Everyone knows the story of the twelve gods who sit on the thrones of Mount Olympus, their histories and tales following man through all of the ages, from Golden to Modern. And, some know the names of those before, the Primal powers that began it all, and their children, the Titans who ruled over the Heavens. But the stories of those Titanic Children are sparse, untold, and forgotten. One such tale is comprised of Heosphorous and Astraea.

The stars in the Heavens never seemed to cease striking Heosphorous with its beauty. His purpose from the very first moment he became aware of himself as a Titan had been to order them. Vast, infinite stretches of darkness and light intermingling, fragments of matter hurled outward across oceans of energy, seeds for life, chaos, and probability. The colors always astounded him, filling his vision with all of the possibilities, all of the ways life could play out, and the yearning to see it firsthand. He loved to drift amongst the stars, soaking in the splendor of it, reveling in the soothing vibrations and the knowledge that, out there, all of existence had a purpose; simply to be, wonderful in its simple complexity. But it wasn’t leisure that brought him out, far from the Divine Halls, into the silence of the spectacle of life. He was looking for something. Or, rather, someone.

Titaness of Procreation that she was, his mother, Eos, had given birth to ten siblings. Boreas, Notus, Eurus, and Zephyrus, beings of the wind, could not take physical form, forever scattered and flowing freely in the silence, always being felt but never being seen. Heosphorous, Phaenon, Phaethon, Mesonyx, and Stilbon were bound to the material, the Wandering Stars, though their spirits could soar, only to be heard but never felt. The only one of the ten that could slip in between them was Astraea, a being of purity and innocence, smallest of the Titans, and unique. She was not strong enough to be a star, but her strength was too great to be of the wind, and so she existed in between them, getting lost and forgotten with her kin. In the world of the Titans, she was little more than a dusty presence that drifted aimlessly if not kept in line by one of her siblings. He worried for her.

It was rare for their paths to cross, but he was keenly aware of her presence. It was his place in existence to order the Heavens, and she was an almost-star that wouldn’t sit still. At first, she was a thorn in his side, his senses going haywire when she’d start her listless drifting again, distracting him from his duties even when they were separated by the whole of existence. After Kronos and Gaia made their faithful bargain to bring down Uranus, however, things quickly began to change as Kronos adjusted to being the new king. Soon, it was worry distracting him. Worry when he could sense her drifting, worry when she didn’t move, worry when he couldn’t pinpoint her exact location, worry when he could. War was brewing in the Heavens and she was so small.

“Astraea,” he called, his spirit drifting amongst the stars. “Astraea, where are you?”

“Heosphorous?” she asked in surprise, a swirl of stardust gathering into the shape of a small human female, dull and grey against the brilliance of the stars. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” he said on a sigh of relief, gathering what material he could to take a similar shape to hers, though larger and male in his reflection.

“Then, if you require an errand run to the human world, you need only ask,” she said in a voice that was rich with sincerity and kindness, though tinted by confusion.

“That’s not why I was looking for you,” he said, feeling a small twist of guilt. Looking upon her shimmering form, he realized how often she had been absent from the Titans’ gatherings and celebrations. It seemed the only time in his thoughts he could remember anyone speaking to her was to issue requests, forcing her to stay separated to fulfill them.

“I don’t understand,” she said sadly, her light dimming a little.

“I was worried,” he tried to explain.

“But you’re not anymore?” she asked, her sweet voice taking a tone of gentle uncertainty.

“I,” he began and then paused as the question begged too many answers to speak aloud. “Come to me,” he ordered instead, holding himself open in invitation.

She drifted to him cautiously, the stardust comprising her eyes shining a little against the darkness as they shifted from his position to his expression. Guilt twisted hard at his center when he realized she was afraid. It made him wonder if she’d ever been held by one of them. The winds could twist and entangle to embrace, the spirits of the Wandering Stars could weave together to achieve the feeling of nurturing calm and affection they needed to remain stable, but Astraea wasn’t like them. Her dust was blown and scattered by the winds when they tried, and he wasn’t sure if the other Wandering Stars had even attempted it before him. That heartbreaking trepidation stilled her movements as her dust seemed to darken, even more, her light fading under its weight, just out of reach of him as a new sound reached him in the surrounding vibrations. A deep rolling sadness, shaky in its strength, laced with the threads of yearning in the throes of isolation, and, as she looked up, a light chord of timid hope.

“Please,” he said, urging himself a little closer, needing her as much as she seemed to need him.

At his whispered encouragement, the hopeful chord thrummed to life, impacting his spirit hard enough to make him flicker, as her form collapsed in on itself and she rushed into him, swarming around his spirit as he felt her as solidly as he would the others and as soundly as the wind against the physical, celestial body that bound him to existence. He didn’t have to strain to gather stardust to his spirit to match her form when she embraced him. She seemed to exhale it directly into him, giving him substance and solidity in a way that seemed incomprehensible except when he thought of the humans, slabs of meat controlled by spirits; matter given life and independence by will. She was stronger than he’d ever known. Shocked by the revelation, he wove his spirit around hers in return, embracing her to him as he felt the foreign sensation of weakness within himself. Swept up by the explosion of new awareness, he felt their spirits begin to join, little drops of her thoughts, her consciousness, trickling into his own. It was only a moment, but it was overwhelming, threatening to deconstruct them both as they jerked apart.

He wasn’t sure which of them initiated it, but he knew it would be forbidden to continue. Astraea was a being of purity and innocence. To join with another spirit would be to lose that and she would cease to be Astraea. With no other attributes to hang her consciousness onto, she would fade from existence, but she was too precious to lose and he couldn’t let go of her. After a few moments of tense silence, he felt her ease and relax into him, careful to keep the connection light to prevent joining without separation. She stayed with him like that for what felt like eons and he learned the new sensation of contentment. He would have been overjoyed to stay like that with her forever.

“What’s changed?” she asked quietly. “Why were you so worried about me?”

