Scene Archives

had spent a long time on her tomestone, tapping away with her stylus, alternating with pacing, handstands, stretches, and standing around, considering knocking on doors and not knocking on any of them. And then she’d realized she was waiting for permission that probably wasn’t going to come, and said “fuck it.” She thinks she might be able to track him via his tomestone, the way he had tracked hers, but she thinks she also might not need to. She leaves the inn, climbs the walls, walks the perimeter. Whenever he’s like this, he always seems to look for the highest possible place. And so.

might not had been there if she hadn’t exercised some patience, to be fair, but by now it’s been long enough that’s he’s moved from aimlessly wandering the streets to sitting on the edge of one of the walls, quietly looking out onto the expansive prairie that surrounded the town opposite of the mountains it’s nestled in between.

considers a moment, shifting from foot to foot, before plopping down beside him. “You can ask me to leave and I will,” she announces. “But. Sometime between pouring out my heart to two aliens without physical bodies, I realized I was going insane trying to figure out what role you wanted me to play, when you’ve only ever asked me to be myself. So. I’m here. Being myself.” She kicks her legs out over the wall, appreciates how far down down is. Then she looks at him.

: “Beat me to it this time.”

: “Beat you to it in what way?”

: “Telling you I don’t need you to perform any role for me, and to just be yourself.”

: “Yeah.” She looks down at her knees, watches them work as she kicks them out alternately. It really is far down. “I’m still doing time in the messy bitch mines and … I still don’t really have a good grasp on what ‘myself’ is all the time. I’m sure you can’t relate.”

: “So.” She closes her eyes, gathers her courage, and turns and knocks him, very gently, on the side of his head. “What’s going on in there?”

: “A whole lot, and a lot a nothing at the same time. It’s weirder than I thought it’d be. It’s not even so much… it’s not so much like a flood of memory suddenly unlocked and came back, you know? But being here, breathing the air, hearing her voice again. It was like a whole lot of emotions I’d vaguely been aware of, but hadn’t really felt all swelled up at once.”

: “Yeah. I get that, I think. At least a little.” She scoots closer and leans against him. “I think, for all you’re constantly thinking about stuff, things don’t become real until they happen? And Zaya is … she’s really vivid. She … yanks you out of your head, keeps you in the moment. Or that’s sort of how I felt when I first met her? And her already knowing about you really threw me. I can’t imagine how it felt for you. Or, I kinda have been imagining, which is part of why I’m out here grilling you about it.”

: “Yeah.” Aurelius lets out a breath. “Well, it saved me the trouble of needing to figure out how to deal with the issue in the first order, if nothing else.”

: “Sure. It also denied you the chance to say who you are on your own terms. Is that a thing that bothers you? It’d bother me, but as we know, I’m very … burning about these things.”

: “No, not really. I mean, there was decent odds I was going to just… avoid saying anything as long as possible, too.”

huffs out a quiet laugh. “Oh. That would’ve been A Choice. Though if that was going to be your play you probably should’ve told us to call you Annarr.”

: “Well that’s the thing, I hadn’t really decided either way and was pretty sure I wouldn’t know which way the lucre fell until it hit the ground. So. Really, it was almost a relief.”

Nods. She takes his hand, and begins tracing his knuckles with the index finger of her free hand. “I’m glad that at least was. I’m glad also that—she knows it wasn’t your fault. That whatever happened, it wasn’t—“ she tightens her grip on his hand, not enough to hurt but enough that he can tell, and then lets the pressure ease. “I do wish you’d stop feeling guilty about it, but I get it’s one thing to know something intellectually and another thing to let it go.”

nods slowly, eventually flipping his hand over to lace his fingers between Salme’s. “Yeah. … Hm. … Yeah. It was like. I don’t know. Maybe a twinge before. But seeing her face, seeing that staircase, the arrows pointing the way home in case no one was there to find us… the flash of recognition, then the - admittedly very well hidden - hitch in her movements and reply before correcting herself… it hurt. Made the guilt so much more… more. Even if it wasn’t something I did.”

