Ares is the Son of Zeus and Hera, Aphrodite predates all of them, old myth tells us that when Cronos cut of Uranus’ genitals and tossed them into the ocean, the sea swelled with foam and gave birth to Aphrodite, Zeus’ half-Sister. BTW, Uranus was his Father, and the Titans and Olympians have a long standing history of Son betraying Father. Very dysfunctional families in that pantheon. In more modern mythology, she is known as a Daughter of Zeus or an adopted Daughter. Either way you slice it, she was related to Ares by Ichor.
All she did was make love, all day, all night, with much wild abandon. So beautiful was she that Ares and Apollo both vied for her hand in marriage causing a rift between the already estranged Brothers that lasted the rest of Time. However, Zeus thought it best if the Goddess of Love and Beauty was humbled a bit. Aphrodite left a wide path of destruction and broken hearts in her lustful wake. Zeus also believed that Love should not be confined only to the Beautiful, Love should be deeper than that. As such, he gave her to his other Son, Hephaestus the blacksmith of the Gods.
By Olympian standards, Hephaestus was ugly. His body and face hideously deformed, he was slow and walked with a pronounced limp. He is a tragic figure who was belittled by the handsome and beautiful inhabitants of Olympus. Ugly from birth, Hephaestus was scarred from the forge, always smelled of smoke, his hands were always rough with burrs. He thought he would never find a woman to love him. He was delighted when he was given Aphrodite, the beautiful and fair maiden, as his Wife.
It wasn’t that Aphrodite didn’t or couldn’t love Hephaestus, indeed, she loved everyone she came in contact with, it was her nature, she couldn’t help herself, but rather that she just couldn’t be tied to down to one person. She didn’t mean to be cruel and break so many hearts leaving rivers of tears in her wake. She simply wasn’t meant to be possessed by one man alone.
It wasn’t long before she was sneaking around with other men while Hephaestus worked his forge making weapons for the Gods late into the night. Chief among her lovers was Hephaestus’ Brother, Ares God of War. It’s no wonder they were so fatefully attracted to each other; he being the embodiment of everything male from his statuesque physique to his badass attitude and she being the essence of everything female from her outward beauty to her carnal desires. They were destined to fall in love. Who else could contend with and quench their fiery passions but each other? Who else could understand their wild ways and not be heartbroken at their inability to be faithful a lover? Who else lived their lives with as much passion and zeal as they?
There is a fine line between Love and Hate after all.
They took to the deep stillness of Ares’ forests for long nights of lovemaking, but one night they became careless when Aphrodite took Ares to her own bed. The one she shared with Hephaestus.
In the deep cover of the forest no one could see them, but as Helios, the Sun, rose the next morning and peered into Aphrodite’s bedroom window, he saw the two lovers and told Hephaestus who was so enraged he set a trap for Wife and his Brother. Knowing he wasn’t strong enough to best his Brother in battle, Hephaestus came up with a clever plan. He worked in his forge day and night until the trap was ready. The next time Aphrodite took Ares to their marriage bed, Hephaestus lay in wait to trap them in an unbreakable net. The heartbroken God of the Forge set his trap around the bed he shared with his Wife, whom he believed loved him, and ensnared Ares and Aphrodite in the act of making love. Hephaestus dragged them naked before off all the Gods who laughed at the adulterous couple, especially Ares, who always considered himself so cunning yet he’d been trapped by his disabled Brother who demanded payment and retribution for the offense. Yet, no amount of payment could ease his broken heart.
Once freed of their chains and shamed before all of the Gods Ares and Aphrodite went their separate ways for a while. Yet, as Love would have it, they found their way back to each other and carried on an affair that lasted long after Hephaestus’ death and that saw fruition in five children the most famous among them (according to more modern mythology) is Eros.
They stayed together, not as Husband and Wife, but as Friends and Lovers, two sides of the same coin, for the rest of Time.
Ares and Aphrodite are old ex-lovers who can’t see eye-to-eye on much of anything anymore. She is still in love with him but he’s now married to Alena and has a new family. They often take harsh jabs at each other throughout the course of the story. It is very fun to have two bitter bickering ex-lovers who just happen to be Gods.
