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Nothing remains of who we once were.
In truth, it is debatable whether I can still call this my body.
G'raha's inhale was sharp in Lunya's ears, louder than it truly was in the echoing outskirts of the Omicron base and the silence of the furthest reaches of their universe. Lunya urged her trembling fists to still, coaxing her curled fingers from slicing arcs into her palms as she watched, transfixed and horrified in equal measure, as understanding pooled in the soft oh of his parted lips, the shifting pendulum of his tail stilled and sunrise eyes alight with a myriad of sympathies—empathies. That same realization dawned on the others before, and she knew all too well that now it would take him too.
For a foolish second she dared to hope when he turned to her. He always was fond of his trump cards, of the drama and exhilaration of turning the tides against the brink. It would be just like him to have another trick up his sleeve. Expected. Constant as the sun breaking through their bedroom window on a new morning, one which they gave everything to keep.
But her husband said, "Lunya, I want you to make me a promise," soft and apologetic but not really sorry at all, because if he was then he'd keep his stupid mouth shut. Instead it was like he'd elected to tear up the metal plating of the floor and run her through with it like a twisted version of their aetherial blades, which frankly would be the less gutting experience between that and this.
The stars dimmed and flared around them, kneeling to and rallying in tandem the authority that rose like high waters in her voice. "No," Lunya snarled as she took a thunderous step toward him, hackles rising as the sharp points of her teeth bared. "I won't. You won't."
Why was it that they had to keep looking at each other like this? Hadn't they suffered—sacrificed—enough?
Her fury silenced the murmurs of the others as they turned from M-017 to them, blurs of colour in the corner of her eye, comforting motes of brilliant light between the dark spaces of the sea of stars but so far, far, far away as she fought off despair with rage. Even facing away from them like this, her vision traitorously growing warped and blurred more and more with each passing second as she glared G'raha and his all-consuming and cruel love down, she could see, feel, the implications of his words sinking in for the rest of the party.
The dead air of the far reaches of Ultima Thule crackled with a burning, heavy heat, one that weighed heavier than all the world. Static fizzed dangerously at the ends of her hair and pricked at all her exposed skin as thorns. The colours at the edges of her sight shuddered in shadow.
"Don't break her heart," Zaya warned G'raha once, a lifetime and a half ago. "Never again."
But G'raha only smiled, eyes on her as always, only for her in the moment. "We need a way forward," he reminded her. There was so little of their band left now in the darkness. So many—too many—lost, all for a way forward. For their star, for their duty, for each and every loved one and life they left behind a hundred thousand echoing heartbeats away, well past the far edge of fate. For themselves. For each other. She knew this as well as he did, but—
Beneath the love in his eyes, a frustrated sob erupted from Lunya's throat. "Raha," she pleaded, failing entirely to keep herself together as the first of her tears blinked loose. The stars wavered.
"Lunya." Damn him, damn him, damn him. Looking at her like that through and despite everything. Divinely adoring, tender in their infinities. "My guiding light. My gentle lodestar. My true north, my inspiration. Be it across time or space, our promises have always connected us, have they not?"
"You would really do this to me again?" she asked in turn, hoarsely, venomously, futilely.
"For you," said G'raha, vermillion eyes so bright and full of world-shaking affection as he knelt before her. With steady, ever-faithful hands he thumbed across the curve of her cheek, sweeping stray strands of starlight that had come loose over their journey here back in place. "Always, anything for you. For our future. And so I ask that you indulge me once more, that this won't be the end. That we will meet again." He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a prayer between the rise and fall of her knuckles and her wedding band. "Forcing you through this again is the last thing I want, and I'm so, so sorry… But we've never broken our promises to each other. Not now and not then." (And in all their second chances, laughter and love and light had always followed their wake, like the brilliant trail of a falling, burning star.) "Keep your faith in me, in us, and hear my request."
The words churned bitter in her mouth. If only she could just spit them out rather than swallow them and accept the bile rising in her throat. "Blind faith won't bring you back."
Running his thumb over the crystal ring around her finger, G'raha smiled. "But it will not be blind. It never has been."
The others remained in mute vigil, the only other sound between their unsynchronized breaths the low whirring of alien machinery and the sotto scraping of steel. The twins were watching with wide eyes and rising fury of their own between the cracks of their moment's vanguard. A staccato beat pounded in Lunya's ears, swelling in her temple and underlaid with the quiet wail of a dirge.
