Artemis Athenos Valkyriakos (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
graveyardmoon) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
zenderael_mmo2013-05-16 02:30 am
graveyardmoon) wrote in zenderael_mmo2013-05-16 02:30 am
Entry tags:
[Artemis/Ashtaroth] - Grief counseling
Who:
Artemis
Ashtaroth
When: Tuesday, 7/26, before the war operations kicked off.
Where: Pariskret hospital
Before/After: After Artemis kicks Nova out of his life, the Asha gets nosy/concerned, and Artemis attempts to deconstruct the problem. Before he meets Iravati while looking for Nova.
Warnings: Discussion of the grieving process, I guess?
wow backloggin' for real
Arriving in the Nenakret alone was strange, overwhelming. She and Victor had parted ways in Mianeh, freeing him to join up with the armed forces while she determined to head to the Mazda's headquarters. Though dressed quite differently from most of the clerics that had stayed behind, she had been recognized when she had entered the infirmary, several faces she had spent so much time with in Bastan... or felt that she had spent so much time with... it felt like so long ago. Two months had flown by, and so much had happened...
Her help was readily accepted. There were no black robes to dress her in. She wasn't sure if she even wanted them now- but that was something she had to think on for herself, another time. She accepted instead the white robes offered to her, the clothes of her trade, and set to work.
It didn't matter what they asked of her. Keeping busy was the important thing. She came to know the HQ fairly well as she went out on errands that took her all over the building. People came in, all kinds, paladins and spellswords, berserkers, mages, alchemists, hunters... it was strange to think that so many guilds would come together as they had. Was it a good thing? How would they interact when everything was over?...
Ashtaroth spaced out as she walked the halls, clean linens in her arms, thinking all of these things. Not that there was anything she could change, but it was worth thinking ahead a little, to try and imagine what could come out of this war, and where her place in that world would be.
If they could retake Bastan, could they heal the Undertow?... But what would be necessary for that, she wondered, rounding a corner, lost in thought.
The morning brought no more clarity, and no more insight. Artemis woke up feeling just as lost as he had when he'd retreated to bed. But the overwhelming nature of his feelings and the impossible task of addressing them did leave him one advantage over yesterday: he was too overwhelmed to be upset. Everything blended together into a dull roar, which was simple enough to shove aside so he could be functional.
He went to work, as normal, and was sullen but undistracted, free from the devastating mishaps of the day before. His method of ignoring his feelings by burying himself in his work was in full force again, and just as effective as it had been before the fight with Nova. For a while, he almost tricked himself into believing that this was all he needed, and there was no need to seek any further solutions to the problem.
At some point, he ended up in the hospital, called in to address an issue with the network encryption that was easily solved by re-drawing a runic channel that had somehow been scuffed enough to break the flow of magic through it.
He was on his way out when he turned a corner and nearly collided with an orderly--no, not an orderly, he realized, as he drew back to avoid walking into her. "Ashtaroth?" came out of his mouth before his brain had a chance to approve it.
She was perhaps the last person he'd expected to run into out here...
She gave a start at the sudden appearance of another person. Luckily, she clutched the linens tighter to herself rather than drop them. "Yes-?" she asked in automatic response, having gotten used to multiple voices calling her name at any given time, and being more than willing to take on the work they offered.
But it left her staring at Artemis with nothing to say back.
She scrambled for something, dazed from having been pulled from her thoughts. The last time she'd seen Artemis- that had been at the tournament. And now he was here...?
Ah, but it made more sense than her being here, she supposed. "It's good to see you," she said, surprise in her voice, but the sentiment was genuine, awkwardness aside.
Those emotions he'd been ignoring--none of them concerned Ashtaroth.
An oversight, he realized.
Upon seeing her, there was a strange sense of...fondness, perhaps, followed closely by mournfulness as he recalled that his purpose in befriending her had been to have Parthena resurrected. A goal that was no longer possible, or perhaps had never been. Seeing Ashtaroth reminded him of that loss all over again, freshly dredged up the night before.
He went still, his face unreadable, but a far cry from the usual sense of superiority found there.
"Yes," he agreed, though it came out soft and slightly uncertain. He couldn't say the same--or he could, but it was mixed. Good to see her, it was, but also unpleasant because of the association with Parthena.
He glanced away, just his eyes, nervously moving a hand up to brush his bangs aside. Fidgeting was strange coming from Artemis, who was very carefully perfect. Even now, dressed in grease-smeared work clothes, he still managed somehow to look impeccable. He certainly didn't feel perfect right now, though.
Ashtaroth was in the Order of the Dark. Their purpose was to guide others in their grief. He recalled the Asha's lecture about asking for help, and the slightest hint of a frown crossed his face.
Turning his gaze back to Ashtaroth, he hesitated, and then spoke. "I'd like to speak with you, when you've a moment."
She found herself waiting, somewhat uncomfortably, as he processed much the same as she their sudden predicament. She felt somewhat guilty, not simply because she knew her part in his story, but also because... she had never really spoken to him again, had she? For potions, but never to check up on him. Would he have accepted it? Maybe, because it was her.
Maybe not, because it was her.
She looked strange, in healer's white and not the Order's black. She shifted the linens in her arms again, watching his face. It almost seemed as though he had forgotten to act superior towards her, and she wondered what it was he thought about, what it was he'd been going through. It seemed strange to think about- so much had been going on in her own life, the idea of other things outside of it happening almost escaped her.
His request was a bit of a surprise, and it showed, however briefly, on her face. "Ah- yes, of course... not right now, but if you'd like to walk with me, I can drop these off and I'll be good to go?" It wasn't so busy she couldn't slip out for a little bit, and likely nothing of great enough importance would happen that would have her denying him her attention.
"This way," she said, starting off down the halls with another shift of the linen.
Artemis did not find himself wondering what she'd been up to in the interim, an absence that didn't even register with him as an absence. He rarely thought outside of himself and outside of what directly affected him, which meant he rarely considered others. Ashtaroth's circumstances didn't matter except as they intercepted his own, and that was just the way of it.
