Athena and Ares are both deities of war and they have the same father.
But that's where the similarities end.
Pallas Athena is a goddess of many things: wisdom, knowledge, learning, war strategy, arts, crafts, purity, justice, science …
She is one of the brightest goddesses, if not THE brightest goddess on Olympus, equal to her father Zeus and his favourite daughter. One of the most popular and powerful goddesses of her pantheon, Athena is incomparable.
A tall, strong and lightly tan lady with long black hair, sharp bright blue eyes and a stern, but calm expression.
Athena is a sober woman. She doesn't let her emotions get the better of her and prefers to act on her brilliant mind.
And she is a genius. She can do the most complicated science, deepest philosophy and most difficult engineering.
She is skilful.
Whatever she feels like making, she can make it, even a ship or house. Her own loom and her chariot are self-made, her horses are held by a bridal emshe/em has invented, the olive trees in her garden are grown and tended to by her own hand.
The goddess of wisdom loves learning and remembering. Her head contains more knowledge than all humankind combined. She knows things beyond mortal ken and what she remembers, she remembers forever.
Athena is no pacifist by any means. But she has strong morals and principles; she is a staunch believer in solving a conflict with wisdom and diplomacy, rather than violence. If those she watches over go to war, only a pragmatic and reasonable cause will get her to help them.
She is wise, practical and sensible, among a family of gods driven by their emotions and whims. Someone has to have the brain cells and being the voice of reason is just in her nature.
Athena does have a streak of mischief and always gets out of trouble, but still she is kind and somewhat prim.
Her siblings call her "Miss Perfect", but her father calls her "My Little Owl-Eye".
She understands, why they all call her the way they do.
Athena understands almost anything.
Except for one thing: her half-brother Ares.
That deranged, volatile savage …
Ares is Athena's complete opposite.
He is god of the darkest aspects of war, of the battles, the violence, the bloodlust, the slaughter.
He is wild, even savage sometimes, untamed and fearsome, like the wild beasts he surrounds himself with.
All the spirits and deities of war accompany him, when he joins the fray.
Eris, the goddess of strife and discord, daughter of primordial Nyx, is his friend.
He delights in the sound of clashing swords, breaking bones, screams of pain and flesh tearing apart. The sackings, plunders and massacres please him and bring a twisted smile to his face. Sometimes he interferes in battles and wears his scars like trophies.
Ares is insane, irascible, aggressive, cruel, merciless and bloodthirsty.
The other gods like arts, crafts, silly gossip and all that stuff.
He doesn't care for any of that; he is devoted to what he represents.
He has quite a love and sex life to talk about, but he never does. Most of his escapades have nothing to do with love, he knows. But he is affection-starved and will certainly not refuse, if somebody fancies him.
And there is quite a bit to fancy.
After all Ares is attractive in his way, tall, strong and tanned, with fierce and wild blood red eyes and unruly black and red hair.
He is used to being checked out by both men and women and has long stopped counting all of his mistresses. But he remembers the name of each of them and always cares about his children.
Only they (and his younger full sisters) can make his twisted smile turn warm and genuine and soften his hard, cruel gaze.
However, Ares isn't just a god of war, but also of civil unrest, riots, rebellions and uprisings. Yet he is also a god of civil order. A conundrum, but it makes sense; he, who can disturb order, can preserve it too (if he chooses to, that is).
Ares doesn't care what others think of him, not anymore.
Their antipathy used to hurt him, but over all the millennia he has learned to deal with it and now it doesn't get to him anymore. He is unpopular among gods and mortals alike, has hardly any temples of his own. Not that he needs them; every single war is a homage to him.
Alone, when he is pitched against a certain other war goddess, he always loses. That's fine by now, he has learned to live with it.
But emotional as he may be, he never shows when he gets upset or emotionally hurt.
Being defeated only after putting up a long and vicious fight, that at least has a modicum of dignity.
But for the others to see him break … that would be too humiliating for him to handle.
He has a reputation to keep and they would never understand anyway.
He can't afford weakness, for he's also god of courage, endurance and strength.
Sometimes, the gods use him as some kind of police officer, when they have some mortal to take care of. For that he is just good enough, he thinks and sneers.
He despises them. They only know his twisted grin, his insane love for war. They don't respect him, so why would he respect them?
Though, there is one goddess he hates more than anyone else: His father's favourite, Zeus' "little Owl-Eye".
His half-sister Athena.
That smartarse, goody-two-shoes freak.