commission: Ganymede and the triple H alliance chapter 2-1

The wine tent reeked of sweat, leather, and the particular brand of arrogance that came from men who'd survived three campaigns and thought themselves invincible because of it.

A vagrant moved wearing the face of something that could charitably be called human, stumbled through the entrance like a drunk who'd confused his tavern with a latrine. His "clothes" consisted of ragged clothing that looked like it had been stolen from a corpse, or perhaps several corpses stitched together by someone who'd never actually seen clothing before, a beard that jutted at angles that defied both nature and geometry, and an odor that made several soldiers gag outright when he passed.

"General Ariston!" he called out, voice cracking in three different places, slurring consonants that had no business being slurred. "General Ariston, you magnificent bastard, I've come to join your glorious campaign!"

The soldiers, roughly two dozen of them crowded into the tent around maps and wine and the spoils of their latest raid, turned as one to stare at the apparition that had invaded their space.

One of them, a grizzled veteran with more scars than teeth, spoke first. "What in Hades's fetid asshole is that?"

"I think it's a vagrant," another offered, younger, still possessed of most of his original face. "Or possibly a pile of refuse that learned to walk."

"Could be both," a third suggested helpfully. "I've seen stranger things in Thessaly."

The vagrant lurched forward, tripped over absolutely nothing, and crashed into a table laden with wine amphorae. The vessels toppled, spilling their contents across maps that had probably taken some poor scribe hours to draw, and the vagrant, sprawling in the spreading puddle, let out a belch that would have impressed Dionysus himself.

"Apologies, apologies," he slurred, flailing like an overturned beetle. "These legs, you see, they're not what they used to be. The war, you understand, the war takes things from a man."

"You were in the war?" The veteran sounded skeptical, which was fair, considering the vagrant’s current presentation suggested the only war he'd been in was against basic hygiene and he'd lost spectacularly.

"Oh yes, yes, I fought, I fought most valiantly," the vagrant continued, managing to roll onto his back, arms and legs flailing in a manner that would have been comedic if it wasn't so pathetic, which, of course, made it more comedic. "Slew ten men, no, twenty men, no, wait, it might have been one man but he was very large, does that count as more than one?"

The tent erupted in laughter, the kind of cruel, dismissive laughter that men used when confronted with something so far beneath them that mockery was the only appropriate response.

"Someone throw this walking dung-heap out," one soldier called out between guffaws.

"Wait, wait," another said, grinning with the particular malice of someone who'd just thought of something funny. "Let's have some sport first. Oi, vagrant, you said you wanted to join the general's campaign?"

The vagrant, still on his back, craned his neck at an angle that looked uncomfortable. "Most assuredly, most definitely, I am a warrior of great, uh, of great, well, I'm very enthusiastic about the whole martial enterprise, you see."

"Then show us your weapon," the soldier pressed, smile widening. "Every warrior has a weapon."

"Ah, yes, my weapon," the vagrant patted his ragged clothing, producing from somewhere a stick, an actual stick, a piece of wood that looked like it had been chewed by beavers and then abandoned as not worth the effort. "Behold, I call her Skullcrusher."

The laughter intensified, men clutching their sides, some actually falling to their knees with mirth.

"Skullcrusher," someone repeated between gasps. "He calls it Skullcrusher."

"What skulls are you crushing, beetle skulls?"

"Ant skulls more like."

The vagrant waved the stick menacingly. "Mock if you will, but this stick and I have seen action, real action, we've, uh, we've threatened several chickens most effectively."

"General Ariston," the veteran called out, tears streaming down his scarred face from laughing. "General, you have to see this, there's a madman here claiming he threatened chickens."

From the back of the tent, from a section separated by hanging fabric, a voice emerged, dry and dangerous and utterly devoid of amusement.

"Enough."

The laughter cut off like a severed throat, instant and complete.

The voice continued, measured, controlled, carrying the weight of command and something else, something that made the temperature in the tent seem to drop several degrees.

"Everyone except him, out. Now."

"But General," one soldier started, confusion evident, "we were just having some fun with the vagrant."

