Work Text:
You are not religious.
Your parents-of-parents-of-parents were, but it had trickled down out of your family with each generation and left you with nothing but the surety of your tools and your metals, the cool press of xenonite into your claws and the singing of the fissures where you worked. Faith was not uncommon among Eridians, but it had grown less popular with each scientific discovery, each truth that was carved from Erid's cliffs. Still, many believed in the great consciousness of the world around you, the universe, each molecule a thought carefully planted by some maestro beyond your hearing. You held respect for all believers—their faith brought calm between the gasses of the fissures, hot enough to burn one's carapace on. It brought certainty to the thrums, a belief that every voice was exactly where and how it was meant to be. It brought surety to the mission, until the mission failed, until everyone had died except for you.
You had never been religious, but you prayed on the ship, sang out into the great song of the universe for help, for a solution to the star-eaters, for a cure to the space-sickness that had taken Wind-on-Water, the sibling-of-Adrian who performed your mate carvings and Smoothed-Down-Pebble, who had hatched the same day as you and worked beside you their whole life in the fissures and Tail-of-Creature, only 160 years old, who had been so scared at the end, who had only slept after you promised to keep them safe.
Alone, you had prayed to wake up as someone smarter and more capable of completing the mission; alone, you had prayed—selfishly—to not wake up at all.
You had prayed to not be alone, for Wind-on-Water or Smoothed-Down-Pebble or Tail-of-Creature to miraculously wake up. You had prayed to a maestro you had never believed in for help, for a conductor to come and guide your aimless song.
You had prayed for an angel, and the great song of the universe sent you an alien.
It was strange—you had been disgusted by it at first, it's inside-out organs, the squish and sway of it. It was out of tune, unrhythmic save for its obscenely beating heart. It ate in front of you and did not want to be watched as it slept and forgot so easily.
It was beautiful, too, though anyone else would have called you strange for thinking that. Your sonar echoed inside it's ribs and it breathed fire and understood things about the universe you could have never dreamed of and heard the invisible. It was as beautiful as it was strange, and you had never been religious but if anything could change your mind it would be the existence of this, this creature from years across the universe.
You had laughed once it explained the meaning of it's name: Smoothness-in-Movement, or Granting-Undeserved-Forgiveness. If you had the language to do so, you might have explained why:
Your name is grace. But as soon as I heard you, I had named you Gift.
The more you learn about the alien, though, the more you wish you'd remained alone. It is only thirty years old, barely more than a hatchling. It is only thirty years old, so much life ahead of it, and the humans, in their desperation, had sent it into the cold silence to die.
Alone, you had prayed for help. In return, the universe took this incredible, beautiful creature and sent it to die.
You give it what you can. Your astrophage. Your help, when possible, though you are far less suited for the mission than it is. Erid should have sent someone else in your place.
When it nearly dies—and it is a very close thing, soft body compacted by the pressure of the ship's spin—it takes less than a single thought for you to decide to save it. You burn, and you think you will die, and you hope that your alien remembers to send the solution—whatever it may be—back to Erid so that Adrian can live.
You think you will die, but you don't, and you wonder how you will ever pay back the debt you owe to this creature. Two million kilograms of astrophage. Six years of your life. Nothing, in comparison to all that your alien has given you.
Now, you are here. Mere cycles away from departure, and your hearts have never been heavier. You have always been a coward when it comes to goodbyes—you barely managed to get onto the ship at all, knowing it would be years before you could next see Adrian. This is worse, because you know you will never see your alien again, never hear it's strange songs or tease it for leaking and leaving its things on the floor. You wonder if humans protect their dead as Eridians do, setting them in great blocks of stone and pressing them into the ground so the whole of Erid can watch them sleep. With astrophage technology, you could make a trip to Earth, but it would take decades. The most you will ever get to hear of your alien again will be its grave, and that is only if humans honor their dead.
If it were Eridian—well, if your alien were Eridian you would never have to separate—but if it were Eridian, you would have spent a long, long, long time on your parting. You would have come up with a thousand excuses. You would have taught it a thousand things. But human lifespans are short, and it has told you, before, that Earth does not have as much time as Erid.
You love the alien, so you will let it go.
And still, and still, and still, you wish it could say. If only it's lifespan weren't so short. If only it wouldn't be crushed by Erid's atmosphere. If only Earth would send someone else, maestro help you, just so you could keep this one.
Because every time you look at it, all you can think is how you are sending it off to sleep alone.