“I have to see if I’m strong enough,” Meg tells him, explaining why she wants to confront her abuser again. But Apollo already knows that the previous times he wasn’t strong enough. He knows that he’d surrendered. That he’d let himself become complicit. He’d finished his father’s work for him, finished tearing apart everything that made him him, that made him Apollo, with his own hands, until the resulting wreckage was enough to his father’s liking, because it was either living in pieces or not at all. He’d done it with his eyes wide open, not out of ignorance but simply out of sheer impotence. 

Because that is the source of his problems. His impotence before his father, his entire family. And reclaiming his godhood brings him right back in the middle of them. Right back where he started.

But still that’s what he chooses. That’s been his goal from the start and he’s never doubted it, not even for a second. It’s only after he’s achieved it that he allows himself to mourn what he gave up in pursuit of it: the sense of belonging that only people who experience life at the same time, at the same pace, who grow old together, and then die and in death reunite for one final time, can share. The comfort of knowing that the good things he’s built will survive him. 

Apollo started out this story terrified of death, thinking of immortality as a refuge from the responsibility of having to make the right choice, clinging to the certainty it gave him that he would always have another chance, that he’d always have tomorrow to make things right… and in the end, he’s conquered that fear. He’s finally stopped waiting for tomorrow. He’s started making things right today. That’s what allowed him to make peace with the very real possibility that he might die. It’s why he now openly allows himself to long for what Lu has, what all mortals have. You don’t need to fear the end in sight if you know that, in the limited time you had, you’ve done your best. And Apollo has.

But he has not changed his mind. 

“Think of yourself as dead,” recites the maxim by Marcus Aurelius that Apollo remembers by heart. “Now take the rest of your life and live it properly.” 

That is what Apollo really wants. To live properly. So he mourns the things that he lost when he chose to reclaim his own immortality, his own power for himself one final, perhaps definitive time, pulled himself up from that ledge, remade his divinity from scratch out of sheer willpower. He mourns, but he does not regret his choice. Because no matter how tempting it may be, to renounce the immortality that sets him apart from humanity, to renounce the power that makes his father feel threatened, the power to make things right… that would not be to live properly. 

Gods can do anything, even choose to die. It’s the choice that, in different ways, both Hemithea and Harpocrates made. It’s also, in a sense, the choice that Pan, and Helios, and a lot of deities big and small who lost faith, who lost sight of themselves, ended up embracing in the end. It’s a choice that Apollo could also have made, that he also could have embraced. But to Apollo the freedom that mortality would grant him – from his father, from his family, from accountability for his own mistakes, from the responsibility to do more and better – will never be worth the price. 

“Call on me. I will be there for you”. Apollo wants the power to make that promise. 

But even as a god, especially as a god, back in his home that isn’t a home, once again subject to the rules of non interference that in the millennia have been tightened to the point of stifling the gods’ very reason of being: not just the people’s belief in them, but their belief in themselves… does he really have that kind of power? Does he, when even just to go back to visit his children, his friends that he’s made in the brief time he was allowed to walk the earth among them, he already has to lie? 

There’s no answer to that question, no certainty at the end of the story. There’s hope, yes, that this time will be different. That this time Apollo will remember that he is not alone, and allow himself to draw strength from the people who believe in him. That he will be strong enough to reach out again to those who did not have the strength to reach out to him. But there is no certainty. There can’t be. And the truth is, there would not be even if the series ended with the revolution we are all rooting for. As Apollo’s family history demonstrates, it’s far, far too easy for the killing of an old tyrant to give way to the crowning of a new one. 

“Power,” Apollo says, “should make good people uneasy.” And right after he’s reclaimed the power of a god, he is full of uneasiness. He finds that reassuring. But how long before he stops feeling like that, after he’s rid himself of the one person who had the power to oppress him? How long before he forgets what it was like to be under his father’s talon? Eternity is a really long time. Millennia after the fact, Apollo looks at the laurels that his sister’s put on his head, at the hyacinths that adorn the balcony before him, and he wonders whether he really meant for them to commemorate the people they represent, or if he just wanted to wallow in self pity. He’s not sure anymore. Perhaps he’s being unkind to himself, as he tends to do. But with the power of a god at his fingertips, he really can’t afford to be very indulgent with his own flaws, his own weaknesses. 

-

When we arrived back at camp, Dad was back to looking like Lester. I felt my chest tighten as Meg stopped dead in her tracks. Her hand still gripped my wrist as if sensing my pulse. Dad approached slowly, though I wasn’t paying too much attention to the interaction. Meg still held my wrist in an iron grip and my heart was hammering. What if she said something to him? Does she know I never told him?

“Change back”

She stuck out her chin and practically demanded it. Perhaps she’s more perceptive than I thought.

“Meg” Dad hesitated while Meg stood firm, “Are you sure? I don’t want to upset you.”

“Yeah. I mean I have an idea so you won’t stay that way for long.”

She finally dropped my wrist so she could cross her arms over her chest proudly. She oozed confidence while Dad just looked terrified.

“Oh? What exactly is that idea?”

“You’ll see”

Terror was an appropriate response. Meg may be a child, but she truly is an unstoppable force of nature.

-

Meg had somehow managed to get everyone on board. She walked with Kayla who was snickering the whole walk to cabin 7. She somehow managed to communicate her idea to everyone without Dad figuring out what was going on. Even Nico was willing to come along. Dad looked anxious. He looked as if he was trying to figure out the cure for cancer when in reality he was just trying to figure out what his twelve-year-old friend had in store for him. Do gods sweat from nerves, or is that something he picked up from mortality? When we got back I went to lay down on my bed while the others started chaos. After all, today was going to be a long day.

-