They had agreed to allow Calliope to know the truth.
Artemis still did not know how she felt about this. Apollo had said they must take on their destiny themselves. That it was theirs and theirs alone, but it had never felt that way to Artemis. Nothing they had ever been theirs. Not their home, which had been shared with the Muses. Not their mother, whom their father had always told them was his tragedy more than theirs: he had known her love and lost it, they should not ask him about her, it was too painful to share. Not their powers, the Tribunal told them how and when to use them. Not their destiny, which had been scrutinized and analyzed by the Tribunal.
To Artemis, this was comforting. Her powers had always felt too big for her anyway. Most of the time, she felt all she was was her powers, instead of her powers being part of her. That was the only thing that had ever been hers, alone: the fear of her touch, how she could hurt someone.
That fear drove her every action. Even now, it made her hesitate. Worry that she was not doing the right thing. They had not told Niobe of their plans, worried that she would tell their father, as was her duty as familiar and their protector. It felt wrong and deceitful to Artemis, who hated feeling wrong or deceitful.
It was only Apollo’s surety that guided Artemis now, as it always had when Artemis faltered. When she had first taken a life, it had been Apollo who had covered her hands with his own: never afraid, her brave brother. It had been Apollo who told her it was going to be alright.
He told her this now, shining brighter than Artemis had seen him in a long, long time, as they made their way to the lake, where Calliope would be waiting for them. And when they came upon their little sister, Artemis thought she might, for a moment, have felt what Apollo did. Her yearning for Calliope to smile at her the way she once had, on Piperi, when she would shyly ask if she could read her poetry for Artemis.
“Hello, Calliope,” she said, without hesitation as they moved towards her. Her eyes searched the girl’s looking for what Apollo had assured her way there.
The Future is a Garden, Full of Flowers )O( [Homeric Epic]
In which Apollo, Artemis, and Calliope make plans for their future...[takes place before Apollo...yeeted]
@apollo-aegletus, @calliope-hesiod
[tw -- brief mentions of emotional abuse]
CALLIE:
“So that’s the plan?”
Callie sat cross legged on the forest floor. They’d met in the forest, because it was somewhere away from the prying ears and eyes of most of the town, a place that Artemis knew intimately. Callie liked the forest. She knew Bambi was here, somewhere. She wondered if he knew she was here. She wondered if he was just around the bend, listening. The thought of that comforted her a bit. She might not be able to see him, but he was here with her.
She dug her fingers into the soil. Apollo finished talking. He looked at her, as if asking a question. But Callie didn’t know what to say. Calliope, usually so bright and brilliant, usually guiding her with a golden light, could not help now. All Callie saw was what she’d told them: their father had lied and one of them would die.
One of them would die.
Callie looked at them now, her heart pounding. She’d just gotten them back. She didn’t want one of them to die. She didn’t want this life. She didn’t want a life where they’d all been lied to, where they’d been used like pawns in some twisted game, where they’d been robbed of the simple joys of childhood and thrust into some grand destiny. She wanted to run on the beach with Artemis and Apollo.
One of them would die.
“What happens after?” she asked, her voice small. “When you come back? What then?”
APOLLO:
No one was going to die.
If they continued the path they had been traveling all their lives, then yes-- they’d fulfill the prophecy as they intended to and pay the ultimate price. But he and Artemis had agreed that they needed to seize their own destinies now. It meant breaking all ties with their father, with the Tribunal. It meant, perhaps, never returning to Piperi again. But what did Apollo’s island home matter if he didn’t have Artemis in the first place? It didn’t.
They’d find another home instead, somewhere far away from everything they had always been. It pained Apollo to think that he wouldn’t be returning to Swynlake either, for here was the place he had spent the longest, besides Piperi, and he had been telling himself a beautiful fairytale...that this would be the place he rested once the prophecy was fulfilled. But he had to dream a new dream now. He was good at that anyway. Apollo had always known how to start over and become someone new.
So, one last time, he would remake himself.
