HIS GOD COMPLEX | under construction!

18 | δεκαοκτώ

18 | δεκαοκτώ

▂▂▂▂✦▂▂▂▂

I WAS ON the grass with Apollo and Hecate. Yet my mind was somewhere, miles away. I had overreacted. I knew I had overreacted. It had been an hour and they still weren't back and it was all my fault.

I couldn't help it. When I saw Ares like that, so angry... it triggered something inside of me. A memory, from when I was still a young child. A memory I had chosen to store away somewhere in the depths of my mind. Now it was all I could think about.

"Are you listening to me?" Hecate cut into my thoughts. My eyes focused on Hecate, who had been glaring at me annoyedly. "Sorry, I – I missed that last part." I was still only half there, but there nevertheless.

She sighed, completely ignoring my lack of interest. "We're running out of time, we have to move on with the plan without them. They'll catch up." She sighed, running a frazzled hand through her raven coloured locks.

"What plan?" My eyes were darting between the two gods in front of me confusedly. I must've been thinking through the whole explanation of the plan because Hecate face-palmed herself, and Apollo's face morphed into one of concern. "She's hopeless." Hecate murmured to herself, earning a hostile glare from Apollo.

Apollo sighed, shutting his electric blue eyes in deep concentration before opening them again. "Ariel, do you know what river this is?" He asked me, face completely lacking any compassion. What was wrong with Apollo? One minute he was comforting me as I cried and the next he was pretending there was no other he found more annoying than me. I looked into the river, it was large, wide enough to fit five or more pools inside it, and who knew how deep it was. I shook my head, looking back to Apollo, whom I now noticed was holding Pandora's Box between his fingers. Had I really been so out of it that I didn't notice him conjuring the box?

Hecate was now pacing back and forth next to us, face contorted into that of worry. "This is the river Lycia. Have you ever read anything about the it?" Apollo asked knowingly, a comforting smile finding his chiseled features.

I couldn't help but smile back, because I actually had read something about the river in a book called, 1001 Mythological Places.

"Obviously." I got up, rushing to the riverbanks as the water crashed against the rocks. Finally, my mind was focusing on something other than Ares, the look in his eyes when I told him to leave or my daunting past. "Lycia is an ancient river, one that no god, or any other land-dwelling mythological creature can enter without burning themself to pieces because of an enchantment the Queen of the seas, Amphitrite put on it centuries ago. Therefore, only mortals and sea creatures could enter without getting harmed." I liked talking about this stuff. It kept me distracted from Ares and everything.

I bent down, took a huge, unwavering breath before pushing my fist into the cold, relaxing waters. Nothing happened to it, instead I felt the water calm me down, making me want to jump into it and just stay in there, ignore my past. I exhaled a breath I didn't know I had been holding before. I pulled my fingers out of the water.

I ran to Apollo's side, much too excited to think of anything else. "The water feels – " but before I could finish my sentence, the sound of burning flesh echoed throughout the land as I flinced away. I had touched Apollo's arm to get his attention, but my hands were still wet and it left a mark on his flesh.

My eyebrows furrowed as I wiped the water on my sweater. "Curiouser and curiouser..." I mumbled to myself, astonished by the effect the water clearly had on the god. "I'm sorry, I just..." If Apollo was mad at me for burning him, he didn't show it. Instead, he had a smirk on his lips, shaking his head rather slowly. His smile flowed from his lips to his eyes, making everything seem brighter than it really was. It was like birds were chirping, flowers were growing and the sun was shining. It seemed Helios rejoiced whenever Apollo was happy.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer." I stuck my tongue out playfully at the god in front of me, who chuckled in response. "Why take a picture when I've got the real thing, right here in front of me." He retorted sincerely. My cheeks began to heat up, and there was a long pause, silence as we both stared at each other.

But my smile dissipated just as soon as it came, because I just couldn't help wishing I was standing there, not looking into Apollo's signature electric blue eyes, but Ares' honey brown ones, talking to him instead. But he was upset with me now, and he needed to be away from me, maybe blow off some steam. He'd be back... right?

Apollo must've realised what I had been thinking because his smile was just as quickly replaced with his usual impassive features, jaw clenched in annoyance.

I decided to break the silence. "So what does this river have to do with the plan?" I said, looking around for Hecate, but she had somehow vanished.

"Well." He motioned to the Box still in his hands. "We have reason to believe that the amulet is somewhere down that river." He motioned to Lycia. "That's crazy. If it is down there, then the only one of us who could retrieve it is – " I stopped talking when I realised where this conversion was going, eyes widening in realisation. I began to wave my hands no in Apollo's face. "No. No no no no no... no!" My feet were dragging me backwards, further away from Apollo. "You're the only one who can do it." He was trailing after me. "You're the only one of us who won't burn when going in." He argued, his face pleading with me.
"Think about it..." I negotiated, still moving backwards in attempts to escape. "I wouldn't be able to stay down long enough to find the amulet!" I continued to argue.

"Why do you think I'm holding this heavy box? It can help you!" He reasoned and I stopped dead in my tracks. "Pandora's Box can help me breathe underwater?" I retorted incredulously, disbelief seeping through my voice as I narrowed my eyes at the god.

"Not exactly... this is what's going to help you." He said, the sound of something breaking off of the box echoed and my curiosity increased. "What is that?" I asked, trailing closer to him to see what he had. Between his fingers, he was holding a marble sized, silver looking orb.

"What is that?" I mumbled, transfixed by the silver orb between his fingers. My eyes scanned over the box, the large, fancy letter P was decorated with about four more of the same looking orbs.

"Oh this? This is what's going to help you breathe underwater."