Artemis often forgot where her duties when it came to boundaries--she’d forget to take off her lab coat at home routinely, left self-care on a shelf to collect dust...all whilst dusting others off. Lifetimes ago--she had been nothing more than a feral child: exiled from society for the protection of the public. From criminal--to government-funded scientist...she had given the world every part of her; achieved the impossible, and it had never been enough...a Nation built on insatiable desires, so a flaming piece of gossip hadn’t been as conflicting as "blowing Bubba" had been corrected to the fact of family beast...to offset the assumptions of a sex-crazed Donald: offering dome to a predecessor named Bill--the lesser of evils when taking superficial tally of one mans actions.

Hooves of fury had set crops and a season of political victory ablaze--with the lone gesture of a Mechanical Boar on his knees. The news had set the land aflame--Artemis was seen in the near background, sitting on a fence and retreating to the facts; hands guarding her from the worlds tireless flames. A man had been turned into a scarecrow candidate, Boarish--armored by excuses and idiots. Nothing was ever enough, no amount of disrespect could disarm a man with floating cognitive spells--the citizens had humored an elderly man, wandering onto roof tops and slathering gold painted to announce familiar places and spaces. It was somehow Artemis’s fault; women were to blame for the faults of a stranger, sickened by the silent moments of meandering accountability, for a world that spun on gluttonous pride...everyone seemed too eager to offer offices and titles to pedophiles and pedophile protectors. The fires of Justice had offered a burning season; introduced by a handful of earth-quaking news drops. She had retreated, chipping away at life while men burned the world to the ground; tending to manual labor, underpaid and over-extended...her two educational degrees...deemed to be trophies of self-efficacy, papers meant to coddle an ego and humble years of effort and scholastic action.

Being an Indigenous Warrior Princess--had similar expectations; guiding elders to their canoes to float off to sea with their significant other. The horizon awaited greener pastures for the elders that stepped to the shores of reality; realizing the frustration of their concerned families--yammering through blurred vision; something, something, cult. The role of opposition in a story hadn’t seemed within context--had the reader walked up and witnessed Artemis yelling at a cowering elder; offering the same glares of concern as a nurse, helping elders lift legs into high-set chariots...she was annoyed by the lack-of-gratitude for time, or the unpreparedness when rolling up to pick up a passenger port-side; specifically with limited mobility. Life seemed easier; when hearing the stories of travel and walking back and forth had been a detail worth taking pride in--an occupation meaningful in world defined by meaningless laws and led by criminals; those that had already laid in bed with a crazed dictator...brushing distraction and dull excuses over a single seed of truth...a story about a timeless friendship between two men; one named Trump, and the other named Epstein--the compromising information stood on its own; sprouting a tale of intrigue, coverups, and a basin-less vessel of wildly-specific context to a very long and troublesome attempt for Artemis to shake the citizens awake; her voice stressed from crying...winged eyes smudged and hair in disarray--a story of star-traveling leader had been born from strangers and their claims of affiliation to harbors such chaotic and questionable political action.

Artemis wandered across the land each day--to ask for help getting a handle of straying elderly beasts...by keeping an elderly man awake with a stupid story and watching as passing neighbors herded themselves into prison or off cliffs in droves. The past-life versions of themselves had once pegged Artemis as witch, a deliverer of death--when a language barrier had been built to separate facts from reality. She had yelled in Yurok; "that ledge crumbled last time someone walked such a path"...pale settlers with square-buckled moccasins had taken the warning as a threat; offering rainstorms of fire and allowing their elders to fall backwards in the scuffle...falling into their fate feet-first; the savage that had startled men with the truth had deserved death, no doubt. A loop of reoccurring witnessing and observing had offered the speeds of time to quicken--Bosons, a particle of stress accelerated by a modification to the fibers of time had netted a story worth telling--considering words had already been committed to the public for half a decade standing; doing their best to destroy the future for the next generation with their uneducated, racially motivated discomfort to a world swirling with diversity--the air became humid; weighed down by arrogance and endless apologies...forgiveness was needed sooner rather than later, to lessen the amount of time for a blade to fall heavily onto one’s chest. The comedic relief of timing seemed less scary when added to an audience afraid of the next steps to life; to the idea of a royal character bracing to hold up the weight of an elder--asking for help when a small stature meant nothing to the desires to be helpful in situations where size mattered. Reality offered more entertainment than floating pages of news; demonstrating the depth of depravity buried beneath a house painted white...too many storelines of nonsense without resolve; kept a balance to the thoughts of might needed to grip an elder and heave them upon a seat--an accomplishment that relied on each counting moment and no room for self-doubt to step in and use gravity to object.

