The Hunter and the Huntress by EagleFeathersInMyHair

He was the Hunter

In Which the Author Types at You, and you attempt to read before getting fed up and just skipping it altogether:

This just seemed too perfect. For you mytho-geeks, you probably have heard of Artemis being depicted with a bow and arrow. She was later identified with the moon through the form of Selene, a goddess usually shown with the crescent moon upon her brow. She was also later identified with Diana the Archer.

There are many forms of the story of Orion, so if I say something you think is sketchy, chances are that I really did find it somewhere. This will be the account that I first heard, waaaaay back in the day, which was a Wednesday, by the way. (Cookies for anyone that gets the reference!) Though I will be taking a couple of liberties, main events are the same.

I don’t own this. So don’t hate on me in the form of a law suit.

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Always I have been the Hunter. My deeds are great, my travels far. I have seen and done things that no weaker man can ever lay claim to.

I go by many names. To some I am only my conquests, earning me the name of Killing Perfection. Always, first and foremost, I am the Hunter.

My father is the great god Poseidon, brother of Zeus. My mother is the woman Euryale, daughter to the king Minos of Crete. Though only half a god, I have received immense power from my father. These powers have never failed me, though they have led me into difficulty.

One instance stands out in my memory, never leaving me as the years drag on.

A man, a half god, such as myself is prone to becoming weary of the more mundane processes of the world. I have had many adventures and to return to the dull hum of everyday life can only be described as a bore. With this boredom in my heart, I set off on foot, across the ocean. This, being my father’s domain, has never been anything less than solid to me, solid as the rockiest road, whereas to many, it is a liquid illusion, not quite fantasy and not quite solid. A great power is traversing the ocean on foot, and it was my frivolous use of this strength that brought such inconvenience down upon me.

For a long while I strode across the Aegean, named for the father of Theseus who drowned himself in that very body of water. I came upon a small island that I now know of as Chios, though then it was only to be a brief amusement in an ever-moving world.

I didn’t know that my deeds there would lead to me being hailed as a hero, only to be shunned by the very same people that worshipped me a short time later.

Coming upon this small bit of land, tossed carelessly into the Aegean by the immortal gods themselves, I found that it could provide me a respite from the tedious doings of my birthplace, Hyria of Boeotia. This land was filled with most fearsome of monsters. They had the teeth of those that rend flesh to stay alive; the claws of those that hunt and are not hunted; the armor of those that need it, determined to attack with no thought to defense.

But I was the Hunter.

And I would be victorious.

My strength never failed me, my thrusts struck true. Many beasts were felled by my blade, never to rise again into the world of the living. I fought them all. I effectively extinguished the lives of all the beasts that stood against me, until there were none. I was surrounded by nothing but the splatter of blood and the echoes of their primal screams of agony.

None of this I did for those people. I fought only for myself, for my entertainment. They called me a hero. They called me a savior. They called me a godsend, unaware of just how close they came to the truth.

They are the people of Chios, the ones who believed I destroyed the beasts of their land to save their insignificant lives. Those people that believed I had heard rumor of their plight and come to save them from the beasts that ruined their villages and decimated their crops. They were completely wrong, though I did not point this out to them when they began their shouts of worship and preparations for a feast, to be held in my honor. I did not tell them this because even a hero has to eat.

The people made merry that night in my name. I was their excuse to revel in the ways of Dionysus, with much wine and laughter. I did not begrudge them their happiness, instead taking full advantage of all they were willing to offer. If I were to be completely honest with myself and others, I would reveal that perhaps I envied them. I envied them their small lives, the way they were content with their short and uneventful existence. Regardless, I took what they gave in exchange for what I saw as nothing.

That is, until they offered her.

She was the daughter of Chios’ king, Oenopion. Her name was Merope and she was to be given to me as a wife, a payment of sorts for the assistance I had given.

No one asked if I wanted a wife. If they had, I would have told them that no, I do not want a wife, but could you please pass the wine?

I still remember the great uproar that came with my refusal to wed this plain and meaningless girl. I did not tell the king that she meant little in the grand scheme of things. I did not tell him, her respected father, that she would be nothing but a hindrance, an unwanted burden to my wandering lifestyle. I was free, unfettered, and to have this woman attached to my name would be another obligation, another duty, another that I was expected to provide for at the cost of my honor.

“You, great Hunter, have done us a service. For this, I must thank you. I give you my daughter for your wife, and I will be proud to call you my son,” that buffoon of a king had told me, a witless grin stretching across his time-worn face. He assumed too much, and it grated on my nerves. And all who knew me were aware of the fact that my nerves did not stretch far on the greatest of days.

“What if I do not want your daughter?” A collective gasp from the crowd met my inquiry. “What if I do not desire, much less require, a wife? What if I already have a wife at home to meet me at the end of my travels?” I wished only to show him the error in his assumptions. He thought he was more than he was, which was in fact only a minor king on a minor island, far away from the more powerful land of my birth.

