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Artemis waxed the string of her bow thoughtlessly, humming along to some story that a newer recruit was telling her. She wasn’t really listening, as much as she’d hate to admit it. No, a dark shadow hung over her mind, preoccupying her thoughts.
That dark shadow was on the other side of the camp, leaning against a tree, distanced from the group. A dark shadow probably wasn’t the best way to describe him. Apollo, being the god of the sun and light, couldn’t possibly emanate darkness. However, his closed-off and defensive aura wasn’t particularly uplifting the mood of camp.
“My Lady,” Thalia Grace, her trusted Lieutenant, leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Did you want to address that situation? I can distract Emma for now,” she said, tipping her head to Emma, the hunter who had been talking at her for the past half hour, “If you desire privacy with him.”
Artemis shut her eyes. Apollo had been hanging around camp on and off for the past few weeks. He hadn’t said much to any of her hunters, not even flirting with them. The most he had said was asking for Artemis’s permission to hang around camp. When she had granted it (after all, she had sorely missed her twin after the months spent apart during his trials), he hadn’t jumped for joy in the way that the moon goddess had expected.
No, in fact, he had spent his time silently observing Artemis and her campers. Not in a creepy way, but more in a resigned, longing way.
Artemis could almost see the heartbreak reflected in his eyes. The blue tone held so much sorrow, she wondered how she had never noticed it before.
She let out the air in her lungs with a slow exhale. Her eyes met Thalia as she gave her Lieutenant a sharp nod, agreeing to her terms.
Artemis made her way to her silent twin, who hadn’t so much as twitched in the time that she had been sitting in that spot, working on her bow.
“Apollo,” she said when she got close enough to him.
She took in the sight before her. To put it lightly, Apollo looked weary. Dark bags hung under his eyes, giving him the appearance of someone who hadn’t slept in weeks. His usually well-groomed and styled hair was a mess. Knots and tangles were evident throughout the golden curls. There were even leaves that were caught in his hair, unable to escape the keratin prison that they had found themselves in.
Apollo’s clothes were a wrinkled mess. Rather than any of the flashy styles he typically donned, or even a simple chiton that he wore for special occasions, his outfit of choice consisted of beaten-up hiking boots, blue jeans that had honestly seen better days, and a simple black T-shirt that had the words “Pink Floyd” scrawled on top with some sort of rainbow prism below it. Artemis was sure that it had some sort of meaning to her twin.
He jumped at the sound of her voice, his blue eyes flicking over to meet her gaze.
“Sister,” he responded in turn.
“You’re still here,” she observed.
“I am,” Apollo said, “I can leave if you want me to,” he offered.
“You can stay,” Artemis cut in before Apollo could expand upon that idea. Her goal wasn’t to kick Apollo out of camp, but more to finally get through to him.
She had once thought that Apollo wore his heart on his sleeve. She, along with almost all the other gods, was privy to his many loves and heartbreaks that he seemed to cycle through every other week. She had assumed that he complained about every little thing that ailed him. After all, he was quite vain, wasn’t he?
But, during his trials, Artemis realized that there was much more to Apollo than he let on. She hadn’t realized how much guilt and sorrow weighed upon him until he sang on that ant hill.
Now that he was before her, she wanted to crack that shell that Apollo held protectively around himself. She wanted to understand him, like she never had been able to before.
“I was surprised,” Artemis admitted to her twin, “I would think you had many vying for your attention after your extended leave. Certainly, there are more entertaining things to take up your time rather than just observing my Hunters' camp for days.”
Apollo leveled an even stare at her, “Perhaps. Even so, as long as I am able, I’d like to remain here.”
Artemis frowned. He was giving her nothing. She had to keep pushing.
She reached out and grabbed his wrist, soft under her rough hands. His eyes shot downward, transfixed by the contact that Artemis had initiated. She supposed it was quite rare for her. Apollo was always the one to initiate hugs, or squeezes on the shoulder, or any other form of physical contact.
“Apollo, be honest. You have no reason to be here right now. You could be anywhere else in the world, whether that be at some party or even some concert. There are about a thousand other things that you could be doing that two years ago you would be doing. Why are you here?”
Apollo looked down, “I don’t want to be up there,” he admitted, “During my trials… I thought… Well, my main goal was to make it back to Olympus, to have my powers back, and to not be mortal anymore.”
Artemis nodded. That was the goal that any god would have. It was the goal that Zeus had intended for Apollo to work towards during his trials.
“But?” she prompted.
“But,” Apollo picked up, voice growing quieter, as if he were afraid to admit his next words, “once I got back, everything felt wrong. I couldn’t understand how I had been living before. Disregarding the lives of mortals, not understanding that my actions have consequences. I couldn’t face the others, knowing that they think the way I used to.”
“So you’re down here, with me?” Artemis said, raising an eyebrow.
Apollo toyed with a rock under his boot, refusing to make eye contact with his twin, “You work with mortals more closely. You understand the importance of mortal life more than the others do.”
Artemis had often felt like an outlier on Olympus when it came to mortals. Apollo was correct in the fact that she worked with mortals the closest out of them all. (Except for maybe Dionysus, during the duration of his punishment, but he could hardly be counted in that regard. One hundred years was nothing more than a droplet in the timescale of their existence.)
“Why don’t you visit Camp Half-Blood?” she asked him, “I know you want to visit your children. Especially if you don’t want to spend time on Olympus.”
“I’ve been forbidden,” Apollo said, cracking the stone under his toe with a satisfying crunch, “Father told me that I have already been distracted long enough from my duties.”
Artemis felt fury welling coldly in her gut. Forbidding Apollo from seeing his children brought them right back to square one. Back to before Percy Jackson demanded that the gods pay more attention to their mortal children. In addition, whose fault was it that Apollo was behind in his duties? If not for their father’s punishment, there would be nothing for Apollo to catch up on.
“I know he’s right,” Apollo said, eyes slipping closed as he tilted his head upward, against the tree. “I should be up on Olympus right now, working on new music or something.”
He opened his eyes again, looking at Artemis, “I just can’t get myself to do any of it.”
Suddenly, everything clicked into place. The truth stared directly at her.
Artemis sighed, “I wish I could fix it all for you. That I could lift Father’s ruling, and that you could spend every day with your children at Camp. That I could make all of the other gods understand what you do. But I don’t have that power.”
Apollo looked at her with watery eyes.
“All I can do is let you stay here if you ever need it. If you need a space to get away from Olympus, you’re welcome to join us. I’ll be here for you if you ever need to talk.”
Apollo pulled her into a tight hug. She felt wet drops land on her shoulder, but chose not to say anything about it.
“Thank you,” Apollo whispered into her ear, “This means more than I can say.”
Artemis reciprocated the hug lightly. Her eyes burned as she buried her face in the crook of Apollo’s neck.
“Always.”