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"Do you miss them?" Sonya asks. She stands on the banks on one of Harriet's rivers, her feet in the damp silt. Harriet's feet are an inch underwater. It feels like too little; standing further from Sonya feels like too much.
"Miss what?"
Sonya nods her head towards the storm gathering on the horizon. She and Minho had passed by Harriet where she had been busy shaping the riverbed to provide nooks and crannies for the fish to safely lay their eggs. Harriet didn't ask why Sonya had been walking with Minho, or why she had stopped to stay by her side while Minho continued onwards to meet up with Gally and Jorge for the coming thunderstorm.
"The raindrops," Sonya says. "When they leave your care for Gally's."
Harriet shrugs. "I barely notice it," she admits. "Only really when he gives them back."
Sonya looks at her out of the side of her eyes.
Harriet turns to face her head on. "C'mon, Sonya. Out with it."
"Really?" she asks incredulously. "You don't notice it at all?"
Harriet laughs. "It's all constantly moving. Some of it evaporates into the air. It doesn't feel all that different from this." She lightly slides her foot to the side to tap the toe of Sonya's boot with her own. "At some point this becomes your domain, not mine."
"And that feels like nothing, too?" Sonya asks quietly.
"Do you notice it?" Harriet asks. Her face grows serious.
Sonya's cheeks flush pink.
The brook's babble grows to a chatter as Harriet feels her heartbeat speed up. She wills it still.
"No," Sonya says eventually. She leaves without saying goodbye.
Harriet floats on her back and tries to feel the boundaries of her domain. Where does she fade into Sonya?
But she feels nothing.
Maybe there's nothing to feel, each of them so distinct as to have no overlap, only the jagged lines of the edges of their consciousnesses. Brenda and Jorge have no issues differentiating their fire and lightning, after all, and Gally always returns his rain to her lakes smoothly, if a bit brusquely at times, but she can hardly fault him for enjoying peace and calm after a big storm.
He greets her with a nod of his head. "Harriet."
"Hey, Gally," she says. "Can I ask you a weird question?"
"Shoot."
"Do you feel anything when your rain lands and becomes a part of me again?"
"No?" He raises an eyebrow and squints at her quizzically. "It happens fast enough that there's not really a transition there."
Harriet sighs. She doesn't know what answer she was looking for.
"I can feel the clouds gathering, though," he says. "I think because evaporation's slower."
"Huh."
"Are you done being philosophical?" Gally asks.
"Yeah," she says, her thoughts already elsewhere. "See you around."
He's already left.
Rachel doesn't visit the others nearly as much as she visits her, a friendship which Harriet's fiercely protective over. It's nice to have someone who she can just sit with.
The crescent moon hovers in the sky. Rachel sits in the curve of its reflection in Harriet's still grotto. Her stars crown her head.
"How is everyone?" she asks softly.
"Same as always," Harriet replies, in the same tone of voice. "Brenda and Teresa are still pining for each other. Do you think you could give Teresa a nudge so the rest of us don't have to watch them circling around each other for another year?"
Rachel smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. Not something worth coming down from the skies for, then. "What about you?" she asks.
"What do you mean?"
"Never mind," Rachel says. "Send Sonya and the others my love."
"I will," Harriet says.
A ripple passes over the water. When it passes, Rachel is gone.
Harriet sits, now alone, and wonders why Rachel singled out Sonya. Does she like her more than everyone else?
There's a pang in her chest at the thought. She decides that it must be because Rachel somehow knows that Harriet spends more time with Sonya than anyone else, and doesn't question the feeling any further.
She's already riled up by the time that Thomas shows his face. The river crashes against its banks and conflicting waves shove each other higher and higher into the air where they meet.
"Hi," he says quickly, then immediately launches into his speech before she can even greet him in return. "We're all meeting by the north edge of the forest. Vince and Sonya have a terraforming proposal."
Harriet isn't hurt that Sonya didn't tell her first. They don't have to tell each other everything. And it makes sense for a large undertaking that it would be easier to discuss with everyone all at once, but…
She gives Thomas a big smile so that he won't notice the water turning icy.
"I'll be there," she says.
Vince greets her warmly when she shows up, but Sonya only gives her a cursory nod before turning back to the rocky hillside.
"Is everyone here?" Vince asks. "Good. There have been a lot of landslides here lately, so Sonya suggested changing it completely and diverting that stream over there into a waterfall. Harriet, do you think that's possible?"
She nods.
"Alright. Newt? What about you?"
The discussion goes on for a while, everyone weighing in with the impacts on their own domains, but Harriet finds herself zoning out to observe Sonya. She flips her braid over her shoulder and fidgets with the ends when she isn't talking. At one point, she catches Harriet watching her. Harriet flushes in embarrassment, but Sonya just smiles shyly before turning back to the others.
It's easy enough to divert part of the stream from its course and steer it towards where Sonya's carved out the hillside into an overhang with a deep basin at the bottom.
The others are standing in a half circle at the base of the cliff looking up at her.
"Are we ready to go?" she calls out.
Aris gives her a thumbs up.
"I'll try not to splash anyone, but no promises."
That gets a laugh out of Sonya, and Harriet feels pleased with herself as she sends the river over the edge to free fall through the air.
And then she's alone.
Terrifyingly, dizzyingly alone.
She hears Sonya call her name, but she can't feel her until the river crashes down into the newly formed pool and she's engulfed in Sonya's embrace once more.
The feeling is overwhelming.
"Mission success," Sonya says. "Nice job, everyone."
They all peel away until only Sonya and Harriet are left staring at each other.
"I didn't realize—" Harriet starts. "It's you, constantly."
"You're always moving," Sonya says quietly. "I feel like… Like I'm always holding you, but then you're gone."
"I'm here now," Harriet says. She reaches out to take Sonya's hand and marvels at the feeling of their fingers intertwined. "I think I've always felt you around me, I just didn't notice, I—"
Sonya cuts her off with a kiss.
"You're never getting me to leave now," Harriet says breathlessly.
"Good," Sonya says, and kisses her again.