Or so I thought. Oenopion was not the only one to make assumptions that night.

By the end of my rhetorical questioning, a shocked hush had fallen over the gathered people of Chios. None dared move or breathe in the face of what they expected to be their king’s rage. I had denied his daughter, an action that could easily be considered an insult. I did not necessarily mean it in such a way, but I also did not make a point to dispel any doubts about its intended meaning. This was a great folly on my part.

To his credit, Oenopion did not give the reaction his people dreaded. He comported himself with the dignity of a higher official, giving diplomacy in front of those he ruled and dealing out punishment in private.

This prideful king accepted my denial in good spirits, letting his people feel humbled by their kind and merciful ruler. The crowd gradually dissipated, moving off to continue in their revelry through the night. I was offered shelter in the home of Oenopion and accepted, slightly relieved to find that no ill will was put my way. Not that he mattered, really, in my thoughts at that time. It was more that I could leave this place well-rested and in what could pass for high humor on the morrow.

Leaving my feast early, I prepared to retire. Oenopion followed on the premise of seeing me safely to my room for I was an honored guest. Upon reaching my chamber, he allowed his anger to reveal itself. He told me that he was the son of the god Dionysus and held great power. He was insulted by my self-righteous manner and believed I had scorned his daughter while showing no reservations about taking his food and wine. He vowed revenge, but told me nothing else. I responded that I intended to leave his island immediately and not give him a chance. I found his response to this acceptable – he told me that he would take no action against me, for this was a night of honor for me. I held him at his word and trusted him as a guest-friend.

He told me no lie. He did not indulge in his revenge that night. But his father did.

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I slept well in the home of my enemy. I woke early, planning to leave at the first light of dawn. I expected the sunlight to pour through my window and filter through my eyelids as it had always done, signaling my preferred time of waking. I waited and waited for this to happen, for I awoke in the darkness thinking that I was simply a bit early.

Dawn never came for me. I opened my eyes and there was nothing. Nothing but an endless blackness, waiting to swallow me whole and leave me but a whisper in time, to be forgotten by the world. Then I would truly cease to exist.

Forcing myself to heed the more rational part of my mind, I came to the only conclusion: I was blind.

It was with this admission that the memories returned. There were the blurred forms of dancing satyrs, companions to Dionysus. They played their pipes and lulled me to sleep. Just as I reached my deepest slumber, there was a great flash of light, and then… nothing. My vision gone, I fell back into the cradling arms of darkness.

And now there I was, an enemy in a foreign land with no vision to see my way home. I was a hunter blinded, now rendered completely useless. With a stroke of horror, I pictured the milky color that my eyes must have been.

I had no choice but to leave, for it was then that Oenopion himself came to my chamber to rouse me. He forced me out, telling me all the while that I would find no help in his people.

I stumbled for what I assume was many days, drinking only when I tripped into a source of water. I lost track of time, unable to use the sun as a guide. Looking back, my thought that luck had preserved me was laughable. Never would I have survived without the help of divine intervention.

Though I did not know it then, I had made my way to Lemnos. Lemnos, the place of the forge of smith-god Hephaestus, was to also be the place of my rescue.

Never would I have thought to meet the god Hephaestus himself, son of Zeus and Hera. Though lamed by a fall from Olympus into the sea, he is smith to the gods and holds great power. I came upon his forge one day with no intentions of doing so.

“Who goes there?” called a booming voice to me. “Why do you seek my forge?”

Truthfully, I had no knowledge of the speaker, though I was wise enough to know that I was at a great disadvantage and at that point, being polite was my best option.

“It is I, the one known as the Hunter. I do not seek your forge; I am blind and came across this place in my stumbling travels.”

Little did I know that the god Hephaestus would consider us to be united by the bond of disability. He was lame and a disgrace to the gods. I was blind, a Hunter that could not hunt.

After a short time of thought, he decided to help the blind traveler that had met a god by accident. He provided me the warm shelter of his forge and the nourishment of proper food before giving me his servant, Cedalion, to guide me on my way. He told me of a place to the east, the home of the rising sun. This was the land of Helios, the great sun god. Traveling to this place would be my only hope.

And so we left, Cedalion on my shoulder to guide me every step of the way. After a time we made it to the home of Helios and I was blessed with the sight of all that is revealed in the light of the growing dawn.

I thought to take my revenge on Oenopion for my time of disgrace, but upon my return, I found that he had turned coward and hidden underground to escape my fury.

It was after this time that I made my way to Crete.

It was there that I met her, the famed and powerful Goddess of the Hunt.

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Will post the second part tomorrow-ish! Please review! And yes, the next part has a further explanation of what I’m going for. I know I don’t actually call him Sesshoumaru, but you get it, right? It's him in spirit. :)