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"Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting."
— Haruki Murakami
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Scarlett knocks three times on the weathered motel door. She leans one shoulder against the doorjamb, glancing up at the river of rain pouring off the roof and splattering off the cement and onto her boots. The gnawing at the pit of her stomach acts up again. In all the years she's known her, Nisha has never passed on an opportunity for violence. Bloody typical of Nisha, to leave an ECHO message with no explanation. I wanna talk to you could mean about a thousand different things, and the fact that it's apparently too important to talk about over ECHO doesn't inspire optimism in Scarlett. For all she knows, Nisha got captured and recorded that under duress, and she's walking right into a trap. She pounds her closed fist twice more on the door. Her other hand rests on the grip of her pistol. Just in case.
From the other side comes an annoyed but familiar bark. “I said it's open!” Scarlett allows herself a sigh of relief, but keeps her hand on her gun, just for good measure. She lets herself inside.
Nisha throws a look over her shoulder from the couch, her feet propped up on the coffee table. She sips from the glass in her hand. Whiskey, no doubt. Briefly, Scarlett wonders why Nisha would have the couch facing away from the door. Hardly seems practical in the event somebody would try to break in. On the other hand, Nisha could have a gun in her hand that very moment and Scarlett wouldn't be able to tell.
Scarlett clears her throat, taking care not to let her catastrophizing show through in her voice. “You missed our contract,” she says. She finally takes her hand off of her pistol to tear the bandana from her hair. She hangs it next to Nisha's hat by the door.
“Thought you could handle this one alone.”
Scarlett chews the inside of her cheek as she crosses the room towards the couch. Nisha wasn't wrong, but that doesn't explain her absence, or the two-thirds full bottle of whiskey on the table. Judging by the paper bag on the otherwise clean floor, Nisha got that bottle today.
“Well?” Nisha says, turning her head just enough to keep Scarlett in her periphery.
Scarlett walks over to the coffee table, stands on the side opposite Nisha, and tosses an envelope onto her lap. “Your half.”
Nisha flashes a smirk at Scarlett. “Knew you wouldn't let us down, Red.”
Scarlett watches as Nisha glances at the bills in the envelope before tossing it back on the cherrywood table. “This one was boring anyway; maybe it's better you sat it out,” Scarlett says, her eye roaming past Nisha's charcoal pajama pants and lavender camisole, stopping once she catches the dim gold reflection of light in Nisha's amber eyes. “...Everything alright?”
Nisha breaks out into an empty chuckle. “Why wouldn't it be?” she says, before taking a drink.
“No reason,” Scarlett says with a shrug, sitting in an empty lounge chair to Nisha's left. “You just seem to be drinking with purpose tonight.”
The smile remains on Nisha's face as the humor drains out of it. “Guess you could say that.” She stands up and traipses to the meager kitchen. “Lucky for me, I have company now.”
Scarlett purses her lips, glancing sidelong at the whiskey as Nisha flicks on the kitchen light. If she's going to be drinking, surely it wouldn't kill Nisha to get something she likes. “Guess it would be rude of me to say 'no'. Are we celebrating or commiserating?”
Scarlett watches as Nisha reaches up and opens the cabinet above the sink, her cami riding up her midriff. Scarlett clears her throat and glances away, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. A moment later, Nisha produces a rocks glass and a full bottle in front of her. “Interesting question.”
Scarlett raises an eyebrow at Nisha, slowly taking the glass and bottle out of her hands. She glances down at the label – Kanaloa spiced rum, brewed on Aquator. Nisha must want her to stick around tonight. “How do you mean?”
Nisha lets out a snort, laughing at a joke Scarlett doesn't understand. She grabs her own glass and they each pour themselves a generous shot. Nisha raises her glass. “To cowardice.”
Before Scarlett can say anything, Nisha throws her head back and downs her drink. Scarlett does the same. She clears her throat, letting the undertones of cherry linger on her tongue. Judging by the liquor alone, the answer to her question was definitely celebrating. “Sorry, to what?”
