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Graves didn't know how to feel about being in Apollo's mausoleum. Having spent much of her life believing that being in the presence of the dead was only a comfort to her, seeing so many people walk around the hall in silent reverence, studying the paintings and placards adoring the walls which told of his life, while his body sat similarly silent in the centrepiece tomb presented her an odd sense of satisfaction.
At the same time, these people didn't know Apollo. Some of them might've lived under his short but eventful rule and most of them gave at least a cursory glance to those wall mounted stories of his life, but none of them had the pleasure of truly knowing him. The narrative they were told was of a man whose life only began with his ascension to the throne and every other matter was relegated to the footnotes. Admittedly, he had talked about his life in much the same way: nearly every spare thought he had was dedicated to his eventual legacy but it was odd seeing that life realised and now having passed and not part of some idle daydream.
Muddying her feelings even further was just how late the building was open and just how late some people stayed. Graves would've killed for a graveyard sheltered from harsh weather when she was younger but now she couldn't help but feel some annoyance towards the one Ixian teenager who was unknowingly keeping her company, being entirely too transfixed on the notes she was making to notice the occasional glowers that she threw her way.
"What are you working on?" Graves finally asked, ending the silence that must've hung in the room for hours, if not days. The girl almost jumped out of her skin.
"Oh, uh. A presentation on the unification of North Ixia. It's for my history class." She managed to mumble.
"They're really teaching that in history classes already? Gods, don't you know it's bad manners to make a lady feel old?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't —"
"Don't worry about it. My back gives me more trouble than you ever could. Why do you need to be here to do that? Isn't there some library open at this time?"
The girl sighed, clearly having asked herself the same question many times.
"Our teacher was insistent we include a section about how King Apollo's character influenced the outcome of the unification. This is the only place which has some good sources for that."
Graves snorted. "Oh yeah? What do you have written so far?"
"Um - he was strong-willed."
"That's a nice way of saying stubborn but I suppose it's true."
"He had a clear vision for Ixia's future."
"And he never shut up about it."
"And, his participation in The Archmother's Ritual in the Second Maelstrom gave him experience with … y'know … leadership and stuff."
"Leadership?" She took personal offence to that one. "Do you have anything down about the other people involved in the ritual?"
"… No?"
"Right. Well you should note that it was an American-Ixian called Infernus who was actually leading The Archmother's team despite Apollo's constant attempts to usurp him and a Darcy Graves had to save his ass like twenty times because he loved running into danger without telling anyone. Make sure you at least have the words 'slowing hex' in there somewhere."
"I - don't think that'll be on the marking rubric."
"Alright, I'll share some more applicable wisdom with you then. Did you know that Apollo fenced? He was the champion all throughout high-school. Wore the goofy uniform everywhere as well. That entire time, if he had a match the next day, you could not force him to stay up past 9 pm. It did not matter what was going on, once it hit that time he was out like a light and to be fair, he never lost after a good night's sleep. Point is, if you stay up all night to make your notes perfect, you'll be a zombie while giving the presentation. So go. Sleep. Now." Graves made a shooing gesture as though she had any authority this space.
As if she'd be waiting for an adult to give her the go ahead (or perhaps spurred by what must've looked like the inane ramblings of a mad old woman), the girl quickly gathered up her stuff and turned to leave.
"Before you go. You don't have a lighter do you?"
The girl rifled through her bag and produced a cheap plastic thing. "You're not allowed to smoke in here." She said plainly as she handed it over.
"Alright, one last bit of wisdom before you go. How old do you think I am?"
"I think that's probably not a polite thing to guess." The girl responded after a moment, refusing to fall for the obvious gambit.
"Good answer. Point is, whatever number you were thinking, the real one is a lot lower. So quit smoking or you'll look like this in a few years. And I'm keeping this. Anyway. Bed time. Go."
The girl scurried off without argument, the money needed to buy a new lighter not outweighing the effort of arguing.
It wasn't entirely a lie but Graves' elderly appearance, despite only being in her thirties, was more so a result of the extended stress necromancy had put on her body. Once the ritual had failed, The Lich's hand had begun sapping her energy to keep itself present in undeath. It was a gradual thing at first: constant illness that could be explained away as stress or the flu or whatever else she could convince herself of. By the time Graves had began to cotton on, The Lich became desperate and took all she could. Graves had aged decades in minutes and was lucky to have survived and walked away with only a couple wrinkles. At least her hair was already white. The clove cigarettes certainly hadn't helped either and she needed a good excuse to keep the lighter.
