Fandom: Trials of Apollo
Rating: Teen
Genre: Angst/Family
Characters: Trophonius, Apollo, Agamethus, Meg
The Dark Oracle gave answers to everything its supplicants asked of it. The only answers it didn't have were to the questions it was formed from in the first place.
@toapril-official TOApril day 10 - Redemption of a Ghost. This was a challenge to write. Trophonius is not a character I have spent much time digging into and writing this fic felt a little bit like being a supplicant of the Dark Oracle at times!
Soon. It would all be over soon.
Trophonius had long since lost track of the exact passage of the years since his father’s betrayal, decades blurring into centuries, possibly even millennia. It was difficult to keep track, without the sun, but Trophonius didn’t miss the sun.
He didn’t miss the warmth of his father, the feeling of being watched over, favoured, blessed.
In the darkness, he couldn’t see the blood on his hands, or what had once been hands. His physical body was long since gone, morphing into an idea, a concept, dust and darkness agitated and whipped together by winds of fury and betrayal. He’d died the same day as Agamethus, died the day his father turned away from him, survived and endured without a death. Impossible contradictions, alive yet dead, bodied yet bodiless.
It was past time it ended. The Fates had given him an opportunity, at least. For vengeance, for peace, for his brother. Agamethus had never deserved an eternity of this, the restless death when Elysium existed. The Fields of Asphodel, even, would be better than this, a headless brother trapped and bound by the same loyalty that had killed him in the first place.
But Agamethus wouldn’t find rest until Trophonius, until the Dark Oracle, ceased to be, and one way or another, that would happen soon. The wheels had been set in motion by powers beyond even his comprehension – he was an Oracle, a guardian of an Oracle, but to be an Oracle was to pass on messages, not to understand them all himself, but this he could comprehend just fine. The girl had been a sign, the beginning, and her shrouded origins made her perfect for the task he needed performing.
Agamethus couldn’t talk, not anymore, even though Trophonius could understand his darkness because it sang in tune with his own. The women at the Waystation were ingenious, but this was beyond the shaking of a ball, no matter how enchanted it was. Besides, Agamethus was the catalyst, the cause, but this wasn’t his fight.
He was Trophonius’ brother, but he wasn’t Apollo’s son. The girl, on the other hand…
Perfect bait, and one that Apollo had no choice but to fall for because when it came to his children – most of his children – there was nothing the god wouldn’t do. Trophonius, for all he’d seen and heard through the Dark Oracle, had yet to work out what had made him, of all Apollo’s children, unworthy of his father’s assistance. Perhaps he would solve that one, final mystery before the Oracle died.
Things worked even better than planned.
Apollo came, preparing himself to kneel at Trophonius’ feet, at his mercy with his mind opened and the threads of his sanity fraying with every second that passed, and he prepared himself to tear his father apart from the inside out – the Oracle would not, could not turn Apollo insane, not even as a mortal. His divinity was still too strong for that, god of prophecy wrapped up in his essence beyond anywhere even Zeus could reach to tear it out entirely. Trophonius could make it hurt, though. Make his father wish his sanity had broken.
The girl loved Apollo more than anticipated. This was not a bad thing.
The Dark Oracle latched onto her, unprepared, vulnerable, more likely than not to die, and Trophonius was finally able to confront his father.
The taunts were sweeter than honey. Apollo fell into his lap, crying words that Trophonius had never been able to forget passing his own lips, and the reversal of their roles, the power rush it gave him, was heady.
Trophonius had no control over the Dark Oracle. It had come from him, was part of him, but it sought out the minds that opened themselves up to it with a single-minded focus to hurt while it sought answers.
It had always been easier to answer other people’s questions. Even this girl’s questions – what must Apollo do, where must Apollo go, how do I help Apollo? – were easy, the Oracle cramming all the information she could ever need and more besides into her small, unprepared, young mind.
