In the realm of mortals, dismal sheets of rain forced rivers over their banks, swept away pasts, presents, and futures.
A sole tradesman clung despairingly to the slight branches at the top of his family tree. Planted by his grandfather's grandfather, the hardy oak had weathered epic storms, but none so fierce as this.
Strength failing, grief weakening his hold, he saw again his wife, his young child. He felt again her hand slide from his, saw them fall in the torrent beneath, saw ... nothing. WHY???? he cried to the unhearing heavens. WHY????
Silence, but for the rain, was his answer.
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In the realm of gods, high atop Olympus, confusion surmounted the throne.
Palaces crumbling, chaos shattering eons-old creations, the immortals succumbed to the madness.
Zeus? Where is Zeus??? Frantically, those few stalwarts scoured Olympus for the king. Nowhere could he be found. Hera? Has she left with her mate??
Trembling, a dryad peeked from behind a tree... Hera ran there!, pointing within the grotto beyond.
Through the entrance, past rubble of millenia, to the grotto's heart, to ... a pool??? How did this come to be here????
Something glittered... lit by the flames now devouring the grotto, destroying Olympus.
Zeus's sword. Looking deeper... Zeus. Hera. Old, decaying. WHY? WHY??? rose the cry.
The fabled city fell. The gods descended, mortal. The pool wept tears for weeks on end, sharing their grief with the mortal realm.
Locked in their final, hate-filled embrace, Zeus and Hera lay where they had fallen, in Aphrodite's grotto, in the pool formed as Hera slew her husband's final lover, the pool of Love forevermore unmastered, unfulfilled.
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