"Of course," he said, gesturing for her to lead the way. He walked with her in silence, unless she attempted to fill it, and held open the door to the linen closet for her when they arrived at it.
It would certainly have been deemed not at all encouraging had she known, but she was oblivious, and also not inclined to consider of what, or even if, Artemis thought of her.
That was reserved for someone else.
She didn't fill up the silence. There was an urge to, but she didn't feel like it, and couldn't imagine Artemis caring one way or another. She thanked him for helping her with the linen closet and carefully and neatly stacked the blankets and cloths into the appropriate spaces. There were others milling about, nurses and clerics alike, a few patients- in particular a berserker that had had an unfortunate run-in with a druid's fire companion that morning- but nothing that demanded her attention.
She called one of the other clerics by name and said she would be gone for a little bit, then motioned Artemis to follow her back out of the infirmary.
"What is it?" she asked, a false sense of familiarity giving her a similar tone of voice, though in some twisted way it was still genuine.
He trailed her through the hospital, using the silence to try to get his thoughts together and figure out how to ask what he needed to. It all seemed a bit hopeless and awkward no matter what he came up with, which was an uncomfortable feeling in and of itself. Awkward was not something Artemis was. It was new and he decided he hated it.
Once they were outside, he fussed with the cuffs of his sleeves briefly before folding his arms. He looked over their surroundings, making sure it was just the two of them with nobody around to eavesdrop, and returned his attention to Ashtaroth once he was satisfied. That was all very familiar coming from him. What wasn't familiar was the uncertain way he hesitated before speaking, his eyes flickering away for a few seconds before settling again on her.
"It has come to my attention recently that I...have been neglecting something very important," he began, which sounded stupid even as he said it, but he knew enough about confidence to know how to fake some. "As a member of the Order of the Dark, I presume you to be much more knowledgeable on the subject than I've ever been."
He hesitated, that false confidence faltering a bit, and reached up to brush his bangs aside again in that unfamiliar fidget. He tucked his hand back into his elbow, arms firmly folded again, and then met her eyes. "How does one cope with loss?"
Noting his glancing about, she moved further up the hallway, further away from the main entrance to the infirmary, feeling somehow that this discussion, above others, required discretion.
Something about Artemis made Ashtaroth feel that a certain seriousness had to be applied to any conversation they had, and this seemed no different, even though she allowed her brow to crease in confusion at his words. Neglecting something important... his mention of her status as a member of the Order nearly made her start, guilty, due to her own inhibitions in keeping with said Order. She had done much to go against their teachings, after all...
Not entirely right. Their teachings were simply another side of the coin. They did not say that resurrection was not possible; they said that it was not always possible. She had simply made her own terms for when that would and would not be.
All the same, she took to staring at him a long moment, consideringly, careful not to let her features slip into sympathy. "Is this about Parthena?"
He appreciated the neutrality of her features, though he was not aware that sympathy was her alternative. The whole thing simply felt less awkward if they remained focused on the technical.
"Yes," he answered, sounding neutral himself, which wasn't difficult. He'd spent so long divorcing himself from his emotions, now was no different. "Perhaps I could have saved myself the trouble if I'd accepted her death when it first happened, but instead I spent--" decades "--years trying to find a way to bring her back, and now that I've been confronted with the fact that this is no longer possible..."
He trailed off, a note, very subtle, of sadness entering his features. "Perhaps it was never possible..." and he'd just been fooling himself this whole time...
"Mm..."
She was silent a long moment, trying to decide how to approach the subject. This wasn't, after all, the usual way a person suffered loss. Or most of it was, with the element of their creation woven into it, something she'd never had to account for before in a discussion such as this.
That it was enough to affect Artemis was a mixed bag. Of course it would, she reasoned. That was normal. Artemis did not often present himself as normal, but from what she understood, Parthena had been his life's work, as it were. To find out she did not exist could not be easy. She had no real comparison herself, but she recalled many conversations with Victor concerning his own history and remained unsure what she could offer here, because she didn't think any of it could be satisfying.
But she had to try.
"I don't think that's true," Ashtaroth began slowly. "So far as we were created, she was mostly definitely real. That she... that she did not translate into being so... I don't think it at all diminishes either who she was or what you felt for her. The focus... the focus was always on you. Your feelings, your desires. And it isn't your fault that you can't accomplish what you were created to do- if you were even ever meant to accomplish it." Ah, that was the problem, wasn't it? Ashtaroth had lost her purpose as well in losing Parthena, but it had been an aside, a hidden purpose she had learned of more fully, later on. "So the loss... oh, Artemis. There's no easy answer for this. It's tied up into things that shouldn't be, and that's hard enough."
He felt a flicker of annoyance at her answer, which showed only in the very slight crease of his brow. I know that, he wanted to say. Her nonexistence didn't make her unimportant, he didn't blame himself for being unable to succeed, he realized it was all matters beyond his control leading to the situation he was in now.
Ashtaroth's answer boiled down to her not having one. That was frustrating. Why did emotional matters so thoroughly resist rational analysis? Why couldn't they be broken down and repaired as easily as a motor?
He resisted allowing that frustration to guide his response. Irrationally taking his feelings out on Nova had been a mistake. He would not repeat it with Ashtaroth. She was...perhaps not a close friend, but someone for whom he felt a certain degree of fondness. It made no difference if that feeling were his own or planted by his player, it was there regardless and that made it his. Though he had recently decided that he shouldn't need people, and though he believed that it was best not to form attachments because everyone around you would inevitably die someday, driving Nova out of his life had forced him to realize that he did have attachments, and he'd rather hold onto them than spite himself for an ideal that wasn't even relevant anymore.
People would still die, yes. But now so would he. He was no less ephemeral than the people who surrounded him.
He took a slow breath, smoothing out his expression. "Whether or not her soul exists in the Dark, all that remains of her here are my memories of her. That makes her as real as any other deceased companion." He understood that. He didn't need to be reassured about it.
Or maybe he did...? A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. He didn't understand feelings at all, and he hadn't demonstrated the best self-awareness of his own before now. So perhaps it was just something he was telling himself he understood so he didn't have to examine how he really felt underneath the knowledge.