Trophonius’ own questions – why didn’t Apollo help me, why am I the exception to the rule – had no such luxuries.
Apollo had made the promise. Trophonius’ end was finally nigh. The irony that he would finally be killed by his own father, so many long, dark years after first pleading for the exact same thing, was not lost on him. For the girl, he would do what he had refused to do for Agamethus.
It enraged Trophonius, and the Dark Oracle responded in kind, pushing the girl’s mind further, showing her more, more, more, dragging her into depths that would be so very, very hard to resurface from. Scathing words passed easily from the wisps of darkness that formed his mouth, anger and hurt finding no reason to hide as the betrayal lashed out.
Apollo’s anger was legendary. Trophonius had grown up on stories of his father’s fury and love in equal measures and always fancied himself the loved one protected by the anger.
Agamethus’ life had been the price for his naivety, the first time, when Apollo’s anger had manifested as a cold, gaping silence.
As an Oracle, being on the receiving end of it for a second time, igniting it on purpose and watching it fizzle and boil, restrained by mortality and a dying girl in his arms, was fascinating. It was easy, cathartic, to bite back, to rage at his father and be raged at in return.
There was no room for facades in the cave of an Oracle, and the Dark Oracle in particular let nothing stand, tearing it to shreds as it burrowed and sought the deepest, darkest secrets of the petitioner, dragging them out of breaking minds as it stuffed them with new information that may or may not be helpful.
No-one read the Dark Oracle, there was nothing accessible to be read, but Apollo?
Apollo was an open book.
His mind was stretched thin, exposed and tired by Mnemosyne and Lethe clashing inside him. He had questions, too, most prominent amongst them is Meg going to die? and associated questions about how to save her, and floating thoughts towards the young girl Trophonius had used as his messenger in the first place, but the Dark Oracle was too busy with his companion to bother with him.
Trophonius didn’t want it to answer his father, anyway. Apollo did not deserve answers. Not when Trophonius had none of his own.
Why didn’t Apollo help me?
It wasn’t because Agamethus wasn’t his child. If he cared about that, he wouldn’t be trying to exchange his life for the demigod with him.
Why was I the exception?
Don’t pray for me to bail you out Apollo shouted.
The Dark Oracle thrived on fear, generated it and encouraged it further. It opened the mind up further, made it more vulnerable.
Apollo’s mind had flooded with fear the moment he realised his companion would be the one paying the price of their knowledge, but it was rigid, almost under control. Far too much control.
The fear had leaped, flashed like lightning as he shouted those words.
Trophonius didn’t think his father even noticed, but he did. The Dark Oracle did.
Apollo spoke. His voice was one of his greatest powers, and it gave advice, gave recommendations and commendations. It got Trophonius and Agamethus one of the greatest honours they could have had, secured their future as renowned architects.
Ask me for advice, his words said then, beneath the rage. Don’t ask me to do things.
A lightning-flash of fear.
An answer.
Even gods had limits. The Dark Oracle had learnt that over the years.
It wasn’t a good answer. It meant nothing, didn’t douse even a flicker of the rage and betrayal that Trophonius felt, because Apollo could have done more. The Dark Oracle knew that, too. Neither of them cared for excuses and reasons, not with the blood of Agamethus forever staining his palms long after his physical palms had ceased to exist. It changed nothing.
But it was an answer. Finally, finally, Trophonius had an answer to the questions that had haunted him for an eternity.
Finally, the Dark Oracle’s purpose had been fulfilled. It was time to go.
The end came quickly, once he shooed his father and the maybe-dying girl away from his cavern and into the waiting arms of the Blemmyae. After an eternity of waiting it hurtled towards him in a ball of fire and cascading rocks, dashing the darkness of the Dark Oracle into nothing and parroting the end of Agamethus, all those years before.
Trophonius unravelled, wisps of darkness separating and fading as everything fell down around him, the way he should’ve died, the way he was finally dying.