And if she wanted, they could bring their dear little sister with them.
He smiled at Callie, trying to comfort her. He reached out to grasp her hand. “We’ll be going away-- starting over. I’m not sure where yet but...you should come with us,” he offered gently. “Leave Swynlake behind. It’s no more your home than it is ours.”
ARTEMIS:
Without Apollo, Artemis would never had been able to reorient herself onto a new path. Her compass would be broken. There would be nowhere to point it, but she knew--better than she ever had before--how much her brother had once sacrificed for her. It gleamed bright as the northern star, knowing that all he had sacrificed and been unhappy with had been a lie.
Guilty. She felt thick with guilt. It oozed through her like slick black oil and she wanted to reach for his hand. To tell him she was sorry.
But now was not the time for apologies. They would have a whole lifetime for apologies. A bright lifetime full of wonder. There was no path before them, but Artemis did not need one, as long as she followed in Apollo’s footsteps. And she would. No matter where he went, Artemis would go too. The whole world could burn, but with Apollo by her side, she would feel no guilt. Her obligation was to him and his happiness--the way he had watched over hers for so long.
Perhaps Nigerians had it right and the older twin was the one who came last: whom the younger readied the world for. Artemis would ready the world for her brother, this new, proud person that he was to be.
And they would bring their little sister with them, of course they would. Artemis would miss Piperi, more than Apollo, more than Callie, but with them both, she would not need a place.
“Our home is together, with each other,” Artemis affirmed. She did not grasp Callie’s hand, but her smile was warm. “We will come back for you and we will never leave one another again. No one will be able to take you from us, or us from you,” Artemis vowed.
“We chart our own course.”
CALLIE:
Her heart swelled. It swelled so much that it felt almost painful. She squeezed Apollo’s hand. This was her family. Artemis and Apollo were the closest thing she had to family. Closer than her own mother, who she had only seen for 14 days a year for most of her childhood. Closer than the Muses who treated her like a tool. They’d been robbed from her once, but she had them again and if this worked, if this actually worked — they’d never have to be apart again.
“We could go to Florida and meet my mom!” she said, eyes sparkling. “Or — or to Kenya to meet Kiara. Or both. We can go anywhere. We can — “
Her voice faltered. Something inside of her felt like it was screeching. That swelling of her heart turned sour, a deep pit opening up and draining all the happiness she’d just felt.
“I can’t. There needs to be a Calliope.” She cast her eyes downward. “There always needs to be a Calliope for heroes.” The Muses needed to be complete. Her place in life had been drawn up before she even opened her eyes, before she’d even formed a conscious thought. She was Calliope. She had to be Calliope.
Once, this was a destiny she embraced and looked forward to fulfilling.
Now, she looked back on the temple, on Piperi, and there wasn’t a corner of it that wasn’t tainted by Urania’s shadow.
But she had to go back. There needed to be Nine Muses. She had to bring Euterpe back. And even if she didn’t. Even if she let herself listen to that part deep inside of her that wanted to leave, wanted to crawl back to her mother, to Kiara, to follow Artemis and Apollo to the ends of the Earth, even if —
“And they’d find me,” she said. “That’s what happened to the previous Calliope.”
APOLLO:
Damn destiny.
Apollo had his fill of destiny for several lifetimes-- in fact, he felt like he’d lived them all within his 27 years. Ten different homes, ten different Apollos, ten different goodbyes. He gave and he gave and he gave, only to find that the ceremony of it all was empty. Was it a surprise that Callie spoke of the muses and he felt the same?
Why did there have to be nine muses? Why did there have to be a Piperi and a temple and tradition at all? He wanted to knock down all the pillars. Old men had built him and old men trapped women and children there. Maybe some didn’t see it that way-- maybe even his dear sister Artemis would argue with Apollo, say he was thinking with his heart-- but whether or not the whole thing needed to be burned to the ground, one thing was certain: their names should be burned from the pages.