He unfolded his arms to fuss with his cuffs again, frowning down at them. "Emotions are tedious things," he muttered, allowing himself to vent at least a little of his frustration.
"Mm, yes... that's true... I may be overthinking this..."
Her eyes lowered to the ground a moment, and she folded her arms in front of her, reaching up to push the heavy braid back over her shoulder.
"At the heart of it, the issue remains the same. Whatever the means, the loss of a loved one..."
There was a distance in her expression, something like an understanding that she did not wish to come too close to. "There are stages to these things. Anger and fear, confusion, depression... tedious, yes," she said, smiling in a brief, sad way, before it faded. "But they seem to be the means for the heart to sort itself, given the chance. It's a willingness to enter a state of relearning that overcomes the worst of it."
She rubbed at her wrist absently. Everything seemed sore lately. A lot of work, a lot of running around, and she hadn't been sleeping well. It seemed unfair to subject the others in the dormitory to her need for a lamp, but it meant fitful sleep and the occasional night terror.
"If you think of it this way?... so much time has been spent living in such a way, the only way to overcome the loss is to learn how to live without. Do you even remember what your life was like before Parthena? There probably isn't much to remember, is there? So you need to relearn how to live your life on your own without being dependent on the idea of her, to keep the memory of her without being haunted by it."
She didn't look at him as she spoke. It was almost a means of giving him some privacy between them. "...with the loss of someone important to us, we have to learn to live again."
It's a willingness to enter a state of relearning that overcomes the worst of it.
He looked back to her then, letting his arms fall. His expression was considering, but unreadable. He had, thus far, been unwilling to even acknowledge the problem, and even now felt resistant to examining it any closer because of how uncomfortable it was to face his feelings after denying he even had them for so long.
Those words meant that, in order to fix the problem at all, he needed to change himself. That, too, was uncomfortable. He considered emotions a flaw and wished himself to be flawless. Perhaps that was the relearning necessary...
Learn to live without...he'd thought he had, but that was just lying to himself. After her death, he'd gotten along without her--but his entire purpose in life had centered around her even so. And after his awakening and the acknowledgement that she was no longer around in any capacity, his life had centered around distracting himself from feeling anything for her loss. On the surface it might appear that he'd learned to live without her, but in the darkened depths...
"...I don't," he said, sort of a slow realization. His life before Parthena... Childhood, no, he barely recalled. He'd a family, a mother and father and much younger sister, but he barely remembered their faces or names. Parthena was clear. But she was always there. He had vague notions of life before meeting her, but nothing substantial, nothing to call upon to reminisce.
His life, essentially, started with Parthena. He frowned, looking down again, fussing with his cuffs again. That made it easy to conclude it should end with her as well, but...that seemed the wrong answer. He didn't want to die. Death had always meant giving up. But giving up on what, exactly...?
He lifted his gaze to her face again, and attempted, a bit hesitantly, to voice his thoughts. "I do feel as though...my entire life has been dedicated to her in one way or another. That is...a rather significant purpose to have suddenly lost, and so I am...uncertain, how one continues to live without purpose, and how one does not feel they are simply wasting time until they die."
"That's not uncommon," she said. Hands she had folded in front of her swept out, palms up, in a brief, all-encompassing gesture before they settled in front of her again. "And true of any significant loss, whether it is the death of a loved one, or the completion of one's life work, or the end of a long journey. It is true of many people that they will... they will focus on a single aspect of their life to such an extent, all else will fall away. And that is not unnatural- it is necessary to live one's life, I think, to focus on the important things, to make choices between things that will make this or that unavailable to them, lost opportunities and the like... but, as in your case, some do it to their detriment, and so when one thing ends..."
She trailed off to pick up on his final statement. Where does one begin? "Unfortunately, I cannot give you the answer for what you would do. It is up to you, to decide what else there is in life that is of importance to you, something that will... that will fill the spaces in between. So that you do not feel you are wasting time- merely biding it."
Because who was to say there was no Parthena to greet him in the Dark? She knew for herself that two souls could meet after death. That confidence was clear in her words, twined with the gentleness she had used all throughout.
"What else is there?" he asked, almost pleading, and the look he gave her was lost and just a touch desperate. "I threw myself at the task of incorporating Earth's technological advances into my understanding, I've been a major contributor to this effort to alchemitize Paris's tanks, but it is hollow, Ashtaroth. It doesn't mean anything. It was merely something to do to keep myself from dwelling on her.
"What else is there, that won't be just as hollow?"
"Mm..."
It was something she had to think about, briefly, her eyes downcast once more as she did so. She couldn't even say she understood the feeling of being lost as he did, as she was more than capable of making herself useful... but she had never been given any great attachment to anyone or anything before her awakening. In fact, it had been Artemis, or his player through Artemis, that had originally given her purpose. And from there she had found her own.
A small stab of guilt hit her as she thought of Victor. She had lost the person she had most become attached to, but had been able to bring him back. That simply wasn't possible with Parthena.
But, to think on Parthena...
"...what do you think it is Parthena would have liked for you to do?" she asked, unable to completely hide the curiousity behind the question. "Or to do herself?"
...What Parthena would have liked?
That question had never occurred to him. He stared at Ashtaroth a moment in confounded silence.
What would Parthena have liked?
He drew in a breath, drawing himself up straight as he did so, and let it out as a short huff. His eyes moved away from Ashtaroth, as though searching through the index of his memory. He could recall with perfect clarity Parthena's appearance, the copper curls and pale complexion dotted with freckles, green eyes, delicate nose, slight frame...
What had she sounded like? His brow furrowed as he tried to recall her voice. She spoke softly, he was sure... But what did it sound like? How did she speak? Cultured, but in what way? Everything about her had been elegant, but he couldn't put specifics on it.
His expression, slowly, by degrees, became troubled.
He'd spent decades dedicated to the purpose of finding a way to bring her back, and he couldn't even answer a question as simple as 'what would she have liked?' A coldness gripped him as one of those terrifying realizations that he was so averse to confronting surfaced in his mind, like the jagged black fin of a shark swimming around beneath the rest of his thoughts.
