O R I O N

Artemis tasted blood. There was fire everywhere inside her. Her ribcage blew outwards; a ripping sensation followed the scream that tore through her lungs. Head tipped back, she howled with a wolf's grief for the full moon it would come to never kiss.

She screamed for Orion again. An earthquake tore through Earth. A landslide sounded in the heavens. A tsunami shook the underworld. The gods clung to their wine goblets and peered down at the clouds beneath them, stunned beneath their haughty masks. Isn't she supposed to be the less troublesome twin? they muttered disdainfully, exchanging horrified looks between each other. Athena clicked her tongue, war hammer swinging. Aphrodite hissed, claws readied. Apollo simply laughed.

In response, Artemis clapped her hands together and flipped the three worlds as easy as turning her palms over—heaven, earth, and hell were sandwiched together. She squeezed. Both mortal and immortal cried for mercy. Zeus dropped to his knees. Poseidon's teeth chattered. Hera's eyes bled. Aphrodite screamed.

Chaos rang for twenty nights and twenty days. If you listen closely, to this day, the ringing can be heard whenever the Earth's clouds gather to weep alongside Artemis.

Mercy, mercy, the Olympians cried. Artemis pressed hard, then pressed harder, torturing every soul that had ever spoken ill of her beloved Orion until blood dripped from the sides of the universe like a sticky, red syrup. Her wolf eyes glowed—a gold disc in the dead reflection of the moon that she would forever chase around the equator. It was that day in history, when Orion had fallen, that Artemis forswore her vows to serve Mount Olympus, vowing to chase night until it spun back to flick the calendar pages in reversal. Maybe then the Earth would spin back, too. Maybe then Orion would come back to her and they could avenge his murder.

If not, she decided, the Olympians would pay grievously for their sins. Forget Prometheus. Forget Medusa. Forget the tragedies of sinners. They all start the same way, yet Artemis knew that she was the only deity who could rewrite the ending for all the heroes who had been wronged in her time.

***

Back when the Olympians had lived in harmony, Artemis spent every hunting season away from her home in the heavens. This season, in the shade of the Cretan rainforest, the air was sweeter than nectar and Artemis had never felt sadder.

Orion thought he had never tasted spring like this before. He wondered whether it was the rainforest itself or Artemis' eyes that made the world greener this year. His father-in-law had blinded him two summers ago, but he could still see the world whenever Artemis was by his side. He had asked her many times why his sight always returned to him in her presence, but she simply smiled and kissed him soundly, telling him to worry about sunflowers and seeds instead of the godly affairs she was always disappearing to take care of. It made no sense to him that he could see the rusted, gold band of her eyes burning behind his eyelids even when she was gone.

"Orion, wake up. I have returned from the perils of Olympus. There is no news from Apollo's whereabouts but we should be safe for another moon cycle if we keep our heads bowed."

Artemis sounded so close; her lips were already brushing his ears and he could feel a pyramid of heat building up in his loins. The sun was hot on his skin, but she was far more dangerous to behold.

He blinked into the fading darkness, a fishnet of lines growing fainter. The world slowly came back to him; outlines emerged first—the branch of a tree, the uneven sandbank, the glittering rush of water all around. Artemis arms wound around his narrow, boyish waist. Only twenty and Orion had been survived the greatest war of all time, but Troy had fallen and a bounty hung around his neck like a noose. Doomsday followed him everywhere, until the day he met a hooded huntress at the mouth of the Cretan rainforest. She followed him into hiding, identity concealed until he caught her wrist and spotted the mark of Olympus, a cut oozing with ichor and not with blood.

"Why have you returned so soon?" Orion asked in a breathy whisper.

Artemis pushed his curls away from his nape and paved a path of kisses around his throat like vines. "I had to leave Olympus before the other gods noticed that I had returned. The Guardians will whisper my coming to them by sundown so we must leave tonight while the moon is still full." Her voice was low as she spoke, softer than her butterfly kisses. Her fingers worked away on his iron breastplate, unbuckling the straps quickly. "But sundown is hours away so we can pretend for a little longer." In between kisses she explained, "My brother is terribly furious with you and is taunting Poseidon to drown every village we pass through just because I'd rather spend this hunting season with you than with him. It's not my fault he has the skill of a babe with a bow and arrow."