Nisha shakes her head. “To who.”
“Whom.”
Nisha rolls her eyes and sits back down on the couch. “To a small man.” She props her feet back up on the table, crossing her right ankle over her left. “Who probably outlived his welcome.”
Scarlett regards the gleam in Nisha's eye, the apparent lack of emotion on her face. The list of men important enough to her to toast – even spitefully – is a short one. “Your father?”
Nisha clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Yeah.” Her voice creaks in a way that reminds Scarlett of her father's desert galleon: listless and distant.
“Oh.” Scarlett lets out a slow sigh, considering for a second reaching out to hold Nisha's hand, before she remembers what those hands nearly did the last time Nisha learned one of her parents died. “I'm.... sorry to hear that?”
Nisha lets out a little snort, and says in the same disinterested tone, “Yeah.” Scarlett straightens up in her chair, studying the look in Nisha's eyes as they lose focus, somewhere far beyond the once-white walls of the motel.
Part of Scarlett can't help but wonder. Nisha seldom talked about her father, even back when she lived with him, and Scarlett wouldn't be surprised to learn if Nisha hadn't spoken a word to him since she left Eunomia years ago. But then how did she learn of his death? She had little extended family to speak of – unless that was just a relic of her mother's isolating control. Maybe surviving a woman like her mother brought her closer to her father than she let on. Scarlett clears her throat. “Are you... okay? More or less?”
“I think I always saw myself as the expendable one. My mother chose to be with him. Chose to have my sister. But not me. And after Chandra died, I...” Nisha shakes her head, licks her lips. When she speaks again, it's quieter, so that Scarlett has to lean forward to hear her. “As far as my mother was concerned, the wrong daughter got sick. Mom got worse. Nastier. Angrier. After Chandra died, I knew deep down that one day... my mother was going to kill me.”
Nisha takes a slow drink, and Scarlett uses the break in conversation to fill her own glass, in lieu of interrupting Nisha's stream of thought. Nisha's reminiscences of her family life usually begin and end at Scarlett killing her mother, and either lamenting that she didn't do it herself, or that Scarlett didn't do it sooner. It dawns on Scarlett that as the years have gone by, it's been increasingly the latter case.
Nisha continues. “Looking back, I wonder if keeping me alive made it easier for her to control him. As long as she could kill me, she held the ultimate power over him. I think they both knew that. It's why he patched me up after she would pass out. It's why he bought me Liberty.”
Scarlett's mouth curls into a bitter smile. Liberty. Hardly a subtle name, but maybe it was her dad's little act of defiance against his wife. Scarlett can still see that big, dumb, golden-furred dog bounding at Nisha's heels wherever she went, tail wagging, tongue hanging out of its mouth. Then she notices the vacant look in Nisha's amber eyes, and the rest comes crashing back. A drizzling autumn night, not unlike tonight, but colder. A night she spent sitting at Nisha's side, dabbing the spattered blood from her face with a warm towel, while Nisha stared down wordlessly at her own trembling hands. Scarlett clears her throat. “He was apologizing. For your mum.” She takes a drink to the memory of Liberty, and the gleam that dumb dog brought to Nisha's eye.
“Maybe.” Nisha sighs. Her eyes flicker back into the present, and she takes a sudden, keen interest in the wood grain of the table. “Maybe he was apologizing for himself. Cause he knew he was too damn weak to leave her. Cause he knew that I shouldn't have been the strong one.” She swirls her glass, then downs the rest of it in one large gulp. “Cause he knew as well as I did that by staying with her, he was killing me.”
Scarlett exhales slowly, searching for something to cut through the dull patter of rain falling on the roof. Your father was a victim, like you. Is it more painful to get beaten by your mother, or watch your wife beat your daughter? Nothing Nisha hasn't already heard and fired back at in kind. “In the end, you both survived her. That should be worth something.”
“I guess.” She runs a fingertip over the rim of her empty glass. “No thanks to him.”
