Chapter Text
Down and down Lucy tumbled, feeling the air rushing around her, her hair whipping past her face. She heard Echidna scream in furious frustration as she realised her child’s first kill was escaping.
Well, escaping was too optimistic a word. Uncooperative, perhaps.
She would rather let the fall kill her than the creature’s claws.
Lucy closed her eyes, trying to steady herself, to die with dignity.
She felt the wind around her seem to slow.
In fact, it seemed to carefully wrap around her as if swaddling her. A hand ghosted across her cheek.
“It’s okay,” a voice said, as light as the breeze. “I’ve got you.”
Lucy’s eyes snapped open. There was Lockwood, hanging in the air just before her. It seemed to wrap around him, hold him in place before her.
“Lockwood?” she breathed.
“Son of Zeus,” he told her as he took her hands.
Lucy didn’t think that was a satisfactory explanation in the slightest.
“You can fly?” she choked out.
“A skill from my father,” Lockwood told her.
And with that he fell silent, eyes turned away. They began to slowly drift downwards and for a moment Lucy felt sure that Lockwood needed to concentrate to bring them safely down to the floor. However there was something on his face that made Lucy sure it was not that.
After all, his parents had died in a plane crash, a plane crash that Lockwood would have been able to save them from using his abilities.
Lucy didn’t think she was ever going to be able to forgive the gods for the things that they did to their children.
Not that she was going to have the chance. Lockwood might have saved her from the fall but the venom was still burning its way through her bloodstream.
She felt something solid under her feet very suddenly and realised they had landed. She looked around, the world smudging as she moved her head. She was on the ground in a garden near the base of the arch. One of the blurs of life came rushing toward her and Lucy tried to guide Lockwood behind her, wanting to shield him, to keep him safe. Only when the figure got closer did Lucy realise it was George.
His face was painted with horror and concern, eyes desperately playing over her. Lucy wanted to tell them not to worry, that she was fine with what was happening because the two of them were safe. But she could tell neither of them were going to accept that. They would want her to keep fighting and she was not prepared for their final memories of her to be them arguing over whether or not they took her to get treatment.
“Hospital,” Lucy managed weakly.
“No hospital will be able to handle this,” Lockwood told her, looping one of her arms over his shoulder. “George, get us a taxi.”
“A taxi?” George questioned.
“Yes!” Lockwood snapped, obviously flustered.
George peeled away, battling his way to the street to flag down a taxi. Lucy slumped against Lockwood.
“You said no hospital could-” she began.
“Don’t worry,” he smiled at her. “I know someone who can help.”
Lucy wasn’t sure if it was the sight of Lockwood’s smile or the reassurance in his words but her mind allowed itself to drift off into oblivion.
Lucy awoke to music. It was beautiful, settling over her like a blanket, making her mind feel welcomed back into consciousness. It was so perfect that she almost forgot what had led to her unconsciousness but the moment the memories returned she sat up sharply, tossing back her covers and looking around with wild eyes. Immediately the music stopped. She felt a hand on hers and her eyes locked onto Lockwood’s.
“Hey. It’s okay. It’s alright. You’re safe.”
Lucy gasped in a few breaths. She didn’t feel particularly safe. She, Lockwood and George were in a crystalline chamber she did not recognise, the place illuminated by dancing balls of light, a young man she did not recognise sitting nearby. He tilted his head to the side as he caught her looking at him. Lucy stared. He was the most handsome young man she had ever seen, with sweeping blonde hair and amber eyes that almost seemed to glow with curiosity and charm.
“Firstly, I think you had better say thank you. My brother is not in the habit of harming those he treats but…”
“Thank you?” Lucy said, more than a little lost by it all.
Still the unknown young man rose.
“I liked the challenge,” he said. “It’s been a good while since I have treated someone for chimera venom. Nice to know I’ve still got it.”
Lockwood turned back, nodding his thanks.
“Lucy, meet Apollo, ill-deterrer, far-shooter, herdsman.”
“And, by the blood of my father, this one’s big brother,” Apollo declared, pulling Lockwood into a headlock.
The familiarity of the gesture startled Lucy. The blond boy was a god, a legend. They had named space shuttles after him! And here he was singing and playing and roughhousing with his brother like it was normal.
Lucy stared. She couldn’t stop herself. She traced the lines of the god’s face, the pure charm of his smile.
And then a new thought replaced all else. The woman she had spoken to had mentioned Apollo. She had said he was enslaved when the gods had fallen, forced to play his music for those who had massacred his family. So much suffering was predicted for him and he was there in front of Lucy smiling like he was oblivious.
Didn’t he know the future? Couldn’t he sense what was soon going to happen to him?
