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Amethyst landscapes and clouds of purple stardust still lay inset in Apo’s eyelids as she faded from Morpheus’ dream realm, Owen’s final thanks fading into the sound of her breathing softly. The dream realm stuff was still confusing, but she was glad it could be some use, at least to him. Though, if Owen’s powers wouldn’t work in her realm, what about other champions?
Suddenly, Apo groggily realized that something was pressed against her back and wings, even though she laid on her side. It wasn’t a large presence, nor a particularly disturbing one, like something was resting against her without putting all its weight on her. She gingerly shifted, trying not to hit her head on the foot of Owen’s bed as she sat up, then stood up.
Apo turned around to find the thing at her feet now, that thing being the form of somebody curled up and sleeping. She knelt down next to them, quickly recognizing short, dark brown hair swept into a small braid with little pieces sticking out. This was Pyro. He didn’t sleep in the bridge, or at least hasn’t asked to, he seemed perfectly content with his tower on a nearby outcropping.
She reached a hand out to brush something out of his hair, but blinked and realized something.
What Apo thought to be his hair was a small wing, just barely reaching the top of his bicep as it lay across his shoulder, almost like he was attempting to wrap it around himself. She gently ran her fingertips over the wing, noticing what she had tried to brush off was a white spot that patterned along his feathers. He had fallen asleep with his other wing at an odd angle, lying on top of it.
Apo gently snaked a hand between Pyro’s side and the nest beneath him, lifting him up a little with one hand and tenderly moving his other wing out from under him with her other hand. She laid him back down, still on his side, smoothing out the wing with her hand and carefully folding it so it lay tucked against his back. Some feathers were crooked and half pulled out, looking sort of creased or even squished from being pressed against something tightly. She’d have to ask him about preening them later, it didn’t look comfortable.
Though, why was Pyro sleeping in Apo’s nest? Again, he had seemed content with his tower in the vicinity of the rest of them, and who was Apo to disturb somebody’s privacy? He had mentioned struggling with sleep, as did most of the champions after what they witnessed in their new lives. Despite that, he didn’t strike Apo as the kind to curl up next to his allies after a long day of witnessing the horrors.
Pyro wasn’t even wearing armor or thicker clothing, just a light cotton tunic and matching shorts he likely wore under his armor. Apo looked around the room, but apparently he hadn’t brought a sword or shield either, just running through the night from his house. He didn’t even have shoes on or nearby.
None of that answered the question of what he was doing here, however. Apo figured she shouldn’t wake him up to ask him about it, he’d probably get spooked, but she was still curious about why he had curled up next to her. He was probably lonely and needed company; his wings could also be bothering him, Apo knew gaining them had been jarring for her.
She gently carded her hand through his hair, her scarred hands contrasting with his unmarred face, lightly freckled by the sun under close inspection. Up close and asleep, he seemed younger than ever. Though his disposition had always seemed mature, there were moments where he seemed young, as did Apo. But now, his face relaxed and off guard, he seemed even younger than in those moments, his eyebrows uncreased and his face rounder. While awake, Pyro was likely thinking the most out of any champion, strategizing and remembering plans all at the same time as using his powers. Seeing him asleep felt almost wrong, like he was a completely different person.
Apo laid back onto her side, this time with her back to Owen and Sausage, facing Pyro. She folded and tucked one of her wings behind her back, shifting closer until her front was nearly pressed against Pyro’s back, draping her other wing over both of them.
Immediately after Apo lay her wing over his back, Pyro made a small mumbling sound and curled into Apo, nestling himself into her body and under her wing. His breathing was steady, occasionally mumbling or making a small sound but otherwise staying silent and still. Apo found herself draping her arm across Pyro’s side and hugging him close, pressing her forehead to the back of his head.
Some illogical part of her brain wanted to believe that if she pressed herself against him enough, her forehead against the back of his skull, that she could understand Pyro through some kind of telepathy. Understand who he was before washing up on the shores of Styx, understand why he had given the gift of loyalty so unwavering and so quick, why he had encouraged the trickery she employed to get closer to winning when his lady’s wisdom encouraged justice and truth.
She relented the pressure she was putting on his head when it began to hurt, settling for hugging him in even closer with her arm and her wing, breathing a deep sigh into his hair and relaxing even more onto him. Apo missed a warm body next to her, confusing he could be, feeling her body melt into his as she felt fibers once long tight relax, gently reentering the arms of Morpheus.
———————————————————————
Apo stumbled numbly back to the bridge, eyes tired and limbs heavy. She felt sick, bile threatening to rise in her throat with every wrong step or stumble. Every ounce of her wishes she could’ve snapped at Chiron, told him that it wasn’t tactical to let Sausage lose a second chance when she had three left, told him she could hold her own just fine and went of her will, but didn’t. A tactical retreat, she would’ve called it, which is exactly what she did with Abolish; a good warrior knows when they’re beaten. A stupid one keeps fighting knowing that they’ll lose and hoping for a miracle.
