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Most would say that Athena enjoyed her position as adviser of Zeus, King of gods. After all, she had unprecedented power – she could bring ideas to the table that would benefit her greatly. She also had prestige and elevated status among her fellow gods, which was always a bonus.
However, being the one who was the adviser, she would speak the plain, bitter truth. Her position is one highly unadvised to take – especially as adviser to the King of all kings. Every day, as she was called to his side, she had to walk through landmines, jump through hoops, and come up with all sorts of flattery and excuses that would sate the King.
Her role was exceedingly dangerous. Any day, she might fall out of favour with Zeus and shamed by the gods.
It was definitely safer millennia ago, with the help of fellow adviser and favourite, Apollo. While she was more well-versed in cold-hard facts, Apollo was an expert on emotion, able to calm their shared father down even when she failed. Alas, he fell out of favour. His downfall, in a way, was a chilling reminder for her to be careful with her criticisms, to flatter and praise exceedingly or else meet the same fate as him.
Not that Apollo was particularly upset when Zeus notified his son that he doesn’t require his services anymore. Apollo had been colder to Athena since the Trojan war, and Athena still didn’t know what she did or how to fix it. Her attempts at apology were met with disbelieving stares and a roll of the eyes.
Having categorized receiving Apollo’s forgiveness as a lost cause, she decided to respect Apollo’s wishes and leave him alone, although she regretted that decision. In hindsight, berating Apollo and asking him what she’d done wrong was a much better choice.
He gradually slipped on a mask of complacency and ignorance, casting fake, dazzling smiles everywhere and being infuriating yet charming. In short, nothing like the Apollo she was so close to all these years ago.
To say she missed him was an understatement – she still remembered how they constantly discussed topics and mortal discoveries, her talking emphatically about her city of Athens while Apollo praised her citizens’ creativity in the arts and their knowledge of mathematics and science. Apollo also often enthusiastically gushed about his children’s feats – their talent and personality, their love for the arts, even allowing her to visit them at times. She found them delightful, congratulating him on raising wonderful children.
His love for his children was one of the only recognizable traits in the Apollo she saw today. However, even that was more subdued, most likely due to the Ancient Laws that were introduced.
Athena remembered when she first met Apollo. It was after her killing of Pallas, when she was at her lowest at the time. She was overcome with grief and refused to socialize with any other gods apart from her father, and even that was due to obligation as her mother’s daughter – to be the adviser and voice of reason to the King.
Then, her father knocked on her door and brought a young man in. Beaming proudly, he introduced Apollo. With a fatherly smile, he said that since they were both his preferred, he was sure they would be quite amicable.
He predicted right.
As soon as she saw him, something inside her clicked. His intelligence rivalled hers, even if he wasn’t as cold-hearted. He was bright and empathetic. He was Knowledge, what Wisdom relied on, as Wisdom without Knowledge would be rendered obsolete.
She was thankful that their relationship never turned to romance. They were Brother and Sister, nothing more, nothing less. She knew that he was not Pallas, and that he may like Artemis more than her, but they understood each other.
He complained of how emotion was not treated with respect, that those who show it were often scorned and mocked. Athena agreed that it was very backward. Apollo was a being of emotion, yet he was one of the most intelligent she had ever seen. She consoled him, saying that intelligence was not a disprovable fact of oneself. Even if someone questions it, they still were intelligent, no matter how many people mocked them.
Athena often lamented how some mortals treated the elderly. So much wisdom, disregarded in the eyes of boisterous children! Apollo sympathised with this, but optimistically pointed out that they would learn. They would grow wiser with age and learn to hold the elderly’s words in high regard. He also added that if a child didn’t listen and made a fatal mistake, the others would finally understand the message that the elders were trying to convey.
They relied on each other, sharing the same position, above all the other gods but the King. They were advisors, often saving mortals from the brink of a war that would have happened in Zeus’ poor mood.
When they both saw the corruption slowly rotting Olympus, they decided to join Hera’s rebellion and convince the king to act less like a tyrant. They failed grievously.
Thankfully, Athena’s wits were quick. She instantly pinpointed the blame on someone else. With no time to think and a panicked mind, she blurted out a name.
Apollo.
She just had time to register a gentle brush of her hair and Apollo’s shocked and betrayed face, jaw agape and staring at her as if he doesn’t recognize her, before Zeus pulled him to a room and closed the door.
She later learned that Apollo, alongside their uncle Poseidon, were cast down to serve to demigod King Laomedon. Hera was dangled over Chaos. Out of all of them, Athena was the only one who escaped punishment.
She felt that strange tingling in the gut again, one that first appeared when she killed Pallas. Over the years, she had thought she tamed it, but it struck back, leaving her reeling.
Guilt.
When Apollo came back, she desperately pleaded him to forgive her. She was surprised he did – she would definitely not do the same if the situation was reversed. She did not take this mercy for granted, and she vowed to never hurt him again.
Then the Trojan War happened, and she gave Achilles her support. She told him to kill Troilus, son of Apollo, to end the war.
This enraged Apollo, for some reason. Surely, as god of Logic, he would understand that killing Troilus is a means to end the war quicker?
Maybe there was a different reason, such as how Achilles has made Troilus’ death unnecessarily brutal, or that he had committed an act that should not be done in a place of worship, but when she apologized for that, Apollo looked so offended that it would be comical in a different context.
He started ignoring her apart from when Zeus called them for their counsel, and even then, he was fractionally colder to her.
