Greece (9): Created by humans...

I'll explain again here, as some people probably don't read the Devas story, only the Hunter one.

In short: The week was terrible. My PC's motherboard burned out, I got sick (I went to the hospital; yes, it was dengue, and no, I didn't die. I'm getting better). I was also asked if I had anything wrong with my immune system; the answer is: Yes and no.

I don't have anything really serious, just a weak immune system since birth. It wasn't the weakest possible, but it's less resistant than average.

As for the motherboard I bought, it arrived today. My PC is working again, so I edited this chapter and the Devas chapter using my phone (which was horrible and time-consuming), so there might be some errors. Apologies for that.

I was also asked: "You said you had the chapters done, so why didn't you post them? I understand getting sick and not writing, but weren't they ready?"

The answer is: I did have the chapters done, yes, but they were in Portuguese (my native language and the one I use for writing). I write the chapters first in Portuguese and then translate them into English and correct any issues. So, even though I had the chapters, they were in Portuguese, not in English.

Well, I think that's it. I'll post the chapter here and leave without making any promises. The last time I made a promise, all of this happened, and I'm afraid of dying next time.

Good night and happy reading!

(P)(A)(T)/CalleumArtori

[...]---[...]

POV: Doll.

"Why did you bring us here? Are you going to discipline us or something?" Stheno, as far as I could tell, mocked. I didn't need to look at Euryale to know she shared the same opinion.

"As much as you may seem young, I know you are much older than your appearances suggest." Unlike Medusa, who looked like a young adult, her sisters had a younger appearance, like two teenagers. "I'm not going to try to discipline you, I just seek to understand."

"Understand?" Euryale tilted her head to the right, while Stheno did the same to the left, clear confusion in their gazes.

"Yes, understand," I replied, serving tea to both of them across the table before sitting on the opposite side.

"Why you act like this, treat Medusa that way, even though you clearly love her from the bottom of your hearts, and why you seem to hate humans." My words didn't seem to please the two, who frowned.

"That's none of your concern," Euryale said sharply. "How we and Medusa treat each other is not your business..."

"Much less how we treat our toys..." Stheno added. "... In fact..." She looked at me suspiciously. "... How do you know we hate humans?" Her suspicions were not unfounded, after all, they had not shown this fact at any time before.

"The Good Hunter told me," I replied, ignoring the rude tone the two used. "Few things escape his sight."

"Tsk..." Euryale clicked her tongue. "I knew that thing had something to do with it... Is this 'understanding' quest of yours also from an order of his?" She stared at me, as if waiting to see what my reaction would be.

"You seek to provoke my anger. Why?" I asked, containing a part of myself that was completely irritated by the way she referred to the Good Hunter.

She didn't know him, so she called him that, ignorance was not a sin, even though the ignorant often sinned without even realizing it.

"Who knows?" Stheno was the one who answered me. "Why don't you leave us alone and go ask your friend Hunter out there?" Unlike her sister, she was more respectful, calling the Good Hunter by his name... The name he used now, at least.

Euryale nodded, agreeing with her sister, before the two drank the tea from their respective cups at the same time, bringing the container to their mouths and partially hiding their faces.

Maybe it was an attempt by them to hide, but the slight fear in their eyes was something that didn't go unnoticed by me, even though I wasn't the cause.

They feared the Good Hunter, that was obvious, but then why did they seek to provoke him before? Why seek my anger at this moment, when they could provoke his indirectly?...

It wasn't logical, was it because of their nature, as the Good Hunter had said?... Their imperfect birth due to humans' quest for perfection?...

So similar to me, created by humans, molded to love them, yet so different at the same time, hating them with all their might, treating them as toys to break when they pleased instead of aiding them.

"Why are you like this?" So different from me, when they should be very similar. So different from their own sister, Medusa, when they were all born from the same desire and will, at the same time.

"Why should we love such ugly and imperfect creatures?" Stheno asked me. "Just because we were born from them, should we be their slaves? Loving them as they wish to be loved just because they wish so?" Her voice rose, the partial fear in her eyes being overtaken by anger.

"We are not like you, doll." Euryale said my name, but not as a name, as a toy, a doll. "Do you love humans because you want to? Or because you were made that way?" She slammed her hands on the table. "Do you love that thing out there of your own free will, or because you were created that way?"

