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The dirt on Tarseus II refused to change.
While its predecessors shifted with the winds and tides; sweeping a flushed red across the chasms of the Aultaian planetary system, Tarseus two held fast. Carol held onto that tiny fragment of truth; the idea that one thing- out of the entirety of the Universe- could stay consistent.
The two individuals that stood suspiciously behind her, however, were anything but.
Carol rose to her feet.
“Not going to work this time,” she reminded, brushing the dust off her hands. “I refuse to fall for the ‘get help’ trick again.”
“We'll have to work on our execution.” Love's voice was deep and lively. As she twirled her braid between her fingers, she called out from behind Phyla-Vell's shoulders, “Hear that, Monica? Carol thinks we're boring.”
“You are boring!”
“Ooof.” Phyla laughed. “Ouch,” she said. “Solid burn. I'm sure one of these years you'll find someone who thinks you're hilarious.”
“Ci-Ci thinks I'm funny.”
Phyla swatted Love in the arm; lightly, but not too benign. “Duh. Sersi thinks everything is funny. You’re not as special as you think you are.”
“You guys done blabbing, yet? We've got a job to do.”
“Didn't realize we were on Rambeau time!” Love hollered back, and Monica wiped her brow with her forearm. Her suit was spotless, per usual. A feat of nature considering the winds in this sector blew from both the North and the South in quick succession, a product of global instability.
But Tarseus still stood.
To Carol, still standing was enough.
“What's the plan, LT?” she asked.
Monica shrugged and smiled. She pointed below the chasm to the wisps of blue and grays flickering ever so slightly. “Get those tiny little tourmaline crystals without disturbing the ground, charge the boosters, and go from there. Shoot-” She glanced at her watch. “Thirty-one hundred already?"
Her foot practically stomped the ground.
"I swear time moves differently every time we're here.”
Love agreed. “If a year goes by and I miss the Halarian festival for the third time in a decade, I will be filing a formal complaint with the committee.”
“Oh, no...” Phyla's voice rose to falsified mournfulness: a skill she was quite adept in, in part due to her personality and in part thanks to Asgard Prime. “What a travesty that would be.”
“I'll leave you here to rot… pick you up sometime next Century."
"We don't even have a formal committee, you know."
“Those are some fighting words…”
“I'm always up for a fight-”
“I always thought I'd go out in a fight.”
"Or a blaze of glory-"
“I'm not one for losing…”
“I can't do this without you.”
“Tell them I'll see them soon?”
"Set the date in stone."
Violet.
“Monica's not allowed to date till she's at least 5,000... 'n make sure Love eats at least once a month. Something healthy…”
"Healthy?"
"Yeah, Marv... healthy..."
Something healthy.
Love had a craving for beautiful things; skia roots and fungus... She hates fungus. Everyone hates fungus. Everyone hated fungus and fungus was healthy, so Carol had failed on both accounts, then. Both times?
Both... two times.
What did I fail?
What did she fail?
Failing... fail- fall... no, she fell.
Right...
She sunk into the ocean and there was something poignant as she was drowning- purple eyes... a pale blue sky. Praying for blue blood to turn red once again; to rest with the others as she was meant to. Because she was meant to.
I was always meant to.
Then something filtered through the desolate streets, like a laugh. Carol could remember it slightly, if she tried. It pierced the darkness and was a sign from Rio, even in those times; something she promised to deliver.
Everything was a sign: a promise.
Brunnhilde. Thor. Maria… Fury. The wind used to blow softer, back then. And there were giggles. Kamala's was different from Kate's, though. Faces long since forgotten and voices forever lost to time. They were home...
They are home.
Finally, home.
“... she okay?” a voice asked, but it was too far away to answer.
“Yeah. It's the memory overload thing again... Carol?”
“Carol?”
“hmm?”
“It's okay if you forget.”
“I don't want to…”
“I know.”
“… Carol?”
“Mom.”
“… Mom?"
"Mom, you okay?”
A heaviness on her knuckles. Her hand- steady. calm- the purple fading and as the motion shifted back and forth, the difference in texture shoved the confusion away. The laughter was gone; evaporated into the stillness of a dimming, fading star.
Carol patted Monica's arm.
“I'm good,” she whispered, but her throat was dry. “Just a little spaced out. Head in the clouds, you know?”
“Higher, further, faster?” Monica asked, still skin on skin. Her presence was grounding; an anchor drawing Carol back, which allowed her to respond, after an elongated pause,
“Yeah. Something like that.”
Love brashly interrupted. “I'm absolutely digging this trip down memory lane. But if I miss out on Bruce's filigreja, I'm going to start a riot.”
Her voice was sandpaper in Carol's ear.
Phyla's, too.
“Good gods, I cannot have a repeat of Hala.”
Monica snapped her fingers and raised her voice to match. “Phy, you're in charge of carrying the ore. Love's in charge of collecting said ore- Gently! Mind you-"
Thin hands were quickly raised in a mock salute. "Yeah, yeah," Love obeyed. "I'm always gentle. It's in the name-"
"- and Carol?”
“Hmm?”
"hmm?"
“You're on foliage duty.”
"Right." She turned away. Then turned back. "Uh. What is it called again?”
Monica shrugged. “No idea. Bruce gave me some notes, but that man's handwriting is atrocious." She fished around in her uniform pocket for a slip of parchment. "Calla-lian? I think. Similar to one of those moon looking flowers we used to have in Nova."
Nova.
Nova... nova... no-va...
"Remember Nova?"
