Chapter Text
Two things had always been true: Hope is powerful, and the Gods are cruel, they must be brought to Justice. Calliope had known these things to be true, since she was a child. The former had been something she’d known since childhood, the latter she’d learned from the experience with Artemis, alongside a cryptic warning from her mother when she was young.
Hope. A feeling that had been almost squashed out too many times to count, but the feeling the young goddess kept with her, even through her worst moments. It was the one constant. The one thing that kept her going when everything felt like it would come crashing down at any moment. Hope was her greatest ally through all the horrors Calliope had suffered. It was hope that brought Artemis to her in the first place.
But, hope had fleeted quickly— once Sparta fell and Rome rose in its place. She had been loved there. Treated as ‘Diana’, yet she knew that wasn’t her.
After all, Artemis had died by her hand, a justified act after centuries of torture and suffering. Calliope used to not be a violent person, she never had been. Ever since she was a little girl, she’d been nothing more than an innocent child who cowered in fear at the thought of violence. The thought of hurting another living being. She’d never been one to wish harm on others. Until Artemis.
Artemis deserved it, hadn’t she? It had been justified, right?
The question had once haunted her like a terrible ghost, a night terror.
She missed Father. The first few years of her freedom from The Hunt, she’d cried desperately, hoping that some kinder god, one with warmth and love, would send her a sign that Father was safe. Alive. Somewhere. She’d watched the Huntresses, the girls, age and grow older, untainted by the effective immortality of gods. When they’d all left, gone off to start lives, that was when Calliope sought out her father.
That had been eight years ago, trekking across the landscape with nothing more than Hope to guide her. She just kept going. Hope left her quickly when she’d reached the great dunes of Egypt last fall. Nobody gave her direction. Not a soul. They cowered in fear of the girl with the spiral red marking, one she’d been given by Urania, the oldest of Artemis’ huntresses, in memory of Calliope’s own father. It didn’t cover her whole body, only her left eye, disappearing behind long dark curls that fell to her waist. Her flute hung on a worn string necklace. She had honey golden antlers, one broken on the right side of her head, fuzzy ears that stuck out of her head, twitching at any sounds, and mismatched eyes, one bright gold, one dark brown with a deer-like slit. Alongside hooves for feet and furred legs. All side effects of the curse Artemis put on her.
———
It wasn’t until an evening at a marketplace, that Calliope finally found Hope again. She had been asking around, from the small children and their parents in the village, to the animals and humped camels. The Hope came in the form of a passing comment from a strange, yet knowledgeable crane-headed God named Thoth.
“You seek the Godslayer.” He had told her, with knowing eyes and a tilt of the head.
“Yes. I am looking for my Father. Where is he?” The desperation in her voice was unmatched and undisguised. He had merely chuckled in response, nodding his head.
“You will find him in the Nine Realms. Far north of here. Beware his wrath, lest you not lose your head, young Goddess.”
Calliope did not fear her father, despite the actions that led to her death over a millennium before. She loved Father, and she had already forgiven him. She knew better than to trust other gods, though. She’d long since understood that much. Yet, despite her better judgment, she ignored the warnings and took them in stride as Hope flooded her chest. Strange, how Hope came in full force to her, when that comment had met her ears. So North she went. In search of Father. Desperation, if anything, was the cause for her to chase rumors of a Godslayer in the Nordic Realms, was all she could’ve gone off of, and thus she searched.
Dead end, after dead end. Realm after Realm. The dwarves did not speak of such a god, even when they were pressed, the Elves attacked unprovoked, both dark and light. It was in Vanaheim, she’d found a safe space, and her first real lead.
———
That is where she found herself. Walking down a winding jungle path, adeptly avoiding tripping on any roots, and listening for any signs of anything that could lead her to Father. Beside her was a river, its rapids unassuming, but Calliope had no intention of falling in, even after kearning to swim in her youth, she did not wish to risk falling beneath the rapids. Carefully, she stepped forward, her ear twitching at a new sound, a voice. The jungle itself. Vanaheim was very helpful in Calliope’s hour of need, helpfully giving her directions. Every couple minutes, it would call to her, leading her through the vast greenery.
Look for Lady Freya! She can help Little Fawn! We’ll lead the way!
So, like any sane Goddess of the Hunt, of forests and all that, she followed the voices of the realm. Which promptly led her to lose her footing, or maybe she was pushed, she couldn't quite say. She did not have time to react before she fell into the river, struggling to keep afloat in the river’s unassuming rapids. Panic seized her chest as she flailed, trying to get herself to swim, but the current was strong, and the water was cold. She hated the cold. Her head bobbed a few times before the current swept her under. The last thing she recalled before the water filled her lungs and she blacked out, was the screech of a falcon.