Warning | Religious themes (Greek Mythos); reader being very against worship; dead animals (not overly explicit); mentions of hunting; implied drugging; vague injury; yandere behavior.
Word Count | 2.5k
Being raised in a city ruled over by a major deity taught you many things; first and foremost being that gods are unbearably suffocating without even needing to be present. You’d learned this well as someone who’d grown tired of hearing the same undeserved praises sung over and over again; as someone who had seen the kind of horror that attracting their sweet attention cost anyone even vaguely involved. Against what you were brought up believing, you couldn’t bring yourself to worship such selfish, petty things, made out of who-knows-what, solely because they’re divine or because someone told you to.
Though, it wasn’t as if you had any genuine disdain for them; but there was such a thing as living for yourself without the overwhelming dependence of worship and adoration, as well as protecting yourself from eternal punishment for so much as blinking offensively. Not that you’d ever be comfortable enough with someone to voice your opinions—especially not with delusional worshippers; people of the city often did not show just how deeply they love their darling patrons until it’s too late to change the topic of discussion. You’d been in tense situations where you practically had to drag yourself away from the conservation, lest you have to pretend to worship whatever deity they were waxing praises to. It was tiring. You wanted to be able to live without looking to the sky and seeing a golden statue of some ‘all-knowing and all-powerful’ being beyond your care; without having to force a smile and nod along as friends and strangers alike wistfully recall prayers and offerings to gods that likely wouldn’t bat an eye to them.
So you left, with no warning to friends, if you could really still refer to any of them as ‘friend’ with how you’d allowed your annoyance to fully fester. The city was filled with overwhelming social expectations, surely the country would be less intense, calm—calmer than the bustle of stone forests, anyways.
And it was, for a time. Sure, there was the occasional casual praises and wishes for good things from gods who weren’t listening, but it was easily ignored—you were easily ignored; you were considered a stranger to the countryside of Greece, but a familiar face to yourself and the path you walked daily. Just as it should be. You did find comfort in the fact that strangers were easy to talk to; easy, brief comments on the weather, or on something barely worth mentioning in any other situation. It was comfortable—more comfortable than you had ever hoped to be in the city.
So, when you came across dancing nymphs worshipping the goddess of trees, you kept your head down and moved along. It wasn’t your business, and if you ignored them, they’d hopefully ignore you in kind.
You ignored the blunted remains of fires, and the distant singing of beautiful voices; praying that their song was loud enough to cover your walk home.
You used the vegetables left at your door, ignoring the way they’d been neatly placed in a silver basket that looked too expensive to have been left for someone of your upbringing. The exact ones you usually cooked with, even a few that you loved but consistently struggled to find. You went out of your way to thank your distant neighbors for the gifts they couldn’t have possibly known you’d want to use, ignoring the way they respond with confusion and deny involvement—you assume that they were being humble, with the quality of what was left for you to find, after-all, this is the country. Perhaps lying about gift-giving was seen as being humble? Having been raised in the city all your life, it was hard to tell; and so easy to brush off strange customs.
You used the meat left behind, skinning the old buck left to pool blood in the grass of your yard. Despite the voice whispering to let it rot in some ditch nearby, you pushed your nerves down, excusing the acceptance of the gift with not wanting to waste the poor thing’s life. The silver arrow nestled within it’s chest went ignored, and you threw it aside and did your best to pretend it had never been there to begin with.
The songs of wooden women with petals blooming from their hair grew louder, nearer, as the gifts continued to show up, morning after morning. It was difficult to ignore the idea that you’d perhaps attracted the attention of something, but you still pushed it away—there was nothing worth noticing, and you tried to convince yourself that you were simply being arrogant. So arrogant, that you continued to try and ignore the way moonlight seemed to last a bit longer every morning, and spat out any paranoia that tried to dig its’ claws into you. It was just your mind playing tricks, your subconscious finding new ways to torment you in it’s apparent boredom from the lack of frenzied cultists.
