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Polished stone and soft cushions had never been so hateful a sight. Crowley turned her back to her fancy prison cell of a room and swung her legs up and over the window ledge. A short leap would see her to the risky safety of a gnarled, thick olive tree, and from there, only a bit of climbing and fleet footwork separated her from freedom.
The sound of war reached her even here, even now, under the cover of nightfall. Clattering of metal against metal, furious shouts of men hurling themselves headlong into their fates, rumbling crackles of fire. They'd hardly know she was gone— at least not until it was too late.
Athena might have good reason to hate her, but Crowley prayed to the wise goddess that the olive tree would prove strong enough to hold her weight. At least with Crowley's escape and disappearance, Athena's wrath could end, and perhaps the war itself, besides. She grit her teeth and stood up on the ledge, steeling herself for the jump.
'Oh, Helen, whatever are you doing?! Come down from there this instant!' A matronly servant woman shoved the amphora she'd been carrying haphazardly onto a table and rushed to Crowley's side.
Suddenly fighting off a set of frantic hands curling into and tugging on her garments, Crowley snarled. 'Get off me!'
Despite her best efforts to slap and kick at the servant's grasp, Crowley was dragged down from the window ledge and bundled into one of the cushioned seats she so despised. The servant's eyes glistened with anxiety, and she tutted and clucked over every inch of Crowley. It wasn't the servant's fault for showing concern for her queen and scuppering the escape plan, but in the absence of the real subject of Crowley's anger, this woman would make a suitable target.
Crowley furrowed her brow and glared until the servant's fussing ceased. 'No one's meant to be in these quarters so late. Get out, and if you're very lucky, I might not mention this to my husband.'
'I'm sorry, Hele-My Lady,' the woman murmured, her deferential tone ringing strangely hollow. 'I merely came to replenish your refreshments.'
A sliver of moonlight glinted upon a golden brooch at the woman's shoulder. Something about it stirred Crowley's memory. She straightened in her seat and stared hard. This wasn't right. 'I didn't ask for anything to be delivered. How long have you been serving here? I don't know you.'
The servant woman smiled sweetly, the lines at her mouth and eyes deepening with warmth. 'Oh, long enough, My Lady. I'm not very memorable, so they tell me. I'll be on my way. Have a good evening, and apologies for the intrusion.' The woman bowed at the waist, golden pin winking in the light. A pair of feathered wings, carefully detailed and almost glowing, the piece of jewellery should have been nothing to wonder at, and still Crowley's mind itched.
Then, it struck her. Crowley's mouth went dry, and she frantically squeezed her eyes shut as if to block out the swirl of chaotic memories. Her mouth moved without her say-so, chanting a litany of curse words as white-hot rage lanced through her.
'Aphrodite,' Crowley hissed. 'Ruining my life and fucking off back to your cloud in the sky wasn't enough for you, was it? Take down that damned enchantment, and talk to me like an adult. Goddess or not, you owe me that much.'
A shuffling sound told Crowley that at least Aphrodite hadn't cut and run, and when the worst of the rage had ebbed away, she opened her eyes to a very different sight.
A halo of white-blonde curls framed Aphrodite's kind, round face and spilled luxuriously over her soft shoulders. Her garments, blue and white like the sky at midday, were woven through with gold such that they shimmered. The weathered features of the servant's disguise were gone, replaced by the eternal youth and beauty of a goddess. Even so, the shape of Aphrodite's lips and eyes were the same. The image of her as an ordinary, mortal woman at a comfortable age flashed behind Crowley's eyes for an instant, bringing with it a shocking stab of wistfulness.
'Ah. Hello, Helen. It's been a tic, hasn't it? How has, um… life been treating you since last we spoke?' Aphrodite's voice retained its melodious warmth, but the halting speech and wringing hands betrayed her nerves.
Imagine, a goddess feeling nervous to talk to Crowley. Crowley scoffed. After all that had transpired, Aphrodite should be nervous.
'It's been delightful,' Crowley purred. 'It's only been a decade of witnessing senseless bloodshed from inside a giant stone tomb of a palace with a foppish idiot for a husband who's been too busy fighting and admiring himself to bother to talk to me even after he made a deal with the devil—' Crowley bared her teeth at Aphrodite for emphasis, '—to have me kidnapped from my previous sadistic oaf of a husband, which started this whole blasted conflict in the first place and caused us all to be cursed by some of the most powerful Olympians in the pantheon. I'm positively chuffed.'
Aphrodite, to her credit, had the decency to look contrite. 'I… Yes, I had suspected as much. None of this was your fault, Helen. I've tried to—"
Crowley shot to her feet, too angry to sit still another second. 'Shut up. Of course none of this is my fault. I'm not stupid. It's your fault. You and Paris. You, for making my entire life into a bribe, a nice shiny trophy, and him for choosing it, consequences be damned. Now, as many words as I have to say to you, none of them are nice. So. What do you want, and how quickly can you fuck off?'
