>>5140224>>5140249Ouch! Even through the water and even with her flames off, touching her feels hot! Still, you're able to keep an impassive visage
Pele jumps up and down as she shakes your hand. "I'm so, so, glad to have met you! I heard about how hated the women in your family and wouldn't you just know it, I do to! I know we're supposed to wrestle each other until everyone worships one goddess, but maybe we could hold off on that until we make sure the goddesses we don't like lose--and get what they deserve?"
She's right about you hating Athena and Hera.
By Zeus, you'd love to see those two humbled. It doesn't have to do with the apple. It goes back further than that. It runs deeper than that.
You were born from Cronus' loins getting tossed into the sea. Some syncretic versions of you out there in the multiverse are born from Zeus and Dione, but not you. You call yourself an Olympian, but in truth, you are a Titaness, and everyone knew it back on Olympus. You were always the outsider.
Zeus would do Hera favors just to get her off his back for a minute and Athena was always daddy's little girl. He let her borrow the Aegis so much people started to think it was hers. But you, naw, no favors. "Venus, create Pandora. Venus, marry the crippled god, Venus, have sex with Anchises..."
No favors, just orders.
And of course there was the apple, and the war, and when Hera and Athena stood with the Greeks Zeus acted perfectly neutral--but he gave them his tacit support. They won, in the end, after all.
A Titaness on the side of the Trojans--it seems you've always been involved in lost causes. Maybe that's what love truly is, love for something hopeless...
"See, you got Athena and Hera and I got Namaka and Poliahu. Namaka, she's my older sister, and she chased me out of my homeland because she's a total bitch and..." she looks away.
And she couldn't do anything about it. She was probably beaten by her.
"And Poliahu, ugh! Annoying little ice goddess sitting on her mountains. She...got the best of me twice. Because she never came down from that stupid mountain so she always had the advantage of snow. Coward."
You could probably say something about Pele being a three-time loser against other goddesses...but you know how it is. Diomedes. They always bring up Diomedes. "Goddess of love, not war, ha ha ha."
It sucks to lose. It sucks even more to be known as a loser.
"When Namaka kicked me out of my home, I got real good at navigating through uncharted chaos, yeah? That's how I found my new island. So I can help you out. I can send you to whatever goddess you want to fight. You beat up one of mine, and in return I'll take down one of yours. And then we can trade handmaidens. What do you say?"