“Kronos has had children with Rhea,” he said, concern creeping back in as he remembered the warning Gaia had given the other Titan. “He’s swallowed them all and now stands to say he will swallow any others who are different to prevent from being overthrown.”

“You think that means me?” she asked, her voice bubbling a little with disbelief. “I am nothing more than an errand-runner, Heosphoros. Mistaken for your Hespirides more often than not. I barely qualify as a Titaness, let alone a being capable of revolution. I am but dust and spirit, alone and adrift, at the command of those larger and stronger than I am. He could scatter me to the four winds without a second thought. I am nothing to him, worry not,” she said soothingly as he felt her spirit follow her words, brushing against his to give comfort. “Though, I wonder, now, why my survival seems so important.”

He paused again as it all rushed up, so many reasons that paled before he could say them. In the end, he settled on the thought that rang out the loudest in his spirit, though he didn’t fully understand the meaning of the words he responded with. “You are precious to me,” he whispered.

“I didn’t think you knew I was there,” she said just as quietly, though the hopeful chord began to become persistent as it strengthened, touching him to his core as he realized she didn’t feel lonely anymore. “You were so busy ordering the Heavens, I didn’t think you were aware of my presence.”

“It did,” he admitted, wishing he hadn’t assumed she was aware of it. “It always has. I’m sorry I never took the time to speak it out loud before. It seems I have failed you as a brother.”

“No,” she said immediately, her spirit burrowing into his. “You were perfect. Strong and precise in all of your tasks, fair in every decision made to bring quiet to others’ arguments, teaching them compromise, a peacekeeper, bringing order to chaos, showing me the way to be a true Titan,” she said as she brightened, her stardust reflecting the brilliance of her emotion until it dimmed just a little and her voice came out in a bashful confession. “That’s why I followed you so often.”

“You followed me?” he asked.

“In your shadow,” she said, calling forward the stardust she’d given so he could see the shadow to which she’d been clinging, always behind him. “Don’t tell the others, but you were always my favorite. My Light Bringer, my beacon in the Darkness. Whenever I drifted too far or got lost, I always knew I could look to your light and find my way no matter what. Whenever I saw it, I always felt grateful and my spirit sang with peace, safety, and comfort as any Darkness that clung to me from my fears of being lost washed away in an instant. Even in silence, you have always meant home to me, Heosphorous. I’m sorry if I caused you any distress,” she added almost silently as she burrowed into him again.

“It’s alright,” he said, overcome with the strength of a new sensation as he tightened his grip, not wanting to let go for any reason. “I don’t know what this feeling is,” he said, struggling to find the word to name the emotion. “But, I know you’re with me now, that’s all that matters.”

“I think that’s called love,” she said quietly. “When just being together makes you feel better.”

“Love,” he breathed, the word ringing true to name the foreign sensation flowing through him. “I love you,” he said, feeling hollowed out to make room for the knowledge.

“I love you, too,” she whispered, wrapping her spirit around his more solidly as he felt the hesitant trickle of joining again.

He knew it was wrong, and that he could be cast into Tartarus for blemishing her purity, even a little, with his spirit. But, as her thoughts of reassurance, devotion, and unbridled joy poured into the vacant spaces inside him, he no longer cared what it cost him. She loved him. He hadn’t known how much he’d needed to feel that until then. He hadn’t known how lonely they’d both been until he felt her isolation evaporate as he joined with her, giving her his newly ignited passion. The timid stream of affection broke into a flood, washing through him and filling out his spirit, making it swell from the power within it. He could feel her warmth and brilliance radiating inside her as his light filled her, multiplying exponentially until, as they broke apart gently, he could see her shining. In all of the endless expanse of beauty around him that had so jealously hoarded his attention, gazing upon her as she glowed more colorful than the stars themselves, the word breathless was the only one that came to mind. He’d never seen her so solidly before, soft and inviting in her gaze and her smile.

“Astraea,” he breathed in wonder. “My little star. Please, don’t wander from me too far anymore.”

“I won’t,” she promised, stardust trailing from her eyes in two flowing rivulets.

Her light turned pink as she shrank down, burrowing into him as he was hypnotized by her song, feeling the peace she’d described when she saw his light after being lost. It was then he understood what he’d meant when he’d said she was precious to him.

*****

Much to his relief, after they’d joined, she started to fade back into her normal stardust cloud, hiding what they’d done and keeping their love secret to save him from facing Tartarus. They had not joined again since then, but it was enough just having her near him for a time as he shared in her wonder and excitement. Six children, new gods to sit on the thrones of Mount Olympus, had been born since that day and swallowed by Kronos to avoid being overthrown by his children. The knowledge of it weighed heavily on his heart, knowing that, had they been allowed to grow and flourish, Astraea might have had others like herself that could pass between the Heavens and the human world in the flesh, disguised as one of them. She could have had friends, family, to keep her company on her travels. What he’d thought was just her drifting aimlessly was, in truth, her working. With the Heavens so far separated from the human world, he’d never known her station as an ambassador for the Heavens on Earth. She brought with her imagination and curiosity, inspiring the humans into discovery. She loved the children the most, their minds so pure and innocent they could see every world she described to them in their dreams, motivating them to move forward and live.

After joining with him, she’d taken to coming to him to share her tales of her time with the humans when they were alone, drifting in darkness, fulfilling his wish vicariously to experience life firsthand with her as he held her. When she was happy and excited in her tales, she reminded him of their mother with the colors she exuded, dancing through the sky with the wonder she inspired. It was for that reason he brought her far out of the sight of the Divine Halls to be together privately, away from the violence seething in Kronos and the others as they struggled for power over existence. Just that day, even Heosphorous had been accused of plotting the Harvest Titan’s downfall, and he took it to show paranoia. Kronos was seeing his fate closing in and refused to accept it.

“Rhea has given birth to a new god,” Mesonyx said, and Heosphorous let out a sigh at the distress in his brother’s voice. “She named this one Zeus.”

