Even as her husband's form disappeared where the golden road met the forests, Athena looked on.
So this was what it felt like. To wake up with a rough arm around her waist, or heavy legs tangled with hers, warm breaths seeping through her hair. To be kissed and flaunted in public without reservations. And now to be left as her significant half goes into some diplomatic mission to save the humans from an impending famine. This was what wives felt like as their husbands voyaged the seas or rode off to a battle: a sad, bitter longing. It slipped past Athena's mind to whip off and don her own armor and catch up with him mid-travel. But she was not just a wife. She was a Queen and there are hundreds there with her who needed her without being vocal about it.
But she missed Ares.
Already.
And it was making her lethargic, the thought of watching him reappear from the canopy and running back up to sweep her in his arms, or annoy her with his filthy jokes.
When she sighed, it was dense and shaky.
"I see someone's smitten…"
The Queen looked down, remarkably aware she wasn't being defensive. The scent of pines and lush forests ignited her mind. She turned to Artemis beside her, now dressed in palace garbs rather than her voguish huntress attire. There were no archer's gloves, no thigh bands, not a piece of leather in her lean, athletic body. The mix of blonde and brown of her hair was swept back in a clean crescent tie, revealing the mole beside her brow. Artemis looked vulnerable.
Athena smiled, slipping her hand under Artemis' arm as both began to enter the colonnaded hallway, "I see someone's absent in the earlier meeting."
It didn't actually matter as much. The small talk at the parliament study was but a precursor to a major council gathering they would have to call forth once Hephaestus and Poseidon will be nursed to full health, and together with Demeter, she hoped, her mind drifting to the King traveling alone. But Artemis beside her fell quiet.
"I… yes. I'm sorry. I did mean to attend but…" she was cut with her own quick sigh, "How are things? What was the call for?"
The Queen felt a buildup of tension. "Crops in the east are being mysteriously plagued. And it's an extending problem."
"Is Demeter not doing anything about it?" Artemis' question was pure surprise, until a dawning realization made her eyes grow, "Unless—"
"Yes. Persephone has not returned, and once more the humans, as if they had any capability to kidnap a goddess, the Queen of the Underworld herself, take the bulk of revenge." If voices had tastes, Athena's would be the rotten bile.
"Could Poseidon know something? Have you asked him?"
"I might."
"And Hades?"
"Still in hiding."
"How is Hephaestus?"
"He wakes in a matter of days."
The next seconds were nothing but the conflict of odd silence and rambunctious thoughts. Athena was waiting for that final question, and if Artemis' objective was to know the turmoil afflicting Olympus then she would know the main cause. She had a score to even with her precious friend and this was not how she imagined to confront her. But Artemis was here. In a vulnerable state. A debate was beginning to ensue within the confines of Athena's is not a good time.
Shouldn't they wait for the others? In the council gathering?
But that would escalate too quick.
The Queen drew her friend closer as a flurry of flower-studded nymphs passed by, their giggles making the pair distracted awhile. She saw a small private veranda… "Go on."
"What?" Artemis turned her face to the Queen whose eyes were still nailed to the path.
The feigning of ignorance was beginning to spur her on. Calm. Down. Athena's jaw clenched. In her mind she was screaming at Artemis—Ask of your brother!
Instead, the Queen bit her tongue before a reply, "I was talking to the girls."
That should do. And Artemis halted, to Athena's surprise. Her eyes were lowered as she took the Queen's hands the way they do when one has wronged the other. "Athena…" Artemis' hands began to tremble, "I know this is too much to ask… but can you be my friend for now… before I tell you of something? But you have to promise to listen first."
Athena's heart must have skipped a beat or two. She swallowed the anger, and as it plummeted down her belly, there it started weaving an uncomfortable titter.
"Apollo has returned. He is back in his chambers as we speak. And is more than willing to be guarded if the need for inquisition arises."
