Only Minako and Ceres walked down to the beach.
"It really does look like the world ends!"said Ceres.
"On Neptune, the world does end. Everywhere."Minako told her. "There are no beaches on Neptune like this one, however. This is the beach where Aphrodite emerged."
The beach itself was not sand. It was made of shells that had been eroded into fine sand over eons. A few still retained their shape. She should have brought a sack to collect the shells. There were no tides on Venus. Or rather, no lunar tides, only slow solar tides, so there was no intertidal zone.
"An oyster bed!"exclaimed Ceres, noticing and pointing to what appeared to be a sea stack.
"That's Aphrodite's Rock."
At first sight, it seemed a sea stack like any other. Minako was right, however, when she said this particular beach was unique. Instead of being rock, this particular sea stack was a giant oyster bed.
"'Among thousands of oysters, you will find only one pearl'."Minako told her.
It was a favorite quote among Venusians. It was one of the reasons which she and Kunzite had given Ceres her name, Shinju.
"From which oyster could that one particular pearl have emerged from?"she asked Ceres, gesturing towards the oyster bed.
Ceres looked at the oyster bed.
"A really giant one!"Ceres answered. "Buried deep in the oyster bed! And her own oyster opening, and she came out. Perhaps crawling out, and emerging with the waves among the rocks. Or just stepping out of it."
There were many stories about how Venus emerged. What they all agreed on was that she came out of the sea, some saying from among the foam, the waves, but most saying she came out of the shell of a clam or an oyster.
"Can you pull them out? The live ones?"
The dead ones, she knew were buried beneath, the live ones using them to hang on to form the bed. She reached to touch one. The shell immediately closed. So did the others around it.
"Then I chose the wrong one."she said when they closed. "If it had been one of Aphrodite's own oyster, it would have had a pearl in it."
"No. They close because they're still alive."Minako reminded her. "You don't think Aphrodite would keep her pearls in dead oysters."
"They even go under the water?"asked Ceres.
"I suppose they do."Minako agreed. "If you follow the oyster reed, it will lead you to Aphrodite's cave."
"Can you walk over the oyster bed?"
"You follow it."
Eagerly, Ceres followed the trail of shells. True enough they led to an opening in the rock.
"This was where Aphrodite liked to take shelter. Before she became princess and lived in her palaces! Like we do!"
The oyster bed climbed up again, as if in another sea stack. Sitting above the oysters was an even bigger bivalve shell, which opened. As that one opened, so did the others. When it opened, there was a woman reclining in it, surrounded by pearls.
There are so many depictions of the Venus Anadyomene, the most famous one being the one by Botticelli, of course. I'd post some of them here, but I can't. Still, if you look them up, you will so many depictions of it. I also like the Pompeiian one. My favorite ones are always the ones that show her with a shell. An interesting fact-in the Little Mermaid. Ariel is supposed to come out of a shell to sing at the concert in the beginning. I don't know if that's what the animators had in mind or not.