fledermaus
Reunion
The Ball
Unconditional
collab between: @KZOMBI3 x [@Gothelk]
Rome fell to the filter of golden orange — bright to the flakes that settled in the deep green of rolling grass against the vanguard of hills. Summer lit her torch against the sky in an array of gorgeous oranges and yellows to lick the cypress trees in flames. Wheat swayed against the warm breeze like an arm brushed against the soft canid hide of earth that pressed her snout to the sun’s hand.
Upon the winding road, settled against cobbled stone to the post of a fence, jet black hair curled to the swaying wheat behind him. The huff of air against his cheek had him smile bright to the warm caress with his feet swaying slow against the rock. He took a deep breath to taste the birth of Rome on his tongue, eyes lifted to the flowering sky above him.
In this he could see the rise of something new in the iris of the earth’s ceiling and it breathed life into him. Breathed life against the curls of his hair as he giggled to the sudden hands at his sides. Thin and elegant, they gripped him to pull him into the fields of golden wheat — into piles of giggles that sang to the breeze brushing soft against the golden tendrils.
Mother—
The word sank into his lungs in a deep breath that sank heavy upon his shoulders. Bitter had the word become until sorrow had taken her to the very depths of grief. The word tasted fresh of it against the pallet of his tongue. It only softened the memory of her. It only softed to the wheat of her hair in summer fields. It only softed at the bright smell of sun and fields of golden grain and the gentle acid of pomegranate that burned tears into the corner of his eyes.
It took a moment. Mars could only catch himself in the suddenness. All the stoicism that encased him in fine Italian marble cracked to reveal the soft, raven haired boy against a Roman fence swirling his feet in fresh, flame-licked air. It settled the hardness of his flame to a simmering sweet bonfire alight with cypress smoke that bit at his eyes.
Then he enveloped her in arms that covered her shoulder and back, hunched over with his head pressing wetness to her shoulder. “Contra spem spero” Mars whispered against the gold of his mother’s hair. “You died upon the earth, but not to the very stars of Rome, mother. Now you live for both?” He questioned, daring not a look upon his mother’s face for fear of his hopes crumbling like ash through his fingers.
There was a comfort, deeply rooted in her bones, at the feeling of his arms coming around to encase her in a warm embrace. Strong, sturdy, absolutely home. Like a long lost ghost of a memory surging back to place itself in the forefront of her mind.
A young boy of dark curls, now stood before her in place of the well grown man, playing among the golden fields as smoke billowed like clouds above their heads. The typical summer haze was pulsing with a new wave of heat. He turned around to make sure she was following, hair flaxen gold to match that which they waded through. Taking her hand to lead her further to the ledge where they were able to view the destruction before the phoenix would rise from the ashes settled on the scorched earth. Anew and better than before. The laugh that had escaped them both, capturing him in her arms from behind as she lifted him into the air. The way he clung back to her. A familiar pressure built within her now as it did all those years ago.
Tears bite at the edge of her vision as she tries to keep them back. If not for her sake, for his. Her boy. Her favorite son.
Pulling away only slightly, enough to gaze up into those orbs of duality her breath caught in her chest once more. As beautiful as he always was, more so now that he had grown into himself. Juno supposes they all have in some way or other. Cupping his cheeks with well manicured hands, eyes darting along every inch of his features she smiled so radiantly that the stars above should hang their heads in shame. "My son. There can be no glory for Rome without you." A subtle way for her to drop that he is more important to the queen than a city.
"Without you and Jupiter and Janus, there would be no Rome to herald."
Beneath the battering feet of clanking armor and metallic throes of pain and horror, between the cracks against the earth split and taken by strife, there was just a boy, raven hair curled, lit into darkened brown against the splitting sun and wide, paint splotched eyes crinkled by the tooth filled smile of his lips. Did he bury that boy deep into the core of his mind, wandering against the fragmented memories of sun touched skin, freckled to the heat of a Roman summer? Would Venus even recall the way he used to drag his feet loud along the dirt paths between sprawling farmlands?