All of those thoughts and many others came tumbling out of her mouth before she could mutter them to herself as she tripped and fell on her hands and knees, retching and gagging on her own throat, nothing coming up but small amounts of burning bile. Once the gagging stopped, she started coughing, the saliva in her mouth and throat dried out like she had been mummified instead of stabbed, eyes watering as she tried and failed to stay quiet. Thought the arena’s beckoning was done for the day, it was still night, and Apo knew somebody would make her an easy target.
She let out one last pathetic cough before staggering to her feet, continuing to shamble towards where she prayed her allies were.
Though, it didn’t take long for her weariness to take hold, the stinging in her watering eyes only soothed by the closing of her eyelids. Apo fell to her knees like somebody kicked the backs of them, letting her side take the brunt of the rest of her body falling to the ground, the friction from the ground dragging against her arm not enough to prevent her eyelids from getting heavy, closing them yet again.
A sharp pain pierced through her leg, causing Apo to wrench her eyes open with a scream. Somehow, she was upright now, though, on closer inspection, she realized she was being held up by Sausage and Owen, her right arm on Sausage’s shoulder and her left arm on Owen’s. She could hear yelling behind her, in the direction of where the sharp stinging was in her calf. It was hard to tell, but she could tell Pyro was somewhere in the fray. Sausage and Owen were moving her away from the sound, and when she tried to crane her head back to see what happened, a hand guided it back to looking down.
“HOW DARE YOU-“
A crack of thunder followed a shout from what was likely Pyro, Apo yanked herself from Owen and Sausage’s grasps in response and whipped around, immediately falling onto her face. She jerked her head up to find Pyro swinging his sword in a wide arc in an attempt to hit Abolish and Nikos at the same time, his armor dented and hair frazzled. Abolish’s eyes were wild, his grin manic as he looked past Pyro and directly at Apo. An arrow came close to Apo, but slowed down just before it could hit her thanks to Owen, who picked her up off the ground and dragged her away, digging the arrow already in her calf deeper as she cried out.
“Pyro!! Fall back, FALL BACK!”
Apo’s words came out dry and strained, coughing hard after crying out.
“Don’t you hear that,” Abolish grinned, his voice carrying over the sound of clashing steel, “a little birdie says you should probably fly away.”
Pyro spared a wild look at Apo as she was grabbed by Sausage, moonlight glinting in his eyes as did tears of madness and sorrow. He ignored her cries and threw a spear at Drift, her arrow nocked at Apo, as Sausage leapt away, the scene blurring from distance, dirty smoke from Pyro’s abilities, and tears in her eyes as she weakly tugged at Sausage’s arms.
By the time Sausage arrived back at the bridge, Apo had stopped fighting back at him and hung limply in his arms. Owen had jumped into the fray just as the pair left, leaving Apo alone with her thoughts and Sausage’s silence. He climbed down into the cage beneath the bridge with Apo, gently depositing her on the pile of straw and wool she slept on. Apo lurched upright with a ragged cough, Sausage immediately tipping a bottle of water down her throat.
“I know, coming back is hard,” he softly muttered, helping her finish the bottle, “it’s difficult at first. You’ll get used to it.”
Apo made a small sound, somewhere between a whine and a sob, grasping at his arm as he tried to stand up. She tried to speak, tried to plead, tried to push some kind of human sound out of her undead throat as Sausage gently pulled his arm out of her weak grasp.
“I’m sorry Apo, I know you don’t want to be left alone. I’m going to go get Pyro and Owen, okay?”
All she could let out in response was a small croak, watching him walk away and jump back onto the bridge. Apo’s eyes became heavy again, her heart slowing in her chest as she felt Morpheus’s embrace take hold.
———————————————————————
The first thing Apo heard when she drifted awake was yelling.
She could tell it was happening above her on the bridge, and that it was at least Pyro and Owen, though it was all muffled. A quieter voice spoke up every now and then, likely Sausage.
A few minutes worth of arguing passed by, the voices slowly dying down and eventually going quiet. Then, heavy footfalls and labored breathing made their way down to the cage.
Apo sat up gingerly, watching Pyro enter. He looked horrible, she could’ve guessed he went through just as much as she did upon his revival. His eyes were distant and shadowed beneath his helm, his armor dented and every bit of exposed skin scratched and bruised. As he reached her nest, he fell to his knees, clumsily dropping himself into her arms. The armor dug into her body slightly, but Apo tried her best to hug him close.
“They tried to hurt you while you were down, Apo,” Pyro mumbled, “they…they told us they were doing us a favor. By trying to kill to when you were unconscious.”
“It’s strategic,” Apo softly muttered, “we would’ve done it if it were them.”
Gently, she moved him out of her grasp to sit on his knees in front of her, a small confused noise escaping Pyro’s throat. She shakily reached up to remove his helmet, stifling a snicker at the messy state of his hair. Gently, she removed the clasps on his chest plate, then his wrist guards, setting them carefully to the side.
“Sit on the nest and turn around,” Apo gently said, “remove your sandals too.”
