In an Ocean of Stars

Chapter Four: Seven Little Bunnies

A/N: Thanks to Yoshi1911 on FFN for helping me portray Artemis and her hunters in a more accurate way. I also wanted to thank Lady Hemera for the advice on Percy's speech, I'll try my best to work on them from the next chapter onwards.

A/N: I AM THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR of this story; you can verify this if you find the same story (posted years ago) on Archive of Our Own or FanFiction Net and check the author profile info.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Percy Jackson and related stories.

Chapter Four: Seven Little Bunnies

The camp of Artemis

After the meeting and the subsequent celebrations ended, Artemis left Olympus in a hurry and flashed back to her hunters; the goddess was still feeling extremely disoriented after the day's events as she clutched her head tightly and tried to calm her emotions.

Despite being present there herself, Artemis couldn't believe what had happened on Olympus, it was just too much for her process.

How could all of this happen? she asked herself, she had never even seen it coming until it was too late. Before Artemis could understand what was happening she was already defeated and engaged to the most unlikely of all persons.

"Milady... are you ok?" Artemis heard a concerned voice ask from behind her.

Powerless to do anything other than endure, Artemis forced herself to push past the immense pain in her heart and looked up, when her eyes searched for the person who had assessed her, she came face to face with the worried eyes of her lieutenant Thalia, seeing the concern behind her Hunter's eyes only made Artemis's pain that much sharper as she was reminded of her father's words.

Zeus had made it clear that after Artemis's marriage, the hunters' oath would have to be altered in order to allow them a way out of the 'reject the company of men' clause while still retaining a position in the hunt. Contrary to popular belief, Artemis did not force her girls into hating all men, in fact, many of her hunters had fallen in love before, and the goddess never stood in their way, she always gave her girls a chance to live their lives on their own terms and if along the way some of them fell in love, then Artemis would always give them a final blessing and then respectfully relieve them of their duty as a hunter.

Artemis did this because she believed that the wild was no place to raise a family, and her hunters would be better off free from the burden of the hunt... But now she had been asked to not only allow her girls to fall into love but also allow them and their partners to remain with the hunt, this was something that had to be done because otherwise, it would reflect badly on the gods and people called them hypocrites.

How could Artemis ask her girls to swear off the company of men when she herself would be married to one? Sadly the logic behind this decision did little to ease Artemis's pain, it still broke the goddess's heart to be forced to make such changes; she had turned her hunt into what it was today after thousands of years of hard work and dedication; to be forced to abandon its most fundamental values on the whim of others was taking a massive toll on her.

Thalia seemed to get even more agitated by her patron's lack of response so she gently laid a hand on the goddess's shoulder and whispered, "Milady?"

Not able to hold it back any longer, Artemis wrapped her arms around her hunter and let the floodgates open.

The shocked lieutenant held onto her mistress as the powerful goddess silently sobbed into her shoulders, for the first time in her immoral life Artemis felt broken, she did not know what to do next... And it scared her, this was not how it was meant to be, she was never supposed to get married!