Chapter Text
The twins are never counted as grown adults. They are the protectors of youth, they have to relate to those they are protecting so they are stuck as youths. On top of that their mother is the titaness of motherhood, what better way to show that then having kids that will never fully grow up. They are doomed from the start, and their domains only sealed their fates. I think they are stuck at around 16 or 17 because at 18 people are considered an adult and I know in the olden days kids would age out of the twins protection when they reached 15 so i think they would be in that middle ground. Old enough to look out for the kids younger than them but not old enough to be considered an adult. I think the oldest form they hold is 24, any older than that will not only be uncomfortable, maybe even painful for the twins but it would also give off the uncanny valley effect. It is against their nature to be adults and I count 25 as officially being an adult. At 18 you are legally an adult but are still young but at 25 I think you lose the young adult stausts and are just an adult making the twins unable to take that form comfortably because it is no longer connected to youth.
So while the twins are some of the oldest gods of the second generation they are also the youngest. They are old and have been through so much but they are still just teenages, and will forever be just teenages. They will never be adults and they are fine with that, they have never known anything differently, they are old enough to handle themself and will need a helping hand every once in a while if they ever get in over their heads. They both know that they can always rely on each other and their mother to be that helping hand. They also know that if push comes to shove they can rely on their other siblings for help as well.
Artemis is arrow/ace, likes kids but isn't always the best with them. She is the goddess of the hunt and has an aura of wildness to her that young kids can pick up on. It is a mixed bag on whether the kid would find it off putting and become afraid of her, if they would find it comforting. While she likes kids and is good with the ones not afraid of her, she can’t help the fact some kids are and is more likely to call her brother to deal with young kids then running the risk of scaring them. Those that aren’t afraid of her are always offered a chance to join her hunt, they are offered a chance to travel and train with them until they are old enough to take the oath. It doesn't matter if the kid is a boy or a girl, so could just change their gender if it is a boy. Her aura is more off putting to males so when one isn’t afraid of her so she kind of takes it as a sign that they should have been born a female and makes her offer. She accepts anyone into her group as long as they take their oath and don’t identify as male. She represents all the kids in the world that don't fit in with society, that were told they had to conform in order to fit in but instead made their own way. Her hunt shows that by taking in society rejects, the ones that were looked down upon for their wish to remain unmarried, or just for the fact they aren’t male. It was a safe spot for people like her, the ones that were different from the rest, they weren’t what the world wanted but they made a new world together.
Apollo is the only male that has ever had the full access to the hunt, Aremtis knows her brother and loves him unconditionally, if he wishes to visit while she is with her hunt she allows it. If her hunt needs extra help the first person she turns to is Apollo. She knows that he would never do anything to her people so she doesn’t have to worry about him being around. If he ever flirts with her hunters she knows he doesn't mean anything by it and would stop if it made them uncomfortable. He is the only male that knows all the secrets of the hunt, as there are no secrets between the twins. The few males that were ever associated with the hunt either had their gender changed to take their oaths and join, or were kept at a distance. They were allowed to hunt with them but they were never allowed to know the secrets of the hunters.
Apollo is biromantic meaning he has romantic feelings for more than one gender but doesn’t do sex. When Aremtis took her vow, Apollo took his own oath to stay away from sex. He agrees with his sister on the fact that sex is gross but left himself open for love and marriage. The mortals got things wrong and spread the word that Apollo swore off marriage when he never did. Apollo still falls in love, has relationships, and has kids which is why his oath got confused by the mortals. Apollo has kids throw blessings, by magic means like Athena, and through adoption. He likes kids and is good with them, if he finds a kid sad and alone there is a high chance that he would just adopt the kid since he knows that he can give the kid a better life.
Because of holding prophecy Apollo is aged beyond his years, he knows more than he should, he has seen more than he should but he is still stuck as a teenager. Even though he is thousands of years old, has seen things that have aged him even more he is still just a teenager. Many people who know how heavy the weight of prophecy is think he lives a cursed existence and are waiting for the time that the weight will crush his forever too young shoulders. He represented all the kids that had to grow up too fast, all the kids that have seen/been through too much to truly be considered a kid but are too young to be seen as an adult and everyone knows not all those kids live to reach adulthood.
