Talk of Love

Aether meets with Aphrodite, who delivers terrible news.

After turning a corner we come to a large pearly gate. There are golden vines curling through them, forming the shape of a heart the center of which is adorned with large letters. I read them aloud, “Aphrodite, goddess of love.” I look over at Hermes and ask, “How old does she think she is?”

“She acts like she’s sixteen. So be careful, she’s temperamental and it’s ridiculously easy to offend her.”

I push open the gates and an unpleasant assortment of smells fills my nostrils. Chemical smells, but mixed with good scents, like cinnamon and other spices. The mixture makes me nauseous and I put a hand over my nose and mouth to avoid breathing it in.

The room is enormous, filled with mirrors and other things I cannot identify. The bed is even bigger than mine, filled with pillows, and the whole thing is shaped like a heart. The entire atmosphere of the room is probably supposed to be romantic, all red and white and pink. However, I find it an overbearing effort to look like the room of a love goddess. Ridiculous.

“Who do I look like to you?” I hear a voice say. I turn to it and see her, Ana again. But like before, her appearance changes until I am looking at Solution, she continues to morph until I am looking at some sort of cross between the two girls. Her appearance continues to shift without end, becoming more like Solution and then more like Ana, and back again. The longer I look at her the worse a growing pain in my head becomes.

“Would you please settle on one appearance and keep it that way?” I say, starting to swoon.

She starts to pout, looking like Ana, then replies “but you haven’t answered my question yet. What do I look like to you?”

I decide to answer honestly, “Your appearance keeps changing. Very frustratingly I might add.”

“Goody!” She exclaims, “That means you’re in love with more than one girl! That’s perfect!” Her voice is unusual, high pitched, yet at the same time mature. As she continues to speak I realize that her voice changes along with her appearance. It is always pleasing, but it will not settle on one tone or pitch. “So tell me, who are the girls?”

I give her a look and she giggles. “No need to be embarrassed. I already know the answer anyway.”

“Then why would you ask?”

“Because it’s more meaningful, and more fun to hear it from your mouth.” She replies, a flirtatious smile on her face, now Solution’s.

“Fine. Your appearance keeps switching back and forth between Solution and Ana. I do not even need to explain who Ana is, do I?”

She shakes her head. “Nope. I’ve known since I first laid eyes on you.”

“How is that possible?”

“I’m the goddess of love. It’s my nature to know. When you were here before, you were incapable of love, you couldn’t feel it. That made you such a challenge for me. I never had to work hard to make a guy like me before. But you resisted me. You never even told me what I looked like to you. Such a pity, with that cute face of yours.” She had been looking down to her side, but now she looks up at me. “But now you’re human, and you feel love already. Sucks that it’s not for me, but at least you’ve still got the same cute face.”

I am certain I blush as my eyes go wide and I stammer, “No, I can…I do not feel love.”

Aphrodite laughs at my discomfort. “But of course you do!” She says. “I can sense it. That’s why my appearance keeps changing to you.”

“What do you mean by, ‘to me’?”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As the goddess of beauty, I have no true appearance; I’m just whatever the person who sees me would find most beautiful. Usually, that means I look like somebody that they love.”

“Then why does your appearance keep changing to me?”

“Because you love two girls, silly!” Ana’s face tells me.

“I assure you, I do not.”

“You’re gonna go down fighting this, aren’t you?” She says, clucking Solution’s tongue.

“I am not fighting anything!”

“Deny all you want, but when it comes to the matters of the heart, nobody can lie to me.”

“Believe what you wish, I know my heart.” Do I? Perhaps not. I care for Solution deeply, but do I love her? And Ana, sure I find her adorable and incredibly amusing. But I am certain I am not in love with her.

“I can hear your thoughts, ya’know.” Aphrodite says, startling me. “But don’t worry, not all the time, just when you’re thinking about love. It’s not just love. To you, Solution and Ana represent the two greatest facets of attractiveness: cute and pretty. So I switch between those extremes.”

“Did you really send for me just to talk about my love life?” I ask.

Aphrodite laughs and I decide I do not care for her, “Of course that’s why I wanted to talk to you. Why else would I?”

“Does that mean that I can leave?”

“Why so eager? Are you that anxious to get back to Solution?”

I move closer to Aphrodite, and get in her face, “Listen to me closely, I do not give a damn if you are the goddess of love. My business is none of yours. Do you understand me?”

