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It wasn't everyday you were invited to a goddess’s tea party.
Picture the surroundings: a great open courtyard with a grand mosaic of scenes of romance – both courtly and passionate – wrought out of gems and multi-coloured stones; velvet couches with silver inlays in the ebon wood and mounted upon by cushions so soft, it would have given even the softest, least ergonomic pillow on Earth a run for its money; fountains and statues of pure marble and veined with gold, all carved to such exquisite detail that it took a few glances for you to realise that it wasn’t actually a real and armless half-naked woman.
A striking piece of art was the main centrepiece though. One by the name of Venus de Milo, named so aptly after the goddess seated upon the couch in front of me. Well, her Roman counterpart to be precise. But hey, who’s looking for precision when you’re discussing the terms of your death with the Mistress of Love.
“Well?” she asked, her voice soft and sultry and enticing all at the same time. Or maybe I was just imagining that. With her ripe breasts, milky-white skin, and a face so gorgeous it was hard to put into words, anyone would be thinking that.
“Huh?” I shook my head to knock myself out of a daze. “Tempting, your magnificence. Very tempting.”
She gave me a smile, her lips so full and inviting. They glistened from the sips of tea she had been taking. Were they petal pink? I couldn’t tell from where I sat-
“You understand the conditions this exchange entails then.”
I nodded absentmindedly. “I’m dead and currently set for an eternity in purgatory. For some reason, you need me to act as some other god’s lackey. Another world or dimension or planet. Whatever. Doesn’t matter.”
The goddess sighed inaudibly at that. Could she tell I was staring?
“More or less," she allowed.
“And you need me to turn into….” I licked my lips, trying my best to say this without sounding like an utter moron. “A…dragon?”
Aphrodite nodded as she took another sip of chamomile tea, her blindingly pink irises so absorbing that I almost forgot that I was on trial for my death.
All right, that could be an exaggeration. But hey, call it getting shock from having died a little bit ago and then being invited to tea by the Greek goddess of love.
“....Can’t I get super speed or something instead?” I asked.
The goddess looked at me as if I had grown a second head, her silver tea goblet still floating about around her head, leaving pink tendrils and the smell of roses behind as it moved. I wondered if it burned. I had hardly touched mine with how hot it felt. Then again, she was a deity. Apollo was probably keeping it at just the right temp for her.
“It has to be a dragon,” Aphrodite reaffirmed, perfectly manicured nails clacking on the glossy veneer of the table in a harmonious beat. “That is what you mortals would say ‘his schtick’.” The beat continued. It sounded vaguely like a love song. Was that Sade?
I shook my head. Now was not the time to try to make out the beat to ‘Smooth Operator’, as good a song as it is.
“Can I at least be a shapeshifter dragon?”
“Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p’. It oddly complimented the Greek twang that accompanied her accent. Or was that ancient Greek? “Only a giant reptile with wings.”
“What about an anthropomorphic dragon?” I countered.
The Goddess of Love giggled at that and gave me a look that looked very close to the kind I got from helping old ladies cross the street. The ‘Thank you, sonny. Here’s a cookie’ wholesomeness privy to only good Samaritans.
“You remind me of my son,” she mused, her eyes crinkling with mirth. “Aeneas was much like you when I commanded him to forge his path eastwards.”
“Rightfully reluctant and wishing he had backed the right horse at the beginning?”
To say I was a pagan was stretching it though. I had been an atheist who had read one too many books about a twelve year old who had slain the Minotaur. That had unfortunately been enough to throw me into the Hellenist category. Much as I hated my parents, maybe they were right to tell me not to forsake Jesus. I sure as hell knew from our earlier idle chatter that those books I had spent my childhood nose-deep in were nothing but hogwash that painted a very ugly picture of the Olympians' resident Mean Girl.
Said mean girl was looking at me with the wrong kind of anticipation and a mix of amusement. It was hard to believe she was probably eons old with how 'giddy as a schoolgirl' she looked.
“Frightened,” was her tact reply. I grinned ruefully at that.
“Delightful. And if I don’t accept?” I asked, pushing my luck further than I had ever done before.
Aphrodite’s lips quirked into a lackadaisical smile, showing just a hint of her blindingly white teeth. The pink in her eyes flashed brighter than ever before. I couldn’t help but gulp. It was times like this that made me remember she was an almighty goddess who could probably wipe my soul from existence. Bad enough, I was already dead. To die twice within the span of what felt like hardly an hour’s worth of idle chatter would have been even more embarrassing than kicking the can via choking from a particularly big, particularly dry, and most certainly spicy piece of KFC chicken tender. That was what I deserved for skimping out on the drinks.
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“Fields of Asphodel,” the goddess said airily as if I were Hera asking for the golden girdle or something. She looked at me sharply. “I assume you are familiar with the concept?”
I made a squeak of acknowledgement, but my face must have illustrated how I really felt given that I felt an impossibly soft hand land on top of mine. Had this been any other day, I would have probably killed for a chance with a girl as hot as her. Any other day and my blood would have been pumping harder to my groin than ever before. Alas…
A land of nothingness for all eternity.
And I had thought the suburbs were bad.
“Well?” she asked, cocking one magnificent eyebrow upwards in anticipation.
There was a certain sense of urgency in her voice now. I could see she was pressed for time. Though the crushing feeling of defeat was already pressing on me, I tried to work something out in my mind.
The facts had been made abundantly clear to me. Number one, I was dead; dead from Colonel Sander’s eleven spices and herbs in a KFC parking lot to be more specific. Dead before I had managed to repent for my paganism.