A flash of yellow brushed over Carol's eyes. "Yes," she responded. "Everyone spoke in sonnets."
"And it freaked her out so bad, we thought she was going to abdicate." Carol tried to picture the dress. The image never quite materialized. Before the frustration and subsequent headache could grow- however- Monica cleared her throat and rewound to the task at hand.
"Anyway. The petals are supposed to be white. A lily maybe?”
“I don't remember what a lily looks like,” Carol admitted. “But considering this place is lacking in plants, I'm going to assume anything colorful or... 'not brown,' is what we're looking for."
Love snorted.
“Solid plan,” she said. At Phyla's glare, she raised her hands and quickly amended her statement.
“I'm being serious. There's not enough space in the brain for everything. Might as well throw out some of the miscellaneous stuff.”
“And yet, you remember every single 'Marry Fallout' album in full detail,” Phyla reminded. “A random band from pre-collision.”
“Yeah, cause I'm the exception.”
“An exceptional pain." Monica smiled all the same, and when Love put up a mock fist, she clicked her teeth. “While the Celestials may condone violence on this planet, I do not. So go on, Miss 'fancy exception.' Get us those crystals. And don't DROP THEM.”
“Si-sylenna, Cap. Spit on Sienna, I won't crack the goods.”
Monica's hands cupped her mouth and thus accentuated her order, “You better not," and as Love took off for the canyon, she met Carol's eye. Her head shook knowingly, a bright smile gentle on her lips.
“Kids,” she said fondly, though their age gap was merely 34 years, and Carol smiled with her.
“Gotta love ‘em.”
Searching for something you couldn't remember seeing was difficult.
Carol knew what a flower looked like.
... in a sense.
In the same way she knew that a stretched-out circle and an arrow made a record player; music floating in the air under bright flashing lights. Instruments that no longer existed and people that were long gone; buried under piles of muted brown.
She assumed she bought Maria flowers at least once. Valkyrie never really cared for them.
Her thoughts were wandering, so she questioned her mission aloud. “A flower… petals. With a stem that's green and thick, maybe?”
Flower. Flower. Flower.
If she were a flower on the only semi-living planet left in the 'A' quadrant, where would she be? What would she need?
Water.
Everything living needed water. Water was a good bet. She scanned the horizon for something indicative of life- and therefore water- but found nothing.
Perhaps if she flew…
Carol's feet were off the ground before her mind caught up, lagging behind to recollect her body and where it lay in space. She searched for blue: for a puddle or a river of murkiness. Something dark from the sky, courtesy of a starving atmosphere. And then her eyes found it barely. Scarcely hidden among the cliffsides: a trickle of water flowing.
And a parade of white along the puddle's edge.
She took it in her hands. Yes. She was on earth, now. Dirt, not Earth. Earth was gone.
Earth is gone.
But the flowers were not.
“I'm sorry,” Carol whispered, consciously warning the Calla of their inevitable destruction. “It's for a reason, I promise,” and then she pulled. The roots came easily. There was no resistance, almost as if the flowers were thanking her.
“We've been alone for so long.”
“I’m afraid…”
“You are not alone. You are never alone.”
“You're not alone,” Carol repeated, though the words were foreign on her tongue. She was already in the air when the memory slid past- the petals fluttering between her calloused fingers- and when she whispered the phrase yet again, the prayer felt different somehow.
“Promise?”
“Always.”
“Found them already? That was fast.”
“The flying helped,” Carol joked. “Felt a little bad about killing them, though.”
She handed the flowers to Monica, who- after a slight inspection- handed them back. “I get it,” she said softly, and Carol knew she did. “Anyway, Crazy over there has the crystals and Phy swears she didn't break them. The clock's jumped over thirty-one hundred a few dozen times, so we're making good progress. We've only lost about a month.”
“Yes!” Love's voice echoed over the canyon. “Fastest tourmaline collection in history! Alright losers, kick up those heels. The festivities await.”
Phyla shook her head. “Yeah," she replied. "In six months.”
“Psh, practically a blink in the grand scheme of things.”
“You're practically a blink in the grand scheme of things…”
“You blink and you miss it… all the little things…”
“How am I supposed to remember?”
“You can’t, Love.”
"You won't."
Two silhouettes took off for the Sh'i- fast and giggly- and as they faded, Monica grabbed Carol's hand.
“I don't remember much," she whispered. "But Mama once said something about flowers holding meaning." Carol rubbed her thumb over the stems. The lilies between her fingers were already dying. Always fated to die, yet ignorant of their destruction; still pure and white.
White... It was white. The dress was white. Yes! With loose sleeves and yellow flowers... like a tiny rubber duck bobbing in a pond.
Smiling, Carol glanced back down.
“Holding meaning, huh?" She nudged Monica's arm.
"That’s pretty cool.”
“Right? I think these are supposed to mean Rebirth or something. I could be wrong, though. It's been a long time.”
There was another word for that. Re- something; renown, reply... renew.
Renewal.
Carol found herself taking a breath of air, the first she'd tasted of the planet since two centuries ago: Renewal.
Her lips moved on their own.
“That sounds nice," she said.
The dirt was coarse under her feet. She could feel it beneath her boots: crunchy, with texture mirroring sand.
Monica's lips on Carol's knuckles were comforting as well, as they pressed. She turned her face to the sky, closed her eyes, and took another step, trusting the soil would catch her. It was the only thing she swore to- even now. Though the decades continued to churn, Mon's trust never wavered.
It never would.
So Carol clutched the flowers tight, tilted back her head,
and faithfully did the same.