Then.
Aphrodite hadn't told her friends of her plans at all, which is why she was shocked when Hades and Persephone invited her for dinner in the Underworld and she was immediately bombarded with accusations.
"Don't think that I don't know what you snuck off to do the other day," Persephone scolded the goddess, "you can't force people into relationships just because you like the idea of them, Dite. We both know Apollo isn't exactly the monogamous type, Adoria and him could never work."
The goddess of beauty huffed, feeling very much attacked when all she wanted was to witness a beautiful love story play out. "Just because Apollo doesn't seem like the type doesn't mean he couldn't be. I know we talk harshly of him at times, but the poor man hasn't ever experienced real love, just passing bits of lust. How sad is that?"
Hades sat in his chair at the head of the table. Part of him wanted to speak up, if not to back up his dear Persephone, but another part held him back because he knew he would've been lying. That didn't stop Aphrodite from pulling him into the argument.
"Well death, what do you think?" Such a lovely woman she is. Hades rolled his eyes at her words, used to them by now. There was a reason he liked Adoria the most out of all Persephone's friends - she was never one to judge, nor namecall. Aphrodite was a right pain in his ass, which made it so much harder for the next few words to spill from his lips.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but" he took a second before continuing, preparing for the backlash he would receive, "a part of me agrees with Aphrodite."
He was met with an angry excuse me? and a conceited I told you so.
The god of death was quick to diffuse the spring goddess. "The poor man hasn't ever experienced real love. Does that sound an awful lot like someone to you?"
Persephone's hard composure seemed to soften at his explanation. She couldn't argue too much with that.
"I was alone for so much of my life, not caring for the company of a single person until you came along. Maybe it takes just one person to change your view on everything, but if we never give Apollo the chance to have that then how awful does that make us? Who are we to judge who falls in love with who?"
"Yeah, that would be my job." Aphrodite smirked and chuckled at her own joke.
Persephone pursed her lips, feeling defeated. Adoria had been a good friend to her, all she wanted was to protect her from getting hurt. "How can we be sure they would even be a good match? I know you're the goddess of love and all but you've proved to be quite flawed in your judgment, no offense."
Aphrodite shrugged, feeling slightly offended but knowing the other goddess wasn't entirely wrong.
"And how do you think it would all end, Dite? Apollo is immortal, Adoria is not."
"There are ways to procure immortality, look at Heracles or Ino for example." Aphrodite explained. "And besides I have it all worked out, I even asked the Oracle. Well I mean, I asked the Oracle if Adoria would ever fall in love, and she said it would be very soon if I had anything to do with it. I have no one else set aside for the girl. I did, but then we got to talking about that beautiful idiot of a sun god and I went right on and threw the other men straight out the window, figuratively speaking of course."
"Did you ask the Oracle if she would be happy?"
"Do you take me for an idiot? Of course I did. And the answer I got was nothing short of what I expected, love makes all happy. Look at what it did to Hades."
Hades glared at her but couldn't help the light smile that graced his face when thoughts of Persephone ran through his mind. "Persephone was special."
"And Adoria will be as well." The love goddess smiled cunningly. "Now we just have to get the two to meet."
~~~~~~~
"This is so exciting, I've never been to Underworld before." Adoria walked alongside Persephone, who held the girl's hand tightly.
"Well I should hope not, otherwise you'd of been dead."
The mortal girl giggled, a strange occurrence for someone walking through the valleys of death. Step one of Aphrodite's plan was set into place. In order to keep Apollo from becoming too suspicious she had set out to invite Hermes as well as Ares to the Underworld for dinner with Persephone and Hades. It was last minute that she invited Dionysus as well, knowing that the god of wine loved a good dinner party.
"Well I'm sorry for making you late, I told you to go on without me-"
"Nonsense!" Persephone all but shouted. "I mean, well, what kind of friend would I be to invite you somewhere only to go on without you?"
"I guess you're right," Adoria remained unsuspicious, Persephone was always very outgoing and loud at times anyways, "but what did you tell your mother you were doing tonight? Surely you didn't tell her you and I would be entertaining Hades in the Underworld."
Persephone's heart stopped at the idea of her mother ever knowing such a thing. "Of course not, silly girl. I said I would be visiting some friends of yours, which isn't a complete lie, I just left out the names and where we would be. My mother would lock me in my garden for the rest of my days if she knew the truth."
"You're passage to the Underworld is in your garden."
"Yes, well that will come in handy when she does find out what I've been up to," the future queen of the Underworld winked at Adoria, who only laughed at her. "We also won't be the only ones there tonight, some family decided to stop by."
"What?" Adoria stopped in her tracks. "Why did you not say anything, oh for the love of Hades, I'm not dressed for such an occasion. I thought it would just be me, you, and your broody boyfriend, and maybe Aphrodite if she decides to pop in, but not a ton other gods or goddesses."
