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Leto had never been so terrified in her life.
She’d been in terrible situations before. Artemis and Apollo had been in terrible situations before, more times than she could count, and she was always afraid for them. The past years had been especially challenging. But this was- different.
She’d known her children had been facing their father’s wrath while Gaia was waking, but they’d been safe and sound hiding out on Delos. She was sure they had been losing their minds, both of them stuck in the same place for so long, but her sister’s island would protect them. Asteria loved her niece and nephew almost as much as Leto did, and as long as they were on the land she had created, nothing could touch them.
She’d worried, in the months afterward, when Apollo seemingly disappeared, especially after Artemis told her what had happened at the Acropolis. She’d hoped that he had simply gotten caught up in his work or gone back into hiding to avoid his father’s punishment. She hadn’t really been able to make herself believe it, but Zeus had said there was nothing to worry about, so even though she couldn’t stop herself from worrying she tried to put it out of her mind. The hopes kept her going, as shaky as they were.
She’d thought that she’d worry less when she knew what had happened to him. She had been so, so wrong.
She’d never before felt terror like she had when Artemis came to her that day, months after Apollo had vanished. Her daughter had been in tears, practically collapsing in her seat at the kitchen table, more distressed than Leto had seen her in centuries. Her heart had broken at the sight, but not as much as it had when Artemis finally managed to tell her what had happened.
Her son had been turned mortal. For the third time.
And unlike the first two times, where he still bled gold and he still had enough of his godhood to protect himself- this time he had nothing. He was as close to mortal as he could possibly be.
He was bleeding red.
And of course Zeus hadn’t only taken his ichor from him. He took his skills, his looks, his name. She had nearly been sick at Artemis’s description of the state he was in.
She tried not to interfere when her children were disciplined by their father- one far more often than the other. He was the king, after all, and she was not in a position high enough to let her get away with arguing with him.
But there were some times where she simply could not stand by. This was her son made completely mortal. Her sunshine could lose his life. She could not- she would not stand by. She had to do something.
Leto eyed her reflection in the glass doors. She’d chosen the gauzy white sundress she knew Zeus liked and done her makeup lightly. Her golden blonde hair- so much like her son’s- was braided in an elaborate ladder weave.
She looked like the girl from so many millennia ago, from the golden age. The girl who spent her days running around with her brother and her sister and her cousins, uncaring of the prophecy that would one day lead Mount Othrys to ruin. The girl who didn’t know about the storm brewing over her home. The girl who eagerly babysat for anyone who needed it, dreaming of the day she would have babies of her own. The girl who went to the Titan king’s court only so she could see her uncle’s favorite cupbearer.
Zeus had caught her eye from the moment she first saw him. His dark curls and bright blue eyes, like the summer sky itself was looking at her. His gorgeous voice when he spoke or when he sang for the court. His humor, his grace, his cleverness. He was like no other boy she’d ever met before.
Leto had dreamed of her own wedding from the moment she’d seen the radiant smile on Asteria’s face when she married Perses, and her darling little niece Hecate certainly hadn’t helped with her desperate desire for children of her own.
She’d tried to picture them, sometimes. The children they might have. A girl with his dark hair and her light eyes, or a boy with her golden hair and his deep eyes. With his laugh and her smile. With his passion and her kindness. With all of the best parts of both of them.
She’d wanted those children more than anything.
Her father had not approved at all. Leto was a highborn Titaness, he insisted, and his daughter would not have a lowly cupbearer for a husband. Koios wanted only the best for his little girl, and he was convinced that Zeus was not it, despite how enamoured she was.
She’d been so upset with him, especially when Zeus had started spending more time with Metis after her father forbade her from speaking with him.
After everything, she’d wondered if maybe there was another reason Koios hadn’t wanted her around the cupbearer. If he’d seen something from his heavenly oracle that told him that Zeus was more than he seemed. That he would be the one to bring Kronos to ruin.
She didn’t let herself wonder if he had been right to try and keep her from him.
As much as she looked like the girl she had been before the first Titanomachy, she also looked like the woman from afterwards. The woman who had had to learn to live in a world so different from the one she’d known all her life. The woman who still watched any children she was asked to, even the children that her first love had had with someone else. The woman who slept with someone else’s husband, knowing it was an awful idea, because she’d loved him for so long that saying no seemed somehow worse.
The woman who had spent so many months suffering to at long last have the babies she’d always wanted to have. The woman who had spent those first few perfect days on Delos, with her dearest children and their dear father, who seemed to adore them as much as she did.
Those days had been some of the best of Leto’s life. Zeus had been so taken with Artemis and Apollo. She’d thought, for a few moments, that maybe she really could have the family she’d dreamed of as a girl.
She was pulled from her reminiscence when the doorbell rang. Her dress swished as she ran to answer it.
He was dressed more casually than she had seen in centuries, in a cloudy dark gray polo shirt and white pants. His beard was on the right side of scruffy, and his dark hair was artfully windswept. His brilliant blue eyes- so much like his son’s- drank her in as soon as she opened the door.
The way Zeus looked at her- she knew he was seeing the same thing she was. The woman he had loved so long ago.
“My lord,” she greeted him, hoping her smile didn’t look as forced as it was. “Thank you for seeing me.”
His eyes softened. “It’s been too long.”
She dipped her head. “It certainly has. Come to the pool?”
He followed her out of the glass doors and onto the patio. She’d already set out a tray of drinks, the ones she knew he liked.
He sat in one of the deck chairs, staring at the horizon. The sun was rising, warming the waters of her infinity pool and painting the sky in a hundred thousand different colors. It felt cruel, that the sunrise could be so lovely when her sun wasn’t there to drive it.
They watched the sunrise for a few moments in silence before Zeus spoke up. “I can’t imagine you called simply because you wanted to see me.”
“It certainly doesn’t hurt.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “But you’re right. There are matters I needed to speak to you about.”
He hummed, motioning for her to continue.
She knelt by his side, bowing her head. “My son-“
“You want me to reinstate his godhood and restore him to his throne.”
“Please,” she begged.
His voice was as unyielding as his lightning. “Leto, no.”
“Please, my lord!” she implored. “He is your son. He has learned his lesson!”
She wondered what her father would say if he saw her here, kneeling before the lowly cupbearer he’d hated so much. Begging for her son’s life.
“Not yet,” Zeus rumbled. “Oh, no. His real test is yet to come.”
He scowled at something in the distance that she couldn’t see.
“His- his real test?” she asked. After all of the terrors that Apollo had had to face already-
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what Zeus had in mind.
His eyes softened when he looked back at her. “He’s my son, as you say. He has not learned yet, but he will in time. His trials will not be easy, but nor will they be impossible.”
“Of course,” she murmured. “I have faith in him. I simply worry.”
“Of course,” he echoed. “You’re his mother. Of course you worry. I understand that. I am his father, after all. But as his parents, we must do what is necessary for him, even if we don’t want to. I’ve never liked having to punish him.”
She rested her head on his chair, against his thigh. She wasn’t sure that they had the same views on what was necessary for their son, but she knew better than to voice that. “He does make it difficult. With that pout he does- I say it’s the eyes. He got those from you, you know.”
He laughed, that laugh she had fallen in love with so long ago, like the rumble of thunder. “Perhaps. Personally, I think it’s the lips. Those are all yours.”
She smiled softly with those lips. She had her doubts about Zeus’s plans, but she held on to hope. Apollo would come back to her. She had to have faith in him.