Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice.
A/N: It's been a while. . . .
Title: Inheritance
Summary: Artemis doesn't want children, especially girls. Artemis-centric.
Warnings: mentioned yuri, angst
R&R and enjoy!
XXX
I.
Artemis tries to tell herself that demons don't exist as she
curls into herself and she tries to recount fond memories
of a childhood that she can't really remember—
not even if she tried.
II.
Then she looks down at the foot of her bed and knows that
she's telling herself a lie.
III.
In a different place in a different time,
M'gann asks—with a
cookie dough sweet mouth—
"If we had girls,
who would you want them
to look like?"
IV.
The demon has her hair, her blood,
and he speaks to her as if life was a business deal
waiting to go horribly wrong.
V.
In the alternate space,
Artemis' fingers fill the spaces between M'gann's ribs
and speaks with knife-sharp truth:
"I don't want children."
VI.
"You're my daughter little girl,"
the demon smells of whiskey and gunpowder—
something too familiar:
"You're blood is mine."
VII.
M'gann with her liquid amber eyes
and her lavender sweet neck asks:
"Why not?"
VIII.
Artemis doesn't answer at first, but knows she couldn't take it
if her daughter came out with blonde hair and dark eyes;
if her daughter had even an ounce of the demon's blood in her veins because
Artemis had allowed it to become a part of her genetic coding; if her daughter
had been blessed with M'gann's heart but grew cold and hard because
she grew to love the sound of cracking bones and the smell of blood and gunpowder;
if her daughter—the one pure thing she wanted in life—was born with
a blackened heart that just needed that little nudge
for the Wheels of Fate to start turning.
IX.
Instead, Artemis kisses M'gann and says:
"Kids would be a hastle in our life, babe."
X.
M'gann knows Artemis is lying
like she knows where to kiss and touch
to make Artemis moan and squirm, but
she doesn't push and opts to place Artemis' fingers
in-between the empty spaces in her left ribs.
XI.
"I'm not having kids," Artemis raises her chin
in the only gesture of defiance she has ever known.
"I won't let them become like you."