”Carry yourself, Mars, like the world sits atop your head and each foot fall is a legion cutting a knife through desert sands.”
It felt like Rome himself spoke, hands upon his shoulders and kneeled to his ear.
“Move like summer against your heels, superbia meum. Laugh with butterflies against your chest and smile with the warmth that graces you every morning.”
Was that his mother? The way she talked, as if Rome was but secondary to the joy that sprung from his chest. He could hear it now, deep rumbles of her notes alight in his ear. Rome would look to him with adoration; Venus would see an equal; his sons would see a commander, to which, in his mother’s embrace, he feels as if that fails them time and time again. What contempt they must feel that the love pressed into his very chest by the gentle warmth of his mother’s tireless hands could not replicate itself in his stern looks, the reproaching intonation of his voice, the militaristic grip of his fist over their lives. Eternity must feel like torture to sons that feel no love from their father.
Mars pressed his eyes closed. He buried his head into his mother’s neck, stooped over and hunched, yet somehow smaller than the woman that reached up to embrace him. ”Rome would hang its head in shame, mother,” He whispered, ”That though you shower me in grace and pride, I feel only admonishment for my failures. To have stained even the memory of you now; I am a poor excuse for a son. Were I to have lived closer to the lessons you taught me, or even searched for a spattering of evidence of your survival.”
He furrowed his brows. ”I carried your name with me all this time, yet I could not live up to it.”
The words that spilled forth from the lips of her son before her were enough to crack through the armor she donned when approaching the eve of war. Still she clung to him, pulling him closer, squeezing him tighter. He needed the stability, always had. Her sweet boy. Her warrior. Hers. When she spoke it was as if they were thrown back in time. None of this colossal bullshit looming over them. Just the golden golden fields of wheat and grain dancing along to the tune of the subtle winds. Strong and sure, the words of a mother. A mother with burdens. "You have lived up to my name a thousand times over. You are not the only one to have failed in seeking, I too have fallen quite short to have only just announced myself to you.
Pulling away to gaze up at him through long lashes she gently shook his shoulders, gaining his somber attention and she was once again flooded with both relief at seeing him in the flesh once more, and the guilt that ate away at him. "But, here we are. Together once more and there isn't anything to pull me away." And as the surmounting gloom hung over them she was able to cut the tension with a haughty, "Rome can go fuck itself on my spear, my family is most important."
Though the wound of failure bit down against his throat, his mother’s words rang true. Mars could take the world by hand and let it drop, yet his mother would lean down to pry it from the depths and place it heavy against his palm. She would instill in him that failure did not mean an end, but rather a beginning. Though war and strategy took loss as merely a stepping stone to the next, it hadn’t occurred to him to apply that same methodology to other aspects of his life.
To think, after all these years all he required was that his mother take his cheeks to her hands and tell him what he needed to hear. Rather, that he just needed to listen in the first place.
A sigh left him and a smile broke through the hardened line of Mars’ lips. ”You would shout that to the heavens were you given the chance, mother,” Mars said, ”I am a coward to think of Rome over my own family, blood or not. I am glad to have a mother steadfast as you. I wondered, sometimes, how a mother could love strife incarnate, to see what her son wrought in the fields of battle. For glory or not, I shed blood and lacked remorse for those cast on the pyre. Perhaps Rome shouldn’t be everything to me. I am no Janus or Jupiter; the people mattered more than the power, anyhow. Maybe I just need to open my eyes more to the people around me, no?”
It came to him bright as daylight, the metallic odor sewing itself into the very fabric of the smoke that carried itself to darkened clouds. Were he to look up those days the fighting melted away to the seas, Mars would see each face molded to the clouds — smoke blotting out the sky. That he would look up one day to see his mother’s face there, his children’s, the loves of his life gnawed away at him the second the sky fell and they scorched the earth with their anger and confusion.
Mars shook himself of the thought. Aching away at their own pitying vulnerability did nothing for his own mental health. Taking his mother by the arm, he led her to the ground floor, eyes scanning the heads of each being in hopes the mongrel that planned this would meet his steeled gaze. They would find anger molten and cut in the depths of his pupils.
