Kronos did not sleep like mortals did. Titans were too vast for slumber. But they drifted—into long spells of stillness, into thoughts that curved through ages.
And in those spaces, Elias whispered.
Not words, not commands, but images.
He sat at the heart of the Hollow, eyes closed, hand extended toward the silver-threaded tree that had no name. Around him swirled dust—not of earth, but of meaning, the fragmented substance of myth unborn.
He dreamed for Kronos.
He sent shapes through the root-network of Gaia herself: a blade not yet made, curved like a crescent moon, forged not of metal but of severance. A sickle that did not kill—but separated.
Above the ground, Kronos stirred.
Kronos had always been the quiet one.
While his brothers roared in sleep and his sisters danced with the winds, Kronos watched. He traced stars with his eyes and listened to the pull of the oceans. He knew his mother's breath even when she said nothing.
But now, something had changed.
There were images in his mind he had never learned. A gleam of silver. A hand raised. A sky cracked open.
And a voice—not his mother's, but not unfamiliar.
It was not a voice that spoke.
It was a voice that echoed.
Elias walked along the edge of Gaia's dreams, uninvited but not unwelcome. Her sorrow had softened into longing. In the Hollow, he shaped a new space: a forge not of flame but of memory.
Each dream Kronos received was crafted here.
Each myth born from silence.
He used no hammer, no anvil. Only thought. Only pain.
And from that pain, a shape began to emerge—slowly, carefully.
A blade.
It hung in the center of the Hollow, weightless and unreal. Elias dared not make it real. Not yet.
Because the sickle was not his to wield.
Meanwhile, Kronos began to question.
He watched Uranus drift over Gaia night after night. He listened to his brothers cry out in their sleep, their limbs twitching with dreams of chains. He felt the silence in his mother's roots.
And one night, he asked aloud, "Why do we bow?"
No one answered.
But Gaia heard.
She did not speak to him directly, but the trees bent lower. The rivers pulsed harder. The air held still around him.
He felt permission.
Not an order.
Not a plan.
But permission.
In the Hollow, Elias paused.
He could feel it. The first crack in obedience. The first breath of myth turning.
And so he sent a final vision into Kronos's sleep:
A mother weeping.
A father laughing.
A blade raised in silence.
And stars screaming.
When Kronos awoke, he wept.
Not for himself.
But for the children still locked in the stone of Gaia's belly.
He clenched his fists.
And for the first time, he imagined rebellion.
That night, Uranus descended again.
He spoke nothing. He never did. His vast body simply pressed closer, as if trying to reclaim the entire world in his embrace.
Gaia trembled.
Far below, her buried children whimpered in their sleep.
And in the Hollow, Elias watched the sickle shimmer once more—no longer a suggestion, but an idea solidifying.
He reached out to touch it.
But it vanished.
Because he could not bring it forth.
Only Kronos could.
And Elias would wait.
As all watchers must.