excelsior

Vengeance

Artemis is forgotten, a story covered by legends and myths, none of them true.
Artemis wasn't a god, she was a warrior who spent her lifetime finding a purpose, only to be punished with immortality.
Artemis was just a forgotten face behind stories that people wanted to believe.
Artemis was just a broken shell of what everyone wanted her to be.
Artemis is real, someone who fought with pain instead of hope, heartbreak instead of love and hatred instead of idolisation.
She just wanted to be worth something to her father, growing up in a family in which she was considered the only mortal.

Artemis wasn't weak, just tired of fighting for approval.
She made herself the goddess of the hunt, fighting for herself day after day.
She made herself the goddess of the forest and the hills, it was her home and the only place she ever truly felt safe.
She was the goddess of archery because she made the world believe that she was worth something more.
She was the protector of women, because they were just like her.
She defended things that were not protected.
She hunted the animals that could be safe to kill, protecting the weaker animals.

The people praised her, but never truly knew her.
She had temples built after her, but she was broken.
Artemis never had a child of her own, a cost of her immortality.
If she wished to defend the forests, she would need to sacrifice her chance of ever having a child.
She did it without thinking, believing that her own father wouldn't take that away from her.
She thought that her father wouldn't take away one of the only things that would've ever been worth more than killing, love or herself.
She thought that eventually, he would wish for his children to carry on the family legacy.
But she knew that he had other children, more deserving and powerful than herself.
She was her father's disappointment and she was told that her entire life.
She forced her way through the ranks, fighting for titles that her brothers and sisters were born with.

Zeus never knew about Octavia, the daughter Artemis had before the immortality.
Artemis sent Octavia before Zeus would strip her of her titles for raising a bastard child like herself.
One of her maiden's brother and his wife, unable to conceive their own children, took her daughter and protected her when Artemis couldn't.
She knows that her daughter was the Godness of History and Time, inheriting her mother's facination with the forest and archery.
She remembers denying her daughter the ability of being one of her maidens, telling her that she was to live out a life full of happiness, not to stand by her side.

It broke her heart, but she knew if she let the girl stay, she would end up telling her that she was her mother and eventually, Zeus would find out.
Octavia was heartbroken when she was denied, the girl only fifteen when Artemis sent her away for the first time.
Octavia came back, once a year waiting until Artemis would change her mind.
The girl is twenty two now and Artemis believes she's been immortal long enough that she's seen her daughter grow up.
Artemis won't deny her child this time, won't tell her to go home and find a nice boy to settle down with.
She'll let the girl come to her and this time, she'll let her stay, take her to Zeus to grant her immortality and gladly be stripped of her own if that is what he wished.

She was Artemis, Goddess of the Moon, Forests and Hills, Archery and the Hunt. And, she's ready to come home.