Aphrodite's Choice

Chapter 52 – Those Fiery Eyes

He must have been quite injured, for he reeked of the rustic smell of blood. The girl did not like the smell of blood. If this had been like any other time, she would have held her nose in disgust and turned her back on him. But at that moment, she didn’t feel like doing so.

A strong feeling of attraction tied her to him. It wasn’t due to his appearance, which was so dirty that she could barely even see him properly. Far more essential than that, it was some sense that words could not explain, and it filled her entirely.

The boy frowned. There was a large diagonal wound above his eyebrows, and now that his brows were furrowed, she could see it better. She saw the blood that had coagulated around it, and thought that it must have hurt very much.

‘What if I touch him the wrong way and accidentally hurt him?’

Unable to put her hands on him due to that uncertainty, she simply peered at him without touching. But suddenly her eyes widened.

“Ah! Oh no!”

The boy, who was moving his body in pain, was about to fall off the rock. Startled, she forgot her uncertainty and caught him. Her arms alone couldn’t hold him, so she jumped onto him and covered the top of his body with hers, just barely preventing his fall.

Sighing in relief, she turned her head to find a pair of peculiar set of eyes looking at her.

It was her first time seeing someone’s eyes from so close. That alone was amazing in itself, but on top of that, those eyes… red flames swayed underneath the calm gray color. The boy’s mysterious eyes contained the birth and death of planets, a long history. The girl, born of the dead remnants of an old god, was fascinated and entranced by the force of these mysterious eyes.

The fact that the girl saw the boy’s eyes meant that the opposite was also true. The boy also stared at the girl. It was unclear what he was thinking. The two were silent for a while, reflecting the images of one another in their eyes, different as fire and water.

Before long, it was the boy who spoke first.

“Are you a Nereid?”

If Nereus’ daughters, the fairies of the Aegean Sea, had heard this, they would have been shocked. Ever since the girl had entered the Aegean Sea, the Nereids had been desperately avoiding meeting this incredibly powerful uninvited guest. So much so that they had changed the currents of the Aegean Sea.

The girl, of course, did not even know what a Nereid was, let alone that whole situation.

“What is a Nereid?”

“It seems not. I guessed as much. A siren, then?”

“What’s a siren?”

“No, a siren wouldn’t come all the way out here.”

“You’re talking nonsense. Like a dummy.”

She didn’t say that because she actually thought him to be a fool. In fact, it was the opposite. She felt stupid herself, for not knowing any of the names of things he was saying. Not only that, but she was upset that she couldn’t deny what he was asking by saying who she really was – she didn’t have a name to give him.

She had said it as a defense mechanism, so to speak.

“You’re not any of those things?”

She silently shook her head. However, she also didn’t like it when the boy didn’t say anything.

She did not realize that her attitude was not very nice. It was partly because her natural personality was already very fickle, but it was mostly due to the fact that she hadn’t had a conversation with someone equal to her.

“Then are you—”

“Enough. I want to ask something too.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been asking all the questions. I also have a lot that I want to know.”

Without acknowledging the fact that she hadn’t given a clear answer to the boy’s question yet, she grumbled as if he had been entirely in the wrong.

But she didn’t act that way with any malicious intent. Fortunately, the boy had the ability to tell the difference between good and bad intentions. Such skills were acquired through much experience, and the experiences in question could not have been very pleasant, so perhaps it was difficult to call it ‘fortunate’, but all the same he let the girl do as she pleased.

“Okay then, go for it.”

The girl smiled wide.

“First of all, who are you?”

* * *

Hera’s son, the black sheep of Olympus. Hephaestus’ official title was the former, but in practice, his name was the latter. Being the ‘son of Hera’ meant that he was not a child conceived by the seed of Zeus, but a child of Hera alone.

The children that were produced by goddesses on their own were usually particularly honored. This was because of the precedent that Uranus, who was born by Gaia alone, the mother of the earth, became the master of the world.

However, Hephaestus grew up without receiving this sort of valued treatment, treated like a black sheep among the flock. The reason was simple.

“Lady Hera asks you to go back.”

“Why?”

“She didn’t say the specific reason, but you know she is very busy.”

“But I heard that today was her resting day.”

Hera, the mother god who had given birth to Hephaestus, avoided him more than anyone else. That was the reason.

Naturally, this caused the lower gods that served Hera to also look down on Hephaestus. Even if they spoke with soft words and smiles, their condescension could not be completely hidden.

“Well, you must have heard wrong.”

It was Athena who had told Hephaestus that today was Hera’s Sabbath day. There was no way she could be wrong. Hera’s subordinate god had simply been making up whatever reason she could think of to make him go away.

“Well, goodbye then, Sir Hephaestus.”