Chapter Text
Throughout history many tales would be spun about the gods and their dalliances, both on and off their pious mountain; few such stories existed about the most chaste of their number, Lady Artemis. While wars were waged on the folly of her siblings over beauty and love and power, with songs sung detailing their conquests (romantic or otherwise), Artemis maintained her station above her coven of unwed maidens accordingly. So, it was the only conclusion to follow that when her father, Lord Zeus, should discover how much time she was spending with one nymph in particular, that he would experience a reinvigorated desire to know about his daughter’s.... social engagements.
A god of too much time, with far too large an ego (and ample power with which to show it off), sits atop his throne among the mountains, and begins to plot.
Below, between the branches of the trees and scattered below on the forest floor, the only sounds that could be heard were the occasional sweet light chirps of birdsong, and the breeze between the leaves, forcing them to brush against each other as if light accompanying percussion. The deer that stood ten feet away in the underbrush took his time as he lowered his head towards the ground, teeth pulling at a patch of wildflowers and grass. He did so, completely unaware of the fact that this would be his last meal - a concept he would never even come to understand before the meal had been finished. Not that he would even have the time to necessarily finish, interrupted quite brazenly by an arrow casting its own green glow in broad daylight as it pierced through his heart, lungs, and liver in one clean, deadly strike that defied gravity as it exited out of the deer’s back.
Artemis, despite herself, still let an excited “yes!” escape under her breath from her position in the underbrush, standing to collect her reward. The shot, of course, had done its job as quickly as it was effortless for the goddess of the hunt. Briefly, Artemis humored the thought “Are there shades of deers tucked away in Tartarus?” before quickly dismissing it as a bad idea, sitting down to begin field dressing her prey before she lost herself to silly daydreams about ghostly hunts through Hades’ domain. While she had never visited the region, and spoke to Hades as infrequently as possible, she still found it possible to construct an approximation of the labyrinths in her own mind based on the stories her father had told of such a “horribly dreary” domain.
Artemis wondered if Callisto might enjoy a silly idea like that - and tucked it away together, no longer focused on the precision of her work as she lost herself (however briefly - time almost seemed to freeze) to imagining Callisto’s laughter as if she was present and accounted for, and the way her hair bounced over her shoulders when she would throw her head back to let loose such a wonderful sound. Of the nymphs, she had been named “most beautiful” -- it was clear to see the Fates intended it by design. Her skin sang of Helios’s adoration, beautiful and brown, dashed with freckles that ran up and down the length of her arms and sprinkled themselves across the planes of her cheeks. Many who had come across her lost themselves to the sight of her eyes; enchantingly deep and dark that went on for leagues, that reflected a dazzling gold in the light. She had this ability - be it enchantment or otherwise - to make whoever she was speaking to feel seen, anchored to the Earth, the most im--
“Dammit.” Artemis sighed in exasperation as her dagger stuttered and went too far forward, making a mess of the cut she’d been attempting to make, before losing herself to...whatever exactly that was. She’d only meant to make a note of something to tell Callisto later, not rend the heavens weeping with prose about her beauty. Waving away the knot that had seemingly snuck its way into her chest, Artemis decided to abandon tanning the hide, instead procuring the meat - undoubtedly, Dionysus would find use for it (or just another excuse to have another feast) if it was left as an offering at one of his temples. Disguised as a mortal giving gratitudes, none would be the wiser, and her prey would go to some use, with little thanks to her. She would begin the hunt again tomorrow, in earnest - maybe with Callisto at her side; the nymph always had a more deft hand for the process anyways.
Bringing Callisto along does not, in any way, ease the distractions leaving Artemis’s bow dangling twenty degrees pointed in the wrong direction. In fact, to the observer with enough common sense to understand the precision and ease with which the Gods do everything (as is their divine right) would remark that it was abnormal the way Artemis failed to strike down her target (let alone more than once). Of course, such a comment would elicit such a shot from the goddess herself -- while she appeared more evenly tempered than that of her kin upon Olympus, she was her father’s daughter, and bore some of his pride.
Regretfully, it was true; while Callisto had agreed quickly to join Artemis on today’s hunt, the goddess found herself tripping over tree roots and easily losing her sense of direction as she led them through the woods, meandering across Mount Folai’s craggy surface. Though it had been some time since Heracles had made his own journey through these forests, monsters of that ilk were quickly replaced, burst forth from pieces of Chaos that exuded from the earth’s soil, consequences still ringing through the years since Pandora opened her tell-tale box. Artemis had intended for the two of them to find such a beast, for a bit of jovial sport -- and in part, to reassure herself that she hadn’t lost her touch.
“Are you feeling alright? You’ve been awfully aggressive towards trees of late,” Callisto noted with a smile, searching Artemis’s face for signs of distress or, ideally, laughter. The gods were not the kind to often take ill after all, but a wound to the pride - that could be something detrimental enough.
“No - yes, I mean. I’m feeling fine.” Artemis quickly shook her head, realizing she’d been staring absentmindedly at the back of Callisto’s legs as they peeked between the fabric of her chiton (strong, glistening from the exercise of hiking a mountain all day long) as she was talking. “I’m just a little...preoccupied, I suppose.” Artemis watched as Callisto drew her own bow, string taut and fingers pressed into the skin of her cheek as she released in a single exhale. A dull thud could be heard alongside the squeal of a boar falling to the ground.
