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The first war that Ares is proud of is not of his making.
It is a minor skirmish, one city-state pitting itself between two others over a quarrel stemming from land usage. Their primary imports are oils and wheat; their exports are vegetables and ignorance. Unremarkable on any map. Their lives have no purpose in the greater scheme of things, and -- truly -- Ares cannot say that their deaths do, either.
But on all three sides, misery mixes with viciousness and smears the resulting stain across every soul that takes up arms. Any pretense of civilization is stripped away beneath the raw urge to survive. Courage is the only shield against the despair of cold mud, and colder bodies. Each soldier must claw that strength forth on their own. No one else can find it for them.
In the meantime, families are boarded up in their own barns to be set aflame, their children nailed to the burning doors. Grandparents are lashed behind horses, to be dragged face-down until their features are torn off by the road. Raiding parties of soldiers barely staving off the dizziness of starvation slink through splintered homes, claiming everything they can reach.
And in the shadow of these brutalities comes an answering wave of hate: those who declare that they will fight back using any means possible, that they will slaughter those who dared do such things to their kinsfolk, and the battle churns on.
Left alone, these people would have lived and died in tedious monotony -- but under Ares's banner, they shine. War claims them all, the lamps of their lives spent in one glorious consumption of oil, rather than leaking out over the years in stray drops spattered in the dust.
In the end, they die for no reason save misunderstandings and pride; they die for him, and Ares stokes their desperation and power both, until everyone down to the smallest babe drips red from the slaughter.
It is a job well done.
Satisfaction lifts him like Helios's chariot itself all the way back to Olympus. It sits like a cloak of spun gold draped across his shoulders, clasping him in its firm, reassuring grip. He is sated on the violence of it all, turning over each precious memory like freshly cooked meat in his mind, savoring the flavors.
When it comes time for his turn around the meeting table, and he announces his accomplishment to Olympus itself, he finds that the other gods are less than impressed.
"Ah, yes, that whole... tasteless business." Zeus clears his throat, glancing back down to the map spread across the table, a globe unfolded and laid flat to shimmer over the polished wood. "Well, at least it's all over and done with. Now then, brother Poseidon -- you were saying something about the storms coming in from further south?"
A strange hollowness unfolds in Ares's chest. He feels heavy and empty all at once, as though the air itself is expanding through his lungs, pressing against his ribs and threatening to crack them. His belly -- so recently warm with victory -- feels as if he has swallowed stones instead of his own smile.
"It was a war." He's not sure why he has to point this out, or why most of the gods present are regarding him with a vague distaste. Athena had given a report on better phalanx formations, and everyone had applauded her. "Perhaps it was merely between a few city-states, but when taken proportionally, the death toll was exemplary."
"Yeah, but I mean. Tyche started it, right?" Dionysus squints at him from down the left side of the table, leaning around Hephaestus and nearly slopping his wine onto the map. "There was that massive flood earlier this year, and everything went downhill from there, yeah? Doesn't that kind of make it her work instead?"
Ares tries to answer, and cannot. The sensation of smothering has reached his mouth and nose, clogging any words from getting out.
It is very difficult to breathe.
Hera sighs loud enough to draw everyone's attention to her, raking her fingers through her hair, flicking out stray strands from the otherwise-perfectly coiffed waves. Her eyes are tired, as they seem to be more and more lately whenever Ares returns to Olympus; she attends Zeus's side sluggishly, falling into place beside and behind him with notable reluctance.
"Really, Ares?" she asks, sounding exhausted: of the discussion, of mortal affairs, of Ares himself. "A mere quarrel? How can you feel good about that?"
He is more careful afterwards, skirting around the weaker city-states and ignoring the prayers of any leader unwilling to sacrifice themselves along with their own troops. When he finally settles on a worthy second effort, he makes certain to choose a feud where he can have more influence from the start.
In this one, Ares leaves nothing to chance. He takes to the field himself, guised in the form of another anonymous soldier, and winnows the battle strategically. He changes his colors in the blink of an eye; he adjusts the flow of victory by helping and hindering in turns, drawing out the conflict as long as possible. Leaders rise, rallying their fellow soldiers around each other to greater feats of valor. Ares allows them each their moments of glory, and then works his way closer through the ranks until he slides his blade between their ribs and into their guts, conquering them even as the kiss of victory brushes past their lips.
By the end of the campaign -- when there have been so many lives lost that every sliver of grass feels dipped in gore -- Ares watches the survivors fearfully hover at the edges of the combat lines, clustering in their tents and weeping over the wounded who are slowly, inevitably, bleeding out. Soldiers who once shouted his name in prayer now clutch the stumps of their arms and legs, cupping their newly-empty eyesockets, shivering from infection. They will pray to him again, in a different way: they will pray for his mercy, and beg for his appetite to be fed elsewhere.
He wants to feel satisfied with this war as well. There are no troops left to fight with. The slaughter is so exhaustive that no one can call this a victory, save for Ares himself. It will be generations before either side can consider themselves whole again, while bandits hunt the roads with their farms and families destroyed, and crops rot in the fields with no hands able to take in the autumn harvest.
