To sleep: perchance to dream Who: Eris & Ares What: Two violent deities revisit an old memory while discussing the present. Where: Miletus, Greece. When: Ye olde ancient times; dream time for the mortals is backdated to Jan 2nd Warnings: Descriptive violence and gore.
Discord loved her memories -- they were always such pretty things.
Cities burning; fields of wheat, with bodies strewn about the fauna like playthings dropped in the midst of a game; dark places where fear crept strong, seizing men in stone jaws, shaking them like a dog until Eris called it away for a good scritching between the ears, a treat for having done its job so well. Each and every scene her own ideal of what battle should be, the chaos and danger that would inevitably ensue any time she stepped onto such a field.
This was an old favorite -- the battle of Miletus. The sacking of the city by the tyrant Samos had been a joyous occasion for Discord. So many prisoners taken, so many more killed, so much chaos and destruction. Balancing on the tips of her toes, she effortlessly glided through the streets, dancing throughout the strife that was sown without greed; Eris had enough for all! She smiled, widely, feeling generous in her efforts. There was nothing that could ruin this wonderful memory.
But though she basked in the fruits of her labors, there was another who counted the day’s deeds as much his work as her own: War, her irksome brother, her partner in unending, unspeakable crimes. Where she danced through crooked alleys and broad lanes observing the carnage she had inspired, he strode on hard steps, crossing the battlefield and on into the city, spurring what survivors remained - on either side, victor or vanquished - to spend the last of their life’s blood on last-ditch attempts at vengeance, bloody executions, and other equally pleasing sacrifices.
He found her there in the city, as blood-soaked and sated as he, reveling in the offerings the mortals had unwittingly given. “Sister,” he said, a smile on his lips. Eris turned, for a rare moment in a good mood, and so welcomed the sight of her war-sibling.
“Manslaughterer,” she crooned back, a teasing lilt to the word as though in praise. It was always an odd scene to have warfare without him, and she found herself, in some ways, glad of his presence. “How like you this, especially when compared with where we are trapped now?”
His answer required no thought. Here all his drives and desires were written in the wind; they filled the air around them, moved mortals on and off the battlefield like puppets dancing on string. Of all his kin Eris more than any - save his own sons, perhaps - helped feed these endless fires, helped him reap the rewards of the ever-fighting humans. “I like it well,” he said, his thanks to her, of a sort. “I came as quickly as I heard, but it seemed you had started without me.”
While not entirely true - Ares had joined the fray with time enough to spare, and should have had little cause for complaint - it bore a hint of honesty, a grudging and childish nod to his annoyance at having not been there when the first battle lines were drawn. Something must be done, he decided, to even the score.
“What are your plans for those who remain?” he asked. Looking away from him, Eris considered the fray before her -- there were many tantalizing possibilities. So much blood to be shed, especially when compared to the true times they were only partially existing in. A hand grasped her chin, giving her face a thoughtful expression as the other wrapped around her torso.
“Would you prefer that I give you a chance instead, brother?” His tardiness did not go unnoticed, and she smirked aggravatingly.
He knew she was baiting him, could read it in every nuance of her posture. It hardly mattered. The end was the same: bloodshed, and so much of it, with a creativity none but they two could provide. A broad grin split his face, his short-trimmed beard deepening the dark shadows on his dust-streaked face.
“A chance,” he snorted. “You’ve done well here, Eris, but I will show you true art.” He cast an eye toward one cluster of survivors, marking out a few of the larger, more aggressive ones for his own. Whatever their game was to be, he wanted first blood. “Weapon of choice?” he asked, looking toward the vast array of swords, maces, and wielders of same. “Or is it foolish to ask you for rules of engagement?”
She laughed, the sound cutting along the ear drums. “Would it be too much to ask you to use your imagination?” The laughter sounded again, a braying noise that matched her odd appearance. Following his gaze, she found the same group of victims-to-be, sorting them in a manner that only made sense to Discord. After a pause, she looked back at her brother.