“And?” he asked dismissively as he once again looked away to watch for Astraea’s return from the human world, crossing the darkness back to him.

He didn’t like when she was down there, so far from his side. He couldn’t feel her the way he could when she was in the Heavens. He knew she left some of her dust with him, a small comfort until they could be together again. She’d explained that since she didn’t use the gateways of the Titans to gain her entrance, not needing to gain a solid human body to perform her errands, she needed to keep her form fluid enough to whisper into the hearts of the humans. She’d argued that it was due to her weakness that she couldn’t become fully human. But he believed it took more power to stay in between than she gave herself credit for. Either way, he was indescribably proud of her.

“Rhea has pulled a rouse on Kronos,” Mesonyx continued. “When he demanded the child to swallow like the rest, she gave him a stone wrapped in swaddling blankets.”

“Serves him right for not allowing his children to live out of petty jealousy,” he said.

“You don’t understand,” his brother insisted. “That’s why he accused you of betraying him.”

“Because I don’t agree with his tactics?” he asked, irritation brewing in his spirit. “He has been refusing to listen to reason and logic since he took the blade to Uranus’s masculinity. I simply suggested he try a different route with his own offspring and, now, I’m a traitor. He is becoming his father with each passing day,” he said in disgust as he began to drift in an agitated circuit.

“Rhea has been whispering to Astraea since she discovered she was pregnant,” Mesonyx snapped, finally gaining Heosphorous’s full attention. “She is a messenger for the Heavens, brother, and specializes in finding kind souls to nurture the spirit of those who might, one day, walk in the Heavens as Gods, whispering tales of heroes who do not yet exist to inspire them to fulfill their own greatness. She does her best work when I am down in their world, brother. You stay up here and order the Heavens, apart from us regularly,” he said almost pleadingly.

“What are you saying?” he asked, feeling his spirit clench with dread at the center.

“You think she does nothing but drift,” Mesonyx said. “But she is interacting with the human spirits that are waiting their turn to be born, traveling back and forth from Darkness to Light, shepherding them down to their world and reminding them of who they are once they have been. She does nothing for the Divine who are trapped in the Heavens, but she is sowing the seeds that will one day define the followers' minds and give power to the gods through their worship. We are weak in comparison to what they will become, eclipsing us, even Gaia, and she is content to someday being forgotten to make way for them all. She has never been strong enough to gather as much mass as we did for a reason. Like her dust, she will someday fade away into nothingness with her memory.”

“She won’t be forgotten,” Heosphoros said tightly, his spirit still clenching at the thought as he wanted to scream at the injustice of it. That’s why she’d been surprised that he’d noticed her presence and why she seemed to soak up every moment with relish. The more happiness she had to hold onto, the less it would hurt as her existence started unraveling. “I’ll see to it.”

“You’re missing the point,” Mysonyx said, though his voice was tinged with sympathy as he drifted closer to him, partially wrapping him in an embrace to comfort him. “She knows where to hide the child, Zeus, where he can be safely raised and fulfill the prophecy laid down by Uranus and Gaia. With Rhea’s rouse, I’m fairly sure she’s down there, right now, delivering the child.”

“And why would he think that meant I was plotting his downfall with them?” he asked, not really wanting to know as he pulled away before Mesonyx could feel his true worry. “Why are you telling me this?”

“For being the Light Bringer, you’re not very bright. Try as you might, brother, you cannot hide your entanglement,” Mesonyx said solemnly. “We all know you have joined at least once. The burst of creativity on Earth is proof of it. Kronos has been turning a blind eye to it in favor of securing his throne. As long as the humans don’t know of your affair, she is still pure and innocent to them. But now he has seen you both as a threat. If he finds out that she betrayed him, he will destroy her. Not swallow, not disperse. Destroy as if she had never existed and her memory wiped from the Earth.”

“No,” he breathed as the warning came through clearly.

“So, we were right to assume her destruction would take you as well,” his brother whispered sadly.

“I won’t let that happen,” he snapped.

“Then keep her from returning,” Mesonyx said. “Keep her in the humans’ world, protect her there where Kronos cannot get to her.”

“If she’s in human form, she’ll only be able to hear me,” he said painfully as he thought of not being able to hold her to him.

“Would you rather she returns, have her happiness set off that display of light that rivals Eos’s, and alert him to her presence?” his brother asked and then added, “I didn’t think so,” when he hesitated. “Go.”

With a nod, Heosphorous dove for the bridge of darkness that connected the Heavens to the humans, reality shifting in streaks of light. The world was odd on the other side, distorted and cluttered, and he felt the sensation of cold that he’d heard about but never experienced. What humans he spoke to join with him in the Heavens, the spirits liberated from their physical forms like his was. He’d never gone down the bridge to the world inhabited by human spirits. They crowded in around him, waiting for their chance to be born and live a human life before returning to the Heavens with their tales and experiences, filling out the Void to combat the nothingness surrounding it.

Gaia’s first and only thought when she began existence was survival, creating to prevent her own non-existence. That instinct translated into every aspect of her creation, and the spirits were already lined up to keep the wheel spinning with excitement. The sound of the spirits chattering to each other was deafening in comparison to the quiet of the cosmos; if he’d had teeth to bear, he would have been gnashing them. How his siblings could put up with the noise, he had no idea.

Suddenly, from the cacophony of noise, he heard a familiar vibration in the universe. It was Astraea’s song singing out into the expanse from her spirit. He rushed past and between the wandering, chattering spirits to find her sitting above a cluster of living men, their spirits bright, if not a bit hazy, and he could hear the echoes of what she was saying with her human voice, snippets of what sounded like a poem. When he heard his name exalted loudly in her human voice, he felt a thrill go through him as he started to focus harder to make out what she said, but by the time he tuned in to her physical voice the poem had ended. He could hear as she heard, applause from the men even as they lamented her rejection of them and her own tinkling laughter as she soothed their chagrin.

