a wandering bard

@jovestice

“Whoa, JJ! Don’t hold it so close to yer face!”

“Those Dragon Snot Snaps’ll snap yer eye right out!”

Apollo’s heart leapt unexpectedly at the mention of Jove’s family. Logically, of course, he would have parents and other kin, but to hear him say it made the implications sink in further: whatever relatives Jove had, so did his son. Until a short while ago, just the thought of learning anything about his parents felt like more family history than Apollo could ever hope for… but here was his father, casually confirming the existence of his grandparents, his aunts and uncles. Maybe he even had cousins! That revelation hit harder than it should have.

But he stayed quiet for the moment, intent that he not miss a word. Hearing about his mother hurt, too… not learning that she had been absent (like that changed anything), but hearing Jove’s voice catch when he spoke of it, hearing how much he believed in her… how much she cared about them both. With what little stake he put into that kind of thing it had never seemed important before, but after Dhurke and Amara, knowing that his parents loved each other just made this all so much more tragic.

They should have been happy.

“Thalassa? Is that her name?” He’d gone so long believing that he’d never know, that his mother would always just be a blank space and a question mark, that it was surreal to be able to refer to her by name. Not that it wasn’t still impossible to find out what had happened to her, but… how many Thalassa Justices could there be in the world? At the very least, it was a bigger clue than he ever thought he’d get. “I’m sorry. I know it’s messed up that have to ask, but all of this is news to me.”

The run-away marriage and Thalassa’s possible capture– it all seemed so dramatic. He could tell that Jove’s father-in-law was a sore subject, but it raised so many questions… and highlighted just how little he knew about what their lives had been like. He scooted closer, in case Jove found this too difficult to discuss – but he had to hear more.

“I-if it’s okay, can you… tell me what she was like? Or how you met? Or– or anything?“ A pining desperation surfaced in his gaze as it hit him that everything he could ever wonder about where he came from could potentially be answered right now, if he asked the right questions. But there was so much – where did he start? “I don’t even know where you’re from– or where I’m from!”

   No, no--it’s alright. [ he supposes it’s only natural. if apollo didn’t know his father, he can’t have known his mother either. it hurts to see his son respond in such a way, but he does his best to keep that in mind. ] And yes, that is her name. Or--was, perhaps. [ he finds it much too unsettling an idea that thalassa might also be dead. ]

        [ but almost immediately he lights up--the want for more knowledge of his origins was enough to distract jove from the fist tightening around his heart when he thought of thalassa. ]              Of course! I’ll--I’ll tell you everything you want to know. [ this...this is the real jove justice. a man with a burning passion for life, for the world around him. someone who could get along with just about anyone, willing to share everything he could if only asked. ] Where to start... [ he trails off in greek, muttering about where to begin. finally he decides, and starts in on his tale. ]

       [ he begins with his own origins--of his small but happy world in athens, where he was born. of his two brothers and lone sister, of his parents. of years spent mastering the guitar, and getting his parent’s blessing to leave, to wander the world with only his instrument. ]              [ he doesn’t say much about his time wandering, only that he earned what he could and made his way to america, to california. it is here that the story introduces apollo’s mother. ]

Apollo was quite used to this, and even as he pretended to take offence and defiantly squirm out of Jove’s bear-hug, he was still happy for these moments. Not all of his classmates were so close to their parents; no matter how embarrassingly mushy he sometimes got, at the very least Apollo’s father never failed to make him feel loved, and he was thankful for that.

He sat back down to his homework, still smiling as he took a cupcake for himself. “I’m just gonna have one, promise,” he said. Though, if dinner took too long, he might need another to tide him over… and he would deserve one as a reward for finishing his math questions, too… and then another when he was done his science reading… – he was good at coming up with excuses to eat cupcakes.

“Mmh, class was just the same-old today, but, ah…” His excitement over his treats out of the way, Apollo remembered what he’d been planning to discuss with his father when he got home. He sounded unsure; he rarely seriously pursued any of his interests outside of music, and was worried about wasting time that could be spent practicing on an unimportant passing fancy. “Sign-ups for the debate team start next week, and I was thinking about trying it out…? It sounds like fun and it’d look really good on my transcript. But… they meet on band days, so I can’t do both–”

  [ he turns to the rest of the kitchen as apollo settles in, starting to think of what to make but listening closely to what his son said. jove begins pulling ingredients seemingly at random, pausing as he thinks. ]          [ when apollo pauses in his words, jove looks up, a little concerned. he certainly hoped it wasn’t anything bad--he’d gone to the school office more times than he cared to admit, heard about too many scuffles. jove hated those times, because he often felt as if everything he did was only laughed at. they’d been shown out after jove had managed to make things even worse...and he hated it. so his heart starts to climb up to his throat, hoping that this wasn’t something like what he usually heard. ]

