Alaric's long string of theories about love, along with the classic love stories he recounted, all poured into Aphrodite's ears.
At first, the goddess only regarded them with contempt, ready at any moment to poke holes in his reasoning, to mock him with scorn, and to make him understand what it meant to show proper respect to a goddess.
The Goddess of Love and Beauty was, after all, notoriously petty.
Yet, the more she listened, the more she felt Alaric's words rang true; the more she listened, the more she realized how shallow her own understanding had been.
Among the gods, she had long been accustomed to betrayals, affairs, and jealousies between divine couples, Zeus being the prime example, and she had once believed that this was the essence of love.
But when she heard of Romeo and Juliet, all these stories from other realms where lovers supported one another, stayed loyal, and loved with an unyielding devotion unto death, she suddenly felt that the so-called "love" of the gods was grotesque, and Zeus himself utterly contemptible.
Unknowingly, Alaric had just stolen another brick from Zeus's temple.
In short, it was as if this goddess had opened the door to a whole new world on the path of love.
After Alaric finished his points, he looked at Aphrodite, who sat like an attentive student, her eyes full of earnest curiosity.
He couldn't help but laugh heartily, then teased.
"So, what do you think? The Goddess of Love knows less about love than a mere mortal like me. Why don't you hand the divine office over to me instead?"
He had only said it in jest, but to his surprise Aphrodite actually gave it serious thought before answering.
"Unfortunately, I can't. My godhood over love was innate, it cannot be separated. And besides, you're not even a demigod, so you couldn't bear a divine office…
However, if you wished, I could ask the King of the Gods to grant you a constellation seat. Then you could serve as my subordinate god and assist me in ruling over love."
Her sincerity moved Alaric deeply. It hadn't been in vain that he had shared so much with her.
But after some consideration, he shook his head.
"No. I still want to keep my human identity. I want to gain power through magic."
"That's such a pity." Aphrodite pouted, her lips curling in frustration.
"Don't you want to stay with me, to work alongside me? You understand love so well… By the way, how do you know all of this?"
Faced with the goddess's persistent curiosity, Alaric chose to sidestep the question and instead countered.
"What I really find strange is this, why is it that you, the Goddess of Love, understand so little about love?"
The question struck her like an arrow to the heart. She faltered, stammering, "Th-that… of course I don't understand love… I'm not like you.
I haven't heard all these stories from beyond the divine realms… And I haven't seen much true love myself, either…
You know, among mortals there are only men, and among gods, it's all about affairs and betrayal, especially Zeus…
And I haven't experienced it myself, so how could I possibly understand love?"
So that was it.
Alaric nodded slowly.
And then he realized something startling.
Aphrodite had just admitted she had never experienced love.
How could that be? In Greek myth, Aphrodite was infamous for her scandals. If anyone embodied the phrase "fickle and passionate," it was her.
Disdaining her crippled and ugly husband Hephaestus, she had taken his younger brother, the war god Ares, as her lover, and borne him five children.
Beyond him, she had countless other lovers; Dionysus, god of wine, was another.
Her affections weren't confined to gods alone, she had countless mortal lovers, too. Most famous among them was the beautiful youth Adonis, her dearest favorite.
And yet now she claimed she had never experienced love?
But thinking carefully, it wasn't impossible.
At present, Aphrodite had only just joined the Olympian pantheon.
She had only just married Hephaestus.
In myth, she bore no children with him, perhaps this cuckolded husband hadn't even shared her bed yet, and perhaps she hadn't had time to seek out other lovers.
And just now, her shallow understanding of love had been laid bare, Alaric's words had left her utterly speechless.
If she had truly had so many experiences, who would believe it? She was clearly still a naive young girl.
With that in mind, even the later myths about her made sense.
A beauty forced to marry an ugly cripple, surrounded by gods who modeled only infidelity and deceit, it wasn't hard to imagine how such a girl, ignorant of real love, might be misled down a path of flirtation and excess.
But if the truth was as it seemed now, then hadn't Alaric just steered Aphrodite onto an entirely different path?
Unknowingly, he had done something monumental.
Just look at the stories he had shared with her.
But what kind of terrifying outlook on love would a Goddess of Love raised on such teachings develop?
The thought made Alaric's head throb.
If the Heroic Age were ever to arrive, and this goddess, like in myth, grew fond of meddling in mortal love, wouldn't the world be thrown into utter chaos?
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