Love of the Gods - Part 3

Love of the Gods

By THECURSOR

Rating: R
Disclaimer: see Part 1

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Part 3

Athena was not a hunter by nature and there were a great deal of things she didn’t know about when it came to the wilderness beyond a city wall. But she was a solider, and it was the duty of a soldier to go wherever the fight took them. She had to stop Aphrodite and she would walk into Tartarus if it meant a righteous victory.

As she slid her feet into her sandals, she thought about the last time she had worn full armor. It was during the Trojan War, when Ares descended from Olympus to fight on the side of the Trojans against the Greeks. Athena remembered having a sinking feeling in her stomach that day, the same gnawing sensation her stomach was duplicating today as she opened her closet to unpack the tools of her trade. It wasn’t fear, all warriors felt fear and this was not the same feeling, this was expectation. This was the kind of uncertain sensation that only someone who had been in combat or put the safe keeping of their lives into the hands of others would ever understand.

The feeling reached its pinnacle as she unwrapped her armor from the blanket she’d stored it in. It was bronze; shining as much as it had the day she sprang from the hole in her father’s skull. The leather sleeves that attached the armor to her body still fit so well that it felt as though she was only wearing her bare skin.

Next came the Aegis and the Gorgon’s Head, two trophies from campaigns long past that had always served her well before.

The Aegis was a gift from her father. It was an indestructible goat skin cloak with living snakes weaved into the hem. It was so strong that no blade could penetrate it and no fire could burn it. The Gorgon’s Head was a rather morbid necklace given to her by a mortal friend named Perseus during the middle of the Bronze Age. It was actually the severed head of Medusa, youngest of the three Gorgon sisters, who like her older siblings could turn any living thing into stone with a single look of her eyes. The monster’s remains now hung around her neck, where Athena often used its hideous countenance to create a feeling of unease among her enemies, forcing them to rethink fighting her in close quarters fighting.

Reaching through her closet, Athena found her spear leaning against the back wall like a loyal dog waiting for its master. It was named the Pallo, after one of Athena’s friends who died tragically centuries ago.

She sighed almost mournfully as Athena realized that she once vowed never to wear this armor again. Still, it was for a good cause. The last thing anyone needed was for Aphrodite to actually succeed in her harebrained scheme. With another deep exhale, she closed her eyes and imagined walking through the woods on a far off planet.

Seconds later, Athena disappeared from the room.

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It was night on the planet and a soft breeze blew through the canopy. For some reason the temperature was just right, even though hours earlier it had been far too chilly for Trip’s comfort. Stars and a full moon shone down on the little campsite and to Commander Tucker the night seemed almost kind of romantic. Romantic that is if he had been here with anyone else, at any other time, under completely different circumstances. For one thing, his injuries were still incredibly painful as well as debilitating. The bandages over his burned fingers made it impossible to even think about trying to do any repair work on the shuttle. The long tear in his thigh was also starting to drive him crazy now that it had begun to itch and swell. It hurt too much to even move his leg let alone walk around on it.

“You need anything, Tripsy?”

Trip rolled his eyes. No matter how much pain he was in, Tucker was ready to run a marathon just to get away from T’Pol and her new attitude. He wasn’t exactly certain what had gone wrong inside the normally stone faced science officer but he wanted it to stop. “Please stop calling me that.”

“Stop calling you what?”

“TRIPSY!” He hadn’t meant to yell at her, but he didn’t think it would matter all that much. Trip yelled at her all the time and the most T’Pol usually did was glare at him.

But this time her goofy smile faded away and a look of painful hurt played across her features. Somehow, he was going to make this Vulcan cry. “Fine,” she whispered as she disappeared behind the wreckage of the shuttle, leaving Trip with the instant need to apologize. Her voice carried out to him through the steel alloys of the broken structure and he could actually hear the emotional anguish in her voice. “You don’t have to yell at me, y’know.”

“What?”

T’Pol emerged from the shuttle but didn’t look at him. She began tidying up the camp again and set more logs on the fire but did with the briskness of a woman wounded by a lover. She even used that detached tone in her voice women use when they’re trying to pretend they don’t care but really care more than they should. “You’re always yelling at me, like I’m not a person.” Field cutlery from the dinner she’d served clanged together as she roughly picked them up. “I may not be human but I have feelings.”

