All’s Fair in Love and War

by Oceans_Away

Summary:

After centuries growing her godhood on earth, Aphrodite feels ready to take on Olympus, and she's making a serious stir. Fresh off his first campaign, Ares is stepping into the role of War, and his troubled family is setting high expectations. When the two meet by chance in Hera's garden, it sparks a friendship and a love that will change them and Olympus for ages to come.

A story about power, and the many things it means. A story about feeling, and knowing yourself through it.

Hey, hopeless romantics! Settle in for the ride if you:
Pine for "When Harry Met Sally" and "Ten Things I Hate About You", but wish they also had a bunch of magical god shit and queerness.
Think smut is great, but it would be cool if it was scripted by Lorelai Gilmore.
Like reading women and bisexuals being friends, enemies, and lovers, while making a ton of bad decisions and (arguably too many) feminist speeches.
Have a thing for characters with *ambient chaos*... and also direct chaos.

Buckle up, Buttercups! Actually, don't bother, it's a slow burn. Better grab some snacks.

Building up the soundtrack by chapter here!

Chapter 1: “I’m a very old goddess.”

Summary:

Journalist, Acteon, interviews the new goddess lately arrived on Olympus. He wasn't really prepared for her.

Song, Part 1: 3,200 Years Ago, James Horner (Troy OST)
Song, Part 2: Fame, David Bowie

Darkness. Darkness and the pressure of water. It weighs down her body, pinning her to the soft seabed, compressing her lungs, clogging her nose, making her eyes ache. Fish flash silver across her vision. Kelp curls around her ankles. Webs of coral sprout in a gnarled cage. A white-gold glimmer seeps through the deep green of the chasm of water, but is extinguished in a cloud of squid ink. 

She knows one thing in her barely formed consciousness. She will not die here. She doesn’t yet know what it means to be alive. She just knows she wants it, and that it is more than this.

She opens her mouth and takes a defiant breath.

Water floods her body. It bloats her lungs, courses in her veins, swirls in her skull, booms in her ears. It makes her light. It makes her float. It makes her strong. She gulps again. She gives herself to the sea. She claims its weight, its darkness, its power. She kicks and the kelp whips away. She shoots her fists out above her and the tendrils of coral shatter in a burst of pink dust. She writhes and swims in the heavy surge pushing her down. 

She fights.

She rises.

Her legs stop flailing and begin to purposefully propel her upwards. With her reaching arms she grabs great handfuls of swishing water and wrenches herself higher. 

The white-gold glimmer winks through the emerald vastness. It brightens and swells as she climbs through the dense, pressing water.

She fights.

She rises.

The water thins. It washes turquoise. She can see her own hands, her own arms, the wild stream of her hair around her.

She gulps again, taking the sea into herself, consuming it, consuming all in her path.

The light becomes a glittering, fractured orb, blazing through the rippling waves and showering her with something new, something wonderful. Warmth. 

Warmth.

Light.

Life.

Love.

It’s all up there. She has a purpose. She has a power. She has an existence. Waiting for her. Wanting her. 

She kicks. She climbs. She thrashes. She hauls herself higher, pulsing undulations going down her body as she throws herself into the ascent. Her muscles roll. Her eyes reflect that stunning, summoning light. 

She fights.

She rises.

The surface of the sea blows apart. Crystal drops and crashing waves erupt across the piercing blue.

In the singeing, spiralling dance where sunlight meets the ocean, she is born.

She, the originating act of wrath incarnate.

The last echo of the titans.

Glorious.

Primal.

Dazzling.

Dawn breaks over the world, and welcomes the first of the gods.

 

*

 

Acteon cleared his throat and clicked his pen nervously. He was sweating through his polyester shirt, his hair slick from the number of times he’d run his hand through it. The goddess sat in a relaxed half-lounge in the compact armchair opposite him, one long leg crossed over the other, tapering fluidly into a keen, pointed stiletto. She watched him with glittering, lavender eyes peeking from a voluminous sweep of lavender hair.

He swallowed. “Shall we begin?”

“Of course,” she replied graciously, giving him a coldly reassuring grin.

“Do you mind if I record?” he asked.

She shook her head and gave him an inviting gesture. “I like to have my full meaning understood.”

“Right.” He clicked his pen again. “The magazine is real excited we get to talk to you. We’re so grateful.”

The goddess inclined her head with a noble air. He fumbled taking the dictaphone out of his pocket. He cursed under his breath. He checked the tape was in and put it on the coffee table between them, next to the big jug of water with lime and cucumber wedges floating in it. He fluttered the tremor out of his fingers and pressed the large, square, red button.

There was a soft click and whir.

“There,” he said shyly. The woman’s eyes were like UV lamps, he couldn’t settle himself. “So...” He cleared his throat, starting as she perked up to listen. “You're a pretty new goddess?”

Lilac lips bloomed in amusement. “Actually, I’m a very old goddess. But I am new to Olympus.”

Acteon nodded, rubbing the two-day stubble on his neck. “How are you finding Olympus?”

The goddess flicked her hair off her face. “Oh, it’s a lovely city. And, speedy as Hermes is, it can be a drag waiting for deliveries in the ocean, so I’m a big fan of the faster service. I like my neighbourhood too, quiet, but not too far from where the action is.” She gave him a sparkling glance.

Acteon closed his fingers tighter on his pen. “What sort of action?”

She chuckled. “You’re a gossip columnist, you know exactly what sort of action.”

Acteon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m a lifestyle journalist.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, Olympians certainly have an active lifestyle.”

“Are you fitting in?” He said it too bluntly, he saw it on her face.

“Who wants to fit in?”

Acteon let out an awkward laugh, his larynx bouncing off his tightly knotted tie. “OK, are you being welcomed?”

The goddess interlaced her fingers in her lap, sliding her elbow onto the puffed arm of the chair. “Yes. People forget, what with my top secret skincare routine, but the Six Traitors and I go way back.”

Acteon’s interest stirred. “But, you didn’t fight in the Titanomachy, did you?”

The goddess’ jaw seemed to stiffen momentarily. She covered it seamlessly with a warm smile, her deep voice sweetening. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Acteon’s back prickled. She was being so genteel, but somehow this felt like combat. There was something about the penetrating pressure of her gaze. He wasn’t sure who was really in the hot seat here. 

She’d chosen to take today’s string of interviews in a hotel. The room was stuffy, and heady with the flourishing bouquets of roses and orchids offered to her by those who had trooped through before him. He’d been off his game from the moment he’d realised the "real" papers were here. They were always skulking around the scoops the little guys like him dug up. He’d been onto the arrival of this new Olympian way before them and their floristry. Well, maybe they were better at schmoozing, but they didn’t ask the real questions. That was his province.

He straightened up in his chair. “Queen Hera is the goddess of marriage, she still fought.”

Her knuckles hardened. “You don’t think marriage is the province of fighters? Pity, you didn’t strike me as a cynic.”

His tongue dashed over his dry lips. “I…”

“Hera shows her nature as a warrior in her role now, as then. I mean that in a good way. Marriage is difficult, it takes a tough character.”

“And love isn’t difficult?” He made himself meet her eyes.

She tilted her head and regarded him unreadably. She spoke in a stern lilt. “Love is easy. People are difficult.”

“Is that why you weren’t the seventh Traitor?” Acteon felt like a hound snapping its jaws at the tail of an elusive vixen, closing in. “Some difficulty?”

She leaned back in her chair, her heeled foot bouncing. “Does your rag do a lot of history? A favourite among humanities students, is it?”

The dictaphone whirred.

“No.” He clicked his pen again. “It’s just the realms have a new figure in the Pantheon, and I think worshippers will be curious about where she’s been all this time.”

The goddess’ sleek eyebrow arched dangerously. “Perhaps it’s best to trust me to know what my worshippers need.” 

She looked coolly into his eyes for a long moment, drawing a fresh wave of clammy sweat from his pores. She waited until he was forced to look away, blinking the intense, amethyst glare out of his aching retinas. Her face thawed quickly as it had iced, all pretty, summer flowers and playful peeks from the curtain of hair sneaking over her cheek again. 

“Alright, if you want a little more, then just between us. And your charming readers, of course.” 

Acteon’s stomach flipped. He leaned forward into her enchanting, haunting smile.

Her voice turned a strange combination of brusque and wistful, allowing him some emotion for his story, but keeping herself shielded from the depth of it. “I was born when the titan Kronos severed his father, Ouranos’, testicles and threw them into the sea.”

Acteon crossed his legs uncomfortably and took a sip of water from his glass.

“Seafoam and semen formed me as you see me now, fully adult. Olympians tend to have rather bizarre birth stories, I’m no special case there. But imagine how it is to be without childhood. The way you’re looking at me now, you’re attracted to me, you’ve imagined me naked several times, and once sucking your cock.”

Acteon choked on his water. He spluttered desperately. His fingers slipped on the condensation on the glass and it fell to the carpet with a dull clink, spilling water and cucumber slices on the beige. He snatched at a clump of half-used tissues in his pocket and bent down frantically to clean up the mess, his heart hammering and his ears and face burning.

“It’s alright.” The goddess shrugged, ignoring his scrambling about around his shoes. “Everyone does it to everyone, it’s only natural.”

He slammed the glass back onto the coffee table and sat bolt upright, cramming his notebook back into his hand and beginning to write nothing actually useful to avoid her eye. What did she say that for? Fates below.

“What I’m saying is,” the goddess went on with a hint of a drawl, “that’s fine and dandy for an old lady like me, but no baby girl should have the social burdens of an adult body. Well, really no adult should either, but that’s a conversation for a different time. I don’t just mean the sexual side, we assume all sorts of adults’ capabilities and feelings that we’d never ascribe to a child.” Her eyes wandered away for a moment, then shot back. “So, anyway, I grew up essentially alone, in this strange, full form that meant that no creature on earth really knew how to react to me. And by the time the Titanomachy came, I was hardly the sort to simply wander into alliances. And what’s more, regardless of years, I was still in so many ways a child. Or at least, I needed some time to be one.” She paused, exhaling softly with a subtle puff of her cheeks. She reached out to the prim orchid plant by her chair and touched the petals. “People say I haven’t been around because I haven’t been on Olympus, but they must recall we have three kings. As a Cypriote, and given the manner of my birth, I was always far more a part of the sea than the mountain. When peace came, Poseidon and Amphitrite took me in.”

She paused again, her fingers playing idly around pink petals. Acteon’s eyes flitted between her hand and the dictaphone thunking in the silence.

“That was kind of them,” he said at last, prompting her.

“Wasn’t it?” She shot him a smile, stunning the taut moment of conflict out of his brain. She wriggled her shoulders and sank relaxed into her chair again. “And that’s where I’ve been. Perhaps not making a great name for myself on Olympus, but I have been in a royal court and I have been working as a goddess.” She lowered her voice, as if telling a secret. “I didn’t come here to get started. I came here to do the next thing.”

Her voice pulled him towards her on an invisible string. He drifted forward in his seat without realising and lowered his voice too. “What’s the next thing?”

She dropped her volume again, to a whisper, her large eyes hypnotic. “Oh, wouldn’t you like to know.” 

Acteon wheezed a laugh, his shoulders dropping. “Yes, damn it. But we can’t always get what we want, I guess.”

The top of her nose creased in a playful expression. “I can.”

He faltered, his laughter fading. He clicked his pen. “I bet you can.” He sniffed and rubbed his temple, leaving an ink stain on it. “Are you a powerful goddess?”

“Ask my worshippers.”

“Are there a lot of them?”

“Fairly. And they’re increasing.”

“How are you doing that?”

“I cover a lot of popular topics, I suppose. And I try to listen to them.”

“You certainly have the credentials.” He leafed through his notebook to find the list he’d made earlier. “Lady of Cyprus, Risen from the Sea, Richly Crowned, Laughter-Loving, Fair Voyage, Bringer of Victory, Postponer of Old Age, Bountiful, Shapely Formed, Ally in Love, Deceptive One, Whispering, Contriver, and Common to All People. That’s quite the set of epithets, and it’s not even the full list. One wonders what to call you.”

“Oh, that’s all trappings really.” The goddess with a hundred names waved them all away in a modest, easy gesture. She plucked her glass from the table and tipped it to him with a blinding, saccharine smile. “For you, my dear, and for all my newfound friends on Olympus, I need only go by one name.” 

Acteon raised his eyebrows.

“Just call me Aphrodite.”

Chapter 2: “I didn’t think the gods could have visions.”

Summary:

Ares meets a stranger, and she instantly has an effect. Things heat up quick, even for him.

Smooch song: Hello, I Love You, The Doors

Ares was lying in the grass and thinking about nothing in particular, which was his favourite topic. Fluffy, lamb-like clouds brisked across the blue topaz sky over Olympus. A radiant, custard-cream sun showered warmth down on the city, dappling his copper-gold face, brightness kissing brightness. He relaxed into the serenity of his parents' gardens, the back of his head rested on his forearm, his free hand picking at the buttons on his flannel shirt. The vast grounds of the house gave him plenty of hideaways, where he could, ironically, find some peace. He'd been making dens and fortresses among these roses and hollyhocks and hydrangeas since he was a kid. Returning from his first campaign in his new position as God of War, he was glad he remembered the most secluded spots. The huge, royal house was somehow too small, every space cluttered with the mess of his parents' marriage and the feeling he was definitely too old to be under their roof. The outdoors let him breathe, let him stretch, let him be as big and blazing as he was. Well, ish.

And the gardens were a very different environment to Sparta.

Nope, don't go there...

He gazed drowsily into the fountain of light pouring from the sky, blinking slowly as his vision blurred. Sleep inched into the back of his mind. 

The blur darkened. 

Ares scrunched up his face and peered. 

The blur turned a pretty shade of lavender, shaping to an hourglass vase bursting with purple blooms. 

He rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand. His vision cleared. 

His heart stopped. 

Standing over him was the most stunningly beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Her face was heart-shaped with round, glimmering cheeks and a pert, pointed chin. Her lips looked blown from glass, glossy and full and firm in a round, pronounced pout. Her eyes were dazzling amethyst, brighter than the sun, but also darker, like underground stars, and with large, liquid pupils. Her hair fell in a waterfall sweep, ending in fat, plumed curls tumbling towards him, as if she was falling through evening cloud. She was bent double over him, inspecting him with her wide, piercing eyes. Her hands were on her closed knees, a powder blue mini skirt squeezing thick thighs together. A powder blue suit jacket lined to her full figure. 

The woman cocked her head curiously, looking like a bird of paradise. 

Ares tingled on the back of his neck. He grinned like a doped shark. "I didn’t think the gods could have visions."

The woman raised a finely shaped eyebrow. "Oh?" 

Ares gazed up at her, his voice coming in a dreamy, syrupy husk. "I thought we only gave visions out. But it seems I’m blessed as well." 

The woman smiled. It was radiant, enthralling. She pressed her lips together, glanced away, then batted her eyes warningly at him. "I’m here to see Hera." 

Ares had forgotten, but his mother was interviewing for a new assistant at 3 o'clock today. It wasn't even 2:30 yet, the mortal realm had taught him how to tell by the sun. He casually scratched his abs, letting the motion tug the hem of his shirt up to show a sliver of skin. "You’re really early. Hera’s a busy woman, she won’t be pleased to have her schedule disrupted." A broad, goading grin spread like butter across his face. "You’d better stay here a little while. For your own safety." 

The woman's exquisite mouth twisted in contained amusement. She looked at him with a little smoke in her eyes. "You’ll protect me, will you?" 

Ares’ skin heated. He bounced his eyebrow. "On my honour." 

The woman cupped her delicate chin in the V of her thumb and index finger and made a pantomime of thinking. She grinned like a pixie and dropped to his side, swishing her long legs under her and leaning on one straight arm. That gorgeous gush of hair flowed like wine over one round shoulder. She fixed him with a look of challenge, of you'd better not waste my time. 

Ares' heart kicked. He really hadn't expected that to work. He sat hurriedly, leaning back on his palms, broad chest open, stocky legs splayed, his muddy combat boots feeling very visible next to her pastel pristineness. 

He bit his lip to wake himself up and said the first thing his bewildered brain could muster. "So, where you from?" 

The woman snorted at him, her cute nose wrinkling. She fluttered a graceful, manicured hand at his face, buffeting him with a sweet, dusky perfume. "No small talk," she insisted. "I'm about to have that for an hour." 

Ares faltered. Her voice was surprisingly deep, and somehow spiced. She sounded like if chilli chocolate could talk. It was a moreish voice. He fixed his face to look relaxed, but scrabbled about urgently in his mind for something to say that might make her speak more. The back of his neck overheated under her expectant, imperious gaze. "OK…" He searched and juggled options, then he paused. He looked at her and opened his senses. Underneath her cool veneer, there was an undercurrent of anger. It was mellow, but he could feel it - deadly. It rumbled at her core, like molten iron in Tartarus. This woman was a fighter. This woman was something formidable. Wrath. Ares’ breath stopped. He moved his tongue in his mouth. Everyone’s anger tasted different. Hers tasted of cinnamon. He sucked on it. He saw her cheeks darken. Could she feel him? He bit his lip to stop himself pursuing it with the pain of a boy looking away from a cake shop window. He levelled his tiger-lily gaze on her and spoke in a soft surge of sincerity. "What's the thing that makes you angriest, like more than anything?" 

The woman's mesmerising eyes fluttered in guarded surprise. A tense quiet stretched in the small space between them. Sparrows chirped and bees hummed. Further off, the grand fountain in the centre of the gardens trickled with the sound of a xylophone. 

The woman tutted, stuck her nose in the air, and looked past the ridge of Ares' cheekbone. "It's those beards that don't have a moustache, getting fashionable down there."

Ares boomed a laughed, the tension breaking and fizzing in the small of his back. "Not one for a straight answer, huh?" 

The woman widened her eyes innocently and put her hand to her heart, weighted with chunky silver rings. "I'm serious! It's like, are you doing facial hair or aren't you? Commit already."

Ares huffed the last of his laughter out and looked at her warmly. Her eyes met his, sly and… was that curiosity?

She tossed her hair and ran her fingers through it, drawing it off her long neck and pulling his gaze. “Why? What makes you angry?” she asked with a note of confrontation. “Something very important and profound?”

Ares shrugged like a bear, looking straight ahead. “Yeah, for sure. Injustice, cruelty, abuse of power, all that shit.” He rolled his eyes back to her and lowered his voice seriously. “Also, the other day, my buddy tried to tell me that lime isn't that important to guacamole and I swear I felt new veins pop in my neck.”

The woman looked horrified. “But the lime is integral to balancing the avocado!”

Ares cast his hands up. “Thank you!” They caught each other’s eye with a twinkle. He coughed out a small chuckle and shrugged again. “But mainly it's the injustice thing.”

She smiled, then glanced down and flicked a blade of grass that had strayed onto her taut skirt. The garden was newly mowed, the fresh, green scent permeating the air. Her floral colouring stood out in the emerald, as if she was growing lush from the ground. A blackbird hopped near her ankle, whistling tunefully. Ares stared at her.

“Why that question?” she asked.

Ares started. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “You asked for big talk.”

She cocked a severe eyebrow at him, making his gut twang. “There's a spectrum, though,” she said pointedly, “between the weather and my innermost feelings and values.” She raised her chin and gave him a regal, diminishing look. “My deepest anger isn't your business, Stranger.”

Ares couldn’t help but smirk. “You'd be surprised.”

She regarded him like an especially puzzling mathematical problem. “Alright, then.” She tilted towards him. There was no defending against the look she fixed him with, it went through him like gamma rays. She wet her lip, the sunlight stroking it. “What's your biggest turn on?”

Ares’ pulse thumped. He flushed cloyingly hot, his mouth going dry. Every embarrassing thing he’d ever cleared out of his search history immediately barrelled into his mind. He tugged at his collar. “My biggest turn on?”

She grinned like a jackal. “You asked your incredibly personal question. That's mine.”

“You didn't answer mine.”

“Well, your choice whether you answer me, I suppose.”

Ares chewed on his tongue. This woman had apparently already figured out that he could be dared into just about anything. She seemed like the type of person who could be really dangerous with that knowledge. He searched her face, the tempting candy assortment of intrigue and challenge and play. He felt like a ball of wool being unravelled by a kitten. He mentally shuffled through a few dumb, comedy answers, a few banal deflections. A soft breeze whisked between them and stirred her hair at her cheek. 

He didn’t want to shrug her off with something forgettable. Something about her deserved the truth.

He twisted his body to sit cross-legged facing her. He leaned his elbows on his knees, stooped to her height, and looked deep into her dancing eyes. “Someone standing up for something.”

Her face softened, her eyes lightening. A delicate crease appeared in her brow.

It drew more words from deep in his chest. “You know that moment when someone shows their anger, but they're using it for a purpose? Like, it’s righteous. It's making them mighty.” He bit his lip and looked down at his hands, his face prickling. “That.”

She kept regarding him like an abstract painting in an art gallery.

He looked up with a throw-away grin. “Like, I have to be attracted to the person first. I’m not a saint.”

She laughed brightly, startling the blackbird. “I assumed.”

“Yeah.”

She tucked her hair behind her and narrowed her eyes at him like she was peering through a magnifying glass. “You have a real thing about anger, don't you?”

Ares grimaced and scratched behind his ear. He allowed himself another subtle lap of cinnamon from her aura. “So they tell me.”

She caught his eye again. She kept not letting him shrink into evasiveness. He rocked back to lean on his palms and let his grin out like a racing hound when the pen opens. He cocked an eyebrow, making a small show of looking her up and down. “Back atcha.”

She cast her chin up with a vibrant, indignant smile, wagging one bejewelled finger at him. “Oh no, you're not getting mine!”

He laughed. “Why not?”

She scrunched her nose at him. “It'll make things too easy for you.”

“What things?”

“You know exactly what things.”

His abdomen bubbled. He dropped his head and looked at her naively under his curls. “You'd be amazed how much I don't know at any given time.”

She snorted. “I don’t think I would.”

He clucked his tongue at that, then licked his teeth. He gave her a cocky grin, husking his voice. “Unless, Zeus forbid, you think I'm coming onto you.”

The woman wet her lip again. “Should I think that?”

He rocked forward, drawing up one knee, resting his elbow on it and leaning his cheek on his hand, closer into the mystique of her gaze. “You can think what you want.”

“Or you could tell me,” she replied flatly.

He kept up the cocky grin. “Are you coming onto me?”

Her deriding bolt of laughter rang on the lemon trees. “Of course not.”

“I dispute that.”

“Oh, for Fates' sake.” She huffed in exasperation. 

She tugged at the hem of her skirt and scooted across the grass to his side. Her perfume curled into his senses, something between incense and Turkish delight. The sunlight moved over her body as she slid towards him, a silk sheet being pulled away on a large, emerald bed. Ares warmed between his thighs. She reached into the narrow sliver of grass between them and snipped the thin stem of a violet with her keen thumbnail. She held the pretty, purple flower up under his chin. 

The tease of her fingernails so close to the supple skin of his throat tickled all over his body. “What are you doing?” he asked warily.

The woman wasn’t looking into his face, she was examining the reflection of the flower on his bright skin. “You know how people hold buttercups under their chin to see if they like butter?” she said a little distantly. “I’m holding a violet under your chin to see if you like me.”

Ares swallowed, the smouldering, red flush around his eyes spreading to his cheeks. “You could just ask.”

She shrugged. “I did, you were evasive.”

“So were you.”

“And again.”

He faltered. He puffed out a chuckle and shook his head, looking at her softly. “OK, I'll stop. You can ask.”

“I can't.”

He frowned. “How come?” This dance around the increasingly obvious truth of his fascination was maddening. 

She finally raised her purple nebula eyes to his again. “You might lie.”

The corner of his mouth flicked up. “I never lie.”

She pursed her lips at him.

“Except just now.”

Her laugh was thrilling, it whisked around his body like a flock of starlings. 

He cleared his throat and forced his voice light. “So, what is the violet saying?”

Her smile bloomed across her face, the height of summer sapped from the garden and glowing in her round cheeks. “It says, ‘kiss him, and then he will for sure’.”

Ares’ voice came in a rough splutter. “Smart flower.”

“You think so?” She leaned closer to him, twizzling the flower between her fingers. Her hair swept forward and shaded her face in a soft brush of lavender. 

He swallowed. “It certainly has some good ideas.”

It was impossible to tell who moved first. Their faces dipped into the centre of the inch between them and their lips met in a slow, soft kiss. The violet fell from her fingertips. Ares’ blood rushed. The woman’s lips were gentle, but insistent. She steered his kiss, sliding closer to him in the grass, so her hair tickled his shoulder. She sucked his lower lip, making the back of his neck flare like it had been touched by a fire iron. He husked in his chest and fell deeper into the kiss, cupping her face and stroking his thumb over her cheek. She was warm too. His eyes fluttered open and eyed the smudge of violet blush across her chest. His heart began to pound. He went dizzy. Why was she affecting him like this? Sure, she was beautiful, but he’d just spent a whole bunch of weeks hanging out with princesses and warriors, he could handle beauty. 

The woman pulled a fraction from him and sighed against the corner of his mouth. He melted, his skin rippling and an ache blossoming between his thighs. He fitted his finger and thumb around her jaw and pulled her in harder, his other hand stroking up her arm and closing tight around her bicep, surprisingly strong. She gripped his shirt front and yanked him to her body, popping two of the buttons. Ares’ pulse zinged. Her force was incredible. His strength didn’t seem to matter, she moved him like he was made of newspaper. 

She sneaked her tongue into his mouth, hooked his tongue, and tangled them together, pulling his breath from him. His brow buckled and he let out a thin moan, dissolving like whipped cream against her. The kiss ebbed and flowed between them. They seemed to find a natural rhythm, pushing and surrendering in smooth, effortless cycles, their quickened breaths coming in stereo. Ares floated away on the tidal motion of her kiss. His mind and his body all emptied of everything except the sun on his back and the heat of her body pressing to his, her soft breasts and belly padding to his hard muscle, pleasure sinking through him. She tasted of sweet coffee.

She broke their kiss to gasp for air, clinging to his collar. She snatched at his mouth and he reeled again. 

Who was this woman? All the while they’d been speaking, she’d had this addictive guardedness. One kiss, and she was unleashed. He felt like he’d poured oil on a fire. He wanted to feed it more. 

He snarled in his throat and lunged forward, knocking her onto her back in the grass and pouncing over her, caging her in his limbs. He planned to smile at her, tease her, play with her. Her eyes went round and diamond dazzling. Her hair swirled in the grass like paint in water. Her jacket fell open and her breasts rose round through a tight, white top. Her thighs tipped apart, the short hem of her skirt riding up, showing a glimpse of daisy-white panties. Ares stared. So much for plans. His mouth hung open and his brain emptied. Quivers rolled down his spine and blood roared in his ears, drowning out the birdsong and the trickle of the fountain. He forgot where he was. He forgot who he was. The heat radiating from this woman was more than desire, more than impulse. It was ambition. It was intention. 

Her pretty, startled look faded into a sultry challenge. “Why did you do that?”

“Don't ask me why,” Ares breathed. “Ask me how I waited this long.” And he dived to her neck. 

Her skin was even sweeter than her kiss, tinged with salt from the sweat of the summer day. He pressed his mouth over her jugular and danced his tongue hungrily on her. She gasped in his ear, spiking his lust, her body thrusting up to him and her hands sliding under his shirt and running over his abs. He shivered at her touch, warm and confident and clever, finding him out, taking possession of him. He released a groan from his chest and sucked harder on her throat. He wanted to bruise her, to give her something to remember him. 

Her hair spilled around her in the grass as she snaked wickedly under him. She slowly drew her thighs around his hips, powerful, gleaming in the light, holding him secure. His cock pulsed almost painfully. He collapsed onto her and pressed his swell to that tantalising glimpse of lace under her skirt. A strike of pleasure coursed through him.

She moaned and giggled into his ear, curling her fingernails on his abs. The purr in her voice flooded him with want. “Mmm, Stranger, you're awfully forward.”

Ares jarred. His tongue halted on the hollow of her jaw. He whispered against her skin with a tremulous breath. “That OK?”

Her laugh was lower this time, villainous and vibrating. “That's ideal.”

And Ares was on his back. 

He choked on his yelp as he was flung in a whirl of sunlight. He landed hard in the dry earth. The woman prowled over him, teeth glinting, hair cascading like champagne bursting from the bottle. He blinked in shock up at her, then caught his breath and beamed so wide it fractured his chiseled features. 

“You’re forward too,” he panted.

She sneaked her tongue out from between her teeth and giggled devilishly. “You betcha.”

She thrust onto him, sending his senses into a gale of gleeful confusion. She scooped her hands into the roots of his hair, his curls jostling around her grip, and pinned him to the ground with a heart-stopping kiss. Ares’ body turned volcanically hot. He craned up to meet her lips and began to run his hands on every inch of her he could reach. He hugged her waist, stroked her thighs, cupped her breasts, squeezed her ass, grasped her arms, and traced his fingers around her throat. Every shape of her fit his touch perfectly, it was like his body had been formed just for this moment. 

She ground on him, burning in his flesh. He could feel his thickening cock pressing against his zipper. She bit his lip. He wrenched her close.

“Gods, who are you?” he murmured desperately.

“Kiss my neck again,” she replied.

He moved faster than a falcon. He rocked his hips beneath her, tipping her into his mouth, and sucked ardently on her throat, humming in deep, kindling satisfaction at the blooms of indigo under his lips. She moaned and shuddered and clawed at his shirt. She pulled him by his collar again. He stayed cemented to the delicious curve of her neck as he was heaved up to sit beneath her. He wrapped her in his heavy arms. She clamped him in her thighs. Her hands raced around his shoulder blades. Her head dropped back to stretch her throat for him, sunlight dripping onto her blissed face, like honey.

“Oh my… Wow, you feel good. You feel so good…” Her fevered whisper kicked sparks up in his abdomen.

He moaned helplessly around the writhing of his tongue. He crushed her strong, soft body to him. They flowed together, a warm wind blowing in the meeting of hot and cool pressure. Ares’ flesh began to feel like liquid, began to blend into the sugary, garden air and the pooling sunlight and this woman’s irresistible skin, sticky with heat. That cinnamon sprinkle of anger he’d tasted on her aura was washed into the sweet, dark flavour of wild, aggressive want. He pulled from her neck and lost himself in kissing her mouth again, lost himself in her duelling tongue and the massaging press of her lips and the rapid rhythm of her shallow breathing and the…

“Shit, I’m late!” The woman jerked in his arms and snapped her mouth from his. She was looking at her wrist watch with alarmed eyes.

“W-what?” Ares jabbered.

“Gotta go!” She leaped out of his lap and stood sharply. Her lilac lip gloss was smudged and there was a grass stain streaking down her skirt. Her spiked heels sank into the ground and she tottered, combing her hair neat with her fingers.

“I…” Ares was sprawled bewildered in the grass, hair tousled, shirt rumpled, jeans tented, his body pretty much going into shock. “I’m sure Hera can wait.”

“Sorry, Stranger.” The woman tugged her lapels straight and dusted off her sleeves. “Better safe than sorry.” She flashed him a bright, easy smile that hit him like a freight train. “This was fun, though, thanks!” She spun around, blowing a dainty kiss.

“Thanks?” Ares called incredulously after her.

She waved over her shoulder.

“Hey!” His voice screeched. He forced it low. “Hey... I’d at least like an answer to one of those questions you avoided.”

“I'm sorry to disappoint you,” she chuckled over her shoulder, hips swaying in a dancer’s gait.

He barked a laugh. “What are you so afraid of?”

She turned back. She gave him a long, teasing look. She smiled. “Getting found out.” 

She disappeared into the lemon trees.

Ares stared after her, eyes goggling, heart hammering. Did that just happen? Was she real? Did he fall asleep and get sunstroke and have a really fucking good hallucination?

He shook his head. He ran his fingers through his hair. 

He collapsed with a dull thud back into the grass.

A blackbird cheeped and began to sing in the bushes.

 

*

 

Aphrodite stepped from the sunny, scent-crowded garden and into the cool, soaring interior of the royal house. The footmen at the door bowed to her as she gave her name and she winked a quick blessing to their twin blushes. Zeus and Hera had certainly learned to live in luxury since the early days. The entrance hall was glaringly bright, glitzy flecks in the white marble winking up at the sparkle of chandeliers. Red carpet poured down the central staircase that fluted up to the first floor. Aphrodite rummaged in her bag and fished out a pink post-pit with the directions Hera had said on the phone. First floor, right hand side, third door down. She slipped the post-it away and climbed the stairs.

Having grown up with Poseidon, palaces didn’t put the fear of gods in her that she suspected the grand hall was supposed to. But she couldn’t help but step a little softer and shy away from going too close to the searingly clean banisters, lest a speck of earth smear on the marble and get her executed. Her mind wandered back to the garden. She was far more comfortable in nature than these gigantic, austere eggshells. She liked warmth and wildness. Like the man she’d met, lying with the golden light on his face, as if he’d just fallen out of the sun. She wriggled her shoulders, the power boost from his passion stirring her body. She’d needed that. You didn’t talk to Hera unless you were at your best. She wondered if Hera had a self-serving policy of hiring hunks or if she’d just got lucky with who was on shift. Really lucky. She sucked the taste of his lust on her tongue, curry spiced and clinging. There was a hurricane in that guy. Thank Fates he was forward, or else what a waste. She hadn't had a buzz like that in... Huh...

She was still thinking about the bumps of his abs and the heat of his mouth when she rounded the corner to the corridor and a tall, striking figure emerged from the third door down.

Zeus stopped in his tracks, all shoulder pads and smirk. He drew himself up, white suit gleaming against his thunder-dark skin. He flashed Aphrodite a stark, blinding grin. “It must be my lucky day.”

Aphrodite felt like she’d just swallowed a nettle. The sickly, sweet and sour scent of his desires dumped itself into her senses. She closed them off sharply. She clenched her stomach and forced out her most charming smile. “Well, if it isn’t the boss.”

Zeus put his hands in his pockets and chuckled gruffly. “Nah, that’s her in there.” He nodded his head at the door behind him, then ducked it towards Aphrodite with a mocking glance. “Don’t tell her I said that, she might get it into her head to have a coup.”

Aphrodite’s smile darkened. “Maybe I’d like that.”

Zeus laughed heartily. Then stopped and looked confused. He opened his mouth. The door to Hera’s office clicked and swung open. The queen stood in a flowing white shirt and elaborate cravat, one hand on her hip, spun-gold hair knotted severely on top of her head, lips pressed tight. “I’m on the clock, Zeus,” she said tersely.

Zeus looked at her over his shoulder. He ticked his jaw and turned back to Aphrodite. He winked and strode past her, the drum of his shined shoes on the carpet receding down the stairs.

Aphrodite did not watch him go. She picked up her feet and walked to the open door. She followed Hera inside and closed it behind her, saying breezily, “I’m sorry I’m late, I got chatting with your gardener.”

Hera flicked hard, citrine eyes to her. Aphrodite drew up her chin, but sneaked her hair over the front of her shoulder to shade the hickeys smiling on her skin. Hera puffed a small, irritable gust and sat down on a chaise, crossing her legs. She reached out to a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the coffee table. She slipped a thin cylinder from the carton, tapped it on the mahogany twice, and lit it with a series of chinks and clicks and a snick of flame. She tucked the cigarette into a long-stemmed holder and took a slow drag. She paused, her eyes fluttering. Smoke streamed from her nostrils. Her chest seemed to deflate, her shoulders dropping. 

The room filled with the acrid scent. Aphrodite subtly wafted her hand in front of her nose, still standing by the door. Hera’s eyes flicked back to attention. She looked at Aphrodite and beckoned her over. Aphrodite walked to the other side of the coffee table and sat on a matching chaise. She glanced about the room. It was minimalist, but every carefully chosen item was rich and Rococo. A large window behind Hera looked out over the yellow and green garden and silhouetted Hera a little, sharpening her already cut-glass figure. 

The coffee table had a neat stack of magazines on it, the top of which was the favourite of the gossip rags, Panoptes: Eyes on Olympus, bearing a glamorous cover photo of Aphrodite. She was sitting cross-legged on a desk chair in a scarlet dress with a deep slit up the side. She had a rose in her mouth, biting down on it through a winning smile. The bold headline read: Just Call Her Aphrodite. A quote was printed in curling letters across her shin: “I didn’t come here to get started. I came here to do the next thing.”

Aphrodite tried to hold in her grin.

“Would you like a coffee?” Hera finally broke the silence.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Aphrodite replied.

There was a soft, hesitant knock at the door.

“Come in!” Hera called. “I ordered you one earlier, you don’t have to drink it.”

A forest green nymph with bottle-bottom glasses came into the room, bearing a silver tray with a silver coffee pot and two cups. She set them silently on the table, not glancing at either of the goddesses. She poured the coffee into the cups, the dark, bitter smell mingling with the cigarette. Aphrodite tipped her head to catch her eye and smile in thanks. The nymph kept her gaze down.

Hera went on as if she wasn’t there, speaking in a clipped, business-like tone that didn’t really imbue her words with sincerity. “I’m pleased we could finally get you to the house. I feel, if we’re going to work together, phone calls only get us so far.”

The nymph gave a small bow and left as silently as she’d arrived. Aphrodite glanced after her a little uncomfortably. She looked back to Hera, putting her handbag down by her feet and tugging her skirt straight on her lap. It suddenly felt too tight. “You know me, human connection’s always the way.”

Hera eyed her through a plume of pale smoke. “Indeed.”

Aphrodite raised her eyebrows. Hera always looked as if she had something significant to say, but almost never let you know what it was. Almost. 

“Zeus waylaid you in the corridor.”

Aphrodite’s heart sank. The disaster of the royal marriage was well-documented. She’d been expecting her powers to attract its attention. “Just saying hello,” she said tentatively.

“He’s going to try to sleep with you. You’re aware of that, right?” Hera said it like she was telling Aphrodite what time it was expected to rain. She dragged on her cigarette again, her nostrils flaring around the jet of smoke.

Aphrodite’s eyes tingled with the smell. She picked up her coffee and held it close to her face as a pleasant-scented shield. “He’s going to fail,” she said steadily. “My neck is one of my best features, I’d like to save it.”

“Hmm.”

Aphrodite sipped the coffee, prickling her tongue. “I only repeat my own mistakes. Not other people’s.”

A tense pause. Aphrodite watched Hera over the rim of her cup. Hera’s mouth twitched. She barked a laugh, harsh mirth sparking in her eyes. She leaned back on the cream chaise and spread her arm along its smooth, curved top. “Good write-up in the magazines.”

Aphrodite breathed and put her cup down. “Not bad, huh?”

“I didn’t realise you had quite so many epithets, did you send him those in advance?”

Aphrodite smiled, spreading her palm on the seat beside her and leaning with one shoulder bunched up. “If I had, Genital-Lover would have made the list.”

Hera sighed. “You can’t be serious.”

Aphrodite flashed her eyes gleefully.

Hera tutted. “Mortals are degenerates.”

“Why do you think I like them?”

“Be careful, they’ll turn.”

“Mortals?”

“Yes. But I mean the papers.”

Aphrodite’s smile flickered. She looked down, then back up, a little more soberly. “Oh, I don’t doubt it. The one who wrote that one is already half way there, I think.”

Hera twizzled the cigarette holder between finger and thumb, the dot of red light on the end fizzing. “He took a lot of interest in the Titanomachy.”

Aphrodite snorted. “He fancies himself a ‘real journalist’.” She made comedic air quotes in the air and turned the gesture into a dismissive wave. “I imagine you get sick of hearing about it, after all these years. It’s like you had a Summer No. 1 back before most music listeners were born, but they trot it out every now and then on public radio.”

Hera stayed quiet. Aphrodite closed her mouth. 

They drank coffee in unison. Their cups clinked back onto the saucers.

“Shall we get started?” Hera said stiffly.

Aphrodite nodded.

Hera stood and went to the desk by the window, Aphrodite taking the opportunity of her back being turned to slouch her body and pull an exhausted face. Hera picked up a hefty, black binder and returned with it. She placed it with a thud on the coffee table, slid it round to face Aphrodite, and opened it to the first page. Aphrodite’s eyes scanned down a list of pairs of names, all colour-coded and cross-referenced.

“These are all your couples in progress, are they?” she asked.

“These are half the A’s,” Hera replied flatly.

Aphrodite whistled low. “Busy, busy.” She gingerly turned through the pages. “So, like we said on the phone, you’d like comment on generating chemistry, easing sticking points, etc. I’d like to get some commitment-phobes off my back.”

“Win, win,” Hera said, not sounding convinced.

Aphrodite scooped the binder into her lap, rocked back and settled into the cushions. The throttling feeling of the palace was as bad as she remembered from her visit with Amphitrite long-ago. Thwarted and corrupted love dripped down the walls and webbed the air, like noxious gas. Having a big, yummy plate of would-be lovers put in front of her was just the thing Aphrodite needed to get her mind off the atmosphere. And a bad memory or two. There was a reason she hadn't done this move sooner.

She dipped her hand into her bag and drew out a glittery, pink pen with a huge, feathery pom-pom and plastic heart bobbing about on the end. She pulled the cap off with her teeth and let her instinct draw her eyes to a neatly printed name. She ignored the feeling of Hera watching her with a sprinkling of disdain.

“Right,” she said around the pen cap, starting to scribble on the page. “For starters, Absyrtus needs a dominant, so let’s talk power dynamics.”

Hera arched her eyebrow and took a deep draught of smoke.

Out in the garden, Ares leaned against a lemon tree, the waxy leaves tickling his brow, his bulk making the slender trunk creak. He looked up to the office window, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of lavender. He spotted her as she rose from her seat, gesturing passionately and waving a pom-pom pen. He smiled. He folded his arms over the thrumming of his heart in his chest.

Chapter 3: "Just curious, is all."

Summary:

Aphrodite's arrival is ruffling feathers on Olympus, everyone from TGOEM to the royal household is talking about her. Athena does some digging, but mostly finds out about Ares and Zeus' uneasy relationship. Hestia takes matters into her own hands, but Aphrodite will take more than a red berry pie to win over.

[CW: Parents arguing in front of and being unkind to adult children. This chapter introduces conflict between the love gods and TGOEM, and so includes them expressing opinions about each other that will become themes throughout the fic. These are absolutely not intended as judgements on any sexual choices, but rather aim to explore the flawed promiscuity/abstinence binary through the eyes of these specific characters.]

Song: Rumour Has It, Adele

Athena ambled through the neatly clipped orchard of her father's estate, her linen jacket hooked on one long finger and slung over her shoulder. The summer sun dappled her chrome face in delicate silver tracery. She turned her nose up to it and took a deep, peaceful breath of fresh cut grass and ripening fruit. She thought about the way the sunshine had flowed through the large, square windows of her house and draped over Hestia's round shoulders and arms. Hestia was warmth embodied, the soft, glossy gold to Athena's hard, glinting silver. Rare and precious. A treasure. Little else could get Athena to meddle in Olympus gossip. 

 

TGOEM met that morning, Hestia swishing in in a swirl of forest green, carrying a tin of rich honey cake and an air of ruffled concern. 

Athena, Hestia and Artemis gathered around the table in Athena's minimalist dining room. Athena and Artemis went immediately for the baked goods. Hestia pursed her full, amber lips at them. 

"There's something, or rather someone, I'd like to bring to our attention," she said officially. 

"Uhuh?" Athena urged through a sticky wedge of cake. 

Hestia smoothed her billowing skirt. "Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, seems to have taken residence on Olympus." She fixed the other two with a severe look. 

They blinked. 

She glared. 

"Um, Bumblebee," Athena ventured, "is this a… problem?" 

Hestia sniffed. "I don't know. Would you say that a goddess of sexual intercourse, vanity and indulgence is a problem?" 

Athena pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. She admired Hestia's conviction, but she was perhaps a little too easily scandalised. 

"Has she done anything to be a problem?" Artemis asked, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. 

"She's only been here a couple of weeks," Hestia replied. "But you and your brother work with disease, don't you, Artemis? You know better than anyone that a preventative is better than a cure."

Artemis wrinkled her nose. "So, Aphrodite's a disease?" 

Athena frowned warily. "That's a little harsh, isn't it?" 

"I'm not saying that!" Hestia's paper lantern eyes went wide and batted briskly. She tucked her wheat coloured hair behind her ears. "I'm saying she represents the issues that TGOEM was formed to tackle. And she's new and she's getting a lot of media attention." She fished in her large, carpet bag and produced a magazine with a scarlet cover bearing a glamorous photograph of the goddess in question, emblazoned with the quote: “I didn’t come here to get started. I came here to do the next thing.” Hestia held the magazine up, then slid it across the table, as if she was presenting a terrain map to a war council. "What does this mean, 'the next thing'?" 

"She's new." Athena shrugged and leaned back in her chair, crossing her ankles under the table. "She's making a name."

"Precisely." Hestia jabbed her chubby finger at the magazine. "And if she makes a name for herself promoting liberal sexual conduct, what state does that leave TGOEM's name in?" 

Artemis and Athena exchanged a glance. Athena scratched her chin and spoke levelly, giving Hestia a look between stern and reassuring. "TGOEM isn't here to collect virgins like figurines. Let her have her name and we'll have ours. The people who want those different lives will find their affiliations."

"It's not that simple," Hestia said seriously. "Pursuing sex is expected, it's pushed. There's so many models of promiscuity on Olympus, mortals only have to throw a stone and they'll hit a statue of someone obsessing over fertility. Offering another option, even just a space to consider that option, is vital work. Without us, coupling is imposed on people, women especially, from all sides, and it's unfair. We were finally starting to make headway in our Sisyphean struggle, and then along comes a new sensation who seems bent on overshadowing all the space we've managed to carve for ourselves. It's another classic case of flare beating hard work and persistence. We need to nip it in the bud post-haste."

Athena rubbed her jaw pensively. Hestia wasn't wrong, it had been a slog to get TGOEM taken seriously, taking their eye off the ball could send them back years. The tide of the battle had not yet truly turned. Her father's callous attitude to "free love" had overturned the balance of politics and nature more times than she could count. It was only really her own rise and TGOEM's campaigning that had started to deconstruct the widespread acceptance of the turmoil in his wake. She glanced over to Artemis. The young goddess slouched in her seat, chewing her tongue. She looked unsure. 

Athena leaned forward, her hands clasped together and her elbows rested on her knees. "Tia," she said carefully, "we came together to deal with predation. Aphrodite may have a shared cause there. She could be an ally."

Hestia drew herself up, emphasising her syrup bottle shape. She dove into her bag again and tossed a file tersely onto the table. It landed with a harsh snap. "Multiple documented incidents of jealous rages, tormenting mortals with lust, inflicting uncontrollable passions, even stooping as low as bestiality in her punishments." 

Athena and Artemis eyed the file with furrowing brows. 

Hestia reached out and laid her warm, soft hand over Athena's, looking mood-meltingly into her eyes. Her voice lowered to a pleading murmur. "This is exploitation and control and pain. This is everything we have tried to spare our people from. Right? We took on that duty. To give people free choice. Can we turn away from it now?"

Athena's heart panged. The sweet, homey scent of honey drifted between them. She sighed and folded Hestia's hand between hers. "She's started working with Hera. I'll swing by Dad's and see if I can get a better idea of her angle. Let's not be rash, Bumblebee. Know thy enemy, yeah?" 

Hestia hesitated, then nodded, looking relieved. She bent and kissed Athena's hand, then huffed back into her matronly authority and bustled about serving more cake. "I'm not trying to make an enemy," she said, with the hint of a gripe. "But better safe than sorry. I'm just curious, is all."

 

Athena emerged from the green patchwork of shadows and looked out along the swathe of flat, bright lawn. An archery range had been set up. She smiled. Ares was poised an unnecessarily challenging way off from the targets, a leather guard strapped to his golden forearm, a graceful, curving bow grasped in his great fist. The grand, royal house rose behind him, dwarfing him uncomfortably. He tugged an arrow from the quiver standing at his shin. He cocked it and drew the string back to the corner of his narrowed eye. The sun trickled down over his powerful body, accentuating his warrior's build. His arms bulged as he pulled the string back another fraction, a tremor humming through the bow. She saw his shoulder blades rise and settle with a controlled breath. He fired. The arrow skewered the bullseye, rocking the target on its legs. She smiled broader. He was getting good. He'd really filled out on his trip, the final slivers of puppy fat and pockets of weakness matured out of his body. He looked older and stronger. But just as much her dumb, baby brother. 

She sneaked behind him as he threaded his next arrow, creeping forward until… 

"SNEAK ATTACK!" She pounced on him, battering his broad back and hollering in his ear. 

Ares yapped in shock. The arrow pinged from the bow, shot over the targets, and ripped through the branches of a pear tree. A pair of doves erupted from the leaves, hooting in panic and flapping desperately away. 

Ares rounded on his attacker with a face like boiling tomato soup. "Thena! I coulda shot you!" 

Athena tossed her head back and laughed, clapping his arm. "Not even on your best day, Champ."

Ares growled and pulled her into a hug, smacking her hard on the back. She returned the gesture competitively. They broke apart, rubbing the new bruises. Athena grinned. As his mentor, she was pretty much the only person who'd seen Ares in his half year away, but it was still good to have him kicking around this old place. He made meetings with Dad bearable.

She slotted her hand into her pocket and lounged with her jacket still over her shoulder. "The conquering hero returns," she said. 

Ares nodded, raking his hand through his messy curls to draw them off his face. "Home sweet home." He said it with a grimace. 

Athena's smile flickered. "It's always a little odd trying to fit back in. You get used to it."

Ares glanced away and nodded, then flashed her his cocky grin. "Here to get your ass kicked?" 

"If I am, then I've come to the wrong place," she retorted. 

Ares laughed and flipped her off. She mirrored him. 

"Woah! Don't set a bad example for the kid." He jabbed his thumb at himself. 

Athena snorted. She looked out across the lawn, ticking her jaw. She looked back to him and searched his face and the permanent ghosts of anger behind his brashness. "Was there much of a fanfare?" she asked hesitantly.

Ares shrugged, twanging the bow string absent-mindedly. "Kinda. Ma was pleased to see me. It's hard to tell if there's gonna be a party or anything, because she throws so many anyway. She said I should do an interview to mark my return, then Dad said he didn't want me booking one until we'd 'confirmed the long-term results of the war'. Which means he'll forget."

Athena's stomach simmered. She balled her fist in her pocket, but kept her voice easy. "Sounds like Dad."

"Yup." Ares puffed out his cheeks and swung the bow to rest in a bar across his shoulders, hooking his wrists over it and hanging them there. "You here to see him?" 

Athena rolled her eyes and nodded. "TGOEM stuff."

Ares blew a raspberry. Athena barked a deep laugh and punched his arm. 

Their sibling snickers were cut off by an irritable, snapping voice advancing on them from the direction of the house. Athena's shoulders sank at the sight of her father and his wife striding across the grass, bickering like chickens over seed. Zeus' hair whipped behind him and sparkled with the beginnings of lightning. Hera's black eyebrows were arched indignantly, she was clacking furiously on her phone’s qwerty keyboard. 

Athena glanced to Ares and saw his jaw harden and a vein rise in his neck, his sensitivity to anger visibly sore on his sun-stained skin. He lowered the bow to his side and gripped it hard. She shifted her body to shield him slightly. 

"Why is it, Husband, that every time there is a new goddess within fifty miles of any pantheon, you have to go drooling at her heels, like an old spaniel losing his teeth?" Hera hissed. 

"I do not drool!" Zeus snapped, looming over her at her side with seemingly no effect. "I am the linchpin of fucking society, Hera, I have to know who people are!" 

"I will recognise you as the fucking linchpin of fucking society when you start doing any fucking work to hold society together," Hera snarled. "We are hosting five high profile events this month, exactly how many of them are you organising?" She pointedly went back to her phone calendar. 

"Excuse me for having enough to do that I don't have to fill my time with party planning," Zeus grumbled. 

"Like what?" Hera scoffed. "Chasing Aphrodite's skirt?" 

"I am not!" 

Athena glanced again at Ares' darkening expression. His parents were so engrossed in arguing that they were mere paces from the pair of them and hadn't yet noticed. 

“I’m just curious, is all,” Zeus insisted petulantly. “Aphrodite has been a shrinking violet all these centuries, pottering around the Mortal Realm setting up blind dates and doing little of note except getting a little too chummy with Persia, then we look up and half those fuckers are saying she's the greatest thing since they put the pocket in pita and it's all 'time for the next thing.' I'd be a poor king if I wasn't curious.”

Hera visibly resisted commenting on the quality of his kingship. “I suppose her popularity makes her even more appealing.” 

Zeus ground his shiny, white teeth. “It makes her a lot of things, including a possible problem, and including a possible desirable connection.”

“I know all about your desires to connect, Zeus, and I am not going to enable them by answering your pathetic questions about -” Hera stopped in her tracks, suddenly seeing they were no longer alone. She looked at Ares with something between bottled fury, pleading and apology. She tightened her lips and cleared her throat.

Ares returned her look. “Everything OK, Ma?”

Hera blew sharply out through her nose. “Yes, Lamb, all fine. Your father and I were just…” she shot Zeus a withering look, “talking.”

Ares’ glimmering, red eyes flicked to Zeus. Athena looked between them, her body ticking into the heightened awareness of battle, ears pricking, shoulders drawing back. It was instinctive when her brother and father shared a space.

“Talking, huh?” Ares said, his voice a little too low. “What about?”

Zeus puffed out his chest like a peacock, his tone arrogant and breezy. “Ares, you’ll side with me on this.”

“Don’t count on it.”

“I was just asking your mother a couple of light, innocuous questions about her new colleague, and she flew off the handle, like a damn harpy. A king has to be allowed some openness from his queen when managing his court, don’t you think?” His hard, crystal eyes daggered Ares, demanding filial support. 

“A woman’s gotta be allowed to do her job without dumbass interruptions, don’t you think?” Ares replied through his teeth.

Athena didn’t need to share her brother’s power to feel the angry, electrical hum between him and Zeus. She sighed softly. He’d only been home a few days. Were they getting like this already? She cleared her throat loudly and spoke in a casual tone. “Curiosity’s no crime. Can’t deny I have some myself.”

Three pairs of eyes flashed to her. She suppressed another sigh. “Goddess of Love is quite a title, after all. Not surprising she’s made a stir.” She turned amiably to Hera. “You’re working with her?”

Hera raised an eyebrow. “A little.”

“What on?” Athena inquired.

Hera shrugged. “Partnering mortals up. We can make each other’s processes run smoother.”

“What’s she like?”

Hera looked extremely bored. “Pushy. Talks too much. Quite bright, I suppose. Seems to be enjoying herself here, but give her time.”

“See?” Zeus grumbled. “That wasn’t so hard.”

Hera glared murderously at him.

“Do you mind if I ask what made you start that up?” Athena asked quickly.

“Oh,” Hera droned, “I had the foolish thought that love and marriage ought to have some kind of relationship.” Another glare at Zeus. He groaned under his breath and looked away.

The peace of the garden turned to a crispy silence. Even the birds stopped twittering for fear of incurring some scrap of seething wrath. Athena eyed Ares. He was holding himself so tensely that his outline had turned jagged.

“So!” She changed tack jovially. “A busy social calendar this month?”

Hera nodded. “Zeus’ birthday at the end of the month, of course, and we have the Midsummer gala, the Fates’ fete, my wedding show, and a little, impromptu garden party this weekend.”

“Garden party this weekend? Are you welcoming the warrior home?” Athena clapped Ares on his rock hard shoulder. He didn’t budge.

Hera’s face softened, almost fell, glancing at her son.

Zeus answered in a surly tone to somewhere past Athena. “It's a ‘save the bees’ benefit.”

“What's up with the bees?”

“Nothing,” said Hera. “We do one every now and then in recognition of the role the honey nymphs played in rescuing your father from Kronos.”

“Yeah,” Ares growled. “Dad loves honey nymphs. Does plenty to keep them sweet.”

Zeus rounded on him. “Watch your mouth, I'm not in the mood.”

Ares looked at him flatly. “You have different moods?”

“But can we expect a welcome home party?” Athena interrupted. “Come on, he was gone half a year.”

Hera shifted her weight uncomfortably. “We'd like to, Athena, obviously, but Ares' new role was a tad…"

"Disliked. Resented. Looked down upon," Zeus drawled. 

"Controversial." Hera corrected in a warning tone. 

Athena bristled, but smoothed her voice carefully. "Surely all the more reason to show full support: kill the rumours that he isn't making a positive difference." She felt Ares shuffle beside her. 

"He's not making a positive difference," Zeus rumbled darkly. "He's war."

Athena put a fist on her hip. "I'm war, people come to my parties."

Zeus gave her a sickly sweet look. "You are tactics and prowess and respectful conventions. Ares is a racoon with a machete."

Athena was buffeted by heat as Ares snapped, swiping the bow in front of him. "Hey, Old Man, you're the one who put me on the payroll to do it. All this was your idea."

"It was the best I could do with the material," Zeus sneered. 

Ares narrowed his eyes. "Only a bad workman blames his tools."

"Don't call yourself a tool, Son, it'll stick."

"Fuck you!" 

"Alright!" Hera raised her voice, echoing through the slender trees and shaking the leaves. The other three were all twice her height, but suddenly looked oddly diminutive next to her. She exhaled steadily and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, we all have a lot to do today…" 

"Except this layabout," Zeus mumbled out of the side of his mouth. 

Hera ploughed on. "Let's all just cool off and see each other at dinner. OK?" 

There was a stiff pause. 

"OK? " Hera repeated threateningly. 

Athena glanced between brother and father. She could feel Ares' seething heat singeing her exposed forearm. She rested her eyes on him coolly. After a strained moment, he flicked his gaze to her. His irises were ringed with crackling red. She held his glare steadily. He seemed to dim. 

He blinked and looked down, fingers fidgeting on the bow. "Uhuh."

"Fine," Zeus grouched. He shot one more dissatisfied look at his children, nothing at all at his wife, and strode away in the direction of the estate gate. 

With his departure, the dense air thinned. There was an audible inhalation from the remaining three. A robin piped up. A squirrel rustled. Ares rubbed the back of his neck.

"You'll get your invitation later today, I sent them with Hermes before lunch," Hera said plainly to Athena. 

Athena smiled and nodded. Hera looked like she might leave, then something tinged her face. She turned to her glowering son, her hand floating forward, as if to touch him. Her voice came softly, meant only for him. "I… I don't care about bees." 

Ares' expression smoothed. He blinked rapidly, trying to extinguish the visible flames in his eyes. "I know."

"It's just an excuse to put everything in yellow." Her drooping mouth twitched up. 

Athena's heart squeezed. His colour. Their colour. Vibrant, joyous, warm, fierce.

Hera ran her tiny fingers over his large hand. He smiled at her reassuringly. Then the tenderness between them broke as quickly as it formed. She straightened up, brushed a loose tendril of golden hair behind her ear, nodded to them both, and marched away back to the house, gripping her phone with white knuckles. 

Ares watched her go, his reassuring smile turning to a weighted frown. 

Athena let her breath go and sucked it back in, resettling into the sweet, zingy aroma of the garden. She nudged Ares playfully on the arm to bring him back. "War's quieter, huh?" 

Ares laughed bitterly, the harsh sound pricking her. Her stomach tightened a little. She rolled her shoulders and spoke more gently. "He didn't mean what he said. When he came to me to talk through crafting a position for you, he had real energy for the idea. He's just sore because the glory didn't go to his capital."

It had been a point of teeth-grinding negotiation between the siblings as Athena had coached Ares through his first campaign. He'd been dividing his time between several cities, and Athena had encouraged him to give Zeus' patron capital, Elis, extra victories, to keep Dad on side in his early career. The comment Ares made now was a belligerent repetition of what he'd said then. "Then he should make his capital fucking worth glory."

Athena puffed out through her lips. "Can't argue with that," she said honestly. 

He turned his body squarely to her, folding his thick arms over his broad chest and fixing her with a penetrating gaze. What he said next rocked her balance. "Why do you work for him? Why do you go along with his bullshit? You're smarter than him, your city's stronger. You could break away."

The question swirled in Athena's constantly ticking, clockwork mind, messing with the mechanism. Why did any of them go along with him? She preached in the Mortal Realm about true leadership, about fortitude and intelligence and the courage to compromise. Was it disingenuous to pledge her loyalty to someone who didn't display those qualities? She thought about TGOEM. About how he’d made it necessary. Then she thought about Hestia, about hearth and home, about returning from war to something healthy and certain and stable. She looked into Ares' face. For all his new adulthood, she might as well have been visiting her toddler brother again and trying to convince him not to eat the discarded lids on open cans. She put a hand firmly on his shoulder. "If I break, what else breaks?" 

He frowned questioningly.

"It's not about Dad, Ares. It's about Olympus. I am Olympus' defender." She gripped him. "And now…" 

"And now so am I?" he said dully.

She searched his eyes. She smiled with a flicker of pride. "No. No, but you're something. I haven't found a name for it yet. But you're going to bring something important to Olympus."

He shrugged under her hand. "How do you know?" 

She grinned. "Goddess of Wisdom."

His serious face shattered into its familiar shards of sharp mirth. 

Her pride glowed on her face. "Ignore Dad's tantrums. I've never seen a new god gain a city so quickly. We all thought you were going to go out and win some battles and come back bloody and bolshie. Ares, you got a capital on your first outing. A whole people turned to you. You must have really inspired them. That's impressive. Seriously." She remembered standing with him on the ramshackle temple roof when it was dedicated, Ares still spattered with blood and gaping in surprise at the crowding mortals as they cheered wildly for their new benefactor, his baffled protests drowned in Athena's booming applause and the rolling of wine barrels and the lowing of sacrificial bulls. 

Ares scrunched up his mouth shyly. "I dunno, Sparta's barely more than an encampment."

"Not by the time you've done with it."

He allowed himself a small smile, but it was avoidant.

She released his shoulder, feeling it somewhat relaxed after its rigid tension around their father. She flicked it. "Come on, show me your technique."

Ares' face flashed cocky. He lifted the bow and twirled it in dextrous fingers. He took up his stance and cocked an arrow. Athena tilted her head and observed the spread of his feet, the shape of his shoulders, the spot the arrow’s feathers kissed on his cheek. He fired. The arrow whisked from the bow and thunked hard into the second inner ring on the middle target. He clucked his tongue and plucked another arrow. 

Athena prodded his side. “Don’t slouch in your middle. You built the muscle there, so use it. Engage your core and draw up from your centre on an inhale.”

Ares didn’t look at her, already staring down the arrow, but she saw his body straighten as he followed her guidance. He released again. The arrow hit the rim of the bullseye.

Athena clapped his back. He threw her a lopsided smile. Another arrow clattered out of the red-feathered bouquet at their feet. 

Athena sucked on her tongue. It felt off digging for intel through Ares, but it had been a long haul to get Hera, Goddess of Marriage, to support TGOEM; her partnership with a new love goddess could be an issue. “So,” she said nonchalantly, “not to press on a sore spot, but sounded like Dad’s off the leash again.”

Ares snorted. “Was he ever on it?”

“Fair point.”

He drew the arrow and let Athena nudge his position about a bit. “He's not actually done anything, though. Yet. Ma's anger isn't high enough.”

“This is her not all that angry?”

The arrow drove furiously into the target, making it sway on its feet like a drunk. “Yup.”

“How has it been here?” Athena asked with concern. “Since you got back.”

Ares twanged the bow string absent-mindedly, looking down. “Same ol’, same ol’. Except the old man had a break from me being around and now he remembers how much he didn’t enjoy me being here.”

Her voice lowered. “So it’s worse between you.”

“There is no better or worse with us. There’s just keeping it in and letting it out.” 

“You could get your own place, you know.”

He rotated his wrist and adjusted his arm guard. “Ma.” 

Athena closed her lips and nodded. No amount of good advice, no amount of practical sense, no amount of hating her brother being cooped up like a captured golden eagle with clipped wings could mean anything in the face of his loyalty to Hera. Athena gave herself to causes and states and courts. Ares gave himself to individuals. You showed so much potential this summer, she wanted to say, you are so much more than a human shield. But she knew there was no use. She ran her hand through her sweep of silver hair and lightened her voice. “People sure are worked up about this new love goddess in town.”

He picked up an arrow and twizzled it, the feathers fluttering. “That’s just Dad and Ma all the time. She could be the lady who sold him his watch, this would happen.”

“Not just them. Tia’s unnerved.”

He threaded the arrow, chuckling. “Meaning she's gone into a full control freak craze?”

Athena glanced sideways at him with a wry twist to her mouth. “We’re not there yet, but we are stress baking. It was honey cake today.”

“Where's my piece?”

“In my belly.”

“Rude.” Another shot, another rock of the target.

“You seen her around here much? With your mom, I mean.”

“Who?”

“Newbie.”

Ares looked disinterested, raising the bow to peer along the line of his arm to analyse his aim. “Dunno, what’s she look like?”

Athena thought back to the magazine cover. “Pretty. Like in a polished way. Lavender. Long, swishy hair. Lips. Legs. Tits. All that.” She listed the traits off on her fingers, looking up into the brilliant sky. She looked back down. Ares had fallen alarmingly still, gazing into the middle distance. She spun on her heel to swat him with the jacket still hooked on one finger over her shoulder. “You OK there?”

Ares scratched his temple with the end of the bow, still gazing. “Uhuh. We uh… We met earlier today, I think.”

“Oh yeah? What's she like?”

Ares’ eyebrows lifted. “Forward. Fun.” The corner of his mouth poked up. “Freaky.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You sound like you're writing a children's book.”

Ares bit his lip impishly. “Yeah, it's not a suitable story for children.”

Oh. Now it made sense. She flicked his ear. “Tart.”

He laughed and batted at her. “She started it!”

“Whatever.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, voice distant. “Woah. Goddess of Love. I thought she was a nymph.”

“The ears didn’t give you a clue?”

“Her ears were not my focus.”

Athena wrinkled her nose at him. 

“I mean, this explains…” His voice drifted off.

She frowned. “Explains what?”

Ares thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Nah, nothing. Just she was very…” he glanced awkwardly at his sister, “affecting.”

Athena stuck her finger into her mouth and made a gagging noise. Ares’ warm laughter boomed around the lawn. He shoved her arm and she laughed with him. He twirled the bow with a flourish and leaned on one hip. “Did I make out with the biggest news on Olympus?”

“Sounds like it.”

He swung the bow across his shoulders again, face brightening. “Hey, you think she'll be at the party?”

Athena smiled in amusement at his puppy dog expression. “No idea. Probably.”

Ares beamed like the midday sun.

Athena pursed her lips. “You know she's like a thousand years older than you, right?”

He winked. “What can I say? I’m a MILF magnet.”

Athena planted her palm over his face, squawking in disgust. “Eeew! We are far out of sibling territory now. More shoot, less talk.”

Ares snuffled into her hand with laughter, prodding her with the bow to free himself. He was still grinning giddily when he raised the next drawn arrow. 

Athena sobered, sliding her hand back into her chinos pocket and fingering her phone. “Ares, I have to ask, for Hestia's sake..." She sighed reluctantly. "Does she seem like she's going to trouble the waters?”

She expected him to snort at her and brush this off. But the bow string slackened a little. A golden shadow passed over his face, putting him deep in thought. It was the same face he pulled when she was teaching him to calculate odds in a battle. A light breeze danced between them, ruffling their hair. He pressed his lips together and looked at her seriously. “If I say yes, will things be hard for her?”

Athena met his gaze steadily. “Not if she doesn't make things hard for us.”

He fell back into thought. His tongue moved around his teeth, rolling his jaw. He only did that when he was tasting ferocity in the air. Or remembering its taste. The hairs rose on the back of Athena’s neck and forearms.

The moment of quiet lasted just a little too long. Eventually, Ares broke it, speaking hesitantly, too diplomatically for him. “She's something powerful. That's all I know.”

“OK.”

“And, uh…”

“Yes?”

“She’s angry.”

Athena took this in and carefully catalogued it, her clockwork brain ticking faster, cogs spinning and whirring. She nodded. “Thanks.” She tossed her jacket onto the grass and patted the small of Ares’ back sharply. “Seriously, stop slouching, core, core, core.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ares elbowed her away and straightened back up with the bow.

The arrow soared into the bullseye with a mighty thud. The poor, punished target finally toppled onto its back.

“The target’s not supposed to do that, you know,” Athena said.

Ares grinned and flexed his bicep. She tutted and let him carry on as she slipped her phone from her pocket and flipped it open with a click . She opened up her text history with Hestia. Her thumb hovered over the keyboard. She thought for a moment. Then typed: Alright, there’s something about her. Go carefully xx

 

*

 

The doorbell clanged through Aphrodite’s spacious house, reverberating between her ears. She bristled like a cat and dropped her pen, her concentration snapping like a twig. She reluctantly left her Odysseus/Penelope date planning and went to the door. It opened to a tall, plump woman in a long, emerald green dress, that puffed around the shoulders and floated around the ankles. She was a deep, appetising amber, candle glow hair sleek as melting wax down her back. She was smiling like an apple and holding a picnic basket from which a delicious, cooked berry scent lazily rose. 

Aphrodite’s face softened, her irritation at being interrupted dissipating. “Hi?”

“Howdy, Neighbour!” the woman said brightly. 

Aphrodite cocked her head, like a parakeet. She’d chosen this house precisely because it wasn’t in the populated part of town. “Neighbour?”

“Well, figuratively,” the woman said, shrugging her round shoulders, her curves bobbing. “Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth? Remember me? I know it's been an age, literally. I’m all about home, so I count everyone on Olympus as a neighbour.”

Aphrodite's memory clicked. Hestia hadn't been very present from her perspective in the Traitors days, keeping everything going in the background, known best to the inner circle, but she always seemed nice. “Oh, Hestia! Fates, I'm so sorry, brain obviously on vacation. Gods, it really has been forever, you look amazing." She extended a hand gracefully.

Hestia took her hand warmly in both of her own, the basket swinging in the crook of her elbow. “As do you, though you don't need me to tell you that, Miss Talk of the Town. I feel like not a day’s gone by this week that I haven’t seen your face on a magazine stand or heard your name in hushed tones.” Her voice was a little too jolly. She squeezed Aphrodite’s hand tight.

Aphrodite laughed coolly and eased her fingers free, rubbing the blood back into them. “I do feel like the papers gave me quite a welcome.”

“Not like I’m going to.” Hestia’s eyes twinkled. She held up the sweet-smelling basket. “Offerings for the goddess,” she tittered.

Aphrodite’s stomach gurgled, her mouth watered. “You sweetheart,” she said with a bounce of her fine brows. 

She stepped to the side and gestured for Hestia to come in. The hearth goddess needed no encouragement. She entered like a balloon blown by the wind, her hem flaring. She bounced to the large kitchen table behind Aphrodite and set the basket down. 

Her eyes roved around the space, falling on the large fireplace and tall fridge. “Oh! What a place!” her exclamation echoed a touch. “But a little empty, isn’t it?” She turned and gave Aphrodite a knowing look. “I bet you’re the kind of gal who likes clutter. Big families, lots of noise, mess everywhere. You look like someone who likes mess.”

Aphrodite gave her hair a self-conscious pat.

Hestia gasped and giggled, flapping her hand. “Oh, no, Dear, I’m so sorry! I don’t mean you look a mess. Quite the opposite! I mean you seem like someone who likes to be snug, that’s all. The minimalism surprised me.”

Aphrodite nodded warily. “I see. Well, it’s my first place out on my own. I haven’t unpacked everything yet, but there’s also a lot more space to fill than I planned. You’re not wrong, I do like clutter.” It unnerved her slightly that this goddess had guessed that so easily. Most people assumed Aphrodite would want everything chic and stylish, but she’d spent a happy life with Poseidon’s merriment and Amphitrite’s expressiveness. The ocean palace was a riot of strange shapes and colours and thingamabobs. And her powers were sparked by the joy between people, she had been a little adrift since moving into this big, echoing place all on her own. She wished it looked less like a show house.

Hestia opened the picnic basket. “It’s red hedgerow pie. Blackberries, raspberries and strawberries in a lattice crust. One of my specialities.”

Aphrodite walked to the basket and bent to sniff the delicious steam wisping out of it. Her cheeks warmed. “Smells gorgeous. Thank you.”

Hestia beamed blindingly at her. Then kept smiling. And kept smiling. 

Aphrodite cottoned on, suppressing a small sigh, bidding farewell to Ithaca’s budding romance. “Would you like to stay and have a piece?”

“Oh, I’m so low on time, but if you insist! Where’s your crockery?”

Aphrodite set them up at the table and Hestia levered two fat pieces of glistening, ruby pie onto their plates. Aphrodite took the first bite, watched by Hestia, as if by a hawk. The crust crunched, then crumbled into sugary flakes. The berries melted and spilled sweet, tart, hot juice over her tongue. She was flooded with a peculiar nostalgia for a flavour she couldn’t remember. Comfort sank into her belly. She breathed out with an almost moan. “Wow…”

Hestia chuckled and tucked into her dripping slice. “So, ‘Love’. That’s big,” she said with a clear prompt in her voice.

Aphrodite lingered on her bite of pie to delay having to answer. She’d done enough interviews over the past week to know when a grilling was coming. “It is.”

“What kind of love?”

Aphrodite blinked. “All kinds.”

“Family? Platonic? Romantic?”

“Check, check, check.”

Hestia’s fork danced in the soft berries, juice welling around the tines. “Just there’s quite a bit of talk about…” she lowered her voice, as if in a polite, public place, “sex.”

Aphrodite sucked on a sodden piece of jammy crust to keep from smirking. "I dabble."

Hestia's fork scraped gratingly. "How do you find it fits with your family work?" 

Aphrodite's heart sank a tad. She knew Olympus had some funny ideas, but come on, she’d only just got here. She hadn't even ordered new curtains yet. "Don't you know how babies are made?" she asked drily. 

Hestia’s autumn-cosy manner crystallised at the edges. Her nostrils flared. "I do, of course. But you can't deny that working with the young and working with…" she smoothed her skirt, "mature topics, could be a match ill-made." 

"Fortunately, Hestia, I am a matchmaker." Aphrodite smiled like a fox and waved her fork at the prim goddess. Hestia’s uncertainty wasn't soothed. Aphrodite pressed her lips together and lowered the fresh mound of crimson berries. She straightened her posture and spoke patiently. Might as well start practicing this speech, she was going to have to make it a lot. "I believe it is better that a holistic approach is taken, one that ensures healthy development of all kinds of emotional and physical bonds. If I were to split my work between sex and family, fissures would be created that could cause damage."

"Crossover could cause damage," Hestia said too calmly. 

Aphrodite prickled. She breathed in slowly, filling her simmering belly with sweet steam. "I didn't say crossover. I said holistic."

"Would you mind explaining that?" Hestia put on the most innocent of confused voices. 

A raspberry glooped off Aphrodite's fork indignantly. "Not at all. Let's say a child doesn't want to be touched. Then another child runs up to them and gives them a big hug that they think will feel nice, but it makes their friend cry instead. The offending child is upset and prays to me. I teach them that they need to ask people whether they would like to be touched. One day, that child will be an adult who knows to say 'can I touch you there?'. Then, later, they will have their own child. They will not force touch on that child and will tell them the lesson I taught. One day that child will be an adult who knows they don't have to accept, and should not give, unwanted touch. Do you see?"

“I do,” Hestia said cautiously. “But I’m surprised you’re communicating with children at all.”

“Children love.”

Hestia paused with pursed lips. She nodded curtly. Her fork clattered onto the china and scooped a chunk of crust into her pout. She munched. 

"You don't seem satisfied." Aphrodite said, her patience wavering, the scent of the pie suddenly a little too sharp and sickly. 

Hestia puffed out through her nose and dabbed her lips with the crook of her finger. "I suppose it's just… one hears things." 

A cord of itchy heat twanged on Aphrodite's spine. "What things?" 

Hestia made a very good show of reluctance to say, turning her face down and batting her eyes up, tucking a silky strand of neat hair behind her cute ear. "People driven mad with lust. Tragedies of love - death and war, manipulation and betrayal. The urges mortals turn to us to fight against being... unleashed."

Oh, so her guest was going there, was she? Needles turned to claws in Aphrodite's skin. She set her jaw and took a deep, steadying breath, cutting through the overpowering pie steam to the clean, herb and petal fragrance of her kitchen. She carefully placed her fork down, the soft ding slicing through the space between her and her visitor. She swished her hair to fall down one side of her face and levelled a cold, steely glare at Hestia. "One also hears of logs falling out of fireplaces and burning nice, wholesome homes to the ground."

Hestia clenched her fork in her fist, drawing herself up like an affronted ostrich, eyes kindling and upper lip curling. "That is neither here nor there."

"Yes it is." Who was this goddess to judge? Who was anyone? Why was the world so frightened of love? Well, if they wanted fear, who was she to deny them? She continued in her unrelenting, surgical blade tone. "You came here today because you're worried about my darkness. Quite understandable, I'm new to the community, there isn't an emergency procedure for me yet. But don't mistake, you didn't know about my darkness because you suspected it of me alone. You knew of it because we all have it, every god, every power. You just wanted the specifics." The distant sound of a rushing wave echoed on the tiling. Hestia looked around in alarm. Aphrodite slinked as she felt her magic stir and glimmer. "Let me tell you where I differ, why you're all worked up. It's because hearth and battle and city and marriage and song and medicine and skill are all civilised. They were all made. And so they can be unmade. Mortals decide to tear down the stones or make peace or give up the paperwork, to die without help or silence the singers or stop paying for crafts, you all vanish in a puff of smoke. But not love. Love just happens. Love just is. It can't be forgotten or undone or suppressed.” She opened her senses to Hestia, found the heat in her heart, pounced on it. “You know that, Dear. It's happened to you."

Hestia recoiled, a hand floating to her mouth. 

Aphrodite drove on, the noise of waves rising a little as seafoam tossed in her pupils. An amethyst glow painting her body and dusky smoke trickled in her hair. The thick scent of blue lotus incense suffocated the berries. "Olympus has worked just ever so hard trimming mortals down into lovely, little box hedges. Here I come with my fresh soil and my wild rains and drenching suns. Who knows what state the garden might be in next year? It's frightening. I sympathise. But, Hestia," she reached out and laid a hand over the amber one trembling by a plate of blood red crumbs, "it's growth."

Hestia swallowed, brow knitting and creasing, gaping at the threads of purple, sparkling smoke weaving through Aphrodite's tumbling hair. She pulled her hand away abruptly and released a tremulous breath. Aphrodite blinked slowly and tugged her power back beneath her skin. The waves hushed, the incense dissipated, her glow dimmed. She tossed her hair with a casual, composed sigh and rocked back in her seat, kicking one leg over the other. "Isn't that what we're really there for?" 

Hestia rallied herself, still gripping her fork like a trident. "I am here to protect. Not disturb."

"Then you are here to stagnate." She shrugged. "But anyway, Neighbour," she flicked her eyes up to pin Hestia’s, "you needn't get out your best clutching pearls yet. This house is not some den of iniquity." She winked. "Not until all the furniture arrives, at least."

It was at this precise moment that Hermes came crashing through the door, a pink, giggling goddess wrapped around his waist, like a koala, biting his bottom lip.

Hestia and Aphrodite's eyes widened, but in very different expressions. 

Hermes stumbled forward, hoisting the woman by her ass, her short skirt flapping. His eyes flickered open. He choked into her mouth. "Ah! Peitho! People!" 

The goddess squeaked and twisted in his arms. She looked with shock and then mischievous delight at Hestia’s scandalised expression. Then her gaze ticked to Aphrodite and she grinned sheepishly. 

Aphrodite smiled mockingly at her new PA. Peitho was short and chubby and hot pink, with a head full of jostling, pale, marshmallow ringlets and a spray of glittering, pink freckles over her wide nose and down her arms, giving her a permanent gemstone shimmer. She was the Grace of Seduction, and so, inappropriate as it was to come toppling into her boss' home office with the bewildered mailman, Aphrodite had to hand it to her, it was a job well done. Not that Hermes was especially difficult prey. 

Hestia, however, was not amused. She stood with a bang of the wooden chair and glared like a furnace at the two of them, ignoring Peitho as much as possible. Hermes awkwardly set Peitho down and took half a step away from her, wincing, sucking the sparkly, pink lip gloss smeared over his mouth. As she peeled from his body, his smooth, ruby shirtlessness was revealed. He folded his arms over his pointing nipples. 

"Hermes!" Hestia snapped. "We have discussed attending work with proper attire and proper conduct!" 

Hermes tightened his wrap around his chest. "We have chatted about that, yes, Hestia."

"So, what do you have to say for yourself?" 

"I…" 

Aphrodite stood too and planted her hands on her hips. "Excuse me, this is my house they're in!"

Hestia turned on her, a wisp of white steam leaking from her nostrils. She sniffed sharply to clear it and raised her chin. "Yes. Indeed it is." 

Aphrodite narrowed her eyes at her. She glared back. For a heated moment, the two goddesses looked like they might draw swords. Then Hestia broke their gaze and swept to the open door in a billow of green fabric. 

"Wait," Aphrodite called out, "you forgot your pie."

"It was a gift," Hestia said coldly. "Welcome to Olympus."

The door slammed shut, and she was gone, leaving only the scent of boiled sugar and a ringing irritation in Aphrodite’s body. Aphrodite stared after her, replaying fragments of their conversation and trying to understand how it had escalated so quickly, and what exactly it had escalated to. At least, she tried, until… 

"There's pie?" Peitho and Hermes piped together. Peitho scooted to the cupboards to fetch two forks and threw one to Hermes. He leaped into the vacated chair, Peitho landing in his lap. They slid the basket over to them and began to shovel the still warm treat into their smudged mouths. 

Aphrodite looked at them with a drily raised eyebrow. "Do come in, make yourselves at home." 

"Thanks, Boss." Peitho blew her a berry-sweet kiss across the table. 

Aphrodite shook her head. "You know, no other goddesses let their staff behave this way."

Peitho blinked. "Duh, why do you think I didn't apply to work for any other goddesses?" She fed Hermes a squidged strawberry, he gave her a dazzling grin around the morsel. 

Aphrodite dropped to perch on the edge of the table and smiled in amusement at them, their soft, flirtatious air rubbing balm into the thorn scratches left by Hestia. Peitho had been on the payroll for a week and had already settled into a level of comfort Aphrodite usually took years to cultivate. Her perky sweetness and confident familiarity had made Aphrodite a touch suspicious at first. But what could she do? The woman was seduction itself. It was very difficult not to feel good around her. And as she'd watched Peitho interact with their various visitors, seen her playfulness with Hermes and cordiality with Demeter and smooth manners with Apollo, she'd come to understand that Peitho had an element of the chameleon, adapting to whatever she sensed in the environment to draw affection out of whoever she was with. Away from home and increasingly, it seemed, an object of suspicion herself, Aphrodite had needed unprofessional ease, had needed the instant feel of having known each other a long time, and Peitho had realised it.

"What was Hestia doing here?" Peitho asked deridingly with her mouth full of Hermes' fork, patting his face. 

"I'm really not sure. But we did not hit it off," Aphrodite replied, swallowing the last of the acid in her throat. 

"Bet it was TGOEM business," Hermes said. 

"TGOEM?" Aphrodite asked.

Peitho rolled her eyes so hard, she looked like a pinball machine resetting. "The Goddesses of Eternal Maidenhood."

Aphrodite’s gut knotted. 

"They're a sort of women's welfare organisation," Hermes explained, fishing in the basket for another hunk of pastry. 

"They're a pressure group," Peitho scoffed. "Bent on moralising every woman into maidenhood. They claim it’s for our own good, of course."

Aphrodite reached over, stuck her finger in the basket, scooped some red goo, and sucked it off her finger. "What good?" 

"Protection from the wiles and wills of the likes of this one." Peitho ruffled Hermes' hair. He laughed and tickled her side. She hiccupped and elbowed him, making his abs crunch. 

"Then why not make men swear virginity?" Aphrodite said flatly. "Oh, wait, yeah, patriarchy."

"That bitch," Peitho agreed. 

"The worst," Hermes added, prodding Peitho's fork out of the way to get to more sugar. 

"She can really bake though." Peitho won the fork duel and filled her mouth. 

"Well, that explains some stuff," Aphrodite mused. Her stomach wriggled uncomfortably. She’d assumed Hestia was just some moral madam on a misguided mission. But if she was a political voice already set against Aphrodite’s work, that was a different matter. Her finger trailed over her lip. "Do I need to be worried?" 

Peitho glanced up at her with twinkling, unfazed eyes. "Nothing we can't handle, Boss."

Aphrodite tried not to show her concern.

“You OK, Lady Love? You look put out,” Hermes said gently.

Aphrodite looked into his boyish, open face. “Not put out. Just curious, is all.”

Peitho scoffed. “They’re all about everything you came here to spare people from. Control and judgement and wilful ignorance. Duty calls, Boss, take ‘em down.”

Hermes smiled sideways at her. “TGOEM and the Grace of Seduction are not good buddies.”

She puffed up like a poodle. “It’s like living in a really boring police procedural.”

Aphrodite’s gut knotted tighter, but a flame sprang up in it. She’d worked for centuries against this, against energetic girls like Peitho and sweethearts like Hermes being treated like curse tablets, against the extinguishing of passion and pleasure for some arbitrary “moral good”. If an organisation like this had sprouted on Olympus, then it seemed she’d moved at exactly the right time.

She dipped into the basket for more sticky fruit. "So, did you intercept the paper boy on his flight, or was he on my doorstep with real post?" 

"Oh." Hermes' ears went somehow even more red. He dusted off his hands and rummaged in the satchel he'd dumped by the chair, rocking Peitho in his lap. "Second one." He held out a crisp, yellow envelope addressed to Aphrodite in curling black letters. 

She took it, peeled it open, and slid out the card inside. It was printed in the same curling lettering onto thick, silken paper, also in yellow with a stark, black border. An invitation to a ‘save the bees’ garden party this weekend at the royal estate. Aphrodite smirked. "Save the bees?" 

Hermes shrugged. "I'm just the messenger. I mean, I am a guest, but fuck if I know."

Aphrodite's mind wandered to the sprawling royal gardens. Then to a sun-soaked face, a warm, tactile body, and a hot, chasing mouth. Her heart skipped. It had been such a winding day, her encounter with the gardener seemed so long ago. But it was only this afternoon, and now she would be back there before the week was out. Maybe she could find him again.

"You're gazing romantically," Peitho accused, her magenta eyes glittering at Aphrodite. 

Aphrodite blinked at her, acutely aware of the darker hue her cheeks had gone. She waved the invitation dismissively. "Just thinking, it might be nice."

"Hestia will be there," Hermes said a little hesitantly. 

Aphrodite's full lips drew back over her keen teeth. "All the better."

 

* 

 

“You are going to love me.” Sinoe dropped an envelope onto Acteon’s desk, fluttering onto his keyboard over his rapidly moving fingers.

Acteon looked up at his fellow writer, his peacock blue hair scrunched at the front where he’d been running his hand through it. Sinoe flashed her brown eyes at him. The shrill ringing of the Panoptes magazine office phones and whir of printers came rudely into his consciousness. He picked up the envelope. It was sunflower yellow and embellished in plumed, jet calligraphy. 

“What’s this?” he asked, nudging his glasses up his nose. “I love you already, by the way.”

“Gross, I’m calling HR,” Sinoe said, perching on his cluttered desk. “Seriously, open it.”

Acteon fumbled with the seal and extracted a stylish, yellow card. “A press pass party invitation? For bees? I hate parties. I hate bees. Do I have to hate you now? I thought we agreed I love you. What am I meant to do with this sudden change?”

Sinoe poked his chair with her toe. “It’s a royal party, Hera’s hosting. All the elites will be there. I was supposed to cover it, but it’s my niece’s birthday, so I suggested you.” 

Acteon’s grip tightened on the invitation. “Will she be there?”

Sinoe nodded. “For the record, I think the amount you have been talking about Aphrodite is creepy, like in the way serial killer movies are. When you do it, I hear atonal piano music."

"Shut up..."

"But she will be there, in her natural, socialite habitat.”

“It’s not creepy,” Acteon huffed. “Good reporters have a gut. I have a gut. She’s… She’s in my gut.”

“She’s in your gut?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. You construct sentences for a living.”

Acteon looked at her flatly. “Good reporters have a gut,” he repeated.

“You’re not a good reporter,” Sinoe pointed out. “You’re a paid stalker who gives real journalists a bad name.”

“Yeah, but not for long.” Acteon looked down at the rich, yellow paper and stroked his thumb over the smooth surface. “That goddess is my ticket outta here.”

Sinoe snorted. “You’ll be missed.” She stood and started to walk off.

“I know you mean that deep down!” he called after her.

She turned back and yawned theatrically.

“I’m not being creepy!”

The yawn grew. He turned back to his desk and grumbled under his breath. “I’m just curious, is all.” 

Just curious. Curiosity was all an investigator had, after all. And ever since that interview, this new goddess had his in a frenzy. He didn’t know what, but there was a story following her. He was going to find it. And show it to the world.

Chapter 4: “This is a royal party.”

Summary:

It's the day of Hera's "Save the Bees" garden party. It's a chance for both Aphrodite and Ares to ingratiate themselves in Olympus society, but Olympus society can be anything but gracious. Frustrations build until they're both looking for escape.

[CW: Incident of parental gaslighting. Mild slut shaming. Apollo is here but doesn't do anything much.]

Intro song: Shiny Happy People, R.E.M.
Fancy party song: Valse Du Salon, Thomas Adès (Colette OST)
Song from Zeus' speech: Anger by the Seine, Thomas Adès (Colette OST)

“You can do this.” Hermes put his warm hands on Aphrodite’s shoulders and rubbed them, like a wrestling coach does his guy on the ropes.

Aphrodite gave him an indulgent look and folded her arms, privately enjoying his confident touch. “I know, Hot Sauce. I’ve been to a party before.”

“Yeah, but this is a royal party.”

“I’ve been to a royal party before. I lived with a king.”

Hermes stroked his hands down to her upper arms and curled his fingers around her biceps. “Hera is differently royal to Poseidon and Amphitrite. You’ve not been to one of these shindigs in years, it’s kind of a debutante ball for you. Aren’t you nervous at all?”

“It’s like you want me to be.”

“Well, if you’re not, I don’t get to be your handsome hero.”

She chuckled and pinched his chin between her thumb and foreknuckle. “You’re my handsome hero, Hermes.”

He squeezed her arms again. “Damn straight.”

They stood together at the gate to the inner gardens of Hera and Zeus’ estate, the prim plucking of a harp tip-toeing through the wrought iron and the tall hedges. 

After bursting in on her tense encounter with Hestia, Hermes had taken it upon himself to make sure Aphrodite’s next brush with Olympus society - the Save the Bees garden party - was more enjoyable. He’d shown up unasked at her door that afternoon with a corsage and a dashing smile, his scarlet tie askew and his hair combed into a ponytail that did nothing to tame its wildness. 

“Oh My Gods!” Aphrodite had exclaimed, leaning back to call out to no one. “Mom! My prom date is here!” 

Hermes had bowed deeply, slipped the corsage on her wrist, and offered her his arm. She hadn’t thought twice about accepting. Hermes was the only Olympian she really knew. There'd been the Traitor era and... how that ended. Then Poseidon and Amphitrite had taken her up the mountain once, but it... hadn’t gone well. Since then, she’d stayed in the sea, with Hermes as her only glimmer of that strange, celestial brightness. But as she’d met the rest of the Olympians, she’d come to realise Hermes’ brightness was something entirely its own. His seamless slipping between realms muddled sunlight and moonglow and neon, underground stars into his essence. Hermes was a trick of the light. 

She rolled her shoulders, the distant harp making her stomach ripple. Maybe she was just a little nervous. Last time really hadn’t been ideal, after all.

Don’t think about that. You’re older now. Like the boy says, you can do this.

She shrugged off Hermes' comforting hands and straightened his tie for him, letting her eyes rove around the sharp angles of his body in his stark, black suit. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this smart.”

Hermes grinned. “I clean up nice, right?”

“Very nice.” She smiled and patted his cheek. She looked down at the corsage he’d given her, an opulent, yellow rose, embellished with sweetpea and a sprig of lavender. “As is this. You’re a real sweetie pie, you know that?”

Hermes flapped his hand at her. “Aw, shucks.”

She beamed into his face. She stroked her hand over his lapel. His chest rose into her touch. She drew her hand away slowly. A crimson rose was left flourishing in his buttonhole. Hermes looked down at it and smiled. A wave of pleasant heat washed over her from his heart. She closed her eyes and hummed. Then sucked it down and gave his chest one more pat.

Hermes blinked in confusion. “Hang on, were you just drawing power from me?”

Aphrodite shrugged coyly.

“You were! You damn witch!” he laughed.

She cackled and fluttered her fingers at him, as if she was casting a spell in a play.

He batted her hands away. “Yeah, well, laugh all you want,” he said, securing the rose in his buttonhole. “But I’m a psychopomp, so if I’m escorting you anywhere, you’re doomed.”

She snorted, tugging his arm roughly and looping it into hers, turning them to face the looming plumes of wrought iron. “Come on, Hot Sauce. Let’s go kick bee butt.”

“No, we like the bees at this thing.”

“Olympus’ butt then.”

They bumped their shoulders together and marched through the gate.

Aphrodite hadn’t been to this part of the royal gardens before. Rather than cosy orchards and sprawling grass, this area was dripping with vibrant grandeur. Palms erupted from crowded beds of tropical plants, their branches fanning overhead to shade the enclosure. They laid criss-cross patterns over the rainbow of guests in their crisp linens and painterly pastels. Rich blooms bubbled from the ground - draconic bromeliads, powder puff geraniums, hollyhocks like satellite dishes, icing sugar plumeria, mouth-watering hibiscus. The borders were all dressed in ribbon and marigolds the merry yellow of a bumblebee's behind. Just off to the side was a large greenhouse, shining in the white-gold sun, crowds of contained plants rippling in a heat haze on the sizzling glass. The colours and scents were thrown over Aphrodite like a bucket of sweet water, drenching her senses and drowning her nerves.

Her nerves resurfaced, however, when her eyes refocused on the crowd. There were a lot of people here. A lot of important people. A lot of conflicting, confused emotions. Aphrodite could already begin to taste them, the bottled up lusts and longings like rum, the melancholy histories and sour break ups like corked wine turning to vinegar. She leaned into the warmth thrumming through Hermes’ suit jacket.

“Ready?” he asked, nudging her.

She flashed him an unfazed expression. “Of course.”

“Who do you wanna go talk to?” 

“No one, let’s find the food.” She needed to get that flavour off her tongue.

“Woman after my own heart.” Hermes started to steer her towards the buffet table and its garishly yellow decoration.

“I’m the Goddess of Love,” she replied slyly. “I’m after everyone’s heart.”

 

*

 

“You can do this.” Hera stopped them in the doorway of the house, reached up, and laid her small hands on Ares’ biceps, swelling through his crisp, new uniform jacket. 

“It’s just a party, Ma. Fates.” Ares shrugged her off and stuffed his large, clumsy hands into his pockets.

Hera pursed her lips, took his forearms gently, and pulled his hands back out of his pockets. She lightly pushed his shoulders up, ironing the slouch out of his body. He always stooped instinctively when talking to her, she was so damn tiny. Had she gotten smaller while he was away? Everything had felt smaller since he’d got back.

“It’s not just a party, Lamb,” Hera said with the softness reserved for him. “This is a royal party, and your first one since you got home. I want you to feel like you’re getting to make an entrance, my darling debutante. You…” Her brow crinkled a little. “You did really well.”

Ares unknotted his mouth and looked down at her warmly, mumbling, “thanks, Ma.”

She puffed through her nose, gusting her emotion away like cobwebs with a spring breeze. “Now get out there. And try to at least circulate once before you devour the buffet.”

“Are there those cupcakes from the Lotus Eaters bakery?”

“Yes.”

“Then I make no promises.”

Hera shook her head, clamping her mouth shut to hide her amused smile, and shooed Ares out of the house. 

The hum of polite chatter and pretty harp music reached them as they rounded a palm tree like a burlesque burst of ostrich feathers. Ares noticed his mother shift into gear, face setting into a picture of invulnerable charm, a golden armour of wit and status affixing itself to her delicate frame. He, on the other hand, felt shelled, exposed and about to be dropped into boiling water. He could charge face-first into a line of spears, but dealing with the veiled politics behind these jolly, little gatherings made him seasick. He could feel it already, too spicy on the tip of his tongue and sharp like cacti needles under his skin, the web of anger that constantly buzzed like an electric fence around any crowd of Olympians. Old wounds and everyday betrayals, sore power shifts and secret plots, humiliations and harassments and ordinary huffs. At least when you were on the battlefield, everyone’s anger was doing something, going in the same direction. It gave him a wave to ride, a current to course. Anger here was sulky and perpetually unresolved, reeking like a jar of pickles left out on a hot day. 

He sloped behind his mother, drawing back, as Demeter waved to her. She went striding off, spreading her arms and greeting her old friend with a peck on each cheek and only the faintest hint of a bored sneer. He stuffed his hands back in his pockets and looked dully around, hunching his shoulders, turning his stunning, gold face down, trying to make himself marginally less eye-catching than a fire in a theatre. His stomach grumbled. He looked over at the buffet table.

His heart stopped.

She glimmered in the crowd, an orchid among daisies, her dress cuddling her melody of a body, pale yellow fading to deep peach, turning her into a walking tequila sunrise. Her lavender hair was styled on top of her head in a whipped cream curl, dressed with frangipani. The sun ran adoring lips over her bare neck and shapely shoulders and long, elegant legs. Her bright peach, shiny stilettos accentuated her unusual height and her hypnotic grace. She had her back to him, a fine wisp of shadow trickling between her bare shoulder blades and down her spine to crown her full, firm ass wrapped tight by the dress. His palms tingled with the memory of cupping that ass and pulling her against his body, her thick thighs squeezing his hips, her clever fingers in his hair. 

Aphrodite. 

He knew her name now. And what a fucking name. It was a spell all on its own. 

Turn around.

He willed her to show him her face, to dazzle him with her eyes and melt him with her mouth. She was talking to a laughing and annoyingly debonair Hermes, a cocktail fizzing in one of her hands. It sloshed a little in the glass as she gestured through whatever anecdote she was seemingly telling. He strained his ears to catch her voice. She was too far away.

Come on, stop staring. She’s just hot. So you had a moment, don’t be a creep about it. 

He tried to look away.

I mean, she is next to the food, though, which is where I was headed anyway, so…

“Ares, come say hello!” His mother’s voice snipped the end of his thoughts. He blinked and spun around to see her still with Demeter, over by the harpist dryad with green fingers flowing over the strings. He flexed his hands and his neck, pushed Aphrodite from his mind, and forced his feet towards royal duties.

 

*

 

“And then the satyr says to the naiad, ‘you might be wet, but I’m fucking horny!’” Aphrodite finished the joke on a squeak of escaping giggles.

Hermes choked on his beer and doubled over in echoing guffaws. “Oh, I knew that was coming!”

Aphrodite let loose the fountain of giggles and poured them into her gin and elderflower tonic, the fruity, medicinal scent simultaneously clearing and muddling her head. She gulped and hiccupped softly. 

Hermes ran his hand across his brow and loosened his tie, coughing out the last of his laughter. “OK, OK, I’ve got one.”

Aphrodite poked her sprig of rosemary around her glass, juicing the fragrant leaves into the mixture. “As long as it’s dirty.”

“Obviously.” Hermes took a swig of beer, smacked his lips, and began. “OK, so this centaur’s into pony play…”

“Gods, you’re not bothering a lady with that one, are you?” A snooty drawl cut across Hermes, his blithe face turning disgruntled.

“You’d think a guy with as much style as you wouldn’t go about cramping everyone else’s,” Hermes griped, turning to his roommate.

Apollo stood at their sides in a dapper, cream, linen suit and indigo shirt, his smooth, black coffee curl of hair combed back off his chiselled features. Aphrodite immediately caught his strong, expensive cologne, and underneath it a peculiar flavour in his heart that she hadn’t yet been able to place, bitter and somehow… off. She wrinkled her nose and washed her tongue with gin.

“To have your style cramped, you have to have it to begin with,” Apollo said with a smirk.

Hermes threw his head back and barked a laugh like a terrier. “I’m gonna go home first and lock you out!”

Apollo frowned quizzically. “Except I have my own keys?”

Hermes grinned and bounced his eyebrows. “Do you?” He held up his index finger. Hooked onto it was a set of house and car keys with a little mirror and golden laurel leaf on a chain. He spun them around his finger. “Can’t wait to take those hot wheels out for a spin.”

Apollo’s eyes flashed dark gold. “Hermes!” He grabbed Hermes’ wrist and snatched the keys off him roughly.

Hermes made a mock show of cowering. “OK! Woah! I surrender!”

“Asshole.” Apollo crammed the keys back into his pocket.

“Can’t help it, God of Thieves.” Hermes shot Apollo a finger gun, then reached onto the buffet table, plucked a spinach puff, and popped it whole into his mouth, cheeks bulging.

Apollo looked down his nose at him, one nostril drawing up. He turned to Aphrodite, face smoothing into sweetness, voice like vanilla fudge. “Sorry about him, can’t take him anywhere.”

Aphrodite laughed mirthlessly. “I know, right? Don’t tell anyone he brought me.”

Apollo’s lip curled attractively off his teeth. “Your secret’s safe with me. I have to be seen with him all the time, I don’t know how my reputation withstands it.”

“Heg!” Hermes yapped through mashed spinach. “Wadge it!”

Aphrodite smiled and ignored him pointedly. “Sometimes it’s like, OK, I didn’t think this was the kind of party with clowns.”

“Didee!”

“Chew faster, Hot Sauce, or you won’t be able to stop us bad-mouthing you.”

Hermes chewed furiously, glaring between them. On the word “us”, Aphrodite felt a nudge of Apollo’s desire like a hot poker. 

Oops.

Her smile wavered. She shut herself up with another swallow of alcohol. Apollo looked down at her with a shimmer rimming his midnight irises. That bitter flavour sneaked through her drink. She angled her body a little away from him and looked back to the chomping Hermes. 

He swallowed noisily and heaved a breath in. “Well, aren’t you two unexpected partners in crime.”

Another hot poker nudge. She felt Apollo shift his weight closer to her. She angled another inch around.

“There you are!” A harsh, buoyant voice relieved her, catching Apollo’s attention. 

They all looked up to see Artemis in a tight, black mini-dress, marching up to them, Athena lounging on her tail in a light blue suit. 

“Arty!” Hermes’ face brightened. She hopped up to him and they bumped their fists. 

Apollo folded his arms and drew himself up authoritatively. “What are you wearing? That’s hardly appropriate for a garden party.”

Artemis glared at him. “Your dick attitude is hardly appropriate for a garden party.”

He rolled his eyes and stuck his lower lip out. “No, come on, seriously, everything’s on damn display.” His eyes darted to Athena. “You can’t be OK with this.”

Athena shrugged. “TGOEM doesn’t have a dress code.”

So, Athena and Artemis were in TGOEM too, and Apollo was apparently Chief of Wardrobe Police. Aphrodite leaned a little towards Hermes, suddenly feeling outnumbered. That said, the impression Hestia had given of that little group hadn’t been one that would allow Artemis out looking like such a fox. Aphrodite eyed Athena, she had a still water aura, deep, but calm. 

“Aphrodite,” Apollo broke into her thoughts in a petulant tone, “you’re a glamorous woman, you wouldn’t wear something like this in the day, right?”

Aphrodite met Apollo’s eyes with barely veiled disdain. Then she raised her chin and said in a finite, clear tone, making eye contact with Artemis. “I think you look great. You’re an athlete, right? So fuck yeah, show it off. Fates know, men’s clothing does all the time. And it’s a gorgeous colour on you, I admire someone who sticks to their style, no matter the event.” She shot Apollo a pointed look, then smiled encouragingly at the young goddess.

Artemis’ cheeks darkened to blackberry. She tucked her sleek sweep of shining, jet hair behind her ear. “Thanks.”

Aphrodite slurped down her sweet, flustered moment. Hermes caught her eye and winked subtly. Apollo looked cowed, jaw jutting. 

Aphrodite glanced up and found Athena watching her unreadably. She tried to reach out with her senses. She hit that cool water wall. Athena was clearly well-practiced at Olympus mingling.

“I don’t believe we’ve really met properly,” Aphrodite said breezily, extending her hand to Athena, slicing past Apollo and Artemis.

Athena glanced at her hand, then extended her own and shook it firmly. Her touch was calloused and cool and strong. They broke apart, leaving Aphrodite with the same tingle as picking up a cold glass. Athena was often in the headlines, a litany of victories and policies and breakthroughs with her name on. But photographs and a brief, long ago meeting hadn’t prepared Aphrodite for the goddess’ stoic impressiveness. She was tall and muscled. Her aging had ceased older than most, giving her an unsettling gravitas, magnified by her metallic skin and the silver scarring on her hewn face and neck. She looked like a sword forged for some noble destiny. She seemed to anchor the environment where she stood. Her onyx, diamond-encircled eyes stayed rested on Aphrodite, completely non-confrontationally, completely without intent, smart, but serene. 

Aphrodite felt like a specimen being scanned by a computer. She drew herself up, forcing herself through the nerves. “So, is the bees thing close to your heart?”

Wow, Dite… Smooth…

Artemis scoffed. Hermes chuckled. Athena smiled placidly and brushed her fly-away hair off her temple. She spoke in a refined tone. “Honey nymphs play an important role in maintaining society. Honey was the first natural product mortals started to harvest and craft with, you see. Most of my work centres on cities, so, yes, I suppose it is.” She thumbed her jaw. “They are emblems for many mortals of a sort of civilising power. Taking something natural and making it into a human product. It’s symbolic of the turning away from our base selves to something higher, something with judgement and dignity.”

Judgement and dignity. Ugh.

A serpentine tongue of fire licked under Aphrodite’s skin. “Oh, really?” Her voice deepened and oozed sensuously and dangerously from her pout. “I always thought of honey as the ultimate symbol of indulgence. Pulled straight from the earth. Stolen from a stinging creature that spends its days in a cycle of craving for and drunkenness on nectar. Either lavished on a sore body or poured over the tongue. Sweet. Sticky. And as gold as the sin of Midas.” 

Three stabs of desire struck Aphrodite as she finished her sultry speech: mischievous from Hermes, surprised from Artemis, and disgusted from Apollo. So, that’s what that bitterness was, he was one of those people who was repulsed by the people he wanted, because he was too good for that. What a cock. His sister was fun, though. She shook it off and held Athena’s unwavering gaze, knocking back zingy gin, the rosemary sprig tickling her cheek. “Don’t you think?”

Everyone’s gaze whisked to Athena. She didn’t react to it. She tilted her head, regarding Aphrodite with sharpened, but still calm eyes. She paused a moment, totally relaxed in the harp-tinged silence, no rush to prove anything or discomfort at making people wait. Then she smiled, the slightest twinkle in her eye. “I suppose there are always multiple interpretations of a concept.”

Aphrodite wasn't sure what to do with that, which was probably Athena's aim. Her fingers shifted on her glass. 

"Ahem…" The sound of a throat clearing anxiously. 

Everyone turned to see a short, young man with scaly, sand-white skin and scrunchy, peacock blue hair tangled around two stubby horns. He wore a shabby, ill-fitting, brown suit with a mustard yellow tie. His wet, beady eyes were magnified by a pair of thick, square glasses. His hand was clenched on a notepad and a boxy camera hung around his neck. Every Olympian face took on a studied blankness. Paparazzi. 

Aphrodite peered at the man. Something about him was familiar. She ran his rough, iridescent face through the bursting memory banks of people she'd met since moving. Oh. Her first big interview run. The too-keen one. 

“Aeschylus?” she said.

The man’s cheek twitched. “Acteon.”

“Yeah, sorry, meeting so many people at the moment.”

“It's OK.” He looked awkwardly at the gathering of gods, then took half a step towards her and lowered his voice. “Could I maybe borrow you? For a comment?”

The other four notice the singling out. She hesitated, then decided that he may actually be easier than staying with this crowd. She nodded at him and waved her companions goodbye. 

Hermes touched her wrist and leaned in conspiratorially.  “For the record, my punchline was ‘unbridled lust’ and the journey there was gold."

A laugh loosened the knot in Aphrodite’s gut. She patted his arm. "I believe you, Hot Sauce." 

They grinned at each other. She put her empty glass on the table and walked away after Acteon. They distanced from the throng, stopping next to a row of heliconia like poleaxes. Acteon dashed his hand across a glisten on his forehead. Aphrodite carefully closed herself to the emotions battering about in his rib cage. He was full of a scratchy, grabby sort of desire, cold and clammy, like raw fish. It clung unpleasantly, she rubbed her arms. 

“So,” she began brightly, “look who got an invite to this exclusive event. You a big bee guy too?”

Acteon indicated his camera. “I'm being paid to be here.”

“That must be nice.”

Acteon fidgeted inside the box of his jacket and wiped his forehead again.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

His mouth sloped down. “Half cerastes and half naiad, my body never knows whether it wants to be hot or cold.”

She nodded, patting her hair to give her something to do. That explained his rather unusual appearance, the scales on his face coupled with the dewy, blue tinge. It wasn’t a pairing she’d heard of before, though, a horned, spineless, serpent creature and a water nymph. She said so, keeping her tone conversational.

He shot her a rueful smile. “The perversions of lust.”

She stiffened.

He stammered a little and looked at his shoes. “Um, that was poetic.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What was?”

“That thing you said about honey.”

“Oh. You were eavesdropping?”

“Um… Yes.”

“Huh. Well, thanks.”

Acteon’s cold eyes searched her, slicking around her body quite openly, almost oblivious to the fact he was visible. His tongue flashed over his weak lips. 

“You had a couple of questions for me,” Aphrodite prompted.

He blinked and nodded, flipping open his notebook and taking a pen from his pocket. He clicked it a few times. Yep, it was definitely that guy.

“I see you’ve been chatting to some TGOEM members,” he said, eyes staying down on his notebook. 

“Well spotted.”

“Unusual bedfellows for you, I would have thought.” He looked up, clicking his pen.

The sound poked Aphrodite’s ear drum. She smiled like a knife. “And who says I’m taking everyone I talk to to bed?”

Acteon gave her a slippery half grin. “You are a love goddess.”

Aphrodite bristled. She hid it and rolled her eyes. 

His smile petered out. He cleared his throat and looked back at his notebook. “Um, if you’re here, I suppose your relationship with Hera must be going well?”

She tossed a stray lock of hair off her temple and answered without expression. “It is. Hera really knows what she’s doing, I’ll give her that.”

His beady eyes darted to her, his horns glinting in the sunlight. “You’ll give her that? Sounds reluctant. Are you not getting along?”

Aphrodite suppressed grumbling in her throat. “It’s an expression.”

“Just, two strong women, such as yourself, there was speculation you wouldn’t be able to cooperate.”

“Speculation from who? You?”

Acteon flinched under her white-fire stare. He scratched his small nose under the slit nostrils. “No... I only mean…”

“This myth about strong women can’t get along is just divide and conquer. It’s cliché and unrealistic,” Aphrodite stated. “And what is a ‘strong woman’ anyway? Women are strong, they can’t be anything else in this world. You don’t mean ‘strong women’, you mean ‘influential women’ or ‘egotistical women’ or ‘ambitious women’. You mean ‘career bitches’. You’re using it as a slight and hoping I won’t notice because it makes me feel above ‘other women’.” She took a breath of warm, perfumed air and shoved it slowly out of her lips to steady herself, sweat prickling on the back of her neck. “Not today, Acteon, it’s too hot out.”

He pressed his lips together and drew his shoulders up, eyes darkening. He ground his teeth and glanced down. “Pretty corsage.”

“Thanks,” she replied tersely.

“Who’s it from?”

“Hermes.” She answered without thinking, then saw his eyes flash behind his goggling glasses. His tongue lashed his lip again. Her stomach sank. Here we go.

“Hermes? Quite the eligible bachelor. Are the two of you…?”

She cut him off. “We’re friends.”

He clicked his pen. “I thought you didn’t have friends on Olympus, being so new.”

“Hermes doesn’t only work on Olympus, does he?” Her voice was getting lethal, a blade sharpening on a stone. This was much more than asking for a comment.

“Still, kind of a romantic gift," he said suspiciously.

“It was a joke.”

“Clue me in?”

“No.”

“Alright.” He huffed out and scribbled in his notebook, a few strands of hair pasting to his clammy brow.

Aphrodite tapped her foot irritably.

He looked up again, eyes focusing like a microscope on her face. “Do you have any romantic interests, though? I notice you were stood with Apollo. He was Olympus’ Sexiest Man for Panoptes last year.”

“What bland taste,” she said under her breath. “No, I’m not seeing anyone right now.”

“Not practicing what you preach?”

“What do you think I preach? Because it’s not ‘glue yourself to any stranger to avoid single life’.”

“What is it, then?”

She opened her mouth to say something harsh, but rolled her tongue back and chewed it. She supposed she really ought to take any opportunity she could get. She straightened up, hands still proudly on her hips, and spoke in a gentler, professional tone. “We’re all kindling. If you feel a spark, fan the flames.” Hestia and her hearths flashed into her mind. “No one gets to tell you when or how to burn, and no one gets to throw water on you.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“I also teach fire safety.”

Acteon chortled. He rubbed a hint of peacock blue bristle sprouting on his neck. “So, no spark yet?”

Aphrodite was about to say no, then a ray of sunlight streaked across Acteon’s glasses and left the reflection of a cluster of bright orange flowers in its wake. The memory of Hera’s gorgeous gardener bloomed in her mind. Her tongue was suddenly tingling with his curry powder desire and her eyes drifting off to see if he might be here, keeping the perimeter perfect, easy to pull away... She realised she’d taken too long to speak.

“Well?” Acteon pressed, his sharp teeth showing. 

Aphrodite fixed her face into her most charming smile, dripping with sarcasm. “You mean apart from the spark between us?”

Acteon made a hacking noise in his throat like he’d swallowed a bug. He pushed his glasses up his nose, clicking his pen furiously. Aphrodite grinned and swept past him, sneaking her senses open just enough for a satisfying snack on his embarrassment. She strutted away, leaving him to his scribbling. 

She wandered through the party, nodding courteously to other guests, but staying on the move, trying not to get dragged into conversation. Memories of her first and last visit to an Olympus party nettled her. She felt like she’d just walked through a swamp and come out covered in leeches. Apollo’s twisted attraction, Athena’s impenetrability,  Acteon’s assumptions and intrusions and general air of the butterfly catcher, not to mention the miasma of confused wants and losses thick in the air. It all sucked her blood and made her tired and itchy. Her chest tightened. She massaged over her heart and swallowed, trying to breathe deeper. The sun beat down brutally, stifling her. She normally liked the heat, but today it felt oppressive. She wished desperately Amphitrite and Poseidon were here. Poseidon had texted her that morning to say Cetus had broken loose again and they couldn't leave the ocean until he was back in his pen, or the whole coast was an all-he-can-eat restaurant. It had left her off balance. She'd badly needed to be around their feelings today. Theirs was the kind of love she wanted to create everywhere, the inspiration for expanding her work, trusting and fun-loving and passionate, friends as much as lovers, lovers as much as ancient spouses. 

Hera’s clipped voice interrupted her thoughts. “Aphrodite, there’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.” 

Aphrodite jumped and turned to see the golden queen with an equally golden companion at her side. He dwarfed Hera with his impressive height and build, enclosed in a navy blue, military uniform, sunbeams ricocheting blindingly off a small medal pinned to his chest. He was looking intensely at Aphrodite with a carnelian gaze, glimmering with something between awkwardness and trouble-maker amusement. Aphrodite’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. It was…

“This is my son, Ares.”

“Your…” Aphrodite echoed faintly, images of their afternoon encounter stampeding across her vision. “Your… son…”

“Mmhm,” Hera said with a smile. “My favourite man. I think he must be the last person for you to meet.”

Ares, as he apparently was, had his hands behind his back in a straight “at ease” position, as if he was being presented by his commanding officer. His head bowed to meet Aphrodite’s stunned stare, his lips curling and his fringe kissing his eyes rakishly. Ares. The prince. The heir. The first royal son. The new God of War. Well, that was some first impression she’d made.

“Good to meet you,” she said hoarsely, holding out her hand.

Ares smiled, those devilish eyes like bonfires. He slipped one hand from behind his back and took hers gallantly. His touch was so warm it ran into her bloodstream. His large hand covered hers entirely, smothering her in the memory of the scorching press of his body. She felt like a mouse coiled in the tail of a cobra. She couldn’t stop staring into his burning eyes. Their hands moved up and down once in a slow shake. She took a slightly shuddering breath, her chest compressed by her tight dress. He breathed too. There it was, curry powder. Gods, she was hungry, why had she let that reporter take her away from the food before she’d eaten?

“Good to meet you too.” Ares’ voice was like the hum of a roaring furnace.

Aphrodite's mouth watered. She swallowed, taking her hand away and raising her chin with grace. “Welcome home.”

Ares’ grin rose up more on one side than the other. It was… distracting. He looked so damn cocky, he knew he’d shocked her.

Another deep voice interrupted them, quietly asking for Hera. Aphrodite tore her eyes from Ares to see Hades stood like a gravestone at the queen’s side, his eyes mournful blue, a cigarette between his straight teeth. The King of the Underworld glanced at her with a studied, grim blankness. She inclined her head at him. He nodded back. She’d interacted very little with Hades across the centuries they’d known each other. He’d always been wary of her and never explained why. As a fertility goddess, she’d never much missed his company. 

“Uncle H!” Ares said jovially. “Glad you could make it. Bees, huh? Brilliant little bastards.”

Hades looked flatly at his nephew. “They’re quite something.” His cigarette smoke wisped into his cappuccino foam hair. “Good job this last few months.”

“Thanks!” Ares gnashed his teeth into a grin. 

Hades took his cigarette from his mouth, smoke streaming out of his prominent nose. He looked to Hera. “Want a drink? You look over-hostessed.”

Hera fluttered her eyelids in unguarded relief, speaking in a low voice. “Drink, yes. Smoke, yes.”

“Happy to oblige.” 

Hades put the cigarette between his teeth and reached into his jacket. He withdrew a silver cigarette holder. He snapped it open, plucked one out, and held it out to Hera. She took it from him with a grateful noise. Their fingertips brushed. Aphrodite was pierced with an intense, secretive need, like the rapid sawing of a bow on a cello. She almost gasped and held her breath. 

That’s interesting.

Hera slipped her long cigarette holder into existence between her fingers and put the cigarette into it. Hades reached into his jacket again and withdrew a silver lighter. Hera leaned into his hand, the leap of flame reflected in her dark pupils. The lighter chinked closed. The two of them took a long drag and breathed a river of smoke around them in perfect sync. Ares sniffed and wrinkled his nose. Aphrodite glanced at him, but was pulled back to Hera and Hades. They seemed to be having this whole interaction completely in private. It was as if they’d dropped out of the garden into some other reality that only they occupied. Their eyes kept meeting, their expressions never changing, but that piercing sensation driving deeper and deeper into Aphrodite’s senses. 

Hades nodded his head towards the tower of champagne glasses. Hera nodded and turned back to her son with a slightly hasty look. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.” She and Hades walked off together in an unmistakable shared rhythm, not touching, but much closer than was simply friendly. 

Aphrodite smirked. Full of surprises, Goddess of Marriage. She resisted the urge to join the trails of smoke behind them into the shape of a heart over their heads. The piercing receded, leaving her a little light-headed. The wafting of Ares’ square hand brought her back to earth.

“Wish she’d cut back,” he grumbled.

Aphrodite rounded on him and fixed him with an accusing glare, fighting very hard not to smile through it. “You tricked me.”

Ares let out an indignant laugh, face opening out like a tiger lily in surprise. “I tricked you?”

“You never said you were the prince!”

“You didn’t want small talk.” He pointed out, folding his arms to frame his broad chest.

“Being a prince is not a small deal,” Aphrodite said through her teeth, stomach fluttering.

“Neither is being the hottest gossip on Olympus.” He snorted. “I thought you were some girl interviewing for attending on Ma.”

She snorted back. “Well, I thought you were the gardener.”

He barked a laugh, cracking the humidity. “Why?”

She spread her hands. “I didn’t know Hera’s son was home.”

He shrugged defensively. “I didn’t know a new goddess was in town. Especially not the Goddess of Love.” His voice dropped to a low rumble. “No wonder I was so easy.”

She let out the smile she’d been trying to contain and caught his eye playfully. “I’m pretty sure you are exactly that easy, as standard.”

He smiled back, a fiery flicker in his eyes. He cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, but don't take credit away from yourself, you did a good job on that seduction.”

She tingled, but drew herself up haughtily. “Maybe you were the one seducing me.”

He shook his head, chuckling like embers. “I don't think so, Flower Girl.”

Aphrodite’s whole body was dancing constantly on the edge of giggles. She put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes theatrically. “Oh, so you think you're so irresistible that I saw you in a heap on the grass and just had to have you that second?”

He gave her the most wonderfully infuriating grin. “I mean, you can't win. Either it's that or the second I started talking to you, you melted like butter.”

She opened her mouth to retort. Then realised the sense in what he’d just said. She pursed her lips. “Fuck.”

“Yep.”

“You're right.”

“It's been known to happen.”

She let one of the brewing giggles out. “Often?”

“That's not important.”

She giggled again. Gods, she could hear herself sounding like a piano that a kitten was running across, her voice skipping and light and tuneless. She couldn’t tell if her face was flushed or if that was just the heat coming off his body, more than from the sun. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and drummed her fingers on her hips.

Come on, be normal. So you accidentally threw yourself at royalty? The king has so many fucking descendants, it’s not like it means a whole lot up here. Just flirt like a normal person. Should I flirt? Is that a good idea? Eh, fuck it, he’s cute.

She took a step towards him, into that pulsing heatwave, and pushed her voice an octave lower, smoky and smart. “Well, you're in the same boat. Same lose-lose for you.”

He mirrored her, ducking closer to her and murmuring with a conspiratorial lilt that thrummed down her spine. “Aphrodite, there isn't a possible version of our meeting where I don't come out feeling like I won something.”

She smiled.

He smiled.

She could smell his cologne, oaky and brisk. She glanced at his restless mouth. She sucked on her tongue. Someone walked behind her and she was reminded of the web of gossip and politics around them. And of Acteon’s big, boxy camera. She straightened up and glanced about her. No one was nearby and she couldn’t see the reporter. She turned back to him, looking up into his face, which had turned expectant, oddly soft for how hard his features were. 

“Hey, um, did you… tell anyone about it?” she asked tentatively.

Ares looked a little apologetic and rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, so I might possibly have bragged a little to my sister.” He brought his hand down in a dismissive flap. “But she's boring, she won't tell anyone.”

Aphrodite loosened again. “OK.” She remembered Acteon’s clinging sensation and rubbed her arms.

“You cold?” Ares asked, making a motion towards his jacket buttons.

Aphrodite warmed, that was sweet and sort of unexpected. She shook her head. “You kidding? I’m melting.”

“Yeah, how do you think it feels being in this thing?”

She eyed his uniform, he looked much less rugged in it; classically handsome, the kind of upright man that she liked to unravel. “You don’t like it?”

“Ma made me wear it.”

“She making you tell the story behind the medal?” She resisted strumming along his chest to flick the bronze disc.

He laughed softly at the grass with a sudden bashfulness that made the pit of her stomach pulse. “I don’t know what it’s for. I don't mean that modestly. I mean I literally haven't had it explained.”

She stopped resisting and tickled the medal, a hard beat of his heart sending an electrical zap down her finger. She beamed at him.

He bit his lip, teeth glinting. “So, does that mean I’m your dirty, little secret now? Because I have no problem with that.”

She faltered, withdrawing her hand. “No, I…” She what? Why didn’t she want anyone to know? Why shouldn’t she? Since when had she ever worried about people knowing that kind of stuff? Olympus must be rubbing off on her. Well, that wasn’t OK, not when she’d come here to rub off on Olympus. She put her hands back on her hips and looked up at him with careless defiance. “No. You know what? Doesn't matter. Tell anyone you want.”

Ares looked curious and amused. His hands slid into his pockets, his body going into a slouch that emphasised his figure. “Well, I don't have a mailing list or anything. In fact, with my number of buddies, we've probably pretty much exhausted the rumour mill.” His eyes zipped around her, vibrant as the tropical flowers. “But, hey, it's cool you're not worried about keeping it hush hush.” He glanced away and back, speaking casually. “Like, what's wrong with two adults having a little fun, right? Why do we make people feel like they gotta keep that in the closet with the other skeletons?”

A weight lifted off Aphrodite’s shoulders. She looked at Ares with pleasant surprise, her brow smoothing. “Exactly! I'm glad you see it that way.”

He smiled a little quizzically. She kept smiling back. The giggles and the tingles and the heat dissipated. She found herself just wanting to talk to him. She was relaxing into his voice and his manner and the way the sun soaked into his vanilla curls. The harp music turned slow and dreamy and the garden air smelled utterly delicious.

“So, you were away a long time, huh?” she said in an open, inviting tone.

Ares laughed a little coarsely, seeming relaxed as well. “It flew by.”

“Not happy to be home?” 

“Culture shock, I guess.” He looked past her to the party guests milling about and conversing in dull tones.

She missed his gaze, she leaned to slip into it. “Get back to any big changes you're excited about?”

His eyes roved to her, rested on her meaningfully, and smouldered ruby. “One.”

Her abdomen wriggled. She ached sweetly between her thighs. She lapped the taste of curry powder greedily in her mouth. 

He bit his lip again.

“Ares! Welcome home!” Hecate burst into the conversation, like a comet, colliding with Ares and slinging her arm around him. She was easily as tall as him and more dapper in the same shade of blue, the pair reminding Aphrodite of a solar eclipse in a dark sky. Ares’ pulsing heat receded, leaving a disappointed cool in Aphrodite’s body. 

“Damn!” Hecate continued cheerfully. “Does that mean the Underworld’s looking at a slow summer? We did a roaring trade while you were on campaign.”

Aphrodite caught Ares’ guilty glance at her. It seemed that wasn’t a side of his work he was keen on sharing with her. “Not that roaring…” he said, more to her than to Hecate.

Hecate clapped his shoulder. “Are you kidding? Double shifts all round! In fact, I was going to ask if I could talk numbers with you.”

Ares looked reluctantly at Hecate. Her sharp teeth were bared eagerly, like a shark that really likes math. He flattened his mouth defeatedly. “Uh, sure.” 

Aphrodite’s heart bobbed an inch lower as Hecate flashed her a grin, then started to steer Ares away. He twisted in Hecate's grasp and shot Aphrodite an almost pleading look, mouthing, “don't go anywhere.” Her heart bobbed back up. She shrugged coyly. He grinned wryly and disappeared into the crowd.

She watched him go, her fingers floating to her lips and running along them thoughtfully. So, her gardener was the prince. And the prince was… kinda nice. Really kinda nice. After an afternoon of her senses crowding with uncomfortable energies, Ares had felt… Yeah. Really nice. She was just starting to unpick the specifics when cigarette smoke nudged her curiosity. She glanced over to a nearby palm tree and saw Hades and Hera leaning against it, speaking with intense eye contact. Hades looked around to where Zeus was chugging a beer with Apollo. He turned back to Hera and dusted his fingertips over her hip.

Olympus was going to be interesting.

She glanced back at Zeus and saw Apollo had been replaced by Demeter. The statuesque Goddess of the Harvest was leaning away, her mouth tight and eyes wary, as Zeus leered down at her. Aphrodite frowned. In the space between Demeter and herself, a nymph waiter was passing with a tray of champagne glasses, stained sweet pink by hibiscus flowers soaking in the liquid. Aphrodite took off at a saunter, arriving elegantly in earshot and plucking a glass from the waiter with a smile. She carefully fixed her eyes on the tiny bubbles fizzing from the wilting flower and pricked up her ears. 

Zeus' oily, pouty voice slithered to her through the hum of the harp. "Why don't you let me visit you anymore?" 

Demeter's reply was terse and muted. "I never did, you always just showed up uninvited."

"Depends what you count as an invite." An extra dollop of oil stirred into Zeus' voice. 

Aphrodite barely lifted the lid on her senses and was clawed by Demeter's disgust. Aside from his usual fog of sullen want, Zeus didn't seem to have a great deal of real desire directed at his target. He was just chasing a power buzz. Gross. Aphrodite ground her teeth. She chased the waiter again and retrieved a second glass, then strode purposefully over to the pair, just as Zeus slid forward another inch. 

"Demeter, here's your drink!" she announced briskly, tucking her body snugly in Zeus' way and pressing the champagne into Demeter's hand. "Sorry it took me so long, I think that waiter has jet skis for shoes!" 

Demeter looked confused, but her mouth twitched in a smile. "Thanks."

Something barbed poked Aphrodite from Zeus' aura. She zipped herself shut again and gave him a bright, forceful look. 

Zeus' jaw hardened, then slackened. "None for me?" he said in his snarling, saxophone voice. 

"You just showed up," Aphrodite replied with icy innocence. "Got to ask nicely, I'm afraid, if you want something."

Zeus' lips twisted. "Even if you're the king?" 

"Especially if you're the king."

Zeus grinned like a crescent moon over a roadside robbery. "I didn't get to be king by waiting for gifts and permissions."

Aphrodite took a slow, unimpressed sip of flower-syrup champagne. "But it's not much of a kingdom where those things don't matter."

Zeus' smile rotted off his face. 

Demeter shifted her weight, fingers wrapping around her glass. Aphrodite held his gaze coolly. When she spoke again it was breezy, but unyielding. "But king you are, so are you making a speech?" 

Zeus looked taken aback. "Whatever about?" 

Aphrodite shrugged. "Bees, I suppose. Or something sweet about your wife and children. Your son's only just home, isn't he?" 

Zeus' angular shoulder stiffened under his garish, Hawaiian shirt. "Yes," he grunted. "But we're not making a fuss."

Aphrodite thought of Ares' shiftiness when Hecate praised him and his confusion at his own medal. She pursed her lips. "Pity. He seems nice."

"Well, you haven't known him long, have you?" Zeus said with a smile that left his eyes dead as coal. 

Aphrodite prickled and glared. 

"Anyway," Zeus said with a slight note of triumph, "it's just peachy to see you back at our little get togethers, Aphrodite. You know, after last time."

Aphrodite went cold. Her stomach filled with lead and her throat closed. She faced Zeus' sneer with a murderous calm. He held her eye, his smile not budging. 

He broke her gaze with a toss of his hair like a show pony. "I'll go and see if I can hunt down some of that champagne I missed out on. Nice to see you, ladies." He strode away, the pattern on his shirt blurring into the tropical foliage. 

Aphrodite snarled under breath, her stilettos punishing the grass as she forced a tremble of rage out of her body and into the earth. She felt Demeter exhale beside her. They turned to each other. 

"Thank you," Demeter said sincerely. 

Aphrodite slouched, her hip jutting and one shoulder bunching up. She clinked her glass against Demeter's and they drank in unison. "No sweat," she said, swallowing. "My douchebag radar was going bananas."

Demeter raised an eyebrow. "Colourful phrasing." 

"I'm a rainbow, alright." Aphrodite glugged again, the rich, berry tang of the hibiscus bubbles fizzing on her tongue. 

"Look, I don't mean to be rude," Demeter said apologetically, "but I was actually on my way to the powder room when Zeus cornered me."

Aphrodite waved her off. "Powder away." 

"Right." Demeter eyed her a moment, her crop-green eyes still and pensive. Then she blinked and tipped her glass. "Thanks again."

"Anytime."

Demeter walked away without a backwards glance. Aphrodite searched the party, trying to clear her senses of Zeus and the spiky burst of memories he’d prodded awake. She leaned into the soothing music. It rippled like a pond full of carp. Hibiscus gummed on her lips. She found her eye fixating on spots of yellow. It was dumb, given the theming, but her heart skipped a beat every time she thought she'd spotted… 

"I saw you talking to Demeter." 

She jumped out of her skin, her drink spitting on her knuckles. She wheeled around to see Hestia in a ballooning, orange dress that made her look like an angry pumpkin, hands on her bowl hips, eyes amber with accusatory fire. 

Aphrodite grinned like a wolf. She rolled her shoulders and flexed her neck. A combination of annoyance and bitter satisfaction at being annoying scraped her spine like the teeth of a comb. "And?" 

"I hope you weren't trying to dissuade her from joining TGOEM," Hestia said like a teacher catching a student passing notes. 

Aphrodite drew back incredulously. "You're trying to get your hooks in Demeter? Seriously?" It made no sense, romance was pumping through that woman like gold through rock. 

Hestia sniffed imperiously. "I'll have you know, she came to us. We're exactly the kind of backing she needs out on her own in the Mortal Realm." 

Aphrodite batted her eyes and spoke with needling politeness. "Well, you weren't the one backing her just now, were you? Does TGOEM only look after formal members?"

Hestia's mouth looked like she was eating a whole, unripe satsuma. "We can't be everywhere. That's why we're recruiting." 

Aphrodite threw out a callous, single laugh. "A little presumptuous to be recruiting a fertility goddess, no?" 

Hestia made an aloof gesture, as if delivering an argument in a forum debate. The music flurried with her. "Can we not turn away from what we were born? Why should that define her?" 

Aphrodite wrinkled her nose. Fair point. Fuck. She knocked back a swig of champagne. It grazed her tongue. "Well, for your information, I wasn't trying to dissuade her from anything. Only one of us is in the business of limiting choice."

Hestia laughed through her nose. "Oh, yes, that old chestnut. 'It's not wantonness, it's free will', meanwhile the realms eat themselves alive chasing false hopes and fleeting desires."

"At least something eating itself alive is eating at all, and not starving to death trying to prove to the world it can go without food," Aphrodite spat. 

Hestia's nostrils flared. "At least something proving to the world it can go without food isn't proving to the world it will eat anything, gobbling up rot and poison while the world laughs."

"Well!" Aphrodite began with zeal, gin and fizz and too many frustrating encounters swilling and biting in her brain. "At least… At least… At least I know to abandon the metaphor while it’s getting out of hand!" 

Hestia laughed like a snooty St Bernard. "New territory for you, I imagine, recognising when something has got out of hand."

The harp picked up its tempo, the shrill plucking cantering on Aphrodite's skin and jabbing her hackles up. "I recognise it fine, I just don't slap the label on every scrap of fun like a nasty nurse in a horror movie."

"At least the nurse survives to the end. You know who's always first to go? The tart."

Aphrodite let out a high cackle, her blood boiling. "Yeah, they've got to stop the interesting one stealing the show."

"Oh, for constellations' sake.” Hestia groaned in profound exasperation and made an enormous show of rolling her eyes. She took a deep, hefting breath and brought her palms together in front of her, like a pious devout. “This is such a pointless conversation." She speared Aphrodite with a stern glare. "Just please respect Demeter's wishes and leave her alone."

"I will, if she asks," Aphrodite replied through her teeth. 

Hestia’s full lips crumpled. "Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine."

The hearth goddess puffed a cloud of steam out of her broad nose and marched away in a bustle of pumpkin to the beat of the quick, tepid music.

Aphrodite watched her go, her skin searing as the stressed anger coursed through her. Her senses spun haywire, the chaos of desires and demands in the crush of bodies exploding in her like grenades. She reeled. She clutched her churning stomach and stuffed her nose in her glass and snorted the sweet scent like cocaine. 

OK, cool it, seriously. You can do this. It's not going to be like last time. Breathe. Focus on the flower. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. 

Gods, I hope nobody notices. 

 

*

 

In the hum of bees and chatter and the sigh of harp song and the fruity, island scents of tropical flowers, Ares noticed something. 

It started out as a sprinkle of cinnamon on the tip of his tongue. Then it was a spiced, stinging scent. Then a crackling in his ears. Then a burn on the hairs of his arms like they were candle wicks. 

Anger.

No.

Wrath.

He made a few mumbled excuses and extracted himself from Hecate. As he turned towards it, he felt like he was stumbling into a drugged fog. His senses clouded with the intensity of it. This wasn’t just everyday anger. This was rage carried in the body for centuries and rising to the surface like magma. This was titanic.

Aphrodite.

He’d sensed this the day they met, been captivated by it, her eternal, devouring storm under the veneer of her enigmatic ease. He stopped himself, planting his feet in the earth and feeling his heels sink into the soft grass, grounding himself as the wave of anger threw him out to sea. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. He rolled his tongue behind his teeth. Anger came from many places - protectiveness, principle, pride. This wasn’t those. This was… He tasted again to be sure. Yeah. This was fear. She was afraid. And she was furious about it.

He opened his eyes and scanned the crowd desperately, half drunkenly drawn to her anger like a wasp to jam, half sharply aware that no one here could have any idea she was in trouble, except him. He had to get to her. His eyes darted frantically around the candy store of rainbow faces, scrabbling for her like he was digging for a diamond in rubble. He tried to focus his senses like Athena had been teaching him, but his powers were so much more chaotic than hers, it was like trying to rein in wild horses. 

A flash of red behind his eyes. A swirl of lavender before them. He found her, just visible on the other side of a fanning dracaena. She had tucked herself back from the crowd and was standing straight as a rod with her arms folded and her wide eyes fixed fiercely on the ground. No one was with her. No one nearby had even noticed. How had nobody noticed? Fucking Olympus. 

He stepped forward without thinking, hurrying towards her, the rest of the guests melting into the foliage and becoming nothing more than blurred, painted scenery between him and the blinding, beautiful lantern of Aphrodite’s anger. 

“Friends!” 

Ares stopped in his tracks, the boom of his father’s voice a shot to the navel. He set his jaw and turned to see Zeus stood in front of the tower of champagne glasses, framed by their glittering, gilded light, and raising a glass to the crowd, who all fell silent and faced him. The music died. Ares couldn’t get to her now without attracting too much attention. He snarled in his throat, folded his arms tight and glared towards his father.

“I always love to see you all in my home!” Zeus announced jovially, his voice projected across the garden and echoing as if in a grand, marble hall. “Drinking my alcohol, eating my food. It warms my heart. When are you leaving again?” He grinned and a light titter fluttered through the guests. “I jest, I jest.” He waved off the non-laugh, as if it needed quietening down, and paused a second to fix his face into something warm and charming. He continued in a velvet tone, bringing his glass closer to his body and cupping it with both hands. "You know, I often think of Olympus as a colony of bees. We're drawn to beauty. We can't help it. It's our life essence.” His voice drifted a little, almost wistfully. His eyes drifted too, in a direction Ares couldn’t quite track, but it looked like he was addressing someone specific in the crowd. “All the beauty of creation is at our fingertips.” 

Ares squinted and followed his eyes. Followed them to… Oh no. Ares was wrapped in her thread of anger. It coiled on every part of him and bound him tight. His cock twitched. His spine slinked. He swallowed hard and pulled himself out of the daze. 

Zeus’ voice simmered lower and snaked through the oblivious guests to Aphrodite, who met his eyes with a venomous stare. “We take beauty and we turn it into sweetness and power. We all have a role, we all work hard and work together, and it surrounds us in golden prosperity. And if you don't belong in the hive, if you don't make honey…” he lifted his glass towards her, “you get stung." 

An uncertain pause. A few guests exchanged glances, wondering if the speech was over as Zeus looked steadily over their heads to some point in the back, his lips frozen in an unshakeable, triumphant smile. 

Aphrodite’s anger gushed into Ares, it pressed on his heart and filled his mouth. His own anger splashed into it, boiling in his gut. What the fuck was Zeus doing? Why was he going after her like that? Couldn’t he feel it? Couldn’t everyone feel it? In all the realms? She was so angry. She was so frightened. She was in so much pain. Belong in the fucking colony? The woman was a hornets nest all on her own. And Olympus, and Zeus, had kicked it hard. His heart began to pound. The nerve of the guy. He had no right. No fucking right. How dare he stand there and smile and…

“To the colony!”

“To the colony!” The crowd echoed Zeus’ bold finish and drank in unison, a smattering of applause and chatter following. Zeus’ voice rode the merry wave. He broke his gaze on Aphrodite and turned to Hera. Ares saw her through his red-rimming vision, standing with Hades not far from his father. 

“And of course, what's a beehive without its queen?” Zeus chuckled. “Get up here, Bunny." 

Ares’ fingernails stuck into his palms as Hera’s jagged frustration grazed him. Her mouth tightened, but she glanced at the crowd and pushed a gracious smile onto her lips. She walked stiffly to Zeus. He beamed as she came into arms length, reached out with his free hand, snared her waist, scooped her close, and dipped her in a flamboyant kiss. 

Her indignation sliced Ares down the middle. His stomach lurched and he lurched with it, almost charging forward to wrench his father off her and throw him into a tree. Hera drooped in Zeus' embrace, letting his mouth move on hers and laying a palm limply to his cheek to conceal her lack of engagement to the crowd. Another bolt hit Ares from Aphrodite. He wheeled to look at her and saw her glowering at the unwanted kiss in revulsion. Her crystal eyes were dazzling and petrifying.

With the sound of glue peeling off foam, Zeus unsealed himself from Hera and grinned out to the crowd to a ruckus of mocking, affectionate applause. Hera smiled like she was sucking a lemon wedge and waved to them all. She patted Zeus’ chest and peeled away. He didn’t watch her go. He gave the crowd a final showy grin, then gestured for them all to continue. He ambled off towards the greenhouse, head held high. Ares stared after him, the rising rage vibrating in his body, his biceps straining the seams of his jacket, his temples aching with the clenching of his jaw. A small, sensible, Athena-pitched voice in the back of his mind told him to drop it. He stamped on the voice like an ant and marched after his father, his footprints leaving black scorch marks in the grass.

He rounded the greenhouse, vanishing from the party and arriving in a soft, shimmering quiet. Zeus was leaning against the wall, the glare from the glass shooting around him and emphasising his stature. He was smoking a cigarette, his hair falling loosely over one side of his face, back to its sour pensiveness now that he was out of the spotlight. 

He looked up disinterestedly as Ares flung himself around the corner and stood a few feet off, glowering like a stove. 

"Oh. Hey, Kid. I'm just having a breather, be out in a minute." He looked away from Ares and dragged on the cigarette. 

Ares took his hands out of his pockets, still clenched. He spoke with trembling control, his body roasting in his heavy jacket. "What the fuck was that?" 

Zeus looked up again, nonplussed. "What?" 

"What?" Ares scoffed. "Picking on the new girl with that fucked up bee speech!" 

"Oh." Zeus shrugged. "That." 

A plume of smoke gusted towards Ares and irritated his throat. The hairs on the back of his neck turned to needles. "You're not even gonna deny it?" 

"No." Zeus clucked his tongue, head lolling to knock on the glass. He gazed with a bored expression out over this untidier part of the garden, all crawling ground ivy and bellflower clusters. "Like you said, new girl. She needs to learn her place."

"Her place?" Ares' voice brewed hotter, steam on his tongue. "You're such a fucking creep!" 

"She’s a liability."

"You don't know a damn thing about her!" 

Zeus' face etched. He moved his dark, deep-space eyes to Ares. "More than you do."

Ares made a sound of derision like gears grinding. He squared his shoulders, shaping himself like a shield. "What's it gonna take for you to give the women of Olympus a break?" 

Zeus shot him an ugly smirk. "Why do you care? Trying to be hero? You've had six months of that and didn't make it."

Ares' chest twinged. He tensed his torso, hardening himself against it. 

"So you like her, huh?" Zeus continued with greasy amusement. "I wouldn't put too many eggs in that basketcase, Son. She's a special kind of nightmare."

Ares' blood coursed hot.

"And she wouldn't go for you anyway. She doesn't use blunt instruments."

Ares' blood coursed cold. He shook himself and plunged into his anger to keep himself from shrinking back. Zeus blew a torrent of smoke into the haze cloaking the glass. He looked like a mirage. 

Ares took a solid step into the acrid scent, growling through his teeth like a jaguar. "This has nothing to do with anything like that. Don't put everyone else in your terms. This has to do with my dad making a fucking spectacle."

Zeus scoffed and waved his cigarette dismissively, leaving a thin signature in the air. "Oh please, I am a spectacle, nothing I can do about it."

"Except not use your attention to fuck with people!" Ares barked. "Like what was that thing with Ma? You know she hates that kind of display!" 

Zeus cast his hands up. "It was romantic!" 

"Not for her!" 

Zeus groaned and scrunched his hair on top of his head and let it fall, the ends glinting with electricity. "Your mother needs to lighten up."

Ares noticed the lightning and his throat tightened, but he ploughed on. "Maybe she would, if she wasn't having to babysit you 24/7!"

Zeus rolled to lean one shoulder on the greenhouse and faced Ares. The flare of sun on glass lit his hard pupils. The wild green behind him looked eldritch. "Well, you're home now, so she can babysit some other loser."

Ares snarled to the sky, his words stringing out of him in a frustrated drone. "How are you this much of a tool?" He rolled his shoulders and locked them square again. He cracked his neck. He pushed his voice low and finite. "Just back off Aphrodite and give Ma some space, and I'll leave you alone. Yeah?" 

Zeus narrowed his eyes, smoke wending around his face. "You're off the battlefield now, Kid. You don't give the orders." 

Ares' nerve endings spat like soldering metal, lancing his composure. "As if anyone can have a minute off the fucking battlefield with you making everything a fight!" 

Zeus snapped up straight, white sparks in his irises. "Oh, I'm the one who makes everything a fight? What are you doing literally right now, Ares? I'll tell you what, the only thing you're fucking good for, going around picking everyone else's scabs. We were all hoping going on that trip might burn off some of your toxic waste, but looks like you've come back as radioactive as ever. It's so damn tiring, you know? The paranoia, the flying off the handle, the hero syndrome, the public dramas." 

Ares' chest twinged again. "Shut up."

"It exhausts your mother, poor woman."

"Don't bring her into this."

"You brought her into it! You always do! And now Aphrodite too!" Zeus ran his hand despairingly through his hair. "Fates, Son, you have to tone it down. You're in the public eye now, we can't be doing with this volatility."

"I…" An old ache was nudging at Ares' heart. He gathered his anger around him in a protective cloak and forced his voice deep. "I am not volatile." 

Zeus sighed heavily, ruffling the printed petals on his shirt. He sucked on the cigarette and spoke with a strange regret. "You are. And I'll tell you something: no one will ever put up with it like I do. I get it. I mean, I know you better than you know yourself. I know it's just a toddler tantrum.” He looked up with pity. “But you put on a good show. To someone else it will be too much to handle. Crazy Ares. Violent Ares."

"I'm not violent!" 

"A good few hundred dead mortals might disagree."

"Th-that was work!" Ares was starting to shake, he could feel it in his dense muscles. He tensed himself to oak to stand his ground. "No one but you accuses me of that!" 

Zeus gave him a sickeningly sympathetic look. "Not to your face. But it's Olympus, Ares, people talk. People speculate. She's been wondering, I'm sure, your little love goddess. What kind of guy does it take to be a war god? What flavour of fucked up does he have to be?" 

"You gave me this job!" 

Zeus regarded him through a stream of lazy smoke. "Yeah. But you really took to it, didn't you?" 

Ares halted. His heart hammered painfully in his rib cage. His blood pounded and hissed with scratching heat. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He had taken to it. He'd enjoyed it. Fates, what did that make him? He didn't want to ask that, but the question suddenly rattled in his mind so loudly that he couldn't find his anger, couldn't find his defences. He stood, dumb as a scarecrow, a tremor audible in his breathing. He glared at his father furiously. Zeus watched his face a moment, then sneered and wandered away. Ares flinched at the last crackle of lightning in the tips of his hair. He vanished around the greenhouse. 

Ares stood, nauseous and stinging, in the echo of… whatever that was. He hadn't successfully defended Aphrodite. He hadn't stuck up for Ma. Was Ma tired of him? No, come on, he'll just be saying that. That's what he does. He says stuff. He lies and he twists things. And he doesn't know anything about anyone, especially me, so he's just guessing what people say and think. Aphrodite might be fine with war, she might not have given it a second thought. But what if she had? What if everyone had? Was that what they were all thinking? Crazy Ares? Had he overreacted following Zeus over here? Was he just trying to be a hero? Fates, stop letting him get in your head! But what if... Stop it!

His heart pounded.

"I know you better than you know yourself."

I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. I’m… 

His fist burst with pain. 

It shocked him back to the garden. He blinked down at his smarting knuckles, then saw the spider web of fractures in the nearest greenhouse panel. 

He'd punched the glass. 

“Shit. Shit, fuck, shit.”

He heaved a steadying breath and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. The echo of anger and confusion throbbed in his ears. 

I’m not crazy…

 

*

 

I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy…

“Trite, what were you doing bringing her here? She’s totally losing it.”

“Who’s the crazy ocean girl? Fates, did you see how she went off?”

“Poseidon’s always been the too-nice brother, must be Tartarus living with that powder keg.”

“That felt directed.” A needling voice wrenched Aphrodite from her skidding thoughts. Her hammering heart leaped into her throat and she whirled around to see Acteon peering up at her, his beady eyes magnified by his thick, square glasses. 

“Pardon?” she asked breathlessly.

“That speech from the king. It felt directed.” He looked at her pointedly.

The look in Zeus’ eyes sizzled on Aphrodite’s brain, the same look a poker dealer gives a gambler with nothing left but their watch and bus ticket. Her skin crawled, her nerves burned. She looked sharply down at Acteon, her eyes flooding with amethyst flames. 

Acteon swallowed and shrank. 

She pierced him with her glare. “Go buzz around some other flower.”

She stalked off, feeling his popping eyes on her back, like ice cubes. The party grumbled around her. Centuries of hurt and want, hurt and want, stinging her all over, like they’d saved a few too many bees, dunked her in honey, and let them all loose. She stumbled across the garden, every sense both heightened and dampened, picking up every motion, every whisper, every scent, and totally unable to rationalise them in her mind. Eyes. Eyes were everywhere. People were staring. Everyone was always staring at her. Wanting her. Wanting her gone. Wanting. Wanting. Wanting. That’s all anyone here ever did. It wrapped her in layers and layers of building pressure, mummifying her, suffocating her.

“Wow, Hestia, claws are out today.” Artemis’ brash voice caught her ear. 

"I'm just saying,” Hestia’s theatrical innocence. “How much can someone really experience love, let alone rule it, if they put it about so freely?" 

Sea water lashed her stomach. 

“Hestia, stop!” Athena’s placid voice was almost unrecognisable in its sudden harshness. “That’s beneath you.”

The sour lemon flavour of a lovers’ spat filled her mouth. She coughed and gasped. The harp was playing something rapid, pummelling her heart faster and faster.

She marched on. She glimpsed a gleam of sunlight away from the crowd and raced towards it, using all her strength not to break into a run.

“Come on, Man, quit holding out on me!” Apollo’s clawing tone rang in her skull.

“Dite’s not your type, Dude, trust me.” Hermes’ familiar voice.

“Why? What’s wrong with her?”

Hermes scoffed. “Assertiveness, experience, temper, all the stuff you hate in women.”

Athena and Hestia’s sour citrus frothed into Apollo’s bitter taste. She felt sick. Her stomach heaved.

“Maybe she just needs the right man.”

Another snort. “Maybe you just need the right slap in the face.”

Apollo’s poison fizzed on her tongue. She skidded around a palm tree and saw the two young gods talking. Apollo had his back to her. Hermes’ eyes widened on her. She couldn’t let him see her like this. She gagged and thoughtlessly spun on her stiletto and fled. Another palm tree and she was enough out of sight to run. Her knees buckled, she launched into a dash, almost pitching forward as her heels caught in the soil. The rainbow flashes of the party kept peeking behind plants. She was too close. Her body was still so horribly full of noise. She ran towards the gleam of sunlight on the greenhouse, towards that big block of green that would conceal her from all those eyes. So many eyes.

She almost lost her balance as she reached the greenhouse, tipping against the warm, smooth glass and planting her side against it. She poured her focus into the rush of heat on her skin. She managed one steadying breath, then gasped sharply as she realised with a thump of her heart that she wasn’t alone. She looked up. Ares was whipping around to face her. It seemed, from the mark on his forehead, that he’d had his brow pressed to the glass. The look in his eye was of a hunted stag. Same as her, she imagined.

For a stilted moment, they stood staring at each other, mouths open, eyes wide.

The distant flutter of harp music.

The hum of a newly safe bee.

The clamour in Aphrodite’s body weakly fizzled out, leaving her raw and trembling. She crossed her arms tight over her chest to compress the shivers, and tossed her head up merrily. “Hey! You get overheated too?”

Ares gaped at Aphrodite. Her face was completely calm, her eyes sparkling and her body still. But she was still dusted with cinnamon, it seemed to be clumping in her aura and going stale. He glanced at her fingers curled so tight on her arms that they sunk into the flesh like dough. His eyes roved to her elaborate up-do. The frangipani scattered about the lavender coils were singed at the edges of their petals. He frowned. He should have just gone to her. He cursed himself. He shifted his weight to conceal the panel of glass, opaque with cracks.

“Olympus to Ares?” she laughed lightly.

He blinked. “Oh, yeah. Like I said, damn uniform.”

“I can’t breathe in this dress. Way too tight.” 

Ares tried not to look. And failed. The yellow and peach cuddled her close, sauce poured on a sundae. 

Aphrodite watched his eyes move, then hurry away. It was cute, oddly comforting. She shuffled her feet in the grass. “Having a good time?”

Ares grit his teeth. His voice was easy, but there were sparks in his eyes and his hair looked frazzled. “Honestly? I fucking hate these things.”

A laugh skipped out of her, roughly tearing away some of the tension. “Me too!”

“Seriously?” He half-grinned crookedly. “I figured social butterfly.”

Aphrodite laughed again, bitterly this time. “So did I.”

“But these things suck?”

“These things suck!”

They chuckled together, their laughter kicking up the air between them and making Aphrodite light, too light. She’d emptied her body trying to purge it of the noise, now there was nothing to stop her getting high on a pretty smile. She caught Ares’ eye and held it. His eyes were unlike any she’d ever seen. There were no whites. They were just intense pools of fiery red, the glow from them spilling across his face and staining his hard-cut cheeks. It was monstrous. But the good kind. She sucked her lip. Her heart hadn’t slowed yet. His eyes brightened. His hand moved, as if to reach out to her.

The silence broke with the crack of Hermes’ frantic yelp. He came whizzing around the corner of the greenhouse to Aphrodite’s side. She noticed Ares’ cheek twitch as she turned to the intruder.

“Dite!” Hermes panted, the wings on his shoes flapping urgently. “There you are! Gee, I’m sorry about Apollo, you shouldn’t have had to hear that. He can be such a…” He suddenly froze like he’d been struck in the face, then shook his head. “Holy harpies!” His face exploded into a jubilant grin. He looked excitedly between them. “There’s bonkers mischief levels over here, what did I walk in on?”

Aphrodite narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll tell you when you’re older,” she mumbled.

Hermes stuck his tongue out at her, then whirled to Ares, flourishing his hands like he was about to do a card trick. “I can rely on you, Big Guy. What’s cooking?”

Aphrodite followed Hermes’ gaze. Ares was smiling. She hadn’t seen that smile yet, reckless and fanged. He looked at her with it, into her. “Hey.” His voice dropped to the depths of the Underworld and rumbled deliciously in her abdomen. “Wanna do something crazy?”

Sweet, spiced, uncompromised desire trickled into her flesh from Ares and Hermes, striking a chord in her core. She raised her chin coyly, but kept her gaze hot on him. “How crazy?”

He snickered darkly. “Legally grey.”

Her raw body tingled with new sparks. She took a deep breath of the excitement in the air. “Oh Sweet Stars,” she sighed indulgently, “I would love to.”

“Come with me.”

The three of them set off hastily across the grounds, Ares in the lead, striding with his shoulders, tearing the grass with his steps. Hermes gambolled like a pixie, his wings taking him in short bursts skimming over the ground, his hair breaking free of the tie and streaming like maypole ribbons. Aphrodite tottered, as if drunk, on the high spikes of her shoes, giggling and stepping along their refreshing emotions like a tightrope, trying not to tip back into commotion. 

They skirted the edge of the grand house and arrived at a long garage building with a series of locked doors. Ares marched purposefully to a door painted scarlet. He hooked the handle at the bottom. His sleeve strained over his bicep. He wrenched the door open, shattering the lock and hurling the metal slats to roll up loudly. The sunlight flowed over a startling, cherry red convertible, clean enough to eat off, so sleek and streamlined it looked formed out of blowing wind. 

Hermes laced his fingers behind his head and whistled low. “Nice! Is this baby yours?”

Ares strode into the garage. “Nope. Where’s the fun if it’s mine?”

Hermes grinned. “So…”

“It’s Dad’s. Loves this thing like his own cock.”

Another slightly delirious laugh whisked from Aphrodite. She put her hand to her face to cool it. “But, you have the keys?”

Ares flicked the roof of the car with his unnatural strength and it pinged back, revealing plush, cream, leather seats. He leaned in and ferreted about under the steering wheel. “I got better.” There was a clunk as he pulled off the steering column cover. “I got the God of Thieves.” He grinned at Hermes.

Hermes cackled and rubbed his palms together, the mischief eddying around him, like foam in a milkshake maker. He flew from the doorway to Ares’ side and ducked to hotwire the car, his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth.

Ares stepped back and fiddled the buttons open on his jacket. He wrestled it away, like it had been pasted to his body with something itchy. His shirt lay close along his broad, sculpted torso, the fine weave just showing the glimmer of his golden skin. Aphrodite cocked her head and appraised him. The tie went next, tossed with the jacket in the back seat. His collar unfolded, the sun sneaked in and kissed his neck. Her cheeks tingled. He looked up at her startlingly, his eyes wild and angry and joyous. His chest rose and fell under his shirt in rapid, half-controlled breaths. 

“Duchess.” His wicked voice stroked the base of her spine. Their gazes met effervescently. He extended his hand. “Your carriage awaits.”

“Where are we going?” she breathed.

His criminal smile lured her, like a lasso. “Anywhere we fucking want.”

Chapter 5: “Fall in love today, Olympus!”

Summary:

Escaping the pressures of a royal party, Ares, Aphrodite and Hermes steal Zeus' convertible and go for a ride around the city. Ares and Aphrodite grow closer.

[CW: Super mild drug use. And it's Hermes, so are we even surprised.]

Song, Part 1: Shut Up and Drive, Rihanna
Song, Part 2: Oh Yeah, Roxy Music

The convertible roared to life and leaped from the garage, like a pouncing lion. Ares launched it forward with such a stamp on the pedal that his foot almost went through the floor. The wheels left the ground and banged back onto it with an invigorating jolt up Aphrodite's spine, an explosion of butterflies in her stomach. She squealed in excitement, her voice harmonising with the snarl of the engine. Hermes hooted and spread himself out along the back seats. Ares laughed, his heat pulsating against Aphrodite’s bare arm in the passenger seat. The car pelted into the white blaze of the sun.

They zoomed down the winding road through the royal grounds, spinning pale dust in a cloud behind them, startling gardeners and casting flocks of sparrows into the air. Aphrodite’s heart raced. The wind rushed her body, stampeding over the knots and nausea and purging them from her system. She let her eyes blur in the stream of green and tropical colours. 

The large, iron gates of the estate rose into view. 

Two satyr guards were positioned one at each side. As the car whipped around the corner, its rightful driver very visibly not present, they stood to attention and levelled their horns. 

One cupped his hairy hands around his mouth and bellowed. “My prince! We have been instructed not to let you leave with any of the vehicles!”

Aphrodite glanced sideways at Ares. His lips were curled in a defiant smile, his eyes narrowed ahead of him and dazzling with fiery light. He revved the engine.

“Your Highness, stop!”

The car sped up, the gates looming alarmingly close.

“STOP!”

The engine growled. Aphrodite’s pulse rocketed.

“SIR! WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDAT-”

“WOULD YOU SHUT UP AND OPEN THE FUCKING GATE!” The second guard leaped across the front of the gate, barged his comrade aside, and slammed his fist onto a large, red button by the hinge.

The gates hummed, squeaked, and swung open, just as the car reached them. The satyrs scrambled aside, bellowing in alarm. Ares shot through the almost-too-narrow gap and tore out onto the open road.

Hermes exploded into high laughter. Aphrodite’s stomach kicked. She twisted in her seat and gaped at the still opening gates. 

“Ares!” she gasped.

Ares adjusted his clenched fists on the wheel, not looking at her. “Yeah?”

“Are you crazy?” she spun back into her seat and stared at him.

“I asked you if you wanted to do something crazy.” His voice was callous on the surface, but underneath something was boiling over.

“But you could’ve killed those guys!” 

“Are you angry?”

“Yes!”

He turned his face to her, like a brilliant sunflower turning with the time of day. He grinned. “I can tell.”

Her blood simmered. She hated being challenged. She hated it almost as much as she loved it. She pursed her lips at him and whisked her gaze away, poking her nose haughtily into the air. 

The road was lined with tall, fanning trees, the sunlight sieving through them and dappling their faces, splashing on the car bonnet like pebbles in a pool. The warm wind was invigorating. Aphrodite closed her eyes, ran her fingers into her up-do and teased it apart. Her hair gushed free from its bonds and billowed in a lavender tumult behind her. The frangipani woven into the style flew loose and pirouetted through the air in a peaches and cream swirl. The taut tug on her scalp washed away, relief trickling down the back of her neck and over her shoulders. She hummed in pleasure and kept her fingers running luxuriantly through her hair, drawing out the sensation like the strum of a guitar.

The car swerved, jerked, and straightened up. 

Aphrodite snapped her eyes open to see Hermes leaning forward and smacking Ares on the back of the head, beaming and barking, “eyes on the road, Dumbass!”

Ares batted Hermes away with a scowl. “I know!” He shifted his shoulders and focused ahead, grinding his teeth.

Aphrodite eyed him with a satisfied smirk. Hermes reclined in his seat, arms spread along the back, wildfire hair flailing around his face. His jacket and tie lay next to Ares’ in a bundle. He’d rolled up his sleeves and undone a few shirt buttons, bathing his dark skin in the hot light. He plucked the rose Aphrodite had conjured for him out of the pile of formal wear and stuck it between his teeth, like a cigar. “I can’t believe she’s the one you’re checking out when all this is in your rear view mirror,” he called over the racket of the rush and the engine, voice muffled around the stem, hand lazily indicating his sprawled, lithe form.

Ares poked his tongue into his cheek. “I’m not checking anyone out. I’ve got my eyes on the road.”

“Boooo!” Hermes blew a raspberry. He twizzled the rose between his teeth. “I'm all yours then, Dite.”

Aphrodite laughed. She swivelled in her seat, leaning her elbow on the cushioned leather, and appraised Hermes with pursed lips. She regarded him like an art dealer, taking in his thicket of hair, his brow and mouth quirked with humour, the kiss of the rose petals on his sharp cheekbone, the deep, tempting, strawberry colour of his supple throat, the clean lines of his athletic form under the white shirt, the V of his parted, long legs, fabric taut over his crotch. 

She smacked her lips and faced forward again. “Thanks, I’m done.”

Ares laughed. 

Hermes tutted and twisted a lock of his hair around his finger. “Incredibly rude.”

Aphrodite shimmied her shoulders showily and tossed her hair again. “Sorry, Kiddo, you’re not the prettiest girl at the party anymore, not since I rolled into town.” She reached up and poked the rear view mirror so she could see her reflection in it. She began to comb out her hair with her fingers and rub off the few spots where her make-up had smudged.

Ares readjusted the mirror, chuckling. “What are you doing?”

“Keeping up appearances.” Aphrodite shrugged and turned the mirror back.

“I need that!” Ares wafted at her hand and restored it.

“So do I!” She took it back and tickled his ribs.

He let out a bucking laugh. She grinned and twisted the mirror more squarely around to her. His large hand covered hers on the frame and tried to pull her away. She wrestled with him. Their fingers and their laughter tangled, the mirror flicking right and left as they fought over it. The car wavered a little on its path as Ares glared down at Aphrodite with his eyes almost violently lively. His touch was kettle warm. She could feel his unearthly might in the way he nudged his strength softly against her, playing at giving her ground, conceding and making her topple closer.

“Tunes!” Hermes spat out the rose, sprang forward, and broke them apart. He shot his hand out and clicked the radio on. 

Ares gave the mirror a final jab straight. Aphrodite petted Hermes’ head as it floated back from between them. She and Ares exchanged a glance. His cheeks were cherry in the glimmer from his eyes. He cleared his throat and pulled the car straight, soaring down the straight, empty highway. The DJ on the radio spoke in a smooth, cheerful voice that bled into the opening note of the track he was announcing, a funky, heart-filled love song, oozing allure and dripping with longing. 

Ares and Aphrodite exchanged another glance.

“No!” Hermes lunged between them again and fiddled with the dial.

“Would you cut it out!” Ares snapped, grabbing Hermes’ shoulder and throwing him back.

“I’m boycotting Orpheus!” Hermes insisted. “I did everything I could for that jackass! He had one damn job!”

“Oh, but he’s so good!” Aphrodite exclaimed, switching back to Orpheus’ latest hit. “He really gets it, you know?”

“If he got it, he would have done his ONE JOB!” Hermes reached forward again.

Ares slapped his hand.

He huffed his fringe out of his eyes and slumped in his seat. 

The car sped through the trees and emerged onto a street full of thrift stores and repair shops spilling their contents in chaotic jumbles onto the sidewalk. Nymphs in brightly coloured tank tops and satyrs in cargo shorts ambled about, smoking, huddling around boom boxes and swaying their hips, haggling with fists full of bills. Aphrodite caught cheap perfume and plastic and the salty scent of a hot dog stand in the coursing air. A djinn drifted by on a skateboard. 

Hermes perked up. “Hey! Wanna see a trick?”

Ares ignored him, but Aphrodite noticed him smile. She turned and narrowed her eyes at Hermes. “What kind of trick?”

Hermes winked. He flashed his wicked eyes to Ares. “Think we still got it?”

The song changed. A pumping beat with zinging vocals buzzing on Aphrodite’s skin. Ares threw a grin to Hermes and turned it up. Hermes crowed. He sprang up to stand on the back seat, the wind rippling his shirt, the white sun flaring behind him. A few people on the street murmured to each other and pointed. Ares turned the volume all the way up, drowning out the speakers in the store fronts. A gaggle of nymphs whooped and picked up the beat in a dance. A harpy fluttered her wings and raised her coffee cup to the convertible.

Aphrodite looked wide-eyed up at Hermes. “What are you doing?”

Hermes just smiled and jumped into the air. He ran fleet-footed along the trunk of the car and bounded off it, like a stag. Aphrodite screamed. Hermes hurtled in the air, spread his feet, flapped his wings, and dropped to hover an inch off the road, hand hooking the trunk handle. His bicep clenched, his teeth glinted. He threw his free hand out to steady himself and bent his knees. His wings hummed like wasps’, keeping him afloat as he was pulled skating behind the car. Aphrodite wailed, half laughing, half squealing. She gaped at him and lost her breath. He surfed the wind behind the speeding car, his hair flying, his eyes manic. She shot her stare to Ares, who was smiling menacingly and propelling them forward, his jaw ticking to the racing pump of the music. 

The street erupted into excitement. Cameras flashed and girls cheered and boys made noises like dogs in the pound. Hermes levelled his body and gnashed his teeth. Ares took a corner sharply and Hermes floated into the air, almost on his side, then came swinging down straight again, shirt straining over his flexed arm as he fought to hang on.

“That all you got, Big Guy?” he called to Ares.

Aphrodite glared at Ares.

He raised a cocky eyebrow at her. He curled his fingers closer around the steering wheel. The car roared. Hermes turned into a blinding flash of scarlet in the pupils of passers-by. 

Aphrodite scrambled to kneel in her seat and lean over the back, laughing in unhinged delight at Hermes. She cupped her hands around her mouth and spurred him on with piercing cheers, her hair a tornado of lavender around her face. 

Ares’ eyes moved before he could stop them. She was kneeling with her ass perked up, the sunset silk of her dress stretched over the roundness and gleaming like a polished nectarine in the sun. Her hair flew like a victory flag. Her exposed, curving back drenched in the rich light and tinged violet. Her feet were kicking a little, the keen points of her stilettos glinting. His mouth went dry. She was so full of joy, so thrilled by Hermes, her jubilation more musical than the siren blasting her voice through the radio. His senses crowded with laughter and screams and thudding bass and the vibrations thrumming up his core from the drive. 

He clipped a can on the road and sent it shooting against a wall with a clang. 

Eyes on the road, Dumbass.

He pulled his gaze from Aphrodite. It hurt like ripping a band-aid off. The street tumbled past him, junk and litter and graffiti and sweaty, bustling crowds of people rioting in his vision. The gleeful grins between her and Hermes pressed behind his eyes. The back of his neck burned. He ground his teeth. He stamped on the accelerator. 

Hermes squawked, but hung on, his cry of shock whisking into triumphant hooting that echoed off the brick buildings.

“Hey!” Aphrodite leaned over and punched Ares' arm with the force of a chipmunk bumping into a thick branch. 

He glanced up at her - a pure, elemental force as the wind and sun lashed around her.

“Don’t break the mailman, I have deliveries!” she scolded.

Ares’ ears flushed hot. He broke into a broad grin and launched them around another corner, rocking Aphrodite so she dropped back into her seat. She squeaked and punched his arm again. Her mild, giddy anger shot into his bloodstream. It was better than a caffeine hit. His grin turned devilish. “I’m not gonna break him, I’m just testing his limits. You can respect that, right?” 

Aphrodite licked her teeth. “Testing a man’s limits? Absolutely.”

Ares’ pulse cantered rhythmically. He swung close to the sidewalk. Hermes yelped and jumped into the air, then slammed back into position. Aphrodite whipped around to watch him and applauded. He took the encouragement. He slipped his hand from hanging onto the handle and just rested a fingertip on the trunk, forcing his wings faster to keep up. His chest and cheeks pumped rapidly. Aphrodite whistled and clapped raucously. Hermes danced in the car’s wake, riding the rush with his bright, scarlet body blurring into the streamlined shape of the red convertible. Ares kept glancing back, hauling the car around like a truck, rather than driving it with its designed delicacy, seeing how well Hermes kept his balance. 

“Dude! You trying to kill me?”

Would that be an extreme reaction to how much Aphrodite seemed to like the little guy? Nah. Reasonable. Ares ground the wheels into the tarmac, leaving sizzling scorch marks. He sped from the streets and into sparse trees. The square, modern buildings of the university towered over stretching sports fields. They shot past field hockey practice and football training, the gleeful voices of students snatched under the din of the engine. 

“Oh My Gods, that’s Hermes!”

“It’s the sexy mailman!”

“Flash him!”

“Ew, no!”

“Is that Ares?”

“It’s Ares!”

"Hey, Babe!"

“Flash HIM!”

“STOP!”

Aphrodite cast her head back and collapsed into giggles, bunching up in her seat, like a mouse who’d eaten too much cheese. “Did you hear that?”

Ares’ face heated. “Uh... No.”

She shot him a look that he didn’t dare turn to see. Meanwhile, Hermes waved at the students, like he was a charioteer in the arena. He bent his knees, pressed his lips together in concentration, and launched himself into the air. He rose above the car, somersaulted like a dolphin, and landed with a concerning crunch of the suspension back in his seat, hair standing on end, face flushed, smile victorious.

Aphrodite stuffed her fingers in her mouth and gave him a long whistle. He crowed deafeningly, then collapsed back into the leather cushions, catching his breath, his chest shining. “Fuck you, Ares!” he panted.

“Knew you could do it,” Ares replied brashly.

Hermes grinned into the sky, closing his eyes, the rush still in his body.

Aphrodite drank deep of the closeness between Ares and Hermes; a combative, boyish energy that bounced between them, like ping pong balls. She sucked on the last of the air of the vanishing campus; a meadow bloom of new crushes and broken rules. She wriggled in the cosy cushion, the leather rubbing warm friction on her back and thighs. The music kept coming with the hum of the car around her, filling her flesh with quivering motion, making her muscles restless. She looked over at Ares. He was still going thrillingly fast, but his hands had loosened on the wheel and his body was relaxing. He was a confident driver. He moved the heavy, bestial vehicle with intriguing, controlled releases of his immeasurable strength. She could see his bicep rising and rolling under his shirt as he manipulated the convertible, made the groans and growls pour out of it and its inner workings spin. 

She kicked off her shoes and drew her feet up. She flicked her eyes to him again. She took a steadying breath and pulled herself up to stand on the seat.

The car jerked, almost throwing her off balance.

“What the fuck are you up to, Miss?” Ares spluttered.

“Keep it steady!” Aphrodite commanded, shuffling her feet in the leather to get her balance. “I want to dance!”

Ares' stunning eyes went round, then hot. "Yes, Ma'am." He rolled his shoulders and adjusted his hands on the wheel, slowing the car a touch so it flowed smoothly down the boulevard. White houses and apartment buildings glowed behind the rows of green. 

Aphrodite bounced her knees, letting her joints go springy. She opened her mouth, her throat and lungs and belly flooding with cool, racing air. It raked through her hair and made her pores spark. The buzz of the engine and the music pulsed into her bare feet through the seat, gripped her legs, and wound into her core. She began to move, all instinct and passion. She splayed her hands in the air, tossed her head back, and gave herself over to the song. Her hips revolved and bucked and swayed. Her shoulders rolled and shook. Her thighs spread and nearly split the tight hem of her dress. Her torso undulated, sunlight kissing her breasts. Her arms waved like cotton grass. Her head lolled, her eyes fluttering, her lips parted. She whipped and writhed as the world swirled around her. 

Hermes wolf-whistled, beaming up at her and clapping his hands in time with the music moving her body like river currents. She flashed him her flooring smile and swished her ass towards him, tugging up the short skirt of her dress to show the thin string of her panties over her hip bone. Hermes laughed, slipped a bill out of his pocket and tucked it into the string. His hand moved towards her ass. She slapped it hard and whipped her face away tauntingly. 

The car swerved.

Aphrodite squeaked and almost toppled. Hermes lunged forward and steadied her with his hands on the small of her back. She planted her feet and rounded on Ares with a panther grin. He was facing fiercely straight ahead, his cheeks blazing like traffic lights. 

She kicked up her foot and prodded his shoulder with her toe. “I said keep it steady!”

Ares visibly swallowed, glancing with a tight mouth at her bare foot. “I-I am!” he stammered.

She yapped an unconvinced laugh and threw herself back into the wind, her motions blending into it.

Ares sucked on his lip. He waited for her to look away and take up her dance again. He sneaked his eyes up her body. He could hardly breathe.

A car honked behind them. Aphrodite twirled and Hermes twisted to see another convertible speeding on their tail, crowded with nymphs sat up on the backs of the seats, radio tuned to the same station. Hermes waved delightedly and gestured for them to pull up alongside. The driver was in a pair of sunglasses far too big for his face and a baseball cap turned backwards so his tuft of yellow fringe poked through it. He flashed Hermes a grin and revved the engine. He zoomed to their side, Ares dropping back to let him. He shot Ares a finger gun, then immediately started to leer up at Aphrodite. Ares’ back itched. 

Aphrodite bathed in the attention. The wild glee of the nymphs, the impulsivity gushing from both cars, the sexy, aggressive music amplified by both stereos, all catching her up in a whirling embrace. Everyone thought she was gorgeous. Everyone thought this was the most fun they could have in their lives. Everyone had let go and was outrunning the world. Hermes jumped up and started dancing too. The nymphs joined in from their seats, caterwauling along with the radio. One of them threw a cookie across to Hermes, who caught it in his mouth. One locked eyes with Aphrodite and mimicked her movements, letting Aphrodite guide her. One of them called to Ares to blow her a kiss. He glanced over and grinned, but didn’t oblige. She pouted. Hermes flapped his wings, soared over the gap between the gliding cars, hooked her chin, and sealed his lips to hers. Aphrodite was washed in excited desire. She spun on her toes and let it wrap her body. Hermes peeled away from the delighted nymph and flew back to the car. He made a show of collapsing into his seat with adoration as she fanned herself and her friends cheered. The driver tipped his cap, and the party turned off down another road, the clamorous music and calling fading away. Aphrodite beamed at Hermes and his dizzy smile. She swayed back into dancing.

Ares’ blood burned his veins. Aphrodite’s bare thighs were too close, parting and tensing and quivering right at the edge of his vision. She moved as if she was moulded out of song, the pounding beat rattling his skull and punching his abdomen over and over. She serpentined and thrust beside him, casting her perfume into the air, chased by the natural sweet-salt of her sweat. His palms chafed on the steering wheel, feeling the plastic heat so much from his grip that it started to turn malleable. He tried to force his concentration into the drive, but the distraction of Aphrodite was besieging.

“Hey!” She bent down and ruffled his hair, setting his skin on fire. “Stop looking so grim, we’re having fun!”

Ares looked up at her, the sun bursting behind her, like a pair of white-gold wings. “I… I am. I gotta drive.”

“Well, you’ll drive me mad with a face like that!” she giggled. “Smile for me!” 

Ares bared his teeth, his cheeks prickling. “Make me.”

Sparks leaped in her eyes. She drove her pointed foot into his side and wiggled her toes, shooting tickles around his torso. Ares spasmed and erupted into bounding laughter, nerves and sensation ripping through his muscle. He gripped the wheel in one hand and batted at her with the other, looking frantically between Aphrodite and the road, the colours wheeling in his vision. She kept her balance balletically, torturing his side, cackling impishly, while she dodged his swipes. Hermes cackled with her, drumming his hands and feet on the car seats to the galloping rhythm of the radio. Ares snatched at her leg and pushed it away hard, the bolts going through his body making him forget his strength. 

Aphrodite squealed and lurched backwards. 

Her arms wind-milled desperately. 

Her feet left earth. 

The landscape reeled behind her. 

Hermes yelped. 

Ares’ heart banged. 

He flung his body towards her, hand reaching out, car screeching sideways. He grabbed Aphrodite’s ankle and wrenched it back. She tipped forward. Her foot in his grasp landed on the seat. Her arms wind-milled the other way. She gasped and fell forward, her body crashing over Ares, like a descending storm cloud. The car skidded around the tarmac, churning his organs inside him. He let go of her ankle and threw his palm up. She was stopped in mid-air, leaning over him, his hand pressed firmly to her belly, fingertips grazing the undersides of her breasts. Her heart hammered against his fingers, her panting breath pushing her belly out to fill his palm. One of her hands curled over his, the other clutched his arm with the strength of crocodile jaws. 

Their eyes met, wide and staring and shocked.

“TREE!” Hermes squawked.

Ares gasped and turned to see the car was hurtling towards a solid trunk. He barked and spun the steering wheel. They straightened on the road and coursed on. His blood roared in his ears. 

Hermes let out a deep sigh of relief and squeezed Ares’ shoulder. “Nice save.”

Ares nodded breathlessly. He ensured they were on a safe, straight path, then looked back to Aphrodite, who his hand was still propping up, stood bent double in mid-fall on the passenger seat. The heat of her body seeped into this touch. She kept hold of him, batting her huge eyes. Ares gazed up at her looming over him and broke into a broad, sparkling grin.

She beamed. “There. Got you to smile.”

Ares blinked, his pulse racing, his mind soaring. Laughter pounced out of him unbidden. He snared the fabric of her dress and pulled. Aphrodite giggled wildly and let herself fall into his lap. Her warmth and softness tumbled into his senses and settled against his body. She sat across his thighs, feet on her seat, arms looped around his neck. 

She glared up into his face with a sizzling, stripping gaze. “Cad.”

Ares cocked an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth lifted. “You wanted me to smile. This’ll do it.”

His heart thumped against her leaning on his chest. She must be able to feel it. He fought against the rising warmth spreading over his neck, keeping an eye on the road and the trembling heat haze on the black strip. 

Aphrodite pouted at him with a dangerous look. “Oh, this’ll do, will it?” 

She circled her fingertip on the nape of his neck and shifted pointedly in his lap. Her ass ground over his cock. Ares flooded hot. His mouth went dry and his body felt seized in iron. He choked on an intake of breath and glared at her. She smirked and shrugged.

“Don’t kiss him,” Hermes called mockingly from behind, ferreting in his abandoned jacket. “He’ll definitely crash.”

Ares closed his arm a little around her. “We’re gods, we’d survive.”

“Yeah,” Hermes said. “But Dite’d be mad you ruined the nice day out and you don’t wanna tangle with her temper. This is a woman who was literally born out of a guy being castrated.”

Ares chuckled. He definitely did want to tangle with her temper.

“I don’t kiss princes anyway,” Aphrodite said coolly. “You never know when they’ll turn into frogs.”

Ares bristled. Keeping his hands on the wheel was becoming the hardest thing he’d ever done. Her hair kept blowing into his face and brushing his lips. She was so agonisingly soft.

She slipped from his lap and clambered back to the passenger side in a tangle of long, shapely limbs, leaving Ares both iced and scorching.

“Elegant,” Hermes snorted.

“Shush you,” she tutted, sitting on the headrest, feet on the cushion. She took a deep, relaxing breath with her face turned up to the sun, her skin dappled by the trees lining the boulevard.

Hermes retrieved what he’d been searching for in his jacket, a crumpled joint and a lighter. He flicked the lighter a few times. Nothing happened. “Damn it, out of fuel. Hey, Hot Stuff, would ya?” He held the joint out to Ares.

Ares reached around and pressed his thumb to the tip. It hissed and blazed to life, a tendril of smoke rising into the air. Aphrodite smiled.

“Much obliged.” Hermes rocked back with one arm behind his head and slipped the thin twist of paper between his lips. He blew a stream of earthy, sweet smoke into the air, humming and letting his body go limp.

“Sharing is caring, Jam Pot.” Aphrodite said, holding onto the headrest and tipping backwards, her hair swishing. 

Hermes smiled. “Jam Pot, that’s new.”

“It’s because you’re so sweet.”

“I prefer Hot Sauce.”

“Tough.”

He reached out and held the joint to her lips. She sucked on it luxuriantly and sighed out a cloud of pink, shimmering smoke that bloomed into the shape of a heart. Ares beamed, gazing at the heart. Aphrodite caught his eye and shimmied her shoulders. She fluttered her fingers at Hermes to make him offer to Ares. Ares hesitated, but he figured it took a lot for substances to get through his dense body. Hermes hovered the joint at his mouth. He took a drag and held the smoke in his mouth a moment, burnt sugar tingling on his tongue. He breathed it in, caught Aphrodite’s eye again, and jetted the smoke from his teeth. It flourished across the windshield and took the form of a pouncing, roaring lion, red sparks in the eyes, mane wisping in white tendrils into the sunlight. Aphrodite giggled and clapped. He told himself he wasn’t blushing. He leaned back in his seat with a new calm oozing through his muscles, and slowed the car.

They turned onto a more populated street, cars zipping past them, kids riding their bikes, dogs barking, shoppers gossiping. A jogger’s sneakers thudded on the paving, discman rattling at his belt. Two nymphs ambled side by side, hands in each other’s back pockets. A centaur clopped along with his nose in a newspaper, while imps scrambled about his hooves, trying to get past. A siren sat on a small, iron balcony, preening her feathers behind a row of flower pots. 

Ares watched Aphrodite take it all in. She gazed at every person on the street in turn, her smile bright and true and blessing. She closed her eyes and hummed in pleasure, her skin glowing the pretty colour of sweetpea flowers. She folded her hands over her heart, then extended them cupped in front of her. She opened her eyes, a candy pink light illuminating her pupils. She unfurled her hands. Red rose petals flew from them and streamed into the sky. They fluttered down the street, showering the passers-by, whirling around the car and out into the city. People frowned in confusion, laughed, took pictures, ran to catch them, skipped through the soft rain of petals, each one a secret wish let loose in the summer heat.

Hermes laughed and batted at them, like a kitten.

Ares felt them land in his hair and kiss his neck. He made sure he was driving straight, then moved his gaze up to Aphrodite. The marvellous goddess beamed into the city, petals in her lap and flying about her radiant face. 

She spread her arms and called out in a ringing, irresistible voice, echoing off the apartment blocks and winging on the wind. “Fall in love today, Olympus!” 

Ares took a deep breath of the smoke and the breeze and the essence of Aphrodite always on his tongue. 

He smiled. 

Sure thing, Beautiful.

 

*

 

They drove until the wildness had run off them into the wind. The radio DJ changed to the leisurely drawl of a cyclops announcing easy-going, early evening tunes. The sun lowered in the sky, painting the pale buildings the peach colour of Aphrodite’s dress and lengthening the shadows of dracaena trees with their long, spidery leaves. 

Ares cruised along the highway that spiralled around the edge of the mountain, the sea glittering in a silver-turquoise strip in the distance below them, orange from the edge of sunset bleeding into it. The convertible engine’s roar dimmed to a lulling hum. It mingled with Hermes’ soft snores from where he lay balled up on the back seat, his jacket pillowing his cheek, Ares’ jacket draped over him as a blanket. Aphrodite smiled affectionately at the snoozing boy, then reclined in the passenger seat, tucking her bare feet under her, her arm stretched along the car door. The breeze stroked her hair off her face and ran a gentle touch over her lips. Her body finally felt peaceful. 

She nudged her gaze sideways to Ares. The sunset poured over his face, enriching the gold and ruby of his complexion. It was as if the world had two suns staring into each other’s eyes. She chuckled at how offended Helios would be at that thought.

“What?” Ares asked, looking at her with a startlingly innocent expression for such a trouble-maker.

She blinked and shook her head, smiling and looking down. “Oh, nothing. Just inner monologuing.” 

He nodded and looked back at the road.

She eyed him curiously. The look in his eyes was always so busy. All that fire had to be stricken up somehow. She huffed nonchalantly and flicked a stray rose petal off her dress. “So, God of War is a new position.”

“Literally this year,” he said.

“What were you doing before then?”

His fingers shifted on the wheel, still looking ahead. “Uh, college.”

“Right,” she prompted, “but then?”

“Summer.”

She frowned. “And… then?”

Ares glanced at her with a hint of confusion. “God of War.”

Aphrodite narrowed her eyes. “Wait. How old are you?”

Ares’ unreadable expression gave over to a goading grin. “Oh, no, I'm not telling you that.”

She pouted. “Why?”

“Because I'm young and you'll make a thing out of it.”

“How young?”

“Young.”

She smiled and leaned her cheek on her fingertip, elbow on the car door. “I'm so intrigued. Come on, what kind of thing could I make out of it?”

Ares shot her a glimmering look. “Well, for one, you might stop flirting with me.”

Aphrodite made an indignant noise. “I am not flirting with you!”

He snorted. “You're totally flirting with me.”

“That's just, like, my demeanour.”

“Your flirt demeanour.”

She struggled to keep her smile in. “OK. Fine. But you like it, so…” She stuck her tongue out.

“I do like it,” Ares said in a warm tone that sparked an ache between her thighs. “That's why I don't want you to stop when you find out how old I am.”

“Aw, pleeease,” she whined.

“Nope.”

“Pretty please.” She batted doe eyes at him. 

He glanced at her. Then away. Then back. Then away. Then back. She kept up her pleading look. 

His hefty shoulders drooped in surrender. “Fine, I’m 23.”

“203? Wow, that is kinda young.”

“Uh, ha, no… 23.”

Aphrodite balked. “I'm sorry, 23, double figures?”

He looked at her shiftily. “Yeah.”

Her jaw dropped and a high laugh left her. “Ah! That IS young!”

He grimaced. “Told you.”

“Oh my Gods!” she railed. “You're a child! You're a little, tiny baby!”

“OK, no.”

“But you are! Are you even old enough to drive? Are you even old enough to eat solid food?”

“Shut uuup!” he groaned.

“Tartarus,” she snickered, “I have bras older than you.”

“You do not! Wait, do you?”

She whistled and ran her hand through her hair. “Oh, no, you're right, I must stop flirting with you.”

“Noooo!”

“No, I have to. This might actually get me on a list.”

“I am an adult!” 

“Barely!”

His tropical popsicle face glowed red. It was like watching a toddler get his toys taken away. Aphrodite met his furious, scrunched up expression with another burgeoning wave of giggles. 

Her mirth dispersed his frustration, but left his cheeks bright. He glared at the road. “Fucking Fates.” He heaved a sigh. “OK, what mature shit do I have to do to unfreak you out?”

Her mouth quirked. “What, like getting into a mood and stealing your dad's car?”

His hackles went up. “You know, I've been very cool about your extreme old age, Grandma. You might have bras older than me, but there are mountain ranges younger than you.”

“WOW!”

“Yeah, I said it!”

“I'll have you know, I am aging to perfection!” she announced. “I'm way hotter now than when I was some young whippersnapper. Like you.”

He laughed and smiled smoothly. “Ah, see I don't think that's how it's gonna be for me.”

She cocked her head. “No?”

“Nah, I think this is where I peak,” he said. “Like, I'm pretty dumb, and also in great shape. So I'm at that perfect age to just be used for my body and kicked to the curb with a smile on my face and teeth marks on my neck.”

Aphrodite bit her lip, eyes roving around the ridges of muscle under his shirt. “Mmmm…”

He grinned sidelong at her. “I know, right?”

“An excellent stage of life,” she purred.

He chuckled. “Yeah, I'm enjoying it.”

She echoed his chuckle, keeping her eyes on him, on the glance of sunshine on his clean jaw, on a rose petal still snug in his vanilla curls, dusted gold. He eased the car skilfully around a tight bend, the warm light popping on the sea behind him. His eyes darkened as he silhouetted slightly. 

“You're not dumb,” she said softly.

“Ask my professors,” he huffed.

She waved at him dismissively. “I'm older than the entire concept of school, I don't really go in for its standards.”

“Then ask my parents.” His tone turned a little bitter.

She smirked. “I'm older than them too.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Weird.”

“Gross, right?”

“Totally. You better stop flirting with me.”

“Definitely.”

He turned to her with a cocky half-grin. “I mean, you know, if you can.”

She pressed her lips together to suppress a wide smile. “Well, we'll see how it goes.”

She leaned her cheek fully on her hand and gazed out ahead of them. The windshield captured the landscape in a gleaming bubble; tall, stylish buildings, striped awnings, rainbows of wandering residents, the distant, alluring mirage of the sea. It was beautiful. It was alive and easy and fleeting in the soaring speed of the car, Ares at the wheel, letting her drift. She turned her face and peeked at him from behind her curtain of hair. He was breathing slowly and deeply. It moved his whole body under his fitted clothes. She gazed at the furrows of fabric around his crotch between his broad, parted thighs in the suit trousers, at the sliver of sunflower skin under his collar, at the way his tongue moved in his mouth. 

He glanced sideways and met her eyes. “Well done, you lasted 14 seconds.”

She flapped her hand defensively. “I'm just looking, that's not flirting!”

His lip curled. “It's the way you were looking.”

She tossed her hair. “You are a self-proclaimed piece of meat, what else am I supposed to do?”

“I dunno, look at the sunset,” he laughed.

She brazenly appraised him again. “You're prettier,” she said quietly.

He smiled, his ears rimming red. He looked at her with something between encouragement and shyness. “Now, that was definitely flirting.”

She dropped back in her seat and rolled her eyes with a helpless groan. “Ugh, you're right. I'm a bad person.”

“Yep.” He lightened his voice. “Since I can't fix this, I'm just gonna make it worse for you.”

She winced. “Please don't.”

He grinned mischievously straight ahead. “I can't grow a beard properly yet.”

She coughed in horror. “Oh no!”

“Uhuh. Like, I get the stubble, but I haven't really grown into it coming through long.”

She planted her hand over her eyes. “Thanks, I hate it.”

“I still live in my childhood bedroom, and there's a baseball on my shelf that a mascot gave to me when I was 8.”

“Eeeew!”

“I remember the people in my high school yearbook.”

“Stoooop!”

Her pleas muffled in her hands as she buried her face in misery. Ares’ laughter boomed around the building tops and down the mountain. She laughed too, higher and harmonising. Hermes snuffled in his sleep, but didn’t wake up. 

Aphrodite laughed all the awkwardness out and lowered her hands, leaving her face hot. She smiled thoughtfully. “Gods, I feel like I have to take care of you now.” She sobered. The fright and hurt she’d seen on his apparently very young face when she’d stumbled around the greenhouse wall leaked into her mind. She twisted her fingers together in her lap and cleared her throat. “So, on that note, do you want to talk about why you were hiding out at the party?”

Ares flinched. She instinctively opened her mouth to retract the question, but something made her hold her ground. The problem with hard shells was people tended to think they were solid through and through. A lot of soft centres curdled that way. She carefully stilled her face, keeping it open, but not pitying. 

Ares shifted uncomfortably, gnawing on the inside of his cheek, his brow furrowed. How much to say tug-of-warred in his mind. He didn’t want to close off from her, the idea of pushing her away scared him more than honesty. But how much honesty was enough to keep her? 

“She wouldn't go for you anyway. She doesn't use blunt instruments.”

And how much honesty was too much?

“To someone else it will be too much to handle. Crazy Ares.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his father’s voice out his head. He kept his eyes on the black strip of road sucked up like a noodle by the front of the car. “Dad stuff,” he mumbled.

“What kind of stuff?” Her voice was gentle, genuine.

He gulped. “Uh…”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” she said. “But, you know, we’re out here alone.” Hermes snored. “Essentially. So, if you do want to talk…” She trailed off and tucked her hair behind her ear.

Ares looked at his knuckles on the wheel. The grind of tires on tarmac was a good painkiller, but Aphrodite’s tenderness reminded him that the wound had gone untreated, had been going untreated since he got back. He chewed his tongue. “It’s…” He exhaled sharply through his nose. He wanted to look at her sweet face, but if he did, he might stop speaking. “He’s an asshole," he blurted. "That’s the long and short of it. He’s the most unbelievable asshole. And he just slouches around getting away with it. No one calls him out. He’s got two brothers who are supposed to be part of some triarchy of power, and they do fuck all and just let him be an asshole.” He suddenly remembered Aphrodite’s relationship with Uncle Poseidon. He winced. “Sorry.”

She shook her head, speaking in a low voice. “No, you’re right. Don’t tell anyone, but Trite and Posey fight about it from time to time. He wants to keep the kingdoms split, prevent any conflict, head down, do the job. But Zeus is… Well…”

“An asshole.”

She laughed under her breath. “Yes.”

Ares clucked his tongue, pushing his energy into keeping his voice level. “Anyway, so no one else will say anything. So I try to, sometimes. And I suck at it and it just ends up being this twisted interaction that makes me feel like…” His tongue knotted.

Aphrodite waited. Her patience was both soothing and jarring. 

He didn’t continue.

“Like what, Ares?” she asked, barely audible over the rumbling engine.

Ares frowned into the sunset, letting it burn his retinas. He spoke through his teeth. “Like I’m overreacting. Like I’m the problem. The kid that picks a fight. The difficult one to be around. Aggressive. Volatile.”

Aphrodite took this in. She thought of the spice of Ares’ desire, the unabashedness of it, the way he’d looked at her like a highwayman. “Wanna do something crazy?” She rolled her shoulders and raised her chin. “I think it’s a good thing to be a little volatile.”

Ares turned to her, the vulnerable hope behind his stern gaze melting her. She held his eye sincerely, then looked at the road to make sure he would too. It was her turn now. She hadn’t really planned for that, but he was big and easy and it felt like whispering secrets to your teddy bear. Her lips parted and let out her voice, slow and mousey. “I mean, I was hiding out too, remember? And it was basically because I couldn’t stand to be in the party anymore. Because everyone there was so pent up. Decorum this and dignity that. Olympus is a city full of people who would rather save face than save their hearts. That’s how you strangle a love goddess.” She pushed at a stubborn cuticle, face turned down. “Every hidden want and resentful secret just sat on my chest, until I couldn’t breathe. If just one person had been a little volatile. Had said something they were keeping back, or taken a risk, or given into an impulse, had fucking even eaten something full fat…” She hummed, almost growling, thinking of the horrible suffocation of earlier. She felt Ares’ gaze on her. She swallowed and looked at him bravely, right into his eyes. “And then I got to talk to you.”

Ares’ eyebrows floated up, his curls ruffled by the breeze, that one stuck rose petal flickering. 

She smiled. “Meeting you again was the first time I could really breathe all day.”

Ares’ lip quivered. His broad chest rose. He blinked and flicked his eyes to the road. “What about Hermes? Wasn’t he your party date?”

Aphrodite sipped on the slightest peppermint flavour of jealousy and smiled wider. She twisted to look at the napping messenger god, his fringe a mess on his brow. “Hermes was born mortal. I like mortals. Blood and ichor both carry passions around the body, but ichor is absinthe to blood’s wine. It’s potent, it’s pure element and emotion.” Her tone turned wistful. “Mortals turn to us because we are the epitome of how they feel, what they desire. Everything for us is a thousand times stronger than they could conceive, it’s concentrated, purified. When a mortal suppresses something, it’s like they’re sitting on an over-full suitcase. You just have to help them up and repack it with them. When a god suppresses something, it's like plugging a geyser. I spent the whole afternoon with that centre-of-the-earth steam trying to break out from under my skin.” She shook out her hands to disperse the memory of pressure. Another wave of words spilled out. “Between the founding days of the kingdom and now, I only went to Olympus once, to another royal party, when I was young. I mean, not you-young, me-young.” She glanced playfully at his narrowed eyes, then pushed on. “It was a disaster. In the ocean, love just flows. I’d never been in an environment with so much frustration. It squirmed and burned in my body. I felt sick. My senses all got confused. I started to panic.” She swallowed, throat tight. “I mean really panic. First it was hyperventilating, then it was screaming at people. I just started running up to people and screaming their secrets at them, begging them to say something, do something. Gods, I don’t even remember what I said, it’s such a blur. I threw up on someone’s shoes. I broke this super expensive vase. I just lost it. I was like a bat in a cage.” She spoke in a flat stream to her knees, not wanting to look up and see Ares’ reaction, her hands twining anxiously in her lap, stomach writhing at the recall. “Trite bundled me out of the room and held me until I stopped shaking, then she took me home without saying goodbye to anyone.” She flexed her hands and puffed out her cheeks. “And I’ve never been back to Olympus since. Until now.”

Her pulse thudded painfully. She’d sworn that she wouldn’t speak of that night ever again, certainly not to anyone on Olympus who didn’t know about it. After all, only the Six Traitors and Athena were adult at the time. She’d figured enough new gods had risen up that the memory in the city would at least be diluted. What was she doing blurting it out to some guy she’d met twice? Fates, he must think she was a freak. She’d been having so much fun with him and now she’d gone and dropped too much of the stressful backstory and he was bound to -

A huge, warm hand covered both of hers in her lap. 

Aphrodite started out of her spiralling thoughts and looked up in surprise. Ares was looking down at her with a serious expression. His fingers curled around hers protectively. “That sounds awful,” he said in a low, gentle rumble. “It makes sense you took a while to come back.”

Her eyes pricked. She loosened her coiled fingers under his to feel more of his touch. Warmth glimmered in her chest.

Ares squeezed her hands, then moved his hand and eyes back to the wheel. “I’m glad you did, though,” he mumbled.

She blinked the sudden tears away and smiled. She squared her shoulders and sighed casually, lightening her voice and flopping back in her seat. “So, yeah, anyway. Hermes is a relief, because his blood is easier to be around, as well as being a more impulsive guy. But it’s not the same relief as a born Olympian giving me what I need.”

Ares fidgeted, voice going gruff. “And, uh… what do you need?”

“Someone who feels.” She rolled her head on the headrest and settled into gazing at him, at the quiet chaos of emotion in the fire spilling from his eyes. “Someone who really feels and doesn’t hate himself for it.” She watched him turn the car, face thoughtful, mouth tender. “So, please don’t let Zeus make you another person who hates himself for feeling, Ares. I need that big, angry heart beating.”

Ares’ throat closed. His heart thrummed. His fingers trembled on the wheel. He swallowed and steadied himself. His heart felt like it was emerging out of a sealed case, he was something between elated and raw. He dared himself to look at her. Her eyes were filled with sunset, rose swirling into violet. He couldn’t hold her gaze, it was too penetrating. It made him too dizzy to drive. He dropped his eyes, then shifted them to the sea crowning the horizon. “Back at ya,” he said roughly.

Aphrodite frowned curiously.

He cleared his throat. “I have a similar thing, but with anger. And everything festers on Olympus. Dad doesn’t let anything go and doesn’t let anyone resolve anything without him, but he’s shit at resolution, so everyone’s got this horde of crap they’re angry about under the surface, just going stale and rotten.”

She looked at him steadily. He tried to remember the last time he’d been allowed to pause this long in conversation without being cut off. He let himself have some silence, have time to think about what he was trying to say. He breathed carefully and continued. “But you don’t have anger like that. Yours is clean and passionate and protective. It feels like you believe in your anger, like you trust it.”

She smiled. “I do.”

“You should!” His heart kicked his voice louder than he intended. His words hurried a little. “This is the thing that I don’t get. Anger is this huge sin, right? It’s wrong to snap. It’s poor character, or whatever. But when has any change ever happened where someone wasn’t angry first? ‘That’s not fair, that’s frustrating, that hurt, that’s gotta stop.’ That's the shit we say before we make things better! So why are they always so against getting angry?” His breath jetted out in a snarl. 

Aphrodite gazed at him warmer. There it was, that strength, that will that she’d sensed on their meeting. Pure sunbeams in a jar that just needed the top popping off. “Exactly.”

“Exactly!” He barked a relieved laugh. “Fates, thanks Aphrodite. Feels good not to be told I’m being a hot-tempered teenager or something.”

She beamed. “Hey, without hot-tempered teenagers, my job would be way less interesting.”

He laughed. The tension in their bodies broke. They relaxed a little towards each other in their seats. Their eyes met, sparkling in the sunset. The car buzzed under them. 

“Hermes and I are just friends.” Aphrodite said it without thinking, so impulsively she wasn’t even sure she’d said it out loud.

Ares blinked in surprise, then showed his sharp teeth, eyes fiendish. “Why are you telling me that?”

Aphrodite blushed. She bunched up her shoulders and turned briskly away. “No reason.”

Ares turned back to the road, looking extremely pleased with himself.

“Shut up,” she grumbled.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were saying it with your face.”

“Then stop looking at my face. If you can.”

She scoffed. “Youths.”

Ares bellowed a laugh. It echoed sonorously off the buildings. Hermes snorted and snapped awake, sitting up abruptly with one side of his hair flat. “Whadimiss?” he gabbled sleepily.

Aphrodite and Ares exchanged a smile. 

Aphrodite rolled her eyes from him and to the amber and topaz sea. “Nothing, Jam Pot. Just chatting.”

 

*

 

The car hummed and glided to stop in front of Aphrodite’s house. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, the sky painted the colour of her hair. 

Ares turned off the engine and watched her out of the corner of his eye. The misty twilight made her look like a dream. Her face was tranquil, a little weary, but all her vibrant, mesmerising expressions of the day drifting behind his eyes. He glanced down to her hand resting on her knee. His fingers twitched, as if to stroke it. He remembered holding her hands under his, delicate and warm. 

He cleared his throat. “Home sweet home.” 

She smiled and nodded. Her eyes moved to his. She opened her mouth to speak. 

Hermes darted his face between them, elbows on their headrests. “Need walking to the door? I was supposed to be your escort.”

“Oh, Hermes, you were not good at that,” Aphrodite said, tutting.

“Hey!” He perked up like a parakeet. “I got you a corsage!”

She giggled, cupped his chin, and kissed his cheek. He kissed hers, then dropped back into his seat. 

She got out of the car. 

Ares acutely felt her leave his side, like he was falling into a snowdrift. He almost moved to follow. He dug his heels into the matting and stayed in the driver’s seat. 

Aphrodite walked around the front of the car, a momentary ethereal vision in the headlights. Ares exhaled carefully. His eyes slipped to the rear view mirror to watch her walk away. His heart bucked when she appeared at his side, ducking to lean her crossed forearms on his door. She bent her face close to his, the last dregs of her dark perfume making his mouth water.

“This was fun,” she murmured.

He watched her mouth move as she spoke. His mind went blank. “Yeah.”

He kept looking at her mouth. The air felt dense around them, packing them into a close, confined space, weighing them down. Ares was hypnotised by every detail of her lips, every glisten of her lip gloss, every quiver with her breath. There was a tiny, almost invisible freckle in the corner of her mouth. He couldn’t not imagine sucking on it. The softness of her lips exemplified the softness of her being. The padding of her body against his when she’d dropped into his lap. The petals bursting from her hands. Her voice when she’d asked him what was wrong and made it all OK for a while.

Aphrodite ran her tongue subtly just behind her lower lip, pushing it out a little. Ares was so close she could almost taste him. She sneaked open her senses. Spice and something new, something keen and fresh and tender. Her heart swelled. She dropped forward a fraction, brushing the end of her nose on his. The light touch sent a shiver through her.

“Are you cold?” he whispered.

She shook her head.

Should I kiss him?

Should I kiss her?

Are they gonna kiss, or do I have to sit in the back and pretend I’m not here all night?

Aphrodite wet her lip, keeping her voice as quiet as his, like lovers meeting in the night. “Thank you for rescuing me. And miraculously not crashing the car.”

Ares grinned. “Thanks for trusting me when I said we should do something crazy.”

She laughed low, her hair sweeping over one side of her face, shadowing her one visible eye so it glittered. “I think I came with you precisely because you seemed untrustworthy.”

He bit his lip and released it, tinted gold with rising ichor. His eyes wandered over the purple blush high on her cheeks. “Hey, whatever works.”

She giggled under her breath. The sound tickled the small of his back.

Fuck, I wanna kiss her. But I shouldn’t. This was good. I don’t wanna ruin it.

He opened up a lot today, I don’t want to scare him.

What if I just banged their heads together? Might work.

Her hair tickled his neck.

Shit, she smells good.

Damn, he has a cute mouth.

Guuuuys, I gotta pee. Hurry it up.

She sighed, as if breathing in the sea air before going below deck. 

She looked once more into his eyes. 

He swam in her gaze, every inch of his flesh tingling.

“Fall in love today, Olympus.”

“Ares?” she whispered.

“Uhuh?”

She smiled. “See you around.”

She pushed off from her lean and strolled away from the car, stroking Hermes’ hair briefly as she passed. 

Ares didn't move until she was at her front door. She turned back. Their eyes locked in the rear view mirror. Her keys caught the taillights. 

And she was gone.

Ares let out a long breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. His heart sank into his stomach. He groaned and dropped his head back onto the headrest. 

Hermes kicked the back of his chair. “You suck!”

Ares grunted wordlessly.

“How did you not kiss her?” Hermes demanded.

Ares grunted again. “Something something, respecting women, something something, what if she didn’t want me to, something, self-loathing, something, regret, something.”

Hermes rolled his eyes. “You can walk face first into a battleaxe, but not a painfully obvious smut opportunity.”

“Can’t smut.” Ares droned. “You’re too high to drive.”

“I could fly home.”

“You’re too high to fly.”

Hermes started to snuggle under the jackets again. “Something something, joke about being a high flyer.”

Ares turned the key in the ignition. “Something something, I don’t remember your address so I’m throwing you out wherever.”

Hermes closed his eyes. “Something something, you’re just jealous I got a kiss and you didn’t.”

Ares rolled the car off the gravel back onto the road. “Something something, fuck you.”

They trundled off into the twilight. 

Aphrodite watched the car vanish through a tiny gap in her bedroom curtains. 

 

*

 

Acteon slipped into the crimson glow of the dark room, the photographs from Hera’s garden party strung up to dry in eerie bunting. The familiar, chemical smell sharpened his brain.

He put his hands in his pockets and ambled around the rim of the room, taking in every photograph in turn. Aphrodite and Hermes laughing with sparkling eyes. Aphrodite smiling at a startled and blushing Artemis. Aphrodite exchanging a conspiratorial glance with Apollo. Aphrodite and Ares beaming into each other’s faces. Zeus raising his glass with a predatory smile. 

He rubbed the stubble on his neck.

Aphrodite laughing. Aphrodite whispering. Aphrodite tipping her glass. Aphrodite snapping. Aphrodite storming off. Aphrodite thinking he wasn’t worth talking to.

Something struck him.

He fumbled in his jacket and retrieved his notebook, leafing through it in a frenzy to the last page of his notes. Under the final line of scrawl he wrote his headline.

Fertility Goddess Playing the Field.

Chapter 6: “Was this a date?”

Summary:

Ares and Aphrodite run into each other at the Mount Olympus Mall. They don't plan to spend the day together, it just sort of... happens.

In which Oceans reveals her feral extrovert longing to go to malls again, and writes an extremely indulgent, too long fluff chapter as a coping mechanism. More self-control to be exercised next time.

(In this chapter, Ares is specified as Zeus and Hera's only son. I plotted out this whole story long before we met Heph and couldn't really find room for him, so tragically we're in a universe where he doesn't exist. I know, I miss him too.)

Song: FNT, Semisonic

"‘Fertility Goddess Playing the Field.’ Fertility Goddess Playing the Field?!" Aphrodite snapped the latest issue of Panoptes furiously in her hands, the glossy paper making the sound of a whip. 

"Anything for a pun, I guess." Peitho shrugged, put her bubblegum in her front teeth, pulled it into a long, pink, gooey ribbon, and wrapped it around her finger. 

The two goddesses sat on Aphrodite's cream couch piled with colourful, heart-shaped cushions. They leaned against opposite arms of the sofa with their bare feet entwined in the middle. Morning sun whispered through gossamer drapes and glimmered on the garish centrefold spread covering Hera's garden party. Or rather, Aphrodite's movements at said party. 

"I'm barely even a fertility goddess!" Aphrodite railed. "Look at that damn plant!" She pointed sharply to the windowsill, a nondescript clump of dry, yellow leaves was poking over the rim of a pot. 

Peitho sucked the coil of gum off her finger. "Are you gonna water that thing or…"

Aphrodite flapped dismissively at her and stuck her nose into the magazine, her blazing, violet eyes scanning the page with militaristic precision. 

Peitho eyed Aphrodite, jaw rolling as she chewed. She tickled Aphrodite’s calf with her toe. “Should I not have brought it? I figured you'd want to see it."

"Oh, I do." Aphrodite snarled into the pages. "I am finding this a fucking fascinating read." She turned the magazine to show Peitho a jumble of pictures of her talking to different guests, all shot at strategic angles and moments to make it look like she was standing closer than she was, giving them salacious, seductive looks. "Look at what this total asshat Apollo said." She put on a pantomime of a deep, smarmy voice. "'Oh, now, I wouldn't want to speak for the lady, but I think we have chemistry. Guess we'll just have to see where the wind blows.'  I'll tell you where the wind is blowing, Apollo, UP YOUR BUTT!" 

Peitho slipped her finger over her lips to contain her snicker. She watched Aphrodite with sparkling, mirthful eyes as the enraged goddess seethed on. 

"Oh, but Apollo, don't get ahead of yourself, because apparently I'm romancing your sister and your roommate! 'The Lady of Cyprus certainly has a knack for ensnaring even the most elusive of prey. Prominent TGOEM member and feared Queen of the Hunt, Artemis, and confirmed bachelor and playboy, Hermes, both seem to be under this goddess’ love spell.’ It was a compliment and a corsage, not a fucking marriage proposal! ‘With such temptation close to home, targeting both her members and potential recruits, there’s no wonder that TGOEM head and sexual morality activist, Hestia, is worried.’ Now, this is where it gets really fucking good.” She put on a snooty, quavering voice and mimed clutching a pearl necklace. “'Aphrodite has her work and none of us want to stand in its way. If the mortals need her to address some of their baser instincts, then maybe that’s healthy in a way. But we need to consider, in this case, how wise it is to mix business and pleasure. Olympus is a close community, we’ve all fought and worked hard to form a solid and functional pantheon. There are understandable concerns that Aphrodite’s zeal for tinkering with personal relationships is going to disrupt a balance she was never any help in creating.’ Functional my ass, you stuck-up hypocrite! The literal first conversation we had was about how the current system DOESN’T WORK! And here I am, trying to offer some alternatives, and suddenly it’s time to run for cover!” She rattled the magazine like a bullroarer. “And now for the piece de resistance! ‘But all of these catches and comments pale in comparison to Aphrodite’s real prize for the day. It seems Olympus’ newest resident is a big game hunter, with not one, but two royal men vying for her oh-so-demanded attention. It’s no secret that the relationship between the king and his only son has long been strained. Doubtless the family is only going to see more drama now that the bull and the calf are competing for the same cow.’ COW!” She flung Panoptes away with a violent lash of her hand. It landed in a flurry of rich rainbows on the carpet, still open on the double page. The sun fell on two photographs side by side: one of Zeus leering at her as she looked heatedly into his eyes, Demeter conveniently cropped from the image, and one of her and Ares laughing together, their gazes connected and sparkling.

She bundled herself up on the couch, squashing her belly with crossed arms, and glared furiously at her knees. She ground her teeth to powder. Every inch of her flesh felt like it was buried under hot, itchy wool.

Peitho blew a large, pink bubble and popped it, the noise echoing in the simmering silence. Aphrodite felt her flamingo eyes on her, wide and sly and only somewhat sympathetic. Peitho moved her foot and tickled Aphrodite’s toes with hers.

Aphrodite stamped on her painlessly. 

Peitho popped her gum between her molars. “The only bad press is no press. Coverage like this just means you'll have them running scared.”

Aphrodite raked her long fingers through her sweep of hair, her glower tinted with tiredness. “I didn’t want anyone to run scared. The point wasn’t to show up here and bare my fangs.”

“What was the point then?” Peitho fidgeted her foot crushed by Aphrodite’s into the cushions, stroking her sole with her toe.

Aphrodite gave her an indulgent look, then released her foot and braided their lower legs together again. She looked down at the twine of pink and lavender, still hugging herself, feeling the warmth of Peitho’s skin and the easy pressure of her confident contact. “It was this,” she sighed, indicating their simple touch. “Stern judgement and proper society and rigid status, it’s put all these walls up around people that were never meant to be there. People don’t touch anymore, they don’t catch each other’s eyes and smile, they don’t huddle together by bonfires, they don’t kiss just for the sake of kissing. Everything’s about the implications now. Are you rich enough to speak, are you pretty enough to flirt, are you well-behaved enough to be trusted.” She flicked her eyes up. “And, no, I am obviously not mourning in the way grabby, self-important dicks do. ‘Oh, you can’t do anything without a lawsuit these days.’ Fuck them, ask permission. But in the ocean, the only thing that kept you from intimacy with someone was if the current took you the other way, either by chance or them pushing it. Here, there’s a million and one reasons why every interaction and attraction could get you shut out of society.” She dropped her head onto the cushions and gazed wistfully. “I came here because it needed the wilds.”

Peitho smiled, her chaos of ringlets twirling around her plump cheeks. “Boss, don’t you get it? That’s what people are scared of.”

“But why?” Aphrodite whined.

“What story ever went well where someone wandered into the wilds?”

Aphrodite grinned. “Yeah, but what story ever happened at all if someone didn’t wander into the wilds?” She pointed her toe and drew it in a long, sensual stroke down Peitho’s calf, sipping a soupçon of her sweet, awakened arousal on the air. She lowered her voice to a devious whisper. “Who doesn’t like a good story?”

Peitho burst into giggles and parried Aphrodite’s seductive stroke with a swift kick into the air. “You don’t!” She lunged forward and snatched up the crumpled magazine. “Since you’re throwing this across the room!”

Aphrodite gasped in mock incredulity. “That is not a good story! That is trash!”

Peitho snapped open the magazine and bellowed out the final paragraph. “‘Olympus has always been a hub for complex and contentious figures, but has any god ever had so many faces as Aphrodite? Sweet, but sharp, merciful, but ruthless, bold, but retreating, charismatic, but cold. In only one afternoon, we saw the Lady show as many personalities as she has epithets. What remains to be seen, were any of them the real one? Indeed, is there even a real one left under her layers of performance? This reporter and his readers have much left to discover.’ ” She smacked the magazine into her lap. “This is gold.”

“He calls me two-faced!” Aphrodite insisted, bristling.

“He calls you unreadable,” Peitho corrected with a cunning, cobra hiss under her words. “Aphrodite of the endless epithets, Aphrodite beyond labels, Aphrodite who doesn’t fit into the boxes he uses for all other gods.” She beamed triumphantly. “This. Is. Gold.”

Aphrodite held Peitho’s eye. The Goddess of Seduction was young and daring and flighty. She courted controversy and revelled in disapproval. Her irises were full of fireworks and her mouth was never still. Aphrodite had been able to sense the rebellion in her from the moment they’d met. It was one of the main reasons she’d brought her on board. Aphrodite had known, under her aloof exterior, that she was going to need someone to show up whenever her fire dwindled, someone with a bottle of kerosene and a maniacal smile. 

“You care too much,” Peitho said smartly, as if reading Aphrodite’s thoughts.

Aphrodite clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes, but snuggled her legs into Peitho’s, seeking her warmth.

“You do,” Peitho pressed. “You wanted to turn up here and be sexy and have all these great ‘free love’ ideas and have everyone be like, ‘oh my Fates, what an icon, sign my tits!’” She pinched the front of her bra through her tight t-shirt and jiggled her breasts comically.

Aphrodite screeched a laugh and threw a cushion at her. “I did not!”

“You so did!" Peitho caught the cushion and threw it back, hitting Aphrodite full in the face and making her flush dizzy. "The mortals adore you, the ocean thinks you’re awesome. You’re not used to how it is on Olympus, where it’s suspicion first. No, worse, shoot first, then chew over your suspicion later, until you’ve justified yourself.”

“But why is it like that?” Aphrodite groaned, casting her hand up helplessly.

Peitho reached out and caught her hand, enveloping her instantly in a cosy heat. She looked deeply and delightedly into her eyes, like a fortune teller finding someone tangled in the threads of fate. “Because they need you.”

The scratching frustration sputtered out in Aphrodite’s body. She let herself settle into the merriment of Peitho’s stare, mischievous and affectionate and so ready for anything. She folded her hand around hers and clutched it tight. The goddesses smiled at each other. 

“They need us,” Aphrodite said softly.

Peitho grinned like a monkey. “Oh no, you’re the one with the higher purpose. I’m just here to cause trouble.”

Aphrodite laughed, the sensation of it bouncing through her insides and snapping the cords of tension. “You know what? That might be better.”

“You bet it is.” She squeezed her hand, then released it and sprang to her feet, wriggling in the compressing wrapping of her miniskirt to wrench the hem straight on her chubby thighs. “Now,” she said brightly, “let’s get you out of this house.”

 

*

 

The Mount Olympus Mall was a city within a city. If Olympus was a polished, opulent metropolis, then the mall was its essence distilled. The wide, white-tiled streets shone, as if the shoppers walked on moonbeams. Great circles were carved out of the upper floors and rimmed with golden railing, so you could look down through layers and layers of bustling extravagance. The rivers of people were broken up by round, open areas filled with gushing fountains spitting diamond water, surrounded by elegant, marble statues and lush, potted palm trees. The walkways were long and wide with slow, arcing bends, so at any given moment the fullest possible view of the grand interior overwhelmed the eye. Opalescent light blazed from the prismatic, glass ceiling, baffling all good, money-saving judgement. Not every store was expensive, but every storefront was designed to appear so. Vast, spotless panes of glass revealed microcosms of light and colour and crowding curiosities; terrariums of treats. More glass gleamed in the streets - counters packed with tempting desserts or refreshing juices or steaming hot snacks. The air was thick with the scents of sugar and batter, crushed berries and ice, cleaning fluids and packet sauces. 

Aphrodite and Peitho linked arms and strutted through the swarm of lively shoppers. They smiled dazzlingly straight ahead of them, their supernatural senses gleefully informing them of every stolen glance and open gawp, every dropped milkshake and lifted pair of glasses and rowdy eruption from a group. Their hair cascaded behind them, swishing in slow motion in time with the seductive sway of their joined hips. Bare arms, bare legs, bare, soft bellies, they let their jewel-like skin glow in the riot of glass-sieved sunshine and electric light, twin meteors spinning every fellow body that they passed. 

Aphrodite plunged into the orchestra of emotion. Girls buying their first bras and blushing at themselves in the mirror. Nervous second dates, brains ticking with the timing of when in the movie to try holding hands. Families falling over each other as children raced towards every possible new toy. Hordes of teenagers splashing in the fountains and the few hours of freedom. People buying gifts. People treating themselves. People turning over a new leaf with a new wardrobe. People at work thinking about their dogs and their partners and their friends with benefits. People craving a cigarette. People thinking about sex. People buying engagement rings and lipsticks and menstrual products and music. People flaunting their style. People staring at each other across a river of blurred faces. People making wishes and feeling selfish for a little while and imagining themselves looking hot. People eating too much. People getting their hair dyed and their legs waxed and their ears pierced. Two women in the bathroom they were passing were meeting and exchanging shy compliments on each other’s eyeliner wing. Someone in that shoe store was testing out heels for stepping on a broad, heaving chest. That guy had just got his soulmate’s phone number. That kid was going to pass that teddy bear onto their own child one day. Aphrodite eased herself into the satisfying, joint motion of walking with Peitho, and gorged on Olympus at its most liberated. Nowhere was more anonymous than a huge crowd, and nowhere was more disorientating. It dismantled defences. There was no hiding from a love goddess here.

Peitho was right, getting out of the house was good for her. She’d spent so much time mired in the Pantheon, it was too easy to forget that there was so much more to this realm than that tiny cohort. Her spirits not only lifted, they flowed out into the hive of energetic activity. 

Peitho took advantage of her own shortness and bobbed her lips to Aphrodite’s shoulder, her cutesy kiss sending a pleasant skipping sensation down Aphrodite’s arm. “Feel better?” she asked knowingly.

“If I say yes, you can’t be full of yourself about it.” Aphrodite shot her an equally knowing, sideways glance.

Peitho stuck her pink tongue out. She tightened the crook of her elbow around Aphrodite’s and steered her forward. “We should get frozen yoghurt.”

Aphrodite snorted. “We should get full fat ice cream.”

“With sprinkles!”

“With fucking everything.”

They let out shrill, chiming giggles and coursed through the crowd, cutting through it like sharks parting shoals of fish. They settled themselves at one of the dessert bars tucked neatly into the edge of one of the round hubs. The glitter of the floor and ceiling caught in the flinging droplets from the marble fountain in the centre of the hub, the emerald foliage around it turning it into an oasis from the hot, hurried streets. 

Aphrodite gave Peitho her order and stayed at the table to guard the bundle of crisp, pastel shopping bags they were carrying between them. The tables were tall, surrounded by bar stools. Aphrodite tucked her dangling ankles one behind the other and leaned her cheek in her hand. She gazed over at the fountain, the churn of fresh, sparkling water strumming her heartstrings with bittersweet thoughts of home. She sighed, tried to breath the purifying scent of the sea, instead got glace cherries and body spray. Her eyes wandered to the fountain edge. Two adolescent nymph boys were sitting on it, periodically splashing each other, their sweeping fringes sprinkled wet. One of them was alarmingly scrawny and had a bulbous zit on his upper lip. One of them had chewed fingernails and a lingering crust of infection around a new nose ring. They were looking at each other like they’d never seen anything more beautiful in the entire world. 

Aphrodite smiled. She subtly extended a finger towards them and moved it softly to draw a heart in the air around their faces.

Blessings sought and blessings given,

Doubt not and ne’er be riven.

A lilac shimmer passed across her vision. The boys’ smiles lost their flippancy. They leaned in and kissed.

Aphrodite hummed and shimmied her shoulders.

That was nice.

“Are you meddling?” Peitho’s perpetually amused voice broke into her daydream. 

She looked up to see Peitho hoisting herself with difficulty onto the too-high bar stool opposite. Two large, cardboard tubs had been placed on the table, stuffed with fat, glistening scoops of sultry strawberry and luxurious chocolate ice cream dressed flamboyantly with chocolate shavings, rainbow sprinkles, chopped hazelnuts, puffed mini marshmallows, tiny golden sugar balls, gem-like cherries, and draped sashes of sticky sauce. 

“It’s my job to meddle,” Aphrodite said, sliding the treasure trove of sweets closer and tugging out the spoon. It gummed into the thick dairy and slid out slowly and satisfyingly. 

“You’re on break.” Peitho finally wiggled herself into a comfortable spot, her lime green heels kicking in mid-air. She extracted her spoon and took a squidgy mound of ice cream into her mouth, sucking so her full lips caught the light. 

Aphrodite smiled around her bite of cherry.

“I was gonna get vanilla too,” Peitho said, scooping another spoonful. “But let’s face it, vanilla’s not our brand.”

Aphrodite chuckled. “Damn right.” She took a mouthful from where the chocolate and strawberry swirled together. She let it sit on her tongue, melting over it and pouring sweetness and cold into her mouth. Her jaw ached with it, it tingled behind her eyes and in her sinuses. She crunched on hazelnut and hard sugar, new subtleties of flavour popping on her taste buds. “Mmmph, I needed that.”

Peitho rolled her eyes back into her head in blissful agreement. “It’s hot in here, huh?”

“It’s all the bodies,” Aphrodite said in a slightly far-away voice. “Malls are just one big, sweaty mass of people who can’t cool off, no matter what they try.” She eyed the boys, who were splashing each other and laughing again. “I love it.”

“You’re so weird,” Peitho remarked. “It’s great.”

Aphrodite grinned around her spoon and sucked another slippery spoonful of strawberry smush between her teeth.

“So,” Peitho ventured with a purposeful smack of her lips, “don’t hate me, but…” She reached into her bag and drew out a crumpled roll of glossy paper. She unfurled it on the table between them.

Aphrodite’s face fell as the Panoptes article flopped into view. “Why?” she asked, nostrils flaring.

“I have to ask about one thing in here,” Peitho pushed. She spun the magazine around and planted her finger on one of the photographs. 

Aphrodite’s cheeks tingled warm, warring with the ice cream. She kept her face impassive. “Yes?”

Peitho smirked. “All the other pictures in here might just be camera angles, but this one’s a thing, right?”

Aphrodite gnawed on the syrup-sticky, plastic spoon and let her eyes drop to the daffodil face of Ares, riotous with grinning, somehow still vibrantly alive, even in the frozen image. She shrugged.

“Oh, come on!” Peitho protested, her coils of hair springing like slinkies. “The two of you look happier than furies in a torture chamber! No accident could fake that chemistry.”

Aphrodite shovelled a scoop of ice cream the size of a plum into her mouth and gestured helplessly to her plugged lips to indicate she couldn’t comment right now.

Peitho narrowed her eyes at her. “I can wait out that ice cream, Missy.”

Aphrodite gestured at her busy mouth again and batted her eyes innocently.

Peitho threw her head back, her whole body quivering with laughter. She whipped her indignant face back to Aphrodite. “You’re not the only one with magic smut detection powers, you know! Fess up!”

Aphrodite swallowed pointedly and pursed her lips. She folded her forearms on the table and let her head drop a little so the cool aura of the ice cream could combat her blush. She avoided Peitho’s keen eye. “He’s super young. Like younger than you. Like it would be irresponsible.”

Peitho blew a raspberry and took a mouthful of oozing chocolate, speaking around it. “We’re immortal beings, you dummy, age is nothing. Next excuse.”

Aphrodite puffed out through her nose and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t think I should date right now. I’m spinning a lot of plates, I’m still getting used to everything, I…”

Peitho cut her off, mimicking her in a clipped, sing-song, over-articulate voice. “Oh, Peitho, I do so hate how here on Olympus no one gives into their impulses and puts a bunch of walls up and closes themselves off to relationships when there’s an obvious massive spark between them. It hurts my magical, love soul - AH!” Aphrodite had jabbed her spoon forward and stuffed a mound of ice cream into Peitho’s mouth. Peitho swallowed it too fast and began to pant and fan herself furiously. “Aaah! Brain freeze!”

“Brought it on yourself.”

“Ugh!” Her eyes were watering. “You bitch!” 

Aphrodite smirked.

Peitho huffed out the last of the headache and held up the magazine. “He looks like he would love that about you, by the way.”

Aphrodite batted the magazine down and tucked determinedly back into her dessert. “OK, fine. I’m not saying no.” She burst a cherry between her teeth and let the syrup coat her tongue. “But I’m not saying yes either.” She widened her eyes pointedly. “I’m playing the field, remember?”

Peitho laughed and scraped out the last of her tub. She snipped the end of the spoon between her teeth and grinned like a pixie. “Bet he has a gorgeous shlong.”

Aphrodite snapped her gaze up to retort, then broke into a glowing smile. “Yeah, I bet he does too.”

The two of them exploded into giggles, echoing off the hard, shining surfaces around them. 

“Having a good time, ladies?” A pleasant, lazy voice cut in.

Aphrodite and Peitho breathed themselves back to some level of sobriety and looked over to see one of the waitresses pausing at their table. She was a cherry coloured nymph with hair like whipped cream piled in a messy swirl on top of her head and tangled around a stub of a pencil behind her long ear. The pink shirt of her uniform was tied up above her belly button where a scarlet, zircon stud glittered. She was carrying a tray of used tubs gracefully in one hand. Aphrodite felt Peitho’s senses zero in on the waitress. She pressed her lips together to conceal her smile.

“We are having a super nice time,” Peitho replied in a tone between warmth and craftiness, as if there was some secret, dirty reason for them to be enjoying themselves. 

“Good.” The waitress grinned and tilted her head to regard Peitho. “Can I take these for you?”

“Oh, sure.” Peitho popped her empty tub onto the tray. 

The waitress reached for Aphrodite’s, still with a good amount of goop in the bottom. Aphrodite closed her fingers on it. “You can pry this from my cold, dead hands.” 

The waitress laughed and put her hand up in mock surrender.

“Busy day, huh?” Peitho asked, threading just the right amount of concern into her jovial tone.

The waitress sighed and nodded, still smiling. “It’s crazy. I’ve been on shift since breakfast.”

“Ice cream for breakfast!” Peitho giggled spiritedly. She put her hands on her knees to bunch up her breasts and shoulders, arching her spine, all perkiness and invitation. “The dream!”

The waitress blew out through her lips. “I wish. After this many hours serving it, it loses its magic.”

Peitho pouted in sympathy, rounding her candy mouth. She let a pink ringlet fall over her eye and leaned surreptitiously closer to the waitress. “I’m sure there’s a way to rekindle the magic for you. When do you get off?”

Aphrodite leaned her chin in her hand and slipped her fingers over her smirk, eyes flitting between them. 

The waitress gave Peitho a suspicious look that melted into interest. “Actually, this is my last round of the tables.”

“Lucky you.” Peitho smiled devilishly.

The waitress cocked an eyebrow and showed her canines. “Lucky you.” She held Peitho’s eye as she walked away.

Peitho looked back to Aphrodite victoriously. 

Aphrodite pinched her fingers by her lips and kissed the air with a flourishing gesture. “Masterful. Bellissima.”

“Thank you, thank you.” Peitho mimed bowing to an imaginary applauding audience. Then she winced. “Though, ah, I was supposed to be being a good friend and shit.”

Aphrodite laughed through her nose and looked at Peitho like she was a toddler asking to keep a stray mouse. “You’ve been a great friend. Go have fun.”

“You sure you’ll be OK?”

“I’m a big, tough girl. I tie my own sandals and everything.” Aphrodite flexed her bicep. 

Peitho pressed her hands together in a supplicating gesture and hopped from her stool. She snatched up her bags and scurried off to the counter, where the waitress was wiping down the tray and pretending not to be waiting for her. Aphrodite smiled after them. She blew them a subtle kiss.

Instinct followed, be unbound,

Pleasure wanted, pleasure found.

The girls slipped into the crowd, hands entwining.

Aphrodite took a deep, soothing breath and sucked luxuriantly on a slick of raspberry sauce. Her eyes tried very hard to stay in the beautiful medley of movement, but they somehow ended up back on the magazine. 

Playing the field. What’s so wrong with that anyway? Literal king sets fire to literal field: no coverage. New girl goes to party and does something other than stand in the corner: centrefold spread. Woman does more than one expression amongst group of almost strangers: two-faced.

Cooling, smooth cream trickled down her throat, leaving a trail of sensation like butterfly kisses. Her eyes wandered to the photograph of Ares, to the startling enjoyment in her own face. She thought about the car, about his wicked grin, his warm hand, the way his chest rose up when he was saying something important, the way the engine thrummed under his touch. Her fingertip traced the line of his jaw. 

She shook her head and looked up sharply from the magazine.

Her eyes collided with a bright streak of marigold dashed with blood red. A tall, hulking figure was rounding the dessert stand, his mop of custard curls looking like a fourth scoop on the large, model ice cream on the counter.

Her stomach flipped. Dry laughter surged up her chest.

You have got to be kidding me.

Of all the people in all the ice cream places...

Ares was here.

He lumbered into the jumble of bar stools, seemingly taking a shortcut. He was wearing scuffed up jeans and boots and a black t-shirt that rumpled around his hips. The bright lights blazed on his golden skin and the punk flash across his eyes. He looked like a walking electrocution. Aphrodite instinctively squeezed between her thighs, a warm, melting sensation in her lower body. Her feet rubbed against each other. 

What was he doing here? Today was supposed to be a detox from Olympus drama. She wasn't supposed to have to think about a cute, definitely too young guy and what to do to about his royal baggage and whether it was too risky and irresponsible to… suck his bottom lip like toffee. 

Shit, it looked like toffee. 

Please see me. Please don't see me. Please see me. Please don't see me. Please see me. Please don't - 

"Ares!" Her voice echoed off the glass, like the striking of a tuning fork. 

Whoops.

Ares halted and looked around. His amber eyes scanned the tables, while her heartbeat hiccupped and sped. When he spotted her, the fixed sullen expression on his hard face dissolved. That tempting, toffee mouth softened into a smile. Aphrodite clenched her stomach against another surge of attraction and waved, shifting her face to a warm but coy look. 

Ares mirrored the reserved expression with a mocking twist to his lips. He put his hands in his pockets and lazily sloped over, every movement flowing from his mountainous shoulders. The kind of shoulders you could sink your fingernails into for a rodeo ride… 

Fates, Woman, control yourself. 

Ares reached her table. He was significantly taller than her, even with her on the bar stool. 

He leaned one elbow on the table, his curls bouncing in his eyes and his teeth emerging. "Hey."

Aphrodite smiled, a teasing twinkle in her eye. "Hello." 

He eyed her playfully. "You know, you look kinda familiar."

"Really?" 

"Yeah. You famous or something?"

“A tad, not like royal famous.”

“Huh. Can't place you.”

Aphrodite grinned. She scooped her hair on top of her head, pinned it with one hand, and held the magazine peppered with pictures of her fancy up-do next to her face. "This jogging your memory?"

Ares squinted at her and scratched his chin. "Uuuh. Nope, sorry, no clue."

"Seriously?" 

"That's actually made it worse." 

She nodded with a theatrical sigh and dropped her hair and the magazine. "I've just got one of those faces." 

"That must be it." He shrugged. He took the magazine, his eyes roving around the pictures. He flipped it and tapped the photograph of the two of them together, smiling. "Cute one of us."

Her pulse skipped. "Isn't it? And you'd never guess the criminal behaviour coming."

He grinned and leaned deeper on the table. "Disagree, you have jailbird written all over you there. I look innocent as fuck though, look at that baby face." He flicked his wrist and tossed the pages back onto the table. "They give you another ass-kissing write-up?" 

She tossed her hair briskly. "I think they’re done kissing my ass." 

"How? Are they blind?" He shot her a deeply suggestive smile. His face was far too close. She gave him a reproachful smirk, her core squeezing again. He broke her gaze and picked up Panoptes. His brow furrowed a little more seriously as his sharp eyes darted back and forth. She saw his jaw stiffen and a muscle in his arm rise, but his voice was dismissive when he snorted and dropped the magazine again. "Wow. Talk about bottom of the barrel." 

Aphrodite rolled her eyes in agreement. "Right?" 

"Was there this little news last week?" 

"As Acteon will forever punish me for saying, this isn’t a newspaper." 

He let out a curt laugh with the sound of a pistol being loaded. "And dang, I’m fighting my dad for you?" 

"Looks like it." 

"That passed me by." 

She drew herself up haughtily and took on a bored, goading tone. “Well, he’s buying me my weight in diamonds, so you better get your wallet ready to retaliate.”

Ares huffed out, looking stumped. “Ice cream?”

“Just had some.”

“Fuck. I’m screwed then.” He made a show of standing straight and making as if to leave.

She flapped at him hastily. “No! Please think of something, that swan beak looks super painful on the coochie.”

She saw his face flicker microscopically, but he kept his joker air. “Oh, are you not supposed to pinch it? Learn something new every day.”

Laughter kicked out of her, casting her hair back in a pastel burst. She caught his eye, bright from his grin. She cleared her throat and sobered. “Sorry, poor taste joke.”

He shook his head, still grinning. “My favourite kind.”

She looked down with a smile. Her eyes pulled back up, meeting his. She felt like she was stroking her fingers through a candle flame. He held her eye with ease, confrontation as natural to him as breathing. It made her feel armed, energised.

His gaze flicked over her shoulder, then widened. He looked back at her with the sun dancing in his pupils. “Hey, found something I can win you with.”

She arched her eyebrow sceptically. He bit his lip and darted around her, striding off with a spring in his weighty step. Her instincts told her that she ought to stay on the bar stool, like a queen, and wait to be presented with something. But fuck that, she was full of popping bubbles. She scrambled off her seat, snatched up the two shopping bags at her feet, and tottered speedily after him. He led her past the palm trees and to a wide toy store window, dressed in an undersea theme with blue streamers and balloons, sunken treasure chests full of action figures, and cuddly squids and fish dangling from strings. The centre of the display was dominated by an absolutely massive, baby blue dolphin plushie, easily the size of a child, with wonky fins and a deranged sparkle stitched into its eye.

Ares spun on his heel and fanned his fingers. “Ta da!”

Aphrodite wrinkled her nose and folded her arms. “May I remind you that the standard I set was my weight in diamonds.”

Ares shrugged. “This thing looks heavy.”

“You’ve entirely missed the diamonds point.”

He folded his arms too, his biceps stretching his sleeves. He leaned on the window. “This is a quality romantic gift. Diamonds are generic. This has relevance to where you grew up. This is the kinda gift that says, ‘I’m a man who listens.’”

She put her hands smartly on her hips. “This is a gift that says, ‘I’m a man who wants to put an aggressively huge stuffed animal in your house, so you always have to be looking at something I got you.’”

“Please,” Ares scoffed, “if I wanted you to think about me when I wasn’t around, I’d just mysteriously make out with you in a beautiful garden or some shit.”

She looked at him flatly. “Foolproof.”

He bounced his eyebrow and grinned. 

She narrowed her eyes through her smile. Cocky. Yum.

He pushed off from the glass, slid his hands into his pockets, and ambled around her, brushing close. 

She turned as he passed her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m a man of my word.” He headed for the toy store door.

“Don’t you dare burden me with that dolphin.”

He threw her a gremlin grin over his shoulder.

“Ares, if you come out of that store with that damn dolphin, I will curse you.”

His grin broadened. 

“I will give you the pheromones that attract mosquitos.”

He vanished through the door.

Aphrodite huffed indignantly over a jet of giggles. She started to march towards the door, heels clopping loudly on the tiled floor. She stopped in her tracks and marched back to the window, cheeks tingling. She tapped her foot like a ticking metronome, narrowing her eyes at the blank, goofy smile of the dolphin. 

He’s bluffing.

The painted backboard of the display rocked. She perked up and went slack-jawed as a nymph in a red polo shirt wriggled around the edge of it, scooped the enormous plushie into her arms, and unhooked it from its suspending strings. She struggled with it back around the backboard, rocking it more.

Oh no…

Aphrodite skidded to the door and craned her neck to peek over the “open” sign through the glass. A thickset security guard was in the way. She paced further off from the door, sucking her teeth.

The door opened. Ares emerged. Or rather, Ares’ legs emerged, his top half entirely concealed by a gift bag the size of an armchair. 

Aphrodite gaped. “You didn’t!”

Ares lowered the bag to the floor between them, his face appearing, beaming and wicked. “Have at it. Suck it, Dad.”

Aphrodite glared at him. She dived to the bag. It was brimming with blue tissue paper. She tore through it like a raccoon rooting through trash. A layer of tissue paper fluttered away. Then another. Then another. 

“What the…”

Another layer. And another. She had now excavated down so low in the bag that she was disappearing into it, like an ostrich. She cast the final shimmery sheet behind her and stood straight again among the mess of blue waves, like when she rose from the sea. She was holding in her hand a plushie dolphin keyring. 

She shot her eyes up to Ares. 

He gave her an extremely self-satisfied smile.

“Again,” she said, “the standard was my weight in diamonds.”

“Hey, if you don’t want it.” He snatched it out of her hand.

“I didn’t say that!” She tried to snatch it back.

He held the keyring aloft, all his teeth on display, his voice rumbling with mischief. “No, you had your chance. Get swan-fucked. See if I care.”

“I am NOT getting swan-fucked.” She swiped.

He dodged. “PINCH!”

“NO PINCH!” she yapped and jumped for it.

He sprang back, cackling. “PEEEEENCH!”

“Ares!” She pounced after him, rising to hover in the air with her pointed toes kicking. “That was a gift! Give it!”

“Nope!” He stretched his hand as far from her as possible, shielding against her with his other forearm as her body swarmed him like bats, grabbing for the keyring. They tangled in the busy walkway, people skirting them with irritable and amused glances as Ares skidded around to avoid the flying Aphrodite’s violent swipes for his hand, her hair in a whirl about him, her scent piling onto him and making him dizzy and delirious. He laughed demonically and kept dodging her, kept leading her on, every brush of her skin on his leaving a static prickle. Her playful anger showered him with cinnamon.

“Ares! GIVE IT!” 

She swooped to his back and plastered to him, her softness squishing to his back, her bare thighs clamping his waist. Her arm looped around his chest. His heart stopped. He toppled and caught himself with a bark. She lunged over him and snatched the tiny dolphin, scratching his palm lightly with her fingernails. 

She clung to him like a koala and thrust her fist into the air with a howl of triumph. “Yes! The God of War is defeated!”

Ares shook with laughter, revelling in how she bounced on him and gripped his body. He hooked his hands under her thighs and hoisted her to settle around his waist in a piggyback. She was pleasantly heavy, calling to his strength. She wriggled a little, striking heat up under his collar. 

“Stop fidgeting,” he chuckled.

“I’m displaying my prize,” she said. 

He glanced down to where her white, leather purse nudged his hip. She was clipping the dolphin to it. It dangled there with a goofy, affectionate smile. He grinned. She clasped her hands on his chest, hanging onto his shoulders and shuffling her weight securely into his arms. She tossed her hair out of her face. “Right, don’t forget my bags.”

“I’m sorry, are you under the impression you’re getting a ride now?” Ares asked over his shoulder.

“My feet hurt,” Aphrodite said, as if that settled it immediately.

It did. Ares shrugged and nodded and hugged her thighs a little closer to his waist. He turned to her thankfully small pair of shopping bags, bent, and hooked them in his teeth. He stood straight again and grumbled around the string handles. Aphrodite unhooked them from his mouth and reclasped her hands, the light bags resting on his torso.

“OK, where to?” Ares asked cheerfully.

“Perfume store.”

“Which one?”

“Delphi’s Vapours.”

“I have no idea where that is.” 

She gave him a small squeeze. “I’ll just tap whichever arm you need to turn towards.”

