Chapter Text
In the apple orchard, Ares and Persephone relaxed under a tree, as the night sky stretched clear and black above their heads, sprinkled with stars. Beneath them in the basin of the valley was the grotto of the Hesperides. For now, they could see the women sleeping on the grass around the dragon's coils, and the golden tree in the centre, heavy with fruit. The apples of immortality.
It was an unspoken subject in Olympus. The nymphs sometimes didn’t even know about this tree, or if they did, how important it was to the gods. In some circles of minor gods, there was a cult centred around the fruit. No matter what you thought of it, once a year, the apples were harvested, juiced, pulped, every ounce of matter used in some way, and each god was given a ration, and it returned them to full strength. The apples did not make gods immortal, that was in their blood, but it helped sustain that immortality, even if a god was being neglected in worship.
Ares himself was not often prayed to. Athena received far more attention. So, he savoured the small vial of watered-down juice he was given on the new year. It was better than any imaginable drug. Often, he became manic and would dive to earth to gorge himself on blood. It had not yet been a year. He wondered how Demeter and Persephone fared. Demeter was a truly important god, for the tree was in the mortal realm, in her domain, and she was the one who brought the apples up to Olympus.
He was twirling a lock of hair around his finger. It was getting long and shaggy, and by the time it had gotten in his eyes, he had had an idea; he would not cut it until the end of his exile, when he could cut it off and throw it at Zeus’s feet, a physical reminder of the time that had been taken from him.
“I was wondering, do you and Demeter get any special privileges? For the apples?” Ares said, gesturing vaguely to the sleeping grotto beneath them. The tree shone like a star in the night, golden and glimmering.
“No. Me and her just split one.”
He turned, blinking at her. “One— one vial? One slice?”
She looked back. “One apple?”
Ares's jaw dropped. “You get an entire fucking apple?”
“No! Just half!”
“Holy fuck, you eat half an apple. Every year?”
Her brows furrowed. “How much do you get?”
“I get a thimble full of juice!” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the tree. “There’s not that many apples to go around.”
“Oh–...” Persephone looked concerned, then sad, and then guilty.
“ I should be real ticked off at you right now.”
“I didn’t know!” she said, her defensive temper flaring.
“Holy fuck. How many gods do you think there are? Comparing that to the number of apples? How could you not know?”
“I guess! I just! Didn’t think about it!”
“I thought you were supposed to be the smart one!”
“No–! I– Ugh!”
Ares laughed. Then, he tilted his head curiously. “Well– how does it feel?”
“I mean, great, better than anything. My hair doesn’t stop growing for weeks, and there are flowers everywhere, and it just spills over.” She chuckled. “I just have to keep cutting the hair off, and I leave it everywhere. The nymphs used to weave it into blankets for the animals, but we have to do a slight chemical bath for all of it to make it thin enough to be weaveable. But since there was always so much it felt– bad to waste it. The birds use the rest of it for nests.”
The image of the cows and horses wearing bright pink blankets and sweaters, the bird nests lined with pink, and all the pink hair covering the ground like snow made Ares chuckle. He’d like to see it.
“What about you?” she asked. She twirled one lock of hair around her finger.
“It literally sends me into psychosis sometimes. But like, in a good way. But I do end up thinking I’m the central being of the universe.”
“Oh, wow. Did that have anything to do with the uh– this ?”
“‘With the this’?” Ares raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah.” She gestured to the entirety of the setting.
War frowned. He turned away to look at the apples. “No. That was fully in my right mind.”
There was a little sigh, and Spring slumped slightly. “Yeah, I guess you could have gotten off the sentence if you were under apple-influence.”
“Maybe. I’m glad it made me meet you. It makes me super fucking upset that I’m missing out on time with my kids. I leave them a lot for campaigns, but at least I get to check in. This is the longest I’ve been away from any of them.”
“Do you regret doing it, then?”
“Of course not. I’d kill every rapist on earth if I got the chance.”
“What’s a rapist?”
“What?”
Persephone shrugged. His jaw dropped.
“I thought– you know about the details of the case, right?”