"Hades is not broody, he's just....ok so he's broody." Persephone caved. Adoria continued to smooth out the plain dress she'd worn all day. "Oh, would you relax? You look fantastic. "
"You're damn right she does," Aphrodite came skipping down the hallway that led to the dining room, "almost everyone is here and can't wait to meet you."
"I heard you invited Ares." Persephone raised one eyebrow, not at all surprised by the goddess' actions.
Aphrodite's cheeks became tinted red, not of embarrassment but of something entirely else. Adoria could tell that goddess was planning something, little did she know that ship had already sailed and Aphrodite was ready to build another one for her dear friend. "Let's talk about something else, like how maybe another choice of clothing for the two of you will do, this is a fancy dinner anyways."
"I told you nothing extravagant, we needed it to look like we weren't doing anything too crazy tonight so neither of our parents would be suspicious."
"You're telling me you practically live down here and you have no dresses that you two could easily change into."
"I don't live down here!" Persephone fired back. "I just...spend a lot of time here."
With the whirl of her wrist, Aphrodite had gotten her way, changing the clothing that once dawned the two girls' bodies into dresses that she deemed much more appropriate; Persephone in black and Adoria in a warm gold.
"There we go, much better. Adoria, my love, you look extravagant."
"Thanks a lot, Dite," Persephone jested.
"Oh hush, you look amazing as well." The goddess chuckled as she led the way toward the room she'd previously come from.
"Who exactly are all here?" Adoria asked as they made for the giant iron doors.
"Just a couple of cousins and what not, you know, Dionysus, and Ares of course, um I think Hermes showed up and well...maybe Apollo."
That was enough to stop Adoria in her tracks. "You two didn't plan this after our conversation, did you? Because I don't need you meddling in my love life."
"Sweetheart, don't take it personally," Aphrodite chuckled, "I meddle in everyone's love life. But to be clear, we asked only the fun gods to join us, and Hades gets to be here because he's the host and Persephone's beau."
The mortal chided the goddess as they entered through the double doors of the dining room, "maybe if you were nicer to him, Hades wouldn't hate you so much."
"Not even then." The dark voice from the opposite side of the room boomed while laughing. Adoria had never seen Hades so laid back before and she could guess it was probably from whatever liquid was in the glass he was holding. "Adoria, I'm so glad you could make it," he walked toward the girl and hugged her tightly, whispering into her ear, "you and Persephone are the only two here that I genuinely don't mind."
Adoria held back her laughter at his words. Typical Hades.
"Let me introduce you to everyone," the god of death offered. He pulled out a chair at the dining table for her where everyone else was now seated. In order around the table, beginning from the farthest seat from her, Hades gave names to faces.
"Gentlemen, this is Adoria, mine and Persephone's friend." That comment came with a quick she's my friend too from Aphrodite across the table, which Hades ignored. "Adoria, that is Hermes, he's frequently down here so if you're ever visiting you can probably expect to see him,"
"Only when I'm delivering dead souls lover boy." Spoke the god at the other end of the table. He had dark hair and bright eyes that flickered with curiosity. Hermes spent probably the most time out of all the gods on earth and even he had never been tempted to invite one to hang out with his family. It caused him to wonder why this was was so special that Hades himself seemed to enjoy the girl's company, and it couldn't be simply because of Persephone. The messenger god wore dark clothing in honor of his host and messy hair, something he couldn't control no matter what type of godly magic he attempted to use.
"That is Ares," Hades continued, motioning toward the man sitting underneath Aphrodite, "don't be fooled by his demeanor or title, the man is a puddle at Aphrodite's feet."
"Hey," Ares narrowed his eyes, "just because it's true doesn't mean we need to share it with the whole world."
"And then there is Dionysus," Adoria waited for Hades to say more but he didn't, surprising her and apparently the referred to god as well.
"Why was everyone else given some long winded explanation or trait and I just got 'oh yeah that's just Dionysus' you guys are the worst, this is why I never come here." Dionysus smirked, "that, and the dead people smell."
"It does not smell like dead people!" Hades yelled. "Persephone, they're making fun of my domain again! Tell them to stop!"
"Stop." Persephone deadpanned and chugged the rest of Hades' glass of wine (Adoria presumed it must be wine.)
"You're no help, you know that?" Hades rolled his eyes.
Persephone leaned over and laid her hand on one of his cheeks while kissing the other. "You know I love you." That seemed to satisfy Hades enough, persuading him to lean into her touch and pull her closer.
"And you say I'm a petal at Aphrodite's feet. My friend, you are whipped."
"Mmmm," Hades continued to smile while Persephone ran her hands through his hair, "we're not friends Ares."
