After Seducing and Abandoning Apollo [Greek Mythology] - Chapter 11
Chapter 11
“Is that so?” As a reaction to a confession, Apollo’s reply was exceptionally flat, as though she had merely pointed out some inconsequential fact—the wind today was a bit strong, the sun was about to set, it was self-evident, but so what?
Seeing this, Daphne wasn’t particularly dejected. She hadn’t expected to get a genuine response in the first place.
Falling first and confessing love first are often regarded as being in a disadvantaged position, and perhaps that is true most of the time, but not for her and Apollo.
Her “I love you” wasn’t the fruit grown after a planted seed sprouted and grew; it was the seed itself.
She would use words of love on him over and over again. Anyway, she wasn’t lying; saying it a few more times wouldn’t cause her to lose a single piece of flesh. When he began to care about where these sentiments of hers would go after the golden arrow expired, her round would truly begin.
“I didn’t get the chance to ask earlier, how did you find me?” Daphne paused, then asked tentatively, “Only those tormented by heartache over love would go to the edge of that pool, could it be that—”
Apollo flatly cut off her speculation: “The mountain god sent word telling me you were in danger, and pointed the way for me.”
“And then you rushed to save me?” She lowered her head with a soft smile, appearing immensely pleased.
Apollo didn’t take up the thread.
“Why did the mountain god choose to notify you first?” It clearly would have been faster to save her directly.
“There are shrines belonging to other Olympian deities on Mount Parnassus. The guardians of mountains and waters mostly maintain a strict neutrality; your father, for instance, would not easily offend deities of either faction.”
Daphne rolled her eyes: “If we stopped that pool from hunting, would it offend the Queen of Heaven?”
“You could understand it that way.”
She lifted her head to observe Apollo’s expression: “Yet you are not afraid of offending her.”
Apollo raised an eyebrow: “My very existence is an offense to her.”
Only he could utter such a declaration in such a calm tone. Truly, he was Apollo.
Unforeseen, he asked, “If Hera were to discover your existence, she might target you in a vicious manner. Are you afraid?”
Daphne replied with complete candor: “I don’t think it’s necessary for the Queen of Heaven to make a move against me. You don’t love me anyway, so even harming me would be useless.”
Apollo looked at her without speaking.
A thought stirred within her, and she boldly threw out the question: “If I were to die because of you, would you feel sorrow for me?”
The young god’s pupils, swathed in azure blue, constricted slightly, his tone turning cold: “That is a foolish question.”
Daphne did not flinch. The fingers resting against the side of his neck tightened, every single word spoken with earnestness: “I cannot help loving you, but I can at least try, while uncontrollably loving you, to live a little more soberly and cause you a little less trouble. I know I am insignificant to you, and my life or death is not enough to make you feel sorrow.”
The corona of light behind Apollo intensified, a terrifying majesty freezing the air itself: “Do not attempt to second-guess my thoughts.”
She couldn’t help trembling slightly, yet she met that icy gaze capable of piercing right through her. Don’t be afraid, fear is useless; the existence I am aiming to conquer is precisely this one. After drawing a clearly audible, deep breath, she continued calmly—one might even say audibly arrogant: “You needn’t be angered; it was merely a hypothesis. Besides, Delphi is already under your protection, and your power is so great that I surely won’t encounter any danger here again.”
Pausing for a beat, she asked with utmost innocence: “Did I say something wrong?”
A moment of dead silence; even the birds in the woods fell silent, awaiting Apollo’s reaction.
“Provided you can manage not to run around everywhere, nor crash headfirst into monster lairs or cursed ponds.” In the end, he delivered an unspooling sneer as that oppressive aura quietly dissipated.
Daphne nodded with a beaming smile: “I’ll try my best.”
Apollo ignored her.
After a moment, Daphne spoke up again: “Where is your Pegasus?”
“Standing by in place. Even without Pegasus, I can fly.”
