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And perhaps the crux of it all is that Artemis is scared for her brother. She doesn’t like to be — doesn’t even mean to even be, really, because it's Apollo.
Apollo. Apollo, who has gone and sulked for a decade after she called his hair flat. Apollo, who has a tendency to go and get lost playing house in the weeds with some mortal for a decade or three. Apollo, who, once, she found having not moved for 4 years because he had decided to spend his years reading every poem published for 300 years so he could “catch up on it all”.
She doesn’t tend to worry about him when he’s missing for months or weeks or years. His time is his alone.
But usually no one is being secretive about it. And he at LEAST sends mom a mothers day card.
So perhaps it’s that it’s been five months since the end of yet-another-war, and he’s not been seen on Olympus, and even that, even just, not being seen on Olympus would be fine! But none of her girls have been able to scout him, none of his favorite karaoke bars have seen a hair of him, no VIP seats for the biggest musicians in the world have ended up in her Olympus mailbox, no sudden-breakout small artists have posted selfies with a familiar blond.
It’s odd. It’s unlike him. And their father just gets—
Stormy. When she asks. Cloudcover darkening, sparks flicking off his glasses in a way that means don’t push it, Artemis, or maybe Athena will be my favorite for the next thousand years.
She does, in fact, know when to not push the matter.
But it’s her brother. Her Apollo. And no one will even give her a hint where she’s supposed to be looking. If she could just catch a scent of him she could track him down, but—
But she can't. So far as she’s found, he’s hidden from her. Which isn’t normal.
And she’s worried.
Because the thing about twins, or at least in them, is that they’re connected. For better, or worse, there’s a tether between them. And Artemis can hear him - not properly, not normally. Dampened, muted, like foam around a speaker.
But she can hear him, still.
She can hear him, and every word that skips through is tinged with static that tastes like the last moment of thunder of a storm, and every word she gleans is—
Father I’m sorry, father I’ll never do anything like this again, father forgive me, father please—
And her father, their father, looks at her when she asks, and tells her:
“Artemis, I have no idea where your brother is.”
And the lie tastes like ozone and grandfathers, but who is she against the King of all gods?
…She’s a hunter, and she’s got a quarry to find.
…
Perhaps part of it is the fact sometimes the clouds clear, between them, and he reaches for her in strangled panic, vocal strings cut or broken beyond playing, and fingers of his thought scratch ichor from her mind, as he—
Artemis I’m lost,
as he—
Artemis it hurts—
as he—
Artemis I need you to—
Thoughts panic-quick, ozone residue as they click through to her, drenched in despair-panic and melting tears of gold, molasses slow and sap-sticky as she tries to piece together the exact shape of the situation he’s in. Sinking throughline anchor of:
Artemis, find me, Artemis I need you to find me,
and Artemis is a Hunter. and Artemis is The Hunt. And Artemis is the search and the trailing. And Artemis is the final moment where quarry is spotted against the horizon. Bow string drawn taught, the arrow sent to fly.
And Apollo is her brother.
And yet.
Even as she sends her girls after his suntrails, even as she claws her way towards him, there’s the fog, sky-shower thick.
But a good Hunter doesn’t lose their trail in even the worst thunderstorm.
And Artemis is the best Hunter there ever has been.
Finding him was not an if, it was a when.
and when she did— well,
Artemis has no dominion over Storm. But she knows one is on the horizon with the fury she feels as she sees him. Even if she isn’t the one starting it. Dragging herself through corners of half-existence like this, places chiseled out of Chaos and kingly marble.
Getting here had been difficult. But, she thinks, as she approaches him, not as difficult as what’s coming.
He’s a wretched thing, where he is. Chained sunlight. Musical panic wrapped in golden lashes of rope, made small, made nothing, fetal. Perhaps for a long time he was something like screaming. Writhing.
Right now, he is only still.
Divinity is an inherent. Divinity is poured from one to another. Divinity is born into, or acquired.
Divinity is not simple to rake from someone.
But it is possible to do it. And Apollo is near nothing, in front of her. Near mortal, near shattered, ichor-and-not-quite-undying.
Their father has done this before.
To their uncle, to Apollo, threatened to do to Dionysus, not so long ago.
Before now, she supposes, as she kneels beside him, he had been less sloppy with letting Apollo’s thoughts leak through.
