This World

Ares’ eyes squinted in the sudden half-darkness. The clink of Hepheastus’ chains gathering about his feet made him jump; he shuffled out of their coils.

It should have felt different, he decided, looking around at the destroyed hall of Olympus. He was almost certain that he’d felt different, before, when he’d had his mortality snatched away with his blade, when he’d had it taken by a word.

Of course, this time he’d given it.

And the throne, once filled by his father, once by his sister, was finally empty. The whole room was empty . . . and the floor was slick with Athena’s blood. He could see Artemis’ pale hand by the far pillar, too. The ceiling was sporting a rather serious crack, and the floor was littered with debris from the wild battle only moments before. It was so silent that it seemed all the sound in the world had been used up by the cacophony preceding the quiet.

The world should have felt different. And he should have, too. Without the flow of power about him, and without the possibility of eternity within him. But somehow he felt pretty much the same as always.

He hadn’t imagined that mortality would end this. Oh, occasionally he’d bandied the word about, but in reality he’d only thought of two things. Living as he always had, as a god, without Xena. And being dead. Again without Xena.

Funny, that there was a third option. Living as a mortal. Without Xena.

The room shook again, as it had sporadically, ever since the grown Eve had shouldered her future. As though the spirits of the air were uneasy with the power change. It would be dangerous for him to hang around Olympus now, it occurred to him. The walls seemed about to cave in, the roof ready to follow, the earth happy to swallow the place up into long forgetfulness. His original prospect – that of death – was still a possibility, he realised. It didn’t feel like that, though. Actually it felt as though he’d gained his own life with those of the girls’ he’d healed. Death seemed distant.

A strange drumming distracted him a moment; he realised it was the throb of life within his body. He had not needed that reminder before. Now he could hear his life all over him, his heart pounding, the pulse in his wrist thrumming. But when he looked down at his hands they seemed unaltered.

He slowly rubbed a hand over his face. If he looked in a mirror, he’d seem the same. If he encountered a stranger, they’d cower, thinking they looked upon a god, not a man. And if they challenged him, he’d raise a hand, forgetting that fire no longer appeared at the movement of his fingers.

Nothing would. But just then, standing there, it didn’t seem to mean much.

A scuffle made him turn, and he saw Aphrodite standing, horrified, by the far pillar. Her mouth was opening and shutting fruitlessly; she was clinging onto the stones as though they were the only familiar thing in the room. Funny, the way her wisps of black floated around her, even though – for once – her appearance was probably the last thing on her mind. But it was so much part of her that the illusion couldn’t fail, even when she was shocked into speechlessness.

He hadn’t known there was anything about himself that would survive such a change, something so solid, so much part of himself, it couldn’t fail. But there it was. Everything in his entire world had altered, but he still felt the same.

Xena finally stood up.

She’d been on the floor, her arms tight around the two women fallen there, the three of them mumbling indistinctly, trembling with shocked tears, grabbing firmly onto one another.

But she stood up finally, and turned deliberately, and looked at him. Her face was battered; her eyes shiny with tears.

Oh.

Mortal, with Xena alive, was a better option than he’d ever hoped for. His eyes searched hers uncertainly.

“Thank you.”

He nodded once, almost forgetting right away – had she, or had he uttered those words? Anyway, he realised why it didn’t feel any different. He didn’t have the glow of power, the certainty of forever, or the fire in his hands. He had the hope of love, though. Yeah. The hope of love.

...h.o.m.e...
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