Author's Note: Wow, so about this consistently updating thing...I kind of suck at it. I want to apologize for keeping you all waiting, but sometimes life just gets in the way. Throughout the year, some great things have happened, along with some less-than-great ones, which have gotten me pretty down...okay, honestly, I've been straight-up depressed. Life keeps on moving on though, and I feel like I'm slowly working my way back towards being in a better headspace. Call this cliché, but knowing that people have been reading and enjoying my work (on both sites) absolutely means the world to me.
That being said, I sincerely hope you enjoy the next chapter.
The sound of clashing swords and the indistinct voices of those wielding them led the newly-returned Goddess of Love through the lush gardens to the central training arena—upon arrival, she realized promptly that she was not the only immortal to have been lured there by curiosity. Standing on her tiptoes and craning her neck, she was able to peek past the heads and elaborate hairstyles of the onlookers and see briefly what captivated them so. A duel, she thought with distaste, balancing expertly atop her toes, how utterly enthralling. Violence held little appeal to a divine being such as herself, hers was largely a domain of promoting tenderness and togetherness; furthermore, there was nothing beautiful to be said of bloodshed. How deprived my fellows must be of amusement if such coarse displays appeal so greatly to them.
Only then did she catch a glimpse of the participants themselves; one was a goddess she scarcely knew beyond recognizing her as another member of the pantheon's highest court, the other though—delight swelled within her heart, she found herself beaming at the sight of him, at her good fortune—was Ares. Suddenly infinitely more intrigued by the demonstration of swordsmanship (that in truth was much more a struggle for dominance between the favored daughter of Zeus and his most despised son), Aphrodite wove and jostled her way indelicately through the crowd to grant herself a better view of the god for whom she had hungered vehemently over the last month. She alone seemed to hold a torch of affection for the evidently unpopular God of War: his opponent, Athena, if memory served correctly, had sent him into a retreat, relentlessly slashing at him with her blade, earning cheers from the spectators. Some strikes he only just managed to ward off, all the while breathing hard out of his mouth, sweat-dampened hair clinging to his face and forehead. The love goddess' hands clenched anxiously into fists, fingernails biting into her palms, leaving small, crescent-shaped indentations.
In the midst of things, her champion came to a stumbling halt, appearing somewhat dazed, unsure of how to proceed; the next second, his lips curled into a murderous snarl. His rival's back was to their audience so it was impossible to determine what she had done to provoke him so, but she instantly after received retribution. A collective gasp arose from the throats of the assembled: faster than striking lightning, the male warrior lashed out at, aiming for his opponent's jugular as if meaning to rid her of her head. Clearly not anticipating that he would follow through, she dodged out of range a split second too late, and while she narrowly escaped decapitation, the tip of his blade kissed her cheek—apparently a grave mistake on his behalf, considering what occurred next.
Storm clouds, black and ominous, rolled in at once to engulf the sun and the endless expanse of blue sky, thunder rumbled and the wind howled, as she drew upon the fury of Zeus himself, something that she and she alone was capable of. (The observing Olympians cowered against the harsh change in the weather, but, like Aphrodite, were entirely too engrossed to flee and braced themselves, some guarding their hair with a hand, all more firmly planting their feet and steeling themselves against the storm). When next her brother struck, Athena batted away his sword easily as one would a buzzing gnat and all following attempts. Though certainly the match had begun with him being the stronger, with this sudden strengthening of her aura, deflecting her blows seemed to require an enormous amount of additional effort on his part.
