It was a scarcely windy day during the fall season, and within one of the temple rooms, lying on a bed of hay, Ilyia was giving birth with the assistance of nearly a dozen other Sisters.
I was there to oversee the birth, but I did not intervene.
I could only listen to the painful groans from the other side of the door, until finally, I heard the sound of a crying child. I opened the door to go inside, where I then saw my child being held in one of the arms of a Sister.
"It is a son, Great Orion!! A boy!"
In that moment, I felt something wash over me, as if my skin, as thin as paper, had been splashed with cold water. It seeped deep within me, causing me to reflect on all of my choices and actions. As I held my son in my arms, looking down at his innocent face, I felt a responsibility to do better.
From then on, I would change. I pondered my life up to that point, and questioned what I should do from there on. I did so in silence and isolation, losing myself in thought for a day.
When I eventually emerged from my cavern, stepping out into the burning daylight, I did so a new man, a true god with a demeanor befitting as such.
With a deep breath of air, I exhaled with a refreshed mind. "I... Should bathe." I made my way to my spring but stopped midway. "Hmm... No. A god would not bathe himself." With that, I would bathe within my own temple by the hands of women. I would wash myself of all filth, including fixing my long, matted hair and beard. By the end, I would appear before my worshippers a completely unrecognizable being. My hair was clean and cut, my beard thick and freshly trimmed. I would begin wearing finer clothing befitting my stature, which at the time, were robes dyed red, which only the men would wear.
After being in hibernation for so long, my body mass had decreased drastically, which prompted me to eat my fill and to begin physical training yet again. However, this time, I did so with my male worshippers.
"The muscle breaks! It tears and rips with every use! It splits with every movement, great or small! When it heals, it grows larger. This is the way the muscle works!"
"Yes, Great Orion!!"
"The bone too! It becomes stronger only through use! You must lift heavier! Work harder! Eat and drink your fill!!"
"Yes, Great Orion!!"
"Good."
One of the tasks that I took upon myself was to begin creating a map. I would sit on literal clouds, looking down at the land below, and sketching as best I could on some parchment with charcoal. Oceans and seas lay to the east, south, and west, while to the north, lay nothing but dense forest. I named the waters and land as I wanted.
'Hmm... Perhaps I should just name them simple, unforgettable names: west sea, east sea, south sea. For now, this should be fine.'
The whole of the land where I had my worshippers settle was similar in shape to a triangle, whereas one corner alone, faced the southern sea. I drew a line through the top of the land to act as a border of the empire, but as I looked at it, I scowled and erased it immediately.
"A god's land should not be so small. I should expand further."
Knowing my son was in capable hands of being raised by his mother, I set off to explore farther.
I had gone far before in training, but this time, I would not be shackled by distance. I would move freely, as fast as I could go. With bolts of lightning following in my movements, with every leap, stride, and skip, as I crossed the skies. With my bare movements, a storm followed in my wake.
I would encounter other mortals in the wilderness, still living like animals and others who had actually developed tribalistic communities. I would descend upon them, and they would kneel in my presence.
I would collect more and more worshippers across great distances, expanding my reach, power, and religion.
Within twenty years, I would reach hundreds of thousands of mortal worshippers across multiple settlements, in which I focused on developing.
The common language would become Zanish, and the empire would come to be known as The Zandorion Empire. I was able to eventually work out the design of large ships capable of traversing the sea, which caused Zandorion to flourish in establishing trade between the cities across the great sea, which I named the Zandorion Sea.
My home remained in Zandavere, which came to be known as the capital of Zandorion.
My son, Perius, grew as the mortals did, though he possessed abilities as I did. His body was strong and he was exceptionally smart. I did well in raising him to be a proper god, uncorrupted by the temptation of mortals, but it was not as if he didn't have urges.
When he was five, he came to me, climbing onto a chair and then slamming his hand on the table. "Father! I want to marry Haley!"
"Huh? Who is Haley?"
"She is the nice Sister who tends to the garden."
"A Sister? How old is she?"
"I... Do not know that."