“Well, whatever’s on your mind, leave it there and I may just steal your title away as the best huntress!” Callisto lowered her bow, gesturing with a tilt of her head for Artemis to follow her through to where their game had left a trail. Normally, such a remark would be met with wrath befitting of a daughter of Zeus; but this is what Artemis had liked best about her time with Callisto. Of all the company she kept, a vast majority preferred to keep their eyes downcast in her presence, more concerned with not incurring the wrath of Olympus before all else. It was an appropriate response for most of the gods, being as haughty as they were about their greatness and glory being acknowledged at all feasible hours of the day; but Artemis found Callisto’s casual nature...refreshing. It was a rare feeling, especially when Artemis found the time to pay dues to her relatives along Olympus; she had felt both incredibly small and overwhelmingly large in her lifetime - but Callisto made her feel...well.
She couldn’t put it to words just yet.
“You know that you’re always able to talk to me if something’s bothering you, Artemis.” Callisto’s voice had lost some of its humor, softer and more sincere - the pause of silence Artemis had let stretch out for too long, caught up in her own thoughts, must not have been lost on Callisto. The way her name escaped between Callisto’s lips left a fresh wave of heat on the back of Artemis’s neck as she forced a hoarse laugh and began striding ahead of her, her steps twice as light and deftly quick between the stray roots and rocks on the forest floor.
“Don’t stop on my account! I was just thinking of how horribly you’d do with my family in tow, please, feel free to take my title whenever you may like it. I’m always looking for an excuse to get away.” Artemis thought of Zeus’s attempts to insert himself into the fabric of her life repeatedly over the eons, and her not-so-effortless ability to avoid him, with a vague lingering dread. She came upon the boar first, quickly busying herself with removing Callisto’s arrow as she brought up the rear.
“Oh? Who do you think I’d get along the least with? Maybe one of your uncles?” Callisto knelt beside Artemis, likewise allowing her hands to fall into the motions, nearly ritualistic with how the method was devoted to memory.
“I’m sure they would adore you at first, unfortunately,” Artemis grunts as she helps to move and adjust the boar’s body. “They’d be a little too grateful to have a pretty face around to annoy.” Callisto stops working, pressing a palm against her chest, the fabric pulled into her fist in mock awe, her jaw fully opened and her eyes wide.
“You think I’m pretty, my Lady?” Callisto says it airily, fluttering her eyelashes and pulling at strands of her long dark hair. “You are simply too gracious, my Lady Artemis, please, a thousand thanks upon your house - shall I prepare this boar for your table, Goddess, or for your altars?” She bowed her head, playfully keeping her eyes cast downward, except to peek up at Artemis to gauge her reaction. This was an impression Callisto often did out of sight of the other nymphs, imitating the way they would fall over themselves at anything resembling praise from Artemis. It had yet to fail to make Artemis laugh, and today would not be the first. Artemis reaches over the boar, pushing Callisto’s shoulder hard enough that she teeters over, laughing as she scrambles to avoid planting her face into the dirt (or worse yet, the bloody boar they’d yet to finish tidying up).
“See, a joke like that is exactly the kind of thing that would make them realize you’re trouble!”
Callisto laughed as she adjusted her balance, allowing Artemis to catch the spark of mischief in her eye as she leapt forward over the boar, pinning Artemis to the ground, her arms supporting her as her hips kept Artemis grounded.
“I only give as much trouble as I get,” Callisto clarifies, hair falling in her face and tickling Artemis’s nose. “But thankfully, they’re your burden to bear as family and not mine - and you get to suffer me in their stead. ”
However, whatever Callisto had to say was entirely lost on Artemis, who was too distracted cataloguing the weight of Callisto’s body on top of hers, and the floral way her hair smelled; she was always in some sort of bloom as a nymph, her head adorned in flowers. She was grateful the spot they had picked was forested; while it did only the bare minimum to protect her from the watchful gaze of her family, she could not withstand the idea of anyone witnessing her in this moment - let alone Callisto. The air between them seems to get thinner, and although Artemis knows there is no risk of it happening, she worries she may die before she’s able to speak again. What a shock it would be for Zagreus, seeing Artemis as a shade at his door, drained of all ichor from her face with boar’s blood smeared on her hands. Zeus would be livid.
“The boar,” Artemis blurts out breathlessly, sitting upright so quickly her forehead knocks against Callisto’s, the sound a sharp crack in the woods, loud enough to startle a chipmunk scampering by into quickening his pace. Callisto cries out in pain, rubbing the spot on her own forehead, rolling over to lay on the ground and releasing Artemis from underneath her.
“As you wish, so long as you don’t send me to Tartarus before I’ve even finished.” Callisto takes the injury in stride, and Artemis privately begs Hades to open up the ground underneath her and swallow her whole. If he was capable of sensing such a request, he dutifully ignored it, and the ground beneath Artemis remained unshaken, solid and impenetrable, even to an embarrassed goddess.