Chapter Four

I

The shuttle docked later than expected. Zechs had not been aware of the extension in the flight, and in spite of himself he was silently amused by the soldiers' concern that he would be angry with them.

"The delay could not be prevented," one of them, the same one who had brought him the computer earlier, said as he left the passenger compartment.

"I understand," Zechs replied. These two words were fast becoming a mantra; he had long ago lost count of how many times he had repeated them in response to an apology from the shuttle's crew.

Zechs didn't wait for the steel staircase to be joined with the shuttle's exit. He shrugged past two arguing soldiers and leapt through the open door onto the ground several feet below, his long hair flying out behind him like the single wing of an angel. His hair glowed white under the fierce sunlight, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed some of the others —most or perhaps even all of whom had never seen him before— staring at it, each with a different expression upon his face.

Two officers ran out of a small building at the center of the landing platform, stopping five feet short of him and saluting.

He stifled his disgust and waited, hoping they would not give him the same address those on the shuttle had.

"Former Colonel Zechs," the first one said when Zechs did not return the salute. "We would like to extend our humblest apologies for the delay in your flight. We were told there was some kind of complication in the matter of refueling."

"As was I."

"If you have no further complaints, we will escort you to Mr. Alsirae now."

He nodded. "By all means."

They started toward the building from which the two soldiers had come. The crew from the shuttle followed, leaving only two of their number behind to move the craft to wherever it was stored when not in use.

"This way, sir," one of the soldiers said once they were all crammed inside the small lobby, and stepped forward to lead him down a staircase at the far side of the room. "As a precautionary measure," he explained needlessly, "we keep everything down here."

Zechs nodded, trying to look interested. He doubted his efforts were effective.

The staircase ended in a massive storage facility, apparently used as a garage for Alsirae's soldiers' business and possibility private use. Automobiles of all models and sizes lined the walls and were parked in rows running almost the full length of the place, all glowing phosphorescently under the stark white of the overhead lights. Zechs wondered vaguely how much of this had been acquired legally.

Behind them, the shuttle crew filed down one of the center aisles as Zechs was motioned to get into the back of a black limousine. Taking one final glance at the subterranean facility, he noticed the British soldier watching him, a strange smile upon his face. Under other circumstances, the smile would have been nothing less than unnerving.

The apparent commander of the group received a call from Alsirae en route to Thessaloníki. The call was dispatched from one of the men at the front of the car to the commander, who answered it with an exuberance Zechs found nothing less than disgusting.

"Yes, sir, we've just left Nigríta with the former colonel," the commander proclaimed loudly into the phone, casting a sideward glance at Zechs. "Yes, the shuttle is being taken care of as we speak."

He talked on for a few minutes of nothing, smiling brightly. His eyes, perhaps unconsciously, became fixed on a point on Zechs's forehead, and Zechs found himself wishing, not for the first time in these past two years, that he still wore a mask

Lucrezia always hated that mask, he thought, fighting off the endearing smile that threatened to cross his face every time he remembered this. Even before she had known whom he was underneath it, the fallen prince to whom it seemed she had had a connection even before the fall of Sanq, she had hated that cold, silver prison that hid his face. She had tried so many times at Lake Victoria to coax him out of it, and once he finally did leave its comforting shell she had insisted that he take it off every time they were alone together. Once —years ago now, but it still seemed like yesterday to him— the two of them had gone to Lucrezia's native barony in Italy (the glimmer of silver in the candlelight click click of the beads my prince please), and the first thing he had done upon reaching the shore was to discard his mask and everything else he could have used to conceal his face, as Lucrezia laughed and cursed the thing in an Italian dialect he had no hope of understanding.

Why had she hated it so? It was not because of her feelings for her him —not entirely, at least— nor was it because she saw his mask, as Relena did, as denial of who he really was, his identity beyond that of a soldier. He had asked her once the reason for her disgust with it. She had thought in silence for so long that he hadn't believed she would answer, but then she had looked at him and said, in perfect conviction, "Because it's a symbol of war and what it does to people. If it weren't for war, would you be wearing that wretched thing? No, you would still be a prince, a king in training, and an advocate of total pacifism."

"And where would you be, Luca?"

She had raised up then, her eyes two amethysts in the moonlight, and kissed him. "I would still be with you."

This was true, though there were only a select few people who knew it or how it would have come to pass that, even had the assassinations of the Alliance's political opponents occurred, they would still have been together.

