The Little Horse That Burned in Tartarus [for Aphrodite]

[lightningthief]

How many times do I have to tell myself to not think about it?

I know I'm not supposed to think about how Ian's love has been spurned. I know I'm not supposed to think about how quickly and easily Wanderer decided to start messing around with some guy that suddenly popped up out of nowhere. I know I'm not supposed to obsess over how Ian's life could be spent loveless like mine had been.

I mean, my life hasn't been loveless. I've had Aphrodite. For a bit. At the end. I finish my thoughts aloud, "...even though her real love is Hephasteus...."

It's not... my thought's have been circling and circling around crap like this, and it's been making me moody. I know Aprhrodite's noticed. She's way too perceptive on my mood. I've put up a good nothing-is-wrong act, but she's not fooled. If I can just stall her some more, maybe I'll just get over it and we can all move on.

Wanderer certainly has moved on. That's for sure.

I pick up Secretarius, and ask him, "Did Wanderer really love him? Did she love him at all? Does anyone really, really love anyone for real?" I'm alone, sitting on our bed. Secretarius is Aphrodite's stuffed animal, a horse. "Sometimes, Horsie, I really think love is all a crock of shit. You know...horse shit? You know all about that, don't you, Horsie?"

I tip it back as if it was rearing up and have it answer back to me with a "Neiiiigh!"

"See how desperate I am, Horse? I'm talking my troubles out to a dumb stuffed animal like you. It's a start, though, right? You have to help your ol' pal Luke not think about her. Even though she's from a race better than mankind will ever be, she still drops me.. er, him... drops him like a lead weight for some dope she's met for about ten seconds. What do you think about that kind of horse shit, Mr. Horse?"

I make the little thing gallop up my leg and say in a stupid voice, "You suck at love, and every single one of your lives is gonna be cursed, dude! Screw you! Neiiiigh!"

I reply to the little horse in an overly calm voice, "You're right, Horsey. Guess I'll just have to suck it up. Like I always do. I'm not bitter. Luke, son of Hermes, is never, ever bitter."

I have the horse answer back. "You're a fucking liar! Neiiiigh!!!"

"Yes, that's right, Horse. I am a liar. I am a bitter liar. And, you know what bitter liars do when they can't make things go their way? They order miserable little cretins like you to get eaten by their drakon."

"Screw you. You don't have a drakon anymore! Neiiigh!"

"That's right. So, I open this portal to Tartarus, where I cast you in to burn for all eternity in flame. Happy trails, Horsie!"

And, with that, I fling the horse away. It bounces off the ceiling and wall in the corner.

Comments

[just_hormones]

Aphrodite wants to swim today, just swim, so she heads to the large waterfall pool for a change, her pink bikini on and her towel over one arm. The only problem, though, is that once she gets there she realizes she's totally forgotten her sunscreen. The waterfall is shaded by trees, but not completely, and there's no way Aphrodite's taking any chances with her now mortal skin. So she heaves a sigh, and heads back to the hut, figuring at least this way she can maybe drag Luke along with her if he happens to be home. Heading inside, she's about to go back to the bedroom when the sound of Luke's voice makes her stop and her eyes widen.

...even though her real love is Hephaestus...

For a moment, she can't even breathe, or react at all. Then before she can pull herself together enough to go in and confront him, he keeps talking, and Aphrodite keeps listening, outside the bedroom and unseen, a lump building in her throat. It sounds like he's talking to Secretarius, and she can picture him, sitting on the bed they share and saying things that confuse her, things that pierce her to the core.

She hears the sound of something hitting the wall and dropping onto the floor, and figures he must have thrown poor innocent Secretarius. The real Secretarius, Aphrodite thinks, would sure come in handy right now, for her to go on a bareback ride and clear her head.

Slowly, she walks into their bedroom. There's so much they need to talk about, from everything he's said, but she keeps going back to that first thing. "So my love for you isn't real? Is that what you seriously think?" she says, her eyes bright and her voice trembling slightly.

[lightningthief]

STYX!!!

I nearly fall off the bed. This is bad! So very, very bad! She was supposed to be gone swimming!! I've been caught speaking my feelings out loud, and I'm completely screwed now!

"No!" My first impulse is to lie. But what lie can possibly cover this up? None. I'm so busted! "I mean... I thought you went swimming!"

That's completely NOT an answer, and I know it. But, I'm shocked and scambling to try to not panic. Part of me is suddenly seized with fear that she's going to lay into me majorly. Once-and-for-all. That she won't love me anymore. I don't think I could ever recover from something like that, and it's hard to tamp down on that deep fear.

[just_hormones]

For a moment she just stares at him, trying not to completely burst into tears, her breath hitching, but unsurprised that his first reaction would be evasiveness. "I forgot my sunscreen," she says, as if it even matters. "I knew something was bothering you, I knew it, and I hardly even know where to begin with all of that."

