[Closed] Like I am only a wall

[Aremu Ediwo]

Just before the 30th hour, 16 Hamis, 2720
Aremu’s room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Aurelie had let out a little squeak when he lifted her. Aremu hadn’t faltered, exactly, but he’d felt rather relieved when her hands tightened in his shirt, hoping - she did not voice anything like protest, for all that she was still crying.

When he got them to the bed, she clung to him just a moment. It’s all right, Aremu wanted to say, if you want to be held; I won’t think anything of it. She shifted away, though, mumbling several apologies, and Aremu just sort of shook his head, uncertain. His right wrist tucked behind his thigh, out of sight, with Aurelie - as usual, on his left.

She was still crying; it made something awful out of the smile, her eyes and nose red, but it was better still than the shaky look which had proceeded it, and Aremu felt a little bit relieved. He had smiled too, or at least he had tried.

Or furniture, she said, and something went uncertain on his face. But she was giggling, and he thought that was well, and he didn’t need to understand, not really.

Aurelie took the handkerchief, just sort of holding it, and explained that she wasn’t usually so...? Weepy, Aremu supposed. It didn’t seem like a kind word for it, somehow. Sad? Distressed?

I know, he wanted to say. No one who is would have been brave enough to leave. But he swallowed the words back, because he knew he didn’t - couldn’t - understand, and he didn’t want to play at it. It’s not hard to believe; I don’t think you a liar, except where perhaps you don’t know yourself.

“It’s all right,” Aremu said, gently, instead. He thought of taking her hand again, because it had seemed to comfort her, earlier. It seemed different somehow, here and now, than it had on the bench, and he didn’t do it.

“Everyone cries sometimes,” Aremu said, quietly. “Even the strongest men and women I know, and some of them more than just sometimes,” he offered her a smile, and he found it came a little easier.

It seemed strange to go on talking when she was crying. There were things he had thought to say and do: to show her the cabin, for all that there wasn’t much of it; and to talk to her about the next day and a half, and how it might be. None of it seemed important enough that he needed to do it while tears rolled down her face.

Instead, Aremu looked back at the trunk, wonderingly, and then again at the small girl sitting beside him. He smiled a little more at her, and he found himself hopeful once more.

A thrum ran through the walls of the ship. Aremu sighed; it ran through him too, and he smiled, something inside him lifting. “We’ll take off soon,” he said, smiling at Aurelie, thinking that this might be a more pleasant distraction. “We can watch from the window. If you want, I mean.”

“I can cover it, if you rather,” Aremu offered after a moment, frowning. He had thought of fear of the dark, and fear of small spaces; he hadn’t thought of fear of heights. In some ways it didn’t matter much anymore; he didn’t think any of it scared her as much as staying, for all that he wasn’t entirely sure he understood why.

“Are you hungry?” Aremu asked, too, because that seemed important. “There’s food, if you like.” He gestured with his hand at the covered bowl, and then lowered it, slowly, back to his lap.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

16th of Hamis, 2720 - Just Before Midnight | Aremu's Room, the Tsuqeqachye’ki

She was glad she hadn't clarified her joke, because even that much of it had made something in Aremu's face flash to what she thought was likely discomfort. Impossible to know with what part, precisely, but it seemed reasonable enough to find the things she said not particularly funny. Nobody really did, most of the time. Fionn did, sometimes. Often, even. That thought hurt, and she put it away. There was no point in dwelling on that now. Later, maybe, she would. Now she wanted to get a handle on herself, to stop being so... so... this.

"I don't, usually. Er, well. I mean not never--obviously, sometimes... I mean I am now, but that's just. Because of the--well. I don't often see the point in... er. Oh. Hmm." Evidently, she found that gentle reassurance comforting enough to put her foot in her mouth. A tide of chattering nonsense she couldn't seem to hold back any more than she could hold back the tears. Now she did move to wipe at her face, and that made her feel a little better again.

