Welcome back to yet another installment of The Philosophy of Fear, where we are now 1/4th the way through part one.
We should be getting to Paititi in this chapter, but first we need to deal with a mama bear.
On with the show.
Artemis, Andes Mountains, Peru, dusk.
Even after all these millennia, Callisto still held a grudge against Artemis for the goddess' role in Callisto's fate. The anger and rage in the great bear's eyes spoke it all to Artemis, even after all these years, Callisto still blamed her.
It was all very amusing to Artemis.
Artemis was ready for when Callisto fell to all fours and charged, scrabbling up the side of the cliff with such frightening speeds that Artemis was sure that it would have shocked any other hunter. Artemis however merely dodges the first slam of the great paw of Callisto and leaps on it before the paw flings her up into the air. She takes her time in the air to shoulder her bow and toss her arrow into the earth before gravity takes hold of her body. Artemis aims herself well as she pulls one of her hunting knives from her back, if she was still a goddess, she would have elongated the blade into a short sword; but she didn't have that luxury at the moment.
Artemis lands on the back of Callisto form, with the bear's body at an angle it acts as a slide for the mortal goddess. She smiles as she plants the hunting knife into the deceptively soft fur of the hulking constellation creature and she frowns. Her blade was too small to do any damage, it didn't even cut past the undercoat of the behemoth bear. She slides down the back, not even scratching the beast before landing on her feet and rolling forward as Callisto turns around to sweep at Artemis. But the Mortal of the Hunt was already running across the clearing, putting away her blade and unshouldering her bow and thanking whatever it was that allowed this mortal vessel to remember her immortal skill.
Artemis' bow falls into one of her hands as her free one reaches behind her and grabs an arrow. The mortal goddess doesn't need to turn around to face her prey, for she knows Callisto is hot on her heels due to the ungodly roaring and shaking from each of its steps the beast took. Artemis smiles to herself as she draws on the Hunt, the ancient domain answers her immediately, and her mortal form is flooded with the power of the Hunt. Artemis kicked off the ground just as Callisto lunges at her, the great bear's maw misses Artemis by hair as she jumps away, her feet hitting the trunk of a standing tree before kicking off of that to another standing Pine tree. Artemis kicks off the second tree before notching her arrow and aiming for Callisto's heart as the bear was right below her.
Artemis lets loose her arrow and it flies straight and true before sinking into the flesh of the bear and stops. Artemis frowns at the sight of her arrow stopping at the thick hide of the bear. "Ah, mortal bow and arrow, not my bow and arrow," Artemis thinks to herself before adjusting in midair and grabs onto a limb of a tall pine tree, swinging herself forward to land on the ground in a roll. "The soft palate of the roof of the mouth or the eyes it is," she thinks to herself.
Artemis pops up onto her feet, a curse on her lips to send to her father as she draws another arrow and notches it. Callisto turns and charges with beastial rage at the mortal goddess, but Artemis just smirks as she carefully aims her arrow.
"Goodbye Calli-," Artemis says just before she feels something impact her from her blindside, she curses as she and whatever slammed into her flips head over heels. "Arcas, of course she brought Arcas with her!" She curses in her mind, unused to having to hunt relying on enhanced human senses. Artemis gets her legs under the second, smaller bear before they both hit the ground. Using all the strength of the Hunt and the leverage of the earth below her, she throws the smaller bear off of her.
But Artemis doesn't stay still for long, she follows the momentum of launching Arcas to throw herself into a handstand, dodging Callisto claws by a foot. Artemis completes her back handspring and lands on her feet, she reaches behind her to grasp another arrow from her quiver. Artemis pulls out her arrow and bulks at the sight of a broken arrow.
"Well, that's not good," Artemis thinks to herself as she begins to dodge and weave throughout the trees on the mountain side. Arcas wasn't as large as his mother, he was only as big as a Russian brown bear but still incredibly swift, but neither of those facts is what worried her about Arcas.
