For NaNoWriMo 2008, I wrote and finished this story. That makes it well over 50,000 words (or over 100 pages long.) Since it is so large, I will not be posting it here until it is a PDF document.

Little Kitten

The Story of Deoris and Artemis

Part One

She woke screaming!

Her hands flew to her darkened eyes as she bolted upright in bed. Her fingers encountered the softness of cloth wound around her upper face, keeping her in the dark. Underneath, her face was hot with searing pain as if someone was dragging a knife across her eyes and forehead. She screamed again in agony and terror.

"Deoris! Easy! You’re all right!" Xanthea’s calm voice cut through the darkness. The healer’s apprentice moved Deoris’ hands down and away from her covered eyes.

"What . . . what’s going on?" Deoris choked out between sobs.

"You were wounded on patrol. Now, drink this," Xanthea ordered. "It will help with the pain."

Unable to think beyond the flashes of heat that cris-crossed her eyes and left behind nothing but white pain, Deoris drank the herbal brew. "Wounded how?" she asked.

Xanthea pushed the girl back down in the cot. "Shhh. Time for that later, when you’ve healed more."

The world tilted slightly as she was pushed down into the softness of a pillow and covered with the warmth of a blanket. Flashes of color appeared in the darkness; hues of dark red and forest green.

She remembered the forest. Green leaves enfolding her as she learned the routes among the branches outside Themiscyra. The day had been bright and blue, only a few puffy white clouds far out across the dark sea marred the clarity of the sky. The smell of earth mixed with the air from the sea up in the high branches and Deoris enjoyed the change from the smells of the village.

She looked across to Natha, the leader of the training mission. The older woman beckoned, indicating that Deoris should jump across.

Gathering her courage, she pushed off the branch with her feet and launched herself into the air. Tucking, she rolled in midair, her feet dropping under her body and landing on the branch where Natha waited. Triumphant, she smiled at the trainer.

"Made it!"

"Nai. Now, back," Natha ordered.

Deoris’ smile faded as she concentrated and gathered herself again. Pushing off, she tucked in midair and back rolled, but missed the landing. With hands flailing, she managed to catch the branch below the one she had been shooting for, and ended up dangling.

Natha said nothing, but her eyebrow raised. She turned to another of the students. "Tatmin," she called. Come.

Deoris pulled herself up onto the branch, then back up to her original position. She watched as several of the patrol went through the same maneuver, flipping forward then back. Of the ten, four managed to complete the exercise without mishap. Deoris found she was one of the lucky ones, she hadn’t crashed to the ground or been scratched by other branches.

"To the ground, koritsi," Natha ordered. With grace, she flicked her wrist and a small hook attached to a length of plaited vine shot out and wound around a branch below and to her right. The older Amazon swung out into the space between the trees and began dropping at a rapid pace until she was lost from sight.

Several of the girls followed her example easily, several more, including Deoris, missed their mark or failed to loop around the branch properly. After a few more tries, they succeeded and dropped to the ground near Natha. The trainer took a quick head count, verifying they were all out of the trees. Satisfied, she nodded.

"All right, koritsi. On the way home we’ll go in a standard sweep pattern. Ten paces apart but keep each other in sight at all times. Look for boot marks and animal tracks. I’ll want a report when we reach the gates. Tepae?" the group nodded. "Spread out." She motioned for five of them to go to the right and five to the left, leaving herself in the center. With a hand motion, she waved them all off into the brush.

Deoris stooped a little as she moved into the forest. To her left was one of the older trainees, Aza, and to her right was one her age, Ciept. She used her peripheral vision to watch them as she searched the ground for tracks. She found nothing interesting as she moved, however, and quickly tired of the task.

She paused as she crept up behind a decaying log, waiting for the others to come back into her eyesight. Aza appeared and nodded at her, then moved forward. Ciept didn’t appear for a moment or two and Deoris heard a loud squawk over her head.

Looking up, she saw a hawk resting on the branches of a tree nearby, its dark brown eyes watching her with interest. It squawked again and shifted its head away, then back, tracking her. In a ruffle of wings, it lifted up and flew to a higher perch.