With the hall finally empty, Graves set about taking a series of items from her bag: candles and dried plants and bottles filled with shimmering liquid, humming softly to herself as she deftly arranged them in a complex pattern that would seem arbitrary to any other person.
She gripped the vial of blood hanging from one of her many necklaces, given to her as a gift many years ago by the man currently laying dead in his tomb before her, and a grand, sickly green energy flowed from the sigil she had arranged on the ground and out from her body and filled the room. A deafening rush of whispering voices filled her ears before the light and silence fell.
From the lid of the room's central tomb, a figure began to unfurl itself as his form took shape. Humanoid. Ixian. Dressed in the finest clothes that money or status could buy. His identity could not be more obvious given the entire building they were in was purpose built to honour him in death and paintings depicting the face now gazing down at her adorned every wall.
"King Goldenboy of Ixia." Graves said, dropping in a good humoured curtsey.
The phantasmal figure's face immediately shifted from confusion to lighting up with child-like joy.
"My Lady of the Underworld." Apollo returned, bowing deeply with his hand on his heart. His delighted expression could not entirely cover the panic evident in his expression. "Where am I?"
"Your mausoleum. You're dead, remember?"
"Right. Yes. Of course. Sorry, it's — confusing."
"It's okay. It's not something most people get to be used to. Take your time, I don't have anywhere to be." Graves spoke, her voice as even and calm as she could make it.
The process she intended to follow was no different to talking to any other soul refusing to pass on into the afterlife: give them some physical presence through which they can speak and discuss their former life to find what might allow them to pass on. Graves had the procedure etched into her very being by this point. Yet, the few times she communed with Apollo and saw his confusion - this telltale signs of degradation in restless souls - it felt unavoidably cruel.
Perhaps she couldn't shake the fact that everyone had expected her to die first. She'd gotten damn close but she was here and he wasn't. Being the one stood in front of his grave and not the other way around felt like a bad joke with no real punchline.
"How long has it been since we last spoke? The last thing I can remember is your voice but it feels like it could've been moments or years ago."
"It's been four months. It might mess with your soul to bring you up too often so I've got to space these out."
A calendar hung on the wall of Graves' New York apartment. It's boxes were almost entirely empty - most of her days now being influenced by impulse - aside from communions with Apollo. She'd bought the thing not because she was worried that she would forget but rather knowing she'd always be tempted to travel to Ixia prematurely. Given she was still in his mausoleum three days ahead of schedule, it was likely a good purchase. It helped being able to tick of the boxes and knowing that after one of these days, she'd go to his grave and find it silent and be able to throw the thing in the trash. Maybe she'd burn it and scatter the ashes somewhere.
"That's simply far too long. I'll gladly incur whatever may happen to me if it means I may see your face as soon as possible. Being apart from such beauty for so long must have worse consequences."
"Oh, shut it. I look like an old lady now. It might be useful getting a seat on the subway but I know I'm certainly not beautiful anymore."
"Please. I'm not bothered by such petty things. You look just stunning as the day I first laid eyes on you."
Graves found it difficult not to notice how different former king's face was from the various portraits dotted across the hall. It was difficult not to note the difference between the austere man clad in a calvary uniform on forefront of a battlefield and the image of a sappy dope that now hovered above his deathbed. She wondered if anyone had seen him like that since he left New York to take up the throne. While some part of this registered to her as a shame, she also couldn't help but feel relief that no one else got to privilege to see the face she'd once fallen in love with.
To put this thought out of her mind, she stepped the velvet rope around the tomb and clambered onto it, letting the cold stone against her legs ground her as she crossed them.
"Sit." She said, motioning for Apollo to join her. It made no difference to him, it's not as though a ghost's legs can get tired, but it'd hurt her neck looking up at him that long. Certainly not because she was desperate for some semblance of normalcy between them. Regardless, the spectre of the former King dropped onto the lid of his tomb and sat crisscross apple sauce.
Graves pulled a notebook from her bag and perched the glasses hung on a chain around her neck onto her crooked nose. "I figured you'd want updates on what's happened since you've been gone." She said by way of explanation. "Anything in particular you want to know?"
"Please. How are our old friends faring?"
"Aging gracefully on the most part. I had tea with Abrams just last week. He's thinking about travelling to Ixia soon actually; homesick I think. He's been trying to convince Infernus to come along but I don't know how that's going. I told him you'd appreciate it if he visited your mausoleum and I expect he'll make good on his promise."
