Work Text:
I dreamed about you last night. It’s the same one I always have. You had just enough oxygen to make it to the bottom of the mine shaft. When you landed, hard, you didn’t let the pain stop you from ripping the hood of your suit away and then the lid of the bio pod away from me. Your hair was set alight. Redder than any fire I’d ever seen burning in the halls of Drearbruh. Your skin was rich mahogany. It looked warm as though you had just drawn away from a star’s caress. People here, even the postulants that came shrouded in such warmth, were drained of it now. Too much time indoors and underground. Too many damn leeks. It made the life leak right out of them. But you didn’t meet that fate. Your image was preserved by death. The Ninth never had the chance to suck the life out of you.
But you get the idea. I imagine you knew yourself really well. I can’t figure that someone who lept from space knowing she would die did not know herself well. If I thought that you wavered in your decision at the door of the shuttle, then I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror.
It’s hard enough as it is now. The facepaint is obnoxious, sure, but the eyes? Gold? No one on the Ninth has gold eyes. Gold. What a stupid color for eyes. They had to be yours, right? I don’t know if they ever bothered to open yours. Or were they open when… never mind. It doesn’t matter. No one bothered to tell me either way.
Did you want to die? Is that why you chose to descend the way you did? Or worse, did you want to live? Had you hoped we’d both survive? In my dream, we did. In my dream, you kicked the ass of any decrepit nun that stood in our way. You were a superwoman. You tore into the stone of the mineshaft with your bare hands, creating handholds with nothing but the tip of your fingers. You lifted us up to the surface away from bones and paint. We stole a shuttle. We traveled for some time so that we would be far away. When we landed, it was because you chose a suitable place, somewhere with rivers and forests. You built a cabin with logs that you alone fell. It would only be the two of us for a long, long time. Maybe forever.
I never asked where he was. I’ve never put a lot of thought into it, even awake, much less in my dreams. Maybe it’s because you have always occupied such an ample space in my mind, or maybe I have a fantasy where you were father and mother. Perhaps through magic or some far-off alien technique, you were able to create the child you wanted. Manifested a desire into your womb. Brought a child to life through sheer will. That would hurt more, though, wouldn’t it? You wanted me, and so you died for me. I think I prefer something else. I think I like a reality where you were happy to die and leave me for someone else to trouble with.
In my dreams, you trouble with me. Bandage my knees. Cook me my favorite breakfast. Everyday. Fresh vegetables from a garden I helped you plant. You tell me stories about your life before me as I fall asleep in our bed. It sucked. It was god awful. You’re much happier now. It’s peaceful with me in our cabin, you say. You were never at peace before.
What a stupid dream, Nav. What an idiotic thing to think. Too many skin mag romance stories.
In the ossuary where the bones are kept, where sometimes I slept near your niche, I imagined I could feel you close by. Maybe as angry as you were when the adepts tried to hold you down and tell them who you were. Maybe you’re screaming my name again. Gideon! Gideon! Or maybe not. Maybe you’re speaking it to me, quietly, in a low tone that is warm and bright like everything about you. But soft like the moss outside our cabin. And clear like the river just beyond. It’s a tone I don’t recognize. One I hear so seldomly. Gideon.