Tears of the Never
Written in honor of Blue Yeti, and her fantastic work in both Artemis-essays and stories.
Ah, and a quick challenge: see how much symbolism you can catch in this. I layered them thicker then the Antarctic Ice Sheet, and I doubt you'll be able to catch them all. Many are obvious, and some even explained openly, but most are hidden beneath layers of details and other symbolisms. Gotta catch them all (Pokémon!).
This may or may not be considered part of the Of Magic and Mayhem sequence. Take your pick, although you may find more from it if the latter is true. At least, you will when the first one is complete… evil cackle
Artemis blinked sleepily, barely containing a yawn. Twenty-one at night and he was already tired? Perhaps those caffeine tablets Father recommended weren't as good as he had said…
He shook his head, trying to dispel such thoughts and the weariness threatening to engulf him. The recommendation had been part of yet another of Father's attempts to grow closer to him, a gift that would surely appeal to a time-starved mind such as his. Thoughtful, yes, but not effective. And besides, since when did he like Father, let alone trust his words even in such trivial matters? He was hardly someone to idolize.
"Finally, there's your father. According to this, he wasn't much of a role model, even when he was alive."
He rubbed his eyes, this time yawning openly. He really must be more tired then he thought if he was hallucinating. No more late nights of star-gazing, perhaps?
Only a bit longer, he thought to himself, and forced his eyes open to look at his creation.
He had spent many long hours painting in his room, one of the few places Mother dared not come to annoy him about dinner and such, preferring the classic Supper! to his increasingly cold responses. Only a dim halogen light lit the room, making it appear smaller—much smaller—then it actually was and casting fuzzy shadows across the very Spartan carpet. His computer's monitor glowed in an unhealthy light near his bed, flickering through security cameras planted throughout the house.
It had started as a simple forgery, as he was becoming so adept at doing, of a piece by Sendak. The predicted earnings from this project were only a few grand, and probably not even worth his time to do. A profit to counteract Father's schemeless spending would be slim at best, and now impossible by how long of a project it was becoming. Besides, Artemis was almost tempted to keep this one for himself and add something to his otherwise barren room.
It depicted a stylized fairy with metallic wings looking down at a metropolitan area—Chicago?—with mixed pity and disgust. Its—her—eyes were hazel, barely visible through a haze of tears.
A smile tugged at his bloodless lips, followed by a yawn. Holly hated Mud Men with a fervor that rivaled his own desire for gold. Aurum est Protestas, after all.
Wait… Holly?
Artemis shook his head. Days without sleep were really getting to him. He might actually make a mistake for once.
Yawning again, Artemis placed his acrylic brush besides the half-finished painting. He would continue it in the morning, after sending Juliet for marmalade and some toast.
Despite his resolve to sleep, Artemis found it difficult to do anything beyond an extended blink. A disobedient, somewhat overactive imagination could do that to anyone, especially if the easel kept becoming a hybridization of a bloodthirsty elephant and a very unhappy gorilla.
Hours later, tossing and turning in the hard bed, Artemis finally fell asleep, brain buzzing with life's little mysteries.
Chess…
"Queen to D-eight," Artemis said coldly, eyeing his opponent warily. Sitting on a box was Holly.
He didn't even know if that was her real name, but something about her tugged at his mind in a most distracting fashion. She had short red-brown hair, obviously just cut, and a lithe frame covered by some sort of green jumpsuit. The only thing that kept them at eye-level was a pair of milk cartons, but had they been sitting closer together he knew he would have easily dwarfed her petite body. Small, callused hands lay neatly clenched in her lap, the only outward sign of any self-control. But the thing that Artemis noticed the most was her eyes. Darting, hazel eyes.
She grinned at him as she tipped one of his pawns over, and he smiled tautly in return. Females were tricky. He was making mistakes. They were not mutually exclusive.
He ordered another piece to move, vaguely wondering who she was. He needed to know his opponent.
