Much like anyone, Artemis was comfortable in stating she didn’t like her blood-family. Due to this fact, she held firm to reasons to tuck away woolly truths, crass and warm to hold in the darkest of nights. Her inconvenient truths were protected clues, thick tufts laid strewn over her Sampo, forming a Golden Fleece. She wrapped herself with the fur, laughing with hysterical tears to accompany a horrific tale of abuse, given by reasons of taxation, religiosity and the predatory-laced access to children. The world was unkind to children, and her coat of skeptic armor was iron clad by her young adulthood. Artemis understood that all the Gods of Olympus were ruthless and cunning, and capable of great evils. The price of innocence came freshly taxed with the steepest of debt.

This notion of maturity prescribed a cynical perspective for the young Indigenous Warrior. Her own abuser was still a free citizen. Artemis learned to watch patiently and say everything and nothing at once, a trick she had learned from silently observing Hera. Artemis began to grin, announcing the capture and Ruby...knowing that the mother of eight had be snipped at her wings, and unable to escape the title of felon for torturing children. Artemis wept, afraid to hear instances that mirrored her own childhood. Little things like boundaries had left Artemis weeping, locked away from the world, forgotten by teachers, parents, and caring aunties and uncles. She now sang the songs advocacy...telling anyone and everyone about the times she had been "disciplined" for the crime of childish song and dance.

Artemis had no reason to lie, nowhere to sprint to for safety...only the nightmares of fleeing down an empty street in evening. A trail of tears and endless pages were all that was needed to remind herself of the bravery she had once pulled out of the depths of her tortured soul. She had left behind the only life she had ever known, abandoned a golden sibling in harms way; knowing Hera had often made remarks denoting something being "off" about Dianne. Women rarely found themselves comfortable around childish women like Dianne or Sydney of Akron, and Hera was already widowed...left doubley unprotected without a Steve to cast guilt-filled tears on behalf of the permanent actions of "silent mischief". The lack of anger in Artemis left Hera seething most days: waking up with the intention to make a teenager cower, strip, starve, or admit the title of liar...all because Hera, herself was widowed, insecure, aging, and above all: A woman trapped in her own financial debt.

The "loving citizen", had attempted to hold Artemis down and brand her as a pathological liar. The lighting of gases had left Artemis paralyzed with fear, unable to articulate the levels of enabling that had occurred to overlook the wrong doings of a child abuser and a child molester. Artemis hid in plain sight, standing in cave an murmuring nonsensical chants..."T, one, three, seven...T, one, three, seven". A list of red flags was all she had to warn the world that Thomas had Hacked the system, and found his own twist in occupation; where he was rewarded for his love boys. Artemis had dove into the belly of Hades...needing to hold the hand of each suffering soul, and to wait for the world to need her once more. She watched as father after father reverted back to their childlike state...recalling details of great violence and self-doubt. Her body ached from shaking with rage...these poor men were trapped in a darkness that consumed every speck of sunlight. She stood up to lead the men...growling in a tone of defiance. "I will make them listen...how dare they rape children and put you all in harms way. You were just children, man. I am so, so sorry that happened to you." She handed a brave man an empty file, and they marched through dark unfilled lives together...until the magic font stating "Perversion Files" appeared before their eyes. She was intent on helping the grown men find solace in a world that had left them behind. Those ripped from childhood in a split second were owed the heaviest of debt.

Her guile need to say "I can do it!" had left Artemis dragging her feet in weary without the slightest regard to the tiredness that caused her bones to ache. One random day her spine snapped, and she began to crawl upon the floor. Artemis would not give Hera a single misgiving of weakness, and knew that her legs had once been strong enough to carry her to safety on a fateful night. She would be plagued by a voice hissing in the back of her mind...telling Artemis she were lying, and to be aware of what the neighbors may think. "Get up", was all Hera would have to say to Artemis...standing over a sleeping youth. "You’re so lazy." The normal serenade for a teen destined for a life of incarceration. The blatant choices to stretch or yawn would mean a day of dehydration and starvation... seen as expected or reliable forms of discipline to repay a non-existent debt.

