Her third pregnancy weighed heavily on her—not with pain, for she was a daughter of primordial gods and childbirth posed no threat—but with dread.
It had been five long months since her husband, Phorcys, had vanished into the abyss, chasing a faint hope across the ocean floor.
What troubled her more than his absence was the strangeness of their children. Despite being divine, their offspring had always emerged monstrous. Voiceless. Shapeless. Beasts more than gods. Each birth chipped away at her hope and filled her divine heart with something sour. Whispers echoed in Othrys and the sea alike: “Keto, the Mother of Monsters. Unfit for gods. Queen only to beasts.”
- (Mount Othrys was the base of Cronus and Rhea and the other Titans and Titanesses during the ten-year war with the Olympians known as the Titanomachy. It was also the birthplace of the gods and goddesses who are children of Cronus and Rhea: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus. It was the Olympus of its time)
Most sea deities bore frightening forms, yes—but they could shift, charm, speak with elegance. Her children had none of that. No divine spark. No grace. No intellect. No magic.
Out of desperation, Keto and Phorcys sought wisdom from their elder brother, Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, who bore the gift of prophecy.
“You are doomed by your own divinity,” Nereus said, his voice heavy with sorrow. “Together, you can only birth what crawls beneath—the monstrous, the forgotten. Phorcys, the lurking terror. Keto, the Mother of Monsters.”
But Nereus, as always, spoke in riddles that offered slivers of hope.
“Unless,” he murmured, “you steal from the stars.”
He spoke of a divine clam—a relic tainted with the essence of Uranus, the Sky—lost in the darkest trenches. If Keto could implant her embryo within it, it might nourish the child with divine light. She would not birth one, but two. One hers, one not. One child, Aphrodite, destined to rise from the shame of Uranus. And the other… a chance. A spark. A life beyond fate. Born by deceiving the laws that cursed the couple to only bear monsters.
“Raise them both with love,” Nereus warned, “or your son will not live beyond three summers.”
Phorcys left that very night, plunging into the abyss in search of the clam. Months passed. The absence of her lover, her other half, pressed on Keto like the weight of the entire ocean.
Just as she resolved to search for him herself—
“Beloved! I found it!”
His voice broke through the sea like sunlight. He burst into the hall, his blue hair floating like seawater clinging to his scaled skin, joy dancing in his storm-dark eyes. Behind him, two nymphs carried a massive, glowing clam that pulsed like a heart.
"It took a while to find. The journey was treacherous, but I handled it," Phorcys said proudly.
Instead of joy, Keto hugged him tightly.
“I feared you were lost…” she whispered.
He stood awkwardly, unsure how to comfort his usually composed wife. Quietly, he hugged her back.
"Yeah... I'm sorry I took so long, dear..."
After a while, they separated, and Keto, slightly embarrassed, caressed her stomach where the slowly forming embryo of her son lay. Unlike her previous children, who matured in three to four months, this one had taken over a year to even form an embryo. This gave her hope that it might be more divine. She had felt flickers of divinity within the child, but each time it clashed with her own, it flickered out like a dying flame.
According to Nereus, this child would be the closest to godhood she would ever bear—the only one with a chance of becoming a god. No other child, past or future, would have this opportunity. This was why both Keto and Phorcys were desperate to find the clam before it was too late.
Keto calmly sat on her sofa and cut open her stomach as Phorcys nervously watched. The baby, enveloped in a bubble of embryonic fluid, floated out under her magical control. Phorcys gently placed the embryo inside the clam, next to another small bump gestating in the pearl—the future goddess, Aphrodite.
Sensing a foreign body within its protective shell, the clam instinctively secreted layers of aragonite and conchiolin as a natural defense. This layer acted as a protective cocoon for the embryo, which would grow to maturity over the next few months.
The shell sealed. The clam shimmered.
And deep within it, a soul not of this world stirred—a spark lost in time and space. An outsider. A fateless flame.
Dolus.
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The months that followed were unlike any in Keto’s long life. Her heart, once calloused with disappointment, softened. Keto spent her days by the clam. She sang ancient lullabies to it. She slept with the clam in her embrace, hopeful of a life truly divine, aware and bright.
Phorcys, meanwhile, took on the role of protector, ensuring no outsiders could enter their place—not even their parents or siblings. He hid their abode in the deepest, darkest part of the vast ocean.
The other sea gods and goddesses, curious and wary, kept their distance, gossiping about what was taking place in the depths.
And then—on a night when the ocean was silent and the stars above the waves aligned—the clam began to glow brighter than ever.
The deep-sea palace, usually quiet and somber, was now filled with a strange mix of hope and apprehension.
Keto felt a surge of energy. She hurried to Phorcys, who was standing watch nearby.
"It’s time," she whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of anxiety and excitement.
The clam slowly opened, revealing two infantile figures bathed in a soft, divine light. One was a blonde infant girl with a radiant aura, unlike the dark and somber hues of the duo watching, and the other was a smaller boy with black hair like hers and dark oceanic eyes like his father's. Keto’s heart swelled as she looked at them—Aphrodite and her son, Dolus.
