Disclaimer: I don't own Trials of Apollo.
TOApril day twenty-six "Missing You". SPOILERS for Tower of Nero
Apollo was back.
Artemis didn't know how, none of them had been able to see the ending of the confrontation with Python, a confrontation Apollo had looked far too much like he was losing for her comfort before Hephaestus TV had lost track of the battling duo, but he'd appeared in a shower of golden light in the middle of the throne room and she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Their father had had nothing immediate to say on the subject, still dressed in mourning clothes, and Artemis hadn't waited to hear what anyone might have come up with before acting.
Apollo was back.
He was unconscious, a state a god should never find themselves in, let alone a god as powerful as Apollo, and as naked as the day he'd finally deigned to leave the comfort of their mother's womb (and no, Artemis would not forgive him for taking so long, nor would she ever let him get away with calling her little sister), but he was back.
Artemis was still worried. She'd transported him directly into her palace, her power singing as it wrapped around her other half, the sun to her moon, feeling the content hum of her twin's essence for the first time in far too long, and settled him on a reclining couch before waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
It had been nearly two weeks since his dramatic return. She knew the others were waiting, too, wondering what was taking so long when Apollo clearly had all his divinity back at last, but there was only one other she ever allowed so deep into her sanctum, and that was the twin laying far, far too still on the couch. Apollo was safe at last, defended in a way she'd so desperately wanted to do for the past six months yet, barring one all-too-brief encounter as Diana, had been restrained from doing.
Apollo loved to call her his little sister, and it had never failed to rile her up because it was a lie, she was the elder, she was the one that had spent nine twin-free days on Delos before he deigned to join her at last, but she suspected she knew why. He'd got it into his head, at some point, that it was his job to protect her. Olympus knew why, maybe it was something to do with mortal thinking influencing him over the years, the very human thought that brothers should protect sisters regardless of age order. She couldn't blame the Atlas Incident of a few years prior, because it had started far earlier than that, but she was well aware that it hadn't helped matters at all.
He'd got worse since then, after all, and Artemis had the horrid suspicion that that had been the idiotic thought process behind his dealings with his blasted Roman descendant – he'd been too weak to help her directly, forced to rely on demigods and Hunters, but maybe if he had a stronger prayer base again, he might have been able to do something else, or so her daft twin could so easily have been thinking. For the god of knowledge, sometimes he was unbearably stupid.
She'd been the older twin for four millennia, but never had she so keenly felt what it was like to be the big sister than now, with Apollo approaching two weeks of unconsciousness. He was back, but she was still almost as helpless as she had been during his mortal punishment. She'd done everything she could think of to rouse him, applying what little healing knowledge she had in the hopes of finding something she could fix, only for his essence to sing out to her that he was perfectly hale and healthy and that there was nothing to fix.
If he was truly hale and healthy, he would be awake, reciting his daft poetry at her (why oh why had he decided that he preferred composing those terrible haikus over the masterful epics of the Hellenistic era that she'd actually enjoyed listening to? Admittedly she'd never told him they were good even back then, but still), a grin as bright as the sun chariot he drove and the dreaded little sister falling from his lips as his eyes shone with amusement.
He knew was annoying. Of course he knew was annoying, he was her twin. It was his job description to be as infuriating as possible, and never let it be said that Apollo wasn't fantastic at anything he applied himself to. Archery, music, poetry, being the bane of Artemis' existence… Apollo had it all down pat. She gave as good as she got, of course – being a twin was a two-way exchange, after all – but she was pretty sure she never annoyed him as much as he did her.
Keeping watch over his unconscious, unmoving form, Artemis would have given anything to see his eyes open again, to see the golden fires of the sun focus on her as they flickered smugly. No doubt, she'd very quickly regret it, because Apollo was very good at being annoying (she called him her irresponsible twin for a reason, even though it was half a lie because Apollo took his duties just as seriously as he did his pleasures), but right then her future irritation didn't matter, because it would mean Apollo was finally himself again.
Finally awake. Finally safe.
It seemed ridiculous that this was as painful as it was. She should be elated to have him back, relieved beyond words even in her twin's arsenal that he was on Olympus once more, his power restored, but it just didn't feel right.
Apollo seemed small, laid on her couch with a thin sheet covering the parts of his anatomy she had no desire to see more than absolutely necessary (why mortals insisted on immortalising her brother in stone without any clothes, she would never understand). That didn't make sense, especially as he was in his default young adult appearance rather than the late teens he'd been favouring for the past few centuries, so by rights he should look bigger, but as he was so still, devoid of his natural dramatics while unconscious, he just seemed small.
Vulnerable.
Artemis hadn't missed her brother as fiercely in her entire existence as she had since Gaia's defeat, and it wasn't a feeling that was going to go away until Apollo was awake and back to normal, no matter how much she hated his teasing.
"If you wake up now I'll let you spend a week with the Hunt," she bargained quietly, kneeling beside the couch and resting a hand on his arm lightly. It wasn't the first time she'd made the offer since he'd reappeared. It wasn't the only offer she'd made him, either. She'd give him almost anything he wanted, if it meant he'd finally come back to her.
Almost anything, because there was no way she was relinquishing the title of eldest twin to him. Not when, like this, he was so clearly her little brother. Diana remembered his emotional outbursts, his honest emotional outbursts, after saving his life too clearly for that. He'd been protecting her – unnecessarily, she might add – for centuries, perhaps millennia, but right now it was painfully apparent that the one that needed protecting was him, and as his big sister, Artemis was going to do exactly that. Somehow.
Like all the previous offers, this one didn't get a reaction, either, and she sighed sadly.
"When are you going to wake up, little brother?" she murmured. Unsurprisingly, but still depressingly, he didn't answer.
She wouldn't leave his side until he did.
Thanks for reading!
Tsari
