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Artemis straightens and gazes, over the fields and rolling hills, towards the setting sun. The wind rustles her hair – already getting long enough to need to braid it back, to keep it out of the way. Her bow is clutched in one bruised fist – the bow is crude and flimsy, and looks exactly like what it is: a bow made by a child with limited resources but preternatural skill. It’s served her well, in fighting the beasts sent to torment Artemis and her family.
She narrows her eyes as she surveys the land. I have to be strong in this, she thinks. Mother isn’t here now, and Apollo doesn’t have the strength yet.
Behind her, her idiot brother is still cooing excitedly. “Ohhhhh Artemis, look at his tail – it’s just a short little bit of fluff!!! Look, it’s so short – I bet it’s soft too – ahh, but it’s probably wrong to just pet someone’s tail, isn’t it…”
Artemis breathes in deeply and counts to five before answering. “It’s not a someone, ‘Pollo, it’s a something. A centaur. You’ve seen them before, they’re nasty, savage brutes!”
“This one’s different, though! You can tell by looking at him.”
She really doesn’t get it. It’s a centaur. Yeah, it’s a baby, and yeah, it’s cute. Most baby animals are cute, and then they grow up to be bears and wolves and centaurs.
Currently, it’s standing on wobbly legs, and hiding behind a tree. Well, “hiding.” It hasn’t figured out yet that it’s too long to hide completely behind the tree trunk, so it’s peering out at them and its entire horsey rear end is sticking out. As Apollo has noted, its tail is that of a foal’s – short and fluffy and flicking nervously fast.
“All I can tell is that it’s not big enough to cause damage yet. Apollo, it’s gonna just be a matter of time before this one’s snarling and trying to shove a spear down your throat. Like the ones we ran into three days ago.” Apollo’s developed a talent for guessing the future, but he’s apparently not much use for learning from the past.
“Ahh, Artemis, you’ll see.” Ugh, he’s getting that look on his face – faraway and placid. He’s having a “vision”. She isn’t totally convinced yet that it’s real, and that he isn’t just trying to make himself look smarter, but she has to admit he’s starting to be right more often than not.
Apollo continues talking in that soft, knowing voice, as he holds out a hand to the baby centaur. “He’ll be a wonder. There will be no one who doesn’t know his name; no one who doesn’t adore him.”
“Just like you, right?” Artemis asks sarcastically. He’s made that prediction about himself,too.
“Nothing nearly as powerful as we’ll be, sister; but well-known. A wise teacher, he’ll be, respected and beloved by heroes and gods alike.”
The centaur is emerging from behind the tree. Now that she can see the human half of his body better, it’s hard to deny that he’s a cute little fellow. He has a soft tummy, a chubby round babyish face, topped with curly black hair. Two pointed ears poke out of the curly locks. His eyes are warm and dark brown and enormous, flicking between the two of them.
He’s different in other ways as well – he’s built differently. Even though he has a foal’s body – long skinny legs, short fluffy tail, knobbly knees – he’s visibly stockier than most other centaurs she’s seen, and taller. His body is a lovely dark bay color, highlighted red where the sun shines on it, and he has white feathers at the hooves. His mannerisms are shy, a little skittish, but more – more calmly so. He has far less nervous energy than a typical centaur. He seems inclined to stay still and observe… and release all of his nervous energy via his madly-twitching tail.
She hates to admit it (and certainly won’t admit it out loud), but Apollo was right – you can tell just by looking at him. There’s a certain intelligence to his warm eyes, a certain consideration to the way he takes his steps, even though he’s still a child – little more than a baby, really.
“I wonder what happened to the rest of his family,” she says, not quite conceding the point to Apollo, but grudgingly going along with it. “There’s no tracks of any others, and they’re pack creatures.”
“Not this one. He’s –an entirely different species, I think.”
“Two different species of half-man, half-horse?” Artemis doesn’t bother to keep the cynicism out of her voice.
