Blessings from Khaos

|I'll Hold You In My Heart, Until I Can Hold You In My Arms|

For the sake of his own sanity and the fact that not even Father would challenge Aphrodítē when she got that look in her eyes (they all remembered the crickets), Hērmês led her down to demos oneiroi, passing through the shades one after another until they came across Drew's dreams.

"How do I change it?" his sister asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well I don't want her to see this?" the goddess waved her hands to the blackened sands around her. "I want it look better than this."

Hērmês hummed. "Well, dreams are a state of consciousness characterized by sensory, cognitive and emotional occurrences during sleep. The dreamer has reduced control over the content, visual images and activation of the memory. Some people go through the notion of repressed longing—the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed wishes." He waved his hand at her dream of iceskating with Ethan under the stars while Lea and Alabaster cheered from the sidelines. "As I said before, the dreamer does have a bit of control over them. Bellōna's daughter, the one matched with your child and Hḗphaistos' son, is a good example. My son, Connor, tends to change his dreams even the prophetic demidivine dreams. Why, as the war approached this past summer, he changed all the monsters into chihuahuas without teeth and oinked like pigs so his dreams wouldn't be so scary. Apollō's daughter, Krisa, refuses to dream all together. I think out of all of her seventeen years of life, she may have had only four dreams and all of them about her becoming a singer famous enough to rival Michael Jackson."

"Big dreams."

"She has the drive for it," he nodded. "But anyway, an easier way to manipulate is by bringing them to somewhere familiar and recent."

Aphrodítē hummed. "Change it into Mēdeia's mall. It's recent and I have already put in a request to gain ownership of it. The mortals love things like that and besides, demigods need more things for themselves." He waved her words off. There was no need to explain it to him.

And with ease that belied his skill, he waved his kērū́keion, connect the actual mall to the Land of Dreams and pulling Drew into it right as she was completing a triple axel somersault. Hilarious since the girl was not a figure skater at all.

He makes himself sparse, flying to the upper levels were some of the princess's potions managed to survive. Truthfully, he was looking for her potion book. Lea would love it for a christmas gift, but he kept his ear for Aphrodítē and Drew.

"Όχι, dear," said Aphrodítē. "No punishment."

He peeked down to see that she was in the form that she preferred for Drew, how resplendent she looked in her sea-green dress. She had this air about herself which always shone bright and blinded whoever looked at her, an air which would quite befit a powerful queen and bring everyone to bow their head before her.

It was something that reminded him of his Leaneíras very much and placed a seed of truth that mortals were made in "God's image" except more so in her image.

"Mother," Drew breathed.

The goddess smiled. "You're only dreaming, louloudi mou. Hērmês brought me but if anyone wonders, I wasn't here. Okay?"

Aphrodítē held up a turquoise dress. Drew made a face one that her Mother mimicked. "This isn't my color, is it? Pity, it's cute. Mēdeia really does have some lovely things here. Maybe we can get some of Ángela designs in here."

"This—this building exploded," Drew stammered. "I saw it."

"Ναί," Aphrodítē agreed. "I suppose that's why everything's on sale. Just a memory, now. And I'm sorry to pull you out of your other dream. Much more pleasant, I know."