“And my ass to go forward?”

“That works.” She bumped her stiletto against his ass. “Giddy up, Pony.”

Ares blew out through his lips, like a horse, and set off down the milk and honey street of the mall, leaving a lagoon of abandoned tissue paper behind them. He lounged in his gait, drawing out the journey. He kept his body tense to hold Aphrodite up, but worked constantly to resist collapsing into her snuggle against his back. Her breath tickled his ear. The muscles in her thighs moved against his fingers and filled his palms. Her fat was cosy and enveloped him in warmth. 

Aphrodite let herself sink into Ares’ cradling strength, his large hands and broad back like a raft over the coursing hubbub of the mall. His heat should have been uncomfortable, what with the sunbeams spearing the glass roof, but it wasn’t. It was relaxing. She felt coated in the heady liquid of a massage candle. He walked with an easy, slow rhythm like a bear, like a rowboat. His hands held her thighs with a slight unstillness. Every time his fingers moved, a burn sneaked under her skirt. She subtly turned her nose to his soft curls. His shampoo was orange-scented. She sucked her tongue. She’d barely have to move her head an inch to nibble his ear.

“So, what were you here for, before I showed up and gave you something better to do?” she asked breezily, before her wandering senses got the better of her.

“Oh, I was gonna meet Hermes at the arcade,” he replied, turning a corner as she tapped his left shoulder. “But he bailed.”

“Little flake.”

“Yeah, but also two jobs. Some mortal fell off a cliff doing a stunt for his girlfriend and Hermes had to go collect him.”

Aphrodite tutted.

“Anything to do with you?” Ares dipped his head backwards to catch her eye accusingly.

“Absolutely not!” Aphrodite said indignantly. “Probably.”

Ares snickered and bounced her on his back. 

She steered him to a small shop like a box of sweets set into the wall. The door was ajar, releasing a cloud of dizzying, dark, fruity scents into the air. Ares bent his knees and let Aphrodite hop down, rolling his shoulders to realign his spine. She stepped around him to the door. He found himself following her close, missing her press to his body instantly.

“If I’m walking from now, I can’t be expected to carry these,” she said with her nose in the air. She whipped around and thumped her bags to his chest.

He took them from her without thinking, leaning around her to push the door open for her. She glanced sideways approvingly at him. He prickled pleasurably. “What’s in these?” he asked, moving to peek into the bags.

“Underwear,” she answered.

He perked up. “Can I look?”

“Nope.”

“I am carrying them.”

“Does Hermes open every letter he delivers?”

Ares shut his mouth, then stuck his tongue out. She shook her head and stepped fully into Delphi’s Vapours. Ares squeezed his arms into his sides and tried to make himself smaller. The glittering room was compact, crowded floor to ceiling with shelves and tables of gemstone-coloured boxes and assorted, peculiarly-shaped bottles, all the surfaces so close to each other that one wrong move could collapse the whole store in a domino effect. He hung back and watched Aphrodite float forward in her smooth, fluid gait, slipping into the haze of hypnotic fragrances and sparkles on glass. Her lavender-smoke form made her look like an apparition. His head swam a little. He let it and kept watching her. 

No staff were visible. She perused the tables, occasionally dipping to sniff a bottle like a flower, or spritz a little something onto her wrist, curling her hand back so the fine veins glimmered gold under her skin. 

“What do you think of this one?” She raised her penetrating eyes to him.

He started and eased himself through the complex of tables, the cacophony of scents thickening in his senses. He reached her and she lifted the inside of her wrist up to his face. He glanced at her, then put his nose to it. The perfume was sweet and spicy and clean, but there was something of the wilds in it. It stole through his whole body, turning his brain to fuzz and making his mouth water. His eyes blurred on her golden veins. What if he kissed the inside of her wrist? Just for fun? Just using the tip of his tongue? What if he kissed all the way down her arm and pulled the strap of her top down with his teeth? No one was around.

“Ares?” She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. 

He blinked rapidly and leaned sharply back from her wrist, his voice coming gruff. “Uh, yeah. It’s nice.”

“You think?” She sniffed it herself. “Not too much?”

He grinned. “Is too much so bad?”

She darted glittering eyes to him. “Excellent point.” She tugged his forearm and started to lead him through the fractured rainbow. “Perfume is a powerful thing,” she said in a sultry, soft voice, as if she was about to tell a fairytale.

He drifted after her, feeling like he was walking through cobwebs with the layers of eye-prickling scents, jumping every time he wavered on his feet and knocked a delicate display. “Yeah, I’m getting that.”

“You don’t want to cover up the natural scent, that will always be more intoxicating than any concoction.” She sprayed a fresh, floral mist into the air and sniffed it with a critical expression. She replaced the bottle and picked up another, shaped like a beehive. “But the right fragrance can completely ensnare someone. Catch it walking down the street, getting off a train, sitting at your desk, and suddenly you're hooked for life.” She sent another burst of droplets into the air. Honey clogged Ares’ taste buds. She shook her head and switched it for a frosted bottle in the shape of a woman’s torso, her thumb stroking thoughtlessly over the curves. “Smell is the strongest memory trigger of all our senses too. There’s this great trick.” She glanced at him mischievously and spritzed the air again, something reminiscent of white wine and cardamom. “Get a new perfume, don’t tell anyone. Absolutely cover yourself in it.” She grinned and lowered her voice, smooth and deep. “And nothing else. Then give your boyfriend a really long, luxurious BJ. Like an hour easily. Just turn him to putty. Melt his mind. Super dirty and sloppy and slow.”

Ares’ knees went weak. Her voice snaked around him, binding him in python coils, entrancing him. He tugged down the suddenly very tight collar of his t-shirt, his throat closing and his skin smouldering. “Uhuh…”

She glistened like the potion bottles around her as she continued irresistibly. “Then, hide the perfume, don’t put it on again for a week at least. Then wear it for his next office party. He’ll be hard as a statue around his co-workers and bosses and have no idea why. Let him sweat for as long as he can handle, but he won’t make you stay late at the boring night out, and he’ll go craaazy for you the second you get through the door.” She hummed desirously over the end of the sentence and sent a cloud of something head-spinning and delicious into the air. 

It made Ares’ tongue writhe in his mouth and beautifully tormenting images tumble behind his eyes. “That one,” he husked.

Aphrodite smiled at him. “This one?” She held up the crystal bottle shaped like a pomegranate and coloured the fruit’s tempting red.

Ares could barely stand. He was thinking obsessively about getting home from that hypothetical office party. “Uhuh, definitely.”

Her lips bloomed with a look of knowing glee. She inclined her head and held his eye as she strutted slowly to the counter. Ares watched her ring for assistance and purchase the perfume, chatting sweetly with the shop assistant. There was a film of sweat on his chest and back. His pulse thudded in his flesh. 

Aphrodite returned to him with a small, square, black bag. She hooked it onto his curled fingers with the others. She beckoned him to follow her back onto the indoor street. He obeyed like a spaniel. 

As they re-entered the mall, the daze drained out of his senses. He blinked and shook his head. He rubbed his prickling eyes and nose. His head cleared. “You damn minx!” he barked.

Aphrodite batted her eyes innocently. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Talking smut in a big cloud of girl perfume and watching me drool!”

Aphrodite smiled deviously and shrugged. “Gotta get my kicks somehow. Your pants still fit?”

Ares growled like a leopard cub, tickled her side, and strode away down the path. She cackled and tripped after him, catching up to him and elbowing his arm. “You’re blushing.”

“Am not.”

“You’re all red.”

“That’s just my face!” He couldn’t keep his laughter in, no matter how he glared at her. 

She beamed up at him. “It’s so bright! I need sunglasses.” 

She pulled him sideways into a white box of a glasses store. In the back of it, a cyclops was having his eye tested by a crisp-lipped nymph in a white coat. Aphrodite skipped to a shelf of sunglasses and slipped on a pair with jet black, circular lenses. When she turned back to Ares he was already in a thick pair that made him look like a cop.

“Oh, Officer,” Aphrodite cooed, “are you here to arrest me?”

Ares cocked his eyebrow. “You been a naughty girl?”

“Not in these.” She swapped her sunglasses for ones with red, rectangular lenses. “There we go.”

Ares grinned. “Leave those on, it’ll be impossible to tell when I’m blushing.”

“You admit it!” She jabbed her pointed finger at him, then whipped around and switched the red glasses for pink ones shaped like hearts. She spun and posed with a cute wink and peace sign.

Ares put his cop shades back, reached out and plucked the heart glasses off her face. He slid them up his long nose. “These’ll look better on me.” He looked at her through the bubblegum hearts turning him into an adorable, lovestruck cartoon.

She smiled. “Agreed.” 

He smiled back, looking down at her at the same angle he had done in the photograph of them. She suddenly felt foolish for letting him read that article. He didn’t know her that well, after all, and Acteon was a persuasive writer. Her smile dwindled as she avoided his eye and looked back into the wall of lenses, her face multiplied in dozens of warped reflections. “I should get two pairs, one for each of my faces. Or more,” she said darkly.

Ares’ brow fell a little. He slid the heart glasses back onto the shelf. “I don’t think you’re two-faced,” he said softly.

Aphrodite puffed out through her nose. “You sure about that?”

“Pretty sure.”

She shot him a villainous look. “Maybe I’ve just got you wrapped around my little finger, like I do all of Olympus' upstanding citizens.”

The corner of his mouth twisted. “Actually, yeah, that’s probably it.” He slipped on a pair of aviators with an almost aggressive sheen across them. He stooped and casually checked himself out in the tiny mirror between the shelves. “You know, there’s nothing really wrong with having multiple faces.”

Aphrodite tilted her head curiously. “You think so?”

He started to fuss his fringe in the mirror, continuing in an easy, almost off-hand tone. “You’re a complex person, there’s a lot to you. Not everyone’s owed every aspect of that. Why should they be, right? What have they done to earn it? Show what you want, when you want. That’s your decision.”

Aphrodite stared at him, her heart floating higher in her chest.

He gave up on his untameable hair and scruffed it up on purpose. He turned to her and raised his eyebrows over the steely aviators. “What?”

She looked away hurriedly, smiling and tucking her hair behind her ear. “Nothing.” She exhaled in relief and giggled. “That was very profound for a guy who looks like he runs a low-end porn studio.”

“Not pulling these off?”

“The hearts looked better.”

“Hang on.” He restored the heart sunglasses, pink streaking onto his cheeks and softening the red flare. “Hey, do something hot.”

“I’m going to just stand here, that’s sufficient.”

Ares gawped exaggeratedly at her, slipped his fingers behind his ears, and poked the sunglasses forward and back like his heart-eyes were popping out at her. She burst into uproarious laughter and prodded them firmly onto the bridge of his nose. He guffawed and batted her away. They drew several sharp, bespectacled eyes, as they put the glasses back and stumbled out of the store, jostling each other and talking over each other to get the last word.

Neither of them really made the decision to spend the day together, it just sort of... happened. They were carried along on the current of the mall, Aphrodite bubbly with the mess of crushes and families and treats, Ares thrumming with the heat and the spats and the frustrations of daily inconveniences. It made him scrappy, but in a way he enjoyed. He wasn’t really picking fights with Aphrodite, but every chance he got to tease her just a little too far, he took like a Jack Russel with a chew toy. She responded to it delightfully. Most people snapped straight away, giving him a single shot of anger to see him through the next couple of hours. Aphrodite laughed and teased him back, chased him and escaped him, turned everything into a tango, pricked him all over with tiny sparks of indignation and combativeness, until he felt like a cactus. Aphrodite was like acupuncture, his body felt as gripped as it did relaxed. She was always touching him; petting his arm, cuffing his abs, pinching his shoulder, nudging his side. It was addictive. He found himself never walking more than two inches from her, staying resolutely in reach. He used her thoughtless touches as an excuse to touch her back, less than she did him, but just enough to keep his pulse up. Just enough to get high on the unthinkable privilege of being allowed.

She led the way, Ares watching fascinated as he gained a variety of new insights into the processes of shopping for oneself. She took him to a make-up store and he watched with interest as she dusted different blushes onto her hand, then did the same to him with bronzers, which were apparently different things. They weaved around the shelves of a book store, peeking at each other through gaps in the spines, him making a whole thing out of lifting ones down for her from the tops of the cases. She read him her favourite poem. He sank into her flowing, happy voice, leaned on a bookcase and nearly knocked it over, a few volumes thudding to the floor and letting out bursts of the homey smell of paper. They went into a gleaming, creepily silent jewellery store where everything was perpendicular, playing a game of who could make the security guard move first without actually doing a crime. They tried on hats and masks and feather boas. They flopped together onto the beds in furniture stores to rate how much bounce they could take, then played hide and seek around the showrooms.  Everything was nonsense and laughter and teasing questions that led to pleasing titbits of new knowledge about each other. Aphrodite liked to swim. Ares hated rain. Aphrodite used to have a pet lobster, but it was so lazy she didn't notice when it had been dead for three days. Ares was a terrible singer, but loved karaoke. Aphrodite's favourite time of day was sunset. Ares had spiked the punch at his high school prom. It all came dancing out of them to the music of the bustling mall.

They dropped into a slower pace, Ares now carrying several bags for Aphrodite, his t-shirt gumming to his back with the heat of the crowds and the perpetual aliveness of his skin while she was near. They ambled past a large clothing store, Penelope’s Weaving, the windows stretching right up to the next floor. In one spanning pane, spindly, abstract mannequins twisted around each other in party clothes, surrounded by vintage sewing machines. The other was curtained by two vast, black and white posters advertising jeans, one with a topless nymph woman, hugging her breasts to conceal them and looking with smoky longing into the camera, one with a topless nymph man raising one arm behind his head and smiling cheekily down at his lithe, defined torso.

Aphrodite and Ares paused at the posters, their heads cocking to the side in unison as they took in the view of the models. 

“You ever think about me naked?” Ares asked casually, still looking at the sliver of the male nymph’s briefs above the low-riding jeans.

Aphrodite glanced coyly at him. “I think about everybody naked, where do you think my confidence comes from?”

He glanced too. “I think about you naked.”

She bit her lip. “Everyone thinks about me naked, where do you think my confidence comes from?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, but I bet I do it the most.”

“That's an odd thing to be competitive about.”

“My curse, I'm afraid.”

She rocked closer to him and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Are you doing it right now?”

“Competing?”

“Thinking about me naked.”

He let out a devilish half-grin. “Oh yeah, literally all day.”

She shook her hair out and looked smugly straight ahead. “Good.” She sashayed into the store.

Ares fell naturally back into spaniel mode, lumbering after Aphrodite as her sharp eyes scanned and judged the garments that unfolded before them. She made decisions with a level of cool precision that he’d only seen in Athena.

“You put a lot of thought into clothes, huh?” he asked, watching her hold up two seemingly identical dresses, then put one back and sling the other over her shoulder, the hanger hooked on her finger.

“Obviously,” she replied, now running her hand over the seam of a shirt. “Any day you like what you see in the mirror is off to a good start.”

Ares twinged. “What’s that like?”

She shot him a dangerous look. “Ares, you should know, I don’t accept negative self-talk in my associates.”

He felt her anger go from sweet to piercing. He faltered. The twinge in his chest was covered by a strange sensation. A good one. He pushed a callous look onto his face. “Oh yeah? What’s the penalty?”

She rolled her eyes and went back to inspecting the shirt.

“Is it spanking?”

“No, that won’t discourage you.” She unhooked the shirt from the rail and moved on.

“What exactly does being your associate mean?” he called after her, pushing through the clothing maze with all her rattling bags.

She didn’t answer.

“Is it like buds? Is it like solid bros?” 

She looked flatly at him over her shoulder. “Yes, Ares. You’re my solid bro.”

“Score.” He grinned. A sculpted, leather mini skirt caught his eye. He nodded at it. “That would suit you.”

She arched her eyebrow. She looked at the skirt. She looked back at him. She plucked it off the rack and added it to her growing collection of items. He beamed and hurried after her as she picked up her pace. She seemed to have a floorplan in her head. She slithered through the narrow alleys between displays like she was wine being spilled along the floor, Ares clumsily trying to keep up. By the time she’d led him to the changing rooms, she looked like a washing line that had blown away in the wind. 

A smartly dressed nymph with ice blue skin and eyes snapped to attention as they approached the women’s changing area. “My Lady Aphrodite!”

“Hey, Sugar.” Aphrodite smiled disarmingly. “Anyone in there?”

The nymph shook her head. “No, would you like it closing off?”

“That would be great, thank you. I won’t be too long.” She looked back at Ares. “That way you can come see. I like a second opinion.”

Ares’ heart thumped. His eyes almost popped out of his head.

She tutted. “I’ll obviously change behind a curtain, you dumbass.”

He coughed. “Right, yeah, obviously, I knew that.”

The nymph gestured politely for them to go through. Aphrodite blew her a kiss and sauntered down the slim corridor, the clothes fluttering on their hangers behind her. Ares stumbled after her, widening his eyes at the nymph in mock panic. 

She smiled indulgently at him. “Would you like some calming herbal tea?”

“I think I’m beyond that at this point.”

She giggled and stepped elegantly to guard the entrance, turning her straight back to him. 

Aphrodite led Ares into a circular area with a plush, cream carpet and a series of lilac couches grouped in the centre, facing heavy, lilac curtains over changing booths. A fresh, eucalyptus scent hung in the room.

“Sit.” Aphrodite pointed to a couch. 

He dropped onto the couch and slouched in the plump cushions. He felt extremely out of place, a chunky jigsaw piece from a kid’s toy that was being pushed into an intricate 1,000 piece puzzle. He didn’t mind. Aphrodite vanished behind a curtain as if she was stepping into a flowing waterfall. The image filled his mind, water gushing over her petal skin and glistening like hundreds of crystals, dangling like piercings off her nipples, trickling down her spine to lace the curve of her ass. He could hear the hiss of fabric being peeled off her body. He groaned under his breath and fidgeted in his seat, tugging at his tightening jeans. “This isn't helping me not think about you naked.”

“No?” she called through the curtain.

“No.”

The curtain snapped open to reveal her in a rose pink, strapless, bandeau dress. It looked painted onto her body, scooping her breasts and snug on the tops of her thighs. 

Ares’ mouth went dry. “Yeah, really not helping.”

She grinned wickedly. “And what if I told you I have a birthmark on my hip?”

Ares tensed. “What?”

“It's shaped like a little heart.”

He groaned rougher and slid down in his seat. “I don't believe you. You’re torturing me on purpose.”

She smiled. "Would I ever?"

“Is it true?”

“Doesn't matter if it's true, you're imagining it.”

He laughed and opened his mouth to protest. She waved at him and snapped the curtain closed. He slumped on the couch, kicking her dainty shopping bags clustered around his hefty boots. He ran his hand through his hair and closed his eyes. His sharp ears caught the hum of a zipper. He opened his eyes. A flutter of movement under the hem of the curtain drew his gaze. She was slipping her black stilettos off. Her bare feet appeared. She rose onto her toes a couple of times, easing them after the long day of walking in heels. Her toenails were painted hot pink. There was a dark purple freckle on her left ankle. The pink dress dropped to the floor.

Fucking Fates. This is how I die.

Three strides and a flimsy wisp of cloth away, that painfully beautiful woman was looking at herself in a semicircle of mirrors in nothing but her underwear. The light in here was soft, it would be kissing her curves, running loving lips on her, just like she deserved. Lips on her skin… Gently kissing every inch of her until she was shivering and clinging to him by his hair… Her back, misted with sweat, pressed to the mirror. Three reflections of her surrounding him, writhing with need… Sinking to his knees and lifting her pretty foot to bite it gently... Prowling forward and hooking her panties with his teeth… Tasting her… Smelling that pomegranate perfume...

“Ares.” Her warning voice came through the curtain.

“Uhuh,” he grunted, vision blurring in the crystal lights.

“I can tell when someone's having a sexual fantasy.”

He jumped and scrabbled to sit up straight on the couch, rubbing his hair roughly. “So?” he croaked. “It wasn't about you.”

“Sure.”

“It wasn't!” he blurted through the sensation of his face on fire. “I’m thinking about those jeans models on the posters. The man reminds me of a guy at the camp.”

“Oh. Okey-dokey, then.” Her reply was unconvinced and sing-song. There was a loud snick and something slung over the curtain rail, dangling over the outside of the curtain.

Ares looked up. It was her bra, strapless with large, moulded cups like rose petals covered in hot pink lace with tiny hearts sewn into the pattern. He unravelled. “You're cruel.”

She scoffed. “Ha, weak.”

“So fucking weak.” He hugged his chest and spread his legs wider with a writhe in his hips to extinguish the ache.

Her feet flexed and her fingers fluttered above the curtain rail as she wriggled into something and tested it for comfort. “Don't worry, you've got your couple. What are they doing now?”

Ares chewed his tongue and answered with a dark rumble in his voice. “She's in a changing room and he's bursting in and pinning her to the wall.”

“Mmmm… Lucky lady.” The curtain shot open. 

Ares bit harder on his tongue. She was wearing the leather mini skirt he’d picked and a boned, black top that was essentially just a longline bra. She’d raked her fingers through her hair and left it unruly, as if she’d just been doing exactly what he’d been imagining. The sheen of leather and armoured shape over her thick torso made her look like she was about to start a fight in a dive bar. And win. His mouth dropped open and his eyes glazed over.

“I’ll take that as a yes for this ensemble,” she said teasingly.

Ares blinked. 

“Speechless usually means yes.”

He nodded dumbly. She chuckled and vanished again, leaving him with the image of her burned onto his retinas. 

"So," she called out in a purposefully prying tone, "is Jeans Nymph your boy type?" 

"Huh?" Ares shook himself conscious. 

"The whippet look. Slender, agile, still got some muscles, still got some innocence. Is that your boy type?" 

Ares thought for a moment. "Oh. Guess it kinda is. Hadn't really catalogued it before. But yeah, I'm insecure, I don't like guys who are bigger than me. Or more aggressive than me."

"You want to be the predator, when it's a man?" Her voice turned genuinely curious, drawing the words out of him like she was spinning gold out of coarse straw. 

Ares rubbed the back of his neck. "A little. I think it's more that I like using my strength, and with guys I feel like I can do more with it. Get rough with them. Make them squeal. But with girls it just feels like being pushy when they get that all day anyway, so I like girls to top." 

"What a gentleman." More musical zipping. "But we can take it, you know, we're pretty sturdy."

He grinned. "We?" 

"Girls in general, I mean."

He shrugged. "Yeah, I know. I mean that informs the other part of it."

"Oh?"

"Women are fucking ferocious and I can't do anything but lose to it."

He heard her pause, the swish of cotton stilling, her fidgeting feet planting into the carpet. He sucked his lip, glimmering with pleasure at her interest. The sound slowly started up again. One foot lifted and rubbed her calf. 

"I've just realised your boy type is basically Hermes."

Ares barked a laugh. "Shit, don't tell him."

She laughed too, tuneful and blithe. "Our secret."

He swallowed. "Why'd you ask?" 

"Because I'm nosey,” she replied lightly. “And I'm interested in how people's attraction interacts with gender presentation in their partner, it's something Peitho and I are working on. Like, boy and girl type doesn't really mean men and women as two fixed things, it's two ends to the spectrum that all sorts of bodies and identities fit into and along. People talk about it simply, but little subtleties tell you a lot. Like, you feel that how your strength works changes for boys and girls, but you're not really talking about naturally strong and weak partners, you're talking about masculine and feminine energy. And it's interesting because you say there's something inherent about women that makes you bottom, but you talk about it like it's masculine. Ferocity. Whereas boys are something you see as small and wanting to indulge in your whole massively buff thing. Femme. It's interesting."

Ares raised his eyebrows. He let her speech settle in his brain, soaking in slowly. It felt like new lights were turning on on a circuit board. He spoke in a contemplative, far-away tone. "Huh. Yeah. Cool." He smiled to himself. He stretched out and tucked his forearm behind his head, relaxing into how inexplicably easy this intimate conversation was. "So, what's your types?"

"My secret."

He snickered. "Is it me?" 

The curtain drew back. She was in an aquamarine, summery, halter-neck dress. "My secret," she repeated sternly. 

"Come on," he whined. "I told you mine." 

"The Goddess of Love's type is seriously valuable information," she explained. "It's going to take more than a piggyback ride and a keyring."

"Is there a higher price than that?" Ares sighed. 

She smiled and stepped out of the booth. She walked silently, barefoot on the carpet, like she was walking on water. She came to stand over him, her skirt swishing and brushing his torso. He leaned forward to gaze up her strong, flowing body. 

"You didn't technically tell me your girl type," she said quietly. 

He kept gazing around her, the bump of her belly under the dress, the way her mouth was always just a little bit open, the skirt’s restlessness on her slightly parted thighs. "You've guessed my girl type," he answered huskily. 

She smiled, eyes sparkling in the shadow of her hair like they had done the moment he'd first seen her. 

"Why did you think I was a gardener when we met?" he asked dreamily. 

She laughed and stepped away, pulling his blood with her. "You have romance novel groundskeeper energy."

"I have no idea what that means."

"Don't worry about it." She hooked the curtain with her finger and gave him a glittering look. "Just know I like romance novels."

The curtain slid closed.

Ares dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and beamed hotly at the ceiling. 

Tartarus, this woman could sell me for scrap metal.

A few more shuffles behind the curtain and Aphrodite emerged, neatened up and in her original outfit, a scarlet crop top and tight, black skirt that did nothing to cool Ares down. 

She walked briskly up to him and clapped her hands to rouse him, gesturing for him to stand. "All done."

He hauled himself up. As he did so, she stretched like a cat, slinking her body and pulling her soft belly taut. Her waistband sneaked down. His eye landed on a speck of violet on her hip bone. He broke into a warm smile, like he'd just found a wrapped present with his name on. 

Aphrodite shimmied the stretch out and looked at him blankly. "What?" 

"You do have the birthmark." 

She smiled. "I do."

He pressed his lips together, the glow across his eyes like votive candles. "Can I see it properly?" 

He asked so softly, it stroked Aphrodite like cotton grass. She could feel his gaze like he was running his tongue over her. She bumped her hip up and folded the waistband of her skirt down to reveal the little, slightly uneven heart pigmented into her skin. She watched Ares' face. She expected him to tease her. But his eyes stayed soft, his gaze sinking into her, lingering. He very slowly pressed his lips together and released them. His chest very slowly rose and fell. His hand drifted forward and the back of one finger stroked the birthmark. The sensation spread through her abdomen.

"See?" she murmured. "You should trust me." 

He smiled tenderly, still totally absorbed in her skin. His focus was mesmerising, exciting. Moving slower than a dandelion seed on a day with no breeze, he rotated his hand and circled his thumb lightly around the heart, tracing its outline, as if committing the simple shape to memory. Aphrodite nudged her hip firmer into his touch. Her eyes wandered down his rising and falling chest, the faintest hint of the definition of his torso under black fabric. One heel rose off the floor. She'd only have to float an inch to meet his lips. 

Not yet. You don't know where you are here. Stay safe. 

"Your fingers are really rough," she said abruptly, waking herself up. 

Ares curled his hand back immediately, making her curse herself. He gruffed awkwardly in his throat. "Yeah, I get into scraps for a living." 

An idea struck her. She broke into a broad grin. 

He looked suspicious. "What?" 

"We’re getting manicures." 

He snorted. "We are absolutely not getting manicures." 

"You’ll like it." 

"I will not." 

She marched back to the changing room and grabbed the clothes she'd chosen, the leather skirt ensemble and the two dresses all making the cut. "Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?" 

He folded his arms and glared. "Getting shouted down by my sense of masculinity." 

She stuck out her tongue, poked her finger into her mouth, and gagged. "Ugh, gross, well done for describing the whole problem with society in one succinct sentence." 

He picked up her bags. "I thought you liked problems with society." 

"I like problems in society, not with it."

"Huh." 

"And I thought you had a rebellious spirit." 

"I…" 

"So are you going to stand there and whine about 'masculinity', like a baby?" She swished to him and walked her fingertips up his chest. "Or are you going to come with me and problematise society, like a sexy rebel?" 

He sighed and held her challenging gaze with narrowed eyes. She could feel his heart beating just a little faster than it should under her touch. 

He rolled his jaw and clucked his tongue. "They better do gel, because I don’t want to spend money on something that’s gonna chip in the first brawl." 

She beamed in triumph and drummed her hands on his chest. 

She hurried him through the Penelope's Weaving purchase and along the shining streets to the Golden Apple Beauty Parlour before he could change his mind. In a record ten minutes the two of them were seated at adjacent desks, each with a stylish, smiling nymph opposite them. Antheia was bright, blossom pink with a citrus yellow ponytail dressed with pink flowers. She squeezed a dollop of rose-scented hand cream into Ares’ outstretched palm and began to massage it into the cracks in his hand. “Wow, you really do put your skin through the ringer,” she said jovially.

Ares wasn’t really sure what to say. He pressed his lips together guiltily. 

Pannyakhis began carefully pushing Aphrodite’s cuticles down with a soft rubber instrument. She was indigo-grey with a silver, choppy pixie cut, silver freckles, heavy eyeliner and a silver ring in her lip. She leaned her elbows on the table as she worked and stifled a yawn. 

“You out late again, Kissy?” Aphrodite asked her, half mocking, half concerned.

Pannyakhis shrugged. “Yeah, but for good reason for once. I got a new job.”

“Oh, good, working nights and days, that sounds healthy.” Aphrodite looked at her sternly. “What’s the job?”

Pannyakhis looked at her a little shyly. “Aglaea hired me. At The Rose Lounge.”

Aphrodite whipped her hand out of Pannyakhis’ and smacked her on the arm. “No kidding! Told you you were good enough. You’re a great dancer.”

Pannyakhis pulled a face and picked up her hand again. “You put in a word for me?”

“No, I trusted in your talent. But is Aglaea not paying you enough to quit? That doesn't sound like them.”

“Pay’s good, just gotta put in my last two weeks and I didn’t want to wait to start.”

Aphrodite snared her hand and squeezed it affectionately.

Pannyakhis chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, now let me get at those cuticles.”

Ares and Antheia glanced over, then exchanged a look. Antheia leaned forward and whispered. “Lady Aphrodite has a sort of overseeing role for beauty and sex workers. She’s not formally involved with the companies, but she spends a lot of time checking up on the staff. Woe betide your manager if you’re not well-treated.” She smiled proudly. “But she says our parlour has the best service anywhere.”

Ares whispered back. “I thought she didn’t come up to Olympus.”

Antheia nodded. “She only started doing it recently, and found out the pay wasn’t great and some other stuff. Now management can’t get rid of her. I got four extra days vacation and a raise this month.” She glanced over at Aphrodite sympathetically. “I think she feels a little bad for not being around. We always prayed to her, obviously, and she gave us visions sometimes.” She beamed. “One time she appeared in my bottle of cucumber water at the gym and said I was doing a great job and that I should drop my towel on the floor in exactly seven seconds. I did and this super cute guy picked it up for me.” She raised her hand to show a fine gold ring on her finger, tipped with a modest but merry diamond. “We're getting married this winter.”

Ares’ heart warmed in his chest. He glanced over at Aphrodite again. “Sounds like she’s doing a great job.”

Antheia splodged more soothing cream onto his hand. “She really looks out for us.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Aphrodite cut in, raising her voice from the next desk. 

“Nothing!” Antheia squeaked.

Ares grinned like a fox. “You.”

Aphrodite tutted and rolled her eyes. “Such a gossip.”

Ares chuckled. Antheia smiled at him, then set to working the cream deeper into his hands. Her fingers were thin like flower stems, but surprisingly strong. She pressed in overlapping circles until he could feel the relaxation oozing all the way up his arms and to his shoulders, his skin becoming more supple, his hands feeling more mobile. He looked over at Aphrodite. Her head was dropped to the side and her eyes were slightly hooded, her hair sweeping over to expose her long neck. Her hand lay like a nodding narcissus in Pannyakhis’. She flicked her startling eyes to him and caught him looking. “So, what colour are you going for?”

He laughed uncomfortably. “Can we not do this baby steps and go clear or something?”

“Do you want to take baby steps or man steps?”

Ares clamped his mouth shut and grumbled out of the corner. “Man steps.”

“Good boy, you’re getting red.”

He sighed, but grinned and nodded in surrender. Antheia giggled softly and began filing his nails, he already kept them short and neat for combat, but he bit them every now and then. She zipped the file over the jagged bits, buzzing ticklishly in his hand.

"What about you?" he asked.

"Marine Dreams Blue. To go with my new accessory." She tapped her purse on the floor with her foot, swinging the dolphin.

He smiled. “You know, this isn’t half bad.”

She beamed. “Damn right. Smell that? It’s the patriarchy taking a hit.”

“Smells like acetone.”

“And it’s only fair,” she continued brightly. “I have the Panoptes shit, you get shiny, red nails. We’re both officially compromised.”

He bared his teeth. “Reputations in the gutter.”

Antheia scoffed pointedly. “Ugh, Aphrodite, we saw that article. What a smear job.”

“Panoptes published about the old club I stripped at a few years ago,” Pannyakhis said coldly. “We thought it was gonna put us on the map, but it was just this diatribe about how we were lowering the tone of the neighbourhood, going on about real estate and crime rates. No evidence we had anything to do with those things, just all the usual finger-pointing when a city doesn't wanna take responsibility for an area being a little rough. They splashed our pictures all over with these captions like 'shameless!'” She rolled her eyes. "I'm sorry, is shame something we're meant to want? Eat my sparkly shorts." She smirked. "I mean, it didn't not put us on the map. But it also got the city government to make a big show of cops checking up on us. Bleh." She shuddered and snorted.

Ares caught a guilty look cross Aphrodite's face, an I should have been there look. He tried to catch her eye and in reassurance, but she didn't notice.

Antheia scoffed again. “What a bunch of creeps.”

Pannyakhis looked impishly at Aphrodite. “You gonna do that thing with the mosquito pheromones to this paparazzi prick?”

“Shit, that’s real?” Ares blurted.

Aphrodite smirked sideways at him, then looked coolly back at Pannyakhis. “We’ll see. He’s given me one blessing and one curse, and about a dozen heebie-jeebies. So I’ll keep an eye on him. Feels like such a waste to punish him with bugs if he’s waiting to do something worthy of bulls or boars.”

Ares swallowed. “So, if a guy pisses you off enough, you have horny bulls follow him around?”

Aphrodite shrugged. “I have all sorts of magic tricks, stay on my good side.”

“Fates. Noted.”

The nymphs giggled. 

Ares thought about the article she’d shown him. His mother had dealt with paparazzi all his life, he knew the kind of wrong impressions and bare-faced lies she’d had to strategise around. It wasn’t too long ago that one of them had even tried to claim that she was sleeping with Uncle Hades. He was amazed that all that had happened to that writer was getting fired. Oh, and losing an eye, but that could have been an accident. Maybe. Ma had kept Ares very shielded from public attention. Dad always claimed it was because he wasn’t a story worth telling, but she said it was for his own good. But he’d learned enough about their tricks and targeting from the messes she’d had to clean up. That said… He sneaked his gaze to Aphrodite. She was so fucking beautiful. Was it really possible everyone at that party just saw her as a colleague? And Olympus was full of measurably the most attractive and rich and successful people in the realms. Would it be so surprising if she was playing the field? He thought about her smile in the photographs, captivating and aware of it.

“So, is anything that gets said about you true?” The question left his lips before he realised he wanted to ask it.

Three pairs of eyes shot to him like he was a dartboard. He cleared his throat and looked down.

“Stuff gets said about you too, you know. Your mom can keep you out of print, but tongues wag,” Aphrodite retorted.

Her anger scratched his skin like the teasing tines of a fork. He raised his eyes to her defiantly, curling his lips into a challenging smile. “OK, how about a game? You tell me something you’ve heard and guess if it’s true. Then I’ll do it for you, and so on. Person with the most right guesses wins.”

She pinned him with her eyes. “You did say you were competitive.”

“It’s a sickness.”

“OK. Care to make it interesting?”

“No,” Pannyakhis cut in sharply. “I hate watching rich people bet, it makes my pockets hurt. Winner gets a coupon.”

Aphrodite laughed. “Agreed.”

Ares grinned. “Deal.”

“Wait,” Antheia chimed, holding up two bottles of red nail varnish. “Which do you want? Romantic Rose or Roaring Race Car?”

Ares cocked his eyebrow. “What do you take me for? Obviously Romantic Rose.”

Antheia beamed and nodded.

Ares turned back to Aphrodite. “Ladies first.”

She gave him a calculating look, her eyes on him making it feel like his t-shirt was melting off. “You once stole Apollo’s chariot and drew a dick on Helios’ face. True.”

Ares smiled at the cool sensation of the rose red varnish sliding over his thumbnail. “College. Good times.”

The nymphs burst out laughing.

Ares grinned slyly at Aphrodite, still watching him like stars over a cornfield. “Poseidon’s secret mistress. He definitely woulda bragged to Dad. False.”

She nodded. Pannyakhis released her fingers and made two marks on a napkin. 

Aphrodite rubbed her lips together, then said, “you bribed the priest in Sparta to give the city to you.”

Ares bristled.

She gave him a sweet look. “False. Obviously.”

He blushed. He nodded. He avoided Antheia’s eye as he felt her give him a knowing look. “Uuuh, OK… Lesbos-wide sex parties. False.”

The nymphs cackled. Aphrodite widened her eyes at him. “True.”

He whistled low. “You know what? I’m glad I was wrong.”

She winked at him. They settled into the game like they’d settled into everything today, accusations and guesses pinging between them like tennis balls. The group of four became more rowdy, Antheia and Pannyakhis throwing in their own guesses and commentary and breaking ties, applauding along. Ares was in his element, jibing and sparring, taking hits, making people laugh. Making Aphrodite laugh.

He licked his teeth. “Threesome with Theseus and the Minotaur. True.” 

“Ew, no! Are people saying that?”

“Uuuuh… No?”

“OK, trapped in a vase by giants until Hermes rescued you. True.”

“Fuck! He swore he wouldn’t tell! OK, vacationed in Syria, won them over as worshippers and pissed off everyone who sticks to Greece, like we’re supposed to. True.”

“True! Except they think I’m a fish in Syria.”

“Why?”

“It was an accident. False: you gave Apollo a black eye a couple of months ago.”

“True, he deserved it. True: all the poets going on about you are stooges and it’s all your ghost writing.”

“Absolutely false! My poets are real and they love me like crazy!”

The fluorescent lights in the small, white-walled parlour glowed around them, a clean brightness, combined with fresh green tea and sharp, chemical scents. It bleached Aphrodite’s mind, washing away the clammy discomfort and itchy irritation of the article. She made her guesses with glee, watching Ares’ lively, expressive face fracture and reform like tectonic plates in mockery and curiosity and surprise. She glanced at his hand in Antheia’s, his thick fingers now tipped with rose red, bringing out the colour of his wondrous eyes. She admired how easily he’d nestled into the dainty, feminine space. His brightly coloured bulk should have dominated the room and dwarfed them all, but there was something soft in how he held himself around women. He glanced occasionally at the chic pots of flowering succulents or paused to ask Antheia a question, seemingly genuinely interested in this new environment. He had none of his parents’ presumptuousness around normal people, he was friendly and foolish and let them talk to him pretty much anyway they liked. It was almost like no one had ever told him he was a prince. 

He caught her eye and held it with a little more gentleness. His voice lowered to an engine hum. “I have a slightly more serious one, is that OK?”

Aphrodite kept her face still, but her stomach kicked. He’d kept his guesses light, bringing up the amusing rumours of her many exploits that had everyone’s mother crying “hussy.” But she knew what else was said about her. Sadistic Aphrodite who enjoyed playing with the deepest feelings of mortals and immortals alike and watching them suffer for no reason but her boredom. Heartless Aphrodite for whom love was a job and nothing more. Empty Aphrodite who slept around because she didn’t have anything else to offer. Coward Aphrodite who shirked the Titanomachy then seduced the sea gods to escape justice. Hungry Aphrodite who had only come to Olympus to snare an influential lover and manipulate her way to the top. Why had she let him read that article? How much more had he heard? What must he be thinking? How had she let herself get drawn into this game?

“Sure,” she said breezily, swallowing.

He leaned on the arm of his slightly too small, plastic chair and burned her eyes with his for a long, tense moment. “You’re the worst weaver out of all the goddesses. True.”

Aphrodite rushed with relief, then rage. She smacked her hand over her heart and gasped furiously. “How dare you!”

Ares leaned back in his chair with an infuriating grin. “Athena told me about that contest in the mortal realm a few years back.”

Antheia and Pannyakhis exchanged a smirk.

Aphrodite cast her hand up in the air. “That was supposed to be a casual thing. For. Fun. But your damn sister is worse about competitiveness than you are.”

Ares flashed more of his teeth. “OK, but apparently you did such a bad job that your powers malfunctioned and a bunch of mortals broke up on the same day. And a flock of sheep died.”

“It was not that bad!”

“They DIED!”

The nymphs erupted into giggles. She grabbed a handful of cotton wool on the desk and threw it at him. He dodged, grabbed his own and threw it back. It hit her in the face, making her snuffle like a kitten.

“OK, OK, kids,” Antheia said indulgently, “watch the merchandise. I think we ought to wind this game down.”

“Who won?” Ares and Aphrodite asked eagerly in unison.

Pannyakhis consulted her napkin tally. “Aphrodite, by one point.”

“BOOOO!” Ares bellowed.

Aphrodite cackled maniacally and flipped him off, her freshly ocean-blue fingernail agleam. Pannyakhis opened a drawer in her desk and withdrew a black slip of paper with curling, gold lettering on it. She handed it to Aphrodite. “Your prize.”

Aphrodite took the coupon, then looked over at Ares. He was holding his finished nails out and inspecting them, shining like the cherries topping her ice cream earlier. “Actually,” she said with a warm smile, “you take this.” She held it out to him.

He raised his eyebrows. “For the next time I want to smash the patriarchy?”

She smiled wider. “For the next time you want to treat yourself. You look good.”

He looked unsure.

“I mean it.”

He smiled, took the coupon, and folded it into his pocket.

Ares was still periodically inspecting his nails as they returned to the now thinning crowds and ambled through the mall. He was so distracted by them that he almost fell over a bench at the side of the walkway. 

Aphrodite watched him with a pool of pleasure in her chest. She could see his joking bravado over the trip into girl-land turning into genuine enjoyment. She loved seeing that happen to men. The poor things had so much stuff they weren’t allowed to do for absolutely no good reason. No wonder a bunch of them had such an attitude problem. If she ever raised a boy, she would make sure he was allowed to do whatever he wanted with his look and his hobbies.

“You like it, don’t you?” she asked sweetly.

He clucked his tongue and lowered his hand. He shrugged. 

She nudged his arm with hers. “You can say.”

He shrugged again, her shopping bags jostling in his hands. “I dunno. I guess it does look nice. Just, looking nice isn’t much of a thing in my world.”

She nudged him again. “Try telling your face that. And your body.”

He smiled suggestively down at her and nudged her back, heat skipping through her skin. He looked down at his thumping, heavy boots. “I guess... I think of myself as paying a lot of attention to my body, because all I do now is work out. But it was weird, this was attention in a different way. Like, it made me notice stuff about my hands and how they feel and how they move. And then it made me, like, imagine my body. Like it wasn’t just this case I live in, it kinda…” He chewed over his words. “It became its own thing, that I could, I dunno, appreciate. It kinda felt like my body takes care of me, it’s my whole deal, and this let me…” He hesitated. “This is gonna sound dumb, but this let me, like… give it a present? You know, to say thanks.”

Aphrodite’s heart swelled and sweetness poured through her, as if her blood had turned to berry smoothie. She beamed exuberantly up into Ares’ shy, ponderous face.

He glanced over, saw her expression, and crumpled back. “You’re making fun of me, it did sound dumb.”

“No!” Aphrodite clutched his arm, caressing the sudden knots of tension. “No, Ares. You just said the exact reason I love this work so much. It means a lot to me that you get it.” She slowed her hands and stroked his tactile muscles deeper. “So many people don’t get it. They think it’s vain or shallow, that it wastes a goddess’ time to involve herself in beauty parlours and hair salons and stuff. But that’s exactly why I do it. To celebrate our bodies. To make them feel loved. They deserve it.” She sighed. “I feel like too many of the newer positions are about disciplining the body - skill, civilisation, blah blah blah. When did people decide it was vain and vapid to fucking enjoy things?” She ground her teeth a little, glaring ahead.

Ares leaned gently into her. His voice teased the rising frustration out of her. “Well, for what it’s worth, you’re definitely getting me into camp enjoy things.”

She hugged his arm, pressing her cheek to his bicep. His wonderful warmth gushed over her. For a minute, she forgot what a clingy move this was. “It’s a good camp. You’ll like it.”

“I think I will.”

She raised her eyes to his. He was smiling down at her, summer strawberries dressing his honey face. She spoke without thinking. “You seem too sweet for war. How’d it happen?”

Ares’ face fell, then hardened. He leaned away from her a little. She stung, cursing herself, and slipped away from his arm, twisting her hair in her hands and biting her lip.

“Do you mind if we don’t talk about that yet?” he asked with a wincing glance.

Her brow crinkled in a mixture of curiosity and concern. But the “yet” was encouraging. It said he might feel able to talk about it one day. It said he planned to talk to her more after today. She smiled. “Sure thing.” 

They glanced away from each other, wandering onto a less populated street and feeling the sudden silence between them. The first all day. Aphrodite looked about desperately for something to restart their easy conversation. Her eyes alighted on something even better. Standing against the wall was a photobooth, the small box plastered all over with candy-coloured pictures of nymphs pulling various silly faces, a short curtain drawn across the door. She perked up in delight and snatched the front of Ares’ t-shirt. 

He tumbled with her. “Woah! What are you doing?”

“I want pictures I don’t have to look at that stupid article for!” She flung him around and bundled him into the photobooth.

He barely fit, cramming in with his shoulders bunched up and his legs totally buried in her shopping bags. The tiny stool screeched in protest at his weight. Aphrodite slipped into the booth after him. There wasn’t an inch of room, so she tucked herself into his lap and drew the curtain over them. He was so comfy, broad and sturdy and smelling of hot pretzels. She unclipped the dolphin keyring and looped one arm around the back of his neck to rest it peeking over his shoulder. She pressed the button. “Smile!” 

The machine clicked. The picture flashed up on the screen, her draped over him and grinning, while he smiled stiffly.

She rounded on him. “What in Asphodel was that?”

Ares shrugged. “I’m bad at pictures.”

“If you can do it for Acteon, you can do it for me. Smile,” she snarled.

He bared his teeth at her, like a piranha. “Like this?”

She prodded his nose. He laughed. She darted her hand to press the button and beamed at the camera. This time the screen showed a much cuter option, Ares grinning a little clownishly, the dolphin bobbing on his shoulder. 

“I look deranged,” he said.

She shuffled on his lap. “Just relax.”

“Aphrodite, I’m gonna be straight with you, if you sit on me this close to my crotch, I will not be relaxed.”

She chuckled fiendishly and rooted in her bag. She retrieved her compact and lipstick and touched up the purple paint on her pout. She clicked them shut and stowed them away. “Do your crazy face then, and I’ll do mine.”

He nodded. She pushed the button. He growled like a jackal and suddenly hugged her waist and scooped her close. She gasped and squealed. The camera ticked. The screen flashed up a picture of a mad kidnapper and his helpless victim, the dolphin springing behind them. 

Aphrodite clapped her hands. “Yay! Now you’re getting it, you goofball!”

Ares grinned like a demon. The camera clicked several more times, the pictures on the screen getting more and more ridiculous. One froze them mid-tickle-fight, flailing in the small space and banging the walls with their shoulders. One showed Ares wearing strands of Aphrodite’s hair as a moustache. One had them with their fingers curled like claws, growling into the camera. In one, Aphrodite was looking away, just changing position on his lap, and he was collapsing back against the wall with his eyes raised pleadingly to heaven. The following one had her pinching his cheek in reprimand, while he tried to bite her hand. Then he was cuddling her from behind and gazing up at her dopily, while she rolled her eyes with her arms folded, the dolphin poking out of her fist. The last one put the poor plushie with its beak between her teeth and its tail between his as they looked playfully into each other’s eyes. 

Aphrodite giggled and plucked the dolphin dangling from his mouth. She affixed it to her bag again.

Ares’ arms were still around her waist. The end of his nose brushed her jaw, his voice dropping low and secretive. “You know, just saying, this is a perfect make out opportunity.”

Her pulse skipped. She caught his eye. “You think I don’t know that?”

He smiled, his nose running up her cheek and his breath tickling her. “So…?” His arms furled a little tighter.

A delicious ache pooled between her legs. She fought to hold in a squirm, making her voice light and plain. “No, I just reapplied my lipstick.”

He drew back to meet her gaze, his twin kilns of eyes sparkling mischievously. “I mean, it looks like a good shade for me.” 

She arched an eyebrow. He mimicked her. She tutted and rolled her eyes. He bounced her lightly in his lap, bringing her closer. A smile pulled at the corners of her tingling mouth. She whipped her hand out, pushed the photo button, cupped his face and pressed her lips to his cheek. His arms tensed around her. She hovered for a drawn out moment in the musk of his sweat under his shirt. The tissue paper rustled in the bags stuffed around their legs. The camera clicked. She ignored it. She stroked her thumb along his sharp cheekbone then down to rub his neck. She moved her lips against his warm skin. She felt his chest rise to meet her, heard his breath catch. His fingertips dusted just under her breast. The softest, suppressed moan escaped his throat. 

She pulled back and admired her handiwork - a large, purple lipstick mark like a pressed pansy just above his jawline, a little smudged and glossy like magazine ink. “Nope, not your colour at all.”

Ares lounged back on the squeaking stool. “That’s OK, I don’t follow fashion.”

“I gathered that.”

“Hey!” He poked her belly. “Just for that, I’m telling everyone we did make out.”

She tossed her hair, lashing his face. “Whatever, no one will believe you.” She clicked the print button, slid off his thigh, and out of the booth.

She reached for the slot where the photo strip had been spat out with a whir and a clunk. Ares lunged after her and grabbed it before she could. He brandished the strip victoriously, towering over her. “Aha! Photographic evidence.”

Aphrodite put her hands on her hips. “Nonsense. I kiss everyone on the cheek.”

“You make out with everyone too, in fairness.”

“Do not!”

He shot her a look, then coursed on belligerently. “Besides, look where your mouth is. That’s virtually my neck. This is an undeniably sexy kiss.”

“It is not a…” She peered at the photo and stopped. She was kissing Ares’ cheek. Ares looked like he’d just been shot in the heart. His mouth hung open, his eyes were wide and shocked, the red flare across his face blazed so brightly it left a mist on the lens. She squawked in delight. “Wow! What face are you pulling?"

He whipped the photo strip out of her eye line. “I was surprised!”

She clutched her sides with spasms of whooping laughter. “You look like you might have a heart attack!”

“Again, surprised!” 

“‘Man asks woman to make out with him, has coronary when it works.’”

He broke into laughter too, hers cantering around him and splashing in his body like children in a fountain. He bumped her with his flank and coughed. “Yeah, well, you must have noticed by now, I’m a textbook case of low self-confidence.”

She sighed out the last of her peals of laughter, dabbing her wet eyes with her fingertips. “If you’re going for the pity angle, it won’t work.”

He grinned. “Don’t be so sure, my pity angle can be pretty a-cute.”

She looked at him flatly. “Seems obtuse to me.” She reached for the photo strip. He held it over her head. She settled for gesturing at it. “But, regardless, this photo proves I can never kiss you again. Look what it does to you, it wouldn’t be safe.”

Ares pouted. “It’s totally safe, I just need to work up a tolerance to it.”

She pursed her lips. “OK, then how about we go build you a purple bear and you can smooch that all you want for practice.”

He folded his arms. “That’s like saying work up your arsenic tolerance by drinking more lemonade.”

“Keep referring to my kisses as arsenic, Ares, it really gets me going.”

“Sorry, yeah. Now you’ve bought that almond lip butter, it’s more like cyanide.”

She thumped his arm. “You know, I’ve met people with no moves, but you might be the first person I’ve met who actually has reverse moves.”

He cuffed her hand. “Hey, you find me a guy who can moonwalk and doesn’t regularly fuck, I’ll stop taking that as a compliment.”

She fluttered her hand in his face like he was an annoying insect. “Ugh, shush, pick up my bags and buy me a lemonade.” She strutted off with her nose in the air.

He slipped the photo strip into his back pocket, scooped up the bags and caught up to her hastily. He reached her, spun on his heel, and began to walk backwards beside her. He grinned down at her and bounced his eyebrows.

She narrowed her eyes. “Stop it.”

“Reverse moves.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

He crashed hard into a pillar, groaning and crumpling.

“Hey, look, the metaphor works,” she said drily.

He dragged himself back to standing and caught her up again, walking normally this time, at least as well as he could, weighed down with all her purchases. “I’m gonna get nachos, you want something to eat with your lemonade?”

“Yes.”

“Whatcha going for?”

“Half your nachos.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oooof course.” 

She eyed the rock of his hips as he walked. She reached out and plucked the photo strip sticking out of his back pocket.

“Mind your manners, Old Lady!” 

She wrinkled her nose at him, then looked down at the photographs. She smiled at the jumble of moments. She tore the strip in two, slipped one half into her bag and the other back into his pocket. She couldn’t resist giving his firm ass a small pat.

“I gave you the one with your heart attack,” she said.

“Too kind.” He smiled broadly. 

In the end, they got two portions of nachos, but Ares paid for them both. He got extra hot salsa and fed her a chip with it on. Her eyes watered furiously and he cackled as she fanned herself and chugged her lemonade. They talked about TV shows and theme parks and just how high a heel Aphrodite could walk in. They went to one of the fountains and Ares watched as Aphrodite ducked into the spray to cool her skin, leaving her sparkling. He showed her a trick shot with a coin splashing into the pool. She asked him what he wished for. He lied and said for protein shakes to taste better. They went to the arcade. She thrashed him on the dance mats, he won back his honour on air hockey. She turned out to be alarmingly good at the shooter. He said that was a shame, because he couldn’t do the corny thing of putting his arms around her from behind to show her what to do. She gave him a pulse-quickening look and “accidentally” fired in a useless direction. She leaned indulgently into his body as he folded his arms around her and pressed his hands over hers on the joystick, laughing into her hair at her crazed joy at unleashing destruction. She felt like she was floating in a hot spring.

The light through the glass roof pinked, the day growing late and the crowds draining out of the mall. Ares and Aphrodite moved slowly towards the exit. Their feet dragged and their eyes pulled constantly towards each other as they got closer and closer to where they had to set off in opposite directions.

Aphrodite opened her mouth a dozen times to ask if he wanted to come home with her, trying a dozen different nonchalant phrasings in her head. “We could watch that movie I was telling you about.” “My place is closer than yours, you want a coffee?” “It’s been a long day, we could open a bottle of wine.” “You’ve only had snacks all afternoon, need some dinner?” A dozen times she bit her tongue and told herself not to rush. Be safe. You need to make Olympus work, not jump headlong into something with a dang 23-year-old prince in your third week. She glanced at the way his shoulders rolled when he walked. Mmmph... headlong could be nice, though.

Ares pulled ahead and turned around, looming over her, halting her. Her heart thudded. They were walking alongside the street wall, the large, revolving doors spilling the very beginnings of sunset into his hair. He put her bags down, folded his arms to squarely frame his pecs, and dropped to lean against the wall. He looked at her like he was trying to work out a puzzle. He ran his teeth over his lower lip. “Hey...” he said gruffly, “was this a date?”

Aphrodite’s stomach fluttered. She shook her hair off her face and looked coolly up at him. “No.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “It felt kinda like a date.”

She jutted her hip out and pursed her lips. “Did you go to the effort of asking me out on a date?”

“I did not, no.”

“Then you don't get one.”

He huffed. “But, if I ask you out, I have to deal with all the fear of rejection crap, and I hate that. So I'm thinking, instead, I could just keep bumping into you in classic date scenarios until I slowly wear you down.”

She pursed her lips tighter. “I hate that idea.”

He shrugged. “I think it's got legs.”

“It does not have legs. It is a terrible, little snake of an idea.”

“Snakes have legs.”

“No, they don't.”

“They do.”

“They do not.”

“They do! Honest to gods, like little, tiny, scuttley ones.” He lifted one hand out from his body and wiggled his fingers like a bug.

She snorted and daggered him with her eyes. “OK, well, your idea can take its tiny legs and scuttle off. You want a date? Ask me out.”

Ares huffed again, longer this time, his shoulders lowering and smoothing. He flexed his neck and dropped his head to look deeply into her eyes. His stare was intense, the heart of a volcano churning magma that cascaded across the rocky contours of his face. Her lipstick mark was still on his cheek, branding him, stamping him like a gift parcel. His hand draped over his bicep gleamed with the ruby nail polish. He dropped his temple against the wall. His gaze softened and travelled with open longing around her body, resting on her lips, then her breasts, then the high hem of her skirt, heating each part of her in turn, turning her into a toasting marshmallow. She sneaked her hand to the leather strap of her bag and twisted her finger into it until it pinched to keep her grounded. She watched his mouth for signs he was about to speak. His teeth dragged over his lip again, leaving it glistening and flushed.

He broke his gaze. “Nah.”

Aphrodite’s jaw dropped. She spluttered. “Seriously?”

His mouth twisted. “If you want a date so bad, ask me out.” He winked, stood, rolled on his heel and began to stroll away.

Aphrodite stood in the mess of her abandoned shopping bags. She flooded with ice, then acid. “Ares!”

Ares turned back, grinning cockily, hands in his pockets. He continued lumbering backwards. 

“Don't you walk away from me!” she commanded.

He laughed like a gremlin. “Too late.”

“Get back here!”

He was getting further off, raising his voice. “No can do. If this was a date, I would obviously be more of a gentleman, but as it is…” He spread his hands helplessly.

She glared at him murderously. “Fuck you! You couldn't be a gentleman if it was the last thing between you and Tartarus!”

“Sorry? Can't hear you! Too far away!”

“Ares!”

He mouthed nothing and gestured at his ear.

“Ares!”

He pointed to his ear again.

“You jerk!”

“What? You need to shout! Try being more shrill!”

“That’s it! You’re getting mosquitos!”

“Aw, I had a good day too!”

He waved lazily, flashed her one final, maddening grin, and vanished into the revolving doors.

Aphrodite stared after him, stunned and furious and utterly delighted.

 

*

 

Hera stretched her legs out along her couch in one of the smaller sitting rooms on the ground floor. She lit a cigarette and took a long drag. The smoke filled her lungs and momentarily silenced the irritable chattering in her head. The Panoptes article had been a disaster. That little lizard was supposed to show off some royal benevolence, then make something out of Ares’ return. Instead he’d stuck himself to bloody Aphrodite like a barnacle on a boat. She was fast becoming the kind of woman that talk clung to like fungi. The question was, was that going to be a problem? 

The clomp of Ares’ big, leather boots in the corridor broke her thoughts, followed by the amusing noise he made when he was humming a guitar solo under his breath. His bright, sunshine face appeared around the door, his smile radiant and rare. “Hey, Ma.”

Hera looked at him quizzically. “Hello, Lamb. You’re in a good mood.”

He kept smiling. “I guess.” He leaned deeper around the door. “Ma, where do you get flowers?”

She frowned in confusion. “At florists.”

“Yeah, but, where are the florists?”

The edge of her mouth lifted. “I’ll get you a number.”

“Thanks.”

“What do you need flowers for?”

“Just a thing.”

“By thing, do you mean person?”

He tapped the side of his nose. 

His fingertip caught her eye. “Are you wearing nail polish?”

“Yep.”

“You’re father’s going to be a complete bitch about that.”

He rolled lazily back around the door frame. “I know. He’s the patriarch.”

Hera blinked in yet more confusion. She shook herself and called after him, “did you at least get gel?”

“Yep!” he called back from out of sight.

She rocked back in her seat and took another drag on her cigarette. Panoptes lay open on the coffee table. She picked it up and peered at the photograph of her son and the love goddess smiling with unfiltered joy into each other’s eyes. She reached out and tapped a clump of ash into the tray on the table.

She would have to keep an eye on that.

 

*

 

The next morning, Aphrodite sat at her kitchen table in her long, cranberry, satin dressing gown, letting the cool material caress her body and reading an extremely dirty chapter of her current romance novel. She slurped her orange juice and poked her cereal about in the bowl, the spoon tinkling on the china.

A knock on the door made her jump. She hopped up and hurried to open it. Hermes’ brash grin and fluorescent tank top battered her still sleepy eyes. 

He took in the gown falling open low on her chest. “Well, I made the right decision getting to you early.”

Aphrodite smiled indulgently. “Hello, Jam Pot.”

“Noooo. Hot Sauce.”

“Jam Pot.”

Hermes conceded with a toss of his choppy fringe. “How’s the morning treating you, you saucy Cypriote?”

“About as well as all mornings treat night owls,” she replied, stifling a yawn. “Is this business or pleasure?”

“What's the difference with you?”

She chuckled. 

He ran his hand through his hair. “I am on duty, but two birds, one stone.” He reached into his satchel and pulled out a folded note. “I’m having a party the weekend after next.”

Aphrodite took the note and unfolded it. It was a torn out notebook page with a scrawl saying, Costume Party, followed by an address, date and time.

She looked up at him, her heart sinking a little, thinking of the struggle of her last Olympus party. “This is how you’re doing the invitation?”

“Everyone else I’m just telling, but you haven’t been around, so you get a written address.”

“I feel special.”

“You are special.”

She pocketed the note. “I’ll try to swing by.”

He gave her a knowing look. “It’s not gonna be like the bees thing. No king and queen. Just booze and music and slutty costumes. Way more your speed.”

Her heart rose again. “OK. I actually will try to swing by.”

“Aces.” He ducked behind her door frame. “Also, I have a delivery.” He re-emerged with a cute, little bouquet of purple tulips tied with a purple, organza ribbon from which dangled a small, ivory card. He presented it to her. “Some poor sucker's got it bad.”

Aphrodite smiled widely. “Who's it from?” She took the bouquet and flipped over the card. She smirked at the note. “Never mind, I know.”

In fine, purple calligraphy it read, See? I can be a gentleman. So fuck you. 

“Alright, what did the big lug say?” Hermes hooked the note with his fingertip and scanned it. He looked up at her solemnly. “I would never speak to you like this.”

She tilted her head. “Oh? What would you have said?”

“Ummm…” Hermes scratched the back of his head. “Wait, I need to think of a flower-based sex pun.”

She rolled her eyes affectionately. “Alright, off you pop.”

He perked up. “Oo! I hope these flowers help our budding romance.”

She laughed and shook her head.

He thought for a second. “No, not dirty enough. Something about a bed? Like flower bed? Or… pollinating…”

She laughed harder. “Out!” She started to bundle him out of the doorway. 

“Hang on!” He ferreted in his satchel again and handed her an envelope. “He had a letter for you too.”

Aphrodite took the letter, her cheeks warming. Hermes gave her a quick salute, spun on his toes, and zoomed into the air, like a champagne cork. She watched him go, waving as he glanced back, then closed the door. Her smile nestled prettily onto her face. She dipped her nose into the tulips and breathed their lovely, spring fragrance. She laid them carefully on the table and opened the letter. Inside was no note, just a page ripped out of what seemed to be a textbook on nature. It was covered in columns of small, neat text and pictures of snakes. One paragraph had been circled in red pen.

All vertebrates possess a gene that activates the growth of limbs during embryonic development. While most snakes have evolved not to activate this gene in utero, it remains dormant, and in some species, like pythons, small spines or claws still protrude from the skin. The right genetic mutation could turn them into legged animals. 

Aphrodite’s smile spread dazzlingly across her face. She put her hand to her dancing heart and touched the page to her lips.

Chapter 7: “Let’s see how it plays out.”

Summary:

Ares and Aphrodite talk to their confidantes, of course it ends up being about each other. Meanwhile, in the Underworld, three sisters are talking about them.

Song, Part 1: Alexandria, Dario Marianelli (Agora OST)
Song, Part 2: Wrathchild, Iron Maiden
Song, Part 3: Comes Love, Billie Holiday
(I know it's a really weird music journey, roll with it)

[CW: Reference to possibility of past unstable or abusive childhood with inaction by concerned adults, towards the end of part one. Anger management issues in part two.]

A warm wind blew across the beach and brushed affectionately over Aphrodite's skin. She hummed and reclined back, propped on her elbows. She sank into the hot sand, feeling it nibble at her, like the bubbles in soda. She drew the long, rose pink skirt of her mortal realm dress up over her knees and stretched out her legs to tan violet in the blaze of the island sun. It dripped clean, honeyed heat onto her. She dropped her head back and gazed into the sizzling, cerulean sky. She took a slow, deep breath. The scents of salt and seaweed and firepits and fresh crab filled her body. And something else. The rapture of the island. 

Cyprus. 

The chemical lab of the Mediterranean. An overflowing potion of different people and cultures, meeting, exchanging, making contracts, making crafts, making love. The docks and the markets and the mines and the temples and the brothels all teemed. Industry, expedition, seduction. Here, business was pleasurable and pleasure was lucrative. The Copper Isle with veins running red; the heart of the turquoise sea, pumping and passionate and irresistibly fickle. Aphrodite sucked indulgently on the explosion of flavour. The spice of the young sailor losing his virginity to a temple sex worker, his senses addled and ardent in the steam from brewing blue lotus. The salt of the sly politician purchasing extravagant, copper earrings. The tang of the captain haggling in a cantering accent over his cargo of luxury, glass vessels. The sweetness of the little girl praying to the Goddess to make her beautiful. Aphrodite made a mental note to send her good dreams. 

Someone was weaving. 

Someone was singing. 

Someone was being fucked over a desk and coming so hard they shook the walls. 

Aphrodite’s tongue moved and her clit and nipples tingled. Her muscles all relaxed. She ran her palm along the hot, tickling sand and spread her legs a little for the air.

Home sweet home. 

"Gracious, what an obscene display," a deep, bubbly, amused voice called. 

Aphrodite opened her eyes and sat up hurriedly with a joyful jump of her heart. Amphitrite was rising out of the swishing seafoam, her cumulus curls and kelp-green skin shimmering with water. Her long, glistening tail spiralled beneath her in a thick coil that hoisted her to stand even taller than Aphrodite, her feathery fins stirring in the sudden blaze of warmth. Her torso was bare, letting the sunlight ink her full labyrinth of spiral tattoos into dizzying relief. They gave her an Amazonian quality, emphasised by her confident face, bullet nipples and hard abs. There was a new, amber piercing in her belly button. 

"Oh my Gods! Trite!" Aphrodite squealed elatedly and sprang to her feet in a spray of sand. She pelted into the tide, hitting Amphitrite with her full weight and throwing her arms around her. 

Amphitrite laughed like a chorus of lobster claws clicking. She caught Aphrodite up in her arms and squeezed her to her firm, satin-scaled body. "Hey, Sea Turtle!" 

They hugged tight, giggling, rocking, and rubbing each other's backs, the shallows splashing about their tail and ankles like excited puppies. With a final chuckle and huff, Amphitrite pulled back and scooped her soaking hair into her long, adorned fingers to wring it out. "Hope you don't mind me au naturel," she remarked mockingly. "But, you know, free the nipple."

Aphrodite beamed, going weightless. "Ugh, YES. Fates, I've missed you." She hugged her fleetingly again, the front of her dress pressing wet, then ducked back and shrugged brazenly. "Besides, it's Cyprus, anything goes."

"Goddess' own country."

Aphrodite clucked her tongue. "Somewhere has to be."

Amphitrite's blithe face flickered. She rubbed Aphrodite's arms. "I'm so sorry we couldn't make it to Hera’s shindig. How was it? Did you…?" 

Aphrodite raised an eyebrow. "Lose my marbles in a dramatic and humiliating public scene?" 

"I was going to say 'do OK', but sure."

"I got about half way to meltdown, but managed to escape before going full crazy."

The sea queen frowned sympathetically. She squeezed her shoulders. "I'm really proud of you for going, that took guts. I hate you had to go alone."

Aphrodite looked up at her, then glanced around evasively at the glittering, skipping waves. "I wasn't alone, Hermes took me. And I met up with a couple of nice people there."

Amphitrite's ear fins flicked. She shot her a sparkling look. "What nice people?" 

Aphrodite felt her cheeks match the warm kiss of the sun. "Just people. They're not all bad up there."

Amphitrite grinned with glinting, needle teeth. "I know that tone, that tone is the tone that says it's time for me to go fishing."

"It is not!" 

She prodded her belly. "Oh yes it is, Madam. You go get us prawns and let's catch up."

 

The two of them stretched out in the fringe of the ocean, tail and lower legs in the lapping water, sloshing comforting cool and silky sensation over their skin. Aphrodite wiggled her wet toes, shook out her hair, and gazed out to sea. The water was crystal clear, a map of green and pink rocks scattered beneath the surface, as if painted on the underside of glass. Curious rock formations bloomed out of the edge of the tide in curls and mounds of stone like leaping waves preserved in plaster. Cowrie and scallop shells winked in the sand, like buried treasure, and sunlight danced on the waves in thousands of spinning coins of rich, dazzling light. The ocean was busy, lobsters and jellyfish bustling about below, while on top, ships skimmed across the bright expanse, red and white sails like flourishing flowers. The air carried the whistle of wheeling gulls and the creak of hulls and the chatter of traders. If Aphrodite squinted, her divine vision could just glimpse the golden shores of Turkey and Egypt, Jordan and Syria, her heart glimmering with ancient memories. 

She had briefly dropped her invisibility and taken a copper-skinned mortal guise to buy a pot of fat, pink prawns from a vendor across the beach. She and Amphitrite, veiled again, now munched on the grilled shellfish, chilli flakes eddying in their senses. Amphitrite used all her wiles and no small amount of prawn-ransoming to dig out the story of the garden party and Aphrodite's escape with the boys, of which she highly approved. She tried to cover her worry when Aphrodite mentioned her interaction with Zeus and his subsequent passive-aggressive toast, but Aphrodite's quick eyes spied it. The pair sucked on seafood and shifted away from the topic, mocking Panoptes, filling each other in on homey details, like how Peitho was doing as a PA and just how bad Poseidon's new crocs were. Amphitrite showed off the new tattoo on the inside of her wrist of a little shell with looping letters underneath - You're clamazing! Apparently Poseidon had one of a lobster that read, You're clawsome!  

"I can't decide if that's adorable or embarrassing."

"We were going for embarrassing."

"Dorks."

Aphrodite settled with relief into talking to her close friend again. The naiad queen brought with her the undoubting, liberated, cradling flow of the ocean. Sat a little above Aphrodite on a low, smooth rock, around which she gracefully draped her huge length of tail - emerald and rainbow, sequin and steel and gossamer - she looked truly like a goddess indulging in worship. Her full, velvet lips pouted around the chunky bodies of the prawns. The sunshine drenched her body and her hypnotic tattoos, which seemed to swirl on her skin, giving her the look of constantly rippling with the water that lapped around her. 

Aphrodite smiled warmly at her, then looked away to scan the beach. People ambled and scurried about, children playing, women collecting shells into woven baskets and chatting, men lugging cargo, people wearing hybrids of masculine and feminine fashions, heavy kohl around dark eyes, amulets of her image. Her senses perked up. Her eye found a young man working on a small fishing boat that was propped on a carpenter's stand. The sun brazed the back of his neck, his chocolate curls bundled into a knot behind his head. He was sanding the smooth curve of the boat, his muscle rolling with each long, slow stroke. Several paces off, one of the shell-collecting women had paused her work and was staring at him with her little mouth hanging softly open. 

Go talk to him, Aphrodite nudged. She was answered by a wave of nervousness like the aftertaste of lime. She pursed her lips and doused it by slurping a prawn into her mouth. Fine, you want to do it the hard way? She flickered her fingers. A sudden breeze whipped across the beach, whisking the sand and ruffling linens and silks. It plucked the shawl around the shy woman's shoulders and went racing off with it down towards the tide, mulberry cloth writhing merrily through the air. The woman gasped and chased after it, dropping her basket with the high rattle of shells. The shawl flickered over the boat and was caught sharply in the darting hand of the carpenter. The woman skidded to a halt at his side, hands closing on air, face flaring beetroot-red. The man smiled broadly, eyes the colour of the reflection of fire in jet. He gently held the shawl out for her. Their fingertips brushed as she took it. Aphrodite grinned. You two are going to make your first baby in that boat. Before marriage. Sorry, Hera. 

"Hey!" Amphitrite snapped. She swept the fanning end of her tail into the water and batted a cool, sharp spray at Aphrodite. "You can matchmake any time, give me attention."

Aphrodite giggled and splashed Amphitrite back, enjoying the kiss of water and the rub of her drying dress. They exchanged an affectionate look. Aphrodite combed her hair over one shoulder and rolled her spine, letting her back sink into the heat of the sun's rays. "So, how's the siren concert plans?" 

Amphitrite held a prawn like a cigar between her fingers, heavy with gold rings. "Yeah, piece of fishcake. I'll tell you when we fix a date so you can moor the Cypriot ships, don't want any of your kids in trouble."

Aphrodite nodded in thanks. 

Amphitrite eyed her, the light behind her streaming through her voluptuous cream-and-tarragon hair. She smiled knowingly, the corner of her mouth pointed. "Now, ask me what you want to ask."

Aphrodite tensed a little. She batted her eyes innocently. "I want to ask about your life."

Amphitrite snaked to lie on her front on the rock, prowling down to level her face to Aphrodite's. Her round breasts bunched under her and her tapering back glowed jade in the sun. She fixed Aphrodite with a look like a power drill going through concrete. 

Aphrodite held her glare and sucked the threads of prawn meat between her teeth. The rumble and sigh of the tide echoed in her defiant silence. A wave crashed on a rock with a shattering glass sound. She felt something stubborn break inside her. She rolled her eyes and dipped into the pot of shellfish. "Tell me about your nephew. Golden Boy." 

Amphitrite’s face rippled into an infuriatingly satisfied grin. She settled comfortably on her front and propped her round cheek on her palm. She spoke warmly in her undertow-low, siren-sing-song voice. “He was the cutest thing when he was born. Big mop of white gold curls. A real scream on him, but such an angelic face. And Hera gave him to me, and I held him in my arms, his pudgy, little, baby body warm like he’d just come out of the oven. And I bounced him up and pulled a face at him and kissed his adorable, cherry cheek." She sighed wistfully. "And he peed on me.”

Aphrodite burst into chiming laughter.

Amphitrite chuckled and wrinkled her nose. “He has never felt inclined to please people.”

Aphrodite smiled at the lapping, turquoise waves shimmering over shells and pebbles, warmth in her chest.

Her friend kept her eyes on her, deep pools of dark green. Her tone turned a little hesitant. “He isn’t especially popular, I’m afraid.”

She thought of Ares’ brash smile, his energy, his playfulness, of piggy-backing on his strong body and smelling his shampoo. She tilted her head. “Why?”

A smirk. “Because he’s a brat.”

She tossed her head back in a brazen cackle and rolled a prawn into her tongue. “I can work with that.”

“He's a little young for you, don't you think?”

She puffed out through her nose. “I wondered about that, I'll admit.”

Amphitrite flicked her tail, she looked down at her oldest friend, at the blushes from the sun on her round shoulders and her pensive, slightly dreamy expression. She ran her black tongue over her teeth, thinking how to phrase exactly what her caution was. “He's still very much finding out who he is,” she said gently. “Zeus says jump and he says ‘fuck you, Old Man’, but he does jump.”

She expected Aphrodite to deny this or look surprised, but her face didn’t move. She kept gazing out to the horizon, the golden light on the sea reflected in her eyes. “There's more to him,” she murmured, so softly Amphitrite’s ear fins fanned out to hear her over the rumble of the waves. “I can feel this… might, under the surface. This raw, insatiable emotion. It's…” she dragged her teeth slowly over her lower lip, “...fascinating.”

Amphitrite bunched her shoulders at a spark of old, mournful anger in her heart. Her tail swished in the surf. “It's a side effect of growing up in that house. Zeus and Hera never hid their turmoil from him. And you know how Posey clams up when I talk about his brother, so I never really got a proper idea of anything about Zeus, even now. But I can’t help but wonder…” She trailed off.

“What?”

She met Aphrodite’s large, curious eyes with a grim frown. “What it’s really like. Being married to Zeus, having him as a care-giver. It’s one thing to throw around casual comments about a guy being unfaithful or selfish or bad-tempered. It’s another to know the details of those things, and then another again to live with them.” She gazed down at the pale sand, each grain a different, glittering shade of gold, the heat haze on it stroking her folded forearms. She spoke quietly. “I don’t know anything for sure about what it was like for Ares growing up. But, sometimes I worry it could have been…” Her tongue tied again. She scraped her fingernail lightly through the crags in the rock beneath her. 

“What?” Aphrodite prompted again, a hint of anxiety in her voice.

Amphitrite looked deeper down, a shadow of shame on her cheeks. “Worse than we thought. Than we wanted to think.”

Aphrodite frowned in concern.

“Zeus is the only one of Kronos’ children to have a son of his own."

Aphrodite reached up and rubbed her forearm reassuringly. “Hey, I’m half sea water and half the ejaculate of the greatest tyrant in history. Children don’t become their parents all that often.”

Amphitrite laid her hand over Aphrodite’s, cool on warm. “That’s what I tell Posey when he worries about it. And what he tells Hades when he worries about it. But, Sea Turtle,” she looked gravely into her eyes, “Zeus doesn’t worry about it.”

Aphrodite’s stomach prickled. She took a steadying breath of the bracing, ocean air. She thought of the blood red in Ares’ eyes when he’d talked about his father, of the protective nearness of how he stood with his mother at the party, of the tight knotting of his muscles as they’d headed for the car. Her heart squeezed. She looked down at a scallop shell poking out of the sand and winking in the light, bright like the sun on his hair. “All his life people will tell him to get over it,” she said darkly. “There is no just ‘getting over’ that kind of anger.” She wet her lip, a flutter in her belly, her palms tingling. “I can't help but want to see what he becomes when he realises that, when he stops letting it sit on him and starts drawing from its power.”

Amphitrite cocked her head. “Anger? As power?”

Aphrodite smiled. “Why not?”

Amphitrite drummed her fingers on hers and cocked a fine eyebrow. “That sounds like playing with fire, Dolphin. Like I said, he's young. Like you said, he's raw. Do you think he can deal with a force like that?”

Aphrodite slipped her hand from under her friend's and snorted. She plucked a prawn and snapped it between her teeth, salt water splattering her tongue. She spoke irritably around chomping. “The force is there for him to deal with regardless. That’s the whole problem on Olympus. They feel something and their first instinct is to lock it up to stop it doing damage. I'm not suggesting the boy needs to go off the rails, but he’s…” She halted and swallowed. She took another refreshing breath and gazed at the speckling of rocks under the viscous, blue veil of seafoam. She rolled her ankles so her feet stirred the cool water, trickling up her calves, like teasing fingers. She looked out to the vast, radiant horizon. “He's something ,” she said with weight. “And pressing him down with their thumb is the real playing with fire.” She combed her fingers through her hair, relieving a sudden flush of heat. “He needs some nurturing, some space to grow and run and try things and ask some questions of himself. To know he's safe to do that, that his feelings aren't boring or childish or toxic. He needs someone who finds him interesting. Someone who's willing to understand.” The last of her words gusted out of her with a relieved breath. As she said them, she realised they'd been bubbling in her brain for days. He'd been on her mind for days. 

Amphitrite shimmied her shoulders and chuckled. “Someone like you?”

Aphrodite started, blushed, pursed her lips, and stuffed a prawn into Amphitrite’s mouth. 

Amphitrite coughed and spluttered, then slurped the pink body into her teeth and chewed it to shreds. She poked Aphrodite’s burning cheek, then stroked it affectionately. “Love and War.” She hummed and smacked her lips. “People are going to lose their shit if you two link up.”

Aphrodite plucked the last prawn and licked a clump of chilli flakes off it, prickling on the tip of her tongue. “And you?”

“Me?” Amphitrite stirred the calm waters with her tail, mixing sunlight and swirling, green shadow. She grinned like a witch. “I like it.”

 

*

 

“I don’t like it.” Athena jabbed her stave in a sharp, precise movement at Ares’ shoulder.

Ares snapped his arm back to dodge and let the momentum carry him in a weighted spin to swing his stave at the back of Athena’s bent knees. “What is there to not like? It was one conversation at a garden party and the reporter happened to catch us when I’d told one of my many excellent jokes. We’re not engaged.”

Athena easily hopped over the sweeping staff and sprang spryly away, her muscles going jagged under her loose, grey t-shirt, which was darkened in patches by sweat. The siblings had been sparring for almost a solid hour now, their Olympian stamina pushing them through the beating heat of the cloudless noon. Sand sprayed and spat around their feet as they darted and skidded around the outdoor gym on the royal grounds. It was oval like an arena, ringed by a running track and scattered with heavy, brutal-looking equipment to test its users to the limits. Athena had started by making Ares run laps, then she wouldn’t let him stop the obstacle circuits until he’d beaten his record. Then again. Then cool down with yoga. Then a second breakfast. Now they were onto combat. Ares was burning all over his body, but it was a cleansing burn. He felt his power coursing under his skin, hyper-alert, but uncharacteristically smooth. That was the point. Athena had gone from tough-but-fair to all-out-sadist since he’d got back and had nowhere to direct his newly awakened divinity. “Subjugate it before it subjugates you. We’re going to run all that mess off your energy. The temper, the reactivity, the anxiety, the unpredictability, the roughness. Think of it as refining oil.” Ares mostly thought of it as getting outside and getting ripped, but sure.   

“I'd almost be happier if you were engaged,” Athena huffed. “Then at least it would be serious. But, as usual, you're fucking about.” She flashed a mocking grin and tapped his ass with her stave.

Ares parried her irritably. “How am I fucking about?”

Athena spun the wooden staff and cut it cleanly through the air towards his skull. “You're making eyes at an ancient, primal, titan-spawn goddess of sex and violence.”

Ares barked and ducked, the shaft just skimming his curls. “I heard only good things there.”

The staff rapped the top of his head primly. He yelped and rubbed the bruise. His powers hiccupped in his jugular.

“Ares, I'm serious.” Athena looked at him levelly with her chrome-grey eyes. “I don't think it's wise for you to keep pursuing a relationship with her.”

“I'm not pursuing a relationship,” he grumbled, swinging his stave into a defensive position.

“Then what are you pursuing?”

He thought back to following Aphrodite around Penelope’s Weaving. He smirked at what she’d said. “An association.” He lunged at Athena’s gut with the point.

She knocked his blow aside without even glancing down. “An association?”

“Yeah.” Another jab and block. “It means we're bros.” And another. The heat of his power in his veins rose with a prickle of frustration, lightly scratching at him for better release. He swallowed hard. Stay down.

Athena flitted her stave under his and poked him hard in the stomach, kicking the air out of him, then rapped his skull again as he dropped to bend double. 

“Ouch!” he whined.

“An association between love and war takes your divine identity in completely the wrong direction,” she said in her cool, professional tone.

Ares hefted himself straight again and lashed out with his weapon, his teeth grinding like his sneakers grinding in the sand. “How so?”

Athena leaned lazily out of his way, making him stumble forward. “Think. I'm not just working with you as your sister and tutor. Working with me ties war to wisdom and civilisation. You become a figure of tactics, prowess, political and economic power, structured society.”

The words tasted bland in Ares’ mouth, drying his tongue like crackers. He twirled the stave and cracked it onto Athena’s angular shoulder. “Patriarchy.” He heard it in a mixture of his own voice and Aphrodite’s. His hot ichor hummed.

Athena didn’t flinch at the hard blow, just rolled her shoulder and nodded in acknowledgement. She sank lower in her spread, mobile stance. “That’s a big word for you.”

Ares pounced off one foot, his thigh flaring with quiet pain, and bore down on his sister with a strike from above. “I'm right though, aren't I?”

She slid in a wide, crouched spin, sand erupting from her heel. “You're a man, does it bother you?”

Ares tumbled into the suddenly empty space and caught himself on one knee, grazed in his heavy landing. He thrust out his hand to steady himself and the bright sun caught his scarlet fingernails like it was winking on a cherry tree. “Actually, yes,” he said gruffly.

Athena beat her stave across his broad back, shocking him with pain. “Well, do what you want with Sparta's social order. The point is that, through our association, you have social order at all. War isn’t just destruction and violence. It’s conquest, diplomacy, expansion, empire, innovation.” Her hand rotated elegantly with each word, like a politician making a list of breakable promises.

Ares heaved himself to stand and turn in a tired slouch, sand peppering his hair and streaking his tank top. Something serpentine moved in his rib cage. His breath tightened and the very rim of his vision painted amber. He blinked rapidly and took a careful breath, gripping his stave. He gave Athena an extremely bored look.

She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “You have other options.” She gestured for him to get back into position. “Apollo, for example. War as an expression of virility, physical health, heroism.”

Ares wrinkled his nose and sprung forward in another attack, casting Apollo’s name from the air as the stave came arcing towards Athena’s flank.

She snapped her staff down with a loud knock of wood hitting wood and locked his weapon with the end driving into the sand. “Or The Fates, maybe. War as history-defining.”

Ares shoved his staff upwards, but she held firm, her face impassive, the ticking of her ordered mind visible in the ticking of her temples. Ares strained against her again, making a canine noise in his throat. His back ached with the hardening of overworked muscle. Sweat prickled his eyes and lubricated his movements. The smooth flow of his power skipped in his flesh. Then jerked. His stomach fizzed, bile pressed on his larynx. “Why do I gotta attach to anybody?” he griped.

Athena shifted her weight and brought her knee swiftly into his side. He coughed and flinched, the fizz in his stomach sharpening. His mind thunked and blurred. He rushed furnace-hot. He’d been at this too long. Agitating it too long. Why did Athena have to push him so hard? Discipline, discipline, discipline. All to make him worthwhile. To forge his hated being into something acceptable. To make him fit. Come on, Apollo? Really? What did everyone see in that asshole? The son his father never had, the daughter that was the pride of the realms; maybe if Ares held hands with one of them for the rest of eternity, everyone might forget what a tragic accident he was. Fucking Olympus. Fucking freak war powers. Fucking Athena, how was she so strong? Why couldn’t he lift his stave? Suddenly he could see nothing but the staff restricting him, and the cold hand grasping it. The hand that was stronger than him. Smarter than him. Holding him in place. So he didn’t become “a problem.”

He growled. With a blinding burst of red-gold light, he wrenched his staff free, lurching Athena off balance. As she tipped back, red hazed his vision. It brought all of her ichor and organs into a strange, luminescent relief under her skin, pulsing scarlet and gold and sapphire. The entirety of her harmonious system mapped in the neat tapestry of veins and arteries, all flowing from the dazzling light show of firing synapses in her brain. It made her look delicate and destructible, stripped of her natural armour. And Ares understood it all instantly. Every pain point. Every weak spot. Every button for the instant kill. His weapon moved magnetically to the glimmering bloodstream, to the control-centre in her skull, easily shattered like glass, flashing maddeningly like the lights on the dashboard of a jet plane. 

Athena caught herself mid-fall, eyes widening. Her brother’s playful, sulky face was suddenly contorted and ablaze with the unplanned surge of his raw power. He looked like a wildfire, like a volcanic eruption. He was coming at her furiously. Her pulse thumped. She moved like a hummingbird, flitting so fast she flickered briefly out of visibility. She swept under his bulky arm and whisked behind him. He stumbled drunkenly. She raised her foot and kicked his ass with a powerful, kangaroo motion. He was thrown onto his face in the sand, the dust exploding around his treefall weight. She released her breath and watched him, weapon raised.

Ares’ head cleared, his senses suddenly filling with the dry, dirty smell of the sand caking itchily onto his sweat-soaked arms and neck and cheek, scratching his nose and lips and eyes. He tensely held in a tremor as the surge dissipated, followed by a throb of nausea and sour guilt. He groaned and rolled onto his back, filthy and wincing. “Sorry,” he said dully. Asshole. Idiot. Can't keep it down, can you?

Athena shook her head dismissively, lowering her stave. “Don’t worry about it. You got through almost five hours this time before it came up, that’s an improvement.”

Ares grunted and looked into the painfully blue sky, the sun a piercingly bright tear in the perfect expanse. He clenched his stomach and chased the nausea away, focusing on the chorus of satisfying aches in his muscles. The heat of the day rubbed his body, like caressing hands. “So... what does Aphrodite do to war?” he asked hesitantly.

Athena sighed and scratched her fly-away sweep of short hair. “More of this.” She gestured unenthusiastically at him. “War as base instinct. War as raw passion.” Her voice grew heavier. “Carnage. Brutality. Vengeance. The surging of animal emotion until it can't be contained and covers the realms in fire. Arousal from violence. Love of rage. Desire and destruction. Humanity at its buried, volcanic core.”

Ares grinned into the sun. 

Athena snorted and poked his abs with her stave. “No, Ares, that's the bad one.” 

“Is it though?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, then beckoned for him to stand. He lumbered to his feet and took up his stance again, flexing his neck and letting the heat lap it. 

“You do not want to be thought of as the personification of ravagement,” she said patiently, mirroring his stance.

“Thena,” he huffed, jabbing forward to reopen the bout. “It doesn't matter what we call what I do, it's still war.” They bounced agilely in the sand, moving sharply and strongly and symbiotically as they sparred. The staves clacked together and echoed off the smooth, iron surfaces of the gym equipment. Ares spoke in spiky fits and starts through his re-energised motions. “It's still horror. Empire and innovation and heroism and history, none of that means anything to a woman holding her dead kid in her arms.” The light rolled over their muscle, bronze and steel. His words began to come smoother, warmer. “You know what does? Rage. Brutality. Vengeance. You want me to make good networks that help me dress up what I am as something else, but that grieving mother needs something to pray to, and it's not gonna be to civilisation or fucking virility.” He moved with the fluidity of molten metal, his body pouring into the bout, beginning to sense Athena’s moves fractionally before she made them. He hated his losses of control, but they always left him with crystal clarity and almost psychic reflexes. His words formed in his mouth with the same instinct, bypassing his brain, emerging from his muscle and gut. “She's gonna need someone to hate, to blame, or someone to take her pain and turn it into strength. That's what the Pantheon is missing. Maybe that's why my powers manifested like they did. Maybe Aphrodite is exactly the associate I need to develop that.” This final realisation filled his body with crackling excitement.

His sister's unreadable expression twitched, she looked briefly… sympathetic?

He halted. “What?”

She pulled back too, visibly weighing her words, thin lips tightening. “Ares, your powers manifesting was…” She rubbed her sharp jaw. “There were a lot of factors. You weren't…” she squinted warily, “...in the best place, when it happened.” She went on in an overly reasonable tone. “I feel that it's best to shape them away from where you were then. And Aphrodite pulls you back to it.”

Anger shot up Ares’ back, like a cat scrambling up curtains. “No, she doesn't!” He lunged back into the offensive, his stave flashing rapidly and aggressively, his step ploughing forward, leaving grooves in the sand. His body felt intensely sensitive from his power surge. 

Athena parried him in fleeting, economical moves, stepping balletically backward from his bulldozer advance. “No? So you're saying she's never made you do or feel anything impulsive or tempestuous?”

“Like what?” Stab. Lunge.

“Oh, I don't know, maybe stealing dad's car?” Block. Dodge.

“Borrowing.” Swipe.

“Or making out with an infamous love goddess, no questions asked?” Spin.

“Hey, Hestia says it's cool for guys to make out with strangers, just not for girls to do it.” He barrelled onwards, swallowing up the space in the gym, churning the sand.

“Hestia does not say that.” Parry. “She's just painfully aware of the two very different lived experiences of the same situation and wants girls to bear it in mind for their own wellbeing.” Duck. “And we're not talking about that, don't deflect.” Block. “What about the party?”

Ares tasted the nettle tea of her anger rise a little. He grinned goadingly. “What about it?”

Athena showed none of the emotion he could taste, digging her heel into the ground and pushing back against his onslaught with speedy whirls of her stave. “Marching off after dad to pick a fight over her.”

Ares skidded in surprise and took a sharp blow to the upper arm. “How did you…”

“I'm observant.” She clipped him again. “I saw who he aimed his toast at, and I saw you follow him.”

Ares grit his teeth. He feinted left, watched her tilt with him, then shot right and struck her thigh with a ringing crack.  

Athena hissed through her teeth, then laughed coarsely, shaking the pain out of her leg. “Hey, I taught you that.”

He snickered. “Then you shouldn’t’a fallen for it.”

She smirked, then flashed into a series of fast, surgical movements that rained stinging strikes around Ares’ body as he jumped and swiped to defend himself, heart pounding. He jabbered around his wild movements. “Look, so what if I got into it with the old bastard? He was being a crappy host, that reflects badly on all of us.” He pushed his body against the midday heat, his skin glimmering with sweat and re-emerging energy, a little brighter with every stern strike from Athena and every time he said her name. “Even if it’s not a good idea for me and Aphrodite to work together, can’t I talk to her and stuff?”

“Define ‘and stuff.'"

“I don’t know! Stop hitting me!”

“Start blocking me.”

“Just, like, hanging out! People hang out! Like ten gods live on Olympus! It’s hard to ignore people!”

She clicked like clockwork through her uncannily precise movements, the lack of emotion with which she fought disrupting his senses and rubbing them raw. “You do a pretty good job with everyone else.”

“I talk to Hermes,” Ares grumbled out of the side of his mouth. “And Ma. And you.”

Athena raised an eyebrow. “So what do you need Aphrodite for?”

“Don’t make me answer that. You’re my sister.” He grinned.

“Exactly, you dang libertine.” Athena bashed his stave aside and drove the point of hers under his chin to freeze him in place and hold his red gaze severely. “And if that’s the direction you’re going in, I don’t trust you to set boundaries. If you're going to do things like fight with dad for her, she needs to be a safe investment.” 

He swallowed sullenly against the pressure on his airways. “Please, fights with dad are their own reward.”

Her rapier gaze injected into him. “You're not a teenager anymore, Ares. Soon, fights with Dad are going to be labelled something more serious.”

“What?”

“Insurrection.”

He snorted exaggeratedly, but his pulse thudded and the warm, slithering sensation in his chest intensified. “Oh, come on.”

“I mean it.” Her voice turned hard. “Don’t forget what I told you when you went off to college."

Ares' skin iced. The prophecy. The great secret he wasn't supposed to know. Zeus' son will kill him and take the throne. The cycle of patricide wasn't over and every day violent, volatile Ares went unchecked the wheel turned further. At least, that's what he felt they were all thinking on the nights he couldn't sleep.

"You said you were sure it didn't refer to me. That you trust me."

She showed no reaction to the softness of his tone. "It doesn't matter what I think."

"You're the only person whose thinking matters."

"Not with this." Her fist twisted on the still thrust stave. "Prophecies take hold in a way logic can't disrupt." She pressed harder. It hurt. “You have to prove it wrong."

He coughed painfully. "He's fucking alive, isn't he?"

"Ares."

He wheezed. “I... I don't want the throne!”

“Then what do you want?”

An urgent sensation spluttered in his gut. His power whispered in the back of his mind. To burn, to let loose, to find out what this fire can really do. He battered Athena’s stave aside with a snarl and stab. “To land a fucking hit on you!” 

The bout erupted again, Ares’ mighty clout against Athena’s agile, tactical strikes, equally weakening her overworked brother and stoking him into a tornado of temper. He stopped even trying to block her, juggernauting into the strikes and letting his strength absorb them, letting them fuel his flame, his body all frustration and force. The sun glared down, the sweat clinging to every inch of him and mulching the dust stuck to his skin, shining and sore. His joints felt like grinding gears, his muscles like boiling magma.

Athena breathed in a piston rhythm, carefully moving her energy to each part of her body in turn, conserving her strength and focusing on speed. Ares could go like this longer than she could, but he would lose his concentration more and more as he went. Any second now, he’d give her an opening. Any… second…

He thrust too hard and wide. She bounded behind him, punched the small of his back and forced his spine arched, and whirled her stave to bar across his chest, pinning him to her, his broad, soaking back to her torso. She caged him and now she loosed her hoarded strength. Ares struggled against her. She dug in her heels and held him fast. “You need to know what you want, Brother,” she said strictly as he avoided looking back at her, surly and slouching. “Because, until you have a goal, you have no way of judging the most important question: do the ends justify the means?” 

He was breathless, she could feel his lungs expanding against her. “Huh?”

“It’s a question every leader has to ask themselves. We have big visions, difficult aims, lofty ambitions, and the road to attaining them is tough. We have to make hard choices, experience pain, maybe even inflict it on others, choose their sacrifices for them. Our values are tested every day, and every day we ask, is this compromise worth it? Do the ends justify the means?”

Ares gulped the stagnant, summer air, the fight dwindling in his body as he listened. “So, like when you let the Athenians lose that regiment as a distraction so the other could go around the back and take the victory?”

“Yes,” Athena said coolly. “But it applies in all decisions, large and small. Do you take that injury to the knee to inflict one on the kidney? Do you lie to protect someone from a painful truth? Do you skip that class to revise for the closer exam? Life is compromise.” She pulled on the stave and pressed over Ares’ pounding heart. “And with Aphrodite, whatever stimulation you gain from her, you risk a lot of hurt, coldness, instability.”

Her words rang in Ares’ ears, the stave weighing on his heart. “Why?” he asked quietly.

Her grip slackened, her voice softening. “Because she's a love goddess. You haven't been around long enough, but trust me they have patterns of behaviour. They're very charming, sweet even, but their whole business is romance. Even their own relationships are exercises in experimentation.” Her tone tinged with concern. “You're young and emotional and you'll fall for her, and you’ll reorder yourself around that love. She'll observe that with interest, pull on a few threads to see what happens, get you high, get you low, note it all down, and when the project is over she'll leave you, quite possibly heartbroken, while she’ll be pretty much untouched by it all.”

Ares listened, his heart beating faster, his cheeks flushed, his eyes prickling and crimson at the corners again.

“Ares,” she went on gently, “I understand you find this woman exciting, but don't you want to be more than just another day at work?”

His stomach clenched. His sister’s sensible, trusted voice wormed into the crevices in his mind, hooking into the fabric of it. But he thought of Aphrodite, of her beside him in the car telling him to feel, of her easy explanations of his sexuality, her bright eyes and dark laughter, her softness, her harshness, her care for the nymphs in the beauty parlour, the way she ate with abandon, the callousness in how she discussed all the rumours about her, while her marvellous anger simmered beneath. And beneath that, the hurt, the story of her breaking down at one of his parents’ parties, the way she threw rose petals into the air and asked nothing of the world except that it loved. His voice husked. “I don't think I...”

“Ares…”

And still he was thinking of her hurt. And his father’s slimy grin as he’d taunted her in public. And the things that rat journalist had called her. And the little flecks of anger he’d suppressed feeling shoot at her whenever they’d been in a crowd, frustrations and aggressions from people who thought she wasn’t dressed right, or should be smiling at them, or couldn’t possibly be that pretty and a good person. It all weighed on his heart, crushed it, compressed it, like Athena’s stave, tighter and tighter until his heart was swelling against it, the large, strong muscle expanding and expanding, his chest bowing outwards...

The stave cracked, splintered, burst in half.

Ares leapt forward with a roar and rounded on Athena, weapon raised, glaring through a poppy-red haze, blood roaring in his ears. “I thought better of you! You always told me to analyse, but you're basing all this on guesses from how you've judged Aphrodite without thinking! You’re giving into gossip and rumours because it’s easier than hearing her out! You don’t know her! None of you do!”

Athena rolled her shoulders and stood rod-straight, brandishing the two jagged-ended sticks, tone still infuriatingly calm. “Risk and reward. Maybe she isn't so bad. But you don't always have the luxury of knowing the terrain of battle. So you have to decide, what am I willing to risk?” She levelled her gaze like a crossbow. “What am I willing to go through if I'm wrong? What's the greater good and is it really greater than the harm that's needed to get it?”

“I don't see any harm!” Ares barked.

“I see one.”

“What?”

“Another life with another Zeus.”

Anger churned Ares’ stomach, he felt like an iron cauldron of boiling bile and blood. “She is nothing like him,” he said in a smouldering, warning tone. The red haze swallowed Athena, rusting her steel. He saw her stance go springy, ready to react if he lost it again. Good. He didn’t want to rein it in. His anger was protective, his fire was shining on something unfair, something his sister should be above and needed to see. He let his sun-fire light flare and swell. It radiated through the gym, winging on the curves and corners of metal.

Athena squinted against it, staying perfectly still. “Whatever she's like, look at what she's doing to you. Feel it. She makes you hot-headed.”

The anger pulsed harshly in every muscle. He tore at her, wielding the stave. “You make me hot-headed by being a - AH!” 

In a flurry of untraceable movement and fluttering pains he was on his ass in the dirt, head spinning, knuckles stinging, stave several feet away in the sand. The shock buffeted the worst of his fury away. He choked and caught his breath, heaving for oxygen against a wave of nausea. His skin dimmed to its usual ichor glimmer and the crimson net snaring his sight receded. He snorted indignantly and leaned back in a moody slouch on his palms, shoulders bunching up to his ears. He stared daggers up at Athena standing over him with one stick cockily resting on the back of her neck and the other hanging at her hip.

“See?” she said shortly. “She throws you off.” 

“Oh, like Hestia never threw you off?” Ares blurted, snapping his lips together when he realised he’d just compared Aphrodite to a near-as-damn-it wife. 

Thankfully, Athena blanked that detail, answering in her most annoying teacher tone. “No. That’s the point. Hestia gives me strength. She focuses me, keeps me calm, keeps me motivated. That’s the kind of relationship you should be looking for, Ares.” 

Nettle tea on his tongue again, she was exasperated.

“You chase chaos,” she said with a sigh. “In combat, in conversation, in leisure. All it does,” she flicked a stick at his sprawled position, “is get you hurt.” 

He scowled. “I do not!” 

Her nostrils flared. “Then you’re chasing something that you think you can only get through chaos. I don’t know what it is. But you have to ask yourself, do the ends justify the means?”

His face burned. He scraped his fingers through the sand, burrowing under his painted fingernails. “We don’t even need to be talking about Aphrodite! We’re not dating. We’re not even nearly dating. We’ve hung out like once. Twice. Kinda three times. So…” His voice snuffed out. “Shut up.” 

Athena held his glare a long moment. Then her shoulders slumped. She blinked down at the ground and finally slackened her warrior body. She tossed the remains of her stave away and extended her hand down towards him with an affectionate, slightly stiff smile. Ares ground his teeth, but his heart nudged towards her. He slapped his big, square hand into her knife-like one and let her haul him up.

She squeezed his hand and clapped his arm. “I’m just saying, take care of yourself.” She kept her hand folded over his shoulder. “She might not.” 

Ares drooped into a slouch. He searched her face briefly, then pulled away from her. “You don’t know that.” 

He rubbed the slick of sweat on the back of his neck and sloped off to get a shower, leaving Athena watching him with a tight crease in her brow.

 

*

 

“Hey, you naughty chicks! Don’t start without me!” Clotho hurried into the old, vintage cinema room, the large, blank screen yawning over her in the dimness. The moth-eaten seats smelled musty, but it was that weirdly pleasant mustiness that made you hungry.

“Well, what’s taking you so long?” Lachesis called out from where her and Atropos were snuggled into a middle row, entirely alone. 

“I was getting us shakes!” Clotho announced, the thick, chocolate mixes sludging about in their foam cups as she tottered on her kitten heels down the aisle. She slid along her sisters’ row, her poodle skirt stuffed in the too-narrow space given by the fold-up cushions. The black and blue light of the Underworld’s thrumming electricity cast her sisters into stark, aquamarine shadow.

“Did you get mine low fat?” Atropos asked.

“No.” Clotho settled into her seat, her skirts foaming around her, and handed the shakes along. 

Atropos stuck her tongue out at her, but took her cup, her bouffant a little jaunty and fraying and her cardigan buttons misaligned. 

Once the three of them were settled, Lachesis adjusted her winged glasses. “Right, are we all ready? Today’s picture is something special. Big change is coming on Olympus.”

Her sisters echoed her in sing-song voices. “Ooo, big change.”

“So, is it a war movie?” Atropos piped.

“Sorta. It’s a romance.”

“Aw!” Clotho beamed in her pastel pink lipstick and slurped her chocolate shake. “Peaches.”

“Bitchin’,” Atropos added, flicking her polka dot, silk scarf. “Can we watch Creature from the Black Lagoon after?”

Lachesis tutted. “Honestly, not more Poseidon adventures.” She sucked on her straw. “Righto. We good to go?”

“Play it.”

“Click!”

Lachesis raised her teal hand and snapped her fingers.

The eerie, low lights flickered out.

There was a tink, then a clunk and a whir. A stuttering, fanning shaft of light soared over their heads from the projection room behind them, painting the screen in monochrome grey. A large number 3 loomed over them with a black clock hand wheeling around it, changing the number with a blink of the picture when it clipped the top.

3.

Blink.

2.

Blink.

1.

Blink.

Music blared out, a squeal of melancholic, yearning sound played by a full orchestra. It quavered on a single note for a long, drawn out moment, then crashed into an eddying, crooning, romantic tune with humming voices over some of the more sighing notes. Credits flashed up on the screen.

A Fates Production.

In association with Underworld Corp.

Directed by Lachesis.

Screenplay by Clotho, based on a concept from Primordial Darkness.

Edited by Atropos.

“I love seeing our names up there,” Clotho said.

“Me too,” Atropos agreed.

“Shush,” Lachesis hissed.

Starring Aphrodite, as that racy dame from the isle of pleasures!

“Oo! She’s always good.”

“Queen.”

“Supermurgitroid.”

“Shush!”

And introducing Ares, as the rebel without a cause, until he meets that all important lady-love!

“Ares is in this?”

“Second billing!”

Filmed in Technicolor.

“Colour! Nifty!”

“Would you put a sock in it?”

Atropos and Clotho exchanged a giggling glance around Lachesis, the light bouncing off her glasses and whiting out her eyes. They all focused on the screen as the credits finally ended and the dramatic music rolled into the twang of a guitar, then the merry, sultry hum of a jazz band. The blank screen turned black, then slowly lightened onto a garishly coloured, slightly grainy street, rectangular, concrete buildings with sleek, glass fronts towering over bustling traffic, the cars all candy colours, ladybug-red Cadillacs and yellow taxis. Ares sloped through the faceless crowds, tall and bulky in turned up jeans and a leather jacket. He was walking down the path with his hands in his pockets, looking down at his baseball shoes, his curls styled into a quiff that tangled rakishly on his brow.

The camera panned to around the corner. Aphrodite was tottering along past a sparkling jewellery store with a basket on her arm, her flared, red dress fitted to her pinched waist and rustling around her calves, her bra sculpted underneath it to make her breasts point like missiles. Her hair was styled in ringlets and topped with a broad-brimmed, black sun hat slicing dramatically through the backdrop. She was smiling at the sunny day, walking in perfect time with the lilting music. 

She rounded the corner.

So did Ares.

They crashed into each other with a bark and a delicate cry. The basket was flung into the air and rolled between the trotting, pristine shoes of passers-by, scattering cinnamon buns all over the sidewalk. Aphrodite tumbled to the floor, her skirts swooping up and cheekily flashing her garter.

“Well, Oh My!” Aphrodite exclaimed in a clipped accent.

“Damn, Miss, I’m so…” Ares crouched to help her, uselessly scrambling for escaping cinnamon buns. 

She forced her skirts down and pulled her hat back on her head. The camera zoomed in on her exquisite, startled face, going into soft focus and covering her in little sparkles.

“...stupid...” Ares finished in an awestruck voice, him in the close up now, red face glowing.

“Oh,” Aphrodite breathed. “No harm done, I suppose. They were only a treat for my friends at the salon.”

Ares kept gazing. He cleared his throat. “Here, let me help you up.” He held out a cinnamon bun.

She smirked.

He dropped it and held out his hand to her.

She looked at him coyly, but took it. They slowly stood, hand in hand. When they’d straightened up, Ares didn’t drop her hand.

They kept staring into each other’s eyes.

“I’m Ares,” Ares said dumbly.

“I’m Aphrodite,” Aphrodite said with a smile. “You make a habit of knocking girls off their feet?”

He grinned. “Knocking or sweeping?”

She giggled.

“That’s a good line,” Clotho said. “Very classy.”

And then the picture was consumed in fire.

The Fates watched unflinching.

Flames roared and twisted and flashed across the screen, the light flickering over the three of them and illuminating their cold faces in a hot flare.

The jazz trumpets sighed sensuously, jarring with the violent lash of light. Then they heated up, the song growing louder, more passionate, shaking the theatre like a speakeasy.

Images began to rip through the flames. 

Zeus first, in crackling black and white, a trilby cocked on his head, a toothpick in his mouth, barking into a rotary telephone. “You’re useless to me! I asked you to get her out of my hair! Why does no one see what a danger this woman is! You gotta go after her with everything you got!”

Hera next, also in black and white, her cigarette in its long holder hissing smoke around her tear-streaked face. 

Then Ares, in blinding colour, flames wreathing him, his eyes empty of all but fire, and Hera’s voice screaming from off screen. “Please! Stop! Stop, Lamb, please!”

Then Aphrodite, vivid lavender and scarlet, glaring down at the camera from an exalted throne surrounded by rich palm trees. Ocean waves submerged her feet. Her mouth moved imperiously around the words. “I am the last remaining essence of the titans above ground. I was the first of you, and I will be the last.”

Flame and lightning and ocean storms.

Zeus with white eyes.

Aphrodite falling through black cloud.

Ares roaring in rage in a swirl of blood and fire.

Great armies covering the earth.

Sacrifices in blood.

Blood streaked across Ares’ face.

Wild dancing through stone streets.

Wine.

Gold.

Machinery.

Weaponry.

Horses.

Ships.

Shields.

Sage smoke.

Columns falling.

Columns rising.

Mortal emperors in laurel crowns and bright armour.

Hestia, also in colour, cradling a flame held in her bare hands.

Cattle with their throats cut.

A young man standing proud with Aphrodite rising behind him and holding a laurel crown over his head.

A vast army with Ares at its head.

Glowing rooms full of writhing, naked bodies.

Battle.

Dancing.

Wine.

Blood.

Fire.

Ocean.

Marble.

Lightning swallowed in darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness.

The ear-splitting racket silenced. The room was utterly quiet save for the slurping of milkshakes and sputtering tick of the reels.

The brightly coloured street was back, this time at glimmering, purple twilight. Aphrodite stood on the sidewalk, Ares straddled a motorbike on the road. The jazz song strummed again, low and lilting.

“I had a swell time,” Aphrodite said.

“Yeah,” Ares said, “that was fun.”

“Ares?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’d like to kiss you.”

He beamed and blushed. “Well, what’s stopping you?”

She took a step closer to him, eyes large and liquid, back in soft focus with her mouth right in the centre of the shot. “Oh, Ares, I’m afraid that, if I kiss you, nothing will ever be the same again.”

He leaned closer to her, the end of his nose brushing hers. “Aphrodite,” he replied in a low, core-melting voice, “we’ve met. Everything’s already changed for good.”

She took a theatrical, quavering breath.

They kissed.

Deep.

Pressing.

Like a dam breaking.

They folded into each other’s arms, the bike almost dropping on Ares’ leg.

Romantic music blared.

White, curling letters bloomed across their faces. 

The Beginning.

The music soared away on its final note. The screen paled. 

The Fates sat in the dark, chewing on their straws.

“Well, well, well,” Clotho said in a distant voice.

“Quite,” Lachesis echoed, cocking a thick eyebrow.

“Should we warn anyone?” Atropos asked hesitantly.

“Nah,” Lachesis said, her teal lips twisting into a cunning, intrigued smile. “Let’s see how it plays out.”

Chapter 8: “Oh, I’m trouble, am I?”

Summary:

When Hestia goes on the radio with some unsavoury remarks about Olympus' new sex goddess, Aphrodite cranks their conflict up a notch.

Enjoy the dive into feminist theory, I've not even given you smut yet!

[CW: Witnessing pain during consensual sex.]

Radio song: Papa Don't Preach, Madonna
Revenge song: Trouble, Pink

“Iiiiiiiit’s 5:25 this lovely PM, folks! The sun is low, but the beats are high. This is Euterpe taking you home for the night. So sit back, relax, keep your hands on the wheel, and feel the hum of the road under those pretty feet. Let’s give you some real funk to get the funk of the working day off you.” 

The cocky drawl of the muse radio DJ sashayed out of Aphrodite’s speakers and filled the perfumed air of her boudoir spilling from a ceiling entirely made of plush, pink roses. The final note of her voice dipped into the opening strum of a smooth, bobbing melody. The small room was warm and glimmered pink like the goddess was sitting pretty in a bubble of gum. Clothes bulged out of closets and spilled over poufs and armchairs, like candy wrappers. The lights were dimmed to firefly gold, spangled around the vast mirror crowning her large, ornate, crowded dressing table. Aphrodite sat on the cushioned stool, her dress discarded and replaced with a long, rich, satin dressing gown that slid cool on her skin. She rummaged in the assortment of lotions and potions cluttering the table and fished out a soothing body moisturiser with a hint of aloe. She squeezed a refreshingly scented swirl of it into her palm, stretched her leg out, and began to gently massage the cream into her sea salt-dried skin. 

Amphitrite’s words that afternoon played through her mind. No one knew what was up with Ares. And everyone knew. The boy was a living uncomfortable truth.

Sexy.

She eased the heat of the island sun out of her flesh, her hands gliding silkily up and down her leg, working the muscle of her calf and the fat of her thigh. 

She thought about his hands.

She thought about wrapping her legs around his waist.

She rolled her shoulders and hummed, picking up a lyric or two of the song, then sighing silent again. She lifted her graceful foot into her lap and massaged the cream into the sole. She thought about swimming in the sea, the weight washing over her, the flow connecting her to all the teeming life on and under the surface.

She imagined Ares swimming with sharks.

She chuckled and rolled her eyes at herself. Behave, Old Lady.

She kept up her skincare and lazily waved her hand at the glowing, triptych mirror. “Let’s see how everyone’s doing, shall we?”

The glass surface shimmered, hazed, and rippled. She took a deep, slow breath of the rose and aloe fragrance around her. She quieted her mind and let her ears fill with sound - the beat of the radio, the slight crackle of the speakers, the faint buzz of the electrics in the house, the scuffle of wildlife and distant hum of cars outside, the trickle of water through the earth, the rumble of the distant sea, the chatter of far off people, the sawing of wood, the tinkling of bells, the lowing of cattle. 

Prayer.

Prayer coming to her in an endless ebb and flow of need and hope and adoration. The ever constant murmur that fuelled her power and kept her from feeling alone. 

The surface of the mirror frosted, then cleared to show a little boy in a plaster-walled room painted with shells and dolphins. Aphrodite could see him through his own mirror, which he stood in front of, bunching his mother’s dress around his tiny body and swishing the fabric, regarding his own reflection with bright eyes. 

Aphrodite smiled warmly. “You look so pretty, Sweetie. May you always know how pretty you are.” She blew a kiss to the boy and his cheeks glimmered. 

She waved her hand again. The mirror misted and rippled clear. A woman appeared on a white pebbled beach, her back rested against a ruffled palm tree. Scraps of papyrus were clasped in her hand and she pensively chewed the end of a reed pen. Her scruffy, black braids were unravelling around her creased brow.

“Sappho, my dearest love,” Aphrodite sighed, “how many times do I have to tell you to stop obsessing over metre and just write from the heart?”

A dove cooed from the palm tree. Sappho tutted up at it.

“Don’t give me that tone,” Aphrodite scolded. “Let me see.”

Sappho dropped her head back and lifted the pages. Aphrodite squinted. The vision in the mirror zoomed in on the paper.

I am bored of it being quiet,

More than I am used to.

Aphrodite winced. “Muses off day-drinking, huh? That’s OK, I think I have an idea of what you’re getting at. Let’s look at you.” 

The vision zoomed out again. Aphrodite tilted her head, stilled her hands on her legs and looked carefully at Sappho’s face. Her brow was lined, but her mouth was restless and her eyes were like embers, her temple ticked with her pulse under the escaping frizz of her hair. 

Aphrodite wet her lip. “You’re not tired, you’re frustrated.” Red and amber eyes sneaked into the back of her mind. “Let your words be angry, my darling.”

Sappho rubbed her neck, glistening in the heat. The dove cooed encouragingly. She looked up at it, sunlight dappling her dark face. She paused for a moment. Then she abruptly perked up and scribbled. Aphrodite zoomed in to peek again.

Peace, you never seemed so tedious

As now - no, never quite like this.

Aphrodite beamed. “That’s the ticket.”

Sappho grinned up at the dove and returned feverishly to writing, pen and paper making the same sound as the tide.

Aphrodite shifted on her stool, rolled up her loose sleeves, and began to rub the moisturiser into her hands and arms. She watched Sappho affectionately for another minute or two, then fluttered her fingers at the mirror. Again, it rippled and cleared on a new vision. Once more, Aphrodite was watching through a mirror, looking over the shoulder of a figurine of herself on a table. She peered into a candlelit room with a small bed. On the bed, two figures moved like a coursing river, the boat-builder from the beach today and the woman with the shawl. She lay beneath him with her knees drawn up and her head cast back. He was pressed hard prone to her body, his face buried in her neck, his broad back gleaming and shadowing gold with his deep, forceful thrusts through the candlelight.

Aphrodite cocked an eyebrow. “Well done, Babe, that was fast.” She sneaked her senses through the veil to taste their pleasure. She bit her tongue at a shock of sharp pain. She frowned and scooted forward in her seat and examined the picture closer. The woman’s teeth were clenched, her eyebrows worming and knotting, her knuckles white as she gripped his shoulders. Aphrodite’s lips tightened severely. “Alright, tell Momma.”

The woman’s eyes roved to the figurine on the table, wide and desperate and pleading. Her prayer came to Aphrodite from her crying mind. It hurts! It was all going so well and then it started to hurt! Help!

Aphrodite exhaled through her nose and spoke levelly. “OK, penetration isn't working.”

The woman’s eyes swam. Why? Why does it hurt? Everything else felt so good and then - UGH! Am I broken?

Aphrodite shook her head sympathetically. “Not at all. It happens to lots of people, the vagina is fickle and takes some coaxing to relax. Some people need that more than others. Penetration asks a lot of an unwarmed up muscle.”

You can say that again. The woman let out a quiet hiss through her teeth, drowned by an overwhelmed moan from the man.  

“But you don't need to panic. There's plenty you can do to relax, or to give and have pleasure if the darn coochie just doesn’t want it.”

Like what? Her eyes were frantic, her fingernails dinting the man’s muscle.

Aphrodite grinned like a cat. “Come on, you know what you want.”

The woman looked like a startled rabbit, sweat beading on her brow. I can't ask him to do that! He's really into this! And... And I'm really into him. I've been wanting this so badly for so long and now my bitch body won't let me have it. UGH, WHY?

Aphrodite made the gentle noise of someone luring a bird into the palm of their hand. “Hey, hey, hush, hush. All our bodies want is to take care of us. So let it. It's telling you you need something else. You want something else. It’s hurting because it’s trying to protect you from acquiescing to something you’re not ready for.”

But I can't tell him that! He’ll think I’m a freak! Or difficult! I’m not worth doing something less! Her breathing quickened.

Aphrodite’s eyes flashed. “Baby Girl, listen to me, stay calm. He's here. The battle’s won. He's in your bed. He wants you. Look at him, he's tranced. Worth it? Right now, you are the most intense pleasure he could be feeling, and that pleasure comes from being in bed with you - wonderful, special you - not from being inside your body.” She held up a finger like an instructor. “There is no less in sex acts, only different. If he really likes you, then all he wants is for the two of you to be sharing pleasure. He doesn’t want to do something to you for himself, not if he’s worth your crush. But he won't know that’s gone wrong if you don't communicate.”

The man thrust deep with a staccato groan and the woman let out a squeak. Ow! But how do I do that?

“Softly. Same way you got him here.”

Goddess, I don't think I can. Can't you just... inspire him to change it up? 

Aphrodite gave her an indulgent look and hoped it came across on the figurine. “No. You need to learn to do this for yourself. But I'm here, I'll watch over you.”

The woman drew in sharp, stabbing breaths, her knees shaking, biting her lip red, clinging to the man with tensed, rigid hands.

“You can do this, I promise. Use your voice.”

The woman shot the figurine one more desperate look, then nodded slightly. Aphrodite inhaled slowly, gesturing for the woman to do the same. The woman took a deep, steadying breath. She softened her grip on the man’s heavy shoulders and gave him a small, timid push.

He halted instantly.

“Good boy,” Aphrodite murmured.

He raised from the woman’s neck and caught her eye with a sparkling, dazed look. “You alright?”

Aphrodite smirked. “Not the most poetic, but, hey, he’s asking.”

The woman stared like a pursued doe into his face. He frowned and tenderly brushed a lock of her tousled hair off her brow. 

“He's waiting for you to speak,” Aphrodite said gently. “He's safe. Trust him. Trust me. Trust you.”

“It…” the woman said in a compressed voice, “it's a little sore.”

The man’s eyes widened in horror. “Shit! I'm hurting you?”

“Just a bit.”

He scrambled in the tangled sheets, slipping from her, his misty chest catching the candlelight and pumping with panic. “Goddess, damn, fuck. I’m so sorry.” His anxiety pinged off the woman and spurred hers. She pressed her lips together and stared. He looked stricken. “Should I…”

The woman glanced wildly at the figurine. He’s going to leave!

Aphrodite leaned earnestly forward and raised her voice. “No, he isn't. Use your voice. It's good that he's worried he hurt you. Tell him that.”

The man moved to sit. The woman’s hand flew out and planted to his chest. “No! I mean…” She glanced at Aphrodite and back to him. “It’s really sweet you're so concerned, that means a lot. It's all fine.”

“I'm an idiot,” he mumbled. “I got lost in the moment and… Are you really alright?”

Aphrodite smiled as she saw the crunch in the woman’s body smooth. She stroked his chest soothingly. “Yeah. I swear. It went right off when you moved.” She sucked her lip shyly. “I still really want you here, I just need to do it a little differently.”

“Well done.” Aphrodite’s fingers teased the base of the mirror. 

The man nodded eagerly, his hand folding over the woman’s, relief spreading over his tensed shoulders. “Tell me.”

The woman folded her mouth in on itself.

“Say it,” Aphrodite pressed.

The woman shrank into the mattress. 

Aphrodite loomed over the vision and goaded her. “Saaaay iiiiiit.”

The man stroked her hand. The woman swallowed. Her reply came in a steam-burst whisper. “Go down on me.”

Aphrodite licked her teeth. “Now we’ll see what he’s made of.”

The man’s worried face broke into a hot, vigorous smile. He lifted her hand and kissed it feverishly, then rolled hurriedly back onto her and crushed her under a deep, close kiss. The woman’s gasp and sigh muffled into his mouth. He pulled from her lips and began to kiss down her body, his shadow moving over her, like migrating swallows. He kissed her collar, her breasts, her belly, her hip...

The woman’s spine jerked into a proud arch and shock flashed across her face, then melted into sweet bliss. She let out a long, stammering moan. The two of them nestled into the new position, the man’s dark curls bedding between her thighs. 

Pleasure flooded Aphrodite. She shook out her hair and hummed. “That’s my girl. You have fun now.”

The woman rolled her hips, a quiver travelling over her flesh. “Oh, my goddess, YES!”

The man moaned and shivered too. Aphrodite ran the tip of her tongue around her lips, then flicked her hand and cleared the vision, leaving them to their privacy. 

Her own reflection drifted back into place. She smiled at it, haloed by the mirror lights. She combed her fingers through her hair, feeling it snap a little from the salt and grit of the beach. She flicked it behind her and blinked her eyes wide in the mirror. She’d been overdoing it. Moving, making contacts, starting that programme with Hera, playing the socialite, on top of all her ongoing duties and extra projects. It was starting to show in the dulling of the freshness under her eyes. She flitted her fingers through jumbles of shells and bangles and scrunchies on the dressing table and picked up a tube of something cucumber-y. She dabbed the cool liquid into the sore shadows under her eyes.

The song on the radio faded away and Euterpe’s easy-going, melodic voice rose again. “And that was ‘Never Looking Back Again’ by the one, the only, Orpheus. A personal favourite of mine and yours, I’m sure. And now we have a special guest in the studio. Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth and Founder and Director of The Goddesses of Eternal Maidenhood, or TGOEM for those of you in a hurry, is here to rap with us about women and self-reliance.”

Aphrodite bristled. She pouted and narrowed her eyes at her reflection. She carefully replaced the little bottle and picked up a violet-tinted chapstick. She considered turning off the radio, but something between curiosity and a terrible tendency to prod pain points stopped her.

“It’s great to be here, thank you for having me,” Hestia’s stevia-sweet voice oozed out of the speaker, like a spoonful of jam.

“Thank you for coming,” Euterpe said warmly. “What’s this term self-reliance and why is it so important to you?”

“Well,” Hestia said in a frustratingly skilled radio tone, “it’s what TGOEM is all about. For some of your younger listeners who may not be aware of us, we’re a women’s organisation that was set up in order to give single goddesses a place to find support and sisterhood. But we want to start thinking about our next step. We don’t just want to be about cake and cuddles, we want to really help women find their own path, without having to turn to our male counterparts.”

Aphrodite’s ears pricked with reluctant interest.

“It’s hard out there,” Hestia continued. “The realms are full of extraordinarily powerful goddesses, and plenty of mortals have chosen goddess worship as their primary faith. So we’re not the lesser of two halves. But there is still a really ugly, pervasive rhetoric on Olympus that, while men can pursue any ambitions, women don’t have enough divine power to do that for themselves and are generally expected to become consorts. But consorting isn’t just an unnecessary pressure built on these rather unstable foundations of god vs. goddess power, it also actively curtails many goddesses’ careers. They end up being shaped to their man’s image and agenda, and all that wonderful potential gets subsumed.”

“Right, right,” Euterpe agreed. “We’ve all seen those couples where we know the man just wouldn’t be anything without her, but she could have done it all herself.”

Hestia laughed companionably. “There are too many gods out there riding their consorts’ coat-tails.”

Aphrodite twirled the chapstick between her fingertips. OK, I don’t hate that… at all…

“What we want in TGOEM is to help women come together in safe, all-female, queer-inclusive spaces to raise their consciousness of how they have been directly impacted by these misconceptions about their power. We want to help goddesses understand their rights and potential and to be a hearth and home for them as they step into that journey.”

Huh… Aphrodite smacked her lips and put down the chapstick. She picked up a soft, lavender brow pencil. She began to sketch the arched, expressive shape.

“That’s checking all my boxes,” Euterpe chuckled. “Talk to me a little about how you create that space.”

“Absolutely.” Hestia’s honey smile was audible. “So, here’s the thing. We obviously understand that married and consorting goddesses need support and that is something we are totally committed to working towards. We have regular meetings with Hera to keep that conversation live. But…” her hesitation was theatrically sympathetic, “we also need to have some pretty strict parameters to make sure that we can do the work that needs doing now. We’d love to be in a situation where we could be totally open to lots of different ideas and could work through those conflicts at our leisure, but we don’t have that luxury. The statistics around pressured and forced sex and marriage are mind-boggling and only getting worse year by year.”

“That’s awful.”

“Oh, you do not want to see some of the reports I have in my binder, it makes your toes curl. And TGOEM sees it as our responsibility to intervene urgently. We aim to be there as the first port of call. Any goddess faced with the pressure to shift her divine power into male hands can come to us instead and receive instant practical and emotional support to extricate herself safely from that unpleasant situation.”

“What kind of support?”

Aphrodite clucked her tongue and sketched her other eyebrow. Against her will, she was listening attentively.

“Education scholarships, apprenticeships, mentoring, counselling. We even have some new funds to help women rent their own apartments, which we’re really excited about.”

Aphrodite sucked her lip. That’s… actually kinda sweet. Helpful. I mean, I guess.

Euterpe took a slightly more professional tone. “But, and correct me if I’m wrong, but those supports are on the condition that the woman remains a maiden."

“Yes,” Hestia answered confidently.

“And that’s where the controversy lies. There are critics that say TGOEM is limiting the choices of women by preventing them from entering into consenting relationships, at least with men.”

Aphrodite stilled, pencil hovering near the corner of her glittering eye.

Hestia released a long, thoughtful sigh. There was a pause, filled by the scrunching tissue paper sound of the speakers. When she spoke again, she sounded serious and sad. “Honestly, yeah, who doesn’t love love, right? We’d like to scrap that rule. We’d like to live in a world where a woman could fall for a man and not be thrown into a painful, political dilemma. But we don’t. Women are not in a place right now where they can share power, as you have to in a relationship, and not have it all taken away.” Her voice heated a little, Aphrodite getting a sprinkle of her surprisingly piquant passion under her skin, even through the radio. “Look at the rhetoric that is all around us every day. Buy this anti-aging cream, so your husband will love you. Wear these heels, so your boyfriend will fall for you. Don’t eat that and do drink this and don’t be too into your job and get ready to have 2.5 kids and don’t be too grumpy on your period and don't get sick, because any one mistake is enough for a man to rightfully take his love away. So all the work that we could be doing on ourselves - academically, professionally, mentally, emotionally, physically - all that work goes into the huge effort it takes to earn the love of men, as society tells us we must to survive, to help society survive. Meanwhile, our love need not be earned, it's simply part of the starter pack for being male, it's expected, undervalued. The pleasure of truly loving is our reward, being truly loved is an added extra. Romantic, heterosexual love is the mask the patriarchy gives to our labour to keep us from withdrawing it. You’re not giving up your potential, you’re not propping up the status quo that hurts you, you're not accepting an unequal life, you’re just falling in love. Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it so much nicer than all that hard work equality takes?” She tutted. “It’s the Isle of the Lotus-Eaters. It’s a temptation to take voyagers off course. TGOEM simply can’t afford to have its members, its wards, its activists, take all the power and work that they bring to the cause of women’s equality and pour it away into a relationship. Relationships are the man-made wells from which the patriarchy draws the natural spring water of goddesses’ power.”

Euterpe fell silent. 

Aphrodite fell silent. Her fingers trembled. Her mercurial mind began to swirl and snap, conflicting voices flaring up in heated, circular discussion.

She’s not exactly… wrong… Women do excuse things of partners they wouldn’t of men when they were single. They do often sacrifice independence or opportunity or expression to keep their partners happy. Activists retire into marriage. Rebels raise obedient daughters. And they are taught to do that to keep men on top, with the message that it's not about loss of power, it's about finding new purpose in love and family.

No! She is wrong! Relationships don’t work like that! Love is power! 

Only in good relationships, however we set that standard. But we do all live in a society. Nobody is untainted.

Oh, so we’re back to fucking purity? If women want equality they have to be paragons of virtue? What hoops do men have to jump through? Go on! Name a single hoop!

Is it about TGOEM hoop jumping, though? Like, a nymph carries pepper spray on her walk home from the club. She shouldn’t have to, sure. But knowing that doesn’t make the pepper spray any less necessary.

That’s about violence, that shouldn’t even be tangled in this conversation, we have to stop conflating attraction and attack.

But they are conflated and that filters into the ecosystem, making all those little acts of non-violent violence that make what she’s saying a little bit true. Every relationship a woman enters into is a political minefield. One wrong step, she loses her lover. One wrong step, she loses herself. One wrong step, she sets a bad example for the rest of the sisterhood.

But doesn’t she see how it’s just as political to swear virginity? That it’s just as valid to learn to use your voice to make that relationship healthy? 

So, it’s the woman’s job to teach her partner how not to oppress her?

Or choose someone better!

How? Where?

OK, so it’s not perfect, does that mean we just swear off dick for life?

Well, do we deserve anything less than perfect?

It’s not about deserve. It’s not, shockingly, even about dick. It’s about feelings. It’s about being allowed to want things without it leading to immediate demise and disgrace. Even if Hestia is a little bit right, saying that that’s the decision we have to make only tells the patriarchy that it’s right, that a woman can’t have it all. She can’t be herself and be in love. Men should never be expected to give her that.

Well, can a woman have it all? Will any man give that to her? Without resentment?

Yes!

Who?

She snorted irritably, wafting a strand of her hair. She tuned back into Euterpe’s diplomatic voice.

“That is certainly an interesting and important perspective.”

Hestia let out a giggle like a bubble being blown in syrup. “Not exactly drivetime chill, I know.”

Euterpe laughed musically. “Hey, we got all sorts on this show. You mentioned earlier that you felt your work was urgent. But a lot of the stuff you’re talking about is ages old. What makes it urgent now?”

Hestia made a matronly noise through her nose. “We feel it is particularly important for women to find allies amongst each other now that splinter female voices are rising that would draw them back towards that male-dominated Lotus Isle.”

Aphrodite’s fist clenched on the brow pencil.

“Which voices?”

“Euterpe, I’m sure you know that there’s a new goddess of sex on Olympus.”

The brow pencil snapped.

“And not just a goddess of sex, a goddess of love, that magic word we’ve just talked about that makes it impossible to resist the lure of the status quo.”

The crumbs of the pencil rained onto the dressing table.

"You're talking about Aphrodite."

"I am."

“If you’ll pardon the hearth pun, that's rather an inflammatory remark.”

"Fight fire with fire."

"And what fire is Aphrodite bringing to Olympus?"

Hestia's scoff reverberated in the speakers. "Oh, it's a regular tropical heatwave. She calls it free love, sex positivity, whatever. But we feel it’s just inviting men to think of us how they always have: existing for sex and capable of nothing higher. It’s offering them the control on a silver platter. Sex divinity sounds empowering, but that’s just what they want you to think so you won’t notice that you’ve given up your body, that you’ve lost any chance of being taken seriously or breaking your bonds. Sex is inherently male-dominated.”

A spindly serpent of violet electricity writhed around the radio.

“So, Euterpe, I understand I brought up a lot of thorny concepts today, but if there’s a simple message TGOEM wants to get out there right now, it’s stay safe, stay on mission, and don’t get distracted by the new girl on the block. She’s trouble and she’s no friend to women’s equality.”

The radio exploded in a shower of violet sparks.

 

*

 

“Oh, I’m trouble, am I?” Aphrodite tore into her kitchen, the satin robe whipping about her, lilac smoke bubbling around her feet. Waves roared in the incense-fogged air. She snarled. Her arms were full of sheets of pastel paper, fluttering furiously against her, as if she was kidnapping a swarm of butterflies. She cast them in a wild flurry across the table, the pages snapping and rustling. She banged her palms onto the table and glared down at the blank sheets. "I'll give you trouble." With a sharp flick of her fingers she was holding a dark purple ink pen. She clamped the cap between her teeth, pulled it off, and spat it violently onto the floor. She raised the pen into the air and plunged it down like a dagger. 

My most adored, 

I wish I was brave enough to tell you who I am, alas my heart is too full of admiration to have room for courage. I can only tell you that I think of you, shall defend you, and wish you every blessing, as your beauty dictates. 

With my heart, 

Your knight

She snatched up the note and folded it with a series of precise movements into one of the envelopes scattered among the pages. She huffed like a boar, twirled the pen, and lunged with it again.

You have made me forget the stars, and I am an astronomer. Your eyes are my new planets.

With hope,

Your devotee

Another snicking fold into an envelope. Another dramatic swish and loop of the pen, indigo ink flowing like wine.

I shall never sleep again, for no dream can compare to you.

The nib whispered and glided, the pages skidding about as Aphrodite whisked through them.

I would sacrifice all my treasures if we could lie together in the meadows, your head rested on my chest, the sun lapping our naked bodies.

The smoke around her feet sparkled. The light glowed rosy on the growing stack of envelopes. Who was Hestia to decide who got to be part of the cause? No friend to women’s equality? Aphrodite had equality coming out of her butt! The pen flourished.

What is love? Ask any who have looked upon your face.

The dark ink bled, spreading over the chaos of paper, the words cascading out of Aphrodite as she hissed and cackled. She’d show her what happened when you messed with love goddesses.

When I bite into the flesh of an apple and taste its sweet juices, I think about filling my mouth with the pleasure of your wet flesh.

A cork shot out of a bottle of tequila and filled a large glass. She swigged. She wrote in a fever, staying on her feet, moving agilely around the table.

I am enthralled, I am your vassal.

Ocean waves howled. The stereo burst to life unbidden. Riotous, cavorting music pumped through the house. 

How can I be so enraptured and not even know your name? Perhaps your name would undo me, music not for earthly ears.

She began to dance, hair tossing, bare feet stamping in the smoke, clattering the pen like a drumstick on the table and letting her hand skip in rhythm as she wrote.

I know you are sworn and so I am tortured by the mistake of my attraction. But no, how can such fire be mistaken? I would rather sin than lose this heat.

She drank. She danced. She scrawled and scribbled.

The flowers blush at a glimpse of your thigh. I want to kiss you there.

She swigged and dropped an ichor-gold tequila splash onto a page.

Let me be lost in your stunning hair, it is a jungle of desire.

She alternated speedily between writing and chaotic air guitar.

I would fall beneath you and let you ride me into the sea.

She barked a callous laugh. A she-devil laugh. A bitch laugh.

I pray to the gods that one day you may meet my eye and let me touch your skin, give you any pleasure you command.

She banged the table.

You have overturned my heart.

Paper went wheeling into the air around her, like soaring doves. Her maniacal energy soared with it, she rushed with hilarity.

Let my mind submit to madness, as I submit my body to your will.

The music built and built with the stack of envelopes. She shook her hair. She downed drink after drink, flooding her tongue. She indulgently breathed the scents of alcohol and ink and blue lotus and chewed with bitter glee on the end of the pen.

You are a rose.

You are a witch.

You beguile me.

You are the proof of divine creation.

You are so damn hot, I ache all over.

I want to kiss your feet.

She sealed the final envelope, her fingers zipping rapidly across the close. She flung it like a throwing star to skid onto the top of the ruffled pile. She cracked the air with a snap of her fingers and her phone appeared in her hand. She flipped it open with a flamboyant flick of her wrist and typed, raising her glass with her other hand and draining it.

To: Hermes

Get that cute ass here. Now.

She snapped her phone shut and threw her glass with an ear-splitting shatter into the sink.

 

*

 

Hermes landed with a thunk on Aphrodite’s doorstep, his hair swilling about his face as he came to a halt. He was intrigued already, but the second he touched down the delightful flavour of mischief rushed into his body and made him giddier than a puppy. He grinned with a fizzing flare of white and rapped eagerly on the door.

It swung open to reveal Aphrodite lounging against the door frame. A long, satin dressing gown flowed like crème de cassis over her harmonious curves, hanging loosely so her cleavage crested from the fabric and her long legs glimmered in the shadow. Her hair was charmingly tousled, tumbling in a voluptuous sweep over one eye. The other eye fixed him with an evil, effervescent look that took his brain apart. 

Her soft lips curled into a cunning smile. “Hey, Hot Sauce.”

“Uhoh, it’s my favourite nickname,” Hermes said in a prowling voice. “I must have been a very good boy.”  

She licked her teeth. “Would you like to be?”

He grinned broader, eyes like thieves’ knives. “It was a pretty aggressive booty call text, but I’m into it.”

She chuckled coldly and tossed her hair with devastating disinterest. “It’s not a booty call. I have a job for you.”

He raised an eyebrow questioningly.

She brought her hand from behind her back and fanned a stack of pastel envelopes in her fingers. “I need you to deliver these.”

The catnip taste of mischief sharpened on the tip of his tongue. The corner of his mouth twitched. “Who to?”

“You’ll see the addresses once you agree.”

“You’re up to something.” His grin was infecting his whole body. She looked like the most perfect, gorgeous villain.

“Me?” Her one visible eye batted with theatrical innocence, while her voice snaked over his prickling skin. “Why would I be up to something?”

He rocked on his feet to lean into her face, holding her gaze. Twin flames struck up in her pupil and his. “I don’t know, maybe you’re trying to get me to fall for you.”

She smiled sumptuously and cocked one knee to emerge from the folds of the robe. He glanced down and swallowed. She folded the envelope fan forward and dragged the points of the corners down his chest, scoring his hot skin lightly through his tank top. “So, that is the sort of thing you’d like?”

Hermes could barely breathe through the taste of catnip and the fruity tequila on her breath. “You’re drunk.”

“So?”

“On spirits or power?”

“Why not both?”

“I love both.”

She chuckled wickedly and kept stroking him with the envelopes. He could feel them hooking little claws into him, but hesitation nudged him. “Look, Dite, you know I'd do anything for you. But I can't abuse the postal service.”

She whipped the paper fan back and spoke from behind it, like a demure lady at a ball. “It's not abusing it. I'm sending letters, just like everybody else.”

Laughter skipped over his lips. “I feel like they're mischievous letters.”

She lowered her voice to a tantalising whisper. “Don't you like a bit of mischief, Hermes?”

His pulse thrummed. He went hoarse. “I do like a bit of mischief.”

She giggled conspiratorially. 

“But they’ll ask me who gave them to me.”

She shrugged, rolling her shoulders, raising her proud chin. “And? Lie. I thought you were the God of Tricks. Tell them they were left anonymously on your doorstep.”

He smirked. “If that’s what you wanted me to say, you could have just left them anonymously on my doorstep.”

She lowered the envelopes so he could see her alluring, marshmallow pout. “But then I wouldn’t get to see you.”

Her eyes grew large and filled with an elixir of seductive longing and helplessness and tease and trickery and bad, bad behaviour. He felt the elixir pour through his already weak and wanting body. He bit his lip and let his eyes rove to the letters rested at her jutting, round hip. He reached out and brushed his fingers over the satin curve, just letting his knuckles skim the paper.

He sighed through his nose. “Why do I even bother trying to say no to you?” He snatched the letters from her, the relief of holding them dizzying. “Don't tell anyone I knew this was naughty.”

She put a long, ink-blotched finger to her full lips. “Our dirty, little secret.”

He smiled like a bandit, ducked, and kissed the finger over her mouth. “The first of many, I hope.”

She beamed.

He stepped back and kicked off with a burst of exhilaration into the sky, her enchanting smile following him up, up and away.

The exhilaration soared hotter as he was finally allowed to see the recipients. 

Hestia provided a sort of sorority house for the nymphs in her service, a large cottage with bricks the colour of butter in the centre of a poplar plantation. It was a constant source of curiosity for all the gods, but Hermes was the divine monarch of curiosity. Dropping mail at that place was like walking past a buffet at a wedding you're considering crashing. 

He floated down through a sheen of tangerine sunset, the colour of new heat and whetted appetite. He touched down on the dusty path to the pretty door with its wreath of wheat and field flowers. His wings fluttered excitedly. The letters almost burned his fingers with their potential energy. He bit his lip and grinned. The roots of his hair crackled. 

What's your game, Lady Love? 

He tripped up to the cottage. He could hear jolly, crooning music and the sounds of high-pitched, happy chattering. The air around him was fresh with the poplar leaves and earthy with newly turned soil.

Oh, to be a cat among those pigeons. 

He lifted the letters to his lips, kissed them, and slotted them through the door. They landed with a soft thud on a doormat inside. He liked that sound. A job well done. He shook out his tingling hands and put them in his pockets. He spun and began to stroll back into the river of sunset serpentining through the poplars. He picked up a whistle along with the tune coming from the house. 

"Hermes!" 

He turned back. The door was open and a tall whippet of a peach nymph was standing with the inviting, daffodil glow of the house behind her, along with a gaggle of her housemates all peering around her with wide, intrigued eyes. They made a rainbow of that Hermes-ruled emotion: curiosity. 

The letters were open in their hands. 

"Did you write these?" the nymph at the front asked, shyly twisting a lock of her wavy hair around her finger. 

Hermes raised an eyebrow. "Depends, do you like them?" 

The nymphs exchanged nervous, excited looks, then their bright eyes roved back to him and stuck firm. 

The peach nymph pressed her lips together and bunched her angular shoulders, pulling her top up to show a dusky sliver of her hip. "Do you want to come inside?" 

Hermes' mouth fell open. He tried to speak but no sound came out. He cleared his throat roughly. "You sure?" 

They exchanged those sweet, energised looks again. They nodded at him, like a cluster of narcissi. 

A brilliant, brash grin spilled across Hermes' sun-stained face. "Sure, I'm done with work for the night."

Giggling and light touches enveloped him as he stepped across the threshold. With his last glimpse of the outdoors before he slipped into the warmth, he grinned up at a streak of lavender cloud and subtly shot it a wink. 

Dite, you are my new favourite person. 

The peach nymph slid her hand into his. 

The door swished closed. 

 

*

 

Aphrodite clicked off her buzzing vibrator and slumped with a satisfied sigh into the plush couch. She tugged her pyjama shorts back up, pinging the waistband to send a final tremor through her abdomen. She pulled one of the heart shaped cushions to her chest and hugged it. She closed her eyes and hummed, her body deliciously relaxed and tingling. The dregs of the cleaving hangover from last night trickled from her system. She thought dimly about making breakfast. 

The phone blared, driving an ice pick into her skull. 

She groaned and scrunched up her nose. It was all the way at the other end of the couch. She glared at it in the hopes it would stop. It kept jangling aggressively. She grunted irritably and folded forward like a sack of sand. She picked up the handset, the cord tugging her to lean against the couch arm. "Hello?" 

A curt intake of breath shot down the receiver. "Aphrodite?" Hestia's voice was clipped and simmering. 

All the relaxation Aphrodite had achieved shot out of her like ketchup out of a packet. Her mouth crinkled. "How did you get this number?" 

Hestia tutted. "You’re on the phone tree." 

Aphrodite cocked a fine eyebrow. "I’m what now?" 

"Every Olympian goddess gets automatically added to the phone tree," Hestia explained impatiently. 

She bristled. "What the fuck is the phone tree?" 

"TGOEM set it up. It’s an emergency call system for all the goddesses so we can collectively intervene in the event any of the gods lose control." 

Aphrodite ground her teeth. "Has anyone considered making the gods fucking control themselves?" 

Hestia pumped a snide nose-laugh down the line. "Oh, you want to talk about self-control? What was that stunt you pulled with my nymphs last night?" 

Aphrodite's anger smoothed into impish satisfaction. "What stunt?" 

"Don't waste both of our time. I know you wrote those pernicious messages.”

The corners of Aphrodite’s mouth wriggled in delight. “Oh, are you referring to my little love letters?”

“I am." 

“Aaaw, now,” Aphrodite crooned, “I was just trying to give them a nice treat, hard-working girls that they are.”

“Ha!” Hestia barked like a St Bernard. “I’d hardly call that philandering newsie a treat!”

“Agree to disagree.”

“Hmph!”

“Besides, the treat wasn’t really Hermes, he was just the garnish. I thought it might be good for them to be told how precious they are.”

Hestia audibly glared. “Precious? Cheap! You got them all excited and then it was just a dalliance.”

“Exactly!” Aphrodite laughed. “It was a bit of fun!”

“It was mean!”

Her laughter died. “Oh, so using some sleight of hand to make a few nice girls feel special for a day is mean, but you on the radio yesterday was…?”

Hestia faltered, then forged on in an imperious tone. “Oh, honestly Aphrodite, don't be naïve. We're both political figures, it's part of our job to comment on each other's platforms.”

Aphrodite’s fingers tightened on the chunky phone. She spoke through her teeth. “Hestia, I would love it if you commented on my platform, but you don't. You comment on me. For some reason, you think you're subtle, but I and everyone tuning in heard you casting aspersions with the wit and grace of a bullfrog!”

“You embody your platform, don't you?”

“I do. And you don't understand either.”

“And you understand mine?”

She snorted. “Shame, control, internalised misogyny.”

“I thought not.”

“You know what's sad?” She shuffled irritably to lean both elbows on the arm of the couch, folding over it as if bearing down on Hestia. She spoke with a regretful edge. “Before you did that, I was seriously listening to what you had to say. It killed me, but I agreed with you, about how relationships are mined for power, about how women need spaces to raise their consciousness, about a lot of it. I was even on the verge of considering calling you to work things out, to see how we could possibly combine our goals. But then you went and made that shitty speech about me, made me the enemy because, for all your activist veneer, you're afraid to punch upwards. And now look where we are.”

A crackling pause down the line. Aphrodite frowned and wound her finger into the spiralling cord. 

“As…” Hestia cleared her throat primly. “As if I would ever work with you anyway after this.”

“Oh, please!” Aphrodite blew a loud raspberry. “You make it sound like some terrible wound. I'm sorry a handful of your nymphs got to second base with the mailman.”

“Third.”

Aphrodite shut her mouth around a buoying giggle. “Mm?”

Hestia’s voice went flat. “For two of them, it was third.”

The giggle escaped abruptly, making her hiccup. “You know the bases?”

Hestia groaned exasperatedly. “Oh, you know what? I’m just ever so glad you enjoyed yourself getting them all het up, but I’m the one that has to be there when they’re in inevitable tears in a few days because they had that experience in good faith and it meant nothing!”

Aphrodite rolled lazily onto her back and nestled comfortably into the cushions, still curling the cord around her finger. “Who says it has to mean anything? Women got saddled with this myth that sex has to be profoundly important so men could feel special and tie them down.”

“Wherever it came from, it's there.”

Aphrodite smiled slyly. “Unless some very charitable goddess gives them a casual good time and sets them free.”

“What you did was no gift.” Hestia’s voice turned bitter. “It was trashy.”

“There it is!” Aphrodite cackled in triumph, jabbing a pointed finger into the air. “You harp on about the politics of sex, but when you're in a corner, it all comes out, sex is trashy, crushes are vapid, the right and good sort of lady puts herself above all those whorish ‘other girls.’”

“That is not what I'm saying!” Hestia huffed, reining herself in with a quavering growl. “I'm saying that it is inconsiderate to play with the emotions of inexperienced girls. My nymphs are not your dolls. To you it might have been meaningless, but to them it may well have been painfully significant and you should care.”

Aphrodite’s hackles rose. “I do care! It is not meaningless to me. You don't get to decide what counts as meaningful.” A persuasive sigh rode her voice. “Pleasure is meaningful. That bubble in your stomach is meaningful. Feeling beautiful is meaningful. Play is meaningful. Doing something just for whatever and enjoying yourself without judgement is meaningful.” She hardened. “You may have your standards, but you do not get to say that what I do isn't important. You think everything is the start of something big and soul-crushing and it’s only allowed to happen once. A girl can just get a nice bit of attention and enjoy it and tuck it away and not cut herself up over it for the rest of her life. And if it does mean something more, then hey, she’s felt something, she’s discovered something, one day she’ll be grateful for that. If she isn’t thrown into a shame spiral first.” She rolled back onto her front with narrowed eyes. “It’s your values that are going to screw them over, not mine.”

Hestia’s voice caught fire, buzzing in the receiver, like hornets. “Whoever’s values, if that’s what you call what you have, it’s your actions!”

“Oh yeah?” Aphrodite hissed harshly, heart pounding, blood searing, her volume rising and rising and slicing the morning quiet. “Well, you better get used to my actions, Hestia. Because love gods don’t just sit in the hearth and crackle away at anyone who will listen. Love gods burn. We consume. We can’t be contained. We have fire like even you can’t imagine. And I am one fierce fucking blaze!”

She hung up on Hestia’s appalled gasp, banging the phone back onto the base.

Silence swelled in the lounge, the distant twitter of a sparrow just poking through the dense sound of her heavy breathing.

She flung herself to her feet and strode furiously to the waffle iron.

If there’s one person you don’t want to tangle with, Hestia, it’s the Goddess of Sex. You want to play with me, Sugar? Well, no one plays dirtier than Aphrodite.

Notes:

The woman having painful sex at the beginning is experiencing vaginismus - a painful contraction/spasming of the vaginal muscles in response to penetration. It's pretty common, but unsurprisingly it's also super silenced. It can arise from a variety of physical or psychological factors (that don't necessarily mean lack of desire), as a short or long term, ongoing or intermittent, mild or more severe condition. Like the vagina, vaginismus is different for everyone who has it. It's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, it doesn't mean you're broken and it definitely doesn't mean you can't have sex. People with it (including myself, what a posse to be in XD), can get help through psychosexual therapy and community resources. We and our partners can develop healthy, mutually pleasurable sex lives that don't rely on penetration. It is possible to heal, but it's also OK if we don't and just have sex a little differently than we initially planned. For more information, take a look at the Vaginismus Network. Stay well, Beauties xx

Hestia's comments about the interaction between heterosexual romance and patriarchal power are based on feminist theory from the 1970s. While it sounds a bit bleak, I do think it emphasises powerfully the extremes our mothers often had to go to feel safe and liberated. We have thankfully achieved a lot, and modern feminism has made wonderful strides in sex positivity (though N.B. these ideas arose early on led by Black feminists like Audre Lorde, they just took longer to get to the White-dominated mainstream and their Black origins are frequently erased). But I do think it's important to stay sympathetic to where anti-romance discourses came from, and remember that we are not that far removed from the conditions that created them, that many still live under those conditions, and that our rights are still too often treated as privileges. I wouldn't give TGOEM my money in 2021, but I honestly kinda get it when we look at the sheer level of patriarchy they're up against and have lived through, much like our own world's past warriors. I want this fic to work with the nuances of Hestia and Aphrodite's schools of thought. I love Lore Olympus because I think it is really capturing how feminists and women struggle to find common paths towards their shared goal of emancipation, and I wanted to reflect that in my creative response to it. If you want to get a good summary of the 1970s feminist critique of heterosexual love, how it is still of value in anti-capitalist theory, and how Black feminism reimagines love as a revolutionary force, this article by Professor Kathi Weeks blew my damn mind.

Chapter 9: “A touch of scarlet fever.”

Summary:

Aphrodite goes to a Hermes party and finds it suits her a lot better than the royal gatherings. In the flow of music and mischief, she and Hermes add some spice to their friendship. But Ares' arrival complicates her night of impulse.

We have SMUT! Yaaaaay! But it's not smut for the actual ship of this fic, that would be just silly. Mostly this is a self-indulgent chapter because I miss going out.

[CW: Drinking. Unprotected sex.]

Party and sexy Hermes song: bitches, Tove Lo
Sexy Ares song: Alrighty Aphrodite, Peach Pit

Notes:

Those of you with good memories may notice that Peitho's physical description changes here. It's because since I started this fic, the incredibly talented K.G. did a Peitho design and I adore it and couldn't not commandeer it (with permission). Show their art and writing all your love!

Music pounded and zinged into Aphrodite’s senses, bursting through clouds of dry ice that shrouded flashes and streams of rainbow light dazzling her bright eyes. She took Peitho’s hand firmly and together they stepped in perfect time with the beat into the thrumming, writhing, deafening mess of Hermes’ party. The energy of it broke over Aphrodite and filled her, like she was swimming in the sea. Heat and hedonism. Excitement, temptation, seduction, surrender. Joy and indulgence and want and white lies. 

Hermes was right, this is way more my speed.

He’d rented out an entire club. A bulky centaur DJ stomped his hooves on a raised platform and spun an overlapping series of raunchy, vibrant songs into the fogged air, wheeling and growling and blasting. Aphrodite and Peitho had entered through a door on a higher level of the room. Stairs rimmed with sparkling light cascaded down onto a dance floor like a steaming, churning cauldron. The mist poured over tossing waves of bodies, glimmering through the flying serpents of coloured lights catching rhinestones, glittering eye shadow, sequins, and glow-in-the-dark body paint. They were packed in so tightly, Aphrodite could feel the sparks of skin to skin leaping in her blood. The heat gripped her, sizzled in her belly and struck her pussy like a matchbox. Her sharp eyes flitted between hands grazing thighs, straps slipping off shoulders, hips swinging, spines rolling, drinks spilling and shoes sliding in the splashes. The sensuous thrill coursing around the party guests poured down her throat, like smoking sambuca. 

She glanced at Peitho, squeezing her hand, the same delighted, devilish smiles spreading across their faces. 

“You feel it too?” Peitho called over the noise.

Aphrodite nodded. Gods, she could feel it, alright. This was Olympus how it was meant to be. Immortals who lived like mortals, who didn’t put themselves above grasping for brief, ecstatic moments. This whole room was a mess of pure sensation. Hestia and Zeus and Acteon were bleached out of her system in a flare of blinding, blue light. She hovered in it, glugged down the energy layered thick in the air, held it in her lungs and her heart and her throbbing ears. When the light had cleared, Hermes was rising on his winged shoes above the crowd, his lithe, agile figure silhouetted against the coloured rays, except his garish slice of a crass, calculating grin. 

Hermes spun on his heel between a dizzy boy and thrashing girl fawning over his body to the music. He let them pour their attraction over him, like almond scented oil. The music whisked under his winged feet. He grinned. He pulled away and rode it into the air. He bobbed like an inflatable ball over the heads of his guests, his thralls, their sweet abandon carrying him higher in searing gusts. He closed his eyes and swam through darkness and light. He ran his hands through his hair and grinned wildly into the shadows. His eyes fluttered open and were drowned in an aquamarine glow. It frosted his vision, then melted away. Two figures emerged in his eyeline, as if unfreezing from a sheet of ice. His stomach flipped. His grin broadened.

Now it’s a party.

At the top of the stairs, Aphrodite and Peitho crowned the club, water lilies on a pool, tauntingly, flagrantly sexy in sparkling shell bras and short sarongs. Peitho looked like a sunken treasure, the berry and indigo swirl of her dark skin painting into the pulsating light. A sunset pink glow glimmered under her freckles, blazed in her eyes, and seeped into the fine fins at her ears. Her hair tumbled over her small shoulders, all the colours of sea spray on the edge of night. Aphrodite had twisted her volcanic ash cascade of lilac hair into a high ponytail that drew her tall, impressive figure up with a warrior elegance, her muscles taut and poised under her softness. Her graceful wrists and fingers jangled with silver, as if she was summoning shining magic to throw out into the atmosphere. Her amethyst eyes were deadly and hungry. He licked his lip and shot forward, moth to a flame.

Aphrodite beamed as she saw Hermes zooming above the dance floor towards them. The chili and lime taste of his desire was sharp even in the explosion of flavour from the crowd. He was in his mortal realm chiton, if you could call it that. The fabric just came to the tops of his thighs, then draped in a single, loose sash over his defined chest and one round shoulder. It swirled in the air around him, cream stirring into the black coffee shadows. He didn’t look dressed; he looked like he’d tumbled through a white cloud and dragged a shred of it with him stuck to the hot mist on his lean torso. Fiery gold ringed his ankle and bicep and fingers and studded his ears, emphasising the boyish way they stuck out a little. One smooth pec was alluringly uncovered. He looked like a beautiful painting by a horny mortal. She and Peitho sucked their lips and exchanged pleased looks.

Hermes landed clumsily on one foot with a sway and a hiccup. “Hey! You came! Told you it would be your scene!”

Aphrodite slipped her hand from Peitho’s and put it on his shoulder to steady his balance. “Trouble sticking the landing there?”

Hermes snorted and flapped his hand at her. “Please, I’m not landing for hours yet.” A coloured vodka shot appeared between his fingers and immediately vanished into his mouth. He tossed the glass behind him, it burst into red sparks. 

“I see you delivered on the sexy costume,” Peitho said with an affectionate smirk. 

Hermes twirled for her. “Right? Who’da thought the naughtiest thing I own would be my work uniform.”

“Speaking of work.” Aphrodite cocked an eyebrow. “How does a mailman’s salary pay for this venue?”

Hermes shrugged. “It doesn’t. I took Apollo’s credit card.”

“With permission?”

“Nah.”

“He invited?”

“Nah.”

The women nodded approval. 

Hermes grinned at them, his stunning, coaxing grin. “I wasn’t the only one who delivered, you guys look a whole bunch of stuff it wouldn’t be respectful to say.”

“That was very much what we were going for,” Peitho said with her teeth emerging from her raspberry pout.

“Well, mission accomplished.” Hermes made another toxic green shot appear in his hand, downed it, and tossed it into sparks again. “Drinks?”

“Yes.” Aphrodite said, catching his hand in one hand and Peitho’s in the other and starting to pull them towards the gleaming, jet and ruby bar further around the upper floor. “Several.”

Hermes laughed and interlaced their fingers. He bumped their bare shoulders together. His breath tickled her ear as he leaned closer. “Bad week, Lady Love?”

Aphrodite shot him a daggering look. “Nothing you can’t fix.”

Hermes smiled at her, his flicks of scarlet hair shading his dark eyes. “Well, I do owe you about forty after that trick you pulled with Hestia’s nymphs.”

She looked straight ahead, her smile quietly triumphant. “I don’t know what you mean. I just sent a few letters.”

Hermes threw his head back and laughed, the boisterous sound lost in a surge of synths. He tickled the tender inside of her wrist with his fingertip. Their eyes met through the rainbow glare, flint sharp and star bright. 

Aphrodite pulled her friends to the bar and settled between them on the tall, spinning stools. She caught the satyr barman’s eye immediately, his tufted ears flicking up at the sight of her eyes sparkling in heavy, smoky black make-up. They ordered cocktails and a line of shots. They knocked the shots back, pulling playful faces at each other. Excited energy pinged between them. Aphrodite smacked her lips around the clean taste, then slid the tiny glass away and fished up her Sex on the Beach. The peach and orange iced her tongue and left it sweet and tingling. She glanced at Peitho taking sultry sips from her martini, her hair in jostling curls over one hot eye as she surveyed the scene with brazen pleasure. She glanced to her other side at Hermes slinging a Bloody Mary down his throat, the leafy top of the celery stick dusting his pointed nose. She rolled her shoulders and let herself relax. She took another tropical mouthful and smiled out to the whirlpool of flirtatious, impulsive dancing below.

Hermes tossed his fringe out of his eyes and leaned back on the bar with both elbows, opening out his half-bare chest. The low light caught a glisten of sweat from the close, gummy heat of the room. “I hope this gives you a better impression of Olympus,” he called over the thumping beat.

Aphrodite ran her tongue along her upper lip. “I’ll say.”

“It’s not a bad town. You just need the right crowd.”

She sneaked her smile to him. “Or the right host.”

He grinned broadly at her. “A host is only as good as his guests.”

“All two hundred of them.”

He shrugged with false modesty. “I have everyone’s address.”

“And everyone’s attention.” She tilted her head so her ponytail swished towards him.

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t need everyone’s attention. Just from a select few.”

She tipped her cocktail to him and drank deep from her cool glass, holding his glittering, robber eye. He bit his lip. Peitho narrowed her eyes, the corner of her mouth poking up. Aphrodite ignored her mock accusatory look and gazed back to the tapestry of knotting limbs on the dance floor, like the fronds of sea anemones rushed by the undertow. Dry ice drifted over them, turning the scene dreamy. It had been a couple of days since Hermes had helped her in her little correction of Hestia’s behaviour. They hadn’t been in touch since, but it had spun an unanticipated thread between them. She’d played a trick. He’d seduced a few innocents. Gods tended to get tangled when they crossed into each other’s spaces. And Hermes was a wildflower tangle, the sort that rooted and flourished and made you see the earth from another perspective. 

Hestia’s voice from the radio interview abruptly needled the back of her brain. Truthfully, she’d been rather clinging to the debris of Hermes’ mischievous energy in her body to keep Hestia’s words at bay. They had unsettled her. 

“Relationships are the man-made wells from which the patriarchy draws the natural spring water of goddesses’ power.”

The love she made wasn’t like that. But she, very unfairly, was not the goddess of everything. There was so much in the world to interfere with love, to make it into something that kept her people down, instead of raising them up, to turn it from vines to chains, from honey to hemlock. She’d hoped getting back at Hestia for saying those things would flush out the infection of them. But it seemed she needed something stronger.

“It’s the Isle of the Lotus-Eaters. It’s a temptation to take voyagers off course.”

Course. Who needed a course, anyway? Not these people here tonight. Love might be a problem. Love might be a lot to face up to. But sex? One-time, drunk and high, hot and sticky, don’t-tell-me-your-name sex? That was easy. Gods, she needed easy. It had been too many weeks without easy. She glanced again at Hermes. Hermes was easy. Hermes was so, attractively easy.

He shifted his gaze to her, nibbling on his celery stick. “Dite, please, just because I’m dressed like this, it doesn’t give you the right to stare.”

She laughed harshly and poked her tongue out at him. “I’ll stare all I want, I’m the goddess of staring at pretty boys.”

He whistled. “That’s a damn good gig.”

Peitho leaned across Aphrodite, her dark perfume wafting into Aphrodite’s nose. “Hey, Hermes.”

He looked at her.

“Do you actually know any of these people?”

Hermes snorted. “Sure, of course.” He pointed at a siren with her wings strung with fairy lights tottering up the stairs. “That’s Girl On Argo Avenue With All The Birds.” He pointed at a naga coated in glowing body paint coiling his tail around his dance partner. “That’s Don’t Make Him Sign For It, No Personal Boundaries.” He nodded at a nearby, baby blue imp in a cheerleader uniform. “That’s Will Fuck You Up For Jewellery.” He turned back to Peitho. “See?”

She and Aphrodite were looking at him indulgently. 

“What?”

“You do know our names, right?” Peitho said dryly.

“Yes!” Hermes insisted. “Although, you were Princess Hot Mermaid for like three years.”

Peitho blinked, fins fluttering. “You know what? I’ll take it.”

He winked and chugged the dregs of his Bloody Mary.

“What about me? Did I have a nickname?” Aphrodite asked.

Hermes chuckled. “No, I knew who you were. Everybody knows who you are.”

She smiled smugly.

“Hey! I’m a bit famous too!” Peitho piped, hiccupping around her martini.

Hermes grinned and leaned towards her. “No, you’re infamous.”

His spice layered with Peitho’s perfume in Aphrodite’s senses. She tutted and scooped the glace cherry out of her drink with her tongue. “Lucky.”

Peitho patted her knee. “We’ll get you there, Boss.”

“We certainly will,” Hermes agreed. He and Peitho clinked their glasses on Aphrodite’s. The vibration of it went down her arm. These two tugged at her darkness like no one else. But then again, it was already dark in here. She sucked on the cherry. 

“There he is!” A strange voice, both rich and cold, boomed over a metallic grind of music. 

The three of them looked up to see a startlingly tall, angular woman with sapphire skin and golden eyes like a hawk approaching them. She was wrapped in glitzy gold, a cobra headband crowning her black bob and fishnets clinging to her long, slender legs. Peitho’s jaw dropped. Aphrodite smirked. She leaned to her ear and murmured. “Hecate. Essentially Queen of the Underworld.”

Peitho nodded, speechless. 

Aphrodite rubbed her arm affectionately. Hecate strutted towards them, a few wisps of stray dry ice catching around her feet. She nodded to Aphrodite, who raised her glass. Then waved at the host. “Hermes! The man of the hour!”

“Uhoh! It’s the Commander and Chief!” Hermes grinned boyishly and sprang to his feet, putting his empty glass on the bar. He barely skimmed the ground as he went to meet her. They kissed each other on the cheek and fell into conversation, inaudible over the music. Peitho watched them avidly. Aphrodite watched Peitho watching and sipped her attraction.

“Stop leeching off my horniness,” Peitho scolded, not looking away from Hecate’s imperious figure and peek of shark teeth.

Aphrodite clamped her lips tight and held in a laugh. “I can’t help it, it’s tasty. And you just throw it out there, it’s not like you don’t have spare.”

Peitho elbowed her, still staring. 

Hermes gestured to Hecate to wait and scampered back to them. “I’m just gonna score a few points with the head honcho over there.”

Peitho craned over his shoulder to keep gawping at Hecate and nodded vaguely. Aphrodite smiled and leaned conspiratorially to him. “How many points would setting her up with Peitho get you?”

Hermes grinned. “That’s your skillset, not mine.”

She poked his chest teasingly. “Come on, you’re a literal wingman.”

He poked her belly, a static shock in his touch. His gaze turned warm. “I’m out for myself tonight.”

Aphrodite arched her eyebrow with interest. His face was close to hers, his mouth crooked.

“On the lookout for anything in particular?” she asked, lowering her voice to match his, secretive in the buzzing shell of the music.

Hermes’ eyes slipped down to the not-especially-functional, shell bra clasping her breasts together. He looked back up with a flicker of flame at the rim of his irises. “You’re the Sex Goddess, you know of any chances worth taking?”

Aphrodite looked steadily into the jet black centres of his almond eyes. She took a long draught of her tangy cocktail. She slipped her plump, lower lip into her mouth to suck a drop of melted ice from it. “I’ll give you a signal if there is.”

His lips curled into a sly smile. He leaned closer, vodka brushing the tip of her tongue, the backs of his fingers brushing her bare thigh. “I’m not done with you. Stay visible.”

“Always.”

They flashed lightning grins at each other. Her pulse skipped. He pulled away and his vulpine smile smoothed friendly and charming. “It’s open bar, knock yourself out!”

She laughed. “Apollo’s credit card?”

He shot her a finger gun. She mimed taking a bullet to the heart. They laughed across the spirals of light. He spun on his heel and spread his arms to Hecate in a gesture of welcome. The two of them strode away, Hecate briefly looking behind her to give Peitho a glimpse of her canines. Peitho blushed puce. 

Hecate’s great height meant she took a while to walk out of sight, but once she had, the flustered Goddess of Seduction shook out her curls and spun on her seat. “Man alive! They don’t make ‘em like that on the mountain.”

Aphrodite spun too, leaning her elbows on the sleek, shining bar. “Mmm, Hecate’s a titaness.”

Peitho ran her fingertip around the rim of her glass. “So, you’re saying she could step on me.”

Aphrodite laughed raucously. She drained her glass and waved at the bartender for another. He moved very quickly to serve her. Peitho plucked the cocktail stick skewering two olives out of her glass and held it to her lips, as if speaking into a microphone. “Oh. My. Gods. Are you Aphrodite? The Goddess of Love? Could I ask you a few questions for the magazine?”

Aphrodite laughed warmer. She made a mock gracious gesture.

“Aw jeepers,” Peitho said in a goofy, stammering voice, “that’s just swell.”

“Yeah, but I’d appreciate it if your questions didn’t all imply I’m sleeping my way to the top of Olympus,” Aphrodite huffed.

“Actually, they’ll be implying that you’re sleeping your way to the bottom of Olympus. What is it with you and the mailman tonight?” She swished the olives towards Aphrodite.

Aphrodite pursed her lips. “Sue me, I’m a flirt.”

Peitho nodded and took the mic back. “No doubt about it, Ma’am, but our readers do need to know the truth. Are you planning to consort with the poorest fucker in town?”

Aphrodite leaned into the offered olives and spoke in a clear tone. “Well, in fairness, his unfettered access to Apollo’s fortune makes him a pretty rich fucker.”

“Please, Goddess, don’t evade the question.”

Aphrodite rolled her eyes and giggled. She started to speak.

“Into the mic, please,” Peitho interrupted. “So I get an accurate, untwistable quote.”

Aphrodite leaned into the olives, giggles bouncing out of her. She sucked one off the end of the stick and munched as she replied callously. “I don’t know. He’s fun. I’m here to have fun. The outside doesn’t exist right now.”

Peitho flicked the cocktail stick back to her own mouth. “And what about your royal schemes, I mean, attachment?” 

The laughter fizzled out in Aphrodite’s throat. Her hand found the stem of her fresh drink and tightened around it.

Ares.

Was she going for something there? She thought about the mall, about hours and hours with him, all flowing so perfectly, naturally, almost as if it was meant to… Nope, don’t go there. She thought about Hestia. Love is a temptation to take voyagers off course. She thought about everything she was holding in the balance, everything she was planning to do here. She felt dizzy and drained. She took a deep, doping breath of misty air, thick with sweat and sweeteners. She fixed Peitho with a silencing glare. “The outside doesn’t exist right now. Ares isn’t here. So he doesn’t exist.”

“So, you’re saying no comment.”

“No comment.”

“Because Ares isn’t here.”

“Ares isn’t here.”

Peitho glanced past Aphrodite’s shoulder at who she’d just spotted descending the stairs. She looked at her friend’s tense expression. She decided not to say anything. She popped the last olive into her mouth and waved over the eager bartender.

 

*

 

Ares folded his thick arms across his chest. The music and the drum of feet thudded in his ears, like a charging army. When Hermes had said he was having a party, he hadn’t made it clear it was going to be on this scale. The vast, thrashing dance floor didn’t look too different to the heat of battle - a thicket of bodies, a cloud of confused emotions all entirely confined to the fleeting moment, all awareness of past and future evaporated into sizzling mist. 

Aphrodite would love this. He rubbed the back of his neck. But she’s not here, so how about you try thinking about literally anything else?

He looked down at himself. Hermes had said costumes, the sexier the better. Ares had said that sounded like fun, then realised he had exactly no friends outside of Hermes and the idea of wearing a costume while getting stuck drinking alone at this thing didn’t appeal. He’d compromised by going for a white tank top with his jeans. Now he realised he was one of the most dressed people in the club. Rainbow lights poured like wine over rainbow bodies. Thick, interlacing lines of neon body paint wound the dancers together, a web of electrical current. It fizzed in the wells of darkness between the swinging rays of light, dancers ducking into the black to kiss and touch and hold each other close. Their figures turned to abstract orange patterns and nests of green snakes.

Shit, Aphrodite really would love it here.

“You know what I hate?” A jovial, nasal voice cut into his thoughts. 

He looked sideways, then down to see a short nymph with apple green eyes and hair. She was dressed like, if this was possible, a sexy ladybug. She was extremely cute. He smiled quizzically. “What do you hate?”

She grinned. “Handsome men who stand at the edge of parties.”

Ares grinned too. “I’ll let you know if I see any.”

“Nice try.” She held up her hand to reveal a pot of the body paint with a brush poking out of it. “My name’s Sterope and I’m cursed with belligerence.”

Ares put his hands in his pockets and looked down at her with amusement. He took in her playful expression and the pretty, polka-dot skirt hugging her hips. He let out a soft laugh, the music pounding his muscles relaxed. “And I’m cursed with giving in too easy.”

She smiled in satisfaction, raised a finger, and beckoned him. He heated under his skin. He swallowed. He thought once more about Aphrodite, his heat rising. He shook his head clear and followed Sterope into the bubbling of the party.

 

*

 

“Lies!” Peitho screeched, sloshing her latest martini as she plied her boss with drinks for her dirtiest stories.

Aphrodite was flushed and tingling from the alcohol, laughter leaping about in her body, like salmon on the edge of a waterfall. She rocked on her bar stool and almost fell off. “I am not lying! It was THIS BIG!” She made an impossibly large measurement with her hands.

“Fuck off!” Peitho bellowed. “He’d have to be a minotaur and you said that never happened!”

“Yeah, nothing happened, I still saw it.”

Peitho mimicked the sizing gesture in awe. “Is that why nothing happened? Did you run for the hills?”

“I ran beyond the hills. I ran so far beyond the hills.”

They exploded into shrieking giggles, linked their arms and knocked back fruit and spirits.

“I said stay visible, not stay in the same place.” Hermes’ teasing tone drew their eyes to him, touching back down at the bar. “There’s a whole party out there tailor-made for degenerates like you two.”

Aphrodite rushed warm. She spun to Hermes with the lights popping in her eyes. “Hot Sauce! You’re back!”

Hermes beamed. “Yup.” His face was alight and his chiton swished restlessly around him. He leaned over and snatched her hand and Peitho’s. “Dance with me, goddesses.”

Peitho whooped and jumped up. Aphrodite’s heart thrummed. Hermes caught her eye with a twinkle in his. She smiled, feeling it in her whole body. She stood, put her drink down, and joined free hands with Peitho. The three of them started dancing before they even reached the stairs, winding in and out of each other’s arms to the winding of the music. They reached the top step and paused. Their bright gazes flitted between each other. Without a word, they rose in unison into the air, hovering like a chandelier above the centre of the dance floor. Aphrodite walked on the steaming heat and the clouds of dry ice as if they were solid. She let the song envelope her and the lights blind her and anchored herself to the grip of Hermes’ and Peitho’s hands. She danced on air. 

The song was fast. They moved with it. Peitho bucked her hips. Hermes shook his wild hair. Aphrodite whirled and ground her heels into the mist. Her blood pulsed harder than the beat, her senses brimming with the sea of want and wiles below. The crowd cast their desires up to her and they pasted to her bare, scalding skin and clung like kisses. She felt kissed all over, her flesh fluttering with pleasure until her breath came short and she couldn’t tell which of the lights bursting in her vision came from the bulbs or her brain. She felt like she was shorting out, all her mental pathways going black, except the ones that spiked her sensations. Her touch on her friends’ hands became light. Her fingers slipped from them to stroke up their arms and over their shoulders, drawing them to her, craving closeness, craving impulse. She sucked their scents, Peitho’s dark, frankincense spice, Hermes’ chili and lime and vodka and underlying masculine malt. 

A strong arm pulled her in. She slid from Peitho, then the press of Hermes’ firm torso sent a thrill through her. She blinked the gleam from her eyes and his pixie smile hazed into view, close to her mouth, his hair tickling her temples. She wet her lip. He mimicked her. His fingertips grazed the small of her back. The prickle made her lift her hips, touching her mound to his. 

He released a tight breath. “Don’t you wish flying was always like this?”

Her head was spinning. She wanted it to spin more.

She pushed him away, keeping hold of his hand, cackling at his startled whoosh through the air. “We need more people up here!”

Hermes broke into a dazzling grin. They both looked at Peitho. She caught their meaning. The three of them separated and began to skate along the fog and the rays of light, pointing at random into the crowd and firing showers of violet and red sparks. Dancers yelped and flailed as they were hit with bolts of magic and whisked up into the air. They scrabbled for solidity, clung to each other in fright, toppled and flapped. The trio swooped to them and taught their puppets how to find paths in the fractured, kaleidoscopic lights. They began to dance again, dizzier, lighter, clutching harder, breathing heavier. Their heat clogged the air. Aphrodite baked in it, sank into it like a spring. She filled with light. She filled with darkness. She caught Hermes’ glinting eye. She let her laughter tumble out of her and sent her special brand of madness out into the atmosphere.

 

*

 

Ares went still as stone. He was sitting on an upturned bucket to be low enough for Sterope to paint him, tucked into the hub at the edge of the dance floor where her and her friends were decorating the guests. He stared at the goddess making constellations of pleasure above him.

She wasn’t supposed to be here.

Tonight was just going to be a dumb costume party with a few people he didn’t know. He was supposed to be clearing his head, processing everything Athena had said. And now…

She moved in the ocean of addling colour and shadow. He felt like a deep sea creature watching a mermaid swimming just under the waves, the mermaid wreathed in the shards of sunlight shattered on the surface and bound in the white strands streaking into the water. She lifted people into the air. She stirred them like spices in a pot. They flocked to her, bowed to her. She rode their fascination. 

She rode it right into Hermes’ arms.

The scarlet messenger was jumping and spinning and whipping his hair, looking like an exploding can of soda. Ares could see the lively keenness of his eyes even from the floor. He saw the red gaze shoot for Aphrodite, heat-seeking missiles. He saw her meet it. He saw them dancing towards each other, bodies moving like fire. 

“Hermes and I are just friends.” 

She’d made a point of telling him that. But…

He ground his teeth and looked down at his boots, suddenly feeling like he was intruding on something private. They’d known each other longer than he’d been alive. He had a lot to learn about how friends and relationships worked once you started to really notice your immortality. He cringed. 

I’m such a kid. Look at her up there, everyone in the palm of her hand. Including Hermes? Why is that guy so hard to read? Why is she?

Sterope pulled down the strap of his tank top and dragged the cool paintbrush along his shoulder. “Amazing, aren’t they?” she said casually.

Ares half-looked back at her. “Who?”

“The Olympians you’re staring at.”

Ares grit his teeth.

“My friends think I’m too influenced by celebrities or whatever, but come on, they’re gods. Hard not to be a little star-struck. Every time Hermes brings my mail I nearly have a heart attack. He’s super hot.”

Ares ticked his jaw. “Yep.”

“And Aphrodite, wowzer.”

Ares sighed tightly.

“Just look at them up there. Gods, can you imagine if they started dating?”

“I’m an Olympian too,” Ares blurted.

Sterope leaned around him and peered into his face. “Are you? I’ve never seen you in the magazines.”

Ares’ mouth went flat. “I’m new.”

“Oh.” She didn’t look convinced. “What’s your remit?”

Ares’ ears burned and his stomach dropped. 

Go on, Stud, tell her. No really, it won’t kill the mood at all. Tell the nice lady you have ultimate power over unspeakable violence. Go on, give the pretty girl nightmares, you complete fucking idiot. 

He cleared his throat and glanced away. “Uh… I’m another weather one.”

She gave him a scrutinising look, then let out a long, amused snort. “Sure thing. You almost had me there. Let me guess, you’re some Underworld minion, right? You’re not the usual look, but you have the energy.”

He bristled. “What energy?”

She shrugged and dunked her brush in the pot. “You know, edgy loner.”

He rolled his eyes and leaned his elbows on his knees. He glanced up at Aphrodite again. Hermes had her hand tight in his. He spun her close and dipped her dramatically. They laughed together. They straightened up and kept tapping and swaying to the song. Was this what it was like being one of her worshippers? She filled the sky with wishes and you just looked up from the crowds of followers and let it fill your eyes and your heart and hope that one day you got to be up there too? 

No.

No, he knew her better than that. He’d seen her cast rose petals onto the street, listened to her nymphs talk to her, heard their stories of her help. Aphrodite wasn’t worshipped from afar. She lived with you, worked on you. Her worshippers didn’t get jealous. They didn’t let thinking about her beat them down. If you worshipped Aphrodite, you let her make you happy, whatever she was doing.

Sterope’s fingers teased his warm skin as she tugged the back of his tank top lower. She glided the cool paint over his shoulder blade. He took a deep breath of the humid, alcoholic air and flexed his shoulders to feel the cool kiss. Aphrodite was brought to life by pleasure. If he could take pleasure in this moment, then he could gift it to her. If she wanted a party, he’d better show up.

He twisted to catch Sterope’s eye with a goading grin. “OK, Smartass. You caught me. Underworld it is.” He patted his lap. “Now get up here and do my face.”

Sterope broke into a wide, bucky smile. She tripped around and dropped her light weight into his lap, sitting astride one broad thigh. Her round cheeks glimmered emerald. Ares nudged his nose to hers and grinned wider. She giggled and lifted the brush to his face. She drew it along the carved cheekbone with a slight tremor that hummed in his skin.

“Keep your hand steady,” he murmured with the hint of a growl.

She took a quick breath and slid closer along his thigh.

 

*

 

Aphrodite felt a familiar shot of lust startle her senses, but she couldn’t place it, there was so much around her; a huge, teaming shoal of bliss and desperation. She let it spin her with another bounding laugh and tumbled against Hermes, flooding her with chili and making her break into a sweat. He caught her hands and pulled her back into the riot of dancing over the crowd.

“I can’t believe I hired out a whole club and invited half the town and you still stole the show,” he said, just audible over the boom from the speakers.

“Teamwork, Hot Sauce,” she replied, pressing their palms together and writhing her hips.

“We’re getting good at that,” he said with a suggestive perk to his lips.

She levelled her glittering eyes at him. They moved with graceful savagery, perfect harmony. Jubilant, frisky energy eddied between them.

He slipped his teeth over his lip. “Proposal.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Already? What a whirlwind.”

“I'm that kind of guy.”

She nudged the heels of her hands to his companionably and grinned. “OK, shoot.”

His smile lightened. “Friends with benefits.”

Amusement and pleasure rippled through her. Her pulse pumped to the beat. She shrugged coyly. “Isn't friendship with me benefit enough?”

He twirled her under his arm. “I mean, obviously. But you know there’s that thing where you give a kid a jelly bean and you tell him he can have two jelly beans if he doesn't eat the first one for fifteen minutes, like, to see if he waits? Yeah, I would immediately eat that first jelly bean.”

This took a moment to process. “So... you're saying a deep, platonic relationship with me, founded on intellectual connection and shared fondness, is like two jelly beans. But you want the single jelly bean of casual buds with booty calls.”

Hermes pulled their hands, interlaced, up to the sky. “Exactly. See? We're on such a wavelength, that's gotta mean the sex would be good.”

She brought their hands down and spread them open to regard his body, slick with shadows. She could already taste him, but there were standards to maintain. She pursed her lips and flicked her eyes back up to his. “Top or bottom?”

He smirked. “Both.”

“Flowers or chocolates?”

“Neither, cheap spirits and donuts.”

“Kinks?”

“Garden variety.”

“Decent stamina?”

“You seen the distances I fly?”

He was looking cocky now. She glared at him warningly. “You one of those guys who won't go down on a woman, but expects a BJ every session?”

Hermes put a vowing hand to his heart. “I would happily wear you like a muzzle.”

A bubble popped in her belly. She tensed sweetly between her thighs. She ran her tongue along her teeth. She dropped his hands and paused, hovering in the air, mist swirling under her stilettos. She gave him a long, open appraisal, more to taunt him than because she really needed to. She mostly just wanted one last, indulgent look before she took him out of the lights caressing his athletic form. 

She smiled like a cat. She turned with a swish of her ponytail and began to strut away along a lilac beam. 

Hermes stared after her, shoulders dropping. 

She turned back, eyes steady and challenging. “Well? You coming?”

His eyes widened, then ignited. A delighted, puppy smile splashed across his face. He picked up his winged feet and hurried after her. “Not until you say, Ma'am!”

She laughed, caught his hand, and pulled him back down to the dance floor, sinking through noise and fog. She didn’t wait for his feet to hit the ground before she was pulling him through the crowd.

“Seriously? Now?” he jabbered after her.

She dug her fingernails into his hand and didn’t look back. “Now.”

Her blood rushed, her instincts sharpened. She led him effortlessly through the shadows, flowing through the barrage on her senses to find an empty space. She hunted like a tiger, feeling Hermes’ quickening pulse and surging excitement, letting it spur her on. They almost broke into a run, feeding each other’s chaotic energy, each other’s need. She spotted a shabby door to a fire exit. She darted for it. 

They sprang through a curl of dry ice and crashed through the door into the shadows. They slammed against the wall of a narrow, deserted corridor lit by an eerie, emerald bulb. Aphrodite pressed her back to the hard wall, cool and smooth, her eyes still aching with the echo of pulsating, rainbow lights and making her head reel. She snared Hermes by the roots of his hair and pulled him against her body. She snarled and drove her tongue into his mouth. He yelped in surprise, then it dissolved into a rough, drunken moan and he melted onto her. He kissed her like a parched man plunging into an oasis. It was wonderful. Her clit was already screaming for attention. How had she let it go this long without a good fuck? Everything in her body woke to it, cried out for it. 

This is who you are. Goddess of Pleasure, take what's yours. 

She clung to Hermes' hair, twisting and tugging it to gorge on his light, surrendering whimpers from the small shocks of pain. His mouth was delicious, the clean taste of vodka thick on him. His lips pressed to hers and worked them until they felt swollen. His tongue was agile and restless, coiling and flickering on hers, duelling with her, competing, hasty and greedy. Their teeth bumped. His hands slid to her bare waist and squeezed her fat until her flesh ached with the depth of his touch. He was pepper hot, his lean body writhing on hers like he was trying to start a fire. Friction grazed their patches of bare skin, hurling fuel onto the flames in Aphrodite's abdomen. She was burning between her legs, her thighs sticky with sweat, her pussy aching with the thudding of the speakers. 

Her senses went haywire with Hermes' racing arousal, but she could barely distinguish it from her own, from the grinding music, from the swell of darkness in her eyes, from the humid scent of bodies upon bodies, drunk and dripping and twining and teasing. Somewhere a man was running his tongue along the shoulder of a woman. Somewhere two women were swaying with their hands and hips connected. Someone was sliding a hand under a shirt. Someone was pulling their hair free from a tie and letting it tumble down their back as their partner buried their nose in it and groaned. She wanted sex. So everyone in the club wanted sex. Gods, it felt good to be thinking about nothing but sex. To have everyone near her be thinking about nothing but sex.

"Fuck, Hot Sauce…" she growled into Hermes' mouth. "I should have pulled you through my bedroom window years ago."

Hermes laughed his high, boyish laugh and tickled her waist. "We all make mistakes." 

His ruby eyes crackled with exuberant light. His incubus grin was a thrilling gash of white in the darkness, a throwing knife catching moonlight. The shadows poured over his lithe, muscular body, soaking him so he looked bathed in wine and ready to lick clean. His single-strapped chiton slipped invitingly on his round shoulder, trickling down his sculpted form to expose his smooth chest, one round nipple bare, tempting as a black cherry. Aphrodite's mouth watered. She ran her fingernails from his hair down his throat to dig sharply into his hard pecs. Hermes hissed and shuddered and bit her lower lip. He grasped her ass and hoisted her against him. Excitement coursed up her core. 

“Shit… Gods… Yes…” she hissed.

Hermes shuddered, filling her with tremors. He pushed her hard to the wall and dove like a hawk to her neck, attacking it with his tongue and teeth. Pleasure pierced her. He peppered her with gnawing kisses, the light touch of pain grounding her in the heady moment. She groaned and stretched her throat for him, giggling and sighing as his tongue flickered around her throat, blisteringly hot and beautifully lavish. She clawed for his body, running her hands feverishly on him, manipulating his wriggling to feel him move on her most sensitive spots. His skin was searing and tacky and smooth. His muscles tensed, taking her powerful grip, letting her use all her strength. But he was narrow too; she could wrap him and hold him tight and feel him squirm until the ache in her clit was so sharp her knees went weak. 

He bit her jaw, then sank into a soft, deep kiss, squeezing her ass and grinding his swell on her mound. She felt him hard and thick, the thin layers of their flimsy clothes doing little to bar his heat from her. He panted and pushed her sarong and his chiton up to their hips, the heat sank deeper through their underwear. She moaned into his mouth and sucked aggressively on his lip.

“Sweet Asphodel, Dite…” Hermes mumbled around her bite. “I’ve been wanting to do this for two fucking days.”

She grinned, her hands stealing to his abs and massaging the rolling muscle. “You know, that’s not that long.”

“I’m impatient.”

She laughed greedily and slid her hand between them. She pressed his cock through his boxer briefs. He spasmed and whined. Wetness kissed the heel of her hand. She rocked her touch, his thickness filling her palm. She leaned and purred into his ear. “Mmm, is it hot tonight or do I just have a touch of scarlet fever?”

He grumbled like a lion cub and chuckled. “You're gonna have a touch of something, Lady Love.” His fingers slipped into her panties. 

"Oh!"

Her want was so intense that his touch almost hurled her over the edge right away. She clenched her body against the impulse, combed her free hand into his hair, and scooped him into a fierce kiss. They ground against the wall, crushing against each other. The floor vibrated under her feet, the muffled boom of the speakers humming in her core. Hermes’ fingers slid deep into her folds and moved fast, tickling her, stirring her, pleasure effervescing in her flesh. Their thighs bumped together. Sweat dripped from his shoulder onto hers. He dropped back to her neck and his breath scorched her skin. She quivered and thrust in his hand, his tease gripping her legs and spine. She chased his fingers with her pussy and rubbed his cock through his boxers until she could feel it hard as marble. She moaned into his ear and beamed as he let out a helpless noise. She ran her tongue along his bare shoulder, salt prickling her taste buds. 

“You’re so fucking hot,” Hermes murmured around a thick groan.

She laughed darkly. “I am the Goddess of Fucking Hot.” She gripped the waistband of his boxers and tore them from his body.

Hermes gasped and jerked. The shredded cotton dropped to the floor and his cock sprang into her hand. She grasped it and began to knead him roughly. The tactile swell strained her fingers. Anticipation welled in her body. 

Hermes almost choked on his moan. He released a giddy, breathless laugh and glared startlingly into her eyes, his face dark in the green light, the whites of his eyes standing out stark. “Oh, that’s how you wanna play it, huh?” he husked. 

She met his glare with a blaze of daring in her eyes, tendrils of her hair coming loose around her flushed face. He grinned like a highwayman and cupped her pussy, enclosing it in the warmth of his hand. He pushed her sharply against the wall, lifting her onto her toes. She squealed. He darted his fingertips to her seam, her panties strapping his hand tight against her clit. Her heart galloped, her breath thin and dizzying. His other hand scooped under her thigh and hoisted it over his hip, spreading her legs forcefully and keeping her pinned like a butterfly. He pinched her and licked her neck. She gasped and dug her nails into his muscles. She gripped his cock like she was wrestling a snake. They locked at the mouth again and worked each other feverishly, stoking a raging fire between them that threatened to tear Aphrodite’s body apart. The heel of Hermes’ hand massaged the peak of her clit, his palm rubbed her labia, his fingertips circled on her seam and eased her open, flooding her with a resounding ache. She trembled between him and the wall, letting the press of his body take her weight. She moaned frantically into his mouth and sparred with his tongue. 

His cock grew heavy in her hand, pulsing and seeping. Her hand slid rhythmically up and down and made her feel like a witch summoning a spirit as his blood coursed to her touch. His lust battered against her senses, like bees ramming against windows. She dined on it, her body charging with it. She could feel her pussy slick and puffy, tender under his touch. The first ripples of climax trickled through her. She clenched her core. She took a deep breath. The air tasted of electricity. She came hard in his hand, seizing his cock and clinging to his chiton as she made a feral, bird of prey noise and shivered and bucked against the wall, pleasure gushing under her skin.

Hermes groaned low and slinked weakly against her, his eyes rolling back into his head and his lips going loose on hers. He peeled an inch from her and caught her sparkling eyes with a bewildered gleam. She could tell he’d felt her orgasm inside his own body. 

“What was that?” he panted.

She giggled and stroked his shoulder. “Oh, yeah, love gods have a ripple effect.”

“You don’t fucking say,” he wheezed. “You got any more in you?”

Aphrodite’s body rang with pleasure, but even now the tide was rising again. Hermes’ desire, the desire of two hundred writhing dancers on the other side of the door, was raining into her flesh. She couldn’t think straight, her tongue felt fat with the taste. “Oh, Hot Sauce, I have so much more.” She dropped her head back and rolled her shoulders to let her breasts rise into the sea green light. She closed her eyes. She slipped her thumb to the tip of his cock and circled. “Don’t stop.”

“Fuck…” Hermes gazed over her body, his heart pounding and his cock aching in her relentless grasp. She looked like the water falling from a fountain, fluid and glistening, making him so thirsty it scraped his throat. She was drawing in shaking breaths that quivered in her breasts. Shadows bound her soft torso in fine, black ropes. He could feel her need to make trouble, to sin, to shake things up, to be a bad influence on the world. It was like spiced honey. It gummed in his mouth. It made him ravenous. 

Her pussy was spring wet, his fingers sliding like he was scooping icing off a sticky bun, lace grazing his knuckles. She moaned or twitched or smiled at every subtlety of touch. Her extreme sensitivity was captivating. When she’d climaxed, he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning, pleasure surging in his cock and pouring over his skin. He craved it again. Her pleasure was a spell. He coaxed her relaxed and softly sneaked two fingers into her soaking seam. Her lupine moan strummed his spine. He echoed it under his breath at the feel of her pulsing around his fingers. She dragged her back down the wall, bunching her overflowing hair behind her, drawing him deeper. His lips trembled. “Gods, Dite, you are…”

“I know,” she purred, a spoiled smile playing on her lips. 

She curled her fingers tighter around his cock. A shock of want snatched his breath. He tumbled forward onto her, lifting her off the ground by her ass. Her thigh was still hooked on his hip. Her weight burned pleasantly in his shoulder. He ran his lips over her tempting breasts, skimming the rim of her shell bra, losing himself in the salacious scent of her perfume. He kissed her fleetingly, hurrying through his heat, outrunning his own wild want as she worked him stiff and aching. He thrummed, his core tightening like a rubber band stretched to breaking point. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he let the tension in his legs snap and dropped to his knees. The floor was cold and dusty as he hit it hard. Relief flooded him as he slipped from her grasp, followed by laughing longing. He kept his fingers moving softly inside her, holding her gusset to the side with his thumb. Her juices dripped down the lines of his palm. 

She reached down and pinched his chin and raised his face so he was gazing up her cascading curves. “Where are you going, Jam Pot?”

Hermes grinned and licked his teeth. “I made you a promise.” 

He held her wide, nebula eyes, magenta in the strange light. Her sweet musk drifted into his senses and made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He hooked her narrow panties with his free hand and tugged them to the side, unveiling the gem of her clit. He let his vision haze and fell to her pussy. His tongue unfurled and draped along the dewy petals.

Pleasure swirled through Aphrodite’s flesh. She was maddeningly sensitive from her first orgasm, but it had scattered some of the chaos from her body. Now she could relax a little more into the pleasure. She let it rush around her body, like a fresh, mountain stream. She buried her fingers in the wildfire tangle of Hermes’ hair and pressed her back to the coolness of the wall and filled her eyes with thrumming emerald light. The flowing of Hermes’ tongue, the wash of dark green, the prickle of her damp skin. She could almost swear she was in the ocean again. She was at home doing this; transgressing, taking, giving. She was at home in the heat.

Hermes spiralled his tongue rapidly, flickering fast so the pleasure bounded up her body like a pack of racing hounds. His fingers began to pump inside her, pleasure throbbing in her core. Everything about Hermes was speed. It made her dizzy, mixing with her drunkenness. It made her feel urgently needed, beautiful beyond control. She held her breath until spots bloomed in her vision. She gasped and the oxygen spiked the drumming, fluttering pleasure from his tongue. Music bore down on them, pressed her like the weight of the sea. She rolled her hips and ground on his mouth. His moan reverberated between her thick thighs.

“Gods, Hermes, yeah…”

He murmured unintelligibly into her flesh.

“Eat me alive, you hungry cub.”

He curled his fingers inside her and teased her breathless. He sucked on her clit like candy. She surged.

“Fuck, Boy… Want me to come in your mouth?”

Hermes’ lips silked on her sensitivity with his rumbling reply. “Fates, yeah. Let me drink you down, Dite.” He plunged his tongue deep.

She arched her spine with a piercing gasp, clutching his hair to stay standing as trembling broke over her body. He raced after her desire, the frenzied flashing of his tongue whisking flames through her body. They blazed in her, overwhelmed her. She bit her lip to stinging, tensed her whole body, then let it go in a cascade of shivers and delirious moans as another climax crashed through her. Hermes gulped it down, smiling dreamily and kissing her clit to send aftershocks skipping into her abdomen. 

She giggled wildly and bucked against him, shoving his mouth away. She pulled hard on his hair and hauled him up to stand, his pixie face a picture of elated play. He grinned and kissed her, flooding her with her own sweetness. She scraped her fingernails down his misty chest, outlining the definition of his pecs and pricking his pointed nipples. She pushed him back, her face warm and lust once again reforming where it had dispersed. She rolled his nipple between her fingertips and held his eye. “One more.”

He bit his lip devilishly. She smiled smokily and turned to put her back to him. She crossed her forearms on the wall, cooling her searing blood in her wrists, and bent with an elegant arch of her spine to draw his eye to her round ass, crowned with light lace. She writhed her hips invitingly.

“Oh my Gods… You're too good to your friends.” Hermes sounded happily defeated. His hands stroked over her ass, the sensation rippling on her skin. He softly pinched the hem of her panties and pulled them down to stretch around her spread thighs. Her short sarong was still scrunched around her waist, baring the small of her back. Hermes caressed her skin, running his hand over her back and her thighs and her ass, sliding his fingers to tease her open again. She could feel his anticipation in his touch. She sucked on her tongue and waited. She flexed her shoulder blades and flicked her ponytail off her back to show Hermes as much of her delicious skin as possible. She sensed his want brewing inside him, and swallowed it with a smile.

Her core thrummed, aching for him. The last of her need swarmed deep in her body. She let her eyes blur in the green glimmer on the sheen of dark paint on the wall. “Fuck me.”

“Fates…”

Hermes’ cock kissed her seam. She pushed back with a hiss through her teeth. He moaned and plunged into her. Pleasure drove through her body, grinding in her muscle and making her growl. He gripped her hips and folded over her, his panting scorching her back. He began to move, deep, slow.

“Faster,” she whispered under the rumble of music.

He chuckled breathlessly and sped up. Once she’d allowed it, he flung into speed with zeal. He thrust hastily, his thick, solid cock pumping the pleasure into her, the slide easy, but with an underlying, smouldering friction that intensified the sensation and the heat until it had seized every inch of her. 

“Hermes! Fuck! More!” she gasped.

He moaned loudly, drowned in a crash of drums next door. He tumbled forward and stopped himself with one hand planted on the wall beside her arms. His other hand gripped her hip punishingly and hinged his hammering thrusts. He filled her with chaotic pleasure, his rush preventing any relief between his strikes inside her, hard, harried, needy. Aphrodite clawed the wall and moaned and hissed and threw herself into the feeling of being fucked, of having a strong, willing, wanting body that took the animal energy of gods inside and consumed it in fire. Each thrust hit her body like a symbol crash, echoing in cacophonous, building layers of lust. Heat lashed her. Darkness engulfed her - the beautiful filth of what they were doing, of being easy to catch, of being a couple of shameless sluts, drunk, dirty and rough and totally unobliged to each other. It was everything she’d missed when she’d moved to Olympus. It was everything she wanted to pollute their waters with.

“Harder, Hot Sauce. Fuck me wild.”

She saw his hand curl into a fist on the wall, his forearm tensing. His hips slapped her ass. He collapsed against her back and clamped his teeth on her bra strap.

“Bite me properly, Boy.”

His teeth sank into her muscled shoulder. She moaned and cocked her knee to press her ass closer to him and take his rapid thrusts deeper. 

“Deeper.”

He drove into her.

“Faster.”

He shook. His wings fluttered.

“Fuck me. Fuck the Goddess of Fucking.”

Hermes pounded her and moaned in his throat, high and grating. “Shit, Dite, you’re more than I bargained for.”

She grinned wantonly. “I aim to please.”

“You aim to ruin.”

“I bet you’re hot as Tartarus ruined.”

He groaned and banged his fist against the wall and coursed on. She laughed. He echoed her. They panted together, the sound tearing out of them and piercing the reverberating synths. The pleasure surged and crashed and surged and crashed.

And surged.

And crashed.

“Oh! Hermes!”

She scrabbled on the wall and screeched. Her final climax exploded like dynamite. It hurled her and hugged her and made the green light burst black and white. Hermes stopped suddenly and gripped her hip and trembled tightly. Then heat ripped from him.

"Ooooooh, fuuuuck..."

It jetted into her body, absorbed in a final flare of flame from her core that enveloped her in blazing bliss.

"Mmmm..."

"Damn..."

"Fates..."

"Yes..." 

At last, the fire dimmed and died, soaking into her flesh and leaving her relieved and revived. Hermes slumped over her, his weight almost making her drop to the floor. She laughed and spun under him to catch him in her arms. He slumped heavier, head lolling onto her shoulder. She held him up for a moment, his torso moving like bellows.

“You’re strong right?” He mumbled sloppily. “Because I’m jello now.”

She laughed harder and hauled him to stand. He swayed, his eyes dotty. She shook her head and rolled him to lean his back against the wall. He dropped his head back against it and melted onto the cold surface. He gazed up into the single lightbulb, absinthe bubbles in his pupils. She tugged her panties back up and straightened her sarong. She leaned beside him and hummed, relaxing into the glow and the muffled thud of the music. For a long moment, they caught their breath and smiled nonsensically straight ahead. 

Hermes’ bare chest rose and fell rapidly, his chiton a mess around his athletic body. “Wow…”

Aphrodite nodded dreamily. “Gods…”

“That was good.”

“That was so good.”

“Uhuh.”

“Hoooo…”

Hnnng…”

They caught their breath another moment. The song changed, slowing, rolling under their feet.

Hermes tipped his head on the wall to look down at the shreds of his boxers. “Damn, this is not a good outfit for going commando.”

She grinned. “You can pull it off.”

“Thanks.”

She looked at him affectionately. He was grinning broadly in the direction of nothing and rubbing his fluttering chest. She cuffed his arm, knocking on the gold armband. “Hey, good job.”

He shot her a lazy, two-fingered salute. 

More heavy breathing.

“I think we need a new term,” he said with a tired croak. “Friends with benefits is too mild. Friends with fireworks?”

She laughed, combing her fingers through her tousled hair and retightening the scrunchy. “I love it.”

“Cool. More very good teamwork.” He floated his hand down for her, palm up. She clapped it in a low-five. 

Their breathing slowly levelled out. 

Hermes ruffled his hair and pushed off the wall. “Right, I should host, if I can stay standing on these thoroughly weakened knees. You coming?”

She pushed off from the wall too and dropped sleepily to lean against his side. He slung his arm around her and they wandered leisurely back to the party. 

 

*

 

Ares was still sitting on the bucket by the dance floor. He held Sterope softly in his lap, sucking lazy kisses from her as the music flowed around them in a slow, syrupy river. His skin prickled with the body paint, patterns all over his arms, shoulders, upper chest, back, neck, and face. His ears buzzed from the speakers. He was warm and fuzzy and forgetful. Sterope was adorably small, easy to cradle in his large hands and lift to his mouth. His fingers splayed on her back and nudged the wires of her costume ladybug wings. She ran her tiny hands around his broad chest, waking his hunger. He pressed his tongue to hers and smelled her watermelon shampoo and didn’t think about anything at all, except reminding himself to stay gentle with her.

They stayed like this through several songs, the tempo of their kiss rising and falling with the rhythm thumping around them. As the beat dropped to the slowest it had been all night, Sterope pulled from him and cupped his face. He blinked at her, her apple green eyes sparkling merrily. She tried to speak. Her lips were too numbed. She giggled and smacked them and tried again. “You’re… Wow… But…” She sucked her lips in and looked a little apologetic.

Ares rubbed her back reassuringly. “You done for the night, Shortstack?”

“Yeah.”

Ares smiled and kissed her cheek. “This was fun.”

She beamed and kissed him once more. She hopped off his thigh and tottered away. Ares watched her go, feeling pleasant and easy, his body blurring into the music. He stood and ambled onto the dance floor. He wasn’t much of a dancer, but his size made it easy to part the crowd. He moved through them like a ship through waves as they lapped against him. People sneaked touches of his round muscle, hands gliding on his arms, shoulders brushing against his back. They stirred around him, drawing him into a trance. He kept moving, kept letting them touch him, letting himself go liquid in the magma of the atmosphere.

He spun heavily, bumping along lines of bodies. His eyes roved through blushes of light. They hazed. They cleared. A spot was shining down in a column of lilac and in its centre, dancing slowly and sensuously, alone, was…

Fates... Aphrodite.

She was a vision descending from the moon in that shaft of light. His heart stopped. He gulped. He thought about slipping away. She had her back to him, her ponytail swishing and her ass a pendulum. He dug his heels into the floor. 

She raised her arms over her head, swaying like reeds.

He rolled his shoulders.

He stepped forward into the light.

Aphrodite had left Hermes to mingle and try to keep his modesty covered with nothing but that skimpy chiton. She felt cosy and relaxed and perfectly reconnected to herself. Hermes' touch lingered inside her, every movement squeezing another droplet of pleasure into her flesh. She had let the magnetic pull of the dance floor take her. She folded into the churn of bodies and her mind turned from all sex to all music. She found herself in a ray of lilac light, the warmth of it embracing her and veiling the rest of the dancers to give her a moment of peace, just her and her body, the vessel of all her pleasure and vigour. She raised her arms into the air and reached for the light, letting it shower over her and cleanse her. 

Fingertips met hers, touching like butterflies to flowers. A familiar, curry spice desire-flavour tingled on her tongue. Her heart stopped. She could feel someone large standing at her back, heat creeping teasingly up her spine. She stilled. The fingertips stroked down her hands and curled into the backs of light fingers. They ran down her arms, the sensation trickling through her veins. As they stroked by her breasts and then down to her waist, she folded her arms down with them. Her hands wandered into cotton curls. 

Oh my Gods… It is him… 

A smile sneaked over her lips. She tentatively tilted her head back onto a broad, warm shoulder. The fingers uncurled and lay softly on her bare waist, the touch strangely thrilling, like hovering a candle flame a hair’s breadth from her skin. She held her breath. 

A low, gruff whisper stole under the music. “And who is this?”

She turned her face a fraction to put those golden lips to her brow. “Not much point in a dark room if we all go revealing our identities, is there?”

His fingers stirred on her waist. Heat wrapped her softly as he stepped closer to her back, the fabric of his clothes dusting her skin. “I'll keep it between us.”

She finally breathed deep. Citrus shampoo and brisk, oaky cologne, and paint. “No, it’s a terrible secret.”

He stroked his hand over her belly. She looked down at it. The heavy bear’s paw spread comforting warmth over her that left a tantalising tingling in its wake. 

“What if I guess?” he whispered.

She relaxed back against him. More warmth. So much warmth. She massaged the roots of his hair coiling around her fingers. “I suppose you can try that.”

“How many guesses do I get?”

She shimmied slowly, rubbing her back against his firm torso and holding in a nervous, delighted shiver. “As many as you like, as long as you give me a reason for each one.”

“Deal.”

One hand stayed caressing her belly. The other stroked down over the roundness of her ass and scooped under her thigh, lifting it and closing a deep, possessive grip. He lifted her effortlessly off her feet. She sighed and flew, wonderfully light. He carried her in a spin and put her down. He kept her spinning, turning her to face him and stopping her with her hands in his. Her eyes widened. He was framed by criss-crossing beams of coloured light and the dark sea of dancers, transforming him into a coastal sunrise. His golden skin glimmered through his tank top, which rumpled around his torso to nestle into the furrows of his heavy build, the white pricked by his dark, persimmon nipples. He was completely coated in body paint; a living optical illusion. Neon rainbow stripes and swirls ribboned his powerful arms and lined the definition of his collar and shoulders and neck. His face had been painted in a sugar skull, bright flowers scattered over his brow and cheeks and his eyes smouldering deep carnelian in dark black hollows. He looked haunting. It worked on him. She gazed at him with her lips parted. 

“Like it?” he husked.

She nodded, speechless, hypnotised by the psychedelic spirals and blooms. They seemed to move on their own, emphasising his constant, simmering energy and the flow of his motion. 

He smiled and stroked his thumbs over her hands. He pulled her gently in on a rise of song. Her hands floated to his chest. Touching him made her heart flutter. He moved his hands to her waist again, but held her tighter this time, guiding the swing of her hips.

He ducked his face close to hers. “First guess on who this pretty creature is: Hermes?”

Her mouth twisted, she cocked an eyebrow. “Why?”

He grinned. “Because you seem like a mischief maker.”

She shrugged coyly and ran her fingertip up to a jut of muscle in his shoulder. “I am. But no.”

He nodded. The music whirled. They hooked each other’s waists in a perfect mirror and spun with it, circling each other like prowling wolves.

“Artemis?” he said.

“Why?”

“Because you're clearly a huntress.”

She quivered with wicked delight. She unhooked from his waist and stepped around him to lean her back against his and guide the roll of his shoulder blades with hers. “I've certainly tamed a few wild beasts. But of a different variety to her.”

She felt a shuddering breath pass through him. She smiled. She knew his paint must be smearing onto her, printing his touch onto her skin. He revolved behind her and caught her floating hand. He scooped her thigh again and tipped her to lean luxuriantly back against his torso. “Demeter?”

“Why?”

He dipped his lips to brush her ear, his voice like stirring earth. “Bringer of plenty.”

Her stomach somersaulted. “No!” She laughed wildly and sprang away from him, spinning away with a totter on her heels. She stamped still and glared at him, smiling coaxingly. His patterned, glowing body looked like crystals forming in dark rock.

He grinned hotly and pursued her, snatched her hands, whipped her backwards, pulled her hard to pose with one foot kicked behind her, leaning against his raised palms with their fingers interlaced. Their eyes met. She couldn’t look away from that mesmerising ring of amber fire in his iris. 

His expression faltered, his mouth slack as he gazed down her poised body. “Amphitrite?”

She could smell his cologne again. Her tongue prickled. The shell bra pressed on her breasts as her breath caught. “Why?”

The corner of his mouth rose. He squeezed her hands and tugged the tension from her pose. She stumbled and let the sudden pound of her heart fell her like a shot doe. She collapsed gracefully and he cast his arm smoothly to her back and caught her in a deep, thrilling dip. Her breath hitched. His nose brushed hers. “Because I can't help wondering how many men you've drowned.”

She stared at his lips, an inch from hers, sly and soft. She gave him a sultry pout. “Oh, too many.”

He still had her hand clasped. “Keep counting.”

Her heart and stomach turned to mayflies. She clung to his hand and let him cradle her. She lifted her thigh to graze his hip. She watched a gruff sigh travel down his bowed body. His tank top had fallen forward and she could see a sliver of unpainted, glistening skin. He lifted her up to stand, slowly, keeping her clasped in one arm, still sweetly holding her hand. They stood together, falling still in the column of lilac light, sparkles like pink rose petals sprinkling into his vanilla curls. He held her close. The dance floor fell away. Not even the heat of a crowd could penetrate the furnace he made with his embrace. 

“What about Aphrodite?” he said, so quietly she had to read his lips.

“Why?” she breathed.

He just smiled. 

She swallowed and forced a touch of play into her quavering voice. “If you don't justify your guess, you don't get any more.”

He wet his lip. He tenderly laid her hand on his chest and stroked down her arm. “I don't need any more.”

He leaned in. He closed his eyes. The music encased them, deep, warm tones pushing them closer to each other. Want rolled down Aphrodite’s body, impulsive and enchanted. She pressed his chest and rose onto her toes. Her eyes traced the flowers etched on his cheekbone, counting the petals. He loves me, he loves me not.

His lips brushed hers.

She opened her mouth.

He eased away from her, his hands pulling from her and leaving her bereft and confused. She toppled forward and caught herself. She blinked and gaped at him. He was grinning with delicious arrogance. He held her eye a long moment, eyes darkened to bloodstone in their black hollows. He bit his lip, put his hands in his pockets.

Turned.

And disappeared into the shadows.

Aphrodite stared in shock after him, her mind completely empty of everything except that almost-kiss.

What… was…

“Oh, you ran into Ares after all.” Peitho’s bubbly voice popped at her side. “I saw him arrive while we were at the bar.”

Aphrodite’s hackles rose. She clunked her mouth shut and turned stiffly to glare daggers at Peitho, standing quite comfortably beside her with blue lipstick marks on her neck. She shrank back a little from Aphrodite’s furious stare. “I should have told you he was here, huh?”

Aphrodite ground her teeth, tense tremors going up and down her limbs. “No comment.” She balled her fists and stalked off to get another cocktail. Peitho smirked after her, slipping through the dancers like a fish through coral. 

 

*

 

Ares stumbled out of the back door of the club and slammed it behind him, blocking out the hammering music. He hugged his middle and gulped in the cold air, trembling and burning, his legs turning to cotton. He leaned against the rough, brick wall and steadied himself. He looked up to the soothing spray of diamond stars in the quiet darkness, glimmering through the sheen of a streetlamp. He pressed his lips together, preserving the touch of Aphrodite. He could feel her keenly in his hands and his chest and between his thighs. He gasped for breath and shook the stuffing from his head.

Sweet Asphodel. 

He hugged his middle tighter and slowed his breathing, focusing on the airflow and getting himself cool and steady, like Athena had taught him. In. Out. In. Out. In. Cold. Out. Slow down. In. Cold. Out. Slow down.

Fuck God of War, that was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

In. Cold. Out. Slow down.

Just hope it worked.

In. Cold. Out. Slow down.

Don’t let me lose you, Beautiful.

Chapter 10: “Pretend that didn’t happen.”

Summary:

Aphrodite and Ares get home from the party still thinking about each other. Thinking turns to... more. Time for some self-pleasure smut! For anyone who's read my other Aredite fics, yes I am once again putting horny Ares in the shower.

Meanwhile, the nymph Sinoe, Acteon's fellow reporter at Panoptes, finds an interesting new voice in the underworld of the Underworld.

[CW: Smoking]

Song, Part 1: I Touch Myself, Divinyls
Song, Part 2: Dig Me Out, Sleater-Kinney

Relief trickled through Aphrodite as she freed herself of her party outfit. Her body felt like bubbles overflowing from the tight container of her knotted sarong and shell bra. Her hair was tangled and brittle from the heat. Her skin was tacky. Her feet throbbed, but the rest of her was a fizzy mixture of wired and pleasantly sleepy. She wandered naked in tipsy zigzags to her bed, clicking on the bedside lamp and falling heavily into a pool of cool, copper light. The mattress squeaked like a startled mouse, then sighed and sank to cradle her weight. She hummed and wriggled on the soft covers, mussing her hair on the pillow. 

She closed her eyes. 

Her ears still prickled and chimed from the din of the club. She could hear herself breathing through the crackling ghost of music. The very first lark cheeped outside, a thread of gold just visible on the jagged horizon through the gap in her curtains. She sighed softly and replayed the party in her head. The dancing, the laughter, the taste of cocktails, the flash of lights, Peitho, Hermes. Mmmmm. Hermes. Hermes.

Ares.

Her breath flickered. 

She felt light, light like when he’d lifted her gently into his arms and spun her in the lilac glow. She relaxed into the bed as she’d relaxed into his embrace, floating as he took her weight, riding a chariot in the clouds. She shuffled her shoulders and remembered leaning back against his broad chest, his lips by her ear, the pound of his powerful heart thudding in her own. There was the slightest touch of his cologne on her skin. She smiled at the sharp scent.

She turned her cheek into the pillow to peek blurrily at the window. The fuzz of alcohol wrapping her brain muddled the boundary between dream and conscious thought. Not quite on purpose, she imagined her window sliding open, a large shadow moving from behind the curtain. A hedgerow-red and wheat-gold face emerged into the fuzzy light.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered in her head.

The figure walked slowly to the bed and came to sit beside her, warmth lapping her. A large hand with cherry nails reached out and tenderly brushed a strand of hair from her face.

“I don’t like leaving things unfinished,” he husked.

She nestled into the sheets, but she thought of herself sitting up, bringing her face to his level, smelling him. “What was unfinished?”

He stroked her hair again. Thick fingers moved with surprising lightness to cup her jaw. “This.” 

His kiss was slow and caressing, parting her lips with his, dusting the tip of her tongue with his, hesitant, giving her space to pull back. She did pull back, but pulled him with her. She hummed deeper and pressed into the mattress as the dream of his weight rolled onto her, smothered her, collapsed into kissing her, kissing her, kissing her…

Her clit kindled.

She rolled her eyes playfully at herself. Great, came three times tonight and you’re horny again. She reached lazily out and fumbled for her bedside drawer. Ah well, no excuses, no rationing. She slid open the drawer and rummaged blindly. Her hand closed on a velvet bag with a round, ribbed vibrator inside. Gotcha.

Her imaginary visitor groaned under his breath and sucked her earlobe.

“Oh…” she sighed out loud. “Ares…”

“Oh my Gods… Aphrodite…”

 

The royal house was chillingly silent, so cavernously quiet that the rumble and swish of Ares’ shower came as a balm to his ringing ears. The clang of echoing music was drowned in the patter and hiss of water. The echoing ache of Aphrodite was kneaded soft by the drum of the hot stream. 

His mind was a thicket of almosts. The almost touches. The almost kiss. The way the psychedelic lights almost showed her face bright enough to tell what she was feeling. The moment he’d lifted her into his arms and almost carried her away. He thought about her hand drifting over the patterns glowing on his skin, the look of wonder in her eyes, the way she spun in the dance with him and they never missed a beat.

The neon paint streaked off him and poured onto the white tiling, swirling into the drain. He watched it spiral and let his eyes blur. He flattened his palm to the wall and leaned forward heavily. Water ran over his shoulders and down his back, like fingertips.

Like fingertips.

“Mind if I hop in?”

“It’s your shower too, Beautiful.”

They lived together, had for a while now, and he hardly ever got to shower alone anymore. He loved it. She couldn’t get enough of his young, strong, willing body. Maybe he’d just got home from war, maybe he’d just been sparring, whatever. Point was he ached all over and here she was to make it better.

“Oh, Baby Boy, you’re so tense.” Her fingers sank deeper with the hard thud of sizzling rain. “Let Momma take care of you.”

He groaned under his breath and leaned heavier on his palm. His head lolled forward. Water kissed his neck. She kissed his neck. In just that spot that she knew melted him. The spot she always kissed him. Always.

Always.

“Gods, Ares, I love this body.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Let me help you love it too.” She stroked down his hanging arm and lifted his hand and folded it around his rising cock, curling his fingers carefully and pressing his grip closed. The shower soaked his back, as if she was pressing her warm padding to him.

“Oh, Aphrodite…”

 

Aphrodite couldn’t hear the buzz of the vibrator through her muffled ears, intensifying the fantasy. Ares’ clothes had gone, the heat of his skin striking her everywhere. He cuddled close on top of her. Her legs wrapped his waist and kept him caged. His mouth was insatiable. He licked like a puppy around her face, he nibbled her ear, he sucked her neck, he sank over and over into lavish kisses that left her breathless. His hard length nestled in her folds and she felt the tremors go through him into her as she rocked the patterned pebble vibrator on her clit. She let out helpless moans and her tongue stirred in the air as she imagined meeting his lips, drawing him closer.

“Aphrodite,” he moaned thickly into her ear. “Aphrodite, you’re so beautiful.”

She purred, grinding on the vibrator as he scooped his hips and his cock slid in her wetness.

“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever known.”

She rolled her spine and felt the spectre of him moving on her deliciously.

“I want you more than anything.”

“Gods…” She drifted the vibrator to the peak of her pleasure and shuddered. 

He shuddered. “I’d do anything to have you, Beautiful.”

She rolled beneath him again, vibrations shocking up her body, an unravelling sensation in her core. 

“Tell me what you want. Anything.”

Her hand, his hand, cupped her breast and squeezed and teased her nipple.

“Anything.”

She moaned. She arched her spine. Her legs trembled. Heat whirled in her belly.

“Ares…” she whispered to him in the bronze dimness, “tell me again how you feel about women.”

A low, wicked chuckle. “Women are fucking ferocious and I can’t do anything but lose to it.”

“Mmm, lose to me, Ares.” She palmed the vibrator. He palmed her pussy. “Lose to me.”

 

Ares’ hand, Aphrodite’s hand, slid tight up and down his shaft, pleasure rippling through him in the rhythm of the falling rain. He could feel her breath on the back of his neck, like steam. Paint mixed over his skin, blending into vibrant spectrum splashes. Her fingers massaged his back, his ass, his neck. They sneaked around and squeezed his throat playfully. He chuckled roughly and it skipped into a moan. Her fingers combed into his hair and scratched the roots. He shivered, the steam flurrying around him. He, she, flicked a thumb onto the tip of his cock and circled. Another moan drifted into the boiling hiss. 

“That’s right, Honey, you unwind. Let me relax you.”

“OK…”

“Let me release you.” Grip tightening.

“Fuck…”

She worked his cock hard, her touch gliding smoothly in the water. She kissed along his shoulder. She slapped his ass. A bolt of pleasure went through him. His heart kicked. She seized his waist and spun him to face her, her eyes sparkling and scheming. He skidded on the slippery tiles and landed with his back against the wall. The shower gushed over his chest, stinging his nipples, tickling his abs. Paint melted from him, leaving him a glistening, rainbow mess. Heat washed over his torso. Aphrodite flung against him and pinned his wrist over his head and kissed him forcefully. He growled into her mouth and went weak at the knees.

“Oh yeah! Treat me rough, Babe.”

 

Aphrodite flipped onto her front, pinning Ares beneath her, grinning at his flash of surprise that shimmered into mischief, then lustful longing as she gripped his hair at the roots and kissed him. She twisted the pillow case in her fist and pressed her brow into the cool fabric and bucked against the vibrator. The tremors bit deep in her muscles. Ares’ grip clamped her thighs. He glared hotly at her and bit her lip. They kissed again. He couldn’t stop kissing her.

 

She couldn’t stop kissing him. It was as if his mouth was magnetic. She ran her hands possessively on him, igniting every inch of his skin. Their tongues tied around his panting moans like machine gun fire. She crushed his wrist to the porcelain and pressed him to the wall with her naked body and pumped his cock with punishing pleasure. Water scalded his tongue as his eyes rolled back into his head and he opened his mouth unthinkingly. He spluttered. He shook his head. He grabbed the bottle of shower gel and fumbled with it, squeezing an ice green dollop into his hand. He foamed it in his palms, trembling, hazy. Rainbows danced in the bubbles, in his eyes.

“Let’s clean you up, you dirty boy.”

His hands, her hands, roved around his body, soaping him up, frosting him like a vanilla cupcake. Her touch was soft, warm, the water running over him, droplets glittering on his nipples and his jaw and the ends of his curls, stroking over his biceps and down his thighs, like her hands, her hands stroking him everywhere. She spread the suds around his body, moving him to examine his muscle, curling his arm, spreading his legs, having him clench and flex and roll his shoulders. Her fingertips circled on his nipples until they were arrowhead hard and his breath came short. Her satin touch and the heat of hissing water coated him. Heat. Everything was heat.

 

Everything was heat. Aphrodite snuggled prone into the mattress, into Ares’ body, and felt the sweat break out between her thighs and warm her hand. She kissed around his throat and he moaned for her, low and wanting. He sneaked his hand between them and moved his fingers in her folds, swelling to him, wet for him. His other hand clutched her ass and held her tight. Her nipples tingled as they ground on the bed sheets, on his chest. Her hair flung across the pillow. He whispered to her that he loved the smell.

Oh yeah, Honey?” she whispered back.

“Oh yeah. And I love how you feel. You’re so wet, Beautiful. You wet for me?”

“I’m so wet for you, Ares.”

“I’m so hard for you. I’ve wanted you since we met. Every day. Without a goddamn break.” He stirred her clit. He teased her seam. He V’d his fingers and massaged her labia. The vibrator thrummed throughout her.

She sighed high and giddy. “Say you want me one more time.”

“Fuck, Aphrodite, I want you. I want you. I want you.”

 

“Fuck, Ares, I want you.”

Aphrodite’s soaped up hands grasped his cock, the kiss of bubbles doubling the sensation of her writhing fingers. He slinked against the wall. Steam curled from his chest, a clementine blush spreading across it. He moaned loud in his throat and the roar of water swallowed it up. 

“That’s right, Baby Boy, moan for me. You hard for me?”

“I’m so hard for you.”

“I’m so wet for you.”

She steered the tip of his cock to her pussy and clung to his shoulder with one hand as she pleasured herself with his head, the hot shower spilling over the sensitive swell. She gasped musically like the whisk of water. It went through him. He folded his hand over hers on his shoulder and interlaced their fingers. They kissed passionately. Simmering water burst over his skull and drenched his hair. Warmth travelled down his spine and loosened all his joints. Pleasure chased it. Her hand worked him slowly, manipulating the sensation so there was never a moment’s reprieve. She claimed him. She desired him. To her, he was beautiful, whole, precious. She didn’t want him well-behaved. She wasn’t frightened of his strength and his temper. She adored it. It made him exciting. It made him sexy. It made him worthy of her and all her incredible power.

He moaned resoundingly and spun with a sputtering spray. He leaned heavily with his hand against the wall again, speeding his strokes. He scooped her up around his waist and crashed into kissing her feverishly. She squealed and moaned hungrily and clawed at the back of his neck.

“Fuck me, Honey. Fuck me deep.”

“Gods, yeah…”

Steam wrapped his cock. He thrust into her, holding her tight. Pleasure flooded him. Waves of it hit him with his thrusts into her soft, squeezing core. More waves hit him with the hard drumming of the shower on his broad back, sharp like her fingernails. He pinned her to the wall and buried his face in her perfumed neck and breathed her in, fragrant steam clogging his senses, heat and citrus overwhelming him, like she overwhelmed him, every time they did this, because they did this all the time. 

They were together and they did this all the time.

 

“Don’t stop,” Aphrodite murmured frantically, Ares’ fingers sending swarms of pleasure into her pussy, fluttering in her belly and legs.

He craned up and sucked her lips, mumbling roughly around kisses. “Stop? You think I’d ever stop? You think giving you pleasure isn’t the single most important thing in the world to me right now?”

She sighed and shuddered. She rubbed the vibrator around her thighs and stomach and breasts and back to her clit, renewing the sensation. She buried her face in the pillow and undulated on the mattress, mewling and gasping.

“Gods, yeah, move on me like that,” Ares husked over a whine in his throat. “You’re incredible. Fuck my hand.” 

She twisted the vibrator in her flesh. Pleasure hummed in her flesh. She writhed. Her ears rang.

His voice rumbled low and ragged. “Fuck my mouth.”

He kissed her hastily, then slid beneath her, the friction of his body teasing her wild. His hurried breath singed her pussy and she shivered. She wriggled to kneel with his devilish face gazing up from between her thighs, hovering her pussy over his soft, open mouth. They locked blazing eyes, then she arched her spine and knelt up, planting her weight, sitting on his chest. She flipped the vibrator to the smooth point. The pleasure turned fiery and sharp. She turned up the dial. Her breath flew out of her. She clung to the sheets, Ares’ fingers looping into hers. She dropped her head back and luxuriated in the deep serpentining of his tongue in her wet, tingling flesh.

 

Ares’ palm squeaked on the shower wall as he pressed hard to it and slid his hand rapidly up and down his shaft, bolts of pleasure destabilising his stance, his grip slipping in the foaming, fresh shower gel. He held Aphrodite tight against the tiles, her hair dripping, her softness cuddled to him, her thighs clasping his waist and constricting his breath. Her fingers wound into his hair. He remembered how heavy she was when he’d carried her on his back through the mall. He etched the details of exactly how it had felt to hold her up around him into the fantasy. He dropped his brow to his leaning hand, to the curve of her neck, gnawing on her shoulder as he plunged deep, pounded in and out of her with his heart hammering and his breath pumping. 

She clamped her teeth on his ear and snarled and sighed into it in a filthy stream, harmonising with the growl of the shower. “Yes! Yes! Fuck me, Ares. Gods, your cock. Hold me and fuck me. Hold me and fuck me.”

“Fuck, Aph…”

“Kiss me.”

He did, fiercely, needily, and mumbled out loud, “Gods, your mouth.”

 

“Gods, your mouth!” Aphrodite rode the vibrator and rode Ares’ writhing tongue. He moaned into her flesh, sending vibrations into her core. He lapped and stirred and flickered, churning her pleasure frantic, a storm in a teacup. His eyes were closed, his expression indulging and happily lost. He was obsessed. Food had lost its taste. He was hers. Utterly. Entirely. Aphrodite, Conqueror. The pleasure spiralled into her powers and sparked in her skin. He stroked his thumb over her hand, held her tenderly, poured his devotion over her. 

Sensation welled and surged.

 

Sensation welled and surged. Ares’ breath caught and he slammed his hand on the tiles. He slammed Aphrodite to the wall. Water gushed over them, steam wreathing their entwined bodies. They moved like river serpents through the flow. Her taste filled his mouth. Her brightness filled his eyes. Pleasure seized his cock and spread with the drumming heat across his body. He gripped himself harder and thrust harder into her. 

“Yes! Ares! Yes!”

 

“Oh, Ares! Yes!”

 

“Gods, Aphrodite! Oh my Gods!”

 

Ares moaned into her pussy.

 

Aphrodite clung to his shoulders.

 

She ground on his lips.

 

He bit her jaw.

 

She clutched his hair.

 

She clutched his hair.

 

Pleasure.

 

Pleasure.

 

Such pleasure.

 

He hurtled to the edge, his knuckles going white. 

 

She hurtled to the edge, casting her head back.

 

“Don’t stop!”

 

“More!”

 

A feverish whisper in his ear. “I’m crazy into you.”

 

A breathless kiss on the inside of her thigh. “Tartarus, I’ve never felt this good.”

 

Faster.

 

Higher.

 

Hotter.

 

Aphrodite gasped piercingly as the vibrator sent a final wild ripple through her and her climax fired like a canon. She pressed the buzzing pebble hard into her clit, Ares tucking into the nut of nerves and breaking waves of heat over her. She trembled violently and tipped onto her side, grasping the vibrator, feeling the buzz in her veins. She clicked it off and let a silly smile spill over her face. 

She giggled and peeked from the shadows at Ares’ lively eyes and flushed cheeks, his mouth shining. “Enjoy that?” she murmured cheekily.

Ares beamed like the sun and rolled to lie beside her. He reached out and brushed his hand down her arm, then took her chin and ran his thumb over her lip. He gazed at her, his amber glimmer warm and worshipful. “Aphrodite?”

“Yeah, Honey?”

“I love you.”

 

Ares clenched his teeth and groaned like a wounded lion as his climax wrenched from him. His rigid muscles spasmed and jerked, then turned to butter. His cock spurted against the porcelain, melted snow washing into the drain as the water poured onto his skin and dropped aftershocks through his flesh, like coins hitting a pool. He sighed abrasively and leaned his brow heavier on the back of his hand on the wall. The shower trickled and tapped over his hulking shoulders, rising and falling in the steam as he fought for air. 

Aphrodite slid from around his waist and leaned back against the wall, smiling blissfully in the shadow of his body and caressing his abs.

He grinned down at her, kissing the tip of her nose. “Enjoy that?”

She beamed like the moon. She walked her fingertips up his torso and looked up into his face, the mist of the shower lacing her skin, dewy and warm. “Ares?”

“Yeah, Beautiful?”

“I love you.”

 

Aphrodite went cold, alone again in the copper glow. Had she really had him say that to her? Is that what she wanted? No, come on. She was drunk. She was sleep-deprived. She was on her fourth orgasm of the night. She wasn’t thinking straight. 

Which meant there was nothing to block her feelings and fantasies.

She rolled her eyes and glared at her swollen clit.

Ugh, fuck you.

She dropped her head back and sucked her lip, the larks twittering accusingly outside.

Probably best just to pretend that didn’t happen.

 

Ares spun free of the dream and dunked his head under the shower, his ears roaring and his neck searing. Had he really had her say that to him? Is that what he wanted? No, come on. He was drunk. He was high on paint fumes and making out with strangers. It was stiflingly humid in here. He’d got his blood pumping taking a risk on that dance. He was het up over being home and he was chasing escape.

Which meant he was raw and his instincts were heightened. 

He grit his teeth and scowled down at his red-gold cock.

Fuck you, Buddy.

He dropped his head back against the wall. The shower hummed and soaked him sleepy.

I’m just gonna pretend that didn’t happen.

 

*

 

Sinoe hoisted the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder and surreptitiously closed her fist on it, nut brown eyes flitting side to side, surveying the dark streets for dangers. She had never been to the Underworld before, let alone the bad part of town. Her court shoes clacked on uneven concrete, echoing in the narrow alley, the sound bouncing up her spine. The crooked, black buildings loomed over her, crows eyeing a worm. Fracturing, crumpled drainpipes webbed them, like popping veins, half of them clogged with decaying grime. She could smell it under the damp, stale odour of the vents puffing out the dregs of sweat and soot in the cramped jumble of apartments. Sharp, scattergun graffiti burst like bombs and squiggled like silly string around her, so dense the walls lost their three-dimensions, becoming a stage set in a cartoon. 

Shade Republic Now!

Fuck Kings!

Shades Unite

This is the Imp-erial Capital

A turquoise fist punching upwards.

A comic book explosion.

A slathering hound.

Chaos!

Take comfort in darkness

A gigantic, grotesque woman across half a wall, eating a purple swan, the bricks breaking out of her skin like acne.

A helmet gushing blood, the horsehair crown styled into spikes.

Judge this! plastered over a hand flipping her off.

A swollen vagina sprouting black, wilting flowers.

A boot stamping on a pomegranate, the juice jetting red across the wall.

A bloodshot eyeball on the end of a knife.

Bring back the primordial

The images leered at her, unsettling, fascinating. She focused on them to avoid the uncomfortable gazes of the stray shades wandering the streets, hollow-eyed, grey-faced, softly translucent and glimmering ghastly from within. Old men shuffled, layered with rags. Young women closed themselves tight in studded jackets and let feathery hair conceal their faces. Steam hissed from a grate and curled into the darkness, misting the stark scene. Silver puddles in the cracked concrete glinted in sickly yellow streetlights. Sinoe folded her arms tight and tried to make herself unnoticeable. Nowhere on Olympus looked like this. 

The sound of breaking glass snatched her breath.

She turned towards the noise. Two shrill, snapping voices echoed from a high window, yelling bloody murder at each other. The sky above was a dark, strange, colourless wash, barely visible in the crowding of buildings around the thin slice of street.

A flash of bubblegum pink caught her eye. She glanced sideways to see a tall, chunky person strutting past her in high, glossy boots and a bright pink corset and leather jacket. Their lips and eyes were painted dazzlingly, casting a glow across their spectral skin and pale stubble. They chatted blithely on a beaten up phone with a bent antenna. “No! No, I’m telling you, Baby, he’s not worth it. Just come to my place. There is so room! And you know what else there is? Some Gods-damn respect!”

Sinoe naturally strained to eavesdrop, but a cat howled and sent a jolt up her back. She took a steadying breath. Her mouth and nose filled with the sourness of drain water and beer. 

Then another noise caught her keen ears. Screeching guitar and crashing drums, muffled through thick mortar. She looked sharply ahead and saw a buzzing, flickering neon sign in jagged, scarlet letters.

Last Resort

That was it. She steeled herself. Finally, a real story, something with texture, something with pressure points. She picked her way carefully around a toppled trashcan and the debris mulching in the wet crags underfoot. Two more shades were leaning against the club wall, one bald and encased in ripped denim, one with wild, platinum hair that dissipated at the ends into the air. They were smoking thin cigarettes. The silver wisps visibly travelled down their translucent throats and curled where their lungs would be. Their deep-set, dead eyes rolled to Sinoe as she neared. Her mouth twitched awkwardly. Denim blew a cloud of smoke towards her, shrouding them and their friend. She sidestepped it coolly and faced the bouncer, a towering, barrel-chested demon with the head of a grey, gaunt wolf and narrow eyes as red as the sign. She swallowed.

“I.D.?” the wolf demon grunted.

Sinoe started and nodded. She dipped into her bag with unsteady fingers and retrieved her passport, freshly stamped at the border. She held it up for him.

Yellow teeth emerged from his muzzle. “A long way from home.”

Sinoe gulped and nodded.

“Lost little lamb.” His voice was like a truck driving over gravel. He licked his chops.

Her ears prickled and her stomach writhed. She shrank back and tightened her lips indignantly. 

The wolf chuckled and jabbed his thumb over his meaty shoulder. “Welcome to the end of the line.”

She eyed him warily as she walked through the narrow door. 

Darkness engulfed her. 

For a disorientating moment, she completely lost her vision. Then sound barraged her ears. So much sound. Too much sound. Guitars grinding like sabotaged machinery. Drums banging like aircraft crashing into hillsides and starting avalanches. And a voice. A raw, grating, furious voice.

“You told our story 

like it was your story.

You said my name

like it wasn’t anymore.

An old, broken necklace

you wear to look poor.

Poverty’s in fashion

on the dance floor.”

Sinoe followed the voice instinctively, drawn to it like a moth to the moon. She stumbled through the thick darkness. A blade of light cut across her eyes and a churn of bodies enveloped her with moist heat.

“You wear me like a costume

for your rich kid parties.

The real me would make their ears bleed.

I’m gonna make their ears bleed.”

The voice wailed demonically and the guitars wailed with it, daggering Sinoe’s pointed ears. She screwed her eyes shut painfully tight and took another steadying breath. Salt scraped her nostrils, followed by dense musk. There were so many people in here, a screaming pressure cooker of bodies. She blinked her eyes open and stared at the jostling crowd. Imps and gorgons and shades rattled against each other as they flung their limbs, like electrocuted marionettes, messy, choppy hair shaking. Dusty light wheeled off sloshing beer cans and piercings and buckles and pins.

Shades Unite

Judge this!

The punching, turquoise fist.

The slogans and symbols from outside flashed on leather lapels and denim collars. She raised a curious eyebrow. Cool buffeted her in the suffocating closeness of the small, windowless box of the club as ghosts brushed her. The walls were painted muddy black and plastered with peeling posters showing angry, sultry, haunting faces and zany band logos. Just visible through the storm of people was a black bar with a steel-skinned gorgon hastily handing out cans and glasses that immediately spat onto the sticky floor. Sinoe scanned the room further and found the door to backstage. She looked across the seething pit of the floor and tried to ground herself in clocking the details, that warped skull tattoo, that blue mohawk, that black lipstick. She rifled through potential adjectives for her article.

But that vengeful, rending voice kept kicking down her thoughts.

“My pain is your salary, 

my misery’s your brand. 

Keep making that money 

off that forgotten girl,

while she rots underground. 

Fill your coffers 

with the way I used to smile.”

It stole over Sinoe's skin, into her, throughout her. She hugged her middle and looked to the stage. Rising low over the thrashing crowd was a three-person band of female shades, all with hair dyed raven black and hacked into shards. Deep black swallowed their eyes and blood red was smeared across their mouths. The drummer attacked the skins like a demolition machine, her teeth bared and her head banging. The bassist bounced on her toes, jaw hard, the tattoos on her thighs misty at the edges on her spectre skin. Front and centre, Sinoe finally dared herself to look at the source of the voice. It was a short, powerfully built woman with a black heart tattooed on her bicep. She’d shed her checked shirt and tied it around her waist, performing in a soft-cupped, black bra that clung to her body with her shining sweat. The heat dripped her make-up down her face, emphasising the way she contorted her mouth as she cried the lyrics out into the room, like a hex. She raised her hands overhead and clapped. The crowd followed her, gazing up at her as if she was a goddess. She tore back into her onslaught on her guitar, the red body of it covered in scratched stickers bearing those slogans. 

The riot of noise stampeded over Sinoe, pummelling her heart, bringing the colour to her face. It was the same rush as a roller-coaster, the same elated terror. She bit her lip and forgot all words, forgot the only thing she had.

“Good you forgot me.

No one sees the

forgotten coming.”

The singer leaned into the battered mic. “SHOUT IT BACK TO ME, FUCKERS!” 

Sinoe jumped at her car-screech command, heart ricocheting around her ribs as the crowd let loose a war scream and began to hurl the words back at the stage, their raised voices a sea storm, their fists pounding the air. 

“No one sees the 

forgotten coming!

No one sees the 

forgotten coming!

No one sees the 

forgotten coming!

NO ONE SEES THE 

FORGOTTEN COMING!”

Sinoe couldn’t breathe. Her ears were overwhelmed. Her pulse rocketed. She clutched the string of her bag and stared at the raging woman in the blasting light.

“FUCK YEAH!” The singer punched the air and lashed a few final, howling, gut-tearing notes from her guitar. Her bandmates followed suit, wrenching every last scrap from their instruments. The crowd went into a frenzy, calling fanatically for more, eyes wide and chilling, staring like lemurs, roaring like lions. The floor trembled under Sinoe's shoes. She planted her feet firmly and tensed against the surge of movement threatening to cause a cave-in. They all rushed forward and crushed against the stage, reaching bony fingers desperately up to the band, as if to be pulled from quicksand. The singer laughed and crouched and clapped hands and squeezed fingertips, sweeping her uneven bristle of hair back off her daubed face. She touched as many as she could reach, then stood again and took the mic, her mellowed voice echoing over the din. “OK, that’s all for tonight.”

Cacophonous booing.

She exchanged rakish grins with her bandmates. “We’re sorry! Gotta respect the rules, right?”

The drummer knocked the joke barum-tish out and the crowd laughed callously.

