I SERVED A PLATE OF BUTTER COOKIES to the people seated in Aphrodite’s chambers, watching their faces painted in confusion and jitters. The assembly consisted of Aphrodite sitting on her bed with her legs stretched out and crossed at her ankles, Blissia and Vequin in separate seats dragged from outside, Tyhi seated on the chair in front of the mirror table. I chucked the tray on Aphrodite’s bedside table and paused to search for a seat.
Tyhi pushed himself to the edge of the seat to make space for me and I gave him a stern look. He shrugged and went back to his original position. I bit my lip as I scanned the room for an empty seat and I glared at Tyhi when I met his smug smile. I huffed and pushed him aside to share the seat. Blissia’s cookie, which was midway in the air, fell onto the plate with a clang.
“What in the name of Olympus – ” Blissia blurted out, causing everyone to look at us. I blushed. “You are lovers now?”
Tyhi took my fingers and weaved them together with his. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Blissia accused. Aphrodite surveyed the conversation with a lazy glance.
“How could she possibly tell you that?” Viquen asked.
Everyone’s eyes turned to Viquen. “What?” he asked.
“Hi, Viquen,” I said out loud, raising my hands in a small wave and wearing a sheepish smile. His plate clattered to the floor.
“You—”
“Yes, brother. The mute girl is not a mute girl. She speaks,” Blissia summarized.
“You knew?” he asked her, accusingly.
She grinned. He looked like he wanted to slap her smile from her face.
I leaned back into Tyhi and smiled at them, taking my time to memorize every detail in this scene so that I wouldn’t forget them even if I travelled realms.
Aphrodite propped herself straight. “Alright. Mae has brought you all in because she trusts you to help her with a mission, as she calls it, and since I trust her, I’m going along with this. I hope you know what the consequences of treason are. Mae here, believes my husband is planning to shame me amidst my family because he believes I’ve been having an adulterous relationship with Ares,” she said, pausing to glance at our faces. Vequin and Blissia’s mouth hung open.
“Which I am,” she added and their mouths sealed shut and their eyes shot towards the ground. I smiled at their loyalty.
“Since Mae is from the future, from the mortal realm, she knows how the situation will unfold and believes she can stop it. You will be aiding her and seeing that she does her job properly. If she does it well, she will be sent home to the mortal world and be given the gift she asked for. If she fails, she pays with her life. And our sweet Tyhi’s.” Aphrodite said and I winced. Tyhi rubbed circles on my hand telling me it was alright. It wasn't.
“Viquen, your eyes are going to roll out on the floor if you keep that up,” Aphrodite snipped and Blissia nudged her brother to quit the shocked expression.
“I’ll explain later,” she whispered to him.
Aphrodite glanced at me.
I cleared my throat. “If we are going to change the future, we are going to need the story. There have been various retellings of the story since it’s a very popular one but most of them coincide with each other. I am not really sure about the places and the people who come in, so please let me know if you identify them with the descriptions I tell you. We have to make sure that they do their role just to our liking.”
YOU ARE READING
For the Love of God
Fantasy[ time travel x greek mythology retelling with a twist ] Celena has always been a lover of books. As any sane bibliophile does, she wishes to escape into fictional worlds and forget about her monotonous life that's become slightly painful as of rece...
