The Battle of Olympus | III

16. I Learn How To Order Chaos

In which I've broken down and prepared a bunch of Eden-Apollo scenes in the next few chapters. :)

"You're an idiot."

Athena had taken on the role Apollo hadn't, and the latter glared at her for it, but Athena didn't even flinch. She wasn't wrong. It had been idotic of me to face Claudius alone when he had primordials backing him, but I rarely seemed to think straight recently. Still, I wished she hadn't been so direct about it, even if it were true.

"Athena—"

"No," she snapped. "Stop defending her, Apollo—she needs to learn to stop trying to do everything by herself and getting herself hurt in the process." She directed the next part to me. "You're feeling guilty, right? Feeling like you might've been able to stop this if you had acted differently? Maybe if you hadn't been so ruthless and brutal? Well, guess what, Eden? Get over yourself. We've all done bad things. You have enemies because you were cruel in your youth, but you can't change that anymore. Focus on now, not the past, or you'll never outrun your own shadow."

"But—"

"I swear on all the gods, if you try and say anything—"

"I couldn't just do nothing—"

"You aren't doing nothing!" she cried. "You just need to realize that you rely on others, even if you pretend you don't—you can't take on everybody at the same time, by yourself, and hope to come out unscathed! You need a plan, you need to assess your enemies, you need to figure out how to stop Claudius and even what his game plan is—none of these you know, Eden, and if you don't know any of these, how do you plan on stopping him?"

"I could kill him."

She rolled her eyes. "You think I can't hear how revolted you sound saying that? I've been your best friend for four years, Eden—I know you. You might've once been Galeria, but you wouldn't kill. You could never kill. Remember that time you stepped on a ladybug and almost cried?"

"Thanks," I grumbled.

"Look, the point is, you can't be doing things like this anymore. This is war, and you know how everything has to be so carefully planned out in war. If you keep being reckless, it's already half lost. We're preparing for a siege, and Apollo and I can't concentrate on trying to win the battle if we're always worried about where you are and whether or not you're doing something stupid, okay?"

"Fine."

"Look..." she faltered. "Look, Eden, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean... I shouldn't have called you an idiot. What you're trying to do is incredibly stupid but also really brave. It's just... I can't let you die, do you understand? You're possibly one of the only people who thinks of me as... normal. You're my friend and I care about you."

"Probably because I'm the only person who's seen you ram into a pole because you weren't paying attention."

She pointed at me threateningly. "You weren't supposed to ever mention that again."

But at least the tension between us had dissolved, and Apollo had relaxed, though he had carefully removed the vase Athena had thrown when she found out what I had been up to out of the room. Not that I blamed him. He had so graciously lent his house for our usage several times and each time ended with a broken vase.

"He's better than me," I found myself saying. "At chaos magic, that is. In a fight, I'd never be able to beat him."

"You're better at hand-to-hand combat than him."

"Which means nothing if you have magic."

"True," Athena said. "Though it's really your fault for always running away from your magic. You never used it because it reminded you too much of Claudius, and look how that decision came around to bite you."