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“Hey, forest.” Diane took another step into the grove. “Ready to give some answers today? Or just waste more of my time?”
There wasn’t any other sound except the wind blowing through the branches of the trees.
“Great. Perfect. ”
Diane sat down in the middle of the clearing, legs crossed, meditative position.
The wind blew past, ruffling up her hair.
She scrunched her eyes shut tighter.
A bird chirped in the distance again, if she opened her eyes maybe she could- no, focus, right.
She had to sneeze.
Diane opened her eyes again, and groaned, laying down on the grass, giving up on the meditation act completely.
“I just-” Diane waved her hands in the air a little, as she continued to talk to nothing in particular but everything around her, “Why not me? ”
Nothing answered her. Her shoulders tensed.
“Why her? ” She asked.
“I’m the goddess of the hunt,” She said, getting back up to pace around the clearing, “And- and wilderness, and wild animals, and protector of girls, why wasn’t it me? ”
The grass rustled in the wind. She could hear a bird take flight in the distance.
“I could- I could’ve done it better than her! I don’t have a mortal home to return to, the pantheon understands if someone has to go protect something for a couple hundred years or so! She was just… that’s not something that would have helped her at all!”
Diane took a deep breath.
“I know that I… am probably just talking to nothing and that I look like a crazy person. But that wasn’t okay. You know that, right? Can you know things? I’ve never really… talked to a forest before.”
She waved her hands in the air. “At least give me a sign or… something!”
A twig snapped, and Diane spun around, aiming an arrow right at…
A golden deer.
Diane frowned.
The deer bowed its head.
And she slowly put down her bow.
“ Follow me, Artemis, ” It said. Its voice nearly sounded like ambrosia and honey.
Before Diane could say I thought you were gone, it turned quick, and ran back into the forest, skipping between the trees, forcing Diane to run after it so she wouldn’t lose it.
Even though she felt like she shouldn’t be excited about this, Diane couldn’t help but smile as she chased after it. It felt like a hunt. Running after it, keeping its little golden tail right in her sights, predicting the ways that it lept and jumped and twisted through the branches and brush and roots and-
Diane skidded to a stop.
Right in front of her was a tree bigger than she had ever seen before.
“Woah.”
She stared.
The tree was so tangled, so winding, that Diane couldn’t tell where one sapling must have started and another should have ended for it to have turned into this.
The gold deer stared at her with blank eyes as she slowly approached it, as she touched the bark, wanting to know how it felt on the palm of her hands.
Soft. That’s what it felt like. Soft, and smooth. Almost unnaturally so.
“Was this always here?” She asked, and when she turned back to look at the deer, it nodded.
She stared up at the tree. Looked at the ways that the gaps in the leaves would look like a bird, an elk, a bear, a wolf, poking through with the sky-blue against the green of the leaves.
And she could feel what it was like to need antlers, the kind of desperate emotion where you needed to have steady hooves, sharp claws and fangs, fast wings and a quicker mind, to protect your home. Your friends. Arguably, your life.
She took her hands off of the tree, and the feeling faded away along with it.
“You can’t just… do that though, this isn’t fair, they’re just- mortals.” Diane didn’t look at the deer while she spoke to it. She was too busy staring up to try seeing all the different kinds of animals were up in the patterns of the sky. (A raccoon. A fox. An owl, a moose, a badger, a hare, a-)
“ They chose it, ” The deer said, voice still smooth and unfeeling. “ They wanted this. ”
“Okay, but- they couldn’t have known! ” Diane waved her hands in the air as she talked. No matter what expression she made on her face, the deer just tilted its head at her blankly. “They’re… stupid, they’re wonderful, but they’re so stupid! They don’t know what they need, they just… want! You can’t just give that to them without checking in like, hey, remember that deal we made that one time? Do you want to go back on that because it’s literally insane? ”
The deer took a step forward, and Diane froze in place.
“ Do you remember Actaeon, Artemis? ” It asked, taking another step towards her. “ Do you remember Callisto, Artemis? ”
Diane took a step back.
“ Do you? ”
She took a breath, “Of course I do.”
“ How are you different, then? ” The deer leaned its head up to stare into Diane’s eyes. “ You were angry. You were wonderful, but stupid. You did what you wanted, instead of what you needed. ”
“That’s… different, I don’t do that anymore.” Diane glared at it. “I learned from my mistakes. Something I guess some- big… sentient forest-thing can’t do.”
The deer tilted its head. “ You are still young. ”
It stared up into the ceiling of leaves above them, that swayed and moved with the wind. “ You can’t see the bigger picture yet. You are too focused on what’s in front of you that you can’t see what else is happening, just beneath the surface. ”
“Can you stop talking with fancy words for one second to just- listen to what I’m saying?” Diane gave the deer a harsh look. “It’s evil. Doing this to people is- it’s evil.”
“ Then I will tell you plainly, ” The deer said, taking a step away from Diane, “ That sometimes, something is not just good, or not just evil. Sometimes, to help someone, you must hurt somebody else. There is no one right answer that will save everybody. Sometimes you need to make the harder choice. ”
Before Diane could answer, the deer turned around, and leapt off into the woods, quick as a blink.
Goodbye, Artemis.
See you next summer.
Diane stood in the forest, the words ringing in her mind, as the golden deer was long gone.