207. Is It Still Called Victory If No One Celebrates It?
Is It Still Called Victory If No One Celebrates It?
Neither my children’s faces
nor Pallas’s face lit up for me.
My sisters did not seem
to delight in their wins either.
Instead, we all stood stoic and still,
our eyes on Zeus. A palpable fear
rose amongst the tired Titans
as he turned his attention
to the Titan generals
he held in the cages.
‘Every Titan who stood against me’ –
his voice was cold and callous –
‘will be taken to Tartarus.’
This we had expected.
But what he said next
devastated every one of us.
‘You may have wondered why we chose
Olympus as our seat of power.
This mountain sits atop
the deepest of Tartarus’s caverns.
We have asked a favour from the old God:
He says he will help us with these treacherous Titans.
Their leader, Perses, has already
been taken down and tied to the side of the cavern.’
He pointed to the marble floors
of Olympus. As we watched,
a strange thing happened.
Tendrils of gold rose from inside
the marble, and like ivy,
began to take over the floor.
‘Each Titan God who stood against me,’
Zeus said coldly. ‘Their ichor
will be used to turn this mountain into gold.’