"I'm uncertain," he told Ashtaroth finally, unable to hide how that realization concerned him. "Perhaps...the question bears further consideration." It was a weak attempt to cover for himself; he suspected going deeper would only lead to more nothingness, and he didn't know what that would lead to.
Watching his expression shift, she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach that matched the look on his face. She had never been privy to many details, but to realize that there were very few details to be privy to was not a thought she'd entertained seriously.
"Ah... I see..."
She rubbed her hands together slowly, digging her thumb into the center of one in order to work out some of the kinks that had begun to gather. She considered asking if he'd spoken to his player at all, but she imagined that would be near impossible to accomplish now without dragonmail.
"What about... what about Nova...?" she asked, though she disliked doing so. "Have you spoken to him at all of it? Many turn to family or friends in such times..."
He hadn't contacted his player, and he hadn't considered it worth his time to try. But Ash's question planted a seed that would eventually grow into a realization that his player was the only one who may have the information he was lacking.
For now, though, his face hardened in response to the mention of Nova. It was about one-third guilt and two-thirds resentment. "Nova and I are not currently on speaking terms."
She looked surprised, visibly so. What could he have possibly done that would have, after such a long and bizarre friendship, finally resulted in a blowup?
"Why is that?" she asked, still too surprised to bother hiding that it was as much a personal as a professional interest to know the reason. She shook her head then, as though she expected to have the answer and wished to keep him from answering it, a habit she had picked up with Victor. "He's known you a long time, and differently than I- he may have better insight..."
He answered anyway, though it was stiff. "We had a rather heated disagreement on the meaning of mortality." One that, he was beginning to realize, was entirely his own fault for overreacting.
He folded his arms, looking mildly annoyed as he recalled the fight. How embarrassing to realize he'd acted like a fool throughout... Emotions really were terrible. "He is of the opinion that being mortal, in and of itself, makes any time remaining wasted. I doubt his insight would be valuable here."
The meaning of mortality?... she looked at him, a blank puzzlement on her features which she quickly tried to correct. "Ah..." was all she said in response, not understanding. She was not fully aware of his or Nova's pasts, and so his statements made no sense.
"...what about your player?" she asked, tentatively.
...Hm. She didn't actually know that Artemis had been immortal and had lost it. It seemed pointless to keep it a secret now that it held no meaning, but he didn't feel like sharing it just yet. It was not imperative that he assuage her confusion.
Looking thoughtful at the mention of his player, he answered, "I have not." He hadn't seen much point to it. There weren't any questions he wanted to ask, nothing he needed to know or confront him about. But now... If anyone would have an answer about Parthena, wouldn't it be him?
Oh, but with dragonmail down... "He may be difficult to contact with the postdragons on strike." But at least he didn't sound like he was shooting down the idea.
"That's true... email works, but unfortunately, I don't know if I know anyone that has it. And it would look strange for me to go around asking. It may be best simply to wait until the war is over."
She paused. "...what are you doing here, by the by?"
"Yes, tracking him down at the moment would seem to be more trouble than it's worth," he agreed. Perhaps not, considering the importance of the question he needed to ask, but Artemis was inclined to write off anything he didn't particularly want to do as too much hassle for him. Confronting his player over his poor memories of Parthena? Yeah, no, that was extremely uncomfortable to consider, he wasn't going out of his way to get that done.
At the question, he looked up, glancing over his grease-stained work clothes and then the hospital around them. "Here specifically?" he said, looking back to her. "Repairing the runic channels on the hospital's network encryption. I've been hired on as a contractor for the Amber Gaze."
"Oh," she said, in a way somewhat similar to before, where it seemed she had no idea what he was talking about. "I suppose that's Earth business. I haven't encountered much of it myself yet. A city, but... we didn't stay long."
Ah, she felt like she was getting off topic. "I do know someone who may be able to contact him, but... now isn't the time, unfortunately, with the war going on. It would have to wait regardless." She sounded apologetic. She didn't feel she had any business contacting Rhys about something like this at a time like this, though.
"...does that help a bit, though? Even if it seems like a short-term solution. Things may seem like that for a little bit."
...Did she. His eyebrows rose slightly, interest piqued at the idea of Ashtaroth knowing someone who knew how to get in contact with Heimdall. Not that he intended to use that path to contact just yet, but he couldn't help wondering who it was Ash knew. Her own player, perhaps? Theirs had obviously collaborated a great deal. "That's all right," he told her. "Perhaps once things have sorted themselves out."
Did it help? He wasn't sure, to be honest. He didn't feel the issue any more settled than it had been the day before. But it was certainly a useful discussion, which may have been the best he could ask for. "It's given me something to think on, at least," he said.
A pause. "Thank you." Sincere, but he gave sincere thanks so infrequently that he almost hadn't thought to do it now.
In truth, she hadn't even considered Theresa. Her player rarely came up. Out of sight, out of mind, perhaps. If she were to prod at that, she would actually feel guilty- somehow Victor's resurrection followed her everywhere.
"Ah... I wish I could do more." That seemed true enough. Had she missed speaking with Artemis? It seemed a strange point in her life, her time with him. Distant, now. She had wanted to help him then- was it residual? Or was it genuine?
She was willing to think it was the latter. Perhaps it wasn't even an issue- regardless of her intentions, she intended to help. "I'll be in the infirmary as long as the war continues. If you think of anything else, stop by anytime. It's nice to see a familiar face."
He'd called Nova his only friend, but his feelings for Ashtaroth were genuine, while inexplicable. Something his player had given him, no doubt, but he didn't consider any of that falsified. Perhaps he'd been poorly portrayed at times (Go.), but he'd no desire to disown anything he was created with. So he accepted his fondness for her as his own feelings.
Perhaps that meant he was not so alone without Nova as he'd thought. He kept himself from becoming close to people because he would inevitably lose them when they aged past him. That was no longer a concern. He didn't need to keep himself so distant anymore. The foundation for a closeness with Ashtaroth was already established, he only had to build upon it.
It was a strange thought, uncomfortable only because it was unfamiliar.