His consciousness spread thin, stretched and scattered like the darkness and the rocks that fell. He sought nothing, had no questions left to ask – Agamethus will follow soon, the Dark Oracle whispered to him, a reassurance in their final moments – but still his father and the girl came into his awareness.
She was still half-dead and dying a little more with every breath she took. Apollo was stuck, trying to defend both of them from Blemmyae that wanted them both dead. It was pathetic to see, a kick that wouldn’t do much from a feeble, mortal body.
It would be amusing if they fell there, dying the same way he and Agamethus had died long ago, ignored and doomed. It was tempting.
More tempting was the thought of one-upping his father, for doing the thing Apollo had turned away from. Of leaving Apollo forever in a debt he couldn’t repay, and another mystery to spiral around in his mind when things were quiet.
He didn’t have much strength left, but he had enough, for this last act. The stone ceiling of the underground lake cracked exactly over the flailing Blemmyae, plunging it into its depths and killing it instantly.
Don’t say I never helped you, Father, he hissed silently, despite knowing Apollo would never know for certain if it was a coincidence or not. Compared to the conundrum of the little girl it was hardly a deep mystery, but it satisfied him, regardless.
One last act, one last piece of pettiness at the father he could, would never forgive, and he faded away.
I got a glimpse of the "You villain!" and "Ssssstand assssside! . . . I will ssssswallow him whole!" on the next page and immediately thought they were talking about Apollo. My bad. It was Lityerses. Coulda been either of them at this point, though.
"'I thought you--' His welding visor fell shut, making the rest of his sentence unintelligible." Lmao
"You have to wonder about your chances in combat when even your dead friends are worried about dying." Oh yeah, I forgot Brieanna's already dead. And even he thinks they should flee? Yeesh, things are not looking up. Eh, they'll be fine.
"But I hear much talk about us and them." Jamie! We're about to die! I think we can spare a little "us and them" talk.
"Hunter Kowalski brandished her screwdriver. 'Not likely.'" Death by screwdriver.
"Commodus won't leave this net alive." I hope he doesn't die in this book. Shouldn't the final battle in the final book have all three Triumvirate members there? I know it's called The Tower of Nero, but everyone should be there, right?
"They have ìgboyà." Yoruba for courage/bravery. "I would have to purchase some ìgboyà as soon as possible." Yeah, Apollo does need a little ìgboyà to strengthen his bones.
"the Hunters of Artemis had to clean the cow pens" Maybe Emmie and Jo are still salty about having to leave the Hunters.
"brothers named Deacon and Stan" I'm sorry, Stan? Ok. "IV drips of nectar." First of all. Do we know their godly parents? Second of all. I didn't know you could inject nectar directly into your blood. Isn't that supposed to be food? I don't see anyone ingesting soup via bloodstream.
"a few dozen mortal mercenaries, about the same number of demigods from the Imperial Household, a few hundred assorted cynocephali and other monsters, plus the usual hordes of blemmyae" *toaster oven dings* How many Hunters do we have?
"Leo, stop." Let him cope, Calypso! Y'all're about to die. Let him let off some steam, both figuratively and maybe literally.
"Also I should mention the giant bronze dragon in the corner" Oh, yeah. So maybe things aren't as bleak as they seem.
"what about your magic? Has it returned?" "This morning, I moved a coffee cup across the counter." clap clap clap
"I would have made popcorn and watched the bloodbath from a distance on Mount Olympus, or simply caught the highlight reel later." I wonder if that was supposed to sound as demented as it did. "But as Lester I felt obliged to defend these people" Is it because he's Lester or because he's seeing this stuff happen firsthand and in the middle of the fray? If it's because he's Lester, then once he regains his powers, will he no longer feel these things?
"not-so-little Georgina" I reiterate: are we sure she's not half Germani? Apollo could've gotten with a Germani person and had a kid. 'Cause Georgina's giant.
