09
blame
Aphrodite watches from a hill. Her son Eros sits beside her. They watch through the window of the house that sits at the bottom of the grove, waiting for the light to turn on. As they have every Friday before.
'Ma,' Eros whispered beside her. 'My legs are starting to cramp.'
'Then stretch them. This won't take much longer.'
She felt him reshuffle beside her in the thicket. Eros had grown in the time that passed. To mortals, he would've looked in his early twenties. But as a god, he now bore the brunt of centuries. He had inhabited most of her traits, apart from that battle helmet of brown hair. A lover, not a fighter. Someone who admired the beauty in everything.
But Aphrodite knew better than anyone the pitfalls of being a romantic. The rose tinted glasses which always blinded his vision to the vices of the world. That big, fleshy, beating heart which chose to see the best in people rather than the worst.
That was a chat for another day however. For now, she would let him adore the world with unabashed Uranian love. It was a beautiful thing, to see the ardour that once bloomed in her now grow in him. It made her consider that perhaps this world hadn't lost sight about the true meaning of love - that she could one day regain it herself.
Until then, she would remain Aphrodite Pandemos. A shallow and lustful lover. One who keeps the bed warm for whomever catches her eye, but never stays until the next morning. It's effected the rest of the realm, she's aware. Aphrodite knows that she plays the most important part in mortals losing their soulful love. How can the rest of the world find their soulmate, when the mother of love is still mourning hers'?
Her heart has not healed from Adonis. It has not healed from Ares.
Traitor. She regrets everything she said to him. It was not fair and it was not kind. To make him responsible for everyones protection was a cruel and heavy burden. Aphrodite has wanted to say all this to him and more, but she can never find the courage. Not even when he visits the estate to see Eros. She lets the walls of her house serve as a shield between them. Uses the windows as a glimpse into the man he is now. Eros tells her that it hurts Ares, to have Aphrodite avoid him. But he will never take away that shield himself. Because he still believes that she has not forgiven him, and that he's failed her in some way.
A different Aphrodite might close the gap between them, but this Aphrodite, Pandemos in her love, is still too empty to do so.
'Look,' Eros nudged her. She directed her attention back to the house at the bottom of the hill. The light flickered on in the bedroom window. They watch as a man stumbles in through the door, despite the late hour of the night. His wife in their bed stirs awake. They begin to argue. It ends like every time before - the wife raises her voice that little bit louder, the husband strikes her. She's left holding her face in bed, and he stumbles back out into the dark.
'That's not love.' Aphrodite could feel her fists curled. 'That's violence under the guise of it.'
Eros was eyeing her white knuckles. 'You ok, ma?'
Her silence said enough.
'It's not your fault,' he tried. 'Mortals will always act upon their own will.'
So he took more than the hair from his father. Aphrodite didn't reply and instead pulled herself from out under the bush. Eros followed.
'We've been doing this every week.' He pulled a twig from his shirt.
'And I won't stop,' she tugged one from his curls. 'You don't have to come.'
He ignored her and shook out his wings. Eros could talk about how much it annoyed him all he liked, but they both knew that at the end of the he would be there. He cared about the wife, and he cared about his mother. Aphrodite could tell that his concern for her had grown. She always brushed it off.
'Are we going? I have a date.'
'Is it with another one of the garden nymphs again?' she summoned her power to take them home. 'I told you to stop dating my workers. It makes for such awkward tension.'
They jumped to their estate, and was greeted by Zeus and Hera arguing on the lawn. Aphrodite heard Eros groan beside her.
Upon their arrival, Hera tried to stifle the fighting. But as it always was, Zeus ignored her.
'Don't walk away from met yet, we haven't finished.'
'We most certainly have,' Hera hissed. 'I'm here to see my grandson.'
'He's not my grandson,' Zeus spat back. 'I told you that we aren't to visit.'
Aphrodite felt her anger surge. Zeus had never hidden his detest for Eros, considering the hatred he harboured for his grandson's mother and father. Aphrodite went to match the king of the gods, but Eros pulled her back. He wore the same contempt on his face; a curtain of disgust and rage that hung across his features. Perhaps that was from Ares, too.
'My power for family overrules your need for authority,' Hera let a piece of that divine energy loose. Behind her, a tree cracked and tumbled. 'That's how it's always been.'
'Perhaps,' Zeus said, and his eyes grew the grey that reminded Aphrodite of the old days. Of a beach in Kypros, and an escape just seized. 'But my crown is bigger than yours. So we are going home.'
He grasped her wrist before Aphrodite could stop him, and stole them away in a flicker of lightning. She knew her power would not defeat his, but she summoned it to go after them anyway.
'Ma,' Eros was there again. 'Don't.'
They both know what would befall her if she tried, so Aphrodite bit her tongue and let the anger surge. If it weren't for Eros, she would have tried Zeus long ago. But she had more to think about than herself.
'It's not your fault,' he said again. He knew exactly what she was thinking. That she was responsible for all the love in the world, and all the ways it had become wrong. The man and his wife in that house on the hill. Zeus and Hera rampaging through every corner of Olympus.
'This isn't love,' she repeated, before disappearing from Olympus.