She teleported, reappearing in front of him. Her fingers skimmed Orion's tunic and it came undone. The tan fabric pooled at his feet. Artemis kept talking, rolling her green-gold eyes every now and again. Orion pursed his lips to withhold a sigh as she played his skin like a lyre. Even with his eyes closed in ecstasy, he could still taste her round lips and feel her glassy skin rubbing against him.

When he had sung his song, he played it for her again. He knew how much she liked to give first before taking, but the goddess of virginity had no song of her own to sing. She sank to her knees, crouching low at the root of a large willow tree as he dressed quickly.

"Where will we set camp tonight?" Orion asked, taking a seat beside her as they shared a ripe orange she had stolen from the Great Tree outside Zeus' palace.

She shrugged, peeling the translucent skin off her orange slices. "I don't know," she replied absentmindedly. "West, perhaps."

"We could head north to Dia," he suggested.

She shook her head, declarative. "That island is surrounded by leagues of water and Poseidon is bloodthirsty. The other gods have grown restless. We need to be more careful. I don't think you should wander off without my knowledge, Orion."

"I can protect myself."

"I am not doubting your bravery but the savage cruelty festering inside my brother." She sighed, exhausted, tired of running day and night to escape her brother's wrath. "Extended bouts of peace never last too long with the gods. There is always a war to fight or a bone to pick with an unfortunate mortal. This time the unfortunate mortal is you."

"Me? What have I done to anger the gods?"

Artemis chewed the corner of her rose-tinted lips and tilted her head back to glare at thundercloud gathering speed overhead. "Apollo has set everybody against you. Even sweet Hestia wants your throat."

She swung her head back down and closed her eyes. Her head lolled and found the crook between his shoulder and neck. Orion draped an arm around Artemis and kissed her temple, wishing he could kiss her worries away.

"Apollo has no right to my blood. I served my time in Troy. He has already taken my eyes from me. What more do I have to offer but my life?"

Artemis stiffened. She sat up straight but could not gravitate towards his touch when Orion traced the thin flower crown she always wore as a headdress, quiet lilies roped through her thick, black braids. In the humid rainforest, Orion had found that his hair grew untidy if left unclipped, but Artemis came alive like the first rays of sunrise whenever she roamed the forest to sink her teeth into its pleasures.

She was quiet for a long time. He repeated his question.

She answered, "Apollo is simply Apollo. He is treated like the baby of Olympus. The gods are quick to fall for his charms but I have seen the light."

"I must have done something wrong."

"You didn't. But I did," Artemis revealed, desperately turning her large eyes towards him. "It is not your blood he wants to draw, but mine."

Orion sucked in a sharp breath. "Why would Apollo try to kill you?"

Artemis' face eclipsed. Her worry lines vanished, but the thunderclouds above clapped like an axe splitting logs. The rain began to fall in boulders and the willow tree above them wilted as a result of the heavy downpour. She shrugged on a tight smile, smelted like the old, rusting iron of Orion's breastplate.

"Apollo is a child, my love. Every time I leave Olympus to hunt, he whines and stirs up trouble amongst the gods. Now, because of him, there is talk in the heavens that a century-long feast will be held for the first god to kill you," she hesitated and chewed the corner of her full lips, "simply because I picked you to be my seasonal hunting companion."

Orion had no more to say to that. His silent questions were answered by Artemis' long face. He did not want to upset her anymore than he already had.

***

Lightning zigzagged across the sky in a patchwork of silver veins. Spiderwebs of light continued to break out until Artemis grew irritated of her father's subtle warnings to get packing and moving. Every hour that Apollo inched deeper into the Cretan rainforests with a pack of bloodhounds, her father's timely thunderstorms rang like a temple's calling bell. Orion took the lightning spells as a sign of luck. Artemis saw the smoky, grey sky as an omen. While he thought they were hunting boars for sport, she knew that they were the sport.

Apollo was going to hang the soil by its ankles to shake her out. He was going to unearth her like a worm. Thousands of villagers had already perished because of her betrayal.

"You should get some sleep," she said when the storm passed, patting her lap. "Tomorrow is going to be a long day."