But would they still have been ripped apart as well? Perhaps not; it seemed that every time they had been separated it had been for some accursed battle. Even now, war was the cause of his desertion of her. Once again, it seemed, the prince was leaving the fair maiden for a war, not atop a white stallion and dressed in armor that would make him impenetrable to an enemy's blade but rather dressed in the black he had become fond of over the course of his dealings with the counteroffensive and riding in a limousine of the same color, surrounded by enemies who thought themselves allies. Were any of them suspicious of him? The shuttle crew had been too aloof to be able to conceal any apprehension, but these men certainly seemed capable of disguising their true intentions. The one on the phone with Alsirae, the smiling one, was he watching Zechs and waiting for him to make some false move? Were they all? And if so, which one of them carried the phone that had direct access to the two teams that were to be dispatched, at a moment's notice, to apprehend Lucrezia and Queen Relena of the Sanq Kingdom? Or did Alsirae give him more credit than that?

"What have I done, Luca?" he whispered, too quietly to be heard.

"Mr. Marquise," the commander called out, bringing Zechs's attention back to him. "Mr. Alsirae would like to know if a" —he waited for the name to be repeated— "if a Miss Noin will be joining you."

He flashed the commander an unguarded expression of astonishment. Foolish. They would know now that he had been thinking of her.

"No," he said, regaining his composure. "No, she will not. Why does he ask?"

The commander relayed the question to Alsirae and listened for an answer. "He says he was going to ask you to send his greetings to her, if she was going to be joining you."

"I see." He sat back, clasped his hands over his knees.

"He wants to know if you will be needing transportation to Newport."

Zechs nodded.

"He asks whether you prefer a plane or a boat."

Zechs stifled a groan at the ridiculousness of this relayed conversation. If Alsirae had so many questions for him, why didn't they just give him the damned phone? "Whichever is more convenient for him," he replied.

The commander said nothing more to him. His conversation with Alsirae ended a few minutes later, and again the car fell silent. One of the other officers tried to make conversation with Zechs, asking him a short-lived series of idiotic questions, but he gave up once they were halfway to Thessaloníki, finally sensing that Zechs couldn't care less what he said.

The small convoy reached the base in Thessaloníki in less time than had been expected. Both the limousine and the van carrying the shuttle crew were waved toward the back of a large stone building —which Zechs had caught only a glimpse of over the officers' heads— and the passengers of both were escorted out of their cars by a pair of men dressed in blue uniforms vaguely resembling those of Sanq's Imperial Guard.

This building was not a base by true descriptive definition of the word, Zechs saw once he stepped out of the limousine, not a base but rather a palace that been converted to one. It rose somewhere between three to five stories high —the variations of long picture windows and smaller ones made it impossible to tell exactly— and built of tightly-placed amber-colored stones, much like the Imperial Palace of Sanq. The architecture was undeniably modern but with obvious influences of the ancient Greek and Florentine cultures, making it appear truly timeless.

Was it any wonder that Alsirae should spend so much time here, returning only to his cold, gray chateau in Germany when absolutely necessary?

A third uniformed guard appeared at his side. "Former Colonel Zechs?" she said, looking up at him and smiling. She was younger than he but not by too much, he saw as he turned to her, and though she was rather pretty at first glance, further examination revealed that she was possessed of some almost ancient androgyny that would have made her exceptionally beautiful in something other than this militaristically graceful uniform, something out of the Victorian period, perhaps. Her eyes were bright and somewhat mischievous; her lips were shapely and eternally turned in a faint smile that appeared almost smug as she looked at him. Her face was rather feline for all its androgyny, and something about her faintly brought to his mind an image of Dorothy Catalonia as she had been on Libra, cold, aching for the sight of human blood. Her auburn hair was long and pulled back, tied at the nape of her neck with a black ribbon in the manner of a boy.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Alsirae has asked me to bring you directly to him."

Zechs nodded and followed after her around the side of the palace and through the front entrance. His head turned from side to side, from the high arched ceiling to the sparkling marble floors, and his eyes all but danced in their sockets as he tried to look upon every object of every room they passed. How could his escort simply walk through all this as though each room was nothing but an unfurnished monk's cell, dull and empty? How could anyone?

