The farm was a comfort to Artemis more than anything else. She lived and breathed right along side it, using work as a distraction while her life continued to fall apart. The people she used to love had abandoned her once more and her worth existed only in what she could do.
With the sun beating down upon her shoulders she wielded the scythe with ease, striking down long rows of tall grass. Each blade toppled over like a fallen tower, succumbing to gravity and the influence of an external force. Sweat beaded on Artemis' pale brow only to be wiped away quickly with a dirtied shirt sleeve.  
Her arms were sore and tired, having worked the surrounding land over the past week with an unfaltering harshness. Sucking in a sharp breathe and gritting her teeth, she set forth again, blistered palms torn open once more with each swing of the blade. As piles of grass grew, she paused to collect them and set them aside for Stella.
While the auburn haired rebel refurbished long overgrown fields, Zoë and Calypso returned from the orchard with baskets full of apples and oranges. The eldest sibling carried the heaviest load while Calypso waddled back up to the porch with her own basket. Zoë followed closely behind, giving her younger sister a gentle pat on the head congratulating her for her hard work. Smiling proudly, Calypso snatched up an orange and ran out to the field her Cowboy was working.
Artemis was so caught up in what she was doing she nearly struck Calypso with the scythe, stopping halfway through her swing, eyes wide in alarm. "Careful!"
"S-sorry," Calypso stammered, taking a hesitant step back startled by the loud warning. "I was bringing you this."
"Oh," Artemis nodded, taking the orange from Calypso's outstretched hand. "Thanks, Small One."
Offering a small smile, Calypso ventured back up to the porch to busy herself with something inside the house. Pausing to inspect the snack, Artemis peeled it with care. Oranges weren't exactly her favorite, but it would do for the time being. After eating a few slices, she tossed the rest aside, picked up the scythe once more and went back to work.
Overhead the sun began to disappear as dark clouds came in from the east. They reached high into the heavens like a castle that moved and dared anyone to stand in its way. For a moment, Zoë watched the strange girl from afar. There was a callousness to her that hadn't been there before, and while it wasn't unwarranted, it was uncomfortable. She didn't like it, but it wasn't her place to try and fix the auburn haired girl. She knew what it was like to lose your family. It was something everyone grappled with eventually.
For a moment she contemplated joining Artemis but decided against it. It was clear the poor girl wanted her space or she wouldn't spend every waking moment working herself to the bone. Shaking her head, the farm girl decided it was best to start on dinner and wait for Hermes to make his way through town. He always stopped on his way back to collect the crops she had to offer and give her pay for the previous ones sold in other towns.
All the while those dark clouds continued to brew, but the girl in the field didn't seem to notice them. Instead, she pressed on as if nothing  in the universe was changing.
Ragged breathe passed through chapped lips as sweat stung old blisters. None of it rang true to Artemis. All she could picture was her father's face as he betrayed her. His stormy eyes, the sting of his knuckles making them red, and the muscle twitching in his jaw. He was a lousy man with an unbearable temper yet his actions were somehow unexpected. If her mother had been there...
"She's not here," Artemis grumbled, swinging hard at the annoying grass. "She left you, remember?"
With shaking hands, she threw the scythe aside and grabbed fistfuls of the unwanted crop tossing it aside where it fluttered lazily to the ground. Shaking her head, she chased the thoughts away by running to the old rusty plow across the way. There was no horse to pull it but that didn't matter. It was small, manageable by someone with enough anger to take on the world. Besides, Stella wasn't a plow horse, she couldn't do the work needed.
Setting her jaw, Artemis tugged the plow into place, pausing briefly to eye the barren expanse of land as the first drops of rain began to fall. Lowering the brim of her hat, she adjusted the ropes tied to the plow's handles, slung them over her shoulders, dug her heels into the ground and marched on.
It was slow going at first. A desperate fight between her body, mind, and the task at hand, but as the rain fell in heavy sheets it's cold touch numbed any lingering physical pain. Wiping at her eyes, Artemis trudged through growing pools of mud, dragging the weight of the plow behind her.
For a moment she forgot her troubles, but as the rope chaffed her shoulders she was reminded of rough hands trying to pull her back. Of biting nails threatening her to remain still and the pain that followed when she disobeyed. Closing her eyes she blinked fiercely, fighting off the stinging rain as it hammered against her small frame.
But the burning of her eyes called forth the memory of blood mingling with tears. The way her hands clawed at the damn Sheriff's eyes threatening to blind him as her eyes stung with tears of fear. The way she choked back bile mirrored the pain in her dry throat.
Sighing deeply, she tried to push on ignoring everything that clouded her mind. There wasn't room for self pity anymore. No one was going to believe her. No one was going to help her. She was alone now whether she liked it or not. Biting back a sob, Artemis gripped the slick ropes tighter in her mangled hands and tore her way through the muddy mess of a field. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth through the pain and across the field turning soil over again and again.
Her legs hurt. They hurt like they had the day she first ran away from Olympus. Small and desperately in search of a mother who had left her behind with an unloving father. She'd been helpless then, had cried until her lungs felt raw, and she'd sworn to herself that she'd never feel helpless again.