Artemis squinted imperceptibly, trying to read her name badge, It was only his subconscious that suggested that her name was Holly, and he did not believe in all that magical wishy-washy mythology. He needed something solid.
Holly—if that was her name—winked roguishly at him when she caught the line of his gaze. "Can you read it, Artemis? Or has your Almighty intellect failed you?" She ordered her knight, some sort of grinning maniac with a large, nasty gun and a parka, to threaten his bishop.
He frowned, taking a closer look at his threatened piece. Was that his mother?
He received a sharp kick from beneath the table. Wincing slightly, he looked across the chessboard towards the grinning Holly.
Her smile broadened when she saw how uncomfortable this made Artemis, and she moved her knight forward to place the bishop-Angeline in a form of check. "You owe me, Mud Boy. I brought your mother back to you, and I can take her back just as easily."
Artemis found himself answering in a most peculiar manner. "I paid you for her sanity years ago in gold."
She smiled again, but it was mocking smile. "You put a price on a human life, Artemis. Gold is worth no one's life."
"You accepted it," Artemis pointed out. Panic edged his otherwise cool and collected voice.
Holly's smile could not have been colder—not as like Artemis'—as it did when she took the Queen.
"Give her back," Artemis ordered icily, his voice slightly higher then usual.
Holly smiled again, warmly this time. "Why?" Her voice seemed far away, and echoed strangely in the surreal grasslands surrounding them. "You did not do anything for her before, so why should you care now?"
Artemis blinked away a strange wetness in his eyes, but when he opened them again everything was gone.
"Mother?" he asked to the darkness, his voice small and afraid. He suddenly did not feel like the calm, logical Artemis that took both trolls and terror in stride, but the Artemis that was still that afraid little boy that clung to Butler's massive neck after a nightmare. He was Arty.
Juliet's voice shot through the darkness, oddly flat yet accusing. "Madame Fowl is not here, Arty. May I please take a message?"
"I need to speak to her now." His voice was still petite with more then a little shakiness to it.
"I'm sorry, but she's gone for forever. May I please take a message?"
"Where is she?" His voice was now openly trembling. Had he fists in the dream, they would have been curled in fright.
"Lost in herself. May I please take a message?"
The strange wetness returned to his eyes, but he kept them at bay. "When is she coming back?"
There was a large pop, like the sound of Juliet's favored Bazooka bubble-gum snapping. "Never. May I please take a message?"
"Bring me to her!" he cried to the darkness, salty water flowing down his rapidly condensing face. "Bring me to my mother!"
Juliet's voice came again, lightly mocking. "Be a little more polite to your servants next time, Arty. A bit nicer and you wouldn't have gotten what was coming to you."
Artemis, the Artemis that was coldly observing the frightened boy, found himself emerging. "I happen to enjoy what came to me. Money and riches is something I happen to hold near and dear to my heart."
"I pity you, Artemis." The voice was Juliet's still, but not the bored tones of the average American teenager. It was true scorn. "You just don't care about anything. You'll never hold another human's hand, or laugh with a friend. No, scratch that; you're not even human. You're one of those damn machines out of Asimov, except you disregard all the rules."
There was a thin crescent smile upon what of his face had materialized as he faded back into the gloom. "Being a robot would not be so bad. I wouldn't have to deal with fools like you."
But then why did he not believe his own words?
Chess again. Artemis moved his knight, a massive hulk of a man that resembled Butler, forward.
"Ooh, bad move Artemis," Holly said mockingly, moving her suspiciously troll-like knight to challenge the emotionless giant. He was oddly reminded of the shape his easel took when he was trying to sleep earlier.
"How so? He is protected by my King," Artemis pointed out, an elegant finger tracing the crown of the named figurine. It looked very much like a slightly younger Artemis.
