11
reconcile
Ares can't tell what's more red. The blood in the grass, or Aphrodite's hair under the waxen light of the moon.
There's a sort of violence that clings to it now, making it curlier, larger. It floods around her shoulders and down her back. Ares watches as one curl reaches for him.
Aphrodite swats it away. 'How did you find me?'
'Our son.'
Her hair flares a little larger. 'He shouldn't have done that.'
'He was worried,' Ares gestures to the dead husband. 'And rightfully so.'
'Don't try and vouch for him,' Aphrodite sends her doves off. All romance is removed from the death. It suddenly isn't so pretty. She can feel Ares looking. 'It was deserved.'
'You've never hurt a thing in your life, Aphrodite.'
She nearly breaks at the sound. How long has it been since he's called her by her name? How long has it been since they've seen each other without the house walls between them?
Too long, Aphrodite thinks, as she tries to fight the feeling of falling.
'I should've,' she vows. 'I should've hurt a lot of things. I would've saved so many people if I did.'
A heavy silence covers them, like an unwanted embrace. There's so many things to say. I still love you. I still love you. I still love you.
I am so sorry.
'You know this house?' she asks instead. 'You wouldn't have understood where it is just by Eros' word of mouth.'
'I've visited it before. A wars been waged inside that bedroom for years,' Ares nods towards the sleeping wife in the window. 'I'm glad she's the one victorious.'
'You didn't intervene?'
'Once, in a dream. Dogs ate him alive whilst his wife held their leash.' He smiles a little. 'Apparently the doves got to him first.'
Aphrodite doesn't reply, only stares. Ares grows timid and the smile dies. 'I should've done more, but I couldn't afford Zeus finding out and making my exile permanent.'
He stares right back, and she can tell there's a lot left unsaid in his eyes. Couldn't risk an eternal banishment, lest it keep me from you and our son.
'I meant to return and check on her, but I've been so busy-'
'Doing what?'
'There's refugees in Syria, sex workers in London, protestors in Polland.' He becomes reserved again. 'They need help to fight, each in their own way.'
'Protecting.'
Ares blinks. 'What?'
'That's what you were doing, for this wife and all the others. A protector.'
Aphrodite can scarcely breathe. All those things she spewed at him the last time they met. She's awful.
'I'm sorry, for all those words during the War.'
'Aphrodite-'
'I am, they weren't true.'
'They were,' he insists, but there isn't malice in his voice. Only a sort of acceptance. 'I neglected a lot before. With violence comes victims; it wasn't something I wanted to see.'
'You aren't accountable for everyone's blood-thirst.'
'But that's the whole point in being a god, no?' Again he's gentle; he's not arguing with her. 'I was made for war, as you were made for love. We both didn't want to believe we were responsible, but that's exactly it - we are. I'm ok with that now. It may be cruel, but I won't deny fuelling humanity's hunger. If it leads to war, so be it. As long as I protect the very people who are harmed hurt by it.'
Aphrodite can't find the words to reply. This was the maturity she kept out of reach. This is what made him so unalike his father; growth.
'I hurt you, and everyone else too.' There's such regret in his eyes. 'That mistake is one I will spend eternity trying to fix.'
Aphrodite wonders if he noticed her invisible scars. Hopes that perhaps he could see he wasn't really the one responsible for her hurt, but all those other old and hungry gods. She doesn't think so. If Ares had, he would storm to Olympus and make those men a tomb; despite his new found maturity. So she wouldn't tell him, not yet. Soon perhaps, when she was sure he wouldn't do anything that would give Zeus another reason to hurt them further.
'You can come home,' she breathes. 'I'm sorry I kept you out. Your exile is long overdone. Please come home, Ares.'
He needs no further encouragement. He bundles her up, a small thing in his bruised and scarred arms.
'Your eternal defender,' he whispers into her spiralling hair.
'No,' she vows back. He looks at her, a little startled. 'I need you, I do. But not for that anymore. I think...' She trails off, glances towards the body of the dead husband. 'I think I'll learn how to do that myself. There are others who need you more.'
She'll do some growing of her own. Learn how to take the fierceness he embodies and embrace it herself. No more Zeusian love.
'Eternal defenders,' she cups her fingers along the brutal sides of his face, up into his battle-helmet hair. 'But together; for each other.'
Our goddess of love does not realise it just yet, but she changes again. One final time, she sheds the shell of shallow Pandemos. She becomes Aphrodite Androphonos; killer of cruel men, upholder of just love, finally a protector of her own.
Dawn breaks over the hill as Eos awakes from her slumber, setting the sky alight with rivers of yellow and orange. The husband's body becomes a fire. Ares and Aphrodite embrace the new morning and all the promises with it; forever the longest of lovers.
