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Theirs is a world of Bonds.
Brilliant strings of multicolored light connecting people and places and moments. There are popular interpretations of the colors of course: red is romantic love, purple is sexual attraction, yellow for friends, blue for an intellectual connection, green for families. Many colors aren’t mentioned, like orange, or white, or brown. Gray is spoken of in whispers at most, the sign of a Bond lost.
Bond Seers are uncommon, but not enough so that the IPRE, an institution dedicated to the study of Bonds, doesn’t have a Seer filling out nearly every command position in the entire organization. Which makes it all the more astonishing when Captain D. Davenport is selected to head the Starblaster mission.
It’s considered impolite to ask if someone can See the Bonds, but word tends to get around.
And word is, not a single one of the seven for the Starblaster mission can see the strings.
The Director of the IPRE, a distinguished Seer herself, merely smiles when asked by the curious press, and her cohorts, and a nervous Davenport himself.
“There’s a reason we’ve dedicated our institute to studying Bonds,” she says calmly, reassuringly. “This is the right choice.”
And the seven mostly strangers board the ship.
Davenport’s mind is everywhere at once as they prepare for launch; his thoughts of Bonds mainly focus on powering the ship itself.
Barry Bluejeans, sweaty and nervous even more so than usual, keeps one hand ever near the tiny glass bottle hung around his neck, containing a shard of bright green glass that his mother, a Seer, always claimed to be nothing close in color to the brilliance of their own Bond.
Lup and Taako, the elven twins, hold tight to each other and watch their uncaring homeland shrink in the distance.
Magnus Burnsides, eye still throbbing faintly, presses his face against the window in awe at the sight.
Lucretia, the chronicler, has one hand writing, writing, even as she pushes down her own fear and discomfort around her new coworkers.
Merle Highchurch, the irreverent cleric, watches his new crew with the smallest of smiles, a private one, just for himself.
And the world ends.
None of them need to see the threads to be able to feel them suddenly snipped, or in some cases, ripped out.
Davenport collapses against the wheel, blood dripping from his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, before he collects himself enough to wrench back control of the ship.
Barry yelps once, high and full of pain, fingers digging so deeply into his chest that they leave bloody scratches.
Lup and Taako are the least affected, their hearts together. But even they stagger back at the violence, the rawness of it all.
Magnus howls, beating useless fists against the class, crying out for the captain to turn back, to do something, to help.
Lucretia curls in on herself, sobbing at the pain of it, at the ripping that feels like it comes from her core. She too, is bleeding, the blood sickeningly vibrant against her white hair.
And Merle. Merle screams.
The animal planet doesn’t seem to have the strings. No one is quite disappointed.
Although it’s not who anyone would have guessed, it happens to Lucretia first.
In the ninth cycle, one of deep forests and sharp mountains and few people, she is curled up on the couch, writing without looking at her journal, instead idly watching the twins cook and bicker in the kitchen with equal ease. Davenport is at the wheel, although Merle is trying to coax him away for a game of cards. Barry is sprawled out on the floor in his casual lab coat, ensconced in his notes, out of the lab for the first time all cycle.
No one notices at first when she sits straight up as though pricked by a pin, a gasp escaping her open mouth.
Magnus, passing by the couch, is intent on the kitchen when the sound reaches him.
“Magnus,” Lucretia says, wonder and terror in her voice. She’s stretching out one trembling hand to him while the other flips to a new page and begins to write, feverishly.
Magnus, always one for physical contact, reaches back without a thought. “Hey Creesh, what’s up?”
“I can see them,” she breathes.
“What?”
“The strings, Magnus. The Bonds. I can see them.”
“Holy shit!” Magnus yells, because this is Magnus, and this effectively gets the rest of the crew’s attention.
Nervously, the fear and wonder still battling in her eyes, still uncomfortable at the center of everyone’s attention, Lucretia explains to these still separate people of the strings she can see, still faint but so clearly, clearly there.
There’s a strong thread, thick as a rope, glowing so brightly she almost can’t see the color, between Lup and Taako, of course.
There are earnest yellow strings between Magnus and literally everyone, which makes them all laugh, Magnus most of all. He takes it with good grace, smiling, and the strings ever so subtly brighten.
