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‘You must make her truly love you. That is my condition.’
Aphrodite Nymphia was not the Goddess of Love who usually presented herself to demigods. A veil of gauze glittering with a thousand and one pearls draped across her buoyant curls, only her piercing kaleidoscope eyes visible with her face shielded as it was. Annabeth struggled not to see Sally in them, heart already far too soft for this conversation.
‘And then you’ll marry us?’ she clarified, wanting- no, needing the assurance.
Aphrodite, in her role as a Goddess of Marriage, seemed to smile behind her veil. Annabeth could see the wrinkles beside her eyes. ‘I will,’ she confirmed, laughing lightly, ‘and the Queen shall not hinder me, nor grumble unduly. You have been my favourite soap opera among demigods, except maybe my own daughter and the war girl—yes, I shall marry you both. Thank-you for the privilege, dear Annabeth.’
Although her gut curled at the insinuation that Aphrodite had been watching her entire relationship with Percy unfold, Annabeth simply nodded, before returning to the task at hand. ‘So: my mother in this other dimension insulted you.’
‘Oh, very much so,’ Aphrodite confirmed with a nod, seeming genuinely upset. ‘My counterpart is heartbroken at Athena’s insults, and looks to possibilities beyond their remit to grant her succour. I have gracefully offered my services.’
‘My services,’ Annabeth corrected.
‘Your services, yes, yes—and who better than Athena’s own daughter? This other world is unlike our own in many ways,’ lectured the goddess, sweeping her hand to draw a sheet from the nearby mirror. When it fell to the ground, Annabeth saw Ancient Greece beyond, and a parlour not dissimilar to Aphrodite’s own. ‘When Kronos fell, he cursed them. Their divine children are born sickly, with devastating consequences to wherever in Greece they so happen to...implode,’ she said it all politely, but Aphrodite clearly didn’t care for her counterpart’s circumstances in the slightest.
Annabeth, taking a half-step towards the mirror, looked closely at the other Aphrodite’s quarters. It was a place of decadence—again, not dissimilar to her Aphrodite’s temple—but when she looked closer, she saw that Eros’ spare bow wasn’t hung up on the wall, and the sea-glass mural depicting Aphrodite and her children instead held an unpainted carving of the Goddess of Love, Ares, and…
‘...is that Hephaestus?’ Annabeth asked in astonishment.
Aphrodite’s nose wrinkled. ‘As I understand it, their marriage is far more open that my own. Relationships in this pantheon are weighed rather differently, due to their infertility issues, and you should enter this land with an open mind.’
Be cautious, Annabeth heard. To Aphrodite, she asked, ‘Should Percy come along?’
‘Oh, absolutely not—your little hero boy-toy would upend this world.’ The Goddess of Love reached briefly for Annabeth’s cheek, painted nails scraping delicately against the dark skin of her neck. ‘Don’t worry about the passing of time. When Athena acknowledges her love for you, or if you die suddenly, your soul will snap right back to your body!’
‘If I die?’ Annabeth repeated, ready to retreat in horror at what she thought would be a milk-run turning into a fully-fledged quest, but then the hand curled around her jaw dug into the base of her skull to use her braids as leverage. In the blink of an eye, Aphrodite Nymphia threw her head-first into the mirror. Annabeth braced for impact.
Except, rather than smashing on impact, Annabeth sunk into the glass like quicksand, emerging on the other side feeling like she’d had her skin peeled off. It was quick and nasty, probably like most of Aphrodite’s affairs with Ares.
Stumbling to her feet, Annabeth aimed to get her bearings first. When she looked around, she saw she was in the other Aphrodite’s temple, and when she glanced back at the mirror, discovered Aphrodite had done a full make-over on her. Rather than the loose jeans, t-shirt and braid she’d been sporting when she arrived, Annabeth’s clothes had been transformed into something far more suitable for Ancient Greece. While she might have expected a chiton and accompanying peplos, Aphrodite had clearly decided to go for a more Minoan look—meaning Annabeth had the dubious privilege of being dressed in rich purple, the restrictive bodice of her dress flaring out into a skirt that floated around her ankles. A fine epiblema—shawl—was draped around her shoulders. Her braids were thankfully untouched, except for the new strings of gold woven into the locks, pinned up with a single ivory stick, end carved like her mother’s sacred bird. Heavy gold bangles rattled around her wrists and ankles. Lastly, black liner darkened her eyes, with small smudges of red makeup colouring her cheeks and forehead in the shape of half-moons.
