A cold damp wall greeted a tired soul--the collapse of a spine...the divine miracle to tend the task of explaining the horrors of The Crash. Artemis had wanted to stand in defense of generations of oppression; to place a slew of strangers on a scale and measure the intentions to inflict harm unto an already unforgiving world. To go full petrol, no breaks into a brick wall and beg for the mercy of the Gods--Artemis had needed the world to decide and define the integrity of a nest of pecking family, where hers were absent and blinded by their presence...the Shrilla clan had taken a children’s game of chicken, and painted a weary world--with a murderous brush stroke; a favorite daughter selling her body to passerby to soothe the anxieties stitched in external forces of accountability. A gaunt woman; left behind to learn about the core strength of the legal system--Artemis would laugh to herself...a spoiled cunt had a rude awakening in the throngs of an orange horizon. Artemis lifted delicate nets; laced glass beads met a gentle step--a dignified beginning to an inevitable tragic end awaited an orphan; conditioned to fear the world...less be punished in her skills of being feared. A stern glare had been a defining factor to direct an odyssey painted with a empathetic hand and scaring smile--the culminating talents and unlocked potential ran through the veins of Auntie Fredia, of Tia Tila, of an honorary niece Roro (trapped in her baby form at the moment)...they were all just women--thrown into the deepest end, and taught to fight for their lives as children...to swim with a gentle turn of the water. As far as Artemis could tell...land that hated its women--didn’t deserve the optimization of Democratic Freedom.

The fickle moments of survival mode pumped gently through weary veins--a reflection tainted by time no longer offered comfort in vanity; a jewel dazzled compact rarely brought her comfort...outside of the churning curiosity as to what men saw in such expressive looks. A spotted fur reminded Artemis of a story, where a woman carried the senseless guilt of a man--murdering almost a dozen after losing his footing in a wagon fashioned for death. She whispered famed words of self forgiveness--"It was just another fight, and you won!", the endless pain searing along a collapsed spine had been the reward for swinging away--cortisol ruling Artemis’s senses and emotions. A fighting stance, followed by crippling curses and a woman laying halfway upon her side--a missing shoulder had left her vulnerable to the swarms of suitors flanked around a lone woman fighting for inner peace and artistic freedom.

Waves of emotions came with a glaring smile--the infalling silence; found in the odd and inappropriate things people placed upon royal ears. "Sometimes, men don’t think with their heads, whereas, sometimes women don’t think..."Artemis was jerked awake with the sheer incorrectness of witnessing a professor of higher learning, lambasting students and an infant Roro with patriarchal bullshit. Nope. Not gonna boom along with that out of check...Artemis directed a nearby adult to clasp muffed hands over the ears of an baby--the homie was quite literally incapable of correcting Mr. Brandt herself. Rounded cheeks and content scans of a tense environment met a distraught woman without a care; Artemis had flipped a script in a single moment--cracking the illusion of respectable elder in a simplified battle of intellect. To ask a stranger what they meant, what pointed words were so essential...that they dare judge a goose--stepping toddler in a careless ego driven moment. Baby girl was just learning how to walk and talk, and nobody had asked the instructors opinions of the opposing sexes--who was it for? Artemis refused to stand aside in an already awkward moment; it meant more to stand up and fight...to press further, if it meant an unprofessional educator was left to simmer in the weight of his comments...to feel the totality of his opinionated take on freedom.

Little moments had been documented, dated, "blown out of proportion" or whatever; Artemis submitted the encroaching fate of failure to a leader of student affairs by hand--inked in an attempt to double-down on the seriousness of a roaming liability. She felt one foot unsteady; the storm lingering had begun to churn up itself in the winds of change--the threat one man posed to an entire institution superseded by a legacy of time. What had always been...would always be. Concerns fell upon ears bleeding--self-inflicted by the hands of every person that disregarded witness accounts of a misuse of authority in a classroom. The shrugs and aversions of glances meant she had failed herself...it meant they thought that Artemis had warranted the mistreatment, and they were confounded to taking sides with an elder running his mouth non-stop. Her ability to wield words drew up a battle field instead of support...in the same location where blood had been spilled--right next to the dormitory where Artemis had attempted to hang herself from a banister. As a prevailing survivor, she was physically unable to walk away from the argument; sans live with the guilt of whatever the old man did to the next student left marked for admiration whilst the enabling crew of educators claimed that their overworked hands had been tied.