Artemis was left in cave of despair: holding Hera’s secrets safe until she strong enough to publicly admit guilt, for allowing a strange woman to abuse and neglect her as a child. Artemis stood atop a dormant volcano and told the world all that she had seen and Heard, wondering why women such as Hera and Lori were allowed to wed or have children. She had felt the wrath of Hera grow and formulate into sick “jokes”; crafted around her socioeconomic status as an orphan, a person of color, and her sins in being born to a prostitute. She’d reflect over a weird “joke” for decades, and mull over the reasons as to why an adult would have ongoing disdain for a eleven year old with obvious PTSD and depression. Her mind was left to pay off a disgusting and traumatic debt.

Artemis worked vigorously to expunge her name from the title criminal, but fell short at the hand of substance abuse. The innate choices to drink bottle after bottle...attempting forget the handful of days when time moved slower. The first moments in her childhood where she had wished for time to stop altogether. She had done unspeakable things to her life...all to forget a mans hand beneath the dress of a six year old. Artemis felt cold-hearted for her inability to forgive a wife labeling her a liar...out of pure spite for the things Artemis had never wanted. Nobody cared that a grown man had fondled her, nobody seemed to hear the weird jokes Hera made openly...somehow calling Artemis a whore, or lamenting commentary about a child’s vagina out of the blue. She didn’t have to lie, because the comments still caused a sour taste to coat the roof her mouth. Instead of waiting for an apology from a dead man, or the bare acknowledgement from a vile woman...Artemis walked to her haunted Redwood forest to carve out a canoe, and began to summon Hera with a self-loving song and a "shameless" contest of United dance.

Artemis had only wanted to lessen the burden of truth weighing enormously down upon her injured spine. The silence of surviving had conflated into physical pain, as though her body was screaming for validation in the horrible occurrences of a stolen childhood. She found a young man wallowing is self-pity, an unprotected but loved boy...forced to Kerry all that came from a symbol carved out on a totem representing manhood, honor and valor. Artemis had grabbed his hand and lay out a spindle of trailing blood-soaked tears to scout the injured boy through the dark and depraved. She said aloud: "We have to go get help Lewis...or else they will never quit lying about the risks." Their new structure of "ReSiSt and RePoRt" had brought an entire organization of pedophiles to its knees, and Artemis had wanted to witness them pay out their debt.

She had overheard a hairless leader casually deflecting crimes against children, and laying bricks of excuses that placed alive men to lay dead with the secrets they carried. Artemis could only hope that the army of abused children would follow the actions of one brave man, a boy forever lost to his own mind...a child chained to "minuscule details", left to rot at the hand of those refusing to admit reality...those humming curses to move past the atrocities unspoken. The men scowling over their foundation of a crumbling charity had remained determined to their flippant ideologies, in order to downsize trauma and brush past any and all admittance of guilt. Artemis had wanted to capture their expressions...to watch grown men squirm and smile through endless interviews...in a justified manner where their endless failures to protect the innocent were open for public ridicule. The beat of democratic drum and a hymn of self-forgiveness was all that was needed for her to remind the world of the true horrors provided through diplomatic song and dance.

Artemis had learned from the bravery of countless men, each standing firm in their conviction of the truth...each longing to breath without shame breaking through their voices. All it had taken was one voice, one person...standing up for what was right, and laying down the facts and evidence to pave the way for others. She bowed her head, weary from weeping on behalf of others and understanding the cost of comfortably. The image of such was a mere fictitious image she held in imagination...a person she had yet to meet. She gathered what was left of her life, walking with endless guilt and finally believing that she may need advice from Julie...in order to dissect her trauma and give accountability to those that had mutilated her body and attempted to break her spirit. A timeline of almost a dozen placements, homes that had never been her home...were the only paths to bring detailed attention to reasons as to why Artemis deserved an apology...and punitive damages. She had wanted to be prepared for a battle without end, needing for the world to see her standing before a Jury and show an instance where the perpetrator wasn’t male. Artemis had wanted only the freedom to exist with liberty, in order to pursue happiness and a fair chance at life without the burden of student debt.

