Being a princess of Crete is hard. Your father is a bull-obsessed freak that has a death maze in his backyard. All the people on his domain hate him, even the neighbouring kingdoms. Well, that’s not what makes it hard. The old, gross, stinky kings from other kingdoms that just won’t stop trying to chase you are stressful enough, leave alone those lovesick gods trying to get you to be their girlfriend for what? Two weeks?
And your father, King Minos, just wouldn’t stop bugging you to get married already. He’d been setting you up with all those princes for years. He believes that if you marry a powerful man, it’ll help him regain his power. Not gonna lie, some of those gentlemen are lovely. They’re sweet and nice to you. Their offers of getting you out of Crete are so tempting and you almost agree to it. It’s just that. . . you’re not really into them.
So you’ve grown up still in your father’s wing. You’ve tried to move out once, but every time you leave your city Knossos, your trail would be overfilled by your suitors. You have no choice but to stay in the castle.
When your sister, Ariadne, got dumped by that puny prince of Athens, Theseus, you got another reason to hate men. Well, not all men. Ariadne writes to you once in a while. She told you in one of her letters that when Theseus left her, the god Dionysus found her and healed her broken heart. He married her and made her his immortal wife. You can tell by your sister’s letters that the wine god is treating her well in Olympus. The god is nice to you too, he sends you wines even when you’re still underage to drink. See, you got a rebellious streak on you.
But you are not underage anymore. You now know what you want and what you don’t want and who you are. And you know that boys aren't what you want. . . you like girls.
You realised this when you were fourteen. When this king visited your castle with his daughter, your jaw almost dropped literally. And when you actually got to talk to her? Ugh, nevermind. Ariadne noticed that, and you admitted to her that boys didn’t really seem to interest you. Being the best sister ever, Ariadne accepted you with all her heart.
With all of Ariadne’s letters and stories, you almost believed that gods are not really all jerks. Yeah, sure, Dionysus is known for making his enemies crazy and choking them with grape vines, but if he’s treating your sister right, that’s good enough for you.
You only came back to your senses that not all gods are as nice as Dionysus when one actually tried to pursue you.
You were hanging out at the balcony when the sun god Apollo saw you. You were sitting on the railings, humming to yourself, and when he drove his chariot across Crete that morning, he couldn’t help but to stop.
He landed his chariot on the nearest tower, almost burning half of the castle off. He hopped off his chariot, grinning wickedly at you.
“Hey, pretty one, why are you alone?” he flirted.
You looked at him disgustedly. “No.”
“But why?” he said, spreading his arms exasperatedly. “I’m not even asking a question yet!”
You clenched your jaws. This man is making you really annoyed and if he wasn’t a god, you could’ve already lunged at him. “I know what you are. You’re a god. I’m not interested.”
“You’ll regret that decision, lovely,” he said, sliding his fingers down your arm.
You slapped his hand off. “No. Just no.” You jumped down the railing into the balcony, carefully, trying not to accidentally raise your chiton and expose yourself.
“Hey, you know how many girls would want to be in your place, right?” he said desperately.
“Then go bug them instead,” you said and walked to the door to your room.
