Disclaimer: I do not own Troy, the Illiad, or any of the associated characters. All rights go to Homer and the movie producers.
Summary: Apollo was the god of prophecy, and knew what the outcome of the Trojan War would be. An AU in which some people choose common sense over eternal glory.
Chapter One
Regardless of what certain people thought, Apollo did, in fact, see all, and had opinions on most of it. Briseis was a sweet girl, who did not deserve the grief and suffering that was headed her way, and Apollo had always had a soft spot for those who served him.
That wasn't the only reason, of course, but he would have tried to intervene anyway. The prayers of Briseis and the dying hopes of his priests merely gave him a valid excuse.
He was the God of Prophecy, and knew what the future held if the war continued down this path. There would be centuries, even millennia, of hereditary hatred. Countless lives lost, in a war that would eventually be remembered with scorn, rather than praise. The Trojan War would be viewed, in ages yet to come, not as heroic deeds, but as senseless bloodshed due to men thinking with something other than their heads.
Careful planning was not Apollo's strong point, but he and Poseidon had worked hard on those damn walls, and he did not intend to see them fall just because someone couldn't satisfy his wife and she ran off with someone who could.
Besides, how often would he get the opportunity to boast a winning strategy that Athena hadn't presented first? The bragging rights alone were more than worth the loss of a young priestess who had been destined for greater things.
Admittedly, Athena may have considered such a plan, but she was still fuming over the Goddess of Beauty being awarded the title of fairest after the fiasco at Thetis's wedding, and her wounded pride combined with her war-goddess power to make her nearly as bloodthirsty as Ares. Apollo didn't see the logic in why she was so upset, but knew better than to say anything.
Eirene would help him with the fine details of the planning, if he asked nicely and offered to stop flirting with her daughter, one of the rare Heroines to have been trained by Chiron. Eirene's daughters tended to be fiercer than her sons, to everyone's amusement except their mother's.
The flirting wasn't serious, but it was rare to find someone with the nerve to tell a god to go away – and in verse, too! Who could blame him for finding the girl attractive? The goddess of peace was rarely filled with enough passion to create children, especially compared to the other Olympian Gods, so she tended to be protective of the few she had.
The Goddess of Peace had a son in Troy, too, serving as ambassador, and large-scale fighting – especially if it endangered her comparatively few children – always put her in a bad mood. Doubtless she was already working on ideas to mitigate the damage. A thousand ships had already been launched on their way to Troy, but that didn't mean that there were not still possibilities.
Apollo found Eirene in her temple, making notes on a shard of pottery and muttering darkly in a way that suggested that someone was about to suffer in a very understated way that couldn't be traced back to her.
As the one who had been blamed for Hermes suffering an inability to 'rise to the occasion' for almost a year after the Messenger tried to bed a Daughter of Eirene about a century ago, Apollo was familiar with the expression, and knew to approach carefully. "Good morning, Eirene. What has you so upset?"
The goddess looked up, eyes flashing for a moment, but relaxed upon seeing him. For all that most of the other gods ignored Apollo's prophecies when it suited them, Eirene never did, and knew that he wouldn't have sought her out unless he had a good reason. "I asked Athena's advice on how to avoid war, and would you believe that she refused to help because she's still upset that Paris didn't choose her as the fairest?"
Apollo sat down. "Easily, yes. I hope that doesn't mean you're giving up?"
Eirene huffed. "Don't be insulting. Mitigating a conflict is always harder than stopping it before it begins, but I'm sure I can manage something, with support. Are you offering, and if so, why?"
Apollo tried not to feel offended at the implication that he couldn't do something nice without an ulterior motive. "One of my priestesses is going to get caught up in this, and not in a good way. Besides, Poseidon and I worked too hard on those walls to watch them fall for one mortal king's ego."
It might have been punishment for rebellion, which only Athena had managed to talk her way out of, but they had built that wall as mortals, and even if Apollo had only helped because the work of a herder was boring (especially when all he had to do was hum and every animal within miles, domestic or wild, listened peacefully), he was oddly proud of the results.
Luckily, Eirene accepted that. "We need to bring Aphrodite and Ares on board. Morpheus, too, so that I can send dreams to my children with instructions. I'll explain more once I have everyone together."
Apollo nodded. "I'll talk to the lovers if you talk to Morpheus, and meet back here. We don't have much time."
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A/N: I was talking with friends a while back, and we got to discussing the Trojan War, and how it could have been handled so much better. And thus this fic was born.
This chapter was just setting up the background, and we'll get into the movie itself next chapter. In the meantime, questions, comments and constructive criticisms are much appreciated.
Thanks,
Nat