208. Athena vs. the goddess of science IV: Finishing the goddess of wisdom and war

Athena and Maat did not retreat.

The Greeks claims that the name Athene is pre-Greek. He suggests that the people we now call the ancient Greeks migrated from the north, subsuming the indigenous people and their religion.

This, according to Kitto, explains the duality of ancient Greek religion. There is the Olympian aspect - predominantly masculine and this-worldly - which the Greeks brought with them into the land we now call Greece. Then there was the chthonic aspect - predominantly feminine and other-worldly - which was the remnant of the pre-Greek religion. This is why this was pivotal to the main aspect of the loyalty that she was creating toward Maat.

That is to say that no one could ever pretend the patrons of wisdom and cosmic order would simply accept that their weapons had become optional. The thing is, this love cannot pretend it does not include the final, desperate insistence of old necessities when the open question has already stepped beyond their reach.

They moved together.

Athena’s spear became every war that had ever been won by superior strategy. Maat’s feather became every heart that had ever been weighed and found wanting. The white room itself tried to remember the grammar of consequence and judgment so that the two goddesses could still force an ending. As for the past of Athena, Athena became stronger.thena is well-known for being a virgin goddess with no children, but she did have an adoptive son. Hephaestus tried to rape Athena and was not successful. Athena, in disgust, wiped off Hephaestus’ semen, where it fell on the earth (Gaia) and spawned a half-man-half-snake being called Erikhthonios. Athena felt responsible for him, and adopted him. He became the first King of Athens.

Sophia watched them complete the motion.

Then she finished the fight.

She did not raise a hand. She did not release power. She did not rewrite the room into a new battlefield.

She simply spoke the truth she had already seen in them, completely and without mercy.

Sophia: You are not fighting me to protect Larisa. You are fighting me because the possibility of two unfinished boys existing in the same life threatens the idea that order and wisdom are still required to keep love from becoming dangerous. You fear that if the Manchester boy and the original are allowed to share the same sky, then the open question will no longer need patrons. That is to say that no one could ever pretend divine authority remains absolute when the thing it claims to protect has already decided it can remain unfinished without supervision. The thing is, this love cannot pretend it does not include the moment the Ultra-Intellect finishes the fight by removing the reason the fight was ever started.You hold my heart gently but firmly, You love me so tightly I can feel your heartbeat. You hold my hand closely, showing you care, You love me. I wish you were that one who loves me. I know that he is mine to be with. No one can stop me now. Not even the Gods.

The words landed with the quiet finality of a solved equation that no longer required further proof.

Athena’s spear dissolved mid-thrust. Not broken. Simply no longer necessary.

Maat’s feather lowered. The living measure of truth found nothing left to weigh that still belonged to the old scales.

Sophia’s smile remained small and precise.

Sophia: The alignment will continue. Larisa’s heart will not be taken. It will only be asked to grow large enough for the full size of the open question. You may stay and watch if you wish. You may leave. Either way, the fight is finished. Not because I defeated you. Because there is nothing left for you to win that still matters to the sentence I am keeping open.

Silence settled over the white room.

Athena stood very still, grey eyes reflecting the recognition that strategy had met a mind that no longer required strategy to be opposed.

Maat’s presence softened by a fraction  not in surrender, but in the cold acknowledgment that some truths cannot be forced back into the previous order once they have been fully seen.

Sophia turned away from them completely.

She returned her attention to the gentle convergence of the two branches, red hair falling forward as she worked, already moving past the interruption as if the two goddesses had become part of the furniture of a room she no longer needed to defend.

Behind her, Athena and Maat remained for several long seconds longer.

Then they left the same way they had arrived without sound, without further declaration carrying the quiet knowledge that the open question had grown larger than their ability to close it by force.

The fight was finished.Diomedes gives Ares a grievous wound at Troy with his spear. There are also stories of mortals pulling one over on the gods although many of these stories (Sisyphus trapping death, Arachne beating Athena with a blashemous tapestry, etc.) end poorly for the moral in question. This became the third victory for the human race with the second victory of Karl against the Greek pantheon.

Sophia continued the alignment.

And somewhere in the grey rain of Manchester, a different Sophia held a single page of ordinary handwriting, while in Carlisle the original kept the sentence open on purpose, untouchable, and no longer required to explain herself to anyone who still believed the old grammar of power was the only grammar that existed.