"Don't worry honey… mommy's right here… with your death certificate!" I twisted my head around, eyes wide in fear. I was tired, too tired. Even if I had a blade I couldn't have stopped her. A Dracanae… evil beast-women with serpentine legs and fangs like knives. I watched as those very same fangs now came for my neck. I was powerless… I had fought so hard searching for her… yet in the end… it had amounted to nothing. This was how I would leave this world. At least I should be able to see my mother in the underworld… I hoped.

Instead of breathing my final breath I watched as the monster drew her's before vanishing into a pile of golden dust that seeped into the ground. Looking behind me I saw Artemis, completely unscathed with a drawn bow in her hands and a smug look on her face. "You're alright… thank goodness. I'm… I'm glad to see you're not hurt."

I guess she didn't get a very good look at me, which was better for her anyways because I was definitely hurt. In fact, I wasn't sure how much longer I would last. I didn't want to go so easily, I had only just made it to camp. Since I was going to go I decided to see if I could push my luck, and ask her for a last request. Oh boy if only I had known…

"Artemis… can… can you do something for me? When… when you go back to your huntresses… back to camp… can you tell them that I… that I defeated the lion and the hydras, by myself? I want to… to leave them… with a good taste in their mouth of… the boy who stayed a day…"

"What are you-? By Zeus… NO!" After that she rushed over to me. She must have noticed just how bad my wounds really were. On your typical day that reaction wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest. But this was no normal person, this was Artemis. The man hating and I dare say most proud of all the gods, at least from what I've seen. Yet here she was frantically tugging at my clothes and trying to bandage up my wounds.

Looking at her face scared me. Her eyes were filled with panic, and her movements were quick, but sloppy from her jittering hands. She seemed terrified, like she was about to lose something she couldn't afford losing. Being a foster kid, you learn to take care of yourself, so I'm not one on somebody trying to do everything for me. Besides, a goddess shouldn't be in this kind of state, it's dishonorable and just kind of degrading. Especially for an unclaimed hero…

Not wanting to see her like this any longer, and with the world slowly fading away around me, I put my hand on hers and squeezed so she would look at me. Her eyes… they were so scared… so filled with panic and tears. That really pushed me over the edge, I don't like to see people cry, especially girls, and most importantly, I HATE being the one to make them cry… "Artemis…" I said. "Hey it's alright. If you're trying to save me because you're afraid you'll offend my godly parent or something it's fine. I'm unclaimed so I doubt they'd care anyways. And anyway you're Artemis the Huntress. You're a goddess and you shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff for a mortal like me. What if the other Olympians saw you? You'd be the laughing stock of all of Olympus! Just let me go Artemis, it's… my time…"

After that I received the one thing I'll never forget.

A good slap to the face.

"Laughing stock?! Offending your godly parent?! Let them laugh all they want! I AM your godly parent! I'm your mother! Let them laugh! I feel no shame in trying to save the life of my SON! MY SON! THE SON OF ARTEMIS!"

She reached into my hand and grabbed the necklace, placing it on. She then grabbed mine holding it against hers. I watched as they lifted into the air, connecting with each other to form an hourglass. The golden sand inside began to swirl as the necklace turned in midair casting a golden glow all over the clearing. My head was reeling, as I desperately tried to stay conscious. Artemis, the eternal virgin goddess of the hunt patron of the moon, was my mother?

I looked at her crying eyes as the golden glow continued to cover us. It was only then that I realized those eyes... they were my mothers eyes for sure. There was no doubt about it. The one who took care of me those two years, this was her. I wanted to say something, anything, to show how happy I was that I had found her again, but the words wouldn't come. Then all the pain began to return. My world began to fade as I lost consciousness. As passed out with my mother holding me, I remembered what it was like to be a child, and to feel completely safe.

I opened my eyes to find I was in some really dark cold spooky place I had never been before. There were people all around me, but they were pale white, almost see through. Like they were ghosts. But then it hit me, they WERE ghosts. I was in the underworld! Of course I began to panic. I was dead. Like dead dead. Like I'm in the underworld where Hades reigns and I am dead. Not alive, but dead. And evidently I was much less okay with this than I originally thought.

