Atalanta

Narrator pov:

For the time being, Eschios decided to stay in the town and help the people rebuild their homes by supplying wood and creating bricks from mud. Since there were wild animals who tried to attack the townspeople, Eschios took care of them as well. He also talked to many people who've lost their precious ones and consoled them.

One of the things he's learned was that being a counselor was very hard.

Chopping down trees without nymphs at a rapid speed, Eschios wiped his sweat as he carried tons of wood down from the forest. With his help, the town recovered at a fast pace in less than a day.

Picking up the axe, Eschios cut the fallen tree into small pieces. He was about to wrap them around with a rope when-

*pew*

Three arrows were shot in his direction, missing his head and body only by a small distance.

No, it wasn't missed. It was purposely aimed to hit those spots.

"I didn't dodge the arrows because it wasn't going to hurt me... but... What's that feeling of mistrust and suspicion I sense, you up on the pike tree to my back?"

After saying that, Eschios suddenly disappeared from the view of the attacker and appeared from behind, daggers ready to slice the throat open.

The attacker was beautiful. Not the prettiest Eschios have seen, but still beautiful. Her hair was blond, with some parts like the hairs close to her face colored green. The two eyes of hers were dark-green. She wore a green-colored

"...You are... evil. I sense the feeling of fear when I look at you with your outwear."

"...It's always this damn mask and cloak. I don't seal my beauty so it's a problem, then I seal my beauty, then it's again another problem. Hah....."

Sighing, Eschios removed the dagger and put his hands up, showing his non-violent behavior.

"Listen, lady. I'm not a villain or anything. I just seem like this because my clothes seem... cool... and others like you don't understand that. You see the woods and the axe down there? I'm actually helping the townspeople nearby."

After looking at the woods down on the ground, she calmed down a bit, but still kept up her guard.

The guard did not seem to be only towards him, but to all things unconsciously. The way she looked out for things reminded him of a bear.

"Uh... you want to come with me...? You can help the townspeople with me. Of course, you're free to try to stab those arrows to my head if you feel like I'm tricking you."

"...I'll come with you... for now."

"Great. Alright, follow me."

"Wait."

"Huh?"

"I originally came here because I heard a loud boar scream. Was that sound caused by you?"

"Oh, yeah. An evil old lady and a pig were causing chaos, so I beat them."

"A scream like that has to be from a boar of gigantic size. Your speed earlier was the fastest I've seen, as well... Who are you?"

"Huh, you must be probably isolated a lot from society if you don't know me. My name is Eschios, the demigod son of Selene."

Thinking that it was the perfect time to have an introduction to each other, Eschios answered. Since she didn't seem to be recognizing him, he internally sighed in relief that she wouldn't know about his beauty.

"What about you? You seem to be a huntress of some sort."

As she answered his question, Eschios became surprised after hearing her name.

"My name is Atalanta, one of the huntresses of Artemis."

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Eschios pov:

It's been about two weeks since I've known Atalanta. Since she wandered around in nature hunting for animals, she didn't know a lot about the society of Greece and some knowledge, so I had to and was teaching her a lot of things.

She thought more like an animal and a beast than a human. It's probably because she was raised by a bear since she was a young girl. She doesn't understand certain phrases and how things were supposed to go.

Once, I told her that blackberries were good for the eye, then she misunderstood it and tried to put them IN HER EYE.

When I asked her why she had tried to put them in her eye, she simply said:

"You said they were good for my eyes."

Sometime after the incident, I once asked her to race with me through the forest to kill some time. However, she looked at me with a serious vibe around her and asked:

"How can you kill time?"

....Yeah... She's a bit... childish in the ways of understanding, I should say...

Hey, she's nice deep inside her heart, I know that.

It seemed that whenever I was with her, I became more at ease and more cheerful. It's similar to the feeling of having Jason and Heracles with me.

Oh, wait, not Jason, though. He didn't let me sleep with his saying: "I'm gonna be the pirate king!" minus the pirate part.

Since Atalanta had nothing to do except hunt, she decided to join me on my hunt for various beasts around the world. Thanks to the fast speed of me and Atalanta, we were able to quickly get to the beasts in time and defeat them.

It was mostly me attacking and dealing the main damage and Atalanta supporting me with her arrows, firing and hitting the weak spots with them.

