When Aster asked the name of Artemis' ship, he told her it didn't have a name. Many ships didn't. It would be like naming a car, he said before asking if she knew what a car was.

She grumbled a yes and tried to look pouty. There wasn't a point to whining, she decided a minute later. But she had decided she didn't like Artemis very much, and was greatly hoping that if she looked angry enough, he'd pick up on it.

He had, unbeknownst to Aster, and didn't care.

Artemis called for Eii using a method of communication that resembled a phone, but quite obviously couldn't be. The calling part was truthfully pointless, as Eii generally came whenever someone was thinking of her. The exact science behind this was generally classified as 'magic' by many, but Artemis tended to claim 'inter-dimensional powers' as an explanation.

Artemis dialed a long string of numerals. In Artemis' culture, they had been the numbers of Aoxch'li the death spirit who would devour Seltiabah into the dark pit of her mind's soul.

Today, these numbers summoned a girl-like creature to the bridge who giggled the moment she saw Artemis. She was laughing at him for his number joke, and he knew it immediately. Psychic powers weren't real, but something was up with Eii.

"What are we doing here?" Eii asked with an odd gesture. She was obsessed with watching young cultures on various worlds, and was constantly adding poses and words that she found 'cute' into her vocabulary. "We're always busy, you know."

"I don't know how you don't find your job tedious. Or lack of one, I should say." Artemis glanced once at Aster, knowing he had to focus, but he couldn't resist throwing a short attack out at Eii.

"And you? We don't suppose you've found the meaning of life yet trapped in this little box. How's Garth doing?"

Eii had this thing, it may be clear, for referring to herself in the plural sense. She'd catch herself, eventually, and fix it without a word. People never really talked about it with her, but it was one of the reasons Artemis detested her.

Artemis exhaled slowly and changed to a straight tone. "Ioro gave me a girl. Teach her how to create life."

"Does she have the potential for it?" Eii crept towards Aster with exaggerated movements, like she was sneaking but wanted to ensure a cartoonish silhouette. Aster couldn't quite make sense of her appearance- unlike Artemis, something did seem alien about her. She had sort of nubby fingers with little black spikes between each joint, and her large eyes resembled dirty pond water.

"No." Aster offered. "I don't understand all this upper science, and I don't really care to."

"That has nothing to do with your potential." Eii said. She squinted her eyes, looking carefully at Aster, who noticed her eyes changed color very slowly through a cycle of muted shades. "...No. You definitely don't have the capacity."

"The capacity for...?" At this point, Aster didn't want to sound like a fool by assuming anything.

"Creating life!" Eii said. Aster had expected her to snap, but instead she was quite cheery about the subject. Her muddy eyes seemed to change to brighter hues to reflect this. "It's a skill few creatures posses, changing matter by hand, and we were hoping that if Ioro had chosen a human like you... perhaps you carried a mutation that granted such power. I'd love that! I've never seen it occur naturally before, life-giving, so I was hoping..."

"No. Artemis was trying to teach me through a machine."

"The poor man's substitute, I'm afraid. And a cruel man's as well." Eii sighed, but combined it miraculously well with a quick glare towards Artemis. "It's like a sewing machine versus hand stitching."

"Sewing machines are much faster and more efficient." Artemis said. "Not an apt- or particularly truthful- metaphor."

"Yes! But hand sewn clothes are worth so much more."

"...I don't particularly want to learn how to create life anyways. We have-" Aster stopped before she could finish that thought. It had been a rather primitive one, she knew, and was scared of the gods' reaction.

"You have what?" Eii said. "Is there a condition that prevents you from doing this kind of work? A disease?"

"Stop mixing your singulars and plurals." Artemis said sharply. "She's likely speaking of... folklore."

As Aster expected, Artemis shook slightly at the mere thought of mythology, and she blushed slightly. "Well, yes. There's just a story we have about a man who tried to create life like Ikina did, first from the sand, then from s-" She stopped talking and looked to the floor, ashamed of her planet's silly rustic beliefs.