He had heard that Relena had restored the Imperial Palace beyond what it had been during their parents' reign; did she now walk through its halls as this girl did, without so much as glancing around her? Or, despite all that had changed about her, did she still hold some sense of wonder?

The guard led him past the gold plated elevator, opting instead for the wide spiral staircase. A soft blood-red runner fell down the center of the stairs, winding upward like a crimson serpent, or (and perhaps this description was more appropriate) a thin trickle of blood down the white flesh of a woman's throat. He wondered if this was the effect Alsirae had intended.

Up the wide, white marble stairs, one flight after another. He wanted to tell the guard to stop so he could go into just one of the grand rooms they passed, and silently he berated himself for his childishness.

On the fourth floor, the guard forsook the staircase and proceeded down the corridor. Many of the doors on this floor were closed, to his dismay, but his eyes soon found a picture window that provided a view of the courtyard.

The knowledge that much of this estate and the possessions therein had probably not been acquired by legal means did not make it any less stunning.

"Right this way, Sir," the guard said once they were near the end of the corridor. She rapped her knuckles against a wide set of French doors. There was a momentary buzzing as the locks were disengaged.

She opened the doors and ushered him inside the massive room.

The chamber was indeed grand, nothing less but perhaps more than what the wealthiest monarch saw in his most lustful dreams. The floor was wide and smooth as glass, the color of the very palest faded rose, the walls were dark, mahogany perhaps, and the decorum was nothing if not spectacular. The wall to Zechs's left as he entered was almost entirely covered over by tapestries, one French, one Italian, one Chinese and another from Alsirae's native Germany. The wall opposite it was simpler, boasting two large portraits and a marble fireplace between them. Pictures hung where there were no tapestries or windows, paintings of Greek deities and Christian saints, of royal palaces from ages long past, of half-naked Grecian women and their half-robed male companions. There was one painting of a young woman with long brown hair put up into knots at the sides of her head, holding within her tenderly feminine hand a single red rose. Upon closer inspection Zechs saw the tear that rolled from the corner of one of her brown eyes, the small tear the same color as the rose.

He suspected this painting in particular held sentimental value for Alsirae.

Alsirae stood directly across from the doorway, his back turned as he watched through the great window the edge of the grounds and the faint hint of the city that could be seen from here. He was tall (even more so than Zechs), an impressive figure of a man, undeniably handsome, and visibly regal in every expression or movement.

The guard bowed although Alsirae could not see her. "Sir," she called, her voice echoing quietly up within the high ceiling that was buttressed rather than arched. "Former Colonel Zechs is here."

He turned slowly to face them, a tight smile that made him appear almost youthful upon his face. His eyes went directly to Zechs's.

"Is there anything else I can do for you, Sir?" the guard asked.

"No, my dear, I believe this is enough." He never took his eyes from Zechs as he spoke.

"Very well then." The guard pivoted on her heels and left the room, closing the massive door behind her. They stared at each other in silence, and if someone else were to see this they could not have been sure whether the two men —both of whom were supposed to be dead— were friends or foes.

"Zechs Marquise," Alsirae said finally, smiling even wider as the name left his lips. He walked swiftly across the room with a feline grace that even a prince could not match. "Welcome to Earth." He took Zechs's hand warmly and in the manner of a true European gentleman, he kissed his cheek. "I suppose I should also welcome you back to Greece as well, shouldn't I? Tell me, Prince, have you missed your homeland? I would imagine that Mars is nothing like the Grecian peninsula."

"Nothing like it at all," Zechs agreed quietly, monotonously.

Alsirae led him to a high-backed chair before an impressive desk and took a seat across from him. "How was your flight to Earth?"

"Good." Even when they had truly been good friends, Zechs had always held up the lacking end of the conversation. "And the ride to Thessaloníki?"

"Not as quiet."

Alsirae laughed softly. "And your short tour of the palace —did you enjoy it? Did Aphrodite show you the chapel? I believe as a child of the aesthetic Sanq Kingdom if not a terribly religious man, you would find it truly remarkable."

Zechs simply stared at him, waiting for clarification.

"Aphrodite, by the way," Alsirae said, realizing his mistake, "was the young lady who escorted you here."

"Then no, she didn't show me anything."

"It's not the most terribly suiting name for her, is it?" Alsirae continued. "She looks to me more like Artemis than the succulent goddess of passion, the tempting mother of whoredom."

Again, he waited.