Yet, as he picks his way through the aftermath, Ares only sees the flaws in his own craftsmanship. True, it was his efforts which brought it to its peak. But -- like a raven winging its way to a fresh bit of carrion -- he had only arrived after each force had already begun their aggressions. To the other gods, Ares must appear no better than another scavenger cheering on the carnage, eager to fill his belly with the misfortunes of others.
He imagines bringing news of this battle to Mount Olympus. His mind already echoes with criticism from his kin, each voice distinct with scorn: bragging about another fistfight, more lives wasted, mortals acting no better than diseased dogs.
How can you be proud of that , Ares?
Instead of hurrying back, he pulls his helmet off and discards it idly, wandering among the fallen. The throat-cutters are about their work; they do not see him, not as anything more than a vague presence which fits into the back of their minds, a familiar gloom that has haunted them ever since they set foot upon the battlefield, and which all of them attribute to stress and nightmares.
But there is one figure who sees Ares clearly, and they pause at his approach, tilting their scythe back as they straighten up from the body they were attending.
The remnants of the soul hang like ripped silk from their fingers. Shivers roll over its surface. The god gathers it up carefully, folding it into his sleeve, and the whimpering stops.
"Thanatos," Ares says, uncertainly.
Thanatos does not seem at all alarmed to have company. He resettles his scythe in his hand, and performs a brief nod back. "Lord Ares."
For a long time, neither of them moves. Then, clearing his throat, Thanatos finally speaks again. "I assume that if you're taking the west side, I'll take the east?"
Startled further by the polite respect of the question -- let alone the lack of any criticism from the other god's tongue -- Ares jerks his head in assent. "Ah. Yes. That will suffice."
It is such a foreign experience to be treated as if he is even halfway competent that Ares fumbles through the rest of his work. Even in this, he feels only half-capable, sneaking quick glances at Thanatos to observe the other god, and to check if he is being observed in turn. Thanatos moves with the swiftness of experience; his methods precisely divide up the field so there is no wasted effort, no overlooked casualties left unattended. His arm stretches out again and again, darkness gathering in a perfect ring with him at the center. Shadows rise like a curtain being drawn around a bed, hushing the world within.
In the silence that follows, the sobs and moans of the fallen ebb away. Death soothes their struggled breathing, until only quiet remains.
Ares has no such technique. He severs the mortals on his side with the same ruthlessness by which he cut off each soldier's avenue of retreat. It is not his responsibility to bring souls to the Underworld, or even to Charon; the best he can do is to end any lives still lingering, and then he is forced to either grab their contorted, angry spirits by the handful, or kick them aside like discarded garments to be collected later. He saves Thanatos very little time by any account.
But he takes pleasure instead in witnessing their last living moments, and in hearing the delicious, choking gasps as another soldier succumbs to his blade. In the cloudiness of their eyes, they offer up one final, desperate plea in which Ares -- not Zeus, nor any other god -- is the most important divinity they know of.
He finishes off the stragglers that had tried to make for the woods before being cut down from behind, and scoops up the harvested souls as he makes his way back to the center of the field. He nearly drops one as he hands them off to Thanatos, snatching it up at the last moment while keenly aware of how sloppily he must appear to be doing his work.
But Thanatos does not comment, or even frown. "Thank you," is all he says, his formality neat and practical as he gathers the souls into his arms, curling his fingers around them protectively.
"Thank you as well, my lord Thanatos," Ares replies, and savors the sincerity of his own gratitude: freely given, and even more freely invited in turn. "Until -- "
Next time, he means to say -- but Thanatos is already gone.
The battlefield is silent. Ares does not take offense. He was the one dragging his heels, seeking to distract them both away from the work they should have been focused on. He is the one left lingering now, hovering like an orphaned ghost abandoned by Death himself, hoping to find a corpse to belong to.
"Well?" Zeus asks imperiously when they all convene again. "What news have you to report today, Ares?"
On this day, the air is as fresh as if the world were newly-born. Each flake of snow is crisp and unmarred on Olympus's peaks, eternally pristine, untouched by mortal strife.
This should be the moment where Ares would declare his latest victory. Where he would lift his head high and shout out the list of the slain, hearing his kinfolk cheer in approval, the stamping of their feet thrumming like a thousand spears slammed in unison against the earth. He longs to describe the beauty of troops flooding into a phalanx breach, of soldiers breaking down the gates of a village that had barricaded themselves inside and how the infantrymen had smashed the first greybeard they came across into the stones. The way that one of the commanders had accused a scout in selling out information to the enemy, and had lashed him with a horse-whip until the skin of the man's back had opened up like a rotting fig, ripe and oozing. It had been Ares, of course, who had made certain the information had fallen into the wrong hands. He had said nothing in the scout's defense, only watching in appreciation from the crowd.
All of these things -- these gifts, these offerings that Ares has sculpted out of the rude clay of human cruelty -- are not what Zeus wants to hear, he knows.
He keeps his silence longer than is polite. Even Poseidon begins to shuffle his feet.
"I asked if you've done anything worth hearing, my boy! Come now -- don't keep us waiting."
Ares swallows hard. "Nothing of note, Lord Father." He cannot look at anyone's face. All he sees is the table, and the emptiness of his hands as he hears a smug grunt from Apollo's direction. "Nothing important."
