Chapter Text
She hates seeing Miorine like this, her face twisted in pain, tears streaming down from her eyes. She’s suffered enough in her life, Suletta thinks. She doesn’t need to hurt anymore. And right now she feels so useless, with the only thing she can do to alleviate her wife’s pain being to just keep holding tightly onto her hand.
But...they wanted this, right? They talked about it, long and in-depth, over the course of many, many nights. They knew the risks. And they had decided it would be worth it.
She did want this, Suletta reminds herself. She does want this. But at the same time, the fact that she’s about to have a child, that she’s going to be a mother...
It scares her. Somewhere deep inside, it scares her.
The local doctor, a tough, blunt woman whose lined face and weathered hands indicate her countless years of experience, is assisting with the birth. One of her sons, a meek and soft spoken man around Suletta’s age, hangs back behind her, ready to assist as needed. They know these people, Suletta especially, since the doctor’s grandson is one of her pupils. She knows Miorine is in the best possible hands she could be in right now. But every pained noise, every squeeze of her hand, makes worry prickle in the back of her head.
What if the baby is stillborn? What if Miorine dies? What if the baby is stillborn, and Miorine dies? What if she’s spent the past few years having finally learned what it truly means to move forward, only to be left with nothing?
“I can see the head,” the doctor’s voice startles her out of her train of thought, “just a little more. Keep pushing.”
Miorine bites down on the rolled towel in her mouth and groans, fresh beads of sweat forming on her already damp brow. She’s always been strong and stubborn, and she’d insisted she could handle this. But right now she was...
“What are you doing, just standing there with that look on your face?” Suletta almost jumps as she realizes the doctor is addressing her, her dark eyes boring into her own. “That’s your wife giving birth to your child. Give her some encouragement, for heaven’s sake.”
“Oh...um,” Suletta needs a moment to gather her thoughts, especially when she hears the son laughing softly. “Y-you heard Doctor Panza! You’re almost there! I-I believe in you, Mio!”
The son laughs again, and Suletta almost feels embarrassed, but it’s quickly counteracted by a gentle squeeze of her hand. Miorine turns her head to look at her.
I know, she’s saying, I know you believe in me.
A few minutes later, the baby is out. The baby, their child, is born.
“It’s a girl,” the doctor says with the same cadence someone might use to talk about the weather before cutting the cord.
“Congratulations,” the son says, seemingly hoping to compensate for what his mother lacks in bedside manner. “Do you know what you’re going to name her?”
Miorine is breathing heavily, barely able to get out a single word between gasps of air as their daughter is gently handed to her. Suletta will wait for her to speak, though. She was the one who picked out the name, after all.
“Carina,” she finally says after a few moments.
As the doctor gets to work with the post-birth examination and cleanup, Suletta finds she can only stare at the child in Miorine’s arms. Her skin is a shade lighter than her own, a shade darker than Miorine’s. She already has hair, thick and wild and a familiar scarlet color. Just above her tiny closed eyes are two large patches of thin red fuzz.
That’s her daughter. Carina Mercury is unmistakably her daughter.
Sometime later Suletta is seeing the doctor and her son off. They don’t have much in terms of currency to pay for services rendered, but the tomato harvest has been good these past few weeks. Some fresh produce is good enough.
“Motherhood’s not something you can take lightly,” the doctor says as she accepts the basket of tomatoes. “Do it wrong, and even if your kid survives they’ll end up a whole mess of a person.”
“I know,” Suletta says. She really, really knows.
“But I have faith in you,” she says, the corners of her mouth wrinkling as they turn ever so slightly upward. “You’re good with all the kids. You’re good with Simon. You’ll know what to do.”
Suletta nods solemnly. “Thank you for all your help...and for your confidence. I hope you’re right.”
The doctor just nods before departing.
Suletta steps back inside the house to find Miorine exactly where she’d been all day, lying in bed while propped up on a stack of pillows. She’s still cradling Carina in her arms.
