Work Text:
Into the void and the vacuum, Ryland screams. Screams his throat raw. What else is there to do? He is held in inexorable orbit, meant to decay and burn in an echo of his world. He beats his hands on the metal walls, hard, harder, until he might break a bone and add it to the red-lined shards in his mind. “Where am I? Let me out!” He tries oblivion, he tries madness, he sorts through the debris of memory searching for a way.
A creature made of stone and music knocks. His sight hears – hears the the vibration of the spheres, thinking sideways to Ryland’s up and down, adding dimensions. It is an orbit, he assumes, they share and spin, and swing away. But he forgets the gravity that comes with something so heavy – the way it can change a trajectory.
In the vacuum of space, clinging to the metal, Ryland beats his hands against the singing ship and cries out “I’m here! I’m here, let me in!” And the unknowable stone sobs its gratitude, and the conjunction of orbit becomes their escape velocity. He will not burn, and in return, his old and new homes will tandem bloom.