Son of Love and Fire

Chapter 21

Chapter 21:

As dawn broke on the island that used to imprison the son of the love goddess, Perseus and Aphrodite were in the middle of the clearing, laughing together. They had both woken early, keen to get a start on Perseus training in the domain of natural beauty, leading to Aphrodite explaining charmspeaking to her son, an ability she was sure he had adopted.

When asked to demonstrate, Aphrodite had told Perseus to run around the clearing using a weak charmspeak, when she was unsuccessful, she made the command again using a large fraction of her power, enough to overcome practically any resident of Olympus unless that are the most powerful of them and had great desire not to follow the command.

At that point, the pair had realised one another were immune to the influence, even Erimia seemed to be immune as she had joined in and had offered her assistance when they were unsuccessful. This resulted in their amusement at the ridiculousness of the tasks they kept requesting through charmspeak, going as far as to attempt to make Erimia blink, which initiated a staring contest between her and the other two.

After a fair while the group were able to overcome their laughter and calm down a bit, at which point Aphrodite expressed her opinion that all of their powers came from the same source passed through immortal blood, even for Erimia, as such their charmspeaking was ineffective against one another, whereas Aphrodite's 'demigods' hadn't gained the same form of power and therefore didn't retain any immunity.

Aphrodite herself was surprised by how supportive Perseus had been about her demigods but realised she shouldn't have expected anything else as Perseus assured her, he was impressed with how she helped those within her domain that were suffering and how she assisted those that gained demigod powers, protecting them when most, if not all, of Olympus' residents would even think about doing so.

The three of them were soon joined by Hestia and Demeter who had awoken to the blissful sounds of laughter and were drawn outside to meet them. Once they arrived, it was Erimia who first attempted charmspeak on Hestia, demanding that she cuddle her, before jumping into her arms in her smallest bear form. Hestia immediately caught her granddaughter and began smoothing out the fur on her side as she grumbled softly in approval.

Aphrodite and Perseus responded by muttering grumpily about cheating, but could both see the slight dazed look on Hestia's face that took a moment for her to shake off. Laughing it off, the three retired to breakfast as the Olympians shared stories with the two young immortals.

As they polished off the meal prepared by the combined efforts of Erimia's hunting, and Perseus and Hestia's cooking, their conversation shifted to more serious matters.

It was Demeter who broke ground on the all important discussion, "I've seen that you've already begun work on mastering your final domain", to which Perseus nodded, "I guess what I need to ask is what comes next. I know for so long your goals have been to attain your domains and reunite with your mother. What comes next?"

Perseus was put off by the question, but didn't take long to formulate an answer, having been thinking about such for a while now, "I'm not entirely sure, but you are right, I've achieved many of the goals I had set for myself so long ago. I was thinking that I would next try and meet with my uncle, Hades, and my cousin Persephone. I've heard so many wonderful stories about the two from the you all and I look forward to seeing the people hidden behind the image Olympus is so keen to create."

"Unfortunately, for the next couple months Persephone is confined to Hades' domain as a result of Zeus' cruel actions. You won't be able to meet the pair until after then and even then, I don't know if Hades would come to meet you, even with both of our encouragement." Demeter stated, speaking for Hestia and herself.