Willium Valen and The Blessing of Apollo

A Visit From A God

It had been a day since we saved Emrie. She was in the medbay, healing from the Yellow Jackets. She seemed out of it all day yesterday and even passed out a couple of times.

Emrie was like a frog out of water, she always looked like she had just forgotten something. As if she left it miles behind and couldn't care for it anymore, but she might have wanted to. This something might have been her brother, though she didn't talk about him.

As for what happened with Willow, Emrie just remembered her and nothing else from the day she was saved. Her memory of that day started with seeing Willow and ended with Willow knocking her out.

Everyone has been talking with Emrie, trying to get her to remember things. I hadn't talked to Emrie that much, I didn't have much to say.

I did want to ask her what she was talking about when she said that I was the one they wanted, but I didn't find the time. It was probably better that way, Emrie definitely didn't want to talk about what happened when she was under mind control.

Yet, after all of that, I still couldn't shake the feeling that I couldn't do this. Shouldn't I have gotten a blessing of some type for saving Emrie? None of this made sense and that stupid prophecy hadn't helped at all. What was I supposed to do? I had gotten the thing for honesty, but what else did I have to do? I hated not knowing what to do, it was so hard for me to just go with the flow of things when I didn't even fit in with the flow. But I had to try and trying was to just keep going.

"Ah!" I exclaimed as Sam jumped on me to wake me up.

"Good morning," He said with a big smile across his face.

I smiled at him and then he hugged me. I didn't expect this, but I was glad that Sam was warming up to me.

I liked Sam, he didn't care who you were, he was still nice to you, and made you feel like you had known him for years.

Sam looked a lot like his sister, but he was clearly younger. His skin seemed fresher than Zaira's, he had the same golden eyes as everyone else, but it was different because he was golden. He had this golden innocence to him. His hair was short, his curls bounced around when he jumped.

Sam and I walked outside. It was sunny out and he sat on a bench and started working on something from the other day. It was an art project and it was beautiful. Sam smudged at the corners with markers.

I sat down next to Sam on the bench.

"Here," He gave me a cup of watercolor paint with a brush in it. "Add the sky part," He said

"What if I mess it up?" I asked.

"You can't mess up art," Sam chuckled.

I nodded and started painting. I didn't want to do something that Sam might not like, but he seemed fine with me doing whatever. So, I did little swirls in the sky. We painted quietly for a while until someone showed up.

"Daddy!" Sam exclaimed, jumping out of his seat. I looked up, Sam was running up to Apollo and jumped into his arms.

"Oh, you're getting heavier," Apollo chuckled. I got up and walked up to them. "Willium,"

"Hi," I muttered. Sam had let go of Apollo.

"It's good to see you again. How are you?" Apollo asked. I was about to answer when Emrie came and ran into Apollo's arms, sobbing. "Oh, Emrie," He wrapped her in his arms. Apollo seemed happy to see Emrie after so many years of thinking that she was gone.

Emrie seemed like a puzzle slowing being put back together, but with new pieces that didn't fit with the original, and missing pieces too, but I guess that's just growing up.

"I missed you," Emrie said.

"I missed you too," Apollo said.

I softly sighed to myself, I felt out of place again, and all of my doubts came rushing to me. Apollo had saved me and here he was, but he was here to see Emrie, and that was fine.

I hope you don't think I'm selfish, I sometimes feel like I am. I just can't let myself get a break, it was only human to feel like that. I was only human, but everyone else was special. I don't think I ever wanted to be special.

I just felt this cold feeling creep over me, I can't do this, is all I thought about.

The day went on, and Apollo said hello to everyone else, he normally visited is what Zaira told me. Everyone talked and laughed about memories, feeling out of place is normal for me, but that doesn't mean that it is fun.

It was late at night and Apollo was sitting on the couch in the cabin. Everyone else had gone to bed and I was just about to walk into my room-

"Willium, how are you doing?" Apollo asked.

"I'm fine," I muttered.

"Are you sure?" He asked.

I sighed. "I don't think I can do this," I sat down next to him on the couch.

"What are you talking about?" Apollo turned to face me.

"I'm not strong or anything special. I'm just a normal kid. I mean, everyone here was born with this power and I'm just the weak one," I muttered.

"You're not weak," Apollo said.

"But I am, I've always been the weak one, I've always been the crybaby.

Why did you even save me?" I asked.

"I need you to listen to me. Being strong has nothing to do with how special you are or how much experience you have. You are strong, I don't care if you aren't like your siblings. When I first heard about you and how you were trapped. I knew that you were helpless and I thought you wouldn't trust me, but even after everything that your family told you and everything that you had been through, you trusted me. Not because you didn't have a choice, but because your whole life you have been pushed into the shadows, feeling like you're not good enough. Even at your lowest you still want to believe that you can trust people, you know that life is hard. People don't learn that until later in life, but you were taught that. You have spent your whole life looking for a light, looking for something different, but you haven't realized that that light is you," Apollo said.

Tears were in my eyes at this point. "What are you talking about?" I asked him.

"You have the same vulnerability that everyone has, but you value it, you are resilient and that's why I know that you can do this," Apollo looked at me as he said this. I nodded with tears in my eyes. Then a golden light fell into my hands.

"So, that's what it is," I said.

"You need to let yourself heal," Apollo smiled at me. I hugged him and cried in his arms for a while. "Sh, it's going to be okay,"