Artemis and Diana realised the problem immediately.
The child in their hand was male.
They particularly never had any problem when dealing with children whether it was male or female. Even though stories portray them as being highly averse to men by so much that they curse and kill them at sight, it is because of the Era of ancient Greeks.
(I will be using Artemis, but it is insinuated that I am representing both Diana and Artemis at the same time)
Woman does not even have the right to be treated as the same species at that time. Sometimes even male slaves were given more respect than free woman. Seeing a women killed and nobody reacting to it in the next day was a norm during that time.
That was the reason Artemis was extremely strict towards men when she dealt with them. At least due to her actions, the Greeks had to be careful among women due to the fear that they might bring her wrath upon them.
But right now, the problem was that Artemis's child was male. And she can feel that her power to change the gender of a person would not work on her own child dure to the special circumstance of his birth that included both sides of the Greek and Roman. So, she will have to raise him as a boy along with her hunters.
Normally she would not have minded it even a little bit as she was sure her own hunters would not hesitate to take care of him along with her, they might even be glad to find out that she now has a child. But Artemis had complicated history with males in her hunter's group. Unless she changes them into female, they concur one accident or the other with fates that end up extremely gruesome.
Artemis had realised that this was the way of Karma to balance the immortality that she had given to her hunters. So, she realised that her son would face a lot of misfortunes if she took him with her.
She knows that within one or two decade, she would have to face Orion who will come to hunt her down for his death at her hand. Another example of why males cannot be included in her hunter's group.
So right now, she cannot change her son's gender and at the same time she cannot bring him back with her to the hunters. So, the only thing she can do right now is to give her to child to someone for him to be raised well.
But she realised that she cannot even do that.
The current location she was in was chosen by the beast because of its special property of being in the border of the Greek and Roman pantheon. That was the reason why no one was able to detect her child who was born right now.
This also presented a problem. All gods have enemies including her and if she exits this place with her child, it wouldn't take long for her enemies to find out that her child existed in this world. And no matter who she gives her child to, he will not live a good life and the chances of him being used against her was also very high. And if such a situation comes, even if she would be unable to lay a hand on him, the other will not hesitate to destroy her child.
Artemis's hands tightened slightly as she imagined such a scenario. She also realised the only way for her son to survive.
He cannot be taken by her outside this place. She cannot tell anyone that she had a child.
She had to leave her child on her own for him to have a better chance at survival.
Artemis's lips trembled as she realised the truth of the situation. But she immediately brought herself back from feeling pitiful about her situation. She looked at her child one more time, taking in every aspect of his knowing that this might be the last time she will see him due to the circumstances.
"I am sorry my little one, I cannot protect you. I hope you will live a good life" Artemis said as she can feel the sunrise was nearby, she cannot even reveal the fact of her child to her brother as even that posed a great risk. She had to leave right now.
She created a silver cloth with magic and saddled her baby with it before laying him softly in the forest floor. She can see her child looking straight at her, but she knew she cannot be drawn into it as she can feel herself losing her resolve to leave her child for his own good.
She turned around and then began running back to her hunters at full speed, not even daring to look back where she had abandoned her child.
As she was running, she was able to feel the tears flow from the corners of her eyes.
"Oh, its been some time since I last cried" Artemis muttered to herself as she kept on running.
It did not take long for her to reach her hunters.
"The beast has been hunted and sunrise is coming, its time we moved" Artemis gave her order and all the hunters started preparing themselves.
But her lieutenant who had been with her for centuries noticed something was wrong with her goddess.
"My lord is there something wrong" Zoe nightshade asked.
Artemis turned towards her with a cold expression.
"Do not waste time with useless questions Zoe, we are leaving now" Artemis answered and turned around. But that was more than enough for Zoe and the older hunters among the group to realise what happened.
Something had made their leader to hide her emotions under a mask. They also knew it was something that cannot be revealed. All of them collectively decided to forget about it for now.
But some including Zoe decided to keep an eye on everything to find out what had saddened their leader by this much.
At the time Silva was looking at something unbelievable in front of him.
"Is that a dodo" he thought in his head as he looked at the large beaked bird with tiny wings in front of him.
A/N- hope you like it.