You guys fucked this one up nicely. Aphrodite does not take well to being rejected. But nor is wasting time as her sex slave (if we're lucky) a good move either.
Yeah, flopping was stupid on my part. The way I see it, the choices are like this.
A - possible mind control, we are separated from Sekhenun and are on our own. Contrary to what
Zero Credibility said, I doubt that Sekhenun will think we betrayed her. We barely have any fucking choice, now do we? We are a mortal stuck between a rock and a hard place, she'll understand. Sekhenun is the type of individual who understands the value of tact and concealing one's motives for the right time. We had Sekhenun at our mercy and spared her, I doubt she'll think we would abandon her so frivolously. So we bide our time, maybe increase some of our power in Aphrodite's presence, then either take her out or escape when the opportunity presents itself.
B - The goddess will still be pissed off, but a tactful response will ensure she lets us go. Problem is, Ean isn't exactly a diplomat, this isn't the sort of thing that he's suited for. I am not confident in Ean's ability to pull this off, it might result in the same thing as C.
C -
ScubaV, she definitely won't respect us more - this isn't some martial god of honor who respects courage. She's a capricious, vain love goddess. This is a diplomatic situation, you can't charge in and tell the goddess to fuck off, we have no power here. If we do that this is what's going to happen: Mehrune is simply going to hand us off to Aphrodite, while the goddess' attendants capture us. There is nothing stopping Aphrodite from simply doing so - to everyone here, we are simply a nameless mercenary. We have nothing here, no trump card. She knows we're powerless, we can't even bluff our way out.
What do you think, she's just going to say "Wow, nobody's ever stood up to me like that! Guess I'll let you go"?
The difference is that maybe with A, Aphrodite might let her guard down at some point. By acting compliantly now, it might give us more opportunities down the road.
D - I am pretty sure Sekhenun won't do shit. Her mindset is "you've made your bed, now lie in it"