The First Seed

2,100 years ago

Artemis thought she knew best when she made that vow. To remain a virgin, to never fall in love. But looking back she realized how naive she had been. No matter how hard she tried to avoid it, love found her anyway. When it did she wasn't ready for it.

She wasn't ready for Orion.

When she first met the son of Poseidon, she was surprised by his prowess in hunting and invited him to join her Hunters. For years they hunted together often going alone without the others. Sometimes it wasn't even to hunt at all just to talk. Her affection for him grew the more time they spent together.

During one particular hunt, they encountered a band of cyclops. In the fight that followed Orion was injured protecting Artemis from a club blow. As she tended his wounds later that night, a dazed Orion cupped her cheek and kissed her lightly.

"I love you Arty," Orion declared, "even if you don't feel the same I just want you to know."

Artemis was too shocked to respond or even lash out at his sheer audacity. Part of her wanted to be angry at him for overstepping his boundaries. Yet another part didn't want to be. But why? Then a horrifying thought seeped into her mind. 'Was she falling in love with him?' She did care for him, more that any male she knew besides her father and brother. But that didn't mean she loved him, right?

At first, she was able to convince herself that wasn't the case. But the more she thought about it the more unsure she became. Confused about how she was feeling , she decided to test it and a year after Orion kissed her, Artemis kissed him back. This sent a warm sensation through her heart and her fears were confirmed. This male had captured the heart of the Goddess of the Hunt. 'Just this once,' she thought. 'Just this once she allowed herself to love.'

One night Artemis decided to follow through with these feelings. She took Orion to a secluded place that only she knew about an island with a grotto hidden behind a waterfall. There, the two made love in the spring within.

It wasn't long before their bond reached the ears of Apollo who learned about it from Helios. Fearing that his sister would give up her virtue to him decided to sent the madness upon him giving him an insatiable desire to hunt down every beast on earth.

To distract his sister, Apollo invited Artemis to go hunting with him while Orion went on a rampage. But many of these beasts happened to be the children of Gaea. Seeing Orion run amok against her children, Gaea sent a giant scorpion after him which began to chase him shrugging off his arrows and delivering cuts to his body with it's pincers.

Artemis' favoured hunter Zoe Nightshade witnessed this hurried to inform her mistress of Orion's plight. Artemis rushed to his aid but by the time she arrived, it was too late. Orion had been fatally stabbed in the abdomen by the Scorpion's stinger.

Artemis mourned the loss of the only man she ever loved and after giving him a private funeral made him a constellation to immortalize his memory. For a year she shut herself away and refused to see anyone even her hunters. Apollo attempts to apologize were coldly rebuffed. But Artemis has another reason for shutting herself away and that reason was the child growing in her.

When her time finally came, she decided to go to someone she felt she could trust, Her grandmother Rhea since she had experience with hiding a child away. She found her on a secluded island tended to by nymphs.

Rhea was genuinely delighted to receive a visit from her granddaughter and rushed to greet her "Artemis darling," She elated pulling the younger girl into a hug, but Artemis stopped her.

"I need your help grandmother," she said. Rhea was confused until Artemis opened her robe and revealed her enlarged belly.

Rhea didn't need an explanation to realize what was going on. "You broke your vow of chastity." She stated before smiling and pulled her into a warm hug. "Your father will be furious."

Artemis nodded I know, "but I don't regret it, I loved him and now this child is all I have left of him."

Rhae sighed, "I knew one day you would find someone, at least it was consensual, I am sorry about Orion, he seemed like a good man."

"He was," Artemis agreed. If my father or brother find out they will surely take our child just like everyone else I'm close to, Callisto, Orion. I won't let them do it again."

Rhea nodded, "I promise to do everything I can to help you safeguard him."

Motherly instincts kicking in, Rhea readily helped her granddaughter deliver her child, a bouncing baby boy. A small part of Artemis was disappointed that it wasn't a girl but this child was still hers. Then the babe opened his eyes and the goddess of childbirth choked on a wail. His eyes where milky white with flecks of grey one could even say they resembled the moon. Her first and only child and he was blind.

Artemis held him close and in response the babe touched her cheek and giggled. Though he couldn't see her, it was like he knew who she was by feeling alone. Artemis bared one of her breasts and started nursing him, He suckled gently for a few minutes before falling asleep.

'Such a sweet boy," Rhea cooed. "Like a little robin."

"What will you name him darling?" Rhea asked.