“No weapons. Let me see what you might do with just bare hands,” she supplied, her grin underlining her words.
It was a bet he was surprisingly enthusiastic to take. Fond though he was of weapons, it had been some time since he had seen the particular kind of brutality and gore that bare-handed combat brought to bear. His pulse raced with anticipation, blood thundering in his ears like the hoofbeats of his horses. As his bloodlust rose so too did the crowd’s; courage and cowardice swirled on the wind, hanging in the air as thick as fog. Two broad-shouldered warriors rose up, turning on a lithe and narrow archer standing between them. It meant nothing that hours later they had fought sight by side, that they had been trained up from children as brothers in arms. All that was forgotten as they fell upon one another, weapons cast aside, their hands grasping and tearing at naked flesh. As one meaty, calloused hand closed around the archer’s throat, he drove long, nimble fingers into his attacker’s eye sockets. And still his brothers did not stop. Deep gashes opened up in the smaller man’s flesh; the sound of his arm torn from its socket carried easily to the gods. A loud crack announced the breaking of his leg. Before his body was fully maimed their attention moved to one another; soon the scuffle became a living, writhing pile of flesh, bloodied and battered beyond recognition. Ares laughed, clapping his hands together as happy as a child.
Eris bounced on her feet, amused by the sight in front of her -- she itched to dance, to laugh over what she had just witnessed, to celebrate it. The smile on her features was a slash, a gaping wound to match those recently bestowed on their poor mortal playthings.
“My turn!” The words were exclaimed, the goddess losing any and all pretense of being something older and wiser as she had pretended to be only moments before. “Will you give me a task, or shall I do what I do?” Folding her hands together, she rocked forward on the balls of her bare feet, continuing the emphasis on the immature nature of her being.
“Have your way,” he said, his blood-streaked palm gesturing before them, indicating the whole of the battlefield. He was smiling all the while, truly curious to see what she would do, unleashed into a facsimile of their world after so very long away. It was exciting, arousing in the truest sense of the word; already he felt this space was more right than it had been before, tempered as it was in fresh blood and renewed pain. This was their place now, but in time, through their art, by their showing those present their real and truest selves, it would become truly hallowed ground. He looked to his sister with what, between them, passed for sincere love. “I want to see what’s in your heart.”
“Ooo,” she cooed, turning back to the crowd of men with dozens of ideas dancing through her mind. So many, so many, and yet so few men. She would have to choose wisely, even though that was the one key trait that she lacked.
Within the tangle of men, one held a double-sided axe. It was a crude but efficient tool for cleaving enemies free of their mortal bonds, and it suited Eris’ purpose perfectly. Without preempt, he began to swing wildly, the weapon taking deep bites out of the men around him -- what was more, he did not look to utterly kill, but simply to wound. Large, gaping red mouths appeared on the torsos of those around him, blooming like terrible crimson flowers underneath the weak and flimsy armor borne by those who populated this battlefield. His brethren moved to stop the attacker, but the swinging of the blade kept them all at a distance, formulating a terrible jig-like movement among the crowd. The axe swung up, catching one poor soul in the face, separating it nearly in two; the blade caught fast in the brain and skull of its victim, giving those around the man time to derail and stop his crazed attempts. It took three to hold him down, and none could convince him that his endeavor was an evil one -- finally a swift dagger to the heart, through the juncture of neck and shoulder, silenced him completely.
Discord pouted, stomping one foot in annoyance that her ploy had come to such a foul end, even if it did garner her the screams and cries of agony out of those who had been wounded by the axe-man’s sudden insanity.
“At least we are left in peace to our games here,” she lamented and noted all in one. “How is your mortal faring? Mine seems to be splitting at the seams, but then again I might abuse her too harshly.”
