Work Text:
There were things to be said for the children of the sea, things of ancient fear and ancient secrets. Things of the origin of the world, of the birth of life from chaos. Things drenched in shifting currents and swirling winds.
Children of the sea were eldritch things, as one might say. Oh, they took human forms these days, humanoid as the world required. But they were not human, and they differed from the other Gods.
That was not to say the other Gods did not have their own forms as well, for the Gods of the heavens and skies were surely different from those of the sea, and equally so from those of land.
But the sea did not tend towards the breezes of the heavens, nor the life of the Earth. No, the sea was deep and dark. The sea was ancient and cruel. The sea heard and understood, but it did not forgive. It’s currents could be gentle as the breeze was soft but in the end it took life as much as it offered it.
Aphrodite would know, a child of the heavens and of the sea. She knew the softer parts of her came from the heavens, knew the gentle love was the same as the fluffy clouds and silk-soft winds. Her wilder nature, her cruelty and Eros, all that made her love so very dangerous, that came from the sea.
The sea’s children often held that touch of cruelty, that touch of wrath and storms and crashing waves and endless waters which no mortal could hope to survive, much less tame.
Some, some whom did not cling to mortality, did not cling to the physical forms like the Gods knew now, could lose those forms. They could become those wild things that inspired all manner of horror, the stories that made the world tremble.
Oh, Aphrodite knew those well. She knew how to make her form the loveliest of all, and yet even she struggled to hold such a steady stable form as the other Gods. Eros did as well, struggling more than her even. He was a generation above her.
She was younger than many of the Gods, particularly the Olympians. It was something forgotten by many, they heard her parents and believed her the eldest of all the Gods.
She was not.
She was the child of the Sea and Sky, of Thalassa and Ouranos, but she was all the same born later. Born when the waves and seafoam crashed together, the blood of the heavens making up her own. It was a slow process, birthing a Goddess of love like she.
But born she was, born and struggling to keep her form one the mortals could understand. Born and bright and beautiful, too beautiful. She had to temper her beauty at times, else she risked causing all manner of horror.
Even beauty could shatter minds.
But it was this experience that aided her now, cradling this tiny gem of the sea. She could see the pearl heart, the waves in his form. She could see the way the seafoam split and twisted, a form she could understand yet knew no mortal could.
He was a babe, one of Poseidon’s. Meant to be a demigod but well, sometimes the sea didn’t listen to the norms.
He would be a demigod in time, she was sure. This happened sometimes. The child needed to learn the form he was meant for and then he would settle and breathe.
Until then she was happy to help, as she had before.
Poseidon understood, on some level, the struggles of the humanoid form. But Aphrodite was the one amongst the Gods who dealt with it to an extent none of the others needed to.
Her beauty eternally shifting, expectations and beliefs shaping it.
She cradled the boy, singing the lullaby she was taught when she was but blood on the waves.
She ran seafoam over his seafoam eyes, too many, not enough, unformed yet glowing. Teeth gleamed, sharp and vicious, a film akin to whales soft, no teeth at all-
She sang of the oceans rise, she sang of the Nesoi’s birth, she sang of the creatures deep and shallow alike. She sang and rocked the little calamity, reminding the child of the mortal form he was meant to hold.
A small thing, a precious thing.
She could understand why Poseidon was so desperate to guard this child, he was certainly a gentle calamity.
She wondered if he would be one who forgot his depths like so many others.
She wondered if he would be one who breathed ocean waves and split minds apart.
She smiled and cradled him, singing softly and gently. His waves curled like an octopus, twisting in manners not meant for waves nor tentacles.
She gentle curled them around her fingers and coaxed them back into arms and legs. She cradled the seafoam and pearl hearts and tucked him back together, one form, one core, one body.
He was a soft little thing, yet she could see the rumbling core of storms that whirled within, hidden by soft waves and seafoam. Gentle, like her cradling him.
She wondered what it would take for that storm to rise and spread, to rip the world asunder.
She couldn’t wait to see.
She suspected this boy would be one of the ones who remembered, not in his mind but in his heart and bones. One who felt the sea in his breath and lungs, whose form was always just a little off for mortals.
She couldn’t wait to see it, couldn’t wait to see him grow and shine and destroy.
“Perseus,” she murmured, remembering the name he was given.
She nearly laughed at it, for Aphrodite knew all too well how names had power. She wondered if the other Gods would understand.
A prophecy on his head, the blood of ancients under his skin, a lullaby of Thalassa through his ears.
It would be a harder life, mortals tended to fear these children of the sea. And the Gods were always so very careful with those children who shook the world.
But oh, he would be glorious.