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Aphrodite regrets coming along as soon as she sees the woman. She has seen the woman before, obviously, she remembers watching with mild interest as Helen and her siblings crawled from their eggs. Even for all the curiosities brought on by Zeus's dalliances, this one was rare.
And she knows that Helen is beautiful. The competition for her hand was a grand affair of lust, if not love, and that is the sort of thing to draw a goddess' eye. She had noted the girl's beauty, noted too, how much she looked like her African mother and nothing like her pale, sweating father.
She was lucky not to have wings and a beak, Aphrodite clucked to Hera, who'd rolled her eyes as the proceedings dragged on. And if Aphrodite had found her mind drifting back to Helen from time to time, distractions cropped up sooner or later. There was always something closer, sharper, more interesting.
Then the apple, so beautiful she could barely concentrate on Eris's knowing smile. Then the trial, the wide-eyed boy in the woods. The promise she'd made, almost unthinking. In her hands, the apple had gleamed like a falling star, so bright that it took up her whole universe.
It still hangs on her waist, for now, tightly laced so that neither of the other goddesses can pluck it from her side. She has not given it to her father yet, has not passed it into Uranus's knowing blue hands and watched it drift away into oblivion. Aphrodite is heartless, she does not suffer from soft mortal guilt, but she will still be relieved to see it go.
Aphrodite does not suffer from soft mortal guilt, but she still stops dead in the corridors of Menelaus' palace when she sees the woman sitting at the table. Helen beams, eyes bright in a way they hadn’t been at the contest. She looks so happy to see her new guests, so happy to see Aphrodite, although of course she is too human to really see her.
Menelaus sits on Helen's left, wolfing his food. Hermione sits on her right, small and shy in her mother's shadow. Aphrodite sees them both and then forgets them almost immediately; they are fragile stars compared to Helen's solar blaze.
"Beautiful, isn't she?" Eros murmurs, soft in her ear. He stands at her side, quiver slung over his back and bow in one hand. He's wearing the body of a young man today, rather than the child he sometimes prefers, and his eyes are sharply knowing.
"Yes," Aphrodite agrees, and then adds, quickly: "Not as beautiful as I, of course." She has a reputation, for Olympus's sake.
"Of course," Eros agrees easily. "But she has her own...appeal, you must admit." He plucks an arrow from his quiver, twirling it through the air. "Especially since you have promised her to another."
Gold flashes bright between his fingers, humming with power. A love arrow is stronger than a simple marriage bond--it is an unyielding chain wrapped around the heart, binding it to one soul and one soul only. Aphrodite knows this, she crafted this arrow with her own hands, spun it from the light seeping off Helios's chariot.
Now she wants to break it, viciously. She forces herself to step back instead, watching Helen lean over to whisper in her daughter's ear. Hermione smiles, a bit of the shyness melting away. She will be a great beauty one day, but nothing like her mother.
"You could have the daughter, instead," Eros suggests idly. Aphrodite doesn't dignify the suggestion that the goddess of love choose a second best--a child, even--with a response. "Or we could simply leave."
"I made an oath," Aphrodite says flatly.
"You could break it."
"Because that worked out so well for your Psyche," she snaps.
Eros huffs. "I'll have you know that she and I are very happy now."
"After more suffering and struggling than I am willing to put up with. Besides, she was a girl, and I a goddess." She watches Helen take a sip of her wine, each movement perfectly graceful. "If we do not keep our promises to mortals, what do we have?"
Eros opens his mouth, but before he can reply, there is a commotion in the hall outside. A whisper spreads through the crowd like wildfire: Paris, Paris, Paris. Aphrodite swallows hard, mouth dry in a way that a goddess's should never be.
"He's coming," she says unnecessarily, hands twisting together. "Quickly, now."
"You don't have to witness," Eros says, voice softer now. He notches his arrow, lifting the string to his cheek. The shaft pulses in his hand, steady as a heartbeat.
"Yes, I do." If she breathes deep enough, Aphrodite can taste Paris's anticipation in the area, his wild excitement. And why shouldn't he be excited? The most beautiful woman in the world is about to fall in love with him, after all.
Helen is leaning forward now, curious, but nothing more. Her husband has lifted his head from his food, eyes narrowed. Is it ordinary defensiveness of his treasure, or does he sense what is coming? Hermione, adoring eyes on her mother, certainly doesn't.
The crowd makes way for Paris's arrival, his boots thumping on the polished floor. Eros's bow sings a perfect note, a gold streak arching through the air. It strikes Helen in the perfect breast, sinking under her skin without spilling a drop of blood, and vanishes.
Helen doesn't notice. Her attention is on the new arrival, the young man striding through her husband's hall with his head raised high and proud. Aphrodite watches her face shift, something new curling into being behind her eyes. She smiles, more eager than regal.
Paris smiles back, even as his fingers drum anxiously at his sides. Aphrodite shifts, tugging silently on his soft mortal consciousness. His gaze flicks to her, seeing her against the wall where she had been invisible a moment earlier, and he smiles back.
Aphrodite smiles back, all ease, all reassurance. All is well, dear boy. All is well. Paris looks back to Helen, his shoulders sagging slightly in relief. He starts to make his noises of friendship and greeting, pretty eyes spun like sugar.
Menelaus rumbles a response of some kind. Helen is sitting bolt upright in her chair, staring at Paris as if she has never seen anything like him. Her hand drifts to her breast, rubbing absent circles.
"We should go." Eros steps to her side, the bow and quiver gone. Aphrodite nods, wrenching her gaze from Helen as they pass back through the marble walls. They rise up and out into the night, night air humming against their skin.
"Don't worry," Eros says as they arc their way towards Olympus. "No passion lasts forever, and you never promised he could keep her. She'll be yours soon enough, if she survives what's to come."
"Yes," Aphrodite says, the words whipped away by the wind. Even if she lives, she'll despise me. She doesn't say that part aloud, because then Eros would just laugh. And why shouldn't he? Aphrodite knows as well as anyone how well love and lust and hatred can all live in the same bed.
So it doesn't matter, she reminds herself. None of it matters. All the mortals desire Aphrodite, but she will never want any of them more than they do, and that is the way it should always be.