Application for Aphrodite

[seafoamrisen]

There's a shimmering in the air and a scent of roses, and suddenly manifest in the entrance plaza is a woman of nearly impossible beauty. She is tall, perfectly formed, with cascades of red-gold hair.  She wears a Greek chiton of the finest translucent linen, trimmed with gold and royal purple, and around her waist is a jewelled belt of literally

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[unclouded_rose]

Jeliza had heard of Aphrodite before, even if she wasn't altogether familiar. Most of her knowledge of the ancients lied with the Norse-folk. She went down to the front gates, gasping aloud when she saw the newcomer. She was so used to mean, old, fat women, that such a beauty outright stunned her. Even all the very pretty girls at the park couldn't compare. She was so grand, in fact, that the normally outgoing child found herself too shy to approach for a moment. She was suddenly aware of a dirty spot on her dress (Alice in Wonderland today, her absolute favorite) -- And her hair, perhaps, was it still too messy...?

[seafoamrisen]

Why, look at the child over there. Aphrodite turned to her and smiled. "Hello, darling. Don't be shy."

[unclouded_rose]

She clasped her hands behind her back, blushing a little and slowly beginning to smile. After the briefest hesitation, she approached. "Hello..." Her still-shy smile broadened. "I'm Jeliza-Rose. You're really, really pretty." She blurted out in an amazed breath, her blush increasing.

[seafoamrisen]

"Why thank you, Jeliza-Rose. That's a lovely name. Roses are very important to me, you know." And as she'd done with Rukia, she cupped her hands together and was suddenly holding a single pale-pink rose, which she handed to the girl.

[unclouded_rose]

She gasped with joy, grinning all-out now, and carefully took the rose, wary of the thorns. "Thank you~! That's amazing! How do you do that?" She asked innocently, sniffing at the bloom's light fragrance.

[seafoamrisen]

"I'm a goddess, darling," she said. "It's very simple, really."

[unclouded_rose]

She accepted this, even though she'd wanted to know where the rose had come from, perhaps if she could learn to do something like that. "Do you know Freyja?" She asked, more familiar with that goddess of love. Most children her age would know of Aphrodite years before they knew of Freyja, but most children were taught in a public school. Jeliza's father believed that public school systems sucked the imagination out of children. So she had been tutored by him and PBS instead.

[seafoamrisen]

Aphrodite's smile lost just a little of its lustre.

"We've met," she said. And they hadn't gotten along at all. Aphrodite telling Freyja that Brisingamen looked cheap hadn't really helped matters.

[unclouded_rose]

Considering she'd had to sleep with four dwarves to obtain it, one supposes that had indeed put a nick between them. Jeliza cocked her head barely an inch to the side, noticing the small change in the goddess' expression, but didn't bring it up. She also dropped the subject of Freyja altogether. Of course, then she didn't know what else to say, and she looked rather awkward, looking down at her skirt and feet.

[seafoamrisen]

"Were you brought up with the Northern gods, darling?" Aphrodite inquired. As long as they didn't discuss Freyja too much in particular, the subject of various pantheons was all one (although of course each god believed their own to be inherently superior).

[unclouded_rose]

She was unsure at first, then slowly came to shake her head 'no'. "I was brought up in America... My daddy wanted to take me and mommy away to Jutland, a place with no phones where nobody knew where we were. Mommy didn't want to go, so we didn't. But then she died, and daddy took me with him and his map, but... I don't think we ever made it to Jutland." She admitted quietly.

[seafoamrisen]

Aphrodite didn't have the insight into the human soul that her daughter-in-law did, but it was clear even to her that there was a lot more to the little girl's story than she told. "I'm so sorry, darling," she said. "Perhaps you will someday."

The goddess wasn't totally incapable of compassion. It just wasn't an urge that she exercised very regularly, or saw a need to.

[unclouded_rose]

Her lips straightened and she shrugged. "I actually wouldn't mind if I never did. I think I'd like to go back to Texas though -- I think that's where I was. Because Texas has a lot of prairies, and there was a lot of prairies there. Jutland is supposed to be full of swamps and bogs, and where there's bogs there's bog men, and I don't ever want to meet no bog man!" She exclaimed confidently, shivering a little. "I want to see Dickens again, though... I miss him more than anything." She sighed.

[seafoamrisen]

"Tell me about your Dickens, my dear," Aphrodite said. Much of the rest of Jeliza-Rose's story didn't make a lot of sense to her. But there's something about the name that caught her attention.

[unclouded_rose]

She smiled broadly. "Oh, he's just wonderful! He's a submarine captain -- Well, not a real, real one, but he will be someday, after he kills the monsters shark--"

But wait. That didn't make any sense? He'd already killed the monster shark, there was all that fire and metal everywhere... People screaming and crying, and Dell--

"..." She turned her head and spit. "Stay far." She grumbled, staring at the spot where her spit had disappeared with an ugly frown. "You'll mess elsewhere..."

[seafoamrisen]

There was something else at work with the little girl that wasn't something Aphrodite understood, or could really work with. So she simply latched onto the thing that was hers. "He's precious to you, isn't he?"