“Nah, come on, you know the real reason is I need to get to the bar before Lex back there drinks the only good beer.” She swept her hair again, her brow glistening. “And it’s fucking hot under these lights. Shit. So, OK, you sexy, filthy, shitty, beautiful people, we’re Viper Dolls. Stay angry. Stay ugly. Cunts not kings.”

“CUNTS NOT KINGS!” the crowd roared. The words tumbled into bestial shrieking that shook the walls. 

The bassist flipped off the room. The drummer saluted with her sticks. The singer forked her index and pinky on both hands and blew kisses to the crowd. They sloped off backwards, only turning from the tumult at the last minute, slinging their arms around each other as they vanished.

Sinoe sprang to attention and scurried to the backstage door. She had to fight tooth and nail through the staggering bodies. When she got to the door she bumped into another demon, this one with stubby horns and pasty, scaled skin. He narrowed slit eyes at her.

“I’m press,” Sinoe bellowed over the racket.

He looked somewhere between bemused and suspicious.

“Honest,” Sinoe said, pulling out her Panoptes I.D. “I have an appointment.”

The bouncer scrutinised her I.D., then nodded and pushed the door. Sinoe nodded thanks and slipped through. Her ears rang with the noise still rumbling in the club. She found herself in a narrow corridor painted in eerie, mint green and papered with more of the old band posters. She could hear energetic chattering echoing in the hard space a few paces down. She suddenly felt very nervous, the sort of nervous she used to get talking to the cool kids at high school. She pressed her lips together and looked down at her taupe turtleneck and brown skirt. She looked like someone’s mom picking them up. She tugged the scrunchie out of her hair and messed it up a little. She puffed out of her nose and tip-toed to the voices. 

"Nice one, Chick."

"Yeah, you too. See you at the bar."

"Give us five."

The bassist and the drummer wandered with their arms around each other out of a door to her left. They didn’t notice her and vanished into another room further down. Sinoe went to the door they’d left open and leaned cautiously around the frame. She looked into a tiny, windowless room, little more than a closet and even tighter for the two tables shoved against the walls. They and the floor were submerged in junk. Empty cans, piles of loose, scribbled pages, stained paper napkins, balled up clothes. The singer had her back to the door, the trash heap of her dressing table (or rather, normal table with a cracked, frameless mirror propped up on it) just visible through her body. She was tucking her guitar into a scuffed case, a few gruff notes spilling from the strummed strings. 

Sinoe eyed her back, bare but for the thin bra strap and gleaming with sweat. Most shades weren't physical enough to sweat. This woman was uniquely physical. The cool green of the walls glimmered on her absinthe vapour skin. Sinoe could smell mildew and a peculiar, icy scent. 

She cleared her throat.

The singer turned around. Her face close-up struck Sinoe instantly, heart-shaped with a haggard prettiness made striking and scrappy by her heavy, smudged make-up. Her eyes were almond and chilling, hollow, like all the shades she’d seen, but with a scarlet glint in the centre. Her hair criss-crossed thickly over her brow and scalp, like charred sticks. There was a steel stud in her nose and a glinting ring in her lip. Her bicep tattoo pumped as she drew herself up to her diminutive height, her stocky frame broadening. “Yeah?”

Sinoe stepped fully into view and raised a hand awkwardly. “I’m Sinoe. We spoke on the phone.”

The singer glanced up and down Sinoe's neat, proper outfit. Her fat lip curled. “Don’t remember.”

Sinoe grimaced. “From Panoptes. The magazine.”

“Oh, right.” The singer looked disinterested and gestured around the mess. “Sure, sure, make yourself at home.”

Sinoe glanced stiffly about her, heart still going a little too fast. She nodded and found her way to the corner of a rickety table and perched on it, shifting to not touch anything. The room was so small. The singer was easily in arm’s reach.

The singer watched her with a small, amused twist to her mouth. She shoved a pile of paper and clothes sideways on her table and slid onto the gap, pulling her foot up to her ass and leaning her elbow on her knee that poked through one of the rips in her baggy jeans. She scratched her studded, button nose and rolled her jaw. The cold, low light brushed shadows into her cheeks. She fixed Sinoe with an unnerving, electric look and regarded her unreadably. 

Sinoe held her gaze, feeling it like an x-ray. She swallowed and fidgeted a little. She realised this woman would not be pleased by timidity. She raised her chin and brought her notepad and pen and dictaphone out from her bag.

The singer raised her chin too, showing a neck tattoo of a songbird. “Hey,” she said, her overworked voice coming in a deep rasp, “I don’t want no stupid questions about my hair or my clothes or the other shit magazines up there talk about. Hair my friend did, shirt I got outta someone’s van I woke up in. I wanna talk real shit.” She dropped her chin and looked even more penetratingly into Sinoe, red pupils glinting. Her voice was oddly lilting, despite its roughness, almost more musical than her singing. “Down here, it’s real. It’s the grit under your fingernails. It’s brick dust. I’m not interested in polishing things for some suit and his wife in a white, fur coat.”

Excitement fluttered in Sinoe’s gut. “Noted.”

The singer nodded. She dipped her pale hand into her pocket and pulled out a creased pack of cigarettes and a plastic lighter. “You smoke?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re gonna, it’s a small room.” She tugged out a cigarette, sneaked it between crooked teeth, and lit it. The red light in her eyes swelled and dimmed. The acrid scent bloomed in the squashed space. Smoke trailed around her chipped, black nail polish and noosed her neck. She took a long drag, ash creeping down the paper. The smoke plunged into her torso, clouding in her chest. Sinoe’s eye flitted to the poke of her nipples in the soft bra. And back up. 

Raucous, violent cheering battered the wall from the other side. “Viper Dolls! Viper Dolls!”

Sinoe glanced towards it. “Wow, they’re really screaming for you out there.”

The singer’s plump mouth sneered. “Yeah.”

“A lot of fans down here.”

Her face darkened. “No. The likes of Orpheus have fans, followers.” She dragged again and croaked through a billow of smoke. “What I got here is a community, a sisterhood, ‘cept it’s not all sisters. We look out for each other. We believe in a future for each other. And the music brings us together, it stitches the quilt. Women weave.” She gestured with the cigarette, drawing patterns in the air. “That’s what the band is. The weaver.” She flicked ash off the toe of her boot and scratched her nose again, eyes dully turned away.

“Doesn’t sound like a recipe for fame,” Sinoe said, lightness smuggling curiosity.

The singer snorted sharply, red pupils shooting back to Sinoe, the targeting spots on sniper guns. She tossed her jagged fringe to the side. “What’s fame? Fame’s nothing. Fame fills a hole you shouldn’t even have, a hole people like this don’t let you get.” She jabbed at the wall concealing the club. Her voice was disjointedly enchanting, a clarinet with a broken reed. “Fame is love that lives in the clouds. What good is that? Love down here is dirt love. If your love don’t live in the dirt, it don’t really live anywhere. Love is an animal, you gotta decide if you’re gonna be a zoo-keeper or a vet or a hunter or a taxidermist.”

Sinoe listened carefully. She cocked her head. “And which is Orpheus?”

“Taxidermist. He only wants what’s dead, and he only wants it for being dead.”

“And which are you?” Her heart skipped asking the question.

The singer grinned, leaning her elbow heavier on her raised knee. “I’m an animal too.”

Sinoe’s face heated. Her ears flicked. She blinked sharply and thumbed her crisp notebook. Fingers of smoke stroked her wrist, reminding her how close she was to this... carnivore. 

The singer scratched her bare, crunched stomach. “Listen, that’s the last I’m gonna say about Orpheus, unless it makes sense in something past. I don’t mind talking about the past. But he’s got enough publicity.”

Sinoe shrugged easily. “That’s fine, I’m not here to talk about him.”

The fox grin broadened. “Then what are you here to talk about?”

“You.”

She laughed with gravel and leaned back, opening out her blue-grey, smoke-swirl torso. “Why? Big appetite for poor bitches up there?”

Sinoe thought about the lyrics, wear me like a costume for your rich kid parties. She laughed bitterly through her nose and relaxed in her seat. “Actually, you’d be surprised. Slumming it’s the favourite summer pastime.”

“Oh, is it summer?”

“Yes.”

“I kinda miss that. Used to tan nice.” She held up the hand holding the cigarette to show her ghost-glimmer skin and smirked. She darted her eyes around Sinoe’s face, x-raying again. “Looks like slumming’s something you know too much about. From the shitty side.”

Sinoe’s breath clogged. She looked into the singer’s face, brutally honest and impossible to lie to. She tucked her earth brown hair behind her sand brown ear and replied without thinking. “You can only climb so high as a nymph. But gods like us as treats. We’re like fast food.”

The singer nodded solemnly. “I hear that.”

Sinoe’s face burned. She shook her shoulders and let them slump, her brow creasing. She huffed impulsively. “Actually, I do smoke.” 

The singer raised a thick eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I was trying to quit, but screw it.”

The singer grinned and picked the pack and lighter up again. She tugged another cigarette free and held it out for Sinoe. The closeness of the room struck Sinoe harder. She looked at the nearness of her fingers, gnawed by the guitar strings. She hesitated, then took the cigarette.

“Put it in your mouth. I like to light it in your mouth.”

Sinoe blushed treacle. She kept her eyes down and slipped the cigarette between her teeth, tasting the familiar, forbidden, woody flavour. The singer's hand drifted too close to her mouth. A yellow flame sprung up from the lighter. Sinoe ducked into it and smoke rose into her eyeline and prickled on her tongue. She sneaked her eyes up to the singer. She was watching her face with roguish, disarming interest.

Sinoe’s stomach tightened. She sat up straight and snicked the cigarette between her fingers. 

The singer broke eye contact and brushed her fringe with her fingertips. “Don’t ask me your slumming it questions.”

“They’re what my editor wants.”

“Huh, what’s it like to be someone who expects to get what they want?”

Sinoe let out a laugh much louder than she intended and shut her mouth around it. Ragged cries for more still thrummed through the wall, but it felt private in here; a grubby, little pocket dimension.

The singer looked at her again with a hint of command, voice lowering, a buzz saw cutting cotton. “You’re the one that made the trip. Ask me what you wanna ask me.”

Sinoe felt drawn. Her head filled with aniseed smoke, feeling like how the singer’s body looked. Opaque glass. She forced herself to return the sharp look. “How do you know my questions are any better?”

Another irresistible curl of the lip. “I don’t. But I’d like to check.”

Sinoe gazed at her through the green-grey. “You’re not what I thought you’d be.”

“What did you think I’d be?”

“I’m not sure.”

The singer chuckled like cracking frost and dropped back against the wall, her hair scrunching behind her. She slid down lazily and slouched deeply with her legs spread and her boots kicking. She tucked her cigarette into her grin and spoke around it. “Well, I’m not much like what I thought I’d be either. So ask your questions, and we’ll see what the two of us find out.”

Sinoe’s heart hiccupped. “OK.”

A slow, smug smirk. “OK.”

“OK.” Sinoe fiddled with her dictaphone and clicked it on. The whirring was inaudible over the noise next door. She held it out. “How… How would you want to introduce yourself? I mean, to our readers, who may not be familiar with you?”

The jutting, cunning grin lingered, a white crescent under red stars. “Hi, my name is Eurydice.”  She blew out a cloud of stinging smoke. “And you can’t pretend I didn’t happen.”

Chapter 11: “Just a couple of princes, out on the street, looking to save the world.”

Summary:

We spend a morning at The Rose Lounge, Olympus' premier adult establishment. Aphrodite gets gendery-wendery, considers her position, and finds a new mission. The root of Zeus and Ares' conflict comes to light. Our pair meet again and learn a little more about each other. It's definitely not rambling filler, why, what did you hear?

[CW: Toxic masculinity, shitty dad, smoking, adultery, brief shaming of strippers/strip clubs. There's a big block of italics to represent a magazine article, if it presents any reading barriers, please just drop me a comment and I'll reformat! See end notes for some fun facts that fed into this chapter.]

Intro song: Lady Marmalade (Moulin Rouge), Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya, & Pink
Zeus song: I Need a Man, Eurythmics
Street scene song: Heroes, David Bowie

The Rose Lounge wasn't just any strip club. It was THE strip club. The by royal appointment, special performances weekly, fine dining included, tourist destination strip club. You could tell because people referred to it as a "cabaret." Its name was emblazoned in vibrant pink across a vast sign illuminated with golden lights that showered their rays down on its part of town. Little Minoa was the ropey, lively pocket of Olympus where artists, students, sex workers, wanderers, petty criminals, and classy criminals all rubbed shoulders and swapped their tips for keeping succulents alive. It was the part of the mountain that the rising moon touched first. At least, that’s what The Rose Lounge's director, the Grace of Beauty, Aglaea, was always saying. They had long ago committed to tying Little Minoa firmly to its roots with a set of silk ribbons. They had the mob in one pocket and the landlords in the other, keeping developers at bay with an effective mix of baneful magic, talking the ears off newcomers, and pulling the strings of the assumed puppeteers. So named for its labyrinthine nature, Little Minoa was a tangle of narrow, looping streets and mis-matched, shabby, colourful buildings, peeling billboards, and crooked sewing shops, body art parlours, herbalists, hostels, pubs, and barbers. Slatted shutters hung open and ragged, lace curtains fluttered like wistful ghosts in the breeze. Early risers sat in dressing gowns and odd socks on their doorsteps, craning past metal dustbins and chatting comfortably over morning cigarettes. Pokey coffee shops spilled their afternoon customers into the squiggly streets, their mumbling and clinking bobbing over the buzz of tattoo needles and ding of bicycle bells, their bitter, roasted scent puffing into the mountain air and fumes of the city. Hordes of audiences and performers and club-goers swarmed the night, amber street lamps illuminating dark lipstick and dazzling eyeshadow and wine-stained teeth in giddy grins. You could buy a dildo at 9 in the morning and ice cream long after midnight. Everyone had forgotten the difference between bookshop and crisis centre. Dingy windows concealed dark dealings that were generally regarded as broadly harmless. Philosophers and poets holed themselves up in rickety boarding houses and rode esoteric dialogues into lazy sex on moth eaten floor cushions. 

The onion dome of The Rose Lounge, embellished in pink and gold paint to look like an opening rose bud, crowned the neighbourhood; the dominating bloom of the cramped, urban grotto. Aphrodite came here a lot. Stepping into the rabbit warren of the entrance way always quietened her mind. She breathed the thick, fuzzy scents of perfume and make-up and cigars and gin, the must of heavy fabric, the tang of béchamel sauce and slow-cooked oranges simmering in the kitchen. It filled her with the cosy excitement of being around friends, and being in a space designed for stirring people up. 

Right now, it was brunch; the slow part of the day when the dancers tried out new material on the few stragglers and devotees taking up the pink-clothed tables closest to the stage. Aglaea themself was performing a snake dance, the mystical winding of a clarinet scratching out of the speakers as they twisted in the coils of two long, black pythons. The dance built in cycles towards casting their arms in the air with the velvet serpents slithering up them, their breasts bared and black hair flying, mimicking the ancient goddess of the real Minoa, who, come to think of it, Aphrodite missed seeing around. 

Aphrodite fidgeted and half-listened to the fiery, sultry music muffled through the wall of the Green Room (actually painted royal purple). She was positioned with her arms similarly raised to Aglaea, as if summoning the sun, stood on a low stool, fine, red cloth draped low on her hips and swirling to the floor like blood flow, her bare breasts covered by a fountain of jangling copper jewellery, which also adorned her braided hair, wrists, ankles, fingers and ears. She shimmered like a mountain river at sunset, the blaze of copper giving her a breath-taking air of wealth and pride. Peitho was curled in an armchair nearby and flicked through a filofax, making notes and moving appointments around. Around her, the Horai, spirits of the seasons and veteran dancers at the Rose, were dotted about the room in various stages of pre-performance, nestling Aphrodite in easy intimacy. Summer sat in baggy pyjamas on a chair opposite her, sketching her meticulously. Her hair was a bouquet of rainbow ringlets that jostled around her heart-shaped face, her skin almost as green as the tea tree cleansing mask gummed to her t-zone. She narrowed large, blue eyes on the paper. 

"Winter, where's my coat?" Autumn snapped as she flitted about the jumbled railings of costumes, screeching the hangers on the metal frame. Her russet skin was laced in black lingerie and her frizzy, ginger hair crackled with irritable energy. 

"How should I know?" a frosty, breathy voice replied. Winter sat on a chair with their stockinged feet on a coffee table, a voluptuous, white-feathered dressing gown flowing over their tall, narrow frame. Their ice-blue cheeks shimmered as they shuffled a deck of cards and began to deal to themself and Spring, a short, plump woman with daffodil skin and daisy-white hair in rollers. 

"Because you borrowed it," Autumn replied tersely. "I need it for my bit. A trench coat is pretty handy for an act about showing up at your lover's door in just a trench coat and lingerie." 

"Is there a chance you did that in real life and left the coat at the lover's place?" Summer piped up. 

Autumn dropped her hands from the rack, thought for a moment, then groaned and smacked her hand to her forehead. "Oh, fuck."

Aphrodite giggled. 

Summer rapped her sketchpad with the pencil. “Please, stay still.”

Aphrodite pouted, rolling her aching shoulders. “It’s hard to keep your arms up for this long, you know.”

Summer pursed her indigo lips. “It’s been under a minute.”

Aphrodite huffed and sagged.

Summer sighed, as if at a misbehaving toddler. “If you want this mortal to build you your temple, then you need to get the vision just right. I didn’t have to offer to sketch it out for you, you could have gone to a muse.”

“Bleh. The muses live on Apollo’s street. I wasn’t in the mood for his basic bitch pick-up lines.”

“Well, you’re going to have to risk them if you don’t let me draw.”

The goddess smirked. “OK, OK, I have the perfect pose.” She jutted her hip out, V’d her fingers in front of her mouth, and poked her tongue between them with a suggestive waggle and wink. Peitho giggled. 

Summer rolled her eyes with a poorly contained smile and jabbed her pencil at her. “That isn’t what we’re going for.”

“Sappho would love it.”

“Shining One, with the greatest respect, behave yourself.”

Aphrodite snorted irritably, shimmied the last of the soreness out of her arms with a ringing of copper, and raised them to the heavens again.

The back door clicked. An indigo-grey nymph entered, the daytime shadows of tiredness under her eyes concealed with layers of smoke-and-shimmer make-up, her silver, choppy hair sticking out from under a baseball cap. The others tossed various casual helloes to Pannyakhis, Grace of Night-time Festivities, as she dropped her bag and yawned her way into the room.

“Remind me why I have to be here before sundown?” she groaned, then spotted Aphrodite. “Oh, hey! I mean… Yay… Early bird corrupts the worm…”

“Nice save,” Aphrodite chuckled. “And don’t look at me, it’s Peitho that thinks brunch is a good idea.”

“It doesn’t get a lot of attendance, but it’s quality, not quantity,” Peitho explained. “The kings do brunch.”

Aphrodite dropped her fists to her hips sharply, ignoring Summer’s tut. “The kings?”

Peitho looked up with her pen in her mouth. “Yes.”

“They’re probably here right now,” Spring said, shuffling her hand of cards.

“Right now?” Aphrodite rounded on her. 

“Yeah, Boss,” Peitho said a little defensively. “Would you rather not have the most influential paying customers in the realms?”

Aphrodite stuck her nose in the air, skin prickling. “I don’t like them. Well, two of them.”

“No one likes them,” Peitho snorted. “We gotta eat.”

“Hmph.”

“Save your hmph for what I’m telling you next.”

“Hmph?”

“It’s Zeus’ birthday party on Saturday. Yes, you do have to go. Yes, you are sending a gift. Yes, I have already bought, wrapped, and mailed it.”

“HMPH!”

Peitho deflected a few curious looks from the Horai and eyed Aphrodite sternly. “Boss, you cannot publicly snub the king of all fucking everything. Not when you’ve already drawn his negative attention.”

The looks grew more curious. “What did she do?” Autumn asked eagerly.

“Nothing!” Aphrodite insisted. “Just…” She rotated her hand nonchalantly and avoided everyone’s gaze. “Flirted with his son, made him back off a conquest, flirted with his son more until he stole Zeus’ car and took me for a joy ride in it, then got a write-up in Panoptes saying Zeus and his son are both romantically pursuing me and I’m playing them off against each other in a grab for power.” She sealed her mouth shut.

There was a tense silence.

“So, moving to Olympus is going pretty well so far,” Autumn murmured.

“Mhmm,” Winter added in their cool, soft tone. “Especially if you include that you’re following that up with a vision to sneak over from Cyprus and inspire an unbelievably grand pilgrimage site on the main Greek islands.” 

“In fairness, she won’t be doing that if she can’t stay still,” Summer griped, face mask creasing.

“And the fact that she’s just started a feud with Hestia,” Peitho said with a note of wicked delight, twirling her pen.

“What?” Spring and Autumn laughed.

“Love gods don’t start feuds, we finish them,” Aphrodite growled, crossing her arms and pressing warm copper to her chest. “I was nipping a feud in the bud.”

Peitho looked pointedly down at the filofax, swinging her short legs over the arm of the chair. “We’ll see.”

Winter smiled like creeping ice. “So, in your first few weeks, you’ve destabilised the balance of Olympic society, pissed off the most influential goddess organisation in the realms, pissed off the most powerful being in existence, created a romantic and political scandal, committed a felony, and seduced the prince.”

Aphrodite shrugged. “I also painted my kitchen.”

Winter licked their teeth.

“Winter, your hair looks like a magpie died on your head,” Pannyakhis yawned from where she leaned against the door.

Winter’s hair was admittedly uncombed and bristled, short and black and white streaked with a single flash of jay blue on one side that glimmered in the warm light. They flicked their startling eyes to her. “I know.” They dropped a pair of jacks onto the table. “Fix it for me, I’m on next.”

Pannyakhis ambled to behind Winter’s chair, tossing her bag and cap onto the table. She slipped a comb from the twinkling diamante back pocket of her jeans. She began to tame Winter’s hair into a slick style off their face, sharpening their already blade-like features.

“Do we need to be worried?” Spring squeaked behind a fan of cards.

“No,” Peitho chuckled. “She delights in telling me the felony was a grey area.”

“No, I mean, well…” she patted her rollers, “opinion of the Goddess of Love affects us all, right?”

Aphrodite heated on the back of her neck and glanced at Peitho, a sickening bubble in her stomach. Peitho’s clever smile softened at the corners. She turned to Spring. “Then get ready to be the most popular you’ve ever been.”

Aphrodite smiled warmly at her.

“But all this raises a very important question,” Pannyakhis said with a hint of mischief. “How are things going with Jellyfish?”

Aphrodite turned to her. “Jellyfish?”

Pannyakhis grimaced comically. “Oh, yeah. It’s a nickname me and Antheia kinda gave him after that time you guys came to the salon. You know, there’s a type of jellyfish called a man-o’-war, and he’s the God of War, and also he clearly turns to jelly around you, so…” She trailed off at Aphrodite’s bemused expression. “It was funnier when we were drinking.”

Aphrodite tingled as she realised who the question was about. “No, I like it. Next time he turns up at the mall, whoever’s with me can whisper ‘the jellyfish is swimming’ and I’ll know to go refresh my lipstick.”

Affectionate giggles bounced around the room. 

She smiled with them, but it faded as she replayed the lists of scandals they had all just recounted. She hadn’t really been connecting all those dots, but together all her silly, little transgressions painted quite the picture, and Spring wasn’t wrong, her reputation had a long shadow. If Zeus was out there in the audience right now, if he was a regular here, they didn’t need him bringing his suspicion or retaliation. Any attention she drew from Ares would inevitably be matched by his father. She sucked her lip and flexed her feet on the stool under the cloth. “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea.”

“Bullshit!” Pannyakhis guffawed. “You should have seen these two last week!”

Winter hummed at the harsher drag of the comb along their scalp and smirked. “Doesn’t that cagey attitude break your own rules?”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Peitho exclaimed, slamming the filofax into her lap. “She keeps getting herself all excited, then scurrying off like a shy mouse.”

“Do not!” Aphrodite snapped, glaring at her like a raptor, then pouting at the floor and mumbling. “What I keep doing is resolving not to go down that road, then seeing his stupid face and being all…” She flapped her hands about to indicate the effect of Ares’ stupid face. 

“He does have a pretty stupid face,” Pannyakhis agreed, tugging at a knot in Winter's hair.

“Yes, see?” Aphrodite whined. “It’s a dilemma.”

“Is it?” Peitho said, her sugared slyness sprinkling into her voice. 

Everyone looked at her with pricked up ears. 

She smiled glitteringly at the attention, then fixed her cherry liqueur eyes on Aphrodite’s blushing, sulky face. “Right now, you’re letting all the indecision fluster you. But, Boss, come on, it’s you. You’re the cosmic embodiment of worth the wait. You can take your time to make this choice and, while you do, Jellyfish isn’t swimming anywhere.”

Aphrodite thought about the moment two nights ago when Ares had held her in the whirl of lights, brushed his lips on hers, and vanished. An ache fluttered in her core. “You think? I might be hot, but he’s young and distractible.”

“He’s young and trainable,” Peitho corrected, the fins on her ears fanning.

Aphrodite slowly arched her eyebrow, holding Peitho’s bright-dark gaze.

“You guys are both naturally impulsive,” the Grace of Seduction continued. “So, right now, there’s a lot of random bouts of hesitation and chase.”

Aphrodite nodded grudgingly.

Peitho fluttered her long, hot pink manicured fingers, like a magician. “I think you should take that uncertainty and reframe it. Put it in an Oizys Box.”

“A what?” Autumn put her hands on her narrow hips, snicking her suspender belt.

“Oizys is a psychologist at Olympus University,” Peitho explained, clearly loving this opportunity to flaunt her smarts. “A few decades ago she did this experiment on rats where she put them in a box with a button they could push to get a pellet of food. She found that if they pushed the button and food came out every time, they pushed it plenty, but if food didn’t come out once or twice in a row, they abandoned it straight away. But if food came out sometimes and sometimes not, they pushed and pushed and pushed that button all the livelong day. The more unpredictable, the longer it took them to give up trying. Because who knows? Maybe this time, right?”

Aphrodite smiled coyly. “So, you’re saying he pushes my buttons?”

Peitho ran her fingertip along her clever mouth. “Yes. He. Does. And if you want him to keep doing that, then you can’t give him a treat every time. If you’re always super happy to see him, the first time you’re not will wig him out and he’ll bail. But if he knows every time he sees you that there’s a chance you’ll be sweet and a risk you won’t, he’s never not going to try.” She settled back against the chair arm with a smug smile, her voice deepening. “Because who knows? Maybe this time, right?” 

Aphrodite narrowed her eyes. “Should I be concerned that you think I don’t have enough personal magnetism to do this without tactics?”

Peitho bounced her eyebrow. “Boss, you have magnetism coming outta your butt. But your problem is you think seduction is all about chemistry. It’s not. It’s conditioning.”

Aphrodite opened her mouth to retort, but something stopped her. Peitho’s words hooked into her brain. She searched her face, its elixir of rich, deep ocean and summer sunset colour enchanting, too much so, too persuasive. She pursed her lips at her PA’s cocky grin. Summer grumbled, tugging her attention back. Aphrodite clucked her tongue and restored her pose with a new fire to the copper shimmer.

Conditioning, huh?

 

*

 

It wasn’t that Ares didn’t enjoy a good strip tease. It was that watching a strip tease with your dad and uncles is, like, the literal worst.

“This is the worst,” he said, dragging his hand through his hair and slouching in his seat.

The Rose Lounge was almost empty, save for them and a few satyrs who had dragged their hooves inside to finish off last night out on the town. Ares scowled at the dim light giving everyone else a level of anonymity, but bringing his golden glow into garish focus. He felt too tall to shrink out of sight and too broad to fit at the dainty table he was sharing with too many of his relatives. Everything about him was so painfully visible. War had finally allowed him to take up the space his body and his temper needed, but now civilised spaces were more cramped than ever. His irritation and his reluctant arousal beaconed into the room, his face glimmering rash-red and his shoulders so tense they strained his shirt. He moved his eyes forcefully everywhere but his family and the stage. The tables were all decorated with pink lamps that turned the shadows into a room-wide blush. The ceiling was veiled in swooshes of dusky pink fabric, all knotted at the centre of the dome in a flourishing, giant rose. The bar glittered, crystal bottles twinkling behind a polished block of mahogany. Huge bouquets of roses sprang up in ornamented vases at intervals around the round walls, wrapping Ares’ senses in sweet, scented silk that made his skin and tongue tingle. The bump and grind and wind of the music strummed his muscles. The perfumed air was warm and heavy. Sweat prickled his back. WHY was he here with his DAD?

Zeus eyed his still scarlet fingernails. “How long does that nail polish last?”

Ares grinned with a flash of bitter satisfaction. “Why? Does it bother you?”

His father’s mouth was tight. “It just strikes me as odd for a…”

“Man?”

“God of War.”

Ares broadened his peevish grin. “Fun fact, Old Man, a good half of the war and destruction gods are femme, maybe more. Sekhmet, Durga, Freyja, The Morrígan…”

Zeus flicked his vodka and orange juice glass, making it ping. “I don’t find that fact fun. If you wanted to hang out with girls as part of your job, you could just partake in the post-battle pillaging.”

Ares’ hackles rose. “Yeah. Hang out with, kidnap screaming. Sure, they’re the same.”

Zeus narrowed his dark eyes, glinting under the iris from the pink lamp. “Don’t be pedantic.”

Flame sprang up in Ares’ gut. He opened his mouth to tear into his father, but felt a pressing look on the back of his head from Hades. Uncle Hades had always had this look like a paperweight. Ares settled for standing with a bang of his chair. “Fucking Fates,” he grumbled. “I’m getting a drink.”

He strode off to the bar, chunky thighs bumping into several of the delicate chairs.

Zeus watched him go with an ugly curl to his lip. He darted his eyes to his brothers and jabbed his thumb pointedly at his son’s broad back. “You see what I’ve been saying about this kid? Six months at war and he comes back less of a grown-up than ever. It’s like everything I try with him has the opposite effect.”

Hades leaned his elbows on the table and dragged on his cigarette, blue eyes mirroring mauve smoke. “Have you tried leaving him the fuck alone then? Might be the ticket.”

Zeus sniffed indignantly. “He needs my guidance.”

“Towards pillaging?” Poseidon asked uneasily, stirring the umbrella around his bright blue cocktail.

“Towards manhood.”

“Bro, he’s a nice kid,” Poseidon continued in his characteristic, gentle, even tone. “He’s got a position. He’s training with Athena. He passed college.”

“Barely.”

“Still passed. He’s worked hard. What’s the issue?”

“You think he’s a nice, hard-working kid?” Zeus snorted into his vodka. “Have you not heard the mouth on him? I’m always wrong. All the damn time. He’s got an attitude problem. But it’s with his king, so it’s a real problem.”

“It’s with his dad,” Hades corrected in a bored drawl. “None of us can exactly criticise lack of obedience to the father.”

Zeus shot his beady eyes at Hades, like throwing knives. “His father isn’t a cruel tyrant.”

“No comment,” Hades mumbled into his scotch.

“Oh, fuck you,” Zeus scoffed. “Look, neither of you guys are fathers, and neither of you have a prophecy hanging over your head saying fatherhood is what fucking kills you. So excuse me if I don’t find comfort in your lack of concern."

"Does he know? About the prophecy?" Poseidon asked quietly.

"Of course he doesn't fucking know, what's wrong with you?" Zeus snapped. "What you need to get your heads around is that in my position…”

Hades immediately tuned out of Zeus’ latest pompous rant. He gazed listlessly over the pink fizz of the table lamp to the platformed stage. Aglaea snaked their wide hips, their fat, dark gold thighs and belly quivering with the motion of the dance. The two serpents oozed over their body, like they were being drizzled in black oil. Their nipple rings gleamed in flares of the pumping stage lights. He breathed the acrid aniseed and wood of his cigarette to douse the too-sensual, floral perfume of the room. 

His pocket buzzed. He reached into it and fished out his phone and flipped it open with his thumb. 

New text message: Hera

He subtly lounged back in his seat to conceal his screen and opened it. Even in the square, pixelated letters, Hades could hear her corrosive irritation. 

You’re at that place aren’t you. The lot of you.

Hades sighed through his nose, a stream of smoke billowing through the pink haze and igniting red. He glanced carefully at his brothers. Zeus was deep in his onslaught of dissatisfactions with his perfect life. Poseidon was listening with a grimace. He tapped his thumbs on the narrow keyboard.  He said it was important business.

She replied instantly. He could see her holding her phone in one hand, drink in the other, mascara smudged around her piercing eyes. And you believed him?

He ticked his jaw. No. But one of these days it might be and I’ll be at fault for not showing up.

There was a slightly longer pause this time. Do you like it there?

His stomach kicked. He washed his mouth out with scotch. Not especially.

It disappoints me every time you go.

He went cold. It stole down his spine and ached in his shoulder blades. It thunked like lead into his gut. He kept his face carefully impassive. Me too.

He clenched his hand on his phone, as if gripping it harder would grip her, would pull her closer, would pull her back to the Mortal Realm all those years ago, before...

Is Ares there?

The buzz of the new message stabbed his tensed palm. He pressed his lips together nervously. He briefly considered lying, but then what was he meant to do? Hey, Brother! I’m sleeping with your wife. Would you lie to her about me being complicit in taking her son to her most hated place on Olympus, so that she keeps doing that? And hey, Nephew! I’m sleeping with your mom… You get the gist. He rubbed his jaw. Another wary glance at Zeus. Yes.

Another immediate response. I told Zeus I didn’t want him there. I don’t want him in this archaic boys’ club.

Hades nudged his glance to the bar, where Ares was taking his own sweet time getting a beer. He was hulked over, exchanging stunted words with the chatty bartender. If it helps, he’s resisting.

He’s not answering his phone. Can you tell him to leave?

Hades considered this. When he’d walked into the club and found Ares slumped in his chair, like a teenager in detention, his dull reluctance had turned to an acute sensation of his insides scrunching up. All the time he saw Zeus on his own, he could separate him from Hera. But Ares looked so very much like his mother. He had been avoiding interacting with his nephew all morning, despite their shoulders being six inches apart, willing the boy to lose his temper and leave and let Hades restore the walls between his distinct spheres of mistake-making. What’s more, watching Zeus parent a son with all his sharp edges and unhidden suspicion set Hades on edge. A small child’s voice had been murmuring nervously in the back of his mind for nearly two hours. “Daddy thinks I would hurt him. He thinks I want to take over from him. I don’t. Mommy, how do I make him stop thinking that? Sometimes I think he might do something. What if he thinks I’m going to do something, so he does something first? Mommy, he’s scaring me.”

“You give and you give to a son,” Zeus’ grating tone sliced into his consciousness, bitterness masking a coarse note of anxiety. “The best nannies, the best schooling, the best training. And what does he do? Throw it all back in my face. I ask you, what more does he want from me to finally stop demanding my head? I mean, I ask you!”

Hades blinked sharply and chewed on his cigarette between his teeth, gummy tobacco on the tip of his tongue. He typed to Hera. Zeus will just tell him to stay. We won’t be here much longer, maybe it’s best to let him handle himself.

Her answer barbed him. While I lose another of my men to that cesspit.

You’re not losing your men.

Zeus, Ares, you.

His chest tightened. He ground his teeth and fought to keep the blood red from trickling into his irises. Why did Zeus have to dump father-son bonding on this already uncomfortable tradition? Ares’ presence tangled all his pathways to grounding, threw everything out of balance. It always did. You have not lost me. And you definitely haven’t lost Ares. He’s not happy here. If anything, this will drive him further from the boys’ club. One could only hope.

I’m coming down there.

His stomach lurched. Don’t.

I am. I’m breaking this up before it goes any further with my lamb.

Hera, please. He’s already done college and campaign, I promise you this isn’t taking any innocence from him. All it’s doing is making him and Zeus butt heads.

That’s more dangerous.

It’s fine.

Has Zeus mentioned the prophecy?

Hades winced. He looked back at Zeus. His sweep of indigo hair was looking brittle at the ends, like it did when the electricity in his system was live. He was throwing his hand about as he continued his hissed rant to a patient Poseidon. “Athena was easy. Loyalty comes effortlessly to her. Sometimes I remember those nerves when she was born and I laugh at myself. She’s solid, you know? Consistent. Sensible. She knows what side her bread is buttered. But Ares? I raised a prince and he acts like he was dragged out of a gutter. It’s like he isn’t even mine.” He combed his hair satin again with long fingers. He puffed out of his thin lips, shoulders dropping and voice turning that sweet-soft beg for sympathy. “And sometimes I think, maybe that would be better? Because then at least he’s Fates-approved. But Hera isn’t like that, Hera’s my bunny. So looks like I’m looking over my shoulder for the rest of the time he’s up here. I tried discipline, tried making him see the order of things, but he’s too fucking volatile for that. So today’s a different tack. Some carrot to go with the stick. Then again, kid never liked his vegetables.” He snickered and glugged his drink.

Hades turned back to the texts. Hasn’t come up.

See that it doesn’t.

“Hades!” Poseidon leaned to his brother with a slight air of frazzled urgency. “Whatcha on your phone so much for?”

“Work,” Hades grunted and slipped his phone back into his pocket.

“Gods, sue me if I thought bringing him here might make him understand,” Zeus rambled on, Poseidon and Hades exchanging a tired look. “He doesn’t have to fight me. Through me, through us, and everything we built, he has access to certain…” A waitress in a sequined, pink bikini top and mini skirt sashayed past their table with a tray of empty glasses. Zeus’ eyes glazed over. “...privileges.”  He reached towards the cute dimple between her ass and her thigh.

Something searing hot clamped his wrist and crushed it. He barked in pain and looked up to see a pair of churning eyes glaring down at him, their furious light radiating into the fuzzy dimness.

“Ares!” he snarled. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Back atcha, Old Man,” Ares growled through sharpening teeth.

The waitress jumped and turned, her mouth dropping open at the sight of this brick wall of a customer bearing down on the king.

“Ares, let go, you little…” 

Hades heard the subtle, nervous crack in Zeus’ voice. He could feel the heat coming from Ares, even through his jacket. His nephew’s knuckles were turning white on Zeus’ wrist, it must be burning like a brand. Zeus scowled like a jackal up at Ares’ huge, leonine form. A thin thread of white electricity snared Ares’ hand. Ares only gripped harder. Distant thunder rolled outside. The waitress shrank back.

“Gentlemen!” Hades leaned forward and raised his deep, pit-of-fire voice, his smouldering warning stealing over them. “Please. Public.”

They stilled. Ares glowered. Zeus tightened his lips. The waitress watched wide-eyed. It wasn’t clear who broke first. They disconnected and Ares dropped back into his seat like a huge sack of gold coins, banging his foaming glass of beer onto the table. Zeus turned pointedly away from him and hooked his elbow onto the back of his chair to open his body and take up an obnoxious amount of space. Ares crossed his arms rigidly, biceps bulbous, and glared at the stage. Hades narrowed his eyes at the two of them. He turned graciously to the waitress and dropped a roll of notes onto her tray. She glanced at them, bobbed her head at him, and walked away, looking back at Ares as she went.

Hades let a tautly held breath out and rubbed his temples. “I do wish you two would learn time and place.”

“He started it,” Zeus and Ares said sulkily together.

Hades rolled his eyes and sipped oaky scotch.

A long, stony pause descended onto the table, the music thrumming through it disjointedly. Hades steadily stubbed out his cigarette. A puff of smoke misted the light. Poseidon cleared his throat and slurped the last of his cocktail noisily through the straw. “So!” he began brashly, “Ares, Kiddo, you coming to your dad’s hootenanny on Saturday?”

Ares shifted his boiling gaze to Poseidon. “His what?”

“His birthday party!”

“Oh. That. No.”

Zeus spun sharply in his seat. “You most certainly are!”

Hades groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Ares groaned and cast his hand into the air. “Please, Dad, not another one of your damn parties.”

Zeus looked slapped in the face. “You love parties!”

Ares cocked an eyebrow drily. “Not ones where it's just all my elderly relatives getting blind drunk on half a whiskey and following the waitresses around like bloodhounds.”

“Who are you calling elderly?” Poseidon laughed.

Ares ignored him. “I think I'll just make myself scarce.”

Thunder rolled outside again. Hades glanced towards the door behind a crowd of roses.

“You will not. You're the star guest,” Zeus demanded.

Ares frowned fiercely at his father. The floor grew warm.

“You've been gone so long, Kiddo,” Poseidon jumped in hastily in a smoothing tone. “Everyone's so keen to see you.”

“I doubt that,” Ares said dully into his beer.

Zeus planted his palms hard on the table and leaned towards his son like a heron after a fish. “As a member of the royal house, Ares, you will learn to conduct your duties with dignity.”

Ares’ sullen face shattered. He threw his head back and exploded into resounding, callous laughter that ruffled the roses and drew several eyes. “What would you know about dignity?”

Zeus banged his fist on the table. The lamps all flickered. Hades and Poseidon looked at each other warily. Zeus’ shoulder pads went jagged. “I want you there. Despite your fucking manners, you are my greatest pride.”

Ares stopped laughing as abruptly as he had begun. He mirrored his father’s lean, hunkering like he was about to pounce. Poseidon lifted his now sizzling shoes off the floor. Ares’ voice rumbled low and threatening. “And you are my biggest embarrassment. This party is just gonna be another chance for you to prove that over and over.”

“I am your king!” Thunder. The music halted in a scream of speaker feedback. “And you will do as I say!”

The small boy in Hades’ mind started to cry. He felt sick. The room swam.

A nearby table cloth burst into flame. Two waitresses squealed and ran over to pour an ice bucket over it. Ares’ chair screeched backwards as he doubled over the table, sunflower face looming into the pink light and turning stark and bloody. “It was a mistake to give me war. You know what it taught me? Orders can’t be given based only on rank. You have to be a commander in yourself, not just in title, or your men turn from you and the battle is lost.”

“You know nothing about war!” Zeus stood. Ares stood. Piercing white sparks erupted from the table lamp and it went out. Indigo shadow engulfed them as Zeus raged. “You weren’t born for the real war! You wouldn’t have been born without it! You are a legacy of the greatest battle ever fought and nothing you ever do will match it. Your only job is to remind people of that. You are Olympus’ badge of victory and you will present yourself as such, you ungrateful, childish…”

“Oh, for the love of Tartarus!” Hades’ heart hammered and he found himself standing too, his chair flying backwards and skidding along the polished floor, his deadly, crimson glare drowning his brother and nephew. “This is not a battle. This is not a coronation. This is a fucking birthday party.” A black, shrouding darkness welled in the club, his voice rumbling and echoing cavernously. “Not everything has to be put on trial by the two of you for a few extra points in this endless, exhausting game!” Tiredness hit him in the chest. The darkness snuffed out. His shoulders dropped. He pinched the bridge of his nose again and gingerly rubbed the red from his eyes.

Poseidon, the only one still sitting, flitted his green stare awkwardly between the three of them; one crackling with white sparks like a faulty fuse, one containing soft trembles, inky smoke clinging to his back, one balling his fists and standing like a gladiator, ready to fight the whole room and emanating a choking heat.

Zeus cracked his neck and shook the lightning off his fingertips with a fizzle and a pop. “Precisely. Thank you, Hades.”

“Shut. Up.” Hades grunted behind his hand.

“Yeah, Dad,” Ares mumbled.

“Ares!” Hades snapped his head up, eyes still red, nostrils flaring. Hera flashed into his mind, holding the curly-haired toddler like he was the whole world. He placed his hands palm to palm at the tip of his nose and took a long, slow breath. “Take a beat.”

Ares’ barrel chest rose and his eyes swilled with flame as he stared down his uncle. Hades didn’t flinch. They faced each other unrelentingly, a great, black raven and a golden cockerel with glares like lasers. Hades released another billow of darkness behind him. Ares twitched. He growled in his throat, kicked his chair away, and marched briskly off with the echoing pound of leather boots. The club door slammed.

Hades sank back into his seat and rubbed the throbbing ache in his brow. Poseidon put a hand on his shoulder. Zeus puffed out through his nose and sat too, dusting something off his lapel. The speakers hiccupped and started up again. Their table lamp clinked back on. 

“So,” Zeus said casually, “anyone want chicken?”

 

*

 

“You're done, Boyo,” Summer chirped, tossing her sketch pad onto the table beside Winter’s deck of cards. 

“Finally!” Aphroditos chimed, springing from the stool with a jingle of copper. He began to change out of the costume and back into his jeans. He wriggled a little as he did it; clothes sometimes felt a little mismatched for the first minute of a new outfit after changing shape, and he always forgot which side he dressed on. This new temple on Cyprus that Aphrodite had planned was going to be big. They wanted it to be a reflection of their full power, their full spectrum, the fullness of them as a deity, so they had asked Summer to sketch the vision including both their feminine and masculine forms. Aphroditos tugged his crop top over his head, mussing the fine, lavender braid falling over his shoulder. The top fell loose on his small breasts and kissed the top of his abs, just showing through a layer of cuddly fat. He scratched the stubble on his sharp chin and picked up the sketch. “Wow, Summer, you’re getting so good at this!” His voice had a slightly rough middle-depth that called folk song to mind.

Summer smiled, hopped up, and went to one of the line of cluttered dressing tables to peel off her cleansing mask. Peitho swung her short legs off the arm of her puffy chair and came to Aphroditos’ side. He was shorter in this form, closer to her height now. She bobbed her cheek onto his shoulder, peering at the sketch. It showed the Goddess of Love in many forms, many genders, with a retinue of dancing nymphs and mortals and birds, walking through columns that bloomed like tulips, bestowing blessings on flowing waters, throwing their arms up to herald the dawn and moonrise, roses growing in arches, veins of rich copper in the earth. 

Aphroditos tilted his face to smell Peitho’s candied perfume. He smiled down at her. “Nice, right?”

“Perfection.” Peitho smiled back, glimmering. Aphroditos tickled the small of her back. She poked her tongue out at him, snatched the sketch, and wandered back to her chair. 

Aphroditos dropped elegantly into a chair at the table, crossed his ankles, and settled into the comfortable babble of backstage. Pannyakhis had finished combing Winter’s hair into its slick, sharpening style and was now doing warm-up stretches for her pole routine, the breath moving steadily through her body as she slowly adjusted to being awake in the morning. Winter and Spring were still playing cards and had slipped into betting on the lost and found. So far Spring had won the silver pocket knife, but Winter had the fake I.D.s and the packet of jelly beans. Autumn was cobbling together a new coat-less costume. She picked up a lively chatter with Summer, who was dabbing her face with foaming cotton wool, about the new apartment she was moving into and getting away from her creep landlord and what her son had been doing at pre-school. Summer talked about her beach holiday. She accidentally called it the Specific Ocean. Peitho wouldn’t let it go. It was nice. It was homey. He let his senses blur in the layering, foggy scents of make-up, tea tree, perfume, hairspray, carpet, and coffee. He leaned on his chiselled cheek and smiled softly around the room; the chipped, purple paint, the bunches of feathers, the strewn stockings, the faint sheen of immovable glitter. Maybe it hadn’t been such a trial moving to Olympus, after all.

His eyes wandered down and alighted on a rolled-up magazine sticking out of Pannyakhis’ bag on the table. “Kissy, can I borrow this?” he asked, already slipping it out.

“Sure,” she replied vaguely from her cobra pose.

He unrolled the magazine. Panoptes: Eyes on Olympus. He sniffed sourly. A full colour photograph of an austere Hera in a grand, peacock blue ball gown swept across the cover, emblazoned with curling, gold letters, A Royal Summer: Queen Hera on this season’s calendar, fashion, and keeping cool for the career woman. Aphroditos arched an eyebrow. Nothing on her son coming home, it seemed. Typical. He was about to return the magazine, when a small, italic headline in the corner caught his eye. “As long as we feel, they can’t extinguish us”: Eurydice on real music and real love.

Eurydice? Orpheus’ ex? Or rather, Orpheus’ raison d'être? Who in Panoptes would go to the Underworld? To talk to a human shade, no less? Was she even still capable of holding a conversation? It took a strong spirit not to let the eternal drift of afterlife turn you into nothing more than mist. His understanding was that, at best, shades were automata, going through the motions of Corp labour for all eternity, while they mechanically recited their last requests to themselves until they lost meaning. He curiously thumbed to the interview. It was a single page dominated by a startling black and white picture of a stocky, pallid woman with a sullen, dark mouth and short, feathery, black hair falling into angry, dark eyes. Abyss eyes. She wore ripped jeans and a crumpled, flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her shoulders. She leaned her elbows on her knees, her prowling figure wreathed in smoke from a cigarette held loosely between her fingers. She was staring the camera down with hot, bright spots in her pupils. His gaze wandered over her nose stud and lip ring and tattoos, a black heart on her bicep, a songbird on her throat. She wasn’t just still sentient, she was strong enough to have some solidity, to take ink and piercing. He peered closer. She seemed to be watching him from the page, her expression daring him to deny her rage, her right to it. He smiled. It reminded him of someone. There was another picture in the bottom corner, this woman backed by two others with a similar look, holding guitars and drumsticks as if they were about to smash them against the wall.

“As long as we feel, they can’t extinguish us”: Eurydice on real music and real love.

As Riot Grrrl band Viper Dolls’ first album is released in select retailers, we met with their lead singer and creative visionary, Eurydice, to talk heartbreak, identity, and the underworld of the Underworld.

Interview by Sinoe.

Aphroditos banked the name.

As I find myself somewhere to perch in the small back room Eurydice seems to have taken over at the Underworld alt club, Last Resort, it strikes me how much this interview is unlike any I have ever done. Rather than bringing you another hot topic, this underground sensation is interesting precisely because she isn’t hot at all. Sure, you’ve heard of her, but only out of the mouth of the greatest music legend of our time. Imagine if everyone knew your name, but almost no one knew you. Imagine being a muse against your will. T-shirts with the slogan “Eurydice in my heart”, bumper stickers with “I don’t look back”, thousands and thousands of fan arts imagining her face, none of which even come close. After years as a figure fictionalised by the Orpheus pop cult, Eurydice is calling for us all to remember her reality.

“Down here, it’s real. It’s the grit under your fingernails. It’s brick dust,” she says to me, to make it clear we won’t be talking about the romanticised version of her that we’re all tragically familiar with. “Fame is love that lives in the clouds. What good is that? Love down here is dirt love. If your love don’t live in the dirt, it don’t really live anywhere.”

Aphroditos chilled and heated. He shifted more upright in his chair and furrowed his brow, reading more closely.

We start with the basics.

E: “OK, I said I wasn’t gonna talk about Orpheus, I wanna talk about the music. But since I know if I don’t say anything, people will just wonder why, here goes. Me and Orpheus were in love. Real love. Dirt love. Burning love. I never resented what he did, looking back, trapping me here. He did it because he loved me. He did it because of the way he loved. Would I have looked back? I don’t think I would. I was always the stronger one, the one who kept us moving forward. Orpheus was the dreamer. And it was beautiful. But when you needed something in the real world, he couldn’t always deliver. It’s not because he loved me any less. It was just his way. He dreamed a world for me, that was his gift. Hades saw that. He’s the f*cking judge, right? He sees that sh*t. And he took advantage. He set something impossible. Why? Who knows? On my bad days, I think he did it for sport. The kings can’t have the poor trusting each other, because then what do we need them for? So he set a challenge that would break us up and forever it would go down in history that you can’t count on your brother and you can’t count on your lover and you can’t count on your friend, so you better count on your king. On better days, I think he’s lonely, and I think half of him wants to believe love can still conquer all and save him, even in the Underworld, but half of him thinks if that’s true then the hope hurts too much and he has to stop it being true. So he set a task for lovers, to test whether love does win in the end, and half of him thought we would pass and prove him right and give him hope, and half of him thought we would fail and prove him wrong and set him free. Either way, he wouldn’t just let me go. Orpheus lost a lot, because he was truly in love with me, I know that for sure, and being angry with him would just be victim-blaming. Hades set the challenge. It’s Hades’ boot on my chest.”

Aphroditos covered his mouth with his hand to hide a wide grin. Dang, this girl really didn’t give a fuck.

“But now I am angry. And it’s not because it’s been hard down here and I lost my charity. It’s because I forgave Orpheus because I knew what he did, he did for me, for us. And then time passes and he starts to heal by writing a few songs. Fair enough, art is medicine. Then the songs get big, right? And then bigger. And he gets bigger with them. And before you know it, he’s not writing songs to heal, he’s writing songs to play on the radio, he’s writing songs to sell. He’s writing songs about me to make himself rich. I’m not the person he loved and lost. I’m his f*cking meal ticket. He’s the star of the generation and it’s because I died. My pain, my endless f*cking pain, is his brand. Love is his brand. Everyone thinks he’s this important voice, telling romance how it is, but if he’s so in love with me, how come I don’t hear from him? Why'd he never use any of his new, infinite influence to help me and my friends? We used to write music together, you know that? We were gonna tour. We were gonna be together in music and life. Do I get credit for my riffs? He uses them. And some of my lyrics. ‘Course I don’t. Because I’m not profitable to him as a collaborator. I’m only profitable dead and gone and publicly mourned. The dead are people, not just turning points for living protagonists. We have our own stories, our own selves. And if you love someone, don’t you want that for them? Nah. He’s not in love anymore, he’s just got a plot device. And I’m down here, trying to survive, trying to hold true to myself as the condition of shade does everything it can to pull me to pieces. I’m making his career, I’m giving him the perfect life every day, that’s what I’m dying for, hurting for. Actually, I’m not giving it to him, he’s taking it from me, against my will. It’s f*cking parasitic. Meanwhile, I’m no more to him than an old family photograph. My death has become the collateral damage of the Orpheus pop persona.”

The smile withered on Aphroditos’ lips. A strange, slithering guilt coiled in the pit of his stomach. “He's so good! He really gets it, you know?” He’d said it only a couple of weeks ago. He’d never really thought about it this way.

“Anyway, that’s why I don’t wanna talk about Orpheus anymore. He’s already taken so much of me, I gotta keep what’s left and rebuild.”

“Alright,” I say through a wisp from her cigarette, “what would you like to talk about?”

E: “About the music. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

S: “Why is it so important to you?”

E: “Because that is love. It’s not about a single person wanting a single person. It’s about the space. It’s about building a world. The folks down here, they’ve lost everything, they’ve had everything taken from them. They lived their lives and they felt their feelings and they got judged by some old man who doesn’t know them. And now they’re punished forever for choices he could never understand, in circumstances he could never sympathise with. When the kings tell us they make the hard choices, they don’t tell you that the backbone of those decisions is keeping them in power. ‘We gotta do this for the social order.’ Well, f*ck, who said society’s gotta be in that order? I didn’t, you didn’t. They did. They won some war none of us were born for, and they decided it gave them the right to rule every tiny part of our lives and hearts forever? I mean, sh*t! I won gin rummy the other day, guess I’m lord high master of hamsters now. Why not? Same f*cking logic. Anyway, some old man says we belong in the dark, says we don’t deserve a good life or a second chance, says we’re dirt. But he can’t take away the music. As long as I’m up on that stage screaming, as long as Antigone and Alcestis are with me and we’re all just turning what we feel and how much we love each other and ourselves into sound, then shades have somewhere to go. They all have somewhere to hope and hate and get angry and kiss and cry out and do whatever they need to do to stay real, to stay, in the way we can there, alive. I don’t make music to sell. I make music because I feel in music. As long as we feel, they can’t extinguish us.”

S: “But you are now selling your music.”

E: “We live under the realms’ biggest capitalist. It’s hard to work for free until we’ve built a world that doesn’t need paying. And not every shade can get to Last Resort, so we want more chances for them to join our community. And we want the living and the powerful to hear us too. To know we have a voice. That they failed in keeping us down. We want to strike fear into their withered hearts.” The smile she gives me is petrifying. “And we want to bring hope, or at least the most vibrant despair. The kind of despair that makes you angry enough to keep going. The music is a refuge. And we want you to get here, however you can. Burn, borrow, steal. We don’t care. Just hear us. Just listen.”

I feel her words more than hear them. That’s the trademark of Viper Dolls’ music, as much as they would likely hate the term. Perhaps this is why I ask my next question off script. “Tell me more about love.”

Eurydice’s incorporeal form is slightly translucent, I can see the smoke from her cigarette move through it. As I say this, I think I see it move a little quicker, as if her body is remembering to breathe. She pauses for a long time before answering, looking at me with her wry, indomitable gaze. When she answers, it’s me that stops breathing. 

E: “Love is a revolutionary force. Love is anti-money, anti-judgement, anti-oppression. Love is what we were always meant to grow the world out of, before the kings built their columns.”

Aphroditos stopped breathing too.

S: “You really don’t like the kings.”

E: “What gave it away?”

S: “Do you mind if I ask if there are any other gods you have a more positive affinity with?”

E: “You’re asking if I worship?”

S: “Or something like it.”

She seems to consider this question in a way she hasn’t any others. 

E: “It’s not so easy down here to keep up a faith. Even if they wanted to, most of the gods can’t reach us. We’ve had to rely on ourselves. I worship me. I worship my community. Radical love comes from within and between, not above.”

Aphroditos crumpled the magazine lightly in his hands.

E: “But, saying that, there is one god I keep in memory, if not in practice. One who, I think, helped sew the seeds for a lot of the ideas that grew down here. Aphrodite, Goddess of Love. She has this concept: Mixis. It means… Well, it means lots of things. Catalyst. Connection. It’s the chemical, emotional, physical reaction between people. It’s about that electric web that links us all. I really believe in that. In humanity, there’s no such thing as isolation, not really. Even if we’re not talking to people, we’re reaching out to art or architecture or objects or old times. We’re never not with other people, not impacting other people. The idea that we are is just a construct to keep us quiet, keep us fragmented and depressed. Humanity is that electric web and when we meet on it and spark, that’s Mixis. That’s Aphrodite. And she has my favourite epithet. Aphrodite Pandemos. Common. There’s a few gods for the people, maybe Demeter, maybe Hestia, maybe Hermes. But none like Aphrodite. Harvest doesn’t feed everyone. Not everyone has a safe home. Not everyone gets the news. But love? Mixis? That’s everyone’s. Always. So, yeah, her, I guess.”

Tears pricked Aphroditos’ eyes. His heart swelled in his chest. That was it. Exactly it. Not even his priests got it like that. Oh… She really gets it… And I forgot her for Orpheus, just like everyone else. He ran his fingertips absent-mindedly over his stubble. Should’ve known better. He read the rest of the interview in taut silence and rested his eyes on the final lines for a long, pensive moment.

Too long has this voice gone unheard. But, as it says in Viper Dolls’ debut title track, no one sees the forgotten coming.

He stroked his thumb over the heart tattoo on Eurydice’s arm.

“Stay clear of the bar this morning, Darlings.” A smoky, debonair drawl broke into his thoughts. “The top dogs are spoiling for a fight.” Aglaea entered the room with their usual magnetic draw of attention, their large frame filling the doorway, their fountain of onyx hair tumbling around them. 

“Is that what the thunder was?” Pannyakhis asked, rolling her shoulders and her ankles as she closed her stretching routine. 

“Yes,” Aglaea swanned in, naked but for heels and a thong and the twin pythons they wore like feather boas, clumps of bills in their pointed mouths. Their skin was a shimmering dark gold, their chest and shoulders adorned with freckles like gold flakes, their eyes immense, captivating pools of honey. They tottered to a tank filled with sticks and leaves in the corner and carefully eased the snakes into it, slipping the money from sharp jaws and tucking it into the side of their panties. They popped the lid on the tank, cooing and fussing over the pets as they coiled into each other and nestled in. They straightened up and slid on a long, muslin dressing gown in soft, gosling grey. They turned and their eyes sparkled blindingly as they spotted Aphroditos, smiling slyly over the magazine. “Oh, Aphroditos! You handsome devil, I didn’t see you! Put down that rag and kiss me!”

Aphroditos chuckled and stood, leaving the magazine on the table, feeling it leave his fingers. He leaned in with a hand to Aglaea’s waist and pecked their cheek, then just below their ear. “You look ravishing,” he said softly, only for them.

Aglaea blushed brass and pinched his ear lobe. “It’s tingles every time you speak, Darling.” They pulled away, joined Summer at the dressing tables, and began to wind their thicket of hair into a turban-knotted scarf. 

Aphroditos perched on the table edge and leaned back on his hands, subtly showing off his unveiled abs. “So the kings are here today.”

“Here and being a nuisance,” Aglaea said with a resounding note of exasperation.

“What kind of audience are they?”

“Poseidon is controversial. He’s sweet, enthusiastic, but can be a tad too much. Everyone either adores or despises him. Hades gives us absolutely no engagement, but he's sexy and a good tipper.” They shot a mocking look over their shoulder and Autumn and Spring smiled cheekily. They smacked their full lips. “And Zeus is… well…”

Aphroditos’ stomach tightened. “Hmmm. You need me to deal?”

Aglaea smirked in the mirror with a proud arch of their pencilled eyebrow. “You make a very dashing knight in shining armour, my dearest, but we’re alright.”

He darted his eyes around the others to confirm, they all looked relaxed. He nodded and folded his arms. “I’ll take a gander on my way out.”

“He isn’t usually a security risk,” Aglaea assured in their double bass voice. “But apparently today is intergenerational dick-measuring day.”

Aphroditos perked up, heart fluttering. “Ares is here?” He ignored Peitho’s and Pannyakhis’ titters.

“Oh, do you know him?” Aglaea tucked their last tendrils of hair into the scarf and tugged it straight. Their opulent reflection glared at Aphroditos with a batting of false eyelashes like a spear platoon. “You lucky duck! What a dish!”

“I’ve painted his fingernails,” Pannyakhis boasted.

Aglaea looked at her with pantomime envy. “You whore!”

“She has not,” Aphroditos laughed, flashing his bright blue manicure. “She’s painted mine while he was in the room.”

“Yeah, but I was this close.”

Aphroditos could feel the heat in his chest getting ready to steam up and make him blush. He released a knot of nerves with a cool, easy laugh. “OK, is there anyone in the realms who sees Ares and won’t openly express a desire to lick his abs? Do I need to up my beauty work in the male population?”

Winter chuckled icily. “Apparently no, definitely yes, but those two things aren’t necessarily related.”

Peitho laughed pointedly. “Don’t let him get sarcastic with you, he’s just grumpy because he has a big, inappropriate crush.”

“Is there such thing as an inappropriate crush?” Aglaea asked flirtatiously. 

“They’re a new thing he’s trying.”

“I don’t like it.”

“OK!” Aphroditos stood sharply. “That’s my cue to get out of here, you gossip vultures.” He tore the Eurydice page from Panoptes and folded it into his back pocket.

“Gossip vultures is inaccurate,” Aglaea rumbled. “Vultures feed off the dead and this gossip sounds very much alive.”

Aphroditos licked his back teeth and gave them a knife-like grin. “I’m leaving.” He looked up at Peitho lounging in the armchair. “You are too.”

“Boooo!”

Aphroditos snapped his fingers. “Work time. Get up.”

Peitho sighed dramatically, but sloped onto her feet, scooped up her bag, and skipped to his side. He pinched her hip. They blew kisses around the room and left through the door to the club to a chorus of twittering "see ya"s and Aglaea’s booming, courtly farewell. 

Aphroditos’ vision was doused in darkness. The thick, floral fragrance of the club stuffed his nose. He gestured for Peitho to follow him. The pair slipped around the side of the stage and walked briskly through the tables, the rose mist of the lights obscuring their lavender and pink-indigo forms. About half way between the stage and the entrance, he spotted the kings’ table. Hades was smoking, a big pile of cigarettes in the ashtray already, heavy shadows under his eyes. He looked tired, even a little haunted. Poseidon was talking blithely, twirling a lock of his silky, kelp-green hair around his finger. Aphroditos’ heart rose on seeing him, but he planted his feet and avoided going to greet him. Much as he missed Poseidon, he and Amphitrite had learned long ago that it was best if Poseidon got to keep them detached from how he was with his brothers. Zeus sat beside him, an open wound in the softness. His white teeth flashed every time he caught a waitress’ eye. He was a little hunched, drumming impatient fingers on the table cloth. Where was Ares? Concern nudged him. He scratched his stubble. He drifted closer, tucking him and Peitho into a slice of shadow near their table, ears pricking up.

"Zeus, Bro, Buddy," Poseidon was saying flippantly, "the Fates love nothing better than to watch the fallout of their vague guesses. You've gotta get past this."

"Get past it?" Zeus spat. "Get past it? He's going to kill me, Poseidon. Dead. I will be dead. Why does everyone treat that like acceptable news?" 

"Can't imagine," Hades slurred. 

Poseidon sighed levelly. "You don't even know it's Ares that's going to do it. You have an eternity of unprotected sex left, who knows how many possibly murderous sons you might father?" 

Zeus' eyebrows flattened. "Gee, thanks, Pos, I feel so much better."

"I'm just saying…" Poseidon trailed off awkwardly, "might not be Ares."

Aphroditos frowned and peered closer. What was this? Death? Murder? Fates? What had Ares gotten himself into? 

"Try to comprehend it." Zeus continued in a staccato, spelling-out tone. "There. Is. A. Pro-phe-cy. That. Says. My. Son. Will. Kill. Me. And. My. Only. Son. Hates. Me. And. Is. A. God. Of. Vi-o-lence. And. Also. A. Huge. Dickwad."

Aphroditos froze. He went cold to the bone. 

Hades leaned sleepily on his fist. "When you put it like that, there is hope."

Aphroditos' heart leaped into a gallop. If this was true, Zeus wasn't just your regular shitty dad. Ares was a danger to him. And that made him a danger to Ares. Sweat iced his back. His lungs shrivelled up. Ares? Kill Zeus? He was a war god, he could kill. But actions in the Mortal Realm had a different quality. They were work. They were directed by the flow of human doing. Violence to each other, that was a different story. And Aphroditos had no love for Zeus, but murder? Images flooded his mind. Ares lying in the grass and smiling up at him. Ares kissing. Ares embracing. Ares getting flustered. Ares in pink, heart-shaped sunglasses. Ares pulling faces in a photo booth. Ares holding his hand in comfort. Ares laughing and blushing and getting het up about all the right things. But... Injustice. He'd said that on their first meeting. The thing that made him angriest in the whole world was injustice. If something Zeus did was unjust enough… If he made him angry enough… 

No. 

Gods, Ditos, snap out of it. 

The Fates didn't say things in certain terms like that. He wasn't hearing the prophecy, he was hearing Zeus' paranoid warping of it. Zeus had let a little rhyme said by three pretty loopy, old women dictate how he treated Ares, how he understood and heard and respected him. Or didn't. Aphroditos would be damned if he did the same. Maybe he didn't know Ares all that well yet, but he liked what he'd learned so far. And he trusted it. That was all that mattered. Ares saw past what other people said about him, so he could ignore this second hand maybe-prophecy and keep going on what they had between them. What they might have. What they could have. A resolve settled into his belly, the profound instinct of a love god to ready his compassion. 

He set his frame square and spun to Peitho, seizing her shoulders and murmuring strictly. "No one hears of this. You never repeat it. Not even to me."

Peitho looked awed and alarmed by what she'd heard. But at Aphroditos' command, her expression flickered and smoothed demurely. "The Rose Lounge prizes discretion."

He let himself smile gently and squeezed her shoulders. He took a steadying breath and turned back to the kings.

Hey!

There was a skinny, struggling waitress in Zeus' lap. He seemed to have tugged her down and now held her there as she tried to politely pull free, scowling away from him. He was laughing thuggishly and cooing at her to stay. Poseidon sheepishly batted Zeus' arm from around her waist. She stood sharply and marched away, her skirt twisted. Zeus swallowed a mouthful of vodka and watched her go with a predatory leer. Her face shifted into the light. It was Paidia, fun, sweet, played badminton on Sundays. She'd just started here. And now she looked unsettled.

Aphroditos rushed stingingly hot. His fists clenched. He took an impulsive step towards the table, opening his mouth to shout. A small, firm hand seized his arm. He looked back. Peitho was giving him a disarmingly severe look.

“What?” Aphroditos mouthed.

Her eyes glimmered warningly.

“You’re not seriously suggesting I let him get away with that!” he hissed.

“I absolutely am,” Peitho whispered. 

Aphroditos glared. Peitho looked sharply between him and the table, then pulled hard on his arm and led him insistently through the jumble of tables out of earshot. She only released him when the kings were veiled in pink shadow. He yanked his arm free indignantly and glowered down at her. “You do not tug the God of Love around like a chihuahua!”

“Then quit yapping like one!” Peitho scolded.

His shoulders bunched up. “Excuse me?”

Her fins flapped fiercely. “Come on, Aphroditos, you’re not naïve. You know how it works. We kick these guys out, we lose half our patrons. You think The Rose Lounge is the highest grossing venue on Olympus because of good book-keeping?”

“I’m not having them behave like that with my people!”

“Then find your people cheaper rents!”

Aphroditos itched. The Eurydice interview was running through his veins. “We live under the realms’ biggest capitalist.” He crossed his arms and dug his fingernails into his biceps until it needled. “Fucking Olympus.”

Peitho sighed through her nose tolerantly and put her hands on her hips. “You can’t fix it all in a week. And going over there now to tell Zeus off like a naughty boy will just bring his temper down on us.”

Aphroditos clenched his jaw. “Ugh, who made him king of the world?”

Peitho smiled indulgently. “He did.”

“Well, I made me king of this bit of it, so he can consider that strike one.”

“I’m sure he can, Boss.”

Aphroditos scoffed and stalked away. Peitho walked by his side with a sympathetic tilt to her mouth. He strode to the bar where Paidia was collecting a round for the satyrs' table. He softened his step and cleared his throat. Paidia turned and her eyes widened, her tray clattering onto the bar. "Sir!"

Aphroditos frowned tenderly. "I saw what happened, are you alright?"

She snorted and waved her hand. "Oh, sure. Whatcha gonna do, right? Boys."

Aphroditos' brow and chest tightened. Peitho glanced between them. His tongue tied miserably in his mouth. What was the use of coming over here if he couldn't promise it wouldn't happen again? Wasn't it his job to make that promise? To everyone? He ran his hand down the fine braid over his shoulder and sighed. "I'm sorry."

Paidia batted her sparkling eyes quizzically. "Nothing I can't handle." She dropped her voice to playful conspiracy. "Pandaisia says if you get caught in the Zeus net, the other two give you great apology tips. Looks like I'm getting that motorcycle early." She grinned.

Aphroditos didn't trust that grin. His wrists felt cuffed. He twitched his mouth and nodded. "I, um..." he rubbed his lips together uncertainly and tried to sound confident, "I'm working on it."

Paidia smiled softly. "It's nice to see you here, Sir."

He shrugged and tapped her forehead. A blessing trickled into her and left her glowing. She beamed. Peitho rubbed his arm. He inclined his head graciously and walked away, the only sign of his lingering anger the heavy thud of his shoes on the carpet. Peitho scurried after him.

He got to the exit and slammed open the door to the alley, the bright morning and the hum of traffic slapping his face. “One of these days someone is going to have to teach Zeus that government is not the same as temper tantrums!”

Peitho chuckled. “Speaking of temper tantrums.”

“What?”

“The jellyfish is swimming.”

Aphroditos shut his mouth, bristling like a startled cat. He whipped around to follow Peitho’s twinkling eye and saw, several feet away…

Ares...

He was leaning against the wall with the sole of one heavy boot against it, arms crossed and glowing embers gaze fixed on the floor. His hulking shoulders were rising and falling unevenly, as if he was breathing unsteadily. He was holding himself so tensely that he looked carved out of amber, the seams of his smart, dark blue shirt playing tug-of-war. Aphroditos’ cheeks flushed and his pulse skipped and sped. But underneath that, the nudging sensation of concern he’d felt in the club pressed harder. He exchanged a glance with Peitho, quelling her mocking look. “Go home.”

“What? But I want to stay and watch and judge.”

He pursed his lips. “Go. Home.”

Peitho groaned and mimed yawning, but twirled and sauntered off down the street. Aphroditos exhaled slowly, turned back, and looked carefully at Ares. He had the same presence as a dying bonfire, pulsing, dangerous, unpredictable sparks combined with waning energy and a faint sense of crumbling. His hair was an adorable mess, tangled around the tracks of his fingers running through it. The glow from his eyes was so intense that it made his skin look sore. He looked inflamed all over, as much in the sense of an infected wound as a literal fire. Aphroditos’ chest compressed with worry. He consciously painted calm over his face and walked gingerly over to him.

“Hey, Golden Boy,” he said in a chipper tone.

Ares glanced sideways. “Look, Man, I know I look like a barrel of laughs, but I’m really not in the mood, so…” He glanced again and halted with a curious frown. “Aphrodite?”

Aphroditos beamed, warming through his body that Ares knew him so easily. “Aphroditos,” he corrected casually. “I’m having a boy day.”

Ares’ harsh features softened. “Sure, sorry.” He perked up anxiously. “Oh, I’ve been saying ‘woman’ all the time, was that not OK?”

“You’re good. I’m a woman when I’m a woman. Which is most of the time, just not all of it.”

“Cool.”

“Throw a pronoun riot, all welcome.”

Ares laughed. It faded into the noise of a car chuntering down the road at the end of the street. He felt horribly empty of words. His heart was thudding at Aphroditos’ appearance, but there was something else too, almost harder to handle: a warm, comforting feeling along his shoulders and in the palms of his hands, the feeling of someone being here who might just make it all OK. This morning had been a nightmare. His father’s constant sludge of resentment was still stuck between his teeth and scalding the back of his throat. His gut was weighed down sickeningly by the sorrowful anger of Uncle H. Guilt poked at him from the peace-maker’s frustration of Uncle P. The flashes of irritation from bothered waitresses and ignored performers clung to him like thistles. He felt like he’d been dragged backwards through something between a hawthorn hedge and an oil spill. It made him painfully self-conscious. It must be visible on him, he must look a wreck. 

Aphroditos slid his hands into his jeans pockets and leaned his shoulder against the wall, facing Ares. He was slender, but he was soft, a pretty pudge on his exposed abs and arms. He was wearing a loose, turquoise crop top that fluttered a little in the breeze. His strong chin was peppered with roguish, lavender stubble, and his long, straight hair was combed to the side and wound into a neat braid that fell over one round shoulder. His eyes were the same dazzling amethyst, the unmistakable sign that had shown him who he was, and they were on Ares now like searchlights.

“So, am I ever going to get to leave the house without running into you, you big stalker?” he said playfully in a voice like vanilla coffee, sweet and dark.

Ares scuffed his heel on the wall and pressed his back into it, letting the bricks prick him out of his stupor of bad day. “Hey, I was here first.”

“For the first time.”

Ares’ insides floated giddily. “Actually, the first time was the first time. You walked in on me right on the edge of a nap. When I was vulnerable.”

Aphroditos grinned. “I am a cad and a bounder.” He cocked his head. “But what are you doing here in this shady back alley?”

Ares’ ears burned. He cleared his throat and avoided his eye. “Uh, you know, thinking about getting a drink somewhere. I was out for a walk, but it looks like rain.”

They both looked up at the swirl of dark cloud brewing exclusively over The Rose Lounge. Ares’ jaw hardened. Every droplet in the air was a pin in his flesh.

Aphroditos gave him a pointed look. “Yeah, I’d lie if I got caught going to a strip club with my dad too.”

A wrecking ball crashed into Ares’ stomach. He froze, face ablaze, staring horrified at the cobbled floor. Every good move, every fun moment, every heated glance he and Aphrodite/os had ever shared flashed in his mind and fizzled and died. So much for that. There was no way he was going to recover from this. 

Aphroditos laughed like the bass notes in a piano. “Unclench. Everyone has embarrassing parents.”

Ares winced. “But like this?”

“No, your problems are weird.”

Ares groaned and covered his face with his hands. “I didn’t wanna come, I swear.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

He peeked out from between his thick fingers. “Really?”

Aphroditos was smiling an infuriatingly suave smile. He looked like a warlock selling charms. 

Ares gulped nervously and dropped his hands, flapping them frantically as he launched into a ramble like a rushing gas leak. “It’s obviously not that I’m worried about going to a place like this, I don’t want you to think it’s a shame thing, like, for your job. But it freaks me the fuck out to do it as part of some jaded family outing. Like, who wants to be turned on as a central part of brunch? With their parents? I am already constantly, painfully aware of my father’s gross sexuality, because it’s basically his only personality trait. I did not need to see it in action while I was trying to keep a lid on my own. Not that mine’s gross! We… I… We have different… Doesn’t matter, I was keeping it down! Not that it was up! I mean… Which, by the way, is hard to do in there, because it’s not just the naked person on stage covered in snakes! It’s the whole atmosphere! It’s like all… It’s pink! And dark! And there’s… flowers! And… ARGH!” The horror of this whole moment came crashing onto him. His legs gave out. He slid down the wall and landed on his ass on the pavement. He drew his knees up and hugged them and buried his face, screwing his eyes shut and praying miserably to the darkness. He mumbled pitifully into his forearms. “Can you please use your infinite, titan-spawn powers to rip a hole in the ground to swallow me up?”

Aphroditos looked down at the crumpled Ares, aching acutely at just how young he was. He looked like a lost, little boy. Aphroditos sighed and lowered himself to sit beside him, one knee drawn up with his hands hooked over it. He bumped his shoulder to Ares’. “I would, but the city council will make a whole thing out of it.”

Ares slowly rotated his head to lie his cheek on his forearms and gaze helplessly at Aphroditos. He looked like a short circuit, burned and crinkly from stress. 

Aphroditos smiled out of the side of his mouth. “I’m glad to hear you find it basically impossible not to be horny in The Rose, though. I’ll pass that on, it’s pretty great feedback.”

Ares looked briefly bashful, then he chuckled heavily and huffed out, his mountain range shoulders smoothing. “I can’t decide if I’m happy to see you.”

“Thanks?”

“No, I just mean… I vaguely pulled off cool the other night, and now that’s in the trash.”

“But..?”

His red gaze went from rubbed-raw scarlet to a sweeter strawberry. “But, then, I’m always happy to see you.”

Aphroditos warmed. His smile tickled his cheeks.

Ares nudged his face deeper into darkness with a playful show of shyness. “I think I have a new boy type.”

Aphroditos laughed, tingling on the small of his back. “This was your boy type already, but points for charm.”

Ares grinned. Their eyes danced with each other, flitting towards and away. Traffic gurgled. Another misty breeze skipped past them and stroked through the loose strands of Aphroditos’ hair. Ares gazed at him. Aphroditos raised an eyebrow teasingly. Ares heated and looked away. He unrolled to press his back to the wall and spread his legs, like a dropped rag doll. His shirt squeezed him. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows.

“Fuck, yeah. Forearm porn,” Aphroditos said smoothly.

Ares looked at him with a flare of surprise, then cracked into laughter and dropped his head back against the wall. They sat together for a long moment. Ares let the damp coolness kiss his face, staring up at the clutter of spiralling pot plants on a balcony overhead. He listened through the zoom of cars and picked up Aphroditos’ steady breathing. He breathed in time with it, softly shovelling the residue of clumping angers out of his system. Aphroditos’ presence acted like salt water, cleaning out his system, if not quite letting it settle. 

“So, you know that thing you told me about your dad?” Aphroditos ventured.

“What?”

“That he's an asshole.”

“Yeah.”

His glittering eyes shadowed. “Did that happen again?”

Ares gave him a flat look and pointed to the stewing storm cloud.

Aphroditos nodded. “If he hurts my roof, he's paying for the damages.”

“Your roof?”

He grinned. “Yep. All roofs of iniquity are my roofs.”

Ares grinned too. “Do any of them have bar fights?”

“Some.”

“Those ones are part mine.”

Aphroditos’ face lit up like a firework, mirth bouncing on its sharp angles. “We go halfsies on the sin.”

Ares gnashed his teeth. “Sex and violence.”

“That's the special sauce.”

They laughed. Ares' chest grew lighter. He felt somehow taller, but not in the awkward way where he didn’t fit in a space. There was room for him here. He turned and cleared his throat more sincerely, the constant curiosity he felt for this person bubbling in his veins. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

He looked guilty back towards the door, behind which his father was doubtless being a problem. “Is it nice working at these places? Like, is it fun or do dudes always ruin it?”

Aphroditos paused, taking a slow breath. He gave him a lopsided, relaxed smile and shrugged. “It’s work. All work has good days and bad days, good employers and bad employers, good customers and bad customers. Sometimes it’s the best job in the world. Seriously. Sometimes it’s… less so. They're all different. Sometimes there's backstage conflict worse than the audience hassle. Sometimes it's grubby or tiring or… not totally safe. You get a lot of bruises on your knees and pulled muscles and energy drops. You get shitty behaviour. You also get a lot of great nights and crazy stories and energy highs. Sometimes it feels like people are paying for the privilege of dicking you around. Sometimes it feels like you’re getting paid to be totally in love with yourself and fuck the world.” He looked up to the sliver of sunlight through the cloud, it fell across his face and gilded his cheekbones. His voice lowered and drifted. “But there's this moment when a stripper walks out on stage and comes into the lights and starts to move… and I can feel it all flow into me.”

Ares gazed. “Feel what?” 

Aphroditos looked at him and his eyes were full of burning meteorites. “Worship.”

Ares’ heart thumped.

Aphroditos grinned, obviously sensing his pulse pick up. He released Ares from his stunning gaze and softened his face. “People like your dad make a big show of being a pig because they want the power high. People like Hestia and your mom make a big show of disapproval because they think they only survived this whole mess by following the rules, and it kills them when they see sexually liberated people doing just fine and realise they might not have had to be so good and moral after all. But at the end of the day, they worship us. Everyone worships us. Desire, joy, laughter, jealousy, fear, anger. It’s all thrown at us because we’re powerful. Because we command attention. We’re a fantasy, a heaven, a torment. There’s only one thing they can’t feel for us, and that’s indifference. However you react to a stripper, it’s with something that takes energy. And if you think about how many strip clubs there are, open all night, every night, that's a lot of energy coming my way.” That wicked smile slipped back over his lavender lips. 

Ares’ heart thumped again. His breath caught in his throat. The cinnamon flavour of this incredible god’s constant, defiant wrath teased his tongue and made his mouth water. “Wow…”

Aphroditos looked briefly self-satisfied, then chuckled and looked ahead again. “Isn't that how it is for you? The world is full of fights.”

Ares croaked. “Oh, uh… I don't think so. I mean, I feel all the anger out there, that's for damn sure. But it mostly just gets under my skin and cranks my temper.”

Aphroditos shifted on the pavement and gave him a measured look, slightly goading, slightly cautious. “Did you ever think maybe it's like that because you haven't figured out what to do with it?”

Ares’ stomach fluttered. He cursed his youth and ignorance in front of this being and his centuries of experience and skill. He pulled his shoulder up a little defensively. “Well, Athena is training me in how to keep myself under control…”

“That's not what I mean.”

He swallowed and watched his deep, intelligent eyes.

“We get our power from the earth, Ares,” Aphroditos said, a current of beautiful passion in his voice, “from the motions of the planets and the cycles of nature, death, rebirth, storms, stillness, growth, wildness. And from people. People pour power into us with their feelings and their dreams and their prayers. You're tuned to something especially primal in them. Your body isn't a vessel for planned and anticipated moments of strategic thought or civilised rule. You are fuelled by the endless, raw rage of humanity.” He gazed into Ares’ face with a simmering, enticing expression that made Ares shudder. He blinked and it was gone, calm and soothing again. He leaned heavier back against the wall, his smooth, bare shoulder rolling and making Ares' tongue writhe. “Athena knows you better than I do, but I can't help but wonder if her training fundamentally amounts to trying to deal with a fire by organising its individual flames into a filing cabinet.”

Ares raised his eyebrows. Aphroditos’ face turned unreadable, watching for his reaction at criticising his sister. Usually, Ares would leap to Athena’s defence in a heartbeat. She’d been his mentor all campaign, all his life. She was the only one who made him feel like he was on any sort of track. She was his big sister, his role model, his protector, his captain. She actually liked him. She actually wanted him to do well, to be his best. And she believed he was capable of that. He didn’t always like her lessons, in fact he almost never did, but once he’d cooled off, he always accepted she was right. She had his best interests at heart… Right? He looked at his hands, scuffed and clumsy. Athena was a loyal ally, but she was loyal to one thing over everything, even him. Olympus. Order. She was its champion, its guardian, its architect. If how his power truly worked put any of that in danger, would she help him realise it? Or would she do everything she could to train him into something safe, acceptable, useful? Even if it kept him from his potential? From his joy? That elation that buzzed from Aphroditos as he talked about his divinity, Ares wanted that, to know who he was and why he was that person, that there was something to be done with that, not about it. He wanted to know he didn’t need to be fixed. Gods were supposed to be born out of some human need. They weren’t supposed to be mistakes. They weren’t all likeable, but they all had meaning. Nothing was wasted in creating a god. So why did he always feel like slag? Like the misshapen by-product of another deity that was off somewhere else having a purpose and making everyone proud?

He slouched and picked at his fingernail. “Dad doesn't really want me to be primal, I don't think. He told me today he wants me to be a trophy prince, nothing more, nothing my own, just a sign that he won all those years ago. His gold medal.” He ground his teeth.

Aphroditos snorted deridingly. “But that's not what a prince is. That's not what they're meant to do.”

Ares cocked an eyebrow drily. “Oh yeah? What are they meant to do?”

He smiled with a twinkle in his eye. “Have adventures. Fall in love. Save the world.”

Ares laughed coarsely. “Sounds more you than me.”

“And I think I've found who I want to save first.” 

Butterflies burst in Ares’ stomach, his cheeks heating.

Aphroditos reached behind him and produced a folded magazine page from his back pocket. He held it out to Ares. Ares took it and unfolded it to look down at a black and white photograph of a fearsome woman with a haunted doll beauty. The butterflies died. He flexed his neck and scanned the interview, lingering especially over the singer’s discussion of Aphrodite. He looked back up and handed the page back. “That was pretty ironic to include in Ma's royal summer issue.”

Aphroditos held the page like it was a sheet of wafer thin ice about to shatter. “I suspect that's why it's only a single page near the back.”

“And you want to save this singer?”

“I think I do.”

Ares frowned. “How? You can't bring people back from the dead, can you?”

He shook his head solemnly, twilight dimness in his thoughtful eyes. “No. But she's an unusually present shade. I think she could exist in the other realms. She could have freedom of movement.”

“So you want Uncle H to release her from judgement?”

“Yes.”

Ares heard the resolution set in. A wave of protective, rebellious anger pulsed from Aphroditos and charged his body. He shivered and grounded himself in the smell of diesel and dust from the road. He huffed through his nose. “Good luck.” He eyed Aphroditos’ crystal-carved face, etched with determination. “Why do you wanna do this?”

“Because I let her down,” he answered plainly. “I think I could learn from her.”

“You? Learn from some mortal?”

“I learn from mortals every day.”

Ares gazed at him. The breeze stirred his hair and his loose top. He was always in motion, even sitting still. He turned abruptly, head cocked like a parakeet. “Are you an Orpheus fan?”

Ares barked a laugh. “Not at all.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged dismissively. “He's not my sound. And he's built all his music on this tragedy I can't relate to.”

Aphroditos smiled quizzically. “What do you mean?”

He huffed again, a little hot on the back of his neck. “I mean if you're in love with someone, then why would you follow the rules? OK, he lost the challenge. So what? Go back there. Fight your way through and fight her way out.”

“And if he couldn't fight?” There was a coaxing note to the vanilla coffee voice, drawing the words out of Ares.

He stumbled into heated speech. “Everyone can fight. He might not win, but if you've failed anyway, what have you got to lose? I don't understand being able to just choose not to fight. When it's something important, my body just goes, you know? I don't have a choice to turn around and do the logical thing. I can't accept tragedy and be romantic about it. I fight. I always fight. I have to fight. If it matters. And I know that's my big, shitty flaw, but it just makes Orpheus' crying a pain in my ass.”

Aphroditos took this in. He tried to find it ominous, in light of what he'd just heard among the kings. But he couldn't. It plucked at his sinew. He looked at him like a really good cake taken fresh from the oven, something he was especially proud of baking. “I don't know if it's a flaw.”

“It is,” Ares gruffed. “If you fight battles you can't win all the time, well, then you spend a lot of time fucking losing. And Athena says there's always another option, there's always a way to get your best result, if you stop and find it. But by then I've already blown a hole in a fortress wall and got buried under bricks.”

Aphroditos let out a cackle. “Shit! Did that happen?”

Ares grit his teeth sheepishly, but Aphroditos’ enjoyment tickled him. He tugged his shirt up to show a tangle of white tissue over his rib. “That's this scar.”

Aphroditos hissed through his teeth. Then pouted in pleasure at the glimpse of Ares’ torso. He flashed him a playful look. Ares warmed and laughed, dropped his shirt back down, and rubbed the prickling back of his neck.

Aphroditos smiled gently. “OK, maybe there's work for you to do. But at least try and remember it comes from a good part of you.”

“There are good parts of me?” Ares asked bitterly.

Aphroditos narrowed his eyes murderously, his anger scratching like a kitten. “Yes. There are. And I like your fight.” He punched him on the arm, sending a jolt through Ares’ body.

“Hey!” Ares laughed. He grabbed his fist and squeezed it hard.

Aphroditos tried to pull away, beaming wildly. “Oh no! Don’t fight! It’s immoral!”

“You said you liked it,” Ares snarled. He gripped Aphroditos’ small fist harder and scrabbled on the pavement to loom over him. The man was slight and he had that terrier energy that got into Ares’ body and made him want to scrap. He was smaller than his feminine form, and spikier, sharp chin, sharp elbows, sharp teeth. He wriggled as Ares bore down on him and fought back, ruffling his curls, grasping at his neck, pounding his chest. He was stronger than he looked, just enough to give Ares some real resistance, to stoke the heat in his muscles. Ares filled suddenly with excitement, with a keen need to touch and play and get a reaction out of this pretty thing. It was a relieving rush, a bright enjoyment of his combative nature after feeling the burden of it all morning. They scuffled like cubs, a wolf and lion, laughing and growling and yapping at surprise tickles and cuffs. Aphroditos flailed free with a hoot of triumph and lunged for Ares’ middle. Ares snatched his wrists and wrenched them up and dove over him, knocking him backward to the wall and pinning his wrists over his head. He closed them in one hand and with his other impulsively seized the fluttering hem of the crop top and pulled him close. He pushed his face to Aphroditos’ and nipped his scruff of beard, tasting his skin. “Remember I'm rougher with guys,” he husked.

Aphroditos bowed backwards under him, torso rippling like silk with his panting, cheeks flushed, eyes startling and smile brilliant. “I've noticed.”

Ares shivered. Aphroditos smelled of rose water and sandalwood, spiced and luxurious. His legs were splayed, denim pinching around his groin so Ares could glimpse a swell that made him ache. The cool air had pricked Aphroditos’ nipples hard, poking distractingly under the top that Ares had pulled taut over his small, pert breasts. There was a glisten from the near-rain on his chest. Ares’ blood rushed, thrumming in his ears. He felt like a poacher, hungry and mean. Aphroditos’ excited anger batted at him like a flock of sparrows, confusing his senses. He pinned him harder. He began to sink closer, mind blurring.

Aphroditos banged his knee into Ares’ side.

“Ah!” The impact shocked him and threw him sideways. He landed on his ass beside Aphroditos, clutched his waist, and doubled over with a long groan of pain.

“Shit! You OK?” Aphroditos gasped, pawing urgently at his arm to pull him straight.

Ares flopped into his hands and his exaggerated groan tumbled into mocking laughter. 

Aphroditos sighed and slapped his arm. “You damn faker!”

Ares kept laughing, the day’s tension ripping out of him as Aphroditos kept slapping him. He gulped down his warm, amused exasperation and laughed so it rang in the guttering and bristled the pot plants overhead.

They sobered with a few final, gruff chuckles and slumped against the wall to catch their breath. They exchanged a glimmering glance and looked away.

Ares looked back at the God of Love, at his ease and his energy. He pressed his lips together and spoke hesitantly, pulse still quick and light. “Do you really think I'll help people one day? Like you?”

Aphroditos looked at him tenderly. “I really do.”

Ares buoyed. He held out his hand companionably. “You and me, then. Just a couple of princes, out on the street, looking to save the world.”

Aphroditos looked into his sunrise face, brash and boyish and idealistic, under the edge. "You and me." There was something intriguing in that. Something powerful. Something that… clicked. He grinned and clapped his hand into Ares’, the light catching a few purple suntan freckles on his defined forearm. They shook firmly, as if sealing a pact. You and me. They held each other’s eyes and didn’t let go. Just a couple of princes. Ares closed his hand around Aphroditos’, covering it with his, holding onto him like a helium balloon that might go flying off. Blue and red manicures intertwined. Aphroditos sucked his lower lip, gaze kindling. They tilted towards each other.

A car skidded violently and blasted its horn.

They jumped and broke apart, wheeling around to peer over at the road at the end of the street. They caught their breath and rolled their eyes, chuckling and settling again. It woke Ares to how long they’d been out here. He looked grimly at the club door. “I should probably get back in there. Or finally make the decision to walk away.”

“I vote Option B,” Aphroditos said.

Ares nodded. He started to stand. A slender, lilac hand planted on his shoulder and shoved him down. He blinked at Aphroditos as he used him to lever himself up onto his feet, tutting like a squirrel. “No, no, no, no. You got to walk away from me the last two times, I’m levelling out the score. You stay right there and keep those eyes on my very cute butt as I walk away from you, you got it?”

Ares grinned, cheeks tinted cherry. “Got it.”

“Good.” Aphroditos dusted off his jeans and stepped into a comical strut that rolled into a rhythmic stroll. He turned back to check Ares was watching him, pointing sternly to his eyes and then his ass. 

Ares bit his lip and tipped exaggeratedly to demonstrate his staring. Aphroditos’ jeans were a little loose, but it was still a damn nice view. Aphroditos nodded in approval and set off, waving blithely over his shoulder. Ares’ heart sank a little.

He turned again. 

Ares' heart bobbed back up.

“Hey, if you’re always happy to see me, I have some good news.”

“Yeah?”

“Peitho’s making me go to your dad's birthday on Saturday.”

Ares’ stomach somersaulted. He cleared his throat nonchalantly. “Oh, you'll be there?”

He grinned. “Seems so.”

Ares smiled.

“OK, round two. Eyes down here.” He spun on his heel, pointing to his ass again, and swaggered off down the street.

Ares watched him go obediently, laughter and warmth and nervous excitement and hunger filling all the hollows chiselled out by the morning with Zeus.

A couple of princes.

A couple.

He took a deep breath of the last wisp of sandalwood on the air. He hauled himself up and rolled his shoulders and headed back into the club.

He found his father and uncles mid-conversation about nothing that was making them smile, heads together to be heard over the turned-up music. He broke them apart by reaching over them, grabbing his half-drunk beer, and downing it as they watched blankly. 

He banged the glass onto the table. “Fine. I’ll come to your stupid party.”

He turned and strode out of the club before they could say a word.

Notes:

Hello, here's all the references I stuffed into this chapter, like the maniacal nerd I am.

Little Minoa takes its name from the ancient civilisation of Minoa in modern Crete. It is FASCINATING and I can't recommend this documentary by Bettany Hughes highly enough, (admittedly a bit because I'm immeasurably gay for her). But for a normal amount of information, take a look here. The labyrinthine Little Minoa is named after Minoa because it is the site of the Labyrinth myth. Aglaea's snake dance is based on their fucking rad snake goddess.

The Horai are spirits of the seasons and the hours of the day, often included in the retinue of Aphrodite. They don't correspond to Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. But meh, my fic, my hot nymphs.

The Graces, or Charities, are also a big deal to the Aphrodite brand. While there are a core three of these, I've expanded the term to refer more broadly to her retinue of deities that represented qualities associated with her, like adornment, seduction, feasting, etc. Peitho, Aglaea, Pannyakhis, Paidia, and Antheia are all includes from the original gang. Gods, would I give anything for my afterlife to be attaining this ultimate of squad goals.

The Oizys box that Peitho talks about is based on the work of psychologist B. F. Skinner on operant conditioning, but Skinner is replaced in-world with Oizys, Goddess of Misery, who felt like she fit as a psychologist, if that's her interest (you do you, babe...)

The philosophy of love that I hope to keep exploring through Eurydice was drawn from this article on Black Feminist Love-Politics by Jennifer C. Nash. I'm brand new to learning about this theory, so I'm not at all qualified to write a character "explaining" this area of thought, but it was so inspiring to read and I wanted to shout it out.

Aphroditos is REAL and FUCKING COOL. While we have a long history of wrapping Aphrodite up with divine feminine, and her identity as a woman is really important to this story, she is also a goddess-damn trans and non-binary icon who was worshipped in certain Cyprus cults as male/non-binary/gender-fluid/intersex (ancient gender isn't totally cooperative with our constructs). Aphroditos is also a core component of Hermaphroditos, the intersex child of Hermes and Aphrodite, also worshipped by these cults. Much of Aphrodite's queerness has been erased as her image has developed over time, hence it arriving a little way into the story as my research got there. As both my understanding of her multiplicity and my own develops, I hope to make Aphroditos an authentic part of her character. This is a new kind of journey for me creatively and I can only ask for your patience as I wrangle with its complexities, but I'm always happy to adapt if anything feels harmful, or clarify decisions that seem unsure. But also, let's all just bask in the knowledge that perhaps the most enduring and iconic Goddess of Beauty and Love is Real Fucking Queer. (Side note, she's also not White in origin.)

It's at this point that I realised I needed more nerdery in the end notes, so if you thirst for more of my tweed and elbow patches way of writing fanfic, head down there. Much love! xxx

Chapter 12: "Can I get your number?"

Summary:

I'm alive! Thank you for your patience, 2021 sure was a 2021...

Ares finally asks for Aphrodite's phone number, but she isn't about to make it easy for him. Meanwhile, her new mission to free Eurydice takes its first steps with a tense meeting with Hades and Hecate. Luckily, Ares is there to... help? We have some shenanigans and then we have some politics, because I am nothing if not consistent (and exhausting).

*Drops a Hades-negative chapter, flees into the bushes*

Montage song: 8675309 Jenny Jenny, Tommy Tutone

Ares was bruising like a peach. Fluorescent amber blotches spread like apricot jam over the bulges of his muscles as he dropped over and over to the grass with an earthquake thud and a groan like a tree falling.

“Again.” Athena showed no mercy, clapping her hands sharply like castanets every time he thumped into the dirt.

“I fucking hate this,” Ares grumbled under his breath.

“What was that, Soldier?”

“Nothing.”

“Again. Get up.”

He chuntered irritably as he heaved his aching body back to standing, flexing his shoulders and letting the summer sun massage their soreness. He scowled around the royal grounds, the neat, yellowing lawn giving him no shade and no padding.

Hermes swooped into the blindingly blue sky, a swirl of rainbow in a tie-dye tank top. He took up his damsel-in-distress position, hovering with one hand draped dramatically on his brow. “Oh golly! I’m so frightened! I need rescue! Won’t someone save me? Won’t some big, strong hero with sexy arms come and…”

“When I get up there,” Ares snapped, “I’m gonna hurl you into the fucking prickly pears.” He dusted off his track pants and crouched, ready to spring.

Hermes shrugged. “If you get up here.”

It was teleporting practice. Of all the skills Athena was drilling into Ares, this one was going particularly badly. He was into his third hour today of vanishing into flame, reappearing in the wrong place, and plummeting to the ground. Hermes had been hired to play his person-in-need, his highly communicative energy supposedly making him easy to locate in the layers of chaos that teleporters traversed. But it was becoming apparent that Hermes had volunteered in order to amuse himself by being a complete fucking toerag.

“Help! Help! The sea monster! He is coming!” Hermes wailed, spiralling in mid-air. “His jaws are so big and toothy! If only an equally big and toothy dream-hunk would come and-”

Ares materialised on top of him. They both crashed to the ground. Hermes was squashed under Ares' dense weight, his pointy elbows jabbing Ares’ ribs.

“OW!” he yelped.

“OH, I’m SO sorry you hit the ground ONCE!” Ares retorted, grabbing his hair and planting his face into the earth.

Hermes thrashed under him. “Athena! You promised no rough-housing! OW! Stop it! I’m only little!” He flapped and pushed at Ares’ cheek. Ares bore down on him, like a great dane, still clutching his hair. Hermes’ playful, defensive, ratty anger bounced into him and riled him up in the hot sun.

Athena stood over them with one eyebrow raised, fists on hips. “That was better.”

The boys stopped tussling and looked up. “Was it?”

“You hit your mark.”

“Yeah! He hit it, alright!” Hermes squawked, puffing grass from his nose. “Like a freight train!”

Athena flicked her head to indicate Ares should move. He gave Hermes a final, sulky shove by his hair and clambered to stand in a hulking slouch. He rubbed his ribs, smarting from Hermes’ elbows. “This is useless,” he snarled, his hackles up and his teeth itching. “If Hermes had been in actual danger, he’d be damsel soup by now.”

Athena exhaled patiently. “And if I tried to make a meringue, the eggs would be salmonella gloop. That’s why we practice. You’ll get better. Don’t give up.”

Ares looked into her steel face - resolute, confident. He rubbed the back of his neck and huffed. He nodded. 

“What’s not working for you?” she asked briskly.

He glanced at Hermes, who was idly straightening his tank top and messing up his already wild, scarlet hair. “I can’t see him. I pop out of reality and it’s all just noise, just crazy noise.” He rubbed his eyes. His retinas were stinging from the whiplash between darkness and sunshine. 

Athena closed the distance between them and gently pulled his fists from his face. She put a hand on his hard shoulder and tapped his abs. “You’re not meant to look for him. You’re not an eyes guy. That’s what I am. I look and I see and I take a path. When has that ever been how you do anything? What do you make your decisions with?”

Ares snorted. “Do I make decisions? I thought I just kinda fell over stuff.”

She smiled and tapped him again. “You go with your gut.” She grinned. “It’s easy to mistake for falling over stuff.”

He let himself smile. 

She squeezed his shoulder. “Again.”

She stepped away and nodded to Hermes. “Ready?”

Hermes gave her a two-fingered salute. “I’m a damsel, I’m in distress, I can handle this.” He kicked off into the air, hovering a few metres away, like an escaped kite. Ares fixed his eyes on him. Then closed them. He thought about Hermes, about all the ways he knew him without looking at him; what he smelled like, how he moved, the shape of his body, the sound of his voice. He thought about what Hermes would do if the sun was out, how he’d position himself, where he’d fly. He wouldn’t go in the shade. He would want to break out in a sweat, he’d keep mobile. Ares put his hand over his stomach. Trust your gut.

He went searing hot. He went weightless. He cloaked in flame. The tongues enveloped him and swallowed him down into the in-between. The chaos surged. He felt his molecules drifting apart. He wasn’t breathing. Breathing didn’t exist. He clenched. He focused on his body. He was physical. He was solid. Hermes wasn’t. Hermes was like mercury. He was viscous. He slipped in the air. He wasn’t a point to land on, he was a river to surf. He was fluid, flexible…

Maybe that’s why Aphrodite was so into him.

Wait, what?

“ARGH!” Ares slammed on his back onto the ground, his vertebrae rattling. His head spun as oxygen rushed back into his blood and his eyes wheeled in white light. He rolled in the grass and growled. Hermes sat upside-down in the air cross-legged, blinking at him, like a lemur. Ares glared ferociously at the attractive origami of his figure. “YOU SUCK!”

Hermes pressed long fingers to the blush on his chest, hair flowing down. “What did I do?”

Ares gnashed his teeth and pulled himself up to sit, rubbing his sore back.

“What happened that time?” Athena asked sharply.

“I dunno!” Ares barked.

“Yes, you do,” she insisted. “Keep your head. Analyse your mistakes. Find what needs to change.”

“Nothing happened!” His temper coursed. “I lost focus!”

“Why?”

“No reason!” His cheeks burned. He looked away.

Hermes’ upside-down eyes narrowed suspiciously. Ares bared his teeth at him and flopped backwards to lie in the grass. He grumbled senselessly and thought about how much he wanted to quit this part of training and reconsider his dad’s plan of being a work-shy figurehead.

“That's not what a prince is. That's not what they're meant to do.”

“Oh yeah? What are they meant to do?”

“Have adventures. Fall in love. Save the world.”

His conversation with Aphroditos sneaked back into his mind. It hadn’t really left him since yesterday. It was making the ruthless regimen of drills and practice and reciting rules feel like a very tight box with no air holes. He took a deep breath of the mulch of mowed lawn and squinted into the yellow-rimmed clouds. He tried to remind himself that what he was learning was important for getting some freedom. Fates, imagine being able to disappear from this damn house without anybody noticing. Imagine being able to come back whenever he felt Ma in trouble, instead of having to lurk around endlessly waiting for it to happen. If he could do that, maybe he could move into his own place... He breathed out, slow and controlled. He closed his eyes and let the blooms of dark colour consume his temper.

Hermes tipped right side up and floated down, still cross-legged. He landed on Ares’ chest, like a pixie sitting on a toadstool. 

Ares opened one eye as the light body thumped onto him. “Fuck. Off.”

Hermes cocked his head, like a robin, hair swishing. “I feel like you’re struggling to feel my call across the ether because you don’t really wanna be my cuddle bud right now.”

Ares chewed his tongue. “Then is this the best place for you to sit?”

He scratched his chin. “I’m testing my theory. It’s fun. It feels kinda like being a bird landing on a rock and finding out it’s a crocodile. When’s he gonna snap? Place your bets.”

Ares rolled his eyes, reached up, and flicked Hermes on the nose. Hermes flinched and rubbed it redder, grinning at him behind his hand. Ares gave him a rueful smile and moved his arm behind his head. He closed his eyes again. The barb of jealousy smoothed. He’d always liked Hermes for his wildness, it had been a sort of refuge, having another young god to break the rules with. He couldn’t begrudge anyone being drawn to him, or him for enjoying that. And it was impossible to be actually angry with him, because he never reacted against it. He’d always played with Ares’ volatility, a cat with a ball of yarn, his little claws unpicking the tight winding in Ares’ system. He didn’t see Ares as a problem, he quite merrily let him happen, a buoy on the waves. It was nice. It was rare.

Hermes shuffled down and began to curl up on Ares’ broad, warm torso, the cat on a radiator. It had been his technique for grumpy Ares since they were kids. It was an equally intimate and baffling move that left Ares’ temper with nowhere to go. And besides, if a cat sits on you, you have to pet it, it’s like… natural law. Ares sighed and scratched behind Hermes’ ears, the last of his prickling petering out. The weight was cosy. The fidgeting was not. “Would ya settle?” Ares droned.

“I’m trying, your belly is harder than it used to be.”

"Oi, Jock Jams and Jorts!" Athena yelled.

A gust of wind smacked them both on the cheek.

“OW!” They perked up and shot Athena wounded glances.

She folded her arms with a rigidly straight back. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember saying it was nap time at the nursery.”

“But it’s hoooot." Hermes whined into Ares’ t-shirt. “Can’t we take a little break?”

She jabbed her blunt finger at him. “You have been doing fuck all but floating about.” She jabbed at Ares. “And you can go for at least another hour. Get up. Come on, up, up, up.”

The boys groaned and clambered clumsily over each other to stand again. Ares rolled his shoulders. Hermes stretched his calves and fluttered back into the air. Athena strode to Ares and looked piercingly into his eyes, pinning him still. “Alright, analyse the situation. What’s getting in your way?”

Ares drew back, heat rising in his face again.

“Athena knows you better than I do, but I can't help but wonder if her training fundamentally amounts to trying to deal with a fire by organising its individual flames into a filing cabinet.”

He flicked his eyes awkwardly to her. “Thena…”

“Yeah?”

“I…” He ground his teeth and rubbed the back of his neck, damp from sweat. “I’ve been thinking, is the constant practising and analysing really the best way to learn how to do this?”

She looked at him unblinking.

“It’s just… it’s not natural.” He tried to summon Aphrodite’s voice inside himself. They spoke about these things with such ease, they made perfect sense, there was a flow to it. But trying to repeat them sounded hollow and naïve. 

“Not natural?”

“No.”

Athena’s nostrils flared. “So, what? If something doesn’t come naturally to you, you should just abandon it?”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean.” He flexed his hands and poked his teeth with his tongue, grasping at half-sentences. “I mean that… It’s like… OK, so there’s power and there’s technique. And training is great for technique, but power comes from something else.”

She did not look convinced.

“Right?”

Her lips flattened.

“Look, what I’m saying is…” he gabbled, avoiding her hard stare, “I’ve got better at fighting through training, I’ve got bigger muscles through training, but I already had a fighting instinct before we started. There was something there to work with. But I don’t have a teleporting instinct. I’m not working with anything here. Can’t I just maybe take some time to find the passion in it? Then I’ll have something to make a skill out of, you know? There’s nothing primal for me in teleporting. It’s not what my body is pulled towards.”

Athena’s stare flattened like her mouth. “You’re not making any sense.”

“No, I am, listen. You win all your battles, right? Like all of them. It’s insane, really, if you think about it. So, why is that? It’s gotta be because you go where you’re drawn. You fight the battles you can win.”

She drummed her fingers on her hips. “No, I just win battles.”

“But how?”

“I figure out how to in advance.”

He rolled his eyes.

“And I can do that because I trained for centuries to be an excellent tactician.”

“But you enjoy tactics,” Ares pushed. “You are passionate about intelligent warfare. You got good at it because something in your body gave you a power source to keep working at it.”

She rolled her jaw.

“And that’s me and fighting.” He spoke slowly, like he was reciting phrases in another language. “But it’s not me and teleporting.”

Her jaw clicked. “So you’re saying you shouldn’t have to learn how to do something essential because it’s not fun for you.”

He sighed heavily and clutched his curls, looking at her wearily past his forearm. “I’m saying that I will learn to teleport, but, to make it click, I need to find where it lives in my body. Right now, I’m knocking on the wrong doors.”

Hermes tilted in the air, listening curiously.

“That’s what I already said.” A note of exasperation leaked into her voice. “Go with your gut.”

“I don’t think it’s in my gut. It’s not about cracking how I think. It’s about the feeling. I need to feel it. And I’m trying, I tried thinking about Ma, but it isn’t clicking.”

Athena’s expression went completely deadpan. She looked at him for a long moment that gave him the sensation of being squashed under a marble plinth. She tutted and strode away, rolling her wrists. “Feel on your own time, Ares. Don’t try to get out of this.”

His heart thunked an inch lower in his chest. He scowled at his sneakers. How did Aphrodite make it make sense?

Athena turned and clapped her hands sharply. Ares clucked his tongue and bounced on the balls of his feet. He took a breath, shifted his focus onto Hermes, and summoned the fire. He lost his body in a swirl of blinding orange. He swam through the screaming confusion - darkness and sparks and tumbling voices. He searched for Hermes’ fizz of scarlet. He lunged for it. Athena’s bland dismissal slotted into his mind. His particles clanged against a towering, iron wall and he was ripped back into reality. The sun gashed his vision like a swiping sword. His side ached from where he was flung into the dirt. He barked out in shock and pounded his fist in a cloud of dry soil. He’d landed at Athena’s feet. She loomed over him, unimpressed.

“Oh, hey there, Dite!” Hermes’ bright voice shocked him harder than the ground. He blinked wide-eyed and saw Athena’s sharp nose point over him. His heart thumped. He scrambled to his feet. His pulse leaped into a hurried rhythm as he saw advancing from the lemon trees, Aphrodite, dressed in white and moving like water. He looked down at himself, streaked with earth from all the times he’d hit the ground, sweat smearing his skin, his shoulder blushing with a fresh bruise. He swept his hand hastily through his hair and grass cuttings showered over his hands. 

Shit.

Aphrodite waved as she approached, her ponytail bouncing, sunshine reflecting on her lip gloss and her dark purple shades. Hermes skidded on his heels as he landed and waved energetically. “Greetings, Lady Love!”

“Hello, Jam Pot.” She blew him a kiss. Ares stung. Her eyes sparkled behind the indigo lenses, stars in twilight. She touched the frame. “Oh my, Ares, look at the state of you.”

Ares gave her a lopsided smile, words failing him as another tuft of grass dropped limply from his hair.

“Getting your ass kicked by a girl?”

He laughed shyly. “Every damn day.”

She beamed.

He grinned, heart rising. “What are you doing here?”

She nodded in the direction of the palace, ponytail prancing. “Love and marriage.”

“Like a horse and carriage.”

She giggled. “Cute.”

Hermes’ teeth emerged brilliantly from his sly lips. He darted his eyes between them.

Aphrodite ignored him. “Hey, Athena.”

Athena nodded courteously.

“Don’t be too hard on this one, he’s breakable.” Aphrodite glanced over their sunglasses at Ares. He heated.

Athena puffed through her nose. “I’ll keep the bruising to a minimum.”

“At least keep his face clean.” They kept smiling at him. “It’s bad enough when he doesn’t shave.”

Ares wrinkled his nose at her. She poked her tongue out at him. Hermes stared gleefully. Warmth tingled under Ares’ skin. Her shirt was open low. She was wearing a pendant with a little gem apple gleaming on the gold chain. His teeth dragged over his lip.

She slipped her glasses back up her nose and began to move away.

Ares’ heart hiccupped. “Hey!”

They turned around.

He drew himself up, opening out his chest and leaning on one hip. “I promise I win some bouts, stick around?”

She laughed like the tails of a flogger hitting flesh. “I’ve seen all I need to see.”

He bounced an eyebrow. “But not all I need you to see.”

“Don’t bet on it.” She nudged her sunglasses down her nose. The full force of her violet eyes hit him like a rogue firework. “Some women like a man who can take a beating.”

Ares’ insides melted. His smile turned silly. He quickly reined it in and cleared his throat. They smirked like a succubus, their eyes luring him. He thought about the gem apple resting on their skin, about it tickling his lips as he...

She broke their eye contact and tossed her hair as she turned on her toe. She fluttered her hand over her shoulder, briefly linking pinkies with Hermes as she slipped past him. “OK, wish me luck!” 

Hermes waved them off.

Ares watched them go, jaw loosening. Their thighs kissed as they walked, snug in their short skirt. His eyes went glassy.

He was woken by the hard bump of Athena’s shoulder. He started and glanced to see her half-grinning at him. “You said those three little words to her yet?”

Ares gulped. “I… love… you?”

“No, step on me.”

His face rushed boiling. “Fuck off, Eternal Maidenhood!” He shoved her violently away. 

Hermes burst into gurgling cackles. “I guess it doesn’t matter how often training knocks you down, our new goddess has you on the ropes with a look.”

“She does not!” Ares bunched his shoulders defensively.

“No?” Athena snorted.

“No!” he insisted. “It’s just flirting.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that.” She cracked her knuckles. “You two flirting is becoming the central attraction at every Olympus gathering.”

“Then Olympus needs some faster news days.” He looked surly at the floor.

“Careful what you wish for,” she chuckled. “Fast news days mean work for both of us.”

“And me!” Hermes piped up. “Especially me.”

“Then if we had a fast news day, I couldn’t spend so much time flirting with Aphrodite and you’d all get off my back,” Ares retorted. “Maybe I should start another war.”

“Or…” Hermes sidled over to him and propped himself up on his shoulder, “you could just ask her out and put us all out of our misery.”

Athena glanced over sternly.

“Asking her out would make half of you miserable,” Ares mumbled. His back itched.

“OK, I don’t mean us all,” Hermes corrected. “I mean me. Put me specifically out of my misery.”

Athena’s gaze drove into Ares, like a truck ploughing through debris. He shrugged Hermes off and wandered a few paces away to take up his teleporting position. “I’m not asking her out.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not fifteen looking for a prom date!” Ares could feel his face reddening like a ripening radish. His ears roasted, his stomach flipped. “I am a grown ass man and if I want to flirt with pretty people with no expectations, then I will!”

Hermes cast his hands into the air. “Ugh! You’re such a chicken.”

Ares turned to needles. He felt like a porcupine. “Am not!”

“Are too,” Athena murmured.

“Hey!” He rounded on her. “You’re the worst!”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not the one drooling over someone hundreds of times my age.”

“And Hestia is how old?”

“Asked her out, didn’t I?”

Hermes guffawed. “She’s got you there, Big Guy.”

Ares spat out a wad of smoke. “Excuse me, Sis, weren’t you pretty solidly against me and Aphrodite?”

“Oh, it’s for sure a terrible idea, but don’t make out like I’m stopping you. I’ve said my piece.”

“It’s not a terrible idea,” Hermes yapped petulantly. “It’s a good and sexy idea and it should be acted upon, pretty please.”

Ares frowned at him. “How come you’re so invested?”

“Are you kidding?” Hermes’ wings fluttered excitedly. “God of War and Goddess of Love? Prince and renegade? Hot person and other hot person? I was given godhood for two things: drama and bisexuality. This serves all my purposes.”

Ares shook his head. He was warm everywhere now. “I’m ignoring this. I’m training.”

Hermes blew a raspberry.

Ares flipped him off, balled his fists, flexed his feet, and bounded impulsively into the in-between.

Chaos rammed him.

He popped back into existence several patches of garden over, several metres in the air. He had just enough time to bellow a lot of curses before he plummeted like an asteroid into a bed of begonias.

Athena and Hermes watched the ball of flame appear quite some distance away. Ares’ gruff yell echoed across the grounds.

“Shitfuckshitballscockshitaaaaaaaaah…”

The sound whistled away on a breeze. The trail of smoke fizzled out in the sky.

Athena turned to Hermes. “You want lunch?”

“Pizza?”

“You’re eating a salad.”

They strolled leisurely towards where Ares had landed to scoop him up for food.

In the office, Aphrodite perked up at the sound of frantic yelling and a rustling thud outside. “What was that?” 

Hera waved coolly without looking up from her diary. “Since Ares learned to walk, I stopped investigating hullaballoos.”

Aphrodite hid her smile behind her hand. 

 

*

 

Hermes’ fork was screeching on his plate. A lot. He was chasing a stubborn cherry tomato around the porcelain, an item for which he had not expected to be given cutlery.

Scrape-scrape-scrape…

Ares and Athena exchanged a look across the too-dainty outdoor table in the shade of the vast, royal house, its soaring windows dancing with pastel rainbows as the sun reached its zenith. They looked rather out of place in their scuffed exercise clothes. Hermes kept pursuing the tomato. His fork dragged gratingly, clawing in the siblings’ ears. 

Screech-scrape-screech-chink-scrape…

“OK! I’m going to pee.” Athena stood sharply and strode inside. 

Hermes glanced blankly at her walking away, then went back to the shrill clattering. 

Ares glared.

Screech-screech-screech-scr-

Ares snatched the fork out of Hermes’ hand, bent it in half, and dropped it with a clang onto the table. The tomato skipped off the plate and onto the ground. 

Hermes raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I’m sorry, was that bugging you?”

Ares flicked the fork. It pinged off the table and disappeared in the grass.

Hermes snickered, stole Ares’ fork, and scooped up a tangle of lettuce. “So, this is lunch when Athena’s in charge?”

Ares pinched a clump of leaves and sucked them off his finger. “I also eat a lot of chicken.”

“Fried?”

“Nope.”

“Dude, I know you’re buff, but nothing is worth this.”

Ares chuckled and shrugged. His gaze ambled lazily past Hermes’ munching mouth and to the tall, ornamented side door of the palace. It was the door Ma’s guests used. He sucked on a string between his teeth.

Hermes frowned, glanced behind him at where Ares was looking, and whipped back with a deriding snort. “Oh, Fates.”

Ares blinked. “What?”

Hermes cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “ASK THEM OUT.”

Ares prickled and kicked Hermes’ chair leg, knocking him back an inch. “Shut up.”

“You’re watching for them right now,” Hermes huffed. “You’re sitting with a lettuce leaf sticking outta your mouth, staring at the door.”

“Am not.” He tugged the lettuce out of his teeth and flicked it onto his plate.

Hermes sighed and combed his fingers into his hedgerow hair. “OK, at least ask her for her number. That’s a casual friend move.”

Ares’ stomach hopped. “You think?”

“Yes.” His sly grin slipped out. “Or you could give her yours.”

Ares balked. “I am not giving her mine.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s weird and desperate.”

Hermes scoffed, relaxing back and spinning the fork around his index, his tank top laying loose over his reclined torso. “I do it.”

Ares’ arm snuggled over his middle. He fought to keep his face impassive. “You do?”

“Sure.” Hermes kept grinning at the sprinkling of sunlight diving around the twirling fork. “Buy a cutie a coffee, write my number on the cup sleeve, flash a smile as I walk out the shop. Works every time.”

“Yeah, for you.” Ares’ neck heated.

Hermes laughed and flicked the fork to hold it like a cigarette between his fingers. “OK, you’re right. I am extremely suave, while you are a disaster and will definitely make giving her your number awkward.”

“Thank you… Hey!”

“So, how about this?” The fork slithered down to the table, the tines wandering over the wood grain. “Athena’ll be back in a minute. You guys arm wrestle. If she wins, you have to ask for Dite’s number. Today. If you win, you get to just keep doing… whatever it is you’re doing that’s getting you nowhere.” His thief eyes glittered black.

Ares held his fiendish gaze. He shuffled through a dozen responses about Hermes not getting a rise out of him so easily. But since when had someone not gotten a rise out of him so easily? His bicep ticked in indignation at having its strength questioned. His stomach ticked at the thought of Aphrodite refusing him, laughing hollowly and making some excuse. If she wanted to get closer to him, she would have. She was the love goddess. But then… what if… No, he didn’t need pushing into anything. Hermes was adding kerosene to a controlled flame.

“Agreed,” Ares snarled.

Wait, what? HOW'D YOU END UP SAYING THAT?

Hermes’ face broke into a grin like a bursting piñata. 

“What are you two grinning about like devious, little hamsters?” Athena asked brusquely, folding mechanically back into her seat.

“We were just making a bet,” Hermes said through his fangs, “that you couldn’t beat Ares in a good, old-fashioned arm wrestle.”

Athena shot a keen look at Ares. “Oh yeah? What’s the bet?”

“If you win, Ares owes me five thousand drachma.” Hermes folded his forearms on the table, fringe dusting his eyes. “But if Ares wins, you owe me five thousand drachma.”

Ares shook his head at Hermes, jaw jutting. Low down, dirty…

“That sounds like exactly the kind of bet Ares would agree to.” Athena elbowed his ribs. “Go on then, I’m happy to play for pride.” She twisted in her chair and thumped her elbow onto the table. She braced her hand up and grinned over her chrome fingernails at Ares. 

Ares grinned back, combat rearing up in his blood. He squared himself to face her and flexed his thick neck. His elbow banged onto the table and made the plates jump. He slotted his hand into hers. Her grip was like a padlock. 

Hermes drummed on the table, rattling the crockery. “I can’t believe that worked. OK, warriors!” He slapped his hand over their grasp. “Three… Two… One… DESTROY!”

His hand whipped away. Athena’s powerful press immediately strained Ares’ hand. He clasped her tight and drove his elbow into the wooden surface and pushed against her. Her bicep turned to grey rock, the outline cresting under the sleeve of her polo shirt. She set her jaw, but her face remained otherwise completely cool. Ares’ face did not remain cool. His pulse pounded with a mixture of effort and anxiety, the edges of his vision misting amber, so Athena appeared to him as clay firing in a furnace. He stared fiercely into her eyes, gnashing his teeth, grinning maniacally as their competitive energy clashed and fuelled his speeding pulse. Fire flowed in his veins, singed the hairs on his arms. A fine tendril of smoke whisked from their wrapped fingers. Athena’s arm started to buckle. Ares pushed harder, the tendons in his neck protruding and the veins etching over his bare bicep. He clenched his whole body, ploughing himself into the solid wall of Athena’s might. She bent a little further, a subtle twitch in the corner of her eye. Ares held his breath. Just another inch… Just… another…

“Oh, hey, Dite!” Hermes called.

“Huh?” Ares’ stomach flipped. He looked up, body going numb.

Aphrodite wasn’t there.

“Ha! Made you look.”

Athena grunted and slammed his hand onto the table with an echoing bang.

The bones in his hand smarted and the fire under his skin flared. His pulse went from thumping to rocketing as the consequence of his loss washed over him. He rounded on the cackling, red trickster with his eyes the colour of jalapeños. “HERMES!”

“What?” Hermes laughed wildly, spreading his arms and rocking his chair onto the back legs. “You said it’s just flirting, so it shouldn’ta thrown you off!”

“You DICK!” Ares launched across the table and pushed Hermes hard. Hermes’ arms wheeled frantically as his chair toppled backward and he landed in a heap in the grass. 

Athena tugged Ares back to sit and clapped his arm. “Come on, Bro, it’s just five. You held out well.”

“I am gonna fucking END you!” Ares barked like an alsatian at the pile of Hermes.

Hermes’ strawberry palm appeared over the table top, his voice the mimic of a wheedling, old fortune teller. “Aye, but first, Milord, cross my palm with silver.”

Ares growled and cuffed the hand. Hermes snatched it and pulled himself up, scrambling back to sitting on the chair, smoothing his untameable hair and dabbing the corners of his eyes from his whooping laughter. “Wow, Man, you are so easy, I can’t believe you actually thought Aphrodite was there…”

“Aphrodite was where?” A brandy smooth voice broke into the fray.

Hermes spun and Ares sat bolt upright in his chair. Aphrodite lounged tall against the nearby doorframe, toying with her sunglasses in her long, adorned fingers. She had tiny gems set into her sharp fingernails. Her hip jutted out, round and broad.

Ares stood gallantly, chair clunking.

Athena cocked an eyebrow at him.

Aphrodite’s lips twisted in amusement.

He sat back down, face burning.

Hermes flicked an evil grin at him, then craned over the back of his chair to her. “Good meeting, Legs?”

“It was, thank you,” they replied with a sprinkle of sugar in their voice. “We have our first collab wedding set for mid-July. The king of Cyprus no-less, finally got him in the bag.” 

“Congratulations,” Athena said graciously. 

Aphrodite inclined her head, like a princess. Her fountain ponytail swept behind her as she tilted and caught Ares’ eye. “You look a little funny, Ares. All OK?”

“Uuuuh…” Ares’ throat went dry. He glanced at Hermes, who was staring at him like a sparkler. He curled his bicep and winked. Ares ground his teeth and tore his eyes away to look back up at Aphrodite’s flowing figure. “I’m fine. Sorry, dehydrated. How was your meeting?”

She giggled. “We’ve just done that.”

His stomach rocked. “Right.”

“Wedding on Cyprus,” Athena muttered.

“Good,” he hissed at her.

Aphrodite watched him. He couldn’t not look at them, but looking at them pressured him to speak and he couldn’t speak because then he’d have to…

“Well, anyway, those poems won’t inspire themselves.” They broke their penetrating gaze and slid their sunglasses on, shielding him from their wondrous eyes. They bounced onto their stilettos and set off from the doorway. “Toodles, Kids.”

Relief flooded Ares, followed by a cavernous disappointment. He opened his mouth. He closed it. Sweat laced his chest. Hermes kicked him under the table. He jumped. He bared his teeth. Hermes bared his too and pointed dramatically at the escaping goddess. Ares glared and went tight and concave and…

“Hey, Aphrodite!”

His voice fled him without permission, rough and peculiarly high-pitched. She turned around. She looked at him expectantly. So did Athena. So did Hermes. Especially Hermes. He felt like he was having that nightmare where you’re asked to speak at the front of the class and suddenly you’re naked. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to let his chest flutter with his shallow breathing.

Her irises were dark behind the indigo lenses.

“Can…”

OK, come on, you guys have had some real moments, you’re not making that up. Why would they say no? 

“Can…”

Why would she say yes?

“CanIgetchanummer?” he garbled as panic punched his gut.

Their eyes fluttered behind the sunglasses. “What was that?”

Fuck, she’s pretty…

He felt Athena’s gaze like a spear going through him. Hermes padded his fingertips together in wicked glee. Ares winced. He looked at Aphrodite with his face half turned away. “Can I get your number?”

The question suspended in the air.

Aphrodite didn’t move. She didn’t look at the others. She didn’t look away from him. She stood with the same unstillness as a hanging wind-chime, her lips parting ever so slightly. She wanted to break into the sunniest smile she had, to scribble her number down and squeeze his warm hand as she gave it to him. But all those almosts when he made this adorable approach then pulled away crept through her mind, then all the risks of jumping in, followed by Peitho's sly words... "If you’re always super happy to see him, the first time you’re not will wig him out and he’ll bail. But if he knows every time he sees you that there’s a chance you’ll be sweet and a risk you won’t, he’s never not going to try... Your problem is you think seduction is all about chemistry. It’s not. It’s conditioning.”

They bit their tongue and thought quickly.

It all rushed behind Ares’ eyes. Their meeting, their kiss, the way she clung, her shock at seeing who he was, her laughter, dancing on the car seat, holding his hand, leading him entranced around the perfume shop, sitting in his lap, riding on his back, telling him truths, kissing his cheek, dancing, holding him, scrapping with him on the sidewalk… It hadn’t all been nothing, right? It couldn’t have been… But… But she wasn’t saying anything… She…

“Eight.”

His heart stopped. “What’s that now?”

Their lips bloomed full. They took a slow step forward. “That was brave, I’m impressed. So you get a digit. You can get the next one the next time you impress me.”

Ares’ heart flew. His tense expression exploded into a smile like a grenade. “I’ll be done by the end of the week then.”

They poked their tongue out at him, stirring his abdomen. “Stay positive.” They flicked their gaze around the three of them with a final wave. It rested on Ares just a little longer. He smouldered under it, as if under sunbeams through a magnifying glass. 

They wandered leisurely around the corner of the palace and out of sight.

Hermes darted his smile to Ares with a triumphant glow in his bright face. “Fuuuuuck!” He drummed erratically on the table.

Ares swam for a moment in giddy heat, then came crashing back to earth. He scrabbled about in his pockets and around the crockery. “Paper, I need paper.”

Athena snorted. “It’s one number, can’t you just…”

“PAPER.”

 

*

 

Here follows the account of how Ares, God of War, secured for himself the phone number of Aphrodite, Goddess of Love. 

Sort of.

 

Six

 

It started fairly simple. The royal wedding on Cyprus now booked in, planning meetings stepped up and Aphrodite was back in the palace the very next day. When Ares, slouching through the corridors in his pyjamas, saw his mother heading for her office, already chugging coffee, he laughed and called out, “wow, you must be meeting someone energetic.”

“I am,” Hera drawled, rolling her eyes. “The bleeding heart is here. Again.”

Ares’ pulse hiccupped. He lurched back to his room and tore through it like a hurricane, throwing his clothes around looking for something that suited his physique. He pulled on his jeans and a sleek, black top with a scarlet slash across the shoulders, accentuating his breadth. He combed his hair. He ruffled it up a little. He bolted downstairs, knocking into nymph servants and calling rough apologies as he sent maids running for their life. He sprang onto the archery lawn. He clattered about gathering equipment and racing to the patch of garden that guests walked through to reach the house. He moved so fast that tiny flames licked his feet and he had to keep stamping them out in the dry grass. He plunged the target lopsided into the ground and leaped a good distance away. He panted desperately. He threaded three arrows into the bow and drew himself up from his core. He fixed his face to one of studied focus.

Aphrodite rounded the hydrangea bushes to see Ares firing three arrows from a long, elegant bow. The arrows rushed through the air, cutting into the summer humidity, the song of their feathers zinging up her spine. They landed in a perfect row in the golden bullseye, the red feathers perked up proudly. 

They smiled.

Ares could feel her, gravity adjusting to her presence like always. He kept his eyes resolutely on the target. 

He felt her approach.

He felt a pat on his ass.

He looked over his shoulder and saw them strutting by him, flashing him a leg-liquifying smile.

He waved with the bow. “Oh, hey! I didn’t see you there.”

“Like Tartarus you didn’t,” they chuckled, not breaking their gait and vanishing into the house. 

Ares caught his breath, muttering rushed relief to himself that he made the shot. He slipped his hand to his back pocket where she’d patted him. There was a folded pink post-it inside. His heart somersaulted. He fished it out and opened it eagerly.

6

He pumped his fist by his side.

 

Seven

 

Athena had long ago taught Ares that one victory is not a reason to go rushing straight back in. Ares had not taken this lesson on board. The pink post-it burning a hole in his pocket, Ares waited, with much fidgeting, until Hera and Aphrodite’s meeting was an hour in. Ma took her meds at 10am and she didn’t do it in front of people, so she’d have to leave Aphrodite alone in the office. He watched the big clock in the entrance hall for three full minutes, the spindly hand moving infuriatingly slowly.

The little, digital clock on Hera’s desk beeped. Hera stood smartly from the coffee table and went to click it off. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to make a private call. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Aphrodite nodded, squinting at their notes. “Take your time.”

Hera marched from the office. Aphrodite sat in its unsettling quiet, bobbing the heart topper of her pen to the end of her nose, snuffling the feathers.

Something boinged on the window. 

She frowned and turned around. The noise boinged again, something bounced off the pane. Aphrodite arched an eyebrow suspiciously, lips curling. They stood and tottered to the window, jumping back as the thing hit the window again. They peered down. Ares was throwing a tennis ball at the glass. He caught it in his large hand and waved at her. She covered her smile with her hand and giggled to herself. They gave him an exaggerated look of expectation.

The small figure of Ares below spread his hands to reveal four tennis balls in his grasp. He tossed them into the air and began to juggle them. 

Aphrodite hiccupped into a stream of giggles. They shook their head and mimed yawning.

Ares caught the balls easily and held up a finger for her to wait. He tossed them into the air again. He flashed his teeth. His eyes shimmered. He snapped his fingers. The tennis balls burst into flame. 

Aphrodite clapped her hands to her mouth.

He picked up his juggling again, making the performance more elaborate. The balls of fire whooshed and spun, the tails of flame flowing like he was forming comets in the cosmos. He threw them higher, had them dive like fish, serpentine, and spiral. He passed them behind him and spun on his heel beneath them. He hurled them high and chased them with a jet of flame from his mouth. He rolled them down his arms and over his shoulders, sparks springing in his hair, shining copper. Fire revolved on his fingertips, flushed his cheeks, and made the furnace glow of his eyes blinding. 

She bit her fingernail and beamed, blushing dark, laughter cantering out of her and making her high.

He smiled through it all, sneaking cocky glances at her that made her squirm. One by one he rolled the tennis balls along his forearm and let them fall extinguished and smoking to the grass, the fire still flickering in his palm. When he’d dropped them all, he began to shape the fire between his hands. She stared. He stretched it out like dough, lengthening it, moulding it. She watched his dexterous fingers, his teasing touch on the raw element. She shivered and clenched her thighs to conceal it. The fire drew into a long, blazing sash, coiling around his arms, carving red shadow into his musculature. He gave his fingers a final flourish. The flame rushed and ribboned into a fiery heart overhead, flaring and sizzling ardently. It fizzed like a giant sparkler, then burst in a flurry of tangerine stars. They showered gently over Ares, twinkling in his hopeful eyes. He stood in the grass, hair singed at the ends and his cheeks bright as cherries.

Aphrodite crushed their fist to their lips and shook their head, sealing their riotous applause inside their body. They watched his great chest heaving for breath.

They walked away from the window.

Ares drooped and put his hands on his knees. “Damn. Too much.”

A squeak of metal caught his attention. He snapped straight as he saw Aphrodite return, poking the window a fraction open. She held in her hand a little, purple origami bird. She held it flat in her palm and blew on it, like a kiss. The bird fluttered its paper wings and soared dizzily down to Ares, crinkling in front of his face. He plucked it out of the air and it fell lifeless in his hand, unfolding into a creased piece of paper. A number started to appear. He broke into a brash grin.

His fingers sparked and set the paper on fire.

“No! Shit! Wait!” He frantically patted the paper to put out the flames, blowing on it like a jabbering monkey.

Aphrodite giggled and closed the window, pressing her hands to her neck to cool herself down.

 

Five

 

It had been a long day. Aphrodite had been so busy with Hera that they’d been neglecting their temples and then, instead of doing yet more rescheduling, they had decided to visit them all in a whirlwind from dawn to dusk. She dragged her exhausted limbs into her bedroom, laurel crown askew and rose pink gown crumpled and stained with incense ash and olive oil. She dropped her huge tote of offerings. Honey pots and pomegranates and flowers spilled fresh, sugary scents over her carpet. She’d put them away later. Worship was lovely, but it took a lot of attention. Her ears rang with ceremonial bells, her eyes ached with candlelight, her nose itched with perfume. She flopped heavily face first onto her bed and dissolved into her pillows. 

A sound prodded her in the back.

They groaned and lifted their smudged face from the duvet. 

Music? Not good music, but… Yeah, that was a harp. And a voice like a macaw.

She peeked from the folds of bedding into the lilac and tangerine glimmer of twilight behind her gossamer curtain.

The harp strummed louder.

She groaned, hauled herself out of bed, and dropped onto her windowsill. Her eyebrows floated up.

Ares was standing on the street under her window in front of a wonkily parked car. His arms were raised over his head and he was holding aloft…

“In your eyes,

The light, the heat.

In your eyes,

I am complete.”

Hermes reclined across Ares’ palms, Apollo’s ornate harp cradled in his arms as he squawked a tuneless massacre of an Orpheus ballad, grinding his fingernails over all the wrong chords.

“In your eyes,

I see the doorway to a thousand temples…”

Aphrodite put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. Ares gave her a mock optimistic smile. Hermes screwed his eyes shut and dramatically honked out the chorus, raising his voice.

“IN YOUR EYES,

THE RESOLUTION OF ALL THE FRUITLESS SEARCHES…”

“Good Gods.” Aphrodite pinched the bridge of their nose.

“IN YOUR EEEEEYES,

I SEE THE LIGHT AND THE HEEEEAT…”

Hermes attacked the harp. 

“OH, I WANNA BE THAT COMPLEEEEEEEEEETE.”

He set a dog off barking.

She slammed her window open and leaned out, a flower sliding down her hair and falling out of the window. “This one is more like blackmail!”

Ares shrugged, bouncing Hermes on his palms. “Hey, whatever works!”

Hermes launched into an ill-advised harp solo, twanging the strings, possibly beyond repair. 

“Can you make him stop?” she called.

“The question is,” Ares called, “can you make him stop?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

She clucked her tongue. She sneaked a glance at his muscles flexing in his arms and chest. It was a furious battle not to smile. She folded her arms indignantly and curled her finger in a beckoning motion.

Ares grinned like a wolf and jolted Hermes quiet. Hermes tossed the harp to the ground with a sickening prang. He rolled off Ares' palms and flapped into the air. He rose up to their window, teeth stunningly white in the dimness. “I’m helping!” he announced happily.

They prodded the end of his nose. “Are you?”

He fired a finger gun at her. 

They sighed and shook their head. They caught his wrist mid-gunshot and turned it over in their hand. She leaned and plucked a pen from her dresser nearby and wrote on his wrist in looping cursive. She glanced past him to where Ares stood with his face turned up like a spaniel’s. “Is Wonder Boy here for real?” she murmured.

Hermes scoffed and flapped his hand, bobbing in the air. “What are you talkin' about? Of course he's real.” His sly eyes slid down the hang of her twisted, faintly translucent dress as her pen tickled over his vein. He whistled low. “Whoa, and by the way, Sweet Cheeks…” He leaned in conspiratorially. “I'm real, too.”

“Ugh.” She stuck her nose in the air, planted her hand onto his head, and pushed him down. Hermes wheeled away, laughing in mock offence, and somersaulted to land at Ares’ side.

“And?” Ares pressed hastily.

“Yeah,” Hermes replied. “It went super well, she’s totally gonna let me in after she’s napped.”

Ares grunted and grabbed his wrist and peered at it urgently through the descending dusk.

I could use your help tomorrow. Come over at 5.

His heart banged. He whipped his face up to her window. They were still there. They held up their hand with five fingers fanned and gave him a significant look.

“Oh!” He grinned broadly and tugged a creased piece of paper from his pocket with their number so far scrawled across it. He added the five, then shouted up. “I’ll be there!”

She smiled and disappeared.

Hermes looked at the note. “Are you sure she isn’t talking to me here? It is written on me, after all.”

Ares slung his arm around Hermes and pulled him towards the car. “Silence, minion.”

 

Three, O, Nine

 

At four o'clock the following day, the summer humidity finally broke. The air had been sagging with it for weeks, sticky and sludgy, cloying on skin and making the populace drowsy and impulsive. At last, the steamy heat clogged the sky in dense cloud that collapsed into quenching rain. It deluged over the mountain. Cars sent tsunami sprays up behind them as they skidded down washed streets. People ran through the unexpected downpour in slapping, canvas shoes, shielding themselves with newspapers and sun hats. They raced to get laundry down from washing lines. They shut their windows and clicked on their kettles and threw towels under pets. They settled into what promised to be a long and heavy rainstorm.

Ares, being that kind of person that doesn't own anything waterproof, got completely drenched just running from his car to Aphrodite's door. He hammered on it with the water streaming off his flattened curls and down his nose, pasting his flannel shirt to his back. He was grateful for it. The shock of cold water kicked the tremor out of his body. What did they need his help with? He'd been racking his brain since he'd read the note on Hermes' wrist. Did they need a warrior? A royal? He wasn't sure he was well placed for either of those. He shook himself and figured he was being silly, she probably needed a bookcase moving or something. But there's a hundred guys she could have got for that. 

Did she just want to see him?

Maybe?

They were very good at making him feel wanted. 

He wasn't used to that.

He banged his fist harder on the door. "Aphrodite? You'd better not be keeping me out here for a wet t-shirt contest!"

The door swung open, rose-gold light tumbled into the grey outdoors. Ares was faced with a short, plump woman with skin the colour of drugged smoke and hair gushing indigo into magenta. Her magenta eyes blazed, the glow spreading over her cheeks and tinging the tips of her fin ears, studded with gold. "We're not," she said in a smooth voice, "but it's a damn good idea."

Ares looked at her, nonplussed.

The woman grinned with sharp teeth and rolled aside to let him in. He trudged into the house, instantly enveloped by warmth. She closed the door behind him, muffling the hiss and drum of rain. "I'm Peitho, Grace of Seduction, Aphrodite's PA."

Ares was patting his soaked sleeves. "Uh, Ares. I'm Aphrodite's…" He had no idea how to finish that sentence.

"Oh, I know who you are," Peitho purred. "And I know you're Aphrodite's." 

He coloured. 

She laughed and strode deeper into the space. "Come in, they'll be down in a sec. Make yourself at home."

Ares took a single step and stopped himself. He'd suddenly realised the full reality of where he was. Aphrodite's home. Her private space. The place where she lived. The place where she ate cereal and sang in the shower and wore pyjamas, where she cried at movies and fluffed pillows and measured her waist before ordering out of catalogues, where she talked to herself, where she daydreamed. Did she do any of those things? It occurred to him with unsettling force how badly he wanted to know. He stopped breathing. If he breathed, he'd find out what her house smelled like.

"You OK?" Peitho turned back, cocking her head, the light glittering on her earrings.

Ares nodded vaguely and forced himself to inhale.

Sweet Asphodel…

Roses and baking cookies and lemongrass and wood and honey and wandering wisps of dark, luxurious perfume. Their home smelled as much like a garden as a bakery as a boudoir. It barrelled into his senses. His knees went weak. He blinked and took in the large kitchen he'd walked into. It was that particular sort of tidy achieved in a scramble by the naturally messy. The large, honey coloured table was shining clean and crowned with a gushing bouquet of blood red roses. Various vases of roses and violets and glass bowls of pomegranates were jumbled into the empty, yawning, stone hearth, a fire of flowers in the heightening summer. The counters also gleamed, but with half-used, sticky jars and crooked tins and fragrant spice boxes crammed into the edges and speckled with old flecks of sauce. A thread of cobweb drifted around the hanging lights. Several cupboard doors wouldn't shut properly. Dishes and mixing bowls and saucepans were bundled into the sink, platters covered with cloths arranged nearby. Shoes were jumbled around the door and a coat stand looked ready to buckle under leather and faux fur. The great belly of an oven hummed and glimmered, pouring the cookie smell into Ares' hanging open mouth. The whole space was bathed in a pink and golden glow that filled his chest and sparkled in the raindrops dripping a little pathetically off his nose and shoulders and sodden, spaniel hair. 

"You stepped in glue?" Peitho chuckled.

Ares shook his head and looked back to her mocking expression. He glanced down at the wet patches vacuuming his shirt to his torso. "I don't wanna leave puddles everywhere."

"You could always strip off."

Ares met her dark eyes and felt something sneak from her into him, plucking at his mischief. He twisted his mouth and bared his teeth. "Wanna help me?"

Peitho snorted and spun on her heel, strutting to the coffee machine and clicking it on with a bejewelled finger. "There you are, their type."

Ares grinned.

She tossed him a tea towel. "Take off your shoes."

Ares rubbed his hair haywire, dried his face, and slung the towel over his shoulder. He bent and tugged himself out of his heavy boots. He padded in odd socks to Peitho and took a cup of deep black coffee from her.

"No milk, no sugar, pure punishment for the tongue," she said.

Ares cupped the delicate mug in his huge paws. "How'd you know?"

She looked deliciously up at him and tapped the side of her nose. Her fingernails were even longer than Aphrodite's - little, glinting scimitars. They could rip a guy open. Ares swallowed coffee, savouring the powerful prickle of heat and bitterness. The smell snaked through his sinuses. 

Peitho stirred sugar into her coffee, also black. The golden light spiralled in the jet liquid. The spoon sang on the porcelain. She held the tip of the teaspoon between finger and thumb, her wrist rotating with a peculiar, mesmerising grace. The movement travelled up her round arm and down her round body, her tight, tropical print dress hugging the motion. She was barefoot and there was a tiny tattoo of a fish on her ankle. She glanced up at him, still stirring. His hot cup pressed into his hands and heat seeped through his body. There was a stray grain of diamond sugar on her full lower lip. She reached up, plucked the corner of the tea towel, and pulled it off his shoulder, dragging it down his chest, like a feather boa in a strip tease. He stumbled a step forward.

"Oi, you cheeky bitch!" A familiar, laughing, sweet-dark voice snapped Ares to attention and he looked up with flaming cheeks to see Aphroditos striding into the kitchen, his step rolling up his whippet body. He was wearing crisp, dark blue suit trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his freckled forearms. He slipped past Peitho and struck her ass with a rolled-up magazine. "No seduction powers on the youths."

Ares thunked his coffee cup onto the counter, as if it was Peitho herself between his hands.

Peitho squeaked and jumped at the strike. She batted at Aphroditos’ ass in return, missing him as his step bounced. "Force of habit, you know me."

"Don't I just." He moved through his home like a marble through a pinball machine, speedily bumping around some invisible track, as if he was used to navigating clutter. He hopped to the oven and used his foot to pull the door open. The hum became a growl. The baking cookie smell tumbled into the kitchen. "Couple more minutes." He kicked the door shut. He huffed and combed his fingers through his loose, sleek hair. "Ares! Sorry, Hun, how are you doing?" He strode back over, tossing the magazine onto the counter, and squeezed Ares' arm. His grip was strong. "Thanks for coming."

Ares smiled and put his hands in his pockets, eying Aphroditos' smart outfit. "Am I underdressed?"

Aphroditos glanced down at himself then waved his hand. He kept looking about him, as if he could hear noises in other rooms. "No, no. I need you just like that." He scratched his stubble and wandered off, absent-mindedly rifling through drawers and cupboards. He slammed one agitatedly. "Am I hungry?" he asked Peitho.

She smiled. "You're nervous."

"Ha! Fuck off." They combed their hand through their hair again, pulling their lithe body taut.

"What're you nervous about?" Ares asked in concern, straightening up, a soldier called to duty. He couldn't get a proper taste of Aphroditos' thrilling cinnamon, their energy was erratic and prickly.

Violet eyes flashed. "I'm not nervous."

"OK, what do you need me for?" He grinned. "Just like this."

Aphroditos snapped their fingers, not looking at him. "Fruit, I should put fruit out. Fruit is a grown-up snack." He strode out of the kitchen, leaving a trail of aniseed anxiety on Ares' tongue.

Ares frowned after him.

Peitho shot him a playful eyeroll "So, basically…"

"It’s fine." Ares launched off his itchy feet and marched after Aphroditos. He found him in the next room, a cosy sitting room with deep, soft couches and armchairs enclosing a glass coffee table and another flowering hearth. They were rapidly fluffing a rainbow of heart-shaped cushions, laying them into neat rows, then flexing their hands irritably and rearranging them. Their jaw was ticking, their fine eyebrows knotted, the copper stud in one glinting. Ares smoothed his shoulders and walked with soft purpose into the nest of couches. He grabbed the two pillows in Aphroditos' restless hands and sandwiched their head between them, smushing their cheeks and clamping them glaring up at him. "What's going on, Shorty?"

Aphroditos stood rigid and brittle like a stick of dried lavender. He blew a strand of hair off his nose. "Nothing. I have a meeting."

"Then what am I doing here?"

Aphroditos chewed his lip. Ares thought about biting it. His red gaze bore down on the jagged, little god. Aphroditos opened his mouth with a look like he might say something else evasive, his face a grumpy hamburger between the two cushions. Then it softened and fell. He slouched forward like a willow tree and slipped from the sandwich to drop his forehead onto Ares' chest. 

Ares froze. He lowered the cushions to his sides and closed his fists on them as his heart started to pound. He cursed it, praying they couldn't feel it beating.

"Wow," Aphroditos mumbled, "you have a really strong heartbeat."

Damn it.

"I like it. I like heartbeats."

Ares softened. He felt like a bank that a reed was falling against. He breathed slowly and stayed completely still. Aphroditos was light and his shoulders moved unevenly.

"You're all wet."

Ares winced. "Sorry."

"It's OK."

Ares rumpled the cushions in his tight fists.

"This is why I needed you to come over."

Ares raised his eyebrows, heartbeat quickening.

Aphroditos stood straight. When his face raised, he was Aphrodite, eyes large and bright. She neatened her hair, a violet flush on her forehead, making the eyebrow stud twinkle. She rubbed her nose, avoiding Ares' eye. "I'm having Hades and Hecate over to start talks about Eurydice."

"That chick you're fishing outta the Underworld?"

Aphrodite poked his ribs and smirked. "That artist for whom I am seeking justice."

Ares chuckled and nodded, taking the prod with a little buzz of cinnamon. "And you needed me to be a better pillow than these?" He held up the crumpled cushions.

They took them, fluffed them, and tossed them onto the sofa. "Kinda." She dropped to sit, elbow on the couch back, repeatedly raking her long fingers through her hair so it flowed over her neck like sunset cloud. Her shirt creased tight on her broader body. She puffed out through her cheeks. "I don't think it's going to go well."

Ares lowered himself to the arm of the couch, the tear on the knee of his jeans pulling wide. "How come?"

"Because Hades doesn't like me." They clucked their tongue, then shot him a smile that tickled the insides of his thighs. "I wanted to be around a guy that likes me."

Heat stole up Ares' spine. "S-sure, I like you," he said clumsily. 

She bounced her adorned eyebrow.

He rubbed the blush on the back of his neck and cleared his throat. "I'm not gonna be a lotta help, I don't think. Uncle H doesn't like me much either."

She shrugged. "I don't need you to do the talking, just sit there and look pretty.” She groaned and tutted. “It's so stupid, I shouldn't care about being liked at my age, but I can feel it and it bugs me and it throws me off."

Ares smiled out of the side of his mouth. "So, you're saying, I'm so obviously a needy mess for you that it boosts your confidence around the guys without my good taste."

"Pretty much." She sucked her lip. "That OK?"

Ares tingled. He slumped from the arm onto the couch, the cushions flattening under his weight. He looked warmly into her liquid eyes. "'Course it is. I'm glad my raging hormones have a use, because they haven't done anything for me so far."

She giggled and patted his knee. They smiled softly at each other.

Peitho's lazy voice called from the kitchen. "I can smell burning!"

"Shit, the cookies!" Aphrodite sprang like a gazelle from the couch and raced through to the kitchen. 

Ares ambled after her, half registering how quickly his nerves were melting away, how oddly easy and sweet it was being in Aphrodite's home, being domestic, being inside and not wanting to escape outside. 

The baking smell was dusted with charcoal darkness as they returned to the oven. He leaned his hip on the counter and watched with a soft smirk as Aphrodite hurried about rescuing the cookies and grumbling to herself, wafting the heat off them and peering at them like a diamond cutter. "Nick of time."

"Good, I'm hungry." Peitho skipped over and stole one. She crunched into the wonky shape, then made a noise like a cat having her belly rubbed. "Mmm, amazing."

Aphrodite smiled and dusted off their hands. They whipped an apron off the oven handle and looped it over themself. "I'm gonna do some more prep."

"Can I help?" Ares asked, perking up like a sheep dog.

She waved at him. "Sit there and look pretty, remember? I need to be busy."

Ares bunched his shoulders up out of habit, he was so used to feeling too big indoors. But here he somehow wasn't. He smoothed his shoulders again. Peitho tripped up to him with a cookie poking out of her mouth, mumbling around it. "Wanna be my guinea pig?"

Ares cocked an eyebrow. "What for?"

A few minutes later they were all settled into the kitchen in the pleasant half quiet, half bubbling noise of rain and of people co-existing in a room as they went about their own activities. Ares sat with his elbows on his knees to bring him down to Peitho's height. She perched opposite him, applying make-up to his face. She apparently wanted to develop some looks that might appeal more broadly to men. The brushes and pads tickled Ares almost to sneezing. Peitho's rhododendron-pink gaze was like being under a UV lamp, shrinking him to a gecko in a tank. But it also wasn't uncomfortable. The attentiveness and indulgence he'd felt in the nail salon came back to him. He found himself curious about how he might look, whether it suited him. Her precise, purposeful strokes seemed to be excavating, rather than burying; the make-up less masking his real face and more bringing something inside himself to the surface.

Aphroditos, as he was once more, pinged about the kitchen, chopping fruit and rolling pastry and icing confections. The scents jumbled in the kitchen, scampering over each other like rabbits. 

"I know Uncle H is a big guy, but he can't possibly eat this much sugar," Ares commented through half-closed lips as Peitho dusted a large brush along his cheekbones.

"It's not for him." Aphroditos opened a fresh bag of icing sugar and it erupted in a powdery, white cloud. He spluttered and shook his head, his hair bobbing, now knotted into a balletic bun on the top of his head. "It's for me." 

Ares glanced sideways at the purple whirlwind of baking. "So, any less nervous?"

Peitho began to paint glitter in a flick from the corner of his eye. Femme Aphrodite's voice replied in a high ramble gusting out in a sigh. "I'm not nervous, I'm just uncomfortable. It's why I'm flicking my presentation about. I'm feeling more femme than masc, but Hades is a nightmare with women, so I should really boy up. But then I'm like, why am I presenting according to someone else's rules? And then I'm like, do I even have a preference today or am I just bouncing between being a girl to spite him and a boy to make him behave? And then I'm like, is my boy self actually the kind of masc that he accepts anyway? And then I'm like, am I overthinking this? And then I'm like, no, the world is gendered in a way I'm not, so it's OK to need to think about it. And then I'm like, but am I thinking about it just to do the work other people should be doing to accommodate me? And then I'm like, am I overthinking whether I'm overthinking? And then I'm all squirly and I make more desserts."

Ares frowned in concern, a flicker of flame in his belly. "Well, unsquirl. You do what you want with your body, I'll make sure he doesn't make a pass." This fucking family…

"No, no." She turned around, rubbing her hands on a tea towel. "Jeez, I wish he'd make a pass. If I could flirt or fuck Eurydice's way to freedom, we'd be laughing." 

Ares hastily blinked that image from his mind.

"He's…" They twisted the towel. "Women aren't the same to him. It's not the worst, it's not like they aren't people. But they aren't the same as him. They aren't really his equal. He very quickly finds us foreign and stops engaging. He'll condescend to a woman's anger before he matches it. He'll give her a present, but he won't give her what she demands. He'll do as she says, if he thinks she's hot, but he won't hear her, not really. He's constantly pulled between pursuing women who he knows will fit neatly into his eternal quest to punish himself, and making himself feel nice by daddying us all like little girls. And he's there for our tears and our sulks and our batting, doe eyes, but he doesn't take our rage or our principles seriously. If you're a good, little innocent, he sympathises with you and he stands over you. If you're a hard-edged tragedy, he turns you into his merciless queen. But if you're just a noisy bitch who's perfectly content with herself, like me, you're not worth his time, or at least, you're out of his comfort zone." The tea towel was twisted tighter than rope. "He does service and favours and steering. He doesn't do deals. He doesn't trade, he doesn't come to the table in good faith. Not with women. And, double misfortune for Eurydice, not with the poor."

Ares took this in. Peitho poked him with the brush to smooth his dark glower. He ground his teeth. "I'm sorry."

They shrugged.

"What about Hecate?" Peitho asked. She leaned conspiratorially to Ares. "I'm mostly here for her."

Ares snickered.

"Hecate behaves towards him as a fellow man," Aphrodite said. “I never earned that very special Scouting badge, so now I'm hoop-jumping through his various traumas and biases, like a prize pomeranian."

Peitho snorted. Ares hesitated, glancing at her, but she was leaning back to compare lipsticks. "Uh…" He swallowed, looking back at Aphrodite. "I mean, OK, I'm definitely gonna regret asking this, but if he's so into service for girls in trouble, why don't you just… be in trouble?"

She laughed softly through her nose and walked to the kitchen table to perch on it, looking down at him. Her perfume kissed the tip of his tongue. "I don't think Eurydice would accept that way out. And honestly, I don't wanna do it either. A quick fuck is whatever, that's a deal, but service is…" her gaze wandered over his face, voice lowering, "special. It's a bond. It's meaningful. It's not transactional anymore. It…" She halted, her chest and stomach rising, like she was breathing in sea air. "It creates something between you." They met his eyes again. "I don't want that with just anyone."

Ares suspended in their gaze, eyes wide and pulse thrumming. The golden light of the kitchen trickled down their body and turned their eyes to deep twilight. He balled his fists, as if he was taking up a weapon, as if he was receiving his orders. He could almost feel the hilt of his sword in his palm. Rain rumbled on the earth outside.

They closely examined his face, then broke his gaze and tipped back to pluck one of Peitho's jumbled lipsticks and hold it out to her. "This one."

Peitho smiled and took it. Aphrodite slid off the table and strolled back to the oven, stroking her hand down Ares' arm as she went. Warmth spread from their touch. He tensed a little to hide his quiver. 

“Open your mouth,” Peitho instructed.

Ares blinked and dropped his jaw wide.

She giggled. “Less.”

He adjusted to a gentle parting of his lips. She narrowed her radiant eyes in concentration and softly pressed the bronze-crimson lipstick to him. It was a little gummy, like caramel. She leaned back again, admiring her handiwork. She tossed a lock of hair from her face. “You’re done!”

Ares perked up. “Yeah? Can I see?”  A bubble of nervous excitement bobbed in his chest. 

Peitho lifted a hand mirror decorated with seashells up to his face. He curled his hands on his knees and leaned into it. He stopped, speechless. The face looking back at him was his, but it was also… something else. The last of his boyishness had been swept away in sharp slashes of shimmering, dark gold that shaped his features into something aimed and strong and fierce. The clementine blush over his eyes had darkened to rich garnet, flaring in a dangerous, bloody glare. His eyes were rimmed with heavy black that tapered to feathering flicks of sparkling gold at the corners. It made his eyes stunning as they stood out from the definition, larger and angrier and keener. Gold was also dotted in freckles over his nose, a blossom of prettiness in the ferocity. His lips had been softly plucked to life by dark bronze-red, not crisply defined like Peitho’s. The colour bled into his natural skin tone, so it almost looked as if he’d been kissing someone. Hard. He could feel the paint on his lips, as if the kiss still lingered. He gazed at himself, turning his head uncertainly to get to grips with the vision. Light rippled over the iridescent powder. He realised he hadn’t said anything in a while. He could feel Peitho and Aphrodite’s eyes on him. He looked away from the mirror. “Huh.”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me!” Peitho scoffed. “You look hot and you love it.” She slammed the mirror down and ruffled his fringe.

He batted her away and laughed giddily. “Fine! Maybe.” He glanced sidelong at Aphrodite. They were watching him with a warm smile. He heated under his skin.

They held his eye and walked to the end of the table. They placed a saucer of fresh rocky road squares down and pushed it to slide across the table. 

Ares grinned and grabbed a block of chocolate and marshmallow. He sank his teeth into it and bit off half. His mouth filled with sweetness and stickiness and crumbling crunch. "Wow, you're really good!" He said in a little spray of crumbs, chewing eagerly.

They shot him a pleased look and went back to sprinkling icing sugar. 

Peitho started packing up her make-up and eyed him slyly. "Something was written on that one."

Ares stopped chewing. "Huh?" He glanced down at the remains of the rocky road. It was topped with a calligraphy curl of drizzled white chocolate. His heart thumped. "Ah, crap!" He clapped his hand to his mouth as if to spit the rest out. 

Peitho erupted into her popping-seaweed cackles. "Ew, don't! You can still tell what it is, you goon!"

Ares swallowed and looked seriously down at the half eaten treat. The number was missing a chunk, but he could still make it out. He sighed in relief and stuffed it into his mouth to free his hands, then pulled the creased scrap of paper and stub of pencil from his pocket. He added the three. He bit his lip. Just two more digits. His skin burned.

Peitho kicked his shin gently and raised her voice to Aphrodite. "Damn you, you made him blush. It's screwed with my colour palette."

"Shut uuup." Ares nudged her back, barely containing his smile. He stowed the precious paper back in his pocket and sneaked a glance to Aphrodite. He caught her eye as she was just turning back to the counter. His stomach fluttered. 

 

The doorbell rang just as Aphroditos was arranging the heaped plates of treats on the lounge coffee table. Baklava and cookies and rocky road filled the room with the sultry scents of dark chocolate and almond. A fresh batch of Turkish delight crowned the table, like a pirate’s trove of looted gems, ruby and amber and jade shimmering in the glass surface beneath. Ares gawped at it all with his mouth watering, seated comfortably on the cream carpet, like a pet more than a guest. 

“Ah!” Aphroditos jumped at the clang of the doorbell. He recovered himself, wriggling his shoulders like an indignant cat, and jerked towards answering the door.

Peitho beat him to it, bouncing like a wallaby from an armchair and patting his arm to keep him there as she passed. Ares caught his eye as he scratched his chin agitatedly. "You got this," he mouthed. Aphroditos' restless mouth curled into a sly smile. He nodded. Ares nodded back. 

"Heeeey!" Peitho's cheerful greeting chased the swish of the door, followed by mumbling exchanges under the rasp of rain and the flap of coats and umbrellas. Footsteps tapped on the kitchen tiles. Then the lounge door darkened. 

Hades stood in his black suit with his great, hacked-granite shoulders filling the doorway and shrouding the brightness of the kitchen. He loomed over the quaint, cosy sitting room, grim-mouthed and grim-eyed. He looked like an upright coffin set into a mausoleum wall. 

"Hades." Aphroditos straightened up and extended their hand. "Thanks so much for coming." 

Hades looked at the hand, delicate as a crocus, adorned with copper rings. He shifted out of the doorway, reached out, and shook. His own large, rectangular hand drowned Aphroditos', but Ares sucked in a smirk as he saw Aphroditos' bicep rise under his shirt, gripping resolutely. They separated.

Hades looked down at Aphroditos with his cold, blue eyes. "What's this about?"

Ares watched Aphroditos. The handsome face flickered, sharpened, softened. They opened their mouth to reply, made a small sound in their throat, and broke into a broad, welcoming grin. "Why don't we get settled? Have some food, and Peitho's bringing a pot of coffee."

Hades raised an eyebrow listlessly. He grunted and strode to the couch. He looked down his long nose at it, clearly observing that it was going to squish around him and crease his suit. The fabric was stiffer than card. His disdainful gaze roved from the cauldron of cushions to Ares, a large lump of flannel denim and odd socks, and a surprising amount of glitter, on the floor. His mouth flattened. "What are you doing here?"

Ares shrugged. "I heard there was baklava."

"Nice face."

"Thanks."

Ares couldn't feel any anger coming off his uncle, just that vague bitterness that clung to him like fog. Ares kept his face impassive, suddenly realising how hard that was now all his features had been bolded. Aphroditos glanced between them. They glanced back at him. Ares watched the tick in his jaw.

An eddy of sorceress cackling whisked into the room as Peitho and Hecate entered, stumbling blithely over some secret joke. Their laughter strummed the tension like untuned guitar strings. They didn't seem to notice and dropped companionably onto the smaller couch. Peitho set down a tray of coffees and crossed her legs elegantly. Hecate draped her arm across the back of the couch, her black stilettos gleaming. "Hello, Ares!" She boomed in pleasant surprise. "Whatcha doing here? Love the new look."

Ares grinned through the flash of ruddy lipstick. "Thank you."

"Apparently he heard there was baklava," Hades rumbled, lowering himself mechanically onto the extreme end of the larger couch, nearest the door.

"There's baklava? Sweet." Hecate leaned forward and snipped a piece between her long, beetle-black fingernails. She crunched and grinned. "So, what's this gorgeous spread for?" Her hawk gold eyes swivelled to Aphroditos. 

They were the only one still standing, shoulders stiff and strands of lilac hair drifting from the tie. They blinked and perched on the edge of the armchair, resting their elbows on spread knees and interlacing their fingers. Ares eyed their hands. No one else would be able to see it, but with a brief flicker of his vision into the warrior mapping of muscles and nerves, he spotted an infinitesimal tremor under the freckled, dusky skin. They'd needed him here because he liked them, because he gave them the feeling of being liked. He reached out and took a cube of Turkish delight from the glimmering platter, scattering icing sugar over the carpet and his collar. He popped it into his mouth. Juicy rose exploded in his senses, the fragrance and flavour washing his body in a warm sweetness that he could only describe as feeling pink. It was their flavour, their flower. He took a deep breath and sucked and indulged in the loveliness. He levelled a warm gaze on them and focused the feeling, hoping they could feel his enjoyment, his pleasure, pouring into them. Like when he'd kissed that girl at Hermes' party. Like when he'd gotten his still shining nails done. He felt good and he wished for them to taste it.

They didn't look at him, but they raised their chin. "It's about Eurydice."

Hades' winter mist eyes cooled another shade. "Who's that?"

Aphroditos frowned sternly, the eyebrow stud glinting. "Don't."

Hades' mouth twitched. Hecate's smile settled into a subtle, intrigued curl. Peitho’s fingers furled into her palm. Ares felt a prickle go down his throat as a cord pulled tight in the air.

“What about her?” Hades said eventually.

Aphroditos levelled his gaze like the prow of a ship. “I would like to appeal for clemency.”

“I beg your pardon?”

They swallowed and flexed their interlaced fingers. “I request that she be granted freedom of movement between the realms.”

Hades’ iris rimmed crimson. “Resurrected?”

“No, as a shade.”

Hecate stroked her chin. “What's brought this on?”

Aphroditos glanced down, a fine crease in his brow. He sucked his tongue thoughtfully. “I think her voice is an important one and it deserves a platform.”

“A platform?” Hades’ voice rolled like boulders. “She's a seditionist.”

Aphroditos’ bardic smile kicked up coy fish in Ares’ stomach. “She's an artist, it's her job to be a little rebellious.”

“A little? She's lucky we haven't shut that dive down.”

Cinnamon showered Ares’ tongue. He watched Aphroditos. Their smile was still easy, but there was a wisp of colour along their cheekbones. They cleared their throat. “Hades, the quality of art isn't in how appealing it is to the wealthy. You might not like her, but she performs at 'that dive' because the people there need her. I think people above ground need her too.” He snorted. “I think the mountain does, as well, actually.”

Hades dropped forward so his eyes shaded under his sweep of shock white hair. Shadows scurried with all his movements, his darkness drawing them away from the natural fall of light to pool and stick like tar around his pointed shoes and hulking shoulders. Ares had a strange sensation from his seat on the carpet; the memory of being a child this height and gazing up in nervous awe at the towering, unbreaking storm of Uncle H. Dad was a constant lightning crackle, alarming for his reactivity, but somewhat predictable too. Uncle H had that aura of don’t test me, of you’ve never seen anything like my temper.’ Ares shifted a little closer to Aphroditos’ legs.

Hades’ voice was iron. “What is it exactly that they need?”

Aphroditos didn’t react to his tone. He scratched his stubble. “Eurydice's message is about wildness. It's about seeing past all the constructions of humanity: hierarchy and morality and social order and correct conduct, and just loving each other and ourselves, in all our ugliness and brokenness and hope. It's about love as the most profound act of defiance against the systems that drain the humanity out of us.”

“Sounds a lot like your teachings.”

“It's exactly his teachings.” Hecate purred. All eyes snapped to her. She slowly revealed her feline fangs. Cold, yellow fire flickered in the gleeful gaze she fixed on Aphroditos. “Tell me, did you decide Eurydice needed a platform before or after she named you as a worthier almighty than the kings?”

Ares almost choked as Hades’ flare of quiet anger shot through him, like he’d just crunched down on a raw coffee bean. He grit his teeth and kept watching with his tendons ticking.

Aphroditos met Hecate’s eye. “She didn't say that.”

“What?” Hades interjected through his teeth.

Hecate fanned her fingers, a spider descending from the web. “This is what you get for being above the gossip rags, Hades. You miss all the fun. Eurydice recently gave an interview for Panoptes in which she denounced the triarchy as unrightful rulers. When asked if there was any god she'd give her loyalty to, she said our gracious host here.”

Coffee and cinnamon sapped the moisture from Ares’ mouth. His heart thumped as he saw dark stars ripple across Hades’ skin and dispel like potion bubbles.

“Come on, she didn't say that!” Peitho scoffed a little too loudly, flapping her hand at Hecate as if at a fly. “She just said she identified with them… like… on a personal, spiritual level. None of her music is even about them.” 

“Yet,” Hecate’s voice slithered. She was still reclined back on her draped arm, she looked like an ink spill. “Not every grab for power is a cobra strike. The most effective are slow, subtle, one harmless tiptoe at a time. Like a gas leak.”

Another burst of delicious cinnamon burned up on Ares’ tongue as his own anger leaped. He shot fiery eyes to Hecate and sat bolt upright. His palm itched with the impulse to take Aphroditos’ hand. He balled his fist on his thigh.

Aphroditos smirked, elven features sharpening further. “You read that in the magazines too?” He turned to Hades, taking a mature, smooth tone. “I am not interested in a throne. My job is to look out for those left behind. She invoked my name and I listened, nothing more.” He glanced between them with his voice lightening, a hint of plea that was almost more unnerving than his sharpness. “I believe Eurydice could bring comfort and liberation to hundreds feeling trapped by any number of man-made cages. She needs to be heard.”

Darkness pooled deeper at the edges of Hades’ corvine figure. “You're not interested in a throne? Then what's the heir to the biggest, shiniest one of all doing sat on your hearth rug like a golden retriever?”

Ares started. “Hey!”

Aphroditos’ body turned slightly to guard him. “Ares was here to help Peitho with some work. I invited him to stay for food.”

“No, fuck that!” Ares bent forward, glaring hotly. “I'm here because Aphroditos is the damn punching bag of the realms right now and I figured they deserved a royal actually listening to them.”

His uncle’s red rimmed eyes moved to his slowly, prowling. “So, this is you declaring your allegiance, is it?”

Ares propped his elbow on his bent knee and set his posture into a mirroring prowl. “Now, now, Uncle H.” A wide, mercenary grin spread across his face. “Not everything has to be a war.”

“No?” Hades sneered. “Go on then, why don't you give me your measured reasoning?”

Ares’ smile slipped.

Aphroditos spoke up curtly. “I called this meeting, not him.” A wisp of blue smoke slipped from his hair. Hades glanced at it. Aphroditos rolled his shoulders and smoothed them purposefully, along with his melodic voice. “Hades, please, I didn't want this to get heated. And I don't mean any harm. I just want Eurydice to be given a chance.”

Hades rounded on him. “I gave her a chance.”

“You gave Orpheus a chance, her soul wasn't his to gamble with.”

“But it is yours?”

“Do you see me placing bets?” 

Ares’ mouth was watering. Aphroditos’ tone was smooth as glass, lilting or edged in all the right moments, but he could taste their churning frustration, their protective fire heating the air in the room so the dark chocolate oozed in the baklava.

“I'm asking you, god to god,” Aphroditos continued, “to show mercy on a mortal.” They leaned on their words, eyes wide and imploring, chasms of angry need. “They're our charges and they're living with unfairness and oppression and deprivation. Demeter gives them the harvest and Poseidon gives them the catch and then their kings and governors step in and steal more than their share. I give them hearts and they're told who they should marry, who counts as family. Half of the system is thwarting the other half, I'm just trying to restore a little balance, give them someone to turn to when we…” he swallowed, “when I fail them. Someone to help them be nourished and shielded.”

“And armed,” Hecate chuckled.

Violet eyes shot to her, glittering dangerously. Venom seeped into her smile. Ares couldn’t feel a spot of anger in her, she was just enjoying the chaos. It was in her nature, just like rage was in his. Rage was invading him now, that intoxicating, ancient wrath that Aphroditos seemed brewed from. It swirled in Ares’ gut and weighed him down. Their anger previously had made him high, impulsive, feverish. This was different. There was something making it heavy and coarse, more like a hangover than drunkenness.

Grief.

Guilt.

Amber veiled his vision and he blinked it away. He looked closely at Aphroditos’ face, lined with concern. Peitho caught his eye. She looked wary. Ares chewed his tongue and watched.

Hades' posture slackened. He rubbed his wrist and fiddled with his shining, silver watch. “Look, Aphroditos, I see why it's hard for you, I do. But whatever inequalities Eurydice suffered on earth are over. Death is the great equaliser, the clean slate.”

Fire scratched Ares’ pores. “Bullshit.”

Red rimmed, frost blue eyes rested on him. “Pardon?”

Ares grinned again, cutting and kindled. “Come on, Uncle H, you know there's a reason you're both the God of the Dead and the God of Wealth. Because they're the two most unequal things there are, and you dole out one by withholding the other. I've seen a lotta death this year, and lemme tell you, there's nothing random about it. The rich stand at the back and put the poor in front of them. The rich climb up for air and put the poor under them. The rich get armour and swords and chariots, the poor get a thick shirt and a bow. The rich get baths and doctors and shelter and warm beds and good, hearty meals, the poor get gristle and they sleep on the ground and they hope the dirt doesn't get under their rag bandages. And when the army breaks through the walls, the rich are in a fortress with treaties drawn up, while the poor are on the street being cut down and choking on their own blood. When a prince dies, it's all fanfare and ceremony and smooth sailing to the Elysian fields, and the rest get dumped in a pit. And when they cross over, who’s left on the shore? The ones who can’t pay for the journey they got no choice but to make - even though I'm pretty sure, by the way, you could afford the upkeep of that ferry outta pocket.” He snickered and kept up his sardonic, salted tone, chipping away at the hewn block of darkness glaring at him. “There's a reason all the heroes are princes: because it's a big deal if one of them dies. But everyone else? Fodder. Fertiliser. Nothing but a body for use by their kings. If that body dies rushing into the line of spears or working the land or worn down bony-fingered in the office, nothing special about it. It was always gonna happen, so nothing to remember, nothing to admire, no matter that it took more courage, more sacrifice, than the prince riding in gold and silver.” He clucked his tongue, a sharp, hollow noise. “Nah. There is nothing equal about death.”

Everyone stared at him.

Aphroditos stared at him.

Ares could feel it, the unique sensation of their eyes on him, invisible fingertips teasing his neck. He glared carnelian at Hades and forced himself not to glance at them.

Hades held his eye. 

Ares didn’t blink, his pupils charcoal pits.

Hades wrenched his gaze away, a spectre of scarlet leaking into the shadow at the corners of his eyes. He growled like the crumbling inside mountains. “None of you fought. None of you have any idea what the triarchy protects you from, what bringing it all down leaves you vulnerable to.”

Aphroditos leaned back in his chair for the first time, opening his lithe chest in a feline shrug. “Actually, Hecate and I do.” His lips curled. “We pre-exist you. And your courts. We remember the primordial.” He locked eyes with Hecate in playful challenge.

She smiled and combed her spidery fingers through her silk hair. “Mmm, now that was an equaliser.”

He chuckled. “More importantly, it wasn't torment. It was chaos. But chaos doesn't have to be painful. Oppression does.”

“Would you stop saying oppression?” Hades snapped, dark stars on his dark cheeks.

Aphroditos’ teeth glinted. “It's what Eurydice is writing about, and I'm speaking for her cause. Do you think a shade or a slave or an outcast feels your rule protects them from anything? Do you think it hasn't already occurred to them to hate the system? That they don't know they've been abandoned by it? Live in danger from it? Their lives aren't provided for by order; they have nothing to lose in chaos. Order calls them wild beasts, so why not be wild?” He let out a laugh like a whip and shook his head. Lavender strands drifted around his spear-point features. His anger had turned energised and clean, it was coursing in Ares’ blood, pumping into his muscles and his gut and his cock. Aphroditos’ voice lowered dangerously. “Don't say that the triarchy protects us all. It protects your chosen few. It pampers the palatable, and monsterises everyone else. The monsters, the everyone else, need Eurydice.”

“Everyone else needs to learn their place.” Hades was a wall of shadow, a ravine of night cut into the warm, creamy light of Aphroditos’ living room. Constellations were etching over his skin, bruising deep, galactic blue.

“Not everyone has one.” Aphroditos’ eyes and hair wreathed in purple smoke. Somewhere undefinable, the sound of the sea surging was echoing. 

Peitho stuffed baklava into her mouth. Hecate beamed. Ares lost his breath and gazed.

Hades’ knuckles cracked. “Then maybe they should ask themselves why.”

“Maybe you should first.”

Hades lunged forward in his seat. Ares flared and matched him, slamming his hand onto the table and making the cake plates ring. Hades ignored him, comets in his pupils. “So this is why you wouldn't fight for us. You didn't want our victory. You wanted the monsters to reign.”

All the mirth fled Aphroditos. The sound of the sea shook the floors. It rolled through Ares and almost made him moan.

“OK, everyone, easy.” Hecate’s voice was like a cold compress. “Eurydice is a punk singer, she's not a titan. Lots of us were neutral in the war, hadn’t we all decided something about sleeping dogs?”

Hades twitched. 

"Hadn’t we?”

He snarled and swept his hand through his hair. The deep night sky whirled from his face and he looked drawn and toothy, like a kicked hound. 

Purple smoke still spiralled down Aphroditos’ body, his eyes paling to strawberry moons. There was a thick scent of blue lotus in the room, drugging Ares, making him dizzy.

“Boss…” Peitho murmured gently.

Aphroditos set his jaw and shook his head. The smoke dissipated. Peitho wafted it nervously and shot a grimace to Hecate.

Aphroditos flexed his neck and rubbed his forearm, looking away.

Hades eyed him. He sighed deeply. When he spoke again, his voice was measured and a little hoarse. “Eurydice was a mortal. She died. Now she's a shade and she's tied to the Underworld. If you want to talk about fair, there's no reason why she should be given special treatment above any other human who's thread was cut in youth. Everyone could do more if they lived longer, but to be mortal means to accept limited chances.” He stood slowly, shoulders squaring in his crooked, raven shape. “I will not review her case.”

Everyone else hurried to stand. Aphroditos was barely as tall as his shoulders, but their strong chin raised as if they were the figurehead of a warship. They said nothing.

Hades flicked a hollow look to Ares, who had lifted onto the balls of his feet, his heart pounding and his calves strumming with the instinct to pounce in front of them. 

“Ares, do you want a ride home?”

“I'm good, thanks, Uncle H.”

Hades’ grim mouth sloped. “Be careful here.”

Ares scowled and replied through his teeth. “I'm good, thanks, Uncle H.”

Hades narrowed his eyes. He gave a polite nod to his host. He was engulfed in darkness and blue mist. The light rose again and he was gone. His choking flavour of raw coffee lingered on Ares' tongue.

Hecate put her hands on her angular hips and rolled her eyes with a brash smile. “Man knows how to make an exit, I’ll give him that.” She turned to Peitho with a wink. “Sorry to rush off, see you around.”

Peitho nodded, her flirtatious demeanour only half recovered. 

Hecate strode into the kitchen and scooped their coats and umbrellas into her arms. She hovered in the doorway, her arachnid smile stiffening a little. She cleared her throat. “For what it’s worth, I think Eurydice has some catchy tunes.”

Aphroditos arched an eyebrow.

“You know one of the things they scrawl on the streets?”

Aphroditos cocked his head.

The corner of her mouth twitched. “Bring back the primordial.”

Aphroditos released a soft laugh and nodded. 

Hecate laughed too.

They glanced once more at each other.

She melted into darkness.

The room was silent for a long time.

Peitho watched Aphroditos.

Ares watched Aphroditos, tasting him and pulsing powerfully.

Peitho tossed her hair. “Well… that went… OK…”

A vase exploded on a side table. Peitho squeaked. Roses and water gushed over the carpet, like blood splatter.

Aphroditos tore into the kitchen.

Peitho put a hand to her chest and steadied herself, her coolness shaken, her ear fins flapping. She looked with wide, worried eyes after her friend. She steeled herself and took a step. Ares bounded forward and put a hand out to stop her. She looked up at him. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring look and gestured for her to stay put. She shrank back and nodded. He bit his lip and walked softly into the kitchen.

They had their back to him, hands planted on the counter and shoulders heaving, their vertebrae cresting under their shirt, their neck rigid. 

Ares took a careful step, following the scorching wire he felt pulling him from their trembling body. “Aphroditos?”

Aphroditos’ hand flew out. A cup shot from the side and shattered against the wall with a piercing sound. His anger was a river rapid now. The full force of it hit Ares and swept him half into a trance, the speed and urgency making his heart race. It carved into him like water does sand, carving new pathways in his body. He ached. He almost lost his balance. It was magnificent. He took a long, deep gulp of it, swam in it, rode it closer. Cinnamon and incense pressed his senses. He stared transfixed at the tremor on the back of Aphroditos neck. His lips ached. 

“He has no idea…” Aphroditos rasped. 

Ares froze.

“He has no idea of the indignity, the fucking indignity, of having to beg a stranger for your life.”

Ares opened his mouth. He tried to speak and failed. He tried again. “God of the Dead and all.”

“No.” Their shoulder blades sharpened. “A rich man.”

Ares closed his eyes and breathed like Athena had told him to. He rooted to the physical world as the hedonism of Aphroditos’ anger kept pouring through him. His head cleared a little. He took a few more steps and stood gingerly at their back. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

Aphroditos kept breathing and trembling, breathing and trembling. Ares longed to see their face. 

“Look…” they husked, “what he said about the war…”

“Forget about it,” Ares said quickly. “I know how it feels to have it used against you.”

A final steadying breath travelled down his body. He paused for so long that Ares started to worry that he was fighting passing out. And then… “O.”

“Oh?”

“O. Like the number. O.”

Ares frowned. Ares realised. “Oh!” His stomach somersaulted. He scrabbled in his pocket for the truly abused scrap of paper and stub of pencil. He added hastily to the phone number. He beamed breathlessly, holding the note like a glass flower.

When he looked up again, blessing the make-up for covering his blush, Aphroditos was facing him, hands spread on the counter behind him so his sculpted, springy torso was draped invitingly. His expression was something between roguish and volatile, sparks in his intoxicating eyes and his hair coming down from the tie so it swept over one cheek. There was a razor edge to his voice. “I liked your speech about death. And I noticed you having to staple your feet to the floor to stop yourself from shielding me.”

Ares slipped the note back into his pocket and left his hand there, stomach quivering. “It was tough, but figured you didn’t need me lowering the tone with a brawl.”

They laughed and it tickled between Ares’ legs. They flashed their canines. “I’ve sworn off giving sex as a reward, but if that had happened ten years ago, I’d totally be jumping you right now.”

“I was thirteen ten years ago.”

“Why would you do that?”

Ares let out a bolt of laughter, casting the tension from his body. He took a lazy step forward and loomed teasingly over the lounging figure, looking warmly into his eyes. “Hey, seems I got a damn near complete phone number. Under a week, as promised.”

Aphroditos grinned keenly. “Damn near, but not quite.”

“One digit to go?”

“One digit to go.”

He bent a little closer. “What’s a guy gotta do then?”

They tilted their head so their teeth caught the light. They dropped their sweet-dark voice to a satin whisper. “If I tell you, I don’t feel like you earned it.”

A soft groan leaked from Ares’ throat. “Would that be so bad?”

They grinned broader and bumped their knee to his. “What, you think I shouldn’t be earned?”

Ares groaned fully and slouched and bumped him back. “You should absolutely be earned, but you can’t tell me that every time a form asks for your number, you write ‘ask me about your twelve labours’ on it.”

“It’s not twelve labours, it’s seven.”

“I’m really running low on ideas now.”

The knee touching his slipped so it was just rubbing the inside of his thigh. “That’s too bad.”

His legs almost buckled. The deluge of frustration and need and grit and bravado that had drenched and drummed his senses, like the rain outside, whirlpooled into an ache in the depths of him that obliterated his logic. He could still taste Aphroditos, the fizzing spice of his rising to the occasion, his valour, his revolt. The beautiful being was pulsing with it, each wave hitting Ares in the rhythm of his thudding heart. He rolled his tongue in his mouth. His voice came hoarse. "You need to cool off."

They scrunched their mouth. "Mmph. I'm fine."

"Trust me. I got just the thing." He pulled himself from Aphroditos' aura like gum coming unstuck from a boot. He went to the tall, buttercream coloured freezer and opened it. He grinned at how packed it was, they were a batch cooker. Sweet. He rummaged around and found the ice tray. He plucked one crystal cube and came ambling back to them, holding the ice between finger and thumb, so as not to let his hot touch turn it instantly to steam. He smiled like a salesman.

"No." Aphroditos crossed his arms. "Fuck off entirely."

"It'll make you feel better."

"No." The corners of his mouth were twitching. "You are a charlatan and I refuse you."

Ares' renegade grin looked sharper in the bronze definition of his lipstick. The gold flicks at the corners of his smouldering eyes sparkled. He ducked his face, so his curls fell in his lashes, and whispered, "Just a touch. Try me."

Aphroditos held his eye with the colour rising in his cheeks like blossoming heather. Ares could feel him wavering between the two surrenders, either give into Ares' goading, or turn chicken. But, for all their mystique, Ares had a good idea of which way they'd fall.

Aphroditos glared up at Ares. It was like looking at hot coals that dared you to run across them, the heat already in his legs. Aphroditos’ pelvis kept trying to tilt forward, the spiked aftermath of argument setting off all his unstable urges. He rolled his jaw. "Just a touch."

Ares broke into a t-rex grin. 

Aphroditos stopped restraining his indulgent, summoning smile. He undid the top few buttons of his shirt and tugged the collar wide, revealing his flushed, freckled chest and longbow collar bones. Ares' ravenous eyes drifted down, they could almost feel him drinking in their image. They spread their hands wider behind them and raised their chin. Their skin prickled with anticipation. They'd felt his heat all through the confrontation, a radiating ring that enclosed them protectively, an ozone layer against Hades' galactic rays. It cast cleansing fire on the distrust and shame and pressure that poured off the God of Wealth. The fire still lingered inside them, purging their system of dirt and disappointment, scorching their nerves desperately sensitive.

They locked eyes with him.

Ares raised his free hand and stroked the hair from Aphroditos' face with disarming tenderness. He scooped their hair into his hand, cradling the back of their head. He softly placed the ice cube to their forehead.

Aphroditos shuddered, releasing a thin moan and hastily sucking it back behind his teeth. The cold shocked him at first, then trickled over his scalp and down his temples, drawing the fever out like venom. It burned on exit, fluttering his pulse even as he calmed. Ares slid the ice down his temple and around to tuck behind his ear. He gasped and dropped his head back, eyes closing, letting the large, warm hand caress him, fingertips massaging the roots of his hair. His ear prickled, but Ares moved the ice again before an ache could set in. They felt that warm, strong body inch a little closer, unsteady breath on their lips, scented with rose from the Turkish delight. Ares trailed the ice down their neck and round to rub it in slow, soothing circles at the nape. His breathing slowed, sleepy, lulling. Aphroditos sighed and leaned heavier on the counter, pelvis lifting a little, unbidden. The biting cool rolled like marbles under his skin down his spine, a satin, intense kiss over and over on the back of his neck. His head lolled. Small, gruff moans fizzled in his throat. Ares smelled of sugar and rain and powerful, spiced attraction. It became impossible not to make a little more of a show, not to sigh and smile and ripple their torso under the translucent shirt, not to coax that delicious desire onto their tongue. They writhed as the ice slipped and dabbed over their bare, tingling skin, the contrast with the heat of Ares' touch heightening the sweet-cruel sensation. Fingers of frost stole over their shoulder blades and chest and throat, holding them, taunting them, softly choking them in that intoxicating, intimate danger. Their body filled with shivers and they fought to contain them, but it only made the ache in their groin swell. "Oh… Ares…"

"Is it calming you down?" Ares murmured.

Aphroditos chuckled gruffly. "It's… it's doing something." They slinked and breathed tremulously through the haze of cold and tease, muscles turning to syrup and mind flooded with images of pouring water and wet skin and mouths and gliding hands.

Ares stared down at them, transfixed. His fingertips were numb, but he barely noticed. The path of the ice cube had left a glisten on Aphroditos' skin that made him twinkle in the golden light. He looked as good as a popsicle on a sizzling, summer day. Ares ran the ice from their neck down to the opening in their shirt. His breath caught as their nipples tented the white fabric and their hips jerked. He tensed his core and a wave of pleasure oozed up his body. Aphroditos beamed like moonlight, eyes dreamily closed, and snaked their torso. The motion was impossibly tempting and infuriatingly aware of the fact. Ares moved the ice down, sneaking it along the rim of fabric to just kiss the edge of the rise of their breast. They gasped, narrow chest puffing out, nipple straining the cotton.

Flame licked Ares' veins. He ran his other fingertips purposefully down Aphroditos' spine, rippling them like silk, and laid his hand on the counter to lean closer into them. He held his breath, face burning, and deepened his tease around their breast, trailing the ice over the shirt on the soft underside and rolling it over his nipple. The ice began to melt as their bodies heated. Droplets ran over Aphroditos and soaked through the shirt, so his skin showed like night sky behind cloud. Ares gazed intently at the puckering of goosebumps, at the tremors from their soft, sensual shivering, at the hardening of flesh as it begged for attention. His mouth went slack and he stared down Aphroditos' body. Their head was dropped back, eyes still closed, mouth giddy, brow furrowed with the stud gleaming, throat exposed like a stag's and undulating as they gulped tight breaths. Their sparkling, slick chest pumped as they went breathless. Their abs writhed under the rumpled shirt, hips going like a salsa dancer's. He was in a trance, he looked like a cobra. He wriggled in sensation and frustration, the cinnamon tumbling into Ares' senses until he couldn't breathe. 

Ares’ cock pounded. He dropped forward helplessly, red lips almost brushing lavender, and pressed the last sliver of ice onto Aphroditos' arrow point nipple. He hesitated, then emboldened. He cupped his breast as gently as if it was a bird's nest and nursed the frozen point with warmth. Aphroditos rasped and bucked and let out an animal groan that went through Ares and seized his cock. They thrust up and pressed their pelvis to his, swell to swell, another growl of need ripping from them as a bolt of pleasure almost bowled Ares over. He whimpered and slammed both hands either side of the slender body, caging him, grasping the counter for balance. Their mouths hung open a hair's breadth apart, panting onto each other's restless tongues.

"You're hard," Aphroditos husked raggedly, grinding subtly on the stiff ridge in Ares' jeans.

Ares nodded. "You're angry."

"That's what it does to you?"

"It can."

Aphroditos' eyes blazed violet and silver. "Fuck, that's hot." He stroked his fingertips over Ares' chest, skimming his perked nipple and making him shiver. His smile unsheathed. 

Ares shuddered and began to move with him, grinding subtly with their hips sealed together. Their fingers were almost touching on the counter. 

"You remember what you told me the day we met?" Aphroditos whispered.

"Huh?" Ares choked. He couldn't remember his own address right now.

They pinched a crease in his shirt. "Your biggest turn on."

It vaguely clicked into place in Ares' whirling brain. "Mhmm…" He gazed down at this slight, pretty god, the champion of the folk and the forgotten, they who made the kings look petty and temporary. "Someone standing up for something." 

They smiled and licked the corner of Ares' mouth.

Ares hummed and then started, eyes lighting up. "Wait, is that why you asked me here?"

They dropped a careless, dismissive, mocking laugh. It barbed Ares, it made him hotter than a kiln. He snarled and opened his mouth to catch Aphroditos'. They moved quicker than a viper and snatched his lower lip in sharp teeth. A shock of pain struck Ares, chased by a powerful tremble of pleasure. His knees gave out. He moaned pitiably and collapsed against Aphroditos' iced body, his cock lining to theirs through too many layers of fabric and aching brutally. Aphroditos grunted and bit harder, pulling him in by his stinging lip. They both gasped, puckered lips stroking, hips churning. 

"A-HEM." 

A very loud cough startled them out of the fog of lust that had thickened their senses. Ares jumped like a rabbit and whipped around, jeans visibly stretched and heart hammering. Aphroditos drooped and rolled his shoulders, throwing the intruding Peitho a profoundly sulky look. She was leaning against the lounge door, the platter of gemstone Turkish delight balanced on one palm, munching contentedly with icing sugar around her magenta mouth. "I'm the Grace of Seduction, you really think I wouldn't notice?"

Aphroditos bared his canines at her and pushed off from the counter, flexing his neck. He strode past Ares without looking at him, but touched his abs and murmured smokily, “nine.”

Ares took a moment to register human speech.

Then his hammering heart somersaulted. He spun clumsily to beam at Aphroditos, who was impulsively opening a hardly-closed cupboard and retrieving a bag of corn chips. "Is that...is that a seventh digit?"

Aphroditos shot him an amused look.

He threw his hands into the air. "It is! It's digit number seven!" He whooped loudly. He scrambled for the note, added the nine, and flicked the paper triumphantly. "Fuck, yeah!" He put on a dramatic voice, overly loud, overly excited, dozens of unleashed chemicals still racing around his body. "They said it couldn't be done, they said it was beyond the realms of man, but they did not account for…"

"How ostentatious you would be willing to be multiple times in so few days?" Aphroditos finished drily.

"I think you'll find the word is 'impressive', since that was your stipulation, if you should like to refer to the events of Monday, which, you may observe, was less than a week ago."

"Fewer than a week ago."

"Oh, fewer. Hey, wait, no it's not!"

Aphroditos snorted into the chips bag. "Almost had you." 

Peitho launched into cackles. Aphroditos eyed the brash, booming jubilance of the bonfire that was Ares. Lingering ice and heat splashed over their body as they looked at him, his make-up shimmering and his hair a mess and his body maddeningly ready for use. They ground their teeth, while Ares made a huge show of carefully folding the complete phone number and stowing it safely away. 

"Alright, Cowboy," Peitho huffed on the end of her laughter. "It's time you were getting home to Momma, we have a lot to go over."

Ares stuck his tongue out at her, but dragged his feet to the front door. "Maybe, but you're never gonna truly be rid of me now, I HAVE YOUR NUMBER."

Aphroditos blew a raspberry at him. He flipped them off. He tugged on his boots and took a wide step to the door. "Call me." He turned. He turned back. "No, actually, I'll call you."

Aphroditos smiled with narrowed eyes and shook his head at him. 

He grinned. He nodded to Peitho. "Thanks for the makeover."

Her ear fins perked up. She winked at him.

He opened the door. Rain howled in the grey street. He winced. "Shit. OK. Wish me luck!" 

"Good luck." Aphroditos' voice croaked, still off kilter from what had just happened. "And, Ares?"

Ares looked at him.

"Thank you."

Ares' brazen expression softened. He shrugged. "Don't worry about it." He grinned. "Except do. Because it led to me having your number."

Aphroditos rolled his eyes. "Drive safe."

"If I don't, at least I have an emergency contact now." 

Peitho guffawed. 

Ares threw up a golden paw and plunged into the downpour, banging the door behind him.

The lynx hiss of rain mellowed, bubbling under the silence that now fell on Aphroditos and Peitho.

Aphroditos plunged into the bag of chips and stuffed a handful of shards into his mouth.

Peitho grinned wickedly. "Salt craving?"

Aphroditos hurled tortilla shrapnel at her. 

She squeaked and skittered sideways, narrowly missing the hail. "You would have regretted giving into it in this mood and you know it!"

He scowled, but twitched in concession.

She popped another rose sweet into her pout. "Remember that conversation we had about not giving him everything all the time? Excellent fucking job."

Aphroditos licked his teeth and replied darkly. "Wait."

Peitho pouted. They waited. A good minute ticked by filled by only the sound of Aphroditos' agitated crunching as Peitho eyed him suspiciously. He stood coolly in his dishevelled state.

There was an urgent bang on the door.

Peitho raised her eyebrows, but Aphroditos was unsurprised. He dusted off his hands and wandered over to open it.

Ares stood across the threshold, vanilla curls turned to custard gloop in the hurtling water, the make-up smudging at the edges and his shirt plastered to his torso. His cheeks glowed red in the mist, like traffic lights. Aphroditos gave him an innocent, questioning look. Peitho peered from further in.

Ares held up his phone and the sodden scrap of paper. "This got some restaurant!"

Aphroditos glanced at his fingernails curled on the door and replied casually. "I told you I’d give you digits. I didn’t say in the right order."

"WHAT?"

They blew him a kiss. 

And slammed the door.

Peitho was laughing so hard that she blew icing sugar from the platter across the floor. She set it down and exploded into applause. "How could I ever have doubted you?"

Aphroditos' fine lips curled, sly satisfaction and wicked trickery taking their place in the carnival of sinful emotions still drunkenly dancing through his body. His flesh hummed from ice and fire, his heart sore and pumping from fight, his mouth full of flavour and his cock still thick. His gaze locked onto Peitho, all mirth and magic and deep ocean. She was sucking sticky rose from her fingertips, slowly, naughtily. He pushed off the door frame where he was still leaning and prowled to her. Her vibrant, lava lamp eyes fluttered to attention as he came to lean over her, smoke in his gaze. Her breath skipped. She smiled like a swordfish. He pushed her by the top of her thigh to bump hard against the wall. She seized his belt loops. "Oh Gods, don't be gentle with me..."

Outside, Ares stood in the torrential rain, soaking cold to his bones. He looked up and drenched his face in the deluge, scarlet and glitter streaming over his cheekbones. The little note with the wrong number turned to pulp in his fist. 

He broke into wild laughter. 

He beamed so bright that rainbows shimmered in the sheet of water.

Chapter 13: “When someone’s body is calling out.”

Summary:

The night of Zeus' birthday party arrives. It's a lavish, highly exclusive event that any god, nymph, or creature would give their right arm to attend. But all Aphrodite and Ares care about is seeing each other. Things have been building for too long, and it's making them impulsive. Is the storm about to break?

Song, Part 1: She's My Witch, Kip Tyler
Song, Part 2: Burning Down the House, Talking Heads
Song, Part 3: Wicked Game, Chris Isaak

[CW: A lot of alcohol (but not heavy drunkenness), drinking games, some calm reflecting on experiences of domestic instability, emotional abuse, adultery, and low self-worth. Opens with some smoot.]

The rain continued into the weekend, deluging over Zeus’ birthday party in a perfect mirror of the general inner-circle attitude towards the event. Zeus didn’t see it that way, though. He mixed in some thunder and lightning and turned the dark, sagging sky into a vaguely threatening, coldly luminescent rave in his honour. The summer storm roared like a lioness pride and splashed and sluiced over Aphrodite’s bubblegum blue car as it bounced lightly on its low wheels from the rocking of…

“Gods, Hermes, yes!” 

“Fuck, Dite, ruin me…”

Aphrodite clung to Hermes’ hair and crushed him into the passenger seat, straddling his hips and riding his cock with brutal thrusts that sucked shivers of pleasure into her palpitating body. He clutched their ass, keeping their skirt pushed up, pulling himself deeper as he jerked and ground beneath them. The black shadows of rain poured over him, his crimson skin showing through his open shirt now a smooth canvas for chaotic ink splatter. His larynx leaped under the fine skin of his throat as he moaned and gulped for air. Aphrodite soared on the effect she had on him. Lightning flashed and cast them into stark monochrome. She ran her tongue in the shadows carving into his collar.

“Fates, Dite…” Hermes scooped her closer and slid one hand between them to strum her clit. He dropped back to lean on the headrest, his mouth hanging open and his brow misting. The car was steaming up with the heat between them.

Aphrodite quivered and gasped at the playful pressure on her clit. Her body undulated, dragging over Hermes’ hard torso, her knees grinding on the car seat. The suspension squeaked rhythmically. Lightning struck again. Thunder rolled through their bodies. Aphrodite growled with it. She swept her hair off her flushed face and sped her thrusts. Hermes’ cock pounded inside her, filling her with pulses of hot lust. Their party clothes tangled around them. Her necklace lashed and caught the snare of light. Their lips brushed and broke with a mutual, grating moan.

“Harder…” she groaned.

Hermes nodded, braced himself on the seat with one hand, and bucked wildly. His cock rammed into Aphrodite, chiselling out the tension and nerves about another royal party and turning her into a bottle of lightning, conducting the storm around the creaking, blue car. Rain hissed and she squealed with pleasure. Thunder gruffed and he barked with a shock of sensation. Lightning whipped them black and white again. Pleasure dazzled Aphrodite’s body. She arched and scraped her fingernails down his scalp. Hermes cried out and burst into trembling. They met each other’s blazing eyes and thrust violently. 

"Did I mention I'm so happy you moved up here?" Hermes laughed wildly.

"Only about ninety times," Aphrodite giggled. Their giggle turned into a hiccup as he flashed his teeth and sped. Her pendulum movements turned to staccato up and down, bouncing like a basketball on Hermes' cock, spurred by the springing of the car. Pleasure rocketed up her body, gripping and intense. "OH!" Her climax spilled through her just as another car splashed past and cast a wave of lightning-clad water over the windscreen. 

Hermes went wide eyed at the sight of her tossing her hair with the sparkling spray behind her. Her pleasure echoed in his own and he came with the feeling of flame shooting up his spine, cursing in a muddled string of breaths. "FUCK! Oh...Gods...Yeah...Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…"

Aphrodite drew back with a smirk. "Are these good fucks?"

Hermes grinned giddily, eyes closed and chest heaving. "This was a very good fuck, yeah."

She laughed and slumped in his lap, raking her fingers through her hair. They sighed in unison, then laughed again. The rain drummed heavy and hollow on the metal roof, webbing them in crooked shadows. 

Aphrodite slid their dress strap back up and clucked their tongue. "Guess we have to go in at some point."

Hermes blew out through his lips like a pony and rubbed her thighs. "Or we could just move into this car together."

She patted his chest, smiling warmly at the feel of his still racing heartbeat. "Tempting. But the rent's a bitch for an apartment of this quality in this neighbourhood."

Hermes grinned and sneaked his hand around to pinch her ass. They tweaked his cheek and started to button his shirt for him. "Besides, I promised someone I would be there."

Hermes' grin turned to the leer of a gold prospector. "Who? A certain royal son?"

She scratched his chest. 

"Ow!"

"It'll be the first time I’ve seen Amphitrite in a bit."

"Oh, Amphitrite, sure, sure."

They kept buttoning his shirt. He eyed their blush. He tickled the small of their back, softening his voice. "He'll be feeling worse than us about tonight. He'll be real happy you're there."

She slowly raised her violet eyes to his. She stroked her thumb along his jaw. He winked. Her mind drifted back across the weeks. She’d been trying to be careful with Ares - his position, his youth, the magazines, the endless, crushing knowledge that everything she did here had such high stakes. But, Gods, these past few days… Hermes’ party, the roadside at the Rose Lounge, her house after Hades left… There were only so many near misses a love god could take. Even in the purging afterglow of Hermes, the need inside her was gnawing. All the time she was with Ares, she was being caressed with that delicious desire; the raw, heartfelt want he had to let loose, to burn, to eat, to fight, to fuck. It was primal and it stirred her deep. It fascinated her. It magnetised her. And now she was going to be in a hot, luxurious party with a strict no press rule in the damn house where his bedroom was. She knew it was a bad idea to even consider making a move tonight. It was the king’s birthday, it was high society, high opportunity, high risk. But his bedroom was going to be right there. And she was aching. And, quite honestly, with all the wedding work with Hera, she’d just spent far too much time being well-behaved. She’d made that whole speech to Hades about freeing the monsters. It had weighed on her since then that she wasn’t exactly practising what she preached. She’d been all too palatable lately, playing by the rules, retreating diplomatically, too much princess and not enough witch. And in that shining, lightning-webbed palace was a man who responded irresistibly to her special kind of spell-casting. In one last grasp at sensibility, she’d thought Hermes could help her fuck it out of her system, but he was a delectable fiend and it only really made it worse.

“I sense mischief.” Hermes tickled her hip.

She blinked back to the sound of the rain hammering like her agitated pulse. She looked at him, tousled and relaxed and pixie-wicked. She smiled coyly. “I guess, I’ve been thinking, I don’t know if I’m ever going to get these people to approve of me, so, why have a tense and boring night trying, when I could have a little fun?”

He grinned. “My name is Hermes and I approve this message.”

She laughed and cuffed his shoulder. They exchanged a kiss on the cheek and began to wriggle back into some level of presentability.

They strolled through the palace door looking just dishevelled enough to make it fashion. Hermes' burgundy suit was open at the collar, emphasising the sculpt of his neck and jaw, giving him the look of a bottle of fine red wine left open to breathe before being lasciviously glugged down. Gold piercings glittered on one ear and his nails were painted gold. His hair was styled (ish) into a lopsided sweep that twinkled with the raindrops that he'd pelted through from the car. He had his arm slung around Aphrodite's round shoulders, an extra swagger in his still slightly jelly legs. Aphrodite strutted in perfect time with him, wearing his arm like a stole. Their dress was entirely sheer mesh, spangled with piercingly bright, silver sequins that cascaded down the harmonious shape of their body and pooled in a subtle train at the floor. It was stitched to uncover wisps of their smoke purple skin, bare mists of mesh over the curves of their hips and in dashes over their belly and under their breasts. There was a long slit up their thigh, showing their elegant leg adorned with a silver, chain garter and shining, black stilettos with silver heels like knives. Silver dangled from their ears, dressed their throat and wrists, and swept over their eyes. Their lips were dark and pursed dangerously. Their hair was a tumbling cascade of ringlets, adorably tousled from Hermes' fingers and rippling down their exposed back, as the dress scooped low, just covering the bump of their ass. The dress had cobweb fine, diamante straps, but was mostly held up in the firm sculpt low on their breasts. Raindrops shone on their chest. They looked like the moment a full moon first strikes the ocean. They looked like the kind of treasure people go to war over. Several heads turned.

Hermes snickered and leaned to their ear. "Smell that?"

They looked at him sideways, canines emerging. "What?"

"The tide turning in your favour."

She chuckled darkly.

Hermes spotted a pair of jet eyes going wide and bewildered. "Fates, I think Arty just came."

Aphrodite snorted.

Hermes slid his arm away, dusting his fingers down her spine. "I'm gonna go say hi and also ruthlessly make fun. Want a drink?"

Her calculating gaze drifted around the lobby. "Thanks, but I think I'm going to take a turn around the place. Get the lay of the land. Make some people uncomfortable." This time, she was armoured and she was damn well not going to let them get to her.

Hermes beamed. "That's my girl."

She shot him a reprimanding look.

"I mean, that's my terrifying goddess."

"Better."

He shot them a finger gun and bounced over to Artemis. 

Aphrodite began to take slow, strident steps through the glittering entrance hall. Despite her open distaste for her husband, Hera had really gone to town. The ceiling was entirely hidden by floating, clear balloons filled with gold glitter. They sprinkled sparkle down over the crowds of guests lining the walls and wandering in chic, shimmering outfits in and out of open doors. Every gathering space in two floors of the palace had been opened up and decadently dressed in gold-coated tropical flowers. Hovering fireflies seemed to have been enchanted to drift drunkenly overhead, their light catching in wide pupils and pooling in dark wine. The whole house smelled of expensive alcohol and expensive perfume and expensive food: savoury sushi and tingling saffron and fatty foie gras, truffle oil and some kind of designer fruit, because apparently money could grow on trees up here. That was it, this party smelled of money, sickly sweet and metallic and fizzy. Everyone was smiling. No one was smiling.

Except for her.

Aphrodite let their lethal grin bloom across their face and cut right down the centre of the hallway and through the complex of rooms, pausing to kiss cheeks and squeeze hands and make fleeting, unforgettable eye contact. She froze flowing conversation, made booming voices croak and trail off, chuckled under her breath at the sounds of people choking on their drinks and slipping in their high heels. She forked an attraction charm with her bejewelled fingers and swung her hips and raised her chin. She ambled through the billiards room and ran her fingernail on the varnished rim of the pool table. The nymph making his shot skidded his cue and sent the ball banging to the floor. She shook hands with a tall, dignified centaur in thick-framed, round glasses and watched her lenses steam up at the rim. She leaned over the roulette table and blew on a satyr’s dice; he mocked fainting as he threw them with musical clacks to win him a fortune. A towering minotaur offered her a puff of his cigar. She sucked on the dark flavour of tobacco and blew out a stream of pink smoke that made a gaggle of nymphs applaud and flock to her. She extracted herself with charming laughter and continued her tour, weaving in and out of the music bopping from the speakers. 

Their dress was heavy with its thousands of silver beads, it whispered as they walked with the shush of the sea on sand. It gave their motion weight, it ensured they felt themself move, stayed aware of every detail of their hypnotic body, grounded them in the magnetic power of their presence. 

“Look at her, making a spectacle of herself…”

“Yeah, whatever, we’ve all seen you, you happy?”

“Wow… She’s so… Oh…”

She swam in the envy and resentment and fear and wonder that poured off them all. 

That’s right, Olympus, want me, hate me, worship me.

She had quelled Hestia. She had intrigued Hecate for Eurydice. She had secured Hera’s allyship. The last week playing with Ares had put him in the palm of her hand. Peitho had told her today that her chosen oracle was ready to be called for the first time tomorrow. And she’d just fucked the hot mailman in her car on the way to the most prestigious party of the year. She was tired of letting these people’s twisted emotions curdle in her mouth and make her sick. Tonight, she was reconnecting with the darker side of her power. Love is healing and embracing and transcending. It’s also a complete and total bitch. She shook out her hair and met every daggered stare with a silver riposte. 

They thought of the day before yesterday, the way Ares had melted and risen and been possessed by them showing their anger, feeling their anger. The blaze of his desire had left them singed, exhilarated. It had been a long, long time since someone had been so powerfully drawn to their darkness. It had been difficult to tuck it away since then. The hum of rage under her skin had turned from a prickle to a smoulder, making her hot and restless and wet. It had made it impossible to distinguish from her want. She wanted to be angry and she wanted people to be angry with her for it. She was hungry and lustful and impulsive and discordant and that was really fucking beautiful of her. Ares got it. And he liked it.

Wait until she really unleashed it on him.

No more Miss Nice Goddess.

Not tonight.

She snatched a cocktail from a passing tray, plucked the fruit stick from it, and sucked on the syrup-drenched cherry. 

Where are you, Pretty Boy? Momma needs to eat.

She rounded a doorway into a spacious, bustling sitting room. The walls were covered in abstract paintings in deep sapphire and harsh scarlet, decked with the frozen, metal flowers. It was like someone’s dream of the night after a battle. The tables were laden with meticulously presented food; sculptures of parrots crafted from slices of pineapple and watermelon, a perfect recreation of the palace in elaborate icing, a map of the Aegean laid out in charcuterie. It pleased her that Cyprus was made out of black olives. The fireflies bobbed drunkenly about, tinging cheekbones and the tips of ears gold. Aphrodite took a swig of her drink, mango slid down her throat. She hummed. 

She searched the crowd, claiming the fluttering of attractions and schemes and sulks with her sharp senses, before they could assault her. Maybe this party didn’t have the joyful abandon she craved, but the longer she spent on Olympus, the better she was getting at the vampiric decadence of supping on lust from beneath suppression. It had a rich bitterness to it, like refined cocoa. She eyed the crisp, cut glass figures of Zeus’ guests, the way the sparkling light glanced off them, their gazes cool and their smiles like diamond. They were pristine, as perfectly shaped and polished and set into gold and silver as the finest gems plundered from the earth. They laughed like the drawing of rapiers. They walked like clockwork dancers. They ate in tiny, nibbling morsels that barely rested on the tongue. She locked eyes with the haughtiest one and grabbed a peach from the table and sank her teeth into it. The noise of the tear and squelch rippled through the room, the juice glistened on her chin. A few noses turned up. A few tongues flashed across teeth. She purred in her belly. 

Stare at me, babies, it’s only natural.

Her glittering eyes roved around the room through the haze of fireflies reflecting on gold. Then something shone warmer than the buzzing light. Heat kindled in her abdomen. She set down her glass and took another indulgent bite of the peach. Ares stood with his back to her, shoulders square in a black jacket tailored to his powerful build, his hair clipped short at the back so she could see the glimmer of his neck. There was a slight slouch in his stance. He was nodding dully to a nervously jabbering man with candy purple skin and a gold band around his bald head. She tilted her head. His ass was looking particularly firm this evening. She sucked the sweet juice on her lip and set off with her swaying stride towards him.

They nearly crashed into a sudden towering figure blocking their path. They halted and immediately drooped with disappointment. They pushed their blinding smile out and stirred sugar into their voice. “Oh my! It’s the birthday boy!”

Zeus’ cardboard cut-out smile slid over his chiselled face. His hair was wound elaborately on top of his head and dressed with a gilded laurel crown. His pearl white suit was the only thing more luminescent than his teeth, the shoulder pads crowned with swan feathers. Aphrodite spotted them and bit her tongue to keep from snickering.

Zeus lounged over her and beamed broadly, his voice so slick that you could lose your footing on it. “Now, I’m hardly going to be able to celebrate knowing that the prettiest girl at the party is all on her own. How did she manage that?”

Aphrodite glanced past him to Ares subtly rolling one shoulder and shifting position as the man gabbled on. “Probably waiting for the handsomest guy at the party to walk up to her.”

Zeus chuckled like a rattlesnake. “Sorry I took so long.”

She barked a hollow laugh and folded her arm across herself. 

“So, how are you settling in?” he enquired chivalrously.

“Well,” they replied. “It’s a beautiful city.”

“Even more so, now we have you.” His strange sludge of undercooked, overheated desire bumped her senses.

She grimaced and laughed again, eyes still drawn to Ares with a pop of frustration, hoping he might notice it and turn the fuck around. He didn’t. 

Men are useless.

She flicked her eyes back to Zeus and gave him a smile as if around a lemon wedge. “You’re quite the smooth talker.”

His eyes crackled bright. Thunder rolled outside, a chandelier tinkling. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She narrowed her eyes and drew herself up. “Keep that kind of patter up and you might get lucky.”

He leaned in a little, dropped his voice a little. “Really?”

She raised her face square to his. “Really.” She deflected another nudge of gritty want with a gladius thrust of a look. “Especially if you try it on your wife.”

His swan feathers ruffled.

She held his eye reproachfully for a moment, then clapped her half-eaten peach into his hand and strolled past him, sucking her fingers clean.

Zeus watched them go towards his son. His fingers clamped the fruit and made it ooze ichor.

Aphrodite spat him out of her body with a toss of their glossy ringlets and sank into the energy they always zinged with when they were coming close to the God of War.

They were really in the mood for war.

The bald man spotted her and turned puce. He gulped and shrank back. She shooed him with her eyes, like a bothersome beetle, then combed her fingers along the small of Ares’ back. “Well, well, if it isn’t Olympus’ laziest gardener.”

Her mouth flooded with his fiery spice. She could hear the combative play in his voice as he started to turn to her. “And if it isn’t Olympus’...” He finished turning and his eyes fell on her. They boiled instantly from mellow apricot to red jasper. His jaw dropped. “Whoa…”

Aphrodite filled with evil satisfaction. They cocked their head. “What were you going to say? Olympus’ what?”

Ares’ jaw did not reconnect. “Uh… Yeah… Language…”

They smiled brilliantly like shattering champagne glasses. “How do I look?”

His gaze showered her with hibiscus petals. “You look… devastating.”

His voice wrapped her in furs. “Mmm, well done.”

He grinned and lifted his bonfire eyes to hers. He was glowing with his gaze. He was also wearing a gilded laurel crown, but it was slightly jaunty on his thick mess of curls. It gave him an almost nymph-like look. His eyes flickered away, darkened, and flicked back. “It’s way too crowded in here, walk with me?”

Aphrodite didn’t need to look back. “Daddy being a spoiled brat?”

Ares frowned and nodded. “Let’s keep you in more deserving company.”

“I think I found it.”

The smile returned. He slipped around her and lightly pressed her lower back to guide her away. His hand was stove warm, the deep feeling of his touch spreading through her muscle. His eyes rolled back theatrically. “Oh my fucking Gods, this thing is backless. You’re an assassin.”

Aphrodite giggled and shot him a cheeky, showgirl shimmy. “You always know what to say.”

“If only.”

She let him guide her for the first few steps, then fell naturally into leading, enjoying the way his hand chased her if she pulled even an inch away. They moved softly through the swish and thrum of music and chattering. “So,” Aphrodite said secretively, leaning in a little so Ares bent to let her murmur in his ear, “how are you holding up?”

She watched his chest rise slowly. He was wearing a blood red shirt under his dark suit, no tie, but a glinting pin of a shield on his collar. It winked as a firefly passed them. “I’m really fucking relieved to see you.” His thumb stroked the dip in the centre of her back.

His tingling spice turned smoky, there was a depth to his want that she hadn’t sensed before. She ached. She tilted to smell his cologne. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know if I would’ve come if you weren’t here.”

He looked at her with warm, wary surprise. She smiled at him conspiratorially, spinning something between them. Ares’ face flickered. His breath caught. “Uh, that’s…”

“If you say ‘nice’, I will be displeased.”

A rough laugh gusted out of him. “Let’s stay here a second.” He gave her the lightest push to pause them in a corridor under the cloud cover of balloons holding glitter like the sky outside seemed to hold infinite rain. He moved his hand away and leaned facing her, his arms folded, his shoulder against the wall. He gazed down at her. He seemed to be making a decision. More fireflies haloed around his laurel crown, sending dancing reflections through his curls. Their pale gold light illuminated a soft sweep of golden glitter across his radiating eyes and gentle lips, his sullen pucker glistening ever so slightly. 

Aphrodite peered up at him. “Are you wearing make-up?”

Ares faltered, the ruby glow of his upper face running down his cheeks. “Uh, yeah. Kinda. Only a little.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked at his shoes. “Thought I’d try it.”

Her armoured exterior weakened. She looked with liquid eyes at his shy blush, at the pretty shimmer he had given his handsome face. His nails were still scarlet from the manicure in the mall. Every little attention paid to his body brought out another glimmer of its beauty. All their searing almosts, all her hunger, her commitment to being nothing but a predator tonight… they wilted and left her heart an exposed, blossoming bud. He was really trying to learn from her. He was really taking her in. She rushed with the desire to put her arms around him. No flirting, no tempting. Just to hold him and tell him he was pretty. 

She prickled with irritation.

Damn it, Ares, that’s not what tonight was supposed to be about.

He looked up, so startled that they were worried they’d spoken out loud. His eyes were wide. “You’re angry. Did I do it wrong?”

“No!” They cursed themself and shook the feeling away. “No, Fates, Ares.” She took a step closer and reached up to cup his cheek and turn his face to admire his captivating features. “You did good. You did beautiful.” She bit her tongue. He looked like a kid showing her his crayon drawing. She beamed and smoothed a slightly clumsy smear past his eyebrow with her thumb. His face was warm from his blush. She withdrew her hand with some willpower and tossed her hair off her heating neck. “Truthfully, I’m all happy-flustered you tried it for yourself, but that broke the whole vixen thing I had going on. I’m annoyed I’m so weak to you being cute.”

Ares grinned his battering ram of a grin. His lean turned into a cocky bowing over her. “Why is it so important for you to be a vixen tonight?”

They pursed their lips. “You have your coping methods, I have mine.”

He nodded, one side of his smile pulling higher than the other. His voice husked. “And, if you mostly came to be with me, what was I gonna be able to look forward to from Vixen Aphrodite?”

Their eyes met. Aphrodite felt as if silk sashes were twining up her legs. She shifted her weight to conceal her squirm. She let her hair tumble down one side to expose her long neck and bare, rolling shoulder. “Get me a drink.”

Ares tipped forward a fraction, his cologne touching their tongue. He lifted his hand and slowly took their fingers in a soft curl into his. He looked earnestly into her eyes, his voice so deep it vibrated in her core, low, like a forbidden request. “Tell me what you want.”

Their heart fluttered, their clit fluttered. They wet their lip and murmured musically, “mmm, you mean it?”

A tendril of flame cupped his pupil.

Her canines emerged, twin keen points. “Champagne.”

He smiled. “Champagne.”

They lingered in each other’s simmering gaze for a final tantalising moment. He pulled away and strode through the nearest door. 

Aphrodite’s legs nearly gave out as a shudder of pleasure struck her. They pressed their back to the wall, tacky with the rising heat, and fanned their face. The heavy beads on her dress strummed her nipples as she breathed a little heavily. The insides of their thighs kept grazing each other and sending hums of sensation into their pussy. It was as if his hands were already on them. It was always as if his hands were already on them. They felt like a wind-up toy in the grip of a toddler. She subtly slipped her hand behind her and clawed the wallpaper.

OK, but seriously, his bedroom is IN THIS BUILDING. Fuck. I should have told him to get syrup, so I could suck it off his…

“Sea Turtle!” 

A pair of bright, bubbling voices threw cold water over her. She perked up with a kick in her stomach and saw Amphitrite and Poseidon surging through the hallway, like a river breaking through a dam. Both were decked out in seafoam green, Amphitrite transformed into a creature of mostly organza. Aphrodite's heart leaped. She squealed in delight and tottered speedily with a rattle of sequins into a huge, sashimi-scented hug, the ruffles of Amphitrite’s dress gushing over her, like the cooling tide. 

“You’re here!” She bundled them both into her arms, burying her face in their fountains of hair. “Oh, I miss you! I’m never letting go!”

Poseidon laughed his boat-rocking laugh. Amphitrite rubbed her back, like a nurse burping a baby. They peeled apart, but with their arms still encircling each other. Aphrodite nestled merrily into this lagoon of home. 

Amphitrite looked her brazenly up and down. “Fates, Dite, you look stunning!”

Aphrodite shrugged with false modesty. “Yeah, well… Yeah. So do you!”

Amphitrite swished her many layers of green. They gushed out behind her so far that they made a trip hazard. It was as if she was surfing a wave everywhere she walked. She flapped her webbed hands. “Gods, let’s get sat down and talking. I’m literally going to explode from excitement that you’re here.”

The three of them poured into the nearby room, just as Ares was getting back to the doorway with two champagne glasses and a sudden look of perturbed surprise.

“Ares! You look so handsome!” Amphitrite gasped. “Give Auntie Amphy a kiss.”

Ares winced and bent for her to plant a loud, wet smack on his cheek. She rubbed her smudge of green lipstick off him vigorously with her thumb, smushing his face. He shot an embarrassed look at Aphrodite, who beamed in affectionate amusement. She released him and Poseidon clapped his shoulder. “Oo, who are these for?” he gestured to the bubbling flutes.

Ares glanced at Aphrodite. “Well, actually…”

“You don’t mind, do you? Always parched on land.” Amphitrite took one from him and Poseidon followed suit. They downed half their glasses in unison as Ares blinked at them. 

Poseidon smacked his lips. “Ah! Zeus always gets the best stuff.” He put his arm around Aphrodite and rubbed it companionably. “Anyway, come on, tell us all your news, Dolphin.” 

They shepherded Aphrodite, glancing helplessly back at the now empty-handed, bewildered Ares, to a circle of elegant, silk-cushioned chairs and couches in prim, duck egg blue. Amphitrite’s dress needed most of the room, so Poseidon perched on the arm beside her and leaned over her, his ear fins fanning to listen to Aphrodite. They both fixed her with expectant looks. 

“So, how are things going?” Amphitrite pressed. “Tell us everything.”

“Leave nothing out, Dolphin,” Poseidon added jovially.

Aphrodite grimaced. “Oh, I probably will…”

A sparkling champagne glass floated down in front of her nose. She looked up and saw Ares holding it out to her, standing over her with a rueful smile. She smiled back and took it and tipped it to him. He ambled to the mantelpiece opposite their seats and propped his elbow up on it, opening his broad chest. He gave her a sly, knowing look. “Yeah, Dolphin, what have you been up to?”

She poked her tongue out at him. Amphitrite used her abundant skirts to hide a cheeky prod to her waist. 

“There you are!” Hermes’ voice hit them all like a firework going off. He came bounding into the room to the jumping rhythm of the music, a small gaggle of gods in his wake. “And you found spare seats, nice move.” 

Aphrodite and Ares shot each other a final, defeated glance as a good portion of the Pantheon settled around them, like parakeets around raspberries, all drinking long drinks, all doing we’re-going-to-be-settled-here-for-a-while things, like taking off high heels and loosening ties. She tipped her glass to him again and took a large mouthful of champagne. The bubbles turned their tongue into a pin cushion.

Ares pressed his lips together and licked the sprinkle of cinnamon in his mouth as they echoed his frustration. But, hey, at least they were frustrated too. Was it crazy to think tonight might be the night?

 

*

 

Even with this many people between them, Aphrodite was a beacon in Ares' senses. He watched from where he leaned heavily against the wall by the fireplace, looking like an escaped flame as the pent up everything heaped coal into the boiler of his body. She was like a glittering maypole, all those fickle strips of colour bound to her and whirling around her. She drew them and cast them aside with the slightest flicks of her eyes. She artfully portioned out her attention, so there was always hope and they were always left wanting. She was never still; gesturing like a ballet mistress with her sharp, elegant hands, kicking her flashing stilettos up, rearranging her slit skirt so the light ricocheted around her, gossiping giddily, reacting dramatically to everything they said, telling jokes with the laughter already rippling down her curves, eating and sucking her fingertips, tossing her hair, pointing, patting, clapping, drinking… Man, was she drinking… It wasn't just the crowd around them, people kept coming over just to bring her drinks. Her lips pressed to glass over and over, always showing just the tip of her tongue, always leaving the cutest little, plum print. The group expanded and contracted as more and more hopefuls swirled around her and were cut loose. Even the fireflies converged, a little airborne Ferris wheel forming over her head and raining light down on her shapely, sequined dress. She was celestial. She was a neutron star sucking everyone into her. It was a strange mixture of agonising and unsettling and irresistible to watch. Ares observed with increasing curiosity and discomfort as she perfectly pinpointed what each individual needed in each exact moment to give her what she wanted. The right look to be offered champagne. The right pitch of her laughter to warm them. The right note of subtle boredom to cool them off. They looked to her for her signals and obeyed them like trained pets. The whole room was her flea circus. 

It's not that he disapproved. Olympus was tough and heartless and everyone had their own powers to carve what they needed out of it. She was amazing and perfect and enchanting, of course she should do something with that. Of course she should have everything at any cost. It's just… he kinda thought he'd be the one getting it for her. What was the use of being able to serve her a conquered city on a cake platter when there was already a host of other gods with oceans and mountains and moons to offer her? What was the use of getting her champagne if every other person at the party did that too? He tried to tell himself that all that mattered was that she got the champagne. She deserved every fucking thing in the world, didn't matter who gave it to her, as long as he could watch her enjoy it. But being the person to hand her the glass had felt so good. Being commanded by her had a weight to it that he hadn't been prepared for. It made him feel… 

Worthy.

He'd been thinking about that a lot this week. He’d been enjoying letting her play with him, tell him what to do, set him challenges, because he thought it was something he brought out in her, it was something about him that brought her joy. Sometimes a sweet girl gets a pet cat and gets hours of fun out of dangling a toy mouse just out of its reach. But now, everyone was a kitten, and he was starting to feel like the crooked one with unclippable claws that she wouldn't be taking home from the shelter. He started to knot inside. All their back and forth had felt to him like building a secret den, a special, private place within the cold woods, just the two of them keeping each other warm. Was it actually just how she was with people? Was he just another dumb admirer? Were they all carrying half constructed phone numbers in their pockets, like sacred scrolls? He folded his arms tight, padlocking his aggression inside himself. Every single fighting instinct was going into overdrive. Get loud, get violent, upset the rhythm of anyone else trying to make her smile, break the offered glasses, tell uncomfortable war stories, show that guy out by the scruff of his neck, grab her and pull her away and pin her and kiss her into seeing him. 

Scream and smash the desk lamp and throw a fireball at the portrait of Ma and Dad. 

Make them yell at him, so they would stop yelling at each other. 

Make them see him and how much he was feeling. 

That was the Ares solution, right? Someone in the room doesn't love you enough? Destroy the fucking room.

He looked at his feet.

Don’t compare her to all that. Stop letting that bastard be a part of every damn thing.

But this was Olympus. Zeus was a part of every damn thing. Everyone was here to celebrate his father. He wished he could follow that up with, "if only they knew what kind of man he was." But they did know, and they came in their droves anyway. Nothing Zeus ever did took love away from him. Nothing he ever did to Ares made people like him any less. Ares wasn't the sort of person you worried about things happening to. It was OK for him to be collateral damage. He wasn't worth the time. He wasn't worth the effort. He wasn't a source of joy. He wasn't special. He wasn't something you singled out, got attached to; not even if he was your prince, not even if he was your son. No, Ares was…

"Ares."

He jumped and looked sharply back up to see Aphrodite staring intently at him, their amethyst eyes focused and warning. He straightened up and cleared his throat. "Yeah?"

"I want to try that weird, designer melon you were telling me about, but I don't remember what it looks like. Come show me?"

"What?"

They hardened their stare. He shuffled in confusion. They stood, sequins cascading, and gestured to a few hangers on to give them a moment. They walked towards the bizarre miniature village of a buffet table. Ares followed. When they reached the cheese and berry reconstruction of Zeus' coronation, she stopped, turned briskly, and javelined him with her eyes. 

"What the fuck is a designer melon?" he asked.

"Take some deep breaths for me, Honey," she said softly.

Ares reeled. "I… What? No, I was… What?"

They took his hand. 

His pulse halted.

He looked down. It was the hand nearest the table, out of sight with the angle of their bodies. It wasn't a teasing touch, a brush, a hook. She was holding him. Her hand was strong and warm and she was holding him. She chased his shifting eyes until she was looking into them, steady and sweet. She lowered her voice beneath the bursting bray of the music, weaving a blanket around him with her gentle tone. "Pretend it's not his party."

Ares raised his eyebrows. How did she… He flushed and ticked his jaw. "So, what? Pretend it's mine? Unlikely."

They smiled slyly. "No, of course not. Pretend it's mine." They reached with their free hand and plucked the grape head off tiny King Zeus. "That's what I'm doing." They popped the grape into their mouth and crushed it. They bounced their shoulder naughtily.

Ares broke into a grin like a teenager who’d just gotten away with shoplifting. He let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding and shook the brambles out of his brain. He focused on her hand, on her whisper to him that she was here to see him. It was possible. Let her make things feel possible. He breathed like she told him to, taking up the rhythm of her subtle curling of her fingers on his. She smelled of passionfruit. The knots slowly loosened in his muscles, his shoulders smoothing and his chest lightening. He huffed and looked at her warmly from under his curls. 

You're so beautiful.

He smiled. "Happy birthday, Aphrodite."

They cocked their head and jutted their broad hip out. The slivers of naked mesh in their dress whispered their skin to him, like a secret. They batted their eyes. "You got a present for me?"

Heat rippled through him. Gods, they were sexy. They made him wild. One spiral was replaced by another. He ran his thumb over their hand. What if he pulled them in? What if he brought them right now into his arms and kissed them? What if he slipped his fingers into that hip high slit in their gorgeous dress and touched them and made them moan into his mouth? Here? In front of everyone? She cocked her knee, so the fabric slipped from her round, lavender thigh. There was a silver chain garter glistening on it, it's shine trickling temptingly onto her bare flesh. Fuck, what if he just dropped to his knees and went down on them right under the nose of the pastry sphinx? She licked her teeth. He pulsed. He sneaked his fingers from her grasp to tease the tender inside of her wrist. He bent his face closer. "I'll think of something."

She grinned like a jackal.

He opened his mouth to say it. Wanna get outta here?

"Let's go back, no melon is this fascinating." She gave his fingertips a final squeeze and nodded towards the couches.

He hesitated, heart thunking down, then smiled and pocketed his hands. "Yeah, seriously, that's the best you could come up with? How do you design a melon?"

"I don't know, ask Demeter."

They wandered back to the group. Aphrodite's brief absence had thinned it out and left some space to breathe. Amphitrite still occupied most of the longest couch, her spiral patterned arm draped on Poseidon's thigh as he perched next to her and absent-mindedly twirled his fingers in her hair. They each still had their stolen champagne glasses, repeatedly refilled now. Hermes sat across an armchair, leaning back on one arm with his legs slung over the other, the copper wings on his dress shoes catching a sheen under the fireflies. He was pouring a bottle of some rare craft beer down his throat like it was a cheap can of Classic Pomegranate. Demeter sat primly on the other armchair, sipping wine and adjusting the vine spiralling through her braid. Apollo reclined on a chaise as if he was posing for a frieze, while Artemis slumped on the floor, leaning back beside his legs, flexing her feet, her shoes discarded. He was cradling his lyre simperingly, playing a lilting ballad quite at odds with the bouncing dance number spinning out of the speakers.

Ares and Aphrodite exchanged a final glance and split up. He went back to leaning, a little more relaxed now, hands in his pockets. He felt her body move away from his like a bandage being ripped off. She tucked beside Amphitrite, who gave her knee an affectionate pat.

Apollo's fingers graced the lyre strings in one final, drawn out chord, his eyes closed, his expression one of studied emotion. The chime ghosted away. He slowly opened his eyes and looked sanctimoniously to the sky, as if thanking some elemental force. He bowed back to his instrument and moved to strike up again.

"Nope!" Hermes yapped.

Apollo's fingers skidded with a twang. He bristled and glared at Hermes, draped like a dropped burgundy scarf on the chair.

Hermes laughed brashly. "Sorry, Man, someone else's turn to do a party trick!"

Apollo’s hackles went up like a hedgehog about to be stepped on. “The lyre is not a party trick, Hermes, it is a refined instrument that takes years of-”

Artemis cut him off. “If someone wants to balance an apple on their head, I could shoot it off.”

Demeter frowned. “I don't think that would be wise.”

“Hold an apple in their mouth, then?”

Poseidon perked up. “How about I show you guys how to make dessert out of kelp?”

Hermes wafted his beer bottle about irritably. “OK, come on, children, I was obviously only saying that to get Aphrodite to volunteer.”

Aphrodite looked around at him. “Why me?”

The trickster grinned like a crescent moon. “Because you're new and interesting, and also you've already told me what your party trick is and it's fucking awesome.”

Ares shifted his weight and tried not to look curious.

Aphrodite rolled her eyes. “Hermes, being able to put a condom on someone using your mouth isn't that impressive.”

That image immediately smeared itself across Ares’ mind, grainy and gratuitous, so much so that he was amazed it wasn’t plastered all over with those clearly-a-virus ads you get on free porn sites.

Hermes snorted, flicking his wild hair. “First of all, yes it is, and second of all, I didn't mean that one.”

A little crease appeared at the top of her nose as she thought. She pouted. “Oh, so the thing where I can blow bubblegum in a heart shape?”

The heart swelled and popped behind Ares’ eyes, leaving her lips glossy and full, her jaw rolling.

Hermes tutted. “Nope.”

“You mean tying a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue?”

Alright, now the mental images were getting out of hand and Ares did not appreciate it.

“No.”

“Though, please also do that one,” Apollo added. Artemis punched his leg. He hissed at her with a sulky jut of his lip.

Hermes’ wings flapped eagerly. “I mean the thing where you guess people's biggest sexual fantasy just by looking at them.”

The group exploded into noises of disbelief.

“Oh, that one!” She called gleefully over the noise. “I can do that, yes.”

The commotion escalated, nervous laughter and wolf whistles colliding across the gilded flowers. Ares’ eyes went wide, his throat closing.

She laid a hand demurely to her cheek. “But, I don't know if…”

Amphitrite tickled her waist. “Come on, Sea Turtle, don't be shy.”

Hermes winked. “Yeah, you love being the centre of attention.”

Aphrodite fired a dangerous look at him. Ares prickled as mirth and daring thwipped between them. She planted her hand on the couch, leaned heavily, and glared at him over her bunched shoulder. “Fine, Hermes wants to have sex while flying.”

More wolf whistles. Hermes bit his lip.

Aphrodite continued with a spiked tone. “He wants to be soaring through the air while holding a girl up by her thighs and burying his face in her pussy. Then he wants to crash land into a pool full of nymphs and fuck en masse in the water.” 

Hermes let out a noise like a crow hitting a tree. “Shit, they’re not wrong!”

The group erupted into raucous cheering. 

Hermes swigged from his bottle then used it to point around the gathering. “Drink if she's right, she drinks if she's wrong.”

The gang mumbled agreement.

“Cool.”

“Sounds fair.”

“Oh, dear…”

The bottle levelled on Poseidon. “I'm passing the baton - Your Highness?”

Poseidon mock groaned and twisted to look at Aphrodite. They scoffed at the ease of it and tossed their hair. “That's common knowledge, mermaid threesome. Give me a challenge, at least.”

Poseidon raised his champagne glass with a broad grin and chugged it down.

Artemis wrinkled her nose, peering up at him from her slouch on the floor. “How would that even work? Can you do much to a mermaid?”

Poseidon shook his head, like a sage. “It's not what I can do to the mermaids, it's what the mermaids can do to me.”

Artemis looked like she was trying to work out algebra.

“You next, Lion Fish.” Poseidon stroked his wife’s hair.

Aphrodite swished to eye Amphitrite, but she held up a shimmering, scaled finger and spoke up brazenly with a queenly smirk. “No one reveals my sexual fantasies but me.” She turned to the group, green eyes bright. “Being tattooed while eaten out.”

That one got a few “ooos” and “aahs”. Hermes hummed and snapped his fingers. “Dang! Yes!”

Amphitrite bowed. Poseidon grinned down at her. “Gods, you're hot.”

She tweaked his chin, then fluttered her fingers at Apollo. “What about Studly over here?”

Apollo’s smile immediately fled. He looked warily at Aphrodite. She narrowed her eyes and scrutinised him. The corners of her mouth sloped. “Hmph. Missionary with the lights on, and afterwards the girl tells a bunch of hot friends that she's ruined for all other men.”

Artemis recoiled from his legs. Amphitrite blew a raspberry and gave him a sinking thumbs down. Hermes cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “booooriiiiing!”

Apollo crunched up and hugged his lyre, eyes flashing brass yellow. “Shut up!”

Hermes snickered. “Are they right?”

“This game is crass.”

“That means yes.” He glugged again then pointed at Artemis. “OK, let's get both the killjoy siblings over with.”

Artemis glared murderously at him. Ares could feel her anger barrelling at him like a stampeding stag with heavy antlers. He looked back to Aphrodite. He badly wanted to smile at the wicked joy they were clearly getting out of this, but he also very much didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

“Artemis isn't a killjoy at all,” Aphrodite said silkily. “She's got the spiciest one.”

Artemis whipped around to look at them with startled eyes.

Aphrodite leaned forward with a gravelly prowl in her voice and a wide, predatory smile. “A heady chase through the woods after a hunting man. Pounce, pegging, string him up, and have him watch her in an all female orgy.”

Artemis froze like a hare in headlights. Everyone’s eyes widened at her in silent surprise. She stayed frozen.

“Well?” Amphitrite pressed excitedly.

Ares was pummelled by the rage pouring off Artemis, she was virtually radioactive. He looked at the frozen girl, her slight figure crumpled protectively and her hard shield of pride fissured. He twitched. He stole into the feeling with a fine tendril of his powers and nudged it from frightened to defiant. Her eyes went almond and fierce. She grabbed her glass from the floor beside her and knocked back a mouthful of dark wine as she punched out her hand and violently flipped Aphrodite off.

The noise popped like a confetti cannon.

“HOT DAMN, ARTEMIS!” Hermes shrieked. 

Poseidon applauded riotously. Amphitrite released a giddy series of dolphin hoots and clicks. Ares hid a smile. Aphrodite lounged back leisurely with a velvet air.

Artemis rasped around the last drops of her wine and batted the attention away from her. “Demeter’s turn.”

Demeter hadn’t really been participating, sitting elegantly in her sleek, white dress and observing like an umpire. As all eyes turned to her, she politely shifted to face Aphrodite and lifted her chin with stiff dignity. “Uh-oh, the evils of drink. Alright, do your worst.”

Aphrodite inclined their head with equal elegance. They propped their elbow on the arm of the couch, curled their fingers under their chin, and rested their deep eyes on Demeter. The chattering wound down as they pondered. Ares watched. He wondered if they really needed this long, or if they were just enjoying making everyone wait. When they spoke again, it was quiet and lilting, everyone tipping forward and straining to hear. “That's actually very beautiful.” They lowered their hand and traced it across their heart. “Entwined on the floor of a greenhouse, sheltered from a storm, crowded by flowers.” The thunder hummed baritone outside, just audible beneath the music, bringing out the bass. “And it makes you pregnant.”

Demeter’s face softened. She regarded Aphrodite for a moment. Then she nodded gracefully and sipped her wine.

Sweet smiles fluttered around the gathering, like butterflies. 

Demeter lowered her glass and gestured to the fireplace. “Ares, seems I have to pass to you.”

Ares’ stomach hurtled. He stared furiously at Demeter, then towards Aphrodite. Their eyes were already on him.

Hermes twizzled to grin at him. “This one's gonna be good.”

Amphitrite laughed. “I know, right? I’ve been waiting for it.”

Ares’ mouth flattened. “I’m your nephew.”

She blinked, as if only just remembering. She grimaced and handed her champagne glass to Poseidon.

Ares slid his gaze awkwardly back to Aphrodite. It was like falling into a crystal cave. She interlaced her fingers on her crossed knee, cocked her head, and overwhelmed him with her sparkling eyes. He shrank back a little, summoning all his strength to stay standing.

Oh Fates, what is she seeing? Is it bad? Is it the one with the… Or the one where I… Or the one where she… Oh… Oh NO, DON’T THINK ABOUT HER, YOU DUMBASS. Aaaaand now that’s all I’m thinking about. Oooof course. Fuck. Fucking Tartarus. Fuck a faun sideways. Oh Gods, Beautiful, please stop looking at me.

He huffed out gruffly and folded his arms. “I promise I’m not that complicated, Aphrodite, get it over with.”

They peppered him with a don’t be cheeky anger that made his spine slink. 

He held their eye carefully.

They made a punishing show of looking him up and down, sending every other set of eyes his way, directing them around his body, like air traffic control. 

Well done, now she’s torturing you.

She looked away and folded her hands in her lap. 

