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It did not take long at all for Callisto to fall in love with the Hunt.
She did not care whether she was alone or with comrades, whether she chased a stag or a rabbit, whether it was night or day. When her bare feet pounded against the forest floor and her lungs burned with anticipation, Callisto was free. When her hair flew wild in the wind and her body pulsed hot with biting adrenaline and her head spun dizzy for animal scent, Callisto was free.
It did not take long at all for Callisto to fall in love with the goddess of the Hunt.
Sometimes Callisto forgot the real reason why she pledged the oath of virginity. She liked to think that she had seen the goddess in her dreams, golden bow gleaming and dark eyes glowering. She liked to think that she had been so stricken by the image that she could not stand oblivion. In Callisto's fantastical memories, the moon goddess pulled her in like the tide, drawing her lapping waves toward silver light. Callisto wondered if she was driven to discover Artemis as mortals discovered their treasures.
That wasn't actually the case. Callisto knew that before her oath, she had never seen Artemis. She was not the reason why Callisto pledged.
Artemis was the reason why she stayed.
Callisto was undeniably the favorite. She knew her fellow huntresses were often jealous of the attention she received, but Callisto was almost ashamed to admit that she thrived on longing glances and passion-laced words, on light touches and even lighter kisses. She lived for the Hunt, but she blossomed for Artemis.
Sometimes, when it was just the two of them tangled together underneath the stars, Artemis looked at Callisto - not as nymph she was or the goddess she wanted to be, but as a mortal, a mortal with fragile skin who could disappear under the most innocuous circumstances. Every gaze Artemis gave her was as if it were her last, as if she expected Callisto to vanish in the morning without even a fragrance.
Callisto had heard of the hunter Orion. While reaching for the three stars in his constellation's belt, Artemis talked of a man who once won the goddess's heart and died at the sting of her twin brother's protection. Artemis never forgot him, never forgot how easy it was to take something for granted and then to break when it was destroyed. So Callisto let Artemis trace her cheekbones with serene eyes, inhale the smell of wood in her hair, memorize the shape of her lips in the starlight.
It was hard loving a goddess. It was harder loving a goddess who loved her back.
Goddesses like Artemis were supposed to be jealous and fickle and rash and selfish, but when Artemis loved, she loved with the whole of her vibrant existence. She loved through the trilling nightjar and the chirping cricket. She loved through the whispering brook and the crisp moonlight. Callisto was constantly overwhelmed by affection, apparent in the smallest crunch of leaves underfoot. Artemis' love felt like the whole forest was dancing for her, like an organic melody lost even on the ears of musical Apollo.
Artemis was everything perfect: omnipotent and valiant and passionate and beautiful and immortal. Callisto could not be touched by old age or illness, but she was continuously tortured by the injustice that she would not remain a huntress forever. Someday she would be wounded by a weapon or poisoned by a berry, and she would die.
That day came too soon.
Callisto's ruin was ultimately her own fault. She had been warned about Zeus, about his preference for young nymphs and his willingness to resort to trickery. But she had just shot down a boar, and she was exhausted. All she wanted was to wash off her sweat and bury her crimson face into Artemis' hair. Callisto was pleasantly surprised when she happened upon Artemis at the spring. She was too weary to notice the unnatural twitch of those divine hands and the almost manly posture in which she stood. Callisto was so tired, and Artemis looked so welcoming, and she didn't realize that everything was wrong, wrong, wrong until Artemis was crushing her arms to her sides and Artemis wasn't Artemis at all but in fact a thunder god with stormy eyes.
At least she had tried to scream.
Artemis, the real Artemis, found her alone at the bank of the spring, naked and bruised and utterly hopeless. She knelt by Callisto and took her by the hands, and she knew. So Callisto cried until she ran out of tears, and Artemis kissed first her knuckles, then her wrists, then her cheeks, then her lips. Artemis' kisses were so much gentler than Zeus' rough touch that Callisto cried some more.
Finally, when Callisto was reduced to the most pathetic hiccups, Artemis stared at her with a finality that Callisto hated. Artemis would still have to punish her for breaking the oath. With her own godly tears rolling down her cheeks, Artemis embraced her young lover for the last time and left her with a lingering look.
Callisto desperately wished Artemis would not look at her like that.
She felt shaggy fur on her skin and thunder's child in her womb, and she knew it was already too late to wish for anything else.
Callisto would not see Artemis again for sixteen years. By then, she had become accustomed to padding along the forest floor with broad, furry paws. She still enjoyed the thrill of the Hunt, albeit with blurrier eyes and a sharper nose. Sixteen years had been enough time for her to accept that she would never again run on two smooth legs or kill with a poised arrow. Callisto had long since come to terms with being a bear. She hardly even remembered what it had been like not to be a bear.
Her son - her human son - was beautiful. His name was Arcas. Adolescence had transformed his body into a lean contraption, his muscles as taut as the bowstring he wielded. Callisto had not seen him since his birth; she had hidden him in the safety of civilization, away from wild beasts like his mother.
He did not know she was the bear. He could never know.
So he shot her.
Artemis found her again in her last moments. She was always just late enough. Callisto the nymph would have despaired. Callisto the bear silently rejoiced.
The goddess's desolate expression hurt Callisto far more than the arrow of her son. Her agony disguised itself as a pool of blood. When Callisto's animal lungs finally collapsed, Artemis wordlessly gathered her spirit into her arms and cast it out into the stars. Callisto thus joined the hunter Orion in Artemis' astronomical collection of tragic lovers.
At night, when Apollo's sun was chased from the horizon, Callisto roamed the skies above the seas. With the hunter Orion and his twinkling belt, Callisto watched Artemis and her huntresses traverse the earthly forests. It seemed so ridiculous that Callisto had once feared Artemis would stop loving her as soon as she died; Artemis loved for eternity, loved with the whole of her vibrant existence, through the trilling nightjar and the chirping cricket and the whispering brook and the crisp moonlight. Callisto was sure Orion felt it too: the adrenaline, the dizziness, the serenity of the goddess strung like vines throughout their constellations, and -
For the love of Artemis, Callisto was free.