by Drako
“No, I’m doing my part right now, thank you very much,” Ares retorted.
“Can I get the key to the room?” Brandon asked Victoria. “I’m tired and want to grab a nap.”
She tossed him the key. “I’ll be up later.”
Brandon left them at the table alone.
“Here I thought we were making some progress,” Ares commented.
“What are you talking about?” Victoria demanded.
“I’d thought you weren’t judging me so harshly anymore. Clearly I was wrong.” Ares frowned. “I don’t automatically assume anything about you. I certainly don’t hold anything against you.”
“I’m not holding anything against you. I just don’t trust you,” Victoria told him.
“And what have I done exactly to make me less than trustworthy?”
Victoria gave him a bland stare. “Do we really have to go through this again?”
“No, we’re going to do something else instead.” Ares extended his hand across the table. “It’s high time that I show you something.”
“I can’t really leave here now, can I?” Victoria looked skeptically at his hand.
“As long as I bring you back to this settlement before Brandon moves on, I’m not violating your mother’s ruling,” Ares replied.
“Make sure I’m back on time then.” Victoria placed her hand in his and felt a surge of energy flow through her before they vanished.
Thirty
Brandon walked into the room and immediately sensed someone else inside. He looked around. There were two separate beds and a small fireplace. The room was dark, so for anyone else it would be easy to be ambushed. He pointed and flames burst up in fireplace, illuminating the room.
“Why are you here, Phil?” he asked, not even looking in the direction of the wolf.
Phil stepped into the light. “Adonis asked me to come here with you. I don’t really know why, and I don’t like it any more than you do.”
Brandon turned to face him. “I don’t have nearly as much of a problem with you as you do with me. You don’t like me very much for obvious reasons. I was his first, and you’re his current. Unfortunately, we still have to deal with each other, at least for a little while longer.”
“I think we’ll deal with each other longer than that.” Phil looked at him for several seconds. “As long as either of us choose to be around Adonis, we’ll be around each other.”
“I’m not going to be around him much after this mission is done.” Brandon removed his coat and sat on the bed he’d chosen for himself. “It’s not exactly fun for me to be around the two of you. And it’s hell on you. I can see it even if Adonis blinds himself to it.”
“It’s not you that bothers me. It’s his actions when it comes to you. Like that talk you two had right after you and I spoke.”
Brandon snorted. “I bother you based solely off the fact that I’m part demon.”
“I am predisposed to hate demons. My kind hunts them, remember?”
Brandon rolled his eyes. “Yes, and you do so blindly. That’s why a large portion of your brethren go rogue. You spill the blood of demons with too much ease, even the innocent ones. And there are innocent ones. If you’ve learned nothing else from my grandfather, you should have learned that all things have the potential for good and evil. Both are a choice.”
“Well unfortunately the blood of our forefather makes us a little quick to attack. Fenrir is the son of Loki, after all, and Loki had a special affinity with demons. The point is, I’m past the demon side of you.”
In Brandon’s mind, Id chuckled. He shouldn’t be. I’ve still got half a mind to kill him.
Shut it, Brandon ordered.
Id fell silent, but as always he listened.
“Regardless of how you feel about my nature, dealing with each other is not necessary if Adonis and don’t deal with each other. Once he’s safe from this warlock and the rogues, we will separate completely.”
Phil walked to stand in front of him. “Why?”
“Because it’s best for all involved.”
“Best for all, or best for you?” Phil asked.
Brandon narrowed his eyes. “Does it really matter?”
“Yes, because in the end if you walk away completely, it will hurt him worse, and I know that is a pain I can’t fix no matter how hard I try, and I will always try for as long as he stays with me. Although in the end, he will leave me.”
“What makes you say that?” Brandon asked.
“A feeling that I can’t shake,” Phil answered. “This request he made of me to accompany you worries me. It’s unlike him.”
Brandon stood and walked to the window. “Seems just like him to me.”
“I know he can be selfish but he’s not heartless. And it’s not like him to force me to do something I really don’t want to do.”
Brandon turned back to give him a dull stare. “Then he must love you a hell of a lot more than he does me. He does nothing but force me to do things I don’t want to do. He wants us all to be friends when all I want to do is get the hell away from both of you.”
“I don’t think that’s so horrible really. He doesn’t want to completely cut you out of his life and I want him to be happy.”
“While you sit in misery?” Brandon scowled. “I love Adonis as well, but not so much that to make him happy I’ll make both of us miserable. Let’s face it. I came back thinking he’d have waited for me and I found he’d moved on to you. I’m still a bit bitter.”
“I can understand that, but I don’t think you should shut him out completely. After all, he’s going through a lot that he needs support to get through. He did just lose his family.”
Something about this rubs me wrong, Id spoke again.
What are you talking about? Brandon asked.
The death of Adonis’ family. It was unnecessarily violent. And now he sends Phil here with us. Something is going on. He was trying to get rid of him so that he could do something.
