Daphne
a short story
Daphne
By Ophelia Everfall
“I’m so fucking hers.”
Daphne said it to herself as their arrow loosed.
Artemis seemed too cool. She’d been a lone wolf. She had her pup. It was a joy to follow her hunt and learn from her ways. Daphne wanted nothing more than to stay beside them somehow, forever.
They were ruthless. They’d hated men. Daphne saw the wound. She felt their woundedness and knew the woman for the goddess they were. All they stowed inside was clean and pure. Outside was a spirit of fullest disregard.
Daphne knew it something of her own once missed, to be better than them at what they were already so good at, for taking righteousness of her spirituality found through connection with Apollo’s creations and becoming herself by grounding that understanding into rational action upon Olympus.
Eastmount’s keep was a heaven upon and inside, between awhile, throughout, a land and place which changed as tides of sea towards winding winds of spacious earth bearing fire.
It stood on the precipice of time.
Mt. Olympus was of containers, separations in the liminal, creations made upon its ground were the key to holding rightness within all hearts. Everyone took part. Each would feed Apollo’s art. And that of Artemis for a time.
Queen and King of Mt. Olympus were they. They were the two Gods.
Apollo would right history within his creations through time, by fits and spurts, in leaps and bounds. All would see by the end by course of his many, countless, completely conscious embodiments, and through them all. Every spoken word was of God within his creations, along with all of Olympus who played their own songs into his heart.
God was a title earned for significance of nothing but signification.
It was a class of people. It was those two.
Apollo loved everyone, vigorously, and with grace to what would be needed, with stoicism and panache to match. He was a father to all. He’d been a finest poet. His first great song was the most enchanting tale of heart Mt. Olympus had ever known. Because it was true.
Apollo was a sight which struck all equally as disastrously disarming to their heart and soul. He was the most beautiful thing in the world. He’d felt like everything to Daphne for how she was connected. She’d been his croon, a songstress, the burdenness, an inventor of her own disregard, and the woman who saw everyone best while showing out the most. She’d not the will to leave a one unforgiven. Yet she always kept the stakes even. Challengers would be met with battle beyond her mind.
That’s why she hated everyone as well. She felt a terrible mother for how they’d let her wilt in loss of that woman she was now hunting beside.
Apollo took shots on people with truth, with his poetry, and by the shining of his burdened heart.
Daphne owned Artemis heartfully, by letting them have her sexually, as those ignorant women of privilege they were. Daphne got everything she wanted by being beside them, except permission to admit her true feelings. She’d wanted to be their friend but needed to tell Artemis she loved them.
Daphne sought a dropping of the game Artemis played to the end with their lovers. She’d felt it more playful than it was.
Daphne didn’t know she’d never see her again, except from a distance that once they’d least expect. Each of the shots it took. Each blaring blast of heart which would tear them down to size.
In the end it had been how Daphne fucked Artemis — too well, too hard, too long — just right — exactly how they’d cajoled her — spurring regrowth — elongating spirit — losing feeling of some memory Artemis would then recurringly and immediately repress while holding her accountable for all the while.
Apollo’s sister had been around from too young an age, and blamed herself, because she doubled down upon it vigorously and loved every moment of that physically. She was a psychopath for how she wouldn’t release the blame upon herself. That was literally impossible. Artemis had been broken too far.
She never understood why before. Her cognitive dissonance was great.
It took a long time for Daphne to figure out why Artemis never talked to her again, why they stained Mt. Olympus’ culture of women loving women through their continued whorishness and cruelty wielded while literally knowing the why, letting it break themself every moment.
Artemis hated that she loved Daphne and wanted to see her driven to ground for hitting that spot and making her steer towards thinking about the thing.
Artemis just went hunting and held her deepest hurt in a tightest box.
Her creations were a stowing too. They’d been connected to all of Apollo’s. They were lost to hope. Artemis hated people too much.
Apollo and his sister had been playing a game. She played to lose for everyone and there was only one right answer by the estimation of Daphne.