"Did I stutter?" The voice somehow got colder, sharper, each word enunciated with the precision of a blade finding the gap in armor. "Out. All of you. If I have to repeat myself again, we'll discover how well you can march with broken knees."

The soldiers moved, scrambling really, tripping over each other in their haste to exit the tent, and within moments the vagrant found himself alone, still sprawled on the wine-soaked ground, stick clutched in one hand, the picture of absolute pathetic success.

The fabric partition drew back, and Ares emerged, wearing the face of General Ariston like an ill-fitting mask, the mortal features unable to quite contain the divinity beneath, like trying to stuff a storm into a wine skin.

He looked at the vagrant with an expression that suggested he was reconsidering every life choice that had led to this moment.

"Did you," Ares said slowly, carefully, "really have to come like that?"

Zeus, dropping the vagrant act like a discarded cloak, rose smoothly to his feet, brushing wine from his ragged clothing with movements that were suddenly graceful, coordinated, completely at odds with his previous flailing. He grinned, broad and unrepentant, the expression transforming his face from pathetic to smugly triumphant in an instant.

"Why not be theatrical when you can?" He surveyed the tent, spotted an amphora that had survived his entrance, and claimed it without asking, yanking the stopper free and drinking directly from the vessel, long pulls that would have felled a mortal, his throat working, wine spilling past his lips to stain his already stained beard. "Besides," he continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "it worked, didn't it? I got to you."

"You got to me looking like you'd lost a fight with a cesspit and then slept in the cesspit's diseased cousin," Ares countered, moving to close the tent flaps, ensuring privacy, his movements sharp, irritated, the controlled violence of someone resisting the urge to commit actual violence. "What if someone recognized you?"

"Recognize me?" Zeus laughed, the sound nothing like his earlier cracking, pathetic attempts. This was a god's laugh, rich and rolling, completely unashamed. "Son, I've been at this for millennia. No mortal looks at a walking disaster and thinks 'ah yes, King of the Gods.' They think 'plague victim' or possibly 'warning about drinking too much.' It's perfect cover."

He took another drink, then gestured with the amphora toward the maps scattered across the table, wine-stained now, half the ink running, ruined.

"Besides, your soldiers were so busy laughing they didn't even think to properly question how a 'vagrant' knew your name, your title, and exactly which tent to stumble into. Laughter makes mortals stupid, well, more stupid than usual."

"Speaking of stupid," Ares said, not moving from his position by the tent flaps, arms crossed, still radiating that controlled tension, "what are you doing here, Father?"

The word 'Father' carried an interesting weight, not quite respectful, not quite mocking, something in between that suggested a complicated relationship between the two gods, which, of course, it was.

Zeus set the amphora down, though he kept one hand on it possessively, as though Ares might try to reclaim his own wine, which, fair, he might.

"Can't a father visit his son without suspicious interrogation?"

"No," Ares said flatly. "Not you. You don't 'visit.' You summon, you command, you occasionally acknowledge existence when it suits your purposes, but you don't visit."

"Harsh," Zeus observed, though he didn't sound particularly hurt. "True, but harsh."

He took another drink, longer this time, clearly stalling, organizing his thoughts, or possibly just enjoying the wine. It was decent wine, for mortal make, rough but honest, the kind soldiers drank because it did its job without pretense.

"The wine's good," Zeus said eventually, holding the amphora up to examine it in the tent's lamplight. "Where'd you get it?"

"Spoils from the last raid," Ares answered, not relaxing his posture. "There was a merchant caravan, thought they could cross through disputed territory without paying protection. They were wrong."

"Fatally wrong?"

"Is there another kind of wrong in war?"

"Hohohoho, I suppose not," Zeus chuckled, the sound carrying that particular quality of divine amusement, the laugh of someone who'd seen civilizations rise and fall and found them equally entertaining. "Still, it's a shame about the wine, good vintage wasted on corpses."

"The dead don't drink," Ares pointed out, "so it wasn't wasted, it came to us."

"Practical," Zeus approved. "War's made you practical. I remember when you were young, you'd have burned the caravan just for the spectacle, wine and all."