"Thank you," she said, firmly. Yes. That was good enough. She didn't need to always carry on like that. Aremu smiled at her, and this time she didn't try to smile back. The results seemed less than satisfactory. She did rather hope that was okay, because he kept doing it. The smiling at her thing. Aurelie would hate to think she was repaying what was, frankly, an overwhelming amount of kindness with rudeness. Just because she couldn't seem to collect her emotions for more than two minutes strung together.

The sound and vibration that ran through the ship after a moment took her by surprise. It was, she thought, the engine--probably? She didn't actually know. The last time she had been on an airship was... Aurelie frowned a moment, trying to remember. When had it been? She would have to have been a child. And a young one--they didn't do much travel as a family, even before she knew... that something was wrong with her, she supposed. Aurelie had very dim memories of once taking a trip to Gior. She couldn't have been more than four years old, then. All she really remembered were glowing things she rather thought didn't do so normally, and food she had refused to eat until her mother made her.

No, more often when she was young it was her parents alone who took trips so far away. They didn't need the interference and aggravation of a small child. And she had Nurse to keep an eye on her. Lessons to keep up with. It was better that way, for all of them.

"I don't think I can... eat, just now. Maybe later, but... The window...? Oh!" Somehow, in all her surprise and confusion, she had not yet managed to notice the massive window in the room. She turned to look out it now, as best as she could from where she sat. The sky outside was dark, dark as the room. There was no glare on the glass to reflect anything back to her. Aurelie sniffed a little more, and wiped at the tears that had already rolled down her face again. This was really getting to be something of a hassle, and yet she didn't know how to stop.

She shook her head. "No," she said quietly, still looking at the window. "P-please, you don't--I think I might. Like to watch. It's been--a long time. Since I was on an airship I mean. Not since I was... very small. I think. I don't really remember." Aurelie swallowed, blinking against yet more crying. For a moment she was silent, and then she spoke again.

"I was afraid of forgetting," she said, though she wasn't quite sure why. It seemed to her a stupid thing to say, but she had said it to Ana and her sister hadn't understood. She didn't know if Aremu would, either, but it seemed important to make the attempt, even though it was silly. "That there was something--outside. Maybe that would have been easier but I--"

Once more she fell silent, shrugging her small shoulders. Foolish thoughts from a foolish person, but that's what she was and so that was what she had to offer.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Midnight, 16 Hamis, 2720
Aremu’s room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Aremu thought the flood of half-explanations better than the silence, the laughter, or the murmured apologies he still didn’t know what to do with. For all that she wound about herself a few times and never quite went anywhere, and for all that she was still crying, it was still reassuring. She wiped her face, and thanked him, and Aremu found it easier to smile, even though Aurelie’s face was still somber and tear-stained.

Aurelie twisted on the bed, looking back wide-eyed, as if she’d never considered there might be a window.

I like take off, Aremu thought to say; he thought to smile at her. I like the feeling of it – lifting off from the ground, leaving it all behind. I cherished the times I could spend it at the window or out on the deck, and watch as the ground went from close to far, as we rose up into the clouds and learned, once more, to fly.

Aurelie went on, though, before he’d sorted out how to say it, and Aremu turned a little more and looked down at her. “I’m glad that it scared you,” Aremu said, very quietly, when he was sure she didn’t mean to say anymore, just now, "and that you held on."

Aremu shifted, a little, against the bed; he glanced down at the hand in his lap and the wrist next to it. I thought earlier, he wanted to say, about the walls of Brunnhold, and how it is that they keep so many of you inside. I wondered which were the walls that matter, the red brick or the ones built inside you. Maybe the height of them is for the same reason; maybe that’s the reason they’ve built them so tall, so that you can’t see out, to remember that there is a beyond.

He didn’t; Aurelie was crying, still, tears streaming down her face.