: “She loved him. In whatever way, she loved him, and she lost him, and that’s real. That’s true.” She hesitates, and looks down at their hands. “I liked her immediately, you know. For how clearly she loved him, and how ready she is to also love you. Because I think. Hm. Maybe this isn’t helpful, but. To some extent, it’s easier for me to focus on the one truth. That you’re Aurelius, and you aren’t Jorule, and you aren’t Annarr. But there’s another truth, which is that … you and Jorule are also the same, and you and Annarr are as well. You said it once, back in the void, right after Almachadta. ‘But I am, also, still and in spite of it all… still myself.’ She’ll see that. I think she already does.”

: “Yeah, I guess so. It’s still just… a lot.”

: “Yes. It is. It’ll keep being a lot. It might get worse. I hope it won’t but. It might.” She squeezes his hand again. “Is that a you don’t believe me ‘I guess so’ or is that a ‘I admit that’s right but it doesn’t change how I’m feeling’ ‘I guess so’?”

: “I suppose the latter…?”

kicks his hanging feet a bit while looking upwards. “It’s really strange having such intense feelings for someone you’re both meeting for the first time, but also have somehow know for most of your life though, isn’t it?”

: “I imagine yeah, that’d be strange. She probably feels the same way.” She rests her head on his shoulder and looks up as well. “What’re you feeling? Guilt, obviously. What else?”

: “Mmm. I’m not sure. Like. It’s one thing to know that they were rivals and fought a lot, while also working together towards a common goal. But another to… know how that feels. To realize that, maybe, they didn’t actually dislike each other as much as the memories might have implied. How much they trusted and relied on one another, how much they cared…”

: “And I find myself wonder if maybe he hadn’t actually loved her, but just couldn’t bring himself to admit it, before.”

goes very still, for just a moment. “I see,” she says, carefully. “I think that would be … very hard to feel indeed. And I think it would make a kind of sense. A lot of teasing, a lifetime of trust. And she’s very … vivid. Competent. Beautiful. That would make a lot of sense actually.” She nods.

: “I’m guessing you aren’t sure what you want to do about it.”

: “I’m still not sure how I feel about it.”

: “But… no.”

: “Well, what are you trying to think through with how you feel about it?”

: “Mostly just processing.”

: “I forget you do that internally, all on your own.” She closes her eyes. “Do you … you don’t need to add my feelings into whatever you’re dealing with, and I’ll be fine, but would you like to take a break from … being with me while you work through this?”

considering for a moment, tracing a few constellations in the night sky with his eyes, before turning to face Salme. “And leave Awa to deal with you all on his own…?” Then laughs quietly. “I don’t think there’s really any need to do that.”

: “I mean we’d still be friends. I’d still—it’s not like I would ever stop caring.” She shakes her head. “I’ll admit. I guess I was a bit thrown when you didn’t introduce me as anything special. And I kept telling myself it wasn’t anything, it certainly wasn’t about me, but. I wanted to be glued to your side the entire time. And I—“ She shakes her head again, irritated. “And then she knew anyway, or thinks she knows. It’d be easy enough to say she was mistaken.”

glances away, back up into the sky. “It’s a little funny seeing the most assertive person I know, who managed to bag herself two of the finest boyfriends in the wider planer system within a week, feeling jealously uneasy.”

: “…Sorry about that though, I guess I just. Got caught a bit flat footed, wasn’t really sure how to react. What to say, at all, about anything.”

laughs a little. “I mean. Being assertive isn’t being confident. You should know this by now.” She looks down again. “I’ve been thinking about that a little. I have a certain charm, I think, when I’m doing. Performing. Being active. Getting people to look at me. But I always think that if people aren’t looking I might just … disappear. I don’t know if I’m jealous, really? I guess I am. I don’t think I could ever hope to compete with someone like her.” She laughs and pulls her knees up to her chest, but keeps her hand clasped with his. “And I know we’re not—I’ve always said we have room for more people in … whatever’s going on with the three of us. Didn’t think I’d be this bad at putting it into practice. But I will. If you decide you want that, I will.”

: “Anyway, please don’t apologize for the not introducing me as your weird girlfriend. I figured you had other things going on. I knew it wasn’t—I’ve been with someone, before, once, who wasn’t … it wasn’t a secret, it just wasn’t a relationship to him when I thought it was. It reminded me of that, but I also know you’d never do that. I figured you were distracted, or flat-footed, or going through it, or any number of other things.” She huffs. “I’m making this about me again.”

shifts over and leans against her, while gently nudging his head against Salme’s. “You do have a way of doing that, yes.” Another quiet laugh.

: “That’s why I wasn’t glued to your side when we got here. I wanted you to have time to shine.” She nudges his head back.

: “That’s … you shine so brightly to me, you know. Every tiny thing you do. I’m watching. I want other people to see you too. But I only know how to do that for people if I’m playing a supporting role. When I’m just being myself I … distort the story around myself. That’s what I’m always worried about, you know.”

: “Eh, someone’s gotta be the lead.”

: “It should be Awa. He’s the one who wants it.”

: “He’s real bad at it, though.”

laughs. “In what way? Or is this the ‘he destroyed the planes’ again?”

: “Oh no, just, he’s usually content to hang to the back like me, unless he’s got a particularly funny bit he wants to do.”

: “(But also, a tenebrous heavy leader…? Maybe lead-actor, but leader…?)” Aurelius shakes his head.

laughs. “I mean. He. Hmm.” She drops her knees and kicks her legs out again. “He’ll bide his time, and then he’ll act, and I just hope I’ve gotten good enough at distorting the story around myself that if we lose him I can get him back.”

: “But this shouldn’t be about me, and this really shouldn’t be about him, Aurelius, Second of His Name. Though I am not calling you ‘Rel.’ That was horrible.”

: “I don’t know about that. We could be Sal and Rel. There’s a certain je ne sais quoi about it.”

laughs again, this time louder, brighter. “I don’t think that’s what je ne sais quoi means. I don’t know how I know what je ne sais quoi means, but I don’t think it’s that.”

: “Wow, what an incredibly loaded sentence to throw back at me. “i don’t even know what that means but you’re wrong“. I’m scandalized.”

: “I do not think you have ever, in your entire several months and multiple lifetimes of existence, experienced the emotion of ‘scandalized.’”

brings a hand up to his chest, and then falls onto his back.

laughs and turns so she’s caging him against the ground, looking down at him. “Vulnerable position to put yourself in, Aavikkokettu,” she says with a smile.

: “How do you know you’re using those words right?”

: “Hmm. Magic. Also there’s literally no one who can check me?” She looks down at him, and then she does lower herself enough to kiss him. Briefly. Chastely. But because she can.

: “Uh-huh.” He certainly doesn’t move to avoid it, accepting her and her actions both.

doesn’t push herself back up, but lets herself rest, flopped on top of his chest. “So it is okay? If I stay glued to your side? If I … am obvious, about what you are to me? Because that’s what I’d do, if I’m just being … me. That and I might hunt down Zaya and … ask her. About you. And Annarr. And how she’s doing. Because. Nosy.”

wraps his free arm around Salme. “It’s okay to be yourself, yes.”

curls in around him a little more. “I really, really love you, you know,” she says a bit more quietly.

: “I know. And I love you too, Salme.”

: “And it’s okay for you to be yourself too. Whoever that is. I get … sometimes, when you’re quiet, I just remember … in Almachadta, after that fight, when you were trying to be the Hunter so badly until you met Tsem and started laughing. And I think you’ve become more yourself since then, and that person is often quiet, but that’s why I get concerned. Probably in the same way you get worried about me when it seems like I’m about to have an anxious meltdown.”

: “Fair enough, I guess.”

: “You guess?”

: “I suppose.”

: “I guess what part of that are you conceding?” She says with a bit of laughter.

: “All of it…?”

: “What … do you think I think about you, I guess?”

: “Mostly that you’re suddenly trying to make this conversation very complicated, for some reason.”

: “You’re right. It wasn’t complicated before.” But she does bonk her head against his chest helplessly. “I guess. I don’t want you to ever think that I think you’re … not enough. Or that you’re doing something wrong. Since you’re so prone to putting things on your shoulders that don’t belong there.”

: “Noted and internalized.”

: “Oh? That one’s easy, huh?”