The war after that is a half-hearted thing. Ares barely makes the effort to stir up a proper series of skirmishes, and makes certain to close the whole matter swiftly once the opportunity presents itself, allowing one side to become trapped in a valley and then to be systematically gutted along with their horses: a waste of resources, but a pettiness that pleases him to see.
He waits afterwards on the trampled grasses of the battlefront, scanning it from horizon to horizon as the soldiers groan softly in delirious agony, panting for water as the blood drains out of their bodies and leaves their mouths parched.
Death arrives -- but only in the most ordinary of ways. This battle was not important enough for Thanatos's direct intervention. Instead, Ares sees the glittering flicker of Hermes darting through the air, so fast that it's barely more than a glimmer out of the corner of his eyes, a mere afterthought of presence. The other god does not spare the time for a formal greeting; Ares has a blurred impression of a smile, a jaunty wave, and then the light darts away again down another line of soldiers, nipping souls away like a dragonfly ravenously devouring gnats.
Rather than lend his assistance, Ares turns and walks down the rows of bodies, observing them with a disinterest he knows he does not truly feel, but which he cannot shake.
Death is not his realm. Ares's own powers are not intended to affect the balance of souls after they have served in his affairs. Once their lives are over and done with, he has as little interest in them as Dionysus does with his own deceased; spirits trapped in the Underworld cannot be used against living soldiers, which is both understandable and a source of regret.
And yet, no death goes unwitnessed in his wars. Every execution and accident, every anonymous corpse in a nameless grave: Ares marks each one, celebrating the victory of humanity over itself. Mortals themselves may be frivolous -- but their ability to kill one another is not. They have shaken off their awe of nature's dangers -- the lion, the boar, the serpent -- and have devised ways to master them all. Now, having conquered the other hunters of the world, they have only themselves left to ravage.
It is a choice for how they elect to keep themselves in check.
Every single time, mortals choose to destroy.
Bloodshed is the fastest way to remind them. Exposed to the truth of themselves on the battlefield, humans are forced to either lie away their own behaviors for sanity's sake, or break in the accepting of it. They die in denial. They die in ecstasy. They die no matter what happens, as war strips all pretense of civilization from their bones and tears their illusions away, exposing mortals as both predator and prey to themselves.
Ares may be its god -- and yet, he is not its sole progenitor. War does not spontaneously appear on its own. It is a byproduct of other influences: famine, wealth, revenge. Jealousy, discord, guilt. All of these things incite mortals to desires that they cannot simply barter for peacefully, and so violence becomes the instrument by which they self-empower. Once they have accepted its use, every slight they have ever suffered suddenly trebles in weight. Grudges burst like swollen cysts, leaking their infection into both hearts and deeds. In order to justify their own cruelties, mortals eagerly dig out resentments which have festered for generations, like a cut in an aging wineskin which suddenly causes the whole thing to burst, its contents ripping the tiniest gash wide open in a fury to get out.
Like Death coming after a famine, War is merely the result of a thousand decisions which have all led to the same inevitable solution.
All they need -- all people have ever needed -- is an excuse.
War is a series of consequences. It is a reaction to the actions of others, manifesting through their faults and tempers -- and yet, the more that Ares stares into the caricature of everything that Olympus would like him to be, the more he realizes he does not wish to be a reflection of anyone's choices save his own.
He tries again to find some common ground with his family, to have them realize that he is more than some gawkish, artless thing, like a beast that knows only to charge headlong at the nearest spear. Over and over, he courts Artemis, hoping to convince her to recognize the joy of a group slaughter. She enjoys the hunt as much as he; their quarry simply differs. There are so many mortals which worship them both in their hearts, chasing down their own kind eagerly, with naught but joy in the deftness of their kills. Together, he and Artemis might elevate mortals to new forms of art -- but she backs away, no matter how carefully he attempts to demonstrate their shared tastes, and he does not know how else he can convince her.
He talks to Aphrodite whenever he can, but these times are few and far between; she balances on the cusp between approval and disapproval with their family, praised often to her face and just as readily dismissed within the same breath. Insinuation is the jab most often thrown in her direction. Ares watches Hera regard Aphrodite in seething silence; he witnesses Zeus making hearty jokes to Hephaestus, bellowing, you should rein your wife in before a jealous eye spots her!
Ares does not know whether he should feel envious, sympathetic, or both.
He talks to Nike. He talks to Apollo, which always goes over poorly. He tries to exchange pleasantries with Demeter, which has as little luck; like a blade, she always cuts straight through whatever small talk he leads with, and then is gone before the wound has even begun to sting.
Athena ignores his efforts entirely.
After another lackluster meeting with the other gods, Ares trudges through the one of the outer wings of Olympus, aimlessly picking corridors at random. Like a leaf spinning in a stream, his motion takes him nowhere, caught in currents that snarl him up and send him back in circles. Down near Sparta, he can sense a disorganized raid going on, sending up bursts of violence that crackle fire-bright against his thoughts. Even that does little to reignite his interest.
