Close Call

“I’ll see you tomorrow then, right Ari?”  Arkonel asked, smiling and grasping her hands in farewell.  It was well past dark, and he was looking at the woods nervously.  He was supposed to meet with his father very soon, and he was excited to relay his progress.

“All day.” Ari agreed, squeezing the hand holding hers.  He brought her hand smoothly up to his lips and pressed them against it once more.

“Okay then.  Until tomorrow.”

Arkonel turned to walk off into the dark forest, and Ari’s call to him made him turn around again.

“What about last night?”  She asked him, and he walked back towards her, confused.

“You kissed this cheek last night.”  She pointed to her left cheek.  “Do I get another?  Or don’t you like me at all?”

“You are the neediest person I have ever not dated.”  Arkonel said, laughing.  He reached towards her face, brushing a lock of her dark hair away from her right cheek. He leaned down to kiss it and then stood up.  “I’m going now.”  He announced.

“Hey, does this mean you’re going to kiss me on the lips tomorrow?  You’re out of cheeks.”

“No I’m not.  You have two more!”  Arkonel called to her, laughing, wondering what she looked like.  Undignified, most likely.  She didn’t like jokes like that.  He was really enjoying her company.  He had never spent much time with females unless he was going to sleep with them, and never with any mortal females unless it was for the same reason.

“Good night.”  Ari said softly, too soft for Arkonel’s mortal ears to hear.  His immortal set heard and chose not to comment.  He couldn’t interrupt every time she started talking to herself.

“Report!” Zeus said at Arkonel, who knocked and entered his father’s study a few minutes before he had to.

“We had a wonderful day exploring.  Ari and her mother, Gena, want to open a museum and adoption center for strayed and injured animals.  Everything’s going fine.”

“I thought I told you to avoid human contact.”  Zeus said towards his son.

“How am I supposed to accomplish my mission and not speak to her mother?  That’d be pointless.”  Arkonel argued, and Zeus conceded.

“Alright, you have me there.  I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, but remember that one of your duties is to protect the two women, as well.”

“What is there to protect from?  Cows?”

“Well, right now, there’s a burglar making his way into the house.”  Zeus pointed to the scrying bowl in the center of his office, blinked, and Arkonel was gone.

“Silly, silly boy.  He’s going to screw up the best thing that ever happened to him if he doesn’t take some care with what he’s about to do.”  Zeus shook his head and went back to his reading.

“Get the fuck out before I tear you to pieces.”  Arkonel said, deathly quiet, standing in the middle of the women’s living room.

“I have a knife.”  The burglar replied, waving something at the shadow that had just materialized in front of him.

“Good.”  Arkonel replied, reaching out, grasping the blade, and ripping it from the man’s hand.  He took the handle in his other hand and pointed at the robber.

“Now get out.”

“You crazy fuck!”  The burglar hissed.

Tired of waiting, and scared that the two girls might wake up to the noise, Arkonel reached over and slashed the man’s shirt, drawing a thin line of blood.

“The knife is mine, and you should be grateful I don’t kill you.  The son of Zeus does not take insults lightly.  Your final warning, go.”

The burglar dashed out of the house, going as fast as he could, not even bothering to shut the front door behind him.  Hearing noise above him, Arkonel turned invisible, forgetting that objects he didn’t create couldn’t go with him.  The knife clattered to the ground just as the hallway light flipped on.

“What the hell is wrong with you, cats?”  Gena yelled sleepily from the hallway.  “Can’t we get any sleep around here?”

Go back to bed, Gena.  Nothing is wrong. Arkonel tried to convince Gena’s subconscious, and thankfully, it worked.  Gena turned around, shut off the light and marched back to bed.  When the house was silent once more, Arkonel carefully turned back to human and retrieved the knife, then placed it outside and softly shut the front door behind him as he went to find the man who had invaded his territory. He wasn’t going to kill him, but it wouldn’t hurt to scare the man a little bit.  Maybe a scar or two would teach him.

Cadmus sighed, waiting in the shadows for the fleeing burglar.  He grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck, yanking him back behind a tree.

