Oh, and if you have comments, send them to alexiares@usa.net. Anything nasty will be cheerfully ignored.
 
 

Tharjon sat quietly in a tree, watching the sky lighten. Of course, it would be foolish to literally watch the Sun, so she was watching it paint the clouds and the sky all sorts of colours. Her eyes were still miserable, but what she was doing now didn't require close focussing, so it was marginally better. Fingering the longbow Artemis had asked her to bring along, Tharjon wondered morosely how was she supposed to aim and fire it accurately the way things were. The bow was skillfully assembled from horn and wood, fitted together with fine, almost invisible joins. The ends were stylized lion's feet. Overall, it was a gorgeous piece of work. Tharjon was a spectacular shot, appropriate for a priestess of the Goddess of the Hunt and the Bow. Unbeknownst to her, she had competed against the Arborian regent several times. They were at a roughly fifty-fifty split in wins. She had noticed the Amazon's curly headed good looks, and had watched somewhat wistfully as she and the daughter of one of the judges had become very interested in each other at one contest. 'Ah well,' she had decided at the time. 'Not my chance to chat her up today.' Instead she had taken to doing what she cheerfully referred to as 'stupid priestess tricks' which they weren't really. They were just juggling and such. Crowds always liked them.

The sky was a gentle golden colour now, and Tharjon found her mind wandering to her vision of not so long ago.

One moment she had been sitting peacefully in a tree, gazing at a red leaf, thinking about queen Prothoe and vaguely wondering how a red leaf could be in a summer forest... the next she was standing in a clearing. Okay. Vision quest type things tended to be like that. And then she had heard it. The steady pounding of feet, and the baying of hounds. Before the sky had been light, it had been broad daylight. Now the sky was an inky blue-black, not even the Moon to relieve it, and the stars seemed curiously few and far between. The sound of running feet and the hounds got louder. Tharjon swallowed uncomfortably. They were getting closer. A lot closer. Some distance away, a figure became visible.

Inhumanly tall, gripping a silver bow as tall as she was... Tharjon could see from the figure's silouette it was a woman... in the other, a long, silver arrow. She was running straight towards the blonde priestess. Closer, and now Tharjon expected to get a look at the runner's face, and figure out who she was watching. Instead, nine hounds, no, wolves with deep black fur grizzled with silver burst out of the forest, running in a wedge ahead of the mysterious woman. A mysterious woman who was now near enough Tharjon should have been able to make out details on her clothing, and the features of her face from her glowing bow and arrow. But there was nothing. Nothing but pitch black darkness, like the running woman was a hole in reality. Even more than the wolves, and the fact that the terrifying group was heading right for her, Tharjon found that unnatural sight absolutely terrifying.

Racing pellmell through the forest, hoping desperately to elude her pursuers, who really did seem to be after her, because no amount of twisting and turning, doubling back and going forward, even the old run through a stream to break her scent trail trick. All useless. The hunter and her wolves were inexorably behind, and Tharjon began to understand the hunter was merely allowing her to be as far ahead as she was. Capture was inevitable. Who and what she was made no difference. The pursuit and capture were inexorable.

So, by that logic, it was dumb to run, right? Maybe. But not running didn't feel like much of an option.

Tharjon had taken a wide, galloping turn around a bunch of grumpy ferns when something hit her solidly in the back of her right shoulder, and threw her into the debris strewn all over the forest floor. For a few moments she lay there, trying to catch her breath and gather up her scattered wits, that she half fancied she could see tossed about among the wood bits and leaves. Shaking her head to clear the idea, Tharjon struggled into a sitting position, uttering a startled exclamation of pain when her right arm informed her that no, using it would not be a good idea. Bracing her back against a fallen tree trunk, Tharjon turned her gaze to the injurred shoulder.

Only to see the first fingerwidth or so of the silver arrow's barbed end sticking out of it.

