Chapter Eight
Friendship

The next few days actually passed by fairly quickly for me, which surprised me greatly.  I was still waiting for something terrible to befall me, and I was still pretty sure that the first Psyche didn’t really have to wait this long between tests.  Then again, the first Psyche didn’t have to deal with Aphrodite attempting to come up with something that’ll throw me off.  Her original ideas weren’t going to work this time, and I think she felt like those were the pinnacle of her creative prowess.  I also think she forgot to take my excess knowledge of the myth into account, although I still felt a little silly about forgetting that Eros and Psyche did have a daughter.  I remember thinking it was a bit odd that they only had the one, whereas most gods, provided they were chaste, had dozens of children.  And Eros and Psyche were one of the few couples in myth that actually had a happy ending, so why only one child?

But I guess it just wasn’t something I really wanted to think about.  I mean, Eros looked like he was around my age, and having a child at that age was sort of considered a taboo nowadays.  Plus, the fact that Eros had been married at all before he came to me grated on my nerves a little to begin with, even if I knew that his wife now resided within me.  But it still brought up questions, like if he really loved me, or if he was still just in love with the first Psyche.  I was always told that you’d never forget your first love, and considering how Eros obsessed over her for all this centuries, it made me wonder.  I’ve been told several times already that I was different – not just in the way I didn’t reject him, but also in the way he felt about me in general.  But I still had to worry if, given the opportunity, he’d go for the original Psyche rather than me.

Add a child into that mess, and it just made everything more complicated.

Eros had been equally surprised that I had forgotten about Hedone, and just as annoyed that she’d make her presence known to me.  I guess he hadn’t realized that she had been following him all this time, since he had made her promise not to get involved with any of her mother’s reincarnations after he was rejected the first time.  He didn’t want his daughter to get hurt as well, nor did he want to confuse any of the reincarnations.  He also didn’t realize that any maternal instincts associated with Hedone was just gone, so actually, Hedone probably would have had an easier time befriending the reincarnations than Eros did, provided she stripped away any association with him.  But if Hedone was anything like me – and that was doubtful – than she’d actually prefer to be rejected as well than give up her claim on her father.  I think I would do the same thing.

Although it was iffy with me.  If I were in that situation with my parents, considering I had a good relationship with both of them, I think I would give up that claim just to Mom so that I could be with her as well.  But then again, I happened to know Mom and Papa were complete soul mates, and Mom would never reject Papa like that.  Even if she was confused, she’d still love him, and like me, want to know why.

Still, while Eros was annoyed at Hedone, I think even he realized that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in my case.  I had a better acceptance to him and to all the mythological figures, so naturally I wasn’t going to reject Hedone on the grounds that she’s related to Eros.  In fact, I was going to embrace her because of that fact, since I felt bad about both forgetting about her and not having that maternal instinct towards her.

Yes, it was a little weird that my possible boyfriend had a daughter, and I really didn’t know how to deal with that, but she seemed nice enough.  I took it as a bonus that she was willing to be my friend despite basically trying to replace her mother.  But to be honest, I sort of had bigger things to worry about.

Maddie and I did manage to finish our project together on time, although it felt like a minor miracle.  The real problem, though, was the fact that the end of the semester was fast approaching, and exams were going to be upon us before we knew it.  As I typically did around this time, I started to worry about the finals, especially considering these were my first collage finals, and they counted for a major part of my grades.  On top of that, I was positive that Aphrodite would figure out what she wanted to do with me during that time, so that just added to my stress.

“I don’t see why you’re worried,” Eros commented as I was trying to organize my notes.  “You always do so well despite all your worrying.  So why do you worry?”

“Well, first of all, because I’m not sure how a college final works, okay?  I don’t want to completely bomb it because I’m not prepared enough, and then have my grades plummet.  My grades are all I have!  They’re way separate me from my sisters!”

“I don’t think it’s the grades that separate you,” Eros said, shaking his head.