Artemis gave gleeful touches to any plant that asked to be seen, and fell in love with herself all over again. Proud that she had been born to the People of the Klamath River, and in admiration of her ability to laugh at her own physical pain. She left the hopelessness of romance along the shore: jumping into her crystal clear opal river once more. Her sorrows had been laid at the bottom of a static river which allowed her titles to fade away: such beauty and splendor could only be found in the quiet of nature. She had almost forgotten about the predicting chances that she had never been alone in the trauma she endured. A single circle of healing storytelling had led her sprinting back to the start...needing only one claim of an unknown survivor: to prove that her claims were inundated with honesty. Why had Hera and her pederast husband temporarily quit doing "the lords work"? Artemis would daydream aboot a life without chronic pain, growing at ease with the idea of arriving at deaths door, and preparing her family for the procedure to follow...if she were ever lost in a coma due to seizure or shock. The girl would spend her life working tirelessly to escape such poverty brought on by age of the Mechanical Boar and the dead-eyed savages. For whatever reason: she was left shouldering all the burden: smiling with intrigue and publicly drowning in debt.

Artemis delighted in the sciences and felt her wickedness grow with the lack of sleep given. Such avoidable madness in a laboratory served endless potential hazards, or accident and she was no exception to the rules. Artemis felt her body ache and somehow knew that she was under faulty or false circadian rhythms. She summoned the ugly-hearted woman in the night: and ordered her to stand at attention at last. She looked down upon her un-fascinating face and asked if she had missed her with a slight lean of her chin. The woman began to raise a hand to her own face, shaking with rage and attempting to reclaim power through the gesture of mockery. Artemis fled the for her life...never looking back, and denouncing the ridicule in depersonalization. "Don’t touch your face, who knows where your disgusting hands have been!" Artemis had lured the hateful woman from behind a shield of false narrative...wanting to return to Hera a pair of haunted metal-spiked gloves. She cursed the woman to scar her own face whenever she spoke ill of those that held the last name Grace: knowing it was her favorite hobby. A compatible marriage had resulted in her hiding behind a last name lined with importance. Artemis was a Brook along the perpetual river of time; providing the stumbling waters to move peacefully along the edges of the Klamath River. Artemis needn’t fight an elderly dead-eyed savage, as the woman seemed be bleeding at the hands already, and so...she let the world bare-witness to her actions as an invisible Jury. Her poems were meant for Mama Bear...to make understanding of a tale of three abandoned sisters. She forgave the widow for her discretion in child abuse: simply to prove that her unleashed joys were unimpaired and without an equal rival whenever she danced.

Hera had once asked Artemis to stop spacing out, and asked where her mind wandered to. The daft accusations she were hollow, and undeserving of free thought. She seemed committed to remain unaware that such a contented girl was a person. She shrugged as Artemis reflected on her circumstances deciding it was more fun to call another persons child "creepy" and "rude". The woman had made a living “raising” other peoples children for them like cattle for the slaughter, thrilled that others failed, and enamored by the idea that others would praise the actions of a guardian. The citizen had used Artemis and Dianne as free child labor to feed her gambling addiction, and often complained about the paid task of fostering children. That’s all Artemis could tell as to who she was. It was apparent that her own children and grandchildren avoided her at all costs, because the woman chose to pick and pick at all those in the direct vicinity to her bullshit narcissistic song and dance.

Artemis had the ability to see the world for all it was, to see the intricate lies, and blurring truths. The story of Hera was simple...much like her. It included the familiar ugliness that follows addiction, and it had left Artemis vulnerable to the anger Hera: the projected abuse saved up...just for her. Hera began to degrade all of Artemis’s academic efforts: leading to a life of muted oppression, where she was left explaining rewards after the fact. Tears often accompanied earned praise...she hated proof that people cared, when her whole childhood was drafted on the foundations that nobody would ever care. Artemis would daydream of a family and children, as she lay waste in a dim hellhole called a double-wide. She was left locked away from the world... needing to fantasize of a future that included herself dancing: center stage as a ballerina, and accompanied by a solo cellists. A standing ovation that demanded her in attendance, chanting for another, and the promise that she was allowed to have her own aspirations. Her body was her own, protected by the witnesses that dared to understand the plight of a discarded orphan. Artemis now only needed this memory of a haunted familiar melody and dimly lit stage...whenever she felt worried that death would find her. She had wanted to splash blood over pages, to illustrate a world where she was free from depression, the scars on her back, lost in a loving performance of bucolic dance.

