Son of a Hunter

Ch 1

A Goddess cradled a young infant in her arms, holding him close to her body for warmth. She had tears flowing freely down her cheeks as she slowly rocked the little infant. She began to sing a soft song and the baby cooed, reaching up a little hand to her face.

Artemis, the Goddess of the hunt, and an adamant virgin, held the baby. She finished her song and looked around her surroundings. She was in a dense woodland area, her prime territory. The woods seemed to comfort her, at least to her mind. But her heart ached with a pain of a thousand years.

"I'll never be able to tell my huntresses about you, my son." She said.

She heaved her baby so that his face was level with hers. The baby laughed and began to play with her nose. Artemis could not help but smile through her tears.

"I have always vowed to remain a virgin, and I still am. I utterly detest men. But that urge…that urge to have my own child, someone who I may claim as mine, and mine alone…it was just to much. Why did you have to be a boy though? Could you not have been a girl, a girl that could join the hunt? So I may watch over you at all times, without that cursed law that forbids me from otherwise?"

The boy laughed again and drooled slightly. Artemis lowered him and wiped off the drool with the hem of her dress. She then lifted him above and examined him once again. She did not break her oath to remain a virgin. She had made use of one of those mortal places where human sperm was stored. She had not lain with any man. But she had hidden herself for the time she was visibly pregnant, so that her hunters would not notice. She had spent the last few months far from civilization, preparing to give birth alone. It had not been a hard task, but being the Goddess of Childbirth as well as the hunt, it would not have been so.

But when she found her newborn to be a boy, then she was initially disgusted. How could she, who has detested men for thousands of years, give birth to one of them? She was literally about to dispose of the wretched thing. But when she finally took it in her arms and looked into his eyes, her hatred for him melted. She realized that, boy or girl, he was of her own flesh and blood. She simply could not raise the dagger to slit his throat, and crumpled to the ground, crying, with him snuggled into her arms.

She had found a way several days ago, however, to help him. She had come into contact with a matured daughter of Aphrodite. She and her husband, a mortal man who was very fond of the outdoors, were willing to take him in. She had made them promise, however, that he would be brought to camp half-blood, no later than his fifteenth birthday, and she would claim him as hers the moment that she was aware that he was there. She laughed at the way he gurgled and cooed, and gently kissed his belly. He let out a laugh.

She wondered for a moment of what his name should be? She had wanted to give him a proud name, but simply decided to give him one of these mortal names that she had heard all around. She decided to call him Leon. A play on Leo, or "Lion".

"Oh Leon…I don't know how you will fare, but I know that you will be alright. You are the Son of a Hunter. You have my blood in your veins. And I promise that I will be there, watching over you, even if you do not know it. And I promise that I will make myself known to you, eventually. You will never be alone. I swear this on the river Styx."

Thunder boomed it the distance, a confirmation that her promise was understood.

She reached the door of the house, nestled in a clearing, with only a long driveway leading up to it. The lights were on in the main bedroom, but the soon to be guardians had knew that she would come this night. She laid Leon in a blanket on the doormat, and gently stroked his chest one last time. Before she left however, she put a necklace, which had her emblem, a half-moon, around his neck. He looked down, mystified at it, and then glanced back at her.

But by that time, the doorbell was wrung and his mother was gone. The new mother took her adopted child into her arms, and the husband looked over at the baby, already poking him in the nose. They took him into their prepared bedroom for him, and slipped him inside. They took the necklace off him and hung it on a small hook above his crib, noticing that it dimly glowed even in the pitch black.

The mother, Lisa, Daughter of Aphrodite, leaned down. She kissed the drowsy infant gently on the cheek, and then turned to leave with her husband. She looked back and, remembering the name that she heard in her head before the doorbell rang, spoke softly to the child.

"Sleep well, Leon. You have a huntress watching over you," she said. The half-moon on the necklace twinkled…

Artemis rendezvoused with her hunters a day later, after mentally making sure that leon was taken care of. Zoë stood up straight as a board when the Goddess approached, but Artemis laughed off the tension.

"I have not been gone that long Zoë. Did anything happen while I was away?" She asked.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, my lady. If I may ask, what were you doing?"

"Nothing that will affect us in the near future."

"All right, my lady," Zoë replied. She then sat back down by the fire.

Artemis looked back the way she came and breathed in the night air that blew into her face. She thought back to her newborn boy, cradled by trustworthy parents. Then she took to her tent. She had had a long, day…