Artemis flew through a silent, moonlit forest. She held a silver bow in one hand, with a quiver of glowing arrows slung across her back.

The Goddess was following a massive beast, one more powerful than any she had felled before. The tracks lead her farther north than she had ever gone in her millennium-spanning godhood.

Artemis passed many unfamiliar civilizations, who worshiped strange gods and lived in odd ways.

She continued on, the promise of a good battle spurring her further north. As the goddess of the Hunt, the Moon, and maidenhood, Artemis's very essence sang at the thought of her bow striking down another powerful enemy.

Finally, she found her prey, sleeping on a snowy mountaintop. Artemis loosed many arrows at the monster, who responded with attacks of claw and magic.

Perfectly matched, they exhausted each other. After Artemis loosed her last arrow, the beast transformed, taking the shape of a beautiful woman.

Unable to move due to their exhaustion, the two fell into deep conversation, quickly becoming friends.

The beast told Artemis that her name was 'Loki,' and that she was a god from another civilization.

Loki told Artemis that she was a shapeshifter, neither man nor woman, and a magician. Loki spent the night entertaining the Huntress by turning into people and beasts of various shapes and sizes.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

For many centuries, the two continued to meet, battling each other before they conversed.

Gradually, the two fell in love.

Artemis had never felt an attraction to anything other than a good Hunt or the Full moon. She was the goddess of chastity and purity, it went against her very nature.

Fearful of losing herself in her love for Loki, Artemis stopped journeying north for many decades.

Not able to resist her love and the promise of a good battle, the goddess eventually returned to the mountain where the two first met.

She found Loki there, sitting on a stone. The shapeshifter hadn't moved from that mountain since the moment Artemis left.

Overcome by her love, Artemis embraced Loki.

They battled once more, with more passion and fury than ever before. As they fought, the two gods' divinities mixed.

From that battle, their son was born, though not as a normal god.

Their child was a monster.

Artemis and Loki named the monster Typhon, and they loved him.

As Typhon grew, they realized that in their son lay the potential for a being that could devour gods, and, eventually, entire worlds.

Fearing the immense potential their child possessed, the two gods fused Typhon's mind with that of an infant boy, while sealing his power in the infants' body.

Loki and Artemis vowed never to see each other again, for fear of creating another being such as Typhon.

Unable to be completely separated from their child, Artemis and Loki watched the little boy grew up.

They looked down from the heavens as their son was betrayed by the one he loved, and, In the moment before his death, Artemis shot down a divine arrow, saving her child.

In the process, however, she accidentally created a tiny, unnoticeable hole in the seal holding Typhons' power in check.