Coming of Age (Percy Jackson)

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

Aphrodite~

-x-X-x-

“Ah~”

As the three demigods continue their revelries, celebrating a job well done and a Quest completed, hands wander over pristine, blemish-free flesh elsewhere, even as their owner watches on. Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty, gazes upon the coupling taking place between Perseus Jackson, Annabeth Chase, and Clarisse la Rue… and finds it to be quite the pleasing sight indeed.

Fingers deftly work at one of her nipples, while her other hand glides along her mound down betwixt her thighs. The Goddess of Lust and Sexuality has a soft, small smile on her face as she peeps on the trio. A throaty moan, followed by an equally throaty chuckle both erupt from her lips after a moment.

‘May you live in interesting times’ indeed.

She couldn’t remember the last time things were this… exciting. Not only was Kronos making a concerted effort to escape Tartarus, but Zeus… Zeus was out. Deposed by his own brothers, albeit at the behest of Hestia, the eldest child of Kronos and Rhea. To think, Hestia would be the one to upset the status quo after all this time. To think, the Goddess of Family who would tear their ‘family’ asunder.

It was hard to believe… as evidenced by the fact that most of the other Olympians clearly didn’t believe it. Aphrodite could tell that some of them thought Hestia was merely a cat’s paw designed to cover up Poseidon and Hades’ own duplicitous actions. Hestia was nothing more than a smokescreen in their eyes.

Though, those who believed as such would not act for now, Aphrodite knew. For one, neither Poseidon nor Hades had tried to claim Zeus’ throne. The remaining Sons of Kronos hadn’t even attempted to claim joint rule over Mount Olympus and the other Olympians. Instead, they’d gone along with and backed Hestia’s plan to establish the Olympian Council as a democratic body in full.

For two, Kronos was coming back. The proof was undeniable that the Titan King was attempting to escape Tartarus and invade their world once more. Nobody wanted to weaken themselves any further when he’d already proven able to enchant and mesmerize one of their number in the form of Ares. Infighting would only give the Crooked One exactly what he wanted.

Now obviously, those who thought of Hestia as nothing more than her brothers’ patsy were convinced that Poseidon and Hades were both just biding their time until the current situation was dealt with. They thought that the deposing of Zeus was opportunistic in the extreme, done in a moment of crisis where nobody could properly retaliate in response without helping Kronos.

Aphrodite knew better though, of course. See, she wasn’t like the others. She never had been. She did not come from Kronos and Rhea like the others. She was ‘born’ with a more direct connection to the Heavens, via the Protogenos of the Sky himself.

Her position upon Mount Olympus was and always had been that of an outsider as a result. From the moment she’d been brought before the Gods and Goddesses, they had sought to diminish her, to chain her, to cage her. What else would one call a forced marriage to the disfigured Hephaestus? What else would one label the shackles of an Olympian Throne?

She was not Olympian, not truly. And she never would be. However, that did not mean she wasn’t willing to take advantage all the same. Ah, and after centuries of toeing the line… look at how they underestimated her.

The moment that mortal hands laid upon her scarf; Aphrodite knew about it. She couldn’t necessarily let on that she knew of course, having to limit herself when it came to her artifacts to make herself appear the same as any of the other Gods and Goddesses upon Mount Olympus. It was why her girdle had been ‘lost’ for so long, though Aphrodite of course knew exactly where it was, where it had been, and the things done with it. She, of course, approved greatly of all of its many uses.

… She was the Goddess of Desire and Pleasure the same as Love and Beauty, after all.

Regardless, the same was true of her scarf, even if it was a lesser artifact compared to the girdle. She’d ‘lost’ it in that silly abandoned mortal theme park when she and Ares had caught on to Hephaestus’ latest trap for them. And she’d been more than happy to have some mortal eventually pick it up, even if it took another ten years… hell, even if it took another hundred.

