Part 14 - Pass It On!
It was beautiful. And he'd seen plenty enough forests in this lifetime to know when he saw a good one. And this one just seemed so green, so lush, so fragrant...
So full of angry people.
As soon as he and Ares popped into the vibrant woodland, he noticed both the beauty and the tension, which was as palpable as an honest-to-goodness tree. The War God had materialized them on a spot situated exactly between each settlement nestled in the trees so as not to play favorites. Even this far away, Joxer could feel it building up around him, the anger and hate whirling through the air thick as ash. It was almost hard to breathe. The hand still on his back slid up slowly (agonizingly so) to his shoulder in a comforting and frustratingly casually arousing way. Joxer swallowed hard, willing his body to behave. This was the God of War he was contemplating about jumping on. Eventually, the rampant erection was going to get noticed and then... He forced himself to think of other things, like the obvious trouble brewing around them.
As if on cue, a shimmer of fierce purple light appeared in front of them, exploding in a flash that deposited the Goddess of Discord in the forest, looking none-too-happy with the situation herself.
"About fucking time, Ar'!" she snorted and scowled, glaring at her brother with flashing blue-violet eyes. "What were you doing, re-enacting the war with the Titans blow for blow? Sweet Zeus' Balls! I do any more goody-goody shit and I'll be reassigned to Dite's stable. And pink makes me look nauseous! Hey Jox." Her voice lightened slightly as she addressed the mortal, no blame available for him. She gave him a quick once-over and noticed his current state of dress. Nice. She hoped her brother got the chance to properly appreciate that body soon. It was entirely too nice to go to waste.
"Your mouth. Close it." Ares' voice was calm but Joxer could sense the underlying rumble of stern authority. Discord sulked for a minute or two, but silently. "The situation?" A loft of his eyebrow in her direction indicated that it was her turn to talk again.
"They're not fighting, thought not from lack of effort," the dark goddess grumped, her hands clenched at her hips in tight fists. "The dumbest things are setting people off. Yesterday, it was 'who has the prettiest pigs'. Today, it's who has the rights to the river that's not even near these two nothing little collections of mud huts and rags. Tomorrow... well, who in Tartarus knows what's next." She forced her voice to sound so bright and cheery that Joxer had to bite his lip to keep from snickering out loud at how phony it sounded. "Maybe a spitting contest!"
"Tomorrow, this will be another square on a map," Ares' dark eyes swept between the two settlements set before them. "They need a season or two to recover from this stupidity, rebuild their resources, help the land renew..."
"Great. Now I'm helping Demeter, too," Eris complained under her breath.
Ares ignored his twin and turned the conversation to his heart's desire, standing there in the world's tightest leather pants and baby-fine skin and bottomless chocolate eyes... He shook it off again. "If I don't get things to calm down, they'll tear each other apart. Ordinarily, I wouldn't care this much. Little clan dust-ups don't usually require much guidance, but...
A little thought seemed to tickle at Joxer's brain, growing like a sun-starved flower finally having light to reach for. He narrowed his eyes and examined each town from the neutral point the three of them stood on. In his head, a picture focused, that of a much larger town... a city with permanent market-stalls and stone buildings and people bustling around on cobbled stone streets. Vast fields of crops and busy commerce. Artwork and architecture. It seemed so real, as if he could reach out and touch it. The image dissolved quickly, leaving the pretty, thick forest around him again. He nodded and looked furtively but adoringly at his god. What Xena didn't know could fill an amphitheater... with encores.
