Who: Asteria (esteris) & Apollo (phaebus) When: [Postdated] Thursday, May 20th Where: The Bluffs, NY What: Here comes the sun, back from the Underworld. Warnings: N/A Notes: Log is still in process.
The water, the sand, the breeze.
All of it was seemingly ironic compared to the fact that Apollo's domain rested within the land, the mortals upon it, and their creative inventions. Far from the waves that he was surrounded constantly with upon his birth, the sand that felt like his second skin from the numerous times that he had spent on the shores of Delos, before he slayed the Python and made himself known to his father's world.
But his memory went further beyond that point and remembered the one that had saved his mother, his sister, and consequently, him.
Her presence was not as he remembered it in the past. It was without regret that he had left his aunt in pursuit of life, of what the Fates had planned. However, it wasn't because of convention that he had forgotten her, for if it was one things that Greeks had, it was the gift of memory in terms of favors, grudges, and revenges to be had. However, it only seemed natural that he would think of her once he had finally been released from the Underworld sentence.
Needless to say, anywhere looked very much as welcome as Olympus once did in comparison to the darkness of Hades.
A tattered jacket slung over his shoulder, the sun god's eyes followed that of the horizon as he walked along the shore, the sand sticking to the soles of his feet.
Golden sand, embraced and beaten by frothy blue-green-white waves, stretched along the border of Sterling's Bluffs. It was a bright stripe of orange that divided the grassy hills from the lake. The rocks were the wrong colour--so was the sand, for that matter--and there was too much greenery.
Through some perverse form of masochism, Asteria frequently visited these Bluffs, which were not Delos' shores, but were the closest thing she currently had to remind her of them. It was familiarity; familiar misery was far preferable to foreign misery, and so she didn't question the water's pull on her. Didn't question how crawling over the thick, powdery sand on her hands and knees into the lullaby-rocking swells, skirt sodden and dirty, somehow felt natural and comforting, despite the ache it put in her heart when she remembered being large and unmoving, tossed haplessly by waters so different but so similar to the ones that splashed up onto her chest and arms, soaking her to the core.
Asteria stared out emptily. Perched crosslegged on a small ledge, she payed no mind to the sand sticking itself to her blue jeans, instead focusing her eyes on the sinking sun in the far horizon. It'd be night soon. Her domain. She wouldn't see the stars, because there were never any stars in the city, and she wouldn't be able to listen to their long-unheard stories, but she'd feel their loneliness aching in her heart in the same way it did every night.
Living inside her head made it difficult to acknowledge the rest of the world sometimes. As such, the approach of her nephew went unnoticed by her, as she worked on letting the sky swallow her mind whole.
Humming a tune, Apollo watched the tide pull in slowly, the wet soak of the sand only inches away from his feet, the slow rhythm providing the beat. It was a nonsensical tune, leaning closer towards classical than lyrical music, but it carried the habit that had crossed over from old to modern times.
It was at the bottom of the ledge that he sensed his aunt that he looked up, tilting his head at the figure that sat upon it. In a moment later, Apollo had appeared on the ledge as well, the suit jacket in the air before landing on the shoulders of his aunt before he joined her on the ledge, with one leg folded underneath him, his head turned to face his preoccupied aunt, silently observing, silently waiting for her to finally "see" him.
In the meanwhile, the humming continued.
At least two minutes passed before Asteria blinked, shivered a little bit, and realized there was something around her shoulders that had not been there before. Carefully, her fingers rose from where they'd laid twisted in the cool ground and felt along the sides of the unfamiliar garment, mindless of the sand still dusting her skin. There was always a gradual slide out of the withdrawn hypnosis, one that was usually helped along by tactile and verbal acknowledgment. She touched the jacket delicately, rolling around in the odd things brought to memory by the white fabric. Under her breath came forth soft, barely audible murmurs, "... have to mend the tear in that skirt... buy a new raincoat. None left, don't think she'll mind." She spoke her thoughts at random; didn't explain because she was speaking for herself, not anyone else.
The near incoherence withdrew its plague. She stopped talking, blinked again, then wiped her hand off on her jeans so she could rub at her eyes. It was almost like waking up; looking around to reestablish her surroundings, restoring her mind to some semblance of stability and reason. Her gaze settled on the man beside her for a number of moments before Asteria truly grasped who he was, that he was really there, and she raised her eyebrows in a gesture that was less surprise and more an effort to focus her sight.
"Apollo?"
During the time it had taken his Aunt to come to, Apollo had stretched out his body against the ground, his legs crossed, his head laid back with his arms crossed underneath and his eyes closed. While there was no place like home, there certainly was no place better than in the sunlight.
The sun's rays warmed his skin and his bones, both almost made permanently frozen in that of his uncle's underworld domain. Even the change in both color of his complex and his hair had changed, tainted by the lack of the world above and the breath of life. But now, lying in the glow of life, slowly but surely, the dark patches of his hair gave way into his golden roots and his face once more flushed with red blood and not black.
At the sound of his name, he cracked open one blue eye to look up before propping himself up on his elbows.
"Hello, Aunt. You're looking as beautifully contemplative as ever."
For a moment she was caught in the decision of whether to roll her eyes or smile fondly; Asteria chose the latter, solely because it had been quite some time since she'd seen her nephew and it was best to greet pleasantly, especially because she was sure there would be plenty of opportunities to roll her eyes at him later.
It seemed that the sun became hotter when he was around. She pushed back her hair and tilted her eyes up to skim the horizon where it hung. Asteria never knew what to make of the sun. On the one hand, it was the primary symbol of day, her opposite; on the other, earth's sun was nothing more than another star amongst the thousands of others she allegedly spoke to every night. It wasn't under her domain either way, since she was a goddess presiding specifically over night, but it seemed kind of fitting where she stood in relation to the sun. Not her child, but the son of her sister. They were connected in a startling number of ways, she found, which was probably why the negative emotions that accompanied the thought of who he was and his status as an Olympian could not prevent her reluctant love of him.
The compliment was acknowledged only by the knowing planes of her smile as she turned her face back to him. "What brings you here, Apollo?" She shrugged under the sun's warmth, considering removing the jacket draped over her shoulders, as even the cooling breeze failed to make its use necessary.
"What do you suppose, dear Aunt?" The sun god smiled back at her, closing his eyes once more, unafraid of the darkness now that he felt and breathed the air of the living
He knew how to look coy and beguiling for those he cared to trap in his golden-boy aura, looks that have been mastered and perfected for suitors and admirers for ages. While the rest of his body was lean and well-matured by the ages, still considered by many as golden and beautiful, his smile still stayed boyish and purely innocent for those close to him and recognized it apart from what the statues portrayed and the myths held.
"There's a million possibilities and yet, would you believe that it was you? That it was home?"
The smile wavered briefly at the thought of the alternative, of the dark and dank recesses of his uncle's kingdom.