"bounce it off his nonexistent head." As a ghost, do you not have all your body parts if you died without them? Like, you'd think that he'd have his head reattached once he became a spirit, but no. Maybe only if they're in the Underworld. But he'd at least, like, carry his head around or keep it in his inventory or something, no? Guess not.
"Was it payback?" I hadn't even considered that. I highly doubt it. Apollo's type of payback is much more obvious than that. *eyes Halcyon Green*
hc that the form of sign language that Agamethus uses in The Dark Prophecy (the one that no one can understand) is the same form of sign language that Hearthstone and Vidar use at the end of The Hammer of Thor
"But I only forgive each person once a millennium, so don't mess up for the next thousand years." This might be the first time I've seen a god use the understanding they've obtained over their vastly long lifespans and actually apply it to helping mortals redeem themselves. Good going.
"I saw a flicker of ghostly orange light." BRIEANNA! Ok, good, so he just peaced out for the battle. Understandable. Didn't think a ghost would be much help in a physical fight.
"I will petition Hades to let your soul pass on to Elysium." Is there something blocking him from passing on to any of the Underworld's fields? What keeps him in the overworld? It can't be his brother since the cave collapsed and he's still here. "I WILL GO WHERE I MUST. I WILL FIND TROPHONIUS." So it is because of his brother. Can Apollo petition Hades to let them both pass on to Elysium? Trophonius may not be a great person, but the word of a god would hold much sway in his favor.
"Agamethus dissolved into motes in the sunlight." MOTE (n.): a tiny piece of a substance So, dust.
"The soil rumbled and began to heave upward." The plant network! Grover traveled through this in The Last Olympian!
"I feared a new karpos might burst forth with glowing red eyes and a vocabulary that consisted entirely of Tomatoes!" Valid concern, but we're not here to collect the whole deck of karpoi.
"Enchiladas del Rey." I did not know Lana del Rey had an enchilada food chain.
"And you, my lucky friend, have been summoned to lead us through the Labyrinth." Grover, run. Do not look back. Do not involve yourself with these hooligans. You probably don't need much persuading, but I'm warning anyway.
So, is Grover like the series' token satyr character? 'Cause we never meet any new satyrs. We got Coach Hedge playing a very minor part in the Heroes of Olympus series, but it seems like Rick Riordan wrote Grover into existence and went, "Yep, that's good enough." Please, I wanted a developed faun character. Let's meet someone new, shall we? It would be great if we had a faun helping Apollo on his quest and for the success of that quest to lead to real positive change for New Rome's faun community. Please, I love Grover, but it's like he's the only satyr we ever see.
Sorry for the pause in updates. (I feel like I'm jinxing myself because every other time I say that or see someone else say that, a much longer pause in updates or an indefinite hiatus immediately follows.)
So far, Leo and Calypso feel like Disney Princesses in crossover merchandise. You know that thing where Disney Princesses aren't allowed to look each other in the eye or speak to or acknowledge each other whenever they are featured together in merchandise or media? Leo and Calypso have hardly talked to each other in the ten chapters so far. I hope it's tied into the fights they've been having so there's a canonical reason rather than just author neglect. I'm here for Caleo content! Eleven-year-old me wants to see her OTP!
Admittedly, I don't remember reading too many rocky relationships in the previous series once the couples got together, so this is getting interesting to watch. Preteen me might have to cry in the corner while I break out the popcorn, 'cause if any relationship's gonna be rocky, it's going to be the one that started as a whirlwind romance that jumped into a six-month-long action adventure starring The Guy Who Was On The Run His Whole Life and The Girl Who Hasn't Left Home In Four Thousand Years.
"Four beheaded dudes" I thought we just had the one?
