Chapter 33
Such Sweet Sorrow
There were a lot of abaya in my bedroom.
And, look, normally I wouldn't mind that, but my brain had just been scraped across the underside of the universe and I could still taste blood in my mouth.
So while I might have rightly expected some solitude, apparently we had to meet in here because Araxis didn't expect me to be able to get out of bed yet and I guess he was worried about me.
Fair: when we'd come out of the burn, I'd immediately started crying like I hadn't since Tam had pinned me to the gym floor, but I'd gotten things under control pretty quickly.
What happened? he'd asked as he cradled me against his body, despite the fact that my nose was dripping blood all over him and I was soaking his shoulder with tears.
I don't know, I'd choked out. I don't – I can't –
To his credit, Araxis had left it there and instead quietly arranged for the planned meeting to come to us as soon as I'd stopped weeping.
It would have been humiliating, but my nervous system was too raw and exposed for anything like embarrassment: I was a stripped wire, sparking and crackling.
If this was what burning looked like with the chemical help Valerie had provided, then I resolved distantly to never do it again.
Except that I knew I'd have to, which was enough that I'd almost started crying again, right there, my mouth still tasting of blood and despair.
The pain pounding in my body had mostly burned away, at least, leaving me only a little hollow and scraped back. I could work with that. I had to.
The room was bathed in blue light as messages lit up the massive display board, where Araxis stood side-by-side with Vivith, Inmadra perched carefully on the couch and flicking through a datapad.
She'd somehow wrangled Celravi into coming along as well, although she wasn't arkathi.
To her credit, Celravi had asked me if I would mind terribly if she sat next to me and also, would I care for any help with all of the blood, and I'd laughed wearily and moved over and felt grateful to have the presence of another body next to mine while my mind still tried to spin itself together from tattered fragments of feeling and unremembered sensations.
I shivered a little as Celravi handed me another warm cloth, having gone and wrung the blood out of the last one, and I scrubbed the skin of my throat.
Across the room, Araxis was reading a list of creches who had reached out immediately on our arrival – they must have had messages queued – requesting meetings, indicating support for our petition for reinstatement, and –
"Why is Elkevi of Creche Traudi offering you congratulations?
" The last word was in Standard, and Vivith looked at Araxis, perplexed, as they tapped on the message currently hovering on the display.
"Perhaps for the Tournament? Although all of the other messages came through immediately in its aftermath. "
I snorted, which was a bad idea: I could taste fresh blood at the back of my mouth. Whoops. I held the cloth up to my nose. "It's because we're getting married," I said as Vivith continued to blink at the message. "They must have someone in their creche who isn't abaya."
Vivith turned suddenly, looking at me. "Should we expect many overtures of congratulations? Is that customary?"
I shrugged. What the fuck did I know? "I think so?"
The smile that flickered across their mouth might have been unsettling – this was still Vivith, after all, even if they were trying to be less of a dick to me and I was trying to be less of an impulsive pain in the ass – except that they tucked it away so quickly.
"I did not realize," they said slowly. "Perhaps there will be some political advantage to be gained from this ceremony after all.
" They'd been skeptical about our plan when we'd patiently explained it to the creche. Nice that they were coming on board.
"Marriage and politics. Who'd have guessed?
" I muttered more or less to myself, because Vivith and Araxis were back to the display board and tracking who they'd received messages from against the list Inmadra was carefully keeping.
As they busied themselves with more pressing politics, a message chimed on my wristband.
I didn't pull it up, crawling out of bed instead, only a little dizzy as I pushed myself to my feet while Celravi watched.
In truth, she seemed less concerned and more curious about whether I might faint, like I had the last time I'd attempted to leave bed.
I liked that she didn't hover like a mother hen; instead, I was more like a weird science experiment she was observing, but in a supportive way.
After closing the door to the hygiene room to afford myself a sliver of privacy, I opened the message while I set to running more water to try and buff out the red tinge still staining my skin.
How was that? Val asked.
Fine, I lied. It wasn't like I wanted to tell her what I'd been like when I'd come to.
