#apprentice apollo

“I’ve tried to let them remember only some things, Apollo, even the smallest things, but it ends the same.” Asra explains on, resigned and worried. His tears have since stopped, only a tired sting in his eyes left. “If I even try to bring back their memories once more... I don’t know that they’ll survive it again.” 

“...And so everything they’ve known...? Our mother, the shop, you, me...” Apollo is bright-eyed, tears forming at the edges of his eyes, as his shoulders slump at the realization. He leans on a wall of the shop, this shop that the twins had all but grown up in. 

“Gone.” Asra swallows hard, his own memories with Artemis now only his own and it hurts, “I will find a way to fix this, but until then, we cannot risk them.” 

It hurts. To know they won’t remember, for a long time if ever. It hurts to see the light gone from their eyes when they do. It hurts to have to be a stranger. 

Apollo’s sighs with a shudder, shutting his eyes tight and turning his head down. Tears fall, his shoulders shake, his hand comes up to cover his sobs. Sorrow radiates from him, his empathy magic never fully wrangled in. Asra’s known Apollo just as long as Art, even if he’s not as close to him as the older twin. While the Spyra twins are not identical, they look too much alike as it is. 

It all compiles to break Asra’s heart that much more, what little pieces of it remain. 

Apollo wipes at his face and looks back up, “H-how... How does Art live then? They stay who they are and not... just nothing, but if they don’t remember their life before that, how--” 

“I think I can be there to help them along, slowly. Help them run the shop, remember how to control their magic, maybe it can bring them back. If I keep some... distance, they shouldn’t be in danger. But if they see you and try to remember you and your mother, Apollo...”

“...It could be too much.” Apollo finishes, and his still watery gaze falls to the floor. 

A long moment of silence passes before Asra breaks it, just a whisper into the air of the dim shop, “I’m sorry.” 

Apollo gives a humorless laugh, a sad smile, “So am I. You mean a lot to them too, y’know.” 

Apollo takes a deep, shaky breath, stands from the wall and hugs Asra tightly, “Take care of them. You and Faust both, keep them from doing too many dumb knife tricks or making dumb, deadly potions, just... Help them, As.” 

Asra hugs Apollo back, ignoring the faint wetness of more tears on his shoulder, “I will, Apollo.” 

When they let go long moments after, Apollo sighs again, pats his face to try and reign himself in. He begins roaming the shop --once their mother’s, now Artemis’s-- and starts picking up items here and there. Asra recognizes them each as childhood trinkets, journals and more. Things with memories that Apollo fears will be too much.

Asra watches him, and listens to him hum a lonesome lullaby, sobs interrupting the melody frequently as he shakes. The last thing Apollo takes is the telescope, hidden in the corner of the kitchen. Their mother’s most precious item as she taught her twins about the stories in the stars-- the constellations and gods of their old country hidden in the night sky. 

There was something that happened-- skirmishes between common folk and nobility maybe, or nobility against each other-- but either way Maia decided she would not see her children (who possibly were conceived out of wedlock, which might have also been a problem) grow up in the strife, so to Vesuvia she went, with but some money stolen from family and enemy alike, clothes on her back, and as much as she could carry to take care of her tiny twins in the trip to the city-state. She found work with an old widower in his herbal shop, a kind of grumpy man with little family of his own left, but had a secretly soft heart as Maia worked so hard to make the shop better. He died peacefully after some years, when the twins were about 10, and the shop was left with Maia.

Apollo and Artemis were named as such because those names might (still) be the names of the Sun and Moon as celestial beings respectively, or at least... Vesuvian translations/variations? Of the names for the sun and moon. If it’s a different language they speak there (and probably is), there is a definite accent Maia had that has passed to her two kids, though Artemis and Apollo both are much more fluent in Vesuvian, as they’ve lived most all their lives there.

The twins themselves aren't as receptive/religious? As their mother was abt all this, but they'll still curse "by the stars!" or similar in place of "oh my god(s)". They still observe some of the major holidays, to a degree, but don’t like... go to any form of church/mass? If there is one in the religion and one such place in Vesuvia... there probably is a small community of folks who also are from that far-off country and ran to now live in Vesuvia, within which Art and Apollo have friends and/or folks who remember them as cheery and stubborn children and saw them grow up... Mourned the loss of their mother, sent condolences and sorrows. 

The twins also have a telescope, a delicate and well-made thing Maia either brought with her, or saved up and bought once they got there, for the three of them to stargaze. It's... been some time since either twin has used the telescope because it brings on nostalgia and sadness, reminding them of their mother. It sits in a corner of their room in the shop (whichever becomes Asra’s apprentice) 

Aside from the community of refugees and runners worshiping the stars, both twins found their own places in the world, before taking the store on their mother’s contraction of the Red Plague. 

Apollo loved to see street performers, and also snuck into fine bars even when he was too young to be among the crowds of the drunk, to see well-known musicians and dancers. He so badly wanted to be a source of joy to the masses. He took to playing flute, and then lute, and looked to play more string instruments, practiced enough he thought he was good. But... when he was young, he was also very sensitive and naive, and when he first tried to perform publicly, he found they weren’t... very kind. Not that he was heckled by a crowd, some liked him fine, but other performers were found this young and starry-eyed newbie a novelty. 

Took some tears, time, and rough lessons from a little worse sides of town, but Apollo gradually fit in. Learned many groups of musicians were also thieves and liars, using charm as distraction to cut purses and the like. Apollo ended up picking up these skills of his own to make his own way when he was older. He’s become exceptionally good at smiling and charming and not telling what he actually thinks of anything despite how much he talks, unless he wants to tell you. A lethal combination to his natural inclination to empathy. 

If Apollo’s the one to take the shop, he misses the life, but gave most of it up to maintain his mother’s shop and its (and consequently, her) reputation. He does good to promote the shop sometimes though with his music and singing and poetry. 

Artemis never quite fit in with the city, the hustle and bustle overwhelming, even on good days. Instead, they found peace among books, learning of nature and plants and far off nature. When old enough, they wandered away through the city and found more comfort and peace in the outskirts, with farmers and forests and many of the things they read about. There were hunters, hunters of wild game and providers for the city beyond the farms, and Art took to all of this. To survival, to hunting, to battle. They took up bow and arrow and knife throwing and took work as a farmhand and learned more about herbology than their mother had already taught them, and then found a group to hunt with.