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You could see it just as easily from the house, but it was better out here. At home, Vurawn could curl up on the kitchen counter if he wanted to, the air so warm it was suffocating, the scent of fish fry and baked hardcakes settling into his lungs. But out here, without the cool glass of the kitchen window between them, it was so much more real.
Snow crunched beneath his boots. There was just a thin hard layer of it over the ice, and underneath, the surface was gritty like tundra. Tufts of scrub grass and spindly laxum trees shot out from the ground, their dark needles growing straight through the ice to sample the ocean water far below. Each one rustled and gave off a fragrant scent as Vurawn passed by, small animals shifting position in their nests and making the branches waver.
His breath puffed out before him. The cold air stung his bare cheeks and left his nose tingling. But overhead…
Overhead, the night sky was awash in color, and that made all the discomfort worth it. Light green melted into a darker glow, close to the horizon. Hints of red and blue melted into purple and bled into the sky itself, into the stars. The snow at Vurawn’s feet turned lavender with reflected light; the laxum trees and the snow on their branches had turned into inky silhouettes.
And overhead, directly overhead, the colors were shifting. Swirls of light; waves of shadow; rays like massive walls stretching up to infinity, pink and pastel blue; furls that folded into each other like flower buds, every shift so seamless that he couldn’t identify when exactly one color turned into the next. Like gossamer in the sky. Like watercolors, and some unseen painter just kept loading his brush back up with pigment and dipping it into the sky for another go.
Vurawn stood there with his head back, watching the northern lights until his legs ached and the muscles in his neck were strained. Until his breath had all but frozen in his lungs. Alone on the ice, with no one to witness it but him, no one to share the sight — and no one to notice how the color played off his cheekbones or turned the roots of his hair a brighter shade of blue; no one to see the aurora reflecting off his scarlet eyes or painting his parted lips.
He memorized the sight. He knew in his bones that he could never paint it, that maybe no one could. That he could tell people what it looked like, but never truly make them see.
And then, alone with the memory, with the secret, he made the long walk home.
There was a painting in the gallery of an old-fashioned fishing boat in the seas of Rentor. Thrawn held a glass of icewine in one hand and narrowed his eyes, planted before the landscape.
“I doubt it was painted by a native Rentorak,” he said.
“Oh?” said Thrass.
“That boat design is more consistent with the archaic ships of Naporar,” Thrawn said. He traced the outline of the boat, particularly the misshapen ice-breakers on the hull. “And the skylights…”
“Well, it’s hard to really capture skylights, I’ve heard.”
Thrawn nodded his head in acknowledgment. “It is. But that’s not what I mean.” He pointed to the broken icecaps all around the ship. “There’s no reflection in the ice. The color should be visible here too.”
“Amateur mistake,” Thrass agreed.
“Not just amateur. Those reflections are foundational to Rentorak art. More time is devoted to the reflection of the skylights than the skylights themselves.”
“Really?” Thrass looked at him sideways, his face open and curious. “Why?”
Thrawn hesitated. He let his hand fall, and he grasped the flute of icewine a little tighter, unsure how to say it. There was so much history and culture to dig into. The historical separation of Rentorak colonists from Csilla … the development of native religions, the spiritual qualities assigned not just to the lights but to the sea creatures, to the ice itself… It wasn’t that he had no interest in explaining. Really, he liked to explain. But instinct and experience both urged him not to say a word, not to an off-worlder, and that prejudice warred with his inborn desire to share, to learn.
“You can tell me,” said Thrass softly.
Thrawn hesitated. He met Thrass’ eyes.
“I won’t laugh,” Thrass said. “Naporar has plenty of customs that off-worlders might see as silly. Csilla, too.”
But nobody considers Naporar or Csilla backworlds, Thrawn thought. Still, he studied the painting and felt the words knotting in his chest, swelling, begging to be let go.
“It’s easier to show you,” he decided at last. He drained his glass of icewine before he could think better of it and let the bittersweet flavor coat his tongue. Cheeks a little flushed from the alcohol, he faced Thrass, shoulders squared. “When’s your next leave?” he asked.
Thrass’ eyebrows shot up. “Are you inviting me to Rentor?”
“Have you ever seen the skylights in person?” Thrawn countered politely.
“No.” And Thrass was grinning now. His voice was still soft. His fingers brushed against Thrawn’s, a touch so light that both of them could pretend it wasn’t real. “Show me.”
“Next leave,” Thrawn promised. “I will.”
And he took a quick, steadying breath and hooked his fingertips with Thrass’. They would make their way to Rentor, they would see the lights together, as soon as they found time.
Because they both thought they had all the time in the world, back then.
The aurora on his exile planet were different.
He could see them in the winter from his hut, when the snow was thick and the birds were silent. The old-growth trees arced overhead and almost cut off his view of the sky, but not quite. There, over the distant mountains, he could see the skylights. Pale and colorless, barely noticeable, not like the vivid dance of color he’d grown up with, the living painting he’d marveled out at every night when he was a boy.
Thrawn watched anyway. He sat outside, the snow soaking into his trousers and numbing his skin. He clasped his hands over his knees and kept his head tipped back to watch the sky. He imagined Ar’alani sitting here with him, or Thalias, or Thrass — because none of them had ever been to Rentor, ever seen — and if they’d never seen, then maybe this sad imitation would still amaze them. Maybe they would see the beauty in it.
Ar’alani, maybe not. She would sit beside him all night long, but she’d be lost in her own thoughts, and her face would be set in that cold, clinical mask he so admired on the bridge. Thalias … she would endure for a while, a line of strain between her eyebrows, and then she’d try to tell him it was nice, and she’d go inside. But Thrass would have liked it. Thrass would have sat out here and endured the most bitter cold to see these weak, drained skylights. Thrawn could almost feel the heat of Thrass’ body at his side, the warmth of his hands as he passed over a thermos of tea; could almost hear his soft voice whispering,
You’re right. I understand now.
Words he never got the chance to say. Words he might not have said anyway, even if he’d lived. It was just as likely that he’d tilt his head to the side and frown, that he’d admit, I still don’t get it. I never got it. I don’t understand you one bit, Thrawn.
But Thrawn stayed outside until the sun rose and the lights faded away, and he was sad to see them go.