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Senseless death in combat should have been something Ares had gotten used to after so long, but it still pulled at his chest. It was unpreventable but it didn’t have to be callous and the scene in front of him was most definitely that.
Ares bellowed as his racing footsteps shook the earth with his fury and his sword, raised high, sung through the air as he whirled it above his head. Soaring over the young soldier on the ground, cutting down the man above them whose grin had been sadistic as he tormented them seconds prior. Cut after cut, pulling weak cries from their lips as loss of blood pulled them closer to death.
Ares panted over their wilting form, his gaze full of fury as the enemy soldier took his last breath, before turning back to the child at his feet. The face of war softened on theirs, the flames in his eyes subsiding as he knelt by their side. They couldn’t feel much, but the hands lifting them into his lap were more gentle than they would’ve expected from a god so fierce. As was his caress smoothing the blood matted hair from their forehead and his words soothing their fear.
He stayed with them as they slipped in and out of consciousness. It didn’t take long for them to succumb to their wounds, but Ares never left their side.
He had to wait.
“Thanatos,” Ares’ whispered eventually in begrudging acknowledgment of the newcomer now hovering by his side, looking down at the sleeping figure.
“I’m here now, cousin. You can let them go. I’ll take good care of them. I always do.”
“They’re so young,” Ares’ stiff shoulders slumped in defeat before he finally lifted his gaze from the child in his arms, chest barely rising with breath as their skin paled and their lips turned blue.
“Aren’t they always?” The God of Death’s words weren’t intentionally cruel, his tone was sympathetic even. It was simply a statement of fact.
“I truly despise those cowards that hide behind my name and send children to my battlefields in their stead.” The sound that rumbles from Thanatos’ chest is comforting but noncommittal. They both know that there was little either of them can do to stop the senseless theft of youth in the world of humans.
Even if Ares slit the throats of every one of those pathetic warmongers as they hovered over their miniature scenes of combat - simulations of war that they would never have to witness, playing at battle like a children’s game with no real consequences – it would make little difference. Like the Hydra, humanity never let themselves have peace, someone would always step into the power vacuum before it could close in on itself.
They both knew well that they would never rest as long as humanity persisted. They would always be at war and they would always die.
So Ares passed the duty to Thanatos as he always did, knowing that his cousin’s earlier words were true. He always showed Ares’ soldiers the utmost care on their journey.
The soul, gray and hazy, of the youth who rested in his lap rose from its body, groggy and confused but Thanatos simply held out his hand and helped them steady on their weightless feet.
That was one thing War could always count on: that Death would be there waiting at the end of every soldier’s battle.
- A. Yenzer