Prologue
Ancient Greece
Apollo always had bad luck with love.
That might seem surprising because he has so many children in camp, but those mortal women didn't mean anything to him. They were just his fuck buddies to compensate for his grief for the ones that he truly loved.
Their was the one who got turned into a tree, the one who got murdered, the one that cheated, the one that used him, and the one that chose somebody else. And then, their was her.
She lived in Troy, and when Apollo first saw her, he fell hard and fast. He had never tried so hard to impress a woman. Even thought she knew who he was, she didn't want him because she didn't want to have her heart broken.
But Apollo never gave up. He showed her how faithful he would be to her, and slowly but surely, she fell in love with him.
They were together for a year, and they were crazy about each other. They were so passionately in love. She would always adore him and he would never leave her side.
They were engaged and she was going to become his immortal wife. Everything was perfect.
But then Aphrodite made Helen fall for Paris and the Trojan war started.
The gods were all called up to Olympus, Zeus saying that they could not interfere, and Apollo wasn't allowed to bring her.
He watched from Olympus as Achilles dragged her out of his temple and killed her right on the front steps.
He watched as her blood slowly started dripping down, staining each stair red, coating them with her life source.
And he lost it.
No one, not even Zeus, tried to stop him as he tore down from Olympus with only one thing in mind.
Revenge.
As soon as he got down, he started sending plague, after plague into the greek camp, making them all suffer before he killed them, because death would be too kind.
But it wasn't enough. Troy was still loosing. It was burning down right before his eyes.
He saw Achilles and Paris make their final stand, and he did the last thing he could do for his love.
He guided Paris's arrow and made it hit Achilles heel, killing him instantly.
As Apollo returned to Olympus all the gods bowed their heads in grief for his lost lover. They knew how unkind the fates were to him.
And for once Hades pitied him.
The gods knew how much he loved her. It wasn't often that a god, an Olympian no less, chose a mortal to become their immortal wife.
Hera also let them see that Apollo would never cheat on her for the rest of the eternity.
Hades created a place in the underworld that only Apollo and his lover could go to.
But only on the first of every month.
Apollo agreed to this condition and flashed down to the underworld to visit his love because it was the first of the month.
The first of May to be specific. What was supposed to be their wedding day.
The place was beautiful. It was a meadow, littered with wildflowers. Somehow the sky looked blue and you could see the sun glowing down at them.
The place looked so cheerful.
So wonderful.
And to make it even more beautiful, he saw her sitting in the middle of the flowers.
They had a joyous reunion, and they kept meeting in that clearing on the first of every month for years.
Thousands of years.