#sierice

Dionysus was just putting on his usual stink, not that his little brother’s comments didn’t sting a little. Aphrodite’s cute comment was the best he would get in this form. She was pissed at him anyways because he hadn’t dated anyone in almost six months.

“Ignore him, you know D has been sober too long.” Artemis appeared, also human sized, across from him on the arm of his throne.

“You know I love you Artemis, but please get off my throne, you’re gonna stink it up with all your moon cooties.” He could feel her energy seeping into it and brushing up against his own in an uncomfortable way. He probably could have been nicer about it, but he was already feeling off from the solstice.

She hopped off the arm and went to her fifteen foot size. “Cooties aren’t real, brother.”

“I’m the god of medicine I could make them real.”

“That’d be fun, I’d definitely get more hunters that way.” She walked across the aisle to her throne and sat down.

Apollo strummed a chord on his lyre, the highest string was the tinniest bit sharp, the kind of thing Apollo was sure only he could hear, but it still bugged him. In the past he would usually tune with a wave of his hand, but ever since he had to painstakingly tune his ukulele every day as a mortal, he found comfort in the practice.

Hades stalked past followed by Demeter, they were arguing, as usual, “And you even cheated on her! She doesn’t deserved to be stuck down there with the likes of you and that son of yours.”

“Don’t talk about my son that way! And besides Persephone has grown quite fond of him, she’s planning a surprise birthday dinner for him next month.”

Demeter scowled.

“Nico’s actually a pretty nice kid Demeter.” Apollo said. Hades looked shocked, and a bit relieved.

“See even the sun and healing god, who am I most antithetical to likes my son.” Hades smirked and headed to his temporary seat.

“Oh. Apollo I didn’t see you there. Why are you mortal sized?” Demeter looked at him.

“More room in the chair.” Apollo shrugged, “And you shouldn’t pass judgement on demigod’s you’ve hardly even seen, let alone met. Although, I guess that would apply to your kids too. Meg’s still waiting on thirteen years of birthday presents.”

“Her birthday is not until next week. I planned on paying her a visit then, since it is not my busy season.” She frowned, as though she was considering going to harass Hades more, and then turned back to her throne.

Demeter had become much more wary of him since he returned, for good reason. He knew Meg probably wouldn’t talk to her even if she made an effort, but Meg also wanted to meet her. Apollo made a mental note to be with Meg on the whole day of her birthday, just in case he needed to tell Demeter to go home.

Apollo made an adjustment on his lyre and the chord rang out perfectly as he strummed it. He looked around the room to get a sense of when the meeting would start. Athena was calmly knitting, Artemis counting her arrows for what was probably the thousandth time, and Aphrodite was now sulking in her throne.

Apparently it was one of those years where both Hephaestus and Ares weren’t speaking to her since they looked like they were getting on better than normal. Ares was standing by Hephaestus’ throne and they were talking about something. Probably the world’s next new weapon of mass destruction, as if the mortals or demigods needed more of those.

Dionysus and Hermes were playing catch down at their end of the throne room. Only two years ago Apollo would have been a part of that game. The ball was almost the size of his current torso.

He could join the game, it wasn’t one of his bad routines as a god. The game helped him out of his darkest-day-of-the-year-induced slump. It had actually been a good way of bonding with his brothers. It was the twenty minutes of the year that at least a small part of Hermes wasn’t focused on messages in some way. The twenty minutes of the year Dionysus didn’t seem irritated with his punishment.

Sometimes they even got Artemis to join and she enjoyed showing off her trick shots.

A wave of air that smelled like rotting fish wafted over. If Poseidon had arrived, that meant Zeus’ fashionably late arrival, with Hera on his heels was soon.

Apollo should probably look more meeting presentable than a mortal sized teenager on a god sized throne.  He sighed and willed himself to be fifteen feet tall and to look like what the others expected Apollo to look like.

Dionysus had been right, his mortal look was unprofessional for a god.

Zeus appeared in a crack of thunder with Hera at his side and Apollo did his best not to flinch. He might not mind having human instincts still, but the Olympians surely would notice, and he’d rather if most of them didn’t.

“You know, talking to yourself is usually not a good sign, mentally speaking.”

Apollo jerked up, and he could’ve sworn that his powers had made a brief comeback with how high he had jumped.

“D-Dionysus?”

“What, do I look like anyone else?”

Considering the form he was in — a portly middle aged man holding a diet coke — Apollo was tempted to say yes, but honestly, he could do without being cursed with visions of mad insanity or leopard print shirts for the rest of, oh, forever. (The first and last time he ever wore a leopard print shirt was during John Deacon’s 23rd birthday party, Never again.)

“What are you doing here?”

“Could see you being all mopey from all the way there, just came to see what it was about.”

Apollo scowled. “Yeah, well, not much to see here.” It’s more likely that Dionysus came to tease him about how pathetic he probably looked right now. “You know, facing past abuse is usually not an advisable idea. In fact, it’s strongly recommended that you distance yourself from it as much as possible.”

Apollo stilled. Had Dionysus been listening in on their conversation? Was he offering advice?

Dionysus continued. “But in the case that it is necessary, it's advisable to face it with someone else by your side.”

Apollo’s eyebrows floated up somewhere to the heavens. There was no way Dionysus would be giving advice like that without some sort of ulterior motive.