She crosses her arms beneath her breasts, still standing just a few steps inside the doorway. "Obviously you didn't want to talk to me before, but you're going to have to now. So explain. Why would you think my love for you isn't real just because I was with Hephaestus before? Why do you care about who Wanderer does or doesn't love? And how in Tartarus can you still believe, after everything we've been through and all our time together, that love is just a - a- crock of shit, as you put it?"

[lightningthief]

"Aphrodite..." Gods, I don't even know how I'm getting out of this one. "...I was just... complaining. You don't really think I feel that way for real about love, right? I'm going to die for love, for those I care about. Wanderer..."

I sigh.

"...I'll tell you the whole story, okay? I'll tell you."

I'm looking down at the floor. I'm trying to keep my voice even, but I'm shaky too. I don't want to drive her away like I do to everybody.

[just_hormones]

"I didn't think you did," Aphrodite replies. She hates to see him upset, and her first instinct is to comfort him, so much so that she takes a half step towards him before stopping herself. But she's hurt, deeply so, and confused, and she needs answers.

"We'll get back to that, though." If that's what he thinks, that her love for her late husband somehow means her love for him is less...real, or less important, she needs to set him straight. But first, apparently there's a story. "Tell me. I'm listening."

[lightningthief]

"You know Wanderer isn't human, right? She's part of an alien race, Souls, that use bodies as hosts. In her world, universe, whatever, their race has more or less taken over Earth from humans. Most humans on her Earth are hosts for the Souls. But, really, now that I know Wanderer better, I think that part is fine. Humanity is awful. Their version of Earth is better. Anyway..." That part doesn't matter so much. It's not my point. "Wanderer found herself living with a small pocket of humans that had escaped the Souls. One of them was some guy name Ian. Wanderer said she loved Ian."

I don't know if I believe that anymore. Maybe Souls experience love differently? I don't know.

"So...when Wanderer first met me, she thought I was Ian. Apparently, I look exactly like him. You should've seen the look on her face..."

It was as if she loved me.

[just_hormones]

As Luke explains, Aphrodite moves to sit on the bed, on the same side as him but at the other end. "Oh, poor Wanderer," she says with a little pout of sympathy, though she doesn't quite understand what he's getting at, or why him having a clone would bother him so much aside from feeling bad for looking like someone Wanderer loved. "That must have been hard for her."

[lightningthief]

"I dunno," I say vaguely. I'm not so convinced it was as big of a deal I thought it had been.

"It was a bit hard for me...." How do I say the next part? "...you know, the day I arrived here, a guy named Sam told me I looked exactly like his half-brother Adam. Then there's Ian. Two lives..."

It takes proving oneself over three lives to make it into the Isles of the Blest.

[just_hormones]

It takes her a second to connect the dots, her eyes narrowed as she thinks about what he's getting at. "So wait..." she says with a slight tilt of her head. "You think Ian and Adam are your other two lives? For the Isles of the Blest?"

[lightningthief]

"Who knows?" I ask rhetorically with a shrug of my shoulders. I've got a goddess of Olympus right here, but still, I don't think even she knows the very details of how it works.

"I don't know. I don't even know if it matters..."

I wave a hand dismissively and slump, casting a disgruntled look at the floor.

[just_hormones]

"Well clearly it does matter, to you," Aphrodite points out gently. "Otherwise you wouldn't be upset about whatever it is that's going on. Is it just that? That there are clones of you out there and they might be your other lives? Or is there more to it? What else aren't you telling me?"

[lightningthief]

I scowl. Not because of Aphrodite's question, she's going easy on me and I appreciate that, but because of my feelings towards this whole thing with Wanderer.

"I thought she really loved him. Ian. I really did. Now...?" I glance up skyward as I shake my head. "I don't think she ever really cared about Ian. Not really. When I told her about my whole Isles of the Blest thing, she suddenly didn't even want to hear the name 'Ian' anymore. I asked her to not give up on him, keep him in her heart, but she thought I was some kind of jerk for asking. Instead, she's all into some new guy that just showed up. I was riding on the beach and found them kissing. She couldn't even imagine why I'd be surprised, concerned...."

[just_hormones]

Aphrodite sighs, her eyes falling shut for just a moment. "Luke, you're not a mind reader. You have no idea what she's thinking or feeling," she scolds gently. "And it's unfair of you to judge her based on your assumptions. So yeah, maybe there's an extremely slim possibility at most that this Ian guy is one of your other lives. That doesn't give you the right to tell her how to live. And unless-"

She pauses, hit with a sudden and unexpected jolt of fear, and swallows. The possibility that she could actually be in danger of ever losing him to someone else has always been too absurd to her to ever even consider, but suddenly she finds herself having a glimpse of what that might be like. "Unless you have feelings for her here and now, then it's none of your business who she chooses to be with."