Something like what? What could he possibly do that he wouldn’t want Phil in on? Brandon wondered.
I have no idea really. But he has to know we don’t need help here. We survived Shevat, we survived a fight with Lucifer and Desdemona’s forces, we can certainly survive this place. I refuse to believe he sent Phil here because he’s that worried about us. I doubt this moron knows the real reason either, but it’s worth looking into.
Brandon cut off his internal dialogue to respond to Phil. “Believe me, I know exactly what he’s going through. Not only have I lost both my parents, I can sense all of his pain. But I can’t continue to let him sway me. My connection with him hinders me in a fight. It’s holding my powers back because I’m not able to concentrate as well. And when I can’t concentrate, neither can my brother.”
“No offense, but I find it hard to believe that you’re losing concentration. I fought you before, and you had to be distracted then but you had complete control.”
“I was only dealing with my own emotions, which I can bury completely. I can’t block emotions coming to me through my empathic abilities,” Brandon explained.
“I get the feeling that you’re trying to find a way to block those now,” Phil commented.
Brandon frowned. “How’d you figure that?”
“Look, I’m not as powerful as you are, and I don’t have empathic or telepathic powers, but I know how to read people. You hate any form of weakness in yourself. If your empathic abilities are limiting you in power, you’d want a way to cut it off.”
Brandon remained silent. He didn’t like anyone being able to read his intentions so well, especially someone he wasn’t that close to.
“I see that I’m right.” Phil smirked. “You know, under other circumstances, we’d get along a lot better than we do now.”
“Maybe,” Brandon said thoughtfully.
Unseen by either of them, the queen of the gods herself stood listening.
“I sincerely hope that you aren’t meddling.” Jar
el appeared beside her.
“If I needed to, I would meddle,” Hera replied. “The bigger problem is that Brandon is going to figure out sooner rather than later why Adonis sent Phil here.”
“It’ll be too late,” Jarel told her. “The events have already been set in motion. There’s nothing more you or I can do about it, no matter how much I personally would like to change what happens.”
“This is going to be hard on them. I merely wish to watch over them as they come to terms with this.”
Jarel nodded in understanding. “They are about to enter the most difficult period of their lives. The front lines of battle are a harsh place to be, especially when caught in a war of the gods. Sadly, when things hit their hardest part, we will be unable to help. We’ll be engaged in war with the Titans and Typhon. All of my forces with be directed on Typhon and Echidna, and all of yours will be directed on the Titans. This trial that they will face, they will ultimately face alone.”
“You have the power to put a stop to this.”
“Yes, but if I do, I will make things infinitely worse. I have done everything in my power to prepare them. This task that Hecate has them on will give him the power and the control he needs for what lies ahead. The rest he must find inside himself.”
The next thing Victoria knew she was in the main hall of Olympus. Ares kept hold of her hand and guided her through the hall to a door. He led her into the room and the door closed behind them. The room was large and filled with floating images of various events.
“What is this?” she asked.
“This is the room the gods use to record the things we see. It is our record of the past and the present. What you see here are what the threads spun by the Moirae become. And it’s something I cannot manipulate so you can truly believe what you see,” Ares explained.
“What are we here for?”
“To show you something that you need to see.” Ares waved his hand and the images began to spin. “You believe me to be a heartless beast of some sort. You think I have no understanding of softer emotions such as love and that I don’t have the ability to be monogamous. It’s about time that you see what the stories don’t tell you about me or any of the other gods.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’ve had a lasting relationship before?” Victoria smirked. “This really isn’t necessary.”
An image stopped in front of them.
“It’s quite necessary.” Ares’ face hardened. “I’m quite sick of being made out to be such a horrible god. I do what is necessary. Yes, war is necessary. It’s simply the way of the universe as long as free will exists. But I will not be made out to be the worst god around because I’ve had a few corrupt children and a multitude of women. And mind you, you’re not exactly sweet and innocent yourself. But if it’ll get you to lay the hell off me, I’ll show you that you’re wrong. Now look here at the start of the Spartan race. This one woman that I stayed with for the entirety of her life after I met her. I was with her right on until death claimed her.”
As she watched, the images of their lifetime together played out in front of her. She saw Ares with a beautiful dark haired woman. Ares himself seemed much younger. He almost looked like a teenager. As she watched, the images went from their first meeting into their courting and on through the birth of their first children. She watched as Ares remained with the woman, raising the children into adulthood and as the woman went into old age while Ares remained forever young. She watched as Ares and his children formed a city and an army, as the children married to bring others into their society. And she watched as the woman passed and Ares mourned her death.
“Four several thousand years after she died I wasn’t with another woman,” Ares told her. “And when I did find another, the result was similar.” He waved his hand and several images of him flashed by, the situation similar though the women and time periods were different. “You judge me harshly, because you’ve heard of the children I’ve had. You never realized that the myths were vague and never once said how long we gods were with any one woman. You merely assume we use them for sex and that’s all. That’s just as unfair as the stories where your kind are raging monsters for warriors to slay.”