The instructor had lasted almost an entire year--without repercussions, unchained by checks and balances; his desires growing quickly. It took a matching spirit to Artemis--to point of the obfuscated teachings that kept an aeronautic legacy conflicted. When all the silly words had been said and done, the implications lain--nothing could brace the willfully ignorant, for the moments when a man chose to self-destruct. Artemis’s warnings of sexual harassment and misconduct in professionalism glowing red in the hands of a stranger. "Hey girl, Gary is a creep...I tried to tell them, and I hope you get a settlement for whatever discomfort you endured because of a college." The subtext of papered trail hadn’t been for her piece of mind, but to lay the foundations stronger upon a path of education--to raise the standard of expectations when paying for the experience of a good education. For Artemis; there was only the memories of walking one foot over a chair--needing to create distance from the things people had forced her to pay for...realizing her reality lacked any form of freedom.

To retreat in a hopeless situation; less surrender armed words in an offensive manner--to offer personal earning for the experiences gathered along the Salish Sea...felt like a loss to the soul, when her technical feats and rise to aeronautic greatness came with the cost of being affiliated with an immoral presence; Artemis fleeing at the speed of sound--a pin dropping in the shrill awkwardness could shatter it all in a second. No one had cared when a child had been abused ten times over, and nobody cared that a woman had achieved excellence as a hobby. It had made more sense to retreat in such thwarted assiduousness--starting anew and covering the trail where such discomforts remained, a hollowed cocoon...abandoned by an exuvia, her mature wings seemingly forever bound and lazily tied.

Artemis would catch herself tapping blunted nails--impatient in love and war; unwilling to commit to one man; barely able to love herself most days. A smoking session to ease into the day had come with the boo’s of a thousand suns: "New Amsterdam...hates you!" (clap, clap---clap, clap,clap) the land had painted itself orange and blue--the lazy geodesic paths clashing past one another... a vast army: united by an undefined hatred of a pale jinx...the threats to victory came with a complete set of fandom, whirling and swirling around a chaotic elder sleeping court-side. The celebration of diversity; an homage to a golden age of inclusion had been struck above its knee caps--hashed out in the last moments of a marathon spanning half a century. The insanity of the East had once bleed to the West--pulling a trailblazing team in tow...two statues, naturally oxidized: one praised like Athena’s temple of war...the other forgotten along the river of Multinomah near Artemis’s temple of artistic freedom.

Life had come full-circle to the listless teenage daydreams once cast in dire hopelessness; she had wasted a decade--caring about the wrong people; loving men that were unable to see Artemis stand tall--waiting to be admired, longing to be prioritized; desperate to feel enough to the plethora of randoms passing through her life with carelessness. Her androgynous appearances making Artemis an unwilling target for questionably straight women to practice upon--an unstoppable smile giving way to the casting of lady number one or two...to the fantasies of sharing a bed. Love had not been kind to Artemis, and she had come to expect less from the people that lay claim in romance--if it meant a way out...of the dreading that came peering past a broken-down person in a steamy reflection. For orphans and Indigenous Warriors everywhere...there was no such thing as true freedom.

The Khantrast between expectations and today--a slow and steady decent; kept capsules of sonnets and songs gliding along a handful of months. This wasn’t the timeline where humility had been earned early on--there was no vying For All Mankind. A timeline built around the race for space--bricked upon winning, wanting, and unquestioned assumptions of a slew of men; painted by their own misogyny or racial prejudices. How many men had felt guaranteed the love of the stars? Much like Artemis’s heart--the depreciation of a twinkling soul surrounded by the abyss; had been cast aside to admire the glowing halo of a moon standing nearer and readily available. To be geared for success...leery by the image of old men groping at the easily captured, conquered, and groomed individuals; she painted the haunting image of yellow tabbed folder sitting idle over a looming lunar surface. Artemis had wanted to ensure that the best friendship of two pedophiles named Donald and Jeffrey, and their collection of foreign Princes were rung together for now until eternity--concatenating the intricate legacy casting a darkening shadow, hands gorily dripping with blood as they attempted to reign in or deflect from the horrific crimes that kept them joined together at the hip. To be seen ejaculating over an aging soon-to-be wife; aged past perfection--their sexual conquests keeping them trapped a devils triangle; towering over the future first lady...her complacency in using an intellectual visa forever discrediting the possibly trafficked victim; an aura of apathy stitched into a trenched coat; orthonormalized into context with each passing moment...her mouth gagged with an enticing request--unwilling to relinquish upon the threat of testimonial freedom.

