Chapter Text
"To what pleasure do my companions owe to your presence ?" I began, willing my very voice to be imbued with power. "Lady Nyx."
Nyx toyed with the reins of her Stygian Iron chariot. Her face was shrouded with ash and smoke, yet even so, Apollo could see her face split into a feral laugh.
"Your companions ?" Nyx said, as thousands of minor gods and monsters crowded her. "Your companions ?" She repeated it as if it was some funny joke.
"I simply wanted to offer them travel brochures. Until I saw you. God of the Sun and light, Apollo." Nyx breathed shakily. "In my domain of the night."
"You're famous." Lit muttered, moving to stand in front of me. "Not sure if I like that." Lit seemed to trigger a reaction from the others, as Cyrene and Hyacinthus flanked me, pushing me away.
"I'll break you, boy." Nyx laughed. "So that the overworld will lose their Sun !
"Get behind me." I frowned at my companions. What were they doing.
Gods, how I miss Meg.
I pulled my bow back and shot directly at Nyx. She deflected it moments before it could pierce between her eyes as if showing off, but shouted furiously as she, alongside her chariot was pushed backwards by the arrow's force. In the few seconds it bought me, I shot another three arrows at her chariot, one destroying it, one pinning her neck to the ground, leaving cracks all over the ragged earth, and one last arrow setting the ground ablaze.
Nyx fell to the ground as her horses deserted her. Her forces murmured uneasily, but didn't scatter, completely confident in their mother deity's power.
I paused.
What was I doing ? Standing up to a primordial ?
"...You think you can defy me ?" Nyx rose, fire burning alongside her misty robes, but instead of shedding light on them, it made the endless dark even more intense.
I lowered my bow, and watched as her forces approach me with a flick of Nyx's wrist.
Hyacinthus, Commodus...oh all my most feared ghosts had engaged in battle.
I walked past them, closer and closer to Nyx.
Very well. Just swallow me whole then. Nyx turned her figureless face towards me, and seemed to instinctively understood my intentions, for she laughed.
"Apollo." Daphne had appeared behind me and she reached, her touch ghastly and spiteful. "A coward. Yet you claim to be the best archer in existence ?"
I fell to my knees as she simply stared at me. "If only my death is repentance enough."
Daphne's lips moved to answer me, but there was a tugging in the fabric of space, and suddenly she disappeared.
"Apollo !" Lityerses and Cyrene screamed as the air shifted. And I felt a sudden pang of shame so strong that my chest hurted as if I was suffocating. I had thought to die and leave Lit and Cyrene, both perfectly alive alone in this hellhole.
"What is Nyx doing?" Lityerses whispered, horrified.
Cyrene's eyes flashed coldly, the same way she used to look as the warrior queen, taking in the sight in front of her.
"Oh...oh..." Hyacinthus looked at me as Nyx's forces moved away collectively from us. He ran desperately, all of his athletic grace forgotten, to bury me in a tackle sort of embrace that covered all my sight and hearing.
He looked as if he was about to shatter.
"Don't look, Apollo. Don't listen." He muttered over and over again.
"If only my death was repentance enough ? " Nyx's voice was full of glee as she repeated my words. "I promised I will destroy you, boy. And you will find me very trustworthy."
"I'm also generous." Nyx added. "Your companions...they love you very much. But I'll only take one...I'll even let you choose who would die !" She said cheerfully.
Two figures, one struggling, another as still as a tree held up in Nyx's darkness.
Commodus, sprouting profanities and fighting even in front of a primordial.
Daphne, resigned and hateful in her silence.
"Wha..." I couldn't speak, as I choked on what could only be my soul..
All was quiet. Nyx's forces were quiet. Tartarus was quiet. It felt as if even the pit stopped to listen to our confrontation.
Lit's sword fell out of his grip, onto the ground in a loud clank.
Hyacinthus let out a tiny sob. He was crying...for me.
As for me, the decision was clear cut from the start. I couldn't remember what I was thinking, what I was feeling as I told the primordial to swear on the River Styx...no, to swear on Chaos' name to let us go peacefully once I made the decision.
Commodus glared at me, his eyes brimming with hatred and something more.
Daphne closed her eyes, trembling discreetly.
"How odd." Boreas commented, materialising next to me in a cold breeze, propping himself in the ancient greek equivalent of shotgun seat as I drove the Sun Chariot.
"What's odd?" I shot him a look, before grabbing my reins again.
"That you're not going after that nymph." Boreas held my right hand, and he guided the Sun Chariot with me. I glared at him.
"Stop distracting me when I'm working." I complained halfheartedly.
"But you always move away when I try to hold you hand. This is my best chance." Boreas smiled, a special sort of warmth reaching his eyes. Winter gods always do wear affection beautifully. So does Daphne.
Daphne...the nymph...
"It's because she's better off without me." I said.
"Hm ?" Boreas blinked.
"She's better off without a god courting her." I said, twirling my reins. "A flower that will wither and burn if a god comes too close. You all seem to forget that there's no need to romance one to appreciate their beauty."
...
..
.
Yet mere months later, I killed her.
"Kill her." I said to Nyx, who seemed skeptical.
"Are you sure? " She said, not too unsimilar to a quiz-game show host, cruelly amused. "Is she not your regret ?"
"Kill the nymph. For the emperor is the love of my life." I wouldn't look at them. " He... he has my blessings !"
"Then it is decided." Nyx said softly. "The nymph will die."
That was what she said. That was what they all believed. Except for the god who could see the truth.
Hyacinthus covered my eyes.
Lit screamed.
Yet, the body that fell to the ground, completely devoid of life was Commodus'.
Just as I expected.
"And here lies Apollo's greatest love." Nyx whispered, the winds of hell carrying it to all of us. "He died because you loved him."
I couldn't bare to look at him. I couldn't.
Daphne was trembling, but otherwise unharmed as Nyx let her down roughly.
"See ?" Nyx told her. "Apollo wanted to kill you. That's the kind of god you're following."
Daphne stilled herself, and stared directly at Nyx. "You immortals are psychotic." She hissed.
Nyx's forces chuckled, clearly taking it as a compliment. They parted ways for us to enter the Mansion of the Night. I heard some of them making claims on our mangled bodies when we die to the horrors of the Mansion.
I tried to collect Commodus' body. When Nyx blocked me. "Did you forget our deal ? Little immortal. " She said. "I take one."
I paused, and nodded stiffly. "Very well."
Nyx smiled. She must've thought she might as well have killed me. She...wasn't wrong. "Now go before I change my mind."
I ran towards the Mansion with my companions.
"Hey-" Lit stopped me before we could enter the big scary haunted house.
I couldn't bring myself to answer him. So I kept moving.
"Apollo." Cyrene grabbed my wrist. "Apollo, we need to talk. Please."
"What is there to say to the likes of me ?" I said, eyes fixed on the ground, unconsciously touching the wound Commodus left on my neck a mere few days ago. I froze when I realised what I was doing.
I didn't love him anymore. That was how it was supposed to be.
"He was smiling." Daphne told me. "Even as he was dying."
He didn't love me anymore. That was how it was supposed to be.