Far Off Unhappy Things
Chapter Five: Aster
By Renko Doremi Rodenburg
“What is Eden?” Fionna asked Aster, beautiful Aster.
“Hm,” Aster said, while staring out over the dead and parched landscape from the massive, sandstone-hewn staircase the two of them sat on.
“Hm,” they said again after thinking deeply about Fionna her question. “Where did you hear about that?”
“From desert spirits. They whisper to me: You walk with one from Eden.”
Aster laughed. Everything about them seemed to burst with energy, and as they laughed, starlight escaped from within them. Their laughter- the sound of starlight, tinkling across the temple, scattering down the gigantic stairs. “It’s our homeland. It’s long gone now, though. It fell even before the seasons did.”
Fionna looked at Aster’s face, their slight smile and the starlight just behind their eyes. “Do you miss it?”
“That doesn’t apply to us. We’re different from you. And I don’t mean the ears,” Aster said, ever keeping the same serene expression on their face. “Time passes differently for us.”
“I see,” Fionna said. “Would you visit, if you still could?”
“I would,” Aster said. “I’d go take a walk with my father on the windy part of the day, and eat with all my sisters in our magnificent palace.”
“That sounds to me like you miss it,” Fionna replied.
“Ah, perhaps, perhaps,” Aster said.
From atop the pyramid came a voice. “Are you two ready? You’ve been sitting there for the largest part of the afternoon.”
“I was regaling my champion here with tales of Eden, Violet,” Aster yelled upstairs at the woman standing in the opening of the temple.
“Insolent bitch,” Violet yelled back. “Never one second did you respect our legacy. Now get your asses up here so my champion can murder yours.”
“Fionna,” Aster said, “May the unthinkable happen, may you fall, then I’m glad we had this afternoon together.”
Fionna leaned in to kiss Aster. The slightest spark of electricity singed her lips and the smell of ozone rose up to her nose.
“If I die, make something beautiful out of me, okay?” Fionna whispered to her lover, master and saint. “My soul belongs to you.”
Aster raised their hand up to Fionna’s face, close enough that sparks of starlight jumped between her cheek and their fingers, then gently ruffled their fingers through Fionna her hair.
“Don’t worry love,” Aster told their lover, apprentice and pious nun.
The both of them got up and climbed the staircase to the top of the temple.
“Before the fall,” Aster said as they climbed the giant stone blocks, “This place was beautiful. But you gotta be able to see the sun to see it in its full glory. The desert, too. It was rather pretty under the sun- an endless field of gold instead of these dreary browns and grays.”
“It’s still pretty,” Fionna replied. Climbing the staircase was hard with her weapon, Gael Spíne on her back, but she managed. “It’s imposing. It’s so large.”
“In those early days, men were larger,” Aster said.
On top of the pyramid, a temple was built. Twelve heavy pillars supporting an elevated square with a hole cut in the middle, and a recession underneath them, slick with water. On the far side, an older, bald woman sat in a meditative trance while Violet paced back and forth with her arms behind her back. Here, in the shade of the temple while the sun was already fading, her purple hair was almost black.
“Those stones are from the riverlands. They cannot ever dry,” Aster said as they pointed to the floor of the recession.
“Autumn, you think you’re so clever,” Violet spat. “Respectless cretin. Sharing all our wisdom and lore with a little human. You, yeah, you,” she said while she pointed at Fionna. “Aster always thought they’re so much better than the rest of us. Did you know they’re the only one of us that isn’t a woman? The gall.”
“Euhm.” Fionna said.
“Let’s leave the insults for later, fine sister. Any news?”
“Hm,” Violet said while inhaling sharply through her nose. “Fleur and Hyacinth fought. Hyacinth won, as expected. Hyacinth still ranks in first place, Fleur still second last, after Clementine.”
“Ah,” Aster said, shaking their head in disapproval. “Hyacinth.”
“Clementine is still who-knows-where,” Violet continued. “Probably not coming back. I beat Achlys some months ago, so we’ve traded places in the rankings.”
“Alright,” Aster said. “Fionna, ready your spear. Violet, wake your warrior.”
