we're walking on sunshine!

       Iris appeared as she always did; in a short-lived blaze of vibrant color, the small woman burst into existence. Usually, this was preoccupied with a loud squeal of greeting, multiple new fun facts she’d just learned, completely unnecessary gossip, a wail as to why on earth am I still single I think I’m sorta cute don’t you and a complaint about her harpy sisters. However, this time, the rainbow goddess remained unnaturally dead silent. 

      She stiffly handed Zeus some letters, her face stony hard. --Iris looked practically ill, actually, nearly sick. 

Was he sorry about that? Not really. “That’s the most attractive sounding he’s been in literal centuries. Honestly, whenever I picture him now, all I’m going to see is a giant floating butt. Maybe some wings.” 

Granted, a giant floating butt did have some important physiological questions. What did the back of a butt look like? Apollo mentally shrugged; the poetic irony of Zephyrus becoming the embodiment of the ass he was was too good.

      "It'd be peachy keen if we could talk 'bout literally any person ever that isn’t-- again, your words, not mine-- my deadbeat husband, Apollo. That’s been the policy since he married Chloris without even lettin’ me know ‘bout her, much less the fuckin’ wedding.”

“How the heck should I know? I’m not a climate god. That sounds like a question for Dad, or for any of the wind dudes he’s got working for em. I know every time your deadbeat husband farts by it gets a little warmer. Maybe the butt he tooted out of makes things warm.”

      "I appreciate you callin' him the god'a wet farts, Apollo, but I was originally hopin’ that this lunch break would be a nice, quiet time to myself ‘nd now I’m thinkin’ about my-- your words, not mine-- deadbeat husband farting.”

“Ok, first off, you know that’s not true. You know exactly why its a bad idea for random people to drive the Sun around. Second off, its not like I dont trust you, I just know how difficult the Sun Chariot and the Sun Horses are. My first day on the job, I accidently melted some of the glaciers in North America and set off a minor extinction of large mammals on that continent.” Stupid Roman downsizing, giving him Helios’ job when he didnt want it–

 He shot a glance over at the expensive looking Lamborghini he’d parked on the street, the one with the awesome flame paint job and sick rims. Mortals would see a fancy sports car. Apollo wasnt really concerned about one of those mortals trying to take a joy-ride, the Mist would take care of that. But an immortal was a different story.

 “Uhhhhh, Iris. I’m really not supposed to let other people behind the controls here. You do remember what happened to Phaethon, right?”

      Phaethon was definitely a fair point, but Iris was by no means going down without a fight if it meant she could stop climate change and sweating in one go. 

@colourphone has stolen a rose

      𝕵eanne Marie and her brothers were all staring at the horizon or what for them had come to count as the horizon, where the castle grounds reached whateve real world lay beyond their prison.

Their was a something flying out there. At first it had seemed to them some kind of colorful bird, now they weren’t sure. A fairy perhaps? Come to inspect their imprisonment?

      It hadn't been a good day for Iris-- There were always angry air and water spirits, the sky nymphs and river gods of the past that despised her for choosing the gods over the Titans, from whence her family had come. It had been thousands of years, but none could hold a grudge further than betrayed immortals. 

Yikes. Apollo gave a small sympathetic chuckle, and decided that was something he wasnt going to step into the middle of.

“Listen, if I was able to control it, then I never was taught. This job didnt even come with an instruction manual, let alone proper training. All I know how to do is cool it down enough that I can park it on ground without setting the planet on fire. And trust me, you think its hot now, try sitting in the middle of the sun all day.”

Not that Apollo actually knew what that felt like. Because of his job, he’d become immune to any source of heat, an ability that rivaled even Hephaestus. 

      "Oh, you were never taught?!” Iris huffed, getting off the park bench and rising to her full height of 5′1″. “That’s no excuse, Apollo! You’ve had thousands’a years! Lemme at the stupid chariot. I wanna see if there’s nothin’ I can’t figure out.”

“I honestly had no idea you were even around until you started complaining at me. I’m here for a poetry festival. Special invitation from a poetry goddess I bumped into at another festival in Zurich. If you wanted to drop in on the fun, I’m sure Brigid wouldnt mind it.

“As for the heat, I cant do anything about that. I control the fire of the chariot, and the light of the sun, that’s not really the same thing as the outdoor temperature.”

     "I'm sure Brigid would mind it. Last time I was around her, I spent the whole time tryna see if I could speak in an Irish accent like hers ‘nd if she wouldn’t notice. But she did, like, right off the bat. She doesn’t like me a whole lot, nah.”

“its summer.” He said, as if that made it perfectly obvious why he was standing here. “You know what’s here almost all day in the summer? The Sun. Believe it or not, I do do my various jobs. You just happened to be where I was driving my Chariot. Actually, for that matter, I’m mostly wherever the sun is during the day. One of the perks of the job Helios forgot to tell me about.” To be fair to the sun titan, Helios hadnt really left any instructions for Apollo. The younger god had just woken up one day, found the mantle of the Sun Charioteer waiting for him, and had to go to work.

The first few years were kind of brutal with a stiff learning curve.

       “I could run twenty million trillion bazillion jillion miles ‘nd you’d still be there. I dunno if there’s even that many miles at all, but I sure could run ‘em, ‘nd you’d still be there. I swear, it’s worse than that phase when Hermes was a kiddo ‘nd only wanted Auntie Iris as babysitter.”