Chapter Text
Rubin’s mouth held ajar for a moment more, his eyes basking in Peter’s apartment.
“Oh...pardon, you wouldn’t like Twyrine would you? I think I still have a few bottles...” Peter was never as outgoing as his brother, but in a way that had brought him a select few social advantages. Politeness was an excellent wall to hide insecurity or anxiety behind, although it was rare for Peter to have the energy or the opportunity to demonstrate such understanding. His brother may have claimed their mission in life was to break as many barriers as possible, but one had to properly identify and understand these barriers before breaking them. Trespassing wasn’t as fun if it were only the result of mindless wandering.
The colors of the room spun before Rubin’s eyes, the centerpiece to the sympathy was a large painting propped up against the far wall, the enchanting gaze of the girl caught Rubin’s eye from behind the support beam as he walked in. Yet he did not feel as though we were being watched, rather the feeling was more similar had he been watching her----perhaps up on a stage---and in a rare instance of luck her eyes had landed on his. It made him feel warm, special even,
Wanted
“Y-yeah...if you have some that would be great,” Rubin didn’t drink, it had been one of Isidor’s strictest rules. He remembered when he was a young student, Artemy hadn’t even left for the city yet, and a man still drunk had come in---complaining on the effects of his hangover he had received from a night of heavy drinking prior. Isidor had been beat red with rage, his hands shaking as he screamed and berated the man for being so thoughtless. If not for the shock of the outburst and rage in his tone, it was the hands that Rubin remembered most. Isidor had long thin fingers, but his hands were still petit and slender. Surgeons hands everyone called them, although Isidor once told him that the White Mistress had once called them ‘musician’s hands’. Apparently in the social sphere of wealth young men and women were often picked out for orchestras and apprenticeships if they had such hands. Isidor had thought it was funny, saying he had never before thought of the lines as comparable to the strings on a violin---but that upon consideration the comparison was indeed apt.
“You work with Dankovsky?”
“What?” Rubin had once again lost himself in the painting, the striking reds demanded the attention from his eyes, and the shimmer indicated it was still wet---thought the painting felt too complete in his mind to be so young, despite the red that puddled across the floor, and stained Peter’s hands and feet like blood. The familiarity would have been enough to send a shiver down Rubin’s spine if he wasn’t so encapsulated.
“Daniil Dankovsky, you….you said you two worked together?” Rubin glanced over towards Peter and noticed the cup he had held out in his hands. Rubin took it without breaking eye contact, unmoved by the dark stains across the cup as he drank.
“...but Var never completely cut his ties with the caravan, he’d do some favors or odd jobs and he would be paid back in return,”
Artemy quirked an eyebrow, that at least explained a few things.
“...and I guess Isidor had complained to him about the pressure he was under to marry something about being indecisive…”
Artemy snorted.
“...he was such a kind man, always looking to help somebody, and Var knew your mother needed help. At the time any of the girls who tried to leave had come back or...you know. It’s a terrible lonely world for unmarried, uneducated and untrained women…”
“...So father wanted to marry her out of pity?” Artemy wasn’t sure how he felt about that, it made him feel….dirty. Even as a doctor himself he still rspected the lie of childbirth, of unquestionable beauty and love being that which produced offspring, he respected the importance not of hiding nature’s truths from children, but instead instilling the importance of love, the belief that such a thing was integral to the lives of all of Boddho’s children. To think Artemy himself was a….lesser result, even if it practically didn’t change much of anything….
“Well I don’t know if I would put it quite so crudely, but it certainly helped him make a decision. Isidor….wasn’t interested in marrying any particular women----just a child,”
Artemy rolled his shoulders “Sort of sounds like the caravan girls,”
“Exactly,” there was a hint of satisfaction in Anna’s voice, “Var had thought the same thing and had arranged for the woman he knew was most desperate to escape to meet Isidor.”