“Well, it’s one of the things, and it’s pretty much the first that I had.  Penny and Phoebe were lousy students, and all my teachers expected me to be like them.  But when I actually made good grades, because that’s, you know, what’s expected of students, they started treating me like a completely different person, and I realized I did want to be different from my sisters.  And I don’t know, I just want to keep it that way.”

“I still say you don’t have to worry,” he said after a moment of surprise.  “You’re already smarter than Penny and Phoebe without even trying.  I’m just saying you don’t need to stress about your exams.”

“Well, on top of not knowing how they’ll go, I also happen to have a playboy god whose distracting me, and his mother who might pop in and decide to make me prove my worth in the middle of this crap.”

“Playboy god?” he asked, looking a little hurt.  “And is that what you’re really worried about?  Mama throwing another test at you?  I wouldn’t worry about that.  I’ll talk to her and make sure she steers clear of you until after your exams are over.”

“Really?  You think your mother will listen to reason like that?” I demanded sarcastically.  “I highly doubt she’s interested in my education.”

He shrugged.  “Not really, no, but she’s also the sort of goddess who thinks the ideal women stays at home and takes care of her husband and household.  But if I explain it that you not being distracted from your exams’ll help you have a good future without me, she might consider it.  She didn’t like my first wife because she was compared to her, but I honestly think she could care less about you, since no one’s going around comparing you to Venus or whatever.  She just doesn’t want you with me, that’s all.  I’ll certainly see about working something out.  I don’t like seeing you stressed and insulting me.”

“You don’t want to be a playboy god?”

“Um, no?  There’s implications to that that I don’t want to represent.  Zeus is still a playboy god.  I am not, and I don’t want to be associated with him.”

“Well, you certainly look the part.  Exotic, good looking, able to get any woman that he wants.”

“I only want one, Psyche,” he said dryly.  “And that’s the difference.”

I wasn’t sure how Eros would be able to convince his mother to keep her distance for the next few weeks while I worried about exams, so I didn’t quite want to relax my guard on that matter.  It felt like everything was falling on me at once, between the stress of my exams, the stress of the trials, and the stress of the reality show and Phoebe’s upcoming wedding.  Luckily, since I did have the other two, no one had to know about the third.  Mom and Papa just chalked it up to the added stress of my exams.

“I’m thinking of kicking them out,” Papa commented one morning.  “Not long, mind, but only until your done your last exam.  It doesn’t seem fair that they’re here making things worse for you when they have some many other places to film.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time!  Papa, kick them out permanently!  Tell them they’re only allowed to film when you invite them over.  They don’t live here anymore!  You shouldn’t have such an open door policy.”

“You’re father comes from a different culture, Psyche dear,” Mom said.  ”My parents changed the locks whenever one of us left because they didn’t believe in that open door policy.  Your father’s parents would have been insulted if any of their children didn’t come strolling in unannounced on any given day if they lived as close as Penny and Phoebe do.”

I rolled my eyes.  “That’s because they have so many children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews that there’s always one over there anyway.  We’re in America, Papa, not Greece.  It’s okay to kick them out.”

He shrugged.  “To be honest, it just seems easier this way.  They’re going to come in one way or another, so I might as well make it easier on myself.  Wouldn’t you rather know that they might be here rather than be caught off guard?”

I grumbled a bit, since I knew he had a point.  “I’m actually surprised you don’t go to your other office knowing that they’re here.  I know I like my escape.”

He grinned.  “I like working from home, though.  I don’t have to travel an hour just to see your mother at lunch.  Besides, they both know that my office at home’s off limits to cameras, so they don’t actually bother me.  I want to be around to make sure I can protect your mother, at least.  Sometimes you.  I’m just wondering what sort of hissy fit they’ll throw at being denied access.”

“Psyche does have one point, Nik,” Mom said.  “This is our house, not theirs, and if we want to ban them for a few weeks to give Psyche a chance to study, then we have the right.  They can bitch all they want.”

Well, at least that was something to look forward to, but it wasn’t exactly a solved problem.  Just because Papa was thinking about it didn’t mean that he’d actually do it.  Everyone was trying to help, but no one was coming up with a guarantee for anything.   But that just left the exam problem, which was something I was going to have to take care of myself.

