I pulled the Fleece off and away right as Misla Bael began to sit up.
She did it quietly, too.
Gradually.
The covers fell off her and slowly pooled around her waist as she did, and her eyes panned across the room, bleary and unfocused, but rapidly regaining clarity.
"Anton?"
"...My lady."
The butler's expression was almost calm, but it was the kind of calm that frayed at the edges with every passing second, and his voice was rough - brittle, really, and right on the verge of cracking with emotion.
"Welcome back."
"Back? What-?" She suddenly paused and frowned. Her dark hair shifted as she tilted her head to one side. "Ah. The disease. I... should not be-"
That's when she finally turned to our end of the room, caught sight of Sai, and the words died right in her throat.
Just gone.
...
...
...
"Sairaorg?"
Sai ducked his head, looking down at the carpeted floor.
That didn't stop Misla.
If anything, it just made her breath seize all the more sharply.
I don't think she even really saw me standing next to him, beyond the slightest peripheral glimpse and maybe the smallest, most bare-minimum awareness of my literal existence I'd felt to date.
She went to throw the covers off, but Sai was already there, stepping right up to her bedside before she could set so much as a foot off of its edge.
He didn't look up though.
Not even as his fingers spasmed at his sides, and his shoulders started trembling lightly - just enough for the motion to be worth noticing.
It got worse when Misla reached out and gently wrapped her hand around his wrist.
She didn't tug - her hold was feather light - but Sairaorg still dropped down to his knees in front of her.
"Sairaorg?" Misla whispered, and her voice was so soft and full of tenderness that it almost viscerally hurt to listen to. "My little Sai?"
Scratch that - there was no almost about it.
Sairaorg's breath hitched as her hand moved up, cupping his cheek and slowly tilting his head up to face her.
I couldn't see them from where I was standing, but I didn't have to look to know that his eyes weren't dry anymore.
Not by a long shot.
"...Hello, mother. I missed you."
Five words.
Simple, sure, and to someone looking from the outside in, they might have seemed.... almost flimy.
A huge, ridiculous understatement, considering the moment and what it meant, but it wasn't like that at all.
Take it from someone who was standing right there - those five words?
Right then and there, they had more weight to them than the endless heavens Atlas was burdened with carrying and then some.
For her part, Misla Bael only had eyes for her son.
She kept staring, long and hard, even as her free hand stretched out to wipe the tears out from under his eyes and cradle his face between her palms.
Somehow, when she spoke up again, her voice managed to soften that much more.
"It's been some time, hasn't it?"
Sai laughed - or tried to, at least.
The sound was a little too fragile and wet to count, but no one was keeping score there.
"Two years too many. Even more. It's been a while, mom."
"...I see."
Finally, she blinked, and I could see the beginnings of a shimmer in her own eyes to match his. Her lips pulled up into a smile next, small and heartfelt, and then her whole expression was suddenly so full of warmth and sheer love that I had to swallow and look away.
I just had to.
"Then I'm sorry I kept you waiting."
That was it.
The straw that broke the camel's back.
One second, the two of them were apart.
Then Misla said the words, and suddenly their arms were around one another in a blur, both of them holding on for dear life, and nothing of what came next was mine - or anybody else's - to see.
I was out of the room so fast you'd think I'd light-stepped away, and Anton was hot on my heels, shutting the polished double doors behind him right as the sobbing started in earnest.
The silence that followed?
Awkward didn't cover it.
Anton tried to meet my eye, probably winding up to ask a whole bunch of questions all at once, but I turned away from him too before he could take the chance.
There was too much there for me to go over on my own, and honestly, with the day I've just had, I didn't feel like playing more trippy word games to avoid dropping secrets I didn't have to explain to begin with.
Or maybe that wasn't it.
Maybe I just didn't want him to see the look that might have been flickering across my face right about then.
There was this pressure, you see, crawling up the inside of my ribcage and doing its level best to clog up my throat.
Emotion - sharp, barbed, too hot and too cold by half, and all around ugly by anyone's standards.
I was self-aware enough to recognize it for what it was, and all things considered?
It made me feel like absolute scum, and I hated it.
I hated it.
"Anton?"
Must've leaked into my voice, too, because he answered instantly - and with just a little touch of wary attention.
"Yes, Mr. Winchester?"
"Can you whip up a teleportation circle for me?" He hesitated, and I pointedly doubled down. "Right now, please?"
In theory, I didn't need one to get from place to place, but moving in and out of the Netherworld wasn't nearly as straightforward as it may have sounded on paper.
Cross-dimensional travel never was.
I could sidestep the nitpicky details by jumping between worlds and re-entering this one wherever it was I wanted to go, but that took focus, and with my head being where it was right now, odds are it'd end in disaster - and I'd had enough of that noise as it is.
Anton looked at me carefully, taking in my request with something complicated flashing across his face, before eventually nodding lightly.
"… Of course."
That's about the answer I expected.
He could have argued or stalled on the point, maybe, but why would he?
Concern, aside, I was only a guest - barely half a step above being a total stranger, really.
I wasn't Sairaorg, and we both knew - in the nicest, least windbaggy way possible - that past a certain line of politeness, he had no business telling me what I can and can't do.
Just the way the cards were laid out, in the end.
"Might I ask where to?"
Chiron's, I almost said, but the thought died on my lips before I could voice it aloud.
My family was there, and so was my teacher, and they were all waiting for us to get back, but…
…
I didn't want to see them.
Not right now, that is - not when I felt like this.
Chiron alone would see right through me in a blink, and so would the rest of them sooner or later, and I just… couldn't deal with that right now.
I couldn't stay here, either.
Not a chance - I wasn't needed, and I wouldn't be able to stand it anyway, so if not here or there…
…
Got it.
I rattled off the first place that came to mind, Anton nodded, and that was that.
...
Five minutes later, the spell circle shimmered into existence topside and spat me out back into the familiar green range of Mount Eyrmanthus, high on a wide ledge just a little ways away from the spot where we'd first met Regulus and went at it with the Wizards of Oz.
The view hadn't changed, not that I expected it to - mountain peaks in the distance, green grass underfoot, and cypress and birch trees everywhere around me and down in the valley below - but it wasn't as if it was anything to write home about, either.
I hadn't focused all that much on it then, what with the living longinus and the homicidal maniacs running around, and right now, I couldn't care less about it if I tried.
Crunch.
Something heavy moved behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see one of the local Erythmanian boars trotting out of the treeline behind me.
The thing was the size of a small van, with coarse brown fur so wild it looked like someone had crossbred a porcupine with an angry shag carpet and lost it when it chewed through bars of its cage and hightailed it into the wild, and its tusks were bleached white and longer than my arms - about bog standard, basically.
For bonus points, its eyes were that classic shade of menacing crimson, and it used them to stare right at me as it pawed and tore at the ground, snorting gruffly and belching out hot air like a pressure cooker venting steam.
Classic.