That injected a little more hope into Artemy’s perspective on the matter “So it wasn’t for pity? Father just wanted to help a poor woman and they…”
“If you’re going to ask me if they loved each other you’re asking the wrong person. Didn’t you learn anything in the capital? I do say Burakh that even children don’t hold such immature and reductionist understandings of relationships as you do! I knew they got on well enough but all else is history,”
Artemy sighed in frustration, feeling the little sliver of hope slip from his grasp, “But they were happy? Or at least...at least my mother was happy? I mean...she...she wasn’t--”
“A slave? Oh goodness no! Where on earth did you ever pick up such cruel ideas about your own father? He could hardly keep a dog leashed let alone a woman! No, it was all very proper as is my understanding. She had no objections to having children, and in exchange she had clean clothing, fresh water, a warm bed, and protection from the caravan or any other unsightly work. She didn’t have to work at all, and I can promise you that if she had a bit of sense than she would have been very happy with that arrangement.”
Artemy let out a sigh of relief, he believed he understood now what Aglaya had meant---even if Anna’s story had been overdramatic. The marriage of his parents and his birth had been completely by chance. Isidor hadn’t fallen in love with an individual woman but merely had set forth a preferable criteria for a potential wife, and by chance she had met it. They never would have met if he hadn’t done what he had. That must have been what Aglaya meant, how certain things are merely fated to happen by chance or by Boddho---as exhausting as the whole day had been the notion did give Artemy a sense of relief.
Everything was going to be okay.
Because it had to be.
The room spun and melted before Rubin in a cavalcade of colors. Peter’s voice became indistinguishable from the shifting of the earth beneath their feet, from the wooden floors slowly, ever so slowly rotting all around them. His mouth tasted bitter and his tongue burned, so Peter had shown him a place to sit down. Still, the eyes of the girl followed Rubin around the room unwavering, he would have been lost without them to guide him like the northern star.
“Do you like it? I think I really captured her essence,”
“Who is she?” Asked Rubin, feeling like it would be impossible for him to receive an answer.
“She calls herself Red Star , and she’s a wonderful little girl,”
Rubin nodded, his eyes blank. Sound and color felt as though they just passed through him. There was nothing Peter could tell Rubin about Red Star that he wouldn’t accept as fact, because it seemed as though it would have been impossible for anyone to lie about her essence.
“Daniil actually introduced us the other day, she really is a wonderful little girl, even my tower couldn’t have competed with her wonder,”
“Daniil introduced you?” There was some reason Rubin had been thinking of Dankovsky earlier, but the Twyrine lulled his mind as it blocked his nose---his thoughts ceased to hold context. Rubin couldn’t remember when or why he had been thinking of Daniil earlier, only that the thought of the bachelor had been pre-established in his mind. “I wish I could meet her too,” Rubin also wished he could sit down, the floor beneath him was spinning but the painting of the girl remained straight ahead. He felt he had somehow become reverse-dizzy.
Peter pursed his lips and hummed for a moment before taking another sip of his own drink. Unlike Rubin Peter was very accustomed to the effects of Twyrine but didn’t think much of Rubin’s odd behavior. Twyrine was good at blocking details out. “I think….I could introduce you two. I don’t know...she’s shy but I think she’d like to meet you too,”
“Okay,”
“...The first pregnancy had gone well enough that Diana didn’t mind the next time she was pregnant, and everyone knows how Isidor feels about children,” Anna’s nose curled up in disgust, adults who like children left her with the same mental sensation as if she burned her hand on top of a hot stove.
“Ersher,” Artemy corrected.
“Who?” Anna just blinked distractedly at him.
“He---oh nevermind,” Artemy decided it would be for the better to not get into the stickier details of his family’s past, the revelations about his mother had been enough. Poor Diana….he was thankful his father had such a big heart, always so open to taking care of others. It was a very good quality in a menkhu, in any healer really. The capital had been such a shock to Artemy just in how little this quality seemed to matter to his professors. What was a doctor without an emotional investment in their patients? Just another scientist, such people were better off with corpses----not people.
Maybe that explained Daniil then.
