Fandom: Trials of Apollo
Rating: Teen
Genre: Tragedy, Romance, Friendship
Characters: Venus, Apollo, Commodus, Reyna, Frank
Venus watched her plan come to fruition, and then enjoyed the bonus content that followed.
@toapril-official TOApril day 8 - Echoes of Battle Cries. This was supposed to be Aphrodite. Venus wanted in instead.
Venus loved people-watching. Mortals, immortals, gods… it was all the same to her, wrapped up in the glorious bundle that was entertainment, some dancing to her whims and some dancing all of their own accord, falling in love, falling out of love, breaking hearts…
No-one could ever accuse love of being boring.
It wasn’t just romantic love she presided over, of course. Love was nothing so narrow-minded, and the making and breaking of friendships, familial and platonic bonds was no less entertaining and fun to play with.
Right then, Apollo was giving her bountiful entertainment on all fronts. His uncertainty with Reyna – a particularly clever set-up of hers, Venus thought with no small amount of smugness – had reached its conclusion, resulting in an embarrassed Apollo and a Reyna who had finally recognised who she was and what she did and didn’t need to exist as herself. Venus hadn’t been the only observing god to delight in Apollo’s predicament, there, although she had been rightfully the most delighted, seeing as it was her own handiwork coming to fruition.
Now, she was watching something she had had no hand in, but was enjoying the results regardless. The emotional torment of the loss of a loved one – platonic perhaps, but Apollo had almost viewed Frank as a son for all that he belonged to her beloved – was delicious. Venus hadn’t involved herself in Juno’s lifewood scheme, wasn’t particularly interested in what the other goddess got up to most of the time, given her prudish and limiting attitude towards things like monogamy, but that certainly didn’t stop her appreciating the way it had ended in such a blaze of glory.
Apollo’s anguish and pain, his heartbreak at Frank’s sacrifice, came very close to toppling her own Reyna scheme for the most entertaining moment since Apollo and Margaret had arrived at Camp Jupiter, and Venus was also eager to see young Hazel’s reaction to the news. She was a strong young woman, and that only meant her reaction would be all the more exquisite.
Despite that, Apollo wasn’t done providing her with entertainment she would remember and cherish for centuries, because to finish it off, the third emotional torment of the trio he was experiencing, was a mess of his own making, and that…
Well, Venus loved orchestrating her romances and love-based relationships, loved interfering to gain the maximum entertainment, but she also loved it when people were messy enough that she didn’t even need to give them a nudge to bring out the best and worst in them.
Apollo and Commodus were one such pair. They had been a disaster from the start, hurtling together like two out of control chariots and crashing together in a tangle of reins that couldn’t be separated and instead drew them even closer together, despite how terribly suited they were for each other – or how perfectly suited they were, depending on the perspective.
Venus had watched them the first time, the power imbalance between them and the way Apollo tried to ignore it and Commodus clawed his way up to try and even it out but always falling short because he wasn’t a god back then, and barely counted now, and thrived on it. It was always messy, always take and take and take, no side ever giving to the other no matter what pretty words they dressed it up in, and was always destined to end in the most beautifully ugly fashion.
There was something darkly romantic about lovers killing lovers, the possessiveness of it all when they loved and hated themselves and each other, but despite it all, claimed each other’s life and death. No-one else could have them, not a single aspect of them. Not their love, not their life, not their death.
Venus had watched Apollo straddle the young emperor in his bathtub, outwardly so calm despite his essence being a wreck, and pin him down in a way that was sensual and brutal all at once. Ending the life of the mortal he had fallen in love with, a stark parallel to the number of times he had desperately tried to save doomed mortals.
There was nothing healthy about the relationship Apollo and Commodus shared. Not back then, and not now, either. Commodus had died, but Commodus had survived, and the hate-love-hate between them had only tangled further, both of them still in love with the other while they hated them with every fibre of their being.
It was poetic that it ended like this.
Apollo’s hands were around Commodus’ throat again, straddling him in the same sensual manner he had millennia before, except they were accompanied by fire instead of water. Perhaps Apollo himself, one day, would be able to craft something out of the parallels there, if he would bring himself to sing of this. Venus hoped he would; his songs crafted of heartbreak always excited her essence the way nothing else he wrote quite managed. A broken god beneath a mortal god, the end of the tale of two doomed lovers, doomed from the start and both always aware of it, but too obsessed to let go regardless.
It didn’t matter that Commodus had lost his beauty in the fire, that he was hardly a husk of the beautiful man he had once been. Apollo’s anguish was still the same, bolstered even further by Frank’s sacrifice mere seconds before. It was a tangible thing, the grief.
And then Apollo screamed.