Orion made himself comfortable and lowered his head, dazzled by the view of Artemis' face in the moonlight instead of the vast darkness overhead. He couldn't remember falling asleep, but when he woke up the sky was still dark as ink and his head was pillowed by moist earth. He looked around wildly before blowing out a sigh of relief. Artemis was on her feet, pacing back and forth like a caged tigress, bronze breastplate clinking quietly. She was suited for battle, but the forest was quiet—too quiet for Orion's liking. The moon stole looks at his lover, patches of white tiptoeing past the mass of willow leaves to spotlight Artemis' thin frame in a patchwork of moonshine. Orion couldn't help but marvel at her and wonder why she saw light in him and darkness in herself.

He got up and approached her cautiously, laying a palm on her taut shoulder. "Relax," he said when she kicked up sand in frustration. "Apollo will never find us here. This forest is too thick and these trees are mightier than the walls of Troy." He used his other hand to brush her thick braids to the side so he could kiss her jewelled earlobe. "The harvest season is on its way soon," he whispered when she turned her head to the side to catch her mouth between his. "Only a moon's turn away, in fact. After that I will resume my quests and you will return to Olympus. All will be sound again, I promise."

Her lips tasted of salt and sadness. She broke away from him and headed back to the weeping willow tree.

"Nothing will be sound again. Don't you understand that eternal damnation is what lies in store for us? This forest is our tomb, Orion. We will die here," she exclaimed. He followed her lead and took a seat, cross-legged. She absentmindedly picked at loose thread on his leather boots. "I did something very terrible to earn Apollo's wrath. None of this is a phase or a trick or a fool's play. He will not stop hunting for us until my blood is on his sword and you are in Hades' arms instead of mine."

"But he cannot kill you. You are immortal. The underworld cannot shackle you," Orion reminded her. He took her face in both hands, watching her eyes brim with tears.

"Apollo knows how to kill me," she said weakly.

"How?"

"By killing you."

Orion stroked the sharp planes of her cheeks, cut like steel, yet so thin he could almost breathe in the ichor in her veins. He knew that she was dangerous to touch, but he also knew that she was beautiful to behold. A rose with thorns, he thought quietly, wilting.

"What did you do to earn Apollo's wrath?"

"Ten years ago, I had a school of girls. They were the most beautiful maidens in all of Greece, hand-picked and sent to me. I protected their purity and they tended to my beasts while I hunted. Sometimes I took the bravest with me. One girl was particularly lovely and a favourite of mine. A princess who was humble as well as pious. Cassandra of Troy, she was named, a brave lioness with the grace of gods. My brother was in love with her but I would not let him near her without her consent. He respected my wishes and kept his distance until Cassandra fell in love with him, too. But Zeus wanted her virtue for himself. I tried to keep her safe from my brother and my father. On one particular evening, Apollo dressed as a girl, broke into my temple and seduced the fourteen year old maiden." Artemis caught sight of Orion's slight frown and wept into her palms. "I felt so betrayed. In an outburst of rage, I flew to the kingdom of Sparta, and I-I . . ."

Orion held her face close and pressed his forehead to hers. Eyes closed, he murmured, "You are not at fault, here, Artemis. We all mistakes in fits of fury."

She looked up and shook her head. He did not understand. The night clouds above them swirled. Lightning flashed. Zeus was listening.

"But this is my fault," she cried. "I am the one who killed the boy."

"What boy?"

"Hyacinthus, the prince of Sparta. I killed him in cold blood."

Confused, Orion asked, "Wasn't that Apollo's doing?"

She shook her head sharply and blubbered, "It was me. I blew the discus with the strength of my father's storms until it struck the boy. Then I sat by and watched my brother grieve for two years just so he could feel a fraction of the grief I felt towards Cassandra's tainted honour."

Orion took her head and reminded her, "We all fall from righteousness, and then we right our wrongs. Apollo stained your temple with blood, so you avenged Cassandra's honour with blood. We are Greeks and we are bloodthirsty. Fire is how we put out fire."

"But it wasn't Apollo who robbed Cassandra of her maidenhood. Guilty as my brother was for his crimes to her virtue, another got to her first."

Orion's face paled in understanding. Now he knew the truth. Now he knew what lay in store for him.

"Apollo is innocent?"

"Yes. My father is to blame." Artemis hung her head low, burning with shame. "Cassandra never knew the truth because my brother loved me enough to save my relationship with my father, and he loved Cassandra enough to curse her with the gift of Sight so that she would always be blind to her past."

