"...But who is going to trust a smith with smooth hands?"

Kelda was taking this personally.

"I would think that the quality of your craftsmanship would speak for itself," I tried to reassure.

"People have preconceptions," Kelda insisted, "everyone back home knows that I'm the best smith most people are likely to meet but every time someone new comes into town there's always the brief look of surprise when they see me. I'm young, I'm a woman... It goes away when they see how seriously I take my work and inspect what I produce but..."

"Exactly," I said while turning to face her again. "The things that you make are amazing. Who cares what anyone thinks?"

Kelda looked at me with her head tilted. "I wish I had your confidence."

I elected not to tell her that I wished the same of hers.

"Something else I've noticed," Kelda began, "is, well... The ground here is mostly ash and soot."

Here was Hades, the realm of the god of the same name, whose terrain seemed to vary between an underground cavern or a barren valley under grey or red skys as we marched through it. A few demons and trolls had given us some side eye so far, but Styx's blessing seemed to hold.

"Yep," I confirmed.

"When the river ate my clothes, I was given this weird robe," she said with a tug on her grey toga.

"Yes."

"But they didn't give me anything to replace my boots."

"Umhmm."

"Have you ever stepped in ash or soot in bare feet?" Kelda asked me. "It's not exactly pleasant, and it clings to you in such a way, but... I'm not feeling that."

She stopped and bent over to grab some of the soil in her fingers. "It's not sticking to me at all," as it fell from her fingers. She held up her hand to show that it was still pristine.

"Styx said that after being purified in her river no mortal force would be able to harm or sully us," I replied. "I guess this counts,"

Kelda hummed. "So where exactly are we going?"

"Hades is the current location of something called the Anti-Tree," I explained. "A sort of equal and opposite of the Yggdrasil. We get to that and we can go to any realm connected to this one, much as the Yggdrasil connects the Ten Realms." And maybe a few other places. According to my memories inherited from Valkyrie, she'd used it to visit the Distant Shore which was a sort of super heaven at the edge of the multiverse.

Speak of the devil, a twisted lump of wood that oozed something scarlet hung in the blood-red sky above the latest valley that we entered.

"...Is it supposed to look half dead?" Kelda asked.

"I think so..."

"Are those supposed to be roots, or is it upside down and those are dead branches?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Now, you can't fly so I'm going to have to—"

"You can fly!?"

Huh. I hadn't actually established that I could fly to her. "There's all kinds of things I can do. Anyway, I'm going to have to carry you so..."

After a bit of awkwardness regarding positioning, I flew up to the tree holding Kelda in a bridal carry while desperately trying to ignore the implications thereof. Once we made contact with the half-dead wood we vanished from Hades and appeared...

At the bottom of a long flight of stairs leading up a mountain.

"So I don't want to impose but it has been quite a long day," Kelda began, "and if you can fly..."

"I get ya," I replied and continued carrying her as I floated up the steps.

And floated.

...And floated.

It was honestly a little monotonous.

Eventually, we made it to the top where we found a sealed gate guarded by a pair of what I presumed to be minor gods dressed in Greek hoplite armor.

"Halt!" one shouted as they both held out their spears. "Who dares approach Olympus?"

I gently set Kelda down and spoke, "We are pilgrims on a quest, seeking to beseech the aid of the ruler of Olympus," I began. "A terrible God of Carnage threatens the mortal world and will likely turn his eyes to other realms should he succeed there."

The two guards looked at each other, then back to us, as if sizing us up. "...Follow me, please," one said reluctantly.

Kelda and I were led through an almost stereotypical ancient Greek city, but something was off about it...

"There's no one here," Kelda observed. "Most settlements feel lived in, but..."

"The City of the Gods has been mostly empty even since Nyx attacked," the guard escorting us said nervously. "And then the rulers of this place mostly abandoned us in favor of seeking conquest when they were reborn. The only ones left to rebuild are the ones who escaped Nyx's slaughter... Please," he said while glancing at me, "we know how we're seen in the mortal world but... The people here left are good, child of darkness, don't..."

