The True Feelings of a God
N.B. This scene is loosely based around the episode where Xena confronts her past, and I kind of have attempted to incorporate Ares' feelings into the one shot. I know that there is no way Ares would like Daynerys but I wanted to show the difference between other women and Ares to Ares and Xena. Xena always had a profound affect on Ares, and vice versa. I own nothing.
Leather and rosewater: the perfume floated above the stench of sweat and blood. That was how you knew that she, the Warrior Princess, had been there. It hung in the cool night air merrily dancing on the breeze as the tent flaps fluttered gently ignorant of their hosts' malicious careers. And in the shadows the God of War haunted the welcoming darkness, wondering to himself how men could not desire her.
Those piercing blues eyes boring through you under her thick brunette mane, one look could possess a man, robbing him of his wits, leaving him a soulless wreck to do her bidding however sinisterly quaint in recent times. Omnipotent, Ares saw everything that his warriors did, and thought. Ares knew what had just passed between the couple in the tent- he knew too well how a woman had reduced one of his best warriors to that of a teenage boy. Then again, Xena was his protégée. Never had he seen someone with so much potential; offered so much power and his bed to her.
Every time that he had seen her, a raging fire erupted in his veins it always had been her. Every rejection spurned him; making him more determined to conqueror her unruly spirit. Though not to break it. She was mortal, he was not. It was unheard of- a mortal in Mount Olympus. Maybe it was what made him become such a broody lovesick fool wanting to go around campaigning, and burning everything to enjoy the spoils of war.
"Draco!" he roared fiercely disappointedly, as he appeared n the tent.
"My Lord Ares," Draco dropped to his knees, her refusal of him pained him greatly. Their lips had only been inches apart, and all he had wanted to do was take her like he once had done. To Ares it made him weak, and pathetic. Men of war should not grovel to a woman, especially a woman who could not keep her oath.
"You still love her!" Ares accused admiring an Athenian bow, a trophy from the previous year when Draco had successfully stopped caravans getting through to Thrace, settled on a shrine to him. The God of War knew that this man though he knew Xena did not know what she truly was like.
Puzzled Draco remained silent- why was the God of War wasting his time with him. Should he not be preoccupied with some other campaign that was greater than—
"It is clear that she is not with you!" he barked viciously, it infuriated him knowing that other men had shared her bed other than him. Zealously the lines on his forehead furrowed; with each second the envy carved another mark on him. Both he and Draco knew that he still lusted after her, all men did. Still his words were meant as a warning, marking his territory like a feral animal.
"I care for a fellow warrior, that is all, my lord," Draco raised his head proudly, his tone just as cool as the one Ares was using himself. A dark glint gleamed back at the ultimate warrior. If this was one of his men he would have ferociously laughed it off, but this was not one of his men.
They were both as much hung up on her as each other. Of course they were rivals, and who was he against a god? Ares mocked, "She will go back to her homeland, and she will beg and grovel for their love. The once unstoppable Xena on her knees begging for scraps of human kindness. It would make anyone with such a stomach sick to think it."
He spat beside the mortal. "Xena is weak! Women have no place in war, only in our beds!" Ares pursed his lips in frustration. Draco did not know if the War Lord was talking to him, or himself? He began to pace before the knelt servant. "She must be stopped," Ares demanded coldly.
"I do not want anything to happen to her, my lord Ares," the war lord raised himself defiantly, "There is more than you who is devoted to her."
Draco was love sick but he was no fool. Songs had been written how the Warrior Princess had shared the bed with the mighty God of War in flaming passion beneath quilts of bloody skin taken from the backs of their enemies. It made him shake with anger some of the curses he had laid upon the only woman to ever capture his heart.
"We would have been unstoppable," Draco finished, "If she..."
"If she had stayed with you?" Ares mocked him; suddenly the mockery turned into a serious order, "Do not spare her village, Amphipolis, make Xena remember who she is. Of what she is, it cannot be denied."
Draco noticed the fiery look in his eye. By the war lord attacking her village she would be forced right back into the arms of the god who stood before him. He had no choice but to obey, "Yes, my lord."
"Oh and tell Xena," the god paused, "I said 'Hi'."
With that he apparated away from the scene, leaving Draco alone in the tent to his own desolate thoughts.
Ares reappeared in a clearing near Daynerys' home. Of everything he was jealous of his brother, Hercules. The son who had been gifted with everything, even the love of his father had been gifted to him like it never had been to Ares. His life had not been fair for him, it was cruelty to be a god.