It pressed one hoof forward, lowering its head and gearing up to charge-
"Scram."
-before immediately freezing in place as I glared, letting my pupils flare up with gold and purple-tinged murder.
It let out a half-terrified, half-confused grunt of a snuffle that sounded like a lawnmower trying to start underwater. For about three seconds, you could almost see its brain buffering as its survival instincts tried to kick in.
Then I let my fingers twitch dangerously and it squealed, spinning right around and crashing back through the woods like its tail was on fire.
I watched it go, flattening trees like toothpicks as it hightailed it away, and an angry grimace pulled its way across my face.
Not about the boar.
These days, that not-so-little piggy was about as threatening to me as a wet poodle, and that was very generous.
No, it was the feeling prickling away under my skin - It hadn't gotten better with distance.
If anything, it just got worse: sharper and more bitter.
I gritted my teeth.
My mind kept straying back to that exact moment where Sairaorg got to hug his mom again, and whenever I tried to think about anything else, I could suddenly see her, clear as day.
Not just any day, either.
That day.
Nearly seven years since, and I still remember it with perfect clarity, like the details had been branded into my memory with a red-hot iron.
Bits of them, anyway.
It was only a few weeks past my eighth birthday, and I was in third grade - boring, simple, and almost hilariously mortal in hindsight.
You know what they say about hindsight.
Still, my mom came to pull me out way early that day, which was awesome all on its own, and the second we got home, she slid on her combat boots and started packing me an overnight bag.
"C'mon, kiddo. We're going to your uncle's."
"No!"
Yeah, I remember not wanting to - back then, driving out to Maple and Uncle David's place was the lamest thing in the universe for me.
Can you blame me?
Katie was just a toddler. Alex wasn't even a thing yet, and for all that Aunt Sarah was pretty cool, I think even little-me picked up on the fact that things between my mom and my uncle's could get... tense.
I didn't know why, back then - just that everything was tense and stiff and it was all a total drag.
Still, Mom managed to bribe me with cheese sticks and fruit punch - don't knock it until you've tried it - and we pulled up at their driveway a few hours later.
She didn't stay too long after that.
She handed me off to my aunt and uncle, stuck around for a bout a half-hour more, and then she headed out.
I remember that part most of all, because I didn't want her to go and I nearly lost it when she wouldn't take me with her, complete with a mini-tantrum and everything.
I begged her to stay, and when I couldn't swing that, I tried to make her promise to be back before lights out.
I was outgrowing bedtime stories by then, but I wouldn't have minded one more.
Just that once.
"Sorry, little sunbeam." She laughed as she knelt down in front of me, messing up my hair - almost the same shade as hers, but not quite - before pulling me into a hug. "Might be busy for a while, but I'll be back before you know it, promise, and I'll call you first thing in the morning - or as soon as I get a minute to myself. You can tell me what souvenir you want over the phone."
"...Really?"
"I promised, didn't I?"
I nodded and burrowed into her leather jacket a little more, the one that always smelled like salty woodsmoke and fresh dirt, and gave her the biggest hug of my life, just like I always did.
It wasn't enough.
If I'd known that was the last time I'd be able to hug her, I never would have let go - because I did, and that was it.
I let go, and she left.
She never came back.
...
She. Never. Came. Back.
Just gone.
...
I never did get that call.
Somehow, it was that stray thought that did it.
The anger inside of me turned jagged and went supernova back-to-back, tearing out outwards with a screaming howl as I whirled on the spot and swung my arm out and down at the valley below.
What followed next wasn't just fire - that was too small a word for it.
Half Holy, half Divine, and thick and heavy like a solar flare scooped up in hand and launched right as it burned at its brightest.
Even before the impact, the grass caught fire and the leaves turned to ash. The tree barks splintered and the sap inside of them boiled like super-heated tar, but only for an instant. When the blaze hit, they vanished entirely, disintegrated into the growing bubble of scorching heat and scattered by the split-second shockwave that followed, blasting out with so much force it dispersed the few stray clouds above and blotted out the rest of the world with sheer light.
I may have thrown another one after that.
And another.
And another.
The flaming bursts should have spread out further and swallowed more of the wild greenery, but the force of my rage kept them focused on one spot and flaring twice as brightly for it.
Over, and over, and over again.
By the time I was done, the valley was a scorched eyesore of a crater, four times deeper than before. The floor inside of it glowed and pulsed in molten orange, and multicoloured flames steadily burned away at the rims, crackling and straining like they wanted out.
I got the feeling - I wanted out too.
Of what?
Hard to tell.
My throat was hoarse, my breaths were getting shorter and sharper, and my skin felt three sizes too small for the rest of me. Power coiled through my veins, more than I knew what to do with, and right then it was all absolutely worthless.
As far as headspaces went, mine was hurtling down to the lowest of rock bottoms with no parachute and an anvil tied chained to its ankles.
Naturally, I followed my knee-jerk impulses and made it worse.
The dagger.
The one Gleeson had given me back on the ship - Her dagger.
I don't even know how it got into my hand, or what the thought process behind me fishing it out was supposed to be, really, but there it was: hilt snug in my grip, small and almost deliberately unassuming.
Even now, it wasn't anything special to look at.
Old and firm leather, with a scabbard that was scuffed all over and pockmarked with little scratches - it'd seen a lot of use.
That wasn't surprising.
What was it the Graeae said again?
'Yes, we do remember your mother, little demigod. A legacy of the goddess of the Crossroads… bold as brass and twice as fearless.'
Minutes passed, and I kept turning the dagger over in my grip even as the words followed suit in my head, ringing all the while.
Eventually, when I couldn't take it anymore, I drew it out.
Shhhk
Razor-edged celestial bronze slid out smoothly, clean and sharp and narrow to the tip, sunlight immediately bouncing off of it and making it seem like the thing was bleeding copper-gold hues into the air.
Past that, it was as basic and bare-bones as expected.
Magical, yes, and probably handy to have in a bind just from the looks of it, but it wasn't a tool or an artifact worth serious attention.
Nothing remotely close to the quality of my armour or my spear, that's for sure.
But still...
I couldn't look away from it, and the longer I did - the more I thought about everything it represented - the harder I gritted my teeth.
I was almost seeing red, and it had nothing to do with magic or fire.
I'll be back before you know it.
The temperature around me started inching up again, and the grip I had on the hilt tightened until my knuckles popped, stark-white with pressure.
I promised, didn't I?
My patience snapped like a twig and I snarled, spinning back again and hurling it away so savagely it would have punched clean through the nearest birch tree and blitzed off past it until it bled off the power of the swing, however long that took.
That didn't happen.
Instead, it shrieked through the space in between them for two and a half dozen feet before the air abruptly shifted, and the next thing I knew, a hand was plucking it straight out of its path with ridiculous ease.
A familiar figure was suddenly standing there, idly holding the dagger with two fingers braced against the flat of its blade, and I could only rear back and stare.