“Suletta,” she turns to look at her, her expression so soft and warm that Suletta’s heart instantly melts, “do you want to hold her?”
“Huh? Um...”
Miorine laughs gently. “She’s your daughter, too. It’s only fair.”
“...Okay.”
Miorine carefully transfers the baby over, and the reality of the situation makes Suletta’s heart race.
That’s a human life she’s holding right now. A human life that she’d helped to create. Not out of any kind of ambition, not because she needed a tool to use, but as an act of love.
Carina can’t be more than seven pounds. But the weight in Suletta’s arms is immeasurable.
It’s been more than three years since her mother’s death, and ever since Suletta has been slowly going over her childhood in her head, over and over.
She’s not sure why she’s doing it. Maybe she’s looking for happy memories of her past to reassure herself that it wasn’t all bad. She does have them. Mostly involving Aerial. She can’t dwell on them for too long, though, or else her chest starts to hurt.
But she’s come to realize that just how much the first seventeen years of her life were such an endless expanse of...nothing. There were days, weeks, when she wouldn’t even see or speak to another human being. And whenever she did, they would at best ignore her, and at worst verbally abuse her, curse her, for reasons that at the time she couldn’t understand.
Her mother was the only living human who ever paid her any mind, gave her any kind of attention that wasn’t fueled by contempt. She’d thought it was love when she was a child. But she wouldn’t learn what love truly was until after she’d left Mercury for good, didn’t know that love wasn’t supposed to be so cold, distant, and carefully measured.
She’s talked about this with Miorine many times before. And this certainly won’t be the last time.
“You didn’t know what you know now,” Miorine says, reaching across the dining room table to stroke her thumb over Suletta’s hand. The gesture does reassure her, as does the silver band on her ring finger. Yes, things are better now.
“I know,” Suletta says, turning her palm upward so that Miorine’s fingers can intertwine with her own. “I’m just wondering if there was some way I could have known.”
“Like I said, it doesn’t matter.” Miorine gently squeezes her hand, and Suletta squeezes back. “If you could have, then she wouldn’t have...” She trails off, realizing she’s approaching a difficult subject.
Neither of them like to talk about that period of time between the initial attack on Plant Quetta and the Quiet Zero incident, those tumultuous few months where forces beyond either of their control drove them apart and threatened to destroy them both. But they both know that they can’t avoid it altogether.
“Look, i-it wasn’t your fault. None of it was. It was hers.” Miorine’s face grows somber, her gaze falls to the mug of tea in front of her. “And...and mine.”
“Hey, no,” Suletta says, leaning forward and squeezing Miorine’s hand tighter, “don’t talk like that. She used you, too.” Even after Suletta had reached out to save her, even after they had married and escaped to Earth together, even after carrying and birthing Suletta’s child, Miorine still held lingering guilt over her betrayal and involvement in the ensuing crisis. Forgiving her had been easy compared to convincing her to let herself be forgiven.
Miorine sighs, recognizing this as an argument they’d had a few times before and that she’d never come close to winning. Suletta simply loves her too much to let her blame herself.
“But...she’s gone now,” Miorine says, trying to pivot to something more hopeful. “And we have Carina now. We can just focus on her.”
“Right,” Suletta says, allowing for her mind, just for the time being, to be pulled away from the past.
“She really is your daughter,” Miorine says as Carina kneads almost aggressively at her breast, suckling at her nipple with as much force and determination as a three-month-old could possibly muster.
Suletta tilts her head. “What do you mean?”
Miorine laughs, a gentle sound that Suletta can still never hear enough times. “You still eat tomatoes like you’ve never seen them before. At least you can clean up your own face.”
“Oh. Heheh...” Suletta scratches the back of her neck sheepishly before continuing to watch Miorine breastfeed Carina, finding herself utterly transfixed. She’d learned most of what she knows about human anatomy and reproduction during the time she’d spent at Asticassia, partially from the other girls in Earth House, and partially because something would prompt her to search things like “how do 2 girls have sex” or “can boys get pregnant.” The rest she’d learned after settling down with Miorine.