Each time he held her xiphos at bay, needing now to grasp his own weapon with both hands, the muscles in his arms strained and the veins bulged, his brow creased. He became too focused on entrapping her blade to remember that, unlike himself, she had with her, her shield…which connected soundly with his torso for a second time and sent him staggering. Immediately following her initial attack, his sister dropped into a crouch and kicked his legs out from beneath him…
…Ares landed flat on his back with a grunt and a dull thud, disgraced and disarmed. The Goddess of Wisdom loomed over her fallen foe, a foot planted firmly upon his upper chest to prevent him from rising, her sword pressed to the hammering pulse in his neck. Loose strands of hair and the folds of her peplos billowed in the wind. From the thin cut she had received ran a small trickle of gold; her mouth was drawn into a tight, foreboding line and her eyes burned white-hot, like the electricity that crackled along the metal point poised to drain him of his ichor and flashed up in the darkened sky, a far cry from the purple they had been only moments before, emulating Aphrodite's—Aphrodite, with whom all assumed him to be obsessed. He had sneered and scoffed at the completely correct assertion, claiming her to be nothing more than an 'opportunity in which to spite their brother', but seemingly not convincingly enough, for Athena had then remarked mockingly that she should like to 'test a theory'.
Gone were the silver orbs at once, replaced instead by thickly-lashed ones of lavender, interwoven with pink, and the unexpectedness stopped him short. His mind reeled in confusion as a wave of emotions entirely unsuitable for the battlefield overcame him. Soft, snide laughter, though, reignited his temper: he had exposed to her his vulnerabilities, been made a fool! Too furious to possibly think of the ramifications, he vowed to wipe that smug smirk (a mirror image of his own, unbeknownst to him) from her countenance once and for all—by removing her head—which had ultimately resulted in this predicament.
Such a situation was, however, nothing he had not evaded before and he attempted to fade away…except his body remained disconcertingly solid. With increasing panic, he managed to raise his hand, which felt as if it had been turned to stone, an inch off the ground to try to call his fallen sword to his aid, but it still remained where it laid in the dirt, when ordinarily it would have returned immediately to its master. None but the King of the Gods, and vicariously through him his favorite child (and she only ever in bouts of blinding rage), could repress another immortal's power.
Chest rising and falling rapidly but laboriously beneath the pressure put upon it, he managed to raise his other hand and turn them both upward and outward in a gesture of surrender. He stared wide-eyed up at his adversary, his irises having turned from a burning ochroid to their usual brown, all of the fight gone from him.
"The courtyard is to be soaked in my blood to repay a mere drop of yours spilled?" he asked her hoarsely, hoping against hope that he might appeal to her governing sense of reason. Applying but a trace more pressure would pierce the already-bruised flesh; pain outside the bedroom was to him an exceedingly unpleasant prospect, to be avoided at all costs. "How highly atypical of you, you who reviles warfare and all who partake in it…unless your contempt is naught but a carefully crafted and diligently maintained façade, set in place so that none will know of the similarities between us. Long have I suspected that the same bloodlust courses through your veins and now you confirm my assumptions. Woe be to Zeus to learn of the shortcomings of his most cherished daughter, his most trusted advisor…"
At first, his attempt at dissuading his sister seemed only to heighten her displeasure, for she placed more weight onto the foot already crushing him into the ground like an insect, before relenting. Known for his capability of bringing out the worst traits of most who faced him, he awakened powerful, violent impulses within her (all directed at him, though present regardless), but never would she consider acting upon them—she was much too disciplined for such behavior and he was not worth shaming their father in a momentary bout of weakness.
"We may preside over the same domain, but that is where our similarities cease and consider yourself grateful for it," she spat, stepping back a pace and allowing him to stand and dust himself off with a sense of unmerited indignation, though she kept her xiphos trained on him should he try, in his usual fashion, to retaliate. "Miserable, sniveling wretch. Do not think to approach me in the near future, I shall not be so inclined to leave your worthless hide unmarred a second time." That being said, she spun sharply on her heel, vanished in a puff of pure white smoke, and the day was as it had been before: the sun shone bright overheard in a cloudless sky, the birds chirped and sang merrily, the remaining war god seethed.
Eyes having returned to molten gold, he strode across the courtyard to retrieve his fallen sword, picked it up and fingered it, fury and hatred churning in his belly. A bitterly sore loser, he wanted to strike his damned half-sister down, assert himself as the superior, now more than ever, but even he knew that there was a time and place for instigating fights—and that time had long since passed, though the urge for destruction remained, distancing him further from any semblance of propriety. Something, someone, need feel his wrath in the place of Athena; his blade would not suit his purpose—it had failed him—so he jammed it with an uncharacteristic amount of disgust back into its scabbard, not even bothering to wipe off the dirt and droplets of ichor staining it, before holding his right hand out at his side, clenching it into a fist, and then splaying open his fingers, an unspoken call to his spear.
