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Walking out of the council meeting Ares did his best to make sense of what just happened.
Apollo was there. Back just like Athena said he would be. She won the blasted bet. Again.
Athena betting he would overcome the last and biggest challenge should have been the very reason to agree with her and get ready to be pushed aside again, forgotten in the shadow of the ‘great Apollo’. And not in the way Hermes and Dionysus were, they wanted to be forgotten. Or not forgotten but hidden. Hiding like cowards. And Apollo let them hide.
Ares would not have.
He would have made them confront the problem. He always confronted his problems head on. Unlike Athena and Apollo, who like to use their pretty words and confusing sentences.
That seemed to be changing.
Athena rounded the corner, dark brown waves covered by an owl-like helmet. Ares kicked off the wall he was leaning against, “So, what’s the verdict?”
“Ares we have been over this. Not here.” Her eyes, grey and cold, swept the room.” We can speak in my palace. The walls here listen.”
Rolling his eyes, Ares took her outstretched hand and let her transport them to the marble columns before her palace entrance. He’d been there before and could find his way to her sitting room on his own but followed after her flowing robes (trying his very best to not give in to the temptation of stepping on them. Athena would not be happy.) “Alright, what about now? Care to share?”
Athena took a seat, gesturing for him to do the same.” We need to make a plan, and we need to get Apollo in on it.” She materialized two cups (complete with owl designs, really? His boar patterned mug was much better. Why? Mind your own business or mind his fist. Your choice.)
“What? The Golden Boy? You’re not serious.” How could she think that telling their fathers favorite perfectly perfect son anything was a good idea? It was as good as telling it to Zeus himself. Apollo might be a shield to some, occasionally, which likely wasn’t even on purpose and just the fact that he always had to be center of everything, but he did not even give Ares a thought. Not since Apollo squashed him in one boxing match millennia ago. Which is a long time to go with being laughed at by everyone (Not his mother. Hera just looked at him with disappointment in her eyes.) And losing to a twelve-year-old Perseus Jackson just added fuel to the fire.
Athena snapped her fingers and a wind servant rushed over with a bottle filled with some form of liquid, likely nectar. Thunder boomed over-head as she was pouring it into the cups, she spilled a few drops. Then froze and continued, wiping the drops away as if they were never there.
“The king did not grant him access to his powers. The Golden Boy, as you call him, took his power back himself. Golden Boy also just dismissed our father and left. I know you do not like him much, but it would be wise to have him on our side should we really want to start something.”
“How do you know he ‘dismissed’,” Ares pulled a disbelieving face,” father?”
Athena watched her wall for a moment before turning her steel eyes back on him,” I told you, the walls there listen.”
So she probably cornered some poor servant.
Ares tried to listen to her, to understand why Apollo would even consider joining them? He thought about Apollo's last punishment: Being a servant to a mortal? He’s done that before. For longer. And it was much more obvious that he was but a servant the last two (three? wasn't he punished for killing python too?) times. The McCaffrey girl was much too lenient. Treated Apollo more friendly than his previous masters did (If you could consider his relationship with the mortal king Admetus ‘friendly’). And the rest of it wasn’t all that bad either. Ares loved fighting, he would have enjoyed fighting the triumvirate, watching those little emperors squirm.
The mortals accompanying him would not have been enjoyable and he would definitely not have cried for them.
Apollo did. What did that mean?
That he was a soft hearted baby?
His eyes after he entered the Throne Room and asked about The Bet, was not those of a soft hearted baby.
It was the look he had when he decided who was worth his time, more specifically the one for when he decided that you were not. Ares was familiar with it.
It seemed to make Hermes nervous.
Hermes was Apollo's best friend for a long time, and he was the one who came up with the idea of a betting pool. The last time Hermes received those intense eyes looking at him with such apathy, was when Apollo almost chucked him to Tartarus for stealing his cows. Cows! If it was boars or vultures Ares would have understood, but cows?
“Come to a conclusion yet?” Athena eyed him, removing a hair from her gown.