For the briefest of moments, Annabeth acknowledged how pretty she looked. It was something that’d come with age, and the time to figure out who she was beyond a warrior, her time at New Rome University allowing her the space to breath and make sense of what it meant to be human. She knew she was gorgeous. If nothing else, Aphrodite could never be said to have bad taste—and Percy would love her in anything, but he’d definitely be looking her up and down in appreciation right now.
‘Don’t think of Percy!’ She pointed at herself in her mirror, biting her lip to avoid smiling too widely as Aphrodite’s decision started sinking in. They were getting married. Percy and Annabeth were going to get married. No more worrying about Hera, and taxes; Connor and Travis would finally stop teasing them about living in sin. For one bizarre moment, she wondered if Chiron would like to officiate—but then she remembered that Aphrodite would probably preside.
Her feet were bare against the stone as she started making plans for how she wanted the ceremony to look, rocking side to side, but then abruptly, she remembered where she was. Annabeth readjusted her shawl as she made her way to the exit of Aphrodite’s temple, sure that the Fates would conspire against her if she stayed any longer. Naturally, the temple opened up onto the streets of Olympus—but there, Annabeth had her own advantage. As Architect of Olympus, she had studied millennia worth of plans and temple designs, including historical documents depicting streets and landmarks.
I need to make Athena love me, somehow, Annabeth thought to herself as she made her way north, hypothesising there would be a distinct lack of demigods, if what Aphrodite explained was true. An infertility curse from the start of Zeus’ reign was truly a ripple that would have turned into a tidal wave, and she’d only know how badly the curse affected the Greek gods when she saw the Olympian Council. As far as Annabeth could recall, her own mother hadn’t created many children, if any, in Ancient Greece. Only Daedalus and Erichthonius sprung to mind—and they were naturally special cases, as Daedalus was a legacy often mistaken as a son of Athena, and Erichthonius the product of Hephaestus chasing after Athena.
Annabeth wondered if Herakles had ascended. If Dionysus was an Olympian. Odysseus was a legacy of Hermes, and Hermes might not even exist to have children. She pondered the consequences and simultaneously took the straightest road to her mother’s temple, aware of the many startled eyes upon her as she walked the streets of Olympus. When she consulted the maps that existed in the library of her mind, she grimly noted the lack of temples dedicated to the children of Aphrodite, the Muses, and Pan, to only name a few.
Eventually, a dryad drew up the courage to approach her. ‘Good afternoon, my lady. If I may—do you require an escort? We have not seen you on Olympus before.’ With pale skin and luminous green eyes, Annabeth guessed she was some kind of pear or birch tree, apologising in her mind to Grover for not paying attention to his lessons. At least she wasn’t having language issues.
‘Thank-you,’ she accepted the invitation gracefully in the same dialect of Ancient Greek, inclining her head up the hill. ‘I seek the Temple of Athena.’
The dryad’s brow creased in confusion, but she bowed at the waist before showing her the way. Annabeth was vindicated when the route matched the one she’d mapped in her head.
‘Why do you seek the Wise One?’ the dryad asked.
What to say? Annabeth’s smile felt somewhat like a grimace as she gave a version of the truth. ‘I’m here on the bidding of Aphrodite Nymphia. I question the love of my mother, and the wisdom in question I have received.’
‘Huh.’ The dryad, who carried a covered basket, adjusted where it sat on her hip, and asked again, ‘Why seek Lady Athena, then? Surely the Lady Aphrodite has all knowledge of love.’
‘Surely,’ Annabeth agreed, then posited, ‘But if my mother does not love me, then should I seek her approval? Her opinion? And if my mother does love me, are the same answers true?’
‘She does not approve of your betrothed,’ the dryad guessed.
If only things were so simple. ‘Is there wisdom in telling my mother I’m betrothed at all, if she doesn’t approve of the match?’
Smiling, the dryad giggled under her breath, then whispered secretively, ‘You are so full of questions! No wonder Lady Aphrodite sends you to the Wise One!’ Leaning in, she said in a hush, ‘The Wise One has angered the Lady Aphrodite of late.’
Annabeth grinned back at her, reminded of why she’d originally agreed. ‘Petty revenge, I’d guess, to send me with all my questions on interpersonal relationships.’