She’d come so far; when narrowing a scope to be of three steps--bowing a head and reminiscing on the day in early adulthood...moving as a free range pawn; accepting a role of insignificance from a Vikings jagged glare. She clung to trident as walking device; weeping and walking away with the intent to protect herself for once--unaware a future version would be evolved past peers, friends, and family. Plenty of amazing things had come her way; embracing cushy characters...tossing defensive word and theory--utilizing music and stories to build a path coined by constrained journalistic freedom.

Contemporaneous ambitions were seen as “manly” or “unladylike” by all the elders that wished for her pump out a slew of children--to impose their sick and twisted statistics upon. A career delegating tasks between engineers had been all a scientist could dream of--a female touch could softly mold the sharpest teams...yet, she remained absent from meetings and event...unable to hold a chin high; standing guard in a hallway of cannoned emotions. The office doors hid behind a Blue Shield of Hope; creaking close one right after the other...her dreams collapsing with definitive thuds and clamors; a rust-laced sword blasted by its aggressive wind. Life was simple; kinder without the role of leader placing her up for extra scrutiny--the added costs in a slathering condiment of insults no longer kept her hopes and dreams tied.

Within the blink of an eye--Artemis stood stationary...glaring over a shoulder and sensing there was only the one opportunity to perform a physical maneuver. Someone unpleasant stood nearby. A warm right hand--tethered by a blue string to a frail wrist...beautiful spots of melanin-less tissues had shaken Artemis awake. Danger loomed. Artemis had let go of a faceless man standing at her left for only a moment---yanking like a pestered mother into the unknown backseats of chaos. A chaining clasp soldered by a stranger--solidifying the fears of Valerie...snarling upon a yard plagued by her ill-intent. A dead garden in Pahrump stood as a door to Hades--guarded by a monster famed for her colluding evil...chaining a child to fate for fanfare. Artemis flung the stranger past an injured shoulder; gaunt limbs sprawled upon desert sands--with her carelessly dragging the human trafficking mother through the dirt. For victims of abuse...there was no silence, there was no rest, and for the children that survived the abuses of adults...there was no trust in freedom.

"Away we go, Valarie"...Artemis had worked her entire life to provide for a handful of nieces and nephews...the tides of parenting had yet to wash ashore in her timeline. Small hands manhandled a squirming beast--shushing hisses and snarls with smiles and silence...attention requested had be granted with diplomatic tones. She began to click and lock harnesses; stubborn to prove the depth of violence found in women painted with Western culture...the dice of chance had brought up a snake-eyes of Valarie to spite the world. A nobody monster held the reigns to a story--chained the Meres of Diomedes; where Artemis was seen as the hero on journey...sprinting past a frail looking woman--disoriented by the mere concept of accountability; striking her down with lashes upon an aging spine, glowing with static and gold for all eternity. There was no pity to be offered a handler of children--there were only the ringing bells of truth that could subdue such an ugly soul...Artemis had dove into the unknown; reaching intuitively for the caring hand of Daniel past the darkness of it all. To some--trauma and endurance could change the world; by folding expectations over and coming out the other side okay. Unlike Valarie--Daniel had a chain of friends to dive all in. He would never have to ask for friends to care; they just did. For a vindictive loser like Valarie; the notion of friendship was in theory only--to ask a friend at the least, to attend a party in thirty-twelve. Artemis had been the beauty and beat for plenty of men; whereas profundity was knighted by heavy hands--marked only by a Mechanical Boar chanting to himself...a delusional head doused in blood. To some; the irrational minds and choices of others were a burden--obligated to consequences distributed by none. Free will had been the ultimate test to achieve moral driven freedom.

