Page 197 of Styx

No one had raised their voice in his favour

or held court for him or declared against Gaia

or Kronos or his Titan siblings.

Instead the Primordials had taken refuge

within their own realms, leaving the rest

of the realms to the Titans to rule.

If they wanted, they could have crushed

Gaia’s golden children. Instead, they did

what Gaia had now asked her own children to do.

Let go of the old. Make room for the new.

So Zeus’s decree had shaken us all to the core.

What would we do now?

A Visitor

Hyperion’s sun was nowhere

when the five of us left the palace.

Storm clouds had turned the whole sky grey.

The sea was an ink blue,

its fathomless depths

threatening a hurricane.

The bright sands we knew

as children were an ash white,

the whole world leached of colour.

Just as Perses turned to say

something, I saw a figure

walking toward us.

Against the white sands,

their dark shroud stood out.

The stranger arrived before us;

the shroud fell to their shoulders.

It was her.