The smile faded from Alsirae's face. "It has been fourteen months since we last spoke to each other in person. I would think you would be more conversational. Is something troubling you?"

Everything. He said nothing.

"Oh, come now, Zechs, if something is hindering your enjoyment of this place, I want to know what it is. Did something happen before you left for Earth? Something with Miss Noin, by any chance?"

"A slight argument," he mumbled, needing to tell Alsirae something.

Alsirae nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I can conclude that it was only a slight argument by the mark on your face. It's about the size of Miss Noin's fist, is it not? And the darker bruised area is about where her middle finger would be if her hand were balled into a fist." He paused, smiled again. "But I suppose you don't care to talk about it, do you?"

"I would rather not."

Alsirae sat back in the chair. "And the Prince returns to silence," he said mockingly, and yet endearingly. "If I didn't know you any better, Zechs, I would swear you were still a virgin."

He blinked, startled.

Alsirae laughed again. "I knew that would bring some emotion out of you. Your stoicism will be your downfall one day, I fear. Speak to me, Zechs, and when I say speak, I mean for you to truly to that. Don't simply answer my questions. I expect something from you, too."

Zechs shrugged and cleared his throat. "The counteroffensive–"

Alsirae's hand slammed down on the desk wearily. "Not about the counteroffensive. You've provided me with enough information on it recently, therefore unless it is of the utmost importance —and if you've waited this long to tell me, I'm assuming that it is not— I will not hear it. Let's not even talk of war, but if you insist upon it, let's talk of wars we saw in the past, when battles still meant something."

Zechs gave a tight, cynical smile. "Are you saying that this war is meaningless?"

"Isn't it?"

"If you believe so, then I suppose it must be."

Alsirae's eyes narrowed in consideration. "And what do you think it is, Zechs?" he asked, with no malice just as his eyes showed none but rather with an amused interest.

"I think it has some meaning, perhaps more so than the battles of the past. The people who rise against you will know what it is they are fighting for this time, and what life is without it. They may be fewer this time, perhaps they will be more, but all the same, they will know what they stand to lose, just as the people who revolted against Mariemaia in 196 did when they led the marches onto the battlefield."

"Mariemaia," Alsirae mused. "Was that not a great war? It was short, yes, and not terribly violent, but was it not great?"

"You would not be so quick to label it 'great' if you had been there," Zechs said quietly. "It was chaos."

"But a pure chaos, without death."

"For the others perhaps."

"Yes, I forget you were the only one amongst the opposition who actually took a life, and quite a few of them at that. Do you know the exact number?"

"No. I never asked for it."

"It is perhaps just as well that you did not." Alsirae fell into a long, contemplative silence. "No war is bloodless," he said finally. "Everything is a war of some kind, and no war is bloodless, even if not a single life is taken. There must always be a sacrifice."

Alsirae rose from the chair, left the desk. Zechs's eyes followed him as he crossed the room to a dark armoire, below a painting of a pale woman with hair the color of a dark rose holding a jeweled sword. He quietly pulled open the top drawer and withdrew a slender black case, and from it, gently as if it were an infant, he lifted a sword. The hilt was thick and golden, the blade long and silver, and it gleamed like a sacred relic in the sunlight that poured in from the windows. "My newest acquisition," Alsirae said, almost lovingly.

Zechs left his chair and joined him. Without another word Alsirae placed it in his hands. It was a remarkable piece, he saw as he examined it, with a satisfying weight despite its heavy appearance, and nothing less than what he would expect of Alsirae.

As he studied the blade, Alsirae moved past him, opened one of other drawers, and pulled from it another sword. This one was not quite as simple as the first, with jeweled encrusting at the top of the hilt and a straighter, heavier blade that looked as though it were designed for the sole purpose of carving human flesh. "This one is new as well," Alsirae said. "I have an entire room in which I keep my collection, but some of them I prefer to keep nearer to me, in the event I should ever want to see them while my time is consumed by other things." He gestured without looking back at the papers atop the desk.

Zechs wondered if the one of the most recent things that had consumed Alsirae's time was revising the MS report.

He took the second sword from Alsirae and walked a few paces in the direction of the door. He noticed Alsirae giving him a quizzical look but did not return, knowing very well why Alsirae had suddenly decided to show him the newest additions to his vast collection of antiquated weaponry despite any inquisitive expression he might be receiving.