But… the reasoning behind his little speech was sound, to be honest.

Maybe I’ll give him the benefit of doubt, Apollo decided.

Dionysus huffed, as if sensing his thoughts. “Just stating my opinion. No need to get all worked up about it.”, he said, turning around to walk back to the Big House.

“Thanks.” Apollo decided to say. All he got in response was another huff, before he was left alone with his thoughts once again.

Together, huh?

--------------------------------

“Meg, Lester’s asking for you,” Billie said, one hand on the frame of the Demeter cabin’s door. “Said to meet him at the strawberry fields.”

Meg got up from the bed she had been lounging on (It was Katie’s, if she remembered correctly), and frowned. Lester? What was he calling her for? Couldn’t he just have come himself?

“Why?”

Billie shrugged in reply. “Dunno. He was pretty insistent about it though.”

Meg sighed and got up from the bed, shaking off the leaves that the dryads she had been talking to had left behind.

“‘Kay, I’ll go.”

She took her time walking over to the fields— punctuating her steps with a few cartwheels along the way, glaring at that one Ares kid (What was his name? Sherman or something?)— you know, the usual.

Nothing, however, could have prepared her for what she was about to receive.

“...Lester, what on earth are you doing?”

Apollo beamed. He was sitting on a blanket in the middle of the strawberry fields, on an empty patch of land. Around him were various different food items and— was that a teacup?

Okay, looks like he finally cracked. Meg always did wonder when it would happen.

“Are you okay?”

Lester frowned. “Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?”

Because they were one day away from facing Nero once and for all. Because sooner or later, Apollo would have to face Python himself and regain his godhood.

“Because you’re sitting in a field of strawberries and having a tea party like you’re Alice in Wonderland.”

Lester frowned. “This is not a tea party. It’s simply a medium for conducting a conversation. With tea.” He opened his mouth, then closed it once again, probably realizing that he just defined what a tea party was, and began hurriedly speaking again. “And how do you know what a tea party is? When did you even watch Alice in Wonderland?” Meg shrugged. “Dunno.”

Lester pressed the bride of his nose, exhaling slowly. “Well, whatever. Just— sit down. Eat something. I took a lot of trouble smuggling these magic plates in from the kitchen. You do not want to know how hard it is to steal them from under the harpies’ eyes, I swear.”

While Lester kept babbling on about the hazards of stealing from harpies and how she should Never steal from harpies, and never challenge them to a fight either, Meg — (Yeah, right, like as if that was gonna stop her. Did Lester even know how convenient these plates and stuff were? She was not leaving this camp until she had at least three of those plates with her) — Meg decided to try out whatever weird food Lester decided to bring.

And there were a lot of weird food items there. How did he even think of them, honestly?

She hesitantly took a bite of a weird pastry looking thing that was shaped like a ball. Meg blinked.

It… was actually good. Honestly, with Lester’s aptitude for food, she thought it would be bio-hazardous or whatever. She took another bite.

Lester cut short whatever he had been talking about. “Do you like them?” 

“What is this?”

Lester smiled. “Ah, that’s one of my favorite pastries from the French! I believe it was called the gougère, if my memory serves me right.”

Meg choked.

“The what?” She managed to say after a while.

“The gougère! I remember the person who made it, lovely fellow, though at first he made it a savory dish, which, really, come on. It was very clearly meant to be sweet!”

Meg squinted at Lester, and then shrugged and continued to eat. Well, weird names aside, it tasted alright, and that’s what mattered.

“So,” Meg began, as she took up her fourth plate of suspicious pastries, “what did you call me out here for?”

Lester dropped the dopey smile he was making at a plate of what he had called tiramisu. “Is it wrong to spend a good meal with a friend?”

“It’s a tea party, Lester. Nobody does tea parties nowadays. You wanna say something.”

Lester raised his hands, as if signaling defeat. “You got me. I did want to talk to you about something.”

“So? Spill.”

Lester frowned. “You’ve spent way too much with Lavinia.”

Meg rolled her eyes. “Just say what you were gonna say,” Meg said, phrasing it as an order.

Lester obeyed, but not after taking his own sweet time to answer.

“Meg… would you have rather preferred to have eaten all of this alone?” He began.

Meg furrowed her eyebrows. What did he mean by that?

“Uh, no? Why should I?”

“Some things,” Lester began, “are better experienced with other people. Tea parties, birthdays, singalongs—”

“Get to the point, Lester.”

“Logically, tomorrow's journey would also come under that bracket, wouldn’t it?”

Meg stilled. “What do you mean?” She demanded.

Lester sighed— and for a second, he actually looked his age, centuries and millennia older than her. He looked old and weary, but mostly, he looked tired.

“I’ll admit it,” He began, slowly taking up a cup of tea (Because he was weird like that). “I don’t know what will happen to you tomorrow. I don’t know what will happen to me either.”

Lester turned to Meg, and looked her in the eyes. “But we can get through it together, can’t we?”

Meg looked away, blinking her eyes. Stupid Lester and his stupid reassuring speech. Why did he have to say such cheesy lines? What did he know about all this?

Everything.

She rubbed her shoulder and sniffed (It was because of allergies, okay? Nothing more).

“Together, then. We have to try.”