Ashtaroth + Siegmund + Victor // Close Quarters

[vast_oceans]

Who: Ashtaroth, Victor and Siegmund.
When: omfg 16/7
Where: A hotel room in Giza
Before/After: The day after this sorry log
Warnings: n/a

In which Ashtaroth is a teenage girl and everyone is grumpy.



She'd been dreaming. She was sure she had been. She didn't remember anything, but there had been something there, hiding under the cotton stuffed into her brain as she tried to think on it.

Everything was sore- not hurting, per se, but stiff, maybe a little achey. She blinked her eyes open and her head swam, so she shut them again, making a noise of displeasure. Everything felt off. She focused on breathing for a few moments, taking in what she could without opening her eyes.

The air was warm. Too warm? Humid. But she didn't feel nearly as bad as she usually did when the humidity was high in the Undertow, not as clingy. But that statement was wrong, too. She wasn't in the Undertow. She recalled briefly their flight first into the jungles and then, less clearly, her, Victor and Siegmund leaving for the Earth city...

Feet hurt. Head hurt. Healing was an option, but not a good one. Dehydration? Water seemed like it would be enough... lying on her side, the position she normally curled into. Her skin didn't feel quite right, either, tight or dirty or something...?

She opened her eyes again, careful to glance about. Dim, like twilight. A strange room, definitely not a treehouse. They'd made it to Giza, then? Slowly she forced herself up to her elbows, taking a moment to try and figure out what was wrong there.

Her arms were bare.


When Victor had woke that morning, he threw a pillow over his head to escape the light that came into the window. Later, after Siegmund was up, he resolved to get them all food and a new change of clothes of Ash. (He asked, of course, if there was anything specific Siegmund needed himself.) Siegmund's phone was necessary for the adventure, and Victor was almost glad they had to wait for it to charge. It gave him time to clean himself up and make sure Ash's condition was stable.

Earth shopping was confusing mostly because he had less of an idea of what most of these things were supposed to be. Siegmund asked for no meat, and that started to sound a lot less complicated for all of them. What he ended up coming back with was mostly bread and whatever fruit and vegetables looked vaguely familiar. Prepackaged snacks would have been hard enough to sort through in his native language. For clothes, he pieced together the closest garments to black robes he could find with a skirt, a shirt, and outerwear.

He got back evening, while Ash was still resting. "Get started on anything that looks good," he told Siegmund. Wolfram. Victor regarded him with more care, trying to see where the connections were. They held pieces of their creators, but paradoxically, sometimes those pieces were the missing ones.

His thoughts broke off when he heard Ash move, overcome with relief. Consciousness was a welcome sign. "Hey," he greeted, soft, and stepping to the bed. "How do you feel?"


Siegmund woke late, groggy and sore. Like Victor, he initially rolled over and went back to sleep for an extra hour or so. When he did finally wake up for real, he showed Victor how to use the cardkey in the door, and charged his phone in the sunlight from the window, and then showed him how to use the translation apps so he could go out into the market.

He was glad Victor had volunteered. It would take too long for him to explain why he couldn't. That was also the reason he asked for a vegetarian lunch, instead of trying to specify what did and did not qualify as kosher, even though he was certain somebody in Giza would be able to direct Victor to the kosher menu options. It was just easier that way.

When Victor left, he hopped into the shower to wash off all the grime of the battle and subsequent flight through the jungle. Unfortunately, he didn't have any spare clothes to change into, so he just washed them as best he could, wrung them out, and wore them wet. He sat by the window to give them a chance to dry in the sun, but the humidity being what it was, they did not dry out quite as fast as they could have.

He spent his time going through his gear, cleaning bloodstains from the leather, taking stock of his supplies (they were low, all around). He was starving by the time Victor returned, but he ignored it. He'd had enough practice fasting over the course of his life that it wasn't hard to find that discipline now.

He'd just finished when the door opened. He made sure his gear was laid out neatly, then stood and went to dig through the food Victor had bought to assemble himself a meal. He looked up when Victor's attention turned to Ash, but not for long. Let him worry about her. Siegmund knew he didn't have the patience for it, and she didn't like him, besides. (For good reason.)


"H-hey."

She coughed, throat dry, blinking in confusion at her arms as she shifted to sit up. She looked up to Victor, shifting her legs under the single blanket, clearly confused. Her head throbbed, but that was something that seemed less than important. She settled her hands in her lap momentarily, blurry from too much sleep, though with mana drain and the trail they'd been through just getting through the jungle, she'd clearly needed it. Distracted, she missed the question for a moment, rubbing the hollow in her wrist before pulling her hand up, stroking her forearm and then peering up towards her shoulder. Her sleeves...?