She lived in two worlds--one, where elders remained jealous of the world turning in their favor, and the other--filled with elders that felt the need to pick her apart...to interrupt polite chatter and boast "I just needed to say...your English is amazing!". The silence of disruption came with a heavy cloak of discomfort...Artemis often let sharp words linger in the air; to point out the unnecessary folds--of a bed dirtied by things she hadn’t consented to. She had survived a childhood filled with violence--paid the piper of death, and remained curious, as to what compelled strangers to hoist their expectations upon a stranger with such confidence...concerned as to why the scales of Justice rarely sunk in her favor. She was consistent in caring gestures; aiding elders traveling solo from Port to Port--waiting for the homies to cut the shit, or at least pretend to care. Only one had asked for an attendee of pale skin and the world had stopped for a moment; forever painted by the ugliness of the compiled awful things that had cultured such a specific moment. The world had stood still; watching as their geriatric shoe dropped...time-after-time. It seemed rude to add insult to the injuries acquired whilst a home for retirement stood upon the horizon--to point out the state of need implemented by a Western culture...eager to dispose of all things inconvenient, unsightly and not-worth understanding...if it meant following up such family obligations with deserving action.

One foot remained in a circle of ceremony; stitching glass beads to stiff leather--half-way excited as to where or who her ending character would be when walking down a wedding aisle...hoping a husband would like her at the bare least. A Traditional title; meant her ovaries were expected to pull heavy barter and extra dowry (cattle, hides, labor) when and if, that particular bridge were ever to be crossed--she would have to compromise emotions from the exposed facts of a eugenics program and sparing thoughts; those programmed into her mind by elders conceptualizing the data and debating her worth in carrying a family clan name. These types of Traditional concepts were outdated and Artemis hated them, often pouting and falling into aggressive impatience--this conversation as to her blood and heir had began early on into childhood; the name of a Brook line held a heavier title than most Indigenous Warriors. The coastline holding crest and signal had been a place of true unrest; history lamented to scarring virgin soils...time altered by handfuls of stories panning outward and then eventually inward--meant data held the secrets whispered in caves of silence; the world couldn’t deny or override the darkened lines of moral decay pressing past pages--she could easily pin-point faces to names-to event-to recent events; painting elderly criminals in ruffled collars and capris--to build a story where horrific implications built up a witness sitting in the discomfort of massacre and slaughter. It was all due to these vast cultural extremities and social pressures--that Artemis stood anxiously as a statue...still single: left in limbo, and too bored to object.

When it came to general public knowledge of cultural practices--Artemis knew that the dead-eyed savages were often too lazy to prioritize the study of their own culture...let alone hers, and so she fell wiser than to ever expect anything from them after a very short period of time. Artemis had once attempted to explain her sadness to such antiquated procreation duties as a an Indigenous Warrior Princess to the Viking. After observing his lack-of-empathy on the subject, she was reminded that he hailed from a "culture" that thrived on entitlement and imposing one’s self on anyone and everyone. Not only was he a dead-eyed--grey-haired savage, but his heart seemed to make Artemis fall ill with grief and homesickness somehow; she’d sigh and recall that they stood forever worlds apart--where she was left asking questions and addressing concerns, and he was gifted the rights and opportunity...to do whatever the fuck he wanted to do. Her words deemed--shrill, sin-filled and unforgivable in comparison to the whole of his accumulated action.

She felt him negging--wanting to change the subject and to dig up the root of her discomfort; to get it over with--if it made his day easier to digest. Artemis sensed he had bought front row tickets to her downfall, and told him of her experiences as a youth--life dispelled by the death of her only best friend growing up; plucking away at a lighter string upon her already broken heart. His name was Buckles and he was the sole reason Artemis still managed to smile everyday--she had lost one of the only people that had consistently believed there was a higher purpose for survived suffering. Buckles had expected Artemis to rise above it all, and asked to stand at her side...to protect her from the world from time-to-time, to pave a future where Indigenous Warriors were public figures; protectors of the citizens--making moves and leaving little-to-no-room for soured elders to object.

