For a time after the assault of Morax Tol's bastion, Ashtoreth was stuck facing what she slowly came to realize might be the worst possible outcome.

Nothing happened.

She'd known they would assault Fallen Harana without her, but Primeval Karaz? They didn't even tell her or her people that they'd left. She'd simply woken up one day to find that most of the soldiers she trained with were missing and had to hear it from General Matthews that she'd been left out. She was non-essential.

She had her theories on that particular matter. Perhaps reading her mind had given them the feeling that they knew her well enough not to keep her in the loop. After all, if they thought they could predict her actions, it would make sense to limit the amount of information that she could act upon and tell her only what would prompt the right responses.

They didn't need to tell her the results of the assault. It was plain to see, even a few days after it had happened, that it was a success.

Or rather, it was a successful failure.

Apparently, Hell hadn't realized that the Eldunar had a secret, hidden realm that they were using to ferry personnel and materiel to Earth. They'd bought the ruse, thinking that they'd fought off an assault on one of their weaker worlds when in reality the humans had built a bridge to Hell's most powerful enemy.

The reason Ashtoreth knew this was that there were elves and dwarves everywhere in headquarters, now. They had a habit of staring whenever they saw her walk by, and she'd return these looks with a glare.

She'd been here first, after all.

She couldn't help but envy them. The elves, she realized, had acted out a much better strategy for endearing themselves to humanity.

They'd thought of the children.

Eldunar society hosted an enormous number of garden zones that the system would convert to tutorials when a new world was initialized, and these essentially functioned as the opposite of the zones taken from Hell. Because they were the easiest zones available, they became the natural destination of almost all the children, and usually most parents.

Ashtoreth's popularity didn't stand a chance by comparison. It wasn't that she wasn't useful. No one could deny that. But was she trustworthy?

After all, she'd gotten the job done with treachery, kidnapping, manipulation, and endless violence. Sure, she was enough of an archfiend to know that this was exactly what the job had called for, but what did that matter, when it came to telling stories about who had saved humanity?

In the end, she always had to remind herself that the elves weren't supposed to be a threat to her. There was no real contest: she was the Monarch and they were the Eldunar.

But the real problem in the days that followed wasn't that she felt threatened by the elves.

It was that she was bad at being alone.

She'd always thought herself to be highly independent. It was, in her opinion, a belief which wasn't without backing evidence.

But even on a day that was filled with interaction—spending time training with the ever-spirited human soldiers, spending time doing human things with her people—a single hour of being alone could put her into a downward spiral of uncertainty.

First, she would wonder why, exactly, it was seemingly so easy for her to become unhappy, especially when nothing bad was happening to her. The whole thing felt terribly unfair.

Next, she would wonder how she was supposed to make herself feel better. For the moment, killing enemies and progressing was off the table.

And didn't other people like being around her? Didn't that mean that she should like being alone, since it was essentially just her with herself? She definitely liked herself.

Eventually, she grew so frustrated with her inability to take the initiative and solve the problem of her ennui that she even decided to bother others with it.

She told Frost that she was unhappy.

"Actually," she said once she'd finished explaining her plight, "the more I think about it… I'm not sure I've ever felt this consistently down except for a couple of times. And that just makes me more sad."

"O-kay," Frost said.

They were sitting on the front porch of her tiny house, which was presently overlooking the Great Pyramids of Giza. Night had fallen, and the desert was growing cold fast.

"Look," Frost said. "I'm not exactly a psychologist or anything, but I don't think this one is that hard to figure out."

"Oh good," she said. "Honestly, I think I trust a police officer to understand people better than a doctor anyway. You guys have to deal with the whole shebang, you know? Not just the people who can afford to get into therapy, but the real humans."

"Ah—uh… okay, let's just ignore that particular take for now. I just hope you know that it's completely normal to hit a slump when you're just bumming around trying to fill time for all your days. Honestly, I think for soldiers it might be the worst. Cops too. Nobody wants to get benched, least of all someone as motivated and driven as you. You're a woman of action, yeah? They took your action."

Ashtoreth had to agree with that, at least. "I want my action back," she said, staring despondently into the distance.

"All right," said Frost. "That's one part of the problem, and it's got a clear fix. But there's another thing here that I have a feeling might be working against you, and that's that you're young."

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"Hey!" she said. "Age is no substitute for experience!"

"I know, I know," Frost said tiredly. "Young people don't like to be told that they're young. I know because I used to be young." His face darkened with annoyance. "Actually, I didn't really realize how old I was until I started saving the world with a bunch of teenagers."

"Don't feel bad," Ashtoreth said. "Who else will get my references to Dragonheart?"

"I'm glad that I fill that role for you, Ashtoreth," Frost said. "But consider that maybe I also have some actual old-people wisdom for you."

"Ooh," she said. "I don't know if we do that in Hell. I think in Hell, the policy on elders is usually to avoid them because they've survived a long time and you don't want to get eaten."

"O-kay," Frost said. "Well that just sort of highlights how wrong I might be about this… but I'll give it a shot anyway."

"Okay, shoot!"

