielding, carrying the weight of unspoken centuries, each syllable deliberate as the slow grinding of tectonic plates beneath the sea.
"You both speak as though she were a prize to be divided, or a debt to be settled among us—like hawks quarrelling over a dove while the sky itself watches in disgust. As though desire itself were a thunderbolt that justifies any ruin in its path."
The youngest turned to him, tone shifting to honeyed thunder—flattery sharp as a hidden blade, laced with just enough truth to sting, sweet poison dripped from a golden cup.
"Come now, eldest. You play the incorruptible king so very well, seated on your throne of midnight and buried gold. You welcome every soul, yes—heroes to your gilded Elysium where they feast forever on glory half-earned, like echoes congratulating themselves; the mediocre to drift in Asphodel's gray haze like smoke no one bothers to fan; the lovelorn to sigh away eternity in those misty Mourning Fields of yours, weeping like willows over loves that were never roots; the very best to your precious Isles of the Blessed where they pat themselves on the back across lifetimes like peacocks preening in eternal mirrors. Even the worst you keep locked in Tartarus, chained like rabid dogs in a pit no light reaches. Impartial, just, unbribable—the only one of us who never took what wasn't freely offered. Quite the performance, brother. The quiet martyr who drew the short lot and forged it into a crown of moral superiority, shining colder than any star."
He leaned closer, lightning flickering mockingly at his fingertips, voice dropping to a conspiratorial purr that crackled like embers in dry grass.
"Yet even you must see how the world above chokes on endless spring—like a throat clogged with honey, sweet until it suffocates. All that stagnant light, all that cloying bloom spreading like ivy over a grave. It offends your precious balance, doesn't it? Or has ruling the dead made you indifferent to the living—content to sit in your glittering crypt, counting jewels no sun will ever warm, while we manage the mess up here?"
The middle brother barked a laugh, brine splashing from his trident in deliberate provocation, salt stinging the air like thrown gravel.
"Listen to him—praising you one breath like a courtier oiling a statue, needling you the next like a spoiled child poking a mountain to see if it bleeds. He wants the girl taken care of, but he won't soil his own hands—too busy polishing his thunderbolts. Classic. And you, eldest—don't pretend you're above it. You accepted the dark lot without a whimper, yes, but we all know why. No mortals to chase down there, no nymphs to flee your grasp like fish slipping the net, no prophecies to swallow whole like bitter fruit. Easier to play the noble one when temptation never knocks—when your kingdom is a vault of echoes and buried gold, beautiful but cold as a miser's heart."
Shadows thickened around the eldest, a slow coiling of night that seemed to drink the very words from the air, turning mockery into hollow echoes lost in caverns. His voice, when it came, was low, unhurried, edged with stone—neither wounded nor angered, but distant, as though speaking from the bottom of a well older than their quarrels, ancient as the bones of the earth.
"I keep what is mine by right, like roots claiming the soil that feeds them. I do not chase what is not offered, like winds scattering seeds that never take root. I do not deceive to conceal my deeds, like storms hiding behind rainbows. I do not devour wisdom to hoard power, like flames consuming the forest to crown themselves king of ashes. I do not drive the pregnant across endless wastes for fear of rivalry, like gales tearing leaves from the branch before they can fall. I do not burn lovers with revelation they cannot survive, like lightning mistaking flesh for sky. Call it performance if it pleases you. Call it convenience, a virtue born of barren soil. It changes nothing. My realm receives all who come—without judgment until their deeds demand it, like the earth accepting every raindrop, every corpse, every buried seed. I ask no more than that, and I take no less."
The youngest's smile widened, thunder rumbling soft approval—but his eyes remained cold, calculating, the look of a gambler who believes he has read the table, lightning dancing like victory flares too soon.
"Exactly. You keep what is yours—by right, like a mountain claiming its shadow. And if the maiden herself should offer…if she should weary of perpetual light and seek the deeper seasons only you can give, seasons buried like veins of gold no sun has touched…would the great keeper of balance, the unbribable judge whose heart is colder than his gems, truly refuse? Or would that famed impartiality bend, just a little, like stone yielding to roots older than time—for something you actually want?"
The middle brother rolled his eyes, sea-foam dripping from his beard in open contempt, salt hissing where it fell.
"Spare us the poetry—both of you circling the same prize like sharks scenting blood in still water, one dressing hunger in cosmic necessity like a beggar in borrowed robes, the other in noble restraint like a wolf wearing sheep's wool. Same teeth, different snarls. Just don't come crying to me when Demeter turns the world to dust and mortals stop sailing my seas altogether, their ships rotting like forgotten driftwood."
The eldest's gaze remained fixed downward, toward the distant meadow where the maiden walked alone among flowers, his silence deeper now, weighted with something that might have been contemplation or quiet resolve—shadows pooling like ink around an unwritten fate.
"Her mother's love is a wall of living grain, golden and unbreakable as summer's illusion," he said at last, voice soft as dust settling on graves. "To breach it unasked would bring suffering unneeded—and blame that would fall heaviest on the one who acted, like an avalanche burying the hand that loosed the stone. Yet if the maiden herself grows weary of perpetual light, if she seeks a season she has never known—dark, rich, veined with hidden fire…"
He trailed into silence, shadows pooling thicker at his feet like ink spilled across marble, swallowing even the light of distant stars.
The youngest pressed, voice dropping to a coaxing rumble, triumph already glinting in his eyes like heat lightning on the horizon.
"Then?"
The eldest's gaze did not waver from the distant bloom of Enna.
"Then the chariot would wait, and a hand would be extended—nothing more" he said at last, so softly the words might have been carried on the wind itself, yet they landed with the finality of stone sealing a tomb.
The middle brother sighed theatrically, turning his gaze seaward with exaggerated dismissal, waves of contempt rolling off him.
"Well, don't look to me when the world starves and your precious balance tips into famine like a ship listing under too much gold. I'll be in my depths, where the fish still swim free, the nymphs still dance untamed, and no one lectures me about cosmic harmony or moral crowns forged in the dark."
The youngest laughed once more, thunder echoing soft across the heavens, rich with satisfaction that rang like a bell tolling premature victory.
"And we shall be here," he said, glancing toward the eldest with a glint of triumph masked as camaraderie, lightning flickering like shared conspiracy. "Watching the turning of the wheel—as always."
Shadows deepened further around the quiet figure in darkness, swallowing even the echo of laughter, turning it to dust. For a long moment none spoke, the air thick with the residue of old rivalries and new schemes. Then the eldest inclined his head—the barest motion, yet it seemed to shift the very axis of the cosmos, a concession so subtle it might have been refusal in another mouth, heavy as the closing of ancient gates.
"So be it," he murmured, voice like the earth itself accepting its burden.
Lightning flashed once, bright and brief, illuminating the space between them—three kings, three realms, three hungers dressed in different garments, each convinced his was the truest crown. When it faded, the eldest had already turned his full attention downward, toward the distant field where the maiden walked alone among the flowers.
And far below, unseen by any mortal eye, Gaia stirred in her sleep. The meadow of Enna began to prepare its most beautiful deception—narcissus beyond counting, hyacinths heavy with scent, a trap woven not of force, but of longing itself, sweet as honey, sharp as buried thorns.
And in the depths, the chariot—black as midnight, drawn by horses patient as eternity, wheels banded in silent gold—began its slow, inevitable preparation.
‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻Ψ༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