One day, they were both called to Zeus’ palace. Zeus looked at Apollo distastefully, as if he was a dead slug found on the underside of a sandal.
“Apollo!” he thundered, “I do not require your services any longer.”
Instead of expressing any semblance of disappointment, Apollo looked at Zeus with an expression too neutral to true, “Yes, my Lord,” he said.
“You are dismissed.”
Apollo rose up and disappeared in a shower of gold.
“Father, what’s the matter?” she asked, making her voice as non-threatening as possible.
“You’ll learn soon,” Zeus said, troubled.
The next day, Zeus summoned a meeting. Attendance was mandatory.
Everyone was in the Council Hall.
Apart from Apollo and Zeus.
Apollo was usually the first one here.
If she was mortal, her heart rate would have ascended to new heights.
Eventually, Zeus flung open the doors and strode in.
“You may have noticed that Apollo is missing,” he said, letting his voice echo through the now-silent hall, “His son has offended Hades, and he was killed by my Master Bolt. Apollo went to the Cyclopes and slaughtered them for having created the Bolts. As punishment for his disobedience, he shall now serve to a half-blood king as a mortal.”
Not again.
Wasn’t the first time enough?
She kept her expression composed. It wasn’t worth it to lash out at Zeus.
If she did, she might join Apollo in slaving for a King, and Apollo wasn’t exactly pleased with her right now. He might never forgive her.
After nine years – barely a blink compared to the lifespan of the gods – his punishment was finally finished
He still did not forgive her.
And then, came the change.
He was less intense, less empathetic.
Less like him.
More melodramatic, shallow, selfish, even vain.
At first, she could still see a spark of him hiding behind that mask. Gradually, however, that spark faded and his eyes were hollow.
And Athena missed what Apollo used to be. She mourned him, mourned all the time they spent together, all the knowledge and wisdom they exchanged, all the lessons he taught, all the sympathy he gave, before she did him wrong. Before he was dismissed. Before he lost himself in his masks.
The gods neglected to notice this. Why would they? They don’t even know Apollo as well as she did. Not even Artemis.
For she was the only one to know of how their father struck him with lightning, every single day, to mould him into perfection.
They just accepted this new version of Apollo as if he was already there.
The Moirai confided to her that his thread was not glowing as bright as it once was.
Apollo was weaker, so much weaker. He was so close to losing himself.
The Moirai shared her plight, but their companionship was scarce, and they weren’t Apollo.
And Athena… she felt lonely. Lonelier than her time after she killed Pallas. Her arbitrary heart ached. It hurt without Apollo.
She soldiered on. Even through the Romans. Even through getting moved to England, and then the United States. At least she could teach the gods English, as much as she complained about it.
It was something to do other than focusing her thoughts on how she failed Apollo. How she should’ve done something.
Apollo kept on being his new self, to her chagrin.
The spark never came back.
He never came back.
Two hundred years later, and Perseus Jackson came and stirred the whole pot.
He saved the world two times. He demanded the gods to take more notice of their children. He was the subject of many muttered curses that she knew they wouldn’t grant.
They had grown soft.
He started dating her daughter, Annabeth, which displeased Athena. But she couldn’t do anything but glare at Aphrodite.
She did not like his father. Poseidon had caused her many grievances – seducing her priestess and preventing her champion from returning to Ithica.
But she also killed his granddaughter.
It was another distraction from the never-ending guilt, though, which she welcomed with as much warmth left in her shrivelled heart.
Apollo got accused of releasing the Second Great Prophecy and causing the Second Gigantomachy. Wrongfully.
As punishment, he was cast down to Earth as a mortal.
He was stripped of his looks and his powers, only left with a teenage body.
The Moirai visited her again. They claimed that this would help Apollo lose the masks. That it would help him be him again.
Athena was doubtful. At first.
Within the first few hours, Apollo revealed a lot about himself that was previously hidden from her piercing eyes.
He did not possess much self-confidence, even though he had acted like a brat that could do no wrong. That could be seen when he told himself in the mirror that he was gorgeous and loved.
It also showed that he did not feel like he was loved.
He still possessed his compassion, as when he ran interference for the mortals. Something the rest of the Olympians found surprising.
He harboured guilt for the Daphne scenario, because why else would he collapse at the sight of the laurel tree?
The Moirai’s words were right. Their plan was effective, too effective. Apollo had already started to show his true colours. Ignore the fact that he somehow managed to forget what pregnancy was.
It was another part of his elaborate masks.
When Apollo cried, the Olympians called him a wimp. Of course they did. The world of the gods was one where emotions such as love, fear and sadness were shunned in favour of lust and wrath.
Only she could see that Apollo – the real Apollo – was gradually unveiling his masks, coming out like the sun rising above a cloud.
When he attempted to sacrifice himself, she was hardly surprised. She knew that he had a plan, that he was too valuable to die before Medea could use what remained of his essence.
She bet on Apollo when the time came. A way to show Apollo that she trusted him to succeed, that she believed in his ability.
Then, Apollo returned to Olympus. She would never forget that day. Apollo, striding in, expression almost too neutral. Carefully, he met the gaze of everyone in the room.
(She almost wanted to punch the air and yell in glee. But she was a dignified goddess, and dignified goddesses don’t punch the air and yell, especially in formal settings)
His real self was coerced out of the masks. Change was going to happen. Mentally, Athena started to plan out a new revolution, and this time, they would win. They would remove the rot that stained Olympus.
And Apollo would be right by her side if he chose to forgive her.