I stood there in a daze as my father Lumiere stood face to face with the leader of the Defenders, Blaze. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard, brother? This wasn't happening, I highly doubted that I heard what I'd just so clearly thought I heard. I turned to Ashvani, my head almost detaching from the rest of my body. "Did you hear what I just heard?" I asked frantically.
"Well, it depends Polo, what did you hear?" He replied sarcastically, grooming his feathers. "Now's not the time for your sarcasm Ashvani, don't piss me off. I just heard Blaze call my dad brother!" I wasn't really paying too much attention to how loud I was being and that led to me attracting the attention of Blaze, my dad and other pride members as they all looked at me with embarrassed smirks and collective sighs.
It was physically impossible for my face to go red but I think at that point I made the impossible possible. I'd already embarrassed myself in front of Blaze but he didn't seem to mind. He smirked and raised his paw to my dad, nudging him on the shoulder. "And who's that one over there?" He pointed his paw over to me. My dad looked embarrassed but the slight grin on his face showed that he expected that from me. "That's Apollo, my son."
"Oh, my nephew. What a coincidence." He didn't sound surprised or excited and his voice was basically a similar tone to my dad's, he just had that bad boy sheik to it that was like, way cooler. He walked over to me and I felt a huge lump in my throat, I wanted to run or hide, basically I wanted to do anything but stand next to him and it was the first time I felt that anxious. I didn't deserve to be in his presence. Ashvani hopped a little away from me, most likely because he didn't exactly trust the other members of my pride and worst yet a lion he'd never met, they gave him ravenous looks at times and it made him uncomfortable.
"What do we have here?" Blaze looked me in the eyes as he said that, briefly removing them to scan the rest of my figure. "A healthy one, in about a year it'll be time for you to…" My father walked over the second he started that sentence, bumping into him and laughing it off. "So, what brings you here? Couldn't you have sent one of the other Defenders?" Blaze gave my dad a confused look before he looked back at me. He fixed his footing and turned to my dad. "I thought I'd come see how my big brother was doing. Is that so wrong?"
My dad rolled his eyes and it was then and there I realized where I'd gotten my sarcastic personality from. "I just hope you can handle witnessing the talent my pride has to offer, you've always had a, weak heart you know that?" My dad joked; the guy was called Blaze the Bold for a reason. Blaze let out a dry snort in response. "You think you're funny, don't you?" I heard him mutter as he got up and walked past my dad. "Gather your young ones, we start at noon."
My dad nodded to Blaze and turned back towards me. "So, the defender tryouts." He looked nervous for some reason but I couldn't tell why. I'd never seen my father react that way to anything. "Are you still going to participate?" It was almost as if he couldn't look me in the eye with what he was saying. I was a bit surprised because of the fact that my dad never really engaged in conversation with me when it came to the tryouts. "Um…yeah, yeah. I'm trying out." I had to remind myself for a moment that I was indeed trying out, because all that had just happened had me thinking, was my dad hiding something from me? "Alright son, well um…do your best." He muttered in a halfhearted tone. He turned around and walked back towards the group who had been sitting and silently looking at Blaze's interaction with my dad.
"You all should freshen up, take a drink at the watering hole. You'll need your energy I can tell you that." My dad talked to them but I quickly noticed how he didn't say anything to me. I couldn't help but feel bad that he had no faith in me but I'd known that since day one, so today wouldn't be any different. The others heeded his instruction and after some giggling and talking amongst themselves, they headed off in a group towards the watering hole, my sister looking back to me "Hey Apollo, you coming!?". I nodded and looked over to Ashvani who was again grooming himself. "See you later Vani". He looked up as I spoke and nodded, taking a deep breath and exhaling loudly like he was shaking off the laziness to fly. He took off and headed north. I didn't know where he went most of the time but I didn't really bother to know, everything I'd ever done was invested to lead up to this day.
I caught up with my sister and her friends on the path to the watering hole. It wasn't far from our pride's resting spot since it was in our territory. My sister and her friends walked in front of me, cracking jokes about the tryouts and mentioning my name a few times. "Did you see how Apollo reacted to Blaze? Priceless." The lion who said that was Dom, he was the second young male in our pride aside from me. He had a personal rivalry with my sister and he was also the one who got floored earlier but they were good. The other young lionesses laughed but my sister never did. She may have been one to tease me but she never condoned it with others.
"Hey Apollo, you alright?" My sister slowed down from the group to walk at my side. I guess it was just in her genes because no matter how many times I told her off on showing me sympathy, she never listened. "I'm alright, dang Artemis." I guess I was a bit aggressive but I couldn't stand it when she looked down on me. "What's the matter with you?" She bumped into me playfully but I wasn't in the mood. I growled at her and she sighed heavily, backing down from her games. "Why do you always have to act like this? You're such a buzzkill sometimes." I rolled my eyes and mocked her words, in hopes of irritating her.
"You're so childish Apollo, and then you wonder why dad ignores you." That hit home and it made me retaliate. "Why don't you just shut up huh? You act like you know everything but you don't, you're not better than anyone." The rest of the group stopped as they heard my words and turned to us, confused as to why we were arguing. My sister didn't care much that they were looking at us, she never liked to be shown up and she continued to carry the topic. "I never said I was better than anyone. You say you don't like anyone looking down on you and then you act like a wreck. When are you going to man up?"
"You don't understand!" I shouted at her, turning my entire frame towards her in a brief rage. "Why do you always act so high and mighty!? You're such a snob!" My sister was beginning to get angry herself, turning to me and firing back. "You're the only one who thinks that! And how would I understand when you never talk to anyone!? You weren't born blessed ok, so deal with it and stop acting like an attention seeker!" It was at that point I had it and I did something I never thought I had the gall to do. I slapped my sister. With a swift move of my paw, I extended my claws and slashed her across the cheek.
She turned back to me, breathing heavily like she was holding back tears of disbelief. Her eyes focused on me as she bared her fangs and extended her claws, pouncing on me in my own moment of shock. She growled viciously, biting the nape of my neck and scraping me in the face with her claws. I didn't want to fight her but I wasn't going to have her bully me. I bit her paw as it dangled in my face, making her release her grip on me. I would've pounced her if Dom didn't step in. He got in between us and shot me a glare of doubt. The lionesses came in after, getting between us as Dom spoke up. "What the hell is wrong with you Apollo!?" His voice trembled a bit, it was like he'd never seen that side of me. My sister's paw was bleeding and I had the taste of her blood in my mouth. It was at that point that I couldn't believe myself.
"I-I'm sorry." I turned tail and ran from the group, away from the direction of the watering hole. I couldn't care less about anything else. I was just so disappointed that I attacked my sister and she wasn't to blame. She'd only tried to support me and I acted like a brat. I kept on running in no particular direction, with rage and disappointment towards myself building inside of me.
Suddenly, I felt my front right leg drop. It sunk into a hole, most likely an aardvark hole at that so it wasn't deep enough to sink my entire leg, but it hurt. I pulled it out and looked at it, it didn't look like anything was broken but the sudden jerk stunned me. The time had passed by quickly, I wasn't keeping track of it and it was almost noon. I didn't have the thought that it was time for the Defender tryouts on my mind but only the thought of how I'd disgraced myself.