Never try to drink a Titan under the table.

The morning came too sharply. He wondered if Eos suffered even half as much as he. She'd been well into her cups before he'd approached her table the night before. That Sumerian goddess, Ninkasi, had excellent taste in beer, and Prometheus had a hole in his leg. Philammon was never so certain of anything as he was of this.

There was no returning to his Fort Worth flat this morning, not when there was a slim chance that Oizys would finally show up - only to see him in his sorry state. He didn't know how to go about apologizing to a goddess for giving her a hug, but he knew for certain that he couldn't muddle through it when his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and his head felt like a ball of spikes and sabers. There was only one thing that could help this: one big, greasy dinner.

So it came to be that Philammon, son of Apollo, God of Musicians, found himself in an off-the-freeway truck stop fifteen miles from downtown. He sat uncomfortably at the counter on a swiveling red-vinyl barstool, suit jacket draped in his lap for lack of a chair back. The abrasive waitress - nearing her 50s, if Philammon was any judge - called out his order between smacks of gum, and sloshed black sludge into his coffee cup in front of him. There was no musicality in her voice at all; it sounded like her throat had been run through a cheese grater. If it had only been her voice, he could have kept from wincing. But the volume on that woman...

He groaned softly, which only earned him a glare before the waitress walked down the counter to the person who had just sat down a few stools over. Philammon didn't look up... at first...

Eos didn't think she drank often enough to be considered a drunk, but she had to admit that bars were becoming a more frequent stop on her visits to the mortal plane. When she did drink, she always consumed an indecent amount of alcohol. Eos didn't always know why she drank herself to the floor, but she could admit that sometimes (and only sometimes) it was about escaping. More recently, being intoxicated had helped her through several rough patches--almost all of which concerned Prometheus. The warm blurring of the world worked wonders on her mood, her outlook on life and her ability to simply be angry with things...or at peace with things. If that all failed, she usually got distracted, which was a very easy thing to do while drunk.

The truth was, Eos was never good at being angry. Even while drunk, no one took her very seriously. Holding onto rage was a skill she thought beyond her, especially after her conversation with Prometheus. Why couldn't she be angry and wrathful? Hadn't Aphrodite and Apate done a horrible thing to her? Just what was so great about going around forgiving everyone anyway? And, most importantly, why did she do it?

Eos thought about these things as she sat on a bench in a non-descript pub in Germany. She listened to snippets of conversation as she drank her beer and got absolutely no where with her thoughts. All she could seem to do was go down the list of the people she'd forgiven, not finding anything close to wrathy feelings for them. For as much as she tried to invoke wrathy feelings, they only seemed to skitter that much farther away.

She had never been so frustrated with being happy.

"Here, here!"

A random passerby toasted her and Eos toasted back, not really sure what she was toasting to. Why they called it toasting, Eos didn't understand. It didn't really need to be understood though. Toasting was just another excuse to drink more than she should. She'd giggle and toast someone else for no reason at all in about ten minutes.

No, Eos wasn't a drunk. She just liked getting drunk!

He'd promised his brother that he would rest after the incident in Paris, and rest he had. Delicate work, putting his shoulder to right. Panacea had done it with little difficulty, lecturing him all the while about the dangers of involving yourself with the politics of the land. For the most part it had gone in one ear, and out of the other. Healing wasn't politics, and neither was doing his job. You could only do so much, though, wasn't that right? Well, if anyone else had need of his talents they would find him. For the moment Asklepios was only glad to have heard of the bargain between Zeus and Erebos. Struck in his temple, with his attendants about, the bargain couldn't possibly fail to be overheard. By someone. Well, it could, but in this case it had not. After giving them strict instructions not to speak of it with anyone, Asklepios had finally slept a restful sleep. There was still work to be done, but it was no longer his work, and at the end of the tunnel - peace.

That seemed like a long, long tunnel.

( Too long. )

It had been a very near thing. Asklepios and Philammon had nearly slipped away from Epidaurus without a notice to any, without so much as a 'by your leave'. In the last moment when Asklepios had been securing a change of clothing - fast, something to discourage terror in the hearts of his patients - his daughters had found him quickly. A shifting guilty thing to try and evade your children. What had been a two-man mission had become something of a production. All around, as Asklepios and Philammon returned to Paris, there were Asklepios' attendants. At least fifty of them, bearing litters and various other tools of the trade. Remedies and analgesics. As well as their god and protector Asklepios these attendants knew their duties. His daughters waited at Epidaurus to receive the wounded, to tend them and care for them, and so it was Asklepios' duty now to sort through this nightmare and find anyone who might be left alive. In theory this would be a relatively simple task. In practice, however...