The Queen's exhale was slow, hallow, pained. The words were melting in her mind like mud to the sieve. But she remained unscathed on the outside. Artemis never looked at her in the eye, the tears of guilt threatening to break as her voice did.
"I've taken cared of him in a temple. I…" she braved her Queen's eyes while tightening the hold on her palms, "I lied about not knowing where he was—"
Athena was astonished how passive she became despite seeing Artemis burst into tears, making her unable to continue the brute confession. When the world was younger and they were as free as birds of prey, she would always hold Artemis faster before the first tear escaped. But as Artemis sniffled on, the Queen was sturdy as a mountain. Nausea was claiming the chaos in her mind. Her prolonged silence made Artemis' face fall.
"Wait… did you know? Did someone tell you?"
Athena felt the hands that were holding hers grow clammy. She watched the blue eyes before her moisten with what seemed an amalgam of shock and fear.
"You knew? Someone told you?" Artemis' voice died to a trembling whisper.
The Queen kept her stealth mood, battling the will to rant about the secrecy, making her heart pump faster and unusually deep. She held Artemis' hands tighter to at least keep her fingers from the stunning numbness.
"No." Athena forced a smile at the lie, "I did not."
There was temporary relief that washed over Artemis' expression, before the much cruder shock came over. "Are you alright?"
The Queen watched Artemis' lips move, but the voice that came fluttering were like overlapping echoes. The stress, the brewing agony she felt with not being able to vent, was spilling quite fast and turning her vision awry. She blinked hard and tried to swallow down the drying throat. In a while her knee jerked.
"Athena!" Artemis held her in place, "Gods you're so pale…"
A few more words escaped from Artemis calling for servants to help. They began crowding for the Queen and she heard herself speak out she was alright… yet she could not perceive her own voice. The last thing she felt was a cold bullet of sweat slowly streaking down her jaw, before heaving a sigh which made her sway down the slumbering blackness.
So this was what it felt like.
Ares' hold on the reins grew tight. He whipped with immense force the way he rode into battle, summoning a speed that could possibly crumble the roads and let the mountains slide to dust. Never before was an exhilaration as great as his desire to get back to her the minute he left the immortal domain. This was what love felt like… a paradox of calm and chaos, of selflessness and obsession—to wake with the scent of her skin over his, to tease the limits of her clandestineness. He liked her that way—headstrong, defiant, yet curious of the flesh. And it was a drive that kept him thrilled, to see her demystified.
He rode unceasingly, hunched over his mighty steed the long black mane of his golden helm and the thick long cape mercilessly threshing the wind. His eyes were aglow beneath the squint. City gates would open for him end to end, without anyone's command. His steed's whicker would be pitched in flames and the crowds will part in fear. The priests would light incense in his name at the wake of the disarray he caused. Devout followers would kiss the pavement where the now King of the gods has passed through, and singers would not fail to recount that day the god of War remembered them.
Sunlight was spilling from mountaintops the minute Ares stepped into Eleusis. But its warmth has never reached the vast farming plains of the town. The plague was no lie. There was nothing but a dusty tundra. People have begun fleeing the near desolation since the past couple of weeks. His horse grunted, making way through the nearly emptied lanes of a once bountiful community. His face, though covered from underneath the eyes down to neck, never failed notice of the remaining blank-eyed people. But unlike the awed reception of the cities he passed by, here was a cold acceptance. The doors and windows locked and children were pulled by their mothers into hiding.
Demeter's temple in the middle of the white parched fields was nothing but a monolith devoured by mats of rowdy vines that grew over each other in a matter of months. But that was to the mortal eye—abandoned and unkempt, the way Demeter wanted to be isolated from the rest of the world. Ares could feel the dark protective force which surrounded the structure. Summoning his own divine presence, the shield thinned down for him to pass through.
Ares dismounted, heavily thudding into the dusty ground before pulling off his helm and studying the heap of jungled retreat. Snakes slithered underneath the vines, its pockmarked scales camouflaged with the stems and awaiting its next meal of a resting bird or a crawling rat.