“Uh– well, Artemis just wrote that someone was trying to hurt your daughter.” Sheepishly, the woman rubbed her upper arm with her other hand.
Ares was startled that she would not know this. It made him fear for her safety more than look down on her as inexperienced. “You really don’t know what rape is?”
The incredulity in his voice made her look concerned. “...No…?”
“Do you know what sex is?”
“Yes, I know what sex is, I’m not a child.”
“Huh, well–” Ares swallowed. He was uncomfortable for a second before he shook it off. “It’s important for you to know this kind of stuff. It’s dangerous if you don’t.”
“Okay, well, tell me, then! If I should know!”
“Sex– since sex is pleasurable, sometimes people will take it involuntarily from people.”
“I thought people only had sex when they were both in love? Or wanted to have kids?”
“No, people can have sex all the time, and sex in itself is a very broad thing. Honestly, I wouldn’t even describe rape as sex. I define sex as any consensual activity where two or more parties try to achieve orgasm.”
“Orgasm is?”
“When– well– it’s like– a big rush of pleasure. For people with dicks, they might ejaculate semen. For people without dicks, it's just an internal feeling. Having a dick, I don’t know much about how the other kind feels.”
“Same.”
“Oh, really? But, anyway, back to– well, rape. Rape can be very overt, where someone just physically overpowers someone and forces it on them. In that case, you scream as loud as you can, try to kill them, do anything, everything. Bite shit off.” Ares swallowed around his dry throat.
“Other times, they just– keep insisting? Like, if you say no, or you express hesitation, and they keep going or keep trying to convince you? Big red flag. That kind of lack of consent can easily and quickly go into the first kind of rape. Or, they just keep insisting and pretending that you like it. That’s more insidious because it's much harder to prove that kind of shit is– well, in any case, it doesn’t matter how much you liked them at that point, they are an enemy, and you need to begin reacting, screaming, shouting, say ‘They’re raping me!’, and again, if they refuse to back off, kill them. Twist off their dick if they’ve got it.
“It’s a horrible thing. And you need to make a big stink. It’s important to tell people all the time if someone is acting weird towards you. If they’re a bit too handsy, if they try to get alone with you, if they’re using a position of power to make you feel obligated to sleep with them or else you lose your job, if they try to use guilt to get you to sleep with them– you run away from them, you tell someone— the first line of defence is always screaming. That usually scares them off. But, keep weapons on you, always be ready and willing to gut someone.”
Persephone looked like she was absorbing this, and let her head fall onto her knees, pulling her legs closer. “Why do you hate it so much if you kill people? I’m just– curious.”
Ares turned away. “Well– in battle– everyone there knows there’s a risk of dying. Everyone there has agreed to it. It’s a sweet and noble thing to die for your country. Rape– there’s no glory. There is only– horror. It’s the worst of humanity. War is an ugly thing made beautiful by honour. Rape is a beautiful thing made ugly. And there is nothing worse than that in my mind. And when you violate someone’s body, you forfeit all rights to your own. Ergo— stabbing the fucker.”
“That makes sense, I guess.”
“And you know, Zeus, he has no fucking problem with sleeping with people in his workplaces, sleeping with mortals, and sure, it's all consensual and doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that he is the most politically and physically powerful people in the universe. All the major gods misuse their power like that!”
“Haven’t you dated mortals?”
Ares frowned. He thought about it. “I– yes. I–” Was it different? Was he also manipulative in that way? “I don’t tell them that I’m Ares, though, so they don’t feel pressured! He tells them that he’s Zeus a lot of the time to convince them to fuck him.”
“So, you lie to them?”
“It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of deal.”
“You could just not date mortals.” Her face was unreadable, owl-like eyes blinking slowly as she drank in his reasoning, and served back the devil’s advocacy without judgement, without opinion.
Ares frowned. “I mean– yeah, but–...” He fell silent. Then, frowned. “Hm.”
Persephone nodded. “Yeah.”
“Yeah…” Ares’s brow was furrowed.
They were both quiet. “If you’ve been doing the wrong thing, it’s okay to admit that.”
