Born in Beauty

by Melody Rose

  “We are gathered here today,” the General began sounding like he was introducing a church service rather than a meeting. “To discuss the potential threat on campus.”

  Potential my ass, I thought. The threat is here, and it’s real.

  “It has been brought to our attention that students and soldiers alike have been more… hormonally charged than normal,” the General said, his voice sticking on the phrasing.

  One of the only amusing things about this whole situation was seeing the various officials try to come up with the language to describe what was happening. Because saying, “The students are fucking like rabbits,” clearly wasn’t appropriate.

  “In what way?” the son of Hestia asked as he adjusted his monocle on his face.

  The General cocked his head at Egan, and his mouth opened slightly as if to ask: “You’re really going to make me say it?”

  Clarissa interjected instead as she leaned forward down the table at Egan. “They are violating the no relations rule and seem to have no qualms about doing so.”

  “We have an instance of this every so often,” said the daughter of Aphrodite. “And considering they are at ideal breeding age, it makes sense that this happens more than we are aware of.”

  I blinked incredulously. Seriously though, the language these officials were using. Did we time travel to one hundred years ago, and no one told me? I was sheepish and shy when it came to sexual relations, but this was taking it to a whole other level.

  “This is something different,” Min added. “Buck, Clarissa, the General, and I have all seen it first hand. It is something possessive, as though they are captivated.”

  “They all use the same language to describe their actions as well,” Clarissa said as she shook her head in disappointment. “Like they are robots or something. Even when we put them in separate rooms, they all talked about having a connection.”

  “That’s just something young people say,” Tené said as she waved her hand in a blasé manner. “Do not get me wrong, I have always been against the relations rule because I believe romantic and sexual relations are healthy and natural, but young people like to convince themselves they’re in love.”

  “In this case, I think it’s something else convincing them,” Buck said.

  “How did this come to our attention?” Egan wondered. “When did we notice the similarities in their behavior?”

  With a pointed look, the General turned to me. The rest of the dozen pairs of eyes followed suit. They were expectant, though some exasperated as if to say: “Not this girl again.”

  I shrugged, trying to brush off their judgments. “I’m just observant, I guess.”

  “Why don’t you tell the rest of the officers what you told us, Cheyenne?” Min offered, his voice kind and encouraging. He offered me a smile, though it didn’t reach all the way to his eyes.

  So I told the story. Again. I made sure to include every detail I could remember, from the moment I walked in on Janet to Rick, up until I brought Benji to the med bay. I added some sections from the med bay board room too, but by then, the officials in attendance took over the story and gave their impressions.

  “Let me get this straight,” the son of Hades said as he held out a hand towards me, palm out like a crossing guard. “We believe that some sort of love spell has infected our students. Are we actually considering this?”

  “It’s not impossible,” Garth pointed out. “There have been lots of myths about humans becoming infatuated with one another.”

  “Mostly by divine intervention,” Jarred added.

  “This sounds like it’s up your alley, Tené,” Maurice said as he swiveled that hand that was once directed to me toward Tené. He shifted it to an accusing finger.

  Tené put a hand to her chest. “From the sounds of it, this isn’t love. It’s infatuation. Which is not up my alley, so you say.”

  “Goddess of love?” Maurice said as if she didn’t know her mother’s featured subjects. “This has Aphrodite written all over it.”

  “Not if the behavior is sexual in nature,” Tené said with a raised finger of her own, though looking more like a teacher lecturing a class. “Then that would belong to--”

  “Eros,” I interjected. The lightbulb went off in my head during their conversation. “The god of lust a.k.a. Cupid in Roman mythology.”

  There was a short silence in the room before Min politely nodded his head at me. “Yes, we are aware, Cheyenne, thank you.”

  I closed my mouth and blushed, embarrassed. Obviously, I didn’t have to flex my mythology muscles here. The Olympic Officials should know as much, if not more than I did.

  “Say Eros has had something to do with this,” Egan continued the hypothetically, “the question is why?”

  “I don’t think that’s the most pertinent question,” Clarissa corrected.

  “Then what is?” Egan countered.

  “The question is how do we stop it?” Clarissa clarified.

  “We’re not even sure there is an ‘it’ yet,” Maurice said doubtfully. “I still believe this could just be a rambunctious bunch we have this year. Bringing guards on campus has backfired in ways we didn’t foresee.”

  “And I believe that is rather small-minded of you, Maurice,” Garth snapped. “We have good and disciplined students. Not all of the accused are first years either. Some seasoned and well-trained soldiers are involved as well. You really think so many of them would throw away what they worked four long and hard years for on a whim?”

  A corner of my mouth lifted in a smirk. I liked Garth’s way of thinking. He would have been nice to have at the beginning of all of this. Maybe it wouldn’t have taken so long to have them notice something was wrong if they thought more like him.

  Maurice didn’t have a response to this. Because if he disagreed with Garth’s reasoning, then he would have to admit that the Academy had done a poor job of training these soldiers. If he agreed, then he would have to admit he was wrong. So, in an effort to stay neutral, Maurice stayed silent.