Mere seconds after the shaft materialized in his palm, did he give a ferocious war cry and send the javelin hurtling through the air, where it sank deeply into the trunk of a tree on the farthest side of the garden. Much like when his weapon would penetrate a human soldier's flesh, sap seeped from the puncture like blood—and dribbled from the doru's point as it soared again into its master's clutches, ran thickly down onto his fingers, a pale comparison though of the lifeblood he sought in place of his half-sister's. Out of the corner of his eye, his primal, predatory instincts fully engaged, he detected movement and whirled abruptly round to face the audience he only now realized he had acquired. His gaze sweeping swiftly and haughtily over them, he noted that the observers were a collection of minor gods.
Incredibly minor gods who had rejoiced in his humiliation…and were of such insignificance that should they somehow fade from existence, or were debilitated by a spear, mayhap, there would be at least a dozen at the ready to replace them. As lesser deities, they would do well to be reminded of just how much more powerful he was than they, the firstborn son of immortal royalty, a member of the Dodekatheon—deserving of respect, though he would just as gladly take from them a tribute of fear.
"Those who wish to offer themselves as a substitution to the vegetation need only remain where they stand!" he shouted, theatrically drawing back his arm and shifting into an exaggerated stance. Abruptly all chatter ceased and the inferior, intermingling immortals froze like deer before a huntsman's bow, questioning the sincerity of his threat. Their terrified reactions did not disappoint, he devoured it like the sweetest of ambrosia—and turned slowly from brandishing his spear as an intimidation tactic to genuinely contemplating the use of a live target as a feasible alternative to trees, which in turn had insufficiently taken the place of Athena, and adjusted his footing accordingly. Before he could decide whose existence offended him most greatly, the training grounds were vacated post-haste, all wisely wishing to avoid bringing unto themselves the infamous wrath of Ares.
Hazy wisps of varying shades of smoke were all that remained of the spectators, save for one: golden-haired, graceful, and gorgeous, moving hypnotically towards him with an enticing smile forming upon her lips, completely unfazed by the poised lance.
"What foresight you had to see that the courtyards were cleared," said Aphrodite approvingly, "so that none would bother us during our reunion."
For a second time in the span of a few scant minutes, Ares' body behaved traitorously: what could only be described as elation at the sight of her coursed through his veins, and with it a jolt of lust. She was as beautiful in the flesh as she was in the fantasies he had entertained for well over a month. His anger was almost depleted entirely, right up until he looked into her eyes and was immediately minded of how he had been outwitted by Athena. His temper sparked anew and blazed like a wildfire, the jeers of his adversary and the taunts of his jilted lover were the wood that nourished the flames, encouraging them to grow, leading the inferno itself to burn hotter. The beautiful woman gliding steadily closer made him weak, left him vulnerable, and, in that moment, badly as he desired her, he likewise despised her, deeming her the source of his latest grievances…
…Considering how hurriedly she and Ares were left to their own devices, one could deduce that most would think her a fool for approaching the war god whilst he was in such a heightened state of aggravation, especially after he had seen fit to furiously impale a tree, unquestioningly envisioning it to be his sister. Never in their short acquaintanceship had Aphrodite seen any reason to be fearful of him. If nothing else, she decided that he was more misunderstood than menacing, a god who experienced every emotion intensely, another one of a steadily growing list of reasons why he appealed to her above all others.
Unaccustomed to being threatened, a sudden, very real fright paralyzed her where she stood when his spear came hurtling directly for her as though her breast was its intended target—only to veer off to the side with a calculated deliberateness, passing her by closely enough for the breeze to rustle her dress and muss her hair, before sinking deep into another tree, reinforcing her certitude that he would do her no harm.
