The Midnight Blues (Morgan)

Katarina strummed idly on her guitar, her gaze distant and sad. It was late at night, the daughter of Himeros was meant to be asleep but she just couldn't. Guilt gnawed hard at her stomach, sapping her spirit and her strength. She still found it difficult to come to terms that despite all of her training, all those years of self denial and remembering her duty that for a few moments Katarina's nature seized control. She had not really slept since she came back, troubled by her dreams and thoughts of the Hunters finding out about her kiss.
All those years spent toughening her mind and preventing herself from giving into temptation. Katy felt as though lifetime dedicated to self-deprivation and selflessness is simply thrown aside, despite her still being a Hunter.

Part of her wanted to come clean and tell the other Hunters, yet if she did Katarina feared that she might be kicked out of her home and abandoned by her friends.
She closed her eyes trying not to cry. Katy stopped playing setting her guitar down by her side as she buried her head in her hands, her hands resting on her knees. She sobbed quietly into them, her torment overwhelming her completely.

Aria had spent the first hours of the night in her tent with Sera, talking and joking over a cup of hot chocolate. However, when her sister curled up in her sleeping bag with a yawn, Aria silently unzipped the front of the tent and pushed through the silky flaps, carefully closing them behind her. The snow crunched under her shoes.

They were camping in the mountains, the air crisp like icicles in her lungs. Aria took a deep breath, closing her eyes in relish -- it was in high places like these that she felt most at home. Heights, mountains, snow, the wild, and a flawless sky above her head.
Spreading her arms, she gathered winds into a bubble around her, allowing the airstreams to pick her up in one swift motion and lift her above the gleaming tents, higher and higher into the sky. Stars glittered up from the ink-like darkness. Her hair whipped her face softly, her clothes swelling up around her body as the wind turned her in gentle circles. She let herself get carried up further, wishing to stroke the clouds with her fingertips, when suddenly, she stopped. Through the loud rustling of the wind in her ears, her sensitive hearing picked up something muffled -- a sob?

Her gaze travelled back down and settled on a silhouette in the middle of the tiny silvery tents, all huddled around herself with her face in her knees. If Aria had been anything else but a Hunter, her eyes and ears would never have been able to make all that out, but now she was worried -- which one of her sisters was crying, and why?
Allowing the icy altitude wind to carry her back down, settling her down gently like a pair of giant arms, she set foot next to the crying girl, softly resting her hand on her shoulder. There was a guitar next to her.

"Katarina?" Aria whispered, kneeling down at her right. "Why are you upset?"

Katy lifted her head as she heard Aria's voice, her sob caught in her throat though tears continued to slide down her cheeks like rain drops. Katarina took a deep breath her hands shaking, in fact her whole body was trembling not just from fear but also nervousness. If she told Aria the truth then her friend might kick her out from the Hunters, of course if she told her a lie then she knew that she'd feel even guiltier and more wretched.
If Aria later found out the truth there would be no where on this planet that Katy might be able to flee to in order to escape her friend's wrath. In the end with a heavy heart, she looked away from Aria, pulling her hood over her head, her eyes studying her knees and whispered the words that might lay waste to all her dreams, hopes and friends.
"I... Aria... Gods please forgive my weakness but..." She swallowed her tears falling onto her knees like a summer rain. "I kissed someone." Katarina decided to leave on the mission details, she felt for certain that Aria knew them already. The other Hunters had not and still did not approve of her temporary alliance with the boy, Dimitri. Sharing there tent was one thing that they reacted badly too, who knew what might happen if they found out that she had kissed him after he freed her from the net.

There was a reason why Katarina usually never ended up alone away from Camp, her nature was one of flirts and forbidden desires or rather to be a forbidden desire. For decades she had endured the temptations, resisted it but perhaps a girl could only resist for so long before they fell prey to the same vices that had claimed many of her half sisters and half brothers respectively.
Katy wanted to be a Hunter but was a kiss something bad enough to get you kicked out. She fully expected to be struck at by Aria, to be attack or for her to yell abuse at her. "Aria..." She began, trying so her not to break down completely. "I... I'm sorry I... I could not help myself..." She fell silent, still crying.

"You what?"

