Athena's mind was reeling with questions.

Why was her father sending her to Ares' office of all places?

So many possibilities went through her head, one more absurd than the other.

When she arrived at her destination and looked inside, the office was – apart from the stacks of paperwork – minimalistic and surprisingly clean and tidy.

Ares was working through piles of papers (probably letters), signing some and stamping others.

Athena knocked at the door frame and he looked up.

"Oh hey, Daddy's Owl", he greeted her, then returned his attention to his paper work.

For a few seconds she was agitated both at the nickname and at being ignored, but then he looked up again and frowned. "Whatcha waitin' for? Sit down. Or ya wanna stand there all day?"

Athena sighed (mostly at his way of talking) and sat opposite him.

"Why am I here?", she asked.

Ares stamped another paper (because Athena could read upside down, she could tell, that it was a "DENIED"-stamp) and finally focussed on her.

"Okay", he said, "So I petitioned Zeus and grandaunt Thémis to be allowed to show ya some of my work. To make sure, that bullshit like with the Romans won't happen again."

"Why is it just some of your work?", Athena asked. She couldn't help but be curious about this kind of work, which was so different from what she knew about Ares, and this didn't seem to suit him at all.

"Right, I'll explain."

"This sounds really wrong", she muttered, making him snicker.

"Eh, don't worry, Daddy's Owl. You'll live. So this is my paperwork for the day. It's sorted into several piles."

He pointed at the stacks and elaborated: "The one in front of me is the work I still gotta do. The rest is stuff I've already finished or which isn't my responsibility. The three piles on the right are my business. On the left is stuff for the other gods that somehow ended up with me, but isn't my responsibility. I'll sort it into folders and later Hermes will come to pick 'em up and distribute them. Though when you an' I are done here, you can take yer own folder with ya."

"And what is in that wooden box?", Athena asked curiously and pointed at a red box, which was also on Ares' right side.

"That's where I put the confidential and/or really important stuff. Anyway, I'll start by showin' ya, where everything is. Follow my lead."

"This feels even more wrong than 'I'll explain'."

Ares cackled.

"Awww, it's nothin', Daddy's Owl!", he teased and ruffed her head (Athena resisted the urge to break his hand). "Once you've got it all, I'm sure it won't last! Anyway …"

He opened a side door and gestured for her to go inside: "Ladies first."

Athena smiled lopsidedly and entered the other room.

It was dark, but when Ares turned the lights on, there were shelves filled with files and crystals.

"The newest stuff is here in the front", Ares started and knocked at the shelf to his left. "The latest prayers to Zeus. This is stuff that ain't top priority, but too important not to pass on to him. I always do that in the mornin', so these here are pretty new. Unless they're really urgent, I keep them here till next day. Or if I can, I answer them myself."

Athena frowned. "You're allowed to do that?"

Ares shrugged: "Sure. As long as it ain't too major, Zeus doesn't mind. Actually, he likes havin' as little paperwork as possible."

Athena rolled her eyes, recalling how eager Zeus had been to delegate his paperwork onto her, when Ares had gone for his world journey.

The red-eyed war god went on: "Anyway, the shelves on the right hold the mail actually directed to me. Except for the five in the back, they hold the stuff directed to grandaunt Thémis. But she always gets her mail directly, so this is work she's already taken care of. Obviously only the stuff important enough to be kept. Once a month she, Zeus and I sit together and sort out the spam. Stuff that isn't relevant and worth keeping anymore gets shredded. Otherwise everything will get cramped and cluttered and we don't need that."

Athena nodded in acknowledgement. That was sensible so far.

Ares sighed: "Yeah, that's all in here you had to see. Back into my office."

"Wait, what about that one over there?"

She pointed at a closet at the back of the room that was covered in locks and chains.

Whatever was in it was probably top secret, but maybe her half-brother would at least give her a hint as to what it concealed …

"You know my answer, Daddy's Owl. Now don't look so disappointed", Ares added at seeing his half-sister's expression. "Did you seriously expect me to tell ya what's inside a locked closet? Anyway, let's go back. We got a few more things to talk about, you an' me."

