Aphrodite, god of love and beauty, was formed from love, desire, and beauty itself: a deity of absolute allure. A lost fragment of the Sky God fell into the sea, where it became foam and gave birth to him inside a seashell. He was a god of unsurpassed beauty.
Of all the gods, he was the fairest.
Aphrodite, the god of absolute beauty, was born from the foam of the sea. The god of love, who should have been born a goddess, became... a male god for some unknown reason.
Born from the sea, he was loved and welcomed by all the gods.
The seemingly fragile and powerless god of beauty was a master at toying with people's hearts. After claiming his place on Mount Olympus, he became the subject of countless scandals. He was rumored to have been involved with both goddesses and gods. Even Poseidon, the mighty king who shook the earth, was said to be enthralled by him. Even Zeus, wielder of the thunderbolts, longed to spend a night with him.
...Aphrodite sneered.
He looked down on every god. It was not that Poseidon's power impressed him; he also loathed Zeus's self-important air of absolute authority. The gods who followed him were as numerous as the stars in the sky, so he naturally had the chance to choose his lovers. So many powerful deities adored his beauty that he could naturally flit from one lover to the next.
Once, on earth, Aphrodite casually gave his cloak to an unknown god with red hair, a gloomy face, and a limp, because the disgusting Zeus had touched it.
It was a thoughtless gesture, and Aphrodite never imagined it would ensnare the most troublesome, gloomy, and obsessive god in his life, the god of fire and craftsmanship, Hephaestus, who was also his husband in name.
Hephaestus had been cast down to earth by Hera and left to wander among mortals. Aphrodite gave the rejected god a splendid cloak, though Hephaestus later learned that Aphrodite had done it on a whim.
But by then, Hephaestus, god of fire and craftsmanship, had already fallen hopelessly in love, bewitched by the power of the god of love and beauty, and offered him his heart.
But neither a golden girdle, nor a crown of crystal and silver, nor forged armor or an impenetrable shield, nor flowers that would never wilt, nor magnificent gowns sewn with delicate stitches could move Aphrodite.
So...
Hephaestus sighed softly.
Would chains be the only way to bind that fickle god of beauty?
Theme: Love is more exalted than anything else.