On the parapet he noticed the movement of a woman who turned his back to him the moment he laid eyes on her.
Ares drew his dagger and began cutting through the branch-like vines, pushed his way with struggle as the wretched threads seem to take hold of him, strangling him like an insect in a web. He cursed as a thorn tore through his jaw. And once his arm held on inside and pulled the rest of his body in, he couldn't help the eye-widening surprise.
The hall was nothing like that of the outside. It felt as if he was back in Olympus, and here it overflowed with botanic life. Though flooded in shadows from the windows blocked by heaped vines, the pillars were lush with grapefruit hanging from threads of stems, cornucopias were filled to the brim with grain and vegetation, bread, flour. Mayflowers and manna were suspended from the ceiling, peonies wrapped around the candelabrums, beneath the tables. Anyone would have thought a wedding reception was being held at candlelight.
"The King of gods…"
Ares turned to the voice, sublimity at its finest, and its owner sitting on a splendidly carved chair by the platform angled away from him. The thickest rays of sunlight diagonally cut through between them.
"To what pleasure do I owe the visit, nephew?"
Ares was about to answer when Demeter chuckled with a raise of a hand, "How rude of me, please do approach. The table is full. You must have had a long ride. I'm sorry to have no one attending to you…"
Indeed, the table Demeter was flicking her fingers to, was ironically overflowing in contrast to growing famine just outside the walls. The silence made Ares' wary steps resonate to all of the room's edges, and with it he can feel Demeter's eyes over him.
"Thank you. But you could have started with giving me a comfortable entrance." Ares was half-smiling, wiping the thin stream of blood that begun accumulating from his thorn wound. Demeter smirked as she looked away and at the gesture, the King almost saw his mother in her stead. Hera was a vixen. And Demeter was oft regarded more motherly than her Queen sister but Olympus knows the sinister side to the goddess behind her laudable maternal instinct.
"Strange," Ares clicked his tongue before taking a silver chalice from the overturned set. He filled himself what he was sure to be wine, slightly grimacing it wasn't cooled enough to refresh him. "To have so plenty for only one..." he took an almond from the gilded bowl of nuts, threw it in the air only to catch it again. "Being without attendants to feed, you said so."
Demeter watched her nephew pitch the nut to his mouth and listened to the muffled crushing as he chewed. She leaned forward with a sophisticated smug. Resting her chin on intertwined fingers—"Are you trying to imply something?"
"Try? Hardly. I won't try. I will imply could imagine the elaborate introductions has just happened earlier. So I've come to interrogate and you will answer," Ares washed the masticated almond with a large swig from the chalice, "So what's happening here? Hm?"
He hinted the twinge of displeasure from Demeter's eyes, nearly emerald like Hera's. "It wouldn't take so much effort to know what's happening here, would it?" She laid back on the pillows of her reclining chair, "But I have never thought you, of all, would care about these 'precious' mortals."
"Of course I don't," Ares snorted before a shrug, "But my wife does."
The laughter that came from Demeter was amused sarcasm. She swept back a stray of ash-brown hair, "Why yes, lovely little Queen. Isn't she a darling, our dear Athena. I remember some chats with her over tea. I adore such dedication; it makes me question mine own. Yet I see she has this seed of flaw…"
Ares slowed down chewing on an overripe pear to listen better.
"She puts too much trust on her father. Oh," again came the laughter, "I'm sorry. 'Your' father. Don't we just have the most complex family?"
"What do you mean?"
Demeter sighed, smiling.
"She's wise enough to figure that out on her own."
There was blank silence then, as Ares mulled over her words and decided to keep the discussion straight and on point
"We've heard of Perseph—"
"Wasn't this supposed to be your purpose?" Demeter's voice was suddenly raised, "Wasn't she supposed to be with you!? You come to me unannounced and bearing more concern for people over my yet again missing daughter?"