Nevertheless quite thoroughly shaken, she gave a breathy laugh to assuage her nerves, and resumed her slow walk to him, smoothing her rumpled locks as if nothing had occurred, as if she had not come close to suffering the same fate as the surrounding foliage. Having golden ichor, the mark of a divinity, flowing through her veins, she would not have, should she have been stricken, died from the blow. Unspeakable agony would have come in place of death, such that the latter would appear a welcome alternative, though quickly she pushed such discomforting thoughts from her mind; the Fates were feeling generous this morn, allotting her a second chance to join with Ares in an intimate embrace when previously they had been encroached upon, made to part ways.
It would be imprudent to air on the side of caution now.
"After such a display, an extraordinary demonstration of your mastery of arms be it may, I am under the impression that my presence is displeasing to you," she observed, her tone light. "May I inquire as to what brought about such a radical alteration of your opinions of me, God of War? A turn of the moon ago, when first our paths entwined, I could say with confidence that you found my company favorable."
By all appearances, the trunk of the gargantuan oak—from which the javelin now protruded—had been his mark all along, when in actuality, the weapon's change in direction was the result of a last second change of heart; somehow, inexplicably, Ares found himself incapable of causing injury to the love goddess. Just because he could not to do her what he meant to do to one of the lesser Olympians did not mean that he need further acknowledge her existence; he would master this weakness he had regarding her, even if doing so meant denying himself the pleasure of reuniting with her altogether. No longer would Athena be able to gain the upper-hand in combat by using Aphrodite's image to drive him to distraction, steal from him what should have been an effortless victory: triumphing over her appealed more to him than exacting revenge on Hephaestus for robbing him of what should have been his (ignoring briefly that he did not wish for a wife), if only by an inkling.
He took a purposeful step backwards as she moved closer still with increasing boldness, looking past her fair form and calling again for his spear's return. This time, however, no matter insistently he summoned it to him, curling and uncurling his fingers expectantly until the joints began to protest from the excess use, it remained firmly lodged in the tree's heart. The sap-slicked shaft quivered futilely as it tried to oblige him, but was unable to budge.
Muttering a fluent string of curses that would make even the most seasoned soldiers blush or look sheepishly towards their feet, he paid no mind whatsoever to Aphrodite's query, disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and solidified beside the tree to manually retrieve his weapon, only to discover that the Goddess of Love had materialized right along with him, lounging against the enormous trunk with her arms folded, an eyebrow cocked expectantly, taking from him the luxury of ignoring her. Furthermore, her gown appeared to have been…modified…for lack of a better word, to guarantee that his attention had been thoroughly caught: the neckline plunged deeper towards her bust, a seemingly endless leg could be seen in full from a slit in the billowing fabric. Unfortunately for her, what instead caught his gaze was the abundance of jewelry adorning her from head to toe—Hephaestus' far gentler way of laying claim on what was his.
His searing resentment of her reoriented itself back into a scorching enviousness of the younger god.
So then his half-brother was merely lame, not impotent. Ares felt suddenly that his efforts to keep the blacksmith god from consummating his marriage, that absurd order of his, could well have been what enabled that crippled disgrace of a deity to lay with his beauteous bride: time in the forge allotted Hephaestus a chance to create jewels in which to bribe her to his bed—and, if the numerous trinkets were any indicator, done so with frequency. She was so heavily bedecked with jewelry that the treasury of the Underworld, which, in addition to being the realm of the dead, grew the upper world's prized gemstones as opposed to flowers from its soil, would have looked inadequate by comparison.
"You return to me with amorous intent, yet you come thoughtlessly bearing the insignia of your husband, assuming that I will be enticed nonetheless. If intimacy is what you seek, then I advise you to return with haste to his bed before you are missed; I am a being of warfare, I have not the means of compensating you for my physical gratification, of providing you with a token—an act in which you have clearly become accustomed," he sneered at last, his lingering contempt continuing to clash with lustfulness, an absolutely infuriating combination. In this granule of time, contempt overpowered lust, enabling him to tear his eyes from the gems winking cheekily at him even though the rays of Helios were diluted by the dense verdant canopy of leaves overhead, and turn his focus instead onto the task at hand, prying loose his spear.