The dryad giggled, and when Annabeth asked what her name was, she called herself Argyra, wishing her luck when they finished their trek up the hill towards Athena’s temple where it sat on the main plaza. At the steps into the utilitarian building painted with motifs of her mother—owls, olives and scrolls—Argyra invited her to the party on the southern edge of Olympus that eve, where the Lord Apollo was hosting a celebration for his brother, the Lord Dionysus. Annabeth was silently relieved to hear that her old camp director’s counterpart was alive as she waved goodbye.
It occurred to her that Athena might not take to her very well. There was a cultural nuance surrounding divine children in this world that Annabeth wasn’t yet privy to, and her own experience with Athena was an arrogant and prideful general; a goddess who trusted only her children, extensions of herself, and her legacy, to do her bidding. It was a unique relationship to have. Athena was like Ares in many ways, never praising her children and rarely bestowing gifts—and Annabeth personally didn’t hold a good opinion of her mother, after the quest for the Athena Parthenos. How many of her siblings had died because Athena and Minerva “trusted” them with her Mark?
This world’s version of her mother was unlikely to be very different, but Annabeth caught Aphrodite’s wording: when Athena acknowledged her love for Annabeth. In the miraculous situation that was her mother immediately loving her upon realising she had a daughter, Annabeth would go right back home. The problem came if Athena felt no obligation whatsoever to be parental, and Annabeth had to work to build a relationship with the proverbial button-eyed version of her own mother. After all, Aphrodite hadn’t specified it had to be parental love. Friendship or mentorship would do.
An ember, not a bonfire.
Determined, Annabeth made to enter her alternate mother’s temple, only to tense as she felt the gaze of something settle on her. The weight of divinity was noticeable, almost corrosive. Annabeth immediately straightened, boldly searched for her watcher, following her instincts as her gaze passed over satyrs, nymphs and dryads to lock onto the goddess that stared. The other woman didn’t look away, and it took a few moments for Annabeth to register the foreign appearance of Artemis. Unlike her modern appearance of a young girl, this Artemis was unafraid to roam in the guise of a fully-grown woman, similar to Annabeth’s age, with bright blonde hair like Apollo and elfin features. In fact, the only reason she didn’t think Apollo had taken female form was because of Artemis’ stephane, the headdress engraved with her classic moon phases, and her silver tunic.
‘My lady,’ Annabeth curtsied briefly with her skirt, and the hum Artemis let out could be heard across the plaza. It made the other creatures there shy away.
‘Niece,’ Artemis named her plainly, and Annabeth thought that her steps towards her looked far too much like those of a hunter stalking their prey. Artemis came within arm’s reach before stopping short. ‘You are unprecedented.’
Annabeth couldn’t help but ask, ‘How so?’ Her curiosity itched against her sternum like a bur, as now that Artemis was closer, she saw the claws on the end of her fingertips, and the branches of cypress growing out from behind her ears.
The goddess made a thoughtful face, but answered in the dry tone Annabeth was used to from the Hunters. ‘You aren’t an infant, which is customary for new relatives. You are also an unhoused spirit, implying your corporeal form has been violently destroyed—somehow without sending your soul straight to Uncle Hades.’
An unhoused spirit? Annabeth kept a neutral expression as she made a noncommittal noise, wondering if the odd looks she’d been receiving were because they could see her for what she was: a wandering soul, sent from another dimension. Or, she corrected herself, because they thought like Artemis that her body had been violently destroyed.
Artemis added when Annabeth didn’t say anything, ‘You are a godling,’ like that meant anything to her. The Huntress’ lip twitched in exasperation, before she helpfully spelled it out for her. ‘No new godlings have been created since the extremely traumatic births of Hermes and Dionysus.’
‘Uhuh,’ Annabeth crossed her arms over her chest, mourning her own family tree in this dimension. But as much as she wished to emulate Percy, something niggled at her. ‘How did you know to call me your niece?’
Artemis huffed, then raised her hands to her mouth, calling out to the sky above using a primal, animalistic shriek. It rattled through Annabeth in a rush, and she knew without asking that Artemis had screamed of an emergency. Pressure built around them. Static, wind, rain. Divinity exploded from all corners of Olympus, and Annabeth barely hid her eyes in time to avoid being torn to shreds by over a dozen gods in their true forms. Faintly, she heard Artemis telling them off, but she kept her hand firmly over her eyes.