As if the already shadowed halls turned murkier, so did Demeter's mood shift a great deal. Ares ran his tongue across the wall of his mouth with an impending glare. This time he wished Athena was in his place. He could not promise a calm truce after all, much less the call for rage. "Woman," He tipped his head in warning, and with a voice strung with danger "There's no need for the demanding tone… spare the hell from me or else it's your head I'm taking back home."
It took a while before Demeter pursed her lips in consideration, masking with a grin the minute fear that crept down her spine.
"Which leads me to think," Ares cleared his throat, "If you so claim to care for Persephone, why not go down there yourself? Because as far as the palace is concerned, we've been quite preoccupied with one bloody traitor you call brother…"
The goddess closed her eyes with a slow creeping smile, like relishing fresh air or a taste of the first harvest.
"You do with him as you please. He was never a brother. None of them were…" Demeter spoke in monotonous disgust, "Brothers wouldn't… take their sister by force and deceit… spill their wretched seeds as does a beast and shrug at the fruit it bore. Brothers won't whisper in private to steal off their sister's child for a wife—"
Ares could hear the hardened trembling at the edge of her breath, a culminated pain that seared the ears.
"Brothers won't inflict in their children the same disgrace they plagued their sister… they won't curl their tongues watching a distraught mother traveling the edge of the world for nothing."
It wasn't Ares to suddenly feel bizarre; he wouldn't admit it, but guilt was whispering behind him and all he could offer in respect was silence before reprieve, "Well then. You've made your point. You're angry. You'll make people suffer if Persephone isn't returned, the bloody cliché. I meant to ask if you can be more original but forget I ever said it. Now, how about you spare our humans the sickening drama, coordinate with us about the girl—"
"I would have chosen you for her."
A lump had suddenly grown within the wall of the King's throat, forcing a choking sputter which he contained with the back of his hand. Regaining himself, he began to laugh amusedly. It was only right Athena had not come; reminding her about how he and Hephaestus and Apollo contested for Persephone's hand would've sounded certifiably awkward. He cleared his throat with a grin and a raise of his chalice – "And I thank that magnificent decision you did not."
The glint in Demeter's smile turned peculiar, it was trying to hide something, like a secret written in the walls but in another language. In a short while she stood and began to approach. The slow clucks of her sandals and the hem of her dress scratching the floor sounded like a time bomb, its clockwork making Ares' spine titter.
"I mean, why not." Demeter's voice was molten steel, "My daughter is a bewitching art. And you are every bit the conception of a god. I know."
Whatever that meant, Ares did not let the trivial thought linger. He only wanted this be done with and ride back home before the sun sets. He forced a smirk, "Why am I about to think you're going to force feed me a pomegranate seed?"
Demeter chuckled, "I'd like to think that was funny. But even if I did force feed you a kernel, would it stop you from straying?"
"Not a damn" he flashed a grin, "I'd rather fear my wife though. She slit throats for breakfast."
"Hmm. I do see some change. Not in your manners; you're still the wild soul I've witnessed growing. But it's definitely not you to stay loyal." She stopped a good few yards from where the last space of shadow concealed her face though Ares could still outline her overbearing form. In fact he hated to see her up close. She looked a lot like Hera… and the nostalgia was awful. Even their voices sounded similar. Or was it that Demeter was playing mind tricks on him; she was, after all, a shapeshifter. But even that didn't save her from both Zeus' and Poseidon's lust.
A woman harboring such cruel past is most dangerous.
"Erinys Telphousia."
Demeter must have enjoyed seeing Ares' face stupefy, his chalice stopping midway towards his lips. He narrowed his eyes at the smirking goddess before resuming the drink.
"I see you remember—"
"What about her?" Ares downed the remaining wine, barely holding himself back from strangling the other. Demeter briefly chuckled. How she loved getting under his skin.
"What do you think?"
