Chapter Text
It is said, that long ago, there was Gaia, the Earth, and above her was Ouranos, the Sky. Together they were the first bond between heaven and soil, they were an endless dome pressed upon the fertile ground. And from their union sprang children of terrifying majesty: twelve beings of incredible power known as Titans, the one-eyed Cyclopes, and the hundred-handed Hekatonkheires.
But Ouranos would look upon his offspring with dread. The Cyclopes and the hundred-handed ones seemed to him as abominations, a mockery of his perfection. He would force them back into Gaia’s womb, deep into the bowels of the earth. Their cries would shake mountains, and Gaia herself groaned beneath the weight of her children imprisoned within her.
Gaia’s anguish turned to wrath. She would shape a sickle from her own adamant bones and call upon her Titan sons to strike back at their father. Yet it was only the youngest, Kronos, who answered her plea. His soul burned with ambition, pride, and a desire to usurp his father’s throne. With Rhea at his side, he waited for the night when Ouranos would descend upon Gaia once more. Then Kronos leapt from the shadows, the sickle flashing in his hand. With a single blow, he cut down the Sky, and blood rained upon the world.
From that wound came both ruin and creation. The Erinyes, spirits of vengeance, would rise from the bloodied earth. The sea foamed with new life, from which, in time, Aphrodite would have been born.
In the moment of his father’s fall, Kronos would stand triumphantly. He declared himself ruler of the cosmos and freed his siblings from Gaia’s depths.
The Titans rejoiced. The age of Ouranos’ tyranny ended, and Kronos was hailed as king of a new golden age. He took Rhea, his sister and consort, as his queen. Rhea thought that together, they would bring balance, rule where their father had only smothered. She had believed him. She had loved him.
But shadows lingered in the prophecy spoken by Ouranos that night: that as Kronos had overthrown his father, so too would he be cast down by his own child. And though Rhea dreamed of peace, Kronos carried his father’s terror in his heart.
But victory soured. Kronos had inherited his father’s paranoia and sharpened it into something far worse. The prophecy clung to him, and so, when Rhea bore their firstborn, Hestia, Kronos took the child and swallowed her whole. He did the same with Demeter, with Hera, with Hades, with Poseidon, each tiny life stolen the moment it was brought into the world.
Now, swollen with her sixth child, Rhea’s heart trembled between fury and despair. She knew what fate awaited this infant if she did nothing. And that day she decided, if Kronos feared the prophecy so much, she would make it a reality. This child, the last of her womb, might be the one who would break Kronos’ endless cycle of fear.
So Rhea prepared a plan in secret. When the hour came, she would wrap a stone in swaddling clothes and place it in Kronos’ hands. A false son for a false king. And while he gorged himself on cold rock, she would hide her newborn far from his devouring sight.
But even Titans doubted. Even mothers prayed. And so, in the stillness before her labor, Rhea fell to her knees. She pressed her palms into the earth that had birthed her, and lifted her eyes to the stars that had once been her father’s domain. She whispered for the Fates, or for whatever higher power still watched beyond the Titans’ reach.
“Let my deception hold. Let my child live.”
The hour of birth came at last. Rhea’s cries echoed through the cavern halls, muffled beneath the stone so that no word of her labor would travel too soon. When the infant slipped from her, she pressed him to her breast only for a moment. A moment to know his warmth, his first breath — before the plan had to begin.
Outside her chamber, the attendants sworn to Kronos waited eagerly, their task as clear as it was cruel: to carry news to their king so he might devour his child before the boy could even taste life. With trembling hands, Rhea swaddled a bundle and passed it to them, her voice calm and weary, her face composed in its mask of obedience.
“Go. Tell your lord his son is born.”
They departed swiftly, bearing word to Kronos that the prophecy’s next link had come into the world. Only when their footsteps had faded did Rhea turn to those few she still trusted — souls brave enough to defy their king in silence.
To one, she gave the newborn child. “Take him far from here. To Crete, where no eye of my husband will pierce. Hide him among the mountain caves and place him in the care of those who will guard him with their lives.”
To another, she pressed her will in hurried whispers: “The stone — wrap it in the cloth. Bind it tight as though it were flesh. He must see nothing but what I place in his hands.”
They moved quickly, fear and loyalty guiding their steps. The rock was swaddled, the babe borne away into the night. By the time Kronos entered Rhea’s chamber, his wife sat pale but resolute, the false child cradled in her arms. She lifted it toward him, heart pounding in her chest.
But Kronos, sharp-eyed and steeped in suspicion, did not smile at the gift.
For a heartbeat, her heart hoped he would take it swiftly, as he had with the others, and vanish into his gut. But this time, suspicion darkened his eyes.
“Open it up,” Kronos said, his voice low, steady. “I would like to see my son’s face before I devour him.”
