A Scripta

Harmonia entered the alabaster chambers of her mother's home and went right to her brother's room. Anteros sat on a divan, playing a lute for his brother Eros.

"You're in trouble," Harmonia said, plucking a grape from the dish at the door.

Eros looked up. "I'm always in trouble. That's why I'm cute."

"Not you," she said, and pointed to Anteros. "Him."

Anteros continued his lute-playing, ignoring his sister. She sat down on a couch across from the two gods and waited for him to finish. Eros smiled when he did, and leaned over to kiss his brother. Anteros turned to Harmonia. "What are you talking about?"

"Stefan the Seraphim is furious."

"What about now? He's been grumpy ever since he was assigned to that mortal magician."

"Your arrow became real," she said, tucking her legs under her. "The Mage almost died."

Anteros shrugged, and plucked some notes on the lute. "He learned a lesson, didn't he?"

"You shouldn't have done it. Now there's discord between them. Our father's Champion is in pain, the Seraphim is angry, and the Mage wishes to make all parties happy."

"The Mage fell for the Seraphim. He didn't pay attention to the Champion, so he should have been punished." He bent his head to the lute. "That's what mother said."

"So you had to cause trouble," Harmonia admonished.

"And he made his decision." He plucked a dirge.

"Now his love is being spurned by the Champion."

"That's not my fault," Anteros said. "If the Champion refuses it, that's his perogative. He's not a servant of Aphrodite and bound by the same laws as the Mage."

The doors opened with a boom, and all the godlings turned to the entrance way. Storming through the halls was an angel on fire.

Anteros dropped the lute and flew out a window. Stefan came into the chambers and looked with flaming eyes upon the company, and they backed away from his wrath. "Where is he?"

Eros looked with smoldering eyes on Stefan in his full angelic regalia. Harmonia advanced slowly, "Seraphim," she said quietly, "please be calm--"

"He almost killed him." The ring the Mage gave Stefan shone blue-black against his finger, blazing darker as his own flame grew brighter in anger. "If I wasn't there, he would have been dead."

"Anteros was only giving a lesson..."

"That almost cost my love his life."

Eros made a clicking noise with his tongue. "Gone native on your first exc--URK!"

Stefan lifted Eros by his neck and suspended him a good foot off the ground. Eros' wings flapped futilely. Harmonia put her hands through Stefan's angelic flame and put them on Stefan's chest. "Please, Seraphim!"

Stefan dropped Eros onto the marble floor and glared at Harmonia. "If I see Anteros, I will thrash him within an inch of his life."

Harmonia only nodded and watched Stefan turn from Eros and walk away.

Eros looked at Harmonia. "He seriously needs to get laid."