Holly's eyes danced with humor. "So the great Artemis Fowl would put himself in danger?" Her own finger, much shorter then his, lazily touched her Queen. Artemis noted the same dimple in each of their cheeks.
He shrugged, waiting patiently for her to move. "Knights are valuable. They should not be sacrificed lightly."
What amusement sparkled in her hazel eyes disappeared, replaced by flat anger. "Why sacrifice him at all? Why not save him?"
One crescent of an eyebrow was raised. "Men can be bought easily." He gestured towards the scattered ranks of pawns. "These can replace him, although it shall take a while. The game is not worth one man."
Her hazel eyes were gleaming with rage. "That is exactly the point! If you think human souls are replaceable, then you are no better the Spiro!"
The name must have meant something to dream-Artemis, since he stiffened. "I am not Spiro. Besides, this is only a chess game. Not real life."
Holly threw her minute hands up into the air. "You know what I mean, Artemis! We were talking about much more then a foolish game, and you know it, you—you monster!"
"If I be a monster, then I be a rich monster," the cold part of his mind replied, the part that was still firmly Artemis.
Holly's eyes darkened once more as she took Butler—no, it was but a knight—with her Queen. "He is mine now, by honor and life, twice-over, and I keep him. But you, dear Artemis, have some inner demons to face."
It was a large fencing studio, polished hardwood floor nearly blinding with the warm sunlight pooling across it. Walls, little more then the paper-screens of olde-worlde Japan, glowed with the afternoon sunlight.
There were two fencers in the center, both of approximately the same height. One had Samurai-like armor on it, the helmet obscuring his face with the dark leathers and metals. What little skin that was exposed was pale, white as any Japanese complexion. A slender blade, seemingly washed in silver or platinum, lazily sliced circles through the air.
The other wore clothing that would not have been out of place in the Coliseum of ancient Rome; leather sandals whose cords were laced up to the knee, leather tunic with small pieces of lead embedded in it. In one muscular hand he bore a gleaming bronze trident, and in the other a net of woven roots.
Each raised their respective weapons, crossing them at the tips.
"Epée," said the Samurai.
The Gladiator gave a great battle-cry, and drew back the trident to stab violently into the Samurai.
The Samurai leapt back lightly, parrying the flashing trident elegantly. His every move was exact and fluid, every graceful parry calculated. He made no blows of his own, instead turning back the fierce rain of stabs to attempt to unbalance the Gladiator. Dark eyes gleamed with cold determination behind the black mask, but were unwaveringly icy.
The Gladiator, by comparison, seemed a blur of deadliness, his blows fast but also exact as he spun from duck to thrust. If the Samurai's face was determined, then his had nothing—only the cold, blank look not dissimilar to a poker-face.
Dream-Artemis was mesmerized by the flashing battle, absorbing every movement. It seemed a dance almost, everything thought of in an intricate duel that spanned much more then just how hard you could kick someone. It was all calculation, predicting and acting on what the next opponent might do. Although their faces for the most part remained obscured, no sweat seemed to appear. The dance was a practiced one, then, one that had only a separate note here and there each time.
The Gladiator suddenly fell, rolling away from the Samurai after a well-aimed kick to his mid-section broke the rule of his passivity. The Samurai did not pursue.
When the Gladiator leapt back up to his feet, there was an almost amused look in his emotionless eyes. "Didn't want to strike an unarmed man? You could have won, you know." He thrust forward with the trident, trying to catch the leaping blade of narrow steel between its prongs.
The Samurai's glance remained icy as his blade flew easily from the trap. "I did it because I have honor. Not because I wish to let you live."
The Gladiator's crescent-smile was visible through the narrow slit in the similarly bronze visor as he pivoted to deal a vicious back-handed slash with his trident. "Tell me something," he said, jumping back from the swift counter-blow. "Why is it that the Samurai always leech power off the poorer folk around them? Legend shall always remember them with a certain romance, yes, but what of the starving children you tossed out of their homes when their parents could no longer pay their due? What of the money you hoarded for yourself while others died in the gutter?"