"I got older."

"We all do, even gods, we just do it slower, more reluctantly, fighting age every step of the way until we wake up one morning and realize we've been ancient for centuries and somehow missed the transition."

Ares's expression suggested he wasn't in the mood for philosophical musings about divine aging, his jaw tight, eyes hard, the face of General Ariston barely containing the god beneath.

"What are you doing here?" he repeated, slower this time, emphasis on each word. "I know you, Father. You don't waste time on social calls. You want something, so let's skip the dance and the wine-talk and get to the part where you tell me what you want and I decide whether to help or tell you to go fuck yourself."

Zeus's eyebrows rose at that, impressed despite himself.

"You've gotten bolder in your old age."

"I've gotten tired in my old age," Ares corrected. "Tired of games, of politics, of pretending we're one happy divine family instead of a collection of immortal beings held together by fear, obligation, and Hestia's cooking."

"Hestia's cooking is very good," Zeus agreed, then sighed, the sound carrying surprising weight, surprising weariness, the exhalation of someone carrying burdens too heavy to name. "But you're right, I want something. I need something, actually, which is worse, needing implies weakness and I hate implying weakness but here we are."

He drank again, fortifying himself, then met Ares's eyes directly, god to god, not king to subject but something more equal, more honest.

"I need you to speak to Hera for me."

The silence that followed was profound, heavy, the kind of silence that preceded either violence or laughter, and with these two, it could go either way.

Ares blinked, once, twice, then his face did something complicated, cycling through several expressions, disbelief, anger, incredulity, more anger, settling finally on a kind of resigned fury.

"No," he said, the word flat, final, absolute.

"You haven't heard what I need you to say," Zeus tried.

"Don't care," Ares shot back, uncrossing his arms to point one finger at Zeus, accusatory, aggressive. "Whatever is happening between you and Mother, whatever drama, whatever power play, whatever marital dispute born of your inability to keep your cock in your chiton, I want no part of it, zero part, the opposite of part."

"It's not about my, it's not about infidelity," Zeus protested, though the protest lacked conviction, probably because Ares's accusation was broadly accurate and they both knew it. "It's about something more serious."

"Oh, more serious than you bedding half the known world and Mother taking revenge on your bastards because she can't take revenge on you?" Ares's voice dripped sarcasm like poison. "Hard to imagine what could be more serious than that ongoing disaster that's defined your marriage since its inception."

Zeus winced, actually winced, which was notable because Zeus didn't generally acknowledge his own failures, preferring to reframe them as successes or blame them on fate or simply ignore them until they went away.

"She's different now," he said quietly. "Your mother, she's, something's changed, something fundamental, and I need to know if we're, if I'm, if there's danger."

"Danger?" Ares laughed, the sound bitter, sharp, nothing like his father's earlier amusement. "You mean danger to your throne, don't say it like you're concerned about anything other than your own power."

"Is there a difference?" Zeus asked, and for a moment, just a moment, the mask slipped, the King of the Gods showing something genuine, something almost vulnerable. "If my throne falls, Olympus falls, if Olympus falls, everything we've built collapses, so yes, I'm concerned about my power, because my power is what keeps everything stable, keeps the order, keeps the sky from falling, literally in my case."

Ares studied his father, seeing past the bravado, past the justifications, seeing the fear beneath, real fear, the kind Zeus rarely showed, rarely felt, or at least rarely acknowledged feeling.

"You're scared," Ares said, not quite a question. "You're actually scared of her."

Zeus didn't deny it, which was answer enough.

He took another drink instead, a long one, draining what remained in the amphora, throat working, and when he finished, he set the vessel down with exaggerated care, the small sound of clay on wood loud in the tent's silence.

"Rhea came to see me," Zeus said eventually, looking at the empty amphora rather than his son. "Our mother, your grandmother, she came to Olympus, to the palace, walked right past every guard and ward and protection, none of them even saw her, none of them could see her, and she stood in my throne room like she owned it, which, historically, she kind of does, and she told me things."

"What things?" Ares found himself asking despite his determination to stay uninvolved, curiosity winning over caution, the way it so often did with gods.

