Divine Delivery Debacle

Hermes sat at his celestial desk, drowning in a mountain of messages.

The Olympian Postal Service was understaffed—again—and he'd been pulling double shifts all week. His caduceus, usually pristine, had coffee stains on it, and his winged sandals were desperately in need of a polish.

He grabbed the next scroll in his "Ultra-Priority Divine Dispatches" pile, barely registering the addressee before stamping it with his signature lightning bolt and tossing it into the outgoing portal.

The scroll, marked "To Mars, God of War, Roman Pantheon," spiraled through the ethereal currents and, due to a cosmic hiccup (or perhaps Hermes' caffeine-addled state), landed squarely on the desk of Ares, God of War, Greek Pantheon.

Ares was in the middle of polishing his favorite spear—the one he used exclusively for starting bar fights—when the scroll materialized. He picked it up, broke the seal, and began to read:

"Dearest husband, I wanted you to be the first to know: we're expecting! I know we've talked about expanding our divine family, and now it's finally happening. The Oracle of Tibur confirmed it this morning. You're going to be a father! Love eternally, Bellona"

Ares dropped his spear, which clattered to the floor and left a nasty scratch in his marble flooring.

"I'm... what?" He read the message again, then a third time.

"But I'm not... I haven't... Oh, Zeus' lightning bolts!"

In a panic, Ares began pacing his war room, knocking over various weapons of mass destruction.

"How drunk was I at that last Pantheon mixer? Did I accidentally marry someone? Again?"

He had a vague recollection of a wild party on Mount Olympus last month, but everything after his drinking contest with Dionysus was a blur.

Meanwhile, in the Roman pantheon, Mars was wondering why his wife hadn't spoken to him all day. Bellona had been acting strange lately—running to the bathroom every morning, craving peculiar combinations of ambrosia and mortal foods, and showing an unusual interest in baby war chariots.

Back in Greece, Ares decided to face this like the god of war he was: with blind panic and poor decision-making. He immediately called an emergency meeting with Aphrodite, his go-to advisor for all relationship crises.

"You did WHAT?" Aphrodite nearly choked on her nectar.

"I didn't do anything! At least, I don't think I did. But apparently, I'm going to be a father, and I don't even remember getting married!"

Aphrodite read the scroll, rolling her eyes.

"Ares, darling, this is addressed to Mars. You know, your Roman counterpart? The one who's actually married to Bellona?"

"But... but it was delivered to me!"

"Honestly, when was the last time you checked your mail properly? You're worse than Zeus with his spam scrolls about extending his thunderbolt warranty."

Just then, another scroll materialized—this one from Mars himself, addressed to the Greek pantheon at large:

"TO WHOEVER STOLE MY WIFE'S PREGNANCY ANNOUNCEMENT: I DEMAND SATISFACTION. MEET ME AT THE COLOSSEUM AT SUNSET FOR COMBAT. BRING YOUR OWN WEAPONS AND A LIGHT SNACK TO SHARE."

Ares brightened considerably.

"Oh good, violence! That I understand!"

At sunset, Ares appeared at the Colosseum, carrying both his weapons, a bowl of his famous "War-tamole" (guacamole with extra hot peppers), and a large bag tortilla chips. He found Mars pacing the arena, looking equally angry and anxious.

"You!" Mars pointed his gladius at Ares.

"You stole my moment! I was supposed to get that news first! Do you know how long we've been trying for a baby?"

"Look," Ares held up his hands, one still clutching the bowl of War-tamole, "this is clearly Hermes' fault. He's been working overtime again, probably hasn't slept in days. You know how he gets."

Mars lowered his sword slightly.

"Is that War-tamole?"

"Yeah, new recipe. Added some ghost peppers."

"...I could eat."

The two gods of war sat in the Colosseum, sharing spicy guacamole with tortilla chips and war stories as the sun set over Rome.

Mars shared his anxieties about impending fatherhood, while Ares offered questionable advice based on his experiences with his own children—most of which ended up being warriors, naturally.

"You know what really bothers me?" Mars said, scraping the bottom of the War-tamole bowl.

"Bellona's probably worried sick wondering why I haven't responded to her news."

"Oh, Hades," Ares muttered.

"You should probably go handle that."

"Yeah. But first..." Mars stood up, grabbing his gladius.

"We're still gods of war. Want to have a friendly spar? For the honor of our respective pantheons?"

Ares grinned, picking up his spear. "Now you're speaking my language."

The battle between Ares and Mars became increasingly enthusiastic, with each god trying to outdo the other in spectacular fashion.

