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There were many things Meg liked about nature.
First, the plants. As a daughter of Demeter, the goddy person of agriculture or whatever, this was kinda a given. Whether it was pretty flowers, ancient trees (not of the prophecy whispering kind), or ugly weeds, she liked them all. And it was just so rewarding to bury a seed in the dirt, spend time and energy caring for it over the next few weeks, months, or years, and finally see it grow into a huge, magnificent (Apollo wasn’t the only one who could use big words) sequoia, or acacia, or oak tree.
Secondly, she also liked the animals. So long as they weren’t messing up her flower beds, or munching on her leaves (looking at you Mr. Snail), she honestly really liked all the different creatures you could find in the woods. Even the cockroaches, which wasn’t weird at all Kayla, thank you very much.
And thirdly, she liked the dryads. From one fellow nature lover to another, they were always happy to talk about soil erosion, or the best time of year to plant Strelitzias. Moreover, they had the best gossip in all the Greek world, except Apollo of course, who was responsible for Meg knowing all the drama on Olympus that happened, like, ever.
So yeah, Meg liked nature. Most of the time. Almost all of the time, in fact.
On this particular Sunday at the end of August, however, she had never hated it more.
Okay, maybe it was time to back up a little and explain: in the past two years since Apollo had completed his trials, re-goddified himself, and, more specifically, the Burning Maze had cooled down to more regular magical maze temperatures, Southern California had gradually become more and more repopulated by nymphs and dryads. A lot of this was with Meg (and sometimes Apollo)’s help — sorting out which dryads communities lived where, soothing any fears over the Burning Maze suddenly returning in a fiery vengeance, etcetera, etcetera — and they’d done a pretty good job, if Meg did say so herself.
For the most part, this was fantastic news. It did, however, mean that Meg ended up with quite a bit of work to do, on top of a steadily increasing amount of high-school homework, and just general running-of-Aeithales duties.
Somewhere along the line, the newly planted dryads of ‘The Golden State’ had begun to look to Meg for help, for leadership, and the responsibility of looking after them all had fallen onto her lap the way a particularly annoying leaf might get stuck in your hair, as much as Apollo tried to help out whenever he could.
(Once, when the two of them were gardening, Meg had complained about as such to Apollo. She loved helping the dryads, yes, but she envied his ability to split a piece of himself off to handle his duties wherever he didn’t feel like doing them himself. Apollo had patted her on the back sympathetically in place of a reply, and whispered once more about Meg becoming SoCal’s official protector, and being able to do just that.)
(And Meg had smiled back at him, and reminded him of his own rule of not speaking about such things in the open air like that.)
This was fine, most of the time. Ninety-nine point six seven one percent of the time. Except today. Because today, for the first time in, like, ever, Meg had been invited to the cinema.
By a normal, mortal, kid her own age.
And, like, Meg knew that she was not, and would never be, a normal teenage girl, right? For the most part, she was a-okay with this. Who, after all, would want to be ordinary when you could have a god-turned-mortal-turned-god for a best friend/brother, a set of ancient warrior dryads as your sworn protectors, grow plants from nothing by waving your hands about a bit, and live in a mansion magically reborn from the dead like a knock-off phoenix? Not Meg, that’s for sure.
There were, of course, some not-so-normal parts to Meg’s life that were not quite as nice. Most kids did not have a murdered father, for instance, or an absent goddess for a mother. Most kids, too, had not spent a major part of their childhood living with their abusive step-father (who was also their murdered father’s murderer), and basically not really having a proper childhood at all.
But that was fine. That was all fine, because Meg had made a new family for herself now, had built a new home for herself out of the ashes of her old one. She’d started back at school for the first time since kindergarten last year, she’d learnt up to the approximate level of a grade 4 piano student, and she’d finally started to see a therapist in New Rome after much persuasion and the promise of a pet baby cow for her next birthday from Apollo. And if she had no idea what the kids at her school were talking about whenever the topic of Dis-nee movies or the Hairy-something series were brought up, or had to do a lot of Mist waving every time she needed a parental permission slip signed, then that was fine too.
Seriously. She didn’t care. Not one, tiny, poppy-seed-sized bit.
…
…
…
…Except today. She cared today, because in the course of all last year, she’d made only one friend at her school. Why, she’d thought time and time again during her first few months there, would I ever want to hang around strangers who’ll never understand anything when I have Apollo, and Lu, and everyone else?
As it turned out, Meg’s resolve not to bother with mortal friendships had not been as strong as she’d thought it was. By the time she’d started to feel a bit lonely, most of the other freshmen had already formed strong friendships and had no intention of wanting to make more — all except Binita, that was, who’d annoyed Meg during every homeroom period with her overbearingly friendly attitude for the first six months of Grade 9, and became her closest maybe-friend over the course of the next six after that.
They hadn’t talked once over the holidays (Meg didn’t have a phone, and Binita lived too far away), until the last week before school, when Meg had received an honest-to-Apollo letter from Binita, asking if she wanted to come with her and some friends to go on the nearby theme park’s newest attraction.
Meg had been forced to write a letter back to say no, she couldn’t, sorry, because she was too busy to meet up on any of the dates Binita had suggested.
She hadn’t received a reply.
And the thing was, Binita and her weren’t even that close, so it shouldn’t have bothered her so much. That was the most irritating part. She only hung out with the girl because sitting alone every lunchtime had begun to get pretty boring, and yet here she was, taking a water break for a few minutes before she hiked back down the (last, thank Apollo) mountain, and thoroughly wishing that she could be a normal, mortal, fourteen-years-and-one-month old girl, just for once.
But there was no use in thinking like that. This was her normality, and as far as demigod lives usually went, it wasn’t too bad. She couldn’t complain, shouldn’t complain.
Meg drained the last few drops from her water bottle, stuffed it in her rucksack, and began to walk back down the beaten path towards Aeithales.
——
Apollo was waiting for her there, like a singular Gypsophila paniculata bush in a garden full of weeds.
Feeling all her exhaustion and annoyance melt away temporarily, Meg practically ran the distance from kitchen door to the island where Apollo was leant against, facing away to chat casually with a cake-baking Herophile. As Meg shouted “Lester!” (shouted, not squealed – Meg McCaffrey was not a pig, thank you very much), however, his head turned towards her lightning fast, his face breaking into a wide grin the exact same time she barrelled straight into his torso, wrapping her arms all the way around his waist and burying her face in his band t-shirt.
Hugging Apollo usually made her feel better. To Meg’s annoyance, though, today it seemed to bring tears to her eyes instead. Or maybe that was Binita’s letter, still tucked away in the pocket of her jacket.
She sniffled, and wiped the snot coming out of her nose onto Apollo’s shirt, because she was nice like that.
Apollo hesitantly patted her on the back. “Meg…” he said slowly, sounding a tad unsure. “Not that I’m complaining about the lovely, now…” Meg felt the muscles in Apollo’s body shift, as if he’d turned his head to look at something, “three minute long hug, but is everything okay?”
“Yes.” Meg was glad that her voice was muffled. “Everything’s fine. I’m just glad to see you.”
This was not a lie. Since Apollo had become all goddy again, he’d had to do a lot of metaphorical gymnastics and sneaking around to escape Zeus’ watch long enough to visit Meg and his children. This meant that — while he always came, always kept his promise — Meg could never be quite sure when that would be, and the time in between his visits could range from a few days to a couple of months. This was the first time she’d seen Apollo in five or so weeks, and she really was glad to see him again.
It kinda sucked though, that he’d come on a day where she was going to be too tired to actually do anything, and too damn annoyed and upset and a gazillion other things to want to just sit and chat.
Apollo said, “Meg…” and she drew back from him with a scowl.
“I said I’m fine.”
“Your eyes are red.” Apollo looked down at his shirt. “And you’ve got bogies all over my t-shirt!”
“Sorry,” Meg muttered, shrugging and not very sorry at all.
Apollo looked at her for a minute or so in silence, gaze heavy as he scanned Meg up and down, taking in her muddy appearance and tired eyes. His lips pursed. He glanced towards Herophile, who was now scooping cake batter into polka-dot cupcake cases while pretending (unsuccessfully) that she was definitely not listening in on their conversation.
“Why don’t we talk in another room?” suggested Apollo.
Herophile suddenly became very interested in her spoon; Meg nodded. They went up to her room on the top floor of Aeithales in silence – entering it, she sat cross-legged on her spinny desk chair, half-subconciously spinning herself round and round in circles, while Apollo seated himself on the steps up to her loft bed.
For an awkwardly long amount of time, no one said anything. Meg glanced around her room, half looking for inspiration on what to say, half because it was easier than entering a staring contest with Apollo (who always won, with his stupid goddy lack of needing to blink) while they both waited for the other to speak first; her eyes moved from the pile of clothes dumped unceremoniously in a corner – the only bit of untidyness years spent living in Nero’s spotless tower would allow her – to the corkboard hung above on the wall.
A twisty feeling grew roots in her stomach as she looked at the picture of herself, Apollo, his kids, and Nico pinned up in the centre of it. It was the most recent addition to her collage of photos, taken by Rachel last month on her fourteenth birthday, part way through the party (a surprise party, of course – Meg hated spoilers) that Apollo had worked with Kayla, Rachel, and Tyrone(1) to throw. Behind a huge cake decorated in fondant flowers, there stood last-month-Meg and last-month Apollo, arms slung over each others’ shoulders and bits of food in their hair and clothes – the aftermath after a food fight that had finished only minutes before. Wearing normal clothes instead of the orange CHB t-shirts everyone else had on, you could have mistaken them for normal, mortal teenagers.
Siblings, perhaps.
Meg turned to see that Apollo had followed her gaze to the corkboard, and was now staring at it with an expression on his face that Meg couldn’t quite read.
“I should ask Rachel for a copy of that photograph,” he murmured, “It’s a good picture.”
There was a pause. Then, Apollo seemed to remember why they’d come up here in the first place, having obviously forgotten until now, that dummy. He snapped out of his daze with a weird lurch, like the love-child between a full body sigh and the shake of a head. The movement itself wasn’t very jarring, but as Apollo usually moved with all the grace of a flower swaying in a light summer’s breeze, it felt out of place – a weed in a bed of tulips.
“Meg…” She stiffened. “Meg, I-” The clearing of a throat. “Meg… what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Apollo’s eyebrows furrowed. It looked comical enough that Meg’s annoyance was overpowered for a few seconds with the desire to laugh. "You’re lying to me. I can sense it."
Stupid goddy powers.
“No I’m not.” Meg’s reply was as sharp as a thorn. "Now would you shut up and stop asking."
She crossed her arms and scowled at Apollo. This, combined with her crossed legs, probably made Meg look like a tiny, angry pretzel, but Apollo didn’t laugh. Instead, he looked slightly hurt, and a twinge of guilt twisted Meg’s stomach awfully. This did not help her mood.
“Okay,” said Apollo; he sighed, and repeated: "Okay. I won’t push if you don’t want me to."
Having not expected Apollo to give in so easily, and now feeling a bit unsteady, Meg said, “Good,” and nodded once.
There was a hemp-seed-sized pause.
Meg shot up to standing as fast as if she was Wolffia. “I’m going to get a drink. Do you want one?”
“Yes please,” Apollo said, slightly distantly, “Lemonade please, if you have any.”
“We do.”
“Good.”
Meg and Apollo had only ever argued a handful of times, and never before had they sat together in such an awkward silence. Meg hated it, and she hated it even more knowing that the awkwardness was her fault.
She strode over to the door; there was a quiet ‘flump’ as something landed on the carpet.
It was Binita’s letter.
For a moment, Meg just stared at it, one hand on her bedroom door handle and the other hanging down by her side. The writing was facing up towards her. Slowly, she reached down to pick it up.
“Meg..?”
She burst into tears – great, ugly sobs that racked her body. In an instance, Apollo was by her side, half hugging her and half leading her to sit down on the steps up to her loft bed. Somewhere along the way, the letter slipped out of her hold, but Meg payed no attention to it as it fell to her forest-green carpet for a second time.
“Shhhh,” soothed Apollo, “Shhhh, don’t cry Meg, don’t cry, it’s alright, you’re okay, you’re okay.” He held her close to his chest. “What’s wrong Meg?” he asked. "What’s wrong?"
“I- I- I- I was supposed to- to- to go to a theme park to-today,” she managed to say between hiccups.
Apollo’s hand began rubbing up and down her back. “A theme park?” he said, his voice still soothing but curiosity shining through like the sun through clouds. “With one of your step-siblings?”
“No, not them.” Snot ran down her nose. Apollo conjured up a handkerchief, which she took thankfully. “Binita invited me.”
“That’s nice. But you didn’t go?”
Meg shrugged, which was a bit hard to do since Apollo still had his arms wrapped around her, though she managed good enough. She replied: “I couldn’t go. I had to survey that last bunch of dryads. It was fun but-”
Her voice trailed off, to make way for a fresh round of tears. Apollo just held her close, waiting patiently until she was ready to speak again because he was nice like that. Gradually, the tears and bogies went away, to be replaced by sniffles.
“I just- I just want to be normal for once. I want to be a normal teenager, and hang out with my normal mortal friend in the holidays. And I’m really, really tired right now.”
She buried her face in Apollo’s band t-shirt. He was warm, like a hot water bottle, or the feel of the sun on Meg’s face as she gardened with her step-siblings.
“And I’ve never been to a theme park,” she mumbled into Pink Floyd.
They stayed that way for a few minutes. Then, Meg drew back from their hug to wipe at her eyes with Apollo’s rather damp (and bogey covered) handkerchief.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked up at Apollo’s face in surprise. “What for? You haven’t done anything, dummy.”
Apollo looked sad; he said, “A far too heavy burden has been placed on your shoulders, my dear Meg. I should have done more to lift its weight.”
Meg thought of the way Apollo never seemed completely comfortable during thunderstorms, and always had to sneak behind Zeus’ back any time he wanted to hang out with her for a few hours.
“I’m not sure there’s much more you could’ve done,” she said quietly. I’m not sure you could’ve been here to help any more than you already have.
Apollo studied Meg’s face for a few seconds. Eventually, he seemed to make up his mind on something, brushed a stray tear from her face, and told her quietly that she should get some sleep before tomorrow.
“What’s tomorrow?” asked Meg, digging through her memories with a shovel to see if anything was planned.
“It’s a surprise. You can have a spoiler if you want” — Here, Apollo chuckled. — “though I doubt you’ll want one.”
A smile spread across Meg’s face.
“You’d better not give me one,” she warned threateningly.
Apollo stood, crossed the room in three strides, and grinned back at her. “You know, I had a feeling you were going to say that.”
And despite her still damp cheeks, Meg laughed.
——
A theme park.
He’d brought her to a theme park.
When Meg had woken up that morning, after the best night’s sleep she’d had, like, ever (in her head, she suspected that Apollo might have had something to do with that, even if sleep wasn’t one of his domains), she hadn’t known what to expect. And because she usually woke up just before sunrise, it was several hours before Apollo returned to Aeithales, because before that he’d been busy being, y’know, said sunrise.
Eventually though, around ten in the morning, Apollo had appeared next to Meg as she watered her dahlias in a burst of golden (mildly-showy-off-y, if you asked Meg’s opinion) light, holding something paper in his hand and grinning at her broadly. They’d chatted for a bit, heading back inside Aeithales’ kitchens so Apollo could try one of Herophile’s cupcakes that he’d missed out on yesterday, before the time came for them for them to leave for… something. Meg still didn’t know where they were going, and she refused to be spoilered, even if by now she was very, very curious.
“Ready?” Apollo asked, holding out a hand.
Meg took it. “Ready.”
She closed her eyes, as the now familiar sensation of being teleported washed over her. Even after it faded away, she kept them shut for a few more seconds, just to make sure she wasn’t going to, like, have her retinas (ew, Apollo’s medical knowledge was rubbing off on her) destroyed or be burnt to ashes or have some other minor annoyance like that happen to her.
“You can open your eyes now, Meg,” said Apollo. They’d let go of each other’s hands by now but, even so, Meg could practically feel him buzzing with excitement. She opened her eyes…
…and a gasp escaped her lips, the exact same moment Meg realised where Apollo had taken them to.
In front of where they stood was a huge sign, beneath which were ticket barriers through which huge crowds of people were streaming. She couldn’t read the sign (#dyslexia), but recognised it instantly. Even if she hadn’t, Meg wouldn’t have needed to anyways, because Apollo read it out for her:
“Six Flags,” he said happily, “Magic Mountain, to be specific.” He turned to face her, all sunny smiles and perfectly white teeth. He said, “It’s a theme park,” which was kinda obvious, but Meg didn’t bother pointing that out.
“I- what?” she stuttered, still in mild shock.
Apollo’s face fell an inch. “Is that okay? I’m sorry, I should have asked beforehand before taking you here.”
This snapped Meg out of her surprise. “Don’t be stupid,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I was the one who didn’t want to know.” Her eyes scanned the crowds of people streaming inside the gates; distantly, she heard people screaming as their rollercoaster loop-de-looped. A smile spread over her face. “This is very okay, don’t worry.”
“Good.” Apollo gestured towards the ticket barriers. It was only then that Meg realised he’d changed his appearance from the mish-mash mixture of Apollo and Lester that he almost always appeared in nowadays to just Lester – sixteen years old, with curly brown hair and those unnaturally blue eyes of his, and totally and completely mortal. “Well come on then,” he said, "What are we doing wasting time out here?"
——
Just before they got inside the park, Apollo bent the Mist around them a bit so no one would question their lack of parents.
“That’ll be the last bit of unusual today though,” he promised, apparently taking Meg’s desire to be a normal teenager at least once very seriously. “From now on, we are two totally ordinary siblings enjoying a totally ordinary day at Six Flags.”
Meg felt a rush of happiness flood through her, like it always did whenever Apollo called them siblings or Meg his sister, and she wrapped her arms around Apollo’s waist to give him another hug, this time without the tears and bogies.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Apollo hugged her back. “I know it’s not the same as going with that mortal friend of yours but-”
“Don’t be silly Lester.” Meg drew back from the hug to scan her ticket through the barrier. “I prefer you anyways.”
Even while trying to be as close to a mortal as a god could be, her brother’s smile was blinding as he, too, scanned his ticket though the barrier and they headed off towards their first ride.
True to Apollo’s word, no one questioned their lack of parents. They did, however, ask Meg confusing questions such as, “Is this your first time at the park?” (she narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but Apollo just bought them both some cotton candy from the man’s stall and said that yes, it was) or “Would you like a balloon?”
Meg wasn’t sure why the brightly dressed woman, who’d just untied a giraffe shaped balloon from her stand and handed it to Meg, thought she would want one, but she took the balloon anyway.
It was free, and Meg liked free things, even if she wasn’t sure why she’d been given the balloon.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked Apollo in bewilderment.
He shrugged. “Tie it to your wrist so it doesn’t fly away? If you don’t want it you can always give it back.”
“No,” Meg said, clutching the string of her balloon defensively, “I want to keep it.”
Eventually, Meg began to stop treating every overly nice adult as a possible threat or monster in disguise, and really started to enjoy herself. Apollo took her on her first rollercoaster ride (before immediately regretting it as Meg then proceeded to drag him onto every other rollercoaster in the park, one after the other), and bought them both some food from the park’s main restaurant — making Meg promise, as he did so, that she wasn’t going to get on anymore rollercoasters until the food had had proper time to be digested, or otherwise she’s be sick.
Meg promised, so he bought her a burger and fries (while getting a salad for himself like the weirdo he was), and they sat on a bench nearby to eat while watching little kids go round on the nearby carousel, screaming at the mini drops as if it was a rollercoaster.
It was nice, sitting next to each other in comfortable silence as they munched on fries and lettuce. Peaceful too, until the peace was fractured by the sound of a little kid screaming in pain.
Meg turned; a couple of feet away, a child no older than four or five sat on the ground, clutching their skinned knee and sobbing loudly – fat, ugly tears streaming down their red face, combining with the green bogies being emitted from their nose. Evidently, the child had tripped over the uneven cobblestones and injured their knee on the hard ground.
Irrationally, Meg felt anger and annoyance flash through her, as red hot as the fries in her lap: how dare this child cry over something as small as a skinned knee, when she and Apollo and Cassius and Lucius and everyone else could suffer so much more, and do it silently. She watched in annoyance as the kid continued to bawl, interrupting her nice lunch with Apollo, and several strangers came over to comfort the ‘poor baby’ to no avail. It wasn’t, in fact, until the child’s father hurried over – sweeping his child up into his arms to comfort (and scold for running off ahead of him) – that the kid’s screams turned into muffled hiccups, and then giggles as the father proceeded to tickle them, all previous thoughts of pain forgotten.
And then the anger in Meg gave way to a terrible, powerful ache that swept over her without warning, knocking her off her feet metaphorically, and probably literally too if she’d been standing up. A yawning, empty chasm widened inside her, and the desire to be that child right now, to feel safe in her father’s arms, to be comforted by a parent, almost physically pained her.
The father set his daughter back down on the ground; she skipped away towards the carousel with a smile so wide it was almost sickening to see.
Meg turned away.
Now facing Apollo once more, it was only then that she noticed how he, too, had paused his eating to watch the scene play out in front of them in wide-eyed, vaguely melancholic, awe. Was he wishing to be the child, like Meg had been, or the father? Meg didn’t know. Maybe he wanted both, as out of his reach as they were.
He muttered something Meg couldn’t quite make out, wrenching his eyes from where the little girl was now queuing for the carousel. He noticed Meg watching him, and gave her a half-smile. “You okay?” he asked. Sometimes, Meg hated how perceptive he could be. “You look sad.”
“Are you okay?” asked Meg, because it was easier than trying to describe the twisty ache inside her.
Apollo shrugged a very deliberately uncaring shrug. He considered his words for a few seconds. Then, he said: “Gods grow up quicker than mortals do. My brother, Hermes, stole my sacred cows when he was only a newborn.” Meg opened her mouth to question how the heck a baby managed to commit theft, but thought better of interrupting Apollo when he was like this – all weirdly thoughtful and sad-ish. “I killed Python for the first time when I was not much older myself. We never really got childhoods the way most mortal kids do, nor that same comfort from a parent. Maybe that’s why we’re such bad parents ourselves: we expect our children to be as self-reliant as we were.”
“That’s stupid,” Meg interjected, as eloquent as always.
“Maybe, but it’s true. And if comfort is thought of as coddling… is it a wonder, then, that such a hands-off approach to parenting is considered normal?”
“Like I said, that’s stupid.”
“That’s normal,” said Apollo, in an odd tone of voice that suggested it was a normal he wasn’t very happy with, but could do nothing about.
Meg wouldn’t pretend that she totally got it, but she’d seen Apollo interacting with his kids. Once, Kayla had confided in her that, even before Apollo’s character-development-speed-run, they’d all gotten visits in their dreams from Apollo, complete with personalised haikus and all, every few weeks. She knew that Apollo wouldn’t’ve accepted such a normal if there wasn’t a good reason he had to.
“Maybe this once,” she said, shovelling another load of fries into her mouth, “it’s better to be unnormal.”
“That’s not a word,” Apollo protested.
Meg shrugged. “Unordinary then.” Apollo pulled a face, maybe at the lovely display of all the half-chewed up food in her mouth that she’d just given him, something he really should’ve been used to by now, because Meg never felt the need to wait until she’d finished eating something before speaking.
He said: “Sorry.”
She swallowed, and asked: “What?”
“This whole day is supposed to be the most ordinary of all ordinary days, and here we are talking about gods again.”
“Maybe a few compromises can be made,” said Meg; she added, “I’m not against you using your goddy powers to let us skip the queues for example,” and gave Apollo an angelic smile.
He narrowed his eyes. “Sometimes, I think that you only keep me around to take full advantage of my,” he made air quotes, “‘goddy powers’.”
Meg gasped, saying, “Of course not. I keep you around because you’re my big brother and I love you…” Apollo looked touched. “…and also so I can take full advantage of your goddy powers.”
Apollo squawked in indig-something-or-other and tossed a tomato at her. Meg shrieked, scrambled to her feet, and backed away from him with all the speed of a bamboo plant, waving her half eaten burger around like a shield as she did so.
“You ass!” she said.
“You’re a daughter of Demeter!” he protested. “You can’t be scared of a tomato!”
“That’s stereotyping! And I am not scared, thank you very much.”
Meg pulled a bit of lettuce out of her burger and threw it at Apollo, where it landed on his jeans.
“Oh now you’ve done it,” he said, grabbing a handful of rocket leaves out of his salad box, “This is war now.”
What then followed was an all out food fight, which eventually ended with Meg’s hair gaining some nice new decorations in the form of squashed tomatos and the crumbs of those little French bread things(2), Apollo’s t-shirt sporting a big grease stain right in the centre from where Meg had tossed her burger patty at him (a tragic loss of food, but sacrifices had to be made for victory), and the string of her giraffe balloon coming undone, causing the balloon to float upwards out of reach.
“Diddly-darn,” said Apollo, ignoring Meg’s eye roll at his refusal to swear in front of her, and look of disappointment at the alternative he’d come up with instead. “I’m sorry Meg, I’ll get you another if you want.”
“S’alright,” she shrugged. “I’m not upset.”
As they watched it float up in the sky, Meg wondered if Apollo’s dad could see their balloon right now, floating past the window of his sky-palace or whatever. Maybe he’d been watching them this whole time, like some kind of creepy helicopter-parent stalker. The thought annoyed her for some reason.
“Apollo…”
“Yeah?”
Meg turned to look at him. “Are we always going to have to sneak around whenever we want to meet up?”
Apollo didn’t take his eyes off the balloon, but he side hugged her.
“I hope not,” he said. A gust of wind blew the giraffe balloon away so it disappeared behind a group of trees, and Apollo looked down at her. “Maybe that’s another thing I’ll have to work on changing from the ordinary. Things could stand to become a bit more unnormal on Olympus.”
Unnormal, huh? Meg thought. She wrapped her arm around Apollo’s waist to return the hug. I like the sound of that.