Chapter 2: The Search Begins
Artemis was still grumbling as she coasted off. She was heading for Thebes- it was a big city, and so there were plenty of mortal girls. She knew that they would probably want another daughter of a king, but Eros was lucky to even be getting her service at all. It was a beautiful day- she should be out hunting! Deer, that is, not women. She felt like being invisible- Thebes hadn't seen a god or goddess in a while, so she figured she should keep a low profile. She thought about what she would be. How could she get the most information out of the contestants? Because surely, attempting to win the love of a god would turn into a contest. She finally transfigured into a young woman, much like how she looked normally, except not as pretty- she didn't people getting jealous; that could get messy. She needed a conversation piece, something that would make possible for her ask random questions….ah! She would simply dress in the traditional clothing of someone who lived in the countryside of Thebes. She could pretend she was visiting, and wanted to figure out how people in the city should act. Beyond that , she would just hope they were nice girls, and would answer the random questions. She could smite them to kingdom come if she wanted to, and she would!
Artemis started on the very main market street of Thebes. She figured she could weed out the possibilities from afar. All of the annoying, high maintenance people would be at home, having sent the nice ones to buy things. Eros though, being the snot that he is, probably wouldn't care whether they were nice or not, as long as they were beautiful and loaded. Keeping this in mind, Artemis, in her traveler's garb, headed into the marketplace, keeping sure not to float above the ground as she usually did.
She stepped right out into the middle of the marketplace, and turned in a slow circle. People gave her some odd looks, but what the heck, she was so not the weirdest one out there. She spotted a likely possibility, and walked over. The girl was buying fish at the grocer's. Artemis walked right up and said, "Hi! How old are you?"
The girl gave her a strange look, and then, glancing around furtively, said, "If you really wanted to know, I found this youth potion in Hera's temple. I am actually 42, but don't I look gorgeous?!"
Artemis took a step back. This was going to be harder than she thought. She replied, "Um, okay, great, bye!" she was going to have to talk with Hera about a couple of things…"