Wiping away much of the viscous coating of sap that clung to his fingers on the hems of his peplos, he propped a foot against the oak to provide himself leverage enough that he should be able to easily yank free his weapon and grasped the wooden shaft tightly. Uttering a noise that lingered somewhere between a grunt and a growl, he yanked the pole hard, but still the javelin was stuck fast. He unleashed another colorful string of profanities, oblivious to the lips he had once longed to kiss, lavished when he had done so, quirking upwards into a catlike little smile despite his spiteful implication that laying with Hephaestus was simply an exchange, trading her body for his gifts as if she were nothing more than a common whore. While his words were intended to be scathing—quite the change from the suave rogue who had claimed a dance, showered her with praise, and stolen kisses on her wedding night—she was unfazed, even encouraged.
It had been envy, she knew, that had sharpened his tongue into a poisonous blade meant to metaphorically wound, he believed she had lain with his brother whilst he himself had had but a taste, a sample, of her affections, leaving him hungering all the more vehemently for her—and then being denied an opportunity in which to indulge himself, the circumstances leaving him wroth. He sorely underestimated her ability to interpret the emotions of others, and remained ignorant that he revealed his own as blatantly as a banner declaring an army's allegiance. (Also unbeknown to the war god, such women of the night happened to fall under her patronage, and with their frequent lovemaking, she regarded them as among her most devout worshippers. Who else but from she would they have learned their trickery?)
"I rather thought my acquired jewels well suited me," she commented, her voice remaining lilting and nonchalant. With even more fabric absent from her gown, to the extent of beginning to resemble more of a night-dress than a garment that anyone with a shred of decency would dare don in public, she sidled along the tree's massive girth to forcibly place herself back into his line of vision. There she made a show of flaunting both them and the features that he paid particularly careful attention to: eyes half-closed as if in a euphoric blissfulness, she swept back her hair with delicate, heavily ring-laden fingers, tipped back her head luxuriously as she did so, so that the dangling earrings swung to and fro at the start of her jawline, and bared her throat, around which was the painstakingly-crafted necklace of amethyst and gold, the start and her personal favorite of the collection.
"Would not you agree?" prompted the love goddess, feeling his eyes rove over her, sensing that his hold on the doru had momentarily slackened though his body tensed predatorily as a different sort of animalistic instinct coiled within his belly. She could only just swallow a triumphant smile. Compared to past lovers, her intended paramour was more immune to her charms, but ultimately, his resistance was futile; no male, be him deathless or mortal, was capable of refusing her, not when she sought him for her bed.
Coyly, she glanced up at him from beneath her lashes, only to see him vigorously shake his head like that somehow that would clear it of the lustful thoughts—the memories of how he lavished the silken expanse of her flesh, how he had fisted his hand in her hair to assume mastery of her and claim that sensuous mouth of hers—filling it. Looking determinedly down at his spear, he set his jaw resolutely, rolled his shoulders testily, and changed the placement of his footing against the trunk, with it his grasp on it.
"To be sure, such baubles accentuate perfection in its truest form," retorted the God of War as he loomed over the javelin, the harshness in which he spit out the words contradicting their complimentary nature. Rage, oscillating in focus between his siblings and the goddess who had fast become the bane of his existence, provided clarity and quieted the persistent yearning he still fostered for her, if only slightly, and he clung to it. "I must express my astonishment that Hephaestus is capable of tearing his hands from your physique long enough to retreat to his forge and allot you a few moments of solitude. Solitude which you are squandering in an attempt to recreate the night of our first encounter: my actions on your wedding night were inspired by a whim that has long since passed."
He then ventured a second attempt at removing his weapon from its bark sheath, having precisely as much success with the endeavor as he had with the one prior.