"Dad?"
Apollon smiled easily, the warm breeze shifting the lapels of his suit. He even shook the dagger in a little wave.
"Son. How've you been?"
What?
I nearly blue-screened on the double, and for just that one little second, I almost forgot about everything else bouncing around in my head.
How couldn't I?
"What are you doing here?"
If he was put off by the question, he didn't show it.
Heck, his smile didn't dim a single watt.
"I came to see you, of course. I could do nothing less after your friend prayed to me."
"..."
"..."
At first, the words didn't quite compute.
My what did what now?
Then it hit me, and my jaw dropped.
"Sairaorg?"
"Who else?" Apollon raised a brow. "Unless you have another companion of the devllish variety I don't know about?"
"...But that's... he's a devil."
They don't do that.
Praying, I mean.
Which sounds all kinds of obvious at first, but there's a lot of weirdness to it behind the scenes.
Heaven's System and their roots as the original Lucifer's creations made praying to the Abrahamic God downright impossible, and for all that they technically, under certain circumstances, could reach out to other deities just the same as anybody else, they were still devils.
Literally, conceptually damned.
They weren't specifically wired against the act, but they weren't that far off, either.
And still, Apollon only shrugged in the face of my stunned disbelief.
"Believe me, I'm aware, but that's not necessarily a disqualifying criterion." He paused and tilted his head to one side, before shrugging again. "Well. Not this time, at least."
He raised a finger, and suddenly I could hear words echoing over the breeze and against the inside of my eardrums, almost whisper-like but crystal clear despite it.
'Lord Apollon?'
Sai's voice was unmistakable.
'This is Sairaorg Bael, sir. Dan's friend?'
...Oh.
'I think Dan might need to see you, if you can spare the time.'
You've got to be kidding me.
'It's important, and even though it's not life or death and it's not my place to demand anything of your... divine eminence, sir, I think he needs your help. Please.'
...
...
...
"He actually..." I whispered, dazed as the words petered out and vanished into nothingness. "He did that."
A part of me even understood why.
He must've known - of course he did.
Besides Chiron, nobody knew me like Sairaorg did.
Even if he hadn't at first, no matter how hard I would tried to hide it, he would've eventually figured out what I'd be feeling.
What I was feeling, even now.
Then he did what we always did - followed his gut - and here we are.
...
My dad was standing right there, and it only took me about two seconds to come up with a perfectly reasonable response to all of this.
"...I'm going to kill him." I nodded mechanically, because it sounded even better out loud than it did in my head. "I'm actually going to kill him. They'll never find the body."
Who needs a best friend anyway?
Apollon just laughed.
"While I'd ordinarily applaud any effort that goes towards culling the numbers of that particular Abrahamic species, I believe that one has earned himself a pass."
He stepped in closer to me, gesturing, and the ledge beneath our feet groaned and trembled with the sound of grinding rock. In no time at all, an entire shelf of it rose straight up with a low spray of pulverized stone, before quickly flattening out into a make-shift bench.
"There we are."
The god circled around it and sat down without so much as a hitch in his stride, before briefly glancing out over the ledge and into the still-smoking crater I'd gouged into existence down there.
I resisted to the urge to shift awkwardly as he did, and eventually, he glanced over at me with a wry, sort of bemused look.
"Something you'd like to talk about?"
"..."
This was really happening, wasn't it?
"Well?"
"No."
Then I winced - too rough.
Dad or no, he was still Phoebus Apollon.
"Sorry. I mean-"
"You don't have to apologise." He chided gently, cutting me off. "You don't even have to explain yourself, if you do not wish to. That said..."
He reached out and patted the bench beside him, and the invitation was obvious.
"Come. Sit with me. Let's have us a talk."
Despite the residual wariness, I didn't argue the point.
Really, at that point, I didn't have it in me to do anything other than step up and gingerly ease myself down a foot away from him.
Seemed like a safe distance in principle if nothing else.
Apollon didn't look at me as I did, and he didn't wait more than a beat to break the silence between us.
And not the way I expected him to, either.
"Your friend," He started conversationally. "I acknowledge his value to you, but do you know why I so detest the rest of his kind?"
When I didn't answer immediately, he nodded at me leadingly.
"Go on. It's not a trick question. Why do you think I loathe the devils of the Netherworld to the extent that I do?"
"...Beyond the obvious?"
Devil kind was an ugly mess. Sairaorg was a huge outlier.
In other breaking news, the sky is blue and water is wet.
More at eleven.
Apollon only snorted humorlessly.
"Yes. Beyond the rampant arrogance, systemic malice and unsightly hedonism that the bloated, self-deluding maggots in power among them are so convinced they can forever pass off as culture and nobility."
Woah.
Talk about vitriol.
"I don't know." I hesitated. "But I'm open to listening?"
It beat dealing with my own baggage at least, not that that was a hard bar to pass.
"Then we'll get to it in a moment. Let me ask you another question before that." He turned to look me in the eye. "Have you ever heard the story of Salmoneus the Impious?"
I blinked..
"I think... the name's not unfamiliar?"
It niggled at something near the back of my head - a story from one of Chiron's many lectures.
"Then let me refresh your memory. Long ago, Salmoneus was one of the seven princes of Thessaly, a son of Aeolus of Aeolia, who was in turn a son of Deucalion, who survived the Great Flood - one of them, at least."
One of them?
"In time, Salmoneus's father divided the lands of Thessaly between his seven sons, and each of them either set out or was eventually sent out to establish their own kingdoms and sire their own lines." He continued, getting into the swing of the story now. "Salmoneus, slothful and uninspired though he was, took his handful of settlers south and eventually came to found the lesser kingdom of Salmonea, so named after himself - and by himself as well."
"Real humble." I muttered, and Apollon's lips quirked up.
"Quite. He further proved his lack of any true virtue by playing the role of the ever-unappeasable tyrant. He terrorised his people as a king whose greed and lust for life's baser pleasures had no end, and when that glamorous lifestyle lost its thrill, he chose to do something altogether more... ambitious."
Even if I didn't remember the story in its entirety, it wasn't hard to see where this was going.
"By ambitious, you mean stupid, right?"
"Correct again. You see, the King of Salmonea had long been envious of the respect and admiration his people gave to the gods - raising our temples, offering forth the choiciest sacrifices, and heaping upon us all due veneration with the greatest haste - and he chose to act on that jealousy by declaring to all and sundry that he was no longer a mere mortal king - instead, he was Zeus himself, descended into mortal flesh to rule the masses as only the unsurpassed King Of The Gods could."
...
"He really-"
"Yes."
"But that's-"
"Indeed."
"...Holy crap."
"Absolutely."
That's not even a death wish anymore - it was a signed and stamped declaration begging for a fate far worse than an early grave.
"Eventually - inevitably - my father came to learn of this upstart mortal insect defiling the sanctity of his worship. An offence almost beyond reckoning, though one came all the same."