“I guess Isidor had been out when the caravan first arrived in the town again, I can understand why your mother would’ve panicked...Despite whatever her relationship to your father was like, she thought it would be safer if--”
“....she gave the baby away….because she was afraid the caravan would take her away,” Artemy turned away, not feeling well.
“She was pregnant, she thought she was clever, giving the caravan the older child and keeping the unborn baby for herself and your father.
“Insanity,”
“Hey--we all knew the master valued babies above all else. She carried that with her just as much as anyone,”
Artemy crossed his arms, he knew who that unborn baby was and it made him sick. He was afraid to say it, even if it wouldn’t change the history, He felt like if he said it it would actualize it, make it real , make it part of who he was.
“I…..I was told he died. T-That I had had a brother but that he died,”
“There is no death in the caravan---although it is close enough for the sensible I suppose,”
Artemy frowned, a hand clenching his stomach.
“...When Isidor found out he was furious, so furious that he ‘returned her to earth,’ as your people see. Honestly it was probably better that way, poor thing hardly had a chance,”
“Bullsiht”
“Artemy--”
“That’s fucking bullshit. You think this is funny? What the hell is wrong with you!?” Artemy threw himself back up on his feet, scowling down Anna’s face like an aimed gun,
“Why on earth would I lie about something so tragic?”
“My father was a good man. This is bullshit. He was good man and you know it Angel . You wouldn’t be shit without him, you know that?”
“Artemy,” Anna barked, but Artemy relented.
“You think you’re better than my mother?”
Anna paused.
“ You had to steal her idea---you had to steal her town---”
“You’re acting hysterical!”
“What!? I’m hysterical?! You sit up here all day wrapped in your coat---hiding from the world---do you even know what’s real anymore you stupid fucking clown!? Everything’s about the drama to you isn’t it!? Bet you would have let the town die huh!?”
Anna’s face crunched up---good. Let the clown be unhappy, let her be ugly. Artemy had had enough of all of this.
“I-I cannot believe--” she started, but Artemy had already turned his back on her,
“Save it! If you’re going to tell stories it’s best you make up your own characters thank you,”
Anna scowled as she watched Artemy march out the door.
Artemy was tired. His mind was tired, his muscles were tired, and his heart was tired. His clothing felt hot and heavy. Sticky.
…
... Sticky!
Where had the day gone? Kids were sure to ravage the pantry within the hour if Artemy didn’t get supper on the stove for them soon.
The house was warm and inviting, dry and still.
Too still.
Artemy was almost contemplating worry when something was thrown at his leg
“Murky!” He nearly stumbled back breathlessly, his hand resting on her head as more of a counterbalance than he wanted to admit.
“‘M hungry…” she mumbled against his pants. Artemy chuckled as he felt his blood layer slide back into place.
“I thought you’d be,” He patted her shoulder and she unraveled from his leg, holding up her arms to allow aba to pick her up and carry her. There would be a day when she was too big for Artemy to do this---so he took the time to cherish every opportunity to do so that he could.
Everything here was predictable, the wooden paneling carried on from one room to the next. Consistent. Not a board had changed since Artemy’s own days as a babe. When the dry summer air moved in Artemy intended to teach Sticky to mend the upstairs floor, Artemy liked the idea of his boy raising his own children in this house, and their children after that, he would have to teach Sticky to care for the house like a member of the family.
Artemy wondered why Isidor had never taught him such things.
Perhaps they had simply been too busy with Menkhu responsibilities to the kin for such things.
Aglaya was surely teaching Artemy a lesson about responsibility after all, it was only natural for him to feel reflective as to how he teaches such things to his children. Artemy had been lucky, he had been born into a warm and stable home and loving community, it would make sense for him to return such care to both.
“I don’t know Murky, what do you think I should fix for dinner?”
“Eggs!” she responded eagerly “Cook them nice and runny like you did for breakfast”
Artemy frowned “I’m sorry little bear, but that was the last of the eggs, but we can get up nice an early tomorrow and have our pick of eggs from the grocer,” honestly after a day like today wakingup early was the last thing Artemy wanted to do, but there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Murky.