“Bemoan if you must,” she said as her spirit dropped from its height to the same level as the others, “but there is no experience or truth in love as profound as falling into it as a spirit. The merging of souls is not the rough pawing and squishiness you are so fond of. It is the free-flowing exchange of ideas and emotions without needing to form words to express it. Without being able to for the multitude of euphoric syntaxes clogging your throat as you feel it. What you fail to understand is that, when you fall in love as a spirit, neither flesh nor bone, resources, or skill with a bow, really matters when the love comes from within. So, keep your paws to yourselves, for I will have none but my Heosphorous,” she said, her words ending on a laugh as another of the living ran into her.

“Your love is trapped high in the sky, higher than you’ll ever fly, little dove,” one man said as he approached her, his tone suggesting that her loyalty was foolish. “How can he give you the pleasure of the flesh like I can when he has none?”

“I take no pleasure in the flesh while he has none,” she said simply in a singsong voice and danced away from him. “As has it always been, and will be forevermore. I am his and his alone.”

Heosphorous felt his spirit clench at her words as he drifted nearer to her. She couldn’t return to the Heavens with him, she’d never feel the profound connection of their joining while in the flesh. He couldn’t touch her in a way that would allow her spirit to translate the sensation to her skin. They would always be separated by it. He’d lost her, he realized. No matter which way he turned or the path he chose, he would never be with her again.

“Forever is a long time,” the same man said, his tone suggesting he wasn’t done with her yet, rage snapping Heosphorous out of it at the way the man seemed to grab at Astraea. “One night with me and you’ll forget all about him,” he declared and seemed to lean into her as she struggled to get away to the sound of bawdy laughter.

Heosphorous remembered that he did, indeed, have an anchor to the physical world. It was larger than Gaia’s. If he were to draw it to him, his form would collide with hers and obliterate both planets. But in his snapping, seething rage, he reached his will out across the bridge between the worlds as did it anyway. As her spirit’s color shifted from the vibrant display of beauty to the harsh tones of panic, spearing the dark, spirits swarmed towards her, but he beat them to it.

Reaching out with a hand he hadn’t realized he had, he crossed over into the physical world as bits from the Earth attuned with the elements that comprised his anchor and clustered in to make a meat-suit for him. Wrapping his fingers around the other man’s throat, he lifted the human easily from the ground by straightening his arm to hold the man at eye level, a full-head higher than he had been on his feet.

“She. Said. No,” he growled in the man’s face between his clenched teeth.

“Heosphorous?” he heard Astraea ask breathlessly, instantly shifting his focus to her as he dropped the coughing man who had begun to turn purple and stepped over him to gather her to him. “How?”

“You were in distress,” he said, momentarily distracted by the odd sensation of his facial expression changing, his brow pulling forward as he tried to explain what he’d done. “I don’t know. I was actually trying to collide my anchor with his face, but I got a body instead.”

“Giant!” someone cried and he turned to look for the giant.

“He means you,” Astraea said immediately, grabbing his hand and pulling him behind her as she scurried away.

He didn’t understand what her rush was until he heard someone else calling for weapons.

“I take it giants aren’t exactly welcome here,” he said as he picked up his pace, scooping her legs out from under her and carrying her to make a faster escape.

“Feared and misunderstood, mostly,” she said. “Although, in your case, the same can be said. You’re just much bigger than the average human man. Turn left here,” she said, pointing down an alleyway with enough room for them to hide in once they’d gotten some distance between them. “Not that I’m not thrilled that you’re here, but what in the name of Darkness are you doing down here? Won’t the Heavens fall to Chaos of you leave?” she whispered at him as he set her down, couching beside her as she hid beside a single-wheeled cart parked between the buildings.

“No,” he said and felt his face scrunch. “With the way I have it ordered, the Heavens will run their own course, with or without me up there. Who told you I couldn’t leave if I wanted?”

“Zephyrus,” she said and her full pink lips puckered a bit as she looked back at him.

“He was being sarcastic. He’s always giving me grief about not leaving the Heavens,” he said, shaking his head. “I just didn’t see the point in coming down here by myself. I knew you came down here to run errands for the Heavens, but you didn’t seem interested in returning here as a spirit.”

“I can’t handle the noise,” she said shaking her head and turning back to see the party, armed and giving out war cries to find the giant, rush past the mouth of the alley.

“Me either,” he admitted. “I couldn’t make out a word you were saying until I really concentrated.”

“That’s normal,” she said. “In both directions. You manifesting out of thin air, on the other hand, is distinctly not normal,” she added, standing up and looking down at him until he stood, which caused her to tilt her head back to keep her eyes on his. “What’s happened?”

“Did Rhea ask you to find someone to raise a child for her?” he asked, deciding to be blunt.

“Yes,” she said like it wasn’t a betrayal of the active king of the Titans.

“You do realize that makes you a traitor in Kronos’s eyes,” he said.

“How?” she asked, seeming genuinely confused. “I was just doing my job, doing what the Titans ask me to do. If there’s one thing he can always trust in when it comes to me is that I will follow my orders when they are given to me.”

“You really are innocent,” he said, feeling the weight of his shoulder sagging.

“I think you’re thinking of naïve,” she said, “but yeah, I’ll admit it. So, tell me, how does me doing my job translate to me being a traitor to the Titans?”

“Rhea betrayed him and used you as a pawn,” he said and her face fell.

“Oh,” she said quietly as her eyes cast down and filled with moisture. “Heosphorous,” she said as her face crumpled and her tears fell as the gravity of the crime crashed down on her.

On instinct he gathered her to him, curling his body around hers protectively.

“I can’t go back,” she said, her fingernails clenching into the skin of his back, distracting him with the slight burn of their bite for a moment before he smoothed his hand down her back where the thin flowy material of her dress left it exposed.

“It’s alright, little star,” he assured her, whispering into her hair as he caught the scent of jasmine and rose in the strands of silken darkness. “I’m here. Forever.”

“Heosphorous,” she said in question as she pulled away enough to look at him.

