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Theos
230 houyras, 17 minuxs, 4 segunds.
That was how long Theos darted between regions and species and mediums as the torrential rain around him tried desperately to reset the water cycle. Haera had not stirred; the bond was silent. In his initial assessment of the temperature dissension, he’d recognized that the new islands were cold because of their newness. Everywhere else around the world was caged in the slowest molten burn that he’d ever seen.
The volcanic activity deep in the Earth that bled to the surface through the soil had turned the rivers and waterways into boiling streams that spewed their vaporized wrath in tall plumes. Geysers and hot springs were so far beyond their temperature norms that the hot springs boiled, and the geysers erupted only powerful bursts of steam. Black smoke and ash mixed with the heavy wet air, undeterred by the falling rain. They spiralled up, up, until they crowded around him, serpentine and aggressive.
The rivers that hadn’t boiled from the intensity of the heat that burned from deep below, had turned to ice in the face of the cold that locked the Earth in its grasp. At the two nether ends of the Earth, the ice had shattered, melting away from the ice caps that held the balance in the Earth.
Theos took a deep breath. He could have called his younger brothers – the secondary principalities and powers that he’d handed control to over smaller elements and regions of the Earth. He could force them to coordinate with each other – come up with a million smaller plans for each of their domains that would need to be stitched together to form something that could actually work. Kaitos, god of the sea and air would be of most use to him right then. But when Theos looked down at the unnaturally dark ocean, he knew that his younger brother was already frantically trying to keep the entirety of the oceans from fading into death. This was his doing. He would heal it himself .
230 houyras, 37 minuxs, 56 segunds.
After a long, deep sigh and a shake of his head to clear the fog, he focused on forming a plan of action. The rapidly melting ice caps would have to be the first matter at hand. He angled his head towards the North Pole. They would restore the natural temperature balance of the Earth. The dying planet’s internal motor was far ahead of the planet’s cooling system, and as a result, life as he intended it was fraying and fading.
After both ice caps, he would move on to the sun. With the cold regulated and pushing the blistering wind that it was supposed to, the sun would be the element of balance – keeping both the cold and hot motors of the Earth in seamless rotation.
240 houyras, 00 minuxs, 00 segunds.
When Theos had opted to fly across the skies towards the North Pole instead of teleporting directly there, it had been an effort at casually surveying the rest damage from overhead. What he saw as he did turned his stomach into knots of heartbroken grief for his children and rage at himself. His heart was heavy. So heavy that it now resided in his feet .
There were a thousand deep gashes all over the Earth, from which magma had burst to destroy everything in its wake. A long, jagged gorge sliced through the length of one continent. The sulfuric smell of the fires of The Hells as they ascended to the surface and scorched the Earth made the contents of his stomach roil.
There was rotting plant life everywhere his eyes swept across. Everything he could see from overhead was singed. The scent of fire and the air of death and destruction was totally encompassing. His heart stuttered. All this damage was worse than he thought.
Despite the intense downpour of rain upon it, the oceans were still and undisturbed. No movement rippled in their darkness. Theos flinched at the thought of the massacre beneath its surface. Magma, lightning, earthquakes and poisonous fumes from the land; the oceans had had no choice but to absorb it all. The water and the land always tried to balance each other. His heart ached at the thought of the completely still depths. No currents, no life, nothing. Just a prison of fluid, still, heavy, dark.
The mountains were battered. Not by the majestic battering ram of the weather throughout the centuries they had stood, but a sad wornness. Gouges littered their surfaces, telling a tale of storms of light, dancing electricity and singeing burns .
Somehow, as the damage revealed itself to him, a niggling feeling settled into the bond. Haera had been unconscious for too long. He’d removed the drug from her body as soon as he’d set her in bed. He’d waited dahys at her bedside, never leaving no matter how the worlds fell into even more intense disarray around him. Waiting for her to wake up. She hadn’t.
He pressed on to the Northernmost point of the Earth, finding that there was no ice left. Hovering over the still, dark ocean, his jaw slackened. All the arctic creatures were swimming in the blackened waters, their cries growing loud as they noticed his presence. Only a small plateau of rapidly shrinking ice remained in the stillness, all that was left of the vast plains of ice, hundreds of meters thick that had stretched as far into the horizon as the eye could have seen. It suddenly added to his understanding of why the rest of the oceans were so still. The icy water had leaked all over the globe, and their surfaces were essentially frozen.
