A New Life's End (for Aphrodite)

[lightningthief]

This isn’t funny. My dad Hermes and I had so many great tricks planned for the trick-or-treaters that’d be coming for Halloween, but this is not one of them! Why can’t I find the way back to our house? I fell asleep at home, but woke up in this stupid field on this dumb island, and I’ve been walking around for hours.

I call out for about the hundredth time, “Mom? Dad?”

Mom had been getting ready too. She was going to balance out our tricks with her treats. She can bake cookies now without burning them or the house.

Can’t she?

I fall to my knees. This can’t all have been fake? Can it?

Oh gods! I look around. I can’t see any mist at all. No mist.

“No!” I can hear the desperation in my own voice. I need this to not be happening. My mom and my dad are my entire world now! I can’t live without them! I can’t!

No more hikes in the woods with mom. No more sword practice with dad. No more dinners together. I’ll never see them ever again!

“NO!”

It was a lie. I am the son of the god of trickery, and I fell for a massive LIE?!

My parent’s love… is a…. lie. The island knows about me, and I’ve been… been victimized. Oh gods no, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods!

The grief is too much. I fall over onto the ground. Tears begin to fall. I was lied to, and I believed it. Me, a gullible, ignorant fool. I’ve been pouring out my heart to fake images that couldn’t give a crap about me. Of COURSE they don’t love me. Of COURSE. Kronos would laugh so hard. He told me this was my greatest weakness, this pathetic and senseless desire of mine to be loved. I am unlovable. I ought to have known I am unlovable. My heart is a joke to be laughed at and kicked around for fun. This is too much! I can NOT deal with this! I’ll go mad. My gods, I’m going to go mad, just like my mother! Is there a point coming where something just breaks in your head? Will you actually hear some kind of ‘pop’ in your head when it happens?

Comments

[just_hormones]

She's known from the beginning that one day she would come to see Cupid, Ares, and Hercules and wouldn't be able to. Aphrodite's known all along that one day, the island would take this away, but that doesn't stop the knife from piercing her heart when she comes to the place where the mist is supposed to be and doesn't find it.

She can't stop the tears, and she lets them come as she thinks about her son and her brothers, how much she's missed them and how badly she will continue to miss them still. This time she's had with them has been precious, even if it's been totally fake, and she's going to hang onto that, because it's all she has of them now. It's all she may ever have of them again.

Aphrodite swipes at her eyes, about to turn around and head back when she hears a familiar voice yell out. "Oh no," she says softly, rushing to follow that voice. Of course he's out here, trying to find the mist, trying to get back to his parents. She has no doubt he'll be crushed now that it's all over.

When she finally spots him, down on his knees, the pain of her own loss is easily pushed aside. "Luke," she cries, kneeling in front of him. Her tears return as she caresses his face, unsure of what she can even do for him besides stay by his side.