Sky Riders

Scars

So this is a picture I found, and this is what Artemis looks like! Also, for the sake of this story, Artemis and Anna are younger than they are in the books/movie.

After about an hour or two of awkward silence that had started with Anna's not-so-joking death threat, Artemis finally broke the silence. "So, uh, Hester, you're probably wondering how we know- er, knew, your mother?" Hester's stare was the only answer. "O-kay then. So, Anna and I are still wondering WHY IN THE NAMES OF ALL THE GODS AND GODESSES you fell out of London. Care to explain? Please?"

This time, it was Tom who spoke. Tentatively, he said "Well, Hester tried to kill Valentine, which I don't know why she ever would because he's the nicest person the the Historian's Guild, if not the entire City-"

Artemis put her hand up and shook her head I disbelief. "Okay, so you mean to tell me that Hester found London, got the city she was on captured by London, brought a knife, planned to assassinate him, and you stopped her?"

"In a nutshell, yes. That is exactly what happened," Tom said in his posh London accent. 

"Okay, but you know Valentine is totally evil, right? I mean, we are talking about the some one?"

"What! No! Mr. Valentine would never hurt anyone! He's the nicest person I've ever met!"

Anna interrupted, "if he's the nicest person you've ever met, you have been around some really horrible people."

Artemis laughed. "Tom, you're so... so innocent. Stay that way forever please."

Tom didn't know what to say to that. He had not stopped looking nervous ever since he got on Anna's ship, with the girl who had the red cloth still covering her face. Artemis wondered what was beneath the scarf, but she knew it wasn't her business to ask.

"But Hester, you  can't kill him! Tell her, Miss Fang!"

"Um, no, I see what you're trying to do. Don't drag me into this."

Artemis laughed, showing her pinkish teeth. Artemis's laughs were infectious, causing everyone aboard the Jenny to laugh with her. 

"Okay, but seriously. Valentine is totally evil. He's... more than a common criminal. He's a murderer who disguises his real motive as wanting to help London, while really it's just for power."

Hester finally spoke, her voice quited by the shawl she still wore around her face. "He killed my mother," she said, slowly pulling down the scarf. "And he gave me this. I'm going to kill him for it. For my mother. For revenge."

A long scar ran from the top of her face to her neck, giving her one eye, half a nose, and a mouth permanently curled into a sneer. Artemis did not stare. She had seen worse in Arlangel. Backs split open by a whip, staining clothes red. An arm cut open, hanging on by a few sinewy tendons, hacked off my the spinning gears of a machine that disemboweled cities Arlangel had snatched up from the ice fields. But Artemis could see the repulsion on Tom's face, although he had seen the disfiguring scar on her face. Hester could see it too. Angrily, she got up and stalked over to the door that led to the open-aired stern in the back.

Tom moves to get up, but Anna told him to sit down. Well, more accurately, she said, "Tom, sit down and shut up. You're an idiot." 

Tom looked at Artemis with a look that said, but I didn't say anything!

"Tom, shes right. You're an idiot. You don't look at a girl you like with that face. Sit down, I'll go talk to her."

"But I-" Tom stuttered. "I don't like her!"

"Sure, keep telling yourself that," Anna chimed in.

Artemis stood from the upside down box she sat on and walked to the stern. Outside, the wind whipped through her blue-streaked hair that had come undone from its loose braid. Through the howling wind, Artemis said to Hester, "I'm sorry about your mother. I know you've probably heard that hundreds of times before, but I truly am sorry."

"I've gotten over it,"  Hester replied, bitter. "But I still want to kill him. For what he did to both my mother and I."

She had pulled the red scarf back up around her face. 

"Hester, we all have scars. Don't be ashamed of yours. It means you are a survivor. So do mine."

Hester did not know what to say. Those were the kindest words anyone had said to her since... well, it's been a while. Hester looked up at Artemis, her tall stature forcing Hester to look way up to meet her steady gaze. Artemis saw Hester's wide eyes, and chose her words carefully.

"Anna and I... we were not always, what is it the cities call us? Ruthless assassins? Anyway, we weren't always doing this. We used to be slaves. On Arkangel. I don't know how much you know about Arkangel, but whatever you do know about the slave cages, multiply the gore and illness and general horror by about a thousand."

"Oh," was Hester's only reply. She considered, and spoke. "If you have scars, where are they. Do you cover them up, too?"

"No. I made something else out of them."

She took off her blue avaiator jacket to show the tip of an intricate tattoo, winding from just above her elbow up to her shoulder, and disappeared under Artemis's shirt to her back.  Flowers and wolves and stars and rainbows and other countless designs danced around her arm, and the longer Hester looked at it, the more she could see. Swirls of colorful ink covered he entire arm. Underneath the color, she could see a long, pale and ugly scar running along Artemis's arm underneath all the colorful ink.

Seeing Hester's stare, Artemis spoke, choosing her words carefully. "I'm actually alive right now thanks to Anna. I got my ark sliced open by some idiot playing around with scrap metal. When I got cut up, you could see the bone. I was going to be left for dead, because after all, who would want a broken slave?" She laughed bitterly. "But Anna was in  a... uh, relationship... if you could call it that.. with a man in a... place of power. She convinced him to get me some medical attention, and long story short, I'm here because of her. That also when we became friends, about maybe four-ish years before we escaped from Arkangel."

Artemis clapped her hands together. "Anyway, I think the moral of the story I told you was to not cover up that scar. It means you survived. Also, Tom likes you. Like, likes you. As in, more than a friend. Just a heads up."

Hester did not know what to say. Once again, she was at a loss for words while talking to Artemis. Hester never thought someone could ever like her, of all people. She knew she was a terrible, horrible person. Nobody could ever like her, much less in a romantic way. She must have been lying. But Artemis had been so nice to her, what reason would Artemis have to lie to Hester?

Putting her blue coat back on, Artemis said to Hester, "come on, let's go back in. If we stay out here any longer, I won't ever get the knots out of my hair!"

As the wind blew outside the Jenny, and Hester realized something. That maybe, just maybe, she wasn't completely alone. Maybe Artemis was her... friend. The realization seemed to warm Hester from the inside, making her feel something she rarely felt. Happiness.

Okay, how did you like this chapter? I really needed to see a happy Hester. Also! I will try to update every Thursday!