"On Earth," he began, "when kids plan for the future, they have a habit of doing it by daydreaming, not planning. What they imagine is a postcard, you know? It's like… you address a feeling of boredom or dissatisfaction now by imagining a handful of interesting, ego-stoking, pleasurable moments from the future you want."

He shrugged, then made a vague gesture with his hand. "So they imagine going to college and, uh…" He glanced at her uncertainly. "Living a totally different lifestyle. They dream of the time they'll always be impressive and never be sad, and for a kid in high school that makes perfect sense. They've been living their entire lives with a family they didn't choose, being dragged through classes they didn't want to go to. It should be easy to assume that all the bad will go away once they're taking control."

Ashtoreth frowned and eyed him with a good-humored suspicion. "Is this really about high schoolers, Sir Frost?"

"It is—it is, trust me. The fact that you might be in the same spot as them is the whole point I'm trying to make. A young adult doesn't wholly know who they are or what they like yet, so the life they imagine for themselves doesn't even fit them… and they wind up feeling stuck and getting sad about it."

"And you think that happened to me?" she asked.

"Sort of," he said. "Actually, I think what happened to you might be worse. I think you got pretty much exactly what you wanted… but life is still life, not a postcard. I think we're supposed to always be building something, always be working toward it… I don't know if a human mind is built to ever think we're finished."

She considered this. It was true that she pretty much always wanted things.

"So… what do you think I should do?" she asked.

"Where's the fun in me telling you?" Frost said. "Welcome to the real world, Ashtoreth."

"Hey!" she said, laughing through her protest. "That's not how wisdom is supposed to work!"

"Maybe not in Hell," he said. "But here: let me just say, first of all, that being in funk can be normal sometimes. You shouldn't always stress because you're feeling down. But if you ask yourself what you can do about it, can you give yourself a good answer?"

"Uh… I don't know," she said. "I guess I can't just have other people be around me all the time, can I? I…" she frowned, thought for a moment, then nodded. "I think I got it."

"Good."

"I need to kill the King of Hell," she said with utter certainty. "I need to kill my father."

"Okay," said Frost. "That… okay, that's a goal. It's good to have goals. But, uh, Ashtoreth…"

"It's a long-term goal, right?" she said. "So I won't finish too soon. I can always be working toward it, like you said."

"I don't really… okay, look, I wasn't really trying to lead you to commit yourself to eternal war, here, Ashtoreth."

"Well excuse me, officer. I thought I was supposed to figure this out on my own."

"Yeah, maybe I was a little naive there," he said. "I should probably have figured you might go here."

"If my father dies, the hierarchy implodes," Ashtoreth said. "Sure, maybe that makes the invasion of Earth worse because it becomes a piece in the ensuing power struggle, but I can't imagine it'd be worse than being under his full attention."

"Ashtoreth… you've done enough."

She crossed her arms. "You're giving me some very mixed messages here, Sir Frost."

"Damn it," he said, rubbing a temple. "You're right."

"Yeah," she said, leaning back in her chair. "I generally am."

Frost laughed. "No, Ashtoreth. Look, killing your father is a lofty goal, but what does it leave you to do now? You're already training more than the rest of us. You've got your spells to practice."

"Hmm," she said. "I guess I'd just have to practice more, wouldn't I? You're right, it's not going to make me less sad." She sighed. "I dunno."

"Look, you can always come and bother me if being alone gets you down," he said.

She sighed. "I'm not even alone very often," she said. "I should be better at it. I shouldn't need an audience all the time…"

Frost fixed her with a look of sympathy. "You should also probably know that it doesn't always mean you're doing something wrong if you feel bad but can't explain it," he said.

"I guess that makes sense." She shrugged, looking out at the pyramids. "I really didn't have a plan for what to do, now," she said. "Just… save Earth and then be the Monarch. I wish they'd let me talk to people—do a broadcast like they do. I bet it would be nice if people could hear from me after they got that system message."

"Honestly, now that they've read your mind… I don't see why they're still so cold toward you."

Ashtoreth frowned. If she had to guess, they were waiting until Dazel was free and she wasn't under his contract. Or they were actually going to come after him.

In that case, she'd have to wish them good luck. She didn't doubt that Dazel's absences over the prior week had been for the purposes of making preparations. He could probably do an excellent job of avoiding the human government if they came for him, with or without her help.

"Nothing they saw inside my head should be worrying for them," she said. "But I guess that's just my opinion. No matter what they choose to do or believe, they're going to need time to process everything."

"Yeah, I guess," said Frost. "I'm getting a little sick of watching them do everything they can to avoid giving you even the least bit of trust or credit for what you've done."

"Ditto."

For a while they were quiet. Ashtoreth stared at the pyramids.

The big one had been the tallest building in the world for millenia. It was very unlikely that any structure in the world would top the length of its record.

"Except for maybe a space elevator, if those count…" she said idly.

"Huh?"

She shook her head. "Oh, I don't know. Just thinking about things. Say, you know what I could do in the meantime?"

"What's that?"

A smile crept slowly onto Ashtoreth's face. "I'll train Sadie."

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