Ares scoffed. All right. He'll play her game, "I met her. I fucked her. And then we just went on about our lives. In fact I'm amazed I even remember her at all."
Yes he remembered her. It was a name echoing from a couple of decades past, summoning his memory to the convivial feasts in Boiotia, back when he was the scourge everyone hated in Olympus. When he exiled himself to not give an ounce of shame about the chastisement from his father for his and Aphrodite's illicit lechery. The thought had only spiked him further. Zeus, of all the fucking gods. His lecture on matrimonial respect was like hemorrhoid pouring from the ass.
Back then he stormed out the palace to clear his head and wash off his father's words with an overflow of debauchery. It was a month-long feast back then in Thebes and he, shrouded in mortal form, basked every night in a villa to the next. He slipped right through doors undetected, lounged in the baths, drowned in wine and women while ignoring the birds sending him summons to go back to his post.
One night, in the sea of ecstatic faces and moist, gyrating bodies, he saw her. Tall. Luring. Obscured behind the mirage of flames, he took time to fix his vision, perhaps mistaking the figure for a sculpted marble. But she was real. Like the only sane person left, she was real, and she was looking at him with a slow flick of her fingers and her hips bouncing to the beat of drums. Her eyes were hazel. Brown. Who cares. Ares found his legs stretching, his body magnetized to the pull of carnal instinct. Nearer, she was not a disappointment. Dusty skin. Thick straight coal hair and deep, heavily lined eyes. There was fire in them that intrigued him, piqued his curiosity. He had a twist of gut feeling he knew her somewhere. She had the features of the desert civilization. Either that or the alcohol had twisted his brain and made her pretty. Arabic. Egyptian. Again, who cares. Ares snaked his hand around the firm curve of her waist, up to a moist breast and around her neck. She smelt of palm oil and incense lit, he was a moth drawn by the scent of her inner thighs. Who she was he did not care. Her flesh was enough. Her cunt was enough. She would do. If he wanted her, he'd have her. That was just it. That was the order of his empire.
And he was a god, for fucks sake. If anything, he was doing her a favor. And he will not wait. He was too important to wait. So pulling the woman into a secluded hallway, she shoved her facefront against the wall. When she did not show any drop of fear, he was enticed deeper, roamed his hands over her body in the most sacrilegious way with her beady skirts bunched around her hips and him taking the pleasure all to himself.
Those who passed by were too shamed to even look at the violent disgrace the two were indulged in, for she too was as aggressive, and the god knew he could rarely encounter one as her again.
And he only ever learned her name a day later, whispered by the traders searching for a woman whose descriptions were too familiar. Erinys Telphousia. And that was just about it. Ares has moved past. Until today, in this very hall that he had heard of that name again. But how could one, much less someone he barely talks to nor gives interest about, remind him of an almost insignificant affair—
"Yes," the echo of Demeter's voice grabbed his thoughts back, "You met her. You did what you wanted with her. And she bore you an offspring."
If anything, Ares would've wished she had not seen how heavily he swallowed. Despite a staggering shock, he remained firmly planted where he stood and shook his frozen nerves.
"And I suppose you know where I can meet this spawn of mine?" He shrugged, "If this is about her complaining I haven't been the best sire, I could not remember an ounce of damned invocation to my name."
"Because there is a time for everything, Ares. And I think this is the perfect time you remember something else. The way she talked like this…"
The shadows that hid Demeter seemed to have gone darker, denser and ghoulish. But what made the hairs on the back of Ares' neck rise was the sudden accentuation of her voice… he watched her get behind a pillar, and then the scent of incense filled his nose… the smell of sweat and parties, of orgies and baths, very much like the memory of—
"The way she smelt like this…"
A bead of cold sweat rolled from the side of his head as it easily dawned on Ares.
"…the way she looked like this."
As Demeter reappeared and walked into the light, an unfathomable tremor washed over him. Heat gathered underneath his eyes as they grew and remained unblinking. Air around him turned stale; his chest began to pound and its wringing effect crept close to his now swimming vision.