Eii, who had been generally keeping her distance with the occasional lean-forward, came over and placed a hand on Aster's shoulder. "Ioro probably came up with that story herself. I bet it's absolutely cute. She's always cute when it comes to you humans."

Aster did not feel very encouraged to continue, still red in the face, but luckily the story was a short one. "...The man tried to create life from sand. And then he tried seafoam, and then mist. But he is unable to create life. Then, Ikina comes from the heavens and doesn't say a word to him, just sits there and uses their claws to churn the ocean with the earth. And from the mud, they created the crested flower."

"So Ioro has a myth where he just shows up and proves a mortal inferior?" Artemis said coyly. "Is it possible he has a sense of humor?"

"I don't think it's a joke, Art. She's just trying to remind mortals to live like flowers, and not worry about creating life like she does. It's a noble, folksy sort of tale. Not as cute as I had been hoping."

"Uh, it doesn't end there though." Aster said. "After the flower is created, Ikina disappears. But the foolish man is inspired by the sacred act to try and create life from mud like Ikina had. So for three nights he sculpts a bog into this huge garden of mud, but no matter what he does, he can't seem to create life."

"How is this any different?" Eii said.

"Well, finally, in anger, he tries to uproot the crested flower, wading into the middle of the bog to reach it. The roots prove too deep, and he uses so much force that the flower slips from his hands and he falls into the mud and drowns. The rot from his flesh becomes the yellow of the flower, and it becomes known as the golden crest. And then his body feeds the flowers to grow until the bog has become a garden."

"So... Ioro is threatening you?" Eii squinted, turning her head back and forth. "That is unlike her."

"It's just called 'the foolish man'. I don't really think it's supposed to mean anything other than 'don't try and imitate the gods'."

"Good advice." Artemis said. "But you're going to become a god, remember? You've already agreed."

"Good advice." Another voice said with the exact sort of accent Artemis carried. The person was assumed to be Ikina- in this case, they were a man with curly dark hair and half a beard. Sort of like a toned down and shorter version of Artemis. "Except no."

"No to what?" Aster said, sort of excited. She wasn't very fond of any of her odd companions right now- Eii was weird, Artemis was condescending and mean, and Ikina was... mysterious to deal with. But Ikina also represented any chance of change.

"No to any genetics nonsense. If I want things done right, must I manage them myself?" With every body Ikina took on, their personality seemed to shift- but perhaps that was a side effect of the simple changes an appearance could have on a phrase.

"I mean, I'm not too interested in this anyways, so..." Aster was trying her best to make her voice whiny and adolescent, and trying to sound disinterested. There was a worrying thought in her mind that perhaps she would be sent home if she complained, and perhaps her life would be perfectly mundane after that.

But she also did not care the slightest about the apparent turf war of genetic moral codes that divided a bunch of gods like this. If she could find a way to not study complicated genetics, that'd be absolutely fine with her, okay. The other stuff would probably be simpler and more fun.

"Oh no. This will work." Ikina said, looking at her. Anytime they looked at something, they did so with absolute care. They did not believe in making anything quick.

"I just don't care about all the... computer machines, and all that. Artemis is trying to teach me to edit bears, and it seems like fun, but I don't think I'm capable of it. That's all." Aster could feel herself blushing again as Ikina made solid eye contact.

"Well. I never wanted you doing that in the first place. I knew Artemis would ignore me, of course, but surely your displeasure is enough for him to calm down? Perhaps now you can finally train."

"Is it really... training though?" Eii said, yawning. She walked over to Ikina and, quite unsettlingly, casually draped an arm over their shoulder. "She's not exactly practicing a skill. I mean, you're pushing her through the same old... ropes again. Choose some plants from this pre-approved list, choose some animals. Here's a couple humans. We'll see you in a millennium."

Ikina seemed genuinely to be listening to Eii. "That's true. It may seem like 'the old ways', but after my last few apprentices, I could use someone... bland."

