Chapter Text
March remembers looking back over her shoulder. There was a hole in the ground.
She couldn't step back because it hounded her heels, a hungry thing - beset to swallow her up no matter the topography. Sometimes she was distracted enough to pause and stumble and still, and because there was nothing there to take the weight of her graceless phantom step the lurch struck a firework into her chest.
Learning what lay ahead - straight ahead - was something that might've cleaved her in two had she been whole enough to split in such a way, but she had learned early on, early, back when she hadn't been able to make that distinction. And it wasn't that it didn't matter, just because she didn't know how to do so. It was just that she didn't know.
Ahead was the step before the next step into the next step of the rest of her life. And sometimes she thought maybe Himeko or Mr. Yang had a hole behind them, too, something behind them that someone split open, maybe a seam they split open on their own. It was a thought she had to coax out of herself, then a thought she had to enclose in her palm and quench in a fist - how ungrateful of her, she realized, to hope that these people would be the same. She wanted to love them, and she did, but loving without muscle memory made her heart red and sore.
Perhaps Himeko and Mr. Yang didn't see a hole when they turned back. But March did, and no amount of looking back or looking ahead or relearning the sky would seal it, so that was that. There was a hole there, and if March wanted to live, then she had to learn to live around it.
+
Dan Heng drops a towel on her head, peers into his bag, then says: "Oh, I only brought one," and tugs the left corner of it up to drape over Caelus as well.
"Your hair is wet too," Caelus says from under their shared towel.
This must be what having long hair feels like, March decides: being able to wrap it around someone else's head. Caelus looks to her, fringe flattened. She can't quite see his eyes, and his face is damp, so really all she gets is the wet gleam of his cheek.
"His hair is wet too," he says.
"All your hair will fall out if it stays wet for too long," she agrees.
Dan Heng, well-versed in dodging their attempts to gang up on him, says simply, "I'll use it after. Try and dry up before that happens."
March hops off the bench and takes up the towel. She's mindful of the water streaking down her neck, and resists the urge to shake like a dog - though Caelus doesn't, as the towel drags off his temple and leaves a violent cowlick - even Peppy has better manners! She kneads the towel into his hair until he squirms, then uses the other side to wipe at her own face.
The towel is the same plain grey that most of Dan Heng's belongings tend to be. The snow melts soft, dark spots into the cotton, and March thumbs at the hem - the stitch is uneven, bloated by water.
"I think using this will make you wetter," she warns.
Dan Heng accepts it from her, and without another word dusts his fingers over the cloth. The dampness wobbles, stolen by wind. Dan Heng never has to make an effort not to seem smug, but March likes to imagine that he is when he pulls little stunts like that.
"Like a blow-dryer," she says. "Dry my hair next!"
Dan Heng does without complaint, carefully threading through. Caelus stands close to peer at his hands, and Dan Heng lifts a finger to send a breeze into his face. Caelus sneezes and March complains, "Not into my hair!"
"Dry sneeze," Caelus assures her, then sneezes again. Dan Heng cards his fingers through March's hair to check the moisture and seemingly satisfied, tells Caelus to turn his head for his turn.
March thinks to ask, "Did we need the towel at all?" but she doesn't have the time to, because Caelus takes the opportunity act on his earlier grievance: the fact that Dan Heng's hair is still wet. The towel doesn't show up for a while after that. March sees it next a few days later, when Dan Heng offers it up again.
+
It occurred to her one night. She was under her blanket, blinking against the cotton. Her lashes dragged. Her nose felt heavy on her face.
Himeko and Mr. Yang had touched stars she had to strain her eyes to see. Her breath fogged on glass; the window a milky filter, shielding an unconquerable distance.
And she'd wanted to go back, sometimes. Selfishly, privately. She'd thought to ask, wanted to ask, could we one day fly to the ones you've already seen, would you be okay with that. Would you do that for me? and then she'd stopped thinking, bubbled over, and asked, but the clench of her chest hadn't yet collapsed.
