Seven Cupids

Seven Cupids sat around a white table, each of varying age, and examined the new target that appeared before them.

The figure floated in the tables centre as a three dimensional picture, name, age, and job hovering above his head like trademarks. He was mid-thirties, and the type of man that other men would nod at in a bar but avoid on the street. He wore cuffed blue jeans crumpled above black boots, and a leather jacket well-worn in companionship and use. Most of all, his hands were littered with scars of a job well done, and it was that job which the Cupids were deliberating over; whether it allowed his worth to find love.                                                                    

“A man of his profession is not worth our help,” spoke Agape, her autumn brown skin layering with frown lines as she brushed her curled hair from her shoulder. She was the Cupid of Selfless Love, and with it held strong opinions; and it was those opinions that had bleached her hair as white as the clouds around them.       

“Any Arrow we shot at him he could take too far,” agreed Mania, who rarely agreed with Agapes outlooks. “Just as he does with his work.” She was far younger than most of the other Cupids, of late teens in her looks, and as sharp to the face as a fox to its prey. “We could not be sure that he wouldn’t use his talents on his partner, if they slighted him in the wrong way.” She glanced around the circle looking for the approval of the others, her opinions not normally so sensible being the Cupid of Obsessive Love.

 The others thought a moment, but some were restless in their seats. Those commonly more open to giving the more violent humans a chance when some of the others would not, decided to speak.                                                                                         

“But do you not all recall the dog he owned for those past 10 years?” Ludus questioned, causing the older Cupids to sit back a little and nod. His pale pink hair curled into new rings as the thought continued from his pale throat. “He loved that hound so dearly, they brought each other so much joy, and he showed many different aspects of himself in those times.  Perhaps a partner would kindle that side of him again,” Ludus’s voice grew engaging, the playfulness of his style of love far more charming than some would give him credit for; and so he turned for the support of his closest, Philia, and her affectionate love.                                         

She nodded with him and leant forwards; her motherly nature robed in the softest of clothing, always looking warm beside Ludus’s sharper, more flamboyant attire.                 

“Ludus is right, this gentleman has shown great responses to affection when given it. He needs only no judgements and perhaps he could grow softer in his nature with the right companion?”                                                                                              

“I think you give him too much credit Philia,” remarked Agape, her dislike of the man apparent. Philia let the creases along her eyes fold and looked to the other Cupid with care.             

“He has yet to be given a chance amongst the humans. His past relations with females have never ended with violence or a lack of love, only his partners rejections of his passions.” Philia rested a well ringed hand on the table. Beside her Ludus fidgeted eagerly, excited energy ebbing from him in silent tides.            

“His passions are not something we should endorse nor reward Philia!” Eros snarked, his bondage bound body tense and broad as he curled his lip in distaste.                                      

“You don’t like him only because he gains no sexual pleasure from his killings Eros, only pride in his work,” remarked Philautia, brother of Agape, and normally a close friend of Eros, the Cupid of Erotic Love. But this time Philautia, the Cupid of Self-love sided with Philia and Ludus, respecting the man’s satisfaction in his well-practised skills.  “I say he deserves a partner to call his own, and one who can marvel in his work as he does, or at least get along with it. Perhaps he will never tell her of his more blood-thirsty pursuits?” Philautia sat back in his chair, cupping the back of his head with his dark toned hands, and smiled at the looks of disagreement from Agape, Mania and Eros, with their selfless, obsessive, and erotic embodiments of love.                       

 The white fogged room they all sat in warmed for a moment, and so Philia led a different route for the discussion.      

 “What if, like many before, we give him a partner that sooths him into change?” Her motherly tones calmed the mood. “What if we give him someone who is kind enough to make him change his ways?” She tapped her un-painted nails on the tables surface and tilted her head thoughtfully.                    

“Someone who could bring him a family?” Pragma continued, lulling the idea over in his balding head. As the Cupid of Enduring Love he frequently suggested partners for many humans who were, in many ways, like soulmates for one another. And in his aged white skin, and toga-clothed frame, it was he who started to turn the others toward aiding the man. “Giving him a partner who would not shy from his tastes, and yet does not partake, so to say, could help in building him a life that would slowly lessen his need to kill. Someone to help build a family with him, a home, an environment of a community.” The oldest of the Cupids nodded to himself, and then he turned to Agape, the second eldest, and the one who they would need to convince. “Someone selflessly ready to help him so to say?”                                           

Agape sighed at this, knowing she could find the right person for him if she wished to, but didn’t endorse this humans crime ridden past enough to do so.                                       

        “And what would you be expecting of this woman hmm?” Her voice was condescending, rolling around the table from seat to seat. “Some young woman open minded enough to accept him once knowing the truth and yet well rounded enough to hold her own course and life, and bring him into it? Do you wish for me to find a miracle?” She scoffed to herself then, but unknowingly sparked many an idea in Pragma’s mind. Long lists of suitable names came forth in his minds-eye and he had only to look at Ludus and Philia for them to see the names too.     

“There is that baker, is there not, the one two towns over from him?” Ludus asked, drawing the woman’s image up alongside the mans on the table. “She took in those stray kittens not that long ago, she already has tendencies towards helping those in need, those worth rehabilitating?” He said the last part conspiringly, as though drawing them all in on the plan, and it brought a knowing smile to Philautia. The Cupid of Self-love saw a match in the woman’s admiration of her own baking and nurturing skills, as the man had in his killing ones.   

 “She is well loved by many, and just as loving in return,” Philia agreed, pushing the idea to the others sweetly.                         

“They are well suited, I suppose, in looks,” Eros conceded, eyeing the couple over, seeing a similarity in desires sexually within them both. “Well suited enough…” He looked away as Agape eyed him with betrayal.                                                    

“You would match that man with this woman?” Agape almost rose from her seat, wanting to shame this idea’s route at once and stifle it. “She who has done so little wrong in her life, with a man who’s only known affections thus far has been mainly to his dog? I am astounded. Why are we even furthering this discussion? If we leave him as he is, his work shall kill him, we-“                                                                                                        

“Precisely Agape,” cut in Philia, “he will be killed in a most brutal of way, unless we aid him now. Turn his path. Show him love. Give him the affection to alter the course of his fate. Is that not better than allowing him to continue down this blood strewn path, to correct it?” Philia leant forwards across the table imploringly at the other Cupid, already seeing the affection that the couple could give to one another. Agape went silent at this.                        

“She will bring him a happiness that he has yet to be allowed, and with it he could bring her a spontaneity she has yet to be given,” Ludus and his playful love continued. “Tell us you cannot see his selflessness to those who have been kind to him, tell us and we may consider elsewise.” And with that all eyes fell to Agape, and the tight lines that rarely showed around her lips did so, and she eyed the man once more. It was there she had to concede, for she did see it. For one so starved of easy love, when given it, the man chose to return it tenfold, a loyalty striking in him as strong as some of the most selfless of lovers. He saw his pain as less than theirs, and he would put their wants before his own; and so, Agape gave a small nod.                    

“He is selfless enough.” The table all made small agreeing shifts in their seats, and Mania swept back her flame coloured hair and chose to allow it. They had come to a close, and the Cupids readied to grant the Arrows shot. Each touched the table before them with an index finger and a small image of an arrow appeared there, flat on the table-top's screen. With a unanimous flick each of the seven arrows shot forwards towards the couple, and somewhere down on earth, fate had been redesigned to allow the couple to meet and fall for one another in a number of altering ways.                

And like that, the couples images disappeared from the table and a new one appeared.

“Now this one, this one I like!” Eros spoke jovially, and they began again.