‘Godling,’ she heard Apollo’s familiar voice, laced with disbelief, ‘You may look upon us. You shall come to no harm.’
Hesitant, Annabeth slowly peeled her fingers from her face, readjusting to the light as she gazed upon the plaza. Familiar gods populated the plaza, which until their appearance she hadn’t realised was abnormally large, leaving the lonely Olympians to stand without their many friends and relatives by their side. Like Artemis, all seemed to have some sort of animalistic feature, the most common being horns of some kind, or plant matter growing in obvious places. Poseidon and Hermes both had scales, while Hephaestus had a beard made of literal fire. They were harder for Annabeth to look at with their divinity on show so obviously.
Zeus boomed, ‘Who bore this child?’
Interesting.
The gods looked at her with a distinct mixture of awe and concern, and Annabeth saw Hades frowning, even as Artemis sought her sister in the crowd. Her gaze was obvious enough that the reason why Artemis called her niece occurred to her a moment later.
‘I wasn’t born,’ said Annabeth, startled at being caught out in such a way, Artemis’ gaze briefly flickering to her in smugness, before turning right back to Athena. Her mother, like her siblings, was more avian to look upon, with slitted eyes and downy feathers gracing her shoulders; her mother also put together what Annabeth did, and chirped in embarrassed alarm.
‘Mine,’ said Athena, disturbed. As Zeus swelled, storm clouds gathering, Annabeth’s mother swept forth and circled her, fingers reaching but refusing to touch. Annabeth shivered as Athena circled. When she completed her full three hundred and sixty degree appraisal, her brow furrowed in deep thought. ‘I have never created a child of my own. I swore I would not.’
Annabeth barely blinked. ‘Surprise: it’s a girl.’
Her mother was unimpressed. She repeated, ‘I have never created a child of my own. Did someone form you on my behalf? You seem well-adjusted to this...state of being.’
‘I’m not dead,’ Annabeth made to assure her, feeling a familiar despair creeping up her back at Athena’s less than empathetic responses. ‘Only...temporarily unhoused.’
‘I will house you,’ returned Athena, and despite the care her words would imply, Annabeth knew the calculating look in her eyes was firmly rooted in the project, the design of what new body her new daughter could inhabit. This was a horrible idea, she thought, tears abruptly stinging in her eyes, and she sought out this dimension’s Aphrodite in the crowd.
Frankly, it wasn’t comforting to see the Goddess of Love horrified at the actions of her counterpart.
‘What did she do?’ demanded Aphrodite Melainis of Aphrodite Nymphia, growing wroth in an instant. Her appearance flickered violently before settling on a warrior in full regalia, great swan wings beating furiously, and Annabeth swallowed the lump in her throat as Athena’s owl-ish eyes settled on the other Goddess with interest.
‘Nothing permanent, just-’
‘Just nothing! How dare she use a godling this way!’ Aphrodite raged, before Zeus interrupted harshly.
‘Who? What ally of yours has desecrated a godling, Athena’s first godling?’ Zeus questioned her, Annabeth noting and analysing his emphasis on claiming Annabeth on Athena’s behalf. It spoke of an obsession with family, regardless of her mother’s feelings on the matter.
Athena made a quiet noise of approval as Aphrodite cursed. When Annabeth glanced at her, she saw her mother staring at her again, flushing when she realised it was because Athena noticed her noticing. The alternate version of her mother tilted her head subtly in acknowledgement.
‘Aphrodite, enough of this,’ interrupted Hera when the goddess’ cursing became more than just banal. The Queen of the Gods took on a hefty form, beautifully wide, peacock feathers growing from her olive-black hair beneath her stephane. ‘My granddaugher roams beyond her body, and you know why. Speak plainly or not at all.’
Annabeth mouthed my granddaughter and was relieved when not only Athena rolled her eyes, seeing all but the King and Queen themselves exchanging various looks. Clearly, Hera’s beef with her husband’s children was still very much a thing in this dimension.
Still enraged, Aphrodite Melainis gestured sharply at Athena. ‘When my grief for my darling Erotes was mocked, I sought those of like mind to myself. But clearly, they think returning the favour is the appropriate course of action!’
There was so much to unpack with just that single sentence. First, grief for the Erotes: the Erotes were dead and buried. Second, Aphrodite grieving being something to mock: Athena either a) disliked how Aphrodite mourned, or b) had no empathy for the death of a child—correction: children. Third, Aphrodite Nymphia’s solution being considered inappropriate to the pantheon as a whole: they loved their children, to the point of using them being taboo.
