A/N: Hi all, this has been sat on my computer for a while now, and I wanted to get it posted before I get my exam results tomorrow (just so I can cry if I fail and feel I suck at uni and not feel guilty for delaying this update even more).
It's a bit shorter than normal, but as always, please enjoy. And enjoy a slightly less intense influence on Apollo's choice.
"I don't know why I keep coming here." Ema sighed to herself, as she passed through the iron gates into the cemetery. "I just feel there is something here." She hugged herself as she felt a chill through her spine. There was something about graveyards that made her uncomfortable, probably the niggling feeling that she and her sister never visited their parent's graves often enough.
As she rounded the corner, she noticed that there was a woman in a blue shawl tending to the flowers at the base of the statue where she had found the boy the last time she visited. As Ema approached and the woman stood, to collect more wild flowers, she noticed the familiar beads that secured the woman's hair at its base.
"Lamaroir?" She asked shocked. The woman alarmed at hearing that name, dropped the flowers to the floor. "Oh sorry, here, let me get those." Ema rushed forward, gently scooping all the flowers into her hands and passing them to the blushing woman.
"I take it Phoenix never bothered telling you not to address me by that name." She said calmly, as she took the flowers from Ema's hands. "Please, Thalassa." She smiled at the girl and began to rearrange the flowers into a neat and delicate arrangement.
"Sorry." Ema blushed. "Lam-Thalassa."
"What brings you here?" The woman asked, picking up some blue flowers.
"I could ask you the same." Ema replied.
"My dear, this is my husband's grave."
"H-husband!? B-but I thought Apollo's father-!"
"He is. Apollo is this man's son. I should know, I am his mother." She rolled up her sleeve, revealing an identical bracelet to Apollo's. "I'm here because..." Tears began to well up in her eyes, and Ema immediately went to soothe her.
"I had no idea..."
"Neither does he." The woman wept gently. "These flowers, I'm arranging them in a special way. It's to request the spirit of Apollo's father help guide Apollo home or at least...stop our suffering."
It dawned on Ema in that instant, this woman had not received a recording, she was still hopeful that Apollo was still alive. Then again, so was Ema.
"Thalassa, maybe you could help." Ema soothed her and watched as the woman finished off her flower arrangement, tying them tightly with string, to hold them in their delicate position. "There was a boy here the other day, maybe you could help me work out who he is or why he was here."
-x-x-
She was barely the girl from less than a year ago. The daughter of a forger, mute and blue haired. She had died along with her father, in her own weird way. She took her seat at her easel once more, she was still very much an artist, artistry was in her blood. Instead of painting replica pieces though, she was painting originals. She had only a few tasks before this one was complete.
Vera Misham was by no means the girl she once was, but those experiences had inspired her new art form. This particular one, named 'prisoner' depicted a small girl, trapped in a cage, guarded by spectres, each representing a demon she had conquered.
The buzz of the doorbell disrupted her from her work, and she threw her easel to the table, annoyed and grumbling to herself that anyone would interrupt her. She hoped it was one of her new friends, or the man from the clinic, the therapy place she attended, who was now her boyfriend.
She glanced to the picture on the shelf, looking at that boy again, the one who saved her, who looked after her, took care of her studio and tended her plants.
"He's gone now." She reminded herself, feeling a slight choking sensation deep inside her, she cringed and swallowed before heading to the door.
"Hi there." It was a little girl, who lived next door to her studio. "This came for you earlier, mummy told me to drop it off for you." Vera took the box from her.
"Thanks." Then she slammed the door shut. She threw the box on the counter to the side and glanced through the peephole at the little girl. She was a little upset, clearly not taught that you do good deeds because they are good, and not for reward.
She slid the box off the counter and threw it onto the sofa, she was more interested in finishing her painting, after all she was going to sell it to her old therapists, to show there is a chance of escape. It was one of a pair, the second, her successful slaying of the demons, was already at the therapist.
Once finished, she turned her attention back to the box.
"Is it a prank?" She looked at the blank sheet of paper in the blank envelope. She threw them onto her painting stand before turning her attention to the CD. She no longer had a CD player, nor did she have a laptop or a DVD player. She turned her attention to the room just at the end of her field of view, her father's room.
Apollo had helped her out by clearing out a lot of her father's stuff, and packaging the rest of the stuff she couldn't bear to be rid of. She was fairly sure there was something in all those boxes that could play the disc.