Himeko told her, warmly, "Our destination doesn't need to be the end," and that meant something, surely, but March had only her secondhand understanding of destination. It meant one step at a time, meant a devotion to moving forward, meant walking until there were no steps left to take.
Where, then, when: was her chance to look back?
She turned it over in her head, under her blanket. Once, twice, the feeling that had seized her. Her gratitude, if that was what it was - and then convinced herself that it was so, because that was the easiest weight to shoulder, already a burden she carried close.
Himeko spoke of an end, and March had tasted ice. Mr. Yang had pulled her from the ice. Himeko had thawed her.
Unforgivable, it was, for the cold in her to mean anything else.
+
They're different people when it comes to drawing blood.
Methodical, beautiful, quiet Dan Heng - spear in the curl of his palm, he's nothing short of a storybook beast.
March - she wants to taste her pulse out there. Wants to tout herself as a warrior and mean it. Himeko is indulgent, but March hadn't wanted her proclamation of combative worth to be indulged.
More than combative worth, it's.
Mr. Yang never begrudges March her curiosity. What he's seen and known to be real, that's the payoff of the life he's lived. From star to star and from wilder places to the darker ones, people breathe for different stories. Anything - from the green of river water to the monsters that lurk beneath, roiling, unfathomable.
Had anyone known to sink beneath the skin of the water, had anyone below known how to surface - there are stories for that, too, for the possibilities. They're spoken like anecdotes, or maybe that's just how Mr. Yang speaks - maybe possibilities mean that to him. Maybe he's more forgiving with himself and what is and isn't: enough belongs to him that it wouldn't be shameful, for him to take more.
But March's own stories take on a different taste. The color of the clouds, dawn to dusk. The crunch of snow underfoot. The bruising on her fingers, the hot soreness of her drawing arm, the feather burns. Her bow.
These are hers, they must be. And Mr. Yang's monsters will only ever be storybook to her, creatures hidden away in the archives: Mr. Yang's life isn't hers, it's a you had to be there to understand, and March - she's been blinded, she's been an ice cube for who knows how long - she's never been there.
Where she is: she's here.
On the field: burning fingers, ice teething at her wrists. Dan Heng coils, a hard line at her side.
"One hit!" she celebrates, just to say it, and he glances at her. His arm is red up to the elbow. The body at his feet, downed with one strike, is whole. The blow gouged into it a bloodless slit.
"Focus," he reminds her, rather gently.
"I'm focused, I'm focused."
The white land is cotton-soft. Her step sinks. She's all ice and hot breath. She's on the field. She's standing, companion at her side. She's wondering if Dan Heng would feel wronged, knowing what she thinks of him. She's wondering if he would, knowing that she loves him for it. A storybook beast of her very own.
+
They found him in the space station. He was alone. He knew his name, but not much else; March smiled at him, or thought she did. She did. There was an empty space between them that she couldn't quite look at.
Dan Heng knew how to bridge it. Better yet, he didn't know it was there. He said, "Follow me," and that was easy, and behind them both and then between trailed Caelus, who took a look at their faces and made his own something, something enduring.
He didn't know how to be awkward - which was great! He didn't know how to be embarrassed. Did that need to be taught?
Or how to be angry, then, she realized, when she jibed at him and he responded in turn without a smile. He spoke automatically, like his words meant nothing to him, not really. They were words. He had a mouth. That was all, and that was enough.
And he wasn't particularly difficult to read, though certainly more difficult than Dan Heng. He just seemed to be there. He knew little in a different way than she.
March knew herself in and out because there was little to know and even less to search for. She was empty like she'd been scraped clean, like the sharp tap of a spoon on the brittle shell of an egg, the yellow yolk of it blatantly absent. There was something left behind - egg white! And it was a smooth surface that didn't know how to mean anything besides maybe froth, if you treated it violently, but it couldn't become much on its own, not by itself. March was empty like that, and didn't want to resent herself for it.