Oh, right. Question. "Terrible," she said simply, voice creaking, looking up to Victor. Movement caught her eye and she turned her head to look to Siegmund, though it sent her vision swimming. She reached up to rub at her forehead. She hesitated, feeling self-conscious. Why had her sleeves been taken off? She never usually took into account how pale she was, but she usually wasn't in the company of others with her skin bared. She looked from the assassin up to Victor, then around the room. "Do you have water...? I feel sick."

Leaving Victor to that, she shifted again, sliding her legs over the edge of the bed.

... why were her legs bare.

Quickly, she yanked the blanket over her lap, her expression mortified. "Victor," she hissed, though she regretted it right away. What was she going to tell him? The very thing she didn't want him to know??

And with someone else in the room??

She pulled more of the blanket into her lap, staring at the floor intently.


"There's food too, if you're up to it," Victor said after fetching the water. He was about to hand it to her when she hissed.

Victor froze like rabbit that had jumped out of the brush at the wrong moment. His posture weakened and he slid just the slightest half step back. He was aware how bad it looked. She was stuck in a room with two boys and her dress had been ripped to her thighs.

"Ash, I had to. You were overheating. There's-- I've brought you some new clothes. On the dresser..." He was afraid to look toward it to show her. Only his eyes moved.


Siegmund glanced toward her at the urgent sound of her hissing Victor's name, noting the way she covered herself. Modesty. It seemed odd, when he was used to the way girls dressed on Earth, and Ash's clothes still covered more than most summer wear did. But that wasn't how she dressed, and being embarrassed over her modesty was something he could understand.

"Change in the restroom," he said, motioning toward it. "Take the blanket, if you like."


Her thighs, Victor!

She breathed in shakily, her face a mottled shade of red. She nodded. Clothes. New clothes. Because these ones were torn.

Because Victor tore her clothes. With Siegmund there.

Still without looking at him, she shot her hand out. "Water. Please." The words came out too forceful. She was just lucky they came out at all.

She looked over at Siegmund again, a quick flicker of her eyes. "Yes. I- blanket. Will. I will change in the blanket. Restroom. The- yes." Water Victor damn you hand her the water.

Once in her hand, she downed it quickly, sputtering and nearly choking on it, but set the cup down too hard on the table between the beds and pulling the blanket around her, stood up. She gasped, legs threatening to collapse from the sudden pain of her feet. Part of her recalled that she'd left her shoes behind. The rest of her forced herself to ignore it and, wrapped up in the blanket, she walked past both of them into the bathroom.

And then out again to grab the clothes, having to snatch up the blanket again as it nearly fell. Then she slammed the bathroom door behind her a second time.


Victor flinched when the door slammed behind him. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a slow breath before he glanced toward Siegmund cleared his throat. His cheeks were a little pinker with shame. Half of it was offending Ash, and the other was cowering from a teenage girl in front of Siegmund.

Guiltily, he slunk to the food he'd brought back and started on a piece of bread.

"We should-- should focus on resting for today," he said. That much was already an unspoken truth, but he felt the need to try and keep the subject from lingering in their minds.


Siegmund went back to his food, but watched her dash into the bathroom, out, and back in out of the corner of his eyes, which narrowed in annoyance. If she hadn't taken such poor care of herself that she'd passed out from heat exhaustion, she wouldn't need to be freaking out about her current state of dress now.

His attention turned to Victor as he returned to the table, his annoyance fading, but not vanishing. "Yes," he answered. Shabbat was for resting. He was glad Victor had suggested it, so he didn't need to explain it.

But he'd also caught the guilt, because he'd played with Rhys enough to know Victor and how Victor thought. "It is her problem," he said, turning to retrieve his phone from the table and check the battery. It'd been in use all day, so it was probably safer to let it charge in what remained of the day's sunlight. "She could avoid it by being more careful and she did not."

He walked away to set the phone on the windowsill, angled so the solar panel caught the light.



Victor didn't know what to expect Siegmund's typical behavior to be. This wasn't a typical situation. But since finding out about Wolfram, everything was read through that filter. Any similarity stood out more, and anything too different seemed quieter-- the reverse of what Victor had first done with Rhys.

So Siegmund read now as introspective and thoughtful, and his advice worth considering. In fact, advice that should probably be listened to. As always, Victor had an excuse, or a question, or some doubt that prevented most of the wisdom from rubbing off on him.