"...Right... My son, she is much too old for you, and you are much too young to know the intricacies of love. You should wait until you are older."
He broke down crying after that and ran to his mother, whom I had ended up marrying in taking responsibility for what'd I done. She for some reason sided with Perius.
"Haley is sixteen this year. I raised her myself. She is devoted and would make a good wife."
"Perius is too young."
The same thing would happen on his seventh birthday, where at the table, he would slam his hand and ask for his present.
"Father! I am a year older now. Please allow me to wed that Sister over there!"
He ended up pointing to a different woman, one who was even older than the last one.
"Perius. You are too young still."
After that, word spread like wildfire that they would be able to marry Perius once he is older. This caused the Sisters in the temple to try and get closer to Perius. The men were no exception. Those who had sisters or daughters, threw them into the temple in hopes of them attracting Perius.
Years would pass in the blink of an eye. I would have two daughters in that time, Aqua and Fallow, but still, almost every year after that, a table would be slammed and Perius would ask me to marry him to a different woman of his choosing. I wouldn't allow it until he turned fifteen, but before I could even find a woman for him, he ended up doing something stupid.
He owned a horse, a mare, that he had raised since he was eleven and would do well in taking care of and raising it. I had known he was close with his horse, but I wouldn't learn how close he was until he was fourteen years old and the mare had given birth.
He understood what the relations between a man and a woman were, but was unable to control himself and ended up procreating with the mare, which resulted in a completely new species. I still remember standing there before my fearful son, while his mother tended to the mare and its offspring. I was in disbelief, speechless and unable to think clearly.
'What the fuck? It's... It's... It's a centaur? Is this possible? No... Clearly, it is. Is this a result of his divine blood? My blood? A centaur? A fucking centaur? Damn it, Perius! What the hell is this?'
The child would become the very first centaur, something that I had not foreseen or thought would be possible since the world wasn't one of fantasy and magic, and was really no different from the world I had come from with just humans and animals, aside from my own, special existence.
"It is a daughter! The third generation of god!" Ilyia didn't seem to care about the origins of the child and seemed to accept it completely as her grandchild. "Congratulations, Perius! You two shall be wedded!"
"It's a horse, damn it!"
"Thank you, mother!"
I would end up marrying Perius to a woman of my choosing, one of fitting age and loving demeanor. As for the bastard, I would accept it as my grandchild and grant it the name Centaria, deeming her as the first centaur. Centaria would grow rather quickly, much faster than any human mortal, and would possess the intelligence of a human. In fact, she was extremely intelligent, far smarter than any other, and for some reason, eager to please.
"Grandfather! Look!" She would run up, a rolled-up scroll in her arms.
"Hm? What is it?"
"Look." She said with a large grin.
Taking the scroll from her, I looked over what she'd drawn. It was an artistic marvel, some sort of contraption of wood and stone.
'What is this? Some sort of... ...Uh... I really can't tell.' I stared at it for a few seconds, glancing back and forth between the paper and my grandfather's doe-like eyes. 'Well... Fake it til you make it I suppose.'
"Ah. I see now."
"You do?!"
"Of course. This is impressive. Where did you get this idea?"
"I thought of it by looking at the mortals' farms. I thought this would be a better way to deliver water instead of the mortals having to fetch it from the river. With your permission, we could have this built to deliver clean water to the city and farmlands."
'Ah. I see now. It's an aqueduct.'
"I am very impressed you were able to come up with this, Centaria. Building an aqueduct would be a good idea."
"A what...? Is that what it's called?"
"Ah, yes. It is an old... Creation, from long ago, before even my time. I never replicated it because I was unable to fully understand it. However, if you are smart enough to, then we would surely be able to construct one, if not many all across the empire."
"Really?"
"Yes, of course."
The aqueduct would become one of the first major inventions by Centaria that would revolutionize the daily lives of mortals across the empire.
Life was peaceful, the empire had yet to know war, food was abundant, and corruption minimal. For decades, there would be nothing but peace, until the day that, he, reared his ugly head.