Apollo looked to Artemis and if there was a reason they existed and their powers existed, maybe it was this, right here, right now. They’d use their powers to set themselves and Callie free.
“Not if they don’t know who you are,” Apollo said firmly. “My magic can erase this version of Calliope from their minds. And Artemis…” He raised his eyebrows at her.
Before, her ability to take magic had been thought of only as punishment.
But what if it could be a gift.
“Artemis, what if there was no magic for the Muses to track?”
ARTEMIS:
How strange, how quickly things had changed.
Artemis didn’t like it. Her brain felt like molasses, trying to comprehend these changes. She was trying to not think about it too hard. It was important that she stay focused. Apollo the sun that her planet revolved around, Calliope the star her course was being charted towards.
And when Callie spoke of the world as she saw it. The fear of being confined to a destiny she did not want, Artemis wanted to help break the shackles. Seeing them for ones of injustice. It had once been Artemis’ greatest honor to serve the Fates and destiny, but when they threatened her brother’s life? When her whole life had been lived with the understanding that after she fulfilled her destiny her twin and her would live happily ever after?
She could no longer see a destiny as anything less than a curse. She did not have a choice. If she were to give her brother the life he’d always wanted. The one he had always longed for, in the mornings when they greeted the sun, when he dreamed.
So, when Apollo looked at her and suggested what he did--
Artemis was not surprised. She had thought it herself. Their minds, one.
“I will take it from you, Callie. I will take it and we will shield you. We are stronger than the Muses. Than whatever new Urania is created by Fates. They underestimated us when they created us. We are more powerful than they could have ever imagined. If you wish, I will take Calliope from you and you can live a life you choose. The choice is yours.”
CALLIE:
It was a possibility Callie had never fathomed before.
Ever since she learned of her destiny, Callie had accepted it. It had to be this way. She, taken from her mother at the age of eight, sent across the world to a remote island off the coast of Greece, trained her whole life to serve others. No one ever said it outright but Calliope was one of the most important Muses — they all inspired artists, but Calliope inspired heroes.
So her fate was written for her before Callie even had a chance to comprehend it. Callie would grow up in Piperi. Callie would serve as every Calliope did before her, serving to inspire heroes, to use her magic to guide them. The temple, their grand home, their sacred space.
It felt more like a prison.
Callie couldn’t fathom going back. She couldn’t fathom walking those halls without thinking of Urania. She would have to spend the rest of her life shut in the temple — never again seeing her mother, her friends, her Kiara.
(Perhaps it did not have to be this way; perhaps things could be changed. But Callie was tired. Callie had her childhood robbed from her. Callie wanted to rest).
Calliope had to exist. Heroes needed to be inspired.
Calliope was —
Calliope was quiet in Callie’s mind.
Callie thought of the old Calliope, the one before her. The one who ran away to be with her lover. The one who defied the Muses first. The one who would rather die than fall back into Urania’s clutches.
Maybe it was not meant to be like this. Maybe there didn’t need to be an Order or a temple. Maybe the Muses did not need to be locked away. Maybe this was what Calliope wanted, secretly, deep down.
But maybe this was what Callie wanted.
Maybe that mattered more.
“Okay,” she nodded. “After graduation. We’ll do it then. When you guys get back. We’ll do it.”
The Stars in Their Circular Course )O( [Eclipse feat. Claudius]
@apollo-aegletus
November in England was full of heavy gloom. Everything was washed of their colours, everything was damp. Artemis dressed in her sheepskin-lined coats and fleece leggings beneath her jeans and still shivered her way through the forest. What she wouldn’t give to be a squirrel, curled up warm in their nests, or a bear, slumbering in their cave.
She was not built for the cold. Artemis liked the sun, the spray of an ocean, the temperature warm and clinging to her skin.
