Title: Heroes and Lovers
Author: Golden Trillium
Summary: Athena and Aphrodite watch the battle of Thermopylae and discuss the Spartans.
Rating: M for language and sexual description.
Disclaimer: 300 is not mine.
"You know that the three hundred will die."
"Yes." Aphrodite acknowledges the fact without concern; she continues to look down at the Pass of Thermopylae far below, where morning has come and the forces of the so-called God-King Xerxes are once again grinding forward, ready to be broken once more on Spartan spears. The Goddess of Love is sitting, legs neatly folded sideways, on the edge of one of Olympus's clouds; as she watches, she meticulously pulls a golden brush through her already flawless hair.
"And yet you played the whore with them anyway." Athena, a few feet away, is standing, leaning on her own spear, carefully noting strategy, formations, and tactics as she observes the battle below. No nuance of the fighting, no possible course of action taken or missed, escapes her notice.
"The whore?" Aphrodite laughs, a rippling, musical sound calculated to stir affection and desire in men. "Quite the contrary, my dear. I didn't charge them a thing. And I only had two of them, you know. All three hundred in one short night would have been a challenge, even for me." Aphrodite puts down her brush, yawns, and stretches elaborately, while Athena eyes her sideways and makes a disgusted sound in her throat. Aphrodite notices and favors the Goddess of Wisdom with a smirk.
"You must lead a very tiresome existence, Athena. Wars, politics, government, talk, talk, talk, all the time- but no sex!" Aphrodite rolls her eyes. "How can you stand it, never, ever, having a big, strong, beautiful man between your legs?" Aphrodite enunciates the words with sensuous relish and arches her shapely body wantonly, as if she can feel the touch of a passionate man right now. Athena's lip curls slightly- but she keeps most of her attention on the battle below.
"I can stand it because I understand there are more important things than satisfying one's lusts," Athena states disdainfully, then gazes downward in silence for a long moment. She does not move, other than a considered nod of approval at one point. The Spartans may not be her beloved Athenians- but they fight very well, and the fate of Greece may very well hinge on their continued efforts today. Aphrodite, typically, resumes brushing her hair.
"Was it King Leonidas you…entertained?" Athena asks suddenly, turning to Aphrodite with some curiosity. The Goddess of Love looks almost horrified, and shakes her head earnestly.
"Oh, no, no, no. Leonidas- delicious as he most certainly is…" Aphrodite squirms happily at the thought of the Spartan king, the shifts suddenly into greater seriousness. "…is quite devoted to his wife, and I approve of that. I approve of that very much. I wouldn't dare interfere." She nods firmly, then laughs again.
"Now, I did make sure that he had a very pleasing dream when he snatched a little nap earlier. Same with, er…what's his name…the Captain, with those big blue eyes? Very handsome. But no, I didn't have either of them. The ones I did were…" Aphrodite flops carelessly, yet attractively, as always, onto her stomach, chin propped on one hand, knees bent and bare feet in the air, as she peers down toward Thermopylae.
"That one." Aphrodite points. "The very young one with the dark hair. He's Blue-Eyes's son, actually. He just threw his spear at that…creature." Aphrodite grimaces delicately, not knowing what to call the monstrous animal that is now charging the Spartan lines. Athena, as usual, has an answer, though, dry and matter-of-fact.
"A rhinoceros. I'm surprised Xerxes managed to get one so far."
"A ryna…what? Oh, look at that! He's hit it! Zeus, that was a good throw. He has such strong arms." Aphrodite sighs happily. "Astinos is his name."
"Astinos. Hmm- yes, excellent throw," Athena murmurs reflectively, eyebrows lifting as the scene unfolds. Not only has Astinos hit the charging rhinoceros, he has killed it- it collapses mid-stride and skids through the dust, right to the feet of the Spartan front line, where Astinos steps aside a careless step and retrieves his spear as if it were nothing. Aphrodite gasps at his audacity and giggles in a transport of delight; Athena makes a soft hmmph of approval.
"You'd like Astinos, Athena. He's quite polite and respectful, very gentle- and beautiful. So beautiful, every inch of him, it made me ache just to look at him. But- would you believe it?- he was a virgin! So sweet! Ooh, the expression on his face when I took him…" Aphrodite grins, and goes on irrepressibly. "I was on top, at first- but after a few minutes he flipped me over and gave me such a lovely hard fuck…mmmm. He learned fast." Aphrodite's grin broadens salaciously. Athena looks pained.
