Match: @shutitk from @starriskiesstuff
Prompt: Apollo struggling with his godly form post-toa
When he first returned to Olympus, his form had far more of Lester in it than Chrysocomes.
He caught Athena's stern, angered eyes often.
Athena did not particularly care for feelings, her own or anyone else's. She was unfailingly logical.
A form so obviously reminiscent of his time as a mortal was certainly not wise - but there was a reason that wisdom was not his domain, that it was not his job to play chess in five dimensions. He knew what she wanted.
Act normal, act like you're more than happy to be here. Act like you've learned the lesson you were supposed to. Stand out, but only in the ways that make you blend in.
It felt wrong, though. He'd never much liked this form he'd adopted in America, had always preferred how he had appeared in Greece, but he'd taken it for a reason, and he'd never felt so uncomfortable in it. Now, though - now he couldn't even look in the mirror without feeling that inescapable sense of wrongness.
He spent as little time on Olympus as possible, but he was still a member of the council, still could not escape it fully.
It was a delicate balancing act, how much Acersecomes he could be without giving himself away, how closely he could cling to Lester, how much he had to cloak himself in his old ways, and it was never enough.
He flecked his golden eyes with blue, wore his hair longer, let some of his old scars reappear where only he could see them, and told himself it would have to be enough.
It was never enough, and he found himself pushing limits to spend more time in the places where he could be Lester without everything else weighing on him. He taught Meg piano and hung out at Aeithales and even after all that he still. had. to. come. back.
Even Lester was not right. It was tied to days he would never return too, and with Meg it was fine, but it was not Apollo.
Acersecomes, he who has unshorn hair. That form...it was his oldest human one, and the only one he felt right in. But Acersecomes he had long ago forfeited, and could not reclaim. Olympus would find their suspicions in it. They always did. They were far too used to this new (old) Apollo, and if he rescinded that now he would not survive.
None of those immortal gods that hold Olympus could ever truly be what they had been in Greece or Rome, but he of all of them had changed the most.
He hated Olympus in a way he never had before, and he came back and nodded and pretended this council of theirs meant anything, that they weren't just rubber-stamps playing the part of a democracy. He pretended that he didn't look wrong, that he didn't want to cry every time he saw himself, that he hadn't removed every reflective surface he could from his palace. He pretended because that was the way of things on Olympus, and because he could not afford to step out of line.
Artemis saw it, he knew, how wrong it felt to him. She never brought it up, and neither did he. He didn't think he would know what to say.
They all pretended, after all. They always had.