I remained silent after her outburst, which seemed to have pleased her, as if she had won a game, one that only she was playing.

Euryale was so focused on her 'victory' that she didn't even notice the absence of sound outside the house. The noise of the waves had disappeared, the sound of the wind... Everything was quiet... The silence before a hunt.

Stheno, unlike her sister, noticed the abnormality, and by the dilation of her pupils and the twitching of her nose, she had also sensed the smell of blood that was filling the room.

"I... We..." Stheno spoke, probably an attempt at an apology, I interrupted her, apologies were not necessary here...

"You're right," I said, surprising the two in front of me. "I was created to love humans."

... Apologies were not necessary when everything Euryale said had been true.

I ignored the surprised look on their faces and brought my hand to my chest, which was bubbling with mixed emotions, melancholy, anger, sadness, and finally, happiness.

"But that's not why I love the Good Hunter..." I smiled, something coming from the depths of my heart, was enough for the sound to return to the room, the smell of blood dissipating quickly. "... Because even before I knew what true love was, before I knew what emotions in my chest were, I already admired him."

Before knowing what love was, before knowing what having feelings was, before being able to understand such feelings, I already admired the Good Hunter, that admiration only turned into love, I didn't even know when such transformation had occurred.

"Let me show them..." I whispered with my hands to my chest.

I had nothing to prove to the two in front of me, so similar but so different from me, but I wanted to try to make them understand, understand how something as imperfect as humanity could be beautiful.

The Good Hunter was no longer human, but it was his humanity that had won me over.

I loved humans at first because I had been created that way, but I continued to love even after the Good Hunter gave me total free will because of a non-human being... So non-human, that acted like one just because he thought it was right...

"My dear Doll..." The voice of the Good Hunter echoed through the wind, only for my ears and no one else in this world to hear.

"... You will never need to ask permission to Dream..." A voice without emotion, but so gentle at the same time...

Even as the world around the table faded into an ancient dream, the warmth in my chest remained.

... Oh, my beloved and dear Good Hunter...

~ Fate/The Hunter and His Doll ~

POV: Third Person.

"Where are we?!" These were the first words that came out of the eldest sister's mouth. Stheno looked around quickly, noticing the clear change in the environment.

What was once a quaint and cozy house, made for the comfort and rest of the Hunter and Doll, was now an outdoor landscape.

The walls had disappeared, giving way to the front of a garden with stone graves, surrounded by trees and a path of pebbles that led to a wooden house...

"We are in the Hunter's Dream," Doll's voice replied, her head tilted looking at the Pale Full Moon above. The Workshop that had been the residence of the first, to the last hunter.

"A separate dimension?" Euryale's voice was sharper, her fears growing as she realized that she hadn't even noticed the change of scenery until she and her sister appeared in this strange place.

"Not at this moment..." Doll replied, running her hand along the edge of the fountain in the corner of one of the garden corridors. "... No, this is just an old and sweet memory..." The joints of her fingers, the only indication that she was indeed a doll and not just a beautiful and tall woman, a specimen under the moonlight.

Without further words, Doll began to walk, her steps guided as if she had already made this same journey thousands, millions, maybe even billions of times before.

The two sisters looked at each other, their thoughts racing, uncertainty, confusion, and anxiety reflected in two pairs of lilac eyes.

The connection between the two was strong, the same with their connection to Medusa, which although smaller than the one they shared, still existed... But even with that, neither Stheno nor Euryale could differentiate what was real and what was not.

Doll had said that this place was just a memory, but it felt real, so real that the house they were in before seemed more like a memory than this memory.

The cold wind was no different from the wind the two had felt on their skins before, the smell of flowers was as real as the stone floor their bare feet stepped on... The Pale Moon above was even more real than the moon they saw every night on the Shapeless Isle...

With no words exchanged between the two, their thoughts being transmitted directly to each other, the two sisters followed Doll's steps, following her through this place she said was a dream.

The path was not long, just over a minute later Stheno and Euryale stopped their steps, just behind Doll, who stood silently looking at the scene ahead...

"Do you have a twin sister?" Euryale's voice was confused.

... To herself, sitting near the stairs leading to the front of the workshop, reading a book silently.

