Chapter Text
Gold and green taken,
Oh how far Apollo fell,
Stories are spoken,
Apollo hated what was going on.
Everything Apollo had hoped would never happen to one of his children had happened. Will had to see the deaths of almost twenty of his siblings. He had to become cabin counselor and head of the infirmary at the pubescent age of thirteen. He had barely seen his father at all.
And the worst of all, he had been kidnapped. Apollo promised he wouldn’t go back to his vindictive self when he had completed his trials but he would do that and so much worse in the name of his children. Cassandra’s fate would be mercy compared to the curse he would bestow upon what had taken his child, and no one was going to stop him.
Apollo wanted his child back. The child who had taken up the load of responsibility from every single one of his dead siblings. The child who blamed Apollo for never being there. The child who would rather kill himself than let any of the patients in the infirmary die. The child who barely ate just so he could help more people.
And Apollo hated that he couldn’t do anything about it now that they were allowed to spend time with their children. He had fought Python, plunged into chaos head first, and killed godly emperors all in a flimsy mortal body with only a few of his vast collection of memories to aid him and he couldn’t wrap his child in sunlight and never let him go.
Will’s medical bag was stripped of any claim that Apollo bestowed upon in it. No small beams of sunlight tickled his fingers when he had clutched it. No whispers of his beautiful cygnet. Not a single thing, like it was a new bag that hadn’t gone through three wars with its owner. Like it never meant anything to Will, as if it never had scraps of fabric he had managed to collect from his siblings' funeral shrouds patched into it. As if it hadn’t been patched up like a wounded person's arm.
But Apollo shoved that deep down. His father had relieved him of his duties other than setting the sun which was a menial task compared to searching for his lost son. To visit Meg he had changed back to Lester, the mortal body he once hated but now loved as if it was a second skin, at this point it may as well be.
Other than his children, Meg was another demigod so close to his soul that she was his little sister now. While Apollo had a biological sister, his twin Artemis, he still considered Meg his sibling. They didn’t go through months of unparalleled challenges and servitude just to be considered meager friends.
Apollo knocked on the door, a habit he still hadn’t dispersed of with his newly attained divinity. No one answered. But that was okay, Meg may not have heard. He knocked again, maybe Meg was sleeping?
But as he rang the doorbell till the sounds of ding dong, melded into one anxious chorus he panicked. Apollo began to search around the sides of the repaired greenhouses frantically.
He had forgotten to tuck in his two pairs of raven wings that protruded from his back. He ran as quickly as he could to the back of the greenhouse. He came face to face the back of Meg facing off against a gigantic almost spongy blackened tentacle. At first Apollo couldn’t tell if it was a monster or one of Hades' servants that tried to take one of Meg’s figs from her fig tree. Monster was the more likely when Apollo saw the two imperial gold siccae blades clutched within her hands.
“Meg!” Apollo shouted.
Meg’s head whipped around and in the moment of vulnerability the tentacle struck, too fast to be a regular monster.
It coiled around her until her scream was drowned out by the shadowy mass. It had almost entirely engulfed her leaving only her arm out stretched reaching for Apollo in a drowned plea for help.
Apollo acted without even thinking. The only important thing was getting his little sister to safety, even if it meant sacrificing himself. Apollo jumped and grasped Meg’s hand but he couldn’t pull her out in time as the shadows engulfing her quickly began to spread along Apollo’s entire body.
The shadows were cold to an almost frigid extent, if Apollo hadn’t felt like a superheated computer he would’ve surely frozen into a godly shaped block of ice. They tumbled into never ending darkness, never letting go of each other's hands, the shadow seemed to be trying to go in between the cracks of their hold to try and get Apollo to release his hold on Meg. But he wouldn’t, he couldn’t.
“Apollo!” It was the frantic voice of Clotho. She must’ve gone into his mind while he was still clutching Meg.
“You must— not— let them keep you!” Those were her last words before Apollo and Meg were spat out of the shadow into the setting sky above.
Beware of darkness,
You never know what's in there,
Before it’s too late,
Meg was still unconscious within Apollo’s arm. From the way they were plummeting he realized that Meg would be the first to hit the ground so he flipped around in the air and wrapped his wings around both of them. They were falling too fast for Apollo to get a stable trajectory to fly. The best he could do was cushion their impending fall and heal as quickly as he could to get up and fight. Why else would a shadow try and kidnap his little sister other than to fight him?
The fall was long, just like it was into Chaos. Despite the impending pain he would experience when he crashed into the ground, Apollo couldn’t help but admire the beautiful pinks, purples, and reds he had painted in the sunset. In his opinion it was the best one he had painted since his trials had started.
Firstly, some shadow enveloped Meg and Apollo got absorbed when he grabbed Meg’s hand. The shadow was cold. Apollo felt like a flame being doused by ice water before he got spat. The shadow was also not one of Hades’ that had stumbled upon a wild Meg.
Secondly, from the large marble temple that was drawing closer and closer the more Apollo and Meg fell it looked like they were going to crash land onto Olympus like a feathered meteor.
Thirdly, the fall was going to feel like his fall into the dumpster even if Apollo wasn’t mortal. Falls from over thousands of feet in the air weren’t exactly fun for both mortals and gods. Apollo wondered how surprised Hermes would be to see him fall from the sky.
Apollo considered something. He didn’t want to land on some poor minor god that wasn’t quick enough to dodge him. Apollo also had his bow on his back. If he just got, without dropping it, and shot an arrow, he could warn the gods not to step there for the time being.
That was just the thing he was going to do.