Not like she had standing alone half a mile away from home staring at the great expanse of golden desert before her. A little girl stuck in a world to big for her. Left to cry for a mother that wasn't coming back. That was the first time she was left behind. The first in a long series of events.
The ropes of the plow slipped clean through her hands and the young rebel fell to her knees in the mud with a cry of unadulterated pain. Her palms were marred by bleeding flesh and open wounds. The skin of her hands was too torn to grasp anything anymore. It would slip clean through her hold taking a bit of skin and blood with it. Crying through gritted teeth, Artemis leaned forward using her elbows to help push herself back up but her body was too weak to be of proper service. Instead, she got halfway and gave up, stuck in an upright fetal position aware of the mud slowly consuming her along with the rain.
Something tugged firmly on her collar coaxing her into somewhat of a sitting position before two sturdy arms hooked beneath her armpits. "Let me go." Artemis whispered, unable to keep her eyes open as rainwater washed her face clean.
"I said you could help around the farm not kill yourself doing it," came an accented reply. "Now help me out here so we both don't get struck by lightning."
Part of Artemis felt like stubbornly refusing the order before grudgingly agreeing. She was aware of the arm moving to wrap firmly about her waist and the other drawing her trembling arm about sturdy shoulders. Though it took some time to sync their steps, the two mismatched girls eventually stumbled to the porch where Zoë practically threw Artemis into a rickety rocking chair.
She retreated inside for some time as Artemis nearly fell asleep during Zoë's brief absence. Eventually, the farm girl returned with a fresh set of clothes and a series of blankets and a towel.
"You need to change," Zoë insisted, taking Artemis' hat and setting it aside before taking hold of Artemis' vest. All at once a slick palm latched onto her wrist as a twisted look of pain flashed across Artemis' face.
"Don't try anything. Please." A tense silence settled between the two of them as Zoë carefully pried Artemis' hand off. She looked directly into fragile silver eyes and saw in them wounded and shattered pride.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I promise," Zoë insisted, aware of the bloodied handprint on her wrist which had taken its counterpart's place. With a shaky sigh, Artemis nodded, and leaned forward ever so slightly, doing her best to help Zoë in their awkward little dance. To the farm girl it was no different than undressing a tired child who'd stayed up past their bedtime and now succumbed to a clumsy sort of tiredness.
Once the Cowboy's drenched and dirty clothes were left in a pile on the porch, Zoë dressed the other girl halfway and escorted her inside wrapped in a towel.
"Sit," Zoë ordered, pointing promptly at the dinner table. With a shaky sigh, Artemis took up a spot at the table, aware of the set of dark brown eyes watching her every move. "I'm going to bandage you up, then you're going to eat, and you're going to bed. Understood?"
"I'm not employed by you. You're not my boss," Artemis replied, looking dully at the wooden tabletop. "You can't stop me from going back out there and finishing what I started."
"You're right. But you're my friend. That should be enough motivation to listen, shouldn't it?" Zoë asked, arching a brow as she rummaged about the house until she had all that was needed. "Besides, you're wounded and you've grown thin. You won't be useful like this and that's what you want, right? To be useful?"
Once more, the two girls held each other's gaze and once more Artemis gave in. There was a tenacity to the other girl that she didn't have the energy to match anymore.
"Does it get easier?" Artemis asked at last, her voice raspy and worn. For a moment she was given no sign of recognition as the farm girl examined her raw and wounded shoulders.
"Does what get easier?" Zoë asked, lightly rubbing a cool salve into the chapped skin of Artemis' shoulders.
"Giving up on your family?"
"I wouldn't call it giving up," Zoë sighed, pursing her lips as she worked on guiding Artemis' naked torso into a shirt that wouldn't hug her frame too tightly and wound her shoulders more. "People like us are the ones who fought so hard to keep our families together in the first place. If anything, they gave up on us and it's best if we let them."
"Is it why you're so cold?" Artemis asked, watching the other girl with a guarded sort of precision as Zoë sat across from her and inspected two very mangled palms.
"Mm," the farm girl laughed lightly. "Only to people I don't know. I can't afford to have strangers take up a place in my heart only to leave along with everyone else now can I?"
"Then why are you helping me?" Artemis frowned, biting back a growl as the slave itself set forth a fire of pain on her hands.
"You're not a stranger," Zoë smiled faintly. "Not anymore anyways. You were...persistent."
"And what if I leave?" Artemis asked, her question causing the other girl to go still. For a moment she wondered if she'd angered the farm girl, but instead Zoë met her gaze once more.
"That's up to you isn't it?" She replied, not daring to breathe. It was true, she'd promised herself a long time ago that no one else belonged in the careful world she'd constructed for herself. She couldn't suffer through the abandonment anymore and it was only a matter of time before Calypso would abandon her too.
"Mm," Artemis nodded, her silver eyes falling back to her wounded hands as Zoë recalled the importance of her task.
Neither girl said anything more until Artemis was safely patched up, dressed, and bundled up in a blanket to soothe her shivering frame. Once more, Zoë gave the ragged Cowboy her bed only this time she returned to the table and stared at the seat before her hoping that she would never have to endure a life where each evening she sat down to an empty table.