( It was complicated. )

Asklepios hardly felt anything at all while he stumbled. There were other deities here, nearby, but in his home they would take no note of one such as himself. Not unless they were looking for him. Gasping in pain with every step, trying not to touch his charred flesh against anything that might stick to it. The scars would heal if he could find the proper potion for the job. In this condition it hardly mattered. Arms hanging limply at his sides, it was enough to demand of himself just then that he keep moving. Into the confines of a room. His workshop, where the 'magic' happened. Philotes and Peitho had gotten away. There was nothing to be done for Hedylogos or Pothos. And as for himself... he had done harm. To save a life, but the feel of it, twisted his stomach into knots. He'd already vomited once, stumbling half-blind down the marble corridors of his home.

Now, here in the inner sanctum of his temple, he was going to black out. And before that happened, he needed to find the right mixture. Stumbling into one counter, and then another, trying to see his way around all the myriad obstacles in his path. Fire. Fire and smoke and steel. Asklepios collapsed with an audible creak of bones, a crack of his forehead against marble that would ring out down the hall because of his still-open door. The bottle was somewhere. Flailing wildly, his hand reached the counter and used the edge to pull the healer up. Bit by bit. Inch by inch. His opposite arm, right, it was swinging to and fro in search of the bottle. Only one bottle, about six inches tall and a deep brown. The sort of thing they used to put rubbing alcohol and other drugs into. He had prepared it for a myriad of reasons, none of which had proved to be correct or even closer to accurate as time went on. Asklepios could have shot the man that had such poor planning skills.

Oh, yes.

( That was him. )

He'd woken half-crumpled on the floor, the result of having fallen asleep on his couch while still terribly, horribly drunk. In the unforgiving morning light that sheeted over his face, he realized not for the first time that his overindulgence of the night before was both detrimental and foolish. Drinking himself into stupidity - and he groaned with the headache that spiked whe he'd thought of how he'd comported himself with Oizys the night before - was beneficial to no one; not to him, not to Oizys, not to... Artemis. No one.

The Musician eventually showered, dressed himself in slacks and a starched shirt, then faced the truth of the matter. He needed to return to Olympus, no matter how much he despised the thought of it. He needed to see his father, no matter how uncertain their relationship remained. There were too many unanswered questions... And though it was almost a foregone conclusion that whatever damage the Underworlders had done to his father had been rectified by Apollo's own healing powers, Philammon still needed to see for himself.

The sun was too bright on the grand marble steps he trod to get to the temple door of The Shining One. The door was ajar, which left him in an awkward position. Knocking seemed... just as foolish as the headache he suffered. Walking in, that was something reserved for those more familiar with Apollo. But given the two...

Rubbing the back of his neck, Philammon finally stepped inside. It was quiet, but for the small, metallic sounds coming from inside the far room across the temple. "Father," the Musician called, though just the sound of his own voice was enough to make him wince. He headed toward the doorway, blinking against the patches of light that tossed themselves so artfully through the high windows.

Being out with Zelos had been weird. To say the very least. She couldn't escape the feeling that he'd been hitting on her nearly the entire time, but that was absurd. Why would Zelos, of all people, hit on her?

Oizys found herself wondering about this all the way home.

Instinctively, she returned to the apartment Phil had given her. Not quite ready to head back down to the Underworld and get caught back up in all the war whatnot. She knew she would have to go back eventually. Somebody would likely call a meeting. Children would be expected to attend. She would go out of duty. For now, though, she wanted nothing to do with any of it. She'd already been locked in a closet, that was enough.

The bag holding the red dress was clutched tightly in her hand. She looked at it for a while before going into the apartment. Maybe she hadn't given that look enough of a chance. Maybe she'd abandoned it far too easily.

Oizys sighed and opened the door, throwing the bag on the couch as she entered. She looked up briefly and startled herself thinking there was somebody sitting in the chair by the window. She let out a heavy breath, looking down and holding her chest, trying to breathe again. A hand to her face and she shook her head, knocking the image away. That was stupid. She was getting far too paranoid about things.

But when she looked up again, the figure was still there. This time it got a sound out of her. Not quite a scream, not quite a squeak.

It took too much time for her brain to rectify the person sitting there with who she knew it was, deep down. She was frozen for more than a few heartbeats until her vision stopped swimming, and then she frowned.

"Phil?" She shook her head again. "Phil? What are you doing here?"

Lottie had waited for her. Sitting on the porch swing, watching Zed put yet another dent in his truck, Friendship sat waiting for Oizys, certain her sister would come to her. After all, not only had she bailed after the closet-makeover mess, Lottie was absolutely certain she must be tugging at her sister pretty hard. She was miserable.

Then again, a lot of other people probably were right now too. It was selfish of her to expect Oi to come just to her, even though it would have made Lottie feel better to see her. Which, logically, sounded backwards, wanting to see Misery in order to feel better, but it was the truth. It had nothing to do with what Oizys did, but with what she was.