”Let me find you a drink, mother, and a seat,” Mars leaned low to her, hushed voice lowered beneath the din, ”I’m certain you want to give Jupiter a piece of your mind, but he deserves to rue in his worry for a moment more. You know best that man needs more than a tumble from his throne to get his own head out of his ass.”
A chuckle left him, eyes taking a glance up at Jupiter. ”Even a millennia isn’t a break enough from having to pry it out yourself, mother.”
A softened gaze hardens at the remembrance of her, er, of Jupiter. Self proclaimed king of gods. At one point, perhaps. Even still to this day? Maybe. Though the queen would never let him hear her say such things. Only boost an ego already too large to occupy the abysmal location they found themselves at for this sorry excuse for a gala. A roll of her eyes had her scoffing devolve into a chuckle, "He'd never be able to figure out whether he's pulling out or pushing in. Gods, he's ever the same, hmm." It was less of a question than a fact. No matter, he still held some sort of space in that heart of hers.
Turning her attention back to the handsome male draped on her arm, cradling her elbow like the gentlest of lifelines, she smiled warmly taking in the features of her son that were not as she remembered so many eons ago. His jaw, sharper. Eyes more piercing than Romulus' spear, darting back and forth throughout the room — as if she wouldn't have noticed? Juno may have been gone a millennia, but she was still his mother. Knew his habits of old. And knew that he was taking precautions. For what she couldn't say. Not yet.
"A drink sounds lovely. Do tell me, fili mi where is the rest of our lovely family." Words spoken sickly sweet would be enough to fool even that of other pantheons, but she was quite certain her son would be able to pick up on the intonations that plagued those few, simple words. Words that spoke volumes to the tune of 'Where is that mittatur procax of an ex of yours'. Her meaning clear, it had been far too long since their last reunion and if her memory served her justly, as it oft times did, when last they spoke it was not under the best of terms.
Hardened to the battles of war, it felt a mystery that Mars would treat the fragile beings beneath each pantheon with such tact and care. Or perhaps being erected the Father of the common Roman people did a number to soften the visage of battle that lay perpetual against chiseled marble. He leaned against the bar after letting his mother make herself comfortable upon one of the high stools. ”Your finest quality wine, please, and something sweet for me,” Mars smiled, a large tip sliding toward the harried bartender. A few flutes and the bottles found their way to him moments later and he nodded an appreciative thanks. ”I apologize for any hassle my friends may have caused you. Please, at the behest of the family running this gala, take a long break; the chill air is quite nice this time of night.”
With that he turned toward his mother, handing her a glass and sipping at his own. He cast his gaze once more over the raucous, peering through dancing limbs and whipping hair. Emerald glistened like a gem that cut through the rubble of darkness, sideled with the golden haired boy beside her. An outline of his wings, marble turned obsidian to the broken world crumbled at his feet. Unbridled love and conquest woven carefully to create the very heart of his son, yet he could feel the stitches having come undone through the years of strife that tolled away at his psyche. Too much of one thing left the other smothered beneath the fine wings pressed against his back.
Were he a better father, he’d share advice, yet love did not come to war as easily as he wanted. The way that his mother gave it freely to him and yet he found it so difficult to do the same. Perhap he merely wanted to keep it for himself, scared that her shadow would slip and falter in the many years she’d left this world. He carried her name, but carried her love for far longer, unable to look at it for fear his selfishness twisted and knotted, turned gold to malicious red.
Mars took a shaky sigh in, lifting the hand he held his drink in and pointing toward the figure swallowed in shimmering green and the marble cut of his son dipped to her side. ”Like father, like son. And, please, mother, you judge Venus much too harshly. Honestly, she offered me more kindness than I would have given myself,” Mars whispered, to which his gaze soon befell the madness of terror slipped through like a lightning cracked silver between two radiant glories.