Oh Gods…

She flicked her eyes back to him.

Egypt sounds nice this time of year…

Her voice clipped him like a winging swallow. “The God of War doesn't want his shared. I'll respect his wishes.”

“WHAT?” Hermes spluttered.

Apollo perked up jaggedly. “Wait, so everyone else's dirty laundry gets aired in public, but he's safe?”

Aphrodite shot him a guillotining look. “I wish your laundry was dirty, Apollo, it was depressingly fucking clean. Suspiciously so.”

Hermes threw his head back and guffawed. The group descended into exchanging quips. Aphrodite giggled in triumph at the hullabaloo and took a self-satisfied sip of champagne. 

She looked at Ares over her glass.

He had to work very hard to keep breathing.

“That can't be it, though,” Poseidon chirped over the mockery. “Oh! Do my brothers.”

Demeter frowned at him. “Who wants this information about their brothers?”

“Can confirm I didn't,” Artemis grumbled.

Apollo kicked her shoulder. She punched his leg. He balled up away from her, still hugging his lyre like a security blanket. She spun back to Aphrodite with a sudden burst of interest. “What's Hecate's?”

Aphrodite’s lips curled. “I think Hecate would be directing that orgy of yours with a cane.”

Artemis smiled tipsily and stuck her nose in her wine. Ares’ breathing levelled out again as the scrutiny migrated away from him. He kept his arms crossed defensively. 

“Hades!” Hermes announced elatedly. “Bet he's an absolute freak!”

Aphrodite laughed musically, taking up a tone like a compere at a burlesque show. “Aw, nooo! I mean, yeah, totally, but his biggest fantasy is actually super sweet.”

“Tell, tell, tell,” Poseidon chanted, slapping his thigh in time.

Aphrodite spread her hands, like a magician. “Brand new bed on the first night in the new house he built specially for her, after cooking her favourite meal and dining by candlelight. Fire in the hearth, rose petals on the sheets, lying side by side, close and slow and intensely connected.”

Amphitrite fanned herself. “Holy Hippocampus, I picked the wrong brother.”

Poseidon started. “Hey!”

She rounded on him with pursed lips. “He built her a special sex mansion, you get me comedy anniversary cards.”

“Well, I know which one I'd rather have.” He drank from both their glasses.

She rolled her eyes back to Aphrodite. “Right, if this queen had to fess up, tell us Hera's.”

Ares balled his fists under his arms, going rigid.

Aphrodite tick-tocked her finger. “No-no-no-no-no. Love goddesses don't piss off marriage goddesses by spreading their dirt.”

Ares unclenched.

“And how much will I regret asking about Zeus?” Poseidon chortled.

Ares re-clenched. But more.

Aphrodite’s silver chime laugh rang a little higher than usual. “You don't want to know Zeus.”

“Incorrect,” Hermes piped up.

She winced a little. “No, really.”

Hermes was alight with mischief, fidgeting and flighty. “Yes, really-really. Zeus! Zeus! Zeus!” He began to bang the back of the chair and chant. Artemis, Apollo, Poseidon and Amphitrite all picked it up, the parade drum of peer pressure getting louder and louder. Every bulldog bark of his father’s name wrenched another knot tight in Ares’ gut. He watched Aphrodite shoo at the marching band of insistence, laughing nervously and hiding behind her ringlets until…

“Ugh, FINE!” She tossed her hair off her face and sighed exaggeratedly. The gang stared expectantly, hyenas around carrion. She avoided their eyes. “Zeus' is… Hera.” She quietened. “But the way it would be if he hadn't ruined it.”

Silence.

Ares felt like he’d been kicked by a horse. The room swam. Nausea hit him. He planted his heels in the floor and clung to his jacket.

Voices carried on somewhere on the periphery of his awareness. Demeter’s diplomatic tone broke the sudden tension. “Alright, Aphrodite, everyone else had their turn. What about you?”

Her reply came to him as if he was underwater. “Mine is simple. I just want someone who can keep up.”

Bawdy laughter and mockery erupted again. Hermes began to conduct the next movement of the nonsense orchestra. Ares pulled himself away from the mantelpiece and strode hastily from the room.

It was all he could do not to run.

 

*

 

Aphrodite ascended above the party, the whirlpool of music and voices and tinkling glasses draining away as she crept around the third floor corridors, flinching at every creak that meant she might be about to get caught.

What did I have to go and say that for? Me and my big mouth.

They hovered at various ornate doors, listening through the distant churning of thunder and festivity for any sign he might be inside; the rumble of his breathing, heavy footsteps, breaking furniture… You never know.

They weren’t sure what made them pause at this one. They couldn’t hear anything, but something inside them anchored them there. They flexed their hands and slowly turned the handle. It looked like a disused study. Smelled like it too, the scent musty, like old paper. A mahogany desk had a film of dust on it. A standing lamp in the corner was unplugged. The wallpaper was dark green and going slightly dull at the corners. Maps and paintings were framed on the walls. There was a large portrait that appeared to be of Zeus and Hera, a bundled baby in Hera’s arms, but all three faces were obscured by a huge, black stain gouging out the middle of the portrait and splattering soot out across the picture. With a chill on the back of her neck, she realised it had been hit by flame. The damage was old; the last time this room had been used?

She heard fabric shift. She glanced about and her pulse tripped as she saw Ares was leaning against the wall beside her, only a few paces away. His head was dropped back, eyes closed, a half drunk bottle of beer limp in his hand. She pressed her lips together and stepped softly over the threshold. Her heels ticked on the floorboards. She shut the door with a soft thunk. “Hey.”

He didn’t open his eyes. “Hey.”

She twisted her hands together over her belly, looking at him cautiously. A velvet curtain across the room was half pulled back, lightning glimmering through it. She took another step towards him, as if walking on a minefield, heart in her throat. “I shouldn't have let them goad me into talking about your parents. I'm sorry.”

His eyes opened. He didn’t look at them. His chest was rising and falling purposefully. His voice was a tired drone. “It's fine.”

They stood beside him for a long, silent moment, waiting for him to say more, to turn to them, to do anything that might say they hadn’t ruined this. Her heart jittered like a drained engine and smarted. She wrung her hands harder, watching him wide-eyed. 

You can be mad at me, Ares. You can yell at me. Just say something.

He didn’t. He kept gazing dully at the lightning. The harsh flicker scored beneath his hard cheekbones. She took a breath, a last taste of his cologne. She nodded in understanding and turned to go, water welling in her chest.

“Why didn't you say mine out loud?”

They spun back to him, fragile hope fluttering in their chest.

He was eying her from under the vanilla tangle of his hair, one eyebrow slightly raised, mouth sullen, posture lazy. 

She faced him and put a hand on her hip, raising her eyebrow too. “Do you know what it is?”

“I've got an idea, but everyone else got to hear your guess.”

She sucked her lip and met his gaze steadily. She took a smooth step closer, her voice husking. “You want to be overwhelmed. You want to be conquered. You want your will and your wishes utterly bent to someone that you admire beyond all sense. You want to be taken away from yourself. You want to be reforged.”

He didn’t move, a caged lion looking through the bars.

Her pulse skipped. She kept her face blank. “Did I get it right?”

He didn’t speak. His face didn’t so much as twitch. 

He raised the bottle and took a drink.

He smiled.

Her smile flooded her body. She hugged herself and gave him a teasing look. “I thought it might conflict with the persona you have.”

His brow quirked. “What persona?”

“You know, Mr Man, hunky bad boy.”

There it was, that liquifying expression with fire in his eyes and one corner of his mouth pulled higher than the other. “You think I'm hunky?”

They snorted. “You think you're hunky.”

He grinned broader, sharper. “You think I'm a bad boy?”

“Definitely not.”

“I could be, how do you feel about a little danger?” 

“I work in love, I deal with danger every day.”

He bent down an inch with a stroking growl. “That's some brag to a war god.”

She flung her hands to her hips. “Oh, Ares, don't get into this pissing contest with me, you will not win.”

He boomed a thrilling laugh and looked away, taking another swig. “Fair enough.” He swallowed again and turned the bottle in his hands, eyes glimmering. “It's amazing how much you can learn about people from a drinking game, huh.”

She chuckled. “Why do you think they're so popular?”

He swivelled his headlamp eyes to her. “Wanna do another?”

“Back downstairs?”

“No, here. Just the two of us.”

Electricity sparked through her body. “OK. Where do they stash the good liquor?”

He grinned and strode to a cabinet by the desk. “Great thing about this place, even the abandoned rooms have booze somewhere.”

She glanced at the fire-wrecked portrait again. “I think they call that storage solutions.” She went to the small, plush sofa and dropped into it, crossing her legs and ensuring that the slit in the dress fell open to show her garter. She shook out her hair and propped her elbow on the sofa back. Ares returned with two bottles of ouzo, flashing crystal in a shadowed lightning strike through the curtain. He glowered at the storm. He marched to the curtain, closed it, and came back, rolling his jaw. He sat heavily beside her, heat lapping her. He handed her a bottle. They unstoppered them in unison and clinked them together. A dizzying, clean, aniseed scent rose into the air. He put his bottle on the floor, slid his jacket off, and rolled his shirt sleeves up over his forearms.

Aphrodite tingled. “You’re doing that on purpose.”

He flashed her a cocky grin, tried to sweep his hair from his eyes, and got it tangled in the laurel wreath. He flinched. “Ah, fuck.”

She laughed and watched him warmly as he unsuccessfully neatened the now lopsided crown. “What do you want to play?”

He picked up his ouzo and rocked back to spread his arm out across the sofa back, fingertips an inch from her elbow. “Lady's choice.”

They smacked their lips. “Never have I ever.”

“Let's do it.”

They exchanged a lit-fuse look and clinked their bottles again.

Aphrodite hummed in thought. “OK… Never have I ever been to a foreign underworld.”

Ares nodded in interest and took a drink.

She perked up. “Really? When?”

“I do not want to tell you that.”

“Why not?”

He sighed and scratched the back of his head. “School trip.”

“Aaaw!” She clapped her hand to her face. “Cute! Did you have packed jam sandwiches and a little high vis jacket?”

He laughed and prodded her raised arm. “No! I was a teenager!”

“Ah, I apologise, not cute at all, very mature and manly.”

“Shut up, Grandma!” He planted his face into his draped arm, shoulders shaking with laughter. 

She cackled and watched contentedly as his muscles relaxed under his crimson, fitted shirt. “Where’d you go?”

He looked up, strawberry red and smiling. “Egypt.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah that big ass crocodile thing is the shit.”

“I think they say that in the tomb carvings.”

He laughed again. Gods, he had a wonderful laugh. He cleared his throat. “Never have I ever patronised a hero.”

She didn’t drink.

He looked surprised. “Really? How have you not done that yet? You’re so old."

“Fuck off!” She slapped his arm and hiccupped as a shot of his desire hit her. She shrugged. “No, I guess it’s not my style. I don’t really care about one boy’s quest for fame and fortune. I’m not into slaying monsters and claiming thrones.” They drifted a little wistfully, looking into his eyes. “Falling in love is more heroic than any of those things, and I want everyone to have that.”

His gaze was amber and sunset. 

They wet their lip and continued in a soft voice. “Never have I ever had my own oracle.”

He didn’t drink.

They beamed. “I didn’t think you would, young whipper snapper. I literally only said that to segue into showing off.”

He grinned, the sparkle on his lips catching the low light.

She shimmied showily. “I ordain my first oracle tomorrow.”

“Hey, congrats!”

“Thank you very much.”

“You know what you’re gonna have them say?”

She shook her head, smiling. “Oh Fates, I have like three journals full. Peitho’s coming over for lunch tomorrow to help me narrow it down.”

He stretched out his fingers and stroked their elbow briefly. “Good luck.”

They bobbed their foot to his shin.

He swilled the ouzo in his bottle, grin turning mischievous. “Speaking of, never have I ever slept with Peitho.”

She made a noise like a bicycle bell breaking. “Cheeky bastard!”

He bit his lip. She splashed aniseed over her tongue while beating him with a cushion. He crumpled, laughing boisterously. “Jeez! OK! I’m sorry!”

She hit him again, then threw the cushion away. “Fine! That’s how you wanna play? Never have I fucking ever come too fast!”

He sat bolt upright, blushing like a lighthouse. “That is NOT fair! Everyone except you had growing into stuff to do!”

“Drink! You mother fucker!” 

He growled like a motorbike, collapsed back on the sofa, and poured ouzo down his throat. She watched his Adam’s apple move. 

She cackled triumphantly, then sobered, eyes wandering down his body. “Hey, so, are you… experienced?”

He choked on the ouzo. “Aph!”

They blushed. He’d never shortened their name before. They covered it with an innocent giggle. “What? I’m a sex goddess, I’m curious.”

He drew his shoulder up defensively. “I mean, come on, no one’s experienced compared to you.” He reddened even deeper. “I presume…”

“You are correct.” She kicked him lightly again. “Come on, I’m not asking for a body count or anything. Let me be nosey.”

He chewed his lip and regarded her warily. He rubbed the back of his neck and spoke gruffly to the ouzo. “Uh, OK. Did my first stuff probably too young. Was kinda a school bike. Then college, well, college started how it starts for everyone who goes to enough parties. Except I also kinda had a hot streak with a couple of professors."

She widened her eyes. "Oh, reeeeally?"

He grinned. "My roommate dubbed me the Mayor of Cougarville."

She gave him an indulgent look. "I hear you hold mayoral titles lifelong."

He bit his lip again. He chuckled and looked back at his bottle. "Second year, I had a steady boyfriend for a bit. But, he said I wasn’t taking my life seriously and he needed to stay on track or whatever. Then a rebound boyfriend who said I took things too seriously. But, shit, we were a disaster. Like on and off and fighting like crazy and making each other drink too much, cutting class to fuck, cheating then claiming we weren’t exclusive, sabotaging each other’s goes at getting healthy. My fucking rebound guy ended up taking longer to get over than my original guy. I had to move to a different part of campus and everything.” He huffed briskly. “Anyway. Then a girlfriend who thought I’d be useful for getting back at her parents. Then it got out that I was literally a prince, so she cooled off, but basically every other girl got interested. And that was fun, as long as I didn’t think about why they were all there. Bike again. War. War bike.”

“War bike?”

“Team bonding or whatever. People fight harder for people they’ve fucked.”

“Huh.” She took in his handsome features, his worked body. 

He looked at her and stiffened, his cheek twitching. “Uh, I mean, I lost my virginity at a reasonable, not concerning age, then had three to four mellow and committed relationships that ended mutually on good terms, and I’m only single now because I’ve been focusing on my career?”

She slipped her hand over her mouth and smiled. “I prefer the first story.”

“Yeah?”

She moved her hand to her cheek and leaned on it dreamily. “It’s messier. I respect people who are brave enough for mess.”

A pulse of warmth washed over her from a beat of his heart. He drummed his fingers on the bottle and spoke quietly. “I know it’s a lot worse if you’re not a guy, but people still said I was kinda damaged. Like, I slept around because of it and sleeping around made it worse.”

“Were you damaged?”

His heavy brow furrowed. “Yeah.”

“Did sex make you feel better?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I respect it. And I’m glad you slept around.”

He looked up, his expression achingly vulnerable. She dropped her hand to stroke his arm. “I mean, I wish rebound guy had been less painful. I wish it had all been less painful. But everyone’s damaged, Ares, and everyone deals differently. For some people, intimacy goes right out the window. It’s a quieter form of hurting yourself, and it gets an irritating amount of validation because no one has to look at your pain if you don’t act out. But I don’t think it’s any healthier. It’s still hurt. At least our way, we got some fun out of it.”

“Our way?”

“Whatever messes you have, I have thousands of years worth.”

He chuckled softly. He turned his arm over, so she was stroking the inside of his wrist, tracing over the hearty, golden veins. He brushed the curl of his fingers on her skin. “You’re a bad influence, aren’t you?”

She pushed her touch deeper. “The worst.”

He grinned and ran his fingers down her sensitive wrist to gently catch her hand. He brought it to his lips and kissed it. His lips were warm. He lowered her hand to the couch back and interlaced their fingers. Her heart skipped. She stroked her toe up his shin. “Your turn.”

He blinked, as if he’d forgotten they were playing the game. He thought for a moment. “Uh, never have I ever teleported.”

She swigged quickly. “No kidding!”

“I’m learning now. I am… not good.”

She squeezed his hand. “What’s wrong with it?”

“This isn’t how you play this game, you know.”

“It’s a game for gossip, I am an expert.”

He laughed and shrugged. “Ugh, it’s so dumb. I just go into the chaos, I look for my practice partner’s, like, what, energy signature? I go towards it and something always knocks me somewhere random.”

She frowned quizzically. “You look for an energy signature?”

“Yeah?”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? That’s how you do it.”

She drank again, buzzing with it, and shook her head. “Um, no?”

He narrowed his eyes.

She shifted in her seat, straightening up a little into teacher mode. “Ares, Honey, if teleporting were just this thing where we could taxi ourselves about by thinking of a stopping point, none of us would have cars or wings. Listen…” She curled her fingers to gather his hand into hers. It was like holding a stone warmed up for a massage. “Back in this old gal’s day, we didn’t call it teleporting, we called it being summoned.”

Ares’ face hardened into one of concentration. She tingled at how earnestly he listened to her.

“It’s not about finding someone in the chaos of all the other energies. It’s about that person being the only energy. It’s about being called, someone needing you, begging for you to be near them with their body and soul. And when that happens, you just let them bring you to them. If someone’s holding you in their heart, you’re already with them. It’s its own reality, the one you make between you through need and love and trust. And all you have to do is believe it.” They held his gaze levelly, their voice like the surge of a calm sea. “All you have to do to teleport is know that that person wants you and is calling for you. It’s not active, it’s passive. Let yourself be summoned.” She was prickling from alcohol, her breath was catching, tugging her voice to a whisper. “All you have to do is be drawn to someone.”

His maddening, moreish spice poured into them, a steady stream that made them swell. His hot ember gaze glimmered dark. He closed his grip on their hand, his strength surprising them. 

“Want to try it?” she murmured. “I could go to another room and…”

“No.” He said it firmly. His eyes fluttered to gaze at their wrapped hands. His chest rose. “No. Stay.”

She slid closer to him. Their knees touched.

“Never have I ever had a pet cat or dog,” she said distantly.

He snapped a little out of it. He drank, his lips gentle on the bottle. “Whoa, never?”

They smirked. “I lived in the sea.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Tell.”

He chuckled and ran his thumb over theirs. “I feel like we’re having an imbalance of stories here.”

“OK, ask me something.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it, closed it. He clucked his tongue and pouted. “I have no idea what to ask you, you’re all ancient and incredible. Anything I say will sound naïve.”

She giggled, bubbles in her belly. “Look, everyone’s interested in me, I talk about me all the time. I’m basically an anecdote and opinion factory. You’re not given enough curiosity.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I think there’s a reason for that.”

They scratched his hand with one pointed fingernail. “Let me be interested in you.”

“Hmph. Fine.” He swigged. “When I was nine, I had a dog called Buster. He was this mangy, beat up old thing I found in the kitchen dumpster scavenging. I kept him in secret for a bit, but you can guess how good nine-year-old Ares was at hiding stuff. Ma found out and let me keep him and got all his shots and stuff. But he died when I was eleven.”

Her eyes went wide and sweet. “Oh no, that's so sad. Was he sick?”

He grimaced and spoke in a flat, hurried tone into another swig. “Uh, no, Ma caught Dad with his secretary and the woman hit him with her car as she was escaping.”

“WHAT?”

“Yeah. It was not a good day.”

They gaped at him in horror. “Ares, that sucks!”

He shrugged, tone monotonous. “Yeah, I guess. Dad bought me a hamster. It was like a thing where I would get a hamster every time he fell off the waggon and imploded our family. Which worked out pretty well, because hamsters live for about one to two years. So the little dude would die and it'd be like, ‘oh, guess Dad's willpower is probably about to break.’ You know, like those people with scars that ache when it’s gonna rain. You could set your bastard watch by sick rodents. And, sure enough, following week or so, big blow up, various ripple effects, boom,” he jabbed with the bottle, “hamster.”

Aphrodite felt sick. Their mouth hung open, knuckles going white on their bottle. “Fates…”

He squeezed their hand. “It's OK, I don't remember a lot from it.”

“Yeah, trauma will do that!” they snapped.

His desire hurtled into her again, confusing her emotions and nearly making her moan. His eyes were ablaze, they almost hurt to look at. “You’re angry.”

“Yeah!”

“That means a lot.”

She faltered. She relaxed herself and looked at him gently. He looked so much older than twenty-three.

She put her bottle down and slid close to him. She stroked the soft back of his hair, tugging his curls a little. Curry spice made their mouth water. They could feel him melting under their touch. Everything in them was screaming to fold him into their body and take his pain away. He looped his arm around them, the cool bottle touching their bare back. It made them arch a little towards him, the mesh slices in their dress stretching wider over the shimmer of their flesh. His eyes fell down their body and ignited, then closed. He sighed low and ducked his face to theirs. Their heart leaped. Their lips parted.

He pressed a kiss to their forehead. 

She bit her tongue as a sound of thwarted desire thrummed up her throat, followed by a swallowed whimper at the warmth of his lips.

He drew back and caught her eyes again, a ruby clarity in his gaze. “Don’t pity fuck me.”

She darted back an inch, face rushing hot, hand whipping back. “W-what?”

He kept his arm around her, his face so close she could taste the aniseed on his breath. “You’re that exact sweet spot between confrontational and kind and it’s making me say a lot of shit that’s at the surface at family parties. I am not telling you this stuff so you’ll think I’m tragic and give me medicine.”

“I know, I’m not…”

“Never have I ever been attracted to someone because I thought I could save them.”

She felt like a ship crashing into a cliff. His gaze was unmoving. She pressed her back onto his ouzo bottle to desperately cool herself. He kept gazing at her, no anger, no judgement, but completely inescapable. 

She scowled, bent, snatched up her bottle, and glugged irritably. “I’m not saying it’s you, though!” she insisted.

“Neither am I,” he said stoically. “Keep it that way.”

She huffed and poked her tongue out at him. She tapped his nose with the bottle. “Do you actually like hamsters?”

He scoffed. “Who doesn't like hamsters? I have a heart, thank you very much.”

“OK.”

“Have you seen their tiny, round, fluffy bodies? Have you seen their big cheeks? They are perfect blessings.”

She shattered the embarrassment with laughter. “You’re adorable. Well, I vow no pity sex, but I am going to ensure that one day you live in a house with non-trauma-related hamsters in it. Happy hams only for Ares.”

He laughed and beamed, sunshine ripping through the cloud. He squeezed her hand so hard it ached. She loved it. They swished their hair and gave him a teasing smile. “You know, all the hottest girls have daddy issues.”

“It’s true!” He tickled her back.

She giggled, shivering, tucking into his arm. She untangled their fingers and tugged his hand to direct him to put his other arm around her too. He obeyed thoughtlessly, scooping her even closer, so she could barely see beyond his eyes, like she was inside a forge. She massaged the tactile muscle of his shoulder. “Take another turn, I’ve done too much, I can’t think of anything.”

His eyes roved down her body, bathing her in heat. They flicked back up, smouldering. “Never have I ever gone commando to a king's birthday party.”

She rippled with mischief. Her bare pussy tingled. She raised the bottle and slipped her lips around the tip, sucking softly as she took a slow, sensual, suggestive mouthful. She stroked her foot up his shin and crossed her exposed leg over his lap, her thigh drawing up near his crotch. The chain garter glittered ruby in his glow. Ares shuddered, his hips writhing a little. Her senses clouded with drugging spice. He smiled ruefully and collapsed to crush his brow helplessly to her shoulder. “Oh, I fucking knew it. Kill me.”

She burst into deep, quivering giggles and nuzzled his hair, breathing in his citrus shampoo and teasing the back of his neck. She whispered into his ear. “Never have I ever made myself come by thinking about someone in this room.”

His head flew back up, his cheeks cherry bright, his voice hoarse with a note of panic. “We're the only ones in this room.”

They held his eye deviously.

He gave her a long, uncertain, effervescent look. He slowly took the bottle from behind her back and drank.

She drank too.

His eyes widened. “Hey, you drank!”

She licked an aniseed droplet off the lip of the bottle. “I lied, I wanted to know.”

His chest bounced rapidly as his breathing sped up. His want was seizing her, tormenting her. She couldn’t stop gazing at all the details of his body; the dip between his collar bones, the glitter on his eyelids, the hewn jut of his jaw, the creases of his shirt around his bicep, the tightening of his suit trousers just above her thigh. She bent her knee to enclose his legs in hers. She leaned and put her bottle down. She took his and set it down too. She placed his arm back around her and rubbed both of his shoulders, stroking down to his chest and up around his neck, then back to the dense muscle. She could feel his pulse under his skin, skipping and sanguine. She idly ran her fingernails on the seams of his shirt, wondering if she could slice through them.

Thunder rolled.

His face tensed. He looked down, shoulders hardening under her touch. “Aphrodite, I gotta ask you something.”

“Yeah, Honey?”

He took a breath and laid his hands tenderly on the small of her back, caressing her a little. “Has my dad been hitting on you?”

She stilled. 

He sighed. “I know it’s a mood killer, I just…” He chewed his tongue. “It’s better to know before than after.”

She prickled with anger at Zeus, but squashed it down, it wasn’t what Ares needed. She cupped his face and brought his gaze back up to meet hers, steady and honest. “A little. And remember, we’ve known each other some time. Over that time, he has, yes. Occasionally.”

Ares’ brow buckled.

She clasped his face and spoke firmly. “I have never acquiesced. He has never laid a hand on me. I don’t like him.”

Ares’ expression smoothed, still a little sore. He turned his face and kissed the inside of her wrist, sending a ribbon of pleasure down her vein. “I’m really sorry to ask,” he said quietly. “Just… he is the king. It’s… hard for a lot of people to resist.”

She tutted and nodded. “I get it. I’m not mad.” She lightened her tone a little, thoughtful, but comfortable. She crossed her wrists at the back of his neck and relaxed so he had to hold her up in his big, strong arms, pressing his warm touch to her bare skin in the backless dress. “Yeah, no, I don't know, he just doesn't attract me. Never has.” She rubbed her lips together as she put her words in order, Ares watching her curiously in that way that made her feel like a treasured pearl. “People here are so wrapped up in the fact that I take care of love and casual sex and sex work. Like those things somehow dirty each other. Like people on Olympus are the types who don't like all the foods on their plate to touch.” She chuckled, then looked into his eyes softly. “But, what I actually take care of is sexual connection. You can be married to someone for half a century, or you can not even know their name, or you can be paying them, you can still have a deep sexual connection. Or they can be inconsequential to you, just a receptacle for your stresses and your arousal. My job,” they beamed, “my passion, is to create intimate moments, whether they're a few minutes or a whole life long, in which people really connect. And Zeus?” They shrugged dismissively with a wrinkle of their pretty nose. “He doesn't strike me as someone who has sex with people, he does sex to people. I don't work with that and I don't want it for myself.” She shook off the idea and settled into his darling warmth. “I want connection.” Her body plumed like smoke towards him, her fingers winding into his hair. She dropped her voice to a whisper, woven through with a hum of desire. “I want someone who really feels me, who lets me into all his senses, who holds me at his centre while we're together, who wants me wildly, beyond thought and conviction and lazy impulse.” They smiled with glinting teeth. “Even if only for a night. Even if only for a moment.”

Ares swallowed. She could feel the tremors and pulses and surges in his body beating against her. Everything tasted of cumin and aniseed and burning. Her thigh brushed over his lap. His hands pressed on her back.

“I can understand that,” he husked.

“You can?” they asked, batting large eyes.

“I…” he was breathing raggedly, “I think you can have that.”

“I think everyone can, if they find the right person. And they let their body call to that person.”

He cleared his throat. His undercurrent of nervousness was deliriously enjoyable. “Oh?”

They nodded with a melodic hum. “That's one of my special skills. I can tell when someone's body is calling out.”

His arms closed a little tighter around them. “You can?”

“I can.” She lightened again. “And Zeus' doesn't. He just whines with some buried part of himself that he hurt long ago and doesn't trust himself to heal.”

Ares nodded. His gaze drifted to her mouth. “How can you tell when someone's body is calling out?”

She stroked around his neck to lift her hand away and lay it over her chest. His eyes dropped automatically to her breasts. She tapped her heart. “I just feel it. It’s like running your fingertip along a cord that’s pulling taut between two people.” She moved her fingertips slowly in a straight line through the tiny space between them, the fine, thrumming web coming to life in her senses. She followed it to Ares’ broad, glimmering chest and laid her hand over his heart. 

He folded his hand over hers and held it there, his blush glowing like a paper lantern. He gazed down at the space between them, shrinking and widening with their deep breathing in rhythm with each other, their chests rising together and falling away. He spoke almost inaudibly to the invisible cord. “When we met the second time, when we knew who each other were. I was afraid of you knowing about my position, my work. I thought you would think it was ugly. What with what you do. I didn't want you to think I was ugly.”

She stroked her thumb on his shirt. “Why would I think that? Fates know, we all fuck mortals over for a living.”

He lifted his eyes with a dry kink to his brow. “But we don't all do that exclusively.” He dragged his teeth over his lip, leaving it honey gold. “Sex is a gift, war isn't.”

Aphrodite’s heart ached. “You don't inflict war on them, Ares.”

“No?” he asked sardonically.

She shook her head, stroking his hair and his hard chest. “We aren't architects, we're…” She thought for a second, pursing her lips. “We’re chemists. People fuck, people fight, they'd do that anyway. We just know what combinations and conditions get the best reactions. Without gods like you, there'd be just as much violence, but no honour, no camaraderie, no glorious victories or ingenious turning of the tables, no coming back from the brink, no final stand, no three hundred strongest holding the line, no poetry.” She smiled as if telling him a secret. “We're why they write poetry about their basest selves.”

He took this in. She watched him absorb it and ponder on it.

“Ares?”

“Mm?”

“I've never heard anyone else here say that sex is a gift. Thank you.”

He gazed into her eyes with a look of such wonder that she almost floated into the air. He ran his hand slowly up her back to tilt her forward. “Everything about you is a gift, Aph.”

She sucked her lip and steadied herself, voice coming a little tremulous. “Then, you too, because you know what we are, Ares?” She pressed his chest. “We are the Gods of the Heart.”

He gave her his lopsided smile. “I don't think I know my heart that well.”

“It's a muscle, it just needs to be used.”

He grinned. “Who by?”

Their eyes glittered. “Whoever you like.”

He kept smiling his hot smile. He took his hand from over hers and deftly undid his shirt down to the base of his pecs, the fabric wilting open to show his defined, golden chest and, to Aphrodite’s delight, a ruby glimmer under the skin. It was the same as his eyes, but this painter’s streak spread from his huge, glowing, red heart. She gazed transfixed. He took her hand, sneaked it into his shirt, and pressed it to his heart on his bare skin. The ruby glow seeped through their fingers. It pounded under her touch, a cantering chariot. 

“Can you feel that?” he whispered fervently. “Damn thing beats so fast around you.”

“I can feel it,” they whispered back, breathless, captivated. She closed her eyes and the world became his heartbeat. She opened her senses to it and all her powers converged on it fiercely. The powerful thumps slammed into her and drowned her own pulse, possessing her, charging her, like she was hooked up to a battery. She was flying. She was rooted. He was intoxicating. It was like being back in the ocean; the pressure and flow and raw, elemental, primal, original spirit. It was like what she felt, what she clung to, what she swam with all her strength towards, the day that she was born. Games and seduction and attraction were consumed in a new, ravenous emotion.

Ares was essential.

“Aphrodite, I…”

“Sh, don't speak.”

She carefully rested her temple to his and took a slow, silent breath. She could smell ouzo and cologne. The end of existence would smell like ouzo and cologne. She pressed harder, her body rending inside, screaming for him, his extraordinary heartbeat pulsing in her clit and making her tremble.

His head moved beside hers, bowing softly. His lips brushed her neck. He kissed her there gently. So gently it almost broke her heart. She took a quavering breath and craned to plead for more. His sigh went through her. He eased into kissing her neck deeply, just over her jugular, in the supple hollow of her throat. His mouth stroked over her thrumming skin. His tongue slowly, hesitantly, emerged and began to stir her flesh. 

“Oh my…” She flooded with craving.

He groaned under his breath. The hand over hers on his chest moved to her thigh and grazed up to the garter, his fingertips playing on it. She rippled. He kissed their neck again. And again. He pulled them close and circled harder with his scalding tongue, whipping up the heat in their blood. The sensation cascaded down her spine. She moaned high and arched into his body, fingernails digging into his chest around his heart, as if she could rip it out. He snarled and his kisses turned ardent. He gripped her thigh, making her buck with need. He hugged them tight with the arm around their waist and lifted them so their head cast backwards and their throat and chest opened for him, quivering like the skin of a beaten drum with their desperate breaths and racing pulse. He opened his mouth hungrily against their skin. He kissed down their neck, across their bobbing larynx, and down along their collar bones. He padded his lips over their shoulder, hooked the strap of their dress with his teeth, and pulled it down. He kissed back to their neck and lapped deeply. He kissed down and lingered over her heart. He kissed her chest, misted with the heat. He kissed the rise of her breasts, trailing his tongue over them. Her tender flesh flared with need. 

“Fates, Ares…”

His tongue travelled in tormenting serpentines up to the hollow just beneath her ear. She shook with the tickling. He growled softly in the depths of his chest. His whisper crept through her and seized her core. "Tell me what you want."

She combed her fingers through the roots of his hair and rubbed his pounding, glowing heart, purring, her lips curling. “Mmmm, you mean it?”

“Uhuh. Talk to me, Beautiful, I'll do anything you want.”

She let out a breathless laugh. “Most people go for love goddesses because we’re good at giving them what they want.”

He smiled against her skin. His grip on her thigh smouldered. He kissed the shell of her ear. “Warriors look for honour. Right now, I can’t think of a higher honour than your pleasure.”

She gasped and dissolved into the centre-of-the-earth heat radiating from him. “Oh... Fates… Honour me, Honey.”

“It fucking takes me apart when you call me that.”

His teeth grazed their jaw. He sighed and swept her to dip back, her hair tumbling to the floor, holding her close so she wouldn’t fall. His mouth covered her body feverishly. He scratched a little on the tingling underside of her thigh and submerged her throat and chest in kisses, somehow both feverish and steady, indulging deeply, bringing every spot his lips touched to sizzling sensitivity before flickering the tip of his tongue to his next target. They clung to his shirt collar for dear life and sighed and giggled deliriously. He spread fire across their skin, leaving swirls of twinkling gold from the glitter on his lips, bathing them in sunshine. She could still feel his heartbeat inside her, galloping like wild horses.

“Honey…” they moaned. “Honey… Honey… Honey…”

Every time she said it made him hum under his breath, sweeping heat over his tongue. She beamed to the stormy sky and melted into pleasure. This was it. It was finally happening. She surged with need.

The door clicked. A footstep thudded to the floorboards. “Sir?”

Ares jumped out of his skin. He jolted like a rabbit and let go of Aphrodite.

“AH!” She squealed and fell to the floor with a hard bump on her ass.

Ares stared in horror down at her. “SHIT! Aph, are you OK?” He scrambled to help her up, standing with her as she picked herself up with her hackles spiking and her hair in a tangle. They wheeled to the door. A nymph servant was standing stiffly with wide eyes and his mouth clamped tight.

“KNOCK!” Ares roared.

The servant jumped. “I… I did.”

“KNOCK LOUDER!”

He nodded hastily, stammering. “Forgive me, Sir. They’re cutting the cake. The queen requests your presence.”

Ares glared at him, like a detonating bomb, the red glow from his open shirt looking extremely hazardous.

Aphrodite quickly put a hand on his arm. He flexed his neck and pulled himself back to her, still glimmering, but with his expression softening, mostly to one of intense reluctance.

It took all her willpower not to smite the nymph, or the cake, or both. She sighed out a lingering bout of trembling and murmured, “we should go.”

He plastered his hand down his face and rounded on the servant with a leonine growl. “Be there in a sec.”

The nymph bowed, his ears flat against his head, like a terrified pony. He backed out of the room, leaving the door ajar in his hurry. 

Ares turned back to Aphrodite. He looked wrecked, his shirt open and pulled to an angle, his hair in tufts around the laurel crown, his face like a smashed pomegranate. She couldn’t deny, it was rather pleasing to behold. She started to neaten him up as he stood paralysed.

“I… But… Uh…” he stuttered desperately.

They stroked his cheek, smiling thinly. “Our fucking timing.”

He looked at her another moment, then released an infuriated, exhausted, laughing groan, and hung his head. She took the opportunity to fix his hair. He let her touch him, vaguely pawing at her hips. When he looked back up, he still looked dishevelled, despite her best efforts. She fastened the final button beneath his collarbone and stroked his chest. His gaze smoked. He looped his arms around her and teased the dip at the base of her back. “Our fucking timing.”

She chuckled darkly through her nose and lined her body to his, skating her hands up his tensed arms to curl on his biceps. Her flesh thrummed at the nearness of him, his scorched scent. She kissed his jaw and brought her lips to his ear in a satin command. “Find me later.”

His breath snagged. He evened it out with a strangled sound and nodded. He dragged his cheek down her temple as he pulled away, their lips passing close and their foreheads pressing briefly. Every tiny motion to separate stung them both as if they were connected by pinned threads. They hovered in each other’s arms for as long as they could. Aphrodite stood incredibly still to contain the turmoil inside her, the cacophony of urges to seize him and strip him and ignore the world waiting for them downstairs.

They gave him the smallest push.

He groaned again and stepped away like a sack of stones. He looked at her with his kindled embers gaze. She tingled viciously. He shook his head, smiled, and strode from the room. She watched his sculpted back vanish with a carving feeling.

Her stomach somersaulted.

“Oh my fucking Gods,” she snarled. They clutched their hair and began to pace. “Seriously? Cake? The fucking cake? How old are you, you fucking oversized eggplant?” They batted a magazine off a table, like a sulking cat. Their body was resounding with desire and sensation, their clit was burning, their nipples were like striking matches, their pulse pounded and rocked their balance, their legs were weak, their skin felt laced with steam. They kept curling their fingers like talons, clawing the lost moment back, dragging their touch down his absent body. 

Gods, his body.

It haunted her. Everything he’d told her, the pain, the mess, the passion, the gruff boom of his laugh, the glorious heat that came off him and made her foolish. His heartbeat still echoed around her, as if she was trapped inside a clanging bell. She could live in that heartbeat. She wanted him moving inside her in its exact rhythm, kissing her, biting her, whispering to her with that breathless fever.

“Tell me what you want.”

She hissed in agony. “Oh Goooods, I hate this.” She raked her fingers down her curves, chasing a ripple of lingering pleasure. “I love this.” She groaned luxuriantly and closed her eyes, brow creasing, tongue quivering. 

His mouth…

She hugged herself and shivered.

His hands…

She bit her thumbnail.

Love gods REALLY aren’t built for this many interruptions.

There was pleasure in that boy, pleasure like you only found on hot coals. And he was so ready. Wild and kind and wanting and angry and hurting and just tearing through the world grasping for feeling. His body was crying out for love, to cherish it, to give it, to create it. There was so much love and need inside him and all he wanted was to give and burn and lock himself to someone who would treat him like an addiction. It was heart-breakingly sexy. He was everything she knew and adored, she could work him like copper and make him happier than he knew was possible. 

She needed him to be happy.

Her coursing lust tipped into grief and rage as she thought of what he’d been through, what he was still going through, the madness of how no one saw how special he was, including himself. She lost her breath. 

It wasn’t meant to feel this important…

But it did.

And she was empty without him against her. The palace suddenly felt cavernous. Every inch separating them felt cavernous. 

She took a careful breath and counted to ten, taming her hair and patting her cheeks and chest cool. 

OK, calm… Calm… 

Calm...

UGH.

They shook their dress straight and set off with unstable knees back to the party.

He had better find me later, so help me, Fates…

Chapter 14: “All the times I’ve thought about this…”

Summary:

Zeus' party draws on and takes a turn. As Aphrodite surrenders to a cocktail of ouzo and power, she finds herself contending with enemies and her own wild nature. If only there was a handsome prince here to come to her aid...

Ballroom song: Outrageous, Britney Spears (playing the muse Erato)
Couch to closing song: When Your Eyes Say It, Britney Spears (playing the muse Erato)

A second update in the same week? Whaaaaaat? Don't get used to it, but love you guys for tolerating the whiplash experience of my posting schedule, and for all your ongoing support. You're the best! x

[CW: Smoking, allusions to affairs and emotional abuse, heavy drinking and out of control drunkenness, (thwarted) predatory sexual behaviour. It is broadly nicer to read than that list made it sound.]

Adrian listened to the tottering tap of Aphrodite’s stilettos fading away. He poked his head around the corridor corner. The coast was clear. He released his tightly held breath and flicked his ears forward again. Gods, Ares' temper was something else.

Why is it always me that has to walk in on stuff? This fucking house... Oh well, has its benefits...

He shook himself and crept to the phone placed on the hallway table. He hurriedly clicked in a number and hovered on the balls of his feet, muttering at the dial tone.

“Come on, come on…”

The phone rang.

“Come oooon…”

A bored drawl crackled onto the line. “Panoptes: Eyes on Olympus. You've got Acteon.”

“I've only got a second, can you talk?” Adrian hissed urgently.

Acteon’s drawl sounded more bored. “Question is, can you?”

“I just saw something.”

“Oh, yeah?” 

Adrian swallowed, staring down the corridor for signs of movement. “His Highness, Ares, and the Lady Aphrodite.”

Acteon’s voice buzzed warmer. “Yeah?”

Adrian strummed the phone cord nervously. “I walked in on them in a private room, and they were… doing the things you do in a private room.”

“No, shit!” The journalist sounded uncomfortably keen. “You caught them having sex? At the big man's special day?”

“Well, not exactly, but if I'd been a minute later.”

“Did you get pictures?”

Adrian recoiled. “Oh, yeah, tons, in fact there was a very helpful tripod set up in the doorway.”

He could virtually hear Acteon scratching the stubble on his neck. “Look, you know how it is, without pictures it's not much of a sensation. Especially if all you got was a near miss. Every time those randy fuckers look at each other is a near miss.”

“Not tonight,” Adrian insisted. “I heard her tell him to find her later. That’s gotta be worth something.”

Acteon sucked in through his teeth, grating in the receiver. “OK, OK, we can work with that. Which room would he take her to?”

“I don't bloody know! You’d think his bedroom, but if he’s anything like his old man…”

“Figure it out,” Acteon said sharply. “And you remember that video camera I leant you?”

Adrian shrank back. “Yes…”

“You remember how to set it up?”

“Yes.”

“So set it up.” A smile slippery as an eel was in his voice. “Inconspicuously.”

Adrian’s stomach turned. “T...tape them?”

“Yeah.”

“Like...while they're…”

“No, Adrian, while they're playing checkers,” Acteon snapped like the tail of a fish hitting a rock. “Of course while they're screwing. Get it on tape and you can retire, my friend.”

Adrian’s eyes went round. “It's really worth that much?”

“It is to me.”

“O...OK.”

“Great.” The receiver crackled with Acteon’s breath. “Good work.”

“This feels sleazy.”

“That's why it's gonna pay so well.” 

The call clicked off.

Adrian stood in the hollow bleep of the dial tone. He slowly replaced the phone and hugged his middle. He set off back towards the party, tugging at his bow tie. He veered off towards his quarters.

In the end, he decided to put the camera in the abandoned study he’d found them in. No one ever came in here, he had only come across them because he’d been sent looking for the prince and taken that corridor as a shortcut and heard the… the noises they were making… 

No, this was too gross.

He snapped the tape slot shut on the camera and took a breath. The mustiness of the room stirred his nausea. Acteon had been good for the occasional rainy day over the past couple of years. Enough tip-offs for where Zeus was meeting his latest flings could buy a guy a second hand car. Besides, the king was a nightmare employer, and the queen was rude. But Ares… Adrian had never gone after him before. The kid created a lot of crossfire, which was no fun to work around, but he wasn’t that bad. He stuck up for them, sometimes, with his parents, and he never asked for anything. 

Yeah, this was wrong.

He looked around the room. He blinked in surprise that no one had ever taken that fire-balled painting down. He’d been new here when that happened, never seen a kid throw a fireball, never heard a row like it in his life. Until, you know, the next time. And the next. And the next. 

Actually, Ares was pretty messed up.

This place was messed up.

And with this pay out, he’d never have to come back…

“Fuck them.”

He squared his shoulders, pushed the big, red button on the camera resolutely, and slotted it among a stack of books on a dark shelf.

The party thrummed under his feet.

 

*

 

The music had an edge to it now for Aphrodite. Synths and violins sawed over her flesh and every drumbeat reawakened Ares’ pulse in her memory. She watched him simmer with frustration and soreness as he was dragged into his status, posed for photographs, showed around celebrities and dignitaries like a new antiquity acquired for a museum. No one made eye contact with him. His eyes had a ferocity you needed to be able to match. 

She felt a tug in her ribcage as he was enveloped in the bustle, his mother steering him subtly by his elbow. She rubbed her arms, irritatingly cool since leaving his embrace, and wandered through the dispersing movement around the freshly sliced birthday cake. There were an absurd number of tiers teetering on the platter. They subtly rolled their eyes at Zeus’ mundane bids for attention. They wondered bitterly how it must feel for such a fragile man to have a son with so much passion. Without the lure of Ares’ mouth to soothe her, she found herself turning his words over and over in her mind; the way his father ran like toxins in the water he drank, a constant drip drip drip of pain, building slowly over the years until it had riddled his body before anyone noticed he needed taking away. She glanced about the grand, shining palace. A golden cage for a golden boy. They balled their fists. How satisfying it would be to give him pleasure here, to claim this prison for a hot, happy memory, to desecrate his father’s lair with real, heartfelt lust. Then to drag him home and cut power to the phones and burn the calendar and drown themself in that body for days. They bit their lip hard.

Alcohol had tarnished her shield. And everyone else's. As the night grew late, guards dropped and emotions bubbled to the surface. The distinctive Olympus sourness of feuds and rivalries and endless masking pushed into her senses. Ares must be able to feel it too, the bitterness, the cut-throatness. Gods, they could have been away from it, wrapped up in each other, all this bland coldness drowned out by the cacophonous beating of his divine heart. 

Damn Zeus.

"Aphrodite."

She spun around, head spinning a little longer than her body.

Damn, Zeus.

Zeus stood over her, like a column of swirling storm cloud in his spiralled hair and lightning white suit. The slime of flattery was absent from his face. "Might I have a word with you in private?"

Her stomach thudded. She forced a stiff smile. "Sure."

He gestured genteelly and they followed him up the stairs to a third floor corridor, the eyes of the grand portraits leering down at them. He led them to one of the ornate doors and opened it for them. They inclined their head and walked into the room, rolling their tongue in their mouth to extinguish the flavour of him checking out their ass. The door clicked closed. This must be his office. It was severely furnished, hard edges and masculine, mahogany tones. There was a bowl of plumeria on the desk and richly coloured paintings of the Mortal Realm adorning the walls. It smelled overwhelmingly of tobacco. 

Zeus strode past them and to the desk. He perched on the edge of it, reached into his pocket, and withdrew a gilded cigarette case. Aphrodite watched him, staying near the door, their fingers twining over their belly. Lightning threw the room into black and white. When it faded, Zeus' cigarette was lit and glinting sickly orange from between his startling teeth. It outlined his black pupils. He held out the case to them. 

She shook her head. "Thanks, I don't."

"Oh, that's right." He pocketed the case, snipped his cigarette between his fingers, and took a long drag. He slipped the cigarette from his lips and blew lilac smoke in a stream between them. Aphrodite's nostrils flared. He regarded her through the mist. 

The silence crawled under her skin. She ticked her stiletto. "What is this about, Zeus?"

He replied in a wry tone around another billow of smoke. "The funny thing about being an immortal king is that having heirs becomes a strictly academic issue. They're never actually going to inherit. You're going to hold the throne forever."

Aphrodite frowned. "Sure. Many ongoing happy returns."

He puffed again. Her nose itched. His feathered shoulder pads looked like jumbled knives in another stark flash from the window. "It makes it a rather fruitless expedition to pursue their sons."

Aphrodite went ice cold.

"Please," he laughed once through his nose. "It's not as if I've had you followed, you've been parading your interest in him about for days and days. Even tonight. I notice you disappeared and reappeared a tactical number of seconds apart."

Smoke swirled.

She could suddenly see him in this room. The secretaries, the models, the servants, the delivery drivers. This space oozed with it. She felt clammy. She weighed denial. It felt weak. She levelled her violet glare on him. "You really think the only reason someone could be interested in your own son would be position?"

He sneered. "Can you blame me? The boy's not exactly a walk in the park."

She snapped her fists to her sides with a convulsion of anger. A hundred images of Ares flung through her mind. Sweet, protective, open, laughing, hurting Ares. "He is the finest thing about this place."

Zeus' smile slithered away. His expression hardened, eyes gleaming through a gash of shadow. "He's dangerous."

They scoffed. "To who?"

"He's volatile."

"So. Am. I."

"Exactly." He ground his teeth, the tiny flame of the cigarette fizzing. "We are all working hard to help him find a healthier version of himself. I am asking you not to make that process more difficult than it already is."

Aphrodite threw their head back and laughed maniacally. "Healthy? Healthy? You sure have some interesting definitions of that."

All of it was ringing in her skull, the way he talked about Ares, the way he talked to him, the jibes, the blame, the control, the instability, the fucking hamsters. She wanted to tear through the smoke and scratch his face. She wanted his blood under her fingernails.

Zeus watched her, his expression brewing like the clouds outside. "I'm warning you, Aphrodite, as a friend. He's immature. He can't handle you. If you inflict yourself on him, he'll try to rise to what you are and he won't be able to match you and it will break him." His voice darkened and sliced through the smoke. "You don't know him. Everything I do, I do to keep him sane."

Aphrodite's fingernails almost skewered her palms. Their nerves crackled like a nebula storm. Ares' profound, glorious heartbeat roared in her ears. "Sane is just the word you use for compliant. Ares is a force of nature unlike anything the realms have seen since the primordial. You know that and you're running scared." Her eyes steeled, her mouth bloomed into a proud pout. She took a few prowling steps towards him, lavender smoke kicking up around her feet and rising and thickening, the rich scent of blue lotus engulfing the spindly trail of his cigarette, the sound of the sea snarling over the thunder. "I know you believe you will fall to him. And I know that, before him, I was the only other god you feared." Their pupils glowed moon white. Lightning flashed and skittered down the sequins of their dress. "Aphrodite, the most beloved. Aphrodite, Common to All. Her cult most ancient. Her reach most far. She who could call them all to her with a snap of her fingers and deflate your fucking bouncy castle of a court in a moment. Do you think I need a crown? Little Man, that is not how I rule. You don't need the top of the mountain when you have a stronghold in every human heart. Pursuing Ares for your throne? Please." They mimicked his arrogant, nasal laugh. "The likes of us are beyond your trinkets. You think I came here to sit in your baby high chair? I came here to redefine the concept of power, to declare the sovereignty of every heart in the realms. He is fire and I am ocean and this palace is nothing but sand to gods such as us." She chuckled low and the floor quaked. "No wonder you don't want us together." 

A thin vein of blinding electricity webbed Zeus' hand, frying the cigarette to ash. The look on his face was wary, but ugly. Aphrodite rolled her shoulders and summoned her spreading power back. Her eyes dimmed and recoloured. The sea surge rolled into the thunder outside. The blue lotus fragrance lingered. She smirked. "Or, at least, that's what you fear, isn't it? But consider, Birthday Boy, that maybe there are a few things in this world not about you and your power struggles. I am not seeking to weaponise your son. Only one of us does that. Your throne is safe. It would be safer if you were good to him."

He glared at her thunderously, the feathers on his jacket bristling. 

She held his eye.

She turned on her toe and walked tall back to the door.

"How long, Aphrodite?" he called after her. "How long before he asks you about the Titanomachy?"

She halted. 

She said nothing and swept from the room.

Their knees buckled the moment the door slammed behind them. They clapped their hand to their mouth and clutched their churning belly and pressed their back to the wall. They knew it was a fool move to threaten the highest and most vindictive fucker in the realms. The horrible realisation of the scale of the fire they were playing with hit them like a wrecking ball. But it clanged into the bronze wall of their titanic fury. This petty king who thought he could tame the wilds...

HA!

His own son was a new seed of the old chaos. She could feel it. She craved it. Was Zeus afraid that she might be just the thing that brought out that part of Ares they were all trying to bury? 

HA!

Good luck, Baby. All burying a seed does is make it grow. And she was the dawn and the heat and the drenching rains and when she was through with this beautiful, wild boy…

HA!

She wrenched herself straight and tossed her hair. She strode to the stairs and descended them in a column of light, like a vision descending upon priestesses. Her eyes fluttered as she saw an imposing figure waiting for her at the bottom. 

Hecate stood easily a head taller than the rest of the jostling guests. The gilded light bled down her sleek, black hair and effervesced in her haunting eyes. She wore a black, velvet dress that poured down her figure like oil, and heavy, spiked jewellery. As Aphrodite spotted her, she extended her arm and held out her hand, her lips pulling into a wry smile. Aphrodite mirrored her expression curiously and laid their hand elegantly into hers as they stood three steps above her. Hecate didn't speak. She curled her spidery fingers around Aphrodite's hand and brought her to her side. She escorted them through the party, her dress rippling down her slenderness in her willow branch sway gait. The crowd parted like grass for a summer breeze. The goddesses cut through the clamour and swept into the grand ballroom. Aphrodite hadn’t been here yet, her breath snatched as the splendour of the room swooped into view. It was a soaring, circular space. The domed ceiling converged on a vast, crystal chandelier that exploded over the room, like a frozen firework. Tall, arched windows lined the two crescent sides, the black sky brewing behind the glass. Lightning webbed the clouds, its startling light pinging around the hundreds of refracting crystals in the chandelier and making it blaze like ice at dawn. The fireflies whirled in and out of the shocks of diamond light, raining gold down on the ballroom so the chandelier had an even stronger firework effect. It was like stepping into a priceless snow globe.

The dance floor was rammed with bodies gyrating to the music of the sequin-spangled singer on the stage. 

Fates! It’s Erato! 

Aphrodite’s heart leaped as they saw the muse of love poetry beaming and striding across the stage, her candy pink skin glowing beneath the fireflies. Her voice had a yearning breathiness to it, a girlish tease that had the dancers enraptured. Her energy was infectious. She clutched her hair, pounded her feet, writhed her hips, pointed at the audience like she was hitting them with more lightning. She half sang, half sighed into the microphone, sending Aphrodite’s pulse skipping.

Hecate caught her eye, still not speaking, still smiling her secretive smile. Aphrodite smiled back, seductive, encouraging, and let her guide them with the slightest movement of her hand, cool to the touch, humming with power. Aphrodite took in the curiosity flooding the room as Sex and Death came gliding hand in hand across the shimmering floor, as if they were walking on moonbeams. The sharp fun of it spilled into the frothing rage and anxiety from the run in with Zeus. Her powers began to unravel into the air, silent spells to draw the eyes and attraction of everyone in the ballroom. She strutted on their raw yearning onto the dancefloor, as if she was stomping over their prostrate bodies. She even saw Erato flash her a grin, her movements surging with renewed energy and the pulsing beat ramming through the floor. The buzz jerked her steps as the alcohol and the sudden burst of attracted energy collided in her head. She let the music swing her hips to cover a stumble. Hecate took her momentum and pulled her smoothly into a dance.

Ares rummaged through the party, trying and failing to not look like he was desperate to find someone. His heart hadn't stopped violently pounding since Aphrodite had first touched the small of his back hours ago. He kept replaying the scene in the abandoned study obsessively in his head. Had that really happened? Like, definitely? He could still taste her, still feel her shape between his hands and the little ant bites on his arms from the press of the sequins on that damn, fucking dress, still smell her perfume rubbed off on his skin, still hear her, "Honey… Honey… Honey…"

He couldn't breathe.

Was this actually happening? Was it actually going to happen? Tonight? This night, specifically? Right now?

He couldn't breathe.

Where should he take her? His room? 

Fates, no!

He'd been sleeping in there since he was a toddler. There were still junior karate trophies and moulting teddy bears and old, distressingly well-used porn magazines from the high school black market strewn about the place. And that was just the stuff he could remember under stress. No, it would have to be a more neutral space that a mature guy would use. A guy who was not too young for her. A guy who had literally any fucking clue how to meet the standards of an actual goddess of physical pleasure. A suave guy. A guy with a reliable playbook. A guy who would not, in the event of her inviting sex, be HAVING A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.

He rounded a corner and almost fell over Adrian, the nymph servant who had interrupted them during the good part of the evening, the part where he still had any confidence in his lips to work. What if they just stopped working?

Oh my Gods, Oh my Gods, Oh my…

"Apologies, Sir."

For what? RUINING MY LIFE?

Ares gulped in a breath and clenched his teeth, acutely aware of how bright his face was. "No. My fault." He rubbed his temple in an attempt to shadow the glare of his flushed cheeks, mumbling distantly. "Sorry I yelled at you earlier. Was just surprised. I know you guys are all working like crazy tonight."

A strange, slightly sick expression crossed Adrian's lime green face. Ares half noticed it, but immediately forgot as he glanced feverishly around for a silver sparkle or swish of lavender. Adrian's reply came a little strained. "Please, Sir, it's no problem. Um…" He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "If I may, I have ensured that that room will not be disturbed again. Should you and… um… the lady… well…" He tugged on his bow tie.

Ares faltered. "You… You have?"

He nodded. "It's no trouble, all standard procedure for his majesty."

Ares' gut coiled. "Gonna need you to not draw that comparison, Buddy."

Adrian nodded, ears flicking back. "Of course, Sir. Well, either way, the room is yours, Sir, should you be looking for privacy."

Ares blinked. He wasn't sure it was exactly the most romantic setting, right under that painting that he... Don't think about that. Was she looking for romance? Or did she want something dirty? Or both? Could he do both? Could he do either?

Oh Gods, oh fuck...

"Sir?"

He cleared his throat roughly. "Thanks, Adrian."

"No problem, Sir."

The nymph escaped speedily. Ares figured having a guaranteed private place was better than further decision paralysis. But the blueprint from his father's behaviour left a film of grease over his nerves. He tried to shake it off. 

This isn't to do with him, this isn't about him. This is about Aphrodite.

Wasn't fucking everything these days?

Fates, they're so incredible, I wanna die. 

The scorching heat of their stolen moment tonight interlaced with their first meeting. That kiss, that moan, the way she gripped him and rode him.

Oh, reduce me to atoms, Aph…

I can't fucking believe she wants me.

I can't fucking believe she wants me.

AND I CAN'T FUCKING FIND HER.

He almost tore through a wall. He kept his head down as his fiery eyes blared his panic and his coursing arousal to everyone who bumped into him or brushed under his nose. He lumbered through the jumble of jewellery and hairspray fumes and tiny cubes of melon on cocktail sticks. She wasn't anywhere in the seating areas. He pushed into the ballroom. The music hit him like he was running into an electric fence. So did what he saw.

The guests had all parted and swarmed to stare at the centre of the dancefloor, watching rapt with starry eyes. There, in a pirouetting hail of fireflies, was Aphrodite and Hecate. Their effervescent eyes were locked, almost combatively, like clashing swords, zapping brighter than the racing bolts of lightning through the soaring windows. They twined around each other, the music lifting and lashing and looping them like falcons. They moved with an eerie mix of grace and violence. Aphrodite was half in Hecate's arachnid clutches, spurring Ares to run to her rescue, and half snaring her as a sultry siren, drawing her through the steps with curling fingers and smooth slides of her shoe, melting Ares' legs. He stared at them, transfixed. He leaned on the door frame and gazed dreamily as the dance heated and whirled, eating up the ballroom and their audience. They were both so ancient and powerful and magical and knowing. Hecate was perhaps the only being in all the realms who could match Aphrodite; he could see the exuberance in them as they dined on the feeling.

It wasn't something he could offer her. He was just a kid, youngest god on Olympus, formless, barely purposed, lost and learning and tripping over his own temper. 

Hecate pulled them in and brought their strong thigh up against her hip, her sapphire fingers sinking into the firm flesh as Aphrodite tossed their head back and beamed in pleasure. Ares' hands tingled with the memory of touching them there. He rubbed his arm to extinguish it, body going slack.

She looked enthralled, elated; way beyond needing him for satisfaction now. His heart sank.

Damn. This close.

He rubbed the back of his neck and pulled himself out of the ballroom. Who was he kidding? Aphrodite could have anyone. Royal parties were tough on her and he'd managed to give her some relief, he was glad about that. But she couldn't be serious about wanting him, not when there were gods like Hecate with all her marvel and malice to offer. 

At least I can breathe again…

Not worth it.

He sloped back into the hallway.

Aphrodite was at the centre of a zinging, crackling web of want and wonder. She could feel every pair of eyes on her, as if the fireflies were landing on her skin. These suckers were obsessed with her, fantasising about her, awakening to her. They hungered for her. They were going to dream about her tonight and so many nights after. It was like their tongues were in her flesh. The feeling of being adored devoured her, ravished her. Music thrummed, desire thrummed, ouzo thrummed. She let it all fling her about. She poured her allure down her body, moved like a python. With every drag of her heel, every flick of her fingers, jewelled nails glinting in the light, she imagined she was drawing blood, drinking blood, bathing in blood. Every blaze of lightning was a striking blade.

This was Hecate.

Aphrodite didn't take blood sacrifice, she lived for life, but the chthonic was calling her. She could feel no sexual desire in Hecate, the titaness didn't want them like that, but she knew like Aphrodite did: the two of them were the same. They stirred darkness in people and they sailed on the energy of it. Just as the crowd were all dying to fuck Aphrodite, they were fucking ready to die for Hecate. She made death look powerful, beautiful, a shroud that bathed your body in greater pleasure than anything in life. She would cut them up and Aphrodite would consume them. 

The world was just bodies to them. 

Willing bodies.

Aphrodite's head spun. Hecate clutched them, pulling them close, her grip sharp on their thigh, her breath ice cold. Aphrodite shuddered with arousal. Her inner thigh dragged up the velvet over Hecate's hip and burned. She licked her teeth and thrust away and they both whirled like snowflakes. Aphrodite pounced close again, raking her fingernails along Hecate's bare shoulder blades as she passed behind her, feeling her purr. Her hair swirled around her as she spun to Hecate's front and laid back against her, falling into her opiate fragrance. She briefly closed her eyes, indulged, then she slinked on her velvet figure and ground her hips, moving her body luxuriantly in the gushing lust around her. It was as if a victim was already moving inside her, kissing her, worshipping her. Hecate stroked down their curves, grazing the edges of their breasts and taking hold of their hips, bringing their swaying and slinking into a rhythm with her own. She rested her lips by Aphrodite's ear and pushed her groin to their ass. They sighed together. Aphrodite opened her eyes, they blazed like missiles. She made petrifying eye contact with every gawping guest, each one a fresh, intoxicating shot of tortured adoration. The crowd weren't Zeus' guests anymore, they were hers and Hecate's. The goddesses owned this palace. They owned the realms. Life and Death. Lust and Surrender. Vitality and Entropy. Titanesses. Temptresses. The two things Olympus had always been terrified of and craved beyond all reason. 

Aphrodite slid her foot along the floor and sparks shot from her stiletto. Hecate did the same and a crescent of ice slithered across the glimmering floor, reflecting the storm through the windows. They snapped to face each other and interlaced their fingers and snaked them into the air, pulling the invisible web connecting every onlooker to them tighter. More shots of want. Sweat dripped down Aphrodite’s naked back. She throbbed. She swooned. Hecate caught her, dipped her, her hair flying. She hauled them back up and their legs braided and unravelled. They spun and ground and wove. 

The music moaned and pulsed and squealed. Erato took wanting gasps between her words, the imitated sounds of sex and dying breaths winding through the drumming speakers. Aphrodite felt herself disintegrating into it, into every boiling body here. She possessed them all. She possessed Hecate and Hecate possessed her. They infected the air. The palace breathed them, got high on them. She was high. She was drunk. She couldn’t see, except for Hecate’s toxic glow eyes and the haze of orbiting fireflies, tiny meteorites in the galaxy they created between their burning and freezing bodies. Hecate’s grasp was murderous. It made Aphrodite murderous. Let them all burn in her fire. 

Let them all fucking burn.

Hecate snatched her waist and dipped her low, folding her back to exhibit her beautiful body. Her fucking beautiful, irresistible body. She closed her eyes. It didn’t make her less dizzy. She loved being dizzy. 

This is what it had been like before the Titanomachy. All hunger. All hedonism. All the chaotic bliss of nature. They gazed up at Hecate. Were their eyes blurring or did she have three heads, all smiling like different faces of the moon? 

They fell back again, let all the breath out of their lungs, and soared on another surge of light-headedness. 

Drunk on love.

Drunk on hate.

Drunk on Hecate.

Drunk on Ares.

Drunk on themself.

She flew back to standing and pressed to Hecate’s hard body, pierced her eyes with hers, and clawed down her throat and her collarbone and her breast. Hecate hissed with her touch and wrapped her close in strong, steel arms. She kept her like a trapped butterfly for the final, ecstatic exhale of Erato’s song. 

Silence.

The crowd erupted. Applause shattered the frantic, tensed web of desire and left Aphrodite cold and floating, like she was full of helium. She pinned herself to Hecate and they glared unblinking into each other’s eyes. 

“Don’t you just pine for the primordial, sometimes?” Aphrodite whispered.

Hecate smirked and ran a fingernail down her spine. “Every now and then.”

In a second wave of applause, Hecate relinquished her clasp. She lowered Aphrodite to the ground and stepped elegantly away, still holding her hand. They both curtseyed to the crowd, laughing and waving them off. Erato fanned herself comedically and launched into another popping, pounding song. Hecate tugged Aphrodite close to her again. She caught their eye and held it with a spine-tingling, lothario charm. She kissed her hand. “Regarding your little project,” she murmured. “Speak to me from now on."

Aphrodite’s stomach flipped. She grinned demonically. Hecate gave her a subtle nod, and slipped from her, like a shadow. 

Aphrodite almost stumbled. The drunkenness took her. She let it. It made her horny and angry and happy and delightfully unstable. Good. Fucking good. She took up a lurching, pendulum gait and strode from the dancefloor, her ringlets bouncing and sequins rattling.

At the edge of the dispersing audience, Hestia watched her carefully.

Well, that was quite a display.

She eyed the love goddess as her exit became increasingly staggering, from fluid to clockwork to rag doll. 

Oh, dear…

She flicked her eyes about the party guests. So many were still watching the love goddess, teeth glinting like wolves’. Hestia’s pulse kicked. A few sharp-faced men looked like they might follow.

Oh, dear…

She hurried forward, trying to warningly catch the eyes of the men peeling off from their friends, bodies hot, nudging against Hestia’s protective fire. 

Leave her alone, you darn jackals, can’t you see the state she’s in?

She bustled through a clump of chattering nymphs and swooped to Aphrodite’s side, just as the tall, glittering goddess went over on her heel and almost hit the floor. Hestia caught her, buckling a little under her weight, sequins knotting instantly into her chiffon.

“Ow! WHAT?” Aphrodite snarled, tugging away from her supposed assailant with a puff of purple smoke around her feet. 

Hestia moved back hastily, raising her hands. “I’m sorry, it looked like you were going to fall.”

Aphrodite blinked and narrowed her eyes from behind a stray lock of hair. She looked confused. Then annoyed. “Oh, it’s you!”

Oh my, she is far gone.

“I’m not here to argue, just you don’t look yourself, Aphrodite. Maybe we should get you some water.”

“Ha!” Aphrodite reeled as she pulled herself to look haughtily and blearily down at Hestia. “I don’t need water! I am the ocean’s essence!”

Hestia pursed her lips drily. “Yes, Dear. But, just in case, maybe a chair and a little sip.” She offered an arm to Aphrodite, glancing passed her to fend off the continued interest of the jackals.

Is that Apollo?

The sun god was lurking, his eyes a strange shade of champagne gold. He looked… off.

Hestia put a hand lightly on Aphrodite’s back to guide her out of the ballroom. “Please, just come and take a breath.”

“Fuck OFF, Hestia!” Aphrodite batted her away with a swipe that could have felled a stag, if it hadn’t been off its mark by about a yard. A delirious rage poured out of her, making Hestia draw back, rammed with a wave of chaotic energy.

Oh no, she’s power drunk.

“Aphrodite.” She raised her voice firmly, keeping her teeth clenched so as not to draw attention. “You need a break. You’ve tipped into chaos.”

“I LIKE CHAOS!” Aphrodite spat, reeling again, the smoke jittering at her feet. Her eyes were a bizarre shade of berry punch and bubbling. “And guess what, little pie-maker! Soon, everyone will! I have an oracle now!” They burst into Catherine wheel cackles, their words hiccupping out of them as they kept teetering on their high heels. “I’m going to have her corrupt the fucking world! Enjoy your purity club while it lasts, Sweetie! Let the realms drown in lust!” They cast their arms out, like a bird taking flight.

Hestia froze. Her inner hearth swelled in alarm. She drew herself up and swallowed it down, setting her jaw. “Be that as it may, you really must have a glass of water.”

“FUCK, WATER! I’M GONNA BURN THE REALMS!” 

Three walls away, Ares choked into his beer.

Hestia caught Aphrodite’s wrists as she railed like a harpy. “Aphrodite! You’re going to get yourself hurt!”

“Pain is part of life!” she hissed. “Sorry, if you can’t handle it!”

Hestia’s inner flame rushed. She felt it press into her palms unbidden. Aphrodite squealed and wrenched her wrists away. “Ouch! Bitch!”

Hestia whipped her hands to her belly. “I’m sorry, it was an accident. Please, Aphrodite, you’re concerning me…”

“GOOD!” Aphrodite’s voice scraped down the walls, disjointed and shrill, a music box being torn apart. They fixed Hestia with a withering look that chilled her in her belly. They spotted her fear and sneered in cold triumph. They lurched away, strutting with steps so hard they almost cracked the floor. 

“Oh, Fates…” Hestia put a hand to her chest, calming her rabbit-run heartbeat. 

Ares undid a button of his shirt and gasped for breath, cinnamon suddenly draining his senses of all other stimulus. 

She was angry. And it was intense and wild. And self-destructive.

Aphrodite… 

He raced from the room.

Aphrodite swept towards the ballroom door, seething and soaring at once. Why did Hestia always have to be there to spoil the fun? Water? Who the fuck needed water? Who the fuck needed sobriety? 

HA!

Everyone here wanted her. 

HA! 

They could come and get her.

HA!

She’d drink their fucking souls over ice.

HA- OW!

She collided with a broad chest and a reek of that sort of cologne that gets in your mouth before your nose.

Apollo steadied her and kept a firm hand on her arm, a smooth chuckle in his voice. “Whoa, careful there, Dite.”

She tried to pull her arm away. It didn’t work. She tossed her hair imperiously. “It’s Aphro-dite.”

He grinned. “Sure thing. You seem like you’re having a good time.”

“I am,” they slurred, focusing on the hand on their arm. They tugged again. It didn’t move. 

“Had a little something to drink?”

They snapped their gaze up to his smarmy smile. “Yes. And I don’t want any water.”

He chuckled again, his thumb moving on her bicep. “I wasn’t going to offer you water.”

She tried to glare at his hand and the room spun. 

“I was going to offer you champagne.”

She tugged again. Unsuccessfully. She pulsed with rage. “Take your hand off my arm.”

“No,” he said softly. “You’ll fall.”

“I won’t!” She wrenched. 

He gripped harder.

Ares’ throat closed. She was more than angry now, she was nervous.

What’s happening to you, Aph? Where are you?

“Apollo, would you get the fuck off me?”

“Jeez, why are you always such a cat?”

He was still holding her arm. Why couldn’t she pull away? Her head was spinning. No. Her head was still. The room was spinning. No. The room was still but the world was revolving on a different axis. And there was this one anchoring point and it was Apollo gripping her arm, like a vice, and not letting go. 

“I said…"

“GET OFF THEM!” 

A sunshine roar crashed over her. The grip vanished. She was against someone, leaning into a warm, comforting body as the spinning slowed, slowed, slowed…

Ares rocketed into the ballroom to see Aphrodite struggling and looking ready to vomit acid as Apollo grasped her arm and needled her with a nasty look. Ares rushed with spitting anger. He pelted through the crowd, flame wisping at the corners of his eyes and his cinnamon-coated mouth. He pounced as her leg went crooked with the effort of pulling away. He scooped her against him before she fell and slammed his hand into Apollo’s chest, knocking him back with a bark and slash of searing heat. Aphrodite slumped against his side, heavy and staggering. He put his arm close about her, shielding her, supporting her. Her hand crept to his abs, strangely light and fragile. He hugged her tighter like a column of fire curling around her, and glowered at Apollo dangerously.

Apollo recoiled, his styled hair frizzing and his lip curling. “OK! Gods! What is it with you? I was just trying to help her get steady!”

A few people were looking and murmuring. Apollo glanced uneasily at them. Ares didn’t. “The fuck you were.”

Apollo scoffed and smoothed his hair. “Look, whatever, Pal. Honest mistake. She didn’t mention you two were going together.”

Ares snarled in his throat. “We’re not going together. Don’t have to be going together to wonder if you’re bothering her, is that what you’re doing?”

“No.”

He spoke softer to Aphrodite, his voice rumbling in his chest against her cheek. “Is he?”

She mumbled and glared at Apollo from behind his arm.

Ares ground his teeth and let crimson smoke billow from between them. He lowered his voice, brewing magma. “I’m willing to believe you, Pal, but you know me, I get the wrong end of the stick all the time. Makes me a little… volatile, you know?”

Apollo flickered. “So I’ve heard.”

“So, just to check, did she ask you to leave her alone?”

“She…”

“Did you, Aph?”

She nodded. “A couple of times.”

Fire pulsed through his body. “And did you leave them alone?”

“I…”

“You were just about to?”

Apollo shut his mouth and scowled. Ares scowled back, his ruby glow radiant, reflecting in Apollo’s flint eyes. This asshole, the son Zeus always wanted, too much in common with the old man. Ares had always known there was something about him, something that was getting nowhere near someone he cared about. Apollo was lucky he was holding Aphrodite, it was the only thing stopping him from launching into a tackle. He bared jagged teeth, silhouetted in front of a bloody glow in his mouth.

Apollo wrinkled his nose and huffed. He dashed his hand across his nose. “Cool it, alright? I was just going.”

“You have a good night,” Ares grunted in a puff of charcoal-scented smoke.

Apollo sniffed and strode away, straightening his jacket harshly. Ares kept rumbling like a furnace.

Her hand pressed to his chest.

His heart skipped. The pressure seeped through him. He took a careful breath and the flames flickered out in his eyes and mouth. He smoothed his shoulders and softened his arm around her, holding her like she was made of fallen blossom. His skin stung with receding fire. He snorted out the last threads of smoke.

“Calm down, Honey. It’s all OK.” Her voice was a cooling balm.

He twinged. He looked down at her with a crease in his brow. “You sure? I could feel your anger, it was… not nice.”

She peeked up from where she leaned against him, stroking his chest. Her voice went small. “I’m OK now.”

He nodded and shot a deriding look after Apollo. “Cock.”

“Agreed,” she snorted. “I really am good. You didn’t have to do the whole arm thing.” She poked his hand on her arm playfully.

Ares blushed. He moved to pull away. “Sorry, kinda possessive.”

“No. I mean, yeah.” She smiled and tugged his hand back around her. “But, you can leave it, now it’s there.”

The spiked fire in his body mellowed to a spreading warmth. He smiled down at her, his blush still glowing. She slipped her arms around his middle and planted her cheek on his chest. She closed her eyes. She leaned heavily. He broke into a laugh and hoisted her up with his embrace. “Are you sleepy?”

They yawned widely, showing dainty, pearl teeth. “It’s just been a busy time.” Her eyes flickered open and she gave him an adorable, kid-telling-a-secret look, lowering their tone to a stage whisper. “I think I might have been a bit of a lightweight tonight.”

Ares kept chuckling, warming deeper with the surprising cuteness of it. “Oh, yeah? I couldn’t tell. Wanna sit down?”

They nodded against his chest and hugged him tighter. He eased them into a gentle walk to one of the less crowded sitting rooms.

A few floors above them, the door of the reserved study banged open. Poseidon and Amphitrite stumbled into the room, warring with Amphitrite’s lagoon of organza to get at each other’s bodies, kissing and giggling like teenagers.

“Gods, Lion Fish, you’re so sexy tonight,” Poseidon gabbled, seizing his wife’s face and sucking on her lip like saltwater taffy.

Amphitrite hummed and pulled him further into the room, grabbing his hand and hurrying him towards the couch. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply, delighting in the familiar feeling that still hit her like it was new. His hands slid down her back. Her eyes fluttered open to roll in pleasure. They fixed on a blinking, red light. 

Her lips stilled.

Poseidon kept kissing around them breathlessly. “Everything OK, Babe?”

She tapped him and he stopped, a little dazed. She pointed behind him. “What’s that?”

Poseidon turned and frowned. He walked across the rug to the bookshelf and peered up at it. He let out a high yap. “Cetus’ flippers! It’s a camera!”

She goggled. “A video camera?”

Poseidon nodded. “Zeus really was planning a birthday party for himself, huh.”

She stuck out her teal tongue. “Ugh, what a creep.”

“Yeah, I'll shut it off.” He reached up. 

She sprang over to him and stopped his arm. “Or…”

He looked back at her, one eyebrow raising. “Or?”

“We use it and take the tape home.”

Poseidon grinned broadly. “I love you so much.”

They fell back into fevered kissing.

 

*

 

"Do you want a glass of water?" 

Ares settled Aphrodite onto one of the couches in the corner of the least occupied sitting room, trying not to hum happily as they pawed at his abs when he pulled away.

"Why is everyone trying to give me water all of a sudden?" they spluttered, their disassembled ringlets springing about their flushed face.

Ares laughed and went to get her a glass. When he returned and held it out to her, she took it off him with an exaggerated sigh and glugged it down while glaring at him with twinkling eyes. "There! You happy?" 

"Yes, thank you."

"If you call me a good girl, I'll spank you."

"Don't tempt me."

"Hey! That rhymes!" She hiccupped violently, bouncing in her seat. "Thank you, spank you!" She giggled delightedly, sloshing the remains of the water.

He stole the glass off her, put it on a nearby table, and dropped heavily to sit beside her. He eyed her with sparkling amusement. She was sitting like a jack-in-the-box with a crooked spring, angular and fidgeting with little bobbing motions, her toes turned in and her dress twisted. Her eyes were wide, with tiny, grape coloured bubbles popping in her blown pupils. He relaxed back and grinned. "Went on a little power trip, did we?"

They looked at him, frowned like a grouchy kitten, and pressed a finger to their lips.

He warred with his smile and mirrored them. "Right, sure, no one's noticed."

They scrutinised him. "You're laughing at me."

His answer rode out on a bolt of mirth. "I am not!"

"You are!" She prodded his thigh. "No respect!"

"No, no, I promise! You're super intimidating, right now."

"Good!" She folded her arms indignantly. 

"At least your after effects are cute. I just throw up."

"Ew." She poked his thigh again. She tipped and fell in slow motion to lean against his shoulder. They squinted up at him. "Put your arm back around me."

Ares obeyed. 

"Both of them."

Ares obeyed. She was a little colder than earlier. He wrapped her in his embrace and brought her close against his body, a shimmering sensation in his blood. She curled up on the couch, resting her knees in his lap, and snuggled into the sling of his arm. Her head slotted perfectly into the dip between his chest and his shoulder. She closed her eyes and breathed, her body softly inflating to press to his side in a lapping rhythm. Ares gazed down at her, trailing his knuckles on her arm. She'd never looked small to him before. Slowly, very slowly, he bent and rested his lips on the top of her head. Her hair smelled of passionfruit. He couldn't remember ever feeling like this in his life. Like a campfire. Like a refuge. His heart poured into keeping this precious thing warm and safe and comforted. He felt strong. He felt gentle. 

"I can hear your heart again," they said quietly.

"Yeah?" he mumbled into their hair.

"It's much slower than before." They rubbed their cheek on him softly. "Does this mean you don't like me so much now?"

"No, Aph." He kissed their hair. "That's not what it means."

They sighed through their nose and snuggled closer. Their fingertips wandered idly on his chest, doing figure eights around his shirt buttons. The music ticked by, a slow, cosy tune. An hour ago, Ares wouldn't have been able to imagine holding Aphrodite and feeling so calm. Calm was rare for him on the best of days, let alone when this sorceress was around. But here it was. It was wonderful. It was somehow unsurprising.

"Do you watch porn?" Aphrodite's drowsy question nudged him out of a descending stupor.

He perked his head up and looked flatly down at her. "Pass."

She wriggled against him, stoking a few sparks into his campfire warmth. She pushed herself up to meet his eye, lifted her elbow to the couch back, and tickled the back of his neck. "Come on, no judgement."

His blaring blush returned. "No, I abstain from answering that question."

She smiled reassuringly. "I watch porn."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Women watch porn, Ares."

He bunched up a little. "I know."

She snorted. "You did not know."

"I totally knew! You need it for all your… plungers… and your… buzzing doohickeys…"

She gawped at him. “Plungers? Plungers?"

He lowered his voice to a mock whisper. “I'm playing innocent so you don't figure out I watch porn.”

She giggled and stroked his hair, the sensation flowing down his neck and shoulders. “You don't have to hide that from me, I'm literally the goddess of porn.”

“Yeah, but that gives you special insight into just how gross guys are on their computers at 2am.”

“Or 2pm, or 10am. Or anytime, really.”

“Yeah, I literally use the internet for nothing else.”

She threw her head back in warm laughter, jiggling in his arms and turning his smile silly. 

“The other day, someone showed me a recipe website and I got an email account," he said. "A revelation.”

They cuffed his arm, the laughter bobbing away and leaving their eyes dazzling. 

He looked softly at them, still smiling. “Why are you asking?”

She shrugged. She twirled one of his thick curls around her finger. “I like the thought of you enjoying yourself.”

His pulse skipped. He ran his hand up her arm. The music was making the air around them fuzzy. Her bright eyes darkened a shade, the bubbles in her pupils glittering. Their body rose to him, her perfume showering him in fruit. She ran her fingertip from his cheekbone to his jaw. “I did say find me later.”

The hours of ache between Ares' thighs nudged him. He looked steadily with an ember glimmer into her wide, wanting eyes. He murmured gruffly to her. “You did." He took a breath. "But you know what? I'm kinda liking this, right now. That OK?”

Their dahlia lips twisted knowingly. “Are you trying to not take advantage of me while I'm drunk?”

“Caught me.”

She blew a long, irritable raspberry at him.

“I know, I hate it too.”

“I'm taking your party hat.” She reached up with a flutter of adorned fingers and snatched the gilded, laurel crown from his head, tugging his hair. 

Ares started and barked a brash laugh. “It is not a party hat, it is a fucking royal crown!”

She placed the crown at a sharp angle on her head with a coquettish pose. “It is when I wear it, like all head accessories.”

He kept laughing, tickling her side softly. “I can't believe it, you really are only flirting with me to get to the crown.”

She gasped like a silent movie starlet. “Yes, I have been discovered!” She gnashed her teeth and punched her dainty fist into the air. “I crave the party hat of power! Bards shall sing of this day!”

“It is not a damn party hat!”

She pouted drily at him. “Isn't it?”

He opened his mouth, then sighed. “Yeah, fine, you're right.”

She giggled again. He tried to steal the crown back. She batted him away. They tussled on the couch, tickling each other and eddying with laughter.

The sound carried to the door of the sitting room and pulled Hera out of a dull and dignified conversation with a group of business tycoons. She drifted to the doorway and peered in. Ares and Aphrodite were cuddled up on the sofa, like newlyweds in a honeymoon cabin, wriggling together in a play struggle that dissolved into a close, dizzy embrace. His arms encircled her waist, his blush radiant and his eyes passionate crimson. She slipped her arms around his neck and bumped her brow to his. He was murmuring something to her. She was biting her lip and giving him a delighted look.

She was wearing his crown.

Hera chewed her tongue and smoothed her golden gown. 

A shadow and a cloud of musk fell over her. She looked over her shoulder to see Zeus leaning on the doorframe at her back, one arm up above her head. He touched her waist, his voice coming deep. “It’s a great night, Bunny. You outdid yourself. It's almost as if you like me.”

She looked back with a frown to Ares, who was now playing at trying to bite Aphrodite’s nose, while she dodged him. “Notice how, on this special day, I'm letting that slide.”

He followed her gaze and frowned too, his fingers tracing the ridge of her lowest rib. “How do we feel about that over there?”

She puffed through her nose. “Not great.”

“A job for next week then.” He leaned down and kissed the back of her neck. A chill went down her spine. He started to move away.

She turned sharply. “Don’t do anything to hurt him.”

His eyes were hard obsidian. His mouth twitched. “Would I? He’s my son.” 

Her stomach tightened. “I can handle it.” She gave him a strict look. "Let me handle it."

He slid his hands into his pockets. “Thanks for the party.” He strolled with a burgeoning smile over to a tired-looking Hades. Hades' haggard handsomeness caught her eye as he looked briefly to her past Zeus with his familiar, subtle invitation. She glanced meaningfully towards the stairs and fanned her fingers on her skirt. My room. Five minutes.

A scarlet thread ringed his iris and vanished. He met his brother’s greeting with a seamless smile and a firm handshake. 

She looked once more to Ares. He was tucking Aphrodite’s hair behind her ear, his face like a star-gazer's. Hera put a hand to her knotted stomach and stepped back into the hall. 

Aphrodite returned Ares’ crown, jaunty and tangling into his curls. They petted their own hair, not managing to rescue to it. Ares smirked at them making absolutely no difference to the hairsprayed mess. They suddenly perked up, as if remembering something, and began to fish around in their bodice, squishing their breasts.

Ares cocked an eyebrow, trying not to stare. “Whatcha doin’?”

They retrieved a set of house and car keys on a pink pom-pom keyring and twirled them around their finger. “Phew! I suddenly thought I’d lost them!”

Ares grimaced at the thought of them driving, plucked the keys from their finger, and pocketed them. “How about I hang onto those for a little bit?”

She gave him an indulgent look.

He tucked her hair behind her ear tenderly. “You wanting to leave?”

She smiled sweetly and kissed his cheek, prickling on his blush. “Nuhuh. I'm having a lovely time.”

He sighed through his nose and hoisted her closer in his embrace. She looked into his eyes, as if she was looking at a photograph of a treasured memory. He returned her gaze. They sat in the tranquillity of the song and the secluded corner. She breathed out, Ares feeling her body relax and warm. She settled down beside him and lay her head back into that perfect hollow below his shoulder. Her arms stole around his waist and hugged him tight. “Good boy being good to me.”

“Ha, I have regrets.”

She squeezed him and chuckled. He cradled her and breathed slowly, taking in her scent and her softness, trusting himself to be a raft for her as she drifted down from the high. Her weight leaning against him made him feel wrapped in fleece.

The music wandered on.

She hummed peacefully and muttered in a faraway voice. “All the times I’ve thought about this, it’s so much nicer than I imagined.”

Ares’ heart hiccupped. “All… all the times you’ve thought about this?”

“Yeah, like, cuddling with you.”

His mouth went dry, his face heating, his stomach floating. “You think about that?” He asked it hoarsely, hesitantly, as if saying it too assuredly would shatter the chances.

They yawned widely, speaking through it with a little squeak on the end. “Uhuh. Loads. You’re so big and warm and… I really like this whole... general area…” They patted his torso and hugged him again.

He smiled in fragile disbelief. “Oh?”

She nodded, speaking thoughtlessly, eyes closed and voice a little sing-song. “Sometimes I’m having a bad day or I’m lonely or I’m a little horny, but not enough for actual stuff, just like mini-horny. And then I think about how nice it would be just to be hugging you and putting my head on your chest and falling asleep with your arms around me.”

Ares’ heart doubled in size. His voice fissured. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I…” He swallowed. “I think about that sorta thing too.”

They peeked up at him with one amethyst eye. “What do you think about?”

“Oh, uh…”

How much of this was she going to remember? Could he tell her something real and have it all be absolved by dawn? Did he want it to be? He gazed down at her with tentative, confused hope. There was still a slight twinkle of glitter across her chest from where he’d kissed her in his gold lip gloss. His tongue moved as if to speak.

I think about everything. I think about holding you, about kissing you, about being in bed with you. Everywhere I am, I think about you being next to me, talking, not talking, just being in the same room, sometimes looking up to smile at each other. Sometimes I rub my leg with my foot and imagine it’s your foot. Sometimes I don’t completely dry my neck after shaving and imagine you’ve been licking it. I hear a voice on the street and I look to see if it’s you. I smell perfume and my heart goes a mile a minute. I go to sleep hard. I wake up cold. I wonder what you taste like. I wonder what your underwear looks like. I wonder what you wear when no one’s seeing you. I think about pulling your hair. I think about you biting me. I think about going down on you and making you as desperate for my mouth as I am for yours. I think about losing myself in you, then I wonder if I already have. I think about us sitting exactly like this, but a hundred years from now, and there’s a kid, or a dog, or a goldfish, or some other symbol that tells me that I have you for the rest of time and I never have to long for you like this again. And sometimes I think about you in a sexy teacher outfit, you know, like with the glasses and the back seam stockings.

“Ares?”

His throat closed. He cleared it roughly and grunted his reply. “Oh, um, you know, just doing this. It’s nice.”

She smiled and closed her eyes again. “Mmmm. It is.”

He held her closer.

He held her so close.

Her head bobbed up and startled him. “You know what?”

“Mm?”

She flashed him a fairy grin. “I think you’d look sexy with a neck tattoo.”

He snorted. “What?”

“You have a thick neck and it’s very defined. I think you’d look good with a tattoo there.”

This was not where he thought the conversation was going. “Maybe?”

“I’m gonna see.” She darted her hands back to her cleavage and ferreted around.

Ares released a bashful laugh. “Oh my fucking Gods, bring a purse!”

“No! It unbalances the outfit.” She kept rummaging.

“How much do you have in your tits right now?” he demanded incredulously. “If something had happened between us tonight, would I have taken your dress off and been showered by half the bathroom cabinet?”

They blew out through their lips at him. “Please, you wouldn't have noticed if a damn killer whale fell outta there, with what was happening.”

“Fair point.”

She extracted a liquid eyeliner pen and uncapped it with a look of triumph. She leaned her elbow on his shoulder, squinted at his neck, and began to design with the eyeliner on his skin. He stretched his neck open for her, giving her a bemused grin. The warm tip tickled. He chuckled. She poked his ribs to keep him still. She kept doodling. The curiosity around make-up that she’d awoken in him vanished. He never needed to see what she was drawing, as long as she kept teasing his neck. He tingled and grinned a little sharper. 

She lifted the pen away too soon. “There, all done.”

His skin still felt alive. He caught her eye. “Yeah? Looking sexy?”

“Definitely.”

They looked at each other with a little more heat. She was heavy against his body. She combed her fingers through his hair beneath the crown. Her lips parted, barely an inch from his. He could taste ouzo on her breath. He brushed his nose to hers and pulled her in.

His throat tightened guiltily.

He screwed his eyes shut and wrenched himself back with a suppressed groan. “I think I oughta take you home.”

They looked at him with huge eyes.

He smiled, scooped his arms under her legs, and hauled her up with him as he stood, carrying her like a princess. “Come on, Sleepyhead.”

She smiled and kissed his cheek. She dropped her head to his shoulder and closed her eyes.

She slept the whole drive home, smaller and slumped in the passenger seat of Ares’ jeep. The city lights spectred over her through the windshield, dancing down her sequinned dress and painting on her lavender skin. She snored softly under the grumble of the engine. Ares drove slowly, one hand lazily on the wheel, the other alternating between drumming pensively on his thigh and reaching over to tilt her head, so she didn’t hurt her neck. 

They were so pretty when they slept.

Even that little drizzle of saliva in the corner of their mouth. 

He smirked and chuckled under his breath.

He glided into their driveway, walked around to their side of the car, and eased them like a breakable treasure back into his arms. Their weight was heaven, warming his muscles. They snuffled and curled up against him. He fumbled with her keys to let them into the house. It still somehow smelled of baking. The darkness of her kitchen wrapped him in quiet like a shawl. He could hear her breathing and the ticking of pipes. He gave her a small squeeze and murmured gently to her. “Where’s your bedroom, Aph?”

She rubbed her nose and mumbled, eyes still closed.

“What’s that?”

“Up... purple door.”

He carried her up the stairs, wandering through the comforting hush of their house, this embracing space where he was so at ease that it almost hurt. He stepped carefully, trying not to wake her with any jolts or creaks. When he reached the top of the stairs, he raised his eyebrows in surprise. Moonlight flowed through a large, arched window in the hallway and illuminated all around him doors in different colours, muted in the pale darkness. The house didn’t look big enough for this many rooms.

“Huh, closet space?”

“Bedrooms,” she answered under her breath. 

His curiosity piqued, but he glanced down at her, breathing deeply in his arms. He shook his head and took her through the purple door, opening it deftly with his hip. 

Their bedroom smelled of pine and vanilla. He licked his lips as the freshness and sweetness brushed him. He let his eyes adjust to the low light from the window and gazed around the space. It was a mess. Like, a kinda funny level of mess. Flower garlands and glass scent bottles and shells and books and scraps of pink, scribbled-on paper were flung around the soft chairs and dark purple carpet. There were three mirrors along one wall with glitter-heart stickers on the edges, and a huge, berry-toned, decadent painting on another. Ares peered at it, flickered, and grinned. It was of a voluptuous figure with a rosy smile, a short, neat beard, and an avalanche of wild hair, reclined naked on a red, velvet couch. Their full breasts and round belly were strewn with rose petals, their nipples pierced with pearls. A naked man knelt before them like a disciple, his eyes dreamily closed and his lips glistening wet as he opened his mouth on their swollen cock. A naked woman stood behind the couch, fawning over them and running a flourishing ostrich feather down their body. A pomegranate tree shaded the trio, doves tucked into its branches, the fruit ripe and glossy. A python slithered along the stone floor, gazing up at them, just like Ares was. The figure’s hand dropped towards it, beckoning. Ares could almost see them moving, surrendering to worship and pleasure. 

He pulled his eyes from the painting and looked shyly towards the bed. It was wide and dressed in shades of rich purple, decked with soft, inviting pillows and a huge cushion embroidered elaborately with doves and fish. The headboard was pale wood, a large heart carved out of it with carved rose vines latticing the space. The tips of the posts were also carved like roses. It was the only neat part of the room. Meticulously well cared for.

He held his breath. 

I can’t believe I’m in her bedroom. All the times I’ve thought about this…

He blinked himself back to focus and carried her over to the bed. He lowered her with great care to the mattress, on her side. She burrowed like a rabbit into the softness and gathered the huge, plush cushion into a hug that squashed her nose. Her dress jumbled about her, like tangled tinsel. He smiled. He took off her shoes, brushing the backs of his fingers over her foot. He folded the covers over her. He smoothed her hair off her face.

His chest ached.

I’m so fucking jealous of that damn pillow.

He sighed and pulled himself straight with great effort. He went back to the kitchen, searched for the glasses in the packed cupboards, and returned with water. He put it on her bedside table. 

His pulse stalled.

On the table was a ruffled lamp, a seashell, a dog-eared romance novel with a mermaid on the cover, a photo of her, Poseidon, and Amphitrite drinking cocktails and wearing garlands of plumeria… and a plushie dolphin keyring. The one he bought for her at the mall.

He gazed at her, the sheets rising and falling with her breathing.

His eyes pricked.

Oh, Aph…

“Ares?” Their voice muffled in the cushion.

“Yeah?” His voice cracked a little.

“I think I won’t remember this in the morning. I am a very, very drunk lady. But, even if I don’t, I meant to do the thing on your neck.”

He frowned quizzically. “OK. Sleep tight.”

“Night, Honey.”

The pet name felled him. He rubbed his chest and the back of his neck. He looked at them for one more moment. He left walking backwards, the thought of them leaving his eyes like lead in his organs. With a final agonising strain, he slipped from the room and closed the door softly behind him. He leaned back against it and shut his eyes. The house hummed around him. All he wanted, with every fibre of his being, was to get into that bed with them. Just to hold them. Just to sleep. To pull their clothes away and kiss their skin and fold them into his body and his heart. To dream with them in his arms.

They’d never forgive him.

He rubbed his face roughly and pushed off from the door. He hastened down the stairs and through the kitchen. He stepped back into the night, still and cold in the sodden aftermath of the days of rain. It was silent, but for a nightingale whistling from one of the plane trees down the avenue. Everything smelled green and fresh and earthy. He unclipped the house key from the pom-pom, locked the door, and posted it back through the letterbox. He pocketed her car key and heaved himself back into his jeep. He shut the door and stared listlessly out into the glimmer of street lamps and bedroom windows. Silhouettes moved behind curtains. A fox scurried through a pool of light and vanished back into darkness. She lived on a nice street.

He slammed his forehead onto the steering wheel.

The horn bleat riotously.

“Shit! Shut up!”

He leaped straight again, frantically shushing the car. A dog howled. An outside light clicked on. He grumbled under his breath and started the drive back to the palace.

He walked back into the glowing lobby in a daze, her embrace and her hundreds of touches clinging to his body, like ivy. The heat and anticipation and chemistry of their intense almost hummed in his blood. The sweetness of her sleeping and the vanquishing softness with which she’d told him all the ways she thought about him clouded his mind in a rosy, happy fog. 

They kept the dolphin by their bed.

He covered his mouth to hide a sudden elated smile.

“Hey!” Hermes’ bounding voice started him half awake. The flash of scarlet and burgundy swept into his eyeline, an amber nymph on his arm. “Where you been?”

Ares instantly replayed the entire, befuddling evening in his head. He blinked. “Long story. How drunk are you?”

Hermes shrugged. “Fair to middling.”

Ares took the keys from his pocket and tossed them to Hermes. “When you're not, drive Aphrodite's car back, would ya? I can’t get back, if I do it.”

Hermes caught the keys and gave Ares a look of eager interest. “What are the exact details of this long story?”

“G'night, Hermes.” He started to stroll around him, hands back in his pockets.

“Wait,” Hermes piped. “Does the car have to go straight back or can it, you know, have a little holiday with Uncle Hermes?”

Ares rolled his eyes, ruffled the little guy’s hair, and ambled past him. He wandered through the drunken dregs of the party as if through a vision behind dirty glass, unable to focus on any details outside of the symphony in his own body. He stumbled past Artemis tripping and laughing with a silver bow in her hands and a flock of nymphs egging her on. She stood clear of them, aimed, and fired a shining arrow in a smooth arc to the ceiling. It skimmed through a line of the glitter-packed balloons and wedged in the plasterwork. The nymph’s squeals washed over him, as if Aphrodite was giggling over and over in a hall of mirrors. Gold glitter exploded in the popping of balloons and rained down over him. The sparkles hazed his vision, swirling about him, like wedding confetti. He thought of the fireflies around her head, the light on her dress, the shimmer on her skin from his lips. He walked on through the showering gold, as if he was walking into the dawn.

The party crumbled away as he climbed the stairs to his room. He opened the window and breathed the fresh air. He undressed. He brushed the glitter out of his hair. He pulled pyjamas over his lower half and let the rain-cleansed air kiss his torso. He went into his bathroom and brushed his teeth, wandering distractedly about as the mint foamed in his mouth. 

She wanted me.

She wanted me for sex.

She wanted me for safety.

She wanted me for comfort.

She wanted me.

Am I crazy? 

I’m not crazy, right?

She was drunk. So, less inhibitions, right? More honest?

Or just more impulsive? Could have been anyone?

But they kept that stupid fucking keyring.

Wow.

Asphodel, I’m in trouble…

He went to the sink and spit. He glanced into the mirror. Her eyeliner design was still crisp on his neck, a looping interlace of abstract, floral shapes. He smiled and peered at it, getting the details of the design.

His heart thudded.

They weren’t flowers, they were…

Numbers!

He choked on toothpaste and raced to his phone by his bed. He almost snapped it in half opening it and clicked urgently through his contacts until he found it.

[Aphrodite. Sorta.]

He looked at the out of order digits. He looked at his reflection. They were hard to read backwards, but they definitely matched.

His heart started to pound.

Fuck, yes! They gave me their number! Oh my Gods!

“I think I won’t remember this in the morning. I am a very, very drunk lady. But, even if I don’t, I meant to do the thing on your neck.”

THEY SUPER GAVE ME THEIR NUMBER.

He laughed aloud. He scrambled with his phone, thumbs too big and eager for the buttons. He input the number wrong three times trying to read it in the mirror. When he was finally sure he’d got it right, he gaped at it for a full minute, toothpaste dribbling down his chin. 

Shit, what even was tonight?

He clutched his hair and folded his phone to his chest. He beamed into the mirror.

Look at this guy, what a fucking mess.

He laughed again, a little unhinged and shaky. He slammed his hand over his face and growled like a gambolling bear cub. 

He washed the make-up off, but left his neck, just in case he’d copied it out wrong. He crashed like a falling oak onto his bed and threw his phone to the foot of it to stop himself from texting her immediately. His body disintegrated into the mattress and the bliss. He could hear his heart thumping energetically in his ears. He ground his face in his pillow and peeked with one eye at his bedside table. A lamp, a candy bar wrapper, a pen knife, a blinking digital clock… and a half-strip of pictures from a mall photo booth.

He and Aphrodite beamed out of the frozen frames at him, eyes locked and cheeks bright.

I’m not crazy, right? I feel crazy.

He clicked off his lamp and rolled onto his back with a long, romantic sigh.

Good crazy.

He smiled all the way to sleep.

Chapter 15: “In purity, liberty.”

Summary:

Aphrodite and Ares are totally not obsessing about last night, but Aphrodite at least has bigger fish to fry. It's time to bestow the first of her divine prophecies on her chosen oracle. As Peitho reawakens Aphrodite's passion for her work, Hestia sees an opportunity to disrupt it.

It's a smutty one! Is it the ship, you ask? HA NOPE. Gotcha again. Also there's more *discourse* and it's really long. YOU'RE WELCOME. *Throws rose and leaves*

Smut and temple song: Objection (Tango), Shakira
Phone call song: Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls

I think I've just set the record for distance between time passed in the fic and time passed in the updating schedule. Yay for me! Thank you for still being here. I hope heaping Sapphic filth on you passes for an apology.

[CW: Sex, using "slut" for fun in sex, SWERF ideas and shaming, references to misogyny and rape culture, negative self-talk around the term "crazy", fever/divine delusions.]

When Aphrodite rose new from the sea, she was carried in an eruption of sunrise over the waves, then caught by the surf and thrown onto the beach face first, sand gushing through her lips and caking onto her tongue.

Right now, her mouth was drier than that.

She woke slowly, very slowly, to a thick sludge of sensations that dominoed heavily into her body. Her head felt packed with wet fungus. Her joints were rusty metal. Her stomach was a seesaw. She groaned thinly in her moisture-sapped throat, the shred of sound muffled in the duvet. She was lying flat on her face, beads and sequins biting her skin like gnats. Last night's glamourous dress was tangled around her, digging into all the wrong crevices. She scrabbled behind her and tugged a wedgie straight. She groaned again and raised her head. Yellow sunlight nosed through the curtains and illuminated her truly horrifying reflection in the mirror by her bed.

Mermaids' tits, I look like I've been coughed up by a giant seagull. 

They wheezed out a hacking cough and rolled over with a lot of creaking to snatch their phone off their nightstand.

How'd I get home? Was it Hermes? I don't remember Hermes. He really is a shoddy escort. 

Her thumb smarted just from flipping open the phone. This was one titan of a hangover. There was a message from an unrecognised number. She squinted in confusion. She clicked it open. A mess of angular blurring appeared on the screen. She hacked another cough and rubbed her eyes, smearing the dregs of her make-up across her face, like war paint.

Ew! Godsdammit!

They snorted and squinted narrower at the message. Messages. Nine messages.

[GOOD MORNING]

[NICE NUMBER YOU HAVE HERE]

[Hows that pretty head?]

[OK my turn. First digit of my phone number is 2]

[Wait you get my number from the text]

[Fuck]

[OK this is my number]

[Was gonna make you work for it]

[You lucky gal]

She glared. Her mouth tasted of dry rot.

She clacked a reply in clumsily with one thumb. Her other hand cradled her pounding head, fingers crunching in night-old hairspray. [Whos this]

A reply pinged through too quickly. [Its your honey, sugar plum!]

They wrinkled their nose. [Blocking you]

Another shrill, jabbing ping. [Dooont! its Ares]

Her stomach lurched. She stared at the screen. A few shards of memory started to stick painfully into her brain. Her head throbbed with the pick-up of her pulse. Oh my fucking Gods, tell me I didn't.

She swallowed and regretted it as the bile taste burned her. She typed tersely. [I should have guessed that from the fact you texted me 9 times before 11am]

The ping rapped her skull before she had time to work out silent mode on her settings. [You gave me your number, I can do with it what I wish]

She could almost hear his springy, goading tone. She wanted to enjoy it, but her brain was equally divided between driving pain and frantic assembling of the jigsaw of what had actually happened last night. 

Something had happened.

She bought time. [Thats not how phone numbers work]

Ping! [Its how this one works.] [Hows the hangover]

[Bad]

[Want me to come over and make you eggs and bacon?]

Her heart instinctively leaped at the thought of seeing him. She was sore and sour and the idea of getting to rumple the curls of a bounding golden retriever was appealing. She looked in the mirror. She almost wretched. Nope! 

More shards slotted jaggedly into place. Lips. Hands. Warmth. Being held. Being carried. Lightning. Arguing. Zeus lit starkly in a lightning flash. A red glow in a golden chest. 

Had they…

No.

Yes?

Something felt different.

[Was it you that brought me home last night?]

The single word flushed them uncomfortably hot. [Yep]

They wriggled in the vice clamp of beads. [Shit. I must have been far gone]

She remembered drinking. But more. A power surge. She'd tipped into chaos. No wonder her hangover was so lethal. Balls. Tits. Ass.

The next ping started her out of pinching the bridge of her nose. [You were just a bit sleepy]

Gods, he was being sweet. She remembered sweet. She remembered special. And now it felt like an actual ethical failing to not remember the rest. Was he being sweet with expectations? Had she set expectations? 

Something had changed.

Their throat closed.

[Dont worry Aph, nothing really happened]

They remembered his shortening their name for the first time, not even noticing he was doing it. They prickled.

[I mean not for your lack of trying] [ you vixen]

She planted her face back into the duvet. 

He was lying.

She knew he was lying because she remembered his mouth on her chest and his body between her legs and she remembered truth telling and holding each other.

And something about hamsters?

Ping! [Gonna come over]

She started like a cat being spritzed with cold water. [Do not do that]

[OK. Me and my extremely huggable chest that you think about all the time will just have to go it alone]

Oh Fates, that rang a particularly embarrassing bell. She tried to puff a lavender ringlet off her face. It was cemented there by hairspray. She thumped the keyboard. [I regret everything] She thought for a moment, something soft under the barbed embarrassment. [Thank you for getting me home safe]

[Any time]

She smiled in spite of herself. She tasted something like asbestos and choked. The very few contents of her stomach curdled. She couldn't talk until it had all come back. Had something changed? What was different? Why did she feel so… exposed? Her nerves were strung tighter than rigging. [Gonna ignore you for a bit now]

[OK. Gonna shower. Enjoy the image ;)]

They huffed and grumbled, "morning people.”

She rubbed her temples and tried to breathe steadily. It dawned on her with a heavy thunk that today was the day she contacted an oracle for the first time. It was a huge deal for her Olympic career, she couldn't be worrying about some dumb boy.

And his dumb heart.

His big, dumb… immense, incredible heart…

They flopped back into the mattress and made a long noise like a goose being strangled.

They switched over to Peitho's number in their phone and banged on the keys.

[GET HERE EARLY. JELLYFISH STING.]

 

*

 

By the time Peitho was there, Aphrodite had liberated herself from the ruthless clutches of the sequinned dress (possibly ruining it in the process), showered, and bagged herself like trash in an absolutely massive, grey hoodie that definitely didn't originally belong to her. She scrunched her wet hair into a messy bun and gummed cucumber strips under her eyes.

She remembered it all now.

The key points anyway. Transitional content was fuzzy. When had she given him her number? 

"Jeeeeez…" Peitho whistled low, taking in her appearance. "What happened? Did he suck the glamour powers right outta you?"

Aphrodite looked stonily at her across the length of the couch. Their head had cleared of wet fungus and was now occupied by a troupe of tap dancing gnomes. "I completely fucking humiliated myself," they grunted, burrowing deeper into the hoodie, hands all the way up the sleeves. "I was a right royal bitch and pot stirrer and he got caught in the crossfire and got hurt. Then when I found him to fix it, I just immediately came onto him, like a complete fucking creepy, old man. Then when that actually worked, I got so fucking hammered I just drooled and giggled on him for the rest of the night and he had to literally carry me home like a sack of fucking potatoes." Their sleeves flapped about over their irritable gesturing. They stuck their lip out bitterly. "Oh, and I may have picked a real, actual, has-consequences fight with the real, actual king, while outing my apparent huge crush on his son, who has now seen me on a power crash, likely making it a waste of my time to have a crush on him at all."

Peitho slowly brought her cup to her lips and sipped rose tea demurely. "Oh."

Aphrodite hugged their knees, swallowed under the hoodie hem. "You're calm, which means it's a disaster."

Peitho sipped again, voice unusually genteel. "Not necessarily." Another sip. "What exactly was the nature of your confrontation with Zeus?"

"And now you're using fancy words, so you are panicking."

She preened a single, well ordered coil of indigo hair. "I'm not panicking. Lots of people are on Zeus' shit list. He'll probably not even remember you."

Aphrodite tucked her mouth into the hoodie collar. "I told him Olympus is a bouncy castle compared to the godly power of me and Ares combined."

Peitho slurped. "Huh." She took up a delicate, silver teaspoon and stirred the pink steam. "I'm sure there's no cause for disquietude."

Aphrodite rolled their eyes and gulped coffee so strong it was virtually syrup. "Let's just focus on Ares. Zeus thrives off people mitigating for his temper, I don't want to play into that."

"Yes, I too would prefer not to think about him," Peitho said hollowly into her cup. She set it down and consciously adjusted her position to genuine relaxation, cosying into the cushions. Her tone brightened. "Vent away."

Aphrodite smacked their forehead and snarled. Her heart felt mangled. "It's just so wildly shit! We had this whole real moment together and it got so serious and then so hot and then I poured about a gallon of alcohol on it and ruined it! And at the exact same time that he had to discover that I'm a total fucking mess, I had to discover that he's actually fucking amazing!" Their tamed hair frizzed with frantic static. "He's 23, Peitho! 23! He has no damn right to be this interesting to me. But he is. He's fascinating. I don't know how to describe it…" The primal pound of Ares' heart filled her ears again. "He's…" They retreated into the hoodie and hugged their middle, voice muffled by flannel. "He's something. We're something. And I drowned it in fucking ouzo."

Peitho looked at them with sympathetic amusement. She reached out and patted their knee. "Boss, I think if he texted you nine times this morning and offered twice to come over and cook for you, you don't need to worry. You're obviously as dangerous to him drunk as you are sober."

Aphrodite's heart squeezed. She peeked up at Peitho out of the folds of grey like an armadillo out of its shell. She sighed and tugged her mouth free. "Ugh. Perhaps." She rubbed her nose. She wrapped the hoodie closer around her; it didn't matter what she did, she felt stripped, spotlit in a medical examination shade of white. "But there has been a massive concession here. That rat in the box with the food? I've lost the conditioning completely. He’s just sat there fat and happy on a fucking mound of pellets. I was building mystique. I was creating an aura of desirable unattainability. Now I’m that girl that drooled on his seatbelt. Now, the one time I don't respond to the button push, he's gonna be gone." She slumped, a lump in her throat. "I've lost my hold."

Peitho laughed coarsely. Aphrodite glared. Peitho flapped her hand and finished giggling. "I'm sorry, Boss, it's just too funny to me that you're the Goddess of Sex and it hasn't occurred to you that getting a 23-year-old man into a dark room, grinding on his cock for a half hour, then walking off and never going back doesn't count as withholding a treat."

"But it's not going to feel like a treat now that it's been BESMIRCHED by the memory of me, again, DROOLING ON HIS SEATBELT."

Peitho tried to smother another gurgle of laughter and failed. "Maybe he thinks you're cute."

Aphrodite bristled like a badger. "I am a primordial being of lust and transformation. I am not cute."

Peitho pursed her lips. "And luckily you don't take yourself too seriously."

Aphrodite ground her teeth, bun askew.

Peitho shook her head and patted their knee again. "This is fixable. Probably."

"How?"

"I’ll think about it." She straightened up purposefully. "For now, we have to get you ready for your oracle."

Aphrodite groaned and yanked her hood up to hide her face. They crumpled pathetically and made a series of meerkat-esque whimpers. 

Peitho scooted onto her knees and crawled along the couch to push the hood up. Aphrodite's bloodshot eyes glowered at her from the shadow. She bumped her nose to theirs. "Come on, you were so excited about this."

The primordial being of lust and transformation sniffed wetly. "My head is killing me."

Peitho smiled and twirled the hood cord around her index finger. "Don't worry, I know just how to relax you."

 

*

 

The biggest bright side to Apollo being paid more than Eos for doing pretty aligning jobs was that she was always up to make a little extra cash covering his days off. He'd gotten up a little later than usual, hit the gym, grabbed a smoothie, been to Calliope's, and now he was all set for brunch in his backyard with a cool, shady spot and the latest Olympics Illustrated. He walked leisurely down the path to his front door, whistling tunelessly and breathing the green scent of the laurel bushes. He took out his keys, swung them around his index, and plucked the one for the front door. He slotted it neatly into the keyhole.

It thunked and jammed.

He frowned and tried again.

Nothing.

He gave it a frustrated rattle. He twisted it until it felt ready to snap. He whipped it out with a scraping noise that hit his back teeth, and banged on the door.

Hermes opened it briskly. He was garish in an overly friendly grin and a tank top in a truly offensive print of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches wearing sunglasses. "Hey!"

Apollo narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Why doesn’t my key work?” 

Hermes shrugged. "Sorry, Man, needed some privacy.” 

“So you changed our locks?” 

Hermes spread his hands and tossed his feathered fringe. “It’s just temporary. Thieves' trick. They’ll turn back. I just didn’t want you bursting in.” 

Apollo's shoulders ridged. “I don’t burst. What the fuck is going on?” 

Hermes grimaced. “Ares is here.” 

Apollo's stomach thudded. "WHY?” 

Hermes shrugged again, his nonchalance even more vexing than usual. “We’re just hangin'. But, you know, after last night, I don’t want him pulling your arms off."

Apollo's ears flushed. Great. Even Hermes knew about their little… misunderstanding. Ares' way of overreacting was going to give Apollo a reputation at this rate. As much as he wanted to throw the thug out of his house, nervousness scratched at him like a chipmunk in a tree.

Hermes nodded, as if sensing it. "Best you fuck off for a bit, honestly.” 

Pride squashed the chipmunk. "I will not fuck off! This is my house!” 

“OK." Hermes bunched his shoulders innocently. "It’s also your arms.” His dark eyes flicked up to Apollo's face with a flint edge.

Apollo heated again. Damn Aphrodite had probably gone around twisting the story. Whatever. He scowled and stuffed his keys into his pocket. "I want the TV at 3.” 

“Roger that.” 

He stalked off. Hermes watched him go, then kicked the door closed and sloped back into the living room. He dropped cross-legged onto the sofa beside Ares. Ares was upside-down, legs slung over the couch back, tousled curls brushing the carpet, grunge band t-shirt rumpled into a crop top. He was lazily throwing a tennis ball to bounce off the ceiling, the top of the wall and back into his hands. There was a tightness to the steady rhythm, like he was a djinn knocking on the wall of his lamp. It was all he had been doing for the past twenty minutes. He'd arrived, said hi, drunk all the orange juice, then planted himself in this position and proceeded to silently play catch with the ceiling. If Hermes was the sensitive sort, he'd suspect something was bothering him. Hermes smirked at his abs. "’Fess up, those things have gotta be plastic."

Ares ignored him and threw the ball. It thudded like a heartbeat.

"I'm just gonna verify that." He tickled Ares' stomach.

Ares crunched and snatched the ball out of the air with a slapping sound. "Dude, stop!"

"Oh! So he does possess the powers of speech! And here all I thought that mouth was good for was emptying my fridge."

Ares shot him a surly look and went back to throwing the ball.

Hermes waited patiently.

Only joking, it's Hermes.

He darted his hand out and intercepted the ball. Ares lunged for it. Hermes crammed it under a cushion and flopped back to lie on it with a smug grin. "Ha! Now the only way you can get this back is by throwing me around, which I will make weird by enjoying."

Ares scowled at him, his face pizza red and blotchy from being upside-down. Hermes held his glare. Ares didn't blink. Neither did Hermes. Ares' hot eyes stung and he growled as he was forced to break eye contact. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and mumbled into his wrists. "Aphrodite and I almost… last night." 

Hermes cocked his head, like a robin. "Almost what?"

Ares lowered his hands to gesture meaninglessly. "You know, almost…"

Hermes mimicked the gesture. "I have no idea what this means."

"You know! Come on, what's it gonna mean? Use context, Man! We almost had sex, OK? We almost had sex!" 

Hermes' jaw dropped. "WHAT?"

"Give me back my fucking ball!"

Hermes returned the tennis ball and Ares grabbed it with his fingers crooked with tension. He went back to throwing it, a little more violently this time, the motion thunking through his muscles like angular cogs. 

Hermes sat in the angry metronome for as long as he could bear, which wasn't very long. "So, uh… define 'almost'?"

"I dunno!" 

Hermes cocked an eyebrow. Talking to Ares was like playing a piano, but where about a third of the keys were connected to grenade pins. 

Ares huffed. "We split off from the party to hang out, and then we got talking, and we started, I dunno… doin' stuff."

"What kinda stuff?"

"Just stuff, Man!"

Hermes smirked. "I can see why a sex goddess would be attracted to you, what with your eloquence around the subject."

Ares groaned and caught the ball with a miserable slap. He slugged it at the ceiling with a resounding knock. "I don't even know if we were doing anything. I was doing most of it. And they were… I mean, they were into it. I think? At the time, it felt so natural. And then they got kinda tipsy…"

Hermes snorted. Aphrodite's very public inebriation had gotten around the party pretty fast. He sucked his lips flat as her protector shot him a fiery, warning look.

The smouldering lump of tension continued. "She got a little carried away. And anyway, while she was tipsy, she got super… I dunno… tactile. I mean, she was before." His words kept stalling, his whole body ticking like unoiled machinery. "But they got, like, really…"

Not grinning was starting to hurt Hermes' face. "Cuddly-wuddly?"

"Yeah!" The ball rebounded from the wall and smacked his hands. His curls jostled. "Yeah, OK? They were all…" He gestured frantically to his torso. "All up here! And it was REALLY NICE ACTUALLY." His cheekbones were glowing like hot pokers, his eyes resolutely not on Hermes. "She had her fingers all…" He ruffled his hair furiously. "And her legs all…" He flapped at his waist. "And she was saying ALL THIS STUFF." He was breathless. The ball sped up. "And then my ASSHOLE DAD needed CAKE."

Hermes squinted. This was getting hard to follow.

"FUCKING CAKE." The ball lightly dinted the wall and flew into his palms. "And then she was dancing? And then YOUR DICK WEASEL ROOMMATE." Black scorch lines appeared on the tennis ball.

Hermes threw his hand up. "Hey, I'm not his baby-sitter."

Ares clucked his tongue. "So she was all put out and cute and funny and cute and weird and CUTE." The ball drummed like a big cat trying to get out of a crate. "And she's all…" He flapped helplessly around his body. "AND THEN SHE FALLS ASLEEP." He released a final breath, smoke hissing through his teeth. "And I take her home and she gives me her number and she calls me Honey."

"Aaaw!"

"And I can't stop thinking about it. It's like this tiny ghost-Dite is following me around just saying that word over," thud, "and over." Thud.

Hermes ground his teeth to dust to keep from grinning.

"And I GOT THEIR NUMBER!"

"Uhuh."

The ball banged rapidly. "But I don't know if she actually wants me to use it! I texted her this morning and she was kinda off? She's maybe hungover from being a little tipsy."

Hermes rolled his eyes.

The wall dint got bigger. "But I really thought something was important about last night. Like, I thought it was a turning point. And now I don't know! Now I feel like I'm just being a pathetic kid and she's probably sat in her house right now, flicking through all the other offers she has at her feet, trying to remember who that blonde guy was." Thud-thud-slap went the ball. "It was a really nice night, Hermes. It was…" Thud-thud-slap. "It was…" Thud-thud-slap. "Special." He said it through clamped lips, face ablaze. "They're fucking special." Thud-thud-slap. "And I'm a fucking child and a fucking loser and…"

Hermes caught the ball.

"Would you stop doing that?" Ares whined.

Hermes glared with his rare look of lethal menace. Ares glanced at his Underworld-black eyes, the way his chthonic shadow warped around his lithe body. He raised his eyebrows and shrank. Hermes gripped the ball with knuckles going pale. "Watch it, Beefcake. That's my friend you're talking about."

Ares' lips knotted.

Hermes' onyx eyes glinted. "Actually, two of my friends. I won't listen to you being such a bastard to my pal, Ares. He's a hottie and a sweetheart, and he taught me never to let someone talk about your people like that."

Ares got a lump in his throat. He swallowed hard. It sat in his chest.

The corner of Hermes' mouth sharpened. "And then there's how you're talking about Dite; like she's some college freshman stumbling between jocks and having no idea what she wants or what she's owed. That goddess is the original one of us. The spark of life. The tissue of hearts. If they held you and had you kiss them, then they wanted that. They chose that. What, do you think some puny man could waste her time and go unpunished? You're alive and walking, so you're OK. Give her the credit of being smart and self-loving enough to only take what she enjoys. Don't disrespect their power by assuming they'd stoop to someone unworthy."

Ares lay silent. The clock in the kitchen ticked and the plug sockets hummed. A sparrow whistled outside.

Hermes slowly held out the ball and rolled it back into Ares' hand. Their fingers brushed. Ares pulled his eyes away, his gaze moving like sludge to the place where the ceiling met the wall again. He tossed the ball and mumbled, "every time I think we’re getting somewhere, something interrupts us. I'm starting to think the Fates are against us."

Hermes relaxed back on the couch, drawing his knobbly knees up. "So? Since when did you listen to authority?"

"Since always, I feel like."

"Well, maybe it's time you stopped."

Ares' eye twitched. He threw a little harder again, bicep tense.

"Look," Hermes sighed through his nose, eyes distractedly darting with the ball, "I get it. Something doesn't quite follow through, you don't get the aftercare, the bit where you're snuggled up in bed and you get to do all the 'was that good for you?' shit. The bit where you find out if they wanna stay for breakfast or whatever. So everything that happened has all this free space to reshape and make you doubt yourself. But, Ares, you're not some dumb kid. You're a fucking god with fucking knowledge. So, lemme ask you this: did you feel her get angry when you were 'doin' stuff'?"

Ares halted and blinked. "Huh. No."

Hermes grinned. "Did they ask you to stop?"

"No."

"Did she ask you to carry on?"

"Yes."

"Did she lie still or get involved?"

"The… the second one…"

"And she called you pet names, and followed you out of the party to hang out in private, and cuddled you, and gave you her number, and the list is apparently endless?"

The lump in Ares' chest grew thorns. "I just feel like it all happened in a context!" he blurted.

Hermes smacked his forehead and groaned. "What context? What context could possibly make that happen and have NO MEANING less than TWELVE HOURS later?"

Ares felt full of spikes, his scalp pounded with the blood pooling in it. "There just was one! It was a Dad party! They screw everyone up! And I was in a fucking trash state, Dude, I told her so much personal crap, she probably thinks I'm crazy." He lobbed the ball with the impact echoing. He snarled through his teeth. "Crazy Ares. When he has a crush, it eats him alive like fucking hyenas." His bicep pumped with his hard throws. "If she can feel crushes like I can feel anger, then being around me must be like being stuck in the smell of bleach or the sound of nails scraping down a blackboard." He chucked the ball. Thud-thud-slap.

Hermes looked at him exasperatedly.

Ares' pace of throwing increased. Thud-thud-slap. "How could a love goddess ever be into me, when this is what feelings do to me?"

"You mean take you over? Like they're big and important?"

"I mean wreck my fucking brain!"

"Don't you get it yet, Genius? THAT'S THEIR WHOLE DEAL." He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed.

Ares faltered. He edged his upside-down, wound-red gaze to Hermes shyly. "You… you think?"

Hermes slumped in the sofa with a groan. "Oh my fucking Fates, YES. All Aphrodite talks about is how people are all powder kegs that she likes to light the fuses of. Nothing turns them off more than someone in complete control of their feelings and impulses." He grinned slyly. "And nothing turns them on more than someone who's not."

Ares' cheeks pulsed bright. 

Hermes dragged his teeth over his lip, eying the adorable way Ares' shoulders had crumpled. "If you master your heart, you master Aphrodite. And Aphrodite hates nothing more than a master."

Ares pressed his lips together, eyes wide and round, heart fluttering in his seized chest. He pulled his gaze from the too-sharp razor of Hermes' smile. He threw the ball lightly. Thud-thud-slap. He crossed his ankles dangling over the couch back.

Hermes watched the ball and the tick of his muscles, still smiling. His voice began to slink out of him, mocking and high and femme, unsettlingly convincing as Aphrodite in the throws of pleasure. "Oh… Oh, Honey…"

Ares froze.

"Mmm, Honey, you're so sexy."

Ares glared, ears hot as frying eggs.

Hermes wiggled alluringly, fluffing his hair and pouting. "Oh, Honey, make love to me, your lips are so soft."

"Stop it."

"You're so strong and hot, hold me in your big arms."

"Fuck. Off."

"Ooo, what hunky shoulders you have."

"I’m warning you, you little stick insect."

“You’re nearly as good a kisser as Hermes…OW!” The ball bounced off his nose. His hands flew to the throbbing spot.

Ares caught the ball, scowled, and flopped back into the thud-thud-slap.

Hermes rubbed his sore nose better and tucked his feet under Ares' back to warm them up. He watched the ball like a cat watches a toy mouse.

After another pause filled with humming and chirping, Ares sighed and mumbled to the ceiling. "How are you supposed to have sex with a sex goddess?"

Hermes blinked out of his blurred gaze on the rhythmic motion. "Well, Son, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much… OUCH!" The ball bounced off his forehead.

"I’m serious," Ares moaned. "There’s no point in playing chess with Athena, or shooting a bow against Artemis, or, I dunno, challenging you to a hot dog eating contest."

"Thank you."

Thud-thud-slap. "So, how are you supposed to have sex with Aphrodite? They know every move, they can guess everything that’s going through your head, what kind of fight can you take to that arena?"

Hermes looked bemused. "Uh, no fight?"

"Exactly."

Hermes chuckled, his smile softening as he looked at the lump of wishes and anxiety scooped out on his couch. "No, Dude, I mean, since when was this a fight? Do you think sex is something you’re meant to win at?"

Ares shrugged, hurling the ball smoothly. "I know it’s not something you’re meant to lose at."

Hermes cocked his head sympathetically. "You’re always so much more messed up than I remember."

Ares spiked again. "Look, I don’t really wanna be having this conversation with you either, but I didn't totally realise I said that out loud and now here we are, so can you say something useful or change the subject?"

Hermes flung up his hands defensively. "What do you want me to say? I mean, I appreciate I’m one of Olympus’ most sought after bachelors, but I’ve never tried to game sex before." He swept his wild hair off his face with a grin. "I mean, other than the knife-edge scheduling that comes from being a hot mailman."

"I’m not trying to game sex," Ares shot his retort through a hard throw that knocked on the dint in the wall.

Hermes snorted, he could feel the rock hard tension in Ares' back poking his feet. "Aren’t you, Arena Champion?"

"No!" Thud-thud-slap. "I just…" Thud-thud-slap. "UGH." Thud-thud-slap. "I’m really into this person, Hermes." His voice boiled behind clenched teeth. "They're on my mind, like all the time. I want her so badly when we’re together, I can’t keep track of myself." Thud-thud-slap. "And last night," thud-thud-slap, "something might have happened." Rapider. Thud-thud-slap. "Like might have actually, finally happened." Harder. Bang-bang-smack. "And what if it had and I’d screwed it up?" Bang-bang-smack. His voice was rising unevenly. Hermes could feel the heat under his skin radiating into the room, the fire fed and fed by his confusion and frustration and tender hope and hopelessness. "Because how could I ever be worth repeating for a person who has every imaginable sexual experience available to her 24/7?" Bang-bang-smack. "And I need to be worth repeating, Hermes. I really need to be worth repeating." Bang-bang-smack. "Because I don’t just want them once. I want her over and over again." Bang-bang-smack. "I want her long-term." Bang-bang-smack. "Possibly forever." Bang-bang-smack. "Is that crazy?" Bang-bang-smack. "Maybe. But whatever, it's definitely indefinitely." Bang-bang-smack. "Who even fucking knows anymore?" Bang-bang-

Crack.

The tennis ball smashed the plaster of the wall and lodged there, coughing out a spray of dust. 

Ares stared rigidly at the damage, then groaned like a faulty engine and covered his face with his huge hands. 

Hermes flicked his eyes between the fracturing Ares and cracked wall. "Wow."

"Shuddup," Ares grumbled into his hands.

Hermes grimaced at the eggshell break in his wall. He puffed a feather of hair off his face and wriggled his toes under Ares' back, softening his usually staccato voice. "OK, Man, I don’t know what Aphrodite’s thinking, about you or anything else. But I get the impression that for them a lot of the fascination isn’t with the what, it’s with the who. Sure, do your best or whatever. But think about how she works, it’s all about finding the right people for each other." His mind drifted with a glimmer of affectionate mischief to his few lucky liaisons with the love goddess, the way they clicked, the feedback loop of energy. "I think what makes her tick is finding out what it means to be with you specifically. If you're honest about you and curious about them, that’s what gets them going." He smirked. "I don’t think she’s hooking up with people in some kind of weird sex-lympics where partners all show off their prowess and then she lets a select few advance to the final." He flexed his feet to tickle Ares' spine. "I think if you just be yourself, she’ll enjoy finding out who that person is. In bed and in the boring parts of a relationship." He finished. The silence yawned without the drumming of the tennis ball. He examined Ares' tragically collapsed body, face still hidden behind his hands, curls smushed into the throw rug. "You OK, Big Guy?"

Ares droned dully into his hands. "That was actually helpful. Thanks."

"No problem." Hermes perked up proudly. "Wow, that was wise as fuck, step aside Athena."

"Let's not get carried away." Ares drew his hands from his face, leaving tomato prints over his eyes and brow, flushed and haggard. "Please forget this conversation ever happened."

"Not without a little help. Entertain me. I can only be interested in your feelings for so long."

Ares gave him a very small, dry smile. His abs creased like newspaper as he hauled himself up and spun to sit upright on the couch, his curls tangled and the blood still glimmering in his cheeks. Hermes could feel his growing rebel spirit buzzing in the air. He'd always been drawn to the confrontational nature that put most people off Ares, born wrapped up in the system and wrestling with the bondage, a puppy caught in ribbon. As kids, they'd stoked each other's rebel fires, but as they'd grown, Ares had been pulled into princedom and, more than that, protecting his mother and admiring his sister. It had gotten to the stage that all the time Hermes spent with his friend, his own nerves were being tugged by the suppressed struggle of Ares' chaotic nature. Ever since Aphrodite rolled into town, that sensation had evolved. Now Hermes could feel Ares' wild power scrabbling feverishly just under the surface, the delicious doubt of the young person wondering sincerely for the first time whether it was right for them to even try to fit in and follow the rules, whether maybe the rules needed breaking. He was outgrowing self-discipline, getting too big for his cage. The excitement sparked in Hermes' pores. It was one thing to trouble the system from the outside, but imagine the fireworks you'd get from a major wire sparking out of control within the ordered circuitry. He bit his lip, skin prickling.

"What are you looking at?" Ares grunted, glancing sideways suspiciously.

Hermes smirked. "Do you wanna make out?"

Ares cocked an eyebrow, Hermes sensing a jump of mischief in his blood. He held his breath eagerly. Then Ares huffed out like a pony and rolled his eyes. He scratched the back of his head roughly. "I don't think that's a good idea. After last night, I'm one wrong strum from all my strings snapping."

Hermes nodded and clapped his shoulder. "That's fair." He hopped to stand and headed for the fridge. "Guess if I'm gonna get mine, I gotta get you kids together."

Ares glared after him. "Don't joke."

"I'm not." He grinned over his shoulder. "I think you two were made for each other. And I was made for the middle."

 

*

 

“I LIKE CHAOS!”  

Aphrodite's words scrolled continually through Hestia's head as she scooped and wound a warm wooden spoon through thick, sugar-scented batter. Air bubbles glooped and popped in the swells of vanilla mixture, each one as round as the love goddess' furious pout.

“And guess what, little pie-maker! Soon, everyone will!"

She shuddered, despite the cosy warmth humming from her pre-heating oven. She hadn’t seen that kind of lightning-crackle, power-crazed glee since Z…

Since the Titanomachy.

She stirred harder and sucked her teeth.

"I have an oracle now!” 

An oracle. It was one thing seeing Aphrodite plastered across the news - gossip was fleeting, favour was fickle - but worship? That was something else. An oracle could take Aphrodite into new realms. She was already popular; if mortals felt they could get a direct line to her, it was game over. Hestia's thoughts churned with the batter, the usually comforting, homey scent of cake mix turning sickly and cloying as her stomach see-sawed. The thought of not wishing success for another goddess stuck in her like a needle, but she couldn't shake the sensation that success for Aphrodite was the kind of victory for a sister that ultimately damaged the movement. When a woman became king, sure it was a boost, but it locked another layer of armour over the hierarchies that only existed to create gain for the few at the cost of the many. It didn't do what was actually needed, it didn't change what power meant, how it worked. And they needed that change. She gripped the wooden spoon like an amulet. It was getting to be every day now, every day another lost girl called on her to save her from some creature's lust. As the cities grew in the Mortal Realm, people flocking together and leaving their safe, self-policing villages behind, more and more stories of missing women, exploited women, dying women. Landlords who spiked the rent until it had to be paid in more than money. Workshops with lecherous bosses and dark corners and unwritten rules of silence. Streets thick with prowling. Locked front doors behind which anonymous families did their unseen acts. The world was becoming more a world of men than it ever had been - trade, wealth, mining, politics, conquest, it was all taking over from what humans had once held most precious - hearth, field, community, memory. Aphrodite was a goddess of all of it. Cyprus wasn't just an isle of pleasure, that was its front, its advertising. What it was truly was the Mediterranean's vast marketplace. And in the market, everything is a commodity. So men had risen and started pricing up the world and with it the bodies and the labour and the emotions of women. And as the Lady of Cyprus was first and foremost the world's well of lust, her market had become about hunger. Hungry dealers, hungry employers, hungry fathers, hungry husbands, all bargaining and buying with their daughters and lovers as currency. And there she was, as each of those potential-filled children came of age, there she was whispering in her seductive voice, "fall in love. Be happy. Give pleasure. Give nothing but pleasure. Forget yourself, so he can make you feel special."

The wooden spoon harshly scraped the base of the bowl.

Aphrodite might be a free-spirited and charismatic goddess and a good sign that a goddess could hold as much sway as a god, but if she did it by extolling the virtues of the tools men used to manipulate and control and feed off her sisters - sex, smiles, marrying up the ranks, the cult of personality, capital - well then, what was the point? 

Her bicep mounded and her shoulder ached pleasantly as she worked the dough. She could feel the bones in her hands as she gripped the spoon. She tried to breathe the flour and butter, to taste the sweet air and ground herself in her home, her fortress, her table. She imagined the moment of cutting into the cake, the burst of vanilla, the springy, sleek glide of the knife, sharing it with her friends, her sisters, Athena, nourishing them, bringing them together, the brief tranquillity that blanketed the room, the brief moment of knowing that they were safe…

“I’m going to have her corrupt the fucking world! Enjoy your purity club while it lasts, Sweetie! Let the realms drown in lust!”  

Drown. That was what Aphrodite wanted. An ocean goddess who didn't accept that most women couldn't breathe underwater. 

"I’M GONNA BURN THE REALMS!”  

Burn. Destruction and desire over battle and community. Sex over sisterhood. 

The batter warped and twisted and rolled. The smell gummed her throat and tongue. 

She had to do something.

Didn’t she?

She began to stir clockwise.

She shouldn’t do this.

It was not the proper thing.

The spoon ploughed through the batter. Shadows began to take shape in the creamy softness.

 

*

 

“He just really brings out this side of me.” Aphrodite reclined back in the bath and stretched her long legs out to rest her crossed feet on the opposite lip.

“What side?” Peitho asked, perched on a pouffe in front of a full length mirror framed with rose-gold lights, braiding her hair.

Aphrodite sighed. “The crazy bitch side.”

“Aw, my favourite side!”

They snickered and flicked a few droplets of pink water at Peitho. 

The bathroom was a shimmering, palatial space, all pale marble shaped in pink, seafoam curls. On a raised platform with a few stone steps up to it was the huge bath shaped like a scallop shell, crowded with potion and lotion bottles that twinkled in the light. It was surrounded by vases of freesia and hyacinth, frothing fragrance into the misty room. Orchids spiralled in silk, white and lilac clouds from the ceiling. The floral air of the room was almost stifling, but for the open skylight shaded with a linen blind. It streamed gentle sunlight over Aphrodite’s laid out body. She relaxed in a sparkling, rosy bushel of bubbles, her cheeks glistening under heavy eyes. She swished her legs in the water and sighed again.

Peitho was sitting like a pixie on a mushroom in her underwear, preening and slouching. She turned and puckered her dark lips teasingly. “You’re really mixed up over him, huh?”

“Ask me again next time I kiss him,” Aphrodite replied dreamily, eying their refracted reflection in the bubbles.

“And, out of interest, how many times a day do you think about kissing him?”

They took a scoop of bubbles into their palms and blew it apart. “Once.”

Peitho narrowed her eyes. “Once?”

“Once.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true.” Their hand drifted up to a spray of freesia and fingered the petals. “I mean, I wake up and I’m immediately hit by the thought of kissing him, then I don’t really break from that until I go to sleep again. So technically that’s once, it’s just a loooong once.” They dropped low in the water with a splish.

Peitho giggled, shaking out the braid so her hair bunched in waves around her. “So, what are you waiting for? Make your move.”

Aphrodite sighed for a third time and rolled her shoulders to settle into the shell’s curves. She gazed up to the sunlight sieving through linen and curling in the orchid vines. She thought about running her fingers through Ares’ hair. The water moved on her and she thought about his body pressed to hers, about his hands and his mouth. She ached in her heart. She ached in her core. What was she waiting for? Why wasn’t she jumping into this with both feet? Or was she? Restraint hadn’t exactly been going smoothly. She rubbed her lips together, tasting flowers. “You can’t rush art. And my art is love.”

“So it’s love?”

They froze.

The bubbles crackled softly like tissue paper. 

Peitho grinned and plonked her elbows onto her knees, squeezing her belly rolls. “Busted.”

They sank into the bubbles and glared through them, like an eel in a sea cavern.

Peitho chuckled warmly, stood, and sauntered over to sit on the edge of the bath. Aphrodite’s eyes swivelled shamelessly to her short, curvy body, her deep-sea indigo skin blushing in the pink glimmer of the shell bath. She was cupped and kissed by fire orange lace, from which her nipples and pussy peeked. Her round hips and thighs sculpted her lower body into a perfect heart. She brushed her hair over her shoulder and leaned to dip her dextrous hand into the water and rub Aphrodite’s tense back in wide, firm circles. She smiled with sunlight in her magenta eyes. “Now, shall we get you focused, or are you going to let some boy derail one of your biggest career moves in a decade?”

Aphrodite scrunched her nose. 

Peitho smiled broader. “Good girl.”

Aphrodite prickled as if with rose thorns. “Fuck off with your ‘good girl’!” She sloshed violently in the bath to kneel, snatched Peitho’s knees, and wrenched her around with her surprising strength. Peitho squealed wildly and flailed to grab the side of the bath as her feet plunged into hot water and bubbles foamed over her thighs. Aphrodite spread her legs brutally and slinked with a rush of pleasure as she sensed Peitho’s lust ignite, filling their nose and mouth with violet perfume. They slid between her quivering thighs and snapped their fingers in a pop of bubbles. Peitho’s underwear turned to glittering smoke and vanished. She sat throned in freesias and hyacinths and her own cascade of night-to-sunset hair. Steam gushed from the bath and swept her skin glistening and sticky. Her full nipples perked and her round breasts rose in a moaning breath. She gripped the sides in stinging anticipation. Aphrodite prowled between her legs, glugging down the floral perfume and salted musk, holding Peitho’s hot eyes with hers. “You want me to focus? Bestowing prophecy is a divine gift. So let’s remind ourselves how divine my gifts are.”

Peitho’s gaze was neon. She shivered and licked her teeth. “I am blessed, Goddess Shining with Rose Light.”

Aphrodite bounced their eyebrows and nudged their nose to Peitho’s pussy. She was already wet. She was always wet, scenting the world with her want. Aphrodite’s mouth watered and tasted of gardens. The hangover pounding in her body began to dissipate in the warm water. She winked and flickered her tongue to tease Peitho’s blackberry clit. She smiled as the full labia pulsed from Peitho’s eager shudder. Her tongue uncoiled, long and dripping, and wormed into her flesh.

 

____ 

 

Yasemin’s heart fluttered and her eyes shot open. The priestess knelt in a swirl of heady incense and candlelight, praying to the Lady of Cyprus so fervently that her lips moved silently and the edges of her headscarf stained with the sweat of her brow. Sunlight rippled on the mosaic floor and walls of the temple of Paphos, making the doves and swans spread their wings and the blue waves toss. Before her, the altar overflowed with fresh sweetness - jars of honey and oil glimmering amber, ruby pomegranates and jade apples spilling from painted dishes, bundles of myrtle in thickets, deluges of red and white roses like gushing wine and soap. The bronze candlelight danced over the rich colours, vitalising them, bleeding into the polished mosaics so she felt encased in flame in the heat of the island day. The columns stood sentinel throughout the sanctuary, painted with rose vines and black thorns. Yasemin pressed a hand to her heart and took a smoke-laced breath, her fresh nose ring twinging. 

She could feel something.

Weeks, months of praying to be visited by the Lady, and now…

Was she simply mad? Had she been too long on her knees?

Her mentor would certainly say so. “Aphrodite is not served by piety, Baby, not Aphrodite of the folk. Eat, sing, have sex with our handsome guests. She is not a goddess of kneeling and wringing your hands.”

But she felt at home here in the temple’s heart. She felt like…like something was waiting for her here.

And now it had stopped waiting.

She clasped her hennaed hands and took a shaking breath. She looked into the veil of firelight over the altar from the crowd of flickering candles. She hardly dared speak. “My Lady, Most Divine, are you with me?”

“Yes, my own girl. I am here.”

 

____

 

“Yes, there!” Peitho gasped and arched her back, crystal clouds of bubbles puffing around Aphrodite’s face as she worked the tip of her tensed tongue against the hard, beating peak of Peitho’s clit. They writhed on their knees in the bath as their body rushed with lust, the water licking their nipples and surging against their pussy, hot sensation coating them. Peitho's pleasure was a banquet. Aphrodite could always sense the delight of her lovers, a river current carrying her, making her course, but Peitho… Peitho was like her, a being woven from the fabric of human desire. When she lusted, she tore at the seams; all that she was, her power and genius and emotion, poured out into the world and watered it. Aphrodite lapped and gulped and tasted desire like the source of all life. That’s what it was to both of them. 

“Fuck, I’ll come so fast!” Peitho gasped, fingers squeaking on the porcelain as she clawed the side of the bath, knees shaking.

Aphrodite sucked her clit hard as they pulled back with a smoky smile. “That’s fine, as long as you come again after.”

Peitho’s full lower lip quivered, a ripple going down her bare, steam-shimmering torso. “Oh, I’ll come as many times as you want. You can always get more out of me.”

Aphrodite clenched her core and shuddered with pleasure. They stroked Peitho’s warm, tacky thighs, curled their long fingers to dent the plump flesh, and slowly pushed her legs wider. Petal-sieved light dusted over Peitho’s fat, shining pussy, blooming and soft like the orchids overhead. Hunger rolled like the sea inside the love goddess. The stress and doubt and embarrassment that she’d woken to were all submerged in the flowing of her instincts. Her eyes roamed up Peitho’s indigo body, overwhelmed by the roundness of her breasts and richness of her hair, the image looming over her like blazing clouds around an eclipse. They beamed and collapsed forward with a snarl to cover Peitho’s pussy with their open mouth. She kissed and sucked and carved through the fragrant folds with her strong tongue. Peitho’s shudders vibrated around them, rippling the bath and sprinkling petals on its surface. 

Aphrodite closed her eyes and slipped her hand between her legs under the heavy water. The first light touch made them moan violently, thrumming through Peitho’s nerves so she bucked and splashed and squealed. They took up a rhythmic stroke on their clit, soft in the water, and their tongue lapped in time with it, scooping Peitho closer and closer to the brink. The grace’s swollen labia pressed to Aphrodite’s lips over and over as she rocked her hips, thrusting wantonly into the searching, scouring motions of their tongue. Her chest heaved and lashes fluttered as she murmured filth and religion under her breath. “Gods, fuck, Mistress, take me…”

Aphrodite rode her own fingers and ate with all the appetite that made her who she was.

 

____

 

“What makes my cult special, my dear?”

Yasemin clasped her hands tight in her lap, fingernails pricking her palms to keep her from thinking this was a dream. The Lady of Cyprus, her Lady, had appeared to her on the laden altar, seated among the offerings and glowing copper-gold. She was a proud-looking, voluptuous woman, hair flowing down her robed body like the wax melting on the candles that surrounded her. Her eyes were large and amber and more severe than Yasemin had imagined in her prayers. There was a sternness to the Lady no one had mentioned in the scriptures, a school ma’am straightness to her back. But she was beautiful and bounteous and she was at last appearing to her devoted servant. 

“What makes your cult special?” Yasemin repeated. Her voice echoed in the stone sanctuary, sounding awkward as it tripped back to her. “We are all drawn for our own reasons.”

The Lady gently tucked a strand of dripping-wax hair behind her round ear. “What drew you?”

Yasemin blushed fiercely. She searched for the right words, heart in her throat, blush fierce. “You accepted me. You accept all of us. So many gods ask us to kill or starve or slave in their name, say that we’re unworthy without that. But you don’t. You ask us to love and to feel and to feed ourselves and to have joy and pleasure.”

A fine eyebrow arched. “So you chose me because I am easy?”

Yasemin’s stomach flipped. “No!” She chewed her lip and thought hastily, pulse hammering under that strict, expectant gaze. “No, no! I just mean that you made me feel worthy, little as I am.”

“And are you worthy?”

“I humbly beg your pardon, My Lady?”

“However you feel, are you truly worthy of the protection of a goddess, my child?”

 

____

 

Peitho came for the third time with a shrill squeal. There was a mighty slosh of soap bubbles onto the stone steps as her legs jerked in the tub. She gripped the bath hard enough to snap her knuckles and smashed her pussy against Aphrodite’s mouth, crying like a seagull and gasping for breath. Her juices broke over Aphrodite’s tongue, painting their mind in fresh, floral green and lilac. Steam and musk clung to her nose and she purred and pumped her fingers inside herself as she devoured Peitho’s orgasms like wine gushing straight from the vineyard barrel, each one more heady than the last. Her face burned with the heat of being between Peitho’s thighs. She gazed up at her, her skin glistening, impossible to tell where water and steam and sweat ended and began. Their spine prickled with warmth. The humid air clung to the scent of sex like incense.

She withdrew with her own clit pounding, and knelt in the water, shoulders crowned with glistening bubbles like an ermine cape, lips shining, nipples just peeking from the pink ripples. Peitho’s ass slid on the bath with a ceramic squeak and she dropped heavily into the water. She ran her fingers luxuriantly through her hair, cheeks bright. She caught her breath heavily so her breasts magnetised Aphrodite’s gaze. “Oh, Gods, that was unbelievable…” 

Aphrodite grinned, extremely full of herself. Fates, she needed that, the reminder of her own power, of the pleasure she could create and wield to make someone completely hers and completely happy. Peitho’s bliss trickled through her, oil sprinkling onto the flame of her own passion. She kept gazing at the beautiful grace before her, her curves, her dark skin, the quiver of her lip, the strips of sunset blaze across her keen eyes and through her hair. Her allure was palpable, she was pure seduction. Everything about the way she spoke, moved, breathed, every twitch and glance and mannerism, all of it was designed to make them ache. Aphrodite loved that ache. She was her best self when she was aching. And Peitho, her darling friend, her loyal right hand, who had known her so well so instantly, she could make her ache so effortlessly, draw out her power with just a look, just one wicked look. Aphrodite watched her recover warmly and nursed that sweet, empowering ache until it couldn’t wait another second. 

They ran their fingernails lightly down Peitho’s glowing cheek, then reclined backwards into the curve of the shell shape and let their legs float up spread. Her toes poked out of the foam, her pelvis tilted under water and flooded with heat. Peitho bit her lip and grinned back as she moved like a mermaid through a wave to kneel between those long, lavender legs. Their eyes locked, amethyst and ruby. Peitho chuckled and laid her hands on Aphrodite’s abdomen. The pressure of her touch felt deep. Peitho smiled with a little more softness and began to massage around her mistress’ belly and hips and thighs. Her hands glided under the water to make the tender, circling motions satin, chased by ripples that fluttered over Aphrodite’s clit and sent tingling all over their body. Aphrodite dropped her head back and sucked on the floral steam. She cupped her own breasts and enjoyed the swell of them, pinching her nipples to pepper herself with pleasure as Peitho conducted the water around her lower body. The grace's expert hands closed in on their pussy.

 

____

 

“What do you think it means to serve a goddess?”

Yasemin was beginning to overheat. The Lady sat among the candles, dressed in flames as if in jewellery, and stared her down from the altar. She wrung her hands. “To honour who they are, to bring their energy to the world.”

“So if you do what you will - make love to strangers, drink, lose your mind in blue lotus - you think that serves Aphrodite?” 

Yasemin trembled. Never before had her Goddess made her feel ashamed. “I thought… I thought that pleasure was your wish. We give it to others too. This is not a selfish place. It is a house of love.”

The Lady folded her hands in her broad lap, draped in wax-white. She looked contemplative. “Forgive me, my child, I do not mean to frighten you. You are faithful and that is to be rewarded. I have come to you because I trust you to bear my message. Am I right to trust you?”

Yasemin nodded eagerly, heart soaring, yet feeling more fragile than a frosted leaf. “Please, My Lady, I am ready.”

The Lady nodded solemnly. She smiled and it was like honey. Yasemin could smell something baking. “While you are right as my followers to nurture the body, I fear that my cult has grown too gluttonous, too lascivious, too concerned with the pleasures of the flesh and disconnected from the higher purpose of a goddess’ love.”

Yasemin felt the floor drop from beneath her. How could this be? Paphos was the Lady’s sacred home, her birthplace. She and her sisters worked tirelessly to make it a haven for all who came for the Goddess’ blessing. They gave pleasure not as a quick shot of gratification, but as a holy renewal, a healing, liberating act intertwined with prayer and political power. Her mentor had always told her, the world is stitched from an invisible thread that is spun when skin touches skin, and nowhere is it stronger than in Cyprus. That lesson had been music to her, her lullaby and dawn chorus. And now the Lady was here, speaking to her, and… and the song was out of tune.

She didn’t dare meet the radiant eyes of her vision. She hugged herself and spoke to the floor. “My Lady, Shining One, Utterly Revered, forgive me, but I don’t understand. We have all long worshipped you through our bodies, how could our loving now be wrong?”

The smell of baking overpowered the perfumes and fruits and incense. It was in her mouth, tickling her nose. It was too sweet, too sticky.

The Lady shimmered burning orange. Her low, motherly tone resounded like a gong. “What love is there in commerce? You sell yourselves to be the possessions of passing men and in so doing tell them that all women are to be bought and used to their will.”

Yasemin felt pierced. She lurched, eyes pricking painfully. “My Lady, please! Your island gives the riches of the earth, we are honoured by it, we share in wealth and pleasure as equals, we…”

“Silence.”

Yasemin’s tongue knotted. Her guts knotted. Her chest hurt. She wanted to choke on tears as they strangled her. She held herself as if in a rope and forced them to fall silently down her cheeks.

“I will speak to you of love, my child. I will speak my will and correct your course.”

Yasemin hugged herself tighter and nodded dutifully. How had she come to disappoint the goddess she had devoted her life to? The one who had given her hope, who had affirmed her? The Lady’s amber shadow engulfed the debauched mosaics glittering on the walls.  

“Be happy. I will free you.”

 

____

 

Peitho’s fingers sheathed smoothly in Aphrodite’s cunt, her touch sliding along their inner walls and filling them with velvet pulses of pleasure that gripped their raised legs and rolled in the small of their back. Her other hand stayed warm over their thrumming abdomen and massaged their aching clit with the heel of her hand. Her arms moved gently, stirring the rose pink water so it whispered over Aphrodite’s sighs. They relaxed in the tub, still idly toying with their own nipples. Peitho pumped syrupy pleasure slowly into them, moving her fingers in and out, deep and determined, shoulder rolling and bicep squeezing, twisting inside them so the pleasure whirled. 

“Fuck…” Aphrodite giggled lazily. “Oh, damn, that’s nice…”

Peitho kneaded her flesh, like a baker. “Nice?” She sped up, curling her fingers so the pleasure sharpened and made Aphrodite gasp.

“Oh!” They whipped their knees to their chest to flood their pussy with lapping water. The orchids overhead tangled in their blurring gaze. Freesia rimmed the corners of their eyes, like dreamy clouds. “Oh, yes, harder! Fuck me like you mean it!”

Peitho moaned and the water kicked over Aphrodite’s tingling breasts as the grace rocked over her and began to work her ruthlessly. Her thumb flickered over their clit and began to circle rapidly. All four of the fingers of her other hand stretched their walls and began to piston powerfully. 

“Ah!” Aphrodite let out a half scream. Her hands flew from her soaked breasts to scrabble on the tiled walls, knocking into a vase. Hyacinth petals showered over her, like kisses, fresh perfume bursting in her senses. The water rushed around her, claimed her, embraced her. She felt as if she might turn to water herself, if Peitho hadn’t been holding her in her skilful hands.

 

___

 

“Do not come empty-handed to the sisterhood.”

Yasemin nodded again, sweeping her hands across her misted brow as the heat from the crowd of candles rose, the vision growing brighter.

“The women of the world live under attack. Violence against us is threaded into the fabric of society. We need each other’s strength and resolve in order to survive. If you are weak, if you do not work for our cause, you betray your sisters.”

Yasemin glanced at the tumbling pomegranates littering the floor around the feet of the golden goddess. They gleamed like marble, their hard rinds making them look dead, like wax.

“Our hearts are loving, but our love is easy to manipulate. Because we love, we trust men to do the same. They do not. They cannot love like us, because love for them is not a matter of life and death. So what we give to them can never be reciprocated as we are owed.”

Yasemin wrung her hands harder, the knuckles sore.

“Therefore, to give to men is to accept our place, to accept plunder and subservience. The only fair exchange is in friendship with other women, in the sisterhood.”

Yasemin thought of her temple sisters, of the cord that bound them all together, that made her feel safe, calm, seen. 

“But the exchange cannot be fair if we do not have enough to give, because we have let it be taken by men. A woman who encourages the greed of men cannot be a sister, our sanctuary is too fragile.”

Yasemin thought of kissing, of hands running up and down her back, of whispers in the dark. Had that all been a trick of the mind? Had she been fooled by the world into thinking she was happy?

“It’s hard, my child. There can be so much joy in romance, but at what cost? Your dignity, your voice, your autonomy. Only the sisterhood holds you sacred, so you must hold it sacred in return.”

 

____

 

Aphrodite arched her spine with a piercing gasp. Her breasts were littered with petals fluttering with her frantic breaths. Pleasure coursed up her body with the lap of warm water as Peitho worked her, fucking her with undulating fingers, taunting her clit with nimble presses. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she moaned and keened, loud and shameless. She bit her knuckle until it stung to keep from screeching like a shade leaving the body. Peitho was grinning like a barbarian, steam curling around her, like the tendrils of an anemone. The rainbows in the soap bubbles refracted in her large, sharp eyes. Aphrodite met her witch gaze and grinned. She rolled her hips to take Peitho’s touch deep inside her, to lock her in service. They spread their legs wide, knees drawn up, seam framed by glittering foam so Peitho could watch her fingers making their flesh swell under the glossy ripples of the bath. Their hands combed into their tousled hair to open their torso and perk up their breasts. She was exhibiting herself with gleeful vulgarity.

“Fuuuck, Babe, you’re so good to your mistress,” they purred.

Peitho licked her teeth. “Yeah? Mmm, I love fucking you. Your cunt feels beautiful.” 

She stroked slowly and pleasure resonated through Aphrodite’s core. They hissed and moaned and arched, body beating, legs going crooked, pussy ripe as a plum. “Oh, yes, yes, yes…” 

“Mmm, if you come in my hands, I’ll consider it divine favour.”

“Oooooh…”

Aphrodite erupted in shivers. They felt as if Peitho was unspooling the orgasm from them, her fingers unravelling a long ribbon of pleasure so their climax didn’t so much mount and break as it came pouring out of them. Their body crumbled into spasms, knees drumming their chest as they shook.

They gasped and slipped under the water into soft oblivion.

 

____

 

The stone floor was hard on Yasemin’s knees. The Lady’s honeyed voice was somehow hard in her ears, like she was carving her speech more than crafting it.

“As women, we must hold each other to account. We must not make cultures of sex, cultures that find ways to validate our oppression. We must not twist discourse to claim whoring ourselves out is somehow liberation, somehow holds joy or affirmation. It distracts us from the fight, it encourages us to abandon our own cause for the brief, selfish gain of validation by another. We have been taught to see power in the phallus. That’s the only reason we’re drawn to it. It’s a trick to lure us away from our emancipation. Women who claim they are empowered by sex have been fooled into upholding the powers that keep them bound. An animal can learn to like its menagerie, but it belongs in the woodlands.”

 

____

 

Aphrodite rose back out of submergence with a long hum of satisfaction, the water dripping off her hair and nose and throat. She rubbed the droplets from her eyes and beamed at the cocky expression on Peitho’s face. Her skin was exquisitely sensitised, tingling mercilessly, every lap of water sweeping another wave of pleasure over her. She ran her hands down Peitho’s round arms and pulled her close. They smiled at each other and twined on their knees together in the tub, pink, crystal bubbles floating around them, hazing their bodies in the linen sunlight. 

Aphrodite ached again with the press of Peitho’s body to theirs, warm and soft and slippery. Their wet flesh melded together, the strewn petals grinding between them and infusing with their clean sweat. They weren’t sure which one of them conjured it, but they both gasped and shot each other devilish smiles as hard, smooth cocks slid inside them and they were connected by a double-headed dildo, linking their pleasure together. 

“Oh, I’m so glad you moved here…” Peitho murmured. She fell into a slow, sloppy kiss, her tongue moving in broad, indulgent circles to taste all of Aphrodite’s mouth. Aphrodite moaned into the kiss. They combed their fingers down Peitho’s back and began to rock. Peitho joined her. The dildo see-sawed between them, pleasure zipping along it to conjoin their sensations. Their moans quickened and threaded together. 

Peitho clutched Aphrodite’s hips and caught her lips in a more aggressive, cloying kiss that made Aphrodite rush unbearably hot. She wrapped Peitho in her arms and drove her tongue into her mouth. They kissed passionately, wildly, bucking to drive the dildo deeper into each other. Bubbles popped around them in tiny, glistening fireworks. Steam grazed their skin. Their knees grazed ceramic.

“Fates…” Peitho panted around their kiss. “Fates, yeah, give me your cock…”

 

____

 

Yasemin was trembling, but she had never feared the Lady before and she couldn’t bear to now. She raised her head, eyes still meekly averted, dazzled in the candlelight. “My Lady, please, may I ask…”

The vision paused and graciously inclined her head, molten wax hair trickling over her robed shoulder.

“All my time here, I have felt closeness and love with my sisters. I have felt it no matter what I give to or take from the men that come here. And it isn’t as if it’s only men we serve, there are women, there are more. I just…” She swallowed. “This doesn’t feel…” She gnawed on her lip, pulse like a runaway cart. The golden eyes of the goddess burned like the sun. “If the world isn’t fair to us, doesn’t removing ourselves from it let them keep it forever? Aren’t we owed the opportunity to take it back? To have pleasure and fairness? To look to each other and our own desires?” The back of her neck was clammy. “And don’t we deserve some forgiveness for living in a world we didn’t create? Maybe some of what we enjoy does come from our conditions, but if we still speak up for each other, what harm does it do? We can’t pretend we aren’t affected by where we are, and surely we shouldn’t be blamed for that. We may try to change it, but I don’t know if I want to tell my sisters that they should be punished for having to live in it until we do.” She bit her tongue, she’d been too forward. The weight of the Goddess’ presence was like being buried under gold. But she had to say this, to be true to the faith that had saved her those years ago. Her voice came small as she finished. “I swear to work for the future, but can we not have joy in the present too? If men sacrifice us for their own ends, do we not fight back by refusing to sacrifice? By refusing to see ourselves as means to any end? By making our lives plentiful?”

“So you question me? You think your Queen is wrong?”

Yasemin huddled, stomach somersaulting. She forced her numbing tongue to move. “I only mean to explain what I have been taught in your name. I’ve never read or heard a teaching from you that asked for self-denial or shamed a woman for feeling.” The flames blazed. The goddess seemed to be sculpted from them. Yasemin clapped a hand to her mouth. “Forgive me!”

The Lady spread her hands, red light emanating from her as if from a yawning hearth. “My child, what is plenty? Money? Fame? Influence? Gratification? These are not the riches humanity was meant to chase. I do not teach you to deny yourself. I teach you to deny these invasions upon yourself that you have been duped into believing that you want. A true member of the sisterhood recognises when her desires have been crafted for her by the men who keep her in chains, to make her compliant, to make her their advocate. If you are to be of value to the women of the world, then you must throw off these illusions. If you accept that you do not need pleasure, men cannot pull you away from your sisters or your cause. Your romances are false. Your lust is manufactured. Your natural state is virtue.”

 

____

 

“GODS, FUCK ME! Yes… Yes… OH! Oh, yes!”

Peitho’s melodic cries broke out of their fevered kiss, her long fingernails pricking Aphrodite’s ass as she cupped it to hold her close and urge her to thrust faster. Aphrodite scooped Peitho’s breasts and squeezed them, her hair coming down from her bun, her eyes dazzling. She thumbed Peitho’s nipples until they flushed sore. They bounced together on the joint cocks, the water making a racket of splashing around them. 

Peitho’s lip glittered. “Fuck! Yes! Harder! Harder! More!”

“Gods, this is so hot,” Aphrodite hissed as she seized Peitho’s round face and tore a kiss from her open mouth. “This is so fucking good, you hot slut.”

Peitho mewled and snapped at their lips. Their bodies crashed together, burned and quivered, all rough warmth and silken water. They ran their hands on each other blindly, grabbing fat and scratching skin. They cantered on the cocks until their hair was chaotic and they were grunting and groaning like sows. The hangover was pummelled out of Aphrodite’s body. Peitho’s flesh, steaming water, and crowding flowers cascaded on her, droplets streaming off her shoulders and down her curved spine. Her ass crested out of the water and vanished again as she rode vigorously, clinging to Peitho and licking her lolling tongue. 

“You’re so beautiful, Peitho, you’re such a beautiful, hot slut,” they purred.

Peitho keened and grasped their ass, pushing her dildo deeper. “I’m your slut, Boss. Fuck me, Gods, please fuck me!” She threw her head back and went almost limp in Aphrodite’s muscular arms, hanging and moaning raggedly as they drove the stiff cock into her harder and faster. Sunlight glazed her indigo breasts as she leaned back to expose them, her throat thrown open and body twitching with desperation as the pleasure fizzed in them both. “Gods, yes, make me come on your dick.”

Aphrodite grinned breathlessly and bucked. “Make me come on yours.”

“Oh, yeah!”

They clawed at each other and thrust and thrashed. Aphrodite’s heart was galloping, hurling itself against her ribcage with the vigour of their fucking. The water tossed around them and snarled. A vase of freesias toppled and smashed on the floor, casting petals over the marble. 

“Yes, yes, Dite! Please, oh, I want you so much, please fuck me!”

“Make me come.”

“Fuck me!”

“Slut!”

“Yes!”

 

____

 

“But how will I know? If those desires feel like mine, how will I know they’re… implanted?”

“Deny all your desires until you can be sure.”

Yasemin’s head thumped. “That seems…”

“It must be done. If you want to be a good woman, a safe woman, you must not desire.”

 

____

 

“Say it again!”

“Slut!"

“Keep saying it, I almost come every time you say it. Ha! I’m so fucked up!”

They laughed like mad fey. Aphrodite snared Peitho’s hair and steered her harshly to put her ear to their mouth. They whispered like a blade. “You’re a beautiful slut and you’re gonna come on my cock.”

“YES!”

Peitho cried out and arched in the water like a cormorant. The force of her climax deluged Aphrodite’s senses. For a moment she thought she was drowning. Her face was wet. Her hair was wet. She couldn’t breathe. The dildo pounded her, Peitho’s pleasure washed her, and in a whirlpool of sensation she was squealing and moaning and everything inside her was seizing and releasing and dissolving. 

She fell apart and tumbled forward, knocking Peitho backwards with a huge splash and a coarse cry. The bath erupted over the floor, foam drenching their bodies as they landed in a heap against the shell curve. They cackled and kissed, still pulsing with pleasure.

 

____

 

“In purity, liberty.”

Candlelight spilled over Yasemin’s hands.

“In purity, liberty.”

 

____

 

Aphrodite lay in Peitho’s loose, exhausted arms for a little while, the bath just covering her, like a fine sheet in a hot bed. She kissed Peitho’s breasts and nuzzled into them. Her wet hair coiled like the orchid vines. 

Eventually, she took a deep breath and huffed it out of her nose, dispersing the droplets on Peitho’s chest. She hauled herself to sit cross-legged in the bath, cooling and calm. Peitho stayed sprawled against the scoop of the shell, eyes half closed. Aphrodite chuckled and tugged her to sit up. Peitho flopped forward like a doll. “Noooo, I’m sleepy.”

Aphrodite patted her knee and steadied her sitting in the much lowered water. “Me too, but I also feel all warm and fuzzy, which is a good state to bestow a vision in.”

Peitho beamed with a cocky twinkle in her eye. “Glad I could help.”

“Truly a model PA.”

She stuck out her tongue.

Aphrodite shuffled so there was a pool of water between them. It shimmered rose gold as the sunshine drizzled through the orchids and onto the reflection of the bathtub. Peitho settled in a mirror of her mistress and fell quiet. They both took a few slow breaths, sweeping their hair and the droplets from their faces. They flashed each other a reassuring glance, a here we go smile. 

Aphrodite closed her eyes and opened her senses to Cyprus. The island came to her with its wonderful willingness. The pillowed thud of sandals on the beach. The knocking of hulls in the crowded docks. The bell around a cow’s neck. Rumbling cartwheels. She breathed the flowers. In… Out... The laughing of two women cut off by kissing. She smiled. The tinkling of jewellers’ hammers. The swish of a comb going through long hair. 

She breathed slower, slowed her whole, naked body, felt its presence, its openness, the beat of her pulse, the doughy sensation in her muscles, the touch of cool on her chest now it was out of the steam, the lingering tingling in her pussy. She opened her hands and her palms filled with water. She felt its weight, its fluidity. 

She was in Paphos. 

Home.

Her nose filled with incense, a fog of lazy, dark scent blooming in her head. She could feel the brush of grass under her feet as she walked through the rose gardens, then her feet touched warmed stone. Shadow cloaked her as she entered the temple. Her mouth watered with the flavour of honey and pomegranate. She searched for Yasemin, her darling girl whose heart was so bright.

She felt her like a pebble falling into her palms.

Their eyes fluttered open and the inside of the temple swirled into the pool between them and Peitho. Peitho perked up and peered at the vision, Aphrodite inclined their head gracefully to observe their priestesses. She hadn’t expected them all to be there. And it seemed Yasemin was addressing them. They were seated on the stone floor on wide cushions and Yasemin sat at the front of the hall, her hennaed hands gesturing passionately. Aphrodite raised an eyebrow curiously. They tuned into her. Yasemin’s breathy voice washed into the bathroom.

“My sisters, we have mistaken the Lady’s teachings. It was not desire we were meant to pursue, but the interrogation of desire.”

Aphrodite felt Peitho frown at them. They pressed their lips together and listened.

“The world of men profits from our desires, and because we have been convinced by them, we have indulged. But these feelings are not natural to us. Why would they be, when they are used to keep us in bondage? To fool us into thinking we need our masters?"

Aphrodite held herself very still.

Yasemin’s eyes looked tired, the corners of her mouth tight. But she was speaking with verve, imploring the others to believe her. “Sisters, I have been sent a vision from the Lady herself!” She pointed dramatically to the sky. Murmuring bubbled in the temple. Yasemin forged on. “Our calling is the freedom of women and that freedom can only be found if we cleanse our minds of the influence of men. That influence comes through desire, a desire manufactured by men to draw us to them and away from each other, a desire we were never meant to feel and betray each other by nurturing. If we are to be free, we must first be celibate. If we are to be free, we must answer to the sisterhood as our one authority.”

Ice crept through Aphrodite’s blood. 

“Courage over lust.” 

It splintered in her veins.

“In purity, liberty.”

“AH! FUCK!”

The ice flared from Aphrodite’s body and froze the bath into a huge, frothed slushy. Peitho screamed and jumped out of the tub, swearing and shivering, scurrying down the steps and stomping her suddenly blue toes on the damp floor. Aphrodite barely felt the cold, but leaped out too, dashing the fractured vision of the temple. The two of them stood naked and bedraggled in the middle of the bathroom, dripping and shuddering. 

“What the FUCK was THAT?” Peitho snapped, cheeks ruby and eyes like acid. “Liberty in purity? WHAT? EAT MY WHOLE ASS!”

Aphrodite gasped for breath. Why would Yasemin say such things? Her own favoured darling? “Where did she get this from?” She rubbed her forehead, racking her brain. “I plucked that girl out of a bad marriage and took her into the temple myself!” she spat venomously. “She knows I don’t stand for the cruelty of men! Of anyone! Why would she twist my teachings like this?”

Peitho grabbed a towel and wrapped herself a little too tight. “Desire… manufactured? That’s not twisting, that’s brand new fucking material!” She snatched up her shorts and grabbed her phone from the pocket. “Like we’re all too stupid to be anything but fucking robot dolls unless we’re in some kind of man-addicts’ support group with a bunch of fucking rules? No.” She started to flick through her phone. “That’s some TGOEM-grade bullshit.”

Aphrodite stiffened. Yasemin’s haunted voice was echoing in her ears, her words running together, overlaying and cycling so they stopped making sense, stopped even being words anymore. She still felt full of ice. She was shaking with rage, her eyes a deep wine purple and her hands in hard fists. The orchids overhead began to wilt and snow over them. A single, hoarse word fell from her lips.

"Hestia."

 

*

 

The rest of the day turned into a sour soup in Aphrodite’s consciousness. 

Peitho was at battle stations, marching around the house, yammering on the phone in a speedy, rapier tone, handling the media, handling the graces, calling in favours to limit the spread of the message. Hermes was ordered to put Paphos into a communication blackout. The temple was locked down, the priestesses suddenly with no channel to any deities. They would panic the moment they realised, so Peitho started to move even faster, cutting through her protocols like a chef’s knife in the dinner rush. Aphrodite stared pained at the floor as Peitho explained to her with a cracking veneer of calm that Yasemin had to be fully discredited as an oracle, either through smiting or madness. Aphrodite rubbed her eyes and muttered ardently about how this wasn’t the girl’s fault, she’d been tricked, she wasn’t a heretic. Peitho clutched her phone in both hands and spoke with taut, fraying patience. “Aphrodite, you have never had an oracle before. This is the first time you have been seen as having a direct mouthpiece in the Mortal Realm. As long as anyone can viably call Yasemin that, then these aren’t her words or Hestia’s. They’re yours.”

“But…”

The phone rang. “I have to take this. Please, Boss. You know I’m right.” She flipped the phone to her ear and began to jabber harshly. “Hypnos, Babe, I need you… No, not like that…”

Aphrodite watched her stalk away and sighed. They did know she was right. A quiet removal of this voice within her cult would only mean someone else took up its message. It had to be thoroughly debunked. But she wouldn't do anything permanent to the girl, not even for her divinity. She settled on a fever. A vicious one, but survivable. She shut Yasemin's mind in a ruthless heat and visited her with visions that she had been crowned the virgin queen of a fictional country located in her second best thimble. Yasemin had appointed the cockatoo gifted by a merchant client Chief Admiral of her royal navy, before the High Priestess, her brow etched with worry, rushed her to the infirmary. The fever delirium would burn for a few days, after which Yasemin would reawaken with no memory of the entire week. Her divine claims could be safely filed under your common or garden priestly whackadoodlery. Peitho argued for death or permanent madness, but the look on her mistress’ face was enough to kill an insect in flight. 

Aphrodite watched Yasemin rave for a long while, her brilliant star crashing to earth, the oracle potential sweating out of her in the struggle as her sisters wrestled her into a bed and wafted sedative smoke hastily into her flushed face. 

It was like something being cut out of Aphrodite.

She slammed herself into her bedroom. It was still littered with offerings from her last visit to Paphos. 

Wasting their time on a useless fucking goddess. If I’d just called her this fucking morning like I was meant to…

Every flash of lamplight on every jar of honey and bottle of perfume took the shape of Yasemin’s face, her hopeful smile, the way she closed her eyes and pleaded to be spoken to.

Well, I’ve spoken to you now, haven’t I, your fucking majesty…

All she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears and that single phrase carving itself onto the inside of her skull.

“In purity, liberty.”

I’LL KILL THAT BITCH.

She hurled a dish of oil against the wall. It clanged and splashed a greenish stain over the paper. She caught her breath. She flew into a fury. Her senses jumbled. Time overturned. All she could focus on was the glut of gifts from the followers she had failed, mocking her, begging her. She roared and pounced. A world-rending tempest unleashed inside her, squalling in her nerves, tossing in her blood, rattling her bones. She tore up pages of poetry into splattered confetti, stamped on pomegranates and apples so their juices bled into the carpet, littered her floor with broken pottery and glass, screeching like a harpy, freezing and burning at once.

Some goddess! Some fucking giver of second chances!

Every rip and shatter spurred her rage. She was feral. She was boiling. 

Some fucking protector! Some fucking ally in love! 

The last jar of honey dripped miserably over her dressing table.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The anger left her. In its place was a sickening feeling of violation, of contamination. 

She dropped to her knees in a sticky patch and buried her face in her hands.

I’m so sorry, Yasemin. 

Her door clicked open.

I’m so sorry. You were going to be the stuff of songs.

Steady arms wrapped around her shoulders.

She shrivelled into Peitho’s embrace and sobbed. 

 

*

 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go clean up?” 

Peitho placed a cup of tea in front of Aphrodite. They were slumped at the kitchen table, back in the trash-bag hoodie, hand covering their raw, bloodshot eyes. They lowered their hand and huffed. “No. You’re the sweetest, Peitho, really, but I’ll just camp on the couch tonight and clean up tomorrow. I’m so fucking embarrassed I lost it like that.”

The moment they were in Peitho’s arms, Aphrodite had cried an ocean. It stopped being just about Yasemin and the debacle at the temple, everything avalanched onto her. Olympus, Zeus, Ares, TGOEM, things that had happened a thousand years ago. 

Crazy Aphrodite. Fragile Aphrodite.

Peitho had held her until the tears finally finished, leaving them a dry husk, hollow, but calm. 

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Peitho said firmly. “You’ve been under stupid pressure, and this was a fucking attack. I could kill Hestia. In fact, I think I will. She’s on my way home.”

“Don’t.” Aphrodite said it with her last scrap of authority. It felt like trying to stand on uneven stilts. “Don’t, Peitho. This was a serious infraction, I don’t want to respond with a tantrum.”

“I’m not talking tantrum, I’m talking swords.”

“I know you are, just…” They ran out of words. Their throat was dry. They pinched the bridge of their nose. “Just let me think.”

Peitho ground her teeth, but nodded. “Aye, Cap.” She slung her bag over her shoulder. “Listen, I have to get to the Rose. I talked to Hypnos, I think if we get the dancers into a few dreams, it should get the last of the purity talk out of everyone’s heads.”

Aphrodite nodded to her tea. “Good idea.”

“You want to come? Could do you good.”

Aphrodite's body clammed up. They cleared their throat awkwardly and shook their head. “Thanks, but…” She grimaced. “I just can’t really face anyone right now.”

“I’m sure no one even noticed.”

“We have no idea how long that sermon was going before we even caught it, and half the gossip hounds in the realms have a permanent presence in Paphos, little birdies telling them every gory detail.” They sighed, they couldn’t feel the air in their lungs. “You did some amazing damage control, Peitho. I’m really grateful.”

Peitho smiled and shrugged. “Just doing my job, Ma’am.”

Aphrodite twitched a sad smile and looked back at her tea. 

Peitho smiled in the same way. She bent over her chair and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t let this eat you up all night. It’s under control.”

Aphrodite nodded dully.

Peitho hesitated several more times before consigning herself to leaving them. 

The sound of the front door thunking shut knocked Aphrodite’s heart down another notch. Her fingers played on her teacup as it slowly went cold. The herbal smell quelled the post-crying nausea and the resurgence of the hangover. Her eyes stung with the effort of not blinking, she saw Yasemin or the carnage in her bedroom every time she did. 

Crazy Aphrodite. Bimbo Aphrodite.

This time yesterday, she had a cute boy on the end of a fishing line, a solid relationship with the royal family, a content mortal following, and an oracle. Now she had a confused young man either laughing at her or thinking he had to marry her out of duty, a king’s target on her back, a cult in disarray, and a promising priestess vomiting her career into a bucket and raving about thimble law. 

Crazy Aphrodite. Disaster Aphrodite.

This time yesterday…

She hadn’t realised she was reaching for her phone until it was on the table in front of her. She hadn’t realised she was thinking about him until his texts were open on the screen.

[NICE NUMBER YOU HAVE HERE]

They chuckled softly through their nose. She scrolled up and down the messages, then again.

And again.

They snapped it shut and snarled at themself.

Don’t you dare call him. Don’t you dare polish off this turd of a day with a comfort-me call to the guy you dunked your weird on last night.

She fingered her phone. She whipped her hand away.

Have some fucking dignity!

She spun purposefully in her chair so she couldn’t look at the little device and its direct line to that sweet guy who always made her feel like a princess.

They slowly swivelled back.

I mean, what if he calls me? He was all “I can do what I want with your number”, maybe he’ll call me?

She glanced at the lopsided clock on the wall. It was late.

She drooped. 

He’s not gonna call you, you sad, old creep.

One eye pulled irresistibly back to the phone. She groaned and flopped onto her forearms. “I am NOT calling him!”

 

Ares was shaken out of cacophonous snoring by a grating, jangling noise by his bed. He snorted and sneezed the sports magazine off his face that he’d fallen asleep reading. He was still in his clothes, sprawled on top of the covers. He chased the horrible jangling. 

What? No one ever calls me. Has someone died?

He fumbled on his bedside table, then rummaged around his discarded exercise clothes on the floor, digging the phone out of a pocket. He flicked it open and croaked into the receiver. “Uh, hi?”

Silence.

He frowned. “Hello?”

Silence. Unless, was that someone breathing?

“Listen, if this is a prank call…”

“It’s not.”

Ares froze. His heart skipped a beat. “A… Aph?” 

Aphrodite’s hesitant voice crackled down the phone. “Yeah.”

Ares sat up straight as a rod. He hastily combed his fingers through his hair to neaten it and cleared his throat, face heating. They were calling him? They were… calling him? 

“Hey!” He sounded way too excited. He cleared his throat again. “I mean…” He mellowed forcefully. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

The line hummed faintly. She didn’t speak. He rubbed the back of his neck. “What’s up?”

Aphrodite gripped her phone and stared helplessly into her still undrunk tea. How had she ended up calling him? She did not remember deciding to call him. He sounded so… Ugh. Nice. She bit her thumbnail. “I… don’t know.”

“Just felt like hearing my smooth, sultry voice?”  

The easy levity in his tone was like a cotton pad going onto an open wound. They felt raw and exposed from the last twenty-four hours, scarred from sobbing. The knowledge that Hestia had been in their temple was like having food stuck between their teeth or dirt under their fingernails that they couldn’t shift. But there was something about his deep, leisurely voice that instantly made them feel safe. There was nothing more dangerous than feeling this safe. It’s what made her such an idiot last night. She trusted him too much. 

“Aph?”

Gods, it was so sweet hearing him shorten their name. They pushed a smile over their lips. “That must have been it.”

He clucked his tongue. 

Aphrodite was suddenly struck with the realisation that phone calls were different to bumping into someone. They’d pressed that little green button, now they had to have a reason to be here. 

Fuck.

They rifled through the day, but the idea of just blurting it out weighed them down like lead. They could hear him breathing, slow and patient, waiting, listening, caring. Just like last night. At least, as far as they could remember. The big stuff had come back, but there wasn’t a lot between dancing with Hecate and being carried to the car. 

Well, it was something to say, couldn’t exactly get any worse. “Ares, what happened last night?” They said it a little abruptly, recoiling at themself.

Ares snorted plainly down the line. “Nothing. You got tipsy, you got sleepy, we hung out at the party a little while, then I took you home. Tucked you in and went back to my place.”

She raised an eyebrow, she knew it was more than that. “That’s really all?”

Ares frowned at his knees. What was that tone she had? Was she nervous? About him? His heart thudded as a thought came to him. “Wait, Aph, what are you worried about? You don’t think I…”

“No!” 

He sighed in relief.

“Gods, Ares, no. No, I… I know you didn’t, wouldn’t…”

“But…”

“Yes?”

His chest tightened. He thumbed his knee and bit his lip. “I mean, OK, how much do you remember?”

“What do you mean?” They sounded evasive.

He prickled a little. “I mean, well, OK, you’re not worried about me taking advantage, but earlier in the night, I mean, before you got tipsy…”

“I remember the study.”

He lost his breath. 

There was a long pause, so heavy it was a wonder it didn’t bend the phone signal out of shape.

They both started talking at once.

“I don’t want you to think…”

“You don’t have to feel that…”

They stopped.

Aphrodite scratched at the woodgrain on her table. This was a mistake, she wasn’t in good enough shape to have dredged this up, and she shouldn’t have expected calling him wouldn’t lead to this. She slapped herself lightly on the forehead in reprimand.

“Aph?”

She jumped. “Yeah!”

He sounded strained, but also… genuine. “Aph, can you just help me out and tell me what you need right now?”

She stilled. Her hand floated down to rest over her heart.

“Look, last night was…” he chuckled gruffly, “somethin’ else. But it can mean whatever you want.”

She was quiet again. He pushed his fist into his stomach as it writhed. When she spoke, it was with a softness that made him feel like her arms were around him. “And what about what you want?”

He laughed. “Me? I’m 23, fuck what I want, I wanna kiss tits and suck dick, I’m golden.”

Aphrodite burst into laughter. It was like rain on a dry meadow in her belly. “You are golden.”

Ares beamed, pulse quickening.

She hummed, the smile lingering in the corner of her mouth. “You know what I want?”

“Tell me.”

“To not act like last night never happened.” She felt the truth of it steal over her as she spoke, a little unsettling, but oddly pleasant. “Because it was hot and fun and I learned a lot about you and I’m happy about that. I don’t want to sweep it under the rug for the sake of making sensible choices.”

Ares wrapped his index finger in a loose thread in the torn patch of his jeans, using it to tether himself as their words made him feel like a balloon. “Sure. Sure, yeah, I had fun too.”

“Right up until I totally embarrassed myself.” Aphrodite rolled her eyes. She rose limply and wandered into her living room. 

Ares rocked backwards onto his pillows, his free hand drifting behind his head. “Nah, that was fun too.”

“Yeah, for you.”

He laughed like a bandit. “Well, come on, you’re always so painfully perfect, it does my blood pressure good to have you be on a vaguely lower pedestal for an hour.”

She dropped onto her couch and bundled herself up into a ball like a hedgehog. “Oh, I don’t deserve any height of pedestal.”

“Fuck oooff.”

They tucked their bunched legs under the hem of the engulfing, grey hoodie. “No, I’m serious,” they said bitterly. “I’m like the cock up gold medallist today.”

Ares frowned in concern, twizzling his curls in his fingers. “Huh. Well, nothing you did today can beat last night’s ultimate cock up.”

Aphrodite tensed.

“You gave me your number.”

She relaxed. “I know, madness! You better respect it.”

“I will absolutely not be doing that. You’re gonna be hearing from me 24/7. 5am and I saw a possum on my jog? Text Aphrodite. Out of chicken at the store? Text Aphrodite. Random late night shower thought about where exactly a centaur’s dong is? Text Aphrodite.”

She smirked drily. “I look forward to it.”

“I am so entertaining, you haven’t experienced the half of it yet. This opens up a whole new medium for my art.”

“Wow, that’s great. In unrelated news, I’m moving to a nymph commune in the mortal realm where cell phones are banned.”

His booming laugh echoed in the speaker, then her body. She tipped to lean against the cushions and snuggled into his voice. She heard a shuffle that suggested he was settling too, it warmed her. He sniffed. “So, uh, you sound a little off. You OK?”

Aphrodite rubbed her lips together. She had allowed herself to call Ares on the one strict condition that she wouldn’t just word-vomit on him about her bad afternoon, fully cementing her as entirely mystiqueless from this day forward, now and forever. But…

“Oh, Gods, today was a fucking nightmare…”

But he just sounded like he sincerely wanted to know.

“So, I wake up hungover as shit…”

“There’s a surprise.”

“Shut up. And I’ve got my oracle coming up, so…”

Smut redacted, it all came out of her, like one of those never-ending scarves up a magician’s sleeve. Everything an oracle could have meant, everything Yasemin had hoped for, been raised for, the false vision, the twisted teachings, the drastic damage control, the sight of Yasemin composing the Thimbledonia national anthem between wretches over the side of the bed, Peitho’s spitting rage and how she’d had to handle everything while Aphrodite wrecked her bedroom like a hormonal tornado. 

Ares was like a canned audience in a TV show. He laughed at all her gallows humour, gasped in horror at what Hestia had had the nerve to do, cheered Peitho on, hit the damn roof at the disrespect of it all. He also spoke gently about how she had nothing to be ashamed of, either for the invasion by another god or the loss of control in her room. “You’re a goddess of feeling your feelings, that’s not always gonna be pretty. I’m sure we literally covered this like 27 hours ago.”

Aphrodite groaned and chewed the hoodie tie. “But it’s different when it’s other people, it’s just me that’s never allowed to be imperfect.”

“I’m taking that tone to mean you know that’s wrong and dumb.”

She pouted. “I’m pouting.”

She heard his smile turn cheeky. “OK, I’m kissing your pout to make you feel better.”

She blushed and shimmied her shoulders like a cat. “Mmm… Well, then I’m…” She halted. She clamped her mouth shut. “I’m not turning this into phone sex.”

“Boring.”

She laughed. She grabbed a cushion and hugged it so tight it almost split. She told herself she wasn’t imagining it was him. Having been drained by crying, she was starting to feel refilled. Still sore, still hurting, still angry and humiliated, but not only those things anymore. Talking to Ares was like finding a rickety bridge over a gorge; it didn't exactly extinguish her anxiety, but it gave her something to stand on, to go forward. He kept cutting off her spirals of self-blame and defeatism with heart-melting, simmering sweetness, telling her how powerful she was, how kind, how smart, how she was the victim and she would fix it because of course she could. It was like he was salving her, cradling her in one strong arm and carefully rubbing her sore body with balm. She felt naked, a little too much so, but the earnest, enveloping way he comforted her was so tender it almost made her weep again. He seemed more confident in himself too. He'd been there for her before - a lot actually - but now there wasn't the shyness he'd had in those moments. His words flowed casually, as if he trusted himself to be what she needed. Maybe it was just being on the phone made it easier. Maybe last night had changed more than she realised, brought them another kind of intimacy…

“I can’t fucking believe this of Auntie Tia. I know she’s a little intense, but this is totally out of line.” Ares chuntered irritably like a steam train. “Want me to go over there?”

She grinned like a teenager. “And do what? Nice gravy boat you got here, shame if something were to happen to it?”

“Something like that.”

“She’s your auntie, don’t pick fights with her for me.”

She heard his mattress creak, like he was restless. “I could tell Ma, it’s not good Olympian behaviour.”

“Do NOT tell your mother.” 

Ares stopped his tongue. He rubbed his abs and took a few breaths in the pattern Athena had taught him to catch his temper early. His light, coursing tone lowered, gentle. “I don’t…” He swallowed. He found a spot on his ceiling and stared at it. “I don’t like a shitty thing being done to you and just sitting on the sidelines.”

A lump swelled in Aphrodite's throat. Gods, they wanted to throw their arms around him. They nudged their mouth closer to the receiver, as if to his lips. She hugged her knees. “You’re not on the sidelines. You’re doing frontline work for me right now.”

“Huh?”

“You’re listening.”

Ares paused. He felt larger, that feeling she gave him of being worthy, of being good. His smile came crooked, bashful. “Just returning the favour.”

The crackle of the pause was warm. If he was on their couch with them, he would lean over and brush the hair from their face, go get them a hot chocolate and rub their shoulders. Maybe they’d cuddle up to him like last night and he could put his body between them and the world that didn’t deserve them. It was all he wanted to do, be her shield. How did the rest of Olympus not want the same?

He sighed and cleared his throat. “You coming over tomorrow?”

Her reply was teasing. “Is that an invite?”

“I mean to see Ma.”

“Oh. I forgot. Yes.”

His pulse fluttered. “Maybe I’ll run into you.”

“Coy.”

He giggled unusually high. He forced the skipping sound deep again. “Leave me alone, my game was last practised on college kids!”

Smoke slipped into her voice. “Well, keep practising.”

Ares flushed. He fixated on that spot on the ceiling and fidgeted the spark of heat out of his body. Mostly. He rubbed his hair. “Hey, Aph?”

Aphrodite perked up. She wondered how many times he would have to call her that before it stopped giving her a little shot of sugar. “Mmhm?”

“Thanks for talking to me about your shitty day.”

Aphrodite smiled. “Why are you saying that?”

He mumbled his reply a little. “Just nice you want to.”

The smile grew, sunshine in her chest. If she was there in his bed, she’d brush his curls out of his face, fluff his pillow so he could stop fidgeting and lay her head on that dip below his shoulder, let him wrap her and warm her, make him feel like a hero. She wet her lip. “Nice you think that.” She heard him exhale, then stifle a yawn. Her smile dwindled. “Oh, I’ve kept you awake.”

“No!” He sounded like a puppy when the doorbell rings. “No, no, I’m awake. How are you doing? I’m guessing you’re not feeling the most restful.”

“Not the most.” She glanced at the ceiling, thinking of her warzone of a bedroom. “Kicked out of my own bedroom by some crazy bitch I live with.”

Ares snorted. “You think that’s bad, you should meet the guy I Iive with. I have to keep putting all the breakables on high shelves.”

“Fates, don’t you hate roommates like that?”

“Totally, like, have some consideration.”

“Seriously.”

They chuckled together.

Aphrodite’s face fell. “I shouldn’t keep you up all night. Hang up on me.” 

Ares’ arms felt empty. He should be there, he should be holding her. He bit his lip and said hesitantly, “I mean, what if I didn’t? What if I just…” His mouth twisted nervously. “What if I just accidentally dropped off before I hung up? And, like, you did the same?”

Aphrodite’s heart quivered and rose. They heard their voice waver with strange shyness. “I am pretty forgetful like that.”

“Me too.”

She paused. 

He paused. 

Aphrodite slowly, very slowly, as if afraid of scaring away a bluebird, slid down from their hedgehog ball to lie curled up on their side on the couch. They planted a cushion under their head and tugged a blanket from the back over their legs. 

Ares carefully, very carefully, as if worried he might dislocate something, rolled onto his side. He placed the phone on his pillow, watching it like it was a ladybug. He slid his jeans off and tucked under the sheets. He faced his phone again. 

Quiet, rhythmic breaths drifted from the speaker.

Aphrodite laid their phone down carefully on the couch cushion, close to their face. They stared at it like a crystal ball. 

Gruff, sleepy breaths puffed out of the speaker.

“This is weird,” Ares muttered.

“Yeah,” Aphrodite muttered back.

They turned off the lamps by their beds.

“Do you snore?” Ares muttered.

“No,” Aphrodite muttered back.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?”

“Heard you last night.”

“Damn it.”

They nestled under their covers.

“You know what’s really frustrating about it all?” Aphrodite said, tone popping with the release of yet more tension.

“Mm?” 

“Hestia and I don’t have totally divergent ideas.” 

Ares’ tone had a cute, little grumble in it. “You’re gonna say smart shit, aren’t you? Just while my brain is shutting down.”

“Yep.”

He yawned. “OK. Shoot.”

She puffed through her nose. “So, she’s got all this stuff about how patriarchy manufactures our sexuality so that we keep wanting heternormative relationships and don’t question how they harm us.”

“Uhuh, sure, heteronormative patriarchy. All that shit.”

“But, well, she’s not actually wrong? She’s just over-simplified it. She’s decided that because we all live in a context and the context is patriarchy that anything that happens in that context has to be surgically sliced out of us, like some kind of infection.” She rolled her tongue contemplatively in her mouth. “But just because our desires are born in a context, it doesn’t mean they’re programmed into us like a computer. Patriarchy does present us with sexual ideals and it does do that to exercise control. We do have to grapple with those and they do hurt us, but they’re not conjuring our entire sexuality out of nothing, we don't have to extinguish that whole part of ourselves to be safe. And patriarchy is in everything fucking else, so it's not like celibacy turns it off. We validate our rulers by working in their companies and eating from their markets and getting sick in their hospital system. If we have to stop having sex, do we also have to be unemployed and stop eating and take no meds until all those areas have been purified too?”

He sounded a little more awake, though his speech did slur. “So, uh, where does sexuality come from? Like, how does it happen? I never figured anything outside your pants had a lot to do with it.”

They smiled. His curiosity about their ideas tugged at their submerged, bruised confidence. “The way I like to think about it is that sexuality is a great river with many tributaries. Some of those tributaries are social, some cultural, some from the body, some from memory, some from chance, and always flowing and moving. One of those tributaries right now is patriarchy. It feeds us images and expectations. We look for what will free us of it, or comfort us within it. It might mean we respond to tenderness from those with more power than us, or we use its ideas in ways that work for us, or subvert it to get power over it, or find its ideas inconveniently hot. It doesn’t mean we desire it and that our sex is upholding it.” She exhaled, her body settling melancholically as she murmured the words she should have said through Yasemin. “It’s good for all of us to try to map our river, to see where maybe something has fed into it that could make us expect unrealistic things or hold power over others or let ourselves be treated unkindly. I’m not saying the river is always healthy. But knowledge is how you keep it clean, keep it flowing and fresh and nourishing. You identify when you’re making your context work for you and when you’re letting it cause pollution. Damming the river up just lets anything contaminating it stagnate. I get why Hestia is scared of sex, because she’s not wrong, it sucks for a lot of people and it’s part of their experience of oppression, it's part of how they're ruled.” Her voice roughened a little. “But that’s because the system has poisoned the waters, and her solution is to hold that poison in a festering pool instead of flushing it out. Sexuality isn’t the source of patriarchy. Patriarchy is a tributary to sexuality, and it can be diluted, weakened, if we expand our sexual world, bring more into it, not less.”

Ares hummed thoughtfully. “That’s so much metaphor for the early hours of the morning, but I’m like 75% with you.”

“I'll take it.”

"There's one thing, though."

She raised her eyebrows, eying the cool glow of the phone, pretending it was his teeth in the darkness. "What's that?"

She heard him stifle a yawn again. "Well, you're both talking about desire. Like, wanting stuff that's bad for you, because you've been told to."

"Uhuh."

"But, I mean, does anyone actually desire what's bad for them? I think they can want it, but not really desire it."

Aphrodite frowned. "What's the difference?"

"OK, so…" He shifted, the sound of his bulky body moving in the sheets like turning earth. "So, I want to be a good prince. I want that because I've been raised to want that and it would make everybody happy and proud of me. Them being happy when I'm a good prince is like the teaching, right? Me feeling like I'm not worth very much if I'm not doing it, that's from what I've been told, right? I've been taught to want to be a good prince. I've been taught it's my purpose and everyone wants to fulfil their purpose. I want that worthless feeling to go away and I've been told that I do that by being a good prince, so it's what I want. But I wouldn't say it's my desire. If you go underneath, there's this…" his voice drifted, low and uncertain, "there's this burning." He lowered his voice again, so Aphrodite had to strain to hear him, holding her breath tight. "I want to be a good prince, but I burn for something else. It's what I burn for that people don't like about me, that they try to stop me feeling, rationalise me out of."

Aphrodite pressed her lips together, still holding her breath. She could almost hear his booming, glorious heartbeat down the line.

There was a soft sound from his mouth, maybe he bit his lip. "I think that Hestia thinks that when women want strong patriarchs and polite, picket fence marriages, she thinks that the world has got so deep in them that it's made them desire this thing that isn't good to them. But I don't think that's what it is, I don't think it is that deep. I think those women want the picket fence, because they've been taught that they're supposed to do that and we want to do what fits in. They feel worthless and the picket fence stops them feeling worthless, so they accept that it comes with this guy who's gonna treat them like they're second to him. But underneath that, they burn." He took a slow breath. "We get our freedom through that burn. If someone wants to break their shackles, they don't have to stop wanting, they have to lean into what makes them burn, find the thing they truly desire and chase that instead of the dumb old want. People are always like, 'I want a guy like this, who makes money, who makes me laugh, who's sweet, whatever.' Maybe they want that, but does that matter when they meet the person who takes their breath away? Who…" he swallowed, "who makes them feel like their heart could turn itself inside fucking out? People want stability, but desire doesn't care about that, right? It's lawless. So, if you wanna break the law, isn't it better to trust it? Follow it? Stop trying to be content and start trying to be fucking ecstatic, you know?" His voice rose a little, heated and edged. "Desire isn't the trick played on you all, it's the place you can go where they can't get to you with their stupid wanting. It's where you find who you are under the noise. Feel your desire and burn the patriarchy up like a bunch of twigs."

Aphrodite lay still in the quiet crackle on the end of his words. They gazed at the phone as if at sunrise. 

"Does that make sense?"

Their throat clogged with a swell of soft tears. They swallowed it down determinedly and sniffed. "Yes. Yes, that makes perfect sense." They smiled, the sensation of it running down their body. "This is why I love talking to you, Ares."

He chuckled drowsily. "Well, I never said stuff like this until I started talking to you. I feel like your teacher's pet."

"I told you, we're not having phone sex."

"I wasn't angling for that."

"Really?"

"Possibly."

She grinned, fingers prowling to tease the buttons. "So, what's this thing you burn for that might just set you free?"

Ares snored loudly.

She cackled brashly. "Fuck off! You are not asleep!"

"I am asleep," he droned. "Listen to this." He snored pointedly again.

She kept laughing and rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll find out someday."

He chuckled again. "No comment."

The laughter hovered on her lips. She nuzzled the pillow, imagining the fabric of his t-shirt, the smell of his cologne. 

"I don't get why Auntie Tia has such a problem with you," Ares grumbled.

She grinned. "That's because you like me."

"No. I mean, yeah, I do. But I dunno, she's always on about sisterhood, you're a sister, most of the time. Woulda thought she'd be into your whole badass femme deal."

Aphrodite blew a raspberry. "In Hestia’s philosophy, sisterhood is a court of law to judge women just as much as patriarchy does, but by different standards. It is a rebel army, so it only protects its good soldiers. And I've never been much inclined to staying in line, even for the greater good." She softened again, eyes hooding as the sound of Ares fidgeting again lulled her. "I get it, it's hard out there, law makes her feel stable. But if she just trusted her heart, she’d see that there’s no danger of us fragmenting, because most women love each other and look out for each other by fucking default. Sisterhood is what we do out of love, not duty.” Her heart squeezed, thinking of her priestesses, her worshippers. They came to her for luck in romance, but so much more. They found each other through her. Yasemin had. “I designed Paphos as a haven, somewhere to go to be true to ourselves, even the parts that aren’t healthy or palatable, because it will love us unconditionally. People need unconditional love, to be free from judgement, if they want to heal, to grow, or everything they’re doing warps into chasing security and validation - which is the exact thing Hestia claims we have to stop doing so that men can’t manipulate us, by the way.”

“Oh, yeah, totally.”

“And it’s open, liminal, it has room for many ways of being free, of having power, of conceiving of your world and your truth. Sisterhood is not an ordered society with an in-group and an out-group, it is an instinct, a fluid community of love.” She released a long sigh and looked glumly into the darkness. “That’s what I was going to have Yasemin say. Love yourself, learn yourself, love each other, learn each other, let that drive you, and all the rest will flow, including liberation.”

Ares was quiet on the other end of the line. For a moment, she thought he’d fallen asleep. Then he spoke softly. “That’s cool. Can I join?"

They smiled. “You are always welcome in Paphos, Ares."

"Sweet."

"Hey... I mean it."

That soft sound again, biting his lip. "Thanks." He shifted and his sheets rustled. "Do you think you'll make another oracle?"

She grunted. "I haven't made the first one yet."

"You know what I mean." He sighed low. "I think more people should listen to you."

She warmed. She hugged herself under the hoodie. It was big enough to have been his hoodie. "I don't know. Not right away. I'm feeling a little bruised."

"That's OK." Another shuffle. “You’ll work it out.” A deep, leonine yawn. “You’ll beat this thing.”

She rubbed her cheek on the cushion and peeked from it. “You think so?”

“Yeah.” He ran a fingertip down the side of his phone. He thought about unconditional love. “Yeah, I do.”

She ran a fingertip over the buttons of her phone. “OK.”

The sound of soft breathing. 

The subtle absence of silence.

"Ares?"

Ares snored.

She wrinkled her nose. "You better not be faking again."

He snuffled like a wolf. They smiled and dropped their tone to a whisper. "Goodnight, Honey." They gazed at the fuzzy, blue light. "Thank you." Their stomach went concave as the distance between them seemed to stretch with the fading of his voice. She whispered even quieter. "I hate that you feel worthless. You're not worthless. You're never worthless."

She flexed her fingers, as if she could reach out and hold him.

She saw Yasemin again, the day she arrived at the temple fleeing an arranged marriage to a man she was disgusted by. She had come so far. She could have been extraordinary.

Am I enough? Am I worth your sacrifice?

An owl hooted outside. 

Ares grunted. His mattress creaked.

Would he still want her after all this? Did he like her vulnerable and hesitant and small? She adored how taken he was with her power, how he never seemed to want her to retreat or conform or defang. But she wasn't always powerful. Would he still be there when he woke up with two nights of her weaknesses on him? 

Would Peitho, after the boss couldn't handle it?

Hermes, when he'd been dragged in to help?

Eurydice, when this got out?

Would her cult? After she let a favourite fall?

Wasn't she supposed to be the one they all looked up to?

She could taste sand, the sand in her mouth when she first washed up on the shore. Alone.

Ares snored.

She latched onto the sound.

He's here for you now. 

And despite everything else she had to worry about, she found herself wondering about Love and War.

She wrapped her phone in her hand, and buried her face in her pillow.

 

*

 

Hera slid into the bed beside Zeus, her silk pyjamas slipping over the pale, crisp sheets. She sat primly as far from his body as she could get.

He glanced over his book. “Those pyjamas new?”

She looked down at the low camisole and its champagne shimmer. “Yes.”

“They’re nice.”

She blinked at him. He went back to his book. She picked up the hand cream on her bedside table and squeezed a perfectly spherical, pea-sized blob into her palm. She rubbed it in. The scent of fresh peach rose into the room. “I think I’ve handled our son’s…” she pursed her lips, “notable distraction.”

Zeus lowered the book. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, his hair combed over one shoulder to fall on his delicately scarred skin. Hera eyed his torso then rolled her eyes away. “I’ve set up a date for him tomorrow night. A lovely nymph from a good family.”

“A nymph?”

“Don’t be a snob. She’s irritatingly pretty and very eager to please. All we need at this stage is someone to draw his eye back on track.”

Zeus cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, but would you say she’s more irritatingly pretty than, you know, the goddess of being irritatingly pretty?”

Hera shot him a look. “Do not involve yourself. I am handling this.”

“You said.” He raised his book again, licked his finger, and turned the page. “I’m just saying, a nymph is never any real match for a goddess.” He sneaked his gaze back to her from behind the hardcover.

Hera halted the rubbing of her hands, then restarted. 

Zeus let out a small breath and snapped his book shut. He heaved himself down into the sheets. Hera finished massaging a stubborn cuticle and followed suit. They lay on their backs with a foot and a half of mattress between them. 

“Do you really think that?” Hera asked stiffly.

Zeus folded his hand onto his bare chest. “Yes.”

She sucked on her tongue.

Zeus sniffed. “But, you know, Ares has the attention span of a mayfly and he gets very attached to anyone who pays him a compliment. So, if she’s eager to please, I daresay by Tuesday morning this adolescent attraction will be collecting dust along with his yearbooks and that stuffed elephant we got him as a kid.”

Hera nodded. The lamplight glimmered from her side of the bed. It brushed watercolour over Zeus’ skin and her new, champagne pyjamas. She clicked it off. Zeus’ jet eye glittered in the darkness. “Trust me, Ares and Aphrodite will be over before they begin.”

Notes:

I just wanted to pop in at the end with the disclaimer that I'm not anti-marriage. I'm aware I have Ares do a big speech about how wanting marriage is fake and bad. I wanna make it clear that "the picket fence" is shorthand for heteronormative (as distinct from heterosexual) relationships, defined by male supremacy, uneven labour, and containing of female agency, often entered into as a matter of course over desire. This isn't to say all straight marriages are bad, or that dreaming about marrying your true love is foolish. Love is real and so many beautiful relationships exist. But the prose was already too long for like nine caveats every five minutes. There is a long, not invalid history of feminist theory grappling with marriage as an agent of patriarchy and harm, not because getting married to someone you love is dumb, but because of the complexities of it as an institution. Women spent a lot of centuries not getting to choose to do it, and are still under huge social pressure to enter into it, regardless of their true desires. I think it's important to be angry about that. But if you married your love, if doing that was your desire, 10,000% more power to you from Ares and Aphrodite (not Hestia though, sorry) xx

Chapter 16: “Don’t look at me like that!”

Summary:

As he realises how close he's grown to Aphrodite, Ares dwells on his destiny. Zeus has a talk with him about the role she played in the Titanomachy, and doubt comes in.

Song: Strange and Beautiful (I'll Put a Spell on You), Aqualung

[CW: Experience of being pathologised, especially in childhood. Family tension. There is an additional one for people sensitive to difficult family relationships, but I'm hesitant to put it upfront because it clearly labels something that would ideally be ambiguous. So it's going in the endnotes and you can pick whether you check it <3]

Ares got up at dawn after somewhere between three and four hours sleep. He was wired, jumpy, exhilarated, nervous; the same feeling he got the night before a decisive battle. They'd come to him for two nights now. Two nights of trouble when they'd found their way to him for help. Two nights of closeness. Closeness like he'd never felt this fast. Sure, it took him ten minutes to get passionate about a pretty face, but this wasn’t just passion. Aphrodite was driving his body wild, but there was everything else too. He was worried about them. He was calmed by them. He wasn’t sure he’d ever found anything so absorbing as sitting around and listening to her speak about her domain. He wanted her to be happy. He wanted them to win. His blood ran scorching when they were in the room, but they also had this ability to fill him with water, to make him feel fluid and cool and moulded to the space so he finally fit. His ears hummed with the sound of their voice buzzing through the phone, their tired, vulnerable tone breaking through his ribs to make his heart bleed. He’d had crushes before. He’d had his share of explosive month-long romances filled with the delirious urge to get himself hurt, either in imploding his heart or throwing himself in front of their trauma. He’d never been so driven to actually work to help someone before. He’d never more wanted to not destroy himself for someone, to be healthy and strong and powerful so they could live in that refuge. 

Was he capable of that?

He ran.

He threw on his exercise clothes, burst out of a side door of the palace, and tore out into the grounds. 

Then the city. 

He sped like a meteor through sleepy, tangerine-touched streets, his glow scattering shadows like pigeons. His bright reflection splashed on the windows of dormant cafes and shops with the awnings rolled in. Very occasionally, he was dimly aware of a fellow runner or a construction worker trudging to the early start. The milk van clinked and rattled its way past. The rest of the time, it was deserted. He needed that. He needed to be alone. It was like she was always with him, attached to him, arms looped around his neck, body pressed to his, lips in his hair. He couldn't think straight. He needed to think straight. He needed to reset.

His discman tapped his hip as thrash metal unleashed into his ears. It made him run faster, run like he was in a mob, brain melting into the cascading noise and motion. 

Athena’s advice was playing in his head. “You're fucking about. You're making eyes at an ancient, primal, titan-spawn goddess of sex and violence. An association between love and war takes your divine identity in completely the wrong direction. Carnage. Brutality. Vengeance. The surging of animal emotion until it can't be contained and covers the realms in fire. Arousal from violence. Love of rage. Desire and destruction. Humanity at its buried, volcanic core.”

Being with Aphrodite wasn't just a question of who he wanted, it was about who he was. She made him wonder about that in a way that unnerved and hooked him. His own words rumbled under the crash and scream in his headphones. “People want stability, but desire doesn't care about that, right? It's lawless. So, if you wanna break the law, isn't it better to trust it? Follow it? Stop trying to be content and start trying to be fucking ecstatic, you know?"

He thought about Sparta. He hadn't been back since the campaign. He knew he should, they'd dedicated their rising city to him, but every time he remembered the hundreds of glaring eyes raised to the blood red sky in prayer, his stomach heaved. Athena told him to be proud, that this was a chance to show his might, to get a real footing on the political stage as more than just a figurehead. He hadn't been able to tell her yet that that wasn't what Sparta was calling him to do. He'd hovered there, borne on the surging of their victory and agony and bloodlust, and he'd felt no ambition, no highness, no coming together of some kind of plan. Only the burning. The dirty, furious drive to rampage, to draw blood, to smell it hot in his nose and mouth, to rip open the land. Athena saw a victory, an end. Ares saw a beginning, an awakening craving for battle that didn't seek to conquer or gain, that just wanted the feeling of being a warrior. Athena spoke confidently about how Sparta would be a reflection of Ares as a god. She didn't know how right she was. 

And now he was burning again. He'd been just about keeping it dampened down in his locked-tight chest since the dedication ceremony, staying up on the mountain, in the sparkly, polite spaces of the aloof. Then that woman had kissed him among the violets, liked him for his fire, freed his heart from its careful bandages and left it out in the air where everything could get to it. He thought about the moment his shirt had fallen open in the dim study on Saturday night, how his heart had been glowing in his chest, so bright it stained his skin. That had only happened once before. In Sparta. 

Aphrodite made him want that burning. The burning he had worked so hard all his life to quash. The burning that made Athena discipline him, his mother's mouth turn down at the edges, the palace staff scurry out of sight when he turned down corridors. The burning that made his father cling to that damn prophecy. 

He will fall to his son.

Ares slammed his feet onto the pavement.

Don't go there.

Athena’s voice in his head again. “You're not a teenager anymore, Ares. Soon, fights with dad are going to be labelled something more serious. Insurrection.”

Fuck off, he didn't want to overthrow anything, certainly didn't want to be king, what a ball ache. And Zeus was an asshole, but he didn't want to… 

But they were all so much older than him, they knew more, and the burning didn't feel frightening to him, but if they were scared of it, well… 

And if Aphrodite wasn't, what did that say about her? 

That she was who he'd been waiting for?

Or who they'd been fearing would come? 

“You need to know what you want, Brother. Because, until you have a goal, you have no way of judging the most important question: do the ends justify the means? And with Aphrodite, whatever stimulation you gain from her, you risk a lot of hurt, coldness, instability.”

He panted, the cool, morning air pumping his lungs as his muscles warmed like malleable copper. 

If he went for it with Aphrodite, he'd be going for it with Sparta, with the burning. Maybe at the end of that road was who he really was, his purpose as a god. But what if it wasn’t, what if…

“You chase chaos. All it does is get you hurt.”

Was that all he was doing? Being with Aphrodite had this intoxicating newness to it, but didn’t every crush? Was he just back in his pattern?

The CD track paused to change and the ticking of a sprinkler flicked his ears. 

Tick, tick, tick.

The sound reminded him of something else.

Tick, tick, tick.

The ticking of a projector. 

Tick, tick, tick.

He was twelve years old and he was standing in a dark, claustrophobic room that smelled of hot plastic and popcorn. His mother was at his side, her soft face broken up geometrically as jittering light cut past her cheek from the projector behind her. Her hand was on his shoulder, though she was barely taller than him now. His father stood a few paces off, wisps of smoke curling from tight lips. The ethereal puffs solidified in the monochrome glimmer, the whites of his eyes eerily illuminated in the dimness. Uncle H merged with the shadows in one corner, hulking and silent. Three peculiar women flocked opposite them, their radiation-yellow eyes bubbling with a weird, cold excitement through cat-eye glasses that reflected the sweeping beams. 

Tick, tick, tick.

The projector pointed out of the room's single, rectangular window, its wheels spinning slow and hypnotic, the sepia strips of film serpentining around them. It sprayed a red movie onto the vast screen of the black theatre below. 

Ares was kept purposefully turned away from it.

"But this can't be." His mother's voice was urgent . "The doctors said it was probably some kind of fire destiny, what with all the burns on his hands. We were thinking maybe he was taking the place left open by Prometheus."

The women all smiled widely as one, their turquoise skin translucent in the spitting glare from the projector.

"No."

"Nope."

"Nada."

"He's a war boy."

"War."

"War, for sure."

Hera bristled. "Why would War be born during our longest period of peace? What purpose could it possibly serve? We are stable, we are prosperous, why this now?"

He stung. He glanced at his father with hope. Dad was stony-faced and wreathed in smoke, Uncle H this cavity of darkness in a streak of neon blue. The shadows of the Fates warped on the wall in the globules of brightness. Ares' shadow dragged along the carpet, painting into those of his parents.

Tick, tick, tick.

The hazy screen flickered through the dusty window, casting all the harsh faces above him in stark, anxious light. It looped again and again the film of a boy who looked like him, but older and angrier, with the blood and the bodies and the fire in a wheel around his armoured form. 

"Have Athena train him. With her guidance, he can join her in the gods of diplomacy and conquest." Uncle H's sombre, hollow tone. "This needn't be treated as any kind of omen."

Zeus' scalpel sharp retort. "Except there's already been an omen, hasn't there? And I don't like how it pairs with this."

"Sh!" His mother's hand gripped his shoulder. "Don't talk about that in front of him!"

He pulled from her grasp as they kept hissing, interrupted periodically by the sing-song ramblings of the three bespectacled women with their hungry, pale eyes. He drifted to the window and looked along the beam to the reeling images of the boy who looked like him and the blood and the fire. The picture blinked. The boy was rising on a torrent of marching soldiers, a river of scarlet and bronze, and drowning in the river was an indigo eagle with lightning in its wings. 

He gasped. He whipped around to look at the backs of his parents. They didn't seemed to have noticed.

But one yellow eye behind almond glass winked at him.

Then Uncle H glanced and his iris flickered red.

Ares froze.

Yellow and red looked away.

And apparently never told Zeus what they had seen, what Ares saw, because Zeus had remained convinced Ares had no knowledge of the prophecy released on the death of Kronos. Ares wouldn't know its details until he confided the movie's secret cutscene to Athena, just before going to college. She finally told him. Zeus, the great king, the father of all peace and bounty, the one who had liberated them from the titans and forged this era of joy and security, he too would fall to his son. And with it, his world.

Tick, tick, tick.

The projector ticked.

The drowning eagle screeched.

The screen bleached out in a flash of lightning.

Ares stared through the unnatural scarlet eyes of his reflection on the window, and felt something strange moving in his body.

The sprinkler ticked.

The thrash singer screeched.

The street bleached out in a flash of dawn.

Ares squelched into grass, still soft from the weekend's rainstorm.

It had explained everything. His godhood hadn't been discovered, it had been diagnosed. A childhood spent in doctors' offices and detention and "just having a little talk." Why was he so difficult? Why was he so volatile? Why couldn't he just behave? Why couldn't he just try? It had all finally found a name.

War.

War born in peacetime.

His training, his education, his coming of age, it had all been a sort of preventative treatment programme. He had spent his life as a walking sickness, something dormant in the Olympus body that they were all terrified was going to become malignant one day. He was Olympus' chicken pox sitting in the system waiting to break out as shingles and end the good health and happy life of the realms in a violent fever. Everything about how he lived was defined by preparation for that risk. 

Except being with Aphrodite.

Shingles could be triggered by anything. If she was drawn to his darker nature, if she didn't keep up the work of everyone else to make sure he stayed on track, could she be what let him break out? What finally turned him into a virus? He thought about Athena's discomfort with her, Hades' hostility in the Eurydice meeting, Zeus' little push for authority at the garden party, Hestia's full-blown feud. He thought about how his mother always kept enemies closer than friends. No one trusted Aphrodite, but no one really seemed to think she was going to do anything. It was just her presence, she was an invasive species, a foreign body, something that could upset the functioning system. Same as him. 

His body smouldered, his tank top pasting to his body as he sweat like a tree in the rainforest. His legs ached. He ran through it.

He thought about something Artemis had said to him one time, when Athena had brought her in for archery lessons. He'd asked her why she was both the protector of girls and the one who made them sick. She said sickness was part of nature. Drastic things cause change, burn off the old and allow new growth. It was horrible to inflict, but it moved the world forward.

The ends justified the means.

If he gave into how he felt for Aphrodite, would it mean getting out of this trap? Being renewed? Finding a path? Knowing who he was? At last? And if it did, would it be worth what it might make of him? And his family? What if who he was wasn't good? What if he really was a sickness in the realms? Was it the kind that led to change? Or the kind that just made them waste away? 

What if he found out why he'd been born and it wasn't worth the damage it caused?

What if he went for it with Aphrodite, with Sparta, with the burning, and it wasn’t any kind of destiny, just habit, just compulsion, just him chasing chaos all along? He was the grandson of Kronos, what if he wasn't the next stage of the bright era of Zeus, what if he was the virus reawakened? 

The king will fall to his son. So for Ouranos, so for Kronos, and so for…

Searing javelins of the orange sunrise shot through the slivers between buildings, rows of spears ready for battle. They lanced his eyes.

His stomach heaved. He halted and threw his hands on his knees and took ragged, gulping breaths, his throat convulsing as he grappled with the nausea. His power had whisked up without his realising, compressed beneath his ribs and punching his gut. 

Shit, shit, shit…

He grasped his knees and bent, trembling. He breathed the brisk, dawn breeze.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Cold. Out. Slow down. In. Cold. Out. Slow down.

His stomach settled gingerly. He stood and stretched his back, panting, sweat dripping into eyes. He could smell the salt caking on him under the fresh smell of cut grass.

In. Cold. Out. Slow down.

He flexed his neck.

He ran.

 

*

 

Ares lumbered into the sparkling, granite and chrome kitchen with a family of porcupines living in his lungs. He'd run for hours, miles, he'd run the mountaintop to rubble and the deserted dawn to a bustling brunch. He was drenched, gleaming like marble and panting like a labrador. The thrash album, several playthroughs in, still hurricaned in his headphones, the voice like a sea squall and the drums like machine guns, fast and frantic. It was the only thing that could outrun his teetering spiral. The run had at least robbed him of the energy to actively pursue it. 

He pulled open the fridge door too hard, the contents quaking. He grabbed a large bottle of water, snapped it open with his teeth, and spritzed it onto his red, boiling face. He coughed at the shock of cold. He poured the contents down his throat, numbing the dry sting of gasping for breath. Ice crashed into his stomach and numbed it too. He broke his mouth away, heaved for breath, and glugged again.

"ARES!" One headphone pinged against his ear as his name was yelled into it. 

"Shit!" He jumped out of his skin, spraying the bottle down his top. He wheeled around to see Hera pursing her lips up at him. He huffed and clicked off the CD, brushing his headphones to his neck and the droplets off his nose. "Oh, hey," he said breathlessly, before sealing his mouth to the bottle again.

"I said hello four times," Hera said crisply.

Ares swallowed noisily. "Music."

"I gather."

He swept his damp curls back and kept drinking. His body was parched.

Hera's face softened, her half-tutting smile slipping onto her lips. "I've been looking for you all morning."

"Went for a run," his voice came rough.

She looked him up and down with one nostril scrunching up. "Where to? Egypt?"

He laughed coarsely, crushed the empty water bottle flat with one hand, hucked it across the room into a bin, and thunked back into the fridge.

Hera rested a pale hand on an abnormally shiny countertop. "Something on your mind?"

Ares re-emerged with a slam. He cracked open a second bottle and swigged. "Not usually." He glanced at her. Her elegant pose looked more rehearsed than usual, like she looked in meetings, not with him. He frowned. "And you?"

She leaned a little on the counter. She looked down. "I've made an appointment for you and I'd like you to keep it."

Ares went colder than the water, too many memories of doctors' offices colliding with him as his mind still mulched with his childhood. 

"It's a date."

He blinked. "A… a what?"

Hera straightened up and folded her arms, looking at him earnestly. "I have set you up to take a lovely, young nymph out for drinks tonight, on a date."

The cold was replaced by a dragging irritation. "Aw, Ma, nooooo!" he whined, rolling his eyes dramatically.

She spoke sternly over him. "You attracted a lot of positive attention on Saturday night, you are fast becoming what we in the business call an eligible bachelor."

"I'm eligible for shit, Ma!" He took a sulky swig. "I'm not on the marriage market!"

She spread her hands imploringly. "How many people are going to have to talk to you about advantageous unions for your position before you start taking them seriously?"

Ares grumbled, stoppering his retort with the bottle.

"Look, I'm not asking you to get married today, but as you get older, and get more scrutinised, I just want it visible that you're looking.”

"But I’m not looking.” 

“I’ll think you’ll find you are, actually.” 

Ares groaned like a tractor. He did not need this right now, not with everything he was trying to get straight in his head. He slapped the opposite counter and levered himself to sit on it, bulky trainers knocking on cupboard doors  "I’m not good at dates. She won’t enjoy it."

“You could avoid that by being nice to her.” 

“I’m always nice to girls!” 

She arched an eyebrow. “You pull their pigtails.” 

He grinned into the bottle. “Some of them like that.” 

“Most of them do not." She sighed patiently through her nose. "Come on, Lamb, you’re nice to me, can’t you try it with a whole one other woman?” 

Ares prickled and screwed up his mouth, glowering at her, like a cat getting shoved off a lap. 

She held his gaze firmly.

He ground his teeth.

She arched her eyebrow higher. She looked like a squat, little lightning bolt. But there was no anger coming off her. There never was when Dad wasn't in the room, she was the only person who got more peace for spending time alone with him. He grunted and swung his foot. "Where do I have to go?"

"The Lunar Vineyard, it's a bar on that street with all the wedding dress shops."

"But not to put ideas in her head."

"8 o'clock."

"Yeah."

"Wear a tie."

"No."

Hera smirked and began to stride out of the kitchen, the clack of her heels echoing on the granite. 

Ares slouched and watched her go with a rumbling annoyance. "I'm only doing this because you’re my favourite parent.” 

"Not exactly up against stiff competition," she called back, vanishing out of the door.

He made a grouchy noise in his throat and raised his eyes to the ceiling, tipping heavily. He let the irritated noises chunter out of him until he was empty. He huffed, dropped from the counter, and dragged his feet up to his room to shower the sweat and the spiral off him. One of them was still half clinging by the time he was clean. His jaw ached as he compulsively clenched it, constantly checking himself and rolling it relaxed, before it slowly seized up again. 

He went back to the kitchen and made himself a sandwich with most of the cold contents of the fridge, while the chef serenely organised a delivery of spices. They had reached an equilibrium long ago - Chef wasn't expected to plough his working hours into trying to keep up with the number of calories a large body of half fire and half muscle needed, and Ares wasn't expected to present himself with any sort of royal dignity.

"How's Hubs?" Ares asked, splattering mayonnaise onto thick cut ham.

Chef eyed his monstrous creation with distaste. "All snot and sniffles this time of year."

Ares squished the sandwich shut and took a bite, speaking thickly around it. "Gross. Tell him get well soon."

Chef smiled warmly. Ares nodded at him and headed out. He began to amble aimlessly about, headphones back in place. He finished the sandwich on route, dusted his fingers on his jeans, and mumbled along to the wrecking of the guitar. He found himself a couch in one of the smaller sitting rooms, a stylish, mellow, grey and mahogany space with a large painting of a moonlit ocean on one wall. He collapsed into the cushions and the screaming singer. He gazed at the dark sea. 

The album got another full playthrough.

The white trickle of painted moonlight sank through the black waves, like an arcing spear. 

Ares sighed and closed his eyes.

He wondered what it was like on Cyprus. He'd never been.

His headphone pinged his ear again.

"Ah! Ma, could you not!" His eyes opened sharply to see a set of straight, dazzling teeth in an awkward half-smile. 

Zeus stood over him, shirt almost as white as his teeth. "It's the other one."

Ares' hackles went up. He made a show of turning up his music. He felt a bitter satisfaction as his father's metallic frustration flavoured the air. But it fizzled out surprisingly quickly. Zeus raised his voice over the caterwaul. "Room on that couch for one more?"

Ares scowled and stretched his crooked legs to take up every inch of sofa. Zeus looked a little tired. He lowered himself to sit on the boxy coffee table instead. He rested his elbows on his knees and softly furled his hands together. His wedding ring twinkled. Ares eyed it with his gut clenching. Most days he would have blasted the discman until he won the battle of wills, but the run had eaten up a lot of his fuel. He grit his teeth, clicked it off, and flicked the headphones away. "What?"

Zeus' awkward half-smile twitched. "Truce."

Ares looked at him flatly.

Zeus' hands began to move smoothly on each other like thunder clouds rolling. His tone was strangely hesitant, supplicative. "How’s your training going?"

Ares bristled with suspicion. "Fine."

He nodded. "Athena knows her stuff, you should take the opportunity to really pick her brain."

"Uhuh."

The twisting hands rubbed palm to palm. "I’ve always been very proud of how well you two get on, what with only being half-siblings. It speaks volumes about your characters that you’ve always made sure to stay close."

Ares frowned deeply. What was this? "Yeah, well, this family can’t be too picky about traditional values, can it?"

The crescent moon smile flickered, then broadened. "You say that as if traditional values are something you’d miss."

Ares narrowed his eyes.

"You’ve always carved your own path, prioritised who you care about over any kind of expectations. Another reason I’m proud of you. You get it from me, I think."

Ares' firepit of a stomach smouldered. His lip curled like a leopard's.

Zeus' shoulders sank meekly, eyes and voice lowering. "Alright, probably not what you want to hear."

Was that… shame? No, it couldn't be. Ares snapped. "Are you high or something? What is this conversation?"

"Come on, it’s nothing." Zeus let out a defensive laugh. He knotted his fingers together, still stroking his thumbs over his hands. He shrugged and looked off to the side, hair falling over his cheek. "Look, I just had a birthday, it’s a milestone. It got me thinking." He sighed and turned back to Ares, his eyes a warm black, the colour of fur or velvet. That lunar smile glimmered. "I realise I’ve been hard on you lately, but seeing you at the party…" His hands rotated as if he was carefully moulding the words from clay. "You looked like a man, all grown up. And I know it’s not your favourite pastime, but you did well representing the family."

Ares held himself tense as a board and watched his father warily. His pulse thrummed like it did on the edge of the arena. Where was this going?

"It was a strange moment for me," Zeus continued. There was a melancholic warmth in his voice, a sort of nostalgia. His hands rocked as if he was cradling something. He spoke to them. "For so long, you’ve been my kid. Having a son is…" He chuckled under his breath. "Well, there’s nothing like it. You worry all the time, what kind of man they’ll be, what kind of impact they’ll have on the world. And then if you’re a king, multiply that by fucking infinity." Another chuckle, a little more edged. His eyes looked tired, his brow was soft. "I suppose, I’ve put a lot of pressure on you, I haven’t told you when you make me proud, because the worry’s always there. You’re just this great big, glowing potential, and every time it gets a little more fulfilled it’s so exciting, but that makes it all ten times scarier. I get this horrible fear that the moment I speak of it, I'll make it too real and jinx it, you know? I don’t handle fear well, especially when there’s nothing I can do but trust the thing to unfold as it will. Being a parent is surprisingly powerless, and I haven’t really accepted that as I should, and you’ve borne the brunt of that.” He shook his head. “This probably doesn’t make sense. I just don't have the words. It's too huge." His smile slipped wider, as if he had seen a shooting star out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and regarded Ares, his glittering eyes roving over him, taking him in, really, actually looking at him.

Ares felt like he was under a searchlight. He crossed his arms to shield his body and fixed his hard frown over his face. But beneath it, his heart was beating stronger. Somewhere under the rubble in his mind, he remembered this voice, this deep, rich, caressing voice telling stories and singing a lazy lullaby as he was rocked, held to a warm, secure body. He tightened the crossing of his arms.

"I should have been telling you I was proud. I shouldn’t have kept that fear bottled up and taken it out on you." The melancholic lilt strained. "It’s a mistake I already made with your mother, so you’d think I would have learned."

Ares' throat closed. He shifted against the back of the sofa to put an extra inch between them. His jaw turned to oak.

"But I saw you on Saturday, standing in your might with this huge success behind you." Zeus raised his chin and his eyebrows, blowing out the cobwebs. "Let’s say it was something of a wake up call."

Ares' arms looked hewn inexpertly from stone, he was holding himself so rigid. He managed to rasp out an "OK…"

Zeus seemed to brighten at the word. His hands finally stilled and flexed. "Now, when I’m worried about you, I have to trust that you’re mature enough for me to open up about it." He turned a little tentative. "I’d like us to start talking more."

Ares' face didn't move. His pulse kept pounding. The back of his neck was prickling and clammy. What was this? Was it some kind of angle? What did the old man want? Was he… was he really trying to make some kind of turn? 

Possibly?

"Could we maybe start now? Could we talk about something I’m worried about?"

Ares' heart pounded in his throat. He balled his fists under his arms. Why was he so clammy? Why did he feel like he was being pried open? 

Why did he want to hear this?

A squirm went through his body, as if he couldn't tighten himself up enough, as if something was trying to get inside him and he had to bar its path. His flesh felt unnaturally tender.

Zeus waited for his reply, face open and calm. 

Ares was a powder keg, but there was one thing about pissing people off so often: he’d developed an inclination towards forgiveness. After all, where would he be without it?

Not that Zeus was getting a scrap of that, but…

Maybe hear him out?

Why did he want to hear this?

"Fine," Ares said through a closed mouth. 

"Thank you, Son. I appreciate it." Zeus took a breath, straightening a little on the coffee table. He rubbed his hands together and lightened his voice. "Your mother says she’s got you on her match-making programme."

Ares blinked quizzically. "It’s just a date. For the visuals, you know?"

Zeus nodded quickly. "Sure, sure, of course. No, you shouldn’t rush into anything. You’re so young, you have so much time. You deserve to have a little fun."

"Uh, thanks?"

A wistful note. "I was in the Titanomachy at your age. I didn’t have the time to find out who I was, to get the scope of the world." A warm chuckle peppered his voice. "But I do remember how it feels being in your twenties. Everything’s so intense, right? You feel everything on this grand scale. You meet one beautiful person and they take over your entire existence."

Sourness flooded Ares' mouth, the clamminess suddenly sizzling. "So that’s what happened with Ma? You got obsessed as a kid and then didn’t get to play the field and now you’re, what, making up for lost time at her expense?"

His mouth singed with the flavour of wiring as Zeus' anger kicked up, the broad, sharp shoulders tensing and jet eyes sharp. Again, it quelled and he looked down meekly. "I deserved that." He exhaled carefully. "Look, I can’t change the past. But I can reflect on it." His steady voice rolled with passion. "I have never, not for a moment, stopped being in love with your mother. I know it’s shitty to hear, but you are too young to understand how I feel for her. We’ve been through so much over so many years, had a child together, ruled together, fought together, lost together, been victorious together. She’s everything to me, in a way that just can’t make sense at your stage of life."

Ares glared, he hated being this age. He wanted to think that Zeus was just condescending to get off the hook, but was he definitely wrong? Ares did feel most days like he was stumbling between things he couldn't define or relate to.

Zeus sighed wearily. "But our marriage has been challenging." He pressed Ares with his sincere, concerned gaze. "While I deeply hope that you get to feel a love like I have for her, I do also hope that you will make your choices a little slower than me, that you set your future relationship up on a stronger foundation, so it doesn’t suffer like mine has."

Ares scoffed. "A stronger foundation than love? I dunno, Dad, pretty sure if your marriage can’t stand on that, it can’t stand on anything."

His father's tone remained level and open. "Well, love is very important. But marriage is hard work. It takes trust, collaboration, compromise. It takes more than passion, as powerful as that may feel in the moment you decide this is your person."

"Where is this going?"

Zeus shut his mouth, his lips restless. He looked hesitant again. He thumbed his wedding ring. "Your mother said you told her you didn’t want to look for a wife."

Ares shrugged.

"Is that just because you’re enjoying the single life? Or is it…" he grimaced, "something else?"

Ares' heart stopped.

"Someone else, maybe?"

Ares' stomach rushed hot. "Say what you mean," he growled.

No anger flared in his father. He inclined his head respectfully, took another careful breath, and said, "you seem to have been spending some time with Aphrodite."

Ares' fist dug into his side under his arm. "It’s a small town, we run into each other."

A smooth, indulgent grin. "Ares." 

He looked so relaxed, so patient. Ares' tensed body crumpled a little, caving into the tenderness on his skin. That crawling sensation trying to get into his body ebbed, he relaxed a little too. He blushed and bit his lip.

Zeus' grin twinkled. "She’s an extremely charismatic woman, Son, it’s not foolish of you to be attracted to her."

Ares' face and neck burned. He wanted to bury himself in the cushions. He wanted to giggle. “Uh…”

Zeus sobered, still tentative. "I suppose, I just… I don’t want you not to take the opportunity your mother is creating for you because you’re investing in something with Aphrodite. You’re still young, and I know that feelings for a goddess can be overwhelming, but you’re not like me and your uncles, you have all the time in the world, in the cosmos. So why jump into something at 23?"

Ares balked. "Who says I’m jumping?"

Zeus opened his hands in a calming gesture. "Like I said, I’m trying to be honest about being worried. I might not be right, but I’m being honest, just in case." He gave Ares a look as if gazing at a constellation. "You have so much to become, you're going to be such a god, I know it. I don't want you weighed down in your golden age by a youthful passion."

Ares' heart stung. Did his father really think that's what love would be to him? Fleeting? Unsustainable? He tried to stop himself seeking comfort, but the sting was too deep. "Dad…" His voice croaked. "Dad, if you still love Ma after all this time, why don’t you think I could? Like, why couldn’t I make feelings last?"

Zeus' expression melted. He hastily leaned forward and laid his hand on Ares' arm. It was warm and strong. "Oh, Ares, I don’t mean that. Of course you can. When you fall in love, I am absolutely confident it will be forever, that you’ll be Olympus’ finest husband."

Ares didn't flinch from the touch. "Then what are we even talking about?"

"Exactly that." Zeus squeezed his arm, softening the tension in his muscle. "Ares, I don’t want to see you give yourself to someone who doesn’t deserve you, when you have so much time left to find someone who does."

Ares bolted upright, throwing off his hand, flame lashing his arteries. "So that’s it? You think Ma doesn’t deserve you? You’ve been looking for someone better all this fucking time?"

"Absolutely not!" Thunder barked outside in the blue sky. 

Ares started at the clap of rage. He caught his breath, watching Zeus with his ears back, ready to leap and run.

The darkness rippled across Zeus' face and dissipated. He cleared his throat and clasped his hands between his knees again. "I’m sorry, Son, I didn’t mean to snap. Please understand, I’m not trying to draw any kind of direct line from my experience to yours. Your mother and I have had complications wildly beyond anything you have lived. I only brought up our past to say that I know that falling in love with someone and having a simple, healthy life aren’t automatically linked. And it’s something I think is worth considering if you and Aphrodite are getting close."

The shock of loving, protective rage from his father still lingered in Ares' senses. It was so rare he felt that in Zeus. The old man was a master of temper and stewing, his anger usually felt somehow greasy, scum on a polluted river, the fizz of exposed and dangerous circuits. But this was clean, a flash rainstorm. He watched his father warily, curiosity peeking over his lowering shield. "Why?"

Zeus dropped his head to hang heavily and clucked his tongue. "I’ve been debating whether to tell you this."

"Tell me what?"

Zeus wrung his hands.

"Dad, would you spit it out!" He wanted to sound insistent, it came out uneven.

Zeus nodded. He took one more preparatory breath. His hair drifted around his face. "The war gets so talked about so casually, doesn’t it? To so many people here, it's history. It's a bedtime story. It's hard for the victor not to look back on the battle as glorious, as this time of defiant optimism, the scrappy Six Traitors giving the tyrant what for." He rubbed his wrist. "But it wasn't like that. If I'm being honest, if I'm in private, we thought every day that we were going to lose. It was a nightmare with no dawn in sight. You woke up with the taste of bile and went to sleep with the taste of blood. The violence of it was… well, it wasn't glorious. You know a little something of that now, but it is different with gods." His brow creviced. "And with family." A small shudder passed through him, Ares watched its path. "And then there was this twin agony of falling love." He smiled. "Gods, I know I've claimed to the world to be the father of our two greatest warriors, but you're so much like her. This strike of gold in the darkness, cutting through our enemies with this single-minded, great-hearted surge of power. She was…" he shook his head in awe, "she was hope made flesh."

Ares clung to his words. Hera never talked about the war, but he knew her strength, he'd always longed to see what she'd been like.

Zeus continued in his heated rumble. "One day, we met on the golden fields of Thessaly and we faced Kronos with everything we had. Sea and darkness and thunder, metal and might, guile and courage. The sky echoed with it."

Ares' heart swelled.

"We had the advantage and we pressed it. Kronos was hemmed in with Demeter’s forest behind him. I will never forget how he looked, the fury, anger like we don't even have the room in our bodies to feel." He glanced with a touch of pain at Ares. "I thank the Fates every day that you, with your power, never met him. I can't imagine the damage it might do to you." 

Ares bunched his shoulders. 

Zeus kept frowning with the smallest crease through it, as if he might weep. "The titan raised his weapons in his vast arms, and I charged him. The time was finally here. The reckoning. And then there was this blinding flash of gold. Hera was out-running me, shooting like an arrow towards the beast with her spear raised and her eyes like suns. I cried out for her to stop. The terror gripped me so hard that when I wake in the night and she's not there, I still feel its scars. I tried to catch her, but she was always faster than me. I watched helplessly as she reached him and leaped for his chest." His hands closed tight. "And then I saw it. The look I knew so well because it mirrored my own." He softened. "Adoration." He darkened. "Just as I had been overpowered by Hera's beauty, so had my father." His fists twitched. "As she leaped for him, he lowered his weapons and vanished in white cloud."

Ares sat frozen, pulse thrumming. He didn't dare speak. He needed to hear this like he needed air.

Zeus' face tightened. "You think it's scary having a titan hate you, imagine having one in love with your reason for being. I became desperate. Before, we'd all been fighting with the knowledge that it was win or die as one. Now it was muddier than that. Every battle gave Kronos the opportunity to take Hera from us. To make her his…" He grit his teeth and swallowed the words like acid. "I had to stop it, and she refused to stop fighting. So I looked for another solution."

Ares held his breath.

Zeus wavered briefly. His lip twitched. "None of us had met Aphrodite yet. She was the progeny of Ouranos, but no balancing titaness, and that made us wary of her power. She was little more than a rumour to us. While war raged on the mainland, she held the islands as her own, shrouded in a thick, pearly mist said to be filled with maddening visions. She was whispered of as a sorceress who could will people's hearts and tame the wildest creature. I had no idea what would happen to me if I ventured into that mist, but I had one hope: she was a mistress of hearts, so my love would prove me worthy of an audience."

Ares' nails scratched his waist through his t-shirt. There was a pressure on his throat and belly.

"I seemed somewhat right. I flew through the mist and kept my sanity, though I often thought I heard voices, crying women and pleading men, the song of swords." He suppressed a shudder and went on. "I landed on the island, where I found Aphrodite at the mouth of a cavern. She was shelling oysters. She seemed unmoved by my intrusion. She offered me the oysters and we ate together on the beach. I told her of my war, I told her of my love. I asked if it was true that she could will the hearts of any creature."

Ares frowned. He clenched his teeth. He needed to hear this. He wanted to hear this.

Didn't he?

Zeus stroked his chin and interlaced his fingers again. "She told me she did have that ability. I asked her to use it to help us, to come to the mainland and change Kronos, so he would not pursue Hera, so he would make peace. I asked her to make it so that he was no longer cruel."

Ares' heart raced.

"She refused."

It clunked and bruised. "W-what?"

"Kronos was in many ways her creator, and he had created her through his first brutality. I don't know, she didn't go into great detail with her answer, but it seemed that she was unable to view Kronos' violence as truly a problem. He had taken up a sword and so brought about her birth, what else might be born from his obscene acts?"

Their alluring voice sneaked into Ares' mind. “We pre-exist you. And your courts. We remember the primordial. It wasn't torment. It was chaos. But chaos doesn't have to be painful.”  

Another tremor went down Zeus as he visibly fought not to let his anger rise. It touched the tip of Ares' tongue, that clean, rain flavour again. "I begged her. I promised her lands and titles and anything I could give. I told her all about Hera, my golden queen, my precious heroine. I told her everything Kronos had done to us - tearing the land apart at the crust, eating his own children. I told her about the moment I saw my brothers' faces drenched in his fucking viscera as I cut them from his stomach." He swallowed steadily. "She said she didn't want to get involved."

"I've never been much inclined to staying in line, even for the greater good."

Zeus shook his head and raised it, the anger sweeping away, his gentle, careful tone back in his deep, resonant voice. "When I returned, your mother listened to me explain what I'd tried to do, and she came up with her own idea." His brow crumpled. "Much to my shame. I never should have told her that I thought charm might help us. She was so determined to do anything to secure our victory." His interlaced fingers hardened until the bones etched through. "She decided to use Kronos' fascination with her for our own ends. To become a spy."