A stray spear throw from Ares accidentally demolished the Colosseum's eastern wall, while Mars' shield toss somehow managed to decapitate three statues in the Forum Romanum.

"My bad!" Ares called out, watching a column topple into a perfectly preserved temple.

"I'll fix that... eventually."

"Don't worry about it," Mars replied, ducking under a flying chariot wheel.

"The mortals are always renovating anyway. Gives them something to do."

By sunrise, half of Rome looked like it had been hit by a very localized hurricane.

The Roman Senate building had a spear-shaped hole through its roof, the aqueducts were flowing in exciting new directions, and several prestigious villas had been accidentally redecorated in early destruction style.

Meanwhile, back at the Olympian Postal Service, Hermes had emerged from his caffeine-induced coma with what he believed to be a brilliant solution to the mail mix-up problem. He'd spent three sleepless nights developing a new color-coding system for inter-pantheon communications:

• Red for Roman

• Green for Greek

• Gold for Germanic

• Norse got neon

• Egyptian got emerald

• Celtic got crimson

• Aztec got azure

• Mayan got magenta

• Persian got purple

• Polynesian got periwinkle

"It's foolproof!" he declared to his unimpressed staff of minor messenger deities. "We'll never mix up pantheons again!"

Unfortunately, Hermes had forgotten about his own color blindness, a fact he'd managed to keep secret for several millennia.

Within hours, the new system had resulted in Thor receiving Osiris' underwear catalog subscription, the Celtic goddess Brigid getting a strongly-worded complaint meant for Jupiter, and somehow, inexplicably, all of Aphrodite's fan mail being redirected to a very confused Buddhist monastery in Tibet.

The chaos reached its peak when a delivery of love arrows intended for Cupid ended up in the hands of Loki, who promptly had the time of his immortal life making Odin fall in love with a particularly handsome goat.

Back in Rome, Bellona had finally tracked down her husband Mars, who was attempting to repair a fountain he and Ares had accidentally turned into a geyser.

"There you are!" she exclaimed.

"I've been waiting for your response all day! Did you not get my message?"

Mars glanced at Ares, who was poorly disguised behind a half-demolished column, wearing a unconvincing fake beard and a toga that read "DEFINITELY NOT A GREEK GOD."

"My beloved," Mars began diplomatically, "there was a slight delivery issue—"

"SLIGHT?" came a bellow from above. Zeus himself descended from the clouds, looking thoroughly annoyed.

"Do you know how many complaints I've received about the postal service today? Athena got Freya's subscription to 'Better Homes and Valhallas,' Anubis received an invitation to Apollo's poetry slam, and somehow my personal lightning bolt polishing kit ended up in Maui's beach house!"

"To be fair," Ares chimed in, dropping his fake beard, "Maui's been wanting to get into the lightning business for centuries. Very entrepreneurial of him."

Hermes appeared in a flash, clutching a color chart and looking frazzled.

"Lord Zeus, I can explain! See, the red means Roman, unless it's actually green, which could be Norse depending on how you hold it up to the light, and if you squint—"

"ENOUGH!" Zeus thundered, literally.

"From now on, we're switching to email. Hephaestus has been pestering me about upgrading our communication systems anyway."

"But my color-coding system—" Hermes protested.

"Will be retired immediately," Zeus finished.

"Along with your coffee privileges."

In the end, Bellona forgave Mars for his delayed response, especially after he explained the situation and presented her with a peace offering: Ares' secret War-tamole recipe (which would later become a hit at all inter-pantheon baby showers).

The Roman Senate building was eventually repaired, though the spear hole was kept as a skylight after the senators decided it improved ventilation during their longer debates.

Hermes was assigned to attend color recognition therapy with the Fates, who turned out to be excellent counselors when they weren't busy determining the destiny of all existence.

The Olympian Postal Service was modernized with Hephaestus's new "Divine Digital Communications System," though gods over a certain age still complained that scrolls had more personality.

As for Ares and Mars, they established a monthly war gods' dinner club, alternating between Greek and Roman venues, where they could share stories, compare combat techniques, and occasionally cause property damage in a controlled environment.

Their first meeting's minutes were accidentally delivered to a pacifist commune in Elysium, but that's another story entirely.

And somewhere in Tibet, a group of Buddhist monks are still trying to figure out what to do with their ever-growing collection of love letters addressed to Aphrodite, which they've taken to using as rather romantic bookmarks in their ancient texts.

The moral of the story? Even gods need to check their spam folders, and never trust a sleep-deprived deity with office reorganization.

Also, War-tamole is best served at room temperature, preferably not during actual combat.