#emma bard

The harpies were no doubt watching on somewhere in resignation as their charges added more work to their already never-ending list of cleaning chores to keep the camp safe and hygienic, but to Apollo the sight of green-stained t-shirts, and pants, and even skin, was a beautiful sight.

Demigods were still children, not magically older or more mature than their mortal peers even if their parentage and the world it brought them into forced them into something more aware aged them before their time because if it didn’t it would kill them, and seeing them act like it always settled something in Apollo’s essence.  He wasn’t the god of children, or youth – Hebe would have several unpleasant things to say if he so much as suggested he was - but he was their protector, the protector of not just the young but of their youth.

It was a role he kept failing at, with demigods, as the world kept pushing and pushing.  This camp was the closest he could come to succeeding at it and its success was intermittent at best.

Right now, it seemed like it was succeeding.

Merida giggled as she pushed her twin, who yelped as he overbalanced and grabbed at her in turn as he fell, dragging her down with her.  They rolled down the hill in a mess of limbs and squawking, yelling at each other and humour surrounding them as they went.  A little further along the hill, Kayla threw herself down with abandon, closely followed by Jerry, while Yan took the more sensible approach of laying down before starting to roll.  Gracie was talking quietly with Austin, but both of them were also grass-stained, so they just seemed to be taking a break from the time honoured tradition of children rolling down hills for no reason other than because they could, and because it was fun.

Apollo loved the sight.

More heads came back into view, Will with his arm around Raphael and blond hair threaded through with glimpses of green, the two boys laughing.  Behind them, Alice’s make-up was smeared but she didn’t seem to notice as she goaded Sam into pulling her up the hill, while Emma hung onto her own waist to get dragged up.

None of them noticed him, but that was by design as he faded into the background, content for the moment to watch them play, tumbling down the hill again and again and feeling his essence thrum with pure love.

There was nothing quite like loving his children.  Nothing like being a father to these innocent, battered but not broken demigods.  Apollo loved being a father, always had done even if he usually looked too young to be one, by mortal standards.

He didn’t understand the people who didn’t.

Apollo watched his children play, unaware of their audience, and considered joining them, letting his presence be known.  It had been a little while since he’d last dropped by in person, even if he’d spoken with most of them in their dreams the past couple of evenings.

The scent of ozone, sprites of static brushing against his essence, stopped him before he could make a move.

“You should not be here,” his own father said, sparking into existence.  For Zeus, it was an unusually subtle display of his presence, but Apollo supposed he didn’t want the demigods to notice he’d deigned to make his way into their camp, even if it was only the very fringes of it, standing underneath the boughs of the tree he had once created to prevent his daughter dying entirely.  Apollo was glad of that, too - he didn’t want his children, or any other demigods, realising Zeus was there, either.

It was bad enough that they were in Zeus’ presence, catching his attention, in the first place.  Apollo supposed he hadn’t been subtle enough in his own approach, not if his father had noticed.

Zeus wasn’t looking at his children, though.  Not yet, at least.  Instead, his piercing blue eyes were focused on Apollo himself, which was never a comfortable position to find himself in, but it was better than it being his children.  He wasn’t foolish or naive enough to think that his father wasn’t fully aware of the demigods, and whose children they were, though.

His father didn’t look as stern as Apollo expected him to be, when he met the older god’s gaze with his own, trying to minimise Zeus’ reasons to look to his children.

It was to no avail.  He’d barely made eye contact when Zeus looked away, looking instead at the children who continued to play, oblivious to their grandfather’s presence.  Apollo stifled Lester’s instinct to swallow, to show nervousness.

“Although,” Zeus continued, as though there had been no pause, not giving Apollo time to scramble to come up with an answer that would both appease his father and not put his children in more danger than they already were, “it is a father’s prerogative to watch over his children.”

There had never really been a hope that Zeus wouldn’t know exactly who he was looking at.

Those bright blue eyes, so much like Jason’s except Jason had been a mortal and his father was the king of the gods with windows to an essence of an eternal storm, whirling and flashing for millennia, much like the storm on the surface of the planet named for his Roman form, glanced back at Apollo again, and he felt seen in a way he didn’t want to be, not by this god, of all beings.

“In that, we are not so different, you and I,” his father commented, and Apollo had to fight to supress the unease that rippled through his essence.  “Watching over our children, guiding them… making sure they take the right path, against all other temptations.  Those are a father’s duty.”

“I agree.”  It wasn’t something Apollo could deny, wasn’t something he’d argue with his father about, not when his children were right there.

Zeus smiled, and it made him look benevolent.  Kind.  The way Apollo remembered him from his youth, before he learnt that storms were unpredictable and it didn’t matter how pretty the sky was when the lightning struck.  He didn’t know why Zeus was showing him those same pretty skies now.

It felt like a warning.

“I cannot stop you from being a father,” the older god told him, “but you must remember, Apollo, that demigods are mortal.  They are not gods.  Their lives flicker for less than a century before they disappear forever.”

That, felt like a threat.

“I know, Father,” he said, not even risking a glance towards the slope of the hill, although it didn’t stop him being aware of Kayla throwing herself back down again, and the shrieks of laughter that accompanied it.

“A father guides, but he knows when to step back,” Zeus said, as though he hadn’t said anything at all.  “Remember that, too, my son.  Do not linger - and I am sure I do not have to remind you of the Laws.”

He disappeared in another crackle of ozone, before Apollo could even digest the words, but Apollo was under no illusions that he was still being watched.  There could be no visiting his children today, not now.

Not while Zeus was watching… and Zeus was always watching.

Watching, and judging, ready to correct his children’s paths if they strayed.  Apollo watched Gracie push Austin down the hill and surprised a wince as he recalled falling himself, no doubt pushed by his father for all he still didn’t remember it.

He tried to imagine doing that to his own children, remembered Hal and the way he’d had to give him a gentle push before Zeus interceded and pushed harder, tried to imagine pushing any of them hard of his own volition.  He failed.

Guiding his children?  Yes.  But he couldn’t conceive of doing to his children what his father had done to him.  Not even his immortal ones, the ones that wouldn’t flicker and fade within a century.  He couldn’t imagine how Zeus had done it.

Sometimes, it made him want to hate his father.  Olympus knew Zeus’ treatment of him wasn’t right, that the Apollo of old, before the Ancient Laws and his own father’s threats of punishment, would’ve punished parents for if they’d done it to their children.  Apollo didn’t know if Zeus loved him, any more.  He thought he had done, once upon a time, but now?  Now, it was difficult to tell.

Now, it didn’t matter.  Zeus could love him with the strength of a thousand suns and it wouldn’t change anything, because his actions and words were angled to control, to punish, to hurt, regardless of the intent behind them.

The same way, it didn’t matter that Apollo still loved Zeus, that even now, standing in the shelter of Thalia’s tree and watching the children that his father may or may not have just subtly threatened, he couldn’t take back the centuries of love that he’d poured into his father.  He feared him, distrusted him, at times resented him… but he still loved him.

He always would, he knew, and it felt like a betrayal to his own children that he could love the god that would snuff their lives out with a single thunderbolt if the mood struck him – the god that had done that exact same thing before.  It felt like he shouldn’t love them both, but he did.

It didn’t matter, though.  It didn’t change anything.  Apollo had loved Commodus – still, deep inside his essence, loved him despite everything he’d done.  That hadn’t stopped him from killing him twice; if anything, it had spurred him on to end him with his own hands, rather than let anyone else take his life.

Loving his father wouldn’t stop him from doing what he needed to do.  Maybe he couldn’t stop loving him, but he could still choose his children over him.