“What the fuck?”  The man shouted.  “I can’t just get let alone tonight!  Oh…hi Carl.”  The man looked sheepishly up at the disguised demigod.

“I’m guessing you didn’t complete the mission.”  Cadmus growled.   “Considering you’re bleeding and you aren’t holding anything.

“No, dude.  There was some shadow in there.  He grabbed my own knife and sliced me. Then he told me to leave, and I got the fuck out of there.  I don’t mess with shit that just appears.  You don’t have to pay me or anything, just let me go.”

“Oh, no problem.”  Cadmus said, reveling in the man’s stupidity.  “I may contact you again.  Here’s a hundred for your troubles.”  Cadmus pulled a brand new hundred dollar bill from his jacket’s pocket.  “I may contact you again.  Make sure you get to a hospital, that cut looks like it might need some stitches.”

“Will do.  Thanks Carl, pleasure doing business for you.  Really.”

“Go.”

Cadmus watched the man scurry out of his sight, much like a rat who just scavenged a free meal from some dead thing.  He shook his head in pity.  His father must have seen the intruder and told Arkonel, because Arkonel was supposed to be in the meeting with his father at that moment.  He was surprised the man came back to him at all, to be honest.  Arkonel was kind of strict on his no-stealing policy – he usually killed those who wronged him.  So he either was in a very, very good mood, or he couldn’t be bothered with killing the man.

Cadmus had at least, possibly accomplished his purpose.  He would have to go near the house when the sun came up, to see if the women had noticed their intruder.  He had meant for them to be awakened either by the clumsy, drunk burglar, or by Arkonel’s ruckus upon arrival.  His master plan was to have them ‘catch’ Arkonel stealing from them.  That would have sent him away, for good.  He was pretty sure that Arkonel wouldn’t even have a chance to explain himself to the women.  And then the computer abilities would be Cadmus’, and his alone.

“Taken care of, father.  Did you want me for anything else?”  Arkonel returned to his father’s study as soon as possible.

“Not really.  But consider this.  You’re just about done growing up, and I have the need to give you the same speech I give each of my sons.  Love is a power which we do not control.  Aphrodite is the seer of love – she can recognize when it is affection and when it is true, she can encourage it if it is either, and she can destroy the first of the two.  We have all been taught this.”

“Yes, sir.”  Arkonel said.  His father was pushing his attraction to the young lady Ariana to a new limit.  They never talked about attraction.

“Aphrodite has also been blessed with the ability to remove those from mortal earth who have found true love with a deity and bestow upon them immortality.  However, as with any magic, it comes with a sacrifice.  The human – whoever you choose, be it Ariana or one hundreds of years from now – will lose all those whom she cares about.  She will be unable to communicate directly with them, instead relying on your powers to bring her to them.

“She will be reliant on you when they pass into the underworld if she wishes to spend time with them.  She will basically be as if you had a child, dependent on your higher knowledge until many years when she is able to master her abilities.  If this earth ends and we must wait for another suitable for humans to come along, and we must start over, she will not understand it necessarily as we do.  Bringing a human to Olympus is a sacrifice, indeed.  This is for when you find your true love, if it is indeed a mortal.  Keep these in mind.

“Keep also in mind the fact that your current attraction may be temporary.  Aphrodite is always the best judge, and be humble; for he who misjudges any deity’s power is a fool, even if he himself is a deity.  We are the first chosen ones – those chosen by the Lord and Lady themselves.  Even your brother, Cadmus, has the right to true love.  If you choose wrong and do not consult Aphrodite, it may take hundreds of years before you realize that the choice you made was incorrect.  We do not separate on Olympus – your choices are permanent.  Will you be happy, and most important, will she?

“In any matters with women, as you well know, the question must always present itself: Will she be happy?  That is the end of my lecture.  You may go now, back to your charges, to keep watch of them.  Keep what I have said in the back of your mind though, son.  Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”  Arkonel nodded.  He wasn’t really sure what spawned that discussion, but in the end, it was a lecture he had needed to hear.  His choice really would stick with him the rest of his life.

“Go.”  His father interrupted his thoughts, and Arkonel obliged before he remembered what he had wanted to ask: Had his father made the wrong choice?
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