The woman he was trying to submit into terms was gone. Though the garbs remained, it was worn by an unwelcome entity still bearing the smirk Demeter had been throwing at him since his arrival. A shapeshifter, he was recalling about his aunt only minutes ago. Now she was bearing heavily lined eyes and dusty skin. Of someone he couldn't decipher between Arabic and Egyptian.
Of Erinys Telphousia.
Demeter was Erinys Telphousia. How his father must be laughing in his bloody grave. Zeus could have awoken only to pat his son hard at the back, falling for a prank which ended on fucking his sister. Ares would admit the only thing he had in common with Zeus was the careless sexual exploits but he swore to never touch his whores… and even here he failed.
"You look surprised," she spoke in an agonizing tease while looking down at her fake form and with a giggle, "Oh. Not exactly who you remember? Must have missed some details. It had been decades since that night."
But gods. 'Surprise' was an understatement, the draining of color from Ares' face says so. He helplessly watched as Demeter reached out her hand, imitating a pout, "I'm sorry… for having kept your 'spawn' all these years. He's very special; he's become more like you—"
At once her palm touched the side of his moist neck, Ares heard himself stifle a pained gasp. Something in her skin was forcing his soul into another body. He felt disposed off his consciousness and was coerced into a stranger's perspective. But it was suffocating. There felt like fire in his gut that was pressing out his throat…
Can you feel him?
Demeter's whispers echoed through his throbbing temples.
Doesn't it thrill you? You're in his mind, Ares… and he represents your power…
But it was evil. Ares could only perceive hellfire whose heart was Tartarus itself. Hateful. Horrible. The blood that washed through its body was rancid vacuous tar, flowing beneath hard mat of scales which steamed out a decaying odor. His eyes were vile slits of a snake's, and in his mouth was a field of steel saw fangs which dripped with molten rock and smelt of blood and burnt flesh. The sounds emitting from its throat were terrifying and otherworldly… the cosmos would be pulled within a single whiff… In his back were a two pairs of a notorious device. It had wings… too strong to topple…
He's strong… much…much stronger… you would be proud…
This isn't in human… neither god. Ares' stomach burned at the fire that clamored to be blown. This is an abomination.
Once Demeter removed her touch did the spell depart, and Ares only felt he was back in his body when his knees crashed against the tiles. He chased the air for the life momentarily stolen from him, sputtering and wheezing from the haze. A bead of sweat slipped from the tip of his nose and there he felt how cold it was. He looked up, putting most effort to shoot a glare despite the terror she managed to shove down under his skin, "That… was no child."
"Have I told you it was?" Demeter had changed back to her real form, looking down at him unfettered by fear, "And yes, call it a monster, a freak or a mutation but either way you cannot deny it isn't your blood that flows through his veins, can you? The repulsive energy and filthy conscience? The resemblance of your black soul?"
The King could only grit his teeth and fists, but not a word formed from his mouth, just a dry, trembling sensation.
"I thought so." Slowly Demeter lowered herself to make sure he could hear:
"Darling, you could change and start anew. You could wake up a clean slate, be reborn in epiphany. But one thing is for sure—your sins will come running by. And if it's not you to suffer them, it would be someone dear to you. And you will watch as they wither away paying for your transgressions… you will watch and be able to do nothing even in your greatest power."
Ares' lips fell in a straight line, his expression unchanging despite the smallest spark of vexation.
"Now about the terms you were offering," Demeter's tone was rigid, "In the soonest possible time, you will find my daughter. Or Olympus would suffer the wrath of our son."
A/N: It had been a tough month, but I hope everyone's alright. Thank you for your responses to the previous chapters, which I just noticed I haven't responded to yet and I'm so sorry. But thank you still for keeping up.
By the way, I am as shocked and cringed off about the dragon son of theirs. My source was .
Again, stay safe. Please review.