"Was it a lightning bolt?"
Rhetorical question - it was totally a lightning bolt.
"To begin with," Apollon confirmed easily. "My father smote the wretch and made a spectacle of it in full view of much of the city's populace, on a day the mortal had designated for his personal worship - but the judgement did not end there."
His voice got a little heavier, a touch darker, and a weight started making itself known in my stomach.
Call it a reflex.
"You see, my son, your grandfather's wrath was not so easily appeased. The death of one mortal would not suffice, for in the end, the people of Salmonea had worshipped their king. Whether out of ignorance or fear... the reasoning and the distinction therein didn't matter. The insult of it all stood above all context, and Zeus Olympios would not suffer such a thing to remain unpunished."
My dad smiled again, and this time, there was no warmth to the expression at all.
"And so he didn't, and he laid waste to everything."
The words were icy, but the inside of my mouth and throat felt drier than half-burned sandpaper in response.
Funny, right?
"The heavens raged. The skies split open. Divine wrath struck down from above, and when the dust settled, and the screaming stopped, not a single trace of Salmonea or the greater bulk of its people remained intact. An entire region reduced to blackened earth and abandoned for an entire generation, because my father wanted to prove a point. To send a message - cross him at your own peril."
"...Seems a little on the nose." And so overkill it went past monstrous and straight to ludicrous. "Hard to miss the lesson there after all that."
Apollon scoffed and waved a hand.
"You'd be surprised, but that's hardly the point. I'm telling you this to give you a touch of context to the way these things work - or worked, depending on who you ask. Now that you have it, let's get back to that first question again, shall we?" He turned his attention back to me, sharper and more intense. "Why do I so fiercely despise the Abrahamic devil faction?"
That was a rhetorical question too.
He raised a hand again, and ephemeral, almost ghostly light shimmered off his fingertips and caused the shadows at our feet to lengthen, before they began to break free and dance into new shapes - like a puppet show in real time.
"Some few hundreds of years ago, Ajuka Beelzebub created his infamous Evil Pieces."
The darkness seeped up into the air like spilling ink and shaped out into an elaborate chessboard, complete with twin sets of pieces on either end that throbbed with little flickers of phantom brilliance that were silently, eerily menacing than they had any right to be.
The pawns alone were unnerving, but the rows of major pieces backing them were that much worse - they had a presence to them, almost, and it didn't quite pull back as the story went on.
"To the surprise of only fools, the devils took the opportunity they'd been given for all it was worth, setting out into the world to claim whatever and whomever they desired and could sink their claws into by hook or by crook."
The chessboard collapsed, and miniature bat-winged figures poured out of the wafting shadows in a tide, spreading out in every which way.
"At first, we of Olympus were content to keep an eye out on this latest infernal poison sweeping across the board, but with a modicum of restraint. We acknowledged the unnatural, disruptive severity of the matter for what it was, laid down our rules, but stayed our hands in a modicum of calculated restraint. We permitted other pantheons their more elaborate retaliations for the oversteps that followed-"
New figures appeared, too many and too varied to keep track of all at once, sweeping away the waves of incoming devils and casting them back into the darkness below with hails of weapons and surges of scattering force.
"-and we remained watchful, but ultimately unhurried in our response."
The shadows collapsed back into a shallow pool - only for a moment - and Apollon turned to look at me again.
When he did, the expression on his face was grave and stony, like age-weathered marble.
"That was a mistake."
This time, a bigger, more elaborate shape rose up on command - a great big hill crowned with a wide-open pavilion, encircled with pillars so tall they would have been scraping the sky on the real thing.
Inside, I could see a few human-like figures drifting around the place, and slowly, a handful of devils stepped out from beyond the pillars and began to draw closer.
"To most any supernatural race in existence, demigods were and remain rare, ephemeral breed. Divinity diluted within mortal constraints, but even tarnished gold is gold all the same. To a devil, there could be few greater prizes than a symbol of divinity so completely seduced - corrupted - and reduced to a mere servant for all to see."
As the shadow devils stepped in, the human figures reached out and joined hands with them, arm in arm.
"At the time, there were only a handful of Olympian children alive, and a few more of various other deities across our pantheon at play." Apollon's expression kept darkening until it was nearly a mirror to the shadows he puppeted with will alone. "But even those few numbers were enough to invite the gutter trash into our domain like vultures to dead flesh. Enough to have them creeping in and whispering temptations and promises of false glory to a handful desperate enough to stand out and take the bait. Not many at all, but enough."
The devils and the humans - demigods, obviously - changed.
Wings erupted from their backs, and they mingled with the original devils until it was impossible to tell one from the other.... and then more humans began to pour into the pavilion in droves, surrounding the original crowd.
"The devils who succeeded in their efforts were not satisfied with what they'd achieved, and their hunger knew no bounds. Never mind the scope of the perversion they had committed amongst our lands and upon those who were formerly of our number... they dared to reach for more, inviting the bulk of our then-living children to a celebration, a display of the ones they'd taken for themselves, trying to convince that many more to walk the same black path."
The longer he spoke, the more his voice dropped.
Colder and more monotone, with this strange, almost unnoticeable and borderline alien echo behind every word.
Skin-pricklingly wrong in every way.
"They acted with unchecked, vile hubris, just as Salmoneus did. And for their endless sins... they met the same fate, at the same hand."
Without warning, the pavilion and the hill under it were blasted in a way in a flash of light and a crack of thunder so real it had me flinch back hard enough that I nearly leaped off the bench entirely.
Thunder... and lightning.
"Zeus."
Even as the shadows burned away into nothingness, Apollon nodded.
Once.
"Yes. Once he took notice of it all, the King did as he did with Salmonea, and obliterated everyone involved in that mockery of our will, regardless of guilt or innocence. It was, once again, the principle of the matter." He smiled, and it was more a baring of teeth than anything else. "Four of my children - all of those born to me in that era - were present. Your brothers and sisters."
Ah.
"All were innocent. None were spared."
...
That's...
What was I even supposed to say to that?
What could I say to that?
The old, calcified pain in his voice was beyond me.
"Dad... I'm sorry."
It sounded pathetic even to me, but he didn't react to it.
"As was I. Sorry, and so utterly consumed by wrath it defied all mortal comprehension. After so many centuries of strain, it was the vent that broke the camel's back. I struck at my father, and I was not alone in doing so. Mine were not the only children there that day - Ares, Hermes, even more... they joined me in fury, and our battle made the world tremble."
I opened my mouth, and closed it again.
It took more than a couple of tries to get the words out.
"I've never heard this story before."
"We don't celebrate it, though it's hardly a secret. I imagine Chiron, wily as he is, was waiting for the most opportune time to share the tale as a lesson. The carnage of that day was savage and monstrous - a barbaric reckoning straight out of the olden godswars. My father was mighty, and we were as vengeful as we had ever been, and it would not have ended until divine ichor and the gods from which it spilled fell out of the sky had Hestia not intervened. She-"
He stopped, before closing his eyes and exhaling patiently.
