Aphrodite Mae wrote:Athena is the goddess of warfare and wisdom. I'm her sister, Aphrodite. [...]
then what follows probably won't make sense.
Anyway:
GoldSabre wrote:Olympus is in the Smokies? Vulcan lost his blacksmith shop and is now makin' shine?
[SIZE="1"]<gloomy sigh>[/size]
I just don't know how this stuff gets out to the public! You think that a secret is safe, and then lo and behold, mortals are talking about it! Except they usually tend to get it all wrong. So, I might as well set the record straight.
In the middle ages, things kinda took a turn for the worst with mom and dad and the rest of my family. We were hangin' out on Mt. Olympus, minding our own business and not bothering anyone, really. Oh, sure: Athena was kicking up a little dust here and there 'cause she was bored; and I kinda made a mess of things in Verona, when I tried to smooth things out between the Montagues and the Capulets; and every once in awhile, dad would kinda go on a rampage and cause a little earthquake or two here and there, but for the most part, we just kinda took a "laissez faire" attitude.
That all changed when these Greek Orthodox dudes showed up and built a monastery right on Mount Olympus! That was it, as far as dad was concerned. "To Hades with this!" he said. "We're moving!"
Now, there'd kinda been a bit of friction between dad and Hephaestus (or Vulcan, in the Roman pantheon) after that entire mess with Vesuvius and Pompeii and all that. Plus, there was this kinda tension between Heph and my mom. So, when dad said we were going to move, Heph decided to go ahead and find his own place as far from them as possible. He set up shop in Indonesia, on an island.
After Dionysus taught the French how to make wine, he just didn't have a lot to do, and so he started hanging out with Heph. My brother Heph is a really great guy and is a craftsman like you wouldn't believe, but when he and Dionysus get together, it just isn't a good thing. We didn't know it at the time, but Heph had suggested to Dion that he might experiment with making something with more "kick" than wine.
Now, I guess I should mention that things weren't exactly smooth between my parents and Dion, since he'd kinda been "left on the doorstep" by Hermes, so to speak. They never really accepted him, 'cause they'd been forced to adopt him. Olympians don't like to be forced to do anything. So anyway, dad and Dion argued a lot. One day in the late 1700's, dad got so mad at Dion that he let him have it, with one of his most blazing hot lightening bolts. When Dion regained consciousness, he was on a mountain top in Tennessee... and he had his inspiration for a new beverage! He called it "White Lightening", and he taught Tennessee mountaineers how to craft it. It was smooth, and like drinking liquid fire.
Olympians rarely do anything in a hurry, but Dion eventually made it back to Heph's place with his new creation, in 1883. Heph loved the stuff! A little too much, I'm afraid. After he and Dion had a party one night, he had a little accident in his workshop. He ended up having to move from his island, Krakatoa, because there just wasn't much left, after the accident. So, he moved to a mountain in what later became the state of Washington in the US. I think it was called Mount St. Helens.
I guess you can see where this is going. Dion and Heph got together to start planning a centennial celebration for the party they'd had on Krakatoa, and one thing led to another, and... well, Heph blew up his workshop again, after a bit too much "White Lightening". Dad was pretty annoyed, let me tell ya!
He decided to put his two least-favorite sons to work in the mortal world, and used his influence to get them jobs in a way that would punish them. So: that's why Hephaestus now works for Euro Disney, and Dionysus has a job in Napa Valley in California, working for Paul Masson.
