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Magnus called a team meeting to lay everything out. The “light of creation”? It wasn’t their Light. It was something else. And if this had been a day or a week or even a month into their time in Legato, that might’ve been fine, but there was less than two weeks left.
Taako and Merle promised to put all their students onto finding the light; Lup and Barry promised to put their minds towards everything they would’ve done 11 and a half months ago. But the students couldn’t possibly know what to look for; Barry and Lup were mostly giggling and staring into each other’s eyes, and Davenport was focused on the team and the ship and preparations for the arrival of the Hunger.
Magnus’s eyes were drawn and anxious when he spoke to Lucretia alone: “Would you come with me?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I promised the jellyfish I’d make it some more ducks.”
“At a time like this?”
He looked down at his feet.
“I guess it’s kinda dumb, right? But I don’t know what else to do.” He looked back at her. “It was so happy, Luce. There’s so little time, at least I can do that. And maybe you could at least, you know, come see this, write about them, maybe draw some pictures.” He paused, sighed. “It helps a little bit, when we can’t do anything, that at least you’re writing it all down for us.”
“There’s not much I can do either,” she admitted, slipping her hand into his. “I don’t even know if writing is enough, if it really matters.”
“It matters.”
She gave a long sigh, looking at nothing in particular.
“Let me get my journals and we’ll go.”
Lucretia almost turned around and left when the jellyfish seemed upset. She didn’t want to ruin this for Magnus, it was so obviously so special. But he -- he defended her, he drew her closer, he introduced her to this creature. And it made these little noises, like singing, and the noises made Magnus smile. He took her hand and they went inside.
“Oh.” Everything sparkled. They were only just inside, just past the place where she’d been turned around when they tried before — but there was so much more. So much farther to see. Her fingers itched to capture it all, and there were already tears in her eyes. A few days and it would be all gone.
There was more, there’s so much more here: practically an entire sea of these creatures. “Jellyfish” didn’t even do them justice; some of them were enormous, practically the size of the Starblaster itself, and glittering with universes inside them.
But as she was about to lose herself in the poetry of the moment, there’s a tremendous splash from the pool, and this liquid — she couldn’t even tell what it is, but it’s dark and a bit thick and smells vile. As in, they’ve been on dozens of worlds, and this might be one of the worst things she’d smelled anywhere. It got in her mouth, and the taste was somehow even worse than the smell?
“Why do you keep coming here?” she said, unable to keep the disgust out of her tone.
“You gotta keep your mouth closed!” He laughed and he kept teasing her about pinkeye as they continued on, as they found a tiny nook, where his simple carved duck had a place of honor. He grinned at her as the creature picked up the duck with one tendril and waved it about.
“Have a sit down,” he said. “You can draw while I carve.” They did, and eventually the awful taste faded from her mouth and she could focus on her books in front of her, trying to capture this scene that would soon be gone forever.
Of course, the baby jellyfish kept floating over to them, asking them to play in its own way. It sang little songs at them until they looked up. It dropped the duck in her lap, knocking her books aside: it did this several times, until she put down the books and picked up the duck and made little quacking noises.
“Those aren’t very convincing quacks,” he said, not looking up from his carving.
“I’d like to see you do better,” and she tossed the duck back to him. It clattered on the floor in front of him and the jellyfish squeaked.
He set down his knife and the block of wood and squeaked back, saying, “She didn’t mean to hurt your duckie.” Then he picked up the carved duck and danced it in the air, making a noise that was almost unnervingly like the ducks at the lake all the way back in the very first cycle. “Now that is a duck noise.”
“It’s probably dinnertime,” he said as he put the finishing touches on duck number two.
“Probably.”
He sighed, folded up his knife, and stretched.
“I almost don’t want to go,” he said.
She closed her books and leaned up against him.
“Me either.”
The jellyfish floated closer to them, picking up all three of its ducks and whistling a happy tune.
“I think they want us to stay,” he said. She smiled.
“We should go.”
“Mmmm, in a minute.”
She leaned up to kiss him, but he put a hand over her mouth.
“You got splashed!” he said. “That’s so gross.”
She laughed.
“That was hours ago. Do you want me to take another drink of water? Because I can drink more water.” He handed her the flask and she took a long drink. “Better?”
He nodded with exaggerated emphasis.
“Yes, much better. No more grody fish juice.”
He took her face in his hand and they kissed; their eyes fell closed, but the lights of the cave twinkled around them nonetheless.