Wait, did they think I had something to do with Nyx? She was a goddess of the night and, I mean, I was, basically, a child of a void seeing as I was fused genetically with an elderspawn of the Abyss and... Like Loki said, they were basically designed to kill gods and steal their power.

"I'm not here to hurt anyone," I tried to reassure. "I'm just looking for help in getting the power I need to stop someone from doing to Earth what Nyx did here."

We were eventually led into a... What is it called when you've got a bunch of Greek columns around a paved depression in the ground? We were led down a short flight of loud stairs into one and made to stand across from a stone throne seated at the edge of it.

"Wait here." the guard said, then left.

"So," Kelda began after a moment, "the sorcerer, Doctor Strange, said that most of these gods were dead or banished and... What do you know about the one he said was in charge now?"

"Aphrodite," I explained, "also known as Venus, is the Goddess of—"

I was cut off by the chamber suddenly going dark despite being under an open sky. A thick fog began to flow in and around the area with laser lights and a strobe effect of all things illuminating it and my jaw dropped as a synth-rock riff started playing from the thing air.

"Goddess of the mountain top, burning like a silver flame! The summit of beauty and love, and Venus was her name!"

A lithe but well-proportioned feminine figure appeared from the fog and spent the nearly four-minute-long song devoted to the merits of the Goddess of Love and Beauty slowly and sensually dancing her way to the throne before throwing herself into a slouch on the chair. Then the fog cleared and the lights returned, revealing an, admittedly very attractive, redhead dressed in a golden bikini that left very little to the imagination.

Once I swallowed my shock at how unexpected that entrance had been, I bowed my head ever so slightly. "Venus, I presume?"

"You presume correctly," the Olympian said in a voice like berries and cream. She then leaned back and raised a bare foot, which she inspected with a bored expression. "I hope that your business here is important. I had to postpone my pedicure for this."

"We are on a quest to gather the reagents necessary for a ritual, modeled on the process of forging weapons, that shall grant me the power to defeat a malevolent God of Carnage," I began, "for the ritual to succeed, I must be imbued with the essence of life. I believe that if I am anointed with nectar and ambrosia and then immolated, as Thetis is alleged to have attempted with Achilles after bathing him in the waters of Styx, this would fulfill the requirement."

Venus hummed to herself with a grimace. "It'd take quite a bit of ambrosia to fully coat your entire body. I mean, you're a lot bigger than a baby. You're kind of asking for like, a lot... Tell you what," she said as her expression changed from hesitant to cheerful, "come talk to me, one on one," she said while sitting up. She leaned forward and beckoned me to come closer with a finger. "Let me get to know you a little better, okay?"

Hesitantly, I stepped closer to the goddess and when I reached the throne she hopped up and laid an arm around my shoulder.

"So... you want to be a goddess?" She asked.

"Yes," I said. There's no point in lying about it.

"What kind?"

"I've been told that I'll be a new kind of god," I explained, "the first head of a new pantheon. A Skymistress."

"Ooh, that's good," Venus replied. "Might have to steal that title, 'Skymother' makes me feel like a grandma... I mean, I am a grandma, but... You know what I mean," she said with a half-shrug. "But uh. That's not what I meant. Like, what are you going to be the goddess of?"

I blinked. "I don't know."

"And after you kill Carange—and yes, I did know exactly who you were talking about, I've spent a lot of time on Earth—then what will you do next?"

I thought about it for a moment. "I don't know." Grabbing power and fighting both felt good, but I couldn't just go about doing it for no reason and... I didn't want to keep hurting people.

"Okay, one last thing," Venus began, "what makes you think you deserve to be a goddess? I mean, I was a right bitch to my daughter-in-law Psyche, she earned being the Goddess of Souls after putting up with my bullshit for so long. What makes you special?"