"Well fuck you too then." Though his appearance seemed constantly angry, Adoria could tell he knew Hades was only joking and didn't mind the jab directed at him.
"Where is Apollo?" Persephone noticed the god missing from the table.
"He's late as always." Hades answered.
"Only fashionably." Right on time, the sun god dropped, literally, into the Underworld. "You should truthfully invest in some windows, let a little sunshine in every once in a while."
"You do know that we are underground?"
"Point taken. But have you considered this: we're gods, thus magic."
Aphrodite groaned. "Who invited him again?"
Apollo narrowed his eyes at the goddess, "you. You did." The god took his seat at the only place left at the table. He looked around to see who had also been invited and thankfully it was the more fun gods of the family. And then his eyes fell on the mortal sitting across from him. She hadn't been paying any attention to the sun god, choosing instead to speak to the host and his lover; but that only gave him the opportunity to get a good look at her. Suddenly, he knew what this party was about.
"Are you trying to get Hermes a girlfriend?"
Aphrodite choked. Ares handed her a napkin for the little bit of wine dripping from her chin now. "Are you insane? Why does everyone always believe that I'm setting someone up? This isn't even my party."
"And at first I thought the same, but then I saw the mortal amongst the gods and thought to myself yeah this is all Aphrodite."
Aphrodite rolled her eyes for what would be the first of many times that night. She was annoyed at first that Apollo would automatically assume Adoria would ever be a good match for Hermes, but saw an opportunity arise. It caused a sly smirk to grace her features and all Ares could think was 'oh no, I've seen that look before one too many times and it never ends well after.' He would find himself to be very much right.
"The girl is special, I blessed her when she was young with beauty and grace beyond compare. She's too good for a mere mortal man. And it would only be fitting that Adoria be matched with the most attractive of the gods. Unfortunately she's not into women in that way, so that title then falls the Hermes." Ares restrained himself from commenting, knowing that the love goddess was only trying to work Apollo up.
"Excuse me?" It worked. "Hermes? Is this some kind of sick joke? Look at my face, Aphrodite," Apollo motioned in circles around his face, "look at it. It's godly."
"Well...yeah, obviously. God you really are so stupid."
Apollo decided to ignore that and take into account the larger argument at hand. "How could you ever consider Hermes over myself?"
Aphrodite tried to hide her evil smile by taking a sip from her chalice. "He's intelligent, good looking, loyal, nice to look at, friendly, good in bed- Ow!" Ares pinched the side of her thigh, glaring at her to let her know he'd heard enough about the other god. "And I very well couldn't give her Ares, he's all mine." That did it for the war god. His glare turned playful and he let her kiss his lips lightly.
"Well, you've never slept with me before, so you wouldn't know now would you?" apollo crossed his arms like a child pouting.
"Truthfully?" Aphrodite thought on that for a moment and came to the same realization. "Wow, no I haven't." Nothing could've made the war god sitting under her happier. "Hades neither. Oh, but you and I did share Adonis."
"Sharing doesn't count! And if I recall correctly, Adonis told me he liked me more anyways."
"You recall incorrectly."
"Well then there's only one way to settle this," Apollo's eyes held mischief and his hands fell to his hips, "Ares, you need to sleep with me and become the deciding factor."
"Even if I were into men like that, it would never happen."
"You wound me." Apollo held his hand over his heart as if Ares' words had truly cut him deep. "Hermes would sleep with me if I asked him, wouldn't you Hermes."
"You'd have to woe me first."
"Darling, I'd raise the sun for you."
Hermes played along, widening his eyes and clutching his chest. "That's so romantic."
"Hermes, he does that anyway!" A giggling voice, new to the conversation, intervened. It was the mortal they'd been previously discussing, and her voice was like that of a lyre, soft and calming.
Apollo put on his most charming smile. "You are right, so then I shall have to promise something else. Perhaps the gift of prophecy, or song; I could promise the serenading from all who look upon you, have them build temples in your name and write poetry about your beauty. Or maybe you desire a darker promise; I could launch plagues in your name for those who refuse to worship your elegance, and instead of rising the sun I could diminish its radiance until you're praised above all other goddesses."
Apollo's eyes never strayed from the Adoria's. All was silent in the room, for how long Apollo did not know, but all gazes remained on the two, waiting for more poetic words from the god or a response from the mortal girl.
"You would do all that for me?" Hermes wailed playfully from behind Apollo, causing the sun god to clench his jaw at the ruined moment.
While Adoria's eyes, sparkling with humor, moved toward Hermes, Apollo's never left her face and he spoke again, "if it meant your love in return."
Adoria didn't know quite realize it, but everyone else did, especially the goddess sitting atop Ares' lap while trying to hold back her excitement; she had just utterly charmed a god.