"She cast herself between us, and was almost rent asunder for it. Survived, but not unscathed, and in the immediate aftermath of that ... well. The battle ended. My father... even he came to his senses and retreated, and there was only shame and regret to be had for a long, long time after that."
He didn't have to tell me that - I could hear both in every syllable of that little speech, the feeling of them so overwhelming that between them they could have drowned a whale on dry land.
"Sorry," I repeated quietly. "Sounding like a broken record here, I know, but... sorry."
That got him to chuckle again, and the mood lifted.
Literally - the residual bleakness dissipated, and vibrant colours seemed to seep back into the world around us in bits and pieces.
"Don't apologise for what you're blameless for. It's not a good habit to get into, and it's not what I told you all of this to begin with."
"So there is a reason that goes past random story time."
Thought so.
"Yes. I wanted to prove a point of my own." He fixed me with another look, different this time, and it had me going ramrod straight all over again. "When my children were killed, I came cataclysmically close to declaring civil war on Olympus itself, because that is what they mean to me - what they always have."
Slowly, he shook his head.
"And that... has not changed."
The declaration came out with so much intent, so much meaning, that I...
I didn't know what I felt.
"Why-?"
"Hold that thought."
There was another flash of light - more golden this time - and something new materialised a few feet away from our bench.
A long, bright and narrow wooden case with a polished sheen to it, sitting there all nice and quiet, but reeking of so much subtle magic a blind man could have seen it wafting off of it.
I looked from Apollon to it and back again, and he just tilted his head pointedly.
"Go on."
...Okay then.
I didn't even bother asking - at this point, why not?
I got up and moved to kneel in front of it, quietly picking up on its scent - something rosy and green - before carefully pressing my fingers along the lid.
The second I did, the thing clicked open all on its own, and it only took the lightest pressure to lift the lid up and get an eyeful of-
Of...
...
"No."
No freaking way.
"Your personal one was destroyed, wasn't it?" Apollon sounded satisfied in that way only parents who've pulled one over on their idiot kids could manage. Distant, too, over the white noise suddenly ringing in my ears. "That confrontation with the witch. A replacement was due."
Replacement?
There it was, laid out on soft, dark red velvet like it owned the place. Bright ash-wood marked with quiet ingravings and with a golden tint to it - of course - a smooth leather grip, and a silvery string that gleamed with its own personal glow.
Almost simple, if it wasn't for the power I could almost taste coming off of it, and that was at range.
"You got me a bow."
"No, of course not." He countered on the spot. "I made you a bow. Big difference. Carved and strung it with my own hands, though your aunt did help. Don't tell her I told you, though - she gets funny about these things."
...
A divine artifact twice over, then.
Something other people would commit war crimes just to possess.
Good to know.
I didn't touch it.
No way.
Instead, I slowly lowered the lid again, stood up, and took a big step back.
Then I turned to the god sitting behind me.
"Why?"
Remember that bit where he managed to distract me from everything I was feeling before?
Yeah, that was all over now.
It was all rushing right back, and there was a lump in my throat the size of a mountain range - the sight of Apollon's patient smile was not helping - but I managed to speak through it anyway.
Somehow.
"Why are you... doing any of this?"
I wasn't stupid.
I knew what'd he'd say, but even when I called him dad, I didn't really consider-
"I've told you time and again, didn't I? You are my son."
-that.
Right there.
After everything that came before them, the words shouldn't have hit as hard as they did, but who cares what Dan thinks, right?
While I was having a bit of an internal crisis, Apollon chose to stand up smoothly and walk right over to me, before reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder.
Then he did the typical thing and promptly made said crisis worse.
"I don't know why your friend prayed to me, or why you were so distressed." He started, looking right into my eyes as he did. "I suspect that it has something to do with your true origins."
I stopped breathing.
He noticed.
"Calm." He urged, and he didn't start up again until I exhaled shakily. "I know there is more to that story than what even I was expecting when I first found you, and I do not care."
...
"You don't."
Another time, and I would have punched myself in the face for that idiotic whisper - it was basically an admission of guilt, but he didn't seem to register it.
Or, really, he probably pretended not to, all while giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze for good measure.
"Not an iota. Perhaps you'll tell me one day. Maybe you won't, and we'll make a game of me puzzling it out. Either way, for now, it is irrelevant."
And just like that, I knew what he was going to finish off with before the words were even halfway out of his lips.
"You are my son, Daniel Winchester. That is all that matters."
...
I took that in for a solid minute, processing it glacially, and then I nodded.
It wasn't just a gesture.
I believed him.
He suspected something, anyone could tell.
He might even have been close to finding out the truth, somehow, and for some wild reason I can't put into words, I still believed him.
That's why things played out the way they did in the next ten seconds.
That, and the temporary insanity from the ridiculous day I'd been having until then.
I hugged him.
Briefly. Tightly.
Entirely on automatic.
He ran only a little warmer than a regular human, and he smelled of something fresh and earthy, just like the bow case he'd given me.
On his end, he only hesitated a split second before hugging back, which was as good a hint as any that I hadn't overstepped.
Good, that.
When we finally broke apart, I had to look away and furiously scrub at my eyes.
Just because.
"Something in my eye." I grunted, and he laughed, louder and heartier than ever before.
"I'm sure."
I know - I was never living this one down.
Still, it felt like I could breathe again.
My head was still full of stuff I had to work through, but they felt far away now, instead of surging right up in my everything - broken down into smaller pieces and shoved away until I decided to go looking for them again.
Right then, I could live with that.
Which only left the one question.
"So..." I looked at Apo- Dad. "What now?"
He reached out to ruffle my hair.
"That's entirely up to you."
"You're not leaving?" I hesitated. "You don't have somewhere else to be?"
"At the moment?" He didn't so much as hesitate. "You are my only priority."
Right.
So...
I should have headed home, back to Chiron's.
He was still waiting on us, and so was my family - another mess I'd have to deal with because of what happened on the quest.
Really, I should have been back and on it already.
Doubly so because I'd have to tell him about this meeting and what it might mean.
But...
It'd already been over half an hour, and odds are Sai was still down in the Underworld.
Heck, if he came back anytime in the next six hours, I'd eat my shoe, and if he was sticking close to his mother...
It was childish, but I wanted the same thing.
I looked back at Apollon.
"I know this great bowling alley."
Like I said before: Insanity.
He took that in, blinked, before outright grinning in quick and utter delight.
"Bowling? A game of marksmanship?"
...Which he was the god of.
Moron, thy name is Winchester.
"That was stupid. Forget I said-"
"Oh, absolutely not." He threw his arm around my shoulders and began herding me away from that bench, and I didn't flinch in the slightest. "Tell me more."
Well, if he was asking...
"Best of twelve strikes buys dinner?"
