Hello, children. I am back with another chapter.

This is your cue to cheer. Yay!

There are a few anachronisms in this one, but that's for fun. Hippolytos shows up again. What, did you think he's dead or something?

Not yet.

Uh, be sure to review for bonus content (5 reviews per bonus chapter. Link in my bio.) Constructive feedback and feedback in general makes me happy and keeps me motivated to write, especially since school's starting soon and I'll be busy.

Aside from that, have fun and enjoy!

Italy.

One would think Orion was going on vacation. Maybe taking a nice, long break from his rampage in a place conveniently out of the way. Perhaps he was planning on retiring.

Not so. He was fairly sure Artemis would never let him go free after what he had pulled. That worked fine for him: he had no intention of settling down anytime soon, anyway. Indeed, he was venturing to a specific spot in Italy because he had heard of a rumor.

Apparently, Artemis's other former male Hunter now presided over one of her temples in Latium. Evidently, his death hadn't been quite as permanent as originally presumed, because if the rumors were true, Artemis had enlisted the help of Asclepius to revive him.

Orion would be lying if he said that he hadn't felt a pang of hurt from that. All the effort he put into trying to woo Artemis, and this man got the special treatment? All Orion got was a scorpion sting and an arrow in the throat. Not that he cared about what Artemis thought anymore. Definitely not.

The trees obscured his view of the constellations.

Orion had taken the scenic route: he was in no hurry. He had decided to forgo running across the water, as for some reason, the seas were extremely unpredictable as of late. It was almost as if the gods were trying their best to prevent certain heroes from reaching their destinations [1]. Thus, he had chosen to go on land, circumventing the sea altogether. It was quite long, and he had to climb quite a few mountains, but come on: those views. He had climbed the Apennines a few days ago, so he could guess he was somewhere on the Eastern side of the peninsula, and now he was in the middle of some forest.

The forest was quite dense, denser than most forests he had stayed in, and he could see why most mortals spoke of it with such fear. That was fine by him: he wasn't a mortal, and he had enough experience traversing through forests, anyway. If anything, the trek was rather relaxing.

He settled down on a relatively dry patch of dirt. That would be enough walking for the day. Time to sleep.

People in the city were somewhat surprised when a rather tall man appeared out of the Silva Ciminia a few days later. When prompted with how in Erebus he crossed it alone, Orion just responded with a mild, "Oh, is that what it's called?" before slipping away. The locals would just have to draw their own conclusions.

He was on a mission, after all.

Now, if only he could get directions from them…

He walked up to the first person he saw. "Excuse me," he said, keeping his tone polite. "Would you know where the Temple of Artemis is?"

The mortal bread vendor peered at him. Orion waited patiently: he had plenty of time.

"You are the forest man," he said at last. Orion nodded, expecting more information, but none seemed forthcoming.

"Right. So, the temple-"

"Vir ab silvā, [2]" the man insisted, in case he didn't get the message.

Orion groaned, reminded of NPCs and other things that he had no business knowing several millennia before video games were invented. This was going to be harder than he thought.

After about a dozen citizens, three false starts, two painters' houses, and a minor mental breakdown that narrowly avoided grievous bodily harm, Orion was able to get directions from a surprisingly knowledgeable merchant of cabbage. From him, he learned three things.

One, that the temple of Artemis did not exist because the closest deity the locals had to her was Diana, whose description sounded similar enough to Artemis that Orion got the feeling that the two were going to be confused and mashed up somehow anyway, sometime in the future. Two, that the first part of Artemis' name, Arte, sounded very close to the ablative form for the Latin word for art, and that the its accusative form, artem, sounded even closer to "Artemis" (which did explain why he kept being redirected to artists' houses). And three, Diana's temple wasn't much of a temple as it was a sacred grove.

Compared to some of the grand temples he had seen in, say, Athens, Diana's temple didn't look like much. There was barely anything there, aside from a carved statue. [3] Still, he supposed it made sense for a forest goddess to have a sacred grove instead of a temple. He marched on.

He found a middle aged man tending to the trees.

"Good afternoon," the man greeted. "You wouldn't happen to have brought horses, would you?"

"Uh…" Orion blinked. "No?"

"That's good," the man smiled. "I had a traumatic incident when I was younger, you know, involving horses. So as the Rex Nemorensis [4] of this place, I banned horses from this sanctuary. They call me Virbius, by the way. Are you here to visit?"

"I'm looking for someone, actually. I think his name was Hippolytos."

The man raised an eyebrow, "And why would you be looking for him?"

"Curiosity, mainly. I've heard that he was a former follower of Artemis, and had gotten resurrected from the dead. I want to meet him."

"Is that all?"

"Well, and then there's the fact that I'm a former follower as well. I'm seeking a kindred spirit."

