WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MENTION OF OFFENSIVE OR TABOO CONCEPTS, DONT READ IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED !
THE GAME OF DIVINITY
CHAPTER 8 : PART 1
(Interlude ARES - God of WAR, BLOODLUST, HONOR and MANLINESS)
Summer Solstice again and I am bored out of my mind. Dear old dad is giving one of his speeches again and it seems his on a roll. We will be here for a while it seems.
Looking around I can see that everyone is doing one thing or another to distract themselves from the torture that our esteemed King is throwing upon us.
Mother dearest, is sipping from her cup in an alarmingly fast rate. Considering she has to once again give her innocence to the old lecher sitting beside her, I can't really fault her. So many millennia and the horror that is her marriage still doesn't abate even a little. All the spark of fury and most of the hate and vindictiveness she showed as a cry of helplessness has left her. These days she is mostly quiet and some of us fear that she won't last for much longer, that she will give up. Eons of having every single of her domains stepped on so thoroughly has taken its toll. Hestia's Hearth has literally shrunk a foot in the last decade alone.
Heh anyone hearing this would call me a hypocrite and I will freely admit that in the past I had done some really fucked up things but I am not that bad anymore, most of us aren't. You can see it in the way the Gods interact with the mortals. Back in Greece and later in Rome as well we only went near mortals for only two reasons. To kill them or to fuck them, there was no other contact between us. If we needed something done we usually sent a servant or a sacred animal to deliver orders.
Now everyone practically lives beside the mortals. We have to in order to take care of our domains properly, technological advancement and secrecy has complicated things.
When you work in a hospital as a doctor and see the misery and despair disease spreads on the mortals, the cries of the families left behind, the sheer relief and gratitude when healing their loved ones then even a God that once spread plagues just to have a laugh will stop and consider.
When you see the seas get poisoned with every ship that sinks, whole miles of sea life snuffed out just because of an oil spill you caused because you got annoyed then even a God known for their legendary temper will learn how to mellow out.
When you fight as a mortal in a modern battlefield watching men and women that you ate with, laughed with, who shared their stories with you, their hopes, their dreams of home, die because of a bullet to the head by an enemy so far away that you can't even see them, you pause. And when a woman who until this point you thought unbefitting of war picks up her gun and start fighting with a fervour and bravery that you don't see in most men even with a bullet in her leg, shouting that she will take as many as she can with her to hell, then even a God of Manliness can find respect for women.
And those are a few of the many examples of the change this century has brought to most immortals.
Zeus is not one of them. He kills indiscriminately, the number of airplane crashes around America this last decade alone reached heights never seen before. If Thor fucking Odinson, the honorary God of Butchers puts his foot down because you cause too much death, then something is fucking wrong.
He fucks without pause, old or young, single or married, mortal or immortal as long as they are beautiful enough he doesn't even hesitate, with precious few exceptions. It was quite telling really after the Pact the Big Three made (and wasn't that a joke for the ages).
When every single nymph settlement begged every goddess and god from every fucking pantheon they could convince to put protection for immortals in their communities to 'protect them from rising monster attacks' and the rate of chastity oaths in young nymphs this century in USA is 75%, (three fucking fourths of all young nymphs abandon all notion of love out of sheer terror of what it will happen to them if they remain unprotected, Dite almost had an aneurysm to this little bit of information) then something is fucking wrong.
But the thing that has broken the camel's back is his practically cruel decisions against our half-blood children and I am talking about the stupid law about no interaction at all between parent and child and also targeting of our children for the flimsiest of excuses either directly or most usually through monsters when they grow too strong according to him (he deludes himself that by masking it as a monster attack we wouldn't figure it out) because of his accursed paranoia. It has made practically every God major or minor to start vying for blood (even I, at my worst detested the killing of children). And I would know, I am the God of Bloodlust after all.
Disregarding all notions of love for our children for a moment, even a complete imbecile will be able to figure out that killing and viciously oppressing the only people who worship and give you strength though sacrifice and prayer, who spread your kingdoms ideals through the ages with every feat and interaction on the mortal world, keeping your connection to the Flame of the West you bound your very power to bright and active is the most idiotic, imbecilic blunder you can make and it will come a point that it will bite you in the ass.
Every one of us can see it. You feel it in the prayers that are fewer and fewer every year and lacking the unshakable faith of the past. You taste it in the sacrifices that get more and more insignificant, becoming something to do only before meal times. Spoils of war from monsters that used to be sacrificed after every battle are now sitting as decorations above beds or in the Big House, used only in the direst of circumstances as they should be. Major celebrations that honored the Gods and gave us the ability to invoke mass blessings in our domain are practically a thing of the past (there have been only 3 of those the whole century).