It wasn’t until you were awoken by reflective light, that you had the thought to confront the being that had decided to visit nightly. The bed groaned and the floorboards gently whined as you stood to leave your bedroom, the air cool against your bare feet. Careful to walk lightly, you reached for the door to your yard when a chill halted your movements, despite the warmth of the summer night. Instead, you shifted to reach behind your curtains—unlocking the window and carefully lifting it barely an inch—curiosity begging you to hear your mystery hunter’s voice. Rather than a deep voice, you were met with silence, aside from a nearly inaudible drip. Moonlight cooed and beckoned you to look; your nervousness was pushed aside in favor of peering just around the corner of the window.
Your lungs halted at the sight, surprise holding them tightly—
—she was utterly mesmerizing, silver glinting as if she had weapons made of the moon itself. The girl seemed young to have brought the various game that recolored your grass red every morning, the impressive bow settled by her side spoke otherwise. The point of the bow gently grazed the wet ground, and suddenly your chest felt as deep as the bloody ground was red—the blood from the animal she carried seeped into the short tunic she wore, the fabric thirsting for more to soak in. The girl moved and red followed, the darkness of it luminated by the glow she seemed to radiate. Your legs felt heavy on the cold flooring of your dark home. Though your mind urged you to leave the sight, to hide under the warm covers of your bed and hope for sunlight, your limbs refused to do more than lightly shake in place.
Was this really the truth? Were you dreaming, perhaps already back in bed? A young girl was really responsible for the nightly, fresh kills on your lawn?
The answer to your questions cut through your skull as another woman walked into view, a bow resting in her hand. She wore branches in her hair, and flowers seemed at home against her cheeks—a nymph, you realized, and too late did the realization of who had been leaving dead gifts for you come. You almost hissed at the thought, thinking yourself too prideful—despite knowing very well such an insult was a lie—a goddess? Leaving things for you?
But the answer was the truth, and it was difficult to run from a truth standing right in front of you. One that had been right in front of you for weeks. Had hopeful dreaming allowed you to ignore the way worship of the tree goddess seemed to follow you around? How the songs seemed to grow longer, closer with every moon that came and went?
You did what you could to begin to build the courage to run away, to turn your taut muscles from ice to hot anger. The heat simmered back into fear at every thought you tried to form against the goddess, and the weight of confusion did nothing but soothe any ember formed—smothering it before it could spark into even a candle light.
You couldn’t hear what the nymph was saying, though you could see her lips move. The assumed goddess laid down the animal, and kneeled there, seemingly listening—or considering something? What, you couldn’t tell—and her lips moved in response, light gestures flowing from her words. The older woman made no such gesture, and turned to leave as she’d come in, and you just then noticed the other women—of whom you assumed were also nymphs—standing behind the tree-line.
If seeing so many armed women in one place unsettled you, watching the goddess stand and match your gaze sent your soul straight to hades itself.
Though exactly how you ended up sprinting through the wildest parts of the woods—bare feet surely collecting cuts, thorns, and dirt—still abandoned your thoughts. One moment you were watching a goddess smile at you, take steps towards you, and the next moment was greeted by the warm night air outside the back door of your home. Perhaps it was unwise to run from a hunter goddess, especially when you were wearing only your nightwear and the goddess chasing you was fully prepared to follow her prey until it gave in to exhaustion. But it hadn’t been a clear thought, and unfortunately for you, that also meant unclear actions—and your running turned into rolling, not feeling your legs turned into searing hot pain. You looked for an arrow only to see a damaged tree root, tugged further out of the ground by your frantic escape. The desire to stay low and hoping they overlooked your place in the ditch was near irresistible, even more-so as you wondered if you would even be able to walk on your aching foot.
You covered your mouth to hide your breath and hoped for the best—that sunlight would come and you would wake up to birds singing.
But birds often sing no matter the time, chirps decorating the wind just the same as fading moonlight decorated her weapon. The goddess waved off the women you hadn’t seen with bows drawn, and they disappeared back into the trees, the mix of greens in the dark too similar to tell if they had actually left. She smiled down at you, again, and crouched down to step into the ditch you had face-planted into.
