Under the Hunters Moon

Full Moon III.8

(He could have been here, he could have grown up amongst the hunt where he belonged.) 

Shut. Up. 

Artemis tells her heart that flooded her mind with the shoulda, coulda, and woulda's because it doesn't change the fact of what happened had happened, the boy survived, that's all that matters, he is hale and…he is hale…(but not whole, we know that now, don't we?)

Artemis finds her lieutenant quickly, in the hopes of a good fight will purge her mind of these traitorous thoughts of the heart. Zoë was skillfully hidden in a tree, eyes locked on the cave when Artemis lands on the branch next to her.

"Report." Orders the monotone Goddess.

If Zoë was surprised at the sudden appearance of her Goddess, she does not show it as she does what is asked of her,

"My Lady, we have tracked the beast to the cave beyond yonder. There were several reports from the DOMC that large predators in the area were found savaged and half eaten, along with a few missing hikers, with it being so close to the school they asked up to hunt whatever it is down and neutralize it."

Artemis nods at her lieutenant's words, the DOMC, or the Department of Mist Control was a branch of the MACUSA that helped control the Mist that hides both the Wixen world and Divine one from mundane eyes.

Whenever they came across a beast that could destroy the fragile balance the world found itself in, they would pass it along to her and her hunters to take care of.

Only the highest forms of Government were even aware of the Gods, unless they were Demigods themselves.

But it was for everyone's benefit to keep the worlds as separate as possible to not step on each other's toes.

"We think it's the Draco," Zoë says, and at this Artemis' eyes widen.

The Gigantomachian Drakon was a rare hunt indeed, the beast was created to try to bind Athena during the first war with the Giants before she proved too much for the beast and tossed into the heavens forming the constellation that shared its name.

But what was it doing awake? The beast shouldn't have risen thanks to most forgetting its story, questions for later, for now.

"Take the hunters and fall back, leave this to me," Artemis orders her lieutenant whose head snaps to her with wide eyes.

"But My Lady, we've been tracking the beast for hours, most are starving for the kill," Zoë informs her.

"That was an order lieutenant. I will take on the backlash of the hunt upon myself, but this is my fight, now go." Artemis said through gritted teeth and with eyes blazing.

Artemis never talked to her lieutenant like this and it shows in Zoë's wide and shocked eyes, but an order was an order, and Zoë was not her Lady's lieutenant for disobeying a direct order. So she nods and leaves her perch to inform the other hunter here.

"Good," thinks the Goddess of the hunt, "my hunters didn't need to be in the area for what I am about to do."

Artemis opens her link with those that have her blessing, she can feel them all. The thirty-nine close by, the other forty on Olympus, and the one in England.