He had taken to wooden courts, and Artemis had cheered him on--they were forever teenagers, wanting the best for the other. Buckles died shortly after reaching adulthood--murdered in his sleep by some loser named Curtis, stabbed to death on his own Reservation. Artemis told the Viking, how Buckles had been on his farewell home visit--before he was to be deployed to the battlefront on the oiled deserts across the sea. It was this devastating loss that held Artemis hostage each year, as she continued to fight the self-loathing darkness that had followed her from Hades...past dreams and nightmares; weaving a story meant to encourage an audience of one. It was this moment of breakage that would derail a student athlete...to move her life onto a direct path filled with violence and self-destruction, for a duration that would seem like forever. It was a sadness that lingered into strange moments; comparing who she was in that moment--to the memory of a woman fleeing through a short hallway; into the arms of authorities and directing them to an abusive man--his venomous words no longer harmful; his massive fists no longer able to silence her words...the truth had set her free and offered a life of peace; where no man...let alone a violent one could take offense to her actions.

Life didn’t seem so bad--for many moons to follow...but the conversations between two friends on a bench would mean more than any gold. It had made life easier when having to retire an athletic robe--no injury or loss had led to the random day...that she found herself standing in the middle of a wooden court: astonishingly single--worried she had wasted life away playing a game...when everyone around her seemed to be busy building lives and being happy. Artemis lived in a paralyzing situation--where science and athletics were often two separate entities of her life, and they held such a different dichotomy in personalities: holding up either masks became exhausting after long periods of time. It would appear: this was a grave she had managed to dig herself--with her choice in profession and sports consuming an entire youth...the facts alone supported her bachelorette status and left little room to argue or object.

A pretense: growing up...Artemis and Buckles were a mere pair to a trio. The most earnest was the third to the squad--a soft-spoken fellow Indigenous Warrior known simply as...AJ. He was gentle and kind--notorious for his sincerity, and surrounding himself with female friends as companions: his sexuality was without title. Soft female facial features and clean-cut linens; meant AJ was assumed to be born with two-spirits. In the Indigenous Warrior culture; Artemis had been raised to understand the keen difference between the genetic build-up of male and female structure, and the emotional and psychological aspects to sexuality. Some people were born dawning colorful wings; steady-footed and holding a forlorn for flight...the beauty of spanning wings and bold smiles left the world with little room to object.

Artemis had known plenty of people wrestling with two-spirits; confined by an invisible personality trying to express dominance, portrayed through hyper-masculinity or hyper-flamboyant demeanor--the feathers plucked when forcing oneself back into a dark and empty closet. It were as though it could be seen as a cup, which is overflowing with doubling energy-- alternating between which qualities it brought to the surface. As a late teen, Artemis had found out that AJ had been murdered at a drunken house event on the Reservation: the culprits were none other than the dead-eyed savages that had visited the sovereign lands for the night...empty-handed, minus an ulterior motive...to inflict harm on a single man with their violent actions.

This night hosted an event; easily forgotten for its unanswered questions--a case turned cold for decades; destroying Buckles in the process. It wouldn’t take long--for Artemis to lose control of the situation; to grapple with another’s grief...she was left alone to the task of helping Buckles as he helplessly drown in sorrow. Nothing could have prepared either of them for what they were to learn next. Following the funeral services and criminal investigation: it was discovered that AJ had been sexually assaulted on the night of his murder, and that the assault had occurred to his body postmortem: his violated corpse left on the floor for hours. The gruesome imagery of the event: was all that Artemis knew of the dead-eyed savages and their dubious culture. There was no underlying line of accountability to tread over; no gleaning Justice to be offered for unprecedented circumstances...there was only man, and his actions.

“Why would anyone do such a thing?”: the questions remained unanswered--Artemis left affirming the data provided...rolling a giant white parchment and peering over its ink: these invaders were barbaric in every way, and never to be trusted. Necrophilia was crime in most place around the world, and yet these homophobes had used it knowingly...to prove their “straightness”. It would be years of drinking their anger away, for both Artemis and Buckles: before they both somehow landed back on their feet together. She was now a scientist, and he a soldier. The story of AJ held both Artemis and Buckles hostage for far too long, due-diligence remained forever out of reach. The loss of the two men...would eventually devastate an entire community: leaving Artemis to sway in madness--limbs lost, hope sullen...barely standing and unable to take care of herself in any capacity. Artemis was now alone, as the Indigenous Warriors left their posts without Buckles to direct them--they had no reason to serve in a military confined to the titles "suckers and losers" when life had already been so daunting...an accused pedophile and convicted rapist leading the charge--bone spurs be damned; elicited a reasonable hesitation from a war-driven community. They had taken a stance...to refrain from enlisting, if it meant slowing down or heavily critiquing a world leaders actions.

