Chapter Forty-Eight - Apollo Reflects On His Parenting
Posted: Monday 16th September 2024

Apollo
I left without exchanging any more words with Hades. I now had a direction again, which I suppose was why I wanted to speak to Ariadne anyway.

The only problem was that I had no idea where to start. Where would a young god who was set on trying to kill a primordial hide? I realised that I didn't even know my son's domains. I wondered if he would take after me and have many, or if he would lean towards Nyx's bloodline and have a... darker domain.

I had many many mortal children over the years. Most of them took after me in one way or another, priests of prophecy, connoisseurs of music, leading the charge in the medicinal arts. But godly children? I only had a few of those.

Aristaeus was the only other son of mine who had been born a god, the result of a fateful romp with a nymph named Cyrene who I fell head over heels with for long enough to have one godly child and one mortal one. Aristaeus was the god of many things (like his father) including; ​​​​shepherds, beekeeping and medicinal herbs. He had bought me great pride and was worshipped across the lands.

Asclepius too had brought me great pride. In his mortal life he had been a healer and upon my request was granted godhood after his death and made the god of medicine to help take some things off of my plate (I was always a very busy god).

Caius was only my second child to be born with inherited godhood, and most certainly the first with as destructive of a prophecy as he had attached to him. I remembered vividly the impending dread I had felt when I first heard that prophecy uttered by an Oracle back in the early days of my life.

Zeus, of course, had been furious and demanded any evidence of the prophecy be destroyed, which promptly happened, but immortal hearing is remarkably good and soon enough it was the worst kept secret on Olympus. I had half hoped after almost 4,000 years since it was uttered that it was no longer an issue, but alas, it seemed that it had been fulfilled.

I tried to tap into my godly find-my-kids senses. I could sense Asclepius in Epidaurus where he always was and Aristaeus was somewhere in Slovenia, no doubt with bees as he always was (I cannot impress upon you enough how much Aristaeus loves bees). But Caius was off of my radar, even my demigod kids popped up, a little cluster of three at camp (Will, Austin and Kayla) and various others across the US, but still no Caius.

Artemis had said that the last person who had seen Caius was Will Solace. I was going to make a second visit to Camp Halfblood since regaining my immortality.

*

I decided to forgo all formalities and went straight to the me cabin. It was rec hour, so inside I found Kayla, Austin, Will and Nico all relaxing.

"You're back?" Will perked up when he saw me enter, "so soon?"

"I need to speak to you about my son," I said, plonking myself down on an empty bed.

"Which one?" Nico asked flatly. I shot the son of Hades a withering look, I could not help but direct some of the resentment I was currently harbouring towards Hades at Nico.

"Caius?" Will realised.

"You didn't tell me," I said accusingly. It had been seven months since my wife's death, Will, Nico and all of the other campers had known about it whilst I was still mortal and they hadn't told me, "Why?"

Will, Kayla and Austin exchanged a look.

"We um..." Will started.

"We didn't want you to off yourself," Nico cut in, with the bluntness of a son of Hades, "you know, whilst you were still mortal and could die."

"So we waited," Will said, "and see, no harm done."

"No harm?" I demanded, "My son has been missing for seven months! I wasn't at my wife's funeral!"

"Well, you can just go to the underworld and see her?" Will suggested, "You're a god again, you can do anything you want."

I narrowed my eyes, "she doesn't want to see me. But I am not here to discuss Ariadne. Where is my son? What do you know?"

"No more than you I'd wager," Will offered, "after we spoke to Ri-"

"She spoke to you?" I demanded white-hot rage towards her forming in my stomach. She would speak to Will and Nico, but she wouldn't speak to me. What had I done to deserve this?

"She wasn't happy about it," Nico offered. That didn't make me feel any better.

"Anyway," Will continued, "something that Ariadne said about Nyx got into Caius' head. He became adamant that if he killed Nyx he could bring her back. That's the last thing we heard from him before, poof." Will made a 'poof' motion with his hands.

"What do you know of him?" I demanded, "Where might he hide?"

"We only met him for a few hours, and he was like a day old at the time," Will said, "not sure, sorry. Is your godly GPS still offline?"

"No I am fully restored to my strength," I said, "But Caius... remains out of reach to me. I don't even know what he looks like, let alone his domains. I have no hints, no clues!" I put my head in my hands. It had been a very long seven months, this was the absolute last thing I needed to return to upon becoming a god. I had hoped that my beautiful wife and my child would be waiting to greet me with open arms upon my return, but no such luck. During my time as a mortal (entirely Zeus' fault), everything that mattered to me had fallen apart.

Will crossed to sit beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. "Well, he looks a lot like you. Not the Lester you, the god you. He has Ariadne's eyes though."

"He told us right after he was born that his domains were life, mortality and immortality," Kayla offered.

"Really?" I looked up at my daughter.

"Yeah," she confirmed. I was impressed by this. Those were some incredibly powerful domains. Of course, they had nothing on my own domains, but I understood why the Olympians would fear Caius falling into Nyx's hands now. As an immortal, fighting someone who reigned over immortality itself was a terrifying prospect.

I wracked every inch of my immortal brain for anything that could point to where the god of life itself would go. The first option was obvious, he had gone to kill Nyx. Perhaps he was lost in her mansion, but I didn't allow myself to get caught up in this as the only person I knew who could navigate the mansion was dead.

Then it struck me. Where did I go when I needed to think? I rode the sun chariot. The sun itself was my symbol. Artemis was the same, she rode her moon chariot. If he were not in the mansion of Nyx, he would be considering his options somewhere that he could think.

What was the symbol of life itself?

A tree.