"No. I owe her more than that," he said, not looking up from his food. That idea of a bond hadn't faded. He was determined not to forget the price of his existence. "It's a responsibility."



"I know what you owe her," he said, a note of irritation entering his voice. He glanced toward Victor, his eyes slightly narrowed. "You gave her water and she didn't drink. That was her choice. If she is angry, it's her problem."


She could hear the conversation behind the bathroom door. She hadn't really moved- her feet throbbed and the rest of her burned with shame, not only for her appearance but also because of what Siegmund said. She hadn't meant to be a bother- she didn't even recall rejecting the water- but also because he was right, at least in reference to her way of dress.

But, but she hadn't even thought about it, or considered it. It was simply how she dressed. How she'd always dressed. She had clear memories of going through various places dressed like this, and she'd never had the problems she'd had before-

...was that the difference in being played and being your own? Small details that were not so small once the wrong situation came up.

Had there even been time? She tugged at the bottom of her robes, now mid-thigh, raggedly cut and ugly to look at, blanket dropped on the floor. Well, it didn't matter now.

A minute or so passed before the water in the shower turned on and she let her mind go blank while she focused on washing. And besides- who was Siegmund to say anything about her! Not that she could pinpoint anything in particular besides his earlier demands...

A short shower. It had taken the grime off but the humidity remained, almost as though she hadn't stepped out of the water. She felt tired still, and wakefulness just reminded her of all the little aches and pains their flight had cost her. Foolish. Well, maybe she was foolish! But they were out and alive, albeit her at the cost of her dignity.

It was about all she had left. Siegmund could say what he wanted. She'd defend it thoroughly.

She came out dressed in the new clothes, a long but much lighter black skirt that almost hid her feet, and a top with shorter sleeves that skimmed her collarbone. Still too much, but she kept her mouth shut as she sat back down on the bed and began to comb her wet hair with her fingers, looking at neither of them.


"I know what you owe her," he said, a note of irritation entering his voice. He glanced toward Victor, his eyes slightly narrowed. "You gave her water and she didn't drink. That was her choice. If she is angry, it's her problem."


Victor looked up at Siegmund, tense. Anyone in the Undertow may have heard the commotion surrounding his resurrection. It wasn't well hidden in its moment, but to hear it so bluntly, to have Wolfram know, even if the piece that was Wolfram wasn't here now, came as a swift shock.

It isn't that simple. He could think it, so he must have thought it true, but there wasn't anything Victor could do for her anger. Victor opened his mouth for some protest, but lost his thoughts when the bathroom door opened.

He glanced between them both and remembered the strain he first noticed between them. There was nothing he could do for that, either. Victor gathered a piece of bread and an apple, and offered them to Ash. "I'm sorry," he said. Even if it wasn't his problem.


When Victor hesitated to respond, Siegmund turned away, yanking out a chair at the table beside the window to sit by his phone and finish his meal.

He glanced toward the bathroom when the door opened, seeing Ash emerge. He turned away again, feeling guilty for criticizing her behind her back. He didn't even consider that she might have overheard him talking to Victor.

It wasn't fair of him to be annoyed about this. Yes, it was a problem for her to not take care of herself and in doing so make herself a burden on them. But he could address that without being accusing about it. He could point out the problem with her behaviour without making it into a problem with her.

He'd wanted to be a rabbi. He set his chin in his hand, glowering out the window at the building next door. Maybe he'd never been cut out for that and it had been nothing more than a pipe dream from the start. He was so bad at giving spiritual or moral guidance. He couldn't even guide himself.


It took a moment before Ashtaroth even realized Victor was handing something to her. She looked up through her hair and flushed again, looking ahead instead of at him, fingers still tangled in her hair. "...thanks," she said, voice muted, an inch from miserable. She hesitated and let go of her hair to take the food he offered. She wasn't sure if she was hungry, but the weight of them in her hands reminded her of the last time she'd eaten- a day or two ago now? She realized then she didn't quite know what time it was.

She took a bite of the apple and forced herself to chew. Her hair felt like a blanket over her shoulder. The only difference here was that they were safe. Everything else felt the same.

"What are we doing next?" she asked, apple in her lap, tearing a piece of bread off and squishing it between her fingers before popping it into her mouth. "There... there might be a way into Safta..." Her things were still in the bathroom, including her phone. She put the food aside for a moment and stood again, biting the inside of her cheek when she settled on her feet. It seemed a stupid reason to use her magic. "I got some kind of message from someone in Safta, but I don't know if I can trust it," she said even as she moved into the bathroom again.

