Chapter Text
Dark curls. Round face. Slightly crooked teeth.
I reached for the glossy reflection, the picture shattering as soon as my fingertips grazed the surface of the pool. When the water stilled, the image was different.
Golden hair. Chiseled jaw. Teeth straight and gleaming white.
It had been about six months since I’d become Apollo again, and I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded of how desperate I was to regain my godly form after my father Zeus forced me into the body of a flabby, acne-riddled teenager with only $100 and the unfortunate name of Lester Papadopolous. Me, the god Apollo, stuck as a completely average mortal without even a hint of my godly strength, skill with a bow, or rippling eight-pack. Obviously, I couldn’t get myself restored to my former glory fast enough.
But then… Well, I guess you could say that I changed. There’s nothing quite as humbling as being placed in the servitude of a 12-year-old girl, especially when that girl has no sympathy for your plight and laughs at the idea that you should be treated with any sort of special respect, even though you’re literally the god of archery, poetry, music, healing, and, you know, the sun.
Meg’s utter disregard for the fact that I was a god and she was a child who looked like a human traffic light wasn’t the only thing that impacted me though. Because the more time I spent among the humans, the more I felt like I belonged. Our triumphs, however small, felt like the most glorious of victories, and our failures were… devastating.
At the end, with Python, when we fought and fell and fell and fell, right to the brink of Chaos; I was certain that I would never survive, that Apollo would cease to exist and so would Lester but that was okay as long as I could take that monster down with me—
And then I woke up on Olympus with my sister beside me, once again Apollo. It should have felt like everything was right with the universe again, but it didn’t. It didn’t not feel right either, but…
The wind rippled the surface of the water, and my golden locks changed back to brown curls. Still, my gaze remained fixed on my reflection.
“I’m going to turn into Narcissus at this rate,” I muttered.
When I visit my friends — at the Waystation, at camp, Meg — I almost always make myself look like Lester rather than my godly form. Makes sense, right? That’s how they know me, after all. It’s perfectly logical, reasonable.
What’s not quite so logical is the amount of time I spend as Lester when I’m not with them.
I had fantasized about returning to godhood for so long that actually getting it felt like my shoes were suddenly two sizes too large (and no, it wasn’t because I forgot to shrink my shoes when leaving the throne room, I checked). I felt… out of place beside the other gods. I wished I could go back to the simplicity of being mortal, the warmth of being completely average, yet having people who cared about me even though I couldn’t do the things that I thought made me great; they liked me just because of who I was. I missed it.
At first I kept it to only staying in that form for a couple minutes after visiting a friend — after all there was no rush to change back. Then minutes turned to hours, even a full day, once. I found myself turning into Lester almost at random, without fully realizing I was doing it.
I keep it a secret from the other gods, the whole “making myself look like Lester” thing. Theoretically, we gods can look however we want, but there absolutely is an Olympian dress code, even though none of us will say it out loud. We’re vain, so obviously we all want to be the most beautiful god in the room. However, we also only want to look at other beautiful people, so anything that doesn’t fit the mold is sneered at, at best. It’s like Hollywood times a thousand. Remember what I said about Dionysus? How his rumpled, middle-aged look was done specifically as a giant middle finger to everything he’s been denied, confined as he is to Camp Half Blood?
Yeah, that’s how the others would interpret me walking around Olympus as Lester — some sort of rebellion, simmering resentment over my punishment.
That was not a rumor I wanted to make its way back to Zeus.
On the other hand, they might just look at me with some sort of pity. That might be worse, actually. Even Artemis, I think, would just be confused. Why would I wear the form that I had been confined to as a punishment? Why would I take it back willingly?
I wasn’t totally sure myself.
I was so deep in thought that I failed to realize I was no longer alone. At least, not until a familiar voice spoke in my ear—
“What are you doing?”
I want to be clear, I did not fall into the pool. I simply decided it might be nice to go for a swim. Spontaneously. Ｗith all my clothes on.
“Hello, dear Meg,” I said, blinking water out of my eyes. “How have you— Oh honestly, stop laughing. How have you been?”
Meg, as it turned out, was in the middle of harvesting asparagus when she saw me and came over to say hi. She claimed she hadn’t been trying to startle me.
“I don’t know what you expected, showing up out of nowhere and sitting like a gargoyle at the edge of my pool,” said Meg, rummaging through a storage bin.
I decided not to dignify that with a response.
“What are you doing here, anyway? And why didn’t you let me know you were coming? Or at least let me know when you arrived?”
“Oh. I um, tried looking for you but couldn’t find you,” I lied. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure how or when I arrived myself. It wasn’t until I fell in that I became fully cognizant of where I was.
Meg raised an eyebrow. “You couldn’t find me,” she said flatly, but didn’t push further.