Ciept moved into her sight and nodded. Deoris stood from her crouch and putting her hands on the crumbling log, leapfrogged over it. As her feet hit the earth, she heard again the cry of the hawk and looked up. The golden light of the sun filtering through the leaves was obscured as sharp talons and a black-tipped beak dove toward her. They were the last things she ever saw.

She woke screaming. The memory blurred in a haze of pain as she woke from her herbal-induced dream. Her hands flew to her darkened eyes as she bolted upright in bed. Her fingers encountered the softness of cloth wound around her upper face, keeping her in the dark. Underneath, her face was hot with searing pain as if someone was dragging a knife across her eyes and forehead.

"Easy, Deoris," Xanthea said.

She panted a little, unable to catch her breath as the darkness weighed down on her. "What happened?" she asked again. "The truth this time!"

"You were wounded in the forest. Natha and the girls brought you. You will have to ask them what happened. Jazlyn didn’t tell me details, kax. Now, enough talk," Xanthea’s voice shifted from gossipy friend to Keturah Koritsi. "Drink," she said.

Deoris felt the press of a cup against her lips and swallowed instinctively. The brew was warm and flavored with a little mint. She felt heat spread through her body and the searing pain across her face lessened. Unlike the previous drink, she didn’t drop off into an immediate sleep, but felt her entire body relax instead.

"Efharisto, Xanthea. Can you at least tell me what’s wrong with my eyes? Why are they covered?" she lifted a hand to the cloth binding her head.

"That’s where you were hurt, athelfi," the Keturah Koritsi said. Deoris’ hands were removed from the bandages. "Don’t touch it. You’ll only cause yourself pain."

Deoris nodded. Her body felt suddenly heavy, as if a weight were bearing down on her from above. It was an effort to focus on Xanthea’s next words.

"I’ll be back in a while. I’ve other patients to see to."

The words seemed to come from a long way off, as if Xanthea was standing at the opposite end of Themiscyra. In fact, Deoris could see Xanthea moving away from her bedside as she floated above her bed and lifted up through the roof of the Med hut.

She pulled back and away from the village. She saw the deep blue of the sea grew large, then it began to shrink as well. Everything faded from view as she pulled into the fluffy white of the clouds, moving faster and faster. She became dizzy from the speed as the clouds whizzed past, and everything whirled around her vision. Becoming sick from the motion, she closed her eyes against the sight.

The world stopped spinning and moving, and she felt grass under her fingertips. Opening her eyes, she found herself in a beautiful garden. Tall cedar trees waved overhead in some unfelt breeze while smaller fig and orange trees fought for sunlight beneath the branches of the heavier trees. Overly bright red and orange poppies weaved in among pink and yellow carnations and under rose bushes of every size and color imaginable. Through it all ran a deep and rich green grass path. Everything was bathed in bright sunlight under a cloudless blue sky.

Deoris found herself on her hands and knees on the lush grass path and struggled to her feet. She took a tentative step and the foliage around her seemed to close over the path, obscuring it. Looking behind her, she found the path was clear, winding through the trees toward some unknown destination. Turning, she took another step and then another and another. The path remained clear as she went and closed up in back of her, boxing her in.

The walk was not long, and ended in a clearing. In the center of the clearing was a gazebo of marble, with Doric columns supporting a tall angled roof. Between these was a frieze depicting Greek men and women in various sports and activities. Underneath the gazebo was a table laid with linen and shining gold plates and goblets and all manner of food.

At the table was a woman who smiled in her direction. Her smile made the world around her seem somehow dim, as if this was the light that shone on everything. Her peplos was a blazing white lined with intricate gold embroidery and pinned at her shoulder with deep emeralds that sparkled as she lifted her arm toward Deoris.

"Come, my chosen. Sit and be with me," she said. Her voice was rich and full of wisdom, as ageless as the marble from which the gazebo had been carved.

Deoris moved forward as if someone pulled her, sliding into the ornate wood and fabric chair that sat at the opposite end of the table from the woman. She looked across the bowls of fruit and the truncheons of meat to the woman. "Where am I?" she whispered, her small voice made smaller by the presence of the other.

"You are in my garden, Deoris."

"Who are you?" the young Amazon asked, although she already knew the answer.

"I am the Goddess Artemis."

©Deoris 2004 - You may not use any part of this story, including the language or words which are the property of Themiscyra Amazons.