That is the human condition. A neverending search for the new and the exciting that brings comfort."
- Written within a museum of human history.
Twelve hours later, Dante and Joan stood over Archimedes’ unconscious form inside a sterile room under Lucius’ watchful gaze. They had to evacuate Heron’s Wing without Arch’s administrative rights, so they went to a nearby hotel and bought a room for each person. After all, they couldn’t even open a door with the boy in his current state. Money was tight, but they spent all they had to spare for lodging.
Joan injected some fluids into the young boy’s IV bag while Dante thoughtfully held his chin. He spoke up after only a few seconds of silence, the bags under his eyes showing that he hadn’t slept yet, “Can you fix him? We are wanted now, probably by each empire. Claudius won’t lie for us.”
“Hmm... His spine is torn to shreds. Damage to his nerves all over. Half of his bones are broken, but no signs of neural impact. I should be able to, but it’ll take a while,” she paused briefly as if considering an eventuality. “But there is a chance he won’t walk again unless I go heavy on the augments. Oh, Dante? Did you know?” Joan’s eyes turned upward, and she peered at her captain with her question.
“Know what?” Dante fired back with confusion.
The doctor laughed, pointing at the Psion, “He’s a human like you. Was hard to tell due to all his malnutrition and scars, but I’m about nine-five percent sure he’s human. A mutant of some kind, for sure, though.”
Dante’s mind froze at the realization. Everything finally made sense. He had always wondered what exactly the boy was. Nothing added up in the past, but he didn’t think it mattered.
Archimedes had no family to watch over him. No protections from the government. He was used like a tool without remorse by countless people. Why?
Because he was human. Partially, at least.
The older man knelt beside the patient’s bed and held his hand. Then, he ordered his doctor, “Get him awake, and not what you did for Sonna earlier. I want him lucid and moving. Have him agree to any augments, unlike what you did to me. Let him make modifications, too. We can spare maybe a few weeks here since Arch jumped us deep into Ostacean.”
Joan nodded in understanding while Dante patted the boy who saved their lives. With a sigh, the human walked toward the door, thanking Lucius, “I appreciate you standing guard. I’m going to go to sleep now. Been awake too long.”
The Martian smiled lightly, the warmth in his gaze not hidden. Lucius didn’t mind being the crew's watchman. After all, he rarely had to sleep, and that was before the Inheritance had overtaken his body.
So, Lucius merely settled his gaze upon Joan while she got to work on API’s condition. His ears, however, spread outward, listening to the happenings across the entire hotel.
After saying goodbye, Dante entered his chosen room, eyes almost blinded by the gaudy interior. He didn’t enjoy such places—the prices, the services, everything—it all felt wrong. But they needed space and anonymity, which came with a price.
Still, he strode over to the bed and relieved his back of the weight he carried. Then, he sat at the edge of the mattress. Instantly, his flesh sunk downward into the sheets.
A sigh escaped his mouth, and he fell backward into the comforts without hesitation. The knots in his muscles vanished under the relaxation, and his mind drifted into oblivion.
Before he fell into a slumber, however, his eyes shot open. His heart beat with a virulent paranoia, and he cursed the air, “Too good.”
After rolling over, the man returned to his feet. His bones longed for the lavish bed, but he knew better.
Dante crawled beneath the raised frame, barely fitting beneath it. Yet this bizarre, cramped hole let his mind calm. Here, the paranoia faded, if just a smidge.
He much preferred a tranquil mind to a slumbering body. Closing his eyes again, Dante allowed himself the sweet release of sleep.
************************
Astraeus felt lost. Alone. Isolated. Hopeless. The Anathema sat in his room, staring at the ceiling while unable to practice his Tide. He couldn’t train to distract himself from Thanaris.
All he could do was gape at the reflective paneling.
His heart ached, something he didn’t know he had. It swooned for a person who no longer existed. And it hurt.
Deeply.
The pain sank into his core, further than an anchor in an endless sea. His breathing choked, and he struggled to look forward.
