With Zeus not home, Ares felt safe enough to kick open the doors of his father’s temple and have a look around. Perhaps his father was off turning into a swan or a turtle or perhaps a vole. Whatever animal he liked to be when he laid claim to mortal women - a habit that baffled the war god. Why not stay in human form and let the bodies intertwine in the way they fit best? Having sex with a woman while in the form of a swan or a bull or even a bear...it was weird. In fact, now that he thought of it, his father and his uncles had such a weird fascination with being animals while with mortal women. To each their own, he supposed.

He moved along the stately columns of the temple, wandering towards the room he knew to contain the lightning bolts. Should he be going into his father’s temple, messing with the man’s most prized weapons? No. Was he going to? Absolutely yes, yes he was. Ares had always been drawn to the lightning, wishing to wield it as his father did. Being the god of war, he liked to watch the chaos of the lightning reign across the heavens, causing justified fear in the mortals. It was glorious. And he was jealous that he rarely got to do the same.

Zeus’s temple was magnificent and always inspired him to make his own more grand whenever he entered here. Really, he needed to be more creative but he liked the spartan space of his own. The clean lines and very little mess. Here there was decoration, dedication to true beauty, all silvers and whites and grays, interspersed with splashes of vivid color.

Once he was through the main portion of the temple, he came to the room he sought most. It sparked and glittered when he opened the doors. Lightning bolts lined the walls, ready to be picked up and thrown. Glancing behind him, he checked to make sure he was well and truly alone. “Zeus?” he called, and then louder, “Zeus?”

No answer. Perfect.

Ares flung open the doors and strode into the room, over confident now that there was no way Zeus was going to stop him. He took up the first bolt he came to and grinned as it hummed in his fist. The raw power inside it was delicious and he walked out to the first window he found. With a grunt, he hurled the thing down into the swirling clouds below. They flickered as the lightning passed through them and then the crash of thunder boomed. He laughed.

“Yes!” Obviously he had to do that again.

Dashing back into the room, he seized another bolt and flung it out the window. In the resounding crash of thunder, he darted back to his father’s lightning room and took an armload off of the wall. He felt like a child again, cackling like a lunatic and tossing lightning bolts out of the window fast enough to warrant an actual storm on the land below. The clouds swelled and dropped torrents of rain.

“This is amazing!” he shouted, gleefully. “I see why he does it now!” Another few rounds and he was sated from the experience, although there were considerably less bolts in his father’s lightning closet. Ares chewed on his bottom lip, thinking. Zeus was probably going to notice.