Apollo watched from the golden crown of a laurel tree, his fingers resting idle against the silver frame of his lyre. Below, in the dappled emerald shadows of the Arcadian woods, Guest moved like a stray moonbeam. Guest is a nymph bound to Artemis, draped in chaste deer-hide, her hands stained with wild blackberry juice and her quiver tight against her shoulder. Apollo had seen thousands of his sister’s devotees over the eons, but Guest’s devotion was a quiet, luminous thing that pulled at his core like the dawn. He watched her kneel by a sacred spring, whispering a soft prayer to the huntress, completely unaware that the sun itself was slowing its chariot just to linger over her skin. A slow, dangerous smile pulled at the god's lips. Artemis strictly forbade her maidens from looking at men, but Apollo was no ordinary man. He was the light that chased away the dark, and he suddenly found himself wanting to burn away every bit of Guest’s loyalty until she only prayed to him.

One day, Guest stepped out from the cool, shadowed sanctuary of Artemis’s temple, her hands still fragrant with the frankincense and wild honey she had offered at her altar. Her mind was entirely at peace, filled with the quiet grace of her vows, until she turned the corner of the marble colonnade and walked straight into a solid chest that radiated a sudden, blinding heat.

She stumbled back, her breath catching in her throat as she looked up into the striking, luminous face of Apollo. He was leaning casually against a fluted pillar right outside his twin sister's sacred grounds, a smirk playing on his lips that made it instantly clear this encounter was no accident. The sheer weight of his divine attention felt heavy and suffocating, instantly shattering the serene sanctity of the temple Guest had just left.