The stars shine brightly upon the world.
A young girl, perhaps in her teens, sits atop a rocky outcropping. She looks at the night skies with ancient eyes full of sadness and knowledge far beyond her age.
There is no moon in the sky. The stars twinkle fiercely, no longer outshined.
It is because of the girl that there is no moon in the sky. She drives her silver chariot through the sky every night, as she has for thousands of years.
But tonight she rests, which in itself is not extraordinary.
It is the night itself that holds the history, the something that happened millenniums ago. The night that creates the aura of despair around her and leaves a bitter taste in the air. The night that creeps into her thoughts, hinting at what she will not recall to her mind, for fear the raw emotion will spill over. And that would be unacceptable, to let her feelings over something so trivial show.
She has not built the wall around her heart for nothing.
She is a goddess. She is mistress of the moon and hunt, with a heart of ice.
And tonight her tears fall, but not for long.
For only one fleeting moment, she remembers him.
Artemis ran through the vast wood, bow in hand. Flanking her were a dozen maids that looked surprisingly at home among the trees, almost as if they were a part of the forest. Sleek, lean dogs bayed from up ahead, tongues lolling to the side and eyes bright from the excitement of the chase. The young goddess let out a wild laugh that imitated the sounds of the hunt, as the wind combed his fingers through her unbound chestnut hair. She leapt over a fallen tree with wild abandon, and suddenly came face to face with the very beast she was hunting- a great white stag. The startled creature gave a mighty kick of its hind legs and was immediately off again. Artemis sprinted after it with the confident smile of one who knows failure is impossible, leaving even her maidens in the dust. She matched the stag stride for stride, and pulled back her arrow to shoot and end the chase. Just as her fingers began to let the arrow fly, a different bowstring gave a twang and the beast was suddenly dead on the ground, a cruder wooden shaft protruding from its heart. The goddess stood in astonishment for a moment before giving a cry of rage and bounding off in the direction from which the arrow came, prepared to smite whoever had cheated her of her kill. Arrow still strung on her bow, she leapt into a clearing with her anger blazing- and found her arrow was pointed at the head of a stunned man. She drew her bowstring back, fixed her gaze on her target- and looked straight into the target's remarkable eyes. They were the color of the ocean, shifting blues and greens, and rimmed with black lashes. But the truly startling thing about them was that they were not filled with fear, but with resignation and pride. She lowered the bow a fraction.
"Why do you not tremble with fear, mortal? Your life will be ended in a very few seconds, yet you do not look frightened in the least." She studied him, a bit confused.
"Well, milady, if my life is about to be ended, it will be because I out-shot the goddess of the hunt herself. It is a most honorable reason to die."
She considered this for a moment. She should have killed him immediately for such impetuousness, yet instead she found a smile playing around the corners of her lips.
"How could you have known I was a goddess, when I am wearing the guise of a mortal?"
"Milady, no mere mortal girl would be hunting alone in the woods, much less one with such grace and beauty as you have. And what mortal could have eyes the color of the moon?"
At the word "alone", Artemis gave a start and glanced over her shoulder. "I am not alone. I left my maidens behind for the final part of the chase. They will find me any moment. I should kill you and go to meet them…" She turned back to him and studied him for a moment. She had not noticed before, but he was even taller than her when she was human height, and she the tallest of all the goddesses. He had tanned skin and curling black hair, and altogether he seemed quite normal excepting his strange eyes. As she looked at him, she also realized how far away they were from the place where the stag had fallen, and felt a sort of grudging respect for the difficulty of his shot come over her. So, surprising even herself, she finally lowered her bow completely, turned, and began to walk away. He made a noise of surprise in his throat, and she looked back at him.
"Do you wish to die, mortal?"
"No…but…why are you sparing me?"
"It seems a shame to kill a man who is brave and a good hunter. There is a lack of such in Greece."
She once again turned, but had taken only a step before his voice sounded again.
"Will I see you again, milady?"
Artemis was shocked at the oddness of this question. Did he not realize he had just narrowly escaped death by her hand? Yet…she thought about it for a moment, and then spoke.
"Yes. You will see me tomorrow, in this exact spot. We will hunt, and then we shall see who truly outshoots who." Her eyes sparkled with a bit of humor. "Farewell. Oh, and mortal?"
"Yes, milady?"
"Do you have a name?"
"Orion, milady."
"Very well. Farewell, Orion."
With that, she took a few steps out of the clearing and seemed to vanish into the trees, leaving Orion to wonder if she had actually been there at all.
Next chapter will hopefully be up soon. In the meantime, reviews make me happy!