Falling for You

Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Demeter handed her another tissue, which Aphrodite took gratefully, blowing her nose without a sound. Spiky wet eyelashes were pretty; snotty sniffs were not.

She couldn't help her mood; the sheer amount of heartbreak around her was clogging up her Godly sinuses. It was all for that girl Annabeth. It felt like both camps were unanimously grieving, if not because they knew her, but for how young they could all die. She didn't fully understand it, but it felt horrible in her chest. What remained of the Seven was a mess of tears and grief. But it was nothing compared to the lingering shrieks of pain left in Percy Jackson's wake. As soon as he had found out… she had physically felt it. Like she had been struck by Zeus' master bolt. They had cried in sync.

This level of heartbreak was dangerous; she had felt horrible heartbreak before, but rarely this badly. She had felt this same mind-numbing misery with Apollo when Hyacinthus was killed by that stray discus. The same hunger for slaughter that had twisted Achilles upon seeing his lover Patroclus' dead body. The same desperation that had consumed Orpheus completely when Eurydice died. Heartbreak greater than the tallest tower of Olympus and deeper than the darkest abyss of Tartarus.

For the first time in a long time, Aphrodite felt a twinge of envy about how much someone loved their partner.

She leant in closer to the fire Hestia had started for the Gods. There were more dotted about across the dark stretch of land, demigods huddled round, lighter plumes of smoke billowing into the night sky. She warmed her outstretched hands on the fire- well, Gods couldn't really get cold, but it was nice sometimes to act as if they could.

Aphrodite turned her head to watch Poseidon, who was staring deeply into the flames. A dark gold colour was spreading across the bridge of his nose like a bruise.

"That's odd." Aphrodite said, gesturing to it.

Poseidon rubbed it with a calloused hand absently, finally tearing his eyes away from the fire to look at her.

"I will heal it soon." he told her in response to her unasked question.

"But you haven't." Aphrodite cocked her head to the side, ginger curls swaying over her shoulder.

Poseidon shrugged.

"You feel like you deserve it." Athena said, a little way across from them, sat on a log. She spoke like she knew the answer, thought that wasn't unusual for her, Aphrodite scoffed. Athena's knowledge of psychology had nothing on her simple instincts of feelings.

Most of the Olympians had gone quiet, listening attentively. Hera and Zeus bickered loudly in the corner still.

Poseidon closed his eyes tiredly.

"Well, maybe?" he said, before shaking his head, "Yes. I guess. I just- he was right, I could have done something. But at that moment in time, I simply couldn't. I was getting used to having my mind be my own again." Poseidon tried to explain.

Apollo tilted his head, his eyes the same golden as the sparks of the flames. "We were all… indisposed. There wasn't much we could have done."

"But I would have had enough strength to have saved her life." Poseidon insisted.

Athena regarded him coolly.