I climbed out of the pool and immediately got a faceful of terrycloth, thanks to the towel Meg helpfully threw at my head. “You know I can just dry myself off instantly, right?” I asked, voice muffled.
I pulled off the towel just in time to see something in Meg’s expression freeze, but only for an instant. Then she rolled her eyes. “Obviously. I just wanted an excuse to throw something at you.”
I considered the towel, which felt oddly heavy in my arms. Of course Apollo could dry himself off with a snap of his fingers. But I…
I slowly raised the towel to my dripping hair and started to dry myself off. Not instantly with godly powers, but normally. Tediously.
Like a human.
Meg watched me with a frown. When I reached my knees, she burst out, “why don’t you, then?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer that question. I wasn’t sure I knew how to answer that question. “Why don’t I…?” My voice was light, but I kept my eyes on the towel.
“Look at me!”
I may not have been bound to her commands anymore, but that didn’t mean my body had fallen out of habit just yet. My head snapped up and my eyes met hers.
She clapped a hand to her mouth, her face flushed. “Oh, I— I didn’t mean to…”
I turned back to the pool, seeing Lester standing there, in the reflection. Seeing… myself? Who was “myself” anymore?
“Meg,” I said, at the same time she said, “Apollo—!”
We both broke off.
In the span of like, a minute, things had somehow gotten really awkward. I sat down at the edge of the pool, dipping my feet back in the water. After a moment, Meg kicked off her shoes and sat beside me.
“You first,” I insisted.
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. After a few more attempts, she said, “every time you visit me, you look like Lester.”
…Huh?
“And it makes me happy, because that’s how I know you. Apollo is Lester, Lester is Apollo. But,” she kicked her feet, making a small splash. “You always hated being Lester. Being… being human. I know that. So I wanted to make sure you didn’t think I needed to see you that way, or, or anything stupid like that.”
I gaped at her.
“I’m serious! Don’t just stare at me like that.” Meg’s face screwed up, like she might punch me. Or start to cry.
“That’s not fair,” I whined.
Meg blinked.
“I wanted to ask you for advice.”
“What?” Meg no longer looked upset, just confused.
Where to begin? “It— It doesn’t make sense. Apollo is— I’m perfect. Not like, as a person or god, or anything like that, I know, but. Physically. Right? Perfect abs, perfect hair, perfect smile. Perfect perfectness.”
“...Uh-huh,” said Meg, less like she was agreeing with me and more like she was trying to figure out what in Hades’s Underworld I was talking about.
“Lester is— well. I’ve already illuminated those shortcomings in plenty of detail, no need to rehash them. I mean, come on.” I shook a fistfull of still wet curls, showering Meg and myself.
“And like, I went to all this trouble to get my body back, right? For obvious reasons! I should like being Apollo. I mean, I do like being Apollo, but—” I stopped short.
Meg still looked totally lost. “But what?”
I gulped. “I like being Lester too. Even now that I don’t have to.”
Meg started to laugh, the sound bright and infectious. Although she was obviously laughing at me, I couldn’t help but laugh with her.
“Seriously Apollo, that’s what you were all worried about? That’s what you had me worried about? They’re both you, dummy,” said Meg in a tone that somehow managed to be both fond and withering. She pointed at me. “If you want to look like goddy Apollo, be Apollo. If you want to look like Lester, be Lester. You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to choose one thing forever and always.”
“But… isn’t it weird? To have spent so long wishing I looked like anyone but Lester, then making myself look like him on purpose?”
Meg frowned. “Him, him, you keep saying him. Lester isn’t real, Apollo. It’s just you. Always has been.”
It wasn’t anything I didn’t technically already know, but somehow that felt like a revelation. “It’s just me,” I repeated stupidly.
“And why did you want your body back?” Meg asked slowly, as if she were talking to a toddler. “Was it really about the looks?”
Yes, of course, was my kneejerk reaction. But no, that wasn’t it, was it? Not entirely anyway. Especially by the end of my trials, it wasn’t my looks that I missed most. I missed my memories to aid our quest. My strength to carry on. My powers, so I could protect my friends.
“You’re still you, Apollo. It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside,” said Meg. She paused for a second, as if hearing her own words for the first time. She looked scrutinizingly at me, then softened. “Yeah. It doesn’t matter what you look like.” She threw her arm around my shoulder. “No matter what, you’ll always be my favorite servant.”
“Former servant!”
“Oh, yeah?” Meg’s smile turned wicked. Faster than I could react, she shoved me back into the pool with a great SPLASH.
“Pwfff— Hey!” I said, spluttering water again. I reached for Meg, but she’d backed up several paces, still facing the pool.
“Ready or not,” she said, breaking into a run, “here I come!”