Of course, even for all her hidden might, Aphrodite herself hadn’t seen THIS coming. She hadn’t known that Adonis, her beloved, had decided to join the reincarnation cycle, nor that he’d been reborn as a Son of Poseidon. She hadn’t known about Perseus Jackson at all… until he’d put his hands upon her scarf.

Even then, it wasn’t until he’d wrapped her scarf around his wrist and used it to taunt Ares that Aphrodite had truly realized who and what Perseus truly was. And from there… well, she’d been watching. See, Perseus had never taken off her scarf. Not even when Hades brought him before Zeus and Poseidon with Hestia tending to the Olympian Hearth nearby.

And so Aphrodite had been granted front row seats to everything that had happened in the Hall of the Gods, even before anyone else was aware. That was how she knew the truth of things. That was how she knew that all of this truly WAS Hestia’s doing. She never would have thought the Goddess of the Hearth had it in her, but just went to show you couldn’t underestimate anyone.

Watching what Hestia had done with Zeus’ body had been particularly enlightening for Aphrodite, really. Besides those in the room when it happened, Aphrodite was confident she was the only one who knew that Zeus’ headless corpse was hidden in his own throne. Though that little secret might not be all that valuable, given what Hestia had done afterwards.

Ritualistically destroying Zeus’ head and spreading his domains among the four present… well now, that was just downright dastardly! Aphrodite hadn’t thought that Hestia had that in her either, but here they were!

Mm, and Perseus with the domain of kingship. What a lovely domain for the perfect man.

Aphrodite’s breath hitches as her fingers delve into the depths of her sex, finding her insides drenched and inviting. Her eyes continue to gaze upon the three demigods in the midst of their coupling, their love, lust, and desire all but bombarding her from afar. Perseus might not be using her scarf anymore at this point, but that’s okay. He still has it. And as long as he has it, she will always be able to find him.

Not that that means she plans to do anything nefarious with such knowledge. Honestly, that Chase girl… if Aphrodite couldn’t feel the depths of Annabeth Chase’s love for her Perseus burgeoning deep within the Daughter of Athena’s chest, she would have seen to her death for this latest insult.

Telling her Perseus that it was Aphrodite he had to be worried about? For shame! Sure, under normal circumstances, Annabeth’s words of warning might have been wise. Even Aphrodite had her pride, after all. Lying about laying eyes on her, putting words in her mouth, and wielding her favor so directly without having first earned it WOULD have resulted in some sort of severe comeuppance, usually.

But there was nothing normal or usual about any of this! For one, Perseus was no mere mortal. He was a Son of Poseidon on a Quest and while he hadn’t actually met Aphrodite, he HAD won her scarf fair and square. That afforded him some protection to begin with. However, more than that… he was her Adonis.

Aphrodite’s eyes drift shut for a moment, not out of pleasure but from pain. And not the good kind of pain either, but grief long thought buried. Adonis was hers. Her Adonis, no matter what any others thought. Being forced to share him with Persephone had been just another indignity visited upon Aphrodite by the Gods of Mount Olympus. Another indignity visited upon the foreign outsider in their midst.

But it mattered little in the end, because Aphrodite knew that his time with her was always better than his time with Persephone. With her, Adonis could be himself. With Persephone, he spent as much time hiding in the closet or under the Goddess’ bed because the time of the year Adonis spent with Persephone coincided with the time she was forced to spend with Hades.

That had been Aphrodite’s doing, not that anyone knew it. A simple nudge and suggestion and oh would you look at that, crazy how things line up like that. There was no logical reason that Adonis and Persephone’s allotted time together HAD to take place during the same time period that Persephone was forced to spend in the Underworld with the Lord of the Dead. And yet…

But then Ares had gone and ruined everything. Oh, and wasn’t it good to have confirmation of that particular bit of rumor. For centuries and centuries, Ares had denied it every time Aphrodite asked. He’d lied to her face about killing Adonis a million times, despite everyone knowing that he’d done it. And she… she’d simply taken it. Because what else was she going to do?