He brought a claw to his breast, feeling the engine inside pump. His ever-shifting brow furrowed, and his thoughts swelled.
What am I? What was she? Who were we?
Now that Astraeus had time to think, away from danger and away from his Master’s gaze, he pondered his existence and his grief.
Where am I from? My first memory is of the depths, the cradling cold, but what came before?
Even Dirge were once children, pups with little power. While they could still kill, they remained weak compared to their primes. However, Astraeus failed to remember anything before he met Thanaris. That meant he had died beforehand and only recently rekindled.
Thanaris yanked him from the Lightsea’s embrace and into the greater world. She protected, trained, and raised him from the pitiful being he once was.
His mind lingered on one sole question, however. Why? Why did she do all that?
Why would she waste so much time taking care of him? Coddling him? Training him? She taught him how to perfect his Tide, how to master his Stigmata, and most importantly, how to form a heartfelt connection with the Lightsea. However, Dirge weren’t meant to be babied. They were born to be tossed into war.
So why?
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Astraeus bit down on the sharpened nail of his claw, a rising fury within his guts. He missed her. Deep down, his mind told him otherwise. It said he shouldn’t. It howled that this wasn’t like him.
His insides spoke of taking her power, of following where she failed. But he didn’t want to.
He...
Astraeus’ shifting eyes, his biology constructed of the Lightsea and those he had devoured, stabilized. Those dots across his face found their home.
And their resting place...
Was a sinking frown.
He had broken through the unknown, unheard, and unrealized whispers for a moment.
Snowflakes, melting as they spawned, dripped from the fixed dots that acted as his eyes. The faceless man earned his face, yet he wished he had not. He didn’t have the chance to say a proper goodbye. All he could do was watch her rush into battle, leaving behind a single item for him to hold.
A low cry came from his throat as he sat on the velvety carpet, “Master...”
The sob echoed to the sole soul, not another mind to hear his agony. Astraeus once thought the Caesar was invincible. Never once had she lost a fight or even come close to retreating. He thought he would follow her forever. Evolve with her.
Now he knew.
She wasn’t invincible. The woman he...
The woman he loved was merely mortal.
Beneath Astraeus, the rug grew damp from falling snowflakes. Wails stifled his chest, and the Anathema felt a pressure reemerge in his mind.
A faraway, distant presence bore its weight upon Astraeus. It was Him. It was She. It was It. The Lightsea.
Those above Anacrux could manipulate the Lightsea’s will, and one of them had irrevocably altered the Lightsea. It would press upon those nearing strength and force their skulls back into the sand. That was the last thing Thanaris had told her favorite pupil through the amber. No words entered the air, hiding it from Dante’s ears. The words were only for Astraeus.
Her true disciple.
More flakes fell as Astraeus’ mind faltered under the pressure. It wanted him to be violent, to be rash, to take from others.
But the Frigo didn’t want to. He wanted to... live. He wanted to watch others live. Life was a blessing. Astraeus had ripped it from many others, and the threads of their deaths had turned into responsibility.
Thanaris told him to savor life and grow beyond his limits. She desired his happiness instead of her own. She left him a path forward—a way out of the madness.
Astraeus retrieved a tiny shard of scarlet amber from his shirt, holding it with more care than his own life. His eyes fawned over it, the dripping snowflakes purposefully evading its warmth.
His master had placed her mind into the jewel. She had done what no other Dirge would possibly do. The woman sacrificed her soul to embed it into the item. Such a method existed beyond Astraeus’ wildest imagination, yet it made sense to him.
Thanaris’ foundation burrowed deeper than any other Dirge he had met. She was not the oldest, the wisest, or the strongest, but she always seemed to have the correct answer. Even in death, she acted as though it was always her plan as if she was content with dying.
Astraeus cradled the amber, pressing it against his chest while he recalled her last words, those conveyed only while her soul shifted into the object after her death.