I suddenly felt very empty. I swallowed. "I... I don't know. I, I've suffered, but lots of people have suffered as bad or worse than I have and don't..." And honestly, now that I was looking back on it, everything post-Fisk I'd sort of brought on myself. "I... I don't think..."

Venus hummed again. "I know I said that was the last question, but... Are you even sure you want to be a goddess? You've got to have warned people about Carnage, the Avengers, the Defenders, the X-Men, they could handle it, it doesn't have to be you." She sort of shifted so that instead of having a shoulder over me, she was holding me in a hug and rubbing my back. "Like you said. You've suffered. Don't you deserve to take a break? To rest and relax? To be happy?"

I swallowed but didn't answer.

"Give up this silly little quest," she whispered in my ear, "and I'll give you something that will make you very happy."

I was tempted. "What?"

She turned and, as she was holding me, I turned with her, until I was facing Kelda. "Her."

"...What!?"

"I'm the Goddess of Love, sweetheart," Venus explained. "It's child play for me to sense when someone is head over heels for someone else. You're absolutely smitten with your tall, dark, and muscular Asgardian friend. You want her, and you want her bad. Say the word, and I'll make her feel the same about you as you do her, and... It's been a long day for both of you, I feel, so a guest room for you two to get properly acquainted—"

I didn't let her finish. My left hook ensured that she couldn't conclude that abominable thought.

"Fuck you!" I screamed. "that... That kind of bullshit is why no one likes the Olympians!"

I started to stomp off, "Come on Kelda, we'll have to find what we need elsewhere." Don't the Chinese gods have some kind of immortal wine? Maybe we can use that and...

I was suddenly right back where I was before Venus beckoned me over, and she was likewise back on her throne.

She clapped once excitedly, "You passed!"

I blinked. "What?"

"That was a test," Venus explained. "A little illusion, lasting no more than a second of real-time. I wanted to get a look at your character, what kind of person you were, and you passed!"

"That was... That was a dirty, rotten..."

"Yes, it was awful, and I'm sorry," Venus insisted, "but I had to know."

She stood up and walked over to us. "My family and I... We aren't exactly the best. It wasn't that long ago that I would have made an offer like that completely genuinely. If you're the kind of person who would have said yes to that offer, then you wouldn't be a good god. You'd repeat the same mistakes and excesses that my family did."

"What changed?" I asked. "What right do you have to, after everything... You literally caused a war because you, Athena, and Hera couldn't agree on who was prettiest. What right do you have to judge, let alone with a test like that."

"Back in the late 40s," Venus began, "I... This isn't the first time I've been the ruler of the Olympians. Back then, I was growing bored with my life and wished to understand love the way mortals did, so I came to Earth and became a model and journalist, had a number of adventures, fell in love with a wonderful man, and..." she looked down. "I abandoned him. I noticed he was aging, and the reality that he would die in a few short decades while I would live forever set in, I couldn't bear to experience that, so I abandoned him. And a young siren stepped into the life I left behind."

"When I first realized what she had done, I was furious but... Once we finally met in person and worked things out, I realized that I had never truly been devoted to the cause of love, not since the long before the Trojan War, and even then it was a selfish and immature form of love. I gave her my blessing, and my cestus with which to act in my authority, and went on a journey to find myself anew and now all I want out of life is to bring happiness, not only for myself but for as many people as possible."

Venus finished while looking directly into my eyes: "Your cause is noble but before I could give you the power you seek, I needed to know that you aren't the type of selfish, immature person I used to be and that many of my relatives still are. That you weren't the kind of person who would steal away someone else's chances at happiness to ensure your own."

"By the gods," Kelda asked, "what did she show you?"

