A whistle of wind trickles through the trees and across her face as hickory colored hairs dance

across her forehead. She has been here for hours and could remain for many more, perched on a
boulder, listening to the ambience of Gaia in the forests of old Arcadia. Her eyes close for a moment as
she recalls what she asked of her father, Zeus, king of the gods of Olympus, when she crawled into his
lap as a child, and like a dream, the memory took form again in her mind.
Father, I wish to rule the mountains of Arcadia; I want to run, hunt, and have dominion over
the wilds. Please give me a tunic of the finest leathershort, knee-length, so I may sprint with ease... a
bow as well!
Zeus chuckled with a thunderous rumble as he twiddled his beard. I dare not refuse such a
spirited, ardent request of my beloved daughter. Artemis, you will be goddess of the hunt, of the wilds,
and the denizens therein. She recalled her cheek-to-cheek grin given in response.
The faintest rustle of forest floor arises on her left which swiftly breaks her reverie causing her
eyes to dart open and ears to perk as the instinctual huntress rises again from within. For this is what
she pined for, the hunt of wild stags and beasts; this was her raison d'tre, her reason for being.
Her breathing came to a halt; her body as still as the boulder she was perched uponwaiting for
another sound, the familiar reference point she uses to deduce a beast's distance and location to
extraordinary, inhuman accuracyall without a single visual cue. A corner of a leaf crackled and she
pursed her lips, Fifty-two paces... she thought. The weight of the quiver of silver arrows on her back
became more pronounced, and the silver bow forged by the primordial Cyclopes, she gripped firmly as
it lay in her lap.
With one singular motion she drew a shimmering arrow from her quiver onto the arrow rest,
instantly twisting and aiming at the exact location of a large stag which was a nanosecond ahead of her
swift movement and disappeared behind a tree. Artemis grimaced and released her draw, letting the

silver arrow settle as it caught a ray of sunlight, sending a sparkle into her eyes.
She had no intent on patiently tracking the stag; it had been ages since she had a good chase.
The huntress sprung from her nest atop the boulder and gracefully landed with a thump onto the forest
floor and began to sprint after the stagsheathing the arrow back into her quiver simultaneously.
Artemis realized after some time that she was in an unfamiliar part of the woodlands, which she
thought was quite unusualand the light whilst not diminishing, took on a different tone. Her instincts
were indicating something, but it was much too late as she took a bound over a small hill and felt the
ground give way beneath her feet.
The moment was lost to time and the darkness as she opened her eyes into a cavernous abyss.
The last slivers of light were slowly effaced as heaps of dirt piled into the hole in which she fell. As the
rest of her senses came to, she pulled herself upright and began feeling around haphazardly for her
precious silver bow. A stench began to fill the air and there was a shuffled movement from deeper
inside the cavern, bringing Artemis' erratic grasping to a stop. For an instant she recalled the tales her
brother Apollo had muttered about Lamia, a former queen of Libya, who was a mistress of Zeus, cursed
by his wife Hera, to become a child-eating daemon with the body of a snake that dwells deep in the
earth.
Artemis waited for another sound to better assess the location of the shuffling and layout of the
cavern. As she lifted her head she rose into a foul odor and a hoarse cackle shrieking inches from her
face, before getting flogged by a heavy, scaly appendageand the creature retreated as Artemis
regained her balance.
A child of Zeus, in my domain... I've waited so long for another child to fill my belly. the
daemon cackled. That harlot of Zeus, Hera, murdered my childrenI'd prefer to have her children to
dine on, but I suppose a step-child will have to do.
Artemis quickly shuffled around trying to find her bow, at the very least she had her quiver of

arrows to use as melee weapons. Lamia was merely toying with her as she slithered from corner to
corner whipping Artemis with each pass. She gave up the search for the time being and pulled two
arrows out of her quiver and used her acute sense of hearing to attempt to locate the daemon. The echo
of the cackling threw off her perception, and she was lashed yet again, taking a tumble into the rubble,
but never letting go of her arrows. The huntress stumbled in the blackness until she felt a hard wall of
stone behind her and pressed her heel to it. Cackling came from the left, and then the right, but it was
clear to Artemis that there was a pattern to the echos in which she could sense that the daemon was
coming straight at her. Artemis waited for the shuffling to be within several paces, before planting her
heel into the wall and leaping into the air ahead of the slithering daemon as it swiped its tail at the wall
and rubble causing a resounding thump that shook the cavern.
A ray of light appeared above the daemon who was already shrieking in pain, and soon took a
blinding glance at the light. A menacing grin crept onto Artemis' face as she leapt at the daemon's
flailing tail and stabbed it numerous times with the silver arrows, with each strike, a loud scream
followed and the huntress caught the sparkle of the silver bow of the Cyclopes, peeking through the
rubble. The daemon flailed about wildly, knocking more of the rubble loose, and subsequently more
blinding light. Artemis realized this was her chance to get her bow while the beast was recovering from
the shock of the wounds and blinding light. She ran quickly and clutched one end of the bow to free it
and there was a deafening shriek behind her as she sensed the daemon attempting a finishing blow.
Artemis calmly, but rapidly in that same singular fluid motion drew an arrow, turned, and released. The
shriek came to a dead silence as the arrow protruded from the daemon's forehead.
Artemis let out a sigh of relief and quickly climbed the rubble out into the warm, comforting
sunlight and the beautiful trees of old Arcadia. As her pupils adjusted to sudden rush of light, she
caught the stern, almost reprimanding glance of the stag she was hunting. She simply gazed into its
eyes reverently and nodded, as the stag calmly galloped away.