Papa claimed he wasn’t kicking them out until after my last day of class, since he claimed there was no sense in studying when I was still learning new things.  So that allowed for Phoebe to corner me one afternoon when I happened to have come home early.  “Hey Psyche,” she said cheerfully, which didn’t mean much to me, especially considering what she said next.  “I just wanted to let you know that we’re going to have fittings for the bridesmaid dresses in the next week or so.  Papa’s talking about how important your exams are, so I wanted to check when a good time for you would be.  You know, so I don’t conflict with them.”

“Um, well, after exams would work best,” I said.  “I don’t have many days between exams, and I need to make sure I use the most of my time.  Your weddings’ still a ways off, so I think you could wait, don’t you?”

She shrugged.  “I want to make sure I have everything ready, Psy.  You worry too much about your exams, though.  You need to learn to loosen up.  Find a boyfriend or something.”

“I thought no boy in their right mind would go for me.”

She waved me off.  “Nah, you just need to find the right boy, that’s all!  You’re a Karalis!  They should be pounding on our door to go out with you.  And what of the Felipe fellow?”

“Felipe?  You know Felipe means nothing to me.  Just because Mom seems to think he does doesn’t mean it’s true, Phebes.”

“At least he’s someone.  Oh, hey, I know; I can find you a guy!”

I was about to snap that I didn’t need her help in finding a guy, mostly because any guy she’d know would be the opposite of perfect for me.  But Eros completely shocked me by suddenly materializing beside me, and I thought he was going to tell Phoebe that I didn’t need help finding a boyfriend because I already had one.  I jerked back, surprised that he’d even consider appearing in front of my sister like that, but he surprised me further by merely hissing, “Hedone,” at Phoebe.

“Hedone?” I asked, a little unsure.

Phoebe pouted for a second before shaking her head slightly, looking as though she were coming out a dream.  She blinked at me before smirking.  I realized that Eros had disappeared again, and Phoebe didn’t seem to realize he was there.  “Gawd, you’re stressing about your stupid exams?  How lame.  You, like, totally need to get laid or something. Psy.  Then maybe you’d be a little less lame.”

She walked off laughing at her quip at me, and I was left standing in the hallway, completely baffled.  I slowly walked back to my room, unsure what the hell just happened, and fully intending to demand an explanation from Eros.

But while he was in my room, as expected (he hadn’t left me again since I asked him that one day), he wasn’t alone.  He was giving Hedone a stern look while she sat on my bed, looking a little chastised.  “Okay, what’s going on here?  Why’s Hedone in my room?”

“I think you owe Psyche an apology for what you were doing?” Eros said sternly.  It was one thing to know that he was a father, but it was completely weird to see him acting as one.

Hedone looked at me a little sheepishly.  “Why?  I was making her life easier!  You said so yourself that she hated the fact that she didn’t have any loving sisters!  I was correcting that.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, still confused.

Eros sighed.  “I didn’t realize it, and I’m sorry I let it go on.  But Hedone here was overshadowing your sister to make her appear nicer to you.  We’re not supposed to influence mortals in that fashion.”

“Oh, come on, like you didn’t want to do it, too, Papa!  I want Psyche to be happy just as much as you do!”

“Having Phoebe be nicer to me wasn’t making me happy,” I told her.  “She’s always been mean to me, so her suddenly being nice to me wasn’t going to erase our past.  If anything, it creeped me out.”

“I wanted to do your oldest sister, because I thought her being nice to you would influence Phoebe to be nice as well, but…I couldn’t get into her mind.  It’s so twisted.”

“Yeah, I could have told you that,” I said dryly.  “I mean, I suppose I appreciate the effort, but…I just don’t understand why you’d think you’d have to do something like that.  I’ve learned to deal with my sisters.  I don’t need help.”

“Yeah, but considering this whole mess with Nona, I thought maybe having nice sisters would be a welcome change.  Maybe they’d help support you or something.  You didn’t really have that sort of support the first time.  You know, on account that they were dead.”