And besides,
He’d need an early start with all the sick little girls he still had no idea how tend to yet. The prospect made him hold Murky a little tighter, he wasn’t sure what he would do if such a fate were to befall her. They had been fortunate enough that nobody in the house had so much as sniffled since the plague passed, but the girls Artemy was currently treating were all a good bit older than Murky, and even if it had been the youngest children who had fared the best in the plague ridden town he knew both from study and personal experience that for the vast majority of winter-time ailments it was the youngest at the greatest risk. Grace had been the sickest, but that had been due to Artemy’s neglect like Aglaya had pointed out---but Clara and Capella seemd to be receiving a near equal amount of around-the-clock attention. Between those two Capella had seemed the least sick, was Capella older than Clara? Artemy really didn’t know, but Capella always carried herself like a little adult anyways, so maybe she was.
“Nuh-uh!”
“What?” Murky quickly snapped Artemy out of his train of thought, her charming and downright adorable pout drowning out the anxiety that had been nagging at the back of Artemy’s head for days now.
“We have eggs! Look!”
Artemy shifted Murky in his arms so he could hold her securely, Murky moved her arms around his neck to better help him shift her so he could open the pantry. Sure as sunshine was there a full carton of eggs right where Artemy had left the empty one that morning.
“Guess he really did huh…”
“He got some other stuff too!”
“Mmm…” Artemy couldn’t stop smiling in disbelief, he felt lighter than he had in days---almost as if something were wrong. Yet nothing was, and he felt good. He had simply felt heavy so long now he had forgotten how light he truly was. “Why don’t you take Sticky to go wash up for dinner?”
“So you’ll cook the eggs? Just like this morning, remember?”
“Yeah, I think I remember how I cooked them,”
Artemy gently placed Murky back down on the floor and saw as her pout briefly turned into a little smile.
“Good.”
Cooking was another pleasant distraction from the problems of the past and soon to be coming days, but still all too short. Satisfied with the eggs, Murky didn’t fuss a bit but was quickly asleep on the floor once it was time for dishes to be washed, still, Sticky was responsible and didn’t say anything as he took a spot next to Artemy to wash up.
“Thank you,”
“Hm?” Sticky sat on the plate he was holding down and looked up at his now-father.
“For the eggs, that was very thoughtful and I really appreciated it,”
Surprised that Artemy wasn’t asking about the origin or means by which Sticky obtained the eggs, he felt obliged to smile back. “Well I knew that we were out of a few things, but I didn’t know if you knew...you’ve been busy and…”
Artemy’s eyes feel back on the dishes. Wet, In the dim lamp light the water looked black.
Black like plague.
“I have been busy,” he agreed, nodding slowly.
“You’re a good doctor! I didn’t know how I could help---but I thought if I brought in more food you wouldn’t have to worry so much and could just focus on taking care of patients,”
I want to take care of you too
Sticky couldn’t hear his father as he breathed in sharply. Artemy’s eyes stung and he refused to look at Sticky, worried it would be too much.
Worried he would see his failures and fears reflected back at him in the eyes of his son.
The pair finished the dishes in silence, Artemy walked towards Murky and gently picked her up to carry her to bed. Sticky waited downstairs for a moment before following. It had taken a great deal of effort but the house was beginning to feel...normal. The medical atmosphere is less imposing. Artemy had a perfectly good laboratory nestled between the warehouses and the Kin---the two people who undoubtedly need him the most. Artemy desperately wanted to be a good father and a good Menkhu, but he knew that those two roles were distinct, and they deserved their own space. Still, his world overlapped and parts of the house reflected that he could entertain or take less urgent patients in the front room. The long hallway made it especially useful for booster shot season, when families would line up with dozens of members. The homely atmosphere was also beneficial for more social matters. Sometimes patients needed advice pertaining to the care of chronic conditions, ailing family members and the like. Sometimes pharmacy members wanted to meet and discuss health trends, give and receive recommendations on ailments to look for and medications to stock up on.
