A little after the beginning, perhaps. Would you be interested in reading more?

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The men were sipping nectar and sitting on cushions, but they were not their normal nonchalant selves. Tonight they were planning a hunt and their prey was so close they could smell her. The darkest and most muscular of the three leaned in, his black eyes gleaming in the night lamplight. The cool breeze from the window did nothing to dry the sweat on his forehead.

"When do we begin?" he asked, hoarse after hours of anticipation. He was the first to ask although the men had thought of little other than their game's salty scent since it first cut through the heavy perfumes of Olympus that morning. Their gathering in the Patriarch's quarters had not been discussed but was an inevitability. It was not rare for them to meet there, but the silence was extraordinary. It surprised none of the three that it had been Ares who spoke first. It was his brother who replied.

"The question is not when, but how," he ran his fingers through golden curls that seemed tarnished in the flickering light. "Your mother has not helped us tonight, I'm afraid. Little surprise there." His glance flicked to their father whose mouth quirked into a grin as he stared at his krater.

Ares, though, looked up in consternation. "What are you talking about, she put the girl right there. Right there! In my mother's old room! We can all reach her! She couldn't have found any place more accessible to us all," he punctuated each sentence by slapping his thighs.

"You're an idiot," the younger god said mildly. Again he looked to his father. "Lord, you have more experience with her maneuvering," he smiled now and his teeth gleamed. Another god, perhaps, would not have risked so close to an insult of the King of Gods' wife to his face, but from Hermes it was flattery. "Does a solution jump to mind?"

Ares slapped his legs again in disgust. "And why they call you clever is beyond me. Hermes, there is no barrier! The door to her chamber is connected to this very room, there is no lock. There are no brutes my mother would trust to guard such a beauty in her own bedroom. She is ours for the taking, whichever of us we decide should take!"

"Have you forgotten Peitho?" Hermes did not even bother to look at him, still waiting for their father's answer, but he knew that Ares' face would be blank. The swarthy god had not forgotten Peitho, but only because he had never bothered to know her in the first place.

"What is she, some avenging freak like the Furies?" Ares sneered. "Maybe you couldn't take her, brother, but I will not fly away and neither would father." "No I would not," the oldest of the group spoke now, but his tone did not carry the supportive call to battle that Ares had been expecting. "Peitho is too dear to my own cause to hide from. But perhaps she is the answer after all. Persuasion holds reign in my wife's rooms, and for all that you have little to do with her, it was her presence on the night I first went to your mother in marriage that even allowed you to exist."

The dark god's eyebrows knit together in disbelief for a moment, but soon he was plowing ahead. "Fine, but when do we -"

This time Hermes did not wait for him to finish the question, "Not when -" he began.

"-but how to win her," Lord Zeus finished and sipped from his huge krater. "Strategy is not your strong suit, mighty Ares," he said kindly.

Ares looked offended. "I still don't see what the problem is," he declared. "And frankly, I'm not interested in sitting and discussing twenty plans of attack when I could hurl a spear and hit her from here."

Hermes snorted. "Only you would hurl a spear at a woman you want to seduce."

"I didn't mean -" he started to respond, but Hermes had already turned back to Zeus.

"Do you have a plan, father?" the blonde asked ingenuously, but Zeus knew his son too well to believe his expression. A single prize there might be, but it was cunning competition, not respectful collaboration, that would lead them to it. That said, there was no reason not to play along and so the King of the gods smiled his most paternal and benevolent smile. Ares took a deep breath and listened.

"Let Peitho play the matriarch and give her a taste of the power we can offer her. This is one of my wife's women, after all," Zeus chuckled.

Ares began figeting unhappily again. "Are we talking about the monster again? Can't we just make a move on the lady? Did you smell her when she got here? Pure salt! I have got to get to her before she starts smelling damp and cloudy like all the other boring women up here," he whined.

"I don't see anybody stopping you, my boisterous brother," Hermes commented. Ares looked quizzical for a brief moment, but as the meaning became clear his face brightened. "Well then," he said in a deeper voice and he straightened his shoulders, seeming even larger and darker than he had. "I appreciate the sacrifice from you two, although I am sure that there will be other young goddesses of great, if not quite so incredible, beauty coming around the palace someday soon. Don't lose confidence!" he added magnanimously, then stood up and walked straight for the door that led to his mother's chambers.

Hermes and Zeus watched the god knock loudly once and then enter the rooms. They craned their heads to try and see around him, but the door soon closed again and the two looked back to each other. Zeus shook his head ruefully and Hermes looked bemused. "Shall we wager on how long?" Hermes flipped a copper coin from Pharai deftly between his fingers and then vanished it with slight of hand.

"I suppose he doesn't really have much of a chance," Zeus responded with apparent, and completely false, regret, "but perhaps none of us really do. Peitho is no fool, she knows how to lead a man astray - in fact, she may be at least partly to blame for my most recent marriage. And even if my ploy works, do you suppose that this new female - she is calling herself Aphrodite."

"Best not to forget that when the moment ripens!" Hermes interjected.

Zeus continued as if he hadn't spoken, "Do you suppose she will just throw herself at your feet? She has been that beautiful for a while, and if she knows the value of her charms the cost to win them will be high." Zeus looked defeated. Hermes only smiled, "How do you win the best end of a bargain?" he mused. "What?" His father had looked lost.

Hermes looked up, "If there's a man with a one-of-a-kind pot that you know to be priceless, how do you get a good deal?"

Zeus raised his black eyebrows, "Son, maybe you didn't get a good look at this woman but she was standing naked as a nymph in front of me and begging my blessing. She is no pot."

"Humor me, father."

"Fine. Then I appear to them in a little of my glory and they give it to me, but I doubt that will work with the girl since she is not, in fact, a mortal."

"Pretend for a moment you are not a god," Hermes persisted.

"I think you are pushing this analogy too far," the god rumbled impatiently.

Hermes smiled, "Well, since I am so often your representative with the shorter-lived inhabitants of the Earth, I have found it an interesting exercise in my spare moments. The point is, you tell the pot vendor his wares are shit. Not only have you seen them elsewhere and of higher quality, they were cheaper there, too! Women are no different. A man is the only measure they can have for their worth and if we can cheapen them enough we can have them for free." He grinned. "And then, when they are giving it away, you make them feel like they are made of gold and adamantine when they are with you."

Zeus chuckled and touseled his son's hair. "Sometimes I wonder if I have taught you too well."

The door between the rooms opened again and Ares stumbled back in. The two sitting gods looked up expectantly at the obviously confused and concerned God of War. Ares looked to his father first,
"Do you think my left bicep is bigger?" he raised both his arm and flexed, looking from one to the other. "I mean, I didn't think so, but she made a good point about my angle of vision being inadequate. What do you think?"

Hermes rolled his eyes in disgust, "Oh, please, you didn't get any further than that? You are no help at all. I don't know why we even let you come tonight." He shook his head. "Honestly!" he swore.

"What? Does that mean you think that they're even?" Ares continued anxiously. "They're fine, son. Just get a good night's rest and check out your mirror in the morning." Zeus tried to sound like he cared and failed, but Ares didn't notice.

"Oh! My mirror! I didn't think of that. Yeah, because I checked mom's but Peitho told me that the bronze wasn't beaten evenly so that proved that they were uneven," Ares was muttering earnestly to himself as he let himself out and walked to his own rooms, "I know that my mirror is even, and I have plenty of shields polished up that I could use, too. Maybe I can get one of my minions up to help me ..."