Chapter IX: Olympus Threatened

Act III : The Unravelling

"Olympus Threatened" 13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSUtDp7GPPh

Olympus had never been quiet.

Even in the hours before dawn, when the mortal world below was covered in darkness, the halls of the gods remained alive with the sounds of divine existence. Servants moved through the corridors. Golden doors opened and closed. Voices carried from one chamber to another.

But that morning, something was different.

The gods were talking about a boy.

Apollo stood before the throne of Zeus.

The god of the sky sat high above the hall, one hand resting against the arm of his throne. Around him, the other gods watched in varying degrees of interest.

Athena stood near one of the pillars, her arms folded.

Ares leaned against another, looking more annoyed than concerned.

Hermes sat on the edge of a table, listening.

Apollo remained standing.

"He changed the outcome."

Zeus looked at him.

"You have said that already."

"I am saying it again because I do not think you understand what I saw."

"Then explain it."

Apollo took a breath.

"I watched him before the fire began. He saw possibilities."

Athena spoke.

"As he has before."

"Yes."

"And?"

"He acted on one."

Ares scoffed.

"So did the mortal who dropped the lantern."

Apollo looked at him.

"This was different."

"How?"

"Because I could not see where his choice belonged."

The hall became quiet.

Apollo continued.

"I could see the paths of the mortals around him. I could see the consequences of their choices. But when Aion moved, the possibilities changed."

Athena's expression hardened.

"Because he interfered?"

"No."

Apollo shook his head.

"Because he chose."

Ares laughed.

"That is what mortals do."

"Mortals have threads."

Ares stopped smiling.

Apollo looked toward Zeus.

"They choose, and their choices become part of what is already woven. I have watched it happen countless times. A mortal can change the course of another life, but the thread remains."

"And Aion?"

Apollo hesitated.

"There is no thread."

The words seemed to remain in the air long after he spoke them.

Zeus leaned forward.

"What exactly are you afraid of?"

Apollo looked down.

"That one day he will make a choice we cannot account for."

Ares crossed his arms.

"And what makes you think he would?"

"I don't."

The answer surprised them.

Apollo continued.

"That is what troubles me."

The gods had seen monsters before.

They had seen mortals rise against them.

They had seen kings become arrogant, heroes become dangerous, and cities turn against the will of Olympus.

Those things were understandable.

A monster could be killed.

A mortal could be punished.

A king could be overthrown.

Even rebellion had a place in the great design.

But Aion was something else.

He was not strong enough to threaten Olympus.

Not yet.

That was the part Zeus found most difficult to understand.

The boy had no army.

No kingdom.

No divine weapon.

He did not command storms.

He did not challenge gods.

He was simply living among mortals.

And yet his existence created a question none of them wanted to answer.

What happened when something existed outside the design?

Athena finally spoke.

"If he does not have a thread, can the Fates see him?"

Apollo shook his head.

"They can see what surrounds him."

"Not him?"

"Not in the way they see us."

Zeus's expression darkened.

"Then how do we know what he will become?"

Apollo looked toward him.

"We don't."

Silence.

For the first time, Zeus seemed genuinely unsettled.

Far below Olympus, Aion was carrying firewood.

He had forgotten about the gods.

He had forgotten about Apollo.

He had even managed to stop thinking about the fire.

Mostly.

The memory still returned sometimes.

The falling beam.

The man on the ground.

The moment when all the possibilities surrounding him disappeared.

Aion still did not know what it meant.

He only knew that he did not like it.

He dropped the firewood beside the house.

Mara looked over from the doorway.

"You were gone a while."

"I met someone."

"Clea?"

Aion looked at her.

"How did you know?"

Mara smiled.

"You've mentioned her."

"I have?"

"Several times."

Aion frowned.

"I don't remember."

"That is because you don't notice when you talk about people you like."

"I like everyone."

"Do you?"

Aion considered it.

"No."

Mara laughed.

He picked up another piece of wood.

"She asked me about the fire."

"And what did you tell her?"

