Chapter Text
Prompt: "Dawn" by Poets of the Fall.
I will be standing by your side. / Together we'll face the turning tide.
Thinking of Meridian as a gift was... difficult.
Oberon looped his arms behind his thighs and pulled them flush against his chest. The muscles in his legs ached, even after a few long days of rest on the Hyperion, but stretching felt good. Freeing himself of the self-imposed exile to his father's room felt good.
Not his father's room. The Pathfinder's quarters were his. Why was that still so difficult to work his head around?
His face scrunched as the limbs of the tree he sat beneath shifted, letting shafts of pure light through its broad leaves. The artificial sunlight couldn't have felt less artificial. Where light touched, his skin warmed to a pale pink. Where light touched, life grew in a plentiful, vibrant green.
Meridian was beautiful, but he saw it in a different light.
To most people, their new home was either a promise fulfilled, a miracle, or something akin to destiny. To him, Meridian was taken, wrestled from the hands of the Archon and the Kett, and it was something they would no doubt have to fight to keep.
Even through the ambient sound of wildlife and the repairs being made to the Hyperion, Oberon heard footfalls on the grass behind him.
Jaal Ama Darav is approaching, Pathfinder, SAM chimed between his ears.
His visitor settled down onto the grass beside him before Oberon could look away from the brook a few yards off. Meridian's sun glinted off of the damp rocks, not unlike the way Jaal's eyes sparkled under any sort of lighting.
Nestling his chin between his knees, Oberon smiled to himself. Despite his introversion, he couldn't help himself with Jaal was around.
“I want to see the rest of Meridian,” he said, suddenly.
There was an implied: With you.
Jaal rested a heavy hand at the small of Oberon's back and leaned into him, blotting out a chunk of Meridian's sun. Whatever chill Oberon had managed to find in the shade was gone as the two of them grew closer. “I've spoken with Director Tann at length, both about the Moshae and... our plans for the rest of Meridian.”
“What has he said?”
“We've been given leave to explore the planet at our leisure, as long as we are willing to return to the Hyperion if it's requested of us.” Jaal shifted on the ground, tucking his body close enough to Oberon's for their hips to rest side-by-side. There was a steady strength in the way he curled a thick arm around his waist; the feeling of comfort that followed the contact was instantaneous. “Will we be going alone?”
Oberon considered the question as he sank into Jaal's embrace, cheeks hot from the sun and from the man at his side.
“SAM will be with us.”