Warning:
This story contains quite a lot of mentions of blood and is quite heavy. It even started getting heavy on me when I was writing it. So I wanted to give you a fair warning that I didn't expect it to get so dark. That's why I tried (?) to give it a bit of a better ending? Sorry if that feels a bit rushed. You guys let me know what you think. If this isn't your thing, totally fine, scroll on and enjoy the next one.
- Athena
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The throne room was tense. At least that was what Nike made up from the quiet gods.
It's one thing if they bicker and fight, but when they're silent they're even scarier. The reason why is quite simple really.
When a god is silent and the air is tense, that means they're afraid and what's scarier than to see an almighty being, able to take a life at the flick of their wrist, afraid of something?
Nike stood next to Zeus' throne as always. The boring part of the job. Unless of course things like this happened.
The victory goddess took a glance at her wife, who was sitting directly across from her, on her golden throne.
Athena seemed nervous for some reason. As if she dreaded what was coming. Her grey eyes were scanning the room, as if she was daring someone to make a sound.
Nike could already imagine someone accidentally making a sound and her wife skewering them with her long, golden spear.
She almost chuckeled, she might've been the skewered one, if the thunder outside didn't scare her soul out of its body.
It was so loud the building trembled. The entire council glanced at Zeus. The king of the gods raised his hands as if he said 'wasn't me'.
Nike looked through one of the temple windows. Outside the rain was pouring and lightning flashed. As she stared outside someone seemed to get closer to the window.
A figure with dark wings and dark hair entered the room. Their skin was greyish. The color, weirdly enough, reminded Nike of Athena's eyes. It was almost the same shade of grey.
The angel recognized the figure as Thanathos. The god of death. One of the chtonic deities, living in the underworld.
He stepped into the room, through the window, the same way a sales person would enter through a door.
"Ah war gods!" Thanathos said, spreading his arms wide.
"It's that time again. Let's see how many deaths you've caused this decade shall we?"
Out of thin air a notepad appeared in his hands. Nike looked at her wife. She could swear she could see a shiver go down Athena's spine. And quite frankly Ares didn't look much better. Why they were so afraid of the god of death was beyond the victory goddess.
"Lady Hestia, do you mind if I borrow the center of the room around your fire for a couple of moments?" Thanathos said with a wide grin.
Hestia gave him a small smile, that seemed rather forced and nodded. She chose to stand next to Artemis. The goddess of the hunt gave Hestia an encouraging smile.
"And this decade we have an audience! Lovely!" The god of death motioned at the Olympians.
"And is that... A new lover I spot? Last decade you weren't here." He grinned, pointing towards Nike.
Athena was quite sure the others could hear her grit her teeth. But she didn't care. Thanathos better left Nike alone if he didn't want to end up on the pointy end of her spear.
"Now, now, dear Athena, didn't daddy teach you any manners? No need to be so protective. I can feel your eyes burning into my back darling." He turned his develish smile to the wisdom goddess.
"But enough chit chat. Let's get to business. The sooner I'm out of here, the sooner you two can get started on our meeting for the next decade." Thanathos said, pointing between Ares and Athena.
"Now, you two know how this works. Place your hands out in front of you please."
The wisdom goddess and the god of violence shared a look. The god of death clicked his tongue.
"I don't have time for this." He muttered.
He snapped his fingers and without wanting to Ares and Athena had their hands out in front of them.
"Arm guards. Pesky things." Thanathos added.
Again he snapped his fingers and the wrists of both war gods were bare. Nike blinked a couple of times to make sure she wasn't dreaming. This 'dark angel' (if you could call him that) just messed with two Olympians. Without even breaking a sweat.
Most likely because Ares and Athena were too dumbstruck to do anything, but still. The angel felt like it wasn't supposed to be this easy.
"Alright-"
Thanathos clasped his hands together and turned to his 'audience'.
"-Give me your vote people. Who do you think send the most souls to Hades in the past decade?"
Before anyone could say anything the god moved on.
"I know right! We're alllll thinking Ares! God of violence and all that." He laughed.
The god of death walked up to both Ares and Athena, who still had their arms stretched out in front of them and touched both their hands with his own. Nike concluded they were probably not able to move because no one would stay like that out of free will and certainly not her wife.
After Thanathos touched their hands they slowly turned blood red. It started at the war gods' fingertips and slowly moved to corrupt the entire hand, moving to their wrists.
"See now the beauty of this little trick is that the more kills they made the higher the blood on their hands will reach." Thanathos said with a smirk.
"Wait... That's real blood?" Demeter said with a look of disgust.
Ever since she took a taste of Tantalus' kid, she kind of started resenting human flesh and blood.
"Fine question, lady of harvest, the answer is simple. Yes, that is real blood. Blood of people they killed."
Thanthos eyes gleamed dangerously. Nike hated every moment of it. The blood had spread past Athena's wrists and now reached her lower arms. It dropped to the ground and formed a puddle at her feet.
Seeing this made her mad. Altough she wasn't sure if she should be mad at Thanathos or Athena, because if she understood correctly that blood belonged to the people she killed.
Thanathos snapped his fingers. The blood on Ares' arms stopped spreading.
"God of violence. Great job in the killing department in this last decade. Honestly well done." The God of death clapped slowly.
"But not as much as usual, you have me a little disappointed man." He said.
The blood stopped at the war God's elbows. Everybody in the room was dumbfounded. They started at the eldest daughter of Zeus, who was becoming more and more uncomfortable.
The blood on her arms spread over her elbows and stopped only halfway her upper arms.
"That can't be good." Hermes muttered.
"But my oh my, get this-"
Thanathos turned to Zeus.
"Your little favorite killed even more people!" The god of death exclaimed.
"Nonsense!" Zeus boomed.
"She would've prevented those deaths rather than execute them."
"Right, right, I didn't say she did it on purpose. Ares kills whoever he chooses. But Athena? Oh she plans it all out." Thanathos says.
"So you tell me king of the gods? What is worse? A random killing spree? Or having all planned out who to kill so it will support your own victory?" The God of death ended.
At the word victory he looked at Nike. The angel swallowed.
"But then again we're all gods so I suppose we all got some blood on our hands don't we?"
At the snap of Thanathos' hands everyone got a bit of blood on their hands.
"Thank you for watching I'll see all of you in the next decade." The God made a bow, snapped his fingers.
The moment he disappeared so did the blood. They all sat there. Silent and shocked.
Athena regained the control of her own hands. She looked at them, but they didn't seem to be her own. It was over now. She looked at her wife across her, hoping to find something that she could hold on to.
She found that something. Nike's face softened. The angel stepped forward until she stood in front of the wisdom goddess.
In front of the other gods Nike took Athena's hands and slowly turned them to gold. Exactly to the same height as the blood had come.
"You might be responsible for all those deaths, but what Thanathos didn't mention is how each single one affected you personally. How you gave them their final rites so they could cross the Styx with Charon's boat. Both to your own people and those who died at your soldiers' blades." The angel said.
"You did what you had to, to reach peace. You're a defender of peace. But sometimes peace is disturbed and it can only be reachieved after war."
It might sound weird, but Nike turning her hands to gold meant to world to Athena. Thanathos had made her feel like she was a monster. As if she took pleasure in killing. But her angel showed everyone what was behind that. For every single soul she sent to Hades, she had shed a tear. Even the most vile and rude of brutes.
At that point Athena realized that there was no one like Nike. The victory goddess would always defend her. Just as she would always stand by her, no matter how horrible her actions would get.