"Ah," the man nodded. "Well, lucky for you, you don't have to look far. I'm Hippolytos."

"...You?"

"There's no need to sound so surprised. I know I don't look the part. The immortality thing wore off following my first death. May I enquire your name?"

"I'm Orion."

To his credit, the other man did not draw his sword and attack the moment he revealed his name. "Orion, huh?" Hippolytos scrutinized him. "So you are. The goddess talked about you, you know, back when I was in the Hunt. A lot. She was most upset following your death. I thought giants can't come back after they've been killed."

"Yes, but I've always been the exception." Artemis had grieved for him, then. That...was good to know. At least she wasn't completely heartless.

But still heartless enough to abandon you, he reminded himself. After everything you did in her name.

Oblivious to Orion's inner conflict, a smile played on the Hippolytos's face. "Fair enough. Did Dia-Artemis know about..." he waved a vague finger in his direction.

"Yes," Orion said succinctly. Hippolytos didn't know about how he had defected, then. That was good, probably. Less chance of being attacked while carrying on a conversation. "So why are you here? Attending her sacred grove, I mean. I thought you were released from her service."

Hippolytos shrugged, "I chose this. I've always related well to her, even well into adulthood. No marriage. No…" he made a face. "Sex. The Hunt was the first place I felt accepted for not wanting any of those things. Everywhere else, it was always, 'Why aren't you married yet, Hippolytos? That girl's pretty, do you want her? That boy is nice, perhaps you should go for that instead.' That sort of thing. And that's fine if you do like these things: I'm not going to judge that. But there's always this kind of expectation that I would one day marry, and I would like it, and they made me feel like it was supposed to be something everybody should want. But I don't feel that way. So remaining in her service was a way of...thanking her, I guess. For letting me see that stuff like these were optional."

"I see." Orion didn't know how to respond to that. It sounded like he was holding it in for some time. "So, you and Artemis…"

"I owe her a lot," Hippolytos agreed. "We parted on good terms, and she helped me set up here. The name I go by nowadays, Virbius, was a nice play on words, you know. She came up with it. Vir bis. A man twice. Now I attend her sacred grove. Well, her counterpart's, anyway. It's a bit confusing, but they're similar enough that they might as well be the same goddess. [5]"

"And you're alright with that? Why not return to your father?"

Hippolytos raised an eyebrow, "Would you? He was the one who caused my death in the first place. Whatever familial obligations I had to him were annulled."

"Oh," Orion said. Hippolytos seemed to be throwing him off balance at every turn, and the other man didn't seem to be even trying. The killed-by-one's-own-parent thing hit a bit too close to home. "That...makes sense."

Hippolytos hummed. "And what about you? Are you still in Artemis's service?"

"Uh…" Orion shifted uncomfortably. "Not really. Not anymore. I kind of just do my own thing now."

"I see," Hippolytos said. "I suppose that makes sense. Too many uncomfortable memories?"

...Sure, he'd go with that. "Yes. The whole dying thing, you know…"

"Yes, I've heard. A scorpion, was it?"

Orion shuddered involuntarily at the mention of the gigantic arachnid. "Yep. Not fun."

"I understand. I'm the same with horses. You have my condolences," Hippolytos reached up and patted his shoulder. "Well, it's been great talking to you, Orion, but I really must get back to the plants, so…"

"Yeah," Orion said, taking the hint. That was fine, he needed to leave before Hippolytos discovered what he had really been doing, anyway. "I'd better get going too."

"Come back anytime," Hippolytos said.

"Of course," Orion said. He wouldn't, of course, because he was fairly sure Zoe was tracking him across the Peninsula as they spoke and there was very little hope of Hippolytos not knowing about what he had done once Zoe made it to Aricia. But it was nice while it lasted.

To be honest, Orion had no idea what to make of Hippolytos. He had marched in expecting...he didn't really know what he expected. To be jealous, perhaps. His mother had made it sound like Artemis had developed feelings for him. And yes, he knew that he should take anything Gaea said with a grain of salt, but the whole resurrection thing did sound like a romantic gesture. And true, the whole placing-your-best-friend-in-the-stars thing sounded like a romantic gesture, too, so he probably should have realized sooner, but he was too caught up in his own dark thoughts to think about that.

He had expected Hippolytos to be like him. Following Artemis around because he had loved her, even though it was forbidden. He hadn't expected Hippolytos to want nothing to do with love. Hippolytos had been killed by one of his parents, too, but he had rejected his father, unlike Orion, who had embraced his mother and by extension, his destiny. Hippolytos was, in a word, different from him. They had been in similar situations, true, but almost every choice Hippolytos had made were the exact opposite of what he had made [6].

It was disconcerting.