“Why not? There’s more than one species of fish or bird.”
She feels like this is a non sequitur reply, but she doesn’t have an argument for that, so she leaves it be. The centaur has tiptoed closer to Apollo, who reaches into his pack and pulls out an apple.
“You’re feeding him, now?”
“He’s hungry – oh!”
The centaur baby has snatched the apple and is indeed eating it hungrily. Apollo laughs where he crouches, watching.
“What a charming little fellow.”
“Charming or not – different or not, we don’t really need a pet right now, Apollo.”
Her brother looks over at her with a familiar look of mildly condescending annoyance. As much as this expression gets on her nerves, she still prefers it over the distant expression he gets when he’s in a vision.
“He won’t be a pet, Artemis, don’t be rude.”
She gets a sinking feeling, tempered with preemptive resignation. She may not be able to seethe future as often or as precisely as Apollo, but she can see as clearly as she sees Lord Helios in the sky, that they’re about to be saddled with a clever and lonely baby centaur.
Sure enough: “…He’ll be… my son,” Apollo declares.
Artemis groans. “Come on, ‘Pollo-!”
But it’s too late. Apollo’s holding his arms out for the centaur. The centaur takes a moment to wipe his apple-smeared face with a leaf (and Artemis knows that little fussy detail is making her fussy brother’s heart do flips), and then the centaur steps over to grasp Apollo’s hand.
Apollo hugs the boy/foal and the centaur starts crying, burying his face into Apollo’s perfect hair as Apollo’s hand rubs his back.
“Shh, shh, little one. It’s all right. You’ll be with us, now.”
Artemis slouches over to the sentimental scene. “Well, what’s his name, then?”
“Hmm.” Apollo pulls away a little and smiles at the solemn-faced centaur, tidying his curly hair as he thinks. “I like the sound of…Chiron.”
“Chiron?” Artemis and the centaur say in unison. The centaur’s voice is youthful and childish and uncertain.
“Chiron,” Apollo repeats, booping the kid’s nose as he says it. He points at himself next. “And you can call me… Papa.”
“Papa,” says the centaur – Chiron. He boops Apollo’s nose; Apollo laughs again.
Artemis sighs and fiddles with her bow. Her brother is a soft-hearted fool – but then again, she’s putting up with this nonsense just because she can’t say no to the smile on her brother’s face, so perhaps she’s no better.
—————-
Leto loves him, of course, immediately. She’s the entity of motherhood and adores the lost child who’s found a home with her children. Artemis accepts Chiron as her nephew, but remains distant from him for a while. The archery lessons he receives from her are kind but standoffish, at least at first.
She finally warms up to him all at once, one day, when she catches Chiron spying on her at practice.
Little Chiron is determined to do his utmost to excel in all the things his foster parents can do. He’s already learned some basic medical and lyre skills from Apollo, and archery and tracking from Artemis… but now he wants to master gymnastics, too, it seems.
From where he’s “hidden” behind a tree – still completely visible – she spots him attempting to imitate her front handspring-to-somersault move. Something complicated happens when he does this and the boy lands in a heap, long horse legs sticking straight up in the air as his human half remains lodged upside-down in a bush.
She bursts into laughter at the sight and goes to help him, finally letting down the walls in her heart.
———————
Apollo’s actual children, by the way such things are traditionally accounted, come later – after Python, after the twins have taken their thrones on Olympus, after the terrible rise and eventual fall ofTyphon. After all this, there is leisure time enough for Apollo to charm and dazzle his way into the beds of many goddesses, nymphs, and mortal women alike. There are numerous descendants of Apollo, and he is pleased with all ofthem.
But the first child, by the way Apollo accounts such things (and Artemis too, for that matter), had arrived years before all of the rest. Eventually, through Rhea, they learn the truth of the matter – Chiron is Apollo’s uncle – but this is only an interesting bit of trivia at this point.
Apollo has many children, but Chiron is Apollo’s first child in the only way that matters.