"Please- spare me." Athena flicks a hand in a short gesture, cutting Aphrodite off before she gets any farther into the details of Astinos's charms. Aphrodite hmpphs, a little hurt, but is not deterred for long; she goes back to her hair-brushing, a dreamy smile of remembrance on her face. Athena remains silent for a while, watching the battle, but curiosity is one of the Goddess of Wisdom's qualities, and before long, it gets the better of her.
"…you said there were two?" Athena asks the question with some trepidation, but Aphrodite is only too happy to answer. Her face lights with enthusiasm and she nods.
"Yes indeed. I had them at the same time, you know." Aphrodite pauses for scandalous effect, then pouts prettily when Athena's only reaction is a raised eyebrow.
"Oh, Athena, I really do despair of you sometimes. Don't you…well, never mind." Aphrodite shakes her head, then turns to the scene below, studying it. "The other…" she hovers a pointing finger for a moment, then soon spots the man she is looking for.
"That one there, the blond one toward the end of the line. Look at him, isn't he lovely? A bit smaller than Astinos, no extra flesh anywhere…Zeus, I think he has muscles other men just don't have." Aphrodite rolls her eyes in appreciation. "And he's a saucy thing. He was the one who told that Persian messenger that they would fight in the shade or some such- you heard that?" Athena nods, and for once, she smiles, too- a little hint of a smile.
"The Spartan study of wit is one of the most interesting features of their educational system, I've always thought," puts in Athena thoughtfully, but this turn more scholarly turn to the discussion is largely lost on Aphrodite.
"Have you? Anyway, that's Stelios, and believe me, he knows other uses for that tongue, too. And he and Astinos are quite close, so they were happy to share me." Another giggle and wiggle. Athena takes a step away and sits down, the cloud instantly conforming itself into a chair for her, and Aphrodite seems to take that as an invitation to describe her adventures, even though Athena's attention is entirely on the battle. The Goddess of love rolls onto her back and goes on talking, gesticulating occasionally in illustration.
"Oh, it was delicious, my dear- truly delicious. I let them catch a glimpse of me as they were in camp- and of course, they followed me. I had made a nice little place for us up in the rocks, hidden from the camp, with nice, soft ground. So they came up and saw me sitting there and Stelios said something like…" Aphrodite pitches her voice lower for masculine effect. "If you're a shepherdess, you're a long way from your flocks. Isn't that clever?" Athena shrugs noncommittally- she does not find it particularly so, and she's busy watching Xerxes's soldiers bully a platoon of elephants into formation.
"So I told them I wasn't, and invited them to sit down, and, well…the rest was very simple. There is nothing quite like having two handsome men kissing you at the same time. Well…unless it's having both of them inside you at the same time." Athena's head does snap around in surprise at that, grey eyes lighting on Aphrodite like hard steel, wide with surprise; and Aphrodite laughs again, sits up, and stretches languorously.
"We did, we did…" she assures Athena with deceptive mildness. "Of course I gave them each plenty of individual attention, too. Trust me, they left very satisfied. They even got some sleep- I'm not so cruel as to send them back into battle with no rest." Aphrodite flops back over onto her stomach and winces at the sight of the elephants, making their ponderous way towards the narrow neck of the pass, bristling with Spartan spears.
"I do hope…" she murmurs quietly, trailing off as Athena shakes her head.
"They will die- the Fates have decreed it. They will save Greece, but they will die." There is regret in the Goddess of Wisdom's voice; she is thinking of the political maneuverings, in Sparta and elsewhere, that have caused this stand to be made by so few. Aphrodite, beside her, is also subdued, for once.
"Mortals…" she reflects, a touch of sadness in her voice. Neither of the Goddesses know all of the details, but Astinos's fate comes for him today, in the shape of a Persian cavalryman who even now sits far behind the front lines in front of his squad's tent, sharpening and resharpening the fine blade that will slice Astinos's head from his shoulders. Stelios will live to see another sunrise, and the approach of the God-King himself, but he, too, will fall, to a cloud of arrows like the one he mocked, at the side of his beloved King. Lives are short.
Heroes, on the other hand, are forever.
"Oh, well…" Aphrodite sighs, puts on a smile only slightly less cheerful than it originally was, and takes up her brush again. She snaps her fingers, and a gilded mirror, perfectly matched to the brush, appears in her other hand.
"I will just have to pay a visit to the Elysian fields very, very soon." She lifts the brush to her hair once more and gazes into the mirror, as below, the lead elephant slips and stumbles on piles of Persian dead.