Ares' heart sank and splashed into his acidic stomach.

"You know this part. Everyone knows this part. She was excellent. She was braver than any of us. She was the only reason we won, fuck our weapons and our might. She unlocked Kronos for us." He sneered with bitter satisfaction. "By the time he realised, it was too late for him. We knew everything and we were days from bringing him to justice." The smile fell. "But he did take his revenge." He met Ares' eyes and for a piercing moment they were deeply bonded over their shared rage, Ares felt it spin tight and link them, a golden cord the colour of his mother's spilled blood. Zeus looked mournfully away. "I won't describe how I found her, lying in the wheat, she means too much to you, it’s not fair to make you picture it. But it destroyed me. It unmade me. It's absurd that she survived, but thank Fates, because I would have died with her in that moment." He ran his hand down his face, drawn and shadowed. "Every time I see those scars, I regret telling her about Aphrodite, regret her throwing her sweetness into the mouth of that monster for me. Especially when I could have persuaded another goddess to do it unharmed."

Ares' insides were wrenching. Why didn't Aphrodite just help? Even if she liked the primordial, even if she didn't want to take a side, could she not at least have protected one person in love? Wasn't that her job? No. Come on. She couldn't have predicted any of that.

"I wish I could say that's all I had to tell you."

Ares felt sick, his heartbeat punching his insides over and over as he fought to appear calm. He looked back at Zeus' serious, soft expression. 

He needed to hear this.

Didn't he?

"It's fine, go on."

Zeus nodded gratefully. He took a deep breath. He parted his hands, smoothed his suit trousers, and relaced his fingers. "We formed our new court at the foot of the mountain. On our first meeting, I was extremely surprised to find that Poseidon had invited Aphrodite. Apparently he had met her in the ocean and become quite taken with her." He flashed an amused smile. "Nothing untoward, you understand. Your uncle is a very open person, he makes friends easier than farts."

Ares snorted.

Zeus chuckled. He continued, lighter. "This meeting was to decide how to purge the realm of the last of Kronos' wrath. Tendrils of his power were festering in the land, taking on minds of their own, spirits of violence, strife, misery, horror. We needed to free our people once and for all, but none of us had the power to extinguish titanic spirits."

Ares listened.

"We came up with the idea of a jar that could trap the spirits, similar to the prison we had devised for Kronos. We would round up all the sorrows and cruelties of the world and contain them, and let the earth finally flourish. As our mother had intended." He smiled to himself fondly. Ares pricked up, Zeus almost never spoke of his grandmother. The smile lingered. Ares could half understand how people would go to war for that smile, it was doubtless. "It was extremely fucking tedious, but it worked. The world was green and fresh and free. And all was good for a little while. Only good, no complications. That's when we were married, your mother and me." 

Ares' heart ached. The pressure grew on his body. 

"Worship flocked to the triarchy. It was a new age of justice and peace and abundance. Temples rose to the Six Traitors across the Aegean. The power poured into us, and from us flowed the new world."

Ares hunched a little. He'd heard this bit, he'd longed to be this sort of god, but it had never happened.

Zeus faltered, looking uneasy. "And this is where we come back to Aphrodite." He rubbed his wrist. "Truthfully, I really do feel for her in that period. She'd always had a large following and, as both goddess and titan, she was used to being the most powerful being in any room. It must have been quite something to come to terms with when the people she had thought to outlast became the highest in the realm."

Ares frowned. He hugged himself to hold back the frothing in his belly.

His father grimaced. "She's a goddess of longing, isn't she? A goddess of desire."

Ares blushed at the word.

"So how do you think she fares when people want for nothing?"

Ares frowned deeper.

Zeus stroked around his mouth and exhaled swiftly. "I'll just say it. From the way she was with us, it became clear that Aphrodite had realised she had been replaced. She was who the mortals had looked to in a time of chaos and instinct, but the world had civilised. She, quite frankly, at that time, was uncivilised.” His mouth twisted. “But that didn’t mean she wasn’t clever. She knew that the people would turn back to her if they were suffering, if they were in chaos again.” He slid his gaze to Ares with an uncomfortably knowing look. “People in chaos love her. An unsure heart, a heart looking for something. She can work with that." 

Ares’ pulse pounded in his ears. He shrank.

Zeus looked apologetic. He huffed quietly and continued. "I had chosen one of my warriors to guard the jar of Kronos' spirits. He kept vigil over it night and day with unmatched fortitude. To repay his diligence, your mother gifted him a beautiful wife, made by our own hands. Her name was Pandora. She was the most loyal and caring of women. Epimetheus was overjoyed and their marriage was so happy it fuelled our own." He swallowed and spoke slowly, meeting Ares' eye. "Ares, Aphrodite cursed Pandora with a terrible longing. To open the jar and see inside."

Ice crept down Ares' body. He held Zeus' gaze. He needed to hear this.

Didn't he?

Zeus looked pained, deeply sorry. His voice weakened a little. "Epimetheus did all he could to cure his wife of this need, this burning. But there was nothing he could do. She stopped eating, stopped speaking to him, never came to their bed, just sat at the locked door of the jar's chamber and longed. He came to me for help, and while he was in my temple, the door… well, um, it somehow opened."

Ares grasped himself to hide a shudder.

"Pandora went into the chamber. She opened the jar."

Ares let out a small, wounded sound.

Zeus looked with profound regret at him. "The world filled with strife and Aphrodite was the queen of hearts once more." He sighed. "We tried to recapture them, but they'd grown in power in their rage at imprisonment. And the mortal population was growing fast, they had so many places to burrow into. We had to accept that this was the shape of things from now on. Sickness, misery, cruelty, conflict, hunger. Everything we'd fought to free our people from. I tried to bring her to trial, but Poseidon wouldn't agree to it. He took her into the sea and kept her from me. I argued with him for months. Eventually, I understood that his feelings for her could not be changed. I spun some story to pin it all on Pandora and her unfortunate nature and let her and Epimetheus disappear. Only myself and Hera ever knew what Aphrodite had done, and we kept it that way, for my brother’s sake."

Ares' head was spinning, his stomach tossed. He swivelled urgently in his seat to face his father, running through reasoning desperately in his mind. "But if Aphrodite really did all this, why would Uncle P protect her?"

Zeus winced. "I tell myself it's because he's kind. I love him for that. But…" He groaned softly and covered his face with his hand. Ares watched him with eyes like saucers. Zeus sniffed and lowered his hand. "Ares, I want to make it clear that I'm not making an accusation of someone you consider a friend. I just want to check. The feelings she stirs in you, are they your typical sort of feelings?"

Ares bunched one shoulder defensively. "What do you mean?"

Zeus weighed his answer. "I mean, when you get a little crush on someone, does it usually follow the pattern this one has? Or has this one perhaps been faster, harder, felt very important and very singular very quickly, had any sort of dizziness to it? Do you find yourself powerfully driven to speak up for her, ensure her success?" 

Ares' mouth went dry.

"You don't have to answer," Zeus assured him softly. "But it was how it was for Poseidon too. Even in friendship, he was just so… so keen on her. He still is. Won't hear a word against her, brings her up in conversation all the time, misses her like crazy now she's moved. It's a little… intense, if I'm honest. And he's an affectionate guy, so maybe it's nothing. But, well, that's the thing about people with big hearts." He clucked his tongue. "They're her easiest targets."

Ares' throat burned like he was swallowing chili oil. "What are you saying?"

"Oh, I don't know." Zeus swept his brow, looking tired. "I don't want to be a cynic."

"Are… are you saying it's some kind of enchantment? On Uncle P?"

"Well…" Zeus shrugged and splayed his fingers. "Maybe not that far? But, you know, all of us have a sphere of effect when our powers are awake. Maybe she just has a certain… magical magnetism? Maybe she’s just good at guessing who would be most susceptible to it?"

Ares didn't know he could tense any more, but he did.

"It doesn't even have to be intentional," Zeus hastened to add. "But if she knows she can make a man feel particularly attached to her, well, you can't fault her for trying it on with a king. She'd refused to help us, we'd won, it may have made her feel she was in an unsafe position. So she made herself safe. We all do what we have to."

Ares gulped. His mouth was sour.

"And then, of course, she sets her sights on Olympus, on finding a new position for herself, and she…" Zeus glanced uneasily at Ares' oddly sallow face. "Then she finds another big heart?"

"What?"

"I'm not making accusations," Zeus repeated firmly. "It's just something that crossed my mind."

"It just crossed your mind that I might be under a love spell in a fucking power grab by a witch who made the entire world fucking sad and cruel for attention?" His heart was pumping, his hands clawed at his shirt to keep from shaking.

Zeus looked down. 

Ares did too. He focused on breathing. It didn't work. He tried to find all the evidence that this wasn't true, that his feelings were genuine, that hers were too, that this must be a lie or a misunderstanding. He was scrambling in the dark. All he could see was his father's gentle pain and his mother bleeding out onto gold wheat. 

His father got a lot of things wrong, assumed the worst a lot of the time, it could just be a mistake. He longed to talk to someone else, Ma, Athena…

Athena…

“She's a love goddess. You haven't been around long enough, but trust me they have patterns of behaviour. They're very charming, sweet even, but their whole business is romance. Even their own relationships are exercises in experimentation. You're young and emotional and you'll fall for her, and you’ll reorder yourself around that love. She'll observe that with interest, pull on a few threads to see what happens, get you high, get you low, note it all down, and when the project is over she'll leave you, quite possibly heartbroken, while she’ll be pretty much untouched by it all.”

Zeus sighed. "I know it all feels so good with her. Even my one friendly dinner on the island all those years ago, it had this dreamlike quality." 

What was that fucking crawling feeling? That disgusting scuttling in his orifices? In his pores? Something trying to get inside him? Something contaminating, violating… It felt like a fucking centipede. He felt sick. He felt pale. He felt paper thin.

Zeus ticked his jaw. "What you have to remember is that love is her job, and people don't like to take their work home with them." 

“I understand you find this woman exciting, but don't you want to be more than just another day at work?”

Everything went quiet in Ares' head.

Zeus paused for a long time, watching him. He was sat on the couch, hugging his middle, staring at the floor with an unreadable expression. Once or twice Zeus' hand twitched to take his arm or his shoulder, to ground him. He resisted and waited. Eventually, he cleared his throat stiffly and said, "I was hesitant to bring up the past. In truth, it has been a long time, she may have changed. And I don’t want the war to cast a shadow this long. Your mother and I have worked tirelessly to keep you free of the pain of that period." He half-smiled hopefully. "But, well, I was worried. And if you’d been hurt and I could have said something, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself."

Ares was quiet.

"I’m not telling you to stop seeing her. It’s your decision, and now you can make it informed. You're a grown man. I trust you to know what’s right for you."

Ares was quiet.

Zeus shifted on the coffee table to come an inch closer, examining his son's face. He murmured nervously. "Are we OK? Should I not have told you?"

Ares was quiet.

Zeus started to pull back.

"It's fine," Ares mumbled to the floor.

Zeus released a breath. "Thank you."

Ares was quiet.

"Listen, I have work I need to get to, but you know you can always talk to me, right?"

Ares glanced at him.

"Just if you want to."

Ares looked away.

Zeus laid a hand on his knee and pressed it. The feeling was warm in Ares' extinguished body. Zeus clapped his hands to break the silence and stood with a slight groan. "Get out in the fresh air. You don’t need to stress about this. Just have a think."

Ares nodded.

Zeus smiled down at him. He pressed his shoulder and it was warm again. "See you at dinner."

"Yeah."

Ares half registered his father's footsteps leaving the room. He felt tight. That something was writhing inside him, latching onto his core. Nausea rolled in his body. He gasped raggedly and put his head between his knees.

 

*

 

Aphrodite wandered down the gleaming, limestone path through the grounds and gardens of the palace towards her meeting with Hera. She tried very hard, and failed, not to obsess over the possibility of bumping into Ares. They drummed their long, jewelled fingernails on their purse, their phone a lead weight inside. They could text him, call him, tell him they were here, to come meet them. But she had one shred of coy left to her, and it was in not doing that. She resolutely slipped her hands into the pocket of her masculine, navy suit. The collar was wide on the hot day, but she'd rakishly draped an open tie around it, to give her an air of just arriving from the night before, for no other reason that it was sexy and would annoy people. Their hair was in a bun at the nape, a few curls springing into their face with more of that carefree look. Their sneakers were comfortable and they strolled off the path into the grass to feel the earth press into their soles. 

She waved at the gardeners as she passed them, watering bursting beds with their straw hats askew and teetering on step ladders to chop at errant twigs. She smiled to herself. She thought of Ares out in the garden, covered in grass stains, eyes dazzling, hair tangled, clothes rumpled, expression the adorable mix of daring and shy that comes from getting hit on. The way his emotions flashed across his face was delightful. It was like watching a painting take shape. Well, sometimes, when she liked what he was feeling. She let her gaze blur on the distant, white blaze of the greenhouse. She thought about seeing him there, about the car ride, about Saturday night, the way that humiliation and frustration and violation crossed his features in a sickening circus. He was so young to have pain that looked so old. 

“He's going to kill me, Poseidon. Dead. I will be dead.” Zeus’ voice spiked her mind. They sucked their lip. They knew so much more of Ares' gentleness now. What could the Fates possibly have seen? Because it couldn't have been… 

Their thoughts were interrupted by a deluge of the cleansing, green scent of freshly cut grass. They stepped out onto a complex of neat patches of lawn ruffed with jostling flower beds and evenly spaced, prim trees, so as to create what felt like a theatre set of a series of forest clearings. Across it, the roof of the royal house shone, tasselled and frosted with gold and marble detailing.

Sunshine kissed her face like a reuniting lover. 

A few paces off, one tree grew with a trunk that was a little crooked, wending quirkily towards the sun, its waxy, juicy leaves sprouting in brocade along spiralling branches. It looked a little out of place, crowning the curve of cultivation it perched in. They paused and regarded it. There was something about it that spoke to her. It seemed to be refusing to fit in. She smiled wider. She rotated on her heel and went to the tree, slipping into its shade with relief, the thin suit jacket a little hotter than planned. Her eyes traced the etching and gnarling of bark, as if reading a clay tablet. Light twinkled in the veins between fat leaves jostling like bells overhead. Other than that, the branches were empty.

"Is everything alright, Miss?" A jovial voice bounced to her from behind. 

She turned to see one of the gardeners picking his way around the nearby bush of bleeding heart, a portly satyr with a hearty, ageing handsomeness, his horns poking from his straw hat. 

"Miss?" Aphrodite chuckled charmingly. "You're too kind, I'm more of a ma'am these days."

The gardener grinned with crooked teeth. "Can I help? You look somewhat lost."

"I'm just procrastinating." They nodded to the tree. "What's this one?"

He put a hairy fist on his hip. "Ah, that's a starfruit. Well, in theory. Supposed to give us these big, knobbly, yellow buggers and when you cut into the rind in a cross section it's a lovely, golden star shape." He batted a bee from near his beard. "But bless it, it's never borne fruit."

Aphrodite frowned. "Never?"

"Never. Not in over twenty years."

"Is there something wrong?"

He shrugged heavily and nudged his hat back with his thumb. "Some of us wonder if it's cursed."

She yapped a laugh. "That's much more dramatic than I was expecting."

He wheezed a laugh back, then his smile faded. "It's just superstition because it's a little sad."

She raised her eyebrows curiously. She sneaked a tendril of her persuasiveness towards him to hook a little extra gossip.

He didn't seem to need it. "It was planted by the hand of Her Majesty the Queen herself, in celebration of her pregnancy. His Majesty said we needed to get a starfruit for luck that the baby would be as golden as his mother." His eyes were woodland brown. "I remember us all thinking it, new baby, new start. The Queen liked coming out in the garden, we were about the only lot she was ever nice to. But she was nice. We did what we could to make her better, when her wound was playing up, and when, well, other things were playing up too." He sighed. "She really deserved for it to flower." He clucked his tongue. "But that's the danger of hanging your hopes on a sapling. They don't always grow up so good."

Aphrodite pursed her lips. "Maybe it's just not growing as expected. Still looks good to me."

The gardener smiled, scratching his woolly chin. "Well, we take care of it. Maybe one day its promise will be kept, and it will wake up."

She nodded.

"Anyway, enjoy your wanderings." He grinned. “Miss.” He tipped his fraying hat and clopped away.

Aphrodite turned back to the tree and gazed at it softer. Maybe it had never borne fruit, but she could still smell its sweetness, syrup sap and lush summer juice. She hummed and leaned against the warm, smooth bark, touching her cheek to it and taking a deep, indulgent breath. She closed her eyes and let the essence of the tree unfurl and shower over her, a bubbling spring of memory and potential.

“There, that should do it.” A clipped voice echoed somewhere between her ears and her mind.

The vision bloomed in the darkness, gold and green bleeding into brightness, the edges foggy and sparkling. Hera knelt in the flower bed, her belly swollen under a maternity shirt, her hair scooped untidily on top of her head. Earth was smudged on her nose and etched into her palms. A muddy trowel lay by her knee. So did Zeus, his hair also pulled back loosely, his cheek rested on his fist as he gazed up at her. Aphrodite had never seen either of them look so relaxed. 

Hera tipped forward and patted the ground around the stubby, pom-pom sapling in its little mound of freshly churned soil.

Zeus laid his hand over hers to pause her. “It’s done, Bunny, don’t fuss it.”

She sighed and wiped her misty forehead, streaking earth across it. “Well, I’m not a gardener. I don’t want to get it wrong and jinx it, do I?”

Zeus chuckled, warm and rumbling. “You are incapable of jinxing anything, my love. You’re this kingdom’s lucky charm.”

Hera gave him an indulgent look. 

He grinned cheekily. "You're my starfruit now."

"Hmm?"

"Funny shape on the outside, something beautiful on the inside."

"You are the height of wit, my dear."

He laughed brazenly. He raised off his fist and reached out to tuck her chin between foreknuckle and thumb. “I love seeing you like this.”

“So pregnant I’m ready to pop?”

He laughed again. The sound dripped through Aphrodite pleasantly. It was a confusing sensation to come from him. He ran his thumb over Hera's lips and to her cheek, where he brushed a crumb of dirt away. “A mess. It makes me feel so very privileged. No one else gets to see you like this.”

She pursed her lips. Then smiled. She ran her hand down his forearm. “He’s going to be a wonderful child. I can feel it. He’s so warm inside me.”

Aphrodite smiled.

Zeus trailed his hand to his wife's, plucked it like a daffodil, and kissed it. “Of course he is, he’s ours. Look around you. Everything we make is wonderful.”

Hera’s face tightened. Aphrodite felt a wave of worry with a weight of sorrow. Her fingers curled on the trunk. Hera looked at the sapling. “Is it?”

Zeus looked down, fingers coiling tighter on hers. “I know I’ve made mistakes. I know this hasn’t been the perfect marriage. We’ve both had so many burdens on us. I’m not as strong as you. I let the pressure get to me. I slipped.”

She watched his face.

“But no more. We’re a family now. This tree, this new growth, is a promise.” His space-storm eyes bore into hers, earnest and intense. “Let’s start again. Let’s be happy this time.”

Hera’s brow crumpled. Her eyes shone like white wine in candlelight. She folded his hand into both of hers. “I would like that very much.”

They leaned in to each other and kissed. Deeply. Trustingly. A breeze shimmered through the sapling.

A breeze rustled the leaves of the full grown tree and mussed Aphrodite’s hair. She opened her eyes, back in the present, her heart so heavy it felt like a rag soaked in water. She looked with agonising sympathy at the fruitless tree. “Oh, I’m so sorry. You were promised so much.”

The leaves sighed.  

She set her jaw. "Just because you didn’t get what you were promised at birth, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t flower. There’s always hope. There’s always time. Take it from a love goddess."

She laid her hands on the trunk, warmth sinking through her. Ares warmth. She breathed the tangy sweetness. She rolled her tongue, imagining the taste of fruit. She swallowed the summer air, imagining the scent of blossom. She opened her heart. She filled with the promise, the hope, the sunshine stored in this tree. She unleashed her own promise into it, her own hope, her own sunshine, her own joy, her own heat. Violet-gold stars winked to life around her hands, emanated from her chest, sprinkled into the earth from her hair. She breathed out slow and the sparkle gushed from her lips. It swirled around the tree, soaked into the wood like rain, clouded the leaves like paint powder. She poured her blessing into the tree. 

The violet stars settled and took the form of little buds. The gold stars nestled among them and swelled and solidified as ridged, oval fruits, darkening to lime green, not yet ripe. The blossom and fruit sprouted from the branches, glowing and happy and healthy, weighing the fine twigs down and making the tree seem to double in size with its crowding of new, vibrant life. The rejuvenated energy welled in Aphrodite’s belly and chest and mouth. They fluttered their eyes open with a satisfied sigh and gazed up in pride at the flowers and fruit. She stepped back and beamed at her handiwork.

Now, that should do it.

She blew the tree a kiss and bobbed to sit beneath it. They settled themself with their sneakers tucked under them, leaning against the sturdy trunk. She slid off her jacket, shirt, and tie, fashion falling to function as the well of heat from spell-casting flushed her. Her white tank top let the breeze lick her arms. She glanced up to the soon to be golden fruit. It was like leaning against Ares and looking at the sunlight sprinkling through his curls. 

"Maybe I'll run into you."

She smiled and sneakily crossed her fingers. She'd spent extra time on her hair, after all. But until then, there was a chore to be done. They blew out through their lips sulkily, reached into their bag, and brought out today's Panoptes. They needed to find out exactly how bad it was before seeing Hera and finding out the snippy way.

The headline dominated the glossy cover, splashed across a grainy photograph of Yasemin in full oracle flow.

Paphos' Priestess of Purity Puts Princess in her Place.

Acteon puts eyes on the heart of Cyprus.

“Oooof course, it’s you.” Aphrodite ground their teeth, flicked to the double page, and skimmed the words around the various ghoulish images taken through frames of rose leaves and columns - Yasemin preaching, laughing hysterically, shivering, and being hauled away to the infirmary.

…delivering a message more akin to TGOEM's, which makes us ask, is even the Goddess of Sex a convert to this movement?

She grumbled under her breath. "Ugh, there, Hestia, you happy?"

… Whether or not it's the case for Aphrodite herself, the TGOEM message was going strong in her temple, with every priestess hanging on the oracle's every word.

"Yes, some of us don't have to spread other people's shit around like a pig in slop to be listened to."

…Peitho, Grace of Seduction and a spokeswoman for Aphrodite, said, 'the oracle in question was no oracle at all. She is a devoted priestess who is suffering from a high fever and mistook a series of delusions as a divine visitation. Her condition was recognised during her sermon and her friends are now giving her the care she needs. She will be well again soon and the work of the Paphos temple is smoothly back on track.'

"Well done, Baby."

…but the question remains, even in delusion, if this is in fact the case (the priestess' condition is unverified), what put such ideas into a priestess of Aphrodite's head? Has the Lady of Cyprus been experimenting with anti-sex teaching? Or has her busy social calendar caused her to neglect her work? Do her followers feel the need to look elsewhere as she spends less and less time on their needs, while she tries to have it all? Or is there trouble in paradise? Is the perpetually single goddess losing faith in the power of romance? Perhaps her conquests have been going awry? With weeks since she set her sights on the men of the palace, we have yet to see her efforts come to fruition.

"Oh, you rat bastard!" She could just imagine him reeling off the list to his bathroom mirror, all the ways a goddess could be picked at for one human's bad afternoon.

…even if the virginal visions did not come from fever, the question remains whether they came from Aphrodite.

Her eyes sharpened.

Hermes was spotted at the temple in the immediate aftermath of the sermon.

"Oh, for the love of fuck."

While the alluring ocean gem puts her energies into a royal match, is it possible there is another god trying to get her attention? Hermes is a notorious prankster, and has been known to go too far. Is a spurned suitor taking revenge? Is there any god Aphrodite isn't dangling from some length of string?

"Excellent, put two and two together and get 36."

…Whatever the facts of yesterday's fiasco at Paphos, one truth can be gleaned. All is not smooth sailing for the ocean Goddess of Love.

She groaned a string of curse words and dropped the magazine in her lap. She knocked her head back against the tree and closed her eyes. She imagined various different insects devouring Acteon's nether regions.

"Still feeling down?" A rough, lazy, teasing voice stirred her body.

She snapped her eyes open wide to see Ares leaning his weighty shoulder against the tree and gazing down at her, his face tanned peach across the nose and glimmering like one of the starfruit was ripe for plucking. Her grin undammed. "Did I look that grumpy?"

He shook his head. "Anger senses, remember?" He glanced away, voice dropping shyly. "You taste sorta like cinnamon."

She blushed. It felt oddly pleasant. She'd been badgered by nerves all morning, wondering if he'd actually seek her out, or if he'd be off with her, if he'd be looking for the exit after all her messiness. It melted away on seeing him. She wasn't even sure if that was good judgement, but his coaxing expression turned her into a kid in a theme park, giddy and indulgent. They patted the grass beside them. Ares smiled out of the corner of his mouth and dropped like a bag of rocks with a thud. As he came to their level, the warmth radiating off him, they instinctively spread their arms.

He halted and blinked at her, eyes widening.

She winced. Her arms retreated. She blushed again and flung them out. "Oh, fuck it, can I hug you? You've been such a sweetie and it feels sneaky to be all over you drunk and prim and proper sober."

She tingled with his delightful curry heat as his smile spread fully, pointy teeth peeking out and cheeks blooming cherry. He cleared his throat. "Sure, yeah, that would be… Sure."

She beamed. He tipped forward into her embrace. For the first moment, he was hardly leaning into her body, one hand on the grass and the other lightly touching her back. She stiffened slightly, wondering if this was it, if he was pulling away. Then his arms were around her, wrapping her, scooping her against him, bringing her passionately into the guardianship of his broad body. His breath tickled her as he nuzzled into her neck. His furnace heat poured into her as she pressed to his torso. She screwed her eyes shut and clung to him and smelled citrus shampoo and clean laundry. He released a breath he must have been holding and relaxed into her, moulded to her. He clutched her tighter, it almost hurt. His chest expanded again as he took a deep, slow breath of her perfume. She sighed and smiled into his shoulder.

Doves cooed somewhere in the branches. 

Ares released her with a suppressed sound in his throat. She pouted and started to fold back to sitting apart from him, but he pulled her a little petulantly and tucked her into his side. He looped one arm close about her, his large hand settling on her waist. He shifted to sit with his knees wide and drawn up, his free hand rested on one thigh and his back slouched against the tree. Aphrodite shimmered softly with glee as she snuggled into the casual closeness. She fit perfectly here, his shoulder was sculpted like a jigsaw piece for her. His bare arm grazed hers, skin-to-skin making her prickle. She curled and dropped her knees into his abs. She bobbed like a boat on his torso as he breathed rhythmically. 

He wasn't looking at them. He had his face raised impassively to the branches. "Huh. Has this done its thing, at last?" 

They looked up, fluttering their lashes innocently. "Should it not?"

He shrugged, bobbing her again. "Hasn't before." His tone dulled. "My parents planted it for my birth and it never flowered."

Aphrodite looked up at him, the sunlight slicing along his strong jaw and kissing his sullen mouth. She stroked his chest. "Maybe it just needed time."

He glanced down at her. His face was hazily shadowed by the dense leaves. It made him look like someone in a dream. His eyes weren't as bright as she had become used to. He looked… dwindled. "It’s probably beyond saving at this point.” 

She frowned. Something was wrong. Had she scared him after all? Or worse, hurt him? She opened her mouth to ask, but he spotted the magazine that had rolled onto the ground. He picked it up and looked at the grainy photograph of the priestess and the bold headline across her forehead. He narrowed his eyes. "This Acteon for sure has a creepy crush on you."

Aphrodite shrugged. "I'm a meal ticket."

"I could throw him out a fucking window." His growl vibrated on their arm leaning on his side.

They giggled. "I'll let you know."

He squeezed them, his hand warm as it stole over their belly and strummed their padding. "It'll blow over. Go to the beach in a bikini and eat something full fat, they'll forget you even have a temple."

They snickered. "You know, that's actually pretty smart."

"I have my moments."

They tapped his temple, grinning in the hope it would make him play with her, a kitten scritching at a large, lazy dog for an ill-advised tussle. He didn't react. He looked at his knee with heavy eyes dulled to rust red. His fingers were restless on her belly, lightly stroking and pinching her absent-mindedly. It didn't feel like a tease, delicious as it was, it felt like he was trying to keep himself grounded in the feel of her. Their brow creased with concern. They turned the tap on his temple to a tender sweep through his curls. His eyes and breath fluttered and his arm and fingers curled on her. 

"Hey," she said sweetly, "I'm going for drinks with the girls tonight, you wanna come along? You look like you could use a break."

He perked up and turned his face to her. Then his eyes shadowed again. He looked like there was a wasp around his face. "Oh, damn, I'd like to, but, uh, I'm seeing Hermes."

"Hermes?"

"Uhuh."

That was interesting, because Hermes was in fact one of the girls involved in the invitation. Which meant that either the scatty, little Gemini had double-booked himself, which wasn't impossible…

Or Ares was lying.

They watched him warily. His slow breathing moved under them with pulses of warmth. They leaned heavier on his torso and drifted their hand to pluck at a loose thread on the collar of his t-shirt. His arm circled them tighter, almost possessive. 

Why would he lie to avoid seeing them, but hold them so close?

"Drachma for your thoughts?" she murmured.

The rusting look on his face lingered. He took a deep breath, carrying her on it, and spoke quietly to the grass. "Are we a good idea?"

She tensed. "What do you mean?"

"Well, gods are supposed to balance each other, right? Like Artemis and Apollo, sun and moon. Or Dad and Ma, society and family. That time Demeter dated Uncle P, land and sea. But us?"

"Us?" they wrestled a quaver out of their voice.

His fingers dug into her fat, kneading it gently. He still didn't look at her, droning soberly to the earth. "Love and war aren't actually opposites. They both push us to the brink, bring out the best in us, and the worst."

Aphrodite ran her finger along his collarbone. "Well, like sun and moon, they're two forces that come from the same place. How is that not the balance you're talking about?"

He shrugged, almost dislodging her. "I guess, sun and moon, land and sea, and society and family all have boundaries. They're two sides of the same coin, but they are two sides." He gazed up at the branches, his peach tan dappling yellow. "Love and war don't feel so clear. If you look at the sky, it's not a total risk which thing is gonna be shining up there, they have a cycle. But get a bunch of people together on a hot day and it's pure luck whether they fuck or fight. It feels like they spur each other on. It's less that they're a destined pair in the turning of the world, and more they're both aftershocks of the same earthquake fucking it up."

Aphrodite stilled. They laid their fingertips on his chest. His heartbeat was faster than it should be for the slowness of his speech, that intoxicating, sanguine music muffled. He was anxious. They pressed his chest reassuringly. "Maybe. But there's nothing to be done about something seismic, you just have to let it shake you." They peeked up at him tentatively. "That can be healthy too. Like what you said about desire."

Ares nodded and dropped his head back down to stare darkly at the grass. His face tilted, as if he'd been about to rest his cheek on her head, then stopped himself. The doves trilled above them, the song peaceful and content. He stroked her waist and hugged her close. "You said we were both gods of the heart."

"I did." She massaged that pounding spot on his chest, magnetised to it. "That troublesome thing that beats its own tune against our will."

He huffed a low laugh through his nose. He floated his free hand from his knee to her forearm crossing his torso, his fingertips trailing over her skin. 

She smiled mischievously. "Love and War. Runaways."

He finally met her eyes and ducked his face towards hers, murmuring with a thread of heat. "Accidents waiting to happen."

She webbed his fingers with hers and their hands played lightly together on his chest as she urged them into a rhythm. "Everyone craves them, then gets bitter when they come along."

"Glorifies the idea, hates the reality."

"Resents them for not living up to the fantasy."

"Uses them for gain and reputation."

"Dives headlong into them without thinking."

"Fears them."

"And expects the same zeal in return."

"And believes they’re never afraid."

"They’re utterly foolish."

"Fucking moronic."

"But they also see the world more clearly than anything else."

"And can’t unsee it."

She wet her lip. "No going back."

He swallowed. "Scars that don’t heal."

"Wishes that torment."

"And always asking if the ends justify the means."

She halted. She searched his amber gaze. "Do they?"

He turned his body under her and brought her gently flush against him, his warmth blanketing her breasts. He folded her hand fully into his. "I hope so. People go to war for what they love."

They took a quivering breath. "And love is a battlefield."

His eyes had kindled again, smouldering like embers. The fire drenched her gaze. His arm shrouded her in jealous cosiness. Their hand was rested in his over his heart. They felt it speed up, gallop. The urgent, wild racing flowed into her bloodstream and made her tremble under her skin. 

Everything was silent but that war drum.

He pressed his lips to hers.

For a single, spinning moment, her body rushed, dizzying, disbelieving. Then everything was relief. The kiss was chaste, close-mouthed, a delicate mixture of heated and hesitant. She rose into it, reassuring him, inviting him. She gently teased his lips a sliver apart and tingled as his breath hitched and he crushed closer. Their hands clasped. His arm swept her up and locked her to him. They kept it soft, slow, relishing it, exploring it, the first time their lips had touched since that meeting in this same garden in this same sunshine. They didn't want it to escalate, it wasn't like Saturday, it wasn't a storm breaking. It was something else. Something more. Togetherness. Her heart ached as she felt it tie to his, a golden cord connecting them, thrumming with energy. His lips were tender and wanting. She felt like she was in the sea.

"Oh, Aph…"

He slipped from the kiss and dove into her body. She almost unbalanced with the impact, gasping and catching him as he flung both his arms around her, grasped her like a python, and burrowed like a gofer to hide his face in her neck. A wave of emotion crashed over her. He was grieving. He was frightened. 

"Ares?" They folded him protectively into their embrace, rubbing his back, their pulse thumping. "Ares, Honey, what's wrong?"

He just kept clinging to her, his breathing uneven and hot on her skin. 

"It's OK. I've got you, Honey." They rocked him softly. "I've got you."

He wrapped her and collapsed into her like a life raft. She took his weight and held him up, keeping her breathing steady to calm him. "Honey, what is it? Did something happen?"

He shook his head, nose grinding in her neck.

"Did… did I do something? Have I hurt you?"

Ares huffed the scent of rosewater like a drug and pleaded with himself not to think it. 

A father was shouting at a mother and the mother was crying and their child was running, running to a temple with a rose garden, pursued by a dark spirit.

His uncle's eyes were drunk.

His mother was contorting and bleeding out in a wheat field.

Lavender fingers were holding his heart and embroidering it with new veins. Nothing he'd done in weeks made sense anymore. The garden, the car, the mall, the club alleyway, their perfect house, the party, the phone. All of it felt like someone else's memories, a story told by a beautiful woman to a stupid boy.

"Please talk to me."

She kept feeling his body convulse, as if he was about to speak and was swallowing it down. She held him and ached. 

After a long moment, he pulled back from her. She felt it like claws dragging over her flesh. He stayed close, caressing her back, his forehead rested on hers and his eyes closed. They rubbed his shoulders. 

"Aph, I have to ask you about something. I'm sorry, but I have to." His voice was steady now, mournful, but resolved.

They nodded. "Of course."

He exhaled and pulled away fully. He knelt in front of her, buttercups kissing denim. His body slumped like he'd dropped to his knees after combat. He took her hands in his. He fixed her with a serious, red look that made her belly flutter. "Can you change a heart? Make someone feel something, strongly, as if it's their own feeling?"

She prickled. "That's…" She sucked her tongue. "That's complicated."

"How?"

"I can't make someone fall in love, not truly. But…" they shifted a little uncomfortably, "I can create infatuation. It’s a sort of trance state, it’s like being enchanted. It’s generally just a temporary spell, to deal with a situation." 

"What kind of situation?"

His tone was pointed. She could feel in the way he fingered her palms how hard he was working to sound calm. She shrugged awkwardly. "Oh, any. Revenge, rescue, stopping something dangerous getting out of hand. I do it occasionally in the forums on Cyprus when it looks like they’re going to drive us off a cliff, or to protect someone I like, so say they're getting burgled and the burglar suddenly finds them too precious to harm." Why was he asking this? Her stomach writhed.

Ares took this in. He stilled his hands on hers and held them firmer. "Have you ever done it to make yourself safe?"

Their lips tightened. They rubbed the sword-hilt callus on his index. They nodded once.

"OK." He looked wan. He flexed his neck and regrouped. "Have you ever done it to stop a war?"

Their stomach clenched. Something about these questions was all too familiar. Their reply came a little more stern than they intended. "Ares, you should know, wars are very complex things. They have such layers and webs of emotion, one dizzy spell of lust couldn’t stop them. It would just be severing a hydra's head."

His grip tightened, her fingers twinging. "But what if it was a special kind of war? Where there was one clear enemy? A single monster to charm away?"

"What are we talking about here?"

"Why…" His throat stoppered. He gruffed and forged on. "Why didn’t you join the Six Traitors?"

She turned to stone. His eyes were like hot brands, his hands like rope. She frowned. “I had my reasons.”

“And they were?”

Her hackles spiked. “You said to forget it when Hades brought it up, you said you knew what it was like to have it used against you.”

Ares frowned too. “Yeah, but I wasn’t born, it’s different for me. I literally couldn’t help. But I would have fought. I would have protected my mother. Do you know what happened to her?”

Oh, Gods… “Yes. It was terrible.” Their eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Has she been speaking to you about it?”

He ignored the question. “What was Kronos to you?”

Their insides were crunching up. “I suppose…” They never knew what to say about this. “I suppose something between my half-brother and my manufacturer.”

“But…” His interrogating push ebbed, eyebrow crinkling. “But, I mean emotionally. Did you care for him? Having that link? Did you…” He gulped, shoulders shuddering. His cheek twitched. “Did you want him to win? Because that meant my family all having to fucking die, so…”

A realisation pierced her. Anger sprang in her body like a geyser. “This is your father. He’s said something to you.” She clutched his hands fiercely and glared into his eyes. “Ares, tell me what he said.”

He clutched them back. “Tell me about Pandora.”

Pandora? Their lungs constricted. No, Honey, you don’t want to hear this. I don’t want you to know this, you’re hurting too much already. She took a steadying breath that stung in her ribs. “No. I’m not telling you anything until I know what Zeus has said to you to make you doubt me.”

His severity cracked. “Please, Aph, I don’t want to tell you what he said.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because that gives you something to deny!” He blurted it with a fissure in his voice, his eyes molten and pleading. His grip was so strong on her hands that she worried it might snap the bones. They didn’t care, they needed to feel him hanging on to them. 

That kiss… had it been a goodbye? Please, Honey, don’t…

He groaned, fidgeting as he searched for the words. “I… I need all the perspectives to get my view of the terrain, that’s what Athena says to do. You don’t draw a map by inking half of it and folding the page to print its mirror onto the other half.”

“Oh, well, if Athena says so!”

Their anger whipped his up, winds colliding. “If you’re so het up about doubt, then don’t doubt me! Trust me to hear you! But I need to know!” 

“All you need to know, Ares, is that it was a long time ago and it doesn’t matter anymore. We are in the here and now.” She tried to bring his hands to her chest, to pull him into her, remind him of their closeness.

He snatched his hands away, flashing her with cold. He combed them through his tangled hair. “I’m so fucking tired of this. Just because I wasn't born, no one thinks I can handle that it happened.” He slammed his palms onto his knees resolutely. “But I'm a prince. I'm a member of this pantheon. I should know. I have a right to know. I'm not too young to know.”

“I'm not saying that.”

“Yes, you are!” He flung his fist against the trunk, rattling the leaves. His torso heaved. “You think I'm just some dumb, impulsive kid!”

Aphrodite reined in her temper, eying the shaking branches. She looked at Ares warily, trying to figure out what she could sense under the whirlwind of his emotions. 

“Don’t look at me like that!”

She started. “Like what?”

“Like everyone does! Like you’re trying to figure out how to manage me!” 

They drew themself up. Something at the core of him was dark and imploding. They spoke levelly. “Where is all this coming from?” 

The whirlwind sped, his eyes a frantic, eddying scarlet. “Would you stop evading?”

“Stop accusing!” 

“I'm not, I'm asking a damn question!”

Every time his voice raised it lashed them, he was feeling so much, wanting so much, they couldn’t sit in it and be calm. They balled their fists to dig their fingernails into their palms, to keep controlled. “No, you're waiting to hear a damn answer. One damn answer that will make everything neat and simple and help you fold whatever's upset you away. But this is my life, Ares, and I won't have it treated as evidence in some trial I shouldn't be on.” 

He snarled and raked his hair again. “This only feels like a trial because you're being so fucking defensive!” He glared at them with a churn of flame around his pointed pupils. “Why won't you tell me if it's not something bad?” 

“What would be bad?” She spat. “What do you think I’m capable of?”

“I don’t know!” He clapped his hands over his face and growled with regret and frustration. “Nothing, I just need to hear you say it.” 

“Why?” 

“I don't know!” 

“Because your father has said something!” The whirlwind was too strong. It took her. She leaned forward like a viper with her fists trembling. “He’s said something fucking poisonous, but if you don't hear something different then you have to believe him anyway! Don’t you, Little Prince?”

He looked away. 

She grunted and dropped back and pinched the bridge of her nose. She panted as she tugged free of the racing, lashing sensation. They couldn’t give into this. They couldn’t give Zeus what he wanted. He wasn’t worth losing this. “I'm sorry, Ares, I know it's hard with him.” They took a few deep breaths, folded their hands together over their chest, and looked at him sincerely. “But if I tell you while he's got his hooks in you, then I become the same as him, feeding you stories to make you take my side. It can't be that way. I can't be another person pouting at you to make you trust them over your own instincts. I can't be another victim you run to throw your body in front of. I'm not your father and I'm not your mother.” 

He recoiled. “Hey! That's so unfair!” He looked like a lion cub that had just been bitten on the ruff. “And if you don't want me to look out for you, then what have the last two nights been about?” 

That barbed. It stuck in her, made it hurt to breathe. Everything had felt so safe and special just last night and now she was another piece in the patterns that wounded him. She stood sharply, snatching up her suit pieces and bag. “A mistake, apparently, if this is what it does to your head in the light of day.”

“A… a mistake?” The whirlwind died. He scrambled to his feet. All the charcoal crumbled from his voice. “Aph, it wasn't…”

“I have my meeting.”

They had to get out of here. 

“Aph…”

“We'll talk about this later.” They snorted bitterly. “When you're done seeing Hermes." Liar.

He frowned in confusion. He took a step towards her. 

“Don’t.”

He stopped. He scowled. “Look, I didn’t mean to lose my temper, but is it such a big deal to answer a couple of fucking questions?”

She looked at him, at the torment in his face. She hardened her body against it. “But they aren’t the questions you really wanted to ask, are they, Your Highness? You’re not asking about my allegiances, you’re asking about my powers. You’re asking about love spells.” There was a wasps’ nest in her chest. “And I know why.” The horror of it gouged her. “You don’t want me to look at you like everyone else does? How do you think you’re looking at me?”

He stood stricken.

She glared for another moment. He didn’t speak. She tore from the garden.

The doves took flight across the sun.

Notes:

[Possible spoiler CW: Gaslighting/emotional manipulation.]

Chapter 17: “Then maybe I quit.”

Summary:

Ares goes on his blind date and Aphrodite goes on her girls' night out. Problem is, it's to the same bar.

Song: Tainted Love, Soft Cell

[CW: Alcohol, anger, self-destructive drama.]

The woman Hera had set Ares up with was, as promised, lovely, young, and a nymph. In 47 minutes of conversation, that was the extent of the information he had been able to retain about her. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that she deserved a lot better. She was putting a lot of energy into staying perky as he very visibly zoned out of 100% of her sentences. She was nice. She was being unduly patient with him. But it was like she existed on the other side of a brick wall graffitied aggressively with THEY HATE YOU NOW, YOU FUCKWIT over and over in various jazzy fonts.

He sat slouched at the table on a spindly chair a little precarious under his bulk, his arms defensively crossed, straining the rolled up sleeves of his dark grey shirt. He'd had one victory today, at least: he was not wearing a tie. Oh, his mother had made him put one on, sure, but it was now screwed up in his pocket. So, you know, small wins.

"So, it's me and something like five of these princesses in the stables at this point…" 

Periodically, Ares tuned back into the nymph and found her telling increasingly weird stories. He was starting to think she was just testing to see how much he wasn't listening. The surly look on his face beamed out of his fiery glimmer in the soft dimness of the bar. The Lunar Vineyard was way too romantically lit, the ceiling lights shaded with tea-coloured linen and the wide windows looking out over Olympus' neat, angular rooftops and a spilling cornucopia of stars from the cold glow of the half moon. Every table was dressed with a flickering candle, dozens of eyes glaring at his awful behaviour, and a jar of jasmine, the scent waking to the night and filling the room with the stealing promise of sensuality. It was busy, but somehow mellow, the environment carefully curated to be intimate and relaxing. 

It was not working for him.

No matter how he sat, he couldn't get comfortable. Why was this damn chair so small? His eyes kept drifting to the dancing, orange light of the candle on the delicate jasmine petals. He kept thinking about shitty, hot tempered boys and soft, gentle girls.

But, also, no, fuck that, because she was literally one of the most powerful beings in eternity and the victim act was a little hard to believe, actually, so…

"And the horse is seriously losing his mind - and you can imagine that's a lot of mind to lose, because he has two heads!" The nymph giggled blithely.

Ares started and forced out a quarter-smile. 

The nymph took it as encouragement. She squeaked with laughter. "I know, right? Who feeds that to a horse?"

Ares coughed a half-laugh. "Yeah. It's like… what the fuck…"

"Exactly!" She toyed with her earring, a glittering diamond peeking from her cloud of sky blue hair. Her skin was the same colour and sprinkled all over with darker freckles. She was cute. She was bucky and bright and wore a lot of beads. "Anyway, sorry, I'm such a blabbermouth once I get onto all that stuff. The queen's aide said you've recently been on campaign? That must have been exciting. Did you get to travel?"

Ares shifted awkwardly. He picked up the bottle of berry red wine from between them and refilled her glass. "Uh, I did a little. But then you're just kinda slaughtering everyone and salting the earth, so it's not really, like, great tourism. Or at least, not after you've left, ha..." He bit his tongue. Excellent. Solid joke. 

The nymph grimaced with a perturbed chuckle. "Wow. Was that… OK?"

Ares rubbed the back of his neck, still thoroughly absorbed by the starry jasmine. "I guess? It's my job. Can't do much else with what I've got to hand."

She tilted her head. "And what do you have to hand?"

He swallowed. 

You won't get it. No one gets it but her.

He pressed his lips together and folded his arms again, tight and stiff. "Uh…" He cleared his throat and spoke with his eyes roving about evasively. "I can sense and spark rage."

The nymph blinked. "Oh."

Here we go.

"Is that not sorta stressful?"

His back prickled. He ticked his jaw. "Actually, no." He glared at the jasmine, the sweet, pretty flower that smelled like the sweet feeling you get when you kiss someone. He'd kissed someone today. And then he'd ruined it.

The poor girl kept trying, her voice artificially breezy. "Oh, no?"

Ares ripped his simmering gaze from the flower and glared out to the night sky. The rim of the dome of stars was lavender. "No." A stew of frustration and conflict bubbled in his gut, steam in his voice. "No, because anger's fucking important. Anger's how you know when you're being taken advantage of, or manipulated, or put in a box, or any thing fucking else that stops you being who are. It's only stressful for the people who make you angry, because then they don't get to keep on doing their bullshit. But it's fair to be angry. It's fucking correct to be angry, because then you know what matters to you." Except you don't, because he'd been on the verge of arson for about four hours now and the feeling wasn't telling him anything, except that yesterday he'd had something perfect and now he was that volatile teenager taking a chainsaw to everything good in his life…

"Oh, that's nice then." The nymph made a small sound and took a long drink of her wine. 

Yesterday, he couldn't have imagined ever being angry with Aphrodite, but Gods, he was. He hated it, but he was. It was like cigarettes being stubbed out on his heart. 

There was one advantage, if he was this fucking furious with her, then it was likely he wasn't in a love trance for her political gain. Fates, how could he have thought that even for a moment? Everything they'd shared and he'd let himself doubt it. She must despise him now. He wasn't worthy to tread the same ground.

"So, um, you enjoy it then? War, I mean."

Why couldn't she just talk to him about what happened? If they had shared so much, gotten so close, why not trust him to hear her? Because he couldn't be trusted. He was a reactive fucking child and he couldn't even ask a question without flying off the fucking handle.

"Or, um, do you think you'll change direction?"

His lips hadn't stopped aching since that kiss. It had felt like a first kiss. It didn't matter what had happened when they met, this kiss was different. It had been the first of something. Well, it had been. Until he’d Ares’d all over it. He could still taste her cinnamon anger, his mouth was parched by it.

"Ares? You seem distracted."

"Huh? What?" He turned back from the lavender brush stroke cupping the heavens.

The nymph was watching him with a daintily hidden look of exasperation. "I said you seem distracted."

"Oh." He grabbed his glass and swigged. He coughed. It was a fancy, non-swigging wine. He cleared his throat. "No, no, I'm not. Uh, so, what do you do?"

"Are you kidding?"

"What?"

"I've been talking about my job for literally half an hour."

Ares winced. "Oh. Right." He looked about stiffly, searching his memory. "Horse… dietician…"

"Seriously?"

Honeysuckle touched his tongue. His date was angry with him and her anger was honeysuckle, a delicate, shy, but clinging vine. He glanced at her. Her almond, forget-me-not blue eyes were cool. He scrunched his mouth in a wordless, half-assed apology and gazed off around the bar. He idly sucked the honeysuckle, sweet and light. The spacious room was filled with couples and groups and the odd lone business suit. Conversation hummed like bees. Wine flowed like blood and pooled like velvet. He sucked harder. 

Cinnamon doused his tongue.

His pulse leaped and began to rocket, as if he'd just been shocked with a defibrillator. He perked up straight like a hound and stared frantically across the bar. It was divided into two halves by a crescent drinks bar looping into the room and glittering like the deck of a spaceship.  The seating half, where he was, was given a little seclusion and quiet, and then past the protruding half-moon of dark wood and glass was the busier entrance area, where the music was louder and people were standing in a smudged paint palette of muted colour in the sepia light. His eyes scurried around the mess of faces. His heart beat once and stopped.

Oh my Gods…

Lavender drenched his eyes; the soft, sweet colour of the place the night sky met the summer sea. Aphrodite stood near the entrance, their harmonious figure outlined in a short, slanting dress the colour of ice, their hair raked into a cascading ponytail that Ares immediately wanted to chew on like a puppy. Her amethyst gaze was levelled on him, crackling with fury, and near her stood Peitho, Amphitrite… and Hermes. His alibi. Which meant they'd known he was lying the moment he'd said who he was spending tonight with. And now she was standing in the ripples of flame and jasmine and watching him out with another woman.

Ooooh… fuck.

"And now you're even more distracted," his date muttered pointedly. 

Ares struggled to breathe as cinnamon filled his senses, his bloodstream. He couldn't do this. He couldn't get hooked on this sensation because he needed them not to be angry with him anymore and that wasn't going to happen if all his powers were pouncing on them and wild for them and, fuck, was it hot in here? 

He snapped back to the nymph, the glasses clinking as he knocked the table. "What's your name?"

The nymph narrowed her eyes. "You can't be asking me that for real."

"I can," Ares said callously. "I forgot it. Literally instantly."

There it was, honeysuckle. "My name is Harpina."

"Pretty." He rolled his tongue in his mouth, half savouring cinnamon and half trying to wash it out. He went after the honeysuckle like a wasp. "Harpina, why are you here?"

He could feel Aphrodite's eyes on him, talons scraping his skin. He sucked as Harpina drew herself up, meeting his boiling eyes. "We met on Saturday night. At the king's birthday. Which you've obviously also forgotten."

"Oh, I have. Completely."

She pursed her lips. "So I asked to meet you properly."

"Why?" 

Her quill ears pricked. "Because you seemed sweet!" 

"No, I didn't." He prowled forward, leaning his elbow on the table, his voice a shifting mix of bored and barbed. "I remember me on Saturday, I seemed fucking anti-social." A nasty grin spread across his face. "But I also seemed rich, right? I also seemed like an advantageous match."

Harpina's thin hand closed tight on the stem of her wine glass. Flowers coiled around Ares' tongue, but warm spices still filled his head, made him furious, made him desperate. He dragged his teeth over his lip and growled on. "You thought I seemed sweet? Now who's kidding? You're a real nice girl for saying that, but be honest, you wanted to try your luck."

Her cool expression fractured like glass. Her taste tingled like throat medicine. Her small chest was bobbing unevenly with quickened breath. He pulled it out of her with his teeth, debutantes were always mad as Tartarus underneath.

"Am I right?" He lowered his voice, hard and mocking. "You wanted to get lucky tonight?"

"You are crass and a brute!" She squeaked out her outburst, then clapped both hands to her mouth. 

Honeysuckle finally strangled cinnamon and Ares slouched back and let his power fizzle. He gave Harpina a sardonic smile. "Anyway, that's my divinity. If you were curious."

She stared at him for a long moment filled with the bee hum of the bar. Then she hiccupped and snorted into giggles and pressed her hands to her sapphire-flushed chest. "That's horrible!"

He grinned. "Yup."

She shook her head giddily. "Golly, I really am so mad at you."

He shrugged. "That's the magic."

"I don't know if it was magic. Anyone can be darn rude."

He raised an eyebrow. "Don't disrespect my art like that."

She laughed again and eyed him with an intrigued twinkle over her wine glass.

 

Aphrodite watched with their teeth clenched as Ares' sly, goading expression glimmered brighter than the lake of candlelight between them. He spoke smoothly to the pretty, perky nymph at his table. Who in Nyx’s name was that giggling floozie? Gods, they could smell the pheromones from here, the needy, little thing may as well have been halfway undressed already. 

"Whatcha lookin' at?" Hermes sprung up by her ear. "Whoa, is that Ares? Who's he with?"

"You, he claimed," Aphrodite snarled. 

Hermes frowned, then examined her seething expression. He nudged her gently. "It's probably nothing. She'll be… a cousin or something."

The nymph rolled her bare shoulders and slid her hand across the table to pluck an olive from a ramekin very close to Ares' curled fingers. She slipped it through full lips. 

Aphrodite's eye twitched.

A dramatic gasp cut in. "That RAT!" Peitho was at their other side with her magenta eyes flashing dangerously. 

Hermes winced. "It… It's probably innocent. Come on, I know Ares, he doesn't…"

The nymph fed Ares an Olive. He bit her thumb and she blushed.

"FLOOZIE!" Peitho squealed.

Hermes slapped his hand over his eyes. "Jeez, Man, help me to help you."

Amphitrite flowed up to them in a billow of sail white hair. "Kids, are we getting a table or… Oh." She stood stock still beside Peitho and joined the regiment of glaring at her nephew through the milling crowd. "Excuse me, I thought he was taken. You know, by implication."

Aphrodite chewed their cheek, sparks spitting in their nerves. What in the realms was this? One minute he couldn't keep his damn mouth off them and the next he was lying about his evening plans and taking pretty girls out and nibbling? 

The music was soft but it thudded in her abdomen.

"Should we maybe go somewhere else?" Hermes ventured hesitantly.

"It's fine," Aphrodite snapped. She turned sharply, smacking Hermes in the face with her ponytail, and marched to a nearby low table surrounded by leather couches. She sat sharply and kicked one leg over the other, posing with lethal grace. Her friends exchanged a glance. She shot them a violent look. They scurried to join her. 

Hermes bought the first bottle, a sparkling rosé with a fragrance smeared with honey. The bubbles bit Aphrodite's tongue. She had seated them by one of the large windows, looking as often as she could out to the soaring sky and the distant sparkle of the dark sea. The vastness helped her to breathe. Moving to Olympus had been like moving to a snow globe, contracting her freedom, putting her on 360 display. Peitho and Hermes had been the confetti shake-ups that kept her spirits high, but Ares… She closed her mouth against a heavy sigh as she glanced sidelong at him pouring dark wine into his date's glass… Ares had been liberty. Being with him was like swimming, like flying, nothing between her body and the natural world and its flowing immensity. Their chest tightened. They sniffed and shook themselves and beamed up at Amphitrite as she started telling a story about taming a giant squid. They tried to tap into the energy of the bar. The Lunar Vineyard was a perfect mixture of bubbling and low key. The people here had enough privacy to enjoy each other and enough bodies in the room to get a little sinful. But every time she opened her senses, she could taste that nymph.

She doesn’t even like him, not for himself. She’s just horny and she’s throwing ambition into the mix to kill two birds. Shit, Girl, get a dildo and wait for your inheritance. Leave him alone.

Did she dare reach for Ares? Their tongue sneaked subtly to their lower lip. Spice. Buried, but there, prickling their senses. They bit down briskly to cut off the taste.

Fine! You’re welcome to him! If he fucking wants you, fine! Good luck!

“You should’ve seen Dite, though, I think it’s the only time I’ve seen them off balance.”

Aphrodite jumped, Amphitrite’s voice splashing into her thoughts. “Hmm? What? I’m not off balance!”

Amphitrite laughed and rubbed their arm, the low light turning her spiral tattoos into dahlia blooms. “Not now, silly, I was talking about the hippocamp race we had last year.”

Aphrodite glitched their flawless smile back onto their face. “That was rigged!”

Peitho cackled.

“It was! The chariot was all wonky!”

The three ocean women laughed in a frothing swell of sound. Hermes grinned along, but watched Aphrodite with a pang in his chest. She was pristine. She was dull. Nights out with them always came with the invigorating taste of play, of fun, a gunpowder tang that lit up his senses. Not tonight. He could see Aphrodite in front of him, haloed by sea-spray stars, but if he used his powers, it was like there was a void in space on the opposite couch. Something hadn’t just made her sad, it had put out her spark. He glanced over to Ares. The big lug was staring their way with his lips parted and his eyes like dying embers. 

What in the realms happened?

Ares said something to the nymph, who was looking at the menu with thirsty eyes, and stood. Hermes perked up, was he coming over? No. He lumbered into the bathroom. Hermes narrowed his eyes. “Boy’s room!” he said abruptly. He scarpered across the bar to the heavy, wooden door.

Peitho frowned suspiciously after him.

He found Ares hulking at a urinal with his broad shoulder blades pushing at his fitted shirt with the tension in his back. Hermes set his jaw, then smoothed himself purposefully and slid over to lean on the marble sink. “Hey, Sexy.”

Ares' face spun to glare at whatever creep had followed him in. When he saw Hermes, his face relaxed and turned dully away. “Oh, hey. You're here too. Funny.”

Hermes cocked an eyebrow drily. “Fuck off a cliff, you knew I was here.”

Ares glanced at him, then focused on the urinal, tucking a little deeper into it to conceal himself.

“Except, apparently, we were gonna be here together?” Hermes jabbed.

Ares kept avoiding his eye and trying to will himself to piss.

“Ares, what in Asphodel are you doing? Why'd you tell Aphrodite you were with me tonight?”

Ares’ ass tightened in his suit trousers as he warred with the bladder shyness, and actual shyness. “She said she was out with the girls, I thought you were a safe bet.”

Hermes clucked his tongue irritably and drummed his fingers on the marble. “OK, first of all, highly offended you don't think I'd be one of the girls, and second of all, out of character as it may be, I'm not complaining about the efficacy of the lie. Why are you lying at all?”

Ares nodded stiffly at the urinal. “Can we not have this conversation right now?”

“Request not granted. What's going on?”

Ares rolled his eyes and sighed roughly. He gave up on peeing, zipped himself back up, and circled around Hermes to wash his hands. The hiss of water echoed piercingly in the marble space.

Hermes turned and leaned towards him, scrutinising his face. His eyes were casting a dark crimson over his cheeks, his jaw was so tense it looked like it had a swelling. Hermes softened his voice. “Dude, a day ago, it was ‘I want to spend the rest of my life stuck to this woman with hot glue', and now you're using my name to spend time with absolute randos in wedding districts?”

The tap spit as Ares’ hands jerked. “Hey, if you wanna talk about lying, talk to her!” 

Hermes scoffed incredulously, echoing sharply like the water. “What does that mean?”

Ares flashed a blood red glare at him, then gruffed and turned off the tap. It screeched as he screwed it too tight. He rubbed his hands on his trousers and turned to head out. 

“Oh no, you don’t!” Hermes skidded in front of him and spread his wiry limbs out to bar his path. “What happened?”

Ares scowled down at him, holding his sparky, black eyes. Then he shook his head and looked away. Hermes couldn’t taste him either, no fireworks, no trickery. He’d lied, but he wasn’t conning. It was something blunt and sore and infuriatingly invisible to a trickster. The hairs on the back of Hermes’ neck went brittle. He groaned heftily and rubbed his forehead. “Fucking Fates, I hate when you get like this.”

“Like fucking what?”

“You know what!” He flapped erratically. “Walls! Walls everywhere!”

Ares glowed like he’d just been stoked with a poker. “Oh, I'm the one with walls? Every time I ask someone to be open with me, I get played for a fucking fool.”

“Not by me,” Hermes insisted, hands on hips and fringe tossing. “You know this, you're too dumb to get any satisfaction from playing, it's like telling a baby you actually disappeared when you went behind your hands.”

Ares’ scowl burnished.

Hermes’ callous front dropped. He looked with concern into the bleeding glow of his friend’s eyes. “Come on, talk to me.”

The gash of his gaze ripped. “It's not your damn business, Messenger Boy! Would you stop being such a fucking gossip?”

Hermes stumbled backwards, cheeks stinging like he’d been slapped. “I'm not being a gossip, I’m being a friend, you jackass!”

“Whatever. You've clearly already decided who's right and wrong, so…”

“Right and wrong? You’re talking to Olympus’ exact morality middle point!”

“Well, some things can’t be a fucking middle! Some things just aren’t OK! And people who do them shouldn’t be offended when someone asks them questions!” Ares went crooked looming over him.

“I’m so confused!” Hermes bounced on the balls of his feet, hair frizzing.

Thud.

They faltered as the door swung open. They straightened from craning at each other. A nymph in a slick suit blinked at them and backed out of the bathroom again. The door swished closed.

Ares rolled his shoulders and swept his curls off his face. His low voice rumbled hollowly, like bones in a meat grinder. “Look, Hermes, I was being a kid, OK? I was being a dumb, fucking kid and I thought that someone as ancient and powerful as her could make sense to me. But I was wrong. I don't know her. We're not close. It was just flirting. People flirt. And speaking of, I'm on a date.” He pushed past him, Hermes’ wings kicking out as his balance was knocked. He watched Ares shoulder through the door with his head bowed. He wriggled agitatedly. A sensation scuttled over him, something like his nervous system being somehow untidy.

 

Peitho smiled at the tall bartender with his forest green beard and large, round glasses. She clicked open her purse to pay for the next bottle when a hand as red as the wine dipped over her shoulder and deposited a few scrunched bills onto the bar. “Let me get that.”

She looked sideways to see Hermes sliding his elbow onto the gleaming, dark oak and chewing his tongue. His angular face was twitching. 

“Good boy,” she said, bumping her shoulder to his chest. She eyed Ares taking his seat on the other side of the half-moon bar. She leaned into Hermes and murmured, “get any intel?”

He shook his head, lips writhing as if he had something between his teeth. “I am, if anything, more confused. He's acting like he wasn't on my couch literally yesterday morning totally falling apart over her.”

Peitho looked back over at Aphrodite, their ceramic cheerfulness uncanny between moon and candlelight. “She just keeps doing that terrifying, haunted doll smile.” She flicked her gaze between them and Ares, spotting a few murderous, melancholy glances that missed each other. “I hope he's really enjoying having balls, because I don't think he will for much longer.”

“Did they say anything happened?” Hermes asked with a strain in his voice.

Peitho shook her head. “Yesterday, he's their knight in shining armour, today it's castration station.”

A shadow winged over Hermes’ face, like a crow. 

“What?”

He scratched his forearm, fingers restless. “Gods, Ares, Buddy, don't be doing this…”

She leaned in closer, craning on her tip-toes to follow his eye. “Doing what? Doing what?”

He sighed through his nose. “Every time someone makes him like himself, he finds a way for it to not be real.”

 

Aphrodite’s fingers pranced around her glass as she bent a little over the table and watched Ares pouring for his date again. His dark shirt trimmed the softness of his sculpt so he looked carved and tall. His hair was tousled, as if he’d run his fingers through it. Her hands itched. She wanted to pull it. She wanted to pull him by his hair onto the street and…

“Dolphin, if he's making you uncomfortable, we really can go somewhere else.” Amphitrite’s webbed hand laid over her wrist.

The cool touch quelled her a little. “I don't need to go somewhere else.”

“Are you sure?”

Ares’ teeth unsheathed from his sly lips and the nymph’s shrill giggle stabbed an offbeat of the low, pulsing music.

White heat grazed along Aphrodite’s skin. They whipped their crushed-glass gaze up to Amphitrite, ponytail tick-tocking as their head and hands flitted about with their spitting speech. “What is it, Trite? Do you not think I'm capable of telling the truth about myself? Do you not think I'm trustworthy? Do you think I'm a bad girl who leads people on?”

Amphitrite’s calm waters expression didn’t change. “OK, I get the sense we're not talking about me.”

“Because if you want to see some untrustworthy behaviour, let's just look over there.” They struck out with their talon fingernails. “Sure, I'm deceptive for keeping a few things from my past private, but sneaking around to romance some floozie on the same day you give someone the most promising kiss…”

Amphitrite’s mouthful of wine spluttered back into the glass. “I’m sorry, the what?”

“No, no, that's all above board.”

“I feel like I'm missing some details here.”

“You're not.” They snapped a frosted laugh that fluttered the candle. “There's no details. It was nothing. It was all nothing. It must have been, or he wouldn't already have a cute, little chickadee giggling all over his biceps with absolutely no fucking dignity.” They clicked their crossed heel down. All their movements were sudden and skittering.

Amphitrite tilted away slightly, deep eyes unconvinced.

“Would you like more information than that?” Another laugh like an icicle shattering. “Because if you want to ask difficult questions of me, then you better be mature enough to hear difficult answers, and if you can't demonstrate to me that you are enough of a fucking grown-up to handle those answers, then you can't get your jockstrap in a twist when I don't provide them.” She shot a lasering look across the bar.

Amphitrite popped her pout. “Yep. You're so right about my jockstrap.”

“Mhmm.” Their eyes were stuck on the nymph again, like velcro, itching to tear away. She had lips like blue bubblegum. She kept drawing attention to them, licking wine from them, sucking on olives. Did he kiss her like he’d kissed them? Like she was his lifeline? Like he wanted to clothe her in the stars then stroke away the sparkling cloth and fall with her into deep water?  They flicked their eyes to Ares. He was drinking, tipping his head back and swallowing wine like oxygen. The bar was sodden with the smell of wine, thick and tangy and too much. The nymph didn’t seem to think anything of how heavily he was drinking. Aphrodite scoffed and whipped back around. “What do you think he even sees in her?”

Amphitrite brushed her rippling skirt. “I don't pretend to have your understanding of men, but I'm guessing it's the giggling over his biceps thing.” 

Aphrodite hissed venomously and snatched her glass to her lips.

 

Hermes slammed the wine bottle down on the bar with a heavy clunk. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. 

Peitho watched him chug straight from the neck with her nose wrinkled. “Do you wanna maybe slow down there, Cowboy?”

Hermes glugged and slammed again. “Nope.” His cheek was spasming. “I am the God of Communication, Peitho. A juicy portion of my thing is people talking to each other.” He flexed his hand and shook it out. “If they won't let me help them do that and instead isolate into seething toxicity, it makes me…” he shook out his hand again, “a little tetchy.”

She nodded slowly, grimacing at his jittery motions and warping grin.

“Think of it like an allergic reaction,” he said too lightly. “My brain is breaking out in hives.” He flexed and twitched.

“OK,” she said gently. “Do you need to leave?”

“Nope! If I leave, I can't fix it.”

“I'm not sure how you can…”

“I can!” He laughed shrilly and grabbed the bottle again, staring with glinting eyes at Ares. “I can fix it, Peitho, I just have to real quick poor some medicine onto my brain hives.” He chugged, his throat rippling and the dark liquid in the bottle sloshing down in level alarmingly fast. He smacked his lips away and gasped in satisfaction. “Wow. Wow, that's good.” He waved the bottle at the wary bartender. “This is very nice!” He toppled on his heel, bumping her, his wings clipping her calves.

“OK, shall we put this down and go sit?” She eased the bottle out of his hand and steered him away from the bar. She gave him a little push and sent him swaggering back to the couches. She turned back to the bearded bartender and tucked a few bills under the mostly drunk bottle. "Don't serve him again, please."

The bartender nodded and gave her a soft smile. 

 

Harpina leaned her chin elegantly on her furled fingers and looked Ares' torso up and down, his hard shape etched into the shirt. "You know, you're nothing like I expected."

He registered that she'd said something. He wasn't sure what. Aphrodite's ponytail was eddying about like a warship's banner. His mouth was watering so badly from the cinnamon still frothing from her that he'd had to go through way more glasses of wine than he should be drinking on nothing but three olives and a several-hours-ago sandwich. But still she was chatting energetically away as if she didn't have a care in the world, all motion and magnetism. He didn't turn to acknowledge Harpina. "Hmm?"

She pushed her light voice a touch lower. "You think everyone in the palace is going to be all airs and graces, but you're nothing like that. You're…" she paused and took a long breath, "unpredictable."

That snagged him. He darted his eyes to her. "Like volatile?"

"I didn't say that. I said unpredictable."

He shoved out a coarse laugh. His gaze glimmered darkly and wandered back to Aphrodite, the tea stain shadows tonguing down the furrow of her spine. "I'm actually not," he mumbled resentfully. "I'm really not. I'm a freight train. Put him on the tracks you want him on and give him a spark, Ares'll go for hours doing exactly what you want him to, no questions asked."

Harpina shuddered with anticipation, drinking the hunched shoulders and spread thighs of the prince deeper than the wine. Her voice came breathy. "And what exactly does it take to give you a spark?"

He rolled his jaw, glowering across the room, his eyes pools of magma. "Fucking nothing. A word, a look. It takes fucking nothing with me."

"That's interesting…" She squeezed between her legs.

"Because palace or no palace, there's things they can't train you out of. If you're the sort of guy who's spent all his life in a state of constant fucking craving, what else are you supposed to do when someone sweet comes along but crave them too?"

"Oh my goodness…"

"And no one wants you to feel that way. No one wants you to, because it's a fucking threat. But you do, and then you meet someone who likes it about you…"

"You do, yes…"

"And all that self-control suddenly stops making sense. But then what do you do when that person stops making sense? You're nowhere. You're not who you were, you're not who they make you. You're just this hot mess of fucking craving."

"Hot, craving, uhuh, totally…"

"This godsdamn on-fire wreckage just burning, burning, burning…"

Burning. Harpina gasped feverishly, launched her hand under the table, and grabbed his muscled thigh. "Gods, Ares, let's just go!"

"AH! What?" Ares was shocked out of his simmering and clanked the table loudly as he jumped in his seat. 

 

Honeysuckle horniness barraged Aphrodite's senses. She wheeled around on the couch to see the fish-blue nymph clamping Ares' thigh and giving him a beckoning, limpid look that had his cheeks flaring like beacons. White fury devoured their senses. She spun sharply to erupt about it to Amphitrite. A lithe, raspberry jam body collapsed between them, eyes dotty and energy like popping candy. Aphrodite took one look at the restless, handsome Hermes with his wild hair and the low slit of his V-neck. She seized his face and pulled him into an aggressive, inescapable kiss.

"OK, this is happening now." Amphitrite smirked exasperatedly and rose in a swirl of kelp green to interrupt Peitho flirting with the bartender. 

Hermes scrabbled for a second, then latched onto Aphrodite's kiss, like a limpet. He screwed his eyes shut and pawed at her back, heaving himself closer so he could take all of her mouth. He squirmed eagerly as she surged forward and pressed her warm body to his. 

 

Ares' stomach thumped as the hand on his thigh clamped. Harpina was staring at him with a slightly unhinged heat. "Ares, if I really make you feel like this, we don't have to sit here like good and proper socialites. Let's find a hotel. Or, I don't know, an alley." Her foot slid up the inside of his leg.

The table clanked again as Ares scraped his chair backward. "A what now?"

"Please, I can't wait."

"For what?"

She bared her teeth, chest fluttering, lurching forward to keep her hand on this thigh. "For what? Come on, don't tease me now. I know, I didn't expect to click like this so fast either, but let's not look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Horses again?"

"Take me somewhere."

"Uh, I…" His neck broke out in a cold sweat. He glanced around urgently for an out and his eyes caught on something that made his heart drop into a vat of acid. 

Aphrodite and Hermes were kissing.  

 

With the one scrap of Hermes' brain that wasn't itching or bathing in wine, he pulled back from the heady kiss. He steadied himself with his hands on Aphrodite's arms and made a noise between a snuffle and a hum. "Are you just using me to make Ares jealous?"

Aphrodite quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah. Was that not clear? 100% that's what I'm doing."

"Cool, I was just checking we were on the same page." He closed his fingers on her arms and wrenched her back into the soaring sensation of pressing to her mouth.

She stopped him this time. "Don’t tell him."

"Hey, I would never."

They tumbled back into a tentacle-like tangle. 

 

Ares' mind coated in blood. His vision glazed red and every figure in the bar flickered into his warrior's map of shimmering arteries and pulsing organs and zinging nerves, tapestries of red and blue and gold in translucent silhouettes of people losing their humanity, becoming nothing but bodies signalling their weaknesses. Aphrodite and Hermes shone at the core of the blood-dark scene. He could see the ichor in her flowing fast. He could see her great heart beating, beating for someone else…

His fists closed.

The thud of the music morphed into the thudding of his pulse, a single, driving drum filling his ears, his head. Everything in him harmonised into a flaming spear of directed, penetrating rage.

His power throbbed into the room. Conversation sharpened, got louder, people interrupting each other, sparring, snapping. A woman cast her wine over her date. A man snarled and stabbed his steak knife into the table. Harpina stared around her, then at the prince across the table, radiant like sunset, his soft lips peeling back to show teeth lengthening and pointing. His eyes were cavernous, tumultuous. She held her breath. 

Ares tipped forward in his seat, about to pounce across the room.

And stopped.

Aphrodite's heart blazed gold in the centre of his vision. Of his consciousness.

Horror flooded him, like a swarm of flies. 

"Shit…" 

He gasped for breath and shut his eyes hard and launched out of his chair, careening blindly towards the bar, his body railing against him. He slammed his hands on the oak surface, knocking the slick-suited nymph aside, and peeked to catch the eye of a bartender. A tall man nodded at him. He coughed painfully, smoke scorching his mouth as he fought to swallow it back, and rasped, "can I get an ice water?"

The bartender nodded again. The few seconds it took him felt like a decade. He placed the frosted glass in front of Ares and Ares seized it and poured it barbarously down his throat, flecks hitting his collar. The cold plunged into his insides, the eruption in his heart and gut hissing out in steam that made him feel nauseous. He kept gulping determinedly until every drop had entered his body. He gasped and thunked the glass back down. He blinked rapidly. He breathed deep. The music faded back into his ears and the chatter mellowed once more, peppered with perplexedness as people felt the sudden anger in them dissipate. Everyone was solid and real again. His stomach swirled. He leaned heavily on the bar and pressed the cold glass to his forehead. His shoulders rose and fell like a ship on winter waves. 

Fates. Not her. Never her. What the fuck is wrong with you? Gods. Fates. Fuck. Fuck…

He breathed. 

The bartender glanced at him in concern.

"What's going on?" Harpina's light voice fluttered at his side.

Ares slowly put the glass down and brushed the condensation off his brow. "Nothing. Nothing, everything's fine." His eyes crept unbidden up to the couches on the other side of the bar. Aphrodite and Hermes were wrapped around each other like knotting yarn, bodies writhing, eyes closed, lips vanishing into each other. He thought of those lips, that kiss, that moment just hours ago when they were alone in each other's embrace in the quiet sunlight. The smoothness of her skin, the smell of her, the weight of her against his body, the way she teased his tentative lips apart and guided him sighing into a kiss that cut out its own moment in time, like a snippet of film. 

"So, are we getting out of here?" A petal touch on his forearm.

He flinched violently, rounding on it. "Oh my GODS! Cut it out!"

Harpina snatched her hand away with a look of deep offence. Her acquiescent blush turned to a steely scowl. "You know what? This has been a weird damn date!"

He blinked. 

She glared at him, waiting for him to take a shot at redemption. He blinked again. She bristled. "My friends were right about minding your reputation, you are a waste of a girl's time." She made a show of turning her nose up and marched briskly from his side. She banged out of the front door. Ares only half watched her go. He nudged himself onto a stool by his hip and slumped over the bar. He felt like there was a boulder pinning him down. 

A crystal glass of whiskey plonked down in his eyeline. "On the house," the bartender said sympathetically. "Tough break, Man."

Ares twitched a grateful smile at him. When he'd turned away, he took out his wallet and stuffed most of his cash into the tip jar. He swilled the whiskey and looked back over to the couches. The kiss. Could Hermes even feel her the way he did? Every tiny quiver of her body and breath singing to him, calling him to service? Aphrodite wasn't just a captivating vision, they were detailed. There was so much to them, and so much of it was unspoken. Their body and its constant motion was a whole language, was Hermes even trying to read it? When he touched her lips, did it make him a better man? 

A ravine split open in his chest. 

 

Peitho was mid-sentence when a puff of blue cloud caught her eye. She trailed off, watching the nymph stalk towards the door and exit with a frustrated rattle of the beads around her neck. "Wait, was that Ares' floozie?"

Amphitrite pursed her lips, draping her forearm on the bar. "Should we all be calling a girl just going on a date without any of our context a floozie?"

Peitho shrugged defensively. "What? It's a fun word." She craned over the bustle of bar staff at a hunk of glowing copper-gold. "But, look, Ares didn't leave with her."

Amphitrite craned too. 

Peitho clinked down her glass. "I'm gonna go talk to him."

Amphitrite rolled her eyes. "Are you and Aphrodite friends because you both compulsively meddle?"

"We also both like sleepovers and crystals." She stood and smoothed her skirt. She looked back up to see a swaying, dizzy-eyed Hermes burst out of the crowd just behind Ares. "Uhoh…" She spun around to see the couches were empty, and spun again to see Aphrodite's ponytail vanish into the bathroom. She bit her thumbnail. "Oh no, she left Hivemes unsupervised."

"Beg pardon?"

"This is probably bad."

Amphitrite frowned at her in mild concern, still relaxed on her stool. "How much time do you kids up here spend mitigating for each other?"

Peitho turned to her with a hand on her hip. "It's not that bad, I swear. But tonight's giving me the willies."

Amphitrite sighed like a teacher with an anxious exam candidate. "You don't need to have the willies. I've known Aphrodite for a long time. She's heart over head, sometimes you have to let her run a course with an impulse. But they take good care of stuff, everything will be fine."

The music had flicked to something higher tempo, it tapped persistently up Peitho's spine. "It's not the same with him."

"I'm sure it is."

"No, Amphitrite. It's not." 

She watched as Hermes skidded to Ares' side and clapped his shoulder with a fizz in his smile.

"Oh Fates, I can't watch." She covered her eyes.

Amphitrite craned again. "But we're gonna, right?"

Peitho peeked through her fingers.

 

“Hey!” 

Hermes’ sprightly voice grated against Ares’ ear as a hard slap jarred his shoulder. He grit his teeth and grunted. “Hey.”

“Having a good time?” The hand stayed on his shoulder and pressed too hard as Hermes gave up on standing and propped himself precariously on Ares’ dense muscle.

Ares curled his fist and focused on the grounding feeling of the bones in his hand. “Mm. Yourself?”

“Swell!” Hermes leaned heavier, his face bobbing so close he was virtually cheek to burning cheek. His breath reeked of wine.

Ares glanced reluctantly sideways. All he could see was a smiling, clever mouth smudged all over with lilac lipstick prints. He looked away. “That’s great for you, Hermes.”

The terrier yap continued at its grating pitch. “You don’t look like you’re having a good time. You should be having a good time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

Ares clenched his fist harder in the shadow of his chest and pumped his grip to release some of the aggravation. “I think that’s more your gift than mine.”

Hermes’ hand slid off his shoulder and his pointy elbow landed there instead, his bird-like weight somehow aching. “I am a man of many gifts. But you have the greatest gift of all.”

Ares snorted, glowering ahead. “Oh?”

He groaned and tried to tug away as Hermes swayed to whisper loudly into his ear, his breath fogged with alcohol. “You have the heart of the Goddess of Love herself.”

“Whatever.”

“It’s true!”

Ares brought out his fist, planted his knuckles near Hermes’ stained lips, and shoved him away with reluctant gentleness. “Then why don’t I have her lipstick marks?”

Hermes rocked unreliably back on his heels and rubbed his mouth hastily, to no effect. “These? These were… an accident.”

“An accident.”

“I… fell.”

“Into a beauty parlour cupboard?”

“No.” His black eyes went beady and his wings sharp. “Into the middle of this weird dance you guys are doing.”

Ares prickled and rolled his jaw. “We are not doing a dance.”

Hermes made a drawn out noise like he’d swallowed a bug. “You are doing a big ol’ dance.”

Ares gruffed and looked away again. He hadn’t touched the whisky. He watched the sheen of the parchment coloured light in it.

An insistent finger prodded his shoulder blade. “Are you jealous?”

His gut simmered. “Shut. Up.”

“If you’re jealous, then it worked. Did it work?”

“Did what work, Hermes?”

“Making Ares jealous!”

He stiffened. The churning in his stomach turned to fluttering. He turned hastily. “Huh?”

Hermes looked as if he was only successfully standing upright because his wings were spread like parachutes. “She wanted to make him jealous, because he was out with some floozie when he’s totally supposed to be her boyfriend, so she made out with Hermes.”

“Boy… fr…” All the air left the room.

“She said don’t tell, but I thought, well, maybe I should, because that way maybe they won’t just spend the whole night pining after each other like big, dumb losers.”

“Big, dumb losers.”

He nodded vigorously. “Real dumb.” He clapped Ares’ arm and stilled his hand there. “Oo, and real big.” He patted the rounded bicep, then rambled on with his eyes glazing in thought. “But also, I should respect her wishes. I won’t say anything. Except for right now when I just did. But you ssh. She said don’t tell Ares.” He leaned too close with failed severity. “So, don’t tell Ares.”

“My lips are sealed.”

Hermes nodded and made an exaggerated zipping motion across his mouth. The momentum pulled him sideways and he toppled over. Ares caught him swiftly, his weight suddenly feather-light again. He lifted him up in a heap in his arms and saw the little messenger was sound asleep, his breaths puffing his fringe. Ares rolled his eyes and carried him to a nearby empty couch. He dumped him on it unceremoniously and turned to the half of the bar where Aphrodite had been. They were just returning to the couch, perching primly on the leather seat and checking their nails. A fine eyebrow was arched dangerously. His tongue crept forward behind his teeth. Need and fear and frustration billowed in his body as he tasted her anger. She was still brimming with it. It was intoxicating, it was heart-wrenching. Half of him wanted to go over there, sweep her into his arms, and take her somewhere where she could unleash that wrath on him, punish him, torture him, bless him with her beautiful fury. Half of him wanted to curl up at her feet and hug her legs and pour apologies over her until she didn't feel like this anymore, until he had earned his freedom from it. But he thought about everything Athena had said, and Zeus. He thought about his magnetic attraction to strife and to people who crazed him, about her hiding the truth, about what it could mean about her. He thought about tonight, about how they'd toyed with him, kissed Hermes just to hurt him. His heart leaped at the thought she might want him for real, might see them as something, not just an attraction or some sweetness or common ground, but together. For real. But if she felt that way, why was she hiding things from him? Playing with his passion and his temper? They could see into hearts, so they must know how he felt about them, so why hadn't they taken him for themself? Why had they dangled him on a hook for weeks, waiting to have something, just playing, playing, playing?

He rolled his shoulders. 

He strode across the bar to the pacing rhythm of the music.

Aphrodite pushed an errant cuticle down and looked up to find where her party had gotten to. As the night had drawn on, the lights had been lowered and the music heightened, the littered candle flames now piercing in the dimness. As she raised her eyes, she found the table in front of her washed with the liquid gleam of firelight. At first, she thought it was the candles, then she saw it take shape. Her stomach fluttered. She looked up to see Ares standing over her. His dark shirt and suit trousers made the glimmer of his striking, sullen face look raw. Moonlight crept from behind her and sliced into the definition of his muscle and turned his dark grey torso to granite. He looked more than usually tall. His jaw jutted. “I hear you’re trying to make me jealous.”

Indignation scratched up their back. They held their chin up high. “What makes you think that?”

“I have an informant.”

“Well, your informant is misinformed.”

“My informant was wearing your lipstick.”

She contained a flinch. “I’m a trend-setter.”

His teeth glinted. “All over his face.”

She shrugged, keeping her face a studied sketch of disinterest. “Not everyone has my precision putting on their make-up.”

His eyes were twin hollows of fire, the blaze trickling over his strong cheekbones, as if he was weeping flame. “So, you weren’t making out with that little, red tart?”

They swallowed subtly. “What’s it to you?”

“A lot, if you were trying to make me jealous.”

Her heart skipped. She forced her voice bland. “Were you jealous?”

“No.”

She flickered her tongue in her mouth and smirked. “You were, I can tell.”

He opened his mouth to retort, then clamped it shut and gave them a look like a bulldog. 

The music knocked a little painfully in her ear canal. 

He threw down his arms, fingers curled into half fists. “You can spend your evening with whoever you want, I don’t care.”

She eyed his tension, her gut sore with her own. “You bothered to come over here just to tell me that you don’t care who I spend my evening with.”

“You’re asking if I’m jealous, so don’t pretend this is one-sided!” he snapped.

The rock-breaking harshness of his voice bruised them. Their body pushed against the pain with a spiked sensation. Their voice rose. “And what is ‘this’? What is it exactly? Is it something that means lying to each other? Going on dates and keeping it a secret? You don't care who I'm with, but I'm not allowed to know who you're with?”

He faltered.

It spurred them on, fingernails digging into the leather by their thighs. “How long were you going to be seeing someone else before you stopped referring to her as Hermes and hoping I never found out? How long has she been thinking she's got a sweet Prince Charming, while he's got his tongue all over another goddess at a private party?”

Her voice was like a snakebite, it stung in Ares’ veins. “It's not like that!”

“Isn't it?” The anger was swelling in her. Having been dammed behind her forced lightness all evening, leaking out in sprays and trickles, now it was cracking her surface, making her feel covered in tiny fractures. “I would've thought you of all people would be able to recognise sneaking around when it's happening. I thought you of all people wouldn't do it, because you of all people know how it feels.”

The fire sputtered in his eyes, his bitter expression dissolving and leaving him looking agonisingly young. She couldn’t look at it. She pointed her nose away and crossed her legs tight.

Ares felt the floor turn to water, his knees going weak and his head reeling. He spoke through his teeth. “It is not like that. I've never met this girl before. It's a set up from Ma.”

“Sure seemed to be going well for a set up. She really wanted you, could you tell that? It was shallow, but, hey, maybe that's better for you.” Aphrodite’s throat clogged. “Did you like being wanted by someone young and toothless and uncomplicated?”

Ares rekindled. His shoulders were splitting as he held in trembling. Her tempting taste was too strong up close, scorching his mouth, sapping his throat of moisture, carbonating his blood. He couldn’t bear it. “So, this is how it's gonna be? We're going to turn a conversation about something actually meaningful into a spat about my dating life?” He barked a coarse laugh. “Fine. Let's do it. Tell me, Sex Goddess, did you swear off all others from the day we met?”

Lightning zapped their spine. They whipped back to him with amethyst eyes igniting. “I didn't sneak around romancing Olympus debutantes in the wedding dress district! I didn't hide who I was seeing!”

“I didn't tell you because it's nothing and it wasn't worth arguing over!”

“Why would we argue?”

“Isn't that what we've been doing all day?” He cast up his hand and clutched his hair.

They narrowed their eyes, lips going hard as plastic. “So, you're saying that you didn't feel it was wise to tell me something, because I wasn't making you feel like I would be OK with that information.”

His hand burst from his hair. “Yeah! Ok? Yeah.”

“Interesting.”

“What's that mean?”

She shrugged pointedly and looked away again. He scoffed and rubbed his eye in profound exasperation. The sight of that was like sandpaper on her skin, almost as abrasive as the rising music. They turned back and leaned forward like a crossbow. “If this date was nothing, I would have understood. Lying about it makes it something.”

“It's not! It's fucking not!” He threw his hand around again. “If I gave a crap about this girl, would I be over here?”

“And if I gave a crap about her, would I?” She grasped the couch again, piercing the leather. “Sleep around all you want, Ares, it's literally impossible to bother me by doing that. Tell me the truth.”

“Fucking same, Aph!”

“I asked to keep something private! You lied! You outright lied!”

“I didn't want to!” Ares couldn’t breathe. Everything was scorching cinnamon and shame and panic and a horrible, barrelling, avalanching sensation. “I didn’t want to! But we don't have any fucking parameters! And I didn't want to say something that put this definition on us!”

“What definition?”

“If I'm blind dating, then I'm looking for a partner that isn't you! And I couldn't deal with that being the fucking reality!” He heaved for breath, suppressing a painful surge in his chest. 

She stilled. She watched his body undulate as he tried to breathe, his eyes wild and his cheeks like bruised apples in the gushing blaze of his blood-red eyes. They eased their fingernails from the tiny punctures in the leather cushion and spoke through a strangling sudden anxiety. “And… and is it?”

Ares stared at Aphrodite, at the way anger made them fierce and hurt made them soft, at the way their eyes crackled like nebula storms and their chest rose and fell and the muscles rounded in their arms. He couldn’t remember what anything tasted like but cinnamon. He couldn’t remember what he’d planned to say, what he’d planned to do. He didn’t know what he wanted, except for this fight to be over. It didn’t feel like other fights, it didn’t stoke his fire, make him strong, tempt him with freedom. It just cleaved his heart and gut and made him desperate. He held their questioning, demanding gaze for a long moment, the thumping music feeling like he was hitting his skull against concrete. His legs gave out. He groaned and folded and slid around the coffee table to collapse onto the couch beside her. He puddled in the cushions, head dropping back and eyes dragging through the weave of the shades on the ceiling. “I didn't wanna go. I just wanted my parents to give us some space,” he muttered.

Aphrodite took this in. She drew her legs and shoulders tight as he came near them, his heat throbbing from him and making her feel held and stifled and needy. She wound her fingers together in her lap. “It's really just a set up? You've never seen her before?”

He nodded dully. “And won't be again, since I mentally fucked off within the first five minutes to obsess about how I screwed us up.”

She tingled under the tightness. She looked down at her hands and spoke quietly. “You haven't screwed us up.”

Ares wanted to hope, but her anger had pervaded every sense. He was losing the definition between her anger and his own, between her aura and the air in the room. He rolled his head to look at her ruefully. “You're so angry about earlier.”

“Yes,” she confessed in a whisper slipping away in the song. “You are too.”

His ribs seemed to shrink, crushing all his organs. He hated that he was, but he nodded. She exhaled softly through her nose and hugged herself. He glanced at her, suddenly feeling the urge to bring her into his arms if she needed to be held. But then he remembered with a skewering sensation that he was the reason they needed it at all. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hermes says we’re doing a dance.”

Aphrodite perked up with a comical look of scepticism. They jabbed their thumb over their shoulder to where Hermes was still in a heap on a shadowed couch. “You mean, the little guy snoring into a cushion over there? We’re taking relationship advice from him now?”

Ares blushed, pulling his shoulder up defensively. “No.”

“No.”

He huffed bitterly and dropped his head back again. “Is there even a relationship to take advice on?”

Aphrodite let their gaze rove over him. She tried to listen to the beating of his heart. The music was too loud, pulsing in a distracting rhythm. She rubbed her lips together. Her pulse skipped again. She slid back on the couch and unclenched her muscles, draping herself beside him, sinking into his heat. They raised their hand and carefully brushed his temple with the backs of their fingers. He didn’t react. They unfurled their fingers and stroked them through his thicket of soft curls. She bubbled with nervous pleasure as his eyes rolled back into his head and he released a small, pleading groan. He slinked in his seat and let his head fall to take her touch, like a cat pressing into a fuss around its ears. Aphrodite let herself smile softly and stroked him again. He groaned again and his voice stole out of him miserably. “Stop it.”

She threaded her fingers deeper to tease him at the roots. “Why?”

He slinked again. “I don’t like it.”

“No?”

He grit his teeth, eyes closed and brow buckling. “I like it too much.”

She smiled broader. She pricked his scalp with her fingernails and finally sensed his rising heartbeat under the clunk of music. His eyes stayed closed, his mouth restless as he irresistibly moved into her petting. A shudder sneaked down his body and made them tingle. His broad chest swelled in a deep sigh. “Why is it so godsdamn easy for you to manipulate me?”

Their fingers froze. “Who says I’m manipulating you?”

His eyes were still closed. He nudged around a little to feel her fingers as she paused, his voice careless and drowsy. “If you’re not, then what’s all this mid-fight?”

His scalp stung as she snatched her hand away, nails pricked. His eyes fluttered open to see her glaring at him, her round cheeks flushed. “I don’t know Ares, maybe I just like you?”

His body stirred. He pulled himself to sit straighter, watching her like a bomb with the timer ticking down. 

She drew away from him, violet smoke dripping through the waterfall of her hair behind her, voice half harmonising with the speakers in an uneven minor key. “Is it so hard to believe that I don’t have an ulterior motive? That all I’m doing is trying to mend this because I might want something with you?”

Ares’ eyes widened. His heart raced. He moved towards her, but she chopped the air with her hand as if raising a barrier. Their anger deluged again, and this time it was strange, mixed with the taste of blood. 

Aphrodite felt like her centre was collapsing. Her eyes pricked. Her voice fractured. She stared at her knees. “I’m sick of this. I’m sick of no one here ever trusting me to be anything other than selfish and predatory.”

Ares lurched. “Aphrodite, I didn’t mean…”

“Yes, you did!” She was shaking. She hated herself for shaking. She pressed a hand to her forehead, face contorting as tears threatened and made her whole body feel destabilised. She was speaking more to herself now, the hideous realisation burying her alive. “Everyone thinks everything I do is some kind of big scheme. No one thinks I can have genuine feelings, just because I know something about them. Knowledge is power, so that's what romance must be for her. Aphrodite who supported Kronos for their own gain, right? Little Miss Wicked Plans. That's what you think of me now. You don’t think I could just like you or want to be good to you for your own sake. No wonder you let them make you look elsewhere. Regardless of your feelings, you don't think you should want a bitch like me. You don't think I can possibly want you back without some other gain. Well, that’s horribly sad, Ares.” She finally looked back at him. Her vision flooded crimson as she looked into his deep eyes through tears. “That’s horribly fucking sad.” She stumbled to stand and took off into the crowd and the pounding music. She needed to drown.

Ares was seized with terror. Their leaving his side was like a blade severing half his body. He leaped to his feet and tore after them, bellowing over the rising noise. “Stop! Wait! Don’t!” He caught up to them in a whirlpool centre of crowding people and grabbed their wrist. They turned to him with their huge eyes wheeling with lilac light and their cheeks glistening, shrinking away. He felt pierced. “Aph! Would you listen? I'm not saying you're using me or you’re some fucking Titanomachy villainess, but you gotta admit, you don't do anything without intention! You have to understand, I'm not safe to play with!”

They stopped shrinking, shooting forward with a blinding flash of rage. “I’m not playing with you, you big jerk! I’m flirting with you! What’s so wrong with that?”

“Because it's making me dangerous!”

Their face stained with disgust.

Ares jolted and let go of their wrist, driving the heels of his hands into his eyes to stem the flow of mistakes. “Ah, shit. I don't mean that, I don't mean like… I'm not…”

“Yes, you are.” There was a storm in Aphrodite’s chest. Everything she’d relied on, believed in, hoped for, it was all lost at sea. The tears splashed over her neck and chest and evaporated in smoke swirling from her hair. She couldn’t hear his heart. She couldn’t hear the bar. Only crashing waves. “You actually are. I never thought I'd have to take this from you, but that's really what you're saying, isn't it? A woman turns a man on and she should be ready for the consequences.”

“NO!” Ares’ hands flew down. His heart was hammering. “No, Aph, please, just listen! You…” He reached out to take her arms. She recoiled. He snarled and combed his fingers frantically into his hair, breath trapped as he tried to explain what had been swarming in his body for so damn long. “You make me feel all these things, want all these things, but you weren't there all the years I was trying not to feel those things, want those things. I'm…” He made a strangled sound. He felt like fire was dripping off him, like he was radioactive, like the crowd was closing in and any minute now everything around him would catch light and be reduced to ash in his toxic, torrential temper. “I'm not good, Aphrodite! I'm not safe! I'm war born in peacetime! I wasn't meant to exist! And all my life has been about making sure some shitty destiny doesn't fucking detonate, and I was on board with that, and then I met you! And you made everything different and complicated and now I don't know…” He panted raggedly. “And I can't…” He gasped, fisting his hair. His mouth tasted of blood and spice. “And I'm not saying you're doing it on purpose, or that it's not my fault, because I'm fucking twisted, but you gotta understand that you just want stuff and feel stuff, and you don't have to think about what it might do to you! You don't have to be scared of it! But I do! I have to!”

She sobbed. She reached for him. “You don't, Ares, you don't…”

“Stop!” He slashed her hands away with his, stumbling back with his heart in his throat. “Just stop! Every time you touch me, I feel like a fucking landmine!”

She was shaking. Why couldn’t she stop shaking? “I… I understand, but…”

“No! You don't understand!” Everything was violet smoke and boiling flame. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to hurl the furniture out of the window. He wanted to grab her and kiss her. He wanted her to hit him. “You talk about feeling, but you don't feel about me like I feel about you! You can't! You're so fucking in command of it! It just doesn't get to you!” Something was burning his face. He couldn’t see straight. Was he crying? Who was yelling? Was it him? “Maybe knowing feelings doesn't make you use them, but it means you don't have to care that you have them! They're not invading you! Hurting you! Messing up your whole damn life!” It was him yelling, why couldn’t he stop? Stop! “No one actually gets under your skin! No one makes you lose control! I don't matter to you, I don't make a difference to you! Do you even remember how it was to have someone do this to you? Before you learned to fucking intellectualise? Or was it never something you had to go through?” Stop! Gods! Stop! “You're fucking Aphrodite and no one can ever be to you what you are to them!" Burning. Burning. Burning. "You don't fucking understand, Goddess of Love, because feelings for the rest of us are this fucking lake of fucking piranha and feelings for you-” Please, don’t say it! “-are just another day at work!” 

The fire roared in his ears and extinguished. He stood in the dregs of his speech with something still scalding his face and his hands trembling at his sides. 

Aphrodite was shimmering in the dark flow of bodies, make-up clouded around her streaming eyes and her torso concave. Her stunning face smashed apart with pain.

His mouth tasted of blood and salt water.

She took a quaking, rattling breath and spoke in a low hiss. “Another day at work?” She drew herself tall. “Then maybe I quit.”

She whirled away in a spiral of smoke and ran through the crowd.

Ares’ body rushed with panic. No!

He hurtled forward after her. “Aph! No! Wait!”

He was hit with a force like a rolling wave. He slammed to a halt and tried to push his way through it, it was a solid wall. Amphitrite melted out of the crowd with her hand raised and her foam white hair drifting around her, eyes bright emerald. Ares growled at her, still battering against the invisible wave. “Move! I need to talk to her!”

Amphitrite’s voice echoed as if in a cavern. “You’ve done enough.”

He moaned in anguish. “Come on!”

Her face was impassive, her stance wide and stable. 

He jerked backwards and glared at her. His heart was disintegrating, scraps of it draining out into the clanging music and stifling air. People swirled around him, like water, like shades. Nothing felt real, nothing except the door he couldn't get to.

 

Aphrodite banged through the door and into the coolness of the night. She was faced immediately by rows of illuminated wedding dresses in glittering windows, cascading like snow. The tears erupted fresh. She stuck her heels in the paving and hugged her hollow middle and released a howling sob. No one trusted her. She was tainted. She was titan-spawn and she couldn’t help anyone or be good to anyone. She was a monster. They all saw her as a monster. 

He saw her as a monster.

She couldn’t love. She couldn’t feel. That’s what he thought, no matter what she did. He had been told to hate her, like everyone else. Hate she who makes you love, Olympus cried. She does it for sport. 

Because she was a monster.

“I’ve got you!” Peitho’s urgent voice came to her through the surging sobs. “I’ve got you, Dite!” 

Warm arms flung around her and held her tight. She tumbled apart in them, pawing at them, rasping out as the tears filled her mouth, “Monster! I’m a monster! He hates me!”

“Darling, no!” Peitho held her fast and rubbed her back. “No, Darling, hush, hush…”

“Is she OK?” A cooler, fluid voice. Amphitrite’s smooth embrace hurried around them both, her calm murmurs washing over them. “Don’t cry, Dolphin.”

“Monster…”

“No, Darling.”

“Hush, Dolphin.”

She wept and repeated the word over and over, her insides in freefall. “Monster… He thinks I’m a monster…”

 

She thinks I’m a monster. Ares was riddled with horror as Amphitrite vanished from sight and the wave subsided. He threw himself forward the second he was able, charging towards the door through the crush of bodies. He slammed through it and into the dark stairwell, his stomping footsteps echoing around him as he ran so fast he almost toppled down the steep flight. He burst into the night to see the three women disappearing in a whistle of seawater. Nothing remained but a puddle on the concrete.

“No…”

He dashed forward, looking frenzied up and down the street.

“Aphrodite!”

The street was dark and quiet, save for the ghostly presences of the dozens of wedding dresses.

“APHRODITE!”

He roared to the sky, the mountain, maybe if he was loud enough, she could hear him in the sea. His own voice bounced back to him emptily in the echo from the brickwork. 

He had to get to her. 

He shut his eyes, breathed in deep, and rolled into chaos. It roared around him, black and hungry. He searched for her frantically, screaming for her and making no noise. 

He hit the pavement with a bolt of pain through his flank.

"Aph!"

He rolled between realms again, swam, climbed, chunks of disorder breaking off in his hands.

The knee of his suit ripped as he was flung onto the street, blood slicking the thread from a rough graze. 

He didn't wait to feel it. He hauled himself up, panting, eyes hazed. He dove again. He was consumed. He tried ardently to find her, but it was just noise and dazzling darkness. He was thrown. He snarled as his back crashed into the brick wall of the bar. He took a step forward to try again and wavered heavily on his feet, dizzy and drained. He stopped. The sound of distant traffic whooshed. 

She was gone.

“Aph…”

He dropped to his knees.

“No…”

He spread his fingers in the cold residue of seawater.

“I’ve lost her…”

The final remains of his heart turned to ash.

It’s over.

Chapter 18: “Why does my body keep burning me?”

Summary:

The aftermath: Ares

Song up to flashback: Ordinary Life, Kristen Barry
Flashback and closing song: River Understands Simon, Greg Edmonson (Firefly OST)

[CW: Struggles with temper and loss of control. Low self-worth. Processing buried trauma/effects of trauma being triggered, especially of gaslighting and emotional abuse. Lack of compassion towards mental health. Loss of executive functioning. Vomiting. Parental verbal abuse of child. Light discussion of myths involving rape and sexual exploitation, and Apollo gets some screen time being casually misogynistic, but also getting snapped at.] I... I'm pretty sure it's less hard-going than all that makes it sound...

It had been six days. 

To the palace staff, it felt longer. 

Adrien dragged his shiny-shoed feet into the shiny-surfaced kitchen and dropped in a mess of gangly limbs onto one of the bar stools around the marble island. He pulled off his fire-retardant gloves and tossed them in his lap with a grunt. "That's my fourth. What are you guys on?"

Two other uniformed nymphs looked at him from where they were similarly hunched, as if they were in some biker dive bar, not a pristine royal kitchen. 

"Oh, just one," Irene piped. "But it was a biggie. Did for that Arachne silk tapestry in the East wing."

Cass snickered. "I got you all beat. Six. Hope you're all ready to part with your money."

"We got everything to play for." Adrien grinned wryly. "Two days until final count."

The rhythmic clack of a sharp knife on wood stopped and Chef turned from the counter with a large board of charcuterie and crudités. He placed it in front of them with a concerned sigh. "Well, I'm on zero. He's not coming here. Which means he's not eating."

The uniforms all started to pick at lunch, crunching echoing on the hard surfaces. 

Chef wiped his hands on his boxy, white jacket. "He's a growing boy, he should be eating."

"He's an adult!" Cass scoffed. "You know who should be eating? Us. We need three times the energy now we have to constantly be on the lookout for spontaneous fires."

Chef looked sad.

"I miss his campaign," Adrien droned. 

"I don't," Irene whined. "Her High and Might was a dragon without him. And he does always apologise when he…"

"Makes random household objects erupt into flames while we're trying to do our damn jobs?" Adrien raised an eyebrow pointedly.

Irene looked away with a small shrug. 

Adrien huffed and propped his elbows on the marble, plucking a slice of salami. "I was nearly outta this place."

"You know, I don't like this betting pool you kids have going," Chef said sternly, tugging at his handlebar moustache. "The lad can't help it."

Adrien bit harshly down on a carrot stick. "You're kidding, right? You think this is an accident? He's a brat and he's acting out because someone took away his favourite doll."

"Wow, bitter much?" Cass chuckled. "Just because you've only caught a measly four of the blazes and you know you're gonna have to give me your money."

"I'm serious! It's toys out the cot! Fucking toddler."

Chef clipped Adrien around the back of the head. "Don't cuss in my kitchen."

Adrien glared and rubbed the back of his head. "We've all heard the rumours. He wanted to get into Aphrodite's pants. He got so horny he lost his temper, as usual, and she fucked off back underwater." He ducked another swipe from Chef. "And now he's got blue balls and he's having a tantrum."

Cass smirked. "Adrien revealing here that he's never had a break-up. Or a girlfriend."

"I have so!" Adrien snatched another carrot stick and gnawed on it. "And you know what I didn't do about it? Set fire to someone else's workplace."

Irene sighed romantically. "Be a grump all you want, Adrien. I feel bad for him. He always looks so upset after something goes puff. I think he's nice, really."

"You don't think he's nice, you think he's hot."

Irene giggled. Adrien groaned. Cass mimed hitting a baseball at him. "Hey bitter-bitter, hey bitter-bitter, swing!"

"Fuck off!"

He didn't duck Chef this time. Then Chef dusted his hands again and stabbed a cube of cheese with a tiny fork. He chewed on it and frowned. He thought of the sweet cream smell of formula in the microwave. He thought of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, small feet swinging from a stool. He thought of a chunky pre-teen learning to spin pizza dough and laughing like a truck trying to start its engine, showering flour into wild curls. He thought of the tinkling from the fridge as an alarmingly tall high-schooler rummaged and rambled irritably about some girl who drew a flower on his hand and why was it bothering him so much? He thought of the thousand ways a kid could say, "Hey, Chef." How it could mean, "I need some quiet," "I need distracting," "I need energy," "I need to be useful," "I don't know if I'm allowed to talk to anyone," "I'm hurting." The two of them never said a lot more, just made the right food for the kind of "Hey, Chef." Monday's sandwich had been an "I'm excited about someone" sandwich, an "I'm terrified it can't be this good" sandwich, an "I'm falling" sandwich. He rubbed his round belly and swallowed. If the lad would just give him a "Hey, Chef," then maybe he could help him get the fires under control. 

"Hey, Chef?" 

Chef perked up. Adrien was looking at him with his dim eyes. Chef puffed out through his nose. "What?"

"Can I get a coffee?"

Chef grunted and went to the machine.

 

*

 

The dial tone beep-beep-beeped in a prodding rhythm. Hermes grumbled under his breath and snapped his phone shut. He huffed the fresh, green air of the park and tossed the little, plastic oval into the grass. 

"Who are you calling?" Artemis asked from where she was sitting cross-legged and pulling her elbow across her body to stretch her back. Apollo lounged beside her under the shade of a delicate silver birch, the twang of his guitar warbling as he tuned it with a look of intense artistic focus.

"Dite," Hermes replied glumly. "Well, I’m trying to. The signal’s trash in the ocean and I don’t know Poseidon’s home number."

"What’s she doing in the ocean?" Artemis switched elbows.

Hermes plucked idly at his loose, tie-dye tank top. "How have you not heard this? It’s very stressfully public. She went back."

"Permanently?"

He shrugged and picked at his earring.

"So?" Apollo drawled, fiddling with a key. "Why would you want to call her?"

Hermes shot him a flint look of cold mockery. "Jealous?"

"Shut up."

He blew out like a pony through his lips and gently tore up a few blades of grass, eyes downcast. "I think it’s partly my fault. We went out Monday and it was a bit of a drama-rama."

Apollo snorted. "No, really? That doesn’t sound like her."

Hermes' face snapped up. "Could you please try for, like, fifteen minutes not to be a little, damn bitch? Huh, Prince Smarming?"

Apollo shielded himself with his guitar. "OK, jeez. Cool it."

"I am cool." Hermes tossed his jagged fringe. "I’m a popsicle, Baby, but you could irritate a hibernating tortoise."

Artemis guffawed.

Apollo bristled like a badger. "Why do you always take his side?"

She batted dismissively at him, while fluidly drawing her arms overhead. "Oh, play that funky music, Purple Boy."

Apollo rolled his eyes and gave a final key a final twist. He leaned back against the tree and positioned the guitar across his lap, re-rolled up the sleeves of his blazer, and strummed a few notes. His fingers moved like wheat in the wind as he began to play a lazy, hot weather song. Hermes tipped backwards and fell into the brush of grass, the smell flurrying around him as he landed and took a deep breath. The sun in the bright blue sky pricked his eyes. He closed them, settling his hands behind his head. He listened to the tune skip lightly along the babble of the park, like a water boatman bug, periodically interrupted by the shout of a parent or the ding of bicycle bells or the jangle of the ice cream truck. The grass tickled him. He unwillingly imagined its light scritch as the nibs of pens writing all over his body, writing articles about Hermes the trickster messing with Aphrodite's temple because she'd spurned him, about Aphrodite the tease leading so many gods on that she couldn't even keep up with her work, about Ares the hothead and his laughable crush and confrontations. He didn't usually care what the magazines wrote, he was so many stations ahead of them on the gossip train that most of what they said just sounded cute. But every time he looked at the news now it was picking on his friends, biting at them compulsively, like they were a sharing platter of mozzarella sticks. Is that what made them turn on each other?

OK, no, remember what Chiron said: you don’t have to know everything, or be there all the time, just when they call. Think about all the times you have been there, you are there for people, you’re not selfish...

He thought about helping out at Paphos, about putting the temple into communication quarantine as Peitho and Aphrodite contained Hestia’s damn bacteria. What was she doing, preaching in another goddess’ temple? Not even the worst shit-stirrers did that, it was a golden rule, it was like how you don’t go into another person’s house and try on all their underwear. Wasn’t Hestia meant to be some kind of champion of sisterhood? He was a master at keeping secrets, mailmen had to be, but keeping this one was getting to him. “We need to strategise, not go crying to Daddy,” Peitho had said. But it was annoying seeing Hestia hold her head up as a moral leader after she did something like this. 

“Hey, Arty?” he chirped.

Artemis rolled her narrow shoulders, the sunlight oily on her spandex top. “Yeah?”

“How’s TGOEM?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

Hermes prickled. “What do you mean why? I care about my friends.” He ground his teeth and lowered his voice. “Shocking as that may be to them.”

She smirked. “Now who’s being the little, damn bitch?”

Hermes craned his neck to give her a look, then flopped back into the grass.

She pulled her hair over one shoulder into her fists, so they looked like loom weights on silk threads. “TGOEM is fine.”

He frowned at the sky. “You sound off.”

“No, it is fine. I think.” She paused awkwardly. Apollo’s guitar scudded across the quiet, like the few lamb's wool clouds scudded across the sky. She made a reluctant sound. “It’s just… Hestia has been a little stressed out lately. It feels… different.”

Hermes’ messenger curiosity nosed after the details. “How so?”

She twisted her hair. “You don’t wanna hear all this.”

He craned again to show her his dark, sincere eyes. “I love hearing anything, you know that.”

She met his gaze and smiled softly. She looked to the side. “Well… When I started, it was really nice, because I didn’t really have any footing of my own, you know?” She elbowed Apollo’s foot, making his song hiccup. “It wasn’t fun for Apollo trying to get divine work with no dad, but Zeus picked him up through the boy’s club.”

The guitar pranged. “The king invested in me because I showed potential.”

“Yeah, sure, Olympus is famous for its meritocracy.”

Hermes grinned. “More like penis-tential, am I right?”

She shot him a finger gun. “Say it, Sister.”

He shot back. Apollo tutted and picked the rambling strum back up.

“But, yeah,” Artemis continued, “I was bouncing around job interviews getting nowhere, getting told I didn’t have anything for this and that divine calling, maybe I should stick with my brother and join the muses, or some other retinue, maybe I should get married, or consider concubinage. ‘They’re always looking for more cup-bearers,’ blah blah blah.” She scoffed. “In the meantime, I was just kinda hanging out in the woods like a bit of a freak because it felt good there. Then Hestia met me when she was out gathering firewood and she really got me on track, you know? She would just sit with me by the hearth for hours and talk to me about how I was feeling and what I wanted and what I saw in my future. She helped me see a future at all, see that what I could do, that what I cared about was valuable, was a purpose.” Her voice was warm and sober, her sleek hair gleaming as she kept twisting it. “She helped me follow my instincts, find my place. She fought for me to be housed on Olympus. She fought for me to get my title. She fought for me to be allowed to recruit nymphs, then she mentored me on making things good for them. I don’t think I’ve had a problem in the last fifty years that she hasn’t listened to and helped me solve. She always took me seriously, always had time for me, always let the answers come from me because she believed in me to get it right.” She sighed roughly. “I know everyone thinks it’s dorky, but I really looked forward to those meetings. Everything slowed down and felt less obstructed and you just knew everyone had your back, you know? It was really supportive. You could get back to yourself and refocus and find a way forward when everything around you was a mess or a wall.”

Hermes rolled onto his side to face her and shook a few blades of grass out of his hair. “This is all sounding a little past tense.”

Her upper lip wormed. “Ever since Aphrodite came to town, it’s been different. Hestia’s so anxious. She’s distracted, snappy, impulsive. I tried to talk to her the other day about this issue I’m having with privacy in the woods, and she went totally off in a weird direction.”

“What do you mean?”

“So… OK, don’t freak out, either of you.”

Hermes and her brother both looked at her with twin furrowed brows. Apollo paused his playing.

She avoided their eyes and twisted her hair tighter, mumbling so her sentences were broken up by the noise of a gang of teenagers playing volleyball. “Last week, me and the girls had been hunting all day, so we went to the hot spring in one of my sacred groves. I’ve warded that place six ways from Sunday, but somehow some mortal piece of shit got in and he spied on us and…” Her mouth clamped. They looked at her expectantly. She slipped a hand from her hair and stiffly gestured stroking a cock.

Hermes’ nerves sparked furiously, he jerked forward to stare at her. “Ew! What a creep! You OK?”

She shrugged and clucked her tongue. “Yeah, yeah, fine. I was pissed, though. When I spotted him, I totally saw red. Turned him into a stag and had his own hunting dogs chow down.”

Hermes relaxed a little and nodded in approval. “Nice.”

“That seems a touch excessive,” Apollo said measuredly.

Artemis and Hermes’ eyes darted to him with a flash of black fire. Artemis planted her elbow on her knee to face him. “Beg pardon?”

Apollo thumbed at the strings. “Well, come on, the guy just came across you bathing, he didn’t do anything to you. You could have just asked him to leave.”

Artemis’ shoulders looked like stalagmites. “Oh, I’m sorry, was I not polite enough to the fucking pervert with his cock out in my private fucking space?”

He sniffed. “It’s the woods, Artemis, it’s not your house.”

“It is my house! It’s my sacred grove! There’s like four shrines he’s gotta pass to get there, again, with his cock out!”

He dusted a speck of earth off the guitar, sounding bored. “We’ve got invisibility, I’m just saying, you always kinda let it all hang out then get pissy when people have eyes.”

Hermes glared.

“Ugh!” She smacked his foot. “I can’t believe I have to spell this out for you.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed. “I am a goddess of the outdoors! And of women!” She cast down her hands and continued, speeding up. “I am a goddess of women taking up space outside of the spaces we contain them in. It is very important that I do not have to use invisibility in order to inhabit my own domain. It is fucking gross and violent that me and my people can’t go outside to mind our own business without having to get fucking jizzed on or pushed around or threatened or chased or -”

Hermes took her hand. There was the slightest tremor in it. He stung for her. She clasped him back and glanced at him, the angry light in her eyes mellowing. She scowled back at Apollo. “I did not overreact, not one iota.”

Hermes circled his thumb comfortingly on her palm. “Of course not, Arty.” He threw Apollo a callous look. “Apollo, sing so you can’t use your words.” He looked tenderly back at Artemis. “I’m sorry, that really, really sucks. Are you sure you’re OK?”

She nodded, squeezed his hand, and released it. She stretched and did a small shimmy, like a hound shaking off river water. “Anyway, that’s not even what we’re talking about. So, yeah, we all got some closure from feeding his blood to the oak roots. But it leaves the whole space with this horrible… taint. Like this pig’s desire to turn our bathing into his porno has stopped the spring feeling like it belongs to us.” She frowned grimly around the idyllic park, the neat trees, the glittering duck pond, the couples asleep on picnic blankets and toddlers squirming as their mothers slapped sun cream onto their torsos. She pursed her lips. “Going there feels like walking onto a film set, I can see them all watching for peeking eyes all the time. Our bodies aren’t ours there anymore, they’re objects, and we don’t get to decide what those objects are for.” She frowned melancholically. “It’s the worst, we loved that place.” She rubbed her arm. “So at the last TGOEM meeting, I brought it all up. I thought Hestia might be able to come do some trauma work with the team, you know? She’s really good at it, she gets a counsellor and we sit in a circle and get it all out and give support and heal and stuff. I’ve seen it work for Demeter loads of times, you know, when Zeus brings the storms. It ruins all her team’s hard work and really shakes them up, jumping at shadows, waiting for him to come and really harm them. Hestia comes in over a week or so and works them through it.” She shook her head, Hermes twinging at the hint of hurt in her gravel voice. “But I’m barely halfway through my request and she just hits the roof. ‘This is exactly the problem,’ she keeps saying. ‘It’s all just sex, they think we’re just sex, all they want is sex.’ She just keeps saying it. I’m trying to calm her down, say I handled it, but she’s so damn stressed. Then she’s like, ‘don’t worry. We’ve got long-term solutions for this. TGOEM is going to take strong action against the inflicting of pornography upon women.’”

Hermes’ ears pricked. “What solutions?”

“She wouldn’t say. It was so weird. I wasn’t trying to say I have a problem with a guy getting off to porn, everyone in porn knows they’re being filmed for that whole purpose. We got creeped on. We got assaulted. I tried to say that, and she said he wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t being taught to see all women as for his entertainment - which, you know, fair. But then she got so wrapped up in stressing about that that she kinda forgot what actual trauma I was trying to deal with, then she started going on about Aphrodite and her patronage of erotica, and I couldn’t get us back to the topic of my nymphs.” She huffed, small chest bouncing tightly. “Then it gets even weirder, because Athena brings up her agenda item. One of her priestesses got raped in her temple.”

Hermes jolted. “Shit! Is TGOEM always this heavy?”

“Depends how bad the week has been.” She gave him an indulgent look, a how nice for you to live in a reality where this is a surprise look.

Hermes stung again and carefully took back her hand, grateful that she let him hold it, that she squeezed him back. Apollo kept his eyes on the strings and kept up something easy-going and low.

She sighed. “Anyway, Athena says she doesn’t want this to happen again. I’m like, yeah, absolutely. I start to offer to help out in an act of wrath - I’m fresh off the stag thing, right? I’m on a roll. But she and Hestia say no. They say the problem is that one punished man doesn’t stop the rest of them. They have to make it so that this priestess isn’t likely to draw desire, draw danger, anymore.” An indigo shadow zig-zagged across her face. “So they decide to transform her into a gorgon.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah. Totally against her will, no consultation. Athena is gonna turn her priestess into this snake monster, because then men won’t want to have sex with her?” She spread her free hand in disbelief. “And I tried saying, like, doesn’t that sound like punishing Medusa for this man’s crime? But they just said we can be idealists later, the danger is present now and she needs to be protected.” Her voice heated, lumpy and strained. “So this girl’s life is over. It’s over. She’s been expelled from society, she has no friends, no future, she lives in a damn hole in the hills. And, well, isn’t that the opposite of what TGOEM is meant to do? Why wasn’t she given, I don’t know, literally anything? Why didn't they at least give her the choice? It just left me feeling, I guess, uneasy. This organisation made me, it built me up, gave me a network. I’ve seen it do that literally hundreds of times; heal people, give them a voice, let them start again. But since Aphrodite got here, it’s like it’s constant battle stations, just doing whatever immediate action throws a shield up without thinking about what a woman needs long-term. It doesn't feel strategic, intelligent. It...” Her face fell. "It doesn't feel kind, not like it used to. It's not..." She pressed her lips together and contained a sigh. "It's not listening. It used to be where women could go and be guaranteed someone would listen." She clung to his hand. “I don’t know, Hermes, I’m worried about it. It doesn’t feel like the organisation I joined. When I joined, I was scared, and TGOEM wasn’t. They knew our worth and they knew we could move forward. They were where I went to get rid of the fear. But now it feels like everything is a fear reaction, like they’re cornered animals lashing out." Her eyes fell to the ground and her voice with it, suddenly heart-breakingly small. "Being there just makes me more afraid.”

Hermes took this in, eyes roving around her knotted, uncertain expression. He tightened his hand on hers. “I’m sorry, Arty, that’s really hard.”

She smiled wryly. “You don’t have to say that, I know you think TGOEM is stupid.”

“I don’t, I swear.” He looked into her eyes. “Nothing that works for you is stupid to me.”

“Although…” Apollo rippled the strings.

Hermes rolled his eyes. “Sing.”

“No, come on, I was just gonna say, Sis, this was bound to happen.” He gave her a lecturing look that instantly erased the smile that Hermes had lifted back onto her face. “These kind of pressure groups aren’t sustainable. You turn half the world into an enemy because of a few bad apples, no one’s got the energy to stay sane doing that.”

She went extremely angular, eyebrows diagonal, and punched his arm, the guitar crunching. “Hestia’s not insane!”

Apollo cowered. “I didn’t say she was!”

“Why do we invite you out? You make literally everything exhausting!”

Hermes spoke up in a quelling tone. “Come on, dance, monkey, no opinions for you.”

Apollo groaned and struck the strings harder. “So darn sensitive.” A new tune wended its way out of the curved belly of his instrument. 

Hermes turned back to Artemis, looking up at her from his recline. The harshness of the blue sky made her look like a shadow puppet. “What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do. I’m out-voted.” She huffed again. “Maybe it’s best just to wait it out. I mean, Aphrodite took off, right? Maybe Hestia will rebalance.”

Hermes sucked his teeth and glanced away. He wasn’t sure how level Hestia was in general after Paphos, and he couldn’t decide what was worse: the idea of Artemis giving up her mentor while she was dealing with this shitty world where guys jerked off into her sacred bathwater, or the idea that when guys jerk off into her sacred bathwater, all her mentor might do is screw her over, just like she had other goddesses and followers lately. He wanted badly to warn her about what he knew, but he had promised Peitho, and if the messenger told a secret, what good was he? But then, what good was he to Artemis if he knew something she should know and kept it to himself? He realised he was holding his breath. He inhaled purposefully, his head cleansed by cut grass and someone’s barbeque smoke. He tugged Artemis’ hand. “Come on, let’s take your mind off it.” 

Artemis grinned. They stood and dusted dry earth from their shorts. Hermes whirled his index and a frisbee appeared spinning in the air. Apollo didn’t join them, but tapped on the guitar’s body and skimmed into a faster, upbeat song. Hermes flashed his teeth and hurled the frisbee through the air. Artemis yelped and leaped for it, like a doe. The game whipped up fast. The two athletic gods dipped and sprang and stumbled and ran, lithe limbs taking circus shapes as they snatched catches from far higher and wider than any mortal could reach. Hermes took the moment to enjoy something that made sense. He locked sparkling eyes with Artemis and sensed where she would throw, felt the disc slice the air and his blood sing as he whisked the pent up energy out of his muscles. The frisbee soared easily between them, nothing in the way, no mistakes, no misunderstandings. Why couldn’t words do the same? Why did everyone here have to speak in halves, break in halves? Why did he always have to know how hard everyone was finding it and not be allowed to act like he knew, to do something to help? Aphrodite was on the run. Ares was somewhere being a bastard to himself. Peitho was buried in damage control. Artemis was doubting. Hestia was cracking up. He knew it all and knew that all they needed was each other, but would they send a godsdamn letter? No. Of course not. Why would they? That would be too simple. He snorted and shook the train of thought out of his head, hair ruffling. He spun the frisbee in an impressive arc and laughed as it sailed above Artemis’ head. It winged like a buzzard, picked up speed, dived like it had seen a mouse…

And smacked a runner in the face.

“AH! SHIT!” The runner covered his nose with his hand and stumbled clumsily.

Hermes’ eyes widened. It was Ares, baggy exercise clothes covering his distinctive sunshine blaze. The part of his face visible behind his hand was flushing strawberry. Hermes’ heart kicked. He flew forward, calling to Artemis, “I’ll get it!” She blinked at him as he zoomed past, wings blurring, heart in his throat. He screeched to a halt a couple of dozen feet away from the siblings, his feathers fanning as he landed beside Ares, who was rubbing a red dent on the prominent bridge of his nose. Hermes gulped for breath anxiously. “Hey! Sorry about your face! Accident, I swear.”

Ares moved his hand down, wincing, and rolled heavy, glimmering eyes to him. “Oh… Hey.” His voice sounded weighed down with rocks.  

The rush withered in Hermes’ body. He’d spent the entire first half of the week texting and calling Ares and getting no answer, swinging wildly between pleading for forgiveness and demanding an explanation. He’d given up after Chiron calmed him down, but the sight of his friend made him desperate to fix things between them, even if he couldn’t fix anything else. But as he looked up into Ares’ haggard face, he wasn’t sure he deserved forgiveness. His heart thrummed like a caged bird. He hugged himself and rubbed his lips together. “Listen, um, I wanted to say…”

Ares just kept looking down at him, motionless. Was he always this tall? He seemed taller. 

Hermes swallowed and glanced uncomfortably around. “I'm sorry I made out with your big, epic crush in front of you. And also interrogated you while your dick was out. That wasn't cool.” He grimaced and peeked back at Ares, waiting for the yelling to start, or the storming off.

Ares’ eyes lowered. His mouth twitched. “Yeah, well, I'm sorry I used you as an alibi and then yelled at you for being a friend.” He folded his arm across himself, suddenly looking shrunken in the large t-shirt. “You are a good friend and I’m not and, yeah, sorry.”

Hermes felt like a knitting needle was being extracted from his chest. His breathing eased for the first time in days. He cleared his throat. “My brain was kinda doing a thing that night.”

“Mine too.”

Hermes nodded gently. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet. “We good?”

Ares nodded.

He hesitated, but leaned on his tongue. “Then how come you blanked my calls all week?”

Ares bundled himself up a little. He looked at his forearm. “I buried my phone in my room. Didn’t wanna regret using it. And…” His sore eyes shifted. “And I figured no one would wanna talk to me anyway, after…”

Hermes sighed in exasperation, the two of them had literally stopped talking out of belief that the other didn’t want to hear it. How fucking pointless and off brand for him. He clucked his tongue. “Hug it out?”

Ares rolled his eyes, but let out a tiny grin and spread one large, bear-like arm. Hermes beamed. He hopped into Ares’ kiln-warm hug, wrapping his arms fiercely around the solid torso. Relief broke over him as Ares folded his spread arm and gave him the slightest squeeze. He clung to him, like a koala, and took a deep, comforting draught of the crook of his neck. “Mmmm, sweaty. Musk.”

“Alright.” Ares plucked the back of his tank top and peeled him off with a slanted half-smile. He rubbed the back of his neck. Hermes eyed the dark patches on his crimson t-shirt. He’d obviously been running an awful long way. He looked exhausted, the carnelian radiance of his gaze paled and the underneath of his eyes the colour of rot on a peach. Ares combed his hand through his curls, his chest expanding in a brisk breath. “Hey, speaking of bad friend, I've been totally checked out since campaign. How are you doing?”

“Me?” Hermes perked up and put his hands on his hips. “I'm good. Hecate's riding my ass right now, people die heroically all over the place this time of year. I'm like, can't you all take a beach day? Jeez.”

Ares laughed gruffly.

Hermes beamed again, the relief brightening all the happy, summer sounds of the park. Apollo’s guitar was still audible, as well as his annoyingly pleasant voice crooning a corny love song with a lot of really unacceptable rhymes and references to rowboats in it. Hermes shuffled his feet in the grass, wings restless. “I, uh, I actually called Chiron on Wednesday.”

“Your therapist?”

He nodded. “Just gonna get a top up. I get so obsessed with other people’s business and go a little…” He cheeped like a cuckoo clock. 

Ares’ usually sanguine face looked almost gaunt. “That’s my fault. I’ve been involving you.”

Hermes winced. “No, no, come on, I didn’t mean that. I’m just telling you I got kinda off-balance, like before anything went down. I think I’ve not been keeping tabs on myself and then it just suddenly…” He mimed an explosion, making the sound with his mouth. Ares kept looking at him with that awful guilt. He hurried on. “If people don’t involve me, the curiosity makes me even worse, so…” He trailed off and fluttered his wings. Apollo’s saccharin singing and strumming wound around them, filling the pause. Hermes examined his friend, like a medic taking in the details of injuries. Ares wore the excitement and toll of his powers as openly as he did, neither of them always doing so on purpose. He spoke tenderly. “No one warns you about this, do they? When they make you an awesome immortal, I mean. That you’re gonna get all these weird needs and reactions.” He laughed. “It’s like puberty, but sexier.”

Ares’ drawn expression slackened. He chuckled and nodded. He rubbed the back of his neck again. He looked down.

Hermes rubbed his wrist and gazed at him with new worry sprouting in his gut, like a cactus. “So, um, how are you doing? You know, since…”

Ares shrugged and kept his eyes away. “Yeah, fine. All fine.”

Hermes cocked an eyebrow. “Right, right. I mean, you're obviously lying to protect my baby brain.”

“I'm not.” He raised his face, the corners of his mouth writhing hesitantly, his voice in a halting husk. Apollo’s guitar hummed sickly-sweet. “I'm really not. These things happen...” He moved his lips wordlessly, as if the intrusive tune had swept the rest of the sentence away. He cleared his throat over it. “It was a bunch of random encounters over, what, two weeks?” The guitar rippled, his temple ticked irritably. “Maybe three? It's fine.” The guitar prattled on, his cheek twitched. Something was brewing in his brow. “There wasn't anything really to lose, you know? So…” The love song trilled, his jaw tightened. “So, you know…” The song changed key, his gaze darkened, his hand flexed. “So, you know…” The guitar warbled. “So…” A chord jammed. Something snapped behind his eyes. He shifted his weight. “I'm sorry, excuse me a sec.” He set his jaw and strode past Hermes to where Artemis and Apollo were sitting in the shade of the silver birch. His thick shadow engulfed it. Apollo yelped and the guitar screeched as Ares grabbed it by the neck, yanked it out of his lap, and, face expressionless, swung it violently against the tree. In a rain of metallic, toneless humming, the guitar smashed to splinters, showering into Apollo’s perfect coiffure. Artemis stared in shock. Hermes clapped his hands over his mouth. Ares stood dappled by the leaves, shoulders heaving and a thin wisp of smoke sneaking from his teeth. He looked at the wreckage dangling from his clenched fist by the sinew of strings. There was a very long pause, the silence of it permeating with the absence of the music. He dropped the pitiful remains into Apollo’s lap with another melodic crunch. “Sorry.”

Apollo’s horrified expression turned livid as he cradled the firewood. “Sorry? Seriously? You utter piece of - AH!”

The guitar burst into flame.

Ares stumbled back, eyes going round and chest pumping as he lost his breath. 

“Shit!” Hermes barked and flitted forward. In a streak of chilli red, he stole the guitar and raced it to the duck pond. He flung it into the water just as the flames were about to reach his fingers. The flames hissed out in the almighty splash and eruption of indignant quacking. He stood at the pond’s edge and gaped at the ruins of the instrument bobbing miserably in the green water. He panted and frowned. Ares’ face as the flames had flickered up was haunting - terrified, ashamed… unsurprised. 

Oh no…

He spun around urgently. “Ares, it’s OK! We all hate…” He faltered. Ares was already halfway across the park, running like dogs were at his heels as Apollo and Artemis stared after him. Hermes’ shoulders drooped. Damn. He sucked his teeth and sighed. It’s worse than I thought.

 

*

 

Sand sprayed from Athena's heels as she dodged a slow swipe from her brother's fist. She and Ares were circling like jackals in the outdoor gym, drawing a tight ring with their feet. She faced the raw, hulking mass of muscle that had once been her baby bro, her fists up to guard her sharp, owl-like face. He thrust his square fist forward, slow and with a markedly obvious path. She deflected it with an easy flick of her wrist and kept circling. He swung again, again strangely slow and imprecise, like a wrecking ball on a chain. She dodged and popped two light punches to his ribs. His face flickered. The look on it was strange, furrowed in a facsimile of concentration, but his eyes vaguely adrift. 

She’d arrived at the session with a spring in her step, looking forward to the cosy, companionable verbal sparring they’d gotten into a rhythm of over campaign. His adolescent abrasiveness had smoothed into something fun and friendly, if you could give as good as you got. Or better, in Athena’s case. But today, nothing. He spoke in monosyllables, his mouth looking like it had lead weights in the corners, his eyes so bruised underneath that she at first thought he’d been in a fight. She’d dropped the banter and tried to liven him up with combat, but it was like boxing against someone on a frame delay. Ares was sluggish and amateurish, every technique that she thought she’d tattooed in his muscle was suddenly absent. It was like he was stage fighting. She frowned, pulling back on impact and focusing on speed, on watching his failing reactions as she peppered strike after strike. She bounced forward and shot her knuckles out like a cobra, virtually skimming his raised hand, confident he'd catch her and spot how she left herself open.

She clocked him hard in the jaw.

Ares' face flung around with a harsh grunt. He dropped his stance and rubbed the tangerine imprint of her fist, rolling his jaw. He snorted, flexed his neck, and raised his hands again. "OK, next round."

Athena went stone cold. She stepped out of the sand circle with a severe expression. "No. We’re done."

He stiffened. "Why?"

"Because you’re losing on purpose."

"What? No, I’m not."

The disappointment was soggy in her chest. She tried to keep it out of her voice. Mostly. "You are. You’re trying to get hurt. No, you’re trying to get the shit kicked out of you."

His dimmed eyes ignited, his pupils black hollows in rings of fire. "I am not!"

She held his blazing glare with stern calm.  "Yes. You are." She shook her head, holding in a frustrated hiss, knowing he could sense it anyway. "You think I don’t recognise this? You think I don’t remember this from when you were a kid? This is just like training you when you were fifteen. You’re taking something out on yourself." Her stomach tightened. "Well, I’m not a tool for that kind of nonsense."

Ares' hot glare sputtered. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

She fought to keep the frustration as deep down as possible, out of reach of him. She rubbed her eye with her fingertips. "Fates, this is such a regression. You were past this, Ares."

He flinched subtly. He hardened and rolled his shoulder to turn and walk away. 

She wasn't having that. "Hey!" Her voice clanged like an axe hitting a shield. "Do not turn your back on your commanding officer, Soldier!"

He halted. She watched his back move as he struggled with whether to disobey. She didn't breathe. He turned to her. Slowly. She exhaled and strode over to him. She put her hands on his shoulders. He looked away. She clapped his cheek to force his gaze back, forced herself through the burn of it. "What did I tell you?"

His brow creviced.

"She was always going to do this to you."

He jerked away so sharply that it jarred her finger joints. "Fuck off."

She took the trap door off her frustration and clapped his cheek again. "No. Hey. No. Stop this." She grabbed his chin and held him like a vice. "Wear this face and everyone will know why. Your little showdown with Aphrodite is all over Olympus, like fleas. The people that like her are looking at you for driving her underwater. The people that hate her are looking at you for having something going on with her. If you sulk in front of the servants and out on your runs and whatever else, it will add to the speculations."

His eyes flared. He shoved her back, clacking his teeth to erase her touch. "There’s nothing to speculate about!"

Athena drew herself up, her face carved from granite. "That doesn’t matter. Be tactical. You have made it look like there’s something serious between you and it is not appropriate."

The colour bled back into his glimmering face. He snarled through his teeth. "You’re right. I am real fucking sorry for being inappropriate."

Athena could feel him digging her anger out, trying to have a fight, trying to make her crack. It was like someone ferreting at her ribs with a trowel. She breathed slowly and smoothed her tone. "Tell me how you’re feeling."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you don’t wanna know!" The iron gym equipment sang as his shout struck it. "You’re not asking for me, you’re asking as a test!"

Athena sighed. "What could I possibly be testing?"

Snick. Snap. Whoosh.  

They both wheeled to see the pommel horse burst into flame. Athena's heart thunked an inch down in her chest. She watched with an unwelcome, familiar sense of deflation as Ares' temper stuttered and he crumpled and growled like an empty car tank into his hands. He hurled back around, waving wildly at the crackling bonfire chomping up the pommel horse. "That! OK? Yes. It’s been happening again."

Athena consciously relaxed her hands at her sides. "Ares, recall the flames."

"I can’t!" He went back into hands, smoke trickling from between them as he breathed raggedly. 

She waited for a full minute.

He breathed with the sound of cotton tearing, fingers wreathed in smoke.

She shook her head and walked to the edge of the arena to retrieve the fire extinguisher they'd installed in his teens. She went to the charred skeleton of the pommel horse and hosed it down. The roar of the spray echoed on the metal. The fire was buried. Foam dripped rather miserably off the blackened stump. She steadily replaced the fire extinguisher and returned to where Ares was still huffing black, charcoal scented smoke into his palms. She folded her arms, looking at him unrelentingly. "I told you she would mix you up."

His hands flew down. His bellow came out in a cloud of smoke, his eyes shimmering eerily through it. "I know! OK? I fucking know! You were right! She hid shit from me, being with her hurts this family all over again, I fucking know!" His voice dwindled. The smoke cleared. He looked down at his hands, tiny burns like paper cuts on his fingers. He croaked helplessly. "So why does my body keep burning me?"

She shifted slightly in the sand. "Because you’re upset."

He kept staring at the marks where his own fire had bitten his skin, like gnats. "It’s more than that, though. It’s like it’s screaming at me for being angry with her."

"I wouldn’t be surprised if that was something she set up."

"Hey, shut up!" Another billow of angry smoke. "We don’t fit, doesn’t make her like that! I’m not fucking enchanted!"

Athena pressed her lips together. "OK."

"I’m never gonna control any of this if you assume I’m making shit up every time I get a feeling!"

"I’m not telling you that."

"Like fuck!"

Her nostrils flared, eyes steel. "Ares! Simmer down!"

He snorted like a drake and half turned from her, agitatedly rubbing his palms as the fire itched in his pores. "Can we fucking train?"

She looked at him flatly. "Are you going to try?"

"I am trying!" Another sudden, rifle yell. "I’m just failing!"

Athena took a deep, patient breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. "You’re not failing. You’re sabotaging."

"No, I’m failing!" His ragged, raised voice avalanched. "I’m failing you, I’m failing my parents, I’m failing Sparta, I’m failing Olympus, and I failed her. I’m a failure." 

A ripple of magma-glow light coursed under the skin of his arms. She eyed it warily. "Ares. Breathe. You’re going to erupt again."

"So what!" Another ripple.

"So, this equipment is expensive."

The quip pinged off him, like a coin. He ticked and scowled. "So, it’s not tactical to be angry, right?" His teeth serrated. "Athena, it’s never a good idea to be angry! But it’s all I fucking do! So what are we even working on here?"

The weights rack flashed into a bonfire behind him. 

Athena's calculating eyes flicked to it. Her tone tensed as she stood very still. "Ares, stop it."

"I’m trying!" His body was convulsing with shallow breaths as he stared with haggard horror at the pulses of bloody glimmer worming in his forearms. "I’m trying every day! But it’s like there’s bugs inside me! It’s like there’s this thing in my body and it’s invading me and I can’t get rid of it and I don’t know why it’s there and I keep trying to burn it up and -"

His rushing words were drowned in a downpour of clanging as the weights rack turned to ash and the heavy, iron discs all collapsed to the ground and rolled on the sand. He started at the noise and flame spiralled around the pull-up bar. He spun hectically to stare at it, the swirls under his skin doused in the reflecting light of the multiple fires. He clutched his hair. "Godsdammit!"

Athena watched his shoulders tremble. "Ares, calm down."

"FUCK OFF!" He spun back and his eyes were blinding and his skin was webbed with red light. Another fire roared to life behind him. He winced and groaned and covered his eyes as if they hurt. "FUCK!" The pull-up bar creaked and toppled in a puff of sand and smoke. Ares glowed red. Athena stood balanced on the balls of her feet, watching him like the fuse on a barrel of dynamite. His muscle spasmed and creased and slinked as he fought to contain himself. She could see how hard he was fighting, see the flames eating him from the inside. He drove his fingers into his abdomen and doubled over. The flames swelled. 

"Ares…"

He roared through his teeth, smoke gushing down his chin. He clattered onto his knees, hunched and shaking. She sank onto flat feet as he reined in his rage, locked it in his body as if his flesh was a lead safe. The flames snapped and mellowed. The ripples under his skin dissipated. He knelt in the dirt and the sunlight. He looked like a lump of melted candle.

"Well done," she muttered.

"Oh, fuck…" He tipped forward and wretched loudly. She saw his shoulder blades and spine crest under his damp t-shirt as he swallowed back the nausea.

She exhaled evenly. "Let it happen."

"No," he wheezed. "I’m so fucking tired of throwing up."

"Then stop losing control. But once you have already, you have to let your body expel the effects."

"I’m not hurling on the damn floor agai-" He coughed hollowly and it lurched into a heaving wretch. He hugged his middle, curls dusting his knees, and shivered and gasped.

Athena shook her head. She tapped three times on her ring finger. Golden sparkle showered in the air a few paces off. Hera materialised, a spindly cigarette scissored in her delicate fingers, her chignon pulled so tight it made her eyebrows arch. She cocked her head sharply. “Athena?”

Athena nodded despondently at the fires and at the heap of Ares on the ground.

Hera’s guarded expression was ripped from her face. “Ares!” She dropped her cigarette and raced to his side, grit kicking up over her smart dress as she knelt and put her arm as much around him as it would reach. 

Athena regarded her coolly. “I’ll call a fire crew.” She wandered to the edge of the arena, fishing her phone from her pocket. 

Hera’s wide, wet eyes roved around the crumpled body of her son, the deep quakes travelling under her hands as she rubbed his tense arm and back. She could feel the bumps of his vertebrae as he arched and heaved again. She cooed softly. “Oh no, Lamb, how awful. It’s OK, just breathe and let it happen.”

His face was almost planted in the sand. He spoke weakly, a note of pleading in his fractured voice that made her heart tear. “I don’t wanna hurl, Ma, I don’t…”

She hushed him and rubbed slow circles on his back, wishing brutally that he wasn’t too big to fit in the cradle of her arms. “I know, Sweetheart, I know, but you’ll strain something holding it back.”

“I’m sick of it.”

“You’ll grow out of it.”

“I’m a fucking adult, Ma!” His coarse shout swooped into a heavy cough and a violent wretch that she felt lunge through his body. 

She kissed his shoulder and rubbed deeper. “I know, I know. Adults get sick too. Adults grow too.” She kept circling in a slow, consistent rhythm, kept her voice low and gentle, longed to be able to just turn off his pain, protect him, cure him. “Just relax.”

His body felt unstable in her hands, shaking and bobbing as he gasped for breath, his mouth hanging open and his throat spasming.

“Just relax, Lamb, I’m here.”

He heaved once more, and the knots in his back broke as he released the convulsions and vomited in a hail of hacking coughs into the dirt. She kept holding him, sweeping his hair back off his waxen, clammy face. He rocked and lurched again. Hot, bitter bile splashed onto the ground. The reek steamed up into her nose. She breathed through it steadily and didn’t break the tender circling on his back. 

He burped, his middle clenching as his body tested it was empty. He groaned and gasped. He pulled himself back to sit, drawing his grubby knees up, resting his elbows on them, and holding his head bowed. The shaking fizzled to a thrumming vulnerability in his exhausted muscle. Hera regarded him softly, still rubbing his back, wishing he wouldn’t hide his eyes.

“Shit…” he whispered.

She kissed his arm. She was vaguely aware of the hiss of foam as the fire crew put out the gym equipment behind them. 

“You know it’s not normal to have a personal fire crew, right?” Ares grumbled to the floor. “You shouldn’t have to have that.”

Hera tutted, stroking his hair again, as soft as when he was a child. “It’s a cushy number, don’t you worry about them. I’ll get someone out to clean this up.”

He raised his head, bruised and pallid and irritated. “No, Ma, jeez, I’ll do it.”

“You’re not well.”

“No one’s cleaning up my damn puke, it’s fucking humiliating.”

“He’s right.”

Hera looked up to see Athena had returned to standing over them, her broad, angular figure like a skyscraper. She folded her arms stiffly. “Ares, clean this up, brush your teeth, get a cold shower and a ginger ale, be back here by three. We’ll go back to basic blocks.”

Hera prickled, her fingers curling possessively on her son’s back. “Athena, no.”

Athena’s endlessly impassive face turned to her. “With respect, my queen, I’m his teacher and I think it would be best.”

Hera’s gaze seared. “And I’m his mother! He’s not training while he’s sick!”

“He isn’t sick, he’s undisciplined. If you want him to be well, you’ll let me teach him to control himself.”

“You are impossible.” She pursed her lips dangerously and gripped Ares’ arm. 

Ares put his hand over hers, warm and finally done trembling. “Ma, it’s fine.” 

Her heart tugged as he pulled from her and hauled himself to stand with a creaking groan. She hurried with him, guiding him by his forearm. “Ares, you are unwell.” She closed his wrist in her hands and lowered her voice to a concerned murmur. “It’s been all week, we need to talk.”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m done talking, Ma. I gotta train.”

Hera prickled sharper. She shot Athena a combative look. Athena didn’t react. Ares glanced awkwardly between them, cheeks as pale as the inside of a lemon rind. “Can I get some space while I clean this up?”

Athena strode away. Hera hesitated, catching his eye with her worried expression. He gave her a small, reassuring nod and dragged his feet towards the storage shed at the edge of the arena where the cleaning kit was. Hera frowned after him, then stalked over to Athena. “You could be a little more sympathetic.”

Athena glanced at her with her usual infuriating look. It wasn’t insubordination, it was just an air of seeing Hera as irrelevant in the hierarchy. It always made Hera want to scratch that bland face right off her skull. Athena breathed measuredly. “His position is not sympathetic.”

“War?”

“Royalty.” She turned fully to Hera, speaking quietly with an edge of severity. “He has to get over this. You know he can’t be seen to be unstable.” Her eyes flicked down. “Especially since he’s the only being Zeus has sired with his legitimate queen.”

Hera felt like a whetted blade. “Watch your tongue.”

Athena flicked her steel eyes back. Hera hated her height. The general pushed her stern, logical gaze through the queen, like she was putting a pin in a battle map. “I’m saying what you already know. He’s my brother, of course I want him to be OK, but I literally have fires to put out. He’s being a risk factor.”

“He’s being human!” Hera spat. “He’s 23!”

“Then he’s a man, and he should have known better.”

“What are you talking about?”

Athena’s nostrils flared. “We all tried to warn him off Aphrodite. They’re why he’s got like this again.” She glanced past Hera to her brother, jaw ticking. “It’s just like when he was a kid.”

Just like when he was a kid… Something connected in Hera’s mind with an unpleasant grinding sensation. She arched an eyebrow. “You’re sure it’s her that’s bothering him?”

Athena put her hands in her pockets. “Monday they talk, Tuesday he’s setting light to the furnishings. You do the math.”

Hera’s hands twisted together, her wedding ring cold on her finger. “I think I have.” She curled her fists and moved like a whippet, marching from the arena with her stilettos carving grooves into the sand. 

By the time she reached her husband’s office door, there was a painful fizzing sensation in her chest that made her feel as if she’d froth furiously the second she opened her mouth. She glared at the austere, dark oak. The muscles between her shoulder blades contracted, forcing her to stand straight and strong. She could practically hear the greasy gears in his head turning from here. She reached for the door handle. Her fingers quivered. She flexed them stubbornly, grabbed the brass, and turned it hard. She swept into his office in a cold flash of gold and marched to stand over his desk, piercing him with her crystal eyes. “What did you say to him?”

Zeus was making notes in a ledger, his hair piled loosely on top of his head, sharpening his chiselled features and elongating his neck. His shirt was so white that it reflected the daylight from the window. The scratching of his pencil didn’t falter. “Good afternoon, my darling wife, how are you?”

Hera took him in, the softly wisping pot of coffee and open packet of cigarettes on a silver tray beside him, the neat stacks of correspondence with gold heading, the calculator, the scattered notes, the old photograph of their wedding in the desk corner, the look of careful concentration on his handsome face. He looked like he was posing for a photoshoot of a hard-working family man.

She narrowed her eyes. “What did you say to Ares on Monday?”

“Excuse me?” he replied blandly, still writing.

Hera put her hands on her hips and glowered. “I told you I was handling it. I told you not to involve yourself.”

The pencil finally lay down on the ledger. He inhaled through his nose and his broad chest swelled. He brought his eyes up to meet hers and folded his hands on the paper. His wedding ring glinted in the shaft of sunlight. Her own felt tight. He gave her a look of sophisticated calm. “I am the king, Hera. I don't take orders, I take advice. On this occasion, your advice was not taken.”

The fizzing in her chest bit. “This is not about your damn crown!”

His eyes hardened to obsidian. “Everything is about my crown.”

Somewhere far off, thunder prowled. Hera shrank back and cursed herself. She clenched her fists and lifted her chin defiantly.

Zeus’ gaze turned to the texture of oil. The thunder faded and he rubbed his temple with his fingertip. “Bunny, your compassion is one of the many qualities that makes you such a glorious queen, but you have to get this into your head: Ares is not your boy, he is my heir.”

She wished she was holding a spear. “So that gives you the right to unpick his happiness with a fine-tooth comb?”

He looked so rational, it was infuriating. “All I did was tell him some things that he's old enough to know. If he couldn't handle it, that's his weakness.”

“My son is not weak,” she snarled. “He is learning. He is succeeding. It is difficult for him to do that because it is difficult for him to trust.” She reined herself back, then broke the reins instantly. “I had a plan for extracting him from a risk and you took everything I was handling with care and set it on fire!”

“Ares set it on fire, Hera. That's what he does. He spontaneously combusts.” He snorted and shuffled a few papers. “Don't blame me because you don't want to face that he's not stable.”

The anger choked her. She felt like she was trying to speak through a scold's bridle. “Oh, I know he's not stable! Neither am I! Neither is anything in this place because you warp our reality every time we get a footing that isn't the palm of your hand!” She lost her breath, fists so tight that her fingernails stuck her palms and her wrists smarted.

Zeus laid the papers out neatly. His gaze drifted down with a mature, mournful lull. “I wish you wouldn't talk about our relationship like that. I wish loving you and our family wasn't this constant source of suspicion.”

Hera’s fists wilted. She diminished, eyes fluttering and face flushing guiltily. 

Zeus looked at her for a moment with that gentle sadness, then he leaned on the desk and reached forward with one hand in offering, speaking with sweet confidence. “He'll be fine. He sulks. He gets over it. Trust me, my perfection, give it a week.”

Hera looked at his hand. Her fingers stirred with a strange longing, as if he was drawing them with a thread. She swallowed resolutely. “He sulks?" She curled her fists again and squared her shoulders, hardening herself against the tug of the hooks that he’d bedded into her all those years ago. Her eyes went cold. “You know what, Zeus? I’d call you a real shit, but then something about you would have to be real.” She picked up the cigarettes, deftly took the lid off the coffee pot, and dumped the pack into it. The card squelched and a few flakes of tobacco crept into the dark roast. 

Zeus cast his extended hand up and tutted sharply. “Oh, that's nice.” 

She flashed her teeth, turned in a whistle of gold, and strutted jaggedly from the room.

“Stay classy!” he called after her bitterly. 

The pencil started to scratch on the ledger again.

 

*

 

“Get in the shower. Get in the shower. Get in the shower.”

Ares repeated the instructions to himself under his breath in a steam train rhythm as he walked stiffly into his bedroom. He drove every shred of energy left in him into focusing on this one task. Simple. Easy. 

“Get in the shower. Get in the shower.”

He just needed to cool off. That’s all it was. He needed to throw cold water over his body and then the fire would go out and he could finally have some peace. He could finally eat and sleep and walk between rooms without somehow losing stretches of time. He could focus on anything other than the tumult in his body. 

“Get in the shower. Get in the shower.”

Six days. Six days of every tiny movement prickling as if a match was striking on his skin. Ever since leaving for campaign, his boiling power had been a wild surge within him, a fuel, an engine. His fire could consume the world and spit it out as ash, but to him it was an energising warmth, a magnetic pull. Coming home had meant holding it in, but it was like wrenching the reins on a charging chariot; he could still ride it, he still got a little taste of the rush. But this?

“Get in the shower. Get in the shower. Please get in the shower.”

This was cruel. The fire had turned on him, become a pack of rats swarming over his body and biting into his flesh, trying obsessively to get to the sickening crawling in his core that had plagued him since Monday, to chew it out of him. He didn’t feel human, he felt like a swarm, a crude form mashed together out of wasps and maggots. His guts squirmed. His skin felt as if worms were tunnelling just under its surface. It was taking everything in him to stay solid and not slither apart into a mess of stinging, infecting impulses. But all the while he was composed, the sensation was mounting and mounting, until it was burrowing deep in him and frizzing the tips of his body hair, and when he couldn't take it anymore, the fire unleashed, bursting erratically as his body tried to burn away the unmaking feeling of being invaded, unravelled. It should have worked. His temper was a bitch, but it always left him feeling clean. It was an incinerator, a purifier. Not this time. It couldn’t seem to find what it needed to kill, and so it earthed at random, mostly on household objects. And still his centre crawled. Athena started all her training with core strength, everything came from a strong core. Ares’ core wasn’t even still. How was he supposed to do anything in this state?

“Just get in the damn shower. How have you been standing still in your bathroom for this long? How long has it been? Why do you keep shutting down? Get in the fucking shower.”

He’d tried to push through it, to tell himself that he’d stop missing her in time. They were never going to do anything but end, not if she couldn’t be honest with him about her past, not if her past put her in conflict with his family and his position. It was savage how it ended, but it had to, it always had to. (Why wasn’t he getting in the shower? How long had he been repeating that he should?) Dad was right. It’s not like the old man had come storming in and been an asshole about it. He’d had a real conversation, tried to be fair on Aphrodite, but from what he’d gone through, what Ma had gone through, it wouldn’t be fair on him and the family to treat her as harmless. (Everything itched. Everything writhed. There was a buzzing in his ears. Why wasn’t he in the shower?) Yeah, it was a shitty end, but it was for the best. He had to be mature, like Dad finally understood he was. (The buzzing intensified. How long had he been standing in the bathroom?) He had a real shot at this prince thing, at making something worthwhile out of himself, and Dad was paying attention, giving him room. Proud. Aphrodite was wonderful and intoxicating, but he had a chance to make his family proud, to be worthy of their sacrifices. (Crawling deep. And he still wasn’t showering.) So, yeah, this was for the best.

This was for the best.

The hand towel on the nearby hook whooshed ablaze.

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE!” Ares jumped in shock, snatched the towel, threw it in the sink, and jerked on the tap. The flames were washed out. The clear stream splashed over his hands. “AH!” The mild cool felt like frostbite. He whipped the tap off and glared at his hands through fire swilling in his eyes. His fingers and palms stung brutally, as if he’d just gripped the spiked shell of a conker. There was so much burning in him now that touching temperate water felt like smashing his hand into ice. He grit his teeth as the tingling subsided. He peered at his hands. They were littered with tiny, pinprick blisters - burns, exit wounds from his random eruptions. They itched like a rash. He peered at them, his wan, custard complexion blurred in the mirror in front of him. He hadn’t had these since he was a child…

A carving sob escaped his chest. 

And a memory broke free from some forgotten cage in the pit of his mind.

 

____

 

It's so exciting being in Uncle P's undersea palace. Ares hasn't been since he was a baby, so it's a whole new adventure. There's so much secrecy here. The palace halls are illuminated darkly in emerald and teal and indigo, the rooms are all squiggly shapes and there are maybe hundreds of hallways like knotted string. All the ceilings are domed, the rooms spangled with flecks of salt and amber that glitter as if he's being kept in a jewellery box. The corridors are round, as if they were carved by a sea snake burrowing through the coral and limestone. The strange house is full of shadows; skulking, half visible, half real creatures. Ares is fighting them heroically with his wooden sword, cutting a path alone around the immense palace as he plays at being a warrior, just like Ma and Dad. He wonders if any of the shadows are titan-shaped. The walls are peppered with long-extinct, fossilised creatures, teeth and shells and skulls and filigree spines like the stitching in lace. Ares traces them closely with his fingertips for long, empty periods. Then he goes back to the Shadowmachy.

He races through the halls, the echoes of his hullabaloo booming around him. The monsters are circling. He hacks and slashes and stabs, felling the creatures like they're nothing but flimsy cobweb. Mighty Ares. Captain Ares. Prince Ares. His wooden blade sings and flashes like bronze. All that wriggling, hot pressure under his skin that's been bothering him lately, bothering everyone, finally feels better. It's not that it's gone, in fact it feels stronger, but it's stopped thrashing around inside him like he's swallowed a crazy bull. It's moving in pace with his blood, pulsing through his stocky body in waves of elated energy that make him feel like he never has before. He feels big. He feels as big as Dad. He feels like he could lift a truck over his head or wrestle a giant squid. Is this what it feels like being a god? Being golden like Ma? He charges after a retreating invisible battalion around a dark corner and halts with a loud gasp that wings around him on the arched, encrusted ceiling. 

Embedded across the whole vast wall is the skeleton of a strange and wonderful creature. It looks like a dragon, with its arrow head and long, serpent neck, but it has wide flippers that fan over the stone. Its many needle teeth are spread in a hungry, macabre grin. Its hollow eyes leer from the gloom. The cold light ripples on it. It looks like it's moving, like at any moment it will break free of the wall and swim to Ares and open its deadly maw with a deep, cavernous hiss and…

"DAD-DAD-DAD-DAD-DAD-DA-"

Ares pelts through the palace, hollering for his father at the top of his lungs as he feels the close air and deep earth stir with the flippers of the great beast. He can't turn around, it's after him for sure, surging forward through the waves of black and green, its jaws snapping. The shadows loom. The fire inside him flares like a coal engine, propelling him faster, getting him to safety, getting him to the best monster slayer that has ever lived…

"DAD! DAD, HELP! DAAAAAD!"

Dad is a king and a warrior and braver and stronger than every dragon in the world put together. If Ares can just get back to where he and Uncle P were having cigars…

"DAD!"

Ares skitters through the ajar door to the emerald study full of cushions and paintings of pretty mermaids. He's panting so hard it stings, his heart hammering in terror.

"DAD! DAD!"

Dad whips around from where he's sat with one foot on his knee on a low couch. Smoke billows from between his teeth as Ares sees white in his black eyes. "WHAT?" he roars like cannon fire. "SWEET FUCK, ARES, CAN'T YOU KEEP A DAMN LID ON IT?"

Ares stops still, but the flames don't and they lose direction, instantly nauseating him with confusion. His heart still rockets. His voice croaks. If Dad could just see… "Dad, there was a dragon, an undersea dragon, and…"

Uncle P raises his thick eyebrows. Dad chews the end of his cigar and scowls. His scowl is like facing down a rhinoceros. "There wasn't a dragon, you fucking imbecile, get back to your game."

"But there was! I saw it! It was going to chase me!"

"Nothing's going to chase you, Ares. You're seeing things."

Ares' face feels hot. His tummy feels hot. "But… But, Dad, it scared me…"

Dad huffs acrid smoke again and his lip curls. "You're a prince, aren't you? You're a warrior, aren't you? So man the fuck up. You weren't scared. You were seeing things."

Uncle P leans over, hand in his wild hair. "Zeus, the kid's nine…"

"He's got two perfectly good eyes, he knows he's making shit up."

Ares' hands feel hot. His eyes feel hot. Dad looks red. The room looks red. 

Oh no, I’m sorry!

The wooden sword bursts into flames in his hand. He wails and throws it down, clattering onto the rug, which also catches light.

Dad groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. Uncle P jumps up and hurries over and wafts his hand at the spreading flames. Water whistles over them and they turn to damp threads of smoke. The wooden sword is just a pile of black splinters. He puts a hand on his hip and looks down at Ares. Ares looks up at him. He feels like he's stuck in a seaweed bed as Uncle P's hair swirls above him. "Don't fret, Little Man. All sorted."

"Don't pander to him!" Dad barks from the couch. It makes Ares jump. It makes the fire jump. He has to get away. Dad hates it when it comes out. His hands are hurting, burning and prickling. He wants to cry. Dad will shout if he cries. 

"Hey, Buddy, you OK?"

"Poseidon!"

Uncle P turns to frown at Dad. Ares is freed from the seaweed. He runs for it.

Dad's deep, angry voice chases him, like the dragon. "Don't give me that look, Pos. It's been all this year, he's going crazy, I swear. Jumping at shadows, screaming fit to raise the dead, and the fires. The fucking fires. Every time someone blinks in his direction."

Ares' chest is tight and burning.

"Athena was never like this. There's something wrong with him."

Ares sobs as his hands singe. The pain is rising. His skin feels like it's tearing along the creases in his palms. The house seems to be groaning with the crushing weight of the inescapable ocean. 

He needs water.

He hurtles in the cat's cradle of indigo hallways, his breath grating, eyes brimming, doing all he can not to look at the walls, in case there are more dragons. He careens into one of the bathrooms. It shimmers with shells. He hastily stands on his tiptoes to reach the sink. He whines as cold water splashes over his stinging hands and makes the pain flare, then freeze. He tries to rub the burning out, sniffling and coughing. He has to freeze his hands until they ache, stop Ma being worried and Dad being angry. The water roars like the dragon.

"Ares?"

A soft voice says his name. He wheels around with his heart thumping in his tummy, his t-shirt splashed. His hands drip on the slippery floor. The tap is still gurgling. 

Standing in the doorway is that pretty lady from dinner yesterday. They'd arrived in the afternoon and he'd played games with Auntie Amphi and Ma and then everyone had had dinner and this lady had been there. He'd never seen her before. They said she lived with Uncle P, but she'd never visited with him. He couldn't remember what they said she was called. She hadn't talked very much, but she had given him the chocolate fish from the top of her ice cream sundae. He'd kept looking at her when no one would notice. She has very big, sparkly eyes and her hair is a huge puff of tight curls like a whole bush of lavender. She wears a loose, pink jumper that looks nice and warm, pinched at her waist with a thick, black belt. But her waist still looks sorta cuddly. 

He blushes and gulps. The tap hisses.

The lady takes a small step into the bathroom, her large eyes scanning his tear-marred face and snotty nose and sore hands. She frowns. She turns off the tap and bends her knees so her shimmery face is at his level. "Hey, what’s wrong?"

Ares doesn't want to tell her. He thinks she's pretty and he knows grown-ups don't like all the trouble his fires cause. He hides his hands behind his back and looks at his untied shoelace. 

"Please, show me." She extends her hands palm up, like she's feeding a bird. The nails are neon pink and pointy. 

Ares rocks back and forth in his puffy sneakers.

"You won't be in trouble, I promise."

He looks up warily. His hands drip onto the small of his back.

"I double, triple promise." She gives him a secret sort of smile and beckons with her neon fingernails.

Ares' heartbeat slows down. He looks at the face of the pretty lady like the face of a flower or the moon. He rubs his lips together and slowly brings his hands from behind his back.

The flower face falls as she sees the welts on his hands. "Oh, Sweetie, what happened?"

Ares has stopped crying, but he still needs to sniff, his nose is gungey. He speaks in a very small voice. "I don’t know. It happens sometimes."

"What kind of times?"

"Um… if I get mad or upset."

Her eyes sparkle even more, brighter than the shells set into the wall. "Aw, Sweetie, what upset you?"

Ares seals his mouth. Ma says not to talk about it, it will only make him feel worse, and Sis says Dad is the king and it's their job to say nice things about him. Tears press his eyes. He lets out a tight whimper.

The lady gasps softly and puts a hand to her heart. "Oh no, Baby Bear, you poor soldier. Would you like a little hug?" She spreads her arms, still crouching at his height. Her jumper looks snuggly. Ares stares at the open arms and the kind face. He whimpers again and nods. She smiles gently. "Come here."

Ares falls into her arms and she folds him into the warmest, softest hug he's ever had. He feels like he's hiding in a quilted den. He closes his pudgy fists on wool and tucks into her shoulder. She smells of scented candles and chocolate. He sniffs. Something inside him lets go. He cries again, quietly this time, and as he does, the fire snuffs out under his skin. She hushes him and rubs his back, taking all his weight so he can fall apart.

"Oh, you poor thing, you're being so brave, such a brave boy. You just cry, Sweetie, crying is very brave."

He believes her. He just does. He cries for a while and she holds him all the way through. 

When he's empty, when there's no fire or water left in him, he rubs his face dry on the soft wool and pulls back. She lets him go and she only briefly glances at the big, gooey splodge on her shoulder. She takes his hands by the backs and smiles reassuringly. "OK. Let’s take care of this."

She runs the tap again, on a gentle stream, not his angry hiss, and eases his hands under the running water. The burns are already starting to heal, fading to red flecks on his palms and fingers. The silky, cool trickle chases the sharp prickling away. She lays her hand lightly on his back as he holds his palms still under the flow, letting him know she's there. They have to run the water for a while, so she talks to him. She asks him his favourite colour and his favourite animal and his favourite movie. She tells him all about the really weird things at the bottom of the sea. She gnashes her teeth and goes googly eyed and makes him laugh. 

When the last of the prickling and aching is washed out of his skin, she squeaks off the tap, crouches again, and tenderly pats his hands dry with a fluffy towel. The wounds have closed magically fast, but the skin looks raw. She finds a pot of a clear jelly in the medicine cabinet and tells him that it's aloe. It smells tangy and fresh as rain. She rubs it into his hands in very gentle circles that slow his heartbeat down, down, down… 

The lid pops back on the pot.

"Hey, wanna see something really cool?"

Ares nods.

She takes him to a turret of the palace made completely of glass, ringed at the spire with lights so that the juniper black of the deep ocean is illuminated to cobalt. The blue stretches as far as Ares can see. It's even more endless than the mountain sky because there's no curving away into the horizon. Below them, the sand of the seabed is the colour of bones. Anemones and coral sprout like flowers, pastel and neon in a jumbled garden of funny shapes and crooked curls and drifting tendrils that make the lapping current look like a gentle breeze. Peculiar creatures shimmer and wriggle and soar around them. A shoal of silver fish flutter through the light, their scales dazzling like tossing coins. A large, sombre turtle spreads his oar flippers and glides leisurely overhead. His wake scatters with a confetti cloud of vibrant fish covered in rainbow spots and translucent frills. Ares' gaze is clipped by a blade fin and he gasps as a small, lean shark cuts through the water, his nose and glare and teeth pointed. Ares cranes to watch his straight path, then is bowled over as a huge, pulsing shape stains the blue. A sunset orange squid swells like a bubo and blooms like a tiger lily and propels itself right past the window with muscled, oozing ripples of its tentacles. Ares stops breathing and stares. 

When they first got to the turret, he'd been instantly transfixed and beyond excited, hurrying around the round, glass walls to take in every single detail, darting sporadically as different movements and colours caught his eye. The lady giggled at him as he shouted and pointed and gawped. But after a little while, he'd settled. The room is cool and it makes the nagging embers in the pit of his stomach feel safely contained as his body cools around them. The sea is so vast, but also so slow, every motion weighed down by the dense water, made to pause, kept calm and soft. Nothing could be angry here, anger moves too fast and gets too trapped, that's not possible here. He comes to sit with his legs crossed, jeans rubbing a graze on his knee. The lady sits beside him with her legs crossed too. They both gaze at the busy, lazy traffic, dream-like creatures floating in dream-like randomness. Ares shifts his eyes sideways to look at the lady. The outdoor lamps and passing shadows through the curved glass net the room with glistening, restless ribbons of light. They squiggle over her, tying into her froth of hair and reflecting hypnotically in her round, winged eyes. He doesn't remember why he found the dragon so scary. As this lady calmly shows him the wonders of the deep sea, it doesn't seem dangerous anymore.

He swallows and murmurs in the slight echo of the quiet, "who are you?"

She turns to him with a nice smile. "My name is Aphrodite."

"Are you a goddess?"

"I am."

"What of?"

"Love."

Ares wrinkles his nose. "Ew."

She chuckles, her smile still warm. "I know, pretty gross, right?"

He nods vigorously. "Mmhmm."

Her chuckle dances away and she turns back to the braiding and flowering of tentacles. "You’ll get it when you’re older."

Ares' cheeks tingle. "Ugh, I hate when people say that." He glowers at an eel slinking at the base of the glass with its unhinged glare. 

"Yeah." She's still smiling, as if the strings of light are hooked into the corner of her mouth. She lowers her voice slyly. "Everyone thinks being a kid is so great, but I’ll let you into a secret, being a grown-up is way better."

Ares perks up, his voice bouncing off the hard walls. "I bet! You get to do what you want all the time!"

She laughs softly. "Well, more than you do now."

He grins and they both turn back to the view. The water stirs around them, every creature linked by its constant push and pull. Ares can feel the immense weight of it compressing the palace, but he doesn't feel crushed, he feels packaged, cuddled. But also free. This room almost fools him into thinking it has no walls and that there's endless, fireproof space for him. He watches the silver fish, how they move in perfect harmony like music.

"So, what are you a god of?" Aphrodite's question makes him start.

He blushes and avoids her eye. "Don’t know yet."

"What do you think it will be?" She sounds so encouraging, no one's really sounded happy about him having magic before, no one's really wanted to hear about it. Apart from all the doctors in their chilly, stuffy offices.

He bunches up his shoulders, twists his hands into his t-shirt, and looks at them. "I keep starting fires."

"That’s badass!"

Her happy voice chimes on the glass, but he can't look at her. "Everyone hates it."

She makes an indignant noise and tosses her spirals of hair. "Fine, they can be cold then."

Ares has never thought of it like that. His hands stop twisting. But he keeps his eyes down. His eyes are where the fire peeks out and scares people and she's so nice, he likes being here and he doesn't want her to take him back to the other grown-ups. He feels safe here. He feels like a good kid here, not a problem, not a shame.

Aphrodite is looking at him with a small frown. She leans over and nudges his arm with her elbow. "Hey." 

He peeks up. She's still smiling, soft as the swish of the sea outside. She holds out her hand palm up. She furls her fingers into a fist. She unfurls them. A tiny, pink flame is dancing on her palm, the rosy light sprinkling over her hand and running down the fine, gold veins in her wrist. 

Ares goggles. "Whoa!" 

She grins. "See? I can do it too."

His mouth drops open. He stares intently at the flickering flame, as if she's caught a butterfly or a hummingbird. He forgets to breathe and has to take a deep gulp of air. "But it doesn’t hurt you!"

"It used to," she says calmly, the pink light painting her lips. "All my powers were pretty out there when I was your age. I was always getting burned, or drowned or whatever. But all it took was some time and now they’re easy, they work for me." She blows on the flame. It flutters, leaps into the air between their faces, and somersaults into the shape of a fish. The pink fire fish loops and eddies about them, its fins fanning, its tail long and ruffled. Ares jumps and releases a scattergun laugh as it swims around him and splashes him with a pink glow. Aphrodite beams at it and lets it play a little, reflecting garishly on the glass all around them so they're whirling in pink. Then she snaps her fingers and the fish prances back to her, somersaults again, and fizzles down to the little flame sitting merrily in her palm. The calm, blue light with white ribbons drifts over them again. The turtle glides by. 

Ares stares in wonder at the flame, his heart bobbing up in his chest. "You think I can do that?"

She nods. "If you trust yourself, and you’re patient with needing a little time to grow up. All things in their time."

He beams up at her. 

She closes her hand and snuffs the flame in her fist. She opens her hand again and the flame has crystallised into a teardrop of rose quartz. It glitters in the dimness. "Why don’t you take this home?" she says sweetly. "Something to remind you that one day you’ll be almost as awesome as me."

Ares raises an eyebrow with a gap-toothed grin. "Almost?"

"Yeah, Baby, I’m, like, totally the awesomest."

He laughs and looks down at the rose quartz, going shy. "You are pretty awesome."

She grins and beckons him to hold out his hand. He does and she drops the pink crystal into it. He holds it like it's the fragile egg of a rare, precious bird. He glances at her with a blush. "Thanks."

She pats his back lightly. She folds her hands on her crossed ankles and tilts up her pretty face to watch the turtle ambling along the current. Ares watches the shark and fingers the smooth crystal. It's still warm. It's like she's holding his hand. It's like the whole sea is holding him. He looks at his arms and the soft glimmer of his skin pooling copper on the black floor. He wonders if the shark is watching him too, a funny lump in a fish tank next to the loveliest pearl in the ocean. He rubs his lips together and swallows. "Do you ever come to Olympus?"

He hears her breath hitch. Her flowy voice suddenly isn't that so much. "Oh, I don’t, no."

His heart sinks a little. "Oh." He looks up with tentative hope. "Maybe next time I come here, then, we could hang out?"

He's so worried she's going to say no, but she smiles warmly. "Sure, how often do you visit?"

His heart sinks again. "Um, hardly ever. Dad sees Uncle P all the time, but Ma says if he isn’t on Olympus then she should be, so they only go anywhere together every few years. And Dad doesn’t bring me places without her. So I don’t get to come here much. I was a baby last time."

"Oh."

He rubs the quartz to give him courage. "Maybe… Maybe when I’m a grown-up, I could come see you by myself?" 

The ripples web her eyes. "If you like, that would be lovely."

He smiles, his heart doing a little hiccup. "OK!" He droops again. "That seems ages away."

She shrugs. "Yeah, but once you’re a grown-up, you get to live forever."

"OK." He squirms a little with happy nerves. "So, when I'm a grown-up, can we be friends? Like, for a long time?"

"Sure thing."

His face feels hot as lava. "OK." He gets too shy to look at her smile and stares down at the rose quartz flame, cradling it carefully. "I’d like that."

She chuckles. "Aw, me too. Hey." She holds out her fist with her neon-tipped pinky sticking out. "Pinky promise me that, when you’re a grown-up, you’ll be my friend."

He eyes her finger uncertainly, tight sadness in his tummy. "Are you sure?” he asks hesitantly. “You don't have to. Dad says I can't make friends because of my temper."

Aphrodite frowns deeply. It's the first time he's seen her angry and it makes his heart do something. She tilts to bring her face closer to his height and speaks with a heavy, undersea echo. "Ares, you seem like a very nice boy to me. Having some challenges doesn't mean no one would want to be friends with you. In fact, if you pinky promise me that I get to be friends with you when we meet again, I will feel very, very lucky."

Ares gazes into her eyes. Truthful, gentle, angry eyes. His heart is still doing that thing. He squares his shoulders like a good soldier and links his pinky with hers. "Promise," he says bravely.

"Good." She gives his finger a little shake and grins as wide as the wingspan of a nearby soaring ray. "I’ll hold you to that."

Is this what being a prince is meant to feel like?

 

____

 

Ares’ face was wet. He blinked and looked into the bathroom mirror. He hadn’t even realised he’d been crying, but the tracks were scored down his face. 

His head was clear. 

It was like the crackling ash stuffing his skull had been washed away. All week, he’d been sluggish and distracted and erratic, every tiny movement and decision faced down by a wave of confusion and doubt and frustration. Every other person had turned two-dimensional, nothing truly present to him except the thrash of flame inside him. Time had become senseless, sound had garbled, details in his vision had hazed, his thoughts broke and withered mid-formation. Reality had jigsawed. But suddenly he was standing in his bathroom and he could hear the lightbulb humming and his own breathing and the creak of a floorboard downstairs. He could see his reflection and it had a kind of order. Half a minute went by and he understood that it had passed. With a controlled movement, he reached out and turned on his tap. He held his healing hands under the gentle stream and took slow, rhythmic breaths as the cool water caressed his burns and padded the prickling pain. 

He hadn’t been a wreck because he’d fought with her, or because she’d kept secrets from him. Just like Athena said, what had happened to him was a regression, but she didn’t know just how right she was. 

Aphrodite hadn’t broken him.

Zeus had.

The bastard had sat down as an equal with him and said all the right things to undo his adulthood. It didn’t matter that Ares knew not to trust him, he had gotten under his skin, crawled into his body, invaded his defences, reordered his memory. He’d recast himself as the proud, loving father whose only flaw had been trying too hard to make things right, and Ares as the foolish child who needed his patience. He’d tricked Ares’ mind, but Ares’ body knew better, and as it felt the old, risk-ridden attachment to his treacherous father resurface, it had thrown itself into chaos, raging at him to pay attention to what was being done to him, to protect himself, to keep his core intact. That invasive, centipede sensation, that wasn’t missing Aphrodite, it was the feeling of Zeus getting inside him again, making him question himself, question her, shame himself, shame her, deny himself, deny her. That day when he was a child, he was so convinced his body burned him to punish his passions and his temper, but Aphrodite held him safe and let him truly feel and that extinguished the flames. The blaze wasn’t there to keep him from feeling, it was there to make him feel too strongly to be controlled, too volatilely to be manipulated, too brightly to be suppressed. Being drawn to Zeus was a lure into caging and hating himself, and so his body made it feel like sickness and his fire lashed out against it. Being drawn to Aphrodite was a new horizon, a watery comfort, a vast, uninhibited space, and it quelled him and directed him and took away the pain. They made him confident. They made him care about himself, trust himself, know his own strength. Know his own sanity. That was it. His fire hadn’t been his madness trying to get out, it had been his sanity trying to get back, to burn up the paralysing residue of his father in his body and restore the passionate, desiring god who had brought himself to the cusp of carving his own path, who truly felt for Aphrodite, who sensed that they were good for each other. 

He kept swilling his hands under the whispering water and checked in attentively with his body. The insect sensation had gone. Finally. Fucking finally. He felt tender, like a wound, but clean, solid. The fire in his stomach was mellow, flickering gently now it was no longer trying to leap on an intruder, on Zeus and his lies and the way he altered reality with a smile and a soft voice. He thought about running from sea monsters, and who had called him stupid, and who had shown him the deep and that there was nothing to be afraid of. If Aphrodite found you lost, she helped you find your way. If Zeus found you lost, he saw an opportunity. 

How could I be so fucking blind?

He ground his teeth and turned off the tap. He dabbed his hands dry and flexed the numbness out of his fingers. He found a pot of aloe in his cabinet and rubbed it carefully on the fading marks. The zingy scent grounded him further. He strode back into his bedroom and began to rummage in the closet and drawers. He wasn’t feverish or sluggish anymore, he was controlled and methodical, but he was determined. He needed to know that memory was real. He needed to know that Zeus wasn’t patient with him, didn’t try, didn’t care, and in the roaring of that despair, Aphrodite and no one else had made him feel safe again. He needed to know that Aphrodite was where he could go to feel safe, to be himself. He needed to know that, whatever else there was to her, she was kind to him, because she was kind by nature, and she deserved his goodness, because it was there to give. She knew it was there. 

He found it in the very back of his closet, in a squashed shoebox of weird shit that kids pick up off the floor. Under a shell and a battered toy car and a horse made out of popsicle sticks and a jar of animal teeth, there it was. A small teardrop of rose quartz. He dropped the box and cupped the crystal in his hand. The memory anchored in his mind, in his heart. It had really happened. She had been there for him. Always. Without even realising it. 

He raised his other hand palm up and curled it into a fist. He took a slow breath and measuredly let a thread of his power hum through his blood. He opened his fingers. A small, red flame danced painlessly on his palm. He blew on it. It glimmered and hopped into the shape of a crimson dog. The dog scampered about above his hand, its sparkler tail wagging and ears shaggy with flame. He twitched a finger and it bounded back to his palm, tucked into a ball, and puffed back into the delicate tealight. He curled his fist again. He opened it and there was a smooth teardrop of red jasper glimmering on his golden skin. 

That trick had been the first thing he learned to do under control. How had he forgotten why he learned it? Whenever he thought about it, he just assumed it had come from Zeus.

He set his jaw.

He pocketed both of the crystals and strode to another chest of drawers. He rifled through it to find where he’d buried his phone in a pile of socks. He dropped to the floor and sat against the chest with his knees drawn up. His pulse drummed. He tossed the little oval from hand to hand a few times to build up his nerve. He huffed, flipped it open, and dialled. 

It rang for too long; he almost hung up, thumbing his pocket with the crystals in. Just before his nerve broke, the line clicked.

“You’ve reached the Palace of the Ocean Realm’s private line, how may I be of assistance?” a very proper, crusty voice answered.

Ares took a deep breath and bounced his heel. “Hi… Yeah… Uh… Can I talk to Aphrodite?”

“May I ask who is speaking?”

“Ares.”

Credit to the butler, his falter was barely noticeable. “Prince Ares? Of Olympus?”

Ares clacked his teeth awkwardly. “Yeah.”

“I see. An honour, Sir.”

“Uh, sure.”

The butler seamlessly returned to his script. “May I ask to whom you wish to be transferred?”

Ares’ heart pounded. “I said it already, Aphrodite.”

Another almost imperceptible falter. “I’m afraid there is no one by that name at this residence, Sir.”

Ares ground his teeth and combed his fingers through his hair. He forced his voice level. “Are you sure? Because, uh, it sorta sounds like you only had that answer after I said who was calling.”

A beat. An intake of breath. “I’m afraid there is no one by that name at this residence, Sir.”

Ares’ hand dragged from his hair down his face with a rough sigh. “Look, Man, I get it’s your job to run interference, but I really do just wanna talk, I’m not gonna be an asshole. This time.”

Silence.

The sigh shrivelled into a low murmur as his chest ached ardently. “Please.” He swallowed. “Please, it’s important.”

The line crackled for a long moment.

The butler’s voice came softer. “I’m afraid there is no one by that name at this residence, Sir.”

Ares tutted under his breath. “Damn…” He exhaled patiently and rubbed the back of his neck. “OK. Then can you at least give them a message?”

Silence.

“Tell them…” He pressed his lips together. He thought about a young man finding himself and a woman who made that feel possible. He thought about the people who were supposed to love him and how they resented that sense of possibility. He thought about a lost boy burning from the inside and his first moment of peace in a year. He thought about the things they said to each other in a room he'd once attacked with fire, and the feeling of the past dissolving into hope. He rested his elbows on his knees and took a deep breath and consciously felt it move through his body. “Tell them they’re a gift. That they’re a gift and they’ve always been generous, and every time they’ve given to me, my world has gotten better. They never have to do anything for anyone they don’t want to give to, least of all me, and what they have done for me, over and over… it honours me. I don’t understand everything about their past, but if they ever do tell me the story, it’s a gift, not a debt. Everything that’s ever happened between us, it was all kindness and nothing else. And I can’t believe they chose to give to me. But I’m grateful. And I’m sorry I forgot that. And all I want now is to give in return, if they’ll let me.” He dropped his head back against the drawers and felt his body release. “Will you tell her that?”

Silence.

A very quiet, very tender murmur. “I’m afraid there is no one by that name at this residence, Sir.”

Ares closed his eyes. “Yeah.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and held back a prick of tears. “Yeah, I got it.” He curled his finger and closed the phone with a click. He let it fall to the carpet. He kept his elbows on his knees and interlaced his fingers between them, watching the burns on his hands fade to lipstick smudges. He dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out the droplets of rose quartz and red jasper. He turned them in his fingers as the warm light trickled through them.

For the first time in six days, he was utterly calm.

 

*

 

Amphitrite tucked her tail under her on the long couch, licked her thumb, and turned the page of her murder mystery. Detective Ariel Angler had gathered all of the cruise ship passengers in the saloon and was half way through her speech explaining why Lord Mersworth couldn’t possibly have been killed by the harpoon discovered by the body, when there was a prim knock on the sitting room door. She jumped out of her scales and shut her book sharply. “Hello?”

The door opened at a perfect 45 degree angle and Nereus came shuffling in, his long, handlebar moustache waving like kelp and his eyes hooded with wrinkles. “Your Highness, may I have a moment of your time?”

Amphitrite gestured at her lounged position. “I have nothing but moments, what’s up?”

Nereus came further into the room and stopped at the opposite side of the coffee table on which her mint tea was steaming. He held up a folded piece of palace stationary paper. “I have just taken a phone call from Olympus.”

Amphitrite huffed. “What does my clingy, little brother-in-law want now?”

Nereus’ moustache twitched with nearly invisible humour. “No, Your Highness, not from King Zeus.” His moustache fidgeted a little. “From the young prince.”

“Ares?” Amphitrite’s fin ears fanned. “You remember I asked you not to take his calls, not until Your Lady Aphrodite bids it.”

He nodded solemnly. “I know, and I told him that she wasn’t here, as was required.” He seemed to hesitate. He glanced at the folded note held gingerly in his gnarled fingers. “But, if you can forgive me, Your Highness, I took a message. Not with any promise, I simply wrote as he spoke, since he was speaking. And, well…” His old, fond eyes were like those of a loyal bloodhound, the turquoise skin dropping around them, but the bright irises still twinkling. “I would ask that you read it and decide whether it should be kept from Her Ladyship.” He held out the note. “For my part, I do not feel entirely at ease letting it go to the hearth.”

Amphitrite’s brow furrowed curiously. She took the note from him, unfolded it, and cast her eyes down the page. He watched patiently with his hands behind his stooped back as her brow smoothed, then buckled, and her green eyes went round as globes. She put a narrow hand over her mouth. She seemed to be reading it more than once. She didn’t look up from it as her voice came distant. “Thank you, Nereus, I’ll take care of this.”

Nereus bowed and shuffled from the room.

Amphitrite sighed and caressed the edge of the paper. She snicked it closed again and tucked it into the cover of her book.

Chapter 19: “Where are your storms?”

Summary:

The aftermath: Aphrodite

Hurting song: Torn, Natalie Imbruglia
Club and closing song: Earthcrosser, Veruca Salt

[CW: Depression, self-doubt, self-blame, low self-worth.]

The embrace of a man is nothing compared to the embrace of the sea.

Aphrodite let her physical form dissolve into the cool swell of deep water. He jetted and swirled and swayed, spreading into countless particles that each thrummed with the tranquil, enlivening sensation of flow. She gave himself over to the rolling, resounding rhythm of the tide. They could will it with their power, but the sensation of surrender was pure renewal. All that was Aphrodite of Olympus, Lady of Cyprus, Patron, Princess, Idol, Enemy, washed away in the endless, ancient, newborn movement of a world of water. She was free, she was nothing, a thread in a tapestry, a breath in a gale. The sea asks nothing of you, except that you swim. So she swam and the creatures and people of the ocean swam through him. Their body was nothing but fluidity and motion, no more obstacles, no more control, just surging forward and floating back with the unstoppable, cradling tide. His losses and failures and mistakes and desires and hopes and senses ebbed into bubbles and foam. She was everywhere, touching everything. She was nowhere, invisible, unreal. They were unstill, rippling, racing, unencumbered. They were enveloped, pressed securely on all sides by the tumbling, soaring, whirling depths. It was a thousand-fold embrace, every strand and cell cupped lovingly by the flow. The feeling of being held and kissed went deeper into him than any human caress could.

Except the sea is cold.

With a roll of the current, Aphroditos reformed naked in the water, his vision piecing back together to take in the wide, teal darkness, stirring with fish and speckled with plankton. His skin was cold and it made his torso feel hollow. For the briefest moment, he wished that the embrace around him was warm. It was all their body needed to start to ache. They took a shuddering breath and felt their eyes sting as tears vanished into the compressing water. He had to get into the sun. He arced gracefully through a rumbling swell of the tide and swam upwards until the sunlight webbed the dense, glassy darkness. He pulled himself towards it, the water heaving over his body as he slipped through its fissures. The tide rolled again. He rode it in a somersault and was cast in a roar and hiss and shattering onto warm sand.

They knelt huddled over on the shore, palms pressing the sand glistening around them. The grit caked onto his shins and hands and nibbled at him, but he didn't mind, it was hot. He needed heat. They bowed their spine and sighed as they were folded into a blanket of golden sunshine. Permeating warmth wrapped them, cuddled them, as if a large, strong, smouldering body was curling around them and clinging to them and shielding them, the whisper of the surf his deep, lazy breathing in their ear. 

Longing.

Aphroditos' fingers gouged the sand. Dirt bedded under his fingernails and cut into the lines of his palms. He gulped back a rough sob and held himself tensely in his huddle. The sea rumbled behind him, echoing on the white rock of the deserted cove he had escaped to. They focused on the sound, on the clean heat of summer, on the scent of salt and the twinkle of shells blurring through burgeoning tears. 

Don't cry. Don't cry.

This was why he didn't want to be solid. Because you don't really notice how much solidity you've lost until you try to hold it in place. He felt as if the sea was inside him. Not in the empowering flow of his magic, but the unwieldable stampede of water that at any moment could break his body apart. Every time he cried, it was a tidal wave that left him scattered. 

The sea howled. The sound coursed through Aphroditos' stomach and heart and throat and mouth and a mirroring howl wrenched out of him and blew across the bronze sand. The coursing sped, gained momentum, galloped through his resisting body. They surrendered again, only this time it was different to swimming.

They curled on their knees in the silken surf and wept.

 

*

 

"I miss them." Poseidon's sea-cavern-echo voice was calm, but laden with worry and sadness.

Amphitrite closed her husband tighter in her arms and spiralled her tail around his leg. They lay in their bed, a cosy, bouncy mattress puffing out of a huge clam shell. She ran her fingers through his jungle of rich green hair. "I know, Sweetie Squid. I do too."

He sighed and pecked her breast, then kissed it deeper. He nestled his cheek on it and cuddled her waist for comfort. "It's not that they left, I get that, I'm so proud of her." He kissed again. "It's just that I was so excited she'd come home, but…" His bare chest swelled in a slow, contemplative breath. "But he hasn't come back, has he? I don't know who this is, but it isn't our Aphrodite. It's like she's a shade." He hugged his wife tighter.

Amphitrite sighed too, bobbing him on her breast. She ran her fingers from his hair over his back, sliding over the vague presence of scales. "This is why I didn't really want him to go up there. I know you have some faith left in your brother, but…"

Poseidon raised his head an inch and frowned through the jade glimmer. "Zeus didn't do this."

"Didn't he?" Amphitrite pursed her full lips and gave him a level look. "It's his world up there, his way of seeing, his way of being. Ways that aren't good for her." 

"Trite," Poseidon said hesitantly, muffled a little in her softness, "I know you've never really taken to Zeus, but for once I really don't think you can lay this at his feet. Aphrodite was doing fine up there until she got tangled up with Ares." He clucked his tongue and grumbled like a burrowing sandfish. "I love the guy, but he's always been a little messed up."

Amphitrite clucked her tongue louder and patted his back. "Notice you use 'messed up' in the passive sense, my dear husband. Messed up by Zeus' house, in Zeus' kingdom." She released a breath, ruffling his hair, and mellowed her tone again. "Emotional people don't belong on Olympus. It's like putting a kipper in a piranha pool."

Poseidon chuckled and nuzzled her collar bone, licking her skin with puppy dog affection. "Please. If anyone's a piranha, it's our Dite." He sighed again and snuggled against her, cosy and smooth. "They just need to remember they have teeth."

Amphitrite furled him closer, her tail coiling, breathing his scent of salt and driftwood. "They just need to remember they have a shoal."

 

*

 

The temple infirmary was serenely quiet. Aphroditos walked softly unseen through the still, stone space, the pad of his bare feet echoing to only him. Mellow sunlight sieved through the linen covering the wide windows, the distant bustle of the city of Paphos bumbling into the whispering echo in a lulling undercurrent. He smiled softly at it. It helped this place feel less like a hospital, less like an isolated prison of sickness. The world was just outside, you were just resting, it was waiting for you in reaching distance. The honey dimness was enriched by a few flickering candles at the few occupied bedsides, all in pink or green glass jars sprinkled with rose petals. Some were also accompanied by figurines of their patron and small dishes of honey in offering. Incense smouldered from lamps hanging from the ceiling, cleansing the clammy scents of sweat and bile with its hot, piquant perfume. The rectangular room with its ripples of liquid light and faint smoke and wide windows gave Aphroditos the impression of being in a fish tank.

They inhaled, exhaled with a purposeful slowing of their mind, making space for the jumbled prayers of the half asleep. Their nerves felt a little strained as they received them, the usually energising force pressing on tenderness and the loose clasps holding their stability together. They tensed their mouth and forced themself to move slowly, like swallowing simple food when you're nauseous. One bite at a time. 

"Aphrodite, please alleviate this pain."

"Loving Lord, purify my body."

"Don't let me lose my child."

"Save me."

He wavered as they put weight on his uncertain body, dripping more water into the vessel already so close to overflowing. He closed his eyes and carefully centred himself, visualising the prayers cupped in his hands, not entering him. He acknowledged them with care, he did not have to live them, (even though he was a god of feeling and it seemed weak to do so, manipulative to do so. He had them all turn to him, then he didn't connect heart to heart like he promised. Some goddess.) 

They took a steadying breath.

They walked deeper into the infirmary, their long skirt sweeping the crumbled herbs on the floor. One sallow priestess was propped on her pillows at an awkward angle as she slumped into a dose, the scroll she'd been reading loose in her bony fingers. Aphroditos gently took the scroll and laid it at her bedside, then eased her to lie on her back, tucking the sheets over her cool torso. He dipped his finger into the honey dish and sucked it. Sticky sweetness warmed their tongue. He touched his fingertip to her forehead and sensed the spike of a migraine through her skull. He drew it out like extracting a splinter. Her brow smoothed and she rolled to nestle in her pillows. 

Another priestess was sitting up with tears reddening her brown eyes and cheeks, cuddling the swell of her pregnant belly and murmuring a lullaby under her breath. As the cramps struck her again, she doubled over and wheezed. Her prayer buffeted Aphroditos. "Please let my baby be alright!"

They sighed and nodded. They sat down on her bed and looked steadily at her with their twilight eyes. She couldn't see him, but the cramps ebbed. She buckled a little out of the tension. He placed his hands on her belly and rubbed it soothingly. She shifted on the mattress and took a deep breath. He could feel her baby's heartbeat, strong, in time with hers. He smiled softly at her. "Your little one is healthy, she's just far along and a little over eager for birth, it seems. These early contractions can happen." 

She hunched and winced, tears welling again.

Aphroditos frowned and kept rubbing her belly. He sensed the thick water and blood and the tiny creature. He felt the toes too low in the cradle. He tutted. "Silly fidget." He massaged in a firm, insistent circle. The baby turned back to be ready to come head first. "Stay there, you little rascal." He bowed and kissed her belly and murmured against it to the shivering mother. "I can't take this from you. You last cried to me because you feared you were not ready, that you could not love your child. Feel this fear and know the depth of your love." They stood and pinched a pair of rose petals from her candle jar, the flame kissing their knuckles. They crushed them against their wrist and sniffed the fresh fragrance. The mother sniffed too, the tears stemming. She cradled her belly and continued with the lullaby. 

Aphroditos stopped at all the bedsides in turn, taking little charges of power from honey and oils and seeds and petals, then touching them to the misty skin of the sick, ensuring their healing or giving them hope. The offerings salved the tender woundedness in his body, little reminders of love and need that he could fulfil, that he was trusted with. Honey and rose flecked his fingers and tingled with energy. 

Finally, he reached the reason he truly came.

She was curled up on her side, frizzing, dark brown curls strewn across the white pillow, shoulders rigid as she hugged herself in a tight clench. Her hazel eyes were a slit open, staring with bloodshot exhaustion at a small, clay figure of a wide-hipped being with hands folded on its abdomen, round eyes painted ocean blue, and copper earrings hooked through pierced holes. Shells and incense ash were scattered at its tapered feet, another honey dish reflected its shape in dark amber, a vase of fresh, seafoam-white roses clouded over its head. The candle beside the figure had snuffed out, it sat dull with its black wick crumbling. It looked like a corpse. Aphroditos' heart pressed as he gazed at the priestess' huddled form. He lowered himself to the bed to sit gingerly at her back. "Hello, Yasemin." 

Yasemin kept staring at the clay figure and the lightless candle. 

He twined his fingers in his lap. Guilt turned his stomach. He took a breath and whispered into the shadow around her bed. "You didn't deserve this. I'm so sorry. I should never have let this happen."

Her shoulder blades crested as she hugged herself tighter.

"How's your fever?" He laid the backs of his fingers delicately on her neck, then brow. The fever had cooled. "Good." He took his hand away. 

They sat in a long silence, the bubbling of Paphos wending through the windows. He gazed at the threads of incense smoke veiling the darkened painting of soaring doves across the ceiling, as if they were flying above cloud.

"Smile-Lover…"

They looked down. 

Yasemin's brow was creasing as she took a shuddering breath that made her whole back tense. Her dry lips parted in a croaking whisper. "I'm… I'm sorry…"

Aphroditos' chest caved. "Oh…" They hastily slid fully onto the bed and grasped her arm, squeezing the hardened muscle. "Oh, my sweet girl, you did nothing wrong. Gods are dangerous and you were close to us." He felt as if he'd swallowed fish bones, his insides full of sharpness as he cursed himself. 

She slowly swallowed a heaving sob. It turned to ash in her throat, like the candle. "I feel so useless." Her heavy whisper echoed like pebbles being dropped on the stone floor. "I can't work, I can't be trusted to give advice or healing, I can't take burdens away. I just crumble." She stared at the dead wick. "There's no light in me, after all." Her thin voice tore. "Maybe there never was." She spasmed with another swallowed sob and curled tighter, her knees crushing her chest, her spine ridging through her muslin nightdress. The tears squeezed from her raw eyes and scored down her face, soaking into the pillow. She began to tremble with them. "I'm so sorry…"

Aphroditos’ intestines felt scooped out. Their own eyes pricked. They folded onto the bed and furled around her like a leaf around a bud, their warm, bare torso pressing to her back, their strong arm looping over and pulling her close. They ducked their face into her neck and breathed the sage in her soap. "No, no, hush now," they cooed into her ear. "Hush now, you wonderful girl." He kissed her hair. "I'm here, I will never abandon you, you will always have light to me. I can only love those in whom I see love, and you have so much. My beacon, my torch, you are still my beloved." 

She shivered against him, her hands fisting her dress at her waist. "I can't feel you…" she whispered, her despair lancing her voice and puncturing his chest. "I can't… I can't hear your words, I can't feel your presence. I try to light that candle, it just dies and dies." 

Aphroditos' middle hollowed deeper. They hugged her fiercely, kissed her head fiercely, raised their voice. "I'm here, I'm here! I'm holding you, Yasemin, feel me, I'm holding you."

"I'm not held anymore, not yours anymore. I don't know who I am without you."

"I'm here!"

She sobbed and heaved for breath, her nose ring encrusted with salt. "I'm sorry, just please don't leave me. Don't give up on me."

"Never!" He scrambled from the bed and around to kneel at her face. He combed his fingers into her hair and stared through crystal tears into her eyes. His own voice cracked. "I'd never leave you, Dear One! Can't you hear me? I'm with you!"

"I'm sorry…"

"I'm sorry!"

"Please come back to me."

"I have!"

"I can't be who I was before you."

"You're not! Please!" Their urgent rasp echoed on the ruddy stone. They clasped her arm, her face, her hand, the warmth draining from them, solidity draining, water swirling. "Please, Yasemin, believe in me, I'm here!"

"You're not here."

The candle sat in a well of darkness.

"I wish you were here."

"Yasemin, I…"

The rest of Aphroditos' desperate words were lost as he splashed apart, watery and waned.

He fell into chaos, paddling frantically for a body of water to exist in.

They burst from the outdoor baths with a roar of frustration. Their body reformed from the frothing of the pool as they hauled themself onto the marble edge. Their bare feet slapped the stone. His skirt wove back around his legs from the drifting steam. He huffed angrily and roughly wrung out his long, drenched hair, grinding his teeth. 

"You taste sorta like cinnamon."

Their anger snuffed out in another sea surge in their gut. Anger was Ares' domain. The image of him kept waking inside that emotion every time it happened. In the hole it left, Aphroditos was flooded with a sickening sensation, like when you fall in a dream and wake hitting the bed hard. They stood dripping into a patch of violets. They trembled and gasped for breath, for the pepper and sugar scent of the gardens, their throat tight.

Yasemin couldn't feel him. She’d been his closest priestess, his oracle. And now she couldn’t feel him.

He'd lost her faith.

They weren't the sort of god you could have faith in.

He’d failed her. He kept failing.

"No. No, I haven't heard a peep."

A familiar voice startled them. They picked up their nimble feet and hurried behind a large myrtle bush. They peered through the leaves. 

Sitting on a stone bench in a spot of sunlight and framed by an overflowing rose trellis was Hermes, his wild hair falling down one side of his taut face, and Peitho, her small hands twisted in the silk rope harness shaping her loose, lilac dress. Hermes kept speaking in an uncharacteristically solemn tone. "I can't breathe in the ocean. I've tried asking the merman who collects Poseidon's mail from the beach, but everyone's hush-hush. It's like they've made this fortress around her."

Peitho nodded, her usually glowing eyes dark. "I could go to her, but I don't wanna freak them out. If they need time, I have to respect it. But then I worry he's holed up in a cavern wondering why he's been abandoned." Her sweet, low voice strangled. She gripped her belt with pale knuckles. "I feel like I'm letting them down."

Hermes nodded, his wings stirring melancholically. "Me too." He put an arm around Peitho and she tipped onto his shoulder. 

Aphroditos ached keenly. What was going on? He failed, he lost his way, he harmed and he left those who relied on him open to harm. Why were Yasemin and Peitho and Hermes all saying these things? He never wanted to leave them, never thought they did anything wrong, he just couldn't bear to be their problem anymore. 

That's what he was, everyone's problem.

"Peitho, I'm so sorry, I gotta go." Hermes kissed her head and squeezed her and pulled reluctantly away, like one of those stickers that won't peel off without tearing. Peitho leaned with him for a moment before recovering herself, then shook out her voluptuous ringlets and smiled gently. He patted her knee. "I really wish I had something from them for you. Then I'd have been able to see them too." 

Aphroditos' brow buckled.

Hermes rubbed Peitho's arm and stood. He looked down at her with worry.

She smiled wider, too forced. "Go on, be on your merry way. It's all fine." 

His mouth sloped. "I'm hearing that a little too much lately."

She chuckled softly. He smiled with the same softness and kissed the top of her head again. Aphroditos gazed at them framed by rich, happy roses. He wrapped his arms around himself, longing for their warmth, hating that he didn't deserve it.

Hermes rose like a paper lantern. Peitho watched him arc gracefully over the wall of the temple grounds, glancing back at her once before he vanished in a flare of sunlight.

The smile dropped as soon as he wasn't there to see it, pulling her face down into her hands.

Aphroditos' throat clogged as he saw her sitting alone and wilted. He tried to lean into his instincts, to sense what she needed and run to her to give it. Nothing came to them, the ink ran in the water. That surge again, that sorrowful sea surge that unmade their body. They clutched their middle and staggered. A twig snapped. The sound batted around the stone. 

Peitho looked up. 

They tried to shrink back, but their rich glimmer wasn't hidden well in dark green.

"Aphroditos!" Peitho sprang to her feet and raced forward, her dress tangling around her calves.

Aphroditos' heart thumped. She looked like she was going to put her arms around him. He couldn't let her, he'd liquify again. He stumbled back and kept his arms tight around himself in a shield. "Peitho…"

The sunset illumination across her eyes smudged into the brightness of the patch of afternoon warmth showering over lush grass and violets. Her face was a confusing, painful medley of relief and worry and compassion and temper. "Where the fuck have you been?" she demanded.

Aphroditos flinched and drew further back. "With Trite."

"Except not. Not really," Peitho said heatedly. "Because she barely sees you either."

Aphroditos coloured and bit his lip. "Look, I've been…" His gut rolled. He almost gagged and clapped his hand to his mouth.

Peitho halted. "Oh no, are you sick?"

"Um, I…" There was a trickling sensation through their nerves. They lost their breath. They bedded their toes in the soil and focused on the feeling of having joints. 

"Boss, everyone's so worried about you." Peitho's voice came hesitant and weak. They'd never heard her sound like that. Fates, how badly he was failing her, he was still making a mess, still no good for anyone. He didn't look at her, he looked at the starry myrtle flowers. She took a step closer. "Please, why won't you let us help?"

They pawed at their shoulder, hiding their body with their arms. What if the melting was visible? What if she saw? He couldn't let her see, enough of The Goddess was gone already, and if he let her help him, she'd see just how much. He clamped his lips around salt water in his mouth and shook his head. 

She rubbed her forehead. "Come on!" 

He wished he couldn't tell that the anger was fear in a red dress. He wished so much that he didn't know he was frightening her. What would the whole truth do?

"Aphroditos…" Her voice softened again. It was worse. "Darling, please…"

The soil under their feet turned to mud. They lurched as they realised they couldn't feel their joints anymore. They grimaced and started to inch back to the baths. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise!" Peitho spluttered. "Just let me take care of you!" 

He shook his head, inching away.

Her eyes fizzed. "Where are you going?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't!"

His heel touched wet marble. His hair dripped cool down his back. "I'm sorry." He took another step back.

"Wait!" Peitho pleaded urgently. She lunged forward as she saw them step back into the tendrils of steam. "Just…" Her magenta lips squirmed, as if besieging a hundred different phrases. She sighed and put her hands on her hips. Her voice levelled. "Late tonight, The Grotto."

Aphroditos frowned, the thought of going to a club threatened him like hovering over a ravine. "I… I can't."

"Please." She was audibly battling to keep her tone level. "I'm not even going. Be invisible if you have to. You just need to go."

He forced himself to meet her eyes, the colour of passion. 

"Because you love me."

His heart seized.

There were doves trilling somewhere in the garden, the sound like weeping. The rose trellis haloed her and made her look like someone in a dream.

"I thought the gods couldn't have visions."

Their pulse was tidal. 

"Boss?"

"I'm sorry."

They stepped back and let themself go into vapour and green water.

 

*

 

Amphitrite glided through jade and aquamarine and onyx. The glassy sweeps of colour through the deep sea made a hall of mirrors, her own hypnotic form flashing by her in a shimmering reminder of her glamorous beauty. She smiled to herself and looped and twirled, dancing with the undertow as if she was the belle of a mysterious masked ball. She somersaulted, wove, and whipped. Ripples rushed from her fanning, frilled tail. The satin press of the water ran along her scales like a mallet along a xylophone, making her skin sing. She whirled with a rumble of bubbles and dashed past a mirror self-indulgently again. A flash of lavender followed her reflection. 

Her heart stopped.

She hovered in the gentle rocking of the dark green sea and strained her senses, fanning her webbed fingers to feel the movement of water in the delicate skin. Tiny bubbles drummed on it and made her pulse skip. She arched an eyebrow. "Dolphin?"

Another miniscule lapping against her. Then the water smelled of lotus. 

"Aphrodite, I know you're here."

There was a sigh through the glimmer, a breath as if of a child falling asleep, and then a voice, a fraying voice, torn between its whisper and its echo. "I'm not trying to hide."

Amphitrite frowned, looking around to try to face the voice. "Then take form, Babe, what's going on?"

The strange version of Aphrodite's voice quavered. "I can't."

Amphitrite's cold blood somehow chilled. "You mean you're stuck? You can't get your body together?"

Water stroked along her shoulder. "Yeah."

Amphitrite grimaced. "That's… new."

"It's not." A presence seemed to settle somewhere to her left, restless and fragmented with the pull of the current. "But I was so young the last time this happened." The salt water seemed to sharpen. Was he crying? "You were right. I wasn’t ready to go to Olympus."

Amphitrite's heart constricted. She extended her arms by instinct, but there was nothing to hold. She stared through the confusion of water, longing to be able to meet their eyes. "I never said that, that’s not it. Olympus wasn’t ready for you. It’s a place with a lot of confused passions. It’s not somewhere people love fully and freely the way you do."

The water rippled. "I can hear it all the time, ringing in my head. Everyone’s thwarted crushes and betrayed marriages and pent up desires. And I can't fix it." The water rippled stronger, the threads of their unravelled voice fraying further. "It drives me mad. What kind of love goddess must I be? No kind!"

Amphitrite tutted and shook her head. Her great cloud of foam white hair billowed around her, spreading like cream through black coffee. "We aren’t omnipotent, Aphrodite. We can only go where we’re called, only change so much."

"No!" The sea pulsed, almost knocking Amphitrite aside. "I was supposed to be the most powerful of all of them. I was the first. The mortals called for me first, before and above all things. And what am I now? A silly girl making her dolls kiss, humiliating herself in the court of the gods, absent to her followers and toxic to her friends."

"Including Ares?"

The lapping stilled. For a moment, Amphitrite listened through the vague rumble of the deep ocean. And then… "This isn’t about him. It’s about everyone."

Amphitrite pursed her lips. "No, of course." She pinched her fingertips together. "But are you sure it’s not a little bit about him?"

The presence rushed indignantly, buffeting her and shimmering out into the distance. "No! It can’t be! I am the centre of human existence. I am the spark of joy and care and strength that comes from loving others. Without me, there is no fabric for family or community or society." The voice seemed to be coming from all around, as if a dozen adrift shards were speaking at once, some wailing, some sniffling, some whispering. "It can’t be that I’m this easy to pull apart! It can't be that I'm this fragile!"

Amphitrite lashed her tail sternly, shooting tickling bubbles into the spirit. "Aphrodite, stop this talk." She mellowed her voice. "You are a wonder, but you’ve also been under a lot of emotional strain. You moved realms, which is enough to give anyone a breakdown, and then you were greeted with a smear campaign, attacks on your sacred spaces, and weird hostility from my jackass in-laws. And then Ares… Well, he’s no day at the beach…"

The water trembled weakly, feeling somehow thinner. "It wasn’t his fault. It was mine. I should’ve just been honest with him. After all the lies he’s had to sort out in his head, I just made it worse." A shudder dragged through the dense darkness. The voice/s wisped. "Everything is my fault. I’m upsetting everybody. Hestia thinks I'm upholding the status quo, Zeus thinks I'm a threat to it, Hera thinks I’m damaging to her business, Hades thinks I’m trying to spit on the heroes of the Titanomachy, Peitho thinks I need minding." The water suddenly surged, rocking Amphitrite with a gasp. "Is there anyone on Olympus who doesn't think I'm doing some kind of harm just by fucking breathing? And now Ares…" The surge died. "And now the one person up there who I thought really understood me… He thinks I'm cruel, that just being around me is going to make him go dark." They surged again. "Why does no one trust me to be good for them? It's all I want!"

Amphitrite swam a little in the cool glimmer, spreading her arms and wafting her tail, as if stirring the sea might make Aphrodite feel embraced. She spoke tentatively. "Did you ever think maybe you don't have to be good for everyone? You're not a walking medicine bottle. I know, what with your domain, you're very invested in tracking the effects we all have on each other, and that makes you conscious of the effect you can have, makes you want it to be a good one. But maybe that's not what managing a relationship is about? You know, when you're not the meddler and it's actually happening to you." She twisted onto her back and looped softly. "Maybe it's just about being yourself and letting someone know you, and knowing them in return, deciding your boundaries together." She arched an eyebrow. "Without making a project out of them. Hm?"

A bubble popped. "I wasn't doing that."

Amphitrite tugged in a smirk. 

The warp of water swirled around her and trickled away to further off. "Well, either way, I can't have any effect now, can I? He's done with me. He doesn't want me. No one up there wants me. I can’t smile at someone or touch someone’s arm without there being this immediate assumption that I’m up to something." The voice/s rasped with pain. "I want to be able to touch people, Trite, I want people to make eye contact with me. I’m tired of the games."

"I can understand that."

"I suppose you’re going to tell me not to play, take the high road."

The queen chuckled wickedly. "Sea Turtle, there is no high road in the ocean, only the depths."

"And I went there and it’s me that drowned."

It was like fish hooks had gotten under Amphitrite's rib and wrenched. She boiled like a lobster and glared with emerald anger at the frail distortion in the current that just weeks ago had been her dauntless, desiring friend, the very image of self-love and shining defiance of the systemed, soul-sucking ways of Olympus. She bared her needle fangs, the sea growling as her voice rose like a sonorous ship's bell. "You did not go to the depths. Aphrodite, why are you so upset about being seen as dangerous? You are fucking dangerous! The sea is dangerous! Love is dangerous! Why do you preach that people need to be ready to take risks to be lucky in love, but ask no effort to be lucky in you?"

The distortion crumpled in on himself and whisked backwards.

She gnashed her gleaming teeth and pounced after him. She fanned her tail and hurled a stubborn wave in the spirit's path that stopped them in a burst of bubbles. "You want to know why you drowned? Because you’ve been doggy paddling around, weighing yourself down with rocks, when you’re a bloody Olympic swimmer! You’ve been patient and polite and you’ve damn well lain on your back and let them fuck you!" Her voice sent pulses through the ocean. "Aphrodite, I love you and I don’t recognise you! How does this Panoptes asshole still have balls? How does Zeus still get to lick the glass in the mermaid pool at The Rose? How does Hestia get to shit in your temple and walk around like nothing happened? How does my dumb as rocks nephew get to question you and make demands of you and not kiss your fucking feet?" Angler fish lights sparked down her spine and tail and in her eerily wide pupils. Her hair clouded the darkness. She glowed with proud fury, illuminating the depths and shattering them into stained glass, green and violet and sapphire. "Why are you letting them throw pollution into your waters? Where are your storms?" 

Silence.

Long silence.

The current ambled along with its gentle rocking.

The flares along Amphitrite's body dimmed. She shimmered softly, the remaining glow netting her scales with electric rainbows. She sighed and put her hands on her hips. "I’m sorry." She clucked her tongue. "I mean, I’m not, but I understand if you don’t want to hear it. Just…" she fluttered her tail and snorted bubbles, "screw them, you know? It's not about what they want up there, it's about what they need down here on Earth. The people need you, Aphrodite, more than anything else, more than ever. They need you as you are, not as what Olympus has tried to make you. You are a goddess, not a doll. You aren't for petty affection and play, you are for wildness and worship. You weren't made to be approved of, you were made to fulfil."

Silence.

"Are you still there, or am I yelling at nothing?"

Silence. And then, very quietly, in a single, familiar voice, "I’m still here."

Amphitrite released a tight breath and smiled. In the wake of her anger she felt slightly sore, the kind of soreness she always cured with a hug from Aphrodite. She wrapped her arms around herself and drooped at the coldness of her body. "You’re my dearest friend. I’m not afraid of you, yet I know you’re fearsome." She raised her chin regally, the echo of the resounding bell in her calm tone. "Show yourself, Born of Seafoam. The ones who are worthy will face their fear and be rewarded with the greatest love they’ll ever know."

Silence.

Long silence.

The current swayed and swished and rumbled distantly.

Lavender rippled through the darkness.

Amphitrite was embraced.

It wasn't solid, it wasn't her Aphrodite's strong, stable arms. But the water folded around her bare torso and warmed, warmed like the summer sun on the beach, cradled her and stoked the glow down her scales. She sighed and hugged herself tighter, brushing her tail through the swell in the current. 

"Is it night?" Aphrodite whispered.

"Yes."

"I have to go."

And in a rush of tickling ripples, Amphitrite was cold again.

 

*

 

Aphrodite felt The Grotto before she saw it. His dissolved form flushed through the ocean into a labyrinth of caverns haunted by strange shadows and the encrusted skeletons of long dead, immense monsters. These caverns were the most hidden places in the world, they were silent beyond your everyday imagining of silence. A consuming, embedding, timeless, formless silence.

Until…

Aphrodite's loose threads of self were blown wider apart by a forceful sound wave. They gasped and swirled. Another soundwave rocked them, shoving through the dense water. She pushed through the walls of force and swam deeper into the engulfing darkness. 

And then it wasn’t darkness.

“SAY WHAT YOU WANT, I’VE DROWNED YOU OUT.”

A furious shriek tore from the hewn jaws of rock up ahead. Aphrodite let herself be swallowed. She plunged into a cauldron of shimmering, throbbing light and frenzying colour. And noise. Noise like he hadn’t heard since long before leaving the ocean. 

“TELL WHAT YOU WANT, I’VE DROWNED YOU OUT.”

The Grotto was a bowl carved out in the basalt, its walls blue-black and scarred as if they had once imprisoned a raging giant made of only claws. Its pit floor was brimming with movement, a compact crowd of merfolk teeming and tying their tails in knots, hair blooming like squid ink and scales glistening under rays of swinging light as they danced wildly. The riot of colour came from their bodies, bioluminescent bulbs sparkling to life and fizzling out in hypnotic patterns along their spines and tails. They glowed under their green and grey and lavender skin, an undersea aurora borealis. The merfolk thrashed in bursts of bubbles and slithered and looped in interlacing ribbons of shadow, turning the whole pit of beautiful carnage into a tangling single twine. Their flashing strobe effects trickled up the curved walls into the jagged crevices, as if the whole space was a paint bomb exploding in slow motion. More bright spots splashed hot hues down onto the crowd from bobbing, frilled jellyfish aimlessly drifting in the wafts of sound waves.

Sound waves.

Aphrodite floated down to just over the dancers' heads and was slung into a hammock of music and raw, lashing shouts.

"BEG WHAT YOU WANT, I'VE DROWNED YOU OUT."

The crowd erupted with dolphin clicks and orca wails of elation. They swarmed up to a domed segment cut into one wall, as if it had been removed by a massive ice cream scoop. The dome was a great, beating heart of lipstick pink light, pluming out over the merfolk so their reaching, green arms blotched jet. Inside the ferocious, bleeding glow was a band, their silhouettes inked into the light like veins and tendons of the living organ.

"KISS WHO YOU WANT, I'VE DROWNED YOU OUT."

Three mermaids whipped their pink-glazed tails and hair. One further back sat with her tail wrapped around a stool, the scales on her arms twinkling like sequins as she slammed bone sticks hard onto drums set into a frame of calcified tentacles, her fins flat back to her bald head. The other two played string instruments resembling guitar and bass, but built from the skeletons of stingray, frets on the long tail and sinew strings drawn across the flat, bone body. The bassist had tight braids trained along the shape of her skull and Sailor Fucker daubed across her bare breasts. The guitarist was wearing a shredded sash and a tiara cobbled out of junk lost in storms, like a drowned prom queen, her bouffant littered with debris and severed crab claws. They sang raucous and rough into conch shells hovering at their lips. The enchanted instruments filled the rock basin with vibrations that possessed the thick, swirling water. 

That possessed Aphrodite. 

As he kept dissipating through the depths, the music took hold of his shards and dregs, snaring him in a net, drenching through him until he was himself made of song.

“I’VE DROWNED, I’VE DROWNED, I’VE DROWNED, I’VE DROWNED…”

The merfolk all whirled in chorus, waves of their singing along crashing into the waves from the stage in a tumult of noise-infested water.

“I’VE DROWNED, I’VE DROWNED, I’VE DROWNED YOU OUT!”

The lights exploded in intense flamingo and the drums rolled like undertow and the guitars barked and groaned. The song barrelled into a squall of applause.

“Yeah!” The guitarist beamed into the conch shell mic, her abused voice croaking and her eyes aglow. “Hoooo! You folks are amazing, you know that?”

The cheers rushed Aphrodite, hurtling her like a gull in a hurricane.

“Alright…"

Aphrodite couldn’t sense up and down, she just let the torrent of movement in the pit buoy her frantically.

“We’re gonna turn it down just a little…”

The lights softened, turned to a glimmering haze that spread through the space like dye as the singers’ voice spread in a trembling echo. Her wild shriek lowered to a melodic, whale song-tinted lilt. It caught Aphrodite mid-somersault and brought her softly into a thrumming, gentle rocking. 

“There’s a day

when you discover

not everyone 

sees in colour.”

The deep, luring voice resounded on the hard basalt and flowed over the crowd, combing them from a crazed tangle to a harmonious current. Bodies uprighted, waving and rolling with the music like a bed of kelp as the bass tumbled out and the guitar ground slow. 

“Everything

that you thought was so

beautiful

that they thought not so,

things you hoped

indisputable

not in their spectrum,

just incapable.”

The crowd stirred beneath her.

And she felt them.

They silked along each other, naked bodies meeting in the casual touch that comes with casual trust. Strangers were braided together by resonating notes. They broke song like bread. In the dulled senses of her ghost form, she felt just the lightest tingle.

Love.

Connection.

Pleasure.

Primality.

Togetherness.

The water was sweet with it.

She could taste.

The singer stroked the body of the stingray skeleton guitar and smiled at its smoothness,

“Things you thought

were so bright they’d break

all conditions,

speak for themselves, take

him down.

But he can’t see colour.

He can’t see colour.

And all you are is…”

The singer took a deep breath that echoed in the shell. She sighed into a powerful note and a cascade of drums.

“Colour.”

The crowd sighed too. The sigh misted the sea and blurred Aphrodite’s vision. There was only the sensation of that whole collective sigh, that absolute union as they all felt the same thing at the same moment.

“Colour.”

Merfolk folded back, dark nipples rising into kissing light, mouths opening and glistening streams of bubbles escaping with murmured, blissful song. It chimed in the cavern and the vibrations brewed. The warm, seductive hues swished and swirled over them.

“You’re a girl

and a girl

is colour

Under monochrome gaze.”

The sigh surged and turned into fluttering applause and rising song. It kicked up under Aphrodite and they fell into the crowd. They rained over them and diffused like invisible fog into the mixing pit of merfolk. 

“Shut their eyes.

Shut their eyes

to colour,

afraid you’ll dazzle blind.

Eyes can’t handle you.

Mmmm…”

Mmmmm…

“Monochrome eyes can’t handle you.”

He filled the spaces between bodies. The spaces between bodies filled with love. Love felt every body in the cavern like they were her own limbs.

“Don’t let them,

let them paint

out colour

in their black and white.

Your colour

don’t need monochrome eyes.”

She spilled. She swelled. The music rose and plummeted and rose again in slow, stroking arcs and pit-of-the-stomach pendulums. It shook her particles like fission.

“Drives me wild

seeing your,

your colour.

Precious woman, pretty.

Fills me with

such pity

for the black and white.

Grateful for my eyes.

Hateful for their lies.

Monochrome lies."

He fused with the crowd, with the music. The band was playing Aphrodite to the people of the ocean and the people of the ocean flowed with dance. They danced to her. She was the song. She was the sigh. She was the touch of scale to skin and hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder. She was the enveloping water and the oxygen in blood.

The song blasted in a sudden grenade of sound. The cauldron of bodies mixed closer, a cocktail of glistening bioluminescence and fanning fins. Tails twisted together like trees growing in the same plot. The merfolk fell into a swaying, rolling mass embrace as the song heaved and smashed, still slow, still lilting, heavy as sandbags, vibrant as the spinning jellyfish. Aphrodite was getting strong enough to hold them there. He felt them tighten their hold on each other and keep the moment as more than fleeting. He felt them falling deeper and deeper in love with this song and the people they could touch and smell as they heard it. 

"Black and white world,

hard to live 

when you see

in colour.

Girls see

in colour."

The bassist hummed under the lyrics, soft mouth pouting. The drummer sent shoals of shivers through the water with light drags over the skins. The water connected every pore and nerve ending. Every dancer could feel every other dancer down to the ticking of their pulse.

"Girls see

in colour."

Aphrodite breathed.

She was breathing.

The compact cavern smelled of fresh fish and rum.

"He don't see 

in colour."

Lights sloshed rainbows. Hair burst. Lips met. Arms travelled around each other. Eyes glimmered up at the pounding heart of the stage.

"Let me see you,

precious woman,

in colour."

"Where are your storms?"

"In colour..."

More than a hundred heartbeats in time and yet all totally erratic, totally uncontrolled. The sea quaking with them.

"In colour..."

The embrace of a man is nothing compared to the embrace of the sea.

"Colour…"

And tonight, the sea stopped being cold.

"See in colour."

The song hummed deep.

Aphrodite felt it deep.

She had depth again.

"All in colour."

The final strum swept softly away.

Silence.

Rapturous cheering.

Adoration shone up to the stage, purer than worship.

Aphrodite drank deep.

Arms and tails brushed her skin.

Skin?

Maybe?

The decadent, pink lights pulsed and moulded around the strong figures of the band. They smiled and waved and nodded to the crowd. The guitarist patted her towering, littered bouffant and fiddled with her pageant sash. "Boy, this thing really chafes my nipples."

Aphrodite bounced on laughter. The crowd drifted in the pit, squashing closer to the stage to hear the singer speak. He felt like glue sealing them together.

"OK, we're Titwreck!" 

When the crowd clapped, the ocean muffled the banging of their hands. Instead the force of their palms slamming the pressure sent eddies through the water so that the light stirred and bloomed sumptuously and the ruffles along the band's draped tails fluttered, igniting the electric spots on their spines. 

The singer flashed bright, needle fangs. Her full, enchanting voice rode the restless atmosphere. “You folks are beautiful, truly. Your love for this band and this music and this project, it means a lot to us." 

The applause intensified, rumbling in the deep, in Aphrodite's memory of bones. 

"Shout out to The Grotto, we love having this place and that you guys all come out and hear us."

Whistles. Shouts of admiration.

She grinned, then her grin faded. Her proud face hardened. "But this isn’t just about us here today, it’s about our whole community, and those in it who can’t move freely like us." She adjusted the shell mic slightly and looked over it with daggering, lilac eyes. "While we have all the land and sea, a pillar of this scene is trapped in the Underworld."

Aphrodite could still feel the soaking love, marinating her spirit in it like white wine. At this, the wine turned red.

"She’s trapped, they’re trapped, and their voices can’t be heard like ours, even though they have a fucking lot to say."

The rock walls grumbled ominously as angry murmuring and bellowing and pounding of fists bubbled up to the stage.

"Over with our merch stand, we are so excited to be able to also sell Viper Dolls’ new album!"

The angry bubbling burst into high cheers. Aphrodite shivered with the barely contained rebellion brewing around her.

"It’s pay what you want, but please consider paying what you can. All money raised goes straight back to the Underworld and into the fight to free the shades…"

Interrupting screams of conjoined support.

The singer raised her voice, serrating its edge. "Free the shades from unfair captivity and exploitation!"

Screams lancing the deep, going through Aphrodite like lasers.

"We swim fin in fin with Eurydice and Viper Dolls and all their family! She invoked our goddess! Aphrodite!"

Aphrodite stilled. Except she didn't, she couldn't, because she was woven into the fabric of the crowd and they were moving in a storm, cheering in a storm, filling her with storm.

"Aphrodite means no one is forgotten!"

Thunderous echoes. Jellyfish tentacles bright like pink lightning. 

"Aphrodite means dirt love, deep love, love beyond death, found family, shared waters!"

It was rushing into her, making her rush, the pressure of the deep ocean compacting her into something… solid.

"Aphrodite was our goddess before she was ever an Olympian and we hold her truth!"

Cries, adoration, ecstasy.

Faith.

"Together, merfolk and the dead, we won’t be fucking regulated! We won't be fucking caught! We won't be fucking put on display in a glass tank or served up on a platter or made to work to line their pockets! We are powerful!"

Defiant faith.

"We can’t be drowned! We can’t be killed!"

Brave faith.

"So there’s nothing any mother or father can do!"

Wild faith. Wild shouts. Scales rubbing on Aphrodite's skin. Hair in their mouth. Fingers between their fingers. The trembling of rock and the churning of water and the deluge of delirium-pink light. Water as blood and blood as water and storms in both.

"This one's called Tip the Scales and it's dedicated to our goddess and it's dedicated to you, you fucking freaks!"

Merfolk leaping and somersaulting and squealing and clicking and believing with complete joy and fury in Aphrodite. Goddess of Love. Goddess of everything robbed from the people by the king on high. Goddess of taking it back. Goddess of the place where everything lived together in flow, the place that birthed endless life and strangeness. Goddess of the Sea. 

"Let’s fucking sing, Aegean! MERMAIDS TO THE FRONT!"

Women surged forward, pushed forward, forced their way to the stage, clutching each other's hands to help each other, lift each other. They fell against each other and laughed and embraced, arms draping over shoulders, tails linking. An uncrossable, unbreakable wall of women took their place up ahead. 

They screamed.

The whole crowd screamed. Screamed like waves and wind. The caverns rang and shook with the torrential, tempestuous cries of the merfolk. Aphrodite had been song, but with this she transformed again. She was their storm. She was their hope and joy and rage and revenge. She was their love. She ached with it, pumped with it, all the sensations of a strong, solid, rejuvenated body. Her dispersed threads began gravitating together at the centre of the pit. 

"The people need you, Aphrodite, more than anything else, more than ever. They need you as you are."

The drums banged. The bass boomed. The guitar reeled and fired.

And with a deep, raw intake of breath…

Aphrodite took form in the crowd. 

She clutched her chest as her heart jumpstarted. The press of her hand on her breastbone shocked her. She could feel the silk of water and closeness of others, she could feel the roots of her hair and the emptiness of her stomach and the tingle of her lips. She looked down. A long fish tail in iridescent lavender coiled beneath her. Her hands spread in front of her nose, the palms lined and the nails long. She laughed and ran them through her hair, wild and billowing and thick. She patted her face and hugged her shoulders. She was all here. She was solid. 

She was delighted to be who she was.

They quickly threw a glamour over themself so as not to disturb the crowd with their sudden presence, but they kept staring down at themself, at the shimmer of hot light on their beautiful skin, at the clasping shadow on their beautiful figure, at the way they moved when they laughed, at their beautiful nakedness. She laughed and she gazed up to the beaming, thrashing band and around the rippling, riled crowd crushing in on her in an aching, caressing embrace.

She raised her voice in song and hurled her body into dancing.

 

In the tranquil quiet of the Paphos temple infirmary, Yasemin rolled over in her bed and peeked once more at the fizzled out candle in a sad stub by her face. 

The flame ignited.

 

*

 

Aphrodite burst back into her quarters in a flurry of activity, glorying in the pacing sensation of her heartbeat. Their firm, sure heart in their firm, sure body. 

The first thing she did was order food. She hadn't eaten adequately in days and she was ravenous. She whirled about the round, chiffon-domed rooms, fat shrimp sticking out of her pout and pinched in her fingertips as she chewed and worked. Their reflection shimmered on tall mirrors and the carved panels of mother-of-pearl laid into the lilac-painted walls, a dozen goddesses spurring each other on, whisking the movement faster. 

What had she been thinking? Trying to please Olympus? Trying to persuade Zeus' kind to accept her? Partner with her? 

Neutralise her.

Olympus had drained her in the way deep space drains breath. It was a sucking void and she had sighed all her hopes into it and run out of air. How hadn't she realised? She wasn't an Olympian, and being one didn't make her more important. She was Aphrodite Pandemos, Aphrodite of the Folk, Common Aphrodite. Earth's Aphrodite. They were powerful and brilliant and necessary and sacred, but they were those things because of where they came from, where they worked, where they walked and took worship. Trying to be like an Olympian was like trying to fit into an aquarium. She had contained herself for those who only desired her contained, and she had forgotten who she was when she was free. How immense and inspiring she was when she was free. 

Their body thrummed with the joyous faith of The Grotto, with the roar of music so loud that maybe they could even hear it on Olympus, hear the fearless call of Love that knows its power.

They'd hear it soon, for sure.

She clicked on her CD player. Viper Dolls barraged the speakers and Eurydice’s coarse, wicked voice overtook her, driving her like a motorbike. She hadn’t been able to listen to the band in full yet, surviving on scraps of their lyrics posted in forums and tinny recorded clips from the bar they played. The CD, for which she’d paid a large donation in gold, was covered with a black and white photograph of the three band members with their bare backs to the camera, each stamped across the shoulder blades with Property of Underworld Corp., which had also been on their merch t-shirts. The album’s name, The Forgotten Coming, was graffitied across the top, the spray paint letters dripping down the brick wall they stood in front of. They were angrier and faster and sharper than Titwreck. While the voice that filled The Grotto was liquid fudge, like a mewl and a saxophone, Eurydice was demonic, metallic, she sounded like a jaguar, like a buzz saw. She sliced through the room and plugged Aphrodite into an engine.

“You’ve got promises

will take away my pain,

but I’d rather die for me

than live for you again.”

The pale rose dress Aphrodite wore to the Mortal Realm was plunged into crimson water. The fabric turned to fog as they stirred it with a wooden spoon. The dark potion reflected in their wide, focused pupils.

“Can’t want me to be fiery

and not burn anything.”

She slammed a thickly stocked, heavily used journal open on a coffee table and hunched over half it and half the shrimp plate, scribbling, sketching, snipping pages out and gluing samples in, chomping furiously. Ideas galloped over each other, melted into each other, crazed and calmed as they burst in her electrified brain and poured through her pencil. 

“You failed me because you love.

So what? You still failed me.”

She rummaged in her drawers and closets. They dug out old jewellery and hacked it apart and twisted it back together in new shapes, bolder, brighter. They wound clipped leaves and flowers into wreaths of black and gold.

“Don’t want your feelings,

want your brand.

Don’t want expression,

want your art.

Buy your hands,

sell them on.

Buy your tongue,

mark it up.

Shelve your needs

‘til they’re in fashion.

Put your truths 

in shopping carts.

Blowout sale

at Heart-Mart.”

They found their old books - poetry, philosophy, politics. They tore them up and stuck the remnants into the journal, covered them in highlighter and glitter, a chaos of thoughts and directions. The music ripped through the pages, anger ripped through the pages, courage ripped through the pages, thrill ripped through the pages. Eurydice howled into the ocean night like a wolf summoning a pack with hunters on her tail.

“My body,

economic asset.

My kisses

save you money.

My bruises

save you money.

My patience

save you money.

My smiles

save you money.

My image

make you money.

My labour

make you money.

My trauma

make you money.

My heartbeat

make you money.

My body,

economic asset.”

They turned it up. They drummed on their furniture, they thrashed their hair, they jumped and screeched and banged. 

“His world, his want, his dreams, his gaze, his fit, his shape, his tales, his thoughts.

Where’s she? Her loss, her shade, her bend, her shrug, her knees, her eyes turned down.

Missing.

Missing person’s report.

Cold case.

Old case.

Sold case.

Missing person’s report.”

She shredded crimson fabric and bit off crimson thread. She drank crimson wine. Scissors flashed. She stitched in cycles of wounding and binding. She stuck her fingertips. She sucked her blood.

“Big man in a big chair.

He buys all the flowers.

Don’t mean they bloom.

All the love I’ve got down here

he wants, no room

to give to him and us.

Why am I giving to the rich?

Grow me in a meadow.

Burn their gardens.

They just consume.

Why be their rose?

Edible flowers.

Why be their rose?

High society unreality.

Why be their rose?

Roots in the unowned earth.

My growth resumes.”

They stripped off in front of a tall mirror and looked proudly at their powerful body, adorned with centuries of life, scars and asymmetries, stretch marks and birthmarks. The plush, pink room behind them made them even more luxurious to behold. They let their eyes wander slowly down, remembering themself, enjoying themself. They combed their hand into their hair and cocked their knee, grinned at their pose, at how sexy and intimidating they were naked and unmasked. They cupped their pussy and sent pleasure through their body, thanking it, indulging it, giving it the love and the fun and the fire it deserved. They stared at themself like a hungry lover and massaged their clit and watched themself bloom. They undulated, rolling their hips to fuck their hand. Aches and reliefs. Unknotting and charging. They took themself, the way everyone else wanted to, better than everyone else. Pleasure mounted with Eurydice’s runaway, train wreck voice. 

“Love me, love my body.

Love me, love my people.

Love me, love my temper.

Love me, love my onslaught.

Love me, love my freedom.

Love me, love my hunger.

Love me, love my madness.

Love me and love what I’m gonna do.”

She moaned into the drone of chords.

“What I’m gonna do.”

She shuddered and pushed the pleasure deep.

“Coming for you.”

The drums crashed. Pleasure crashed. Their climax rocked their body in the rhythm of the coursing song.

“Coming for me.”

Her joints clattered and her muscles mashed. She gasped and groaned and the bass plucked the strings of sensation snapping in her. 

“Love coming for me.”

She eased the final shudders slow. She caught her breath and swept her hair off her neck. They stretched tall, the pleasure breaking out of them afresh.

“Love… Love… Love…”

The drums hushed. The bass hummed and faded. The guitar wandered into silence. There was just that voice, haunting and hoarse.

“Love… Love… Love…”

The word bore away slowly as if on a calm river. It evaporated, leaving its essence in the air.

The CD whirred and clicked.

They looked to the reborn dress hanging from their closet door. 

She smiled.

 

Aphrodite strode through the halls of the ocean palace like blood flow through arteries, her face set stern and conceited, her steps stabbing the marble floor with sound. Make-up turned her noble, tempting features stone-carved and sparkling. Their hair was gathered in a swirl on their head, then cascaded down their back, streaming behind them like a banner. Atop it was a new crown of gold and copper and basalt leaves and flowers. They’d never crowned themself, never tried to give themself the status of a ruling power or Olympian. But they were Queen to the folk and they wore their status now. The metal was also twisted into bangles and armbands and anklets, flames of gold flashing in the cold light, like she was walking out of a fire. Their feet and calves were wrapped in fine-strapped, heeled sandals, cruelly kissable. Their pretty, plain, pink dress had been transformed into pure ferocity, red as viscera, as apple and pomegranate, as indomitable passion. It scooped low on her breasts and spread wide on her collar, opening her heart, daring anyone to try to take it, to try to pierce it, exhibiting it as her greatness. Heart-shaped clasps glittered at the shoulders. More of the braided gold and black cinched her waist so her wide hips swung proud. The skirt avalanched in warring layers to the floor, a long slit up one side showing one muscular thigh jut forward as she walked. The train dragged behind them like a needy lover clinging to their hem. The dress draped in scoops and folds and swishes around her body and flared into the darkness, the crimson fabric fawning over her, emanating from her. She was regal. She was mighty. She was rapturously sexy.

She slammed open the door to the breakfast room. She stood in the entrance with her hands on her hips and her smile scandalous.

Poseidon and Amphitrite turned sharply to the noise. Amphitrite broke into a delighted grin. Poseidon dropped his fork. He stared at her in awe. He leaped from his chair and swept her into a hug that lifted her off the floor, twirling her around. She laughed and tangled her fingers in his hair, breathed his sea salt and lemon scent. Amphitrite leaned back in her chair and laughed too, their eyes meeting over Poseidon’s bunched shoulder. Aphrodite kicked their sandals and made him lower them back to the floor. He gazed down at her with adoration, eyes shining. He sighed and squeezed her waist. “You’re back.”

They cupped his face and kissed his cheek. “You betcha.” They grinned dazzlingly. “Enjoy it while you can. I’m soon to be Olympus’ problem again.”

 

*

 

The trio ate with gusto. Despite not sleeping a wink, Aphrodite hadn’t had energy like this in days and days. They talked over each other, guffawed, flicked their forks, clinked their teacups together. The breakfast room ceiling was hung with shards of amber so the light shattered into an underwater sun overhead. Pineapple light sprinkled over them and tanned their cool-toned skin, as if they were on the beach. 

The meal wound down slower than usual, the diners relishing their return to bubbly domesticity. The dishes were eventually cleared. Aphrodite hummed and folded her forearms on the sleek, round table. Amphitrite did the same and exchanged a glance with Poseidon. Her relaxed mouth tightened slightly. She looked at Aphrodite a little more soberly. “Sea Turtle, I was going to wait a little longer to give you this, but since you’re talking about going back…” She trailed off and rubbed her arm.

Aphrodite cocked her head and frowned softly. 

Amphitrite reached into the cover of her book laid on the table by Poseidon’s paper. She withdrew a sealed envelope in their palace stationary. She held it out across the table.

Aphrodite took it curiously. “What’s this?”

She rolled her shoulders in a careful inhale. “It’s a message Nereus took from Ares.”

Aphrodite’s pulse thumped. “Oh.”

“We told him not to let Ares through, but apparently the big lug just sorta kept talking, and he’s an old softy, so he took down what he was saying.”

“What was he saying?”

Amphitrite sealed her lips. She looked steadily at her friend. “It’s up to you to read it, or not, as you wish. When you wish.”

Aphrodite nodded and looked down at the envelope. It felt oddly heavy in her fingers. She stroked her thumb over the paper. A dozen images flickered through her mind; the glow of a huge heart, the press of warm lips, the cupping of a strong hand, tears burning golden cheeks, a smile like a gash, a whisper like a hearth, spices and flame and desperation and falling. She ached. She swallowed. Her stomach unsettled. She breathed evenly and overpowered the tremor sneaking up on her. “Excuse me.”

“Of course.”

She stood, drawing her body up tall. She smiled at Poseidon and Amphitrite, thanked and quickly blessed the oceanid staff on hand, and walked elegantly from the room.

They went to the study and the large, angular rotary phone on the desk. They looked at the envelope one more time. They tucked it into their bra. They picked up the phone and dialled.

It rang.

Their stomach wriggled.

It rang.

Their feet fidgeted.

It rang.

It clicked.

A deep, low yawn. “Hello?”

She rubbed her lips together tensely. “Hey.”

“Boss?”

She smiled as Peitho’s tone jerked springy. “How’re you doing, Pretty?”

“Boss!” The grace yapped like a chihuahua. “Wow! Hi! Hello! You’re calling! You’re on my phone! Hi!”

Aphrodite giggled warmly. “I am.”

“Shit, it’s so good to hear your voice.”

They hugged themself and leaned on the phone as if on her soft shoulder. “So, Smarty Pants, how did you know that’s what I needed?” 

They heard Peitho’s rush of relief in a crackle of breath down the line. She mellowed and her smile was audible. “Because a few months ago, I was in a bad place in a hard city, and then someone came along who believed in me.” 

Aphrodite flickered and warmed. “You never told me that.” 

“Didn’t want it going to your head.” 

They laughed. Their eyes pricked, finally starting to feel tired from the long night. She sniffed. “Sweetheart, I’m coming back.”