Eii examined Aster again. "Well. It's not like you don't have hundreds of files on these sorts of cases already. I mean, I'll go right ahead if you want me to teach her ecological systems. Going at this game again seems rather... unfocused of you. Might I remind you that-" At this, Eii switched to something that took a few moments to settle in Aster's mind as another language. The concept had always existed before, but she had honestly never expected to hear one.

Ikina replied back in the same foreign tongue, and soon even Artemis added in a few words. He seemed less adept though, and looked like he had to concentrate carefully to understand what they were saying.

"Do you think she'll die?" Eii said, suddenly very clearly to Aster. It occurred to her that this had likely been her intention, making sure she knew what subject they were discussing.

Ikina rolled their jaw before speaking. "Yes. But I can keep her alive. However, she'll probably be otherwise psychologically damaged."

Artemis shrugged.

Aster was slightly taken aback by the gods' casual dismissal of her mortality. It wasn't quite clear what they were talking about in the first place but... a reward that could cost death probably wasn't worth knowing in the first place.

"Let's not, then." Aster looked from face to face, trying to gauge blank expressions. "Just send me home. I'm not really doing it for you, correct? I was worried about the idea of leaving behind grandeur, but I'd rather not get 'psychologically damaged' if I can avoid it. So send me home, please." After a second, she quickly added, "To Wren."

The three fell back into their conversations in the other language, but now it seemed more of an argument.

"Oh, it'll work, one hundred percent!" Eii snapped again, back in an understandable language. "This won't be the first time!" Perhaps it was a mere accident rather than intention. She was answered back in the other tongue.

The bickering continued for far too long, and intermixed were occasional snorts of laughter from Eii and Artemis. It was odd, and truthfully quite alien to watch. Because they were aliens, right? Even Ikina must have come from another planet, no matter how vaguely special their powers were...

Suddenly Eii jumped towards Aster, roughly pulling her by the arm towards the group, who circled her cautiously. A couple words were exchanged. Ikina produced something thin and translucent from nowhere. Then, for her specifically, Eii spoke. "This will hurt you a lot."

She took the clear item from Ikina and slipped it into Aster's arm, burrowing cleaning through the skin and fading an inch in. Likely it was connecting to the vein- a shot of some kind. Aster had gotten vaccines when she was younger, and was not very sensitive to them, but perhaps the shock of receiving one so suddenly was getting to her- she seemed to be feeling very dizzy.

Her hearing began to dim as her jaw began to sting, and she could feel blobs move up and down her arm. A loud buzz rang in only her right ear, increasing in pitch without a possible end.

Then she felt her knees go. And then, though she was unaware, she was seeing only darkness.

She fell into Ikina's arms, and they held her at a distance.

"She wanted to go home." Eii said.

Ikina was quiet for a few moments, eyes focused on Aster but not thinking of her. "She wanted to go to Wren."

"You promised her father-"

"I promised she'd be safe. She is safe. I don't have to worry about that anymore. She will go to her friends."

Eii looked up, and caught Ikina's gaze. "Are they still alive?"

"I've been keeping them so." Ikina said with what might have been shame if one knew how to read their emotions.

"They all should return home." Eii said.

"I'm out on this." Artemis said simply. "All your long, meaningful stares. But I doubt any of them care to go home at this point. Usually that's saved for the end of the journey, and besides, we won't be able to really observe Aster as well if she's simply sitting around at home."

"You misunderstand, Artemis." Ikina said. "Her return home... it really ought to be now. It will be now. I will see to it myself."

"When we're all together like this, and she's unconscious, you really don't need to leave me out of the knowing."

"This isn't your planet, Artemis!" Eii exclaimed.

"Though you'll still have a part, I guess. But it's mostly Ioro's business, and mine as well. If you're so jealous, you go and trigger the end of your planet and don't invite us. Don't worry. I won't care."

"Don't... actually destroy your world." Ikina added after a moment. "This is a special circumstance."

Artemis gritted his teeth. "Then talk about it somewhere else."

They complied, disappearing instantly and letting Aster fall, quite rudely, onto the cold metal floor.

She did not wake.