Page 109 of Hekate: The Witch (Goddesses of the Underworld #1)

A Fable of Gods and Monsters

The endings of wars are just as painful as beginnings.

When you survey the damage left in the aftermath, a blood-drenched battlefield is the least of your concerns.

And so, when the Titanomachy came to an end, ten thousand years of ichor lost, the old Gods, the Titans, imprisoned in their volcanic dungeon, their wives and daughters taken from them by the new Gods, the Olympians, Zeus, the God-King of this new empire, realized that to reinforce their immortality, something more would be needed.

But he did not want to rule through fear the way his father had; he wanted to be a better ruler than Kronos ever was.

And so Prometheus, the cosmic creator and Zeus’ oldest friend, invented the new mortals, to worship and empower the Olympians.

Kronos’ mortals had been too placid, too strong, too clever.

You see, child, prayer is what keeps Gods powerful.

What good is immortality if you cannot call upon immense forces at whim?

The mortals were taught to pray and to birth more like themselves who would continue those prayers.

And those prayers kept the altars of the Gods perpetually fragranced with sweet-smelling smoke.

For a while, this delicately crafted system worked.

But the mortals grew restless. Like the Gods, they wanted more.

Palaces to live in. Bigger fields. A perpetual, abundant crop.

Their unhappy voices grew stronger until the Gods could no longer ignore them.

So for the mortals, they appointed kings and queens, inventing a hierarchy that allowed some mortals to rise over others.

And yet, the majority remained unhappy. Infuriated with their insolence, the Gods invented fear.

Monsters were the first of their creations to inspire terror.

They crafted terrible beasts to harm mortals and demolish villages until each mortal king appointed a God-blessed hero to save them.

Famines. Floods. Fires. If the Gods could not have prayer through peace, then they would have it through fear.

And on this occasion, their plan worked.

So now these same Gods, who said they were different from the old order, ruled by the same fear that Zeus swore he would never rule by.

And the monsters they sent to Earth, to harm mortals in their name, paid the ultimate price.

For even though every monster fulfilled its exact purpose of what the Gods invented it for, they were named villains and their eternal fate was to be hunted by heroes chosen by the Gods.

There is no difference between Gods and monsters, child.

Each, in their own way, wields their power to terrorize.