Pyrrhic Victories (Downtown Cardiff) [Tag: Gwydyon, possibly Morrigan]
Like most Old World cities, Cardiff was a maze of streets, avenues, roads, and paths. Even from this low height it looked like a bowl of hard gray pasta, waiting to be eaten by some Titan amongst Titans. That kind of disorder, on such a large scale as this, for something as important as a metropolis, bothered Apollo, in the back of his mind, someplace his waking thought couldn't quite reach or stab its finger at. Someplace that likely, he thought, housed his inborn need for order and beauty in all things. Someplace he had no doubt inherited from his father. Someplace that disliked his home being invaded, someplace that disliked even more than that the assault upon the goddess he was taming.
He stood at the top of a moderately-sized building, some two dozen stories gleaming down upon Cardiff's people, busily going to and fro. He'd been hopping, with leaps no mortal would even have dared, from building to building, scouting out territory. What he'd done with Moros had been rash and foolish, and he'd only been saved by the fact that Moros had remained on neutral ground long enough for Apollo to confront him. However, it was normally vital for an archer alone to know his ground, a point both he and his sister had had driven home for them by lesson and by experience. An archer needed to be familiar with the local territory to know firing locations, to understand to where he could defilade and still shoot with some effectiveness; to know where the enemy might take cover, to know where obstacles might block his shots, and; to know how much clear area there was, and how far he could expect a shot to go.
Tamed. Not entirely inapt for Arianrhod, perhaps, but unjust, and presumptuous, at best. And a lie. He enjoyed her company, and wanted her with him, but he had made no conscious move to 'tame' her, or indeed to change her at all; he doubted, in that frank self-appraisal that only he and his sister ever knew, that he could have done anything himself to change her. She was taming herself, by fits and starts, for him. And by the sound of their last conversation, a part of her didn't like it. Surely, a sizable part of her did, else she'd not have bothered, would simply have found some other plaything to dally with, but she didn't want to lose that part of who she was. He couldn't blame her. But he also wouldn't lose her, as long as she wanted to be with him. Perhaps it was time for him to start thinking more seriously about it.
Luck stood by him, today, it seemed, for there was Gwydyon, walking devil-may-care right down the boulevard. A bit early, perhaps, but he'd scouted well enough to have a good general idea. If Luck was paying a little more attention to him, he'd not have to fight at all. Apollo was not one to back down from a fight, but he also was not one to shoot first and talk later. What Moros had done, what Moros had become, had left no room for parley, but Gwydyon, for all his pride, might still listen to what Apollo had to offer him. A way out, a chance to save face in front of everyone. Almost everyone.
He jogged across the building and ran down the fire escape stairs. The spots of his armor, now few and far between, that were still clean shone and glinted in the sun. He looked completely out of place, of course, but he didn't much care. He wanted Gwydyon to see that he was not a god to be trifled with. Even if it was only by extension.
It didn't take him long to catch up; Gwydyon was ambling along as if he hadn't a place in the world he needed to be, nor a care he needed to concern himself with. He'd quickly find the last clause of that statement to be a most misguided one. He closed the final few paces, thrust a hand on his shoulder, and said, "We need to talk."