"That I didn't understand it."

Mara's expression softened.

"You don't have to understand everything."

Aion looked at her.

"Everyone keeps saying that."

"Perhaps you should listen."

He smiled.

"I'll think about it."

"That is usually where your trouble begins."

Aion carried the wood inside.

For a few minutes, Olympus might as well not have existed.

A few days later, Aion saw Clea again.

It was not planned.

At least, not by him.

He was walking along the edge of the village when he noticed her sitting beside a low stone wall.

She was holding a small piece of wood in her hands.

Aion approached.

"What are you doing?"

Clea looked up.

"Nothing."

"You're holding something."

"So?"

"That means you're doing something."

She rolled her eyes.

"You ask too many questions."

Aion sat beside her.

"What is it?"

She held up the piece of wood.

"A carving."

He looked at it.

It was rough.

Only the beginning of a shape had been carved into it.

"What is it supposed to be?"

"I don't know yet."

Aion frowned.

"How can you carve something if you don't know what it is?"

"Because I can decide later."

He thought about that.

"You don't know what it will become."

"No."

"And you are still making it."

"Yes."

Aion looked at the carving again.

Something about that felt familiar.

Clea noticed his expression.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You're thinking again."

"I always think."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It is."

She laughed.

Aion smiled.

"What will you make?"

"I don't know."

"Then why start?"

Clea shrugged.

"Because I wanted to."

Aion looked at her.

The answer was simple.

Maybe that was why he liked talking to her.

She did not make everything complicated.

She did not ask him to explain things he did not understand.

She simply said what she thought.

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

Clea looked toward the hills.

"Leave."

"Leave the village?"

"One day."

"Where will you go?"

"Somewhere else."

"Where?"

"I don't know."

Aion smiled.

"You don't know anything."

"Neither do you."

"That isn't true."

"Then tell me where you'll be when you're older."

Aion opened his mouth.

He stopped.

For a moment, his sight stirred.

Possibilities appeared.

A road.

A ship.

A city.

A battlefield.

A mountain.

A place he did not recognize.

He closed his eyes.

"No."

Clea watched him.

"No what?"

"I don't want to see."

She did not ask what he meant.

Instead, she looked back toward the hills.

"Then don't."

Aion opened his eyes.

He looked at her.

For some reason, he felt relieved.

They sat together in silence.

Neither of them noticed how strange it was.

A boy who could see possibilities had chosen not to look.

A girl who wanted a future she could not name was perfectly content not knowing where it led.

Apollo watched them from far away.

He had followed Aion for months.

He had watched him wake.

He had watched him wander.

He had watched him discover his strange sight.

He had watched him interfere with possibilities without understanding what he was doing.

Apollo had expected to see ambition.

He had expected anger.

Perhaps even hatred.

Instead, he saw a boy sitting beside a girl, arguing about a piece of wood.

He almost smiled.

Almost.

Then he remembered the fire.

He remembered the empty space where the dead man's possibilities had been.

His expression hardened.

Aion was not dangerous because he wanted Olympus destroyed.

That was what made him dangerous.

He had no reason to hate Olympus.

He had no reason to love it.

He simply existed outside the rules that protected it.

Apollo wondered what would happen if that ever changed.

What if Aion learned what the gods were?

What if he learned about the Fates?

What if he learned that something had created him?

What if, one day, someone gave him a reason to look toward Olympus?

Apollo looked toward the mountain.

He did not know the answers.

And for a god who could see what others could not, that frightened him more than anything.

That night, Apollo returned to Olympus.

Zeus was waiting.

"Well?"

Apollo stood before him.

"He is still there."

Zeus frowned.

"That is not what I asked."

"I know."

"Has he shown any hostility?"

"No."

"Any desire to challenge the gods?"

"No."

"Then why are you still afraid?"

Apollo looked at him.

"Because I watched him choose not to look into the future."

Zeus said nothing.

"He could have looked," Apollo continued. "He chose not to."

"And?"

