To 8Ball3- I really wanted to save Donny, but he was crucial to Apollo beating Python D: And can you imagine? Like if they had a tea party of something, but they had both poisoned the other's cup and were just trying to awkwardly get out of drinking it but trying to get the other to drink. Also, how would Python hold a teacup? O.o
"I told you so."
Apollo never doubted those would be the last words he heard.
Next to him, the goddess Styx floated over the void. Her purple-and-black dress might have been a plume of Chaos itself. Her hair drifted like an ink cloud around her beautiful, angry face.
Apollo wasn't surprised she could exist here so effortlessly, in a place other gods feared to go. Along with being the keeper of sacred oaths, Styx was the embodiment of the River of Hate. And hatred was one of the most durable emotions, one of the last to fade into nonexistence.
I told you so. Of course she had. Months ago at Camp Half-Blood, he had made a rash oath. He had sworn on the River Styx not to play music or use his bow until he was a god again. He had reneged on both counts and the goddess had been dogging his progress ever since, sprinkling tragedy and destruction wherever he went. Now, he was about to pay the final price.
He waited for Styx to prise his fingers from the obsidian ledge, then give him a raspberry as he plummeted into the soup of amorphous destruction below.
To his surprise, she wasn't done talking. "Have you learned?" She asked. If he hadn't felt so weak, he might have laughed. He had learned, alright. He was still learning.
At that moment, he realised he had been thinking about Styx the wrong way all these months. She hadn't put destruction on his path. He had caused it himself. She hadn't got him into trouble. He was the trouble. She had merely called out his recklessness.
"Yes." He said miserably. "Too late, but I get it now." He expected no mercy. Certainly, he expected no help. His little finger slipped free of the ledge. Nine more until he fell.
Styx's dark eyes studied him. Her expression was not gloating, exactly. She looked more like a satisfied piano teacher whose six-year-old pupil had finally mastered 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'.
"Well, hold onto that then." She said.
"What, the rock? Or the lesson?" Styx made a sound that did not belong at the brink of Chaos: she chuckled with genuine amusement.
"I suppose you'll have to decide." With that, she dissolved into smoke, which drifted upwards towards the airy climes of Erebos.
Apollo wished he could fly like that. But, alas, even here, at the precipice of nonexistence, he was subject to gravity.
At least he vanquished Python. He would never rise again. Apollo could die knowing that his friends were safe. The Oracles were restored. The future was still open for business.
So what if Apollo was erased from existence? Eleven Olympians may have been imbalanced, but it was plenty.
Why couldn't he let go then? He kept clinging to the edge with stubborn determination. His wayward pinky found its grip again. He had promised Meg he would return to her. He hadn't sworn it as an oath, but that didn't matter. If he said he would do it, then he would.
Perhaps that was what Styx had been trying to teach him: it wasn't about how loudly you swore your oath or what sacred words you used. It was about whether or not you meant it. And whether your promise was worth making.
Hold on. He told himself. To both the rock and the lesson.
His arms seemed to become more substantial. His body felt more real. The lines of light wove tighter together until his form was a mesh of solid gold.
Was it just a last hopeful hallucination or did he actually pull himself up?
His first surprise: he woke.
People who have been dissolved into Chaos typically didn't do that.
Second surprise: his sister Artemis was leaning over him, her smile as bright as the harvest moon.
"Took you long enough." She said.
Apollo rose with a sob and hugged her tight. All of his pain was gone. He felt perfect. He felt… he almost thought like me again, but he wasn't sure what that even meant anymore.
He was a god again. For so long, his deepest desire had been to be restored. But instead of feeling of elated, he wept into his sister's shoulder. He felt like if he let go of Artemis, he would fall back into Chaos. Huge parts of his identity would shake loose and he would never be able to find all the puzzle pieces.
She patted him on the back awkwardly. "Whoa there. Easy, little brother. You're alright now. You made it." She gently extricated herself. Not a cuddler, but she did let him hold her hands. Her stillness helped him stop trembling.
They were sitting together on a Greek-style sofa bed, in a white marble chamber with a columned terrace that opened onto a view of Olympus: the sprawling mountaintop city of the gods, high above Manhattan. The scent of jasmine and honeysuckle wafted in from the gardens. He heard the heavenly singing of the nine Muses in the distance- probably their daily lunchtime concert in the agora. He really was back.
He examined himself. He wore nothing but a bedsheet from the waist down. His chest was bronze and perfectly sculpted. His muscular arms bore no scars or fiery lines glowing beneath the surface. He was gorgeous, which made him feel melancholy. He had worked hard for those scars and bruises. All the suffering he and his friends had been through…
His sister's words suddenly sank in: Took you long enough.