The concept of breastfeeding is still somewhat new to her. When Miorine had started lactating about halfway through her pregnancy Suletta had panicked, fearing her wife had come down with some strange disease that made white liquid drip from her nipples, and Miorine had needed to explain that no, this was perfectly normal.
“Suletta,” Miorine had said, exasperated, “what did you think boobs were for?”
“I...uh...I never thought about it.”
Miorine had then sat her down for a very long and informative talk.
The talk would resurface in her head, sometimes. Especially the parts about how it’s normal and expected for mothers to breastfeed their children. It makes her reflect on her own infancy, not that she can remember it. She does know that much of it was spent in a lab, though. She wonders if there were doctors or technicians who came in to breastfeed her and possibly the other babies there, but figures that’s probably unlikely. She knows, in her heart, that she was fed and cradled by some kind of machine.
But Miorine had a mother, one who held and fed and loved her well after she could walk and eat on her own. Notrette had still died when Miorine was far too young, but she’d been alive long enough to carry her through those precarious early stages of life. It made her wonder about things, sometimes.
“Were you...breastfed...?” Suletta says, before clamping a hand over her mouth upon realizing that she’s thinking aloud.
“Huh?” Miorine is understandably caught off-guard by the question. “W-well, yes, I was, but...why are you asking?”
“Um...I...” Suletta wrings her hands, trying to formulate a response in this discussion she did not mean to start, “I was...I dunno...I was thinking about how I...probably wasn’t.”
“I see.” They both go quiet, the sudden heaviness of the conversation making neither of them want to continue it. The one who finally breaks the silence is Carina, who finally releases Miorine’s nipple and lets out a soft yawn.
“Tired already?” Miorine says fondly as the lids of Carina’s lilac eyes start to droop. “Alright, let’s get you to bed.” She rises, holding Carina over her shoulder and rhythmically patting her back, and carries her to the bedroom, leaving Suletta alone to process her thoughts.
She knew the circumstances of her birth--her creation were unusual. Grown from a lock of hair and a few dried flakes of blood from a daughter her mother had loved before her, meant only to be an identical placeholder until the first daughter could be returned and she could be tossed aside. No love had gone into bringing her into being. At least, not love for her.
She’s prevented from spiraling further when she feels a weight next to her on the couch. Miorine sits down with a sigh.
“She didn’t get everything,” she says, toying with the hem of her shirt. “I think she just wore herself out with her initial enthusiasm.”
“At least she’s eating though, right?”
“Yeah.” Miorine sighs again, this time with a soft smile on her face. “Hey, Suletta,” she says, turning to look at her. Her smile has taken on a more teasing curl. “You’ve never had breast milk, have you?”
“No, I...” Suletta’s words die in her throat as Miorine throws off her shirt and climbs into her lap, her swollen breasts and puffy pink nipples right in front of her face.
“There’s still some left, if you want it,” Miorine says, grinning seductively down at her.
For a moment Suletta just stares, dumbly. Then slowly, tentatively, leans forward to take a nipple into her mouth.
Really, how could she possibly say no?
“You should really spend more time with Carina,” Miorine says to her one morning, “playing with her and holding her and stuff like that. If you don’t she’s going to start playing favorites, you know.” Her tone had been light, but Suletta didn’t miss the heaviness in some of her words.
But Miorine was right, as she often is. She’s been so deathly afraid that she might do something wrong, somehow hurt Carina in some terrible, unfixable way that she’d been avoiding touching her own daughter. A tight knot of guilt had formed in her stomach at Miorine’s words, and now she needs to loosen it.
So now she’s sitting on the chair on the porch, Carina wriggling happily in her lap. Her gaze flits between her and Miorine, who is dutifully tending to the garden. Carina is grabbing at everything she can get her tiny little hands on, from her own feet to the buttons on Suletta’s shirt. Carina is fascinated by hands lately, not just her own but her parents’ as well. Suletta will often watch her grab playfully at Miorine’s long, slender fingers, sometimes culminating in a mock game of tug-of-war. It’s always amusing to see when Miorine will let Carina win.