Later. The time had to be later, Tharjon thought in confusion, struggling to orient herself. Eyes opening, she stared around herself in shock. The sky was as inky blue as before, with its strangely sparse compliment of stars. Ranged around her were nine wolves. Standing in front of her was the inhuman figure, still detailless and black. "Oh shit." breathed Tharjon. None of the lessons ever approached this situation.

"Went for a long run." a curious, whispery voice. Tharjon swallowed.

"Instinct, I guess." a weak smile. The side of Tharjon's tunic was very dark now, and her head was spinning.

"You can't escape me."

"I know that. You're pretty scary. If you were just kind of, bland and nice, I probably never would have noticed you until things were already over with."

"They are."

"What?"

"I have shot you. You belong with me, now."

Tharjon blinked, and grimmaced. Having a very painful shoulder, a dizzy head, and complete confusion sucked. "Beg your pardon? Sorry, I'm not quite up to par." a weak joke. Oh well.

"This time as a rough country priestess is over, Tharjon. I have new tasks for you now. I have shot you with my bow. You belong with me, now."

Ah, now the pieces were starting to fall together, even if only in a mixed up heap with her wits. "But I thought I did already? You know the whole, train and swear to serve in the temple sort of thing."

"No... only a very few to I choose out to join my hunters. You are the first I have Chosen in a long while."

"Okay, well, considering I'm bleeding to death here, does this mean I should expect to see Persephone next?" Tharjon struggled to focus her eyes, and treat the whole situation as if it happened every day. Which it did, actually. People died everyday. Excepting, death was usully a once per liftime thing, unless you were Xena, or Gabrielle, or...

"Persephone may not have you. You belong with me."

Tharjon went utterly still, feeling what little blood wasn't all over her tunic run cold. This was an honour. All of the scrolls said so. But to be rendered one of Artemis' undead hunters didn't seem much like an honour, even if it was only for the duration of one lifetime. Actually, it seemed awfully nasty. "But... but... I haven't finished anything... and Thraso and Eumache..."

"You will join the hunters fully after your natural death. By then you will understand more, and it will not seem like such a punishment. It is for the best. This will enable you to act as Protector while you still live."

And as suddenly as it had begun, the vision was over, and Tharjon was completely confused in her waking life, and not a little frightened. Then Artemis had shown up, and Tharjon had simply obeyed, and hidden her discomfort. After all, it had to be Artemis Herself in the vision. She had been wracking her brains over it ever since, to no avail. Then she'd wrack her brains for awhile trying to figure out what was going on, and why Artemis wanted an Ares look alike. Finally, Tharjon resorted to wracking her brains over when she was going to go attend the mysterious meeting her Goddess had called for the morning, liking at least one brain wracking session to have a positive outcome.

Xena pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and bent over again, carefully slotting the slats into the wall. The window was nearly finished, and the common room of the inn was bright with sunshine. Her role in Artemis' plan had been revealed to her the night before, along with a fascinating glimpse into her mother's planning process. It involved an alarming amount of vague outlining combined with three or four specific goals, and the rest flying by the seat of her pants. The warrior smiled to herself as she began cleaning up the work debris. Quite similar to her own planning style, really.

The window done, she went to the room she shared with Gabrielle. It was clean, and fairly spartan. The wood had been bleached to a pale gold by years of Sun and age, and the bed creaked a lot more than she remembered. A wardrobe hunkered in a corner, one side of it taken over by Gabrielle's latest pile of parchment projects... it was a source of neverending wonder to the warrior the bard had room in her pack for it all. Of course, a stash in one of Argo's saddlebags could never be ruled out. The other side was hung with two sets of leathers, her armour, and a few tunics and trousers. A new bundle of things had been plopped on top of them, which Xena now pulled out and set on the bed.

Drawing out the bundle's contents, she undressed rapidly, then wetted down her hair. Within a quarter candlemark, in place of a definitely female person was a striking, slender man with a bit of beard on his chin and a scar under one eye. Satisfied with the results, Xena took a careful breath, buckled on a sizable dagger, and left for a small clearing in the woods not far from the inn, where Artemis had called a strategy meeting.