Sticky watched from the top of the stairs as Artemy set Murky in her bed. Sometimes Sticky would steal a book or two and read them downstairs before he felt content to go to sleep, but tonight he felt content to slink past his father and into his own bed.
Artemy was surprised, “Going to bed early? Alright,”
The house would certainly feel emptier then.
Artemy nearly fell asleep the second his head touched the pillow, he was exhausted---anyone who had had his day would be. All Artemy had hoped to do was pull the knots in the lines a little looser, gain a better understanding of the ailment befalling the town’s young women, yet he felt more tangled than he had.
In his dreams, his mind and body could relax enough for his lines to unravel, for him to watch as knots untangled themselves and the connections between boddho were made clear.
He thought of his mother
She never knew her grandchildren, she died before either had been born---long before, she hadn’t even seen her son grow into a man. At least Isidor had had that much. Boddho had been gracious enough to show her to him that night, alone in the dark walking through the steppe. Her hair was long and dark---falling like dry ash under her scarf. This was the moment she was first held by boddho, the night she crossed the gorkhon. Dreams were funny because time always felt right but never passed normally---a man could dream up months of adventure as a seafaring captain only to awaken eight hours since he first went to bed.
Artemy’s dreams were no different.
Boddho knew he would awaken, but there was still much to see. He saw how thin and pale her skin was, her hollow cheeks and purple bags under her eyes. She was taller than Isidor had been---tall thin and skinny like the boney appendages pranksters liked to stick in the mud. Her hair looked like mud, brown and dry and ashy. Artemy remembered what Anna had told him, how children in the caravan would be shaved to hide their identities.
She must not have cut it since.
She also dressed plainly, and seemed to stick mostly to herself. Anxious, but not unhappy, he watched several evenings unfold between her and Isidor---his father’s social nature gradually drawing her out of herself. At events she seemed especially poor off, and that was with Artemy unable to tell if she noticed the looks she received from others. They were….admittedly an odd looking couple. Even though Diana slowly began to look better, her cheeks less hollow, her skin a healthier shade----she still looked weathered, with long dead hair draped over her back. The only barber in town when Artemy was a child was not a member of the kin, and so alongside administering medicine, setting bones, and delivering babies Inside For also cut the hair for the entirety of the kin and many townspeople. He had even helped braid the hair of young women and girls on occasion, it felt odd for his own wife to look so unkempt. Perhaps that was just Diana’s preference.
When Ersher was born was when Isidor and Diana truly began to love each other. Not as husband or wife, but as friends and parents of their children, and they loved Ersher deeply.
When they were expecting they seemed especially connected, Isidor didn’t love her as his wife, but he had begun to love her as a friend and as the mother of their future children. He had always been such a loving man, Artemy felt at ease having his beliefs validated. Diana for her part was opening up more, was relieved to be free from the caravan, to have a stable life ahead of her, and to have children to care for and love and give them the happy and stable childhood that she had been deprived of herself.
When she found herself expecting again the next year they were overjoyed, just as Anna had suggested that may had been. Artemy could feel his mother beginning to relax, as if for all of these years she had been holding in a single breath and was finally breathing easy once more.
Until she wasn/t.
Again she was alone, Artemy felt like he was walking downstairs on any other day, like he wasn’t asleep and this wasn’t a dream and that was his mother sitting patiently and waiting for him. Of course he wanted to run to her but he was locked in the brutally unfair perspective his dreams had assigned to him----although she looked content enough.
But something was wrong.
She stood from his chair and turned to look...not at Artemy but through him. “Maybe it’ll be okay…” she mumbled as she walked past him.
Oh no.
Next all Artemy could remember was the screaming, it was visceral but it didn’t sound real. He had never heard his father scream and cry like this before in his life, it didn’t sound like a human voice at all. Of course he didn’t, he remembered his professor’s explanations of dreams---despite the milk cow in the room Artemy was desperate to ignore. He could barely see around the corner now as his mother nearly stumbled over, her own sobs shaking and strained.