"Quite right. I'll look forward to it. It should do him well to see his homeland. How is — um," Apollo's face screwed up in concentration, wracking the brain that no longer resided in his head and was presently long decomposed beneath them. "the - the werewolf."
"Lilah Silver." Graves supplied helpfully, not without a twinge of sadness coming about her eyes. "She's really turned her life around recently. Finally gave up drinking and got that legal partnership with Celeste. They've both mellowed out a lot. I think they're still working the sideshow but Celeste has cut a lot of the acrobatics from her act. Joint pain and everything. I've heard they're good but I still haven't seen them perform together unfortunately."
"Are you worried they're going to try and recruit you?" Apollo smirked.
"A bit, actually." Graves replied earnestly, finding the snide remark a comforting presence. "I'm more so worried about how that doesn't sound like such a bad idea to me anymore. But it'd be wrong to use restless souls to entertain people so it doesn't really matter either way."
"A shame, I've always thought you'd make a good clown." Graves almost moved to punch Apollo's arm before remembering where they were. "What of Professor Dynamo? I think we exchanged some letters during the Eastern Campaign. I do hope he's well."
"The Professor is — keeping on. He spoke very highly of you last time I visited him what it's worth. He remembered you as a 'tenacious young man' and wasn't surprised that you achieved so much. He said you'd have been a fantastic student to have at Columbia so I think he's forgotten how precocious you were in those days. He's still teaching at Columbia but I think Marla's death has been weighing on him more than he wants to let on. I send flowers in both of our names on the anniversary. Same for Miss Shelly."
"Thank you. I should've — well — I would've wanted to do that. Have you communed with either of them? Miss Shelly or Marla?"
"No, I haven't. Their souls passed on without any issue."
"Sad, isn't it? I'm sure they would've liked to say their goodbyes."
"I think they would be happy that they haven't lingered. Souls *are* meant to pass on Apollo."
"Right, right. I know. What of the people from Blackmore?"
"There's not much to report really. Lawyers, doctors and a lot of people living off their parent's money from what I could find. Mostly still assholes. Speaking off, Angelica Winters has been doing the rounds in the tabloid newspapers now her acting career has mostly passed. She's made quite the career telling scandalous stories involving her time at Blackmore with the former Ixian King every time her relevance starts fading."
The phantasmal image of King Apollo, still adorned in the medals he was buried in, sputtered in shock and his voice raise an octave. "You're kidding." He balked.
"I really wish I was. There was a double page spread in The Tattler last month describing in painstaking detail how you played Seven Minutes in Heaven in a broom closet."
"Gods of all the things I can remember, why does that have to be one of them?"
"So it's true? You really did -" Graves flipped a few pages of her notebook to give a direct quote. "'Squeeze [her] ass in the low light between Blackmore's bottles of anti-freeze and bags of sawdust'?"
"It may surprise you but I was not always the bastion of good taste I would come to be."
"Hey, I know she was a bitch but I can't deny she was hot. Not bad now either. I'm sure I could forgive her for coining Dykey Graves back then if she bought me a drink under the right conditions."
"Enough about Angelica-bloody-Winters. What of Ixia? How has the nation fared without me?" Apollo asked with a sudden fervour as though any bad news meant he would have to take a cab to go and sort it out himself.
"Well, obviously I don't know as much as you would've. I'm mostly cobbling stuff together from newspaper articles and the radio here but it seems like North Ixia is doing well. The US is still firm in keeping the South as the 52nd state so it's not looking like a national unification of the two is on the cards but they're got relatively good relations. A non-aggression pact, some trade agreements, stuff like that. The current King claimed he'd make good on your promises of an elected parliament but went back on it recently so there's been a lot of protests."
"Bastard! I told you he wasn't fit to rule, didn't I? Gods, how could they ever think he should be the one to continue my legacy."
Graves recalled talking to Apollo as a dead man for the first time. She managed to speak to him through the same staticky radio she had heard the news on. It's wasn't uncommon for lost souls to tether like that although it likely wouldn't've made the distance had she not been wearing a vial of his blood that she'd be using as a spellcasting focus for necromancy.
At first, he was illegible: pallor mortis only just having started to set in and his soul unused to being free of its mortal coil. By the time he could form and express coherent thoughts, he was single-mindedly asking Graves for updates on his successor - his mind still reeling from having been felled in battle. She managed to communicate it through her tears.
