Antheia hadn't cried for a long, long time. It had been nearly decades since she had done so. Her 'enlightenment' had consisted of many different drug trials and organ augmentations, all but the most vital surgeries made in tight, choking operating rooms with a feeble anesthetic. She had cried for days on end - sometimes making her throat raw from sobbing and wailing, the skin around her red eyes hurt from the slightest touch and her body succumb to an endless, helpless trembling.
The pain had simply been too much; both the faded scars down her pale skin and horrible afflictions on her frail conscious had all done their damage. Of course, when she had been reawaken from stasis, her memories and pain had been forgotten; a blank, white slate just ready for whole new feast of horrors from the new universe she had been thrown into. But, as all wounds untended go, they were reopened. It had happened upon her psychological examination from one of her birth clan's Nyxs. She had thrashed and kicked once the memories were reopened – and she cried. She wept until her mind could not hold her fragile body together and let her loose to the unconscious. It was many months until she received a visitor. This visitor had given no introduction, no forewarning, no letter in advance. Antheia did remember one thing, however: the visitor had given her a gift.
It was a small Venus flytrap. It may not have seemed to the others like a commodity or a luxury, but in the dark, brooding atmosphere of the psych ward it was a solace from her daily tortures, a salvation to keep her troubled thoughts at bay. The visitor, with a kind, sympathetic voice that could have only belonged to a mother, softly said with a warm smile,
"Keep him safe."
Antheia had gazed up with huge, innocent eyes that seemed to shine with a new light, one that radiated with hope and disbelief. She had said nothing, simply running to the woman and hugging her with all her feeble strength. The visitor had chuckled at the sudden affection and embraced Antheia. She lowered her head and whispered into Antheia's ear.
"Just promise me one thing, alright?"
Antheia looked up once again, and nodded quickly.
"Don't cry." said the woman, with a warmth and compassion that Antheia could barely even believe.
Antheia struggled to contain her tears, and eventually started crying again; this time from happiness. After a long moment of pleasant silence, Antheia looked up, wiped the tears from her brow and whispered her first weak word since her wakeup.
"Okay."
The visitor had given her one more angelic smile before the door shut behind her, and then Antheia had been alone again, apart from the small plant in a tiny porcelain pot sat in her fragile palms. She curiously tried to touch it, only for it to snap its jaws suddenly and clamp down on her finger. She cried out, but didn't drop it.
After that, every day, she had nurtured it as her own mother nurtured her, feeding it and slowly watching it grow. Before she knew it, it had surpassed her height and nearly reached the ceiling of her chamber. When she had been cleared of psychological illness – and her recurrent nightmares – she had been moved to her own chamber, allowed to finally don her Saryn warframe once again. The flytrap, which had grown to impossible size, followed her through the ventilation into the room. It had somehow developed consciousness through the altered growth control of Antheia's biological augmentations, and now it gave her a small cocoon in its mouth where she slept, safe from the outside world.
Antheia fondly remembered these faded recollections with a wet smile as she sat the flytrap's head, looking out across the meadow that was her chamber. She had even forgotten the reason why she was crying, for a single moment. Then it came back to her.
The news that had been delivered with next to no emotion by the Nekros. She had punched him out of anger and frustration before he had even finished giving her the details of Ash's farewell to the Void. She didn't know why she hadn't yet apologized, but her mind was still too clouded with black grief and anger to think as her normal self.
Then, after the door had shut, she had cried again; just like when she was a lost young woman entering the new world from cryosleep.
Antheia sighed, wiping her red eyes and patting the flytrap on its head. It obeyed, lowering its head and allowing her to step softly onto the mossy floor. She cradled it and pecked a kiss on its head before turning on the ball of her foot and stepping through the hanging plants and branches guarding the path to the door. They reacted instantly to her presence and bowed down, as if servants before their queen's arrival.
She stuck her hands through the plants on either side and smiled when they reacted, caressing her fingers with gentle strokes. The mellow artificial sunlight in her chamber reached through the canopy and down onto her face, making her smile broader and broader. She giggled slightly as she walked through; all this fauna and flora had been of her creation, of her hands.
They had been her sole sanctuary against the irrepressible gloom that pervaded upon her mind for the countless days she had spent in the Steel Fury wing. Being here had not been her choice; the Clan Warlord had decided, and his decision was final. He covered his reason to move her in the guise of "improving teamwork and sense of self-awareness". Indeed, it had been taking five bullets through the abdomen that had landed her in the Medicanum for nearly a month, and so giving the Warlord a reason to move her. She knew that the Warlord saw her as a liability, so it was all more the reason to fight.
She thought back to her initial deployment to the wing as she strolled down the never-ending corridors of the sleeping quarters. As with all redeployments, it had been nerves and mostly loneliness that had met her in the beginning. Her garden had been her only acquaintance for the endless days pacing about her chamber and drifting aimlessly about the dojo until she had been given her first mission, involving sabotage.
It had been the Banshee, who led the squad; an Excalibur, who had also been transferred to the wing, but had eons more experience in comparison; her, although her superiors had had doubts on her abilities and skills in stealth; and Ash. It was the same Ash that had been cast away not hours ago; but it seemed like years. Everything had been going to plan on the mission; the guards had been eliminated and the console to the reactor had been cracked without any particular hassle. The problem came when Antheia had caused an error in the system by inputting the incorrect password. She remembered the sinking feeling of dread and the quickening of her breath as she panicked.