Aria drew back at once, all compassion gone. Katarina had broken her oath. Aria stared down at her in disgust, taking a step back in the crunching snow. She was unsure if she could still see her as a sister now that she had betrayed their goddess.

"Does the lady Artemis know of this?" she asked in a cold voice.

Katy flinched as if she had been struck. Her heart felt wretched. "I swear I didn't mean too..." She stopped herself knowing that all of her attempts to justify herself would not save her. "No... She doesn't know." She shook her head sadly. "She deserves to know though... I... I could not resist my nature any longer it seems so I am to be forever damned." Katy could not meet her friend's eyes, or even look upon her sister.
"I... I did wish to but I could not help it being a daughter of Himeros." Katy sighed quietly. "I am deeply ashamed of myself."
Katy whispered. "I didn't betray my oath it was a kiss not like I stopped being a maiden."

"You're still a maiden but you didn't turn your back on men like you were supposed to!" Aria spat. Anger welled up in her chest, mixing with feelings of hurt and betrayal. When she had broken her oath, Katarina hadn't just betrayed Artemis, she had betrayed the whole Hunt too. She couldn't see her as a sister anymore.

"So what, you're blaming your mistake on your father now? I am the daughter of Zeus, who could fill countries with his lovers! Did I break my promise?"

Katy said nothing for a while. "Then just shoot me alright? I'd rather be dead than not a Hunter so strike me down instead as this is my life." Katarina shut her eyes wishing that she had not thrown her path away, curse these feelings and emotions. "I thought you might have understood I didn't willingly want to do it... I tried to stop I swear on the River Styx I tried.... I just failed."

"I can't kill you, I'd be expelled from the Hunt myself," Aria replied with crossed arms. She still couldn't believe it. She had had such high hopes for Katy! Of course she had never really liked her flirting game with males but she thought Katy was smart enough not to actually break her vows on a whim like that. "There is no trying, Katarina. There's either winning or losing. Tell yourself you tried all you want if that makes you somehow feel better but it doesn't change the truth. You're a failure," the daughter of Zeus said and turned on her heels, walking away as electricity angrily flashed between her fingertips. "I give you one week to tell the Lady Artemis! One."

"Or you'll tell her yourself?" Katy guessed, that was it. She might as well pack up her stuff now and leave with what was left of her honour before Artemis decided that she should leave. She didn't expect mercy or pity from the Goddess of the Hunt. "I;ll just go... Save you the bother of any humiliation or myself any further shame." She swallowed her throat dry.
"I know there is only winning or failure, victory needs no explanation and defeat allows for none." Katarina looked at her friend. "I thought you would understand... And I'm sorry alright I know that doesn't change things but I honestly hoped to spend the centuries hunting with you and my sisters."

She sighed. "I... I ain't been right since that cave..." Sure Katy joked about it, she joked about her lost friend similar to the way they took the mick out of each other when her pal was alive. But the death unsettled her deeply, she felt as though something was missing now. An empty spot in the hunt that could never be truly filled.
"Aria." She began hesitating slightly now. "Despite of my failings I'm still glad I met you and of what you taught me without your support I doubt I would have managed to keep a single day with my vows."

"No, then I'll make you tell her," Aria said. "It's your place to say it, not mine; I'm not a gossipy tattletaie."

Nymeria had come out of the darkness, her soft fur warm against her stomach as the wolf brushed against her.

"If you expect me to pity you or comfort you, you're losing your time. I don't care how sorry you are unless you do something to fix it. Right now all you're doing is trying to find excuses for your behavior when you should be finding a way to make up for it." When Katarina said that last thing though, the feelings of betrayal came back even sharper and she looked at the daughter of Himeros with profound disdain before turning her back to her and walking away on the silent white ground. Snowflakes had started falling, twirling around with strength and she realized clouds had massed overhead, dark clouds. Only then did she feel that her energy had decreased and that she had activated her power without even noticing it.
Gritting her teeth, she kept walking, the turmoil of her thoughts deepening in her head. She needed a place, a quiet place to sit down and think at.

OOC: New topic?

"I am trying to find a way to make up for it." She muttered to Aria. "I just don't see how..." She watched her former friend go knowing that Aria would never forgive her for her actions.

OOC: Sure if you don't mind startin