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Rated: E · Short Story · Mythology · #1958526
Based on Greek mythology about Artemis and Orion. Winner of a Scholastic Gold Key 2012.
Down the ivory paper floated toward the dark and tangled ground. It fell at a lollygagging pace, catching on slips of silver moonlit streams. Reflecting the glow back into the twinkly night sky. Silently, effortlessly, drifting like a single frosty flake as it comes to rest on the knotted forest floor. The bone color of white was almost an exact match to the pale skin the paper had come to rest beside. A young girl lay sleeping in the hollow of a tree with one arm tossed out to her side. Sitting just an inch away from her thin but strong looking arm sat the letter.
Thick curvy handwriting was not so much written but carved into the paper with nothing less than extreme rage. The young girl did not stir as the pale page fell against the frost ridden dirt, the dark ink faced up to the sky spitting its angry words back into the starry face of the man who wrote it. His temper flared but from within the darkened walls of her castle there was nothing he could do, at least nothing he could do right now. So there he stood weak from having used what little energy he had to cast down the handwritten note. He just stood and watched the small little girl, he knew her secrets, and he knew that if she desired she would never age past the tender years of a young child; the perks of being an immortal goddess he supposed. He knew everything about her. Well, he knew everything except one small detail, one small question, why? 
The question always swatted at his ears like flies bat at a horse's nose, but he shut it out of his mind and refocuses on her. Nestled in her arm is a grey rabbit also deep in sleep as if it is the first rest it has gotten in a long time. Her light blonde almost white hair is billowing around her in an almost angelic halo. The moonlight encircling her shines down on her faded blue dress, silver boots and silver cloak that covers her shoulders. Her brother will be stirring soon, just in time to pull away her silver realm and fill it with his golden one.
She arouses from her sleep to hear the soft crunch of the paper under her arm. A curious look approaches her face as she pushes herself up onto her elbows. She sees it, the ivory letter, now a little crumpled but still readable. Gingerly she takes it in her hands and begins to read the heavy script upon the page. Her eyes widen in shock, maybe fear, as the little white letter slips from her hand and crashes to the ground again. The words race through her mind, could they be true, or is this another cruel joke from her brother. She repeats the letter over and over again in her mind.
You're the reason I'm dead. That is what I desperately want to say to you as I watch the look on your face shift to one of horror. I want your face to look just as stupid as mine did when I realized who had done the murderous deed. How could someone you thought you loved and thought they loved you take your life? Well I guess that's what happened when you love an immortal, but now you're not the only immortal one.
I should have known that of all the goddesses I would fall for the one with a heart as cold as the night she loves. One that hates the existence of men and would love to see them hunted and destroyed, I should have known out of all of them I would fall for you. Lady of the moon was it not enough for you to kill me, but you had to trap me in the stars as well. I cannot move on as long as I am here. Mark my words "star queen" I will have my revenge. I vow I will see you destroyed. You may be immortal but you can still feel pain, loss, injury, and anger. All must one day pay for their crimes and once I am out of this prison your day will come.
         Have you forgotten me already? Have you moved on with your life while I withered in agony among the dead? Well if you have, then let me jog your memory. We fell madly in love; you even considered revoking your maiden title. Then one day I was strapped to a target only to awake to find an arrow fly straight through my brain. Are you still a little foggy? My name is Orion and Lady Artemis I swear by the moonlight I will get what I deserve.
                                                                                         With Hatred,
                                                                                                   Orion
Each word bit deep into her skin as she relived the very day he spoke of. How could she forget that day? She could never forget that day, or him. Hatred for her brother rose like bile in her throat again. The true story is that he had tricked her into shooting the target by the time she realized what was there the arrow was already sailing toward him at impossible speeds.
"He doesn't know the truth," she thought. "He doesn't know that he was the only man I ever loved, still love. He doesn't know what really happened. All he knows is anger."
She is right, all he knows is anger, all he knows is rage and all he knows is death. She tugs her silver coat tighter around her arms as if the dawn has brought on a sudden chill to her bones. Glancing up at the rising sun, her brother, her blood just boiled over. All the anger she had covered for years just leaked out of every pore in her body. She almost screamed in rage but took a deep breath of morning air and bit her tongue instead. She blinked back tears and held her head up high.
"It's not real, he isn't real. At least he isn't real anymore," she thought to herself.
Nose to the sky and a grin on her face she acted like the one man that could melt her heart simply does not exist. Instead she reached for her sleekly crafted bow as it shimmered into her hands. She pulled back slowly on the string. Timing and precision is everything when you have a reputation to up hold. Her hand released the cord and it snapped at wicked speeds. The arrow whizzed through the air with a loud whoosh. The perfected tip sliced through the air like melted butter as it struck into its intended target. The glinting metal doe she had crafted out of moonlight fell with a thud as disappeared into dust.