Artemis dealt with the echoes of her previous captor daily: remembering the woman calling her “utterly useless”, spitting demands for the answer to a question of whether she were stupid. Artemis stared at the skin bubbling under scorching water: unable to answer, unwilling to clean a pan "the right way". The pale woman had a mole that shook with rage whenever she was fixated on Artemis: needing to tell a teenager that she was destined for incarceration, condemned by statistics, colour, and personal ancestry. The smell of boiling flesh was all she could recall from that day. She still had to clean a toilet. Such torture of an unwanted child; had been taxed at the orders and behest of the citizens, and Artemis wrestled with the truths that such scars held. No amount of compensation could undo the self-hatred Artemis harbored on the daily, and so she drew the comparison of respectable damages of her claim to hold the weight of eighty-two thousand children. If only to seek her own day in court as a citizen: to be given the chance to sing a harmonious hymn, and hold spectacle to a life in the darkness...without the right to smile, let alone dance.

Artemis coddled her wounded hands in her worst moods. She had nothing to be sorry for, but Hera would...if she dared to ever lay a hand or single ill-intended word towards those that Artemis loved. The "loving mother" had once openly boasted that she “never wanted you guys” to Dianne: blaming the three daughters for existing as non-blood related relatives under her roof. Artemis had almost missed the window to escape the house of horror, as Dianne had pulled her back...stewing in silence while Artemis explained a few events to a concerned stranger. The lack of verification or elaboration had almost left Artemis petrified in a moment. She had only wanted to leave her abuser as a teenager, and Dianne didn’t want to potentially leave behind a boy she loved. The silence consumed Artemis in the dead of night. The lack of control had been a threat to Dianne, and Artemis was left knowing the abuse would worsen the second the lady left. Her bravery in eventually running away with her life would leave a tragic tale: one where Dianne decided that she was owed a life on behalf of Hera’s emotional debt.

Hera had interjected into a room meant to bring insight and mediation: captivating the woman at work with the blatant lie of adoption, and Artemis had been forced to abandon her older sister that moment forward. Hera often said so herself: "people lie.", and she now had proof that she meant the words "you just wait until tomorrow." What she meant was for Artemis to wait until they were in privacy of her kingdom...to wait until she could lay hand over her. Sharp claws were to be expected: talons jabbing at her, picking and pulling at her youthful face without cause. The scars on her face would never heal properly, but they would shine in the daylight or stretch and tug along her chin and forehead whenever a playful brow would dance.

Hera claimed to nurture children, and even took payment for the things she was too lazy and incompetent to do herself. She couldn’t even get her own children to admit they loved her, and so she forced detained children to recite such lies and make due. Artemis would apologize for having not punched Dianne until she agreed to run away the proper way, (through the front door) but now she had replaced those punches with welcoming hugs and silly dances.

Artemis often vocalized how much better the world would be without Hera in it, and suggested that she probably wore a red hat in the comfort of her double-wide. Life was easier to explain when comparing the vulture of a woman to that of the mythical Karen. Such elders needn’t be slaughtered...since "their legacy" would serve as a trial and tribute to their importance the very second they each died. Hera deserved to die alone, and Artemis had no issue explaining that she looked forward to spitting on her grave. Hera had begun dating randoms and gloating of her femininity. A widow without shame. Evidently the “love” she held for Papa Jim was not the romance of timeless fairy tales, but a task to conquer and swipe left upon... once she was free to trick another man into caring for her. No man deserved such a manipulative debt.

Artemis knew true love, as she had decided momentarily upon meeting Orion: she needed to be brave and stand up each day...if only to remind him that she loved him more than any Western worded poem could express. Artemis would exist on this plane of existence...only because of Orion and his awkward kiss: because he held her long enough to cry and process a past filled with abuse and rape. He was daftly unaware of his ability to humanize her: allowing her to find enough inner strength in peace, as she straightened her crown at last and dawned purple in agreement to their marriage. Artemis would no longer need Hera’s approval: breaking her Stockholm syndrome and charging into battle with her voice restored to its centered and calm tone: gifted with the chance to lead her Peoples in song and dance.