They returned to Ares' office.

In the meantime the unfinished stack on his desk had been doubled and he groaned at the sight.

"I was almost done for the morning!", he lamented, while Athena snickered.

Her half-brother gave her a killer stare, before opening one of the drawers and picking out a few papyrus scrolls.

"These will interest ya", he remarked and unrolled them.

Athena bent over the papyri, read them and frowned. "But … these are my letters to the Roman gods."

"Copies of them", Ares corrected. "They wouldn't give me the actual letters. But I did convince them to give me these copies."

"How and why?"

"How – ya don't wanna know. Why – because I wanted to see what exactly pissed them off about your letters. And now that I've read them, it's high time we discuss that out of character diplomatic blunder of yours."

Athena clenched her teeth.

Why, why did Ares have to bring that up! That cursed incident that still haunted her mind and drove her to the brink of madness, whenever she thought about it too hard. The utter humiliation of making a grievous mistake and it getting fixed by … him. Not Hermes, not Apollon or Zeus, or even Poseidon, no, of all the gods dwelling on Olympos, it just had had to be-

"… Uh, Athena? Hey! Hellooo! Earth to Pallas Athena! Oi, Daddy's Owl! Snap out of it!"

She jumped, when Ares snapped his fingers in front of her face.

The god of terrible war was folding his arms and looking at her, like she had a mental problem.

"See? This is why we gotta talk about it. Because you've been butthurt about this for twenty Olympian Years and it's getting freaky! Aren't you supposed to be more wise and rational than this? Then again, a bit more than five mortal centuries ago you and my mother decided that a perfectly fine city had to fall, because one random prince didn't pick ya to be beauty queen."

"Shut. Up."

Thankfully, he got the hint and stopped talking.

.

Ares observed each tiny shift in Athena's facial expressions, as he waited for her to calm down.

This situation was even worse than he had thought.

Of course he had sensed the anger boiling inside her, the sombre frown that always indicated when she was thinking about that day. He was the god of rage, after all.

But he hadn't expected it to still be that hard for her!

For a moment he considered telling her to talk it out with Psykhe, but he didn't feel like getting disembowelled.

Only when he was sure, that it was safe, did he unroll one papyrus and sigh: "Alright, Athena. We're gonna do this your way. Namely, go over the whole thing, analyse it and figure out what went wrong. Whatcha say?"

Athena stared. "Alright, who the Tartaros are you and what have you done to my half-brother Ares?"

At that he couldn't help but cackle: "Sorry, Daddy's Owl, it's still me! Your big brother Ares, Destroyer of Men, Bearer of the Bronze Shield, Stormer of Cities, insatiable in war- why are you laughing?!"

(He was still proud of himself for breaking the ice.)

.

By the time they were done, Athena felt like a huge weight was off her shoulders.

For such a long time she had felt burdened by the trouble she herself had caused for her entire family, just because of a social ineptitude she hadn't been aware of.

Now she was able to laugh at herself for how silly that had been.

And also at the Roman gods for being offended by irrelevant things like the question of how different their culture was to that of the Etruscan gods, or the Hellenic cultures.

But Athena had learned her lesson: next time Ares wasn't there and Zeus was too lazy, she would just let him delegate the foreign correspondence to Hermes and observe the god of diplomacy at work. He was more familiar with those foreigners anyway.

As she left her half-brother's office with her own paperwork, she considered: Maybe I'll travel around the world one day too. Clearly it did Ares a world of good, so why shouldn't it to me? Of course, that'll have to wait, until there isn't much to do for me around here-

Her process of thought was interrupted, when Ares dashed past her and right towards their father's office.

She just had time to wonder what had happened, before the commanding voice of Zeus rang through the halls:

"DEITIES OF ALL HELLAS, ATTENTION! FOR URGENT REASONS YOUR PRESENCE IS REQUESTED IN THE OLYMPIAN ASSEMBLY HALL IMMEDIATELY!"