At least, this year, she was better prepared. Knowing already what the winter would entail. It was not often that they were in one place for long enough to get to know the seasons, but they had been in Swynlake a year now. Even Artemis was growing to like it in a way that she knew she shouldn’t. Hatter always remembered her order, which meant that she did not need to speak when things were intensely crowded and she would rather not do so. Still, she found new pathways, put in place by Swynlake when it was feeling playful. She liked her desk in the Parks and Recreation office, which had a string of lights on it and a smooth velvet cover laid over it, with a picture frame of her mother, brother, and father, when they were all still alive and together in Nigeria. It was at Chen’s insistence that she had finally done this, with Apollo’s help.
She liked her room which faced out into the back garden, where they grew their flowers and vegetables and tended to their chickens and their goats--all of which she’d grown fond of.
There was Calliope too, whom Artemis saw sometimes. The girl popped up unexpectedly in the forest, and once or twice, in Artemis’ office, with tea for her. There was Lena too, and the little girl Mirium she had met. The mermaids too, whom she was fond of.
It was all dangerous, but Artemis did not think, on the day to day, about this danger. She slipped into sleepy Swynlake life and she had not thought much about it.
That was, until right now.
Niobe lifted her head from where she had been dozing in front of the fireplace, which crackled and popped and filled their house with the scent of the holly and rosemary that they were burning on the logs. Artemis and Apollo were sitting on the couch in their pajamas and socks, Apollo having just braided Artemis’ hair, their empty stew bowls in the sink. Rain pitter-pattered against the window pane.
“What is it, mother-wolf?” Artemis asked, noticing their guardian moving towards the door.
“Claudius is here.” Niobe’s tail wagged as she scratched once.
“Father?” Artemis’ eyebrows raise and she felt her stomach twist as she turned to look at her brother.
They had not been expecting him.
“Come get the door,” Niobe said in a clipped tone.
Artemis untangled her legs and stood, moving towards the door quickly and quietly. She pulled it open without hesitation.
“Father?”
“Hello, my daughter,” Claudius smiled, just briefly, at Artemis before his face fell once more into a serious expression. “Aren’t you going to let your poor father in from out of the cold?”
Artemis stepped wordlessly out of the way.
“Hello, my son,” Claudius repeated, with the same small smile, at Apollo when he spotted him.
Artemis had seen the tear in the sky open like a mouth and spit out something into the lake.
It was a familiar tickle against her skin, like a cross-draft of wind. She felt it every time before she went to court. At first, she had thought, for just a moment, the Tribunal was dropping in for an update. It would not surprise her. They lived only by their own whims and it had almost been a year. Apollo and she were due for a check-in on their progress.
Her stomach had twisted at the thought, seeing as they were no closer to uncovering the secrets of Swynlake then they had been when they’d first arrived. Artemis seemed the only one upset about this fact--
That was a subject for another time.
Now, she had to investigate what the fuck had just happened.
She knew her brother had sensed the ripple too. There was no way that he wouldn’t have. So, she did not need to call him. If he was at all committed to his job, then he would arrive. Perhaps a few minutes later than herself, but he would come, sparkling and bright and ready to investigate.
So, instead, her and Niobe headed to the lake, where the tear had first opened. They raced through the underbrush, but by the time they had arrived, all was still and quiet once more, evening settling over Swynlake like a blanket.
She began to pace around the edge of the lake, her strides long and purposefully. Niobe trotted next to her.
It was Niobe who sensed another’s arrival before Artemis did.
“Greetings, Great Prince,” Niobe called to the boy who had just stepped out of the trees in a shirt hanging off his slight frame. There was a leaf in his hair, a brush of dirt on his cheek.
His cheeks were flush with color and his eyes were bright.
“Hullo, Niobe. Artemis,” the Great Prince greeted them, nodding his head in their direction before tilting his head back to the sky. “Did you--see it?” He looked over at Artemis.
Artemis shook her head and flipped around the shaft of her bow in agitation.
“The birds told me of it,” the Great Prince. “Was it--what was it?”
“An inter-dimensional tear, if I had to guess, Your Grace. I have felt them before.”
The Prince squinted at her a little but then nodded.
