Run, Then (part 5)
"You wanted a monster." "I wanted a metaphor."
Welcome to the fifth ‘chapter’ of my new series Run, Then, a retelling of Atalanta’s story. Since I started this project, I have learned that there are two very different versions of her story. In one, she’s a hunter and a wild-woman with Artemis looking out for her; in another, she’s a woman who can outrun every man she’s ever attempted to race, until one uses divine trickery to beat her instead. This last one is the version this series is based on. Just wanted to clarify that! Also, make sure you check out the previous four installments, as this is a continuing story: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!
5. The Transformation
The temple stones remembered her.
Even before Atalanta’s knees struck the ground, the earth trembled in a way she recognized—not as danger, but as recognition, a greeting from an old enemy. The cracked tiles beneath her palms thrummed with divine residue, each pulse syncing with the frantic beat of her heart.
Hippomenes staggered backward, hands clamped over his ears. He was shouting her name, but the sound warped in the air, swallowed by the rising hum of the goddess descending.
Aphrodite never arrived quietly. She had to be felt before she was seen—her presence a pressure on the lungs, a tightening at the base of the skull, a sweetness on the tongue so cloying it bordered on nausea. And then she was simply there. She stepped between the columns with the grace of a dancer, her bare feet never touching the ground. Her hair flowed in a cascade of molten gold, her shape impossibly symmetrical, her smile carved with exquisite malice. Even in dim moonlight, her beauty radiated—unearthly, immaculate, cruel.
Atalanta hated her instantly.
She tried to rise, but her spine rebelled—her bones grinding and reforming with each breath. A low growl vibrated in her throat.
Aphrodite’s eyes lit with amusement. “Still resisting,” she cooed. “How very you.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” Atalanta hissed, voice breaking apart at the edges.
“No one ever does,” the goddess said lightly. “But choices have consequences, darling. You rejected every suitor, mocked the institution of marriage, turned down my sweetest gifts. You embarrassed men. You embarrassed me.” She tsked. “That sort of behavior requires correction.”
Hippomenes stumbled forward, desperate. “Please,” he gasped. “She didn’t know. I didn’t know. The apples—”
Aphrodite waved him silent. “Of course you didn’t know. That’s what made it fun.”
She drifted closer to Atalanta, crouching with predator-like elegance. Her fingers traced the air inches above Atalanta’s cheek, not quite touching, yet burning all the same.
“You were meant to become something beautiful,” she murmured, “something fierce and tamed at once. A lioness bound to your husband—two matched creatures yoked by devotion and divine whim.”
Atalanta’s vision swam. Her nails lengthened into blackened points. Her teeth split her gums as they sharpened.
“You wanted a monster,” she gasped.
Aphrodite smiled. “I wanted a metaphor.”
Hippomenes lunged forward. “Take me instead,” he begged. “Punish me—I tricked her, I used your gifts, I—”
Aphrodite laughed, a sound like glass chimes shattering. “You will get your share, my dear boy.”
Her hand flicked toward him, and Hippomenes flew backward as if struck by an invisible blow. His scream cut off abruptly when he hit a column and slumped to the floor, gasping for breath.
Atalanta’s lungs seized. She forced air through them, forced herself upright. Pain flashed hot through her torso—ribs bending outward, muscles twisting, shoulders reshaping.
She tried to speak. What came out was a half-formed roar.
Aphrodite clapped her hands in delight. “There it is!”
But something shifted. A crackle, low but unmistakable, flashed through the earth under Atalanta’s knees. The old altar behind her shuddered, ivy trembling as though stirred by a sudden wind. The ground beneath her palms warmed—no, not warmed. Responded.
Aphrodite’s smile flickered.
Atalanta felt the change too. Her bones stopped grinding, her breath steadied. The pain paused mid-shift, caught between one shape and another.
Not lion. Not woman. Something else.
Aphrodite rose slowly, eyes narrowing. “That… is not what I intended.”
Another shudder rippled through the valley—deep, resonant, a memory rising from the soil. The temple—this ruined, forgotten temple—remembered Atalanta not as a bride, not as a victim, but as a runner who defied death, as the child of a bear-mother, as a woman who refused to yield.
The earth recognized her. And it resisted the goddess.
Atalanta curved forward, her body trembling, her shifting bones grinding to a halt as though the land itself held them in place.
Aphrodite hissed through her teeth, “Stand down.”
The altar cracked. A jagged line split its surface, glowing faintly gold. The ivy recoiled. Dust rained from the columns. Aphrodite stepped back. For the first time since she arrived, she looked uncertain.
Atalanta surged upright—not fully human, not fully beast, her limbs lengthened, her spine arched, her breath hot and sharp. Her hair spilled down her back like a dark mane shot through with gold.
Hippomenes stared, trembling. He whispered her name like a prayer. “Atalanta…”
She turned toward him, and saw the transformation begin in his body. His fingers curled inward, thickening. His jaw thrust forward. His skin rippled with tawny fur. He screamed as his bones rearranged themselves, as claws burst from his hands, as the goddess’s curse claimed him with swift brutality.
“No,” Atalanta groaned. “No, no—”
Aphrodite watched with clinical interest. “He wanted to save you. How touching.”
Atalanta crawled toward him, her shifting limbs dragging across the stone. She reached for his hand—if it could still be called a hand—but the heat radiating from his skin singed her fingers.
His eyes, now amber and wild, met hers one last time. There was fear there, apology. And a terrible, terrible recognition of what he was becoming. His breath rattled. His spine bowed. His voice broke into a roar.
Atalanta screamed. A human scream, ragged and furious.
Aphrodite tilted her head. “You were meant to match him. But the spell misfired.” Her lip curled. “Or perhaps the land interfered. You always were too close to the wild places.”
Atalanta felt her limbs stabilize, her body halting just shy of the final shift. She was half-formed, half-freed, half-damned.
Hippomenes—now fully lion—collapsed onto the stone floor, his breath slowing. Atalanta crawled to him. Placed her forehead against his. Felt his pulse—unsteady, fading. She had hated him for his victory. But she had never wanted this.
His heartbeat stuttered. Stopped.
Aphrodite sighed with annoyance. “Wasteful.”
Atalanta rose. Slowly. Deliberately. Her body a new shape that refused to bow to goddess or curse.
Aphrodite’s eyes widened. “What are you?”
Atalanta bared her teeth—neither human nor lion, but something entirely her own. “A mistake,” she growled, “you will never repeat.”
And the temple trembled with the truth of it.
To Be Continued…
My debut book, Turning & Turning, a short story and poetry hybrid collection of Greek mythology retellings, is available for purchase at the link below!