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It had just been an image. A frame at the end of a dream. Valya couldn’t have seen it for more than a moment, a fraction of one, still her body was cold as sweat when she awoke. Why was that?
It dried quick on the surface of Wallach IX; the planet was wet enough without her. She gave it time and space to do so, as she propped her back against the bed, stared at the wall past which were waves. Sooner or later.
It was pointless to stare. At a blank wall. Work to be done, work for which even she needed to sleep. But still she stared. She even called Tula.
“Yes, sister? What is the matter?” She was fully clad in the black attire of the sisterhood, her hair tied up in a wide bun that could cover her face if it were out in front. Instead her apprehension was bear, plain to see, as she stared at her sister in her white nightdress and bed hair.
“Can you see it, Tula?” She asked with such authority that her sister moved to look at the wall at which she still stared. She didn’t dare to look back when she answered.
“Something on the wall? No, I don’t-”
“Griffin.” Her voice faltered with her hands, her grip on the bedsheet giving way. She stared at the blank wall that a picture might be posted there, that last snapshot.
Her soft sobs beside Valya wouldn’t distract her. “Yes - always.”
They subsided. And then they stared.