Chapter 64:: The Return: The Bedroom Scene

Harmonia leaps aside on her bed. 'Who are you?'

The woman smiles, somewhere between a supressed grin and an empathetic sigh. 'I thought you would have guessed that by now. I happen to be Aphrodite. Also, your mother.'

'My mother is supposed to be dead!'

Aphrodite sighs as she swishes across the semi-darkness of the room. Her feet do not touch the earth, Harmonia notices, and with some alarm remembers the crooked-looking middle-aged man she had been introduced to the other day.

'I am surprised that the so-called League of Heroes did not tell you that Gods and demi-gods never die,' the woman who called herself Aphrodite turns to look at her. 'We just disappear or fade into oblivion... and wait until we are strong enough to return. It's a recurring cycle, my dear.'

Harmonia says nothing, as she had done before in so many other occasions. It seems to be the best course of action. Listen, and then ponder. Only in your private thoughts.

'However,' Aphrodite continues, 'the last time, when Zeus had decided that the pantheon had become weak enough and we should move on, we had left behind certain remnants. Several symbols, a few people... to recall us, to strengthen us when we needed to return. You, my child, were one of them.' Was that affection in her voice? Can she trust it?

'But alas, your life with the mortals has deluded you!' the edge in Aphrodite's voice pulls Harmonia back from her thoughts. 'It seems to be the work of Zephyrus, a minor God who was banished to earth when the pantheon left, and who all of us had forgotten about since. He had been around you, keeping an eye on you, though you do not know him. Harmonia, we need to leave. Come!'

Her confusion shows on her face, and Harmonia knows that. Who are all these people, and who is on whose side? And more importantly, where is she? 'I have heard the name of Zephyrus,' she says, uncertainly. 'I thought I was supposed to help the Heroes defeat Zephyrus and the forces he is creating against the pantheon. How can I just leave with you? Where will you take me?'

Aphrodite looks her in the eyes, and the stare in those ancient, icy eyes sends a chill down her spine. Then Aphrodite laughs. 'Harmonia, you still don't understand, do you? Have you read your Classics? Obviously not,' she sneers. 'The coming of the Gods also signify the end of this mortal world. The humans no longer have faith in us, and like the earlier two times, we will destroy this world and create a new one in its place.
'Zephyrus, being once of our pantheon, is aware of this. We do not know what his motive is in trying to resist our invasion - perhaps he has fallen in love with the humans he has so long lived among. But one thing is for sure, he will resist us with all his might.'

Harmonia listens, trying to put the pieces together in her mind.

'However,' Aphrodite continues, 'many of us have already entered this world, and today at the Council of the Great Gods, Zephyrus' and this world's fate will be decided. It's a pity that another handsome, clueless Hero like Al'skandar has to be sacrificied in all this turmoil, like all the the other times. I was rather wishing there would have been a romance,' she smiles, almost ruefully, 'but alas, your mother has to be disappointed!'

Harmonia listens, and doesn't know whether to feel appalled or grateful. Al'skandar might be a snotty little brute, and indeed, a month ago she hadn't even known about his existence, but had she signed up for something that included him being killed? She did not know, could not decide. Not yet, not so fast. This was all too fast.

'Harmonia, don't stare at me, child!' the goddess in front of her is indignant. 'You are a child of gods, a goddess in your own right... not a cog in the wheel of the plans of some ignorant mortals! Now hurry up! We have great plans awaiting you!'

And before Aphrodite can finish her words, a flare of light and smoke goes up on the other side of the bedroom. When it's cleared, there is another woman standing... as ethereal, as shimmering as the other one... and as eerily familiar, thinks Harmonia, feeling more and more at sea. At another place, in another time, she might have vaguely recalled this woman as the governess she had in her childhood. A long, long time ago.

'So we meet again, Eris,' Aphrodite's beautiful face had suddenly acquired a steely expression of disgust. 'Leaving Harmonia under you was not a good decision, after all. You conveniently disappeared, leaving her in the hands of the mortals. How much more discord do you intend to cause?'