Caelus was empty like it was a momentary lapse of concentration - like one day he would wake up laughing, sling his arms around their shoulders, and not remember how to be empty at all.
+
She's told that the bandages on her knees will have to replaced daily.
"Maybe if you wear pants," says Caelus, "you won't scrape your knees."
"I like this skirt," March protests. "And this would've happened either way. One layer of fabric isn't going to stop me from what, tumbling down the stairs?"
"I only have one pair," Caelus continues, not listening. "I can't lend you any or I'll be naked. Dan Heng, how many pants do you have?"
"Three pairs," Dan Heng reports.
"On hand?"
"I'm sorry...no."
"No pants," Caelus concludes. He frowns. "But we know how to gather the currency here - I could," he tastes the word, "Haggle. How do you feel about Sampo's pants?"
"Are you stupid? I'm not going to rob that guy. I'm fine with my own clothes." She says, faintly, "Really."
The bandages bleed through before the day runs out. Dan Heng takes off his jacket - for a moment, she doesn't understand.
"Come on," she says, with the barest turn of her mouth. "You're kidding. You're no gentleman! That's so extreme!"
"It will wash out," he replies. Quietly. Earnestly. March doesn't like that reply but she says no. She doesn't take it - she takes the rag Caelus snags from a vendor.
There's no use in hounding herself over her mistakes. A trip down the stairs splits cuts into her knees. They're stupidly deep. Dan Heng's face while he's talking about stains makes her chest stupidly tight. It's a feeling she can't unearth because she can't touch it. The press of its presence makes her eyes sting. It's stupid.
+
Regarding photos - "It's like, okay, I have a picture of it. Then it's mine now, right?"
Caelus shifted closer. "Really?"
The ones she had on her lap were laminated. Glossy. The tables in the main cabin, the safety valve, the stem of a potted plant. Pom-Pom covered in blue frills, Mr. Yang smiling by the window, Himeko in the early morning with her hair mussed against her forehead, ambushed right as she left her room.
She'd been surprised when Himko laughed and demanded she take another - demanded for a better one, after she'd brushed her hair and had her coffee. March trailed after her as she got herself ready, then took the picture as told, and never did mention that she kept both.
"I'll take one of you right now," March said, setting her collection aside. "What do you think I should call it? I'll give it a great title, even if it's a boring picture."
She was waiting for an affirmative, a nod, but Caelus had no response.
"Okay?" she tried to confirm.
Caelus glanced at her photos. His face screwed up, and it looked a bit like a clumsy accident.
"You said," he started, brows drawn, and that's how it hit her - as a sneaking suspicion that she had misheard his initial really? as wonder.
"You said," he continued.
"No, it's alright if you don't want me to - "
"I'm not yours," Caelus said.
Those words bared him and March felt she needed to look away. But she didn't. What was that expression? What was that face he was making? He was still unreadable.
It's not like that, she thought of saying, but she didn't know what 'like that' was so she couldn't. Caelus looked at her photos again, then at her. He smiled, like that was enough to fill the silence. Like he maybe wanted a silence but wouldn't mind if there wasn't one.
"I take pictures of everything," March said. She was defending herself and wasn't sure why she needed to do that. "The sky out the windows. Every new star I'm quick enough to catch. Himeko's coffee, if Pom-Pom manages to pour a cute pattern into it. I have an album of - everything I like best - when I say mine, I just mean something I can keep close to my heart - you know?"
"I think so," he replied, but the way he said it meant he didn't.
"It's not like a picture's going to trap you inside the screen. Inside the photo."
She dragged her thumb over the gloss.
"I know that," he said.
"It's fine," she said, just as he said, lightly, "No one owns me," and she startled up to look at him and didn't know if her stare was strange. It might've been, but he was staring back and his gaze didn't so much as flicker. She succumbed to a swallow that ended a little like a hiccup jumping in her throat.
March pressed her photos into the side of her thigh and said, "That's okay. I get that," and hoped the way she said it meant she really did.