Beside me, Alex chuckled. "It was a very different time. There wasn't as much stigma about it as there is now."
"And after that?" Ashton ignored the other two to ask his question. His jaw clenched as if the imagery wasn’t something he wanted to dwell on.
"After that she was married off to Epimetheus," Brock interrupted.
The four of us spun to stare at him, surprised to find him leaning against the door frame of his room. He had a serious look on his face, as if unsure what to actually make of us.
"How long have you been standing there?" Zavier asked, a slight note of accusation in his tone.
"Long enough. So,Pandora, that's right isn't it?"
"Yes," I admitted. "Zeus gave me to Prometheus' younger brother to marry."
"And gave you the box." Brock glared at me.
"Yes, how do you..."
"I have the internet in my room. It's quite a web you've managed to spin for yourself."
"It's not a web, it's true," I protested.
"Brock, I promise you it is." Zavier placed a hand on the small of my back as he supported me, and I leaned into him.
"Oh, I get that it's true. But why pull the wool over our eyes?" he demanded.
"Sorry, I didn't think you were going to be all that accepting of me telling you I was an ancient legend," I bit out.
He stayed silent after that one, probably because there really wasn't anything else he could possibly say. I was right, and he knew it.
"What happened after that?" Ashton prompted again.
"I got married, opened a box, was punished for opening the box, and now I'm here," I listed off, getting slightly exasperated on the back of Brock's accusations.
"You were married?" Zavier demanded.
"Not for very long." Alex snorted. "I think it was shorter than most celebrity marriages these days.”
"Oi!" I elbowed him but had to admit he was right. My marriage had lasted all of four hours.
"So, you didn't..." Ashton didn’t seem able to finish the thought, but I knew what he was going to say.
"No, I didn't consummate it," I answered his unvoiced question. "But I hardly see why that matters." Especially when I'd told him I'd fucked my share of men and gods already. But the look on his face told me he was reassured by my revelation.
"Right, so no marriage. You were made by Athena and Hephastios and you opened a box you weren't supposed to."
"Pretty much," I replied. It was actually a pretty accurate summary of my life. As sad as that sounded.
“Why were you made again?” Zavier asked.
“They were bored with men and wanted something new to play with.” I shrugged. As far as I was aware that was the reason, though I hadn’t really given it much thought when I’d first been made. It was only now, recalling it back, that I had to wonder if there wasn’t more to it.
Hephastios would have been the one ordered to make me, but what did Athena have to do with anything? Making things wasn’t exactly her remit. She was more into killing them. She was pretty standoffish from what I remembered of her.
“So, a bit like Adam and Eve?” Brock sounded amused, but I didn’t quite understand why.
Information rushed into my brain from the gods’ brain dump thingy. Good to see Zeus hadn’t removed that feature when he sent me back down to Earth. From what I could tell, Adam and Eve were pretty much the Christian equivalent of my creation story, only with fewer gods. The two of them must have had it easy, only having to deal with one.
“Yes, I suppose so,” I replied to Brock.