He'd figure out what to do with it later. One crisis at a time.
He gave her a smile, light, not exactly warm, but polite. "Then perhaps I shall."
Artemis
Ashtaroth
When: Tuesday, 7/26, before the war operations kicked off.
Where: Pariskret hospital
Before/After: After Artemis kicks Nova out of his life, the Asha gets nosy/concerned, and Artemis attempts to deconstruct the problem. Before he meets Iravati while looking for Nova.
Warnings: Discussion of the grieving process, I guess?
wow backloggin' for real
Arriving in the Nenakret alone was strange, overwhelming. She and Victor had parted ways in Mianeh, freeing him to join up with the armed forces while she determined to head to the Mazda's headquarters. Though dressed quite differently from most of the clerics that had stayed behind, she had been recognized when she had entered the infirmary, several faces she had spent so much time with in Bastan... or felt that she had spent so much time with... it felt like so long ago. Two months had flown by, and so much had happened...
Her help was readily accepted. There were no black robes to dress her in. She wasn't sure if she even wanted them now- but that was something she had to think on for herself, another time. She accepted instead the white robes offered to her, the clothes of her trade, and set to work.
It didn't matter what they asked of her. Keeping busy was the important thing. She came to know the HQ fairly well as she went out on errands that took her all over the building. People came in, all kinds, paladins and spellswords, berserkers, mages, alchemists, hunters... it was strange to think that so many guilds would come together as they had. Was it a good thing? How would they interact when everything was over?...
Ashtaroth spaced out as she walked the halls, clean linens in her arms, thinking all of these things. Not that there was anything she could change, but it was worth thinking ahead a little, to try and imagine what could come out of this war, and where her place in that world would be.
If they could retake Bastan, could they heal the Undertow?... But what would be necessary for that, she wondered, rounding a corner, lost in thought.
The morning brought no more clarity, and no more insight. Artemis woke up feeling just as lost as he had when he'd retreated to bed. But the overwhelming nature of his feelings and the impossible task of addressing them did leave him one advantage over yesterday: he was too overwhelmed to be upset. Everything blended together into a dull roar, which was simple enough to shove aside so he could be functional.
He went to work, as normal, and was sullen but undistracted, free from the devastating mishaps of the day before. His method of ignoring his feelings by burying himself in his work was in full force again, and just as effective as it had been before the fight with Nova. For a while, he almost tricked himself into believing that this was all he needed, and there was no need to seek any further solutions to the problem.
At some point, he ended up in the hospital, called in to address an issue with the network encryption that was easily solved by re-drawing a runic channel that had somehow been scuffed enough to break the flow of magic through it.
He was on his way out when he turned a corner and nearly collided with an orderly--no, not an orderly, he realized, as he drew back to avoid walking into her. "Ashtaroth?" came out of his mouth before his brain had a chance to approve it.
She was perhaps the last person he'd expected to run into out here...
She gave a start at the sudden appearance of another person. Luckily, she clutched the linens tighter to herself rather than drop them. "Yes-?" she asked in automatic response, having gotten used to multiple voices calling her name at any given time, and being more than willing to take on the work they offered.
But it left her staring at Artemis with nothing to say back.
She scrambled for something, dazed from having been pulled from her thoughts. The last time she'd seen Artemis- that had been at the tournament. And now he was here...?
Ah, but it made more sense than her being here, she supposed. "It's good to see you," she said, surprise in her voice, but the sentiment was genuine, awkwardness aside.
Those emotions he'd been ignoring--none of them concerned Ashtaroth.
An oversight, he realized.
Upon seeing her, there was a strange sense of...fondness, perhaps, followed closely by mournfulness as he recalled that his purpose in befriending her had been to have Parthena resurrected. A goal that was no longer possible, or perhaps had never been. Seeing Ashtaroth reminded him of that loss all over again, freshly dredged up the night before.
He went still, his face unreadable, but a far cry from the usual sense of superiority found there.
"Yes," he agreed, though it came out soft and slightly uncertain. He couldn't say the same--or he could, but it was mixed. Good to see her, it was, but also unpleasant because of the association with Parthena.
He glanced away, just his eyes, nervously moving a hand up to brush his bangs aside. Fidgeting was strange coming from Artemis, who was very carefully perfect. Even now, dressed in grease-smeared work clothes, he still managed somehow to look impeccable. He certainly didn't feel perfect right now, though.
Ashtaroth was in the Order of the Dark. Their purpose was to guide others in their grief. He recalled the Asha's lecture about asking for help, and the slightest hint of a frown crossed his face.
Turning his gaze back to Ashtaroth, he hesitated, and then spoke. "I'd like to speak with you, when you've a moment."
She found herself waiting, somewhat uncomfortably, as he processed much the same as she their sudden predicament. She felt somewhat guilty, not simply because she knew her part in his story, but also because... she had never really spoken to him again, had she? For potions, but never to check up on him. Would he have accepted it? Maybe, because it was her.
Maybe not, because it was her.
She looked strange, in healer's white and not the Order's black. She shifted the linens in her arms again, watching his face. It almost seemed as though he had forgotten to act superior towards her, and she wondered what it was he thought about, what it was he'd been going through. It seemed strange to think about- so much had been going on in her own life, the idea of other things outside of it happening almost escaped her.
His request was a bit of a surprise, and it showed, however briefly, on her face. "Ah- yes, of course... not right now, but if you'd like to walk with me, I can drop these off and I'll be good to go?" It wasn't so busy she couldn't slip out for a little bit, and likely nothing of great enough importance would happen that would have her denying him her attention.
"This way," she said, starting off down the halls with another shift of the linen.
Artemis did not find himself wondering what she'd been up to in the interim, an absence that didn't even register with him as an absence. He rarely thought outside of himself and outside of what directly affected him, which meant he rarely considered others. Ashtaroth's circumstances didn't matter except as they intercepted his own, and that was just the way of it.
"Of course," he said, gesturing for her to lead the way. He walked with her in silence, unless she attempted to fill it, and held open the door to the linen closet for her when they arrived at it.