        [ but it’s not, and he lets out a small sigh of relief. ] Debate? I remember you saying you’d like to try that out. [ his son’s newfound interest in debate was not the first interest he’d had aside from music. jove always did what he could to support his son, no matter what. ]              [ though, part of him has been worried for some time that he has been holding apollo back from what he could be truly great at. apollo is a good guitarist, yes, but sometimes jove wonders if he forced music on the boy. he knows that isn’t the case, but he can’t help but wonder about it. what if he was meant to do something else entirely...? perhaps it was time to let the baby bird try flying on his own. ]

Thalassa smiled her warmest smile yet; he was just incredible, wasn’t he? Always thinking of her first, putting her ahead of himself. Nobody had ever done that – she knew it was selfish, but for the moment, she couldn’t get enough of this kind of love. Of course, at the same time, reciprocating came easy, she felt the same way, she wanted Jove to have everything he wanted – and it seemed that all he wanted was her.

“I already told you that I just want to go with you,” she said softly, leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek. “Wherever you’d like to go, I’ll always be by your side.” It was like they had the whole world at their fingertips, all it took was a decision of which direction to take. It could be anything. Though then, she hesitated for one small moment, voice dropping a little lower as she said, “I’d like to go as far as possible before we stop.” If only there was a way to make sure nobody followed them.

  [ he leaned gently into her when she kissed his cheek, relishing the feeling. gods above, how he adored her... he hummed quietly for a moment in agreement, clearly pleased with her answer. ]         Καλώς. [ he hears her request--and instantly he knows where to go. he will drive and drive and drive, just as she wants. he’d steal the moon if she asked. ] ...have you ever lost yourself in the stars?

“… That’s a long time away,” Apollo complained. In the grand scheme of things, eight or nine wasn’t that far off at all, but to his mind it might as well be a lifetime… not that he could really do anything about it. “How come you had to wait so long? You’re the best ever!”

Jove had been an amazing guitarist for as long as Apollo had been alive, which meant that it had to have been that way forever. He’d learn otherwise eventually, but he was still deeply convicted in his erroneous kid-logic for the time being.

Following his father’s instructions carefully, he followed the string with his finger up the the proper peg and twisted it a half-turn in the right direction. “Is it fixed now?” he asked, but in his haste he didn’t wait for an answer before he plucked the next string and started turning its key the same way. “I’ll fix the rest of the strings, too! Watch!”

   [ jove can’t help but laugh quietly at apollo’s insistence that his father was, and always had been, the best guitarist ever born. he ruffles the boy’s hair gently. ] Ah, well. I wanted to be sure I played just as well as the great guitarists I grew up listening to. That way I could blow them out of the water. Maybe if you do the same, you’ll be better than even me. [ he winks. ]

   [ he supposes this isn't anything new to him; he's been a roving musician for years, living from meal to meal, scraping by as best he can. he'd hoped that once apollo was born this wouldn't have continued, but given the chaos in the royal city of khura'in, it's to be expected. going into hiding with dhurke sahdmadhi and the defiant dragons wasn't quite what jove expected to happen to him, but he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to repay the man who had saved the lives of both himself and his son. ]         [ the money he got playing outside the market is good, and he's made enough to get plenty of food for the group. so he can't complain about having to duck into alleyways so he can get home. ]

Apollo stayed still and respectfully allowed his father the moment to cry and collect his thoughts. His own eyes prickled with welling tears at the sight of him, his throat closed painfully tight as he kept them back, but there was far too much to be said still to let himself break down yet. Besides, the last thing Jove had seen before he died was his son crying; he didn’t deserve to be subjected to it again.

The smile was unexpected, but still warmed Apollo’s heavy heart, making it harder still to compose himself. Jove had every right to mourn after what he had just been told, and to resent him for bringing his spirit here only to break his heart… yet, he was forgiven for doing so. His father was happy to see him, wanted to talk to him.

Now to hope that he didn’t make him regret it.

He nodded slowly against the hand on his face, unused to the touch but not resisting it. “I’ll tell you anything you want,” he promised softly. He didn’t want to deliver any more bad news, but whatever Jove wanted to know, he deserved to hear… and Apollo needed a break from leading the conversation.

His bracelet was such a permanent fixture that he’d forgotten it was there, that it could hold meaning to the deceased until the man touched it, focussed on it. It was an artifact of the short time he’d spent with his birth parents… the only one he had. Maybe it was poignant that he was still wearing it when they reunited, but he couldn’t quite read Jove’s reaction to it; too late now, but it might have been better to keep it out of sight until the right moment.