Both Callisto and Arcas were quick, and with now two of them, they began to coordinate their assault against her. Artemis barely had room to breathe let alone dodged, with Callisto's share size and reach Artemis had to constantly try and keep out her reach while a single sweep of Callisto's paws had taken out multiple pine trees. Arcas, like all her mortal brothers and sisters, was faster than he looked and attacked Artemis at odd angles. Trying to get his arms around her to either crush Artemis, or rip her apart with his teeth and claws, and the most annoying part was Acras had gotten close a few times to doing that.
Artemis dodges Arcas once more, the smaller bear smashing through a thick pine tree as Artemis rolls out of the way. She pops up only to swiftly dodge Callisto's swing that was trying to shred her to bits, Artemis dashes between the giant bear's legs. She makes it through the opposite side before Callisto's full wait comes crashing down, but it buys Artemis enough time to make it back to the clearing.
Arcas was the first to break into the clearing with a charge, Artemis' eyes narrow as she shoulders her bow and pulls out her two hunting knives. She dodges left, lashing out with a blade and carving into Arcas' eye and across the littler bear's face, rolling across his back just in time to see Callisto barreling toward her. Callisto dives at Artemis as the mortal goddess leaps with all her might, she barely clears the greater bear's head, her shins hitting Callisto head and causing Artemis to tumble across the bear's back. She rights herself soon enough and as she feels Callisto begin to turn to roll on her back, Artemis breaks out into a run and leaps off the great bear, right into the waiting arms of Arcas.
Artemis grits her teeth as she and the smaller bear collide midair, and as Arcas roars in triumph Artemis smiles as she raises both her blades in the air. Artemis draws on the Hunt once more before she begins to savage Arcas, while her hunting knives could not cut through the thick coat of Callisto, her son was another thing altogether. Her silver blades sink into the coat of swirling stars and twisting galaxies splashed across it. Artemis was already picking out a spot in her temple where she was going to place the hide of the Ursa Minor as she carves into it. Rapid and repeated strikes across Arcas' face, throat, shoulders and legs did Artemis lay into Arcas' for his hubris for thinking he had caught the Goddess of the Hunt.
Arcas roared in pain as his wounds wepted red with blood, Artemis stabbed sever ligaments and cracked bones as both she and Arcas landed in the clearing with Artemis on top of her half-brother. She raises her hunting knives to land the final blow against Arcas but just before Artemis could put the smaller bear down, the larger paw of his mother slaps Artemis off of him and across the clearing. The mortal goddess skids and skips across the grass field, tucked into a ball, and coming to a stop in a roll.
Artemis groans as she pushes herself to her feet, she had lost track of herself in her savagery for a moment and paid for it. She looks across the clearing to see Callisto fussing over Arcas as the smaller bear stands up again, his wounds slowly closing thanks to the natural regeneration of creatures of myth. Artemis pauses as she watches, her face falling somewhat at the sight of Callisto helping her son and the son accepting it; even nuzzling Callisto in thanks.
The sight hurts Artemis even more than the paw sweep did, her heart aches and her lips frown as jealousy grows in her heart. "Why?" Artemis thinks to herself as her arms fall to her side. "Why can't he let me help him like that? Is it me? Does he not trust me enough? Why won't he let me in?" She thinks with a frown and watches as the two bears turn back to her, growling.
Artemis frowns but raises her hunting knives once more, Callisto would be on guard to protect her son now that she knew Arcas was injured. But as the bears charge and Artemis prepares herself to kill her half brother and old follower, a wave of powerful magic comes from the north, striking the side of Callisto and flinging her and her son across the clearing. The earth ruptures around them as spiraling spikes and hooked chains as thick as a tree trunk burst forth from the ground, wrapping around and binding the two constellation creatures.
"Ten minutes, can I not leave you alone for ten minutes without you finding some sort of trouble?" A voice says, so full of sarcasm and dry wit that all Artemis could do was turn to the voice with a deadpan expression on her face.