[lightningthief]

Aphrodite's probably right, but it doesn't make me feel any better. It doesn't take the scowl off my face. The image of her kissing that stranger is in my head, and I don't pick up on any signs she's implying anything about me having feelings for Wanderer.

"You know? Life's unfair. I don't plan on giving her and her new loverboy any problems, but I'll keep my conclusions even if they're bad. I just don't like it. I don't think I'll ever like seeing Wanderer with anyone."

[just_hormones]

His response does nothing to alleviate Aphrodite's sudden fear, a fear that she of all people should never have. Yet here it is, because her boyfriend is sitting there telling her that he's bothered by another woman's relationship, and not in a protective friend sort of way.

"I see," she says, clearly stung. "So she would have to be alone and miserable for you to be okay, is that it? Are you so hung up on the possibility of this Ian guy that what you have here and now isn't enough for you anymore?"

[lightningthief]

I didn't expect that at all. Confused, I look up at her.

"This isn't about me wanting Wanderer for myself, Aphrodite. In fact, I'd be okay if I knew she still had feelings for Ian. This is more about how I'm starting to think my other lives are going to be just as bad as this one. I won't have anybody. For most of it, anyway."

I stand up. This talk is going to go all wrong.

[just_hormones]

"I understand why you would want some reassurance about your other lives," Aphrodite says. She takes a slow breath, trying to take a step back from her own hurt over what Luke has said and focus on his issue. "But whatever they might look like, there's nothing you can do about that, not until you're living them. You know that. We've talked before about living in the present and appreciating what we have now. Maybe you should stop dwelling on some hypothetical future life and love that may not even have anything to do with you and focus instead on the the very real and unconditional love you have right here and now, in this life."

[lightningthief]

When she says there's nothing I can do about future love in some other life, I can't help thinking she's wrong. If anything, I've probably hurt Ian's chances, and that irritates me.

At the point where she tells me about real and unconditional love, I pause and look at her. I hope the look I gave her didn't look too wary of the claim.

"...I.. could."

Like most, I don't want to admit right away that I'm wrong.

[just_hormones]

"You don't sound very convinced." Aphrodite knows all too well Luke's issues with love, and his doubts, but she also believes he's come a very long way from the man she first met years ago. He wouldn't be here, living with her as her boyfriend and loving her, if he hadn't. "You know how much I love you. Nothing is ever going to change that."

[lightningthief]

"See?" I ask, raising a finger as if I've come to a very important point. "Now you're officially asking for it from the Island. After you've said that you'll wake up thinking you love," Hannibal, "Percy or someone." I thought it, but I did not say it. I did not.

"Then there'll be no peace at all once Coraline Jones gets into the picture."

[just_hormones]

Aphrodite gives Luke an incredulous look. "What? What does that have to do with anything?" she says. "We both know how the island is, and that's not the point. Don't try to drive the chariot off the path. We can't live our lives based on fear of what this place is going to do to us next."

[lightningthief]

"Alright, the point is that I'm bitching because I want things my way, and life isn't like that. Fair enough summary?"

If we can end there, I'd be glad.

[just_hormones]

For a moment Aphrodite doesn't know how to respond. It doesn't seem like he's going to be talked out of his upset over this, but at least she's cautiously optimistic that his feelings for her aren't what's being called into question.

So after a few moments, she just slides forward on the bed, closing the distance between them to take one of his hands in both of hers. "What can I do to help?" she asks sincerely, wanting only to be there for him as much as she can.

[lightningthief]

The way her hand reaches out to me gets me to sit back down on the bed and take it in mine. It hits me just how much I need her love.

"You're not too mad at me? You do want to help me?"

[just_hormones]

"Well of course I'm mad, but that doesn't mean I don't want to help," Aphrodite says, though she's less mad now than she was when she first walked in. "I love you, I always want to support you. I'm just trying to understand what you're going through."

[lightningthief]

"I just.. I don't want it to happen again. I don't want to live another life without love." At that last word I give her hand a small squeeze. I'm not even sure if that was conscious or not. "I'll leave Wanderer and whoever that guy is alone. I know Ian is probably not me, and I'll try to just put it out of my mind and not obsess over it."

[just_hormones]

Aphrodite squeezes Luke's hand back. "I know you don't. I don't want that for you either," she says. She realizes, then, that she really does want him to have love in his other lives, with whoever it may be, even if part of her wants to be able to claim him in all of them. "I can't do anything about your other lives."

She shifts, scooting into his lap. "But I can make sure you have more love than you can stand in this one."

[lightningthief]

I smile at that.

"Thanks. You know your love means everything to me, right?"

I wrap my arms around her. About now, I'm just ready to cave and let her hug a lot of festering bitterness out of me.

[just_hormones]

She nods, sliding her arms around his shoulders. "And that goes both ways," Aphrodite tells him. "Your love means everything to me too." It's really important to her to make that clear to him.