His mother's rage could be heard from every corner of Olympus. Even the goddess's attendants had fled her side, their feet carrying them as fast as they could through the curtains that separated the private part of her apartments from the public. Eros kept himself hidden on the opposite side of the curtains from Aphrodite in case she called for him to come to her side and to hear exactly what disturbed the goddess today. And it could be anything, from Ares' eyes wondering to another lovely goddess or nymph to a mortal who claimed that her beauty rivaled that of the goddess of love. As yet, his mother's anger had not revealed what caused her to fling pottery from one side of her rooms to the other. He had counted three crashes thus far, and he did not need to consult Apollo's Oracle to predict there would be more. This was quite serious, more serious than the last mortal woman who had bragged about her own beauty. He listened to his mother's feet stomp on the stone floor as he adjusted the strap of his quiver.
He hoped at some point his mother would say something that might reveal the cause of her distress beyond "I can't believe this is happening again!" More than once he heard her snort her disapproval. It sounded more serious than any wrong Ares might have done to the goddess. Eros took several steps back until his heel hit the chair he knew stood there. He lifted his bow over his head and lowered himself onto the seat. No use getting over tired waiting to hear if his mother called his name. He yawned as he rubbed his hands on the limb of his bow. Stay quiet, he reminded himself. An audience would only fuel his mother's anger and make her tantrum last longer.
Her blood boiling occasionally did the goddess good, Ares had told her once, for it often led the goddess to the god of war's bed. Eros did not doubt the truth of his father's words, but her anger brought forth the opportunity for mischief. The young god smiled. Aphrodite often asked him to shoot an unsuspecting individual, divine or mortal, with one of his potion-dipped arrows. Would he have that opportunity today? The grin across his face grew at the thought. If that was what his mother wanted, what was taking her so long to call his name? His arrows were at her disposal.
In her own time, he remembered as another piece of pottery crashed near the curtain. Eros lifted his feet from the floor to prevent his mother from seeing anyone hiding from her. He lifted his hand over his mouth so the laughter at the bottom of his throat did not escape. She might thieve his arrows away as punishment for spying on her. The young god inhaled and exhaled through his nose until he was certain that he would not make a sound.
"Foolish mortal!" Aphrodite shouted.
At last a clue! Eros grinned; a mortal woman believed herself more beautiful than the goddess of beauty. A trip down to Hellas was in his future. Again he hid his lips behind his hand to keep himself from laughing. Come, Mother, tell me your wish, he wanted to say, but he feared her anger more than not getting the opportunity to go to the surface. Maybe Iris would allow him the use of one of her rainbows to get to the foolish mortal woman who angered his mother so. It had been such a long time since the messenger goddess had permitted him to slide down her rainbow. That had taken a lot of sweet words on his part to convince her and it had taken longer than he would have liked. It had been more for the fun of it than orders from his mother to shoot a mortal.
Such a long time had passed since his mother had commanded him to shoot a mortal. It had been at least three days, and longer than that since he had had the opportunity to point his arrows at one of the gods. The fun it would be if he ever got the chance to shoot both a mortal and a god with an arrow on the same day. It could be today, if his mother would just hurry up and call his name.
He listened closely to the sound of his mother's footsteps pounding the stone. Her pace was getting slower. His lips twitched upward again at the sound. Aphrodite's temper was fading. Soon her voice would bellow out his name, and he would answer her. But not too quickly, though; she did not need to know how close he had stayed to her this day. Let her believe that he had found a nymph or a minor goddess to woo.
