After Seducing and Abandoning Apollo [Greek Mythology] - Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Daphne walked aimlessly for a while, then stopped and looked back.
With a flutter of wings, flocks of birds rose from the tree canopy, crossing over the mountain forests bathed in the dusk’s dim, warm light to return to their nests, after which the surroundings plunged back into silence.
No one came chasing after her.
The scene carried an unspeakable sorrow.
She lifted her head and sighed softly. It seemed she could not expect Apollo to take the initiative to look for her. But she at least hoped he would notice the iris wreath she had deliberately left there.
Otherwise, all those roundabout, clever thoughts just now would have been for nothing.
Before she knew it, she had walked up to a deep pool formed by converging mountain springs.
The dolphin-shaped spring of Delphi was in another direction; had there been a second spring nearby all along? Why hadn’t Apollo told her about it earlier? Daphne sat down on a large boulder by the water’s edge, deciding to sort out her thoughts before heading back.
To be honest, her current progress was not promising. Whether it was showing favor or flirting, he was completely impervious to everything.
Apollo was truly a pain in the neck.
Daphne tilted her head, gazing at her own reflection in the water. The pool was deep and crystal-clear, faithfully mirroring the sky and her appearance. Even if this mortal vessel’s looks didn’t quite reach legendary levels like Helen’s, they were certainly far from ordinary—more than enough to work as a model or even a movie actress in modern times.
Judging by Apollo’s high-and-mighty attitude, one could only conclude that perhaps this simply wasn’t his type.
The girl in the water met her gaze.
She twitched the corners of her mouth and said softly, “Hi, Daphne.”
The girl in the water returned a helpless smile as well.
The next moment, the smiling arc faded, and the reflection of Daphne grew expressionless.
She was startled and instinctively reached out to touch her cheek.
The girl in the water didn’t move; she just stared straight at her.
Hiss— A horror movie scenario had materialized! There was something wrong with this pool; she had to leave quickly! But her body refused to obey; forget standing up and backing away, even lowering her arm became a difficult task.
“Is this what you want?” A strange, pleasant female voice murmured, coming extremely close.
Just a fraction closer, and it would be breathing wantonly against the back of her neck and earlobes. Goosebumps broke out all over Daphne’s body. She wanted to turn her head to confirm the source of the voice, yet she was terrified of encountering a “jump scare” just like a horror movie extra.
Regrettably, she couldn’t even turn her head.
Who are you? she wanted to ask, but her tongue grew sluggish and heavy, and her throat failed to produce any sound.
The female voice giggled, its tone suddenly shifting to become indistinguishable from Daphne’s own: “I am you.”
How can— Her thoughts fractured.
A voice, blurring whether it belonged to her or someone else, continued to speak: “I am you, but I possess what you cannot get. Don’t believe me? Look.”
I cannot look.
Yet her eyes had a mind of their own. She saw the Daphne in the water wave her hand, and another figure appeared alongside her. It was Apollo. He watched her for a moment, raised his eyebrows helplessly, and finally lowered his head to kiss her forehead. Seizing the moment, the Daphne in the water cupped his cheeks with both hands, gently brushing her thumb across his lower lip. Apollo narrowed his eyes, hooked his hands around her wrists to pull her closer, and a flurry of light kisses traveled down from her forehead, past the bridge of her nose…
Wait, wait, stop—is a passionate and proactive person like this really Apollo?
“You can confirm it yourself.”
A heavy descent, akin to a soul returning to its shell. She felt as though she had fallen from a great height into a solid embrace, her lips enveloped by something soft. No, it wasn’t just her lips; chilling ripples of water surrounded every inch of her skin, acting like a living, conscious entity that whipped its ubiquitous tentacles about, ruthlessly crushing the bubbles escaping from her mouth and nose.
Daphne woke up completely.
But it was already too late.
At some point, she had fallen into the pool for a long time, her breath nearly exhausted.
She struggled to move her limbs, but the bizarre currents placed heavy shackles on her hands and feet, making it impossible to exert any strength.
She lifted her gaze with difficulty. Her vision was also blurred by the water, catching only green-tainted spots of light swaying unsteadily like a night lamp in a storm.
No. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die again.
She used all her strength to stretch out her hand, trying to touch that distant heavenly light—as if asking for rescue, as if bidding farewell.
The spot of light suddenly grew larger, resembling a bright star descending from the heavens.