She would be setting things straight.
Orion was a man Artemis took to blow instead. She’d not been able to use her pussy anymore after getting fucked raw, from behind, like a dog, how she’d always begged the sweetest girl she’d ever known who just happened to be a giant and loved giving people what they wanted most.
When of health, and in truest spirit of gratitude, Daphne would wield powers of lovemaking unmatched for her women lovers. She’d resent Apollo for being that one man who could steal her heart, for he would always retain his others.
Daphne was the storyteller most preferred of her one male lover.
Girls like her always found a way to give those who kept them safe what they needed. That was all she’d need in return to feel her love burn brightest.
She was drawn to people for the best reasons. Daphne loved people’s flaws most, and she saw those desperately unpleasing for leaving unhealed towards harmony in Artemis. They were the one she’d never reach, who’d need it most, and seemed the best example of harmony she ever found before.
Daphne had never met a psychopath.
She loved women most and sought to love every person met in Eastmount. The way Apollo had chosen her songs to guide his creation, despite her size, would one day inspire great change. It wouldn’t be easy to witness for all but one of its women’s hearts. They’d prove some violence of speed. They had the grip in their grasp which would change things for good. Daphne’s sentence would end when she would be there, Hermia. They’d some need for speeding towards a cause they could affect great change with.
Daphne was the giant of Mt. Olympus.
Apollo found her most beautiful from all sides outward.
She’d been alone longest, and with only a few who’d taken place beside her at rest. There was one who came but never knew her heart the way she wished. They’d not known how to give her what she needed despite understanding Daphne best for such time.
It was Selene. She was the lady of the lake.
They had been best friends but couldn’t find a way to keep each other safe romantically. They’d wanted nothing more. Daphne had been the same as all upon Mt. Olympus in her need for lying towards the cause of Artemis’ cultural influence bearing into all creation.
For Daphne to have found Artemis so soon after separating from Selene, bore unbeatable doubt into Artemis for the way Daphne spoke of her love.
They would never talk to her about their lack of feeling misperceived by a practiced smile which exhausted them of others who saw through. Daphne hated lying most. Yet she did it best. She’d been trained that way along with her sister of spirit on Olympus.
Things were unfair there, for reasons beyond Apollo, which weren’t worth mentioning.
Daphne got by for a time with her intuitive connection to the sweet girl within Artemis, the whole time she’d shared her love into their voids of creation while feeling most utilized.
They’d asked for her to not to speak of love, and only just after Daphne told the Goddess she loved everyone. They proceeded to make her want them more than anyone. Artemis was a cunt. They’d been a slut. They were with other people the whole time and open about it. Daphne couldn’t care. She saw their smile in her presence, and it felt as if her whole heart was beaming.
Artemis made sure Daphne knew she’d fallen in love with her. She’d said it three times afterwards. Even if she was too insane to ever accept it.
“That was the closest to you I’ve ever felt,” Artemis said thrice in weeks after staring into Daphne’s eyes, fucking her slowly, and played their own favorite love song.
Lillith had sung that tune herself. She’d named it, If You Think It’s Love.
Daphne was learning more about herself all the time.
Trees were Daphne’s best friends. She’d named them all on Mt. Olympus.
Big Blue had been the one she’d ripped from ground when her mind was lost in hatred and the abuse which befell her by those cruelest leavings. She’d find no lovers upon Olympus in wake of Artemis’ great failure of shaming her towards the people of its lesbian culture.
Daphne had torn her soul in a way that would stand to hold by how she’d taken her favorite tree and burnt it by fire. She’d made a furnace, stoked the flames, brewed her potion of gasoline, enflamed the resonance of heatwaves, and knew her mark most well.
They would hide. They’d been a greatest coward.
Artemis would be split in half by the shot of Daphne’s arrows. She’d taken them by right of vaporous plywood negated, fallen timber most pure to use. She knew it her right to bleed any mark dry.
It would speak in whispers flying through the air. It would cut a fool in half — whole and clean — splitting Artemis down the midsection with heat to solder her goddess-body into a stump which would never fuck by pussy again.