Daphne looked at the deepening dusk of the mountain forest, then looked up at the sky, her implication self-evident: Then why wasn’t he flying carrying her right now, but rather walking back step by step? Surely it couldn’t be because he wanted to hold her for a little longer.
Apollo seemed to have overthought things again, stating coldly: “You are very weak right now and cannot withstand high-speed flight.”
Yet a deity’s mortal-fleshed vessel was a massive existence beyond the comprehension of other creatures. If a deity did not actively incorporate her into their own domain to share their aura, a nymph would only sense a heterogeneous chill or intense heat from the god, provoking an instinctive dread.
Apollo was no exception. His chest was not warm in the least. And beneath the cloak, Daphne’s under-garments were still damply clinging to her body, the chill seemingly trying to bore straight into her bones. Enduring until now, she had reached her limit. She couldn’t help shivering.
A god’s domain would only accept those under their patronage. She could not actively ask Apollo to do such a thing. She had already tested the waters on the edge of danger just now; asking him to build a fire and wait for her clothes to dry before leaving would probably have been rejected as well. Thus, Daphne closed her eyes and curled her body inward a fraction, praying for this journey to end quickly.
Daphne soon grew drowsy.
Seemingly in a dream, she clearly felt something open up to her. An indescribable warmth enveloped her, driving away the damp, chilling cold. This warm surge felt similar to the sensation brought by Apollo’s healing radiance, but it was more prolonged and enduring, as though bathing in a sacred ocean. She wanted to open her eyes to look at the source of the warmth, but her eyelids felt as heavy as if filled with lead.
What a good dream. She thought hazily, letting go of the final thread of sobriety clutched in her hand.
The trembling of Daphne’s body was simply too difficult to conceal. Apollo was unsure just how fragile creatures like nymphs were, but he could at least perceive that her physical condition was poor. After a moment, it occurred to him that she was likely shivering from the cold.
Cold was an unfamiliar concept to Apollo; he knew its meaning, but stopped at the conceptual level.
A deity’s indestructible vessel only required regular ingestion of ambrosia and nectar, and even that was merely to sustain power and prevent slipping into a complete slumber. Hunger and thirst as physiological experiences did not exist. Similarly, gods did not feel cold or heat due to seasonal and diurnal changes; only extreme high temperatures, like the flames carrying Helios’s sun chariot, would give a deity pause.
Therefore, to Apollo, the pool transformed from Hera’s shattered mirror was nothing more than water mixed with a cursed aura. He had just purged the lingering filth from her body, but for a nymph who was not immune to death, that was not enough.
If he hadn’t intervened, Daphne would already be dead. Though sounding cold, the fatal accident Daphne had suffered did indeed clear her of certain suspicions.
At the very least, it could be asserted that she was not Hera’s pawn.
The rules Olympian gods needed to follow were few, but correspondingly, divine retribution always had a cause; neither Hera nor Apollo would permit an innocent life to die unjustly for their own purposes. Apollo couldn’t help examining himself: had he been far too unkind to Daphne out of wariness toward potential enemies?
If she were to fall ill from the cold, it would just be another troublesome matter, tangling the messy accounts between him and this nymph even further.
Thus, Apollo briefly opened the boundaries of his domain to her, allowing her to draw aura from him.
Apollo regretted it almost immediately.
The maiden’s body, soft as if devoid of a skeleton, was like waterweed yearning for the sunlight. The arms that had originally merely hooked around his neck wound around him with even more seamless tightness, actually giving him the illusion of suffocating. Clearly, he didn’t even need to breathe. Her cheek pressed into the crook of his neck, and growing even more brazen, she not only rubbed against it audaciously twice, but a satisfied hum even escaped from between her lips.
She was simply treating him like a heater while sleeping and purring away like a cat.
If Daphne had been awake, he could have accused her of harboring ulterior motives. But this series of small movements was clearly entirely unconscious behavior.
Apollo accelerated, rapidly completing the remainder of the journey.