“Mine is well,” he said. He glanced back to her but a moment, thoroughly entranced by the wounded staggering, falling in agony, cowardice flooding them all as they realized the extent of their injuries. He smiled. “He is to look after yours soon, you know.” He quirked a brow. “My son’s skin is... sensitive, and concerned for her. But what of you?”
Ares took hold of one of the wounded, steeling the mortal’s heart in spite of the massive trauma his body had taken. Under Enyalios’ will he ambled forward, embracing the pain singing through his muscles. His face was a grinning, murderous leer, teeth and gums and jaw bone exposed by a shallow but effective sweep of his dead comrade’s axe. He grinned wider; flesh split open, gouts of blood bathing his throat, his chest, anointing him as priest and sacrifice. He reached for the dagger at his belt, advancing upon his standard-bearer, whose hands grasped, white-knuckled, the flagging banner.
“Do you think she is in need of his protection? His aid?”
He looked to her over one broad shoulder, studying her face. “I suspect she isn’t so fragile as that. But you would do well not to burst that particular wineskin.” His smile lessened, though it did not go away. “Phobos’ boy is fond of her, and you wouldn’t be the first god that human place has put down. It might take him mortal lifetimes to find you again.” His eyes turned again to the field, his burnished gaze watching with no small joy as the dagger sank into the standard-bearer’s chest, his shoulder, his stomach, carefully avoiding any lethal injury. The boy fought, clawing and grasping, saving his breath for fight rather than fear. Ares was pleased, and blessed the child, prolonging his glorious end. “Tread wisely for once, Sister.”
“You know quite well that is not something I do,” she retorted, watching his play with some amusement. The banner fell from the man’s grasp, down to the ground where it pooled in a small pile of cloth, its display crumpled from anyone’s vision. Its bearer reached out to grasp his attacker, hands on shoulders providing support as he cried out in low tones full of agony. The man wielding the knife twisted the blade, the lacerations shooting pain electrically through the victim’s body; almost at the same moment, Eris’ smile impossibly widened.
“That would be a terrible course, though. I do adore my Piercer, and it’s been much too long since I’ve seen him. And it would be much nicer to see him again outside of these dream realms. You as well, brother -- and I would not have that ability had I no mortal flesh to stride in.” Her face took on a thoughtful look, something that seemed almost painful for a goddess of chaos of any sort. Of the man who was dying between them, tears began to course down his face while he tried to understand his pain, either to push through it or simply grasp why this was happening to him. Such a thing annoyed Discord, for any distress on the battlefield should have been welcomed and celebrated, for was that not what war was?
She approached the man, his eyes unseeing of her person as she stood before him, behind the one who was piercing him with the blade. Light fingers reached out to brush over his face, amplifying his animosity toward his attacker, and his hands rose up, movement fighting through the pain, to put thumbs into the other man’s eyes. “She is much stronger than she or others would believe. Anyone knowing her life’s history would have already seen my hand in it -- those who don’t would be blind or ignorant. And that sort of thing, brother,” and here Discord looked away from her playthings to Ares, “Annoys me the most.” The man wielding the blade released his weapon as his eyes popped within their skull, his screams loud and musical to Eris’ ears. She grinned, much more pleased.
“I do think she and I will get along just fine, though. But we both know how my temper swings both ways.”
Ares laughed, as much at her truthful assertion as at the destruction she had wrought. Their work built on one another, added elements and layers neither could have provided singly; they were a fine team, to their own benefit and the ruin of all who crossed their path. He wondered, not for the first time, that their progenitors and kin were not more pleased by their effectiveness in the purviews granted them.
“It’s a fine tool, your temper,” he allowed, stepping out toward the battlefield. The locked combatants’ bodies had nearly taken all they could. Blood and bile and other, nameless things poured from their every wound, their life’s blood running together, joining them in a kind of intimacy deeper than any other. Ares found their sacrifice pleasing, but saw no cause to end their pain. Instead he turned from them, seeing out new targets. He found them in a skulking officer and the newly widowed woman he clearly planned to make his own. In spite of her fresh sorrow there was a fury in her heart, a passion emboldened by hopelessness; Ares reached out to this flame, stoking it all the hotter, and watched as she reached to pull a leaf-shaped short sword from the body of a fallen soldier. She turned on her heel, quick as a cobra, and leveled its blade at her would-be attacker.
