182. I Often Wondered If a Time Before This Existed
I Often Wondered If a Time Before This Existed
That a time where there was peace,
where we didn’t hear cries and screams
from the skies, was simply a dream.
Pallas would visit my bed so little now,
his once-bronzed body forever covered
in the soot and charcoal of the forge.
The less I saw him, the more I resented him.
No Goddesses had been called to join the war yet,
and neither had any of us nymphs, of course.
We were relegated to the task of raising progeny,
of keeping the home and hearth safe,
of tending to the wounded.
And there were so many wounded.
The first time I saw my brothers return,
their bodies cut to pieces by adamantine,
some holding their severed legs
in their hands, others holding
their own heads, I wondered
whether immortality was a punishment,
and whether the mortals were more fortunate
for they knew the sweet endless peace of death.
No prophecy or dream could have prepared us
for the unfathomable horror of divine war.