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Apollo wonders sometimes if meteroligists are glad to still get surprised by unforseen weather and sudden changes to it, that even their most advanced studies couldn't predict, or if there is lingering frustration that some higher power is actively moving the goal post away from a final revelation.
He deems himself as responsible as the other gods, who have a hand in meddling with the weather. Although he's been more consistent, more emotionally stable since his time as Lester. His emotional state always closely tied to the intensity of the sun.
That or him letting a teenage girl drive the sun chariot. In his sole defense, he really hadn't expected Thalia Grace to be terrified of heights.
Conceptually, he may have expected it of someone like Nico Di Angelo or Percy Jackson, but even with them, he forgets those very real fears sometimes.
Despite Zeus, by which Apollo really means Zeus' entire existence, he's never feared heights, always loved the wind, the checkered fields of earth, the freedom that flying brought. It feels foreign to him, to fear heights.
But nothing good ever came from the sky for someone like Thalia. The sky had only ever taken, demanded, robbed. Robbed her of her childhood, demanded her little brother to soothe someone elses betrayel and taken her away from her chosen family. He wonders what would have changed, if the sky accepted another person's choice, just once.
Apollo has learned not to dwell on those thoughts. He does however feel closer to Thalia, than many of his siblings. Her steadfastness in who she is. Her defiance of a role Zeus' wants her to find herself in. In the face of the king of gods saying "No. You are wrong. I will never be your weapon."
He remembers the council meeting afterwards, of the lie Chiron was ordered to tell the demigods. Of a kind father, of a hero sacrificing herself to protect her loved ones, of the daughter of Zeus becoming a symbol of safety for Camp Half-Blood.
When by all means the real picture had been of a childs desperate stand to have some semblence of control over her life, after the sky had taken so much from her already. And the sky had not been satisfied, had deemed her insolence as too grave of a crime.
Apollo wonders if Thalia remembers how it felt being struck by lighting and turned into a tree, if it had seared every molecule in her body before it became nothing. Before the quiet began.
He's not sure if he wants to ask, if their tentative friendship can withstand him asking about one of the worst days in her life.
He wonders if she struggles with Artemis' approach to Zeus too. If seeing her accept his horrifying decisions, never outright opposing them, only ever defying them in the shadows breeds resentment. Apollo sometimes resents his sister for it.
It's complicated, he won't deny that it's a more recent revelation, but the more he ponders, the more he realises that it's heartbreak he feels, seeing the other gods rather chosing to protect their own hide, than to call him out. It's rage that sits at his finger tips. It's grief that make his limbs feel like lead.
He feels like he's locked in a static form, listening to people bow to that mans whims. He imagines it's what Thalia felt being stuck as a tree, watching children pass her borders, unknowingly being turned into weapons.
One day, when Thalia Grace passes away in battle, as the right hand of Artemis, and she becomes a constellation of stars, he wonders if she'll resent having become part of the sky. Just as Apollo sometimes resents being the sun.