53. the beginning.
THIRD PERSON
(FORTY TWO YEARS LATER)
IT was one of those days where waking up in the morning was just a little bit harder than usual.
Of course, being stranded in an eternal misery, it was already hard enough for Apollo to wake up in the morning, but today was an extra dose of fresh hell.
Apollo had never been to hell, but he assumed that this was what eternal torment was comprised of.
Today was the first day of his forced vacation, his mother would tell him all the time that he would work himself to death but he never expected that she'd actually force him to take a break.
He ambled out of his king-sized bed with a yawn, raking his fingers through his golden blond hair.
He sighed, glancing at the mirror. He watched as his own stormy eyes looked back at him impassively. Today he would try to enjoy himself. Even if it meant just sitting in a restaurant reading an old poetry book by himself, he would.
He was somewhat enjoying his day of eating cereal and lounging around when he suddenly noticed something he really didn't know how to interpret.
He noticed it when he went for a walk down the clear streets of his favourite country club, and also when he took a detour around the opera house. He even noticed it when he took a pitstop towards the restrooms, and noticed it was still there when he came out.
Finally, he couldn't ignore it anymore. "Who are you and why have you been following me around all day?"
He heard the sound of cursing behind him and whirled around to face a tall woman who looked eerily familiar. She was wearing a black suit, and had winding brown hair that almost reached her shoulders but didn't.
She looked at him with the intensity of the gods, almost expectantly.
"I'm sorry, have we met before?" He asked her. He noticed her demeanor slightly deflate, but not enough so as to change much. If she hadn't looked so familiar to him, he wouldn't have even noticed the change.
"I'm the owner of the hotel and the accompanying country club," she replied in a somewhat orotund tone. "I wanted to ask you if you were finding our services satisfactory." She spoke to him formally, her face remaining impassive as she awaited a response, her doe brown eyes glimmering in the sunlight.
"I was, until the owner started stalking me." He chuckled warmly, though his remark was only met with silence as she blinked at him obliviously.
"Oh, I'm sorry." She finally said after several awkward moments. "Was that a joke?" She asked.
Apollo couldn't tell whether she was being sarcastic or she genuinely could not read social cues. Either way, he figured, it was a tough crowd.
"The services are beyond satisfactory. Thank you." He said, smiling politely at the strange woman before him. She nodded in response. "Well, I've got to get going. It was nice talking to you..?" He waited for her to fill in her name.
She hesitated at first, but eventually replied. "Artemis."
He nodded towards her. "Artemis. It was nice meeting you, Artemis. Goodbye." He said with an oblivious polite smile on his face she'd never quite seen before.
She watched as he walked away from her, not once turning back. He focused his attention back on the small poetry book he had in his hands all along.
A little book titled, Hymns to Apollo.
Artemis grinned. Even in his mortal state, her brother was still such a narcissist.
"You almost got caught." Another voice broke through Artemis' train of thought.
She rolled her eyes as Ariel came into view, looking every bit as young as she did forty two years ago. "I just wanted to check in on him."
"He chose this. Twenty five years ago, he asked the council to relinquish his powers so that he could be reborn as a mortal and he specifically asked for us not to interfere." Ariel countered, arching a brow in disapproval.
As much as she hated it, Apollo had wished for it. After decades of waiting for Gayle Lovegrove to return to him in some form, he grew tired and decided he did not want to be a god anymore. He chose to live among the mortals and forget all his suffering.
Ariel didn't blame him after all he'd been through. She'd have done the same thing, but what really irked her was his insistence on having his memory erased as well. .
Artemis rolled her eyes, sighing. "We'd better get going." She relented. "It was just nice seeing him again."
Back at the restaurant, Apollo was fully immersed in his book. "Excuse me." Another interruption, he was getting pretty damned tired of–
But before he could finish his thoughts, the sight of the woman who had interrupted began to cloud his vision.
This thought was reoccurring today, but he couldn't help the nagging feeling that he'd met this girl before.
It wasn't the way her deep brown eyes, soft as fur glanced down at him with a tinge of irritation shining in them, or how her pink lips slightly curved to the side. It wasn't even how pale her skin was, even though it was a hundred degrees out.
It was the way her features worked together in perfect synchronization to create the art that was her face. It was the way her smile triggered a chain reaction within him he couldn't quite understand.
"I'm sorry to interrupt but I think they gave you the wrong order. See, I've been sitting over there for the past twenty minutes," she motioned to a secluded single table in the far distance. "–and you've been here all of five minutes, yet somehow your macaroni and cheese came in before mine." She flicked her fingers towards the mac and cheese on his table which remained untouched. "So I'll be taking this." She said, but right before she could reach for the dish, he pulled it away, towards himself.
"I understand that but see, this was brought to my table, meaning it's my order. So if it's all the same to you, I'll be keeping it." Apollo didn't have to wait long for her reaction. Her ears were already flaming red before he could even finish his sentence.
Something about it made him feel giddy on the inside.
The girl chuckled bitterly, "but it's not all the same to me. I'm starving. You seem to be really invested in that book, which means you wouldn't mind waiting another ten minutes for your order."
"Actually, I would mind."
The girl rolled her eyes. "You're not much of a gentleman, are you?"
"Never claimed to be," he shrugged.
She groaned, rolling her eyes before turning to leave. But before she could get too far, she felt a hand clasp around her wrist, pulling her back to where she was previously standing.
Her wrist burned where the handsome stranger had touched her, and normally she'd be barking mad at having been touched by a man she didn't know, something about his silver eyes made her dizzy.
"I could be a gentleman... maybe... I don't know, maybe if you were to tell me your name?"
As much as she wanted to be snarky about this whole thing, her stomach grumbled and even though he seemed like kind of a weird guy, she was curious.
Pulling up her chair and skillfully sliding the plate across the table, she took the fork into her own petite hands. "Gayle." She grinned.
"My name is Gayle."
THE END
FIN
A/N: thank you so much for embarking on this amazing journey with me! I love you all so much, and your likes and comments have really been the highlight of my days. I don't know what I'll do without them. :(
Anyway, it means so much to me that you've all come this far into Apollo's journey, and like the title says, the end is only the beginning.
unfortunately this really is the end of this series, but I'm so grateful for all your support.
im currently in the process of developing a little something new and different, it's on my profile if you wanna take a look. thanks for everything again, and i hope to see you soon again. ; )