Eros rolled his eyes.  “Hedone doesn’t think about consequences.  She only does what feels good, and apparently, she thought it felt good trying to help you.  Her realm of influence screws her up sometimes.”

“Hey, better to have people enjoy things than to have them constantly fall in love with you,” she shot back.  I was sort of expecting him to look a little embarrassed about that, but instead the two of them sort of matched wits with a staring contest.  I suppose considering Eros was generally portrayed as a youthful god – cherub for not withstanding – he never really matured to the level of father than Papa was.  Then again, maybe he was never a mature father.  After all, seeing him scold Hedone seemed so out of place for me.

“Okay, okay,” I said when it was clear neither were backing down.  “I’ll admit that it was a little weird to see Phoebe act nice to me, mostly because I wasn’t aware that gods could overshadow mortals.  But really, I’m just glad that you’re so accepting of me that you’d want to make my life easier.  You could, in fact, hate me because I was trying to replace your mother.”

“Good Lord, no; I’d never do that, Psyche!  It’s hard to hate you, isn’t it?”

Eros and I glanced at each other, deciding not to point out that we knew of at least one person, aside from my sisters, who hated me – Maddie’s roommate.  Let Hedone be ignorant.  “So, I’m a little surprised you don’t have wings.”

She waved me off.  “Of course not,” she said.  “Only a handful of gods actually do.  Allows me to blend in a little easier.  Not like I do it much.  Looking like this only offers a handful of occupations for me.  And trust me, I can only handle going through junior high so many times.  Talk about drama.”  She rolled her eyes.  “I mean, that’s when it becomes less about having a good time and more about how cute that boy looks.”

“Yeah, I remember junior high,” I said.  “It went from chasing each other with water balloons to chasing Jimmy Johnson.”

“Whose Jimmy Johnson?” Eros asked.

“No one you need to worry about, don’t worry.  He was considered the hottest boy in my grade, and all the popular girls were in love with him.  You know the type, I think; athletic, rich, rather suave.  Thinks himself God’s gift to the world.  Not very entertaining, if you ask me.”

“He sounds dreamy,” Hedone sighed.

Eros rolled his eyes again.  “Sometimes our ages affect our minds,” he laughed.  “Hedone, you know the rule.  The only mortals we’re allowed to go after now are the reincarnated ones.”

“But Zeus…”

“We’re not one of the Twelve, Hedone.  We live by separate rules, you know that.  I better not here of you chasing mortal boys again.”

“You sound a lot like my own father.  But then again, his scolding mostly pertained to not allowing us to date until we were thirty,” I grinned.  “So I guess she takes after her father if she’s chasing boys around.”

“I have no idea where you’re getting the idea that I’m, as you say, a playboy.  Even before I met the first Psyche, I wasn’t running around with anyone.  Just because I’m the god of love doesn’t mean that I love everyone.”

“Yeah, but everyone loves you.  Don’t deny it; I know I felt something overcome me when I, um, snuck in that night.”  I glanced at Hedone, but I realized either she already knew what happened between Eros and me…or she just didn’t care.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about that, Psyche.  We all have abilities that we try to keep under check.  I mean, if I’m not careful, I can make anyone standing a wee bit too close to be act out their greatest pleasure.  When we sleep, we don’t have control over our powers.  But typically, mortals don’t see us when we sleep.”

I glanced at Eros, and he shrugged.  “I’m not worried about you being effect, Psyche.  Worst it does to you is apparently give you the uncontrollable desire to kiss me, which I am not going to complain about.  Besides, you’ll notice it doesn’t affect you so much now that you’re admitting to yourself that you actually love me.”

He grinned brightly at me, and I just sighed.  He was lucky I did love him so much.

“Oh, you know what we should do?” Hedone asked suddenly.  “We should totally help Psyche destress a little about exams.  There’s nothing better than hanging around good friends to do that!  We should go this Saturday!”

“Er, I can’t,” I said.  “My last class is tomorrow, and my first exam is Monday.  I’m going over to Maddie’s on Saturday to have a study session.  It’s tradition.”