I looked down, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Let me make it up to you," Venus insisted, "you said the ritual is based on forging? My ex-husband's workshop hasn't been in use in a bit, I'm certain that the tools and forge of the most iconic Forge God would be more than suitable for your needs."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Kelda tremble with excitement. "Yeah, fine, whatever," I said. My mood wasn't exactly going to be stable any time soon.

"Alrighty then," Venus declared, then called out with a clap "Hebe!"

From the aether manifested a woman who appeared as less a god and more a high-strung businesswoman. She had a Starbucks cup clenched tightly in her fist. "Yes, Queen Venus?" she said in a voice dripping with venom.

"...Have you not hired a new secretary yet?" Venus asked. "Do you need help? Running the Olympus group alone can't be easy..."

Hebe composed herself. "No, it's fine. I was just finishing up for the day. What do you need?"

"Ambrosia," Venus said, "enough to anoint... I'm sorry I didn't catch your name," she said with a look at me.

"Maria," I supplied.

"Maria here and... You know what, a little extra, too. I think these two deserve to have a little taste."

"Of course, Queen Venus," Hebe replied on autopilot. She then proceeded to literally chug the entire cup of coffee. "Do you want it here, or..."

"No," Venus replied, "take it to Hephaestus's forge and take, uh..."

"Kelda," the girl in question interjected.

"Kelda with you. And bring a couple of nymphs to help with the anointment."

"Of course," Hebe agreed and led Kelda off somewhere.

"...She's falling for you," Venus said suddenly.

"What?"

"Your friend, Kelda," Venus explained, "she's falling for you."

"I swear to God if this is another trick—"

"No tricks," Venus insisted. "But she's falling for you. Not as hard or as fast as you are her, but... I mean, how could she not? You're the crazy girl who came into her life when she realized she was falling into a rut, took her on an adventure, showed her things she never could have conceived of before and gave her a shot at achieving her dream. What's the term mortals have for this, uh... Oh yeah," she said while turning to face me, "you're her Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Maria."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I know how this goes," Venus explained, "I have literally seen this a million times. I've even caused it a few times, and I've been in both your position and hers: This kind of thing rarely ends well."

"What do you mean?"

"After this quest is done," Venus continued, "you're not going to want to just cut ties with her. You'll make excuses to visit her again and again and again, but... Neither of you will make a move, not at first. Eventually, the idea will come up of another quest, somehow, even if the two of you have to force it because that's what got you going... finally, one of you will eventually confess to the other, but by then the ideas you have of each other in your heads will have been warped, the relationship will never last, and one or both of you will walk away brokenhearted."

"Got it," I said, "keep things professional."

"Oh, heaven's no!" Venus exclaimed. "I'm not trying to scare you off, it's just... I can sense that you and Kelda are... compatible. First love and young love rarely last, but you two have a chance. If you do it right."

"What do you mean 'right?' "

"Well, first, you're going to have to make the first move," Venus explained. "because as I said, she probably won't for a long time. And it'll have to be soon, while the images you have of each other in your head are still forming so you won't run into the whole problem of loving a shadow instead of the real person. Second," he continued, "is if that leads to a relationship, you both need to be open and honest about what you want out of the relationship and about who you are. When you inevitably argue, you need to keep a level head about it and argue calmly and in good faith. Third, you need to actually get to know each other, learn of and from each other, and find out what you have in common and like to do together... But also what you like to do apart. Passion waxes and wanes like the cycles of the moon, enjoying each other's company, being friends, and knowing when to spend time apart and be who you are when you aren't with them is how love matures into something strong and lasting. And most importantly," she finished, "you need to commit. If you're in it for the long haul, you need to go all in from the beginning."

"You mean...?"

"I'm not saying you need to do something you might not be ready for, or anything like that," she corrected, "but if you want a future with Kelda, you need to be serious from the beginning."

I thought about it for a moment. "...What would you have done if I said yes?"

"I'd have shown her exactly what you agreed to and warned her away from you," Venus replied.

"Good."

"Now come along," Venus said with a smile, "you've got a ritual to do."