Chapter 32
Apollo POV
"I hate early mornings." I said to myself. I got a text from Hermes saying he really needed my help with something and after I rushed out he claims he never sent it. I opened the door to my palace and flipped on the lights. Maybe I can catch a quick nap before I meet Persephone for lunch one of these days I gotta ask how she's sneaking out of the underworld so often without Hades knowing.
Something slammed into my back and before I even figured out what was going on my hands were cuffed behind my back. Gently I was flipped over with my back against the wall "Artemis?" I growled realizing who my assailant was. "How did you get in here?"
"I pilfered these from your palace when you let me see Percy." She said holding up a set of keys.
"I thought my assistant took those." I said to myself. "So what do you want."
"I want you to talk to me and that's why I decided you and me are gonna spend this weekend on a hunting trip." She said.
"What! I don't have time for that I got plans." I yelled, well actually I only had that lunch with Persephone but she didn't know that.
"No you don't. " She said calmly. "I also got a copy of your schedule and I hacked your phone to make sure it stayed open."
"What makes you think I'd even what to go on a hunting trip with the hunt." I said.
"I sent them to camp, it'll just be you and me." She shot back.
"Well I still have plans for to day when I left to see Hermes...wait a minute you sent that text didn't you?" I accused and Artemis look somewhat guilty.
"I needed to get you out of the house so I could pack your stuff for you and to surprise you." She said.
You know a year ago I would have found this incredible funny but now I just wanted scream and tell her to get out. Seconds before I blew my top the words of Poros came back to me 'I've spent 3000 years wishing I could talk to my sister, don't throw yours away when she's trying to reach out to you.'
"Fine I'll go." I said and Artemis lit up "But after lunch, I've got someone to see." Her happiness seemed to diminish but uncuffed me.
"Really just like that?" I asked.
"I've never need anything more than your word before." She said.
Percy POV
"You ready sis?" I asked Annabeth.
"Ya I'm just nervous how the others will take it." She said. We walked down the hill into camp halfblood and at first it felt like a normal day then people started whispering. I didn't really care but Annabeth was worried her siblings might take her adoption the wrong way.
"Hey Annabeth!" Thalia called running up to us and I noticed Furok sitting on her shoulders. Apollo had told me he was a gift from Uranus for me to use as I pleased but I felt better leaving him with the hunt, still he tended to show up every once in awhile looking for a treat. "Whoa what happened to you?" She asked.
"Poseidon adopted me." She replied.
"Cool!" Thalia replied.
"Hey where's Nico I want to see how he's taking Bianca's death." I said.
"He ran away." Thalia said sullenly. "I told him what happened and he couldn't take it, he blamed me for and ran into the woods. I tried to follow him but I lost him somewhere."
"Don't blame yourself something tells me we'll be seeing him again." Annabeth said.
"Don't blame myself I promised him I'd keep his sister safe!" She yelled, Annabeth pulled her into a hug.
"It'll be okay." She said, Thalia nodded and walked off the rejoin the hunters.
The next stop was the Athena cabin. I stayed in the doorway while Annabeth went in to talk to her siblings. The moment she walked in her siblings stopped what they were doing and came over to us "Hey Annabeth." Malcolm said "Is it true did you really get adopted by Poseidon."
Annabeth nodded slowly "That's great!" He said congratulating her followed by similar statements from her siblings.
"You not mad?" She asked.
"Dionysus gave camp a rundown of why you let Poseidon adopt you and all the side effects thereof. Fredrick is a total creep and if having Poseidon for a father makes you happy we're cool with it." Malcolm said. "But if you want to spend any large amount of time in the Poseidon cabin expect a lot of of crap coming your way from the other cabins. I don't think they fully understand that you're now half siblings."
"Thank you guy's." Annabeth said wiping her tears.
She look over on the girls side of the cabin and one of the younger girls, Catherine I believe, quickly hopped off a bed. "Sorry I didn't mean to.." She began
"Don't worry about it." Annabeth said. "Our cabin has been over stuffed for a while now, so I'll move to the Poseidon cabin. That way we don't have to try to jam a new cot in here and everyone has a bed. Besides I bet Percy gets ofly scared living in that bunker all alone."
"You know I don't know whether I should be happy or insulted." I said.
"Just be happy." Malcolm said patting my shoulder.
Artemis POV (two day later)
"Ha I win again." I laughed spinning the rabbit in my hand.
"Your cheating I know you are." Apollo said failing to hide his grin.
"Naw you're just bad at hunting." I said hopping on his back "I missed this."
"Me too." Apollo said "Although you're a lot heavier than you used to be."
"Jerk." I said playfully slapping his arm.
"I don't have to carry you you know." He replied.
20 minutes later we were sitting down waiting for the rabbit to finish roasting. "So what brought this on?" Apollo asked from his spot on the other side of the fire. It was something we always used to do as kids, while waiting for dinner we'd lay on the ground and watch clouds or stars depending on the time of day.
"What do you mean?" I replied glancing down from the stars.
"I've know you all my life and there's no way you would have started banging down my door after only two weeks. Something had to have happened." He said.