So far we've hunted down the Amphisbaena, man-eating Cyclops, dangerous animals, Catoblepas, the entire tribe of Blemmyes, the Ethiopian bull, and violent Griffins. After a while, the two of us learned how to tame Griffins using jewelry, so we use them as our means of transport. But they're slower than us, so we usually run instead of using them for getting to places.

The Ethiopian bull was the hardest to kill because no weapons worked on it when it was alive. I eventually had to wrestle it and drown it in the lake to kill it.

Because of the number of beasts and famous monsters we've hunted, our duo became famous all around Ancient Greece.

Some people were shaming Atalanta for being a woman such as saying "oH bUt ShE's A wOmAn sHe CaN't fIgHt!" Yeah... Some Greek men thought that women shouldn't fight.

Pfft. Try saying that to Athena and Artemis.

But they couldn't dwell too much on it, because Atalanta was a huntress of Artemis. Messing around with a goddess' servant couldn't do them any good.

.....I'm ok since I'm her friend, and someone that's not a goddess needs to take care of her in this world.

Currently, we're going to Heracles' place. I visited them time-to-time, and I thought it would be great if I introduce them to each other. We were all going to meet at the Argo later on, so it's better to know each other before that to increase friendship.

Atalanta seemed excited when we were passing through the market, trying out almost everything out of curiosity. The number of goods I had to pay for all those things...! Eh, she seemed happy, so that's all that matters.

"Eschios, how's this?"

"Oh, it looks good, Atalanta."

"Eschios, how's this then?"

"Oh, it looks fantastic, Atalanta."

Trying to give her the best reactions out of my tired state, I exclaimed in fake.

Shopping is as tiring as ever. She's getting too excited over things she couldn't experience before...

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Narrator pov:

After arriving at Heracles' house, Eschios knocked on the door. Therimachus, who was Heracles' first son came out to greet him.

"Wassup. Uncle's here."

"Is that your girlfriend, uncle?"

*cough cough*

"...No."

"What's a girlfriend, Eschios?"

"You don't need to know. It's something that some males would never have in their life."

After the little incident, Eschios introduced Atalanta to Heracles and his family.

"So this is Atalanta, and she's a hunter of Artemis. NOT my girlfriend, but we're a famous duo in Greece. Atalanta, this is Heracles, the famous traitor to the single-men group."

"Nice to meet you, NOT Eschios' girlfriend."

"Oi, shut up, Heracles."

"...Nice to... meet you."

Atalanta seems rather stiffened up with Heracles. Eschios guessed that she probably felt some natural fear of him, as many did. But her stiff composure was lost when she saw the children.

Letting her play with the children, Eschios hung out with Heracles, drinking wine and talking about their own adventures.

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Eschios pov:

Even after so many long hours, she was still playing with them. She seems to like children very much. I and Atalanta got another request to clear the beasts around a town away from Heracles' house, so we had to go.

"So, how are my nieces and nephews? They're really cute, right?"

"Yes... Seeing children living happy and playing with each other made me feel... Good."

Running to the town, me and Atalanta engaged in the usual daily conversations, sometimes joking on the way.

If life continued like that, I felt like my life would have been just happy. Nothing wrong, nothing too good. Just a normal life with Atalanta as buddies, and helping others in need.

...But it was the gods who ruined my happiness again. Always gods.

"ESCHIOS! ESCHIOS!!! YOUR FRIEND, HE'S GONE CRAZY! HE KILLED HIS WIFE!!!"

*BOOM*

And with that, I ran in the direction of Heracles' house at the fastest speed I've ever ran before.

Seeing Heracles about to kill his children after he threw the dead body of his wife into the fire, I grabbed him and dragged him all the way to the nearby mountain, free of people, and quickly moved away all the nymphs, spirits, and animals within the entire mountain range.

"Goddess Hera! I beg for the forgiveness of Heracles! I plead mercy on him!"

What I got as an answer was Heracles' beast-like roar as he charged towards me.

Dodging his attacks, I went in once I saw an opening and tried to knock him out. However, he defended against my attack and countered, only for me to slide and redirect his counter to another direction.

With a loud crackling sound, I ran towards Heracles, attempting to stop his rampage.

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A/N: Eschios has now earned Hera's fury by stopping Heracles!

By the way, why do you think Artemis didn't do anything to Atalanta, even though she got married and had a kid in the original myth? I'm talking about in the Fateverse, not the true myth.