Athena was sitting on the stairs of the porch of her palace, a scroll of papyrus in her lap and writing equipment at her side.
She had been writing something, but somehow got distracted by her own thoughts.
The downside of being wise and intelligent was, that you inevitably ended up having a lot on your mind and being agelessly immortal and older than mankind itself didn't exactly make it better.
"Hey, Daddy's Owl!"
Athena groaned and glowered at her older brother, who was striding up to her without even asking for permission to enter her domain. "Don't call me that."
He smirked: "Why not? After 37 500 Olympian Years, you're still daddy's 'little Owl-Eye'!"
Her glare intensified. "Calling me that is solely his privilege. And I never gave you permission to pervert our father's petnames for me!"
His smirk widened: "We both know that I do what I want most of the time. But I could always call you 'Miss Smartarse' again, if that's what you prefer."
"Don't you dare. Also, get off my property. There is a sign at the gate, that says 'No entry without permission'!"
Ares laughed: "I know! Believe it or not, I can read and understand my own native languages. I just don't give a fuck!"
"Yeah, I can tell", she grumbled and returned her attention to her scroll. If she ignored him, he would get bored and go away, or at least she hoped so.
No such luck, though.
"Don't you have anything to do?"
"Nah. I'm just bored outta my mind. But tell me, whatcha doin', Owl?"
She groaned in frustration: "It's 'what are you doing', how many times do I have to tell you that?! Well, obviously I'm writing!"
"No, you're not. You've been starin' into the air for the last fifteen minutes."
"How the Tartaros do you know that?! Have you been standing there and watching me all this time?!"
"Pretty much."
"Why the fuck would you stare at me for over quarter an hour?!"
The war god shrugged. "Dunno. But like I said, I was bored and had nothing to do."
"That's creepy."
"I know, that's why I do it!", he cackled. "What were ya thinkin' about that distracted you from your writin'?"
Athena glared daggers at him. "That's for me to know and for you to never find out!"
Ares pouted: "Aww. Come on, won't you tell your big brother?"
"Tartaros, no!"
"Well, then show me what you've been writing there!"
Before Athena could say something, he snatched the scroll from her lap.
The wisdom goddess tried to retrieve it. "Give it back! It's none of your b-!"
"'The Language of Owls'? Seriously?"
.
Meanwhile in the human world, mortals were startled by a loud, thundering noise and began to panic, thinking that Zeus was making it thunder on a sunny day.
This had to be an omen for something and diviners promptly started to attempt to decipher what it meant.
Little did they know, that what they thought was thunder was really just Zeus' son Ares roaring with laughter over his half-sister's writings.
.
"Ohh, girl, you're such an owl!"
"Shut up! You're such a jerk!", Athena grumbled angrily and took her scroll back. "It's not like you could understand a word anyway!"
Ares finally stopped laughing and raised an eyebrow at her.
"What?", she spat.
He grinned and pointed out: "Daddy's Owl, if I didn't understand a word, I wouldn't have been able to decipher the title."
For this scroll Athena had been using owl language, an extremely rare writing system only known to gods, who understood all kinds of bird languages and were associated with owls specifically.
The goddess of wisdom gawked at the god of war.
That got him laughing again: "Oh, you should see your face right now! It's fantastic!"
"You can read owl language?!", the goddess asked incredulously. "When the Tartaros did you bother to learn it?!"
"Athena, in case you forgot, you're by far not the only deity whom owls are sacred to! My sacred animals besides vultures, venomous snakes and woodpeckers are barn owls and eagle owls."
Oh. Right. That must have slipped her mind. She mentally slapped herself for forgetting that detail. Photographic memory her arse!
"But yeah", Ares continued, "I did learn owl language, that's how I can read what the scroll says. Cute poem, by the way. Never pinned ya to be the poetic type. That's normally more the thing of Aphrodite, Apollon and the Mousai … uhhh, Owl? Hello? You there?"
Athena was still staring at him, like he had just grown a second head.
The older god cackled: "Holy shit! I gotcha speechless, I can't believe it! What a miracle! I gotta tell the others, they'll never believe it! See ya, Daddy's Owl!"
He darted off to find the other Olympians.
Athena looked after him, then returned her focus on the scroll – oh wait, never mind, it was gone! That arsehole had snatched it again!
"Jerk", Athena muttered and stood up to go after him and retrieve her property.
Still she couldn't help but smile a little.
As much as she hated this man, there was one thing she had to admit: he never ceased to surprise her.