Oh, but she had wished for him to come to her on his own accord: choosing to exert her influence as a means of swaying him did not seem to her entirely sporting, but then, she rationalized, he already desired her though he fought vehemently against it for reasons unknown—she would simply be encouraging him to act upon such impulses; the both of them would feel all the better for it. As an immortal who spend a great deal of time walking amongst humans, she had adopted and frequently referenced a number of their proverbs, one being an implication that all tactics could be used to gain the upper-hand in the domains of love and war; how fitting was it that she and Ares each embodied one.
The irises of lavender swirled with rose before assuming entirely the latter shade as she watched him snarl and curse as he grappled fruitlessly against the tree for the rights to wield the javelin, a smirk playing on her lips and her arms refolded, her own foot now propped against the trunk. Slowly, so as not to overwhelm his senses, she began to heighten, draw forth, the lustfulness that he was forcibly repressing. His powers matched hers in strength, and he outwardly appeared unaffected, throwing himself more forcefully into the task in a seemingly unconscious act of defiance. The veins in his arms bulged deliciously from the strain, and observing such a spectacle made her want all the more to be enveloped in them, be held flush against the equally-impressive musculature of his torso.
"If nothing else comes of our meeting, I should nevertheless like to inform you of the misconceptions you have regarding my marriage," crooned Aphrodite, who had absolutely not the slightest intention of simply correcting any inaccuracies he had pertaining to her union and then leaving him be, "since you are obviously concerned as to its dynamic. Once the clarifications are made, you have my word that I shall trouble you no further. I must respectfully request though your undivided attention; I foresee your much-beloved weapon yet remaining irretrievable." Her motives were far from honorable; if he were to look into her eyes, even but an accidental glance, he would fall entirely under her spell—or rather, seeing as he had yet to succumb like most menfolk she had encountered, become compliant enough to suit her purpose.
Her honeyed words did indeed give him pause, but only to wipe from his brow the sheen of perspiration that had gathered from his efforts, plastering the already sweat-dampened, dark curls to his skin. Immediately after, he further exhibited his increasingly maddening single-mindedness by picking up where he had left off, again taking hold of the damnable doru.
"Say what you must," he responded curtly, staring hard and witheringly down at the almost completely buried bronze point that had not budged an inch, as if his heated glance alone was somehow capable of freeing it, "and then depart."
Beginning now to grow impatient and exasperated that she continued to be upstaged by an inanimate object, she abandoned all sense of subtlety to pull then at his subconscious, like a charioteer manning the reins of his high-spirited steeds…
...Hard as he tried to remove his weapon, the war god was finding to be increasingly difficult to understand the importance of freeing his spear when the object of his fantasies, the woman he had envisioned while laying with all others, was standing within his reach, all but begging to be ravaged—not, ravished, too long had she been unattainable, he could not even begin to fathom being gentle with her. An image flashed unbidden through his mind, causing him to cease his frenzied tugging: the Goddess of Love with her back to the tree trunk, her legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck, moaning into his mouth, only to throw back her head as the moaning swelled into rapturous cries that rendered her throat raw and voice sultry and hoarse, as he drove her over and over and over again into the rough bark, the scratches left from it marking her forever as his own, ensuring that she would never again have eyes for any other but him, Hephaestus and his 'gifts' be damned.
"Your attention, if you please," she repeated dulcetly. Gentle fingertips ghosted across his unarmored forearm to his elbow, curled softly round it, earning from him a surprised, audible intake of breath; instinct cautioned that doing so would be unwise, but his gaze snapped upwards to meet hers and he found himself transfixed, a statue in his current stance. What next she said—quite obviously enjoying his rapt attention—he scarcely heard, instead intently watching the pillow-like lips that cushioned her words. "My so-called 'tokens' I would regard as more a conferment than compensation, for, a mere half-day into our honeymoon, what should have been the beginning of our eternal unification, my husband was entreated for weaponry and departed soon thereafter to his forge to commence production. I found myself alone for its remainder, so very alone. The nights I found most difficult, having to spend them by my lonesome in my bedchambers."
He needn't know the entire truth, that those lonesome nights she spoke of were anything but, spent with a multitude of men who bore a striking semblance to him, more so once her illusion was cast. None of her replicas though could begin to compare to the original.