A symptom of the wars, maybe. A symptom of him growing too confident in his infinity of reign. Who would oppose him? She cannot fight their father.
But she can betray him. And a betrayal to him, on Apollo’s behalf, is hardly a choice, really.
She always did like their mother best.
“Apollo,” she says, as she reaches to him, threads fingers through the roping. It burns hot, beneath the ghost of her thumb, hot enough to keep him here for months, as whatever Infinite he has in him is boiled off. Greek fire burns scalding nearby, and she does not claim to know the methods of removing divinity, but she can tell, by the state of him, it must burn.
She does not care if the rope burns her. Not right now. Her Apollo needs to be made aware of her.
“We will be leaving. I need you aware for this.”
And it may be too much to ask — awareness, lucidity. The threads of him reaching to her have grown thinner and thinner, as the months waned. As he waned in scope.
He shifts, perhaps, something like throbs in visual, as he tries to unspool himself from about his knees, golden-light against her moon, but he is too tired, too much of him spent and screaming, and all he can perhaps to is—
“Artemis?” and it is voice, and it is his voice, and it is a question.
“I am here.” She confirms.
and perhaps that is all the energy he had left, because he stops, then, and any hint of please skipping along the tether between them stills, as, she thinks, he saves what is left of him for when she gets him out of here.
A good hunter has tools.
And Artemis is a very good hunter.
But prying nails out of sky-bleached marble to free a net is not something arrow heads are necessarily designed to do. But she has been resourceful since the moment she noticed her brother had gone to try and kill a colossal snake, at significantly too young to go.
She does not need to free the whole of the net, it merely pins him down. She only needs to pry out enough nails to make a gap large enough to draw him out of.
It still takes far too long. And as well as the diversion she’s set Hermes on should busy their father, time spent here is time they do not, necessarily, have to burn.
But she succeeds, and labors her brother to freedom, one limb at a time.
He is—disrepaired, as she draws him to her, burning from within, cracking like overfired pottery, weeping gold from within as he shatters into her arms. Out of order. Out of sorts. And still - he fits against her as he always has.
Disgust is not a strong enough word for how she feels, as she brings him up with her. Revulsion, perhaps, for that this has happened, hysterics, maybe, at the fact it's happened twice before, and she was none the wiser, then. If this is the process, then mechanics, then she should have known.
He is like a pitcher of punch at the end of a party, every bit of him drawn out, only ice and color remain. But as she shifts them up, he comes to himself, to the surface, as his fingers hook through to her shoulders, her arms.
Inseparability. Two of a kind.
He is so nothing, in her arms, A fraction made into his whole.
It won’t do.
He is too fragile, like this,
And— hardly thinking, she pours some of herself into him. Fractional Divinity — true Immortality, restoring him, at least, to security.
And then— well, perhaps that was a mistake, as Apollo stiffens in her arms, tears himself back, flinches away, to the floor, away from her, scrambles on ichor-stained hands, carved ribs, melting gold and sunlight, as he all but seizes to flee her. Cracks through him, scattered, shattered.
“Apollo?” She says, and perhaps there is an edge there, to her words, to her voice, “We don’t have time, we need to go,”
“Artemis?” he gags on it, coughs up her name, aghast, as he sits up, body trembling under splintered arms. She is not a healing god. Minor miracles, simple scrapes, perhaps, but she is not a thing made to heal, not like he is. He needs rest, help, awayness, not here.
And perhaps she needs to protect him.
She stares at him, steps forward, even as he cows back from her, reaching down, furiously offering her hand.
“You came for me,” he says, and there’s a hysteric note, a note of panic, “Oh, Artemis, you should not have come for me,”
He’s staring through her, through her hand, up and past her to the still-somehow-clear sky.
“Apollo—” She cuts herself off, “If you didn’t want me here you shouldn’t have been screaming for me,”
“I..” He turns, then, shifts his gaze from cloudcover to her hand, up to her eyes, “You never heard me, before?”
“Well I did this time.” She reaches for him, then, out of patience, out of time, grabbing for his arm, to pull him up, to pull him back to her.
“He’ll only do it all over again, Art,”
“I suppose he will have to go through Mother, about it. Our stepmother will not like that much.”