Suletta glances at her own palm, and the moment she raises it up another, much smaller hand, crawls over it. She’s always had large, rough hands, and she’s always been struck by how small Miorine’s hands seem when held in her own. But seeing the way Carina’s hand looks so small in her palm, how all of her tiny fingers can barely wrap around one of her own, it’s something else entirely.
It makes her remember another time she had stared at her own hand. It was fitted snugly inside the glove of a normal suit, which was in turn covered in the liquified remains of what had moments before been a human being.
Her pupils dilate. Her breathing grows shallow. Her heart races. She doesn’t want to think about this. She doesn’t want to remember the look of horror on Miorine’s face. She doesn’t want to think about how she’s a murderer.
She’s snapped out of her thoughts by the feeling of something soft and wet against her fingertip. She blinks a few times to find that Carina has grabbed one of her fingers and stuffed it into her mouth. She chews toothlessly at the tip, while her tiny hands tug curiously at the gold band around the middle.
Carina doesn’t know. She can’t know, her tiny mind can’t yet conceive of concepts like death or murder. She doesn’t know that the hand she’s playing with has been covered in blood.
That’s fine for now, Suletta thinks as she lets Carina toy with her finger a little more. But someday she’ll probably have to know. Someday, when she can walk and speak and act on her own, she might run up to her mothers and ask, ever so innocently, how they met and fell in love.
When that day comes, what will they tell her?
She doesn’t know how she got here, and she’s almost certain that she wasn’t here a second ago, but somehow, she’s back at the safehouse on Mercury.
It’s completely silent, save for the low hum of climate control machinery. It should be eerie, but somehow she feels comforted. She still has no idea what she’s doing here, though, so she opts to wander aimlessly.
She spends an immeasurable amount of time examining every room, every corner, every hidden nook and cranny. Save for the furniture being oddly tall and the mirror in the bathroom being replaced with a solid black screen, it’s exactly as she remembers it.
She’s probably checked everything ten times by now. She’s still not sure what she’s supposed to be doing. She’s in the main living area, pacing back and forth, growing slightly frustrated. Maybe she’s not supposed to be here, she thinks. If Aerial is in the hangar, then she can probably go talk to her. She’d probably know.
Just as she makes her decision to leave, she hears the door open behind her.
A familiar voice calls to her. “Suletta, I’m home.”
She turns, slowly, her heart pounding in her chest, and her mouth falls open.
In the entryway, arms open as if awaiting an embrace, lips curled into a slight smile, eyes still ever hidden behind her visor, stands Prospera Mercury. Her mother is home.
“Mom!” Suletta dashes forward and leaps into her mother’s arms, giggling as she catches her and pulls her into a hug. “Mom, you’re back!”
“Yes, I’m back,” she says as Suletta buries her face in her shoulder. “Did you miss me?”
“Mmhm,” Suletta says, her voice muffled by Prospera’s blazer, “I really missed you a lot.”
Prospera pulls her in closer. “I also missed you terribly.”
The hug grows tighter. It’s starting to get a little uncomfortable.
“Mom?” Suletta squirms a little. “Mom, can you let me go?”
Prospera chuckles darkly, before leaning her lips right next to Suletta’s ear.
“Why would I ever let you go?”
The hug is crushing, now, and Suletta struggles to breathe.
“Why, after all this time, would I simply let you go?” Her voice is cold and menacing, and it sends chills down Suletta’s spine.
Suletta now realizes that they’re no longer in the safehouse. They’re standing on the scaffolding above Quiet Zero’s reactor, and clouds of supercharged permet are swirling below them. Her skin ignites with glowing blue lesions, and she cries out as they burn her body and soul alike.
“You were made with a purpose,” Prospera hisses, and Suletta feels like her ribs are being crushed. The data storm rises higher and higher towards them, burning away at their feet. “Come, serve your purpose. Make your mother proud.”