He choked on his despair.
"How long?" Artemis's silver eyes scanned his face, as if trying to determine what damage his time as a human had done to his mind.
"What do you mean?"
Apollo knew immortals could not have panic attacks. Yet his chest constricted. The ichor in his heart pumped much too fast. He had no idea how long it had taken him to become a god again. He had lost half a year from the time Zeus zapped him at the Pantheon to the time he fell to Manhattan. For all he knew, his restorative siesta had taken years, decades, centuries. Everyone he had known on Earth might be dead. He could not bear that.
"How long was I out? What century is this?" Artemis processed this question. Knowing her as well as he did, he gathered she was tempted to laugh, but hearing the degree of hurt in his voice, she kindly thought better of it.
"Not to worry, brother." She finally said. "Since you fought Python, only two weeks have passed."
Boreas the North Wind could not have exhaled more powerfully than Apollo did. He sat upright, throwing aside his sheet.
"But what about my friends?" He implored desperately. "They'll think I'm dead!" Artemis studiously regarded the ceiling.
"Not to worry. I sent them clear omens of your success. They know you have ascended to Olympus again. Now, please put on some clothing. I'm your sister, but I would not wish this sight on anyone."
"Hmmph." Apollo knew very well she was just teasing him. Godly bodies were expressions of perfection. That's why they appeared naked in ancient statuary because one simply did not cover up such flawlessness with clothing.
Nevertheless, her comment resonated with him. He felt awkward and uncomfortable in this form, as if he had been given a Rolls-Royce to drive but no car insurance to go with it. He had felt so much more comfortable in his economy-compact Lester. "I- um… yes." He gazed around the room. "Is there a closet or-?" Her laughter finally escaped.
"A closet? That's adorable. You can just wish yourself into new clothes, little brother." He knew she was right, but he felt so flustered, he even ignored her little brother comment. It had been too long since he had relied on his divine power. He feared he might try and fail. He might accidentally turn himself into a camel.
Artemis rolled her eyes. "Oh, fine. Allow me." A wave of her hand and suddenly he was wearing a knee-length silver dress, the kind her followers wore, complete with thigh-laced sandals. He suspected he was also wearing a tiara.
"Um. Perhaps something less Huntery?"
"I think you look lovely." Her mouth twitched at the corner. "But very well." A flash of silver light and he was dressed in a man's white chiton. It was pretty much identical to a Hunter's gown- the sandals were the same and he seemed to be wearing a crown of laurels instead of a tiara, but those weren't very different either. Conventions of gender were strange. But he decided that was a mystery for another time.
"Thank you." He said. She nodded.
"The others are waiting for you in the throne room. Are you ready?" Apollo shivered, though it should not have been possible for him to feel cold.
The others.
He remembered his dream of the throne room- the other Olympians gambling on his success or failure. He wondered how much money they had lost. What could he possibly say to them? He no longer felt like one of them. He wasn't one of them.
"In a moment." He told his sister. "Would you mind…?" She seemed to understand.
"I'll let you compose yourself. I'll tell them you'll be right in." She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I am glad you're back. I hope I won't regret saying that."
"Me too." He agreed. She shimmered and vanished.
Apollo took off the laurel wreath. He did not feel comfortable wearing such a symbol of victory. He ran his finger across the gilded leaves, thinking of Daphne, whom he had treated so horribly. Whether Aphrodite had cursed him or not, it was still his fault that the blameless naiad had turned herself into a laurel tree just to escape him.
He walked to the balcony. He set the wreath on the edge of the railing, then ran his hand across the hyacinth that grew along the lattice- another reminder of tragic love. His poor Hyacinthus. Had he really created these flowers to commemorate him or just to wallow in his own grief and guilt? He found himself questioning many things he had done over the centuries. Strangely enough, this uneasiness felt somewhat reassuring.
He studied his smooth, tan arms, wishing again that he had retained a few scars. Lester Papadopoulos had earned his cuts, bruises, broken ribs, blistered feet, acne… well, maybe not the acne. No-one deserves that. But the rest had felt more like symbols of victory than laurels and better commemorations of loss than hyacinths.
He had no great desire to be here in Olympus, his home that was not a home. He wanted to see Meg again. He wanted to sit by the fire at Camp Half-Blood and sing ridiculous songs or joke with the Roman demigods in the Camp Jupiter mess hall while platters of food flew over their heads and ghosts in glowing purple togas regaled them with tales of their former exploits.
But the world of demigods wasn't his place. He had been privileged to experience it and he needed to remember it.
That didn't mean he couldn't go back to visit though. But first he had to show himself to his family, such as they were.
The gods awaited.
He turned and strode out of his room, trying to recall how the god Apollo walked.