“You don’t understand,” Apollo says, though he doesn’t resist, can't resist, as she lifts him again, “Artemis he’ll— he’s furious, I— you can’t reason with him—”
“An uncle, then, The Sea owes me a favor, for saving that boy of his years ago. And the lady of the underworld lost a bet to me, a while ago, she could pull in her husband, to tell him no,”
and she’s not certain of anything, really, other than she needs Apollo to cooperate, to not struggle, and he—
and he does, as she lifts him again, draws him to her chest. He does not wrench away again. Only collapse against her, give up.
Resignment is not a good luck on him.
She will simply have to fix that.
Their Delos is too obvious, for now, she decides, as she walks him to the exit of this place, she shall bring him to her camp. Her girls will keep watch of the sky, and alert her to if they need to…disengage quickly.
…
Thalia, she says, as they spin through the air, incongruent particles, in transit, prepare a sickbed in my tent. Medical supplies, nectar, an Apple. Put our best outside to watch, no one shall be allowed in until I decree it.
By the time they materialize within the tent, Thalia has set up a cot, but not much else, yet. She startles, trips backwards, nearly, averting her eyes to her forearm, as Sun and Moon encompass the room, too True for her visage.
Artemis levers Apollo down, tender, to the mattress. Ichor stains her good coat.
Ichor is all Apollo seems to be.
“M’lady, um,” says Thalia, hesitating a step away, face covered, “I— I uh, I’ll go wait outside?”
“Best to.” Artemis hums. “Go.”
And then they are alone, as Apollo burns up in front of her. Sobs, perhaps, wracking panic, perhaps, as she lays him back to the cotton.
“Artemis-” He tries, but cuts himself off with a strangled heave, “Artemis you don’t know what he’ll do to you,”
“If you are the example, I do,”
“I— you’ve only made it longer, he’ll need to restart, to cleanse me again.”
“He will not have the chance, Apollo. Drink. Nectar.” She holds it to his lips, and he turns, for only a second, to deny it. But she takes his head, and steers his lips to it.
Once it touches his mouth, he cannot deny himself.
Color bleeds back into him, from his lips and up to his hair. The yellows and pinks of sunset, dark purples of cloudy mornings, and as Nectar graces his tongue he can't make himself refuse it, his hands snaring forward to take the bottle from her, to plead power back into himself.
He is a scrap in her sickbed, all right angles and carved ribs.
A god so worshipped as he should not be able to look quite so mordant.
He finishes, tremblingly, the lot of it, eyes wide, desperate, as he runs his fingers along the bottle, brings them to his lips, desperation coloring him and—
“Phoebus Apollo, I have more nectar.”
He starts, stares, then sobs, wretched, as she presses another thermos of it to his hands.
He drinks, and she supplies. And it is not so simple as nectar to restore him to himself, he is as pale as winter new moons midnight, when he should be a solstice.
That will be in talking to their father.
Neither of them will be doing that, tonight.
But finally, finally he is more lucid than he is melting. Though he is more agonized than he is resting.
“I need to tend to you, Apollo.” she says, pressing next to him, “We will need to face Olympus, in days soon, and it’s best you do it capable of standing by yourself.”
“...Well. Perhaps my worst would make more of an impact,” Apollo’s hand has not left hers, and he doesn’t shift from her side.
“I will not let Father have you.”
“...Artemis, he..”
“He will not have you again, Apollo. Now let me see to you.”
He is burnt. That is perhaps the easiest word for it. Burnt. Seared. Scalded. Lines etched into him, cracking further outward and through. Dry-bled of ichor and ability. Apollo is quiet, as she tends to him, pushes his bones back to shape, as she bites her lips golden at the lighting-lines across him, layered, seared.
He is not himself, entirely.
But he will be.
He will be.
He talks, as she mends him. Their father discorporated him, only to snare him again, wrecked him of his body to weaken him, lashed him still to take the rest.
He directs her once he’s clear enough, in pressing bronze staples where he’s split open to bleed infinity. Holding him to shape, as nectar-dipped bandages are plastered to his chest.
In eves of morning, he curls into her, and lets Ra handle the sun.
They are afforded three days to rest.
Most things come in threes. Fates. Furies. Zeus, Hades, Poseidon.
So it isn't a surprise, that on the dawn of the third day as Artemis binds up his hair to something normal, thunderclouds start growling on the horizon. And a searing thought through their heads of a meeting is imminent.
They ascend to Olympus together. Though he is, by all means, folded behind her.
The thunder up here is louder than the earth. Shaking and furious. The marble ground heaving with it. Surfaces electric with pre-strike static.