There are faint purple lines stretching from Barry to everyone except Merle and Davenport, which Lucretia decides not to mention, a blush rising to her cheeks at the thought. Lup, seeing the blush, hoots and slings an arm around her, declaring that their little Luce has seen something no one wants to see.
Dancing blue lines connect Barry and Lup, to each other and to Taako, and Lucretia is only a little surprised to find those blue lines stretching to her as well.
There’s a deep, burnished orange from both Merle and Davenport to the rest of the crew, which sparks much discussion. Orange was rarely, if ever, mentioned back on their homeworld.
More and more Bonds are seen, connecting the whole crew in every iteration and color, starting theories and discussions and jokes (these will last throughout their time on the Starblaster, though none of them know it yet).
Most curiously of all, there are faint, shivery lines connecting all of them to each other, colored the tentative spring green of new growth.
Magnus is next, cycle thirteen, and he sees them first with a stray dog he decides to bring home. Taako never lets him live it down, but Magnus gets his revenge with revealing the yellow-green strings that brighten whenever Taako watches someone eat his food.
Barry drunkenly confesses to Magnus and Lucretia in cycle thirty-two, during one of their “Human Squad” sleepovers, that he’s been seeing them more and more clearly for the past four cycles, but kept losing his nerve to admit it. Magnus starts to tease him when Lucretia dumps her nearly full glass of wine all over him, and then calmly informs him that she’s out of wine, would he get her another glass?
Magnus gets the hint.
They all three start studiously avoiding Merle when he’s near his plants.
Lup sees them at the start of the cycle following Legato, and whoops in delight as she tackles Barry, cheering at the fiery, burning red rope between them, nearly as thick as her Bond with Taako. Lucretia and Magnus aren’t paying attention, too focused on whether Fisher made it or not. When it appears, they both collapse in relief, and smile at the new but strong strings, shot through with green and orange, that are even more evident now between them and the fish.
Davenport gives up on ever seeing them after Taako lets out a surprised squawk one day during cycle seventy-two, batting at the air around him. The Bonds have gotten quite thick by now, his crew tells him, and it almost seems like you can’t move through them at all if you’re not used to seeing them.
Taako, in a rare moment of naked, unguarded wonder on his clever, closed off face, looks around and says, “We’re all so green.”
Merle, unfailingly and annoyingly intuitive when it comes to Davenport, finds him just when he escapes the impromptu Bond party they throw whenever someone can newly See them.
“Hey there, skipper,” the dwarf says, gruff voice casual but knowing eyes sharp in his hairy face. “Why’d ya leave the party?”
The attempts at keeping up a professional wall have long since passed, especially with Merle. “Don’t you ever wish you could see them?” he asks, allowing the foolish, pointless, needling despair he would never show to anyone but Merle to creep into his voice. It’s dark here in the navigation room, lit only by the crowded stars of this new plane, and Merle is a dark, comforting mass at his side.
The dwarf is silent for a long time. “Seems to me like you don’t need to see the Bonds to know they’re there,” he says finally.
And Davenport is struck by the thought that, of them all, Merle is the only other one who has never said anything about being able to see the threads.
The very next day, Davenport sees the red tinged string connecting him to their healer.
The cycles continue. The Bonds grow stronger.
Bonds aren’t a physical thing on the world they’ve chosen to enact their plan, making the seven feel even more sick as they watch their creations rip and tear at the strings spanning the world below.
Lucretia weeps as she watches the threads gray out as her journals are consumed.
And the world is saved.
The colors, mostly, come back.
They all have so many more, now.
Davenport finds Merle outside, while the reception is in full swing. The temple is aglow with light and laughter and Bonds of all colors, shining and strong.
“Hey there, skipper,” Merle says, worn face crinkling into a smile.
“Merle,” Davenport says, and it feels like he could physically grasp onto the strings - the ropes, really - connecting him to this dwarf, to those inside, to this world; Bonds so strong he could never lose himself again.
Merle laughs and pulls him into a rough embrace. When they separate, he taps at the spot on Davenport’s chest, right where the rich red rope connects them both.
And he winks.