“Oh,” she said, deflating a little.  “Okay.  Maybe we’ll do something after exams, then?  I want to have fun with her, Papa.”

“You always make that sound like a horrible thing,” he said a little dryly.

It was sort of depressed and sort of exciting on my last day of classes, since it was hard not to get caught up in the general excitement of a last day of anything school related.  I was mostly depressed because it meant I had a month before I had some place to hide again, and I had a feeling I’d become a permanent resident in the Douglass household until classes started up again.  I spent Reading Day cooped up in my room under the pretense of studying, but in reality, all I was going was following Eros’ suggestion of taking a day off before hitting the books, and laying curled up next to him while we watched a few movies.  That was an excellent way to destress, I had to admit.

Normally I would have walked to Maddie’s house, although it was quite a distance thanks to our large properties, because that was part of the tradition as well, but usually our final exams were in the summer, when it was warmer out.  We never really bothered with our mid-terms, since that wasn’t as defining.  It felt a little wrong driving to the Douglas’, but I didn’t want to be found halfway there, dead from hyperthermia.  What a way to go!

Maddie seemed a little too happy to see me when their butler answered the door.  “Psyche, hi!” she said, skidding a little.  I always liked Maddie’s house.  It had a more homely feel to it, mostly because their foyer wasn’t as large, or as covered in marble.  “Are you excited?”

“To study?  Sure, why not?”

She grinned at me too strongly, and I had a feeling she was just looking forward to spending the day with me – or else expecting Eros to show up once we were in her room, and she could ask him more questions or something.  But what I found in her room was something I was least expecting.

Or should I say who was in her room?

“I’m sorry,” she said a little too happily.  “They just showed up, and I was like I don’t know who you are, and then they were like we’re friends of Psyche, and then they revealed to me who they really are.  And I was like yeah, okay.”

“Hedone came to me and pointed out that you’ve been stressed about a number of things,” Persephone – or rather Stephanie – said a little more apologetically.  “I agreed to protect you from my sister, but apparently, I’ve done a terrible job by allowing one to slip by.  So when she suggested we go against her father’s wishes and hang out with you, I thought it would be a good idea.”

“You can study tomorrow,” Hedone said just as happily as Maddie.  “Sometimes you just need a day to take your mind off things, and then you’ll be ready to tackle anything.  I don’t care if Papa’s angry at me; you need more friends, and you need a girls’ day!”

“A girls’ day?” I asked, glancing at Maddie.

“I know, right?  Imagine, an actual girls’ day!  How exciting is that?”

I realized that Maddie was too keen on the idea, regardless of the fact that she’d be hanging around goddess, one of which appeared to be about six years younger than us.  That was the beauty of Maddie.  She didn’t judge.  I laughed.  “Okay, okay, we’ll have a girls’ day, and then we’ll study tomorrow.  You don’t have to twist my leg.”

“Oh, this is so exciting!  But, um…what exactly do we do on a girls’ day?” she asked, suddenly confused.

“Whatever the hell you what,” Persephone said, grinning.  “We could go shopping and spend all our fathers’ money, and then give each other make-overs.  We could watch really mad movies and make fun of them.  Hell, we could even go to the mall and people watch if you really wanted to.”

“We could creep around the Karalis household and ruin the filming?” Maddie suggested.

“We do that anyway; that’s not that special, Maddie.  Besides, I don’t want to let these two in on how screwed up my life can be.”

“Don’t worry; we already know,” Hedone told me.  “We’re goddesses; we tend to know more than you think we do, remember?  All of us have been watching you, mostly to make sure Papa doesn’t go stark raving mad on you.  Bad for business, you know?”

“Papa, I can’t get over it.  You’re dating someone who has a child, Psyche!” Maddie giggled.

“It’s a hazard of dating a god, it’s true,” Persephone agreed.  “Especially in this day and age.  Although I suppose it’s even stranger since he only has the one, and he’s close with her.  I know Hades isn’t all that close with our daughters, mostly because the myths claim them to be Zeus’, for whatever reason.  He was close to Zagreus, but that ended up a huge mess, and now Zagreus is Dionysus.”

