AN: hello…I'm sorry if I sorta disappeared after the last chapter and not even able to post a preview but here's chapter 11, for all my amazing readers!

Dedication: to a love that might have been…sigh…oh ignore me

Sacred Ice

Pain hardens, and great pain hardens greatly, whatever the comforters say, and suffering does not ennoble, though it may occasionally lend a certain rigid dignity of manner to the suffering frame.

-Antonia S. Byatt

"Lord Apollo," Aphrodite greeted, "How have you been?"

"I am fine Lady Aphrodite. What more do you know of this snow?"

If there was one thing Aphrodite liked about Apollo, it was his honesty. He was straight to the point and uncomplicated. He has his awful times but among her half brothers and sisters, after Hermes, Apollo was almost certainly the only one she would talk to freely.

"I have told you all I know Lord Apollo."

Apollo did not seem like he was listening, he just stared at the ice, yet again.

"This ice is sacred, Lady Aphrodite," he said answering his own question. "This ice is pure and holy."

He reached out his hand to catch some of the pouring snow. "This ice is forlorn."

Aphrodite smiled, one of genuine concern this time.

"I know."

"Have you any role in this phenomenon Lady Aphrodite?"

"I would like to take credit for such a dramatic display Lord Apollo," she said with a twisted smile, "but sometimes, even without me, men are fickle and women are martyrs. And then love is replaced by wrath. Even my son is not capable of bringing such a predicament."

"I see the truth in your words Lady Aphrodite."

"Although I take pride in the Trojan war," Aphrodite replied, her mischievous smile back in place.

"Is it true," a voice interrupted, "Is it true you have no part in this?"

Apollo and Aphrodite looked at Athena whose unbelieving face made Aphrodite flinch in disgust.

"Oh," she said with mock surprise, "it is you Lady Athena, great goddess of wisdom."

Athena ignored the malice in her voice.

"Do you really have no part in this?"

Aphrodite was about to open her mouth to retort but Apollo answered for her.

"She speaks the truth Lady Athena."

Athena looked like she was about to ask something else but decided not to so she walked away.

"There goes our loving sister," Aphrodite grumbled as Apollo continued to entertain himself with the snow.

"Do you think it will stop?"

"I do not know."

"Many are dying, this should stop."

Hera looked at Zeus, eyes betraying nothing but a growing contempt.

"I wonder why," she said sardonically.

Zeus looked at her with a brow raised.

"You do know why this is happening," he said, reproachful.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" her cynical voice asked.

"Tell me Hera," Zeus said with authority.

"Will it change anything if I tell you? Would you have the power to make this stop?"

"Hera," he warned, the dangerous edge apparent in his voice.

"Why do you not ask your laughter loving(1) daughter?"

"Hera…"

"Let me give you a hint my lord," she said, aware of the impatience in her husband's voice, "it is because our brother graciously decided to follow your footsteps."

Zeus' brows furrowed in either confusion or cruel realization. Hera then walked away leaving him to his thoughts.

This is tiring, Hermes thought.

For the recent years, the number of souls he had to escort has increased threefold.

What is with this bizarre rain of ice?

For a fleeting moment, Hermes considered actually going to the Underworld to find out why. But then that would add to his already strenuous work.

It is none of my concern anyway, he rationalized.

"My daughter is in deep sorrow," Demeter said, pity and concern filling every corner of her face. "My daughter is suffering."

Aphrodite looked astonished at such a display of emotion from the goddess of the grain.

"Please, I can feel it, her heart is broken." Demeter has now fully allowed herself to fall to the floor, half kneeling, pleading, "If you have anything to do with this, I beseech you Lady Aphrodite, let it stop."

Aphrodite did not know what to feel, somehow her mind told her that she should be elated, Demeter, the one who so brutally insulted her and her son when Kore was kidnapped, was breaking down in 

front of her but, her heart, her heart of pure love, one she did not often use besides her title, one she refused to address despite her position, her heart told her of mercy and sympathy and concern.

And, for one of the rare moments in her immortal life, Aphrodite listened to her heart.

She stooped down to Demeter's weeping form and lifted her face.

"Lady Demeter, I have done nothing to make your daughter suffer."

Demeter, at first looked at her with disbelief.

"I know when love is pure and I find no greater joy than to revel in it and bless those it surrounds."