“Come on,” Aremu said, gently, smiling at her once more, when he felt the humming through the walls shift. He knew it; he knew the feel of this sort of Mugrobi engine in his bones, all the ones he had and didn’t have. “You can hold on to me for balance, if you want,” Aremu said, gently, extending his hand. He took Aurelie across the room, around the bed and all the way to the window, close enough that they could stand against it and look down.

With the lantern off, there was nothing to stop them from seeing the shipyard below, the stars peeking through the clouds at the edge of the horizon, Ossa’s small slight face shining down from above.

Aremu knew how to keep his balance as an airship lifted off; even if she stumbled and fell, he thought he could catch Aurelie, and keep her upright. The glass shivered, vibrating with the force of the engines. Outside, Aremu knew, the last ropes would be rolled up, the deck secured; in the engine room, Chibugo or another of his pilots would be chanting the monite, pulling the switches and the knobs of the ignition sequence. Deep in the heart of the ship, the engine would wake to life; in the gasbags above, the pumps would be shifting, pumping out air so the artevium filled the whole of them.

They began to rise.

It was the airship yard they drifted up over, first; the nose of the ship was pointed up, and all the world was just a little slanted, and Aremu held his balance against the strangeness of it. The wind currents buffeted them, lightly, from side to side, the floor swaying beneath their feet. Then, as he had hoped – as he had guessed – the ship turned.

“There,” Aremu said, looking down at the ground below. The walls of Brunnhold stretched out below them; in the nighttime the campus and the stacks were gleaming lights, the stacks a bright crescent around the edge of the walls. The walls themselves were only darkness, and nothing more; inside, phosphor lights dotted the dark horizon, interrupted with dark patches of trees and buildings, lining walkways here and then, and other times in strange arrangements he could not make sense of, in the dark.

“It’s only a place,” Aremu said, quietly, because he thought something should be said, and he was the only one there to do it. “You’re much more than it, Aurelie.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

16th of Hamis, 2720 -Just Before Midnight | Aremu's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Glad, Aremu said, that it had scared her. Aurelie supposed she might have been upset by a statement like that--gladness for ill-feeling, for hearing that she had been unsettled and strange. But Aurelie was glad, too, in a way. She hadn't been scared for most of those eleven years. Not of forgetting. She was more afraid, then, of being forgotten. She still was, and a whole host of new fears and anxieties waiting to greet her now besides. All of them were still there just beyond the glass of the window. Being afraid of forgetting instead of afraid of being forgotten seemed to her a better thing, at least for the moment.

Aurelie had just nodded, rather than trusting herself to say much of anything to that. Glad that she held on--Aurelie wouldn't have said that she had held on to much of anything. Yet here she was. So she must have, a little. I'm glad you're glad, I'm glad you're here. It isn't your fault, that I wanted this stupid thing--it's nobody's fault. Aurelie thought she'd been afraid for a long time, and just hadn't known the shape of it clearly enough to think to do anything about it. Didn't know the shape of herself enough to trust that she could.

She didn't know how to say any of it, or that she should. Perhaps it was all very stupid of her; the kind of foolish sentiment that would have spoken mostly about the depths of her ignorance. She didn't try.

There was a change in the sound that went all through the walls and into the air. A fear that felt more like anticipation or excitement started to push through all the others. Aurelie didn't think of propriety then, and she took the hand offered her. It was good, too, because she felt unsteady on her feet. She might have leaned too heavily into Aremu's patient support, but they made it to the window. Aurelie looked out, and down.

There was the shipyard, which she had never before seen, not even from the ground. And there were stars, though not many of them that could be seen through the clouds that had poured down such rain on them all that day, and the days before. The ship shuddered even to the glass as it began to rise. Aurelie was even more glad, then, that she had Aremu to lean on. She had never been on a floor that did not stay still underneath of her feet; even when she had been on an airship before as a child, she thought, she could not remember it being so. Not even having faith in the ground to stay where she expected it to be was unsettling. It was also, she thought, a little exciting.