“I would see it in action more often, myself,” Ares went on, “though I would prefer it not be pointed at me.” He looked back to his sister, mischief gleaming in his eyes. “Perhaps we’ll have cause to see it soon. While Phobos is away, playing at mortal war. A little measured rage might do both you and your human well in these trying times.”
The mention of Phobos getting to go out and play brought a frown onto Eris’ features, a distortion that did little to mar the already disturbing bone structure of her face.
“It would certainly be a pleasure long missed,” she mused, eyes straying over the figures of the man and woman. The blade came close to the attacker’s throat. Less of a slash than a feint, and the man bought into it by stepping backward. “Though I do love reliving these memories, they do grow stale after a time, no matter how many times I replay things. The blood...it never looks quite as real.” The knife came down toward the man’s jutting gut; though it was still protected by thick leather, the blade bit deep into the material and nicked the skin, a small amount of blood spilling forth. It barely touched the ground, but Discord had the right of it: there was something lacking in its quality that separated it from the real thing.
Ares recognized the truth in it, but had no desire to acknowledge it. In the waking world Samuel provided bloodshed enough to keep him sated - though of course not as much as during his active military service, to Ares’ sorrow - and these dream-memories supplied what gore and ancient, familiar beauty the modern world did not.
“Then we should have the real thing.”
As one he swelled the courage and the cowardice in them both, willing them to act and still to feel every ounce of the gravity of what they did. The soldier wanted her with the same burning, unyielding strength as he feared his bleeding wound. He would not bleed out from the slash she had given him, but before she was through he may yet wish he had. So too did the woman advance, as afraid of what she might suffer at the soldiers’ hands as she was overcome with the need to spill his blood, to strike before she could be struck.
“Use Wolfe’s position to your skin’s advantage,” he said. He studied the woman’s form as she lashed out, striking hard and fast for her attacker’s exposed throat. He smiled, blessing her strike. “If they two were out, and someone attempted to harm either of them, they could openly retaliate.”
While her brother concerned himself with those emotions, Eris focused on the pair’s contention; the man, a trained warrior, blocked her strike, knocking her arm aside. For what made men rise above their station, work for more, better than sheer jealousy or want? Hate, perhaps, but Discord held a touch of that as well. The woman slashed again, her eyes wide and doe-like in her fear for her own safety - the man, perhaps in a brash movement, caught her arm as it came around, the blade biting into his wrist as he jerked her off balance. A scream slashed through the air, and the man grimaced in his victory, trying to force the woman to her knees. Scrambling, she grabbed the blade with her free hand awkwardly, and cut again at her previous belly slash, this time the dagger going deep to nest itself amidst the man’s innards.
Musing over his words, Discord’s eyes rolled upward as though contemplating the sky while her full attention remained on the fighters before them. “It has happened before -- my dear Charlotte does seem to have a talent for bringing out the worst in others.” An evil smile settled over her face. “And it doesn’t hurt to have friends in high places. Such an abuse of power, though!” Her words teased, eyes rolling back to Ares. She took no issue with those things, but she could never miss an opportunity to needle him.
Ares chuckled, nodding happily. “What use is power if it cannot be employed?” Two bystanders lurked in a nearby alleyway, watching the altercation the siblings urged on. They clearly awaited the victor, cravenly lingering in darkness until they could steal away the hard-earned spoils. For Ares this would not do: If they wanted the rewards they must pay the blood price. He stretched out his power, considering how their human priests might best do the same. The voyeurs were dragged into the fray, their eyes wide as doe scenting a hidden hunter. In death the soldier seemed intent upon taking with him as many as he could; his violent thrashing rendered his bare hands as dangerous as any weapon. The woman threw herself backward, out of the ensuing scuffle.