“What does it mean?”
Artemis turned a little, sensing her brother approach like bees could sense the proximity of honey. He was close enough that he must’ve heard the Great Prince’s question.
“We are going to find out.” She said this more to Apollo than to the Great Prince.
“Brother.” Her voice filled with a smile as he came to a stop at his side.
Artemis hadn’t been home in two days. She had made a habit of spending the night in the woods, becoming near nocturnal. Despite the quiet of the woods in the dark, she did not like this. Being away from Apollo for so long was unnatural to Artemis. They had shared a room and then lived across the hall from one another their entire lives. They had never been separated from one another for very long. It left her feeling unbalanced.
Still, it was necessary. For the mission, for the good of the forest.
And if Artemis put anything above herself and her twin and their relationship, it was the forest and the mission. (Though, do not be mistaken. If it ever came down to a choice, Artemis was certain what that choice would be.)
She had vowed her service to the Young Prince, as she had vowed to his father before him and she took that vow seriously. This forest was not her forest, but that did not mean it did not deserve her protection.
Though, Artemis had never been in this situation before. It reminded her most closely of Japan and the spirit that had terrorized the town there. However, that had only involved the forest in so far as the spirit came from its depths, the spirit belonged to the forest. The chaos happened elsewhere. The forest was not supposed to be a place of chaos. It was a place of gentle balance. The streams and trees and bees and wolves all working together, the hands on the clock of life, ticking about.
The clock was broken.
And Artemis needed her brother’s help.
“The Gummi Bears and the Stone Trolls have, from what I understand, a feud that goes back centuries,” Artemis explained as they picked their way through the south of the forest, heading towards the fluctuating border between the two groups--the largest and the loudest of all the dissenters.
“The Gummi Bears want the Stone Trolls stones and the Stone Trolls want the Gummi Bears gummi. Also, they want each other’s territories. Questions?” She looked over at her twin, tilting her head, pieces of her wild hair catching on the feathers of her arrows strapped to her back.
The ghosts came to her in the early hours of December 8th, whispering of the Ambassador and his pretty little wife. Artemis was already awake, she did not sleep often, nor for long. She did not mind. It was the silver of moonshine in her blood, after all, not the golden of the sun.
In over their heads, the ghosts whispered with their echoing chuckles. Not the first time, not the last.
Artemis’ curiosity was peaked. Of course, she knew that the Ambassador and his queen (a silly little Mundus thing, which was just bad judgement, really, even if the ghosts did like her, no wonder they were in over their heads) got into all kinds of trouble. They had been involved with that Urania situation, which had left a bad taste in Artemis’ mouth all around.
She should have known. Apollo should have known. Somehow, they should have known and stopped her.
Live and learn, she tried to tell herself. Artemis was not one to dwell on failures. She used them to fuel her forwards, to strive never to make the same mistakes again. Which meant not trusting people, even if they appeared to be people to trust. The Ambassador and his wife fell under that umbrella.
Artemis was more or less sure that the Ambassador did not have nefarious goals. Why would he own a little bookshoppe and be on the town’s board and have a little Mundus wife?
Still, it was not so easy to decide what to do. She knew what she could offer them. Just whether or not she should was another thing all together. For days, she rolled the decision around on her tongue, tasting all its different flavors, like the shifting of the winds.
Eventually, she came to her twin, for he was how she made all her final decisions. She had not been keeping the dilemma from him, no--if he had asked what occupied her mind, she would have told him, but Apollo knew that often Artemis had to smooth the journey to these thoughts first, wrestle with them on her own before asking his help.
Never would she make a decision without him, though.
When she knocked on the door to his bedroom it was dusk, fading quickly and firmly into night. The little house was quiet. She slipped inside the cracked open door without waiting for a reply and crawled onto the bed with him--her tea steady in one hand as she pulled up the covers and tucked them around her.
“The ghosts tell me the Ambassador's baby is in danger,” she told him with a frown, taking a sip of her tea.