She arrived to find Thraso sitting on a log, scribbling vigourously in her leatherbound book. Aster was standing across the clearing from her, squirming in his leather finery and scratching at his stubbornly itchy beard. Gabrielle and Eumache were standing towards the centre of the clearing, discussing... names. Seemed a bit early for that. Eumache was hardly showing. Cyrene was seated on the other end of Thraso's log, her expression bemused. The strange priestess Tharjon was sitting on the ground, holding her head in her hands. Xena bit her lip in sympathy. The woman had almost begged her for something to relieve her eyes the night before, and the best Xena had been able to do was cold compresses. Athena was standing a little away from everyone else, glowering like a thunderstorm. Finally, Xena strode into the clearing.

"A scar?" Gabrielle said in an outraged tone. "What's the scar for?"

"Colour." Xena replied, sitting down between Thraso and her mother.

"You'd look better without it."

"Point exactly."

"How did you..." Gabrielle made a suggestive gesture with one hand.

"I'm not telling you. Last time I did you almost killed me trying to get it." Xena unconsciously crossed her legs. No other experience had taught her more quickly not to explain such things to a bard than the last time she had had to disguise herself as a man... and she had mentioned to the bard how the whole matter of the appropriately positioned groin bulge was arranged. Admittedly, it would have been a great way to go.

"I don't understand why you didn't use a disguise like Xena's." Cyrene commented.

"This is a disguise... just a more... detailed one." the voice was deep, yet only marginally deeper than Artemis' usually was. The person standing in the clearing now defied any attempts made by the others to say anything for a few moments.

Being a shape shifter among other things, and this situation demanding a few more men than was typical, Artemis had simply taken the form of one for the time being. The result rendered her only a little taller... since she was tall anyway... with a neat goatee which hid the divet in her chin, and noticibly bulgier muscles. And more hair. The other results were commented on by Aster.

"Holy crap, Gramma! You're a hunk... and you're hung like a centaur!"

Which reduced everyone else to paroxysms, and the Goddess herself to a deep red blush. "Do men have to look there first?" she muttered, shuffling a little. Just because she was given to such outbursts herself didn't make it any easier to field them. Waiting for the riot to die down, she strode over to the spot Gabrielle and Eumache had been standing in before, bracing her foot on a rock. More helpless giggles.

"What?!"

"I'm sorry, I can't stop..." Gabrielle gasped helplessly. Once somebody drew attention to something like a person's physical attributes, it was so hard not to look. It was like bumping into someone whose eyes were permanently crossed. Politeness, and the determination to show them the same respect as anybody else demanded no staring. But damn, it was hard.

After the giggling had faded to tittering and some soundless gasping from Tharjon, who was still prostrate and weeping from laughing so hard, Artemis started speaking.

"The plan is very simple... follow my lead." flat stares. "Okay, okay... I need three things. I need Ares to be in two places at once. I need a special sort of hunter for a very nasty sort of quarry. And I need Xena and Erith to get along at least long enough to get the plan carried out." A significant glare at Xena. "Erith is currently bullying Ares into position. He wasn't actually trying to be a nuisance earlier. He's had quite a change of circumstances, and was under orders to protect Cyrene. He buggered up. My original plan has changed utterly, mainly, I am glad to say, because I misjudged Ares." Now Artemis turned her gaze to Athena. "My sisters and I have been working at cross purposes for quite awhile. We may all send a respectful thank you to the Fates, because Aphrodite has a situation she must deal with directly, and can't join in today's little escapade." Pushing her hair out of her eyes. "Thraso, you must have noticed how many Emetchi you don't recognize keep turning up around Ankitheas." Thraso blinked in surprise, having not really expected to be spoken to, and so still writing in her book.

"Yeah, tons of them. It's been really strange. And they don't stop into my village at all. They stay in the mixed village an afternoon's walk away."

