Glacies the God of Snow and Ice A young girl came up behind her mother who was standing at a crib. “Yes, Persephone?” Her mother, Demeter, asked.
“Mommy, who is that?”
“It’s your little brother dear.”
“Oh, ok.” the girl said, and she went to play with her toys.
“Yes, her little brother. Your sister, her name is Persephone, and your father was Poseidon now wasn’t he? And you, you shall be called Glacies.”
As the years went by, Glacies and Persephone grew up together traveling the Earth. Their mother always took them with her when she tended it, and taught them how to care for it. Persephone always loved to make the flowers bloom. Yet Glacies, no matter how hard he tried he could never get them to bloom, they withered under his touch. His mother told him that he just needed to try harder and that they only withered because he was so depressed, which in itself only got worse each time he tried. Despite her reassurances though, Demeter herself was worried. “How is it,” she thought, “that the son of two gods as powerful as Poseidon and I has no powers?”
He grew up a skinny and gangly young man, not at all looking like a god. This along with his failure to have powers made him the subject of ridicule among some of the other gods. This coupled with his own feelings of shortcomings led him to become a wanderer. He no longer lived with the gods, but rather with the mortals because he felt that since he had no godly powers, he had no right to live with them. Yet where he thought he might get acceptance among man his appearance of a weakling did him no good while with mortals either. He was the subject of ridicule and mockery from many, and his short temper with them just made it worse.
He heard of Persephone’s abduction by Hades while on the road and became heartbroken and rushed immediately back to his mother’s side. Just as his mother’s sadness was reflected in the Earth, as was his. Something that the Earth had never seen before came falling from the sky. Hard clear balls that pounded into the land and smashed roofs, causing much damage. When Glacies looked at what was happening realized that he was doing it. He had channeled his anger into the weather, creating this.
As the search for Persephone continued he learned how to control this ability, fine tuning it so that he could make it appear in a variety of ways. He tested the snow, a soft, almost fluffy ice on Athens, where it was received with awe and wonder. Women looked at it on the ground and thought of it as beautiful, and children loved to play in it. In Sparta he tried a freezing rain where it froze as it hit the ground and created icicles on houses. The latter was thought beautiful, yet the former was hated, because it caused many wagons to crash. Glacies was pleased that he now knew his power and was determined to use it correctly.
Once Persephone had been negotiated for, and Demeter let the Earth grow beautiful again, Glacies saw no reason to make the snow and ice. So in the summer months he stayed with his mother and sister and they had many fun and happy times together, and in the winter months when Persephone was taken from them he accompanied his mother in making the Earth barren and cold, as he had felt during his youth.
When he would create the snow and ice he enjoyed going out and walking among those who suffered from it. To those whom he loved the most and who had been kindest to him, he gave only the beautiful snow coverings. Light dustings that covered everything yet harmed nothing. But if you had been one to mock and hurt him you had the fury of ice. Hail and freezing rain were your gifts.
This is how the snow and ice came to be. Through the anger and loss of a god, beauty and destruction came hand in hand. Never let oneself attack another because of their looks or abilities, but take them for who they are.
Poseidon: Father
Demeter: Mother
Persephone: Half Sister