A/N: A de-anon fill from the request "America and Canada as the sun and the moon, lovers destined to never meet each other type of thing."
Also a drabble written during an all-nighter, which may or may not have been based off our class' Readers' Theatre presentation of The Iliad, where my friend played Apollo, and I cameoed as Artemis.
Originally published 3 October 2013, edited 7 March 2015.
Setting: Mythology AU
Rating: T
Genre: Romance
Characters: America, Nyo!Canada
Word Count: 445
Eclipse
He loved his sister. Of that much he was certain. It was the only reason he could think of when he defended his trickery to their father.
He couldn't bear to think that his sister would willingly give herself to such a conceited hunter.
They were the children of Leto, called Guinevere, that headstrong daughter of Titans, whose hand was promised to that famous Northern king. In the end, she met Zeus, their father, a far greater king, that of the Immortals. When she discovered that she had conceived, she ran away, openly defying the jealous Hera. There, in that tiny isle called Delos, she gave birth to her children, the Sun and the Moon.
He was the Sun, the most patriotic of the gods. He was the giver of light, and with it, life.
They say that he more than any of his siblings had inherited their father's affinity for women. Nymphs and mortals alike he had sought, but none of them had what he desired. They say his real love was Daphne, who chose to turn into the laurel instead of being his queen. They do not know that he only saw his beauty because she was one of them, his sister's handmaidens.
His sister was the Moon, the first nymph.
In the end, she was the only nymph he couldn't have.
She hated her brother. She hated the fact that he dared ravish her faithful handmaidens. She hated him more than ever when he tricked her into killing her trusted huntsman.
Orion was the only man whom she had ever come close to loving.
She was their mother's firstborn, who helped their mother give birth when the jealous Queen forbade Childbirth from descending to Delos to help them.
She was the first person to set eyes on her brother, and from that moment, she knew what she wanted.
She was three when she asked her father to let her remain a maid for all eternity. She knew that the Sun and the Moon were destined to remain separate, that one leaves the sky while the other has just begun to ascend it. She chose not to have anyone as her consort, rather than be with someone not him.
She has her fits of jealousy, just like her brother did with her Orion. Her impure handmaidens, whose faults they were afraid to admit and yet she still sensed, were banished.
She secretly enjoys it whenever they chance each other in the sky, when they turn the lands below dark as void.
At least in those rare moments, she would be able to revel in his glory the same way her maidens did.
Apollo = America
Artemis = Canada
Zeus = France
Leto = England
Orion = Prussia
Some versions of the myth say that Orion was killed because Apollo wanted to protect his sister's virginity.
Apollo has always been referred to as the most Greek of the gods.
Artemis was firstborn in most myths, since she is a goddess of childbirth, and Hera forbade her daughter Eileithyia, another childbirth goddess from descending to Delos and helping Leto give birth.
Primary source for the fic is Hamilton's Mythology.
Obviously, I mixed Arthurian mythology with the one of the classical world, just so it would make a bit of sense.