#bdrpapollo

@apollo-aegletus, @calliope-hesiod

They had agreed to allow Calliope to know the truth. 

Artemis still did not know how she felt about this. Apollo had said they must take on their destiny themselves. That it was theirs and theirs alone, but it had never felt that way to Artemis. Nothing they had ever been theirs. Not their home, which had been shared with the Muses. Not their mother, whom their father had always told them was his tragedy more than theirs: he had known her love and lost it, they should not ask him about her, it was too painful to share. Not their powers, the Tribunal told them how and when to use them. Not their destiny, which had been scrutinized and analyzed by the Tribunal. 

To Artemis, this was comforting. Her powers had always felt too big for her anyway. Most of the time, she felt all she was was her powers, instead of her powers being part of her. That was the only thing that had ever been hers, alone: the fear of her touch, how she could hurt someone.

That fear drove her every action. Even now, it made her hesitate. Worry that she was not doing the right thing. They had not told Niobe of their plans, worried that she would tell their father, as was her duty as familiar and their protector. It felt wrong and deceitful to Artemis, who hated feeling wrong or deceitful. 

It was only Apollo’s surety that guided Artemis now, as it always had when Artemis faltered. When she had first taken a life, it had been Apollo who had covered her hands with his own: never afraid, her brave brother. It had been Apollo who told her it was going to be alright. 

He told her this now, shining brighter than Artemis had seen him in a long, long time, as they made their way to the lake, where Calliope would be waiting for them. And when they came upon their little sister, Artemis thought she might, for a moment, have felt what Apollo did. Her yearning for Calliope to smile at her the way she once had, on Piperi, when she would shyly ask if she could read her poetry for Artemis. 

“Hello, Calliope,” she said, without hesitation as they moved towards her. Her eyes searched the girl’s looking for what Apollo had assured her way there. 

In which Apollo, Artemis, and Calliope make plans for their future...[takes place before Apollo...yeeted]

@apollo-aegletus, @calliope-hesiod

[tw -- brief mentions of emotional abuse]

@apollo-aegletus

November in England was full of heavy gloom. Everything was washed of their colours, everything was damp. Artemis dressed in her sheepskin-lined coats and fleece leggings beneath her jeans and still shivered her way through the forest. What she wouldn’t give to be a squirrel, curled up warm in their nests, or a bear, slumbering in their cave.

She was not built for the cold. Artemis liked the sun, the spray of an ocean, the temperature warm and clinging to her skin. 

At least, this year, she was better prepared. Knowing already what the winter would entail. It was not often that they were in one place for long enough to get to know the seasons, but they had been in Swynlake a year now. Even Artemis was growing to like it in a way that she knew she shouldn’t. Hatter always remembered her order, which meant that she did not need to speak when things were intensely crowded and she would rather not do so. Still, she found new pathways, put in place by Swynlake when it was feeling playful. She liked her desk in the Parks and Recreation office, which had a string of lights on it and a smooth velvet cover laid over it, with a picture frame of her mother, brother, and father, when they were all still alive and together in Nigeria. It was at Chen’s insistence that she had finally done this, with Apollo’s help.

She liked her room which faced out into the back garden, where they grew their flowers and vegetables and tended to their chickens and their goats--all of which she’d grown fond of. 

There was Calliope too, whom Artemis saw sometimes. The girl popped up unexpectedly in the forest, and once or twice, in Artemis’ office, with tea for her. There was Lena too, and the little girl Mirium she had met. The mermaids too, whom she was fond of. 

It was all dangerous, but Artemis did not think, on the day to day, about this danger. She slipped into sleepy Swynlake life and she had not thought much about it.

That was, until right now. 

Niobe lifted her head from where she had been dozing in front of the fireplace, which crackled and popped and filled their house with the scent of the holly and rosemary that they were burning on the logs. Artemis and Apollo were sitting on the couch in their pajamas and socks, Apollo having just braided Artemis’ hair, their empty stew bowls in the sink. Rain pitter-pattered against the window pane.

“What is it, mother-wolf?” Artemis asked, noticing their guardian moving towards the door.

“Claudius is here.” Niobe’s tail wagged as she scratched once. 

“Father?” Artemis’ eyebrows raise and she felt her stomach twist as she turned to look at her brother. 

They had not been expecting him.

“Come get the door,” Niobe said in a clipped tone. 

Artemis untangled her legs and stood, moving towards the door quickly and quietly. She pulled it open without hesitation.

“Father?” 

“Hello, my daughter,” Claudius smiled, just briefly, at Artemis before his face fell once more into a serious expression. “Aren’t you going to let your poor father in from out of the cold?”

Artemis stepped wordlessly out of the way.

“Hello, my son,” Claudius repeated, with the same small smile, at Apollo when he spotted him. 

@apollo-aegletus

Artemis had seen the tear in the sky open like a mouth and spit out something into the lake. 

It was a familiar tickle against her skin, like a cross-draft of wind. She felt it every time before she went to court. At first, she had thought, for just a moment, the Tribunal was dropping in for an update. It would not surprise her. They lived only by their own whims and it had almost been a year. Apollo and she were due for a check-in on their progress.