“What?” Another crackle as Peitho nearly snapped the signal with her whoop of excitement. “Thank Fates!”

Aphrodite caught a touched tear in the corner of their eye before it could ruin their make-up. “Are you sure you’re happy about that? I feel like I ask too much of you.” 

Peitho snorted. “No, you trust a lot to me.” The speaker rustled as she shuffled as if trying to move to meet Aphrodite’s eyes. “Boss, listen, before you, I was knocking about Olympus on various male arms, getting picked up and dropped like fashions, high society’s hot potato. Everyone thought I was an airhead, I was never allowed to do anything interesting, I was bored outta my skull and dying from fake smiling.” She faltered. “I kinda mean that, you know?”

Aphrodite’s heart squeezed gently.

Peitho laughed brashly. “So, yeah, Goddess, ask too much of me. It was my saving grace.”

Aphrodite’s heart pirouetted. She laughed and blinked the happy tears away from her mascara. “Please, you’re literally my saving grace.”

“Oh, so funny.”

“Thank you. Laugh at my jokes more from now on.”

“I said ask too much, not the impossible.”

They cackled and hummed with pleasure. Their shoulders smoothed as they settled into speaking to their callous, caring accomplice. “It's a new fucking dawn, Peitho.”

Peitho chuckled darkly, then sucked her teeth. “Hey, um, I don't wanna rain on your parade, but you should know…” she gulped, then spoke in a speedy mumble, as if that might soften the list of problems, “the gossip has been saying that you left to lick your wounds, that you can't hack Olympus. They… They’ve been dredging up old half-stories of breakdowns.”

“Ugh.”

“TGOEM has been having a field day, they have a whole new recruitment drive and anti-porn and anti-lingerie and anti-make-up campaigns. Some of their followers even picketed a bunch of sex shops.”

“I beg your fucking pardon?”

“And the power’s out in Little Minoa right now, including The Rose.”

“WHAT?”

“Zeus’ company did this big price hike and a bunch of people in the neighbourhood just flat refused to pay it and mounted this protest to encourage more homes to refuse across Olympus, which a few actually picked up. So the company cut the power to the whole area to make some kinda example.”

Aphrodite ground her teeth. “I see.”

Peitho growled. “The bastard can zap unlimited electricity outta his manicure, but apparently taxes aren’t enough.”

“Not that the taxes seem to go toward anything in Little Minoa.”

“Uhuh.”

Aphrodite rolled her jaw and narrowed her eyes, a prickle stealing over her skin. She looked over the desk to the wide window and the switchblade glint of silver fish. She steeled her gut and wet her lip, the sensation of a driving engine reigniting in her veins. “Well, don’t you worry, this isn’t any kind of bad weather on my parade. Sounds like it’s the perfect time for me to be up there.” She arched an eyebrow. “I hope Hestia and Zeus are enjoying their little party, because Momma’s coming home.”

Peitho purred comedically into the receiver. “Delicious. But I mean it, you just popping back onto the scene isn’t gonna cut it.”

They stuck up their chin and released an icy laugh that froze the line. Anger was feeling good, feeling right, the thrum and freshness before a storm. It fortified them like brandy, turned them on with a hot touch. “Baby Girl, I am not ‘popping back onto the scene.’ I am making a whole new scene. I am the goddess of making a scene.”

Peitho laughed loudly.

Aphrodite took her buoyancy and rose with it. She cast up her face, squared her shoulders, and put her hand on her lifting hip. Their voice prowled and swelled and surged like waves as their pulse pumped with their rediscovered purpose. “And so much more. I am the goddess of wanting, of wanting something more than your own life, of pursuing it to the ends of the earth. I am the goddess of hope and despair and doing everything your mother told you not to. I am the goddess of relentlessness and daring and obsession. Of elation and agony and walking through fire and soaring from the ocean. I am the goddess of the warrior fighting with everything to lose, the youth throwing childhood away, the poet finding their first devotion, the gambler, the princess, the dominatrix, the stripper, and the dirty fucking librarian.” Her jaw set. Her eyes blazed. “And Olympus is mine for the taking.” Her red lips bloomed into a villainous smirk. She tilted them seductively to the receiver. “So, are you in?”

“Oh,” Peitho poured her smile down the phone, “I am so in.”

Notes:

I know it's been angst for like... long... next chapter is FUN, I swear x

Chapter 20: “We are common and we are powerful.”

Summary:

Aphrodite gathers her retinue and makes her comeback.

I'm sorry this took even longer than usual?? I've had so many flu bugs XD But spring is kicking down the door and so is the Goddess of Love!

Song: Feeling Good, Nina Simone

[CW: Mild seduction spell.]

Notes:

Since it's been 84 years, here's a quick reminder of the minor characters we're checking in with.

The Horai - spirits of the seasons and dancers at Aphrodite's flagship strip club, The Rose Lounge. The Rose Lounge is in Little Minoa, the low income, bohemian area of Olympus. Zeus recently raised the electricity prices on Olympus and Little Minoa, with its poorer population, refused to pay the extra and sparked a refusal wider in the city. To make an example of the resistors, Zeus cut all power to Little Minoa.

Aglaea - Grace of Beauty, manager of The Rose Lounge.

Pannyakhis - Grace of Night-time Revels. We first met her as a manicurist in Ares and Aphrodite's mall date, but she switched jobs and is now a dancer at The Rose Lounge.

Antheia - Grace of Flower Wreaths and Ares' manicurist in the mall date. She told him how much she admires Aphrodite and that the goddess helped her meet her now fiancé.

The Horai and Graces (or Charities) are all in Aphrodite's truly massive retinue in the myths.

Yasemin - Aphrodite's intended oracle at the temple at Paphos, Cyprus. When Hestia masqueraded as Aphrodite to make Yasemin preach chastity, Aphrodite cursed her with a fever to cover the sermon as nothing but delirium. She has since been recovering in the temple infirmary. She was visited by Aphrodite during their depression and could not feel their presence, but it reignited as Aphrodite did.

Eurydice - underground protest punk (Riot Grrrl) singer in the Underworld. After Orpheus failed to free her from death, she lived as a shade under Hades' rule, but formed her band, Viper Dolls, and began to spread resistance to the triarchy through the shades. She has gathered a passionate community of anarchic fans at the Underworld punk club, Last Resort. She has faith in only one of the gods, Aphrodite, because she founds her protest on common love.

Sinoe - a journalist at Panoptes, the gossip magazine that has been plaguing Aphrodite. She wrote an article about Eurydice that caught Aphrodite's attention and made them decide to campaign for Eurydice to have freedom of movement to perform across the realms.

Hades refused to review Eurydice's case when Aphrodite petitioned him. But at Zeus' birthday party, Hecate told Aphrodite to speak to her on this matter in future. Hecate seems intrigued by Aphrodite as a potential source of chaos and fellow survivor of the fall of the primordial, and she has been having occasional casual sex with Peitho, Aphrodite's PA and close friend.

Acteon - journalist at Panoptes and Aphrodite's personal creep, writing excessively and increasingly toxically about her. He has broken various boundaries, from attempting to get a sex tape of her and Ares to photographing Yasemin during her descent into fever and spreading the news of the failed oracle.

Sparta - Sparta has only been mentioned in passing so far, I'll do more of a "what history am I using and trashing" ramble later. On his first campaign earlier in the year, Ares fought with the Spartans as a loose warrior band, but they took so much fire from him that they ended up winning decisive victories and founding their own city dedicated to Ares. Ares has been avoidant of this warrior city, fearing what it makes him feel and that it reflects his darker nature. As such, he hasn't been back or contacted Sparta since he got home.

"Aaaand… we're live."

The six o'clock muse-caster perked up crisply at the thumbs up from the cameraman. She flashed a huge, charming grin, her green hair bouncing above her shoulders. "Good evening, Olympus! I'm reporting live from the brand new Rhea Memorial Park, opened just this morning by the king himself with a deeply touching speech honouring his late mother, who of course passed during the Titanomachy." She sobered. "Much has been said already about the importance of paying tribute to the great war's first casualty, whose sacrifice led to our freedom and Zeus' era of peace and prosperity. This new site is a perfect tribute to the Queen Mother and to the bounty we now enjoy on Olympus. Styx rest her soul." She briefly bowed her head, then bobbed back up, jolly again. "We have a special feature for you this evening to introduce you to the city's new outdoor recreation spot, including a guided botanical tour, interviews with the park rangers, and a live performance from Orpheus…"

Her voice floated behind her across the lush grass to the leaf-shaped ears of four chic figures loitering under a spreading sycamore in unseasonable, long coats. 

"How long should we wait?" Spring whispered a little nervously, fiddling with her belt. 

"Any minute now, I should think," Winter replied in their cool drawl from behind a high, black collar.

"I'm excited!" Autumn clapped her hands eagerly, her frizz of red hair static with energy.

"Me too!" Summer drummed her palms on Autumn's shoulder, then dipped into her pocket and withdrew a bejewelled compact. She clicked it open and checked her make-up. The brightness of her skin popped in the bright day.

"Oh, don't bother, Babe," Winter chuckled. "Who's gonna be looking at our faces?"

Summer laughed and slipped the compact away. She smacked her lips and took a sweet breath of the fruit and flowers air, her body invigorated as her hour ruled the awake, festive earth. 

The Horai glanced around the entrance area of the vast city park. The new construction was a series of rich islands of lawn or flowers or sculpture or playground or picnic tables or elaborate fountains connected by tranquil, shady woodland walks. It was a perfect tribute to both nature and architecture, wildness and design. Tropical havens that could be leagues from the nearest civilisation flowed seamlessly into quaint kitchen gardens and sunken amphitheatres ringing already with future song. Its opening had been celebrated by a crowd of people from all over the city coming for the rare chance to stand in the presence of the king. All over the city, that is, except for Little Minoa. Little Minoa was not on stellar terms with their glorious monarch at this present time. The lights were still off as company and citizen kept their horns locked.

“Do you think we’ll get into trouble?” Spring piped.

“More trouble than we’re already in?” Autumn scoffed. She counted off on her fingers. “No light, no hot water, no phones, no TV or radio. I can’t even charge my vibrator, my fingers are getting RSI.” She tossed her crowding springs of hair. “I’m fucking done. Put me in jail, at least I’ll have access to one call.”

“They’re not going to put us in jail,” Winter breezed. “Don’t catastrophise.”

“They might,” Summer murmured, then turned brisk. "But if they do, we'll be out in a jiff. Our Lady will bring the roof down on anyone who lays a finger on us, and when we're done they'll know that and think twice. Besides, it's not like it would be the first time some lawman or other had been a bore, but it hasn't stopped us yet, right?" 

"Right."

She took another soothing breath and hummed through her nose in pleasure. “This is what we do best, so let’s strut.” She flicked her coat collar.

The muse-caster gabbled on enthusiastically. “Right at the centre of the park, you can…”

Winter smirked, eyes flashing. “Let’s strut.”

Autumn grinned. Spring nodded. 

“And there’s also a bee farm…”

Their hands flew to their buttons.

“The bee farm is attached to a small store where you can buy a range of all-natural, organic honey products, from candies to skincare…”

 

Hera’s nostrils flared as the segment on Zeus’ memorial park to his mother rambled on on the small TV in her office. She knew it was a triumph of both landscape and political engineering - an excellent move for their optics, and something about public health or whatever. But, Fates, he’d been a smarmy dick about it all day, fat and happy on applause and greasing the palace halls like a man-sized stick of butter. She was not looking forward to spending all evening with him. At least he’d have to be mercifully quiet through the show. They were attending the first performance of the refurbished Thespian Theatre, supporting Athena, her husband’s original bastard, in her increasing patronage of the arts. A ballet interpretation of the Titanomachy was to be staged. What a hoot, getting to watch some twig recreate the most traumatically painful experience of her life in a room that smelled of mothballs. She groaned and dropped her quietly aching head into her fingertips, massaging around her temples and brow. She'd been holding the muscles so tight lately, they’d probably permanently shortened. 

The TV babbled over her. 

And then erupted with high-pitched noise.

"HEYYYY!"

"AWOOOOO!"

Hera frowned and looked up. Her screen had been taken over by a merry mess of jiggling, perked up… Oh my fucking Gods, are those… TITS?

The news camera zoomed back out from its laser focus on the row of rainbow nipples to reveal the caster batting at it irritably. Colliding with her, whistling and cat-calling and smiling garishly as they posed and pointed, were four heavily glamorous people wearing nothing but platform heels and skimpy, sparkly hot pants. Across their bare torsos, curling, purple lettering had been daubed in thick paint and ornamented with pink and red flowers. 

LICK MY OLYMPUSSY!

SLUT PRIDE!

NOT YOUR NYMPH!

DIGNITY!

The group formed a wall of nudity between the reporters and the king’s achievement, entirely blocking out the blooms and fountains with thigh tattoos and nipple rings, stretch marks and caesarean scars, bushels of hair and piercingly bright teeth. They cackled and cheered into the camera, arms slung around each other and slogans swelling into the lens. Behind them, Hera could glimpse out-of-focus families shielding curious children with looks of outrage on their faces, joggers tripping over their own feet, and more journalists running to take photographs. She watched aghast as the muse-caster spotted the other journalists circling like vultures and made a snap decision.

“Well, hi! This looks like quite the day out!” She swung her microphone towards the four streakers.

They chimed with friendly laughter, as if they weren’t rubbing their boob sweat all over a royal event. The tallest one, with the look of a magpie, stuck their slim face forward and spoke in a breathy, frosting tone. “We were told this was to be a natural haven for Olympians, so we were so excited to be able to come out and safely express our own nature.”

“Yeah!” 

“Woop!”

Their comrades cuddled around them and cheered.

The caster smiled and politely looked to their torsos. “And what is it exactly you’re expressing?”

Hera slowly arched an eyebrow, ears pricked.

The one who looked like an explosion in a paint box shook out her ringlets and deftly stole the microphone from the caster. She looked straight down the barrel of the camera with eyes so blue they dimmed the sky. Her friends joined her, the four in a solid barricade facing the realm-wide audience. 

Summer’s heart somersaulted as she raised her voice, air kissing her tingling skin. “We are the hidden harlots of your sophisticated city. We are the people who work for your pleasure and your truth, then get swept aside when the sun rises. To the women watching, we hear and love you. Real freedom can only be found with our knowledge and our friendship. We are not your enemies and we stand on the frontline against your jailors." Her smile skipped along her words. "We are proud, fearless, and joyful. We own our bodies and we refuse to be shamed or controlled. No man - king or titan-slayer - has more rights over us than we do over ourselves. We are common and we are powerful. We stand with self-love and hot bodies and we invite Olympus to that way of life. This park is a public space, but the rules put on us by our governors would tell us we don’t own this land and we can’t choose how to express our bodies on it. They say our natural forms are obscene, dangerous, and have to be covered or we deserve inhumanity." She threw her head up high. "We say we own the ground we walk on. We grow in it and should be allowed to flourish. On this mountain, as its natural flowers, we demand the freedom and safety of all bodies, as welcome, valued, protected, and admired for their beauty as the trees you’ve planted here. This park was created in memory of a goddess of the earth and designed to celebrate the wonderful richness of her world. We say that as long as any bodies are shamed, hidden, hurt, and controlled then it dishonours the mother of our king. We are here to make this park Common ground and call for sex positivity and liberation on Olympus.”

The four exchanged a sparkling glance, then dropped their arms from around each other. In one, united motion, they raised their right clenched fists overhead. Painted in the same thick, shimmering purple down the insides of their forearms was a symbol that Hera had never seen before; a circle with a cross descending from it, like a noose on a gallows. 

As one, the four chanted harmoniously, beaming broadly with the sun streaming through their hair and wheeling on the body paint. “Kêpois. Pandemos. We bring the blessing of Aphrodite.”

Hera’s eyes widened.

The group broke their chant and burst into elated applause, hugging and printing ghosts of their slogans over each other, pulling the bewildered muse in too as her ears flushed. They crumbled into giggles and mockery, taunting the camera, blowing kisses, grabbing each other’s tits and slapping each other’s asses in pantomime provocativeness. They made a ridiculous, irreverent show of their brazenness as the crowd continued to magnetise curiously and boisterously towards them. 

"You like this, boys? THEN ASK!"

"UNDRESS IS NOT YES!"

"Nymphs are not your fucking toys!"

"Sex work is work!"

"Free the nipple!"

"UP THE WHORES!"

"TITS ARE NOT OBSCENE!"

"You're beautiful, Olympus!"

"Love your body like it loves you, babies!"

The prim, wholesome atmosphere of the royal park, the one that had been so carefully curated for weeks and weeks, caved like an over-cooked soufflé into a heap of sugar and fluff and fuckery.

Hera’s lips shrivelled like a prune.

Shit… 

Her fist curled around the edge of the desk.

She’s back.

 

*

 

Sinoe had been staring into her own eyes in her bathroom mirror for a full half hour.

"My name is Eurydice. And you can’t pretend I didn’t happen.”

She took a shallow breath of tangy kiwi bath products and the faint undercurrent of must from the black mould her landlord kept ignoring. She rubbed her lips together and stroked down her long, brown hair. 

Her hair drifting forward as she leaned with the cigarette in her mouth. Danger-red light swelling in black pupils as the surly singer flicked a light to the paper.

“Put it in your mouth. I like to light it in your mouth.”

She sucked the memory of smoke. She twirled her hair into her fingers and tucked it at the nape. She regarded herself. 

Eurydice probably hadn't even read the article. Probably hadn't even seen all those weird things she said about her breath stopping. 

"Ask me what you wanna ask me.”

Sinoe released her hair and huffed. She looked down at her chipped sink. The light in the bathroom was making her pale.

Everything had been pale since the Underworld.

A songbird and a black heart misting into glass skin. A thick upper lip curling, mocking, challenging.

Her heart skipped. She swallowed.

Eurydice probably hadn't even read the article.

A roaring crowd surging against the wall. Her magnetic daring and furious compassion taking them into a shelter like Sinoe had never known. 

“Wow, they’re really screaming for you out there.”

“Yeah.”

“A lot of fans down here.”

“No. What I got here is a community, a sisterhood.”

Sinoe glanced at the large pair of steel scissors beside the sink.

"SHOUT IT BACK TO ME, FUCKERS!"

Dirt love. 

Damned love.

Real love.

"I'm an animal too."

Her face rushed hot. She roughly gathered the ends of her hair and grabbed the scissors.

 

"Hey, are you listening to me?"

Sinoe started and blinked her single written sentence of the morning into focus. The racket of clacking keyboards, shrieking phones, barked conversations, and gurgling coffee pots sunk back into her skull as she returned from the rumbling pit of Last Resort to the Panoptes office. She rolled her eyes at Acteon's curt demand. She leaned around the bulky box of her computer to give him a flat look. 

He was slouched at his utter sty of a desk, replacing his glasses and pocketing a crumpled tissue. He turned his beady eyes to her to repeat whatever he'd been saying and stopped short with a baffled blink. "Whoa, what happened to your face?"

Sinoe ducked a little behind her computer again. "My face?"

"Yeah. It looks all…" He gestured vaguely.

Sinoe pursed her lips. "I cut my hair."

He broke into a wet grin. "Oh, yeah! That's what it is." The grin flopped. "Wow, why? It looked hot long."

She frowned drily, then flashed him a cold smile. "Your disappointment reinforces my decisions in all things, Acteon."

"Okaaaay, somebody's menstruating." He spun his chair back towards his computer with a mousy squeak of the screw. 

She clucked her tongue and turned back to her empty document. It was meant to be some guff about this summer's beach body tragedies. She'd always needed a shower after being assigned those pieces, but knocked them out mechanically for the pay cheque. But ever since she met Eurydice…

Her screen went black with inactivity. Her own face gazed blankly back at her. Except it wasn't her face, and was also more her face than it had ever been. Her long, neat, pretty hair was now a boyish pixie cut, uneven and thorned from doing it herself last night. It tangled like briars on her forehead and made her long, pointed ears stand proud like shards of bark. It hardened her, sharpened her, made her look both older and younger, made her look significantly less acquiescent, and just a little bonkers. She peered at it. Objectively, it looked less good than her original style. Objectively, she'd ruined her pleasant appearance. 

Good. 

She was tired of pleasant. She was tired of being a cute nymph, being a fantasy, being a vacation spot. She was tired of puff pieces and mean gossip. She was smart. She was passionate. She had a voice and a power and she was sick and done with…

What is going on with you?

She shook herself and flexed her twig fingers to go back to her "article."

A shadow fell across her desk.

She looked up and jumped as her vision was sliced by a set of bright white teeth in a sly, crescent moon grin. A young, springy-looking man with a comic book kaboom of scarlet hair was towering over her, his black eyes and gold earrings glittering. He glimmered softly in deadly nightshade. She stared up at him.

"L-Lord Hermes!" The wheels of Acteon's chair hissed as he stood urgently and gawped at the incomer, straightening his tie. His cheeks flushed blue and his eyes goggled behind his glasses. If anyone was the patron of paparazzi, it was The Messenger. 

Except no one was the patron of paparazzi. Hermes ignored him, smiling down at Sinoe with something between a merry twinkle and an unsettling glint. "I'm looking for Sinoe."

She nodded silently. Then cleared her throat. "That's me."

The crescent smile pulled wider, unzipping and tumbling like coins from a purse. "Peaches. Can we talk?"

Acteon stumbled forward. "Sir, may I…"

"In private." Hermes leaned deeper over her desk.

Sinoe gulped. She nodded. She stood with a tremor in her knees. Every word she had ever written was reeling through her mind in a panic. She must be in real trouble. The gods didn't just show up to your office. She must have said something, exposed something, crossed a line. What was the punishment for that? Little was known of Hermes' judgement. But what if it wasn't from him? What if Athena was going to turn her into a spider? Or Hera was going to turn her into a cow? Or Zeus… Oh, Fates… She forced herself to breathe as she stepped from behind her desk and walked without daring to look at the shimmering being towards the empty meeting room. 

Hermes followed. She could hear his step light as polystyrene as all the rattling of typing stopped and her colleagues watched her escort one of the Pantheon across the office. 

Acteon scrambled, ankles warring with his chair legs. "My Lord!"

Hermes ducked closer to Sinoe from behind. "Who is this guy?"

"Oh, um, that's Acteon. He's a colleague."

Hermes' voice stirred with something poisonous. "Oh, is it now?"

Acteon lurched over his desk, tangling in his phone wire. 

Hermes shot him a half glance. "Sit down, Rattlesnake, you'll know when I'm speaking to you because I will look distinctly sorry for myself."

Acteon froze.

Sinoe bit down on a smirk and avoided his furious eye as she scurried the rest of the way into the meeting room. Hermes followed her in and casually kicked the door shut. The click went up her spine. She crossed to the opposite side of the large, rectangular table and faced him squarely, holding her breath. He kept smiling at her - a weird, wired smile. The dozen faces of her fellow writers skulked through the wide window to the room, ears pricked up and eyes staring like bush babies. Hermes tugged the cord for the blinds. They dropped sharply and concealed them from view.

Sinoe was abruptly hidden with the god of hidden things. 

The strange smile snapped like a rubber band and Hermes' demeanour turned on the head of a pin. He dropped nonchalantly to lean against the door frame, arms folding so his lean biceps squeezed. He was wearing a confusingly adorable, beige postal uniform, shorts snug on his thighs, short-sleeved shirt tucked tightly into his belt so it shaped his body, open a little low on his pecs. Cute, white socks poked over his sneakers. His wild hair tousled around him, making him look soft, adolescent. He held himself with a bouncy slouch like a slinky, his mouth perky and his nose a teeny bit crinkled, the wings restless at his feet. He looked like he was delivering Girl Scout cookies and also about to walk onto a porn set. 

"Gee, he's a pill, huh?" He snorted and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder to where Acteon was likely still craning over his monitor.

Sinoe moved to tuck her long hair behind her ear, then remembered it wasn't there. "I think everyone's a little startled."

Hermes laughed like a tickled toddler, the wings at his heels fluttering. "Startled? By little, old me? Puh-lease." He flapped a hand in false modesty, several gold rings twinkling in the sepia light from the blinds. His arrow eyes pierced her suddenly. "What about you? You're not chicken too, are ya?"

Red-centred eyes sparked in Sinoe's memory. She prickled indignantly and drew herself up.

The god's teeth gleamed, his voice dropped smooth. "Good." He stood straight and walked slowly to the table. Sinoe planted her pumps hard to keep from retreating. He reached into the lumpy satchel slung over his shoulder and tossed an open magazine onto the table with a loud slap. Sinoe nudged forward to peek down at a black and white article cramped onto a single page. 

“As long as we feel, they can’t extinguish us”: Eurydice on real music and real love.

The bottom dropped out of her stomach. So, it was Hades sending punishment to her. The Unseen One. He Who Carries All Away. The darkest of the gods. Of course, it made sense now. Hermes wasn't just a courier of messages, but of souls. This was it. She'd officially gone too far for a story. She'd shared Eurydice's disdain for the merciless judge and now… and now…

"Would you relax?" Hermes chuckled. "No one's mad at you."

Her heart kicked. "They're… they're not?"

"Nope." He grinned and fished in his satchel again. "Got a present for ya." He pulled out a largish box wrapped beautifully in dark purple tissue paper and tied with a flourishing, lilac bow. He placed it carefully on the table and slid it across to her. 

Sinoe gazed in bewilderment. With trembling hands, she pulled the ribbon apart. It was softer than anything she had in her wardrobe. She picked at the paper.

"Oh, come on! Rip into it! Your birthday parties must take days."

She frowned at him. She tore the tissue paper from the box. It was a handheld camcorder. She looked up. "Who is this from?"

His lunar smile turned gleeful and secretive, his lips dark red. "Aphrodite."

Eurydice’s voice returned to her again. “There is one god I keep in memory, if not in practice. One who, I think, helped sew the seeds for a lot of the ideas that grew down here. Aphrodite, Goddess of Love.”

Hermes nodded. "She wants to hire you."

"To do what?"

"To spread some real news." He gestured at her article. "This news." He slid to perch on the table, his shorts riding up absurdly high. He leaned on his palm and spoke like he was selling cannabis candy. "Lady Love wants you to make a film about Eurydice. Not gossip, not sensation, journalism. She wants who Eurydice is and who she's singing for and what she's saying reaching people on Olympus." 

Sinoe's pulse raced. She stammered incredulously. "You… you have got to be kidding…"

"That would be on brand for me." He stretched and swung his legs. "But, no offence, I can catch bigger fish than you." He dipped once more into his satchel and flicked an envelope through the air. "Here's an advance."

She caught the envelope and opened it. Inside was a cheque.

It was a big cheque.

"What the…"

"You in? I got places to be."

She kept stammering. Was this really happening? This wasn't really happening, right? People's lives didn't just change like this on a Tuesday afternoon, right?

She looked at the camera. "I'm not a filmmaker."

"You'll figure it out."

"I don't come from her world, I'm not well-placed…"

"You did it once pretty good."

"She wouldn't…" Her heart jarred at the pain of this thought. "She wouldn't agree. Eurydice. She doesn't want fame. And I don't think she was especially taken with me." She looked down with a blush.

Hermes leaned deeper towards her, his nimble hand sliding along the table. "She wants to be heard and you want to listen to her." He caught her eyes with his and it was as if he had hooks in her skin. "Aphrodite thinks you two have something worth exploring."

Something stole through Sinoe that made her warm and fragile. "You… you mean artistically? Professionally?"

He grinned knowingly. "Sure." He held her eye and lifted his hand towards her. The question came softer this time. "You in?"

She looked into his eyes, black mirrors. They seemed to reel with flashing lights in a dark club, the distant whir of the office printers the growl of a guitar.

People's lives didn't just change like this on a Tuesday afternoon. 

Right?

“You can’t pretend I didn’t happen.”

She lunged forward for his hand and grabbed it like he was pulling her from quicksand. "I'm in."

His smile was darkness and brightness and childhood and manhood all at once. She shivered with it. He clasped her hand and shook it once firmly. With his other hand, he slipped a fine, gold ring off his pressing thumb and glided it gently onto hers. It bore a symbol she hadn't seen before, a circle with a cross descending from it, like a microphone. His voice was barely above a whisper. "Welcome aboard."

Sinoe’s heart thudded. She searched his face again. There was no use, it was so open it was impossible to find just one thing to take and comprehend. 

And then her hand was empty and she was alone in the room. 

She stood in the closest thing to silence this ear-splitting office could get. 

She looked down at the thumb ring, still hot from Hermes' skin.

She let her breath go, pocketed the unbelievable cheque, and gathered the camcorder, wrapping and magazine into her arms. She walked back into the office. 

Everyone stared at her.

Her editor's door clunked open. The balding, barrel-chested satyr hooked his thumbs into his suspenders and cleared his throat aggressively. "Alright everyone, back to work, please. Sinoe, may I have a word with you about clearing prestigious appointments?"

Sinoe didn't glance at him. 

Acteon stood slowly and tried to catch her eye. 

She didn't glance at him.

She hugged the camcorder to her chest and stared past the wide-eyed faces to the front door.

She started walking again.

"Sinoe?" Acteon murmured.

She kept walking.

"Sinoe!" her editor barked.

She kept walking.

“Hey!”

"I quit." She kept walking.

Out of the front door and into the sunlight.

 

*

 

It was a delicious night on Cyprus. The city of Paphos hummed with its sleepless energy, gamblers and revellers and travellers in swirls of cloth and candles in the streets. The baking brightness of the day had washed away into soothing warmth and shrouding blue. The stones still emanated gentle heat, inviting the press of bodies in dark corners. The temple gardens were alive with fragrance, constellations of jasmine a pooling reflection of the spangled sky above. White petals relaxed open in the darkness and sighed scent into the air. The priestesses padded barefoot through the bushes and dressed archways, letting the summer embrace them after a day in shelter, walking arm in arm and talking blithely, clipping sprigs, wafting their hands through the springs in moonlit ripples. It wouldn’t be long before clients started congregating at the gate. Those choosing to serve tonight were taking a gentle moment to get in the zone, relaxed and tingling.

Yasemin sat on a warm stone bench by one of the pools and turned her face up to the kiss of the floral air. She rubbed her arms and ran her fingers through dishevelled hair. She felt clean at last, free of the fever and the soiled sheets in the infirmary. She’d bathed this afternoon until she was one big prune, sloughing off the thick, heavy casing of salt and aching and shame. She smiled and whispered to the night, “Honoured Aphrodite, thank you for staying with me.”

She didn’t pray longer than that. She’d prayed too much lately. Aphrodite was a goddess of being and acting. She opened her senses to the dry, breathing earth, the stars, the babble of spring water and distant folk, and her sisters’ comforting voices and footsteps. She took note of each part of her body in turn, every small sensation, good and bad - no judgement, just presence. The tickle of grass. The twinge in her back from a long lie down. The itch in her nose. The brush of her hair on her cheek. The slight tightness of lingering tension in her vulva. “I accept you, I welcome you back.”

She folded her hands in her lap and leaned forward to look into the shimmering pool at her feet. A mosaic of Aphrodite reclining in a swan-drawn chariot twinkled in the dimness, the feathers seeming to stir as the water did. Hovering over her was the spectre of Yasemin's reflection. She looked gaunt, her brown cheeks still a little grey and her dull eyes set into hollows. Her hair lay around her like driftwood. She sighed mournfully and tenderly touched her face, frowning low. She determinedly smoothed her brow with her fingertips and took another sweetened breath. "You look clean, you look ready to recover. You were very sick, you shouldn't expect to look your best. Bodies shift and yours will again as it heals."

“WHADDUP, SACRED BITCHES!”

Yasemin jumped and turned to look into the heart of the garden where an unfamiliar, rowdy yell had cracked the tranquillity. The other priestesses were peering at it too, wandering over cautiously. She joined them, exchanging confused looks and tucking herself into a group of friends. They rounded a regal rose bush to see a woman standing on the back of a marble swan. Her ears were the shape of daggers and her skin was the colour of the night sky. She shimmered with a silver light, her arms and hair and neck hung with glistening crystals. She looked like a shooting star with her flaring grin. A giant seashell was hoisted on her shoulder. She gestured the tentative priestesses to gather around, then called out again in a voice with a light croak, as if she spent a lot of time shouting over noise.

“My beautiful sweethearts! I come as emissary of the Lady of Cyprus!”

An awed, alarmed gasp rippled through the crowd. Yasemin's heart leaped.

“Your goddess is pleased, my doves! She is proud of you and impressed by your work and your hearts!”

The glances turned to grins and excited murmurs.

“She sends me with a command.”

Yasemin held her breath. They all rose onto their toes, eager to hear the word of their goddess. The emissary paused for effect, the song of crickets filling the anticipatory silence. She tapped the shell. 

“TAKE THE DAMN NIGHT OFF!” 

Music suddenly exploded out of the shell, strange music, loud and raucous and full of drumming that gripped the roots in the soil. The priestesses squeaked in surprise, then broke into laughter and sounds of delight. Yasemin’s body fluttered and her eyes shone.

“The gate is closed tonight! No one but you matters until dawn! DANCE AND BE MERRY, NIGHTINGALES! YOU EARNED IT!”

The music swept them up. Yasemin rushed with it, with an enveloping sense of absolute self-love. Everyone could feel it, she could tell. They knew they deserved to celebrate. They knew they were beautiful and strong and exactly where they were supposed to be. It was their moment to let go and enjoy. Hands caught and rings formed and white skirts twirled. The stars rained over them as dancing flowed through the garden. 

Pannyakhis grinned brashly and put the glamoured boombox down on the swan’s back. She clapped her hands and conjured a sparkler, spitting light into the waves of shadow. She flourished it through the air, leaving a burning ink on the blue. She drew a symbol over the heads of the jubilant priestesses: a circle with a cross descending from it, like a magical girl’s staff. The symbol fizzed blinding in the darkness, then burst in copper and silver to a whoop from the bubbling crowd. Pannyakhis, Grace of Night-time Revels, filled with the impulsive, happy freedom of the moonlit gathering and dived headlong into the dance.

 

*

 

In another temple, far away, another group of priestesses knelt in neat rows on a herb-brushed floor and gazed at a great hearth burning where an altar would be. The firelight drowned them, their rhythmic rises and falls in worshipful bows making the shadows pour. The appetising scent of wood smoke permeated the room. They murmured as one in a melodic invocation. “Gentle Hestia. Stoic Hestia. Help us guard the doors of our homes against evil. Give us your strength, your peace. Let us be vigilant against vice and warded against sin. Burn the temptations within us and fill our bellies with wholesome nourishment.”

The fire sang with them, a deep, resounding baritone under their alto chant. It reached warm arms out to them and they were enveloped in cleansing heat. Their brows sweat and their backs smouldered, their knees were sore and their throats were prickling, but it was all welcome. It was like the burn of exercise; their bodies spoke to them of their exertion, congratulated them on their hard work. Their stomachs were full of good food, rewarded for their piety and practicality. Hestia did not promise them mad dreams, like the other gods. She was a goddess of the here and now, the kitchen and what you could hold in your hand.

“Grounded Hestia. Kind Hestia. Burn away foolishness and vanity. Make us into good servants of our people.”

Cool air stole into the oven of the stone room. 

“Burn away the lie of romance.”

Footsteps stole with it, inaudible, barely even stirring the rosemary on the paving. 

“Burn away the cruelty of man.”

A figure walked through the gathering, standing proud while all knelt, unseen, barely even casting a shadow against the plain, amber-glimmering wall.

“Burn away craving.”

The figure reached the roaring hearth, their nude, voluptuous curves bathed in gold.

“Fill us only with what is good, turn us only to what is useful.”

They cast a handful of dark rose petals into the hearth.

“Burn away this longing in me.”

The flames rolled and twisted and flourished. They bled deep, intense magenta, streamed with glowing lavender.

“Burn… Oh…” Faces upturned as the light changed. The priestesses looked to each other nervously, eying the great fire.

“What’s happening?” one whispered. Another shook her head anxiously. Another clutched at her skirt and trembled. 

The flames twisted again, as if writhing out of ropes. The rich, sweet light swelled. It blushed the lips and cheeks of the assembled women. Their concerned glances snagged on each other as the glow turned their companions’ beauty dark and glazed in mystique. A few hearts skipped. A few teeth bit down on wetting tongues.

“What’s… what’s happening…” another whispered, breathy as something hotter than the fire stoked her abdomen.

The figure stood in front of the hearth and raised their arms. The flames leaped. The priestesses gasped and recoiled. The syrup light gushed, splashed up the walls, spilled over the floor, soaked into their skin. The flames surged and bloomed, luxurious, romantic. Sinful.

More hearts skipped. More cheeks flushed. A few robes fell open as the heat became grasping. They leaned back in their kneeling, legs spreading, chests opening. The heat crept into them. It woke something they’d tried to keep dormant with hypnotic vengeance. 

“Oh…”

“I…”

They looked with helplessness to each other, saw their own quivering mouths and wanting eyes widen in the mirror of each other's yawning pupils.

“This…”

“Mmmmm…”

Fabric dissolved. Skin slickened. Blood pumped. The priestesses fidgeted and fanned themselves and chewed their lips. They clawed at their thighs as the need coiled between them.

“Goddess…”

“Darling…”

“Oh my…”

“Hestia, burn away the… Oh! Yes! Burn me again!”

The figure turned to face them, a smile like a serpent on their full lips. 

“Ah!”

“There!”

“That feels…”

“Mmmm…”

They were already on the floor, so close together, in the fog of each other’s heat and drowsiness and hunger. It took so little a push.

The hearth billowed plum and rhododendron.

“Oh!”

“Yes!”

Aglaea chuckled to themself. They raised their hand and rose petals began to fall again. They walked slowly over the stone, sprinkling the petals in a large pattern below the hearth: a circle with a cross descending from it, like a rose-strewn path to a wild hot spring. The last petal fell from their fingertips and drifted down into the depths of the undulating light. 

The fire rippled into the shape of a gigantic, pounding heart. The light pulsed to the drum of the coursing desire and relief unearthing from the sighing, quaking women. The flame heart beat bright and bloody in the core of the temple and all vows of chastity burned away.

 

*

 

Peitho's indigo high heels echoed around the hard, glass corridors of Underworld Corp. Her fluorescent, dumpy figure bobbed through the eerie, obsidian gleam, like a helium balloon escaped into a starless night. She glanced at the city through the vast windows. It was so still. The point of cities was to be unstill. She shivered. She clacked onward and stepped into an open space off the hallway that looked a bit like a mini airport lounge, grey, cushioned chairs around a dark coffee table with a neat stack of magazines on top. Peitho smirked; what a simple way of telling people they could expect to have to wait. 

A nymph in a severe suit and headset sat behind a desk opposite the chairs and focused intently on her computer. "Do you have an appointment?" she asked without looking up.

"I do, my name's Peitho."

The nymph clicked onto a calendar, then nodded. She pushed a button on her phone. "Your six o'clock is here."

"Send her through," a smart, deep voice crackled.

The nymph gestured at the stern door on her other side. Peitho nodded graciously and went to it, her steps speedy and small in her tight pencil skirt. The office was all the same crushing blue-black as the rest of the corporation, cold and hard and vast, reminiscent of being trapped in deep, volcanic rock. One wall was entirely glass, glistening with the pinprick lights of the hundreds of stacked, rectangular windows in stacked, rectangular high rises. False stars. Dead heavens. There was a black, wooden desk, a dark blue couch, a wide rug embroidered with silver spiders that looked as if the legs were moving, and a wall devoted entirely to a looming mural of leering skeletons bound together in a contorted interlace. Standing near it was a blackboard in a black frame. The only sound in the room was the tap and scuff of chalk as an intimidatingly tall, unnaturally angular figure inscribed it with strange symbols.

The tapping stopped. 

Hecate turned. Low, corpse-white light spun on her glossy, black hair. Her austere face shimmered into a feline smile. "Peitho, what a treat to end my day."

Peitho tingled. She smiled back, her most inviting smile. "Glad to be of service."

Hecate's gaze glittered. "We'll see about that."

Peitho chuckled. She picked up her feet again and crossed to Hecate, feeling the pull of her strong body already. Hecate extended a long, thin arm and Peitho curled into it like a moth into a web. Their lips pressed. Peitho shuddered with Hecate’s pleasant scent of cloves and melting wax. Hecate pulled back with a mulberry smile, still cupping the small of Peitho’s back. “So, what is this? Chance meetings not enough? Or is this the start of some kind of roleplay? I was surprised when my assistant gave me your name on the appointment requests.”

Peitho nonchalantly toyed with Hecate’s jacket button and looked into her neon eyes. “I'm actually here on business.”

“Oh?”

“Aphrodite said that we were to handle the Eurydice negotiation through you now.”

Hecate’s temptation-black smile flickered. She raised a fine, angular eyebrow. “I told Aphrodite to speak to me. I have to say, I didn't expect them to send an agent.”

Peitho sensed Hecate’s prickling pride, her offer of a conversation titaness to titaness somewhat snubbed. But Peitho had asked for a bigger assignment, to be trusted to handle someone smarter than the mouth-breathing arm candy she was usually fielding. She held Hecate’s eye fast as she started to look away. “I requested it.”

Hecate fixated on her again with a cool smirk. “Oh, you requested it?”

Peitho kept toying with the jacket button and subtly popped it open, twizzling on one foot with teasing shyness. “I begged for it.”

Hecate’s smile returned, full and dangerous. She chuckled in her throat. The spaceship sheen of the city glanced across her sharp cheekbones. “Well, if you begged, I'm not surprised she couldn't refuse.” She dipped her head and traced her lips lightly on Peitho’s jaw. “You are very good at begging.”

Peitho laughed low, tickles trickling down her throat and into her body. She slinked up against Hecate’s body and dropped her head back to open her jugular. “What I was thinking,” she sighed, “is we could have a little dinner and talk business, and then…” she hummed as Hecate’s lips padded lower, “maybe dessert?”

Hecate’s hand sneaked down from the small of her back and over her ass, stroking the plumpness cupped tight by the pencil skirt. “How about we have dessert, then talk?” Her clever fingers pinched the skirt zip. Peitho shivered as it dragged down. Hecate grinned and kissed the tip of her nose. “Or, more accurately, how about I have dessert?”

Peitho shuddered again, a tiny whine escaping her lips and echoing on the glass. Her skirt dropped to the floor. Hecate trailed her fingernails maddeningly over the base of her spine and stepped away. She took up her hand with mock gallantry and led her to the couch as if she was leading her down the stairs at a ball. They sank together into the firm cushions and relaxed into a slow, indulgent kiss. Peitho hooked her bare thigh over Hecate’s lap, her stilettos gleaming in the chilling light of the office. She moaned softly into the kiss and pressed needily to Hecate’s hard torso. She warmed as her seduction senses flooded with the goddess’ hunger. Hecate was a delightful enigma, she didn't crumble to her knees like most of Peitho’s marks. She was attracted to prey, turned on by turning her on, energised by her flutters of eager fear. It felt good not having to drive once in a while, to get to just melt and be devoured. She eased Hecate’s jacket from her broad shoulders and moaned again as Hecate pushed her tongue deeper into her mouth, controlling and savouring. The goddess’ arachnid fingers stole down the collar of Peitho’s blouse, her nipples tingling, hardening as she arched to be touched. A gold pendant slipped from the white silk.

Hecate frowned curiously and hooked it on the chain, breaking from Peitho’s lips and leaving them puffed like a fish. “What’s this? I’m an expert alchemist and I’ve never seen this symbol.”

Peitho stroked Hecate’s hair, smooth as strands of glass. “It’s new. It’s Aphrodite’s sigil.”

Hecate cocked an eyebrow and gave Peitho a look that from her was rarer than a black pearl. She was intrigued.

Peitho grinned, glowing with the memory of the moment when Aphrodite, the Graces and Horai had perfected the final details of their pamphlet and slammed it into the pink-paper-loaded photocopier with a cry of celebration and a glug of whiskey. They had made dozens, hundreds, gone through a stupid amount of ink and worn their fingerprints down folding. When the pamphlets were done they looked like wedding confetti ready to be whirled across the mountain by a wild gale. Each one was stamped on the cover with this new symbol, the circle with a cross descending from it, like a blooming, thorned rose. Peitho had looked around at the stacks and stacks of them and the tumble of her friends passing around the whiskey and laughing and cosying, dawn breaking through the window before Aglaea shut it out indignantly. Her fingers still buzzed with the graze of paper and her blood buzzed with what was coming.

She glanced over the low back of the couch to her own reflection superimposed over the upside-down night sky outside. She looked sultry and summery and tempting, a vanquishing bleed in this unforgiving darkness. She flashed herself a cocky smile and turned back to Hecate. “It's a hand mirror."

Hecate tilted her head curiously.

"Eat your dessert, and then I’ll tell you all about it.”

 

*

 

A large shadow fell over Antheia's pristine, white work desk at the Golden Apple Beauty Parlour. She glanced up from reorganising the varnishes by brand to see a very tall, very broad, very bright figure looking down at her with eyes like fire pits at a festival, his mess of blonde curls like smoke rising from them. 

Her mouth dropped open. "Your… Highness?"

"Nah, don't do that." The young prince's voice was as knee-buckling as she remembered. 

She straightened up in her chair and was so startled that it scooted a little back on its wheels. She grabbed the manicure desk with a squeak. She recovered herself with a dainty pat of her headband. "What… what are you… I mean, you're very welcome, obviously, can I get you a coffee? Or herbal tea? Or…"

"Can you get me a manicure?"

Antheia blinked.

Ares, as apparently she was supposed to call him somehow, held up a black slip of paper with gold, looping lettering. "I have a coupon."

She broke into a sunshine grin. "I don't think I really expected you to cash that in."

His face flickered. He looked almost shy. "Should I not?"

"No!" Her wheels skittered again. "I mean, yes! I mean…" She steadied herself. When he was accompanied by her patroness, he didn't seem so… big… and royal.

He gave her a lopsided grin and turned his hand to show her its back. The tips of uneven nails gleamed rose red with a chunk of plain growth pushing beneath them, bedding into fraying cuticles. "I'd really appreciate it, it's an emergency."

She beamed. Her fluttering nerves settled as ease radiated out of him. She gestured to the free seat across her station. "Gosh, you're right. Lucky for you, I had a cancellation."

He beamed too and dropped with a squeak of springs into the seat. The other girls along the row of stations stared. Antheia shot them a half cocky, half panicked look and turned back to the hunk of molten gold opposite her. He was gazing like last time with gentle interest around the clean, delicate, feminine space, his body language softly shrinking, respectful and peaceful. 

What a strange character for the God of War.

She beckoned for his hand.

Ares smiled placidly and handed her his large, angular paw. It was warm as plates coming out of the oven. She examined his nails and skin, scuffed, cracked and dry, peppered in dead white with what looked to be the final healing stages of small burns like flakes of sea salt. She frowned in concern, then tutted and began to prepare the acetone soak to strip the red gel away. "I thought I told you to take care of these."

He grimaced meekly. "Sorry."

"You're like one of those people who waits for the dishes to be just done and then uses a cereal bowl."

He laughed, a hot, crumbly sound like fresh-baked pastry crust. Antheia felt the last of her nerves trickle away. He may be a prince, but there was something so simple about being around Ares. She'd heard so many girls speculating awful things about him after they lost Aphrodite back to the ocean, but she hadn't been able to bring herself to believe what the magazines were saying. She'd seen them that day, that wasn't just some guy hounding after a lay, and Ares wasn't the kind of man to treat a woman like that. She just knew it. The way he rested like a tame lion and let her take care of his hands - non-regal, working hands. The way he fitted himself carefully into their world without threat, without demand. Ares was the sort of guy you trusted fast. He was safe. Hopefully now Aphrodite was back, they could work things out. Was that why he was here? To reconnect with her domain? Antheia smiled at him and put special care into her work.

"What colour are you thinking this time?" 

He blinked from his hazy gaze on the small mirror propped on the desk. He'd been looking into it like an animal does, as if trying to work out what he was seeing, rather than purposefully regarding himself. He turned to her with more of his guileless smile. "I was wondering about something like bronze? You know, to go with the shield and stuff. If you think that would, uh..." He shifted in his seat. "If you think that would look alright?"

She warmed at his uncertainty. "I like it."

"Yeah?"

"Who'da thunk, you have natural style."

"Let's not go crazy." He grinned with a sunset blush just painting into the edges of that incredible radiance from his eyes. This was why she wasn't spooked by him, this was why she was so sure whatever had happened to send her goddess away must be something forgivable. He was the second highest man on Olympus, but here in the nail salon, he deferred to them all like he was in their country. He acted like a guest, not a ruler.

He nodded at the engagement ring glittering on her finger as she bathed his ruined nails. "How's the wedding plans going? I asked Ma - I mean, uh, Hera - you know, to…" He cleared his throat and looked down.

Antheia warmed again. "Well, we got a humongous bargain on the venue, so looks like she sent us some luck." She gave his finger a little squeeze. "Thank you."

He shrugged. 

She wiped the last of the old varnish from his fingertips and watched his nose twitch at the strong scent of chemicals that she was all but numb too now. She picked up a file and started smoothing his stubby nails to clean curves with a series of rhythmic thwips. Ares' bundled, round shoulders dropped. She saw his chest rise and fall slowly under his navy t-shirt as he relaxed into the grounding sensation. His hand went heavy, as if she'd caught a falling pebble. His glimmering eyes drifted to a neat stack of rose pink pamphlets on the table corner. He frowned curiously. "What are those?"

Antheia smiled. "A message from Aphrodite. They've been distributed all over Olympus." She nodded at the symbol on the front with a flicker of pride. "That's her new sigil. It's a hand mirror. A gang of us all thought it up together."

Ares' impassive face did several vibrant, vivid things, then locked blank. His voice came hoarse. "She's… she's back?"

"She is."

His larynx tightened and sprang. His hand went brittle as bark in hers. "Oh." 

Her heart hopped. She tenderly stroked her thumbs over his rough knuckles and leaned across the table with a soft tone. "You wanna read it?"

He gulped. A tremor went through his fingers and he curled them a little in hers. She squeezed him again, watching his face with the eagerness pushing under her skin and making it a struggle not to say more. He sniffed and nodded. She grinned. He plucked a pink pamphlet in his free hand. His eyes fell to it with a churn of flame.

 

*

 

Hand Mirror 

 

Say honestly, do you like looking in the mirror?

Why not?

Who teaches us that?

What is to be gained from a person who cannot look at their reflection?

No.

What is to be feared from a person who can?

What have you been told about yourself that makes you not want to look in the mirror?

“I’m not beautiful enough for a gaze.”

Whose gaze? Beauty is as infinite as there are eyes in the realms, but one way of seeing has been forced on us. Your rulers have put out your eyes with hot pokers and painted over the void with the lie that desire is a straight arrow and not a wild thorn tree. Why? Because beauty is power, power owed to you by virtue of your skin and sinew, power they can take when your vision darkens on yourself. To claim the power of beauty is not to conform to the frieze adorning their palace walls, it is to restore your own gaze, heal your burned eyes, and see yourself with the beauty you already possess. Aphrodite Pandemos is Common to All, which means there is no living thing that has not been touched by beauty. 

They will call you vain. Laugh at them. Vanity is the fine, silver chain around your ankles that keeps you from striding into their throne room. It is broken with one bold step. Vanity is the weak whine of a falling king. Take his eyes as he took yours and use them to adorn the lights around your mirror. Behold yourself, wilfully see that you are beautiful, in vengeful reclamation. Gaze at yourself with love and take what you are owed under Aphrodite Rhamnusia.

 

Peitho rolled under Hecate's fingers, the sunset rays of her pleasure radiating into the blue-tinged obsidian of the sleep-dark office. She gazed through hooded eyes at Hecate's arachnid form prowling over her on the couch. The cool glimmer of the quiet city hazed the outline of the titaness' sapphire shoulders and sucked the warmth out of the gold at her throat. Being subject to this touch was like being swallowed by darkness. Peitho's perky, popping energy slowed and slowed and every sensation bloomed bioluminescent. She gazed at her own reflection in Hecate's ravenous pupils. She gazed at her own magenta eyes, her own cloud of hair smearing on the couch, her own misted skin glistening through creamy silk, her own needy nipples tenting the fabric. She gloried in her own beauty as much as her lover did. She took Hecate's free hand and sucked luxuriantly on her fingers and watched her own mouth. She spread her legs, pressing her pulsing pussy into the deep, massaging touch. She arched her spine and moaned. She sounded irresistible. 

Hecate snarled in her throat and slipped two fingers inside her, resounding pleasure gliding up the centre of her shaking body. Fangs glinted as lapis lips descended on Peitho's cheek, then ear. "You are so beautiful, and don't you fucking know it."

Peitho chuckled darkly and slid her hands into Hecate's open shirt to cup her small, soft breasts. "I know," she hummed. "Enjoy it with me, you stunning creature."

They glowed like chemical flames in the darkness.

 

“Too much is visible on my face.”

Why should your feelings not be visible? 

Our pain must be allowed to be meaningful to each other. We form our bonds and societies by bearing witness, by holding a pinch of the ash of each other’s suffering within our chests in act upon act of mutual love. To love, to hold community, is not just to intellectually understand another perspective, it is to ache in collective. That ache is the shield wall against invaders, it is the material for rebuilding the world kinder. Anyone who calls your ache, your sprinkling of ash, undignified does not deserve to be spared it. Weep for your injustice and Aphrodite Apostrophia will cleanse the city walls in tears. Our sorrow pours from our eyes because they are where people look to know us and the body understands that sorrow must be known. Make cruelty visible, make imprisonment visible, make carelessness visible, and wash away the lie that we are meant to accept it in peace. Abusers do not deserve invisibility and community does not function in it. 

Our joy is light, yet so many ask us to hide it, call it improper, vulgar, damning. Never defer to someone who takes no pleasure in your joy. Love seeks and nurtures and platforms joy, love reflects joy. Those who love you will become your mirrors, grieving when you grieve, celebrating when you celebrate. Anyone who is disgusted or angered by your joy has earned nothing from you. Do not give them the power to contain you. Be vulgar, be improper, be lawless in your happiness, because only an oppressor would make laws against your bliss.

Love never asks for invisible emotion.

 

Sinoe snapped her suitcase shut. She patted her bag and checked for her passport. She took one last look around her dingy apartment, the scar of black mould, the sofabed with the collapsed middle. She looked at the case with the video camera in it. Her stomach somersaulted. She grit her teeth and slung the strap over her shoulder, hauled up her luggage, and strode with her heels bouncing out of the door. 

The blinding lights on the stage of Last Resort speared through Eurydice's translucent body. But she felt solid. She felt more solid than she had in a long time. She skimmed her fingers over the guitar strings and rested them on the used body as the note whirled around her and stampeded over the frothing crowd. She touched the new sticker pasted to the varnished surface. Aphrodite's symbol. She'd never felt seen by a god before, never as anything more than chattel and fuel, but then those pamphlets had appeared on the bar. They said things she’d never had words for, they used some words she’d already said, and her name was listed on the back. A goddess had given her credit. A goddess was taking a stand. It was happening, it was finally happening. The cry of the forgotten was echoing above ground. She stroked the sticker and ploughed her pick over the strings again. Noise and light, song and screams and electric flashes obliterated the club, and with the stomping feet of the furious crowd before her, she felt the realms shake.

The Horai stumbled merrily through the blackout of Little Minoa, coats hanging open so their bare flesh pimpled in the cooling of early twilight. They jabbered over each other excitably.

"Did you see that guy hit a tree?"

"HA!"

"Bless the muse-caster, she took it in her stride."

"So they'll all have to, we're strutting."

"Strutting!"

They linked arms and sashayed giggling down the tangled streets, laughter and happiness and the high of getting away with it ricocheting between them and up to the rooftops.

 

“I look sick, I don't look right.”

Then you need to know. As we weep to call for the love of others, we sicken to call for the love of ourselves. Mirrors are blessed pools. We submerge our bodies in them and learn our needs and desires, we swim through them to find our healing. Your body cannot show you what you will not look at, and what it cannot show you cannot be treated. When your reflection reveals sickness, do not hate it for how you look, be grateful to it for trying to protect you, for illuminating your need to heal. The alternative is infection and fracture. Every pain you feel in flesh and joint and heart, every pallor and wound on your skin, every shadow left by a nightmare is a bell ringing in your body. How many cities would fall if they ignored their watchtower bells? Aphrodite Praxis stations your guards and physicians in your mirror. Looking at and so after ourselves is not an indulgence, it is a matter of life and death.

 

Rhythm and breath and petals flowed through Yasemin. The perfume of the garden filled her senses and made every inch of her body thrum and melt. The melody coursing from the seashell pumped into her muscles and she felt them strengthen as if she was lifting a sword or shot put. 

She danced.

She danced through jasmine and geranium, orange and lemon and water lily. She danced with bare feet sinking into soft grass and kissed by dew. She danced with hair flying and hands grasping the stars. She danced alone in a tumult of song. She grasped her friends and danced in unison in a flurry of laughter. Her aching back drew tall, her fogged head cleared, her sore eyes soothed and sparkled in the moonlight. She danced the sickness from her body. Her sisters encircled her, like a string of pearls.

 

“It makes me ashamed.”

We are told that shame is part of good order. Shame is the smart shears snipping the wild growth back so the garden blooms brighter. We are naturally dis-ordered and must be pruned to attain order. This is a lie. Any gardener knows that a growing thing needs nothing but care. Vines may be aided with a trellis, or blossom with trimming old matter, but shame is not a gentle attention to need. Shame is root rot. Shame does nothing but blight and drain. If your mirror shows you something that you want to change, then give yourself space and light and nourishment as you would any other growing thing. Growth happens with care. Gardens are places of nurtured harmony, not imposed order. Shame makes us turn away from ourselves, hide, feel unworthy of growth, not driven to it. To Aphrodite Kêpois, you are always worthy. Imperfection is human, beautifully so, and should only be met with love. You deserve to be loved for your journey, not for someone else’s ideal of your place or potential. 

 

The stones of the Temple of Hestia singed with pink fire and trembled with the slow, sensual tumbling of bodies. The sternness of the hard-working priestesses evaporated in the sweltering heat roaring from the immense, blinding heart that beat in the metal rib cage of the great hearth. The permanent soot etching their palms turned to black paste smeared over glimmering skin as they ran desperate, curious hands on each other. The tracks of their touches painted in charcoal interlace over the cauldron of bare, grinding flesh roasting in the belly of the temple. The pit of lovers steamed with sighs and seasoned with sweat. Aglaea cast rose petals over them in grand sweeps of their gilded hand. The petals mulched in the crush of bodies, shredded into the soot, scented the sizzling air sweet and mouth-watering and indulgent. Aglaea smiled with their broad lips and floated their hands over their luminous body. Pleasure trickled through their flesh like water and rippled out into the surrendered women.

Women twined their legs and hitched up their skirts and thrust their fingers into each other as they gasped and spasmed, hips twitching and thighs rubbing hard. They clawed down their dresses and seized their breasts and pushed their spiked nipples into loose, dripping mouths. They sprawled on their backs with dusty feet kicking in the air and panted and mewled as multiple tongues warred over their pussies. They pressed to the hot wall and their skin sparked as they gnawed on each other's throats and writhed on each other's hands. They clutched each other, pawed and grabbed, greedy and unabashed. Some crumbled under strained loves and melted into a single form, letting the ooze of chaos around them drift away into a single kiss. Some fell with abandon into pure, impulsive pleasure, rolling between bodies, snatching one and squeezing another, buried in smoke-scented hair and bound in fingers. Months, years, confined together, pure and proper, each with their own kernel of desire carried with them into their vows. The relief, the release, was viscous in the air, running like oil on their skin. 

They glistened in sweat and saliva like fresh-mined rubies. The searing, broiling magenta and lavender flames spilled lurid, delectable light over the current of women wrapping themselves around each other. It poured through the dregs of their dresses drizzled over their naked flesh. It washed away their shame and discipline and left them soft and slippery and yearning. The hollow room echoed with the rumbling and cracking of the hearth. Rasping, overcome moans built and layered in a symphony of seething and simpering. The music of a different kind of worship chimed around Aglaea. The smothering scent of sex and charred wood filled their senses. 

They chuckled under their breath and sprinkled another handful of petals into the fire.

 

All the time we are questioning our worth, we are not questioning the worth of those who shame us. Why should our rulers be our rulers? Who cares if we’re worthy of them - what made them worthy of us? It can't be true both that they deserve to rule by virtue of ruling and that we don't deserve to live by virtue of living. You are alive and as such you have inherent worth. There is no reason for them to have more value than you. All rulership is superimposed onto nature.

Nature does not waste, nothing exists without a role to play in the ecosystem, so simply by breathing you have value. But we are severed violently from the earth and organised into a hierarchy that claims that our purpose is not to partake in our natural ecosystem, but to serve a constructed one. Everything our rulers do is to keep us in that construct, in the fiction of their worthy kingship, because that which is unnatural, disconnected from the planet, can only survive on donated energy. They need our willingness or they wither, so they weave a world around us to make us willing. They claim credit for our happiness, they claim we would be savages and paupers without them, they claim they give us meaning - whatever lie we need to hear to let them drink our blood. The purpose of any parasite is to sustain itself. It lets the body live only to be its host and takes everything from it but the last scrap needed to survive and keep on feeding. There is no symbiosis, it needs and limits its host. Under a king, there is no symbiosis. Nothing is cyclical, nothing is returned, the only gifts we receive are rights held hostage. Hierarchy is the unidirectional flow of energy. If you are its subject, you are its blood donor. We host it and it takes our health.

But our roots in the earth are deep. She summons us home through hunger and desire and tenderness. She gives us needs only she can fulfil to shake us awake, to burn the idea that we are meant to host this hierarchy, to serve, to seek empty reward, to be drained in the lie that one more drop of blood will pay for liberty. She begs us to break from what uses and exhausts and demeans us. She begs us to seek real nourishment, real delight, real peace, real freedom through natural drives. So what must the kings do to keep their place? Suppress these feelings. They call hunger gluttony, desire violence, tenderness weakness. They call what is innate an imposition. They say that nature is beneath them and must be resisted if we want to rise. They want to control and use every part of us, and shame is the most effective tool of control there is. Trust your hunger, trust your desire, trust your tenderness. They are how you starve the parasite out. They are your energy restoring its flow into the earth so that we can all be sustained together. 

Imagine a life in that flow. Imagine how it would feel not to be drained.   

 

Ares' hand cycled between softly warm and gently cool as Antheia massaged a relaxing, nutty sweet almond cream into the dryness left by his burns. His fingernails gleamed bronze. The muscles in his arms had turned to dough. They'd talked for an easy while, her friendly gentleness a rippling drop in the oasis of the salon. She'd smirked as he kept glancing back at the pamphlet resting open by his forearm. She let him give up pretence and read it again.

It was as if Aphrodite was speaking to him. On the phone nestled on his pillow. In his arms as they stroked his hair. Under the hum of the car as they cruised along the horizon. Aphrodite's voice furled around him, scooped him into safety, kindled in his heart. 

She was back. 

His pulse pumped and his stomach fluttered.

Would they call him? Should he call them? Did they want that? Or was it really over? Maybe for them it was, but not for him. Here they were on this little piece of paper, still speaking to him. As long as they spoke, something was real, something was meaningful.

He brushed his pinkie finger over the delicate paper and sighed through his nose.

She was back.

Antheia eyed him with a twinkle and gave his hand another encouraging squeeze.

 

They would take your beauty and bravery and muscle and magic and turn it into equipment and fodder. 

Be enraged by this.

A human being cannot be owned. To rule us, they must first take our humanity. So look into the mirror and look at your own humanity. Look into the faces of the people around you and look at their humanity. Know humanity. Believe in, trust in, jealously cherish, and bitterly defend humanity. Obsess with lunacy over humanity. Fall fiercely in love with humanity. Divinity is not found above, but within, between, in love and reaction, in Mixis - the catalyst sparked when humanity meets itself. Aphrodite Symmakhia does not seek to write your laws, but to be your ally, because she finds you beautiful.

Your backs were not made to bend in labour, but to arch in pleasure.

Your tongues were not made to speak their rhetoric, but to taste the fruits of the land.

Your hands were not made to hold up their towers, but to hold each other in rapture and comfort.

Your eyes were not made to gaze on their illusions, but into your reflections and out to the beauty of the world.

Your hearts were not made to fuel their machines, but to beat ardently in a living, passionate being.

Your body is a thing of earth.

Your body does not owe.

Your body has nothing to be ashamed of

So celebrate your mirrors, my loves.

We live under control and control thrives on alienation. We are alienated from our bodies, our truths, our hearts, our rights, and from each other. Aphrodite Xenia disavows the act of alienation, all is made familiar with care, and care begins with open eyes.

Be defiant in vanity and take back your power.

Exhibit your feelings and take back your space.

Recognise your needs and take back your body.

Look at yourself with unconditional love and take back your humanity.

Meet yourself in the mirror. Reflect. Reconnect. Meet each other in the Mixis. Spark. Surge. 

Love your way to liberation.

You carry the blessing of Aphrodite.

 

In the high-end heart of Olympus, a hush fell in the Thespian Theatre, and in the dark, soaring wings of the curtained stage, a goddess waited to make her entrance.

 

*

 

"You look pretty tonight."

"Be quiet, it's starting." 

Zeus rolled his eyes and leaned his elbow on the hard arm of his velvet seat in the royal box of the Thespian Theatre. Hera sat beside him with her back board-straight and peacock blue silk fanning from her waist and spilling grand and luscious to the floor. The huge skirt puffed over Zeus' pointed shoe. She wasn't looking at him, her perfect nose pointed like a crossbow at the wide, curtained stage. He surveyed her, her skin even more golden in the theatre's warm, sepia lights, her mouth like carved sandstone. He clucked his tongue and looked to his other side. Athena was seated with her knees too wide for a woman, her unflatteringly loose, straight dress and broad jacket in shades of grey that gave her the look of forged steel. She glanced at him and twitched a bland smile. At least one of his children liked him. He let his joints go loose in the cushions. With any luck it would be dark enough over the audience for a nap.

It had been a long week. He'd barely had an hour go by without the managers of Olympus Energy calling him about this tantrum in Little Minoa. It was like these ingrates thought their whining paid him for his electricity. Then he'd been constantly distracted from coming up with a solution because of this infernal, adolescent malaise Ares had gotten himself into. It had wreaked havoc on basic domestic order, not to mention the flammable furnishings. And there was this constant pawing at his office door for him to do something about it. "Talk to him, he'll listen to you," will he fuck. "You're his father," yes, I'm all too aware. Over the past day or two, the boy finally seemed to regain a modicum of self-control, only to become the most unpleasant sack of sulk Zeus had had to deal with in a long time, and that was saying something with his son. Ares had apparently woken up one morning and, seemingly at random, decided Zeus was some kind of cursed figurine and that occupying the same space as him, just looking at him, would result in his flesh melting off or some shit. Every time Zeus had entered the room, Ares had bared his teeth like a mutt and strode out, his meaty fists balled and his eyes boiling. Just as they'd made some progress too. And as if that wasn't bad enough, his temper seemed to be seeping into his mother. Zeus thought he'd maxed out her scorn, but turns out she was a bottomless well. The gulf between them in the bed was so big now that he couldn't even touch her accidentally if he stretched in the night. His chest panged. He flinched it quiet. She'll come around now things are back to normal. If Ares really was naïve enough to pine for that titaness bitch, let him. Aphrodite was back underwater and Olympus could breathe again. 

He could breathe again.

He forced himself to inhale slowly through his nose as a lightbulb flickered overhead. He hadn't realised how deep in his head he'd gone.

He glanced down at Hera's dress touching his foot. He ground his teeth and gazed around the grand theatre. The ballet wasn't actually starting yet, Bunny, the orchestra was just warming up. Instruments creaked and squealed and groaned atonally, the sound filling the Thespian like bubbling water, swelling slowly to seep into every groove and cavity. The packed audience began to shush each other, irritating Zeus' ears more than the scraping and droning of the orchestra. He folded his arms and dropped his head back and idly counted the owls he could spot carved into the elaborate brass and plaster ornamentation around the great cascade of crimson seats. Alcoves ringed the stalls from which the serene eyes of pale statues watched over the babbling, excited viewers. He noticed he wasn't among the figures, despite the royal treasury footing the bill for this place's badly needed facelift. The theatre interior had a slightly uncanny quality now it was polished again, the old-fashioned design in such clean, shiny material making it a time capsule. Zeus felt a little like a paper doll in a paper scene. 

At least everyone else was excited. The whole vast room hummed like circuits with the anticipation of the audience, all decked out in their best dress and twisting and swishing around to murmur to each other like peacocks crowding a lawn. Zeus rubbed his fingertips together to feel the static in the air, the electrical charge of energised people. It was a little dull, as if he was wearing gloves. He used to be better at picking up on this.

The conductor's baton rapped sharply three times and the squeezebox racket of the instruments dwindled. The audience silenced, the single intake of breath hissing along the varnished wood. Polite clapping rose like the flap of starling wings as the heavy, red, velvet curtain swept away to show a pitch black stage. 

Zeus glanced once more at Hera before the lights faded and dipped them all into darkness. 

A moment of hush.

The music began in a soft exhalation, a romantic sigh dreaming its way into the darkness. A moonglow spotlight slowly bloomed centre stage. It illuminated a figure, visibly tall and elegant, despite being completely concealed from the shins up by two enormous, white, ostrich feather fans, a descending mist over the dancer’s body. She stood with her feet neatly crossed, twinkling in diamante, heeled shoes. 

The sigh of sound rose and died, it took a breath, it rose again. The fans quivered and swished, one floating out and behind her, the other in an arc to reveal her torso and keep her face hidden. The audience audibly shifted forward as warm, fuzzy light snuggled to the body of the dancer, full, fluid curves covered only by a wisp of white fabric. The short dress fell over her breasts so finely that her sweet skin glimmered through, the shape tucked to emphasise the point of her nipples. It fluttered soft and loose over her belly and hips, the light shining through it as it stirred so her figure peeked beneath. She twirled, the feathers streaming, skirt ruffling. The twirl showed her hair, the colour of cornflowers in the evening, styled in a glossy wave. 

A harp rippled.

She took a graceful step. She tip-toed across the stage, followed devotedly by the spotlight. The fans moved like seafoam, lapping with the gentle pace of the music up and down around the dancer. They offered the briefest glimpses of her turned-away face over and over, but always cloaked it again before it could come into focus. The audience held their breath and peered curiously. The dancer twirled again, tottered again, twirled once more. The fans brushed against her and burst out in taunting cycles, weaving mystique around her that lured the fixated crowd like bees to their queen. They hummed just like it, mouths silent but the theatre buzzing with shuffling in seats and caught breaths and hands entwining as all craned towards her mysterious magnetism. 

Zeus relaxed in his seat. He had no idea what part of the Titanomachy this was meant to represent, but it was a very pretty display. He stroked his chin and poked his straight nose forward, also trying to see more of the dancer’s face. 

The romantic music brightened and swelled, cool water collecting in the well of a mountain brook. It bubbled higher. The feathers, now closed around her body again, shimmered like silk. They parted. Slowly. Their tendrils teased free of each other and they flowed open, a parting waterfall, a splitting shell. The dancer seemed to sprout out of them, a bud breaking from frost and defying winter, rising into the sunlight and shining with delicate glory. Her long legs swept forward, feet sparkling, her broad hips pendulumed, the spotlight spread over her bare upper chest and round shoulders. The fans flew up, rushed into the air and crowned the figure like steam billowing from a teapot. Her face lifted at last to the audience and was bathed in lily light.

The audience gasped.

Zeus’ stomach lurched.

The tight intrigue of the audience snapped and they gushed with admiring applause mixed with murmurs of excitement and glee. 

“Wow!”

“It’s her.”

“Did you know she was performing?”

“Was this on the programme?”

“We’re so lucky!”

Aphrodite shamed the spotlight with the brilliance of her smile. She blessed the audience with it, anointed them with it, each one touched by its pure beauty as if by rosewater in her temple. 

Zeus felt it move in a tidal force through the energy of the room. Worship.

One smile, and they were her disciples.

His throat closed. He tugged subtly on his bow tie and glared.

Aphrodite grinned with gracious girlishness out to the theatre, their fans hovering overhead, still shimmering. The music undulated. She moved with it. They pointed their twinkling toe to step forward.

The spotlight went out.

The space was plunged into darkness. Quiet murmuring thrummed as the vision was ripped away. The orchestra wound down uncertainly.

The spotlight clicked back on. Aphrodite was standing on the stage with her fists on her hips, plumage flapping. They were frowning in a mime of irritated confusion over the heads of the audience towards the tech desk. The audience tittered. She narrowed her eyes and made a show of waiting to make sure the light was staying on. She relaxed and spread the fans again, smile returning. The music rolled back up, picking up its pace into a beach breeze. She pranced and pirouetted around the stage, spun by strums of the harp and ribboning violin. She moved like an ice dancer. The white costume and white feathers glistened like curls of snow and mist kicked up on a frozen lake as she glided as if in flight. They paused on their toes and prepared for another enchanting sequence.

The spotlight went out.

The music crunched.

The audience giggled. The light flashed bright again and Aphrodite was huffing a lock of hair off their face and standing with their arms crossed, the fans at their elbows. They looked cartoonishly disgruntled. The audience laughed in earnest. She rolled her eyes theatrically and shimmied back into position, plastering her smile back onto her luminous face. 

Zeus set his jaw.

The music kicked up, deeper, raunchier. The huge fans soared into the air like the wings of a descending swan. The goddess beamed and rotated her wrists, the feathers doing cartwheels overhead, ruffling and trembling with the motion. She rippled with the music and the audience began to sigh and clap. She picked up her glittering feet and raced across the stage, the feathers streaming behind her. The spotlight ignited their tips so it looked like flames were spilling from her extended arms. Their thighs and breasts quivered in the flimsy fabric. The audience quivered with them, the energy rising with the tinkling piano and groaning trumpet. Another light flared at the stage edge, a screen adorned with the silhouettes of palm trees. Aphrodite surged towards it like the waves to the shore. They vanished behind it. 

Their silhouette was naked.

"How did they do that?”

“Oooo!”

“Oh my!”

Zeus clenched.

The Aphrodite shadow spread the huge fans wide and high, an explosion atop a shapely figure like the palm trees framing them. They posed with one knee suggestively cocked, standing side on so the proudness of their nose and the perk of their breasts and the arch of their spine and the fangs of their high heels were all inked starkly onto the golden glow. They kept the feathers moving softly, stirred by the breaths of warming music. It gave the provocative impression of being outside, of being nude in public. 

Zeus ground his teeth and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Hera arched an eyebrow, remembering the earlier news report.

Aphrodite moved smoothly through a few poses, exhibiting her lusted after body as the audience’s quiet reverie heated. She wafted their whispers with her fans. It swelled in the stuffy space. 

The lights and music died.

“Oh, come ON!” Her tantrum yell dashed laughter out of the audience, rich and bouncing as they expelled the heat from the pits of their stomachs. 

They were still chuckling as the lights returned, let her pose once more, and flickered out again. The laughter skipped and sang around the space. The spot winked back onto the edge of the dark screen. Aphrodite’s irate face bobbed into it, glaring like a hawk up at the tech desk. She pointed up into the spot and wagged her finger scoldingly. The spotlight dimmed and brightened as if cowed. They fixed it with a stern are you going to behave now? look. It bobbed up and down as if nodding. The audience hooted and cackled, totally at odds with the refined dignity of Athena’s theatre.

Zeus prickled as his daughter leaned to his ear. “What is this?”

He shrugged tightly and kept staring at the stage with his brow knotting.

Aphrodite looked satisfied and vanished back into the dark. The music whirled to life, the screen shone. Their silhouette whirled too, and then it was their divine body. They came spinning gracefully from behind the screen. The light eddied around their diamante shoes and in their voluminous hair. One fan was laid over their torso, just wide enough to hide their breasts and vulva, the other over their ass, flailing like kitsune tails. The fineness of the feathers lured the audience away from laughter. Slivers of her lavender skin peeked through the haze of white. The fans only clouded the most scandalous things to reveal, the rest on full display and firing the imagination. Her legs slid parted in her twirl, the swell of her breasts rose with shallow breaths over the tip of the veil, her bare shoulders and back ruthlessly tempting. Shivers went through the crowd.

As they spun, a second screen illuminated on the opposite side of the stage, another palm tree tableau. They vanished into it and posed even more dramatically. The crowd whistled and clapped, comically loosening ties and leering through opera glasses, giggling to each other at their lewd interest.

Athena watched the collapse of the theatre’s intellectual ambience. 

The music pumped, wound, sex bleeding into the innocent romance of it. It built to a resounding bump as Aphrodite’s silhouette slid their legs wide and thrust in a shudder of feathers.

And knocked out the light.

The audience blasted with laughter. The spotlight sheepishly returned and Aphrodite stomped ridiculously into it, feathers flurrying and her half-concealed curves bouncing. She scowled into the light. She flipped it off. Athena raised her eyebrows. The crowd guffawed and made crass sounds of disappointment at the act being interrupted. Aphrodite smirked at the encouragement and tossed her hair. She whipped into a series of aggressively teasing moves, spinning again. She flashed the fans out in hypnotic turns, one always just covering their body in time as the other revealed it. The tormenting possibility of seeing them in full galloped through the theatre, onlookers getting restless and raucous. The high-class haven sank into debauchery, all cat-calls and crudeness. She smiled blindingly. 

Until the lights went out again.

Wild booing.

And back on.

Elated cheering.

And off.

“BOOOOO!”

On.

“YAAAAAAAY!”

The music and lights halted and flared in speeding cycles. Aphrodite flickered like a flip page cartoon between joy and flirt and pouty frustration as her act got ever more salacious and ever more interrupted. She kept floating the fans captivatingly around her, the feathers scintillating, her limbs liquid in how they slipped through poses. Every now and then the audience leaped at an almost glimpse of something taboo, winks of light on a diamante thong and nipple pasties, stars through cloud. Every time they were on the cusp of the reveal, the lights cut out and the room exploded with booing. 

Zeus clawed at the arm of his chair.

The fans went faster, gyrating with their hips, blazing with their smile. They gave her rays like a sun, an addictive aura. She spun again, her sides exposed and shadowed. They halted in another splash of darkness and screech of stopping music. The light and tune returned and they had their back to the audience, looking over their shoulder with their lip jutting angrily and a sassy slouch to their pose. One fan was raised overhead, the other formed a grand bustle over their ass, but held low, the glistening tip of their thong sneaking over the top. The music continued in sultry sighs. The audience sighed too, drooling at the tiny hint of her sumptuous flesh. She straightened up with a puff through her cute nose and turned away. She strutted towards the back of the stage. The spotlight followed her and fell on a small set of steps. She sauntered up them, hips swinging to huge scoops of song. The balletic music finally tumbled into bombastic cabaret. She ascended the steps, a dove soaring from fire, and folded backwards. The raised fan swished down like an unfurling peony petal and spread luxuriantly over the stage. Her naked torso arced like she was being teased up by soft pinches on her pointed, adorned nipples. Her skin crested into the light and sparkled with wonderful flamboyance. 

The audience lost their minds. 

The lights blew out. 

The music silenced with a blam!

Then it detonated. The whole orchestra barrelled like a runaway train into a final, deafening note that quaked the theatre walls and threatened to reduce the austere plaster figures to dust. The spotlight didn’t return with it. Across the back wall of the stage, dazzling letters blazed to life, flashing in coin gold and flamingo pink over Aphrodite’s draped body, garish and glitzy and gutsy. 

WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIGHT

Two thousand faces turned to the royal box.

Zeus’ mouth contorted into an ugly look between fury and nausea.

The spotlight swung to him.

Athena turned to rock. Hera’s eyes widened. She hastily kicked him under her long skirts, booting the thunderous expression from his face. He gulped painfully and fixed something proper and polite in its place. 

Four thousand expectant, accusing eyes.

He stiffly inclined his head. He forced his hands up and gave a few, small claps, every touch of palm to palm grazing the lining of his stomach.

Laughter and mocking murmurs and nervous gasps.

Zeus’ eye twitched, his intestines full of hot tar.

The spotlight wheeled back down to Aphrodite. 

They stood emblazoned across the blaring message, feet and fans spread boldly. They finally fully revealed their body in a joyful exhibition of their beauty, their complete shamelessness, their vivacious pleasure at themself and everything they were. Their bare belly was encrusted with gems forming a sparkling symbol in rainbow crystals so bright that they looked on the brink of shattering; a circle with a cross descending from it.

A hand mirror.

Aphrodite took a deep breath and gulped for air. The satisfied exhaustion flowed through her muscles as the high of applause raced through her veins. She was microwaving in the stage lights. The spot hid the audience, but their cacophonous hurricane of applause almost lifted her off her acrylic stilettos. She could feel it in her blood.

Worship.

They dropped their head back, closed their eyes, and drew it into their lungs, like blue lotus. The monsoon of adoration fell over their skin. They beamed. They let loose a peel of delighted laughter. The clarion noise washed away into the sound of her own breathing, alive and free and indestructible.

 

*

 

A draught was coming from somewhere. The Spartan fortress was ramshackle, hastily thrown together out of sandy stone and splintering wood, sheltered by the draconic fangs of a jagged mountain range. The wind blew rock dust along the busy, unmarked settlement streets and through the cracks in the buildings to sweep over the plain floor of the makeshift royal house. Footprints in the dust were the only sign that Ares was there. 

He stood at a rough-cut door on a long, undecorated corridor, the general restless racket of the city rumbling through the wall behind him. His sharp ear occasionally pricked with the high hum of a blade. His senses sizzled. Flames threatened in his blood and pores, his skin tight and his throat tight and his muscle drawn to spring. Everything in Sparta touched him. Everything about Sparta touched him. Every heated outburst and proud declaration and sudden memory of battle across the almost-city flared under his skin until he was tearing at the edges. He couldn't tell if they were doing it to him or he was doing it to them. 

Could they feel him? 

His people?

There was a lot of anger here.

He looked down at the small, pink pamphlet scrunched in his fist. He tutted at himself for crumpling it, he hadn't realised he'd clenched so hard. He carefully smoothed it with his thumbs, dim light from a lamp bracket shimmering on his fresh, bronze nail varnish. He gazed at the grainy print of the new symbol, a circle with a cross descending from it, like a sword and shield linked together. 

The hand mirror.

Shame does nothing but blight and drain. If your mirror shows you something that you want to change, then give yourself space and light and nourishment as you would any other growing thing. Growth happens with care.

He brought the paper to his face and breathed through his nose. Rosewater. He exhaled slowly and folded it into his leather breastplate, over his heart.

He'd dressed plainly. He didn't want to arrive in godly splendour to find he'd been abandoned and they were worshipping some guy from over the water or something. Jeez, that would be embarrassing. But as the pamphlet tickled his chest, he squared his shoulders and steadily dipped inside his body, through the turmoil of his crowded senses and into the pit of his stomach. He drew out his visionary form like a shard from a wound. It bled over him, the black helm, the long, glinting spear, the crimson aura that drenched the pale floor beneath his feet. His body thrummed with it. 

He took one more breath.

He stepped through the door without opening it.

The chamber glowed with firelight. Dozens of oil lamps flickered red around the mess of the room, dangerously close to the stacks and balls and scatters of paper littering a large table and several other surfaces. The flames rippled up bare, stone walls and made the rickety room look Atlantian, swimming in bloody water. Weapons were hung in brackets and piled in corners, bronze looking molten in the trickle of light. It shone on the red hair of a man with his back to Ares. He was kneeling in the corner of the room in a pool of lamplight before a statuette carved in dark stone. The statue was of a muscled warrior standing straight and brandishing a spear, naked but for a plumed helmet perched on his inclined head. His eyes were deep set and glaring with flickering, crimson shadow almost as rich in colour as the cup of blood laid at his feet. The man had draped the statue’s hard shoulders in a shed snake skin. It glistened deathly white in the darkness. 

Ares frowned. Is that me?

The man's broad shoulders rose and fell in a steadying breath that carried a whispered prayer. It silked through Ares' veins with a sensation he'd never felt before. He hadn't been connecting with prayer. He'd told himself not to expect any.

"Lord Ares, Brazen, Piercing, please, hear me…"

His voice pressed on Ares' heart, strained, quavering with burdened hope. 

"Ares, War Crier. Enyalius…"

Enyalius. That was new.

It hummed somewhere deep.

Warlike.

The way this man said that word.

As beautiful.

Ares swallowed. He gazed at the statue and its fragmenting reflection in the cup of blood. He could smell the offering, taste it. Like the battlefield.

He cleared his throat. "Menelaus?"

The man halted. He turned on his knees. He gasped and scrambled around, lurching backwards and knocking the cup of blood to spill over the floor in a black swathe. His palm planted into it and he recoiled. It soaked into the hem of his chiton, seeping through the weave like the firelight. His bare feet scrabbled as he shook his bloodied hand. He had a handsome, healthy face bordered with a neat, curled beard and hair the colour of the flames, but it was warped by terror. He stared up at Ares, the whites of his eyes stark. “My… My Lord!” 

Ares stood silent. He curled his fist on his spear so Menelaus couldn’t see him tremble.

Menelaus’ broad chest heaved in a gasp. Then he hurried to kneel again, spreading the animal blood around him as he folded over reverently, his hands clasped. “Mighty Ares, show me no mercy, I offer my arms.” His bright hair tumbled over his face as he bowed deep.

Ares looked down at the king of Sparta, the brave, beloved general who had been raised up by the swarming warriors as the settlement staked itself into the valley. He was barely older than Ares, and Ares had taken to him instantly, their twin youthful exhilaration at the race into battle feeding each other in a single blaze of glorious fire that made the Spartans inhumanly brave and their enemies ashen with fear. That fire was dimmed now. Menelaus looked as if he’d been clawing his way out of a ravine for the past weeks. His face was sagging and bruising with lack of sleep and his strong physique was stiff, unexercised and uncomfortable to inhabit. The vigorous pleasure of living in a warrior’s body, feeling through a warrior’s body, had been severed from him as he had buried himself in polis-making, in dropping what had made him Spartan and struggling to be yet another sensible Greek city state.

We are severed violently from the earth and organised into a hierarchy that claims that our purpose is not to partake in our natural ecosystem, but to serve a constructed one. 

Ares eyed the stain of blood under the king and sucked his teeth. He wanted to grab him by his hair and smear him in it, remind him of the smell of slaughter, of what he was, who he was, make him cast off the politician and run away back into the ranks. But that wasn’t what he came here to do. He wasn’t here to reverse anything. He was here with the decision, for the first time, to believe in his future. 

He opened his mouth to tell Menelaus to get up, his face heating at the show of deference from one he’d run beside as an equal, one he’d abandoned. He stopped his tongue. He took a breath so his chest pushed against Aphrodite’s paper. He’d come here to see himself, to learn what he was to this burgeoning city. He glanced at the statue, plain but for the eyes inlaid with rubies and glittering hot. He thought of the brief moments when Menelaus seemed to catch him out of the corner of his eye. As they set their shields against their opponents, his reflection in the bronze had fuelled Menelaus with its determined glare. He sniffed the scent of simmering oil and remembered the smell of close, oiled bodies, the packing of meat and muscle around him ready for the brutality, hungry for it. He’d seen himself as one of them, not their god, but their comrade. Shoulder to shoulder. Shield to shield. But then he’d left for Olympus, for his father, and that hot, instinctive brotherhood had begun to make him feel like a leech. He hadn’t been one of them at all, how dare he claim that? He was the force rotting their hearts, making them violent, making them mad, sucking their courage for his twisted highs as they died in the sand. He was a shadow, a demon, a user. He was no ally. 

But all this time, this is how they’d sculpted him. A body like theirs, armed like them, with that glinting glare spurring them to victory. An old knot in his gut pulled and told him he didn’t deserve this honour. He breathed against Aphrodite’s words again.

You deserve to be loved for your journey, not for someone else’s ideal of your place or potential. 

It didn’t matter what living with Zeus had made him believe of himself. If this was what these mortals saw, and mortals were the vessels of the truths of gods, then he should look at it. He shouldn’t shrink back. 

He stepped silently towards Menelaus, closer and closer as he trembled, until the king was engulfed in Ares’ shadow and Ares’ toes touched wet. Ares took another breath in the stifling scent of burning oil. He lowered himself to one knee, cupped Menelaus’ chin in his hand, and lifted his face. He smiled wryly. “Hey, relax. You know gods are more scared of you than you are of them.”

Menelaus gaped into his face, his honey brown eyes wheeling. His voice came like paper tearing. “You came back.”

“Yeah.” Ares could feel his jaw shaking in his fingers. His beard was soft.

Menelaus wheezed out a tremulous smile. “I… we… I thought…”

Ares frowned. “What?”

A whisper, hesitant, terrified. “That we'd lost you.”

Ares frowned deeper, darker, eyes crackling with red light like the statue’s. He’d left Sparta telling himself they needed to be free of him, would soon want to be free of him when the high of battle had ebbed. 

They missed me?

He sighed heavily and moved back from Menelaus’ face, withdrawing his hand. Menelaus’ fingers flexed in his lap, as if tempted to pull Ares back, but not daring to touch him. Ares rocked to sit on the paved floor. He dropped his visionary form, the helm and spear wisping away in black smoke. He ran his hand through his hair. Menelaus gazed at his god, handsome, golden... humble. 

Ares rolled his jaw and kept his eyes down in the shadows. “You didn't lose me, Menelaus. I failed you.”

Menelaus looked stricken. He leaned forward on his knees, chiton still trailing in blood spill. “No! No, never, Lord, forgive my doubt!”

Ares rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. “Nah, seriously. I, uh, I know no one ever really believes this, but it is true a lot of the time. It's not you, it's me.”

Menelaus’ thick, red eyebrows quirked.

Ares dropped his hand and breathed thoughtfully. He could feel the king’s wide, warm eyes on him. He could still feel his prayers under his skin. Not just tonight’s prayer, all of them, weeks’ worth. A city’s worth. A king who was the first king. The vessel of possibility, of hope. 

Of risk.

Bronze sang in a choir outside.

Ares finally brought his eyes back to Menelaus and almost blushed at the rush of feeling from the mortal. It was a feeling he couldn’t name, one he’d never sensed before, intense and needy and obsessively focused. It didn’t have a taste, it was like something was being driven in a smooth, straight line into his chest. But it was somehow pleasurable. He huffed and thought of Aphrodite, of being open about his feelings. Honesty for honesty. 

Love never asks for invisible emotion.

He looked into Menelaus’ beautiful eyes. “Sparta is a place of great power. I am a new god and I wasn't prepared for it. I was afraid that if I stayed, I would bring out your darkness and in turn unleash darkness on Greece.”

Menelaus straightened up and scoffed incredulously, his scarred hand flying to his forehead. “Sparta a place of power? It is barely an outpost! A cobbled together fortress with half-written laws and half-governed people.” His hand flew down and he gazed at Ares with another push on that shaft in Ares’ chest. “What power it has is yours, My Lord.”

Ares sharpened. He fixed Menelaus with a stern glare. The flickering planetarium of flames around them brightened red. “Sparta is a community where a month ago was scrubland. And you are a king where a month ago you were a general.”

“I am a poor king.” Menelaus’ voice was hoarse and stumbling. He took his eyes from Ares and darted them around his own bowed body. “I'm floundering. I have no idea what I'm doing and people are starting to notice. The first blush of inspiration has faded and now they want order and custom and identity and I give them hasty, circumstantial judgements. Everything I do is triage on a society that feels like a fresh wound.” He took a shuddering breath and opened his mouth to keep berating himself.

Ares knew this spiral. He reached out quickly and took Menelaus’ hand. It was warm, rough with new scars and knobbled from an old break. Menelaus silenced instantly and looked back into Ares’ face with a fierce blush that bled into the firelight. Ares smiled. “Sounds familiar.” He squeezed his hand and spoke with a low, comforting husk, covering his nerves in a glimmer of quiet bravado. “But, hey, maybe if you help me figure out how to be their god, I can help you figure out how to be their king.”

Menelaus gazed at their conjoined hands. Awe and relief fluttered around his face with the unstill light. He spoke with a vein of vulnerability through his rough voice that made Ares feel like a shield. “I was so afraid I had lost your favour in my mistakes, that my cowardice was an unforgivable sin.”

Ares gripped his hand hard and stroked his thumb over it, his bronze nail gleaming. “Cowardice is a sin, fear isn't. Of course you're afraid, Menelaus, of course you're lost. Olympus dropped a new country into your hands and fucked off. Of course you're making mistakes. But you're still here. Maybe you're not doing more than packing a wound, but you're also not letting it bleed. You're scared out of your mind, but you're leading anyway, acting anyway. You are not a sinner in the Cult of Ares.”

The Cult of Ares? That felt weird. Not bad weird, though. 

Menelaus’ sword-wielding strength pressed through to Ares’ bones. His eyes closed with his hand and a tear squeezed from them. It trickled down his cheek, turning to gold and disappearing into his beard. His heavy shoulders dropped. His whole body dropped, seeming to loosen after weeks of being held rigid as scaffolding. He whispered faintly into the glow between them from Ares’ skin. “Why did you choose me?”

Ares paused. He ground his teeth subtly. 

Do I tell him this?

He eased his jaw relaxed again.

Openness. Feel together.

He stroked his thumb firmer on Menelaus’ trembling hand. “I didn't. You stepped up. The war was won and the vacuum opened and chaos waited on the edges, and you took charge and kept it at bay. Your own heart moved you, your own strength, not me.”

“Then… was I wrong? Was there someone else?”

“No.” He looked earnestly into the king’s eyes, flames reflected in the wide pupils. “That's what I'm trying to tell you, Menelaus. I don't make chosen ones. I take the hands of those who make their own choice to act.” He shifted forward, his knee printing into the gum of blood on the stone. “I left you for my own stupid reasons. I was wrong. I didn't know what my purpose in this realm could be. But someone I respect very much has helped me. They've taught me that we have to look at ourselves. Even if we're afraid of ourselves, we aren't safer not knowing who we are. So I've come back to Sparta to look at myself, and I see now what I have to do.” One corner of his buttercup mouth perked in a hot smile. “I've decided I'm going to be there for the people that step up.” He lifted his free hand to cup the king’s cheek, his beard tickling his wrist. He swept the tears from his sun-beaten face. “I'm here for you, Menelaus. If you'll have me, flawed as I am, you can consider me your patron.”

Menelaus gazed with eyes shining and hair full of firelight. His chest rattled with a tight, fragile breath. 

He nodded.

Ares’ heart swelled. It rose in his chest as if rushing to meet Menelaus, deepening the pleasurable pressure of that strange emotion the mortal was pushing into him. He followed his heart forward and pressed his lips to Menelaus’. Menelaus’ breath hitched. He tensed in shock, then immediately melted. Their connected fingers entwined and Menelaus hesitantly brought his free hand to stroke Ares’ wrist, painting his skin in the blood from his palm. Their kiss was soft, but deep, a steady giving to each other, intimate and calm, a pause in the race. Ares caressed Menelaus’ jaw and pulled him into the heat of his lips, reassuring, gently passionate, showing him with the slow stirring of the tip of his tongue that he was real and solid and present, that he cared. Menelaus kept hold of his wrist, fingers tightening over his pulse to feel its strength, the dum, dum, dum at a war drum pace. His eyes drifted a sliver open and widened in amazement. He slipped from the god’s kiss, but stayed close to him, gold and copper curls braiding. Ares could feel Menelaus’ breath on his cheek as he nodded to his chest and whispered cautiously, “My Lord…”

Ares frowned and glanced down. A rich, red light was emanating from his heart, illuminating the rim of his dark, leather breastplate and flooding the hollow of his throat. He broke into a grin so wide it tore his cheeks. He caught Menelaus' mouth again and murmured warmly between warm kisses. "That's a good thing. I think that means I'm where I most wanna be." He thought of Aphrodite, of her hand pressed to the glow as he kissed her neck. "Where I most feel. Where I most belong."

Menelaus shuddered and curled his fingers tight on Ares'. "You think you belong with us, Mighty Ares? In a city crumbling before it's built?"

Ares chuckled and moved his lips to kiss his brow. He stood and pulled Menelaus up by his hands. The king's plain garments were stained with dust and the spilled blood, also streaked into the hair on his shins and the lines of his palm. Ares dusted him off a little and bent to look with a smile into his bruised eyes. "It's not crumbling." The city's sanguine energy thrummed under his skin. "Believe me, this place is ready to rise."

Menelaus smiled. It was a tired, laden expression, but it ignited with that striking, comforting confidence that had made this pack of dogs loyal. 

Ares clapped his shoulder and strode to the table groaning under the weight of discarded papers and precarious oil lamps. He moved the flames to safer positions and started to clear a little space. "So, you said something about half-written laws?"

Menelaus rubbed his eye. "Honestly, more like quarter-written."

"Sounds boring, I'm in."

He frowned in surprise. "My Lord?"

Ares slapped the table and bounced to perch on it, pteruges tapping together. "Crack open something with a kick to it and get another stack of paper. I am the master of the last minute homework all-nighter."

Menelaus' smile broke its yoke and ran wild over his face, taking weeks of stress off him. He hurried to obey. He spread fresh papyrus and styli on the table, then clattered in a cupboard and returned with two clay cups and an amphora with a fruity tang curling from it. He poured wine the colour of the sacrificial blood into the cups. "Shouldn't we involve the council?"

"You made a council?"

"Yes. And a second king. You might remember him, Leonidas?”

“Sure, I remember Leonidas.” Leonidas was a fellow general, older than Menelaus, grizzled and gruff and less of a thinker, but solid as a mountain and braver than a migrating bird. 

“But he’s sleeping in the mess to keep up morale while I handle this." Menelaus grimaced. “Whatever this is.”

Ares blinked and back-tracked. “Hold up, you made a second king?”

Menelaus looked a little bashful. "I wanted to be fair. I thought if there were two, there’s always a check and balance. No one has ultimate sovereignty. And the two of us are quite different." He chuckled softly. "He won't go along with my bad ideas."

Ares tingled. 

Under a king, there is no symbiosis. Nothing is cyclical, nothing is returned, the only gifts we receive are rights held hostage. Hierarchy is the unidirectional flow of energy. 

What if this wasn't just a chance to make another city state? What if this was a chance to make something different? A reflection of him, of what he believed, what he cared about?

Something his father wouldn't make.

Something defiant.

Trust your hunger, trust your desire, trust your tenderness. They are your energy restoring its flow into the earth so that we can all be sustained together. Imagine a life in that flow.

He ran his hand over the weave of papyrus, its fresh scent mixing with the heady wine. His bronze nails shone like the weapons piled in a corner. "They can edit. You're floundering because you don't have a foundation. We're gonna get your first draft together and then you guys'll have something to work with."

Menelaus nodded. He stood at Ares' knee and handed him a cup. They tapped them together, knuckles brushing. 

A fiery grin flared on Ares' pirate-pretty face. "To Sparta."

Menelaus grinned back, the pair of them turning to lions in the red-gold aura of burning oil and Ares' body. "To Sparta."

They drank deep and slammed their cups down in unison. Spice and spirit rushed to Ares' head. He drummed the table boisterously. Menelaus laughed, a full, healthy, blade-clang of a laugh. He bent eagerly over the papers and launched into an explanation of what he'd been trying so far. Ares leaned back on his palms and swung his bare feet and relaxed into the reinvigorated rumble of the king's voice. His chest rose and fell in easy breaths and he felt Aphrodite's message kiss his glowing heart.

 

*

 

“Alright, fess up, what did you have to do to the theatre director to pull that?”

Aphrodite was nestled in the comforting scent of perfume and flowers, alcohol and old building. The Rose Lounge furled its petals around her, Peitho, Aglaea, Pannyakhis, and the Horai. They were flopped in a puddle of plush, satin dressing gowns on a smush of cushions in the middle of the catwalk stage. Glasses of champagne whispered under their lazy chatter, empty bottles and boxes of chocolates littered around them.

The lights were back on.

Aglaea boomed with laughter at Pannyakhis' pointed question. Aphrodite rolled their eyes and refilled their glass. "Nothinnng." She knocked back pinprick bubbles. "You forget that like 85% of the time I just kinda get the stuff I ask for."

Autumn scoffed. "Nuhuh, I'm not buying. No one risks a job with that much prestige just because a pretty person asks nicely, goddess or no."

"He did."

"He did not!"

Snorts and squeals of scepticism whipped around the group. Aphrodite groaned. "Fiiiiiine." She wrinkled her nose into her glass. "Feet pics."

"There it is." 

"I knew it!"

They frothed with crude cackles.

Winter lit a cigarette and blew out frost grey smoke from their narrow nose. "I would've thought working with ballet dancers, he'd have a feet squick."

Summer frowned. "You think?"

Winter shrugged. "Have you not seen a ballerina's toes? Seriously fucked up."

"Maybe that's why he asked for them," Aglaea drawled. "He's got a supply issue."

"Eeeeew…" More chortling and clinking of bottles. 

Pannyakhis rolled over in a swirl of midnight blue. "It’ll be totally crazy if you get away with this." She tutted. "Going after the king in front of an audience."

Aphrodite heated with pride and raised their chin. They were reclined on their elbow and draped in decadent satin the colour of vineyard harvest, like a queen on a diwan. "I will, Kissy. I already have."

"How can you be sure?" Spring piped.

Aphrodite smiled with all her deviousness, voice soft and steady. "Because I shamed him in public." She arched an eyebrow. "Just like he does to us all the damn time. I made it so that if he does anything to us, it only confirms the reputation I have given him. He has one road now, and it's the high road. I hope he enjoys the walk. I hope he doesn't trip over any of the bumps our fucking stilettos have made in it."

"Here here, bitches!" Peitho whooped and tossed her glass against Aphrodite's. 

Aglaea chuckled like the deep thrumming of earth, but their gleaming eyes were sober. "He will come for you, though. You know that, right?"

Aphrodite shrugged. They smacked their lips. "Let him."

Peitho plucked a caramel chocolate from a blue box and spoke with her molars gummed together. "So, Boss, what's next?"

Aphrodite turned her eyes to her.

"No, no, come on, don't do that," Autumn moaned.

Peitho spread her hands. "Do what?" 

"The 'what's next' thing." Autumn swung her glass exaggeratedly, sloshing the champagne. "We had a good day, let it be, have another chocolate."

Peitho opened her mouth to argue, but Aglaea's impressive gaze squished her like a bug. Their low voice was soothing and a little stern. "Autumn's right, Mermaid. Don't teach pleasure and not take it." They raised their glass, their gown the same pale gold with the same glimmer, black fur at their wrists. 

Peitho gave them a conceding smile and clinked her glass on theirs. The others all followed, a trilling song of crystal and cheers echoing in the wide space.

"Pleasure."

"Pleasure."

"Pleasure!"

Aphrodite smiled and drank. She watched her friends drop easily back into chatter, warm and intimate and trusting and fun. Autumn poked a few stray curls back into her turban. Spring hugged her blossom coloured gown around herself and let her head drift to a pillow, like a nodding dandelion. Peitho rifled casually through her indigo to grapefruit river of curls and kicked her slippered feet. The Rose cupped them lovingly. The restored pink lamps swilled glamorous light around them, turning the satin to molten wax, as if every dancer there was a burning, coloured candle for a spell. 

Aphrodite's tongue moved in their mouth. 

What was next?

Aglaea was right, they shouldn't be asking that tonight. The battle had been gloriously won today, but the war was just beginning. They had to take moments of peace now where they could get them. 

War. Peace.

Maybe that's why she couldn't quite let go of the feeling of more to do. 

Something key was missing. Everything that had driven her away had been faced, except one.

"Gotta tinkle," she said lightly, standing in a gush of violet. She padded backstage in the direction of the bathrooms.

She didn't go to the bathrooms.

The purple darkness cloaked her and she tiptoed to a concealed part of the wings, not so far away that the reassuring babble of her friends disappeared. She clung to it as she took a deep breath. Her stomach rocked. 

There was a porcelain prop tub for Aglaea's bath act stored among the rickety wooden chairs and planks packed into the warren of backstage. She eyed it. She clucked her tongue and impulsively strode over to it, stepped over the edge, and plonked down in a splash of satin. With their gown pooling around their crooked legs, they looked like they were sitting in an inkwell. They tossed their hair and sniffed. The porcelain was cool and quelled the sudden speeding of their pulse. A giggle erupted from the stage with the pop of another cork. She tuned into it and smiled. She slipped her hand into her gown and brought an envelope out of her bra. 

The envelope was still sealed. She'd had neither the guts to open it, nor the heart to keep it more than a foot away from her since Amphitrite had given it to her. 

Ares' message. 

She took a breath of must and wood and perfume.

She ripped open the envelope and unfolded the note with unsteady fingers.

Tell them they’re a gift. That they’re a gift and they’ve always been generous, and every time they’ve given to me, my world has gotten better. They never have to do anything for anyone they don’t want to give to, least of all me, and what they have done for me, over and over, it honours me. I don’t understand everything about their past, but if they ever do tell me the story, it’s a gift, not a debt. Everything that’s ever happened between us, it was all kindness and nothing else. And I can’t believe they chose to give to me. But I’m grateful. And I’m sorry I forgot that. And all I want now is to give in return, if they’ll let me.

"Oh…"

Aphrodite's breath escaped her.

"Ares…"

Their heart glowed. Warmth radiated from it and spread through their body, caressing and rejuvenating. Tears pricked.

She gripped the note tight in her fingers and pressed it to her lips.

"I'm back, Honey." She closed her eyes. "I'm going to get you back."

Notes:

Aphrodite's symbol of the hand mirror is the astrological symbol for Venus, the Roman incarnation of Aphrodite, also used to denote woman. It's literally an image of Venus' hand mirror, just as the symbol for man is the astrological symbol for Mars, Roman Ares, and is an image of his spear and shield. The Venus symbol became the badge of the feminist movement in the 60s or so and is still used now by feminists. I love that the image of a hand mirror has come to be such a powerful and widespread symbol for gender equality and liberation, because it is a perfect example of something with feminine significance that is belittled by patriarchy. I wanted to play with the image of mirrors in that space and think about ways to bring out their power, as women are shamed for using them, like many things in the domains of romance and beauty.

The fan dance Aphrodite performs is based on this classic number by Sally Rand

The meanings of Aphrodite's epithets used throughout this chapter are:
Kêpois - of the Gardens
Pandemos - Common to All
Rhamnusia - Aphrodite is occasionally combined with Nemesis, goddess of revenge
Apostrophia - Averter of Unlawful Desire (Aphrodite as protecting from abusive relationships and assault)
Praxis - Action, especially sexual action
Symmakhia - Ally in Love
Xenia - of the Foreigner

Hope you enjoyed, lovelies! xx

Chapter 21: "What's a nice Olympian like you doing in an Underworld like this?"

Summary:

Let's go down to Hadestown! Once again, Ares and Aphrodite wind up in the same bar. It goes a lot better this time. But their reunion isn’t only of significance to them.

What?? An update?? But your second-born hasn't even had chance to come of age between chapters! Don't worry, they'll be in college by the next one with my pattern. Love you all xxx

Song, Hades and Hera: Black Coffee, Peggy Lee
Song, Sin-copation: Le Jazz Hot, Julie Andrews, Henry Mancini, and Leslie Bricusse, "Victor/Victoria"
Song, Aphrodite and Ares: At Last, Etta James

[CW: Smoking, drinking but no drunkenness, a discussion of gaslighting in an act of support.]

Notes:

A couple of myths it will be useful to know the basics of!

Orpheus and Eurydice (because I did assume everyone is as addicted to Hadestown as me and would just know this one, which isn't actually necessarily true I realise) - Orpheus was a semi-legendary, semi-historical poet and musician, the son of Apollo and the muse Calliope. He wrote lots of hymns to lots of gods and has a special cultic significance with Persephone. He was very in love with his wife/girlfriend Eurydice. But one day, Eurydice was dancing with some nymphs, like a babe, and was bitten by a venomous snake, killing her. Orpheus was grief-stricken and travelled into the Underworld to beg Hades for her release. Hades ruled that Orpheus could walk out of the Underworld with Eurydice, but on one condition: Eurydice had to walk behind him and he wouldn't be able to hear or touch her. If he could keep his faith that she was following him all the way to the exit without looking back to check, then she would return alive with him. But if he turned back once, she would be kept in death forever. Orpheus agreed to the terms and set off on the walk. He tried, he did, but he doubted and he turned to look if Eurydice was behind him. She was, but she was now trapped in the Underworld. Orpheus went on to live his life without her, becoming an extremely prolific musician, but he never loved again. I won't be going to his death in this story, but fun fact, in some versions Aphrodite is actually his demise, having him torn about by women tormented with love that he refuses to return. Hermes isn't Orpheus' patron in mythology, but I am a) pinching the idea from Hadestown, and b) working on something of a connection between them. Hermes is said to have invented the lyre, which is Orpheus' instrument, and has a complex dual role in life and death, like Orpheus and Eurydice. It is him that pulls Eurydice back when Orpheus looks, because he is a psychopomp, or shepherd of the dead. So in this story, Hermes was Orpheus' patron and very invested in him and Eurydice. It hurt him when Orpheus failed to pass Hades' test and he broke from Orpheus, bitter about his following rocket to success. He is now involved in Aphrodite's quest for Eurydice's freedom in an act of healing from the loss.

Sisyphus - King Sisyphus decided to play with some serious fire and tell one of Zeus' lovers' fathers where she was in hiding from him. Zeus got pissed and sent Thanatos to carry Sisyphus to the Underworld and lock him in chains. Sisyphus managed to trick Thanatos into "giving him a demonstration of how chains worked" and entangling himself instead. (Like, I'm sorry, some boys are so submissive they will literally do this.) Zeus sent Ares to free Thanatos when the gods noticed no one was dying (in some versions Ares does this under his own steam, but ignore that). He broke the chains, death functioned again, and he delivered Sisyphus to judgement. Hades had Sisyphus spend the rest of eternity pushing a huge boulder up a hill, but every time he almost reached the top it rolled back down. What a fucking sadist.

Hermes and Aphrodite cross-dress together in this chapter as a nod to their intersex child, Hermaphroditos, who they love very much and who was celebrated in cultic practice with a moonlit festival that involved men and women exchanging clothes <3

Ares had never seen darkness like this. Even in his few past visits to the Underworld, the city had those sleepless lights. The shores of the Styx were a darkness both natural and unnatural, cavernous and enclosing. The bloody glow of his flaming torch barely touched it, but he held it up defiantly, the beacon for the Spartan warriors who trudged behind him through the treacherous passes of spined igneous rock to the barren beach. The shale of the winding path gradually disintegrated into sand. It itched between Ares' toes as his sandals bedded into grit. Marsh grasses nicked his shins. The torchlight trickled through a river as black as tar. 

He stopped and turned to the company behind him.  The Spartans had drained from red-gold to green-grey. They flowed like spilled pond water along the rocky land, dragging their feet, heads hung or pale eyes reeling fearfully. Hours ago, they had been rage and pride incarnate, terrible drakes, charging their opponents and bellowing in triumph as the greater army cowered at the sight of their plumed helms and gleaming bodies. 500 men had conquered 1500 and danced and glutted on corpses as their cries blasted on the mountain range.  Ares' mouth still tasted of metal, but the fire had left his veins. It had been a long, silent walk. 

He gazed over them. In the moment when his body had raced into theirs, when he'd transformed into the harmonious beating of their powerful hearts and rushed into the stink of viscera, he never could have imagined a silence like this. His every cell had rung with the din of spears and roars and snapping of muscle. They had been might like even the gods couldn't guess. But might still ended up here.

Everything ended up here.

But that didn't take away what it was.

He set his jaw and raised his torch overhead, drawing himself up tall as his visionary form blazed scarlet and bronze. His raw, hot voice swelled into the darkness, rippled the water, winged up the rockface. "SPARTANS."

The shades paused and turned sagging eyes to him.

He took a deep breath of sour silt and bitter blood. "An honourable death is better than a shameful life. You swore to return with your shield or on it. You kept your oath. The city dances at your funeral tonight and builds your bones into its expansion. Your lives have not ended, they have been woven into your home and its eternity. There is no mortality as long as Sparta lives, and you ensured that."

The warriors watched him. A few shoulders straightened. A few fists clenched.

Flames flowed through the red plumes of his helm. His cloak billowed and caught the light, like the wings of a phoenix. "Death is nothing but another battlefield. You died not because you were too weak for victory, but because you were so strong that you proved yourselves worthy of this greatest of trials." He thrust the torch out to illuminate the Styx, crimson washing over its viscous surface like wine on marble. "To be a shade is to be eternally at war with the Underworld. It will try to take who you are, your spirit, your courage, your passion. It will try to make you ash and hollow, to sack your being just as an enemy would sack your city. But there is too much fire in a Spartan to be put out!" The torch flared. His cloak flared. Red struck the faces of the amassed soldiers and for a second they looked alive and vital again. Ares' heart pounded. He gripped the torch, held onto the sensation of heat grazing his arms and cheek. "Fight. Fight as you were trained to fight. Love. Love as you were born to love. Love each other and yourselves, love Sparta and what it made you. Honour that love and never surrender to this enemy, even as it surrounds you." His voice resounded, his body blazed. He became the centre of the darkness, the anchor in the chaos, the fury of life in this dead realm. "Burn. Burn forever. That is your final victory."

The masses became ranks, heads held high.

"When you have been given your places, seek out a singer called Eurydice. She will help to fuel you. She will share your rage at the invader."

A few nods, and then a few eyes flickering towards the river. Ares followed them and saw a new light meeting his own; a cold, turquoise orb floating above the water. He squinted towards it. The sickly blue became a hanging lantern, then began to outline a shape gliding towards them; a long boat inked onto the obsidian, the prow carved into the slender, hungry face of a hound. A robed figure stood in the boat, motionless and hooded. The vessel made no sound as it crossed the river. Ares' stomach went cold. This was it. 

He had to let them go.

Something scaled and determined snaked through his abdomen, driving him to leap onto the boat and slay the ferryman, to conquer death itself and return his warriors to his city, to their friends and lovers and children. 

He gripped the torch harder and ground his teeth. He turned back to the ranks, to the fear touching the edges of their expressions as they saw him take in the presence of the ferryman. He rolled his shoulders and brightness rippled over him. He raised his voice in a raw, reckless shout. "Do you fear the enemy's advance?"

Spears clanked. "No!"

"Though they take your weapons, though they chain your wrists, do you yield?"

"No!"

"DO YOU YIELD?"

"NO!"

He snarled and dazzling flame spilled from his teeth. "Don't be fooled by the darkness or the quiet, this is a battle!"

A shout. A hammering of fists. It ripped through Ares, his stomach boiled, his blood seared. 

"And how does a Spartan meet a battle?"

They roared like lions. Shale scattered from the rockface.

He punched his torch into the air, fire ravaged the darkness. "Courage!"

"COURAGE!"

"Desire!"

"DESIRE!"

"Shoulder to shoulder! Shield to shield!"

"SHOULDER TO SHOULDER! SHIELD TO SHIELD!"

The ground began to rumble, hordes of feet trampling the sand as the warriors surged to take the beach. 

Ares cast the torch out towards the ferry. "TO WAR!"

"WAR!" 

The Spartans locked together. 

"WAR!" 

They broke into a march. 

"WAR!" 

And then a run. They ran. They ran towards the river of the dead.

"WAR!" 

The ferryman staggered backwards in surprise. The boat rocked.

"WAAAAR!" 

They charged. They avalanched on a wave of cacophonous cries and chiming weaponry to the Styx. Ares rushed with the unleashing force of their bravery, their strength, their adoration of what they were, their eternal faith in it. He burst into wild, swooping laughter as firelight spiralled around him. It galloped through his body and flung him into a whirl of joyous rage. His warrior vision swept across his eyes, the lens that let him see the make-up of a creature and how it could be destroyed. This power was an instinct for the living, it should have made the shades invisible. It should have turned the scene to darkness. He glared at his fallen men as they barrelled elatedly towards the final crossing.

All he could see was fire.

 

*

 

The tiny flame of the lighter flickered to life in the dimness of Hades' bedroom. Scarlet danced across his hard, gunboat-blue features. While it hollowed his drawn cheeks and turned his weary eyes bloodshot, it washed over the gold of Hera's skin and made her glow. She looked a century younger, bright and blushing. Her citrine irises tinted carnelian. Hades gazed into them as he lit her cigarette. He watched as her lips pouted around the tip. Those lips were always so stern, except when the two of them went to bed. It was his golden privilege to see her mouth soften.

She was hazed in smoke.

The familiar acridity, half comfort and half craving, stole through Hades, but didn't fully drown the fresh, lingering scent of sex - musk and salt and perfume rubbed into the tousled sheets. He lit his own cigarette and exhaled a lazy stream from his nose as he relaxed back in the swamp of pillows. He collapsed back next to where Hera was curled up in his dress shirt. He flicked a dazed, sly grin to her. "We have got to stop doing this."

Smoke scribbled around them as she waved her hand dismissively. "We will, at some point."

"When?"

"Whenever you like."

He took another hot draught and sighed grey. "Maybe not just yet."

She smiled in that way her smile existed, touched by melancholy, pinched at the corner. She slipped from the swirl of sheets and wandered across the severe, chic bedroom to the wide, square window, veiled in gauze. She sat elegantly on the narrow sill and nudged the curtain an inch open. Delicate tendrils of smoke adorned her like honeysuckle. Her hair fell in a shimmer down her back as she kept her face turned away from him. "I can’t decide if it’s beautiful here, or terribly sad."

He looked at her softly. "Something can be beautiful and sad."

She didn't respond. She dragged and puffed. The frost and fathoms hue of his domain crept from the window onto her sunshine skin. His eyes wandered down the balletic fold of her legs. "What are you thinking about?"

"Ares."

"A little weird in this context, but alright."

She chuckled and twisted to face him, strands of her hair kissing her sharp cheekbone. "I think I’m reaching that moment in a mother’s life when someone else comes along and takes her baby from her."

Hades frowned questioningly through another rush of grey.

Her voice was warm, but there was sorrow in it. "I think he’s settled down."

He snorted and it burned his nose. "I knew it, beaten to maturity by my own nephew."

She laughed low.

He melted deeper into the pillows, revelling in the brief relief from the vicious tension in his scarred back. "Who's the lucky so and so?"

"Aphrodite."

So much for the back relief. He jerked upright and stared at her, almost dropping his cigarette. "You’re sure? I thought you moved him on, I thought you said they were…"

She puckered her lips around her cigarette. They didn't look soft anymore. "She's come back to Olympus. Loudly. Now every time the phone rings, he looks like he's been tapped with a cattle prod. It’s only a matter of time." She let her daffodil hand go limp. The gauze floated behind her and Hades couldn't help but go back to the day she married his brother, the way she glowed through the veil like the reflection of the sun in water, like a golden fish caught in a net. She sighed silver. "When two people marry, I can sense the bond. It's like a cord between their wrists." She gracefully rotated her hand. "A few days ago, Ares suddenly shook off this slump. He went back to Sparta, he threw himself into his work, he set up camp in the library - I didn't even think he knew we had a library - he made Athena train him so hard I'm amazed he hasn't snapped in half. He even had a notepad out at the dinner table, for Fates’ sake." She chuckled through her nose, puffing white. "And then he brushed past me leaving a room, he gave my hand this small squeeze, and…" Her palm uncurled, smoke spiralling into its petal cup. She frowned down at her fingertips and the lingering hum of her power.

Hades cleared his tight throat and fought to sound unconcerned. "Are… are you saying they eloped?"

She shook her head, still gazing down. "I’m saying it doesn’t matter whether they have a ceremony, it doesn’t matter if they’re not even talking yet. He’s married her. In the way that counts."

This news crawled very slowly into Hades, leaving an uncomfortable sludge along its path. He tried to sterilise it with a rough intake of smoke, darkening his voice. "He’s never been one for the easy road, has he?"

She rolled her eyes. "No." She didn't smoke like him. He heaved nicotine into his system with a suppressed desperation that made his nostrils slit and his chest elasticate. She smoked as a luxury, she wore the wisps like furs, she submerged her invulnerable lungs, she breathed like music. She let loose a saxophone hum and fell back against the window frame in a wash of silken white. "Should I trust her with my lamb, Hades?"

He tried to think. A little boy was struggling to breath, the quavering squeaks escaping his lips and interrupting the man and his logical consideration. He ran his thumb along his hewn jaw. "Aphrodite was born out of the rage of my father. She is the product of his first murder." He gulped. "It’s hard for me to know what to think of her."

"But none of us can help our origins, can we?"

He flickered and glanced down at the mess of scars on his arms and torso. They made him look hacked apart and sewn badly back together, a puppet made for performing violence hastily fixed up between shows. "No. I suppose not."

"She has that rage still in her, I think."

His stony brow furrowed. "Then Ares has found an equal." He looked at her significantly, his heart pushing forward in his chest. "We love none better than those that match us, Hera."  He ached as her mouth softened again.  "But you won’t lose him." He hardened his gaze on her, driving his meaning into her like his bident. "No matter who comes for him. No matter what happens between you. He loves you. He always will."

She held his gaze through the mist of their cigarettes. Her eyes were unsteady in a set mask. The besetting silence of the Underworld sank between them, lead and concrete and infertile soil. She looked out of the crack in the curtain. "Zeus thinks they make him worse."

"What do you think?"

She rubbed her forehead. "I don’t know. I’ve never known what to think of him. This temper, this violence he has…" She cast her hand down. "But then, would it be better if he didn’t have it and still had to live in that house?" She sighed and sucked tobacco. His shirt swamped her and made her look like a buttercup lost in a late snow. "Part of me wants to blame fate or Aphrodite or Kronos because then I don’t have to blame myself."

Hades' chest knotted. He glowered darkly. "I hate that he does this to you." He glimpsed her flinch at his sudden harshness and grit his teeth. He drew up his knee, propped his elbow on it, and swept his hand through his hair, blurring it with smoke. "I know he’s your baby and I hate how difficult I find him, but you live in that house too and he doesn’t make it easier."

"Yes, he does." She wrapped her thin arms around herself, voice distant. She kept her gaze on the motionless city. "And when he leaves, I don’t know what I’ll do." She snorted bitterly. "Maybe I’ll have to get pregnant again."

"That’s not funny."

"Am I laughing?"

A soft snarl scorched his low voice. "This bond you feel between married people, do you feel it between you and Zeus?"

"Stop it."

"Hera…"

The doorbell dinged through the house, a clean slice through their connection. Hades faltered stiffly. They exchanged a glance, the unspoken fear that it might be…

"Stay here." He stood swiftly and tugged on a pair of dark blue pyjama bottoms. He stubbed out his cigarette in his bedside ashtray and strode from the room. Hera watched his strong, savaged back vanish. 

Brisk cold pricked Hades' skin as the shade footman opened the door and the clammy air drifted in, as much as air moved at all down here. A tall silhouette of disordered, sharp shapes stood against the pallid glimmer. He frowned and folded his arms. "Hecate, it’s pretty late, is something wrong?"

Hecate prowled past the footman. As he closed the door and turned to mist, cerulean light trickled over her angular face, wiping the silhouette away like oil. "Sorry to wake you. Can we talk?"

"Uh…"

A tick of understanding across her brow. "Oh. She’s here, huh?"

He nodded awkwardly.

"Maybe that’s a good thing. This concerns her too."

His stomach turned. He folded his arms tighter and nodded behind him to the glass stairs up to his living quarters, shimmering slightly like distortions in the air. Her hard heels clacked hollowly as he led her to his sitting room. She folded onto a black, leather couch, like a newspaper after the crossword's finished. "I was having my movie night with the Fates."

He poured two whiskies, handed one to her, and lowered himself onto another of the firm, smooth couches. The light from a single lamp slinked into the furrows of his torso and crushed blueberries under his tired eyes. "The one where you very inappropriately watch the fate of other people that is meant to be kept confidential by those sisters."

"Primordial privilege, Baby." She gulped whisky and smacked her lips. "Anyway, tonight's feature…" she crossed her legs slowly, "bore relevance to your family."

He froze. He glanced towards his bedroom door. 

"And to the last time you brought them here in search of answers."

The pit of his stomach dropped. "Ares?"

She nodded.

He glugged whisky hastily as his chest tightened again, caramelising his anxiety.

"What's that?" A refined voice, strictness covering nerves, came from behind him. 

He twisted quickly on the couch to see Hera walking cautiously into the room, dressed but with her hair still loose. She stepped into the pool of lamplight and warmed it. He thumbed the crystal of his glass. "Uh…"

Hecate stood like a knight and inclined her head. "Queen of Olympus, forgive my intrusion."

Hera waved her off and nodded too. "I'm in your realm, Queen of Crossroads." Her hand curled into a fist. "I heard my son's name."

Hades looked at her gently. "Hecate says she saw something about him. With the Fates."

Her eyes wheeled wide. "What did you see?"

Hecate glanced between them. The blood and fire of the last prophecy about the young prince reflected frantically in scarlet and golden eyes. She downed the rest of her whisky and thunked it onto the coffee table. "I think you should come and see for yourself."

 

*

 

Hermes and Aphrodite’s friendship had begun with three simple words.

Let’s.

Go.

Dancing.

She’d said them just like that, a little clap and bounce on her toes between each one.

The day after she moved to Olympus, Orpheus had been inducted into the Muses’ Hall of Fame. Hermes knew he should be over the guy, it had been a year, but seeing his simpering, faux-humble grin in the hailstorm of camera flashes made it hard not to lose his cool. Vengeful mischief itched in his every pore and he found himself flying in frantic patterns around Olympus’ quieter neighbourhoods like a queenless wasp, drunk on summer and looking to sting. Thankfully, he crashed into one of Aphrodite’s moving men. She and Hermes knew each other already, had flirted plenty; he latched onto her sunny, naughty energy like the wasp sticking into jam. No one really thought Hermes was capable of being bothered by anything. He was popular specifically because nothing ever bothered him. When he was frisky and boisterous and fizzy, everyone figured he was just looking for a good time, running towards, never away. And who better to give you a good time than a brand spanking new sex goddess?

It took her six minutes of his merry, nonchalant jabbering to ask him what was up.

Hermes froze mid-babble about all the ways they could entertain themselves with nothing unpacked from these boxes but a spatula and a roll of bubble wrap. He glared at her in scarlet indignation. She looked at him as if asking him what was wrong was the most natural thing in the world. 

He folded like fresh laundry.

He told her about why he’d chosen to patronise Orpheus. Orpheus was this open, responsive boy. His music was absolutely honest and he listened to everything everyone else said and absorbed it and understood it down through every layer. Orpheus wasn’t an artist because he was good at exploring or expressing, he was an artist because he was good at communicating. People loved him because his songs clicked everything into place, they spoke of exactly how you felt, exactly the words you’d never been able to find. And this was nowhere more true than in his collaborations with Eurydice. Orpheus and Eurydice had the kind of relationship that made Hermes’ power hum. They always had the right words for each other. When they spoke, when they sang, they unlocked each other. They knew each other inside out and that never changed, even when they did. There was never a miscommunication between them. Everything was flow and clarity and trust. Orpheus and Eurydice were where The Messenger went to be healthy.

And then the Underworld. 

Hermes was a psychopomp, he could easily guide Orpheus to his love, tell him everything he needed to know, promise Hades a ludicrous amount of free labour if he’d just give them one chance. Yep, death was just a minor obstacle, nothing he couldn’t get back on track. Because it was Orpheus and Eurydice and they never missed their connection.

And then they did.

No. He did. That no-good, spineless, pouting plectrum-jockey. “I’ll be right behind you,” Eurydice had said, and they both always said what they meant, so how could there be any reason to doubt? But he did.

Hermes hadn’t had anywhere safe to go after that. Everything on Olympus was disconnect and repression and masking and centuries of bitterness from minor misinterpretations. The Underworld was worse. He’d just had to accept that it was his fate to live with that itch. 

“But, you know, not all communication’s words,” Aphrodite said. “I totally get it. All I want is for people to use their feelings, but they’re always bottling them up. But there are flashes of love everywhere, because it can’t really be kept down. Whatever society puts on us, connecting is an instinct, probably our most fundamental one. There are ways people connect, communicate their meanings and their wants and their feelings and their identities, that don’t take something as modern as language.”

Hermes gave them a curious look. A voracious smile overwhelmed their pretty features. And then…

“Let’s.

Go.

Dancing.”

And after a year of being lost, Hermes found his feet again.

Now, settled into a summer he had begun in feeling like a blocked zit, a calm, clear Hermes once more twirled his friend through a flurry of music and relaxed into a room filled with flowing, flitting, flying connection. 

It was nice to return the favour.

Aphrodite’s clamorous comeback had been a roaring success, but the thing about roaring is it made your throat sore. Hermes knew plenty about going at the speed of sound and not being able to stop, even when you can feel yourself burning up in the atmosphere. As Aphrodite had started to show the signs - the unhinged eagerness, the fractious temper - he’d scooped them up for a night away from being a goddess. Two realms away. A goddess of life can’t overwork in the kingdom of the dead, but she sure can have a good time if her escort knows the right spot. 

Sin-copation was Underworld Corp’s favourite after-work system purge; a sleazy, swinging jazz club with no worries and less rules. It was built into an old whisky cellar, caramel and oak infusing the close air compacted under the low, arched ceiling. The brickwork was a little shoddily covered in emerald velvet drapes and plum damask wallpaper that absorbed and recirculated the heavy scent of spirits and smoke, heightening the drunkenness of the party. An inky glow in luxurious black and purple spilled from clusters and chandeliers of bioluminescent flowers, the whole club lit sweetly and spookily by dainty, hypnotic bouquets. Their petals fanned and flaunted coloured light and their stamens twinkled, flattering the hundreds of odd, ominous faces of Underworld patrons. Red-lipped, bobbed waiters in fluffy feather boas glided through the maze of open archways with trays glistening with dark gold and venomous rainbows. Card games broke out on tight, round tables crowded with demons and demigods bellowing cheat and slipping aces up their sleeves. More of their assorted kin huddled in half-concealed booths and made dirty deals, the shadows lit by constellations of the bright ends of fat cigars. In one domed area was the bar. A team of energetic imps in jaunty bowler hats skidded and sprang about preparing cocktails and neat, gnarly spirits for a crush of drinkers cooking the air. The nearby archway led to the dancefloor. A harpy fronted a restless, renegade pack of fanged musicians, shoulders bopping, trilbies nodding, spats tapping, fingers prancing. She grooved gregariously along their half-improvised tunes, flirting outrageously with the audience as she crooned and warbled, hissed and hummed. The beads of her floor-length, waterfall dress and the feathers of her folded wings were all dyed blood red, the same colour as her simmering eyes and waves of hair on the unshaved half of her head. She glittered ruby and sang sapphire - bluesy and cool and rich and dark.

Hermes and Aphrodite delighted together in the mayhem of dancers, infected with rhythm and refuelled by the way it brought the room into a single shared impulse. Hermes was spangled with elderberry light as the flowers glowed on his dropwaist, beaded dress, swirling around his knees and rattling at his hips as he wiggled and spun. His wild hair puffed over a feathered headband and his feathered pumps fluttered faster than dragonflies. Aphrodite caught him up roguishly in his giggling twirls and hollered with laughter that floated under the music. She was smart and handsome as a statue in her hourglass, monochrome tuxedo, but her white bow tie loosened at her throat and her crinkled temporary bob tangled in the corner of her eye to give her a virtue-stealing air. They whipped together, lashed away, locked, dipped, darted. They clutched hands and carouselled rapidly as the song’s final notes cantered together along a drawn out tumble into a violent symbol crash.

“WOOOOOO!” Hermes hooted as the dancefloor stopped breathlessly and applauded. 

The harpy flexed her wings and winked out to the crowd. Aphrodite beamed and cheered too, tossing their bouncing hair and shimmying the rhythm out of their still pulsing muscles. 

Hermes glanced across at them and sloped into a dopey, affectionate smile. He slung his arm around their shoulders and planted a smacking kiss on their cheek. The painted print tingled happily as he rested in the half-embrace.

They slid their eyes sideways to him with a warm look. “What's that for?”

He gave them a small squeeze, his chilli oil sweat tickling their nose. “Missed you, Lilac Lady.”

She chuckled and rubbed his back. “I wasn't gone that long, you silly boy.”

He snorted and leaned on them. “First of all, in Hermes time, you were gone like eight months - my brain basically operates in dog years.” He grinned at their grin, then softened, voice a little hoarse over the pick-up of the horns. “Second of all, I don't just mean missed you being nearby, I mean the last time I saw you before you left you were like this…” his lips fidgeted, “this void in my senses.” He bumped their hip with his. “And now you're like a lighthouse. You're so vivid I almost have to ignore them or I'll go blind.”

Aphrodite raised an eyebrow and smiled with smooth tease. “And what exactly are your senses?”

“Fun. Play. Speech. Adventure.” He ducked to her ear and murmured gleefully. “Misbehaviour.”

She giggled and blew on the feather in his hair. 

He moved his arm from around her and took her hand. He gave them an uncharacteristically vulnerable look. “I just missed you being you, you know?”

Their heart felt sunny. They tapped playfully on his knuckles. “I thought you wanted the single jelly bean of casual buds with booty calls, not the two jelly beans of real friendship.”

“Yeah, well, that second jelly bean really snuck up on me.”

They patted his cheek and smiled wide. The saxophone squealed into a cascading note. The pair flashed their lively eyes to each other and jumped back into dancing. 

 

The explosive howl of Viper Dolls faded behind brick and darkness. Ares nodded to the Last Resort bouncer, pocketed his hands, and wandered away down the crooked, cragged street. He sucked the last grease of bronze and blood on his tongue and clenched his stomach a few times. It was comfortable. Training was still throwing his power surges into nausea, but for some reason it didn't really happen when he was with the Spartans. He took a deep breath of stagnant drain water and let his shoulders drop. Before, when mortals fell in the thick of battle, it was like watching wheat go to the sickle, it was just part of the cycle. Now that he'd decided to stay with them, to support them to the last, it took on a different meaning. He couldn't decide if he felt guilty. But he was glad to be able to send them to Eurydice. He prickled with pleasure as the raging of the music and the club pumped through his veins, reinvigorating them after the unsettling walk to the Styx. Of course Aphrodite had decided to help her. 

Wrath.

Beautiful, rapturous wrath.

He ached for the taste of cinnamon.

He hadn't been able to stay in Last Resort long. His mother may have kept his face relatively unrecognisable to Olympus, but he had something of a recent notoriety in the Underworld. Just after he'd returned from campaign, some mortal king had trapped Thanatos in chains and put death entirely on pause. Zeus had sent Ares to prove he could be useful outside of battle, since all that was needed was a little brute force. Ares had snapped the chains like noodles and delivered King Sisyphus to judgement. Death had returned to the earth. The Underworld operatives were grateful, but it was understandable that when he stepped into the back of a shade hangout in his uniform, the suffering dead were not pleased to see him. He'd kept his head down, stayed for a song, subtly slipped a wad of cash into the tip jar, and even more subtly slipped away. He didn't mind that he wasn't welcome there, it was fair, he just hoped his warriors wouldn't look at him like that when they'd been dead long enough.

It was probably a fool's hope. 

But, you know what? That was OK. As long as they were angry with someone, they would stay who they were. Anger told them that they didn't deserve judgement, didn't deserve to go hollow. It kept them belonging to themselves and not to this place. If they needed to wind up hating him to preserve the glorious blaze he'd watched take the Styx, then so be it. If it was more use to them than being their hero, then he'd be prouder of it than this stupid, meaningless medal on his chest. He plucked it off and tossed it into the gutter. Maybe that could be of use to a lost soul too.

He slung his gym bag of Mortal Realm leathers higher on his shoulder and loosened his tie. His boots thudded on concrete and splashed in puddles of something that wasn't rain. Maybe it was insensitive to go there in uniform, but he figured he was working, and it would be more suitable for where he was actually supposed to be going. Thanatos had invited him to the Corp's preferred hangout to debrief. He was actually sort of looking forward to it. The Underworld was damn creepy, but it was also less straining than Olympus. It was wide and cool and slow, it mellowed him. It reminded him of the glass tower looking out to the vast, milling ocean that Aphrodite had taken him to on the day she first saved him from himself. 

His chest panged. 

He rubbed over his heart and allowed himself a soft, grim smile. It had been some news cycle this week. Watching their return had been like watching a meteor shower, bright and dazzling and thrilling, and distant.

Gods, he wished they'd call.

Maybe to do this, to have their blaze, they needed to hate him too. After all, he'd treated them just as badly as everyone else. No. Worse. Because of what they could have been to each other.

His chest bruised.

But it was OK, it had to be, because she was vibrant and soaring and changing the world.

He sniffed and swept his hand through his hair, messing it up on purpose. He picked up his pace and headed for the nicer part of town, whistling Eurydice's riff through his teeth.

 

Aphrodite and Hermes thunked their elbows onto the bar, fanning their flushed faces, only blushing hotter in the jumble of people whistling for drinks. Aphrodite had no need to make a sound to get service and they and Hermes were quickly clinking ghostly coloured cocktails together. She grinned around the sweetness of pomegranate and burn of rum. Hermes grinned back, then grinned sharper past her. "Than!"

Aphrodite turned to see a short, slight god with fine hair combed into a fraying bun and an ill-fitting suit that emphasised the awkwardness with which he held himself. He was the colour of cobwebs and milk, save for a striking ice-blue glow across his eyes that trickled over his cut cheekbones, intense in the warm darkness. It wasn't unlike the radiance of Ares' gaze, but in negative. Aphrodite flickered and shook themself. The god nodded at Hermes and tucked into the squash beside her to greet him in a voice that seemed to be coming through a sieve. "Hey."

Hermes kept beaming brashly. He twizzled on his toes so the bead fringe of his dress rippled. "You like my dress?"

A wisp of an eyebrow raised drily. "Pretty as a shepherdess at a May time picnic."

"Aw, shucks." Hermes jerked his chin at Aphrodite. "Lemme introduce you to my dashing chaperone. Thanatos, this is Aphrodite. Aphrodite, Thanatos. Love. Death."

The cool glimmer of Death's eyes drifted to Aphrodite with the sensation of minty toothpaste being squeezed onto her skin. He smiled shallowly and nodded. "Is it strange to meet the only thing that can defeat you?"

She broke into a smile like barbed wire. "Is it strange to meet the only thing that can transcend you?" 

He smiled in earnest. "Welcome to the Underworld." He leaned on the bar and they spotted his arctic gaze clock a few details of their body. "Having fun in the darkness?"

They pursed their lips slyly. "I am."

He smiled bluer.

Hermes leaned over her shoulder. "Careful, I think he’s angling to make the little death later."

They snorted and picked up their glass. "I get the feeling it would be little."

Thanatos' smile slumped indignantly.

Hermes threw his head back and crowed with laughter. "Oooooh! Thanatos, DAMN! I didn’t know it was possible to kill a death god!"

Thanatos winced. "Shut up!"

"Aphrodite, you are not paying for a drink all night!"

She chuckled. "I never do."

They tossed their glasses together and swigged in a rush of dark sugar. Hermes smacked his lips and hooked Aphrodite's hand. "Ready to slide, Lilac Lady?"

"Sweep me off my feet, Jampot."

"No, you!" He looped her arm over his shoulder and they rode a wave of piano notes back towards the dancefloor through the wide archway. 

Thanatos watched them go, then went for the last shots left in their glasses. 

Ares' treasure glow flared into the plush darkness of Sin-copation, like a match strike. Tobacco, toffee and molasses filled his mouth and made him hum. His skin tingled with the peppering of anger through the bar like cigar ash - card players realising they'd just been cheated, lovers catching their dates flirting with someone else, old rivals meeting over old scores. But it wasn't like Olympus. For all that this realm was a mass grave, nothing here was left to rot. Every single angry person in this club had every intention of getting even. Ares rolled the smog of the room gratifyingly along his tongue. He dropped his bag at the cloakroom, then shouldered gently through the warm press of energised, relaxed demons. He glanced curiously at curling horns and glinting fangs and tucked, leathery wings. He scanned the bubbling cocktail of activity, weaving through the complex of wide archways until the bar unfolded before him. The back wall sparkled like a diamond mine. The little imps acrobatically pinging around the bottles was quite the circus act. They seemed to match the blasts and blossoms of music blaring from the dancefloor through the nearest arch. One of them hopped to sit on the bar and slid along it to deposit something with squiggles of lemon peel in front of…

Oh, there he is.

Ares strolled to the bar and clapped Thanatos' bony arm.

Thanatos jumped and spun on his stool, comet-bright eyes staring. He puffed out as he recognised Ares and nodded to him, extending his hand. Ares took it and gripped it in a firm shake. Thanatos winced a little and withdrew his fine fingers. "Wow, that’s a grip."

Ares grimaced apologetically and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah…"

The death god indicated a sliver of wood by his forearm. "How’d it go?"

Ares took his cue and dropped forward to wedge the tiny space wider with his bulk, thudding his elbows onto the bar. "Yeah, pretty good." He glanced a little uneasily at the cold eyes of the death god. He thought of the cold confusion in the eyes of the processing shades. "They, uh… they don’t really know what’s going on, huh? They know they're dead, but they don't really put that together, how to react..."

Thanatos shrugged. "Why they need a psychopomp."

Ares flexed his hands and mumbled to them. "I never really thought about what you guys gotta do after we all cause our havoc. You’re kinda like therapists and undertakers, right?" He cleared his throat. "Dark."

"Yeah."

"Well…" he thumbed his nose, "thanks." He huffed brusquely. "For cleaning up everyone’s mess."

Thanatos' ice sculpture face thawed a little. "You’re being different."

Ares blushed and looked concertedly at the rows of glass bottles.

"You wanna keep it up? Escorting the Spartans?"

He flicked back. "Could I?"

Thanatos twizzled a curl of lemon peel between finger and thumb. "Yeah, sure. They literally hired Hermes because I suck with violent death. I’m good in the quiet, easing someone in, but when someone gets down here fresh outta the noise, my general void of energy freaks them out. It probably did them good to have you with them."

Ares tried to keep the boyishness out of his voice. "You think?"

"Sure."

The rims of his ears prickled warm. "Thanks."

Thanatos nodded cordially and took a sip. Ares waved at a skittering imp and ordered ouzo. The ice cubes in it wisped the clear liquid cloudy. He breathed it in before he drank. Aniseed danced through his senses. The last time he tasted that, the next thing he tasted was Aphrodite's skin. He swallowed hard and blinked harder.

"So, we finally even for the Sisyphus thing?"

He started, clinking his glass. He looked wide-eyed back at Thanatos. He gruffed and nodded.

Thanatos nodded again. He sipped and chuckled. "You know, after you did that, there was a lot of talk down here about whether you were gonna quit war and become Zeus’ enforcer."

Ares frowned.

Death swallowed more alcohol and snorted. "But I figured probably not, given what he involved you in in sending you."

Ares frowned deeper. The proud excitement of being granted his new duty withered into a much more familiar stress in the pit of his chest. "What are you talking about?"

Thanatos blinked. "Sisyphus. Why he trapped me."

"No one wants to die."

He shook his head. "The big guy upstairs sent me to take him early."

The stress tightened. "Why?" That was totally against the rules, even Dad knew that. Right?

"Sisyphus told me he knew where one of the old man's former mistresses was in hiding and he was gonna tell her dad, you know if he didn't get a good deal."

The stress crumbled into sickness.

"I was kinda surprised you'd do his dirty work. Word down here is you two aren't exactly simpatico."

The sickness simmered. Ares dunked ouzo on it, balled his fist on the bar, and squeezed until his knuckles bleached, forcing the creeping eruption into that bone-crushing fist. He took a slow, laboured breath.

"Shit…" Thanatos shrank back. "You didn't know…"

It was loud in here. It was crowded in here. Lots of people were angry in here and suddenly they were angrier. Grumbles about cheating turned to roared accusations. Pretty things were pulled aggressively away from flirting. A switchblade flashed inside a jacket. The stupor turned sticky and acidic. Ares growled under his breath. Fuck's sake, you know this about him, stop being surprised. He splashed his fingertips into his glass, pinched an ice cube, and stuffed it into his mouth. Cold flushed his body. His tongue stung, his jaw ached. He sucked his mouth numb and breathed aniseed. The anger quelled. Cards were reshuffled, cheeks kissed, the jacket folded closed.  "Did Uncle H?" he grunted thickly around the melting ice.

"What?"

"Did Hades know that Zeus tried to take a mortal off schedule for no better reason than keeping another girl on tap?"

"No idea."

The cold extinguished the fire and left bitter embers. Bastard. Nothing Ares did in this family ever got to be straightforward. Everything always had another layer with his father, and the layer was always toxic. Every time the asshole came up in conversation, it was like kicking a rock off a nest of roaches. He crunched painfully on the rest of the ice.

"Listen, uh…" Thanatos ventured nervously. "I know what it's like to have a father figure who leaves you in the lurch…"

"You’re bad at small talk."

"Yep."

They both shut their mouths and drank. The purple potion of the club glugged over them. A large demon with huge, black ram's horns bumped into Thanatos and didn't notice. Ares felt his tired irritation. He glanced at the dregs of lemon peel in the skinny guy's glass by his too-wide cuff. He waved at a bar tender to get him another. Thanatos twitched a smile. They settled into the rowdy noise. Ares relaxed back in his hunched stance and casually roved his gaze around the crush of people. Movement like blood spray snatched his attention. He squinted through the low-ceilinged arch to his right to the busy, eddying dancefloor. He spotted a shower of plastic rubies and perked up to see a beaming Hermes looking cute as a button in a dress that danced with almost as much mania as he did. Ares smiled and made to catch his eye. The messenger's hand shot out and caught another's just as he glanced at the golden fizz of Ares' motion. Their eyes met. Ares grinned. Hermes looked peculiar - surprised, nervous. Ares cocked an eyebrow. The hand in Hermes' bounced and another body spun in a careen of saxophone into his arms. Lavender waves tossed violet in the gush of light and a smile like a summer bouquet flooded Ares' body.

The bottom dropped out of his stomach.

He stared as Hermes flung his hands to Aphrodite's waist and swung their back to Ares before they saw him. Hermes grimaced and pulled his eyes from Ares. They kept dancing, the mania of the beads increasing.

The club silenced in Ares' senses.

She was here.

She was here and smiling and dancing and beautiful and making the light move around her like water.

There was no fire on seeing them with Hermes, no jealousy, no confusion, just the agonising interplay of terror and hope. They were the most frightening person he'd ever known, and the most caressing sweetness. And he'd tried to tell himself that he could say goodbye, hold what they had, what they almost had, in some part of himself that could take the pain. But… but if there was even the smallest chance they still… If this didn't have to be… If the two of them could just…

And she was here.

He gazed breathlessly into the cloud of his ouzo.

Hermes' heart was going like a gerbil's. The look on Ares' face punctured his chest. It wasn't angry or wounded. Hermes had been the one to escort Icarus to the Underworld. He'd never forgotten watching the last trickle of life on the kid's face, staring up into the sky and the silhouette of his still soaring father. No resentment, no pain, just this pale fear as he realised he was going to die, and this golden relief that his family wasn't. The grief contorted Ares' bold features like melting wax, but his bloody glimmer ran in the rivulets of ghastly shadow and warmed his look. Aphrodite flew in the dance and Ares gazed at her with blessing, even as he plummeted.

A tickle like the edges of fluttering papers raced over Hermes' skin - the urge to pass a message, the irresistible, infuriating itch of things going unsaid. Chiron had given him various exercises to get through the compulsion and accept the things he couldn't fix, let people speak in their own time… let things, ya know, just stay broken while he had all the tools to…

He took a quick breath. "Hey!" He pulled Aphrodite into a giddy turn. "So, obviously I was planning on making a pass at you."

They chuckled and easily stepped into his sudden movement. "Obviously."

"But let's say theoretically I was having a fun night as your buddy." He dipped her sharply and snapped her back up. "Do I have a shot with anyone here?"

They dipped him back and glanced over his body to a corner of the frothing dancefloor. They smiled and hauled him to stand with a nod past his shoulder. "There are two nymphs over there who have been talking about you for the last hour. And they're super comfortable with each other, so don't feel the need to pick."

He beamed and twirled them, their crinkled bob flailing. He craned to check out the nymphs in question, androgynous and smoke-eyed, their skin patterned like tiger’s eye. He shivered pleasantly. "Whoa, OK, I can consider my place as the realms' best wingman officially taken."

She laughed. The dancers shoved and sparkled around them, the busy room dense with the smell of sweat breaking through perfume and tobacco.

"Don't suppose you'd throw Thanatos a bone too?" Hermes asked.

She barked crassly. "I'm a goddess, not omnipotent."

"He's not that bad."

"He’s attracted to you, why don’t you throw him a bone?" She threw a comical glance to his crotch.

Hermes skipped a beat. "He is not."

She pursed her lips.

"Wait, really?"

She widened her eyes.

A wicked smile slid over his lips. He shook himself. "OK, but those nymphs aren’t always here, so file that away for later."

They chuckled and prodded their thumb through the back archway to the gambling tables where a crimson nymph with long, fine hair shuffled a blackjack deck. "But for now, that girl over there is bored enough to go for him."

Hermes glanced and nodded. "Thanks."

The harpy trilled, then dove into a rambunctious note that shook the floors. The two of them jumped over it and clashed their hips together, bumping around the other bodies. Aphrodite grinned. "So how come I've been demoted to wingman?"

"Wingman is an extremely high honour, I'll have you know." 

She shot him a scrutinising smirk.

The tickling of unwritten letters irritated like eczema. 

Don't meddle, don't meddle, don't meddle…

Aphrodite's nose twitched like a hound's. He knew exactly what was happening, the goddess of desire was sensing restraint. In the heat and roiling of the dance, he couldn't tell if the thing stealing into him and teasing his resolve loose was her magic or the music. Her eyes glittered like the sequins showering around them. He groaned and rolled his eyes as his discipline caved. He grabbed their hand, twirled them, and tugged them to press their back to his front. He hugged them from behind, both facing the brazen candleglow of Ares' height bobbing at the bar above the crowd. He was talking casually to a mostly concealed Thanatos. Hermes cuddled Aphrodite and sighed in defeat and relief as he finally scratched the itch. "I've decided not to make the moves until I know exactly how available you are, because you, Missy, have a pet golden retriever and I don’t wanna get bitten."

They stood frozen in his arms for a long moment. Then, faintly, "what is he doing here?"

"I don't know, did you accidentally say anything like 'heel' or 'here boy' in the last couple of hours?" 

She whipped around in his arms and glared with a hot blush. 

He grinned, a little giddy as his withheld powers sparked and the sensation of itch-scratching spread sinfully over his skin. "Should we make out again?"

"No."

"Worth a shot."

They moaned and flopped their brow to his shoulder. “Gods, I just wanted one night off!”

He eased them back and lovingly tilted their face up to his by the chin. “Not from him.”

“Hermes…”

“Take it from someone who's delivered a lot of long distance love letters - you miss him, Dite.”

They stroked his arms and gazed at his chest as they rubbed their lips pensively together. They looked worn out, their yearning breaking from out of their confidence like the first withering of autumn in lush leaves. They snorted angrily and stomped their shiny shoe. “Well, yeah, obviously, look at his stupid face!”

Hermes laughed and squeezed her.

One dainty hand flapped to her forehead and rubbed a stubborn crease. “Oh, Jampot, he wrote me this adorable note and I’ve been dying to talk to him, but every time I get near my phone I somehow end up reorganising my wardrobe or baking a three-tier cake.”

“Wow, I need you to be anxious in my house.”

She grumbled and drummed on his chest. “I’ve been a brave girl for literally everything else, why is this so haaaard?”

He laughed brighter than he meant to. Of course he didn’t want his friend to feel bad, but, Fates, she was finally opening up to the thing she so obviously needed. Aphrodite and Ares so obviously needed each other, the missed connection between them had kept Hermes up at night long enough. He kissed the tip of her nose and murmured earnestly under the raunchy boom of music. “Because it’s hardest to be brave in a place you’ve never needed courage. Ares is that person that lets us all be afraid. He’s a shield. He’s a bonfire. Strength and bravery come from pressure and threat, they don't stir with someone who keeps those things at bay for us. Even after that stupid fight, I think you know he'd do anything to keep you safe. You came back a warrior and you had your victory, and now, with Ares, you can finally lay down your sword. But when that sword has been the only thing between you and defeat, that’s scary.” He rubbed her back. “But the nice thing about the big lug is that he understands that feeling and he’ll be patient with it. He knows better than anyone how hard it is for a warrior to come home.”

Aphrodite’s large eyes glistened.

Hermes smiled knowingly, tingling with pleasure at her beauty and her trust. “Because maybe that’s what it would mean to work things out with him? Turn that comeback into a homecoming?”

They shrank a little in his arms and bit their lip.

“You’ve proven to yourself that you know how to strap it on and jump into the battle, doesn’t mean you have to fight all the time.” He brushed his thumb on the seam of her jacket. “Armour rusts if you wear it everyday.”

She drooped in his embrace and regarded him softly. He could see his words rooting in her mind and turning packed soil, unearthing buried things. They turned the bite on their lip into a suck and looked back over their shoulder. He felt their torso expand as they took a deep breath and watched Ares talking and drinking and glimmering. They whipped back with a sulky pout. “I would like a medal for not making a strap-on joke.”

“Actually, I was disappointed in you for that.”

She chuckled. 

He buoyed. Chiron-Shmiron, he'd be good later. He was finally fixing things up for his lilac lady. “Right, let me show you what a real wingman's made of.” He snapped his hands away and whooshed into a winged stride.

Aphrodite’s sweet smile rushed into horror. “Wait, what?” She tripped and scrambled. “No-no-no-no-NO!”

“Byeeeee!” He slipped from her grabbing fingers into the crowd.

The waspish buzz of his winged pumps took him through the denseness of demons as if it was nothing but a bead curtain. He pounced behind Ares and Thanatos and clapped both their backs hard, ouzo and gin splashing like tiny dolphins in their glasses. “Ares! Whatcha doin' in the same bar as me again, you big stalker, you?”

His pulse hopped as he worried for a moment that the startled, red glare of the war god was going to turn into anger. But it didn’t, it crackled warm and mocking, along with the rumble of his voice. “I am not stalking, I’m escorting the dead.”

“Hey, get off my lawn.”

He grinned serrated and flicked Hermes’ feather headband. “Actually, a bunch of them were like, ‘oh thank Fates, I was worried I was gonna get that twig and his big mouth.’”

Hermes put his hands on his hips. “Really? I thought they’d be more like, ‘oh fuck, the only point of dying is we get to meet the sexiest god, why are we stuck with this upside-down corn chip?’”

Thanatos snorted. Hermes flashed him a grin, prickling with his delightful new knowledge. Thanatos looked at his drink. Ares barked a laugh and cuffed Hermes’ waist. “That is rude! I have never missed a single leg day.”

“No, but you have more shoulder days than there are days in the calendar.”

They jostled each other companionably as Hermes slotted in between War and Death, stuffed his fingers in his mouth, and whistled for a drink. 

“Let me get that,” Ares said, moving to his pocket.

Hermes bumped him with his elbow. “Shut up, this one’s probably already bled you dry.” He jabbed a thumb at Thanatos. “I’ll get you one.”

Thanatos poked his face to Hermes’ other shoulder. “And me?”

“Piss off.”

“I'll get the next round!”

“Will you fuck get the next round.” But he ordered for Thanatos anyway. The three of them knocked the heavy bases of their glasses to the wooden surface and tossed too much back in unison. Hermes’ wings fluttered as vodka hit his brain. When he slammed his glass down with a long, satisfied rasp, Ares’ gaze had drifted to the dancefloor. Hermes smirked. He glanced at Thanatos, whose returning look clearly said he’d been doing that a lot. Hermes slung his forearm up onto Ares’ broad shoulder and murmured teasingly in his ear, “this place isn’t up to code, so try not to set it on fire with your brooding smoulder.”

Ares jerked from under him and scruffed up the back of his hair. “Shut up...” His hand slid to his neck and he rubbed it awkwardly. He sneaked strawberry eyes sideways to Hermes. “You’re here with Aphrodite?”

“Uhuh.”

“They OK?”

“They’re good.”

Quieter. “What’s she doing down here?”

Hermes grinned broadly. “Why do you care? Thought you guys were just a series of random encounters over two weeks, maybe three.”

Ares’ cheeks darkened. He looked away. “Making conversation.”

The unwritten-letter-itch was back. “Well, if that's all you're doing, how's Sparta?”

“Fine."

“Any big victories lately?”

“A couple.”

“King all OK?”

“Yeah.”

“You are good at making conversation, I can't believe I doubted you.”

Ares drank and ground his teeth.

Hermes dropped the mockery and leaned his forearms on the bar beside Ares’. He could feel the heat coming off his skin without touching him. “She just wanted a night off from Olympus, from the fight of it.” 

Ares looked at him cautiously.

“You guys have so much in common. You should do something about that.”

Ares’ brow fissured.

“I don't know,” Thanatos’ gin-dipped drawl cut in. “I think she's playing hard to get right now.”

“I mean they did turn Thanatos down, which means their standards must be impossibly high.”

Thanatos narrowed his eyes.

“But hey, if you're not gonna go for it, maybe I will.”

Ares twitched, but he gruffed in his throat and muttered into his glass, “sure, do it.”

Hermes raised an eyebrow. Thanatos shot him a look of alarm as he watched him poke the bulky beehive. Then he clocked the trickster’s sly expression and craned around him to interject. “You should, he seems fine with that.”

“Yeah?” Hermes smiled at the stiff getting into the bit. “That wouldn't bother him?”

“No.” Thanatos shrugged. “It might bother you after he’s broken your spine like a toothpick.”

“I think I could take him.”

“Really?” Thanatos reached across him and tugged Ares’ sleeve. Ares rolled his eyes, but sloped his shoulder to turn his body to face them, his jacket buttons undone and his tie loose. Even a little unsmartened, the uniform made him look severe and metallic. He drew himself up lazily with a dry expression as Thanatos gestured around his muscular torso. 

Hermes grinned cockily. “Yeah, I'm scrappy.” He gave Ares’ abs a playful pummel and flinched as his fist met something like a tree. “Wow, those are hard.”

Ares blinked flatly.

“But what I lack in muscle I make up for in spunk!”

“That's what he's worried about.”

“EEEEEYYYY!” 

The psychopomps collapsed against each other and guffawed as Ares rolled his jaw and smiled wryly into another gulp. Hermes recovered himself and clapped Thanatos’ arm. “Oh, by the way, that girl you were totally weird to last week, black jack dealer…”

“Minthe.” Thanatos perked up. “Hang on, I was not weird!”

“Apparently she’s bored enough.”

He opened his mouth to retort, then shut it, downed the last of his drink, and slinked off the bar. “Don’t say a word.”

Hermes chuckled and he and Ares tipped their glasses to him as his slight frame was swallowed by thirsty, bustling strangers. Hermes tucked closer to the barricade of Ares and furled his wings against his calves so they wouldn’t get trodden on. He licked his lip and ventured with a deeper note under the din, “so, um, she said you sent her a message.” He leaned his cheek on his hand to burrow under Ares’ lowered gaze. “Not via me, I might add, which I take personal offence at.”

Ares frowned quizzically. “I didn’t send them a…” His stern look dissolved into something more tender than a shelled mussel. His voice croaked. “Wait, they got it?”

Hermes warmed. “They said it was adorable and they’ve been thinking a lot about calling you.”

“THEN WHY DIDN’T THEY?” He whipped around and stretched to shamelessly search the dancefloor for lavender, his thick fingers going crooked on the bar and his firepit eyes round as saucers. 

Hermes laughed and slipped his arms around Ares’ waist from behind, nuzzling into his cotton hair. “OK, have I finally said enough to make you two stop giving each other respectful space and just talk?”

Ares tensed in his cuddle. “I… I’m sweating…”

“Don’t worry, it’s dark.”

“Your therapist told you to stop doing this.”

He purred with profound satisfaction as he sensed Ares' walls topple. “I know, I'm such a naughty boy.” He lifted a few inches off the floor, his powers a little too zingy to stay grounded, and curled to peck his blushing cheek. “But I’m done. It’s all up to you now, so don’t let me down.” He gave his friend’s solid middle a squeeze that he probably didn’t even feel. “Gotta go see a nymph about a thing.” He let go, stole the ouzo, and drained the glass. He smacked his lips. “Couple of nymphs, actually.” He flitted around Ares’ tomb-still body and away into the music. He slicked through the foam of dancing towards the tiger’s eye nymphs still alluringly watching him through smoke and shadow. As he went, he found Aphrodite rapidly shuffling her feet like cards in a circle of dancers clapping their hands and knees. He caught her eye and winked. She gave him an affectionately furious look. He grinned and melted into the trails of cigars. 

Ares tore his eyes from his fruitless search for Aphrodite in the hectic crowd and leaned heavily on the bar. He pressed his palms down on it and focused desperately on them as his heart threatened to shatter his rib cage like a jar. 

She was here.

She wanted to talk.

Maybe?

Should he go over there?

And say what?

He gulped his heart back down from his windpipe. He breathed deep through his nose, trying to drown himself in caramel. 

Incense and roses flooded his senses.

"What’s a nice Olympian like you doing in an Underworld like this?"

That voice was silk and safety and a slit through his veins, medicine and murder. He steeled himself and turned to face it. He tried to make the motion smooth, landing in a casual lean of his elbow backwards on the bar. The second their face came into view, his elbow slipped and he clunked his nerve on the hard edge. He winced and staggered and straightened up with a red blush. "I-I c-could ask you the same question."

She was dressed in a snappy tux, boxy and angular around her legs and breasts but cinched at her waist to give her the look of an origami hourglass. The white shirt and bow tie had a sheen like mother of pearl - she was ever the ocean treasure, even here. Their hair was cut into a wavy bob with a rakish shadow over one of their crystal, inescapable eyes. They looked like a mob boss, like they could have him slaughtered with a nod. They put one hand on their hip. "I felt like an adventure."

"You are an adventure." He said it before he could stop himself.

They gave him a look that slid an ice cube down his back. "Oh? Whose?"

He bit his lip.

"Yours?"

The icy sensation steamed into burning. The press of her simmering glare made him feel like a shirt being ironed crisp. It didn't matter that being near Aphrodite had been his every waking thought since losing her, it didn't prepare him for experiencing it again. He cleared his throat sheepishly. "Is that OK?"

"It depends how the adventure goes, I guess." She took a small step towards him and searched his face. "Whether I’m your monster or your hero’s prize."

His heart pounded. He swallowed. He gingerly closed the rest of the distance between them and bent to murmur in her ear. "Aphrodite, I have an awful feeling that you are my journey home."

Aphrodite clutched her hip and suppressed the shudder that his low voice dragged through her, rough and binding as hemp rope. Walking over here had taken more courage than when she first raised her eyes to the sun. His light was just as fierce, as promising, as impossible to go back from. But the moment he leaned in close, the moment she could smell charcoal and ouzo and cologne and spices, all her fear evaporated. It still lived as air in her body, terrified of losing him, even more terrified of taking him and letting him change her life (because he would change her life). But it was also thin, insubstantial, nothing compared to the tidal swell of hope and need and relief at being close to him again. 

He tilted back to meet their eye, the citrus glow of his gaze sweetening and heating to a deep, captivating crimson. "You cut your hair."

"It's just for tonight."

"You look handsome."

"So do you."

He was wearing his uniform, but a little dishevelled and the medal was missing. It looked more like his clothes now, not a costume someone had stuffed him into. He looked older. 

They shook themself subtly. "You still haven’t said what you’re up to here."

That grin that always made her reckless. "You could argue I belong, don’t you think? I’ve probably brought them more business than anyone else."

That grin that always made him reckless. "I don’t know, I’ve done my fair share."

Their eyes connected and glittered.

Aphrodite batted her eyes down and steadied herself. Chemistry was one thing, but her heart was aching keener and keener the more they talked as if nothing had happened. She looked back up at him and spoke softly, but seriously. "Ares, can we talk?"

Her stomach burst into butterflies as his supple mouth set. He nodded. 

She led him through the chaos to a quieter area of the club comprised of enclosed booths behind lacquered screens. She drew a couple of drops of fortifying power from the clandestine meetings taking place within them, then found their own pocket of privacy. The delicious, plum light filled the screened booth from a pot of the luminescent flowers on the small, round table. It made them feel tucked inside the petals of a yet-to-bloom, rainforest bud. The chatter and the music faded and the band slowed to a lilting melody, half seductive, half mournful. Aphrodite’s heart half sang and half wept as Ares sat close to her in the tight space, his furnace heat lapping her. Her world had been freezing without it. They raised their gaze to him and hoped the dark glimmer veiled their blush. “I, um, I got your message.”

He grimaced shyly, voice halting and gruff. “The butler guy said he wouldn’t pass it on.”

She pursed her lips teasingly. “Apparently you just sounded so desperate.”

“I was.”

The smirk vanished. They were sitting on a curved leather bench, their bodies turned towards each other. Her gaze magnetised to the way his broad torso folded inward, a shell. 

“It was weird, not having you around,” he murmured.

“I'm pretty new for that.”

“I know.” He looked down and the glow of the flowers braided into his muddle of curls. “I guess my version of Olympus has you in it now.”

She stung deep. “Can it? If you don't trust me?” 

He looked up sharply. There was so much emotion in his eyes, his impossible eyes. This god's feelings were more than even ichor could carry. 

She took a steadying breath. This would have been the moment she took his hands, before everything. “Ares, what you said, it meant so much to me... but I don’t know exactly how I feel about your gratitude.”

He frowned. 

“It’s beautiful,” she hurried to say. “It says such wonderful things about you that you don’t take people for granted, the things you see as gifts, but…” They flexed their hands, but kept them in their lap. “Ares, I’m worried that you’re not just grateful because you’re sweet. I’m worried that you think you’re supposed to be grateful just if someone likes you, that kindness is so far beyond your expectation that you have to treat it with this reverence.”

His frown quavered and he avoided her eye.

“I just…” She guided his gaze back carefully. “I need you to not just be going along with me, to surrender all your space because you think that’s how it has to be in a relationship. I need you not to work this out by simply ignoring whatever it is about this that made you feel unsafe.”

His body stuttered forward urgently, frown and voice crumpling. “It's not that. I swear, Aph, it’s not.” His hands flickered towards her, then halted and withdrew. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It's that I don't trust myself around you. I grew up chasing feelings, then running away from them, screwing over everyone close to me. Nothing about you makes me feel unsafe, but I’m terrified of how unsafe I make you, myself, my family, Olympus, if I fall in…” 

Her breath hitched. She stared, pulse speeding.

He bit his tongue and huffed and looked darkly down at the bench. “I can't fuck up anymore. I don't lead a life now where it's OK to not know what you're doing. Every damn thing I do has these huge consequences, but I don't have a political head, so I've gotta be on high alert all the fucking time, for Ma, for Athena, for… I…” His tone strained and his shoulders stiffened, his hands agitated as he grasped for the words to explain.

Aphrodite couldn’t take the distance anymore, not for one more second, not seeing him struggle. They dashed their hand out and took his firmly. He froze. His taut expression faded as he gazed with deep eyes at her hand on his. His chest rose and fell slowly. Even slower, he curled his fingers around theirs. 

They sighed in harmony.

The warmth of his touch stole through Aphrodite’s nerves and coated them in honey. They hadn’t known how raw and frazzled they still felt. Holding his hand again healed a rift in their rib cage that they’d been fighting not to fall into for days. 

For Ares, closing her hand in his was like being crowned. Its strength made him tingle and its grace made him draw himself up, to be her protector, her pedestal, anything she needed. The precious privilege of it glowed in him.

“I didn't mean to confuse you,” she whispered.

“I didn’t mean to pressure you,” he whispered.

Their other hands tentatively joined on the leather cushion between them. They both gazed transfixed down at their entwined clasp. 

Are we back together? 

Are you mine again? Am I yours?

Will this still be when we've said everything?

“I know you wouldn’t use magic on me,” Ares said quietly. “Not even by accident.” He shook his head, passion rising softly in his voice. “You’re so caring and smart and you know what you deserve, to be given authentic love. I know you didn’t enchant me, or anyone close to you. And if I didn’t know that before, I sure as Tartarus do now, because what you got that night, it was all Ares.” He rolled his jaw. “All my life, people have been trying to control that part of me, and you’re the one person who actually could, and you let it run, you let it treat you like shit.” He brought his eyes up and they spilled flame like tears. His voice splintered. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Aph.”

Her heart split. She gasped and clutched his hands. “I didn’t try to control you because I don’t think you need to be controlled. That part of you isn’t a problem, it’s a cry, it just needs to be responded to. And I didn’t respond to it, I shut you out when you'd never earned that. I’m sorry too.”

“No, this was all my fault.”

“No.” She pulled one hand free and cupped his hot cheek. He leaned into her palm and closed his eyes. She felt the sea moving through her, but it was cleansing her, not taking her over, bathing her wounds and carrying her towards him. He opened his eyes, the flames calm, but incinerating. They stroked their thumb over his cheekbone and swallowed anxiously. “Ares, tell me the truth. The day we fought, did your father talk to you about me?”

He twitched. He nodded.

“Then please don’t hate me, but I need to ask, what do you think of me now?”

The question clapped a laugh out of him, a harsh release. “I think you're beautiful! That's the problem!” He wheezed the laugh away and looked into her eyes, even more dazzling than the floral lamp and adorned with its light. “I'm your fucking lackey and it means I don't have instincts when it comes to you, I just have wishes.”

He hoped she’d smile, but her soft brow tightened. Her hand fell from his cheek and enclosed his again.  “Just like for Zeus.”

His stomach thudded. “What?”

“You don't have instincts for him either, do you? Just wishes. He's your dad, you know what he could be to you, if only he'd show up. And when he almost does, it's all wishes and no instincts.” The corners of their mouth turned down. “No matter how often he's let you down before.”

Ares tensed. He rubbed her hands like a talisman.

“How did you feel after he talked to you?”

The ghost of nausea stirred in his gut. He shifted in his seat to conceal a tremble. He didn’t want to burden them with this, but he’d also longed to talk to them about it. They were the only person who really made him feel sane. He cleared his throat and avoided their penetrating gaze. “Like shit. Shaken. Really shaken. Weirdly, like… violated? Like he eased me open and then he got inside me, and it was my fault for inviting it, so the shame as well. Then that feeling just sorta sat there. Unclean. I…” He glanced at them. The lamp light painted them in dream. “I don’t wanna say this to upset you, but last week was… not great. I was, uh… I was kinda… It was like there were these bugs inside me and I kept burning myself… and the furniture… and I was frozen up, I lost all sense of time, I was just obsessing and shutting down, not eating or sleeping, just non-functional or a flamethrower.” He glanced again. Her worried expression pierced him. He knotted his fingers in hers. “And I thought it was because of fighting with you, like I was just down about it, but then…” he sucked his lip and let a small smile out of the corner, “thinking about you was what snapped me out of it. You were never the thing confusing me and I was an idiot for letting him turn you into that.” The smile dropped and his tone edged. “It wasn’t about you, it was about him. He’s like fucking bacteria and my whole mind and body just had to stop what it was doing and fight it.” He thought about what he’d just learned from Thanatos, about how nothing he did was unpolluted. “It’s always about him. I’m a fucking child and it’s always about my dad.”

Aphrodite grasped his hands, the gentle pressure of it padded out the prickle of fire in his chest. “You’re not a child,” she said in a voice that made him feel taller. “You’re not. You’ve had a lifetime of this, he’s wired your brain like this on purpose. There’s no reason growing older would magically undo that wiring.” She visibly sensed him tensing again and another press on his hands closed him in comfort. “But you’re strong and you’re courageous and you’re kind and that means you’ve done your own wiring too. Your body knows when you're being manipulated. What he did was a violation. He dug at where you're vulnerable and acted on it for his own ends.”

“I don’t know, I don’t take a lot to…”

Cinnamon.

Oh Gods, cinnamon.

“What did he say before he talked about me?” Their tone was vibrant. “Let me guess, how proud he is of you, how hard being your dad has been because of how much he's had to care, how he recognises he's flawed, but there's a future for him if you let him in and let him set the terms.”

Ares stared. “How… how did you…”

“Because it's the playbook.” Her eyes chilled dangerously, reflecting the glisten in the stamens of the flowers. “People like this find the one thing they owe you and rebrand it as a gift that you could earn, as long as you give them what they want - forgiveness, trust, support. And then they find the thing you want to be and make it the reason they can't treat you well. You're too beautiful, too strong, too clever…”

“Have too much potential…”

She nodded. “They tell you they’re too afraid of you to be good to you, and suddenly the best way to know you’re worthy of their love is not receiving it. You'll never leave them, never blame them, won’t stop trying to be good for them, because that worthiness means too much, but you’ll always hate yourself because, even when you're good, you’re impossible to care for.”

Something was caving inside Ares, but in its place was something stable. It was as if she was knocking down ruins to make way for a home.

Aphrodite watched his face fiercely. She clung to him, afraid that saying this would be too heavy, but she couldn’t not say it. They needed him to understand, they couldn’t survive seeing him punish himself. If they had to pull him out of this gorge a thousand times they would, he didn’t belong to Zeus anymore, not while she was on Olympus. She whipped her hands to his arms and squeezed him hard, making him feel his own muscle. “You endure that for as long as you can, but inevitably that strong, brave body will start to resist it, will start to demand better. That’s when they give you a little bit of what you crave, a bit of kindness, a bit of pride, and you tell yourself, ‘see? They do love me. I must have just been stupid or sensitive this whole time.’ You reset and they get to too. They’ll start the cycle again next time you see through them.”

Ares hugged himself and frowned at his knees. They took in every tick in his body as he crunched through their words. Eventually he opened his mouth and muttered, "'under a king, the only gifts we receive are rights held hostage.’"

Their pulse skipped. You read it? Fates, you're darling… They massaged his arms. “He's always a king, even when he's your father. But you can see through him, you can and you did, because you’re not stupid and you’re not crazy and you’re not a child. It’s just like you said when we were talking after I lost my oracle. You want to be a good prince, but underneath, there’s this burning that seeks out what you actually need.”

He looked up and his eyes did burn, they burned the darkness up and made her heart race. 

She swept her fingers through his hair. “You burned to belong to yourself, Ares.”

He relaxed into a hot smile that wrapped her and stole her breath, like a python. “I don’t know if that’s what I burned for.”

Their eyes glittered on each other again. Aphrodite wet her lip and stroked from his hair to his jaw and his neck and his shoulders and down his arms, feeling his shape with a coiling need that she tasted spring up in him too. She sucked on it and gulped back a hum.

He dusted his knuckles over her knee. “I’ve been thinking about something you said.”

They grinned. “Just one?”

“About being two-faced.”

Their grin fizzled. They tutted primly and withdrew their touch. “You said you didn’t think I was, that I could decide who was important enough to show the truth to.”

He caught their hands. “I meant it.”

Their belly fluttered. "So, what were you thinking about?”

His hard features hazed in the dimness, his mouth eternally, tortuously soft. “I guess, it’s just, I hope I can tell when you’re lying. Or hiding." And now he looked young again. “I get it if you don’t always want to give me everything, that’s fine. But I don’t like the idea that I can’t tell when something's there.”

“Why?”

“Because I care about you!” He let out another incredulous laugh and gripped her hands to prickling. “I should be paying enough godsdamn attention!”

“What if I’m just that good?”

“What if I just care about you that much?”

His low, leonine growl writhed through her. Her blood whisked with the desire to kiss him, to pull his arms around them and slide into his lap and forget everything that went wrong in the head-spinning feel of his golden lips. 

But he was more than that.

She blushed dark and smiled down at their hands, his cupping hers and kneading them so the warmth kept pumping through her - sustenance, lifeforce. 

Ares was essential.

She exhaled levelly and turned serious again. He had to be safe with her. “Ares, people fall for liars because they feel special when they get the truth. They fall for cruelty because they feel special when they get kindness. It’s not a good reason to fall. It devalues the good people out there and it makes the bad people think they have to be like that to keep the love they want. It’s how your father makes people fall for him.” They flashed their eyes to him, rimmed violet. “I don’t want it to be why you fall for me.”

Ares’ pulse jolted. He glared fervently into their face. “You are not a liar. You are not cruel.”

“Aren’t I?” They held his glare with quiet certainty. Cinnamon pricked the tip of his tongue, a very particular version of the flavour - they were angry with themself, just like he was. “You were right, I was acting towards you with intention. I liked you and I wanted you to like me.” They arched an eyebrow coyly. “Maybe I wanted you to like me a little more than is normal, because then I get to be the hottest one in the room, and that's more important to me than it should be.” Their gaze gleamed like lamp oil. “I know how to tempt. I know how to get someone I want. I know how to condition, in my own way. I told you I wasn’t open with you for some high and mighty reason about treating you better than your parents, but the truth is, I didn’t want you to stop liking me. I wanted you to like me more than I wanted to be good to you.”

Ares locked a shudder in his body. His heart clenched uncomfortably at her confession, but everything else in him rippled with heat as a sax note rippled in the distance.

He blushed as he saw her notice his reaction with a reprimanding smile. She ran her thumbs over his fingers and sobered. “I won't do that anymore. I’m done making you push my buttons for treats. From now on, you can expect my gentleness and my openness, no guesswork, no games, no seeing what happens and wondering if this is the day she cools off or heats up. You will only have my honesty and my constancy, and if I ask to hold something back, I will tell you why.”

The clench eased. He smiled tenderly at her downturned face. He had that feeling back, that feeling he’d missed with agony, the feeling of water, calm and fluid and natural. 

“I don't want to tell you about the titanomachy tonight,” they said hesitantly. “I want us to limit how much we have to sieve through in the same hour.”

He chuckled softly and gave their hands a reassuring squeeze.

They squeezed him back and smiled, eyes large and easy to drown in. “When I'm ready, not long from now, I will tell you. I didn't keep it back because I'm the villain of the piece, but I do have regrets and confusions, and details of other people in your life that I need to work out how to be fair with, and…” they swallowed delicately, “and I was afraid all of that would change your feelings towards me.” 

Ares ached. He shifted an inch closer and ducked to keep their flitting eyes on him, to make them look at his damn sap devotion and stop thinking they were possible to stop adoring. Their hands in his were like eggs in a nest.

Their voice sparked. “But if that happens, then tough shit. I owe you that choice. That’s not a gift, it’s a right. I want you to like me, but underneath, there's this burning." Their mouth perked temptingly up at the corner. "I desire to know you, Ares. I desire your truth, whatever it means for us.”

A fuelling flame kindled in the pit of his stomach. Fates, she was beautiful. She still made him burn, but his heart thumped hard as he realised that this was a new kind of burning. Passion always made him feel alive, but usually from the wildness, the teetering on the brink of chaos. In this moment, he felt more than alive, he felt, for maybe the first time in his short godhood, immortal.

She slid to close the small distance between them on the bench, their thighs settling against each other. “But I'd like another little while with you without that complication, if you'd give me that?”

He broke into a wide grin, his eyes pricking at her pretty, hopeful look. She hoped for him. This goddess hoped for him. He nodded - of course he nodded - and gently tucked a curl of hair behind her ear. Her smile flooded the deep light, lightening it to lavender. He was furled in her radiance, landing softly after endless falling. He desperately wanted her in his arms, to hold her, kiss her, graze against her skin and feel with every inch of him that this was real, that he was the realms' luckiest man and had some part of her to himself. But he had to stay careful. It was as if they were tweezing broken glass from a cut, they couldn't leave one shard, they needed to make this clean, it was so important. But then… maybe just a little closer? With a stifled sound of surrender, he looped his arms around them, not quite pulling them in, just resting them in the circle of his embrace, taking them into every safety he could offer, just as they had him. He shut his eyes against the smoulder of rising tears and dropped his brow to theirs, sinking into the scent of incense and roses. “I'm not worried about the day you tell me,” he whispered. “I trust you, I hope you trust me.” He chuckled thickly through a lump in his throat. “It’s very funny to me that you think you have to make the tiniest effort or hide anything at all to make me crazy about you.”

She laughed too, breathless through what sounded like a half-sob. “Oh, please, as if you weren’t my puppy dog playing fetch because I knew how to whistle.”

He laughed heartily at that. Aphrodite thrummed with the reviving sound. He pulled back with his hair cutely tousled. One hand lay on their waist and the other draped along the back of the bench to keep them somewhat encircled in his wonderful, emanating warmth. His voice kept up that whole-body thrum, so listening to him was like cruising through a twilit desert on a motorbike. “OK, you got me. I like a challenge, I’m attracted to confusing people. I like risk and reward. I like the heat of battle and the moment of victory,” he winked wryly, “or the rise from defeat.”

She beamed.

He grinned, then softened, his thumb swishing with a grounding tease up and down the curve of her waist. “But I also like to feel like I’m fighting for a reason, and I think knowing the real you might be the best reason I’ve found in my whole life. The moments when I get more of you, please you, get closer to you, I don’t feel like I did something and got a treat for it and now I want to push more buttons to get more treats. I feel like…” He rolled his tongue in his mouth. “It’s like I said, I feel like I’m coming home. It’s a beautiful thing glimpsing the island, but not as beautiful as the idea of setting foot on the shore.” He pressed a little firmer on her waist, his glimmering, cherry gaze ardent and undoing. “I will only ever want more of you. I can never be full of you, or tired of you, or entitled to you. Yeah, you get me hot, you know that. But it’s not about sex, it’s not about only looking for what will be easy or fun or attractive, it’s not about winning a game or getting a prize. I’m not a sea lion in a zoo bouncing a ball on my nose for claps and a bucket of fish.” His great shoulders heaved with a gravelly, weighty, soulful sigh. “Aphrodite, I’m embraced in the discovery of you. With you, I’m in the ocean.”

Aphrodite’s heart shattered and mended and swelled to fill her chest so the air couldn’t get into her lungs. She gazed at him through a shimmer of tears that made him shine like dawn. She longed to tell him everything he made her feel, but it all turned to light and rosewater and she couldn’t make sense of it. Her throat clogged. She sniffed and gasped. “I don’t know what to say.”

He shrugged easily. “You don’t have to.” He gave the fat of her middle a little, familiar pinch. “You asked for my truth, that’s it.”

More light and more rosewater and no words that did him justice. She opened her mouth to try and all that came out was a sodden, shrill sob. Ares’ expression melted into tender worry and he hastily tilted forward to cradle her.

All her doubt fled.

She threw herself into his body and whirled her arms around his neck. “Oh, Honey, I missed you so much!”

“Shit, Aph!” Ares’ composure crumbled and he hurried into her embrace with a sound like a log breaking in a river. He bundled her tight into his arms and hugged her like an eclipse hugs the moon. He buried his face in her neck and lost himself in her perfume. She crushed her face into his hair and tumbled into orange groves. They wept into each other and grasped each other with all their strength. 

“It hurt so much being apart from you,” Aphrodite whispered.

“Gods, it fucking sucked,” Ares rumbled. “I never want you to hurt. I never want to hurt you. I’ll always be there for you, Aph. No matter what.”

“I know you will. It feels so perfect, Honey. I’m here for you too, always.”

“I know you are. It’s crazy, but I know.”

They somehow clasped tighter, passionate warmth submerging them and the club trickling away. Aphrodite surrendered their body to his bone-breaking might, armourless, vulnerable, utterly protected. Ares flung himself onto the current of their breathing and let go of everything but his faith in this feeling, because it wasn't all wishes and no instincts, it was wishes born from instincts.

We're together.

You're mine. I'm yours.

Elsewhere in the club, Hermes chatted blithely between two attentive nymphs and felt the last itch soothe. 

Reconnection.

Fucking finally.

He slid into his next pick-up line.

Aphrodite relaxed as the last of the sobs shuddered out of her and she began to lean back to see Ares’ pretty face again. He clamped her where she was with a chortling murmur in her ear. “Nope, not yet, still crying very manly tears that you don’t need to see.”

She giggled and nuzzled his hair. “Oh no, too sexy, I’ll ruin the moment.”

He laughed, rich and vibrating. He hauled in a steadying breath that made her float on his torso and let her fold back from him. They looked at each other’s tear-splashed faces, Ares’ like splattered fruit and Aphrodite’s make-up in a smudged fog. They giggled breathily at the sight and wiped each other’s tears away with caressing touches that drifted into holding hands again. 

“On that,” Ares said hoarsely, “I have a suggestion that I’m probably gonna regret.”

Aphrodite cocked their head. “Oh?”

He eyed her playfully, toying with her fingers. “What if we were friends? Like, stopped that dance Hermes accused us of. What if we just took some time off sexual tension and got to know each other? To learn us, you know?”

She quirked an eyebrow uncertainly. “You mean like platonic?”

He laughed. “I don't know if I'm ever gonna reach totally platonic with you. But friends.” He bunched his shoulders. “Can you be not totally platonic friends?”

She smiled and wound her fingers around his restless ones. “I think the best friendships have a touch of romance to them - when you feel so strongly for someone, about how wonderful they are, how much joy they give you, how much you want to protect them, and have them to yourself a little. That sound right?”

“That sounds exactly right.”

“People take non-romantic lovers all the time, why not have romantic friends?”

“Romantic friends.” He grinned.

She grinned with a twinkle in her eye. “Do you think we can do it, hot messes that we are?”

“Not up to me. I made a promise.” He slipped one hand free and held it between them, palm up. He folded it into a fist, then unfolded it again. A tiny, crimson flame danced on his palm, turning the tips of their noses red. He closed and opened his fist again. A teardrop of red jasper lay on his palm. He reached inside his jacket and produced a second crystal droplet, this one rose quartz. Aphrodite stared down at the sparkling stones. A look of confusion slowly transformed into amazement. Ares gave them a lopsided smile and closed his fist for a third time, leaving his pinkie poking forward. 

"So, when I'm a grown-up, can we be friends? Like, for a long time?"

"Sure thing. Pinkie-promise me that, when you’re a grown-up, you’ll be my friend."

Aphrodite’s mouth dropped open as the memory returned to her. “Oh my Gods… I’d totally forgotten that.”

He nodded. “Me too, for a while. Pretty sure it’s still binding, though.”

“Oh, absolutely, nothing is more binding than the pinkie-promise.”

His lopsided smile lifted. “So, friends?” He held up his pinkie.

She beamed elatedly. “Friends.” She hooked it with hers.

They kept grinning like school children.

Then Aphrodite abruptly snorted and tossed her hair. “Though, also, we both now have to totally bury that memory, because, ew, you’re so young.”

Ares erupted into booming laughter that threatened to knock over the screens veiling them and seemed to turn up the volume of the club. He tugged her hard by their linked fingers and they crashed into another long, desperate hug. 

The distant music sighed and sprinkled over them, rocked them gently, scooped them into warmth and closeness and sweetness and relief and promise. 

After Fates know how long, they eased from the embrace and rested brow to brow again. Aphrodite tickled his fist open, plucked the droplet of red jasper from his palm, and pocketed it. He chuckled and pocketed the rose quartz. Her hands wandered to his arms, his to her back. They stroked each other, cherishing, easy. Ares closed his eyes and swam serenely in the lingering glisten of flowers and tears. “Aph?” he whispered.

“Mm?”

“This feels really good.”

“Mmmm. It does.”

Aphrodite smiled into the purple and gold darkness between them. The end of existence would smell like ouzo and cologne. 

But…

“Ares, there’s one more thing.”

He rubbed her back reassuringly. “Tell me.”

They raised their face and squared their shoulders. “I came back because things have to change and I am going to change them. I know Zeus is your dad and there’s a lot of complexity in your family and I don’t want to make anything harder for you, but he’s also the king, and having a family doesn’t protect him from having citizens. I am going to be his problem. I am going to be his reckoning. So, if we’re going to be friends, you have to choose if you can handle that. I won’t be angry with you if the answer’s no, if you have to walk away from me, even after what we’ve said tonight. You have your duties and your place and you are not obliged to rip yourself in half for me. As your friend, I don’t want to bring more challenges into your home, but as a goddess, I have to. I am Aphrodite of the People, and I have to fight the forces that keep them down.” They finished their speech with a tight breath, fighting with everything in them not to lock his body in their hands so he couldn’t pull away.

He didn’t pull away. He nodded and looked down with a considering frown. “So, what you’re saying is…” his eyes flicked back up and glinted bloody, the violet flowers mirrored perfectly at the centre of his yawning pupils, “you’re declaring war.”

A thrill shimmered through them. “I suppose I am.”

His lips curled into a criminal grin. His hands glided tantalisingly up her back to tip her close. Their noses brushed. Her stomach fluttered. She smiled like a fey. He winked and dipped and pressed his lips softly to hers.

The kiss was chaste, but hot and certain and it set her arteries aflame. 

He broke from them and caught their eye with a look that quickened the music. An irresistible growl threaded from his throat.

“Perfect.” 

 

*

 

3.

Blink.

2.

Blink.

1.

Blink.

Music roared into the dark cinema. 

A Fates Production.

In association with Underworld Corp.

Directed by Lachesis.

Screenplay by Clotho, based on a concept from Primordial Darkness.

Edited by Atropos.

Starring Aphrodite, as that racy dame from the isle of pleasures!

And introducing Ares, as the rebel without a cause, until he meets that all important lady-love!

Filmed in Technicolor.

The swooping screen crackled into a garish, grainy city street. Ares sloped through the faceless crowds. The camera panned to around the corner. Aphrodite was tottering along past a sparkling jewellery store.

She rounded the corner.

So did Ares.

They crashed into each other with a bark and a delicate cry. The scene bumbled along in cutesie exchanges of apology and flirtation. 

“You make a habit of knocking girls off their feet?”

“Knocking or sweeping?”

And then the picture was consumed in fire.

Images began to rip through the flames. 

Zeus first, in crackling black and white, barking into a rotary telephone. “You’re useless to me! I asked you to get her out of my hair! Why does no one see what a danger this woman is! You gotta go after her with everything you got!”

Hera next, also in black and white, her cigarette in its long holder hissing smoke around her tear-streaked face. 

Then Ares, in blinding colour, flames wreathing him, his eyes empty of all but fire, and Hera’s voice screaming from off screen. “Please! Stop! Stop, Lamb, please!”

Then Aphrodite, vivid lavender and crimson, glaring down at the camera from an exalted throne surrounded by rich palm trees. Ocean waves submerged her feet. Her mouth moved imperiously around the words, “I am the last remaining essence of the titans above ground. I was the first of you, and I will be the last.”

Flame and lightning and ocean storms.

Zeus with white eyes.

Aphrodite falling through black cloud.

Ares roaring in rage in a swirl of blood and fire.

Great armies covering the earth.

Sacrifices in blood.

Blood streaked across Ares’ face.

Wild dancing through stone streets.

Wine.

Gold.

Machinery.

Weaponry.

Horses.

Ships.

Shields.

Sage smoke.

Columns falling.

Columns rising.

Mortal emperors in laurel crowns and bright armour.

Hestia, also in colour, cradling a flame held in her bare hands.

Cattle with their throats cut.

A young man standing proud with Aphrodite rising behind him and holding a laurel crown over his head.

A vast army with Ares at its head.

Glowing rooms full of writhing, naked bodies.

Battle.

Dancing.

Wine.

Blood.

Fire.

Ocean.

Marble.

Lightning swallowed in darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness.

Then the brightly coloured street was back, this time at glimmering, purple twilight. 

“Oh, Ares, I’m afraid that, if I kiss you, nothing will ever be the same again.”

“Aphrodite, we’ve met. Everything’s already changed for good.”

They kissed.

Deep.

Pressing.

Like a dam breaking.

They folded into each other’s arms.

Romantic music blared.

White, curling letters bloomed across their faces. 

The Beginning.

The music soared away on its final note. The screen paled. 

Hera was cold.

"What did I just watch?" She whipped up to stand in the aisle of the dark, musty cinema. 

Hades stood too and came beside her, his great shadow shielding her as the blood red of the floor and the ocean blue-black of the walls drowned her, as if the film was still spilling its haunting images into the dimness. Hecate stayed sitting on her own row, the sickly gleam of her feline eyes rested unreadably on the queen. The Fates fanned from their row like a deck of tarot cards.

Lachesis blinked blankly through the sheen on her winged glasses. "Rome."

"What the fuck is Rome?" Hera snapped, her whole body crisp with containing the lurching of her stomach.

"Your son's city," Atropos replied with a turquoise smile.

"My son's city is Sparta."

Three grins like dogfish closing in on a shrimp.

"Sparta is the young prince's training wheels," Lachesis said, "but Rome."

"Rome."

"Rome."

Her sisters echoed her eerily.

"Rome is his magnificence."

Clotho sighed dreamily, ruffling her ringlets. "An empire the likes of which we have never seen. An empire without limits."

Atropos shimmied her cardiganed shoulders. "It will shape half the world."

Lachesis nodded. "All following will be in its image."

"Language."

"Government."

"Technology."

"Very straight roads."

"Excess."

"Sin."

"Art."

"Ritual."

"Madness."

"Her influence, of course." Clotho plunged her hand into a bucket of popcorn and munched uncouthly.

Hera looked with distaste at the chomping jaw of the strange, wool and lipstick woman. "Her influence?"

"Yes," Atropos cut in. "Rome is as much her child as his."

"Literally." Now Lachesis. "The Mother of Rome."

They kept ping-ponging Hera's attention between them, too fast, too light. She rubbed her smarting brow. "You're talking about Aphrodite."

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Naturally."

"Just!" She swallowed hard and pinched the bridge of her nose. She took a grounding breath and almost gagged on dust. "Just, please, stop speaking like that. Just tell me. Explain what I just saw."

Clotho kept chewing. "It all starts with Troy. And her."

"Aphrodite?"

"Aphrodite."

"Bingo-bango."

"And the war for love."

"War?" Hades' granite voice came behind Hera. "But Troy is a long standing ally of Greece."

Lachesis adjusted her glasses and they winked yellow. "Not forever. Not when the Trojan prince steals the Spartan queen."

Atropos purred. "Mmm, and then Ares and Aphrodite will find themselves on opposite sides of the greatest war in history."

Hera couldn't feel the floor. She put her hands on her hips and breathed slowly.

"Opposite sides?" Hecate asked with slick absence of concern. "Aphrodite will fight against Greece?"

The Fates nodded in clockwork unison.

She toyed thoughtfully with the ends of her hair. "That's… an interesting development."

"Bitch," Hera spat to the floor in a spark of fury.

Hades touched his fingertips to her back. "Greece will fall?"

Clotho perked up. "Oh." Munch. "No." Munch. "Greece prevails."

Lachesis smoothed her poodle skirt squished into the tight seats. "Troy will fall, but not before Aphrodite and Ares reunite."

"How?"

Atropos snickered. "He will defect."

Hera's heart slammed. "WHAT?"

"Bless his cotton socks."

"WHY?" 

"Because he loves her so much," Clotho replied as if it was obvious.

Hades glanced at Hera and cleared his throat pointedly. "You mean because he will, one day."

"Um, sure, let's go with that."

Atropos flowed back in with dark zealotry, teeth bared. "And Ares and Aphrodite will stand in the ashes of the city that fell for love, her greatest disgrace and accomplishment, and one man will survive."

"Her son," Lachesis added. Every time their speech volleyed to another one it knocked hard on Hera's ear canal.

Hades cocked an eyebrow. "Ares' son?"

"Eh…"

"Fucking typical."

Hera's voice cracked. "And?"

The Fates all turned to her and chorused, "Aeneas."

"Born of Aphrodite."

"Adopted by Ares." 

"He will found the pinnacle of cities."

"And he will dedicate it to the ones that made him a hero."

"Ares and Aphrodite."

Every time they said her son's name beside that goddess', Hera's guts tangled tighter.

"Mars and Venus."

She started. "What?"

"Rebranding and all."

He changes his name? What else does he shed?

The fingers on her hips stretched to press on her stomach as it rocked. "Mars…"

"A strong name."

"Mars! The God of Rome!"

"Rome!"

"Rome!"

She scrabbled for her sensibility, put her questions in order, desperately smelling the lingering smoke on Hades to stifle the choking, sugary must of this place. The vast, blank screen soared overhead like a void coming to erase her. "What about Zeus? And the rest of us?"

Hecate watched them.

Lachesis shrugged disinterestedly. "You'll have positions. Greece will be remembered by Rome, it will be its roots." Her gaze pierced the red-blue darkness. "But it will fall."

"Athens."

"Sparta." 

"Corinth."

"Elis."

"Delphi."

"Ruins."

"All subsumed by Rome."

"Rome."

"Rome!"

"STOP SAYING THAT WORD!" Hera reeled on her stilettos and thrust her hand out. Hades caught it and brought her against his sturdy torso. She was still falling. Her organs fell inside her body. Her thoughts fell inside her brain. Her marrow fell inside her bones.

Her kingdom fell inside her womb.

She clutched Hades' sleeve and dragged his scent through her nose. She pulled herself straight, raised her chin, and glared with glacial ferocity down at the lounging Fates. "Alright. No one must know of this, least of all Zeus. Do you understand? If this is leaked, Hades will see to it that your punishment is painful and finite."

Hades made an uncertain sound in the back of his mouth.

She rounded on him. "Right?"

He squeezed her hand and turned his sober gaze to the Fates. "Please don't tell anyone."

Lachesis shrugged again, pushing her glasses up her snub nose. "Of course."

Clotho foraged noisily through the kernels in the bottom of her tub. "We shouldn't really have told you, but it was just too juicy."

Hecate tilted her head into the beam from the blank projector. "What about you? Do you survive this Rome?"

Atropos tossed her bouncy ponytail. "Oh, yes, but by then we'll have this all on a streaming service."

Hades frowned. "What's a streaming service?"

She tapped the side of her nose.

Hera prickled and tugged him sharply. "Hades, let's go." She couldn't breathe in here. If she never heard another crumb of popcorn crunch it would be too soon. 

He nodded and walked behind her, his shadow spreading like wings to bar her from the yawning, empty screen. 

"Ummm, you're welcome?" Lachesis called after them.

The double doors slammed behind them.

She snorted. "Rude."

"Rude."

"Rome! I mean rude."

Hecate stroked her chin and stood smoothly. "Come on, ladies, milkshakes on me."

"Tubular."

The doors swished and gusted Hera with more close, thick, dust-laden air. All the severity fled her. She buckled and hugged herself, jabbering breathlessly to the sticky floor. "This is it. The prophecy. This is how Zeus falls to his son. It's real, Hades. It's happening and it's happening now."

Hades loomed over her out of the smothering, carpet darkness, his voice rough and gentle. "They said he'll live."

"Live to be beneath Ares! That's worse than dying for him!" She heaved for air and rubbed her forehead coarsely. "Gods, Hades, if he finds out, he'll…" Falling again. She was shaking. "I don't know what he'll do to my boy."

Hades caught her again as her knees weakened. He held her arms and bent to her, his soft, kind face wrought with the effort not to look anxious. "Then he won't find out. Ares doesn't even know. This is a long, long time in the future."

She pawed at his forearms. "But it's begun. It began the moment they met. We can't even stop it by parting them now, I felt it, he's married her, he's…" She swallowed a gag. He hastily pulled her into his arms. She tucked into his jacket and pressed her cheek into the furrow where his pecs met his ribs. She held him fast and she remembered seeing him wounded, seeing him more ichor than skin and more bandage than both, lying among lily of the valley. Everything he bled for. Everything they both lost. All their regrets. All for this kingdom. And now… "I gave birth to it. The war that ends Greece. It came from my body." A black tear slipped from her closed eye to soak his shirt.

He held her closer. "All things pass, Hera." He stroked down her hair and pressed his warm lips to it. "You can tell yourself you gave birth to the twilight, or to the next dawn."

She clung to him and trembled. She could feel her scar carving her out, cutting the tendons that let her stand.

"Is it so bad that, for once in this family, a relationship isn't going to be a damn tar pit holding us all back?"

She breathed him in, smooth whisky and acrid tobacco and sour funeral dirt.

He cradled her and murmured in his deep monotone into her hair. "For the first time since we fought our own war, love will rise victorious."

She stilled.

She tasted it.

Love will rise victorious.

And in that same kingdom, in a different colour of darkness, Ares and Aphrodite walked together into a swirling melody. They slipped secure into each other's arms, closed their eyes, and danced like it was the end of the world.

Chapter 22: An Interlude with the Fates

Summary:

The Fates want a quick chat with you.

"Well, goodnight, babes! Clotho here."

"And Atropos."

"And Lachesis."

"Actually, is it night?"

"It's always night here."

"So, that's some prophecy, huh? It's going to be something of a big deal from here on out."

"So we thought we oughta pop in and give you the full story from the old books."

"New books."

"Future books."

"Not for them, for them they're old books."

"Oh."

"Right. Let's talk Aeneas."

"Aeneas was..."

"is..."

"will be..."

"the son of Aphrodite."

"Aphrodite was..."

"will..."

"Stop it!"

"To punish Aphrodite for 'causing' the gods to sleep with mortals, Zeus decided she should be cursed with...

"Sleeping with a mortal."

"As if she wasn't doing that every Saturday anyway."

"Quite."

"He chose for her Anchises. Anchises was a minor prince of Troy."

"Yeah, he literally even picked royalty for her, what kinda punishment was this exactly?"

"Troy was a prosperous city state in the Greek/Turkish milieu..."

"Oo! Fancy word!"

"Thank you, I have no idea how to spell it."

"Ahem..."

"Sorry."

"Troy was a prosperous city state."

"Ruled by King Priam, with his sons Hector..."

"Fabulous. Brilliant."

"and Paris."

"Dingbat."

"Priam's cousin was Anchises."

"Hence the minor prince thing."

"So, Zeus had Aphrodite sleep with Anchises. The encounter..."

"Pffft, 'encounter.'"

"left her pregnant with a son. She named the boy born to her Aeneas, but as he was mortal, she left him with his father to be raised in Troy."

"Now, fast-forward..."

"Aeneas is a young man."

"Is?"

"Was."

"And Greece was changing."

"A mighty king, Agamemnon, had swelled his kingdom across the lands and absorbed a number of the city states making up that part of the world at that time."

"He was fast becoming a king of Greece, not just a Grecian king."

"Among his subordinate kings was his brother."

"Menelaus, king of the city of Sparta."

"Remember him?"

"Menelaus was married to Helen, a Spartan woman famed for her beauty."

"Menelaus extended his friendship to Troy, a kingdom currently independent of Agamemnon. Priam's sons, Hector and Paris, came to visit Sparta and...?"

"Hang out, I guess."

"Thing is, with Paris, when he hangs out..."

"He lets it aaaall hang out."

"So when time came to go home, Paris figured, 'this Helen sure is a classy dame, bet she'd look great in Trojan threads.'"

"And he abducted her."

"Well, that's a little harsh."

"Aphrodite gave her to him."

"Oh, yeah, right."

"You see, he'd named her as the most beautiful of the goddesses in a... I'm sure very valid competition. She promised to reward him with the most beautiful wife in the world."

"Hit a snag when turns out she would already be a wife at the time of their meeting."

"So, we have Agamemnon collecting city states like baseball cards."

"We have his brother sans wife."

"We have the prince of a juicy, uncollected city state stealing said wife away and creating major drama with said brother."

"Agamemnon smells blood in the water."

"'No one insults my brother!'"

"And he and Sparta march on Troy."

"Thus the war begins."

"The war."

"The war."

"Siege."

"Blood."

"Grief."

"Desecration."

"Gods, mortals, monsters."

"No one is exempt."

"Least of all Aphrodite."

"Her favourite and his desire the catalyst for the carnage."

"The war for love."

"Greece drenches Troy's beaches in blood for a decade."

"But the city walls hold."

"Heroes rise."

"Songs are sung."

"Atrocities committed."

"And then..."

"Then..."

"Troy falls."

"Troy will fall."

"Troy must fall."

"No matter how often you hope this time it won't."

"Priam dies. Hector dies."

"Troy shone like the sun, and then it was buried in the earth."

"All things pass."

"But that one packed a punch."

"The royal family had been decimated, but one minor prince escaped with a group of followers."

"And that minor prince was..."

"Aeneas."

"Bet you thought we'd forgotten about him."

"With the guidance of the gods, Aeneas escaped the ravaged kingdom."

"And he and his followers travelled to Italy."

"So nice that time of year."

"And less on fire."

"And from them, the first Romans were born."

"Rome."

"Rome."

"Rome!"

"Rome would go on to be an empire that even Agamemnon couldn't dream of."

"And their patron god?"

"Their great leader?"

"Their inspiration?"

"Their guide?"

"Their model of glory?"

"Mars."

"Formally known as Ares."

"And by his side..."

"Venus."

"Aphrodite."

"Loved, revered."

"Mother of Rome."

"Queen and progenitor."

"Ablaze and adored."

"Rome was..."

"is..."

"will be..."

"what happens when Love and War create a people."

"And don't forget, folks."

"You saw it here first."

"So save your ticket stubs."

"Goodnight!"

Chapter 23: “The hearts of all.”

Summary:

Fuelled by their friendship, Ares and Aphrodite hit a powerful winning streak. Zeus is forced to consider their position, and his. He’s determined to keep Aphrodite from being formally inducted into the Olympus Pantheon, but her team is readying an unprecedented move that will rock the foundations of his hold on Greece.

Well, look, it's not been a FULL year... I will be absolutely gobsmacked if any of you are still reading, but my whole heart is yours if you are! Skip to the next chapter for a recap of the fic so far. Some chat in the start notes.

Song, Part 2 - Greece invokes Ares and Aphrodite: Run Boy Run, Woodkid
Song, Aphrodite's big move: Aphrodite, Kylie
[CW: Zeus, so paranoia, manipulation, and unkind speech. Mild smut. Minor plots for cameo characters: battle, attempted murder by a spouse. Strained family dynamics. Tipsiness, no drama. Implied past infanticide or banishment of a child for visible difference, detail in the end notes. I'm aware this is a long list but it's genuinely a 90% super positive chapter.]

Notes:

Welcome back!

In the words of Louis Armstrong, kiss me once and kiss me twice and kiss me once again, it's been a long, loooong tiiiiime... But for once that was kinda on purpose! I had to take a break for other projects, (ya girl's trying that writer life), but I also wanted to step back, take stock, and do some development. Over the course of this fic and my others about Aphrodite and Ares, these characters and deities have come to be a huge part of my creative and spiritual life. I have my own concepts of them now
, and it's this that's really come to rule this story. I'm not trying to say don't see this as fanfic, I am so grateful to this fandom and that's where this story lives. But if you've got this far, you've read a hell of a lot of words from me, so I guess I wanted to tell you how much this story is fully me, not just fandom me. (Isn't that often the way around here?)

So from now, I'll be using mythology and (loose and abused) history a lot more, staying in the comic's setting, but not really responding directly to its plot or lore. I'll be focusing on the way the gods wrestle for power in the Mortal Realm, over the Olympus celebrity stuff so far. I hope you keep enjoying these characters as their story gets a little heavier and higher stakes. I hope it's also richer. I also hope you keep spotting the Disney Hercules references.

Oh and I'm gonna start putting recaps in the start notes! Because I am sometimes benevolent. For a big recap of everything so far, skip to the next chapter, which also has history notes.

Thank you deeply if you're this far through, even deeper if you started reading when I first posted and kept coming back. I can't tell you how much inspiration having people read this and like it and be kind about it has given me.

Love goddess blessings and war god protections on your sweet self xxx

“Once upon a time, the world was all sky.” Zeus held his baby son to his chest. The room was dark, but for the candle glow that the boy's small, chubby body shed like autumn leaves. He was snuffling softly over his father's heart, his little, erratic breaths sputtering as he listened to the low, steady voice. Zeus rubbed his back, warmer than a loaf fresh from the oven, and smiled. “All soaring, all beauty, all possibility. Everything was in harmonious alignment like the planets and stars. Everything was shining like the sun.” He kissed the custard curls growing thick on the boy’s head. They smelled faintly of burning. “This was the world of Ouranos. Your great-grandfather. He ruled not with authority, but with gravity, the cosmos in wildness and balance around him, all held by his might and gentleness. In the time of Ouranos, there was no distinction between Heaven and Earth. Reality was paradise and all the people could fly. I bet you'd like that, my little man.” He paced softly in the darkness, bouncing the baby a little to lull him. “There was no pain or anger or sorrow, no bitterness or sickness. Except in one.” He curled his arms, scooping his baby protectively close. “Ouranos' son, Kronos, grew jealous of his immortal father. He wished to rule, and to prove his ruthless strength more powerful than Ouranos' generous might. Envy coiled and rotted in him until he became twisted and cruel and, one day, he slew his father.” The baby hiccupped as he squeezed too hard. He hushed him tenderly and kept talking. “Paradise collapsed into chaos. Violence and torment covered the world, like locusts. The deranged titan ate two of his own sons and consumed the cosmos until the earth and sky were severed. He ripped the wings off all the people and cast the stars far into the distance. The sea washed with blood. The wind howled with grieving.” He combed his fingers through downy curls, delicate and silken - painfully vulnerable. “He thought he had conquered eternity. But he was arrogant. His last remaining son had escaped his unholy appetite and grown strong away in the mountains. This prince felt the pull of the planets as his grandfather had once done, the spirit of the great progenitor calling him to restore paradise. Just when all hope seemed lost, the prince returned and rose up against Kronos. He cut his brothers from the titan’s monstrous belly, and together the heirs of Ouranos avenged his death. They fought a long, hard war, years and years of sacrifice. But the victory was worth every scar. Kronos was imprisoned in the Underworld.” He eased his arms a little open to roll the baby onto his back. Round eyes opened softly and amber light pierced the dimness. “But he could not be destroyed. The prince and his brothers longed to restore the world to how it had been under their grandfather, but Kronos’ damage ran too deep. Expelling him was not enough. But they had been patient before, and so they would again. They divided the now disconnected realms between them, and each worked to rebuild an aspect of Ouranos that we had lost. To the prince, Zeus, the sky: the cosmos and climate, oversight over existence, the hope and hearts of all. To his brother Poseidon, the harmony of the earth. To his brother Hades, the cycle of life and death. It would take a long, long time, but they believed that if they worked hard enough, they could bring us back to Ouranos' Heaven. Perhaps the great sky god himself was no more, a stolen past, but with the realms in their hands, he became a promised future. As he was crowned King of Olympus, the prince became the guardian of that dream, the one we all still share, to restore the original paradise.” He stroked the golden curls again. “I guard that dream for you now, Ares. I can't yet say they lived happily ever after. But they keep working for you, keep dreaming for you, keep guarding the promise of your great-grandfather. Trust in me, believe in me, follow me, let me take care of you, and we can have Heaven one day. This isn't a story about happiness. This is a story about hope.” He bent and kissed the hot, smooth forehead of the baby. Even that pressure on his skull felt risky. His chest rose and fell against the tiny body silent in his arms.

“Can I hold him?” A gentle voice beside him. He smiled at his wife and carefully shifted to pass their son to her. Her lavender arms opened and scooped the child out of the cradle of his grasp. 

Hera didn't have that colour skin before. 

He turned fully to face her and froze. Aphrodite held Ares in her arms, no longer a baby, but a grown, strong man standing over her with his broad back like a shield between her and Zeus. He buried his face in the crook of her neck as he curled devotedly around her. His huge, brutish shoulders shuddered as she stroked his hair. She eyed Zeus past the pale cloud. 

“Let him go,” Zeus said. His voice sounded feeble in the vast darkness. Where was he?

Aphrodite smiled. She slid back from Ares’ cloying embrace, keeping his back to his father. She held something up between them, grinning into his face. “I have a present for you.”

Zeus squinted through the glimmer around them. She was holding a small, bulbous jar, sculpted from gleaming, hard obsidian. Contorted carvings ringed the outside and a screaming maw was engraved on the stoppered lip. His heart stopped. Had it ever been beating? “Aphrodite! Don't!”

She licked her canine. “Would you like to see?” 

Ares nodded.

Zeus threw himself forward. “Stop! Don't open the jar!”

Aphrodite's teeth shone gold. Her long fingers crept over the cork. And tugged. 

“NO!”

The second the lid lifted, it was flung away into the dark. A din like a thousand baying hounds exploded from the mouth. A hot gale tore through the darkness and knocked Zeus back. It spiralled around Ares, flames kicking up from the ground and dancing on his body, blood soaking through his skin. The dogs howled and Aphrodite laughed riotously. Ares’ spine cracked backwards. His head rolled. Zeus roared for him, fought against the hurricane beating him back, keeping him from his only child as he was consumed. 

“Ares! Please!”

Ares stumbled and turned on his heel, slumped and shaking, stained and splintering. 

“ARES!”

Red eyes raised. No. Black eyes. Eyes black as starless space. Eyes black as the Underworld.

“Son?”

A spear. A sword. A growl. Teeth. Muscle. Zeus recoiled as Ares advanced on him like an avalanche, seething, snarling. His golden skin was splitting to reveal pure darkness underneath, Kronos birthing out of him like a parasite from an infected egg. Zeus cried out in horror. Dogs were barking. Aphrodite was cackling. Everything turned black and gold as Ares overcame him.

Then he was pinned under a woman’s softness, going dizzy in roses and incense.

"Aphrodite, the most beloved. Aphrodite, Common to All.” Her deep, sultry voice worked inside him as her lips caressed his ear and throat. “Her cult most ancient. Her reach most far. She who could call them all to her with a snap of her fingers and deflate your fucking bouncy castle of a court in a moment. Do you think I need a crown? Little Man, that is not how I rule. You don't need the top of the mountain when you have a stronghold in every human heart. Pursuing Ares for your throne? Please. The likes of us are beyond your trinkets. You think I came here to sit in your baby high chair? I came here to redefine the concept of power, to declare the sovereignty of every heart in the realms. He is fire and I am ocean and this palace is nothing but sand to gods such as us." She kissed his cheek and pulled back, overwhelming him with her amethyst gaze as she rocked her hips on his and cupped his chin with fingers like petals. “I am the last remaining essence of the titans above ground. I was the first of you, and I will be the last.”

She kissed him.

He snapped awake.

A grey dawn scored across Zeus’ raw eyes. He groaned out the dregs of the nightmare and peeled the sweat-damp sheet off his chest. He squinted at the crack in his bedroom curtain. Behind him, a good foot behind him, Hera was sleeping with that permanent crease in her brow. She breathed shallowly, not touching the sheets enough for him to feel it. 

“What do you suppose it says about you, dear husband, that you can’t sleep when our son is well?”

She didn’t understand. No one understood what it meant to be king. A king was father to all. 

He rubbed his eyes and rolled to heave out of the bed. Every joint creaked. He sighed through his nose. The room smelled of Hera’s marjoram perfume. He walked softly to the window and nudged the curtain open a sliver with his finger. It was so early that night still clung to the edges of the sky, charcoal dust smudging into the soft sketch of fresh, emerging sunlight. The palace gardens were beginning to glisten with dew. Crowning the greenery in the centre of the bedroom’s view was the starfruit tree, the one they had planted to celebrate Ares’ birth. Twenty-three years of fruitlessness, now it was so huge with golden crop that it overshadowed everything around it. It drained the soil and blocked the light. He exhaled stiffly and rested his head against the curtain. He thought grimly back to the argument he and Hera had in bed last night.

“Zeus, I’ve been thinking, why don’t we hold a real welcome party for Ares? He’s making his mark, he’s working so hard, he had such a successful first campaign, surely it’s time to celebrate him.”

He leaned back on his pile of pillows and rubbed his eye. “Ares doesn’t like parties.”

She tutted and massaged her hand cream over her dainty knuckles. “It’s not about what he likes, it’s about what he deserves. He’s earned recognition.”

His jaw clenched. He rolled it loose and spoke gently. “Hera, he won’t let anyone see Sparta, he’s even locked Athena out. What are we supposed to tell people we’re celebrating?”

“It’s drawing comment that we’re so hesitant to praise him.”

He turned and caught her gaze, making deep, painful eye contact with her. Her eyes always hurt to look at in the low light. “Given the circumstances of his conception…” And there it was. That ugly, wounded crevice in her fine brow, the welling of her agonising eyes. She looked down and rubbed her palms hard with her thumbs. He sighed and shifted closer to her. “We just can’t be too careful, not until we understand this secret work he’s doing. There have already been too many signs that your womb did… affect him.”

She slammed her hands down. “My womb. You always make sure to blame my womb.”

He rolled away again and replied tersely to the ceiling. “It isn’t blame, Bunny. It’s a misfortune. You can’t help what happened to you when Pandora opened the jar. You know I hate your sorrows more than you do. It kills me that you went through so much only to have this second blow. But you did. And we don’t have the luxury of pretending you didn’t.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Ares might be dangerous. It isn’t your fault, it isn’t even his. This isn’t about what he likes or deserves, this isn’t about him as our son, or even as a person. This is about the royal house and our oath to restore the Heaven of Ouranos. How can we risk restoring Kronos instead?”

“We won’t! And in the meantime, my son feels like an outcast in his own home!”

“Maybe if we told him about the jar…”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Bunny…”

Her lamp clicked off. Her body hit the mattress, her back to him. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

He sighed again and slid down under the sheets to wait for however long it took this time to fall asleep.

The grey-green leaves of the starfruit stirred. Zeus narrowed his eyes at it, rubbing their soreness again. The laden branches were dressed with not only leaves, but feathers. His hand fell and balled into a fist.

The tree was filled with doves.

They glimmered haunting white in the dawn, possessing the garden with ghosts that began to trill low as he strained his ears. He gripped the curtain and glared as the song rose. An eerie, minor key melody swirled around the tree, then around the palace. It chorused from all sides, chimed in the fireplaces, resounded on the windows. It surrounded him, seized his body, besieged his ears. He clenched his teeth and snarled at the grey glass as the doves called louder and louder, spectral, cold. He was snow-blind. Everything became white feathers.

Then black.

He gasped and stumbled backwards as peat-black wings suddenly cloaked the window. A monstrous bird swooped against the pane, its looming, grotesque face the colour of spilled entrails. Eyes full of ravenous anger speared him. A beak like a meat hook opened wide.

 

*

 

The discordant rasps of vultures laced the dawn. Ares stood barefoot in a wide meadow, the grass brittle and yellow with fire damage. He breathed the fresh, reviving air. He wore only his chiton, his warm muscle unencumbered, his pulse quick and alert. He watched the herd of wild horses roving around the meadow. They were not just any horses. They were large, powerful creatures, hooves like anvils and heads like the prows of warships. Smoke puffed around their flaring nostrils and between jagged, flesh-rending teeth. Red sparks danced in their coats and round, deep eyes. The meadow smelled of butchery and barbecue. One raised its face and spotted Ares at the edge of the hillock rise. Its ruddy flanks rippled and glowed. Its lips rolled back in a whinny like a steamboat whistle. It loosed a jet of flame from its mouth. Ares gulped. 

Aphrodite Dia, keep your fingers crossed.

 

Aphrodite relaxed into the morning symphony of doves outside the workshop window of Praxiteles the sculptor. The sunlight sieved through creamy feathers to stroke over creamy stone. She watched as he gently tapped his smallest chisel along the curve of her statue’s bare shoulder, smoothing it into a graceful curve. He puckered his lips just shy of the unblemished skin and blew the marble dust from it in a small, dreamy cloud. Through the cloud, for just a moment, she let herself be almost visible, let him glimpse the goddess posing for him. Their beautiful body was unclothed in the worship of dawn, their stance easy and elegant, their lustrous hair loosely pinned back so that every sweet shape could be admired. They called him to be both devotee and lover. Make everyone my lover, she whispered in his heart. He blinked and brought his gaze back to his work, stone transformed to soft flesh, the line between goddess and woman crumbling, between faith and fixation, reverence and desire. She knew his fingers didn’t feel at home anymore if they weren’t traversing those thighs and breasts and fingers. Rock dust smelled like musk. He swallowed back his confusion and gingerly laid his hands on the statue’s dimpled stomach. Aphrodite stood naked in the workshop, veiled from his conscious eye, and rippled at the touch.  

Ares Aphneius, inspire me.

 

Hippomenes flexed his calves and dropped into a springy crouch on the starting line of the woodland race. He breathed steadily against the leaping sensation in his gut, focusing on the scent of earth and the encouraging whisper of leaves overhead. He turned his face to look at his opponent. His prize. His dream. Atalanta's spine curved like a bow as she poised, the sun glowing on her thick, muscled legs and the tips of her splayed fingers. She turned a leonine face to him. She gave him an irresistibly cocky smile. She'd said she wouldn't make it easy. A footrace was the condition of her hand, and she demanded to be earned. He had to show her the worthiness of his body. His muscles snapped taut.

Aphrodite Nymphia, give me speed, spur me to love.

 

The Tegean women slinked into the shadows of the mountain pass, hiding in the creases of the high ground in readiness to spring. Princess Marpessa scanned the cracks for her forces and flashed fortifying looks to them with her golden brown eyes. She signalled to them to stay silent. The men had lost their battles, Tegea left defenseless as enemies surged over the border. As the king mourned and the princes hid, the princess refused to accept defeat. They had felled Tegea’s army, they had broken Tegea's borders, but they would not take Tegea's homes. They were the women's to defend. She gathered the girls of her city, untrained, afraid, but furious and tenacious. She armed them, she led them into the outskirts, and here they were. Ambush was their only chance. The tuneless clang of bronze echoed in the cragged rock face as the invading army marched through the pass below, each trudging soldier a glinting, red scale in the body of an immense, devouring serpent slithering to their homeland. Marpessa curled her fist around her spear.

Ares Andreiphontês, give me your courage.

 

Ino clutched her toddler son to her and made her arms a shield. Her husband lurched towards them, eyes whited out as his possessed body warped into something uncanny and brutal. She cried out and staggered backwards with a painful crack against her dressing table. Little Melikertes wailed. She held him tighter. “Please, husband, fight this! You’re not this man!” Grief scraped through her as her darling Athamas’ white eyes revolved. When Hera had learned of Zeus’ adultery with her sister, Semele, Ino had sheltered their son, Dionysus. But it wasn't long before the jilted queen found him. Ino just got the young man away in time, but couldn’t escape before Hera twisted Ino’s own husband into a weapon of vengeance. Her heart shattered as Athamas roared and dove for them, but with her last scrap of sense not dissolving into terror, she leaped from his reaching hands, scooped up her screaming child, and pelted from the room. 

Aphrodite Apostrophia, protect us!

 

Menelaus strolled through the training grounds at the centre of Sparta, breathing the thick scent of sweat and sand. The warriors were gathered in the central ring, moving with avalanche momentum. The routine of their drills lost their rehearsed, mechanical quality and became fluid, natural. They moved like the soft wind brushing over them, staves like tree branches, breath in a single, unified gust. 

Ares Enkhespalos, guide us.

 

Eurydice walked out into the piercing stage lights to a howling gale of applause. It rushed over her, tingled in the very tips of her numb extremities. She flickered the plectrum along her fingers and parted her lips at the mic. 

Aphrodite Pandemos, bring us together.

Below her, eyes flooded with turquoise blaze, Sinoe raised her video camera and grinned wide. Eurydice caught her eye and shot her a small, wry smirk. Her pulse fluttered. 

Aphrodite Pandemos, bring us together.

 

The Olympia arena boiled with sound. The crowds heaped on the stacked, stone seats, craning and jostling and bursting into chants as the charioteers took their positions on the starting line. Cynisca of Sparta set her feet on her chariot. She rolled her shoulders and twined her fingers into the long reins of four imperious horses. They tossed their manes and shuffled their feet, the energy rising in them as it did in her. She shut out the din of the stadium and poured her focus into the pulsing of the reins. 

Unseen by the mortals, the gods took their seats at the highest level of the arena. All except Aphrodite. Zeus settled beside his brothers and wiped a slick of sweat from the back of his neck with his palm. Ares was on his other side, and beyond him, Apollo, both with patronees in the Olympics, Apollo’s from Delphi and Ares’ Sparta. Zeus tilted to his son and murmured, “So, which is yours?” Ares didn't look at him, red eyes locked forward on the starting line, elbows on his knees and hands rubbing rhythmically. He jutted his chin at the broad, angular woman - the only woman - standing tall on her chariot, eyes closed and heel ticking. Both she and Ares were in fitted, black, leather armour. Zeus snorted. “A woman?” 

Apollo echoed his scoff. “Haven't you lost badly enough in these games, Ares?” 

Zeus rolled his eyes. This happened every year. Ares and Apollo had competed against each other in the first Olympics, when Ares was just fifteen. Boxing. Apollo had beaten him into a sandy pulp, and it had been dogs playing tug of war at every games since. With it being Ares’ first time here as a patron, Zeus was expecting a real scrap. But Ares didn't acknowledge Apollo. His eyes didn't move from the starting line. 

A glimmer of lavender flared in the crowd. Right at the front of the stands, Aphrodite and a large retinue of nymphs and graces had suddenly appeared in seats that hadn't been there a moment ago. Their dresses glinted with brooches and their hair with pins. Their faces were all painted with some mess Zeus couldn't make out, but as he squinted, he saw it was the same basic shape and colour as the city crest on Sparta's chariot, its detail obscured in the line-up. He frowned. 

Ares’ mouth twitched. He stood and cracked his knuckles. He rose into the air. He flew softly across the searing, blue sky and descended to stand on the chariot behind the woman. Zeus exchanged a confused glance with Apollo, who then eyed the customary golden shimmer of his blessing hovering over his own charioteer. 

“This is irregular,” Hades muttered.

Zeus leaned forward to Athena. “What is he doing?”

His daughter looked uncertain, which was itself unsettling. “I don't know. He didn't clear this with me.” Zeus rolled back into his seat rigidly.

“Let him weigh her down, I suppose,” Apollo drawled. "She was hardly going to win anyway.” Zeus didn't respond.

Ares glanced towards the horde of divine femmes crushing themselves eagerly against the barrier to the track. Sparkling eyes met his. He grinned. Aphrodite grinned back. His heart was pounding so hard that it pummelled his stomach - this was it, the moment that might just prove… everything. Every thread of his body was taut enough to snap. But Aphrodite looked confident, absolutely confident. His smile warmed on her. He pulled his attention back to his champion. He looped his arms around Cynisca’s waist and nudged her glossy, black braids aside with his nose. Her body was firm. He kissed the back of her neck and took a deep, grounding breath of leather. “You've got this, I've got you.”

Something hot coursed through Cynisca. Strength and reassurance and direction filled her body.

Ares Hippios, ride with me.

 

Peitho sat at her desk and spread a clean sheet of scented paper in front of her. She looked at the mirror propped up by an orchid plant. She smiled at her own fine, striking features. She wasn't just pretty. She was intelligent. She was fierce. She was alluring, but not just because she was sexy. Her words were meaningful, they did things to people, they made things go her way. She knew that about herself now.  Something was coming of age in her. She twirled a pen in her fingers.

OK, Boss, let's do this.

 

The meadow mare screamed into the dawn and reared up into a monstrous silhouette against the sunrise. 

 

Praxiteles pressed his lips to the statue’s throat. 

 

Hippomenes kicked off from the ground.

 

Marpessa released a wild cry of onslaught and thrust her spear into the air.

 

Ino slammed through her front door and hurtled into a run like a hare.

 

Menelaus drew his sword and swung it in time with the rows of soldiers.

 

Eurydice raised her pick and plunged it down onto the guitar strings. 

 

The starting gong boomed through the arena. Cynisca whipped the reins and planted her feet as the chariot pitched forward. The four horses cried. Grit erupted around their hooves.

 

Peitho skated her pen along the paper with a low hum. 

 

Aphrodite, I pray to you.

Ares, I pray to you.

Prayer filled the heavens. Incense filled temples. Blood and fruit washed their floors. Sheets whirled away to present towering statues in palaces and agoras, gleaming under the bright sky. Music and birdsong drenched the land.

 

Ares rolled just in time as fire swept across the grass, igniting the meadow. Flames sprouted like wildflowers around his calves. The expanse darkened with smoke, and the herd prowled through it with their eyes eerie in the gloom. He flicked his wrist and a coiled rope appeared in his hand. He circled with the tramping stallion. He blinked into his warrior vision. The beast turned to a map of firing nerves and strumming sinew. He watched the horse’s organs work in the dark shadow of its mighty body. He watched the flames brewing in its trunk-thick throat. He rolled his shoulder back just in time to avoid another jet of blinding fire from gore-decked fangs. The hairs on his arms singed. The stallion charged. Its nostrils wreathed in sparks, hooves sending shudders through the ground. Ares cracked his knuckles on the rope. The stallion reared up over him, hooves flailing, body towering, its shriek like a thousand ghosts in the thick smoke. The blow came down. He sprang. 

 

Aphrodite hummed, their torso moving like a wave as the enthralled sculptor trailed his fingers down the carved furrow of her statue’s spine. This is how it would be now; the power of pleasure and adoration gushing over her as worshippers fell in love. Her naked statue would draw their ardour, their touch, and feed it into her flesh. Her body pulsed with rich, orchid light. Dove song stirred the air. No other goddess had ever been sculpted naked. Something about decency. Something about keeping that channel of power barred, because, oh, how it opened their body to power. Oh, how it flowed. Praxiteles cupped the statue’s face and kissed it with needy whimpers dripping from his lips. Aphrodite parted their legs in their stance and felt him slip between them. He kissed along her cheek and murmured of the temple he had carved this for, of all the people of Knidos throwing themselves down to kiss her and work her will.

 

Hippomenes angled his body like an arrow and threw all his strength into running. The trees blurred around him. Atalanta was just ahead, flaxen and fluid and fast. The shadows of the canopy dappled her arms, fluttering on her like butterflies as her muscle pumped. He balled his fists and sped. They kicked up earth with their feet, the scent of pollen and soil rushed through him, fresh, invigorating, like everything was around her. She was all aim and success and harmony - the way she moved with her musculature thrumming under her tan skin, the way her rippling hair turned pure gold in the spills of sunlight through the leaves, the way she crowed over her shoulder as she left him behind. She was stunning. She was winning. 

 

Blades collided violently with shields as the Tegeans hit the battalion, like a mudslide. The warrior women bared their teeth and let the blood mat in their hair as they screeched like hawks and gashed into the gaps between bronze plates. Marpessa’s ears filled with ringing metal, her nose filled with blood. She drew it in and let it charge her, shocking the men around her with blasts of berserk fury. She howled and ploughed her spear into a skull. Her troops trickled from the mountainsides and filled every crack between the surrounded soldiers, like oil poured over olives. Gripped by confused terror, the enemies turned feral, fighting like trapped cats. 

 

Ino’s child keened as he clung to her tear-soaked breast. She hushed him and wrapped him tighter as she raced desperately through the empty fields. There was no one to go to, no one to save her. But something was with her. Something kept her buckling knees from giving way. Something turned her arms to oak to safely cradle Melikertes. She hacked on the bile taste of adrenaline in the back of her throat. Her husband bellowed behind her. She pelted onwards, but screeched to a halt as she saw with horror that the ground in the near distance was falling away. She’d run so far that she’d reached the cliff edge. Melikertes pawed at her hair and wailed. She rubbed his back, throat closing. She looked behind her. Athamas was thudding closer, a knife in his hand. She steeled herself and kept running to the cliff.

 

The Spartan warriors shouted to the sky, ferocity in their voices and light in their eyes. Menelaus grinned at them. He looked beyond his spinning sword to the rising city, the boulders and rubble turning into warm homes and brave temples and a vast mess hall where this could continue and grow, this comradeship, this passion. The men moved their weapons like limbs. The women circled the training ground, like wolves, whistling and mocking them, teasing them stronger, prouder, harder. He laughed and flowed through the steps, the burn in his muscles better than pleasure.

 

Music ground through Last Resort and the rabble went wild. Sweat that smelled of ice and droplets of sticky beer fogged the air. Eurydice flashed her translucent teeth at her bassist and they swaggered towards each other to trade notes. Sinoe laughed and almost dropped the camera as she bounced on her toes. Eurydice flicked a glance to her, then smiled to herself in a secret sweep of shadow. Her shade body vibrated with the waves firing from the amps. Every molecule reverberated. A living body can fill with sound, but she was more than that, she was sound itself. She sang and shook her choppy hair and held onto the buzzing guitar as her only solidity. The high was incredible. 

 

The Olympic chariots charged forward, wheels and hooves making the ground tremble. They rattled through sprays of sand, the crowd roaring deafeningly. The craze of the fans brimmed over in the arena, the cauldron of raucous noise so hot that the sand seemed to bubble under the thundering hooves. The Delphi charioteer took an early lead, the majority of the crowd wearing his colours and calling down Apollo for his victory. Sparta was a nobody city, barely an outpost, it was almost funny they were competing at all, and with a woman of all stupid risks. But… was that woman catching up? Cynisca ignored the combined jeering and dismissal of the crowd. She gripped her reins and gripped her body, leaned tight with the corners and whistled commands through her teeth. She whipped the reins and hollered a shrill war cry as she pulled ahead of every rider but Delphi’s champion. Her bones quaked with the rumbling chariot. It was threatening to fall apart as her speed tested the gears. Her horses’ flanks moved like bellows. Their black manes danced beside the white tails of Apollo’s chosen. Surprise rolled through the crowd. Then excitement.

 

Peitho wrote in a fever, no crossing out, no second guessing. Her words cantered through her onto the page. Magic crackled in her hands and made her mouth taste like raspberries. 

 

Ares flung his body in a tight arc through a loop of lethal flame. Aphrodite Khrysêe, wait ‘til you see this .

 

Aphrodite giggled and dropped her head back as Praxiteles clutched the statue’s waist and sucked her permanently pricked nipple. Oh, Ares Obrimos, I love being your friend, but he clings like you did. When I remember that, I adore being a goddess of desire. 

 

Hippomenes stared with an ardent sting in his chest at Atalanta’s escaping back. Aphrodite Symmakhia, don’t let me lose her, she’s my world.

 

Pain lanced Marpessa’s side. Something warm soaked her armour. Ares Laossos, I can’t fall! Let rage fuel me!

 

Ino looked down over the sheer precipice. The sapphire sea churned around sharp rocks. Aphrodite Limenia, harbour us.

 

The song of bronze chimed through Menelaus’ tendons. He didn’t feel like he was training, he felt like he was dancing. He could dance forever. Ares Aatos Polemoio, don’t let this end.

 

A delighted smile came to Eurydice through the confusion of flashing lights. Sinoe’s dancing was so full of heart that it kicked up the vibrations from the amps. Eurydice stooped and held out her hand to the nymph. Aphrodite Makhanitis, make her see me.

 

Cysnisca was winning support. Sparta was turning heads. But she had to make this corner. Speeding hooves skidded. Ares Thoos, let’s go!

 

Peitho ended a paragraph with a flourish and slapped her desk to make her chair spin. Let’s see them argue that one, Boss!

 

Ares landed hard on the stallion’s back. Sparks nipped his thighs as it fizzed with fury. He snared the huffing muzzle with the rope and pulled. The beast began to thrash around the burning meadow, casting flames up around Ares, doing everything in its wild power to hurl him from its back. Ares wrenched the rope, gripped the scorching flanks with his legs, and thrust with its chaotic bucking. His pelvis pistoned, shoulder blades crested, arms mounded. All his strength zeroed in on this one purpose: stay on. This was a matter of will, and he would not break first. He thought of Aphrodite’s doubtless smile, their utter certainty in him, so clear in his mind that it was as if she was riding at his back. They’d better be damn impressed when he showed them his catch. The thought doubled his strength. He clamped with his thighs and writhed with the beast’s twists and lurches. His skin stung with sparks. His hands ached with the rope and his abs with the force. The heat rose so high that it felt as if he was submerged in oil. He was blind in the smoke, blind but for flickers of scarlet and violet and gold as he looked into the horse’s physical being. It was haywire with fight. He called on his grit, his passion, the furnace that flared inside him and made him who he was. He let the horse feel all of it, fire to fire, rage to rage, untamed to untamed. Their conjoined bodies burned and thrashed, bound and battling. 

 

Aphrodite’s sculptor crumbled to his knees, his lips never leaving the statue as he travelled down its torso. He landed in a flurry of rock dust with his hands on her hips. His brow pressed to the base of her round stomach. Aphrodite felt him pant on her. She curled spectral fingers into his hair and clasped him against her pussy. Kisses rained over her clit. Pleasure shimmered over their flesh. Their legs went liquid as they sighed. Feathers rained with the kisses, their world swirling white as climax simmered under their skin. She thought of Ares’ wonder at her, the way he listened so completely when she spoke, the way he tenderly, curiously approached her domain, puzzling it out, like a raven. It made her feel so powerful, so important. She held onto that feeling. They could sense a hundred more chisels on a hundred more statues, a hundred more mouths opening in devotion. The world smelled of marble and roses. Their body became endless, extending into every flower and wave and kindle of electricity between people. She opened her mouth and moans soared into the morning. 

 

Hippomenes huffed as he started to tire, slipping a little in the bed of roots and leaves. Atalanta grinned back over her shoulder again, then her eyes widened and filled with twinkling. Hippomenes frowned and glanced where her attention fell. Three golden apples had rolled onto the path. Her mouth fell open.  She halted, mesmerised by the wondrous fruit. Hippomenes cocked an eyebrow, slowing. Then his heart jumped. A chance! He leaped past her suspended body. He pushed all he had into the final stretch of the race. He rounded a spreading oak and saw ahead the fluttering green flags at the finish line. He set his jaw and ran. He ran towards the rest of his life. 

 

Marpessa dug her fist into her side to staunch the spill from the deep wound. Wet, hot blood greased her fingers. She staggered. Then hands were on her shoulders. She looked up to meet the eyes of a sister, but there was nothing before her but the sodden, crimson churn of battle. Invisible lips pressed to her brow. The clamour silenced. One of the invisible hands moved to her wound. She was pierced by heat. The burn bit through to her spine. The hands held her fast as she roared in agony. Then the pain began to recede. She looked down, trembling. The wound was sealed and smoking. Lips touched her brow again and a whisper floated to her ear. She gripped her spear. They could win. The invading army cut a path to the exit of the pass, towards the red sunrise. Then the light was blocked. Standing in their way, the ravenous dawn haloing her and radiating from her arms, Marpessa faced down what was left of her enemies. Fear froze their bodies. The eagle cries of the Tegean women rose once more in the ravine. The soldiers wheeled about as they saw more warriors descending. More screams. More spears. More bloodlust. They hauled up their shields, but they were already in pieces. Marpessa’s golden eyes were the last thing their captain saw.

 

Ino gulped for breath as she looked in terror down to the jagged rocks and seafoam like the saliva of a hungry beast. Athamas’ deranged yelling rose behind her. She caressed her son’s head and shook violently as she hovered between the two deaths enclosing her. Then the froth of the sea quieted. The world about her seemed to still, suspending her in a strange moment free of fear. A voice wrapped around her. It said they were her ally and the sea theirs. Light pooled in a well between the rocks. Ino grit her teeth. She looked at the face of her baby, blotched with tears. She looked to the pink horizon. She shut her eyes. And jumped. For a split second, everything in her body was weightless and silent. She curled herself around her child and plummeted through still air to the mouth of the sea. She plunged into cold. The chomping teeth of the rocks somehow all missed her and she sank like a pebble deep into crushing water. Tears leaked from her tight-shut eyes and disappeared into the dark. She sank deeper, slower, her heart breaking as she let the sea slowly consume her. Bubbles touched her cheek and she knew Melikertes was losing his breath. Then she realised something. She was breathing.

 

Dancing. Something was speaking to Menelaus of dancing. He wasn’t near any of his people, but he knew that voice, warm and brash and strumming a chord at his core. If you demand dancing, Ares, will you dance with us? The voice armoured him, stoked a bonfire inside him, made his pulse skip and his feet want to skip with it. Lips were on his cheek. He grinned and blushed. He sheathed his sword and raised his own voice. “Music!” Lyres, pipes and drums spilled out of the air slick with sweat. Dancing filled the training ground. The women jumped and beat their hard thighs with hard palms. The men whirled with staves and swords. Melody coursed between the warriors. They sang out in vibrant worship to their gods and their bond. Their bodies knew each other so well now. The dance brought them into easy connection and closeness. Menelaus grasped hands and tangled his fingers in thick hair. He brought soft lips to his and let rough hands pour wine into his mouth. Celebration overtook the city. Scarlet flags flew from rising towers.

 

Music surrounded Sinoe as Eurydice pulled her up onto the stage. Her stomach sprang as she clambered up and was overwhelmed by the wheeling lights and frenzying cheers. She lifted the camera to capture the madness, but the hand that had hauled her up stayed closed in her other, cool and not quite there. She squeezed it. Eurydice made a noise in her nose. Sinoe turned to her. The singer was frowning down at their conjoined hands. “I… I felt that…” 

“Don’t you usually feel it when something touches you?”

“Not like that.” Eurydice gazed in wonder at the fine, brown hand in hers. Sinoe was warm. Something was warm. Something made her solid. 

 

Cynisca hooted with triumph as she hit the corner at the perfect angle. The horses whinnied, lashed their tails, and sped around the curve. The chariot hurtled with them, one wheel lifting from the ground. Cynisca drove her body into balance, tilting to keep it whisking on the tight axis, pushing down to keep it from tipping. Her abs turned to steel, her jaw to pine. She bent forward and called out her Spartan war cry again. The crowd echoed it, voices raising all around her in the frenzied trill. It spurred her on. She was level with the Delphi rider, white horses glistening with sweat, her black steeds foaming at the bit. She shot him a slanted grin. He scowled at her. She laughed and rode into the breath-taking rush of wind. Sand dusted over her tongue. The bones in her hand were splintering in the straining leather straps. She cast the reins out hard and took the swerve tighter. Delphi’s horses wailed as she almost clipped them. She could risk it. Something was keeping her steady; hands on her hips, a thrilled, dauntless boom of laughter in her ear. 

 

Peitho slid her fingers neatly along the envelope seal and planted a magenta kiss on its corner. She slung her arm around Hermes’ neck and slid her envelope into his pocket. His smirk pulled wide as her hand withdrew across his crotch and she purred, “Take this to the king.”

 

Ares clashed his will against the stallion’s and leaned into the struggle ripping through his body.

 

Aphrodite melted into pleasure and caressed the dusty hair of the sculptor kissing her pussy with all his love.

 

Aphrodite picked up their golden apples from the path. They chuckled as Atalanta hurried to catch up with Hippomenes, slinging curses at him between squeals of laughter.

 

Ares pressed his back against Marpessa’s and thrust his spear in mirror with her, feeding her anger as it fed him.

 

Aphrodite dissipated into tidal currents and furled herself around Ino and her child.

 

Ares caught the spinning Menelaus and pulled him into a smiling kiss. The scent of spiced meat fizzed in the air.

 

Aphrodite hummed under her breath to Eurydice’s CD, threads of blessing wending idly down through the realms.

 

Ares squeezed Cynisca’s hips and broke into riotous laughter as the race flew through him. Bolts of reckless excitement pinballed between them. 

 

The stallion hammered its hooves, the grasp of its rider stealing its breath, muzzled fire roasting its tongue.

 

Praxiteles hugged the statue’s legs and shivered.

 

Hippomenes bounded like a stag. His toe grazed the finish line grooved in the earth.

 

Marpessa skewered the final soldier, blood showering her snarl.

 

Ino took a deep breath into lungs that should be drowning.

 

Menelaus kissed his god and tumbled into the happiness of his people.

 

Eurydice cast her final note into the crowd.

 

Cynisca slapped the edge of her chariot as she pulled past Delphi.

 

Ares roared.

 

Aphrodite moaned.