Ares tried to look insightful,” Alright maybe there is something going on with Golden Boy.”
“I suspect he’s realized that something has to change. He realized it before I did.” Athena muttered the last part. Leave it to her to be upset at not thinking of patricide first.
“Makes sense that he’d get tired of being treated that way before you, after all he’s the one being blamed for most things. Probably the only time I’ve ever been thankful to him.”
“Not when you first got out of the jar, and he made sure you didn’t throw up every time you tried to eat anything?”
Ares was about to yell something not very nice about her mother, when he realized they would be stuck arguing back and forth until one of them won and one lost. Also it was pretty hard to say anything about her mother given her being a literal brain child… “How did we ever think we got along?”
“We get along because we know what needs to be done. That what a lot of people who win battles know. It’s what needs to be done."
Without thinking Ares said, “Is that why so many of your offspring died looking for that statue of yours?”
Athena spat back, ” Like you have room to talk. You don’t seem to care much if they die on quests as long as its glorious.”
“You saying there’s something more honorable and strong than going out a hero?” Ares couldn’t help thinking of soldiers he admired for their bravery.
Perhaps coming to the same conclusion he did, before he argued back anyway, Athena stopped. Staring, she stated, ”That’s the problem, neither of us really know what it means to be a hero, do we?
Athena doubting herself? In front of him? It took Ares aback. He always thought of that daughter of his, Clarisse, the one who defeated the drakon, as a peak hero. (He was not going to tell her that. Neither of his parents would have told him, so why should he?) But he could almost hear Aphrodite asking whether her daughter was any less of one, being the very reason Clarisse decided on fighting at all. “I thought I did, but Apollo upstaged both of us again.”
He looked so sure when he sang of Jason Grace, and when he kneeled beside Don the faun (a faun!) and proclaimed him a hero.
“I should’ve known he would. Knowledge should not have been left unchecked. He played us all for the fool. I don’t like being the fool.” How Athena's face hadn’t gotten stuck frowning with how much she does it he didn’t know.
“Welcome to my world! And no one likes being the fool.”
“I thought I knew him. Thought I understood how he thinks, how they both think. I underestimated them.”
So had Ares, he believed them to be a musical idiot and an oblivious girl.
“I don’t know how we forgot he was so cunning. You two were both Zeus's right-hand men. Women? People! Either way that made you and him better than us, mother said so. So many times.” Ares pulled a bitter face, ”One of the only times she was right.”
Athena gave him a disbelieving face, like she couldn’t understand why he possibly could’ve wanted his own father’s attention and mother’s approval. “Being us wasn’t all it was brought up to be you know.”
She was not trying to make him feel better about her being liked? “Oh, I’m sure it’s so,’ he drew out the ‘o’,” hard to be the favorite.”
“Yes. It is.” Now he could see he was riling her up. Good!
He liked conflict a little too much sometimes. “How so? Hard to accept all that praise?”
In a voice as cold and cutting as the blade of her spear she said, “Nothing comes without a price Ares, you know that.”
He could picture the droplets of nectar dotting the table for a moment, could hear the thunder and see the flash of lightning.
Ares dropped the subject.
“We’ve gone off topic, you were saying we should include Apollo in our private arguments- ,” an unimpressed look from Athena,”-debates?”
Athena looked at the floor for a moment then at her cup, anywhere but him really. “Doesn’t have to be all of our conversations, I don’t understand why but I regrettably ‘enjoy’ this. Sometimes.” She emphasised ‘sometimes’ like it mattered! She had admitted to like spending time with her half-brother! Not any half-brother. Him. Ares. Someone other than Aphrodite liked spending time with him. He was never going to let her forget this. ‘Play it cool Ares’
Apollo might think weeping like a baby, is a reasonable response to realising he has friends, but he didn’t.
Ares nodded, “Generally people tend to enjoy chatting with friends. Don’t look at me like that, Aphrodite says it’s perfectly manly to have friends you enjoy talking to.” Ares left out the part where Aphrodite was trying to convince him to make friends.