What tipped the balance from love to panicked terror incarnate, Mars could not ascertain. Like all deities, however, the patron reflected their domain and no amount of anything could change that. Mars would never change his sons for the life of him. Yet, he felt the shift in times, society molding itself a brighter, less violent future, cast two feared and beloved ideals to the deepening shadows of the world. What could a father do to make his sons feel wanted, as if they belonged still, rather than cast out in fear of what they represent?
Mars’ brows furrowed, knowing full well Venus cared little for the hound beside her. Maybe that was too harsh; Metus was her son, beloved, yet Mars knew the depths of her disappointment.
His eyes flickered toward his mother once more, taking her hands in his. ”How does one do right by their children? How did you take a being like me, filled with the anger, vindication, and prejudice of a million people and mold me into what I am today?” His words whispered of desperation, like the world wanted of him, yet he could not readily give, ”How am I not just a being filled with the ferocity of war, fueled only by blood and fire? How am I able to see more of what I represent? How can I do that for my own children that their place in this world is just as solid as my own?”
Through the concerned etched into the lines of his brows and clouding the periphery of his vision, Mars saw a glimpse of his third son. He paused, staring at his mother for but a moment before whipping his head on its swivel. Like the honeyed fog slipping through pine and morning dew, he could smell the both of them. His hands tightened their grip slight enough to squeeze once he finally caught sight of them. The line of his lips tightened, pulling into a frown.
“To think that I have done right by you all warms my bones and lifts my soul to heights never before reached.” The smile she wore never faltered, only seemed to grow more, basking in the confidence her beloved bestowed upon her. Delicate fingers turned over the hands holding her, gripping her, seeking answers. Rubbing small, soothing circles into his skin.
Though immovable he was not. Juno was attuned to the smallest of quivers emanating from War incarnate. Bated breath waits for words of encouragement to spill forth, but it was words that tongue tied the once and future queen. Swiping her tongue across her lips offered her little reprieve as she mulled over words that would lift her son’s gaze up past the horizons of a new dawn as he once did. Before the fall. Before this…mess.
“We are born of the cosmos, of the breath of our parents. Of the earth and all her bountiful offerings. However we are molded, shaped, structured and cultivated by that which surrounds us.” There was a pause as she took time to set her empty glass on the counter and calm the rushing felt in her veins. “Nature vs. Nurture. Yes, you are a being of war, but that is not all you are. My most beloved, you are the father of a nation of people who look to you as a means of securing peace in a time of war.”
There was something truly building within her as she tried to get him to see and understand everything that she had already known. That titles and accolades did not make someone, but rather the situations and experiences do. The Roman queen wanted to remind him to think back on his dear sister, Bellona, and ask was she not of the same cloth as him? And yet, should memory serve her correctly, does not possess an ounce of the same virtues Mars does? “You cannot take what has been laid out before you as immortal as we are.” A ghost of a smile crossed her features as her gaze locked onto her family standing amongst the crowd, absent to her presence.
“Just as Metus will always rule his domain, Cupid and Timor too. But that is not all they are, fili mi. Just as you are not just War. Not just Rome. Take heed to remember these words. Oftentimes just something as simple as time spent together, nurturing that nature within them, is enough.”
Words slotted finely into place, elegant and nice to listen too. Backed by the experience and history of a woman — of a goddess meant to reign above all others, sacred in love and life, those words gave more meaning than maybe even Juno herself intended. Mars fell silent, let it stir between them as he stared at the palms of his hands upturned in hers. The Greeks had a word for this and, though feuds fueled between them raged in the minds of others, Mars did not shy away from acknowledging their influence, their strength, and culture. Agape, unconditional, transcendent love felt strongest between kin, whether by blood or covenant.
Without a sound of utterance on his lips, Mars released his hands from Juno’s grip and stood from his seat to pull her forward. ”I am lucky to have a mother such as you. Don’t let the time spent away from us burden you, please,” He whispered. If any notion of the hardened stoic chiseled to stand as righteous as any Roman had cracked and fallen away, now with his voice soft and sincere, filled with emotion, it came obvious that each carefully placed veneer vanished in the presence of his mother. ”You are and always will be my mother above all else and that you are here, breathing and healthy, is what truly matters.” Mars continued, ”I love you, mom.”