Scarlett softly clears her throat, at a loss of what to say. She weighs her options: sympathetic or dismissive, comforting or distant, trying to placate that gnawing feeling in the back of her mind telling her that there must be something, some perfect combination of words she can say to make Nisha feel better about tonight.
Instead, her silence hangs in the air like the static in the engine room of her father's interstellar frigate, heavy and deafening. Nisha excuses herself from the room, and Scarlett is left to watch after her, wondering if she is lamenting the passing of the only other person who lived through the terror with her, or the bitter words that she would never have the chance to say to him.
Scarlett takes another slow drink, as if she might find something to say etched at the bottom of the glass. She hasn't thought of anything to say by the time Nisha returns, but Nisha spares her by changing the subject.
“You've still got your eye, I take it the job went smooth?”
Smooth is such a relative term. Scarlett shrugs a shoulder. “I got our pay and didn't have to pull any of Delacroix's teeth.”
Nisha chuckles. “Shame. Guess at least the little bastard's smart.”
“Let's not give him too much credit,” Scarlett says, hiding her smirk behind her refilled glass.
Blinking slowly, Nisha takes a slow, deep breath. “'Lemme ask you somethin', Red.”
Scarlett raises an eyebrow as she takes a long sip. “Oh?” she says, setting her glass back down.
Nisha tilts her head slightly to the left, her eyes locked onto Scarlett. “Why are you here?”
“Erm...” Scarlett glances to the side, partly to avoid the weight of Nisha's stare. “I seem to recall you telling me to come over here. Said you 'wanted to talk'?”
“Not tonight, Red. I mean, why are you here?” She waves her hand out to the side. “You were part of one of the most feared pirate crews out here in the fringe, now you're hiring yourself out for pennies on fucking Peitho?”
Scarlett clears her throat. “Because... I like to eat? I like to have a bed at night, with a roof and four walls around it.” She shakes her head, sure she's missing the point of Nisha's question.
Nisha shakes her head. “Sure, but doing chickenshit jobs like this? This isn't your kind of work. As long as I've known you, you've never exactly been the type to stay tied down to one planet. Obviously after your little falling out, going back with your dad's crew isn't really an option...”
The muscles in Scarlett's right cheek twitch, temporarily making her aware of the bulky metal rim of her father's farewell gift. Awfully reductive of Nisha to call her attempted mutiny a 'little falling out', but Scarlett lets it slide.
“...but would you really have me believe this is where you want to be?”
Scarlett meets Nisha's quizzical stare with a toothy grin. Working as a for-hire merc for a duplicitous old fart like Delacroix wasn't exactly in Scarlett's career plan, but even though some of her father's old crew joined her in her mutiny attempt she didn't trust any them half as far as she could throw them. “Funny thing is, once you've earned it, 'mutineer' is a tough reputation to shake. It's alright, though. If I was on another crew, I wouldn't be traveling with my favorite person in the whole universe.”
Nisha snorts. “Please. My ass is for sitting, not for kissing.”
“Besides,” Scarlett says, waving a hand in the air dismissively, “better here than among the low-rank rabble on my father's ship. I'm not answering to anyone, here. That's the way to do it.”
“That right?” Nisha nods at the envelope on the table. “Seems to me like you're not the one signing the checks.”
“Doesn't matter,” Scarlett says, shaking her head. “Pay's fine enough for now, but if it isn't tomorrow? There's no obligation to Delacroix. It's the Scythian Fringe, Nisha, there's no shortage of people with money looking to hire someone to do their dirty work. Sure it's Peitho today. Maybe Pandora tomorrow.”
Nisha scoffs and takes a drink. “If I ever find myself on a shithole like Pandora, I'll shoot myself.”
Scarlett nods in silent agreement. “The point stands: if this doesn't suit us, we could pack up and leave tomorrow, simple as that.”
Nisha leans back into the couch and lets out a skeptical hum. “'We', huh?”