A lone shot in the dark--backed by a friendly neighbor; painting herself with curses of Gwendolyne...Artemis had done her best to love an unreachable man, and he had chosen isolation for centuries over. Instead of waiting for a cue to care; a practiced skill of bravery and endurance had set her athletic wheels in motion--a combined view version of acceptance. The crossing of horizons had been fate; detailed, geodesic, and softened edges bound two strangers past time--with Artemis sprinting enough for two people, eventually stumbling over with a thirst unable to be quenched and providing the negative space to fill an empty planet. Artemis had only found the time to declare her love for Daniel in warm sheets--taking success and failures to be one of the same. True torments came with the task in choosing to learn about the inhumane treatment cast by Charles Smith--plucking away at the crimes children were forced to survive and wondering how the law managed to protect the woman that had hand-selected one son over and over, physically abusing a child for disagreeing in absolute silence. For warriors of publication and marketing...Artemis found it bitter-sweet; knowing a book holding the case number ninety-seven-C-one-four-two-nine-one-five and the super-secret password of nineteen ninety seven would bring a monstrous person to her knees; to some...the booming truth was all that remained of a man torn down by the decisions of Valarie. Evil in its thinnest form; counter acted the weight of Hera’s hefty handling of delicate children--Artemis and Daniel forever bonded by trauma and the female criminals controlling and ruthlessly dictating their childhood freedom.

Artemis missed her civil-servant bosses: the bossiest of bosses...Warmbrodt, and Young; occasionally swirling a soft creme into the harsh granulates of cane sugar--the ritual of standing guard over a thinning snow-trodden bear. She had been the cream-of-the-crop; denounced by a Mechanical Boar actively deleting the legacies of both scientists and women of color...chopped down at the roots, if it meant losers like James Donald were handed the world on a silver platter. Artemis chose to thread a golden string through and back two chapters--to pull reigns tighter than the loose lies of an entertainer-turned politician and or, tighter than the lips giddily loosened by Valarie; sans the romantic moments when a husbands father took an overworked mother out dancing. The contrast between Artemis’s distant engineering leaders and an overbearing licentious elderly man...avoiding retirement and his seething expected widow had placed the entire world in danger and reared an unsexy threat that now eroded at centuries of freedom.

Artemis stood around with an impatient sigh belting past winded lungs--there was an air of subordinate concern for the missing man in her life. There came a day when a stranger walked up with bravery; asking a beaming woman for a mode of contact...claiming to see her for the accomplishments that had been smudged out of existence. The tall man towered over a weary woman--unable to complain whilst being a man seeming to hold the weight of societies violent proclivities as scars. The withering of tissues and joints had been Artemis’s unbeatable enemy, Ehlers-Danlos painting life to be worrisome and caring--the mortal wounds to genomes began to sand away at fiber mesh; polishing a weapon capable of mach speeds with precision and grace. A heart turned to ice; began melting in his hands--Artemis weeping at the idea of racing and having to aim deep caring toward a man, tortured by a past long gone...all whilst recovering from tireless nonsensical self-poisoning battles.

The notion of disbelief causing failures to launch most days; the clouds above couldn’t mend the fragile tissues with whispers of encouragement. She couldn’t fix this. A melting heart shrunk to the size of a bead--shaped by the contextualized romance given by another; two people suffering from physical disabilities held hands and moseyed along. Untouchable by their enemies and unbound by their unspeakable traumas--forever friends; needing to try harder to make the world a more beautiful place...so life may be enjoyed or fought fairly at the bare minimum. The anti-horizon held its own mysteries and perilous battles.

Disagreement transversely kept a melting heart slipping past a man born too kind to be real...Artemis kept reminding the state of the hearts material had been glass, and he’d painted it out to be of frigid. An apple dropped in disappointment, out of worry for delicate tissues--shattering daily and rebuilding house and home from nothing. To a woman such as Artemis; time and space would find humorous ways to keep a handsome pair from meeting at the end of wedding aisle--the burdens of his past romances being clanging cans trailing behind Daniel and a stranger. He didn’t see Artemis; standing athwart in tattered linens...no one saw the orphan weeping in plain sight--the things seen to be true would always be true. A simulation of probabilities and proper tea time attire became its own otiose parody within itself; where compatible couples bowed out with grace when providing a rule of mercy and power imbalances compressed itself to be worth less heartbreak than treating daily romance as personal battles.

Artemis didn’t need endless wealth of those idolized by the Mechanical Boar--the regular issues of catastrophic her romantic life smooshed alongside bubbling rage made for a spectacular production. Fury characters; glitter and glam spurted past fluttering book edges--Artemis had set a drab world aflame; wandering aimlessly with an obese fiery-haired elder on a leash--saying nothing as frontal lobes crumbled under the weight of mortality. Pure rage filled white hallways trimmed with gold molding--Artemis finding the man locked out of rooms marked confidential--a risk to the safety of others and she...trained in public de-escalation and citizens arrests methods; certified to the hilt with unarmed training and an obligation to walk down memory lane--a glam motif bricked by greed, sorrow, and desires made for tales of raunchy delight. The sauntering of romantic disasters weaving away in the background of burning republic; remaining as the more obscure and pointless of the many historic battles.