 

Hippomenes whooped.

 

Marpessa spat.

 

Ino gasped.

 

Menelaus sang.

 

Eurydice cawed.

 

Cynisca cried.

 

Prayer resounded through the realms.

 

Ares galloped.

 

Aphrodite shuddered.

 

Hippomenes flew.

 

Marpessa strode.

 

Ino swam.

 

Menelaus danced.

 

Eurydice stamped.

 

Cynisca dashed.

 

Worshippers hurried to new sites.

 

Earth tore.

 

Birds flocked.

 

Leaves showered.

 

Blood pooled.

 

Waves rolled.

 

Banners flashed.

 

Glass shattered.

 

Sand whirled.

 

Offerings littered roads and agoras, beds and altars - pomegranates, honey, flowers, the corpses of animals. The air was groggy with it.

 

Ares felt something in the stallion break. Strength locked to strength and, with a scorched shout, he overpowered. Gigantic hooves slammed to earth and sent a final tremor deep into the ground. The horse snorted and the hardness in its flanks eased. It stilled. Ares held himself tense, panting and coughing in the dense smoke as the meadow around him blazed. Sweat dripped into his eyes. He patted the beast’s neck. It nudged companionably into his hand. He blinked and released a sharp laugh. He kicked the horse’s sides and unleashed its muzzle. It snapped its jaws open with a high cry that echoed in the valley below. It lifted its hooves in a towering rear. Ares knotted his fingers into its flying mane and crowed into the glimpse of sky.

Aphrodite Epistrophia, I can’t wait to see you.

 

Aphrodite sighed tunefully as Praxiteles laid one more deep kiss on her statue’s pussy. Pleasure cascaded over her in cooling, releasing waves. Her climax moan harmonised with the doves outside and the exhausted whimper of the sculptor. Sunlight streamed through the window and kissed every pore open, moulded her into a vessel for the world to pour their worship into. They stepped out of their pose and walked into the garden, petting the slumped sculptor as they passed him. They wandered into lilies and jasmine and neroli. They beamed into the morning. It caressed their nakedness and returned their smile. The doves in the orange tree fluttered down in a glowing cloud and surrounded them with song.

Ares Khalkeos, stay with me, change is coming.

 

Hippomenes’ heart burst with delight as he crossed the finish line first. He jumped to clap the green flag and landed with a raucous yell. The wild wonder of it eddied in his veins, she was his. They could marry. For the rest of his life, it was him and Atalanta. The maiden in question tapped him curtly on the shoulder. He spun around, his giddy grin smashed across his face. She was tousled and glistening from the run, her cheeks the colour of peonies and her chest bouncing lightly. She smirked and shook her head. “Don’t expect to win at anything ever again.” He barked and collapsed into kissing her. Her hair smelled of sap. She clutched his waist and laughed against his lips. He broke them, lifted her off her feet, and spun her around in a gale of applause and leaves.

Aphrodite Nikêphoros, source of all happiness, thank you!

 

Marpessa stood in the eerie quiet of the aftermath, heaving in breaths that tasted of raw meat and metal. She eased her last pound of strength into wrenching her spear out of the sprawled sack of organs that used to be a soldier. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She looked up and saw her troop pulling themselves from their own final kills. They circled her. She met their eyes proudly. She punched her drenched spear into the air. The mountains rang with victory cries. The Tegean women cheered and embraced and shook their weapons. The day was theirs, and home was just through the pass. 

Ares Gynaecothoenas, we feast tonight to you and this.

 

Ino’s flesh was tingling, wisping at the edges, a cold force tugging at her and shifting inside her. It rippled between her and Melikertes and pulled him from her. She reached through the teal darkness to catch him, but jarred as she saw her fingers were webbed. Her little boy’s giggles shimmered through the water as his stubby legs bound into a scaled tail and his small ears flapped finned. She looked down at herself. Her own legs were now a long, iridescent tail, frills floating like her favourite dress. She reached out and scooped her son back to her. She gaped in wonder and breathed miraculously. A figure emerged from the darkness, a merman with dark emerald skin and a crown twisted from coral. Her pulse pounded. Lord Poseidon. The great God of the Ocean inclined his head, a twinkle in his black eyes. His voice resounded around the deep. “Aphrodite delivered you to me. You and your son are my kin and will protect those wrecked at sea.” He opened his arm, a gold band around the bicep. “You’re safe now. And always.” Ino’s broken heart welled. Tears of relief flowed into the water and her baby’s hair as she cradled him.

Aphrodite Pontia, I’ll serve you forever.

 

The dance gushed through Sparta, wrote itself into bone and brick, memory and future. It fixed itself into Menelaus’ warm, pounding heart. This would be the way of his city, passion and expression, physical, instinctive, bonded, harmonious, living in step, and step by step they would evolve and rise, and their dance would be felt by all of Greece. Further. Higher. Leonidas was dancing too, the tall, lupine figure of the second king stark against the orange sky. Their friendship was growing, but it was taking a lot of push and pull. That was probably better for the people, but as their eyes met, Menelaus hummed with the relief of nothing to debate. Leonidas broke from the ring of people around him and linked into Menelaus’ motions. They moved with perfect synchronicity, red and black hair flowing into each other, hands joining, feet drawing geometric patterns in the sand. They danced as they fought, overcome with love for this fresh, waking city.

Ares Enyalius, we will thrive.

 

Eurydice and Sinoe banged their heads and pounded their feet to the club stereo, noise and drunken, edged joy crowding around them. Sinoe paused and flicked the camera open again, holding it up to film the melee. Eurydice rolled her eyes with a chuckle and pushed the camera down, hand on the nymph’s warm one again. “You wanna get this? You wanna understand?” Sinoe nodded. Eurydice brought her other hand to Sinoe's chest, pressing over her heart. “Let go. Feel it.” Sinoe lowered the camera and nodded again, cheeks dark. Eurydice grinned like a sphinx and pulled her back into their chaotic dancing.

Aphrodite Melainis, give us a long, long night.

 

Cynisca focused her eyes on the finish line and stormed towards it, the din of the crowd drowning in the racket of wheels and her huffing steeds and her pacing heart. That force was still with her, channelling into her will. It killed the pain in her arms and legs, hardened her resolve, shocked her with energy every time she wavered. Sparta was in her, and their god was at her side. She could bring her people this first glory. All faces would turn to them. She lashed the reins and careened around the track.

Ares Thouros, we are unbeatable!

Ares clung to Cynisca's waist with the dizzying sensation that she was the only thing weighing him down. Battle had a more grounded rush to it, the suffering sobering among the drug of violence. This was pure, clean exhilaration. She was magnificent. She made him divine. Red-gold power zinged between them, the chariot appearing to the watching gods as a zooming missile with a rocketing trail of flame. As he'd taken his unorthodox position close to his patronee, he'd been chewing Apollo's years of snide shit and his father's conspicuous pessimism like gum, determined to take the final victory. As his and Cynisca's essences bled into each other, the chariot a thrumming Faraday cage of contained charge, everything petty and Olympian was cast into the churning sand. He just wanted to ride, to race, to burn, to go faster, wilder, to have his body ripped to shreds by speed and noise and risk. 

A flash of lavender made his stomach hop. The final stretch to the finish line was where Aphrodite and her retinue had gathered. He shot them a sideways glance and broke into a broad, dashing grin. They absolutely lost their minds. They squealed and jumped and chanted, waved red flags and banged their fists on the barrier, faces all painted with the same crest adorning the chariot. 

“COME ON!”

“LAST LEG!”

“GO! GO!”

“THIS! IS! SPARTAAAAAAA!” 

At their centre, Aphrodite was going craziest of all. She looked genuinely close to turning into a human sparkler, springing up and down with her hair and tiara crackling with violet light. She blew him a kiss so huge that he swore it bumped his cheek. He winked at her and turned back to Cynisca. He rubbed her waist. “Almost there, you can do this!”

“I can do this…”

The Delphi horses were so close behind that their hooves drummed in Ares’ feet. 

Up in the Olympian stands, Apollo craned forward incredulously, flapping charge into the blessing over his rider’s head. “What's going on? How is he falling behind?” 

“You obviously lost focus,” Zeus snapped. He ignored Apollo’s slapped look. Hera was in the row in front of them with Amphitrite and Hecate, all three beaming as Ares’ vanilla curls flurried and his shoulders glowed. Zeus ground his teeth. Sparta had not had these skills a week ago. Ares’ power was… He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. His sharp gaze flickered across the crowd. The noise had changed, rising in a rumbling tide. “SPAR-TA! SPAR-TA! SPAR-TA!” The chanting had a silver note to it. He arched his eyebrow and examined the charioteer’s new supporters. Women all around the stadium were cheering for his son’s city with a zeal like they were possessed. He scowled down at Aphrodite and her retinue. Was this her doing? What was that all over their faces? What was that on the side of the chariot? He scratched the inside of his wrist.

Cynisca knew the Delphi rider was watching her. His mistake, she didn’t care what he did, she cared about one thing and that was going forward, faster, faster, faster. The fire in her belly stoked. He may have a valuable blessing, but she didn’t feel blessed. She felt loved. There was a force with her and it felt for her, believed in her, knew her and saw her as powerful. It held her and desired her. She wasn’t being given divine ability like her opponent, she didn’t need it. She was already heroic. Her god reached into her and unearthed her strength and her courage. He remade her in blood and fire. 

The chariot charged the finish line.

Ares!

I’m with you!

Delphi sped to her side, sunlight spinning on his wheels. 

The crowd held its breath.

She levelled her body.

She narrowed her eyes.

Ares!

You’ve got this, I’ve got you!

Hooves.

Grit.

Breath.

“YEEEEEEEEEES!”

A fragment of an inch before the white horses storming at her side, Cynisca drove her chariot across the finish line. 

The crowd detonated.

She screamed in awe, tears instantly flooding her eyes, her breath tearing away. Shaking, she slowed the panting horses. Sand was caked onto her shining arms. She dropped the reins at last and clapped her hands over her mouth, stifling the elated screams spilling from her. Warmth enclosed her, something proud and protective holding her together as the truth of it deluged her.

She’d won.

Ares flung his arms around the crumbling Cynisca, laughing and hollering with her in feral delight. "You did it! Didn't I tell you, you are my fucking hero!" Her body jerked against him with her sobs, the hurricane of feeling in her so powerful that he almost lifted her into flight. As wonderful as the high of her was, he bore her tenderly down from the adrenaline spike, soothing the heaves of her stomach with warmth and stillness. He cuddled her tight and rained kisses on her neck. He held her until she was steady, then stepped aside with a dazzling grin and a little boost of renewed energy. He watched with glee as fans vaulted the barriers and flocked to her, the chariot rocking as they barraged it. She recovered herself and waved at them, shaking hands and bumping fists between wiping her eyes and brow. She seemed unable to speak, gulping and weeping. Delphi slinked away, spitting on the sand. Ares staggered back from the mess of fans and wheeled around to take in the crowd.

They were all cheering for his city.

“SPAR-TA! SPAR-TA! SPAR-TA!”

He couldn’t speak either. The flood of power trickled from him, but there was no sickness, no soreness. His body was thrillingly alive. He squinted into the flare of white sun and gazed red-eyed around the faces in the blur of riotous applause. Joy. Inspiration. Desire. He panted and laughed, high and dizzy. He combed his hand through his damp curls. 

His family watched him from the stands. Hera dabbed tears from the corners of her eyes. Amphitrite put her arm around her and whistled. Hecate clapped loudly. Zeus raised his hands and joined the applause stiffly, along with Hades, likewise holding back on celebration. Poseidon and Athena went crazy beside them, standing on their seats and pumping their fists. Apollo glared slack-jawed at the track, gelled hair unravelling. Artemis smirked and whooped. Hestia and Demeter smiled. 

Hades tilted to Zeus’ ear. “Was Aphrodite down there to cheer him on, then? I thought they broke it off.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, they were never even… togeth…” Zeus trailed off with the sensation of an ice cube sliding through his entire intestinal tract. Aphrodite and her retinue were also rushing onto the track, heading for Ares with their painted faces radiant with celebration. Zeus tried to sound bored, but his clapping faltered. “Shit, this used to happen to him at school too. What is it girls like so much about that kid?”

Hades drawled disinterestedly, “I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's because he doesn't devote great portions of his time to systematically ruining their lives.” Zeus shot him a sour look. The crowd kept swarming.

Ares was hit mid-reverie by a soft avalanche that smelled of various very strong, floral perfumes. He yelped as he was suddenly buried under nymphs and graces. Their sparrow chirping whirled around him. He laughed harder and tried to get to the surface for air, but they kept smothering him, lips pressing all over his face and neck, hands squeezing his biceps like ripe fruit and slapping his ass. He identified Peitho and hugged her. He didn’t not kiss back anyone who found his mouth. His heart flitted about like a blackbird. “Jeez! Alright! Girls, come on!”

Something burrowed through them to punch his gut like a ferret. “Fuck, Man! Look at you!”

“Hermes?” Ares strained through smooches and pinches to see his friend beaming and bounding up and down. “Hey!”

“Great job, you big lug!”

Ares grinned. His smile dazed as he saw another figure move behind the crowing messenger. She tapped Hermes aside and melted into view through the dizzying pollen cloud of nymphs. Aphrodite’s smile was brighter than the sun. She was dressed to the nines, a delicate crystal tiara on her loose, cascading hair, her eye-catching, scarlet dress adorned with a golden pin of a galloping horse, her arms spangled with bracelets. She glittered like royalty, but her face was painted like a commoner, the black and red crest of Sparta’s team splattered across her face.

“OK, you sluts, move aside.” She batted at her retinue, clearing them like she was wafting away bees. 

Ares’ breath caught. He looked down at himself, smeared with sand, sticky with sweat, lipstick blotching every inch of exposed skin. He gave her a totally stupid, lopsided smile. “Hi.”

“Hi? HI? Shut your pretty face.” They bounced into his torso.

He rushed with warmth and swung them up into an embrace that sealed every brilliance of this moment inside him, as if their arms were hot wax. He crushed them to him until he heard them cheep, then dropped them, gathering up their hands. “Aph!” He started to jabber like a little kid, everything but her becoming a glowing haze. “It worked! It totally worked! I’ve been thinking about it so much, about being up close, about all the stuff I’ve been feeling in Sparta, about being more, like, down in the mud, you know? Alongside, not above, drawing out what they have, not giving them something else…”

“I know, Honey.”

“I know it's odd, I worried it would just throw her, everyone had this look, like it wasn't proper, no one could win without a real blessing…”

“I know, Honey.”

“But it worked! Fates, YES!”

She squeezed his hands and beamed. “It did!”

“I did it!”

“You did it!”

“Ha!”

“Aaaah!” She tumbled into his arms again. He gathered her even tighter, her strength and softness embalming his senses. He nuzzled into their fragrant hair and lifted them off the ground, chuckling warmly as they kicked their dainty feet. She giggled and cuddled his broad shoulders, rubbing them hot. She murmured sweetly in his ear, just for him to hear, “I’m so proud of you.”

His heart swelled. He nuzzled deeper into their neck, reply muffling. “Thanks for helping me work it out.”

“It was all you.”

He shook his head, still lifting her off the ground. “Nothing’s all me anymore, you make everything click.”

“Hug me tighter.”

They peppered each other with laughter as he growled playfully and hoisted her up to wrap her legs around his waist. She covered him like a koala around a branch. He stumbled into spinning them around, spinning and spinning with the torrent of victory and applause around him, her jewels like comets. Their weight on his body and the roar of applause was like swimming in the sea.

Zeus watched his son take the titan-spawn goddess into his arms and spin her like they were conjoined snowflakes in a gale. Their stumbling invisibly nudged the crowd away from one side of the chariot. Zeus could finally see the emblem emblazoned in black paint. Scrawled on Ares’ banner, wings splayed and beak open, was a vulture. The ice stole from Zeus’ intestines to claim all his organs. He leaned to his brother, fighting to sound steady as his throat tightened. “H-Hades.”

“Hm?”

“We need to talk.”

 

*

 

“Sedition.”

Zeus faced Hades under a fanning tree sprouting from the rocky land a little way off from the arena. The celebration for the Spartan victor still rang in the distance.

Hades snorted, sweeping his long hair off his shoulder. “Apollo had to lose some time, it hardly qualifies as an uprising.”

“Not that, you asshole.” Zeus flexed his hands agitatedly. “Ares’ crest. The one he’s daubed on his athletes. The one that rabble crowd will be wearing after this.”

Hades shrugged. “It’s a crow or something, he’s heading for a goth phase.”

“It’s a vulture.”

Hades’ marble brow flinched.

Zeus paced, the shadows of the leaves rolling like thunder clouds across his furrowed, chiselled face. “I saw one the other day. At my bedroom window at dawn.”

“A dream?”

“No! I fucking saw it!”

Hades held up his hands appeasingly, watching his brother as one watches a stick of dynamite left next to a lighter. Zeus paced faster, rubbing his palms, eyes darting left and right as his laurel crown dropped slanted. “It was an omen. I woke from a nightmare. I could feel something was… off. I went to the window and looked out to the tree that Hera and I planted when she was pregnant with Ares.” He paused and gulped a breath down his tight throat. “It was full of doves.”

Hades frowned. “Doves?”

“Doves,” Zeus snarled. “That bitch’s messenger animal.” His chiton billowed as he paced harder, pebbles skittering down the rise from his feet. “And then a vulture flew right at my window, as if it was trying to attack me.”

Hades cleared his throat and awkwardly adjusted his heavy, layered collar. “That’s… weird…”

“It’s not weird! It’s a vision!” his brother hissed like a cobra. They both halted and glanced about the countryside around them. A stray sheep munched on a tuft of grass. Zeus glared murderously at it. It blinked and sidled out of sight behind the gorse bushes. He scratched his wrist and spoke lower, hastier. “It’s the prophecy.”

Hades’ jaw tensed. He rolled it loose. “You don’t know that.”

Zeus scoffed violently. “I don't?” He chopped the side of his hand into his palm with each point. “Doves in Ares’ tree, Aphrodite in Ares’ life, followed by the harbinger of sedition.” He cast his hand out sharply, making Hades flinch instinctively. He didn't notice. “Everything I’ve done to raise and nurture the boy, never understanding how it could be him, my own darling prince, who means my end.” His voice darkened. The harsh sun came through the tree’s canopy in straight slashes down his face. “It’s her. She’s going to get to him. He’s naive and needy, and she’s going to use that. She’s always hated me. She’s never respected my reign, keeping Cyprus independent, sucking Persia’s dick. She came into her godhood in Mesopotamia, you know, with Inanna.” He shuddered. “Inanna has power like no goddess here even dreams of.” He wrung his hands and paced. Hades watched him warily as white sparks flickered in the ends of his hair. “Aphrodite wants me gone. She wants Greece. She’s hungry, Hades, she’s fucking hungry and she’s fucking vengeful. She’s the last of Kronos. He ripped her into reality with his first crime, she is a living scar on our grandfather’s corpse. She’s a shade. Kronos is haunting us through her, coming for my son because he couldn't have me. We got too comfortable. I should’ve thrown Ares from the mountain at birth, like I did with…” He froze.

Hades’ stomach lurched. It had been more than a century since Zeus had so much as acknowledged the banishing of his first son, the first time they all realised how deeply the prophecy punctured his psyche. Hephaestus was a secret known only to the kings and Hera, and even they didn't know where he was now.

Zeus’ wide eyes fluttered. His jagged figure sagged. “But he was so beautiful. He wasn’t like the first one. Hephaes…” The name faltered in the back of his mouth. “He was so titanic. You remember, right? Hera's afterbirth, it was all blood, not ichor. And not mortal blood, it was too thick, too earthy. We all knew that could only mean one thing. He was made in the way of the old beings. He was so visibly titanic . Don't look at me like that. You all accepted it. You all gave me your morality speeches, but you accepted it because you knew I was right. Kronos lurks in every shadow, any sign of a resurrection must be dealt with. That was our promise. That is still our promise. Still our duty. We are the three entrusted with the legacy of Ouranos. We can remake his world. Nothing is more important than that. Not even our own children.” His tight voice frayed softly. “But Ares… He was golden, like his mother. He was a god. He was our miracle.” He turned his face to the sun, a mist of sweat on his brow. “He was going to be the thing that said we'd made it, we're a new kind, we’re permanent. He was the proof that we didn't need to fear Fate anymore. He was us putting down roots.” He looked down. His shadowed face went dark, a kind of dark that made a small boy in Hades’ mind shrink. “And now he’s poisoning the fucking soil.”

Hades’ palms broke into a clammy sweat. He brushed them down his long, grey chiton. “Zeus, all he’s done is win a race.”

“With the most infamous symbol for sedition splashed across his merchandise!” He was pacing again, stones scattering. “He’s mocking me, baiting me. He’s always baiting me. I bet it was her idea. I bet she’s fucking laughing.” He burst into strangled, high-pitched laughter. It echoed eerily around the rocks. He silenced and snapped to glare suspiciously at Hades. “You’re being very quiet.”

“You’re being very not quiet.”

“Do you know something?”

“What?”

“You look uncomfortable.”

“I’m always uncomfortable around you.”

“Do you know something!” Zeus' shout hit Hades like a punch. He stepped back. Zeus twitched and flexed his hands. “You share a realm with the Fates. Your creepy not-wife is their friend, isn’t she?” His jet eyes fixed on his brother. “What have they told you?”

Hades’ pulse pounded in his throat. It had the same rhythm as Aphroditos’ passionate voice as they spoke of the primordial. The yellow glare of the sun was the same colour as Hera's terrified eyes as she'd looked up into his face outside the Fates’ movie theatre and begged him never to tell the king of what they'd seen. Rome. He swallowed carefully. “Nothing.”

“You swear?”

He exhaled slowly through his nose. He walked to his brother and laid a hand on his shoulder. He looked stoically and earnestly into his electric eyes. “I swear.”

Zeus searched his stony face for one more moment. Then drooped. His weight slumped into Hades’ firm hand. He rubbed his face and groaned. “Shit, I'm sorry. I'm so on edge.” He shook himself loose and stepped out of the grip. He spoke levelly again, but it sounded to Hades about as sturdy as a bridge made of toothpicks. “I've received a letter from that bimbo grace, Peitho, of all people, petitioning me to give Aphrodite a seat on the Olympus Pantheon Council.” Hades was silent. “You seem comfortable now all of a sudden.”

Hades sighed with a tired creak like a coffin hinge. “They're a very prominent deity, the only one with no representation at governing level.”

“Yeah, there's good reason for that.”

“Is there?”

Zeus scoffed. “Fates, this is standard global policy. Just because she breaks all the rules, doesn't mean she deserves to have everyone break them for her. She's an Eastern goddess, not Greek. Deities are free to practise and hold residences wherever they have following, it doesn't auto-enrol them in a Pantheon.”

Hades shifted stiffly. “I think Poseidon would disagree about them not being at home in our realms.”

Zeus sneered. “I think Poseidon would like to put his crooked, green dick between her Mesopotamian ass cheeks.”

“Hey, come on, don't be that guy.”

“Wherever she's bunking, she wasn't born here.” He sniffed dismissively. “She's leaped to petitioning for authority without ever having petitioned for formal citizenship. Because she's fucking entitled. People move here from all over the world, there are countless bases for foreign gods in Greece, you don’t see Osiris or Vishnu pouting about getting clubcard benefits. Aphrodite has no Greek capital, her cult is focused at the gateway to Persia, all her training, all her philosophy, is Mesopotamian…”

“The more you cut her out of the running of things, the more she can justify running her own things.”

The toothpick bridge collapsed. “LET HER! Let her run them into the ground! I'm not giving her a fucking crumb!”

Hades swallowed patiently. “Is that really wise?”

“Gods, you too.” And he was pacing again. “Ares, Hermes, Poseidon, Hera, is there anyone not in her pocket?”

Hades pinched the bridge of his nose. “No one's in her pocket, Zeus.”

He spat and strode. “Hermes is her lap dog, which means she controls our entire communication network.”

“I know Hermes is ridiculous, but he is surprisingly professional.”

“Poseidon would give up his crown to her at a snap of her fingers.”

“No, he wouldn't.”

“Hera has this wedding for the Cypriote royals all over her desk.”

“And hates it.”

“And Ares is crazier than ever.”

Hades closed his mouth.

Zeus scoffed. “Yeah, you don't have a response to that one, do you?”

Hades’ chiton had too many layers for this weather. He prickled and huffed. “Considering I don't, what do you think his reaction will be when you offer him a council seat and not them?”

“No, no, no, they are not a package deal. If that's his expectation, he can also go fuck himself.”

“You cannot keep the heir off the council any longer.”

“I can do what I damn well choose!” The nearby tree split down its trunk. “I can do anything that keeps Olympus secure!” A pebble exploded by his ankle.

Hades glared at the damage, tensing. “Olympus or the throne of Olympus?”

More pebbles quaked. “The throne is Olympus.”

“You mean you are.” 

Zeus’ scowl contorted his handsome face, stark in angry sunlight, webs of lightning in his frazzled hair. Hades stood his ground, but his body hidden in folds of fabric was riddled with the old impulse to run. Then Zeus' voice prowled out of him, abruptly chillingly soft. "I can't imagine how it must have been inside our father's stomach. I can't imagine the scalding of the acid or the depth of the darkness. But I can imagine how it was to see my own brother half-digested and trembling like a child, silent, haunted. I can imagine bringing him food he couldn't stand to eat and listening to his night terrors. I know I can imagine that because I do imagine it every day. It stalks me as I type and file and brush my fucking teeth. We've made a stable enough world, I get that I could take a step back, relax a little. But then what's the fucking point of living with those memories? What's the fucking point of settling for anything less than the brightest paradise when we were put though the darkest torture?" He glared at Hades' frozen figure. "The throne is the promise of Ourania. Therefore, the throne is Olympus." Hades clenched against shaking as the speech stove through his skull and violently dug out clumps of sickening memories. Zeus hissed in the back of his mouth and cast his hand up. “You don't believe me about her? Fine. I suppose the Underworld gets nothing but a pleasant heatwave as the realms above burn.”

“Br... Brother…”

“I'll handle this. Today was the last of Ares’ stunts.” He turned on his heel and began to march back towards the still echoing arena. 

Hades called after him warily, “What are you going to do?”

He lashed around. “I'll figure that out when it's less damn hot out!”

A branch cracked and fell from the tree.

 

*

 

Some places ride high on reputation, but aren't really all they're cracked up to be. Athens was not one of those places. It didn't matter how often he came to his sister's city, Ares was overwhelmed by it every time. The sun glanced off hard edges and angled rooves, densely packed like a coral reef. Everything was white - gleaming, crisp white - as if the city had been calcified. It was blinding. People teemed through the complex of narrow streets, like fish, conversation weaving into the air. The whole place was a thick net of philosophy, argument, and negotiation. Ares felt continually tangled in it. Ships crowded the harbour, the colourful sails of traders, but more importantly, the stern, broad, sleek triremes. Athens’ navy was the envy and terror of the Aegean, a fleet of heavy, fast, unbreakable ships, stronger than the tide. Their prows were painted with slitted eyes, Athens always looking ahead to its next target. They unnerved Ares. He knew he should find them exciting, they were the ultimate war machine. But he wasn't sure how he felt about that term. War wasn't a thing of machines. War was something of sinew. 

Athena led him through the city at a quick stride, the sunlight also flaring on her plumed helmet. She cut through the shoals of bustling folk effortlessly. Athens may be busy, but it wasn't chaotic. Everything had a pattern, a rhythm, and she linked neatly into it, clicked through it like clockwork. Ares couldn't pick the rhythm up. He'd never understood why, but he was unusually clumsy in this place, a globule of molasses trying to negotiate its way through one of those little marble mazes. The high summer roasted him in his leather armour. It made another layer of clothing, the sunshine like dense wool wrapping and weighing him down. The back of his neck was wet and his head kept hazing a little. Ahead of him, Athena looked unaffected by the heat. She always looked unaffected by everything. He was beginning to wonder if something about her godhood made her immune to such frailties. He'd never seen a single drop of her sweat. 

“Pick up your feet, Little Bro!” she called brashly over her plated shoulder. “A few gold medals isn't an excuse to get sluggish!”

He chuckled and shoved invisibly through a clump of robed men having a heated academic debate through mouthfuls of street food. The sizzle of spice piqued his senses, part pepper and lemon, part the indignation of being disagreed with. The whole city had that flavour, the same as Athena's rare temper; nettle tea, mild and prickly. Sometimes when he passed a house, he tasted something stronger, something alluringly sour. But she'd hustle him on before he could place the flavour of anger. 

They took several perpendicular corners, Ares’ eyes and ears beset by faces and babble, goods changing hands, wine being poured, chitons being stepped on, paper tearing, stray cats chasing rats. Then they began to climb. Athena guided him up the dry track of the outcrop hulking over the city. They slipped into the stream of people making their way up and down the Acropolis. His chest tightened. The Acropolis was his impressive sister's most impressive project yet; a complex of large, austere, high budget religious and civic buildings crowning Athens in blazing white marble. It was a testament to her unmatched might in the Aegean and on Olympus, carving her glory into the land for the rest of time. He knew like all the gods knew, Athena would be heralded long after the rest of them fell. Everything he had achieved over the past weeks - Sparta sweeping the Olympics and moving forward with momentum, the slew of victories in his name across the Mediterranean and into the East, his new duties in the Underworld - it was barely worth the rock dust blowing from the vast construction site of his sister's monumental accomplishment.

The fortifications were already built, the top of the hill enclosed in thick, straight blocks of white walls ablaze in the zenith sun. A chorus of chiselling cascaded in hard, shrill echoes from the cage of stone. A laden wagon of raw marble clattered by the invisible gods, pulled by a pair of oxen with their meaty flanks heaving. Ares snickered cheekily and swung onto it with a clunk and a weary low of the oxen. His legs dangled in the dust. Athena gave him a dry look. He blinked. “What? It's hot!” She rolled her eyes and strode beside the cart. He caught his breath, slapping the sweat from his neck and arms. They trundled over the crest of the hill. He watched with a tense stomach as the full scale of the extraordinary works opened out to him, the rise unfolding on the grandeur like a book on a climax. Hordes of masons and labourers buzzed around like bees in a gigantic, dried hive, the maze of half-finished stonework, rising walls, and unraised columns like hacked honeycomb across the hilltop. The clink and tap and crack of chiselling rose and rang around Ares, a paralysing grip of sound everywhere he turned, possessing his attention and threatening to shock him if he strayed from a tight spot. The square, sharp structures climbed to the piercing, blue sky, as if it was no higher than the branch of an apple tree - a perfect mirror of Athena's dauntless intellect with its limitless capability. This stonework was fearless, unfeeling, the sunlight bladed and regimented on its faces. Gazing up at the dwarfing, dramatic pinnacles, Ares finally understood how it must feel to be a mortal gazing up at Mount Olympus. The wagon rolled to the foot of the central building, a mass of scaffolding peppered with yet more workers spidering to the sky. Through the clutter of poles and boards, a huge temple was taking shape; ranks of tall columns guarding a long, grand hall.

The Parthenon.

Here it was, the legacy, the unbeatable wonder. Athens wouldn't be a city once this was unveiled. It would be an ideal. Athena was about to define civilisation. Centuries of discussion, debate, and fluctuation as every god worked to come to some consensus on what that word really meant, and she walked right into the middle of it and answered the question. No. She made it a question with an answer. The point before this was that it remained unsettled, something for a god to cut their teeth on, a theoretical space for them to figure out their parts of reality. It was an unspoken agreement that civilisation would mean many things under many gods. A few more weeks, and civilisation would mean one thing. Athena's thing. Under Athena. 

How did Dad think Sparta was worse for him than this? Athena was too loyal, too level. Put something like this in Ares’ hands, where the patron god could snap their fingers and turn a quarter of the globe to them alone, and Zeus would…

He stopped following that thought. Nausea haunted his stomach. He rubbed it as he hopped from the halting cart and brushed dust off his legs. This whole place smelled of rock dust. It sapped his throat of moisture. Sparta's construction didn't smell like this. It smelled of sweat and metal and fire, thick and viscous in his mouth, continually malleable. He couldn't imagine making anything this big, this unprecedented. This final. 

Sparta would never be anything compared to this.

“Wake up!” Athena clapped his shoulder hard. He blinked and tumbled awkwardly out of his thoughts. She steered him by his tricep through the bustle of tired men with bleeding fingers. They dipped under a canvas sheet and into a cloth-covered area filled with in-progress sculpture. The ear-splitting chiselling quietened a little. They walked through the softened sunlight to a cluster of figures emerging out of stone like frozen births - Athenian heroes and divine attendants to the great competition in which Athena won the land for the city from Uncle P. Both characters were posed mirroring each other, Athena proud and Poseidon strong. Ares looked at how the mortals saw his uncle and sister, as force and fortress. There were a select few figures of Olympians taking shape. A very select few. Athena's shameless snubbing of most of the pantheon had been something of a conversation on the mountain for a while. She always retorted that if it was so important to be represented here, they must be admitting Athens’ supremacy. She nudged him to a blank slab with a bulky lump of uncarved marble standing on it. She grinned from ear to ear and spread her arms to exhibit it. Ares raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

She rolled her eyes again and pointed dramatically at a tiny word etched in the base of the block. 

Ares

Ares froze like the statues.

Athena grinned again.

The chiselling clink-clink-clinked.

“I'm…” He turned to her with a confused frown. “Is this a mistake? Some apprentice went rogue?”

She burst into slams of laughter and ruffled his hair. “You're really tragic sometimes.” 

He shook her off. “What?”

She punched his arm. “It's not a mistake, you dork!” She smiled warmer. “You're going on the fridge door, Buddy.”

“But…” His chest felt fragile. “But half the gods aren't on there.”

“You're not half the gods.” She slung her arm around his sloped shoulders. “You're none of the gods, Bro. Do you have any idea what a marvel this past month has been? One minute you're stalling, the next you're moping, then suddenly…” She shook her head in happy disbelief. “Your figure in agoras, households, pockets, politics. The name of Ares is on every Greek tongue. And further! Hermes reported from Scythia and you're even more popular there, people are driving swords into altars for you. You feel it, right?” She rubbed his strengthening arm. He nodded. It was strange. He'd always been told that worship gave the gods power, he'd never experienced it for himself, this hot hum through his veins and muscle, energising and directing. She squeezed him. “I truly couldn't be prouder of you.”

He felt something in his chest turn to gold. His eyes pricked. He stared at his name in the unchangeable marble and worked very hard not to blink. If he blinked a tear might fall. 

His sister patted his back and pulled from him to peck around the sculpture, inspecting the work like an aardvark does an anthill. “I mean, you're a gift when it comes to advocating the Athenian way.”

He frowned warily. “I, uh… huh?”

“Years of struggle, Ares. Your temper, your instability, the unpredictability of your powers.” She brushed a few flakes off a stone shoulder. “But with patience, application, discipline, focus, look at what you've become! What a triumph of logic over impulse! You were born with a disadvantage, volatile divinity that could've gone in a completely different direction. You pitted your resolve against your worse instincts and you overcame.” She straightened from bending over a half-formed hippocamp, sharp nose poking its ear. Pride radiated from her smile. “You proved that there is no weakness or darkness that cannot be suppressed with intellectual development and self-control.”

The golden feeling tarnished in his fragile chest. The tear fell. He caught it quickly with the heel of his hand and forced a smile as his stomach ached. Was that all she'd ever be proud of? How much of himself he could bury? Would she always assume when he succeeded that it must have been in spite of himself? The tent felt cramped. The dust burned his throat. He coughed harshly and said a little too abruptly, “Hey, is Aphrodite gonna be added too?”

Athena's smile flickered. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because if you're doing this based on who's getting the uptake, she's way ahead of me. Everybody in Greece thinks she's the greatest thing since they put the pocket in pita.”

Athena grimaced. “Everybody or you?”

He blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. He avoided her owlish eyes. “You know, she's really not a bad person. I know you think I've got this far on discipline, but…” He bit his tongue. Her gaze sharpened. The sound of chisels sharpened. “Thena, they've been helping me. Like a lot. They're…” He took a deep breath and rushed it out. “They're why I'm doing so good. It's not that I've tamped down, it's that I've opened up. To a lot of things. New things. Old things. I…”

“What are you babbling about?”

“Love and War!” His voice burst out with his hand, rocking a figure of an aquatic warrior. Athena reached out and steadied it. She glared at him. He rolled his jaw. “You said that Aphrodite would be a bad influence on my powers, but they're not. They've helped me tap into some of the stuff I was keeping under wraps, and it's gone…” his voice dropped to a mumble, “really well.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“I don't know.” He did know. He cursed himself and redoubled. “Sparta didn't take the Olympics because I built them up on your discipline.”

“Nonsense.”

He talked sternly over her interruption. “They took it because no one wanted it like them. They took it because I was right up beside their bodies."

"Oh, Ares, that close up stuff was just beginner blessing. You'll be able to do it from a distance in no time."

"No, it wasn't! I was doing something different on purpose! I was fuelling them how a god of the heart fuels!”

“A god of what?”

He huffed and steadied himself. “Of the heart. This is what I went back to Sparta to work on. The way things work in this pantheon is from afar.” He gestured around him at the stonework. “We have high statues and high temples and we look down on them from a high mountain.”

“Of course, we're their gods.”

“Not me!” He faltered. “I mean, I am, but…” He steadied again, lungs carrying air like a minecart on rickety rails. “Deities are born to answer a human need. So I'm being what they need. I'm getting close to mortals, to their lives, to their pain, to their emotions, and I'm bonding to that, giving to it as it gives to me. I'm being their ally and lover and comrade, because people need someone beside them, not above them.” A deep strain of feeling quavered through his voice. “When I stood on that rooftop and the Spartans gave themselves to me, I felt like a parasite. They'd gone through all this violence and danger for me, and I had the gall to make them bend their knee and thank me for it?” He shook his head. “But now, it's symbiotic.”

“Big word for you.”

“Sweet Asphodel.” He let out an exasperated laugh. He flexed his hands. “Now, I support them and empower them, like they do me. They give me my humanity, and I give them my divinity. They connect me with my divinity, and I connect them with their humanity. I'm in a relationship with my worshippers. We're part of each other. Because I don't think mortals are weak or empty and in need of whatever we put inside them with blessings and commands. Aphrodite called us chemists, getting what's already there to react. Mortals are beautiful, brave, deep things, and they're doing well with me because I'm helping them bring that out. I'm believing in them before they believe in me. I want it to be that believing in me means believing in yourself. That's how it is for Aphrodite and she's magical. You told me that Love and War meant destruction. You were wrong.” He almost choked on his tongue saying those words to his always right sister. “Aphrodite and I work in similar ways, because we are the gods of the heart. Working with her is what's working for me.”

Athena regarded him dispassionately through the buttery mist of sunlight through canvas. She clucked her tongue. “Don't let them take the credit for your hard work. And don't let them distract you from your career. This is about your position. It doesn't matter whether she goes in the Parthenon. It doesn't matter whether she joins the Pantheon Council…”

“The Council?” Ares looked up like a meerkat. 

Athena nodded. “I've been advocating that you take your seat. I'm confident you're ready.” Ares blinked. She breezed on. “The Pantheon meets every new moon, which means you have a few weeks to get caught up with me, then you can hit the ground running."

“But you said it didn't matter whether Aphrodite joined too, so is she joining?”

“Ares…”

“Is she?”

Athena sighed. 

He took an eager step forwards. "If I get that seat, can I move that she joins me?" 

“If you get that seat, you can maybe not make your first act pissing everyone off." 

“Come on, they can't exactly be surprised. The media's been referring to her as a member of the Pantheon since the start of summer.”

“They've also been saying Dad wants to fuck her, should he go along with that too?”

He shut his lips hard around a painful bolt of flame into his mouth. He gulped, grumbled, and eyed the few blocks of stone being hacked into feminine shapes. “She belongs in the court.” He eased the words out to not release any smoke, even as it singed his gums. “You know that. You're a tactician, so think tactically. Mortals feel, mortals want, mortals love. She isn't going anywhere, why cut her out?”

“I'm not cutting anyone out.” Athena huffed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fates, Ares, must they be brought into everything?”

“They’re not being!” He hated how adolescent he sounded as he hauled his snap back into a whine. He cringed at the cloud of black smoke that finally escaped his teeth. “But she's fucking supporting me! Come on, you saw her at the Olympics. That was a big deal for me. I was nervous, Thena, and she put herself and all her friends in the front row and cheered me on. She makes me feel good, why is this such a fucking problem?” 

Athena’s gaze was harder than the marble. Nettle prickled Ares' lips. Her tone was uncomfortably level. “Was it her idea, then?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think you know what I'm talking about.” She hooked her wrist onto a hewn ridge, opening her muscular torso in a posed slouch. “Making your crest a vulture. Was it her idea? Miss Supportive?”

His stomach thudded. He glared with a shimmer of red. “Aphrodite doesn't tell me what to do. They just hear me and have faith in me when I want to try something. The vulture was my idea.”

“It was your idea to parade an omen of sedition in front of Dad?” She flexed her hand. “That's actually more frustrating.”

“Why is this just coming up now?”

“Well, I was going to let it go, chalk it up to bucks and stags locking antlers, but if you're going to get this obsessive-”

“I'm not being obsessive, I'm asking a reasonable fucking-”

“-about someone you know is on his radar as anti-triarchy, then I'm going to bring it up.”

He snarled and raked his hands down his face, heartbeat speedy and irregular. Half of him wanted to lash out, wreck the workshop, wreck the whole damn Parthenon. Half of him wanted to grab her hands and beg her to take his side for real for once, with eyes full of childish tears. He held himself stiff in the darkness of his hands. He imagined a soft touch on their backs, then his arms. He remembered a musical voice telling him that he could speak, that he had space to speak, space he deserved. He exhaled carefully and lowered his hands and voice. “I did not choose the vulture to start shit with Dad. I don't want the choices I make to be about him all the time. I didn't think about his opinion at all. I wanted something that symbolised violent change. The vulture eats corpses. It cleans what's dead off the land. It's bloody, but it makes things new. I know it's a sign of sedition, but this is why. People pray to me in riots and uprisings and under invasion. Sparta chose me because it was fresh and gory. That stuff is where I'm called, that's what I'm doing. No one has called on me, no one has pierced their altar with a sword, because they admire me for taking the Athenian way. When they're angry, when they're furious, when they're terrified, when it's time to cleanse the problem in blood, that's when I feel them. That's when they feel me. Feel , Thena. I wanted to own that in front of everyone. I chose a crest that spoke to it.” He took a shaking breath, his own steady clarity surprising him. “It's not an omen, it's not like it's appearing to Dad as a real bird. It's just an image that works for the job he gave me. I worked that out myself, I am doing this job myself. I'm not a kid being led around or making random guesses. You said it yourself, I'm doing well. I'm succeeding. If you can believe that then don't stop believing it the minute it's something you wouldn't have done. This isn't about Dad or Aphrodite or you. This is about me and my domain and my fucking victories. And right now I'm not asking, little brother to big sister, for my friend to come around for a playdate. I'm asking, god to god, why a deity we've both observed earning their place is being excluded by my family from the court she belongs in. I want to be a united front on the Council with my family, obviously I do, but I can't if that front isn't doing what I judge to be fair.” He shut his mouth firmly. He balled his fists at his thighs, but they still trembled.

Athena was silent and motionless, blending perfectly in with the statues. After a long, long, swelling pause, she dropped her face. “I just don’t want to see you make a mistake.” 

He raised his square chin. “Better my mistake than someone else’s good decision.” 

Her shoulders moved between spiked and flat. She spoke robotically to the floor. “Aphrodite is an Eastern goddess.”

“She's lived in the Aegean for hundreds of-!”

“She wasn't born here, she makes no effort to change her identity, she routinely signals her continued allegiance to her old goddess collective under Inanna. Lots of foreign gods are worshipped here, it's a seafaring part of the world. We let each other work without borders because it's unrealistic to do otherwise, but you don't see anyone putting Osiris or Vishnu forward for a council seat. She has no Greek capital, her cult is focused at the gateway to Persia, all her training, all her philosophy, is Mesopotamian…”

“This is such bullshit!”

“It's Dad's party line.” She grit her teeth and heaved one more, nettle-strewn breath. “Moreover, it's a line he won't cross.” She lifted her eyes, grey as cement. “And you shouldn't cross him.” She met his spitting look with a glare like a steamroller. He scowled at her, but her steely stillness was compressing. She could get angrier and angrier and not move a muscle, but if he let himself escalate much more, he was looking at irreparable damage. He tore his eyes down with a deep sting of shame and frustration. She rubbed her nose. “Look, you know it's not just that.” She tutted. “Aphrodite is the echo of Kronos’ first murder. Ouranos is everything to the triarchy. Before he was killed, the world was all sky, all soaring, all beauty, all possibility. Everything in harmonious alignment like the planets and stars. Everything shining like the sun. Gone from us, lost, until the three princes returned to restore paradise.”

"Yeah..." He'd heard this every night to go to sleep. It whispered itself to him every time he didn't like his dad, telling him what an awful thing that made him. What kind of child hates the prince of his own bedtime story?

“He is everything they've built their system on. He is the foundation stone. He is the origin. He is the stolen past and promised future. They aren't loved for saving each other from Kronos. They're loved for avenging that perfect world that was torn from us before any of us were even born. They are the guardians of that dream, they are our only hope of deliverance.” She sighed. “You know this story. Zeus, the inheritor of the sky, Poseidon, the harmony of the earth, Hades, the cycle of life and death. Ouranos' successors, and so our saviours, working hard to rebuild paradise still. Aphrodite…” She breathed slowly. “She takes us back from the hopeful ending. I'm sure it's not intentional, but, socially, her very existence traps us in the wrong part of the story, in Ouranos' grave, rather than his potential for re-ascendance. And, personally for the family…” She made an awkward sound as if something was stuck in her teeth. “Imagine if someone took a photograph at the moment your favourite grandparent died, and then waved that photograph around like a pizza leaflet at every family dinner.” She grimaced at him. “That's what it's like when you bring her up.”

Ares shifted uncomfortably. “I don't know if it…”

“Oh, because you're so emotionally intelligent?”

“And YOU ARE?” He scoffed as she rolled her eyes, then sobered and frowned darkly. “Is it a story or is it an angle?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He snarled under his breath and folded his arms tight. “You said it yourself, none of us were born. The only word we have that Ouranos’ world was so perfect is theirs. The only word we have that we need them to get back to it is theirs. Another word for a story is a lie.”

“Hold your fucking tongue!” Athena hissed like a viper, shocking him with a sting in his senses like he'd never had from her. He stared. Her eyes were keen with anger, but… Subtly, very subtly, he blinked into his warrior vision, just for a split second. Athena's map of organs and nerves flashed before him, coursing sickly blue. Adrenaline. That scared you? Gods, Thena, is it a bedtime story or a sacred text? We were never supposed to know the difference, were we? He dug his fingernails into his bicep to pull himself back to normal before his powers could surge. She ignored his suspicious gaze. She ironed her face even again. She slid her wrist down and rolled into a smooth stroll past him. “I wish we could have one nice day.” She left the tent.

Ares’ somewhat composed front shattered into shaking. Questions and guesses and uncertainties ripped through his skull, leaving dogged determination in the scars. Drop it. That's all they ever asked of him. Listen to your bedtime story. Tow the line. Drop it. Not this time. He was holding something, someone, and he was damn well keeping it in his arms. He growled under his breath and raised his fist with a surge of heat to smash the nearest block of stone. He stopped himself and groaned out, clawing his hair instead. He snapped his fingers and tapped his lips. In a crackle of scarlet, Hermes zipped into the tent from behind a carved chariot. “Hey! You summoned?” His pleasantly surprised grin twitched. “Woah, you OK? You look pale.”

Ares cracked his neck. “I'm fine. You good?”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm good, I'm-”

“Can you tell Aphrodite to meet me tonight? Like 8?” He snorted out a puff of smoke. “Off the coast of that cove East of the harbour. I'll be in a rowboat.”

Hermes hummed with eager curiosity. “Is this a date?”

“No.” Ares cracked his knuckles and shook out his hands. He set off at a heavy, brisk stride after Athena. “War room.”

 

*

 

Aphrodite flopped back into her garden deck chair and let her body turn to jelly. She hummed, tilted her face to the sun, and closed her eyes. Peitho had been working her like a dog for weeks. Interviews, photoshoots, dream visitations, celebrity appearances, lectures, workshops, strategy meetings, vision and mission meetings, emergency meetings, speech writing, manifesto writing, journal writing, sacred text writing, and all around her usual work with prayer, inspiration, and invocation. The girl's ambitions weren't even run by Aphrodite half the time, culminating in a petition to formally instate them in Olympus’ Pantheon Council arriving on Zeus’ desk without Aphrodite even signing it off. It wasn't even their idea, they'd come back to Olympus wanting as little to do with its tokenistic tosh as possible. But they knew Peitho was right. Peitho was brilliant - bold and subtle, knowledgeable and instinctive. But Aphrodite was beginning to regret giving her so much control. They seemed to have created a monster. But then, sometimes a monster is what you need, when your opponent has styled himself the hero. They were going to do something big tomorrow, something explosive and irreversible, for better or worse. As Aphrodite pictured herself at the heart of that explosion, she knew she couldn't have created it without this excellent girl and her truly terrifying mind. Thankfully, that terrifying mind had become so wrapped up in finalising logistics that Aphrodite could sneak outside and take a break. She tuned into the sleepy snores of the summer breeze clogged with pollen and moisture. Her mind drifted and bobbed with the motion of a rowboat. They half remembered, half dreamed the last time they saw Ares, too many days ago. His skin glowed the colour of the sunset melting into the sea around them in their secluded pocket of harbour hidden from Athena's many informants. Their knees brushed and fingers idly hooked as he laid out his thoughts.

“They're avoiding instating you. The excuse is that you're not Greek enough, your capital, birthplace, alliances, and training are all further east. But fuck that noise, we both know that's not the reason. Dad knows you won't keep your pretty mouth shut and he's using any excuse to protect himself from that. Just living here isn't enough, just working here isn't enough, because this isn't about what you're owed, it's about what he's afraid of. You have to do something that makes it impossible to deny that you belong on Olympus.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Like what? Protest nudity in the new royal park and theatre? A pamphlet campaign through the city? Oh. Wait.”

He rubbed her forearm and grimaced. “It can't be protest. Protestors are outsiders. You need to be on the inside.”

They sighed and tapped his toe with theirs. “I thought you liked me being a bad girl.”

The boat rocked with his warm laugh. “I fucking love you being a bad girl. But take it from a war god, Olympus is too well-fortressed and too well-stocked to lose in a siege. The only way to make a long-term success is from inside the walls.” He swept his thumb down the glimmering golden vein inside her wrist. “Besides, the Council isn't just petty politics. The mortals pay attention to it. Everyone loves you, but every time there's something big and civic, something that makes history, you won't be included if you're not in the standard set.” 

“But I don't want to be standard, that was the whole point. I keep trying to talk to Peitho about this too, what if I go mainstream and it dirties who I am?”

Red light tangled in his white teeth. “Come on, like you don't like being a little dirty.”

They cuffed his arm. “I'm serious, Ares.”

He caught their hand and squeezed it. “That's why I'm not suggesting you get your seat by sucking up. Don't ingratiate your way in. Make a statement. Something with so much strip club glitter exploding out of it that they can't pretend you're not a big fucking deal. Break in on your terms and set a new damn standard.”

Their heart drummed. His eyes were spitting with sparks and his thumb worked over her knuckles firm and fast. They could feel his pulse pacing in the pad. They tried not to sound breathy as they replied, “What do you suggest?”

He shrugged, the caramel light making his shoulders look chewable. “You're the genius. I just wanted you to know what you were working with. Or against.”

They smiled and stroked his hair, the sunset looped into the soft curls. “When did you get so smart?”

“Maybe I always was.” His knuckles traced her knee. “You just let me talk.”

The afternoon sunshine blazed through her eyelids and splashed red and orange in the dark. She kept thinking about the way Ares melded with sunset, the way light met him as an equal. She kept thinking about what he hadn't said about Zeus avoiding a reply to Peitho's petition. Something that probably, vexingly, hadn't occurred to him. It wasn't just that she would speak up against the status quo, it was that she would speak up for Ares. Ares’ own seat had been delayed for years, how unsurprising that when it became unavoidable, Zeus would turn it into a way to isolate him further. She sucked her teeth and simmered with determination. He could bury Ares in a vault at the centre of the earth, she'd find him. That girl who lost her loved ones to Zeus’ rulings was long gone. Maybe she did really want that seat. Maybe they wanted Zeus’ throat to be in regular tearing distance.

Something tapped their elbow. They opened one eye, then blinked curiously at a small, speckled woodpecker perched on the arm of their deckchair. It had a sharp, sleek beak and a scarlet flash across its crown. It hopped closer to their elbow, looked up at them with round eyes, and rapped its beak rapidly on the chair arm. They giggled. “Well, hello, you’re very confident.” The woodpecker bobbed its head, regarding her with a twinkle and a little, restless twitch. “I think you remind me of someone.” She held out her finger and gently stroked the scarlet feathers. The bird trilled softly and nudged into their touch. She smiled. Her phone buzzed on the other arm of her chair. “Oh, speak of the demon.” They picked it up and flipped it open. 

Honey Bear: You get my thing?

She grinned. 

Your thing?

Yeah sent you a thing for tomorrow 

Is it a feathery guy?

Thats the guy

Why?

He’s lucky! I made an omen

First time :) 

They beamed and wriggled their feet.  

Aw well done!! I love him <3 

She tickled the woodpecker’s chest and it fluttered its wings. 

Honey Bear: Good cuz he's not gonna leave you alone now and he does kinda

Well ya know peck and shit

The little bird bent its delicate head and hammered its beak violently into a growing dent in the chair arm. Aphrodite smirked.  

Like someone else I know

My sides are splitting

Good luck for your big day

She bit her lip over a bursting smile. 

Youre gonna ruin their fucking lives

They kissed their fingertip and laid it on the bird's soft head. They typed happily. 

You really are a prince <3

And you're a queen <3 just 24 hours and everyone's gonna be saying that 

She giggled again and went back to fussing the woodpecker. Just 24 hours. She couldn't wait. The only imperfect thing about the plan was that it meant another day too busy to see Ares. His spontaneous summons to Athens was the only time they'd had together since the Olympics, and it was so rushed with Athena expecting him for some big play or something. Maybe the Olympics were only a couple of weeks ago, but they'd been so crowded with other people, it still wasn't really quality time. Their schedules had been totally out of control for almost a month. She smiled at the tickle of the woodpecker drumming on her chair again and scrolled through the texts that had got them through the sudden separation.

Honey Bear: Pigeons are your thing right? There were a bunch on my jog, think it’s a sign?

You: Of what?

Idk. You kinda like me?

That doesn’t sound right

Aph! You know how fragile I am!

Cry me a river

You are a LOVE goddess

Fire me

It’s not pigeons it’s doves

Bird elitist

Honey Bear: You will not believe what me and Hermes just found on a gaming forum

You: Is it the thing where guys don’t jack off because semen holds power

WHAT NO

IS THAT A THING

According to gamers. It’s low on my fix-it list, but it’s on there

Jeez. I’d rather lose. No no you were getting talked about

Lil ole me??

xXaKILLesXx thinks you’re hotter than my mom

So that was a fun conversation

Are you xXaKILLesXx?

No I would never disrespect ma like that

Anyway

A key reason you won out was apparently your pussy tastes of whatever favourite food of who’s eating you out

True or false

Go

Hm ok. What’s your favourite food?

Real answer or hilarious answer where I say actually it’s pussy

XD real

Tacos

Vulvic

Oh damn...

But are you seriously asking me if I would have a taco flavoured pussy in a scenario where we hooked up?

Now you say it, it doesn’t sound so good

Yeah, no shit

I notice in this hypothetical hook-up, you just assume you’re getting oral

1. if I’m not getting oral, we’re not hooking up. 2. you give off powerful eats pussy vibes

Is that a compliment?

The highest

Sweet

I can’t believe xXaKILLesXx would have inaccurate information

Find out his favourite food

Why

I’m gonna make it taste like pussy ;)

Honey Bear: If you had to give up one meal, which would it be?

You: Breakfast

But that’s the most important one!

It does nothing for me

You have to at least think about this

If you could be any sea creature, what would it be?

Easy, puffer fish. I’m huggable, but also my body is made of stabbing

Solid choice

You?

Octopus

Why?

Tentacle porn

Ew!

I wish I was at the beach right now

Yeah?

I miss surfing

Woah you can surf?

I grew up in the ocean

That’s so cool, what’s the biggest wave you ever rode?

I don’t know. I do pretty good though

Ever fallen in?

Please, it is impossible to throw me off balance

Challenge accepted

No

>:D

Honey Bear: U up?

I just took my shirt off ;)

Because I spilled ketchup on it, how do you get that out?

You: Servants, I think

Don’t wanna bother them

Anarchy on Olympus

Hey how come you don’t have staff? You’re basically a princess

I don’t like the politics of it. Also cleaning soothes me

Then judging by your house you must be pretty anxious rn

Shut up!

Now I can’t decide what to wear

You decide what you wear? I thought you just threw on whatever was least crumpled in your closet

Rude, I put a lot of thought into my look

Educated thought?

Wow

Want fashion advice?? I’ve been dying

You have not! I dress fine!

:)

Look I have limited choice. I bulked out while I was away, half my stuff doesn’t fit

Oh so this was all about subtly reminding me what a beefcake you are

You can see how well it went for me

You: Full moon, go look outside, it’s really bright <3

Honey Bear: Beautiful <3

She shut the phone and held it to her heart.

Romantic friends...

The woodpecker snuggled against their hand.

 

*

 

“Sparrow, are you in position? Over.”

“In position, Dove.”

“Roger. Parakeet?”

“Ready and randy, Dove!”

“Ten four. Bluebird?” A crackling pause from Peitho’s conch shell enchanted to act as a walkie-talkie. “Bluebird, come in, over.”

“Which one of us is Bluebird again?”

Peitho rolled her eyes and grumbled into the shell. “You. You are, Summer.”

The grace's disgruntled voice fizzed through the connection. “Why do I gotta be Bluebird?  I'm green.”

Aphrodite tilted her hand mirror to shift from showing her face to Peitho glaring at the wooden ceiling. They were in the cabin of a luxury barge, the cosy, boxy room decked with coloured, embroidered cloth and ornate furnishings. The grace suppressed a groan. Aphrodite smirked. Peitho spoke with fraying patience. “We agreed on our call signs two days ago, now are you in position or-”

“Why do we even need call signs?” Autumn cut in. “It's not like we're not doing this in public.”

“Yeah, doesn't it overcomplicate it?”

“I wanted to be Great Tit.”

“I wanted to be Cock.”

“Al-RIGHT!” Peitho's ears spiked with her tone as she snapped over the babble. “Is everyone ready to fucking rock or do I gotta start banging heads together?”

Another awkward crackle, then…

“Ready.”

“Ready.”

“Roger Roger.”

“Good.” Peitho blew out through her nose like a bull. “Hold your positions.” She jammed the shell into her belt and shook out her dark hair. “Herding fucking cats.” She exhaled purposefully and addressed Aphrodite with smooth lightness. “What about you, Boss?”

Aphrodite looked back into the hand mirror at their glowing reflection. The light around them was warm and soft with oil lamps. She stood amidst the swirl of crimson and violet drapery, white gossamer shimmering over her full figure, her gush of hair dressed with pearls that also cascaded down her half-visible body. Gold snaked around their arms and ankles and throat and gleamed in a dusting over their luminous skin. They twinkled like a constellation in the wash before dawn. They gazed at their proud mouth and fierce eyes, gentle blush and strong jaw. I am beautiful. She wet her lip and smiled. I am a queen. As if reading her thoughts, Peitho’s deft hands floated into the reflection and set the wrought laurel wreath of gold, copper and basalt on their head. Aphrodite raised her chin, her whole body rising to the crown. They set the mirror down and turned to beam blindingly at Peitho. 

Peitho was dressed in rich magenta, wealth and sensuality personified with her hibiscus hair ornaments and confident grin. “All set?”

“All set.”

“Speech?” 

“Check.”

“Jewellery? Hair? Accessories?”

“Check, check, check.”

“Nerves?”

“In check.”

“Tits?”

“Boosted.”

“Ass?”

“Fat.”

“Let's do this.” Peitho kissed her fingertip and planted it on the tip of Aphrodite’s nose. She winked, spun on her toe, and hurried through the cabin up to the deck of the barge, jabbering into her shell. “Attention all units, the swan is taking flight!”

Aphrodite chuckled to herself as she watched the grace delighting in her full control freak mode. She took one last look down at herself. She took a slow breath and gently opened her senses. Warmth deluged through their pores, fluttering swarmed their insides, deep as their bone marrow. 

“Aphrodite, bless me.”

“Aphrodite, hear me.”

“Aphroditos, be with me.”

“Aphrodite of the folk.”

“Aphroditos of the earth and ocean.”

“Aphrodite, driver, ally, catalyst.”

Prayer and wish and imagining hummed around her. The hope and adoration for them grew in the Mortal Realm every day, covering and nourishing the land, like dandelion. She hugged herself and rested in it, belly bubbling, heart drumming. There was sherbet and sweetness in that energy today. The crowd awaiting them buzzed with excitement and curiosity. 

“Make a statement. Something with so much strip club glitter exploding out of it that they can't pretend you're not a big fucking deal.” It was a perfect idea, Ares. Love is everything and so will I be. Aphrodite the Eastern Goddess, Aphrodite of Cyprus, they are coming to Greece. They are coming for Greece. Common Aphrodite is still high. No one is looked up to, no one represents Heaven, like a whore.

They picked up a perfume bottle from a small table nearby. It was red crystal and shaped like a pomegranate, the one that they'd bought at the mall with Ares, the one that had made him weak. She misted herself with it. Mouth-watering, wicked sweetness surrounded her and nestled into their skin, glowing with enchantment. I am irresistible. They took a deep breath and closed their eyes. Splitting pomegranates. Blooming roses. Rolling waves. White wings. They smiled. 

She squared her shoulders and strode to the stairs to the deck.

“Good morning, Olympus! I'm Clio and you're watching OBC One. I'm here today at a spectacle like nothing the realms have seen since the coronation of King Zeus himself! Just when we thought the Lady Aphrodite was done making her mark, the Goddess of Love reveals that all that was only a warm up! We're broadcasting all over the world, reaching not only the Olympian lands, but into the territories of other pantheons as well, to bring you this once in a generation event live!”

Aphrodite emerged into the sunlight to a storm of applause. The barge was a long, sturdy boat with its sides painted in cherry and gold. Her retinue peppered the deck, like gems being transported over the sea. Beyond them plumed the swan head of the prow, then the city poured out below. The vessel was hovering a few feet above the trees of a wide park like a lake. From the green, the mismatch of buildings and squiggling streets stretched out until they seemed to flatten into a painting against the soft, blue sky and smudges of marmalade cloud. The scene swept wide, then tumbled down into the vast dish of the horizon with the mountain’s steep slope. Every inch of grass and road and window was packed with people. Hundreds of eyes fixed on her the moment she appeared. She raised her hand and beamed in greeting as a flurry of petals erupted into the sky behind her. She walked with slow, rhythmic poise along the deck of the barge, crowded with roses and simmering with incense that wove dizzying scents into the fresh air. The floorboards vibrated with the applause.

“Aphrodite, also Goddess of Ocean Voyages, Sea Trade and its Wealth, will fly a regal barge from Mount Olympus all the way through Greece, taking in key sites like Elis, Delphi, Athens and Corinth. The barge will land in the water between Laconia and the isle of Kythera. She will then sail to the isle and there bless a new temple raised to her. Much of this procession has been kept tight under wraps, but we've been promised quite a day and even the unveiling of a new epithet of the already many-named goddess.”

The grand, long boat hovered low over the park on the west side of Olympus City. Its prow shone like a second summer sun, the swan plated in gold and reflecting the giddy grins of the enormous crowd gathered around it. They jostled and jumped to get any glimpse they could, the whole expanse smothered in bodies that spilled down the surrounding roads, stopping traffic. Huge screens floated around the park, displaying shots of the deck, the wider setting, and Aphrodite’s generous smile. Across the city, people crammed onto balconies and window sills, eagerly waiting to view the flight. Aphrodite's name - whispered, shouted, invoked - permeated the seat of the Gods.

“Using the latest cloaking magic, we'll be bringing you a live feed of the journey ‘til the ceremony’s end at dusk!”

Peitho stood in a row of graces like sentinels, all in hot, vibrant colours and carrying bouquets, platters and musical instruments. She lifted her shell to her mouth and murmured, “Flutes.” A number of the graces raised flutes to their lips. The cooing, lilting song tripped through the barge and overflowed into the park. “Magpie, Camera Two.”

“Camera Two,” Hermes replied below deck from his monitor-laden desk, managing the media in his role of God of Communication. Across Olympus, TV sets showed a dazzling close up of Aphrodite striding down rows of glamourous graces and effervescing vases. They smiled radiantly, hair and hips swishing as if borne on the flute song. 

“Camera Four.”

“Four.”

And now the viewer followed them, white gossamer rippling down their back, pearls dancing at the swaying base of her spine, sunlight bathing her shoulders. Ahead of them was a sheer, gold-spangled canopy over a broad diwan piled with embroidered cushions. More graces and their children reclined in a pool of luxury and beauty in the sparkling shade. Aphrodite swept to join them, the gold dust on her skin warming in hue. She elegantly lowered herself to recline in the centre of the gathering.

“One.”

“I know, Mermaid, let me do my job!”

“Your job is to do as you're told!”

Hermes sighed. “Camera One.”

Aphrodite waved to the world in a frame of gold, silk and beauties. The crowd went wild. 

The muse-caster grinned. “And looks like we're ready to take flight! Stay tuned for the divine spectacle of the century!” 

Peitho smiled into the shell. “Let's boogie.”

Saturated sails the colour of a whole orchard of plums dropped from the mast and swelled with a gust of warm wind, billowing brilliantly across the sky. They scooped the crowd into shadow. Silver oars extended from the sides and swished through the air. With a mighty creak and whoosh, the barge eased into a glide over the park. The crowd caterwauled. Children teetered on shoulders, teenagers bounced up and down and waved, lovers wrapped around each other and muttered about how they'd always remember this, friends smacked each other’s backs and hooted, grandparents caught tears in the corners of their eyes. The screens showed a dozen angles of Aphrodite and her retinue, waving, blowing kisses, rose petals flying from her fingertips and glitter flurrying around their body. The immense shadow swallowed the park and receded to a collective roar as the barge began its progress, borne on applause like a surging tide. 

Peitho grinned and let go of a tight breath into the shell. “Great job, gang! On track for Elis, remember you're on camera everywhere on deck.”

“Roger, Dove!”

She clipped the shell back into place and went downstairs to check the broadcast. Hermes was in a room garishly bright with monitors, one showing the muse-caster and the rest various shots of Aphrodite looking utterly perfect and the barge in all its impressive decadence. He was a little hunched with his bare shoulders twitching, elbows on the desk and fingers drumming as his sharp, dark eyes kept track of every face and flicker. He tapped a keyboard as in one screen, Aphrodite turned graciously to fuss one of the toddlers snuggled with her. Peitho smiled at the excellently captured, spontaneous moment. “The great thing about them is they do that shit naturally, no setups required.”

“Right?” Hermes grinned, but kept his eyes fixed on the monitors. He tapped again, then leaned back in his chair, flexing his neck and twisting a little to look at her. “We’re definitely going to Elis, then? Into Zeus’ patron region?” She nodded. He grimaced. “Guess we didn't name the specific site on the broadcast so he can't be waiting for us there.” She nodded again. “Where?”

“Olympia.”

“Right into his capital?”

Peitho shrugged a little tightly. “It is, but it's not the religious centre. It's a more brazen, less spiritual choice, so even if he wants to head us off, he's unlikely to guess we'd be there.” She eyed Hermes’ wary gaze coolly. “It’s him we have to convince.”

Hermes’ mouth also tightened, but he nodded. “Gotta admire the balls on you girls.” He spun back to the screens and focused intently. 

“Maybe tonight, if you’re good.” She rubbed his shoulders. “Don’t forget to hydrate.”

He patted her hand and tapped the keyboard.

Aphrodite turned their face up to the sun showering through the gilded canopy. The day was bright and hot, and the energy of the crowds melted blissfully through their skin. Power zipped in their veins so fast that keeping up their calm visage was proving surprisingly challenging. She let herself have little releases of magic in sprinkles of petals over the city, or puffs of incense smoke from her lips that transformed into winged and hooved creatures swooping down on the people below. But these displays only made the worship flow warmer, only charged her body more. She chatted sweetly with her retinue around her. Many had brought their children and her heart was full as the little things snuggled into them or raced around the boat in excitement. She’d blessed each one with temporary wings. They fluttered in bursts of clumsy flight around the deck, giggling wildly. She watched a little boy shoot up to the rigging and swing from it with a squeal. Someone nudged her arm. They looked to Autumn, making sure to move their head with perfect elegance for the cameras. Autumn grinned, her red hair frizzing in the heat. “Thanks for letting my silly acorn come along.”

Aphrodite chuckled. “He’s so big now.”

Autumn nodded and looked fondly at her son’s escalating antics. “He’s my world.” She cocked a curious eyebrow. “Have you ever had children?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you think you will?”

They paused carefully. They looked at their hands. “Sometimes when I’m in my garden, I can feel a presence beside me, like a ghost, but rather than of something dead, it’s of something yet to live. Sometimes my whole house is full of those ghosts.” She looked up and ahead to the shining prow of the ship and the blazing horizon beyond. “But right now, there’s other things I want.”

The barge soared over the city of Olympus, the mountain still echoing with applause. The streets broke out in parties as the flute music skipped from the graces. People danced through the falling petals or up on their couches and coffee tables. Rose and lotus and citrus stifled the stink of cars. Love soothed the frustrations of the working day. The realm of the gods ground to a happy halt. Waiters set down their trays, office workers gathered around break room TVs, classrooms flooded onto sports fields. The dancing continued as the silver oars brushed low cloud and they pulled away from the mountain. People turned up the broadcast so the music kept ringing through the city. 

With a creak of the rudder, the ship descended into the Mortal Realm. They sailed over summer-glutted fields and forests, the land so thick with growth that it swirled and flowed like the ocean. Fat apples mingled with the incense on board, sweet and fresh. Barley ruffled under the breeze churned by the great hull, as golden as the prow. Deer raced in alarm through tangled woodlands. Farmers and travellers gazed up in wonder, dropped pitchforks and packs, and ran urgently to their altars. A few of the children flew with a flock of geese. The Grace of Banquets, Pandaisia, brought out an array of dishes all showcasing the bounty of the fields - stews glimmering with apricots, steaming loaves sculpted into images of wheat and animals, cornucopias so full that they spilled over the deck. Aphrodite ate into the camera, making a delectable show of enjoying her food. Her pleasure filled every farmer and chef and grocer with pride, filled every viewer with the zeal to eat with abandon. Her teeth sank into flesh and her lips sparkled with juice. She sucked and swallowed and lay back to let her belly crest through the gossamer. She celebrated the gifts of the Mortal Realm, cast themself as the epicentre of life and energy. She made it imperative to offer to her and see their delight. 

The ship reached the region of Elis when the sun was high, ablaze over Olympia. Athletes were training in the stadium. Aphrodite hummed with pleasure as she sensed their blood up, pacing and passionate. She smiled at the memory of Ares’ victory, the elated crowd all cheering for his heroine, the moment that tender shock turned to vigorous glee on his boyish face, the way he held her and spun her. The practice games faltered. Athletes staggered and yelped and pointed up at the purple sails like dream clouding the sky. 

Peitho raised the shell to her lips, pulse sickeningly speedy. “Cue landing.” In a whirl of wind, the barge lowered into the grass by the stadium. Sprinters raced to the town to spread the news of some strange, divine visitation. “Swan spreading her wings. You know what to do if you see the eagle.” She watched Aphrodite rise from the lagoon of relaxed bodies. “Camera Three.”

“Three.”

Aphrodite scooped up one of the cornucopias and walked fluidly to the ship's side. They waved to the gathering crowd. More worship rained over her, this time with fear and wonder and desperate hope. She raised her voice across the meadows, it echoed in the stadium and into the city. “Friends! Love has come for you! Aphrodite will open your heart and strengthen your arm! The Celestial Lady of Desire and Victory descends from Olympus to bring you blessing!” They cast their hand over the cornucopia and the fruit arced in a jumbled rainbow into the air, then fell over the crowd. The mortals gasped and leaped to catch it. They hurried deep bites that made them glow and weep and embrace. Athletes started to show off, begging for patronage. Parents held babies aloft. Teenage girls sobbed and clasped their hands together. Aphrodite left no one untended. She touched reaching fingers, handed out flowers, leaned down to whisper words of wisdom. The barge parked in Olympia for a long time, the crowd growing and churning as its citizens came to behold the beautiful goddess. 

The temples of Zeus emptied.

Worshippers abandoned their prayers to the stoic statues of the severe king. He may be strong, he may be giving, but another force was calling. Freedom. Joy. Fulfilment. Love. Love. How had their priests never talked about love? Suddenly, nothing was more important. They tripped over their chitons to get to her. Zeus' sacred torches extinguished as they hit stone floors. They hurried to the stadium grounds and let moans and laughter rip from throats ravaged by dull chanting. They caught pomegranates thrown from the ship and split them open with pocket knives. They crushed jewelled flesh to their lips and soaked their chins with bloody juice. The clean hands of Zeus’ people stained ruby with pomegranate and yellow with oranges. His smart, orderly devotees grew rowdy and sticky. Aphrodite leaned on the ship’s side and spurred them on. “Give yourselves to love, my dear ones! Feel me in your heart and stomach and senses!”

The cloaked camera-nymphs hurried to catch the shots of the fruit, Aphrodite’s stunning smile, the gratitude of the mortals. The cloaked muse-caster at the stern called into her microphone over the rising racket of cheering. “Oh My Gods! The reception is insane! People are crying, going down on their knees! You can hear behind me how crazy it is!”

The progress continued.

Delphi was already awaiting her, the oracle having fallen into ecstasy all night as the marvellous vision came to her. The barge hovered over the steep drop into the valley, level with her hilltop temple. The friezes of Apollo were splattered with wine as people swamped the complex, waving offerings and prayer scrolls. Graces floated among them, collecting so many gifts and pleas that the deck became completely buried. Incense mixed with the psychic vapours. The crowd drifted into a trance, singing and swaying. They stirred a whirlpool of dizzy energy around the boat so thick that it distorted the broadcast. Their song still vibrated in Aphrodite as they took off again. She collapsed into the puddle of nymphs and cushions. Drugged giggling splashed from them. 

Peitho smirked. “Hermes, let’s get some steamier shots.”

“It’s family viewing hours, ya hussy.”

“Keep it tasteful, then.”

Olympus’ TVs shimmered with the sight of Aphrodite painted in pearls and smoke, dreamily nestled among the spirits of love and bounty and play and season, sumptuously pleasured by prayer. She stifled a moan as lone viewers tingled, shifted on their couches, teased themselves through cotton. 

“In all my years as a reporter, I have never seen a religious experience on this scale! Delphi is famously a place with a lot of spiritual activity, but this is nothing short of a fever!”

The chalk-white walls of Athens were drowned in purple and gold. The Parthenon was cast into shadow. The towering columns were dwarfed. The shaping statues appeared as rubble. Emergency debates erupted in the forums. Stalls toppled in the agora. Students tore their scrolls and smashed their tablets. Women in dim rooms sneaked to windows and gazed up towards the Acropolis where the vision ignited. Flames flickered in hearts long empty of all but cold ash. 

“Our break in Athens has had to be cut short as riots erupt in the university! Aphrodite has now accumulated so much emotional energy that it seems this hub of intellect can’t handle it!”

But it was Corinth that Aphrodite most enjoyed. There, the sex workers clambered onto the brothel rooves in greeting. She laughed in delight as she showered them with coins and red roses. They laughed too, danced, hitched up their skirts, and bared their breasts shamelessly to the teeming streets. The citizens threw their worship up to Aphrodite and them together, seeing them bearing her blessing and begging like dogs for a scrap to be cast down. The heat of the day sizzled, feet caked in dust, hair came unbraided. Fingers twined and mouths locked. Strong arms swept up cackling girls and boys. Beds rocked and walls cracked.

“I hope you can all still hear me at home! That sound is the sound of money! It’s jangling through so many businesses that the whole city is ringing! It sounds like the buildings could come down!”

Aphrodite basked in roses and jasmine, talked blithely with their companions, and passed out coins to the children. Gold on her skin. Gold threaded in the fabric around her. Gold infusing the air. The world tasted of treasure.

The atmosphere mellowed as the highest humidity of the afternoon soaked into the deck. With a soft sigh of flutes, the barge roved over the shark-tooth mountains of Laconia. 

“We are now sailing over Sparta, Prince Ares’ much speculated about project. Hermes has called for a media blackout until the city is further into its development, so we won’t be pausing here, but if you turn up your TVs, you may be able to hear…”

Aphrodite lay back with their head on Winter’s taut, cooling belly, eyes hazing in the canopy. As much as their curiosity burned, they resisted going to the side and peeking down to Sparta. Ares hadn’t invited them to see it yet, and they wanted to respect that. But they knew he was there today, continuing his secretive work. The boat swayed gently in the breeze. Sound began to drift from the land below. She pricked up her ears. She and Winter exchanged a look. 

Song. 

Sparta was singing, deeply, roughly, ardently. It was too distant to make out the words, but the flute players found the melody, and music from earth and the heavens conjoined. A flicker of scarlet caught Aphrodite’s eye. They turned from Winter to see a woodpecker flitting under the canopy. She beamed and raised her hand. It perched on their curled finger, little talons wrapping their knuckle, and dipped its beak to tap their hand affectionately. They stroked its feathers and wriggled with affection. Oh, Honey... The worship of Sparta had a different sensation to the rest of the country. It stirred her somewhere nowhere else had touched. It was more than tingles of power, it moved her. There was passion here like most would fear in themselves. No one here was afraid of hurting. 

For an aching moment, Ares was beside her, cuddled up with the rest of her friends, murmuring dumb jokes and fiery encouragement in her ear. Of course, he couldn’t be. This stunt was too politically provocative to put any of her friends at risk. The graces could claim she forced them. Hermes had Underworld immunity, but still avoided being caught on camera. Even Posey and Amphitrite had had to stay clear. The love gods were on their own. Except they weren’t. Ares would never let her be truly alone. She caressed the woodpecker’s crown and sighed at the low engine rumble of Sparta’s love. She wondered what Ares’ singing voice was like. Maybe if they listened hard enough, they would hear him.

The first reddening of sunset trickled into the sea, a rosy mist in the kicked up foam, amber twinkles pipetted into turquoise swirls. The silver oars dipped, the dark sails rippled, and the ship bobbed like a kite down to the waves. It landed with a draconic roar of splashes and a ruffling of the mass of roses. Spray kissed Aphrodite’s cheek and temporarily blurred the cameras before they were hastily wiped and focused on her heart-snaring smile. She stood from the diwan and began to roam around the deck, speaking with every individual, thanking them for being there, learning a little more about their lives. The peach light tinted the pearls trailing down her hair and figure and warmed her wide, kind eyes. The water cooled and salted the air. She took deep breaths that cleaned the cities out of her lungs, that made her feel broader and stronger. They wandered to the side and gazed out to the tranquil rolling of waves like the backs of lovers moving under white sheets. They looked to the low sun dipping into the horizon, countless indefinable shades of fire and water; the endlessness of voyaging, the eternity of light. The sea is as empty as it is full. It gave her space without being alone. She rehearsed her speech under her breath.

“All OK, Boss?” Peitho’s voice was calmer than it had been all day.

They didn’t turn to her. “Just centring myself.”

The scent of violets tickled them as Peitho came to lean beside them, their arms brushing softly. “You can do this. You were born to do this.”

They smirked. “Or reborn.” They both chuckled. She sobered. “You never wanted to cross Zeus.”

The oceanid nodded. She wet her lip. The waves patted the boat in a slow, reassuring rhythm. “He came after The Rose.”

“So this is revenge?”

Turquoise eddied into lilac where the ocean met the sky, cloud and seafoam merging and the world seeming to wheel on the axis of their little ship. “It’s realising that you can do everything right, and still not be safe. It’s realising that the life I want doesn’t lie with his good graces. It’s wanting everyone else to realise that too. It’s not crossing Zeus.” She turned to Aphrodite and the magenta glimmer across her midnight face flared hotter than the setting sun behind her. “It's believing whole-heartedly in you.”

Aphrodite’s breath hitched. They looked into the eyes of their fierce friend. They drew themself up to their full, intimidating height. They laid their hand over hers and nodded. Peitho nodded back. 

“Land ho!” A shout from one of the crew. The pair touched their brows together. Aphrodite took a final breath of sugary violets. They separated and strode to their positions. 

The isle of Kythera emerged from the waves, like the shell of a great sea turtle, dark green fissured by crags of yellow rock, mottled and modest. It had none of the looming columns and dense buildings of the large cities they had flown through, just a smattering of square houses curling around the beaches, and puffs of woolly sheep ambling contentedly around the lush grasslands. The island’s population was small, but it felt huge as Aphrodite looked past the prow to see them all gathered on a low outcrop. They surrounded a structure about the size of a barn, currently covered with canvas sheets roped to the ground. The sunset pierced their eyes, hundreds of excited stares flashing as the barge forged closer. The groan of an immense chain vibrated in the deck as the crew dropped anchor. The ship glided to a halt a little way off from the shore, the outcrop overlooking it. The golden prow hovered like a flame above the lapping tide. Aphrodite put a hand to their stomach and steadied themself. Here we go. They squared their shoulders and floated from the deck to stand atop the prow on the smooth curve of the sculpted swan’s head. Its fiery aura curled around her, turning her lavender skin to pure sunlight. 

“Camera Six.”

“Six.”

An invisible rod extended a camera from beneath her. Olympus was flooded with the sight of her standing in the rays of sunset, the purple sails and pink clouds streaming behind her. She blew subtly through her lips. A fresh breeze whistled from the waves and made the tide dance and her hair burst out to the side, whipping and coiling and glinting with pearls. The hundreds of eyes widened.

The muse-caster dropped to a murmur. “This is it, the moment everything has been leading up to. Aphrodite will now conduct a ceremony here on the isle of Kythera. We haven’t been given a single detail, except that it will herald a new era for not just this goddess, but the entire pantheon.”

The throng of people crushed onto the outcrop fell silent, holding each other and holding their breath as the beautiful goddess appeared to them. Aphrodite didn’t speak. Not yet. She let the silence consume the entire island and ocean. Hermes tented his fingers under his chin and chewed his tongue. Peitho clutched the shell radio and watched with her heart in her throat. The muse-caster pressed her lips together. The children tucked into their mothers’ arms and the graces sat in anticipation. The tide washed back and forth and even it quelled to little more than a whisper. All of nature waited for Aphrodite’s voice.

They lifted their face to the outcrop and let the warmth of the sun and mortal need stroke their lips. “I thank you all for your presence today.” The silence loosened a little, but stayed deep and eager. “The welcome I have always received in your lands, even though I am not Greek by birth, has meant so much to me. I want to tell you why.” They swished their hand. A wave reared up behind them and curtained the sky. The sunset gushed through it, making a wide, rippling cloak of lilac light that wrapped her form in shimmering shadows. Images began to froth out of the coursing wall of water. A handsome figure as vast and blue as the morning, six eyes full of light, gold encircling him as if his embrace would make you royal. His mouth was mild and dignified, his hair like cloud, free and soft. He glided over the Kytherans, all of them arching as if he might reach out of the water and take them into his care. “Once upon a time, the world was all sky. All soaring, all beauty, all possibility. Everything was in harmonious alignment like the planets and stars. Everything was shining like the sun. This was the world of Ouranos.” The image of Ouranos flowed with her words, celestial and human bodies in orbit around him, happy and safe and soaring. “He ruled not with authority, but with gravity, the cosmos in wildness and balance around him, all held by his might and gentleness. In the time of Ouranos, there was no distinction between Heaven and Earth. Reality was paradise and all the people could fly.” A yearning sigh shivered along the outcrop as the familiar tale cradled the folk. They had only ever seen him in stone and tile, never with motion, never with life. What life could have been if they still had their grandfather… Then Kronos loomed through a liquid shadow, skin glistening coldly, a scythe curving like a crescent moon. The gathering flinched as he gashed with the blade. Ouranos melted back into the wave, which bled crimson. At the heart of the wheeling red, a bright star appeared, the same fresh blue as Ouranos, but as the crowd craned to see it, it was swept away on the current. Then three more figures whisked into the water, like swordfish. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades pounced on Kronos and he drained into the sea, along with the darkness. “The sons of Kronos avenged their father’s crime and freed the world of his violence.” The wave turned stern silver. The kings appeared in monochrome in a rigid row. A shoal of worshippers bubbled at their feet, empty hands reaching for them, but unclasped, unheeded. Behind the barricade of kings, that bright sky blue swirled and glimmered. “But he could not be destroyed. The kings longed to restore the world to how it had been under their grandfather, but Kronos’ damage ran too deep. Expelling him was not enough. But they had been patient before, and so they would again. So would we all, at their trusted command. Perhaps the great sky god himself was no more, a stolen past, but with the realms in their hands, he became a promised future. The future is still where we place that happy world, looking ever beyond our moment in this realm. Hundreds, thousands, lived and died in that patience, never fulfilled.” One by one, the figures of the reaching worshippers pathetically wilted down into seafoam. Their kings did not try to catch them. The crowd shifted uncomfortably. The last figure fell, and beneath the kings that lost star bloomed again. “But the cosmos is full of motion. The universe is not a thing of patience.” The blue glow of Ouranos’ memory leaked from behind the monochrome kings and poured into the star. It gleamed aquamarine. Blood trickled in the running water and splashed into it and the gleam turned lavender. Sky and slaughter mixed, and the star formed like spinning clay on a wheel into the figure of Aphrodite, their cascading hair in a thick, satin ribbon around them. “At Ouranos’ last breath, his seed spilled through the sea, and a new kind of deity was born. Tainted with the blood of the first murder, I was painted with Kronos’ sin, but I am not his creation. I am a child of Ouranos, so I cannot help but love his people.” The image of Aphrodite swelled in the tall wave until it engulfed the kings, until behind the real goddess atop the swan head prow was a gigantic, undulating, glistening vision of their naked body, skin alive with spiralling galaxies and flaring comets like a firework display through glass. The sunset ran through her like golden ichor, the essence that made a god something other than a titan, something more magical, more beloved. The dazzling show reflected in the real Aphrodite's luminous skin, metal crown, and the pearls in their hair and clothing. “As an eastern goddess, I was born on Cyprus. I brought joy, creativity, riches and triumph to Mesopotamia. You trade with its empires, you know their might and wealth, you have seen my works. I bring them now to you, as my originator, our originator, desired. Aphrodite Xenia believes no one is a foreigner, and as I love you, as the grandfather loves you, I make myself Greek. I am reborn on your soil, rising new from your sea as one of your kin.” The Kytherans exchanged a few curious glances. Peitho thumbed the shell, the only sign she was still capable of movement. Aphrodite took a step forward to the very tip of the prow. The breeze stirred her gossamer gown. Her belly stirred. A woodpecker fluttered across her vision. They smiled at it. The great wave behind them rolled and crashed in an explosion of sparkling lavender and gold. They jumped from the prow through the shower of glitter.

She dove into the sea.

Everything disappeared.

Darkness. Darkness and the pressure of water. It weighs down her body, pinning her to the soft seabed, compressing her lungs, clogging her nose, making her eyes ache. Fish flash silver across her vision. Kelp curls around her ankles. Webs of coral sprout in a gnarled cage. A white-gold glimmer seeps through the deep green of the chasm of water, but is extinguished in a cloud of squid ink. 

She knows one thing in her barely formed consciousness. She will not die here. She doesn’t yet know what it means to be alive. She just knows she wants it, and that it is more than this.

Aphrodite sank. She sank into the deep water and deep memory. She let it grip her body and mind. She waited for the moment she had to trust would come. The moment when she chose to be.  

She opens her mouth and takes a defiant breath.

Water floods her body. It bloats her lungs, courses in her veins, swirls in her skull, booms in her ears. It makes her light. It makes her float. It makes her strong. She gulps again. She gives herself to the sea. She claims its weight, its darkness, its power. She kicks and the kelp whips away. She shoots her fists out above her and the tendrils of coral shatter in a burst of pink dust. She writhes and swims in the heavy surge pushing her down. 

She fights.

She rises.

She unfolded her body and kicked downwards. She rushed into the undertow. It laid cold hands on her and ripped her dress from her body. It combed greedy fingers through her hair. The pearls were cast in a constellation around her and dissipated into the darkness.

Her legs stop flailing and begin to purposefully propel her upwards. With her reaching arms, she grabs great handfuls of swishing water and wrenches herself higher. 

The white-gold glimmer winks through the emerald vastness. It brightens and swells as she climbs through the dense, pressing water.

She fights.

She rises.

She swam up, up, up towards the surface, towards the sky. The water poured through her body, cleansing her, refilling her. Voices poured with the water, her own answering them every time, clear, strident.

Acteon.

“It’s just the realms have a new figure in the Pantheon, and I think worshippers will be curious about where she’s been all this time.”

“Perhaps it’s best to trust me to know what my worshippers need.” 

Hestia.

"People driven mad with lust. Tragedies of love - death and war, manipulation and betrayal. The urges mortals turn to us to fight against being... unleashed."

"Let me tell you where I differ, why you're all worked up. It's because hearth and battle and city and marriage and song and medicine and skill are all civilised. They were all made. And so they can be unmade. Mortals decide to tear down the stones or make peace or give up the paperwork, to die without help or silence the singers or stop paying for crafts, you all vanish in a puff of smoke. But not love. Love just happens. Love just is. It can't be forgotten or undone or suppressed.”

Hades.

“None of you fought. None of you have any idea what the triarchy protects you from, what bringing it all down leaves you vulnerable to.”

“We pre-exist you. And your courts. We remember the primordial.”

Zeus.

"I'm warning you, Aphrodite."

"Aphrodite, the most beloved. Aphrodite, Common to All. Her cult most ancient. Her reach most far. She who could call them all to her with a snap of her fingers and deflate your fucking bouncy castle of a court in a moment. Do you think I need a crown? Little Man, that is not how I rule. You don't need the top of the mountain when you have a stronghold in every human heart. Pursuing Ares for your throne? Please. The likes of us are beyond your trinkets. You think I came here to sit in your baby high chair? I came here to redefine the concept of power, to declare the sovereignty of every heart in the realms. He is fire and I am ocean and this palace is nothing but sand to gods such as us." 

Angry. Armed. Aimed. Fighting. Rising. Belonging. The sea bore her upwards, bending to her golden will. 

The water thins. It washes turquoise. She can see her own hands, her own arms, the wild stream of her hair around her.

She gulps again, taking the sea into herself, consuming it, consuming all in her path.

The light becomes a glittering, fractured orb, blazing through the rippling waves and showering her with something new, something wonderful. Warmth. 

Warmth.

Light.

Life.

Love.

It’s all up there. She has a purpose. She has a power. She has an existence. Waiting for her. Wanting her. 

The shadows rippling through the surface morphed into standing figures; the gathered crowd watching the waves in desperate silence. 

She kicks. She climbs. She thrashes. She hauls herself higher, pulsing undulations going down her body as she throws herself into the ascent. Her muscles roll. Her eyes reflect that stunning, summoning light. 

She fights.

She rises.

She rose.

The surface of the sea blows apart. Crystal drops and crashing waves erupt across the piercing blue.

In the singeing, spiralling dance where sunlight meets the ocean, she is reborn.

The sea snarled and screamed and surged, then rocketed in a huge, spiralling turret of water. Aphrodite soared like a cormorant atop it, her feet in the tip of the fountain, standing proud and radiant in the whirling sparkle. Her clothes and jewellery had all been swallowed by the sea, she was naked but for one thing: the red-gold laurel crown gleaming on her soaked hair. Cold pinched their cheeks violet and pimpled their flesh. Water glistened on her bare skin, dripping from her nipples and fingers and cock like a dark lily bud. The sunset lit a thousand fires in the droplets spangling her body, adorned her with blinding brilliance.

She, the originating act of wrath incarnate.

The last echo of the titans.

Glorious.

Primal.

Dazzling.

Dawn breaks over the world, and welcomes the first of the gods.

Sunset broke over the world and welcomed Aphrodite of Greece. 

The crowd erupted. 

Peitho let her breath go and collapsed into tearful applause. Hermes flopped forward onto his forearms and laughed in relief. The graces clapped their hands to their mouths and wept with pride. The muse-caster couldn’t speak, her lip trembling. 

The Kytherans dissolved into cheering, their whistling and stamping like a whole truck of dynamite had been set off. They shook the rocks and spurred the tide. Aphrodite stood above them, washed in the sea and borne by the fountain so her glittering form melted into the first blush of stars in the lilac sky. She lifted her hand to hush them. It took a while, but the mob eventually fell still again, breathless and beaming. Again, she waited until the silence submitted entirely to her. Her voice moved through the island, each person hearing it as if she stood at their side. A girlish grin broke out and she spoke to them with a rush of warmth and thrill, earnest and adoring, arms spread and hair a mess under her crown. “I am the last remnant of the God of the Sky, not just his progeny, but formed from his very flesh at the moment of his death. I am the stars and nebulas falling to the earth and embracing your lands in power and wonder and glory. I am here, one of you now and always, to tell you that the heaven of Ouranos does not reside in the promises of kings, but the passion and joy of humanity. I am here to crown you the rulers of your own destiny, the makers of your own fulfilment, the monarchs of your own happy ever afters. I am here to awaken the heaven you hold in your hearts.” They pressed their chest, their grin wild, elated. “When you look up to the endless possibilities of space or out to the exhilaration of the horizon, when you see the vastness of your existence, you see me, and I cast my gaze upon you with love. When you are overcome with delight, whatever that means for you, in relationships, in art, in discovery, in fortune, and you feel your body fly, that is my blessing, and the blessing of Ouranos. Your heart was gifted to you, the sky was gifted to you, I was gifted to you, so that even as your grandfather was forced to leave you, you would always feel him with you, because you would still know flight and long for it. Humanity is a winged creature weighed down by misuses of the world. But you don't have to keep yourselves down waiting for him to lift you. He would weep to see you grounded when he filled each of you with the fire of the stars.” She flickered her fingers. The crowd gasped and whirled to each other as a violet glow illuminated in each of their chests, their hearts flaring like torches to make the isle shine as a coloured beacon. Aphrodite chuckled and raised her hands. “See? You were told that the world was dark and cruel and only something to survive patiently until some saving grace. But how can it be? How can it be such an awful place if you are in it, making it beautiful? Don’t let that heavy lie bring you low any longer. Stop waiting for a promised future. Take your wondrous present. Look up! Look up and believe that there is more for you already here, freedom and adventure and bliss. Look up and know your gifts. Look up and remember your wings.” They breathed out slowly and the wind ruffled hair and clothes, teased the folk with the lightness of air. They beamed out to the people, their people. “I am Aphrodite Ourania, Queen of Heaven, the last piece of the sky, and I have come to restore your flight!” She blew a huge, happy kiss to the crowd. A flock of doves sprayed from behind her and arced over the outcrop. The gathering was deluged with wings. It soared into celebration. 

“Ourania!”

“The sky clasps the earth again!”

“Grandfather!”

“Joy! Heaven! Love!”

“The stars are ours!”

“Aphrodite!”

“Aphrodite!”

“Aphrodite Ourania!”

Their cheering and calling chimed as deep as the seabed and as high as the firmament.

Strong hands seized the ropes around the covered structure and heaved. Canvas sheets whirled away to reveal a new temple. It was small and unassuming compared to the impressive sites in the cities, but it was so beautiful that Aphrodite ached. Every inch of stone was painted lovingly. Flowers and flowing waters swirled around the columns, nymphs and birds pranced over friezes, lovers embraced and children played and animals ran. Aphrodite’s domain appeared in a hundred pretty details, as if the temple was a tapestry folded into a structure. The sunset draped it and made it glow. This would be their most sacred site in Greece. Her rebirth, the chance at all rebirth, lived in this little place made with so much love. Aphrodite clasped her hands over her heart and gestured their gratitude to the townsfolk as they looked to her with anticipation. At her radiant approval, they clutched each other in tight hugs, and laughter leaped in the applause. 

Aphrodite blew another kiss and willed the fountain to carry her down to the barge. They hopped back onto the deck and were immediately rushed by their retinue. Summer bounced up and down and pointed excitedly. “That’s the vision! That’s my sketch!” 

“Sure is!”

Winter shook her hand. Autumn’s son hugged her leg. Spring hurried to her with a towel and wrapped her tight. Antheia clapped and spun on her toes. Pannyakhis hooted and slapped her shoulder. Aglaea bundled her into a crushing embrace. Peitho scurried in, cupped her face, and kissed her mouth fervently. Hermes gambolled up on deck, shot into the air, and plummeted into the fray, knocking them naked to the floor and gathering them and Peitho into a rough, tacky tussle and series of snatching kisses as they squealed and giggled. The wild joy of the islanders hurled around them, the sea splashing, the ship rocking.

The muse-caster turned back to the camera, her face split by her smile. Her voice quavered as she fought back tears. “Honestly, I don’t know what I can say to end this broadcast.” She sniffed and cleared her throat. “What an incredible thing for our generation to witness! For so long, we have told the story of the loss of our great God of the Sky, Ouranos. His death was the first of Kronos’ massacre, and we all wonder what life would have been had he and his miracles lived. Perhaps here, on the humble isle of Kythera, we have a glimpse. As Aphrodite of Cyprus crowns herself Ourania of Greece, she offers us the heaven that even the Titanomachy could not restore!” She shook her head in disbelief and let out a thrilled laugh. “Mortal or divine, there's no denying when you see something like this - polish up those curtseys, Olympus, there's a new queen in town!” 

 

Back in the mountaintop city, Zeus watched his office TV through a fog of cigarette smoke. White electricity slithered over the monitor. It shattered in a harsh flash.

 

*

 

“I have an idea.” Peitho pitched drunkenly on one foot and slung an arm around Aphrodite’s shoulders, her amphora sloshing. 

Aphrodite caught her with a chuckle. The party bubbled around them, graces and mortals spilling out of the temple and dancing and staggering under the indigo-ringed dusk. Flute music pirouetted over the lavender waves. The sky and sea glistened with the stars and their watery mirror, the realms truly appearing reconnected. Once upon a time, the world was all sky… Aphrodite had enchanted the edge of the outcrop; people were leaping from it to fly for short bursts before dropping with wails and barks into the gentle tide. “Don’t you ever get tired of having ideas?”

“No-no-no-no-noooo! This one’s REALLY GOOD!”

“They’re all good, but…”

“We take this Ourania thing to a whole new level!” Peitho leaned deeper onto them and gestured precariously with the wine. “Literally! We build you a palace in the clouds, above Olympus. You live in status as Heavenly Aphrodite, and the toilets flush directly over Zeus’ place.”

They cackled and rubbed her arm, easing the amphora from her hand. “Tell you what, if we survive the summer pulling stunts like this, I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I’m asking.” Her magenta eyes crackled fiendishly as she swung her hip against theirs. 

“Why is only one of you holding wine?” Hermes appeared at their side with two cups, his chiton askew and a love bite on his neck.

Aphrodite chuckled and poked it. “That didn’t take long.”

“Longer than usual.” He drank and handed the swaying Peitho his other cup. 

Aphrodite looked between them warmly. She raised the amphora. “None of this would have been possible without you both. You are extraordinary and I can’t believe my luck that I found you.” She tipped the wine to Hermes, the boy blushing crimson, pupils glinting with the reflection of Gemini above. “To Hermes, the Messenger.” She tipped to Peitho, luxuriantly gorgeous even has her pristine red carpet look unravelled. “And Peitho, Goddess of Persuasion.”

Peitho snorted. “Wow, Boss, that’s embarrassing, got my title wrong. I’m the Grace of Seduction.”

“No, you’re not.” They smiled proudly. “I hereby appoint you Goddess of Persuasion. You are far more than a pretty face, you are not just a femme fatale who’s learned enough tricks to get treats. You pulled this together, Peitho, you pulled it all together. You coordinated the pamphlets campaign, you cleaned up Hestia’s attack on Paphos, you brought the big money to The Rose, you swayed Hecate to allow the Eurydice project, you were brave enough to petition Zeus for a council seat and he hasn’t rejected you outright, then you crafted this, the divine spectacle of the century. And you saved me when I was nothing but seafoam. You are my genius. You have this power to turn the world to our will. You are my right hand and a Goddess in your own right.” 

Peitho suddenly looked extremely sober. She touched her lips. She blinked rapidly as her stunning eyes swam. Music and mayhem flowed around them, then shattered as she screamed like a seagull. “OH MY GODS!” She pounced on Aphrodite and enveloped her in a wine-soaked hug that almost knocked her to the ground. They caught her and squeezed her tight. Hermes squawked and threw his arms around them both. The trio tripped around the rough grass, casting wine into the soil. They pulled apart and Aphrodite tutted at her fine, sky blue dress, made new for this celebration and now dotted with red. 

Hermes swept his hair back and asked casually, “So, Lady Love, was this anything like your real birth?”

Aphrodite smoothed her skirts and flashed him a sweet smile. “Nothing at all. I was alone then.”

He smiled back, the last pink brushstrokes of evening behind him, streaking from the glimmering sea. He opened his mouth to speak, when a clap of thunder rent the air. The trio wheeled around to stare at the sky. The flutes squeaked silent. The laughter cut off. The party stilled and followed their gaze as the thunder growled again. 

Aphrodite’s heart stopped.

The watercolour sky looked engulfed by oil. Dense, black cloud boiled over the mainland and ate up the stars as it advanced on Kythera, the deep rolls of thunder like the chomping of gigantic jaws. Scarlet lightning snaked through it, reflected like blood in the waves.

Hermes swallowed and put his arm out in front of his friends. “Fates…”

Peitho gripped his hand. “Zeus.”

Aphrodite was frozen.

Hermes turned to her urgently. “We knew it was a risk he’d be angry, right? We have a plan?”

“We planned for being called into his office or stopped at a site with something bureaucratic. This…” Peitho’s voice died to another furious surge of thunder. It sounded like a thousand swords ringing against a thousand shields. She gripped Aphrodite’s arm. “It’s all over, isn’t it? We went too far. He’s going to… to destroy us.”

Fear ripped through the gathering. Clay smashed. Cries and pleas tore from hoarse throats. Children were hurried inside the temple. People huddled together or began to run for lower land. Aphrodite turned to see them fraying apart in terror. She looked up to the stars. She looked to the echo of the sun at the rim of space. Their jaw set. They pushed Hermes’ arm down from shielding them. “Love cannot be destroyed.” She strode forward.

With another roar, a bright gash appeared in the brewing cloud. It wept flame like a bleeding wound. The flame spilled into the sky and, as the storm grew closer, a chariot took form in the trail of fire. Four burly horses charged with hooves like warhammers through the air. The chariot gleamed red-gold. The blaze mirrored in it cast the faces of the glaring crowd into stark pallor. It hurtled downwards like a meteor ready to turn the island into nothing but a crater. Aphrodite grit their teeth and strode out far in front of the recoiling crowd. Peitho lunged after her, but Hermes held her back. As they went, their blue dress whipped around them and transformed into a white chiton and silver breastplate engraved with a swan in flight. A white-plumed helmet bloomed over her hair. A silver sword flashed into their fist. 

The thunder boomed.

“Be brave, friends!” she called fiercely over it. “No people of Aphrodite need fear any man or his bluster!”

The rocks quaked as the chariot landed hard at the crest of the outcrop. The horses whinnied and red fire jetted from their nostrils. Sparks danced along flanks the colour of hot embers. The rider was wreathed in smoke, red eyes glowing from dark armour. A long, lethal spear glinted cruelly beside his broad, brutish figure. 

It’s not Zeus himself, Aphrodite thought carefully. Some thug sent to do his dirty work. Well… she raised the sword with both hands in a high guard like a poised falcon, I wish him luck. She called out again in a voice that rivalled the thunder. “What brings you here to interrupt my feast day?” The charioteer was silent. He put a hand on the chariot’s side and vaulted over it, pteruges flaring like blades, cloak billowing into the smoke. His muscle rippled in the firelight. He landed heavily and began to walk slowly past the tramping, snorting horses. Aphrodite gripped her sword and planted her feet. The thunder had hushed and the storm was receding, so she could hear the rasps of terrified breathing from the islanders. “Speak, stranger!”

The charioteer halted about ten feet from her, his spear like a fallen star, his bronze breastplate like magma, his cloak like a river of blood. His aura was brighter than the flames in the mouths of his steeds and the metal of his chariot. It obscured the details of him, so he was just a mountain of ferocious muscle and scarlet and gold. He raised his free hand and pulled his helmet from his head. His aura dimmed to a soft glimmer as a mess of blonde curls tumbled free. “No stranger, My Lady.”

Aphrodite’s jaw dropped. She half lowered the sword, but as the indignant glee galloped through her, she wasn’t sure that she wasn’t going to murder him.

The charioteer smiled and drove the base of his spear into the ground. He walked forward in a smooth, leonine gait that rolled from his broad, moulded shoulders down through his hips. He came so close that she could taste burning on the tip of her tongue. He lowered to one knee and held out his hand. She moved the sword aside, still not fully stowed away, and laid one hand in his. He kissed it with warm lips and spoke humbly to her feet. “Beautiful Ourania, Anadyomene, Queen of Desire, I am Ares, Enyalius, Khrysopêlêx, son and heir of the king and queen of the gods, Prince of Olympus and Lord of War.” His voice was low, but it carried across the outcrop, whisking up nervous murmurs from the crowd. 

“Your highness,” Aphrodite fought to keep both shaking and smiling from their tone, “to what do I owe the honour?” 

“I bring a gift to congratulate you on your victory.” 

“My victory? Over what?” 

He finally raised his face, mischief eddying amber in his wonderful eyes. “The hearts of all.” He winked. They gave him a look of equal delight and scolding. He let go of their hand, stood, and walked back to the chariot. He hefted something out of it and returned carrying something the size of a person in his bulging arms, wrapped in burlap. He set it down in front of her and peeled the burlap away. It was a statue of her carved in shining, ruddy wood, standing tall in armour and bearing a spear, her face proud and defiant. “Aphrodite Areia, in recognition of your might and our kinship.” 

Relief rippled through the gathering, the murmurs warming as people craned to catch a glimpse of the offering and its handsome bringer. Aphrodite smiled graciously, saving the playful sparks in their gaze just for him. “A fine gift, My Lord, I thank you deeply.” She reached out and took his hand too. She kissed it and smirked at his surprised blush. His knuckles were rough with hard work, she stroked them subtly as she released him. “But for today, there is only peace.” They waved the sword and it vanished in a shower of stars. Their armour melted again into the sky blue dress and their tousled, cascading hair; ice becoming water.

Ares nodded and snapped his fingers. His spear vanished from where it skewered the ground. His dark, hard armour and thick cloak became a short, crimson chiton, the collar embroidered with bronze. “Ever in your lands, as far as I can promise”. His gently teasing expression tautened into something so sincere that Aphrodite’s chest burned. 

She broke into a grin and spread her arms, lightening her voice. “Why don’t you bring your gift inside?” They spun and began to lead him to the party. “Clear the temple!” 

Ares twisted to gesture for his horses to stay put, but they were already happily munching on a leg of lamb dropped in the grass by a party-goer earlier. He picked up the statue and followed Aphrodite to the dark door of the sweet, little temple. The crowd parted for them, staring in awe. Hermes and Peitho gave him a you bastard grin as he passed. He flicked his tongue at them. 

Aphrodite stepped into the cool stone room and waved the door closed, a wave of excited chatter immediately kicking up outside. As soon as they were alone, all the fear and relief and fury in her gut exploded out of her. She rounded on him with a shrill yell. “I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU!” She launched into beating her palm on his arm.

Ares put down the statue and crumpled into laughter. “You should’ve seen your face!”

“YOU!” Smack. “LITTLE!” Smack. “PRICK!” Smacksmacksmack.

“Hey! Ouch!” He kept shaking with laughter, loosely trying to bat her away as they chased him in a circle around the mosaic. He ran fast enough to catch up behind them, snared their waist and hauled her into a hug. She squeaked as she was pulled against his radiator body, buzzing with mirth. The anger extinguished immediately. They deflated into his arms and clung to him. They fell still in the embrace, suspended in it as their faces dipped into the crooks of each other’s necks. The quiet echoed with their deep breaths of each other. He smelled of charcoal and hay and dried sweat, hot and natural.

“Ares, what are you doing?” they mumbled into his blissfully warm skin. With all her willpower she pulled back and looked up into his tender, glimmering face, sinking her touch into his stable shoulders. “For hundreds of years, your father has staked his rule to Ouranos, styled himself as the sky god after him, his avenger, his kin, the only hope of his restoration. I told you, publicly challenging his narrative, the basis of his power… This was dangerous.”

He clutched their waist. “Why do you think I’m here?” 

“A royal presence validates my story, it makes this so much more of a threat to him.”

“But less of a threat to you.” He stroked her curves softly, his ardent voice shivering over stone. “He can get into a public brawl with you, he can smear campaign you, arrest you, he can fucking hurt you. He can’t do that to me. Anything he does to my name, he does to his own. I am your shield.”

Her eyes pricked, dread stirring in her gut. “Ares.” They cupped his face. “He won’t hurt you in public. Not everything is in public. I knew that having you or Poseidon with me would be politically prudent, but our relationship is not political to me.”

He gripped her tight, his eyes smouldering in the dimness. His jaw set stubbornly. “I said it out there, peace ever in your lands, as far as I can promise.”

Her chest brimmed. They glared up into his unyielding expression. They released their anxiety in a long, loud growl. “UUUUUUUGH! I’m so… You’re so… You’re SO… UGH!” She threw herself into his life raft arms. He laughed brashly and caught her close, coiling around her and holding every inch of her, like a tree root around a mushroom. It had been so long since they’d embraced like this. Aphrodite surrendered her entire consciousness into the comfort of it. After a long, long while, they dropped apart. Mostly. Then not much. Ares hooked his arm around her shoulders. She looped his waist and began to steer him around the temple. “Let me show you my new digs.” 

He lit the temple as his chariot had lit the sky, his upturned smile like one of the torches crackling along the walls. The inside was painted as thoroughly and delicately as the outside, scenes of Aphrodite’s blessings in bedrooms, markets, orchards, and beaches. The floor glittered in a mosaic of the ocean, fish, dolphins, shells, and squids seeming to swim through real water in the rippling light. But it was the ceiling that drew the eye, midnight blue painted in gold with the spangled heavens, and reclining in the shimmering firmament, nude Aphrodite with her hair a cloud of stars. Ares’ lopsided grin pulled wide. “Wow. This place is so pretty.”

“I appreciate you saying that right as you look at the fabulous picture of my tits.”

He laughed and nodded to the altar. It was currently without an idol, but decked with offerings of fruit and flowers and perfume bottles. “Want me to set it up?”

“Yes, please.” She patted his abs. He slipped from her side and scooped up the statue. She sucked her lip and eyed his thick arms and flexing back as he carried the image of her like a bride up the small flight of narrow steps. He lifted it to stand on the altar. The torchlight ran like mead down the varnished wood. Aphrodite Areia. Warrior Aphrodite. Aphrodite bonded to Ares. Her stomach fluttered. “Gods, Ares, it’s beautiful.”

“Cocky much?” He returned to her side.

“Shut up.” She bumped his hip with hers. She glanced playfully up at him. He smiled down at her, his cheeks flushed with the hot glow from his captivating gaze. Her heart thumped. Her lips prickled. She spoke before they could do anything else. “Want to get a drink?”

His longing expression was painfully pretty. “I really do, I wanna stay in your atmosphere forever.” He grimaced with an edge of weariness. “But better not push it. It’s one thing to drop in with a gift, it’s another to stick around. Besides, I don't wanna take focus off you, and I am quite sexy.”

“True.” She nodded, trying not to pout. “Well, at least show me your hot wheels, Stud.”

His grin slashed the softness of the temple light.

They'd been absent long enough for the many ears pressed to the temple door to disperse back into enjoying the party, but as the God of War’s bronze glow struck the sapphire night, attention glued to them like insects in sap. They exchanged a look and carefully arranged their positions to look formal, Aphrodite walking down the temple steps with her hands folded over her belly, Ares beside her with his hands behind his back. They reached the grass and were met by Hermes and Peitho, drunkenness making them much less professional. Peitho tried to jump Ares instantly. Aphrodite warily nudged her back. She scrunched up her nose and gave a mock curtsey with a wobble. “I'm super mad at you.”

Ares grinned like a shark. “I know. Tastes good.”

“So does your mischief, you bad boy.” Hermes clapped his arm. 

Ares chuckled and tapped his friend’s stomach. Aphrodite cut in. “Ares has to go, keep people from swamping him.” Hermes saluted with two fingers.

Thankfully the crowd was frightened enough of the tall, regal god to come too close. Aphrodite eyed him affectionately as he shifted a little awkwardly under their goggling, hesitant stares, like at a tiger in a zoo. She murmured gently to him. “Don't beat yourself up. I worked closely with mortals for a very long time to be able to walk among them without causing this reaction.”

He twitched an unconvinced smile. He led her to the chariot and its imposing horses. The savage beasts loomed over her. Huge, flaming eyes bored into her as she came close without hesitation. Ares stumbled forward. “Careful, they breathe fire.”

They smirked at him. “You’re not serious.” He clucked his tongue. They shook their head with a wide smile and turned back to meet the blazing eyes of the horses. They were thickset, broader and stronger than oxen, their bodies so lean and powerful that they looked forged of metal. One was an unnatural scarlet, flames flickering in the ends of his mane. One was chestnut, but with the blaze of fire scarring through his flesh, as if his skin was tearing around a furnace. One was black as thunder and restless. And one was dark grey with ghost-white streaks. They shuffled as she gazed up at them, the earth seemed to thrum with their steps. Her breath caught as she took them in, magnificent and haunting. They smelled scorchingly of charred hair and raw meat. Slowly, cautiously, she raised a hand to the scarlet steed’s muzzle. They paused to let him pull away. He dipped his great head an inch. They smiled and laid their hand on his broad nose. He was even warmer to the touch than Ares. His flanks pumped softly as she stroked him and shushed under her breath. “There now, you’re not so big and bad, are you?” Smoke wound from his mouth around their wrist. 

Ares smiled and patted the horse's neck like it was nothing. “He’s called Phlogeus, and this is Aithon,” he gestured to the glowing chestnut, “Konabos,” the black, “and Phobos,” the grey.

She kept petting Phlogeus with a smirk. “So, you’ve called your horses Fire, Totally On Fire, Big Noise, and Super Scary?”

“Well…”

“Meathead.”

“Rude!” 

They laughed quietly. Aphrodite emboldened and ran her fingers through Phlogeus’ coarse mane. It was like touching a contained explosion, he thrummed with violent energy. “This is so cool.”

Ares perked up like a puppy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She slid her smile to him. “Suits you.”

His blush was strawberry sweet. He rubbed the back of his neck and ventured, “I, uh, I caught them wild.”

“You what?” 

“Um, yeah.”

She frowned in wonder at the fire-breathing, monstrous creatures, at the fangs poking from bloodied lips and the sparks fizzing in the creases of their fidgets. Her mind flooded with images of Ares in battle, leaping astride them, hanging on for dear life as they bucked, his thighs and hands taming them under his thrusting body. “Fates, Honey, that’s… really something.” She glanced at his boyish beaming. They cocked an eyebrow. “I thoroughly enjoy your craving for my approval.” 

“Shuddup…” He lifted his hand to tickle her, then stopped himself with a stiff look at the humming crowd nearby. Both their faces fell a little as he straightened up and kept his hands clear of her. 

“I know I told you off, but…” She bit her lip, chest so full it drowned her voice. “Thank you for this,” she whispered, hiding her liquid stare by leaning in to kiss Phlogeus’ nose. “I can’t tell you what it means to me.”

“Are you kidding? After you took basically the whole Olympics off to cheerlead?”

“You know full well this is different.” Their heart wrenched as he casually petted Konabos. “Don't go back to the palace tonight.”

“I'll be fine.” He looked down at them with too much confidence. Then he softened. “I'm in Sparta tonight, anyway.”

They dropped their tense shoulders. “I am indeed taking a little credit for Sparta going home with a king’s horde worth of medals. How was the homecoming for the team?”

He brightened. “Incredible. Fucking awesome. Also, the drunkest I, in fact possibly any being in history, has ever been.”

“Wish I’d been there.” The brightness left him. She winced. Every hint about hearing a single detail of Sparta had been deflected expertly. And what had he said in the temple about wishing he could stay in her atmosphere? Ares, what's wrong? If you've made it, I'm sure it's beautiful. She pressed her lips together against pushing on his boundary. “I just mean I miss you.”

“Fuck, I miss you too,” he said on a gusting sigh. “I feel like we haven't hung out in forever.”

“I know,” her reply was adorably pouty, “we've both been crazy busy.”

“Sure, we ‘both’ have.”

“You’ve been busy!”

“I have been normal person busy, there’s not a word for what you’ve been.”

She sucked her tongue. “Yeah, maybe.” She folded her arms, the smitten Phlogeus snorting indignantly. “Honestly, you get a PA to manage your schedule and she goes mad with power.” They flicked their eyes to him, their meteor sizzling where he landed. They mellowed their tone with a silken stroke. “Hey, so, I've actually forced Peitho to leave tomorrow blank, for her own health, and she'll be too hungover to go back on it. Why don't we have a day, just the two of us?”

He turned into a puppy again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You don't have like six interviews and a ribbon cutting and a catwalk show and a university lecture and a…”

“Alright already, I get the picture.” She resisted cuffing him, but took a sneaky step a little closer. His flavour spiced the dense scent of the horses. “I'd like to show you around Paphos, on Cyprus.”

He cocked an eyebrow drily. “So, your workplace.”

“My birthplace!” she scolded with amusement. She gave him a look filled with the stars overhead. “Perhaps today was my rebirth, but you're…” They swallowed. “I want to share who I have always been with you.”

He gazed at them. He took a slow breath over an audible lump in his throat. “I'd love that.”

Aphrodite hugged herself, her stomach fluttering pleasantly. “I'll text you where to meet.”

“Great.” He grinned. She grinned. She rocked on her foot and glanced back at the party. He chuckled. “No, you hang up first.”

She laughed, then grunted. “You really have to go?”

“You know I do.”

She subtly stuck her tongue out. “See you tomorrow, Teen Dream Magazine.”

“See ya, Retirement Home Brochure.”

“HOW DARE Y-”

“Whoops!” He dodged backwards past the horses and vaulted back into the chariot. He gathered up the reins, flashing her a roguish wink as she prickled merrily. 

She took a few steps back as the horses tossed their heads and snorted smoke. They raised their voice to call to the crowd. “Cheers for the God of War! Defender and Drive!”

The warm bubbling of the party heated into boiling applause as Ares steered his chariot skilfully in a tight semi-circle and lashed the reins. The horses launched into a heavy canter that rumbled in the rocks as he drove faster and faster to the slope of the outcrop. With a snarl of flame, he whooshed into the air. The wild cheering followed him as he rocketed up towards the sky, the trail of fire like the feathers of an arcing arrow. Aphrodite gazed at the red blaze among the crystal stars. She hugged herself and sighed softly. She jumped out of her skin as Peitho thunked onto her back and cuddled her tight. “I am a big fan of Ares in a mini skirt.”

Aphrodite laughed and rubbed her forearms. “Mmmm, hate to see him go, but love to watch him walk away.”

“Mind in the gutter.”

“I dug the gutter.” She sobered. She sighed again, eyes still raised.

Peitho snorted onto her arm. “Just say it.”

“What?”

“You know what.”

“No, no, no, we're friends now.”

“You're in loooove.”

“Shush.”

She tickled her belly. “Who'd'ya think you're kiddin'? He's the earth and heaven to you. Try to keep it hidden, Honey, I can see…”

“No!”

“Face it like a grown-up!”

“I won't say I'm in love!” She wriggled free and squished a finger over Peitho's lips. She relaxed and swapped their places to hug the smaller goddess from behind, wrapping her up and kissing her cheek. “But he is pretty great, isn't he?” They giggled like sparrows and sank into leaning on each other. Aphrodite rested her cheek in Peitho's curls and let her gaze wander back up to the sky. Ares still fizzed in the darkness, a sparkler, a spear. Her heart was spinning like a kite in a high wind. She'd done it, everywhere she'd stopped she'd taken worshippers, and as she'd been reborn on Greek land, claimed the titanic heritage so long shamed, claimed her own story, her own place, she'd felt the power rush into her as if her body now contained the whole ocean. They thought of the last glimpse of the sky before their dive, red-gold and lavender in a radiant embrace. They thought of the moment their sweet warrior removed his helmet and all fear fled them, the moment he went down on his knees and kissed their hand and they felt higher than the moon. They thought of tomorrow, of having this creature of strength and passion all to themself in their favourite place in the world. They breathed the air full of fruit and sea salt and watched him burn his way through the universe.

Khrysopêlêx, glorify me.

Ares gripped the reins, tilted his face back, and let himself go dizzy in the dark sky. He opened his mouth and his chest and rushed with the wild flight. Fire streaked past him, heat and cold bringing his skin to life with the excitement in his heart. For the first time in days, he stopped playing the last weeks over and over. They were finally starting to feel real. He was making a name. He was making turning point decisions that no one could unmake. He was taking a stand and it felt right. He had the best friend he'd ever known by his side. He thought of Aphrodite in Kythera, armoured and proud and angry, a beam of white light like a swan rising in the dawn, more beautiful and dazzling than any of the glittering constellations furling around his flight. He thought of her courage melting to delighted, enraged shock as she saw the stranger was him in all his might. Impressed. Truly impressed. And happy to see him. Truly happy. He’d been keeping Sparta far away from her, afraid of how she'd see him as his domain took its raw, rough shape. But he'd finally had the courage to show her his divine form, and she’d met it with uprising and joy and that delicious cinnamon spice. Everything inside him swelled. The brilliant sky swept over him. It looked like a painting of how it feels to take a deep breath. The strokes in the Milky Way looked like wings. 

Ourania, carry me to the horizon.

Notes:

DETAILED INFANTICIDE/CHILD BANISHMENT CW:

When I first started putting this story together, Hephaestus hadn't been introduced in Lore Olympus and I made the decision to just cut him out altogether. But in exploring the myths and building a darker picture of Zeus, I ended up wanting to acknowledge him. In this chapter, Zeus says that he threw his first son, Hephaestus, from the mountain as a boy, as happens in the real myth of Hephaestus. Obviously, Heph brings up a really painful and complex discussion of disability acceptance. In some versions of the myth, he is born disabled and that's why he's cast out, in others he is thrown from the mountain in punishment and becomes disabled from his injury. I really didn't want to tell a triggering story about violently ableist parents, but I did want to add the idea of casting away his first son into Zeus' character. It emphasises his intense paranoia around the prophecy that says he will be killed by his son, and gives higher stakes to how at risk Ares is. So the thing I've had Zeus say is that Hephaestus was born "titanic." While the Olympian generation has ichor running through their veins, a sign of their distinction from the titans, Hera's afterbirth was filled with titan's blood. Zeus is terrified of the titans, mostly because of Kronos, but a story about Prometheus (who I personally link Hephaestus to) is coming up later. When he saw his son exhibiting titanic physical properties, he "threw" the child from Olympus. I haven't specified if that means banishment or attempted murder, I don't know if Zeus knows or remembers wholly what he intended, he's so warped. But in my mind, Heph was cast from the mountain, causing his injury, but adopted in hiding by nymphs in the Mortal Realm. He lives there in exile, his parents don't know he's alive and his brother doesn't know he exists. The loss of Hephaestus will only come up sparingly, but Hera does have growth and action related to him. So I've tried not to write Heph as outcast for his disability, but I'm conscious that he is cast out due to a visible physical difference that relates to his father's biases. I hope this decision doesn't cause any harm. If you don't want to read it, then this conversation takes place between the second and third asterisk, starting with the word "Sedition." All you'll miss is Zeus telling Hades that he believes Aphrodite is using Ares to plan rebellion against him and that he plans to react, but doesn't know how. I'm background working on an og version of this story, in which Heph is a major character with agency, positivity and a happy ending, but there just isn't room to make that happen here, hope you understand xx

NERDY NOTES

Sadly, there is so much that I literally don't have room in AO3 character limits. I know, I'm so embarrassed! So skip to the next "chapter" for history notes, if you want them! What I will include here is...

APHRODITE AND ARES EPITHETS

Epithets arise for gods in situated contexts, often from a specific region, event or poet, and can give us lovely insight into the diverse ways a deity was conceptualised over time and space. I've divided them by character who uses them.

Ares' invocations of Aphrodite:
Dia - Shining
Khrysêe - Golden
Epistrophia - She who turns minds to love

Aphrodite's invocations of Ares
Aphneius - Giver of Food
Obrimos - Strong
Khalkeos - Brazen (as in "of bronze," but I like the double meaning of his brazen attitude)

Hippomenes' invocations of Aphrodite (as he races for the hand of Atalanta)
Nymphia - Bridal
Symmakhia - Ally in Love
Nikêphoros - Bringer of Victory

Marpessa's invocations of Ares (as she battles invaders)
Andreiphontês - Slayer of Men
Laossos - Rallying
Gynaecothoenas - Feasted by Women

Ino's invocations of Aphrodite (as she flees her murderous husband)
Apostrophia - Averter of Unlawful Desires
Limenia - of the Harbour
Pontia - of the Sea

Menelaus' invocations of Ares (as he bonds with the Spartans)
Enkhespalos - Spear Brandishing
Aatos Polemoio - Insatiate of Fighting
Enyalius - Warlike

Eurydice and Sinoe's invocations of Aphrodite (as they grow closer)
Pandemos - Common / Common to All
Makhanitis - Meddler
Melainis - Darkness of Night

Cynisca's invocations of Ares (as she competes in the Olympics)
Hippios - of the Horse
Thoos - Swift
Thouros - Furious

Epithets: Kythera
Aphrodite Xenia - of the Foreigner
Aphrodite Ourania - Heavenly, and related to her birth from Ouranos' semen
Aphrodite Anadyomene - Rising from the Sea
Aphrodite Areia - Armed (not actually related to Ares, but who cares)
Ares Enyalius - Warlike
Ares Khrysopêlêx - of the Golden Helm

Thank you for reading! See you in another 4-6 months maybe (jkjkjk, unless....)

Chapter 24: Recap for Chapters 1-21 and Notes for Chapter 23

Summary:

A recap of chapters 1-21:
Both a general, sensible length one, and a detailed chapter-by-chapter.

Nerdy notes for chapter 23:
Thank you for reading the previous chapter! I know it was so packed with information and was probably an immense effort to read, please know I won't be hurling this many cameos and concepts at you as a regular thing. But since I did make you read the product of months of hyperfixation, let's get into it! In its own post, because I’m so insane I ran out of AO3 characters! I 100% cross my heart, you’re not gonna have to read a chapter of history notes after every fic chapter, ignore that I’ve done it twice... Skip to 11. and 14. for some clarity on what Aphrodite was doing as a politician in this chapter, because I don’t know if I made it clear enough.

 

Pretend I'm singing all this shit with a gospel choir to make it more fun.

RECAP CHAPTERS 1-21

Hello! So, I've never put recaps in this monstrously huge amount of prose before, which means there's now a ton to catch up on! What I'm gonna do ongoing is put something short in the start notes that covers what just happened and any long ago details coming up again, but I wanted to do a big one now so if you're coming back after the long break, you have any hope of knowing where we were. 

 

Sensible  Length Recap because you're for real too busy for how many words it takes me to explain something...

Basic Plot

At the start of the summer, Aphrodite had just moved to Olympus. She began working as a goddess on Cyprus, then Mesopotamia, then the Greek seas, living with Poseidon, but despite popularity among mortals, she has always been an outsider to the pantheon. She is now looking to change that. At the same time, Ares returned from his first campaign as God of War. On this campaign, a new warrior city, Sparta, dedicated itself to him. Athena is proud of his achieving a patron capital so quickly, but he was unsettled by Sparta's bloodlust and the desire it stirred in him, and has been avoiding going back. Ares and Aphrodite met and had an immediate powerful attraction. Their connection and chemistry built hot and fast over a short number of weeks as Aphrodite tackled political tensions and Ares tackled family pressure. Constantly frustrated by self-doubt and interruptions, their tension built to a severe argument about trust, sparked by Zeus manipulating Ares into feeling suspicious of Aphrodite's past. Aphrodite returned to the ocean, and in their time apart rearranged her priorities, now choosing to be an open opponent of Zeus' oppressive rule and a voice for the common folk. Meanwhile, Ares gained clarity about Zeus' manipulation and his feelings for his new friend, then reconnected with Sparta and its king, Menelaus, committing to developing the city according to his own ideas. The pair reunited, talked things out, and decided to take sex off the table and explore a "romantic friendship," supporting each other's growing divinity. Aphrodite expressed her decision to openly resist Zeus, and Ares expressed a desire to support her. The Fates sensed their bond and created a new movie prophecy - Ares and Aphrodite will have a son, Aeneas, who will escape the Fall of Troy and go on to found Rome, a mighty empire that will consume Greece. Renamed Mars and Venus, they will replace Zeus as rulers and be more powerful than he has ever known. Hera, Hades and Hecate know of this prophecy, and resolve not to tell another soul.

 

Ares' Issues

After the Titanomachy, the Fates predicted that Zeus would fall to his son. Zeus has spent all of Ares' life trying to prevent him becoming a danger, which has included suppression, shame, manipulation, love-bombing, discipline, etc. He has given Ares a painful childhood, partly through his cycles of adultery and conflict with Hera, who Ares is deeply loyal to, and partly through his obsessive monitoring and undermining of Ares' temper and powers. This prophecy is known to the kings, Hera and Athena, and to Ares. Zeus doesn't know that Athena told him, but Athena regularly reminds him of it to remind him that his rebellious nature is read by Zeus as something much darker, so he needs to better control himself. Ares thinks of his godhood as "diagnosed" more than discovered. He is war born in peacetime, and, after a young childhood spent in trouble and under evaluation, he has had to live with his family's terror at his divinity - is it an omen? Will he bring an end to Olympus' golden age? Athena is his mentor and trains him hard in self-discipline, but as he grows he is finding her methods less and less useful. The close sibling bond is becoming complicated by her insistence he do things her way, and her dismissal of his own approaches, as well as her unwavering loyalty to Zeus. Hera and Ares remain loving, he is fiercely protective of her, seeing her painful marriage, and carries a lot of self-inflicted responsibility for her wellbeing and guilt that he may have strained, instead of healing, his parents' relationship. Despite other gods having concerns about Zeus' parenting and kingship, no one ever speaks against him, often leaving Ares feeling isolated and doubting his anger, which is also openly judged across the pantheon. Aphrodite is the first person in Ares' life to understand and validate his anger, and to truly see him. He feels healthy in their friendship, but no one seems to support it. Athena is wary that she will distract him from his discipline, Hera and Hades aren't sure they trust her not to wound him. Ares just wants to figure out who he is and what he wants, to connect with his divinity, trust his feelings, and find his true purpose. Why does no one seem to want that for him too? And why when he tries does everyone call him a problem?

 

Aphrodite's Issues

As a sex and love goddess, loud queer woman, and new face, Aphrodite is surrounded by rumour and sensation that makes it hard for her to build friendships and trust. The journalist, Acteon, has become obsessed with finding a scandal and the media hunts her down every time she does anything. This begins as a pressure that makes her feel criticised and out of control, but her return to Olympus comes with a decision to control her own image and weaponize the fascination with her. But the storm she kicks up could have bigger consequences. Zeus hates Aphrodite. He believes that she carries Kronos' violence, as she was born out his first murder, and plots his downfall by turning Ares against him. His paranoia around the prophecy increases massively as she and Ares grow close, and he resolves to prevent their relationship and rise to power. Aphrodite has her own anger at Zeus, stretching into their past, but also provoked by the injustices in his kingship and the way he treats Ares and the domain of love. She is determined to make change in his kingdom, but how far can she go before he takes finite action? Meanwhile, Aphrodite also faces opposition from Hestia. Hestia has built TGOEM as the only voice standing up to Zeus' patriarchy and personal abuses of women. But, feeling under siege in Olympus society, TGOEM has adopted a policy of absolute abstinence. Hestia feels that Aphrodite's encouragement of sexual desire makes women vulnerable to men, while Aphrodite feels that suppressing desire means putting women in a different cage and that sisterhood means being judgement free. The two goddesses have had repeated verbal clashes, both in person and via the media, and have played tricks on each other's priestesses to spread the opposite message. While TGOEM was initially doing valuable work to build support and solidarity for women and create options for those without them, Artemis has observed that their fear of Aphrodite and her sexual politics has driven them into an intense purity mindset, containing and controlling women and ignoring their needs. Meanwhile, Aphrodite embarks on a widespread feminist project. She has gathered her retinue of sex and beauty workers and together they perform protest, create art and manifestos, and plan explosive reclamations of space for their patron goddess. Aphrodite's return to Olympus involved a series of public acts that forced Zeus into a fairer energy policy. She has moved from trying to build an Olympus network to being an openly disruptive presence and patron of resistance and feminist positivity, alongside her good friend and ambitious PA, Peitho, Grace of Seduction. As part of this, she is working to free Eurydice from the Underworld. Eurydice is a punk singer and the centre of a DIY protest music scene for shades in the rough part of the Underworld city. She is anti-triarchy, anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, and pro-community and uses her music to bring hope, rage and solidarity to the shades. Following an interview in which she said Aphrodite was the only god she identified with, because of Aphrodite's patronage of the connection between people, Aphrodite resolved to secure freedom of movement for her, so she could play her music across the realms. Hades harshly refused to consider her petition, but Hecate, intrigued by her and Aphrodite's shared primordial origins, has agreed to negotiate. 

 

And now...

At the start of Chapter 23, Aphrodite has created a storm of excitement and positioned herself as Zeus' rival with growing support, and Ares has flung himself into developing Sparta and his godhood according to his instincts and desires, rather than his family's. Through their emotional connection with mortals and the source of strength they have in their friendship, they are on the cusp of an explosion of popularity in the Mortal Realm. Influence there means influence on Olympus, and Zeus watches bitterly as the pair he thought he'd broken up return stronger than ever, and with rebellion written all over them...

 

Massive Chapter by Chapter Recap which is probably neither useful nor interesting but my ADHD made a decision so it's going in here anyway... 

 

The cast before the fic:

• Aphrodite - Aphrodite was born out of Kronos' murder of Ouranos, rising from the sea onto the isle of Cyprus. She began her goddess career in Mesopotamia, working with the collective of powerful goddesses Inanna, Ishtar and Astarte. She returned to Cyprus during the Titanomachy and ended up being taken into the home of Poseidon and Amphitrite. She worked as a goddess around the Aegean and Mediterranean, staying in the ocean and Mortal Realm. But this summer, she has decided it’s time to make her mark on Olympus. She has recently bought a house and moved to the mountain city to find her place among the gods.
• Ares - Ares is the second child and first son of Zeus and Hera. He’s facing high expectations as heir to the throne, but struggling to prove himself after a youth fraught with anger and struggles to control his powers. However, he has just completed his first campaign as the God of War, and had a surprising success. A roving warband has put down roots and founded a city dedicated to him - Sparta is a warrior city like a fresh wound, everyone in his family waiting to see how it will fit in the Aegean. Athena, his mentor, and Hera are proud of his achievement, but on his return to the palace, Ares has avoided Sparta, unsettled by the warriors’ bloodlust and his primal reaction to it. What kind of god does this make him? Can he leave his troubled adolescence behind and make them all proud? Is that really what he wants?
• Zeus - Zeus is a beloved king, and staying that way is more important to him than anything. He plans to reign eternal, but lives in the shadow of his violent family. Kronos killed his father, Zeus killed his, and when he was newly king the Fates prophesied that he too would one day fall to his son. Zeus accepted Ares at birth, but has raised him with one thing at the forefront of everything: keep him from becoming a threat. For Zeus, no tactic to subdue Ares’ capacity for rebellion is too far. He’s a good king, right? So he has to stay alive.
• Ouranos and Kronos - Ouranos was the God of the Sky before the Titanomachy. While his reality was probably less than kind, he has been remembered in the realms as a generous and loving force of natural balance. Zeus has constructed an idea of him as the creator of a bygone age of paradise, ended by his brutal murder by his own son, Kronos. When Zeus and the traitors took Kronos down, they not only ended his violence, but promised to work to restore the heaven of Ouranos. Being the keepers of that possible blissful future has become a cornerstone of loyalty to them, and many of their opinions stem from it, especially how they think of Aphrodite. While Poseidon loves and trusts his friend, both Zeus and Hades are wary of her. She was born out of the murder of Ouranos, and so they associate her with Kronos’ violence. They also worry that she is more titan than goddess, being born directly of Ouranos and the natural world. They fear that Aphrodite, as she didn’t fight in the Titanomachy, may harbour sympathy for the pre-triarchy world and plot to overthrow them. The fear of Kronos also governs Zeus’ fear of Ares. He believes Ares’ anger is a sign of him inheriting Kronos’ patricidal nature, and when he then forms a bond with Aphrodite, a primordial deity, the threat grows.
• Hera - Hera loves Ares more than anything and feels trapped in her marriage to Zeus. Years of adultery and conflict have left her exhausted, and while others attribute Ares’ anger to his divinity, she fears that it was made by growing up in her unstable marriage. She is having an affair with Hades, her confidante and comfort.
• Athena - Athena is her father and the pantheon’s pride, Ares’ mentor, TGOEM member, and Hestia’s partner. She works tirelessly to serve both her father’s vision and TGOEM’s ethics, defending and championing the system, while struggling with its faults. She is Ares’ mentor and drives him hard to discipline himself out of the volatility of his nature. She sympathises with his conflicts with Zeus, but generally characterises them as mutual and encourages Ares to take the high road and pursue a peaceful relationship, capitulating to Zeus as king as much as father. The siblings are close, but the days that Ares will blindly trust her judgement are numbered. 
• Peitho - Peitho is the Grace of Seduction and Aphrodite’s PA. As a minor seduction deity, she had been living on Olympus, trying to get by on the arms of various sugar daddies. She often felt outcast and lonely, underestimated and maligned, especially by TGOEM, who held her up as an example of what not to do. But Aphrodite’s arrival gave her exciting new purpose and a person who valued her. She now works hard on Aphrodite’s cause, and has become a very close friend and business partner.
• Hermes - Hermes lives quite happily on Olympus with his roommate Apollo. He’s close friends with Artemis and with Ares, in fact he’s probably Ares’ only friend. When Aphrodite came to Olympus, he instantly clicked with her, and they have a more casual, but warm friendship. Hermes was the patron of the pop sensation, Orpheus, but broke ties with the musician after the death of Orpheus’ girlfriend and creative partner, Eurydice, and his failure to get her back, even with Hermes’ help. Hermes felt guilty that someone he invested in would let down the person closest to them, and is waiting for an opportunity to make things right.
• Hestia - Hestia is the leader of TGOEM, openly in a relationship with Athena. TGOEM has been gaining momentum, working hard to provide options for goddesses outside of becoming a consort. She believes strongly in the work they do, especially as they seem to be the only people around here who see the problems with Zeus as a king. His patriarchal rule and personal abuse of women across the realms cause widespread trauma and obstacles for women, and Hestia is determined to get them all to safety. The arrival of Aphrodite has concerned her - what might the messages of a goddess of sex do to their movement?
• Poseidon and Amphitrite - These two are happily living as King and Queen of the Sea, and Aphrodite’s chosen family. She has lived with them for centuries and they continue to be her friends, especially Amphitrite, as she moves to Olympus. They are both Zeus’ allies, but wary of his single-minded obsession with his rule and their nephew’s hair-trigger temper.
• Acteon - Acteon is a journalist for the biggest paparazzi magazine on Olympus, Panoptes. He’s desperate for a scoop that will make his name and sees Aphrodite as an ideal target.
• Eurydice - Eurydice is a shade in the Underworld, a punk musician playing in protest against Hades and the triarchy and leading a growing scene. In life, she was the creative partner of budding musician, Orpheus, but she was killed by a snake bite. Hermes, Orpheus’ patron, led Orpheus into the Underworld in hopes of retrieving Eurydice and helped him petition Hades for a chance. Hades said that Eurydice could leave with Orpheus if he walked in front of her and never turned back to look at her. But Orpheus looked and Eurydice was trapped forever. Orpheus went on to write a series of songs about his lost love, including using her uncredited riffs, and soaring to fame. Hermes broke from Orpheus, but has also stayed away from Eurydice, ashamed of not being able to help. Eurydice, angered by Orpheus’ profiting off her tragedy and by Hades’ judgement, now gathers shades into a DIY activist-artist community to protest misogyny, capitalism, and monarchy.
• Sinoe - Sinoe is also a journalist for Panoptes, but disenchanted by gossip and looking for something meaningful to write about.
• Hades - Hades is the sombre King of the Underworld. Things are running smoothly how they always have, including his affair with Hera, painful as it often is.
• Hecate - Hecate is Hades’ right hand and closest friend. But, loyal as she is, she hasn’t forgotten the primordial or the power she used to hold.
• Artemis - Artemis is a TGOEM member, relying on the organisation as a young, illegitimate goddess in need of a support system. She is close friends with Hermes and has a both amicable and antagonistic relationship with her twin, Apollo.
• Apollo - Apollo is a successful, young god, not struggling like his sister to gain acclaim despite illegitimacy. In this story, he’s much younger and hasn’t yet developed the ego and entitlement that unhinges him in the comic. He doesn’t present a threat, but he’s not a positive character either. He and Ares have a low key rivalry, as Apollo presents himself as an ideal prince, where Ares fails, and because Apollo’s attitude to others, especially women, has flared Ares’ temper multiple times.
• The Fates - The Fates haven’t upgraded to video yet, showing their visions in a vintage movie theatre in the Underworld. They have predicted Zeus’ fall to his son, and have more visions to come.
• Menelaus - Sparta’s king, a general who took the position as the city was founded. He is trying to pull the new state together as his god, Ares, is nowhere to be seen. He rules alongside a second king, Leonidas, a figure he appointed to keep himself in check and prevent tyranny. He and Leonidas disagree on a lot, but work well together. If these names are familiar, they are based on those legendary figures, more talk about that in later chapters.
• The Rose Lounge - Aphrodite has a huge retinue, but the main recurring gang are all strippers based at Aphrodite’s flagship club, The Rose Lounge, in the bohemian district of Olympus, Little Minoa. Peitho manages the club, alongside the most experienced dancer, Aglaea, Grace of Beauty. Other dancers include Pannyakhis, Grace of Night-time Revels, and the Horai, or spirits of the seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Also seen in the gang is Antheia, Grace of Flower Wreaths, who is a manicurist. These femmes love their work in sex and beauty, and are frustrated by the sex negative culture that holds them back, a toxic combo of Zeus’ sexual aggression and Hestia’s sexual militancy. Aphrodite’s distance from Olympus left them to fend for themselves, but her arrival brought them together in a push for a better deal. They serve her because her rise can only mean good things for them, but they also have to make sure to stay on Zeus’ good side.
• Yasemin - Yasemin is one of the priestesses and sacred sex workers in the temple of Aphrodite at Paphos, Cyprus, the goddess’ chief cultic site. Yasemin is a devoted priestess and lined up to become Aphrodite’s first Oracle.
• Demeter - Demeter is pretty much keeping to herself on the Mortal Realm, avoiding Olympus politics. But she is friends with Hestia and sometimes seeks TGOEM’s support as an independent goddess feeling Zeus’ threatening presence over her fields. She hasn’t joined, though, still hoping for a child.

 

Chapter 1:

• Aphrodite’s birth takes place long ago.
• In the present, she is interviewed by Acteon, who presses her to justify her absence in the Titanomachy and share her plans for Olympus. Aphrodite is cagey on both subjects.

Chapter 2:

• Ares lies in the grass in the palace garden, trying not to think about his campaign, or how cramped home feels. Aphrodite, on her way to meet Hera, comes across him. The two feel an instant attraction and sit together to talk, without sharing who they are. Each believing the other to be a staff member, they impulsively make out.
• Aphrodite goes to a meeting with Hera, stopped by Zeus who is overly charming with her. Hera warns her against Zeus’ advances and the inevitable negative turn of the media storm around her. Aphrodite is coy and focuses on their new plan to support each other’s work.

Chapter 3:

• TGOEM meet and Hestia expresses concern about Aphrodite’s domain damaging their work.
• Athena goes to the palace to visit her family and see if she can find out anything about the new goddess. She meets Ares and finds out that he’s finding it hard to readjust to home life.
• Zeus and Hera arrive bickering, and Athena asks a few questions about Aphrodite. She finds out that Hera is working with her on love and marriage and Zeus is curious about her.
• When they’re alone again, Ares figures out the woman he met was Aphrodite and admits their encounter to Athena. He says that he sensed a powerful anger in Aphrodite. Athena warns Hestia that she may be dangerous after all.
• Hestia goes to Aphrodite’s house to welcome her to Olympus and to find out more. She and Aphrodite get into an argument about sex positive education and the dark side of love, Hestia accusing her of traumatising and manipulating mortals, and Aphrodite saying that all gods have dark sides and that more openness is always better than less.
• Peitho tells Aphrodite that TGOEM will be a problem for her.
• Acteon obsesses over getting another chance to report on Aphrodite.

Chapter 4:

• Hera holds a garden party for Olympus high society.
• Ares and Aphrodite are both anxious, their powers to sense the suppressed emotions of everyone there pushing them towards meltdown. But meeting each other again, this time discovering who each other really are, is a thrill and relief.
• Aphrodite speaks to Athena and they express their different priorities, Athena’s judgement and Aphrodite’s instinct.
• Acteon pressures Aphrodite and she snaps at him. She sees Zeus cornering Demeter and interrupts them, speaking abstractly to Zeus about abuses of power. He leaves and Demeter thanks her, but this causes Hestia to confront her.
• After these difficult interactions, Ares senses Aphrodite’s anger and tries to get to her to help, but Zeus stops the party to make a speech about loyalty and authority that clearly targets Aphrodite. Ares instead gets his dad alone and loses his temper with him defending Aphrodite, but Zeus tells Ares that he’s being naïve, volatile, and injuring his mother with his over-reactions. Ares is left shaken.
• Aphrodite escapes the party and runs into him. Hermes follows her, seeing her in distress. All sick of the party’s politics, the three decide to shake things up. Ares takes them to Zeus’ garage and they steal a sports car.

Chapter 5:

• Ares takes Aphrodite and Hermes on a joy ride in his dad’s car. The trip starts out fun, Ares driven wild by his attraction to the goddess. But as the sun sets and Hermes falls asleep, it becomes a deeper moment between Ares and Aphrodite.
• Ares admits that he’s only 23 and they joke about how inappropriate it is that Aphrodite flirts with him.
• Ares confides in her about his tension with his father, saying that he’s the only one who calls him out when he’s mean or sleazy, but then gets labelled as the problem, a volatile adolescent. Aphrodite says she likes his emotionality. She feels strangled by the repression on Olympus and Ares’ open feelings are a relief to her. She tells him her big secret, that the reason she has always stayed in the ocean is that she tried attending an Olympus party once and all the repression sent her senses into frenzy and gave her a public meltdown. He comforts her and they ask each other not to let Olympus change how they act on feeling.
• Ares talks about how anger is what we feel when something is wrong and needs to change, so he doesn’t understand why everyone hates it, and she validates him.
• They almost kiss goodbye, but don’t.

Chapter 6:

• Acteon publishes an article about the garden party claiming that Aphrodite was flirting with everyone there and playing Zeus and Ares off against each other. Aphrodite is furious, but Peitho sees the scandal surrounding her as positive for giving her teeth.
• The two go out to the mall to cheer up. Peitho grills Aphrodite about a clear budding romance with Ares, but Aphrodite says she isn’t sure she should pursue it, due to his age and her career. Peitho doesn’t give a shit about her excuses, then leaves to bang a waitress.
• Ares runs into Aphrodite and they accidentally spend the day together. Their chemistry is irresistible, but Ares also feels deeply drawn to Aphrodite’s domain. She takes him perfume and clothes shopping and for a manicure, and talks to him about gender and sexuality. He feels parts of himself open, things he’d never thought about before.
• She says that she’s annoyed by the article calling her two-faced, and Ares says that she isn’t two-faced, she just has a right to show her truths to those that earn them. They have fun and bond.
• At the end of hanging out, Ares asks if this was a date, and Aphrodite says no, because he didn’t bother to ask her out. She waits for him to correct that, and he refuses and leaves her playfully infuriated. 

Chapter 7:

• Aphrodite meets Amphitrite on Cyprus and confides in her about her interest in Ares. Amphitrite tells her about Ares’ problems with anger, and her own suspicions that growing up with Zeus and his mistreatment of Hera is likely the cause. While Poseidon loves his brother, Amphitrite doesn’t respect Zeus’ ethics and is worried that he may be worse in private than she realised. She regrets letting Ares stay alone with his parents.
• Aphrodite understands that Ares’ anger will run deep, but she believes that it is a source of power and self-actualisation, and that his family’s attempts to suppress it are playing with fire. She feels Olympus is the problem, not Ares. Amphitrite says she likes the idea of them together, but that won’t be the majority opinion.
• Ares trains with Athena. Athena reprimands him for flirting with Aphrodite, saying that a union between Love and War would send his powers into a craze of primal violence. She also expresses concern that Aphrodite can only approach love professionally and will use and dump Ares after he falls hard for her. She encourages him to keep his powers disciplined and partner with a civilised god, like her or Apollo. War is still being defined as a domain, and it’s crucial that he defines himself productively and positively, denying his hot-tempered nature and impulses.
• Pressured by her demands and fighting style, Ares loses his temper and his powers rush out of control. He attacks her brutally, but she floors him before he can hurt her. He snaps out of it, nauseous and guilty, as his power surges always leave him. Athena commends him for lasting several hours of physical activity without breaking, as he often snaps during training. But she says he needs to get his powers under control.
• They talk about the prophecy that Zeus will fall to his son. Athena told Ares about it when he went to college, but Zeus doesn’t know that he knows. She says that now he is a working god, his tensions with Zeus will make Zeus believe him a threat. Ares insists he has no intention to hurt Zeus and doesn’t want the throne, but he can’t express what he wants instead. Athena warns him against getting himself in trouble with Zeus or Aphrodite, and he ends training feeling dejected and frustrated.
• In the Underworld, the Fates are showing a new movie. In it, Ares and Aphrodite fall in love, then Greece is consumed in alarming images of destruction and excess, during which Aphrodite says, “I am the last remaining essence of the titans above ground. I was the first of you, and I will be the last.”

Chapter 8:

• Hestia goes on Olympus radio to be interviewed about TGOEM. Aphrodite listens. Hestia explains that women have limited choices and high risk of being taken advantage of or abused in the patriarchal Olympian system. TGOEM exists to tell goddesses that they can hold their own divine space without becoming a god’s consort, feeding his success and bending to his demands. Aphrodite warms to her. But then she warns the women of Olympus against trusting Aphrodite. She says that women make too many allowances for men they love, and to be free, they must stay single. Aphrodite encourages objectification and dependence.
• Aphrodite is angry, as well as conflicted, knowing the political struggles of women in love. But she also stands by her belief that pleasure is healthy and that policing women’s love should not be the project of a feminist movement. Women should be free to experience both love and empowerment.
• She takes revenge on Hestia by composing smutty letters to her nymphs and having Hermes deliver them, the nymphs eagerly jumping him when they read the messages he’s brought.
• Hestia calls Aphrodite and they argue about each other’s values.

Chapter 9:

• Hermes throws a wild nightclub party.
• Full of the mischievous energy of the trick against Hestia, he and Aphrodite become friends with benefits.
• Peitho meets Hecate and strikes up a flirtation.
• Ares sees Aphrodite dancing with Hermes and feels jealous, but benevolent towards his friends.
• When Aphrodite returns from having sex with Hermes, Ares dances seductively with her and leaves her with another almost, but denied kiss. 

Chapter 10:

• Aphrodite and Ares get home from the party and self-pleasure with each other in mind. But a little fun turns unnerving when their fantasies unexpectedly end on the words, “I love you.”
• Sinoe travels to the Underworld to interview Eurydice, feeling her underground punk scene could be a meaningful story to tell. She is instantly fascinated by her.

Chapter 11:

• Aphrodite hangs out at The Rose Lounge with her retinue.
• Summer sketches her for a temple construction and the graces discuss Aphrodite’s eventful arrival on Olympus, antagonising Zeus and Hestia, making a display of disrupting the status quo, and attracting Ares. They also talk about how the kings attend the Rose and Zeus often misbehaves towards the staff, but that Aphrodite shouldn’t piss him off by confronting him.
• Peitho tells Aphrodite that, if she wants to seduce Ares, she needs to be enigmatic, make him keen to always try with her by blowing hot and cold.
• Front-of-house, the kings have dragged Ares to boys brunch. He and Zeus are butting heads. When he goes to get a drink, Zeus talks to his brothers about how Ares has an attitude problem and he is tired of managing him to prevent the prophecy coming true.
• Ares returns and a petty argument with Zeus turns explosive. Hades sends Ares outside to take a beat.
• Back in the dressing rooms, Aphroditos (masc Aphrodite) reads Sinoe’s article about Eurydice. In it, Eurydice disavows Orpheus for selling out and using her death to get famous, and talks about community love and sisterhood as the most important forces in the realms. She says that the triarchy has no right to hold authority, but she does identify with Aphrodite and her work with the connection between people.
• Aphroditos leaves the club with Peitho, contemplating Eurydice’s ideas, but overhears the kings talking about the prophecy again. Aphroditos is horrified that Ares is prophesied to kill Zeus and commands Peitho never to tell, but also convinces himself to trust Ares over Zeus’ interpretation of the Fates.
• Outside, they bump into Ares. Peitho leaves and Aphroditos and Ares talk. Ares says he’s having a hard day with his dad and worries about his behaviour in the club.
• Aphroditos talks about how his power is fuelled by the power strippers hold over their audience. Ares says he doesn’t feel power as much as temper when mortals fight. Aphroditos suggests that his powers are being mismanaged, Athena’s discipline and logic not right for his emotional divinity. He says that Ares has raw power that needs to be nurtured instead. Ares reflects silently on this, never having questioned Athena at all. As talk of the prophecy grows, he worries she would always choose Zeus over him, letting him live suppressed if she thought it better for the family. He feels out of place, wrong, and wants to feel the clean connection with his godhood that Aphroditos has. It hurts him that his family don’t seem to want him to have that. He’d never considered that until he found this person who does.
• Aphroditos expresses his intention to persuade Hades to give Eurydice freedom to move between realms, wishing to spread her message and answer her invocation. He feels he let Eurydice down, always enjoying and supporting Orpheus’ romantic music.
• The pair have a moment of sexual tension.

Chapter 12:

• Ares practices teleporting with Athena and Hermes, but can’t make it work. He tries to talk to Athena about needing to work more with his feelings and follow what speaks to him, but she is dismissive.
• Hermes goads Ares into asking for Aphrodite’s number. Remembering Peitho’s advice, she tells him to earn it digit by digit.
• Ares embarks on a series of dumb stunts to win digits, all of which work. The final three, however, are earned by his supporting her in a meeting with Hades and Hecate.
• Aphroditos invites the Underworld rulers to his home and puts forward Eurydice’s case, with Ares and Peitho present. Hades and Aphroditos argue, Hades insisting that the triarchy should not be destabilised and that death is equal. Ares talks about the inequality inherent in who dies and how. Aphroditos talks about how order doesn’t serve everyone and those people are valid in rebellion.
• The meeting ends on a complete refusal from Hades, but Hecate remaining neutral.
• Aphroditos is angered by the injustice of Hades’ rule and, intoxicated by his rage, he and Ares share intense sexual tension.
• Ares learns that Aphrodite has given him her phone digits in a random order, so after all that, he doesn't have her number. He laughs wildly, enjoying the game.

Chapter 13:

• Zeus’ birthday party, a grand affair at the palace.
• Aphrodite circles the party, making an impression and deciding to stop playing nice. She bumps into Zeus, who flirts with her, but she slickly rejects him. She and Ares meet up and their chemistry is at an all time high.
• They’re interrupted by friends and Aphrodite is goaded into calling out everyone’s sexual fantasies, except she won’t share Ares’. When she says that Zeus’ fantasy is Hera, if he hadn’t ruined it, Ares hurries from the gathering.
• She follows him and they settle in a private study together. They play Never Have I Ever and use it to learn more about each other.
• Aphrodite tells him she has never patronised a hero, because she thinks love is for everyone, and that she is ordaining her first oracle tomorrow.
• Ares shares a history of promiscuity and unstable romances, worried it’s because he’s damaged by his home life. Aphrodite validates his desire for intimacy and play and says that being closed off is more accepted, but not less harmful.
• Ares confesses that he can’t teleport and Aphrodite advises that he try letting himself feel someone’s need for him and follow it, rather than trying to force himself to change space.
• Ares tells her that he used to have a pet dog, but his dad’s mistress hit it with her car escaping Hera, and that Zeus had a cycle of causing family collapse with an affair then buying Ares a hamster to compensate, pulling everything back together, then giving into affairs again. Aphrodite comforts him and he asks her not to sleep with him out of pity.
• They confess to sexual fantasy about each other and move towards a kiss, but Ares stops to ask if Zeus has been hitting on her. She says a little, but she doesn’t like or want him. She explains that her domain is sexual connection, and Zeus doesn’t connect with people.
• Ares says he feared that she would find war ugly when sex is such a precious gift. Aphrodite explains that deities are working with existing matter, not creating it, chemists not architects, and that humanity needs both love and war gods to make their basest selves beautiful - “we are the gods of the heart.”
• They slowly sink into sex, but before much can happen, a servant interrupts them to rejoin the party. They promise to find each other later, full of heat and emotion.

Chapter 14:

• Zeus’ party continues.
• Adrian, the servant who interrupted Ares and Aphrodite, calls Acteon and shares that he saw them almost having sex. Acteon offers him a high price for arranging a taped rendezvous.
• Aphrodite is simmering with sexual frustration and pain for all the things she’s learned about Ares’ past with Zeus. Zeus takes her into his office and tells her that he will be king forever, so there’s no benefit in pursuing his heir. She says that Ares is worth more than position, and he warns her that he’s volatile and dangerous, and that she is making it harder for his family to keep him stable. Aphrodite loses her temper and makes an angry speech - "Sane is just the word you use for compliant. Ares is a force of nature unlike anything the realms have seen since the primordial. You know that and you're running scared. I know you believe you will fall to him. And I know that, before him, I was the only other god you feared. Aphrodite, the most beloved. Aphrodite, Common to All. Her cult most ancient. Her reach most far. She who could call them all to her with a snap of her fingers and deflate your fucking bouncy castle of a court in a moment. Do you think I need a crown? Little Man, that is not how I rule. You don't need the top of the mountain when you have a stronghold in every human heart. Pursuing Ares for your throne? Please. The likes of us are beyond your trinkets. You think I came here to sit in your baby high chair? I came here to redefine the concept of power, to declare the sovereignty of every heart in the realms. He is fire and I am ocean and this palace is nothing but sand to gods such as us. No wonder you don't want us together. Or, at least, that's what you fear, isn't it? But consider, Birthday Boy, that maybe there are a few things in this world not about you and your power struggles. I am not seeking to weaponise your son. Only one of us does that. Your throne is safe. It would be safer if you were good to him.” She leaves, but as she does, Zeus asks her how long she thinks it will be before Ares asks her about the Titanomachy.
• She storms out of his office and meets Hecate. The two dance dramatically in the ballroom, seen by Ares, and Hecate tells her to speak to her regarding Eurydice from now on.
• Drunk on both alcohol and emotion, Aphrodite begins to stumble through the party. Hestia tries to help her, but she shouts furiously at her about her capacity for chaos and destruction. Apollo tries to get her alone, and she feels threatened and angry. Ares, sensing her anger, bursts in and threatens Apollo away.
• He takes her to a couch and they have a cuddly, playful reconnection. Ares won’t let them go further while she’s drunk, but she does give him her real number.
• Zeus and Hera see them together and decide to break them up, feeling the match is unsuitable. Hera says she will handle it and demands Zeus doesn’t get involved.
• Adrian’s camera set-up is used by Poseidon and Amphitrite instead.
• Ares takes Aphrodite home and sees her bedside table has a joke present from him from their trip to the mall. He goes home overjoyed. 

Chapter 15:

• The day after the party, Ares and Aphrodite worry that their vulnerability has scared the other off, confiding in Hermes and Peitho.
• Aphrodite also tells Peitho about her confrontation with Zeus. Peitho hides her concern and persuades Aphrodite to get ready for sending a vision to her new oracle.
• The two have sex, while Hestia sneaks into the Paphos temple and appears to the oracle, Yasemin. She pretends to be Aphrodite and tells Yasemin that desire makes women weak to the abuses of men and that freedom and safety can only be found in purity. Yasemin is uncomfortable with the message, but shares it with the priestesses, watched with disbelief by Aphrodite and Peitho.
• Peitho damage controls the false vision, locking Paphos down and persuading Aphrodite to curse Yasemin with a severe fever, so that her vision will be seen as delirium.
• Violated by Hestia, guilty for Yasemin, and exhausted and hurt by the pressures of Olympus, Aphrodite loses control and wrecks her bedroom. Peitho calms her, but has to leave to keep working.
• Aphrodite calls Ares. They agree to not act like last night never happened, valuing their moment of intimacy, and she tells him about Hestia’s violation. He comforts her, and listens to her talk about her deeper philosophies on desire and openness. She feels that sexuality is made complicated by social life, but the only way to be healthy is by exploring it. Ares says that he doesn’t believe desire is the problem, it’s doing things because you want to fit in or have something expected, but following your deeper burning is liberating. She says that sisterhood needs to be about unconditional love, not judgement.
• They fall asleep together on the phone.

Chapter 16:

• Ares chews over his feelings for Aphrodite and childhood memories of his family realising that he was a war god and fearing that he meant something bad for Olympus. He wants to act on these feelings and figure out what his war divinity means, but he is terrified that pursuing this side of himself puts Olympus in danger, considering the prophecy and his family’s horror as his power unfolded.
• Hera tells Ares that she has set up a date for him, which he grudgingly agrees to go to.
• Zeus speaks to Ares tenderly. He says that he finds fatherhood challenging, but is proud of Ares, he wants to repair their relationship, starting with an honest talk about a concern. Ares allows it, feeling vulnerable.
• Zeus tells him the story of Aphrodite during the Titanomachy - they were struggling against Kronos and Zeus heard of her living on an island with love powers. He went to her and asked her to change Kronos’ heart, but she refused. Instead, Hera seduced Kronos, leading to her terrible wound. Kronos was defeated and life was good. Aphrodite befriended Poseidon in order to be protected in the new order, but she was jealous of the new gods as her popularity waned. The gods meanwhile collected up the evil spirits of sorrow and anger and pain that were the debris left by Kronos. They trapped the spirits in a jar and entrusted it to one of Zeus’ warriors, rewarding him with a wife, Pandora. Aphrodite knew that a goddess of desire had more following when people were hurting, so she cursed Pandora with longing to open the jar. The spirits were released and pain polluted the world again. Poseidon prevented her from being tried, so she went to live in the ocean under his protection, and Zeus spread the story that Pandora did it of her own accord.
• Ares asks why Poseidon would protect her, and Zeus says he suspects that she is able to influence people through love magic. He then asks if Ares thinks this might be happening to him. Ares feels confused and shaken, and Zeus leaves him to contemplate.
• Outside, Aphrodite arrives in the palace grounds. She finds a starfruit tree and has a vision of the day it was planted - Hera and Zeus celebrating Ares’ conception. But the tree has never fruited, and the gardeners think it’s an omen. She blesses the tree and it fills with blossom and fruit.
• Ares finds her and they talk. Aphrodite invites Ares to drinks with friends, but, remembering his date, he says he’s busy seeing Hermes. Aphrodite is seeing Hermes, and is made nervous by the lie.
• Ares asks her why she didn’t fight in the Titanomachy and about Pandora. She can feel that Zeus has confused him and refuses to engage with a he said-she said, but her evasion frustrates Ares. He is hurt that she doesn’t trust him to listen to her, she is hurt that he doesn’t trust her without justifying herself, and that after admiring her love powers, he is now suspicious of them. They fight and separate.

Chapter 17:

• Ares goes on his blind date and Aphrodite goes for drinks with Hermes, Amphitrite and Peitho, but when they wind up at the same bar, the conflict worsens.
• Trying to fix their disconnect, Hermes becomes riled by miscommunication and gets stumbling drunk.
• Ares is also riled and drives his date away.
• Aphrodite revenge-kisses Hermes in his eyeline, provoking him to confront her.
• They fight about what they feel is each other’s dishonesty, Ares lying about his date, Aphrodite hiding the Titanomachy and using Hermes to make him jealous. Ares casually refers to how easy it is for Aphrodite to manipulate him and she becomes very hurt. Ares insists that she knows the effect she has on him, but is careless with how dangerous his emotions are, and he feels afraid of himself with her. She tries to tell him that he doesn’t have to be afraid of his feelings, but he echoes Athena in saying that she doesn’t understand because feelings are just a job for her. She storms out of the bar. Ares instantly regrets his words, but she’s gone before he can get to her.

Chapter 18:

• Ares struggles in the aftermath of losing Aphrodite. His powers are bursting out of him at random, setting fires in the palace, and he is losing on purpose in training in order to take a beating. He feels infested with confused emotions and can’t understand his reality or function in daily life as cycles of paralysis and outburst take him over.
• Artemis confides in Hermes about her worries that TGOEM is taking a negative turn, acting out of fear and harshly punishing women, like Medusa, for male aggression, trying to make women "safe," instead of giving them agency. She used to go to TGOEM because it gave her agency and is worried that other girls will lose that. Hermes knows about Hestia’s trick in Paphos. He doesn’t tell Artemis, but it makes him afraid for her as she is close to Hestia’s spiral.
• Hera sees Ares is unwell and confronts Zeus, but Zeus says that Ares is unstable on his own.
• Ares unearths a buried memory of visiting Poseidon as a child and his father being cruel to him. Aphrodite then found him crying and comforted him, validating his feelings and his nature. She gave him a piece of rose quartz and told him she would value his friendship when he grows up, making him feel like he deserved friends. He finds the crystal in his old possessions and is filled with clarity, his powers finally settling. He realises that he’s felt so out of sorts because his body was trying to tell him that Zeus had manipulated him. Now he realises the truth, that he and Aphrodite are good together and Zeus isn’t a kind father, he is calm. He calls the ocean palace and leaves a heartfelt apology message for Aphrodite.

Chapter 19:

• Aphrodite, living in the ocean again, struggles in the aftermath of losing Ares and the conflicts on Olympus.
• She goes to Paphos to bless her priestesses and finds Yasemin recovering from her fever and in grief at the failed attempt to connect with the goddess. She tries to comfort her, but Yasemin cannot feel her presence, frightening them both.
• Aphrodite keeps collapsing into tears and seafoam, unable to hold herself together and feeling inadequate as a goddess. Peitho tries to help, but she keeps her away, so Peitho asks her to go to a club that night and see something. Amphitrite then finds her existing as a water spirit and speaks passionately about how she has been too meek and yielding and needs to show Olympus her strength and storms.
• Aphrodite goes as a spirit to the club Peitho mentioned and sees a mermaid punk band performing feminist music. The band speaks out for Eurydice in solidarity and invokes Aphrodite as a goddess of sisterhood and community. Aphrodite feels needed and understood by the folk and realises she has focused too much on the approval of the gods, instead of doing her work.
• She reforms physically and goes back the ocean palace in a frenzy of activity. She remakes herself ready to rebel against Zeus and his system and plans to return to Olympus.
• She calls Peitho, who tells her that Little Minoa, the district that The Rose Lounge is in, has lost all electricity, cut off by Zeus for protesting a rise in energy prices.
• Amphitrite gives her the message that Ares left, sealed in an envelope.

Chapter 20:

• Aphrodite explodes back onto the Olympus scene with her retinue.
• The Horai crash a news broadcast showing a new royal public park, flashing and painting their body with sex positive slogans.
• Hermes goes to the Panoptes office and offers Sinoe payment on Aphrodite’s behalf to quit her job and make a documentary about Eurydice, which she accepts.
• Pannyakhis closes the Paphos temple to clients and throws a party for the priestesses.
• Aglaea comes into a temple of Hestia and draws a haze of lust over the priestesses, devolving into a Sapphic orgy.
• Peitho goes to Hecate’s office for a smutty date and to discuss Eurydice.
• Aphrodite and her retinue all write a manifesto based around the symbol of her hand mirror, calling for self-love and anti-shame against oppression, and distribute it across Olympus.
• Ares goes to get a manicure at the mall, reconnecting with Aphrodite’s domain after gaining his clarity, and there reads the manifesto.
• Aphrodite performs a surprise opening act at a new royal-founded theatre, attended by Zeus, Hera and Athena. It is a comedy burlesque routine that ends with a call out to Zeus to lower energy prices and restore electricity to Little Minoa. The audience loves the act so much that Zeus is forced to comply. He is furious and unsettled by this public show of opposition.
• Ares returns to Sparta, reconnects with Menelaus, and vows to be his patron from now on and work closely with him on building the city.
• At The Rose, Aphrodite and her retinue celebrate, then she sneaks away to read Ares’ message. He speaks of her generosity towards him and his desire to return it, apologising for forgetting to trust her. She is deeply moved and resolves to get him back.

Chapter 21:

• Ares goes to the Underworld, leads Spartan shades to the River Styx and inspires them to face death bravely, looks in on Eurydice’s club show, then meets Thanatos for a drink. Thanatos offers to let him escort the Spartan dead from now, which Ares is excited to take on, wanting to be a part of their full warrior experience, even the hard stuff.
• Hera and Hades are in Hades’ bedroom talking about Ares. She can sense that he’s married to Aphrodite in his heart, feeling conflicted about whether to trust her to make him happy. Hecate arrives and says that she needs to show them something.
• Ares and Thanatos talk about the time Ares, on Zeus' orders, freed Thanatos from being held captive by Sisyphus, who was trying to avoid death. Ares understood this to have been a standard fear of mortality, but Thanatos tells him that actually Zeus had sent him to take Sisyphus early to stop him from telling Zeus’ former mistress’ father where Zeus had hidden her. Ares swallows the anger, and reflects on how even simple tasks set by Zeus have another layer.
• In the same club, Aphrodite and Hermes are on the dancefloor together and spot Ares at the bar. Aphrodite says she has been longing to talk to him, but been too anxious to call him. Hermes says that the good thing about Ares is that he gives her vulnerability space, then sets about meddling across the bar to make them talk.
• Ares and Aphrodite meet and talk in private.
• She says she is touched by the gratitude he expressed in his message, but is worried for him if he thinks he can’t expect kindness as standard. She insists that he tell her anything that makes him feel unsafe, rather than going along with her out of fear of abandonment. He assures her that he didn’t feel unsafe with her, but with himself and the size of his feelings.
• They apologise to each other, Ares for pressuring her, Aphrodite for confusing him and shutting him out.
• Ares says he knows that she’d never use love magic on someone close to her and that he appreciates that she is the only person with the power to control his temper, and yet the only person not trying to. She believes his temper needs response, not suppression.
• She asks him if Zeus spoke to him to destabilise their relationship and helps Ares understand Zeus’ manipulation tactics and how Ares’ body reacts to them, burning to belong to himself.
• Ares says she never has to tell him things that she wants to keep private, but he hopes he can at least tell when she’s holding something back, he doesn’t want her to need to mask her feelings with him. Aphrodite admits to using her wiles to make him attracted to her and sometimes prioritising his favour over his space. She commits to complete authenticity with him from now. They tell each other that truly knowing each other is the most important thing to them.
• They agree to take a step back from sexual tension, exploring a friendship, which they characterise as a romantic friendship, since they can’t deny their feelings are so strong.
• Aphrodite says that she doesn’t want to hurt Ares, but has to stand up to his father and make change. Ares offers her support in that project. They embrace and dance, reunited.
• Hecate takes Hera and Hades to view the new prophecy about Ares and Aphrodite screened by The Fates. The Fates explain that Ares and Aphrodite will have a son together, Aeneas, and bring about the Trojan War. When Troy falls, Aeneas will escape and found a new empire that will consume Greece: Rome. Hera panics, realising that the prophecy that Zeus will fall to his son is about Ares after all, but rather than patricide, Ares will rise up and become a greater god as Zeus’ kingdom falls. She commands that Zeus never finds out. Hades comforts her, and both have not decided how they feel about this possible future.

 

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NERDY NOTES FOR CHAPTER 23

 

1. "Ancient Greece."

Beware, I am being a lazy historian. "Ancient Greece" is kinda meaningless. I am interested in identity so I put in this debate over how "Greek" Aphrodite is. But at the real time, no one had a concept of "Greek." You were Athenian, Corinthian, etc. People could share language and aspects of culture, but national identity is a muuuch later construct that should never be applied to the ancient, or even as late as Medieval, world. They did have ideas of how "foreign" someone was, though, and a thing I love about Aphrodite is her epithet "Xenia" or "of the Foreigner." She was a goddess of sea travel and ports, and so was invoked to build bonds with strangers, travellers, and traders. In one of her myths, she harshly punishes a xenophobic attack. I now view her as patron of migrants and refugees and the idea of a world without borders. In this chapter, she both uses the idea of nationality to her advantage and tries to disrupt it by making herself a border-crossing, fluidly national goddess. I don't know if I pulled that off, but that was the plan. "Ancient Greece" not only has vast regional difference, but is a period covering centuries of history that also change hugely. I'm not at all bothering to engage with that and basically just going by rule of cool, by which I mean everything I like happens in the same three months in the 1960s Jason and the Argonauts aesthetic. But yeah, remember that when I make any historical claim in the end notes, that will not be a general truth, but situated in a specific time and place within a large history and geography. What is true of 4th Century BCE Corinth is not true at all of 3rd Century BCE Athens or 5th Century BCE Delphi. "In Ancient Greece" means "found within the Classical Greek world," which btw also extends into modern Turkey and other Mediterranean countries. I’m collapsing all those times and spaces together because I really love that Jason and the Argonauts thing where the gods have a huge chessboard of the Aegean and move mortals and monsters around as their little playthings. I think the scale of the gods is more exciting if the Mortal Realm is small in comparison, but in reality, our realm is huge, changing, and diverse.

 

2. Doves and Vultures

In this chapter, doves and vultures are prominent symbols of Aphrodite and Ares' power. Doves are the major animal associated with Aphrodite, seen to be messengers of peace and love. Doves are flocking in the realms because her influence is growing. Vultures are likewise a symbol of Ares, omens of sedition, as he was the patron of uprisings. I think these animals are appearing as a sort of accumulation of energy and Fate, rather than being consciously summoned by the gods.

 

3. Ares’ Horses

Reading about Ares is like looking at a heavy metal album cover. Seriously, just do some googling, it’s hilariously melodramatic. He did indeed have a shining chariot pulled by four fire-breathing horses, Aithon (Red-Fire), Phlogeus (Flame), Konabos (Tumult) and Phobos (Panic-Fear). He also had herds of man-eating horses, bulls, and birds in various myths. 

 

4. Praxiteles and the nude of Aphrodite

Real! In the 4th Century BCE, the renowned Athenian sculptor, Praxiteles, created what we seem to think is the first female nude in Greek history, of course choosing Aphrodite to break that barrier. While male nudity was common in sculpture, showing off heroic physique, nude female forms were seen as shocking and overly sexual. The nude became the cult statue in the temple to Aphrodite at Knidos, where it was a huge spiritual experience and tourism draw. We even have stories of worshippers sneaking into the temple to have sex with the statue, the thigh stained with ejaculate. Feminist commentary is torn; on the one hand, it’s cool to see the introduction of female nudity alongside male, on the other, the statue to this day raises questions of the male gaze, sex dolls, and objectification. But I like getting my tits out, so I’m making it a positive thing for Aphrodite, drawing out shamed desires and heightening fascination with her. Aphrodite has over time been used to reflect our own modern tensions around female nudity as both empowering and degrading, and been invoked in stripping and sex work to reclaim the power of being gazed upon and overtly sexual. The alleged model for this statue was Praxiteles’ lover, Phryne, a famed Athenian beauty and courtesan with her own nudity legend. It’s said that when Phryne was put on trial for unlawful worship (probably of Dionysus), she bared her breasts to the court. They all agreed she was so beautiful that she must have divine favour, and therefore it would anger the gods to punish her, and she was acquitted. Iconic beyond belief. Nudes of Aphrodite abound in the Greco-Roman period after Praxiteles breaks the seal, including such fabulous titles as Aphrodite Kallipygos, or Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks, shown lifting her skirt to flash her ass. Continuously iconic.

 

4. Hippomenes and Atalanta

Atalanta was a huntress who did not want to get married, and so she said that she would only give her hand to someone who could beat her in a footrace. Several suitors failed and were executed. The hero, Hippomenes, fell in love with her and prayed to Aphrodite for help. Aphrodite, who I will admit is not supportive of abstinence, gave him three golden apples to drop during the race. The apples distracted Atalanta and allowed Hippomenes to win. But he then forgot to offer to Aphrodite in thanks. In punishment, she overcame him and Atalanta with lust on their journey to his home, and they impulsively had sex in a temple of Cybele (or Rhea, Zeus’ mother). Zeus punished them for defiling his mother’s temple by turning them into lions. I’m telling this story with the spin that Atalanta was attracted to Hippomenes’ competitive spirit and does marry him out of choice, as well as her own condition.

 

5. The Tegean Women

Real! Well, real as in Ancient Greek historians wrote about them as history, so, pinch of salt, but very possible! The city of Tegea was invaded by Sparta (we’re ignoring that detail) and, when their armies failed, Marpessa led a force of women in the final battle. They were victorious and celebrated with an annual feast that the men were not allowed to attend, honouring Ares Gynaecothoenas, or Ares Feasted by Women. While this epithet is highly situated, Ares is often connected to female warriors and protection of women. He is the progenitor of the Amazons, favours his daughter Harmonia and brings her war victories, and is the first person ever to be tried (and exonerated) for murder when he kills a man attempting to sexually assault his other daughter. He also has no myths where he attempts assault himself, extremely rare among the male Olympians. Ares is often remembered as a god of masculinity, but many Greek, especially Athenian, cultures disavowed the idea of brutality and rebellion and cast Ares as a shameful aspect of human nature, connecting manhood far more to Zeus. In the often highly patriarchal classical world, I find it super interesting how often Ares - raw rage and emotion, but without any sexual or imperial aggression - is connected to or invoked by women instead. Ares does not seem to have epithets related to victory, domination, or expansion, so in my opinion, he is there for the struggle, the drive to survive and resist, rather than any attempt to have personal or political power over someone else. While other war gods, like Athena, are core to the idea of state-building and masculine military might, Ares is core to the fighters and civilians caught up in the trauma. He protects from violence and harbours defiant anger when harmony and freedom are disrupted. So he’s basically the God of Feminist Rage. I’ll be exploring this with his character a bunch.

 

6. Ino, Melikertes and Athamas

Ino was the sister of Semele and raised her son by Zeus, Dionysus. When Hera discovered Zeus’ adultery, she punished Ino for aiding him by driving her husband, Athamas, into a murderous madness. Ino took her infant son Melikertes and ran, throwing herself off a cliff into the sea. Aphrodite favoured Ino and petitioned Poseidon to save her. He transformed them into the marine gods, Leucothea and Palaemon, protectors of those wrecked at sea. The reason for their favour, which I’ve cut out due to timeline, is that Ino was Aphrodite and Ares’ granddaughter, the daughter of Harmonia and Cadmus.

 

7. Ares’ Boxing Loss

The first Olympics was said to be held by and between the gods. Ares and Apollo boxed against each other and Apollo won. Ares also loses at boxing against Hermes, when they compete to be allowed to try it on with a nymph they both have a thing for. I am a big fan of Ares being this firecracker who regularly gets his face in the dirt. I find it endearing and it appeals to my wanton femdom side to see a guy with bruises that he absolutely could have avoided by not being a brat. But on a deeper note, I think the fact he spends a lot of time losing, also to Athena and Herakles, emphasises that he’s a god of Fighting, not of Winning. Sometimes it’s important to fight a losing battle. Sometimes the only loss is giving up.

 

8. Cynisca of Sparta

Real! Well, sorta… She is a real Spartan princess who is listed as the first female winner of the Olympics EVER in 396 BCE. She also won in 392. However, she won for breeding and training horses. The chariot itself would have been driven by male riders hired by her. But she’s still a monumental badass and her skills and achievements were and are a huge deal. The horses do do most of the winning in a chariot race imo.

 

9. Athenian Triremes

Real! These huge, man-powered warships were a huge part of Athens as the dominating political and military force in the 5th Century BCE Mediterranean. Through naval force and intimidation, Athens brought a number of Greek city states under its rule. These states remained technically independent, but were in the Athenian sphere of control (hegemony). This pressure on the region was a major factor in sparking Sparta’s rise as an opponent, eventually leading to the bloody Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE). While I’m not dealing with this war in this story, Ares and Athena’s increasing disagreements reflect the twin rises of these cities as opposing powers, not just because of conflicts over hegemony, but over the fundamental opposition of their philosophies and ethics. (Sparta wasn’t actually a city devoted to Ares, but I’ll deal with that in later rambles.)

 

10. The Acropolis and Parthenon

Real! Still Real! Athens was indeed a very wealthy, impressive, and dominating city and did build in order to display that to its people and visitors. Athena was honoured with huge monuments, dwarfing the other gods. But the presences of some of them can be traced. While we understand Ancient Greek to be polytheistic, invoking different gods in specific moments or settings, mono/polytheistic isn’t a binary. Gods regularly held so much of the spiritual space of a city that it could almost be seen as monotheistic, like Athena in Athens and Aphrodite in Paphos. Athens held so much cultural dominance that it echoes into modern studies and ideologies. The majority of what we discuss as "Ancient Greek" is actually "Athens During Classical Antiquity" and this Athens became the idealised model of civilisation over hundreds of years of European society. We still use its philosophies, watch its plays, and mimic its architecture.

 

11. Aphrodite’s Barge Procession

You thought I was basing too much on obscure myth and history before? Wait til you get a load of this! I based the procession on the barge on a real event related to Venus-Aphrodite. Aphrodite was worshipped in Greco-Roman Egypt, and Queen Cleopatra often styled herself as this goddess, including decadent acts like drinking from cups with pearls in the bottom. She was even thought to be worshipped as a manifestation of her. When Cleopatra went to meet (and ensnare to her influence) the Roman Marc Anthony in Tarsus, she dressed as Aphrodite and sailed a grand barge down the River Kydnos. On arrival, she refused to leave the barge, forcing him to talk with her on her turf, and so establishing her power and their relationship. Like the one in this chapter, Cleopatra’s barge had purple sails and silver oars, children dressed as cupids, maids dressed as graces, and was filled with incense. Venus was a deeply important goddess to the Romans, Cleopatra aligning with her was not just about styling herself as alluring, but as an essential source of political genius, military victory, and bounty and success for the empire. How people in the ancient world portrayed themselves in relation to the gods was a key part of how they built and maintained influence. This is really, if I didn’t make it clear enough in the deluge of words, what this chapter is about. I’m really fascinated by the power of storytelling, by how we narrativize our lives and societies to understand ourselves and negotiate power. The story of Ouranos is a thread through this chapter, not because I’m trying to suggest it’s the true backstory of the fic or the comic, but to explore how Zeus has used narratives to build and hold power, both in his kingdom and his family. How Zeus’ storytelling affects Ares has already come up, and will do so more and more. How Aphrodite resists him through telling her own stories or poking holes in his narratives will also be a theme. In this chapter, Aphrodite seizes the heroic identity Zeus has forged for himself. He has constructed the idea that he holds the promise of a lost paradise, a promise that has driven loyalty to him in worship and relationships. She twists it to centre herself in the narrative, diverting the power that Ouranos’ constructed memory holds over Greece from Zeus to herself. How women and Queer people engage with and reconstruct patriarchal narratives to reclaim power is also super interesting me. 

 

12. Delphi

Real! A cultic site of Apollo with an oracle who had visions due to the hallucinogenic vapours naturally rising from the temple ground. It was a hugely important pilgrimage site, in its hey-day perhaps the most important spiritual centre in Greece. Interestingly, one of its few rivals in popularity was Aphrodite’s cult at Paphos.

 

13. Corinth and Sex Work

Real! Sacred sex work is a complex one, in that we don’t have a clear picture, especially as we’re subject to our modern, post-Christian lens, of what it actually entailed and how much agency and joy it was entered into with. However, we do know that Aphrodite’s temples had sacred sex workers and we don’t have a body of evidence that says it was a forced or a bad life. For example, her temple at Paphos was an extremely luxurious and peaceful setting, the workers there kept in high esteem, well fed, clothed, housed and taken care of in hygiene and medicine. Negative attitudes to sex work tend to stem from modern conditions of violence that weren’t necessarily present in the ancient world, and Christian views of female and Queer sexuality. Sacred sex workers were spiritual figures as well as erotic, protected by the state and performing their labour in safe, clean, beautiful environments. I choose to believe they were also treated decently by their clients. They weren't exempt from crass conversation or art, but this doesn't have to be something that was innately offensive or disempowering. If there is one human universal, it's laughing at sex jokes, it doesn't have to be dehumanising. Sacred sex work was not only important to the spiritual life of a city, but to its economics. Corinth was a large, busy port, and the temple-brothels there were famous across the Mediterranean. They teemed with workers and clients of all genders and the archaeology of Corinth, full of erotic imagery, suggests their central function in the city’s identity and rise to wealth. 

 

14. Kythera and Aphrodite the Eastern Goddess

While Paphos, Cyprus, is generally talked about as Aphrodite’s birthplace, the Greek island of Kythera also lays claim to that title, Aphrodite Kytherea being one of her epithets. So I thought I’d play with that contest and say that, while Aphrodite was born at Paphos, she stages a rebirth at Kythera in her ploy to be accepted into the Greek Pantheon. The temple at Kythera is allegedly the oldest one in Greece, which I’ve changed up, but was genuinely dedicated to Aphrodite Ourania and genuinely did hold a wooden statue of Aphrodite Areia. I realise it was probably jarring to suddenly have the idea that she’s not in the pantheon thrown in there, that’s the risk of developing a story while posting! To clarify, Cyprus is not at this time at all Greek. It is a semi-independent island under tributary rule of Persia. See point 1 for how messy the idea of nationhood was in the ancient world, but I've simplified it into an idea that Olympus rules a series of city states that they define as Greek, other pantheons rule other regions that they define under their own identities. Mortals don't see themselves in a united country, but gods administrate with some defined territory. Historically, Aphrodite is a goddess who originates in Mesopotamia, evolving out of Inanna, Ishtar and Astarte. Through Cyprus, she makes her way into being the Aphrodite we recognise in the Greco-Roman world. This Aphrodite is born out of Kronos slaying Ouranos and severing his balls, his semen mixing with seafoam to create her. For this story, I’ve translated that as Aphrodite is born out of Ouranos’ murder and seed, rising from the waves at what will become Paphos. She wanders in a fresh, adult form and ends up taken in by Inanna, running a goddess collective who together make up the many faces of Inanna, Ishtar and Astarte. When she returns to Cyprus to make her own way, she ends up tangled in Greece’s Titanomachy and then being taken in by Poseidon. Her work continues around the Aegean, placing her in Greece, but Zeus continues to view her as an outsider. Even as mortals increasingly pray to her within the Greek Pantheon, Zeus has never invited her onto the Pantheon Council that he runs on Olympus. Aphrodite, uninterested in his conceptions of power, has never taken issue with this. But as she actively positions herself as his rival, Peitho decides that the security and influence of a seat on the Council is necessary. In this chapter, Peitho petitions Zeus to officially name Aphrodite as Greek and give her a place in the Olympus Pantheon. Zeus, who fears Aphrodite’s power (and some other stuff we’ll get to), refuses, using the excuse he has always used to avoid her: she isn’t truly part of his spiritual territory. Gods across the world accept each other’s activity and property in practically borderless lands, understanding the reality of human migration and melting pots, but don’t allow them to hold sway in their own internal politics unless they are official pantheon members. To gain this status, Aphrodite has to be Greek. She therefore performs a rebirth on a Greek island, styling herself as fully at home in Zeus’ lands and making his “Eastern Goddess” excuse fall apart. I don’t know if you needed this explaining, because I tried to make it clear in the chapter, but Fates know you have enough on your mind without trying to get all my prose, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to lay this out. Basically, in this chapter, Aphrodite deals Zeus a major blow, undermining his excuse to keep her out of Olympus governance and taking over the narrative that he uses to make himself the most powerful god in the hearts of the folk and his family. The consequences of this will unfold as we go…

My main source for all of the above is the book by Bettany Hughes referenced in the end notes, plus Encyclopaedia Britannica, and primary source quotations brought together in theoi.com. I am a historian and sociologist by training, which you can probably tell from how horrifically up myself all my academic commentary in this fic is, but I'm not a classicist, so disclaimer that lots in here will be over-simplified, in need of more context, or possibly just wrong. It's also subject to my interpretation, both on purpose and accidental. If you happen to know shit about this stuff, I am so interested to hear you share! But please don't um actually me, I do this in my spare time and, contrary to all the signals I'm sending, am not actually trying to teach history through a web comic fanfic. 

 

Thank you SO much again for being here, take care of yourselves xxx

Notes:

Gaia's tits, it's been a chaotic time uploading this update over several days of "oh shit, I didn't do that..." Thank you for your patience! I'm self-conscious as fuck about how much got crammed into the first update in months and how much accompanying crap comes with it. I guess, what you're watching is someone bursting out of hibernation covered in moss with no social graces and a lot of thoughts to share. I promise I'm not setting a posting pattern where you're faced with this many notes and mini scenes just to see some rainbow hotties kiss. We've hit the ground a little clumsily, but we're running now!

Chapter 25: “Whoever heard of someone who was sanely in love?”

Summary:

The 24 hours following the ceremony of Ourania. Aphrodite and Ares take time together in Aphrodite’s capital, exploring their divinity. But Zeus and Hestia can’t rest.

Music and CWs in the start notes.

Hey!!! It’s been long! Also! This chapter is long! I deserve jail. But I’ve tried to make it more accessible with headed sections?? I promise the next chapter is literally nothing but Ares getting his dick wet.

As always, if you waited all that time, or if you just got here and stayed, I’m truly touched. Sending luck and protection xxx

Notes:

Hello my beauties!

Music
I - Lullaby, The Cure
II - Amongst the Waves, Pearl Jam
III - Other Side of the World, KT Tunstall
IV - Ibelin, Harry Gregson-Williams (Kingdom of Heaven OST)
V - My Rose, Beyoncé
VI - Hollow, Cecilia De Maria
VII - Better Man, Pearl Jam
VIII - Criminal, Fiona Apple
IX - Sleep Alone, Bat for Lashes
X, the party - Somebody to Love, Jefferson Airplane
X, the beach - Higher, Tara MacLean
XI - Do You Take this Man? Diamanda Galás
XII - Leech, Dream Wife

CWs:
Zeus’ abuse/control/manipulation comes up throughout and happens on page in parts I, VII and XII.
Adultery, parts I and VII.
Stomach upset, parts V, IX and XI.
Reported stalking and emotional abuse, part VI.
Parental marriage trauma, part VI.
Family/relationship conflict, part VII.
Aftermath of domestic violence, part IX. (this character is gonna have resolution)
Memories of sexual threat, coercion, and implied assault, parts IX and XI.
Gender trauma, parts III, V, IX and XI.
Heavy alcohol, but no drama, part X.
Raw meat, part XI.
Vomiting, part XI.
Electrocution, part XII.
Coercion, part XII.

I also wanted to give a heads up that this is the first time this fic talks about asexuality! Aphrodite introduces asexual patronees. I wanted to embrace asexuality and different ways of being erotic and loving for a sex goddess. I tried to honour what friends have shared, but would be genuinely interested to hear anyone else's thoughts, or anything you think lands poorly.

Previously on this unreasonably long fic:

Aphrodite and Ares' sexual tension grew until Zeus manipulated Ares into losing trust. But they healed and reunited, realising they had a bond. Aphrodite vowed to challenge Zeus’ supremacy and Ares recommitted to his new patron city, Sparta. They decided to take sex and dating off the table and explore their connection. They called themselves “romantic friends,” acknowledging they couldn't be fully platonic in their feelings.

The Fates predicted that Ares and Aphrodite's relationship would end Zeus’ power and give rise to the Trojan War, then Rome. Only Hades, Hecate and Hera know this.

The Fates had already predicted that Zeus would one day fall to his son. It's a secret he believes kept by him, his brothers, Hera, and Athena. But Athena told Ares as a teenager, and Aphrodite overheard the kings discussing it. Zeus has feared this prophecy since gaining the throne, and it's driven him to crush Ares down. Ares blames himself for being born a bad omen.

Some smaller details: Ares can't yet teleport like the other gods. Aphrodite has advised him to treat it as being summoned, responding to a need for him, but he hasn’t tried this yet. Ares and Aphrodite sense emotion as taste - Ares tastes Aphrodite’s temper as cinnamon and she tastes his desire as curry notes. An unsavoury gossip journalist, Acteon, has fixated on Aphrodite and landing a big exposé. TGOEM is under pressure from Aphrodite's rise. Hestia has a combative history with Aphrodite and her right hand, Peitho. Artemis is beginning to doubt TGOEM, uncertain of this female infighting and wounded by Athena's transformation of the assaulted priestess Medusa into a gorgon. Further fragments form as Athena’s loyalties are torn between them and Zeus.

“Romantic friendship” spurred Ares and Aphrodite into a winning streak. Sparta swept the Olympics, and Ares’ cult became the hot new thing. He took a vulture as his crest, a symbol of sedition, putting Zeus on edge. Aphrodite exploded back onto Olympus, publishing a manifesto of love as resistance. She caused an orgy in Hestia’s virginal temple, and staged a burlesque routine that forced Zeus to cut the energy bills shutting down the bohemian district of Olympus, Little Minoa.

With their rise, Zeus subsided into paranoia. He says Aphrodite is Kronos' echo, born of his murder of Ouranos, and that she's coming to take Kronos’ revenge and plunge the realms into chaos. He also fears that Ares could be Kronos reborn. He's revealed that he fears Hera's womb was tainted, and that he's already thrown one baby boy from the mountain - Hephaestus, Ares' lost older brother, known only to him, his brothers, and Hera.

Seizing her moment of fame, Aphrodite performed a spectacular ceremony on the isle of Kythera. Having always aligned to Mesopotamia, this ceremony rebirthed her as Greek, killing Zeus’ excuse to keep her out of the formal Pantheon and limit her power in his lands. She also presented a new history. Zeus had always told the story that Ouranos held paradise over the realms, destroyed by Kronos. He and his brothers still worked to restore the lost heaven. Trust them, it will happen one day. Aphrodite instead said that Ouranos had, in his final moment, formed her as his heir, and now she was returning to restore his heaven, held in the human heart. The realms welcomed her as a new Queen of Heaven, Aphrodite Ourania, seriously shaking loyalty to Zeus. Ares supported Aphrodite’s efforts by making his first lucky omen, a woodpecker. He then surprised her by dramatically crashing the end of the ceremony to publicly vow his kinship and protection, promising peace in her lands, without his family’s permission. The consequences for them of this defiant ceremony are yet to unfold.

Aphrodite’s patron capital, Paphos, Cyprus, is preparing for the royal wedding of King Pygmalion and Galatea, orchestrated by Aphrodite and Hera in partnership. Cyprus is a tributary of Persia, but operates independently of it and Greece. As Kythera celebrated, Aphrodite invited Ares to spend the next day with her in Paphos.

 

 

 

 

Part I. Late at Night. Zeus’ Office, Olympus.

 

ZERO TO HERO IN NO TIME FLAT

Who’da thunk, but just like that, Olympus’ young prince looks set to be the hottest royal yet!

CARRY ON OUR WAY-WAR-D SON

After a youth kept private and rumours of a dud dauphin, Ares is making War on the headlines!

MYSTIQUE GROWS AROUND SPARTA AS HERMES ORDERS MEDIA BLACKOUT

“An author doesn't launch a first draft. Let the guy finish. You'll get your fireworks, believe me.”

VULTURES DESCEND ON GREECE

Palace declines to comment as omens of upheaval swarm our cities.

Zeus ground his teeth. He flipped over paper after paper on the stack.

PLAY, PASSION, AND NO PROMISES

Play-Nymph gets up close and personal with a prince! Ares admits his dating dilemmas, feminine side, and the bonuses of being a bad boy. Steamy centrefold pecs inside…uh, we mean pics!

Zeus dashed his hand across his desk with a snarl. The pile of newspapers and magazines scattered in a whirlwind of pages. His office stank of printer ink. Tomorrow's inevitable headlines swarmed behind his eyes. While the rest of Olympus staggered drunkenly between bars and clubs, still celebrating Aphrodite's obscene attention stunt today, Zeus was walled into his office, besieged by the coming consequences. His chest felt wrapped in fraying, buzzing cables. There was a greasy, burnt wire taste in his mouth. Aphrodite bountiful. Aphrodite loving. Aphrodite deliverer. Aphrodite most beloved.

Aphrodite Ourania.

Aphrodite Areia.

He was in seriously deep shit.

They all were.

He paced behind his desk. His jagged gait jarred at a knock on the door. “What?” he grunted tersely.

The office door clicked open softly and, even more softly, his new secretary floated in on her long, shapely legs. Nights like this, when he was stressed as Tartarus and on the verge of snapping, he regretted hiring such a looker. And also really didn't. He gave the girl a wry smile. “Thetis, we have an intercom.”

Thetis batted wide, blue eyes at him, twin pools like he used to swim in in the Mortal Realm before its weight was on his shoulders. “Couldn’t get the button to work.” She hooked a styled curl of creamy, voluminous hair onto a dextrous finger. She really was a peach. And a sweetheart. It was disgustingly late, she shouldn't be working by any measure. Yet here she was, sunny and serving as if it was barely noon. She gave him one of her carefree smiles, utterly unburdened by the hard world. But her smile was also a little cool, like all river nymphs. He thought about the ways he knew to heat it up…

“I’m so sorry to bother you.” She cut off that train of thought. Bless her, she always did what was best for him.

“I always have time for you.”

She shot him a cute look. “Do you have time for your daughter?”

“Less, perhaps, but I’d hate for you to think badly of me.”

Her teeth were absolutely perfect, her smile a blinding crescent like the moon on a winter day. “I'll send her in.” 

She turned to return to the waiting area buffering his office. She was almost bowled backwards as Athena came marching in, her expression harried and her hair crinkled. “Lord Father, I can explain.”

Zeus flicked his eyes irritably to the loss of Thetis scurrying away and closing the door behind her. He rolled his jaw and squared himself behind his desk. He dropped one shoulder, nonchalant in front of his court, the king never unsettled. “Oh dear, my daughter, you only ever call me Lord Father when you know there's been a real fuck up.” He clocked her sharp, steely gaze flick like a rapier around the space, recording the hurled magazines, his unshaven jaw, the antique clock betraying the late night. In that moment, he gave up all his vulnerability to her. He carefully pulled a stern mask over himself. He laid his palms on the desk and leaned across to her, a clear, authoritative barrier between them. He dropped all humour. “Did he think I wouldn’t find out?”

She lowered her gaze respectfully. “I don’t know.”

“Then what possessed him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are they together? Engaged? Is he looking to make Aphrodite royal?”

“I don’t know.”

Lightning lashed the back of his throat. His voice struck across the room. “Then what do you know, Athena? You said you could explain!”

Was that a flinch she tensed her cheek against? Regret scorched him cold, but instantly fizzled into vexation. It was so fucking insulting when his family reacted to him like that, as if he hadn’t always protected them. Athena raised her eyes, but kept her voice bland, her hands folded behind her. “Father, I spent the day in Athens with Ares last week. I told him that I was advocating he take his place on the Pantheon Council. He asked me if Aphrodite could join him.”

Zeus rolled his eyes and groaned. “Fates damn it! She’s an East-”

“An Eastern goddess, yes. I told him that.” She looked at him significantly.

Realisation sank into his sour stomach. “And a week later, she makes herself Greek. Shit.” He rubbed his forehead and paced a little behind the desk. He took a slow, steadying breath. It failed. He growled through his teeth and dashed an empty pencil pot off his desk. He didn't look at Athena, too still when he made sudden moves. “I’m going to fucking…”

“You aren’t going to do anything to him.” Her voice was ice. He glared at her. Her nose was like an axe blade pointed at him. “I know it’s frustrating, but think it through. If you punish either of them for Kythera, you publicly deny her story.”

“Yeah? Obviously I have to do that!”

“You cannot.”

He spluttered incredulously. “Athena! Ourania is mine!”

“Ourania is not your territory, it is your promise.” Her stern expression softened. “And now it’s fulfilled.”

“It is fucking not.” He strode briskly behind his desk, his daughter's keen eyes tick-tocking with him. 

“The people believe it is. Ares did you a huge favour.” Her cool tone had the faintest undercurrent of warmth, of plea even. She always - only - sounded like this when it was about her brother. Zeus was getting tired of only having the tenderness of women when it was to beg for other men. “Without him, Aphrodite would have made her statement, named herself their deliverance, and made an entirely separate sacred space to you. But your son came to her ceremony and declared himself her protector and kin. Now the royal house is guarding Ourania. It always has. She lived with Poseidon all those years, growing her divinity, and then you welcomed her to Olympus, and she blessed our lands with the promise the triarchy had been safeguarding all that time. Then you gave your own son and heir to her to ensure paradise is kept in peace.” She pointed at him like a recruitment poster. “You, Father, have made good on your promise. You will be celebrated for centuries.”

Zeus chewed on her words like gum. He ran his hand through his hair with a huff. “And if I deny her story? Call her a false idol?”

Athena inhaled with a slow shrug. “That’s out of my wheelhouse.”

“What?”

She rubbed her jaw, eyes careful. “My people weighed their options and chose me. I am objectively their best choice. If I stop being that, I’ll lose them. That’s how I understand holding power. In Athens, there were riots, she was controversial. There, she can be called a false idol, people are ready to ask that question, because what they want is the truth. Not everyone wants truth. They want to be happy. They want to be cared for. Aphrodite made them feel that way. Olympia, Delphi, Corinth, and especially Kythera, and all the fields and towns she passed across Greece, they rang with joy. If you call that false, they’ll either believe you and be heartbroken, or their heart will be so given, they won’t believe you. Either way, you’re not dealing with logic and debate, you’re dealing with feeling.”

Zeus’ insides were a mess of painful electric shocks. He bent over the desk, leaning on bleached knuckles. He tensed every joint to keep the lightning from earthing into the wood. “Are you saying that if I deny her, I’ll make them feel bad?”

“Yes.”

“Well boo-fucking-hoo!” A muted flash and the desk was scorched.

Athena’s eyes flicked down to it and up, fingers rigid, voice cool again. “Bad feeling is not nothing for an intangible being. Gods exist in mortal conception. If they conceive of you as their heart-breaker, they won’t keep you where you need to be kept.”

Aphrodite’s low voice surged through his memory with a rush of waves. “You don't need the top of the mountain when you have a stronghold in every human heart.”

“She made them feel good. She made them feel saved.” His daughter's words pushed into him like pins. “You can position yourself as a part of that, or in opposition to it.”

For a long moment, he said nothing. He glared at the white hot electrical currents breaking through the cracks in his hands. 

Athena eyed them, legs subtly springy. Something tired and irritated muttered in the back of her brain, something about the absurdity of Olympus’ general and all its highest women having to live ready to dodge some man's petulance. Her heart squeezed with guilt as she thought of Ares in the same breath. She didn't want to see him that way. His temper was unstable, but it pained him. When she looked at him on the brink of outburst, she saw only his struggle, his remorse. As she looked at her father, she saw the unsettling alternative: the calculation. When Zeus felt anger, he weighed it up, decided whether now was a moment to strike out. His temper was a decision. His losses of control… well, they weren't. Fire is directionless. It flares where it's lit and burns what it collides with. Lightning earths, and it always chooses the tallest standing thing. She couldn't exactly relax with an agitated Ares, but she could stand tall. Here in this gloomy, stuffy office, the mighty Athena could feel herself stooping. And it was horribly possible that that was an intended result of her father's equation.

Or at least…

Maybe?

He looked tired. He looked stressed. Maybe she attributed too much to him. Maybe…

Her father's eyes raised and they were empty of all violence. He looked at her with a sympathetic yet dignified plea to be understood. “I cannot attach my power to Aphrodite, not to someone who is virtually a titaness. I cannot rule at her dispensation.”

Athena frowned gently, echoing his tone. “Can’t you? The Pantheon is a council. The kingship is a triarchy. You’re a fair man, you let us all hold our domains. If hers is Ourania, she’ll simply be an important member of the team. What’s one more check and balance on you?”

Zeus took this in earnestly, rubbing his chin and nodding. She felt foolish for assuming violence of him. Here was the steady, learned king she knew him to be. “Athena, you are wise and temperate,” he said warmly. “Athens’ democracy is a thing of wonder, and I am immeasurably proud.” Her chest swelled a little. “But understand, it works because you make it work, and your power is not shared. At the top of everything is a single figure, and that’s you, overseeing, overwhelming.” Her chest shrank. He wasn't wrong. She thought of the immense gold statue currently in production for the Parthenon. She thought of Hestia’s tight, lightless smile when she saw the designs, so like Zeus’ authoritarian temples. Zeus went on. “Look at the check and balance Ares was tonight. He swore a dangerous path without consulting me or the Council. ‘Peace ever in your lands, as far as I can promise,’ was the report I received from your spies.”

She winced. “Well, the palace’s…”

“He may have spoken his vow on Kythera, but everyone knows that Aphrodite's land is Cyprus. He’s promised peace on an island that pays tribute to Persia. So what are we supposed to do if Persia ever attacks and we can no longer take Cyprus as a base? Where’s our buffer? What happens if Assyria sets their sights on us and Aphrodite argues those are her lands too, still tied to Inanna, and we simply have to surrender?”

“These are unlikely scenarios.”

“So was everything that’s happened for the last month!” The desk lamp buzzed abrasively. He flexed his neck and ran his hand through his hair with a measured sigh. Fine strands of lightning tangled around his fingers. “I know that the two of you grew close in your training programme, but remember why you were training him at all. Ares is unpredictable and emotional. He’s made a decision with his dick, and here we are.” He launched abruptly off his palm, stood rod-straight, and began to pace again, his shadow slick on the wall. Athena watched him, stock still. She put her hands behind her back to hide the way they curled as if reaching for a sword hilt. 

Zeus suddenly stopped in his tracks, a flint strike in his black eyes. He turned and strode to a mahogany chest of drawers. He slid something out and returned briskly to the desk, unrolling a large, inked map of Greece and its seas and hinterland. He hunched over it, chewing the corner of his mouth. “Alright. OK. There’s no resisting this fucking freight train. But I am changing its route. Ares is on the Council. He can come to the meeting next new moon. Aphrodite will be instated next month. It’s soon enough to look supportive, but gives us time to let the dust settle, spot anything that needs dealing with, and define the ground rules of her inclusion.” His thumb swept over a section of the mainland. “Until the next meeting, I will be working in Mycenae.”

One of Athena's feathery eyebrows raised. She took a few steps forward and bent over the map, looking over her father's arm as he guarded the terrain with his wingspan like a feeding eagle. “Why?”

“I’m patronising its king.”

She glanced sharply over the map, quickly rearranging jigsawed information stored in her infinite memory. Two pieces clicked with a sting. “Menelaus was a member of the Mycenaean royal house before he set out to make his own fate.” Her father didn't look up, scanning the map obsessively. “Menelaus, the king of Sparta. Ares’ patronee.”

“Mm. Agamemnon is his brother.”

“I know.” She frowned. “Why him?”

Zeus straightened, but kept one hand on the map, his hard knuckles forming the mountains between Sparta and Mycenae. He faced Athena brightly. “You’re right. Ares saved me from a bloodbath in the media and the temples. He should have spoken with me, and I am frustrated. But maybe I’m not being fair to him. Maybe it’s time we worked closer together.”

“On… Sparta and Mycenae?”

“On all of Greece.” He whipped the map out from under her gaze and rolled it up.

“What?”

The map rustled brusquely. “Athena, like I said, your democratic principles are admirable. But there is a difference between balances and factions. We can’t risk that on Olympus. We don’t have the luxury of mortality, fissures that form here never heal. If Aphrodite has decided it's time for Ourania, then apparently time it must be. This calls for a fundamental shift in how we govern as a pantheon. No more in-fighting, no more power struggles.” His white teeth slit through his mouth. “Daddy's home.” He swished the map like a sword. “Agamemnon is not going to be just any hero. He is going to be the hero. He is going to be the king.”

Athena glanced at the end of the rolled up paper like a real blade. She flicked her gaze to her father's eyes. They looked somehow off centre. She swallowed. “Of… of all of Greece? Unification of the city states?” His grin twitched. She clenched her fist behind her back. “Lord Father…”

“It’s late.” The map bounced into his palm, his smile warm again. “You’ve worked hard, dear daughter. It’s been an eventful day, what with your brother’s new handler causing riots in your capital.” He rolled his eyes with an affectionate chuckle. “You should get some sleep.”

“Father, I would like us to discuss this.”

“Get some sleep.” Lightning at the rim of his iris.

She stepped back with an instinct that left a cold, muddy feeling in her gut. She steeled again and drew herself up, still not quite to her full height. “I expect this to be brought to Council.”

“Of course.” His smile darkened. “Checks and balances.”

She held his eye. Every time she tried to read the look in it, it shifted, words scrambling on the page. She pulled her eyes down and inclined her head respectfully. He did the same, then touched two fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss. Her chest tightened. She smiled and strode quickly from the room.

The door slammed.

Zeus dropped his smile and rolled his jaw. He clucked his tongue. He dropped the map into a bin beside the desk. He collapsed into his chair with a squeak of the gears. He stared at the ceiling. 

The intercom beeped.

He tapped it with a smirk. “Should you really be working at this hour, Thetis?”

“You’re working, I’m working, Sir.” 

“Isn't there a saying about all work and no play?”

“Don't be a dull boy and I won't have to be a dull girl.”

“I’m sure you’ve never been dull a day in your life, Thetis.” Her giggles came through like bubbles. He grinned. “You got the button to work, then.”

“I’m a clever girl.”

“I’ll decide that depending on what you’re about to bother me with.”

“Your brother’s on the phone.”

He rolled his eyes. “The art deco depressive or the hippy-camp?”

“Lord Poseidon,” she replied with another of her patented you’re a bad boy giggles. He groaned theatrically. She tutted. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

“I think I need to do something to her.”

He swore he heard her tongue move over her teeth. “Shall I tell him you’re sleeping?”

He took a deep breath in and thought about cigarettes. “No, no, I expected this.”

“Well, blink the intercom twice if you need an emergency exit.”

“You're my hero.”

“And you're mine.”

Her soothing, sing-song voice splashed unceremoniously into Poseidon's deep grumble as she patched him through on speakerphone. “Zeus.”

Zeus leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out. “Hey, Bro.”

“Don’t Bro me.”

“Who peed in your pool?”

“You!” Poseidon spluttered. “You peed!”

“Enlighten me.”

“Why is my grandson a lion now?”

Zeus sighed wearily. Another day, another defence of a rational decision. Poseidon's mortal grandson, Hippomenes, had recently received the favour of Aphrodite in his footrace for the hand of the terminally single Princess Atalanta. When he'd forgotten to give the spoiled goddess her thank you offering, she'd overwhelmed the newlyweds with maddening lust on the woodland journey home. Judgement clouded, they'd hurried into a temple of Rhea to fuck, and so desecrated Zeus’ mother's holy site - because Aphrodite was, when it came down to it, a petty bitch. Zeus had figured, if they were going to behave like wild animals… He crossed his ankles and examined his fingernails. “Your grandson defiled the temple of our mother. It couldn’t go unanswered.”

“Mom was a nature goddess!” The speaker fizzed as Poseidon yelled into his phone. “She would have been fine about it!”

Zeus prickled under his fingernails. “Mom was a woman of dignity!”

“We don’t punish our direct descendants, they're supposed to be our hands in the Mortal Realm!”

Frustration rolled under his skin, but he ran his hand over his suit trousers and reined it in. “Fathers punish their children, Poseidon. If you want to blame someone, blame your little princess.”

“What?”

“Hippomenes and Atalanta only fucked in the temple because they couldn’t resist consummating their marriage until they got home. They’re Aphrodite’s couple, she pumped them full of that impulse.”

The sweet guy's voice broke. “She just brought two people together who wanted each other! Mom wouldn’t mind!”

Zeus’ skin heated, but he kept his tone level. None of them had really had a father, someone had to default into it. “How much time did you spend with our mother, Poseidon?”

A crackly pause. “I… uh…”

“It’s a nice assumption, but I knew her better. I saw her when I was alone. Her marriage was difficult, to say the least. She deserves a virginal space in memory.”

“Dad…” Poseidon's voice sloshed a little, waves on pebbles. “Dad didn’t love Mom, maybe she would’ve wanted to see people who really loved each oth-”

“Poseidon, must we?” Zeus snorted out his irritation. “Must we dig through our lost mother’s psyche at two o’clock in the fucking morning? Are you drunk?”

“Drunk? No! I’m pissed!”

“Well, I’m pissed too! You bend Mom’s memory to stick up for Aphrodite, and you go along with her whims even when it means putting me in the dog house!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ino and Melikertes. Your new deities.” Another in the long list of everyone else’s fuck-ups that he got yelled at for. 

“Yeah?” It was almost funny how clueless his supposedly royal brother sounded. “They were being chased by the crazy husband. Aphrodite likes Ino. I agreed to take her in, so I made her and her son part of my court. We'd been looking for someone to cover shipwrecks. She’s an innocent.”

“She’s not an innocent,” Zeus explained patiently. “She wasn’t being chased by her husband, she was being chased by Hera.”

“Hera?”

He groaned and rubbed his tired eye. Every bone and muscle felt like lead as he dragged himself into talking about this. The grandfather clock ticked aggressively with the late hour. “Fucking years ago, like years, I had a thing…” 

“Uhoh…”

“...with this girl, Semele. Fucking crazy bitch. Anyway, she had a kid.” It was Poseidon’s turn to sigh. “I kept him hush. It was over with Semele, there was no use upsetting Hera. Ares was only seven or something and he was going through all that at school. But Dionysus is sixteen now and looks like he’s developing some minor divinity.”

“A new god?” Poseidon squawked.

“Minor, I said minor.” He huffed. “Anyway, he caused a disturbance and Hera just had to poke her nose in. Apparently he looks like me. So that was one nasty cat out of the bag.” His heart thudded painfully, filling with gold and black tears. “She fucking lost it. Mortal bastards are one thing, but the idea of a new god parading about, she went totally fucking postal. Semele got Dionysus away, but Hera…” His throat shut.

His brother’s tender tone was more aggravating than if he'd been harsh. “Jeez, she killed her?” Zeus grunted. “I'm sorry, Man.”

“It’s… whatever. Hadn’t seen her in forever.”

“I mean… OK…”

“Anyway, Dionysus goes to his aunt, Ino. He doesn't hide well. He gets away again, so Hera goes for Ino through her husband.”

“Gods, when marriage is her domain? That’s… a little…”

“Twisted? Unhinged?”

“Come on, she was upset…”

“Yeah, no shit.” He hissed through his teeth and raked static through his hair. “And if she’d been allowed to vent on Ino, then it might have gotten out of her system. But instead my soft touch brother scooped the offending mortal nobody into his loving arms, and now Hera feels ganged up on by the brunch club. She’s sleeping in the guest room, cutting up my shirts, and I keep breaking open my morning hard-boiled eggs to find them empty - I don’t even know how she’s doing that!” 

“Is Dionysus OK?”

Fates, it always had to be about everyone else, didn't it? “Probably. He’s on the lam, but he’s a young man with a lot of energy, might be good for him.”

Poseidon’s hesitant concern was almost as offensive as Athena's contained flinch. “Should you… check?”

“We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you!” White sparks popped around the phone. “Can you please get your head out from up Aphrodite’s skirt?”

The gentleness vanished. “I’m not up a skirt!”

“You are! Hippomenes! Ino! And what about Kythera? She sailed there from Laconia, plain fucking sailing!”

“I… I thought you’d be happy.” Fates, now he was whining again. “Ourania. The thing we’ve worked for.”

“We’re still working for it, you algae-brained guppy! She was lying!” This guy was exhausting.

“Aphrodite wouldn’t…”

“Yes! She would! Happily! She lied to everyone and slept like a baby! Get it through your thick skull! And now the triarchy is on rocky fucking ground!”

“Zeus,” the man sounded like a violin playing something gratingly lovelorn, “Aphrodite is special. I’ve been telling you for years, she’s a marvel. Work with her and we could have a beautiful…”

“A beautiful what, Poseidon? You think she’s gonna grant all your wishes? You think she’s our reincarnated paradise? You think just following your heart really does make dreams come true?”

“I…”

“GROW UP!” Thunder growled outside. It echoed down the speakerphone as it swept above Poseidon's palace, booming through the water. Zeus crunched his frame awkwardly and ground the heel of his hand over his eye. “I want an assurance from you that you’re still on my side.”

“There are no sides.”

“Yes. There are.” He glared into the shadows. “There are always sides, Poseidon, even when it’s love, even when it’s family. Didn’t we learn that the hard way?” Poseidon was silent. He snarled into a strict tone. “Her retinue crashed the opening of our mother’s park and her newlyweds desecrated our mother’s temple. She’s publishing anarchist literature and supporting anarchist artists. She’s protecting those that defy us. She openly embarrassed me with her outrageous strip routine, and now I’m out of damn pocket because I can’t raise my energy prices.” He irritably flicked a solid gold paperweight on the desk. “She’s poaching my worshippers, and now she’s made a grand statement making herself the star of the war we fucking fought while she was floating unscathed around the isles.” He closed his fist. “Open your fucking eyes. I’m begging you.”

For an uncomfortably long time, the only sound was the fading thunder down the line. At last, Poseidon sighed and spoke as if fish hooks were trying to pull the words back down into his gullet. “Look, a large merchant fleet is on its way to Paphos. It'll bring a big economic boon to her capital. I’ll still the winds out at sea at dawn and keep it from getting to port.”

Zeus released a tight breath and scratched his neck. “Thank you. I appreciate that. She just…” The poor guy wasn't so bad, he was a good brother and a good friend. He just needed guidance, his heart was too easy. Zeus took on a sympathetic, nurturing tone. “I know she’s a nice girl. I know you have a friendship with her. But the rules have to apply to her. I’m sure she is special. But a king can’t think that way, yeah? Everyone has to be special to us.”

“Yeah…” His brother sighed softly. “Guess you’re right.” He gulped. “Is this really necessary?”

For the love of… “Yes, Poseidon, it is.” Another sap sigh. Zeus prickled and ground his teeth. “Drain the drinking water barrels on the ships. I don't want the sailors hail and hearty and rowing the goods to shore.”

“It's the middle of summer! They'll get sick!”

“Mortals get sick, it's what they do.” He sighed hard through his nose. “And don’t warn her.”

“I won’t.”

“If she bats her eyes and you go…”

“I won’t! Jeez, you need to go decaff.” 

“You called me.” Zeus massaged his scalp. Everything itched. 

Poseidon sighed one final time. The sound was like sandpaper on Zeus’ ear canal. “Look, I gotta sleep. Promise me you’ll stop working for the night? Cool down?”

“Fuck off.”

“Yep.”

The call cut off. Zeus rolled his eyes back to the ceiling. They blurred. His head ached. His heart ached. His stomach ached. His legs ached. His throat was raw. He reached listlessly out and found the now warm glass of water on the desk. He took an unsatisfying sip. He blinked down into the ripples… the shadows in water that could paint picture shows… the lamplight like sunset on the sea... 

“I am the last remnant of the God of the Sky, not just his progeny, but formed from his very flesh at the moment of his death. I am the stars and nebulas falling to the earth and embracing your lands in power and wonder and glory. I am here, one of you now and always, to tell you that the heaven of Ouranos does not reside in the promises of kings, but the passion and joy of humanity.”

He looked to his TV, burnt out with a shattered screen. The broadcast of her world-changing ceremony danced before him like ghosts.

“I am Aphrodite Ourania, Queen of Heaven, the last piece of the sky, and I have come to restore your flight!” 

Cheering crowds. Weeping women. Pleading men.

“What an incredible thing for our generation to witness! For so long, we have told the story of the loss of our great God of the Sky, Ouranos. His death was the first of Kronos’ massacre, and we all wonder what life would have been had he and his miracles lived. Perhaps here, on the humble isle of Kythera, we have a glimpse. As Aphrodite of Cyprus crowns herself Ourania of Greece, she offers us the heaven that even the Titanomachy could not restore!” The muse-caster shook her head in disbelief and let out a thrilled laugh. “Mortal or divine, there's no denying when you see something like this - polish up those curtseys, Olympus, there's a new queen in town!” 

He hurled the glass at the TV. Water burst into the monitor in a shower of hot, white sparks.

*

 

Part II. Morning. The Beach Below Paphos, Cyprus.

 

Aphrodite melted into the sea breeze and heat haze. They stood on one of the secluded beaches at the edge of Paphos. Fishing boats bobbed by the shore or lay tipped over in mounds of sand, crabs scuttling under them as gulls pecked in their cracks. A few city locals had sneaked away from the boiling bustle to fry under the sun or curl up together in the shade. She took a deep breath and filled her body with the delight of the summer day - happiness like strawberry, confidence like oranges, carefree mint, and lazy syrup. The sand and shells twinkled at her bare feet. The golden morning poured down her swirling gown the colour of ripe raspberry. It webbed into the crystals glittering on jewellery on her arms and breast and loose, long hair rippling in the gust of salt and olive wind. 

She smiled at the beach meandering along the flower-crowned rock, a slash of white-gold between the winging turquoise of sky and sea. Her new boat-builder couple were paddling in the surf, him laughing as she splashed him, her skirts hiked up and her hair tangled. Two little girls were building a sand castle, the deep love they’d one day fall into still an unseen bud between their hands. An old man walked with a stiff hunch along the leisurely roll of the tide, the memory of his wife at his side, just visible in flashes of sunlight. The sand was peppered with footprints; a hundred secret, relaxed wanders away from work and prying neighbours. Everyone here was stealing something for themselves. Aphrodite beamed. 

“Ah, shit!” 

She beamed broader at the familiar, gruff bark behind her. She wheeled around to see Ares in his dark, bronze armour, a blood-flow cloak knotted around his waist as he twisted like a fish, trying to unhook it from a nail protruding from one of the abandoned, upturned boats. 

“Fuck. Balls. Crap.” 

She giggled and sashayed over to him. “I’ve seen you make better entrances.”

He looked up, adorably startled. “Aph!” He tried to quickly slip from the tangle and only turned the cloak into a rather fetching corset. “Hi! I, uh… Hey!” He gave up and stood nonchalantly in the tangle. 

Aphrodite grinned and gestured to his battle regalia. “What are you wearing?”

“This is what I wear down here.” He tugged on the cloak. There was a tearing sound, but it somehow didn’t release him. “They imagine me this way.” He scrunched his nose at the wool prison. “Well, not this way, but… Or, you know, buck naked.”

“They're valid, honestly. But…” They snapped their fingers. The cloak and armour vanished, leaving him in nothing but a plain, black, short chiton. 

Ares started and looked down at his liberated body, arms glistening and figure snuggled in the slim cut of the under-garment. “Aph!”

She smirked, dashing a glance over him. “Peace ever in my lands, remember? So loosen up. No gear necessary, let yourself breathe.” 

He folded his arms, giving them a soft, eye-catching bulge. “Oh, so you get to look like that, and I get to walk around looking like you just dragged me outta a stable.”

“That is exactly my favourite dynamic.” They cocked their head and took in his flushed skin and wild hair, blown back out of his brilliant eyes. “Don’t worry, you’re all windswept. You look rugged.”

He shrugged shyly. “Can’t teleport, remember? I have to fly everywhere, it’s a ball ache.”

“What did we talk about? Why didn't you just fall into me waiting for you?”

That blush never got less delicious. “I mean, you made that sound like a whole big emotional deal. This is hanging out.”

She padded along the sand until his distinctive, clean, curry powder fragrance was on her tongue. “But I really want to hang out with you.” He smiled down at her warmly. She perked up. “Try it next time.” He saluted lazily with two fingers. The sunshine perched on the tip of his nose, like a fairy on a leaf. They jumped into his arms. He caught her up, and in an instant she was weightless and boneless in his arms, every inch of them trickling into the pure comfort of his embrace. They buried their face in his soft hair and heaved citrus and spice into her lungs until she was dizzy. “Rhea’s cunt, it’s good to see you.”

“Aph!” 

“Gods, who said that? Unacceptable.”

“You’re a bad person, and it’s so good to see you too.” He hugged them tighter. Her feet drifted from the sand and kicked merrily.

“Do you see how lovely and welcoming I can be when I’m not being duped into thinking I’m about to be put to the sword?”

“I think you know which Aphrodite greeting I liked more.” He chuckled into her cheek through an affectionate kiss. His lips only touched her for a split second, but the sensation lingered like glitter. She would have stayed like this until it went dark, but Ares was restless by nature. He gave them a final, savouring squeeze that went through to their spine, then released them. She caught his hands before he could pull away completely. He smiled sweetly. “How’re you doing? You must be exhausted after yesterday.” 

The procession and ceremony had rung in Aphrodite’s head for hours, but now she felt like everything was happening through a fine layer of cotton wool, their senses sparked out, but pleasantly fuzzy. “I am soooo tired, I think you should carry me all day.” She collapsed against his oak trunk torso. 

Ares guffawed brashly, echoing on the rock. He scooped her tumbling body up and flung her over his broad shoulder. “Like this?”

“No!” she squeaked like a chipmunk.

“It’s the best way I can take all this weight.”

“Excuse me?” She slammed her palms onto his back. “I do not accept cracks about my delicious curves! Fitness junkie is not the only hot!”

He began to amble down the beach, carrying them like cargo. “Not for you, but I’m already a morning run and 300 pull ups into my day.”

“I'm sorry… Morning? Run?”

He tickled her waist with the hand holding her steady. “Well, not all of us get to be drop dead gorgeous by doing nothing but lying on couches and being fed chocolates by naked nymphs.”

“I am the Goddess of Beauty and even I don't think a slammin’ bod is worth running…in the morning.”

“Thank you for the bod comment.”

“I do have direct line of sight on your tush.” She smiled and propped her elbow on his sturdy shoulder blade, leaned on her hand, and peered down the contours of his truly idyllic body. She smacked her lips silently as his ass rocked rhythmically below.

“You can't be that much of a night owl, what about all that morning sex people have?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I do not bless that. Those people are deviants and must be stopped.” She wrinkled her nose more and dipped to the dot of sweat gumming a bit of his chiton to his upper back. They sniffed a little too hard. 

“What are you doing?”

“I’m checking you fucking bathed between all that exercise and seeing me!” 

“I bathed!”

“Mmm, you did.” They drew in a deep draught of him. He smelled wonderful. It wasn’t just his usual tang and malt, he was sweet, but more refreshing than sugar, and floral, but more earthy than petals. “There’s something really nice on you. What is that?”

He kept ambling, shoulder massaging her belly. “I have no idea.”

“It’s your patron capital, you should know what’s in the bath salts.”

“Well, I let Menelaus pick his own bath salts unaided, like some kind of hack patron.”

Her ears pricked. “Wait… you were in Menelaus’ bath?”

His tone turned amusingly breezy. “Um… yeah.”

Her teeth spread, a shark sensing blood in the water. “Why?”

He picked up his pace a little, forgetting he couldn’t run from someone he was carrying. “I stay at his place. His place is, you know, the king’s house, so…”

“Yeah, but gods can make their own quarters.”

“But, you know, I’m spending time.”

She twisted to grin wickedly at the back of his head. “What sorta time?”

“Quality time.”

“Sexy time?”

“Uh…”

Their clever nose twitched. They shamelessly sniffed him again. Their stomach grumbled eagerly. “Mmmm, yep, that’s not bath salts, that’s pleasure!”

Ares dropped her in a burst of sand back onto her feet. “You can tell?” She erupted into gleeful giggles and bounced around like a squirrel. He barrelled into bashful laughter, face and neck searing like rare beef. “That is messed up, Dude! Get outta my hormones!”

“I can’t help it! It’s like asking someone not to overhear something being said right next to them!”

“Uuuugh!” He slammed his hands over his face and crumpled away from them. 

They took his wrists and hung on them, trying to pry them down. “Aw, come on, come outta theeere. I’m very glad you’re getting some!” She let go and bumped her hip to his. “Hey, what’s the use of being the most sizzlin’ steak on this month’s grill if you’re not gonna let anyone take a bite?”

Ares stopped groaning and peeked through his fingers. “I agree.”

“Oh yeah?”

“One might say I’ve been getting around.”

“Been having fun?”

He lowered his hands and gave them a rueful grin. “I’m an Olympic gold medallist who did a damn play-nmph shoot, Aph - yes, I’ve been having fun.”

She snickered and punched his bicep. “Good for you.”

He cuffed her back. “If only there was a sex goddess around here I could be grateful to for the end to my totally brutal, post-campaign dry spell.”

“Truly, you’re glowing.” He actually was. Only the potent mix of yesterday’s exhaustion and excitement to see Ares could have stopped her noticing. Pleasure was all over him like dandelions running wild on a reclaimed lawn. He was sunny with it, ragged with it. The brazen bravado he’d tacked up around himself when they first met was steadily smoothing into a genuine confidence that matured him, made him stand with his head up, turned the light cast by his eyes from raw to rich. It was burdensomely attractive, but it was also deeply moving. He so much deserved to feel like this, to be wanted and enjoying himself.

He smiled lopsidedly and rubbed the back of his neck. He slouched into a slow, directionless walk. She fell into step beside him, her legs moving with the melody of the tide. Sand tickled between her toes. 

He walked until they reached a patch of shade beneath a low, rocky rise. He stopped and leaned casually back against the rock, plucked a blade of the scrub grass clinging to it, and began to pick it apart in his square-tipped fingers. “Menelaus is kinda special, though.”

A small knot formed in Aphrodite’s stomach. She stopped too and played with a dangling crystal on her bracelet, tugging hard enough to risk breaking the link. “Oh? Like, you guys are… dating?” Which would be fine. They were friends. Ares could date if he wanted to. 

“Nah.” She breathed a sigh of relief, then sucked it back in awkwardly. He didn’t seem to notice, plucking another blade of grass and smiling easily at his hands. “Nah, waaaay too messy with patronees.” He shrugged. “Just like, I don’t know, he’s not just fun either. We have a connection, I think.”

They smiled sincerely, glancing to see the great, loving heart in his breast glimmering faintly under his skin. “Warrior bonding, right?”

“More than that. I care a lot about him, like as a whole person, you know? Not just my fighter, not just my king.” She rubbed his arm. He dropped a sprinkle of torn grass into the sand. “Not because of sex, I cared first. I think I care about him more than I want him, really. Not that I’m pushing myself into anything,” he added hastily. “I like it, but I don’t think either of us are really having sex because of the sex. It’s more like…” He ticked his jaw and scruffed his hair. “I don’t know, we have so much to work out and work on, and the guy is stressed, understandably. So, you know, I think, when I need to say something meaningful, something reassuring, let him know I won’t leave him again, well, I’m better at sex than I am at talking, so…” He laughed stiffly under his breath and glanced at her, eyes bright in the shade. She met his earnest, boyish gaze. Their stomach flooded hot. Totally against their rules, a carnival of images gambolled into her mind. Ares’ tender mouth, his shallow breathing, the way he held you like you were as delicate as eggshell and hard as bronze, the way he kissed like it was a promise and moaned like it was a blessing and grazed with his teeth like he was ravenous. Menelaus must feel safer than any hero in the Aegean. Ares’ body radiated love. She sucked her lip, eyes luminous on him. He quirked an eyebrow. “What?”

They bit their lip. “Nothing, nothing… Just that has implications, since I think you’re really good at talking.” She winked. 

His eyes shot wide. Cumin flooded her mouth. She grinned wickedly, lapping at it behind her teeth. He boomed with laughter and prodded her away with tickling jabs to her belly. “You are a vixen!” He threw the remains of the grass into her hair. “Friends!”

“I knooooow!” She cackled like a gremlin and slapped his hands away. “Leopards and spots.” He snorted and shook his head, grinning out to sea. Sun and shadow carved into his strong features. She chuckled and strutted off back into the sunlight along his gaze, a bubble of satisfaction in her belly as he hurried to follow her. They gestured dramatically over their shoulder. “Well, anyway, have deep and profound sympathy for me, because while you were having morning runs and morning pull-ups and morning sex and morning baths, I was supposed to be having morning sleep and was instead dealing with morning work.”

“Work? I thought today was a day off.”

“It is now, but Peitho called me at the crack of dawn.”

“Peitho? How was she not dead from hangover? She was so drunk!”

“I think she was still drunk, pre-hangover. But clear enough to crisis-manage.”

The sand scuffed as he bounded to overtake them and stop them with a flash of his warrior aura. “Woah, woah, crisis?”

His concern rushed a protective cloak around her. They smiled and hugged themself. “Oh, it’s so stupid. Good news, all the trying to piss Zeus off has officially worked.”

He took her arm gently. “What did he do?”

Her heart squeezed, part with the sweetness of his care, part with anger that mention of his father meant darkness to him. They laid their hand comfortingly on his forearm. “Nothing to worry about. He’s clearly upset that your Uncle P keeps taking my side. A very lucrative merchant fleet got stuck in the doldrums. Apparently Zeus pressured Poseidon to make a show of loyalty to him over me.”

Ares gnashed his teeth in a guard dog snarl. “Poseidon needs to grow a fucking spine.”

She circled her thumb over his thudding pulse. “Honey Bear, it’s OK. They’re brothers, they went through a lot. Me and Amphitrite are long used to these minor acts of betrayal. If Posey was the kind of person who could cut his brother off, he wouldn’t be our sweetie squid. I’ll put one less kiss on our texts for a few days, that will punish him plenty, he’ll grieve like you’ve never seen.” 

Ares was not amused. “But what about your fleet? You’re not gonna lose out are you?”

“The goods will keep.”

“The sailors won’t. Won't they wreck without a crew when the wind comes again?”

“Yep.”

“Aph!”

She laughed and patted his chest. “This is where the dawn crisis management comes in. We sent the mermaids with barrels of freshwater to a Cypriot captain. He kept his crew hydrated and sold water to all the struggling ships. The fleet is safe to wait out the doldrums and we made extra cash.” She rubbed her fingers and thumbs together with a cheeky shimmy that made her brooches sparkle. “Thanks to your dad, I can make my next burlesque routine rolling around on a carpet of money.”

Ares laughed like a hull breaking. “Wow. Gorgeous.”

“It’s not his month.”

“I am really fucking enjoying that.”

She snickered and nudged him into walking again. Tide and chatter sighed and skipped around them. They were invisible to the mortals, but as they passed, smiles broadened or sentences lost their thread. They pulled the flow of feeling to them as surely as the moon did the ocean. Ares thumbed his nose and cleared his throat, speaking with the subtlest hint of mischief that hooked Aphrodite effortlessly. “Say, I have a slightly vain question.”

“Shoot, I love vanity.”

“Were you thinking about me last Tuesday?”

“Tuesday?”

“Right before I sent you that woodpecker.”

Aphrodite's cheeks tingled. “Gosh, Honey, no idea, I've slept since then. Why?”

The cocky slyness in his voice tickled down their spine. “Because I took a nap after my run, and when I woke up, roses had grown all around the frame of my bed.”

She stubbed her toe on a pebble. “No! You're kidding!”

“I am not kidding.”

“Oh my Gods, that's so embarrassing!”

That fresh, sweet pleasure scent gushed off him. “So it was you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine who else.” She avoided the rapscallion’s space-heater gaze. “It happens sometimes, it's sorta like a blessing. Like if I'm thinking very positively about someone or really hoping they're doing OK.”

“Naaaaaaw!” He slung his arm around her shoulders and buried her in tacky, umami muscle.

“Shut up!” She didn’t struggle free, but drummed his abs indignantly. They stumbled together. He laughed and released her. She fanned her blush. “Shit, at least you were in private. What did you do to yourself on this run that needed a nap to recover from? I thought exercise was meant to give you energy.”

It was Ares’ turn to blush. “Uh, well, it does, but it can also… you know.”

“I don't.”

“Oh, right. Sooo, when you go for a run and your blood gets pumping, sometimes after you're a little…” He bit his lip.

She put a hand on her hip. “Hold on a dang minute, were you making omens for me fresh from jacking off?”

“You say that like it's bad.”

Her stomach fluttered. “Well, no wonder you got my blessing, you were all up in my domain.”

“Huh.”

“And in that case, say, I have a slightly vain question.”

“Shoot, vanity's hot.”

She hooked the strap of his chiton in her clever finger. “Were you thinking about me earlier that day?”

Ares tripped over driftwood. “Wooooow! We. Are. Friends!”

She giggled fiendishly. “And friends don't keep things from each other.”

“Friends don't ask each other that kind of question!”

“What kind?”

“A fucking trap, that's what!”

Her smirk twisted. She twanged his strap free. “You were totally thinking about me.”

“I was not!”

“What was I doing?”

“Not being such a nosey slut!”

“But another kind of slut, right?”

“FRIENDS!”

“Romantic friends.” Her grin was so wide that it felt like it might ping off her face like a boomerang. Romantic friends was going well. Really well. Nothing made her feel better than a relationship being close and easy, no guesswork, no pangs, just trust and laughter and cosy, crackly energy. It was like getting a massage 24/7, Ares just hit all the right spots. 

“OK, what were you doing to be thinking about me then?” he asked in that tone fresh off laughter that made him sound older and younger at the same time.

She smiled and twirled a lock of her hair. “Oh, just idling about Knidos.” He went silent. “You’ve paused.”

He cleared his throat. “No, you know, I was just thinking, Knidos is your new cocks-on-tap joint, right?”

They put their fist on their hip. “It’s my new temple with my unclothed sacred image at its heart that… has some perks, yes.” Their darling sculptor really had done dream work. The sensual, inviting, intimidating nude statue of her recently unveiled to the growing cult in the city of Knidos had sent the populous into a frenzy of curiosity and desire. Worshippers queued all day and sneaked in all night to view the first image of a naked goddess in this pantheon. Enchanted by the sculpture’s serenity, allure, and promise, worship often turned into something more visceral - caresses, kisses, embraces, more… The stain between the stone legs was becoming the temple's worst kept secret. Just to get anything done, Aphrodite had had to distance her connection to the statue a little, but it gave her a constant humming battery, her body now never quite untouched, never quite ignored. It kept her glowing as she worked all hours, oil in her lamp. 

Ares’ low voice crept to her ear. “And that’s where you were when you were, as you put it, thinking very positively about me.”

She froze. “Ummmm…”

“BUSTED!”

“It’s not how it sounds!”

“What was I doing?”

“Shut up! It’s not funny this way around!”

“Disagreeee!” 

She wilted into giggles and planted her arm over her face. He grabbed it and pulled it down, sand spraying from their heels. The blinding sparkle of the sea showered behind him. She slipped from him in a rush of cool wind and sprang into a run along the beach, sending baskets flying and skirts whipping. Her magenta gown billowed. Her dazzling gems blended her into the dazzle of the warm waves. They felt the edges of them smudging into Paphos, their body soaring into desire and pleasure, risk and success. They glanced back to see Ares chasing them, curls wild, teeth sharp, grin ablaze under the glow of his hot, hungry eyes. She squealed with delight and ran for the path to take them up into the city. It was time to lead him astray.

 

*

 

Part III. Morning. Little Minoa, Olympus.

 

Hestia turned her face up to the sun. It dappled her face through the fluttering laundry lines stitching the two sides of the street together. She walked with her heavy, prim step through the cat's cradle of narrow lanes forming Little Minoa. Nymphs in sweaty tank tops drooped like their drying bedsheets and bras over slivers of iron balconies, cigarettes withering and foreheads damp. Bougainvillea spread like wildfire up the peach and yellow buildings, consuming the chipped windows and shrouding the looping, splashing graffiti. Two men in boxer shorts sat on a doorstep, a bucket of ice holding cans of beer between them. One was rambling as the other listened softly. A TV blared from a cupboard-sized sports bar with its door propped open to let the heat escape. A rat scurried in the gutter. A family clanked about in an open window, children bellowing with glee and parents clapping for them. The air was damp with sweat and shimmering with colour. 

Hestia smiled as she passed the dozens of homes - tiny, airless, cracked boxes rented out by charlatans, but still glowing with the warm, honeyed aura that fuelled her. It was strong here, sweet and thick, the homes stacked so close together that they all spilled into each other, feeding each other. Most were usually tainted with the moulding flavour of anxiety over paying the rent. There was something specific about the twist in her gut when she sensed a home at risk, it made her sick to her core. But today was a lazy day, and they could take it off from worrying. The Goddess of the Hearth passed by, and everyone felt a little more secure behind their front doors. A grandmother made lunch, her fingers soaked in tomato and cucumber. A toddler played with a kitten. A pregnant person found a spot just out of the sun and rubbed olive oil into their belly. Hestia’s soothing, stabilising energy wafted from the basket on her arm and settled over the neighbourhood. 

She came to a door with a wreath of bold calla lilies. She knocked. A few creaks and shuffles behind the door, then it opened to reveal two nymph women, both in bralets and pyjama shorts. The taller, curvy one was fanning herself with a magazine, her orange hair frizzing in the heat. The short, slight one had a tattoo of a dove on her tummy and had piled her sleek, blue hair on top of her head. She grinned merrily and waved. “Lady Hestia!”

Both women hugged Hestia, she hugged them back firmly, then stood back. “Hello, Chloe, Penny, how are you?” She frowned gently at Penny, the blue nymph. “How's your cough?”

Penny tapped her throat. “All better, thanks.”

“I can finally sleep again, she's not rattling the walls,” Chloe grumbled.

Penny flicked a look at her, then turned back brightly. “What brings you to town?”

Hestia smiled. “Blessings.” She drew back the cloth covering her basket. The girls leaned over it with their nostrils flaring. Delicious steam floated up to them, the unmatchable scent of fresh baked bread. They hummed in harmony. “No matter how much you eat, the loaf will never cool and never deplete.”

Chloe flapped her magazine to her heart. “Oh, that's so sweet!”

Hestia shook her head and handed them a loaf wrapped in brown paper. The flaky crust crackled under her touch, giving way to the springy, fluffy bread beneath. Penny took the loaf and smelled it with a cartoonish sniff that made her bob onto her toes. Her pointed ears flickered. 

