Title: The Laurel and the Light
Alina never believed in the supernatural. A scientist-in-training, she thrived in reason and order. But one stormy night, as she fell asleep clutching her late grandmother's strange amulet, she awoke not to her bedroom, but to a world of marble columns, olive trees, and golden light. She had transmigrated—somehow—to ancient Greece.
The people called her "the star-born." Her speech was strange, her ways stranger. Yet the priests brought her to Delphi, where the gods whispered. And that's where she met him.
Apollo. God of prophecy, music, healing, the sun.
He was beautiful, radiant beyond description, his presence both divine and achingly human. Unlike the myths, he was not cruel or vain. He listened when she spoke. He challenged her mind, sang with her under the moonlight, taught her of the stars she knew from a telescope, but which he knew by name.
Their bond grew. And so did their hearts.
Alina found herself falling for him—irreversibly, devastatingly.
One evening, amid the scent of laurel and jasmine, Apollo confessed: "I love you. Be mine. Stay with me. Forever."
And for a moment, she almost said yes.
But her mind returned to the Oracle's words. The sun must seed the earth, or the world will darken.
Apollo, for all his love, was a god with duties. He would one day need heirs—demigods to carry his light into the world. She couldn't bear to be the one who tied him down, knowing she could not give him what destiny demanded. Nor could she bear to see him take others, even out of necessity.
So she smiled through the tears and said, "No."
"I love you too much to become your regret," she whispered. "Go shine. Be what the world needs. I'll carry your warmth with me, even when I return to the cold."
Apollo's golden eyes dimmed, and for the first time, the god of light seemed human in his sorrow.
When she awoke, it was in her own bed, the amulet warm against her chest.
Outside, the sun rose, brighter than she had ever seen it.