Alarms flared, turrets rose from their dormant states with guns bristling. The Excalibur had barely escaped, the Banshee had been wounded and she, a mere recruit in comparison, had been given the heavy burden of leader responsibility. She crumpled. It had been too much at once. She almost felt like surrendering, but a firm grip on her arm stopped this thought. She looked up, expecting to see the grim mask of a Grineer Lancer. Instead she found the expressionless face of Ash frowning down on her, somehow filling her with relief in place of burning shame. She remembered how he shoved her sub-machinegun on her chest and merely nodded, before running back into the fray of Grineer marines. She watched eagerly as he killed and murdered without hesitation, without ambivalence, without delay. He was made for this. She did not even have to fire her weapon afterward. She had carried the Banshee to safety with absolutely no hindrance. The only thing she had to look out for was not stepping in all the bodies and entrails Ash had left strewn across the halls.
After that, she had clung to him, despite all of his indigenous protests and complaints. She had looked up to him, and he had always looked down on her; this, she realized as she sat down, no matter how much she pushed away the thought, was the cause for so much grief and sadness when he had gone. She rested her tired head against the wall as she breathed out, letting some of the pent-up stress and sorrow spill out into the still air of the dojo. Then, after some futile attempts to stop the sick feeling in her throat, her tears hit the ground once more.
"Antheia?"
A voice echoed from around her, her head trying to follow it in surprise. After realizing who the voice belonged to, she sighed half in relief and the other in embarrassment before hanging her head in her knees again.
"Leave me alone."
She mumbled meekly.
"You know me enough to know that I won't stop pestering you, Antheia." The voice replied warmly.
"I said, leave me alone." Irritation started to rise in Antheia's hoarse throat.
"It's something you would probably want to know." The voice kept her reassuring tone, if not only becoming slightly sterner.
Antheia thought to herself on whether she should continue with her introverted, apathetic guise – it wasn't that she had forgotten her reason for crying, but the voice had enticed her enough to lift her head with interest.
"Make it quick." Antheia snapped, immediately regretting her sudden harshness. Before she could apologize, the voice merely replied with "Of course." seemingly ignoring it completely.
After a small pause, Antheia felt the air move so very slightly across her ears. She opened her eyes to see that she no longer sat in the cold corridor of the resting quarters, but in a dark room lit only by the dim, lilac-colored lights pulsating slowly across the walls. The room had an aromatic smell about it, especially the definite tinge of jasmine that tingled her senses.
The lights rose again to illuminate a figure to her right she had not seen before, which made her jump slightly when it approached from behind her shoulder. The curved forward arch of the Nepthys helmet made her smile in relief as the figure came to face her. It placed two fingers on its temple and drew a couple of circles, engaging the release catch. When the light brightened again, Antheia fully saw the sleepless features that dragged on her old friends face.
Rings hung under her tired eyes, which matched the color of the lights and were partly covered by loose strands of unkempt auburn hair. Her face seemed rather sullen and distant, but apparently the presence of Antheia brought some life back to her face. She seemed almost frail, and the skintight warframe armour hardly made her look any less so.
"What on earth hap-"
"Never mind, I'm fine." The Nepthys cut her off with more impatience in her voice than anything.
Antheia opened her mouth to reply, but decided against it. The Nepthys continued.
"You're not the only one who is affected by Ash leaving us. Not just him, but the other three as well."
She paused.
"He was my mentor, you know?" She shrugged as she sat down.
Antheia simply nodded in respect, although this was all news to her.
After more uncomfortable silence, she spoke up again.
"So, what was it you wanted to tell me about, Ilene?"
"I couldn't believe it myself when Ash left us, so I focused my psynapse to try and find any signs of life. I looked near the void space in which we left him, but there was nothing. I did, however, catch a glimpse of a fleeting Corpus ship going in no particular direction. Naturally, I thought this as out of the ordinary, so I decided to look into it."
Antheia smiled slightly at her curiosity; Ilene was just like her sister.
"It took me a while to follow it into the void, which might explain why I haven't slept in two days." She said wearily as she drew half-circles under her eyes.
"Anyway," She continued. "I found life. Not surprising, but it was only one life form, and there was a weak trace of autonomous signal coming from an unspecified warframe. It was too early to make assumptions then, but I think now, with further psynapse scanning, I've found him."
Antheia didn't reply; she simply smiled, then chuckled, and then laughed out loud. She knocked the air out of Ilene's lungs as she embraced her. She began to cry, this time out of pure elation and joy.
"Thank you… so much." She managed to make out through her sobbing.
"You…too, Antheia. But please, let go of me; I think you might be killing me now." Ilene wheezed.
"No, no, of course." Antheia apologized as she let go, wiping her tears. "It's just good to have something good to hear through this whole nightmare we've been through lately."
The Nephthys simply smiled impishly. Antheia got up and, rather too eagerly, grabbed her wrist.
"What are you-"
"What do you mean? We need to rescue Ash. He might not have that much time left!" Antheia urged.
Ilene hesitated briefly before nodding and getting up to face her.
"Let's do it." Ilene said as her lips began to curl into a devilish smile, to which Antheia did the same.