Doll didn't answer, it wasn't necessary, Euryale quickly realized that as real as the second sitting Doll was, she seemed unable to see her, or the Doll standing in front of her.

"Is this really just an illusion?" Stheno and Euryale didn't know which of them had said the phrase... Was this just a memory?...

Doll nodded, confirming this fact, but did not respond verbally, choosing to turn her head and look further ahead from where the other Doll was sitting, towards the front of a specific gravestone.

The sisters followed Doll's gaze in silence, watching as like a mirage, the Hunter appeared in front of the tombstone they were all looking at.

The Hunter's appearance was almost the same as the sisters remembered seeing but with some subtle differences, for starters, he looked younger, his stature was smaller, and the Hunter was not unarmed.

He wielded the Saw Cleaver in his right hand, the weapon so bathed in blood that even with much of that blood already dry, crimson drops still dripped from the serrated teeth of the tool.

The Hunter's clothes were almost the same as he wore before, made of thick leather that might have once been brown, the color long darkened to scarlet black, stained and corrupted by the blood that dripped even at this moment, covering his entire body.

Even distinguishing whether his hair was black or the white that the sisters knew was impossible thanks to the immense amount of blood painting the strands that dripped, leaving a trail alongside the red footprints, marks from the Hunter's boots.

The Hunter's eyes stunned both sisters so much that they barely reacted to the smell of putrid blood when he approached. The Hunter's eyes were not the blue they remembered, the left one, the iris had been taken over by a sickly and cruel yellowish hue, like that of a completely insane animal.

The right one was of such a deep black that it seemed to swallow even the light from the torches and lanterns around, accepting only the subtle and faint silver glow coming from the moon, a glow that reflected small shining points within the iris that were looking directly at them.

"I've always wondered why he looked first at the stairs that day." Doll's voice was cheerful, as if she had solved an ancient mystery.

"Can he see us?! This isn't a memory?!" Stheno spoke in a hurried tone, realizing that the Hunter's yellow and black eyes were looking directly to where the three of them were at that moment.

"Perhaps... Who knows, or maybe he can just sense us." Her voice was gentle. Doll raised her hand, waving to the Good Hunter with a slight smile on her face.

The shiver that ran up the spines of the two sisters when, subtly, so subtly that it seemed to be an illusion, the Hunter returned the wave Doll had given him, chilled their bodies.

"Isn't this a memory?" Euryale's voice was just a few tones louder than a whisper, so low that the noise of her heart beating frantically was almost louder.

At this time the Hunter was not yet what he had become, but that mattered little, time for him had ceased to be linear, past, present, and future were confusing and tangled...

"You never cease to amaze me, do you?"

"Welcome back, Good Hunter..."

Doll said, present and past speaking at the same time.

... After all, when was the beginning, and when was the end of a dream?...

Upon hearing Doll's voice, which one, the sisters didn't know, perhaps both, the Hunter's neutral, slightly insane gaze seemed to disappear, replaced by something warmer and kinder.

The change caught the two sisters off guard, more than they already were. It was almost strange to see the 'thing' that had effortlessly decimated them in battle, acting in such a... human way.

When the Hunter spoke, the difference in his voice was noticeable, even to Doll, who although vividly remembered his tone, still found it strange to hear him speak like this again, expressing emotions in his voice.

The voice contained a raw relief, something so dense and heavy that it almost suffocated the two sisters. The comparison to a man returning from war was flawed in this situation, for there was no war that could make any man feel such relief as the Hunter felt in that moment.

"I'm back, Doll." The smile on his face was as inhuman with sharp teeth stained with red blood, as it was human, showing genuine happiness.

"He was only fourteen at this moment." Doll made sure to remember all the dates, all the anniversaries. "It had just been a year since he had come to the Dream."

It had been a year since the Hunter had come to the Dream...

It had been a year since his first hunt...

"I won't show you much, just enough to try to make you understand why I love humanity so much." Because she loved her Good Hunter so much.

It had only been a year...

... And he was already struggling to remain human...

[...]---[...]

Did you know that Stheno and Euryale were in the fight against the white Titan Sefar 14,000 years ago? Well, they were, not Medusa, even though all three were born at the same time. What's the reason they were there? I have NO IDEA!

I had to fix some things because of the Andromeda release, but I have more or less a path to follow now.

As always, good night everyone and happy reading!