He can smell Dionysus before he comes upon the other god: the heavy aroma of wine trickles through the air, punctuated by the scent of grapes just on the edge of souring. His own momentum keeps him going, however, and Ares's feet have already turned the corner before he can rally up the energy to think about stopping.
Caught in the middle of refilling his drinking horn, Dionysus startles upon seeing him, but the reaction changes quickly into delight. "Hey! Ares, man, how are you? Come on over, share a drink with me! You look down, you doing all right?"
Suddenly aware that he is slouching, Ares straightens up; it does him no good to appear shoddy in front of another god, even Dionysus. He lifts a hand in polite refusal to the wineskin being shoved towards him, but wavers over the questions themselves.
"I admit to being somewhat discouraged of late," he admits, unsure why he speaks at all -- not when he is already aware that there is no clean answer. "It doesn't seem as if I can find much of a connection with the rest of our family. The task seems rather daunting."
"Yeahhh." Dragging out the word, Dionysus's expression loses some of its enthusiasm. He frowns before he can hide it, lifting his drinking horn in a hasty effort to gulp down a draught. "It's just that war -- it's not really good for mortals, you know? I mean, don't take me the wrong way, I love any excuse for a really rousing celebration, and those victory feasts? Whew! But if there's too much stabbing and unpleasantness going on, then no one's got the time to relax and enjoy themselves, right? And then we run out of mortals after a while, and that's a real downer. No one wants to party when they're starving, yeah?"
Nothing about Dionysus's remarks is a surprise. Ares has heard pieces of it before, like a broken vase that has been scattered across the floor, fragments constantly underfoot. Part of him has always known the truth of how his family rationalizes the way they shun him: that Ares simply undoes everything good they are trying to shape mortals into, like a hammer coming through and knocking out all the lowest support beams of a tower until the whole thing comes down, and they have to restart again from scratch. Like a beast, he encourages mortals to be bestial -- unlike the precious songs and epics and tales that came out of Athena's work, where mortals like to claim that they value strategy over their enemy's suffering.
"We have other gods of disasters," he notes aloud, as distasteful as it is to add himself to the same category.
Dionysus shrugs, wetting his throat with another sip. The cloying haze of wine rolls through the air, as thick as blood and equally distinctive. "Sure, but even you've got to admit that things would be a lot friendlier if we didn't have war, right? And there are loads of other things you can do as a god too! Apollo's got a whole mess of stuff he claims authority over, just hoards it all like a rat in a nest! I bet he'd love to share some of it with you once you get to know him. Might even help to take some of the load off him, hey?"
"Lord Dionysus!"
Before Ares can protest at being made the substitute deity of dance, or prophecy -- or healing -- Athena's voice snaps out. It is as clear and crisp as ever, slicing down the hall like a perfectly pitched spear; Ares wheels around with the same instinctive half-step back that he would use to dodge a physical missile.
"My apologies for the intrusion," the goddess declares as she strides forward, sounding completely unrepentant. To Ares, she merely offers a glance; she directs her attention with overly deliberate care to Dionysus instead, as if Ares were an ornamental plant. "Forgive me, Lord Dionysus, but I believe we had intended to speak earlier about your interest in certain vineyards at Ithaca?"
Dionysus's expression swings like a pendulum, wavering between a wince and delight. "Oh man, was that today? Listen, I am so sorry, Ares, man," he blurts, "but I have got such big plans for those vines, let me tell you. I meant what I said, though! You ever need a break, or to kick back and really unwind, then come hang with me -- just have to leave the whole war thing at the door first. Can't have wine and violence mixing! Never goes well."
It is too late for Ares to give any manner of honest reply. Athena is here; her bright, sharp eyes watch him, a twin to her owl's predatory regard. Rather than give her an opportunity, Ares brings his arm around in an exaggerated, luxurious gesture, clasping his hand to his chest. "Your generosity is truly inspiring, Lord Dionysus. I shall endeavor to keep it in mind."
He says it partially out of sincerity, and partially so he can savor the narrow suspicion that darts, deer-quick, over Athena's face. She flashes him a warning glare that he has no difficulty in understanding, and then hefts her shield. "Let us be off, then, Lord Dionysus. If you would excuse us, half-brother."
Their voices fade down the hall as they depart, Dionysus's boisterous warmth dancing across Athena's more measured replies. Eventually, even that much is gone, and Ares is alone once more.
Ares does not try to pursue them. Instead, he stands there in the middle of the hallway, listening to the distant sound of wind skimming through Olympus's chambers, and thinks: ah, so this is what it's like when your family talks about how much better the world will be once you're finally dead forever.
Between himself and Athena, Ares has always known that he is not the favored child. It takes no great effort to see it. Athena has Zeus's support; she has his ear, sits closer to him at their meeting tables. She is one of the rare gods whom he asks for counsel, though he follows her advice equally rarely. The other gods of Olympus like her better too, for whenever they come to her with petitions to control this outburst or that skirmish, she always nods gravely and discusses their goals, their gains and intentions, and then works towards a mutual conclusion of benefit.
Athena's craftsmanship has skill; Ares cannot deny that. But neither can he ignore the differences that the gods mark between them. There is a split down the middle of it all that grows only wider with each new day. By all accounts, Athena exists to be a better version of him, a more acceptable one, as if Ares -- and all that he stands for -- is merely wood-rot that can be chopped away from a log in order to make the remainder usable.
