Disclaimer: i dont own pjo
I appreciate all the feedback I get. I read all of your comments! Don't worry I know the romance is slow.
T-T
"Mother, mother," a voice that sounded neither male or female cried anxiously, "It's eating to much of your divinity! It's not worth it!"
The expression on his face echoed his worries with tears budding from the edges of his eyes.
It was clear that he wanted nothing more that to stop his mother, but he could not act. The ritual that his mother was doing was a delicate process, and a single slip-up could result in her obliteration.
Eros did not think that the ritual would be too hard after all the precautions that he and his mother took, but here they were.
He had went into his personal vault to retrieve exquisitely rare items such as Cosmic Ash, a shard of Typhoon's core, and some Origin Water that he "borrowed" from Poseidon. All of these items held a considerable amount of divinity, especially Cosmic Ash.
Despite that, Aphrodite was forced to spend her divinity to try to complete the ritual.
There was no one that he could look for to help because love divinations at the godly level were prohibited as love could heavily influence gods and fates in wildly unpredictable ways.
If they were caught then Zeus would subject the pair to a punishment worse than death.
Aphrodite's current appearance could not be described as beautiful but rather an aged woman with faint traces of her youthful beauty. That was current Aphrodite.
She inwardly chuckled at her son's childish appearance. His cute side only showed up when he was around her.
Unfortunately, the love goddess couldn't afford to appreciate it as much as she wanted to and continued pouring divinity into the object that was floating in front of her.
This object was the most important part of the entire divination. It looked nothing more than ordinary metal bracelet with three intertwined rings and stones hanging from them. But Aphrodite knew otherwise. It was an ancient artifact that had existed for much longer than she has.
Very few knew of the artifact's existence, and even fewer knew of it's true name.
Aphrodite belonged to the minuscule few.
This bracelet originally belonged to Gaea dubbed, Philia's Rejoice.
Philia means affectionate love without physical attraction.
Legend says that Father Uranus of the Sky broke the bands of the cosmos and plucked the stars to form a gift for Gaea. It's believed to be filled with the boundless love that they shared before the creation of their first children. The matrimony of the Earth and Sky.
But, their love did not last.
The band was shattered and disappeared into the vicissitudes of time. No one knew where it had gone, not even Gaea herself. Yet, it landed in the hands of Aphrodite many eons later.
Aphrodite decided to use the artifact precisely due to its affixation of love. Soul mates heavily implied destiny, which could be seen as Philia much like the bracelet. This sort of love only discriminated against those who were not destined to have a soul mate.
From the book that she read, it described the importance of lineage and emotional significance, which sounded boring. But, the most important part was that she could heavily narrow down who the god pairing was using a divine object and something from the body like blood, hair, and other things. . .
Hair was by far the easiest to acquire, and the more the merrier. The only gods that she asked was for the ones on the council because asking other minor gods was admittedly a bit weird, even for her.
She had standards.
Besides, the strands of hair from the council were enough. Major gods had significantly more divinity than minor and lesser gods. The reason why divinity is so important is because it is the force that grant gods their power. Of course, it can be generated through belief, but that method is hyperbolic, eventually making it impossible to gain divinity. It easiest way to get divinity is to be born with it, which is why Zeus was able to defeat his father and why gods feared children from the Big Three.
These power can also be transferred, such as Selene granting Artemis her powers of the moon, but this method also had its restrictions.
The donor had to be willing to give their divinity, something that did not happen often because gods were often selfish and did not wish to give up their powers.
And, the donor would be completely stripped of divinity, which usually resulted in permanent death. Death was not something the average god or goddess wanted.
This ritual risked the divinity of the one performing it.
Aphrodite being the love manic she was was probably the only person willing to risk her divinity to find out what god had found a soul mate.
Her visible aging continued until a cracking sound could be heard. The strands of hair straighten out and began to float alongside the bracelet in a circular pattern. The hanging stones had a small glow within them that was not previously there. A high pitch screeching sound that could only be heard by Aphrodite, would explode the eardrums of mortals in an instant if they heard it.
Despite looking much older, she had a bright look on her face. It was coming to an end.
Like a candle, the strands simultaneously glowed a golden hue before they started burning, emitting a silver light, eventually disintegrated into nothingness. Philia's Rejoice crashed to the ground with a clang.
Her body was flung to the other side of room, smashing into a wall.
"MOTHER!!"
Eros quickly rushed to his mother side.
His mother's face appeared extremely shocked with her eyes about to pop out of her eye sockets. She remained unresponsive despite his cries.
"I'll go get Apollo!"
The god left in a hurry.
Aphrodite continued to lay there with a particular maiden goddess in her mind.
T-T
Artemis continued talking about the rise and fall of Greek civilization, reading off of a history book in her hands.
She had borrowed it from Athena, a book that the goddess of war personally wrote to help Artemis teach history.
In her head, Artemis was counting down the seconds.
"Five. . . Four. . . Three. . . Two. . . One. . ."
Artemis stopped talking and poked her head through the magic curtain. She found him sleeping yet again in that same awkward position. He would always fall asleep around 10-10:05pm.
The first few nights, she hadn't even noticed that he fell asleep during her lectures. She spoke all throughout the night, exhausting all of the knowledge she knew about the very beginning of the world.
When she tested him about it, he remembered everything that she said, so Artemis didn't think too much about it.
Eventually, she found lecturing hard and asked Athena for help. It was hard to start at the very beginning. There was simply too much information to unpack.
At first, Athena was reluctant, thinking that Artemis had gone crazy especially when she initially came to borrow books.
Probably because, Artemis was never one to read books, and Athena had never seen her hold a book since birth. It was probably strange to see her disinterested sister suddenly ask for history book recommendations.
Artemis lied saying that she wanted to teach her hunt some history. It would be impossible for her to admit she was doing this for a male. To her surprise, Athena believed her small lie a little too well. She would never forget the look on Athena's face when she said that. Her sister's grey eyes lit up like fireworks, which she didn't even know was possible. She never knew that her sister could make such an expression. Maybe because she didn't interact with Athena too often, but it was still surprising.
Grey and fireworks were polar opposites, but somehow the look on Athena's face directly contradicted her thoughts. Athena even wrote a book just for her. Athena promised to write more to help her out, which she appreciated greatly. It really would be a great help.
When Artemis first discovered her guardian sleeping, she thought that it might've been because of the book. A few more nights of observing lead her to conclude that her guardian was not a night person. This resulting in the situation currently playing out.
Every time he slept, she noticed that his mouth was always slightly open (it was actually so minuscule that an ordinary person wouldn't be able to see even if someone told them that it was there), which somewhat annoyed her.
She inwardly grumbled but continued staring at the sleeping guardian.
Artemis began "teaching" for a few weeks now, and only recently was this beginning to be habit for her. She herself did not notice this change take place. If this was the previous Artemis, she would've left to do her duties, but nowadays she delegated them to Diana, using teaching her guardian as an excuse.
Diana knew this but didn't say anything. Apparently, Artemis forgot that they were technically the same person.
Nothing interesting was happening recently, so Artemis had nothing better to do.
That's what she thought, at least.