Quest of the Half Gods

Chapter 16: Απόλλων

Apollo closed his eyes and inhaled the late summer air, a light breeze blowing through his curls which held a golden laurel wreath aloft. He opened them and took in the sight of Camp Half-Blood in the late afternoon air. Long Island Sound glittered in the sunlight. He looked up at the sun and felt the usual sadness in his heart but this time it was accompanied by the feeling of loneliness that he felt in the absence of Galatea. She's gone. He thought. You have to accept that.

He turned around and headed back to the amphitheater where the gods had gathered with their children. He smiled at the sight of the families reunited, satisfied at the sight of the gods actually behaving like a family, as he had learned the year before.

Apollo slid onto a bench beside Meg and leaned his head on her shoulder. "You're going back to California aren't you?" He asked. Meg nodded, "Tomorrow." Apollo sighed, "This time you're leaving me." Meg scoffed, "About time. You're clingy." Apollo laughed and nodded, sitting up. He stared into the empty fire pit and fought himself until he couldn't. He turned around and stared at the place where Galatea had sat the night of the funeral, the night before their journey together had begun.

Suddenly, he felt the undeniable urge to go to the clearing where she had turned him into a demigod. Just for told times sake. He thought to himself. "I'll be right back." He said to Meg.

Apollo walked into the woods and stopped a few feet in, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He sighed and looked around, taking in the peace of the woods, when he felt it.

The hair at the back of his neck stood up and turned around, searching for the source of the feeling. "Hello?" He called out. No reply came. He frowned and stepped deeper into the woods, following his instincts. He raised his hands, prepared to attack a monster, when suddenly, he froze.

He listened hard, his eyes widening when he realized what he was hearing. Lyre music. "Is one of my children in the woods?" He asked aloud. But no, all of his kids were at the amphitheater. He frowned at the music. Who else would be out here?

"It's probably just a nymph." He said to himself. He turned to leave the woods when he froze. A faint violet haze began to form in front of him, floating on the breeze. The air left his lungs. "It can't be." He gasped.

Suddenly, the haze took shape until it made two children. Apollo leaned forward, afraid to breathe, unable to believe his eyes. It was him and Galatea in the Olympian Gardens when they were younger. Galatea had shown him this scene when she'd restored his memory. The scene melted into the haze and began to flow deeper into the woods, Apollo right behind it.

As he got deeper in, the lyre music got louder and he began to hear a voice carried on the wind. He listened intently for a moment before his ears caught the phrase, "Take me to the lakes." His brain thought back to when he had found Galatea sitting by the edge of the lake after their group had escaped from Prometheus. He had stopped her and asked her what song she'd been playing and she had replied, "The Lakes." Apollo placed a hand on a tree to steady himself. It couldn't be, could it? He didn't dare to get his hopes up. 

He stood up and yelled, "Whatever kind of joke this is, it's not funny!" Any one of the Olympians could have seen the scene in the garden and be recreating it as a joke. They loved to torment him. However, in the next scene that appeared in the haze, he could not ignore it. 

Apollo saw himself leaning over Galatea's lifeless body, sobbing and he held her to him. Apollo watched the scene, feeling uncontrollable emotions rising in his throat. No one had been around to witness that. It had just been him. More images swirled around him. The day that he met Galatea in the woods. Galatea dragging him through the Labyrinth, comforting him as he faced madness. Apollo healing Galatea in the Fields of Persephone. Apollo hugging Galatea as she coped with the loss of her father.