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“Is it wrong that I don’t want to hate him?” Meg asked, swinging her legs.
The rays of the sunset doused her in orange and gold light, like someone had poured fruit juice all over her classic traffic-light outfit. Meg looked into the distance as if she were unbothered by her question but the way she sat was tense. Her fists were clenched slightly and there was the shadow of a frown in her face. Apollo could tell she was deep in thought.
“He’s evil,” Meg said simply. Her voice didn’t tremble where it might’ve in the past and Apollo didn’t need to ask to know who she was talking about. “I hate him, but he was the only one that was there, you know?”
Apollo nodded. They had a reached a point in time where everything, the emperors, Python, felt far away, even when far away was just a few months before. A few months before, Nero was still a very real threat about to blow up Manhattan. He’d had thousands of years of scheming his great return, gathering resources, pulling at the strings from the background and waiting for the right moment. Now he was a pile of dust, being blown away by the wind somewhere. The image of Nero’s dust pile going up someone’s nose appeared in Apollo’s mind. Sneezing out an evil emperor did not sound like a pleasant experience, though it was a fitting fate for Nero.
Meg stopped swinging her legs. She was intently staring at the sunset, where another piece of Apollo’s essence was driving the Sun Chariot. It was silent, aside from leaves rustling with the wind, and it was just the two of them. Just like how it often was when Apollo had been mortal. He never expected to miss a punishment Zeus had given him and he certainly didn’t miss fighting for their lives, but Apollo was hit with a strong nostalgia for the companionship mortality had brought.
“He hurt you,” Apollo said to Meg, simply. “And you’ve grown a lot since then. It’s your own choice to hate him or not.”
“I still hate him.” Meg tipped her head to the side thoughtfully and Apollo felt pride at just how much she’d grown from the past. It wasn’t easy to survive people like Nero, much less survive people like Nero and stay whole. Despite everything Nero had put her through, Meg still managed to be herself after all of it.
“He killed my dad,” Meg continued. “It’s just...I thought Nero was all I had. I was scared and he was always there when no one else was. I always hated the Beast instead. Now,” she tapped the ground as if to signify here, “he’s gone.”
She stopped to look up at the sky. Apollo guessed she was trying to figure out how put her feelings into words, a difficult task requiring great concentration. He was a god of arts and he knew that some emotions were too big, or too small, or too complex and confusing to describe with words. It was important to think things like that through. Most fights in Olympus could’ve been stopped if everyone did that. Privately, Apollo thought the Olympian council should attend weekly family counselling, but it was more likely everyone would spend it trying to kill each other or the poor councilor chosen for the task than actually get counseled.
The silence dragged on for some more time before Apollo wondered if he should say something. The sun, also the Sun Chariot, was slowly descending and bits of dark blue was appearing in the brilliant light the sunset had put into the sky. At his side, Meg was frowning.
“Meg,” Apollo said, “you don’t have to explain it if you don’t want to. It’s okay to just feel things.”
“Be quiet, I’m thinking.” Which, in Meg-speak, meant that she was going to work on that specific task until she was forcibly dragged away from it, which, considering the task wasn’t something that she could be dragged away from, meant forever or until she finished it. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“What?”
“Is it wrong? Because I don’t feel like I want to hate him.” Meg kicked her feet, looking to the ground like she didn’t want to see what response she’d receive. “I still have all the memories, from when he was my stepfather. I was angry for a long time and I hated him, but I also didn’t? He can’t hurt anyone anymore. That’s good, right? Nero can’t do anything anymore but I can’t stop thinking about the times he wasn’t all that bad.”
“No,” came out of Apollo’s mouth without him even thinking about it. “You’re not wrong for not wanting to hate him, Meg. You’re not wrong for remembering those times.” He noticed Meg relax at that, some of the tension leaving her body but not entirely. “You were around him when you were growing up, and no one blames you for not wanting to hate him because of that.”
“Okay,” Meg replied. She looked up. “Did you ever forgive him?” At Apollo’s confusion, she clarified, “You told me about when you turned mortal for the first time. When you killed the Cyclopes.”
“That’s different,” Apollo said, perhaps reflexively.
“It’s not.”
“It is. I only told you about that because I was trying tell you that you were misdirecting your anger onto a safer target like I did with the Cyclopes.” It occurred to Apollo that pointing out how he only brought it up as a comparison wasn’t the best defense for how the two situations were different and completely incomparable.
Meg was no doubt thinking the same thing but perhaps she was feeling merciful and decided to spare him, so she didn’t bring it up. Instead, she silently started swinging her legs again. Apollo chose not to say anything either. There were silences that should be broken and silences that should not be disturbed. Apollo had learned to recognize the difference after getting chased out of one too many buildings, especially by Athena. Despite that, he opened his mouth to speak again.
“And it’s not the same either. Not hating someone and thinking what they did was okay. Not hating someone and forgiving them.”
Apollo thought of Zeus, who was still alive, unlike Nero. He had to admit there were many similarities. He’d heard stories of older times when Zeus was a good and wise king. Apollo remembered when he’d thought of Zeus as that, even after the lightning bolts. He wasn’t sure of the exact moment it changed and even after that, he still thought about the times when Zeus ‘wasn’t all that bad’. That if he ‘wasn’t all that bad’ before, then he could still be ‘not all that bad’.
“Duh,” Meg murmured, more quietly than she usually was.
“Just because he wasn’t as bad as he could’ve been doesn’t mean what he did was okay,” Apollo told her. “You’re allowed to not hate him, and it’s not wrong for you to do so. If you don’t hate him, it doesn’t mean you think what he did was okay or that you forgive him.”
“I know. You just told me.” Meg stuck out her tongue, then pulled it back in to stare at Apollo. “But you have to remember it too. Promise.”
Apollo didn’t hesitate. “I will.”
The remaining tension in her was drained out. Meg looked back at the golden sunset and for the moment they could forget about the tyrants and the memories of tyrants that ruled their lives, their anger, their love, and simply be content. For the moment, it could just be the two of them.