But we cannot act (because this time there will be no golden net, blades will talk). Not yet at least. We have too many threats approaching, you can feel it in the air, in the voices of the spirits of the Earth, The Sea, the Sky. Danger is approaching and fast. Death is just around the corner. War is imminent. It is not only in our own pantheon either. Friends from every corner of the world and every religion had said the same thing. Monsters are stirring, old foes long thought neutralized started to make moves again. And we can't prevail if we become divided now. We can't afford a World War, not now, not ever. Even I the God of War can admit that the World Wars and especially the second one was a mistake. Irrespective of the power boost it gave me, there comes a time were something is too much. Too much blood, too much dead, too many dead children. The sheer cruelties and atrocities committed alone made every fiber of my Honor domain cry in agony. It is one thing to die in battle against an armed opponent, it is another entirely to gather scores of unarmed civilians and gas them for personal amusement or for fucking experimentation in the name of science and the least said about the horror of the Atomic Bomb the better.
Oh none thinks I care all that much (aside from Aphrodite that is, but I could never hide anything from her) about my brats but that is not true. I can't be a loving father, my immortality and domains make sure of that. It is not in my nature to be kind, War by definition is harsh. So I decided that if I can't be a parent that my children need, then at least I will make sure they are taken care of properly and when it is time for them to make their own way then at least they will have the necessary skills and temperament to survive, to prevail against the harshness of our world.
"….and with that, I Zeus, King of the Gods hereby declare the beginning of the Summer Solstice of the year 1996" the royal pompous windbag declared with a dramatic sound of thunder.
Talking about my children, my youngest seems to have been forced to leave the nest too early (the fucker that killed his lover will never find peace or relief, he made sure of that). Fortunately it seems she found herself in one of the twins groves. I felt her first when she was fighting that idiotic harpy. Pride filled me that my brat, even at 6 years of age (too soon to even learn how to fight even by Sparta's standards) has managed to kill a harpy in single combat. Not a strong monster, quite weak really but for what is practically a child barely out of her toddler years it is more than impressive. He watched her from time to time training in the grove, honing herself like a proper warrior, preparing for the fights to come with a single mindedness that most demigods thrice her age lack. If she manages to reach adulthood she is gonna be a force to be reckoned with, he can fill it in his veins. She has the potential to become his strongest child yet, her gift of Armory attested to that, it is not a power that his brats were born with easily, it's almost as rare as the old cripples fire users [ he thinks the inventory is an ability that some of his children inherit but Alex doesn't need for obvious reasons] and if this is not a sign that shit is about to hit the fan, I don't know what is.
"… that is the last of the issues needed to be addressed today, if there is nothing else, I think it is time to start the celebrations." the vicious fucker declared, eager it seems for the revelries that always follow these kinds of events amongst the Gods. But it seems that he will have to wait a while longer.
"Actually father we have one message for the Celts, Cernunnos most specifically" said the winged Shorty, giving the letter to Owl Head the official ambassador of the council.
" Cernunnos? What could such a reclusive God possibly want? Said the drama king, annoyed that his booty call is being delayed most likely.
"It seems Father that Artemis Hunters have braved his challenge too many times recently forcing him to oversee it, wasting his time watching little girls fail miserably apparently got old very fast" said Athena with eye roll at the gods snarking attitude and I was smirking at Artemis golden blush of rage.
"He is also said that the current challengers are going to really regret interrupting his drinking time and that he assigned another god to oversee" She continues wincing a little at most likely the identity of the new overseer which is a surprise, Athena is well known for her perfect emotional control (she is a menace in poker nights) . Who could possibly be the overseer? Morrigan perhaps? That lady is way too scary even by godly standards.
"And who is the overseer" asked ol' Barnacle Beard a small grin on his face, amused that by continuing the conversation he was delaying Zeus even more from his summer solstice debauchery (apparently passive- aggressive is the way to go these days).
"Loki" exhales the wisdom goddess with a deadpanned stare.
Immediately everyone in the room winced (yes even Hestia, don't ask) . Apparently Deer Head was veeery annoyed to inflict something like this to anyone, even if it is the uppity hunters of his sister.
"But father my Hunters are currently all in Maine, the challenge gate of that idiot is in Missouri" said the Moon Goddess in confusion.
"Well apparently someone did and if he has to watch it then so do we, he has sent the channel to Hephaestus to broadcast" said Athena in exasperation with the Gods childishness.
"Excellent, put it on, it will be fun to break the monotony with something different for once" said Poseidon again, his small grin turning into a shiteating one. Ha his father looks like he is gonna burst a vessel but before he could shout his denial every one of us along with all the guest minor gods started agreeing. Just the chance to get back to the fucker even if it is such a small way is sufficient to watch some poor bastard get curb stomped in nasty and creative ways (never let it be said that Gods can't be vindictive).
"Hephaestus do your thing" declared Uncle P, completely ignoring Zeus sputtering at being ignored.
Hephy rolled his eyes but complied, summoning a screen big enough for anyone to see clearly, speakers appearing all around and the lights deeming just a tad for the full effect.
~ChildeOfWar