It would certainly have been deemed not at all encouraging had she known, but she was oblivious, and also not inclined to consider of what, or even if, Artemis thought of her.
That was reserved for someone else.
She didn't fill up the silence. There was an urge to, but she didn't feel like it, and couldn't imagine Artemis caring one way or another. She thanked him for helping her with the linen closet and carefully and neatly stacked the blankets and cloths into the appropriate spaces. There were others milling about, nurses and clerics alike, a few patients- in particular a berserker that had had an unfortunate run-in with a druid's fire companion that morning- but nothing that demanded her attention.
She called one of the other clerics by name and said she would be gone for a little bit, then motioned Artemis to follow her back out of the infirmary.
"What is it?" she asked, a false sense of familiarity giving her a similar tone of voice, though in some twisted way it was still genuine.
He trailed her through the hospital, using the silence to try to get his thoughts together and figure out how to ask what he needed to. It all seemed a bit hopeless and awkward no matter what he came up with, which was an uncomfortable feeling in and of itself. Awkward was not something Artemis was. It was new and he decided he hated it.
Once they were outside, he fussed with the cuffs of his sleeves briefly before folding his arms. He looked over their surroundings, making sure it was just the two of them with nobody around to eavesdrop, and returned his attention to Ashtaroth once he was satisfied. That was all very familiar coming from him. What wasn't familiar was the uncertain way he hesitated before speaking, his eyes flickering away for a few seconds before settling again on her.
"It has come to my attention recently that I...have been neglecting something very important," he began, which sounded stupid even as he said it, but he knew enough about confidence to know how to fake some. "As a member of the Order of the Dark, I presume you to be much more knowledgeable on the subject than I've ever been."
He hesitated, that false confidence faltering a bit, and reached up to brush his bangs aside again in that unfamiliar fidget. He tucked his hand back into his elbow, arms firmly folded again, and then met her eyes. "How does one cope with loss?"
Noting his glancing about, she moved further up the hallway, further away from the main entrance to the infirmary, feeling somehow that this discussion, above others, required discretion.
Something about Artemis made Ashtaroth feel that a certain seriousness had to be applied to any conversation they had, and this seemed no different, even though she allowed her brow to crease in confusion at his words. Neglecting something important... his mention of her status as a member of the Order nearly made her start, guilty, due to her own inhibitions in keeping with said Order. She had done much to go against their teachings, after all...
Not entirely right. Their teachings were simply another side of the coin. They did not say that resurrection was not possible; they said that it was not always possible. She had simply made her own terms for when that would and would not be.
All the same, she took to staring at him a long moment, consideringly, careful not to let her features slip into sympathy. "Is this about Parthena?"
He appreciated the neutrality of her features, though he was not aware that sympathy was her alternative. The whole thing simply felt less awkward if they remained focused on the technical.
"Yes," he answered, sounding neutral himself, which wasn't difficult. He'd spent so long divorcing himself from his emotions, now was no different. "Perhaps I could have saved myself the trouble if I'd accepted her death when it first happened, but instead I spent--" decades "--years trying to find a way to bring her back, and now that I've been confronted with the fact that this is no longer possible..."
He trailed off, a note, very subtle, of sadness entering his features. "Perhaps it was never possible..." and he'd just been fooling himself this whole time...
"Mm..."
She was silent a long moment, trying to decide how to approach the subject. This wasn't, after all, the usual way a person suffered loss. Or most of it was, with the element of their creation woven into it, something she'd never had to account for before in a discussion such as this.
That it was enough to affect Artemis was a mixed bag. Of course it would, she reasoned. That was normal. Artemis did not often present himself as normal, but from what she understood, Parthena had been his life's work, as it were. To find out she did not exist could not be easy. She had no real comparison herself, but she recalled many conversations with Victor concerning his own history and remained unsure what she could offer here, because she didn't think any of it could be satisfying.
But she had to try.
"I don't think that's true," Ashtaroth began slowly. "So far as we were created, she was mostly definitely real. That she... that she did not translate into being so... I don't think it at all diminishes either who she was or what you felt for her. The focus... the focus was always on you. Your feelings, your desires. And it isn't your fault that you can't accomplish what you were created to do- if you were even ever meant to accomplish it." Ah, that was the problem, wasn't it? Ashtaroth had lost her purpose as well in losing Parthena, but it had been an aside, a hidden purpose she had learned of more fully, later on. "So the loss... oh, Artemis. There's no easy answer for this. It's tied up into things that shouldn't be, and that's hard enough."
He felt a flicker of annoyance at her answer, which showed only in the very slight crease of his brow. I know that, he wanted to say. Her nonexistence didn't make her unimportant, he didn't blame himself for being unable to succeed, he realized it was all matters beyond his control leading to the situation he was in now.
Ashtaroth's answer boiled down to her not having one. That was frustrating. Why did emotional matters so thoroughly resist rational analysis? Why couldn't they be broken down and repaired as easily as a motor?
He resisted allowing that frustration to guide his response. Irrationally taking his feelings out on Nova had been a mistake. He would not repeat it with Ashtaroth. She was...perhaps not a close friend, but someone for whom he felt a certain degree of fondness. It made no difference if that feeling were his own or planted by his player, it was there regardless and that made it his. Though he had recently decided that he shouldn't need people, and though he believed that it was best not to form attachments because everyone around you would inevitably die someday, driving Nova out of his life had forced him to realize that he did have attachments, and he'd rather hold onto them than spite himself for an ideal that wasn't even relevant anymore.
People would still die, yes. But now so would he. He was no less ephemeral than the people who surrounded him.
He took a slow breath, smoothing out his expression. "Whether or not her soul exists in the Dark, all that remains of her here are my memories of her. That makes her as real as any other deceased companion." He understood that. He didn't need to be reassured about it.
Or maybe he did...? A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. He didn't understand feelings at all, and he hadn't demonstrated the best self-awareness of his own before now. So perhaps it was just something he was telling himself he understood so he didn't have to examine how he really felt underneath the knowledge.
He unfolded his arms to fuss with his cuffs again, frowning down at them. "Emotions are tedious things," he muttered, allowing himself to vent at least a little of his frustration.