She crouched down and picked up the ruined mess of her robes, looking up and finding a trashcan also in the bathroom. She shoved it in then took up her belt, beginning to dig through the satchels on it until she found her phone.

"I mean, not everyone just goes around announcing themselves to be the Mazda..."


"What we're doing is resting," Victor said, tone firm so his curious look at her phone didn't imply that statement was negotiable. He sat back down with his own food, eating slow despite knowing his own need for food. His body was still convinced it was more tired than hungry.

"Safta's already agreed to take in the paladins and the clerics. It wouldn't surprise me if they weren't willing to house more refugees." Especially people from those very guilds.

There was another unsettled glance to Siegmund. It didn't matter. He already knew. Victor kept talking. "But it's dangerous for the paladins to see me."



...The Mazda?

Siegmund turned suddenly, looking disbelievingly at Ashtaroth, his arm dropped to lay across the table in front of him. "The Mazda talked to you?" He held a hand out to her. "Show me."

As for Victor's unsettled glance, he didn't even notice. He knew what Victor had done. He even knew the intended outcome of that plot. It was all backstory for him, a given. He'd worry about where they went next after he saw the message Ash had gotten from the so-called Mazda.


She gave Victor something akin to a hurt look, even if she realized it was necessary. She didn't like to think it was, even if it was what she wanted. It helped a little to see that it wasn't just because of her. Victor looked tired just chewing. Siegmund... looked like Siegmund.

Except a little not. The look on his face made her hesitate as she stepped back into the main room from the bathroom, phone in hand, carefully flicking through all of the replies until she came to the thread with the person proclaiming themselves to be the Mazda. She hesitated also because part of her was still hurt by what he'd said, but she picked her way across the floor gingerly towards him, giving him a small frown as she handed her phone to him.

"I didn't say anything about you," she said to Victor. "So I don't know if there's any way to stay there without explaining the situation, that seems a bit much. We might have to keep to border towns... that's not so bad."

But she looked back to Siegmund, wondering what it was he was looking for. Did he know the Mazda?... "...she sounded friendlier than I expected the Mazda to," she said after a moment, having missed the announcement on the succession of the title.


Victor nodded, but frowned. The border towns were probably safe enough. The sad thing was that the war made him less of a fugitive. That people believed him dead helped, but so was his betrayal growing less significant compared to this crisis. That would have meant more if Victor had any intention of hiding himself away.

"We can't stay here," he said. "We're no good to anyone."

He looked to Siegmund and the phone, wondering if he had his own verdict to give.


Siegmund had also missed the announcement for her succession. He hadn't exactly been paying attention to any news outside of the berserkers' end of the war, so despite that announcement being a week past, it didn't even occur to him that this was a different Mazda than the NPC he'd seen in-game.

And she did not sound anything like that Mazda.

"We don't know if we can trust her, so don't," he said, setting the phone down at the edge of the table for Ash to retrieve if she wanted, rather than holding it out to hand it back to her. "Giza is safe for now, we have time to think of where to go next."

He had noticed the careful way Ash was walking. He glanced to her feet, and then to Victor. "Did you buy new shoes for her?"


She nodded a little, unwilling to trust much of anyone over these phones without previously knowing the person. She paused, then leaned over to take the phone back, still distracted by the sight of her bare forearms.

There was a pause before she looked over to Victor, realizing belatedly what he meant. Her expression encompassed any number of things, from surprise and shock to determination, to sadness, but she only nodded in agreement. She would be more than happy to fade into the background, but Victor had obligations. Ones she had given him. It was her duty to support him. And who knew? She could refuse and he'd go and do it anyway. It was her only means of keeping an eye on him.

She returned to the bed, forcing herself to breathe deeply before she looked up again. Ah- that was right, she had no shoes. "It's going to make going out difficult without them..."


Victor met Ash's look with one of his own before glancing down. She did not have to go with him. After resting, he might suggest she go find safety in Safta alone. He had his duties to her, too, but one of those was ensuring her safety.

But later. He looked between them both with a sigh. "Only the most basic slippers. Shoes need a good fit for travel. We'll get something fitted before leaving." He cleared his throat. "You shouldn't be moving around until you give your feet some time to recover."


Siegmund gave a grunt of affirmation. He couldn't argue with that, and it wasn't as though they couldn't wait until tomorrow to get her some shoes.