A burning hole of guilt settles at the pit of Scarlett's stomach. The jab isn't lost on her. She can't exactly fault Nisha if she still has a grudge for leaving her behind on Eunomia. Had she known what a bastard her father was, she never would have decided to join his crew. But Scarlett bites her tongue. Nisha may have been right about her father, but if Scarlett ever admits it, she's sure Nisha will never let her hear the end of it. “Look, I'm not saying you'll never see me on a ship again. I'm just saying, when you do, I'll be running it within three months.”
A weary smile ghosts across Nisha's lips. Her eyes are focused on her hands, avoiding Scarlett's stare.
The call of that life may never stop luring Scarlett back, but, at least for now, she's in no hurry to get her boots back on a deck. Nisha's erratic moods may give her a second thought from time to time, but it's nothing compared to the exhaustion of constantly being on guard back when she was on her dad's ship. “And you'll always be welcome aboard. I'll even save the extra violent jobs just for you.”
“And have the rest of your crew paint a target on my back?” Nisha raises an eyebrow, shooting her a quick glance. “Thanks but no thanks, Red.”
Scarlett lets out a disappointed click of her tongue, even though she isn't surprised by Nisha's answer. “What if I sweetened the deal and gave you permission to garrote anyone who looked at you sideways?”
Nisha chuckles and rubs her neck. “I'll think about it.”
Knowing that's as good an answer as she'll get, Scarlett smirks and takes a slow drink of her rum. “Why do you ask? Worried I'll jump aboard the next pirate frigate I see?”
“Do you know why I asked you here tonight, Red?”
Scarlett flashes her teeth in a coy grin. “Is it 'cause you haven't got any friends aside from me?”
Nisha lets out a quiet snort and pinches the bridge of her nose. “You're a riot.” She sighs, takes her feet off the table, and leans forward. Pursing her lips, she studies the diamond pattern etched in the glass in her hand. She opens her mouth, and lets the silence hang a moment longer before speaking. “I asked you here... because you're the reason I'm still alive.”
As Nisha turns her head up to meet her gaze, Scarlett is struck with a rare feeling: speechlessness. Either she's dreaming, or Nisha has had more to drink than she seems, because Scarlett can't believe that Nisha – bloody stubborn, solitary, cagey Nisha – would ever admit to it.
“So thanks,” Nisha says, turning her gaze downward again. “Dunno if I ever told you that. Dunno if it even matters anymore. But you were right.”
A reluctant smile crosses Scarlett's lips. What she wouldn't give to go back and let Nisha do what needed to be done. The lost look in Nisha's gaze and the circles under her eyes betray how beaten she is from regret. But that same look is the one that assures Scarlett she was right.
“I'd do it again in a second,” Scarlett says, her chest tight with conviction. How she wishes she could tell Nisha how bright and powerfully she burns, how her mother could never smother her light, but even if she could find the perfect words, she's not sure Nisha would be able to fully appreciate them the way she can herself, even after all these years being free of her. Maybe it became too much a part of her, too early.
Nisha's eye seems to flicker, like the glow of a still warm ember deep inside her. Scarlett finds herself feeling parched under the heat of her stare, and blurts out a thought lingering on the tip of her tongue.
“You're worth killing for.” She exhales slowly, leaning forward in her chair. She is intensely aware of how closely Nisha sits to her, how if she just reached out, she could hold her hand in her own, put her hand on her waist and feel the warmth of Nisha's skin. “You're worth dying for.”
Her eyes fixed on Scarlett's, a weary smile spreads across Nisha's face. She exhales sharply – maybe a sigh, maybe a chuckle. Scarlett can't be sure. All the same, they stare at each other, as if daring the other to move first, but Scarlett knows Nisha never would.
Emboldened – maybe by the beating of her kick drum heart, or the fiery afterglow of the rum, or the glowing ember behind Nisha's subdued gaze – Scarlett leans in and presses her lips to Nisha's. She leaves it short, pulling apart after just barely a few seconds. At first, Nisha's body is full of tension as she stares back at her, with an expression Scarlett can't quite read. Then, in one fluid movement, her mouth is on Scarlett's, kissing her with passion, with urgency.
