username; iBrevity
name; Mallory
gender; male
short story;
He remembered Mount Olympus with lingering fondness. His father was incapable of stripping him of such memories, much as he had tried; but he couldn't take from his son the sweeping hallways, the thin, cold clouds, the white marble floors of his childhood and adolescence. In his frequent fits of rage Zeus railed against having this son at all, ranted that he was an unnecessary addition to their palace, suggested sharply that he should simply stay with the mortals if he so prefers them to his family.
Mallory had always been good at controlling his temper. Through the years he had demurred to his father, apologized for his long absences from Olympus, and excused himself when Zeus petered out of insults. He preferred the humans because they were different; because they did not concern themselves with grudges centuries old, because they did not recognize him for what he truly was. He preferred the humans because they were not his family, because they did not know of his past atrocities, because they did not corner him on narrow cliffs and ask cruelly if he missed starting wars.
When one morning Mallory swept through the throne room smoking a thieved cigarette, his father stopped him with a shout. Mallory seethed, and again his father asked him, why do you like the mortals so much? Have they done for you half of what we have?
And Mallory, millennia old, undeniably young, said unexpectedly, "Because when I'm with them I don't have to see you."
Zeus reached for his memories, yanked at the press of bare feet on their marble porches, at the sensation of a close storm raising the fine hairs on his arms. When the memories were reluctant to come Zeus demanded Mallory remove himself from their mountain; and when Mallory resisted him, Zeus heaved from his hand a great, golden thunderbolt.
When Mallory woke, he was in a mortal body, on the mortal's earth. He felt claustrophobic, as though he was wearing clothes two sizes too tight; and he ducked into the nearest store he could find just to see himself, and stood dumbfounded before their mirror.
They had chosen for him the softest body they could find, Mallory thought dismally. He was small, slender, his hips and waist of similar width. He looked unable to lift more than twenty pounds, and to be panting at ten. Mallory pinched the bicep of this borrowed body and flinched when it actually hurt, and that was when he realized the true extent of his father's punishment. He remembered his father saying, if you prefer the mortals, why don't you stay with them?
Mallory, once called Ares, god of war, god of anger, god of violence, pressed his hands to his eyes and sighed. He considered offering to his father an apology; but the idea of it, of Zeus cramming his son here, where he was useless and frail, stilled him. He would stay and play at human, then. How hard could it be?
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