"Hey, I have an idea!" Christina, "How about we all hear the next installment of Artemis and Perseus?" Artemis froze against the tree trunk, and accidentally squeezed the nap of the alpha wolf's neck. "I mean, while we have the time…we will be on a wild goose chase the next couple of days."
...
She should have grown used to the choruses of approval over the last couple of nights. Even so, she found herself caught back in the web of the past, and felt all the memories spring to the forefront of her mind again. The whole day, she hadn't actively focused on it. She had been far too relaxed. Just like Athena had said she was.
Sometimes she wanted to curse her half-sister for being so perceptive in some matters.
"Alright…alright… I'll continue the story." Artemis huffed lightly. However, internally, she felt a warm spark within her.
"Before you start, I have a question, My Lady…" Anna asked, her green eyes wide against the light of the flames, "You said Perseus was married… did you ever meet his wife?"
Artemis descended into that burning memory, "Yes… I did… I met her alright…"
The Macedonian capital was a dark gloomy city, darkened even further by looming grey clouds, that seemed to swoop down to suffocate every living thing. The once lively roads, and bustling streets were now full of the dead, who shambled along without cheer. The outskirts of Pella showed more of this morose life. But not much.
After all, she was one of those. One of the dead.
Her powers, returned. Abilities, endless. Pain, beyond words. Wrapping the heavy grey cloak tighter around herself, she stepped along next to a rumbling hay cart, her feet sinking into a mud trodden track. All she had was her dirty armor, and his sword. The weight of it at her side almost sent her to her knees, to obliterate everything around her out of rage.
'That…. that stupid…. man.' Artemis whispered internally, her anger, pain, and sorrow roiling over her very soul without control.
Tears splashed into a few scattered puddles on the dirt road. She furiously blinked them away, attempting to avoid any thought of Per… of him. It was no use. He was interwoven into her life in such a degree, that she couldn't fathom another coming dawn with him by her side. Of course, she would rise to have that reality torn from her, in an endless cycle of torment.
There were footsteps in front of her. Two pairs of legs. She didn't bother raising her head from where she stared at the mud. It was two men. Both approaching her. One laid a hand on her shoulder, and she clenched her fists, channeling all her rage into ending this man's existence.
It wasn't needed to even look at the man to know his fate. She felt the man twist and contort into a tiny minnow, who fell into a puddle the size of her foot. His companion jerked back in surprise, and turned to run, but he too fell into the same circumstance, flopping wildly to fall into the mud, to slowly suffocate in the damp earth.
Some of the travelers around her might have noticed. Either those on the road, those by homes and temples, or those peering out windows might have seen, but what was the worry? What punishment could faze her?
Her mind was already in Tartarus.
Only one light led her. It was a calling, amidst the grief racking sobs that threatening to spill out of her, a calling to hope.
The muddy streets led her closer and closer to the heart of Pella. However, her destination was buried in a side street, on the outskirts, in a darkened villa. Her feet carried her there. The first thing she saw, after taking her gaze out of the mud, was mudbrick walls, that enclosed a two-story villa, with a double wooden door entrance way. A solitary candle flickered in the second story balcony, which sat on a wooden parapet, looking all too familiar to Artemis's soul, in this dark and unforgiving world.
To the casual observer, no one was at home. Or rather, no one even lived there at all. But she knew better. She could feel the pain here as well.
Mud tracked on the stone steps, which served to separate the villa from the road. Under the cover of the extended overhanging balcony, the shadowed ground was free from the earlier rains, being dry and firm. Artemis knocked heavily on the door.
For a minute, there was silence, before hollowed footsteps seemed to tentatively approach the door. Artemis felt the breath rush out of her chest as she met the eyes of a women who could only be one person.
The woman was slight, with a simple dark silver gown, which cut short halfway down her calves. A small golden band circled her waist and ringlets kept the gown on her shoulders. But her eyes…. Eyes of the deepest green, full of worry, confusion, and a tiny sliver of hope. Those damned eyes were backdropped with a curly mess of midnight black hair, which cascaded down her back, to vanish into the dark interior of the villa.
The eyes were the same, the exact same. Beautiful deep pools of green, only marred by a swollen bruise that shone black and blue.
Artemis involuntarily stepped forward, and embraced the woman, unable to hold the gaze of her any longer.
"Who…who are you!?" The woman feebly yelped, straining vainly backwards from the goddess's grasp.
"I'm… I'm sorry!" Artemis croaked, her vocal chords untested, "You… you have his eyes." Artemis slowly pushed back the cowl of her cloak.
There was a moment, before his mother realized the significance of what she had just said. Then her eyes lit up, and Artemis found herself drowning in their light, memories of him washing back into her, like a river of nectar coursing through her veins.
"My son…. My son… you know him? Where is he?!" The woman cried.
Artemis could only hang her head in grief, "He fell. In my arms."
The anguish of a mother, losing a child, torn at her very being. To have a domain of Childbirth, and to see the opposite sent a shudder through her core. She felt arms wrap around her, desperate with spasming fingers clawing at her armored back. Sobs reverberated into her collarbone, sending shivers down to her knees.
Her own tears leapt forth, wishing that she had been able to meet this amazing woman with him… with Perseus…
The thought sent her down a path she would have walked gladly upon, had he still been by her side. They would have travelled home together, on foot, to experience the journey. He would have introduced her to his mother. He would have met the hunt, he would have been her companion, until the end of his days. She would have told him how she loved him so.
She poured her sorrow for these lost things into the embrace with this woman, who might know her pain.
They stood, immobile, for an indeterminate amount of time, before at last, the curly haired woman stepped back, ashen-faced, only colored by tear tracks, which ran down her face.
"You… you loved him? Did you not? You have such beauty…" The woman whispered, trailing a hand down Artemis's face.
"I love him." Artemis said vehemently, "I will always love him. And him alone." There was a stinging thorn in her side, the moment the words left her mouth. "I came to inform you and… Medeia. He loved both of you so." He could never love me.
But the mention of Medeia sent a thunderstorm into those green eyes, now quickly filling with rage.
"Are you a warrior?" His mother's voice was dripping with venom.
"Yes." Artemis clenched a hand under her cloak. A horrible dread had come over her, along with a possible vent for her rage and grief.
"Backroom…" The mother whispered, gingerly touching her bruised face. "Kill them both."
She stepped aside, and Artemis felt herself move forward, a horrible gut twisting emotion clawing its way into her heart. She paid no heed of the interior of the villa. The only thing that fueled her mind was the distant orange glow that shone past an open courtyard, and the muted moans of sexual pleasure.