“I know . It’s just–” His voice was peaking before it cut off. Ares paused as he began to digest what he was thinking. He had been about to defend himself, but then he realized, that wasn’t what he really thought. He chewed on his cheek for a second. “I hate realizing it years after the fact. It’s easier to just make excuses for myself and the specific circumstances because there’s nothing I can do now. I can’t take it back. Our children are born, and most of my mortal lovers are already dead. All I can do at this point is tinge happy memories with guilt.”
“Sometimes you need to do that. Otherwise, you keep making the same mistakes.”
“I know.”
“I make excuses for myself a lot. Like–” She fell silent. “You– you know–” The silence cultivated the embryo of the words. “You were right. I committed an act of rage like you.”
Ares let her speak.
“The humans were cutting down the nymphs. Killing them. Before I knew what I was doing, I was so angry– I was so angry. It was either kill them or hurt myself until the anger went away. And I just– I wanted them dead. I wanted to hurt them. Even though that wouldn’t bring my friends back.” She breathed deeply. Her hands were shaking as she gripped the hem of her dress.
“And I’m not– I’m not sorry I did it. I think that’s what I’m guilty about. Not about them dying. But I don’t want to be the kind of person who gets that angry. And doesn’t feel bad about them dying. I know they had families. And they were people. And I should— killing is supposed to traumatize you, and you can barely get over it, but I don’t– I just didn’t care. I still don’t care. I’m glad they’re dead.”
She sniffled. She was crying.
“Does that make me a bad person?”
Ares sighed, and then, he put his hand on hers, rubbing it to try to get her to release her grip.
“That’s a hard question.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“I’m sorry.” He sighed. “The world is more complicated than that.”
She let out a shaking breath. Ares startled when he felt her slump against his shoulder. They kept their hands away, the only contact between them their sides, where they could feel each other’s breath. And they rested like that, gently.
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War and Spring grew hand in hand in this time of peace. No matter what Demeter did, they would find each other in the night, in the early morning, and in every dark corner to exchange whispered words of confidence. The nymphs often saw them, but being gossips and lovers of romance, they were more likely to keep their secret than to tell Demeter.
They spoke of everything and nothing. Persephone taught Ares the secrets of the field and reminded him of younger, idealistic days. He admired her. Despite her isolation, she was clever and seemed ready to take any new situation head-on. She was easy to get riled up, and she became more and more volatile as time went on. However, her anger was not petty nor quick. Ares's rage had been slowly leaking from his chest into hers.
So, they would walk in fields under the moonlight, counting the stars, and imagine the way they would change Olympus if they were king and queen. They would be fair rulers. They would be well-loved. Under Ares's sword, all injustice would be slaughtered, and Persephone’s hand would nurture the ashes into new life. Sword and soil would be the law of the land. These were idle fantasies, though. Sweet nothings to fill the time.
They were not lovers for a long time. They had almost a decade together after all; the first six were spent in friendship. Some people fall in love at first glance, and they had. They had fallen into a complete, brotherly love that made them want nothing more. They were quite boyish in their affections. They spent time running barefoot through the woods like the nymphs and satyrs, climbing trees as if they could catch the stars. Friends, unlike lovers, hold hands and look forward to whatever they would tackle next. Lovers only have eyes for one another.
So it was, one day, Persephone asked Ares, “You and Aphrodite are together, right?”
“It’s an open relationship, but yes. We’re– relationship anarchists.”
“Would you– be alright with me kissing you, then?”
And he hadn’t spoken but nodded, and she leaned over and kissed him. Their hearts fluttered like birds circling each other in the air, and when Ares pulled back, he gasped. “Your eyes are red.”
“What? Oh– oh, no— shit–” Persephone was about to rub them with her fists, but he grabbed her by the wrists and held them back.
“You look amazing.”
They both laughed, and for both of them, their world was rose-coloured.
Persephone’s eyes stayed red, were red forever after that kiss. She liked them, she decided one day when looking in the mirror. It gave her an edge her soft pink figure didn’t lend her easily. She felt like something dangerous, like deadly nightshade growing in a field of daffodils.