She had set out to see what the world had to offer, seeking reunification in soul, as an orator, a muse and survivor. The fear that others may not believe her poem of engendered lyrical presaging, Artemis had tethered herself to a man famed for exaggerating his youth activism. She had latitude in comparison...no room for missteps, no need to point out the "partisan lynching". She had nothing but time, and a performative stamina to turn away from the derisively opinions of a public...stewing and longing for change. Artemis was Evinced to explore and compare her misdeeds to that of Hunter. A burgeoning question loomed in the minds of citizens, unsure as to why Artemis had chosen an aging contender to join such a serious and political dance.

Artemis would never be safe from Hera as long as she lived, much like the Siren call of a incarcerated Ruby....holdouts of information were a plenty and excuses a many. The demarcation of witness testimony was all that was left of some people...the adults cast into the shell of a child. Many people would never be compelled by the unprovoked ballad of a chorus of children singing One Day More. The children of Ruby could attest that not all children were given the privilege to dance.

Artemis had accidentally set a moron without a filter on a path of manifest destiny. She felt like a pulverized stone, drained dry and mulling over every crevasse or crack in the hardened paths of a destiny without a future. The world could care less about an night imperil woe, and they did not understand, or maybe couldn’t understand how Bernoulli’s Principle had pushed her mind past its limits. Artemis had only wished for a single night of sleep: safe from Hera and her shrill voice. She had stepped away from chair, and hung from a dangling leather belt...needing to forever silence a citizen that had once abused a child; a contrite woman whispering in her ear. Artemis had proven her might with her adamant resistance from calling Hera “mother”: leaving Dianne consumed with confusion by another’s ability to remain unflinching. Artemis left in the middle of the night, armed with only a small bag, the truth, and the need to relinquish herself from a non-existent debt.

Artemis had accidentally summoned Hera...by uncovering a man that had turned the world on its axis by easing its direction to include a misogynistic divide. In doing so, she was cast down into a simulation...staring blankly at Hera, if only to tell her Goodnight: as was expected of all good children. She was ripped away from the memory, recalling a comfortable encounter surrounded by three caring and respectable individuals. The depth of her admiration was much like the center of Copernicus, 93 kilometers long and hollowed out by the destructive hands of the Gods of Olympus themselves. The things they called support, the world had often referred to as debt.

One day she decided to tell her Orion goodnight instead, waddling down a haunted hallway lined with moving doors. Artemis were shameless with her need to gazed at him...even in her awfullest of dreams. He would reach for the doorknob that teased him with what it truly meant to be hopelessly in love. Someone had told Artemis she was damaged, and unworthy of all things afforded to most children. The sickness of victimized propensity allowed for Orion to wander from bed to bed, door to door: living out his fantasy to fuck whoever wanted some of his magic unit. The simulation was meant to prove his need for validation, his capabilities in hiding disdain for the woman he called wifey. He was one of the reasons why her heart screamed in the middle of the night "nobody cares." Artemis was left to suffer in the past, living in unimaginable pain while strapped to metal bars and gazing up at the stars while they remained in half alive...suspended in a dance.

Artemis had been foolish in believing he would ever change, and gave excuse as to why her hunched back meant he’d be allowed to “do whatever”. Artemis no longer needed to lie...finally safe from the child abusing wrath of Hera in the arms of Orion. She now said to the decrepit hag: “I owe you nothing, and I will never ask to see your face again. You hurt children, and lie pathologically and I want nothing to do with you!” The woman would always be found echoing deep withing the occasional spite and hate-filled laughter. The mirroring impact of such foul-natured humor had made it so Artemis were left with a last violent gesture: telling Orion a hedge left on the corner of Avenue 5. Artemis let herself breathe freely, as she cried for her own childhood...knowing how to better gauge for mistreatment and neglect. She would take the life lessons, and reduce them to chapters that would eventully serve as witness testimony cast into the public eye...the pleas for help, and the right to properly settle a debt.

Artemis became comforted by covering her ears, washing away the threatening inner monologue of a tinnitus-like voice. She turned Hera into an albino peacock; to ensure the world knew of her unrest, love of purity, she sat back and watched as death always followed her. Artemis was forever pitiable to the elder, unable to slaughter Hera and rid the world of her spun evils once and for all. Her shyness never left, Artemis was so much more familiar with trauma after running into Kyron’s mom. Artemis had used artistic coping methods as a last ditch effort in escaping a sick world...longing to cast smiles to all those that cried on her behalf, those conflicted by words like "I didn’t know that it wasn’t ok for an adult to lock a child in"...captivating details to only those seeking out an illustrious book that better portrayed her love of story, fluted song and interpretive dance.

