To 8Ball3- I don't know much about Veggie Tales, so OK? XD And the glowing stuff isn't the problem- it's what comes later 3:) And thank you! ^_^

Jason leaned to the left slightly, peering around Rajah. Doctor Thorn was in the lunch queue, nodding to whatever one of the science teachers had to say. Bobbins had still not come back. Jason could only hope his history teacher had not fallen victim to the monster.

"You really do have a thing for Teacher!" Terry popped up into his view, with a quizzical, bemused smile. He and Perry sat either side of Rajah, bumping him with their elbows. Rajah blinked, looking from one to the other, offended.

"Come on then, Grace." Perry jabbed a plastic spoon at him. "What's Thorn got that we don't?"

"We're better looking-" Terry began listing on his fingers.

"Not hard."

"-hilariously charming-"

"It's a gift."

"-intelligent and suave-"

"We're flawless."

"-and, most of all, incredibly humble."

"Yes, we are." Perry agreed with a nod. Jason raised an eyebrow at them both. It was going to take something rather spectacular to convince them he did not have a Thing for Thorn. He did not have something rather spectacular up his sleeve, so he did the only thing he could. He told the truth.

"I'm plotting to kill him." A partial truth. It gave him a series of stunned looks and then narrowed, suspicious eyes, potentially amusing under different circumstances.

"I knew it." Terry hissed. "He's a maniac."

"Rather gorgeous maniac." Perry corrected, circling his spoon around Jason's outline. "But a maniac nonetheless. First Morris, now Thorn. Did you kill Bobbins too?"

"Yes." Jason nodded solemnly. "I will spare Rajah," he pointed at the boy, who sighed with relief, "but everyone else is fair game."

"Even us?" Perry gestured at himself and his brother. Jason leaned forward, elbows on the table, steepling his fingers. With a sly grin, he said:

"You two are next."

Resting was easier said than done. Apollo lay in his bed above the coffee shop, with a throbbing head and a stomach wound boiling through his insides. The room was peaceful, softly lit with the curtains drawn, but not enough to block the windowbox. Meg's irises were in full bloom now, swaying in a cool breeze. He watched them, lost in thought, trying to call on sleep and having it dance beyond his reach.

He thought of Hazel, and how she had credited Frank with washing away her curse. Everyone deserved someone that could wash away their curses by making them feel loved. That was not his fate though, not Apollo's. His greatest romances had caused more curses than lifted. Daphne. Hyacinthus. And then, later, the Cumaean Sibyl.

He could remember the day they sat on a beach, the Mediterranean stretching out before them like a sheet of blue glass. Behind them, on the hillside where the Sibyl had her cave, olive trees baked and cicadas droned in the summer heat of southern Italy. In the distance, Mount Vesuvius rose, hazy and purple. Conjuring this picturesque landscape was surprisingly easy, but he struggled on conjuring the image of the Sibyl. Not the haggard, grizzled old woman from Tarquin's throne room, but the beautiful young woman that had sat with him on that beach, centuries before.

Apollo had loved everything about her- the way her hair caught the sunlight, the mischievous gleam in her eyes, the easy way she smiled. She didn't seem to care that he was a god, despite having given up everything to be his Oracle- her family, her future, even her name. Once pledged to Apollo, she was known simply as Sibyl, the voice of Apollo.

It hadn't been enough for him. He was smitten. He convinced himself it was love- the one true romance that would wash away all his past missteps. He wanted the Sibyl to be his partner throughout eternity. As the afternoon went on, he had coaxed and pleaded. "You could be so much more than my priestess!" He urged. "Marry me!"

"You can't be serious." She laughed.

"I am! Ask for anything in return and it's yours!" She gave a slight shake of her head, twisting a strand of her auburn locks around her finger.

"All I've ever wanted is to be the Sibyl, to guide the people of this land to a better future. You've already given me that. So, haha, the joke's on you."

"But… but you've only got one lifetime!" He protested. "If you were immortal, you could guide humans to a better future, forever, at my side!" She looked at him askance.

