Synopsis: "A tale of jealousy, grief and rebirth."

When he was four years old, Chiron was no higher than a pony and no wiser than a child; and yet, when Apollo found him sitting in a bush, he was already playing with a bunch of chamomiles, crushing them in his hands and laughing while he rubbed them between his palms, breathing in their sweet scent as the god observed him with a glint of interest in his eyes.

When he was thirty-four, Chiron was one of the most renowned and experienced healers in all of Greece. Over the years, Apollo had taught him the right usage of herbs, the correct way to grow them and care for them, the most proficient ways to make them into moistures and balms, and all sorts of remedies that could heal any man and any injury in a matter of hours.

Artemis, with the wisdom that being nine days older than her twin granted her, suggested that he should also be instructed in more than just medicine, and so he learned how to use the bow, sword, and ax; how to play the melodious songs Apollo heard during his travels in the East; how to paint and sculpt, find the truth and conceal it.

He learned everything the gods could teach him, and on the day of his fifty-fourth birthday, as he was starting to feel lonely in his cave on the mountains, Apollo brought him his first student, Hercules, who, despite the first clashes, grew up to be a refined warrior, demigod, and son.

When he was ninety-four - only then, thanks to the excited chatter of fourteen-year-old Achilles and Patroclus, he learned of Hercules' legendary quests, of his madness and gruesome death. He felt sick to the stomach, and his chest tightened in such a way that, if he didn't know he was immortal, he might've thought he was about to die. It was the first time he felt heartbreak.

He sat on the ground, trying to keep up with the sparrows that were his thoughts. As Apollo's glasslike eyes stared into his soul, he stared at the crackling wood in the fireplace instead. "Did you know?" he asked, hollow. "About his death?"

Achilles and Patroclus were running right outside the entrance, chasing each other. Their laughter sounded like wind chimes.

The god crouched down next to him. Chiron turned his head towards him, and only then he noticed the sunken eyes, the freckles looking like spots of dirt in the snow, the tension in his jaw. It never occurred to him before, but there had never been a day when Apollo didn't look like this.

"I didn't," he said, furrowing his eyebrows. His lips stretched in something that didn't look quite like a smile, but not like a frown either. "Mortals are such feeble things that it's hard to keep up with them, sometimes." He looked down for a moment, lost in thought; then he looked up again. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"It's not fair."

"Death is never fair."

"I know," Chiron breathed, and after hours of sitting still on the ground and looking at nothing, his expression finally let out a trace of emotion, and he gritted his teeth, "But the way he died, it's unnatural. It's not fair. We could make it fair."

Apollo squeezed his eyes shut. "We couldn't," he replied, and from the sharp edge of his tone, Chiron knew that he couldn't protest anymore, "There's only so much a god can do. Monsters will always be there to ruin someone's lives, other immortals will keep being immature, and petty, and cruel. Death will always be the mortals' unavoidable epilogue; and not just theirs. How long they can put it off, it's up to them." Apollo looked at him like he wanted him to understand something - with a deep, pained expression, he seemed to stare right through him. Chiron looked back, scared and confused, still in the dark about whatever the god was trying to convey. "I never taught you how to deal with this kind of grief; perhaps because I never learned to do it myself, and for that, too, I apologize. Maybe you'll be better than me. Maybe you'll find a way to make it a little fairer."

Chiron never learned how to be better, but over time, he did learn how to make it fairer. He trained the demigods to the best of his abilities, and when he let them out into the cold, cold world, he could be sure that they would be able to fend for themselves; but none of them lasted long enough, and the oldest ones always left children, wives, kingdoms yet to bloom behind.

Over time, Apollo grew distant, and Chiron replaced grief with jealousy.

-

Now Chiron was three thousand and fifty-four years old, and he found himself in a quite peculiar situation. One might argue that in three thousand years of life there's not much more you can learn than what you already know - not much besides new technological innovations, that is, new types of poetry, new types of music -, but every once in a while Chiron let himself feel surprised at the new experiences that came his way.