"flecks of feldspar glittering like stars." FELDSPAR (n.): an abundant rock-forming mineral typically occurring as colorless or pale-colored crystals and consisting of aluminosiliactes of potassium, sodium, and calcium
"It was Trophonius. My son." Fuck. Okay, that makes sense why he'd have the gift of prophecy, probably having inherited it from Apollo. Is Brieanna his half-brother or whole brother? Imagine if you were a ghost and your dad doesn't even know you or recognize you (admittedly a difficult task without a face or a head present). Speaking of the cheese ghost, someone needs to get Nico or Hazel here to exorcise him and lay him to rest. What's he been doing hanging out in the living world all this time? Do his deeds as a ghost count when being judged in the Underworld? So many questions.
"Agamethus--Trophonius's half brother. He was no son of mine." He said that so maliciously! I'm sure it wasn't meant to come out that way, but at least we have an answer now. "The poor boy had the misfortune of being the actual offspring of King Erginus" No need to insult him like that, holy moly!
"We built the temple at Delphi." Y'all're princes and famous architects. You're doubly rich. WHY DO YOU NEED TO STEAL.
"Make sure my body can't be identified." Awwww so Trophonius didn't behead him to kill him or have any malicious intent. This is heartbreaking. "You brought this upon yourself." Tbf he did, but that's no reason to let someone else die. They both brought it upon themselves. After all, Trophonius says "we" when talking about architecture and the temple and they both are princes. Still, thievery and wasted potential are not good reasons for the death penalty.
"video clips of a bearded man with curly brown hair, perfect teeth, and brilliant blue eyes . . . Not many emperors can look imperial wearing only lion-skin swim trunks, but Commodus managed." My friend showed me Commodus's character art and lemme tell you he is HOT. No, like, seriously. I'd simp. He might be hotter than Britomartis is pretty.
"very close to threatening his nearest advisor's anatomy." threatening ___'s anatomy is a good phrase. Might borrow it in the future.
"I still found Commodus attractive after so many centuries" And you'd be right. "we had a, er, complicated history" *sigh* Add another lover to Apollo's Bad Decisions Box. Apollo's "complicated histories" seem to always involve some sort of betrayal and at least one death.
"a portly man in a crimson business suit" I wanna know who this advisor is. It would make sense for it to be Trophonius, especially with his gift of prophecy, but that doesn't sound like him. The way he's described is similar to Nero, but it's obviously not him, though we can't discount relatives. "capable servants of the Triumvirate lost a little girl." Meg or Georgina? Probably Georgina 'cause Meg wouldn't run away again so soon.
"Lord Cleander" Nvm, never heard of this guy and his name doesn't sound Greek or Roman at first glance.
"any sort of plant" Wait, it could be Meg! I wonder if she had a plan all along. It doesn't seem like it. "You let a daughter of Demeter near a plant?" Jeez, they're literally, like, everywhere. What did you expect him to do, blowtorch every inch of the sidewalk before they stepped on it? Even in the city, plants are everywhere.
"Which is all she needed to teleport away!" ...Can Meg teleport? Like Nico? Honestly still not as OP as Percy, so we're all good.
"Gods only know where she is now!" "Actually . . . I'm a god. And I have no idea." I love this guy. He has my heart and soul and he has spoken nine (9) words so far.
"If she reaches Indianapolis" Are they not in Indianapolis? Are they maybe on the outskirts around where the caves are, then?
"And you're boring me . . . which is punishable by death." Okay, maybe Trophonius and Brieanna's thievery was a more severe crime by ancient standards. If this is what Cleander and Commodus are like, I truly wonder how Cleander has stayed alive so long. He isn't the most entertaining fella. "Do it, then." Oh, I guess we have our answer. He isn't lasting long at all.
"That was very entertaining, Lityerses!" LITYERSES! Midas's kid! I saw character art of him after reading The Lost Hero and I was like, Why does he have character art? He was there for less than a chapter??? So I figured he must be in TOA somehow and HERE HE IS MY BOYYYY.
"Manage all that for me, and I won't kill you. Fair?" Some pay would be nice.