Orion still looked on from his vantage point in the sky when a slim bony finger tapped him hard on the shoulder. Looking up from the 'window' he turned his back to the view of Lady Artemis. He then trained his pearly grey eyes on the goddess of the night, the night sky, and darkness. Her long black dress fell around her and created the illusion that it was made from the night sky itself.
"Nyx," Orion spoke as he bowed in respect. "I hope you come bearing great news."
She gave a soft smile but something about it seemed wicked and twisted.
"Oh, my sweet Orion. How I do pity you. You were murdered by the one you loved then scattered in the stars. My Orion how I struggled to gather your pieces to rebuild you soul. For my love for you is vaster than the nights sky the ungrateful girl shattered you in," The goddess claimed in response.
"So then you have found it?" he asked. "Have you found the last of my soul?" and then his voice turned cruel. "Will I finally get my revenge?"
She nodded before speaking. "I have found all but one piece of your soul. However this part of you is not needed in order for you to be reborn from the darkness. In fact it is better that we have been unsuccessful in finding it."
"Well what is it?" Orion questioned keeping the dark menacing tone in his voice.
"I think it is best you simply forgot about it. At nightfall tonight you will walk the earth. At midnight, the sky's darkest hour, tonight Nemesis will grant you your revenge. Artemis will suffer for what she did when we destroy her forests and her woodland creatures. We will take the only thing worth taking. I will take her heart. She may be able to live but love she will never have."
"You mean I will take her heart," he corrected.
Almost like awaking from a trance she mumbled "Yes of course, that is what I said."
Nyx, goddess of eternal night, spun on her and clicked down the corridor of her great palace of darkness. Her palace was woven in-between the folds of the stars. It shone with a black light at night and disappeared as Apollo drove the sun above the horizon line.
Each hour passed as Apollo climbed higher and higher into the sky. Orion could not move from his view. His pupils were glued to Lady Artemis as she ran about the earth's surface and through the ginormous oak trees. He expected to feel something for the young maiden yet he felt nothing. Nothing but what he was told to feel, rage, anger and hatred. He knew nothing else.
The day drew on and the goddess became weary under the heat of the sun. She craved her silver stone moonlight to give her strength and he craved for her demise. Down on earthen soil and trodden dirt she ran like the wind after her metallic creatures, hunting them, praying for them and then hunting for more. Hunting she was always hunting for something. It does not appear to the mere mortal's mind that she is hunting for anything particular just the thrill of the kill. They would be wrong the moonlight goddess hunts in search of peace as she fights of the terroristic monsters of the woods, she hunts and kills what we cannot see.
She looks like nothing more than a young girl frantically running about the underbrush, but she should never be underestimated. One final tug and Apollo rode away and both Lady Artemis and Nyx of darkness felt their power revived. Now was the time. In the silence of the night he would be born. Then he would rip the cold silver heart from her chest. He would tear out the very thing that she took from him. As the night blanketed the mortal world he felt the evening goddess's magic surge through him. The twinkling lights that burn bright in the sky now burn through him. In a burst of starlight he was cast down from the steely gray castle to the soft earthly dirt that his feet had not felt in centuries.
With the weightless fall of a feather his feet touched the soft tangled earth. Once he stood on his own two feet he took a gingerly step forward only to fall flat on his face. He clenched his teeth in realization that he had not taken a real step in over a thousand years. Orion, the mighty hunter, pressed his palms into the dirt and pushed himself back up as he took a real step down the forest floor. Before he could register what was happening he was running after the silvery childish goddess.
A flash here and a sliver there simply missing her by seconds he would have to wait till she slept in the quite curves of an oak tree. He didn't have to wait long before the sprite like girl wearily collapsed in exhaustion after a long day as a human girl chasing the forest's abundant animals. After years and millennia of waiting he finally had the chance.
Swift, he grasped her frail shoulders. Lady Artemis awoke with a start only to find herself staring into the eyes of her one and only love. A single tear slid down her porcelain cheeks but Orion did no care for his compassion had dried out like a river in a drought. At finally seeing her face he was instantly filled withed white hot rage. He thrusts his hand through her and pulled out the frozen stone heart of the maiden goddess. She collapsed weak in his arms as her immortal light flickered in and out of view.
He grasped the heart in his hands and memories came flooding back. Desperately he tried to squander them as he crushed the heart in his mighty fists. Slowly it cracked and then shattered into shards like broken glass and a cry escaped his lips. He remembered. He saw now the true story of his death and the evil motives behind the goddess of the night. He had found the last piece to rebuilding his soul, his humanity. 
"Orion," she choked.
But just as his name left her lips he collapsed in agony as he withered on the ground. She watched him die...twice. His body went limp with realization at what he had done. They say that when you find your soul mate you are joining to halves of a heart to make one true heart.  This was that one missing piece.
His heart and her heart, they were one in the same.

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