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Apollo had never liked scars before his trials.
It didn’t match his image of perfection. Scars were for mortals who spent their lives in one body and could never change and shift their form. Forever trapped in their sad meat sacks and forever doomed to die one day along with all their loved ones.
Gods could change form to whatever form they wanted and it was typically something that demanded respect and worship. With a few notable exceptions, namely Hephaestus. Apollo never knew why the god of the forge had chosen to keep his deformed appearance. Whether it was that he couldn’t or chose to keep his face as a reminder to Hera every time they saw each other. It had always been too awkward to ask and no one else seemed to care much.
Now that he was back to being a god after all his trials, there was still a wrongness to it, like he really had fallen into Chaos and he was just experiencing a vivid pre-death hallucination. Some days he would almost imagine everyone he knew going, SIKE! and revealing they were actually monsters part of a specially designed torture for him. That idea felt better than knowing he had succeeded, but it was him that wasn’t satisfied with the result.
Those were the days where he would morph back to the painfully familiar form of Lester and study his scars.
Badges of honor, some mortals would call them. Proof you had gone through something that left a mark and lived to tell the tale. It was the kind of thing Ares would boast about. To Apollo, it was less something honorable and more of a reminder.
(Remember what it’s like to be human)
His, Lester’s, body was scattered with scars. Pre-mortal Apollo would’ve been horrified at seeing it. He would’ve been horrified at knowing present-Apollo preferred looking like an average mortal instead of the god that was always the loudest and brightest in every room.
After a day of hanging around other gods constantly, a mortal form was a welcome comfort. Apollo counted the scars on his arms and legs; some he didn’t even know the source of. Between fighting battles and getting used to the fragile human body (Apollo never thought he would miss it but as a god nothing could touch him and he was never sure what was real anymore), it became easy to lose track of all his injuries.
All except one. On his chest, the center of the grand display, was the wound where he had taken an arrow and plunged it into his chest in hopes of distracting Medea. The injury he had gotten right before Jason’s death. It was before Jason decided he would be the one to pay the price for the quest Apollo had brought him on.
It wasn’t right that someone so heroic had to die while Apollo lived to not even appreciate his hard-won godhood. Didn’t a hero deserve a happy ending? Not according to the gods. Demigods were born to be heroes and heroes fought to die for gods who chose to watch despite having power to create change.
Apollo was a god through and through. That was why he had lived. He hadn’t faced death like Jason did. He had stabbed himself knowing Medea would heal him and expecting to be able to save someone. The god of prophecy should’ve known better than to try and change fate. It was all his fault.
He traced the area the Arrow of Dodona, another friend lost from Apollo’s quest, struck. Would Jason have lived if Apollo grabbed a different arrow? The three-letter word beginning with ‘D’ satisfied? No sun god to flay. No one to incite even more anger from their enemies. No one whose cowardice would cause even more trouble.
Stabbing himself had been a mistake made from some cowardly plan to distract Medea a little longer until someone else could actually die for him. Apollo was the farthest thing there was to Jason Grace. There was no courage or calm or selflessness in his choice. Caligula was right in his assessment of Apollo.
(You don’t have a self-sacrificing instinct in your body!)
He was a selfish god, unable to sacrifice himself even for his friends. The only thing he could do was at least try not to betray his promises any more than he already had.
Once, Artemis had walked in on him reminiscing by staring at his scars. She had startled in a way that was rare for a seasoned hunter with sharp senses like her. Apollo had startled too, too surprised to immediately switch to his usual godly form. For a moment, there was a dawning horror on his sister’s face, then Apollo said something annoying with a grin and they fell into their usual bickering as he pretended he didn’t notice the flashes of concern that came across Artemis’s face whenever it was quiet for a second too long.
Apollo knew that she knew how he had gotten that scar. He made sure to vanish with an excuse every time it seemed like she was about to bring it up. Drawing attention to his one arrow wound was exactly something the attention-seeking, vain god he was before would do. It wasn’t from a sacrifice; he had known he would live. It wasn’t even heroic. How could anything Apollo had done that there been heroic? The real hero that day was Jason and he died for it.
It wasn’t the first or last time he had thought about Jason and all his other companions who fought for him. They all suffered and died, Apollo thought hysterically, for what? Why were they the ones who had to die? Who was Apollo to have so many people die for him? And he still walked among them like he was their friend.
He remembered Meg talking Jason’s noble death and his half-baked distraction as if Apollo could be considered a hero like Jason. None of his friends knew what kind of person he really was. They had no idea of his selfishness. He was deceiving them all.
The realization made him want to puke except gods didn’t need to throw up. Gods rarely encountered anything resembling pain. Apollo didn’t look away from the scar of his mistake displayed on his skin for anyone to see. It was all so wrong.
The funny thing about being a coward was that you lived.