“Simmer. Little time. I am sorry. My soul will guard you from the ‘Sea and protect your mind. Eventually, the blood amber forged from my soul will exhaust itself. It is unknown whether that will provide me a True Death. But even if it does... That is okay. I’ve studied endlessly in search of real freedom. It’s why I never aimed for the next step in earnest. The Inferose... it was meant to free you. And... perhaps me someday, too. Find another MD. It’s the only way. You have to rid the mark in your soul and body. The Stranger. Never say his name. But he did this to our people. We Seablessed... bear our own curses. I don’t know why. But he did. Be careful, my Seablessed. You’re alone now. One day, we will meet again, little Simmer. At that time, I only hope you are as kind as I think you are.”
Her words were long, too dense to work through previously under the pressure of Flames Of Perdition, but now, he felt every ounce of significance. Tighter, he gripped the amber. He squeezed it as if he never wanted it to leave him.
The weight against his mind ripened into a piercing dagger, but Astraeus refused to bow his head during his grief. He would rather... be weak than manipulated.
Once upon a time, he loathed the weak, finding them less than animals. Then, he saw their potential, their lives. He turned one into a dear friend. His only friend. Now, after Thanaris’ sacrifice, he understood their bliss. He envied the Seacursed and their inherent individuality.
With grinding teeth and bleeding snow, he forced words from his lungs from beneath the terrible pressure.
“I. Don’t. Want. To. Kill.”
His determination held the tsunami of the Lightsea at bay and allowed him to think as he wished. It hurt. It hurt beyond any imagination of pain he ever had. And it was during this pain that the amber ignited.
A sanguine glow emanated from the gaps in Astraeus’ abyssal fingers, dyeing them a cruel crimson. At any other place, at any other time, with any other person, it would spell the most profound doom. The condensed soul, Domain Collapse, and Tide Reversal from an Anacrux lingered within the ruby.
Without the approval of the Blood-Amber, the wearer would be torn to shred, making their innards lay across their skin.
However, Astraeus was not just anyone. He was Thanaris’, the Bloody Memory’s, Simmer.
The vicious light revolved gradually to a calming carmine, veiling Astraeus’ mind from the Lightsea. More precisely, it bore the weight of the Anathema in his place. As such, for the first time, the Frigo pondered without an outside force meddling in his mind whatsoever.
All along, it had been there, even if minor, developing bit by bit like a virus. And now, as Astraeus’ might had reached a tipping point, it had become an unbearable weight. Without Thanaris’ aid, he might not have withstood it.
Nevertheless, he had never felt clearer. More focused. More... alive.
Something... at the top. I don’t even want to think of his name. He’s forcing us to be like this. Crazed. Hungry. Driven. But why? Why are we like this? Why is it happening to us? Was she... like me? Barely holding on? And for what?
Astraeus shook his head, unable to find an answer. Instead, he stood, the tears falling down his face with twinkling snow. He strode toward the door. He needed air.
The man wanted to see the moon, even if just to imagine it stained with blood.
His hand wrapped around the doorknob, and he entered the hotel hallway. The clock ticked a few feet away, denoting the time. Quarter past midnight. Astraeus had been wrapped in his grief for hours.
The noise grated on him—each tone, the tick, then the tock. He glared at it, raising his hand slowly, a power building within his core. Yet before he could manifest his Tide, a mild voice broke the irritating calm. “Astraeus? Are you alright?”
With a whip of his head, the Frigo stared straight into Dante’s azure pupils. The rest of his crew slept in their rooms, exhausted after the trip to the Inferose and all the battles therein. Even Joan had fallen to slumber after Arch’s surgery. Dante? The captain?
He allowed himself a fraction of the respite, forcing himself awake to watch over them from a few hours’ nap. A piece of Astraeus shivered, for the human reminded him of his master in many, many ways.
Eyes dropped to the floor, a face shivering in shifting dots. Astraeus’ pain could be felt with a single look. In the dim hallway, the remnants of the nighttime lights burning lowly.
Dante took a step closer, his impassive face softened with understanding as he took in the sight of Astraeus, hunched and aching under the weight of grief. His gaze didn’t flinch from Astraeus’ snow-flecked tears or the trembling in his form, and he kept his voice low, his words deliberate and controlled.
