#athena.

[ 🫳 ]ㅤ.ㅤwho do they feel they owe, but never paid back ?

[ 🧨 ]ㅤ.ㅤwhat’s the quickest way to set them off, even if they hide it well ?

[ 🩸 ]ㅤ.ㅤis there something or someone that, if lost, would break them ?

For Ares, Athena, and Hephaestus

[ 💤 ]

athena is a hugger - she's curled into a tiny ball with a pillow in her arms until she's a human donut under the covers. she likes a good nest around her, too, lots of warmth.

ares is a back sleeper, legs sprawled out wide, blankets inevitably around his waist.

hephaestus tosses and turns a lot, but usually always ends up somewhat diagonal, with pillows arranged just so to keep him propped the right way.

[ 🫳 ]

for athena, it's her mother. not that she's ever had a chance to repay metis, but everything she is and was allowed to become was because of metis' sacrifices, and the very essence of her mother, transmitted to her to give her life. it's powerful, and athena wishes she could show her gratitude somehow.

i had to think on this one for ares for a while, but i think maybe artemis? he was a wreck after his captivity, but artemis was ultimately the one who saved him and i don't think he was in the right state of mind afterwards to thank her. so maybe that!

it's not for lack of trying, but i think hephaestus feels as though there's nothing he can ever truly do to repay thetis for her assistance in his childhood. she raised him when he was unwanted, sheltered him when he was injured, and gave to him the peaceful childhood he likely would not have had otherwise. he hasn't stopped "repaying" her, and he likely never will.

[ 🧨 ]

for athena, anything that triggers her perfectionism. if it's insinuated that she's failed, or that she isn't doing something well enough, she can become incredibly agitated.

for ares, insulting or directly harming anyone he cares about. it can be an offhand comment about aphrodite, or harmonia, or his mother - but he will go off the rails to defend them. otherwise, his anger is typically reserved for battlefields.

for hephaestus, it's messing with his space or his routine. nothing pisses him off faster than someone moving a tool and it not being where he needs it.

[ 🩸 ]

if athena lost her sense of purpose, her duties, the necessity of others, i think that would break her. she is so bound to her feeling of usefulness, that suddenly being made null and unimportant would genuinely destroy her sense of self.

for ares, take your pick, lmfao. he's always one bad day away from losing his mind, and has come quite close in several instances. losing aphrodite, losing his children, losing his mother, his sisters - he loses any one of them and he's going bonkers.

*me approximately five seconds later*

Athena: Heh, you would be lucky to tickle me.

athena, who is masculinized by her peers, those who see warfare as something inherently male. and despite her greatest efforts, despite being a woman, there are some who will never really see her as such. some who cannot fathom that war could be a woman's world, and that the only reason she rose to such prowess was because she was trans.

zeus: like lovers watching the sunset

calm, focused, tender. you need to be loved in the way teenagers kiss in the rain and giggle behind hands. you need to be loved like a child, taken care of, watched over, focused on. you need to feel the warmth of the sun, you need to feel the love rushing through your veins. you need to be reminded that love is worth it, and it’s beautiful to experience. you need to be loved in a way that is refreshing, again and again.

athena: like the burn marks on my hands

you need to be loved gently, taken care of. you need to let yourself b taken care of. you deserve the kindness. you deserve to have fingertips pressed to yours, you deserve soft smiles and quiet laughs. you need to be kissed in the middle of the night, you need to be told it’s okay. you’re used to aggressive love, you need it gently.