"Just so." Artemis conjured a chair out of thin air and sat in it. "Three such Amazons came to the inn last night. They are the reason we're out here." Her eyes went distant. "More of their compatriots are at the village downriver. They are allied to... a traitor whom I thought to deal with long ago, but Athena unwittingly prevented me from doing so. I don't know why she has her people floating around here. I do know she's been playing games with water supplies and treaty negotiations lately. Erith has been complaining vigourously." She spread her hands across her knees. "Both the traitor and her allies must be drawn out and dealt with. Aster, you and your brother will draw out those allies, while I draw out the traitor so she may be dealt with."

"I'm supposed to 'draw them out'? What then? Grandmother, I'm not a warrior, I can't deal with these people!" Aster blurted in alarm.

"You don't have to. That's what your mother is going to do. Isn't it?" Tharjon interrupted, from her seat on the ground.

"Precisely." Artemis tipped her head to one side, gazing at the tall priestess for a moment. Then she knelt down, and placed a hand over the bewildered priestess' eyes. "Periodically I must promote an Omicron. You're it. But I suspect you already knew that, being as I've already hunted you down."

For a moment after Artemis pulled her hand away, Tharjon expected to see nothing. Instead, everything seemed to be more vividly coloured, and things popped out at her which she could have barely seen standing close. "Oh." blurted Tharjon, uncharacteristically speechless.

"Right, enough of me. I'm hogging the page. Let's go, Xena. Back before bedtime, I promise." declared Artemis enigmatically. Gabrielle, Cyrene, and Eumache had their heads together as they walked out of the clearing, discussing vigourously. Under the circumstances, Gabrielle couldn't watch Xena's back as she usually would, and so was to help poor Aster, who looked absolutely overwhelmed. Cyrene and Eumache had been asked, very nicely, based on all sorts of good reasons, to please hang out at the inn until it was all over. Needless to say, all three of them were finding the plan eminently unsatisfactory. Thraso and Athena had their heads together too, discussing something apparently involving water, from Athena's horrified reaction.

Tharjon stumbled out of the clearing after the others, struggling to adjust to things. Her Goddess had done something else, she was sure, because she felt... odd, as if she were floating. A hand dropped on her shoulder, turning her around. "Rio, what... son of a bacchae." hissed Thraso. She was looking into eyes of the same silvered green as Artemis' now, the pupils tiny like pinpricks in the bright sun. "Rio?"
 

"I know where I came from." a peaceful declaration. This had always been problematic for Tharjon, since she had been adopted as a baby by her mothers. No one had known what happened to her biological parents.

"You do?" Thraso stepped a little closer to her friend.

"Let me tell you some of the history of my clan... which the Holy One and Cyrene started long ago."

Aster took a long, deep breath. He did it again. Nope, still felt like screaming his fool head off. Great, just great. The entire plan was madness. He was sure of it, but he was going along anyway. What did that say about him? The idea was sort of creepy, so he got away from it, and swaggered as ordered into the midst of Ares' second camp of goons. Why he had two of them wasn't quite clear to Aster. Nobody looked at him, just hurried a little faster, and stood a little straighter. A pause at a horse paddock, to rub the ears of a fierce looking stallion. Luckily it tolerated him anyway. A voice called behind him, and Aster took a long breath. Time to get to work.

"What do you want?" yes, his grandmother had said speak as rudely as possible, but... well, easier said than done.

"We've been ready to wipe Amphipolis off the map for nearly a week, what are we waiting for?" Ah, so that was why two groups. That dork, whom Aster was accustomed to referring to as his brother, had apparently told his goons they were there to raze Amphipolis. Presumably as a reward for getting Cyrene out of town. Old, nasty habits died hard.

"We are waiting," Aster spun around and grabbed the hapless man, who had almost no hair, by the collar and dragged him almost off his feet. All told, he was quite proud of the little maneuvre. Artemis had forced him to practise it on weighted hay bail until he was sure his arms were going to drop off. "for when I decide it's time to destroy Amphipolis, or not... then again, maybe I should just destroy you."

