Location: Forest North of Larissa
Time Remaining: 23 Days
While Odysseus and his friends had been dealing with Artemis’s handiwork, it had fallen to Adresteia to deal with the goddess herself. They squared off for a moment before Artemis broke her stance, “This fight is senseless – there will be plenty of other prey in the forest tonight.” She turned and ran into woods.
Adresteia remembered Artemis’s hunting tactics. This whole show of power was to get the mortals panicked and scattered, running through woods that she’d doubtlessly filled with deadly traps. With help from her animal worshippers, Artemis could dig pits and set up deadfalls quickly, and lay out all manner of tripping hazards. Artemis liked to preach about her stewardship of nature, but when she hunted she was bloodthirsty, struggling to stop. If Adresteia allowed her to go, she’d stalk the survivors of her traps and pick them off one at a time, until she’d wiped them all out.
Adresteia chased her into the forest. Whatever she was – and Adresteia still wasn’t entirely sure she understood – it came with some definite perks. Shape-shifting, lightning, nigh immortal durability, and senses and reflexes beyond those of ordinary human beings. Those last two assets were life-savers – she narrowly dodged some arrows in the dark, and barely avoided a deep pit that would have trapped her long enough for Artemis to get a killing blow.
Artemis’s laughter seemed to ricochet through the woods, echoing all around Adresteia as if they were in a cave. It was unnerving.
“Why are you doing this?” Adresteia asked, “You can’t really be this crazy? Can you?”
“Is it crazy?” Artemis said, her voice coming from nowhere in particular, “I’m worshipped in every city in Greece. There are temples, festivals, and sacrifices. But in the end, none of them respect me!”
“What more do you expect?” Adresteia asked, “They dedicate songs, poetry, art to you, and it’s not enough? I didn’t take you for being vain.”
“Not vain – territorial. Everything on dry earth beyond the reaches of civilization is my domain, but civilization keeps growing. They cut down the trees and kill the animals because they think they own them. They think they’re entitled to it as a right. They’ve forgotten that all of this…” the word echoed through the trees, “Is a privilege they enjoy at my discretion.”
“I remember a time when you believed the wilderness was there to provide for civilization, not to war with it. You were a goddess who served the betterment of man, not the savage reprisals of beasts.”
“We all change, don’t we Nemesis?”
“True; sometimes for the better, but not always. What changed you? What Apollo did to Orion?”
“You mean, what Apollo made me do to Orion!”
Even with her keen eyesight, Adresteia could not see Artemis in this environment – there was too much cover, too many obstructions. But, she realized, Artemis was the only thing nearby armed with anything metal. She could sense electricity just as well as she could manipulated it, and metal was always surrounded by a faint aura of it. It was too faint for humans to perceive, but if Adresteia focused, she could feel the electrons tumbling freely within the metal. She closed her eyes to concentrate, and it was none-to-soon. A bright flash of energy in her mind streaked at her back, leaving her less than half a heartbeat to dodge. The Olympian arrow grazed Adresteia’s shoulder. She was better prepared for the next two shots, and dodged them easily.
“That first one might have hit me if you’d aimed for my heart,” Adresteia spoke to the silent wilderness. She focused – she would be able to sense Artemis’s tiara and hunting knife if the goddess got close enough. “If you’re not going to kill me then just come out and talk to me, face-to-face.”
Adresteia caught ‘sight’ of the crown and the knife, and rushed towards them in the dark, intending to tackle Artemis. Instead, she found them hanging in the branches of a tree. Just as she realized she’d been fooled, she heard a snap and a creaking sound – a snare drew tight around her left ankle as a counterweight dropped from a nearby tree. It pulled Adresteia feet first into the air.
With a swipe of her talons she snapped the cord and dropped to the ground. The impact didn’t hurt her, but she landed face down, making her easy prey for Artemis. The huntress pounced on Adresteia’s back and pulled her wrist back to pin her.