Upon the winding road, settled against cobbled stone to the post of a fence, jet black hair curled to the swaying wheat behind him. The huff of air against his cheek had him smile bright to the warm caress with his feet swaying slow against the rock. He took a deep breath to taste the birth of Rome on his tongue, eyes lifted to the flowering sky above him.
In this he could see the rise of something new in the iris of the earth’s ceiling and it breathed life into him. Breathed life against the curls of his hair as he giggled to the sudden hands at his sides. Thin and elegant, they gripped him to pull him into the fields of golden wheat — into piles of giggles that sang to the breeze brushing soft against the golden tendrils.
Mother—
The word sank into his lungs in a deep breath that sank heavy upon his shoulders. Bitter had the word become until sorrow had taken her to the very depths of grief. The word tasted fresh of it against the pallet of his tongue. It only softened the memory of her. It only softed to the wheat of her hair in summer fields. It only softed at the bright smell of sun and fields of golden grain and the gentle acid of pomegranate that burned tears into the corner of his eyes.
It took a moment. Mars could only catch himself in the suddenness. All the stoicism that encased him in fine Italian marble cracked to reveal the soft, raven haired boy against a Roman fence swirling his feet in fresh, flame-licked air. It settled the hardness of his flame to a simmering sweet bonfire alight with cypress smoke that bit at his eyes.
Then he enveloped her in arms that covered her shoulder and back, hunched over with his head pressing wetness to her shoulder. “Contra spem spero” Mars whispered against the gold of his mother’s hair. “You died upon the earth, but not to the very stars of Rome, mother. Now you live for both?” He questioned, daring not a look upon his mother’s face for fear of his hopes crumbling like ash through his fingers.
There was a comfort, deeply rooted in her bones, at the feeling of his arms coming around to encase her in a warm embrace. Strong, sturdy, absolutely home. Like a long lost ghost of a memory surging back to place itself in the forefront of her mind.
A young boy of dark curls, now stood before her in place of the well grown man, playing among the golden fields as smoke billowed like clouds above their heads. The typical summer haze was pulsing with a new wave of heat. He turned around to make sure she was following, hair flaxen gold to match that which they waded through. Taking her hand to lead her further to the ledge where they were able to view the destruction before the phoenix would rise from the ashes settled on the scorched earth. Anew and better than before. The laugh that had escaped them both, capturing him in her arms from behind as she lifted him into the air. The way he clung back to her. A familiar pressure built within her now as it did all those years ago.
Tears bite at the edge of her vision as she tries to keep them back. If not for her sake, for his. Her boy. Her favorite son.
Pulling away only slightly, enough to gaze up into those orbs of duality her breath caught in her chest once more. As beautiful as he always was, more so now that he had grown into himself. Juno supposes they all have in some way or other. Cupping his cheeks with well manicured hands, eyes darting along every inch of his features she smiled so radiantly that the stars above should hang their heads in shame. "My son. There can be no glory for Rome without you." A subtle way for her to drop that he is more important to the queen than a city.
"Without you and Jupiter and Janus, there would be no Rome to herald."
Beneath the battering feet of clanking armor and metallic throes of pain and horror, between the cracks against the earth split and taken by strife, there was just a boy, raven hair curled, lit into darkened brown against the splitting sun and wide, paint splotched eyes crinkled by the tooth filled smile of his lips. Did he bury that boy deep into the core of his mind, wandering against the fragmented memories of sun touched skin, freckled to the heat of a Roman summer? Would Venus even recall the way he used to drag his feet loud along the dirt paths between sprawling farmlands?
”Carry yourself, Mars, like the world sits atop your head and each foot fall is a legion cutting a knife through desert sands.”
It felt like Rome himself spoke, hands upon his shoulders and kneeled to his ear.
