Sunburn- phoebus apollo

--vi. stars on the water

WHEN RHEA WOKE UP on a phantom island in the middle of nowhere, alive when she thought she should be dead, and she wondered whether Apollo knew that. She wondered if he thought she was dead. And if he thought she was dead, she wondered if he still lo--

Well.

Her mother used to tell her that it was possible to love someone beyond death. Her mother did that for her husband (for Poseidon, and maybe for Paul.) But would Apollo--?

She stopped herself from finishing the thought. They'd never said the words, anyway.

She could taste something like horror in her mouth. She could feel the ash in her hair, like the pieces of all the future lives she wouldn't be able to save, and there was a fire coursing through her lungs, charred and black from smoke.

She wasn't dead. She'd thought for sure, in those final moments in Hephaestus's forge, that she was a goner. Her last moments would have been spent in agony and terror, but she'd almost thought it was better to die then, with her heart still intact, than to die at the hands of a god with so much blood in his timeline. But at the same time, he had so much love to give, and it touched Rhea's heart and she was only a little bit disheartened that she didn't die with the thought that Apollo cared for her.

But Rhea was alive, and her first thought upon waking was Apollo's name. How terrible, she realized, to care for someone so much they were all you wanted on your deathbed; all you desired among all of the other beautiful things on Earth.

But Rhea was still alive. She was alive. So where was she?

Despite her dramatics before, she actually felt...fine. Refreshed even. Like nothing bad had happened. Like she hadn't just blown up Mount St. Helens. A quick scan over her body only seemed to back up that idea--there were no scars. Everything was as it was before.

She could see blue sky and trees above her, and she could hear a fountain gurgling from somewhere nearby. The air smelled of juniper and cedar and other sweet-scented plants, and the waves lapped gently on a rocky shore. Rhea wondered for a second if she was in heaven, but she was a demigod--she wouldn't have ended up there, and she was, again, alive. So where was this place, and how had she gotten here?

"You're awake," a soft voice said. "I was worried."

Rhea whipped her head around, and felt her face turn pale.

From just a few inches to her right was a girl with almond eyes and caramel-colored hair braided over one shoulder. She looked around Rhea's age, maybe a few years older, but there was a timelessness to her face that suggested she was likely far older. She was leaning over an unconscious Percy, patting a cooling cloth across his forehead and singing something that appeared to be healing his injuries (which looked rather gory in the daylight; Rhea had to look away before she threw up). A bronze spoon hovered magically over him, dribbling ambrosia into his mouth.

Rhea swallowed dryly, an uncomfortable heaviness churning inside her stomach as she realized what was going on. "You're..."

She couldn't even say it. Gods. She'd seen this in her visions when she practiced her powers, of course, but she hadn't realized... of all the places to actually end up...

"I wasn't expecting you to awaken so quickly, but you seem to be in much better condition than your companion," the girl said, offering Rhea a quiet, if not sad, smile. "The two of you are welcome to rest and heal here. No harm will come to you. I am Calypso."

What a nightmare, Rhea thought, suddenly not all that excited about being alive. What an absolute disaster. 

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