"Son, if you manage three before I do the same, I'll let you drive my chariot."
"Hah."
"..."
"...You are kidding, right?"
"Just try and do a better job than the last mortal who was given the sun's reins back in the day. The world is both metaphorically and metaphysically smaller than it once was, and replacing a burning country or three would be such a hassle."
"Come again?"
And then his power flared, and we vanished in a seamless flash of familiar gold.
...
And that was it.
I'd still kill Sai when I got my hands on him again, but all in all?
The quest ended on a high note.
...
Canon Interlude, but before that, for the Dragon Emperor poll:
Revamp - meeting him early and redeeming him/changing him. Butterfly affect basically
AU - Never had the gear/genderbent/whatever else.
Someone else - Basically taking the gear and shoving it in someone else, exactly what it says on the tin.
Onwards!
Chiron sensed Daniel's presence the moment he returned to Athens, three days after the boys and their companions had set out to retrieve the Fleece.
Of course he did.
Even at rest, his senses cast a wide net across the estate and beyond - just in case - and he had important guests to watch over for his student's sake.
Prudence was not merely a necessity - it was an ingrained, well-honed habit.
Beyond second nature, even, but that was besides the point.
When Dan appeared with Apollon of all beings in his obvious company, Chiron was left to settle a frisson of reflexive alarm.
Sairaorg's clear absence would have transformed that into an old, hollow dread had the god not had the forethought to reach out across the city and placate the cold possibility before it could truly take root in his mind.
All is well.
As far as divine revelations went, it was a little on the short side, sparse on the details, and more intent than meaning to begin, but it got the message across all the same.
There was no need for concern - but where was Sairaorg, then?
... Ah.
Given that Apollon would not disregard the devil in his assurances, it only took Chiron a moment to put the likely pieces together.
If the quest had been successful, then his other student was most certainly in the underworld, basking in a long-awaited reunion.
If not - if the quest had been a failure in one sense or the other - then he was potentially there regardless.
Either way, Chiron could hazard a guess as to why Dan would be with his father - what he'd have to be feeling, given his history, and the circumstances that would have drawn one to the other and vice versa, and to that end...
Truth be told?
He was cautiously optimistic, though he kept his awareness sharply peeled all the same, even as he set out to prepare breakfast for himself and the family he was hosting with a particular touch of relieved contentment that had been absent over the last few days.
Not that he'd let the natural worry show, of course - he wasn't an amateur - but quests were dangerous business, and old fears had a nasty habit of rearing their heads and plaguing even those who've wearily accepted them as a facet of a very, very long life when they were least welcome.
Still.
The sun was shining, a meal was on the way, and his students had returned, and would be back under his roof sooner or later.
Today was a good day.
...
It was a few hours later, well into the afternoon, when Daniel finally made his way back.
Apollon had taken his leave, the god's blanketing presence lifting and rising out of immediate perception to wherever it is the deity so pleased, and only a handful of minutes later, a familiar flash of golden light overtook the garden.
Daniel materialised there, as he was regularly wont to do, with a lidded cup of carbonated garbage in one hand and a what looked like a souvenir baggie from the bowling alley down in the city he and Sairaorg enjoyed visiting.
He was also wearing a new shirt - black, with big bold letters stamped all over its front.
Bowling Excuses - I slipped and the wind caught it.
... Well then.
Chiron was already standing in the garden, waiting for him with a steaming mug of tea in hand, and when his student appeared, he took one glance at him and froze like a deer in headlights.
A guilty one.
For a minute, they just stared at one another, and Chiron idly took a sip of his blend while it was still hot.
Mhm. Chamomile.
Eventually, Dan raised his arms up in immediate surrender.
"Look, I can explain."
"Can you?"
"Absolutely." He nodded confidently. "We aced the quest, but it was all kinds of whacky."
"Oh?"
"Like you wouldn't believe. We misfired and landed way off in the wrong end of Kansas, met a scary old dude who might be part alien-vampire, the King of Knights and Irish Hercules in, like, three minutes. Five tops. Then we got back on track, landed back home, made a call, and ended up running into and ganking a bunch of homicidal snake-ladies and this one vampire with flaming hair and a donkey leg who were trying to eat that satyr we wanted to meet."
"..."
"We talked to the satyr, got him up to speed on where we were going and what we needed to do, and then a whole bunch of other vampires came after us so we had to kill them, too. Then the satyr helped us flag down the Chariot of Damnation and hitch a ride with the three geriatric street racers of doom. Totally nuts, for the record. Ran over a manticore on the sidewalk and everything."
"..."
"Anyway, stuff happened, things went down, and I ended up hearing some things that put me in a pretty nasty funk for a few days after we hitched another ride on this neat ship across the Atlantic, right up until we got to the Sea of Monsters, and the first thing that came at us was the Beast of Andromeda. Big dude. Size of a small skyscraper. Sai's got the skull in his storage band somewhere."
"..."
"After that, I pulled off some nifty magic, we used those spell circles you gave me, ran the world's most well-deserved home invasion, and got our hands on the Fleece right before we saved a few more satyrs. Then we got back to the ship, met a prickly goddess, and I punched her in the face right then and there. Call it a reflex."
"..."
"She didn't like that, so she sicced a giant monster on us that Sai took care of, I knocked out her lackey, and then I set her on fire so badly that another goddess had to show up and bail her out. It was a whole thing, and the second that one disappeared, I pumped on the gas, teleported the ship out of the danger zone and we bounced right out of there on the double."
"..."
"That's pretty much it. We got back to the Sai's place in the Underworld, and I used the Fleece to get his mom up, finally. It made me feel... well, I didn't want to intrude, so I got out there and decided to vent for a bit, and then I ran into my Dad, and one thing kind of led to another, and... here I am."
"..."
His student grinned at his continued silence and raised his goodie bag again.
"Now, instead of judging me for this, wouldn't you like to know what any of that meant?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...You're going to hit me now, aren't you?"
"I am heavily considering it," Chiron admitted instantly. "But first... priorities."
He was still in the human guise he donned for the sake of the Winchester family's comfort, so it was simply a matter of vanishing his tea mug in a burst of subtle magic and a single step before he could wrap his arms around the idiot boy and pull him in for a hug.
Daniel stiffened at first, more in surprise than anything else, before firmly returning the gesture with due haste.
When they broke apart, though, there was a wry grin on the demigod's face.
"Man, I keep getting hugged by people I wouldn't have even imagined meeting a year ago." He rubbed the back of his head and smiled up at him. "Today is a weird day."
Chiron raised a brow.
"I take it your time with lord Apollon went well?"
"You know about - wait, what am I saying? Of course you know. Probably felt it the second we got here." He shook his head and shrugged. "Yeah, it went well. We talked some stuff out and we played a few rounds down at the bowling alley, and then we had lunch and... he hugged me. Twice. Wild, right?"
"I imagine it was."
And that likely only made the surprise of it better, in the end.
"..."