“Move like summer against your heels, superbia meum. Laugh with butterflies against your chest and smile with the warmth that graces you every morning.”
Was that his mother? The way she talked, as if Rome was but secondary to the joy that sprung from his chest. He could hear it now, deep rumbles of her notes alight in his ear. Rome would look to him with adoration; Venus would see an equal; his sons would see a commander, to which, in his mother’s embrace, he feels as if that fails them time and time again. What contempt they must feel that the love pressed into his very chest by the gentle warmth of his mother’s tireless hands could not replicate itself in his stern looks, the reproaching intonation of his voice, the militaristic grip of his fist over their lives. Eternity must feel like torture to sons that feel no love from their father.
Mars pressed his eyes closed. He buried his head into his mother’s neck, stooped over and hunched, yet somehow smaller than the woman that reached up to embrace him. ”Rome would hang its head in shame, mother,” He whispered, ”That though you shower me in grace and pride, I feel only admonishment for my failures. To have stained even the memory of you now; I am a poor excuse for a son. Were I to have lived closer to the lessons you taught me, or even searched for a spattering of evidence of your survival.”
He furrowed his brows. ”I carried your name with me all this time, yet I could not live up to it.”
The words that spilled forth from the lips of her son before her were enough to crack through the armor she donned when approaching the eve of war. Still she clung to him, pulling him closer, squeezing him tighter. He needed the stability, always had. Her sweet boy. Her warrior. Hers. When she spoke it was as if they were thrown back in time. None of this colossal bullshit looming over them. Just the golden golden fields of wheat and grain dancing along to the tune of the subtle winds. Strong and sure, the words of a mother. A mother with burdens. "You have lived up to my name a thousand times over. You are not the only one to have failed in seeking, I too have fallen quite short to have only just announced myself to you.
Pulling away to gaze up at him through long lashes she gently shook his shoulders, gaining his somber attention and she was once again flooded with both relief at seeing him in the flesh once more, and the guilt that ate away at him. "But, here we are. Together once more and there isn't anything to pull me away." And as the surmounting gloom hung over them she was able to cut the tension with a haughty, "Rome can go fuck itself on my spear, my family is most important."
Though the wound of failure bit down against his throat, his mother’s words rang true. Mars could take the world by hand and let it drop, yet his mother would lean down to pry it from the depths and place it heavy against his palm. She would instill in him that failure did not mean an end, but rather a beginning. Though war and strategy took loss as merely a stepping stone to the next, it hadn’t occurred to him to apply that same methodology to other aspects of his life.
To think, after all these years all he required was that his mother take his cheeks to her hands and tell him what he needed to hear. Rather, that he just needed to listen in the first place.
A sigh left him and a smile broke through the hardened line of Mars’ lips. ”You would shout that to the heavens were you given the chance, mother,” Mars said, ”I am a coward to think of Rome over my own family, blood or not. I am glad to have a mother steadfast as you. I wondered, sometimes, how a mother could love strife incarnate, to see what her son wrought in the fields of battle. For glory or not, I shed blood and lacked remorse for those cast on the pyre. Perhaps Rome shouldn’t be everything to me. I am no Janus or Jupiter; the people mattered more than the power, anyhow. Maybe I just need to open my eyes more to the people around me, no?”
It came to him bright as daylight, the metallic odor sewing itself into the very fabric of the smoke that carried itself to darkened clouds. Were he to look up those days the fighting melted away to the seas, Mars would see each face molded to the clouds — smoke blotting out the sky. That he would look up one day to see his mother’s face there, his children’s, the loves of his life gnawed away at him the second the sky fell and they scorched the earth with their anger and confusion.
Mars shook himself of the thought. Aching away at their own pitying vulnerability did nothing for his own mental health. Taking his mother by the arm, he led her to the ground floor, eyes scanning the heads of each being in hopes the mongrel that planned this would meet his steeled gaze. They would find anger molten and cut in the depths of his pupils.