‘What happened’ was a very broad question with many varyingly convoluted answers, so he only addressed the most specific enquiry. “Dhurke Sahdmadhi is the one who took me in after you died. All of your effects burned in the fire, so he had no way to identify you or any idea who your next of kin was… and Her Mercifulness had just been abducted, so the whole country was in an uproar. If anyone was looking for me, they would’ve been drowned out by the unrest.”

More bad news, and only to beget more. Jove was probably hoping he’d lived with his mother (whoever she was), or his grandparents, or some other relative. Maybe he’d even had legal godparents. In any case, he certainly hadn’t lived the life Jove would’ve imagined for him in his absence.

“Shortly after that, Dhurke was framed and found guilty of assassinating the queen, so I lived in hiding with him and his son in the mountains for a while. But, ah…” Apollo hummed and sniffled a little; he was still dealing with this bit. Learning that Dhurke’s intentions had been good unfortunately didn’t do a perfect job of erasing fifteen years’ worth of emotional baggage, believing he’d been heartlessly abandoned. “… But he was organizing a revolution, and he thought I’d be safer away from Khura’in. He took me to America when I was nine and, well… I wasn’t so much ‘raised’ by anyone after that as I was passed like a hot potato down a long line of babysitters, but they did a good enough job taking care of me until I aged out of foster care and started living on my own.“

All told, he didn’t have an unhappy childhood. Unstable and unusual and not easy, but he’d come out of it mostly okay. Still, he could only look apologetic when he caught Jove’s eye again, and wonder how much more idyllic it might have been. “Do… do you think anyone was trying to find me back then? My mother…?”

    [ he waits and lets apollo finish his tale before speaking, drinking in the information and thinking it over before answering. ]

       [ it seemed he owed dhurke sahdmadhi a debt he could never hope to repay--it was one thing for the man to save his infant son, but it was another to raise him, even if for a short time. perhaps he could find the man and thank him properly for doing something like that for a man he barely knew, being channeled as he was. he would have to ask apollo where to find him. ]              [ the news of the uproar in the country does make jove uneasy--had thalassa come back to them, only to be unable to find them? unable to find any news on her husband and child in that sort of chaos? did she even know that jove was dead? this settles in his chest like a knot as he realizes it. and what of his family...? what of his parents, the brothers and sisters still living in greece? were they still looking for him? or had they given up hope? did apollo have any idea of who his family was? ]

       I'm--I'm just glad to see you here before me. You--you've certainly managed to do well even with all of this. [ that's all he can think to say. that his son was faced with such adversity for so long...gods, he wishes he had been there, that thalassa or his family could have taken over where jove had failed. but the important thing is that his son has grown into what he can only assume to be a good man. ]

Apollo hummed as his father tried to re-frame what he had just said. He was old enough to concede, but still dislike it when he was told to be patient; of course he’d get better if he practiced as long as Jove did, but that was a really long time. Dads were old. He didn’t want to wait until he was old to be good at playing guitar – he wanted to be good now.

“How long do I have to learn the basics for?” he asked, still frowning against the hand on his cheek. “When did you stop playing the basics, Papa?”

If Jove had started around the same age as his son, he’d make a pretty good benchmark for progress milestones, right? Apollo already thought of himself as another, littler Jove… or at least a little someone who would grow up just like him.

A little more unsure than before, he did as he was told, cradling the instrument in his lap with the frets clear. He tentatively plucked the fattest string, just once, before looking up questioningly. “… Like that?”

    [ music was tough. jove had never claimed it was easy, of course; sometimes he still had to go back and refresh his memory on a lot of things. he doubted that was what his son would want to hear, but it was the truth. ]         You never stop playing the basics. [ he says it kindly. ] You just start playing other things that make the basics sound a little less boring.

     [ likely not the answer his son wanted...oh well. ] But I was about eight or nine, I think, when I started playing harder things.

His father’s affection was all that could curb Apollo’s enthusiasm – not the kiss but the words that accompanied it. “Ack–! I keep telling you, I’m not little anymore!” he insisted, though his smile didn’t fade. He stood on his toes and held his index finger and thumb the tiniest bit apart to show Jove. “I’m this close to hitting my growth spurt!”

He gave him a brief, tight hug regardless with an equally quick “You’re the best, Pop” in Greek, before turning around and cracking open the container on the table. He held a tiny cupcake out to Jove. “You get the first one.”

As a boy who was Definitely-Going-To-Hit-His-Big-Growth-Spurt-Any-Day-Now, Apollo could and would demolish a tray of cupcakes on his own before dinner, which was a little unfair to the person who had paid for them (and for dinner). At least he knew himself well enough to try to exercise some self-control.

   [ the protesting only made the elder justice laugh, gathering apollo up in his arms and squeezing. ] Maybe~ Or maybe you'll be my little one forever~         [ he can't help teasing. and his son knows he's just trying to be silly anyway, so if he just gets a laugh out of it he'll be satisfied. ]