Artemis hugged Hera as she wept: thanking her for having unknowingly assisted in finding her friends Ryan, Yoyo, Mama Bear, Roro, and to bid Dianne a proper farewell. Hera winced at the fact Artemis respected Dianne as a person with flaws, but capable of being a good friend that’d she’d gladly die for her. Artemis would always be obligated to be civil to Hera, as Dianne claimed to need her in some way still. They still held weighing opposition as to what was just punishment in the house of Hera. Artemis had only known that the passive blindness had brought darkness into the corners of Dianne’s thoughts, in a way that became mountainous, unspoken guilt in refusing to leave a dangerous situation...if it meant Dianne would have a clear conscious, and nothing to ground her to an uncomfortable debt.

Artemis owed Dianne the benefit of a doubt, and so she left the room at the end of their double-wide...striding with confidence and knowing that there was no going back. Hera’s husband had few words to say as his body decayed before their eyes, his strange smile still haunted a hallway. She reminded Dianne of his love by offering flowers on the anniversary of his passing, and apologized for the death of her dad in a way that she had always wished for. Artemis knew he had cared for the three sisters: their unmatched fury and wickedness was something he admired and grew concerned over, because he had believed that they were better than the women that surrounded them. It had only been Artemis that suffered sexual violence at his hand...as punishment for being aware of his compliment when he called her "perfect", in observation of a unchoreographed child lost in dance.

The loathing of a scorned woman without rhythm or joy had left his lost soul trapped in limbo; weighing the guilt his own actions, and seeing that his “wife” had begun abusing children in her widowed“grief”. Artemis decided to live to honor his life as Veteran and survivor of the Hydra, giving his soul rest as she paid back his kindness with few rewards and ribbons. She could never forgive a person that had never apologized. He had been hurt as a child, and then went on to be a perpetrator. Telling their story meant living in the anxiety of knowing the world didn’t care aboot the Indigenous Warriors in the slightest. Her culture was forever cursed to be swallowed in despair, with no way out of an avalanche of such cascading emotional debt.

Artemis herself had once been punished for “causing a scene” in asking that the congregation boys keep their hands to themselves, and watched in horror as their “leader” expelled excuses for sexual depravity by way of celebrating their adolescent stature. Artemis had done all she could to protect Dianne, but making non-familial member uncomfortable was unforgivable to Hera. Artemis nicknamed the vile woman: Hera Murphy, and sent her off murmuring to herself in the darkness of a static-laid battle field: “Mea Maxima Culpa” was all she could say in a mild manic curse. It was meant to reflect how Hera willingly and knowingly abused children out of opportunity. Hera had obviously believed the children had deserved all that happened to them, and Artemis was left to expose her true identity: needing to bare the threads of childhood barreling over daily thoughts and emotions. Artemis had wanted to return to a time before grown married men complimented her love of dance.

Artemis didn’t need to clarify her abusers name: she wanted to reserve dignity by painting a poem in black and white for the world to ignore and overlook. "Nobody will believe you." words spoken by a housewife, stalled in emotion and maturity. Artemis would smirk with due justice to her own strength, knowing that she had been brave enough to do the things that this woman hadn’t. She had gone into the unknown, seeking help when others were suffering. Artemis was more of man than her husband ever was...because she tied up loose ends by placing accountability where knots lay, those left to intentionally attempt to misdirect her path to success. Even the events thirty years following the establishment of Jamestown couldn’t keep an innocent child silent, unafraid to dance.

Artemis scratched out faces on portraits, and allowed her fellow trolls and intellects alike to do the rest. The world deserved answers as to why horrific things happened to the good people. Artemis only had to hand Hera a red-brimmed hat and crack her neck from side-to-side with determined mischief to collapse an entire kingdom of cheaply produced cards. Her eluded abuser could be found with three words: Waldo, Nemo, and Hera. The wallowing widow had physically abused her, and deserved the judgement of the world. Artemis settled for proving the depth of her depravity with a single prop and two polarizing displays of emotion: an empty cup and two elder sisters. When given to Athena without context on a barricaded stand and told to pee in it, the woman would pull away and sniffle at a trauma laying in the basin-less chalice. When given to Dianne, a shit-eating smirk would emerge; a mole anchored above her mouth would quiver with delight...all accompanying a love of humiliation and Hera-like eyes that would tirelessly dance.

