Hephaestus | Leonard Smith (hammer_down) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2010-01-26 08:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | hephaestus |
And these wars, they can't be won / And do you want them, to go on and on?
Who: Hephaestus (hammer_down) [Narrative]
What: Reflecting on the Greek pantheon and the Titanomachy.
When: Tuesday morning.
Where: His home in Bethlehem, PA.
Warnings: None.
The New World was a poor home for old things. Hephaestus came to America on the backs of emigrating Greeks and had been dying slowly ever since. America, land of bountiful harvests and fertile soil, was a land where gods withered on the vine.
He recognized this early on and, in a way, found the situation liberating. With no family left in his life, he befriended New Gods small and large, made a life for himself amongst them as much as the mortals.
It was not Olympus.
It was better than Olympus, freer than Olympus. Hephaestus preferred it to old ways during old days. His life carried on in this manner for well over a century. Then he opened his fool mouth.
Out came his father and mother, brothers, sisters, his wife, stepson-nephews and stepdaughter-nieces, people he loved and loathed in equal parts. The same jibes circled back. Past regrets, old failures, embarrassments, awkwardness in emotion. Greek drama at its finest, they invaded his thoughts and occasionally his home.
He dealt with it. Because there were no ill wishes (or very few ones, if it came down to the truth); family was family, good came with bad. And like when he was young, if he just avoided drawing attention, ultimately he'd be left alone.
Yet Zeus asked for a coffin for Cronus, and Cronus sent a Titan to stop any further building. His hands, his huge, rough, vital hands were broken with no regard whatsoever. His attacker left him on the side of a road. An hour passed before Hephaestus lurched to his feet (unable to crawl, demeaning as that was, he dragged himself to his car, where the lame smith took several falls before bad legs held weight enough to stand). Another three, and he staggered home to find Coal there waiting.
Since then, his friend had cleaned up the raided forge -- the weapons were missing, the art pawed through in search of useful items, the pickax taken from its place above the forge's doorway. Cronus had the weapon of a New God forged by the Greeks' celestial blacksmith. Cronus, then, was doing quite well for himself.
When the initial broken glass pain faded, after Wind Power arrived to drug him and cluck over him and otherwise emasculate him with well-meaning intentions, Hephaestus found plenty of time in which to think. "War!" Olympians had shouted. "Another Titanomachy!" And they made a great thundering noise, they gnashed their teeth, beat their breasts and for all the wailing did nothing in particular.
No, the Titans handled all the action. They kidnapped, thieved, broke with utter disregard. But quietly. Casually. With a wink and a nod, for what it was worth.
Hephaestus thought for more than two weeks of what he could possibly say. "We don't have to do this" came to mind. So did "what's wrong with breaking free from these damned cycles?", or "they have a weapon, a real weapon".
In the end he decided to forgo warnings all together. There would be no lessons learned from suffering. The Olympians and their brethren were determined to repeat their past well into eternity.
Let them.