That blow struck home, if not that of the spiked fist. The Samurai's eyes seemed to darken to a storm-cloud blue. "I did that because I needed to survive when the danger was past. If children were thrown out of their homes, it was because they could to afford out services and were a liability to the community. I may live for myself, but I have my honor. There are some places I would never go." Unspoken words rang as clear as leaded glass in the studio, adding an echo to the clash of steel and bronze.
The Gladiator smiled his sliver-smile. "Samurai were not so different from gladiators. Fighting is our profession, and without it we are nothing. We live on the edge of a blade; one misstep and another shall have our throats, whether in vengeance or for their own greed. Many hate us, cursing us for what we did to them, but others are drawn by the romance of battle and of the blade. Do not think we are so different, for at our hearts we are the same. Your 'honor' is only a thin veneer that hides your true motives, cruelty given a toga and the approval of the Senate.."
"It is not so!" the Samurai cried, and lunged desperately at the Gladiator.
That was his mistake.
The Gladiator leapt aside and delivered a kick to the exposed backside as he stumbled forward. The Samurai fell like rain in a summer storm, but before he could roll away and regroup the Gladiator slammed his foot down on the slender blade beneath his hobnailed feet. He picked it up quickly, and placed all four points at the Samurai's bared throat.
"Trapped," he gloated, pressing the blades into the pale flesh. "Trapped in your own game."
The Samurai's hands were a blur as he swept the points away with only shallow cuts as a price, rolling out and over. His leap up was met by only with the as-yet unused net, entangling him in its web of weighted rope.
The Gladiator pushed him down, pinning the Samurai's hands beneath his feet. The trapped warrior winced noticeably as the spikes embedded in the sandal's soles dug into his thinly-armored arms.
"You were always too noble to play mind-games with people," the Gladiator said, "it was always me. You think it cruel to toy with people now. You have never killed, and it is your weakness. You care for more then yourself, and it is your weakness." The Samurai-blade twisted deeper into his neck, drawing another thin line of blood across. "I only serve myself, and that is why I shall always be better then you."
His twilight-blue eyes were cold as he stabbed the blade through the Samurai's heart.
Even Samurai armor, the best of its kind for hundreds of years, could not stop Damascus-like steel. A narrow hole, almost imperceptible amongst the deep black veneer of the ceramic-and-leather, was cut, and blood began to blossom from the gap. His eyes remained dark, but they glistened with pain as the blood began to trickle down and across his side.
The Gladiator wiped the blade mockingly on the mortally wounded man's chest, letting it slice through the leather in some places. The armor shone like the heart of a ruby. "I have never been defeated. You had been twice now. The first you were defeated by sheer miscalculation, but had a back-up. And this time… " He smiled vampiricly. "You had none. Goodbye, my nemesis. He dropped the Samurai's sword to the ground, and turned to go.
The Samurai's eyes closed slowly, eyelids fluttering, then opened again when he heard the clatter of the sword. Slowly, painfully, silently, he brought one gauntleted hand over to where the sword lay….
The Gladiator never saw it coming, thinking the battle won. The still-bloody sword slid cleanly between his ribs, slicing upwards into his heart and coming up through his skin to pierce the leather tunic.
He fell backwards, knees folding beneath him. Their blood pooled together in the mellow sunlight, mingling without through or care for their differences. At the core, they were one and the same.
The Samurai smiled. Blood leaked through his open mouth, painting his bloodless lips crimson. "You are wrong, if only for the first time," he rasped. His black armor shone strangely, changed by the blood pooling on its surface. "I always leave myself a back exit. Always." He coughed, and more blood bubbled from his mouthpiece.
The Gladiator had fallen next to the Samurai, his helmeted head touching his opponent's. "We destroyed ourselves," he said, his voice similarly raspy. Artemis realized, with no small amount of astonishment, that the voices were eerily the same.