“I told you. The way I have them ordered, the Heavens will run their course with or without me,” he said, smoothing a lock of hair back behind her ear to cup her cheek. “You’re more important.”

“We’ll never be free to drift the cosmos again,” she said sadly.

“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “As long as I have you with me. I love you, Astraea.”

She turned her cheek to press her soft lips into his palm, sending a jolt of energy up his arm, making his heart thump harder for a beat as he felt her relaxing into him. It wasn’t as profound and fulfilling as it was to join with her in spirit, but he felt the same swell in his center as her energy filled him and he held her, thanking Gaia for the gift. He’d thought he lost her, but fate seemed to have other plans for them and he was thankful for it. He’d found a strength he had realized he’d had or needed to materialize at her side. And he could be with her where they were safe. She worried he would be upset about losing his ability to drift the cosmos, but they could drift on the Earth, exploring all Gaia’s anchor had to offer and being a part of it. As dark and fearful as the concept had been, being human with her was worth it.

“I love you, Heosphorous,” she said as she looked up again, whispering it like a prayer that he felt humming through his spirit. “Please, never forget that.”

“I won’t,” he promised, knowing at his core that it was true. “I’ll never forget you.”

She closed her eyes as she always did when he confessed to her how he felt, seeming to savor it and he wondered if his words gave her the same sensation. Before he could ask, she pulled away, wiping her eyes with her fingertips and squaring her shoulders.

“Right,” she said taking a deep breath and stepping back to look him over. “First thing’s first,” she said as her eyes traveled back down halfway back to his face as she blinked and looked away rapidly, her eyes going back and away repeatedly as she continued, “you are extremely naked. We need to, um, find you, something,” she said pausing in her cadence when her eyes drifted back again.

“Is there something wrong with my manhood?” he asked, looking down. It was odd seeing a physical appendage to go with the word, but it seemed normal from what he’d seen of the humans in his sibling’s memories of them.

“No, but now that I’ve seen it, I can’t stop looking at it,” she said, her cheeks reddening as her face scrunched in slight distress when he looked up at her. “I can’t help it. It’s like a big, fat snake hanging from your hips.”

“I’d say it’s proportionate to the rest of me,” he said, taking it in his hand to see it fit across his palm easily with a little over.

“Need I remind you that you were mistaken for a giant?” she asked, looking up at him as he felt his eyebrow raised at her in silent question. “And I’m the virgin,” she said.

“Technically, so am I, considering I’ve never joined on a physical level,” he said with a shrug.

“Don’t give me that,” she said, shaking her head at him. “I know a flock of Hesperides that would be willing to testify that you are a heartthrob in certain human circles. And one does not get the reputation you have for being a master of pleasure without some form of truth to it.”

“I swear to you, on my love, I have never indulged in the flesh,” he said firmly. “However.”

“There it is,” she said with a smirk and a chuckle.

“I have joined with human spirits when they have come to me seeking it,” he said.

“And, do you know what happens to a mortal female when she has joined with a divine spirit with the thought of sexual fulfillment?” she asked, biting her bottom lip and waiting until he shook his head. “It throws their fertility cycle into overdrive to the point where even a drop of a man’s seed will get her pregnant. It doesn’t even have to be through issue into her body. Just has to get to the opening.”

“So, what you’re saying is,” he started frowning a little as he fell silent counted how many times it might have happened.

“There are at least three reported cases of your prowess resulting in a child,” she said bluntly. “Which I have confirmed after taking one look at their spirit and I saw the resemblance.”

“Looking at this from Kronos’s stance, that is slightly terrifying,” he admitted. “But at least it was only three,” he added. “Are they at least good kids?”

“No,” she said with a snort, “they’re all little shitheads,” she added bluntly. “They can feel the divine power in them and they're in line to being assholes, primarily to the next generation of gods. Just like their father. Except for the girl, she’s pretty sweet. Her biggest problem is, she got a godly radiance to her beauty and she knows it, that could be trouble down the line. Guys like what you saw tonight are pretty common for girls like us. The stronger the spirit and the brighter it burns, the more they want it, regardless of whether or not we want to give it to them. The only reason I haven’t had to endure that degradation is that I know how to cry for help in spirit, which is seen instead of heard, and the winds are never far from me. A good strong gust from Zephyrus has saved my virginity several times by sending something heavy knocking into them long enough to get away.”

“Should I talk to them?” he asked, not sure about parenting a mortal child, but not liking the idea of his issue getting hurt in that manner.

“That’s up to you,” she said. “Their mortal parents are alright, they’re loved, they’re safe, and the community is pretty tightly knit. They’ll keep them safe until adulthood. But I will say this if you show up in the flesh to meet your children, their mothers are going to go to war with each other to try and convince you that you’re here for them to make them your bride.”

“But, I'm not,” he said. “I’m here for you and you alone.”

“If you change your mind, I’ll show you where they are,” she said. “In the meantime, we need to find you something to cover that staff in your hand. Why are you still holding it?”

“Because I can,” he said with a shrug.

She looked up at the Heavens for a moment before she shook her head and rested her forehead against her fingertips, crossing her other arm under her breasts to support her elbow. The movement drew his attention to the feminine curves of her form and he wondered if the swells on her arm were as soft as the skin on her back and if she smelled like lavender and roses everywhere else. As his imagination started to whir, he felt the appendage in his hand start to harden.

“And the snake gets bigger,” Astraea said in surprise as she averted her widened eyes and started looking around desperately for something, looking pleased for a moment when she spotted some cloth on a drying line, left out after sundown.

Carefully darting across the street to the line, she snatched it down and came back, pausing long enough to leave a gold coin on the window ledge beside the line from a sack she’d hidden in her bosom. When she came back, she wrapped the cloth around his waist and over his shoulder, in the style of the men he had seen.

“Is this form not pleasing to your eyes?” he asked.

“It’s not that,” she said in an almost whine. “Just come on,” she added, waving him to follow her down the street.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Home,” she said.

“But we can’t go back to the Heavens,” he said immediately.