Their father is on his throne, their family is as well, two empty seats, as they enter.
And her father’s hand is on the bolt.
Artemis is not a stranger to the thing. To electric and reverberation. Her brother is less of a stranger, admittedly, from both recency, and repeated rebellion as a godling.
She does not falter though, as she stands before him.
As she stands in front of Apollo.
As he brother’s grip to her arm grows so tight it may bruise.
He is stiff, beside her. Dead-game still, rigor mortis frozen.
Her brother is sunlight. Her brother is music washing over a hill. Her brother is a play with enough drama you’ll never forget the look of him draped in stage-light tears. Her brother is an arrow to the throat, and plagues send in envelopes. Her brother is hers.
And her father will not take that from him. She stands there, between them, and regards her King.
“Father.” She greets, for now, she ignores how he holds the bolt, for now, she looks at him, and wants to ask how do you claim to be Justice, when your justice does not fit the crime?
“It has come to my attention you have been all but killing my brother, Father, stripping him of his divinity. Am I correct?”
And perhaps her father hears her thoughts, of justice, and law, because he stands, then, furious but—
But her uncle stands, Trident raised, as he clears his throat,
“Brother, I did think we had an agreement about this procedure?”
“Someone must take the blame,” says their father, “Apollo sired, aided and abetted—”
“Oh hush about that,” says Demeter, standing, casting out a hand to make a barrier between them and Zeus, “You have sired worse than Octavian, brother,”
“We both know well enough that Prophecies come to pass, brother,” says Posidon, standing from his throne, “as Fate, you know that, Brother. We will vote for Apollo to regain his throne.”
Apollo is all but swaying beside her, paralyzed in their fathers gaze.
Aunt Hestia, by the hearth, looks up from her flames.
Meets Zeus’s gaze.
One by one, the empty seats fill out. Aphrodite, clearly in the middle of… something, snaps to existence upon her seat the same moment as Ares does, summoned to vote. They both jump, stare at eachother. Dionysus mid-word jolts appears in his throne. Athena appears standing, and sits, regal as ever, as Hades falls in from the darkness.
They all take in the scene.
The votes are cast.
and of course, Apollo is granted his seat again.
Their father glowers as the sky rumbles, but a vote is final.
And Apollo’s strength, siphoned away, pours back into him. Shine returns to his glow, and Artemis, without another glance, whisks them back to her camp.
They’re not taking questions, right now.
…
Apollo sort of collapses, perhaps, when they’re alone, safe, returned. Out from under the sky. He reaches for her with too-thin hands and hitching shoulders.
Shattering, perhaps, is another word that could be used here.
He folds to her, against her, as he breaks apart. Some sort of scream in his chest, as he deconstructs against her. Bleeding still, perhaps, burnt still, certainly, raw in his entirety as she holds him in his own shape.
But it’s his shape, and that is perhaps what matters most, in the end.
…
Perhaps the worst part about all of this, Apollo thinks, is that as much as he wants to lock himself somewhere small and unseen for a thousand years, in humiliation, or terror, the idea of being anywhere but smashed against Artemis is as large a horror as their father—
(dripping ichor)
(this is your fate, Apollo)
(this is your punishment, Apollo)
—taking him all over again.
It wasn’t his fault. Probably. Maybe. Maybe. He could have talked sense into the kid, if he’d noticed, maybe, but he was a little busy splitting in half?
“He took my bow,” Apollo says, instead, as Artemis brings him down, as Artemis lays beside him, or perhaps lays him on herself, “When he informed me he’d sentenced me. Snapped it, right in half. I was no longer a god, he said, no use for weapons like that, he said,”
And Artemis’ fingers push back his hair from his face, pull him closer to her,
“Then of course he took my Lyre, you know, Artemis, the one Hermes made me. Cracked it to pieces, told me they worshipped me for my music, so that had to go too, of course,”
and he should try to keep the bitterness from his voice, perhaps, he is still in danger, but—
But as Artemis plucks a pouch of nectar from the air, and pushes the straw to his lips.
“Drink. Apollo, then rest. You need, it.”
He would be stupid to do anything but.
…
She stays with him, until he can stand, and stays with him longer still, until he can breathe.
It’s not simple, or easy, to figure it out from there.
He doesn’t know how to be safe from here.
But Artemis…stands beside him, and perhaps that’s enough, for right now.