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As a rule, the Mechanisms were generally not a group to settle down and take in the sights. It probably was an effect of the immortality, all things considered, what with the hundreds of thousands of years they all had under their belts and the sheer scope of shit they'd all seen. There was just so much to do throughout all the universes they'd travelled through that it really didn't bear thinking about to bother slowing down. And besides, boredom had a way of setting in quickly for them, with enough experience and adventure even the most comfortable mundane started to lose its lustre. Well, that was Marius’ take at least—he’d been shot several times before he could finish his full psychoanalyzation of the crew. Sometimes however, there were exceptions to this rule.
The planet they were on now, well, it was certainly an exception and a half. They'd been here for about a half millennium all told, a span of time that was coming up on breaking some records for them if Ivy's data was correct, which of course it was. The planet itself wasn't hugely special though. Just another rock floating around in the ether in the grand scheme of things really. But, it was a nice planet. Not too cold, nor too hot and it sported a perfectly breathable atmosphere for a start. It even had a rather captivating war that had been raging for the first 100 years, but more than that it was… quiet; peaceful even after the war was over. To say it was an unusual stop for them would be the understatement of the millennia. Even space pirates need breaks though, and for this one time? Exceptions could be made.
- -
Nastya let out a sigh of relief as she finally, fucking finally stepped back onto the Auora after a day that had quite frankly felt like a week. Which, of course, was courtesy of Jonny fucking de’Ville. She hung her coat up and made a mental note to never let that dumbass first mate try to take them bowling ever again. A request that really, really shouldn't be as much of an ask as it was.
“Love, is that you?” She was greeted by one of Aura’s vines as she stepped further into the ship.
“Mhm, it's me. Doubt the others will be back for some time though, they weren't quite done causing chaos I don't think.” Nastya chuckled to herself at the memory of the others’ scheming before she’d made her leave to turn in. “No, I reckon they'll be out for sometime. God, that poor town they decided to stop at.”
“Well then you'll have to catch me up with their antics when they get back, I suppose.” Even though Aura had no mouth to speak of—or any facial features for that matter—Nastya could hear the smile in her voice.
“You know I will,” She murmured in response, letting her fingertips graze a new bloom that had sprouted in the walkway since she’d been gone. Hmm… dahlias. In all her time the engineer hadn't seen this type of flower on Aurora before. Hell, she probably wouldn't have even recognized them if it weren't for Tims old Earth botany books he insisted on keeping around.
Odd.
“Nastya dear, are you still with me?” Nastya was brought out of her ponderings by Aurora's coaxing voice and a light tap on her shoulder from another one of her vines.
“Oh yeah, sorry about that. …just got lost in thought is all.” Nastya decided she didn't need to worry Aura anymore than necessary, the rest of the crew already got on her nerves enough as it was.
She continued down the sparsely vegetated hallways, meandering in towards her love’s Heart where she could finally fully relax. As she neared it the familiar plant life grew steadily more lush and full with the closeness to its source. There were sweet smelling flowers at every turn now and the already soft moss underfoot was now thick and verdant like a natural carpet. It wasn't often the engineer walked through these main thoroughfares of Aurora though, they were typically bustling with life and chaos, just as everything the Mechanisms did. Precisely why she opted for the vents—Aurora’s very arteries—most of the time. Much quieter.
This time though, walking down the final stretch of hallway felt like being welcomed back home and Nastya let each vine and leaf greet her as she allowed herself to take a deep breath of the fresh earthy air that permeated all of Aurora's inner sanctum. Hm. Another breath in. No, something was off in the air this time, she could taste it… feel it even. She took another inhale, trying to parse whatever was so apparently different.
Decay; her brain helpfully supplied after a moment. Yes that was it, there was an undertone of decay all throughout the oddly chilly air. It wasn't unpleasant necessarily, it was rich and faintly sweet, subtle too though, like the tone the air planet side sometimes took as it became colder. She sighed. Another oddity, another thing she really should speak with Aurora about. However it was also another thing that could wait just a little bit until after she’d got some much needed rest.
The second Nastya stepped through a curtain of leaves and into the engine room proper she began to very quickly reconsider her timeline of speaking to Aurora. This time, the sight in front of her was beyond odd and the urgency of “in a little bit” very quickly turned into “What the fuck? Yeah no we need to talk now”.