"Apollo, please. You'd be tired of me by the end of the week."

"Never!"

"So, you're saying…" She scooped up two heaped handfuls of sand. "If I wished for as many years of life as there are grains of this sand, you would grant me that?"

"It is done!" He pronounced, instantly feeling a portion of his own power flow into her life force. "And now, my love-"

"Whoa, whoa!" She scattered the sand, scrambling to her feet and backing away as if he had suddenly become radioactive. "That was hypothetical, lover boy! I didn't agree-"

"What's done is done!" He rose, brushing sand from his hands. "A wish cannot be taken back. Now you must honour your side of the bargain." Panic flashed in her eyes, she shook her head again.

"I-I can't! I won't!" He laughed, thinking she was merely nervous.

"Don't be afraid."

"Of course I'm afraid!" She backed away further. "Nothing good ever happens to your lovers! I just wanted to be your Sibyl and now you've made things weird!" His smile fell. His ardour began to cool, turning stormy.

"Don't anger me, Sibyl. I am offering you the universe. I've given you near-immortal life. You cannot refuse payment."

"Payment?" She balled her fists. "You dare think of me as a transaction?" He frowned. This afternoon really wasn't going as he had planned it.

"I didn't mean… obviously, I wasn't-"

"Well, Lord Apollo." She growled. "If this is a transaction, then I defer payment until your side of the bargain is complete. You said it yourself, near-immortal life. I will live until the grains of sand run out, yes? Come to me at the end of that time. Then, if you still want me, I'm yours." Anger froze in his chest. All at once, everything he had loved about her, he hated. Her headstrong attitude, her lack of awe, her infuriatingly unattainable beauty. Especially her beauty.

"Very well." He said, voice turning as cold as the feeling in his ribcage. "You want to argue over the fine print of our contract? I promised you life, not youth. You can have your centuries of existence. You will remain my Sibyl. I cannot take those things away, once given. But you will grow old. You will wither. You will not be able to die."

"I would prefer that!" Her words were defiant, but trembled with fear.

"Fine!" He snapped.

"Fine!" She yelled back. He vanished in a column of flame, having succeeded in making things very weird indeed.

As the centuries passed, she had withered, just as he had threatened. Her physical form lasted longer than any ordinary mortal's, but the pain he had caused her, the lingering agony. Even if he had had regrets in his hasty curse, he couldn't take it back any more than she could take back her wish. At some point around the end of the Roman Empire, he had heard rumours that her body had crumbled away altogether, yet she still could not die. Her attendants kept her life force, the faintest whisper of her voice, in a glass jar.

He had assumed the jar had been lost sometime after that. That the Sibyl's grains of sand had finally run out. In his bed, back in the present, he grimaced, doubt niggling at him. What if she were still alive? He did not believe whatever faint whisper might still remain would be a pro-Apollo.

Why does human shame have to hurt so much? He thought. He remembered a promise he had made to Jason, something at the time that had seemed so final, but also something Apollo could not shake. He had broken enough promises. He could not break another. He had promised to remember what it was to be human. There's so much pain in shame, he grimaced, why isn't there an off button?

His thoughts of the Sibyl lead him to consideration of another young woman with a curse- Reyna. He had been completely blindsided the day he strolled into the Olympian throne room, fashionably late for the meeting as usual, and found Venus studying the luminous image of a young lady floating above her palm. The goddess's expression had been weary and troubled, something he did not often see.

"Who's that?" He had foolishly asked. "She's beautiful." That was all the trigger needed to unleash her fury. She told him Reyna's fate- no demigod would ever be able to heal her heart. But that did not mean he was the answer to her problem. Quite the contrary. In front of the assembled gods, Venus had berated him quite savagely:

"Unworthy, don't even breathe in her direction, do you understand me? Do you understand me? You little worm, you ruin every relationship you're ever in. Keep your sorry excuse of a godly face away from Reyna or I will curse you with such terrible romantic luck, your current situation will look like true love!"