Demeter continued to weep. She wept for the pain she knew her daughter was feeling and the realization of how intense it must be if even Aphrodite looks in genuine mercy.

"Lady Demeter, I cannot do anything about it but," she said with a gentle voice and a touch of comfort, "let me compensate you by informing you of its source."

Demeter looked at her, still weeping but now more attentive than ever. Aphrodite spoke with full seriousness; her eyes glowed as Demeter had never seen it before, her voice full of compassion, her hands gentle in her shoulder, her words authentic, her expression indisputable.

"All her sorrow roots from orbs as blue as the sky, locks as golden as the sun and lips as red as the venomous rose. Her grievances come from a love, impure, fixated. All her pain is caused by a heart who knows nothing of genuine love but only of ambition and desire."

"And is this snow is sign that my daughter's heart has turned to stone?"

Aphrodite lifted Demeter up and took her to one of the great balconies of Olympus.

"This sacred ice speaks not of a heart frozen over," Aphrodite said, the intensity in her eyes much more than before, the sadness in her voice, much more marked, "but of a heart broken by deception and disappointment."

"This is sacred ice," she repeated, "and you must understand Lady Demeter, that you must not interfere…"

"But the mortals are dying! My daughter is suffering!"

The goddess of love's perfect hand reached out again to touch the goddess of grain's shoulder.

"It will stop soon," she assured, "because Kore is as pure as you brought her up to be."

Aphrodite smiled-it was a smile of genuine kindness- and Demeter, with tear-stained cheeks, smiled in return.

"I now know why you are the Goddess of love and beauty," she said, eyes grateful. She walked away, took one last glance at Aphrodite then left.

"Well, that was certainly fascinating to hear," Hephaestus, god of the forge, cut in, arriving suddenly, "if only my wife were that pure all of the time. If only her heart were that open to me. Will the earth be frosted if I looked at another?"

Aphrodite looked at him- with guilty eyes and slight regret.

"I have done my good endeavor for the day Hephaestus," she said, still not back to the feisty goddess she was.

"I will see you if you come home tonight then."

Hephaestus took one last longing glance at her before he left, the love and pain apparent in his eyes.

If I come home….

She looked at her husband's(2) retreating back.

I will come home tonight.

It was dark-darker than usual.

It could be my clouded vision.

Persephone laughed hollowly as she thought of the figurative meaning of what she has thought.

But it really is unusually dark.

The halls are lit but it still is unusually dark. She walked to her chamber.

Our Chamber, she thought with a flicker of regret and longing.

She entered the suite, tired of all the work she had to do in the day. She reached it, paused at the slightly open door, then gently pushed, brushing all thoughts aside.

If it was unusually dark anywhere else, it was darkest here, where her light should be.

The unusual sound of creaking chairs made her snap out of the dreamlike trance she thought herself to be in. She learned that it was not a chair she heard but her bed, their bed.

And something was ultimately wrong about what she was seeing. They were there, breaking the rules, disregarding the sanctity of the bed she shared with her husband.

They were there. They were lost in passion.

The heart she thought would never grieve again once again ached.

But what hurt most was not the act, not even the place, not that they were breaking the rules, not that her very own place was violated by such sacrilege.

He was murmuring words in her ear.

"Stay," he said so eagerly, "stay forever."

"Be my light."

What hurts the most was that he no longer thought of her as his light.

So the pain pierced through once again.

An eye glinted in mischief in the dark as she saw Persephone's pained expression.

"I feel cold Liasa," Belytia complained.

"I know Belytia, I am too," she replied.

Vysis sighed in frustration.

"This is never going to stop. Iste, can you light the fire again?"

"Sure," she said, trying her best to create a fire.

"Thank you," Vysis said as she felt warm again.

Suddenly, Liasa stood up, face determined.

"This has to stop. I have to do something about it."

"What will you do Liasa," asked Iste, voicing out their collective opinion.

"Stay here, I will go to the Underworld."

Their eyes widened in shock.

(1)Laughter loving is one of Aphrodite's most famous titles along with golden haired and many more.

(2)This is according to Homer's Odyssey I choose to use this as reference. In the Iliad, Hephaestus' wife is one of the Graces.

AN: don't ask…I have this weird dislike for Athena…I think she's cocky…oh well

I shall post next chapter's preview on my LJ…

please review! (if you don't, you will be electrocuted in 3…2…1…just kidding)