In the early ages, humanity was not alone in sapience. It's a truth well-hidden, suspiciously well-hidden. I suspect divine intervention. But regardless, the fact remains. Ten-headed hydras and flesh-eating horses alike wandered the wilds, drawing power from their very blood. Monstrosities best forgotten. They terrorized the untouched places, vying with the children of Adam for control of the new world. But despite their sapience, the majority lacked sentience, true souls, deriving power from profane blood. For a time, at the beginning, it seemed like the world was big enough for them both. But a dragon's greed is not to be underestimated, nor a hunter's skill. And paper beasts cannot obstruct forged paths.

The night was dark, except for the faint gleaming of the moon. It arced through the gaps in the dark foliage in hair-thin strands. The occasional ray caught Artemis’ silver hair and sent light refracting through the dark forest. Orion cringed with every burst of light, regretting his decision to tell Artemis not to cover her hair.

Then it would catch her body just right, framing her slender limbs and stormy gray eyes in a halo of silver, and he would forget all his protests.

Sure, their prey might spot them, but it was worth it.

Then the light would catch her at a bad angle and the struggle would start all over again.

A light crunch caught his attention and he looked down to find a crushed branch under his foot. He winced and looked over to find Artemis staring admonishingly at him. He flushed and angrily refocused himself.

This was a hunt. And nobody hunted better than he did. Then they did, he thought, shooting a glance at Artemis. She just rolled her eyes and motioned for him to be more careful.

Their prey was a curious specimen, one of the new ones that had emerged from the depths, a prey of a higher caliber. They were smart, almost as smart as he and his brothers in some ways, yet dumb as animals in certain ways. Of course that paled in comparison to their mighty physical forms.

Every single one they had faced had forced them to their limits, drawing them deep into the essence of their paths to smite them down. And they were hunters, born to slay such beasts. It was worrying, but at the same time exciting.

For they finally had worthy prey.

A faint scuffing brought his attention back. Artemis froze to his left. And they both scoured their surroundings. Artemis let the moonlight play around her fingers, listening to its tales. Orion breathed in deep, tasting the wind. In the end, their senses agreed.

Their prey was directly ahead.

Through tacit agreement, they split apart, each circling around their prey the long way. They would strike from two sides at once.

The wind gently circled Orion as he crept through the bushes, telling him stories of happenings deeper in the forest. It calmed him, grounded him, and slowed his beating heart.

Finally, he found a suitable tree and quietly scaled it before finding a branch and checking to make sure it would hold his weight. He unslung his wooden bow and strung it with a string of animal sinew. Below him, barely visible through the thick foliage, a shape moved, appearing confused. It was probably searching for them after Orion’s amateurish mistake with the stick.

He grumbled. Not his fault Artemis was so distracting.

He took a deep breath and slowly nocked a metal-tipped arrow. He was running low. He would need to bother Hephas for more.

An argent flash drew his attention.

It was time.

For a second, the stars seemed to fall to the earth, only to resolve into silver arrows. Then in absolute silence, the lady of the moon struck. Arrows brimming with the cold conception of the moon pierced the beast by the dozen, slowing its movements and inflicting it with the cold chill of death.

A roar split the silent night, and as the beast trashed the surrounding foliage to oblivion, Orion finally got a good view of it. It is big and green and angry. It had scales like a lizard and stretched nearly a hundred beet from long. But most striking was its nine heads, all in a state of disarray as it struggled to find the origin of its pain. The foliage around it hissed as its venomous aura ground it to ash, and even Artemis’ arrows began to deform under it.

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Still, Artemis kept showering it with arrows, each individually weak in comparison to its bulk, but mighty when combined. They impacted in waves, some dissolving against its flared aura, some going forth to pierce flesh. It roared and spun around as it tried to find them.

In a nearby tree, Orion calmly drew his bow back to its fullest, feeling the tension in his body as he did so. The wind swirled around him as he did so, gathering around its tip. He took a deep breath and released.