Rhea’s throat tightened. She clutched the bundle closer, bowing her head as though in meek obedience. “My lord and husband, you know the prophecy. It would be better to take him swiftly, as with the others. Do not tarry, end this before the Fates weave further against you.”
But Kronos did not move. He only studied her, a cruel smile pulling at his mouth. “You tremble, Rhea. Why?”
The silence stretched, as brittle as glass. At last, with no words left to shield her, she unfolded the swaddling cloth with her hands trembling. Where soft flesh should have lain, there gleamed a jagged stone with its surface glinting with an uncanny light.
Kronos laughed. The sound was thunder and mockery, sharp enough to make the walls shake. His hand fell to the sickle at his side, the same weapon that had once carved open the sky itself.
“When the six-winged creature told me you wanted to feed me rock, I thought that he was deceiving me. But, now, I see that he told the truth. You…”, his face now twisting with anger
“You think to trick me? You would dare mock the Lord of Time?!” His voice rose into a bellow, his laughter twisted into a roar that made the stone quake. “Bring the boy to me, Rhea! At once! For the others, I gave the mercy of eternity within my gut. But this one…” he drew a very familiar sickle, its edge glimmering with starlight and blood yet unforgotten, “this one I will cut from existence itself!”
Rhea fell to her knees before him, tears streaking from her face. She clutched the empty cloth and pressed her forehead to the ground. “Please, my husband. I beg you, have mercy. He is but an infant. Do not stain yourself further with this cruelty.”
But Kronos towered over her, his shadow falling long across the floor, his hand tight around the sickle’s hilt.
And then—another voice cut through the chamber.
Rhea froze. Kronos tightened his grip on the sickle.
Before them stood a figure that was neither a Titan nor any other child of Gaia. His form was cloaked in simple robes, but his bearing carried the weight beyond kingship. His face was kind, aged and grave, and yet the stranger was definitely nothing mortal.
In his arms, the stranger cradled a being.
At first, Rhea’s heart froze. When the stranger stepped forward, cradling a figure in his arms, she believed her little Zeus had been carried back to his doom, stripped from the hiding place she had so desperately arranged.
But then she looked closer.
The stranger held a figure draped in a black robe and golden spiked robe, with two golden wings folded like banners of dawn. His hair was brown, cut short, with the faint shadow of growth upon his jaw. His face was beautiful yet heavy with silence, his eyes closed as though in endless sleep. Golden blood ran from his nose, shimmering as it traced down his cheek, which made both Rhea and Kronos believe that to be ichor, the lifeblood of divinity.
If Kronos had any doubts, his mind had now convinced itself that the person lying unmoving in the arms of the stranger was of a similar origin as his other children.
Rhea trembled. Zeus was safe. This man, whoever he was, had been brought here to take her son’s place.
The stranger looked up at Kronos, voice steady. “I beg you, oh great King of Titans, to forgive your wife, who only did as any mother would.”
Kronos’ eyes narrowed.
He turned to Rhea, the stone still lying at her feet. “What is the child’s name?” His voice cracked like iron.
Rhea’s lips parted, but no sound came. Her throat was dry, her mind racing.
Before she could speak, the stranger answered. “His name is Adam.”
Kronos repeated it slowly, tasting the syllables as though they were already on his tongue. “Adam. My sixth son.” His hand tightened around the sickle, then fell away as he weighed his choice.
Finally, his gaze locked on the stranger. “And you? Who are you, to stand here in my hall?”
The robed figure did not waver. “I am no one. Only a faithful servant of the Almighty.”
Kronos’s teeth bared in a grin. He had heard many praises before, but no one had ever called him ‘Almighty’ before. His pride now satisfied, he decided he would not delay. The winged man was large, far larger than the infants he had swallowed before, but he forced himself to continue swallowing him, as in Kronos’s mind, every moment risked the golden winged being to grow even larger. Already, Adam’s limbs seemed too heavy, his wings too vast, for Kronos’ hunger to contain. But Kronos would not let this chance slip.
With a bellow, he seized the golden-winged stranger, forcing his jaws wide. Adam’s body resisted, larger than the others, but Kronos forced him down, inch by inch, until the robed figure vanished into his gut.
The Titan king staggered, chest heaving, but his laughter soon broke free again.
Triumphant, cruel, echoing through the chamber. “It is done. And you Rhea, never try the trick with that rock again.”
He looked upon Rhea one more time.
“Your deceit is forgiven,” he said coldly, “but not because of my pity to you, but because of my loyal servant.”
He turned and left, whispering almighty to himself, as his footsteps shook the palace.
Rhea collapsed to her knees, clutching the swaddled stone. She raised her eyes to thank and possibly reward the stranger, but to her disappointment, the chamber was empty. The stranger was gone, as though he had never been in her palace.