“Guys!” A rich voice called from behind them. “Are we leaving this movie on pause until the sequel comes out or… Hestia?” A dark face emerged in the crowded doorway, magenta eyes sharp, lips pursed. 

Hestia raised her basket in front of her guardedly. “Peitho?”

Peitho shouldered past the roommates to stand like a bouncer in front of them, despite being the shortest one. She folded her arms and scowled. “What are you doing here?”

Penny waved the bread under her nose. “She brought us a blessing!”

Peitho’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Hestia rolled her eyes. 

Chloe glanced between them and hooked Penny’s middle. “Let's go back in.”

“What? Why are- oh!” 

“Thank you, Hestia!” Chloe called as she pulled Penny inside. 

Hestia nodded to them warmly. “Don't worry, my dears.”

Peitho looked over her shoulder to watch them go out of sight, then stomped onto the doorstep and slammed the door behind her. “Don't even try it.”

Hestia blinked, taken aback. “Try what?”

It didn’t matter that Peitho’s hair was a bird’s nest or that there was a large ice cream stain on the tit of her t-shirt, she still boiled like a poisonous foxglove potion. “Converting them. I know you know they're sex workers. What's in the bread? Purification yeast?”

Hestia looked at her patiently, smoothing the cloth back over the loaves. “There is no such thing, don’t talk nonsense. Yes, I know they're sex workers. No, I'm not converting anyone. When Zeus cut the power to this part of the city, I came around doing some maintenance. I decided not to quit when the lights came back on.”

“What kind of maintenance? Spiritual?”

“I fired their ovens.”

Peitho scoffed loudly. “Oh, you fired their…” She faltered. “Excuse me?”

Hestia blushed amber. This goddess’ glare was like one of those desk lamps that police shone into the eyes of suspects. Hestia shuffled a little with the discomfort of talking about her own actions. She always felt like she didn’t have enough to say. “I blessed the ovens with my flame, so they would keep working without power.”

A stiff, stunted pause. Peitho swung her hip out and pouted. “Well… that's… not unhelpful… I guess…” Her sleek eyebrows spiked. “But with what conditions?”

Hestia prickled and drew herself up. “No conditions. I may not approve of their work, but I don't let people starve. That’s the point of me.” The grace eyed her suspiciously. She puffed through her nose. “TGOEM is all about giving people options. The first thing people need to have options are food and shelter. There's no true decision if made in desperation.”

“That includes joining TGOEM.”

“Yes, it does. That’s why I don’t talk about TGOEM here. Only if people express looking for alternatives. They’ve already had to go down enough paths in desperation.”

Peitho frowned warily, then bunched her shoulders. “So, that's the only reason anyone would choose sex work? Or anything in Aphrodite's domain? Desperation? That’s all you see here, in this beautiful part of the city?”

“Not all.” Hestia looked up at the fluttering laundry and flaring flowers and the tired but soft faces turned to each other on balconies. Her heart swelled as she saw the little comforts and comradeships being exchanged, but clenched at every bruise or empty stomach. “But it’s here.” She levelled her gaze on Peitho. “And you can't deny, she works well with that emotion.”

Peitho shifted her weight awkwardly. She shook out her untamed hair. “And if someone, like Chloe or Penny, was fed and housed and had friends and doctors, and still chose sex work, what then?”

Hestia shifted her weight awkwardly. She raised her round chin. “Fear can make people desperate, as much as reality. What Zeus did proved they have reason to fear.”

“They do not.” Peitho’s magenta eyes blazed ferociously, but she stayed quiet. “Aphrodite fixed it. Aphrodite will always fix it, and they know that.”

“Then where was she? Where was she when they needed to be able to cook and stay warm at night?” The hearth flame in Hestia’s belly lashed. “In Zeus’ gaze, making themself a spectacle for him.”

“Persuading him to restore the power!” Peitho glared up at her. “Zeus has the power, he has it all, so if we want it, we have to go to him.”

“We don’t!” Hestia pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned a puff of smoke through it. “That’s what I try to tell people!” She pressed her hands together pleadingly. “There is power in us, we don’t need him or his kind at all. I can light their ovens and their candles. Everything Zeus claims we need from him is his invention. We buy his grace at prices we can’t afford.”

“Exactly!”

“And… What?”

“Exactly, we do.” Peitho was stammering slightly, seemingly confused by agreeing with her. She recovered herself. “So Aphrodite struts right into his vault and takes what we’re owed.”

The flame smouldered determinedly. “But imagine living as if you didn’t need to go to him at all.”

Peitho scoffed even louder. “Imagining is lovely, Hestia, but we live in the real world.”

“It is my real world.” She gestured around the street. “It can be anyone’s, more and more when we work together.”

“Maybe I don’t like your working conditions.”

“Maybe you’re too tempted by Zeus’ way of holding power.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Hestia’s hands twisted on the woven handle of the basket. “First, this Ourania nonsense. Tying their importance to a long dead man who brutalised his wife, using Zeus’ exact playbook, giving a goddess’ credence to the faux glory of those titanic men. Then this morning, I was called to your neck of the woods, or the waves.”

“Oh?” The feigned ignorance was quite the performance.

Hestia’s tone darkened as her flame chewed her insides. “Sailors in the doldrums praying for food and water.”

“We handled that.”

It was too hot today for this sensation inside her. She puffed smoke out again, a slick of sweat on her back under her loose dress. “I don’t know if I’d say that. You exploited them.”

“Excuse me?”

“As they looked to be stuck too far from the shore, a Cypriot captain announced he had dozens of barrels of freshwater. For a price.”

Peitho’s lips went very tight. “Mhmm.”

Hestia consciously smoothed her shoulders, but her fingers ached with her grip on the basket. “Aphrodite has made a lot of speeches about the imbalance of wealth to mark up water in a drought.”

“They’re merchants, Hestia, trade is their honour.”

“They’re people, they need water to survive.”

The grace’s stormy expression flickered. Her lip quivered and, for a moment, Hestia wondered if she could just reach out… But, Peitho quickly redoubled. “Zeus stopped the winds to prevent our isle from making its money, we thwarted him.”

Money, money, she was so sick of that word in the mouths of immortals. “But how is what you did to those sailors any different to what he did here when he ransomed your electricity?”

Peitho glowed like a flare gun. “We don’t claim to own all the water in existence and wield it as our weapon!”

“If it’s the only water they could access, it may as well have been all of it in the world!”

“Those barrels were sold at an affordable price. Mercantilism is not capitalism.”

“Well, it looked to me like your captain was capitalising on desperation.”

“Dex was fulfilling a need and taking reasonable compensation.”

“If it's a need, then it's a right!”

“Get off your high horse!”

Hestia’s stomach ached brutally as her hearth fire churned. A squeak echoed from an apartment overhead as a stove burst to life without warning. She crumpled behind her basket and took a slow breath, but the air was hot and only made the flame rush. “My high horse? I’m not the one going on and on about the evils of kings while I twine my power with their bloodline and butter my toast with liquid gold!”

“No,” Peitho growled through pearly teeth, “you’re going on and on about the evils of wealth while ignoring the difference it makes to the people you claim to feed. Sex work is done in desperation? All work is done in desperation, Hestia. All of it. Because somewhere down the line, the kings decided that we owed them money for the privilege of surviving.” Her face fell. She rubbed her arm. For a heart-wrenching moment, it struck Hestia how young she was. She remembered when she first saw this little girl. She used to fly through the streets on roller blades, pigtails whipping, buck teeth in a broad grin. Then fresh out of high school she was on the arm of some business magnate. She had a skinned knee from roller-blading when Hestia saw her walking out of that restaurant. Then she never saw her roller blade again. Her belly scrunched painfully and her eyes pricked. Peitho sighed and spoke low. “Of course we both wish that weren't the case, but it is, and while it is, Aphrodite makes sure that work is at least pleasurable and prosperous.” Her eyes flashed dark. “That’s the difference between us. I want everyone to be rich. You want everyone to be poor.”

The flame withered. Hestia looked uncomfortably around her at the cracked walls and glimpses of tired bodies. The accusation pricked her deep. She clutched the basket handle and squared her shoulders. “I don’t believe anyone would be poor if nobody scrambled for wealth. Water is a basic right, it shouldn’t take generosity, it certainly shouldn’t mean profit.” It was Peitho’s turn to look away. She hesitated, then grunted and grabbed the door handle behind her. Hestia thrust a hand forward, the feeling of a girl slipping away sharp and cold. “You say that women can take power from men, that the poor can take power from the rich, beg, borrow and steal to live as best we can. But Peitho…”

“What?” she snapped.

“You quit.”

She fumbled with the door. “What?”

All the sternness left Hestia. She spoke gently, a quaver in her voice as her heart fluttered. “How long has it been since you put yourself on the arm of a rich man who didn’t care about you?” Peitho froze. “About as long since you found purpose with other women?”

Peitho stood perfectly still, like coral growing from the stone. Hestia’s hand stayed hovering out for her, feeling empty and warm. Their eyes met, wide and glistening. Then Peitho frowned, seized the door handle, and turned it hard. “I never hated myself, and neither do my friends here, but you always wanted us to. You have a problem with everyone else putting a price on things? Maybe you shouldn’t put a price on self-respect.” The door banged open and closed. She was gone.

Rainbow shadows rippled over Hestia as the gust from the slam blew the laundry lines. She stood in the echo of Peitho’s words with the flame in her belly shrunken and her palms clammy. 

Is that what I do? Did I make it harder for you? But I could feel it, even with a house, you were homeless. Did I keep you from feeling you could come home?

On the other side of the door, Peitho leaned her back against the wood and hugged her middle as it caved. The defiance fled her. She was shaking. Her eyes stung.

It’s so humiliating if I say I wasn't happy. I couldn’t go to you because that made it my redemption. I didn’t want to feel like I needed redemption. But, if I don’t admit that it was hard and cold, that… that maybe you were right about how I was feeling… do I send other girls to the wolves? Am I climbing out of the pit on their backs? And on the backs of those sailors? When does make that money become make money who you are? Gods. Shit.

She shook her head, wiped her eyes hastily, and hurried back to her movie marathon.

Hestia moved back the cloth on the basket and looked at the assortment of loaves in brown paper. The amber glow of her blessing trickled through the wicker. She grounded herself in this duty. One small act at a time. She squared her shoulders and set off to the next house.

 

*

 

Part IV. Midday. Paphos, Cyprus.

 

If you had been in Paphos a long time ago, and you let your mind wander and your vision blur in the heat haze, you may have caught something in the corner of your eye. A flash of purple and yellow, like two crocuses sprouting in the seam between realms. But you probably wouldn’t have noticed it, because Paphos was a carnival of stimuli. The moment he stepped off the beach, Aphrodite’s city stroked over Ares’ skin with the sensual burn of silk. His pupils bloomed, his mouth watered, the pit of his stomach thrummed. 

It was a place tumultuous with riches and curiosities. Wagons trundled by laden with sticky barrels and sculpted jars. Wine sloshed, oil fluted, pears and plums swelled to split their skins and trickled over fingers and restless lips. Writing scrawled over lintels and signs and scrolls, threads of black blessings, slogans, poetry, love letters, receipts, contracts, treatises, and stories like the mending stitches in patchwork. Stalls and windows displayed alluring painting, glinting metalwork, and fine cloth. Gowns cascaded, jewellery glittered, vines spiralled, flowers erupted. Lyres hummed softly as their strings were brushed by the breeze. The interlocking circles of astrological instruments whirred hypnotically. Sunbeams glanced off elegant blades and wrapped around the curves of perfume bottles shaped like women. It was cluttered and chaotic, but every object and person was a purposeful piece of art. Wealth and style dripped from every surface. The tangy, fruity sizzle of cooking and the lulling smoke of incense poured indulgence into the atmosphere. 

Streams of people flooded every street like spilled paint; bright rainbow clothing, rattling beads, jagged tattoos, fluttering fans. Sweat streaked their arms and backs, malting their perfumes and smudging bold make-up. Scent hurled through Ares’ senses - sweetness, freshness, spice, musk, the swamp of bodies in the heat, the breeze of the sea. Under it all, cinnamon. The obsessing flavour of Aphrodite’s delicious temper suffused the island. He sucked on it until his tongue ached. Wading into their capital, he realised with a leap of his blood that this might tell him what her anger tasted of. Everyone’s anger was unique, but it had recognisable notes, his mother’s bitterness, his father’s need for control, his sister’s irritation with the incorrect. The moment he’d first tasted Aphrodite, he’d found a spice in her like nothing he’d ever known. He had yet to define it. Maybe in Paphos, he could understand her better. 

His fascinating goddess flowed in front of him, holding his hand and pulling him along effortlessly. Their shimmering hair and raspberry dress pranced in the salted breeze. Rubies glittered in their hair and left sunspots on his vision. They were like a jellyfish gliding in the water, luminous and ethereal, their frills and ribbons swirling out in firework trails. He followed her with his pulse cantering like his fire-breathing horses.

Copper was everywhere, moulded into weapons, amulets, crockery, and delicate beauty tools. It adorned throats, ears, breasts, and hair, twinkled on wheels, and glowed above doors. It cast the streets into a dreamy, pink-tinged haze. Light had a magical quality here. Paphos called the sun down to it, a longing lover pleading to be buried under rolling heat. Stone fried, glass flared, metal blazed, but it wasn’t harsh. It was festive with light, touching the angles of faces and cups of flowers so their beauty focused in the centre of the eye. The noon ferocity didn’t scorch, it sank under the skin and pulsed, blood vessels blooming like anemone flowers, flesh receptive and aroused. Being here meant moving through the Goddess of Beauty. Ares was overwhelmed by how enchanting anyone could be when you looked for beauty, how attraction seemed to seep into every fleeting snatch of attention. A woman sauntered by with the strap of her chiton slipping down to show a tattoo of an octopus, tentacles cloying around her arm and over her breast. His tongue writhed. A shirtless man perched in his window massaging oil into his chest. It gleamed over the contours of his muscle. Ares gulped. He gripped Aphrodite’s hand.

They threw him a knowing look over their shoulder. “Down boy.”

He grimaced. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. These folks have been bathing in Aphrodite’s waters.”

She spun to face him, still pulling him along, walking backwards. “I have that effect on people, it’s true.”

“I’ve definitely gotten sexier since we started hanging out.”

“Oh, for sure.” She giggled, spun back, and drew him on.

The city was a medley of grandeur and coarseness. Great columns and archways cast the streets into apricot shadow, but their severity was swallowed up by colour and softness. Opulent carvings of leaves and apples and saturated painted roses brought the stone to life. Open doors showed floors glittering with blue mosaics like shaded pools. It appeared more a garden than a town, more grown than built. Amongst the impressive masonry, ramshackle stalls and weather-beaten cottages clambered into every available space, spilling over with garish drapes and treasures. They splashed noise and loud hues and patterns into the streets, as if the garden was overrun by squawking parrots. 

Aphrodite slowed to walk beside Ares, swinging his hand. “So, how do you wanna do this? Sightseeing? Food tour? Take in a show?”

“I have no idea,” Ares replied. He ran his thumb over their fingers. “Whatever you wanna show me.”

“Everything!” They had an adorable spring in their step. “Fates, I don’t know!”

He laughed and squeezed her hand. “Look, this was supposed to be your day off. So, let’s not do any big plans. Do what you would feel like doing to relax, and I’ll tag along.”

They beamed up at him. “I just love being here, soaking it up.”

“Then let’s soak.” He took a step in front and pulled her softly to come with him. They began to walk instinctively, as if the city was music guiding them to dance. Just a few days ago, Ares had been awkwardly negotiating his bulk through the angular, pristine streets of Athens. His sister's city was a stoic fortress that he had to slot into. It struck him how different Paphos was, a river moving around him, his body borne on a swift current through ever unfolding spectacle. Except it was more than just something to look at, everything that caught the eye quickly snared the body, just a wisp of a boundary between passing by and communing. 

It seemed to be that way for everyone. People endlessly veered off into curious conversations, eager hawking, friendly recognition, and easy-going flirting. His eyes drifted over a lithe man leaning against a wall. A taller, bulkier man had his wrist propped above his head, bowing smoothly to mutter in his ear. Their knees tapped together. A woman chopped zingy herbs on a food stall as she doggedly questioned a skinny philosopher, her fingers stained with coriander and his with ink. A bead-decked person with a neat goatee and extremely boosted breasts used their glamour to entrap innocents in their jewellery-selling patter. It was as if everyone had an in-built magnet that kept them pinging together as they tried to walk.

That was certainly Aphrodite’s problem. Ares kept finding his hand empty as she was distracted by her mortals. He felt her slip away and looked around to see a squat, middle aged woman with bright purple eyes shuffling to a table under a parasol, occupied by three younger women. She wore a raspberry apron and carried a tray of painted cups filled with pomegranate juice and mint leaves. She set it down, and the girls cooed in delight at the arrival of refreshment. The woman beamed. “Look at all of you, pretty as a summer afternoon.” Her voice croaked, but it was familiar.

The young women all smiled. They were seated in a triangle, taking it in turns to makeover the one on their left in the fashions of their homeland. An Egyptian woman in elegant muslin precisely lined an Ethiopian woman's piercing eyes in kohl. The Ethiopian woman decorated the plump face of a Germanic woman in stark spots and stripes with white pigment. The Germanic woman wove the Egyptian woman's hair into a thick braid around her head like a crown. The Egyptian chortled. “But never as beautiful as The Goddess, ha?” 

The aproned woman laughed and patted her shoulder. “Now you will be safe, Petal.” She bustled away, and Aphrodite was at Ares’ side again.

He grinned. “What are you, the piety police?” 

“I didn't tell her to say that!” She slapped his arm. 

He snickered and hooked her hand again. He gazed around the bubbling scene.  It seemed to be a stage with the whole world parading across it. His attention was pulled apart until it burst like confetti. But no sooner had something drawn his eye than it was interrupted by a violet-eyed seeming-mortal. A scrawny, little girl joined children playing knucklebones. A strapping young man climbed up scaffolding to retrieve a thrown doll, then flirted outrageously with the toddler’s mother. A blind seer clasped the hand of a lost-looking boy and told him of a rich future. A chic, whippet-bodied person with an amputated arm told dirty jokes to a gang of sailors. A bald woman put on beeswax lipstick. A chubby man in a wheelchair examined the designs of a tattoo artist. Aphrodite appeared in the city in countless guises, and as she did, the special beauty of that ordinary form glimmered.

“How much? I could get a new set of teeth for that!” An irate, booming voice came from behind him. He turned to see Aphrodite transformed into a fat sailor with an immense, black beard braided with quartz. He was glaring incredulously at a small, copper dish engraved with grapes.

“This,” replied a shopkeeper who looked uncannily like a praying mantis, “is the finest Cypriot copper, blessed by Aphrodite herself! It will never bend or tarnish!”

The large sailor loomed through the barricade of goods between him and the shopkeeper. “Aphrodite has never promised that copper doesn’t tarnish. Does it not turn the colour of her own ocean? Does she not accompany all on their changes of state?”

The shopkeeper squinted irritably through tiny spectacles. “I’m not here to philosophise, I’m here to sell.”

“And I’m here to buy, but not get ripped off!”

“How dare you accuse me of unfair business practices!”

Ares grinned as no real anger seemed to come from the argument. Indeed, both participants seemed to be enjoying themselves.

“If you’re fair then offer me a fair price!”

“And go home empty-handed to my four… no, five… no, seven starving children!”

He smirked as he watched the fight escalate in pitch and speed, tip-tapping on his skin. Quite out of nowhere, a deep laugh shook the stall, and the sailor strode away carrying an armful of purchases. He vanished into the crowd, and Aphrodite was back at Ares’ side, no trinkets in sight. She hopped onward like one of the sparrows lining the rooftops.

They walked through courtyards where dancers were practising in rippling circles. Vivid masks turned their faces otherworldly. Their bare feet stamped and slid through the dust. It sprinkled up their strong calves. They bounded like deer, white linen slipping from their thighs so the curve of them crested into the sun. Their hips rocked and serpentined in low-slung belts of jostling fruit vines. The ground was littered with fallen figs and petals, mulching sweetness into the air as they crushed them in their steps. The red remains of the figs smeared over their feet. Ares stared, his muscle ticking in their beat. Each thrust of their palms and toss of their hair hit his body as if they were flailing ecstatically in his arms. 

He turned to Aphrodite, but she was gone. He looked back to the dancers and saw a new body twined in the pattern. They had slipped into another mortal guise, hair in a platinum blonde fountain from a high ponytail, tanned skin glowing against the white fabric, only recognisable through the dazzling violet eyes behind the mask. He watched her dance among them, curves like water and strength like jabbing spears. Her presence whipped the others into a frenzy. Their stomachs stretched, fists flew, and shoulders jerked, their movements pushed to the extreme of energy and skill. Arousal thumped in his abdomen. His palms sweat. 

The dance slammed to a finish. The dancers turned breathless to see who had joined them, but Aphrodite was invisible again. They supposed they must have imagined another figure in the whirl. As she returned to him, Ares had to lock his arms by his side to keep himself from catching her up and begging her to move like that on him, to use him as the floor with ruined fruit ground into his skin. But she knew, of course she knew, he could see it in the shape of her smile. He narrowed his eyes. “Friends.”

She looked at him with incense smoke curling in her wide pupils. “I’m not flirting with you. I’m showing you my capital.” They drew the point of their fingernail behind his ear and murmured low into it. “This is how it’s supposed to be experienced. In the pulse. On the tongue.”

He growled ruefully under his breath, but tumbled willingly into the battle with temptation. 

“I’ll tell you something that bugs me,” they said in their rhythmic alto. “We treat arousal as pain.”

“It can be,” Ares grunted.

They smirked at him and continued. They ducked under garlands of flowers strung between low rooftops, neighbours leaning out of windows and gossiping overhead. “We see it as a state purely asking for release, like pain does. It feels painful because we clench up the second we feel it, embarrassed or irritated. Sex becomes something to make arousal go away, not a way to enjoy it.” Their fingers brushed his wrist. “Relax, Honey Bear. Relax into it. You’ve learned to let your body smoulder when you’re fighting or exercising. Don’t you kinda like that burn?”

“Yeah, I guess. There’s a fine line between that and being turned on, honestly.”

“Exactly, so you know you can handle it. You don’t go into that burn looking to expel it. You hold yourself in it because it connects you with your body and your power. Let yourself be in this state. Once you stop pulling against it, it feels…” She met his eyes and lost her thread. 

His cheeks tingled. “It feels…?”

A pair of doves took off from a nearby windowsill. A shower of feathers broke the sunlight into white shards between them.

She took off too. 

Traders, diplomats, scholars, explorers, and fortune seekers swarmed in every open space and packed under every bright, canvas awning. All of them popped and flourished with energy. Ares’ divinity crackled in their presence. There weren't the brambles of anger groping through the atmosphere that he was used to on Olympus and in Athens. But emotion was high. It wasn't sticky or grating or clogging the air. It was more like the bottom of a waterfall, thrilling rush meeting deep peace in a burst of foam and mist. Thousands of droplets of feeling made the air brisk and sparkling. He let it settle in his lungs and stomach. He swilled it around his mouth. Again, that whisper of cinnamon.

Desire.

Desire.

That’s it!

Everyone here wanted something. Everyone here craved. But not from deprivation, that always tasted sour, or entitlement, that was like off dairy. No, the fine edge of anger here sharpened with the sensing of opportunity. It was the sweet prickle of fury that there was more out there - more beauty, more discovery, more pleasure, more riches - and it wasn’t yet in your hands. But it tussled with the joy of the chase, the promise of indulgence, spurred them on by snapping at their heels. Anger was passion’s playmate, rather than its darkness.

He leaned against a stall selling shells painted with erotic scenes. His gaze roved over heavy, black lines giving weight to the curves of femme figures. He watched Aphrodite coo at a sparrow perched on their finger. She was in the form of a girl now, a little younger than him, buck-toothed and slight. The sparrow flapped away, and she turned to join a gathering of girls sitting beside a trickling fountain. A carved mermaid poured the cool, crystal water from a shell. Someone had put a crown of hyacinth on her tilted head. 

The girls all produced paper and styli from their satchels, while an older woman in a pale pink dress read from a scroll. “‘What do you have in mind, to idly rend me shaking from desire loosening knees?’”

Ares cocked an eyebrow. She lowered the text and adjusted her spectacles. “So, let’s discuss the communication of desire.” 

Aphrodite’s new character sat modest and attentive. He waited for her to pipe up, but she just listened to what the girls had to say. Together, they pulled apart ideas, coming out of themselves as they responded to each other faster, like the party game where everyone has to keep a balloon in the air. The shimmer from the fountain pranced on their faces.

The teacher smiled and nodded encouragingly. “What about the word ‘idly’? Why do we think that might be important?”

A student waved, then went back to nudging her fingers around some kind of wooden puzzle toy, occupying her hands. “It’s casual, right? It’s falling to desire in the norm. It contrasts with ‘rend me shaking,’ which is so impactful, almost destructive. Desire is a big thing in small moments.”

“I love that!” The teacher clapped. “And I think it builds on what we talked about last week, on appetite. Appetite is part of daily life, it has to be fed to be sustained.” A couple of girls exchanged glances. Ares remembered that I don’t remember the lesson look. The teacher smiled reassuringly. “Have you ever got so hungry that you stop wanting food, even though your stomach aches for it? Or got so out of the rhythm of eating that your body simply stops telling you to? If we deny ourselves, that part of us dries up, becomes a painful husk that we don’t want to touch, or a void draining our energy. Desire and pleasure, however they manifest, grow healthy in us if we treat ourselves gently, feed them regularly and well, just like our bodies learn to signal hunger by being satisfied.”

Everyone scribbled, heads so deep in their notes that they didn’t notice the bucky student disappear. 

Ares welcomed Aphrodite back with a grin. “So, school here is sitting around talking smut, huh?”

They pinched his side. “She’s holding a symposium on Sappho.”

“Ah, Lesbian Book Club.”

She laughed. “I’ll have you know, Plato calls Sappho the Tenth Muse. She’s sort of a priestess of mine, a scholar of emotion and sexuality. Those things are an art to her.” They sighed romantically. “That’s what makes her irresistible.”

He chuckled and dropped his head back against the stall post. The sun blurred his eyes through the fluttering garlands. Bees hummed around them, burrowing into their centres, hidden gold. Snippets of song, gossip, laughter, argument, and poetry puffed out of chimneys and tumbled over doorsteps. A throaty moan drifted into the mix. He rolled his head and peeked into a nearby window, half concealed by a curtain. A couple was sinking onto a cushioned diwan, sliding out of their clothes. A brown breast rose into view, consumed by a gasping mouth. A fresco of their goddess loomed over them, reclined naked in a fanning seashell, eyes direct, lips parted. 

Relax into it, Honey Bear.

He wasn't so sure he could. There was something haywire in his veins. His lips felt stung by the bees in the garlands. His nipples were tight. But it was exciting, the sensation of promise more than frustration.

That striking goddess image was everywhere. In every tucked away corner and alcove, black, startling eyes met Ares’ through veils of petals and a clutter of dishes and bottles. Shrines to Aphrodite, each one carefully tended and laden with offerings, were painted with red nipples on round breasts, fat vulvas below flat pecs, delicate cocks nestled into feminine curves. They had so many bodies. So many ways to take him over…

Sweet Asphodel…

So, her wrath came from desire, and he’d never tasted anything like it. Had Olympus forgotten how to want things? Maybe they’d become conceited enough to simply be indignant at a lack, rather than drawn by a possibility. He'd grown up in strict order, trained away from joy at every opportunity. Joy was a nonsense, a rare treat earned through work and achievement. One held power and poise by not giving into it too often. But for Aphrodite, it was their power. They plunged into the decadence and freedoms and beauties around them and emerged glistening brighter, strutting and regal, but tender and open-armed. Everything that made them special was in overdrive. Ares had spent his life around gods, but nothing could have immunised him to the sheer power radiant in her. She was so much more than a god at work, this place was working through her. They were a prism concentrating every beam of energy, then firing it out in rainbow bolts. This joyful goddess with her nurtured appetite could consume the realms - and the Pantheon with them. 

She darted away again, this time invisible and muttering, “Absolutely not.” They scurried over to a young girl peering out of a doorway. She was mooning over a passing man with perfect teeth in a charming smile. She was about to step from the doorway to join him when Aphrodite pounced. “No, no! Not good for you.” She clapped her hand and from it appeared a lavender butterfly. The butterfly danced in front of the girl’s nose, distracting her as Aphrodite shoved the charming man away with a gust of wind. The butterfly vanished, and the girl’s eyes rested just as Aphrodite turned into a cat and tripped up a boy into her eyeline. The teenagers blinked at each other and smiled. The cat trotted to Ares’ legs, wound around them with a long purr, and shot back up into goddess form, dusting off her hands. “That was close.”

He grinned. “Is this efficient? Individual meddling?”

She shrugged. “There isn’t really a way to be efficient about feelings. Gotta stay on your toes.”

“Is this how you hang out here? As one of them? Or… lots of them?”

They smiled. “You’ve been learning well that gods can do good work up close and personal.”

He nodded. “But they know I’m a god. You’re being all… undercover boss.”

“I am not being undercover boss! I’m not trying to catch anyone out.”

“No? Mx Not Prettier than The Goddess? Mx Aphrodite Welcomes Tarnish?”

They pouted at him. “I didn’t start either of those. It’s not my fault I’m a hot topic.” They linked his arm. With a tingle through his body, Ares noticed the buildings grow a few inches. No, wait… He shrunk? He blinked down at himself to see his war-wrought physique replaced with a short, pudgy, wrinkled, old man, knees sunburned and toes hairy. Beside him, Aphrodite bobbed along like a dumpling in soup, a grey braid loose by her plump cheek and a walking stick tapping by her blue skirts. 

He laughed quizzically. “Okay, I’ll play.”

“You always do. That’s why I like you.”

They made their way down the street. Vendors beckoned them, young people crooned or giggled, and traders nodded politely. Aphrodite beamed at everyone, a cosy grandmother quality to her diminutive guise. “Gods work with big ideas and even bigger feelings,” she said in a new voice like cookie dough. “It’s made it very easy for us to dismiss the everyday. Too many people only call on us for their turning points. But life isn’t just emptiness between big moments.” 

A woman in a masculine chiton rubbed her girlfriend’s back, a pretty girl in grassy green going starry eyed over an array of lapis necklaces. The masc woman encouraged her to choose a gift. 

Aphrodite rapped her cane on the ground. A lavender shimmer danced through the dust and vanished into the creases of the couple’s clothes. “There is richness in everything. How someone or somewhere or something makes you feel when nothing is making it exciting, in the mundane, that’s how you know.” Their eyes twinkled up at Ares, tell-tale behind her wrinkled mask. 

He frowned. “Know what?”

“The truth of it.” 

A child ran past her and tripped on her stick. Ares lurched out and caught him. The boy gazed up in surprise at the old, sunburned man with red eyes. “Close one, Sir!”

Ares chuckled, sounding oddly papery. Aphrodite reached into a pocket and produced a honeyed date wrapped in a vine leaf. She gave the boy the sweet and patted his head. “Don’t worry, little one, any good grown up will catch a falling child.”

The boy looked a little blank, but grinned with a “thanks!” and hurried along. Ares was left with a warm hand, a pleasant stirring in his powers as he offered a small aid for nothing important. Aphrodite eyed him. “When you ask someone for their story, they’ll always tell you their big moments, their traumas and breakthroughs. I think people are far more made by the little stitches in the weave. The number of times a stranger caught them when they tripped, or a shopkeeper found them the perfect thing, or a friend complimented them, or a parent dismissed them, or a lover held or burned them, the things they read and the things they encounter, the little rewards and disappointments. Love, religion, I think it’s about your everyday. I don’t think something so important should only be called on to do its work when push comes to shove.” 

Someone sauntered by with a basket of roses, their luxurious fragrance wending through the heat. Aphrodite nudged Ares, who smirked and gave them a coin for the reddest one. He handed it to Aphrodite. The seller pressed their heart to see this old couple still practicing romance. 

Aphrodite bobbed her snub nose into the flower. “So, I walk among them, sampling their mundane. It’s taught me a great deal about how best to be their goddess.” She gazed at the masc woman clasping the chosen necklace around her girlfriend’s freckled neck, then peppering it with kisses. “It’s shown me the best of them. The way they care and consider when there’s no glory in it.” She handed the rose on to another elderly woman sitting alone on a low wall. She was also watching the couple, remembering a lost loved one, perhaps. She broke from her reverie to look up at Aphrodite with misty eyes. She took the rose gratefully. They exchanged a blessing. 

They kept walking, constantly punctuated by small interactions. They bought hot tea and cold fruit. They stopped by a pair of buskers playing drums and panpipes, and tapped their feet. They met someone’s dog, and someone else’s parakeet. They had several conversations about the weather, a few more about how business was. There was invariably some gossip about the next stallholder over. 

As they continued on in the guise of old mortals, Ares was touched to find them being offered cool drinks, shade, and chairs. They settled themselves in an offered spot under a row of lemon trees. Their sharp sweetness teased Ares’ tongue, and their leaves tinted the sandy street fresh yellow. 

Aphrodite dropped their gaze and perked up with a happy squeak. “Oh, I love these!” They bent and brushed their fingers through a row of tiny, purple flowers sprouting through the cracks in the paving. 

“What are they?”

“You’re such a guy. They’re violets.”

“Huh.”

“Aren’t they cute?”

“Sure.”

They wrinkled their nose at his lack of appreciation. She plucked one and held it up between their faces. “Look. Their petals look like puckered lips.” She pouted.

His throat went hot. Apparently crone form didn’t make her less sexy. “Oh, yeah, funny.”

She nodded the flower to him. He smiled and kissed it, delicate on his lips. It smelled strong and sugary. 

“You should remember these.” She moved it under his chin where its purple hue could reflect on his skin.

Their first meeting shot back to him, her holding a violet under his chin to see if he liked her, like the game children play with buttercups. “Oh, this little guy!” He grinned, repeating his words of that day. “Smart flower.” She beamed and tucked it into the front of his tunic. He smirked. “You giving me a kiss?”

They kept smiling. He held their eye and leaned across them to pluck a violet himself, subtly inhaling their seductive fragrance of rose and incense. He tucked the violet into their silver braid and ran his fingers down the silken strands, then over her shoulder, soft and slow. Her irises darkened. She sucked her crinkled lip. She tossed her plait smartly across his face. “Oh My Gods, you’re such a flirt.”

“Woah!”

She laughed at him. It was her best kind of laughter, and there were so many. 

A perfumier tottered by with a tray of samples around her neck. Florals and musks tickled Ares’ nose. He remembered lumbering after Aphrodite in the perfume shop, slavering over her like a puppy. A dozen flirtations fluttered to him out of the crowd. Coy glances, wrists dotted with oil and raised to sniff, silk scarves drawn sensuously across forearms, fingers coiling into locks of hair, hands rubbing chests through sultry speech. He felt them all as if they were touching him, his flesh was electrified.

A tall person with heavy eyeliner passed them, hauling a basket of round, waxy apples. A small woman bumped into them, her nose in a creased map. She jumped and hurried into a string of apologies in broken Cypriot. The apple-seller recognised her accent and soothed her in fluent Hittite. They asked if she was alright. She looked like a terrified rabbit. “I’m just so lost! I came to Paphos to visit my cousin, but I can’t seem to find his street, and now I’m just walking in circles.”

“Didn’t he come and meet you?” They asked in a concerned tone.

“He doesn’t know I’m here,” she replied. “I decided rather impulsively to travel. My father has passed away, you see. A letter wouldn’t have got here faster.”

She continued to jabber. Ares’ ears pricked like a fox’s. “What the fuck is this girl doing?”

“What?” Aphrodite was making a little chain out of the violets.

“She’s walking up to strangers and telling them she’s lost and alone with no one to wonder where she is. Might as well be wearing a ‘please murder me’ badge.”

Aphrodite petted his arm. “You’re so cute when you’re protective.”

“I should go over there.”

“Like super cute.”

“Aph! Look after your dumbasses!”

“Simmer down, Honey Bear. She’s all good, people will help her.”

“She’s broadcasting vulnerability.”

“Exactly. So people will help her.” 

The apple-seller was stooped over the map, directing the woman through the backstreets. 

“See?” She paused her crafting, purple petals wound around her gnarled fingers. She looked softly at Ares. “It doesn’t hurt to be sensible, no. But people help each other. That’s actually much more common than people taking advantage. Someone is lost, they give directions. Someone gets washed out to sea, they send boats. Someone is curious, they share. Someone falls, they get them back on their feet. Friendship is natural to us, much more so than cruelty. No one talks about how normal that is. No one talks about how if the world was as predatory as everyone says, then we couldn’t live our daily lives. We get up and go to the bakery, cross the busy street, and get distracted while our purse is open. A normal morning where we could have been poisoned, trampled, and robbed. But we’re not. The baker does their best to make something we’ll love, everyone carefully lets us cross, maybe someone warns us our bag is open. And we get to the office, and it’s 9am, and we haven’t even noticed that we’ve had three kindnesses before breaking into our croissant. Do you know why missing cat posters are everywhere? Because it’s taken for granted that someone will give a damn about you getting your cat back. Kindness is so everyday that we’ve forgotten just how every day it is.” They tickled the cluster of violets. “Kindness is like violets; small and delicate, but powerful enough to break through frost and survive storms; common to the point of virulent, and completely unappreciated for how precious and beautiful it is.” 

Ares hummed, gruff and wistful. “And love is a rose, right? Bold and stunning, deep and drawing blood.”

She flicked sparkling eyes to him. “Something like that.” She went back to threading the fine stems. “But also, myrtle is as sacred to me as rose. Love may be this enchanting thing, but it’s not just that. Love is a shrub.”

He gave her an amused look. “What’s that now?”

“Love is a shrub. It grows anywhere, even the harshest soil. It’s a wild thicket and a soft bed. It protects the most delicate birds, and borders the most modest house. It’s stubborn, low, and no matter how well pruned it looks, inside it’s always chaos. The heart is an ordinary growing thing that needs to be tended, and it’s simultaneously an evergreen maze. That’s why I do what I do.” 

Ares’ heart felt so huge that he wasn’t sure this smaller chest could hold it. They reached out and placed the chain of violets on his white, thin curls. He took their hand and kissed it earnestly.

As they relaxed in the lemony shade, a few more islanders slipped in and out of conversation. One young person gabbled hastily for advice about a marriage as long as theirs. Fellow old couples made warm jokes about which of them was holding up the other. Ares tried not to think too hard about spending an hour as Aphrodite’s husband of many years. He tried especially hard not to think about how incredibly easy it was for them to be convincing. Was this what a long marriage could feel like? Comfortable? Playful? Natural? Was it like being in love with a friend?

“Ugh, our granddaughter's getting into artisanal cheese-making.” He tuned back into a pair of old men playing backgammon at a lopsided table on the avenue.

“What’s the difference between that and regular cheese-making?” Old-Lady-Aphrodite asked, sipping from a cup of wine. 

“Who bloody knows?” The one with long, scraggly hair threw his arms up. “Rosemary or some shit.”

“No, no, it’s not rosemary,” his partner interjected. “It’s sage.”

“Why would it be sage? Sage doesn’t go with cheese.”

“Rosemary doesn’t really go with cheese.”

“Maybe it’s fruit. I stopped listening.”

The one with faded tattoos clucked his tongue. “You know how old couples say ‘we don’t really talk anymore’?”

“Yeah.”

“This is why, the talk gets like this.”

Aphrodite eddied into laughter as the long-haired man scoffed furiously. 

Ares listened quietly to ordinary life.

It was like watching an ambling river, monotonous at first, then as you looked closer, full of mesmerising beauty - flurries of light, tangles of weeds, clusters of uniquely patterned pebbles. There was so much depth under the surface that every glimpse raised another mystery. Nothing anyone said was especially ground-breaking, but under each commonality, there was a whisper of something more. The way someone joked told him so much about their relationship. The way someone wiped their brow said everything about their day. The way someone lingered over a thought or hastened over a word revealed a whole underworld in their heart. His divinity buzzed under his skin, waking, for the first time, to something other than combat and anger. He paid closer attention, probing into the feeling. He could sense a texture new to him.

“It’s potential,” Aphrodite said. They were young now, two gangly teenage boys picking their way along the walls and looking down on the markets. “The Olympian way to be a god is to be there when you’re most relevant, so you only sense them when they align to your energy. But humans aren’t computers whose emotions switch on and off when programmed. Their minds and bodies are always working, always taking in the world and reflecting and responding and making sense of it. Anyone could experience some facet of love or pain at any moment - a sudden crush, a fantasy, an echo in their body from something they avoid thinking about. No matter how they feel in the present, their interactions with us shape how the world arrives to them. They’re always close to divinity.”

They dropped from the wall into the fray again, landing in the forms of youthful merchants in brilliant silks. Ares’ eyes were dazzled by hundreds of glimmers like stray droplets of sunset. Copper gleamed in windows and stalls, pinned to chitons and stabbed into braids. “They sell a lot of copper here.”

“It’s mined here.” Aphrodite stroked their new stubble. “It made us famous.” They spread their arms, barrel chest glittering with amulets. “Aphrodite is a goddess of prosperity and bounty.” They swaggered to a store front with an exquisitely crafted bronze dagger. They ran their index along the painterly curve of its back, then plucked the hilt, and flipped it in the air. It flashed and sang. They caught the blade and held it out for Ares to take.

He did and swung it a few times. Good balance. It hummed with potential. He turned it around in his hands. “No judgement, but I hadn't really expected you to be into something as cold as cash. I mean, I know you like to shop, but…”

She tucked her thumbs into a wide, red belt. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to be a goddess and not get stuck watering plants and tinkering with ovaries for the rest of eternity? I would love it if we could all lounge around in luxury without having to pay for it, but precious metal happened, money happened. So I figured, just give them plenty of it. And actually?” Her broad man combed his fingers through dyed blue hair, grin vibrant against dark skin. “I saw the fun in it. I know, I know, money is the root of all evil.” They huffed. “But it’s also a potent symbol of abundance, luck, pride, admiration. I hate the hoarding of money because it’s supposed to be a gift, something you give away to honour others and treat yourself.” They huffed again. “Also, honestly, I got fucking tired of talking about my womb. A womb, by the way, I don’t even always have!” Ares laughed. They toyed with their large, embroidered sleeve. “I got tired of giving them sexuality and seeing it automatically handed over to birth. Living just to make more life. Being somebody only if you produce somebody else.” They took a deep breath of the island’s explosion of delicious scents, blue dreadlocks blowing. “I wanted to be abundant, but not fecund. I wanted to expand what fertility could be. I wanted to be a symbol not of the spring of the womb, but the summer of the heart. Spring is all about the future. But summer?” They whirled around in a lash of scarlet and turquoise. “Summer is the now! You know what they say about money, you can’t take it with you.” They winked, their new character roguishly handsome. “So better fucking enjoy it. No more spring festivals about harvest, and harvest festivals about winter, and winter festivals about spring. Aphrodite’s people are rich enough to relax and take their pleasure in the present. It’s not about what you can save, it’s about what you can spend.” They chortled wickedly and rubbed their fingers and thumbs together, rings tinkling. 

Ares grinned and replaced the dagger on the stall of glinting weapons and instruments outside a small store. A man with a boxy beard in tight, complex braids emerged from the shop’s doorway, a creased scroll in his hand. A banner of Nineveh hung on the wall inside. “Forgive me, sirs, engrossed in philosophy, no wonder my family despairs of me.” He chuckled and dusted off his long kilt. 

“You own this place?” Ares asked in surprise. The man nodded. “But you’re Assyrian,” he blurted, immediately flushing awkwardly. The man arched a fine eyebrow. “Sorry!” Ares gabbled. “I was just surprised.”

Aphrodite darted forward and clapped Ares’ shoulder. “Forgive my companion, we’re recently here from Athens.”

The man rolled his eyes. “I have plenty to say about Athens, but neither of us will enjoy it.”

“Neither of us did enjoy it,” Aphrodite grumbled.

“No foreigner may own property? Pah. How do they expect to have any sort of exchange if they keep everybody out?”

“They don’t want exchange, they want supremacy.”

“Over what? An inbred farmstead?” He tapped an amulet of a lion on his chest and pointed up to Heaven. “Thanks be to Ishtar, her ally Aphrodite does not allow such draconian laws. You’ve heard the legend of the Kerastai, I presume?” Aphrodite gave him a questioning look. Ares hid a smirk. The man smiled darkly. “They murdered migrants to this isle. Aphrodite Xenia transformed them into bull-horned beasts in punishment.”

Aphrodite nodded sagely. “A wise goddess. A closed island either dries up or turns in on itself in madness, don’t you think? Islands are crossing places in the sea, allowed to live only at its mercy, so they dishonour it if they don’t welcome her gifts.”

Ares took this in, making a mental note for Sparta. He was so used to the rigid borders of his sister’s protected perfection that he’d forgotten to question it. It had taken him aback to see someone in a stone house comfortably displaying another heritage. But it also made sense, the sea had to be allowed motion, nothing else was natural. The only way to evolve was to come into contact with the unfamiliar. What would he have been now if he’d never met Aphrodite, the Eastern Goddess? Besides, he was a warrior, and blood was blood, bond was bond, no matter what came before.

The man perked up and gestured with his scroll. “I’m reading on hospitality, in fact.”

And they were in another winding conversation with a mortal. 

It was different to the conversations Athena presided over. The academia of Athens made Ares’ head spin. Ideas were wrapped up in proving themselves right, proving themselves smart. Everything had to be both unprecedented and grounded in about two dozen preceding ideas. Everything had to be perfectly constructed. Any stumble over a term became the core of the debate, the real point meandering into the distance. The way people talked here felt more open. They were curious. They didn’t need something definite, just something stimulating. People seemed to be excited by each other over the smallest things.

From there, then the fashion district of silk and perfume, they toured further out of town. They came to the smithing district. Its air was greasy with the reek of molten metal. Oak muscle rolled under singed flesh. Soot-flecked arms gleamed with sweat. Hammers struck anvils in an infernal symphony that rang in Ares’ skull. Scorching smoke and steam billowed into the sky. The black-lined eyes of figurines of Aphrodite glared through the haze. There were shrines to her everywhere, sticky with oil and piled with rings and bangles. 

Ares imagined the seams of copper under his feet, arteries through the island’s sanguine body. He thought about what she'd said about bounty. This was a different kind of fertile earth. It held in its depths the material of battle and extravagance. Strong, savaged hands took the raging blood of the land and wrestled and beat it to their will, something draconic awoken by the fires. Fury possessed the copper, light blinding in the melted blades. Then it was thrust into cold water, and with a crazed, serpentine hiss, the beast was tamed and the bronze brought to heel. It captivated Ares. His mind filled with snakes and swords. His pulse banged with the strikes on anvils. It was almost as if this place was whispering to him of something core in his being, something he had yet to reconnect with. He found himself wondering why they had no god of the forge. This elemental battle between human and earth must deserve a patron. For now, it seemed to be Aphrodite, but she wasn't one to tame nature with force of will. Even so, these smiths appeared as her warriors. They burned their skin, cut their hands, forced their sinew through discipline and agony in the battle to retrieve beauty for her. The sumptuous jewellery adorning the island may look delicate and pretty, but it was the spoils of a brutal fight. It summoned him at his core, made his muscle pump. He wanted to punch into the ground and tear the viscera of the island out in his fist. He wanted to best a dragon with his bare hands and gift her its hide to wear at parties. That's what the smiths wanted. It resounded in his senses. They struck their anvils harder as he fed their energy with his seething desire. Athena was always telling him to collaborate. If Olympus had a god of the forge, he could find brotherhood in that.

He eyed Aphrodite’s golden veins glimmering in her wrists. He watched the forge fires erupt in her black pupils. The hammers pounded like a titanic heartbeat. 

He was lightheaded with fumes as they looped back into the city and to its centre. The surge of power he'd felt at the forges calmed, but left him prickling and passionate. He couldn't take his eyes off Aphrodite. Then they stepped into the agora, and her aura blossomed, and he was awed all over again. A garden of divinity bloomed out of her, kaleidoscopes of unfurling roses flitting across his vision as he stared at them. They spread their arms and hummed, hanging on their toes at the entrance to the swirling marketplace. “Mmmm, what a high.” 

They swayed a little. Ares caught their waist. A hot wave racked his body. He almost drooled into their hair. A cloud of opiate fragrance spun his head. He steadied them both. “Jeez, you're a hotbox.”

They giggled in a way that made him ache. “Come on, Honey!” They bounced down the steps into the square. Doves ruffled around their feet as seed sprinkled from their fingers. She looked like she was wading in white seafoam.

Ares gazed after them. If he thought he’d seen Paphos’ liveliness before, it was nothing compared to the agora. It was a vast, open space, bordered with pomegranate trees and more of the decorated columns. It looked like a clearing in a forest. A clearing hosting fairy revels that glittered with splendour and bustled with beasts and muddled with melodies. The searing blue sky set it alight. 

“Two for one!”

“Why the fuck did you buy that?”

“Fresh from the fields!”

“I've got a story about that.”

“Made by the best!”

“Bought from a princess!”

“You should read this.”

“I love your bracelet!”

“New in town?”

“Come here often?”

“Kiss me, darling.”

“Hold my hand.”

“Take this with you.”

“Take that back!”

Voices overflowed in the echo of stone, yelling and laughing and haggling and talking. So much talking. So many languages. Music skipped through the din from the odeon nearby, a chorus of lyres frisking with the summer’s merriment. Bells clanked around the necks of bleating goats. Cards slapped onto tables. Coins pinged into dishes. Palms clapped together in handshakes. Grapes popped from stems. Apples split. Meat tore. The semi-enclosed space was humid with the stink of animals, drug of perfume, and steam of food and bodies. The smell was so strong it was almost solid. More shrines peeked at Ares as he took in the scene. A hundred tiny Aphrodites in varying states of undress beckoned him into the chaos.

The real Aphrodite slipped their hand into his and led him into the crowd. The onslaught of people on his senses almost knocked him over, but in the reeling there was a surge of power in his blood that made him giddy and keen. Everyone here was drenched in the energy of Aphrodite - her greed, her compassion, her fun, her fascination. It was like being tipped into a bath of wine. Her essence overwhelmed his senses. He craved the velvet dizziness. That clinging arousal slinked through his pores.

She pointed out a few groups deep in conversation. “I love how easily they do this. I love how they share ideas and talk things through.” She looked into his eyes with disarming hope. “Do you see what I mean about fertility?”

Ares grimaced. “Sorta?” He stroked their arm. “Keep teaching me.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. She walked him slowly through the agora. Invisible again, he could take it in as more of a whole. It was a froth of activity. Words, money, objects, papers, art, and dishes passed between people. Eyes sparked. Bodies crushed. There was something woven into the thick tangle of scent and sound, like the deep rumble at the bottom of a copper pot just before the water boils. 

“I call it Mixis.”

He turned to Aphrodite. The ferocity of his hunger for her world made his eyes cast scarlet light on their cheek.

They spoke as if composing a poem, flowing and halting at once. “It’s a sort of catalyst. Traditional fertility is about impregnation. The rain penetrates the earth, a cock penetrates a vagina, and the feminine of that bears something new. It’s about being empty and then being full, having your fullness put into you by another being.” She toyed with a golden hair ornament. “I sound like I hate moms, I really don’t. I think birth is a miracle. I think the sex people have when they want a child has a special intimacy. I bless it all.” She rubbed her lips together hesitantly. “But it isn’t who I am.”

Ares laid his hand on the small of their back and rubbed gently. “Go on.”

They kept looking around the fiery, flowering people of the agora, as if for inspiration. “I’ve never been pregnant, but I feel so full. Wonderfully so. I feel full of ideas and possibilities and opportunities all clamouring to come out. I feel full of feelings and love and friendship and gratitude. I feel full of rage and justice and gluttony.” Ares heated and sucked a sprinkle of irresistible cinnamon. “I feel so incredibly ready to create. All the time, I want to be creating. I want to create art. I want to create atmosphere. I want to create stories and ideas. I want to create relationships. I want to create delicious recipes. I want to create moments that live forever. The image of a fertility goddess, of beautiful life bursting from full, pregnant earth. I am that. I am so gloriously fertile in the way the earth is fertile. And yet, I’ve never been impregnated.”

Ares gazed at her body. He could feel it, he could always feel it, her brilliance in ever opening buds in the air around her.

She sighed. “I want that freedom of creation. I meet these people, and they’re all so full. They bring forth so much just by being who they are. And in fertility magic, the idea is you bring forth from your individual body only after it has been fertilised. Mixis is not the aftermath of parting. It’s the moment of coming together. I want people to live richly. I want them to travel and trade, try new things, kiss strangers, read taboo books, tell old stories on long boat rides, play backgammon on lazy afternoons, cook for each other and do each other’s hair, perform plays in small companies, go drinking, be generous and excessive and open. I want them to indulge and discover and experiment. Because if they do that, if they stop worrying about the winter and the fields and the best way to be good and right, if they get the space to seek out pleasure and interest and beauty, then they expand. They expand and explore, and so they touch, and when they touch… People are so full, brimming, overflowing, and they meet and…” Their sparkling fingers burst out. “Catalyst. It makes something. Emotion, genius, reward, progress, invention, imagination. It all happens in the between. We’re nothing if we’re not in reaction. Fertility is what can be summoned out of the flesh. Mixis is what happens in union. It's the discharge of energy built in connection. It's not pregnancy, it's orgasm. The world wasn't birthed, it appeared in the afterglow.” She gave him a coquette, curling smile that made his mouth taste of cherries. “Carnality, culture, lust, care, art, diplomacy, business, intellect. They’re all the same. They’re all sparked to life by the friction when people strike together. I wanted to be a goddess of life, not of birth. Life and all the living of it.”

Ares gazed at her. He did feel more alive here, sensual, intrigued, and trusting his luck. He wanted to be completely present in that, nothing pulling his body away from its goddess. He finally fully let the arousal wash over him, the pressure in his body that he’d been trying to keep in check, despite her advice. They were right. He relaxed into that state, and the ache melted into a song under his skin. Rather than snapping, he felt it drench his mind and make it whir, speeding as it took in the messages of his senses. It warmed and readied his muscle. It made him easy and agile, aware and open, willing to be acted on and keenly proactive. He stood in the churn of the agora and sank softly into the ocean of connectivity in his body and the space. Paphos was a merkingdom, submerged in the kind of energy that filled his mouth and ears, glistening with riches, wrought out of oddities, rippling with motion. He thought of his sister’s great triumph again. Athens was stalwart, set and solitary with its strict controls on citizenship and immigration. Its obsessive purifying of its own culture, refining of its singular concept, made it taste stale on Ares’ tongue, dry on his skin and stiff around his bones. Paphos instead seemed to be endlessly refreshing, the world and all its wonders and ways pouring into it until it overflowed; constantly disturbed, stirred, sluiced out, and refilled new. Aphrodite’s city was thirsty and always quenching itself. It gulped in waves of people and cultures and contact. It was a place made by a goddess of the sea - bodies of water are always being remade. They understand that eternity need not be stagnant. He thought about that reactive between, the connection where so much change and joy buzzed. You could make new worlds with the energy in that space. It was the most powerful thing he’d ever felt - the between with Aphrodite.

A monkey leaped from a narrow shoulder, startling him back to the scene. The funny, little thing leered at him, then sprang up onto an awning and made its escape towards a stall buckling under piles of vibrant, ripe fruit. A few flies hovered around a succulent watermelon-half. It was fermenting in the heat, fizzy on the tip of Ares’ tongue. 

He followed Aphrodite’s gaze as it turned sly. In the shadow of an ornate column, a man with brown ringlets was deeply kissing a woman in a crimson dress. One hand cradled her jaw and lifted her passionately to his lips. The other teased a coin between their interlacing fingers.

Aphrodite giggled and wandered over to a stall of glistening spoon sweets in cheap, ceramic cups. She flickered coins in front of the vendor and picked two up. She guided Ares to sit on a step in the shade of a pomegranate tree. Its large fruits weighed down the branches. They watched the bustle in the large, bright square. “That’s one of the reasons I patronise sex work.” 

She handed Ares the spoon sweet - a preserved bergamot in thick, glossy syrup. They both nibbled on them. Bitter citrus and tooth-rotting sugar gummed satisfyingly in Ares’ mouth. He looked for the sex worker and client they’d spotted, but they seemed to have disappeared to somewhere more private. “Oh yeah?” he rumbled around chewing.

“Prosperity and union. And I love love, I love love, but a lot can come out of sex if you’re not so worried about making a relationship. A lot of honesty, a lot of self-discovery, a lot of surrender to pleasure and adventure.” Her lips were smeared with syrup. Ares stared at them and swallowed. She smacked them and lightly tongued the golden-green candy. “Sex workers draw travellers, they pull people out of the norm, they allow for a pure indulgence in pleasure for pleasure’s sake. They literally bring society to climax, building and expelling energy for a living. I believe pleasure is extremely generative. People create because it pleasures them, they go places that pleasure them, they bring home what pleasures them. Pleasure is how the world moves, how cultures communicate. Think about any time one of the foreign gods comes to the Pantheon. What do your parents do? Theatre, banquets, concerts, gifts of art, fashion, luxury, sensuality. Pleasure is how we connect - what we like, what we enjoy, what we find interesting or beautiful is what we share. Pleasure is how we show our identity - taste, hobbies, comedy, craft. Pleasure is who we are when we aren’t in crisis or hunger or exploited labour or a toxic home. We pursue ideas because they excite us. We make art because it moves us. We fix friendships because they comfort us. We cook, eat, sleep, dress, inquire, invent, chat, and make things because it feels good.” She took another deep breath, her breasts rising in the cup of her layered bodice. They ran their tongue along the smooth bow of their upper lip. Their eyes hardened a little. “It’s why I get so frustrated when my domain is seen as frivolous. It's not frivolous to strike out for more, to go beyond survival. And they are just…” They sighed and smiled. “They’re just magnificent when they thrive.” They sank their teeth into the sweet. The flesh of the bergamot squelched and peeled away, an amber wound oozing on the end of the ceramic spoon. “So, having professional experts in pleasure,” they said with a full mouth, “seems like a good idea.” She swallowed and sucked her teeth. “Go to any brothel or strip club and you'll find artists in new, challenging movements, designers innovating fashion, businessmen sealing deals, criminals and revolutionaries scheming, explorers and merchants adventuring in a new city. Not to mention just how many sex workers are artists and makers and entrepreneurs themselves. That's because a house of pleasure lifts their limits, wakes their most creative and ambitious self. It gives them somewhere where ‘supposed to’ and decorum submit to experiment and exploration. Let loose with your body, and the mind will follow. We have a constantly innovating world, and so many of those motions were first made in a sex worker's bed. Not that they get an ounce of credit. They're my stewards. Aphrodite rocks civilization, and brothels are the fulcrum and lever.” She hummed the final r, a purr like a jaguar.

Ares took a moment to finish processing their words. His brain was significantly slowed by watching her chew on something the same colour as his flesh. If the world could be fucked into change, then Fates he wanted to change the world right now. “Yeah… yeah, totally.” He shook himself and cleared his sticky throat. “So, pleasure is a drive, right? Society’s engine.”

She beamed. She patted his head. “Smart boy, A+ for listening.”

He tried not to blush. “Athena says war does that. Conquering. That’s her version of expansion. People innovate fast in times of war.”

Aphrodite groaned. “Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it’s a mean mother. Invention can be born to better parents. War doesn't make people innovate, it's just the only thing that makes the establishment give innovators space instead of strangling their resources. Innovation happens the moment there’s space for people. You can wait for war-mongers to grant it, or you can take it yourself through pleasure.” She winced and looked guiltily at him. “Sorry, no offence.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I wanna be a god of conquering and war machines.”

“No?”

He dragged a slice of fruit around his teeth. He watched the agora simmering away in curls of colour and whisks of action. “I’d rather stay on the ground, in the moments. I don't want to calculate it. It feels different when you’re coolly planning to ruin something.” He looked down.

He felt their smile, warmer than the beating sun. “I think you’re more than a god of ruin. You can be about more than that.”

“Not a good more.”

“We’ll see.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and stuffed the last lump of bergamot into his mouth. His eyes stung in a burst of bitterness. “Let’s talk more about your actually fun domain.”

She rubbed his knee. “I am fun! Have you heard my epithet Smile-Loving?”

“No?”

She twisted her finger in the air and summoned a scallop shell. She ran her thumb along the shape of its smooth inside, the sculpt of a vulva. “The seam looks like a smile.”

“The seam? Of the shell?”

“Well, the shell is my symbol because it looks like...” She flicked him a filthy look.

He goggled at her. “Aph, is your epithet Cunt-Loving?”

She waggled her eyebrows. He collapsed into laughter that shook the leaves overhead, bristling their shadow around them. Aphrodite tossed away the shell and cackled with him, leaning on his shoulder. “I’m a goddess with taste, what can I say! Also, they call climax ‘Aphrodite’s finishing post.’”

“Stop! You’re making this up!”

Laughter gurgled in the agora, infecting the mortals. The distant music in the odeon skipped lighter. 

Ares heaved for air and rubbed his eye. “You have no fucking shame.”

“Fucking good!” She punched his arm. The flutter of pain went straight to his cock. They shook out their hair and leaned back on their palms, feet stretched out down the steps so her toes dipped into the sunshine. “The mainland tells the story of my founding sex work as a curse. There was a king here on Cyprus, Propoetus, and he had a load of daughters, and the daughters wouldn’t worship me properly, and you know how I hate that.”

“I do.”

“So I cursed them to prostitute their bodies. I stripped them of their shame, hardened their hearts, and degraded them into selling themselves to men. Thank you TGOEM, probably.” She popped her lips. She rolled her shoulders. “They were wonderful girls. I was still figuring myself out, trying to get away from this fertility racket and find what was really exciting me. And I just couldn’t get enough of these princesses. They were sassy and funny, energetic, creative. They were so responsive. Everything they met, they just unlocked and made more interesting. But at the time, I was still the Lady of Cyprus, as yet unnamed, fresh back from travelling and in a rut watering plants. Folks wanted my girls to marry and give birth, and every time they got distracted from that, they were shamed into getting back on track. That shame dimmed their light. It was like the signal in them calling out to me was being deadened. So…” they shrugged, “I took it away.” 

She looked up to the tree and beckoned with a dainty finger. One of the pomegranates came loose and floated down into her lap. Ares produced a pocket knife for her and watched her begin to whittle at the hard rind. The sun dappled her shoulder through the leaves. He hadn’t noticed before, but a dusting of gold freckles had come out in the sun. They shimmered as her bicep worked gracefully with the knife.

How are you this beautiful…

They wet their full lip. “Shameless is another way of saying shame-free. I lifted that burden from them, brought them out into the city, and I said, make your own money, live your own life on your terms, and do it through pleasure. Be glamorous and bold and tempting and subversive. Be an idol and a resting place. Provoke and lure and make people cast everything away except what is beautiful and delicious and exciting. Work for me by having sex. Make that Mixis for your goddess.” She snapped her fingers. “Their hearts weren’t hardened, they just stopped saying sorry for doing what they want. I held them as they began my work, and everything fell into place, who I was, what I could do, what divinity meant to me. And so I got my first name: Aphrodite Pandemos. Common Aphrodite, People’s Aphrodite, patron of the working class, sex work, and rough sex.”

“Rough sex?” Ares grinned.

She grinned back. “Shameless sex. Throw it all away sex. Sex just to have sex. Beauty just to have beauty. Play just to play. Downing tools and stepping off the ship and just getting to be an animal again. Then lying in the smoke with a blissed out body, renewed. Love is everyone’s. Pleasure is everyone’s. Ideas come from the people on the ground. I am Common to All, and base, and where it all begins.” Her blade split the pomegranate with a satisfying crack and slick. She broke it in half, the nest of garnets sparkling in the golden sun. It looked like his heart cradled in her hands.

Where it all begins.

They were. They had been for him. His catalyst, his transformation in union. He impulsively bent and pressed his lips to their freckled shoulder. Warmth and roses. She scritched his hair. He swallowed a moan. “I want to sacrifice to you,” he whispered. Their eyes flashed to him like twin lighthouses in a tossing sea. His heart was in his mouth. “You are such a goddess. I want to pour every drop of blood I spill onto your altar.”

They paused. The agora babbled on, muted by her magnetism. They gave him a look so tender that he almost fainted into it. They stroked their thumb over his cheek, leaving a ruby smudge. “I’m sorry, Honey Bear, I don’t take blood sacrifice.” He frowned gently. “I’m a goddess of life.”

His heart broke. Just a little, but he felt a thin fissure crawl right through its centre. She took her hand from him and lifted the pomegranate-half to suck the seeds into her mouth. She looked like she was glutting herself on a pillaged organ. The image washed his mind of kissing her on the battlefield, the fierce warrior that faced up to him in Kythera now in his arms. Threads of blood strung between their lips as they broke for breath then sank again into each other. Paphos was in his arteries and his gut. He felt drunk on her haven, addicted to her energy. A goddess of life, so she didn’t want blood, but Fates, what was he supposed to do except bleed for her? He thought of the forges, the metallic taste like blood thick in the air, filling his mouth like on the battlefield. The bronze infused with the blood of smiths as they ravaged their bodies for her. He watched her lips stroke over the pomegranate seeds and stain red, like a lioness gorging on a stag. Didn’t take blood sacrifice? Really? Because she was a goddess of life? What else was blood but its essence? Didn’t they deserve that? Pain, risk, wound - the purest concentration of being alive?

Maybe it was just a war god’s eyes that saw things that way. The sweetness of Paphos cast his monstrosity into sharp relief. He loved being here, but suddenly hated infecting it with himself, with war and violence and rage. She’d never tell him that, but hadn’t she just said that they wouldn’t allow violence in their cult? What else could that mean but he couldn’t belong in her world? Living for Aphrodite meant living well. But beasts who wish to prove their love only know how to lie down and die. 

 

 

*

Part V. Afternoon. Hestia’s House, Olympus.

 

It was a quiet TGOEM meeting. Hestia’s large kitchen table was strewn with newspapers, magazines, and copies of Aphrodite’s Hand Mirror zine manifesto, all pinned under plates of pastries and bread and butter. Crumbs scattered the paper, but the food remained unusually neglected. Artemis chewed a crust as she read and re-read the zine with a severe brow. Athena had her forehead in her hand as she scanned several articles without really taking them in. Her owl was agitatedly cleaning itself on a perch in the corner. Hestia looked at her fellow members and the untouched platters with a pang in her chest. Athena looked like eroding stone. Artemis’ jaw was locked. 

Hestia breathed slowly out through her nose and glanced around her kitchen. Red and white chequered curtains drifted over the sunny window, the pine and terracotta space a welcome reprieve from the merciless lunchtime heat. There was a cross-stitch on the wall reading Rise Up over a design of a loaf of bread in a baking tin. The countertop was messy with flour and herbs. Hestia breathed in even slower and grounded herself in the wholesome smell of fresh bread and warm ovens, uniquely, powerfully satisfying. It was the smell of everything turning out OK. She wanted to believe that, but her stomach was unsettled. She also had little appetite, and that upset her more than anything.

She turned back to the pink pamphlet in her hand and dragged her prickling eyes over it for the tenth or eleventh time. It kept breaking up into the memory of Peitho’s words this morning. “You have a problem with everyone else putting a price on things? Maybe you shouldn’t put a price on self-respect.” How had the girl felt being a part of writing this? Powerful? Befriended? Free? Good. 

She hadn’t thought about her past interactions with Peitho in a long time, but now they swirled at the surface of her mind. The grace used to be at every Olympus society function, some minor god accessorising with her as he made a half-brained bid for attention. All the time she wasn’t putting a face on, she looked punishingly bored. But more than once, it was worse than that. Hestia would see the way their hands closed on her, or softly scratched her back when she spoke out of turn. One time, she found her covering a bruise with a fresh coat of make-up. Another, she found her crying in a closet. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” she always said, “please, Peitho, let me help you.” 

The grace would glower at her and say the same thing again and again. “What’s the catch?”

“What’s the catch with him? Why is he worth giving up your safety and your dignity?”

“Why is TGOEM worth giving up my pleasure? My income? My place?”

What pleasure? As if any of these leeches cared about her pleasure! What income? She was drip fed and controlled! What place? They threw her back in the gutter for the smallest imperfection! It was infuriating. She watched Peitho used up and discarded again and again. She watched Apollo stalk a drunk Aphrodite at Zeus’ birthday party. She watched layer upon layer of Hera peeled away over years of cruelty. She watched Ares, her sweet, bright nephew, cutting a swathe through the young nymphs this month as if they were collectible cards, going the way of his damn father when he’d always seemed different. This culture came for everyone, took them all down, took bites out of all of them. And Hestia couldn’t help but feel like a doctor during a plague, begging people to stop doing all the things that spread contagion, pointing out the sores and the fevers, and being told again and again that she was imagining things as people suffered and died around her. She felt insane, told that she was being fed while her plate was full of sawdust. She felt like she was on a sinking ship. Every hole she plugged, another just popped open. For the love of Gaia, why couldn’t people just stop filling themselves with holes for men and kings who didn’t deserve them and for money they shouldn’t need to survive? And then she begged them to see that that was happening, to choose to be whole, and she was the one taking away their agency? Did she stop them having self-respect by asking them to self-preserve? She knew about wholeness and sustenance, these were her domains. People didn’t question doctors, even if it meant an uncomfortable treatment, but no one wanted to hear her when there was a sickness she was the expert in.

She felt sick.

She flexed her ankles under the table and re-focused on the pink zine. 

There is no living thing that has not been touched by beauty. 

But who made beauty important in the first place? Why must women devote so much energy to deciding how to be beautiful? Aphrodite wrote later in the document about how natural people were, so why not let them be natural? But then, wasn’t nature beautiful? Hestia looked at Athena, the soft light in her hair, the strength in her figure, the way her sweater vest made her body look cosy. Was it wrong to see beauty? Maybe beauty was the norm, when we stopped thinking of each other with ugliness.

Our pain must be allowed to be meaningful to each other. 

That was true. That was so true. That was how anyone survived, that was how TGOEM formed in the first place. They were all hurting, and they didn’t want each other to hurt anymore.

Never defer to someone who takes no pleasure in your joy. 

But what if your joy was false? What if you were taking joy in giving without return and being wanted for someone else’s power? This world made everything uncertain, why should joy be exempt? But then, Hestia wondered, did that make her the person who didn’t reflect the joy of her sisters? Aphrodite had returned to Olympus with a profound invasion of one of Hestia’s most important temples, staging an all-priestess orgy in the virginal cult. Hestia had had no response. The humiliation, the violation, had been suffocating, and she’d braced herself for the inevitable emotional fallout. But it hadn’t come. The women had all quite smoothly returned to their communal life, if anything more in sync than before. No one wept, no one fought, no one quit. Their friendship and trust continued. Hestia wondered what it meant of her that she was almost angrier that they were OK. She shuddered as that admission hung over her.

Mirrors are blessed pools. We submerge our bodies in them and learn our needs and desires, we swim through them to find our healing.

True, self-knowledge was essential to healing. All of TGOEM’s foundational work, before the apartment hunting and career counselling, was about building that knowledge. Consciousness-raising, confidence coaching, journaling, mentoring, therapy services; nothing could be done without those pillars holding their women up, assuring them that their trauma was real and undeserved and that better was possible. TGOEM’s first aim was to help women reconnect with themselves when so much of their life was portioned out between other people’s demands and definitions. Aphrodite seemed to be calling for the same thing. But this image of the mirror unsettled Hestia. Why did women have to put so much stock in gaze, even their own? Couldn’t they just be present inside themselves?

You deserve to be loved for your journey, not for someone else’s ideal of your place or potential. 

But they needed a goal, right? Olympus’ women didn’t have the luxury of making excuses to themselves, and sometimes they needed something to push them out of the way of the stampede. But how many journeys stopped short if they felt pressured? Hestia desperately wanted to just scoop her girls up and keep them in a cottage where Zeus and his kind couldn’t find them. But every time she gave into that instinct to pull them to her body, they felt smothered and ran back to what they knew. Peitho had. It was agony to watch them in danger, but she knew outside of her boiling fire that it had to be out of choice. 

Why should our rulers be our rulers?  ...Hierarchy is the unidirectional flow of energy. If you are its subject, you are its blood donor. We host it and it takes our health.

And that… was exactly what Hestia always wanted to say.

But our roots in the earth are deep... she begs us to seek real nourishment, real delight, real peace, real freedom through natural drives. So what must the kings do to keep their place? Suppress these feelings. They call hunger gluttony, desire violence, tenderness weakness... Trust your hunger, trust your desire, trust your tenderness. They are how you starve the parasite out. They are your energy restoring its flow into the earth so that we can all be sustained together. Imagine a life in that flow. Imagine how it would feel not to be drained.

Hunger and desire? Bread and sex? This chimed in a way that startled Hestia. Another reality in harmony with the earth; where all they had to do was feed themselves, and there was always plenty shared; where they were energised and independent. If they had this… she looked at Athena… did they get to have desire? Could desire live in a world like that? Or was it purely a product of this twisted place, its way to bind them? She thought back a long time, to the day Pandora opened the jar and the spirits they had fought so hard to capture escaped and polluted the world. They all carried desire with them. Desire thrived when people were desperate.

What did desire really mean to Aphrodite? What did freedom really mean? Why would the person who wrote about harmony with the earth align herself with Ouranos and not Gaia? Why would the person who wrote against hierarchy model herself as Zeus did, as a single figurehead? Why would the person who wrote about healing come into a holy space where women were taking time to be with their own bodies and lure them into intimacy with others? But then…

Be defiant in vanity and take back your power. Exhibit your feelings and take back your space. Recognise your needs and take back your body. Look at yourself with unconditional love and take back your humanity. Meet yourself in the mirror. Reflect. Reconnect. Meet each other in the Mixis. Spark. Surge. Love your way to liberation. 

If she made people brave… A spark. A surge. That’s what TGOEM had been missing. 

You carry the blessing of Aphrodite. 

Did she? Should she? Why don’t I know whether I want your blessing, impossible goddess?

She laid the pink paper down in front of her and raised her voice gently across the littered table. “Artemis, do you have thoughts on this yet?”

Artemis tapped the page in her hand with her thumb. “I don’t know.”

She sounded hesitant, rather than uncertain. Hestia leaned forward on her elbows tentatively. “You like it, don’t you?”

Artemis looked down. “I don’t know.”

“You can say if you do.”

She shuffled. She picked up a pastry, then put it down on her plate without biting into it. “It’s anger. It’s nature. It’s pride. It’s sisterhood. Don’t you maybe think there’s something to work with in here?”

Hestia sighed heavily. “I don’t know.” She spread her hands helplessly. “I don’t know.” So often, reading the zine had warmed her, ignited her, she had to confess that to herself, but that attraction made her nervous. “It’s a good piece. I admit that. But her right hand is an expert in persuasion. I’m trying not to be taken in. Yesterday’s grand procession showed us that Aphrodite knows how to be popular. She knows what appeals. And there are things she says that I feel drawn to.” Her brain felt full of knotted wool. “But then, didn’t we all once feel that way about Zeus? Beyond words and performances, what is she doing? Interfering drastically with my cult, glorifying male power fantasies, and this…” She picked up a neatly folded newspaper and tossed it to the centre of the table. It showed a bold headline above a grainy photograph of Aphrodite and Hera speaking at a press conference. 

GODDESS PARTNERSHIP COMES TO LIFE WITH STATUE BRIDE OF PAPHOS

After weeks of meetings held in privacy, Queen Hera and Lady Aphrodite finally reveal a professional partnership set to redefine the domain of romance. 

“It's a no-brainer, really,” Aphrodite said, speaking at Thursday's press conference, “love and marriage should go hand in hand. Marriage is an important political tool, but fundamentally it is that because it's a union, and a union can only be sustained with feeling. It's been a pleasure to work with Her Majesty on how our domains can enrich each other, and I'm thrilled that we can make a royal match our pilot flight.”

The Queen is naturally less expressive than the Goddess of Love and Beauty, speaking comparatively little at the conference, but she did say, “Marriage has given women an important social job, but has also put them at risk of being used as chattel in male-dominated negotiations. This was never the direction I desired for my domain. I am pleased that working with Love is pulling Marriage back on track. This is a royal marriage, but it's also a love marriage. Pygmalion, King of the city of Paphos, is to marry a common girl for love. I believe her presence in his psyche will be as impactful as a diplomatic match.”

But both goddesses made little comment on the unusual nature of Pygmalion's “common girl.” Galataea is not just non-royal, she was until recently non-human - a statue of a perfect woman carved by the artist king. Upon completing the stunning sculpture, Pygmalion was so enamoured of his own creation that he prayed to Aphrodite to give her life. The goddess rewarded her loyal devotee by granting his wish. Many have celebrated Aphrodite's generosity, while some question whether this was in fact a subtle political play to avoid tying Cyprus, currently a tributary of Persia but largely left to its own devices, to either Eastern or Greek powers. As the Goddess of Love made an explosive bid for influence in the Aegean this week, it would certainly benefit her to keep her capital independent. Others wonder if this “pilot flight” needed a dummy to not go off course - perhaps the goddesses are not such a solid team? But aside from the political questions is a greater moral one - should a man be able to replace relationships with real women with a fantasy made just for him? Are women, in the love goddess’ eyes, too difficult, and is it fair of her to give men something tailor-made, rather than expecting them to meet women’s needs?

When questioned about the decision to grant life to a statue, Aphrodite said, “Attraction and sexuality are complex and unruly, difficult to fit into the structures of marriage. For Pygmalion -” But she was cut off as a cohort from Girl Cry, an independent outlet funded by The Goddesses of Eternal Maidenhood, stood on their chairs, hands linked, and began to chant, “WE ARE NOT DOLLS.” The women were quickly escorted from the building, notably while Aphrodite called to security to release them and let them speak. She appeared to this reporter to be attempting to engage with the protest, but Queen Hera hastily shut down the conference, and all of us were left wondering where such a discussion may have led. However, with the great ceremony of Ourania the following day, it seems Aphrodite opted for burying this issue over making a public response. 

As much as the goddesses clearly wanted to announce the Paphos royal wedding as a culmination of work and development, it seems to have left Olympus with more questions than resolutions. Aphrodite has traditionally been cool on marriage, so why this sudden shift to partnership with Hera? Why make a public statement claiming Greek identity, but avoid that diplomatic tie in her capital? Why release a hit publication celebrating humanity, then match their favoured king to a doll? Supporters of the goddess, which are numerous and fervent, insist all is done out of principle and messages will become clear. Critics claim each move can be plotted on a clear strategy for a power grab, cemented by her apparently close relationship with the Crown Prince. Harsher critics claim she is simply an emotional and impulsive oceanid out of her depth on the political stage, making random moves to create hype. 

But this week also raises arguably more pertinent questions over the state of the royal house. With Hera in partnership, Ares in friendship, Poseidon in split brotherhood, Athena's TGOEM in open opposition, and Zeus and Hades silent, plus no clarity over a formal position on the Pantheon Council, the royal house appears fissured by the issue of Aphrodite. Is this divide and conquer? With the royal family in quiet chaos and TGOEM quaking in their sensible brogues, one thing is certain as Paphos readies for the Sunday wedding: Aphrodite isn't finished with any of us yet.

Athena glanced at the article, doubtless drawing conclusions she had already analysed ten times over. “For one of the most peaceful city states on the map, Paphos is becoming a real diplomatic thorn.”

“Wrong hat, Athena,” Hestia said tightly. “A king marrying a statue of a woman? Don’t we already live so much of our lives resisting the pressure to be their damn dolls?” She groaned and rubbed an ache in her stomach. “And now she’s joining forces with Hera, with the sanctity of eternal union, to promote the idea that if you love a doll enough, it can be a woman for you.” Artemis and Athena looked down solemnly. Hestia rubbed her stomach deeper as it smarted. “What does this Galatea want? What’s her favourite colour? Where would she most like to travel to? What food makes her feel most at home? What does she want to prioritise as queen? Does she even know? All she knows is that she was made for the pleasure of her spouse. Her whole existence is attached to that one concept, and they’re celebrating it as romantic! How many more girls will read this and dream of the man they were made for? Sculpt their body and their mind and their vision to suit him?” She grabbed at the pink zine and crumpled it in her fist. “I read her message, and none of this makes sense! I don't see why the person who wrote this would do this! And isn’t that how it is with Zeus? Nothing he says matches what he does, and we never know what we live under.” She slammed the paper to the table with a cloud of smoke from her nose. She winced and took a steadying breath of fresh bread. “Sorry, Athena.”

Athena shook her head. “No, I don’t disagree. He’s…” She rubbed her jaw. “He’s not reacting well to all this either.”

“Well, doesn’t that mean she’s doing something right?” Artemis ventured.

“Or dangerously wrong,” Athena answered grimly.

“What do you mean?”

“TGOEM works because we carve out our own space. Aphrodite has decided to try and occupy Zeus’, the triarchy’s, space.”

Hestia grumbled. “A space that shouldn’t exist, that she’s now validating.”

“But if it works. If it breaks him down,” Artemis pressed. “They’ve made more impact in a month than we have in years.”

“Flashing lights and impact aren’t the same,” Hestia sighed.

“Dad would disagree,” Athena’s fingers teased around the roots of her frazzled hair, “which means she has made impact. But the reaction could put us all in a much worse position.”

Hestia examined her partner with a pang in her chest. Her strong, square frame was creased, along with her chrome brow. “Athena, what’s wrong? You look like you’re sitting on something.”

Athena seemed to contemplate, then she placed her interlaced hands on the table. “This goes no further.” The others nodded. “He wants unification.” Hestia's pulse jerked. Artemis’ thick, black eyebrows went jagged. Athena spoke very steadily, like someone taking steps on a tightrope. “He’s patronising a king and he intends for that king to claim supremacy over all our city states.”

Hestia swallowed back a jump of bile. “Athens already holds such sway…”

“Athens holds influence,” Athena corrected. Artemis snorted. Athena flicked her a look. “Athens is the biggest kid on the playground. He wants this guy to be the headmaster.”

Hestia felt sick. Again. “That’s… that’s never been done. What would it even look like? How would we even run our capitals? Exercise our identities? Charge our divinities?”

“That’s the point. We wouldn’t. More importantly, Aphrodite wouldn’t.”

All three of them went cold. Then Artemis blazed with black fire. “So, she does a couple of circus acts, and he puts us all in fucking cuffs?”

“Artemis…” Hestia reached out.

“No!” Artemis flung her hand violently against the approach. “You heard her, Hestia, this is bad! Shit!”

Athena rolled her shoulder back. “Artemis, it isn’t in motion yet.”

“We have to stop it!”

Hestia looked at Athena again. She was tense and withdrawn, her light dull, that light like sunbeams on a blade. She put a hand softly on her elbow. “He’ll bring it to Council, right? We’ll push back.”

“He always listens to you, Athena.” Artemis’ speech raced. “Just tell him this is crazy.”

“Is it?”

Hestia's hand curled back. “Athena?”

Her interlaced fingers writhed in a tight grip. “Aphrodite and Dad clearly both intend to dominate the Aegean, and further. We don't know what an Aphrodisian supremacy looks like. She preaches love as the all-vanquisher. At least with him, we’re guaranteed to be allowed to keep working at all.”

“As his puppets!” A wolf howled in the distance as Artemis pounded her fist on the table, clanking the plates. “Is Ares on the Council yet? He’ll flip his lid, at least.”

“Yes, as of next meeting. But Dad intends to include him in this process, his king is Ares’ patronee’s brother.”

The wolf whimpered as the young huntress deflated. “Shit.”

Athena's voice thinned. “I have no idea how Ares will react.”

Hestia looked at her cautiously. “How will you tell him to react?”

Athena leaned heavily on her forearms and murmured to the mess of magazines. “I don’t know.” She dropped her forehead into her hand and rubbed it hard, like she was trying to trepan herself. “I don’t know if he’d even listen to me if I did.”

Those words from her lips hung in the room like the cobwebs of venomous spiders. The kitchen was silent but for the low hum of the oven. 

Then Artemis’ chair banged backwards as she stood sharply. “This is bullshit.”

Hestia reached for her again. “Artemis!”

“I gotta go for a walk.”

Athena shot an urgent glance to her. “You can’t tell anyone.”

Her eyes flashed jet, lower lip unstill. “The only people I’d tell are you two, and looks like it wouldn’t do me any good.” She tore from the table. The door slammed. 

Hestia flinched at the noise. Athena didn't. She just folded her hands together and rubbed her palms in slow circles. Hestia laid her hands over them and caught her eye tenderly. “He sprang it on you in the middle of the night, didn’t he? Didn’t give you time to formulate?”

She grunted at their conjoined hands. “I’m still in the clothes I was wearing when he called me in at gone one.”

Anger boiled in Hestia's belly. “Then you should sleep. For goodness’ sake, Athena, you can’t think if you’re exhausted.”

Athena gripped her hands, sharp eyes flitting left and right like the beads of an abacus. “I keep trying to lay the pieces on the board, then Aphrodite sweeps everything off the table. If she’s stopped, does he level out again? Does fixing this mean fixing her? Or is she a distraction? Will we throw all our weight behind a conversation with her, while he picks us clean unregarded? I don’t know.” She broke their hands with a deep groan and sank her head into clawing fingers. “I hate saying that.” She dragged her nails over her scalp, broad shoulders sagging. “My brother’s shut me out.”

Hestia frowned in surprise. “You’re fighting?”

“No. Worse. We’re nothing. He’s sunny and combative, like ever. But once it’s deep, once it’s real, it’s all about her, all with her. I’m not allowed in Sparta anymore. He’s not training with me. He’s not replying to half my texts, for Fates’ sake. He’s all Aphrodite’s now. So is Dad, in his way.” Her tense jaw rolled. “I worked and worked and nodded and stayed calm and held things steady for all those years. I built and fortified, guided, mended, mitigated. My judgement was never wrong. I never led them astray, never let them fall.” Her hands slammed to the table. “And it doesn’t matter to them. Too few bloody sequins. I’m not enough of a woman to start this kind of fire, I’m too much a woman to be trusted to put it out.”

Hestia clutched her hands again, palms hot and itching. “You are perfect. Your father and brother want to be indulged. This is what I mean, they want pleasure dolls! They want daughters who call them right and girlfriends who call them special, straight out of the factory, box fresh. You are too strong and too wise, you challenge them, and they’re sulking.”

“Well, they’re going to sulk the entire Pantheon into loss of independence. I have to figure this out.”

“And if you can’t? Might it…” she swallowed, “might it be time to… to schism?”

“Tia!” Athena sat bolt upright, eyes harsh silver.

Hestia kept hold of her, flames deep in her bowl pupils. “Athena, you said it yourself, look at what you’ve built yourself into. You always said you had to work in a masculine model of power because it puts a woman high up in terms they can understand. It's why we have any voice in kingship. So, be high. Be a voice. If you took a stand against Zeus, the Pantheon might come with you.”

“And if they didn’t?” She snatched her hands away. “Civil war. War, Hestia. No. Especially now.”

“Why now?”

“Because if I stand up and say defect to me, Aphrodite will do the same. Three-way civil war. No, the ends do not justify the means.”

“And the ends if you keep supporting Zeus, come what may?”

Her jaw set. “Then it will get worse. And it will be my fault. I will live with that. A system at peace can always be negotiated. You never run out of time. I’m not starting a clock I don’t know I can beat. I win all my battles because battle is only an option when victory is assured.”

So many girls have already run out of time. Hestia's stomach burned, but Athena's eyes were frost. With a strain in her throat, she gulped back the heat in her body. Athena was already always in the middle, she wouldn't do it to her on no sleep. Why do you always get my excuses? Something Aphro dite would understand. She sighed. “OK. OK, I trust your judgement.”

“At least someone still does.” The steel woman looked like jumbled nuts and bolts. She leaned back in her chair and dropped her head back to stare listlessly at the ceiling. The warm glow of the light showed the dark circles under her eyes. “I know you're disappointed in me. I feel like a double agent. You're so brave, Tia. You hold your ground, operate as you want to, stick to your principles even if it makes everything ten times harder. I wish I was as brave as you.”

Hestia's heart ached. The fire snuffed out in her belly and left her sore and guilty, and angry that she felt guilty. She pushed it all into her gut, with the rest of the discomfort. “I get to be brave because of your courage. You put yourself in the snake pit to keep us shielded.”

“So you're not angry with me the way you are with Aphrodite, for doing things in their language, being complicit?”

Guilty that she felt angry. Angry that she felt guilty. She stroked her partner's hair, down soft and withering with no time to wash it. “Why don’t you go up to my room and rest? You look so tired, my shield. I’ll make you some tea.” 

Athena's grey gaze fell to her, a gentle sheen on it as she smiled weakly. She nodded. She heaved herself from the wooden chair with a series of creaks of her joints. She bent and kissed the top of Hestia's head, lingering for a moment in the honey scent of her hair. She pulled away and slumped out of the kitchen towards the stairs. 

Hestia watched her go with her eyes pricking.

Why can't I love you without being disappointed in myself? How many more Galataeas trapped as dolls, how many more Medusas savaged in their holy spaces, how many of our powers stripped under a new king, before I stop believing you're my hero? 

She looked down at the rose pink paper atop the mess of glossy images of Aphrodite's confident, sly smile. A tear splashed onto the symbol of the hand mirror. 

*

 

 

Part VI. Afternoon. The Royal Palace, Paphos, Cyprus.

 

Ares’ feet slipped from the burning stone of the street to the cool marble mosaics of the palace of King Pygmalion. Aphrodite had reminded him that tomorrow was the royal wedding planned between her and Hera; she wanted to check in on her favourite. Shade and scent rippled over Ares, the welcome and beauty of the royal house embracing him in the way only Aphrodite’s stronghold could. Her grace and vigour overflowed from the painted walls as they entered the first hall and were immediately flocked by activity. Servants and tradespeople flurried left and right, bellowing, laughing, staggering under platters of food, rolls of fabric, explosions of flowers. Aphrodite led the way, dipping easily around the rushing bodies, like a fish in a reef. She threw a smile over her shoulder. “A more organised goddess would be doing less of this the day before.”

Ares chuckled. A hurrying maid tripped over his invisible foot. He caught her and set her right. She looked extremely confused as she carried on. He darted forward and stopped Aphrodite by the shoulders just as a bolt of purple silk was hurled from a balcony overhead. The rich, shimmering cloth cascaded like a waterfall. “How much are you actually managing around here?” Ares said sceptically.

Aphrodite snorted and swept behind the silk waterfall, gusting Ares with a floral breeze. He tripped behind her and almost collided with a solid wall of staff trooping dozens of dishes and baskets towards the kitchens. Spices and syrups and juices and steams enveloped Ares, his stomach grumbling. Aphrodite’s ravenous eyes illuminated. She snatched a square of baklava from a teetering stack passing by. She moaned gratuitously around her greedy chewing, knees buckling and eyes rolling back. The ache shot from Ares’ stomach to his groin. He clucked his tongue at her and reached for a pouch of pastry wrapping meat and berries. 

Aphrodite slapped his hand away. “Hey! Wedding feast. Not for you.”

“You’re stealing some!”

“I am Aphrodite, all in Paphos is offering to me.” She stuffed her cheeks like a chipmunk, then spun around to keep hurrying through the fray. 

He narrowed his eyes at the back of their head, lunged, and grabbed the pastry. He crammed it into his mouth and shivered with pleasure as it melted delectably over his tongue. Fuuuck, that's good.

“Are you chewing?”

“No.” Crumbs sprayed from his mouth.

He kept following them through soft shadow and dazzling light. The palace was a complex of halls, hideaways, and walled gardens, outdoors and indoors interlaced in a harmony of fresh air and soothing shelter. The song of fountains mingled with the murmur of voices. Fans, robes, and sheets wove into the feathers of doves and peacocks and the wide fronds of palms. Dark leaves and colourful petals burst from vases, garlands, and tessellating patches of earth. Glistening streams babbled through gardens and rooms unbroken. Silk and flowers were luxurious underfoot. Everything was luscious and green, the goddess of water and roses filling the space with life and loveliness. 

“Everywhere you stay becomes a paradise,” Ares mused under his breath.

Aphrodite stopped ahead of him and turned to smile, their hair ornaments glittering in the sun. They looked like the spirit of the palace, regal, beautiful, completely peaceful and yet completely energised. They took his hand and led him through another walled garden. They had finally reached the threshold of quiet in the house. The bustle faded, tranquility settling in the air. Fountains trickled, but were hidden by the less manicured plants here. Jasmine and clematis blanketed the stone features, constellations of star-shaped flowers placing them in an inverted night sky, draped with wisteria like twilight clouds. Breaking through the foliage were dozens of faces and figures. As Ares gazed around the space, he spotted statue after statue nestled in the chaos of green. Some were half finished, chisel marks like scars. Some were the finest work he had ever seen, so life-like it was almost eerie. 

Aphrodite squeezed his hand and guided him past the frozen eyes watching them. She brought him once again into  the shade of another room, also unusual for its lack of noise and neatness. It smelled of paper and clay, more half finished sculptures and stacks of sketches littered around the room, more grey eyes. Shelves of scrolls were dotted with figurines and pot plants. Purple cloth rippled over the space in sheets over alcoves and plinths. It absorbed sound and light, everything muted and dreamy after the vivid vigour of the rest of the palace. At a desk lit by a small, gauzed window, a couple sat among more clutter. The man was plainly dressed, his long, brown curls tied off his face. His thick eyebrows lowered over a sheet of paper onto which he sketched in charcoal, his fingertips black. The woman beside him was walking a compass along a star chart, a small pair of glasses perched on the end of her pointed nose. A rose freshly cut from the garden was bedded into her nest of braids. The man glanced sideways, reached across the small gap between them, and carefully tilted it where it had been dislodged. She didn't look away from the chart, but bobbed instinctively into his touch. Ares would never have guessed this was a royal couple. No airs. No stiffness. No conflict. This place had a quality to it that sat strangely in his body, that stirred his fire but also cooled it. It was equal passion and restfulness, as if at the end of a struggle. 

Peace.

Aphrodite stopped and gazed at King Pygmalion and his tomorrow queen, Galatea. Their hand wandered over their heart. Ares watched an entire love poem pass unspoken across their face. Her wide eyes welled and her cute nose crinkled. His heart melted. “Aaaaw, c’mere, you softie.” He looped his arm around her and tucked her into a comforting hug. 

They snuggled against him with a very undignified sniff. “It’s just been a big project!”

“I know, you’ve done great.” He smiled and kissed their hair. 

They sighed, their fat pillowing his side. “Ugh, not really.” She slid to lean back against his torso, reaching back to take his wrists and pull his embrace around her. “Honestly, I screwed myself a little with this one.”

“There’s a masturbation joke in there somewhere.”

She snorted and rubbed his forearm across her chest. 

He hugged them close, moulding his body to be their support and shield. “Tell me what you think you did wrong, and I’ll tell you why you’re right actually.” 

They leaned deeper against him. He felt their shoulder blades ease down. He glowed with the feeling of relaxing her. They hummed flatly. “It’s just stupid Olympus stuff. I joined up with Hera on this to be friendly, make allies. Cyprus is under Persian overlordship, and I’ve always been seen as something of a neutral force. The sea has that privilege. So when we decided to marry Pygmalion, Hera respected my neutrality and let me push for a love match over a Greek alliance. But she agreed to that before…”

He clucked his tongue. “Oh, before Ourania.”

“I made myself Greek, insisted on a place in your political circle. And just like that, I went from a neutral island goddess to a Greek traitor, keeping my king out of your influence, giving Persia a foothold in your territory. I made two different bids for the inner circle, and they crashed into each other like bumper cars. This match set me up wrong for yesterday, and your mom sent me the angriest text of my life about how yesterday spoils this match. It casts doubt on both our motives and competency. She’s mad I didn’t consult her, and she’s right.” They sighed heavily, pushing into his arms. “But it wasn’t a snub, I just didn’t connect the dots.”

He frowned. “That doesn’t sound like you, or Peitho.”

They thought for a moment. Both the gods watched the couple at ease in their projects, hands occasionally drifting to play around each other. Aphrodite's voice drifted too. “Maybe I didn’t want to. I knew it wouldn’t matter to me, whatever I found.” They dropped their head into the dip between his shoulder and his bicep. “I couldn’t separate them. In the end, I am a love goddess. I couldn't betray that. Love doesn't always fit into the smart plan. I’d rather take the consequences of my nature than suppress it.” Her words pinned to Ares. Her hair had fallen from her neck with the tilt of her head. Their lavender skin smelled of the island, sweet and salted. “But I don't think Hera and I will work with the same chemistry again. I screwed her over, and there’s no coming back from that, not with a queen.” Their thumb swept his wrist. “Maybe that's for the best. I don't think marriage is the ultimate end point of love. I think our partnership was really a choice made by the Aphrodite who wanted to fit in.” Her hand closed on his. “I changed after I met you. You made me think a lot about my domain, about not diluting passion with rules and conformity.”

An ocean flooded Ares' chest. Young, broken, confused, how could he make a difference to this extraordinary goddess? Words failed him. He hugged her tighter. He looked at Galatea rubbing Pygmalion's shoulder and leaning over to admire his work. Pygmalion showed her a little shyly, humble and devoted. Something ugly moved in Ares’ gut, a bitter image of the marriage of another king. “It's so fucking sad that marriage dilutes love. It's supposed to be its crowning glory.”

She was tenderly heavy in his arms. “I don’t think it’s sad. It would be sadder if we thought that something so immense and primal could be reduced to one pattern, the contract language of one time. But I do want to give it to people who want that union. What's sad is that love isn't Hera’s first priority anymore.”

“Yeah, well, we all know why.”

She tensed. She reached around to rub his arm. “Sorry. Running my mouth.”

“No, no.” He squeezed her. His chin dropped onto their shoulder, the scent of their hair in his mouth. “Honestly, it’s kinda nice. No one else really acknowledges how fucking depressing it is. Most people think it’s funny, or they’re bored of it, like it’s not so big a deal because she gets the palace and the clothes and the resting bitch face. People see it as, like, just a normal thing to put up with, like leaving the toilet seat up. Marriage is accepting the little annoyances, personal habits like snoring and eating in bed and serial adultery.” He ground his teeth. “Then a lot of people blame her, especially women for some reason?”

Aphrodite chuckled grimly. “Oh, Honey, that’s a whole can of worms.”

He sighed. “It just feels like people have made marriage more important than anything - the truth, how you feel, what you’re doing to each other. Keeping the contract intact is the goal, not being kind to each other, or enjoying each other; not being in love, just staying married. As long as you stay married, you haven’t failed her.” His throat tightened. “Marriage is Dad’s get out of jail free card, when it should be the law he’s breaking. It’s hard not to get a little jaded about the whole thing. Everyone tells you it’s so sacred when they want you to shut up and throw a party. But when it’s fucking poisoning their queen, it’s suddenly no big deal to abuse that covenant, and I’m over-reacting.” The frustration sizzled in his tone. He realised his grip was denting Aphrodite’s plumpness. He eased himself calm again. “So, I don’t know, when you let slip that it bothers you, I’m like, finally someone not telling me to get over it, you know?”

She reached back and petted the trimmed curls at the back of his head, the light tug blissful. “I don’t think you should be expected to get over it, Ares. You’re right, marriage is meant to be a vessel of love, just the container. Love is the sacred thing. People reduce it to its vessel and then they treat it like an object, something to put on a shelf to go dusty, to show off to guests but never look at yourself, to comment on for its form and colour but not drink deep from.” Her voice was soft, but there was an undercurrent of her stubborn fire that left a tantalising sprinkle of cinnamon on Ares’ tongue. “A goddess is not their statue, she must always be present to you far beyond your altar, suffusing how you live and believe. Love is not its vessel.” He breathed her in. They did suffuse his life and beliefs. They turned in his arms and laid a crocus petal hand on his cheek, their eyes shining in the low light. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through your parents’ marriage. I’m so sorry that no one understands the way a home like that affects everyone in it, how it’s the small, everyday things that make or break a person’s stability.” Their thumb swept his cheekbone. “I think a lot about what you told me when we talked in the Underworld. The feeling like bugs inside you?”

He blushed and drew back a little. “I… sometimes…”

“It’s detailed, a relationship like that. It’s not a big, explosive event that you can point to. There’s no story that will ever really freak someone out and make them tell you to get outta there.” Her eyes were steady, but there was a deep sorrow in them. They ran their hands very slowly from his face to his neck, his shoulders, his chest, his arms, exploring his strong, solid form and every blemish and scar. “But it’s like termites, it’s thousands of tiny bites. A tree with termites takes an awful lot of damage over time.”

His eyes pricked. He wasn't wearing his armour, he was so exposed, so raw under her touch. He spent a good half of every day wishing she was touching him, but now it was too much, like every inch of him was a wound. He pulled back with a weak, awkward laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, this is totally the wrong energy for wedding prep.”

They smiled. “So, we’re agreed marriage is a little over-rated when you could just, like, fuck forever under a palm tree.”

“That does sound better.”

They laughed, then gave him a hesitant look. “I’m sorry, did this wig you out?”

“What? No, no!” He wheezed out another weird laugh and waved her off. “Don’t sweat it, I’m just a bastard about marriage.” He started to jabber a little. “I just see people flashing the diamond around and my first thoughts are all like, for how long? What’s he hiding? Do you even want this or do you just want the licence to be a heterosexual adult, and it’s gonna punish you later? And then I feel so twisted, because what kind of asshole reacts like that to someone’s happy news? But I just can’t see it as this happy ending, you know?” Stop talking. “I hope they have a nice day, I hope everyone likes the food and the band and they get a good memory out of it.” OK, finish there. “But…” What? No. “But then they’re gonna go home, and sooner or later they’re gonna have the first fight, then the second, then the ninth and tenth, the separate rooms and the staying away, and playing away. I see a wedding and I get it’s a nice day, but it’s one nice day, like going to the water park. I can’t see it as anything really to do with the relationship.” Why are you still talking! “Fuck, Ares, shut up. Gods, I’m such a prick.” He huffed and covered his face with his hands.

She hurried to him and gently drew his hands back down. “You’re not. I get it, Honey, I really get it. Someone with burns scarring will find it hard to understand why everyone likes bonfires.” She shrugged and sighed wistfully. “But also, I’m so much older than marriage. I like a wedding, I like two people celebrating their love and feeling so certain about each other. But you know what I like more than a wedding?” They walked to the couple behind the desk, a shimmering presence between them. “This. There is nothing more beautiful than lovers in private. Pygmalion is a king, he needs ceremony to maintain his status. But we could pull down all the temples and burn all the papers and these two would still have this.” She swished her hand over them. Violet twinkling dusted their hair and faces. They blinked and looked up to meet each other’s eyes. The adoration radiated from them. Ares could see in the glimmer of their gazes that everything else in the world was a vague haze compared to the all-consuming beauty of the other person. Pygmalion impulsively took Galatea's hand and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Her fingers curled around his, dark eyes falling closed and her whole body relaxing. 

Ares grinned. “Usually when you do that it gets a little more X-rated.”

“They’re both Ace.”

“Oh, I'll shut up.”

She smirked at him, then turned her gaze back to her couple. Ares followed suit. Her sugary aura graced the pair. Pygmalion had charcoal on his hands and chiton. His hair was straying from the tie and his dark skin was speckled with old acne scars. Galatea was absolutely the picture of perfect beauty. Until she wasn't. Her hair was greying at the roots, her fingernails were rough and blunt, her glasses made her look the slightest bit cross-eyed, her breasts sagged in her loose dress. They were the special, chosen ones of the Goddess of Love and Beauty, and they were completely ordinary. Ares watched them nudge their chairs closer together, giggling quietly as they went back to their activities with tussling elbows. The nervous agitation the subject of marriage stirred in Ares quelled. In its place was an unfamiliar certainty, a calm, centred, summoning sensation in the furnace of his godhood. This love was true. He was in the presence of his goddess.

“You know, you don’t need to take my side with your mom.”

“Yes, I do.” He said it in a mumble, more realisation than reply. He felt her smile, and his stomach bubbled as if he'd just gulped a can of soda. He loosened his limbs and looked around the room with a few aimless steps. He hauled in the scent of clay and leaves and the way the air flowed through the spacious palace. “I’m really starting to like the Mortal Realm. I can breathe here. I get to see people be human here. Mortals can’t keep masks up like we can, they don’t have the time to practise.” He spun on his heel and spread his arms with a broad grin. “And I love it here, Aph. Paphos is…” He had no words. He was full of sea air and rosewater. He shook his head and beamed. She beamed too, glowing like a lantern. He held his hand out to them, his body suddenly longing for their closeness and his heart for their voice. “Come tell me about a mortal marriage that was worth pissing off the gods.”

They hummed. “No. Let me tell you a love story.”

They wandered around the betrothed to take his hand. He led them to a low couch with a dust sheet discarded beside it. They sat together at opposite ends, and she slung her feet into his lap. He toyed with their anklet and relaxed into the sunken cushions. Pygmalion’s charcoal scuffed in the quiet. Galatea was softly clicking her tongue. Aphrodite began to speak, their low, melodic voice gently filling the quiet, like water flowing into a basin.

“Once upon a time, there was a princess. Her name was Anaxarete. She was beautiful and smart, a mind like a whip and a heart like a deep, calm pool. Her father, the King of Salamis, wished for riches, so he invited the King of Paphos to his court across the island to form an allyship. The King of Paphos brought with him his young son, Prince Pygmalion. Pygmalion was only 18, but he was already a talented sculptor and kind, devoted royal.”

Ares glanced at him. His eyes were kind.

“As their fathers negotiated, Anaxarete and Pygmalion met in the palace library. Pygmalion was fascinated by her deep thoughtfulness and learning. Anaxarete was enchanted by his creativity and the way he lit up at the details of life. They formed a fast friendship. When it was time for the Paphian visitors to leave, the young people found themselves quite heartbroken. Neither had ever desired marriage. They understood that it was expected of them, but their passions were ignited by art and science and conversation far more than the idea of sexual union. Now they wondered if marriage could be about those passions. The night before they parted, they met once more in the library. Pygmalion held Anaxarete’s hands in his and told her the tragedy weighing down his heart. Cyprus was vulnerable. Persia loomed over the island, and their fathers were keeping a delicate peace. As an only child, Pygmalion was a valuable gift to be able to offer a Persian princess, should the need arise. He could not choose his own bride. But he could choose who shared his life. He wished to share himself with Anaxarete, and part of him would always be in Salamis, no matter what happened. She told him the same, that she felt her heart was leaving for Paphos. They said a goodbye that pierced the Goddess of Love herself.” 

She pressed a hand to her heart. She looked at the lovers. Her deep sea pupils reflected their image, tucked together in the centre of her gaze.

She sighed. “Paphos was her birthplace and she knew her prince needed to do his duty. But they encouraged the couple to write to each other and always protected their messengers. Their connection stayed true for many years. Pygmalion’s father passed away and Paphos fell to him, still unwed. With his even hand and broad mind, he was able to negotiate a deal with Persia that wasn’t reliant on a marriage. He cultivated something bountiful with them through friendship and exchange. His goddess wondered, as he grew, whether he would therefore take a wife for his own pleasure. But still he never desired that.” They smirked. “At first, they were affronted. How could the Goddess of Love’s own king reject their domain?”

Ares gave them a mock gasp. 

They again looked at the king with deep affection. “He taught her better. He was so full of love, so generative, so erotic. He engaged with the full sensation of his own body, his imagination, the way her fire burned for him. He poured his devotion to the goddess into his health, his friendships, and his art. He expressed Cyprus’ sexuality beautifully in his creativity and the excitement he felt for meeting new people, taking in new cultures. Paphos flourished with him at its heart. And all the while, he never forgot the princess in the library.” They smiled. “He and Anaxarete never stopped writing to each other. No one knew them like they knew each other in those letters.” The smile faded. “But those letters were also weeks to months apart, written in moments stolen from a royal schedule and travelling miles. This was painful for Anaxarete. For while Pygmalion had been growing into himself in Paphos, finding who he was and how he wanted to live and rule, she had not had such luck in Salamis. She remained a princess, and suitors began to come to the palace. They came with gifts and speeches and empty promises. None illuminated her like the prince she’d known all those years ago. Where Pygmalion had been allowed to become passionate in the way that was true to him, Anaxarete wasn’t given that right. Whispers filled the court, why wouldn’t she marry? Was she so cold? The Goddess of Love was with her often, always invoked by their letters, and she was angry with these rumours. Who were they to define passion? Were they Aphrodite?” She scoffed indignantly.

Cinnamon danced over Ares’ tongue. He bit back a hot grin and fiddled needily with their anklet. He centred again when their face fell, a shadow of grief over their playful mouth.

“It meant they had no compassion left for when something dark came for her. A suitor arrived who was…” They shifted uncomfortably. “He was like a leech. He claimed to love Anaxarete, but the goddess couldn’t sense a scrap of that on him. He wasn’t in love, he didn’t want to enliven her spirit or know her truth or serve her joy. He just wanted to own her, to have a cold woman warm to him, so he could call himself special, or pathologise her rejection of him, so he didn’t have to feel unworthy. He was sent away, like all the others. But he refused to go. He came back and back to the palace, called her names, guilted her, brought her extravagant things she didn’t want, and turned her own court against her with his performances of sorrow.” They bared their teeth. “The stupid mob saw his fucking crocodile tears and pitied him, hated the princess for not taking pity too. She prayed to Aphrodite for guidance, she didn’t want to be cruel.” They flashed up a sharp finger. “Aphrodite told her in no uncertain terms, pity is not love, and if he demands that then that’s his sickness. It wasn’t her job to save him from his self-loathing. She was a princess and a scholar, not a nursemaid. Anaxarete held firm. But this suitor kept coming. More whispers, more manipulation. Begging turned into threats.”

The cinnamon turned sour. This was the one flavour of anger that Ares wasn’t excited by. Violation, the vile mixture of terror and self-doubt clumping in clean pride. His fingers moved from their anklet to clutch their calf. I’m here, he can’t get past me.  

Their voice continued haunted. “He had this look about him, ugly, violent. He would say that she was making him lose control, that whatever he did would be her fault, that she deserved to be punished in the way she punished him. People heard these comments, her father heard them, no one spoke up for her. They all agreed! They fell for it!” Their hands burst up in a shower of sparkle as the light caught the gems of their rings. “They pitied him for staying in the cold gaze of the stony princess. They heard him threaten her and said maybe it would finally heat her blood.”

Ares couldn’t tell whether the anger bubbling inside him was hers or his. There was something vital and preciously intimate about feeling as one with this beautifully emotional goddess, like receiving a blood transfusion. They ran together in his arteries. She gave him life, as much a part of him as his own flesh. His heart pounded at the thought. He took a deep breath and refocused on the story.

“Only Pygmalion believed and was angry for her. He knew the depth and warmth and vitality of her spirit. Their letters were her only lifeline, her only place of sanity. She longed for him, but he was so far away and couldn’t make a diplomatic visit without her father’s invitation. Her father wouldn’t send one, he blamed him for her refusal of suitors and wouldn’t allow them to reunite. She became afraid. Dead flowers left on her pillow. Seething eyes on her at banquet. Hours of contrived isolation with him, her back to the door as he paced around her like a starving wolf, ranting about his sorrow and his worth, about what he might do if she rejected him again, to her, to himself. For months she lived in terror of his threats. She almost wanted him to attack her, it was her only hope of having him cast out. Whatever happened to her, at least it would end the wait for violence, lift the pressure on her chest, finally prove she wasn't crazy and there was real darkness there. But what if he harmed himself? She hated him, but she was a tender soul. However poorly he handled it, he was clearly in real pain. Anaxarete was paralysed by the horror of her own power over him, that she could cause such agony, bring about a death. While she held to her refusal to marry, she treated this creature delicately, pitying him, apologising, soothing, begging him to preserve himself. With every softness he twisted crueller.” Their fist clenched on the corner of a cushion. “Softness let him press deep, deeper and deeper, down through her heart and stomach to her spine.” They eyed Ares, half teasing, half serious. “She needed a god of anger to light their spark in her, something to cry out furiously against this impulse to placate and shed pieces of ourselves to feed another’s inhumane greed.”

Ares glimmered. Their ankle in his hand felt like a sword hilt.

They smiled smoothly. “But she had only a love goddess on her side, and it is hard to know your heart when every day you hear your feelings and desires are wrong. The Goddess allowed this too long, even as the false suitor's prayers rotted on her altar.” 

“Wait, that dipshit prayed to you?” 

“He believed himself to be in love.” They rolled their eyes and reclined in the violet pillows, elbow on the couch back and fingers in her river of hair. “Some people have a pit of avarice in them where love should go. It turns everything they put in it into brass - cheap false gold to resent as their own poor treatment tarnishes it. I wish it was something I could heal, but I can’t reach those places, they wither me.” Their eyes gleamed with determination. “All I can do is grow self-love in the objects of their avarice, so those people know they should never be thrown into that pit. The Goddess of Love sat with Anaxarete every night and nurtured her self-love, a garland of roses thorned enough to draw the blood of a predator. At last, one day, the suitor made his threat again, that she would cause his death if she didn’t give herself to him, and Anaraxete lashed out. She said that she could never want him, that she would rather he died and left her free than save him with her supplication.” 

Ares’ chest rose, his powers drawn to defiance.

Aphrodite’s proud mouth tightened. “In the end, punishing her became more important to him than living. He took her words and gutted her with them.” They grit their teeth. “He hung himself from the palace gate, dressed in a garland of roses, a mockery of The Goddess that will never be forgiven.” Their fingernails punctured the cushion. Cinnamon slinked down Ares’ throat. “The court was disgusting. They said that his funeral pyre should be built in view of her bedroom window to force her to look upon the consequences of her coldness.” They balked. “As if he hadn’t been pure ice! As if he hadn’t tortured her for months! As if there is anything more callous than twining love with shame!”

The fountains outside whistled and splashed. She started at the sound and glanced with a grimace to see the damage to the silk in her fist. Ares smiled with gentle amusement and massaged their calf, cupping the muscle in his palm. They rolled their shoulders and exhaled levelly. 

She continued in a soft, sympathetic tone. “Anaxarete was consumed by the horror of it, finally surrendering to the guilt they had all been injecting into her like venom. As the funeral pyre blazed, she crept to her bedroom window to watch him burn at her command, to face her cruelty, to condemn herself forever to being undeserving of true love. The Goddess could not let a princess be taken from her like this, not in their name. As Anaxarete’s eyes were about to fall on the fire, Aphrodite rushed to her and turned her to stone.”

Ares blinked. “Woah, to stone?”

They frowned earnestly. “She hardened the princess’ kind heart against manipulation. They cloaked her in a hard, impenetrable shield to protect her from the misuse of her softness.”

He nodded in realisation. “It’s like the Propoetides. You took away the thing they could exploit, shame.”

She raised her face, the jewels in her hair giving her an aura of royalty and light. “A free woman is not cold, a shameless woman is not hard. But if a little coldness and hardness helps them release captivity and shame, then their patron will grant it. The Goddess turned her to stone before men could destroy her softness. She preserved her.” She smirked. “But it’s not exactly a long-term blessing.” The harsh gleam of her eyes became a clever glitter. “Aphrodite was sick and tired of a princess being at the mercy of these twisted blasphemers who take love’s name in vain. She let the court see the statue, let them place it in some pleasant part of the gardens as a reminder to all princesses to come: Aphrodite will punish your coldness. A frustrating concession, but let me tell you, a lot of people found themselves with inexplicable venereal diseases that day.”

He yapped a brazen laugh.

She grinned. “Then Aphrodite spirited the statue away to her paradise and to the prince who had always loved Anaxarete truly.” They turned their luminous face to the couple. “Pygmalion was amazed to find his goddess in his studio with his frozen love and a proposition for him. She told him to tell people that he was working on his finest piece yet, a sculpture of a woman so beautiful that she would capture the heart of Paphos. He must drag the project out for a few months, to let the disappearance of the stone princess of Salamis be forgotten. Then he must announce that he had made such a stunning statue that it had inspired him to marry. Finally, he must perform a ritual to Aphrodite at her great summer festival, begging her to bring his perfect bride to life. The Goddess would grant his wish and transform the statue into the beauty, Galatea.” She beamed and snapped her fingers in showers of stars. 

Ares grinned broadly. “But only she and Pygmalion would know that it was actually Anaxarete brought back to life.”

She tapped the end of her nose. “Anaxarete awoke to find her oldest, dearest wish standing before her, free of the poisonous palace and able to start a new life on her terms with her best friend, with no cost but her name. She was welcomed by Paphos as the king’s miracle bride, bringing even more adoration to the generous island goddess, if possible.” She spread her arms with a cheeky shimmy. Ares chuckled and squeezed her leg. She sighed romantically and smiled at Pygmalion rubbing Galatea’s back and listening intently as she explained something on the star chart. “It was as if they’d never been apart. That connection flared as if no time or distance or grief or trauma had ever touched them. Pygmalion brought Anaxarete truly to life. She shed the guilt, the way she shrunk and hid and second guessed. She was reborn in love as Galatea, and loving her made Pygmalion an even better king, Paphos an even more prosperous city.” She stroked Ares’ stomach with her toe. “See? It’s not really a story about a public ceremony or a legal contract. These two fell in love in a private way, in library corners and secret studios and letters that no one else ever glimpsed. There is so, so much shared between them, and all of it is in the intimacy of the everyday, not the splendour of the big day.”

He ached, wonderfully, deeply, the way the earth aches before it reforms the continent. He tried to describe it to them. He couldn’t. He looked at the lovers in their mundane, private moment. “Yeah, you did the right thing.”

She beamed and blushed.

He looked back to the glow on her cheeks. Her presence was an eternal beacon in his senses, in all of humanity. Her anger had melted into triumph, but it was still there, always there, sweet embers in his mouth and velvet on his skin. Her eternal demand for better. All his messed up, monstrous divinity drove to it, to them, a cosmic alignment at his centre from one touch of their gaze. “Do you make soulmates?”

Their lashes fluttered at the sudden question. They thought for a moment, twirling a lock of hair. “I don't pre-pair people, if that's what you mean. It's too much work, and I'd need to work so closely with the Fates, and they're…” She made a cuckoo sound. Ares laughed. She smiled wistfully. “People change too much over their lives to be pre-ordained, really. Big fates, maybe, wars and heroes.”

“Love isn't big?”

“Love is…” the smile played on her lips, weaving the right word, “plentiful. This is what I’m saying.” She gestured at the couple living their little daily life. “It's critical mass. It's big because it's a vast swarm of little things. The way someone looks at you when you laugh, all the times you touch, how they hold you when you cry, the shape their mouth makes when they eat, the sound of them humming under their breath, how you met, how you fell, how you confessed, your fights, your time apart, your reunions, your inside jokes, the things you do to relax, the secrets you tell. That little culture you make between you. That's too much to plan for. And it's not as much fun. Sewing that quilt together is what makes it love. I wouldn't take that away from them.” Her necklaces twinkled with a glimmer from her heart. “But does that mean I don't believe in soulmates? Absolutely not. I believe souls are like water, and falling in love is like sharing a vessel. You both pour some of your soul into it, mix them together. Love is the meeting place where the edges of two souls become one. Even if you lose that person, you can't unmix water. You'll be together in your souls forever.” Her lagoon eyes met his. He left his body, swam in them. The violet irises were cupped foxglove with the glimmer from her heart, brightening as she looked at him. Her voice faded to a whisper. “Do you believe in soulmates?”

He took a slow, shuddering breath. “I'm starting to.”

The room was silent. Everything was dark and Aphrodite’s heart glowed at the centre of the world. His hand moved up her leg. She shifted forward.

A breaking pot startled them both. Their glimmer snuffed out and the low sunlight of the studio flickered to life again. Galatea was apologising anxiously as she darted to clean up the shards of a brush pot on the floor. Pygmalion hurried to kneel with her, stilled her hands, and stroked her hair, murmuring that everything was alright, she didn’t need to feel bad. She calmed and dropped her brow to his with a peaceful smile. Aphrodite sniffled. “Gods, look how good they are for each other. I love seeing them like this, in private. Ana is still facing so much judgement, even as Galatea.”

Ares cocked an eyebrow. “What is there to judge now?”

They snorted and stretched their legs out on his lap. “Oh, it's another mess I didn't foresee. I know and they know that they fell in love years ago, but we can't exactly go parading the secret backstory about without starting a war with Salamis for theft of their princess. So the story is that Pygmalion liked a fake woman more than real women, and I approved of that and brought a sex doll to life to appease his male standards. Because the best woman is a sex doll. At least, that's TGOEM’s line.”

He rolled his eyes.

“For once, I get it. It's something I think a lot about and can't really settle on a position. Sex dolls themselves can be fun and useful toys, for lots of solo and partnered play. But… yeah…” They shrugged. “Does the toy have to look human to get the sensation? And always the same type of human? And there are men out there who want women to be dolls, who are so fucking offended when we're not. And that is traumatic. Should we have to look at them buying our effigies to come into while they degrade and criminalise our real sexuality? Sexuality should at all times be disobedient, the opposite of a pretty, malleable doll.”

“What if it's your kink? Doing what you're told?”

“He asks with no personal interest.”

His face flared cherry. 

She poked out her tongue, then continued with the steady conviction that he so admired. “Play and real obedience are different. Wanting to have a little fun taking power is not hating someone for being their own person. A lover should always cherish and enjoy your personhood. A fantasy of love is a fantasy of meeting personhood. If you want to use someone as an object, you're not in my domain.”

“So, are you gonna say that? When people ask you about Galatea?”

They huffed. “I had a whole plan for how this was gonna be interpreted, and TGOEM would have liked it too.”

He fingered their anklet again. “Yeah?”

“It was actually anti-sex doll. Sorta. That, OK, you can make a figure of a woman, you can look at an image or touch an object or make a fantasy into art, and all of that is beautiful, all of that is you accessing and growing your sexuality. But when it's time for love, it needs to be a real person. Pygmalion made erotic figures because he didn't really want erotic relationships, that’s just not how his sexuality works. There's nothing wrong with that, sexual intimacy with others isn't for everyone. Art and toys and dolls let him be intimate with himself. But then it was time for love. When it was time for love, it had to be a real person.” She gestured grandly. “Aphrodite decrees that love means embracing reality. If you are to love a woman, you may not have a doll, you shall have a real woman and all of herself. So King Pygmalion prayed to Aphrodite for love, and she transformed stone to flesh, as we are all made flesh by wanting each other. And there was a girl who was seen as a doll, who was made as an art piece by a world that crafts more than raises its girls, who was expected to be nothing but a character for a man to play out his fantasies. But then she was found by a goddess of self-love, was loved truly, and love freed her from her bonds, brought life into her. Love grants wishes, but more than that, it grants real life.” She held her orator pose for a beat, then flopped with a puff of pillows. “Whatever. Being a storyteller is like being a parent. You birth it and raise it, and then it fucks off to do its own thing anyway. As children are supposed to.”

Ares looked at Galatea, now standing in Pygmalion’s embrace. Their loose clothing swirled together. His stomach twinged. “Kinda sucks for her that she had to leave her family, the only way she got to be who she wanted, with who she wanted, was by running away. If they'd just listened to her, she could've stayed, had them and Pygmalion.”

Aphrodite’s voice was warm cotton. “She didn't really run away. I took her away. Maybe I was too involved this time.”

He looked down at her legs across his thighs. His touch wandered to the hem of her dress and cosied into the softness. “Nah. Sometimes love takes you away from where you weren't really meant to be, takes you somewhere better, where you can be yourself.”

They lifted their foot and raised his chin with their pointed toes to look at her reassuring smile. “Sometimes. Sometimes it grows in the place you already are. Sometimes it would stay with you, no matter where.”

His eyes pricked. He gruffed, took her calf, and lowered it into a firm, tender massage.

She relaxed into it with a tantalising hum. “Galatea wasn't good at setting her own terms. She needed a clean break or she'd never have space for her love or herself. Not everyone's like that.” She levelled her tone meaningfully. “Some people make it so they can stay.”

He looked shyly at her. “Is it OK if those people sometimes wanna run away, though?”

She raised her chin and swept a graceful hand out to the isle. “That's what Paphos is for.”

*

 

 

Part VII. Afternoon. The Royal House, Olympus.

 

Zeus' hard, leather shoes creaked quietly as he stopped in the open doorway of Hera's walk-in wardrobe. She was stalking around the pouffe in the middle of the chic, glitzy, padded space, picking up clothes from a heap, examining them, and irritably tossing them back down again. Her hair was pulled into a chignon, but it was lumpy and fraying. Her eyes gleamed gold out of an oil spill of mascara smudge. There was a ladder on the knee of her stocking. His gut slinked back from the damage to her beauty. She knows how stunning she can be, why would she let it go all the damn time? 

He knocked tentatively on the doorframe. Hera stopped like broken clockwork, her head at an odd angle as she seemed to struggle against herself to face him. He folded his arms and cleared his throat. “How about this Galataea backlash? Aphrodite really can't just let a good thing be, can she? Always has to over complicate it.” Hera kept arranging and rearranging the heap of clothes. “I kinda thought with you on that marriage project, Greece would be looking at a new ally.” Coat hangers rattled. Hera’s face looked carved out of diamond. Those eyes used to be liquid when they looked at him. There was a hard, dry crust around his heart. “But you got swayed by the love match.” She turned away and walked crisply to one of the rails. She perused it and unhooked an angular white dress that looked more like origami than fabric. “Even Aphrodite's needs come before mine.”

She halted, knuckles bleaching on the coat hanger. Her bright eyes shot to him and pierced. “I made a marriage for love, I took a risk for love, and you don't think I was thinking of you?”

The crust on his heart cracked. Zeus flickered. She glared at him a moment longer. It was like looking directly into the midday sun. She looked down and left him in darkness. He looked down too. “Guess that partnership is over?”

She didn't answer.

He watched her move aimlessly between messes. “Building a pant suit fort?”

“Just choosing some outfits to keep in my room.”

His throat snagged. “No use in asking if you're coming back to bed, then.”

“Have you so much as apologised?”

“Yes.”

She scoffed. “‘I'm sorry, Bunny, but it was a long time ago. I'm sorry, Bunny, but we were in a different place then. I'm sorry, but. I'm sorry, but.’ Just once, I'd like to hear an apology from you that wasn't smuggling an excuse.”

His veins scratched with a prickle of irritated charge. He took a slow, patient breath, tightening his arms over his chest. “OK, no buts. I'm sorry and I miss you.” He dropped to lean his arm against the door frame, resting his head on it. “Please come back to me.”

Her restless pacing stuttered. He held his breath. It continued. “Did you miss me when you were with her?”

“Semele?”

“It has a name?”

His chest constricted, as if she'd trapped him in one of her thick, leather belts. He lowered his voice and his gaze, unsure whether in contrition or resentment. “I think I missed you before her.”

A shirt whirled to the floor as she rounded on him. “Then come to me, Zeus! Not to someone easy! Not to someone who helps you forget me! All this crap about Bunny come back, you come back to me!”

He frowned at her. “Do you really want me to?’

“Do you want to?” She glared through his silence. She hissed like a viper. “Stop putting the onus on me as if it's not your fuck up.” She whisked back into organising clothes. 

He ground his teeth. He lifted his head from the door frame. “Look, uh, this is awkward, but about Ares… he's finally working hard, he's joining the Council next session, he's putting himself under a lot of pressure, and it's not fair on him to throw off his rise. So, I wanted to ask if maybe you could not tell him about this.”

She halted like a mechanical figurine with a pin in the gears. “Of course not.”

“Of course.” He sniffed. “Just you have in the past.”

“I have not.”

Fates, every point has to be argued. He rubbed his eye, fighting exasperation in his tone. “Alright, well, he always seemed to know.”

“He reads anger, you colossal asshat!” Her snap dented fresh creases into her card-stiff hanging shirts. “Maybe he should be grateful to us for giving him so much fucking practice! Maybe it's why he has the domain he has, what else could he possibly ever sense from his own mother!” The final word thunked in her throat. Her dagger eyes bloomed like sunflowers, pupils suddenly huge and black. She clamped her hand to her mouth and screwed her eyes shut. Her small shoulders hunched and trembled. Zeus watched warily as she held in a sob like vomit. She heaved a rattling breath and flung her hand out. A packet of cigarettes and a lighter appeared in it. Her shaking hands fumbled unsealing the packet. She snarled and wrenched one out and threw the packet on the floor. She stuffed the end in tight lips and frantically flicked the lighter over and over. It kept sputtering out. It clinked again and again, grating on Zeus' gum. He loosened his jaw and walked softly to where Hera stood attacking the mechanism with her thumb. He gently touched her hand and lowered it. He tapped the tip of the cigarette. It sparked to life. The comforting scent eased between them. Hera took a long drag, not looking at him. Her shaking quelled. Her eyes were wet but her cheeks bone dry. She blew smoke in his face. “If I've never told him about his real brother, why would I tell him about any of your bastards?” 

Zeus stood very still.

She continued in a voice like sodden rags, smoke drizzling from between her perfect teeth. “I know you think it's about the affairs, but at this point it's not. It's just so fucking galling wondering every day where one son is, and watching the other picked apart by crows, while all these other sons walk free. Your prophecy could be about any of them, yet I'm the bitch for pursuing your fucking risk factors. You get to hurl my babies from the mountain, and I don't get to lay a hand on yours. You're afraid of your own sons, but you won't stop getting people pregnant. Because somewhere down the line you decided that the prophecy didn't say Zeus' son, but Hera's. No words and no evidence made you have to blame me. But you do, you can't not, so only my sons suffer.”

He breathed patiently. “I do have evidence. Pandora’s…”

“Pandora's jar, yes, thank you.” She scoffed in a white cloud. “Me. Pandora. Aphrodite. Keep making your list of women, it was a man who pulled Hephaestus from my arms.” The suppressed sob escaped her. Entirely without warning, it burst out of her in an ugly, shrill crunch. It cast the cigarette from her mouth, landing with a black burn on the pristine carpet. It was almost funny, if it wasn't so lowering. The severe, regal woman dropped like a bundle of sticks to the pouffe, sitting with her toes turned in on a pile of dresses. She sobbed sloppily into her hands. “I see Ares soaring, being so passionate, being so happy. And it kills me. Because I know I can't take a scrap of credit. Everything good about him and his life is in spite of me and the anger I poured into his veins and the burdens I put on his shoulders. And he got so big so fast, so I couldn't even carry him when he needed to be carried, or fit in my lap, then in my arms. I wasn't strong enough to give him goodness or to protect Hephaestus. I seduced Kronos, I have him inside me still, I'm tainted by him. I suppose that's why you need these others, you need something that doesn't feel tainted. You need relief from me. I'm a warrior who lives in disgrace when everyone else in the war came out a hero. I'm a goddess of motherhood who betrayed her own sons and a goddess of marriage whose husband doesn't want her.” Her voice drowned in water. She bent double over her scarred stomach. Mascara splashed into the pale rug. 

Zeus' gut lurched. He raced to her side and fell to one knee, wrapping her tiny frame in his arms and folding her against him. “You're not,” he murmured ardently, “oh, Bunny, you're not. You're a goddess of queenship who does what she has to, who shines. And I do want you. I love you. I'm so in love with you. I will be forever.”

Her golden hand crept to his shirt and clung. She turned her face into his chest and whispered pleadingly through rending sobs, “Don't comfort me. Don’t.”

He kissed her hair and rocked her. 

He could still smell her perfume on him when he was in his office later. Classy. Musky. He pinched the collar of his shirt and pulled it up to his nose. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Fuck, I miss you.

Do you really think you're tainted, my golden perfection? I wish you were, Fates know I am. We're so old and we've done so much, can't we just be tainted together? 

But they're different, the things that make us wrong. Maybe I cover myself in these girls because then at least the thing between us isn't…

Him.

I've missed you ever since Him.

Do you miss me?

Do any of the goddesses?

He started out of his thoughts at a light knock on the door. He tugged his shirt straight and swept his hand through his hair. “Mm?”

The door opened gently. Thetis tottered in on a pair of stilettos that made her long legs look like smooth, sculpted glass. The gleaming shoes were white as chewing gum. Zeus’ molars grazed over each other. He smiled. “Button on strike again?”

Thetis flashed pearly teeth and raised a hand tipped with long, sleek nails patterned like beetle shells. “I'm protecting my new babies.”

He eyed the keen points, back tingling. “Very pretty.”

She gave him an evening prettier, flattered smile. She hoisted the small stack of files in one arm, nudging her breasts up in her low cut top. “Also, I need you to sign these.”

He blinked his eyes from her breasts up to her warm gaze. “Well, if you need me.” He picked up a pen, stood, and strolled around his desk to join her. He took the first file and flipped it open, resting on his forearm. The tiny print immediately hurt his eyes. He sighed heavily. “Oh dear, your needs are very complicated, Thetis.” He began to lazily scribble his signature on documents, swapping files with her to work down the stack. 

“Well, these are more the kingdom's needs.” She dropped her voice, her breath brushing his hand as he took another file. “My needs are very simple.”

His pen skidded. He didn't let his face change. He flowed back into the signature and glanced at her. “Not too simple, I hope.”

She met his eyes with a twinkle in her own. His neck warmed pleasantly. She took the last file from him and folded the stack against her chest, cuddling that little, blue pillow rise. She rolled her shoulders back and opened her mouth to speak, then her gaze caught on his shirt. He looked down to see a murky, black mascara streak on the white fabric. She tutted. “Oh no, what happened?”

“Oh… uh… it's Hera's.”

She chuckled affectionately. “Get you two, still playing hooky after all this time.”

He let out a thin laugh, somewhere between bashful and bitter. “Uh, no, no. It's… She was upset.” He gruffed sombrely. “We, uh, we lost a baby. A long while back now, but sometimes he just sneaks back up on her.”

Thetis’ eyes fluttered large and sympathetic. They were that summery, sugary baby blue you'd paint a vintage pin-up’s car in. “Oh, I'm sorry. It's sweet of you to be there for her when it does.”

“Mm.” He spoke in almost a whisper, a moment of vulnerability that Thetis had to lean closer to hear. “Well, he was my baby too. Sometimes, I think she forgets that, you know? I had to be there for her because she was going through it, but…”

“But who was there for you?”

Exactly, right? Everyone was happy to criticise him when he made the hard choices, but if he wasn't the sort of man who could, they couldn't lean on him when they needed to cry. Everyone was happy to take the things they liked, but he was somehow still always the bad guy. “Yeah, well, I'm the king. The buck stops here.”

“That must be hard.” Her voice was so, so soft, listening to it was like falling backwards into feathers. “But I know all of us are so grateful for how you carry us. Sometimes I think about how lucky I am to have got this job, to give back to the person who's held me up all my life.” He looked at her, heart squeezing a little inside its crust. She smiled. “My mom was a river nymph in the Mortal Realm, surviving in the silt and the cold. When you opened that new estate for nymphs to apply for affordable housing…” Zeus didn't let it show on his face as he quickly searched his memory for a policy that drew a total blank. Something vague about greenlighting a TGOEM initiative to get them off his back. “…it gave us a new life. Olympus opened up for me, this electric place.” A spark was in her tone, excited and youthful.

He gazed at her fresh, uncynical face. “You deserved it, Thetis, you've worked hard, you're tenacious, you're smart.”

“I have. I am.” And again that thread of smoke in her tone that wound itself around his groin. “But still, I always wanted to show you my gratitude.”

He couldn't take his gaze off her face. The blue of her glimmer was so soothing after the harsh, bile yellow of Hera's. Looking at her was like putting cucumber slices on his eyes. She was so delicate, so sweet and gentle, but she was no wallflower. There was a boldness to how she held his gaze that disturbed something battened down in the pit of his stomach. This was a girl who knew exactly what she was doing every damn minute. 

She broke their eye contact with a demure blush. “Um, here.” She walked away with a swish to her hips like a brook whisking over pebbles. She dropped the files on his desk and went to the closet on one end of the room. She returned with a fresh shirt, the hanger hooked over her finger. “Let me get that one cleaned.”

Zeus prickled excitedly. He caught her eye and held it as he deftly unbuttoned his shirt. He watched her gaze drift down with his fingers, working its way under the fabric as it folded open. He rolled his shoulders smoothly and shed the shirt. The light in his office was warm. It made his skin look rich and his scars small. Thetis’ full lower lip vanished into her mouth. Her chest quivered in her sculpting top. His pulse drummed. Gods, this felt good. Being wanted. Being admired. Young and attractive and heroic. She sucked hard on her lip. Her cheeks hollowed slightly and her throat flexed. He throbbed. He flashed her a mock warning look and handed her his shirt. She blinked and her lip popped free. She cleared her throat with a little blush and fumbled taking the new shirt off the hanger. He chuckled. She giggled. She made a show of averting her eyes shyly. They swapped shirts. He dressed again. He couldn't stop glancing at her, watching him again as he rebuttoned. He got to the top button on his chest and looked down in confusion as it misaligned into the wrong hole. He clucked his tongue. Thetis smiled. “Here.” She put the shirt over her arm and reached out. He halted. 

In the back of his mind it was a hundred years ago and Hera was doing his tie before every meeting. She would tug it straight, smile at him, and smooth her hands down his chest. He swallowed. He lowered his hands. Thetis hesitated, then laid her fingertips lightly on the opening of his collar.

It was the first time she'd ever touched him.

She fixed the button. She flattened her palms, not quite pressing. 

Golden hands smoothing down his chest. T he feeling of a beautiful woman touching him.

Thetis dropped her hands and stepped back.

Shit. That was close.

A sudden clammy sweat on the back of his neck, Zeus stepped back too. He lingered.

Maybe just one more hit.

“How do I look?”

“Squeaky clean.”

“Not too clean, I hope.”

She smirked, eyes sparkling. She nodded politely and strutted from the room in an eddy of perfume as addictive as liquor. The door clicked shut.

Zeus exhaled heavily and ran his hands agitatedly around his tingling torso. He shook his limbs hard. He walked briskly back to his desk. She'd left the files there. She'd have to come back in.

Was that on purpose?

He rumbled needily in his throat and drummed his fingers on the stack. Minx. His smirk drooped as beside the stack he spotted a photo. Five years old. Ares was centre of the frame, pudgy 18-year-old arms shooting out to hold the camera in both hands. His bright, pretty face blazed with an enormous, crooked grin. Hera leaned in with a hand on his arm, her hair in a loose ponytail, unusually relaxed, beaming like she only did with Ares. She was waving a successful high school transcript. Zeus stood on Ares’ other side, stooping into the shot and grinning too, arm around his wife and son. The palace garden was sunny behind them.

The camera flashes and they all blink dottily at the temporary blindness. Ares lowers the camera and hands it off to someone. “Jeez, hope OU has audiobooks.”

Hera laughs, then turns back to the transcript that she's been ogling for a good hour. “Oh, Lamb, look at these grades.”

Ares shrugs bashfully and mumbles, “Thanks, Ma.”

Her sunshine eyes swim. She sniffs. “I'm so thrilled for you, you worked so hard.”

His laughter booms across the garden. “They're really not that good, quit crying, Ma, Fates!” He slings an arm around her and pulls her into a hug. She vanishes into his large body. She re-emerges still dabbing her eyes. It wouldn't be this emotional if Ares had agreed to them exchanging his university place for a large donation, but it's honest or not at all with this kid. The back and forth on that made the year even more excruciating, but, well, maybe there is something in it.

Zeus smiles warmly at the pair of them. When they're both relaxed, they look alarmingly like each other. Everything around them shines the colour of midsummer. He holds his hand out to shake. “Great job, Son. I'm proud of you.”

Ares falters. His eyes widen. Zeus twinges with something that could have been guilt, but is lost in irritation before he can identify it. Then Ares’ face cracks into his vibrant grin again. “Dad, handshaking? Don't be a loser.” He bats his hand away and launches himself onto Zeus. Zeus catches his weight and almost falls. For a second, he stands bewildered, barely feeling anything. Then he realises his son is embracing him, strong and warm. He hesitates. He closes his arms around the broad boy. His cottony curls brush his cheek. His t-shirt is a little damp in the heat. He smells of hot sauce. Zeus hurts somewhere he can't usually feel. He wraps his boy tightly against him and bows his face into his shoulder. Ares hugs him fiercely, thoughtlessly, no withholding, just that unbridled energy, all rushing all the time. Zeus’ eyes prick. He blinks up from his son's soft shoulder and meets Hera's eye. She's smiling at him. She looks a hundred years younger. She looks like she did when they met, but more, because they've made so much together since then, a victory and a kingdom and this brazen, beautiful boy. 

Behind her is another smile. 

The bottom falls out of Zeus’ stomach as the gardener he's been seeing winks surreptitiously at him from a patch of succulents. Ares’ senior year has been a constant battle with his temper and his negativity and his wandering focus. Zeus needed to get everyone through it, so he had to keep himself refuelled, right? But it's over now. They're headed for a smooth patch. The girl will understand.

In a few days, she'll poison Hera’s favourite lily. 

It'll all come out. 

Hera won't understand, she never understands. She'll corner him in his study under the huge, expensive painting of the three of them done on Ares’ 16th birthday. They'll row. Painfully. Pointlessly. 

Ares will hear and hurry in. He'll ask what's going on. Neither of his parents will look at him.

“Dad… No…”

He'll make an assumption immediately.

Zeus will try. “Ares, it's complicated.”

Hera won't let him. “Don't drag him into this!”

She'll pull him back into fighting. Somewhere in the peripheral, he'll be able to hear heavy breathing, stammering, an attempt to raise a breaking voice. Hera's tears will drown it.

Water.

Then fire.

“WOULD YOU SHUT UP!”

Ares will hurl a ball of flame across the study. The portrait will erupt, the calm, dignified faces of the sitters melting and dissolving in ash. 

Zeus will round on him with his heart hammering in terror that he has to cover, that no one must see. Is it coming? Was he right all along? “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?”

“SAME QUESTION, DICK!”

Hera will try to get between them, Ares will shield her, and the whole thing will disintegrate into indistinct shouting and crying and pushing. Doors will slam. A miserable sprinkler will put out the spreading flame. Hera will keep weeping.

Fire.

Then water.

They both do their own kind of damage.

Zeus took the photo frame and laid it face down on the desk. 

*

 

 

Part VIII. Evening. Paphos, Cyprus.

 

The melody of fountains trickled through Ares as they wandered back through the shimmering palace complex. Cascades of bougainvillea draped the lush courtyards in magenta shadows as the sun rolled lazily from its zenith. The romantic hue glimmered around Aphrodite as they walked. Ares was used to the sense of ease that they radiated for him, but in Paphos it was more than a generous act for others. She was utterly at home. He didn't think it was possible for them to look even softer, even more like cloud and water and dream, but they flowed in the pinkness with a satisfied serenity that made his heart billow. It made her look strikingly youthful and deeply aged. No young person had that kind of uncurated confidence, had eyes that savoured every simple sight instead of glancing around at a perceived audience. No one old could be so open and fascinated and uncynical. At least, so Olympus had taught him. Age up there was a resource to accumulate and spend on point-proving and control-taking. It reduced everything to simple equations in the wake of its great, bored knowledge. But Aphrodite was older than all of them and had never stopped seeing miracles in the mundane. Perhaps, Ares thought, if you lived long enough, the endless renewals of life stopped feeling repetitive and began to feel even more precious and remarkable for how many times they had recreated themselves without weakening. In the endless onslaught of cruelty and catastrophe, Olympus tended to see life as a stubborn nonsense bumbling between pain and malice. But for Aphrodite, it was the little flowers in the market place. It was the absolute victory of beauty and joy and desire over everything that crushed it over and over. Life was not a dull pattern, it was a full-hearted, unsurrendering rise to go again. Its cycles, its endless return to battle, is what made it extraordinary. Love, unvanquished, all-vanquishing. Sometimes the children of two gods made a union of their natures. Maybe that's what their child would represent, the eternal fight of love to survive against all odds. Always victorious. Their dad would see to that.

Wait, what are you thinking about?

“Are you walked off your feet yet?” Ares jumped at Aphrodite's bright voice.

He grinned and nudged her with his elbow. “Nah, I’m a warrior. You must be, though, Mx Overworked.”

“I mean, my job yesterday was a lot of lounging and posing. It actually feels good just moving my body not for show.” She stretched mid-step, reaching up to the sky and twirling her fingers. The gesture was pretty, but also casual and uncoordinated. It touched him deeper than he was prepared for that she felt she could just live in her body with him, no performance. She linked his arm, her raspberry skirt fluttering against his legs. “I have another big attraction I want to take you to.”

“You’re a big attraction.”

“Soooo smooooth!” she giggled as she bobbed her cheek to his lips. They tugged him by his elbow. “It’s my temple.” 

Ares jarred to a halt. Your temple? That was… intimate. More intimate than sex, more intimate than secrets. Sure, he'd stepped into the new-build on Kythera, that hadn't been worshipped in yet, it was still just a shell. But a chief cultic site, that was something else. Temples were the ultimate reflections of their deities, focal points of their power, but more than that, of their essence, their truth, of who they were. If gods had souls, they were housed more in their temples than their bodies. It was why he'd been slow on the Spartan cultic sites, focused on their social spaces and royal house. Establishing a temple was a profound and personal act that involved looking far inward and defining something pure and absolute about yourself. For a goddess like Aphrodite, so prosperous and beloved, so reflective and complex, he could only imagine how delicate a process creating the Paphos centre of worship must have been. Being invited into the temple of another god was a huge honour. In sacred spaces, their edges blurred, energies bleeding into the atmosphere like the resounding of tuning forks. The wrong person, the wrong day, and everything you'd carefully harmonised could be wrecked. Aphrodite's tone was light, as if she was asking him to go walking on the beach, but the weight of her trust threatened to break his spine. 

“Ares?” She tilted her head in concern.

He swallowed. “I don’t think I should go there.”

“Why not?”

He pricked and frowned. “You’re too experienced a deity to ask that. You don’t want War in the House of Love.”

Their lavender eyebrow arched. “Oh, don’t I? What makes you so sure?” He waved his hand at the paradise around them, full of peace and bounty. They gave him a strange look. “You look around this place and all you see is sweetness and light.”

“I got eyes, Aph.”

Her gaze remained serious. She examined him for a moment, then raised their hand and beckoned. 

Of course he followed.

They led him back into the hot, hazy bustle of the city, through perfumes and flavoured steam and flurries of fabric, then out of the chaos and into a rush of clean sea air that blasted the crowds from his senses. They came to a secluded stretch of coast. The cry of sea birds was swallowed by the crash of waves against golden, scaled rocks formed in loops and swirls like the body of a great serpent. Aphrodite clambered over the rough terrain, shards picking at their hem. Ares kept his hand out ready to catch her if she slipped, but she moved over the rock like seafoam.

They reached a cove, the cliffs curving around them as if they were stepping into the gold dish of a giant. The sea sloshed into it like wine. It lapped up to their ankles as they crossed the surf into the cup of sand, cooling their baking feet. Aphrodite took Ares’ hand and brought him to sit on the warm sand, prickling his bare legs. The tide swished back to unveil a rock pool. Gleaming like pearl under the clear water was a gathering of sea snails. Aphrodite dipped their long fingers into the pool and gently stroked the spiral shells. She fished out one lying empty at the bottom, striped cream and black like white and dark chocolate. She held the shell in her palm as if it was the most precious, delicate gem. The heavy sigh of the sea echoed around them. The breeze stirred her hair. 

“This is Nerites,” she said. “Or rather, it’s his shell. He died a very long time ago.” She swallowed,  lavender eyes down. “He was my first serious partner.”

Ares glanced between her grave expression and the shell. “He is… a snail…”

“He was a merman then.”

“OK, I was worried for a sec.”

She didn't share his levity. She ran her thumb around the shell and spoke quietly, as if speaking more to it than him. “I was born on Cyprus, but it wasn’t where I grew into Aphrodite as you know them. I spilled from the sea and my energy attracted people to the abundance of the waves and ground. I was a nature deity, fertility and such, but, like I said, I spent my time with the mortals and I knew there was something else for me that I badly wanted to figure out. But I was a lone goddess and very young, I had no mentors, no colleagues. I needed to be educated. I needed to be in a community, if I was to grow.”

Ares fell instinctively into the flow of their voice, perfectly in sync with the waves.

“I encourage appetite, but its darkness is the gnaw of hunger. Most people would probably think I was mad for wanting more than what I had. My life in those days was idyllic. I could have had such a beautiful eternity if I’d been content in the state of my birth.” They gazed down at the little shell. “Nerites was part of that idyll.” She smiled. “He was handsome, joyful, passionate, and he adored me. I was more his habitat than the ocean.” The sea sighed heavier. She looked out to it, amber dusting the tips of her lashes. “It’s ironic in a way. Maybe if I hadn’t known him, I wouldn’t have become so fascinated by love and what it could mean. I loved him so much, and that feeling exhilarated me. It was a calling. It was destiny, purpose. I was obsessed with him, with discovering this feeling between us. Eventually, how I felt about him began to… cloud him as a person.” Their face washed darker as they turned back to Ares. “Does that make sense? It became more about the love than the lover. He… lost definition to me. He became this limb, this facet of my heart, my brain.”

Ares frowned pensively. He thought about how Athena warned him about vanishing into his feelings; what about vanishing into someone else's?

They continued with a small strain to their voice. “I became certain that this was what I had been born for and that I could never fulfil my role as a goddess, my reason for being summoned into existence, unless I learned about this domain. I'd met many travellers and settlers on the isle and so come across many faiths. I'd seen a lot about the goddesses of Mesopotamia and I was desperate to study with them, the way they were twined with nature and the stars, but were so much a part of the human world. I decided I would go to their lands and ask to join the Inanna Collective. Do you know of her?”

Ares perked up. “Are you kidding? She's one of the greatest war gods of all time.”

“Right?” She grinned and shook her head. “Gods, I miss her. I really should write. But you know how it is, the terror of reporting back to an old teacher and not having achieved enough.”

He rubbed her arm.

She huffed through her nose as the surf whistled over pebbles. “Inanna had formed a collective of goddesses all working in similar areas - her, Ishtar, Astarte, others - all merging and separating in turns in a profound creative sisterhood. Power and innovation poured out of them, they were my idols.” She looked back down into her cupped palm. “Anyway, as Nerites was my limb, merely a character in my emotions, I just assumed he would go with me.” Their face fell. “I assumed wrong. I told him of my intentions, and he…” Their brow creased. “I’ll never forget the look on his face. It was more than sad. It was like I was tearing his dreams away. I think it wasn’t just the idea of leaving home, it was the idea of creating a new me, a new Cyprus. Life was perfect, why was this bitch ruining it?” Their fingers stiffened, as if they were resisting closing them hard around the body of their beloved. “He wouldn’t come with me. He wouldn’t leave his home, not even when I offered to give him wings. He said swimming was just flying in a more loving sky.”

“That’s kinda beautiful,” Ares mumbled, trying to keep the jealousy from his voice.

“He was full of beauty like that.” She flashed bright eyes to him, full of waves. “But that’s just it, he was full. There was no room left in him. Whereas for me, there was this… space. Something unwritten.” 

Ares nodded in understanding.

Her chest shuddered, voice rising a little over the tide as its growl swelled. “But I thought it would be written by him, with him. The idea that he wouldn’t be with me through this was like when a cliff side falls away. I begged him to come, he begged me to stay. I was angry, he was angry. We both felt the other was leaving, that we were suddenly not enough to the person who was everything, and neither of us were willing to admit that that had always been true.” The waves crashed. 

Ares gazed with his heart aching for her, with anger at whatever low coward wouldn't follow her to the ends of the earth, with terror that loving someone could in the end simply not mean enough to them to stay.

She faltered over her speech in a way he had never heard before. He had become so used to floating along her stories, but this one seemed to choke her, like uprooting a weed in her stomach. “Our fight got worse. And worse. And worse. Two creatures of ocean, of pure nature. It wasn’t pretty. The rockslide in my heart grew louder, more painful, more and more of me just severing off my heart and crumbling into my darkness and making it grow, like magma. It wasn’t just an argument with another person, my own body and mind were betraying me.” The waves howled. “When he couldn’t rise any more to my fury, he turned and tried to dive into the waves, and I screamed after him, ‘Fine!’” Her voice stayed soft but the sea screamed, an ancient echo of a goddess’ rage ringing on the rocks and inside Ares’ ribs. “‘If there’s nothing to you but the sea then be its clingy, little pet!’ And something moved in my body, something I hadn’t felt before, powerful and disturbing in its allure. Light erupted across the waves. The tide washed back out, and there, clinging to a stone, was this little creature with the same pattern as his tail.”

Ares stared at the snail.

The roar of the water calmed again, like the splash of tears. “It’s a blur for a few days. I knelt in the sand and I held him and sobbed. I tried to change him back, I tried everything, but nothing moved in me as powerful as that moment of pure wrath. My heart broke.” They reached out to the rock pool and tenderly laid the body of Nerites to rest in its cool bed. Then they looked at Ares, hard as glass. “But my hunger didn’t. I brought him here, somewhere peaceful to live out the rest of his days, a quiet place where we used to sit and talk. Then I left for Sumer. And I never regretted it.” Her gaze chilled him and heated him. “Love has a great deal of darkness to it, Ares. It is war, it is revenge, it is obsession, envy, heartbreak. You think you don’t belong in my temple? My temple was built to the likes of you.”

His heart stopped. A dozen feelings wrestled inside him. He was terrified of her. He was in awe of her. He wanted to save the world from her, and throw it into her maw. “You’re something else,” he breathed.

They narrowed their eyes. “You don’t think I’m cruel? For doing that to him?”

“No.”

“You’re wrong. I was.”

“It was an accident.”

“It was a raw expression of my desire.”

“It was out of control,” he stammered a little, unsure which of them he was trying to convince. “You tried to reverse it.”

“Until I stopped trying.” She didn't help him scrabble for safety. “I realised that my godhood had acted on my will. My will was to leave Cyprus and to freeze my love in my idyll there, never to let it move on from me. I wanted Nerites to be mine without compromise, and I got what I wanted.” Their gaze chained him. “A deity works their will, Ares. We don’t give an inch of ground in this realm. I was heartbroken, but I didn’t regret it. Even if I didn’t know exactly what the result would be, I freely unleashed my wrath on him, the worst of my will, then I continued on.”

He dug his fingernails into hot sand. “Why do you want me to think you’re cruel?”

“I don’t.” A flicker of softness. “I want you to understand that I can be. I am showing you my darkness. All deities have it. Wrath is not yours alone.”

Sand bit his knuckles, pulse thudding. “Tell me more of your acts of wrath.”

She studied him for a moment, like a python measuring a stag before it unhinged its jaw. “Have you heard of the sirens?” He nodded. “I made them. They were women who refused to marry, so I brought them to the sea and transformed them into monsters who would drown men in my domain.” The ocean hissed.

"Another."

“When my blessed newlyweds, Hippomenes and Atalanta, didn’t thank me for their good fortune, I cursed them with lust so wild that it led to them being turned into lions.”

Blood roared in Ares’ ears. "Keep going."

“When Prince Hippolytus pronounced himself too perfect to ever fall in love with someone, I made his stepmother obsessed with him until it destroyed his life. And when Narcissus did the same, I trapped him in his own gaze until he starved.”

"More."

“When Glaukos tried to keep his horses from mating, I gave them fangs and had them tear him apart.”

His tongue felt thick in his mouth. "Uhuh..."

They pinned him with their diamond glare, his heart hammering like the wings of a trapped bird. “I want to be obeyed. I want to be worshipped. I am determined to have my way, and where I am denied, I curse and mutilate and stalk and murder. Love cannot be controlled or dismissed, and if some petty mortal, or even a god, tries to put themself above their instincts, my wrath will be devastating.”

Part of Ares dearly wanted to be horrified, dearly wanted to be the kind of person who would be appalled and distressed, the right kind of person. But the sea engulfed the rocks and swallowed his better nature. “Wow…” His pulse drummed in his wrists, his gut, his groin. What kind of freak was he? Hot and hard listening to grotesque punishments. For once, he didn’t care.

They frowned. “What?”

“Even your wraths are kindness.” She frowned deeper. He shifted to face her earnestly, his voice coming with a simmer from his trembling chest. “Women refused to be locked to a man, so you brought them to the wild sea and gave them flight and music and let them eat their predators. Two people wanted each other, so you freed them from decorum and let them live out their lives in sex. Princes made their beauty the only thing in their life, so you gave them exactly what they wished for. Nature was interrupted, so you helped it fight back and claim its rights.” He could barely hear himself speaking over the tide. He wanted it to drown him, fill him, fuck him into submission.

The sun was beginning to set. It bloodied Aphrodite’s fierce expression. Then pink and peach glimmered on their cheeks and the sweetness stole back into their face. “I should make you my publicist.” They laid a hand over his. “But kindness is a strong word. I inflict terrible pain, Ares.”

“Gotta be cruel to be kind, sometimes. Nice and kind aren’t the same thing. You’re not a nice girl.” He turned his hand beneath theirs and enclosed it. “But you’re a kind goddess.”

They gazed into his eyes, a rosy shimmer around their body as his warrior vision half-waked with his pounding heart. They squeezed his fingers. “And you’re a sweet boy. But what I’m trying to tell you is that it’s not always about being good and kind. Divinity isn’t moral, it’s just the truth. A lot about love is destructive and difficult. It has to be, because it’s powerful. People can be lost to that. But if they trust me, if they know themselves, they can turn that into a blessing, or a chance to grow. There is no such thing as evil divinity. There is certainly no such thing as purposeless divinity. To be human is to suffer a violent, confusing, humiliating existence and force your fresh, tender psyche into making sense of something eternal in a few short years. They need divinity that acknowledges that chaos, that holds them in it, that doesn’t hate them or discipline them or abandon them for it. They need dark deities to speak to their darkness, because there’s nothing to be done otherwise. I am the goddess you reflect on when you have your first, innocent crush and everything’s rosy. I’m also the goddess you reflect on when you want the wrong lover so much that it makes you animal, or hate them so much that you want to kill them. They won’t always be right, but they will always be held. There’s no hope of coming back without that. Whatever they feel or do, it must always be understood as human, because if it’s human, then it can heal and change. That’s their glory. They can assure themselves that it is a human, changeable thing because if there is a god of it, then it is a part of being human. Aphrodite transmutes emotion into destruction, but also destruction into compassion and healing and a second chance. She can turn you to the dark, but also back to the light, because she is both. I’m there for it all, not just what is pleasing. Often, they are beautiful. But sometimes they will get jealous, vain, impulsive, hedonistic, obsessed, needy, wounded, doubtful, scornful, sometimes they will be violent and selfish, and therefore so will I.”

The last note of her voice was born out onto the waves. Ares listened to it echo on the pale cliffs. The sunset deepened, turning the cove the same gold as his skin, as if he was hewn out of Aphrodite's land. He murmured something before the thought fully formed. “Sometimes they’ll lose.” She raised her eyebrows in question. He looked at her tentatively, clicking an idea into shape as he spoke. “Athena talks to me all the time about victory, about the end of the battle, the end of the war. That’s when she’s most powerful, at the moment all the tactics pay off and it all comes together like clockwork. But that’s not when I feel it, whatever it is. I feel it during. During the battle, when they don’t know if they’ll win or lose. The victory goes to Athena’s patronees. I don’t give out victory.”

“What about Sparta’s successes?”

He shrugged. “All them. I didn’t decide the outcome of any of those battles. That’s why it was such a damn shock when they chose me, because I hadn’t given them shit. I was just there while they fought, telling them to keep fighting. It wasn’t for me about winning, it was about knowing they didn’t surrender.” His jaw hardened, his chest swelled. “Spartans aren’t victors, they’re fighters. Everyone’s afraid of them because there’s no negotiation, no deal you can make, no unbeatable weapon or strategy you can bring that will make them back down. If you fight the Spartans and you wanna win, then you fight until every last one of them is dead.”

They smirked. “So, you’re playing chicken with the entire Aegean.”

He boomed a laugh around the rocks. “Yeah! And you know what? Everyone blinks. Everyone blinks . Because everyone else wants to win, so the ends have to justify the means, just like Athena is always saying. There’s a limit to the losses they’ll take, there’s a point where even victory stops being worth it. Every enemy goes in ready to retreat. That’s not how it is for us. We smell the blood and we hear the bronze and we’re called. The point now is to fight, to not back down, no calculation, no limits, no risk and reward, nothing at the back of our minds to pull us out. We fight. We just fight.”

“Why?”

“I… I don’t know. Because you have to, right?”

Their eager gaze glittered. “Do you?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, at least I do.” He scoffed. “That’s always been my fucking problem.”

“Not your problem, your darkness. Their darkness…”

“...is lost causes. It’s losing.” He didn't feel like it was a new idea, he felt like he was unearthing something buried. He laughed with the quiver of nerves that delving into his godhood brought. “Fates know, I’m always fucking losing.”

She laughed too. “Says the Olympic gold medallist.”

He fidgeted excitedly. “Again, though, that wasn’t me. I just told them not to give up, they got themselves good enough to actually win on their own. But when it’s just me, I’m a train wreck.” They tilted their head curiously, that lovely, non-judgemental, open look. He half-smiled sheepishly. “This summer wasn’t my first Olympics. I was at the first, when it was just the gods competing.”

“Ah, I didn’t go to that. Still avoiding Olympians at the time.”

“I am very glad you didn’t see it. I boxed… against Apollo.” 

They cackled. “Wow, he must have been pulverised.”

He grimaced. She blinked in surprise. He rubbed the back of his neck as it flushed. “I was just a kid. He’s older than me, more powerful than me, smarter. Boxing isn’t just brute force, it’s a skill. He’s all about prowess, and I’m all about getting riled up and forgetting the technique. It was like trying to punch a rain of arrows. I was just swatting like a fucking bear at a hive, and he was swarming me with moves. Boxing is fucking tiring, I got more exhausted and more angry and more erratic, more losses, more exhaustion, more anger, etcetera. He turned me to fucking mush. It was fucking humiliating, Ma had to pull every string she had to keep it from being this major news story - the prince a total dud.” He avoided her sympathetic eyes. “About half way through, Athena signalled to me that it wasn’t working, that I just had to go down and save what dignity I had left.” His jaw ticked. “I couldn’t do it. Apollo had this shit eating expression and this golden fucking halo, and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hand it to him. It would tell him that I thought he was better than me. I knew he was gonna win, but I wanted that win to be fucking hard. I wanted that perfect face bruised and that perfect hair drenched and those perfect shoulders sagged. I wanted him to waste himself on me. That would be my trophy, that I took from him until my last breath.” He took a breath, releasing a tension in his body. “I did it. The fight ended with me blacking out, and the last thing I saw was him standing over me, looking like an ugly fucking shadow of who he wanted to be that summer.” His canine peeked from his lip. “Everyone hated me for it. Apollo has always been so fucking butter wouldn’t melt, I was Olympus’ ultimate heel for ruining his glorious moment, for dragging his pretty smile off his face.” He glanced into Aphrodite's eyes and smiled warmly as he saw the sympathy gone, replaced with a twinkle. “I realised I kinda like being a heel. For the first time, I had a role. By being outcast, I kinda finally fit in. I figured I got attached to that because I’m damaged or whatever.” He chuckled, then sobered, his fingertip drawing shield patterns in the sand. “Then Sparta. Then those battles where I didn’t care what happened at the end, only that we were fighting. I think…” He exhaled slowly. “The world honours victors, heroes, people who chose the good and right battles. What about everyone else who fights? For stupid reasons; dumb pub brawls and punching your girlfriend’s shitty ex and cussing out your teacher. For hopeless reasons; uprisings with nothing but sickles and flails against military machines. For fucked up reasons; growing up into a gang or crime or a bad family.” This next confession came quietly. He wanted to tell them, but maybe if it wasn't a good idea, the sea would be kind and drown out his murmur. “Bandits pray to me before they rob someone and leave him beaten on the road. Young guys low on cash pray to me before they slit their debtor’s throat. A lot of fights happen because someone got desperate, desperate as in trapped, but also worse than that, an old kind of desperate that gets in your bones and you stop thinking there’s anything left but drawing blood.” Daggers in the sand. “None of those people care about honour and victory. They’ve lost already. But they have to keep fighting.”

“Why?” A rapt whisper.

“Because then you didn’t give yourself up.” He didn't know the answer until she asked him. “There’s no such thing as nothing left, not ever. There’s always you. You’re alive, so there’s something. And if all you’ve got is that, then you can’t let it go. As long as you’re fighting, then you believe you deserve something. As long as you’re desperate, you still desire something, so some part of you believes in a better life. You believe you are more important than someone’s easy ride. As long as you’re fighting…” It was there, it was almost there, right on the tip of his tongue and not quite landing on it. 

“You’re human.” Their soft voice washed over him. He looked at her, wreathed in the sparkle of the waves. “Surrender is to confess to being less worthy. To be a victim or a subject, it’s dehumanising in a very visceral way. It strips us of anything but what they decided for us. Fighting back, right to the end, protects you from that. Even if you lose, they didn't get to tell you who you are. It keeps you human.”

“So many people in the world want us to live half lives to feed their power. If we die fighting them, at least we only ever lived fully.”

The sunset erupted in her hair. It ringed her eyes with fire. Her jewellery blazed and robed her in falling stars. “See?” She clasped his hand. “That’s beautiful, Ares. I think your divinity is going to hold a lot of people when they most need it.” His heart felt like the whole ocean had poured into it. “I would really love to see Sparta.”

He shrank a little, stomach turning. “Aph, it's… it’s the worst of me. Fight to the end means a lot of blood.”

“So does my domain.”

“No. Not like this. You won’t even take blood sacrifice.” He faced her firmly, caressing her hand. “Aph, I can’t tell you what it means to me that you shared your darkness or that you support me when I bring some scraps of Sparta into view. But love is fundamentally beautiful and war is fundamentally fucking hideous. I don’t want you near it.”

“You could never be ugly to me, Ares.”

“Let’s keep it that way.”

Her gaze was agony, so gentle it made him feel like he'd lost a layer of skin. She touched his cheek. “I wish I could take away your shame.”

His eyes pricked. He shut them and leaned to press his lips to her brow. Her hair smelled of sea salt. He broke the kiss and laid his temple to hers. “If you do, I promise to become your dirty, little whore.”

She threw her head back and laughed, shoving his shoulder. They rocked in time with the waves, laughter winging around the cove as a flock of sparrows soared from the clifftops. She was even softer when she calmed, his seafoam creature barely solid, framed by liquid sunset. They stroked his hair, smile fading. “You have to fight… even when it’s a bad idea… even when standing up for a friend could bring your father’s temper down on you.” He looked steadily at her. “Have you seen him since yesterday?” His lips tightened. He shook his head. “Are you safe to go home?”

“Aph…”

“What could I have caused you, Ares?”

“Nothing! You cause nothing bad for me, never blame yourself for anything he does.”

She pursed her lips. “Well, back atcha.”

He hesitated. He nodded stiffly. He shrugged. “He’s an old dog with old tricks, OK? It won’t be anything I haven’t dealt with.” Cinnamon touched his tongue. The taste of their anger for him made the ocean in his heart bottomless. He nudged them playfully. “And hey, I got another old dog on my side, with much newer tricks.” They snorted and cuffed his arm. He chuckled, then eyed her. “Can I talk to you about them? Since we’re talking divinity.”

“My tricks?”

“Yeah. The Ouranos story…” His bedtime story rewritten. “Is it true?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You mean, is it truer than the one your father always told?” He flickered. He looked down, annoyed with himself that he even wanted to know, that there was still this childish voice in him asking about his dad. Aphrodite wandered her fingers through her hair, deep purple in the sunset. “Stories are truths wrapped up in untruths. One story about me is that I was born out of the first murder, a shadow of cruel chaos at the core of humanity. They must look to higher gods to cleanse them and promise them Heaven. Another story is that I'm a goddess of women, that Ouranos wasn't so kind, that Gaia begged her son to free her. I wasn’t born out of the first murder, but the first rescue of an abused woman, and so I am Pandemos. Another story is that Ouranos was Heaven itself, and in my presence that Heaven lives on, out of the hands of higher gods and in the hearts of humanity, and so I am Ourania.” She spread her hands, holding dreams like scraps of paper. “Maybe Zeus is Ouranos’ heir, maybe I am, maybe no one is because he never truly cared enough for the world to leave one. The hard truth is that I don’t know. I woke up one day in the water, swam to the surface, and washed up on a beach not far from here, alone and ragged and excited for this thing called life. I don’t know if I was conceived intentionally, but I doubt it, since the titans never came for me. I have never known who I was meant to be, only what I am. An origin story can make you special, or you can just do your work and let people find what they admire.”

Ares’ stomach was hot. “But if the story Dad always told about Ouranos, that my family was bringing back paradise, isn’t true, and if yours isn’t true, that you weren’t made to bring it to us now… What? There’s no paradise? It’s all just a fantasy to make people like you? We’re all just wasting our time on smoke and mirrors?”

She didn't flinch at his agitation. “I can’t speak for your father. I believe he makes a lot of false promises, but I couldn’t say whether he makes them knowing they’ll be broken. But I don’t make false promises. I believe utterly in the potential of humanity to be their own paradise. Everything I said to them on Kythera is absolutely true to me. If they need that potential to have a name and a story in order to fulfil it, then I will give them that. I named it Ourania, and it helped them trust it. I could've called it anything and it would've been no less real. I named it after Ouranos because that story holds power for them. I named it after myself in a vow to be with them every step of the way.” His stomach settled, and something else stirred. “Many myths will be made about you, Ares, and they’ll all claim to be your definitive truth. The winner, the loser, the rebel, the criminal, the violence, the resistance, the weapon, the shield. Your job isn’t to decide which one to be. It’s to use them as they serve you and your calling and your promises. Truth is deeper than the order of events.” 

He looked up at the sky, a whole unreachable country of fire and meadows. “Ouranos has always been this… dream.” 

“And the dream is a truth, in its way. Myths are powerful. They're how we make ourselves. You can’t make an ideal world without ideals. Don’t worry about what really happened. It doesn’t need to be objective fact, it just needs to speak to you and guide you.”

He scruffed his hair. “That’s the problem, it did guide me, into Zeus and what he wanted. Everything he ever did to us, to me, it was for this higher good. And now I find out it might not even exist.”

They frowned deeply. “It was never alright to treat you like he did. Even if his dream was real.”

He shrugged tightly. “They all did the calculation. The ends justified the means.”

“Then they chose the myth that served them, but not you.”

“And what about your myth? That there is no one day, no happy ever after? That it’s all just stuff I have to find in myself? Does that serve me?”

They smiled and leaned back on their palms, draping their body before him with their dress oozing down their curves. “Aphrodite serves only herself. Come to them, and you may serve yourself too.”

He swallowed. His eyes roved over them, cheeks prickling and heat in his chest. He imagined himself crawling through the sand, falling prostrate and kissing their feet in worship. He imagined telling them that that’s what he was thinking about, how she might react, what she might invite. He glanced at the vast, rippling sun melting into the scarlet sea, fire and water in union. He carefully closed it all in his heart, more of her lessons, more ways to deserve her. He stood and lowered his hand down to them. “It's going dark. I hear Paphos has some of the best nightlife around.”

Their wicked grin emerged like the first evening stars overhead. They took his hand and let him pull them up close in a cloud of rosewater. “It certainly does.”

“You’re such a bad girl, huh? Why don’t you prove it?”

Rubies crept down his chest, her fingernails snicking his flimsy chiton. “Mmm, because there’s nothing you like more than a bad girl showing you a good time.”

“Nothing in the realms.”

She must be able to taste his desire like the fog from a cooking pot. Maybe that's why her cheeks were so bright. They scooped up both his hands and pulled him in a stumbling half-dance back into town to the music of waves and muscle. 

The sea swallowed up Nerites’ resting place.

*

 

 

Part IX. Dusk. Hestia’s House, Olympus.

 

Night fell on Hestia’s house. Athena had passed out in bed, not even stirring for dinner. Artemis had never come back. Hestia sat on a large, patchwork floor cushion by her lounge hearth. She absent-mindedly rubbed her belly. It was still sore, even after ginger ale. It was often sore these days. 

Over time, the gods had modernised how they received worship. It was more typical now, in busy celebrity lives, to parcel out time to answer prayer, the way one gets to one's emails at the end of the working week. Hestia had never been able to bring herself into that transition. For her, it was still the old way. A god was present simultaneously everywhere their domain was active, at all times a little hearing devotion and need like wind chimes in the window. She was never not connected to hundreds of homes, hundreds of women and their domestic spaces with their hundreds of joys and agonies and terrors. It was a lot to carry in one body. But it meant she was always burning, and so always sustaining them. But she also liked to make all the time she could to really be there. So few people would listen to a woman at home as if what she did was important.

The hearth ignited with a cosy crackle. The lounge was lit very low, the lamps deep amber. The flames bloomed like tea flowers dropped into hot water, staining the quilted, tidy room sepia and peach. Hestia breathed the warm, tasty smoke and rubbed her belly firmer. She looked into the turmeric-yellow heart of the fire. Her head went fuzzy. Her consciousness fell into black and orange.

Her mouth filled with the taste of bitter ash.

She was in another hearth, her upper body formed loosely out of flickering flames, gazing into a dark kitchen with a cold, dusty floor. A jug was smashed on the stones. A chubby, pallid woman in a plain, modest dress was curled up on the hearthstone, weeping softly into the fire. Her lips were cracked with the heat and her eyes were red with crying. There was a large, ugly bruise on her chin, and more dappling her wrists and legs. Hestia's heart tore. “Oh, Dareia, again.”

The woman sniffed and looked up through a mess of curls. She nodded and huddled tighter. She averted her eyes.

Hestia sighed slowly through her nose, folding away the surge of devouring rage that she knew wouldn't help. She spoke softly. “My dear, I will always assure there is a hearth for you, you are free to leave him. Home should only be a place of safety and love.”

“He does love me,” Dareia said quickly, her voice thin as grasshopper wings. “He just…” She gulped. Her eyes darted about, as if alert for noise from another room. “He's in pain, he's struggling with himself and his past. You're my hearth, Hestia, and I'm his. He'd die without me.”

Frustration blistered Hestia's insides. “If he can't keep himself alive, that isn't your problem. Your life is for you. The gods gave you as much soul as him.”

“But what kind of person says that when another person needs them? Isn't a hearth for sharing?” Her voice stayed quieter than a mouse sneaking past a trap, but it sped, her half-anxious, half-zealous expression carved up by the flickering flame. “He needs me, my lady. What kind of person lets down someone in need? He needs me to be his, that's why he lashed out, he was just upset because I wasn't being what he needed. That's understandable. I just have to try harder. Please, Hestia, help me be a better wife. Help me know his desires and meet them. Help me warm where he's cold and feed him when he's hungry. I can do better for him, I know I can, give me the strength. When I'm with him and he's himself, when he's good, everything feels like it was meant to be. I was meant to be his wife. I've always known I was made for marriage. It's what I was born for.”

“You're wrong!” The flames flared around Hestia, her voice echoing harshly on the hearthstone. “He's wrong!” She snorted smoke and with great effort reined herself back in, but her tone stayed stern. “This isn't the right way, child. This isn't doing any good.” 

Dareia crumpled back at those words.

Hestia faltered. She tightened with guilt at the exhausted woman's wounded expression. The fire in her burned to continue her speech, maybe she could convince her now, shock may have reset her brain enough for something new. But her heart squeezed. No. Dareia was afraid and tired and hurt. She'd faced so much harshness tonight, she mustn't take more. She'd come for comfort and sustenance. That's what the hearth was for. Hestia sighed and willed the flames around her to glow warm and gentle. “I give you strength, child. I hope you use it another way. I believe you were born for much more. But I will protect you as long as you are in that house.” Peitho's angry, magenta eyes flashed across her memory. “Feel no shame, child. I hold you.” She carefully reached inside herself and sent her powers out into the dark kitchen.

Dareia closed her eyes and curled into the mellowing radiance of the fire. Tendrils of honeyed light crept around her. The ache dimmed in her bruises. The tension slackened in her muscles. The tears dried on her cheek. The light blanketed her, a shield against any further disturbance tonight. She hugged herself, bedded her bare feet in warm cinders, and nestled into Hestia's protection.

Hestia slipped silently from the hearth, leaving the shield in place. She knelt on her own hearth rug, streaks of ash on her face, and glowered into the rippling flames. They snapped in the deep quiet. Athena was snoring distantly upstairs. Hestia didn't realise how long she'd knelt staring until she finally moved and winced at the flood of pins and needles in her feet. She blinked the glare out of her eyes and hobbled to the kitchen. She took a bread bun from a tin and chomped into it to replenish her magical energy. It burned up in her belly. She chewed agitatedly and gazed at the newspaper article left open on the table. Galatea. The story of a woman made for marriage, born to be a wife. She looked at the hand mirror pamphlet. She grabbed it and crushed it in her fist. It was a hard fight to make herself swallow food, her gag reflex pushing back. Her stomach burned. Her eyes burned. 

“Oh, goodness.” The tears hit her before she realised they were rising. She hurried the heel of the hand scrunching Aphrodite's zine to her eye and took a sharp, deep breath. “Come on, don't cry, be stronger, you need to be stronger.”

A tear soaked the corner of the zine.

A hard, rapid knocking at the door.

Hestia gasped and dropped the paper and bread bun. She blinked nervously at her door. It was the middle of the night. She hastened to it, but only opened it a crack. Her eyes widened as they took in Demeter. Her hair was black in the darkness and unravelling from her braid. Her usual imposing posture withered inside a woollen shawl. Hestia quickly opened the door and brought her inside. “Demeter, what’s wrong?”

In the kitchen light, Demeter looked unwell, her cheeks the colour of sun-scorched leaves. “Hestia, I almost…” Her voice came in a hoarse whisper, as if she was trying not to be heard by even herself. “I almost… He…” Her hand shot to her mouth to stop a sob. Her eyes were dry but her shoulders trembled. 

Hestia hurried her arm around her. “Oh, Hun, let's get you some tea.”

Steam drifted around Demeter's fingers as they fidgeted on the sturdy mug. She sat on the edge of Hestia's sofa, knees locked tight together, staring into the brown tea. 

Hestia waited. 

Eventually, “Oh, I feel so stupid.” Demeter dropped her head and sighed into weary speech. “Hestia, I know I’ve been back and forth with whether to join TGOEM. The truth is, I know I’m supposed to be this powerful business woman, I’m getting so successful and my work is so fulfilling, and I want to pursue that in a supportive group, but…” She turned her face up, eyes large and imploring. “Hestia, I want a child. I want a baby. More than anything. It’s like there’s this cavern in me. And I keep telling myself I only want it because I’m supposed to. But what if that’s not it? What if I just want it? I want a baby so much sometimes I can’t sleep.” The corners of her mouth spasmed. She ducked her face again as she stifled tears.

Hestia slid close to her side and rubbed her arm. “Children are miracles, there’s nothing wrong in wanting them.”

“It’s not that, it’s what I almost did to have one.” Her knuckles paled in her grip on the cup. She whispered thinly into the steam. “I almost called Zeus again.”

Hestia’s hackles pricked. “What? What do you mean again?”

She sipped the tea and gulped. Breath rattled down her body with compressed shaking. “Last month, I invited him to my home. Where my nymphs are, where my mortals are. I invited the God of Storms to the fields.”

Hestia's fingers tightened on her arm. “Why?”

“Because I knew if I did, he would give me what I want.”

Hestia stilled. “A child.”

She nodded and used the excuse to keep her head down. Her voice splintered. “I had it all ready. I lit candles. I blessed the bed for fertility. I poured wine, lots of it. I wore a fucking thong - I don’t even remember buying that. I made my home and my body so inviting for the man who burns my crops, who ruins my girls, who tortures my oldest friend and twists my nephew. I gave the nymphs the day off. I kept telling myself that it was OK, that I would get the thing I want and it’s not like he would be better or worse for it. Maybe he would even start protecting me instead of the constant… Ugh.” She clunked the undrunk tea onto the coffee table and buried her face in her hands. Hestia's heart wasn't beating. “But I couldn’t do it.” Hestia smothered a breath of relief. “He was there and he was looking at me and I just… I couldn’t do it.” She hacked a dry sob into her palms.

Hestia drew herself up urgently. “Demeter, did he hurt you?”

A long pause that locked Hestia's gut in iron. Then, “No. He looked like he might for a minute. Then… Then he said, ‘You know what? It’s fine. You’ll call me again.’ And he… He walked out around the back of my seat and he…” Demeter stared haunted into the middle distance. Her fingers trailed around her throat. “He ran his hand around my neck as he went. And when I went outside, my raspberry patch was dead.”

“Pig!”

Demeter sighed and finally collapsed back to slump in the sofa, the shawl drizzled around her. “The worst thing is he was right. Tonight, I got that desperate again. I had the phone in my hand.” She screwed her eyes shut in frustration.

“But you didn't use it,” Hestia said firmly.

“I want to. I came here because I need to be fucking supervised.”

“You came because being alone makes these things harder. You were wise. You checked yourself. I'm impressed.”

Demeter flicked her a tired, sceptical smile. She relaxed against the quilt draped on the back and gazed exhausted at the cream ceiling and its pool of lantern light. “You remember in the Titanomachy? He used to tell us all how much he loved us. And we used to believe him. We used to do whatever he asked. His love kept us going.”

Hestia bristled. She glared proudly at Demeter. “No it didn’t. He always wanted us to think that, but we all wanted freedom from Kronos, regardless of him. We loved each other and ourselves.”

Demeter didn't look at her. She rubbed her forehead. “Gods, I was so jealous when he chose Hera. I didn’t even want him, but I wanted what they had. And then she got pregnant and she had this beautiful child and this beautiful life.”

“But no power. And that horrible injury, one she got doing what Zeus wanted. And you have this incredible business empire and this community that loves and needs you.” Hestia took her hand. “You may not be a queen, but you have so much more than Hera.”

“Except she has a baby.” She winced at Hestia's frown. “I know you must be disappointed in me. I know it was hard to watch Hera go from what she was to… to what she is now. And then to hear another of your comrades wish for that… But I can’t help it.” She pulled her hand away and covered her face again. Hestia folded her fingers into her aching middle. Demeter was so upset, and Zeus had been so cruel in how he took advantage of her wish, and this strained, grieving woman had to add to her pain that she feared her best friend's judgement. She twinged in her chest. She blinked back to attention as Demeter groaned. “I can’t believe I ever called that bastard.”

Hestia snuggled into the cushions beside her and rubbed her arm again, speaking tenderly. “It’s OK, it’s OK. This is what he does. He makes us think we need him. He makes us think all the things he did to hurt us or take advantage of us all those years were alright because it was war, and then because it was the aftermath of war, and then because it was a new world, and then because it was an old world. And you resist him so well, you’re so strong. But sometimes we get tired. It's so, so tiring always having to remake every truth handed to us. It’s OK, Demeter.”

Demeter finally really met her eyes, uncertain, vulnerable, but with her shame retreating. She rolled on the quilt and hugged Hestia. Hestia gathered her close and squeezed her tight, rubbing circles on the back that carried so much. “Stay here tonight. There’s that baklava recipe you promised to show me, why don’t we make that and watch old movies or something?”

Demeter sniffled into her shoulder. Tears laced her reply, but they were of release. “Thank you so much, Hes. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I don't know what any of us would ever have done without you. You kept us strong enough to fight far more than he ever did.”

“It’s what I’m here for. Always, Dem, always.”

The dark sky was edging grey by the time Demeter fell asleep. Hestia had no hope of sleep now. She scrubbed her dishes and didn't notice the soap making her fingers raw. Athena's compromising, Artemis’ confinement, Galatea’s twisted creation, Dareia’s hell, Demeter's surrender. She couldn't have one day, one conversation, without more of it heaping onto her, invading her stomach, making her sick. Fear, doubt, anger, betrayal, abuse, violence, using, reduction, desperation, grief, self-annihilation. Every woman was touched by it, infested by it. Every woman accepted it because they couldn't help but follow their hearts. He's my father. He's my brother. He's my husband. He's my king. He has what I need. He has what I can't get otherwise. He's my purpose. He's my dream. It was endless. Endless. 

Endle-

A plate shattered in the water. 

Hestia leaped back with a gasp and looked down to see her wet hands glowing like a stove. She huffed and shook the water off them, steaming away. She tried to steady her breathing.

I have to serve him.

I don't have a choice.

I love him.

It's what I was made for.

It's 

what 

I

was

made

for.

No more.

She vanished in a billow of bread-scented smoke.

 

 

*

 

 

Part X. Night. Paphos, Cyprus.

 

Night descended and woke the scent of jasmine. Paphos bloomed with it. Flames leaped in torches and glowed hot in the pools of fountains and cups of wine. Shawls and chitons slipped from shoulders, sun-beaten skin cooling in the moonlight. Copper amulets jingled as bodies brushed close. Bright colours turned deep and rich. Shadows became shimmer. Lips tinted red and eyes black. The market wagons rolled away, replaced with makeshift tables clattering with dice and clanking with cups. Music tumbled out of the odeon as the performers pranced into the streets. The fraught mood of trade dissolved into the fizz of indulgence. It was one of The Goddess’ golden rules: prosperity must mean generosity, with others and oneself.

Ares watched Aphrodite continue to shapeshift through the crowd, a walking mirror of the people of Paphos, reflecting their great variety of beauty. But in the smudges of moonlight and the yawning shadows of flame, her divinity shone through. She never really changed for him, the firelight always sculpted her back into his goddess.

Lanterns flickered to blue and violet life along tavern lintels. Music jumped from their open doors. People filed to them as if to the temple. 

Aphrodite crooked their finger under Ares’ chin and poked their tongue out. The two of them transformed into mortals again. She didn't change them much, more toned them down to blend in, and added embellishment to his clothes. “I like looking at my honey.”

He smiled and put his arm around her.

Aphrodite felt a well of contentment running deep in her body as they joined the pilgrimage to the pub. She patted Ares' abs. “I feel like I invited you on a vacation day, then did nothing but talk about my job.”

He snorted. “I didn’t wanna say anything, but yeah. You have a disease.”

“You could have said something!”

“But I didn’t.”

“Worried I’d go even crazier on you?”

He paused them and turned her to face him. His now brown eyes were warm as his arms. “War should listen to love. Always.”

Their cheeks pinked. They toyed with his collar. “This isn't meant to be a day for ‘supposed to’.”

“It wasn't.” He ran the backs of his fingers down her forearms. “I never want to be the reason you go quiet.”

Her eyes pricked. She hugged him tight, trying to press into him how fortunate they felt for having him. He ran his fingers through their hair. They sniffed and bobbed back. “Well, I’m done talking. Tour guide mode is off.” He’d been adorable today, attentive and open. But he hadn’t really indulged. Their slow exploring didn’t quite match the pace of her city. Time for him to taste its spice. She locked his eyes and gave him a vixen smile. “Final fun fact. Here, party is ritual.” She began to strut backwards, luring him like a fish on a line. “Honour me, Honey.”

The wickedness of his grin ignited her. He snatched her hand and together they hurtled into the tavern. 

They hurtled into a lot of taverns.

The islanders had had a day of tricky business, hard travel, and lazy sex. With the cooling of the night, it was time to cast the heaviness out of their limbs. Everything became weightless and elastic. Ares and Aphrodite dived into the music. They ricocheted between the speedy taps of drums, slid along lyre strings, twirled with flutes. Deep mauve wine rippled through the lantern light, a sultry sheen over the raucous dancefloor. Bodies bucked and bounced around the mosaics, like the beads in maracas. Chains of partiers snaked around the wooden tables, casting rose petals into the air from pouches at their belts. They rained over Ares’ red curls and stuck to his misty skin, clouding him in their perfume. Aphrodite swept them from his handsome face and cupped it. He caught her waist and whirled her. 

They stumbled between glowing doors, all throwing hot, seedy music into the streets. Ares applauded and hooted as Aphrodite leaped onto a table and wound and thrust her hips. They clambered onto the shoulders of a burly merchant and led the whole room in clapping the beat. They were tossed down into Ares’ arms, and hopped straight back into dancing. 

Ares collapsed back on a table and let a gang of girls pour spirits into his mouth and do shots off his chest. 

Aphrodite perched on a bar and showered wine from an amphora into the open mouths of barking sailors. 

Ares lifted people to tear down the garlands in the rafters and shimmy them around their shoulders. 

Aphrodite’s body drenched in delight and wildness. She moved like she was back in the ocean in a storm, surrendered to the frenzy of nature and carried by it, half flying.

Ares attacked the chance to let loose. He’d let that relaxing, heightening arousal in, now he let it lead him. He drowned his tongue in sweet kisses and honey. He flooded his eyes with beauty. He fed his appetites without hesitation. He wasn’t the prince, he wasn’t the controversy, he wasn’t the prophecy or the patron. He was nothing but a hard body to grind against and a soft mouth to suck, a mess of curls to pull and a broad back to ride. He gave himself utterly to Paphos’ use. His chiton was torn. Wine ran in amethyst rivers down the furrows of his pecs and abs, caught on eager tongues. His skin prickled and thrummed. 

Aphrodite watched him, ribbons of lust winding around her. She grabbed his ruined tunic and wrenched him against her body. He was wine-soaked and roasting and firm as forged bronze. She shuddered. He looked dazed, barely even registered it was her. Until they wrapped each other and his blush fluttered over his face, cheek dropping helplessly against hers. They took his weight and eased him into the pound of the music. She vampirically glutted herself on the feast of him, the desirous, joyful, liberated energy smeared all over him. Her tongue burned. 

Their bodies flung and thrashed, hair tossing, hands high. Their thighs connected and swayed. Their hands found each other’s contours and smouldered over them. Their backs pressed together and wriggled. They hooked each other’s pinkies in their cherished promise and swung around, their counterbalance the only thing keeping them from falling. Revellers converged on them, the pinnacle of the party. They scooped them into their dancing, arms full of churning people. 

They booed furiously with everyone at the closing time bell, staggering from the final tavern stained and giddy. Light, luxurious jasmine cleansed the air of the fog of sweat and alcohol. It brought them softly back to earth. Well, some of the way. They dropped back into invisibility and followed their feet through the glimmering city. 

Aphrodite’s mouth filled with fragrant steam as they slipped through the night-time agora. Part of it came from the sizzling of a great griddle as a man with woollier arms than a sheep hawked spiced seafood. Part of it came from the froth of desires in the air. Walking through Paphos was always like going back to the day of her birth, cresting through seafoam, draped in its silk and awash with its scent, eyes dazzled, skin and tongue and pussy desperately alive. She swam through desire into the world. 

It was especially delicious tonight as they walked beside Ares. His carnelian gaze burned up the darkness and cast whipping shadows on white walls. It was like a cauldron, as if everything he looked at he was taking into himself and stirring to the boil. He was hot under the collar, he had been all day, the prickle of it torment in every inch of her flesh. But it was more than that, he was fascinated. They could sense it, but they didn’t have to, he had no hesitation in his enthusiasm. Those wonderful, blinding eyes flew between the island sites and her smiling face, shooting her keen, delighted, curious looks. Suggestive looks. Was that the light? Fates, he was covered in the litter of others’ lust. 

Being around Ares was always energising, he always wanted them a little, always liked to listen to them and be close to them. But taking him to Paphos had meant showing him everything, immersing him in her. Watching him drink in the city, they felt adored. More than that, they felt an equal, someone who could walk with them and never be overwhelmed, never judge or hesitate, just pure appetite. Sometimes a shadow submerged his body, and his silhouette looked naked. Her mind flooded with images of him in her bed, adoring her, exploring her, hungry for every detail of her, more than any god had ever been in more than a thousand years of sex. She chewed her lip as she watched the agora teem around him like fish around a shark. Her dress was wet and there was sand on the soles of her feet. The sensations teased her weak at the knees.

His chuckle rumbled in their ear as he leaned in and gestured to a blithe commotion between two columns. They glanced playfully at him and followed his gaze. A woman was lounging against one, her dark, frizzy hair bound with a red scarf that matched her lips. A man was on his knees, stroking up her calf to raise her hem and reveal the black stockings of the temple sex workers. She haughtily kicked away his hand to mocking hoots from a gaggle of his shipmates. The sailor fell back theatrically, then grovelled again with a twinkle in his eye. He offered up a cluster of coins. “Please, Sweet Mistress, it’s all I have! Wouldn’t it please you to bankrupt a man tonight?”

The woman threw her head back with a cold laugh and waved him away. “If everything you have is not enough, then I can find someone with more for me.”

His shipmates jostled him and jeered. He grinned and shuffled back to her on his knees. “Surely, Nymph, on the isle of The Goddess, the heart is enough.”

“It’s not your heart that has to please me.”

Raucous mockery. She lounged deeper and bathed in the attention. Ares muttered to Aphrodite. “Uhoh, your name’s in play. What’s your take?”

Aphrodite eyed the man and his vagabond grin hiding the flicker of earnest affection. She shrugged. “She places a value on herself. If he doesn’t honour it, then his other qualities aren’t of note. He’s sweet, but she knows that being sweet to her is natural. The absence of abuse isn’t special. She doesn’t have to reward a nice boy. She isn’t his schoolteacher.”

“Unless she’s into that.”

The sailor had the woman’s hand in his now, limp like a bluebell as she made a show of aloofness and he of grand romance. “If I had more, believe me, it would all be yours.”

She took her hand from his and tweaked his beard. “Prove it. Get more and let’s see what you do with it.” She poked his nose. He once again collapsed backwards into the arms of his hollering friends. Aphrodite and Ares laughed with him. 

Aphrodite hooked Ares’ finger and led him invisible into the group. Nearby, a person with ceramic hoops swinging at their ears rattled dice over a checked board, raking in coins from unlucky betters. Aphrodite lured the sound towards the sailor. He perked up like a puppy and scrambled to his feet, just as the woman began to roll around the column and leave. “Mistress! Don’t go! If I win your fee, it goes straight in your purse!”

She turned back with an arch of her thick eyebrow. She looked him up and down as every sailor held his breath. She sashayed lazily towards the gaming table. “One roll. It'll mean betting all you have. If it was meant to be, Goddess bless you.” 

He beamed and pumped his fist at his side. His friends clapped his back. 

Aphrodite glided behind her and whispered a suggestion into her hair. It smelled of lotus and the smoke of her attraction. Her lips set. “But my fee is the least you’ll give me. You said everything of yours is mine, I expect all your winnings. Either way, I’ll impoverish you tonight.”

“Deal!” He was already surging with his fellows in a cloud of threadbare, striped wool to the gambler. 

Ares laughed and looked a little shocked at Aphrodite. “This guy is gonna wake up with nothing but the shirt on his back.”

She chuckled and drifted to the heavy shoulder of the man. She ran a hand through his braids and leaned into his scent of barrelled fish and honey. He tasted good - clean, excited, the sugar of foolish youth and impulsive crushes, the daisy-light innocence of someone genuinely eager to make her happy. He smelled of Hermes, in a way. They smiled at Ares. “He’s mine. I’ll make sure he’s OK.”

They kissed his cheek, tickled by his short beard. The sailor perked up, as if he'd felt it. But he was seeing The Goddess through a mortal woman tonight and wasn't distracted from her. A lavender shimmer danced down his arm as he levelled the dice over the board. His modest stack of coins glinted on the edge. The eyes of the gambler glinted too. He winked at the woman. “Wish me luck.”

“There is no luck, only blessing.”

He smiled softer. He flicked his brash grin back over his face. “Betting it all on red!” He cast the dice across the table.

Aphrodite glanced across their path at Ares’ playful gaze, brighter than the torches. Time slowed as the dice tumbled in the air. She tilted forward, held Ares’ eye, and blew on them through a satin pout. A swirl of violet sparkle kicked up beneath them and bore them down to the board. They fell, fell, fell… and landed snake eyes on a single red square.

Time zipped up to speed. Fire danced. Breath flurried. The sailors burst into wild applause as their companion stared dumbfounded at his absurd double success. A hard clap on his back shocked him back into his body. He bellowed with delight, greedily snatching coins up. A few clinked to the floor and scattered scavenging doves in a ruffle of white. The gambler glared as their pot was swept away. The woman's cool expression finally cracked when the sailor dashed to her and crammed the coins into her hands. She shrieked with giggles as he crushed her fingers around his winnings and scooped her into his arms. Her feet kicked and her red lips caught the firelight. He spun her around in the frame of painted roses. She was still laughing and cradling her money as he carried her out of the agora. 

Aphrodite watched them go with a smile, her body humming with their eager energy. The rowdy sailors moved on. Their noise faded, leaving Ares’ low chuckle like the final note of a song. She petted the sulking gambler. One of their earrings turned into a sapphire. She bumped her hip to Ares’. “Is there anything more fun than bestowing blessing?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I don't think most people give it away as much as you.”

“Got that right.” They cackled and pinched him. “No, I don't know. I just love doing it, it's addictive! I know the way it's supposed to be is all grand plans and lifelong fortune and divine protection. But I don't know, that's a lot of admin. Why should one person have everything when everyone could have something? I want love to be everywhere!”

Ares’ huge grin dizzied her. He caught their hand and pulled them into the mist of his warm body. “That's very noble, Pandemos.” His grin sharpened. He leaned to her ear, his deep voice growled into her. “But I think you just like being adored. I think you're always looking for a hit of it.”

Their spine slinked. They held their breath as his scent clouded their head, the musk of his warmth, the citrus of his bath, the leather of his armour before they'd stripped him that morning. Underneath it, cumin and cardamom, the spice of how desperately he wanted them. They touched their cheek to his and ran their hands slowly up his arms. They quivered with pleasure at the shape of his muscle. He could hold all their wildness secure. They would have nothing to fear in letting loose and rolling against him like the sea. “I do love being adored,” they murmured.

“I can feel it here.” His lips brushed her ear. His hands stole onto her back, plucking at her dress. “It wasn't until you that I let myself tune into prayer. I still have to choose when to let it in, prayers to Ares are like spears. But yours…” He groaned under his breath, striking a flame in her clit. “I shouldn't even be able to feel them, but the air's so full of you, prayers to you are like pollen, they're in my lungs. This whole island is begging for Aphrodite’s touch.” His hand closed on her hip. 

She swallowed a whimper, fingernails digging into his bicep. He hissed and tensed against her, so strong, so solid. They could feel the heat of his gaze pouring down their back. His skin was tacky with sweat and sea salt. Their mouth watered. The friction between her inner thighs burned. 

They were friends.

They were friends and it was working. They were friends and it was her sanctuary. They were friends and it was beautiful and gentle and trusting and fun and…

And his body was hot as Tartarus, hot on her palms and her belly and her nipples. His breath was shuddering on her ear. His thumb was massaging over the heart-shaped birthmark on her hip. He remembered where it was from when she'd shown him the third time they met. He must think about it, imagine it. Fates, that mall trip felt like a century ago. More. He'd been in their life forever. Ares and Aphrodite. Love and War. Natural and cosmic.

Friends. True friends. Here in her most sacred, beloved, authentic space, he fit in, responded to it instinctively. Everything about today had been perfect. It made her core pulse. But everything had been perfect, and they wanted to hold it in place.

They took a deep breath and turned gently in his arms to lean back against him. He took her weight without question, released her from the grip of his desire. He relaxed smoothly into holding them up, arms homey around them, chin on the crown of her head. She let the ache go, replaced with the comfort of him. She gazed around the agora. An old woman was lighting strings of paper lanterns, violet and turquoise glimmers floating among the shimmering faces. Teeth tore through the coloured darkness in explosions of laughter. Three women screeched and staggered across the square with their arms linked, skirts splashed with wine. A dog ran between the legs of traders still negotiating in a hot rumble. It halted at the feet of the gods, looking up at Ares as if at a pack leader. A sea captain whistled at it, gruffed at it for staring at nothing, and summoned it back with a scrap of meat. Aphrodite watched the mutt vanish into the crowd, rubbing Ares’ forearm. It was good seeing mortal creatures admire him. 

She softly inhaled wine and the distant sea, her senses cleansed of the fumes and chemicals of Olympus. Her gaze caught on twinkling bangles, shining oiled hair, coins tumbling between palms, twirls of cloth, flashes of glass. Eyes dragged over passing figures, pupils pooling. Hair unwound from tight braids and writhed in the flames. The cooling night rested on bare skin. Shoulders brushed, lips grazed, shadows melted into one and tucked into the darkness. Light roared and whispered. Aphrodisiac energy roared and whispered.

“I love this spot,” Aphrodite murmured. Ares bowed his head to listen. She tilted to speak against his warm cheek. “Hot and busy, overlapping everyone’s feelings and wants on top of each other. No, interlacing them, until it’s all one tapestry of desires and impulses and half-intentions. Pull a thread and it all unravels into a big, uncivilised mess of primality. Everyone here is ten seconds away from hooking up with a stranger. If you pull their thread, that is.” She smiled on his slight stubble, tingling on her lips, those threads tingling on their fingertips. “I love it.”

“Really?” he asked softly.

“You don’t think so?”

“Feels to me like everyone is ten seconds away from getting into a fist fight.”

“Maybe that’s just the threads you pull.”

“Yours sound better.” He nuzzled her temple.

Their fingers wandered along his arm, brain ticking as they watched the party. “I wonder what would happen if we pulled a few threads together.”

Ares looked sidelong at her, eyes kindling in the dark. He raised an eyebrow. His canine sneaked from his lip. 

Three minutes later, the agora was in chaos. 

Shadows flailed on the walls as the scene descended into a frothing whirlpool of passion and fury. People grasped each other in confessions of long-held feelings, then erupted in screaming matches. They surged into brawls that rolled into stripping each other's clothes. They sidled into flirting that caused fireworks of jealousy. They were shoved into kisses and swept into scraps. 

“Come here!”

“Hands off!”

“Fuck me!”

“Fuck you!”

“If you ever really loved me, YOU WOULD PAINT THE FUCKING KITCHEN!”

The captain's dog was howling.

Aphrodite stood in the deluge, utterly thrilled. “So this is what happens!” 

Someone threw an amphora. Ares ducked and it smashed against a column. “Shit!”

“I know!”

“We only did it to a few people!”

“That’s all it takes!” She hooted wildly, throwing her arms out to catch as much energy as they could. Violet bubbles popped in their pupils.

Ares dodged another flying dish. “You’re enjoying this way too much!”

“Aren’t you?”

“It’s crazy!” A moaning couple stumbled into him, bounced off his scarlet aura, and smacked apart to shriek enraged at each other. He looked stricken for a moment, then their anger hit him, and his aura burned so bright it hurt her eyes. He laughed incredulously. “You’re fucking crazy, Aph! Look at your face, you little demon!”

She laughed with him, laughed all the air out of her body so there was more room for dizzying impulse. She spun in the hurling madness. 

“RAT BASTARD!” A bottle shot overhead and crashed into a torch on a column. The torch clanged to the ground and spilled flame over trails of oil. The heat leaped up Aphrodite’s legs. She spun faster. Ares yelped and sprang to her, pulling her out of the fire's path. It was extinguished in a stampede as a harried musician tried to escape a gang of rabid fans. Aphrodite strummed his lyre as he hurtled by, giggling at the sound.

“Should we calm this down somehow?” Ares yelled over the noise. 

She cuddled his waist and tickled him. “I kinda wanna see how it goes.”

He gave her a scandalised look, but his grin was irrepressible. His aura blazed like a rocket launch. Gods, she loved seeing him fuelled. What a tragedy that he'd been starved so long. His body was so alive. She mindlessly clawed down his tunic and gulped the burst of cumin. 

Another woman did the same to the man gripping her arms and shaking her. His knees buckled. They collapsed at the gods’ invisible feet, writhing and gasping. Ares blinked down at them. “This is definitely getting out of hand.”

Aphrodite twirled to beam up at him. “We stand for the out of hand, Ares! It’s what we do!”

“Yeah, but not in the agora on any old summer night!”

“Why not? Gods! Why not?” She clutched his hands and pulled him into spinning. The chaos blurred into a ring of fire and sparkle, Ares’ shocked delight standing out against it. What a gorgeous vision of corrupted innocence. He pulled her faster. They ran and bellowed with laughter. Sparks flew from their joined hands and ignited new arguments and embraces. Her heart seemed to be beating outside of her body.

A brawl piled onto a stack of barrels and sent them avalanching over the square. Ares snatched Aphrodite out of the way and swept her up across his arms. The barrels rolled under her lifting feet. She squealed and pointed at the barrels. Their corks popped out and wine fountained into mouths open to kiss or curse. Ares barked. “You’re completely fucking insane!”

“Well, yeah!” They cupped his face. “Whoever heard of someone who was sanely in love?”

He looked into her eyes. “Not me.”

And they were kissing.

For a split second, it was as if they both stopped existing. In the moment their lips met, something detonated at the centre of them - no, deeper, of the core connecting the realms. They hovered as a drift of atoms. Then they were recreated in that kiss. Immortality, divinity, body, Ourania, Pandemos. It all anchored in the skin to skin. 

He scooped her up, she cradled his face, and they poured into each other like rivers meeting in a lagoon. Scarlet and violet clouded in their glowing auras, crackling with magic. Their bodies seemed to cloud too, to evaporate into each other at the edges as their lips melded together. Their fingers curled tight and possessive. Aphrodite’s hair tumbled over Ares’ shoulder. In his bridal carry, they tucked themself around his pounding heart. It shone through his skin, bathing them rose-red. Ares hugged the goddess’ whole body to his chest and let himself dissolve into her, nothing in his mind but the rush of the sea. His tongue burned over theirs. Their lips seared his. 

The world turned around them, their kiss the axis of the cosmos. 

Turning.

Turning.

Turning.

One fixed point: Aphrodite and Ares.

All else turning.

Turning.

Turning.

“We promised we wouldn’t do this,” he whispered against the corner of her mouth.

“Told you I’m a bad girl.” She teased over the throbbing pulse in his throat.

His eyes flickered open, the fire in them swallowing her whole, pupils like suns collapsing in on themselves.

Then he blinked and raised his face to gawp in surprise around them. She grunted at his distraction and glanced around too. The chaos had washed away. People wandered a little dazed and relaxed around the agora, relighting torches, restacking barrels, stroking arms, patting backs, pecking cheeks. People eased out of embraces and bashfully neatened each other up. They staggered from fist fights into salving each other’s bruises. They slung arms around each other and took steadying breaths. They began to walk peacefully out of the square.

Aphrodite looked merrily up at Ares. “Fixed it.”

He stared, shaking his head. “How do you do that?”

She shrugged, coiling one of his curls around her finger. “You work out, right?”

“Glad you’ve noticed.”

“Muscle doesn’t grow unless you use it. The heart is a muscle. It does well if it’s exercised. A strong society makes room for that.”

He grinned. “Mixis.”

They poked his nose. They floated from his arms and took his hand. They began to pull him from the emptying agora. “Remember what I told you at your dad’s birthday. We’re chemists. And you cause some really explosive reactions.”

“Yeah? Like what?” He chased up behind her and tickled her waist. They squealed and sprang into an escape. He pounced after them. 

They ran down to the beach, sand spraying over their clothes. Bonfires rippled. Their light spilled into the black waves. It caught shells so the beach glittered like a mirror of the starry sky above. The full moon illuminated the city rising over them, twin palaces of pearl and diamond in the dark, dazzling expanse. 

The gods ran through a veil of smoke and emerged visible in mortal guises, Aphrodite with wild black hair and skin that shone like copper with freckles of gold, Ares youthful and strong and desert-red. They joined hands with the dances around the fires, circles turning around centres of erupting energy. They drank deep. They fed each other oysters. They attracted people to them, telling jokes and stories, listening, singing, dancing again, joining hands and dancing. Turning. Turning. Turning.

The moon arced slowly overhead.

Someone’s cloak was spread beneath them as the bonfires died down. The music and talking had faded into the rhythmic back and forth of the tide. The sea was so dark that it vanished long before the horizon, draining away into the belly of Nyx. It was a darkness they couldn’t get on Olympus with all its electric lights. It reminded them just how old and evil and good the world really was. They lay facing each other, ember glimmers on the angles of their faces. 

“Can I ask you something?” Ares said quietly.

Aphrodite smiled. “I love when you ask me things.”

“That kiss.” He sucked his lip. “Is it still in the territory of romantic friends?”

They watched the crimson light rest on his mouth. They breathed in the sea and charred wood. In. Out. Breathing with the tide. In. Out. Everything about today had been perfect. “We’ve kissed three times. When we met, when we parted, when we reunited. Can we have one kiss that doesn’t have to change anything?”

He paused. He nodded. “It won’t change us. But ‘anything’s’ too much to ask. I change all the time I’m with you, Aph.”

She shook her head. “You change yourself. I’m just the one you do it in front of.”

“You give me the room. You accept me.”

“I do. And you accept me.”

He sighed slowly from his still glowing chest. “I worship you, Paphia.” He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind their ear. His fingertips teased the shell. “I didn’t realise it before. Goddess of Beauty, not Goddess of Being Pretty, pretty as you are. Beauty means wonder. Something to seek and make and sit in. Beauty is the word we use for going beyond basic existence. Beauty is touching the divine. All the beauty of the world, it’s in you.”

She warmed from her cheeks to her toes. It was like he'd said, prayer to her was pollen here, dusting the air with gold, clinging to their skin, filling their lungs, propagating more of her fruits. His prayers floated into the mix like fireflies. 

Tomorrow, her dear Pygmalion and Anaxarete-Galatea would walk out of the shadows and mark their life together. Celebration was heady and high in the city. All of Paphos was decadent with her triumph. Tomorrow let all her risky plays and clever creativity land and flourish. Cyprus was a hive with all her bees returning, about to gush and glisten with honey. Weeks of festivals, temple dedications, demonstrations, performances, publishing, speaking, exploding onto the Aegean - tomorrow was her soft landing into her new life as Aphrodite Ourania, Queen and Rival. She had succeeded beyond all expectation. It was time for a beautiful day all about love. That was the point of it all, really, when all was said and done. Watching Ares’ drowsy eyes drop closed and his enchanting gaze flutter dim, she realised how important it was that she never lose sight of that.

How could I, as long as I have you?

They rolled into each other’s arms and slept entwined to the lullaby of the sea.

 

 

*

Part XI. Late at Night. The Royal Palace, Paphos, Cyprus.

 

Fear, doubt, anger, betrayal, abuse, violence, using, reduction, desperation, grief, self-annihilation. Every woman touched by it, infested by it. Every woman accepting it to follow their hearts. He's my father. He's my brother. He's my husband. He's my king. He has what I need. He has what I can't get otherwise. He's my purpose. He's my dream. Endless. 

I have to serve him.

I don't have a choice.

I love him.

It's what I was made for.

It's 

what 

I

was

made

for.

No more.

Hestia stepped from the hearth of the palace kitchen. The large, stone room was crowded with preparations for the royal wedding feast. Fat vegetables piled on the vast wooden table. Rich fruits the hues of treasure bubbled out of dishes, swelled on cut, lush vines, simmered in pots. The butchered carcass of a pig hung from metal hooks, gutted belly gaping open. There were walls of cheeses in muslin packages and barricades of stacked palettes of pastries. The earthy, wholesome, juicy aroma of food soaked into Hestia. But she still felt sick. She was so very tired of nausea.

“I don't let people starve. That’s the point of me.”  So she’d said to Peitho, so she believed in her bones. But everything good about eating soured in this place. They would break this bread to celebrate a doll being given half a mind and called a whole woman, all to satisfy a man who couldn’t love unless he could control. Satisfy? Pah! She gnashed her teeth. Men didn’t know satisfaction, they didn’t know being full and content because they didn’t know starvation, they didn’t know how it felt to be drained and deprived to your core. “There's no true decision if made in desperation. And you can't deny, she works well with that emotion.” Aphrodite thrived off the desperation of women, the ease with which she could gather them up, the promise that begging from a man was so much simpler than building your own life. Aphrodite didn’t work with satisfaction. Hestia did. Wholeness and sustenance, contentment and home-making, these were her domains. This ostentatious display, this wasteful gluttony, was not for anyone’s satisfaction, not for anyone’s fulfilment. Just more extravagances for the wealthy, more propaganda parades for the monarchs. Her mind filled with images of gold teeth mindlessly masticating the food like goats do hay, as if no work had gone into it, no taste, no growth, no sun and rain, no hearth and pot and spoon, just more of the precious world turned into slop to consume and shit out. 

Her stomach heaved and burned.

She thought of the newspaper reporting this wedding, what Aphrodite had said: “Marriage is an important political tool, but fundamentally it is that because it's a union, and a union can only be sustained with feeling.” Exactly. These politics, these unions between men’s wants and women’s labours, were only allowed to exist because they all kept feeling for them, they all kept falling in love and letting themselves fall into that vacuum.

She thought of the Girl Cry protestors standing up at the press conference. “WE ARE NOT DOLLS.” 

We are not dolls.

We are not dolls.

WE ARE NOT DOLLS.

We are not your pillows to come into. We are not your vases to stuff with flowers and display. We are not your oxen or your ovens to do your work and make your progeny. We are not your bandages and your ointments. We are not the shelves you put your baggage on. We are not in stasis waiting for your needs to bring us to life. 

“What does this Galatea want? What’s her favourite colour? Where would she most like to travel to? What food makes her feel most at home? What does she want to prioritise as queen? Does she even know? All she knows is she was made for the pleasure of her spouse. Her whole existence is attached to that one concept, and they’re celebrating it as romantic! How many more girls will read this and dream of the man they were made for? Sculpt their body and their mind and their vision to suit him?”

She closed her eyes against another wave of sickness. The sugar and alcohol was too thick in here. Dareia’s ashen face lingered behind her eyes. 

“Please, Hestia, help me be a better wife. I was meant to be his wife. I've always known I was made for marriage. It's what I was born for.”

Then Demeter’s.

“I invited him to my home. Where my nymphs are, where my mortals are. I invited the God of Storms to the fields.”

“He ran his hand around my neck as he went. And when I went outside, my raspberry patch was dead.”

“We used to do whatever he asked. His love kept us going.”

Good women. Kind women. Smart women. Strong women. Men desired them and couldn’t see them anymore. Men desired them and took away their humanity. She watched them leech their life force every day, more women losing who they were as the mouths of men kept moving on them. Moving like they were chewing. The food in here was so rich, she felt so, so sick.

“He’s patronising a king and he intends for that king to claim supremacy over all our city states.”

It was coming. The reckoning. They’d pushed long enough, hard enough. Zeus needed to be wanted again. Everyone needed to want him. It was going to devour Greece. It was going to devour the Pantheon. And they couldn’t fight back because Aphrodite would split them all apart to be adored like him. They couldn’t fight back because Aphrodite’s women so loved Zeus’ men. They couldn’t fight back because women acted on the world and the world simply didn’t react. Hestia’s speaking, her screaming, her organising, her moulding with her hands, her lighting fires, it didn’t do anything. She wasn’t defeated, she didn’t get that far. It was as if she just… didn't exist. Men could make it that way. They could care so little for her humanity that they could cause it to evaporate. They had so much power over whether she got to be real through nothing but casual dismissal.

“I’m not enough of a woman to start this kind of fire, I’m too much a woman to be trusted to put it out.”

It was revolting in here. The pig carcass stank. Raw meat juices drip-drip-dripped onto the stone floor and stained it pink. Her stomach churned, churned right down through her guts and colon. 

She really fucking hated feeling sick.

She was in a kitchen, her domain, and it made her nauseous. Aphrodite had polluted her temple, and now the kitchen, making feasts for greedy kings collecting women like ceramics. Worse. Crafting women as dolls. Looking out to the world of women and being disgusted by their laughter and their pride and their exhaustion and their agency and their friendships and their tastes and their fucking armpit hair. Marrying a doll to avoid dealing with the reality of women. Being celebrated for avoiding the reality of women. A feast to the unreality of women, wombs that didn’t bleed and smiles that didn’t flicker and legs that didn’t close. And no mind. None of the inconvenience of independent thought. No heart in that perfect breast, just his name carved into a lump of dead meat. 

The stench of raw meat in her mouth. 

Meat in her mouth.

Meat forced into her mouth.

She balked and cried out to the empty, stone room, her coarse voice echoing. “Cheers! Raise your glass to the best of women! One with no self and no hunger and no rest! Ladies and gentlemen, the bride!”

Mouths that open on hinges. Pretty dolls.

Meat limp in her mouth. Meat fat in her mouth.  Filth in her mouth.

Her stomach lurched. It threw her to the floor. Cool stone scraped her knees and bruised the heels of her hands. She retched. It contorted her spine. Her fingernails scraped along the flags. Her eyes flooded. Dareia and Demeter and Athena and Artemis and Peitho and girl after girl after girl after girl refracted in the tears. She gagged on the phantom sensation in her mouth. The raw pork dripped onto her back. Slime. Her stomach heaved again. It started to feel almost good. Her body had held something in for too long and was finally purging. She tensed and rode the next wave from her stomach. 

Heat belched from her mouth. It rushed into the room, singeing her face like standing over a burning oven. Tears splashed to the floor. She sobbed. She retched. She vomited heat again, pure heat, throbbing, engulfing waves of it. 

Girl after girl after girl after girl after girl…

With each violent lurch of her insides came more relief. The savage heat gushed out of her and spread through the kitchen. Vines withered, fruit turned to syrup, pastries charred brittle, cheese melted into a pungent sludge, the pig roasted black. It kept coming, her body expelling more and more.

…after girl after girl after…

It oozed over the palace. Fountains dried up. Drains reeked. Vibrant leaves and flowers browned. Garlands wilted. Wine boiled sour. Sweat drenched beds and people tossed and turned in fevered nightmares. 

…girl after girl…

Clay cracked. Glass shattered. Jewellery softened and warped. No wedding rings. The ground became too hot to walk on. No procession for the bride. 

…after girl after...

No more. 

We are not dolls.

With a final groan and gasp, her stomach settled at last, empty and tender. Hestia rocked onto her knees and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. Her skin sizzled in the wonderful heat. The wedding of Pygmalion to his doll was locked up in a raging oven, ruined. She closed her eyes and faded slowly from the room back into her home. 

It was quiet and the smell of bread was tempting and comforting. Her appetite eased back into her body at last. 

She was Goddess of the Kitchen, and there would be no feasts to the degradation of her kind.

 

 

*

 

 

Part XII. Late at Night. Apartment Building, Olympus.

 

Acteon’s apartment smelled of processed cheese slices and energy drinks, equally sweaty and plastic. He sat up late into the night, slumped on his duct tape-patched couch. He wondered dimly whether he should get some sleep or whether Lifeguards of Argos Beach 3: Sink or Swimsuit might be worth staying up for. He slurped listlessly from a can. The TV glared in the darkness. The garish lime green of a beer ad cast a ghoulish glow over propped up cork boards covered in photos in a lavender mish-mash, a crowd of paper Aphrodites smiling cold and seductive. The floor and countertops were covered in stacks of newspapers, unwashed dishes, and half eaten packets. The lime green glare turned blue as a beautiful girl of indistinct age ran in slow motion under a cloudless sky. Acteon glanced at the nearest corkboard and its dozens of creamy swirls of hair and gems of eyes. He fiddled with his belt. 

Thunder rumbled in the distance, like a brush over a symbol. 

The beautiful girl was now jumping in slow motion. His hairline was damp with clammy sweat. She smiled with perfect, white teeth. It was a I-know-I’m-better-than-you smile, an I'd-love-you-to-prove-me-wrong smile. The corkboard photos were the same.

The thunder rolled again, a deep, iron sound.

She played with the strap of her swimsuit.

Lightning flashed. She vanished in a pop of sparks out of the back of the TV.

Acteon’s hand spasmed on his buckle. “Fuck’s sake…” He creaked to his feet, thunked down his can, and sloped over to the TV, muttering under his breath. He banged the side. He jiggled the box about. “Come on you…” Lightning flashed. “...pissing…”

“Acteon.”

“AH!” Acteon leaped out of his snakeskin. He whipped around, almost toppling, and scoured the darkness for the voice. Lightning illuminated the boxy apartment.

Empty.

His heart galloped. His hands tingled. He squinted and poised on his toes. I could've sworn…

Another flash. Acteon scrambled backwards and knocked his TV with a pricey sounding crunch to the vinyl floor. The cold, white light scored around the outline of a large, sharp figure standing at the window. 

“Acteon,” the low voice said again.

He opened his mouth to shout. Nothing but a squeak in his throat. He stood stock still and tried to keep breathing. With one more flicker of icy light through glass, the figure emerged like a photograph being developed. Acteon's stomach shrivelled up and dropped through his intestines. “Your… Your Majesty!”

“Acteon.”

Acteon stared in stunned silence at King Zeus of Olympus, standing behind his couch with an imposing, graceful posture and severe mouth. 

“That's right, isn't it?”

Acteon nodded slowly. Thunder growled. It snapped him to attention. “Um, can… can I get you anything?” He launched forward to clear the coffee table and knocked over a stack of newspapers. He cursed, blushed, and hurried to grab the packets and cans off the couch. “Would you like to, uh…”

“Thank you, no. I'm going to avoid touching the surfaces.”

“Yeah, fair, absolutely.” He straightened up with his fists full of trash. He met the cool, hard eyes of the king, pricked with lightning-white. He threw the garbage on the floor and bowed stiffly. “Um… what can I… um…”

“I want to offer you a job.”

His pulse thudded. He raised tentatively out of the bow. “A job?”

The king raised a strong, elegant hand. Strings of dazzling electricity snarled around it, and he was holding the latest few issues of Panoptes, most with a pair of amethyst eyes looking smokily at Acteon through the uneven dimness. “You seem to think Aphrodite is where the action is.”

“Yes,” he blurted. He cleared his wet throat. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He jolted. “Not that it's not with you!”

The king flickered the magazines into nothing and held up a hand to silence him. Acteon watched it move with purpose through his long, sleek hair and down into his suit trouser pocket. “I agree with you. And as king, it's important that I'm keeping an eye on the action.” Acteon nodded dumbly. The king rubbed his clean jaw. “But she has a…” he clucked his tongue, “ friendship… with my son, who in turn has a friendship with my daughter. It is my daughter who heads my security network.” Acteon nodded again, ears prickling. “So I would prefer to hire a free agent.”

Acteon nodded once more. Then started at the significant, jet black look. “Oh! Me?” The king nodded curtly. Acteon salivated and gulped awkwardly. “To… to spy on Lady Aphrodite?” 

“To keep an eye.” The king's voice was smooth but edged, like oil running over a blade. “To report back to me before your editor. I'll let you know what you can publish, the rest can be between us.” He looked with distaste around the grim apartment. “For good money.”

Acteon took the brief freedom from the pinning, chilling gaze to study the regal figure before him. The king was still outlined by the glimmer in the heavy, iron clouds outside, half dissolving into pure darkness, half starkly alight. He didn't look completely solid, like a projection, like a dream, like whatever the mind would have to reduce him to to be able to comprehend him as a being so far beyond it. He'd written so much trashy gossip about this being, paid off his servants for scoops on his affairs, walked in his garden and mocked him and his son chewing on the same girl like dogs with a bone. What had he been thinking? Would he write like that about a supernova? He was dizzy. But somewhere in the dizziness he couldn't decide if this awe was coming from inside him or somehow pushing in from outside. It was cloudy outside and in his chest. What is this?

“What do you say?” The king's sharp tone brought him out of his thoughts.

He clung to something that he knew he would think, knew he would say, even if he couldn't quite feel it right now. “Sire… state control of the press…”

The room seared monochrome in a harsh bolt through the storm. Thunder rolled so deep it possessed the building foundations. The king's voice deepened too. “Control or provision? Look at it this way, your exclusives have dried up.” His shadow spread like an eagle's wings. “Ever since Aphrodite returned to Olympus, she's been so flamboyantly public that every article about her is identical. You are lost in white noise. But I read your first interview with her, then your cover of the garden party, and today your sceptical take on the Kythera ceremony. You're a snake, Acteon, but you know how to interrogate a pretty surface. You have a sharp instinct for what is flare and what is pertinent.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” His mouth was somehow both dry and wet.

“So I'm offering you, and therefore the public, greater access to information. Yes, I would need to hold some things back, largely only temporarily, to keep the peace. But you'd be tapping a vein no one else has so much as glimpsed. Everything you mined would be pure, undiscovered gold.” He swept a hand through his hair again, the veins of his wrist gleamed with ichor. 

Acteon stared at it, pupils swelling. He blinked and scrambled for clarity. “How… I mean…” He half bowed and stammered concertedly at the floor. “Forgive me, my king, but either you have the gold, in which case you don't need me, or you want me to find the gold, in which case it's just me carrying on with what I've been doing, and you've seen I'm having little success. Either way, I don't see the benefit for either of us. One of us can't offer the other what he needs. You don't have the information on Aphrodite, I don't have the access to her.” 

He stopped and gathered all his courage to glance up. He regretted it. The black clouds seemed to be crushing against the window, fingers of freezing hot lightning scraping down the glass. The lines of the king bled into the boiling darkness, making him huge, vast, endless. He lifted his balletic hand again and snapped his fingers. Whiteness and pain seized Acteon. He was bundled up in ropes of lightning, the brightness blinding, the burning stabbing into every joint and muscle. He tried to howl, but his lungs and throat were pierced. His spine flailed and froze. His limbs contorted. His skin felt like it was splitting and turning to ash on his bones. 

Then it was over.

He was lying on the carpet in a squelch of old pizza grease, trembling and aching. His glasses were cracked. His clothes smoked.

“You now have the ability to shapeshift into a hawk, a fish, and a rat,” the king said dispassionately. “If you are ever discovered on private property, including that of the gods, you will not be prosecuted.”

Acteon heaved for breath and choked on the stench of the carpet. A final flash filled the room. His vision was blurred but he could sense he was alone. His heart pounded. 

The pressure of the storm broke. Rain cascaded against the window. Through the violent drumming, that cavernous voice echoed. “Use my gifts to pay me back.”

Notes:

Due to me being the worst, there are history notes if you click next chapter.

Ares' inner line "beasts who wish to prove their love only know how to lie down and die" is a quote from Jean Cocteau's 1946 film La Belle et La Bête (Beauty and the Beast). For me, it's a very Aphrodite energy piece of art and I really recommend it, as well as the original novella fairytale by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, which even draws on Eros and Psyche.

Oh my goodness, if you read this novella-length update, you deserve lots of little treats. I actually have a bunch now plotted out that keeps chapters to like 2-3 scenes and really won't be this slow or explainy. The world sure is something right now, and I've been doing a lot of thinking about love, connection, sexuality, anger, violence, abuse, and feminism. This chapter was written over several months and ended up reflecting a lot of that. It also had to set up the political context for the rest of the story. Sooo, it turned into much more annoying philosophy than I think is good fiction, but I also just do not have the capacity to edit a fanfic right now. I hope it wasn't too dry or too tedious! I hope you enjoyed at least some of it! And I hope to see you again much sooner with some Ares-flavoured spice. Take care of yourselves in the meantime xxx

Chapter 26: Notes for Chapter 25

Summary:

History and shit! Feel free to skip. I know this has been the second chapter running with a history dump after it. This will, I swear, not happen every time. But it will happen again xxx

*Holds up book by Bettany Hughes* I just think it's neat!

She makes the history notes! She is insufferable! A lot of this doesn’t need explaining probably because it’s basically just directly in the text, but here’s some salt and pepper.

 

Paphos:

 

So, a thing to always remember is that “Greece” doesn’t really exist yet. There are shared languages and cultures, but Greece is a collection of independent city states with their own dialects and traditions, in fluctuating loyalties and conflicts with each other. In this fic, each god patronises a city and moulds it in their image, the power of their cities in the Mortal Realm an important tool for power on Olympus. I think in this fic I’ve done a lot of switching between Cyprus as a single kingdom and a collection of them. The reality is it was a collection of city states, like Greece. I’ve made the whole island under Aphrodite’s rule, but only know anything about Paphos. Paphos was known as Aphrodite's birthplace at the time.

We tend to see Ancient Greece’s pantheism portrayed as equal worship of a standardised pantheon - Zeus for the kings, Poseidon for the sea, Apollo for music, etc. But the truth is much more complex. We do see gods invoked in specific contexts, but we also see different gods given supremacy in different places. Some cities and regions had such thriving cults that they became essentially monotheistic to that deity, regardless of their remit. This was the case in Paphos, where Aphrodite was by far the favourite. Her cultic site at Paphos was an international spiritual centre, in its heyday rivalling Delphi, so basically one of the most important places you could pilgrimage to, regardless of your personal deity allegiances. It was recognised as Aphrodite’s real birthplace, so worshippers went there to be close to this extremely beloved goddess. While she has specific centres, Aphrodite is generally super popular, more so than many of the pantheon. From what I understand, the biggest deals are Zeus, Apollo, and her, but I do not have confirmation of this and it will have fluctuated in time and space.

The way that Aphrodite’s cult manifests in my imagining of Paphos is partly me and partly history. 

It was a huge spiritual, creative, business, and party town. Ritual infused daily life, as with everywhere in the ancient world, and I love imagining that in an Aphrodite context, that would mean a sensual and enriched life. Pleasure, glamour and wealth were her version of piety, and she was prayed to for prosperity and sexuality above all. Dance, parties, music, offerings, flower garlands, and sacred sex work (more on this next chapter) were all big parts of her worship. Also, crucially, the “smile-loving” thing is true?? This playful epithet used “smile” as a double entendre for cunt, Aphrodite as both a lover of happiness and sexuality. It was extremely common to offer seashells to her and keep them yourself to invoke the vulva. We have so much dick-obsessed history, I can’t tell you how this pussy-centric deity delights me. They did also sometimes refer to orgasm as “Aphrodite’s finishing post,” and she was sometimes painted with a ladder nearby as a visual pun - “klimax” was the word for ladder.

Doves, sparrows, violets, hyacinth, crocus, anemone, rose, myrtle, apples, and bees/honey were all associated with her, so they make appearances in the environment. Pomegranates were also sacred to her! They represented sexuality, fertility, blood, and passage between life and death. While Aphrodite has very little to do with death, we get glimmers of her darker side with this symbol. 

But it is also true that her cult did not involve blood sacrifice, and this was noted as special among the deities. Animal sacrifice was a very common form of worship to most of the gods, but was seen as inappropriate for a goddess of life and pleasure. I guess she’d rather you eat the meat in a good jus than waste it. 

She was also SO GENDER FLUID. There is so much interesting stuff about this, just look up Aphroditos. Aphrodite and Venus are both often portrayed with mixtures of “male” and “female” body parts. This was especially true in Cyprus, whose cult included cross-dressing festivals and priests. We get a lot of our conception of Ancient Greece from Athens specifically, which was…not a cool place to be not a cis man. I just can’t emphasise enough that Athens is one culture and in many, many ancient cultures, it has actually been totally fine and sexy to be female, non-binary or trans. Paphos was absolutely one of those places. Never forget, the sea is the gender fluid (not my joke sadly).

Paphos was also cool for its massive openness to migration. Athens was notoriously xenophobic, to the point its own citizens criticised it (for example in Euripides’ Medea). I don’t actually know about things like laws around owning property or conducting business. I mulched Athens’ creepy purity complex with the one plaguing Britain today. I think about Aphrodite Xenia a lot these days. This epithet means “of the foreigner” and represents her protection of travellers and migrants and her insistence on hospitality (actually shared by Zeus!) In an ancient world without hostels, radiators or phones and lots and lots of daggers everywhere, hospitality wasn’t an added extra, it was essential for survival. Many historic cultures, including Hellenic Greece and Anglo-Saxon England and Viking Age Scandinavia (you know, all the ones people use for racism), frame hospitality as a compulsory social contract, one we must all upkeep to ensure our mutual safety. People who break this contract are punished by the gods. In one such myth, Aphrodite does indeed transform the Kerastai, native mythological folk of Cyprus, into bull-horned beasts to punish them for murdering migrants. But Paphos didn’t just treat movement as something to tolerate. It was a booming port and spiritual centre, hugely wealthy off the back of open borders. It feels useful to note here that our regional definitions aren’t the same as in the ancient world. While our colonially informed map draws strong distinctions between Europe, Asia, and Africa, the ancient world operated more on whose seas you shared. North Africa, Southern Europe, and the Arabic world were very much in a shared milieu, more connected with each other than with their continental counterparts. It’s truly wild how much colonialism shattered these connections.

Paphos' copper industry formed the other branch of its massive success. Cyprus (“Kypros”) translates to Copper Land, named after the rich veins of copper in its caverns. Copper (with tin) was essential to making bronze - a technological revolution that allowed for powerful weapons and beautiful design. Cyprus became a centre of the Mediterranean Bronze Age and sustained its wealth in following ages as a producer of this invaluable resource. As the Goddess of Paphos, Aphrodite was intertwined with this industry. This is likely why she ended up shown as married to the smith god, Hephaestus. 

For all her complexity, and all the ways I am definitely suuuper over-simplifying this, I think it’s really important to recognise Aphrodite as a working goddess for the people. She wasn’t just a luxurious image for the rare treat of bath salts or honeymoon phases. She was intrinsically linked to human connection and generativity. She was as present in mines, marketplaces, and harbours as in bedrooms. And her Pandemos epithet really did encompass sex work, rough sex, and ordinary folk! Despite her association with wealth and style, she was an on the ground goddess, not the property of the elite. It’s hard to ever really understand what sexuality could have meant in pre-Christian cultures. The Church did a real number on how we see literally everything, and it’s hard to find scholarship on ancient sexuality that doesn’t super-impose modern shame or over-correct and idealise it. But what we seem to know is that sexuality was a powerful driving social force and tied into people’s relationships with abundance of all kinds, so invoking a sex goddess could mean a lot more than your personal relationships, from craft, to money, to war, to harvest. Mixis was a real concept bringing all these spheres together. The way Bettany Hughes writes about it (in the book I talk about in the fic end notes) is beyond beautiful. I’ve tried to translate it into the fic, but honestly used a lot close to her language. Basically everything in this portrayal of Paphos comes from that book.

 

Stories and Figures:

 

The Knidos nude of Aphrodite is real! In the 4th Century BCE, the renowned Athenian sculptor, Praxiteles, created what we seem to think is the first female nude in Greek history, of course choosing Aphrodite to break that barrier. While male nudity was common in sculpture, showing off heroic physique, nude female forms were seen as shocking and overly sexual. The nude became the cult statue in the temple to Aphrodite at Knidos, where it was a huge spiritual experience and tourism draw. We even have stories of worshippers sneaking into the temple to have sex with the statue, the thigh stained with ejaculate. Feminist commentary is torn; on the one hand, it’s cool to see the introduction of female nudity alongside male, on the other, the statue to this day raises questions of the male gaze, sex dolls, and objectification. But I like getting my tits out, so I’m making it a positive thing for Aphrodite, drawing out shamed desires and heightening fascination with her. Aphrodite has over time been used to reflect our own modern tensions around female nudity as both empowering and degrading, and been invoked in stripping and sex work to reclaim the power of being gazed upon and overtly sexual. The alleged model for this statue was Praxiteles’ lover, Phryne, a famed Athenian beauty and courtesan with her own nudity legend. It’s said that when Phryne was put on trial for unlawful worship (probably of Dionysus), she bared her breasts to the court. They all agreed she was so beautiful that she must have divine favour, and therefore it would anger the gods to punish her, and she was acquitted. Iconic beyond belief. Nudes of Aphrodite abound in the Greco-Roman period after Praxiteles breaks the seal, including such fabulous titles as Aphrodite Kallipygos, or Aphrodite of the Beautiful Buttocks, shown lifting her skirt to flash her ass. Continuously iconic.

Atalanta was a huntress who did not want to get married, and so she said that she would only give her hand to someone who could beat her in a footrace. Several suitors failed and were executed. The hero, Hippomenes, fell in love with her and prayed to Aphrodite for help. Aphrodite, who I will admit is not supportive of abstinence, gave him three golden apples to drop during the race. The apples distracted Atalanta and allowed Hippomenes to win. But he then forgot to offer to Aphrodite in thanks. In punishment, she overcame him and Atalanta with lust on their journey to his home, and they impulsively had sex in a temple of Cybele (or Rhea, Zeus’ mother). Zeus punished them for defiling his mother’s temple by turning them into lions. I’m telling this story with the spin that Atalanta was attracted to Hippomenes’ competitive spirit and does marry him out of choice, as well as her own condition.

Ino was the sister of Semele and raised her son by Zeus, Dionysus. When Hera discovered Zeus’ adultery, she punished Ino for aiding him by driving her husband, Athamas, into a murderous madness. Ino took her infant son Melikertes and ran, throwing herself off a cliff into the sea. Aphrodite favoured Ino and petitioned Poseidon to save her. He transformed them into the marine gods, Leucothea and Palaemon, protectors of those wrecked at sea. The reason for their favour, which I’ve cut out due to timeline, is that Ino was Aphrodite and Ares’ granddaughter, the daughter of Harmonia and Cadmus.

The part where Aphrodite and Peitho talk about merchants selling freshwater in the doldrums is based on the myth of Dexikreon. He was a Cypriot shipmaster who was favoured by Aphrodite with advice to stock extra freshwater on his vessels. When the doldrums hit, he did sell this off to fellow merchants for a huge profit.

Sappho! Does she need an explanation? She is a gay lady ancient poet! She was indeed called the Tenth Muse by Plato, lauded for her poetry and scholarship, especially on the themes of erotic love. Her name and her island home of Lesbos are where we get the terms Sapphic and Lesbian. She regularly invokes Aphrodite in her poetry as the deity giving her all her big gay feelings. 

The myth of the daughters of King Propoetus is a real myth. Aphrodite’s summary of it as a story that shames sex work as lowering and hard-hearted comes from Ovid. Her positive retelling is my personal interpretation. Interestingly, they tie into Pygmalion, who allegedly refused to marry because he was so horrified by the Propoetides’ outrageous sexuality. I cut this, because stfu.

Pygmalion’s romance combines two myths, that of Galatea and Anaxarete. Pygmalion was a founding legend of Paphos. He was a sculptor who didn’t want to marry or have sex, disgusted by women’s sexuality. He created a woman figure out of ivory and found it so beautiful that he fell in love. He made offerings to Aphrodite at her festival and Aphrodite granted the statue life - Galatea. The daughter of Pygmalion and Galatea was called Paphos, after whom the city is named. Anaxarete was a princess of Salamis, another city on Cyprus, who scorned a suitor and didn’t care when he took his own life as a result. Aphrodite was angered by her coldness to him and turned her to stone in punishment. I thought it would be fun to combine two stories of statue ladies into one secret romance that turned being shit to women into embracing asexuality and consent.

I’ve done my own spiritual work on reinterpreting Aphrodite’s wraths, because I think there’s some really interesting stuff if you reframe them out of their patriarchal values. Myths are far more malleable then the recordings of them and would have originated in many versions before becoming fixed much later by the writer that happened to survive into our era. We can't know if the shaming of women in those documents was how the myth was always told, whether the myth was even always in that form or changed according to time and region. When Angela Carter wrote her book of fairytale retellings, The Bloody Chamber, it was billed as feminist retellings. She said that it wasn't, because that implies the tales never had feminist content and she had transformed them away from misogyny. She said that misogyny is as imposed as any other value, and with stories so old, we don't have to assume misogynistic origin or the permanence of patriarchy. She instead described The Bloody Chamber as retellings that brought to life latent existing material in fairytales. I haven't studied these myths closely enough to claim I've identified something in the way she did, but I think it's an interesting way to think about retelling ancient stories. My modern woman's values are that, but we don't know the myth was never supposed to be pro-woman. Aphrodite is a… very wrathful goddess… like… so many. But I find those acts of wrath fascinating - love cannot be denied. The physical wrath of Aphrodite perhaps reflects the psychological consequences when we suppress our own emotions and needs. Her involvement with the sirens, Glaukos, Hippolytus, and Narcissus are exactly as she narrates in the chapter, and Ares’ responses to them are mine with this question in mind of what if they weren't originally patriarchal. The one wrath I can’t square is that of Nerites. Poor boy. He was indeed her sea-deity lover, and when he wouldn’t accompany her when she moved from the ocean to Olympus, she turned him into a seasnail/shellfish. Again, love can’t always be controlled, not even by its mistress.

The Olympic boxing match Ares talks about is a real myth. He and Apollo boxed at the first Olympics, held between the gods. Ares super duper lost. There is another myth where he boxes Hermes for the favour of a nymph and loses AGAIN. BRO WHAT IS HAPPENING YOUR ONLY JOB IS MUSCLE. But this is what inspired the idea of Ares as a god of “fighting” rather than “winning.” He is associated with the bloodlust and carnage of war, rather than warrior prowess. He is a really complicated god, but we’ll unpack that laterrrrr.

And finally, the Inanna Collective is based on Aphrodite’s religious heritage. Our understanding is that the Aphrodite we came to recognise in the Hellenic world is a combination of a Cypriot nature goddess and the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna, whose cult travelled to Cyprus with all that migrating. Aphrodite is not only mythologically born on Cyprus, but literally, as her first conception happens in that culture. Inanna is one of the most important deities in Sumer. She is known as, or foundational to, Astarte and Ishtar elsewhere in that region around modern Iraq and Syria. Because she seems to have a lot of names and influence over other goddess cults, I thought it would be cool to position her as Aphrodite’s teacher, operating a goddess collective in which her and her off-shoots are actually a group of closely connected goddesses working and evolving in tandem. As in real history, Aphrodite changes a lot from Inanna’s much darker model, reducing her ties to war and almost completely severing from the Underworld. Perhaps we see echoes of Inanna in Aphrodite’s true loves - Ares the War God and Adonis who transitions between life and death. Inanna is unbelievably cool, please look her up, especially the book of hymns to her by Sumerian priestess Enheduanna - Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart.

And that concludes today’s lecture! Usual disclaimer that I’m not a classicist, I just use a lot of theoi.com and am Bettany Hughes’ weirdo acolyte.

Notes:

Thank you SO much for reading! <3 For more of my utter nonsense, I'm on IG @ShawberryTart
Holy Gods, I've been working on this fic and these characters for MONTHS. I am so, so excited to finally share this story. Thank you so much to Myth is a Mirror, Kindness Graceless, Cub and Les Etoiles Fous for listening to my many ramblings about this ship and fic. You guys are the midwives that helped me birth my fandom-opus (except, like, pretend I said a not weird thing there). Massive love as well to Chinchela's Thirsty Heathens discord community, you guys are my fandom village and all your cheer-leading makes my heart grow three sizes every time, also I can only hear Ares and Aphrodite in Diz's voice now.

This fic is a huge part of the journey of exploration I'm going on regarding Aphrodite and my relationships to the things she represents - love, sexuality, rage, beauty, human nature, the natural world, society, expression, community, feminism, queerness, all that shit. If you want to learn more about her as a goddess in the ancient world and an icon of these ideas now, I super recommend Venus & Aphrodite: History of a Goddess by Bettany Hughes, my og girl crush, (N.B. I think the American title is a bit different). For some judgement-free, friendly and heart-opening discussions of sex and relationships and sex work that had a huge impact on my journey towards better sex and body positivity, here's a few cool places to go: Sex Nerd Sandra, Sh! Women's Store, Ill Repute, @MeganJayneCrabbe. For some fun with the witchy side of Aphrodite and her kind, check out Love Magic by Lilith Dorsey. To help advance sex worker rights, please consider supporting SWARM.