"Things about Hera," Zeus continued, still not looking up. "Things about what she's become, what she's becoming, something about the moon and the night and power that shouldn't be possible, power that breaks the rules we thought governed divine existence, and Rhea, our mother who's been silent and distant since we overthrew Father, she looked, she looked proud, looked satisfied, looked like someone who'd arranged something clever and was watching it unfold exactly as planned."

He finally raised his eyes, meeting Ares's gaze, and there was something raw there, something almost desperate.

"She's changed, your mother has changed, and I don't know how, I don't know why, I don't know what it means, and not knowing, not understanding, that's, that's dangerous, more dangerous than any Titan, any Giant, any external threat, because this is from within, from my own wife, from your own mother, and I need to know if there's danger."

"You mean you need to know if she's going to rebel," Ares translated, cutting through the rhetoric. "Like she did with Poseidon and Apollo and, who was the third, Athena? When they tried to overthrow you, chain you, and she led the attempt?"

Zeus's face darkened at the memory, clouds literally forming in the tent's upper reaches before he caught himself, dismissed them with a wave, controlled the automatic response of storm-god fury.

"That was, that was resolved, that was forgiven, we moved past that."

"You chained her," Ares said, each word precise, sharp, cutting. "You had Hephaestus, her own son that she'd cast away, you had him forge chains, unbreakable chains, and you strung her up, dangling over Chaos itself, left her there bleeding, golden ichor dripping into the primordial void, left her there until she begged forgiveness, until she swore oaths, until she was properly humiliated and subordinated."

"She conspired against me," Zeus protested, but the protest was weak, automatic. "She tried to overthrow the natural order."

"The natural order being you on top and everyone else beneath?" Ares's smile was not pleasant, was the kind of smile that preceded violence, the kind War wore when particularly displeased. "Strange how the natural order always seems to favor whoever's currently in charge."

Zeus said nothing to that, couldn't say anything really, because Ares wasn't wrong, the natural order was whatever Zeus said it was, and they both knew it, everyone knew it, the entire structure of Olympus rested on Zeus's power and Zeus's will and the collective agreement, willing or otherwise, to not challenge either.

"She's different now," Zeus repeated, falling back on the core concern. "She feels different, everyone can feel it, the way her divinity resonates now, like being near a Protogenoi instead of a regular god, like she's become something older, something more fundamental, and if she's older, if she's stronger, then, then."

He trailed off, unable or unwilling to finish the thought, but Ares finished it for him, speaking the fear Zeus couldn't voice.

"Then maybe it should be her instead of you," Ares said quietly. "She's older than you, always has been, Kronos swallowed her second, she's the eldest of you lot after aunt Hestia, and if she's now stronger too, stronger than any of us, stronger than you, then by the same logic that put you on the throne, the logic of power and primacy, maybe she has more right to rule than you do."

The tent went very still, the kind of stillness that preceded storms or violence or both, the air itself seeming to thicken, to press down, Zeus's divinity reacting to the suggestion even as Zeus himself struggled to control his response.

"That's, that's not, we don't, it doesn't work like that," Zeus managed, each word clearly costing him, his hands clenched on the table's edge hard enough that the wood groaned, cracked slightly, threatening to splinter under divine strength.

"Doesn't it?" Ares pressed, leaning forward slightly, aggressive, challenging. "You took the throne because you were stronger than Kronos, because you freed your siblings, because you led the war and won, all very impressive, all very legitimate, power making right, but if Hera's now stronger than you, if she has her own base of support, if she decided to challenge you, what exactly stops her except the memory of those chains and the fear of what you'd do?"

"I wouldn't," Zeus started, then stopped, realizing the trap. "I wouldn't chain her again."

"Why not?" Ares asked, genuinely curious now. "You did it before, you'd do it again if threatened, we both know that, everyone knows that, the question is whether you could do it again, whether your chains would even hold her now, whether Hephaestus could forge something strong enough to bind whatever she's become."

Zeus slumped slightly, the posture of a god carrying too much weight, too much responsibility, too much fear.