"Really? You'd use my own words against me, Harry?" Artemis asks with no amusement in her voice as she watches her son step from the woods, his Willow wand in hand and by his side, as he had a small smirk on his lips.
"Well, to be fair, Hermione and Professor McGonagall have said that to me on more than one occasion," Harry says, his eyes aglow with the Hunt as they never leave the now struggling bears. "Follow up question; are those giant bears?'' he asks, nodding toward the entrapped prey.
"Yes, they're Ursa Major and Ursa Minor," Artemis says as she swiftly makes her way over to Harry as she puts away her hunting knives.
"Oh! They're like the Scorpio, yeah?" Harry asks before frowning. "What are they doing here?" He asks as he turns to look at Artemis who now had her bow in hand.
"Trying to kill me, I imagine," she says with a frown as she reaches for Harry's endless quiver attached to his belt and pulls out a handful of arrows to replace her own broken ones.
"Oh, aren't you tied into their myth? One of them was a hunter, I think," Harry says as the sounds of snapping chains echo across the mountain, turning both his and Artemis' attention to the two bears not breaking free.
"Not the time, Harry," Artemis says quickly before drawing an arrow and notching her bow. "Story later, Hunt now," she says as her eyes narrow at their prey.
"Right, right," Harry says with a grin as he turns his full attention to the bears. With a quick motion of his wand, Harry conjured a silver spear in the shape of that infuriating Goddess' weapon before grasping the weapon and twirling it around in a show of skill. Callisto and Arcas rise from the chains, and the larger of the two looks at Harry in confusion causing Artemis to smirk a bit.
"Ah, so it wasn't my father who sent you. If he had, he would have warned you about the other hunter I was traveling with, but since you seem so confused, Callisto, allow me to introduce you," Artemis says as she gestures to Harry with a nod of her head. "This is Harry Potter, my son and the Heir to the Hunt," she says with a wicked smirk as she watches the great bear freeze in surprise before letting loose an earth splitting roar of rage and charges blindly at Artemis.
"I'll take the big-" Artemis tries to inform Harry, but before she could finish, her son takes off in a burst of speed. "Harry! Wait!" She shouts but it's too late to stop him.
With a laugh of rapture from the Hunt, Harry charges forward toward Callisto with his spear poised to punch into one the great bear's eye. But his charge is halted by Arcas shooting out from under his mother's legs and meeting Harry's charge head on with his own. Beast and hunter meet in a clash of claw and blade, Harry dancing out of the way of Arcas' claws to strike the smaller bear across the face with the butt of his spear. Harry lunges at the Acras with the point of his spear aimed for the beast's heart, the bear rolls out of the way at the last moment to dodge the spear.
Callisto pauses to swing one of its monstrous paws at Harry to crush him, but Artemis brings up her bow just in time to let loose her notched arrows. Artemis watches with satisfaction as the arrow sinks into the side of Callisto's eye, causing the great bear to jerk back and roar in pain, missing Harry by a good foot. Callisto turns toward Artemis as the mortal goddess notches another arrow with a smirk before letting it fly once more only for Callisto to turn her head at the last moment. The arrow misses the bear's eye, but sinks into her cheek causing Artemis to smile before she draws another arrow as the bear charges her with a roar and Artemis begins to lead it.
Harry stabs and slashes at the Acras, his conjured spear not doing much against the mythical creature from the time of myths. Harry knew that without his normal spear the damage he could inflict to the Ursa Minor was minimal at best, that the wounds would regenerate in moments unless he landed a decisive blow against the beast. But thankfully that was exactly what he had in mind as he spun around its side once more and swung his conjured spear. The blade slices cleanly through the joint of the front left paw, severing it from the bear's arm before the beast rears back with a roar. In its rage it swings its right arm and Harry brings up his spear and blocks the swing but the handle of his spear snaps in two.