Trip’s guilt fled as his suspicions reached a fever pitch. Something was just very wrong about this whole thing. “All right, that’s enough!” Teeth gritted and his jaw muscles flexed as he talked. The only thing on his body not in need of medical treatment was his tongue and he definitely intended to use it. “Who are you and what have you done with T’Pol?”

T’Pol’s head snapped up from her work and Trip saw a flash of…something play across her face before it returned to some semblance of normal. “Excuse me?”

“The way you’re behaving, it isn’t you.” Trip waved around the camp, moving his arms in a wide arc, “You don’t cook, at least you don’t cook bacon and eggs, and you certainly don’t cook for me of all people!”

His voice was loud and firm but it didn’t matter because he’d already lost control of the conversation. Suddenly their exchange began to take the form of an elegant board game played on a finely carved ivory checkerboard, with T’Pol as a grandmaster and Trip as an amateur Chess Club president. He never stood a chance. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” T’Pol inquired.

“You don’t do those things!”

“Oh? And how would you know what I do?”

Check. That threw him.

“I just know,” He replied, moving his king to the back of the board, “This isn’t typical vulcan behavior.”

“So you’re an expert on Vulcans. How many Vulcans have you met exactly?”

Check again. Beads of sweat began to form on the back of Trip’s neck. “I know, okay? I know enough about YOU in particular to know that this isn’t typical behavior.”

She chuckled a little, a beautiful but distracting sound that left Trip even more worried than ever before. A cruel smirk set itself on her face and when T’Pol spoke again there was an angry hint of sarcasm in her voice. “Oh? And what do you think you know about me?”

“You don’t smile for one thing!”

“How do you know that?”

Check.
“I…I just-“

“You never took the time to know that, or anything else about me, did you?”

“YOU NEVER GAVE ME A CHANCE!” His anger surprised him as a familiar pain in his stomach began slowly worsening each time he opened his mouth. “YOU DIDN’T WANT TO BE FRIENDS! I TRIED OFFERING YOU FRIENDSHIP THE FIRST MINUTE I MET YOU AND I GUESS ALL YOU WANTED TO DO WAS SPY ON US!” And there it was; the ugly truth of why he hated her. This was how he really felt about T’Pol and why he gave her such a hard time. He didn’t trust her.

“Funny Commander, I thought I was saving your life and helping your crew navigate uncharted territories. I guess your race has a different concept of spying than mine.” Checkmate and Trip felt like crap. His head fell back limply as all the fight left him. T’Pol passed him on the way back into the shuttle, her spine straight as a rail. “I’m sorry for trying to be friendly, Mr. Tucker,” She spat at him with the venom of a human woman scorned, “Next time I’ll just leave you with your preconceptions.”

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Through the forest, Athena glimpsed the limp form of her quarry lying under the protective shadow of an oak-like tree. She knew as soon as she saw the body the extent of Aphrodite’s spell. The love goddess had used it many times before on women she viewed as a threat and this poor mortal was no different.

The Vulcan mortal Apollo had called T’Pol lay where she’d fallen, her arms and legs splayed out in all directions. Her face held a kind of serene joy and Athena didn’t doubt the girl was having a wonderful dream about something beautiful. That was Aphrodite’s M.O.; give a mortal a hard whammy before stealing her boyfriend and sending something awful to tear the girl to bits. Still there was a certain kind of poetry to the way her fellow Olympian did things. Because of how well she knew her foe, Athena was well aware how much danger the mortal was but she waited anyway for the monster to appear.

Jealous psycho deities like Aphrodite always used some kind of mythical beast to do their dirty works. In fact it was something of a status symbol for the really important gods to send the most horrible, vile creatures they could find or create. Back in the old days you could tell a lot about god just by what kind of monster he sent to do his bidding. Stingy and selfish? That’s a job for a bunch of angry centaurs. Powerful and commanding? They’ll probably plop a couple of fire breathing chimeras or griffins in the hills outside your village. But if you really wanted somebody dead you sent a minotaur. A big one, a male, just like the one stepping out of the bushes thirty feet from T’Pol’s lifeless form.

Athena’s eyes narrowed as its thick hooves strode effortlessly through the underbrush on a direct course for his prey. It moved slowly at first, carefully navigating over rocks and past logs. Each step was a deliberate movement in a previously decided direction. There were no detours, no distractions. This creature was focused completely on one goal.

