“Where…” Calliope started, but Mars answered her preemptively.
“Las Vegas. The Bellagio, if you must know.” He groaned.
“Did you fuck her?” Athena asked, already knowing the answer.
“Why do you always assume I’ve slept witheveryone?”
Calliope raised a brow as Athena answered plainly, “Because, like our father, you can’t keep that sordid thing in your pants.”
Mars actually lookedhurtat her admission. For a moment, under the amber lights, he looked like the brother she remembered from her youth. Naive, young, and full of viscous hopes and dreams.
Like the God the Greeks painted him to be...
Ares.
Though he’d discontinued the moniker when the gladiators stopped fighting for sport, when the arenas no longer filled with spectators to consistently worship his preferred brand of violence.
“I didn’t fuck her, if you really want to know,” he said bitterly. Something in his tone made Athena feel a sting ofsympathy.
“Then what possessed you to take on the present-wielding fate?” Calliope asked.
“I just... don’t you ever wonder if there’s... more to this existence?” he said quietly, staring at his full glass of whiskey. He hadn’t touched it since it was delivered. Which was also highly unlike him. It wasn’t like her brother to refuse a drink.
At this time of night, the DeLux was just as busy as the Den, but thankfully, they had gone to the bottom floor, where they were less likely to be bothered.
Their private VIP booth hadn’t been difficult to garner, being as Athena was on friendly terms with Aphrodite, who worked and co-managed the place alongside Eve.
Despite the fact Mars and Aphrodite had once been the be-all-end-all alongside Hades and Persephone, Athena and the Goddess of Love had a respectable friendship.
More like a mutual understanding.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Athena felt a heaviness at her brother’s words. Of course she’d wondered such things, but usually when she did, she chased them down with a glass of wine, or lost herself in a nameless man or woman.
It helped ease the pain when the melancholy thoughts set in, making her feel the same existential dread humans often were said to feel.
“More to life, than what, exactly?” Calliope pressed curiously.
Athena’s thoughts wandered to the previous night in this very cafe where she’d come to the speed date, in search of someone or something to dull her own ache. And as soon as she’d found it, it would appear she had lost it. She hadn’t gotten more than a first name, after all. She had no number, no last name.
Not that that ever bothered her before.
“More than this endless chase, the endless search for thatthingthat completes us.”
“You are not incomplete, Mars.” Calliope sighed. “You are aGod.”
“You don’t understand. And how could you? You see the good in everything, everyone. Because you’re a muse.”
His words resonated with Athena and she sighed. Calliope took his bite in stride. As long as humanity was inspired, as long as they were driven to write poems and stories, songs, and sonnets, as long as they were moved to paint and sculpt, to photograph and make beautiful things, the muses would live a life eternal. They were never in favor of fading from humanity as long as they found apprentices and talents to continue their path.
“Of course, I don’t expect you to understand. We are made to be perfect, but we are just as much a disaster as the humans are... aren’t we?” she asked.
Mars caught her gaze.
“We are nothing like the humans,” he bit. “I wanted to change my fate. I want it to bemy own.I want to be more than justAres, the long-forgotten god of war. I want to be more thanZeus’s problematic son. I want to be more than Mars, than the almighty purveyor of lust and violence. I don’t want to fight anymore. I wantpeace.I want a life of my own.”
Athena did not like hearing her brother sounding so forlorn. Perhaps his loss of power was his own making, but his turmoil was an echo of her own. They were the darkest parts of her being shoved into the light.