Alsirae assumed his place across from Zechs. The smile that graced his face perhaps would have been beautiful to anyone else, but to Zechs it looked too malicious to inspire anything but menace.

"Zechs Marquise," Alsirae said reverently. He bowed deeply, holding his sword out to his side at first, then bringing it in to his chest, touching the tip of the blade to his heart.

"Alsirae Trecais," Zechs responded, with the same mock reverence for these false names.

Alsirae rose out of the bow. "Milliardo Peacecraft."

Zechs did the same. "Treize Kushrenada."

Treize laughed softly and waited, as he always had in the past, for Zechs to make the first move.

II

The duel began slowly, tentatively, but did not stay so for long. Treize usually waited to attack, tending to spend the first minutes merely blocking the advances of his opponent, but he wasted no time now. He struck out fiercely, driving Zechs back almost into the wall, and all the while smiling brilliantly. Zechs thrust the blade up in front of him just as Treize brought his own down at his head. He backed away from the wall, keeping his eyes fixed on Treize's —the next move is always in the eyes before it's in the hand— and the tip of the sword fixed over a spot above Treize's heart.

"Come on, Zechs," Treize said through half-clenched teeth, slashing again at Zechs's face. "I know you can do better than this."

Zechs muttered a response as he shielded another thrust. Treize's sword was deflected from his face but the move propelled it to his side, into his shoulder. He grunted as the edge of the slightly curved blade slide against his flesh, cutting into his arm just above his biceps.

Treize was deterred only for a moment. He advanced forward, slashing, thrusting, and behind the blade smiling still, as though the sight of Zechs's blood trickling from the slit in his black shirt pleased him. Of course it did.

Zechs had been waiting, as he sometimes had when they were younger, for Treize to become more relaxed by his overconfidence, and, as the pain in his shoulder began to dull, the opportunity to overtake him presented itself. He leapt forward, blade extended, and, slashing almost blindly, drove Treize back toward the center of the room. Above them echoed the cacophony of steel clashing against steel, as they crossed the room with no less grace than a pair of dancers. The echoes thundered in his ears so badly he could no longer discern what was their two blades colliding and what was merely reverberation.

"Very good Zechs," Treize called above the noise. He parried another thrust and pushed the blade at Zechs's face again. Zechs blocked it, but as he did he realized that Treize was allowing him to do so.

Treize brought his sword down to the left and positioned himself to slash at Zechs's side. He's going to fake it, Zechs thought, watching his deceptive cobalt eyes, and as he would have moved to block it Treize pivoted and thrust the sword at Zechs's chest. Zechs swung the heavy blade at the base of Treize's own just as he felt the tip of it graze his flesh, cutting across Treize's hand and knocking the hilt from his grip.

The sword fell to the floor, clattering against the marble, where it lay like a gleaming corpse.

The echoes above them died.

All this happened in only an instant. Before Treize had a chance to move Zechs rushed at him, pushing the edge of his sword against his throat and driving him to his knees.

"I died for you once, you son of a bitch," he growled, pressing the blade closer against Treize's neck and the thick vein pulsing beneath the flesh. "And by God I will not do it again."

Treize choked out some unintelligible response.

Zechs released him. He picked up the defeated sword and carried them both to the armoire where they were currently concealed, not even glancing back as Treize rose to his feet behind him. He was vaguely aware of the possibility that Treize would decide to make him go back on his oath here and now.

"Excellent, Milliardo," Treize said, a little hoarsely, quietly clapping in mock praise. "I see you haven't lost your touch over the years."

"Nor have you," Zechs retorted. The pain in his shoulder was returning, much sharper now than it had been even when he could still feel the cold steel sticking into his flesh, and he wondered if perhaps the wound was more serious than he had previously thought.

Treize noticed him examining the cut. "Come on," he said, turning to leave the room. There was an audible note of laughter in his voice. "You can't present yourself to Her Majesty the Queen half-covered in your own blood."

Zechs raised a single questioning eyebrow and followed him out into the corridor and then into another room to the right.

This room, he saw, was little more than an indoor replica of Treize's beloved bathing pavilion in Germany, amber and white, perfectly Greek in design and construction. In the middle of the room, the smooth floor gave way to a large spa. Treize guided him past the spa to a large marble font. He washed the blood from his own hands first, examining the shallow cuts across his fingers with an amused smile.