Under Athena's hands, war is channeled into something sterile. Passionless. With her at its helm, it becomes little more than another tool used by kings and nations, to be switched out interchangeably with mercantile agreements and territory arrangements. Athena's wars all support ulterior motives, pretending that they are civilized choices: that when one nation chooses to insult another, it is only fair to retaliate. It is just -- and, therefore, blameless.
But Ares has no place for such delusions. If Athena had her way, every battle would become reduced to logical exercises, and soldiers and kings alike would be equally absolved of their own filthy hands. There would be no opportunity for genius to discover itself among the muck and entrails. War is not entirely destructive, in Ares's opinion -- but its creativity is a ruthless one, forcing mortals to innovate or be slain, breaking down their own assumptions of themselves in order to see who can push past boundaries first. You cannot win without paying a cost.
To many of his kin, such practices are no nobler than encouraging a disease to fester. By extension, Ares is a god of blight, bringing weeping sores and boils to mortal-kind, a leprosy of the soul that can -- and should -- be cured.
Such uncivilized times those were, Zeus had snorted when Ares had worked up the nerve to ask directly about their battle against the Titans. Thank goodness we are past such barbarism now.
But Zeus is wrong. There is no way to remove savagery from either a mortal heart or a divine one; Ares sees proof of it every time he descends from Olympus and wades into the nearest battleground. Bloodlust covers the world even without his direct intervention. He brings one battle to the very steps of a village, where a farmhand instinctively grasps the idea of a siege and proceeds to burn the attacking force alive after penning them in a cattle field.
Amidst the smoke and stink of roasting flesh, Ares watches the man lift his head to the sky, and shudder at the secret pleasure of their deaths.
It should be dizzyingly sublime to witness. Instead, the sense of detachment only clings to Ares tighter as he drifts through battle after battle. It divides him from himself, as if he is watching one of Athena's skirmishes instead, unable to care for the outcomes. There is no one he can speak to about such doubts; Thanatos is too busy to attend every battle, and Ares does not wish to jeopardize the slow rapport that he has managed to build so far by pestering the other god with questions. Aphrodite is willing enough, but Ares has seen her and Athena exchange barbs with increasing frequency. There is no need to tarnish her situation with his own presence.
With each turn of the seasons, Ares hears how undesirable wanton bloodshed is -- not without being carefully measured out to serve the gods first. War ruins more than it advances. It undoes progress. It is unnecessary.
He is unnecessary.
His reports become easier when he has less to say.
Like pulling an army back behind fortress walls, Ares gathers his work carefully into the cover of his words, into his throat where it can hide away and decay unspoken. His descriptions are sparse, outlining only the basics. He shares the names of commanders, but does not detail their heroics; he skims over the final death counts as if the scale of casualties does not matter. Silence armors his interests. If Ares does not expose his thoughts, then his family cannot target them.
He passes their judgements for them in advance, so that he does not have to wait to hear them.
"Just another war," he mutters, whenever it is his turn. "A petty brawl. Nothing more."
He seeks out other company the only way he can: by going down to the mortal world and searching through every foul crevice and rotting cave he can discover, meeting with monsters and exiles and witches, allowing himself to be soiled in the murk.
It is a respite from Olympus in every way imaginable. There are no formalities here to be observed; insults can be repaid with instant retaliations, and everyone expects violence as a basic practicality. Once Ares realizes that, he is quicker than all of them to take action when he sees fit, calmly severing fingers and heads with precise control, leaving serpents skewered and writhing with his blade in their stomachs.
He befriends gods which are scorned by Olympus and not allowed a seat at its tables: gods of calamity, of spite and loathing, who have no other agendas or loyalties save their own interests at hand. He consorts with the Machae, shares wine with giants, and has a friendly competition with Enyo to see who can butcher the most centaurs in a day. All are more companionable towards him; they treat him differently, their sneers tempered by wariness, as if they believe Zeus himself is standing just behind Ares's shoulder. They fear him, or at least what they assume is his Olympian influence. They believe that his family would rise to protect him, if Ares were harmed enough.
The very thought makes Ares want to laugh, humorless and dry.
If only they knew.
But their respect is something, and he scrabbles for it as hungrily as an urchin fighting for a crust of moldering bread tossed into a midden heap. Battle is always welcomed among these beasts. The only thing they want from him is more chaos, more bloodshed, and even though Ares does not relish their companionship, he is more grateful for their lack of concern.
If Ares is not loved by his family -- if he can never be loved -- then at least he has this.
War requires other hands to set it into action; Ares befriends those hands. He educates himself in the art of machination, and learns the codes and cants of messengers sent to pass orders from one military unit to another. He adapts certain strategies from Athena for his own, always making certain to twist them at the last moment so that plans go awry, and battalion leaders must find it in themselves to improvise their way to victory, conjuring up new strategies from the liquor of desperation.
