As the years went by, Zandavere's borders stretched wider in all directions. Soon, a beautiful city emerged. Architecture became more prevalent, food more sustainable, and the population of man more numbered. Among them, my children would sire their own, and they would sire their own. My descendants would be quick to number in the dozens, and the species that had been born into the world would continue to intermingle. Soon enough, settlements would pop up elsewhere as groups would settle across valleys and mountains, forming their own cities. With the guidance of my children, the mortals would know peace, but even they were not capable of managing such numbers.
Centaria would become the mother of all Centars, the Goddess of Wisdom and Labor, and would take a pivotal role in maintaining order. The gods of my blood would be divided between high-gods, with immense strength capable of shaping mountains, and demi-gods, who would inherit little to no power at all. Still, even they would need structure, and my pantheon would be born under my name and worship. However, in my absence, my granddaughter, Centaria, would lead the pantheon alongside my son, Perius. Perhaps my son was among the most powerful because he was my first born, a true god who would gain the title of God of Power. By the point he had become a man, he had gained wisdom capable of guiding his hand well without my say. Had I been there to see the god he had become, I would have been proud.
"Father..." Centaria approached him from behind, a solemn tone in her voice as he overlooked the mortal world below. "Another outbreak has occurred to the west. The city of Grech."
My son turned to his daughter, a wise look in his eyes, a hint of stoicism mixed with kindness and compassion. "Centaria... You have returned home. You have become more beautiful than the last time I had seen you."
"Father... I am sorry. I have been busy overlooking the mortal world in their desperation. I... Have been unable to aid them in their affliction."
"Calm yourself my daughter. My father always used to say, it is not up to us to raise the children of man, but for us to guide the men to water. It is them who will catch the fish. You will not always be able to give them what they need, but perhaps you can aid them in helping themselves."
"I have done that, father. Still, the spread of their sickness is too powerful. At this rate, they will die out. Perhaps you could ask Aunt Aqua to heal them. A single tear!"
"Centaria." His voice brought silence. "If we gods do everything for the mortals, both sides will lose their freedom. The mortals die. We should concern ourselves with godly deeds."
"...Father... The other gods look to me for answers as well. We too, are plagued by prayers. The mortals are suffering. Do you ask us to ignore their pleas?"
"No. I ask that you solve them indirectly. You are intelligent, my daughter. Smarter than the entirety of Passaphere. You can solve this. I know you can."
"But father... I have tried for months now. Even I grow weary. It is as though... This sickness is not natural."
Only then would my son, Perius, become inclined. He would descend upon the mortal realm, upon one of the dying cities, far from the Passaphere, the home of my pantheon, in investigating the sickness Centaria spoke of.
A rotting city, deserted it would appear if not for the coughs of the sick. The dead riddled the streets and the scent of decay whiffed in the air. The plague, spoken of, left the mortal city in ruins. Perhaps it was his kind heartedness that he inherited from his mother that brought him to the decision to take up a poor orphan and bring him to his sister, Aqua.
"Sister." He called out, opening the door to her quarters in carrying the child in his arms. Her room was dark, yet bright with star like specks of every color imaginable. It was as though you were walking in the expanse of space, as the lights moved slowly in swirling. My daughter was rather reclusive, yet intelligent in her own way. Her bodily form had stopped aging at adolescence, her once dark hair and eyes had taken on an unnatural apparel. Her eyes were like that of a galaxy, glowing blue, while her hair was navy, short only to her shoulders. As for her abilities, she was not powerful in a sense that she would ever be able to rival other gods, but to the mortal, she was both life and death, granting her the title: Goddess of Wounds.
"Perius. Why are you here?" She would call out from the fogging clouds that encompassed the corners of her quarters.
"Aqua. I have come with a child inflicted by a common plague. It has ravaged cities by the handful for months, and still there is yet to be a cure. My daughter, Centaria, pleads to me, and thus, now I plead to you, my dear sister. Cure this child of his wounds, and then grant me a vial from your fountain."
"It is a mortal child. Why care for its life?"
"I do not, I care for our worshippers."
"I have long stopped hearing their prayers. Do they persist?"