Her better judgment should be screaming at her. Nisha is danger. Nisha is venom. But Nisha is so close to her now, and Nisha's eyes are on hers, and her hand is on hers, and her skin is on hers, and Scarlett feels herself slipping and won't bring herself to stop it.
How can Scarlett resist touching her when Nisha is already so deep underneath her skin?
Scarlett pulls apart from Nisha's kiss, but only slightly. The tip of her nose brushes against Nisha's. She can smell the whiskey on Nisha's breath, though only just, through the taste of rum lingering in her own mouth. She licks her lips, lost so helplessly deep in Nisha's eyes.
Nisha rises from the couch, pulling Scarlett to her feet. Her kisses are deep, forceful, demonstrative, her teeth sinking into Scarlett's bottom lip. She is guiding, practically pushing Scarlett back to her bedroom, her fingers already untying the lacing on her bodice. She pulls it off of her, tossing it aside as she shoves Scarlett onto the bed. Scarlett takes in a slow breath as she watches Nisha strip her camisole off and drop it to the side. Scarlett raises her hands to Nisha's waist. Her eyes are drawn to where the skin runs pale, marking several scars on Nisha's body. An old bullet entry wound marks her left shoulder. Two long parallel gashes run along her right side, where a wild tenko clawed her. The most recent one, an electrical burn on her right bicep, the result of a job gone bad back on Eleus. She traces each one with her fingers, feeling the history written on her skin.
Nisha leans down, pressing her body to Scarlett's. She doesn't lay much weight on Scarlett, but it takes her breath anyway. She runs the tip of her middle finger slowly up the length of Scarlett's sternum. Nisha is transfixed by the tattoo covering much of Scarlett's chest. A royal albatross in flight, its wings stretching from shoulder to shoulder. They seem to rise and fall with each breath Scarlett takes. Nisha has seen some of Scarlett's tattoos already – the anchor and monstrous mermaid on her left calf, the Jolly Roger on her right bicep – but she hasn't seen the albatross before. She idly traces its wings with her fingertips, slowly turning her gaze up to Scarlett's face.
Scarlett wraps her left arm around Nisha's body, pulling her head down with her right to kiss her. She's pictured it so many times before, but it was always an ideal, an escape, an indulgence. Nisha had form in her dreams, she had presence, she had power. But she had no weight. But now she's lying on top of Scarlett, skin to skin, taking in Scarlett's heavy, helpless kisses. Impossibly close, terrifyingly real.
Nisha is all passion, no tenderness. Her fingertips are digging into Scarlett's waist, her teeth nip at Scarlett's earlobe. Her lips and tongue are on Scarlett's jaw and neck, each kiss quick and hot. When Nisha's lips reach Scarlett's, she pauses. Their faces are tantalizing inches apart, and her breaths are rapid and warm. She looks into Nisha's eyes, glowing amber, like a crackling fire, drawing Scarlett in like a moth to her flame. Nisha bites her lip, then speaks in a low murmur. “Tell me you want this.”
Scarlett bites her lower lip as the tension in her shoulders melts away. She looks into Nisha's eyes, trying to read her expression, to see something behind the confident glint of Nisha's stare. Maybe she's just looking for what she wants to find.
Nisha's hands lay firm and flat on Scarlett's wrists. Her eyes, full of longing, full of desperation, are fixed on Scarlett's lips. “Tell me you want this, Scarlett.”
“I want this.” Scarlett nods as she takes in a slow, deep breath. “I need this. I need—”
Nisha cuts her off with a hungry kiss. Scarlett feels herself falling as she pulls her in, drinks her in, breathes her in.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
The bitter morning taste stirs Nisha from her sleep, leaving her feeling as if she hasn't slept at all, feeling as if she's woken up in someone else's skin.
She startles at a loud snore from Scarlett behind her, then lets out a sigh. Scarlett's breath burns hot and concentrated on the back of her neck, and Nisha, unable to remain lying beside her for a single second longer, slides out of the bed as lightly as she can.
