Arcadian Huntress ⚢

Chapter X Comfort

True to the prophecy, Parthenos died and Apollo placed his demigod daughter among the stars. She became to be known as Parthenos Dios, the Virgin Goddess.

Her name was the epithets of the Virgin Goddesses Lady Athena and Lady Artemis also of Queen Hera when she was unmarried. The name also occurs as an occasional epithet of other female divinities, such as Adrasteia, Dike, Hebe, Hecate, Persephone, Nemesis, and Iris.

While her name indeed means virgin, it struck me hard when I realized that she was named after her state when she will die. She will die a virgin, the prophecy said. Will I also die the same way as my name? To die as the most beautiful? I think it could be a silly story the bards of the future to foretell my stories to the younger generations. I pondered over this depression. Somehow this nihilistic feeling and existentialism drilled me more than it should be.

Ever since then, I could not look at the stars without crying. The hunt huddled around the fire then, sharing bowls of savory stew and chunks of bread. I ate quietly, and let the warm food and the savage beauty of the wilderness overhead soothe away the nagging ache in my belly.

There was silence for a while. I finished my meal and set the empty bowl aside. I gazed nostalgically at the new constellation at the night skies for a minute or two, lost in thought, wondering if Parthenos was happy in her new home among the stars instead of where  Hades usually provide to every good mortal, heroes, and demigods alike—into the Elysium.

Parthenos became my sun for the past few weeks and I felt the lack of her with a brutal sense of futility. The whole world was gray, colorless. the sunlight, on my skin, seemed deathly pale in contrast. And the quality of the light changed. It was as though all those layers of cloud were gradually being peeled away.

I took her tent and stayed there, moving out the tent I shared with Hyale and her sisters. I kept the arrow that I thought that killed the monster. It was the only thing that reminded me of her. Not her bedrolls which we had once done our rendezvous nights, nor her clothes, nor her other things gave me special memories but it. I kept it along with my knives. Whenever the dagger at my side brushed against my skin, it sent a shock through me.

Would I be haunted by that image forever or would I be able to move on? After what seemed like hours, I threw off my blankets and packed up my bedroll, dressing quickly. I went  out to the field. It was still dark but I want to know if I still have the courage to do archery.

I nocked an arrow and let it fly at the wooden hitching post then missed.

It made me angry. My skin flushed at my own incompetence. What good was I? I would never be a hunter, and I had no other skills. Why was I even trying to shoot if I let myself fooled that I killed it? I could not even kill a monster—a monster, I told myself—without feeling like a monster myself.

I jerked the knife out of its sheath at my waist and threw it savagely at the post, but as soon as it left my hand, I knew it was a bad throw. I heard it clanging to the ground beyond the initial target. I let out a frustrated groan and stalked across the dirt patch to retrieve it. My knees shook when I squatted down to pick it up. My whole body was worn out, but I was too tightly wound to rest. I shoved the dagger into its sheath and went back to practice my archery.