When she saw its legs start to twitch as if it were going to charge forward, Athena decided enough was enough. She removed the leather satchel carrying her spear from its place on her shoulder and pointed it in the direction of the hulking beast twenty yards out. As soon the Minotaur passed a small sapling in the middle of the clearing, Athena drew back her arm and threw the Pallo into the air with all the force her muscles could gather.

Pallo means “vibrate” in Greek and that’s just what her spear did, vibrate. The tip of the spear had a low level kinetic vibration that allowed it to cut through any substance as though it were a super powered buzz saw. Each second that it remained impaled in an object, the spearhead continued to vibrate on every harmonic frequency in its spectrum before finally striking the correct cord and utterly devastating whatever or whoever dared stand in her way. In this case it was especially effective on the tree next to the monstrous beast. The thick pieces of bark flew in all directions as the spear imbedded itself deep inside its main trunk.

The Minotaur growled once and clawed at the air with one of its gruesome hands. Athena knew it wouldn’t attack her, she’d demonstrated how much stronger she was and therefore how stupid an idea it would be to start a fight with a goddess. Still, the laws of animal politics demanded the Minotaur make some show of resistance, so the beast began growling and snarling at Athena. Then it began to back down, slowly at first, before it simply turned tail and ran deep into the bushes.

And then she was alone with her sleeping charge, watching the mortal’s body ebb and flow as her lungs regulated the movement of oxygen into her blood stream. “Well, my dear,” Athena whispered while she took the logical little dreamer into her arms, “I think it would be a good idea to get you out of here.”

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“WHAT?” Aphrodite’s voice reached a strangled screech before dropping low into the hushed tones of a woman trying to keep a secret. It would be a terrible turn of events if Trip awoke now to find her in her true form while conversing with this idiot of a Minotaur, but that didn’t make it any easier to control her anger, “How could you possibly have let her get away? SHE WAS ASLEEP!”

A loud grunt emanated from Trip’s slumbering form, creating a sudden pause in the conversation. It wasn’t until the engineer rolled onto his side with his back facing the pair of co-conspirators that Aphrodite’s ranting continued. This time around she used a softer voice but curled her dainty fingers into a threatening fist at the sniveling little beast. Despite its low intelligence, the monster was well aware when it had disappointed its master. Aphrodite observed the Minotaur dropping onto its knees in front of her, communicating with a dog-like whimper or wine. The sounds were unintelligible to anyone else’s ear, but to the goddess of love they formed words and phrases aimed at begging her forgiveness.

“I don’t care how sorry you are, I’ll throw your ugly butt in Tartarus if you fail me again,” she declared while kicking the malformed man-bull square in the ribs with a gorgeous manicured foot. “Now where is the Vulcan now?”

More grunts and this time one phrase seemed to repeat itself over and over again. “Pale Eyes? What do you mean ‘Pale Eyes took the prey?’” More grunting, more jabbering, and this time the creature clawed at Aphrodite’s gossamer nightgown as he continued to plead with his master for some semblance of forgiveness. “Who the hell is Pale Eyes,” she questioned, grabbing the thing by the horns so it stopped sniveling and actually looked her in the eyes when it talked to her.

A long snort of air followed by a deep bellow floated on the Minotaur’s stinking breath.

“Pale Eyes with a spear? Who do I know with pale eyes and a-“ She recognized her own description half way through the sentence and the rest of her words trailed off into shocked disbelief. Athena! Athena had been here helping the mortal woman. It almost seemed unbelievable. Shock gave way to anger and disbelief became rage as Aphrodite’s eyes narrowed

“So that’s the way she wants to play it!” she declared to no one in particular, “Fine by me.”

TBC

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Half a dozen of you have made comments

This is so funny! I sure wish I had stories like this in high school when we were studying all that boring mythology. Then maybe I would have remembered all the details of the Iliad. Great job! Can't wait for the goddess cat fight.

Hee hee hee! I love this story, can't wait for the next chapter! :)

This is so hilarious! I love this story! I can't wait for the next update!

Love this story, more please.

Boring mythology, Distracted? Man, I loved that stuff! I mean "bit the dust" comes directly from the Iliad...

And I'm loving this. Heh. Looking forward to the next one!

I agree with Rigel Kent. Ancient cultures in general are knowledge gold. I had to wright a book on greece once so this is especially good. Fan-fic has really slowed down so wright quick please.