A long silence fell, fragile as ice. Artemis swallowed her tongue and wished to unspeak her words the way that she wished to undo her actions, but it was too late. Orion was already shaking with anger, and her brother was on his way.

Artemis put her hand on his but he snatched it away.

"You said this was just a hunting trip. You told me that you loved me."

"It is, and I do."

He stood up. "You lied to me."

"Forgive me, Orion. Forgive the human in me who loves you with more than the heart of a god."

"Apollo is not going to stop to hunting the forests for us." He looked at her, seeing nothing but death and decay instead of the flowers in her hair. "You have doomed us."

"I'll protect you," Artemis swore, standing up. "I'll keep you safe, I promise. To my last breath."

She turned him around slowly, and with reluctance he lifted his gaze.

"To your last breath?" he asked.

Artemis nodded and kissed him. "I will storm the gates of Olympus before I let my brother take you away from me."

***

Meanwhile, Apollo is faster than night. He slips between leaves and spies on his sister and her lover atop trees before he passes over the forest in the narrow eye of a storm to help Poseidon drown a thousand more villages in the name of Hyacinthus.

The gods are just, he believes. They will side with him. If war comes from this, then so be it. He will have her stripped of her divinity, he will have her hanged, but first he will grant her love's sweet, dripping fruit. Then he will crush it before her eyes like bones to dust. First Artemis will experience summer before he burns her with winter.

Apollo returns to Olympus to stand beside his guilt-ridden father, an old man with many regrets, leaning over the Great Palace's balcony with a wine goblet in hand. There is poison in the cup and it tastes like immortality.

"Artemis will die on the morning of the harvest season," Apollo says, sipping from his cup.

Zeus has long since tried to convince his son otherwise, but even he cannot stand in the way of justice. He has wronged. He, too, will suffer his fate when Apollo plays his part. He sees all; he sees everything.

"Orion belongs to her," his father says. "You will spare the hunter."

Apollo's eyes flash—bruised like the sky above and the night below. They were once a dazzling shade of leaves in summer, and now they were dark with bitterness.

"Orion is mine, the way Hyacinthus was hers. She chose to breathe death into my lover, so I will kiss Orion with the same fate."

Zeus is calm as a sleeping giant, no longer peering down at the Earth. His gaze stays fixed straight ahead on the distant gates of Olympus, weakened with old age.

"Your sister is very powerful."

"Humanity has weakened her soul."

"Humanity strengthens the soul, my son. Do not be misled by the path my footsteps have paved. I am too weak to bear such a gift, the sole reason why I was crowned King of Olympus, but you and your sister have felt the power of humanity in the form of boundless love. She is smarter than you. She knows how to use grief to her advantage—that is her power."

Apollo stares stonily at the world beneath his feet. He doesn't care if the sky always shakes its lightning fist when he gets too close to his traitorous sister because he will swallow his sister's heart whole the way he once swallowed Orion's eyes.

"I will kill that bastard she prances around with, Father. Then I will kill her, too, only to bring her back to life so she can live the rest of her day's in the same grief that still cripples me." Apollo takes a deep breath, a wind breaking over his shoulders and blowing his great tunic behind him in a flag of red. "And when she storms the gates of Olympus to shake the universe, I will not fight by your side."

"There will be no fight, only a heavy loss. She is strong enough to take us all to hell with her."

"Then I will die willingly, knowing that she has suffered the way I suffered."

Zeus doesn't look away from the gates of Olympus. The Guardians standing post grow weaker each day. Soon the gates will crumble into ash and there will be nothing left to keep out the Elysian heroes of yesterday—those alive, those dead, and those rising.

"Do what you must, boy." He resigns with a sigh. "Do what you must while there is still time."

***

Orion had been stealing glances at Artemis for close to an hour. They were both crouching in front of the river's bubbling jaws, cleaning their blood stained weapons after yesterday's disappointing hunt.

Tentatively, he pointed out, "You've been scrubbing the same spot for ages."

Artemis worked the rag around her blade before sheathing it. She stood up to dismantle her bronze breastplate. "Apollo is getting closer each day and Father is too weak to stop him."

She stripped off her clothes, leaving her undergarments on as she waded into the iron river to work solid clumps of a boar's blood out of her hair. Orion continued to scratch away at his dagger, white eyes trained straight ahead where two mountains were stationed guardsmen to the Megas Potamos river.