“My home down here with the living,” she corrected herself. “You and I have a lot to talk about, Heosphorous.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” he said truthfully at her tone.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said.

She stayed silent the rest of the way, leading him to a small cottage at the edge of a forest. He had to duck to get through the doorway, but the ceiling was just high enough for him to stand up straight without hitting his head. As he watched, she readied a fire in the small fireplace across the room from a klínē that was barely big enough for his legs to bend comfortably at the knees off the end, though it would leave no room for her. Instead, he sat on the floor beside it as she stood from the fireplace.

“There’s not much room in here,” he said, wondering how she could handle being boxed in.

“That’s why I spend so much time drifting the cosmos with you,” she said. “I’d rather be up there with you,” she said gesturing towards the Heavens, “then down here alone in my body.”

“Why do I feel like there is more than meets the eye?“ he asked.

“That’s just is, what you see is what you get,” she said. “I was born human with a Titanic spirit. I have a mother and father outside of Astraeus and Eos. I was born. I grew up. I live here every day, making remedies for the body and helping others when they are sick in spirit.”

“No, I distinctly remember the day you were born,” he said, shaking his head. “You have been around much longer than a human lifespan would allow. You were there the first time I rode out after the others to place the Heavens in order. Mother handed you to me and said you were my sister and I had to keep watch over you to make sure you didn’t drift into nothingness.”

“She said it, and so it was so,” she said. “Time works differently down here. I lived my entire life with you in only a few days in comparison. The first time I really remembered being up in the Heavens in spirit was the first time you said you loved me and I knew it was true when we joined. But that was just a kiss by human comparison. I was shocked when I felt it at first. I’d seen human spirits pass over the bridge of darkness to get to the Heavens to give worship in the hopes of receiving some in exchange for it, but I’d never wanted that for myself. Even with Gaia, I listen to her spirit as it guides me when I’m working, but I don’t offer her worship. Instead, I teach those who come to see me how to worship and let them choose which Divine spirit to follow. The only one I have worshipped is you,” she said almost sadly. “I was one of the first human spirits Gaia awakened and the first of her attempts to make a spirit as complex as a Titan while maintaining the anchor as something she could keep on her surface. I guess you could say that I was her first failure, and she felt bad, so she gave me to Astraeus and Eos for them to take care of. After seeing all the Heavens had to offer, I could see why Gaia wanted to give the humans a chance to see it. So, I volunteered to come down, be born a human again, live life, and teach all I could of the current gods’ names and histories to ensure their survival. Your anchor is constant in the sky, untouched by man, and as long as it is, you will exist, whereas mine is flesh and bone, set to expire,” she said solemnly. “When I die, I will go to Tartarus until Gaia needs me again. So, I guess I’m saying you don’t have to stay with me if you don’t want to. Zeus will probably make a pretty grand entrance when he grows into his own. He’s down the road in a nearby village so I can keep a spiritual eye out for him and know when he’s ignited the Divine Spark within him. The world will know when Kronos has been dethroned. Until then, you just have to keep from scaring the locals.”

“And after?” he asked, hating that it felt like she was saying goodbye.

“After, it’ll be safe for you to vacate your meat suit and go back to the Heavens where you belong,” she said, her voice going thick towards the end.

Though she didn’t seem to have any emotions on the surface, she wouldn’t meet his gaze, instead of focusing on the fire. But he could feel different. Inside, he felt like he was collapsing, crumbling away into dust as he realized she had no idea. Deciding he no longer wanted any distance between them, he reached out and grabbed her by the ankle. Dragging her towards him, her skirt sliding across the stone floor under her bottom, he pulled her up into his lap so she was facing him with her arms around his neck. Looking up into her eyes solemnly, noting they were as beautiful as they had ever been, the same silvery glint as the stardust he’d seen them as in the Heavens, he kissed her. He’d never had a body to work with, so he closed his eyes and followed the sensation, tuning into her spirit to know what felt good to her and what didn’t. At first, her kiss felt resigned until it started ebbing away and he felt the hum of timid hope. Not wanting anymore separation, but needing her to understand that he’d meant what he’d said in the beginning, he grasped her to his chest and rolled her under his body. Pinning her hips to the ground with his and leading her hands down to the floor by the wrists, he leaned up enough to get her to look at him and held her gaze as he spoke.

“You are my wife from this moment forward. I have said it is so, and therefore it is. I will never again leave your side,” he vowed. “My punishment for joining with you, even once, was to be chained in Tartarus, should we be discovered,” he said, leaning down to kiss her gently and feeling his lung expand with the gentle feeling of her spirit opening to his. “That little kiss was all it would take. Even then, I knew it was worth it. If my punishment is to be living one lifetime with you before it, I will take it and go gratefully knowing that it still is,” he added, resting his forehead against hers. “I will savor every breath we have in human skin until we drift, entangled together in the Heavens for the rest of eternity,” he added, leaning down kiss the hollow of her throat, dipping the tip of his tongue into the indent, letting out a growl of satisfaction at the taste and the sensation of her body warming for him.

“I feel like this is just a dream,” she whispered and he looked up at the crack in her voice. “How could I be worthy of you?” she asked as if there was no sense, no rhyme, no reason to it.

Dumbstruck by the idea that she couldn’t see, all he could say was, “because you are.”

Her brow pulled together at his words, as light moisture gathered in her eyes. Her full bottom lip partly disappeared between her teeth as she stared up at him.

“Kiss me,” he said, sliding his thumbs away from her wrists to release his grip and, after a moment’s hesitation, she did.

Lacing her fingers through his hair, she wrapped her body around his and did as he asked with enthusiasm. Her soft gasping moan was like music to his ears as he felt her legs tighten around his waist, and it felt like it did the first time. He had every intention of solidifying their nuptials by joining with her fully, body and spirit. However, he didn’t get that far. As he trailed his kiss down her throat, making his way towards the swells he’d admired earlier, to find they were delightfully softer than he’d anticipated, he heard a shrill voice in his head that echoed out into the room around him.

