The Lakes ⭒ Druig

6 : QUEEN OF THE FOREST

Dacia, 129 AD

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     The forest breathed with her, leaves and lungs inhaling and exhaling in synchronisation. It had been that way for five decades now, the blood in her veins and the sap in the trees one and the same. Her bones were stronger than the roots in the ground, teeth sharper than the surrogate wolves for eleven Eternals.

     Fifty years could pass in the blink of an eye for someone like Art, one loud beat of her heart. But these years had been long for her, stretching like the lake that threaded through the untamed forest she'd found shelter in after leaving Pompeii and two lovers buried with golden leaves and periwinkle flowers under a blanket of volcanic ash.

     She didn't cry anymore but the wolves did, howling long into the night as they hunted beside Artemis. Howling for their Queen of the Forest who'd been lost and found for half a century. There was a small blessing in being both lost and found—no dreams and no gold glitches of any kind.

     Nothing touched her now, except soft fur and the moonlight and the cool water of the lake she floated in each afternoon. She had both freedom and tranquillity away from the world and humanity and her immortal family. And here within the groaning and growing forest of Dacia, Artemis was a wild thing—queen and mother alike in a wild playground.

     Her hand dropped away from the rough bark of a towering tree, head tilted ever so slightly at the sound carrying through the labyrinth of trees. Something was in the forest, in her forest.

     No, that wasn't quite right. The was a shuffle of leaves, new footprints pressed into the soil coming from two different directions. One was closer though and was approaching calmly.

     A wet nose nudged at her palm, licking at her fingers. Artemis brushed the muzzle of one of her wolves, the largest of the pack of silver-backed wolves that had followed her under the watchful moon.

     "I know," she told the wolf quietly. "I hear them both, too." There wasn't one something trespassing in her forest, but two somethings.

     The light was fading as the sun sank away, sank below the fence of the forest and the surface of the lake off in the distance where it waited for its queen to bathe, skin washed cleaned in freshwater and long hair silken and straying. All as the moon rose to its nightly perch, always Artemis's constant chaperon and keeper.

     The other wolves were stalking and gathering around Artemis, hackles raised and lips snarling as one of the somethings stepped out of the deepening shadows, frail afternoon light bending around straight, nonchalant shoulders.

     Across her own shoulders was a cloak of thick fur, always soft under her chin. Underneath that, the huntress wore a threadbare woollen gown with colourful and proud Dacian needlework of flowers, all vibrant reds and blues and greens. Atop her head was a diadem of twisted twigs ornamented with freshwater pearls and wildflowers.

     One of her wolves growled as he strolled out of the depths of the forest coolly, hands cupped in front of him, a small smile playing on his lips.

     Art lifted her chin regally, always the Queen of the Forest with her courtly wolves at her sides, eyes already glowing in the falling dusk. And she was utterly gorgeous, crown resting effortlessly on her spill of dark hair and a smudge of dirt on the bow of one cheek, clocked in animal fur just like one of her wolven warriors.

     "Druig," she greeted him, offering no sweetness or hospitality. "You shouldn't be here."

     "It's been a long time," he announced. He was mindful to keep some distance between them, cautiously observing Artemis and her brethren.