Ouch. They would not like Annabeth’s world.
As for Athena...well, Annabeth had seen her disregard her own children in search of a lost monument. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to believe she’d apply the same callous attitude to Aphrodite’s late children, and fail to regret it except from a strategist’s perspective. Even now, when Annabeth looked at Athena, she knew that her mother was more irritated by the situation they were in, than by what she herself had done wrong.
Zeus, at Aphrodite’s words, sought advice from his brother, Hades, and council. Honestly, Annabeth didn’t care for the following conversation, reminded too much of the procrastination and denial of her modern-day council during the war. They worked off only the information they could see, and Aphrodite wisely kept her mouth shut about the inter-dimensional aspects for the moment. As Annabeth expected, when Athena participated, she only added fuel to the fire by putting forwards insanely plausible theories as to why Annabeth existed.
Bored and wanting to go home—because clearly the whole quest was a disaster; she doubted that Aphrodite Nymphia would bless her and Percy’s wedding at this rate—Annabeth sat on the steps of her mother’s temple, removing her shawl when Apollo’s sun got a bit too hot for comfort. She did wonder how to get home, but figured that Aphrodite Melainis would be able to reverse things. All Annabeth would need to do was get to her temple…
‘Daughter,’ interrupted her mother, chittering in amusement as Annabeth was jolted out of planning mode. Beyond her, the Olympians argued over everything and nothing at all. ‘I see you plotting. How strange that you look like me, when you do.’
Annabeth grimaced. Once upon a time, that would have made her happy. ‘Are you done talking without me as a part of the conversation?’ Not once had they asked her opinion, which reminded her: ‘You don’t even know my name.’
Athena cocked her head, then simply said, ‘Arsinoe.’
‘…Arsinoe?’ Annabeth spluttered in realisation. ‘You can’t just give me a new name!’
‘Not one I chose.’
‘You absolutely chose my name,’ Annabeth groused, uninterested in keeping up facades. Giving Athena the stink-eye, she demanded to know, ‘Why did you mock the deaths of the Erotes?’
Athena, egotistical and proud, scoffed, ‘What use are godlings? Aphrodite complains of how many domains she holds, then wastes her time creating godlings to take her place that will never come to be.’
It was simple logic, to imagine that Aphrodite wouldn’t complain if she’d not “wasted time” being pregnant. Childish, in a way. Annabeth felt a twinge in her heart, disappointed in her mother for reasons she couldn’t quite understand, but she imagined posing the same question to her real mother, and thought that even her Athena would think the same thing—she merely wouldn’t say it out loud. Aphrodite was a being capable of many great things, as evidenced by how many domains she controlled, and was able to hand out to her children at all.
Annabeth thought of Minerva, her domains stripped away one by one. That Minerva used her children out of desperation, because they were demigods with free will, and the ability to be anything they set their minds to be. Unlike Aphrodite, she used her children and presumed they existed to have purpose. This Athena had fallen into the same trap, thinking that the only reason Aphrodite—and presumably, her entire pantheon—wanted children was because they wanted to offload duties and domains onto them, because they were lazy, or stupid.
‘I don’t know why you would want children either,’ Annabeth said to Athena, speaking both of her own mother and this one, too. She watched as Athena began to tilt her chin to laugh, jaw already half-open when suddenly, she froze.
In the space of a heartbeat, her mother’s eyes shifted, turning from the visage of her beloved owl into a human iris, pupil and cornea. Grey, like Annabeth’s. She seemed startlingly young as she looked at Annabeth, abruptly lost. Untethered, even. It was as if no-one had ever said such a thing to her before.
‘I don’t-’ Athena stuttered, blinking rapidly. ‘I don’t know why, either.’
Pandora’s Box, thought Annabeth. All the terrors and nightmares of the world, and at the end of it all: hope. Mother and daughter stared at each other, yet only one was calm. Annabeth, quite surprisingly, made peace with the idea that she’d never know why Athena wanted children, and what convoluted logic her mother used to convince herself that it was okay to send them off to their deaths for centuries on end. It was something she’d never forgive, and never forget.
But this Athena, Annabeth thought as she reached out, only for Annabeth to blink back into Aphrodite Nymphia’s parlour, had the chance to be different. She hoped she would try.