seattle, wa - 2013

[callipygos]

There's a chill seeping into the air, and a fog drifting down from the mountains, and everywhere in this city, people look out at the damp streets and roll their eyes over the sudden absence of summer.

On this particular night, at a lone stool in a darkened bar, there sits a woman with hair as golden as a sunrise.

Her drink is mostly water by this time. People turn to look at her, men and women both, but even the men seem to know not to speak to her. There is a stage taking up one end of the space, on which a girl in blood-soaked white is doing a slow striptease.

The burlesque is pretty good tonight. With Stephen King as source material, Aphrodite wasn't quite sure what to expect, but she thinks the girl dancing Carrie is doing a lovely job. It's hard to be sexy when covered in pig's blood.


... At least, unless your significant other is into that.

Meanwhile, the ice in her glass continues to melt.

Comments

[callipygos]

She shrugs.

"Oh, you know, they'll have incredible gifts, or looks, or some really tragic history, or some amazing romance, and-- in the end they're still mortal, aren't they?"

[2020sight]

"Generally, yep."

And this is why he already has two bottles of beer to hand.

[callipygos]

"They don't know who we are," she continues, "they think we're something out of a storybook, like they do here. Or they do know who we are, and somehow ... that's worse."

[2020sight]

"Is it."

[callipygos]

Aphrodite takes another, slightly longer drink.

"Because they don't really know who we are.

They know who we were."

[2020sight]

". . . Ah."

Well.

He blows out a breath and leans forward, elbows on the table.

"Hm. And, uh, how does that make you feel?"

[callipygos]

She glances directly at him for the first time in a little while-- certainly the first time since they got here.

"Not wonderful, that's for sure."

Her smile is a small, bitter quirk of lovely lips.

"You remember the way we used to be, Epimetheus. What we used to be."

[2020sight]

". . . Aphrodite, you don't want to talk to me about the way we used to be."

You could call that tone "wry."

[callipygos]

"The big picture, then." She drinks. "Skip on some of the specifics."

[2020sight]

He blows out a long breath.

"The way we used to be? When we ran roughshod over the mortals and the monsters and each other? Yeah, I remember that." He gives her a sidelong look. "Probably very differently than you do."

[callipygos]

"As if we don't anymore," she says wryly.

"Walk all over each other, that is."

[2020sight]

"Helps when we're not all in one place."

[callipygos]

She huffs a soft laugh.

"Does it? Or does it just make it easier to forget?"

[2020sight]

He shrugs.

"Maybe for some of us."

[callipygos]

Aphrodite runs a finger along one side of the bottle, up to the neck.




"What I'm trying to say," she says slowly.

"Is that whatever you think of the good old days ... they're not now. And when they're the only point of reference anybody in Milliways has--"

She shakes her head.


"I feel like a shadow of myself. But I didn't notice that's what I was until I had people going 'Lady Aphrodite' this and 'Lady Aphrodite' that, genuflecting all over the place-- praying. Really praying."

[2020sight]

His eyebrows shoot up again.

"You've got supplicants at Milliways?"

[callipygos]

Aphrodite smiles faintly.

"There's a world out there," she says. "A pretty awful place, by all accounts, but they have stories about us. With the same names, and domains, all of it, except that in their stories, we used to live on a planet called Kobol instead of on Olympus. I started running into a few mortals from that world in the bar."

[2020sight]

"Thaaaat's trippy."

[callipygos]

She takes a drink.

"Mmhmm. And what's worse is that a lot of people there really seem to believe."

[2020sight]

Epimetheus frowns.

"Okay, so . . . do you want things to go back to the way they were, or not?"

[callipygos]

That's a very good question, Captain Hindsight.








"Well," she says, "the fact is that I can't. I just have to ... be what I am now."

[2020sight]

"And what you are now," he says slowly, "you think -- is shadowy."

[callipygos]

She frowns, and doesn't answer right away.

For a moment, she watches the street outside.


"Well."

Quieter this time.

"Why not? All those fancypants poets used to call it a twilight of the gods, didn't they? It doesn't sound so different."

Now, thank everything, Twilight is best known as an epic love story.

[2020sight]

Epimetheus is silent for a minute, tapping his fingers on his bottle, gazing down at the table.

"That's hard, cousin," is what he finally says, quietly. "No denying it."

He looks up at her. "So what are you gonna do about it?"

[callipygos]

She'd like to not haunt the woods (or wait beneath the waves) looking for unwilling victims.

That day is probably pretty far off, anyway.



"I don't know," she says.

"I hadn't even known I was going to think about it, really."