Number two, it was either life as a dragon in some unknown world under some mysterious god’s patronage or literally a life in the dumps.
Number three, there was no choice really. I was condemned to life as a reptile in exchange for a sweet gig in Elysium after I passed. Even that was down purely to Aphrodite losing a bet or something to some other-worlder dragon god.
It was either earning my way into Elysium through complete and utter beastification for the gods’ only know how long, or an eternity wasting away as an Alzheimer’s patient within a vast expanse of nothingness. I had been given a glimpse of what the afterlife currently held for me, and it had not been pretty, to say the least.
Everything was chalk white: the knee-high stalks of grass, the ash-like soil they were embedded in, all right down to the few twisted bony trees which had grown at warped angles to resemble a mangled human’s form. The only outcasts were the gunmetal-grey of the sky and the black-as-ink carrion crows that lay perched upon skeletal-like branches. And standing amongst it all, white wisps of what once had been the souls of humans. Humans with heartbeats and lively smiles. Humans with hopes and dreams and children. All of it sapped by the river Lethe’s cruel white waters.
Just looking at it could make your head feel muddled. As if the sight of the cursed meadows alone were enough to leave you stretching as your identity slowly tears itself asunder.
I did not want that. On that point, I was clear. But I also didn’t want to jump into this deal without trying to claw out some benefits. Dragons lived long, right? For all I know, I would still be hale and hearty at twenty thousand years old. Would my sanity even survive that long? Even ten years sounded ten too many.
I scooted forward, my lips drawn into a thin line. “What’s in it for me?”
Aphrodite’s eyebrows flew upwards in surprise, but that didn’t hinder her from responding.
“Other than a guaranteed pathway to Elysium and a goddess’s favour?”
Sarcasm dripped from every word.
I let out a deep exhale.
“What favours specifically? Am I going in built like some dragon mecha? Or am I gonna wake up as a baby dragon who gets easily outrun by birds.”
Aphrodite gave me a thoughtful look at that. “That technically falls under Xarxes’s prerogative… But I have been eager to have a champion of my own for once. One who is not a lover to be clear.”
The look she gave told me all I needed to know about what she thought of my looks. Dark-red hair and green eyes maketh not a model where I came from. I was average in all aspects to say the least. That didn't mean it didn't sting. Somehow, I smiled through the pain. It wasn’t the first time a hot girl had rejected me.
“Well, we have an agreement then. Extreme power boosts. A hint on how to speedrun through this whole thing in fifteen minutes. Maybe a draconic facelift.”
“Maybe a collar.” The goddess nodded, examining my neck, “Wrought gold with emeralds. Those match your eyes.”
It was my turn to look at her, unimpressed.
“Powers,” I stressed, “would be dearly appreciated. Keep my human nature intact. I don't want to go to Elysium with a constant itch for raw meat or whatever dragons eat. Amp up my fire stats. Make me OP. Saitama-style. Reconsider the shapeshifting.”
She nodded thoughtfully, then smiled broadly. Her jewel-clad hands were clasped together, all her gems flashing brightly. The embroidered gold edges of her exquisitely dyed peplos glowed a violent pink. The golden ringlets that fell past her waist gleamed as brightly as she did. It was hard not to feel my heart skip a beat or two. Heck, I was pretty sure my face was beetroot red.
“I will bring these requests to Xarxes’ attention, my champion.”
“Requests?! I thought you were doing me a solid-“
“-Serve me leally, my champion-“ she continued, ignoring me as her eyes flashed again.
At that moment, reddish-golden fire erupted underneath skin that was no longer there, filling me with a searing warmth. It was not painful, but it was strange and sudden enough that I yelped out of my seat with my balance skewed. I staggered backwards, trying to find something to douse myself with out of reflex but my hand was gone before it even reached the goblet. The sound of blood pumping pounded in my ears. When I caught a glimpse of my face in the silver platter, all I saw was a flaming head of red-gold around the perimeter of my head that was slowing growing inwards and outwards.
I was a little panicked, to say the least.
“Holy shit!”
My arms burned red-gold.
“- and you shall be duly rewarded in halls of heroes-“ Aphrodite droned on.
“Fuck me! Jesus, I repent! Take me back please!”
My sight was red-gold.
I was sure I could taste bile in my throat. Or maybe it was ash. It was hard to think with all this smoke engulfing me.
“-by the Grace of Aphrodite, I send you forth to the Fires of Xarxes,” she finished, her smile still bright as I writhed around the floor. Somehow, my fire was not burning anything at all despite my efforts to at least screw over one of her silk pillows before I was unceremoniously tossed aside.
“Onwards, Cian Baird. Defeat the dark ilk and your heroism may earn you a very deserving reward,” she said. I could have sworn I had vaguely made out a suggestive wink that somehow got my fire pumping harder than before. “Worry not about your lack of kinsmen. I have been told you shall be able to reproduce as dragons do. Soon you will birth heirs of your body.”
“ME?! DARK ILK?!? WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’LL BIRTH HEIRS-“
“Farewell!” she exclaimed jovially just as my vision melted into what I could only describe as an acid trip visualised with only the exception of two floating sentences appearing smack down in front of me.
BEGINNING INITIALISATION: ENTERING THE FORGES OF XARXOS
QUEST: Speak to Xarxes of the Lifeforge, Hammer of the Gods and Heart of the Hearth.
New message from Aphrodite: One of your boons ( o ⊰ o)♥! Good luck!
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