"And that was the first time I realized that even his sight is a choice."

Zeus's eyes narrowed.

Apollo continued.

"He can see possibilities. But he does not have to follow them."

"Neither do mortals."

"Mortals are still bound to their threads."

Zeus stood.

"And you believe he is not."

"I know he isn't."

The hall became silent.

Zeus walked toward the edge of the chamber.

Below them, clouds stretched across the world.

Somewhere beneath them was a village.

Somewhere inside that village was a boy who had no idea the gods were discussing him.

"He is only a child," Zeus said.

"For now."

Zeus turned.

Apollo's expression had changed.

"You think he will become a threat."

"I think he could."

"That is not the same thing."

"No."

Apollo looked toward the mortal world.

"But neither is it nothing."

The Fates had heard the gods.

They did not need messengers.

They did not need spies.

The Loom carried everything.

Every choice.

Every consequence.

Every change.

They stood together before the great tapestry.

Clotho touched a thread.

Lachesis followed it.

Atropos watched the end.

Thousands of lives moved beneath their hands.

Then they looked for Aion.

There was nothing.

Not even a broken strand.

Nothing to follow.

Nothing to measure.

Nothing to cut.

Clotho slowly withdrew her hand.

"We knew this would happen."

Lachesis shook her head.

"We knew he would be outside the Loom."

"That is not what I mean."

Atropos looked at her sisters.

Clotho stared toward the place where Aion should have been.

"We created him to challenge Fate."

"Yes."

"To prove that Olympus could be brought down by something Fate itself could not command."

"Yes."

Clotho's voice became quieter.

"But we never decided what he would choose."

Lachesis said nothing.

Atropos looked toward the mortal world.

"He was never meant to have a life of his own."

Clotho turned.

"He does now."

"And he has begun making connections."

Lachesis understood immediately.

"Clea."

The name seemed almost foreign in the chamber.

Not because the girl was important.

But because she was not supposed to be.

The Fates searched the tapestry.

Clea's thread was there.

Bright.

Mortal.

Ordinary.

It moved along a path that had existed long before Aion had entered the world.

But when they followed it toward him—

nothing.

There was no connection.

No predetermined meeting.

No thread drawing them together.

And yet they had met.

Again.

And again.

Clotho's expression changed.

"She was never part of him."

"No," said Lachesis.

Atropos looked at the two threads.

"One of them has no thread."

"And yet he keeps returning to hers."

The sisters fell silent.

They had created Aion because they believed that something beyond Fate could become the weapon Fate itself could not stop.

But now they were seeing the flaw in their creation.

Aion was not merely outside their control.

He was capable of choosing what mattered to him.

And they could not decide what that would be.

Clotho stepped closer to the tapestry.

"He is choosing."

Lachesis nodded.

"And we cannot choose for him."

Atropos looked at the scissors in her hand.

For the first time, the instrument seemed almost useless.

Aion had no thread.

But perhaps that was no longer the greatest problem.

The greatest problem was that he was beginning to weave connections of his own.

The next morning, Aion woke before Mara.

He stepped outside.

The sky was clear.

He looked toward the mountains.

For a moment, he thought he saw something.

A golden city.

A throne.

A hall filled with figures.

The image flickered.

Then vanished.

Aion frowned.

He had seen the place before.

He did not know why.

He could have looked deeper.

He could have followed the possibility.

Instead, he looked away.

There was work to do.

Mara needed water.

The roof needed repairing.

And somewhere in the village, Clea was probably doing something she would later insist was not his business.

Aion smiled.

He started down the road.

Above him, Olympus watched.

Beyond Olympus, the Fates watched.

And between them all stood a boy who understood none of it.

That was the danger.

Not that Aion wanted Olympus to fall.

Not that he possessed the strength to destroy it.

But that one day, he might choose something—

and no god, no prophecy, and no thread could guarantee what would happen next.

For the first time, Olympus was not threatened by an enemy.

It was threatened by a possibility.

And the gods had no idea what that possibility would become.

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