Next there was darkness, a grey between them. Their line, that Ersher had secured between them, had snapped . Artemy couldn’t look at both of them at the same time anyone, they were out of sync.
Slowly, Artemy walked through the old family house, neither of his parents now anywhere to be seen. He felt like his feet were stuck in mud. The house had obviously not changed much---even if it had there were no details important enough for Boddho to show him. Perhaps she felt it was best for Artemy to experience all this with one constant, a familiar environment.
The light seemed to shift as Artemy walked into his father’s old examination room, with two tragedians standing in the middle of the room
“You know she was sick, you’ve seen her. Poor old girl,”
“
You gave her quite a bit of trouble,”
Artemy remembered the clean detailed story, there were plenty of women who had died in childbirth and plenty of people in Gorkhon who lived with the knowledge they had been their mother’s last---why should Artemy be special.
“ But Isidor gave her more,”
Artemy gasped as the room fell dark again, the cow’s breath damp on the back of his neck. A spotlight fell over the middle of the room, only Isidor and Diana could be seen. Artemy watched as Isidor took the baby from her arms, still red from blood and placenta.
“Is he….is he healthy?”
“He is, but he’s not the one I’m worried about right now,”
Diana said nothing but gasped and screamed and Artemy squeezed his eyes shut, he believed Anna, he believed Anna but he wanted this nightmare to end. He didn’t want to look---he couldn’t look.
Artemy couldn’t bare to look his father in the eyes and see the man he had always loved as he had always known him.
When he did look he first noticed how Diana’s hair now laid limp on the floor, her hair chopped off. His eyes then darted back to his father, cradling an infant Artemy in his arms.
His bloodied hands staining the baby’s skin.
“ It’s over….it’s all over....” He gasped breathlessly “...now you are safe, and I will always protect you...little Artemy,” He hugged the bloody baby close to his chest but his eyes pieced through Artemy, who tried to back up but again stumbled into the cow---- startling him awake.
Artemy gasped, finally breaching the surface of reality and free from his tormentous nightmare. His blood was hot, his lines tangled, but it was still dark and his eyes were still very much tired. The presence of the cow had struck him to his core, and he was relieved that she had not followed into his bedroom. Old Steppe belief said that a bull in a dream was a sign of things to come, while a cow was a sign of things that had already been. Even without a relationship with his mother Artemy had always felt held by his father, loved him and trusted him. That trust had been tested by the plague but now it felt shattered.
And Artemy felt very alone.
Sticky grumbled, wanting to pull his blankets up over his face but not wanting to let his feet go cold. He couldn’t sleep but was too tired to justify trying to climb up into the attic by himself and get more blankets. The ladder always creaked and he would surely be in trouble if he woke his sister and father so late at night now.
Still, he was positively freeing and growing only more desperate, just when he was about to jump out of bed and brave the attic---the door creaked open.
“Papa?”
“
I didn’t wake you did I?”
Murky turned over, rubbing at her eye and fussing “You woke ME up”
“Sorry love,”
“It’s so late it’s early!” Murky fussed, rolling back over.
“Is everything ok?” Sticky asked in a hushed whisper.
“I--” Artemy couldn’t even begin to explain what was wrong, it would destroy the children, it was his job to protect him.
But he couldn’t lie before Boddho.
“I couldn’t sleep,”
“It’s really cold,” Sticky complained with a nod.
“...It’s warmer in my room, would you like to sleep in my bed tonight?”
“Really?” Sticky asked, already gathering up his pillow and blanket.
Murky perked up as well, “Well I’m coming too! You can’t make me sleep in here alone! Nuh-uh!”
Artemy let out a sigh of relief, his children always helped him feel better and now especially.
The trio of Burakhs trudged back into Artemy’s room, everyone curled up and snuggled together under the quilts. Warm and Cozy, Murky climbed up on top of Artemy, and Artemy rested an arm around Sticky, who rested his head against his father’s shoulder.
And they all slept peacefully through the night.