The first thing he felt was heat. A searing, unbearable heat that should have burned him alive, should have reduced him to ashes. Yet, it did not. Instead, it welcomed him, as if the fire itself had been waiting for his return.
His body was new, but his soul… his soul was ancient. A force beyond comprehension stirred within him, something older than this world, older than Olympus, older than the very Titans who had shaped the cosmos. The knowledge of it slipped through his fingers like molten metal, leaving only echoes.
He opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by fire and stone, the air thick with smoke and the scent of molten metal. Great gears turned in the shadows, feeding the forges with an endless inferno. Sparks danced like fireflies, and the rhythmic pounding of a hammer on anvil sent vibrations through his bones.
He was in a forge, but not just any forge—his forge.
He knew it instinctively. Just as he knew that his name was Hephaestus, the god of fire and smithing, the master of the forge. But that name was just another layer, another identity imprinted upon his ever-reincarnating soul. He had been many things before this, though what they were eluded him.
"Again… I live again."
The thought came unbidden, echoing through his mind like a whisper from the past. He did not remember who he had been before, only the vague sense that this was not his first life. It was not even his hundredth. The weight of countless existences pressed upon him, their memories lost in the fog, yet their essence remained.
A divine presence stirred in the distance. He turned his head, and from the darkness emerged a woman draped in golden robes, her beauty radiant yet severe.
"Hera," he murmured, though he did not know how he knew.
The Queen of Olympus regarded him with cold eyes, her lips pressed into a thin line. "So, you awaken at last, my son."
The word son felt foreign. He had no mother, not truly. He was not just Hephaestus—he was something more, something beyond Olympus, beyond this realm. But for now, he was bound to this identity. This was the form he had taken in this cycle of rebirth, and this was the life he must live.
Hera stepped closer, her eyes scanning him with something that might have been contempt or disgust. "You are as hideous as ever," she said, her tone laced with disappointment.
He glanced down at himself and saw what she meant. His body was twisted, malformed by divine birth—his legs weak, his back hunched. He was no radiant god like Apollo or Ares. He was a cripple, an outcast even among the divine.
But he felt no shame. He had been so much worse before in other lives. He had suffered, had burned, had died a thousand times over. This body was merely another shell, another shape. It did not define him.
Hera's eyes darkened and ordered. "Make me a crown that will make me shine as bright as the sun and as beautifull as the land which Gaia bless"
He felt the stirrings of memory. A vision—falling from the heavens, crashing into the mortal world, bones shattering, pain beyond measure.
Had it already happened? Or was it about to?
Hera turned away, her golden robes trailing behind her. "You are no true god, Hephaestus. You are a mistake. But even mistakes have their uses."
She gestured to the great forge. "You will work. You will craft. That is the only reason you still draw breath."
Then she was gone, vanishing into divine mist.
Silence filled the forge once more, save for the crackling of flames. Hephaestus clenched his fists. He could feel it—something deep within him, something ancient, something that did not belong to the gods of Olympus. A power born from destruction and creation, from the collapse of entire multiverses.
He had no memory of what it truly was, but it did not matter. He would remember.
He had eternity to do so.
For now, he turned to the forge, picked up a hammer, and let the echoes of forgotten lifetimes guide his hands.