Athena hummed consideringly. It would be unwise to ignore an expert in such things. “It’s settled then after the next council meeting you will ask him to join us for tea.”
“No-“ Ares’s protest was interrupted.
“Alright it doesn’t have to be tea; we can think of something else.” Did she really think the main problem was the drinks?
“I mean no I’m not going to ask him! You ask him!” Can you imagine what would happen to his reputation when Apollo undoubtedly laughs in his face, no one would ever even look at Ares without getting second-hand embarrassment! Some people already do. He would not add Aphrodite to the list.
With one steady hand Athena brushed her dark hair off her shoulder. Which wasn’t very practical when it fell right back into place. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” She and Apollo exchanged all those secretive looks and had the same perceptiveness in their gaze among other similarities. More personality-wise than physically, since they could change their appearance and Apollo liked to take after his mother more.
Athena studied her reflection in the liquid of her owl decorated cup.” He may not agree.”
Ares had a hard time imagining that. “You can talk about everything movies based on books got wrong. Even though no one actually reads the books other than you, because you’re weird.” Athena glared at him, and he suddenly remembered how low on his bucket list ‘getting attacked by owls’ was, “My point is, you have so much in common, word-based board games for another one. Both complete nerds, and I would say you’re equally annoying but let’s face it, Apollo's got that one in the bag. And oh yes, like I said: my mother loves using you two to make us legitimate children feel useless.”
That seemed to shake her statue like composure “She does?” Athena appeared to realise that words left her mouth without permission, “I mean of course.” She still looked slightly startled but was making a valiant effort at getting them back on topic. “I know how much we have in common, and I know that none of it matters if he’s still mad at me.”
“For what? Being slightly more liked by father?” It wasn’t hard to see. Apollo after all was still a son, and Zeus liked his ‘non-threatening’ daughters more. Which would be among his last mistakes.
“Have you forgotten the entirety of the trojan war?” It was a war. How could he possibly forget a war of that quality? Ares brushed that near insult away.
Apollo and Athena were on different sides.
“Oh, yes that would be an issue. Or it would have been, had he not gotten over it.” Quite quickly actually.
Athena shook her head, unconvinced, “I guarantee you; he did not forget what I said to him. Not if we were so misled by him already. None of us, not Hermes, not Dionysus and no,” She said neatly cutting off his question,” not even Artemis, know exactly how much of the things he said and manipulated us into thinking are real. His emotions rule him, you forget that.”
At this point Ares would do it just so she would stop looking so unsteady and uncomfortable, it was unlike her.
“Alright. Fine.” His reputation didn’t have that much left anyway. He just hoped Aphrodite would forgive him when people laughed at her too just for associating with him.
Then again, she, like Apollo is a social butterfly. Maybe being with her would fix the problem instead of dragging her down too? At that moment he could have beaten Athena in a frowning contest.
That’s when it hit him: What ever happened to confronting it head on?
He was changing.
Like Apollo after his trials.
Like Artemis being openly scared for her brother.
Like Athena admitting she was wrong.
Like Dionysus being willing to discover something in common with his brother and new friend.
And like Hera showing care and empathy to a half-blooded son of Jupite-Zeus.
It really was important to make a plan if they wanted to achieve anything, and it was very important to have Apollo in on it. He was the one who started all this.
“Fine?” Athena studied him, grey eyes questioning.
Ares steadied himself, “ Yes, I will speak to Apollo about joining us. And you, will apologise for whatever you said.”
“Apologise? Where did you get that idea?” Pride, lots and lots of it, was another thing Apollo and Athena had in common.
“Athena, I like conflict for the sake of it. Understand that when I suggest apologising, I can feel something coming. You and I are War, you can feel it too. That’s why we are here discussing this.”
Observing him, Athena removed her helmet and motioned for him to get comfortable, ordering another bottle nectar.” We have a lot to talk over.”