It wasn't the first time he fought on a battlefield; the smell of blood and sweat and dirt rising to his nostrils is something that one does not forget that easily and he, with the perfect memory of an immortal, was no different. No matter what part of history he was living, the sharp and nauseating stench of death would always stay the same, and despite that, he could never get used to it.

He looked around, panting, with his palms clenching on the grass. There was not much you can see as you're hiding beside some bushes, but he still managed to catch the glint of the bronze swords clashing against each other, the purple flash that - he supposed - was the emperor wandering around camp in search for glory, the demigods darting forward as they reached for their enemies like deers running into the street, submerged by the lights of the cars that they did not see. It was no fair fight - Camp Halfblood was not equipped enough to handle a battle of these proportions, many of the demigods were not trained enough, the emperor was too powerful, too strong, too overwhelming.

Chiron, with the multitude of his years of training to back him up, had been careless enough to let himself get hit by a poisoned arrow. He didn't know where it came from or who threw it, but it hurt way worse than Cerberus' bite and, despite his best efforts, combined with Apollo's (Lester's?) healing powers, which now seemed to have been restored once again, he couldn't do anything about it.

He looked at the teenager hovering over his injury. He was nothing like Apollo, for sure: no flashing lights, no blonde hair, no perfect skin, no powers or ichor or godliness. Everything that made him, himself faded away in a gust of golden dust, and all that was left now, among the ruins of a fallen deity, was a boy with a shirt that was far too big for him, his hair messy and tangled up in thousands of different knots that would make a pirate jealous, his eyes, squinting in search of a something that would make all the wrong go away, betraying a hint of desperation, his skin ashy, covered by dust and dirt and blood that might've been his as well as someone else's. Even in this form, it was as pale as a spirit's, and the red of the acne that Zeus oh-so-generously gave him now was of the same shade as poppies.

He seemed fine, apparently; but Chiron spent one hundred years thinking the same before he noticed all the subtle signs of his afflicted soul.

But there was still some sort of determination in his eyes - the firm belief of someone who thought they could save everyone, the stubbornness of a man who wanted to see others live even when it meant he wouldn't get to do the same.

That's when it hit him.

Chiron thought about a conversation he and Apollo had, a few nights before.

They were standing on the porch of the Big House, alone under the sky like during the old times, back when he was still a foal, back when everyone around him left him but Apollo stayed, soon to become his closest friend and his only real father. Back then- Back then they would conversate for hours, and Chiron would ask questions upon questions, and Apollo would answer with a grin and a chuckle, proud of his curiosity.

"You have changed," he said that day, and Apollo, as mortal as one can be and as dramatic as he always has been, sighed as he leaned down on the railing.

"I've heard at least three different people say the same thing," he whined, hiding his face in his arms.

"Is it a bad thing?" Chiron asked, then, smiling as he approached him on the side, "You seem kinder - more caring. Compassionate. You lost that, at some point."

"I hid it," Apollo replied, and when he looked up again his face was serious. The crickets chirped somewhere deep into the forest; a light breeze flowed around them, like a gentle hand stroking their heads. "There was a point in my life when... it seemed useless. All that suffering just kept- it kept inflating, like a balloon. I just- one day, I couldn't bear it anymore. That's why I started being ruthless. Ignoring everyone."

The centaur winced. He knew how that felt like - the overwhelming feeling of guilt, the crushing weight of loneliness -, but that didn't mean he justified Apollo's behavior. Chiron had stayed after all, hadn't he? He kept teaching, he kept loving, he kept burning the bodies and starting anew. He never had the luxury of being able to give up as if it were nothing, and he once resented him for it; but now, after many years, he felt like he could move on.

So he looked at him and said, "You sound like a mortal."

"I wish I was. Actually, I've been thinking about it, lately, since my father never really said he'd give me back my status as a god." He paused. "Well, he didn't talk to me at all, so there's that."

Apollo stared at the grass for a long while; he seemed to be thinking about something, as his eyes looked at something that wasn't there, and when he finally spoke, his voice was a little more than a whisper. "Would you give it up? Immortality, I mean."

