Artemis wanted to be a princess

She didn't believe in fairy tales. There wasn't some 'Once Upon a Time' in real life- it started, and it ended. And it didn't end 'Happily Ever After'. She learned that the hard way.

It wasn't always like that. She started out loving the classics- Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty- and she figured, maybe one day, she could be like Bell or Aurora, or maybe even Ariel and grow a tail fin and swim way under the water and sing with the multi-colored fish and honking sea sponges.

And then her mother was arrested.

That didn't happen in fairy tales. Fairy tales were lovely, and happy, and yes, the main character always had to go through some horrible tragedy before they could become the beautiful princess they were, but why couldn't she fall in love an Arabian thief? Or sleep for a hundred years and be kissed by a handsome prince?

Oddly enough, she still had hope. Her sister would read her Alice in Wonderland until she fell asleep with the Cheshire cat weaving her through mazes and chess boards in her dreams. Maybe she would end up like Alice- though she was now older than what Alice was- and she could fall down a hole to find the Cheshire cat.

Her father wasn't much help either. He made the fact that she was a princess practically impossible. What kind of a Queen would leave her lovely- and beautiful- princess daughter to this… monster? His hands were large and kind and smooth, she loved them when she was little, and how he would pick her up and caress her cheeks with his loving hands and thin fingers, drawing back her long thick hair until she fell asleep against his shoulders.

She had no idea they could be used for such brutal purposes. The first time she learned was when Jade and she had come back from school late. Jade got out half an hour before Artemis, and during that time, was supposed to walk to her sister's school, pick her up and walk home. Unfortunately though, they got caught up by a larger group of boys- tall and heavyset, smoking and kicking litter around. They had stopped Jade, who immediately attempted to save her sister by paying off with the fifty dollars and eleven cents she had. When they finally got home- by Jade's quick thinking and furious bite, their dad was waiting in the living room, calmly, reading a book. When the door closed behind the two, softly, he had stood up, and immediately smacked Jade across the room and flying into two chairs, upturning the table and a bowl of fruit as well.

She was careful after that, but it seemed everything upset this once soulful man. Their backyard became a ring. Cardboard, then wood, signs were made and he painted circles around it, with one large dot in middle. He handed over a long thin black bow and told her to shoot the middle dot. The string was taut, and hard, and she missed by several feet, landing in the foliage of a tree. He instructed her again and again, and she wasn't allowed to rest until she hit it. Her second try hit the outer ring, and the third missed again, landing a good five feet from it.

Her hands would welt and refuse to curl, and her eyes would water while she continued again and again to try and get it. Jade was a natural, taught to use knives and a sword. It was a deadly extension of what she already was, and her agility and speed became greater too.

They were pitted against each other. Artemis with her clumsy bow technics, and Jade, with her Sword resting at her hip, ready to kill. They started off well enough, Artemis managed to get three arrows in at once and get all of them fairly close to her sister. Once of them even lodged into her boots, forcing her to stay where she was. But Jade was clever too, and slipped off the boots, and charged with the sword swinging furiously from her hands. In that split second, Artemis knew she was going to die.

Instead, when she looked up, her sister had the sword inches away from her face, rattling in her hands, her eyes darting back and forth between Artemis and her father. "Do it, finish her." He commanded, striding over to them. He took a look at Jade and knocked her down, shoving his fist against her temple.

"Go to bed. Both of you," he said, not looking up as he crossed over to the area he had made for shooting practice.

Artemis helped her sister up. Jade's bottom lip had burst open and a long thin scar led down to her chin, bleeding heavily. Artemis took off her sweatshirt and pressed it against it, checking Jade for anything else wrong.

Maybe she just wasn't meant to be a princess, she thought later that night in bed, pretending not to hear Jade as she tried not to sob into her pillows and blankets and stuffed animals. Maybe she was supposed to be the evil queen, or the jealous step-sister.

When she was nine, before she headed out to school with Jade- whose lip had healed, and was currently working through another concussion- she examined herself in the mirror. Sure, her eyes were a little bit different shaped then a lot of the others at school, but they were like Jade's, so if she was ugly, so was Jade, right? Her skin was dark and her hair light, contrasting, and, at nine, even she could tell, it looked stupid.

She slinked back down from the mirror and pulled on her tiny black shoes and her colorless overall dress.

