Daughter Of The Moon

Chapter 26

Artemis

If there is one thing that I have learned in the eons that I have been alive, it is that I am a terrible liar. I'm also not very good at faking optimism or dealing with guilt, so usually I stay out of situations which may require lying, and, as a result of lying, faked optimism or guilt.

Gods, have I been off track these past few months.

When you are immortal, it becomes hard to comprehend time. Decades are noticeable from changes in fashion and technology, and eras from the deaths of monarchs, but individual days -months, even years- seem to just melt into the background. If my life were the night sky, those tiny measurements of time would make up the dimmest of stars, centuries would make up the more bland constellations, and noticeable people like my hunters would make up the prettiest ones. Of course, Jacob Night would be the moon: the biggest, the brightest, the most beautiful thing to ever come into my life. Even though I have known of his existence for less than a year and only actually been talking to him for nearly three months of that time, what I have with him seems almost unfeasibly important.

Well, maybe it isn't unfeasible, because it led to the breaking of my vow, which led to Luna. This leads me back to the lying business, and since I know that I have been lying far too much to myself and the people I care about lately, I am going to put an end to that.

I know who -what- Luna is, and to continue believing that her mother is Selene would be to continue lying to myself. God -and I mean capital 'g' even-the-gods-sometimes-hope-he's-real God- knows how, and it took me hours of solid thought to even come to the conclusion that it is possible at all, but my love for Jake painted an image of a baby girl in the stars. The constellation has been building up, becoming more and more detailed, in the past few weeks, and I know that it won't be long before I -impossibly, incredibly, terrifyingly- can call myself the mother of a demigod child.

It's only today that I have finally made the decision to step off the guiltily glorious podium of ignorance, and because I don't want to lie anymore, I am going to tell Jake. As much as I despise the idea of relying on men, I make an exception for him. I've found that I like unloading my problems on somebody else; that I like not always having to carry my own burden. And of course with Jake, there's always the added bonus of being able to unload these troubles and seek advice from the surprisingly comfortable spot of his lap.

So that's where I am now. On the lap of Jacob Night, who is sitting on a battered old lawn chair on the observation deck of his astronomy observatory. The glittering skyline of Manhattan is more of a sight than the few stars that can be seen dotted around the night sky, but I don't care so much. I have come to love the city lights; they remind me of fireflies.

"What are you thinking about, Artemis?" Jake asks me. He is staring off into the distance, his blue eyes half-closed with contented drowsiness and the long, elegant fingers of his right hand playing idly with a curl of my hair.

"Fireflies." I reply. "I'm thinking that the city looks like fireflies."

He laughs, and I feel his warm breath on the back of my neck. "Only the goddess of the hunt would compare Manhattan with anything remotely natural."

 I smile to myself and nestle a little closer to him. Jake is no remarkable physical specimen like some of the mortals and immortals that have tried to court me over the years. In fact, with his thin, wiry build and ghostly skin, I doubt most women would consider him particularly good looking on account of thinking him to be ill. But I think he's beautiful. His fragility and vulnerability, though well hidden under a mask of sharp intellect, make him seem just that bit more precious. Despite the sharp angles of him making leaning against him like sitting on a somewhat rickety chair, I still find it comfortable.