Callisto rages as she hears the roar of Arcas' pain, slamming her paws down in an attempt to crush Artemis. But the mortal goddess just smiles and leaps backwards before putting another arrow into Callisto's face, her aim wasn't off and her plan was already working. Most of Harry's arrows were not any normal arrows, most of his were poison tipped, set to him as a precaution of the dangerous life her son found himself living. The mixture of both Chimaera and Acromantula venom was working wonders on slowing down the great bear, so Artemis notches another arrow before taking aim again and sinking it into the other side of Callisto's face.
The paw that Harry hacked off was quickly regrowing and swung at the Heir to the Hunt in a wild attempt to maul him. But with the bottom of his broken spear, Harry quickly bats it away and spins the bladed end with a flourish into a forward grip like a sword before lunging forward at the bear. The blade of the spear sinks deep into the bear, Harry knows the conjured spear wouldn't kill the beast as it lacked divine properties that made it lethal to Divine Monsters, but it would hurt- a lot. The smaller bear roar is filled with pain and anger before it looks down at Harry and opens its maw, taking a deep breath. Harry takes a quick step back and levels his wand at the monster with a blood thirsty grin, but as soon as Harry calls forth his magic to do one of his favorite transfiguration tricks, the bear lets out a roar.
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAW!
The wave of sound hits Harry like a thunderbolt, his eyes immediately roll into the back of his head as his sense of sound is overcome by one loud blast. Harry fell to his knees as darkness took him and the ringing in his head sounded throughout his unconscious mind. The bear falls forward, planning to land on the hunter and tear him apart; it only stops when it notices that what little of the silver spear sticking out of his chest begins to spark, right before…
KA-BOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The spear of sodium that was stuck in its chest ignites in a visceral explosion, ripping open its chest and sending it flying away from Harry.
Callisto turns its massive form slowly, calling out for her son, but no answer comes from the chucks of cosmic bear scattered across the clearing. Callisto roars in pain and rage before charging at the prone form of Harry on the ground, but its movements were slowed and sloppy as it does, and Artemis sensing a moment of weakness struck. The mortal goddess calls on the Hunt and in a burst of speed that matches her lieutenant, she gets in front of the Ursa Major with one of her hunting knives drawn. She dives forward and sinks the blade into the eye of Callisto before breaking through the ocular bone and into the great bear's brain.
The beast falls with a crash that shakes the mountain as Artemis' feet leave trenches across the clearing as she forces the body to slow with a scream. Finally, with gritted teeth and three feet away from Harry, the body stops before Artemis wrenches her arm free of the skull of her prey.
"You were always a fool, Callisto. Hopefully you actually learn a lesson from this," Artemis says with a sigh before turning back to her unconscious son. She frowns at the still form of her son, "The climb back to camp is not going to be fun," she says out loud to no one but the golden dust and scattered pieces of bear across the clearing.
?
Screams. All he heard were screams. The screams of women and children as they were cut open like some trapped kill and their hearts ripped from their bodies. The screams of fathers, sons, and brothers as they were made to watch the horror unfolding before them, unable to stop it. The screams of a single man in a language that couldn't be understood, he was asking for something- no, he was demanding something from someone as he thrust his bloody hands into the sky. The gleaming golden stones under his feet from the sun above begin to blacken as a shadow begins to blot out the sun, and then- and then even the gods begin to scream.
Like whiplash he falls, his world spins as the gods begin to fall one by one as their end has come.
"Are you-" a voice whispers into his ear as the boy turns around, surrounded by the bones of dead things that should have been eternal. "You are, aren't you?" The voice spoke from a throne of blackened gold, its emaciated, exsanguinated, and dried out husk of a body leaned forward as if it was in pain. The cracks and pops of its vertebrae echoes throughout the cavern as the skinless body looks up to him. "You are my end, aren't you?" The skinned woman asks with a raspy and pained voice.
"Will you stop the screams? Stop my torment? To put an end to it all?" She asks with tears in falling from her {fath-
Harry Potter, base camp.
Harry jerks out of bed with a scream before groaning and covering his ears. A high pitched ringing shot through his head, causing his head to split and his scar to burn with pain. He closes his eyes to cut off the soft lamp light filling the tent he was in, as it hurts to even look into it with the migraine pounding behind his eyes.
"Ah, I see that you're awake," a voice said from far away and underwater and Harry is vaguely aware of someone sitting next to him on his bed. "That's…good, I suppose," the voice mutters, mostly to themselves. "I had hoped you would be asleep for the rest of the night in hopes for you to get another full night of sleep, but it doesn't seem that will happen. I feel the need to apologize, I did not know Arcas kept his demigod abilities when he was transformed, something obvious in hindsight I suppose," the voice says as it echoed and bounced around Harry's skull like a bullet.
"Light," he slurs out, trying to bury his head deep into whatever soft furry thing that was covering him in his bed.
"What?" The voice asks softly before Harry repeats himself. "Oh, of course. One moment," the voice, as garbled as from the start, says as the weight leaves the bed followed by echoing footsteps and the irritating light from beyond his eyelids dies. "Better?" The voice asks softly as Harry slowly and cautiously opens his eyes.
It was, of course, Artemis, still in her mortal form. She was looking at him in concern with her lips tugged down into a frown. She walks back over to the bed, brushing a lock of red hair behind her ear as she sits down on the edge of the bed. Her emerald eyes shining even in the dark of the tent, she carefully helps Harry sit up and lean against the headrest of his bed.
"What happened? Did I get the bear?" Harry asks, bringing up his hand to rub his forehead.
"Do you mean did I blow up the bear? If so, yes. Your plan, while insane and bombastic, did in fact work. While you didn't kill Arcas, you did severely wound him enough to where it was easy to finish him off," Artemis explains with a roll of her eyes as she hands Harry his glasses before gesturing to Harry's bed. "And this is your spoils, not as useful as the Scorpio's carapace but still quite nice to look at," she says with a hint of a smirk as Harry looks down across his bed.
It was the hide of the bear he had fought, whole and complete, with shining stars and twisting galaxies that littered the night sky in the age of myth. Harry could make out a dozen or so constellations across it with Ursa Minor and Ursa Major being paramount among them, along with Draco, Leo, Scorpio, Gemini, and Orion. All glowing and drifting across the ridiculously soft fur of the bear hide. Harry runs his hands across it to feel the silky smooth fibers with a small grin, the thought of showing it to Atalan-Slam-to Ron and Hermione crosses his mind as his face falls blank.
"You called it Arcas? Why?" Harry asks, swallowing thickly as he looks into the concerned face of Artemis who was watching him with a deepening frown.
"That was his name, technically, before he was transformed into the Ursa Minor. He was one of my many mortal half-brothers, as his father was Zeus," Artemis admits before running her own hand across the silken fur with an amused grin.
Harry blinks before frowning. "You said the bigger one was a hunter, one of yours, right?" He asks with a raised brow.
"Yes, Callisto," Artemis admits with a nod of her head. "She was a talented mortal seamstress when I first met her back during the age of myth. Her father was a monster of a mortal by the name of Lycaon, he was king of Arcadia from back then and hosted the gods from time to time during a feast," Artemis tells Harry, the look on her face twisting into one of disgust and anger at the mention of Lycaon.
"Lycaon? Isn't that the werewolf guy? The one who bit Daisy?" Harry asks with his own look of contempt for the Arcadian King.
Artemis nods. "The very same," she says as her disgust and anger melted away. "Lycaon had fifty sons with many wives over his life, and his children were wild, nefarious, and carefree, even compared to most other mortals during those times. But his three daughters were far more civilized, and after what Lycaon had done to earn himself the curse set upon him by my father, I had taken Callisto into my hunt," she tells Harry as her fingers swirled around the galaxies and stars on the hide of the bear.
"She was, for the lack of a better term, a poor hunter, even with my blessing. But while she couldn't shoot an arrow in a straight line, she was talented in the mortal crafts. She repaired leather armor, sowed tunics, made, repaired, and kept the many bow and arrows for the hunt as well as cooked and cleaned," Artemis says as she looks back at Harry.
"She sounds like a handmaiden," Harry points out, causing Artemis to smile.
"She was," Artemis admits as she kicks off her boots to tuck her legs under her on the bed. "Before Callisto joined I called all my hunters handmaidens back then. But as more and more wished to learn from Callisto on how to do the tasks she was doing, for want to lend a helping hand to an overburdened sister and to learn themselves. I started to see a divide within my hunt," she says as her fingers draw the lines between the stars that made up the constellation of the Ursa Major, sending swirls of white light through the fur.
"She started the handmaiden's, didn't she?" Harry guesses and Artemis nods her head.
"If she didn't, which isn't fair to say, she was a major inspiration for them. But I will admit that she is the reason I started to divide my Hunt in between Hunters and Handmaidens. Those who wish to Hunt and those who wish to serve me," Artemis says with a nostalgic look upon her face. "And that is probably why when Callisto betrayed me and the oaths she took, it stung so much," she admits with a sigh.
"She fell in love?" Harry asks and watches as Artemis nods. "With who?" He asks.
"With me," Artemis admits as Harry's eyes widen at her words. "Love is…a blind spot for me, I do not nor can I understand it in its many forms. Emotions are complicated, even for a god, doubly so for a goddess like me," she freely admits while turning away from Harry, her lips pressed into a thin line. "If there was ever a sign that Callisto showed me or something she said, I probably didn't even realize it back then and I doubt I would realize it now. But regardless, she fell in love with me and it was used against her," she says, still not looking at Harry.
"One night when she was off checking the traps around camp for small game, my father approached Callisto in the guise of me. He seduced her and they laid together, thus sealing her fate," Artemis says with a shake of her head as Harry looks at her horrified. "She came to me in the morning after my father left her in the woods and gushed over the night she thought we shared. Needless to say I was very confused before becoming enraged at her actions and casted her from the Hunt for breaking her oath," Artemis says, bemused by it as it was some kind of funny story. "She was with child, of course, and returned to her home country of Arcadia to give birth and once the child was delivered and she had given him a name, I cursed her," she admits free of guilt.
"But- but she was tricked! She didn't know!" Harry says, aghast at what Artemis just told him and to his shock, Artemis just shrugs.
"It did not matter. She had broken her oath and had to be punished for it," Artemis says before leaning back on the bed. "I make no exception for broken oaths, I may forgive if it truly wasn't their fault, but Callisto had no excuse like Atalanta did. She, knowing full well that it was against her oath, fell in love and laid with another person and even worse, she thought that person was me," she says, shaking her head with a smirk on her face.
"The fool got exactly what she deserved," she says with a single soft laugh.
"Bullshit!" Harry snaps at her, his anger boiling over at Artemis' callous actions. "She was tricked by Zeus! She thought it was you! She didn't deserve being turned into a fucking bear for it!" He yells at Artemis, but all the mortal goddess does is slowly turn her head to look at Harry with narrowed eyes.
"Harry, how do mortals have babies? What is exactly needed for that to happen?" Artemis asks with a raised brow, stopping Harry cold.
"Maybe- maybe Zeus did the same thing that you did for my mom," Harry argues back but all Artemis does is push herself up with a chuckle, amused by her son's naivety.
"No, my father is, shall we say, old fashioned when it comes to that and would not pass up his chance to indulge in pleasures of the flesh," Artemis says with a shake of her head. "If you wish to call something too far, then it is what my step-mother did with guiding Arcas in a hunt to kill his own mother. But I had no part in that, nor what my father did during that hunt," she says with a shrug before pausing and letting out a sigh.
"Speaking of mother bears, you will not be entering Paititi with me tomorrow," Artemis says before looking away from Harry once more.
"What? Why?" Harry asks in confusion.
"It is…it is dangerous for mortals," Artemis grumbles, pausing as if she was picking her words carefully.
"I've done plenty of dangerous shite before and in case you forgot, you're mortal right now as well" Harry points out with a frown growing on his face.
"I am well aware of your accolades, Harry, but this is something else entirely. Besides, if I die there, I'll just go through Zagreus' wheel and reform as a god. It would take a few years and be incredibly painful, but I would reform. You however, won't if you die there," Artemis says before standing from the bed, shoving her hands into her pocket. "When we reach Paititi tomorrow, you are to wait outside the wards until I come back. If I don't come back within six hours, you are to head back to the village at the foot of the mountain and ask Ekkeko to contact the South America Magical government. They'll see you back to the Hunt at the very least," she orders him without turning to look back at Harry.
Harry is quiet for a moment, fuming on the inside, his face twisting in anger after being told to leave her to die like Siri-Slam-someone he didn't know.
"Bullshite," Harry says calmly. "That's not the reason is it? Not the real one anyway," Harry says as he throws the bear hide off of him and stands on shaky legs.
"Harry-" Artemis tries to say with a sigh as she pitches the bridge of her nose but Harry swiftly cuts her off.
"No!" He snaps at Artemis. "Stop lying to me! Not with this to protect you shite, I'm not a kid, mom. I know that's not the reason why," he says, as his hands begin to move as he talks.
"Harry. You don't understand-"
"It was a Magician, wasn't it," Harry cuts Artemis off again and watches her freeze at his words. "The reason why the Mesoamerican Gods are dead; hell, it's probably why the only one of the Mesopotamian Gods still alive is Aphrodite as well," he says, taking a step forward, wobbling as he does.
Artemis sighs once more before turning to finally look at Harry, her face as blank and hard as granite. "It doesn't matter if it was a Magician or not, Harry. You can barely stand thanks to Arcas last roar, it's thrown off your equilibrium and balance. Even if I did let you come, you'd be more of a hindrance than a help in this instance," she tells Harry in a dead sounding voice.
"I'm fine," Harry all but yells at Artemis. "And stop trying to avoid the subject and just tell me why you really don't want me to come with you," Harry says with gritted teeth.
"It doesn't mat-"
"Like hell it doesn't!" Harry screams, his anger finally getting the better of him. "If it doesn't matter then why won't you just tell what happened and how a Magician was involved and what they did!" He continues to yell, trying to take another step but the world tilts as Harry drops to his knees, his hand clutching the side of his head as the ringing gets worse.
Artemis bears the brunt of her son's anger with a stoic face, her eyes uncaring as he falls to his knees. "When I get my godhood back the first thing I'm going to do is smite that little hussy," Artemis thinks to herself as she had already put together how Harry would have figured out that a Magician was involved.
"It doesn't matter because you aren't like the Magician's of the past, Harry. No matter what the rest of my family thinks, you are not plagued by their inadequacies," Artemis says, stressing her reason to Harry in a dead voice. "So, no. I will not tell you what they did, or how it led to the death of two pantheons and you will have to accept that," she says as her eyes narrow at Harry. "Just like you want me to accept the self proclaimed fact that you're fine," she says, throwing Harry's words back in his face.
"I'm going with you," Harry growls out as he forces himself to stand.
"No, you are not," Artemis snaps back, her own temper showing now.
"How are you going to stop me? You're not a god anymore," Harry spits out as he, with one hand on his bed, begins to walk past Artemis.
Artemis just sighs once more. "The hard way it is," she mutters and before Harry could say anything back, Artemis' hand lashes out and grabs his collar. She yanks him hard, her foot moving to his to trip Harry as she cocks back her closed hand and-
Harry Potter, Base camp, sunrise.