Make a huge diversion. Okay. Aster drew his sword, and prayed desperately this wasn't going to be something incredibly ugly. He looked at the sword, and realized he ahd grabbed his blunted practise weapon by mistake, instead of the real sword his grandmother had provided. All told, the situation was now in the category of real ugly... outstandingly so.

Still, Aster was finding it easy, almost uncomfortably so, to parry the other man's blows. Compared to Thraso he swung like a creaky door, and he used one pattern of blows, repeatedly. All told, it was cloaking Aster's practise sword quite well, as far as it went, but he could see the bystanders getting restless. Not a good thing. Went quite well with the ugly situation. Whch called for ugly solutions. Watching for the little gap his opponent's pattern gave him, Aster stepped around his guard and punched him solidly in the stomach. Then he whacked him over the head and flattened him. While it was true Aster wasn't a trained warrior, and disliked the profession for himself, being a gay carpenter did sometimes force you to deal with somebody who wanted to swing their fists instead of just taking their business elsewhere. They were just about as ugly as the bald guy.

Said bald guy was sprawled on the ground, looking pathetically scared, and now half the camp was hanging on Aster like flies on... he stopped the thought. 'Be nice,' he chided himself. 'It's not entirely their fault they act like this.' Turning slowly around, making sure he had the major fellows all staring at him, he took a deep breath. 

"So you're getting impatient. Fine. I have a little job for you." Groans went up. Several men growled angrily at the bald guy, for whining at the boss one too many times and getting them in trouble. "You two, take your groups and start up the hill. I want a catapault station set up, to throw burning pitch." A rotten, smelly job, Aster knew, having been trapped in Corinth when Xena seiged it. He had been careful not to mention that. "Send the others back here. You three, get the rest of this camp moving. We're going to move right onto Artemis' doorstep... as for my personal guard, as you were... for the rest of the day." Having doomed a bunch of guys to a long, long, sweaty march in the hot Sun, a bunch of other guys to hours of work in it and beyond, and the honour guard to stand there and swelter around the command tent, Aster sheathed his sword with a flourish and stepped inside.

It was a really nice tent. All furs and a nice, cushy cot. Even a table with wine on it. No food, Aster realized, regretfully. Now the guts who liked to chase after his brother were making an obvious commotion and running around like they were actually going to do something. Apparently the nasty Amazons were expecting the nasty Amazon who ordered around the woman who had tried to shoot Gabrielle the day before was expected to have bribed half of Amphipolis into helping her destroy Xena and her partner. And a certain innkeeper and her lover, whose identity she didn't really know. Aster had dashed out to see which direction the catapaults were getting pointed in, realizing if they were actually pointing at Amphipolis, the nasty Amazons would never fall for it.. Seeing the men had dutifully set them up pointing the wrong way, it took all his willpower to bite his lip and not burst into very unAreslike giggles. This was so cool. He could almost, almost see why his grandmother liked this stuff.

The tent, luxurious as it was, was quite dim. Maybe Ares didn't need light to see, and maybe he was supposed to keep the men convinced he was Ares, but what would a candle hurt. If someone called him on it, he'd deal with it then. Aster had just finished lighting the taper when someone said, "Hello?" from almost under his feet. Stumbling backwards and falling over a chair Aster struggled to see who had spoken.

"Now I'm sure you're not Ares." the person speaking was a brown haired, hunky fellow sitting quietly to one side of the tent. He had a big goose egg on one temple, and looked a little dazed.

"Oh, well..." Aster stared at the man in bewilderment. "Gosh, I didn't know Ares and I had the same... err... interests."

"He doesn't. This tent is weirdly cool even during the heat of the day. Artemis just about knocked my head in a day or so ago, so I get to relax in the weirdly cool tent, healer's orders." a smile.

"Nice healer. You're right about the tent, of course. I hardly noticed, with all this heavy leather on. You're not planning on screaming at your buddies about me, are you?" Aster really hoped not. This guy was sort of cute, and whacking him over the head again would be so lousy.

"Nah. I'm quitting this gig. All I want to do is go home." a sad smile.