"Ares?" a small voice came behind him. It was not quiet but strong.
The God turned to see who it belonged to. It was his niece. They had never met before, though he had heard plenty from Hera about the 'brat', and Ares had no desire to play happy families. "Shh!" Ares put his finger to his lips looking around for his brother or his wife.
She asked him, her voice was meek and quiet, but there was strength, "What are you doing here?"
What would have happened if Xena had stayed by his side? Would they have had children like this fair haired girl? Would she have her mother's piercing eyes that hooked a person's soul with one gaze or the earth flaming hair as she rode her first horse? Or would have they been sons?
"Lyanna!" Daynerys called for her daughter, coming through the corn, "Lyanna?"
Lyanna looked at her Uncle, "Mummy says you're a bad man, but I don't think you are. I just think you're very angry."
"Do you?" Ares humoured her, "And what does a child know about a God?"
"Nothing," she shrugged sitting on a stone not too far away. "But I know when people are angry, they're often sad," the child said plainly.
"Bu—" there were so many doubts which flooded her head. What would have happened if they had had a child- him and Xena? Parents in their own rights? This was different than laying with an unknown woman for a night, he had had a thousand suns over the ages but with Xena it was somehow different. The possibilities were endless, the futures they could have had together were too many to count. Each scenario only made the War God lament his loss even more. But love was for fools. For women in stories.
"I'm right," she cheered happily at her bittersweet victory. Nothing is more obvious than to a child. They maybe small but they see everything. Perhaps this is what bemused him most about this little girl, she was not as blind as would have been assumed.
This happy child knew more than he did and it somewhat annoyed him. "Come here," Ares beckoned the courageous child to him, "Should we find your mother?"
"There's no need!" Daynerys snapped scooping Lyanna into her arms away from Ares as if he was a monster. "She's just a child! A child Ares!" she scolded him, "If you want to pick on someone then pick on me!"
"What?" Ares was clueless as to what was going on. One minute he had been talking to the girl and this time he was being set upon by an angry mother.
"Why are you doing this?" the Thracian woman spat at him, sheltering her daughter from her uncle as if he was a tenacious disease. Testily, his brother's wife stared him down. In all the wars he had fought in, this was the most difficult. There was nothing as paramount as a mother defending her children.
Aemon appeared behind her with a pitchfork. He was young and strong like his father. Hercules must not have been at home then otherwise he would have been embroiled in a fight by now. But a pitchfork, really? A pitchfork? Ares mocked the boy's stupidity.
"Take your sister into the house," Daynerys ordered her son, whilst trying to control her daughter.
"I don't want to go inside," Lyanna kicked her brother hard when he tried to carry her. There was a clear victory, the girl landed in a patch of dirt, scrambled and ran behind Ares' leg, "I want Ares!"
"Lyanna!" Daynerys screamed at her daughter, "This man is dangerous." She paused for a moment before announcing, "He would kill your father as soon as look at him. All the Gods would."
"Your tongue is blasphemous," Ares warned picking up the reluctant child. "And what your mother says is true. It just so happens that I am in a kind mood today," he planted her safely on his hips, making eye contact with Daynerys. Warm tingles almost made him wish for the daydream of him and Xena to have a family.
"Why have you come here, Ares?" his half-brother's wife demanded fiercely.
"I don't really know," he answered truthfully; "Maybe I was wondering what it would be like to be mortal to have a family."
"I suggest that you go, now," the woman warned him.
Ares nodded turning to Lyanna, "Go to your mother, girl, and love her before you lose her forever."
Following her Uncle's words, Lyanna reluctantly went to her scowling mother. Who once Aemon had taken her daughter away scolded, "I never want to see you here again."
"You'll never forgive me will you?" Ares teased her.
"For trying to kill my husband? Or posing as him to try and seduce me?"
"You still haven't told him, have you?" Ares leaned in closer to her. Daynerys was not just his brother's, she was a woman. "After all, I think you wanted it really," with that grim thought he left Daynerys alone in the field.
This had all began by the smell of leather and rosewater- and now thanks to the most unlikely of people, Ares found himself with a renewed vigour to succeed in conquering the Warrior Princess no matter the cost. The last thing before falling into a holy sleep, the Lord of War smelt was sweet rosewater and worn leather.