Suletta’s face is pressed so tightly to Prospera’s chest. Her screams are fully silenced.
Her eyes shoot open. It’s dark. She panics, wondering if this is what comes after the end.
And then she adjusts. She’s staring up at a wooden ceiling. She’s alive, at home, on Earth.
She sits up slowly, letting her heart and breathing steady themselves. Prospera Mercury is long dead, but every so often her ghost will visit Suletta in her dreams.
She looks over at the spot on the bed next to her to see Miorine fast asleep, snoring peacefully. She reaches over to stroke her face.
A sound breaks out in the quiet room. Crying. Carina is crying.
Suletta throws off her blankets and climbs out of bed, tiptoeing over to the crib in the corner of the room. Carina lies within it, her arms and legs flailing and her little face twisted by her own cries. Suletta gently lifts her into her arms, shushing her to no avail. She sniffs at her bottom to check to see if her diaper just needed changing, but upon finding no strong odor concludes that something else must be the problem.
“What’s wrong?” She cradles Carina in her arms and sits down in a rocking chair. “Did you have a nightmare, too?”
What would Carina even have a nightmare about? Nobody had ever hurt her. The only scar she bears is the one in the center of her belly, the one every human has. She isn’t even a year old yet. Ah, but maybe that’s it. Maybe the world seems so big and scary when you’re so young and small.
Suletta can relate, to a degree. She remembers how scary it was to leave Mercury for Asticassia, to see the wider solar system for the first time. But Suletta had been a teenager on the cusp of adulthood at the time, someone who could speak and act and fight, as needed. Carina is so small, so helpless. She couldn’t fight for herself, let alone for others.
Carina continues to cry, even as Suletta rocks her and shushes her and whispers reassurances. “It’s okay, it’s fine,” she says softly. “I’m here. I’ll...” she swallows, letting the seriousness of her next words sink in for herself, “I’ll protect you. I’ll always keep you safe. I promise.” She says it like it’s a solemn vow, and even though she’s never believed in any kind of god she hopes for a moment there is one out there, just so they may strike her down should she ever break it.
Carina has calmed down a little, and now stares up at Suletta with those sharp lilac eyes. She babbles and reaches out with her hands. But she’s still not asleep. Suletta knows that if she sets her down she’ll just start crying again.
She doesn’t know any lullabies, unfortunately. But there was this one song from a show she’d watched as a little girl, its melody soft and soothing enough to pass as one. It’s worth a try.
I was always gazing at you
It’s like I'd left my loneliness behind
Carina stares up at her curiously as Suletta sings, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open.
The moon smiles at me tonight,
Please look this way,
Oh, fly me to the star
She babbles softly, like she’s trying to sing too, but soon goes quiet.
Unable to tell you how I feel,
I imagine all kinds of lives
I act them out to attract your attention
Please notice me
Oh, fly me to the star
Carina’s eyelids are closed. She’s still, save for her breathing. Suletta leans down and kisses her forehead.
“‘Fly Me to the Star?’ Really?”
Suletta almost drops the knife she’s using to cut up apples. “You were awake?”
Miorine chuckles. “I woke up as soon as she started crying. I’m just glad you took care of it quickly.”
“Well...I was...” Suletta resumes her task, knowing she can’t let breakfast be delayed by something as silly as her own embarrassment, “...I was already awake, so...”
“Mm.” Miorine hums, understanding what had gone unsaid. She takes a long, thoughtful sip of her tea.
“I think you’re doing well,” she says as she sets the mug down. “I can see how much you love her. I think she can tell, too.”
“Is that so?” Suletta says quietly as adds the apple slices to the simmering pot of oats. She startles slightly as Miorine embraces her from behind.
“You’re not her,” Miorine murmurs against her back, “you’re you. And I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t you.”
Suletta sighs and turns herself around in Miorine’s arms, returning the hug. She buries her face in her hair and just holds her for a while.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you for choosing me.”