The Samurai smiled again, although it was weaker. "This is an honorable way to die," he said, "by the blade. I once thought I'd die at an assassin's bullet, but this is much better." He grimaced beneath the armor, struggling to keep his eyes open. "Still, so many—things to say—Butler—Juliet—" His eyes fluttered closed, but they trembled open again. "Holly…"
"Touching," the Gladiator said coldly. His eyes were closing too, and the blade still within him remained imbedded. His back was arched painfully where the hilt was unable to pierce through his skin and follow the blade through. "You simply care…too much…"
The Gladiator's eyes flickered towards the Samurai, struggling valiantly to stay open. The other warrior's body was still, but his eyes were open, glazing rapidly with death.
He shuddered suddenly, relaxing his back and letting the hilt twist beneath his body. The sword, driven by this motion, continued to slice through his body, ripping a gaping doorway to his internal organs.
One of the outside walls shattered, and a troop of people spilled forth. Artemis numbly recognized them as the Butler siblings—Juliet and Butler—and Holly. A centaur stepped out as well, but he remained only half-out of the torn cream-hued paper.
Juliet and Butler were there first, bending over the twin carcasses. Juliet didn't seem to care that blood was ruining her slim Levi's.
"He died too soon," Butler said quietly. His eyes were shining with tears. It was the first time Artemis had seen him show anything other then annoyance—or had it been?
Juliet nodded her plaited head, turning as Holly kneeled besides her. She was not afraid of showing emotions; tears ran like rain down her cheeks, trailing glittering green eye-shadow. "If we were here sooner—" She broke off abruptly, but the meaning remained. It did not have to happen.
Dream-Artemis, completely unnoticed by everyone, tried to get a better look at Holly's face, but her back was turned to him.
Wordlessly, numbly, mechanically, Holly began slipping the helmet from the Samurai's limp head. Her hands shook too much to get anything done.
Juliet placed her hands over Holly's, dwarfing the petite digits. "Don't," she said softly. The tears had stopped flowing, only the smeared make-up showing they ever even existed. "The pain is still too near."
Holly shook her buzz-cut-ed head. "No," she said hollowly, steadying her hand. Dream-Artemis was immobilized to the spot. "If I can shoot a damn medallion out of the air, I can shoot this."
It was a poor jest, even without the fact Artemis did not understand it, but Juliet laughed weakly. Butler sat with an iron expression on his face, one that would soon be rusted.
Holly's hands, aided with Juliet's and even the massive Butler's, slipped each helmet off.
Dream-Artemis could not see the faces of the slain warriors; all three of the living now sat in the way.
"We never saw it until it was too late," Juliet said sadly. "And it was right under our noses. We were just too damn insensitive."
Holly shook her head. "No. He would have destroyed himself, in the end." Her hand stroked something. All Artemis could tell was that it was a head.
Suddenly Butler broke down, bowing his shaven head. Juliet leaned over onto her brother's shoulder, fresh tears slipping down her black-and-green face and mingling with Butler's.
Holly sat alone, slightly apart from the siblings. In her lap must have been the head of the Samurai, since her body rocked back and forth, the otherwise still body moving with it vaguely. A torrent of tears cascaded down her face, falling down and mixing with the blood on the floor.
Dream-Artemis was suddenly able to see what face she was crying over.
It was his, one gauntleted hand thrown across the body of his Gladiator-twin.
And Foaly, hidden behind the tattered wall, was smiling bitterly.
Chess.
Holly smiled across the table at him, tearless yet as bitter as orange marmalade.
Artemis looked down at the chessboard for a few moments, and then he put the white King in check. He smiled vampiricly across the board. "I suppose there's some kind of Grimms moral behind all this?"
"Of course," Holly replied, moving the Queen to take one of the plentiful pawns.
Artemis frowned, then smiled again. "That is an illegal move, Captain."