( She was her sister. )

Artificial lights never looked quite so good as when they scattered across a living, breathing city block. He took the long way, walking up 5th Street onto Commerce in downtown Fort Worth. The keys to his apartment jangled quietly in counter-position to the traffic on the corner. When man in red caught in his black box flashed three times, then turned green, Philammon crossed the street with the weekend press of young hipsters so eager to drink the coffee at Barnes & Noble and talk of politics and the effect of the internet on music releases these days. Unobtrusively eavesdropping, Philammon walked a few steps behind one particular group of 20-something kids with spiked hair and aloof slouches, smiling now and again at the importance that laced through their voices as they bantered back and forth. So meaningless all their talk was, in the grand scheme of things... but it meant everything to them now. That was the spirit of mortality, the spirit he admired. Live in the moment. Love in the moment. Do everything with intensity.

Sometimes gods forgot how to live just like that.

With little more than wistfulness, Philammon's thoughts turned toward Argiope, then Circe, then Nyx, then Calliope. Love... Yes, he'd loved them. One left through the most violent means possible - suicide. The other came to him for a season only; Circe was too wild and free to be held for long. Nyx, Nyx was never his to begin with, though he was pleased inordinately to know that they were good friends now. It was best that way. And Calliope, that graceful muse, he could never quite understand. In the end, it didn't matter why she'd left; she had. Aphrodite was kind enough to free him of her, but he could still look back. He could still remember. None of them had possessed that intensity he hoped for in a partner, at least not for him. His blindness had kept him from seeing it, until now. Maybe Asklepios was right for laughing at his spectacular goddess misfortune. His brother was wise, in many ways, despite his youth. It didn't truly help, not truly. Music was never quite so good without someone to share it with, without someone to write it with, without someone who inspired you. Could that be the reason, then? The reason for this strange legarthy? Lately, Philammon hadn't written anything that satisfied him. Childish forms, simple melodies, but nothing that held that spark he had been used to. Perhaps Aphrodite hadn't done him quite so much a favor as he thought. Then, maybe only his own perceptions had changed. Hard to tell, hard to tell. The Musician raked a hand through his hair, and tugged the keys out of his pocket with the other.

His left foot was on the stair that went up to his apartment building (and would Oizys be there?), when he felt the presence of another deity close by. There had been a time when Philammon wouldn't have noticed, a time when he'd drenched himself in music because it was all he could have, and all he could hold, and all that held him in turn. These days, he had a wider view of the world around him. Again, he wasn't sure just how good of a thing that was. When he looked behind him down the street he'd just walked, he found nothing. But past the throng of club-goers dressed in 80s garb (that would be City Streets they were going to, then), he thought he saw who it was. Dark hair, graceful steps... Yes, that must have been the deity. Squinting, he stepped down onto the sidewalk again, leaned his shoulder against the wall, and waited.

Maybe he'd say hello.

Time had very little meaning in Concept. A thousand years was the same as a thousand minutes was the same as a thousand seconds... The world went on as it always had, and although Philammon subtly worked through the new and old musicians alike, he had not been so detached from mortality for quite some time. It wasn't to his liking. But he had become world-weary, tired of all of it, though it was not humanity's fault. He had needed a breath, needed a break, needed a time that belonged only to him. A time that didn't involve the troubles he'd found with his own pantheon. But a familiar presence had recently passed him by in Concept, and it turned his thoughts from the vast expanse of being to the more solid life he'd left behind.

When Philammon finally did set his spirit in flesh that mortals could bear to look upon, he found himself in the quiet temple on Olympus that he had called his own. All was as he had left it, the great doors still sealed, the myriad instruments still lovingly covered to protect them from what dust that dared to enter the home of a god. He spent the time it took to uncover everything, down to the last violin case. When he was finished, he finally unbarred his temple doors and opened them out onto Olympus' courtyard.

It was bright out today; Helios was doing his work well, or so it seemed. Philammon glanced across the cobblestoned pavement to the great temple of his father and found himself staring. He should go there. He should tell Apollo he had returned. After all, it had been his father who last stood with him on his temple steps. A father deserved to know that his son was again in the world. The thought of facing his father - despite the steps they'd taken to mend their strained relationship - was too much to think of for now. He felt like a coward for leaving Olympus without first saying his greetings to the god of so many things even centuries couldn't erase his mark on the world, but there was nothing for it.

Philammon yearned for a quiet place, but not for solitude. In such a mood as this, he knew where he would find what he needed. And the company was pleasant by far compared to that which Olympus could offer. So it came to be that Philammon found himself in Epidaurus, a bottle of pinot in one hand and a ledger of lined paper in the other.

He used his shoulder to knock.