To Survive What Wrought You
I've wanted to write this story for a bit, but today was particularly bad, and I felt like I needed to write this. It might be messy, it might not be subtle, but I don't care.
“Hey Sibling…”
They slump in the pilot seat — a seat almost only used in formality, as Eumidean auto-nav left manual flight only those with autos for thrillseeking and those who frequented messy atmospheres— hazy limbs folded atop their lap.
Jam knew why xyr friend was there. Xy hung quietly in the air just beside xyr companion’s torso the faint whine of xyr afterburner the only noise in the silence as the two gaze out the front viewport, into the glittering abyss of space. There was only every one thing on xyr friend’s mind at moments like these.
“You alright?”
Xy knew they weren’t but this was how xy preferred to initiate this protocol.
The silence hung for a bit. The words were always harder to dredge up when they didn’t bother to mold their central pillar into a proper head, but it was just the two of them, and the void beyond the hull. No need to rush.
“Well… no”, they started. What they wanted to say roiled at the surface of their mind, but it always felt selfish to share these burdens. But their friend was as reliable as xyr thrifted body wasn’t, and they knew xy would be patient. “But you’ve heard this all before…”
Jam didn’t have to check xyr registry, xy remembered the first time they’d had this discussion, and the rare time xy’d found Sib in the pilot’s seat since.
“I know, but I want to hear it again. Consider it a system audit.”
Something akin to a chuckle warbled from within their core, rueful and quiet. The void filled the entirety of their vision, and eventually they let the words slip, quiet but free.
“Isn’t it unfair, that the void from which I’m wrought is also a venom to me”, they start, voice wavering as the tides of their alabaster aether begin to stir, “It brought me into this life, but gave no warmth to survive it…”. Without realizing they reach out, and Jam obliges, navigating to press xyr faceplate to the outstretched limb, giving them something to ground the tempestuous whorl of their body and mind.
“I could not stay. I wouldn’t have survived”, they whisper, so faint anything but Jam’s sensors would have missed it.
“But it wanted me to stay, not as myself, but as it thought I was. That which gave me life demanded that I return to pliable dust, and its demands were a raucous force that ached through my very being. But if I did not become who I am, I would not be alive…”.
Jam tuned xyr audio sensors, and dimmed the lights of xyr emote-screen. Listening here was xyr only priority, because xyr friend needed to be heard.
“The void could not listen to reason of course. It’s a fool’s errand to plead to the cold dark”, Their central pillar drew in, and their crystalline torso creaked as they adjusted in the seat. “But it isn’t that way for us all. While my kin are far and few, some were born into a loving void. Into stars that shone warmth on them from their very convalescence. And how I yearn for such a thing.”
Slowly, they rose on unsteady limbs from the seat, pulling Jam into a tight embrace, uncaring of xyr thrusters casting a wake through their form.
“I may have been unwelcome in that glittering expanse, but this-”, they say, allowing Jam the space to look into xyr emote-screen, a simple green smile blinking to life back at them, “-is what is most important. You are my kin now!”.
Jam follows Sibling, watching as they make their way to their teeny kitchen on wobbly, unrefined legs. Xy lands in the groove in the table and xyr thrusters begin to cool as they’re given a break. Their form radiates with solemn hope as they sprinkle Riken core-kelp into the pressure brewer, and screw a fresh can of cleaning solution into Jam’s intake. Xyr sensors registered a pleasure-relief response as cool fluid gently ran through xyr mainframe. They sit next to xy as the brewer forces the hyper-compact kelp to yield its aromatic flavors, burbling with the effort of convincing the kelp it’s at the center of a gas giant.
“My birthright may not welcome me, but you do, and you’ve shown me more love than any patch of stardust in this or any other system. And I’m so happy that you share my purpose.”, they glance now out the viewport looking not to the void, but to the pinpricks of light beyond. The stars and planets that harbor the many souls that they bring respite with meal and drink, and most importantly, companionship, even if only for a time. They think of the many sapients who carry their own burdens, some quite alike their own. They think of their kin, and of Jam, and push the void from their mind.
The brewer clicks, its labors filling the space with a fragrance of soft rain filtering through a heavy canopy. Sibling places the apex of their arm against the cool metal of Jam’s dormant thruster, their crystal chest expanding as they let the moment pass through the now calm tides of their form. They grab the warm tea-bulb from the brewer — taking care to cup it in both limbs, as they still lack proper hands — and welcome the scalding heat. They allow their aetheric mass to gently envelop the bulb, and drink deeply of the warmth, and the calm.
“Thank you Jam”, they say, casting their vision to their Mechan companion.
“We’re in this together, til Inevita, or whatever those Well Builders call it”
In the heart of the Bird of Paradise, the two nomads who chose to live sit in contented silence, and choose to live another day.