"Unless you want to wait around here for morning chores." Now that's a threat that will get him moving.
I just realized the four beheaded dudes are the combo of Brieanna, Lord Cleander (Does that mean Lityerses has been promoted to Lord Lityerses?), Marcus, and Vortigern. An uncanny amount of beheaded people in one chapter. New record.
"If anyone sees a bronze spleen about yea big, please let me know!" I don't know what a bronze spleen looks like. I don't even know what a regular spleen looks like. Just looked it up. Looks like a blob. Could not tell it apart from any other blob-shaped organ if you held a crossbow to my head.
"I haven't seen Agamethus since before the battle." NOOOO Brieanna's gone! One can only hope he returned to the Underworld.
"But the next new moon is in only five nights" FUCK. THIS. SHIT. They can hardly make it across the country in five days, let alone stop another mini-pocalypse. Is a plane an option? Will it even make enough of a difference with a time frame this short?
"The changeling lord... that's gotta be my homeboy Frank Zhang." So I made a good choice not systematically going through every search result for "Greek mythology shapeshifter." Nothing would have made me guess Frank Zhang. Man, he and Nico are getting the coolest epithets in prophecies. Nico gets "the ghost king" and "the angel who holds the key to endless death" and now Frank gets "the changeling lord." The freaking CHANGELING LORD. What? I'm not jealous.
"Ella the harpy" OH. Oh, the Sybilline books. Well, now the progress they've made is definitely going to be burned. Our only hope is that they can hastily make a decoy that gets burned instead. Either way, as long as Ella is still alive, it'll be fine.
"We have to find the Teumessian Fox." What is this fox and why is it so important. "I was tempted to ask Meg to order me to slap myself, just to make sure I wasn't stuck in a nightmare." What is this fox and what makes it so nightmarish. And why can't Apollo just slap himself without being ordered to?
"how many cities the Teumessian Fox had leveled in ancient times" So I should imagine a fox the size of Meilin Lee's mom's red panda in Turning Red?
"That's copacetic . . . You've done enough for us, T." COPACETIC (adj.): in excellent order Thank you, Leo, for respecting Thalia and the Hunters' time and aid.
"Yeah, but with three passengers" Yeah, but even with two passengers less or no passengers at all, even with no monster attacks, that's not gonna cut six weeks into five days, especially with three times the distance to cover.
"I'll just enroll late for the spring semester!" Um, Leo, you're gonna throw your girlfriend into mortal high school without anyone to help her adjust? I don't see this playing out well.
"I believe that refers to the Erythraean Sybil, another ancient Oracle." Different from the Sybil who wrote the Sybilline books? Oh no, we have another Rhea and Rhea Silvia. I hate when this happens. So we're gonna get a crossword prophecy. Now, that I'm looking forward to.
"I'll find us one." Does Meg have connections with some nature spirits?
"Who wants carrot cake with blowtorched meringue for dessert?" Me! I do!
"We'll ride them for a while, recondition them, then find a safe place to release them where they can live in peace." I'm glad we got the ostrich closure.
"ah... the competition." Lmao the competition
"Exactly. Different manifestations of the same truth." Right. So the truth being that the sun rises in the east, travels across the sky creating daytime, and sets in the west to make way for night. Each culture arrives at that truth in a different way, but the end result is the same: Sun rises, makes daytime, Sun sets.
"When you're out west, if you get to L.A., my brother Jason is there." . . . "I will check on them . . . And send your love." Oh, Thalia. Sweet Thalia. Oh, no.
"Oh, how I missed my sister. 'Give her my best.'" Please let this man see his sister. This is just cruel now.
"Happy foxhunting." Yeah, is this fox going to show up in the coming books? I want to see it bulldoze a town.
"heading west as if chasing the crescent moon." That's an epic exit. I bet Apollo wishes he could chase the crescent moon with them to go see his sister. Please let this man see his sister. Petition, anyone?