: “I feel like I’m naturally inclined to believe I am in the right in most regards, so it’s not much effort to extend that a bit further.”

laughs. “Yeah, you have that certain je ne sais quoi about you.”

: “Mmm-hm.”

: “Is there … anything else I can help you process? While I’m here? And feeling brave and annoying?”

: “Hmm… nothing particularly comes to mind.”

: “Should I. I know you don’t know, but should I start … thinking about what it would be like to invite Zaya into our relationship?” And then, quieter, “(Light, Salme, you’re so annoying).”

lets out a breath while looking up at her. “You really are fantastic at making things about you, especially ways that’ll make it harder for you to sleep. How could I possible answer the back half of that question without knowing the answer to the implied first half?”

: “I know! I know! You told me to be myself! That’s myself!”

flops over onto her side and rolls a little bit away. “I’ve been dealing with the … infinite possibility of our reality by trying to consider every possibility that might happen. Awa said it’s not good for me, and he’s probably correct but.” She rolls back towards him, looks at him, and then rolls away again, dramatically.

: “Someone’s going to read this log and laugh at me,” she mutters to the metal of the wall.

: “Okay. Well. If nothing else, I can promise you here and now that I won’t suddenly start making out with her in front of you out of nowhere with no preamble.”

rolls back towards him and laughs. “Well, at least you’re both exceptionally good-looking?”

: “Not gunna argue that.”

: “Didn’t expect you to.”

: “Also, if you ever do get the urge to suddenly start making out with someone of your own volition, I’d kind of like to be me. Considering I usually lead.” She says this bit staring up at the stars and the (only) six moons.

: “But not always.”

: “Well, not with Awa, no.”

: “How quickly we forget the times you’re caught by surprise instead.”

: “Must be that lead actor energy.”

: “Oh shut up.” She scoots closer to him though, not holding herself above him but snuggling into his side. “I made you laugh, at least. Several times. I even made you lightly annoyed at least twice. You can’t say you don’t value the emotional variety.”

: “It’s certainly never boring around you, that’s for sure.” Aurelius turns his head to the side and kisses her.

does blink in surprise because she had quickly forgotten the times she’d been caught by surprise instead. And then she kisses back.

: “I meant it, earlier you know. Being here is amazing. Looking up and seeing the stars so easily. It’s beautiful. I want to discover it with you. I want you to show me. I want … oh.”

: “- It all -“

laughs, and taps her finger to his nose. “No. The bit can wait. I’m doing something important.” And then she calls up the roots and threads and growing things that live in her, and for a moment every vein in her body is lit with dappled Centrelight, and she kisses him and gives it to him, all of it, all of her that is flourishing and rooted and sunlit, and then he, finally, at last, knows something he should’ve known a while ago if he’d ever held still long enough to be told. “There.”

: “Alright, I’ll use it once. Just so you don’t cry. Look at me, sharing in your love with you.”

grins at him, and yeah, she’s glowing, absolutely pleased with herself. “Good. Thank you. Also it’ll come in handy when you want to do the hand-puppet bit I’m sure.”

: “Your welcome.”

: “If I stay here with you, will that get in the way of your processing? I’d like to, but I don’t have to.”

: “Probably not, though it will interfere with the half dozen other things you’re equally as desperate to do, and might interfere with your sleep a bit.”

does prop herself up to look down at him then. “There is nothing I’m more desperate to do than to be here with you, right now, while you go through one of the most difficult things I can imagine someone going through. If you think anything else could matter more to me right now, then I’ve failed in showing you who I am.”

considers for a moment, then laughs. “No, I know you care. Very much. I was, indeed, wrong to say you were equally as desperate. But. I am quite aware of your need to do a several dozen different things in each an every day”

relaxes, resting her head on his arm. “Maybe I want to practice knowing someone will still see me if I’m not constantly performing. Maybe I want to stay here and watch the stars with my handsome, thoughtful boyfriend. Maybe I’ll get bored and leave you alone to contemplate your exceptionally complex existence in an hour or two. Right now, I’d like to stay. May I?”

: “I didn’t say no. You may. Your company is welcome.”

listens to the resonances in his voice, the rapid alternation, the absurdity of it, and then she laughs and laughs and laughs and settles in, yes, to stay.