She smiles darkly and whispers, “I get where you’re coming from, but I’m not just the goddess of love, I am love. Your dopey little affairs wouldn’t exist without me. If you like, I can make it go away. I can make Solution and Ana forget you exist. Is that what you want?” My eyes go wide and I back away. “Don’t underestimate me Aether. I’m more powerful than you think.”

She looks more like Solution now. “Please, I do not know what I want.” I say. Aphrodite coos and shifts back to Ana’s appearance.

“That’s okay,” she says. “Most guys don’t. But I can tell you. You love both girls. From the moment you saw each of them, you were enthralled. Love at first sight, same guy, and two different girls all at the same time! It’s been so long since this has happened!”

“What about Zeus? Did he not have many women?” I do not know what I am thinking.

“Oh, Zeus is just a horn dog. You on the other hand, this is true love.”

“How can I be in love with two girls?” I ask.

“It’s not that hard. They’re both great.” Aphrodite smiles, “This is going to tear you up inside.”

I go silent for a while, hanging my head.

“Hey, do you wanna hear about how Ana’s doing right now? She’s thinking about you a lot.”

“Why do you have to do this?”

She shrugs, “Because I’m bored, I’ve been bored for a century. You guys entertain me. But, as much as I’d like to talk about that, that isn’t what this is about. The other gods probably think you already know, but I know that you don’t. There’s such anger and hatred going through the Resistance now, I can barely sense the presence of love at all. It’s breaking my heart. Of course I can sense my own children, but like everyone else, they’re bad now.”

My blood suddenly runs cold. “What are you talking about?”

Aphrodite goes over to the bed and sits down on it, a sad expression on her face, which still looks like Ana’s. “Erebus has corrupted his son.”

“That I am aware of. I saw it myself.”

“But you don’t understand; that kind of corruption is infectious, it spreads by word of mouth. Erebus talked about you a lot to Darren, power dripping from his words. Then Darren gave a speech to the Resistance. The same corruptive power spread through him, into them.”

“How could you know that?”

“We all do.” She answers, “We can sense great malicious power growing across the world. I’m just the only one who’s willing to tell you about it. Or maybe no one else realizes that you don’t know. Point is, the whole Resistance is now on Erebus’ side. And they don’t even realize it.”

“You are telling me that I have lost every friend I have made since I woke up?” I ask. At her nod I fall to my knees.

“All except Solution.”

“What of Ana?”

“Love trumps hate, wouldn’t you agree?” She says, “Ana feels great affection for you. The corruption affected her, but it wasn’t as powerful. She believes what Darren has told her, but she doesn’t want to. She can’t accept that you’re her enemy.”

“What does that mean for us?” I ask, standing.

Aphrodite stands as well, and with passion she says, “We can use her love to save them all!”

The ridiculousness of that statement wipes my face of all emotion. “What?”

“Get Morpheus and meet me in the city center.”

I begin to walk away quickly, when suddenly Aphrodite calls out, “Hey, Aether!”

I turn and she throws something at me, I catch it without thinking and find a horn in my hand. It is a yellowish white at the point and fades into a black color towards the other end. I turn the horn over and see that it is hollow.

“What is this you have given me?” I ask her.

“A horn of plenty.” She replies from Solution’s face, “You can get them off of any magical creature with horns, as long as you know how to hollow them out correctly.”

“Why did you give it to me?”

“Zeus is mad at you, so he probably won’t let you eat anything for a while. With that, you and Solution will be fed for as long as you have it.”

“Thank you, Aphrodite.” I say.

She winks at me, “Don’t mention it.”

 

ɂɂɂ

 

“You have no idea how much I missed you.” Darren says, stroking Krista’s red hair.

“I’ve missed you, too.” Krista says, cradling Darren’s hand in her own. “I lost track of how many nights I stayed up, unable to sleep with the mere thought of your pain racing through my mind. I’m so happy to have you back.”

“Despite…” Darren removes his hand from her face and tentatively touches the grin now carved into his own.

“No.” Krista says, boldly stroking the scars for herself, “I’ve always loved your smile, and now it can never go away.”

“You were the only thing that kept me going.” Darren continues. He leans forward and kisses the girl gently. As she returns the kiss he leans into it more fiercely. He opens his eyes to see hers closed. He puts his hand on her waist and pulls her closer to him. A quiet moan escapes her lips as he touches her softly. As he continues kissing her, black lines spread across her cheeks from Darren’s mouth. He feels elated at this until a knock at the door disturbs the lovers.

Lucas puts his head through the door and whispers fearfully, “I gathered the ones you wanted.”