”Let me find you a drink, mother, and a seat,” Mars leaned low to her, hushed voice lowered beneath the din, ”I’m certain you want to give Jupiter a piece of your mind, but he deserves to rue in his worry for a moment more. You know best that man needs more than a tumble from his throne to get his own head out of his ass.”
A chuckle left him, eyes taking a glance up at Jupiter. ”Even a millennia isn’t a break enough from having to pry it out yourself, mother.”
A softened gaze hardens at the remembrance of her, er, of Jupiter. Self proclaimed king of gods. At one point, perhaps. Even still to this day? Maybe. Though the queen would never let him hear her say such things. Only boost an ego already too large to occupy the abysmal location they found themselves at for this sorry excuse for a gala. A roll of her eyes had her scoffing devolve into a chuckle, "He'd never be able to figure out whether he's pulling out or pushing in. Gods, he's ever the same, hmm." It was less of a question than a fact. No matter, he still held some sort of space in that heart of hers.
Turning her attention back to the handsome male draped on her arm, cradling her elbow like the gentlest of lifelines, she smiled warmly taking in the features of her son that were not as she remembered so many eons ago. His jaw, sharper. Eyes more piercing than Romulus' spear, darting back and forth throughout the room — as if she wouldn't have noticed? Juno may have been gone a millennia, but she was still his mother. Knew his habits of old. And knew that he was taking precautions. For what she couldn't say. Not yet.
"A drink sounds lovely. Do tell me, fili mi where is the rest of our lovely family." Words spoken sickly sweet would be enough to fool even that of other pantheons, but she was quite certain her son would be able to pick up on the intonations that plagued those few, simple words. Words that spoke volumes to the tune of 'Where is that mittatur procax of an ex of yours'. Her meaning clear, it had been far too long since their last reunion and if her memory served her justly, as it oft times did, when last they spoke it was not under the best of terms.
Hardened to the battles of war, it felt a mystery that Mars would treat the fragile beings beneath each pantheon with such tact and care. Or perhaps being erected the Father of the common Roman people did a number to soften the visage of battle that lay perpetual against chiseled marble. He leaned against the bar after letting his mother make herself comfortable upon one of the high stools. ”Your finest quality wine, please, and something sweet for me,” Mars smiled, a large tip sliding toward the harried bartender. A few flutes and the bottles found their way to him moments later and he nodded an appreciative thanks. ”I apologize for any hassle my friends may have caused you. Please, at the behest of the family running this gala, take a long break; the chill air is quite nice this time of night.”
With that he turned toward his mother, handing her a glass and sipping at his own. He cast his gaze once more over the raucous, peering through dancing limbs and whipping hair. Emerald glistened like a gem that cut through the rubble of darkness, sideled with the golden haired boy beside her. An outline of his wings, marble turned obsidian to the broken world crumbled at his feet. Unbridled love and conquest woven carefully to create the very heart of his son, yet he could feel the stitches having come undone through the years of strife that tolled away at his psyche. Too much of one thing left the other smothered beneath the fine wings pressed against his back.
Were he a better father, he’d share advice, yet love did not come to war as easily as he wanted. The way that his mother gave it freely to him and yet he found it so difficult to do the same. Perhap he merely wanted to keep it for himself, scared that her shadow would slip and falter in the many years she’d left this world. He carried her name, but carried her love for far longer, unable to look at it for fear his selfishness twisted and knotted, turned gold to malicious red.
Mars took a shaky sigh in, lifting the hand he held his drink in and pointing toward the figure swallowed in shimmering green and the marble cut of his son dipped to her side. ”Like father, like son. And, please, mother, you judge Venus much too harshly. Honestly, she offered me more kindness than I would have given myself,” Mars whispered, to which his gaze soon befell the madness of terror slipped through like a lightning cracked silver between two radiant glories.
What tipped the balance from love to panicked terror incarnate, Mars could not ascertain. Like all deities, however, the patron reflected their domain and no amount of anything could change that. Mars would never change his sons for the life of him. Yet, he felt the shift in times, society molding itself a brighter, less violent future, cast two feared and beloved ideals to the deepening shadows of the world. What could a father do to make his sons feel wanted, as if they belonged still, rather than cast out in fear of what they represent?