The arrow was so fast, it couldn't be seen.

One moment the beast had nine heads.

Then it had eight.

Then it had ten.

Orion nearly fell off the branch as he saw two heads regrow where there was once one. Artemis must have been equally surprised because the flow of silver arrows faltered before resuming once more. For a second, the beast had drawn upon greater concepts of rebirth and regeneration, warping the world to its whims. Such an act was the domain of the pathed. How could such a dumb animal wield such a potent power, Orion wondered.

He felt anger growing within him. How dare a mere beast resist his arrow?

When he drew his bow again, he drew it past the safe limits. His body trembled as he focused the full weight of his being on the arrow, forcing it to become a vessel of his path.

He was the lord of the hunt, and he would not be denied.

The branch creaked, and when he released the arrow, bucked. It flew true, faster than the eye could track. Another head vanished, but this time, the stump smoked, cauterized by the power of Orion's arrow, abstractions of death and the hunt countering its regeneration.

No heads grew back that time.

Orion smiled grimly and nocked another arrow. It was released to the same effect.

The beast started to charge in his direction, having somehow pinpointed his location from arrows faster than the eye could see. Artemis started shooting faster, trying to slow the beast further with the chill of the moon.

Orion smiled and fired an arrow to the side.

In the wrong direction.

But he was the lord of the hunt, and he did not miss.

The arrow curved in the air, severing another head from the side. The beast stopped, confused. Orion curved another arrow and struck it from the other side. It roared into the air, a curious mixture of low and high pitches that almost sounded like language before gazing around suspiciously with its remaining six heads.

Another arrow took off a head from the back, reducing it to five heads.

Panicked and down to half of its heads, the beast resolutely stuck to its path and resumed his charge towards Orion.

He managed to get two more shots off before it crashed into his tree and saw him. He was forced to dance through a sea of lunging heads, wincing at the drops of apparently acidic blood that landed on his skin. Its aura pressed against his, but he managed to hold back its acidic properties with a swirling wind. Still, it was fast, despite the fact Artemis had nearly halved its speed, and Orion could barely keep out of its grasping jaws.

Artemis managed to shoot an eye, giving Orion enough of a respite to gather the wind into a platform underneath his foot and push off into the sky.

Rotating in the air, he nocked an arrow and loosened it, watching as it vanished into the sky and curved down, covered in silver moonlight.

Another head tumbled to the ground.

As he reached the apex of his jump, he launched another, watching as it desperately tried to dodge. But alas Orion never missed.

Another head tumbled to the ground. One left.

The joy of the hunt surged through Orion, bringing primal pleasure to him as started to fall, an arrow on his string.

Artemis intensified her fire, a silver storm raging arrows the newly created clearing. In the eye of the storm, Orion fell towards the beast's final head.

It met his joyous gaze with cruel cunning.

Cunning?

The wind brought news of a danger the second before it struck.

Orion loosened his arrow, no longer caring for its intended target. Artemis cried out. Orion desperately managed to get his bow up, desperately stepping off the wind in an attempt to avoid doom.

It almost worked.

The creature's tail only clipped him, but it struck like the hand of god, shattering his bow and sending him flying.

The creature was on him in a second, single remaining eye triumphant. Orion cursed his insistence on fighting the beast up close and gathered the winds to him for the final confrontation.

Only for a silver slash to sunder the world.

The creature's last head slowly toppled off its neck, regeneration suppressed by the layer of frost coating its stump.

Artemis rode its corpse as its legs gave out, silver hair and pale skin outline in a halo of moonlight. She held an argent-drenched blade in her left hand. Her hunting leathers were torn and sullied but she was untouched. She was beautiful.

Orion gaped.

She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “You’re welcome.” She jumped off the hydra and landed before him, extending a hand to him. “I think we’ve had enough excitement for today.”

He took it.