Though I had to say dying wasn't so bad. I mean it really wasn't so bad. All I really did was fall asleep and then wake up in a giant wheat field. I mean it could have been a lot worse with some creepy long trial deciding where I should be put with the god of the underworld judging me from high on top. But no, here I was in a sea of ghosts. Not so bad all things considered. I took a moment to remember my greek history. From what I remembered there were four sections of the underworld. The fields of punishment where all the bad people go, the fields of Asphodel where everyone who didn't really do much in their life went, Elysium where all the good guys go, and if you put in an application with Hades after getting Elysium you could live two more lives and try to get Elysium two more times. If you were successful then on the third time you'd get to go to the Isle of the Blessed which is like the paradise inside paradise and home to only the greatest of people and heroes. If ancient descriptions were correct this meant I was in the fields of Asphodel. Not surprising as my greatest accomplishments in life were enjoying Sonic 06 and killing some monsters.

I took a look around trying to see if I could recognize anyone. Maybe some friend of mine who died or something would be here. With nothing else to do, I started walking.

I walked for what seemed like ages. All of the people here looked... well dead. I don't mean literally dead I mean they all seemed to have this same blank expression on their faces. Even though I was walking in a sea of ghosts it felt more like walking in a sea of zombies and I was just lucky enough or not interesting enough to be eaten, which oddly offended me a little.

After what seemed to be a few more hours of walking I started to realize why everyone here looked that way. There were too many people. Even with eternity, I could be looking around for friends literally forever because there are just that many people who are dead. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack the size of the Earth itself. It just wasn't going to happen. But, at the same time there was nothing else to do so you just kept looking anyways.

At one point I saw a mother who was happily walking hand in hand with her preteen daughter. Suddenly though the wave of people caused them to lose their hands and get separated. They immediately began to panic trying not to lose each other but it didn't take long for them to lose sight of the other. Not wanting to see them lose what could have possibly taken hundreds of thousands of years for them to accomplish I used my abilities as a son of Artemis to label them both as my targets. I grabbed the little girls hand and began to pull her. She was reluctant which wasn't surprising seeing as she had no idea who I was but I kept my grip on her. Slowly but surely I dragged her to her mother who cried as she held her daughter in her arms again thanking me over and over. In a twist of fate that apparently bought the little girls father enough time to catch up to them. I found out they had all drowned on the titanic over a hundred years ago and it took the mother and daughter 50 years to find each other. Now the entire family was together again thanks to me, and I was more that happy to help.

They offered to let me travel with them and I was about to accept when someone caught my eye. I used my powers as son of Artemis again and took a look at who it was my mouth hanging open as I recognized her.

"Helen?" I said astonished. Surely someone of her level of fame should be anywhere other than the fields of Asphodel.

He head snapped towards me, her eyes wild like she had just woken up after being in a coma. "Who... lord Achilles?! Is... is that you?! Have you finally come to take me away from this place?!"

I shook my head and informed her that I was in the same boat as she was now, dead.

"No... no you're wrong my lord. You told me about this a long time ago. Or for you a long time from now. No, you're not dead. But if you're here now then that means it won't be long until you come and get me! I'll be waiting my lord, waiting for you. Please, don't forget about me!"

I tried to assure her that I was very much dead, but the words wouldn't come out of my mouth. My body began to feel lighter, like it wasn't actually there. Then, nothing. Blackness surrounded me as I passed out.

I woke up later with my head throbbing and my brain swimming laps. My right side and left arm felt like they were on fire and freezing at the same time and the rest of me just plain hurt. I couldn't speak to save my life, literally, and it took what felt like an eternity just to get my eyes to open. I'm glad I did though because wow did I get to see a sight.

I was lying on an old twin sized bed with reindeer sheets that looked like they belonged to some kid. The walls were painted a light yellow and the floor was covered in green shaggy carpet. There was a small nightstand to my right with an old Buzz Lightyear alarm clock I hadn't seen in years. A little past the foot of my bed was a bookshelf covered in toys and to my left was a huge toy bin filled with… childrens books? Guess who ever lived here got it backwards.

That's when it hit me. Everything that had happened plunged back into my head. I was… alive? And more importantly…

"Are you alright?" I heard a voice say from across the room. I tried to look up but couldn't through the pain. It didn't matter though, I didn't need to see who it was to know.

"M… mother?" I said, and watched as Artemis, now dressed exactly as I remember my mother dressing, poked her head over top of mine for me to see. Her chestnut brown hair extended well past her shoulders in a long ponytail. Her long green dress and white blouse gave off the look that she was not just a mom, but the perfect one. The best part to see was her smile, the one I always thought about when times got rough. The smile that cut through any darkness no matter how thick. This was my mother, of that much, I was finally sure.*

"Mom… where… where are we?"