"Mm, yes... that's true... I may be overthinking this..."
Her eyes lowered to the ground a moment, and she folded her arms in front of her, reaching up to push the heavy braid back over her shoulder.
"At the heart of it, the issue remains the same. Whatever the means, the loss of a loved one..."
There was a distance in her expression, something like an understanding that she did not wish to come too close to. "There are stages to these things. Anger and fear, confusion, depression... tedious, yes," she said, smiling in a brief, sad way, before it faded. "But they seem to be the means for the heart to sort itself, given the chance. It's a willingness to enter a state of relearning that overcomes the worst of it."
She rubbed at her wrist absently. Everything seemed sore lately. A lot of work, a lot of running around, and she hadn't been sleeping well. It seemed unfair to subject the others in the dormitory to her need for a lamp, but it meant fitful sleep and the occasional night terror.
"If you think of it this way?... so much time has been spent living in such a way, the only way to overcome the loss is to learn how to live without. Do you even remember what your life was like before Parthena? There probably isn't much to remember, is there? So you need to relearn how to live your life on your own without being dependent on the idea of her, to keep the memory of her without being haunted by it."
She didn't look at him as she spoke. It was almost a means of giving him some privacy between them. "...with the loss of someone important to us, we have to learn to live again."
It's a willingness to enter a state of relearning that overcomes the worst of it.
He looked back to her then, letting his arms fall. His expression was considering, but unreadable. He had, thus far, been unwilling to even acknowledge the problem, and even now felt resistant to examining it any closer because of how uncomfortable it was to face his feelings after denying he even had them for so long.
Those words meant that, in order to fix the problem at all, he needed to change himself. That, too, was uncomfortable. He considered emotions a flaw and wished himself to be flawless. Perhaps that was the relearning necessary...
Learn to live without...he'd thought he had, but that was just lying to himself. After her death, he'd gotten along without her--but his entire purpose in life had centered around her even so. And after his awakening and the acknowledgement that she was no longer around in any capacity, his life had centered around distracting himself from feeling anything for her loss. On the surface it might appear that he'd learned to live without her, but in the darkened depths...
"...I don't," he said, sort of a slow realization. His life before Parthena... Childhood, no, he barely recalled. He'd a family, a mother and father and much younger sister, but he barely remembered their faces or names. Parthena was clear. But she was always there. He had vague notions of life before meeting her, but nothing substantial, nothing to call upon to reminisce.
His life, essentially, started with Parthena. He frowned, looking down again, fussing with his cuffs again. That made it easy to conclude it should end with her as well, but...that seemed the wrong answer. He didn't want to die. Death had always meant giving up. But giving up on what, exactly...?
He lifted his gaze to her face again, and attempted, a bit hesitantly, to voice his thoughts. "I do feel as though...my entire life has been dedicated to her in one way or another. That is...a rather significant purpose to have suddenly lost, and so I am...uncertain, how one continues to live without purpose, and how one does not feel they are simply wasting time until they die."
"That's not uncommon," she said. Hands she had folded in front of her swept out, palms up, in a brief, all-encompassing gesture before they settled in front of her again. "And true of any significant loss, whether it is the death of a loved one, or the completion of one's life work, or the end of a long journey. It is true of many people that they will... they will focus on a single aspect of their life to such an extent, all else will fall away. And that is not unnatural- it is necessary to live one's life, I think, to focus on the important things, to make choices between things that will make this or that unavailable to them, lost opportunities and the like... but, as in your case, some do it to their detriment, and so when one thing ends..."
She trailed off to pick up on his final statement. Where does one begin? "Unfortunately, I cannot give you the answer for what you would do. It is up to you, to decide what else there is in life that is of importance to you, something that will... that will fill the spaces in between. So that you do not feel you are wasting time- merely biding it."
Because who was to say there was no Parthena to greet him in the Dark? She knew for herself that two souls could meet after death. That confidence was clear in her words, twined with the gentleness she had used all throughout.
"What else is there?" he asked, almost pleading, and the look he gave her was lost and just a touch desperate. "I threw myself at the task of incorporating Earth's technological advances into my understanding, I've been a major contributor to this effort to alchemitize Paris's tanks, but it is hollow, Ashtaroth. It doesn't mean anything. It was merely something to do to keep myself from dwelling on her.
"What else is there, that won't be just as hollow?"
"Mm..."
It was something she had to think about, briefly, her eyes downcast once more as she did so. She couldn't even say she understood the feeling of being lost as he did, as she was more than capable of making herself useful... but she had never been given any great attachment to anyone or anything before her awakening. In fact, it had been Artemis, or his player through Artemis, that had originally given her purpose. And from there she had found her own.
A small stab of guilt hit her as she thought of Victor. She had lost the person she had most become attached to, but had been able to bring him back. That simply wasn't possible with Parthena.
But, to think on Parthena...
"...what do you think it is Parthena would have liked for you to do?" she asked, unable to completely hide the curiousity behind the question. "Or to do herself?"
...What Parthena would have liked?
That question had never occurred to him. He stared at Ashtaroth a moment in confounded silence.
What would Parthena have liked?
He drew in a breath, drawing himself up straight as he did so, and let it out as a short huff. His eyes moved away from Ashtaroth, as though searching through the index of his memory. He could recall with perfect clarity Parthena's appearance, the copper curls and pale complexion dotted with freckles, green eyes, delicate nose, slight frame...
What had she sounded like? His brow furrowed as he tried to recall her voice. She spoke softly, he was sure... But what did it sound like? How did she speak? Cultured, but in what way? Everything about her had been elegant, but he couldn't put specifics on it.
His expression, slowly, by degrees, became troubled.
He'd spent decades dedicated to the purpose of finding a way to bring her back, and he couldn't even answer a question as simple as 'what would she have liked?' A coldness gripped him as one of those terrifying realizations that he was so averse to confronting surfaced in his mind, like the jagged black fin of a shark swimming around beneath the rest of his thoughts.
