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They were concepts, at first. The swirling god-energies of respective and correlated circumstance. War, and Death. As they met at the same planar junction in the world, Ares stood on the infamous impenetrable ramparts of Troy, hand wrapped around the pole of a banner, watching the sea. The barest tops of the Greek armada’s sails had crested the horizon when Thanatos loomed all at once beside him.
“Aren’t you a bit early?” Ares asked, flashing Thanatos a white grin that gleamed nearly as bright as his armor in the sun. “The festivities haven’t started just yet.”
“Festivities.” Thanatos was too refined to spit upon the word, but Ares took his meaning readily enough. “If that’s what you’d like to call them. Your mother and sister aren’t celebrating.”
“My dear Aphrodite, on the other hand.” The God of War jostled Thanatos playfully, one pale brow arched.
“Yes. Well. We see how that has worked for Paris.”
“Paris may be the fairest man humanity has to offer, but he’s no god.” Ares folded his hands behind him, back straight, holding himself in proud presentation. “My family will understand. Or we will settle it amongst ourselves, as ever.”
“War upon proxy war,” Thanatos remarked, dry as bone dust.
“You’re darkening the mood of a glorious day, Thanatos. You spend too much time in the underworld, and bring its doom and gloom with you.”
“I don’t think I’ll be spending too much time there for the foreseeable future.” Sand fell through an hourglass with each league the ships put behind them. To Ares it was more the rising of the sun, the red dawn of a bloody new day that would ring with the clash of weapons.
“You will surely have your work cut out for you.”
“Do you think yourself above the massacres, Lord Ares?”
“Hardly! I am at the heart of every battle!”
“There is more than one kind of loss.” The god of death, Ares’ common companion, rapped the butt of his scythe against the limestone. A bell tolled in the space between molecules, making the strings of the universe ring at such depth only the gods could hear. Ares grasped the reaper’s strong arm in his stronger grasp, unafraid of bruising already-dead fruit.
“Do you threaten me, too?”
“No.” Thanatos remained unmoved. The squabbles of the other gods were at once over his head and below him. “Only reminding you that many brothers, and lovers, fathers, and...sons are lost in war. That once a fire is lit, it may prove difficult to extinguish.”
Ares stared hard. There was a love in him for the reaper, the one who cleaned Ares’ bloody messes, the alluring creature of death who shadowed war’s footsteps. He knew the ferryman’s brother nearly so well as he knew a sword.
He knew, above all, that Thanatos was committed to duty. He was difficult to trick, outmatch, or sway. Ungiven to favor or favorites. Unmoved by the wrath of Ares and his kin as by mortal pleas.
He knew there was no ill will in Thanatos.
Ares released him. He reached out to cup the reaper’s sharp jaw, and turn his head up slightly as Thanatos’ lip curled the same way.
“Let us hold nothing against each other,” Ares says with a smile. “I am sure we will see much of each other through the great battles to come. I will face enough enemies before me, no need for one behind. It’s unwise to fight a battle on two fronts.” As Thanatos’ jaw relaxed, the God of War pet his cold lips. “Come to me when you’re weary from the work.”
“And risk your dear Aphrodite’s wrath? No. I think not.” Using the dull edge of his scythe’s blade, Thanatos removed the blood-hot hand from his face. He took a step back into the swirl of shadows. “Enjoy it while it lasts, Lord Ares.”
The instrument of Fate’s scissors was gone. Sweat, anticipation, and iron hung in the sea breeze. Ares licked it from his lips as the cosmic vibration of death’s toll continued to ring in his ears. At its death, the reaper had taken the smirk from Ares’ pearly mouth, burying it behind pursed lips.