Mars’ brows furrowed, knowing full well Venus cared little for the hound beside her. Maybe that was too harsh; Metus was her son, beloved, yet Mars knew the depths of her disappointment.
His eyes flickered toward his mother once more, taking her hands in his. ”How does one do right by their children? How did you take a being like me, filled with the anger, vindication, and prejudice of a million people and mold me into what I am today?” His words whispered of desperation, like the world wanted of him, yet he could not readily give, ”How am I not just a being filled with the ferocity of war, fueled only by blood and fire? How am I able to see more of what I represent? How can I do that for my own children that their place in this world is just as solid as my own?”
Through the concerned etched into the lines of his brows and clouding the periphery of his vision, Mars saw a glimpse of his third son. He paused, staring at his mother for but a moment before whipping his head on its swivel. Like the honeyed fog slipping through pine and morning dew, he could smell the both of them. His hands tightened their grip slight enough to squeeze once he finally caught sight of them. The line of his lips tightened, pulling into a frown.
“To think that I have done right by you all warms my bones and lifts my soul to heights never before reached.” The smile she wore never faltered, only seemed to grow more, basking in the confidence her beloved bestowed upon her. Delicate fingers turned over the hands holding her, gripping her, seeking answers. Rubbing small, soothing circles into his skin.
Though immovable he was not. Juno was attuned to the smallest of quivers emanating from War incarnate. Bated breath waits for words of encouragement to spill forth, but it was words that tongue tied the once and future queen. Swiping her tongue across her lips offered her little reprieve as she mulled over words that would lift her son’s gaze up past the horizons of a new dawn as he once did. Before the fall. Before this…mess.
“We are born of the cosmos, of the breath of our parents. Of the earth and all her bountiful offerings. However we are molded, shaped, structured and cultivated by that which surrounds us.” There was a pause as she took time to set her empty glass on the counter and calm the rushing felt in her veins. “Nature vs. Nurture. Yes, you are a being of war, but that is not all you are. My most beloved, you are the father of a nation of people who look to you as a means of securing peace in a time of war.”
There was something truly building within her as she tried to get him to see and understand everything that she had already known. That titles and accolades did not make someone, but rather the situations and experiences do. The Roman queen wanted to remind him to think back on his dear sister, Bellona, and ask was she not of the same cloth as him? And yet, should memory serve her correctly, does not possess an ounce of the same virtues Mars does? “You cannot take what has been laid out before you as immortal as we are.” A ghost of a smile crossed her features as her gaze locked onto her family standing amongst the crowd, absent to her presence.
“Just as Metus will always rule his domain, Cupid and Timor too. But that is not all they are, fili mi. Just as you are not just War. Not just Rome. Take heed to remember these words. Oftentimes just something as simple as time spent together, nurturing that nature within them, is enough.”
Words slotted finely into place, elegant and nice to listen too. Backed by the experience and history of a woman — of a goddess meant to reign above all others, sacred in love and life, those words gave more meaning than maybe even Juno herself intended. Mars fell silent, let it stir between them as he stared at the palms of his hands upturned in hers. The Greeks had a word for this and, though feuds fueled between them raged in the minds of others, Mars did not shy away from acknowledging their influence, their strength, and culture. Agape, unconditional, transcendent love felt strongest between kin, whether by blood or covenant.
Without a sound of utterance on his lips, Mars released his hands from Juno’s grip and stood from his seat to pull her forward. ”I am lucky to have a mother such as you. Don’t let the time spent away from us burden you, please,” He whispered. If any notion of the hardened stoic chiseled to stand as righteous as any Roman had cracked and fallen away, now with his voice soft and sincere, filled with emotion, it came obvious that each carefully placed veneer vanished in the presence of his mother. ”You are and always will be my mother above all else and that you are here, breathing and healthy, is what truly matters.” Mars continued, ”I love you, mom.”
