One-sided Ares+Athene drabble.
These are the things that Ares knows: the song of ichor speeding through his veins, the feel of sweat trickling down his face, the hot, fierce anger of war, the righteous exultation of the warrior and the murderer, the earth under his feet (far, far under his feet, he stands up a pile of corpses high enough to reach halfway to Olympus) and the knowledge that this time, this time he will finally defeat Pallas Athene and her status as second-favored deity will be no more both amongst the god-kind and the mortals.
These are the things that Ares will learn: power tastes like milk when it wanes, blood is hotter than ichor but far weaker and tuneless, corpses make an unstable foundation from which to challenge a goddess of war and wisdom and that just because Athene has beaten him before does not mean that it is now her turn to fall.
These are the things Ares will remember: the taste of blood in his mouth (the taste of mortality) and Athene’s cool grey eyes as her spear pierces through his lungs and ends their long rivalry.
These are the things that Ares will learn: power tastes like milk when it wanes, blood is hotter than ichor but far weaker and tuneless, corpses make an unstable foundation from which to challenge a goddess of war and wisdom and that just because Athene has beaten him before does not mean that it is now her turn to fall.
These are the things Ares will remember: the taste of blood in his mouth (the taste of mortality) and Athene’s cool grey eyes as her spear pierces through his lungs and ends their long rivalry.