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“Shamura,” called Narinder, “Let’s go to sleep. You have a lot to adjust to but you will find it easier if you rest.”
Shamura, though no longer wise, knew this much: every gentle word Narinder spoke to them was a labored lie. He seemed to mean well, at least. The moment that the Lamb had liberated Shamura from Purgatory, he had been as careful as their other siblings to attend to their every need, to stay at their side when a migraine seized them, to remind them what they had already said the day before.
Therein lay the problem.
He wasn’t as ready to forgive as they had been to apologize. Whenever they tried to grasp the frayed ends of what they had left, they would see Narinder and the extinguished light behind his eyes, feel the scars around his wrists, hear the way their hearts beat out of sync. It almost made them angry, how their family tended to them as if they were fragile even now. How they all silently mourned the Shamura they had known, even after their return.
Shamura wondered how much of what they saw in the present Narinder was a flashback, and how much was delusion. They hoped, for everyone’s sake, that these would pass.
So they kept walking. Sleep would grant them no mercy tonight. They wandered until they came upon the outdoor kitchen and perused some cabinets until they found half of a cookie to snack on. Cookie in hand, they sat upon a moss-coated rock and nibbled at it, watching the crescent moon sink in the sky.
Footsteps sounded behind them a few minutes later. Narinder’s hand reached out to pinch a corner of Shamura’s cookie.
“If you want to have some, you could simply ask.”
“I was making sure it’s fresh.” Narinder shifted behind them, but didn’t sit down. “...It is, by the way.”
Shamura hummed, holding their pain. They didn’t remember if they had brought up their concerns with him already. A part of them was ashamed to wonder, another was beyond caring about it. “I am here,” they said, as if that would explain the complexity of their frustration through the dense brain fog.
“I am here, too,” Narinder responded in a tone so neutral that they knew he didn’t understand.
“You all treat me as if I’m haunting you.” Thousands upon thousands of years ago, he had taken their hand amidst a vast sea of darkness, and a light shone then. They wanted to see it return. “You’ve already been too far from me for too long, and I still feel you pushing me away. I am still here. I am not a fraction of myself.”
“Shamura, please. You need rest.”
“And you need to listen." If only it was so easy to close their eyes, dream, wake up, and forget. Shamura couldn’t bear to watch him slip away in front of them again, all their wounds endlessly repeating. They turned to face him and reached for his hand. “Narinder, I never stopped loving you as my own family. Please don’t forget that, because I may and I wanted to make sure you knew.”
The day they had abandoned each other echoed through the night, palpable, suffocating.
“Shamura…”
“When you’re ready, I’ll be awaiting you.” Their words could mean too many things. Shamura meant all of them, all at once. “In case I forget, I love all of you, always.”