  “No,” Garth continued, taking Maurice silence as permission. “I believe something larger is at work here. All signs point to Eros.”

  “Is he powerful enough to do this to so many students at once?” Min wondered. “I have heard of him infecting large groups at the same time, but these symptoms, if you can call them that, seemed to pop up randomly. And it’s not as though the students are all randomly hooking up. They seem to become infatuated with one particular person.”

  My mind whirred at this information. This was typical when I was in the midst of mythology talk. I sifted through my encyclopedia of knowledge to find other instances like this one. The pieces clicked together one by one until a picture formed, and the answer revealed itself.

  “The bow and arrow!” I exclaimed the same time Ansel did.

  Surprised by our united voices, the two of us looked at one another with shock on our faces. A blush crawled up my neck, and I looked away before it grew hotter on my skin.

  The Olympic Officials also looked at the pair of us, their expressions a mix of confusion, understanding, and apprehension.

  I held out my hands and started speaking rapidly, as if I couldn’t hold back the words any longer. “The bow and arrow are rumored to attract people to the first human they see. Other myths talk about the bow and arrow united you with your true love. In this case, I think most people have been struck with Eros’s bow and arrow.”

  “Again, I just don’t understand why he would do that,” Egan said as he shook his head in confusion and disbelief. “It’s so unlike him.”

  “I understand your plight, Egan, but we still have the students we have to worry about,” Clarissa reasoned. “Do we have a way to counteract this love spell, if that’s what we are calling it?”

  “Do we have the results of the tests yet?” Annika asked, being uncharacteristically logical.

  “They are supposed to report them to us the minute the healers have them,” the General assured An
nika.

  “Well, that will tell us for sure if it is Eros’s bow and arrow,” Annika continued. She leaned back in his chair, sure of herself. “Which I’m still not convinced it is.”

  This time I didn’t hold back. I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? We’ve already agreed that this behavior is unusual. We’ve also agreed that Eros’s bow and arrow is the only thing powerful enough to do this on this scale. So reason says, it’s Eros.”

  A stunned silence was followed by outrage at me calling out Apollo’s son. Nerve trickled down my spine, but I held my ground. All this discussion and no action annoyed me to no end. Didn’t they know that my friend wasn’t acting like himself? That something prevented him from doing anything else than thinking about that stupid Gi soldier? It didn’t seem as urgent as a harpy attack, but in my mind, it was.

  “Thank you for your opinion, Cheyenne,” the General said through clenched teeth. “I believe we have heard everything we need from you right now. You can await our decision with the other students.”

  My jaw dropped open without a second thought. Were they kicking me out? Even though I came into this room dragging my feet and wanting to be anywhere but there, now all I wanted to do was stay. I needed to make sure that they were going to make the right decision. I didn’t trust these officials to do what needed to be done. I could leave the room, and they might not do anything at all about this infection.

  I didn’t move my feet and blatantly ignored the General’s order.

  “Cheyenne,” the General repeated my name, sterner than he had ever said it before. “You are excused.”

  “But I--”

  “Are you defying me?” the General said with a raised eyebrow and a raised voice. “Are you defying a direct order?”

  I closed my mouth and sucked my teeth. With a big inhale, I bounded on my toes as if I were still making up my mind. As if the answer wasn’t as obvious as it should have been. I didn’t want to leave. I needed them to believe me. I looked around the room with a hard expression, as if I could glare my conviction into each of them.

  Suddenly, my eyes rounded on the empty chair. Number thirteen, saved for the child of Hephaestus. A devious thought popped into my mind.

  That chair had been offered to me once. Would they let me take it again? My mind scurried through the possibilities of taking that throne. While it would force them to let me stay and listen to me, I wasn’t sure it would mean moving forward with my responsibilities. The short-term success might not be worth the long-term repercussions.

  Just then, a voice spoke to me. It was as though the voice was right next to me, crisp and clear. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize it, and somehow, I knew that none of the people in the room were its source.

  “The time has not yet come,” the voice told me. “Soon, but not yet.”

  It was gruff but urgent, one that bloomed in the back of my memories. Something foreign but familiar. It struck a chord in my heart that left me breathless.

  I kept my face as straight as I could when a disembodied voice spoke in my ear out of nowhere. Instead, I gave the General a little bow with my head and turned on my heel.

  “In fact, I would like to speak with the officials alone,” the General added to his command. “Branch leaders, you may leave as well.”

  Unlike me, the other trained soldiers marched off in a structured line and didn’t say anything to defy their leader. The four of us left the room and shut the door behind us. We stood awkwardly in the lobby without saying anything. I purposely avoided eye contact with any of the branch leaders, still consumed in my own thoughts about the voice.

  A sinking suspicion crawled into my stomach and stayed there. But more than anything, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to be true.

  A soft touch on my elbow brought me out of my reverence. My eyes glanced up and connected with Ansel’s vibrant green ones. Their intensity caught me off guard nearly as much as that unexpected voice.

  “Are you okay?” the Fotia soldier asked me. At first, I was worried about what Kiley and Samson saw when he looked at me and touched me like that. But from over Ansel’s shoulders were the concerned faces of the other branch leaders. Their kindness surprised me. I didn’t know how many more surprises I could take just then.