- -
For the past few weeks Aurora had been feeling… strange. However, she often felt strange. Hell, there were plenty of possibilities, maybe her lovely Nastya had changed something in her code, maybe Jonny’s every half millenia argument with the spider queen had been a bit more intense than usual, maybe one of her crew had brought on board some new fertiliser or maybe, maybe it was just an off day. But no, Aurora knew when it was something mundane like that and this time it certainly was far from anything that could be described as mundane. More than that though it was familiar.
Years and years ago, when Aurora had been nothing but a newborn moon she had been a lush and vibrant one. Her surface had been covered as far as the eye could see with flourishing jungles and newly budding wildlife, every inch of her soaking up the rays of the nearest sun hungrily. What's more—as many planets are wont to do—she’d had seasons. And just like the rest of her they were beautiful in their different multitudes. Her summers were blazing hot and full of clear vast skies, then autumn came and grounded her back with crisp air and gentle decay, only leaving to make way for winter's stillness and blanketing silence. Finally when spring came she would grow anew and ready herself for the cycle to continue. It was a beautiful thing.
A beautiful thing that unfortunately, could not last. When she became most of the starship she was today her wonderful, constantly changing seasons stopped, frozen somewhere between a perpetual summer and late spring. No regular closeness to a sun with a cycle similar to hers and the complete overhaul she’d undergone at the hands of the Doctor had left her completely, painfully static. She no longer could balance herself with the different highlights of each interval that had kept her grounded a moon, even when her mother had been exploded and replaced with the still strangely kind Doctor.
The Doctor, Carmilla she called herself, had been the biggest, and well, only help, as she adjusted to her new stagnant state. Aurora hadn’t been able to quite communicate yet but the Doctor had sat with her, next to her heart as Nastya did now and let her feel while she talked meaninglessly through whatever newest project had captured her interest. Aurora probably learned more about biomechanical augmentations, vampires, and stellar botany in those few restless weeks than she did for the next century and a half. Carmilla did make her own attempt to restore her seasons in time but even her genius and somewhat scary determination to build a mini sun wasn't quite enough.
All the same the Doctor sat with her through the thick and thin of those first years, providing a solid and unwavering comfort in whatever ways she knew how when Aurora most needed it. And when she grew tired of talking Carmilla would sing to the once-moon. She sang of her life before Aurora, before her home planet became uninhabitable and before she had turned Aura’s life upside down. And her singing bled into the starship like the water she nourished Aurora’s gardens with and so she took that song with her, into her. She still sang some of those old lullabies to Nastya all those years later.
There were hard times with the Doctor too, of course there were, it took more than Aurora suspected Carmilla was ready for to functionally parent a child (spaceship? moon?). Sometimes she just wanted to yell at that stupid fucking Doctor for orphaning her and just making her carry on like it was nothing, or for taking her precious, beautiful seasons. Sometimes she let Cam isolate herself away in that little lab of hers for as long as she could stand, until she could barely perceive her infuriating presence. But, it never lasted. They needed each other and so they cared for each other however they could, however they could bear.
All that to very long windedly say, Aurora knew where these feelings were coming from. She recognized the pull of the sun and the dimming quiet that signalled a change. She knew when her seasons were returning.
- -
The sight in front of Nastya could almost be considered picturesque if it wasn't so impressively strange. Aurora’s typically lush and green interior, full to bursting with exotic plants, flowers, and more of that lovely moss were instead replaced with the muted browns and reds of fall. Her canopy far up above that was usually dense with leaf growth was now on its way to being left bare, the leaves instead slowly migrating to the floor to fall in thick drifts of orange and umber. It was, in all meanings of the word, a (mostly) perfect depiction of Autumn. Space autumn that is- okay so maybe not quite that perfect.
Nastya had to admit though, it was beautiful.
“Wow. So um, this is new,” she said, still a little shell shocked.
A quiet chuckle from Aurora rumbled through the ship, “Hah, yes it is. New indeed.” A small pause. “I suppose you'd like to know why?”
“Well of course, if you're fine with telling that is.”
“I am, but it is a rather long story. How about we get comfortable, love?”
Nastya looked around for a moment, surveying the nearby area for a comfortable spot within this new landscape. Ah, perfect. With a poof of leaves she let herself fall back into one of the now numerous leaf piles, humming contentedly. “Mmm, there we go. So, storytime?”
“Yes, so long as you promise not to fall asleep there, don't want me getting too good at bedtime stories,” Aura teased. “But yes. I do believe we are ready for my story.”