Realization dawned on Holly's face, but she hid it quickly. She did not like being wrong. "How so?"
The smile upturned at the corners. "You are still in check. Next move, I can take your King."
Holly leaned across the table, small face looking up to meet Artemis' eyes. "Do you happen to remember what I said after we first met?"
Artemis shook his head. "No, I'm afraid I do not have that pleasure anymore." The remnant of his smile disappeared. "Thanks to you."
Holly shrugged the pointed remark off as a troll a Neutrino blast. "Not even a bit?" she pressed. "In your study?"
Artemis' eyes narrowed. "What is the point of this exchange?" he asked coldly, eyeing the elf with suspicion.
"I said: 'If you're a good boy, I'd get you a lollipop'."
"Again; the point is?"
Her expression soured, and she withdrew from his side of the board. "You don't get a lollipop."
Artemis, entranced, watched her hand move across the board and tip her King over.
A million calculations ran through his head as the piece fell. It all fit. No matter what move she did to try and save her King, it would fail. It was not check but checkmate; not a win but a victory. How could he not notice? All the pieces had been set, waiting for him to move that one little knight—
When he looked up again, Holly's fist connected squarely with his nose, breaking it cleanly. He was dimly aware through a veil of flashing lights that she was talking.
"You know what the moral is? Huh?! Don't mess with what you were born to do, Artemis, Arty, whatever's running your brain right now. You weren't born to be a damn emotionless criminal, just like I wasn't born to be flippin' hominy patties in Spud's Spud Emporium. The only reason why you think you can do all this is because your father got kidnapped, but he's back now! Don't you get it?!"
The veil cleared, revealing a very distressed Holly. Her eyes were shining with tears. "You don't have to be this cold villain anymore! Your father's back! Don't you get it?"
Artemis reached up and gingerly touched the place where Holly had punched him. It hurt. A lot.
Holly looked at him expectantly. The glisten in her eyes was gone. "Well?"
Artemis smiled grimly, and flicked the Queen off the board with an elegant finger. "I think I should wake up now, since I don't even know you."
And he did. The last thing he heard before he awoke was Holly's anguished cry.
Artemis blinked at his picture. Another day, another trance, and suddenly the picture was something else entirely. Holly, or whatever her name was, was gone, replaced by a very traditional faerie. The sort you see on half-rate fantasy books with the iridescent dragonfly wings and the large violet eyes. The red-brown hair had been lengthened, as per modern stereotypes of fantasy = long hair, gender regardless. Tears flowed openly down the perfect alabaster skin, more a waterfall then the standard trickle. Yes, this one would go to the market. Perhaps even get on the cover of one of those named books. Jordan, perhaps, or that Colfer.
He paused, and dipped his brush into the cream, swirling it gently to mix a bit more white in. The painting remained something of a symbol of the classic Magic-versus-Technology sort, as depicted in countless of those same half-rate fantasy novels before and still would be for another millennium. The only true difference laid in the small white chess queen he put in the fairy's hand before attending to his toast-and-marmalade breakfast.
Please do not give away individual symbolisms in reviews except for the ones that were obvious (Gladiator-Samurai, for example). If you would like to discuss them with me, especially if you happen to be a symbologist, feel free to use email. I'm ever so curious to see how much my readers caught.
And small things – the difference between 'fairy' in the beginning and 'faerie' at the end – are symbolisms that were very much on purpose. If you see something like that, assume that it was intentional.
Please excuse small OOC anomalies. Dreams, like this, hardly care for the truth.
Yes, I realize that it would be impossible to illustrate his own creator's book. Excuse my own private joke.
No one except myself and Telpyvien have looked at this. If someone would be willing to take a look (AKA beta-read), I am open. Please.
The URL to Blue Yeti's site can be found on her bio (Sorry it's not here. The Pit does not let me have links in stories).
Namárië,
Nallasariel the Weeper