"How can you tell that Apollo is getting closer?" he asked, undressing himself.

"The deer in this forest are getting more anxious each day," she remarked, slipping underwater like a mermaid. Orion joined her in the river. She resurfaced, glittering with drops of water. "It's harder to kill terrified creatures because they're always on the run."

"Like us," Orion said.

Artemis nodded numbly.

He rinsed his golden curls of blood, busily working his fingers through tangles while Artemis frowned to herself and rubbed a spot of grime on her arm. He swam towards her, ready to stifle her worries with a kiss but she had already vanished and reappeared behind him.

Her lips burned their way along his jawline, blurring his thoughts until he grew tired of the world's morning beauty in favour of Artemis' jewelled eyes. He could see them in his mind. Some days her eyes were sharp as knives and he found that it took a lion's courage to take her hand, and other days her eyes were watered down with grief. She was immortal, yet she had lived many lives and none at all.

Although her quietude put him on edge, her eyes were soft on his when he turned around. They shared a quiet embrace.

"What do you want to do today?" she asked over the rush of the river, resting her chin on his shoulder. "It is too hot to hunt on a day like this."

"We can sit in the shade if you'd like," he suggested.

She withdrew herself from his arms and waded out of the river to dry herself. "I'll see you shortly, then."

The moment she was out of sight, the world darkened. Orion could feel the burning glare of the sun on his skin as he swam to shore, but his eyes blinked into the same darkness he felt at night. He was blind without Artemis' powerful presence. It took him forever to find his clothes, and another eternity to distinguish the difference between his tunic and his undershirt.

"Are you decent?" Artemis asked in a lilting tease, approaching him from behind like a cat.

"Almost," Orion replied, poking his leg into the arm of his tunic. He heard her laugh.

Her voice sounded much nearer this time. "Do you need help buttoning your breeches again?"

"I'm good." He fumbled with the buttons, adding, "I think."

Artemis laughed again. She knew that he would never figure out which buttons clipped where unless she was close enough to restore his sight. Her hands wanted to make his body sing, but first they had to eat. The journey to the twin mountains would be long and treacherous, so she left him to dress himself, gathering the previous day's kill to make breakfast out of fat pheasants, berries and leaves. The boar they had tried to take down had gotten away.

"It's too hot," Orion complained after they filled their bellies.

Artemis laughed like a princess, her mood suddenly lifted by Orion's bloated cheeks. She dragged him to his feet and made it rain for him, crowning them both in a tiara of dewdrops. Orion laughed like a gleeful child when the first drop made a home on his slender nose, and when another trickled past his earlobe. She kissed him dry, and when the moon swelled in the sky, she kissed him again with sweet dreams before tiptoeing back to Olympus.

In the following weeks Artemis and Orion danced in the rain like fireflies around candlelight. They hunted like lethal lions through the rainforest, shielded in Crete, safe as underground moles, hidden from the prying eyes of Olympus, hidden from Apollo's wrath.

But the gods were doing some hunting of their own. Apollo had stationed spies everywhere: polka-dotted owls, snakes with red eyes, pelicans with beaks full of secrets. All the animals in the rainforest had sworn fealty to him, and they tittered nervously whenever Artemis passed with Orion in one hand and her bowstring in the other. They knew of the power she was keeping secret, a power like none before.

When the leaves curled and grew crisp, Artemis' eyes relaxed. The hunting season was coming to an end and the harvest season was due to start soon. She stopped stealing worried glances over their shoulders and kissed Orion in broad daylight. Thunder still plundered through the skies, but she no longer cared. This was her father's fault. To hell with you, Artemis thought.

Soon the rainforest grew riper than a berry. Sheets of solid steel curtained the Earth in a downpour so heavy that Orion couldn't see beyond his extended hand. He couldn't see beyond the rusted red of his inside of his eyelids either. Apollo had made sure of that when he stabbed his fingers into Orion's eyes, but he didn't need sight to clean the blood from his dagger. He only needed her.

"Orion!" Artemis called out, swinging her dagger in sweeping arcs to cut the vines hanging from the forest trees. Orion's chest compressed tightly, both in fear and in a flurry of warmth.

He liked running as long as his hand was in hers, but he would've liked it even better if they could travel freely without Apollo's eye watching them behind shadows.

