Disclaimer: I don't own Trials of Apollo

Day 18 - In The Next Lifetime

The thing with being the god of prophecy was that Apollo saw things. Many things, many futures, all delicately tangled together and fragile enough to be altered beyond recognition by the smallest, most insignificant-seeming thing. Mortals called it the Butterfly Effect, the concept that even the simple flutter of a butterfly's wings could escalate into something so extreme it was unrecognisable from its original form.

The rise of Kronos was infinitely more disruptive than a single butterfly could ever hope to be, and yes, Apollo had seen plenty of futures to do with that, too, possibilities where Kronos had rose and won, where he'd risen and lost, where exactly what had happened had come to pass. Still, it had been a shift in the Fates' strings that was easily trackable and even more easily curseable.

Apollo had seen many futures that would never happen, and some of those came with relief, while others he grieved with every molecule of his essence, because they had been good futures, so much better than the way the future had evolved so far. It hurt to think about them, but he also revelled in them, tearing his heart apart as his perfect recall showed them to him again and again – the what could have beens. The what should have beens, if Kronos hadn't risen, if a thousand butterflies hadn't flapped their wings in those exact spots and collided into a hurricane that attempted to destroy the world.

Just because it had failed in that didn't mean it hadn't failed in destroying many, many other things in the process. Worse futures, yes, but also better ones, and there were times when Apollo couldn't help but wallow, just for a while.

"No, no, you're not stupid." Lee smiled at the young child sitting the other side of the desk. His suit jacket fit him perfectly, or would have done if he'd been wearing it, but instead it was thrown carelessly over the back of a chair, and the tie that was supposed to be snug in the hollow of his throat was loose and floating down somewhere near the second button of his shirt. "It's the letters that are stupid. They never stay still for me – do they keep moving for you, too?"

The child – seven or eight years old, perhaps, and looking like they were a single wrong word away from either bursting into tears or storming out of the room in a screaming fit – visibly faltered, looking up at Lee with wide, startled eyes.

"They move for you, too?" they asked, and there was wonder in their voice; they were too young to have worked out how to try and hide their emotions, and Apollo was glad for that, because young children shouldn't know how to hide emotions.

Nor should older children, but life always collected its dues eventually.

"They do," Lee confirmed. "How about we try a few tricks to get them to behave a bit? It won't be easy, but I bet you're more stubborn than the letters are."

Clearly, those were the magic words, because the rest of the hostility drained away from the child, to be replaced with determination. Lee had always been good with children, had always known exactly what to say to make them feel like he was with them, that they weren't stupid for whatever emotions they were feeling at the time.

He made a good teacher.

He would have made a good teacher, if he hadn't died when butterflies created hurricanes and the result was a giant's club caving in the skull of Apollo's son, sending him straight to the Underworld for the rest of his existence.

That was the future-that-had-happened that Apollo didn't like to dwell on, if he could help it. Not when there were what-ifs that were so, so much better, for all that they hurt in their impossibility.

"Get back here, you little shit!" a man snarled, stalking towards a slightly run-down, clearly low-funded building. A preteen, or perhaps a growth-stunted young teenager, darted inside ahead of them, breathing hard with tears running down their face and a stuffed bag on their back. Probably not homeless, but desperate nonetheless, if they were fleeing towards child services.

The child got in just fine, running straight to a desk and gasping out pleas for help even as they nervously looked back over their shoulder. Lizzie stood up immediately, ushering them deeper inside the building and sending a single, poisonous look over her shoulder at the angry man that was so clearly a threat. "You're not welcome here," she said. "Leave."

"Don't you know who I am?" the man roared, but Lizzy didn't give him any more of her attention, completely blanking the intruder as she coaxed the scared child into an office, out of sight. She didn't need to.

"We don't give a shit," Michael said, initially overlooked in the presence of his taller, more colourful sister but dragging the man's attention to him with ease. "You could be the fucking king of England for all I care. You're not fucking welcome here." Lizzy had been dressed for comfort, oozing vibes of big sister or cool aunt. Michael was dressed for fighting.

A mortal wouldn't recognise it, straight away, although if they were paying attention they might have noticed that he was carrying. He wasn't dressed like a typical security guard, but despite being barely taller than the child they were protecting, he carried himself with all the confidence of someone who knew who was going to win in a fight – and that it wasn't their opponent. To someone familiar with demigods, though, the clothing was clearly an outfit that wouldn't get in his way if he had to move quickly, or agilely.

The man getting offended at his attitude was predictable. So was Michael's escalation, when the man got aggressive and started to storm towards him.

"Fuckers like you make me sick," he spat, drawing a weapon. Not a bow – concessions had to be made for the mortal world – but any ranged weapon was putty in the hands of an Apollo kid, and Michael was old enough to know which one was the best in any given situation. Clearly, it wasn't a gun situation, but tasers were just as effective at stopping abusers in their tracks.

Maybe if Michael had had a taser on the bridge, he could have one day reached that future, the one where he helped to protect children trying to escape their abusers the same way he'd once needed (and hadn't got). Maybe that would have caused another butterfly, and spared his life. Maybe Lizzy would have survived that night, too, if she'd been closer to her younger siblings, if they'd worked together rather than apart.

Too many what-ifs. Too many brighter futures where his children were still alive that hadn't happened, because Kronos had risen and his children had paid the price. Even the ones that were still alive struggled in ways they wouldn't have done, in a different lifetime. Apollo had seen Will sitting calmly in a paediatric ward, changing bandages and applying band-aids with children's favourite fictional characters to insignificant boo-boos, in another future that would never happen, now. Not with too much war trauma, too much reliance on his healing powers rather than skills to be able to sit in a mortal hospital.

Will wasn't dead, not yet – and Apollo hoped he would live for many, many more years, that the futures where he dies a teenager wouldn't come true – but the wars took from him, too. He'd never be free of the demigod world, even if Apollo was still partial to the future where Will established himself as a permanent supervisory adult at Camp Half-Blood to help keep the children there alive.

Any future where the children – his, and the other demigods, and all children, actually – survived to adulthood and thrived was a good one, in Apollo's books.

If only it actually came to pass more often.

I misremembered it as In Another Lifetime, so that's actually what I went with. Close enough, right?

Thanks for reading!
Tsari