“We’re here.” He closed the domain.
The warmth vanished abruptly, and Daphne gave a start, instantly waking up. Her body had somehow become dry. She quickly surveyed her surroundings, her eyes widening in unfeigned surprise.
This was a sun-facing slope. A flat expanse had been newly cleared in the forest, and the air still carried the scent of fresh soil. A simple yet spacious stone house stood quietly in the center of the clearing; the thatch laid over the eaves was fresh, evidently just built.
“This is…?” Perhaps having slept too deeply just now, her reaction was a bit sluggish.
For some reason, Apollo wore a stinking expression: “I promised to find you a place to dwell.”
“I thought it would be a cave…” She let the thought slip out directly.
“The mountain god’s servants wanted to express their gratitude to you and took the initiative to pitch in and help.”
Daphne hopped down to the ground, took two steps closer, and gazed up at the towering doorway on the front of the stone house: “So big? Just for me to live in alone?”
“They aren’t skilled at building excessively small houses.”
“Do I need to thank the mountain god?”
“No need.” The mountain god of Mount Parnassus always made his entrances without warning. The elder answered right behind Daphne, nearly startling her into jumping. The mountain god’s tone remained completely unchanged: “My servants only act on orders.”
Hearing this, Apollo’s temple twitched, and he cast a cold glare at the mountain god as if issuing a warning.
The elder’s face was concealed by the hood, making it impossible to read his expression: “Daughter of Ladon, I have brought you the garments bestowed by Gaea.”
Daphne was stunned for a moment, then hastily accepted the fabric from the elder’s hands with both hands.
“This robe will protect you, allowing you to run freely as the wind across the dark earth. Only a deity’s weapon can pierce it, which should suffice to shield you from most dangers.”
“Respected Mother Goddess, thank you for your protection.”
Daphne offered a sincere bow toward the direction of the earth, then turned to the mountain god: “And thank you as well.”
The elder seemed to smile, his form dissipating like smoke.
“Then, allow me to go inside and change.”
With Apollo’s consent, Daphne turned and walked into the stone house. Though large, the structure was very simple, divided into inner and outer sections by a woolen tapestry hanging down from the roof beam.
Clutching the new clothes, she intended to change inside the inner room.
However, her steps halted the moment she rounded behind the curtain. Beside the window stood a stone couch covered in thick furs and a small table—both unadorned, rustic styles heavily characteristic of the rock giants.
Quietly resting on the table was a floral wreath.
The one brimming with blue irises that she had discarded among the grass.
Daphne walked out of the stone house and spotted Apollo. He hadn’t left after all, instead gazing at the crescent moon pressing against a low tree branch.
Her footsteps were very light, yet Apollo immediately turned his gaze at the sound. She walked toward him, clearly sensing his gaze sweeping rapidly over her from head to toe, before inexplicably coming to rest upon the hem of her skirt.
Apollo seemed to have a slight germ-phobia; she instinctively felt as though something dirty had clung to it and slightly lifted the hem of her skirt to check.
The long dress bestowed by Gaea was moon-white throughout, styled in the simplest chiton robe fashion, soft and light as a cloud, looking plain and unadorned, with vague silver patterns only subtly revealing themselves amid movement.
The brand-new skirt hem rippled with clean, quiet luster upon being lifted; there were no stains, no smears of dust or mud.
“Apollo…?”
He answered decisively and swiftly—suspiciously swiftly: “Nothing.”
Daphne pressed her lips together in confusion and did not pursue the matter.
Even had she questioned him, he could not possibly have answered. The plain skirt hem rose with her stride, the unique silver shimmer flowing across it; the scene was achingly familiar.
There was no mistaking it: in those preemptive visions that had twice invaded his consciousness, the figure Apollo chased was precisely this hem of a skirt.
Near certain, the figure he saw and chased belonged to Daphne.
He had foreseen her abandoning him and leaving.