It was that old familiar dream. She is in a spaceship, plummeting through the atmosphere, the flames of reentry glowing at the windows. The communications are dead, the controls unresponsive, the doors jammed.
Clothes gathered under her arm, she retreats to the safety of the bathroom. She closes the door behind her, turns on the tap, and splashes her face with cold water. She squints at her reflection in the mirror, at the darkened half-moons under her eyes, the worry lines etched into her forehead. The features are all familiar, but there's something beneath she doesn't recognize. The gnawing pit in her stomach grows heavier. She can't hold her own stare any longer.
With a shower, she could be gone in half an hour. Though the running water might wake Scarlett.
Nisha gulps back a rising wave of nausea in her throat. She leans over, cooling her forehead on the cheap imitation marble sinktop.
Why are you here?
Nisha lets out a laugh, tired and quiet. Her question to Scarlett last night – fuck, it already seems like ages ago – still rattles in her head. As well as the question she couldn't bring herself to ask. It's just as well she didn't, in the end. She'd only end up looking like a hypocrite in hindsight.
But then maybe one day, they'll both be able to laugh at the irony.
Clothes quickly thrown back on (no need for a shower – the shame will wash off eventually), Nisha steps out of the bathroom and lingers, looking at Scarlett. The sheets are twisted around her long legs, her head resting in the crook of her elbow. Part of her wonders if she were to stay, what Scarlett might say when she wakes up, if she might talk of the horrible little things that live just beneath the surface Nisha's skin that only Scarlett can see. Mostly, she just wishes she hadn't let Scarlett see them at all.
Just last night, she was standing in this same spot, gazing back at Scarlett, at the simple smile on her face. She remembers lingering on her, on that smile that vexed her. It was more than just mere physical bliss. That fulfilled smile, that eye that looked at her as if nobody else existed. It was easy enough to ignore in the moment, when she could focus on Scarlett's lips on her neck, the warm embrace of her body, but not anymore, in the sobering light of morning.
She can't forget that look in her eye, as deep, blue, and powerful as the sea. Nisha feels like she's drowning.
She shakes her head. She has to leave. Because as Scarlett sleeps, looking as relaxed as can be, the only thing Nisha feels inside is hollow. And after last night, the only thing she's sure of is that this feeling will never change. She may not have realized it last night, but she knows it now.
Her old duffel is in its usual place, tucked away at the back of the closet shelf. A few changes of clothes, a healthy stack of cash, a couple cases of bullets: enough to get her by. Heavier than she remembers it, she shrugs to adjust to the weight. She's about to close the closet door when a small box on the shelf, previously hidden behind her duffel, catches her eye. She frowns. She thought she'd gotten rid of all of those. She sighs, hesitating just a moment before grabbing it.
She exhales slowly, pushes open the door and steps out. She allows herself to look back at Scarlett once more. Scarlett – still naked, still sleeping, still blissfully unaware – moves her hand over the ghost of Nisha's body still imprinted in the bedsheets.
It was fun while it lasted, Nisha supposes, but it wouldn't last forever anyway. Nothing ever does, nothing ever will. Always seems to happen that way.
The duffel feels lighter as the weathered motel door shuts behind her. She tips the brim of her hat down, shielding her eyes from the harsh orange glow of the morning sun.
The old ritual is familiar as it ever was. Tearing the red strip off the plastic, tapping a cigarette out of the box, holding it between her lips as she grabs her lighter. Someday, she tells herself, it'll all feel like a terrible dream.
She flicks her lighter, lights her cigarette, and takes a long drag. She'll grow to regret this too, in the end. It's nearly been a month since her last one. But compared to all that weakness she allowed herself last night, what really is a little smoke?
She stands there for a minute, letting the tension ease out of her shoulders as she takes another drag. There's no point in lingering much longer. She'll have time to think later, about last night, about where she's going next. She knows she won't find those answers by staying here.
Nisha steps out alone onto the road, keeping her eyes toward the sunrise ahead of her, feeling empty, but relieved.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time. It is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
— Sydney J. Harris