"It was something Percy said to me right after our fight." I said.
"Oh really?" Apollo teased propping himself up on his shoulder "Artemis the world's biggest man hater taking advice from a man. And what's with the nick name."
"We're friends it's not that big a deal." I defended.
"Not that big a deal? The last time you called a boy friend was Orion." He said.
"Percy is nothing like Orion and you have right to compare Percy to that monster." I shouted.
"If you were listening I was just pointing out that you two were close and if you had just listened to me about Orion he would have never had a chance to do what he did!" He shot back getting to his feet.
"I have a right to have own life you ordering me who to trust." I yelled also rising from the ground.
"I have never once ordered you to do anything I've tried to get you to see reason but you just keep pushing me away. Ever since we came to Olympus it's like I'm second rate to you and for the life of me I just can't figure out why." He seethed inches from my face.
I don't know what caused it, whether it was the emotional strain of the last few weeks or just the heat of the moment but I said something that I'd always feared would ruin our sibling bond. Although looking back I might have been in the top ten best decisions I'd ever made. "It's because you lied to me!" I hollered
"What?" He began, but I never let him finish.
"When we came to Olympus and saw what our father was like you promised me that you would never be like him." I cried "Now I never expected you to swear to be a virgin or something but I did believe you'd show some restraint. The very next day you announce that you have a child on the way. In a year you had 20 kids and in the 200 years your cabin has never had less than 35 kids in it at one time. The only thing that I can't understand is why all their mothers still talk about you like you some kind of angel."
"I AM still a virgin." Apollo shouted.
"How can you even say that with so many kids there's no way you can still be a virgin." I said.
"I swear on Styx there is as the god of healing and the sun I found a way to give barren women a single child. That's why they don't hate me, they spent years wishing for a child and all I had to do was place a hand over where their womb would be and boom they have a single child. And I make pretty dang sure they know what having a demigod child will entail." I bellowed.
After he said those words I felt tears coming to my eyes again "Why didn't you ever tell me."
"You don't think I didn't try? The week after my first child was announced you were distraught and when I tried to explain everything to you you wouldn't listen! Then father gives you permission to have the hunt and you barely even let me hang around."
"I'm sorry." I said covering my mouth. "I should have listened, this-everything is my fault."
I turned to run but Apollo grabbed my arm. "Don't cry Arty." he said pulling me into a hug "You don't have anything to be sorry about. I could have warned you before I created that first child heck I could have tried more than once to explain what happened. As far as I see it we both made plenty of mistakes so let's just call it even."
I nodded and keep crying into his chest "I guess for once you really were the adult here." I said. Apollo chuckled at that and pretty soon we were both laughing "I take it all back you can come see me or your daughter's any time you want."
"You it's kinda funny, what first started breaking us apart was a girl I knew and it took you getting close to a boy for us to get past it." He said. "You know when I first met Percy I thought he'd be just like Orion. But now I wouldn't really having a problem calling him brother."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying? I asked looking up at him.
"What do you think I'm saying." He replied with a knowing grin.
I immediately dropped my gaze "I appreciate the sentiment but it would never work he'd have to be immortal and we'd need four other council members to agree to make him immortal. On top of that father would never approve."
"Oh don't be pessimistic if you want to go for it then do. Besides I can promise that by time he's old enough at least one of those problems will be gone." He said and I gave him a questioning look "Just trust your older brother on this." I would have asked more but the growling of my stomach effectively ended all conversation until after dinner.
Tomas POV
I stepped out of the arcade debating what I should for the next few hour till I had to be home. Between everything that was going on with Annabeth and the revelations from the quest I was kinda a loss for what I should be doing. I wasn't strong enough to protect her, I'll never actually be able to have a decent conversation with my own mother, and I can't even tell anyone who she is.
I debated on going down to the movies when my demigod sense suddenly flared up. Gripping the dagger hidden in my jacket I quickly looked around. "Good instincts kid." A man said from where his harley was parked.
"Ares?" I questioned.
"You know when I saw mother's reaction when we passed by you on Olympus I'll admit it confused me." He said both ignoring and answering my question at the same time. "I spent good while really trying to understand it then I remembered what you were saying in that conversation we overheard and something just bothered me.
So I looked into you and suddenly everything made sense. Your uncanny resemblance to mother. Her sudden decision to re marry father 15 years ago after he got drunk and divorced her. Top it off with your ability to create illusions and only one thing made sense."
"So what's you point." I snapped, really today I just didn't want to deal with his beef over my parentage.
"Almost of my father's demigod children end up being egotistical morons so I decided that they can succeed or fail on their own. But your the very first demigod son of Hera so I'll going to hold back judgment for now." He said handing me a card.
"War's coming I can feel it and we need to be ready most demigods can have their siblings help them train but you, Perseus, and Thalia are alone. Thalia's been taken under Artemis' wing and Perseus has been going to Triton for a while now. This card will get you into a local establishment I run, if you ever decide you need some help feel free to drop by." He said before speeding off on his bike.
Please review
(AN: Just so you know in Greek Myths the sun is very closely related to creation. That's why I made it part of how Apollo makes his children."
