``Down To Meet Apollo`` ~ lore

Instructions

Song - Outrunning Karma - Alec Benjamin Oc: Talia (An Oracle/Vessel for Apollo) Lore: It's Below! <3 Time Taken: 1hr 0_o art by: @skiip__ or @lonerbee code be: @skiip__ or @lonerbee___ Fern had spent three weeks running from the light. In the high mountain passes of Phocis, the sun was not a nurturer but an interrogator, a golden eye that tracked his every movement through the pines. He had committed the ultimate hubris: he had mocked the melody of the god Apollo, claiming that the wind through the ferns sang a truer song than any lyre. Since that day, the heat had been relentless. Water sources dried to dust before he could reach them, and the plague-bearing arrows of the sun god whistled invisibly past his ears. Fern's skin was parched, his lungs burning, and his hope was failing until he stumbled into a deep, shaded valley where the sun seemed unable to reach. There, by a spring that defied the drought, he met Talia. She sat weaving a crown of laurel leaves, her hair the color of ripening cherries. Her presence felt like the cool side of a pillow. "You look like a man who has seen too much of the sky," she said, her voice a low, melodic hum that reminded Fern of the very music he had defended. "I am running from a god who does not know how to lose," Fern whispered, collapsing by the water. Talia smiled, a slow, radiant thing that should have felt like a warning. She nursed him back to health with nectar-sweet fruits and songs that eased the ringing in his ears. For days, they lived in the twilight of the valley. Fern found himself falling in love, not just with her care, but with the strange, golden clarity she brought to his thoughts. He promised her that if they escaped, he would build her a temple of living wood. On the seventh day, the shadows began to retreat. The sun god’s heat pierced the valley canopy like a spear. "He found us," Fern cried, shielding his eyes. "Talia, run!" But Talia did not run. She stood, and as she did, her simple linen dress dissolved into a robe of woven light. Her form expanded, growing tall and terrible. The "mortal girl" vanished, replaced by the brilliant, beardless beauty of Apollo himself. "You fell in love with the sun while hiding in the shade, little sprout," Apollo said, his voice now a chorus of a thousand lyres. He reached out a hand, and Fern felt his skin begin to stiffen, his toes rooting into the damp earth by the spring. "You said the wind through the ferns was the best music. Now, you shall be the instrument." As Fern’s arms turned to feathery green fronds, the last thing he saw was Apollo—no longer Talia, but still wearing the same mocking, beautiful smile—plucking a single leaf from his head to add to his golden crown.