Artemis regarded him for a moment no Greek name seemed to fit him. then she remembered what her grandmother said. She smiled and caressed the baby's cheek, "hello Robin."

Artemis stayed for a few mor months but she knew she couldn't hold off her duties anymore. She also fears what would happen if her father and brother found out about her child.

So together they fabricated a story, they would lie about his birth making it on Orion's death this way if he was discovered he could passed off as one of his children by another woman. This also gave Artemis a way to visit him at least once a year on the pretext of mourning Orion.

When Artemis left Rhea took Robin to a group she trusted to be raised so she wouldn't attract her son's attention. Deep in the rocky mountains the Kouretes were practicing their traditional war dance with a group of Nymphs watching. Once they saw her they immediately halted and bowed respectfully.

Their leader Pyrrhichus, stepped forward. "Lady Rhea," he greeted respectfully, "to what do we owe the pleasure."

"You have done so much for me already my friend" She said solemnly. "I need your help once more to raise a child in secret." Rhea presented him with the squirming babe in her arms, "this is Robin, my new grandson. Only Artemis and I know about him. No other god must know, least of all Zeus and Apollo."

Pyrrhichus looked at the babe taking a long look at his moon coloured orbs, before turning to Rhea and nodding, "Of course my lady," he said, "We would be refreshing to raise a child again the war dance has gotten a bit stale over the years."

Rhea smiled and nodded, "I cannot thank you enough for this, I will visit as often as I can. I will also take him with me once a year to see his mother."

Purrhichus nodded, "of course my lady, is there anything special about him to look for?"

Rhea nodded, "expect him to have a fondness for hunting."

Pyrrhichus grinned, "well we did invent hunting so that is definitely something we can help him with."

A nymph, obviously the leader, strode forward and took the Babe from Rhea's arms. Rhea felt a sense of emptiness in that moment but she felt this was for the best.

Once Rhea returned home, the Kouretes went to a hidden cave where Nymph transformed into a tall matronly figure. Her soft brown hair was braided in jewels, her eyes a brilliant green, her skin white as quarts. She wore a forest green dress was lined with flowers of differing colours. The Kouretes knelt before her and presented the babe to her.

The woman gently took the band and cradled it in her arms, he started to cry so she bared her breast to him, and he began to suckle greedily. One of her hands touched her nose and he giggled again. Gaea smiled as she soothed the bundle in her arms as she secretly gave him immortality through nursing. Her plan had worked for the most part. Under the guise of a beautiful woman, she caught the eye of Poseidon and from their union came Orion. He was intended to become part of her next scheme to overthrow Zeus but Apolo put an end to those plans with his twisted ways, so she was forced to bring him home in a gruesome fashion. But looking at the babe in her arms she realized that this child could prove far more promising than his father ever was.

"The Olympians may have killed my son, but his death was not on vain." she whispered.

"Is he to be your champion mother," Pyrrhichus asked.

Gaea turned to him and shook her head, "No, my boy, he will be but the first of many pieces." She stroked the baby's cheek.

It didn't take long for Artemis to discover what Apollo did to Orion and decided to punish him for it. Upon learning that he had offended Eros at some point Artemis encouraged him to curse her brother with unrequited love as was shown in the cases of Daphne and Cassandra. Though she eventually relented and forgave Apollo it would not be for another 500 years.

As promised Every year on the day of Orion's death, Artemis, would leave her hunters to see Robin. This was considered the highlight of the year for the boy to see his mother. She never told him her true identity. From what her grandmother told her, Robin had become interested in Archery and the Kouretes had begun teaching him. helping overcome his blindness by using his other senses. Artemis knew that he would soon become the interest of monsters and he would be equally interested in them.

On his twelfth birthday she gave him a gift, a pair of hunting knives of celestial bronze and due to his blindness was given a quiver that could retrieve spent arrows by whistling. Gaea in turn presented him with the Epirus Bow. Forged from adamantine, the Epirus Bow had the power to enchant any arrow drawn along its string making it lethal to both monsters and mortals.

His first kill was a fury and it would be the first of many. Robin started smaller targets but as his skill improved, he started going after more dangerous targets. It wasn't long before he incurred the wrath of her hunters who were all eager to put this male hunter in his place.

It pained Artemis to have to 'hunt' her own child but it was necessary to avoid suspicion. But in the many years they spent trying to track him down they never manage to catch him one day that will change and she would claim him. They can be a proper family as they should have been from the start.