Artemis…
Her match was supposed to be the final one of the day. Yet as she was walking onto the floor of the arena to meet her opponent, she was surprised to find that it was vacant save for herself.
Where was her enemy combatant?
Who was she meant to fight?
She looked around, confused as to why she was waiting around, until the announcer’s voice spoke to her and the audience.
“I must apologize but it seems that her opponent has forfeited this fight. This makes Artemis the winner by default. Sorry to disappoint everyone who had waited patiently for today’s final match,” he said and the people among the audience began to grumble their complaints as they took their leave.
I was hoping to spend the day using today’s fight to occupy my thoughts so I wouldn’t have to think about my daughter. What am I supposed to do now?
With no one to fight, and nothing left to take up her time for the day, she left the arena with the grumbling crowd and wandered the streets.
She wondered if maybe she should try out some new restaurants, or perhaps test out a new grip for her sword, or-
As she was in the middle of pondering what to do for the day, she bumped into someone on the sidewalk.
As she turned to apologize to who she had run into, she noticed the red and white hair and figured out it was Selene right away.
Without addressing her directly, Artemis shyly turned away and said, “E-Excuse me…”
Before she could walk away, Selene called out to her, “Artemis wait, please.”
She was dreading this moment and swallowed her nervousness as she turned around and said, “Yes? Is there something wrong?”
With a somber expression on her face, Selene asked, “Can you spare a moment to talk with me?”
“Eh...yes. I have time to spare…,” Artemis replied reluctantly.
“Then can we go somewhere more comfortable to speak?”
Neither spoke a word as they walked to a quaint little cafe, ordered their drinks, and sat across from each other in silence.
As they waited for their orders, neither one of them could look each other in the eye for more than a second as they looked down at the table nervously.
Artemis knew that she needed to say something.
It was known to both of them that Artemis was her mother, the issue lied in their inability to confront one another on that simple fact.
Marcus, Lysandra, and Ruvick had all urged her to confront Selene, yet she was too nervous.
Just as she was about to muster up the courage to speak with her, Selene spoke first.
“So you are...my mother then?” she said as if asking her for confirmation.
“I...I am. Yes,” she forced herself to answer.
Hearing her confirm it, Selene folded her arms and hugged them close to her chest as if she were feeling cold. She looked away and there was a weariness in her eyes as she was thinking of what to say next.
“When I came to you at Lysandra’s Brotherhood Hall, I asked you for answers and you told me my mother was worthless, had abandoned me, and wasn’t worth looking for… Did you really feel that way? Why did you say those things to me?” she asked with sadness in her voice.
Artemis, barely able to hold in the shakiness in her voice, looked down at the table and said, “I did not feel worthy of you. I vanished from this world for ten years, but rather than go to you, I hunted after the entity that killed your father, one that I had no hope of defeating, to run away from...from the shame that I wasn’t there for you. I do not know if my presence during the war would have really made a difference or not, but I...I should have been there for you. Raised you alongside Adrian, and I...I cannot express how sorry I am to you.”
Selene was silent as she listened to her every word. Her fingers squeezed against her arms as her face tightened in an attempt to keep herself from crying.
“If...If I had known that you were still out there somewhere, I would not have cared that you had returned after being gone for so long. I would have been happy that you were even still alive. I would have welcomed you back, regardless if you had fought in that war,” Selene admitted without looking back at Artemis.
Selene then turned her head, but still did not look at her and instead looked down at the table as she said, “Even now, after everything that you said, I am still happy that you are still alive and here with me.”
A barely audible gasp left Artemis’s lips as she turned her head away and covered her mouth.
Selene then stood up, walked over to her side of the table and asked, “Can you stand up for a moment?”
Artemis turned to look up at her and asked, “What for?”
Selene blinked nervously and said, “Just please stand up for a moment.”
So she did as she asked and watched as Selene spread out her arms.
“I don’t want our relationship to be distant or held down by what time we lost. I just want to enjoy the time we have now,” she said.
She then took a step forward and waved her hands showing that she wanted a hug.
“A-Are you sure you want to embrace me like?” Artemis asked nervously.
“You are my mother, of course I want to,” Selene said as she welcomed Artemis into her arms.
As her arms wrapped around her, Artemis could no longer keep herself from crying as she returned the hug and said, “I’m sorry...I’m so sorry daughter.”
She gripped Selene in her arms tightly and felt a firmer grip on her own body in return. She even felt Selene’s own tears warm against her shoulder even though she said nothing.
Even with some people staring at them, at their show of acceptance and affection to one another, neither of them seemed to care.
This shared moment between the two of them was enough to shut out the rest of the world.
After the two of them had calmed down and their drinks were served to them, they sat back down at the table and Selene began asking her questions.
“When father and I were being attacked by Malthael, there was a woman who appeared and took me to safety. That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, that was me,” Artemis confirmed.
“You looked exhausted back then, like you had been fighting for days. What was going on that was tiring you out that badly?”
“At the time, Kayron had launched an attack on our camp with the aid of a woman named Nashandra. Back then, she didn’t speak and barely reacted at all when we attacked. She was truly formidable.”
Selene paused for a moment before her eyes widened as she said, “Is that really the very same woman who is fighting in the tournament right now? That Nashandra had fought you in the war?”
“Yes. Although she seems different now. She actually seems to be in control of her own actions. However, I imagine that doesn’t make her any less terrifying to fight against.”
“Yeah, I can imagine so. What do you think of having to fight Marcus again? You might end up facing him towards the end.”
Artemis waved her hand through the air dismissively as she said, “I’m not concerned with fighting him. I’m more worried about your relationship with him. He seems...unstable, dangerous even.”
“Well, he’s terrified of you. He hates that you keep stabbing him in the throat.”
“I’ve only stabbed him twice!” Artemis protested and Selene rolled her eyes.
“That is one too many times. Please try to be nicer to him.”
“Even so…I don’t think he is a normal person. Something about him just bothers me,” she said in a mistrusting tone.
“Well, he has been honest and forthcoming with me so far, so I have no reason to be nervous around him. The fact that he and his sister are unaffected by fire is even more reason for me to stay close to him. I don’t come across many people who are so unafraid and unbothered by me.”
Artemis chose not to pursue the topic any further and let her continue with her questions.
“How long have you and father known each other? I know that he has been here on Erebus for a few centuries, but he spoke of you as if he had known you for far longer. However, every mention of you in this world only dates back as far as fifty years,” she asked, with a genuinely curious tone.
“Well...we have known each other for so many thousands of years that I’ve lost count…,” she said, to which Selene stared at her in disbelief.
“You are thousands of years old?” Selene asked, breathless and shocked.
“Likely tens of thousands of years old, yes.”
“How?! How are you still alive?! How could father have lived that long?!”
Confused, Artemis tilted her head and said, “Is it not obvious to you? I am a god. Adrianos used to be a human, but he was reborn as a king of hell, a demon.”
“I…don’t understand what it means to be a king of hell, but Father was a demon…? What does that make me then?”
“A god. If not, then at the very least a demon goddess.”
Selene stared at her, unable to find the words to display her confusion, as she rested her fingers against her temples and attempted to massage the stress from her forehead.
“This is...too much for me right now. Can we please change the subject?”
Artemis nodded with a smile as she said, “Very well. What else would you like to talk about?”