“It seems I’ve frightened you, ελαφάκι(1).” speaking softly, she ran her hand down your bare leg, barely ghosted over your injury. If flinching away from her offended her in any way, she didn’t put in any effort to show it. She called out to someone, though your head was spinning a little too hard to know if she had called a command or a name. Before you could wiggled away from her, a pretty nymph with dripping wet hair appeared by your side and began to work on your lower leg.
“There was no reason to flee from me, I have no intent to harm you.” The goddess distracted you from the cool water dripping from the woman to your wound—it helped that it soothed the pain. She leaned towards you, a warm hand cupped your jaw and turned your gaze fully towards her. “Though, it seems to have saved me an introduction, I’ve never seen you run from kind strangers before.”
She seemed to wait for you to speak, and though you knew very well that gods were not patient, you were not sure if you could speak at that moment.
You tried to catch your breath, and think about how you could escape without inciting the wrath of a deity—”You’re the goddess of the hunt… ” Your words hung in the air, settling on your tongue like hot tar.
“I am.” She confirmed, eyes lidded, seemingly with disappointment in your answer, “Do you not know me by name? I was sure you were from my brother’s city, do his people not speak of me?”
“They do.” You were quick to reply, your throat hissing at every syllable.
“Then will you not address me by such?” Although the way she held your head up was much softer than you’d ever been held before, the slight shift in grip was more than enough of a warning.
You swallowed the hot tar, and let confusion meld with it as it sank into your chest, “Lady Artemis, why…” The words did not want to leave the safety of your teeth, but you forced it out anyway, “Why have you chased me? Surely I am not worthy enough for the attention of a goddess, much less so a great olympian.”
You hoped the lie would be able to stand against her sharp senses, truth being you couldn’t care less how worthy you were or weren’t. You just want to be left alone, to wake up with the morning birds as your only company, to be able to forget the existence of anything else—
“Oh, γλυκό ελαφάκι(2), who has told you so?” Her hold on your chin tightened, nails threatening to leave marks, “Your worth is for me to decide, and I have decided that it is quite πολύτιμος(3). Do you need further convincing, or do you understand?”
You doubted it was a genuine question, especially with your jaw feeling like it could snap at any moment between her fingers. Her face was still soft, lips curled as she inspected your face, and your attention shifted from sweet escape to simply surviving the encounter with the goddess.
If you lived, you would do whatever it took to hide from every deity that could ever possibly exist— and so, with a scrambled plan, you whimpered, pain leaking into your words, ”I understand, Lady Artemis.”
The goddess’ grip loosened and returned to softly caressing your jaw, your throat, gestures too affectionate to bring you anything but dread. She smiled in a way that could almost be playful if she hadn’t just almost shattered your jawbone. “There’s no need to use titles with me, ελαφάκι. Do you think you can walk better than you ran from me?”
You paused, and glanced towards your foot—which had droplets of water slowly running down it, the nymph who’d been tending to the injury was long forgotten in the conversation with her. If you ever saw the blue-eyed nymph again, you’d have to thank her, even if she was only helping because her patron asked her to.
The ache was completely gone, though the tension remained. She was good at whatever she’d done, “...I think I can.”
Your own hesitation in speaking only caused your muscles to tense more, anxiety winding them tightly, hoping your response was what she wanted to hear.
Artemis smiled, clearly amused, as if you’d missed some joke. “Πόσο χαριτωμένο(4). you needn’t worry, I wasn’t planning on allowing you to walk this time.”
You weren’t given time to get confused, as you felt a small sting against your neck. Your hand flew to the spot, bringing it to your face only to be met with a small amount of purple-tinted blood smeared across your palm. Ringing slowly replaced the birds in the early morning light, and you realized she would have come regardless of which light illuminated the sky; a warm kiss was pressed against your brow, and your vision blurred the soft colors of the forest into a dark, dreamless sleep.
1. Means Fawn in Greek, via google translate.
2. Means Sweet Fawn in Greek, via google translate.
3. Means Precious in Greek, via google translate.
4. Means How cute in Greek, via google translate.