She leaned on him then even as she found a stability in her footing, watching the ground fall away. The crescent strip of the walls was just a band of darkness through lights that gleamed in a pattern that seemed too strange for somewhere she had known most of her life. Just that--a shadow. Insubstantial, and getting smaller all the time as they moved away. Her whole life, it felt like, was there underneath of her. Down there, where Bernie and Allie slept. Fionn, too. The scullery girl whose name she didn't know. People who had been kind to her, people who had been cruel. Mostly people who had thought of her not at all. The garden, the iron bench and its peeling paint, a dark blot in the lights that were, too, disappearing from her sight. Her fingers curled against the glass.

Aremu's voice came quietly next to her. Aurelie didn't turn to look. She had stopped crying, then, transfixed by the sight. That place, just a place, had been her whole world for so long. And there it was, smaller than she'd ever known it to be. Small enough she could have cupped it in the palms of her hands. For a moment, she was afraid, and a little sorry too, somehow, to leave it behind. Even though it had never loved her, not really.

"It was my whole world," she said, and swallowed. Her voice had been steadier than she expected. "But I hope you're right." She looked a moment more, and then she turned away. She wasn't smiling, but she had stopped her crying, at least. For now--she felt rather sure it was just waiting.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Just after midnight, 17 Hamis, 2720
Aremu’s room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Aurelie stood at the window, staring through it, transfixed. With the lamp off behind them, they were scarcely even dark shadows against it; they were the impressions of shapes, nothing more, and the world outside all that there was to see.

Maybe, Aremu thought, uneasily, he shouldn’t have said something. He thought it would have been better if he’d known the right thing to say. He didn’t; he’d done the best he could, anyway, and all he could really hope was that it was enough, or that he wasn’t making it worse. He’d been half afraid, after the words had started to come out and it was too late to stop, that Aurelie would burst into tears as he spoke.

She spoke, instead, quiet and steady. Aremu looked down at her, at the small hand still holding tight to his. She’d leaned against him as they’d walked, and harder as the ship had rocked beneath them as they stood still.

I wouldn’t lie to you, Aremu wanted to say, then. Or I wouldn’t mean to, at least; I wouldn’t do it intentionally. I don’t think I was, just then; it didn’t feel like a lie as I spoke the words, although perhaps there’s nothing in me that would know. The implication otherwise didn’t sting, quite, as perhaps it should have. She knew, Aremu thought, what they were, but he didn’t entirely know that she understood. He remembered, still, with a mix of feelings he wasn’t sure how to untangle, her laughing and telling him she was a terrible liar, as he’d tried to explain.

She turned away. Aremu held onto her hand, and brought her back to the bed; unless they hit a storm or something equally bad, the rocking of the ship wouldn’t be enough to knock her off, if she slept in the center of it. They were climbing, now, into the heavy screen of dark clouds; even if they’d stayed at the window, Brunnhold would have been out of sight. There was the wall of them, and a splatter of rain against the glass, and then they were through, and the world was like a soft blanket below, and all the stars spread out over them above.

“There’s a few…” Aremu’s voice trailed off halfway through the sentence. He sat on the edge of the bed once more, looking over at Aurelie. She wasn't quite crying; he couldn't have said why it still felt as if she were.

“There’s a few things to discuss,” Aremu said, quietly. “Right now, no one but Chibugo and I know you’re here. We thought it safest, that way, just – in case.” He couldn’t quite smile; his forehead was a frown. “It’s about a day and half to Dzum; we’ll fly through the night, all day tomorrow, and arrive late morning the day after. If you can bear it, staying here – it might be for the best. I’ll try to keep out of your way, as I can. I’m not sure…”

Aremu was quiet, looking down at his lap, and then back at Aurelie. “I shouldn’t like to make you be alone,” he said, frowning, “but I don’t want to intrude, either, should you prefer it.” He swallowed, feeling something like an ache in his throat. “There’s um – facilities, as you’ll need, attached,” he gestured at a small door set in the wall, vaguely.