Perhaps if she’d been married to Ares instead of Hephaestus all those millennia ago, she might have stayed faithful… but Aphrodite doubted it. She was not the Goddess of Marriage or Family, after all. Those domains belonged to others. She was the Goddess of Love and Beauty, of Lust and Sexuality, and of Pleasure and Desire.

Frankly, it wasn’t right for them to expect her to chain herself to their foolish misconceptions of what romance and romantic relationships should look like. Especially when they themselves constantly refused to obey their own standards!

Ares was a hypocrite of the highest order, given he had never been any more faithful to her than she had been to him. The size of his cabin in Camp Half-Blood, the actual daughter that had traveled with Perseus on his Quest… all proof of that. And yet, he’d killed Adonis. He’d taken away her Adonis from her.

Aphrodite had continued seeing Ares all this time because he was handsome and a passionate lover, but that did not mean she loved him. No… she loved her Adonis.

“Ah~”

Back arching, Aphrodite moans out as she cums upon her fingers at the mere thought. Adonis had been taken from her far too soon, but now he was back and better than ever before. She was so very, very excited to see what happened next.

But really, if Annabeth Chase thought that she was going to try to steal Perseus away… she needed to turn her eyes towards the others. Aphrodite had never tried to cage Adonis before. Why would she now, when he had been reborn into this fantastic specimen?

Especially since... well, after what had happened, it wouldn’t be very long at all before Perseus would ascend, becoming a God in truth, an immortal being capable of standing alongside her for all eternity. Aphrodite could hardly wait, but she also accepted that the journey was just as important as the destination.

It wasn’t Aphrodite that Perseus and his demigod lovers needed to concern themselves with. She might have had her eyes on Perseus even now, and oh what a sight he and the two young women were making… but hers were not filled with nefarious or malicious intent.

Not like the others. Rather than be on the lookout for her, they should be on the look out for Hera. For Athena. And of course, for Persephone.

A slow smirk spreads across Aphrodite’s face as she considers her fellow Goddesses. Each had their own reasons for pursuing her Perseus. Each had their own desires they wished to see fulfilled at his expense. She wasn’t planning on stopping any of them, not directly. It wouldn’t be right… and she wasn’t so foolish as to reveal more of her true nature when tensions were so high.

So long as they thought her a largely harmless, flighty, beautiful fairy captured and contained in their chains, they would never realize just how powerful she really was. But while she COULD seize upon the plans of those other three Goddesses and tear them asunder right this moment before they could get off the ground… that would involve exposing herself in a massive way.

Mm, but she was disinclined to leave Perseus completely stumbling in the dark. At the same time, she didn’t want to overload him either. Nor did she want to make things too easy for him.

Some of her fondest memories of Adonis featured him struggling. He was the most handsome man in the world, simply gorgeous in every possible definition of the word. However, he wasn’t just beauty incarnate… he was also still a man, a mortal if you will. He had to fight to survive in the unforgiving climate of his time period, and as much as Aphrodite and Persephone coddled him, he still had the skills and strengths of a mortal man.

Watching him fight, watching him hunt… watching him WIN lit a fire in Aphrodite’s loins like no other. In fact, his death had in part happened because she’d become so used to his victories and not helping him that she hadn’t realized the threat posed by Ares’ boar until it was too late.

While she could give Perseus all the information he needed to navigate the challenges ahead, that wouldn’t be very fun. It would make things too easy. Therefore… she would only give him information on one of the three goddesses who would almost certainly be coming his way. As well as the knowledge that she herself had no desire to pluck him from his current life and spirit him away any time soon.

Yes… she would visit him in his next dreams. Dreams were not her domain, but lust and pleasure were and when Perseus finally fell asleep after finishing with these two female demigods he was currently bedding, his entire body would be charged with her domains, allowing Aphrodite to slip in.

All that was left… was to decide exactly what she was going to tell him.

[ ] She decides to warn him of Persephone's plans - 10%