I've been in a writing mood lately. I blame you, Eli.
~o~
All things considered, you'd think he'd be used to being hated by now. It wasn't that it "hurt his feelings" or "upset him" because quite honestly he couldn't care less. Most of the time.
It's hard sometimes, having to live with the fact that everyone hates you. He ruins everything he touches. But really, how could he expect any different? That's what war does. It maims, burns, ruins. It utterly destroys all parties involved, because no one truly ever wins a war. He didn't have to be Athena to figure that one out.
After a couple millennium of being the roaring cause behind said conflict, you'd think he'd be wiser, nobler. At east a little more cautious about the fact that he had the power to tear down a civilization with one tip of the scale because he wanted so and so to win and they other to crash and burn. He wasn't. He was rage and blood lust embodied into a single representation that mortals and creatures a like could understand. At most, when you broke it down, he was an idea, a concept. And everyone knows its much easier to hate a concept than an actual living, breathing thing with - oh wait, are those...feelings?
Yes I do believe those are emotions. He hides them well though, doesn't he? War can't show weakness, cry tears over his lost children as he watches them grow up only to die off so young. Knowing they hated him, and always would. Because it doesn't fucking work that way. Fate has a way of never granting happily ever afters. How petty sounding, coming from someone how ears down the very soul of happiness with his mere presence.
Sometimes his humane side gets the better of him. He keeps it locked away tight though, how would he do his job if he let himself literally feel the life he took because he existed? But sometimes he does let himself to feel, just to get a taste at what raw emotion actually is. It's always so beautifully painful.
Other times it was like his drug. The gore, the grotesque beauty of it all. The pure animalistic power that tore itself from the depths of his being. It was riveting, pulling him up towards the clouds and making him feel like the most powerful thing in the cosmos.
The crash back own always seemed like the first time. It was always the same. He would be up in his high, not noticing the sour and judgmental looks from his brethren. The hateful looks. Then he'd catch an eye, whose it was didn't matter. He'd stare too long, let himself actually feel too long. And then he'd remember, they hated him. That they would replace him the second they had the chance. And honestly he didn't blame them. He just wished they'd ask him his side of the story for once.
He knew he was far from perfect. But didn't he deserve to be given a chance too? why was it that when anybody else fucked up they eventually got redemption? He got nothing. It was mistake after mistake after mistake, nightly lined up on his resume, painting that beautifully grotesque image that he was made to be hated. There was no way around it, and he knew it, he had accepted it in a way. Sometimes that just didn't stop the feelings.
It makes him seem more human now doesn't it? Maybe you feel guilty for judging someone so harshly and painfully. For hating what someone represents, for not giving them a second chance. It really puts it in perspective doesn't it? How the snap judgments we make actually effect us and the person concerned. Sometimes it helps when we remember, they're human too.
He is a lot of things, arrogant, recklessly brave, blood thirsty, cruel, a concept. Among other -mostly- horrible things as well. we don't know much else, because no one took the time to listen, to ask, to empathize with him. He is a lot of things but most of all,
Ares was tired.
~o~
I kind of got inspired to put a real worldish issue into this because I feel like we don't know much about Ares and that him and among other people, creatures, etc can offer us pleasant surprises if we just put prejudice and snap judgments aside. I know he's a character in a book and a major deity in Greek mythology, but I think he's a really great symbol as to why we have to give others a chance or two (or I'm just biased because I think he's the shit). And like everyone, I'm guilty of judging someone too harshly or not giving them chance. But I think it's important to realize that we're all really just skeletons on the inside, so honestly it's worth giving others a chance. Sorry I went all "English essay" on you all. Hope you enjoyed this.