Whether hallucination or true radiance enveloped her, strong hands grabbed her and pulled her upward, and suddenly she could breathe again.
Her eyes were full of water; for a moment, Daphne could see nothing at all. She could only hear the sound of her own coughing, violent enough to feel as though she were coughing up her lungs. Her soaked robes were exceptionally heavy, her knees trembled violently, and her entire body sagged downward uncontrollably.
Subconsciously wanting to grasp something, the hard, cold touch of metal against her fingertips gave her a start.
Her vision gradually cleared, and only then did she see that what she had grabbed was a golden, woven belt inlaid with gemstones. Her gaze continued to move upward, and she locked eyes with the young god of golden hair and blue eyes.
“Apollo… Ah,” her expression shifted, and she instinctively reached out to cover his eyes.
“Don’t look at the water’s surface! It’s dangerous.”
“I know.” Apollo’s tone made it difficult to discern his emotions. As he spoke, he blinked once, the ends of his eyelashes brushing across her damp fingers.
So this was what a god’s eyelashes felt like; they didn’t seem all that different from a human’s. Daphne was stunned for a second, then quickly withdrew her hand. Water droplets slid down from Apollo’s moistened brow bone, tracing the inner corner of his socket, yet they could not be mistaken for teardrops. How could the son of Leto shed tears?
A half-beat of blankness.
Then she realized: she had apparently… smeared water all over the great Apollo’s face?
“What is wrong with you?”
Finished, finished, he’s angry. Daphne rambled somewhat incoherently: “I… I didn’t mean to, please forgive me, I was just—”
Patiently, Apollo supplied the missing sentence components: “I asked how you managed to nearly drown.”
Her tone grew even more feeble: “I don’t know… I just looked at my reflection in the water, and then I heard a strange voice speaking. My body felt as though it no longer belonged to me, and then I saw you—” She pressed her lips together to cut off the second half of the sentence.
“And then you saw me…?”
Daphne fell silent.
“What is wrong with this pool? I had never discovered any trace of it prior,” Apollo asked.
“Only those who bear sorrow in the name of love will find the pool open its path to them.”
Following the voice, Daphne looked over and realized that besides Apollo, the mountain god of Mount Parnassus whom she had met earlier was also present.
The elder recounted the origin of the pool without haste:
“White-armed Hera, upon hearing that Leto carried the progeny of the King of All Gods, threw the mirror she held in a fit of furious rage. That mirror plummeted from the snowy peaks of Olympus, and a fragment of its mirror surface landed upon my mountain territory, transforming into a deep pool with neither source nor depletion.
“This mirror fragment carries the resentment and grievance of a deity, attracting passing souls tormented by love, bewildering them with illusions and causing them to walk into the water unawares. It has not fallen here long, but quite a few stray souls have already buried their lives beneath the waters, muddle-headedly stepping onto Charon’s boat ferrying souls to the Underworld.”
In other words, this pool was inseparable from Apollo’s birth.
Apollo was silent for a moment, his gaze returning to Daphne’s face: “Yet as a river god’s daughter, why would you—”
He caught on, stopped speaking immediately, and his eyes flickered.
Daphne scoffed and admitted frankly: “I cannot wield the power of the waters, nor can I breathe freely underwater like my sisters. That is why I so desperately wanted—Achoo!”
The clothes clinging tightly to her skin were still dripping with water. A passing evening breeze made her sneeze, and she instinctively hugged her arms around herself, thus failing to notice Apollo’s gaze.
A woman would only tie a belt for the first time on her wedding day. For an unmarried maiden, under normal circumstances, a ankle-length chiton robe would be fastened below the bust with a long strip of cloth wrapping from behind the shoulders to the front. The front bodice would be intentionally left with enough fabric to form folds, and the naturally draping cloth would conceal the straps laden with rich associative meanings.
Yet at this moment, the folds of the front bodice were gathered together as Daphne hugged her arms, exposing that finger-width slender strap.
Upward was the hillside concealed by her arms; downward, through the soaked fabric, the color of her skin and the curve of her side waist were faintly visible.
Apollo looked away almost immediately. But his sharp pupils—which never missed their mark—had already seen too much in that fleeting instant. The vast sea of consciousness froze and stalled because of it, and he could hardly articulate what sort of thoughts surfaced during that seemingly blank fraction of a second before being shattered into froth before they had a chance to fully manifest.
He ripped off the cloak on his shoulder and tossed it onto Daphne without looking.