"Hold On!" There wasn’t much a leader could do when the nose of a sky boat touched down with a thud--all she could recall was the sound of blaring alarms and the flashing of hazardous lights. Artemis knew better than to point out that we all make mistakes--she had gotten lost along the way...the world had called on a lush woman, to take the reigns over a failing mission.

The wreckage had been the moments where a crew woke up--displacing accountability on whoever had been nominated to the honorifics. Elders had been the first to gripe; to throw a wounded woman upon unsettled dusts...demanding answers for the collision of fate; laying belts and shoes upon an orphan running the show into the ground. A lone pilot had lugged around sleepy corpses--choosing to heat up their per-purchased coffins with the impact of their expectations; tossed upon the back of a person too weary to argue--too disappointed by the given circumstances to care. In the land of ultimate losers and supreme winners--it was simpler to hate a stranger, than to admit piousness and contemptuous in yesterdays battles.

She had awoken in the rubble; forgetful of name, title, and trade. A blanked slate fell consumed by anguish, shocked by the amount of pain coursing through every millimeter of tissue. A lulling head swayed back and forth--the half mounted posture of leaning upon an alley wall kept the image tacky and trashy...trashaicious to be exact. Artemis recalled memories of other lifetimes, preparing a rusting battleship--sprinting feverishly down veering corridors in white threads...something done at the hands of a sibling aching deeply had obstructed all paths but one on a futile mission.

Artemis was always lucid in recalling the blame and confusion in the actions of others, trying to get her control mechanism to accept her hand prints and retina scans in a danger-filled rush--her body locking up when someone mentioned a specific prisoner. Athena and Artemis had been known to weave and wander; stopping dead in their tracks when a middle sibling broke her character of guile. No name needed to be passed along as a threat--just the bare number of whatever choices lay at the hands of woman with a indecisive tongue and foggy memory; gifted with the role of being number one to a bright son, and number two in a loving marriage. The sins of glutton would forever be the harshest of punishments for a younger sibling--unable to live up to the expectations of a person enmeshed by decades of trauma; carved out with the identity given carelessly by abusers of children...taught that there could only be one winner in a nest of three. Artemis had chosen the path of minding her own business and imposing the least amount of harm upon others as a daily mission.

An ankle hurt; she’d rolled it funny while turning a sharp corner--hurriedly sprinting down a sterile corridor; worried that her finite dream time would run out, while the horizons of a blackhole swirled and sloshed nearby. A task of broken up episodes and uncontrollable circumstances had kept Artemis busy--splashing pages with harsh words and combating stupidity on the fringes of free time. The imposing of silence risked a life where she was surrounded by fire and sensitives idiots for eternity--whereas, the option of self-exploration meant an introduction to the less pulchritudinous parts of life’s battle.

A small device--less than one hundred and fifty-two centimeters had plopped into Artemis’s lap. The Machness held unlimited potential to inspire, to adhere a raising expectations for an archaic culture--to paint a modern portrait where she was crafted to be the face of the future. She began to weep--the Smithsonian Museum of American Indian had retracted a contest prize where her skills in breaking sound barriers where to be praised and acknowledged...the Indian Givers had spit upon the graves of slaughtered ancestors, claiming that an impossible feat made possible...no longer held enough interest to put out for public consumption. Artemis offered a name and production to carve into stone for world-wide publications or in-house portraits...the museum throwing up a face of disgust..."clarifying" that they were no longer interested in showcasing artifacts of such nature. To pale people and indentured people of color; an aeronautical piece of history wasn’t nearly as enticing for an exhibit--than the linens robbed from the corpses of Artemis’s direct linage. Artemis had been deeply discouraged by the dehumanizing nature of it all--walking away in defeat and accepting it as just another piece of evidence that life had contorted itself to be played at the most difficult of levels...where she had been painted as the least professional when dealing with a wholly avoidable issue. The mistreatment of the Indigenous population ran through the veins of the land--her surviving the bullshit had just been a small part of the overall mission.