Poets, too, are as much instruments of war as anything else: spreading their tales of glory, rewriting history for the sake of drama, and luring others with a lust for fame. Like an infectious disease, their words catch the ears of every traveler, and are passed forward from stranger to stranger. Ares follows close behind. He learns to speak in prose and recite poetry, and the key differences between them; he argues with philosophers, absorbing debates and studying every method which has a chance of changing someone's mind. He spends an entire mortal summer with the shipwrights of Piraeus, watching them hew vessels for war and commerce, shaping massive logs into new forms capable of carrying armed men safely from shore to shore.
All of these techniques bring him, inevitably, back to his own passion. He tracks the scent of bloodshed like a hound, tantalized by the odor of it appearing in unexpected places: on two sisters each missing one of their ears, on a grandfather leaning heavily on his staff. On a child six years of age. A brother spited. A mother whose firstborn was drowned by her husband.
All of them have potential. Some of them, he pursues.
But the resulting conflicts are no different from before. Each one is a work of art. Each one reminds Ares, again and again, of the disappointment from his kin: of how worthless they find brutality to be, of how Ares's best efforts are pitiable in comparison to Athena's rigid work. His wars are made ugly when brought up for examination. They are embarrassments, little more.
Ares cannot take pleasure in them, and so he takes nothing at all.
The hollowness returns, settling in his chest so deeply that he becomes accustomed to it being there, like a splinter of bone working its way inevitably towards a mortal heart. He attends his family's gatherings, and leaves each one nauseous with rejection. He endlessly studies rhetoric and warfare and the arts, and no matter what he learns, Olympus does not care.
"Give me a war," he asks of Eris one day, desperate and made reckless by it.
Her giggles are like a thousand brass bells.
He drags himself back to Olympus eventually, when his absence has been noted long enough that Hera has set Hermes upon him, prodding him to return and assure them all that there are Twelve Olympians instead of Eleven. By then, Ares has a tally longer than his cloak of wars which have had epics written in their name. Mortals have cause to both envy and fear his work; he has given them nightmares which will eat at their minds until their very last moments alive, stealing the best portion of each generation away and smuggling them early into Hades's halls.
It is just as difficult as he expects to set his course homeward. There are no barriers set against him; the reluctance is all in his own heart. He does not even know why he is obeying Hera's summons, save that the rest of his kin likely expect him to rebel, or else be too witless to understand the message.
But there is no other reason compelling him. He does not have to obey. He could always leave Olympus permanently; Hades has set the best example of this, along with demonstrating the consequences. Ares could petition the Underworld for shelter, offering his services and conducting the business of War from afar. If Olympus demanded it, he could send reports of his duty through Hermes -- and even, perhaps, finally speak with Nyx in person.
Thanatos would be an enjoyable comrade. They have warmed to each other well enough, Ares believes, or at least enough to share a few idle words whenever they see one another on the field. Even if work keeps them both occupied, they might see one another at the House in passing -- and then Ares would no longer have to pretend that he is not slaughtering mortals by the hundreds and strewing them like slops for the pigs, simply to have a chance at conversation.
If the Underworld would want him, that is. If.
Zeus might be enraged. Or relieved. It would not make that much of a difference, even if Ares does draw his father's ire. Olympus has Athena, after all. War will never go unattended. If Ares fades away to something smaller, something lesser, then all the other gods might only shrug and say it was inevitable. Like the Olympians moving on from the Titans, leaving the truth of their past behind. Like mortals, finding new ways to pretend they are righteous in their bloodshed.
It might all be for the best.
Ares debates all this as he sits in one of the gardens overlooking the mortal world, on the furthest point away from the meeting hall. Rough slabs of marble lie scattered over the grass, waiting to be shaped into fresh statuary or some other bit of architecture. The stone he has picked for his perch gives him a view directly off the side of the mountain; the air stretches out beneath him, the world falling open and falling away.
There is still time before Zeus's formal call for assembly. Ares could gather his belongings and make the necessary arrangements, quietly slipping away before anyone would need to know.
Just as he begins to put together a few tentative plans for action -- like a proper battle, assembling the troops and targets together as one -- he hears the rustle of the grass being stirred, and lifts his head to spot Aphrodite approaching through the garden.
The light from Helios's chariot ripples over her skin, freshly oiled and glistening. She pads over the thick carpet of grass, her bare feet whispering as if she were walking on silk instead.
"Lord Ares," she says mildly, once she's in speaking distance.
"Lady Aphrodite," he replies in kind, and nods towards the space beside him in invitation.
Unpolished marble is hardly comfortable; he is reminded again of this when Aphrodite touches the rock, grimacing at the roughness of it. Rather than force her to endure it, Ares stands and unbuckles his cloak without hesitation, folding it across the stone in a crimson square with the worst of the blood neatly concealed.
She offers him a grateful smile, gathering her hair so as not to sit on the ends, and accepts the impromptu cushion. "So, I see you have similarly little desire to attend Lord Zeus's next friendly meeting, mmm?"
He shifts restlessly, not wanting to misdirect his resentment upon her, and yet unable to deny his own envy. "I am aware that they question my contributions," he admits. A scowl struggles to crawl over his face; he wrinkles his nose, and then loses the battle. "Love invites no fewer tragedies, Lady Aphrodite -- and yet, Olympus welcomes news of your work. Why is that?"