"If you're sorry… if you mean to face it alone," Lunya began with a whisper, a stir in the wind that grew resolute and louder with each word, "I will not allow it. Not this time."
Maybe in different circumstances this would have elicited protest from them all at once. But seeped in dynamis, in love and duty and inevitability, only a helpless smile twitched at the corner of G'raha's mouth. The brilliant blue blur in the corner of her eyes turned away, sickened, but the others steadied in uneasy quiet. "They need you," he reminded her.
They did, and what a selfish, horrible thing she was. He was the last of them, after all. Their friends hadn't broken in the face of the sacrifices before his, though the gods knew they wanted to—Thancred hadn't even given them a second to breathe, hysterically enough. The others hadn't followed their lovers into the dark when there were only so many of them who could make this right. It was hardly fair or right for her to throw a tantrum like this, not when she still had more to give.
And yet—
(Haven't you suffered—sacrificed—enough? Haven't you given the world everything you have? Haven't you bled yourself dry a thousand times over and over and over, staring yourself in the mirror as you splintered into something wanting and hollow, shattering what you recognized into nothingness? Haven't you learned your lesson?
You give the world an ilm and it takes a malm. It bites the hand that feeds. It's taken him from you once twice thrice and not again never again not so long as you breathe and even long after, and oh, but you love the world. You love it and you've bled for it and broke yourself for it and you would do it again and you do it willingly. And it's not just the world and it's not just you, you love its people and its people love you and they need you and—)
"I need you," she said fiercely, because one way or another this was going to end. Until the heavens fell, until their last breaths, they would fight and they would silence oblivion's song no matter what, no matter who remained and who forged ahead. They owed that much to each other. To themselves. "You will never get away from me again, do you understand?"
G'raha laughed softly, his hand tightening around hers. "I do. And I would have it no other way."
"Lunya," Zaya croaked, finally looking her in the eye.
The vigil broke and turned to galaxy dust.
G'raha beckoned to the Omicron as he stood, taking a step forward to the beginning of their end. "If you would humor me a moment," he called, and as he did their friends drew close, bound stars pulled into orbit by an inescapable gravity.
"Better stardust than a blasphemy," Hanami nearly sighed as she kneeled on the metal plating by her side, the butt of her scythe scratching across the floor. She pinched the exposed skin of Lunya's freckled shoulder; an aching approximation of an embrace. "You are enough to deal with as it is."
The periwinkle train of Reese's armor pooled around her folded legs as she joined them. "I don't know what to say," she said, voice cracking, and Hanami scooted to the side so she could take one of Lunya's hands while Rjoli took the other, giving it an affectionate, understanding squeeze. None of their faces held any grudge.
"You don't need to say anything at all," Lunya soothed before pulling her hands from theirs. As Zaya approached, faltering around a hundred signs and words they couldn't speak, sparks of aether bounced from Lunya's skin to her sorta-almost-definite sibling's; a gift, a push to follow them to the finish line. "This isn't the end, remember? Our journey isn't anywhere close to over."
With a 1000-lightning crystal smile she learned only from the best, she met M-017 at her partner's side, and G'raha took her hand in his own to pull her towards their future not for the first time and not ever for the last.
"—I will tell you a tale," he was saying. "A tale of a world on the brink. Of a people who never gave up hope. Of a man who realized his grandest dreams, and then awakened to a grander reality." The warmth of his hand in her own rivaled that of the sun as he looked down to her, crimson eyes alight with raw adoration. "And of a woman who tore the threads of fate and destiny at the seams and wove them into a brighter future."
A delighted laugh burst from Lunya's lips, wholehearted and true before she faced the Omicron again. Together, they raised their free hands in offering. "Of love persevering," she said, "enduring, unyielding through change and through trial and through sacrifice. Because despite everything—every sorrow, every joy, every despair and every hope—it is still you."
The winds screamed.
"Lunya," Alisaie pleaded, Alphinaud quivering beside her as the ashes rose higher and higher. "G'raha—"
"I'll be with you through it all," Lunya promised both him and them, all of them. For the ones who were here and those who had gone ahead. "I love you—so much more than I can say."
As crystal shot forth into the heavens, the stars sundered and shattered, golden light rushing homeward to cradle its winding path toward a new morning, one which they had given everything to keep. The road ahead and the road behind were not easy ones—but when had they ever asked for it to be so?
Bound by love, the remaining Scions marched on to the dawn.