Fionna pulled the ties that bound Gael Spíne to her back loose, and took the ever-warm wooden spear in her hands. Across from her, on the other side of the temple, a mere six paces away, the woman opened her eyes and stood up. She moved her hands around, almost like a dance, and took a fighting stance.
“No weapons,” Aster said. “Keep your distance from that one. She might be a grappler, she might be a striker. In any case, you’ve got a range advantage.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Violet yelled. “It’s champion versus champion. You’ve spent four hours on the staircase. You had plenty of time to talk then. Kirsten, get her.”
The older woman- Kirsten, moved forward with surprising speed. Fionna swung Gael Spíne at her, forcing her to dodge and back off. The woman hissed at her, exposing large fangs protruding from her mouth with a slight overbite.
“Ah,” Aster began, then reminded themselves to stay quiet.
Kirsten was fast, very fast. She darted towards Fionna so quickly that she hadn’t readied herself for a second swing yet, and was almost too slow. Swinging her spear back just in time, the vampire had to turn a punch aimed at Fionna’s head into a dodge. She followed up with a kick to the stomach, but the vampiric martial artist was too quick and darted backwards. That was fine, and Fionna lunged forward with her spear. Kirsten’s instincts were to block rather than to dodge, and it would cost her dearly. The moment she touched the wood, she yelped in pain and lost coordination for just a second. More than long enough for Fionna to stab forwards again, this time hitting her in the shoulder. The fight had been decided before it began. Within seconds the vampire her movements became slow, sluggish, and her breathing erratic. Her first well-coordinated attacks became more like flailing, and Fionna had little issue deflecting them, causing confused screams and yelps every time Gael Spíne touched bare skin. By the time she was too weak to stand and fell over, face-first to the ground, her entire body had broken out in a terrible rash, bits of blood dripping from the largest areas.
Fionna circled around her enemy carefully as she watched her struggle to get up again, her limbs failing her while she struggled to breathe. She stabbed her in the side, but it proved unnecessary. Vampire or not, the poison in Gael Spíne had already wrought such havoc on the woman’s body that she didn’t even bleed when injured, her heart having been eaten from the inside out. Little bits of green started protruding from the skin, and would sprout into flowers before the next sunrise.
“Well then,” Fionna said as she bowed before Violet.
Violet spat on the ground. “Bah. You cheated. That thing is poisonous.”
“I would’ve won anyway,” Fionna said while grinning.
“It’s venomous actually,” Aster said as they put a hand on Fionna’s shoulder. “Gael Spíne is alive, and it bites you- not the other way around.”
“If you’re going to play the egomaniac know-it-all, explain to me how a vampire could be killed by a poison,” Violet said.
“Hm,” Aster said. “That spear is a relic from another age. Nothing that exists today, in our diminished world, can bear its bite.”
“Cute trick,” Violet said, slightly less demeaning than usual. She walked up to her champion’s corpse and kicked it. “I liked her, you know. First person I really befriended in two-hundred years. I like most of them better than humans.”
Fionna shook her head. “I’m sorry. I did what I had to do for Starlight.”
Violet made a retching sound. “Excuse me, are you calling them ‘Starlight’? Bloody fucking ‘Starlight’?” She then turned to Aster. “Just when I think you cannot get more of an insufferable narcissist, you let all that power go to your head.”
“Hey, leave poor Narcis out of this, what did she do,” Aster said, a tinge of glee in their voice.
“Fuck you,” Violet replied. “Just let me grieve for a moment without the fucking jabs and jokes and so-much-cleverer-than-thou.”
She prodded Kirsten’s corpse a few times with her heel.
“Violet,” Fionna said. “You can come with us if you want. We were going to go to the riverlands. If you come along we can eat somewhere there.”
“What?” Violet asked as she kneeled next to Kirsten’s body and started digging into strange wounds sprouting stranger saplings with her fingers, pulling out large strings of root and stem along with strips of flesh, all wet with blood. “What the actual fuck. Would this kill me, Aster? Would this kill Hyacinth or Clementine?”
“Hm,” Aster said. “I actually don’t know. I don’t think the poison will take root in blood made from linseed oil and flesh hewn from moonstone, but it can’t hurt to err on the safe side.”
“Violet?” Fionna asked again.
