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"Hey, Theena!" Apollo cried as he saw the Goddess of Wisdom walking past his temple. "Have you seen Artie today by any chance?"
Athena looked over the sun god, taking in his white shorts, blue t-shirt and flip-flops ensemble. Finally she met his eyes. "No I haven't. She said she wanted to be alone all day today at the last council meeting, don't you remember?"
Apollo frowned slightly before shaking his head. "No, I wasn't really paying attention to the meeting. Do you know where she went?"
Athena sighed. "No Apollo. Can't you just find her yourself?"
The sun god smacked his head. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that? This is why you're the goddess of wisdom and not me, Theena."
Athena walked off, muttering about how even Poseidon could have thought of that and then turned back to call over her shoulder, "Don't call me Theena!"
Apollo was already walking away. "Whatever you say Theena!"
The god searched for his sister and found where she was. Without another thought he teleported there, literally showing up in a golden flash.
The first thought he had when he looked at his surroundings was- this place seems familiar.
She was on a beach, overlooking an ocean. There were trees, grass and bushes just behind the goddess and she stood, staring out to the waves with a look of regret on her face.
When she caught sight of her brother however, that look quickly changed to one of anger.
"What are you doing here?" She demanded. "I told everyone to leave me alone!"
Apollo looked at his sister and couldn't help but feel worried. She was dressed in her usual garb, a silver dress, and in her natural form. A woman of about 24 with long auburn hair surrounding her pale face. Her eyes were a deep and captivating blue.
But they were ringed with hints of red and held such pain that Apollo immediately worried for her.
Apollo got over his shock and tried not to let his surprise at her appearance show. "I... I was worried so I came to find you."
She must have seen something in his face however, because she turned her back to him. "I'm fine. Leave me, Apollo."
He looked around instead. "Where's those lovely companions of yours?"
"I told you, stay away from my Hunters! No one is allowed to call them lovely, sweet, precious or any of your other annoying nicknames for them." Artemis's voice was strained when she spoke.
He shrugged, brushing off her reprimand. "So where are they?"
She hesitated before answering. "I told them to leave me. I told everyone," her voice stressed the word, "to leave me."
Hesitantly he stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. She tensed at the contact and pulled away. Apollo tried not to feel hurt by that. "Artie, what's wrong?"
She whipped around to face him and the fury on her face was enough to cause Apollo to take a step back. "Don't. Do not presume to mock me brother, do not play coy. Not today."
But Apollo really had no idea what she was talking about. She had already forgiven him for their last arguement (pranking that girl seriously wasn't fun) and as far as Apollo knew she wasn't mad at him for anything that had happened since. "No really." He asked her. "What is it?"
Her eyes held surprise wariness as she studied him, which was slowly replaced with slight disgust and disappointment. "You don't remember?"
Now it was his turn to be surpised. "Remember what?"
She looked at him and her tone was clipped when she spoke. "What day is it?"
"Ummm... May 16th?"
She looked incredulous before taking a step back. "By Zeus, you really don't remember." She shook her head again, hair falling to cover her face. "I can't believe you."
Anger was making it's way back into her voice and Apollo frowned, trying to remember... whatever it was Artemis was so worked up about. It wasn't their birthday and he was pretty sure their mother hadn't had anything special done to her on this day years ago.
So what else could be so important to her?
She must have seen the confusion on face because she spoke again. "100 years ago, on this very day. Don't you remember what happened?"
100 years ago... what year had that been? What had happened that year... Apollo had decided Hermes was his best friend, Zeus had cheated on Hera and Dionysus had been born as a result, Artemis had met Orion-
His thoughts stopped there.
Oh crap.
May 16th...
Dread filled the usually happy sun god and suddenly he found it hard to meet his sister's eyes. She must have noticed because she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
"You made me kill him." She whispered. "You tricked me into killing him. He's been dead 100 years."
Even 100 years later Orion was still causing Apollo grief. Would he ever be rid of this guy?
"Artie..." He tried to come up with something to say but the words wouldn't come to him. It had been at least 70 years since Artemis had stopped looking at him with hate-filled eyes due to his little... trick. It had been at least 50 years since Apollo had even heard the name Orion.
"No Apollo. Don't you dare try to comfort me. Don't try to tell me it was years ago, it doesn't change anything." She met his eyes and hers were filled with pain so raw that Apollo felt like he was being stabbed. His twin was staring at him like she was dying. "He's still dead."
Once again Apollo didn't know what to say. "Artemis-"
"It's been 100 years," she cut across him, "and it still feels like yesterday. The pain still hurts every time I realize he isn't there. I still feel like screaming whenever I hear his name, and every night as I look up at the constellation I remember his cries of pain all over again. Gods, I can't even speak his name. And then I see the scorpion behind it, and I remember what you did and I hate you all over again."
He flinched. "I've said I was sorry Artie. What else could I do?"