"They do. Some among our family hear them more than others. The mortals pray to me less than Centaria. Still, it is my role in the absence of father that I solve this for our worshippers."
"All right. I shall grant you what you ask, but I ask for something in return."
"What?"
"I want a friend. A true friend."
"A friend?"
"Yes. I see the mortals die for each other. I want a friend that would die for I who is already immortal."
"...How am I to find such a, friend, for you?"
"There are millions of mortal souls out there. Find one."
"All right... The vial."
From the fog and clouds, Aqua would reveal the upper part of her body. A large head of hair and a never ending scope of stars behind those strands of navy. Her slim arm threw out a vial of red liquid.
"Do not forget. Brother."
Perius left stalwart. He would find himself on top of the mountain, breaking the vial in his hand. Its red, blood thick innards would coat his palm and fingers. A drop he would fall into the child's mouth before raising up his hand in conjuring a storm. A rain cloud would form quickly and grow in size, eventually encompassing the entirety of the sky for miles. His hands would stain no longer, and he would send the rain west in curing of the mortal plague that ravaged the realm.
As the rain made its way over, it would cleanse cities and wilderness, a cloud of rain that stretched for miles, canvasing the sky in grey. It was to be expected that the unnaturalness of the weather would be noticed, but by the creatures that did, that was far from guessed. Monsters, they were, perhaps some of the first to ever be born into the world. They were ravenous beasts that ate mortals and animals alike, down to the bone. They were of dark skin, as large as man, and had featherless wings. They took to the sky upon the rain's coming, the dozens of them that there were.
While Perius was a god who would leave the mortals be for the most part, Centaria was a more hands on goddess, who actively aided the mortals with her following of worshippers and her kin of gods and demi-gods.
Her children were much like her, and her children would go on to have children of their own. They would share a resemblance from their upper halves being mortal-like, while their lower halves would share the bodies of their respective parents. Some chose to breed with mortals, resulting in those being born with only two legs, while others chose to breed with the wild. Some resembled deer, even antlers growing upon their heads, while others possessed the blood of elk. While my views on lust and birthing were my own, I could understand that my descendants were raised to believe differently. To them, it was of little difference what they mated with, though I would have had a more controlled order to their actions. Still, they were of my blood.
Centaria was a loving and caring mother, who taught her kin to care for others. She would make the journey to city, town, and village to aid the mortals in recovering, she and her clan of children whom possessed the titles of demi-gods, for the most part, while only three in her many offspring of dozens, had the strength and reverence to bear the titles of gods. One such god went by the name of Zederash, a young god who possessed incredible athleticism and skill with the spear. I had never met him before, but I heard of his ventures and feats, a compassionate god, much like his mother, who took seriously the aiding of the mortals. Of course, having never met him before, I feel regret for his falling that would spark the war to come.
Demons, we called them, monstrous creatures of divine origin, that bred and ran rampant as the wild animals did in the forests. They appeared out of nowhere, the cause of the plague that broke out in our realm, a disease that snuck its way into our borders. Zederash had taken to aiding some of the mortal settlements to the farthest of our borders. Out there, the mortals were still rather barbaric and uncouth, still new to the concepts of even clothing, but being simple minded enough to recognize the greatness of the gods. Zederash saw to their recovery with his own children, up until the moment that the demons attacked.
He reacted with a straightened back. His keen hearing had made him aware of the monsters coming toward him. With his spear, he raised up his arm and weapon, piercing the body of a winged demon that had flown straight into his weapon. Zederash would tear the creature from his arm and spear, shouting to his children to the ready.
"My children!! Prepare yourselves!! Mindless abominations have come for the mortals!! Protect them!!"
He looked up to the sky to see only a few, enough that he could count them on his hands. He was large in size, a giant over the mortals, and yet these creatures rivaled him in size. Four limbs, with terrifying claws, wings upon their back that stretched thin enough that you could see the veins through their dark, wrinkled flesh, and with horrifying heads, like that of a pig, one cursed with a jaw full of fangs.
The demons rained down from the sky, snatching up livestock and mortals with their sickled claws. The demi-gods fended off the creatures rather successfully, with Zederash cutting them down with ease, one after another. When the last of the demons fell to his spear, he had thought the worst to be over, but as he wiped the blood from his cheek and turned his head south, his expression dimmed. With shut eyes and a deep exhale, he opened his eyelids with a resoluteness.
