Artemis (shaftsofgold) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2020-07-13 11:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | artemis |
WHO Artemis
WHEN backdated to Sunday 5 July, late night
WHERE Central Park
WHAT Meditations under a full moon
WARNINGS None
Balance. That was what Daphne had spoken of, and it had stayed with Artemis. It had percolated at the back of her mind when she left Peitho’s Symposium that night; and later, as she’d tackled Mount Colden with Hades, it had resurfaced. It had been glorious up in the mountains. The air sang to her in the days, and the heavens opened up to her at night, and the wild welcomed her back with arms outstretched. But standing at the summit, eyes sky-bright and stray curls sweat-plastered to her face, as Artemis had gazed down in satisfaction at the rolling green below, she’d felt— Not a pull. It was nothing so insistent. More… an invitation, a tentative line of connection stretching back south, toward the city she’d been so eager to leave behind. It played on her still as they loaded the car days later, preparing to trade the luxuriant untamed wilderness for the rigid steel-and-concrete lines of New York City. And it was that which had brought her out tonight, under the clarifying light of the full moon, to Central Park. Yes, Central Park. The place she’d derided with a curl of her lip as insipid fakery, a rigorously-landscaped imitation of wilderness, defanged and dolled up for mortal enjoyment. She still stood by all of that, by the way. But it felt… important, somehow, that she do this in a human space. So here Artemis sat, her back brushing the trunk of a twisted maple, her feet resting on the edge of a man-made retaining wall, and her skin bathed in silver moonlight. She closed her eyes and let the sounds of the night come to her, the rustle of leaves and the moan of traffic, the buzzing of car horns and the calls of night birds. What was it about this infuriating city that had called to her? Why was it here, of all places, that her feet had led her, when the Catskills had stopped being home? She had thought she’d known the answer. It was family, of course. New York was where her twin lived, where so many of her siblings kept residence. Apollo, Hermes, Dionysus, Athena. Even Ares. If home was no longer a place, then maybe this was the closest she’d get. There was truth in that, perhaps. But it wasn’t the whole story. Artemis drew in even breaths. Drew in the fresh soil and the stale pavement, the smoke and the petrichor. And she felt for the faint, spiderwebbing lines of belief and affinity that moored her to this land. The prayers shone the brightest, rich with belief and devotion. Words spoken and offerings laid upon altars prepared with love. They were not the old words or the old offerings, not the ones she craved still these long years later, but they called her in earnest, an outstretched hand. There were more pagans in this place. They loved her for her wildness, they worshipped the huntress, but most were like to live in cities and towns. Perhaps it was why they reached out to her with such hunger. Perhaps some mortals bucked against the strictures of their world, too. Beneath the glow of faith, a quieter pull, along the fine threads of the affinities that made her. Artemis felt the unpredictable thrum of wilderness calling, always calling, urging her to throw off these numbing trappings of civilisation and take up her bow, to come! run! join the hunt!, and fuck she wanted to heed it. But nature here was not as tame and cowed as she’d first thought, either. There was a stubborn, canny resourcefulness threading through the wildlife of this place, from the raccoons who deftly pried the lids off trash cans, to the coyotes who had learned to predict traffic, to the rats who navigated with uncanny ease the bewildering cacophony of scents and sound that polluted the subways. Again, it was not the wildness she burned for. And yet, in its way, it was hers still. Another song, closer to hand: the song of youth, which was a wildness in its own right. A mother wracked with labour pain, a babe emerging screaming and bloody into the world. Childhood was precious, these Americans liked to say, but childhood was also savage, and Artemis knew that well. She felt them so clearly, these younglings, pacing the boundaries of their cages, squaring off in battle against their elders and against themselves, warring with bodies and with choices that felt not their own, fighting to be seen and to be heard on their own terms. She felt them. Oh gods, but she felt them. A chuckle bubbled in Artemis’ throat then, quite unbidden. Such a twit she’d been. When had she forgotten? She was more than Artemis Agrotera, than Artemis Potnia Theron, huntress and beast mistress. She was Artemis Lokheia, Artemis Eileithyia, who soothed the pain of women in childbirth. She was Artemis Kourotrophos, who guided children through the upheavals of youth and up to the threshold of maturity. She was Artemis Brauronia, the great she-bear, who nurtured girls as her own cubs. She was Artemis Polyonymos, for she had many names and many faces and she could not be bound or contained. She’d thought of this, somehow, as an exile. She’d treated the city as a prison and spent her days rattling at the bars. But there were no doors holding her here. She’d spent years in cities before; they’d built her temples inside them and prayed to her to strengthen their walls. She’d found things to love there — she might yet find things to love here — but they could never, never tame her. Balance. Huntress and midwife, she-bear wherever she roamed. That was Artemis’ way, never to choose or to settle for one, ever on the move. Why had she thought she had to do so now? A smile crept up on her; a genuine one now. Yeah. Yeah, this could work. |