Her stomach had twisted at the thought, seeing as they were no closer to uncovering the secrets of Swynlake then they had been when they’d first arrived. Artemis seemed the only one upset about this fact--

That was a subject for another time.

Now, she had to investigate what the fuck had just happened. 

She knew her brother had sensed the ripple too. There was no way that he wouldn’t have. So, she did not need to call him. If he was at all committed to his job, then he would arrive. Perhaps a few minutes later than herself, but he would come, sparkling and bright and ready to investigate. 

So, instead, her and Niobe headed to the lake, where the tear had first opened. They raced through the underbrush, but by the time they had arrived, all was still and quiet once more, evening settling over Swynlake like a blanket.

She began to pace around the edge of the lake, her strides long and purposefully. Niobe trotted next to her.

It was Niobe who sensed another’s arrival before Artemis did. 

“Greetings, Great Prince,” Niobe called to the boy who had just stepped out of the trees in a shirt hanging off his slight frame. There was a leaf in his hair, a brush of dirt on his cheek. 

His cheeks were flush with color and his eyes were bright. 

“Hullo, Niobe. Artemis,” the Great Prince greeted them, nodding his head in their direction before tilting his head back to the sky. “Did you--see it?” He looked over at Artemis.

Artemis shook her head and flipped around the shaft of her bow in agitation.

“The birds told me of it,” the Great Prince. “Was it--what was it?”

“An inter-dimensional tear, if I had to guess, Your Grace. I have felt them before.”

The Prince squinted at her a little but then nodded.

“What does it mean?” 

Artemis turned a little, sensing her brother approach like bees could sense the proximity of honey. He was close enough that he must’ve heard the Great Prince’s question.

“We are going to find out.” She said this more to Apollo than to the Great Prince.

@apollo-aegletus

The forest was chaos. 

Artemis hadn’t been home in two days. She had made a habit of spending the night in the woods, becoming near nocturnal. Despite the quiet of the woods in the dark, she did not like this. Being away from Apollo for so long was unnatural to Artemis. They had shared a room and then lived across the hall from one another their entire lives. They had never been separated from one another for very long. It left her feeling unbalanced.

Still, it was necessary. For the mission, for the good of the forest.

And if Artemis put anything above herself and her twin and their relationship, it was the forest and the mission. (Though, do not be mistaken. If it ever came down to a choice, Artemis was certain what that choice would be.) 

She had vowed her service to the Young Prince, as she had vowed to his father before him and she took that vow seriously. This forest was not her forest, but that did not mean it did not deserve her protection. 

Though, Artemis had never been in this situation before. It reminded her most closely of Japan and the spirit that had terrorized the town there. However, that had only involved the forest in so far as the spirit came from its depths, the spirit belonged to the forest. The chaos happened elsewhere. The forest was not supposed to be a place of chaos. It was a place of gentle balance. The streams and trees and bees and wolves all working together, the hands on the clock of life, ticking about.

The clock was broken. 

And Artemis needed her brother’s help.

“The Gummi Bears and the Stone Trolls have, from what I understand, a feud that goes back centuries,” Artemis explained as they picked their way through the south of the forest, heading towards the fluctuating border between the two groups--the largest and the loudest of all the dissenters. 

@apollo-aegletus

The ghosts came to her in the early hours of December 8th, whispering of the Ambassador and his pretty little wife. Artemis was already awake, she did not sleep often, nor for long. She did not mind. It was the silver of moonshine in her blood, after all, not the golden of the sun.

In over their heads, the ghosts whispered with their echoing chuckles. Not the first time, not the last. 

Artemis’ curiosity was peaked. Of course, she knew that the Ambassador and his queen (a silly little Mundus thing, which was just bad judgement, really, even if the ghosts did like her, no wonder they were in over their heads) got into all kinds of trouble. They had been involved with that Urania situation, which had left a bad taste in Artemis’ mouth all around. 

She should have known. Apollo should have known. Somehow, they should have known and stopped her.

Live and learn, she tried to tell herself. Artemis was not one to dwell on failures. She used them to fuel her forwards, to strive never to make the same mistakes again. Which meant not trusting people, even if they appeared to be people to trust. The Ambassador and his wife fell under that umbrella.

Artemis was more or less sure that the Ambassador did not have nefarious goals. Why would he own a little bookshoppe and be on the town’s board and have a little Mundus wife? 

Still, it was not so easy to decide what to do. She knew what she could offer them. Just whether or not she should was another thing all together. For days, she rolled the decision around on her tongue, tasting all its different flavors, like the shifting of the winds.

Eventually, she came to her twin, for he was how she made all her final decisions. She had not been keeping the dilemma from him, no--if he had asked what occupied her mind, she would have told him, but Apollo knew that often Artemis had to smooth the journey to these thoughts first, wrestle with them on her own before asking his help. 

Never would she make a decision without him, though.

When she knocked on the door to his bedroom it was dusk, fading quickly and firmly into night. The little house was quiet. She slipped inside the cracked open door without waiting for a reply and crawled onto the bed with him--her tea steady in one hand as she pulled up the covers and tucked them around her.