Artemis found herself distraught; dangling from a leather belt...a sudden desire to live had proven that an orphan remained the strongest of men. A museum had handed her a braided device--reminding a drowning student that no one cared about accomplishments, let alone the comfort of a lone person trying their best. The whispering notion of declaring a need to care--a longing for someone to care had been replaced by a voice of reasoning. I care. The argument that broken up countless marriages and united endless families had brought it all to a halt; a land plagued by pedophiles and apathy provided a mine-field of ugliness to navigate...the field serving as a grotesque checkered board, where death was gamified and love was sparse. There was no depth of fairness to a world painted upon blood-drenched soils...wet lands gleaming, shimmering with ruby sacrifices and the intoxicated choices of a man claiming to be chief over an entire department of war. All votes of confidence thrown out a nearby window when the entry of a stumbling moron came to a head--where Artemis tipped and tapped heeled shoes as lingering threat...the alternate leader forgotten and stripped of title and rank whilst watching incompetent men fail in managing a Democratic battle.

An orbiting wife stood at all directions--needing to outlive the Mechanical Boar at any cost. The escorting ally of Jeffery had offered protections from the many, many conflated attempted assassinations...the longest of cons came with a cursed wedding band. A stern expression painted by thin lilies--a scared, upset face cemented in place...marriage had ruined her life and placed a son in harms way. The the scorned of muse...watching her balmy husband having to denounce a hoof-worth of accusations in criminality before rising to the throne of an aging dictator. "I’m not a pedophile"--confabulation whisked and whirled around an elaborate dinner; doors flew wide open, the approaching of danger loomed nearby. Magic was in the air--dark and dreary wrapped around the strings of a dimension painted lame and outdated by every preceding generation. The flurrying oddities of a lack-luster husband attending a formal event on his own volition and tripping over water-logged limbs; pummeling to ground with an abrupt thud. A world stage shooketh; by a leader being incapable of walking across a stage in a rehearsed hurry...didn’t sit well with a woman; known for her ambitions of widow-ship. Disgraced flames of freedom diminished to whispers of color--the dead planet glowing from depths of a universe labelled as rubbish. Artemis remained untouched by the chaos; the skill of self-preservation and a need for isolation whenever flanked by bad company--the woman standing in the corner watching the ickyness of it all pan out. Artemis and the citizens remained the unwilling cuckholds--ego in hand, knowing a demented old man had every intention of throwing their lives and legacy into a drafted service decree to fight a creeps legacy in an completely avoidable battle.

She figured they were simply echoes of past lives, as the fragments of dreams--memories flushed through the drains of reincarnation...landing Artemis on a path once ran in recent past. A fate of weeping woman--beaching herself as a whale suffering from the loss were openly mentioned by her elders in forms of Traditional stories. These were the same grandparents were called the lost generation, as they passed along stories of their parents but read only one book. Few seemed to remember the truth behind their legends, as they lost hope in the return of the battle angel. This was despite the proof that she held, as her name was beaded and adorned upon their linens. The Yurok word for whale being….Sür, the Western equivalent of word Sir. Artemis recalled how her papa had once walked up on a local woman, as the woman introduced Tila to her two kids. The kids looked at her in excitement, as though she were dressed fantastic cosplay. The lady had heard her papa call her name in the store, and observed that Artemis were in fact strangely small with wiry hair...just as the legend had said. Artemis watched as the kids grew abuzz by her laughter, and they mentioned they liked that bedtime story where she had destroyed a huge bridge by accident or sent tsunami to their coast with her tears. The natural disaster had been prophesied as and indicator to the Three Tribes, that she was ready to reincarnate. Artemis didn’t like their stories, as they confused her on why they felt comfortable enough to call her a fuck up in the same tone that Hera used, as they told tales of a pathetic character that seemed to fail a lot. The experience was never talked aboot, as her glare towards her papa summed up her understanding to her role in their culture. She wasn’t sure, why her Father hadn’t mentioned it until then. Had he not trusted her to understand? Instead...he told her the stories were probably in one of the books they had at home. Artemis knew better than to ask questions, and so she tucked the memory away and returned to it out of curiosity. Wondering if she had done this all before, as she’d vaguely recalled planting origin stories with the Indigenous Warriors in past lives, as she wanted to need their help. Expecting they would finally be strong enough to speak freely someday, and that their stories would assist her on a future undisclosed mission.