"You should relay my thoughts to the people." Apollo continued, blissfully unaware of the annoyance in her face. "Should've already relayed my thoughts to the people. Or to the court. I'm sure I must still have many loyalists there."
"You should've left an heir if you wanted to influence the matter after death." She snapped.
Apollo winced. "You know that I …" He let the words die on his tongue. It was a well worn argument that both of them knew could never be resolved and would never end well if they tried. The memory only doubled his resolve. "It doesn't matter now. You can bring them to me! Let me speak to them! I can —"
"Apollo." Grave shouted firmly. The former King flinched at the harsh tone. "You are dead. I am sorry but you are. You shouldn't really be talking to me right now, let alone trying to rule a country. Do you remember how I feel about the fact you haven't passed on?"
"I do. I'm sorry. It's just … I had so much left to do. I had a country to lead. Sights to see. People to know. I'm still not used to thinking about myself in the past tense."
Graves wanted to reach out and touch his face but she knew all too well that her hand would simply pass through his spectral form. She lay her palm flat against the top of him tomb instead, running her hand across it reassuringly. It was the best she could do past taking his bones in hand.
"I know. It's hard. I'll be here like clockwork as long as you're still here but … you do have to go eventually. It really isn't pretty when a soul stays up here for too long. I don't want to see you like that. I don't think your former subjects would want to see that either. Haunting your own mausoleum is dramatic, even for you."
"I understand. I'll try to … I don't know. Is it something I try to do? Or will it just happen?"
"At some point, when you're ready, it will have already happened."
Apollo let his gaze wander across the empty hall. Over paintings and framed flags that he carried into battle. The insignia of the unified North Ixian states was proudly displayed on the wall. It was the culmination of everything he had worked for. Graves recognised the expression on his face as he looked. It was the same one as when he was on the final conclusion of a book report or gazing off into the Manhattan sunset or studying her face as they lay next to each other: it was the face he made while struggling to find the words for something.
"Will you miss me? When I'm gone and haven't said goodbye?" He finally said, voice small like was almost embarrassed to ask.
"I already miss you, you big idiot." Graves said, her voice somewhere between tears and anger. "I miss being able to smack you upside the head when you ask me something stupid like that. And I miss the smell of that disgusting, cloying perfume you would wear. I missed you when you went to take the throne and now I miss at least being able to think there would be a time when you would return. Of course I'm going to miss being able to talk to your soul like this." Her voice broke and she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and steadied herself. "But I'll get over it. Eventually. It's going to be hard. I might pretend we're talking like this on those late nights when I can't sleep and tell you everything I wish you were there to experience with me but ultimately," She swallowed a sob that she hadn't realised was rising up her throat. "I will be happy that you passed on because it will mean that your soul is at peace and that's what needs to happen."
Apollo was silent for a few seconds, now only more deep in thought. It was eerie how similar he looked even after all those years they spent apart. If she tried she could almost imagine it was as though she watching as him struggle with a particularly difficult chemistry worksheet and while she pretended with all her might that she really did hate him.
"I will. Eventually. I promise. Just not yet. There's something keeping me here."
"I understand. I won't stop coming here until you stop responding. I swear on my life."
"How much longer do we have on the spell?"
Graves looked to the candle that headed the sigil she had laid out. When it burnt out, Apollo would disappear again. It was a fair bit over halfway gone. "Maybe ten minutes?"
"Right." Apollo confirmed.
They dedicated many of their remaining seconds to the silence that followed. It wasn't wasted time though. As long as they were in each other's company, it was well spent.
"You know what I thought while I was dying?" Apollo finally asked.
"Tell me."
"Everything else that day is a blur to me but I remember this thought as clear as day. I was on a stretcher and my leg was mostly gone and I think I knew I was going to die. All I could think about was that I had plans travel back to the capital once the battle was over and I was going to call you. I was trying to figure out how I'd recount it to you on the phone: the story of how I died. How can I get Darcy to laugh with me about this, I kept thinking. I was figuring out some joke when I lost consciousness. I can't even remember what it would've been now."
"I'm sure you would've found a way to make me laugh at it."
"I can only hope."
Once the candle had finally burnt down and Apollo was once again laid to rest and the hall took on its previous silence, Graves felt none of the comfort she usually did from talking to a lost soul. She'd been faced with many insurmountable tasks to help people pass on but she feared what Apollo required was greater than them all. At the very least, it might not be long before she joined him in death and they could pass on together.