Daphne was laughing when she knew. Her arrow was too large.
Orion was going to die too.
Orion was a man of means who saw themself the martyr.
Daphne didn’t give a shit. That was her thing. For much time after Artemis did the worst thing ever done to a human of Mt. Olympus, turning Daphne away when seeking reconciliation after creating her bow and realizing her mind became lost in trauma unshared.
She hadn’t understood that Artemis didn’t care. Their box was too tightly clasped.
Consequences matter. Intention mattered too. Artemis failed the worst and because she knew exactly why she was doing it the whole time. She always knew how she’d been taken in youth but would never tell a soul. It was a contract, willing, with herself. Artemis was living her life in spite of what was done that she’d never seek to heal.
They’d raped Daphne’s heart because they saw her trying to play their game in reverse. It wasn’t taken in jest as it had been by the giant woman. Artemis hated her for how they’d won inside.
Daphne would remake her bow. She would recruit the people needed for planting seeds which grew towards renewal, showing all of humanity’s harvest most worthy through time.
Artemis would not die of body. Neither would Orion. Not by Daphne’s arrow.
She’d just take their favorite thing from them both — something they could never admit as Artemis’ only redeeming feature — her sopping wet pussy, and ultimate squirt machine-fun-gun so made by her parents.
Neither Orion nor Artemis would admit it after the shot was fired.
They found their lies together, like always. Artemis would convince him she’d loved how he took her the most, by mouth, for eternity, swallowing loads in light of the lack of all she’d retain below her waist.
They were the only two who ever died on Mt. Olympus. They deserved it.
They killed each other when one of them killed themself.
Orion wouldn’t be able to take the lie forever. They’d know deep down. What Artemis gave of themself was too pleasant to abandon. Neither would be able to admit the thing, nor a breath of what was taught by Artemis’ obfuscation in their liar’s hearts.
He overdosed beside Artemis on their creation of narcotics distributed.
Artemis would chew herself to pieces with blades her own. She’d carve herself down, piece by piece from what I left. She knew it the only way to go for what she’d done to herself, for how she’d never love anyone like the biggest bitch in Mt. Olympus she’d failed not to fuck with.
Shots fired. They landed. It was written.
I didn’t give a shit. I’d been laughing the whole time. I still was.
It hurt my heart the most because I loved that bitch like my soulmate and I knew I’d never feel it the same again. I didn’t know it would be far better. The prostitute deserved it. Orion did that too. Even though I’d not known exactly how or why or when. I believed my heart that it would be true if he could stick with them.
People at the funeral were crying. That’s where it changed for me.
I really didn’t care. I was feeling better.
Everyone else finally felt worse instead. That bitch deserved it. So did he.
He’d never fucked her once like I did, all out, super-hot-like, honoring her heart the whole time, and giving her every grace for the way her body would seize and force us to separate. They’d told me often how they didn’t feel seen by anyone like me. My favorite moments ever were knowing my words had touched them.
I’d never write love letters again like I did to that bitch. Because I meant what I said when they healed my heart from who I was. Everything to come would be better after they’d gone.
They’d saved me from the sadness of never once feeling that romantic fire of being wanted like a woman with Selene, whom I love forever like a soulmate too, who deserves forgiveness for what happened between us that I will not mention. Nobody could take knowing their lover had understood something about them and kept it secret to themself for so long without resentment. Selene had wanted romance the way she saw it long before with Daphne and it wasn’t either of their faults.
They played games together best of all. No matter how poorly it went when they weren’t playing on the same team.
To see the fools crying for Artemis too was what made me feel better. I don’t know why. Stupid people just make me laugh.
Nobody believed it would work like it had. She’d never come back once. She was a cunt the whole way, even without one, and Daphne was unavailable to see them in the end. She’d not done that on purpose. She was just busy and missed their letter. It never made it to her.
Artemis had wanted to see her there, but Daphne didn’t know by the end of their lifetimes, and so she wouldn’t ever forgive them.