"What is it?"
"Do you..." He hesitated. "Do you think I should tell him?"
Chiron understood at once.
"About your 'secret'"
Daniel nodded.
What a... delicate question.
He answered it with another.
"Would you like to?"
"... I would have said 'heck no' before - or something a lot stronger, honestly - but after today..." He shrugged again and sighed. "Maybe? After a while?"
Chiron took that in slowly - gauging his burgeoning certainty - before nodding carefully.
"Then perhaps it's best to revisit the matter after some time, no?"
Time where even he needed to consider the matter carefully.
"Probably for the best." Daniel didn't push back on the suggestion. "We should talk about the quest now. For real this time. There's all kinds of stuff I have to talk to you about, and one of them is something big. Like, really big - I don't even understand how I didn't mention it before."
Oh?
"Then it might be prudent to leave that as well for a more in-depth conversation later. Unless you believe that your aunt and uncle need to know about it alongside us, and your cousins before even that."
Daniel blinked.
"Wha - oh!"
He sensed them as well, now.
The two girls must have spotted him through the window and come surging down the stairs, because it wasn't even a minute more before they turned the corner and came hurtling forwards at speed.
"DANNY!"
Katherine - Katie - reached them first, and Chiron stepped neatly to the side as the nine-year-old barreled into her cousin's waist with a flying leap and knocked him flat on his back.
"Oof!"
Alex was hot on her heels and, promptly, without prodding, they both began to berate him.
"Why. Do. You. Keep. Going. Places!"
Katie punctuated every word with a whack, while Alex stood off to the side and pointed with condemning judgment.
"Bad, Danny. Bad!"
"Ow, Katie, c'mon!" He raised his hands and tried to protest his well-deserved punishment. "I'm sorry I left, but I'm back now! See?"
Katie whacked him harder.
Understandable, really.
"Jeez, they weren't kidding with that karate training, where they?" He caught her hands and snorted as she glared at him. "I'm back, you mini-tyrant. I also brought bribes."
The girls froze, and Daniel smirked and hefted up his baggie.
"That's right, my little extortionists. Guess who raided a snack bar in town before coming back?"
Alex squinted, and her older cousin beat her to the punch.
"Yes, Alex, I got buttercups in here too."
Alex beamed.
"Good Danny!"
He snorted again.
"Thought so. Katie?"
"...I'm going to kick you some more later. Gimme!"
"That's not how that works, and you gotta wait for it, because Uncle David is walking this way and he'll take the whole stash if he sees it."
"Eep!"
Indeed, the eldest of the Winchester Clan had just stepped out past the doorway, and Chiron simply stepped back once more as the man made a beeline straight for his nephew, with his wife following close behind.
They could have their conversation in short order, but for now...
He turned away and walked back towards the house.
A small reunion was exactly what the doctor ordered.
...
Eventually, after the girls had been set off to giggle and laugh away with their illicit goods in hand, Daniel sat down to tell them of their quest.
It was, in a word... an experience.
"Dear God," Sarah whispered when it was all said and done, and her nephew only shrugged.
"It really wasn't as bad as it sounds. We had it in the bag!" He threw a thumbs up and nodded earnestly, before coughing and muttering under his breath. "And it's not like He's going to help around these parts, considering..."
Only Chiron picked up on the murmur, and he narrowed his eyes just the slightest degree, filing it away for later.
"You met Hecate," David asked, sounding stunned, and Daniel winced. "You actually met her."
"Sure did. Real intimidating, too."
"I never have. Evelyn-"
Dan almost winced again, but managed to strangle the motion in its infancy.
"-might have." David continued uncertainly. "In person or through some other mystical way, but I've never come close."
"Well, you're not missing out, and it's not like she stayed for an extended family reunion or anything." Daniel shook his head again. "Not like I would have wanted her to, either. The scare with her presence and my... "
He abruptly - and tellingly - grimaced.
"'lord father's' attention towards the end of that circus show was bad enough."
"Right." David... stared. "That."
The disbelief was to be expected.
Alternate worlds, different gods from the ones they 'knew'... it was far too much to comfortably parse through all at once.
If anything, the Winchesters had been remarkably adaptable with just about everything else up to this point.
Naturally, Daniel chose then to complicate matters further.
"I don't think you guys can go back home anymore. At least not for a while."
"Excuse me?"
Dan immediately winced again, but he stood his ground all the same.
"Hecate... probably recognised me. If she didn't, somehow, then my 'father' definitely did. They're going to want answers, and even if they don't ask Gleeson Hedge questions with him right there-"
David muttered something acrid under his breath, and his wife leaned over to place a hand on his upper arm.
"-then they'll still eventually come looking for you anyway, and you're sitting ducks. Considering gods and how they run things, you don't want that to happen. You know you don't."
If the way the two adults paled was any indicator, they evidently agreed, and Daniel hurried to soften the blow.
"That's not as bad as it sounds, either. We'll figure something out, and in the meantime, you'll be fine around here. More than fine, even. I'm rich, guys." He confessed. "Like stupid rich. The 'Easily buy you a beachside mansion, enroll the kids in private school, and eat expensive takeout every day for the rest of our lives' kind of rich, and then some. Things are going to be fine.'
Responses to that were varied.
David only looked up, baffled.
"Come again?"
Sarah, on the other hand, gave her nephew a look.
"I know."
...
Dan paused warily,
"You do?"
"Yes. I heard..." She trailed off, before fixing him with a truly inspired gimlet stare that had him paling instead. "About the dragon."
"... Oh crap."
"The what!?"
Evidently, David hadn't known - Sarah had likely saved that delightful story for the proper moment and affect, intelligent woman that she was, and as for Daniel?
He snapped over to stare at Chiron with wide, betrayed eyes.
In response, the centaur only raised his mug in salute.
"Daniel Winchester-!"
Fate chose then to smile on his student - before his aunt could begin tearing into him worse than Smaug the Bane of Dwarves ever could have, a familiar feeling prickled at both of their senses.
A teleportation circle had just sprung to life on the estate.
"It seems Sairaorg has returned."
Dan wasted no time at all-
"Gottagobye!"
-and leaped off the couch and out of the room in a blur.
His aunt and uncle only stared at the spot he'd fled from, and Chiron had to suppress a laugh.
Entirely reflexive, of course.
"Excuse us. We'll be back in a moment."
It was only polite, after all, because from what he could sense yet again?
Sairaorg had not come alone.
...
His other wayward student beamed at the sight of him, happier and more excited than Chiron had ever seen him.
To the young devil's left, Anton Vapula bowed at once - and to his right?
Misla Bael stood, awake at last and evidently vibrant with health and renewed life, wearing a simple blue dress with no apparent opulence to it beyond the basics and framed by the light of the setting sun behind them.
A successful quest indeed.
"Lord Chiron." Her voice was soft and measured, but by no means weak, and she lowered her head in polite greeting. "An honor to make your esteemed acquaintance."