Harry wakes up, once more, with a groan. His jaw felt sore and as he ran his tongue over his teeth, he winced in pain and the taste of old blood in his mouth. He lets out another groan as he puts together what Artemis did to stop him and he reluctantly lets out a harsh laugh. "Well, she sure did show me," Harry thinks morbidly before he tries to sit up.
Only to blink when he realized he already was, and not only that, but his wrist were bound together and tied to the head board of his bed.
"Are you fucking kidding me!?" He yells as he scrambles to his feet, having to awkwardly twist himself to stand. Artemis had bound his hands together tight enough to prevent him slipping out of them but loose enough to not cut off the circulation in his hands. Harry yanks at the cordage, trying to free himself but all he does it causes his bed to jump up a few inches. He sighs, his lips thinning as he lays his head down on the head board. He could feel the acidic burn of anger in his gut clawing and crawling its way up in his throat, he tries to clear his mind, he tries to force it down. But the thought of someone else he loved charging into an unknown danger, the thought of them dying because he couldn't do anything to stop it was too much to fully close out.
With a scream of primal rage, of the unfairness of his life, and the want desperately wanting to escape being trapped once more, Harry grabs the headboard of his bed and begins to tear it apart. The snap of wood, the slamming of the feet, and the tearing of rope mixes in with the unbridled rage Harry felt at the moment as he rips apart the offending bed with kicks and jerking motions. Until, with a final snap, he frees himself from the head board before throwing the massive chunk of wood across his tent with a final scream.
He stands in the middle of his tent, his wrists still bound, taking a few quick and deep breaths to calm himself. After a moment he lifts his arm and checks for his wand, only to curse once more to find them both missing. He quickly and awkwardly checks behind his back to find his hunting knife and pulls it from its holster.
"At least she didn't leave me completely bloody unarmed," Harry muttered angrily to himself before stabbing his hunting into his desk. He walks over to his trunk and kicks it open and begins to dig around in it. "Where is it? Where the bloody fucking hell is it?!" He curses through gritted teeth as anger pulsed through him. As he turns out his truck, looking for a small swiss army knife that Siri-Slam-Remus gave him for his birthday last year.
"We ssssssmells something," a voice says, freezing Harry in his search as he hears something slither into his tent just behind him. "It ssssssmelllsssss familiar. It ssssssmelllsssss like homesssss. Isssssss it likessssss usssssss?" The voice continues as Harry slowly turns his head to look behind him with wide eyes.
For slithering into his tent was a snake, a very large snake. With a head as big as Harry's open palm and a body as thick as his bicep, its black tongue darted out from its jaw to taste the air as it hunted. Its body was covered in overlaying black scales that clung to its skeleton and looked as if they would cut him if he ran his hand over them. As the serpent lifted itself off the floor to look Harry in the eyes, he could see the empty rib cage that went down its form. As it had no innards or guts to protect or show off, the scales came up to its head but cut off just before its skull, leaving bare white polished bone glamming in the morning sun.
But what had frozen Harry was the serpents {Fathomless Black Eyes}.
"We ssssssmelllsssss it on you," the snake hisses at Harry as it tilts its head. "The ssssssmell of deasssssssss," it says as it slithers closer to Harry.
Chapter done!
Okay, so we didn't get to Paititi, but we will at the opening of the next chapter.
So, in this story, Callisto is the one who basically started the whole split between the Hunters and Handmaidens within the Hunters of Artemis, not that Artemis sees it as a bad thing. But the whole reason Artemis finds Callisto's fate so funny is because if she wasn't as foolish as she was, she could have avoided her fate and remained by Artemis' side, where Callisto wanted to be. So Artemis sees it as comedic irony after everything was said and done.
Hmmm. That danger noodle description sure does sound familiar, but I can't really put my finger on what it sounds like….
Well, I've got no horse in that race.
Kingsaxcul, out!