“If you can’t bear staying here,” Aremu went on, “we’ll sort it with the crew; don’t worry. It’s only an abundance of caution.” His hand settled down into his lap once more, and his wrist tucked behind his leg, out of sight once more. He glanced over at Aurelie, and tried, somewhat hesitant, to smile once more. If you’re tired, he thought to say, I’ll leave you; he had the unpleasant sense of putting expectations on her, demands, but he didn’t know how to do otherwise. I’m sorry; he wanted to say; I wish I knew how to do this without having to ask, but I’m afraid I’ve never been much good at such things.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

17th of Hamis, 2720 - Around Midnight | Aremu's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Aurelie had turned away, not sure that there was much left to see, or that she could bear to see it. Aremu didn't let go of her hand, and she came to sit again on the bed. The tears had stayed inside, still, and she was grateful. Crying hurt the eyes, after a while, and didn't seem to do much else.

It seemed like she should withdraw her hand, now that she didn't need to balance anymore. But, she thought, she liked having it there still just now. She felt a little better that way, and wasn't eager to start crying again if she folded her hands back into her lap where they belonged. She looked up at her friend as he began to speak, putting aside thoughts of size and distance. The red of her brows knit together when he stopped in the middle of his sentence, but she waited for him to go on.

Safer that way--yes, she thought that seemed... Yes. Aurelie nodded. She wasn't sure, safety or not, that she wanted to speak to anyone else. All of her felt too brittle, too fragile and easy to damage, to want to put herself before the scrutiny of others. No matter what their reaction might be, and she didn't trust in that at all. She didn't trust in Chibugo, even, not really. She trusted only that Aremu did, and that was what she hung on.

"Out of my way?" Her small hand tightened in a sudden fear. She didn't want to leave this room, not at all, not even for the day and a half he said it would take--but the idea of being alone all that time frightened her too. No matter how big the room, or the window. For an absurd moment she wondered if she was being punished; then she reminded herself that to wish to be alone was normal enough, and the strangeness was in her that she hadn't done so much at all for eleven years. Except when she had done something wrong.

"Oh, no--you don't have to... Er, well. That is, I wouldn't--" Why was it that the moment she felt she had any strength back, it all seemed to get funneled into tripping over her own words? She plucked at her skirt with her free hand, freckled face pinched in a frown. "You don't have to--stay with me, if you don't want to, but you don't have to... I will be all right if you would rather, er, be somewhere else. Just, well. You see, ah. I'm not much used to being alone," she offered sheepishly.

The talk of practicalities made her realized the hour, and how she had hardly slept even in the weeks before this. She was tired, but didn't want to sleep, just yet. She also was suddenly aware that this was, probably, Aremu's room here--or why else have her do her best impression of luggage and have the trunk placed here, specifically. He had not mentioned where he would be, if not here. His hand withdrew, so she knit her fingers together, finding all of this making her unaccountably flustered. She should, perhaps, be less so--there was so much else going on, after all.

"Staying here is fine," she said, her voice small and her face growing unaccountably warm the longer she thought on all of this. This was all terribly out of the order how things should be, she thought. Trunk delivery aside. Because they were friends, but this was still a man's room, even borrowed. Not, she scolded herself, that she counted much in regards to things like that, no more than a pet did. Or wait, did she? Somehow she got herself all twisted up over such a silly thing, and couldn't bear to say any of it.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Just after midnight, 17 Hamis, 2720
Aremu’s room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Aremu wasn’t really sure what to make of it all. Aurelie had said she wasn’t used to being alone, and he felt as if by that she was saying she didn’t want him to spend the day outside. And yet, in the same breath, she was insisting he could if he wanted to.

He didn’t think she minded the idea of being cooped up, at least, although the relief of it was fading a bit as she went on into something else he didn’t quite understand. He knew he wouldn’t like it, himself, unable to go outside, waiting on someone else to bring him food. He knew he hadn’t liked it, the times his life had brought him to similar points. He’d endured, though, when the need was great; he was glad she thought she could too.

