I am Jinn

Fame

Every single being in this world is finite. We are here one second and gone the next. We finite beings, wished to be remembered even when our time was done. The quest for popularity and fame is the attempt at making the finite into something infinite. Power is a drug known quite well to the young and old throughout time. If you had power, the world was yours for the taking. Populations would quite simply, hand over what was important to them simply because you had power. 

 "Become someone so when you perish they dig up who you wished to be and not who you truly were." 

My brother had said those words to me and I never understood the implications behind his words until now. I stood in front of a statue, rudimentary in appearance but quite evidently erected in an effort to appease my brother. He had damned himself not only for this life, but the one that was to follow after our Creator passed judgement. His name would forever be associated with polytheism, something that could never be forgiven, especially by our Creator. If there was one thing that was unforgivable to our Lord, it was assigning a partner to Him. 

"You see?" Iblis asked now standing next to me.

"I will never see what you see," I whispered and turned away. 

"Humans, Zrous! Humans! In the end they will stray away from our Creator and rely on every tree, every bird, and every fish they deem lucky. He wanted me to bow to THEM? When I am made of fire and they were made of dirt? He is All Knowing and He KNEW they would act this way," Iblis growled. 

"I will not get into semantics with you about our Creator.  We are no better. You chose your path. You chose to disobey as did my brother. I'm choosing differently," I whispered and continued on my trek. Iblis didn't follow as I headed up Olympus to where my old village had been located. Athena's curiosity had led us back here, the place where this all started from. The trek was long and I didn't have Denit to help me fly up to the summit. I could understand why my elders had chosen the location where our village had been. It was almost a physical impossibility for humans to trek to there. I was definitely risking running into other Olympians with this trek which was why I had forbidden Denit from accompanying me. 

Athena had informed me that the Olympians were heading to a nearby forest for a meetings with other "gods" from a distant land. This would be my only chance to show her the truth about her father. Hades and Hephaestus had yet to interact with me again so I had to take things into my own hands. With that in mind, I continued my silent journey. 

Once I arrived at the site of my former village, I looked at the vaguely familiar setting. Any remains of our civilization had been reclaimed by nature. I walked slowly over to where my house would have been and smirked sadly before running my hand over the boulders that now stood elegantly amongst the remains of my community. The boulders most probably had cascaded down from higher areas after years of wear and tear against the elements. I still couldn't understand how my brother thought he was omnipotent when he witnessed his own friend's demise at the hands of our village. If anything, that should have cemented the fact that we were as vulnerable as the humans he despised.

I strolled through my old village and now stood in the exact spot I had been centuries ago when Ityan was to be executed. Mother Nature had taken over this area as well, covering all remnants of that fateful day with rocky debris and overgrowth. 

"Life goes on," I murmured to myself and now stood where I had been doused. I smiled at the small tree that had spouted from the ground on that very spot. The world seemed to have recovered and was now thriving in the once place I had never considered life would continue. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds that now inhabited my childhood home. The wind whistled, the trees swayed, and the birds chirped.