"Please, Lady Bael." He mirrored the motion while waving off her own. "There is no need for such formalities."
"But I insist. I can offer no less to the one who has so greatly enriched my son's life."
Her eyes flickered to Sairaorg, and though the expression on her face remained calm and polished, the light in her eyes was nothing short of adoring.
A mother for true, even beneath the necessary veneer of a noblewoman.
How rewarding.
"If anything, Lady Bael." He smiled gently, and gestured towards Sairaorg. "He has enriched mine own."
Her own smile grew in response as her son flushed, and she raised a hand to run her fingers through his hair.
"I am delighted to hear it - and please, call me Misla. It is as you said." She nodded. "There can be no such formalities between us."
Then her eyes strayed to the side, where his other student stood.
"And you must be Daniel Winchester."
"That's me." He agreed, before ducking his head in the approximation of a polite greeting himself. "Hello, Lady- woah."
He was cut off as Misla crossed the distance between them and gently grasped his chin, carefully tilting his head back up again and looking him right in the eye.
"I do not know everything - it is not my little Sai's story to tell, in his own words - but you are in large part the reason I am awake, are you not?"
Daniel blinked and leaned back against the intensity of her focus.
"Well, it was really more of a team effort-"
She cut him off for the second time by drawing him into a hug, deep and ever so clearly from the heart.
"Thank you." She whispered into his ear. "For reuniting my son and I at last."
When she pulled away, Daniel was flushed all the way down to his toes, and he seemed momentarily incapable of saying a word no.
Quite an achievement, that.
"Perhaps we should take this inside." Chiron offered, and all eyes turned to him. "I have lovely tea for just the occasion-"
"Of course you do." Sairaorg snickered, the cheeky upstart.
"-and we'd all be more comfortable making acquaintances in comfort."
Misla nodded gratefully, finally pulling her hands away from their perch on Daniel's shoulders.
"We would be most grateful."
He imagined they would be - and the Winchesters were there as well, so they might as well go full circle and finish all introductions then and there.
The convenience of it all was ever so pleasing.
"You guys go ahead for a minute," Sairaorg told his mother and his butler, eyeing Chiron and Dan. "We kind of need to talk real quick."
Misla did not argue the point.
"As you wish, my lovely."
Sairaorg went beet red in a blink.
"Mom!"
She only laughed, and the sound was rich with a relief and easy happiness that Chiron suspected would not be leaving it for quite some time.
Truly, that was only fair.
"Come, Anton. Let us walk ahead."
"At once, my lady."
Soon, they did just that, trekking up the path to the house.
The centaur imagined they wouldn't actually enter - far too 'impolite' a thing to do without the host first paving the way - and so he reached over, pulled his other student into his own well-deserved hug, and left to continue escorting his guests after sending him a warm look.
"Thanks, Chiron."
"Hurry along now, boys. Your families are waiting."
He could read them the riot act over one thing or the other in due time.
Tonight?
He'd let them have their victory.
When he made to walk off, Sairaorg turned to look at Dan.
Dan looked back.
A moment of silence passed.
Then-
"You prayed," the son of Apollon finally ground out. "To my Dad."
Sairaorg was unrepentant.
"Yep. It worked, didn't?" He grinned widely. "I can tell."
"Oh, can you?"
"Damn straight. Your face is doing this thing where it looks even dumber than usual, so I figure things worked out in the end."
Another moment of silence passed as Daniel processed that.
Then the calm broke.
"Raagh!"
With a roaring battle cry, he leaped forward and tackled Sairaorg in much the same way his cousin had him before, and both of them went tumbling down the grass hill in a laughing, flailing bundle.
"Repent! Repent for your sins, you damned hellspawn!"
"Like you're one to talk, you filthy pagan!"
Clearly, they were celebrating their victory in their own... unique way.
Chrion watched them go, and finally allowed himself a fond laugh.
Ah, but what joy these two little fools brought to his life.
He turned away to continue on his own path... and then a thought occurred to him, and he paused mid-chuckle.
Now that his mind was on it...
...
"Where exactly is Regulus?"
...
Meanwhile, in a certain castle down in the Underworld:
"Those little brats... forgot me?"
Much furious snarling ensued.
...
Meanwhile, in the Blessed Island Of Delos:
Artemis raised a brow the moment Apollon materialized in front of her, smiling in utter satisfaction, radiating more shining contentment than most gods did in a year.
It took her only a second to put two and two together.
There was only one immediate reason for this attitude that came to mind.
"You were just with him, weren't you?"
"Mm-hm."
Of course.
Artemis squinted suspiciously at the smug tone, before her eyes widened in realisation.
"You gave him the bow, didn't you?"
"I absolutely did."
Of course.
"Damn you, Apollon! That was supposed to be a birthday gift!"
"Oh please. Plans change." He rolled his eyes and waved the indignant comment away. "A son of Apollon must have a good bow at all times - it's basic common sense. I can always outdo myself when the time comes. That's half the challenge."
She growled at him, and he laughed.
"Besides, you can give him the other half of the gift whenever you'd like. He says thank you as it is - you'll likely get that prayer eventually, when he gets home and gets some rest."
That made her pause.
"Where did you take him?"
Her brother didn't answer with words.
Instead, he reached into his suit's top pocket and pulled out a small, laminated strip of photo paper and handed it over.
Four photographs of her brother and her nephew stood out on it in brilliant colouring - enhanced by Apollon, no doubt - with each of them standing next to the other, dressed up in matching black t-shirts with inane slogans printed across them, and their arms thrown across one another's shoulders for good measure.
Artemis looked up incredulously.
"You took him bowling?"
"His idea, not mine."
Naturally.
She looked back down at the photos, past the bowling ball they hefted up between them, and took in the look on her nephew's face.
Caught halfway through a laugh, dazed and stunned like he couldn't believe this was where his life had led him - a common sentiment where Apollon was involved - but no less genuine for it.
He looked... happy.
As did her brother.
...
...Good.
She handed the photo strip back without another word, and he gave her an expectant look.
"Well?"
"I'll take him hunting sometime in the coming month. His friend too, perhaps."
"Thought you might."
"Quiet. I'm doing this to ensure they're prepared - some threats have to be faced out in the wild for the value of the experience to be at its most rewarding."
Chiron would likely approve as well - it was time to step up their training, or it would be, sooner or later.
After all, this world was full of threats that did not wait for children to come into their own gently, even in this era of 'peace.
Apollon, despite understanding all of this, only grinned in that way that was specifically designed to irritate her.
"And you'd like to spend time with him."
She rolled her eyes and began stalking away, and she heard her brother sigh before following along after her.
"Arty! For the love of mother, learn to finish a conversation with due grace!"
Truly, she was surrounded by endless, unbearable headaches.
...
Dan and Sai, telling stories.
Everyone else:
Spoiler: Spoiler
Regulus and Artemis on dealing with the boys and Apollon respectively: