Chapter Text
The ancient laws forbid the gods interfering with their mortal children’s lives. They are not allowed to aid or raise, train or help them.
It is an insult in all the ways that hurt. She has trained heroes for centuries, watched them grow and flourish under her stewardship. Athena is their patron, their goddess and now her own father does not allow her to do the same for her own children. She has trained his sons too, without her Perseus would have never stood a chance.
But this law cannot be ignored, Zeus is king of Olympus.
Strings weave themselves together, hands open battleplans. You may never interfere in your mortal children’s lives. No feasible way to disobey and pretend one isn’t doing so.
She needs a solution, monsters hunt demigods by their scent even if hers don’t draw nearly as much attention as the ones from her father’s generation.
Help, no matter how much she despises it, she will need help if she wants her owlets to survive to adulthood.
Their children, of course her father would have been so short sighted. Of course, he’d never think about the one way they can make this law mean nothing.
But which other god would be as inclined as her to agree to this, as enraged about her father’s announcement as herself. There is only one and he will hold this over her head for centuries to come. The only reason she is not reluctant to make her way to Thrace is because there is no other solution that will her save her children’s lives.
Blood greets her and pain. She lifts her skirt with one hand when she steps over the bodies, her armor is at home. As are her spear and helmet.
Her brother is on edge since Zeus's announcement. The Amazons are his daughters and descendants and he will never be allowed to interact with them or lead more of his children to them directly. Athena has very little good to say about Ares but one thing he cannot be accused of is being a terrible father.
“Have you come to gloat sister,” he growls. “Come to see me to revel in my pain, my suffering.” He looks terrible, his hair unkept, his chiton stained with more than blood and his cloak ripped in a way that couldn’t have been intentional.
“You aware that I too have children,” she says. “Not tearing my home apart doesn’t mean I do not feel the same pain you do.”
He laughs, it’s un ugly thing that starts deep in his chest but never reaches his eyes. “Do you wish to start a war? It would be a welcome distraction.”
“Later perhaps. But I believe I found a solution to our problem.” Athena walks closer to him, lowers herself down on a chest to sit.
“You heard father, the law is absolute. He made sure of it, there’s no loophole. We are doomed to watch our children die for millennia to come,” Ares snaps at her.
Athena lifts her palm, it is no gesture of surrender, she simply wishes he hear her out. “Yes, there is no way for us to be in our own children’s lives.”
“Than what do you want-?”
“But nothing forbids us from interacting with the children of other gods. Which is why I am here to propose an agreement.”
“You want me to watch over your brats,” he says. Ares is just looking at her, even his bloodlust seems to have ebbed for the moment. The shock too strong for anything else to sink through.
“And I’ll do the same for yours. Watch over them, train them and aid them. So they are ready when their first quest comes or when the first monster tries to send them to their grand uncle,” Athena explains. She knows he will agree, her brother cares about his children. If there is any way to save them from the fate Zeus has planned for them, he will walk it.
“Can you imagine that?” The corner of his mouth tilts upwards. “You as patron of the amazons.”
“I do not see why that would be so terribly impossible.” She blinks, but not in the way mortals do. Does a thing she has not felt safe enough to do in centuries and opens her eyes completely. Undoing the last layer of protection she arrived with.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you sister, but I’ll need more insurance than your words if you want me to keep your brats alive,” he tells her. Ares has always liked riling her up, pretending he is older, that she stole parts of his domain. Asking her if it wouldn’t be better for him to take all of war so she can focus on her loom and strategy games. It earned him a spear to his shoulder more than once.
“An oath on the Styx,” she suggests. Athena has been under no illusion that it will take anything less to get his agreement. “To keep each other’s children safe like we’d keep safe our own.”
She holds her hand out towards him and he takes it.
“An oath that may never be broken or rescinded.”