Mortal he might have been, but it was not a mortal cry. It was the cry of a god, a cry that reached deep inside the fabric of the world and tore at it, shaking the essence of watching gods.
It was thrilling, a song of heartbreak and rage and complicated emotions that all stemmed back to his love for his friends, for those he would see as his children if only he could, for the doomed love story he’d reprised against his will.
Apollo was aghast at what he’d just done, what he’d been able to do, and Venus suspected there were other gods watching and drawing their own opinions, but none of that mattered to her. Let them think what they want, let Apollo struggle with his emotions and what love could do when he unleashed the darker side of it.
Now I sooo have to ask about your hcs on Maria di Angelo's parentss! If you want, ofc <3
Okay, first of all, I will literally never shut up about how Maria's mom is Venus.
Now, Maria's father Salvatore already had a wife when he and Venus got together (think of this as an Alex Fierro situation) but he strayed. No one ever really found out, or else Sal's career would have been over.
Salvatore's wife was named Lucia Isabella Baresi before they got married, they were an arranged marriage of sorts (high-profile families seeking political gain) but happy together nonetheless. Lucia was kind, motherly enough, and well meaning, but she just wasn't close to Maria. She didn't feel very connected to her for some reason.
Maria is a middle child imo, I should probably mention that! She gives me youngest sibling vibes but she's a middle child because her dad felt guilty for cheating and felt like the only way to make up for his sin (even though Lucia never found out about his cheating) was to have another child. The first daughter was Angelina. She's the favorite, the golden child, the perfect daughter who came before everything went wrong (to Salvatore. Lucia loved all three of "her"daughters the same). Then there's Maria, the troublemaker, the sin herself, the hellraiser. Salvatore always has one eye on her, always making sure she's in line. Half of the time, she never was. And thirdly, there's Isabella Giana. She goes by either Isabella or Gia, and both names come from Lucia's mother and sister respectfully, the women Lucia was closest to. She was always attached to Salvatore's hip, as if he had to prove her legitimacy after the Venus and Maria incident. He paraded her around and took every opportunity to show her off in public, but at home he just wanted to be free of the reminders of what he'd done, the sins he'd committed. This was similar to how he treated Maria, wanting her at every function and formal event to prove he had nothing to hide. Angelina was the only daughter he truly loved.
Salvatore was constantly anxious. He didn't know Venus was a goddess, but he was in confessional nevertheless immediately after they had sex. He had cheated on his wife. He had gotten another woman pregnant. Venus had warned him this would happen. He repented, he prayed, but he was never at ease. His god held him accountable and he'd be sent to hell to burn in the afterlife. He was always looking over his shoulder, always worried someone would see that Maria was much more beautiful than Lucia or her sisters. He kept his distance from his daughters and was careful to discipline them when they weren't ladylike, prim and proper. He was all about keeping his image and reputation intact. It put a strain on his relationships with all three daughters and his wife, but he didn't mind all too much.
Salvatore and Lucia were loaded. They had a huge mansion and many servants and maids. They had chickens. There wasn't much need for him to be a dutiful, loving, attentive father anyway.
As I'm sure you can tell, Salvatore was a very religious man. I've talked about him exorcising Maria and Nico before. He had an ordained priest in the house at all times when Maria and the kids would visit. Said priest was often written to anytime Salvatore couldn't go to confessional or service. There are many frantic letters from Sal to the priest that are probably very funny. Stuff like "Thought of a boob today and liked it. Please Father don't let me burn for eternity".
Venus is interesting because she never had a presence in Maria's life. Like at all. But she "blessed" Maria with great beauty and charmspeak. She told Maria she was her mother when Maria was a toddler. She appeared next to her crib like "Hey. I'm a goddess, don't freak out, and I'm also your real mother. Your dad knows but Lucia can't. I don't care if you tell her, but she'll think you're crazy and your father might throw you into a river, and I don't particularly want one of my daughters to drown." and then left and never showed up again. Maria never said a word but read as many books on Roman mythology and her mother as possible. It freaked Salvatore out, and he burned the books each time he found them and paid the library fines.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Apollo & Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, Apollo & Frank Zhang, Apollo/Commodus (Percy Jackson)
Characters: Venus (Percy Jackson), Apollo (Percy Jackson), Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano (mentioned), Frank Zhang, Commodus (Percy Jackson)
Additional Tags: Love, messy relationships, Platonic Relationships, romantic relationships, Book 4: The Tyrant's Tomb (Trials of Apollo), Canonical Character Death, Apollogists, ToApril, ToApril 2025
Series: Part 68 of ToApril
Summary:
Venus watched her plan come to fruition, and then enjoyed the bonus content that followed.