"Can't you tell… we're at home silly."

After taking a good look around I realized, she was right. This was my room from when I lived with her so long ago. It was my house. OUR house. "But… how? I saw this place when I landed here… it was in shambles…"

"Just a disguise made by the mist lunabug. Easy for a goddess to produce."

Mist was this stuff that apparently kept non magical people from seeing the magical world. At least that's what Chiron and Percy told me.

"So… you just made it look like it was rundown? That's pretty ingenious."

"Heh, thanks. But you need to rest. I went out and caught some rabbits. It's not much but would you mind rabbit stew to eat?" Mom's homemade rabbit stew? No way was I gonna pass that up. Still something didn't feel right. I felt like there was something about Artemis that I was forgetting… something that had to do with me… something BIG.

She came in a little while later with nectar and ambroasia before heading back to continue cooking. This time it just tasted like chocolate and apple juice. I concentrated on those tastes because I didn't want to spoil my appetite. With those in my stomach the pain slowly ebbed away until it was nothing but a dull throb all over and my head cleared up enough for me to see and think straight.

Mother called me for stew, but I still wasn't able to stand up quite yet. After about two or three minutes of struggling she came in to help. She looked worried, guess I was in worse shape than she thought.

Dinner was nice. We talked all about that day, about my short stay at camp. And of course all the things that happened to me after she left. Our conversation just kept going on and on and on. So much so that we forgot about the stew and had to reheat it. After having food in our stomachs we got to even more talking. Finally what it was that had been troubling hit me.

"Mom… I'm… not supposed to exist… right?"

Guess that got her attention because her spoon stopped in mid-air on the way to her mouth. Then she got one of those I-Knew-This-Day-Would-Come looks and stared me awkwardly in the eyes. Like she didn't want to talk about it but had to.

"It's true… you… shouldn't exist. I made an oath a long time ago forbidding myself from men. But… then I met your father and... I couldn't… I didn't mean to… and then you…"

She was getting more messed up than I wanted to see her so I told her she didn't really have to go on. Besides, I knew what happened to my mother at last. Who my father was didn't really matter to me. Once you've had fifty of them you stop caring which one's the real thing. "Well, I guess I'm staying in the Hermes cabin the rest of my life then huh? Ah well…"
All of a sudden mom got all offended. "Certainly not. My son will not be sleeping in that filthy over cramped Hermes cabin, strutting around with thieves and other vagabonds as though he belongs there. The purpose of the cabins is to separate the children of the major gods based on birth parent. You are a child of Artemis and as such WILL sleep in that cabin. When you have returned to Camp Half-Blood I will come and claim you personally in the flesh."

Oh yeah that's right… the proudest of the gods… "Mom, you can't! You made an oath over… a really really long time ago! You can't waltz into camp and claim me like that! You'll get into all sorts of trouble!"

"Arc… I can't keep this secret forever you know. Zeus WILL find out, whether it's now or later he will know eventually. If I'm going to be punished for having and loving my own son, I'd at least like to make sure that I'm the one who claims him."

I couldn't really argue with her on that point. She was my mother and all she wanted was to have the chance to say that I was hers. Not some unclaimed worthless hero, but a true son of the Queen of the stars and goddess of the hunt. I guess when you look at it that way, it's her right and not mine. So I have no place to argue or interfere.

But I wasn't really so worried about that as I was the consequences. I had talked to Percy. Heard how he wasn't supposed to have been born, and the lengths the gods went to deal with him. It didn't sound pretty, and I sure wasn't liking how things might end up going for me. It was one thing for Percy, his Dad was one of the biggest baddest gods there are. A member of the "big three" as Annabeth called them. What's more his promise well… it didn't last long. As for me… my mother has been keeping her promise for well over what? Three THOUSAND years now? I don't know, a really really long time. And now with me she's broken the taboo…

Mom and I went to bed that night in the same house for the first time that night in years. But somehow I couldn't sleep. I could feel a horrible storm brewing.

Author's Notes

*For a perfect description of what she looks like, look up Trisha Elrich from Full Metal Alchemist. She's based entirely off of her and if you want to know her voice imagine Erza from Fairy Tail, or the White Haired Moka from Rosario+Vampire. As for fans of both, give Trish Erza's voice just for kicks anyway. I personally think it's rather funny.