Artemis would rid her soul of the anger that held her captive to the woman that had claimed she’d be forever a burden to those around. Stitching poems with hatred buried at a mortifying darkened depth. She’d wait patiently for death to reap the woman famed abusing children, just as the woman had waited and then stalked her victims...pathetic in her yearning to brag of their accomplishments. The aging woman felt entitled to the belief that they should find a way to repay her for the quantifiable time children had utilized in her prime. A woman that lived to spite all those she had harmed, had made blatant efforts to leave children without bare needs and used silence to discourage any witness that knew any details...audaciously demanding that the world suck her dick, all while the widow would forever revel in their spotlights and taxable “debt”.

Artemis had gone too far back in time, landing upon a spot of soil; undug and without her seal of approval. A woman comfortable with being forever in thirst, had taken back her voice, and spat on a grave...uncut and empty at the moment; a lingering reminder of the fears that stood on the opposite side of death. Her objectivity had sent Artemis back to protect a girl that had once carried an abandoned infant into a shoppe to find nourishment without permission. Instead of stealing money, she attempted to pay with colorful bills and was given the supplies need. Adults had stepped in, and found Athena help...asking for assistance from civil servants, ready to listen and occasionally helpful. There were ways to communicate efficiently, without worry of restraining her future with litigation debt.

Artemis explained that Hera had never faced the last walk of freedom, and had no reason to understand such fear. She could only wish Athena luck in expressing how they had been detained against their will, and fearful of intimidation and retaliation at the paler hand of small plump woman. It was within reason to assume that Athena would be with less words than normal, and possibly more emotions than ever...whenever asked to explain, or elaborate what would occur to "bad children" that opened the door. Everything always got worse when the monsters stood with crossed arms on the other side of a door forever facing west. Artemis had frightened the beasts away...yelling idiotic quotes like "sounds like Bruce!", until Athena went to the proper River. A single kind gesture was all needed to lay a bead upon a moving thread: a token of a forbidden weapon, represented by a distinguished professional and his enthusiastic son. He was armed to the pearl cuffs and better equipped to assist a woman with delayed emotional attachment, and stunted empathy. Such a simple paragraph could spin a story to be liberated of all mortal debt.

Artemis wished: only to be happy, and successful in a multitude of fashions. She took pride the sobering emotion of gratefulness to have a family: even if it were temporarily incomplete. She had survived a life blinded by hopeless romantics...stumbling along though life just long enough to find allies, and now took joy in reuniting her love with his long lost friend: beardy Gilgamesh. She had comfort in the daydream of two men laughing that they were both lost without the other. To be unalone, was to act as a trusted friend’s voice of reason, or "hype man". Artemis had a talented friend Yoyo, level headed and forever complimenting her choice in fine linens while accompanying a slew of intoxicated athletes...women confidently wearing business attire, in contemporary spaces dedicated to mistakes, laughter and flirtatious dance.

Artemis didn’t need Hera to remove her cursed veil of sadness: since her friends had done it for her. Things like setting limits of substances being only smoked after hours and a massive glass bottle of fermented tea could carve out its one legacy. Defamation of the title burnout, or fuckup at the hand of Hera...could only rise to the conjecture of ill-will towards an equivocal stranger. The true snarls of a person speaking callously of the dead would probably suffice in breaking an impenetrable wall of indifference. Artemis had only needed to stir the pot a little bit: by the aiding hand of professionals...defending a lost soul, and ready to rear the anger of the tax payers, being conned with only half of a story. The telling of Hera and her life, and the accounts of those actions didn’t extend the thread both ways. Her shadow was forever the presence on the other side of a door...refusing to let already traumatized children to wander out into the warm sunshine, or to bask in the playful rains, stomping around in the frigid weathers in order to chaotically dance.