She was already worried that I wasn't doing well.
That much had been clear in the contents of the little crate that had been shoved at my chest when we'd picked up our pilots on Anhihan Station.
A little something from Sol, the included note said, chased by Valerie's scrawled name.
In addition to the promised meds to help ease the aftereffects of burning, the package had also included more footwear, several boxes of tea, books for the kids, a bunch of medical manuals, as well as some strange, bulbous gloves and tape and a weird disc thing.
When I'd written her to ask what, exactly, she'd sent me, Valerie had been quick to respond.
Araxis says you're an idiot who keeps splitting his knuckles open, so the next time you want to train by punching something a lot, why don't you strap into those boxing gloves?
And tape your hands! And use the mouth guard!
Instructions are all there on the chip. Just a wild thought, but maybe you could stop wearing your damage like a badge of honour?
After all, hurting yourself when you don't need to means that you're wasting your body's energy on healing injuries that shouldn't happen, and that's energy you won't have for kicking ass when you do need to.
Maybe don't be so hard on yourself, moving forward?
I'd stared at the message while the kids had been eagerly rifling through the books Val had sent, leaning against the meeting room door.
I'd even been offended for a moment. And while I did know that Araxis hadn't told her I was an idiot – he would never – clearly, he had some concerns.
Of course he did: he was observant. He didn't miss much, not when it came to me at least.
And I guess Val had some concerns as well, which was kind of rich, coming from her. I wasn't sure she ever slept. So I was fine! I was ready for what would come next.
In the hygiene room, I ran my tongue over my teeth, which still tasted of blood. Would my mouth just taste like blood forever? Was that a side-effect of burning through the Maelstrom?
A beat later, another message popped up on my wristband.
You're 'fine,' you say. Yeah, I can tell you're your usual effusive self, Val wrote.
Don't worry: you stop feeling like you've been turned inside out on an atomic level after a day or so.
Anyway, we're just in the middle of recalibrating our engine so we don't yank you through the Maelstrom with us when we leave, and then we'll detach and be on our way.
Elethenn's all settled in. Did you want to say goodbye or anything?
I did. Yeah, I'll come down. I've mostly stopped bleeding anyway. Then, I wish we didn't have to do this song and dance. I'd have liked to say a proper goodbye to you as well. Because it was nice to have someone else who worried about me, even when they didn't need to.
Well, the next time I see you, we'll be headed to Sol, so we'll have all the time in the world to braid each other's hair and talk about the old ball-and-chains, Val wrote. Although, I don't know, maybe your prince would get all squirrely about having someone else braiding your hair. Scandalous!
Before I could even try to corral my thoughts into something resembling a pithy response, another message flared to life above my forearm.
Vateni wants to get us turned around fast. Fair – they've done some contract work here, which went, and I quote, 'sub-optimally. ' Hurry down if you want to see us off.
I finished cleaning myself up, pointedly not looking in the mirror for more than a cursory glance.
If I didn't look at myself, I wouldn't have to see how haunted my eyes were or how pale I was beneath my freshly scrubbed skin.
There was something from that burn that still lingered in my body, a not-quite-right space in my chest that reminded me a lot of when I'd woken up at the Tournament after Grigor Spade had nearly killed me.
When I tried to remember what had happened during the burn, where I'd gone, what my mind had conjured up, there was only a void, utter emptiness – a burn hole through a piece of paper.
But my body still felt... something, like my blood and bones knew exactly what had been waiting for me beneath space, even if my conscious mind had been shielded from the worst of it.
Stars, I really didn't ever want to do that again. I couldn't imagine being like Valerie, willingly throwing myself into the Maelstrom over and over and over. Maybe human co-pilots wouldn't change the galaxy after all, because who the fuck would want to do that?
I blinked rapidly to clear my head, which didn't really work. Blood stained the front of my gray sweater, but I didn't want to interrupt everyone by changing, so I made peace with the fact that Elethenn wouldn't be scared by a little blood and I headed out.