“How the hell did that happen?” Maddie asked surprised.

Persephone laughed ruefully.  “It’s complicated, and let’s leave it at that.”

“So you’re seriously Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld, wife of Hades?” Maddie asked with wide eyes.  “I wasn’t sure what to make of that when you said you were.”

She nodded.  “I’m also the goddess of spring, if you want to consider me that.  Everyone harps on the fact that I’m Hades’ wife.  I don’t mind, of course, but I have other aspects as well.  I’m certainly not all doom and gloom.”

“It’s winter; how are you allowed up here?”

“It’s not winter yet, but that deal I had with my mother sort of become null and void once our power started to wane, and I chose to remain with my husband.  The seasons were out of her control at that point, so there was no point in fighting it.  So I’m able to come and go as I please now.”

“Which works out for me, since she’s supposed to be my champion and all,” I said, grinning.

Maddie suddenly lowered her gaze on Persephone.  “You’re not trying to steal my best friend, are you?”

Persephone looked startled at this.  “Good Lord, no,” she said, her eyes wide.  “I wouldn’t dream of that.  Yes, I was the first Psyche’s best friend, I suppose, but I just want to be this Psyche’s friend, period.  You get that honor, Madeline.  I just want to protect Psyche from Aphrodite because I feel as though this all partially my fault.  I was the one who told Psyche about the reincarnation thing to begin with, not realizing that she’d actually take the offer.  We all thought she was so happy.”

“I certainly did,” Hedone sighed.  “I mean, I could tell she was a little sadder than normal, but we all were in those days.  We were worshipped as much, and we were being forgotten.  And she enjoyed helping people.  So when people stopped calling on her for help, it made her sad.  None of us realized it was just a brave face.”

“It’s so strange to think how different the two Psyche’s are, especially since they share the same soul.  I mean, I know Psyche well enough that, yeah, she’d hide things from people, but I don’t think she’d ever be that sad with her life, not without doing something to correct it.  She fights back.”

“Yes, but it’s been mentioned that not all the reincarnations are the same,” Persephone said.  “Each soul gets a new start when they enter a new body, and their personalities change because of it.  Yes, she has some aspects of the first Psyche in her, but in the end, it’s her who decides how her life’ll be, not her soul.”

“It’s a little bit of my soul,” I said.  “Eros said that I’d be more like my sisters if I didn’t have Psyche’s soul in me with her sensibilities and experiences.”

“Maybe,” Persephone said.  “But you also have to remember that you’re the daughter of Nikodemus Karalis, and one of them was bound to be more sensible.  It just ended up being you, that’s all.  You might be a little less inclined to be antisocial if you had your own soul, but I think that’s about it.”

“So…if I didn’t have Psyche’s soul, I wouldn’t have just Maddie as my friend.”

She nodded.  “But remember, it’s the quality, not the quantity of friendship that matters.”

“Oh, I know; I was just imagining how different my life would have been if I had more friends, that’s all.  So long as I am friends with Maddie, though, I don’t care.  I’d rather have her as an only friend than give her up, to be honest.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Maddie said, smiling at me, giving me a hug while pointedly looking at Persephone.  That as going to be a fun relationship.

“Well, you do have us now, Psyche, and you get to keep Maddie!  I think things are going to start looking up for you, starting with you proving your worth to Nona.  Regardless of what happens, you’ll still have us, I promise,” Hedone reassured.

“Thanks, I think,” I said, grinning nervously.

I had to admit that I was a little worried what Aphrodite might do to my budding relationships if I did fail to prove my worth to her.  I already knew I couldn’t live without Eros – at least not live the way I wanted to – but to give up Persephone and Hedone, and not to mention Zephyrus, would be entirely too much.  That, of course, just meant that I had to do my best, for my friends, to prove Aphrodite wrong.  I was meant to be with her son, just as I seemed to be meant for this world.  And I wanted to stay in it.

I was just worried about the cost it was going to take to remain within it.

Chapter Seven

The Trials of Psyche Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine