Chapter Text
Now my dear reader, before this starts I hope you know this was ENTIRELY Zeus' fault. Well maybe a bit was mine but he did the punishing not me.
It's been about 6 months since I became a god again and i'll have you know... it SUCKS! I feel like an outcast in all the meetings, I feel uncomfortable in my bed, throne, everything! Whenever I'm alone I tend to change into Lester, the form at least, to feel some sense of recognition but I feel so out of place just being on olympus. Now I know what you're thinking, "why not just go down to your friends" well that's the issue! Zeus forbid me from doing anything that isn't Godly for a whole year to "Readjust" to olympus. Gods I can't wait for that year to be over and for me to visit my friends, my children, all of them! I heard some rumours that my son Will had gone on a quest and I assume it has something to do with the prophecy Rachel Dare spoke the last time I visited camp. But most importantly, I missed feeling like myself. Somehow, I felt more like myself when I knew I could die, when I was in a saggy mortal body covered in scars and acne. I missed chopping veggies at the waystation and I miss Meg annoying me all the time. I miss Lityerses and the way his scars shined on his face. Huh, that's a weird thing to miss. Anyway back to the story.
I was sitting in the sun temple, it was late at night and I was looking at the constellations. The stars shined like little fireflies in the sky, giving me peace and warmth. I remembered looking at stars with Meg on our trips and I almost cried. Gods I couldn't even think about Meg without breaking into tears. Would she be missing me? I told her that the sun always comes back but by the time I'm able to visit her again will she still believe me or will she see me as bad as Nero. Just as I felt like I was about to burst into tears someone tapped me on my shoulder. I turn around and see my half-brother Hermes, god of messengers. His sunglasses reflected my sad and in my opinion, ugly goddly face, which is odd since my face was apparently meant to be perfection but I hated seeing it. He slid his glasses up and picked up his phone, I noticed george and martha, his two snakes, wrapped around it and almost threw up. I couldn't look at any snakes without feeling like throwing up after Python, not even my own son (Asclepius)'s pet snake Spike.
"Yo Apollo, Zeus was asking you to come see him in the thrown room." He said with his usual impish grin, it reminded me of Leo... great, another friend to think about so I cry more. I sucked in the tears.
"Yeah I'm going..." I spoke, trying to keep my voice from breaking. I knew I didn't have to, Godly voices didn't break but it was a habit. I stood up and brushed off my jeans and put my blond hair into a ponytail. I pulled back my tears and went towards an audience with my father...
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My father sat in his throne, glowering at me though my guess it was just his resting face whenever he saw me. He had a piece of paper next to him and was running his finger across words that I couldn't make out. I couldn't help but think about how he looked NOTHING like his son. Jason had neatly cut blonde hair and Zeus had shoulder length curly black hair. Jason had a kind face but leader like, Zeus showed nothing but cruelty. Jason's blue eyes would shine with pride and leadership but Zeus' shone with anger, the sort of anger that makes you wanna crawl away. Gods... why did I think about Jason now? I was already on edge thinking about most of my LIVING friends that I couldn't see for another 6 months and I had to make it worse by thinking of the one friend i'll never see again! I pulled it together and stepped into the throne room and looked up at my father.
"You wished for an audience father?" I spoke nervously, trying to reach his eyes.
"Apollo. Stand in front of me." His voice shook the room like thunder, I couldn't help but wonder what I had done wrong.
He stared me up and down as I stepped towards him until I was his size though I made myself a bit smaller just so he would seem like the "authority" figure. He tapped on the piece of paper next to him as he spoke each word,
"Do you know what this is?"
I swallowed my fear, if I'm honest I had no clue but I knew it wasn't good.
"No Sir..."
He glowed at me and picked up one of the pieces of paper. He shoved it in my face and I could read the title; 'Apollo's godly mess ups - By Ate'. I couldn't believe what I was reading, I couldn't believe Ate would write something like this! ... Ok that last part is a lie, she definitely would, she's the goddess of Error after all. I was at least pleased it said 'Godly mess ups' and not just 'Apollo's mess ups' or there would be a lot more pages from my time as Lester. I then noticed Zeus had other stacks of papers near his chair, I snuck a peak at them and I saw they had the same title as mine but each with a different god/goddess. At least I wasn't the only one but somehow mine seemed the biggest. I read a few of them and noticed they were from EONS ago. Well not actually Eons, gods I'm not that old but as the god of poetry I have to admit, hyperbole is one of my skills. I watch as my father put the paper down and slid out maybe 10-20 pages from the bottom, those must be the most recent...
"Father, umm, what is this?" I asked, trying to sound confident but I just sounded confused, which I was. He glared at me and shoved the pages he just picked up in my hands. I start flipping through them and realise they were all from the past 6 months. I looked at each one of them carefully. It hadn't occurred to me that in my isolation I had forgotten many of my normal tasks, it almost seemed I had been rude to a few of my fellow goddesses and had almost crashed the sun chariot... 15 times. That's more than Thalia did, though Thalia actually did crash it. Great, another friend I can't visit! That's right, couldn't even visit Hunters of Artemis though looking at this list I had accidentally visited them twice. I had to admit, I was proud I could do this much wrong, though still shocked. I didn't know how to explain this to my father though I was scared if I tried to speak I would get mad at him or start crying.
"This, Is a list of everything you've done wrong for 6 months. I usually have your mortal punishment last a year to three years so since I cut it short the only thing I asked of you was to do all of your godly duties and restrict any communication to anyone outside olympus but you had to break that rule." He scowled. I couldn't help but think that cutting my mortal punishment short was the least he could do to me to be some sort of father but I didn't bring it up. I stood my ground though I was scared my knees would buckle. My mind was full of thoughts of Meg, Leo, Jason, Thalia and everyone else. Gods I wanted to punch Zeus right now, how on earth would he think this is fair.
"And...?"
His scowl only deepened, I understood that was maybe a bad choice of words to say to the "lord of thunder" or something like that but I was about to snap if this man kept yapping on and on.
"Careful boy, you wouldn't want to end up on the other end of my lightning bolt."
Now THAT was a bad choice of words. I remembered Meg telling me about the beast and nero and how she was raised to see them as seperate people, I had even made the comparison to Nero and my father regarding my father's lightning bolt and now here he was, proving my point. At that I saw red, I didn't see Zeus in that chair, i saw Nero in his ugly purple suit looking down on me.
"DO IT. DO IT I DARE YOU." I yelled in anger. That got his attention.
"Apollo. Think before you say your next words." His voice echoed through the empty chamber.
"How about YOU think for once in your life! Gods the least you could of done was end my trials early due to the PAIN AND TORMENT you put me through! Not just me though, all the demigods YOU make suffer with your IDIOTIC quests! Poor percy jackson just wants to go to college with his girlfriend, the entire 7 just want to live normal lives, JASON just wanted to live a NORMAL LIFE! And what did you do? YOU KILLED HIM. I know punishment, and he did not deserve that. He followed your STUPID rules and he still died?! It doesn't matter if you're a sinner, it doesn't matter if you're a saint, what's the point if you CAN'T WIN!" On that last part I belted out my voice. No God had ever yelled at Zeus like that let alone his own children. I had tears streaming down my face as I saw sparks fly from Zeus. I felt so good to let that out, to yell, Meg broke free from her abuser, why couldn't I. The last thing I remembered was Zeus raising the bolt and telling me to never return. Everything followed went black until it all went blue... correction, it went blue and white due to the fact I was looking up at the sky getting further and further away...