But at the comment that she needed time to recover, his brows lowered, a hint of annoyance edging into his expression. She was a cleric, for god's sake. "Or heal yourself," he muttered. Unless she was against using that power, too.


She gave Victor a sulky look before looking down, catching the meaning of his words, smoothing her new skirt over her leg fussily. She'd have fought it more if he hadn't looked so tired himself.

Her eyes darted over to Siegmund, however, a sharp look on her face, lips thinning out as she pressed them together. "That's right, I forgot you knew all about being a cleric. Must have been all that snooping around you do."

She pulled her legs up onto the bed and flopped over on it so her back was to both of them, pouting at the opposite wall. "Another day should be enough. We can look for shoes then." Her mana still felt a little on the low side, and she was feeling stubborn now. Healing such a small thing could wait.


Victor sighed to himself as they made their exchange. With Wolfram, Siegmund probably knew more about it than the average assassin, but that wasn't really the point.

Maybe rest was starting to make them more able to feed their tensions, not less likely to do so. He had to admit he was starting to feel more anxious himself. "We're on the same side right now," Victor said. "Let's leave the past where it is and manage our own mana, all right?"


Siegmund narrowed his eyes at her. He considered shooting back a variety of things, from 'Yes actually I do know about being a cleric' to 'What, clerics can't heal now?' to 'Why are you a cleric if you refuse to use any of your powers?' But he kept his mouth shut on all of them, not because he knew better, but because he couldn't find the right one, and the few seconds that passed while he thought about it meant it was too late to say anything anyway.

So he just repeated his annoyances to himself in his own mind, bitterly, and settled on saying nothing to her.

Victor trying to end the argument didn't stop Siegmund from wanting to dwell on it, but it did force him to realize he shouldn't be. He snatched up his phone, turning to put his back to the window, and loaded up his digital Torah studies. What else would he distract himself with on Shabbat?


"That's what I'm doing," she mumbled to the wall, kicking her feet a little restlessly. The blanket on the bed felt scratchy under her cheek. She rubbed at it with a finger as her hand rested by her head. It was really stupid. She knew that. She was acting like a child. Siegmund was right- she was only making a nuisance of herself. Especially hard to take when she was trying to do whatever she could to make it easier on Victor. But he didn't have to be so infuriating about it!

Either Siegmund knew what had happened and he was being insensitive, or he didn't, and he simply didn't care to know. That was how Ashtaroth interpreted it. But while she thought on it, another thing came to mind, and she sat up suddenly.

"Victor." A familiar worry was in her voice, sudden and startled, though she forced herself to pause before she spoke again. "...we don't have a lantern or anything, do we...?"

Yes, like a child. But it was twilight, slowly fading into night, and she didn't know if she'd be able to maintain an orb.


Rest was frustrating for someone like Victor. It felt useless when he had already, for weeks, felt at the mercy of the kindness of others. There was a lack of choice in that, and he was tired enough to let bitterness creep in: Victor should be used to a lack of choice. Maybe another apple and he'd feel better, but something about these apples weren't meeting his expectations either.

Victor softened with Ashtaroth's plea and nodded. "We do," he assured her, getting up to pick the lantern up from the desk as proof. They had not left it on the night before because Ash's exhaustion had taken her before it came up. Victor glanced to Siegmund. "Do you mind if we leave a light during the night?"


"I don't," he answered, without looking up. He wasn't so annoyed with her that he'd deny her something as simple and unobtrusive as a nightlight.

He wasn't lighting it, though. He figured Victor would take care of it without even asking, like he had with the food, and it wouldn't come up. If not, he'd just look petty for refusing, but oh well. That was acceptable.



She looked between the two of them and seemed to hold her breath, as though she had her own opinions on Siegmund's level of pettiness. Happy to be proven wrong, she let her breath out quietly and nodded. She hesitated a moment, looking between the two of them. Both seemed disgruntled. It wasn't just her.

Somehow, selfishly, that made her feel better. She took up the apple she'd been attempting to eat earlier, rolling around on the bed, and took another bite, thoughtful now.

"...we should talk about where we're going next," she said up to Victor, pulling her legs up under her, leaning over to pat the edge of the bed. She could understand his restlessness, but there was no helping it now. They could still get something done, though. She didn't know how long Siegmund planned to tag along, but it didn't really matter, and that wasn't even being malicious. It was important they knew where they were going. Once they had that locked into place, maybe the waiting would be easier with the element of 'where next?' gone. "I think, at the very least, we should head to the northern border... Mianeh, maybe?..."