It was a hard question, one of those that make you question any choice you could ever make; yet Chiron, who asked himself that question for centuries, tossing and turning in his bed at night while everyone around him slept, already knew what to say. "I don't think so. I mean, it'd be tempting, but there isn't anyone who would teach the kids then. Dionysus doesn't care, so it's just me. I may not be the best tutor, but I don't want to be an egoist."

"But you are the best tutor," Apollo replied, with the ghost of a smile on his face, "You taught me how to use the CD player. The scholar became better than his teacher!"

"It was... actually quite easy to use, you know."

Apollo gasped, putting a hand on his chest. "Thou darest insinuating that I'm stupid?"

"I said what I said!" Chiron retorted, with a light tone, and finally, Apollo laughed, and he kept laughing even as they stepped back inside the Big House, up until his eyes closed and he was back in Morpheus' arms.

Chiron smiled bitterly at the irony. That's the god of prophecy for you.

He pondered the choice for a couple more minutes, as Apollo kept muttering prayers and incantations, and Chiron's mind screamed at him and teased him with painful remarks (so you want to be the egoist you said you wouldn't be?), but he ignored them, and decided he would finally give in to a desire he felt for a long, long time.

It was not the first time he wished to die, but it was the first time he wasn't alone in the solitude of his office while he did so, staring wistfully at the sky and trying to spot his long-lost friends among the stars. It was the first time he was laying on the ground, his leg aching from the poison flowing in his veins, his body tearing apart and his mind losing itself, the eyes of a boy - a god - staring at him wide and terrified as he made the simplest of requests. "Let me die."

"No," Apollo said, and the other smiled, despite the feeling of betrayal flowing subtly through his voice. For once in my life, Chiron thought, let me be selfish. "You can't- Chiron, you- wait- I can fix this. I can, I just-"

"You can't," he replied, simply, and there wasn't resentment in his voice - just the peaceful tranquility of a man who was ready to say his goodbyes, and the strain that talking caused him. "You tried, and I thank you for it, but this- this is a type of venom that can't be cured. I can't bear it, Apollo. So now-"

"Not you too," Apollo told him, suddenly. His blue eyes were filled with tears, but they didn't spill, and that was another thing Chiron thanked him for. "Everyone left, why do you have to as well?"

"Because the Fates decided that my era has come to an end and- rightfully so. Because it's time- it's time for someone else to take my place." He gripped Apollo's shoulder with his hand. "We can't defeat the emperors without godly help, and it's- you're the only god that will help us."

"I'm not-" the boy started, but stopped as soon as he understood what Chiron was planning to do. He shook his head. "No. You- No. I refuse."

"You have to." Chiron gritted his teeth, trying to put himself in an upright position. "Listen- you're going to be fine. Since I won't be here for them, you will take care of the demigods. You will step in as their teacher, and do what I did, for me. Promise me you will not leave them on their own."

"I-"

"Promise me."

Apollo gulped, looking at him straight in the eyes, and Chiron knew, then, that he had accepted his decision. "I promise."

Chiron nodded, sighing. He looked up.

"Zeus, god of all gods, king of all kings, I beg you to listen to my prayer and relieve me of my pain." He squeezed his eyes shut, as his leg pulsed and kept him from finding the right words. "I renounce my immortality in Apollo's favour, I give up eternal life to ensure that of many others. May you be forgiving of my faults, and grant me this blessing."

He almost felt like a lock had been opened. Sudden tiredness washed over him, and he felt his soul age and wither like a flower. Apollo, beside him, was staring at his glowing hands, in disbelief.

As the god tried to reach for his injury again, Chiron grabbed his wrist. "No," he said, smiling, and he heard his raspy voice farther away by the second.

As his hair was slowly becoming golden and long once again while his clear eyes stayed the same (pained, guilty, human), Apollo said to him, "I'm sorry."

Chiron didn't utter a word, holding his gaze long enough for him to understand, hoping he felt all his gratitude, and his sorrow, and his joy.

And then, his eyes stayed open, staring blankly at the sky.

-

"May you rest among the stars, old friend."