"I'm sure that can be arranged." Aster replied kindly. He eyed the wineskin speculatively. "Is this actual wine, do you know?" he was sort of thirsty.

"Dunnow. You'll probably have to smell it or something to find out. If it's some kind of Thrakian port, it should put hair on your chest."

Aster's expression was horrified. "But I already look like a rug!" he stopped short. "You never heard me say that."

"Of course not." the other man agreed gravely.

"Mother." Thraso said succinctly.

"What?"

"What are you doing?"

"I am thinking many happy thoughts. I am thinking about anything but where we're going." Athena declared, with vigour.

Her daughter nodded soberly, and considered how best to reply to that. "It's not that bad."

"Thraso, we're going to have to get in a boat!" Athena shouted, waving her hands in disgust. "If we had been meant to run around in the water, we would grow gills like my sister does as soon she steps into a living body of water. Or we'd be born knowing how to swim."

"Actually," Thraso began.

"Don't say it." groaned Athena, having already seen where her daughter's thoughts were going.

The boat proved to be a sturdy canoe, equipped with two paddles. Okay, it was a canoe made of bark, and wasn't very sturdy at all. Just because bark canoes weren't known for standing up to wear all that well, didn't change the fact that getting Athena to swim was an absolute impossibility. The bottom seemed rather damp, but Thraso ignored that as she jumped in, then looked impatiently up at her mother.

"I hate water, I hate water, I hate water..." Athena chanted vigourously as she got into the canoe. The weight of the two women caused the hole in the bottom of the canoe to begin spouting water, spattering over the Goddess' feet and ankles. "Oh furkin' Tartarus!" she cursed, shaking each foot to no avail as the water soaked into her boots. The canoe was moving about wildly, first one side, then one end, then the other half dipping into the current.

"Mom! Mom! For Gaea's sake, cut it out!" shouted Thraso as she was nearly pitched out headfirst.

"Sorry." Athena replied a bit sheepishly, sitting down uncomfortably. "I can't help it... this is unnatural."

"Only to a desert deity." sighed Thraso. "Which way?"

"Downstream." A moment's pause. "Thraso, this river flows backwards... it flows upstream in going downstream." Her daughter gaped at her. "Stop looking at me like that. The main river in my personal experience is the Nile." Which explained a lot, since the Nile flowed in the opposite direction of most rivers in that general area of the world. Athena finally grabbed a paddle, and soon they were skimming along with the current, Thraso's expert steering keeping them out of harm's way.

"Son of a bacchae!" Thraso cursed. Dropping her paddle to the bottom of the canoe, she quickly pulled off her breastplate, thanked her parents for ensuring that she had some cleavage, and began vigourously bailing.

"What's the matter?"

"Please forget about it and keep paddling." panted Thraso, still hurling water out of the canoe as fast as she could, pausing only to try jamming a piece of her shirt into the hole which she had pulled off for the purpose. It helped a little, allowing her to catch up to the mess. "We have to hurry up and get to that spring... the sooner we wash out that camp of traitors, the better."

"True, true." agreed Athena. "One way or the other they are getting flushed out. Literally, in a manner of speaking."

The spring was pleasantly situated, displaced several bodylengths from the river itself, spilling down a craggy shoulder to a pool that eventually emptied into the larger stream. Mother and daughter worked quickly and silently, climbing up the dry side of the rocks after beaching the canoe. With a Goddess there to help, moving the large stones to get the flow redirected was almost ludicrously easy. A bridge stretched across the river a short distance away, and Athena frowned at it. "Why do I get the feeling that bridge should be labelled trouble?" They soon had a good, strong blast of water running at an angle into a camp they could just see through the trees. It was rough and dirty looking, hallmark of Emetchi who had strayed far from their ways. "I'll get the canoe in the water." Thraso whispered. Athena nodded, and continued watching, grinning a little as women began to realize the camp was washing away. A bunch of gear was already gone, and apparently someone's leathers, because one woman was running around naked except for a loincloth, shouting orders. It was all quite entertaining, in a sort of nasty way. Athena stood up to follow her daughter when a ringing shout came from her right.