Her teacher was a substitute that day- apparently the teacher had an orthodontist appointment, whatever that was. Her substitute was a blonde, thin man with a silly grin on his face.

His name was Mr. Allen.

He was a good teacher, explaining the long division she wasn't sure she was doing right for the past three weeks into such a simpler matter that the next question she did on the board, and got right. When it came to reading, or Language Arts, he scratched his head, and plowed into the book that they were reading, talking so fast that more than one person had to ask him to slow down and explain what sex was, which enticed a hour long discussion that took up the rest of Language Arts and some of Science.

"Know, when your parents want to talk to you about this when your thirteen, you can tell them that you already know." He finished explaining, looking at the dumbstruck nine year old boys and girls. "Well time for gym."

"But it's science-"

"But isn't gym more fun?" he asked, getting out a couple of dodge balls- which weren't allowed in the classroom, and throwing them out at random. "Okay, whoever can hit me first, gets fifteen extra credit points."

He was immediately attacked by twenty dodge balls, all he somehow managed to dodge.

After school, and when Artemis was finished with her homework, Jade brought up her dinner, clumpy instant mashed potatoes, a rubber looking fried egg, and a glop of macaroni and cheese. She didn't complain- even though she knew Jade sucked at cooking.

"We're leaving Artemis." Jade said after a few minutes. She hadn't even touched her own plate.

Artemis looked up from her runny rubbery egg. "We… are?"

"Me and you. No dad. No one but us."

"But how-"

Jade got up, and pulled down two large backpack meant for hiking from a shelf. "I've been saving up. Every night, I get up at three and work at the convenience store for three hours. For us."

Artemis looked at the bags. A life-saver, certainly. No more of her father, with his cruel tricks and taunts. Her and Jade, gone, living, healthy, without parents-

"Jade, what about Mom?"

"What about her?" Jade asked, stuffing in Artemis's clothes in the first bag.

"We can't' leave her, when she comes home-"

"She isn't coming home. She left us with that monstrosity she calls a parent. If she really loved us, she wouldn't have left." Jade said fiercely. "Are you coming or not?" she asked, looking up. She was done packing.

Artemis looked down at the floor. "We need to be a family."

"Whatever," Jade said, sliding the second back over her shoulder and opening the window. "See you in the shadows." She said, and then slid out of it, with obvious expertise.

That was why she wasn't a princess. Princesses fell in love, they were beautiful, and they had everything they could ever want. Abundance of roses, beautiful kind sisters, and fathers who understood. At this point it didn't really care whether it was an ugly hairy beast or not, she just wanted one.

When she was twelve, she got as close to her wish as she thought she ever was. Her father brought home a teenager- probably three or four years older than her- and introduced him. His name was Cameron. Even though she wasn't too impressed, he obviously found her adorable, by the way he was expressing it profusely to her father.

So, their relationship began.

She wasn't exactly certain what she was expecting from him. 'Love You's and cards and roses? No, but she at least expected him to be nice. She was the only seventh grader dating, and the other entire girls' team called her a whore and slut. To make it even worse, he was mean. Things he said dripped with menace and venom, his hands just as harsh as her fathers. He kicked her, slapped her, even broke her nose once, but each time, he'd come back to school the next day, hair slicked back and a kind smile on his face, taking her books from her telling her how much he was sorry.

And then they had sex.

She wasn't even expecting it. Her dad was out; finalizing the things to get her mother out of jail, and Cameron had volunteered to take her over to his house. No one was home. They started out watching a college basketball game and eating chips when he just pulled her suddenly by her hair and drug her into his room.

She didn't even consent. Screamed bloody murder, turned every which way, kicked and punched.

And yet it wasn't enough.

Her mother came home. She avoided Cameron at all costs. Going as far as to pull Jade's old trick of sliding through the window whenever he came for her. E-mails were trashed and the phone calls from him she let them ring until they were at voice mail.

No, she would never be a princess. She was too ugly, too broken, and so un-princess like.

A.N. Alrighty. So my first one-shot in like forever…. I hope it's good.

The reason I wrote this is because I believe people really never gave Artemis the justification she needed. People sometimes make her a whore…. Which is kinda explained in this, and other times they make her an attention hog, again, explained.

Basically, I don't like it when they make her seem such a certain way when it really isn't who she is. Enough rambling though… This is my one-shot, and I've pretty much told you how Artemis grew up, and I hope you enjoy