Disclaimer: I don't own Trials of Apollo

TOApril day fourteen: "Keeping Up With The Gods"

Will doesn't feel like he's half a god. He doesn't feel like the mortal kids he sees when he's out and about, doesn't feel like he fits in with the kids he went to school with before he learnt about his father and ended up at Camp, but he doesn't feel like he's half a god, either.

Demigod. They use that word a lot, although half-blood gets bandied around, too, and that feels better. Half-blood doesn't imply he's special, somehow better than others because his father happens to be a god. Half-blood doesn't make it seem like he should be powerful, amazing at everything he tries because he's better than human. Half-blood makes it sound like he doesn't belong - he doesn't fit in with regular mortals and he's not better than them either, and that's a lot more accurate to how Will feels.

Percy Jackson is a demigod. Nico di Angelo is a demigod. Will's seen both of them do incredible things, feats that scream out the godly inheritance running through them. If you told child him they were godly, he'd have believed you. But they're Big Three kids, people who can command the oceans or the dead with a single thought. They're a cut above the rest, a class all in their own, and even though Will's privy to the downsides, to the exhaustion and stress and injuries they end up with that mark them as demi-gods with a mortal endurance to go with their godly abilities, he knows he's not the same.

Even amongst his siblings, Will's different. Archery, music, poetry... his siblings have that in spades, and there's something that can take your breath away about watching Kayla obliterate a bullseye, packing her arrows so tightly on the target that there's only one hole on the paper yet somehow not Robin Hood-ing a single one (she could, if she wanted to, but all archers know that wrecking your arrows is a headache and that Hollywood doesn't have a clue when it comes to real archery rather than cinematic effect), something enchanting about how Austin can tug on your heartstrings with the faintest notes of his sax (or any other instrument of his choosing), something powerful in the way other campers have learnt not to mess with cabin seven lest they start speaking in rhyme for a week.

Will can't do any of that. Will's just a healer, someone to go to when all the godly powers take their toll and they need picking up and patching together again.

Being a healer hurts. He loves it, he does, and the day he discovered that it wasn't just a coincidence that sometimes when Mom cut herself cooking and let him 'kiss it better' the way she did for him the blood seemed to go away was the best day of his life. Demigod, half a god - he felt like one, then. When all he dealt with were training injuries, nicks from a sword or sprained ankles from falling off the wall. When the busiest he got was after Capture the Flag when the Ares cabin got a little too wild and someone had a gash in their arm. When he felt like he could fix anything. Back then, he could believe he was truly half a god.

But then the wars came. Then, people died and he couldn't stop them. He was a healer, he was supposed to save lives but all he had under his hands were corpses, corpses, and soon-to-be corpses and he was utterly helpless.

Will doesn't think of himself as half a god anymore. How can he be, when the only thing he's inherited from his father, his godly parent, he can't even use properly? How can he be, when he can't save lives, when people bleed out beneath his hands and everyone else looks at him in betrayal because he's supposed to be half a god, half a healing god, but he can't even keep people alive when it counts? No, Will's just a half-blood. Not even a human, certainly not a god. He's neither of those and he's less than both.


Apollo's had thousands of children across the millennia and he's loved them all. Even the ones that turned against him, the ones who resented him, rejected him, refused to have anything to do with them (because he's had some, like that. Not many, but they've been there, sprinkled across time; it was an honest relief to find that none of the current generation hated him enough to follow those older half-siblings of theirs) - he loves all of his children.

Every so often, there's one who's special. He doesn't play favourites, or at least he tries not to, and he doesn't actively choose which of his domains his children inherit (although he does actively hold back certain ones when he can, the ones that get his children ostracised, cast out from society, hunted down and killed; he's lost too many with prophetic and plague powers that way), so it's as much a surprise for him as it is his children when their abilities come to the fore. Usually, there's a bit of a pattern - lovers with musical talent tend to result in kids who inherit that domain, lovers in the healing profession tend to result in kids who inherit that domain, lovers skilled in archery tend to result in kids who inherit that domain, and so on - but sometimes one comes along that inherits something completely different, and experience has told Apollo those are the kids who are going to do something.

Maybe it's his prophetic powers subconsciously coming into play; William (Shakespeare, that is) changed the course of plays right as society bored of what they had, to name the obvious example. Time and time again, his children inheriting domains that didn't seem the obvious route crop up at major turning points in history, so when Naomi Solace's young son started healing minor cuts and bruises on instinct while being so clearly devoid of his mother's musical talent (although not her enthusiasm), Apollo took notice, and he's glad he did.

It's been centuries since he last fathered such a powerful healer, and he'd worried at what it meant when he realised the depths of Will's inheritance over his domain. Powerful healers aren't needed in times of peace and tranquillity, and Apollo knew that one day, Will would be vital.

And he is. He's also even more powerful than Apollo had realised, when he'd looked at that young child running after his mother with the sun in his smile (and really, that should have been a clue) and healing in his fingers. Necessity always pushes limits further than they ideally should be, and war after war after war has pushed Will's ability to heal so far that he can easily join Asclepius as a god of healing if he chooses to (but Apollo doesn't think Will ever will; his son isn't the sort to accept god-hood, even though his healing capability screams of the potential). Apollo answers his prayers and boosts him when he can, because just because Will can do it alone doesn't mean he should have to, but the times when he can't, when his head is torn in two or he's mortal and his powers are so far out of his reach he's even less of a god than his own children, Will's ability never falters.

It's, ironically, while he's mortal that he realises what else Will inherited from him, a domain so rarely inherited he's almost forgotten that it can be. Will's a light in the darkness, not just in the spiritual sense of a healer when all else is lost, but in a literal sense. He can generate his own light, and it's not quite the same as a god revealing their divine essence but there's the parallel nonetheless. Not even demigods, for all that they have godly parentage, contain divinity in such a way but Will is the closest Apollo has seen in a long time.

Will is special. He quietly keeps up with the big hitters of his generation, the support without which the rest of them will crumble, and Apollo watches over him proudly as he proves it again and again and again.

Another difficult prompt that of course went a little angsty, oops. This went slightly different in terms of writing style; it's the first time this month I've gone for different povs within the same story, so I hope it works.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari