To find oneself at odds with gods of men,
It means to face a fate that no one can
Escape, nor comprehend in full, for they
Of flesh are not, but far in heavens stay.
Their judgements shape one’s life and death, and yet
They don a veil of rain and beastly threat,
Of wind, wildfire, quakes, and ocean waves,
For nature t h e m is — we are but its slaves.
But solace one may find in knowing that
Those aren’t common men who simply sat
On heaven’s holy thrones: they’re wise and just,
They grant us order, ethics, and entrust
Us with their own creations, parent-like,
To save us from a man-beast chaos-reich.
Our gods, both mighty and supremely pure,
Do scorn the realms in which usurpers rule;
The worlds of suffering for its own sake,
Where goodness, justice: one is brief, one — fake;
Where respite cannot be in heavens found,
But in the certainty of sword unbound;
Where might is right, yet cannot be obtained
Through work or wisdom, or by kings ordained,
For one is either mighty-born or not,
And stays birth-shackled till he lies in rot;
Where even championed warriors never feel
At peace and safe but worry that their steel
Will not forestall defeat — a maiden mere,
Who, through her life, of war stayed clear,
Can still prevail — if titan-born — through size
Alone; her posture given, offspring-wise,
To her by bonds of flesh — ancestral grace,
So that the puny know their rightful place.
A realm among such realms, of god-likeness
Decrepit — one of beings great, immense
And yet with psyches not unlike the ones
Of common men, or little forest’s sons —
A world it is where strength supremely reigns,
And bodies made like mountains — throbbing veins
Of old-growth’s width, and vast, quick hands; and feet
That cause the earth to tremble in defeat —
Do as they please with men, thanks to the height —
Which less than fiftieth of titan-might
Is — of their prey; and men of such a realm
in size like us are, and: we are like them.
Let fate be praised, then, that nigh every day
In highlands hidden these colossi stay,
Incurring into human dwellings not
Unless coerced by fiery, lustful thought
Or evil men who revel in the pain
And misery of fellow humans slain
In fratricide by hands of like-shaped race
That human is all but in size through space.
But what casts want in minds of theirs to kill:
A sustenance hunt? A simple game of skill?
O, nay, 'tis passion, fervor, thrilling heart
Of mountain-men and women, for in part
Satyric souls they have, and life force do
They not in food and water find but through
Emotions and desires, and through sense
Of smell and that of touch, and thrill intense;
And when they rage, they rage like storms and quakes;
And when they love, they love like fire-lakes
For no mere man can on his own endure
A titan-woman's pure affection and allure.
As tillers toil in blackened earth and fend
Each day, enduring strifes to keep their end
Away, as doom, despair fills hearts deprived
Of hope in ways that seem to us contrived,
The mountain-born, of whom so many lead
A life with pleasure as its only creed,
Achieve the dreams of one Diogenes
Of Sinope and his wish to bring to ease
His hunger simply by the way of touch,
Through rubbing of his belly; and as such
With reciprocal rubs have mostly passed
Their days. The ecstasy of bodies vast
Makes man’s own carnal pleasures seem a farce,
A tickle, nothing more. Alone these arts
Of love feed spirits massive and their maws
In ways as yet unknown by human laws.
Throughout the regions of this realm there lives
But one great race that bladed warfare breathes
And holds its ground in face of mountain sons:
They bear the name of the Venusians.
Of thrice the height of men they reach the size,
And solely does their commonwealth comprise
Of women, female warriors strong as stone
And mighty in command. On gleaming throne
They fashioned from the skulls of men they loathe
And conquests’ spoils they sit. Sororal oath
Obliges them to keep no husband, but
Male serfs ensure their lineage is not cut.
In cities clad in stones of white, in wide
Expanses, steppes, and plains they live and pride
Themselves on their devotion to their queen
The Matriarch, a cosmic Hyperine.
In circumstances such, a man’s life seems
Devalued, for with misery it teems
And threat of death at every step of his
By hands of beings greater than he is.
And living in the shadows of not just
The titan races, but the femme-knights vast
In physique, statehood, knowledge, skill, as well
As height — a human spirit must dispel
The notion of a cosmos that subdued
Can be through will alone; erelong conclude
He subsequently might that only in
His own abhorrent acts of vice and sin
Some harmony and respite could be found…
Unless he’s seen the might and heard the sound
Of Synalea, goddess of the skies
And of the oceans, whose Hyperian size
Dismantles egos, crushes thought, demands
Obedience and devotion, and commands
Eternal worship. In return, she spares
Her faithful devotees from higher cares,
The burden of own thought, and grim, terrene
Disasters that she brings about: marine
Incursions, earthquakes, wind gusts so severe
That human cities simply disappear.
And thus downhearted humans spend their days,
Affirming through their vile, sadistic ways —
Or through submissive acts — the absolute,
Oppressive hierarchy of this brute
And unforgiving realm. It takes a toll
On minds to be imprisoned, after all,
And sentenced to a lowly life without
A gleam of hope, with ever-present doubt.
And yet there lives in forests deep and old
A people, though minute, most tough and bold.
Petite like clover stalks their limbs appear
To humans; bodies they possess of mere
A thumb of height — but what they lack in size,
They make up for in spirit and in wise
Resourcefulness; and through their cleverness
They deal with threats. They spend their days
Within arboreal chalets and dens,
Or mounting in tall grass and moss defense,
Or in their gardens, full of forest's fruit,
Or tinkering and crafting things minute.
Apart from woodland nymphs, the titans know
Of Lilleos — for that is what they go
By — not; impassable, deep bogs and vines
With toxic thorns sure constitute the signs
Of jeopardy that humans read and stay
Away from forest folk; unless as prey
They see and search for them — and in that case
The elfs fight back, prepared to die with grace.
With nature as their homeland, sword, and shield,
And ally ever-loyal, steadfast, wield
They yet another weapon by the name
Of Zeya, like the sky immense in frame;
Her strong, Hyperian will protects the wild,
Harmonious lands of green and brown. (Defiled
May they be never by imperial wars
Or violent impudence!) And if the corps
Of elfish settlers ever find the mines
That engineers of bygone dwarven kinds
Into the bedrock carved, on which the wood —
Their home — resides, the scouts discover should
A trove forgotten: archives full of scrolls
And hoards of high machinery. In halls
Of stone great powers hidden lie in wait
To alter this realm's balance and its fate.