This is terribly late and I sincerely apologize for that. It is also mainly a late night thought vomit so here you go. it's also rather anticlimactic but it's all I can do I'm afraid

Beware my young warrior

for life shall not be bliss

Beware my young warrior

for there may never come a time such as this

Beware my wayward son

for life for you has only just begun

Mother was right to say those words. Things didn't really go back to how they were before the family drifted apart. Guess that's immortality for you; Promises being nothing but pretty words and disappointment. There's a lot of things I asked for in life; our family being complete, Eris being back to normal (well as normal as an immortal can get), having my own family, and well being happy.

I've seen the perfect afternoon in my mind's eye once or twice. Mother and Father sitting in the balcony having a playful banter over tea like they used to with all my siblings carefree and left to their own devices chatting about while I play with my own lil tykes probably with my wife by my side. Eris pulling pranks with Hermes in the corner while Heph and Athena talk about the next big thing that will bring civilization to greater heights unaware of the mischief the former duo is about to unleash. It's perfect, peaceful, and everyone is happy. Then again, even gods can dream right?

I spent a good chunk of my life waiting for that day and doing all sorts of stupid things so that I can at least get one of the things I hoped for, but here I am still. I can spend all my life wishing for things that can never be and keep telling myself one day things will be better, but that hasn't taken me anywhere now has it? I've neglected my own nature by passively wishing my life away.

Life isn't a fairytale where you can just wait and wait and wait for things to get better. Life is just what it is. I have been so fixated on the past and my own fantasies that I have forgotten this. Things happen and sometimes you can't do anything to change it, but that doesn't change the fact that the situation is there and you are there. Denying it won't make it go away, nor does wishing, but you can do something. I forgot how to actually struggle and so something about it. I became the very thing I didn't want to become; a decoration. I have stopped acting and became a mere spectator. I havemade myself helpless and powerless, and that has to change.

Eris needed a strong brother but I wasn't, I chose to be like the others living a hollow existence.

Mother needed a strong son she can rely on and be proud of, but I chose to tread the same path my father did.

There were a lot of opportunities like this that I missed while holding on to the notion that fate or someone else was going to fix the problems we had. I was naive to waste away waiting for father or anyone to just fix it when I could've done it myself. I could have been there for my siblings and helped them like a good brother would, but I chose to let myself become self-absorbed lamenting over our situation. This has to change; I have to change.

it's about time I take charge and get my sorry ass out of the sidelines and start acting like who I was meant to be; a

son, a brother, a lover, a father, a warrior.

I am war. I am change. I am passion and the struggle that creates men our of boys and women our of girls. Iam Ares the god of war and I am the master of my own fate.