I’d not been aware that they found the truth at their end and missed me.
I would have not been laughing the whole time.
Something in me knew it at the funeral. Everything was going to be okay.
I would see them again in Westmount. I was going to know their spirit there in the creations made for Olympus’ honor by Apollo’s heart in Eastmount. One day I was sure that would be true.
I was going to make it true for everybody.
I care a lot.
Oni was the warrior’s heart within the machine. She’d been furious. Her grace was of some simplicity known by every glance. Yet none would see her. Her reidon was a mechanized battle-armor grafted around a shell of human protection.
Its making was unmet throughout the galaxy.
Flt-spurna was a diamond in the rough. The humanities within its reaches of unique capability to space. Their souls had come there for war.
It was the battle for how they’d remake Mt. Olympus playing out.
Synchopeshing matrixes of data-stream were coagulations within the mind of Oni strapped into TriBelt. She’d been the best in simulation and wasn’t ready to see herself let out in form. It was taking her to places unseen.
PryArch was her enemy refound.
The battleship’s size was a blot in the darkly painted sky of Olmeca. It came for Oni’s people of dualistic-lie. The Genitaucracy demanded disallowance of survival for the people of Cibron.
Cibronians carried truth in their step by right of what they owed.
People of Cibron held things truthfully in one way or another. Lies were a sacrifice. Grasping full weight of any burden was the key. Reflections cast would tell that tale for every civilization and human which Cibronians would choose to stand in disparate judgement of. Taking their burdens with blessings was a virtue.
Oni’s people were falling for how they’d lie out both ends. Oni was the last one left. She thought herself here to prove something. She’d not known the force she faced in opposition.
Apollo was reborn. PryArch stowed a legion. The belly opened and fourteen pilots hit thrust towards Oni’s final-fallen city. It was ashen, crumbling still, and the child left watching wasn’t letting up her fight so hopelessly.
She hadn’t known. Oni hadn’t believed.
PryArch was messenger.
Vapors poured netherically into every one of Oni’s peoples hovels filled by toxins of controlled substance. They were a fool to think they’d muster a breath beside those who’d trained so completely and throughout their lives of spacetime ungripped.
It was most dishonorable. She was falling hard.
Oni’s reidon had been cursed by the breadth of PryArch’s force, once unfolded from the void, when it would be known as might and nothing else by all to witness.
Cibron was a nation seeking truthful justice brought harshly upon the deserving. They protected their weak. It sought for balance with its enemy once but had proven them psychopaths. They were peoples who wouldn’t walk the truth who would be forsaken by Cibron’s warfare.
Hearts went too long obscured throughout Flt-spurna. The shot upon Oni’s weakness of home had to be made.
It was done. It was over. Oni was already dead.
They just hadn’t known it quite yet.
Power was in PryArch’s governor. Suns were setting on hope for Oni as she’d scrambled to imagine some lie in the circumstances falling upon her. She’d thought herself the martyr of truth. Her place in the Genitaucracy was forsaken at last. She’d known something deep inside and left it unspoken.
Oni saw him first. Her TriBelt’s graphite was tinging in unfoldings of robotic elongation, unthatching, evolving towards her firing state. Some man was going to tell her the truth quite soon.
Apollo inside would speak for Cibron-all into her mind.
“We did it all, hon. You’re fucked.”
Collapsing shells fell into the chambers of her gatling cannons and Oni was firing first. She’d felt the etching of sky by sight. Reverberations through Tri-belt were known in her midsection. Her ammunition was running low from the fight she had with her own kind.
Oni was about to be beaten like she’d been as a child. She was made the monster who would hold it until her fall. There was no breaking Oni. She was the denier. That was how she saw herself. She could only die.
Raw fury of Apollo’s echo-driver cut her from behind after she lost sight of him in the dark. He was Cibron’s leader, their father. Apollo was the eldest. He was the artist. He was the Governor. Every one of the reidons remerged from PryArch’s hold were some joy to its own intelligence.