The mocking laughter of the other gods still rang in his ears.

Had it not been for that encounter, he might never have known Reyna existed. He certainly had no designs on her. But he always wanted what he couldn't have. Once Venus declared Reyna off-limits, he became fascinated with her.

Why had Venus been so emphatic? What did Reyna's fate mean?

He thought he understood now. As Lester Papadopoulos, he technically no longer had a godly face. He was neither mortal nor god nor demigod. Had Venus somehow known this would happen to him someday? Had she shown him Reyna and warned him off knowing full well that it would make him obsessed? Venus was a wily goddess. She played games within games. If his fate was to be Reyna's true love, to wash away her curse as Frank had done for Hazel, would Venus allow it?

Um, hello. That funny little voice in his head was back. Are you forgetting the slightly crazed, very out-of-it girlfriend she already has whose powers are all screwy and who still hasn't made her mind up on whether she wants to kill you or not?

He hummed, nodding once. That was a good point. It did raise some questions though.

If no demigod would ever be able to heal Reyna's heart… what the hell was Louisa for then? She was most certainly a demigod, probably one of the most demigodly-demigods he had ever met- stubborn, loud-mouthed, bit too daring, loyal to a fault, admittedly overwhelmingly terrifying at times.

He tried to find reasons why she wasn't a demigod- maybe she was an alien or a clone or a monster in disguise- but years of Poseidon and Neptune defending his daughter from the other gods' votes to kill her… no, she was definitely a demigod. Apollo was beginning to understand demigods a little more, what with being stranded as a mortal amongst them, but Louisa still fit in the aforementioned description.

Since when has Louisa ever played by the rules? His little head-voice was back, questioning. She's only alive because Neptune doesn't want her dead yet.

Again, that was a good point. Why couldn't his brain work like this with something more important?

Louisa or not, he was a romantic disaster. He had ruined every single relationship, brought nothing but destruction and misery for those he had loved. How could he believe he would be any good for the praetor?

He lay on his bed, tossing these thoughts about in his mind, until late afternoon. Finally, he gave up on the idea of rest, now even further from his grasp with lovesickness, and gathered his supplies- his quiver and bow, his ukulele and his backpack- and headed out. He needed guidance and could think of one way to get it.

Jason dropped his satchel with a sigh, rolling his shoulder and groaning. Textbooks took a bigger toll on his body than any monster, he was sure of it. Although, there was a monster in school that had given him an essay due at the end of the week. Were monsters really that bored, did they enjoy coming to schools and dishing out homework?

He felt under his desk, reaching back a little. His fingers brushed the cold metal of a dagger hilt and he pulled it free. He had a few stashes like this around the school, but this was the most discreet one. The sooner he dealt with Thorn, the better.

What type of monster he was going to face, Jason wasn't a hundred percent sure. On the other hand, he would undoubtedly find out soon enough.

Something fluttered on the other side of his dagger. Turning the blade over, he found a highlighter pink post-it note stuck on the other side.

Asshole, Louisa had written. That was it. Jason sighed, tugging the note off and sticking it to the front of his notebook. He really was never free of her.

He took two steps towards the door, hiding the dagger in an inside pocket of his blazer. Ice washed down his back and he froze, fingers hovering over the door handle. A twist in his gut, he turned slowly to survey his room. Something was wrong.

He wrenched open the curtains, checked under his bed, checked in the closet. He stuck his head out and examined the corridor quickly, but nothing was untoward here.

The problem wasn't here. He sunk to sit on his bed, closing his eyes. An image flashed in his mind- a rotten skeleton, grinning at him, eyes flashing with purple light. Its laughter shattered the vision, goosebumps prickling his skin. He didn't know how, but he knew- Tarquin. There was a quest to Tarquin's tomb, it wasn't going to end well.

He needed to warn someone.

Filling his lungs to settle his heartrate, Jason closed his eyes and lay down. Please let this work, he thought, please.