IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, the trek up to Clotho’s palace seemed less fatalistic. It was still as steep as all get-up, but the scurrying lizards and fragrant blooms lent a charming whimsy to the morning. The sound of bleating goats echoed across the valley, while the smell of sour milk suffused the landscape with a lightly cultured tang. High above, Athenian sea eagles see-sawed on thermals while wind sprites blew vapor trails across their aerial playground, advertising fun.
But it was all an illusion. Without a Hero to set the pace, Eros dragged his heals, dawdling like a delinquent before his meeting with Clotho who would not, her was certain, be handing out free will in exchange for the paltry information he had to offer. As he traipsed up the path, he ran through a mental list of recent events to the best of his recollection, trying to impose some kind of logic on their jumbled disorder. He soon gave up and concluded that there was none; a conclusion he had also come to the day before, and the day before that. At any rate, the sun was way too hot and the climb way too arduous for unraveling mysteries. It was unusually humid, too, which was causing his tunic to stick unpleasantly to his torso. Unpleasantly for Eros, at least. To the outside observer, the clinging fabric merely accentuated his physical perfection. Or near perfection, since even gods have redundant body parts, and the material had started to chafe his nipples.
‘Ouch,’ said Eros, peeling his tunic from his shoulders and poking at his chest. His nipples didn’t look particularly inflamed, but appearances were deceiving when it came to chafing and he knew from experience that the damage was done. Tugging at his sleeves, he wriggled the rest of his body free until the upper part of his tunic hung loosely over his belt. The effect was probably comical, Eros realized, but it would have to do. In fact, it gave him the appearance of a dancer in a modern ballet, the kind where men wear tutus and woman bare their breasts. But there were no topless ballerinas around, which was unfortunate because it would have given Eros the morale boost he needed to get to the top of the mountain. As it was, he had to settle for a drink from the nearby stream, which was as cool and refreshing as spring water had any right to be, without a celebrity endorsement.
Eros wiped his mouth and stood up, his golden skin glowing with healthy immortality. Squinting, he could see the top of Clotho’s palace at the end of the far ridge. It still seemed like a long way, but it would probably only take him another half hour to get there if he picked up the pace. He was just about to grab a handful of wild strawberries for the road, when he heard something that stopped him in his tracks. He cocked his head, and there it was again: the distinctive sound of a woman’s laughter. No, not laughter, more of a giggle. And not from a woman, but a—
‘Hello,’ said a small voice. Eros spun around. There, improbably, was a little girl in a simple white dress. She was standing about six feet away from him, on the edge of a precipice. For a moment he was too shocked to shout out a warning or to lunge forward and grab her before she toppled over the edge. Fortunately, she took several steps towards him of her own accord, placing herself directly in his path. ‘That’s a funny dress,’ she continued, ‘are you a fairy?’
Eros stared at her, flabbergasted. Fairies were a human invention. ‘No,’ he said at last, ‘I’m not a fairy.’
‘That’s right,’ said the girl, nodding. ‘You don’t have wings.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t have wings.’ Eros realized his responses weren’t exactly conversational dynamite, but he didn’t have much experience with children and thought it best to let her take the lead.
‘That’s too bad,’ she said, sizing him up. ‘You’d look good with wings.’
‘Thank you,’ said Eros. ‘So would you.’
She giggled. ‘Silly,’ she said, rolling her eyes, ‘I can’t have wings. I’m a girl.’ And then, like a puddle on a hot pavement, she disappeared.
Frowning, Eros added it to the mental list of weird things that had happened to him lately, and continued on his way.