Perhaps he had been going about this the wrong way. Perhaps he should let go of his bitterness and hatred, turn over a new leaf. Befriend Artemis again, but this time, stay purely platonic. Perhaps-

He stopped. His feet had carried him back towards the Silva Ciminia. About thirty feet away from Zoe.

The girl hadn't spotted him yet, drained and unfocused from the journey through the dense and treacherous forest as she was, but she walked with purpose in her step. The purpose being to kill him, and he reminded himself that he had burned that bridge already.

So he aimed an arrow and fired.

"So Orion went rogue?" Virbius asked.

He had been somewhat surprised when Artemis all but burst into the sacred grove, Zoe in tow. He had been even more surprised when they told him that Orion had been going around killing Hunters and Amazons. The giant had been perfectly polite when he visited. Nothing to suggest that he was a mass murderer.

Zoe nodded, wincing as Virbius splinted her damaged knee. "We believe that his time in Tartarus had corrupted him. He is now working for the Earth goddess."

So that was what Orion meant when he said he was doing his own thing. "Then I'm sorry. For not keeping him here until you arrived."

"You couldn't have known, Virbius," Artemis reassured him. "It was my own fault for not warning you. Though in hindsight," she added thoughtfully, "it might have saved your life. I'm satisfied with that, if nothing else."

Virbius smiled, as one did when an immortal goddess admitted that she appreciates one's existence. "Thank you, my lady."

"Now if you don't mind, would you tell me what you talked about? This might be important."

"Yes. Of course."

So yeah, this chapter is research heavy. I've managed to confuse myself on multiple occasions, which I think is pretty telling. It did not help that Diana was actually a distinct goddess with Roman origins before the whole merging thing happened.

[1] The list includes, but is not limited to, Odysseus, Aeneas, Agamemnon (who got murdered right after, isn't that fun?), Locrian Ajax (who flipping died on the way. To be fair, he deserved it), Diomedes, and Menelaus. Why so many, you ask? Well, Aeneas because Juno didn't want him to found Rome because of a prophecy that Rome will destroy Carthage (a city that she really, really liked). If you'll notice, this is a direct reference to the Punic Wars. The rest got delayed/killed because of the numerous sacrilegious stuff they conducted while sacking Troy. Like raping Cassandra (yes, that Cassandra) on Athena's altar. Or killing the king on Zeus's altar, just to name a few. Nestor was probably the only one who actually returned home safely and soundly, since he didn't participate in this objectionable behavior. From this, we can draw some fairly obvious conclusions: Greek heroes weren't heroes because they were good. They were heroes because they're strong.

[2] Literally "man from the forest." Not exactly how I was expecting to use my high school Latin, but I'm glad to have this knowledge nonetheless. I'm fairly comfortable with using Latin here because the Latin language was descended from the language they were speaking then, anyway.

[3] So, there actually was a temple there. It just hadn't been built yet. And there was a cult in Aricia (a city in Latium) dedicated to the goddess Diana. Look up Diana Nemorensis.

[4] Rex Nemorensis. Literally "King of Remi." So the tradition was that in the middle of the grove, there was this oak tree that only slaves were allowed to break off the branches. Once they do, they fight the current Rex Nemorensis in single combat. If they win, they take the Rex Nemorensis's place (since, you know, the person's dead). If they lose, they die.

[5] This whole thing is a bit confusing, because Diana had origins in Italy and only later became identified with Artemis, so why the heck would Hippolytos be doing there? But later myths (ie, after the merging) say that Hippolytos was taken to the Diana's, the Roman version of Artemis, cult to become the first Rex Nemorensis after being revived, going by the name Virbius instead, later becoming a god, who is also a Roman deity. Now, I can take this at face value and just go "Yep, that's totally what happened." But that would be ignoring Diana's Roman origins, which I don't really want to do. So I made a compromise: the myth did happen, but Artemis and Diana could probably sense that the two of them were going to be conflated with each other, anyway, so they agree to help each other out whenever their paths cross.

[6] So as I was writing this, I realized how much Hippolytos sounded like a foil to Orion. Similar circumstances, but different choices and outcomes. So I thought that maybe we can have Orion become aware of this by himself. So yeah.

Also, about replies to reviews, in case that people are wondering: I generally respond to people with accounts via PM, because I'm not sure how they'd like their privacy. The ones without accounts are a bit tricky, because I couldn't PM them, and I don't know if people would appreciate being replied to (even by their penname) in a story that everyone can see. So if it seems like I'm ignoring you, I'm sorry. I do read your reviews and I appreciate every one of them. Please do tell me if you are alright with addressing you in the story, and I will respond.

So I think that's it for the author's notes. I'm sorry if it's a bit long, but I did a lot of research for this chapter, by my standards, at least, and I don't want it to go to waste. So yeah. What do you think, by the way? Too much information? Too little? Just right? Should I keep putting footnotes at the bottom? Tell me: I welcome feedback!

Peace out!