She swallowed. "Nothing. Because no matter what you do he will still be dead, I will still be alive, you will still be apologizing and it will still hurt. And now you come here - here!- and you tell me you don't even remember."
Once again Apollo looked around and relaized why this place had seemed so familiar before.
It had been here that Apollo had pointed to the speck that had been Orion's head and told his sister to shoot it. So that she could prove she was a better bowman than him, she had obliged, all the while not knowing it was a person she was shooting. Not knowing that it was that certain person.
It had only been after Apollo had flashed away and Artemis heard Orion's screams that she had realized what she had done but by then it was too late. Not even Gorgon's Blood had brought him back, his soul had already been with Hades.
Apollo met his sister's eyes and saw she was breathing heavily from her anger. "Artemis have you been coming here every May 16th since he died?"
She flinched at his worried tone and turned to look back at the waves. "Just leave me alone Apollo."
"Answer me then."
He was playing a dangerous game, he knew that. Artemis was feeling so much that she just might shoot him with one of her arrows, but Apollo didn't give up. He needed to know.
It took a while but finally she said what he dreaded to hear. "Yes."
He took in a breath.
Apollo hadn't known it was this bad. He had known Artemis had felt more for Orion than most boys, but he hadn't known just how deep her feelings went. And he didn't know that after a century she was still mourning him.
And then he dared to ask a question that no one had ever had the guts to ask his sister before. One that was silently forbidden, but he had to know.
"Did you love him?"
She didn't answer for so long that Apollo was starting to think she didn't hear. Before he could work up the courage to ask again however she turned. And Apollo was shocked at the sight that met him.
Artemis was crying.
Apollo hadn't seen his sister cry... since they were children at least. It shocked and appalled him at the same time.
She ignored the tears in her eyes, or the drops of water running down her face and met his eyes. "Yes."
Apollo closed his eyes, trying not to let the words upset him but he failed. Anger coarsed through him so sudden that when he opened his eyes they were glowing.
Artemis was to forever remain a maiden goddess. She had sworn to be a virgin for her whole immortal existence and to hear that she had loved that man... it only made Apollo feel more justified in what he had done.
"Then maybe, I mean if you... felt that way, it might have been- I mean maybe it was a good thing-" He struggled to say what he was thinking without his sister wanting to kill him.
It didn't work.
"If you finish that sentence I swear on our father you will never utter another." Her voice was a promise and Apollo winced at the venom laced in it.
"Artemis-"
"You cannot justify this Apollo. There is nothing that will ever make this any better. You made me kill my best friend, all to protect my maidenhood. All because you were worried I would break my oath. You made me kill him. How am I ever supposed to forgive you for that?" She was actually asking him, and the sadness in her voice made Apollo frown.
Now he was the angry one. She was being unfair. "If you really loved him then you would have given yourself to him eventually. Artemis, men want that from all women, what makes you think Orion was any different? And love only makes you want it more! I protected you, I helped you keep your vow! I decided-"
"It was not your decision to make! I can handle myself, I am no child! Remember, this happened only when I was contemplating taking my vow of maidenhood, I was not an immortal maiden yet, brother. It was my choice, my decision. Not yours."
She couldn't stand to even look at him, Apollo realized as she once again turned away. She hated the sight of him.
And suddenly all of his anger left him to be replaced with desperation. "I was just trying to protect you." He said quietly.
She tensed at his words but didn't turn. "You shouldn't have bothered."
The words were like a whip and Apollo felt himself flinch as if to get away from them. But they hurt all the same, and he felt a shot of regret go through him.
"I'm sorry."
It was the first time he had ever apologised for making her kill Orion. The first time he had ever felt regret for what he had done. Over the course of 100 years he had never even felt anything close to this. Shame, regret, the wishing that he could take it back... it all created a huge pit in his stomach.
But it was too little, too late.
"I don't care, Apollo. Your apology means nothing to me, not anymore." She sighed in a defeated manner. "Just leave me alone."
And Apollo, not knowing what else to do, did just that.
oooOOOooo
Artemis forever remained a virgin, untouched by men. She surrounded herself with women and looked upon all men with scorn. She had been hurt, hurt and broken so deeply by a man that she vowed to never allow another to enter her heart. She swore her vow to remain uncontaminated by men physically, but on the same day she swore an oath to herself.
She would never care for any mortal man ever again. And no god, apart from Apollo and her father, would take a place in her heart. She would be untainted and unhurt.
But centuries and centuries later, some nights she still looked up at the sky and saw the constellation of the one man who had worked his way into her heart so deeply she would never really get him to leave.
She had been going to marry him. She had decided on the very day he had died that she was to marry him and had been on her way to see him when she killed him. And no one apart from her had known that she had chosen to make him her immortal consort.
And she had never spoken it to another soul.
She may have hated men, but she could never hate man half as much as she hated herself.
So milleniums later she looked up at her almost lover's place in the sky and spoke a word she hadn't said since the day he died. "Orion."
oooOOOooo
Based off of the myth of Orion.
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