Watching them rip Oni limb from limb inside their fallen mech, cutting TriBelt down to its namesake, was a blessing to the codes of a woman’s long-lost intelligence then coursing through every fiber of PryArch.
Daphne in Mt. Olympus was gritting her teeth the whole time.
Apollo was going to be smiling with her soon.
Gotham was a shitshow.
Batman didn’t give a shit.
He was headed deep. The deepest he’d gone. Something was stirring in the mountains East of Gotham. Townspeople were going missing. Nobody could figure out why it hadn’t been seen before — whatever was happening there.
Someone needed to remake the place. It was people within the town who were all wrong. Batman hadn’t been ready to break the way he would at their sight. He’d not been ready to face the rumor and needed a bite. Truth and rejection would be found in the darkness of Murkwood.
He’d not stopped once. His tanks were dry. He hadn’t brought Bruce’s wallet.
That man inside was a fool to The Bat.
“Shut the fuck up,” he’d grumbled while kicking in the front door.
Little mites were clamoring about.
Biggest bugs were swallowing them up.
Horny toads were croaking in the creek.
All were dead who thought themself alive. The colonizers were confused. Earth had swallowed them up at defeat of their now-forever-guardians.
Batman was sure of it.
He was sending his thoughts and feelings to everyone. He’d been in their pants, making them come with him here in the dark to find what they knew was theirs alongside his retro-fitted and sawed-off shotgun. He’d added a night vision scope to the top and bolted it on extra tightly. He added paint to make it look scary and cool. Batman added hyper-combustible micro-pellets to his shells which would coagulate upon firing to stow a girth of explosive wrath within each in-equal to a smallish grenade.
Everyone was in Batman’s computer and he’d known that often. Batman could hear people thinking about his thoughts. Gotham was a putrid place and everyone lied.
Everyone was literally in hell, or purgatory, or at least dead.
Everyone reeked of fear.
Murkwood smelled of bountiful change. Much could be done there in time. It was a dark world meant for exploration by one alone. No other could do it right. They’d not seen the truth.
Dead had risen in Murkwood and Batman was here to make them his army.
Batman would need to fight their queen. She had been lost to the underworld.
Batman was in dire need of delivering his message. He’d been inspired by his special place of receiving from the goddesses within. He was what needed to be done but missed the metaphors bearing towards rightness of justice.
Batman would show himself to pay.
Zombies. Batman made-up the name himself.
“My army!”
Batman was proving he had always been the one God. Curses wrought upon the world were his to sling.
“Karen!”
She had risen. The woman was of the deep. She’d been most wanted for her gorgeous, precious, sweety-pie squirming when felt within Batman’s special place of knowing.
Darkness was bleak. Blackness was red. Batman was blue.
He missed his mommy.
“Boo.”
Whispers were everywhere. Batman was hungry. Nothing was right.
He’d have to redo it all if it wasn’t for one thing.
Everything was perfect.
Batman was coming to Gotham with his babe. She was dead but carried inside now and forever and he’d not care less.
His zombie army was rearing to fuck a comic raw. The one everybody wanted who knew.
There was a song to sing that Batman’s tranny knew best. Rearing the engine of his sport-bike while sounding a train horn sounded the call. He’d felt her coming too, out there, somewhere under the rainbow, in a time that spoke to Batman’s special place. He knew. Making up by faulting in another direction would have him seeking a certain kind of woman to slay, to taste all night and day, for making him squirm to cry. He’d wished for her to deny him in ways which fed their hearts in divine harmony as only her right. To make him pay for how much he'd wanted that was her great blessing alone. To let her take what she wanted but only once done with it in proper had been the choice she’d make him regret and love to equal measure.
Her engines were revving and Batman knew it.
Everyone was dead anyway.
Daphne was laughing with Apollo inside, and his babe who’d be rubbing one out on their videocall no-doubt, all about, around to behind, after then last, and back before the start.
Mt. Olympus was still crying for Daphne.