Orion spotted her face and dropped his dagger. "What is it?" he asked as she sprinted towards him, then right past him.

She whipped out her bowstring and notched the first arrow, frantic, tracking the angry skies with a wild aim, wishing she could hide Orion away in Olympus. Nobody would think to look for him there. If only the Guardians would let a mortal through the gate. 

Orion was born to live in the sky, she had told the Guardians during her many visits. It's in his destiny.

The trees at the horizon bent at their trunks as if a giant was crushing the forest beneath his feet.

"We need to leave right now. Apollo is close. I can smell him. He's here." Artemis began to shake like a baby bird, bowstring shooting arrows blindly into the forest. "Orion," she screamed. "Run!"

***

They ran until they could run no more. Artemis could have sworn the rainforest was shrinking every night, pressing her into a constant state of terror, penning them to their doomed fate like cattle. The eve of the harvest season came sooner than she would have liked. The forest was alive with anxious crickets and frenetic hummingbirds. Summer had played her course and autumn was raging through Crete with her fiery palms.

They had just finished smoking the day's catch in a campfire when the storm began. Artemis knew all too well what the fireworks of lightning meant, but she was sick and tired of running. Orion laid a hand on hers, ready to bolt.

Artemis shook her head sharply. "No more." She set down her fish and looked at him deeply. "Do you love me?"

"With all my heart."

"Then no one can hurt us," she said, kissing his mouth to sow a thousand promises, even though winter was due.

***

Artemis and Orion waited quietly around a still smoking campfire. They had filled their bellies and were talking quietly when the sun broke through the clouds in solid shafts like lances sweeping through the valley. A spotlight lit Orion in a halo. He deserves to lie in the sky, Artemis mused when he insisted on having one last swim before Apollo's arrival. She could never decline Orion's humble requests, so she watched him splash into the stream, his broad back swallowed by the slow current like honey to a spoon. It was only when the water was above his head that she began to unbuckle her belt and dismantle her bronze breastplate.

"You are truly a goddess," Orion said when she swam towards him like a mermaid and appeared before him, naked as a stem.

"No, I am a woman," she said with great courage, taking his hand and putting it between her thighs. She was giving him what others had scorched kingdom's to find.

"You are virtuous," he spoke softly.

She kissed his shoulder. "With you, Orion, the devil breathes inside of me. Now claim me before death claims us both."

***

After Artemis had lost her maidenhood in the name of sacrifice, they lay stretched out on the sandbanks. Orion was fast asleep, breathing softly in her arms with the smile of a lost boy finally found. Artemis sat up and kissed him. Even asleep, he could taste salt and sadness. The first day of the harvest season had arrived and Apollo was on his way to claim their tainted souls. Doomsday was upon them.

The Grim came at sundown, lounging on their bedroll when Orion and Artemis chased each other back up the hill after one last hunt. Orion had ran too fast, ahead by half a mile. He was blind to Apollo's presence until the god stood up and clapped his shoulder in a brotherly embrace. Orion jumped back and drew his dagger.

Artemis appeared by Orion's side faster than the blink of an eye.

"Brother," she greeted him, cold as the poles.

Face to face, the twins were two faces of the same moon. Apollo was fair haired; Artemis' braids were darker than a raven's feathers, her flower crown no longer white but red as the blood between her thighs.

"Womanhood suits you," Apollo sneered.

Orion watched Apollo bare his teeth into a what should have been a smile, darkness smouldering underneath the god's translucent skin. It mattered not that he was fairer than his sister—where she was luminosity, he hailed darkness.

"Which one of you shall I kill first?" Apollo rubbed his hands together, grinning madly. "The boy or his whore?"

"I am immortal. Kill me and I'll rise again," Artemis replied, thumbing the arrows strung across her back, her muscles tight and ready for action.

Apollo cackled, "Love chips away immortality like water to a cave. You have grown weak, sister."

But what Apollo had failed to notice was that Artemis had been returning to Olympus on many accounts to drink from the Fountain of Youth. The glittering lake behind Zeus' palace was filled with ichor, guarded by sea nymphs that adored Artemis for her human kindness as opposed to her brother's cruelty. She had drunk enough to kiss traces of it into Orion's soul, but not enough to immortalise him.

