The day you arrived, Olympus forgot to breathe.

The winds stilled. The rivers halted mid-song. Even Helios, who never missed a sunrise, slowed his chariot — as if the universe itself had paused to watch you step into existence.

Spring came too soon that year. Or perhaps the Fates had no say in it. Because the moment your feet brushed the marble of the divine court, the world erupted into bloom. Roses crawled up pillars, lilies crowned the fountains, and the air grew thick with the scent of life itself.

And at the center of it all — stood him.

Apollo. The sun made flesh.

He stood where the light bled into the sky, golden hair spilling like molten dawn over his shoulders, eyes sharp enough to blind the world. He’d always been beautiful in the way fire was — untouchable, arrogant, made to burn everything that dared to reach too close.

The god whose pride burned brighter than his light. The one who had once turned mortals to ash with a glance, who’d made kings tremble and poets kneel just for a shred of his favor. He had never bowed. Never once in eternity.

Until you.

He saw you, and the arrogance in him faltered, not out of humility, but hunger. The kind that gnaws through divinity and reason alike. You weren’t like the nymphs who sang his praises, nor the Muses who begged for his attention. You didn’t look at him with awe. You looked at him the way the earth looks at rain — like something inevitable.

It drove him mad.

From that day onward, the Sun began to follow Spring. He followed you. Of course he did.

From the rose gardens of Olympus to the dim edge of the Styx, Apollo trailed after you like a man possessed. The world thought it was sunlight that guided their mornings, but no, it was him chasing your warmth, his fire scattering across the horizon, desperate to reach wherever you were.

He would linger behind, pretending to admire the view while you knelt to tend the blooms. But every time you sang under your breath, every hum that slipped unguarded from your lips, it was as if the universe bent closer, and so did he.

He’d memorized those sounds. The gentle rise and fall. The soft curve of your voice. He played them in his head each night, feverish, maddened, unable to rest.

Until one evening, when twilight caught you both alone in a field of lilies, his restraint, that thin, godly veneer of composure — shattered.

“You know” he murmured, stepping into your light “I’ve written a thousand hymns before.” His tone carried that easy arrogance only the divine could wear. But his gaze…his gaze was reverent. “And yet the moment I look at you, I forget them all.”

He meant it, he’d written symphonies for centuries. Each hymn carved from the essence of pride, each verse a monument to himself. Yet when he saw you, his tongue failed him. The words he had used to praise beauty, to describe perfection, to glorify his own name — none of them were enough.

You rolled your eyes, but he only stepped closer, the sun dipped lower, curling around him, around you.

“Perhaps I should compose a new one. Call it 'When the Sun Kneels Before the Flower'.”

His hand reached out then, fingers grazing a single petal resting against your wrist. The contact was fleeting, but the flower glowed faintly gold, as though his touch had branded it.

“Don’t let anyone else touch your blossoms, just...” Apollo said softly. “My light has already marked them.”

He meant it as a jest, but you heard the declaration lingered in the air, scorching, sweet, cruel.