He tried to think if he had said, or implied in any way that he wished to be elsewhere. He didn’t think he had; he hadn’t meant to. In truth, he didn’t really think she should be alone just now, except for perhaps while sleeping, as it seemed - inappropriate, otherwise. He wasn’t an expert, of course, and he didn’t want to be demanding, or make her feel she was forced to talk to him or anything like that.

She hadn’t said she wanted him there Aremu thought. She’d said he could be elsewhere if he wanted, and that she wasn’t used to being alone. He supposed - he supposed he was better than no one, and he was glad of that at least. He felt as if he hadn’t done a very good job, so far; he felt as if she were the top of an iceberg in one of the northern seas, as if he saw a small white cap and the sense of something enormous beneath, but the shifting of the waves kept obscuring it.

Aremu looked over at her, frowning a little. He thought it better to clarify a bit again, just to make sure she understood. He was frowning a bit, once more, and he didn’t quite know what to say.

“All right,” Aremu said, slowly. “Look - it’s your room, Aurelie. I’ll be here, and I‘m very glad to keep you company, if you want me to. If you want me to go, you just tell me.”

He shifted a little, looking back out the window. They were well above the clouds by now, and the world was a gleaming canvas of stars. Some tension he hadn’t known he was holding in his neck and shoulders eased, and he found he could smile once more, glancing back at Aurelie.

“If you’re starting to feel tired,” Aremu said, gently, wondering if maybe she wasn’t sure how to tell him, or if maybe she thought he’d be upset if she did, “just let me know and I’ll go. I’ll come back first thing in the morning. Before I enter, I’ll turn the handle twice, and then stop for the count of three, and then open the door. That way you’ll know it’s me” and you don’t have to be afraid “all right?”

It was a smooth flight, at least. He would need to strap in, even in the sheltered place he’d found; it wasn’t safe, otherwise, as a rough patch of air could hit even the most cautious airship, and semi-rigids - for all the gasbag would keep them mostly upright - could rock quite far to the side. Some nights there was turbulence above the clouds, when they were this thick; he was grateful that whatever storm winds there were, they seemed to be contained down below.

She’d held on to his hand the whole time they were sitting, until he’d let go to point. She hadn’t taken it again, though, for all that it was just sitting on his leg now. Aremu didn’t reach for her hand again; he didn’t - couldn’t - know what she wanted.

If he was, Aremu thought, just better than no one - that was all right. He could be grateful for that, at least; he could make his peace with it.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

17th of Hamis, 2720 - Just Past Midnight | Aremu's (?) Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Her room, he'd said, and she didn't know why that made her want to cry again. She held it back, at least. It's not, she wanted to say; it can't be. Why she wanted to protest such a statement she didn't know, and she didn't think it would make any sense if she tried to say it out loud. She had, after all, a talent for misstep when she spoke. Letters were easier, she thought desperately. They were difficult, but she seemed less prone to just having all the thoughts tumble out of her in a tangle that even she couldn't make sense of.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, then bit her lip, trying to take a breath. She blinked, rapidly, trying to gather the chaos of her thoughts into as much like a coherent order as she could manage. "I didn't mean--I don't. Want you to go. I would like your company, if... I only meant that if you didn't want to, I would be fine by myself. Thought I suppose I did say, or sort of say, that I wouldn't be. You don't have to... I don't want to impose." Not any more than she already had, by asking this favor and being here and in such a sorry state that she couldn't do much for herself.

The fingers she had on her lap twisted together more. He had said he would be glad to, but she wondered if that was true. Except it had to be, didn't it? Or... Aurelie really didn't know, or understand, how it could be so. But she knew also that Aremu had said something about lying, last fall, and she hadn't understood it then. She didn't understand it now, not really, though she'd given it a lot of thought. She wasn't sure she ever would. At least she thought it meant that he had to mean it, to say so. She didn't know what to do with that.