Artemis had known her current steel cattle were unprepared for the task on hand, as the Boar had ran her institution of the Blue Shield into financial ruins. A small casualty that made way for his idiotic military taskforce. Set in space. Artemis would have nightmares of banging her head on the wall, as the topic of a spaceforce was already associated with the Blue Shield of Hope, and she hated her success being considered a joke for the public to reclassify. Artemis would wash the smiles from faces, as she began talking aboot heavy artillery, and the disastrous circumstances the crew would be in if a member aboard the mission held the maturity span that reflected the famed Boar. The idea of lawlessness amongst the stars, being the topping on the cake. Artemis would leave conversations upset by the lack of ambitions of those surrounding her, as she was left with no option other than to write down a preparation manual for her personal use in a future mission.

She was always touchy to the subject, as she hated having to consider herself a normal person. The Blue Shield of Hope helped her prove to herself that she existed. It was her way of showing the world that she was trying, and that she believed in herself enough to create a Little Light within herself. The accomplishment was the closest thing to Glory that she’d ever known, and she had earned it by caring. Her childish dreams were dismantled easily by the Boar, as the knife to budgets and wedged Artemis from the picture all together. The stress of her reality weighing down upon her chest, as she fought tears in her mundane life as an average tax paying citizen. Artemis was literally...one step away from operating the false star that orbited the Earth. Artemis would wait for acceptance into programs, plotting a lifetime over and over again. Dreaming that she had crashed and waited until time could produce the manufactured products needed to redesign and build a replica of one she had lost. The parts being left as cast off into the ocean as waste marked as a graveyard. She would observe coordinates: forty-eight degrees, fifty-two point six minutes south latitude, and one hundred and twenty-three degrees twenty-three point six minutes west longitude. Artemis salvaged the wreckage, as the world dumped their trash into the ocean, and knew that the trait of consumerism had finally worked in her favor. Artemis would begin projects of refurbishments, proud that she no longer had to resort to crime in order to succeed in her dreamt up life. Artemis would continue to work in her muggle life, and write for fun, as she waited for the programs closed to the public to announce any word of a new mission.

Her past life working with small scale models would be useful in this labour, as she associated the joy she had for the advanced hobby with her friend Roro. The same friend that was currently preoccupied being a baby, yammering at crews of engineers with copious amounts of drool falling from her wide smile. Such wily crew members were pertinent to any team, and Artemis loved that her friend Roro was such an active part of their objective in competing sky-boats against other Universities. Such company surrounded Artemis wherever she went in the world of sciences, and it gave her hope that she had chosen an admirable field to work in. No matter how little financial security it offered as a civil servant. Artemis had once met a man named Bruce at a ceremony where she was to be awarded, and the two strangely enjoyed each others company. Holding up their wine in merriment, as they finally both agreed that Artemis was the future of spaceflight. They cheered in respect to one another, as Bruce was constructing a warp drive...and deemed it her warp drive by the end of their conversation. He seemed relived and elated that she was Artemis, and not some random fool with a weapon. Artemis was finally faced with the reality of her life as a future captain, and she was glad that an intellect believed in her ability to hold such a position. The conversation had been lengthy, as they were both giddy to have finally found one another. They giggled at the idea that he was their best chance at figuring out an equation, and she was the prize horse that could bring the world of science into the future. Artemis felt their matching energies forming into memories of past lives once more, as she seemed to recall their conversation down to the detail of his tropical shirt in dreams before they had met. Wondering if she was only a footnote or science-themed muse for her fellow mathematicians mission.

Artemis realized why her elders had told their children aboot the poles flipping, and how their Traditional ceremonies of song and dance would usher in the ability for them to do such. They had used the resurfacing of a Tribe Called Red, as a reminder to her that the poles required flipping. The only thing powerful enough to fulfill the task was a golden apple, surrounded by a golden net. The same artifact that had once been crafted by hephaestus himself and gifted to the Indigenous Warriors over time. Artemis had wanted to flip the poles herself, as she needed to momentarily reach into the secluded ocean. Assuming she could part the seas, in order to retrieve all the parts she required to build her own sky-boat. The best booty was found in mysterious waters. The same theory applied to the endless supply of gold she had stored away. Gifted by her friends of the South many lifetimes ago: sacrificing their gold into the lakes below for the future uses of Artemis and her like-minded friend Bruce. She had crafted the world’s longest game plan, in order to acquire and use the natural materials of gold and silicon with purpose. A promise she had made to an old friend, as they had agreed to the reconstruction of a warp drive that could help Artemis achieve her mission.

Next Chapter: *[ XXIII ] Artemis and the Belt of Hippolyta*