"My children!!" He cried out, taking a handful of wood out from a tree with his bear hand. "Flee!! Flee back to your grandmother!! Find the gods!! Warn them!! I will hold them off." He declared, the wood in his hands shaping into that of a helmet that he would place upon his head. His children looked up in horror at the cloud of darkness that approached, afraid for their father's life.
"Father!"
"Go now!!" He ordered, pushing his children to flee while he stayed to fight off the thousand demon horde whose combined screeches deafened the ear. The young demi-gods fled, carrying with them the mortals in grabbing them, while Zederash ran toward the enemy with nothing more than his spear.
With no one bearing witness to his battle, it couldn't be said as to what exactly happened. However, Centaria, with the entire pantheon having returned to the scene, found a desecrated land of blood. Hundreds of demons littered the battlefield, leading all the way up to a nearby mountain, nearly a mile away. His severed arm was found in the pathway, massive shards of sharp earth, had rose up from the ground with the corpses of demons, forked upon their cliffs. The gods would find the fallen Zederash's devoured corpse near the mountain's peak. What little remained of him was taken, alongside his weapon that he held onto until his dying breath, to be buried in Passaphere.
No god had ever been killed before, and with it being Centaria's eldest son, her firstborn, well... It would not be too much to say that a part of her died that day, and from its grave, arose a vengeful wrath.
Within Passaphere, stood a vault of treasures. It was where gods threw possessions of incredible craftsmanship or comparable trinkets, and it was where Centaria had placed upon a pedestal, the bow Thidiyus. For the first time since she had placed it in this decorated hall, she would take it up with an expression unbefitting of her. No god dared to confront her as none of them had ever seen her like this, and none dared to stop her as they understood.
For a month straight, she would isolate herself, far from civilization, and far from the gods. No one knew what she did, but as she told, she did nothing but practice her skills with the bow. When she returned, she did so in battle armor. The demons continued to migrate into our realm, sparking the beginning of our war with them. The first battle would be when their horde would attack the city of Predapolis, and the day that the Goddess of Wisdom and Labor would disappear from the world, temporarily, and the Goddess of Unending March appeared. She would not stop, not for a moment as she brought down the demons from afar. They never even grazed her flesh and they fell by the dozens. In her blind rage, she would separate herself from the other gods who were along in the battle, leaving them to fight their own, while she disappeared deeper into the enemy lines.
The demons were relentless, numbering easily in the tens of thousands. It was unnatural, their existence and their tactics. They were not simply mindless, some possessed weapons, while they would utilize teamwork. This was unmistakable.
Centaria would be of the first to discover the truth of the demons, as in the swarm of locusts that they were, she would be confronted by another god.
The demons flocked around her, hungry, yet distant. Their cries, like parasites trying to infest the ear canal, was a language unlike she had ever heard. A god, towering over them in size, with two sets of wings, armor, and a vile grin, as was described. The tale that she told was that she met with another god who sought to toy with her, but would ultimately meet his end in underestimating her. The specifics were lost as she was so enraged, that even she can not remember the full extent of her actions. All she can transcribe, is that she was never not pulling back her bow.
The battle in its entirety would go on for days, as the gods with little to no rest, would exterminate the entirety of the demon horde. They sustained many injuries, a few ultimately falling to the upset of all.
Perius would eventually find his daughter, Centaria, deep within the corpse layered battlefield, coated in dried blood, and frozen stiff in expression. Among those her arrows had brought down, the enemy god's remains laid splattered. Perius would describe the scene as a sickening sight of flesh and bone being torn through by an arrow as many times as there are hairs on the top of one's head. So many had been fired, that even the earth below was nothing but crumbs and dust.
He would praise his daughter for her feats as he carried her off on his shoulders. Her wounds were many and deep, but none that were so fatal.
The demons would become known to the gods and mortals, and to the demons, the gods would become known. They were not simply mindless creatures, nor beasts in the wild. They were an army, an army marching onto enemy land. This would be the first war among gods, the first war of pantheons.
"Rest in peace, Zederash. Your mother loves you."