Lucy tried to move, to sit up straighter. A wave of nausea struck her like a blow. Apollo and Lockwood both scrambled toward her, immediately catching her.
“Lie back,” Lockwood told her gently. “Get some rest. We have time.”
Lucy wanted to fight the darkness creeping into the corners of her vision. She wanted to push on with the quest. The world was at stake. She had seen what happened, the destruction that was coming if the war was allowed to start.
But she couldn’t stop consciousness from spiralling away from her.
The next time Lucy awoke was to sombre singing. Apollo sat alone, head rested back against the wall of the cave, eyes closed. He sang in a voice so soft and mournful that Lucy’s heart ached. She desperately wanted the song to end, wanted to see the young man smile again. And yet she could do nothing to stop him either. It was such a beautiful song that Lucy would not bear to think of a world where it stopped.
Apollo noticed she was awake. Perhaps he heard the change in her breathing. She was his patient after all. He stopped singing, cracking open one eye to study Lucy.
The spell of the song ended, Lucy felt the weight of tears on her cheeks. She rushed to wipe them away, feeling very silly for it. She was the daughter of the God of the Underworld. Shouldn’t she be immune to sad songs?
Didn’t it run in the family though? Hadn’t her father let some singer down into the Underworld to look for his lost love?
Speaking off…
“Where are the boys?” Lucy asked.
“I asked them to go out and do something for me,” Apollo explained. “A payment for treating you.”
Lucy frowned, shocked that Apollo had not be willing to save her life without getting something in return. He read her expression, sitting back and plucking away at a lyre he had conjured from thin air. The song was not the sorrowful one that Lucy had hear Apollo singing but it was not joyous either. It was simple, distracted.
“As fond as I am of Lockwood, I am not allowed to just do favours for mortals without getting something in return. But it is good. It keeps them occupied while you recover.”
Lucy studied him. She didn’t like the fact that Apollo could be the god of medicine and not be able to freely give help to those who desperately needed it and yet there was something in his smile, something in his eyes, that made her sure that he felt the same way. He might be a god, she reminded herself, but that didn’t mean that he was all powerful. He was just as subject to the whims and failings of his father as the rest of them.
And what the woman had shown her, told her. Apollo would suffer in a war just as much as the rest of them.
“You’re the god of prophecy, right?”
Apollo stopped plucking at his lyre, eyes playing over Lucy.
“Yes,” Apollo said. “But I can’t… I can’t tell you how this situation will end.”
“No. You don’t have to,” Lucy rushed. “I just… When I was dying, I had a vision. Someone showed me something. Something terrible. And I… I need to know if it is set.”
Apollo pursed his lips, considering long and hard. He spoke very precisely.
“I have given no one any visions of what is about to happen. The clearest vision I gave anyone was your oracle at Camp Half-Blood and you know what was spoken,” he said. “But there are wise people with strategic minds who can sense the way the wind is changing without my assistance.”
“But you know?” Lucy pressed. “And if something terrible was going to happen, you would run, right? You’d not wait here to be killed or enslaved, right?”
Apollo gave a laugh that sounded dull.
“You underestimate the scale of the war, if there is a war to come about. I could flee to the ends of the Earth and would not escape it. And I had other reasons for wanting to see you. Your party at least. Lockwood will not begrudge what is about to happen. He will be glad to see his sister again.”
For a moment Apollo’s words meant nothing. They just washed over her as some offhand comment. And then it was like they grabbed a-hold of her shoulders and shook her. Lockwood was going to see his sister again? But his sister was in Hades’ domain. And maybe they were going to see the underworld but Lucy couldn’t believe that her father was willingly going to let the son of his enemy reunite with his dead sister.
Not unless Lockwood was not going to be ever leaving the underworld.
“You’re saying Lockwood is going to die?” Lucy choked out.
Apollo looked away, saying nothing.
“Is that why your song was so sad?” Lucy asked.
Apollo turned to her, as if he was surprised that she would bring up the song at all. For a moment Lucy wondered if it was some line she should have known not to cross. Would Apollo punish her for hearing a song he wasn’t ready to perform?
“My siblings have many of their own ideas of war. They see glory, heroics, skill. They see the strategy of Odysseus while I hear the heartbroken lullabies Penelope sung to Telemachus. They see the mighty sacrifice of Patroclus while I watch men die in infirmaries. The innovation of a nuclear bomb verses the aid stations on Miyuki Bridge, the families of the dead nursing the dying in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My hands aren’t clean, don’t get me wrong. And war tests the make of a man. But the time for laments is coming and I fear my hands will be too busy with the wounded to play them.”