As Zechs did the same, Treize gestured toward the small white cabinet above the font. "There are some bandages in here," he said, his voice made even quieter by the strange acoustics of the room. "I trust that your time spent with Miss Noin taking care of you hasn't made you forget how to use them."

There was no change in Zechs's expression.

Treize favored him with a smile. It was neither malicious nor innocent, this smile, nor was it even amused or cynical. It was simply that of Treize Kushrenada.

He turned and left the spa through another door, leaving Zechs alone in this concave prison of marble.

Zechs peeled the bloody black shirt off, let it drop onto the floor. The cut had stopped bleeding, and though the pain was still acute, it did not appear to be as deep as he had thought.

He washed the blood away with bitterly cold water and wrapped a length of the bandages around the wound, carefully and almost tentatively. The pain bloomed around his fingertips like the spreading petals of a crimson lily.

The door opened and Treize reentered, carrying a white French shirt over one arm.

"I believe this will fit you," he said, holding the shirt out to him.

Zechs took it and slipped it on. It fit perfectly, and Treize smiled again when he saw this.

"I thought it would be a pleasant contrast to all the black you're wearing. Too much black, really. Where did you adopt such morbid tastes?"

Zechs finished buttoning the shirt and remained silent.

"It was an excellent move," Treize said finally, indicating a thin pink line across his throat.

Zechs glanced up at him. "You were letting me block."

Treize's smile broadened into a grin. "Only when I went for your head."

"Why?"

The grin darkened and his blue eyes narrowed. He placed one hand underneath Zechs's face and turned his head toward him. "Because I didn't want to damage your face, beautiful."

He released him and left the spa again, this time through the door that opened into the corridor.

Leaving the shirt behind (he knew vaguely as he forsook it that Treize would look at it and ponder over it often in the next few days), he followed and found Treize waiting for him past the doorway.

"I arranged for a ship to meet you at the shore. It won't take you to Sanq as quickly as a plane, of course, but the fresh air will be good for you."

Zechs nodded.

Treize stepped closer to him, took his hand as two old friends about to part for a long while would. "For your own sake if not for that of anyone else as well," he said solemnly, "I hope the reunion with Her Majesty goes well."

"Thank you," Zechs mumbled inadequately.

"Then as much as I would like to continue talking with you in person, I must wish you on your way. We both have much to do before the day's ends, do we not?"

Again he nodded, and after a moment's wait, he departed.

III

Another of Treize's private cars took him to the shores of Thessaloníki. The boat was also a private one of Treize's, a small craft meant for a minimal crew and only a few passengers.

He stood outside on the deck for the duration of the trip of the Thermaikós Kólpos. The wind was light and cold, and he relished the feel of it blowing through his long platinum hair as he watched the evening shadows paint the ocean black. At last appeared the lights of Sanq, tiny golden stars set against a sky of mountains and street-lined valleys. If he looked closer, would he be able to see the lights of the Imperial Palace? Perhaps so.

The lights drew closer and as they did, sounds from the shores —mostly the bustle of the merchant district— came faintly to his ears. He had been away from this place much too long, and he had betrayed it so many times that he should not be allowed to return; as in the ancient Garden of Eden, he would not be surprised to find a sword-bearing angel at the gates, forever banishing him from the kingdom he had never truly deserved.

His past betrayals did not matter to him now, though. He was finally coming home.

Home. It was a strangely comforting thought.

Author's Notes: Alsirae's identity probably comes as no surprise, especially given the similarity between his name and 'Treize.' Treize has always fascinated me, despite how flighty he can be sometimes. Originally their duel was going to be more of a fencing match, but I thought a plain old dirty sword fight might be a bit more interesting for this scene. Some have wondered about Treize calling him "beautiful;" he means it as a joke, but I think it is also a play on a past relationship. I've always thought that Treize and Zechs were once more than friends. Something about Treize's personality just oozes bisexuality to me. They would be a lovely couple, I think, but more physically than emotionally, as I do believe, obviously, that Zechs really does feel strongly for Noin.

Aphrodite makes her first appearance in this chapter. I will go ahead and admit, although I state this at the end of Chapter 22, that of all the various original characters who play an important role in this story, Aphrodite is by far my favorite. Her appearance in this chapter does not even begin to hint at her true personality, and I had such fun writing her. I don't want to give the wrong impression about her appearance, however; she is androgynous in that her features are very sharply defined, containing very little of the softness of the classical female beauty. Androgynes are so pretty...