Theos let himself fall, plunging into the dark depths and swimming to the base of the only remaining ice left. Breathing deeply and relaxing as the dark waters floated by him in the slight currents, he flattened his palms against the bottom of the ice. Of all the things he had created, water was the hardest to engineer and manipulate, and the most important to mortal life. It existed in three states at once and could dance between the three at the slightest miscalculation.
290 houyras, 23 minuxs, 60 segunds.
Grunting, he closed his eyes and focused on cooling the water around him until it crystallized, clumped together and rose to the surface to form new ice. Behind his eyes, all he could see was Haera’s teasing smile. Her radiant hair. The way the sun glowed so perfectly against her skin. The sound of her laughter on the few occasions he’d been fortunate enough to hear it. All the love that he had for her. All the love he needed to give her.
When his internal temperature had dropped into the negatives and his body radiated only the acute absence of heat, he breathed out into the water, and ice began to form around him. He watched the molecules crystallize and clump up to form hard blocks. They collided harshly, growing until they formed a giant mass that surged to the surface and attached itself to the mass he was under. Collisions decorated the previously silent air.
Theos kept thinking of her. How achingly beautiful she was. How gentle, fearful at times, though she tried not to show it. The compassion that sparked in her eyes whenever she spoke of The Fates. How soft her hair was. How incredibly smooth her body felt under his touch. The whiny whimpers that eased from her lips when his touches grew too much .
The noise of ice forming had stilled. As far as his eyes could see, there was ice above him, harder than stone, and dozens of meters thick. Stretching down to the black deep of the ocean. Teleporting to stand on its surface, he repeated the procedure, until the air chilled around him, also forming ice. He rebuilt the tundras and the life-giving landscape that had once been.
Once more in the air, he measured the area of new ice against the one he had originally created. Sighing in relief and pushing his wet hair backwards, out of his eyes, he teleported to the South Pole and repeated the process.
With both ice caps back to what they were, the oceans began to move again. He could see through it from above now, and up to a few meters below the still water, molecules were becoming more mobile. Still, no waves crashed on its surface. He turned, staring up at the sun for a long moment.
But he let himself drop, sinking without effort to thousands of meters below the surface. Raising a hand, he twisted his fingers, calling the currents forward. The internal wave managed to knock him over, sending him spinning as it raged along towards the destination he’d issued to it. Rising to just hundreds of meters below the surface, he did the same motion in the other direction, driving the new current where it belonged .
360 houyras, 40 minuxs, 02 segunds.
The reefs were all frozen, its waters still cold and foreboding. Pouring some of the angry heat that he had tamped down out of his hands and into the water, he started the warming process of the oceans. He pored anxiously over each piece of coral, waiting to see them come back to life. Kaitos coiled around him, also anxiously awaiting the evidence of life. His brother’s features were anxious, lips pressed into a line. Mercifully, Kaitos didn’t lecture him, though Theos knew the decline of the oceans was ripping at him. His own eyes burned with unshed tears. Fish and sea creatures slowly moved around them, and he sighed, relieved, before trying to clear his head long enough to manage his last task.
Once more at the surface, breathing deeply as the waves lapped gently around his face, he felt the silent ocean begin to loosen as the currents regained their strength. Rain still fell from the sky, lightning and thunder echoing across the sky in deafening bounds. He needed to heal the sun.
He flew upwards and into the very pale sun that provided the Earth with light and heat. Raising his temperature so that he was once again the most intense form of heat anywhere in the universe, he exploded into a rage, driving the faintly burning surface into the visceral force of destruction the Earth needed to survive. It returned to the temperature and colour that the inhabitants of Earth were familiar with, and he returned to his hovering position in the centre of the universe. He could feel Kheos’ eyes on him from his balcony.
Theos searched through the universe thoroughly, looking for any small thing that was out of place or still unhealed. When he found nothing, he finally returned to Olympus.
490 houyras, 45 minuxs and 2 segunds.