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Burns has heard of Wanderer, of Rides the Beast. Who hasn’t? The soul’s a legend for the rescue of a soul and the attempt to save their host ( nobody ever mentions the soul was inconsolable afterwards, crying out for its deceased host, until they had to put it in cryosleep to give it some respite, but Burns knows ). It’s gratifying to know that a soul like that is supportive in his cause, even sympathizes with him.
They meet up again after their first meeting, commiserating and exchanging anecdotes and ideas and ways to keep their heads in all of this confusion. Burns tells Rye of his humans, Nate and Winnie, and how he feels things for them he’s never felt before, and Rye tells Burns of Ian and sharing a mattress and waking to the feeling of being in the one place he will always belong, and Burns is envious. At least, he thinks that’s what that feeling is called. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
Ian used to watch Burns with eyes that catalogued every detail and Burns had smiled back, understanding Ian’s protectiveness - Nate and Winnie got the same way whenever they found new stragglers, eyes narrowed and stances too close to be anything but. Human body language is also hard sometimes, but he’s getting closer to figuring it out.
“Do you think,” he says once, as they lay under the stars and watch the skies their brothers and sisters and siblings must inhabit, “Do you think you’d ever become a Mother?”
Rye doesn’t say anything. Burns was quiet enough that the humans didn’t hear the one thing Rye’s keeping from them (with the exception of Melanie, who doesn’t see a need to say anything), but this topic has always made Rye paranoid.
“Maybe,” says Rye quietly. “If Ian… if I’m all that’s left. I’d want someone to remember what I have, all of these things and people that make me happy. If only so they know what to look for.”
This is something Burns has thought about. With Rye’s queen status, they could form a revolution. But that would mean the loss of Burns’ dear friend, of Ian’s (there isn’t a good word for it, in soul. There is a word the spiders use to denote their life partner, that one being they would rather die with than outlive, and while that isn’t strictly romantic it comes close: skyaydtha , meaning “heart”, meaning “life-giver”) skyaydtha , and that would make him sad. They sit in silence for the rest of the evening, until Rye retreats to Ian’s bedroll to coil into his side, and Burns returns to Nate’s tent, where he and Winnie are already waiting, smiling affectionately. It feels like coming home.
--
She isn’t sure what’s happening. A moment ago, she was trying to help someone injured in a parking lot, and now she’s in a human nest, frightened and surrounded by these people who haven’t had the best track record for kindness.
But there’s a soul there, smiling and speaking to her in a quiet voice, explaining their purpose and what’s going on, curling into the taller human with the blonde hair and smiling eyes.
“Relax,” says the soul. “Have you heard of Wanderer? Rides the Beast, maybe?” She sits up straighter.
“Yes! I was in the Bear City they rode into that day!” She says, excited, and they grin and point to themself.
“That was me,” they say with a grin, and she gasps. She’s just met her hero, and if they like the humans, then, well, maybe this isn’t so bad.
--
Melanie keeps her silence on Rye’s secrets, the way he always has with hers. They were in such close proximity that of course there are things heard that you wish no one had ever had the opportunity to see, but to Rye the matter is closed: your host’s thoughts, furtive or not, should be theirs alone. Melanie recognizes this as one of the soul society’s tenants of everyday behavior and tries to reciprocate in kind, but sometimes she worries she isn’t good enough at it.
Rye isn’t her brother the way Jamie is. If someone were to replicate her mind, her personality, then put it through different cultures and experiences, then return it to her, that would be Rye. He’s her twin, the half of her that saves a potential murderer and feels guilty for giving affection to the one he loves while inhabiting her body. She couldn’t hate him, even after what his people have done to her planet.
So him being a queen, a hive mother for her worst enemy, the enemy that doesn’t even realize it’s involved in a war?
Not the hardest secret she’s ever had to keep for someone she loves.
--
Rye stands up for himself a little more now. He’s taller than Melanie, nearly taller than Ian: a beanpole given human form as a gift. His arms are long and thin, his fingers slender and careful. He’s covered in freckles, up over his nose and down the side of his neck and chest. When Ian first sees them, he calls it a constellation, which Rye thinks is exceptionally true in this case.
Ian brings up being sent into space after death, the two of them, saying “I wouldn’t want to take away from your culture, but I want to stay together,” and Rye laughs and laughs, because (isn’t it so obvious that we don’t have a culture? Let me stay here with you, let me stay and continue this planet’s life cycle, let me give you everything I have to give) he loves this human man so much.
Ian’s caught him watching the wild children in the halls, smiling as they hang on his branching limbs and swing, laughing with them at small kiddie jokes and questions on how the universe works far away from the their small ball of rock and stone and frenzied togetherness. He knows Rye wants something but doesn’t know how to get it, so he steps across the hall to Jared and Melanie’s room and sits down and talks. Melanie’s face gets brighter and brighter as he explains, and Jared spends a week thinking over the logistics of it all: they’d seen that small human child doted on by its soul mother, but they didn’t want to take a child that already had a family.
Two weeks later they set out to find Rye a child to love.
--
Jeb notices that Rye never answers questions about the souls in a sentimental sort of way one night at dinner.
“Do souls celebrate birthdays?” Gloria asks at dinner. Rye smiles ruefully and shakes his head.
“What about other holidays? What holidays do you have?” Timsam wonders, popping a bit of broccoli into his mouth. Rye snorts.
“No, souls don’t have any true holidays. We’ve never had reason to: there’s no religion in the soul race, we don’t have a home planet to celebrate the changing of the seasons on, and we’re so widespread across the galaxies that attempting to begin one would simply be seen as a planet-local custom and generally ignored by the rest.” He explains, and wipes a smear of jam from Timsam’s forehead.
“Oh,” says the little boy. Gloria shakes zir head in frustration.
“But holidays make people happy!” Ze grunts petulantly, sliding down in zir seat. Rye laughs.
“I know, dolphin.”
--