"I am tired," she confessed, "but n-not enough for... I am poor company, I'm sorry. I would hate to make you... s-stay here and just, I don't know. Watch me cry like a child. If you'd rather be somewhere else..." She trailed off then and frowned, not sure she made any more sense now than she had before. That was always her problem, not making any sense. Her time in the trunk had not improved her much in that regard.

Aurelie didn't know what else to say; poor company, indeed. Aremu said he'd be glad to keep her company, but she wasn't sure he was really thinking about what kind of company she would be to keep. She chewed on her lip and looked out the window at all the stars. A little in wonder--she hadn't seen nearly so many in a long time. If she ever had. Like all the lights of Brunnhold as they left it behind.

No--it was more like a summer she remembered only dimly, when they had gone to their country house for a week. It was near a small river, and at night the air was thick with fireflies. She had caught them in a jar, with nurse's help. But she had forgotten to let them go before she fell asleep, and by the morning they had all died.

Aurelie had cried then, too. Ana had laughed, she thought, and she'd felt very silly--not a baby, she remembered thinking. At already seven years of age, she had felt quite grown-up, until Ana laughed. But she had resolved to never do such a thing again, not even if she were careful to let them back out.

"It's very pretty, out there," she said, smiling without feeling particularly happy. It was beautiful, she reminded herself fiercely. And she carefully tucked that sight away in her heart to remember, because she didn't know if she'd ever see it again. Her hands unlaced, at least.

"Thank you." She didn't turn her head, still staring firmly out the window. "For offering--for all of this. I... You didn't have to, and I don't know why you..." Aurelie blinked, scrunching her face up to try and keep her eyes dry. It didn't work. "Bells and chimes...! There I go--I'm sorry."

[Aremu Ediwo]

Just after midnight, 17 Hamis, 2720
Aurelie’s room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Aurelie calling herself poor company felt like a bent pipe that Aremu didn’t know how to straighten or how to fit in. He couldn’t quite tell her she wasn’t, because it was true that he couldn’t enjoy watching her cry. At the same time, to say she was seemed unbearably cruel.

All Aremu could think to do was to set his hand on hers, gently, in his once more, and to look out the window with her a little longer. He didn’t want to demand she stop apologizing; he didn’t want to demand anything. He didn’t want, either, to accept them and imply by the acceptance that they had been necessary.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Aremu said in the end, quietly, because silence, too, felt as if it spoke all sorts of words he couldn’t quite hear, and he didn’t know which of them Aurelie might. He knew something of the burden of silence; it wasn’t, he understood now, as he hadn’t when he was younger, an easy path to avoid truth or lies. There were no lies in silence, yes, but there were gaps that it built between men - between people, Aremu thought, somewhat sheepishly. Just now it felt unbearably complex to navigate it all, as if he were fitting pieces together, one handed in the dark without anything like a diagram. But he knew better than to think leaving it alone would help, either.

When she spoke again it was about the stars; her hands came apart beneath his, and one turned and settled into it, and Aremu felt an enormous sort of relief.

“It is,” Aremu agreed. You’ll see them like this on the island, he wanted to say; if you’d like, I’ll take you up on the roof, where you can lay on your back and look at them - or we can do it on the ground by the cliff, if you’d rather; where ever you’d like.

I watch them, he didn’t want to say, every chance I get. I used to think they were as close as I’d come to a light inside me, and that comforted and hurt me both at the same time. Now I think - now I don’t know, anymore, if what there is inside is closer or further than the stars, for all that I still know what I am.

Aurelie went on, wavering, and he was glad he hadn’t spoken. He looked down at her - there were tears streaming down her cheeks again. He held her hand, still, though the first soft choked breath.

“I’m doing this because I can,” Aremu said, slowly. “Because I want to - because you’re my friend. That’s what it means to me, I think, being a friend; that I should do it, and that I should want to.” He smiled at her, for all that it wasn’t easy with her crying, because he thought it important that he do so.