And so, Aurora told Nastya just about everything. She told her love of her past seasons, the way each of them completed her and kept her tethered, all in vibrant detail. She told her too of how they were striped away when she took her current form and the painful void that it left. Aurora skimmed past some of the more tender parts though, she would try to keep it as light as reasonable, she decided. The somewhat messy parts of her dealings with Doc Carmilla were also glossed over, though not fully omitted. In the end it was still long and rambling but wholly, entirely her story.
“I… I suppose that's about it.” There was still a bit of tension in her voice but it was overwhelmed by happiness that something she had longed for for so long had finally returned. Aurora let out a sigh, pausing a moment to allow everything to sink in.
“And you still don’t know why your seasons have come back now?” Nastya piped up after a moment.
“Well, about that. I may have had a hunch we’ll call it that this planet’s sun may have had some similar properties to my own. And truth be told I was curious. Evidently, my curiosity paid off.”
“So, that mishap in the navigation that brought us here in the first place…” Nastya trailed off, letting Aurora fill in the blank.
“Not so much of a mishap. You are correct in that regard, as you often are.”
“Hah, so you did have ulterior motives for taking us here, I doubt Jonny will be much pleased with that.” Nastya grinned despite herself, anything to playfully piss off Jonny was a plus in her book. “But hey, we really haven't been having a bad time here at all either so I suppose, we all win here.”
“Yes, that was the intent though I have to admit, I haven't seen the rest of the crew so laid back in centuries.” Again Nastya could hear the smile in her voice, the rest of the crew’s usual antics clearly grated on her sometimes as much as they did Nastya so a slight reprieve from all that was very much welcome.
A comfortable silence settled over them as Nastya finally let herself fully relax into the bed of soft leaves she’d been sitting on. She let her head lie back against the leaves and took a moment to fully appreciate the tiny details that each of her loves leaves contained. There was quite the variety of colours to start, from muted browns tinged with green all the way to vibrant reds and oranges that reminded her of the bonfires that Ashes was so fond of setting. Within each leaf as well were neat black veins that snaked up the delicate flesh of the leaf. Not unlike her own veins Nastya thought, though a hell of a lot lighter to be sure. The leaves also had a distinctive smell to them, a sort of vaguely sweet earthy musk with a subtle sharp undertone, an oddly comforting combination she had to admit. All together it painted a very pretty picture indeed.
For the next minutes or maybe hours Nastya just let herself lie there, letting time go all soupy while she stared up into the canopy above her and feeling each of Aurora’s slow deep breaths reverberate through her. She let her thoughts wander as well, chewing over everything she’d learned in the past few hours and letting her now soothed mind mull it over with all the care she hadn't had time for before. Everything was fitting together very well in her little puzzle of Aura’s history until she suddenly had a thought that had been nothing more than passing in the intrigue and elation of the moment.
“Hey, Ro?”
Aurora rumbled back in response, “Yes, my love?”
“What are you going to do when we have to leave here? I know it’s nice but we aren't going to be here forever and I don't want what's clearly making you so happy to be taken away so soon.”
“When the time comes, we’ll go,” she said simply.
“But-” Nastya began and was quickly but gently cut off.
“I know, I know you're worried but you have to understand that I've been living and getting by without my seasons for longer than I've known even you. When we inevitably have to leave, we’ll do just that and I, dearheart, will be okay.”
Nastya let out a small sigh. “I suppose that's reasonable, as you always are. I just- I just worry sometimes, you know that.”
“That I do, love, that I do. But I'll have you, and the rest of the crew too and as much as Carmilla did for me, I have complete faith that we’ll make it through this just fine.”
Another sight from the engineer. “No, you're right. We will be fine, good even if everything permits,” Nastya gave a slight chuckle, “but for now, as you said, we’ll make the most of it. I know I for one can't wait to see all of your seasons, we never did have much in the way of those back in Cyberia.” Nastya rolled over, moving her face from where she’d been half speaking into the leaves beneath her and moved to stare up at the canopy above her. She was again caught off guard by the beauty that stupid things like physics and science had deprived her of for so long. Because she had meant what she said before, she was truly ecstatic for Aurora, and she, more than anyone, couldn't wait to see what all of her love’s seasons would offer.
Nastya rolled over once more to get comfortable, letting her breathing slow and eyes finally drift closed after a day that felt like it was coming up on a month now. “Good night Aurora, I love you.” She murmured down into the leaves.
“Good night Nastya, I love you too.”
The lights that were meant to mimic the sun dimmed and Nastya snuggled herself deeper into her new favourite spot in Aura’s heart. She breathed in the now familiar smell of Autumn once more and sighed. How wonderful that even after so many immortal years there were still more things to love about each other.