With Astraeus Watching Over

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**With Astraeus Watching Over**
**Author:** [[[Oboebandgeek99]]]
This article is something of a follow up to [[[Color and Light]]]. Check that out if you want!
⚠️ **Content warning:** This article contains themes of death, depression, and implied suicidal ideation.
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Reynix and PrischA lie down on top of the building on Grove street. The tall one, that goes beyond all the others. Her feet are by their head, and vice versa. She points up to a star, and their hand guides her to complete the constellation.

“Taurus,” Reynix says, tracing the horns for PrischA. “The Bull.”

“I knew that. Somewhere deep in there.” She retraces it. “I think I see the bull.”

“And then… did I already do Orion?” PrischA shakes her head. Reynix grabs her hand again and traces it. “He’s a… he was a hunter? I think?”

“I don’t see it at all.”

“Start with the belt, three stars in the middle.” They trace the belt over and over. “He was a hunter,” they repeat. “In… Greek mythology? I think. Killed by… Artemis? Yeah. Greek. Artemis was the goddess of the hunt. And she hunted him. But, to save and honor him, the gods placed him among the stars.”

“Immortality,” PrischA says.

“Of a sort.” Reynix sighs, their breath visible in the chilled winter air. “Prolly beats whatever we have.”

“You think?”

Reynix shrugs, laying their arm down. “I’ve been thinking about it lately.”

“About what?”

“Immortality. Life.” Reynix pauses. “Death.”

“In what way?”

Reynix could lie. They consider it. They’re just not sure what the point would be.

“Viscerally.” They think about it. “You know when I was young, before all this, I never thought I’d make it past twenty-one.”

“Why not?”

“Couldn’t tell you. Just had a feeling. Then suddenly, I’m twenty-five, no direction, no plan, no path forward.” They sigh. “And then, by some miracle, I practically stumbled into anart. Sometimes I think I chose it not because of the art or the message– or, not //just// because of that– but because it was easy."

"[[[color-and-light |Having done art myself]]], no it isn't."

"Fair enough, artiste. No, but what I mean is it was so easy to come up with some bullshit brief, apply to residencies and grants and then just earn a shit ton of money." They chuckle. "I heard one guy made a killing by //not// making a shark. What the fuck does that even mean?” PrischA even has a wry smile on her face, a rare occurrence (though it seems to be getting more common, especially around Reynix).

Reynix calms down, returning to their story to reminisce and critique --(the only two things they’re capable of)--.

“The field of anart was young and wild and if you impressed one of the weirdo higher-ups, you were basically set for life because money was no object. We thought we were revolutionary, fighting the system, yet we never asked where the money came from."

"Where did it come from?"

"The system itself. The weirdo high-ups? Not as independent as they liked to make themselves out to be."

"Figures."

"But somewhere in my guts, I knew that wouldn’t last forever, and I knew that when the bottom fell out from all of us, I was beyond fucked. I was dead for real.” A breeze gently passes over them, and Reynix shivers.

“So what happened?” PrishcA’s silences are never judgemental. She takes in what Reynix says and simply asks what interests her.

“Everyone else was dead for real. But not me. Another miracle.” There’s another pause. Reynix debates saying it, but again they feel compelled not to lie (or, in this case, omit). “The Calamity spared the wrong person. I should’ve been dead ten times over by now. Yet, here I am. Still. Somehow. Surviving it all. Miracle after miracle after miracle, keeping me alive. And what’s the point?” Reynix scoffs. “What am I doing here? Who is helped by my being here? Why am I still alive if I still just feel this… emptiness?”

Something shifts in the silence. Reynix can’t describe what, but realizes that for once PrischA’s voice is not dispassionate and observant. It’s personal, and genuine. And if Reynix didn’t know any better, they’d say there’s fear there. “Are you saying you wish you were dead?”

Reynix doesn’t respond. They don’t have an answer. They simply trace another constellation with their hand.

The silence becomes more comfortable and PrischA’s voice returns to its normal timbre. “It’s odd, death. Thinking I’ve died once before. Or at least this body has.”

"Do you... remember dying?"

She seems to struggle to word the response. “I don’t really have her memories. But there’s… flashes of something. Muscle memory. And when I consider death, my body tenses up and I… feel it. I feel the car that crashed into me. Her. This.” PrischA pauses. "Do you?"

Reynix pauses. "I don't even remember if I died now. Feels like it but maybe I just... forgot I survived."

PrischA hums in affirmation. “So there's this physical imprint of death,” she continues, “but there’s also me. My consciousness, my soul, my… whatever ‘I’ am. And that’s never known death. Except the death of others. And I didn’t know many others. Not well enough for their death to affect me. I’ve never understood loss because I’ve never… had anything. And death, when not your own, is loss. And I don’t know how I’d feel about that. I don't know what to think about it at all.”

“Well. What are you thinking now?” Reynix doesn’t think she’s holding back intentionally, but knows that whatever’s on her mind will be worth hearing.

“I think none of us ask to be born or made. And none of us ask to die one day. And none of us ask to come back, or survive, and none of us ask for immortality. But things happen to us one way or another.”

"Things do keep happening," Reynix whispers.

“And I’m thinking about miracles. I don’t understand miracles, I don’t think they happen. But things do happen, and surely some of those things are miracles. Because somehow you and I are on the same rooftop in the same town at the same time, and your hand leads mine to show me the constellations, and you explain the ones you remember while I try to see a picture in disconnected points of light. Somehow, for the first time, I have something. And that is the closest I think I’ll ever get to understanding what a miracle is.”

Reynix can hardly breath. “This is… mundane, PrischA, two friends sharing time? It’s not noteworthy, it’s not special, it’s not miraculous.”

“It is to me.”

And that’s the end of that conversation. PrischA goes back to tracing the constellations Reynix just showed her.

“Orion?” she asks, checking.

“Yeah.”

“He was a hunter. Killed by artemis.”

“Yeah. Though,” they take their time saying this, “I think she was… actually friends with him.”

“Like us,” PrischA says, half a question.

“Well, I hope you’re not planning on killing me.”

“I hope you’re not planning on dying.”

“I guess not.”

“I still don’t see a hunter,” she says.

“Well, what do you see?”

This time, PrischA guides Reynix’s hand. “I see two people. There–” she traces one side of Orion– “and there–” the other side– “and in the middle?” She traces the belt, but doesn’t elaborate.

“Yeah?”

“They’re holding hands.”

And they are.

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