Artemis turned and scaled a nearby tree to seek a greater vantage point; the forest was vast, and even with her fleet feet, she would not see far enough before the sun set at last. The day was wearing thin. The only defeat more humiliating than an inferior catch would be to face Apollo with no catch at all. If she failed to find anything, he could defeat her with a sparrow.

Knowing him, he was likely counting on that. The thought made her blood boil and spurred her forth with even greater resolve.

She bounced on her bare feet from one branch to the next, her familiarity with the terrain helping her to choose the best paths and maintain her footing and momentum. It was a means of navigation that few could master. She’d passed it on to the beasts that were nearly men, but men themselves seemed not to have a talent for it. Men besides Orion, in any case.

Teaching him the skill had been quite a humorous ordeal, she recalled. The number of his falls had been too great to count, but his semi-divine constitution seemed to keep Thanatos from coming to claim him. He shrugged off cuts and scrapes and bruises and breaks almost as if they were nothing, refusing to surrender.

"You look a fool," Artemis had told him, a rare and subtle smile on her nubile lips as she’d looked down on him from her treetop perch. Prone on the ground and wheezing heavily, the hunter had managed to laugh through the pain.

"Perhaps that is true for the moment," he’d said, "but in time, this foolishness will beget skill, and bards and poets will sing of it as bravery. The two are indistinguishable through the eyes of history, are they not?"

"A fool who succeeds may be remembered as brave. A fool who dies will remain a fool for eternity."

Her statement had only made Orion laugh again. "It will take far more than a fall to kill me."

"You think yourself equal to the invincible gods?"

"Certainly not. But my life and my death are in the hands of the Fates, and they have not been known to exercise their authority lightly. No, I quite trust that they will grant me a death befitting a hunter of my caliber. I should die by the fang of nothing less than the quarry I cannot conquer."

She’d quirked a brow. "What quarry is that?"

"When I’ve found it, you’ll be the first to know.” He’d gotten to his feet and resumed shortly thereafter despite the open wound in the side of his head. Now, she had to be mindful of him when she hunted from on high, for he traversed the branches as well and could collide with her if either was not careful.

-------------------

The slow-moving Apollo had slowed even further, now progressing at barely more than a stroll. He hummed idly to himself as he stepped over roots and twigs, his eyes wandering casually over the landscape. He looked up to the darkening sky and wondered how his sister was faring. "Perhaps by now it has been long enough," he mused, index finger beating against his chin.

He moved his hand up to cover one eye, and through the concealed organ, he saw from the sky. The Eye of Truth he’d released into the air granted him a bird’s eye view of the forest below it, and by his command, it turned its focus this way and that in search of the Olympian huntress.

He found her rather quickly, as he always did, for his eye could never fail to recall the first face it had ever beheld: precious sister, born mere moments ahead of him, yet ready all the same to pull her brother into the world.

Born aware, the pair had held one another close and never wavered in their devotion. Never, that was, until their father had called them at last.

Apollo chased away the weight tugging at his holy heart with a forced smile. He turned the Eye of Truth from Artemis in search of a less familiar figure.

"Don’t worry, sister," he whispered to himself. "I’m going to set you free."