Artemis had only wanted to prove her personhood, and ended up loving a handful of people instead. Her life was awesome, and it was due to the efforts of surrounding herself with those that trusted that particular judgement. Artemis laid down her broken bow at last, and permenantly denied her continual assurances that unlucky genetics had caused her to born with sociopathy. It hadn’t been all in her head: wondering why Hera grew bored so easily whenever Artemis and past in sexual violence had been a topic of discussion. The agitaiton of repetition in sorrowful concern from others, would only cast an untrustworthy ruby glow about Hera: because she couldn’t see past the fact that it had happened to Artemis, and remained graciously self-blinded to her verision of "logic" when everyone around them was so deeply uncomfortable when discussing a trail surrounding the violent rape of an infant. Artemis had cut off a red thread, exposing the barren stale frame of Hera’s brand of nurture. There would be a need to break away for sidebars, or gather complex evidence in body language and harsh intones. Mamma Bear pobably needed a nap, and Athena needed her lithium: given by a sharp-suited gaurdian angel of person named Chris. She was the professional mother figure Athena half-heartedly aspired to be. Cutting the bullshit was the least of Hera’s worries, and Artemis wanted to prove the woman was holding mud, and claiming that everything Artemis touched turned to whit. The song of a deadly Siren could only be stopped when left to be confronted with purjury and the threat of imprisonment for wasting a Judge and Jurys fucking time. Artemis made sure to blow an aegyo-laced kiss to all those ready to snarl in direction at a woman, a "doating mother" famed for fabrications and ability to manifest debt.

Artemis took no pride in the victimization that came from being raped as an infant: The world was unjust, and sometimes proved to be a dangerous playground for any citizen...cursed with lugging around a magical baby-making machine. Artemis often stared at her belly, hoping her children would understand the neverending flow of tears. She had once been brave. Answering with the bare truth to stranger when they asked "Are you ok?". Artemis had said only the word "no.", and life had changed for the better. Her emmiciated body did the rest of the talking. Artemis hushed the voice of Hera in her mind as she sleepily informed the War Council she presided over: that a Lyon had been spared for the kindness he had shown Artemis in the past. She owed the standup individual no explanation, but emotionally owed him a great debt.

So many things were expended at the costs to keep Artemis safe, to afford her the rights of a person. It had taken so much of her to admit that maybe things would be ok, or that doing the right thing could be rewarded. Artemis felt so unsure of her worth, due to the facts that her childhood had been paged by living day by day. Attempting to avoid the unknowns of tomorrow by robbing herself of sleep and earned rest. She wondered if anything would end her suffering, or make her worthy of love: forever the orphan guilted by their own existence, unsure of how to rightfully settle such a traumatic debt.

Artemis had given her niece the broken bow she had kept beside her since childhood...a true token to their heritage. She had sent a spark into the darkess as a flare, and protected forgotten children without reward or aid. There were no answers to change the past within a single wrong decision, but a Golden bow and endless arrows could easily tip the Scales of Justice. She had spent a life laying down fabric for Mama Bear to swaddle a silly auntie with in the most hopeless of times...a carpeted poem to carry a slain Princess into a stone room without introduction. She had admired a long bow, turning it over gently in her stiffening hands and shooting an arrow in the direction of a passing star. Her bow was without limits in magic arrows, but it was her responsibilty to say "you’ve done enough." Much like Artemis, the prized bow was delicate, inspirational in its usefulness. She said finally to a hanging Jury: “I am no more wicked...than I am loved, and for that balance: I am free.” Artemis would no longer apologize for existing, no longer waste fending off the hisses of Hera’s impact. Artemis looked forward to generous and unpredictible company, as she danced and called each day the best: an anomalous orphan smiling without contention. Artemis was gaurded with friends that knew discomfort for her often meant something was wrong. A severe understanding of morals given to a child slave no longer dragged her down. She was free from the clasps of Hera’s talons...able to articulate how a woman broke labor laws, and "employed" children with less rights than those found tucked beneath the wings of a conservatorship. Artemis was relinquished from the expecations of a citizens that physically, and emotionally harmed children. Free to bite into the fruit of knowledge, and accept her own trauma and label it as earned and understood emotional debt.

Next Chapter: [ XXVII ] Artemis and Hucks