Chapter Text
Apollo heals the wounds on Hector's body, as he did other times while Hector was alive after some of the worst battles of that war.
"Why does my god bless me this way?" Hector had asked once.
"Why wouldn't I? " Apollo replied casually despite being well aware that this wasn't something he would do for just anyone, as most gods being kind wasn't something that came naturally to him. But Priam's eldest son was always able to awaken that side of him.
After Achilles took Hector's life, he continued to take his anger out on his body, stripping his clothes, tying him by the feet and dragging him across the ground as he rode around Troy, as if that would ease his grief for his beloved Patroclus.
But because of Apollo, no sign of that would show in the skin of the Prince of Troy. Remaking the skin back to what it was on its best days, beautiful and well-rested, giving the impression that the trojan prince was just sleeping, even though his soul had already gone to Hades at that point.
In every battle he had been with Hector, helping him or just watching him, except for the last one, the one Zeus and the Fates stopped him from interfering.
Because it would always be that way.
Troy would always fall.
And Troy would never fall while Hector was still breathing.
He was doomed from the start.
Achilles is destined to die too.
And soon.
And there will be those who will mourn him as deeply as Troy now mourned Hector.
But Apollo will not be one of them.
In this war many of the gods had their favorites, Athena had her clever Odysseus and Aphrodite her beautiful Helen, and maybe one day they would feel the pain he felt at that moment, the one of loving what was mortal.