It would take her traveling overseas: before Artemis could comprehend that it hadn’t been the presence of a subset of people--that crippled her with fear, that triggered her agoraphobia...it had been the fact of waking up in den of monsters and beasts; and then hearing neighbors casually reference them as trash, pale and uneducated. These turkey-eating barbarians often made sport: of bending a law to suit the crime, or will of coverup to accommodate comfort over anything, over all else. The sovereign laws didn’t pertain to these dead-eyed savages, as they were not obligated to report their genome in a registry database: they often used that fact to their advantage--to defile the land and its People. Brutally raping: anything, and everything as they pleased....spilling their sperm without caution, permitting reckless abandon, and building the word orphan to hide their mistakes. Artemis had been a product of such culture-clashing "mistakes", her father pale and selfish...lazily wandering through the world without a care as to his offspring--tossing an infant from a soggy cliffside, pretending to take interest when Artemis stood tall upon the ascent...holding her own and finding faith in God and people despite an absent fathers actions.

Artemis wasn’t egotistical in terms of needing to fulfill her royal duties firsthand, and had even tried to donate her priceless eggs at some point in young adulthood...what if someone in need, could make something beautiful in the world with a gift she’d been given? She felt awful: being stingy with her body when there were legitimate couples, straight and two-spirited alike: longing for their own children and unable to conceive. Now that science had caught up to Artemis, contributions to sciences spanned further and wider than ever--providing more ways than one to preserve the genome of a forgotten Princess. The elders grew bitter with resentment: knowing they were of no importance to her choice on marriage, they no longer held the captured title of respected...their harsh words no longer impacted her independent actions.

These elders, were the exact same ones that had opened Pandora’s Box in the first place...having assimilated their children instead of running for their lives and seeking asylum elsewhere...they had wanted to avoid the admission of defeat in ink. Artemis knew her elders were sick, as many argued with her to let things go on the regular--pulling away at leathers when her attitude didn’t glow for their approval. The basis of her anger stemmed in deeply-rooted trauma, as a rape survivor--that went on to be fetishized for surviving Genocide, compounded by the fact her elders were equally as nuts as everyone else’s. Her story always brought looks of disgust--since it had been a dead-eyed savage who had once penetrated her without consent, and Artemis had been unarmed and only one and a half years old. She had built a game to trap them in her memories; wanting to make an elderly Mechanical Boar squirm with delight, to crown himself king when given full-access to the world. The audience was cornered in a room with a beast; blurs and sounds offering a prison called sleep--unable to flee, unable to cry out for help...unable to articulate the depth of evil needed for demons like Watkins to roam the land--the death such evil, gave birth to her strength--a desire to overcome the less-desirable parts of a childhood plagued by sadistic actions.

Society had done its fair share of doubling-down on her shame; her childhood painted with guilt and neon and navy colors...an era of blaming children for faults by strangers--had dropped Artemis off at the door of a blemished judge; named for being Sweet, and offering sweetheart deals to anyone that played by his rules. In a time where it was normal to ask a victim to rape what she’d been wearing at the moment of the encounter--Artemis cleared a throat and offered up a robe to be entered into evidence; scanning for reactions whenever informing the immature world that she had been wearing a onesie with buttons in crotch…an obvious sign and indicator that she had been asking for sex since day one. The world would twist and turn in its discomfort to the truths of her life--she’d be remiss to deny the amount of relief that came when knowing the worst parts of her life had been placed in pages so far gone, circled upon with healed eyes. Artemis had no reason to be chained to the shame-filled misdeeds of some sick fucks actions.

To Artemis...the path paved by her story was one worth admiring, but hers as a person, herself; not quite earning admiration considering how many people and animals had been punished for standing in her way. To be born on a direct path--told to lean into a place on a eugenics program, because that’s all that was left...wasn’t enough for her care. What if she didn’t want children? What if she were to get hurt upon their delivery into a hate-filled world? What would it be like to fail and lose all footing in reality? To be a single parent or to settle down, albeit with Orion or the next Indigenous Warrior to wander along. All of it seemed difficult to untangle when surrounded by men lacking in charm and integrity. She had wanted to be loved, to sense that all of it had been for something bigger--to garner the might of the ocean and offer the world a child worth caring about...when she’d never been truly cared for...to start over if it meant her heart a little less. There were so many things that couldn’t be undone at hands of others--Artemis felt useless, unable to pay off bottomless loans and afford food; let alone splurge on the athletic membership needed to boost her confidence. All that could be felt was unsuredness, bound tight around a list of names--a list of Jeffery’s friends and confidants, the present came early winter....as the silver thread to a timeline riddled with underhanded corruption and partiality.

Next Chapter: *[ XVII ] Artemis and the Siren*