"I don't want to fight her," he admitted, quiet, almost vulnerable. "I don't want Olympus torn apart by civil war, again, we barely survived the last time, barely held together, and another war, one between Hera and me, it would, it would destroy everything, everything we've built, everything we've maintained."

"Then what do you want me to do?" Ares asked, not softening, not yet, still wary, still resistant. "I can't fix your marriage, can't fix whatever's broken between you two, that's been broken for centuries, millennia, that's been broken since you decided fidelity was optional and she decided revenge was mandatory."

"I need to know if she's planning something," Zeus said, meeting his son's eyes again. "I need to know if she's gathering support, building alliances, preparing to move against me, I need to know if we're going to war or if this is, if this is something else, something that can be managed, contained, resolved."

"You want me to spy on my own mother," Ares translated, the words hard, accusatory.

"I want you to talk to your mother," Zeus corrected. "Talk to her, assess her state of mind, her intentions, her, her everything, and report back, that's all, just reconnaissance, just information gathering."

"Just betrayal," Ares said flatly.

"Just survival," Zeus countered.

They stared at each other across the tent, god and god, father and son, king and subject, all those relationships tangled together, complicated by millennia of history and hurt and hierarchy.

Ares broke first, looking away, jaw working, clearly wrestling with competing impulses, loyalty to mother, loyalty to father, loyalty to self, trying to calculate which mattered most, which would cost least.

"No," he said finally. "Absolutely not, I'm not getting involved in whatever this is, whatever's brewing between you two, I won't choose sides in a war that hasn't started and might not start, and I definitely won't be your spy, your informant, your tool in whatever game you're playing."

Zeus sighed, the sound of a god who'd expected this response, who'd prepared for it.

"What if I offered you the Thracian territories?" he said, shifting tactics smoothly, effortlessly, moving from appeal to negotiation. "Full divine claim, unopposed, Athena's been eyeing them but I could award them to you instead, rich in conflict, constant warfare, tribal feuds that have been running for generations, it's perfect for you, perfect for War."

Ares hesitated, just for a moment, the offer clearly tempting, the Thracian territories were indeed perfect for his domain, constant fighting, constant worship, constant sacrifice in his name.

But he shook his head.

"No."

"The new weapon forges in Lemnos?" Zeus tried, sweetening the pot. "Exclusive access, first choice of whatever Hephaestus makes, before even I get to claim anything, weapons forged by the Smith specifically for you."

"No," Ares repeated, firmer now.

"Political support for your son Phobos, I know you want him recognized officially, elevated beyond mere daemon status, I could do that, make him a proper god, full Olympian privileges."

"He's fine as he is," Ares said, though his voice suggested the offer had struck closer. "Doesn't need Olympian recognition, doesn't want the complications."

Zeus tried several more offerings, each one carefully calculated to appeal to War's nature, to Ares's desires, territories and weapons and honors and political favors, a litany of bribes that would have been impressive if they weren't so transparently desperate.

Ares refused each one, his 'no' getting shorter, harder, more final with each iteration, until Zeus ran out of immediate offerings and sat back, frustrated, stymied, looking at his son with an expression that mixed annoyance with grudging respect.

"You've gotten stubborn in your old age," Zeus observed.

"I learned from the best," Ares shot back, "watched you refuse to yield for millennia, figured if stubbornness works for you, it could work for me."

"Hohohoho," Zeus laughed despite himself, acknowledging the hit. "Fair, that's fair, I'll concede the point, but this, this isn't about stubbornness, this is about necessity, about survival, about, about everything."

"It's about you being scared," Ares said, not unkindly now, some of the edge leaving his voice, replaced by something that might have been sympathy, or at least understanding. "Scared of losing power, scared of losing control, scared that your wife might actually be strong enough to challenge you and make it stick this time."

Zeus didn't deny it, couldn't deny it, the fear was too obvious now, too present, radiating from him like heat from a forge.

He reached for the amphora, remembered it was empty, sighed, and just rested his hand on it instead, needing something to do, some small action to ground himself.

