Chapter 12 #2
He'd wondered if I was fucking someone else – if I'd be open to fucking other people – and he hadn't asked or reacted or had anything to say about it at all? Even though the expression that I caught as he wandered over to another bank of flowers was one I could only describe as relief?
I trailed after him, slow. "And thinking that… didn't upset you?" I wanted to understand.
"I do not own you, Sashen. I understood that an abayan declaration might be difficult for you. It is why I hesitated. You were forced into your position, although I hope – That is –"
I watched the expanse of his back, feeling a little unsteady there in the fresh air, surrounded by a riot of green – but I waited. I could be patient when things required a delicate touch, and this felt like it did.
"I hope," Araxis said finally, still turned away, "that you do not feel forced into this position.
I hope that – you feel able to go on these dates with me in earnest, or able to decline them at your will.
And if you have other desires, then all I wish is for them to be fulfilled – with me, or elsewhere. "
He was dressed in black, his skin white and dewy in the particular light of this first ecosystem, and as he stretched to stroke the spikes of one gleaming plant, I was reminded with an ache somewhere deep in my chest of Celravi's tapestry.
The lovers, torn apart, each wishing only the best for the other.
Indiva, her greatest desires fulfilled, though all she truly desired was her Sadri.
"So you'd be okay if we weren't dating," I tried, hesitant.
Araxis glanced at me; the skin around his eyes tightened, his mouth flattening. "If that is what you wish, Sashen."
"But is it what you want?" I asked.
He hesitated, looking torn, and I remembered that I had told myself that I'd have to lead, ill-equipped though I was.
"I'm asking because I don't want you to date me out of obligation," I continued, heat prickling up my neck as I rocked slightly on my feet, nervous for a reason I didn't want to look at.
"You know that I'm in love with you, and I've declared for you, and it would be easy to feel bad or…
like you have to be with me. I don't want that.
Because I do want to date you, but I don't want to do it if it's just because you know that. "
He fluted out a quiet sound, ducking his head. "Ah, I understand. Then, yes, Sashen, I would like to continue dating you. What I feel is not an obligation; it is a privilege."
Well, I liked that. I flushed, pleased.
"You'd better stop acting like there's going to be a line-up of abaya who all want to treat me like their special treasure, though," I said with a sly look, trying to chase away the tightness beneath my ribs. "Don't want my ego to get too out of control."
He paused, his fingers lingering on one massive petal, the flushed pink of sunrise across Verdant Ward's skies, and looked at me in that thoughtful, incisive way of his, like he was seeing something that I couldn't glimpse myself.
"I do not think we need to worry that you ever think too highly of yourself, Sashen. "
I blinked at him, there in the forest on Sozamia Station, on our private little date.
What did that mean? "I don't know," I said slowly, continuing down the path toward what sounded like a water feature.
Mist drifted high above us among the tree branches, softening the light and casting us both in a gentle glow.
"Alet Trident said that my arrogance was one of my better features. "
He snorted, following me. "Alet Trident failed to understand anything of significance about you. You are not arrogant, Sashen. You are courageous and unafraid of hard work. That is very different."
I didn't know about that, but I'd allow it.
We wandered for a few moments in silence, except for the rushing sound of water.
Between the trees, I could catch a glimpse of a distant waterfall and the rise of a cliff-like feature.
No doubt the main path would take someone right to the base of the waterfall.
Our private walkway instead curved into a switchback, taking us to the top.
"You think you understand me, though," I said finally.
Araxis paused, halfway up the path, and I stopped walking too, turning to look at him. His eyes had tightened, but the cast of his features was thoughtful. "Hm. I believe I understand parts of you. Sometimes –" And then he stopped, biting back the rest.
I didn't want to keep doing that, the half-finished thoughts, the hesitant truths; I wanted to continue to invite him to open up, no matter where the thought led or what he anticipated my reaction might be.
"You think you understand me," I repeated, keeping my voice neutral.
I wasn't upset. I just wanted to know what he was thinking. "And sometimes…"
Our eyes met, the diffuse light overhead making his hard to read.
"Sometimes," he continued, "I feel that I understand you better than I understand myself.
That isn't to say you're predictable, Sashen.
You surprise me all of the time. But you have a…
clarity that I admire. What you do, what you say, what you think, it all feels internally consistent.
Whereas I often feel that I am a stranger to myself.
I know what I believe, and yet I find myself acting in ways that are not in alignment with those beliefs.
Even – even when we were on the ship before the Tournament, when we were speaking of abayan gender, I told you that I had said things I did not even believe.
I find the fines levied on crecheless abaya deplorable, and yet I didn't think to intervene.
You are a navigational star. Sometimes I think I am just a random burst of radiation.
" He shrugged, then, as if he hadn't just cracked open his ribs to show me what was inside of him, and continued up the path, brushing past me at a slow, easy walk.
I stared after his back as he climbed upwards, then set off after him.
I still felt a bit sore, but it was an almost pleasant pain, and it wasn't hard to catch up.
"Hey now," I said as we reached the top of the cliff and Araxis wandered over to look down over the crashing waterfall, a forest-in-miniature spread out before us, "I'm pretty sure I called dibs on star-based metaphors, supernova. "
He trilled then, turning to look at me as if I was more fascinating than the view of these award-winning gardens.
"A supernova is an explosion," Araxis said.
"A fitting metaphor, I think." He might have said it like he was sad, but instead, his voice was warm, amused, like it could be our private joke.
Like maybe we could reach a point where we could joke about what had happened.
Something inside of me released, like a knot in a muscle. A tension I hadn't realized was there.
"You said you're a bit of a mystery to yourself." I started toward the door that led from the clifftop to the next biosphere – an arid desert that mimicked the region of a voltaar holy site that no one was ever allowed to visit. "I realize that I don't actually know that much about you."
"You know a great deal about me," Araxis said carefully, following me through the door. It opened into a short hallway between the two zones, almost like an airlock, and for a moment, we were tucked away in the quiet space between worlds. Liminal.
I turned, my hand hovering over the handle of the next door.
"I know some things about you. But I don't know what it was like for you growing up, or what happened to your creche, or who you lost along the way.
Maybe – I don't know, maybe you don't want to tell me. Maybe it's private. That's okay too."
Araxis's stare flicked quickly over my features, evaluating. "I don't know these things about you either, Sashen. Ah, that is not true: I know slivers and fragments, because of the testimony you gave. But those weren't pieces you gave to me willingly."
I didn't say anything, because of course he was right.
I hadn't wanted anyone to know. I didn't like people to know.
It was hard enough to talk about the damage Seraphim had left me with.
Addressing the specifics felt like an impossible ask, like it was simultaneously too much to ever describe and somehow not enough, like no matter how many words I used, no one would ever understand or ever see how or why what they'd done to me had broken me in some permanent, irreparable way.
"Of course I would like you to know," Araxis said, firm.
"There is nothing I will not share with you.
" Something like guilt flashed across his features, and I knew he was thinking about the many times he'd lied to me before I fought my way to the truth.
I could see the realization in his stare, the sudden shift in the angle of his shoulders.
He cleared his throat. "I know I have not always –"
"We're not doing apologies yet," I said, and I pushed open the door behind me and stepped into the bright light of an arid desert.
The temperature was cool, although it would be much hotter on the planet this was meant to mimic; the gardens, I'd read on our way in, were adjusted to be tolerable for most species, although each region might not be comfortable, strictly speaking.
Araxis followed in silence as we trekked along the path down a dune and through a forest of dead trees, tiny flowering succulents growing in garlands along their bleached limbs.
I glanced at him, and saw that his jaw was tense, his hands clasped behind his back.
Turning everything over in his head, chastising himself.
And, fair, he should chastise himself. But there was a difference between being aware that he'd fucked up and kicking himself about it all the time, forever. He was here, with me, on a date despite my very best intentions and my better judgment.