Strings of Fate cut out,
Taken to a whole new world,
Pierce the tapestry,
The Fates were being kind to Hermes. After having been stuck in that treacherous cage for almost a year Hermes thought he would never see sunlight again. However the Fates came to him in one of his bouts of unconsciousness and transported him to the welcoming arms of his family.
Chaos only knew the work Apollo did on him. It had been three days since that point in the course of time. But those were the second best three days of Hermes' existence, the first being the successful birth of his wonderful son Pan.
It was right at sunset, the hues of the sky commemorating Hermes' return and healing. But the peace and lovely chatter shuttered to an end when a blazing arrow of gold pierced into the marble floors, an exact copy of Apollo.
Everyone present turned to Apollo who had gasped in shock at one of his divine arrows being used to pierce the floor of Olympus in such a crude manner. Hermes eyes followed where it had sprouted from before he saw something that sent jitters up his false spine.
An almost flaming ball of feathers was dropping from the sky. It reminded Hermes of the catapults that Ares so loved to praise the humans for inventing.
Was an attack being sieged? Was whoever had taken Hermes waging war upon Olympus? Was Hermes strong enough to defend himself?
But Hermes' thoughts stopped when the figure began to get closer and closer. With his enhanced perception he could view shaggy brown hair and bright blue eyes staring straight at the assembled gods in shock. Hermes was inclined to believe this boy was mortal if not for the four black wings protruding from his back– not unlike the way Apollo’s did– and the way the boy's eyes had a golden glow surrounding him.
When he came back Hermes heard whispers of miracle stars of the gods alive and on the run amidst the wild of Hellas. That was certainly a surprise enough for Hermes to ask if the curse was lifted momentarily, unfortunately not.
“They will crash,” Athena stated simply.
“Should we prevent their fall?” Pan asked, eyeing the slightly smoldering boy in concern.
“With how fast they are descending it won’t help,” Athena replied, “but we can get them—”
SMACK!
Hermes cringed at the sound of flesh hitting stone. Surprisingly he didn’t hear any bones break, in fact the strange smoldering boy seemed to be absolutely uninjured.
There was the strange scent of sunlight, vanilla, and grass around him. Besides the odd smell of grass it was almost an exact replica of the smell of Apollo’s ichor though there was something off about it, but Hermes couldn’t put his finger on it.
The boy groaned and unwrapped his wings from himself and revealed a young girl in a surprisingly bright green dress.
“Stupid,” the girl shook the boy, perhaps his name was Stupid? “Wake up!”
The boy groaned again, “I am up Meg, I just took a thousand foot fall to protect you, thanks very much.”
A thousand feet? The boy took a fall of a thousand mortal feet? What an interesting way to describe a fall from the sky.
“Stupid, do you know these people, they kinda seem like you,” the girl– Meg– pointed at the gods rather crudely.
That’s certainly the first time a mortal didn’t recognize the gods nor acknowledge them properly. Hermes was impressed at the impertinence of the girl. He was annoyed at being compared to a somewhat human boy and being pointed at like a master does to their slave.
“Meg what do you–” The boy turned his face to the gods.
Hermes would admit the boy was attractive, the shaginess in his hair, the pretty blue eyes that the boy had, the freckles dotted along his cheek and nose. It was always cute how awestruck mortals would become in the face of a god.
“...what…” The question didn’t come out because the boy was awestruck but because he was in disbelief, which was strange. Did the boy not know the stories? That the Crooked One had cursed the gods so that their nests lay fruitless and bare.
“Why do you have my brother's arrow and bow?” Artemis demanded.
‘Did you lose any arrows son?’ Zeus asked mentally, connecting their mindscapes into one net.
‘No, do you think this one could be one of the miracles that existed, he feels familiar somehow,’ Apollo said.
The boy raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn’t speak, it almost looked like he was listening to the conversation but that would be impossible.
‘Maybe he’s one of yours I mean he did have your bow and arrows?’ Hermes suggested.
“Uhm–” the boy started awkwardly, “Why are we here?”
“To answer your question,” The lady Fates appeared, “You are here to read their story,”
Hermes was quite surprised when the Fates had pointed to the pair who had just fallen out of the sky.
“We shall project images of the events for the easy access of everyone, however for the images to progress you need to continue to read. Also you should introduce yourself.”
They waved their hand and five leather bound journals fell onto the already injured boy.
“Ugh–” the boy wheezed, “My name is Lester Papadopoulos.”
“Godly parents too,” So the two were miracles.
“Got it,” the boy pushed the journals off him, “son of Zeus.”
‘Yay another baby sibling!’ Athena said.
‘I’m not the youngest anymore!’ Dionysus cheered in relief.
The boy smirked slightly, but Hermes assumed it was because of something Meg had said.
“M’names Meg McCaffery, uh, daughter of the flower lady,” Lester elbowed her, “daughter of Demeter”
Demeter smiled wide, a silent tear pecking at the corner of her eye. Meg looked at her weirdly before sitting on the floor next to Lester.
“Do you want to sit with us?” Apollo gestured to the space beside him and Hermes.
“No thanks…” Lester said. To Hermes dismay he shifted back more.
"Let's just read, yip-yapping like this is boring,” Meg said as she picked up the top journal and threw it at Lester’s head.
Hermes inhaled sharply but Lester just caught it and read the title before his face turned pale. Hermes couldn’t make out what it said but it was enough to make Meg frown and say, “Were not reading this. Can one of you goddy people read it?”
“I can,” Aphrodite volunteered.
A journal was hurled straight at Aphrodite which Ares caught and politely handed it to Aphrodite not without a kiss on her hand.