Aphrodite was meant to be born as a fully formed goddess after the fall of Kronus. However, the addition of another divine child within the clam meant the goddess was unable to grow to adulthood by relying solely on the divinity within the clam, leading her to be born more prematurely and faster than what the mythos originally dictated.
(This is primarily why the prophecy ordering Keto and Phorcys to raise Aphrodite as their child alongside their son came to pass. Dolus, who was meant to be a sea monster, was anything but—due to the influence of Aphrodite's divinity and the essence of Uranus within the clam, akin to a secondary birth like that of Dionysus from Zeus's thigh. He was meant to be a demigod but became a true god.)
Keto cradled them, and for the first time in eons, she smiled. Aphrodite cooed, casting soft pink light across the room. Dolus slept silently in his mother’s arms.
Each child bore a mark: a pearl beneath one eye. Aphrodite’s was pale and blushed with rose, Dolus’ dark as obsidian, laced with blue. Symbols of a birth both divine and forbidden.
After the birth of a truly divine child, the so-called origin of the world usually informs the divine parents present of the name and godhood of their descendants—This duty carried out by one of the primordial beings that first came to be, parentlessly, alongside their mother Gaia and her siblings.
Originally named Eros,The primodial god of love. Was respectfully called Order by the gods born after—a mysterious being that fathered the Fates, maybe even older than Gaia. Formless and emotionless, its job is to bestow divine names and godhood and supervise the ever growing pantheon.
This anamorphic being was rumored to be the mid-nurse of Gaia, who helped her give birth to her first three children: Ourea (the Mountains), Uranus (the Sky), and Pontus (the Sea). Some gods believe him to be the father of the Fates due to the similarities in their abilities and roles. Many gods whisper that he is unaware—simply a tool of Khaos, following his father's will.
A sudden stillness filled the palace as the presence of Order manifested. A chilling silence spread through the deep sea, and the water itself seemed to freeze. From the shadows emerged a formless, ethereal entity. Covered head to toe in a veil, it spoke with a voice that echoed with the weight of eternity, each word resonating with the fabric of reality.
However, this time the usually mechanical voice seemed much more vexed with this unforeseen birth.
“Aphrodite... the soon-to-be goddess of beauty,” it intoned, its voice filled with an uncharacteristic edge. “And Dolus, the child who has tricked fate and destiny. The Daemon of Deception and Treachery.”
(Daemons are lesser divinities or spirits—often personifications of abstract concepts—beings of the same nature as both mortals and deities, essentially the male version of nymphs.)
Keto and Phorcys looked at each other in trepidation. This naming was unlike any they had ever heard. The entity seemed almost... annoyed by the existence of Dolus. The usual calm and indifferent tone of Order now held a hint of disquiet.
Silence fell like a shroud. Keto's heart, once buoyed with hope, sank. A Daemon—not quite a god. But not a monster either. There was still time.
She gently picked up the infants, cradling them in her arms. Phorcys covered his children in the veil of the dark sea, wary of Order’s tone.
“These children,” Order said, staring deep into the couple, “are born of unforeseen circumstances."
"Aphrodite, delayed by the presence of another within the clam. You shall grow under the guidance of those who brought you forth."
"Dolus, an anomaly—a being that defies the natural order. Your path is uncertain, and your potential for both greatness and destruction is immense.”
Then Order vanished, and the sea exhaled once more.
Phorcys stepped forward.
“We will hold a banquet,” he declared. “Let all Olympus see. We have not only given rise to monsters—but to gods.”
Keto frowned.
“Gods?”
“Yes,” Phorcys said, a rare warmth in his voice. “Yes, when our children grow up, I will ask Father to bestow upon Dolus dominion—a piece of the sea, a title, a priesthood. He will be more than a Daemon. He will be our legacy. Aphrodite is destined to become a goddess, it is only a matter of time until we have two truly divine children. However we must not be too hasty, bestowing divinity at such a young age will be harmful for the children...On his eighteenth birthday, I will ask my father or mother to give Dolus a priesthood."
“But our parents sleep,” Keto said hesitantly, thinking of her elusive and slightly indifferent parents. “Disturbing them…”
“It’s worth it,” Phorcys replied, gently stroking the infant. “He is worth it.”
Teasing the child wrapped in the shroud of the deep sea, the usually somber god could not hide his joy.
"Hahahaha!!!, this is our child! Our first child! Of course, I want to give him the best."
Seeing her husband’s joy, Keto gave a nod, slow but sure.
“Then they must be protected.”
She turned to the nearest nymph.
“Bring me four of the most intelligent monsters. They will serve and protect Dolus and Aphrodite until they reach maturity.”
The nymph bowed and left.
Gods are vain creatures. So are nymphs. To keep the monsters in the castle would be unthinkable to any divine creature, let alone powerful ones like Keto and Phorcys. The other children of Keto did not have the right to enter the palace or be raised by their parents. They were left to fend for themselves in the dark ocean once they matured. The only care shown to those inhuman children came from the nursery, run by nymphs and daemons, where the offspring could grow before being released to the wild.
It was clear: Phorcys and Keto, the masters of sea monsters, did not see monsters as their true children. In their eyes, only those who could become gods were worthy of their love.
(End of Chapter)