“We simply send them somewhere their violence would go unnoticed,” he said, watching as the ground beneath the fighters grew thick, and muddy with blood. “Ensure no-one dies.” One of the bystanders collapsed, clutching a gaping wound that opened his throat. “Mortals are so particular about that, and a human skin is enough to endure without having it locked away.”
Eris’ lips pulled into a harsh line, torn between the desire for true bloodshed and the disliked idea of being trapped twicefold. She had to admit, Ares posited a valid position; though she had access to the mortal plain, that was no excuse for her to regain her true place as a harbinger of truly gore-splattered warfare. Such things were not of this particular day and age; true, real and terrible devastation could be wrought, but now with a push of a button rather than the swing of a sword. Discord found herself liking these new methods, but very little ever brought the same satisfaction as what she was truly used to.
Now safely removed from the scene, Eris bent close to the woman and forced her to watch as the soldier pulled the dagger free from his belly, the wrenching motion bringing with it a cascade of organs. Uncaring, he threw the dagger forward to land neatly in the Adam’s apple of one of the new combatants, leaving him gasping for breath and clawing at his throat as his life bubbled away in a gout of blood. The other scrambled to remove himself as well, but fared no better than his companion -- the soldier, even mortally wounded, caught him with both hands around the throat, squeezing tightly. The victim’s face slowly began to discolor, first red, then blue.
“It’s sad that they think death so terrible; and without the gift of fight, how does one ever become something more?” She pouted, keeping the woman’s eyes wide open, her fingers gently weaved into her knotted locks. “But very well. There is always more than simple bloodshed, even if that is what blood is for.” The suffocating man’s knees buckled, though he was still held aloft by his attacker; they fell as one, one choking while the other bled out. The sight brought a smile back to Eris’ face, despite the unhappy fact that she would be confined to her favorite sport here within this dreamscape.
Ares nodded, his smile unconsciously broadening as he watched the carnage she wrought. The creatures’ mutual sacrifice was a pleasant one, their deaths lacking nobility, lacking dignity, perhaps, but that was nothing Ares himself would mourn overmuch. He found equal pleasure in knowing he had won - for the moment, at least - his sister to his way of thinking. Together they might pursue different means toward their ends; means tailored to the time in which they found themselves unwillingly thrust. There was something cowardly, Ares thought, in the humans’ apparent wholesale departure from hand to hand fighting, in their unwillingness to look into the wide and dimming eyes of the life they took as it waned. But cowardice, too, belonged to him, and he could embrace those tactics as well as any other. Bow or button, dagger or drone, he could make it work for him.
“In time things may change,” he allowed, casting an amused glance down to the woman Eris held. “And until then, when we see opportunities to guide our vessels in the right direction, we’ll take them.” He grinned. “Consider it a war of attrition.”
Her hands moved over the woman’s head; the motion went unfelt, but surely the woman, who could not see Strife, could sense her in some underlying way. Eris longed to end her life then and there, but so much death was already had -- and there were other ways to make people suffer beyond simply ending their silly little lives. Releasing her, the woman began to run, not caring where her feet took her so long as it was away from this terrible place and reality.
Dusting her hands, though doing little to remove any of the gore smattered therein, Eris glanced around the battlefield and frowned.
“It looks as though we’ve spent our playthings to their end,” she commented, pointing out the obvious fact of the battlefield strewn with horribly sundered corpses that marked the deities’ presence. A faint pout colored her mouth, but there were perks to reliving memories over and over again. With a sharp snap of her fingers, the battle reset itself, rewinding time to set everything back at the beginning. The only difference was Ares being oddly punctual, though Eris had no mislike for the error in detail. “Would you like to start this time, brother?”
It was a rare gift she offered, and he took it as such. Grinning all the sharper he set his burnished eyes upon the field, and together they began again.