I Saw a Light

Lovers 100 Prompt 077:

Almost

By My Pen Is Sharper Than Your Sword and Sister Grimm Erin

Text by Sister Grimm Erin

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

— C.S. Lewis.

Artemis was in no mood to put up with any of her brother's nonsense, so the goddess of the Hunt asked Apollo straight out what he was doing at Zoë's funeral.

Apollo took a long drag off of his cigarette, tossed it to the ground, and replied in a blithe voice, "Your guess as good as mine, little sis." A damning response was on the tip of her tongue when she noticed her twin's hands.

They were trembling as he attempted to light his next cigarette, the flame flickering. "Shit," he swore, then took a second try at it. This time, the blue flame worked. He exhaled smoke.

"That's disgusting," Artemis informed him without malice.

"Don't knock it until you've tried it," retorted Apollo. He offered it to her. She shook her head in disgust, twin braids swinging, and Apollo remembered suddenly, although he would rather forget, that she didn't just appear twelve; she was twelve in mind and body as surely as he had been seventeen for the past three thousand years. Usually he could ignore it, but in that moment she looked so very much like a good little schoolgirl, Apollo very nearly apologized for his language.

It was never a good thing to dwell upon the fact that the girl he loved more than anyone else would never be more than just that: a girl, but sometimes it was unavoidable.

Artemis turned away from him, watching the belongings of her beloved burn in sacrificial flames, and Apollo felt compelled to say something to ease her pain, but could not think of what, because it had never really occurred to him that Zoë might die and that the precarious arrangement he and his twin had had might be disrupted by her sudden and permanent absence. (Artemis loved Zoë. Apollo loved Artemis. And though he'd never admit to this, he and Zoë had been almost friends. He'd never had a friend before Zoë had waltzed out of the garden into his sister's—and therefore his—life and he was sure he never would again.)

(He was right.)

"I'm sorry for your loss," Apollo managed at last. And for my loss – for what it means for both of us.

He would never say this out loud, of course. The repercussions – for him and his sister – were unthinkable.

Artemis gave him one of her rarest looks. It was a glance of entreaty, of the kind he hadn't seen in centuries. She needed his help.

A long silence stretched as Apollo tried to find the words to make his sister turn back around—but he of the easy, quick retorts, of the long, eloquent speeches, of the glib and easy lies, found that for once, he could think of no possible response.

Fortunately, she seemed to sympathize, though she did not turn her face away from the flames. "You will miss her, won't you?"

"And you won't?" replied Apollo, much more sharply than he had intended to. He tossed his cigarette butt on the ground and lit another in an attempt to appear cavalier. It was a very shaky and unsubtle cover-up that failed as soon as once noticed the tension in his body and the creases of pain around his amber eyes.

When he took the next drag, his exhale was more desperate than relieved, as though even his mortal vice could not bring him true relaxation.

It was very odd for Artemis to watch the brother who she had always thought of as infinitely capable of switching from one mood or love or obsession or addiction to another stuck on 'pause' for the very same reason she was.

For the first time since they were children, Artemis let her guard down around Apollo.

"Of course you'll miss her," the god whispered hoarsely into the silence.

"Yes," said Artemis quietly, around the lump of tears forming in her throat. Unthinking, she reached for his arm. He wrapped his arms around her stiffly as she cried for all three of them.

Finally, her tears slowed. Apollo drew black almost immediately. He could have sworn he saw hurt in her eyes.

Impossible.

Her next words were in a small voice he could not reconcile with the brave, daring, unconventional lady of the clamors he knew. "Truly," she whispered, barely audible, "do you not wish to…"

"To what?" Apollo asked baldly, wanting desperately to hear the phrase be with me on her lips for the first time in millennia.

He regretted his tone immediately; if eyes were the window of the soul, hers had been shuttered by the coldness in his statement.

"I thought not," Artemis said, and turned away.

Before then he could more than form an almost wordless cry of despair and protest, she was walking out of the clearing to her remaining Hunters. Most of the girls did not even notice Artemis' return, let alone his presence, but a pair of blue eyes like his father's fixated on his amber eyes with the same pitying glance Zeus had often given him.

Mortified, he tossed the remnants of his pack of cigarettes on the forest floor and walked to a safe distance away from the camp.

Once Apollo was sure he could not be seen or heard, he laid on the forest floor and allowed the silent convulsions of sorrow to wrack his body. He sobbed without tears for Zoë, for his last, best, and lost chance, but mostly for himself, because the god did not believe himself capable of anything else.

Maybe he was right.