The boxes flooded her with memories, even the happy ones made her feel immense pain now. She coughed as the dust rose from many of the articles of clothing, sculpting and painting kits and several unfinished forgeries. She held a half finished forged statue in her hand, feeling its heaving weight pressing into her palm. She threw it against the pillow, watching as it bounced off and landed on the duvet with a soft thud. If only it had broken, joined the remaining broken fragments of her memory of her father.
Wrapped in one of her father's old overalls was what she had sought, an old CD walkman player. She didn't even realise these things existed, they were out of fashion long before she was born, and her father said that this one had been unpredictable, but he never wanted to be rid of it, he never knew when it would come in handy. And sometimes, as he liked to remind her, there was too much emphasis on the digital world, and there was nothing better than having a music disk physically there in your hands.
"Hey Vera." Apollo began softly. "Hope you're enjoying a new found sense of happiness and of freedom, since you were the complete opposite before."
"You..." She felt her voice drop to above a whisper, just as she had been before.
"You are a brilliant artist, even if that artistry skill is used for something less than savoury, well it was, I suppose. I never got to find out what kind of art you're doing now." Apollo was struggling to keep his voice steady on the recording. "I hope it's good though, and draws on your past."
"It does." She tried to be brave and hold her voice.
"I guess you already know about what happened to me."
"Y-yes." She felt a wave of guilt wash over her.
"Don't worry, it wasn't just you, thirteen people have influenced my choice." Apollo wanted to be honest, after all, her influence had been minor compared to that of his childhood influences or Kristoph. "It's like a snowball effect, one person upsets you, and then it opens you up to others, and smaller things begin to upset you."
"What did I do?" She squeaked.
"I guess I should tell you now, what you did to me was minor." Apollo's voice drifted. "Well, compared to some of the people who've influenced my decision."
"Why?" She choked back tears.
"I'll tell you what you did soon, but I don't mean this message to be a guilt trip. I want you to use what you did and change it – never do it again!" Apollo declared.
"It all began not long after that trial, you were such a shy little thing, your father was gone and you were terrified."
-x-x-
"What's going to happen to her?" Apollo turned to Klavier.
"We've offered her some accommodation and medical treatment." He replied.
"Medical treatment, for what?"
"The silence, it's called 'selective mutism'" Ema replied.
"So what happens to her?" Apollo asked. Vera was glancing between two nurses who were discussing the arrangement with her and looked across to Apollo and smiled.
"They're going to take her to a speech clinic, a residential one." Ema replied to Apollo, glancing across the hall at the nervous blue haired girl. "I've never seen anyone so mute before."
"Well who's going to look after her house?"
"She has no pets, ja?" Klavier smiled. "There's no need for anyone to be there."
"Well you can't send her back to the house with her dad's stuff still lying around, really." Ema suddenly realised the point Apollo was trying to make.
"I'll sort it." Apollo rushed towards Vera, who was now looking paler, and sitting down on the bench to allow the gravity of her situation to sink in.
"Ok, I'll wait in my car for a drink." Ema smiled. "If we're still on." He nodded in confirmation.
"Hey." Apollo sat down beside her.
"Hi..." Her voice trailed off and was barely above a whisper.
"I take it they told you what's been arranged." She nodded. "Do you want to go?"
"I...think so..." She looked confused about what was going on. "I want...to get better."
"They'll teach you how to do stuff on your own, and make you use that voice of yours better." Apollo smiled.
"Will I ever go home?"
"Of course, it'll only be temporary. In a month or two, you'll be home." Apollo reassured her. "Speaking of home, want me to look after it whilst you're away?"
"You'd...do that?" She smiled up at him.
"Of course. I'll pack your dad's stuff into boxes if you like as well."
"That'd be nice. Dad...never liked me...near his stuff."
"I promise I'll treat it with respect." Apollo promised.
-x-x-
"I spent days at a time in your apartment, sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag." Apollo's voice drifted to her ears from the CD again.
"I know." She had some of her bravery back again.
"It took me over two weeks to pack your father's stuff away, and maintain your plants and your art station." Apollo told her, truthfully. "All those boxes are filled with some of the most amazing things, I may not have approved of his business but he was very good at what he did."
"You are most kind." Vera responded to the CD.
"You were changing quickly in your clinic." Apollo remembered this fondly. "I got a phone call maybe a day or two after I'd done packing up your father's stuff to say you were almost done. Three weeks later, you were allowed to return home."
