Just an idea I've been bouncing around in my head lately. I've always been fascinated with Greek Mythology and I have a love/hate relationship with the myth of Apollo and Cassandra. This is not a reimagining but kind of a continuing. I'm not a writer really, I just do this for fun but any feedback is awesome. Also this is rated T+ for language.

The idea is that Cassandra has been reincarnated in the present day and Apollo finds her. She still has her visions and now she uses them to help the world become a safer place (mortals still don't believe her). Her parents are historians and her father was always fascinated with Arthurian legends so they named her Isolde (pronounced IH-ZOLD) She's an undergrad going for Psychology and likes to pretend she's edgier than she is so she dyes her hair bright colors and earns rent money selling art to tattoo parlors, but she's just as happy curled up at home watching a rom-com and listening to T-swift.

Apollo is just Apollo. Greek God of the sun and music. Fights with his sister Artemis a lot and likes to hit on females of all varieties. His world is turned upside down, however, when he visits the campus of an American University (to obviously scope out the ladies) and runs into someone who seems very familiar to him. And then boom. Worlds collide.
Also, the world of the Greek Gods (Olympus) is in our world but separate. (think Percy Jackson but slightly more separate) Most of the Gods visit the mortal world from time to time and dress pretty normally but they are still set in a lot of their old ways.

For now this is just a one-shot, but later I might expand it into a story or maybe even a comic. I think it would be fun to see Isolde/Cassandra's and Apollo's relationship unfold and see what kind of mess they get into. This one-shot is more serious but I think their relationship would be pretty playful once the bad blood between them is settled.

So yeah. Enjoy! And let me know what you think!

The neon lights from the tattoo parlor across the street gave the rain-soaked pavement an eerie gleam. City dwellers came and went, ignoring one another as they bustled to home or the nearest bar. It was late afternoon, when a certain blue haired woman turned the corner at Main Street and headed down this particular avenue. She walked past each store, her head down and the black hood of her jacket drawn up, avoiding any and all eye contact.

When she stood in front of the tattoo parlor, she quickly looked both ways before crossing the street. She came to a stop underneath the small awning of an out-of-business flower shop across the way and fumbled through a worn purple backpack.
To any passersby she looked like she belonged in the urban world. What an outsider wouldn't know is that this particular young woman had a very special tie to a different world.

A world with gods and monsters.

.

Isolde clutched her drawing-pad closer to her body and leaned against the damp bricks. She watched the oil from the street mingle with the water and thought about possibly painting it later. The mix of colors was beautiful. It was a bit of whimsicality in her otherwise commonplace world.

Well, what used to be commonplace until he came along.

She looked at her phone and sighed. She was going to be late again if he didn't show up soon.

"You summoned me?" A voice from her right said.

She jumped, nearly dropping the pad and emitting an awkward noise.

"Damn you, Apollo! You scared me."

He snorted. "After all I've shown you, I can't believe that scared you."

"Yeah, well, after two weeks of knowing you, I have to say I've become quite jumpy. Thanks for that"

"You're welcome." The corner of his mouth peaked up ever so slightly. Of course he would find this funny.

The self-proclaimed Greek God was of course gorgeous. He looked like a California beach bum in the best way possible: olive skin, curly sun-bleached hair, and a marvelous build. In all honesty, Isolde thought he could easily pass as a Hemsworth brother if he wanted to. All he needed was an Australian accent.

Isolde cleared her throat. "I have some new information. If you would like we can talk about it over drinks. I know a good bar about a block from here."

"Drinks? How old are you?" he asked.

"23. Why?" She raised an eyebrow

"No real reason. I was just wondering."

"You?"

He paused for a moment, his eyes focused on something over her head. "…Older."

"I don't know why I even asked," she mumbled sarcastically. "Fine. Lets just do this here, then."

Apollo shrugged. He didn't care where they talked. He just liked seeing her.

"Have you thought about my offer?"

"You mean the one where I come live with you in Olympus. Yes I have. The answer is still no. Now look at these will you?" she fished out a handful of drawing from her pad and handed them to him.

This was always the awkward part. She bit her lip as he studied each picture, one by one. Some were girlish and simple doodles of mythological creatures; others were drawings of monsters and demons from some sort of hell-scape.

They were all from her dreams.

And it was entirely his fault.

Apollo held out one page in particular, a charcoal sketch of some sort of sea monster made primarily out of teeth.

"You saw Charybdis?" disbelief colored his words.

She nodded as she played with a piece of her teal hair. "I saw it destroy a cruise ship. It looked like it was in the Caribbean somewhere. Or possibly Hawaii. I don't know."