“Astraeus,” he said, with a careful step as if approaching a bear, “I know what you’re feeling. Some of it at least. My brother... he died a long time ago. We were... close. He always looked up to me, but in truth, I thought he was the best. An annoying crybaby, but I wouldn’t have traded him for anything.”
Astraeus’ gaze flickered, his eyes shifting as if deciding whether to withdraw back into himself or listen. Dante didn’t give him the chance to choose. He shuffled closer, placing the two just a few steps away from one another.
“Grief…” Dante resumed, letting the word settle into the silence while Astraeus eyed him. “It’s not something you can just put down. It stays with you. Forever. But you can find the strength to carry it.”
With such caring words, one would have imagined Dante to continue with a heartful message, one that evoked love or compassion. But that is not who he was. That is not who Astraeus was, either.
The human comforted the Anathema and took the moment to forge an ally. He held out a hand, pale in comparison to Astraeus’ pitch-tinted flesh, and spoke, “I can’t possibly say anything to lessen your grief. Each of my words is probably only pissing you off more. But... when my brother died... only one thing calmed my rage...”
At such an open-ended phrase, Astraeus’ shifting, mutable features froze. His eyes, dark and unfathomable, locked on Dante’s, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, the frown on his lips deepened into something etched in both sorrow and anger. Once in constant motion, his brows hardened into a resolute, furrowed line, his face—now fixed in the raw shape of his grief—contorted with fury. His kind's swirling, haunting eyes finally stilled, holding Dante in their steady stare.
The faceless man found an eternal face to wear, his voice barely above a murmur, carrying a bitterness he could scarcely suppress, “What do you know of the weight we carry? The Lightsea tears at my mind, even as she—” he stopped, clutching the scarlet shard. “Even as she protects me from it, I feel it there, an endless tide that would drown me in rage, hunger, and madness.” His jaw clenched. “They made us to be beasts, Dante. Cursed... enslaved to something that isn’t even... even ours.”
The human nodded, not arguing with Astraeus in the slightest. Such would only cause a rift between the two. That was not something Dante could afford.
“I... may not have lost anything on Gladius C or in the Inferose. Nothing so permanent, at least. But the Church of Flesh? Joseph? Friday? That... man who looks like me... Ego made me a Seafarer. Somehow,” Dante pursed his lips, struggling to find the words. “That man... knew my brother. Knows my brother. I don’t know. But... I will find out.”
Astraeus opened his mouth to speak, but Dante raised his voice, “The one. The singular thing that calmed my rage... was to cool it with blood. The blood of those who killed my brother.”
The offered hand teetered between the two men. It sat as a bridge of two bloodied pasts, two broken men. One had convinced himself that he had repaired himself, while the other was freshly shattered.
Another hand met it, and they grasped each other roughly. A smile grew on Dante’s face while Astraeus’ frown affixed its permanence. He had forever found a face that was that of a crying monster.
“Our next stop?” Astraeus asked his captain through a reverse grin, the teary snowflakes dropping eternally.
Dante’s lips stretched even further as he revealed his blooming plan, “Rejo has Ego and Friday marked. So, we can choose our next prey after Arch recovers. Until then... recover. Train. Then we will decide who to go after first.”
A fit of laughter emerged in the tense hallway, breathing life into its otherwise gloomy fixtures. Astraeus patted the human’s shoulder and brushed past him. His destination stood the same. He wished to see the moon once more, to breathe in the cool air.
As his footsteps resounded in the long hallway, Dante swore a promise toward the alternating shadows, “They are likely to go after another MD, both Ego and Joseph. With Joseph’s reappearance, though, the Empires have found their heads. A proxy war would soon start if I were to bet. I’ll find us a backer and resupply shortly. All you have to worry about is...”
Astraeus paused at the stairs, refusing to glance back as he waited for the final three words of his captain.
“Killing our enemies.”
And just like that, Dante’s crew had earned their deadliest member.