“Good.” Darren answers. He turns to the girl in his arms and takes genuine pleasure in her loving smile. “I have some things to tell you guys about.”

“Is it about Aether?” She asks.

The name removes the pleasure from him and his smile becomes only the scarred one. “Yes, it is.”

“Good.” Krista responds, “I’d like to know what else there is.”

 

ɂɂɂ

 

I start walking to my room and halfway there I run into Solution. I feel so flustered, I do not notice what is going on until my arms are wrapped around her. She is startled, but does not really react.

“What’s going on Aether? What happened?” she asks. She pushes me away, but more gently then I would have expected.

“I do not understand what is going on.” I say.

“With what?” she says.

I am about to respond, I want to tell her everything, but suddenly Hermes calls out. “She knew you’d do this! Come on, get your a*s moving!”

“Tell me later,” Solution says. “When you know what’s going on. As for me, Ares promised to show me some stuff.”

“Hey!” A voice calls. I turn to it to see Ares standing at the corner of a building, as though having turned back. He nods at me, and beckons for Solution to hurry up.

“You are going to be trained…by Ares?”

“I don’t like him much, either. It took me two seconds to figure out the guy’s a jackass. But he’s the god of war. I’d be a fool not to take this opportunity.”

“I suppose you have a point.” I concede. I put the horn of plenty in my side pocket, planning to show it to Solution later.

As Hermes leads me away, I practically hiss at him, “Is this going to become a regular thing with you?”

Hermes only chuckles and tells me to follow him.

 

ɂɂɂ

 

Ana does not want to hear any of this. Standing on either side of her are Sammy, Lucas, Todd, Maria, and Krista. It takes a moment for Ana to realize that these are the people that Aether had had the most interaction with. Although she cannot figure out why Maria is here, she and Aether hate each other.

Darren has been prattling on about how sorry he is to drop all of this on Aether’s friends. Ana is not sure; she stopped paying attention after a while and started to think about Aether. The way he had turned off the lights with his mind, and the way he had been holding her when she woke up. When she first picked up that bow and quiver. How right it had felt to be shooting with it. She hadn’t been able to contain herself when she saw that every hit was a bulls-eye.

Not to mention how Aether had bowed before her and proclaimed her the daughter of Apollo. As soon as he had said it, she knew it was true. She had never heard of Apollo before, but hearing his name felt like it was something she should have known her whole life. But then Aether had picked her up and swung her around, scattering her mind.

At first she wanted to only like him like him in a brotherly way. However, she couldn’t help it. He was so nice, and supportive. And the way he didn’t seem to get anything, it was almost cute. When he had called her cute she wasn’t sure what to think. Normally she hated that. She’d gotten it from every guy she’d ever met, including Darren. Sure, it annoyed her when Aether said it, but not as much as when other people did.

 Ana starts to think about Aether’s face. He really is a good looking guy, she thinks. His crazy silver hair, unkempt and long, flowing back to his shoulders in an unruly mess. It would’ve looked terrible on another guy, but for him it just worked. He’s really skinny, but he also looks so strong, like a panther. ‘My white-haired panther.’ Ana thinks, she replays the moment when he swung her around, but this time Solution does not interrupt, and....

“What are you blushing about, Ana?” Darren says, interrupting her thoughts.

“Oh, nothing!” she all but shrieks.

“Are you concerned about Aether?”

“What! No, he can handle himself!”

“Fine.” Darren says, “Pay attention now.”

‘What’s going on with me?’ Ana wonders silently. She wants to believe Darren; his words were so convincing it is taking all of her focus not to give into them. It is torturing her mind; she wants to see Aether as the good hero. He’s just some clumsy guy that was kind to her. But she cannot help but think that Darren is telling the truth. Aether and Solution are her enemies now, but she knows that can’t be right.

Solution. She had always scared Ana; her constant “f**k off” vibe was enough to make anybody uncomfortable. But Aether thought she was great, so Ana decided to think that maybe she wasn’t so bad. But that look she gave Aether and Ana really made her think that Solution was going to kill her.

“Ana! Pay attention!” Darren yells, Ana looks at him and screams at the black pits within his eyes.

“What?” Darren asks.

“Nothing.” She says “Just…what did you say?”

“I said, be careful of what happens to you. Aether is likely around Morpheus now, which means you should all be careful of your dreams. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir!” The group says in unison. Ana is not sure what Morpheus means, but follows the others with their response.

Author's Note

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[Bubbles the Kid]

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