"Because it's hard to claim a victory in war, even if all your enemies are dead." Aphrodite's answer is quick -- so quick that it is clear that she already came to the answer long before, and he wonders when she first dwelt upon it. She shrugs, pouting at the air. "Oh, it's fun at first, but then there are so many nasty little consequences to deal with afterwards. Look at dear Lord Hades and how that turned out. But with love, even the gods can pretend they always win. If their affections are spurned, then all they need do is play the victim, and they still benefit after all. Love gives them just as many excuses to indulge. The only difference is how much cleanup there is at the end."
"The gods win when mortals go to war," Ares counters, tentatively, though it is a weak argument and he knows he cannot defend it. He had tried it once with Artemis, and she had hiccuped a short, barking laugh before excusing herself as quickly as possible. "When mortals are reminded of their fragility, they pray to us to strengthen them, and to grant them both glory and protection from death."
Aphrodite kicks her feet lazily, fingers loosely gripping the edge of the marble slab; the look she gives him is amused. "They pray to us for any reason, darling. Fatter cows, thicker beards. Anytime they want something. And mortals will never stop craving things, so really, all we have to do is make sure they direct that desire towards us."
With that, the goddess sighs, reaching up to brush her hair back from her face. A loop of it snarls in her fingers, and she frowns as she tries to smooth it out. The strands puddle near Ares's fingers, spilling over the rough stone like a tangle of silk spun from rose petals. He reaches out idly towards them -- but pauses deliberately before his hand gets too close, waiting for a sign of her permission first.
He is not a fool. He is not so crass as those who believe that, simply because Aphrodite is comfortable with revealing herself, she also bestows automatic consent to touch her as well.
When her smile of approval finally comes, Ares sweeps Aphrodite's hair up carefully between his palms, shifting his body closer so that he can work more comfortably for them both. He did not bring a comb, and so he uses his fingers instead, separating out each handful so that he does not tug at her scalp directly. Experience has taught him how easy it is to accidentally pull the strands as he begins to coax the small tangles out; he pins each hank against his thumb to keep enough slack in place, letting the meticulousness of the work soothe his thoughts.
"How do you do it, Lady Aphrodite?" he allows himself to ask again, after a moment.
"Do what, dearest?"
He can feel a renewed frustration begin to bubble up through his chest; he watches his hands carefully carding through Aphrodite's hair, making certain not to inadvertently take out that energy through his motions. "Earn our family's approval. Love is as violent a force as war. And yet, they have not sought to replace you with what they define as a better form of love, or implied that it should be avoided at all costs. Do they think your passions any weaker than my own?"
A burst of laughter shakes through Aphrodite's body, and Ares lets go of her hair quickly before he accidentally pulls it the wrong way. "Approval? Is that what I have?" Twisting in place, she eyes him over her shoulder. "You've seen how poorly our family thinks of me, haven't you, sweetness? Or have we been dwelling on two different mountains all this while?"
He waits for her merriment to die down before gathering up her hair again, spreading the strands across his palms. "Of the respect that you receive, Lady Aphrodite," he notes, trying not to sound churlish, "you must admit that I have even less of it. Forgive me for seeking to remedy that."
He is so convinced that Aphrodite will merely laugh again that her next reaction comes as a surprise. "Oh, Ares." Her voice is soft, rolling over the vowels before melting into a sigh. "Those stuffy old codgers got to you, didn't they, dearest."
For a moment, Ares can only stare at the tangle of hair in his lap, like a skein of yarn leading ever-deeper into a maze. His hands have gone still. He does not know if Aphrodite expects him to have an answer to that one; it does not matter if he says yes or no, for he is powerless either way.
But thankfully, Aphrodite speaks again when he gives her no reply. "It's because we're not like lightning bolts or the sea, darling." She shifts her weight, crossing one knee over the other. "We affect how people think and feel, and that means our power is over them as well. Of course they resent us. Love and war and indulgence -- our influence is invisible, and they cannot stop us, not without finding a way to stop themselves first."
For a moment, Ares wishes it was that easy. Aphrodite's conclusions have a clear logic; despite the detractors who would claim that the Goddess of Love lives on impulse alone, this is a piece of wisdom that even Athena would acknowledge.
But he looks away instead, back towards the edge of Olympus's steep cliffs -- towards the edge of the world, for everything beyond is a series of descents, and he feels himself falling as well, perpetually dragged downwards into an emptiness of other people's making.
"They do not have to stop us in order for us to be stopped," he says quietly.
It is a nonsense phrase, cryptic and repetitive. It is nonsense, and every word is true.
But he made no effort to have it be understandable, and so Ares exhales heavily as he tries to figure out how to restart that sentence and make it work, to turn it into something suitable for conversation again, something proper that others would approve of.
Aphrodite surprises him first. With a toss of her chin, the goddess stands up in one brisk motion, her hair sliding out of his hands -- and then steps around to stand directly in front of him, staring down at him imperiously.
And yet -- just as he had waited with her -- she holds herself poised until he makes a short nod of permission, and then moves forward at last.