"The others?" he pointed to various other monsters, including a few furies attacking a bus in downtown Chicago. For some reason, sometimes she just knew where the monsters would be. Other times, it was hazy. This time, it was only the Char-bis or whatever the hell it was called that she didn't know the location.

"The furies will be in Chicago, a few sirens and dryads in Louisiana, and from what I could tell, the Minotaur will be romping around in the Grand Canyon in the next few days. Tuesday I think."

He handed the drawings back to her and watched with some interest as she tucked them neatly back into her drawing pad. What Apollo didn't know was that she was planning on selling them to the tattoo parlor across the way.

Her "gift" not only helped modern society, it also paid some bills.

Apollo ran his hand through his blonde curls.

"It's getting worse and worse. I'll let Zeus know and tell Hermes to check them out. He's probably the fastest. See this is why we need you in Olympus."

Isolde sighed and tried with all her might to not roll her eyes.

"I'm doing it just fine here. I don't need to be by your side to use your most gracious present."

He gave her a look that she interpreted to basically mean 'well, duh'.

"But I want you by my side."

She shook her head "Whatever, Apollo. I need to go. We can finish this conversation later."

"You're my Cassandra." He held out a hand to stop her, to try to reason with her.

This made her blood boil every time he said it. It not only made her sound like some kind of property but then there was the whole 'past life' thing. For some reason, this time it set her off entirely.

"I told you, before. I'm not nor will I ever be your Cassandra! I happened to do my research and I have to say that's a pretty effed up idea you have of love, Apollo. If you haven't noticed, a lot of your love life has been unrequited. There's a reason for that. So please. Just leave me be."

"Isolde" the way he said her name felt more like a warning than simply addressing her.

"Seriously! Give me one good reason I should trust you."

"You have the gift of prophecy. You are the spitting image of your former self, besides this crazy hair of yours." He fingered a teal lock of hair that had come undone from her ponytail. "Even your callous attitude is the same. I know without a shadow of a doubt that you are her."

With each word he said next he stepped closer until he had closed the gap between them. "You. Are. Cassandra."

Isolde swallowed.

"That's not a reason." Her voice wavered, but she was not done. Oh, she was definitely not done telling him what she really thought. God or not, she would give him the what-for. She pressed her drawing pad against his front and pushed him back a few inches.

"You also seem to think that if I were your Cassandra, I would come crawling back into your arms."

Apollo's stance became defensive. "I loved you."

"You let Cassandra die, you asshole! That is definitely not love. If my memory serves me right, Cassandra was raped, kidnapped, and murdered on top of everyone thinking she was one loop short of a knot. At any time you could have intervened but no! You didn't. You just went chasing after the next pair of breasts that caught your eye."

He tilted his head ever so slightly and Isolde was suddenly struck with how beautiful and grey his eyes were: a perfect reflection of the rain-soaked sky. When the storm cleared they would return to a clear blue. "I regret everything that happened to you and all the others, but you are the one I have thought about after all these years. When I saw you in the library, I knew it was the fates granting me my desires to have you back."

This was all too much. Isolde knew she couldn't handle much more.

She wanted to laugh.

It wasn't the idea that she was tempted to give in, (Oh, she definitely had no plans of that) but that she kept feeling herself be pulled towards him in an almost ancient way.
She knew she was starting to have feelings for this God of hers and that was the most dangerous idea of all.

"You need to leave" It came out weaker than she had hoped.

Apollo smiled humorlessly and shook his head. "You always were slow to affection." His knuckles brushed her jaw. She flinched.

"Please" she breathed, shutting her eyes. "Leave." She pressed her hand against his chest, trying to keep some distance between them. She could feel his heartbeat through the thin shirt he wore. She would never admit it out loud but she really wanted to see him shirtless.

"Not without you" He took her hand and kissed it.

Isolde hesitated. She continued to find herself both oddly repulsed and attracted to him. A few seconds passed as she stood there, speechless.

Would it really be that bad?

What if I actually go with him?

Maybe we can work out some kind of dual custody thing. Maybe if I just spent weekends in Olympus?

An explosive pain shot through her skull, cutting off all thoughts.

She doubled over,dropping her sketches into a puddle at her feet.

"Apollo you've got to fix this" Isolde cried through gritted teeth as another vision took over. Lightning. War. Carnage. The dead. Screaming. Blackness.

Her head swam and she stumbled under the weight of the vision. Something solid held her up. When her mind became her own once more, she found herself in Apollo's arms.

It took her a few more moments to catch her breath. Apollo rubbed her arms until she recovered and then pulled her to her feet.

"What did you see?" he asked with some hesitation. He bent down and retrieved the drawing pad, drying it with a wave, and handed it to her.

Isolde grimaced and opened to a clean page to draw it all out.

"Its not good. Not good at all."