"I remember."
"I had to get the day off work, business was slow, it was the height of summer – most people couldn't stand the heat long enough to commit crime. I considered making you dinner, but I didn't know what you ate – it bothered me how little I knew about you."
"That explains why you were so jittery." She smiled and then felt guilty.
"I put up a little banner saying 'welcome home Vera' painted on a piece of cloth with some paints I borrowed from a friend. As soon as I heard the lock being twisted I shot up and turned to the door and smiled." Apollo fell quiet. "All that you did was thanked me, and asked to be alone." Apollo sighed heavily.
"I was finally home, and it depressed me." She hung her head in shame, knowing what she just said was only a half truth. She didn't acknowledge Apollo because she wanted to get back to her new friend, that guy she met at the clinic, but he wouldn't be out for another week or two.
"It ruined me. I'd poured my heart and soul into looking after that house for you." Apollo fell quiet, as if he was trying to stop himself crying. "You're a very beautiful girl now, more mature, like your age. And if he manages to woo you, he'll treat you well."
"You knew!" She gasped.
"I know because Klavier told me. He knew how much I cared for you, knew maybe I even liked you a little bit more than a friend." Apollo went quiet, and with a hint of acid in his voice. "Not that it makes any difference now, I should have told you, I'd been through something similar before. Still you destroyed my already broken psyche even more."
"I'm sorry..." She wiped a stray tear from her eye.
"There were other things, snippy comments whenever I saw you in the streets, and I'm sure in a way you blame my boss for the death of your father." Apollo sighed. "But that wasn't me, it wasn't my fault."
"I'm so sorry." She sniffled. "For everything, for tarnishing your reputation for spreading rumours too!" It was clear he wasn't aware of that.
"I need you to do something..." He explained what he needed her to do.
She could do one better than his measly request. She took the finished canvas from the stand she was painting on, and found the photo taken of her, the prosecutor, police officer and Apollo, just before she went off to that clinic. She set to work, replicating that image perfectly on canvas. She wouldn't eat, take phone calls or visitors until it was done.
"I'll miss you, you saved me, you changed me." She whispered as she took up her brushes.
-x-x-
"I don't know Apollo all that well though, do I?" The woman took a sip of coffee from the mug in front of her. "...That makes me sound like an appalling mother." She sighed.
"You had your reasons, I'm sure." Ema assured her.
"I have no idea who that boy is, perhaps one of Apollo's friends?"
"He has no other relatives?"
"Not male ones." The woman replied quickly, defensively.
"I'd like to find him, but there's no way I'm going to justify or want to stake out the graveyard in the vague hope that boy turns back up." Ema sighed.
"Do you think he knows where Apollo is, or if he's...?"
"I think so, I've got an idea of how to find him."
-x-x-
She wasn't proud of what she was doing, but as she hoped, the boy she saw at the grave turned up the following day. Just as she wanted, Thalassa was in place too.
"Hi there." The woman said, kneeling down to rearrange her flower bundle from the day before.
-x-x-
He was panicked, but he wasn't about to let her spook him, he let his voice drop a little, neglect of his Chords of Steel practice meant he was allowed to do such.
"Hi..." He said nervously, voice obviously fooling the woman in front of him, he kept his head down just to be sure.
"How do you know the man buried here?" She asked.
"A friend of mine, it's his relative." He lied.
"Well this man was my relative too, he was my husband, once." She smiled.
W-what? Lamiroir was my father's...wife!?
"My name is Thalassa, I was wondering if you could tell me who your friend is?" Thalassa was doing a good job of holding the boy there while Ema got close enough to sneak attack him if he decided to make a break.
"He was a friend of mine at the children's home, look lady, I'm sure you're nice and all, but something tells me you were married to this man long after my friend knew him."
"What makes you say that?" He was trying to charm her into letting him go and she knew it.
"You are quite young, way too young to have known my friend when he was around. I come here to admire the grave once in a while, my friend is very proud of it." Apollo could feel a sharp pinch of his bracelet from his lies and he was desperate to keep it hidden.
"I should go..." and just as he said that, he turned and saw Ema, and regrettably, his eyes met hers.
The shock left her stunned to the floor, and offered him a chance to break.
A/N: Again, sorry for it being shorter than normal, I'll update as soon as I can! As always follow my little group thingy on Facebook and leave a review :)