Fic: Wrath of the Huntress
I've been playing around with this for awhile, and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere further than an extended drabble. So I figured I'd post it.
Battlestar Galactica. Spoilers for early Season 3.
Wrath of the Huntress
She wasn't meant for this. Love. Loving. Being loved in return.
When she loved, she did it for the wrong reasons. Always had.
When she loved, she loved the wrong people; worse yet, she loved the right people at the wrong time. She was never one to wait for the time to be right.
She thought she'd saved him. Thought that made it okay to love him. Instead she'd dragged him back into hell.
How quickly she'd forgotten.
Her love was a broken thing. When she fell, she fell hard. Took everyone down with her.
O pale, cool goddess, proud and free
Roaming through woods and skies
I call upon you to bless me
With your great gift of freedom
She hunted.
It was what she did. What she was good at. The only thing she never frakked up. When she hunted it was as if Artemis danced in her heart, acted through her, moved her hands on the controls of the viper. Took the shots. She knew enough to get out of the way when the goddess burned her blood.
Never run from an immortal thing, her mother had said. And if you break, if you can't help but run, never look back lest you turn to ash in its gaze.
What I wish is virgin silence
Quiet glades and rushing water
To hunt and fish with none to follow
To breathe the cool of evening air
She'd been a fool. She'd thought she could do it.
Actually believed she could renounce the goddess, renounce the hunt, settle down like Demeter at her hearth.
Guess she hadn't believed the old stories, not enough, not down deep where it mattered. But the joke was on her: turned out the old stories were true.
Her strength had finally led to her downfall. Again.
She'd loved Zak, put him before all others. Ignored her intuition, her training, the whisper of the goddess in her ear. And she'd lost it all; but she hadn't learned a thing.
So she'd forgotten. Let herself fall for Anders. In the name of love she'd turned her back on Galactica, on the hope of Earth, on the old man. On Artemis herself. She'd defied the gods. And brought the wrath of Artemis down upon them all. It sat like a scorching stone in her stomach - she was the one who had sinned. The punishment should have been hers alone. But it never was.
Sometimes, in the dark of the tidy bed she shared with Leoben (and he'd never touched her, not once - just slept beside her like she didn't exist, or like she was too precious to mar with something so base as lust) she couldn't escape the voice chanting her hubris, her culpability, her mistake -
-fault they came the Cylons came after you renounced your vows the earliest vow to Her and now she strikes in divine wrath and it's your fault you turned your back thought you could make a home on the ground away from the fight away from the hunt away from Her so she brought the fight brought it back to you and your punishment fits the sin so here you are with what you wanted Demeter at her hearth while the battle the hunt rages on without you here with the enemy trapped here without Her and it's your fault your sin you ran and now you burn-
She'd wanted love, wanted to settle down in its embrace; and the worst of it was, that's what she'd gotten. A love she killed, over and over, but could not destroy. The love of Hades, unlooked for, unsought. Love she couldn't run from. The love she deserved.
Give me courage and independence
That I may break free of all my bonds
That I may follow in temple or hunt
The path you have blessed
Notes: I know, I know. Internal monologues are lame. Can't help it; it wouldn't leave me alone.
The prayer quoted is from this Hymn to Artemis. The line about running from immortal things is probably adapted from The Last Unicorn. I know I picked it up from somewhere.
Battlestar Galactica. Spoilers for early Season 3.
Wrath of the Huntress
She wasn't meant for this. Love. Loving. Being loved in return.
When she loved, she did it for the wrong reasons. Always had.
When she loved, she loved the wrong people; worse yet, she loved the right people at the wrong time. She was never one to wait for the time to be right.
She thought she'd saved him. Thought that made it okay to love him. Instead she'd dragged him back into hell.
How quickly she'd forgotten.
Her love was a broken thing. When she fell, she fell hard. Took everyone down with her.
O pale, cool goddess, proud and free
Roaming through woods and skies
I call upon you to bless me
With your great gift of freedom
She hunted.
It was what she did. What she was good at. The only thing she never frakked up. When she hunted it was as if Artemis danced in her heart, acted through her, moved her hands on the controls of the viper. Took the shots. She knew enough to get out of the way when the goddess burned her blood.
Never run from an immortal thing, her mother had said. And if you break, if you can't help but run, never look back lest you turn to ash in its gaze.
What I wish is virgin silence
Quiet glades and rushing water
To hunt and fish with none to follow
To breathe the cool of evening air
She'd been a fool. She'd thought she could do it.
Actually believed she could renounce the goddess, renounce the hunt, settle down like Demeter at her hearth.
Guess she hadn't believed the old stories, not enough, not down deep where it mattered. But the joke was on her: turned out the old stories were true.
Her strength had finally led to her downfall. Again.
She'd loved Zak, put him before all others. Ignored her intuition, her training, the whisper of the goddess in her ear. And she'd lost it all; but she hadn't learned a thing.
So she'd forgotten. Let herself fall for Anders. In the name of love she'd turned her back on Galactica, on the hope of Earth, on the old man. On Artemis herself. She'd defied the gods. And brought the wrath of Artemis down upon them all. It sat like a scorching stone in her stomach - she was the one who had sinned. The punishment should have been hers alone. But it never was.
Sometimes, in the dark of the tidy bed she shared with Leoben (and he'd never touched her, not once - just slept beside her like she didn't exist, or like she was too precious to mar with something so base as lust) she couldn't escape the voice chanting her hubris, her culpability, her mistake -
-fault they came the Cylons came after you renounced your vows the earliest vow to Her and now she strikes in divine wrath and it's your fault you turned your back thought you could make a home on the ground away from the fight away from the hunt away from Her so she brought the fight brought it back to you and your punishment fits the sin so here you are with what you wanted Demeter at her hearth while the battle the hunt rages on without you here with the enemy trapped here without Her and it's your fault your sin you ran and now you burn-
She'd wanted love, wanted to settle down in its embrace; and the worst of it was, that's what she'd gotten. A love she killed, over and over, but could not destroy. The love of Hades, unlooked for, unsought. Love she couldn't run from. The love she deserved.
Give me courage and independence
That I may break free of all my bonds
That I may follow in temple or hunt
The path you have blessed
Notes: I know, I know. Internal monologues are lame. Can't help it; it wouldn't leave me alone.
The prayer quoted is from this Hymn to Artemis. The line about running from immortal things is probably adapted from The Last Unicorn. I know I picked it up from somewhere.