"When I overthrew Kronos," he said eventually, quietly, "when we fought the Titans, I thought, I thought that would be the hard part, thought once we won, once we established order, everything else would be, not easy, but manageable, we'd rule, we'd maintain peace, we'd be the generation that did it right, that didn't eat our children or castrate our fathers or whatever fresh horror the previous generation had inflicted."

He laughed, bitter, self-aware.

"Turns out ruling is harder than winning, turns out peace is more fragile than war, turns out fear is easier than love and power is simpler than trust, and now, now after everything, after millennia of maintaining this order, this structure, it might all come apart because my wife, because your mother, because Hera has become something I don't understand, something that frightens me, truly frightens me, and I don't know how to fix it."

Ares absorbed this, his father's rare honesty, vulnerability that Zeus almost never showed, calculated vulnerability perhaps, designed to manipulate, but seeming genuine enough.

He was quiet for a long moment, thinking, weighing, calculating his own risks and benefits.

"If I do this," he said slowly, "if I agree to talk to her, to, to assess things, it's not because of your bribes, not because of territories or weapons or political favors."

"Then why?" Zeus asked, leaning forward, hope flickering in his expression.

"Because if there's going to be another war, another divine conflict that tears Olympus apart, I want to know about it ahead of time," Ares said, meeting his father's eyes. "Want to be prepared, want to position myself and mine for survival, war is my domain and I'm good at it but even I need intelligence, need to know the terrain, know the players, know what's coming."

"So you'll do it?" Zeus pressed. "You'll speak with her?"

"I'll try," Ares conceded, the words clearly costing him. "I'll try, no promises, no guarantees, if she refuses to see me or refuses to talk, that's it, I won't push, won't spy, won't do anything beyond making the attempt, understood?"

"Understood," Zeus agreed quickly, too quickly, the desperation showing through. "That's all I ask, just try, just, just see what you can learn."

Ares nodded, not happy about it, clearly already regretting the decision, but committed now, locked in by his word.

Zeus stood, dropping the vagrant disguise entirely now, no point maintaining it, letting his true form show slightly, carefully, enough to be regal without breaking the mortal tent, divine power contained but present, the King of the Gods instead of a pathetic wanderer.

"Thank you," he said, and surprisingly, sounded like he meant it. "I know this is, I know what I'm asking is difficult, is potentially dangerous, your mother, whatever she's become, she's, she might not be safe, might not be stable."

"If she hurts me," Ares said dryly, "I'm going to be very annoyed at you."

"If she hurts you, I'll be annoyed too," Zeus replied, attempting humor, attempting to lighten the moment. "You're my favorite warlike son."

"I'm your only warlike son," Ares pointed out. "Unless you count Athena but she prefers strategy to slaughter, doesn't really compete in the same category."

"Details, details," Zeus waved it away, moving toward the tent flap, preparing to leave. "The point stands, you're valued, appreciated, and if you die, I'll be very sad, probably for several minutes at least."

"Your concern is touching," Ares said, the sarcasm thick enough to cut.

Zeus paused at the tent entrance, looking back, expression shifting to something more serious, more genuinely concerned.

"Be careful," he said. "Really, truly, be careful, if even half of what Rhea suggested is true, your mother is, is beyond what we understand, beyond what we can predict, and gods, actual gods, we can't afford to be careless with the unknown."

"When am I ever careless?" Ares asked, the question rhetorical, and Zeus wisely didn't answer it, just offered a final nod and slipped out of the tent, leaving Ares alone with his thoughts, his concerns, and his rapidly growing sense that he'd just made a terrible mistake.

Outside, the sounds of the military camp continued, soldiers laughing, fires crackling, the mundane noises of mortal warfare, completely unaware that gods walked among them, that cosmic politics were being negotiated in their general's tent, that the fate of Olympus itself might hinge on conversations between beings they worshipped but could never truly comprehend.

Ares sat heavily in his chair, the General Ariston disguise feeling more constraining now, more uncomfortable, like armor that didn't quite fit, and he rubbed his face with both hands, tired, more tired than he should be, divinity notwithstanding.

"Fuck," he muttered to the empty tent, to the wine-stained maps, to the universe at large.

Just, fuck.