By the best of luck, a foraging party had spotted her. Athena sighed. Using her powers wasn't really an option right now. Probably the sudden manifestation of a Goddess would actually throw a huge kink into the peacefully ravelling threads of the web she and her sister were carefully drawing shut around Axeo, who had to be stopped. Options... she cursed softly. The bridge, of course.

"Stop her! Stop her before she gets across the damned bridge!" screamed the naked Emetchi, who had retrieved a breastplate to cover up her chest with before clambering up the hill to see what the commotion was about. Chances were she'd scream too, if she had just slapped on a bunch of cold, wet, heavy metal over her frontal assets, Athena decided as she skidded to a halt halfway across the bridge. The foraging party had weapons drawn and were shouting at her now.
 

The Sun Goddess glared at them. "Couldn't you have stopped and had a beer, or something?" she shouted at them crossly. There was only one thing left to do now. "Thraso, I hope you have that thing in the water!" she shouted. The weaponmaster was already moving into position by the bridge and had grabbed about twenty sizable stones from the river bank, all shiny and smooth from years of running water and sharp grit. The first of the foragers made it onto the bridge, and Thraso nailed her squarely on the chest with one of her stones. A second was felled by a blow to the temple.

Athena skidded to a stop in the centre of the bridge, spared a quick glance to the people struggling to climb over their fallen comrades, then looked down at the water. To her eyes it looked dark and brown-green, just waiting for the chance to swallow a good hearted desert dweller at the first opportunity. Forcing her eyes upward, Athena cut through one rope railing, then the support rope at the bottom of the bridge itself. Immediately that side of the bridge dropped away beneath her feet, almost depositing her into the river before she was ready. A reach and a swing did in the rest of the railing. She had time to hear the thudding wunk noises as Thraso nailed two more women, then the last rope separated and Athena plummeted down into the river... only to be hauled out by the hair, sputtering and gasping.

"Mom, you can't go running around on the river if you can't swim." gasped Thraso, who found herself tossed headfirst into the bottom of the canoe as her mother threw her down and grabbed an arrow out of the air.

"Hey!" Athena shouted angrily, and without thinking she sent the archer flying. "Aack... dammit." seizing a paddle, she got the canoe moving. They were in the swift current now, however, and soon the problem ceased to be the infuriated Emetchi who were heading straight toward the field the river careened by in hopes of cutting them off, and became preventing the canoe from sinking. Both women were bailing desperately as angry shouting followed them downstream.

It was wrong, Cyrene knew, to lie. And damned near impossible at any time, with her partner. But there was something bothering her, something discomforting. Artemis was distracted, and had admitted she wasn't up to par herself. The last time Artemis had said such a thing was before a climactic battle in the desert near a Libyan Amazon city. Three arrows had turned all celebration to mourning, and somehow, somehow Cyrene had a bad feeling something similar was in the wind again. But this time, those arrows were never going to meet their mark.

The two younger women moved along silently ahead of her, Gabrielle armed with her everpresent staff, Eumache gripping a sword. The innkeeper was carrying a staff herself. At first her compatriots had looked a little doubtful, regardless of her fancy broomwork the night before. So she gave a bit of a clinic, and on seeing the appropriately astounded looks on Gabrielle and Eumache's faces, drawled, "I have many skills." Not knowing this was one of her daughter's favourite lines.
 
 
 
 

Spurred by the urgency in her voice, Aster hurriedly changed clothes, then knelt by the stream to finally shave off the hated beard. Without it he just reminded a person of Ares somehow. The resemblance was uncanny, but it only became confusing with enough facial hair and black leather to make him consider becoming a member of a nudist colony. The hot Sun on the back of his neck brought to mind sunburn, and the new places it could occur if you never wore clothes... he hurriedly tossed the plans for the nudist colony and determined never to be fooled into helping with one of his grandmother's crazy plans again instead.