The Angelus Brothers Chronicles - The Golden Hind

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Artemis watched the magnificent stag as he grazed in the afternoon sun. He was beautiful, the largest stag she'd ever seen. As she watched him she found herself not wanting to loose her arrow and kill him. She let her bow drop to her side then smiled to herself as a strange thought entered her mind. Turning herself into a doe she edged into the clearing and towards the stag. 

He raised his head and watched her with large brown eyes as she approached him. When she drew nearer he sniffed at her and walked a slow circle around her before checking around them for danger and looking at her again. His magnificent antlers made him look so regal as he looked down at her. Artemis had never wanted so much to be as close to another living creature as she did this one. He radiated a calm peacefulness she had never known in her long, tiresome life.

Rather than returning to Olympus that night she stayed in her scared forest with the gentle animal. Then the next and the next. She found she just didn't want to leave him. There was something so peaceful and still about the stag and as time went on she desired to leave him less and less. When she'd birthed their first daughter a beautiful doe with brass hooves and tiny golden antlers the Goddess had felt a joy she'd never known before. 

Each summer a new daughter followed the last and Artemis' joy only grew. She was slowly forgetting her life as a Goddess which now seemed like a distant memory. Her youngest daughter Kaia was only a year old when Zeus discovered her and her family in their forest home. The King of the Gods was furious and before Artemis could change forms and stop him, he threw one of his bolts at her magnificent stag. In the briefest moment before the bolt hit him Artemis captured him and the bolt in an orb, clutching it to her breast.

"How could you?" She screamed at her father as she clutched what was left of her stag to her and shielded her children from him with her body. 

"You whore. Giving yourself to some filthy animal." 

"I felt happier as an animal with him than I ever have as a Goddess. I'd have given up everything to live as a deer with him." Zeus struck her across the face and sent her reeling. 

"Stand aside." He pointed to her babies and she shrieked.

"No. No. I won't let you harm them." The young hinds cried in fear and crowded behind her desperate for their mother to protect and soothe them. 

"Move!" Artemis sobbed and fell to her knees, still shielding her children from him. 

"No father, please. You all have children. Please let mine be. I'll leave them here. Wipe their minds so they don't know they are anything but animals but please spare them." Seeing his favourite daughter so distraught softened the God's anger. He couldn't tell her, he wouldn't tell her. He realised the truth wouldn't matter to her, she would still try to protect them.

"Very well." He said putting back his bolt. "Wipe their memories of you and this and release them into your forest. But if they ever find out who or what they are I will kill them." Artemis gathered her children in her arms as the tiny deer cried for her and kissed each of them on their foreheads as she whispered I love you. With each kiss, the deer's memory was wiped and it stepped back from her in fear of the unknown. 

She took her little Kaia's face in her hands last and wiped away the tear that fell from her own eye onto the bambis soft furry snout. 

"I love you." She whispered and with a kiss her last child drew back from her and joining her sisters they all raced away into the depths of the forest. 

Zeus took his daughter's hand and pulled her to her feet. 

Wiping a tear from her face, he held her chin and made her look at him.