“What do you want from me, Ares?” Victoria asked with exasperation.
Ares waved his hand and the images went away. “Do I honestly have to tell you this? It should be obvious. Since the day that I allowed the Spartans to begin ruling themselves, I have not directly aided a single person in a particular task. When given the option, I have passed it up. All I have done is reveled in the pointless wars humanity has waged. Even at Troy when all the gods seemingly chose sides, I remained outside of it, basking only in the chaos of the war but aiding neither side. You, I sought out and have done everything possible to aid. I don’t do anything without my own objective. That much I have no problem admitting.”
“And your objective is to have the same with me as you did with them?”
Ares shook his head. “Them I watched die. Though technically you can die, it is not my goal to see you die. You do not age, and you are different from them. You’re a warrior, whereas they were normal women. They were daughters of kings or daughters of farmers. Never did I have one that not only knew what I was, but could truly stand up to me. You are a dragon, a witch, and daughter of a god and goddess. Anything I have with you would never be the same as what I had with them. I would think it’d be better. After all, being with you would never be boring.”
Victoria was unable to respond. She was unsure how to handle this situation. After all, he’d just shattered her idea of the gods and how they toyed with emotions.
“Now, as I promised I’m going to take you back to the Rose Realm right where you left off and then I’ll leave you alone for a while. But just so we’re clear, I want you and I’m not going to let you keep running from me either. When I come back into the Rose Realm, I’m coming for you.”
Before she could respond, Victoria felt that familiar surge of power flow through her before Ares teleported them away from Olympus.
Thirty One
When Brandon awoke the next morning, his aunt was clearly in a bad mood. He laughed softly to himself, knowing without asking that Ares was the cause of her temper. When they left their room and went to their horses, Phil joined them.
“Where’d you sleep, kid?” Victoria asked him roughly.
“I slept outside in wolf form,” he answered, eying her suspiciously.
“That was stupid. You could have stayed in the room with us. It’s not like I have to deal with you two getting all cozy.”
Brandon smirked. “Maybe he felt better sleeping outdoors. He can’t do it back home in the mortal realm.”
“Whatever.” Victoria hopped up into the saddle. “Am I going to have to conjure a horse for you too?”
“No thanks, I’ll be fine.”
Brandon hopped up into his own saddle and then extended his hand to Phil. “There’s no point in wearing yourself out. We’ve got a long ride ahead, I think.”
Ares appeared. “That is true. You’ve got to get around those mountains to get where you need to be. It probably won’t be that fun either. The closer you get to the mountain, the colder it gets. And there are a few remnants from the war of the Aesir with the Frost Giants.”
“Great, then I might get to kill something today, after all.” Victoria urged her horse forward.
Brandon grinned down at Ares. “I don’t know what you did, but it worked.”
Phil finally took Brandon’s hand and was lifted onto the horse behind him. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Lover’s quarrel,” Brandon replied.
Ares laughed. “Don’t you have to be lovers for it to qualify as a lover’s quarrel?”
Brandon shrugged. “It’s only a technicality. I’m pretty sure I’ll be making myself scarce the next time we stop. Maybe I’ll take a three hour hike into some woods to find firewood when there’s clearly wood all around.”
“Like I’m getting in her way anytime soon.” Brandon urged his horse forward to follow his aunt.
“This could be interesting.” Ares vanished.
They rode hard that day, and made it to the other side uncontested.
“So much for the damn Frost Giants,” Victoria muttered.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. We’re being watched,” Brandon told her.
Victoria grunted. “That does me no good if they won’t come out and face me.”
“It is possible that unlike you, they’re formulating a strategy.” Ares appeared floating in the air beside her. “Frost Giants, by and large, are idiots. But some are intelligent, and it wouldn’t be a far stretch that they would have aligned themselves with your enemies.”
“Shove it, Ares.”
Ares laughed. “Why so snippy? I don’t believe I’ve done anything to you today.”
“I need a fight to clear my head, and unfortunately not a damn thing is this gods’ forsaken realm has come at me that might actually let me work up a sweat.”
“I’m sure you’ll work up a sweat in the arena.”
“Depends on the arena,” Brandon commented. “Shevat’s arena was pretty pathetic. Nothing like a bunch of low level demons in a group setting.”
“This arena is similar as far as bloodthirsty spectators go, but as far as the opponents you’ll face, it’s entirely different,” Ares told him.
“Well, at least I won’t be bored,” Victoria muttered.
“I’d rather be bored and finish the mission sooner,” Brandon replied. “I have an uneasy feeling so I want to get back as soon as possible.”
“How much further is this arena?” Victoria asked Ares.
“About another day’s ride past the mountains,” Ares answered.