Violet sighed. “I don’t know what Aster has told you, but there’s no way I’m going to get along with them. Singular and plural. I’m going home, and once there I’m going to mope around and wax philosophically with the vampires because my sibling and their human pet just murdered my companion.”
“So dramatic,” Aster said.
“Fuck you,” Violet swore.
“Can you make your way to the black forests from here?” Fionna asked.
“Not going to answer that question, and I’m not leaving until you’ve left either,” Violet said.
Aster leaned in to fully embrace Fionna from behind. “I’m going to show you something lovely,” they whispered before kissing her on the neck. They then let go, stepped past her and waved their hand back and forth in the direction of the temple floor. Rhythmic motions, alternating between fluid and mechanical, it almost entranced Fionna. They were inviting, soothing, like the waves of water softly and playfully splashing against rock, softly flowing over her legs while she closed her eyes and waited for-
Right before she fully lost herself in the motions, she was dragged back to reality by Violet letting out a yelp and jumping backwards. The slick and wet black rock the recession in the temple floor was made out of turned mirror-smooth and right after, into deep dark water with stars twinkling in the distance.
“What the fuck, is that why she’s clothed so skimpy? She’s walking around in swimwear?” Violet asked, surprise replacing the disdain in her voice.
“No, that’s to undress her more easily,” Aster replied.
“It actually is swimwear,” Fionna quickly interceded for herself. “Water might not touch Starlight if it does not please them so, but it does mess up my clothes.”
“Well, have fun,” Violet said. “It probably beats having Fleur drag you through the mirrorworld.”
“Oh, we will,” Aster said. “Fionna, hold on to me.”
“One second,” she said as she strapped Gael Spíne to her back. “Ready.”
She put her hand around their waist, and together they stepped forward, allowing their bodies to fall into the dark pool of water at the top of the pyramid.
The ocean was deep and dark, so much that it barely resembled water once you were fully submerged. In the distance, stars twinkled, shining with a luster not visible to those who remained on dry land. There were so many of them, an overwhelming cosmic cacophony of divine light- outshone by one single star.
Aster wasn’t bright per se, but so unfathomably sharp. ‘Clarity’ was the word that came to Fionna’s mind most readily, but to compare Aster to a mere gemstone, no matter how prized, was an insult. As her guiding star, they dragged her through the depths. Once you left the Lands Lost and were in the Ocean proper, the only thing about the seas that resembled water was that they were wet and cold. An infinity of directionless black, and in the far off distance the tiny lights of distant worlds and words. Beside her, her Word. They dragged her through the waters, arm around her, light guiding her path and keeping the horrors at bay.
“They’re not all stars, did I ever tell you?” Aster said, their words pure light and vibration in this time and place. “Some are forgotten beasts, titans that lure young godlings with light. Yet others are unknowable things, inverted places of music to make the sanest minds go mad.”
Fionna could not speak. Even if the overwhelming radiance didn’t suffocate her, the water would refuse her words.
Aster had told her so much. Things no boy or girl from the lands of the Sun had ever known. Not even with her soul could she repay them.
In the distance glittered the million branches of the river Delta, where the Lus flowed into the infinite seas.
Slowly, the infinite was replaced with the finite, the black with the muted, azure blue of the Lus under the overcast sky. Fionna tried to grasp when and where, but there was no barrier. A soft, gradient between ‘here’ and ‘there’ that defied human attempts to categorize it.
A mermaid with a trident swam by, light from Aster reflecting off her scales. Sparkles of electricity and light lit up the gemstone-strewn riverbed. Then they surfaced.
Fionna coughed up water in the tall grass on the shores of the Lus. A bit to her side sat Aster, untouched by the water, smiling serenely.
“So cold,” she muttered.
“Come,” Aster said.
“It’s wracking, everytime,” she said as she got up and checked if Gael Spíne was still there.
Aster smiled.
“It’s beautiful, though,” Fionna said.
“I know. One day, we’ll go further still,” Aster said.
The Lus glittered, under the little rays of light that filtered through the clouds above. Next to it, glittered a hundred little settlements, farms, plantations, and villages. The riverlands, home to merfolk, men and a thousand little homesteads. The riverlands, once azure and emerald under the summer sun, before Autumn overcast it forever. Before hate and acrimony then too stole the shine and luster from the inhabitant’s eyes.