It took Daphne two beats too long to confirm that Apollo wasn’t just casually discarding his clothes, but was lending her his cloak to wrap around herself.
Apollo had already turned back to the mountain god: “She is the daughter of Gaea and the river god Ladon. You are likewise a child of the Earth Mother; trouble yourself to find her a new set of clothes.”
The mountain god was silent for a moment: “I cannot immediately conjure a maiden’s robe.”
Visible to the naked eye, Apollo grew annoyed: “Even if few nymphs haunt the vicinity of Delphi, there are surely some in other corners of Mount Parnassus? I do not wish to trouble Artemis with such matters.”
“Your cloak is very warm; I can start a fire to dry my clothes for a bit,” Daphne chimed in cautiously.
Apollo cast a cool, sideways glance: “That is an option, but I cannot guarantee whether the cursed aura of the mirror fragments might linger on water-soaked garments.”
Wouldn’t it suffice for Apollo, who possessed the authority of purification, to handle it? She didn’t voice that thought aloud, after all.
That a dignified Olympian god could not produce a single garment was something she refused to believe. She tentatively attributed it to his wariness regarding the golden arrow; having already lent her his cloak, he was unwilling to afford her any extra fantasies.
Yet refusing even to cast a casual ray of holy light and insisting on delegating to someone else…
Daphne clutched the cloak tightly and lowered her head.
This torture called love was something she had sought out of her own accord; it was a bargaining chip she had prepared to pay continuously, a suit of armor to wash away the suspicions on her body, and a weapon to press her attack against Apollo.
This was only the first day. She could not rush. She could endure.
Apollo and the mountain god were still talking. Daphne focused entirely on suppressing the negative thoughts brought by the golden arrow, lacking the energy to spare for what they were saying. It was only when the familiar three-syllable name was repeated a second time that she realized Apollo was reciting her name. Looking over, the mountain god was already gone.
“Yes, is there something you need?”
Daphne’s complexion was frighteningly pale, making her somehow look even weaker than when she had just been hauled ashore.
Apollo’s brow twitched imperceptibly as he pressed his hand upon her shoulder.
Divine radiance enveloped her, flickering before fading away.
The burning, fiery pain in her throat after choking on water vanished, and her body grew much warmer. But that was the extent of it.
Daphne said softly, “I am a bit tired. Could you please take me to a place to rest? A good sleep will set it right.”
She intended to walk a couple of steps with a feeble gait for Apollo to see, and then logically beg for a princess carry.
But a blur passed before her eyes, and she was already scooped up horizontally in his arms.
Perhaps the astonishment on her face was too obvious, for Apollo immediately moved to explain.
Daphne cut him off: “I know, you are merely pitying the weak and nothing more. Rest assured, I won’t read too much into it.”
Apollo’s lip line pressed tight, swallowing back the words that never made it out.
His posture in holding her was visibly unpracticed, attempting to minimize physical contact between them. As a result, Daphne felt more like a heavy object being transported laid out horizontally—awkward from head to toe, in short, extremely uncomfortable. She shifted her body slightly to adjust, then moved again, and again, until Apollo’s pace paused slightly, and he looked down at her.
“Like this, I feel like I might drop at any moment. It’s somewhat uncomfortable.”
“I won’t let you drop.”
Observing Apollo’s expression, she raised an objection: “But I am uncomfortable.”
“So?”
She leaned slightly closer to his chest, carefully reaching out a hand, stopping just before touching his shoulder, and looked up: “Might you allow me…”
Yet Apollo refused to look at her, resuming his stride.
Daphne mustered her courage and rested one hand on his shoulder. Apollo didn’t stop, not even sparing her an extra glance. She interpreted this as tacit permission, and thus looped her other arm from behind his back, hooking it around his neck.
At such a distance, any minute change could not be concealed from one another.
Yet Apollo showed no reaction to this ambiguous physical contact. At least, Daphne couldn’t feel any.
Should she call him a god indeed? Perhaps to him, this was no different from a flower stem poking his skin when she held a bouquet of flowers.
But even in a mythological world, flowers and plants did not generally speak.
“I know that had anyone else fallen into the pool, you would have extended a hand. But you saved me anyway, and I am glad.”
Her voice dropped lower, her lips coming closer to his earlobe as if she were about to utter a secret meant to be shared only with him.
“Thank you.”
“Even without Eros’s golden arrow, I think I would have fallen in love with you all the same.”