  As much as I wanted to just address Ansel, I made sure to look at all three of them when I spoke. “I’m just worried about my friend.”

  “Us too,” Kiley answered as she took a step forward. “This is nothing like our soldiers. It’s so out of character.”

  “There’s something more to this,” Samson said. He shook his head and put his hands on his hips, balled into fists. “I just hope the test results show that.”

  “They will,” Ansel assured Samson. Then he squeezed my arm, giving me extra comfort. “They’ll show you’re right.”

  As if on cue, Darren rounded the corner. The healer had his eyes down on a clipboard, so he wasn’t watching where he was going. He stopped in his tracks when he came upon the four of us. Darren wrapped his arms around the clipboard and held it to his chest with a panicked look on his face.

  The branch leaders and I knew exactly what was in his hand: the results. Like a pack of hungry wolves, we pranced forward and bombarded him with an onslaught of questions.

  “Are those them?”

  “What do they say?”

  “Is it Eros?”

  “Is it deadly?”

  “Whoa,” Darren said as he held up a hand and twisted away from us. “Back up.”

  Obediently, the four of us took a single, giant step backward. I dragged my feet together and locked my legs in anticipation.

  “I’m supposed to tell the officials first,” Darren defended. “Don’t put me in this position.”

  “Darren,” I said, unable to keep out the whine in my voice. “I know you have your orders, but just tell me if I was right.”

  Finally, Darren lowered the clipboard but still kept it pressed against his body. He put his other hand on his hip and sighed with obvious exaggeration. “Cheyenne,” he complained.

  “Fine,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “Blink once if I’m right, twice if I was wrong, and it’s something else.”

  Darren pursed his lips and opened his eyes wide, so I didn’t get any mixed impressions.

  “Just let him be,” Kiley said gently. “Let him do his job.”

  Samson and Kiley walked past Darren, taking the lead. They stood on the other side of him while Ansel and I continued to block the healer from the door. Suddenly, Kiley reached out and slipped the clipboard out of Darren’s loose grip. She tossed it up in the air, and Samson caught it. Even though Darren was tall and lanky, Samson was built like a massive linebacker and held the clipboard over Darren’s head in an elementary school type of keep-away game.

  Samson tossed the clipboard over Darren’s head, through the gap in his raised arms. Due to the awkward shape of the papers and their holder, the clipboard flapped down in a sharp arch. I crouched with open arms and clutched it to my chest, protectively. I spun, so my back was to Darren as I flipped through the diagnosis.

  Just as I read through some of the lines, Darren yanked the clipboard out of my hands.

  I gaped up at him. “It is a love spell. Eros’s love spell.”

  Darren hugged the clipboard like a child gripping a stuffed animal. “Yeah, it is. You were right.”

  Ansel and the other branch leaders released cries of relief. Kiley and Samson high-fived in celebration.

  “Great!” I exclaimed as I clapped my hands together. “Now that you know what it is, can you cure it?”

  Darren’s face fell, and I knew the answer before he even said it.

  “It’s Eros’s formula for sure,” Darren confirmed, “but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “Wait, what?” I stopped in my tracks.

  “We might have a diagnosis, but we don’t have a cure.”

  14

  The first thing that happened after the Olympic Officials foun
d out the tests were positive for Eros’s love formula, they demanded that every single student and guard on campus get tested. Throughout the next week, students were called out of class and shuffled down to the med bay. Darren, along with the other healers and nurses, worked overtime, performing all of the necessary blood draws, tear collections, and lab work.

  This was done so that they didn’t have to examine everyone at once. It was supposed to pick up the process, but sometimes they had to call students back to the med bay to redo the testing.

  “We’re not prepared for so many samples,” Darren complained to us. “It’s exhausting.”

  The other exhausting element of this whole thing was the continuous hookups. It was as though everyone was pairing up. The cafeteria felt like a regular orgy with all of these couples sitting together. Or rather, sitting on top of one another. Teachers tried to keep students off each other during classes, and extra security was added outside of the dorms. If you didn’t have the right identification to get into the dorms, then you weren’t allowed in. But there were ways around that, especially when a guard was supposed to be stationed outside the dorm, but was instead inside with one of the students.

  Eventually, it got so bad that all of the officials stopped trying to keep the couples apart. It was easier to give in to the madness than resist it. When in Rome, or something to that effect.

  One thing that I found unusual was the people that were clearly unaffected. While Benji was still canoodling Zach, Darren, Violet, and I stayed normal. We kept checking in on each other, but none of us showed any of the classic symptoms. We were able to still spend time on our own, not talk about one person every six seconds, and actually pay attention when completing tasks.

  Right now, the campus was half and half, split into the infected and the non-infected. It wasn’t everyone, but it was certainly obvious who was and wasn’t.

  That was one thing about this particular infatuation that was interesting. It wasn’t as though everyone was sleeping with everyone. People were definitely coupled up, but there were no cheating scandals. Other than the obnoxious PDA, it was kind of sweet to watch the pairs.