"I'm uncertain," he told Ashtaroth finally, unable to hide how that realization concerned him. "Perhaps...the question bears further consideration." It was a weak attempt to cover for himself; he suspected going deeper would only lead to more nothingness, and he didn't know what that would lead to.
Watching his expression shift, she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach that matched the look on his face. She had never been privy to many details, but to realize that there were very few details to be privy to was not a thought she'd entertained seriously.
"Ah... I see..."
She rubbed her hands together slowly, digging her thumb into the center of one in order to work out some of the kinks that had begun to gather. She considered asking if he'd spoken to his player at all, but she imagined that would be near impossible to accomplish now without dragonmail.
"What about... what about Nova...?" she asked, though she disliked doing so. "Have you spoken to him at all of it? Many turn to family or friends in such times..."
He hadn't contacted his player, and he hadn't considered it worth his time to try. But Ash's question planted a seed that would eventually grow into a realization that his player was the only one who may have the information he was lacking.
For now, though, his face hardened in response to the mention of Nova. It was about one-third guilt and two-thirds resentment. "Nova and I are not currently on speaking terms."
She looked surprised, visibly so. What could he have possibly done that would have, after such a long and bizarre friendship, finally resulted in a blowup?
"Why is that?" she asked, still too surprised to bother hiding that it was as much a personal as a professional interest to know the reason. She shook her head then, as though she expected to have the answer and wished to keep him from answering it, a habit she had picked up with Victor. "He's known you a long time, and differently than I- he may have better insight..."
He answered anyway, though it was stiff. "We had a rather heated disagreement on the meaning of mortality." One that, he was beginning to realize, was entirely his own fault for overreacting.
He folded his arms, looking mildly annoyed as he recalled the fight. How embarrassing to realize he'd acted like a fool throughout... Emotions really were terrible. "He is of the opinion that being mortal, in and of itself, makes any time remaining wasted. I doubt his insight would be valuable here."
The meaning of mortality?... she looked at him, a blank puzzlement on her features which she quickly tried to correct. "Ah..." was all she said in response, not understanding. She was not fully aware of his or Nova's pasts, and so his statements made no sense.
"...what about your player?" she asked, tentatively.
...Hm. She didn't actually know that Artemis had been immortal and had lost it. It seemed pointless to keep it a secret now that it held no meaning, but he didn't feel like sharing it just yet. It was not imperative that he assuage her confusion.
Looking thoughtful at the mention of his player, he answered, "I have not." He hadn't seen much point to it. There weren't any questions he wanted to ask, nothing he needed to know or confront him about. But now... If anyone would have an answer about Parthena, wouldn't it be him?
Oh, but with dragonmail down... "He may be difficult to contact with the postdragons on strike." But at least he didn't sound like he was shooting down the idea.
"That's true... email works, but unfortunately, I don't know if I know anyone that has it. And it would look strange for me to go around asking. It may be best simply to wait until the war is over."
She paused. "...what are you doing here, by the by?"
"Yes, tracking him down at the moment would seem to be more trouble than it's worth," he agreed. Perhaps not, considering the importance of the question he needed to ask, but Artemis was inclined to write off anything he didn't particularly want to do as too much hassle for him. Confronting his player over his poor memories of Parthena? Yeah, no, that was extremely uncomfortable to consider, he wasn't going out of his way to get that done.
At the question, he looked up, glancing over his grease-stained work clothes and then the hospital around them. "Here specifically?" he said, looking back to her. "Repairing the runic channels on the hospital's network encryption. I've been hired on as a contractor for the Amber Gaze."
"Oh," she said, in a way somewhat similar to before, where it seemed she had no idea what he was talking about. "I suppose that's Earth business. I haven't encountered much of it myself yet. A city, but... we didn't stay long."
Ah, she felt like she was getting off topic. "I do know someone who may be able to contact him, but... now isn't the time, unfortunately, with the war going on. It would have to wait regardless." She sounded apologetic. She didn't feel she had any business contacting Rhys about something like this at a time like this, though.
"...does that help a bit, though? Even if it seems like a short-term solution. Things may seem like that for a little bit."
...Did she. His eyebrows rose slightly, interest piqued at the idea of Ashtaroth knowing someone who knew how to get in contact with Heimdall. Not that he intended to use that path to contact just yet, but he couldn't help wondering who it was Ash knew. Her own player, perhaps? Theirs had obviously collaborated a great deal. "That's all right," he told her. "Perhaps once things have sorted themselves out."
Did it help? He wasn't sure, to be honest. He didn't feel the issue any more settled than it had been the day before. But it was certainly a useful discussion, which may have been the best he could ask for. "It's given me something to think on, at least," he said.
A pause. "Thank you." Sincere, but he gave sincere thanks so infrequently that he almost hadn't thought to do it now.
In truth, she hadn't even considered Theresa. Her player rarely came up. Out of sight, out of mind, perhaps. If she were to prod at that, she would actually feel guilty- somehow Victor's resurrection followed her everywhere.
"Ah... I wish I could do more." That seemed true enough. Had she missed speaking with Artemis? It seemed a strange point in her life, her time with him. Distant, now. She had wanted to help him then- was it residual? Or was it genuine?
She was willing to think it was the latter. Perhaps it wasn't even an issue- regardless of her intentions, she intended to help. "I'll be in the infirmary as long as the war continues. If you think of anything else, stop by anytime. It's nice to see a familiar face."
He'd called Nova his only friend, but his feelings for Ashtaroth were genuine, while inexplicable. Something his player had given him, no doubt, but he didn't consider any of that falsified. Perhaps he'd been poorly portrayed at times (Go.), but he'd no desire to disown anything he was created with. So he accepted his fondness for her as his own feelings.
Perhaps that meant he was not so alone without Nova as he'd thought. He kept himself from becoming close to people because he would inevitably lose them when they aged past him. That was no longer a concern. He didn't need to keep himself so distant anymore. The foundation for a closeness with Ashtaroth was already established, he only had to build upon it.
It was a strange thought, uncomfortable only because it was unfamiliar.
He'd figure out what to do with it later. One crisis at a time.
He gave her a smile, light, not exactly warm, but polite. "Then perhaps I shall."