“Stop!” it cried as he felt the presence of a Divine Spirit in the room with them.

Baring his teeth and resting them on Astraea’s collarbone, he felt a growl building in his abdomen as he lifted his head and glared at the goddess Aphrodite, materializing by the door.

“You really look like you belong chained up in Tartarus right now,” she said and his growl got louder for a moment. “Peace. I’m here as an ally.”

“Then why you are interrupting,” he snarled.

"I’m here because you two are actively being hunted right now,” she said, moving past them to sit on the klínē. “You two start in on that, you’re going to set off a spiritual light show that will give away your position. Not to mention, she’ll get pregnant. With as paranoid as Kronos is about his own kids, what do you think he’d do to yours?”

“I’d gut him from the inside out,” Astraea said in a hard, cold voice that made him pause to look at his bride in a new light for a moment.

“I don’t doubt that you would,” Aphrodite said. “But with as vicious as you are against anyone hurt someone pure and innocent, do you really want to bring them in, knowing full well that could happen?”

“No,” she said with a deadpan sigh as all of the warmth and tension from their passion bled out of her and her crystalline eyes seemed to dull as she stared at the ceiling.

Astraea let out a swear from under him that summed it up nicely as she wiggled out of his grasp and out from under him to stand up and pace.

“So, what, we’re just supposed to sit here and wait for Zeus to come of age?” she asked that sounded hollow as she made her way to the window to peer out at the moonlit landscape.

“Actually, I was on my here to let you know you need to get moving,” the goddess said. “Kronos still doesn’t know what you look like in the flesh, so you still have some time to get out of here before he thinks to tap my memory of it.”

“You’re going silent,” Astraea said quietly, looking as if her heart was breaking as she fought to keep it within her. “You really haven’t been around that long, but I got so used to having you here.”

“It won’t be forever,” Aphrodite said and then looked at him and gestured. “Go hug her, please.”

Not knowing why the goddess didn’t just do it herself, he got up and did so immediately, holding her tightly as she burrowed into him seeking the comfort he was so willing to give her.

“I’m not here in the flesh,” Aphrodite said with a sniff, answering his internal question. “I can achieve visions with those that are attuned to the spirits,” she added, straightening her shoulders. “But, I’m not powerful enough to affect the physical environment, let alone summon matter to me and shape it to my will. Maybe someday with enough followers to feed me worship and strengthen my spirit. Until then, the most I can do is make a candle flame flicker if I concentrate on it.”

“And the other Wandering Stars?” he asked with a frown as the goddess, again, shook her head.

“You have achieved what the new generation has to learn and earn through the care of the followers we gain over time,” she said. “A testament to your power and the strength of your love for each other.”

“I told you it wasn’t normal,” Astraea added sullenly from where her face was buried in his chest.

“I know you did, but I thought you meant in public,” he said.

“I meant at all,” she said. “How much time do we have before you have to go back to the Heavens?”

“I can give you three days to get as far away from any temples or followers of Kronos as I can,” Aphrodite said. “I have a few followers here that I can go to for recharging while I’m here. But, after that, I have to go back or risk fading.”

“No,” Astraea said flatly as she squeezed his waist and stepped away from him to stand before the goddess. “I won’t risk you fading out and forgetting your godhood. The world is going to need all the love it can get if the visions I got from Gaia are anything to go by. You know the rules, you take care of yourself, first. I’m a big girl, I can handle myself.”

“I know you can,” the goddess said, then gestured back at where he was standing. “But you don’t have to do it alone.”

“She’s right,” he said, crossing the few steps it took to reach for her hand and held it to his chest. She loosely wrapped her arms around his waist and relaxed against him. “If we have three days before you return to the Heavens, I think it’s time for you,” he said, hooking his finger under Astraea’s chin to tilt it so he could see her eyes, “to rest. Aphrodite and I are going to go outside so she can fill me in.”

“Ok,” Astraea said as Aphrodite got up from the klínē to allow Astraea to lie down.

He paused on the edge of it next to her to kiss her gently and assure her that he would be right outside if she needed him. Leaving her there to rest, he went outside, closing the door behind him as Aphrodite simply stepped outside through the wall with the window. Once away from the door, Heosphorous rounded on her and crossed his arms over his chest. In the hierarchy of the gods, he outranked her in power and station, and he wanted answers from his subordinate.

“Why does my wife sound like a soldier at war?” he asked, starting with the most important one.

“Because she is,” Aphrodite said with a sigh. “And she shouldn’t be. When she was first created, she was one of the first humans to stand and think of more than survival and procreation. She was isolated, the only one alive with a sense of there being more to the cosmos. She was miserable, and that misery caused a block between her spirit and her body. She couldn’t connect to the spirit world.”

“She couldn’t even hear Gaia?” he asked, his chest aching as he thought of it and Aphrodite shook her head. “What about the human spirits waiting their turn?”

“Nothing,” Aphrodite said sadly. “Gaia learned that it took a certain amount of peace within the human spirit to ignite a spark of Divinity, but the longer the spirit is steeped in darkness, the longer the silence stretches out, the harder it is to achieve it. When she died, her rage had consumed her spirit and smothered out the light she was originally born with. But she had the spark of a Titan in her. She understood the universe's inner workings, knew the Titans for what they were, and could destroy them with that knowledge. Gaia had no choice but to lock her spirit in Tartarus with the others.”

“Until she saw fit to resurrect her as a tool to punish Uranus and fulfill the prophecy they made about Kronos,” he said, irritation growing in his gut.

“Gaia gave her spirit to Astraeus and Gaia to rehabilitate after being trapped in Tartarus, declaring that she had to stay pure and innocent to keep her hidden from both Kronos and Uranus,” Aphrodite said. “If she joins, body and spirit, with a fully awakened God or Titan, her spark will ignite,” she explained, making him frown deeply. “If either of them sees the threat she truly poses to them and has an inkling of wisdom, they won’t lock her up in Tartarus. She’ll be eliminated.