Pyro hesitantly complied, sliding off the plates around his shins and his sandals and putting them in the pile with the rest of his armor. He crawled to Apo’s side, turning around to reveal the sorry state of his wings.
They had grown in the time since Apo had waken up to him at her back, now almost big enough to go down to his elbows if they succumbed to gravity and drooped down. Many feathers were broken and bent out of place, sticking out of his wings at odd angles. Apo hummed softly to herself as she ran her fingers over them, gently plucking a near broken one that stuck out at a strange angle.
Pyro winced as she plucked it out, his shoulders rising and wings bristling.
“Y’know, it wouldn’t hurt if you took care of them.”
“I-I know. I…I couldn’t reach them until now, though I barely even can.”
Apo continued, smoothing down what she could and plucking what couldn’t be saved by gently tucking them back into the angle of the rest of the feathers. After a few minutes of preening, she gently spoke up.
“So…Owen and Sausage?”
Pyro let out a sigh.
“I called Sausage a coward for his inaction at the second blessing today. Though he was valuable in removing you from the onslaught tonight, I believe my life could’ve been spared if he had done someth-aH-“
Apo yanked a particularly stubborn feather, apologetically smoothing over the section with the back of her knuckles.
“You’ve been quick to fight lately, Pyro. I do appreciate it, you are a powerful ally, but it’s best to…save it for the battlefield,” Apo mused, “fighting with each other won’t make us stronger. We need to conserve as much energy as we can, now that so many are against us.”
“I know,” Pyro sighed, “but I think Sausage could pull his weight more. Owen too, even. I feel like you and I are the only ones that really want to win this. Pearl too, of course.”
“All of us do. Just because they aren’t as forward as you doesn’t mean they’re completely unmotivated.”
Silence from Pyro.
“You did good today. Thank you. I appreciate your loyalty.”
When he next spoke, Pyro’s voice was a small, shaking thing.
“‘m glad I could be of use…”
Apo’s brows furrowed, sighing as she moved on to his other wing.
“You’re an invaluable ally, Pyro. Your strategy, your might, your character…I’d have lost all my lives without you at this point,” Apo insisted, “all of us Featherholders appreciate you. We’re proud of you.”
The feather she was trying to smooth down was close to the base of the wing, so close she could feel his back begin to shake and shudder as a stifled sob escaped his mouth. Apo gently moved her hands from his wings to around his waist, resting her head on the nape of his neck.
“Where’d you even get this idea from,” she asked softly.
Another sob from Pyro, this time less restricted. Apo reached a hand up to play with the strands of his hair at the top of his head that couldn’t be braided.
“I-I died before I could fight, a-and we, we used so many supplies, m-my unit,” the words fell out of Pyro’s mouth quicker than he could process them now, “my entire unit died, I-I was the last one, they gave me more food because I was younger-even though we-we died for nothing. I died for nothing, Apo!”
She simply hugged him tighter, bringing him closer to her body.
“You…you didn’t die for nothing…”
“I did a-and-“
“No,” Apo scowled, still gently preening his wing, “you didn’t. You died doing what you thought was right, as did I. Your death was not in vain, Pyro.”
Pyro’s shuddering slowly stilled as she continued her small, soothing touches to his wings, broken up by gently plucking broken or loose feathers. Soon enough, Apo was finished preening Pyro’s feathers, his wings now looking far healthier. She lifted her head off of his neck and sat back, eliciting a small noise from Pyro.
“You can sleep here, you know. I saw that you had a few nights ago.”
Pyro let out a small breath that could be a chuckle.
“Is that why I woke up with you practically on top of me?”
Apo rolled her eyes.
“Don’t make me regret it. Now or never.”
She flopped down onto her back in the nest, Pyro doing the same. Apo spared a glance at his face, his eyes slightly reddened but glimmering with something other than rage, opposite as to earlier. Something like contentment.
“I-I’m sorry if I overstepped that night.”
Apo snickered.
“What?”
Pyro turned to look at her, eyes vulnerable and wide.
“Oh, nothing,” Apo mused, turning onto her side to face him, “you’re very considerate, that’s all.”
He turned onto his side to face her as well, the two of them making eye contact and quietly giggling. Apo gently draped a wing around his body, gently pulling him towards her, to which he complied. Pyro moved closer into Apo’s body, curling himself up and burying his face in her collarbone, letting Apo rest her chin on the top of his head.
Pyro mumbled something against Apo’s skin, something quiet and not meant for her ears.
“Hm?”
“Nothing.”
“Didn’t sound like nothing.”
“…i-it’s nothing.”
A few minutes passed by of breathing and soaking in each other’s presence, letting their breathing sync until it was like they were one many winged creature, until you couldn’t tell Apo’s wings from Pyro’s back and his forehead from her neck. By the time Apo was nearly asleep again, Pyro had gone almost still, his only movement his breathing. She wrapped an arm around him to hold him closer still, pressing a small kiss to the top of his head.
“Good night, Pyro.”