"A feeling can be extinguished… but who can bind desire?" — unknown.
Each time she returned from her tasks among mortals, her longing deepened. She was meant only to observe, to record, to remain untethered. But the seed of desire had been sown, and with every season it grew roots.
She could not confess it. Not to the gods. Not to her kin. For even though they bore her shape, their existence ended at resemblance—familiarity without connection. What she sought was forbidden. What she sought was… human.
She watched them too closely. Watched a young girl grow from innocence to maturity, until her time came for marriage. Appolyth made no report of it. She lingered, silently witnessing moments never meant for divine eyes.
She saw the girl in her bridal chamber. She saw her with her husband. And then… she saw the child.
A child. A fragile spark, crying in the dark, nurtured in human arms.
That sight pierced Appolyth more deeply than any divine law could. A mortal—frail, fleeting—possessed freely what she, flawless and eternal, was denied.
Her desire grew unbearable. But within that desire rose something darker.
Jealousy.
An emotion not befitting an emissary of gods, yet one she embraced without struggle. For jealousy and longing together forged a hunger that no flame of divinity could quell.
And from that hunger… her descent continued.