She parts her thighs and slides onto his lap, one leg and then the other settling down to frame him between her knees. Her hips straddle him easily; Ares steadies her while she finishes adjusting her weight, her skin smooth against his calloused fingers. She leans back enough to run her hands through his grime-stiff hair, flicking it upwards. It is a playful gesture -- but Aphrodite's mouth is flat and solemn, and there is nothing of delight in her face.
"Ares, love," she says, barely loud enough to be heard over the breeze, "how long has it been since you truly enjoyed yourself?"
He closes his eyes so she cannot see the answer in them -- but he can feel his own grimace contorting his mouth, and then the breath of Aphrodite's sigh against his cheek.
Without waiting for his reply, she leans in further. Her weight shifts. Both arms wrap around his shoulders -- and then Aphrodite is holding him silently, asking for nothing as her softness presses against him, enfolding him in warmth without judgement.
He accepts the comfort as it is given, wrapping his own arms tightly around her without caring how clumsy he might look. She smells of sweat and dirt and sunbaked leather, of bronze and drying blood. She smells like everything he loves, and even though Ares knows it is simply part of her nature -- just as he can glance at an encampment and know, instantly, the number of each soldier down to the lowest scout -- he is grateful for it anyway.
He buries his nose in her hair and breathes in the scent of road dust and horses, imagining the battlefield mapped out upon her skin.
She stirs after a moment with an amused hum, breaking the embrace to sit back upon his legs. "Let me tell you a little secret, dearest," she offers, and though her tone has resumed its playfulness, her eyes are narrowed. One of her fingertips toys with the breastplate of his armor. "As long as the other gods feel passion in their hearts, they remain vulnerable to us -- but we are not to be conquered by a little thunderstorm or two. They have no method to control us, save to have us bow and scrape for their approval. To make us believe that we are worth less than we are, so that we bend the collar willingly around our own throats, and forget, in time, who holds the leash."
Her fingers lift again, walking their way up to his neck. Her thumb circles his larynx, pressing lightly; Ares swallows, feeling it rub against her touch.
Then Aphrodite rises up on her knees, both palms braced upon his shoulders, staring down at him with the regal dignity of a queen. The curtain of her hair is a shroud that catches Helios's light as it gleams through the distant clouds. He catches her instinctively with his hands on her hips, and she leans her weight back against him with the trust of a commander who knows their soldiers will not break at the sound of the horn.
She bends down, just far enough to whisper into his ear, her lips effortlessly finding his skin.
"I am not ashamed, Ares." Her mouth is hot, murmuring a promise as ferocious as fresh blood cooling on winter snow. "And I will not be shamed. Let them all despise me if they wish. I will never, ever allow them to teach me to despise myself."
He goes to the meeting anyway in the end, falling in step with the other gods who trickle into the hall. His seat remains where he had left it; no one had moved it further down the table, or into the corner, or even entirely out of Olympus itself. The sight of it waiting there so meekly amuses him somehow; he wonders, darkly, if they had preferred its inanimate tameness instead.
As Zeus picks his way around the table, Ares waits quietly for his turn. Dionysus keeps grinning even when Apollo complains about the empty amphorae stacking up in Olympus's halls. On the other side of the table, Aphrodite purrs her way through the scattered conversation, her chin refusing to dip no matter how many tart comments Athena makes in her direction, or Poseidon's tactless chortles.
When it comes time for his report, Ares delivers it with a steady, unhurried pace. He walks through the battle step by step, stage by stage -- and though he glimpses the disinterested expressions of the gods around him, and hears the awkwardness in Zeus's cough, he does not allow himself to note it.
It may be that no one else will take pride in what Ares does. Over time, even mortals may abandon him publicly, granting him their worship only through secret prayers on the field, their sacrifices made in the mud instead of the marble of a temple. The neglect will change nothing. Like a Fury's whip ripping layers of skin away from a victim until their souls are bare and weeping, Ares will not hesitate to shove mortal faces into the mess of their own remains so that they know themselves, recognizing their own passions instead of pretending they are as bloodless as stones.
His power has a place.
As long as humans seek to deceive themselves, Ares will be there. They may wish to forget how dearly they revel in the slaughter of their own kind, how they love and lust and kill in the pursuit of it. They will deny their own capacity for endless brutality, attempting to cloak it instead behind hypocrisies of self-serving justice.
But war will always be there to show them how easily their pretty words can break. Ares will not grant them the lies of Athena, where lives can transform into abstract numbers shuffled upon a counting board. He will kindle their thirst for cruelty, the ugliness of their vengeance -- and in their desire to degrade, to ruin anyone they deem a convenient enemy, he will have them acknowledge their own natures again and again. This is his godhood; this is his domain. This is a truth that not even Olympus can escape.
War will never grow docile under his watch. Through his power, Ares will make certain that mortals will always be reminded of just how magnificently terrifying they can be.
But in order to defend it, Ares must build a second battlefield within himself. There, he is at a disadvantage. The forces stacked against him keep him perpetually outmatched; he does not have the resources needed to sway the minds of every divinity who has ever sneered at bloodshed. There will be no end to this particular struggle. Ares will drown in it for as long as he dares to draw breath.
He will hold his own value inside him. He will not be shamed.
He is the God of War -- and for War, he will fight.