"I must confess," said she, casting down her eyes as she played at bashfulness, "married though I am, my thoughts turned often to you." At the last part of the statement, her magenta orbs flashed up, her expression intent, hungry—one that would not have looked the slightest bit out of place upon the war god's handsome countenance. Here, she moved away from the tree altogether, ducked beneath his outstretched arms and rose in the triangular opening they formed, wiggling her hips to make sufficient room for herself to be held between them, and gently but firmly pushing down on his knee so that he was no longer resting his foot against the oak, irises of rose quartz holding the molten gold ones.
Achieving the desired result, she relinquished her hold of him, enabling him to act exactly as he saw fit.
"An unfortunate turn of events to be sure," murmured The God of War huskily, his spear all but forgotten as his arms encircled her all the more tightly, the softness of her silk-covered curves as opposed to the roughly-hewn wooden shaft now under hand. Fire flowed through his veins, but a shiver traversed his spine as her arms wrapped round his love-marked neck, fingers tangling in and twisting around the hair at the nape as she pressed herself against him, looking up at him with longing—a familiar scene, though this time, a very different outcome would come of it, so he swore. "Twice now you and I have met, both instances due to your husband's negligence."
Ares could not resist the urge to speak ill of his half-brother (if there was one thing in this world in which the useless Hephaestus excelled, it would be his unparalleled ability to fall dreadfully short of all spousal expectations put upon him), nor pass up the chance to boast at the success of his scheme. Not only did he have new weaponry that he grudgingly admitted was without flaw, making for a pleasing trophy even if the items themselves were too peculiar to put to use, but today he would at last possess Aphrodite; order had been restored to the universe: he had emerged victorious.
"I would not, however, consider this occurrence to be coincidental. Hephaestus' absence was my doing; you will find me unwilling to let another partake in that which is rightfully mine," he growled, before he inclined his head to assume ownership of her mouth with a fervor that arose from a month of deprivation.
…Frown lines creased the forehead of the all-seeing Titan sun god Helios. Mild interest had stopped him in the midst of his route across the sky as he observed the duel between the son and daughter of Zeus—and it had been a much more avid interest that kept him from dispersing like the rest. Was not the goddess with whom the vile Ares presently conversed the consort of another…of Hephaestus? Why then did she appear to address his brother so informally, and even, dare he say, act as if she knew him intimately?
If she had not previously, she most certainly did now. Rather forwardly, she fitted herself snugly into the arms of the God of War and the pair kissed like long-separated lovers that had been finally reunited. Gripping each other all the more tightly, they disappeared in a cloud of smoke, unquestionably off to one or the other's bedchambers to copulate.
Shaking his head and giving a disgusted snort, Helios snapped the reins and spurred his four winged horses back into motion, his chariot plunged down into an arc towards the earth. The chariot itself was made centuries ago by the master smith's own hand, crafted of firelight and gold that blended so seamlessly together that it was impossible to distinguish between the elements. Was ever there a useful god among the relatively worthless, self-indulgent immortals, thought he, it would be the second-born son of Hera: an industrious, reputable fellow, who did not deserve to be shamed so by his philandering familiars.
On the River Styx, he swore to warn the Blacksmith God of, if not bring about an end to, their adulterous ways.
Author's Note, Pt. II: In the original version of the myth, Helios finds the two already in bed together (just think of the things he saw!), but I took a couple creative liberties. If those two could just keep it together long enough to get a room, it would solve so many of their problems...Unfortunately, there won't be any smut in this chapter, but I promise there will be in the next one. As I said before I've never done blatant smut, so I'm a little nervous, but I'll do my best to make it good. I guess I have to do some research. ;)
As always, I'd like to thank my loyal readers and new readers, and those who favorited, followed, or reviewed A Love Like War.
Again, wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season. (I have a thing for posting around holidays, don't I?) Also, reviews are wonderful; if I was a goddess on Olympus, they'd probably be my ambrosia.
Until next time.
-Impersonating Sugar