'I had to stop you from running away,' Aphrodite said plainly. For a goddess, her expression showed a shocking level of exhaustion. 'It would only make the conflict worse. I couldn't risk anything going wrong. Not when I'm so close to fixing everything.'
Bile surged into Crowley's throat, choking her with a wave of bitterness. 'You're fucking with my life again,' Crowley croaked. 'Using me as your shiny bargaining chip. It didn't work out the first time. How, pray tell, is doing it again supposed to fix anything?'
Aphrodite's eyes glinted with anguish and frustration. 'HE WAS NEVER MEANT TO CHOOSE THIS! He wasn't supposed to choose me! I've spent ten years trying to clean up the mess and prevent all of Troy from being razed from the earth by Athena and Hera, and all it's done is buy more time for more destruction. The gods are all fighting now, and you're right, it's my fault. When that stupid bet started, I never wanted… they made me join!'
The goddess trembled, tears rolling down her cheeks. 'Helen, I… I'm so sorry. I thought no man would ever choose such a fleeting domain as mine over either of them. I thought he knew better.'
Aphrodite wrung her hands, looking small, lost, and haunted. She collapsed into the second chair of the set, the one meant for a husband who never came to sit at Crowley's side. Crowley paused in her pacing, her anger waylaid for the moment.
The goddess took several deep, slow breaths, and when Crowley waited in silence, she shakily continued. 'Lust and beauty are my domain. I… I knew you weren't happy with Menelaus because you always spurned worship of me, stayed far away from my temples, and you never called upon me with lust for him, despite how much he— or anybody else— felt for you. I knew Menelaus was a terrible, greedy, prideful man, with no love for anybody but himself. I thought… It was practically guaranteed that Paris would choose another of us, but at least if he chose you, perhaps you might find yourself happier with him. I was certain it would come to nothing anyway, but when he caught a glimpse of you… I was obligated to deliver on my promise to him.
'I know I was wrong— wrong to offer what I did and wrong to assume anything and wrong to allow myself to be caught up in it at all— and I'm so very sorry. The other goddesses were so enraged that they still have yet to speak to me, and it was all I could do to prevent a total bloodbath in Troy. And to know that Paris did no good by you, either… Well, I've decided that once this has ended, it is high time I stepped away.'
Crowley slumped down onto the floor like a marionette with its strings cut. Her world shook at its foundations, her chest gone tight. So many emotions hammered against her that they all blended together and faded out entirely. Slowly, haltingly, she looped her arms around her knees and buried her face in them. Only the sensation of dampness on her skirt alerted her that she'd begun crying at some point as well.
'I'm so sorry, Helen,' Aphrodite said, a tiny, weak thing offered up like a single apple at the altar of a deity.
'Crowley.'
'What?'
Crowley lifted her head enough to meet Aphrodite's gaze over the ridges of her kneecaps. 'That's my name. Before Menelaus. He made me Helen when he married me. My real name is Crowley.'
'Oh,' Aphrodite said, and her smile was a whole cosmos of stars. 'Crowley. How beautiful.'
For the first time, Crowley understood what Aphrodite's worshippers felt when they sang her praises. The emotions within Crowley still whirled and jostled, but somewhere deep within, a match had been struck. Warmth spread, a tingly, giddy thrill in her belly.
'That's new,' Crowley mumbled.
As if on cue, Aphrodite's jaw dropped, her perfect pink mouth soft and pliant with surprise. 'I feel—'
Crowley buried her face back into her knees. 'Shut up, Aphrodite. Not the time, yeah?'
'Aziraphale.' At Crowley's confused grunt, the goddess laughed breathily. 'Aphrodite is more of a… title which was bestowed upon me.'
Crowley blinked and stretched her legs out in front of her. Somehow, she didn't feel like hiding anymore. 'You're serious? All this time, godhood has just been a job description?'
Aphrodite— Aziraphale, apparently— nodded with a sigh. 'Yes. Though many of us prefer not to share as much with mortals. It's a bit of an egotism issue, if you ask me, but I try not to speculate.'
A new thought occurred to Crowley, and she leaned forward. 'Before, when you said—'
'I'd like to step down from the position, yes. Clearly I've done enough damage as it is.' Aziraphale tucked her chin sheepishly and plucked at non-existent imperfections in her clothing.
'Right,' Crowley said, though she wasn't sure she truly agreed with Aziraphale about her culpability in the matter anymore. 'Well, that's a decision for future you to worry about. For now, there's a war to be handled.'