When his oracles started being lost, people connected to prophecy started preparing for the loss of the twins. They know that the oracles were taking some of the weight off Apollos shoulders and they took every lost oracle as a sign that Prophecy was one step closer to crushing the sun god. When the oracle of Delphi was crushed by Hades, Apollo started showing signs of the weight of crushing him. They didn’t know of Hades' curse but they knew that the oracle of Delphi was the last thing keeping the full weight of Prophecy from Apollo and it started to fail. It was last yet, but there was something deeply wrong with it, nothing anyone did to fix it worked.
Since Apollo never showed signs of knowing what danger he was in, the other gods of prophecy decided not to tell him. It was a rare thing for one of them to have blissful ignorance and decide not to ruin it for him. With something wrong with his last oracle they thought it was time to burst his bubble. They thought he deserved to know that he was closer than ever to the danger of fading so he could handle his affairs and come to terms with death. No one knew that the twins already knew what was happening. Apollo always knew that he could be crushed by the wait of his domain and Artemis had exactly one vision of the future in her life and was of Apollo’s death. They both knew that the start of their end was the fall of Delphi, they both had their whole lives to accept that. When Delphi was truly lost to them, Apollo would be crushed into nothingness under the full weight of Prophecy and Artemis would follow him into death nine days later. It seemed fighting in some twisted way, Apollo was born nine days after his sister and Artemis would die nine days after her brother.
They never told anyone of their fates, they didn’t want to deal with the fall out of telling anyone. They wouldn’t be able to stand the pitying look of the other gods, it was already bad enough they got a few of them from the other prophecy gods. They couldn’t handle it if everyone knew. When the other prophecy approached the twins about Apollo’s untimely death they never told them that they already knew. They thanked them for their concern and left. After being confronted by the other prophecy gods they knew the jig was up and stopped hiding their fate from the others.
They waited until the winter solstice to drop the boom on everyone. They thought it would be more effective that way, the console would be all there alone with their uncle so that would save them a trip to the underworld. They like their uncle but knew he didn’t handle loss that well. Hades was of the underworld and knew all things must come to an end but had a hard time remembering that when it comes to those closest to him. If they went to the underworld to tell him the news there was a chance that he wouldn’t let them leave under some misguided attempt to save them. The dead had no future, so it would make sense that the underworld would keep the weight of prophecy at bay. And it would work if it was mortal having the issue, Apollo was a god so he could never truly be separated from his domain, even if his domain was killing him. All keeping him confined to the underworld would make him miss the overworld, it would do nothing to keep him alive.
No one took the news well, there was a lot of yelling and fighting and instances of there having to be a way around this. They didn’t want to watch Apollo full into a slow death as his oracle suffered, they didn’t want to watch Artemis grieve her twin before falling into the same fate. Above all, they hated the fact the twins didn’t seem to care, they were going to die but they acted the same, like this changed nothing. Like they didn’t just tell everyone there was a chance of them fading. Hades tried to undo his curse, he loved his niece and nephew and didn’t want them to die, but it didn’t work. He regretted his actions, he knew that it was the oracles fault but he was too angry to care and this mistake could cost him his beloved niece and nephew. He was too ashamed of his actions to come clean about cursing the oracle. He wanted one of his kids to be the child of the prophecy so he would be a hero and accepted into camp and his curse would be undone. He was just waiting for a time he could put them back into the world without them being killed.
When Hermes' lover went to become the oracle, he warned her not too. He knew that the oracle was failing and nothing good would come of it but she wouldn’t listen. She was headstrong and wanted to do things her own way, it was part of the reason he fell in love with her but he couldn’t but hate her for not listening to his warning. She went behind his back and talked to Chiron about becoming the oracle and lied about having his permission to try. Chiron knew that this wasn’t a good idea but couldn't help but give it a try. Apollo was his mentor, and basically his father. He wanted a way to save the god that did so much for him in the past so he allowed the attempt. He didn’t see how things could get worse from here but they did, instead of just not working he cursed an innocent lady to madness and hurt Apollo deeply. Everytime one of his oracles is hurt Apollo feels it, right now he feels the pain of his oracle daily and now he feels the pain of May’s madness as well. Both Hermes and Apollo were upset over Chiron’s decision, and as pay make back Hermes made his life difficult in small ways, while Apollo gave him a disappointed face and the silent treatment.