BLOOD DREAMS

"even gods have their fair share of nightmares"

     WHEN WAS THE RIGHT TIME?

When was it deemed appropriate to mourn for the riotous pride once held in their hands? How long before the inevitable snapped them into It's jaws.

For the gods, they had never been baited by cruel acts of mischief or hunger for more. Yes, they were greedy beyond compare, but with the world at their fingertips, in what need did they have for bait when they had the whole ocean to swallow.

Hades grasped at nothing as his soul slipped between his fingers. The god bounded after his body, feeling weightless surrounded by fire of thousands of suns.

Sleep whisked him away to his own underworld, ruled by another god who was malicious with intent, cold and born of chaos and bones. To think, that was once home, but he was never like that...right?

Every thousand years or so, he's left questioning his own self, in search of what it truly means to be feared and to fear.

Dionysus was gifted with the ability to sleep for short periods. Parties never stopped, they only had prolonged times of peace and quiet, before the alcohol kicked in and the music blared across the sky like his father's lightning and thunder striking the ground. His own nights lazily sipping anything he could reach in the vicinity, whilst glaring and complaining of his spoiled life and the necessary pricks that came along with it.

But the god would never change it for the world, because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, with a golden goblet in his hand.

Hermes felt a slithering feeling as his eyelashes fluttered along his cheek. The sense of stalking never washing away. He supposed it was his job to be alert with news, but just this once, his body urged him for the exhaustion to ebb away into stars and dim lit lights. However, those wings lifting his feet for movement combated the tiredness aching in his bones. Working overtime took It's toll, while the others could sit on their thrones as they wished.

Hair tickled his eyelids while he blinked the cracks and crumbles of his fair skin away. He was deprived of a natural sleep for millennia, forced to run the earth and its heavens in search of answers and questions thrown his messy way.

God of Travel or not, he runs to catch up with his past and it's dwelling teeth that skin his very being.

Sweet hums melodically fill her ears while she lays pampered in bed. Singing so sweet it causes heartaches with its notes, like her own beauty.

Aphrodite wished to believe herself back in the golden times of love with the various waltzes across tiled floors, with gold chandeliers hanging lowly above their heads, and the clinking of glasses hugging the tables. Her hand small compared to that of a man with striking eyes and smart looks, nails scratching his arm lustfully to gain a quick tease for the night.

Young and beautiful they call her. Vengeful and vain they hide in their hearts. Looks could only take one so far. Dreams beckoning others into her kaleidoscope eyes takes theirs for her own, feeding off their lives and love to fill her own sagging and leaking safe of forever. Born to create and dissipate hearts and its aches while she longs for one so true it was sweet enough to eat.

Dances and hums in the gardens of the broken and the lost. To each their own, she supposed.

Fire with metal on his tongue. Limped through life with a ragged voice and a raw talent for the unlikely, solace in inorganic items colored in bronze and silver of the ages. The old man wrinkled his papers with pens and pencils galore while drinking sorrows away, with the living misery of his past sat down across from him.

The table covered with strewn tools and bolts created an abstract painting of creatures and animatronics yet to be made. He only wondered what life held in his dreams so far off he never came back.

The heat of coal burned his fingers, bringing him back from his long forgotten sleep.

Bow drawn toward the sky with a comet tied to its end. Strings of red and white followed its blazing path while illuminating the faces of young and old alike. Animals greeted her sights before her dagger fled them through with crimson on the snow, bundled in tents of leisure while laughing the immortality away.

Washed in the creeks of nature and it's nurturers, wishing upon a star once a man who gazed wrongfully her way.

Night never slept unless during the day, but the burning of her brother on her pale skin kept her awake, biding the time before she gained peace of the cold, winter hollowing her bones with frigid air and frost breath.

Artemis wished to never been the moon—as the sun was upon it at all times, and she wanted separation from all that had caused her trouble.

Rays on his locks of sand and the brightest light. Glaring on mirrors with a luxurious pace, flying across the sky while parading his excellence in a chariot of heat. Horse of starlight with hooves in gold ink painted the clouds a bright sign.

While a bow laid in his palm, the gold in his eyes lit with vengeance and vanity.

For Apollo dreamed of dawn never rising, and for his body to rest for the first time.

Athena felt herself rooted in the same stance—of war and discomfort. Threaded and tied down by weaving a of string, piles of her dead children sent on quests, coins glittering in their bloody hands while tormented by their screams.

Dreams were never easy for the woman of wisdom, who saw too much and never too little. Olive trees hanging lowly above her head while dropping at her feet.

Cursed with infinite insight of both mind and body, she missed the soul, the aspect she experienced in the beginning. Dawned by the future of millennia who stood before her idle throne, whisked away by the chase of time, rivers of doubt creeping beneath her skin.

Oh, how she wished to feel what they call ignorance—but, oh, how the heavens loved to watch her burn.

Swords drawn as the rage dwindled below his iron skin. Hide of dragon scales and basilisk fangs from his neck his the scars and weak points in his ego. His narcissism facade went with towers and pillars of blood and stone, born on the backs of slaves and prisoners of the chaos he consumed.

Asleep as the world breathed it hateful sighs, the god urged his body to stay awake once more. His bruised knuckles bowed down to the trembling veins in his arms filled with ichor no longer warm with adrenaline, but ice from the reality of all he had done.

Blood stuck itself to Ares in all places—good and bad.

Grass green on the other side of the chasm below. Bride of vines, strewn with flowers and trees alike. Smell of pollen in the air as her hands plunged themselves deep into the ground, pulling her daughter from the long forgotten god who had a tight hold on her heart.

Demeter felt her grip slipping with every tug. Inclined to keep her pride steady there was another pull from the ground, gaining leverage, but only slightly.