“Orion’s death wasn’t your fault,” Adresteia grunted, “It might have been your arrow, your bow, your hands, but Apollo was the one who aimed you." She grunted as Artemis pushed her head into the dirt, "Your twin brother deceived you, betrayed you, and now... now you feel alone, don’t you? That’s why you’re like this.”
“Don’t try to analyze me!” Artemis pulled up on Adresteia’s wrist.
Adresteia winced, “I’m not! I’m trying to understand you! You said I'd changed, just as you had – well that’s the change in me. I’m not a mindless killing machine anymore. I care about who I’m fighting and why. And I care about you.”
“Lies!” Artemis gripped Adresteia’s throat as claws emerged from her finger tips, “Why should you care about me? You said it yourself – you were a mindless killing machine, a hunting dog. We weren’t friends!”
“But I’m not now,” Adresteia said, “Because I've been betrayed too, and as horrible as it was, I grew from that. I became better. And I know you can too; I remember the woman you used to be,” Adresteia closed her eyes and focused on the writhing blue energy inside herself, building it up inside.
“What do you mean by that?! What do you mean, ‘woman’? I’m… I’m a goddess not a… not a woman.”
Adresteia released the energy inside herself as a brilliant, violent burst of as much lightning as she could summon, enough to incinerate a human being. Artemis’s body spasmed, and she flew off Adresteia’s back, trailing smoke. Though disoriented by the sound of her own thunder, Adresteia scrambled to her feet and rushed to Artemis to check for a heartbeat.
Before she could reach her, the huntress rolled back onto her feet and stood – shakily.
“I am a god; immortal, powerful beyond measure.”
Adresteia balled her hand into a tight fist, and swung as hard as she could straight at Artemis’s face. The impact wasn’t as loud as the thunder had been, but it was enough to shake the trees around them. Artemis staggered backwards, blood dripping from her lip.
“Does an immortal god bleed?” Adresteia asked, “Where’s that measureless power you’re on about?!”
Artemis roared, a feral, animal sound, and lunged at Adresteia, raking her with her claws. Adresteia slashed back at her with her own talons. Artemis tried to bite her opponent, but Adresteia dipped her head and then brought it up into Artemis’s chin, hard, snapping her head back and rattling her teeth.
Artemis stumbled and fell onto her backside again. She dug her fingers into the earth, and a mass of roots erupted from the soil, tangling around Adresteia and dragging her to her knees.
“How’s that for power?” Artemis said, “I am the spirit of the forest, the master of the hunt. I knew these trees when they were seeds, and before man took up the bow, I guided the claws and fangs of the beasts that came before him. I am forever… I was at the beginning, and I will be at the end.”
Brilliant yellow light bathed the clearing. The starry sky turned pale blue, the wispy grey clouds becoming white puffs. The birds chirped, and nocturnal insects and frogs fell silent. Apollo strode forth with a ball of yellow light in his hand. Once he was sure he had his sister’s attention, he rolled it over the back of his hand. It vanished from sight with an orange glow, and the night returned.
“You think you’re eternal? Ageless? I think mom would take issue with that.”
Artemis’s confidence faltered, “Mom?”
“You still remember mom, don’t you? The honey cakes before bed, the singing when we cleaned house? You remember our house on Delos, right? Playing with the goats and chasing that cat that would always get into scraps with the chickens?”
“Yes… of course I do.”
“Does an ageless power chase cats? Does she try to paint rainbows on her bedroom wall with mud? Fall asleep in her mother’s arms?”
“I’m a goddess… I’m a goddess… aren’t I…?”
“No sister, you aren’t,” Athena appeared behind Apollo, “We are avatars,” Athena explained, “vessels for powerful and terrible intellects older than any of us. These… primal beings, they have no form to themselves, so they possess the bodies of the most powerful mortals they can find and bend their thoughts, like an infectious, intelligent affliction of the mind.”