“She’s strong enough to draw physical matter to her spirit in the Heavens well enough to make a human shape with it. Even I have difficulty doing that,” he said as he considered her words carefully and dismissed Astraea’s tendency to diminish herself. “The Wandering Stars are the strongest of the living Titans.”

“So, imagine for a moment, what will happen when she comes into her full power,” the goddess said.

“I caught a glimpse of it,” he admitted. “The first time I realized I love her. I didn’t even know how to define what it was that I felt until she said the word.”

“You’d never felt it before?” Aphrodite asked and he shook his head.

“I’ve felt passion and awe, gratitude, even, but never anything that pure,” he admitted. “I thought innocence and purity were her domain.”

“They are,” she said. “At least, the protection thereof. They are what she stands for and what will motivate her into action, what will stay her hand within reason, through her pursuits bound by Justice and Precision. I honestly don’t think she knew what love really was until she met you.”

“She didn’t seem sure when she defined it the first time we were together,” he said.

“It’s called unconditional love,” Aphrodite said. “With as messed up and treacherous as our family is, the humans will always have an advantage on us. They come into this world knowing what unconditional love is when their families are built on it. Astraea wasn’t that lucky, but she found it in you. for that I will always be grateful to you. After you showed her what it felt like, she was able to let me connect with her spirit enough for me to get to know her.”

“That wasn’t my intent, but I’m glad she had someone to talk to in my absence,” he said quietly, wishing he’d just followed Astraea down into the human world the first time he’d had the notion. “Are you the only one that visits her like this?”

“No,” Aphrodite said, but I’m the only one that she lets in to speak with through visions. “She stopped speaking with Gaia after Rhea gave her Zeus to lead to his human parents, so the woman could give birth to his vessel. When she told me about what Gaia had asked of her, I told Mesonyx. I’m guessing by the fact that you are here in the flesh, you’re his solution.”

“To what?” he asked.

“To give her a chance at happiness instead of being used as a tool by the Titans,” she said. “I told Mesosnyx it wasn’t right for her to be in isolation because Gaia wanted to keep her a secret. If the Heavens don’t learn the truth about her, Gaia can continue to use her to exact her own agenda. In the Divine Halls, she’s barely there, a shadow more than a spirit. The vast majority of the humans’ spirit is dedicated to keeping their vessel alive and viable. When she crossed the bridge into the Heavens, she was asleep here in the human world, separating her consciousness from the physical. When you called her name, she heard it and her spirit solidified for you, just as yours did for her when she needed you.”

“Then, you’re right,” he said. “I am the solution. And when Kronos taps into your mind, he will see the promise I make this night. If anyone should attempt to take her from me, I will use my power as the Titan that ordered the Heavens to get her back or obliterate it all in the process. As far as I am concerned, the mountain can fall into the Void. All I want is my wife, and now I have her. As long as it stays that way, they’ll find no quarrel with me. Zeus comes to power and usurps the throne; he can have it and all that comes with it, without any trouble, so long as they leave us be.”

Aphrodite nodded her head in understanding of what was said and he bid her farewell for the night. He didn’t care about the state of politics amongst the Titans. All he cared about was Astraea. Going back inside to find her laid out on the klínē, a vision of beauty to rival the Heavens, he smiled. She barely woke when he lifted her, shifting her position to lay over him like a blanket and burying his face in her hair to inhale the fragrance he found there, knowing with all of his being that she was worth it. One might wish to end the tale there, letting them live their human lives, exploring each other as well as the countryside, always staying one step ahead of their pursuers. But theirs was no fairytale, and like all Greek Romance involving gods, their tale was long, trying, and tragic. They got their brief foray into Elysium by creating it on Earth with the humans throughout the Golden Age until her vessel passed away and he followed her back over the bridge to stand in the Halls on Mount Olympus.

There they faced Zeus as he made the first in a long line of mistakes that marked the end of the Age. He harkened back to the memory he’d seen in Aphrodite when he ascended the throne to become the King of the Gods. He knew the threat that they posed. The goddess had been the one to tell them when he ascended and that the war was finally over. It had taken almost ten years for the little bastard to get the job done, but they had celebrated in the only way they could imagine after a decade of frustration. She’d put her fertility into the hands of Aphrodite with the request to give them at least a year with no kids, and locked themselves in the home that they’d built by the Aegean, kick-starting a philosophical revolution when her spark ignited on Earth. They’d kept true to their terms of no involvement in the politics and dynamic of Mount Olympus the entire time. She continued her work as a priestess with no temple or gods, teaching worship through celebration by telling stories of the gods she acknowledged. Giving insight into what one could do to earn the favor of the gods opened the doors to way for the deities to connect with them, and with every new god that rose, the bridge between the worlds widened and solidified to allow a free, uncluttered flow of spiritual traffic.

Seeing what they had accomplished together on Earth, Zeus was afraid of losing his throne as humans. He declared that they were both too dangerous to be free and to be chained in Tartarus together, breaking Heosphorous’s only condition. He had learned a lot when living on Earth, but he had become known as a man of his word because would move Heaven and Earth to keep a promise. As he watched his bride, once soft and full of pride, turn to stone, he started to scream. Zeus latched her form into the cosmos and shattered it with a single bolt. Her spirit, bound within it, was shattered along with it, giving birth to a constellation, his virgin goddess of innocence and purity had been a woman on a mission who had too much faith in the deities. Locked away in Tartarus, fading away into the darkness, he could even see her likeness, separated by Gaia for the crime of turning their backs on the Heavens and loving each other instead of worshipping her.

In the silence he began to laugh as he thought of all the ways to get revenge on Zeus for his betrayal filled his mind in its absence, burning him inside out from the madness as he fought to escape to no avail. With no followers to praise him and no love to sustain him, Heosphoros, eventually, faded away, forgetting who he was and his purpose. All he could see was the crystalline color of her eyes without knowing the words to describe it.