Guess who's back?

First off-Happy New Year! And Decade, if you want to be clever about it. A great time for family, festivities, and food. Lots of food. And Mahjong.

So good stuff. Fuzzy feelings all around.

Here's the next chapter!

Incredulity.

That was the general atmosphere surrounding the Hunters. Incredulity, peppered with concern for their mistress' sanity. Artemis even sensed suspicion coming from one of them.

Artemis couldn't really blame anyone for that last one. It hadn't even been a year since Dear Old Dad paid the Hunters a visit, and barely a month since they had to deal with the fallout. It was going to be a long time before Artemis (or any of them, really) could get over Callisto [1]. They were right to be wary. Artemis figured that she had a few seconds before their general incredulity turned into active protest.

"I understand that this is unorthodox," she continued, ignoring the boiling rage every time she thought of her favorite Hunter. "Bear in mind that I'm not going back on my vow, nor will the terms and conditions of the Hunt will be any different. This is simply a test run. If it does not work out, it will never be attempted again."

One of Artemis's Hunters raised her hand.

"Yes, Phoebe?"

"My lady, is it wise for the first male to join the Hunt to be a giant? Not that I'm insinuating that you are unwise, my lady!" she said hastily. "But-"

"I understand your concern," Artemis said. "Nonetheless, I have a policy of nondiscrimination by species. Furthermore, Orion had made it clear that his allegiance is not with the Earth Mother, nor does he harbor any hatred towards the gods. Plus, he's competent. Thus, he would be more than an adequate candidate, regardless of his birth."

And his status as the giant destined to destroy me and Apollo. Best not to remind them of that bit.

"But-" The ginger-haired hunter caught herself. "Yes, my lady."

"I expect you all to treat him...hm, not necessarily well," Artemis was being realistic here, "but with respect, and do your utmost to avoid treating him differently because of his gender. If he is to be a member of the Hunt, he must be treated as such. And if he is to be our experiment, we must avoid skewing the results. Is that understood?"

A brief hesitation. Then all of them nodded.

"Thank you," Artemis said. She could only hope that her Hunters would be open-minded enough for this arrangement to not end in bloodshed. "He will be here in approximately 9 hours."

Artemis lazed in the shadow of a tree and tried to calm her jittering nerves. She couldn't help but feel that she had just pit an immovable object and an unstoppable force against each other, and now they were on a collision course not even she could stop.

You're overthinking this, she told herself. You just have to prove to yourself that you will not be tempted to break your oath with him in close proximity to you. Nothing to worry about. It will work out fine. Yeah. If it comes down to it, you could just kill him.

It was amazing and depressing how fast her train of thought arrived at murder.

Perhaps she really did need to change up her modus operandi. She was becoming too set in her ways.

Shaking that train of thought off, she turned her thoughts to the newest member of the Hunt. The giant had shown a rather quick wit when he wasn't too busy cowering in front of her (she'll have to fix that last part. From what she understood about most healthy relationships, romantic or otherwise, neither party usually did that in front of the other) or too disoriented to form a coherent thought. Another sign that Orion wasn't at all like his brethren: he had an IQ in the positive numbers. Artemis absently wondered if he really was the same species as the rest of the giants she had fought in the Giant War.

If she was perfectly honest with herself (and she usually was: she believed in the importance of self-awareness), if Orion were female and not a giant, she would have wasted no time in trying to befriend him. His (admittedly impressive) skills aside, his general attitude towards life and destiny...well, they reminded Artemis of herself.

An uncomfortable thought, but it made sense, considering that he was meant to be her antithesis.

"My lady?" A voice broke her out of her thoughts. It was her new Lieutenant, Zoe.

Artemis looked up. "Yes, Zoe?"

"Phoebe spotted someone," Zoe pointed northwards. "A male hunter. Would that be him, my lady?"

Ah. Showtime.

Next chapter, Orion arrives. Yippee.

[1]. Taken from Percy Jackson's Greek Gods. Callisto, the nymph with whom Artemis was best buddies before Zeus disguised himself as Artemis (I know right?) and raped her. As a result, she got pregnant, Artemis found out about it, turned her into a bear, and exiled her from the Hunters. Yeah. Harsh.

At this point, I'm just trying to get the friendship part going, because if slow burn friendship is a genre, this is what it would look like. This is way too slow, even for me. Hence this somewhat filler-y chapter. I don't write enough fluffy pieces to be good at this emotion business. Sorry for making you all suffer.

But, uh, please do review. Constructive criticism is appreciated.

See ya!