Nobody witnesses the end.

Eyes are turned down. Turned towards each other. For a moment, not contemplating violence and war. Not beholding twisted mothers and the horrors of their gardens. For a moment you're blind. For a moment all there is in the land of the breathless dead is love.

Perhaps there was a tale of glory you could have glimped. You might have seen the God of the Dead raise his shovel and strike down the Hydra. You might have seen a miracle of strength and earth and divine authority at last asserted. Perhaps you might have seen Aphrodite pull the pin from his hat and stick Demeter in the neck. Perhaps her scream would have presaged a battle of the gods. Perhaps this war would have ended in blood, death, and thrashing misery. Perhaps it would have scarred the minds of those who witnessed it.

But no. This war ends with kisses. 

The storm blows out, the ragged remains of the rainclouds rushing off into the distant horizon. As rainwater catches sunlight the magic of Zeus' alchemy splits the light into its component parts, horizon to horizon. The horizon is no longer desolate, and it is no longer green. The wild rainforest that grew here on barren Sahar now erupts into a storm of flowers and blossoms seen only once every thousand years. The wind blows petals of pink and white and blue so thick that they seem like clouds of their own. The bodies of the dead and infested are drawn beneath the earth, and the spirits of the living rise to see the sunlight again. Weapons are thrown down and prisoners are taken. And somehow that was all it took. All it took was everything. 

There will be time to talk later. When cuts have been stitched, limbs reattached, tears wrung dry. Peace is not the same as healing. There will be time to count the cost of everything. But when all the tallies are made and all the prayers are said, it will still somehow seem to have been a small price to pay.