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A loud clattering sound like glass breaking rang through my palace. I jumped up onto my feet and threw open the door to find my son, Will Solace, not hurt luckily, but instead holding the remains of a home made ceramic mug that my son, Gregory, made for me in the 1950s proudly proclaiming me to be the 1# Dad. “I-I’m sorry dad.” Will said, slightly holding the shard higher with a guilty face and tone. “I-I was just trying to get your DVD copy of House season 3 from on the book shelf over there” He pointed meekly to a nearby book shelf with a ladder propped up to the top. “I was trying to get it but the ladder bumped into the table and bumped this off. Are- are you mad at me?”
And just like that my vision slipped away and dunked me into the past, 4602 years in the past to be specific.
My uncovered dirty feet raced through Olympus dancing and swaying with the noises and music that seemed to fill the air like a pleasant aroma. My smile seemed almost as infectious as my plagues to the people around me. People wave and laugh as a glide by sharing their excitement 10 fold. My hair swayed against my heels, my chiton nipped at my shoulder, my peronai glistened and shined, and I didn’t think that I’d ever been that happy in my life. It was my first birthday on Olympus.
The goddess (Excluding Hera, because what else was new) were trying their best to hold a surprise party for me. Hestia had baked an incredible Laganon, Demeter carved small creatures of all kinds in intricate patterns, Athena who begrudgingly joined in weaved a beautiful tapestry of my battle with Python (I found it kind of uncomfortable, but I really did appreciate the thought), Hebe organized the guest list and hung the decorations while Eileithyia rented out the main Olympian Garden. Unfortunately for all their efforts, I’d accidentally found out about the night before from my domain of prophecy. Artemis had already had her surprise birthday 9 days before, but it wasn’t as special as mine was today.
Just thinking about it made me smile even brighter than I thought I could as I started skipping through the main Olympian palace. The air seemed like it couldn’t hold me back and the day was all mine. Many mutters of ‘Happy Birthday my Prince’ could be heard as I walked past dryads, cloud nymphs, and naidads alike all tidying up the palace. I swung my hand out to say hello when-
Crack
I looked down at the floor and my heart dropped. A black and orange beautifully decorated Stamnos of Zeus and his siblings defeating the titans and throwing them into Tartarus was broken into hundreds of pieces and shattered across the floor. The servants all stared at me, then the Stamnos in horror. One naiad started covering her face and tears streamed (Not literally) down her face as another dryad tried to comfort her with almost equally teary eyes.
“Let…let us clean that up lord.” A terrified cloud nymph hovered over to me, her eyes darting from the ichor covering my feet to the broken vase at such speed I wondered if she had gained the ability to move at the speed of light.
“No, I broke it! I should clean it up!” I insisted, gathering the shards into my hands and cursing myself when they weren’t big enough.
“But it is our fault, we should have been watching you lord. It’s our responsibility to-”
“No!” I cut off the cloud nymph more in a childish way rather than an Olympian way. “I shall tell father, it was my fault not yours. That’s…that’s an order.” The mere thought of ordering some poor distressed cloud nymph seemed to squeeze my lungs of all their oxygen. But I had to do what was right. I couldn't shove off my fault onto a poor lady like the one in front of me.
I gracefully bent down to the ground scooping up the pottery shards and into my chiton, carrying the edge of it in front of me while the pottery shards all settled near my pelvis.
I walked back through the halls of Olympus to the main doors of the Olympian throne room. I looked back and realized that I’d accidentally made foot prints of ichor on my way in. I sheepishly sighed, snapped my fingers, and healed my cuts and cleaned the floor. I paused at the doors but pushed through regardless even with the feeling of dread crystalizing along my neck.
Father sat on his throne right in the middle, commanding and serious as he always was. I never really saw a resemblance between me and my father. His eyes were always dead serious, a piercing sky colored blue, black wavy hair cut short at his shoulders and always tried to wear the most serious expression he could. He probably even did it on the toilet! But having him watch me critically enter the room, I’d never seen us be more different in our entire lives.
“Apollo… this is mildly unexpected. Are you here about your birthday party?”
“What-what birthday party?!” I grit through my teeth as I lied.
Father gave me a dismissive snort. A sort of ‘Don’t try to lie to me boy’ kind of snort.
“You are the god of prophecy are you not. Divining something as simple and trivial as a birthday party should have been nothing for you, let alone my son.”
I played with the hem of my chiton anxiously. “Yes…I did. I just- I just didn’t want to let them know ya know? It was really nice of them and all, and I was really grateful! Sooo I didn’t really want to ruin their surprise for me!”
Father gave me another dismissive snort before catching sight of my anxious fingers and pottery shards. “What are those boy?”
“Oh, uh- you see dad- father- my lord-I was uh walking to talk to Artemis when I…” I couldn’t get the words out. It felt like someone had shoved snow up my throat. I felt like my body was choking me on purpose, begging me to stop. But why would I? “I accidentally knocked over Stamnos… and it broke.”
I angled the hem of my chiton just enough that father could see the barest amount of it. Then, there was an unearthly silence. Something so strange in comparison to the pleasant sounds of Olympus mere minutes ago.
“You did what?” Zeus asked, nay demanded.
“I-I broke the Stamnos of you and the others fighting the Titans…I’m so sor-”
Before I could even finish my sentence, as quick as lightning Zeus pulled me by my hair at least 15 feet into the air. I shrieked and pulled out his hands trying to get him to drop me, to let me go, but it felt like moving the earth itself.
I don’t remember what my father said after that. I remember the screaming, the fits of rage, the slight shocks to my frail young body, the pottery falling to the ground matching my tears. But what happened next haunted my dreams.
As I was pleading and begging to Zeus, apologising and swearing I’d never do it again he pulled out a small, sharp object from his belt, a knife. I stared in horror as it got closer and closer before belatedly feeling confusion when instead of finding me, the blade went to his own hand at the base of my hair.
I screamed even louder, I cried even harder, but no one but the earth itself aka my father could hear. As he brought it closer and closer, bits and bits or hair falling over my face and delicately on top of the unassuming pottery shards I pleaded even harder. I swore to be a better son, to be loyal, pleading for him to do anything but cut my hair. It was a sign of my youth, of my innocence. But as the final strand hung from my fathers grip, he spoke the only words that I can remember from that conversation.
“No son of mine makes mistakes unlike me, but the only mistake I’ve ever made is you.”
Just as suddenly as I hit the floor I was reeled back like a fish caught on a hook. I took a shaky breath, trying to calm my rushing nerves. I looked down at Will, his curly blond curls and shining blue eyes and identical smile and found that he had never looked more like me than when he was looking up scared of what I might do to him. The thought made a bullet go straight through my heart, decimating it completely.
I gently pat Will on the head and tried my best to smile.
“I think Greg would be happy to see his past work destroyed.”