“But… we’re not mortals.”
“If you’d aimed a little more to the left when you shot me this evening,” Apollo pointed to the wound that was still mending, “You would’ve seen how mortal we truly are.”
“I don’t understand,” Artemis said.
“Because what dwells inside of you doesn’t want you to understand. You and your brother are among the youngest of us but but the being that inhabits your form is among the most powerful of us. She's had many names - Alphaea, Agrotera, Gaea, Coatylinuku... it’s been worshipped for millennia, since a time long before Zeus overthrew the Titans. The life you remember, growing up with your twin brother, has had a span of no more than two hundred years.”
“You’re saying… we’re human?”
“Not human,” Athena said, “We are Titans; stronger, faster, and healthier than ordinary human beings, and are capable of magical feats. As Zeus's children by a full-blooded Titan there was no doubt you would be powerful hosts, so Zeus conferred your legacies upon you as children, and your minds were molded by their whims while you were still discovering who you were."
"How do you know all of this?" Artemis was less skeptical than she was confused.
"For a time the legacies of your ancestors were enshrined together in a vessel - Pandora's Box. Being interred together damaged them, left them confused. Mine was kept separate, and gifted to me as an adult. For this reason, I remember much that you do not, and I have been able to… make an accord with the being that inhabits me, and maintain my sense of self.”
“What lives within me...” Apollo explained, “It's a being of great curiosity. It seeks to learn, to understand everything, including itself. We don't remember the things Athena does, but we began to doubt ourselves when we murdered Orion.”
“You’re saying it made you do that?”
“No,” Apollo said sadly, “In fact, I think it tried to stop me. After the deed was done, I realized something was wrong because… what I did was not a godly thing to do. It was terrible, cruel, and for the pettiest of reasons. I was jealous of both of you – jealous of him for having so much of your time and attention, and jealous of you for having his love. Harming the two of you was… irrational. A very human failing. It raised questions, and my questions took me to Athena.”
“What of the others?” Artemis asked.
"I know that Zeus and his brothers and sisters accepted the legacies of our ancestors as adults," Athena said, "fully knowing what they were bargaining for. But... perhaps because of the damage the legacies sustained... even they seem confused, struggling to separate their actual memories from the fragmented recollections of their forebears. For the younger generation - yourself and your siblings - you were given these legacies so early that your memories, your identities, are inextricable from one another. Whether that is good or bad is an open question. Apollo believes it was his mortal half that murdered Orion, but it was likely your immortal self that nearly perpetrated mass murder tonight.”
“Anyone can be good or bad,” Apollo said, “But if you have two people in one body, each with their own morality... Sometimes that means balance, other times… chaos.”
“Objectively it’s fascinating,” Athena digressed, “Hades's primal self was cold and calculating, but those who've carried the legacy since, our uncle included, have been more compassionate by nature. Few besides Persephone know him well enough to see the duality within him, but it is there.”
“Zeus and Hera?” Artemis asked.
“Assholes inhabiting assholes,” Adresteia said.
“In essence,” Athena said, “Not literally, thankfully.”
Artemis thought about the absolute certainty she had felt before Apollo reminded them of their childhood, “Will I… forget this conversation?”
“I can teach you to commune with your other self,” Athena said, “She is ancient and powerful, but not cruel. Wild, but not unreasonable. On some level, she remembers mistakes she made in another life, on another world, and she now seeks to atone for those mistakes by defending the balance and harmony between nature and progress. Together, we can find a better way for you to do that, to fulfill that drive.”
Adresteia took Apollo aside, “Should we bring up the guy she turned into a wolf?”
Apollo rubbed his bare chin, “Nah – most of Arty’s magic only works by moonlight. A curse that powerful? I’m sure he’ll change back once the full moon is gone from the sky. Ought to make sure he didn’t bite anyone, though.”
“Why?”
“My sister and I know more than a little about plagues. Her curses can be… infectious.”
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