break; a.v. [ hiatus | rewriting ]

chapter i

Supposedly there is more to life than traveling, and enjoying exotic foods and soaking in the sun, but Apollo had to disagree. He cared about two things in life: his sister and the sun. Much to his older sister's annoyance.

Daria was the moon to his sun. She was quiet and powerful, but with his help she could be coaxed out of her shell and could hypnotize anyone with her beauty. She was the only one who saw the dark spots that riddled the sun surface. He had a shining smile with stormy eyes.

Apollo's days were spent smiling in a camera, not that he wasn't complaining. Being a model allowed him everything he ever wanted. Daria would've preferred him to do something with his intelligence, but she respected his choice of work. It paid well and it was mostly low stress, besides when he went through low times when everything that involves anything more than getting out of bed was a high stress situation.

Days after Apollo's most recent photoshoot in the small town of Volterra, Italy Daria had arrived. He was given a month vacation, and Darry was there to study the architecture of the small city of Volterra. Apollo hadn't spent much time in the town exploring after the shoot ended. He mostly stayed in his hotel, where his modeling agency had paid for while he had his photoshoots, but over the past few days he was paying.

It was almost ten o'clock at night when she landed, but Apollo didn't mind. He just missed his sister. He had left to pick her up from the airport. She had arrived in a mess of black cloaks and yawning tourist with lazy eyes. It was an hour long drive back to the hotel, which Darry insisted upon driving. After her trip to Romania Darry started insisting she was the one driving, but Apollo didn't complain, he hated driving, so he didn't complain when that became their new dynamic.

Apollo held her hand as she dragged him from place to place, taking pictures from every angle, and occasionally having him jump in for a picture for instagram. Her Instagram had a beautiful night aesthetic and Apollo's had a sun aesthetic. It wasn't intentional at first, but quickly did become intentional. Each of her photos perfect accented her unique coloring, and her eye contacts. She always wore white contact that had a black ring around the outside, she occasionally switched it up for holidays.. She hair was as dark as midnight with skin of freshly polished moonstones. She was what the night would look like if it had been reincarnated as a human.

Apollo was her opposite in every way, physically. His skin always had a light tan with blue eyes that had specks of green. His hair shone like spun gold in the sun, and everything he did was filled with life. If life were to be a person, they would be jealous of him. He wasn't against adding a bit of sparkling highlighter to his cheekbones to give his instagram photos an extra pop, or have a friend hold up a CD so he could get the perfectly placed rainbow.

Each location was older than the last, and each one had Apollo in stunned silence. He had seen some of the city in the sunlight, but seeing at night was an entirely new sight to behold. He admired the aesthetic beauty the town held. He wouldn't have been surprised to see a beautiful couple strolling hand in hand at the end of a romantic comedy laughing at the struggles that had brought them to the new stage in their life. The old building would've made for the perfect background, he couldn't help but note. It was his job as a model to know what's pretty and to use it to make himself prettier

"Apollo, dear." Daria pulled on his arm to stand in front of a faded red door with chipped paint while leaning on the stone walkway, "Please do try and be serious in this one." She raised the camera to her eye. Apollo stood gazing off into the stars, the moon reflecting perfectly off his cheekbones, but started laughing. It took four tries to get one where he looked somewhat decent. The first was of him doubled over, the second was blurry because of his arms moving to hide his face, and in the third one he had turned around so she couldn't see him laughing. The fourth turned out well. He was laughing into the sky. It wasn't what Darry had in mind when she envisioned the photo, but she still loved how it turned out. Frankly, she loved how they all looked. Each one was full of pure joy.

"There," She said with a satisfied gleam in her eye as she turned her phone around to show the fourth picture posted to Instagram with the caption 'the moon could never light the way without the sun's help'.

"Looks wonderful." He smiled as something caught his eye in the town square. Two figures were watching them. Volterra wasn't particularly active at night, and that made him all the more on edge. Apollo's smile fell as he focused harder on the spot he would've sworn he just saw the two. His heart rate started to increase.

"'Pollo?" Darry asked gently touching his shoulder, jerking him out of his head, "You good?" He didn't respond just shook his head and sending her a soft smile, but that didn't help relieve her own nervousness. She had seen the two figures, but assumed that she had made them run off. She was well known, around Volterra, at least.

She was wrong. Fatally so.

It was quick. One of the dark figures had attacked her while the other had dragged Apollo away. The young blonde called out to his sister, but she couldn't focus on him. Tears started to brim his eyes as he longed to know who was behind him. To know how to destroy the man attacking his sister. He was usually so sweet, but now.

Now Apollo wasn't sweet. He wasn't kind. Now he was scared, and when he was scared he was willing to fight; anyone and everyone was a target. He kicked and twist longing to break the man who dared to try and hurt him and his family. He will break the man, and his accomplice.

Darry was just a blur, and so was her attacker. Apollo couldn't get a good view of either, and that just made him fight harder, until fire was injected in his veins. Sharp teeth ripping paper skin. Fire burning blood. Red staining white as warm blood dripped down marble skin, before being torn off, but it was too late. Far too late. The venom had ignited beneath his skin, and there was nothing for Darry to do, besides take her changing brother to her coven.