The goddess cried out in savage anger once the hand sunk beneath once more. Her voice shook, beckoning the woman to wonder why she was powerless in that moment—why her daughter would not come back.

Sea water rose to his neck while he waited and baited himself along. There was a longing of finding the courage to sink below the sand and emerge mortal, tasting the feeling of defeat for the first time.

Warm food on his tongue as he realized he could be burned, scarred, wounded by what normally would crumble in his tan palms. Eyes flicking unnaturally across the sea while he remembered he could not speak with them any longer, that the land beneath his oceans belonged no more to his name, the dead god he vowed to be in his dreams; Poseidon.

Wishing and wanting we're two separate ideas. On one hand, his heart tugging him to the mortal woman on land and his son with half-blood, but his mind set on ruling the world and outlasting his father, time itself. Pride over family, it would seem.

And so, Poseidon sat further back in his shelled throne beneath the waves, nestling himself further into his privileged god hood.

Hera was trapped. Iron bars chasing her in, a peacock lost in an abandoned zoo. Her please and demands were followed by no thunder, no rushing demigods to save the mighty goddess, who had ruined countless lives for the sake of loving her husband, one who never bagged an eye and continued on with his whoring ways.

Nails skimmed the cool air of midnight while evening stars glistened above. She was once able to touch them, speak to them, and so vividly had she recalled her dreams and wishes when defeating their father.

The goddess of Marriage had given all her love to a man who never truly cared, leaving herself with enough spit to last an eternity.

***

     THE GREAT KING WAS SHACKLED.

His mighty hand that once carried thunderbolts now hung limply in his lap, pale and weak from mild use. Scratched from the ground bled ichor while his godly being failed to catch up.

Above him, where he used to watch pests and insects beneath him tremble, were storming eyes of living fire and thunder. Mouths of silk sheets and whispers of faint adventures so deadly they couldn't speak. Hailed the poor fallen King of the Gods who once were—a fallen tribute to the test of times.

Of course, he never pictured it this way.

He half expected to die at the hands of his father and gaze upon his world for the last time. Pale blue eyes blinking away golden ichor on the stairs of marble so precious it was cracked from their powers.

Kronos was never this cruel. No, he would not waste their death. He would make haste of dispatching his godly children before devouring their bodies and gaining more freedom—the right to rule again. Now he was on his knees while the ones he had ordered around begged for forgiveness. All but him spoke words that fell to no ears, pleading for some leverage to grasp, to hold before striking.

But Zeus knew of the truth.

Sparing a single glance upwards, his graying hair brushed away while his throne of towering stone was destroyed, crushed to a ruble of nothing in an instant. A pang in his heart caused adrenaline that could do nothing but sit and watch. All he cared was not of the danger is family was in, but the sadness of losing his priceless throne.

"That cost much," his voice rasped. It was lowly in his chest, so raw he didn't believe it to be him.

Their captor scoffed. A sickly smile crawling their face as they kicked a rock his way. "Should have saved your money then."

Muttering to his left signified Apollo's nervous habit. His golden eyes were bloodshot from the light, wearing sunglasses due to his incredibly sensitive skin and eyes on his face. Behind them, Artemis was speaking to the air, ordering for a weapon of some sort while ignoring Ares' grunts of escaping.

It was all in vain. There was no hope for them, it was seeping in.

"What?" the captor mocked. "The great Zeus is giving up so easily? I thought your throne and title were everything! Why, I went through all this trouble to make you watch."

Athena held a glare once furious, now shrouded by the only standing person in the room. "You will pay, witch."

"Oh, how sweet."

Amethyst eyes looked down upon them.

"See, I had my friends do something for me—they're keeping guard outside. For once, I'm calling the shots in this place, and it's a better decision than any you all have made together."

Zeus stared her down. His voice boomed loudly like thunder, but was nothing more than rain in her presence. "What is the cause of this? What meaning do you have to stork our home and tear us down?"

She glared. "What meaning do you have of letting demigods do your dirty work? Your children! We're children in this world. We should not have faced the horrors we have, and I'm going to ensure it never happens again."

The gods felt their bodies changing. They grew weaker, and the blood slowly turned from gold to red, a crimson color never before seen aside from mortals they've encountered. Scars worked away into injuries of a battlefield, pale and thirsty while they fought a hunger so great they were sick.

Aphrodite cried softly in frustration. It was not just her beauty gone, but her ability to feel the emotions, overwhelmed with only herself, and that was torture for the goddess of love.

Zeus grumbled when a foot made contact with his face. His head jerked to the left and felt a stinging in his mouth. Blood dribbled down his chin and looked in his cupped hands, wrists chained to the floor and the others.

"You all will know what it is to be mortal. To know pain," she spoke gravely. "For however long we determine, you, Olympians, will face the mortal world and all its glory. You will know the life of a demigod with small limited powers, and when you are killed you are reborn a new. Face what you have made, gods."

She stabbed her sword into the ground.

"Reap what you sow."

The floor gave way to their bodies and they flew, spreading wide while the shackles rusted in thin air, breaking.

You see, Zeus was right to fear her. He was right to become wary of the power she held, of how much was revealed. He believed that if he had done something sooner this would've changed.

Even gods have nightmares and dreams.

And even gods may know the fear of facing Ariadne Phoenix.

authors note:

HI HI HI
this took me some time but I really hope you guys enjoy it! We're becoming more gritty and savage and I love it. I've had this thought of a chapter for some time now and it's been going on and on.

Sorry about the long hiatus I needed a break. I'm currently working on art of Ariadne so hopefully that is released soon!

Q: tell me what you think is happening next?
A: It's a secret!

Tell me how you guys liked this chapter so far!!!

Love you guys!