"In fact," Apollo smiled so wide his teeth glittered maliciously, "I'm going to kill the mortal first so you can watch him die the way I watched Hyacinthus perish."

"Lay a hand on Orion and I will blink Olypmus out of existence," Artemis vowed.

"Destroy Olympus, if you wish, sister," Apollo mocked, laughing derisively. "It won't relieve you of the pain you'll bear for the rest of eternity." He cocked his head to the side and smiled, almost. His ghost's smile was the closest he had looked to human since Cassandra's mighty fall. "Maybe Orion will rot in the underworld long enough to welcome you after I drain you of your divinity."

Without taking his laughing eyes off her, Apollo casually flicked his wrist. The arrows strapped to Artemis' back rose on their own accord and turned cloak, spinning around like silver ribbons caught in the wind before hurtling cleanly through Orion's chest. Five puncture holes, five arrows. Orion fell to the ground in a thud.

Apollo vanished. Laughter and mist remained, the outline of his figure still visible in trails of smoke.

Artemis screamed. She wept tears of silver, of light, over her greatest companion in a rainfall that gravitated skywards. Up, Orion rose. Up, he levitated, his limbs slack and filled with the blood that had stilled when his heart had jumped to a stuttering halt.

Artemis' teardrops buried themselves into the sky and twinkled. The other gods watched in envy from Zeus' balcony in Olympus as the goddess' tears guarded Orion like an armour made from a thousand transparent pearls. Her hair, a mane of octopus ink, blew upwards in the skin-stripping wind. Her cloak battled the wind like a flag. Then she, too, rose.

She swam through the air. Always upwards, always following the constellations her tears paved, rising with Orion as she floated to the edge of the universe. She wished her head could break over the ocean of grief and that Orion would dart out of the water like a fish, that he would tickle her senseless like he used to. But this watery surface had no end. Artemis could see no light at the end of the tunnel. The sky was so dark, but she was going to change that.

Clouds of silver broke over her as she shot past the lonely moon to chase after Orion's rising corpse. Together, they made for the heavens. Her tears found their new home. One by one, new stars burned into existence. They wept for Orion with tears of their own.

Artemis swept every ancient constellation out of existence. She knew this would outrage her father, but the goddess had already created a new stretch of darkness above the Earth just so that Orion could outshine the heavens. The underworld paled in contrast to Artemis' creation. She made the night what it is today.

When she pushed Orion to the gates of Olympus like a corpse washing on to shore, she let loose the scream rupturing her throat. The second was a knife through her chest. "Let him in," she screamed, shaking the golden gates as the Guardians closed their eyes to her suffering. "He's worth ten of all of you!"

She screamed for the mercy Hades had shown her brother. She screamed for Persephone to bind nature to Orion like she had done for Hyacinthus. Nobody came to her aid. Blood must be paid with blood. She had taken Hyacinthus' life so Apollo had taken Orion's life. The debt had been paid.

The gatekeepers of Olympus formed a cross with their staffs to bar Artemis from staining the heavens with death. The glorious dwellings of the gods was forbidden to Artemis and Orion. Their love had met its end. Zeus blew a gust of wind to banish Artemis for shrouding Olympus in a sky of darkness. In a black hole of rage, she ripped off Orion's belt and hurled it into the sky to complete the night sky's transformation. 

Hell had always been a world away, but Hell was exactly what she unleashed upon the heavens. She stormed the gates of Olympus with blood for tears, her bowstring drawn, a thousand arrows poised. Orion may have fallen, but now it was time to bring Olympus to her knees.

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A/N: This was my favourite to write so far. I haven't been proud of anything I've written since I finished LtL and this just made me feel like a million suns (probably because it wasn't rushed). I started writing Orion's story around March. It was also the hardest to write, but the challenge made me love it even more.

I feel like 'Elysian' is the only story where I can genuinely exercise my writing style and actually witness an improvement with each successive piece. All my other stories (besides 'This') are so restricting; it's making me hate teen fiction with a passion because I'm expected to write in a certain type of way about bullshit that doesn't even matter.

Also, just a quick note: when I finish all the stories for 'Elysian', I'll rearrange the order of the stories so they're in chronological order (I suck at planning) because this tale should have been the final one (only just realised that right now).

Right. I'll see you whenever. Comment here if you want me to look into any specific Greek heroes/pairings.

— Kaddy.