Aremu didn’t know what he would have done with his other hand, if he had still had two; he only knew that the lack stung, just now, in some small hard place in the core of him, somewhere he had thought beyond hurt, by now. He held on anyway, with the hand he had and he smiled, at least; those he could do.

He didn’t expect much of an answer; he didn’t need one. He didn’t know, either, if she would understand. He didn’t think he would have, if not for Uzoji; for all his faults, Aremu thought, Uzoji had known what it was to be a friend. That knowledge, too, was a gift he had given, freely and open-handed, and Aremu had learned it in the returning. He had learned, too, that friendship didn’t have to end with distance or with death; it was like love in that way, Aremu knew, or perhaps it was love. He didn’t quite know how to tell.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

17th of Hamis, 2720 - Just After Midnight | Someone's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

The apologies just kept spilling out of her, even though she had been working so hard to keep them from doing so. Aurelie didn't want to create any extra obligation if she could help it, that was all. But her apologies kept coming out strange, like she was creating an obligation on top of it just by saying them. An obligation to accept them, she supposed, or to do something in response. She didn't know how to fix a problem like that.

In the end, she thought that Aremu's hand on top of hers where she had folded them on her lap was probably the right response. And he said he had nowhere else he wanted to be, which she found hard to believe. But she supposed she'd have to, because he said it. "I'm so--okay. Thank you." She drew a breath.

As she looked out the window at the thick field of stars, she let her hands come apart. One turned to clasp Aremu's, which was strange too. He seemed very willing to take her hand, which a dim part of her mind thought was surely not very appropriate, but she was grateful for it and found that outweighed anything else. Maybe that was the point of it, after all.

"Pretty" was a poor way to put it, but she was tired and hadn't any better words for the feeling that filled her chest. The memory she dredged up, looking out there, was sad--but, she thought, that seemed part of it too. She remembered hearing once that the stars were likely all very far away. Too far to ever be reached, not in thousands and thousands of years. But they watched over Vita anyway, distant as they were. Aurelie didn't know if she found that a comfort, precisely; it made her feel very small. They were beautiful, all the same, and she thought she didn't mind so much after all.

She had started crying again, even though she hadn't meant to. Her hand tightened its grasp without her noticing, and she didn't loosen it. I have never had many friends, she wanted to say. Even growing up, her closest friend had been Ana. Aurelie had loved her sister, her shining star--Aurelie loved her still, even after all that had happened. But it was hard to be both Ana's sister and her friend, being what she was. Lacking what she lacked, whatever that was.

Aurelie swallowed. She didn't think it would come out right, if she said that. Like she was only grateful for Aremu's friendship because she had precious little of it, which wasn't true. At least, she didn't think so. Not all friends would go so far. When she looked over he was smiling, and she wiped at her face and tried to smile back. Whether or not it worked, she couldn't tell. But she wanted to make the effort anyway.

"Thank you. I keep saying that but--truly." Her pointed, freckled face was still drawn together, but she thought she was starting to feel a little better. Crying with someone there to hold her hand seemed a bit better than crying alone in the dark, be that in a trunk or in her bed. Like just by having someone else in the space, what was pouring out of her could be replaced with something better. Steadier.

Silence settled over her, broken only by the sound of her ragged breathing and wiping away of tears. Aurelie let it, thinking of nothing in particular. Just looking out the window, just looking at stars. After some time, a thought did drift to her. She turned back, biting her lip.

"You've not asked me... why I--why now. I'm--don't get me wrong, I d-don't think you have to, or... I am a little glad, too, that you haven't, ah..." Aurelie used her free hand to tuck her hair behind her ears, stumbling for words. She couldn't tell if she was just thanking him for not questioning it, for just asking her what she wanted and not why she would want it, or if she wanted him to ask her so she could spill out the rest of it. Both, she thought. It seemed to her to be both.