Chapter 51
Cassie
I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. You were my first fledgling, after all. Kestrel placed a hand on Cassie’s hair in an unusual display of affection. Stay out of trouble, ok?
Where are you going? Cassie asked.
An Itarian businessman bought my contract. I’ll serve out the rest of my days with him.
Doing what?
Whatever he asks of me. Kestrel picked up her bag and exited Cassie’s wing of the Aviary.
Another week passed in a blur. The rain finally slowed, and Cassie finally summoned the will to check the messages that had been piling up on her wrist interface.
There were a few from Eleri asking if she had eaten, which she ignored because Eleri came up daily to ask the same question in person anyway and then wouldn’t leave until she had come out of her room to consume something. But then she saw the ones from Glia.
Sorry to bother you, Cassie. I know you are grieving your mate. I just wanted to let you know the pups miss you.
Irio keeps asking where you are. Come back to play with us whenever you’re ready.
She tucked her knees into her chest as she backed herself against the tank.
What am I going to do without you? Her hands moved in front of her face, but the question was for him.
The crystal genesis had progressed, so there was something more in the tank.
Less like a cactus and more like a starfish now.
Cassie still couldn’t recognize him in the fragmented shapes pulling together around his core, but Aglao seemed to think the results were promising.
Two instincts fought inside of her. The first told her to stay in case anything happened.
If she lost him completely and wasn’t there, she would never forgive herself.
But the second urged her to leave, to exist in the world, even if it was just for a moment.
Cassie didn’t know, but she found her fingers clasped around the door handle, and she peeked out.
The clinic was still bright. She had no idea what time it was anymore, but at least it was quiet.
Cassie sat at the top of the steps leading down into the clinic’s main atrium.
Aglao was working on something on the interface.
Eleri typed notes on the main console while wearing her egg’s portable incubator against her back.
The world had continued forward while Cassie was falling apart.
She wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or worse.
Eleri finally glanced up from her console. Her pale brows rose high, and it took all of Cassie’s will not to flee back into the room with ?rim’s tank. The other woman moved slowly, clearly aware that Cassie was half ready to bolt.
“Do you want to come down? I can make a pot of tea if you want to have some. We don’t have any patients scheduled for a bit.”
Cassie took air into lungs that refused to expand and stood up to make her way down the stairs. Eleri waited a few paces back while Cassie took her time standing in the center of the clinic. Finally, she turned to back to Eleri.
“I think we also have some cookies, but I’ll see what I can find.” Eleri led the way. Cassie followed, limbs stiff, still not entirely sure how to make herself move like a person. She sat at the table in the clinic’s kitchenette while Eleri puttered around pulling things out of cabinets.
Finally, Eleri sat down across from Cassie with a steaming pot of tea and a plate of purple pucks that were not like any cookies Cassie had ever seen. She handed Cassie the first mug.
“I don’t know if it’s any good. S’kasia brought it back for me the last time she went to Abwele.” Eleri sniffed her own mug and made a contemplative face. “You don’t have to drink it if it’s terrible.”
It all seemed so mundane. Drinking tea, eating cookies, talking with another person as if her entire world wasn’t dying in a tank just above them.
Thank you. Cassie said. Because what else was there to say?
Eleri hummed softly to the incubator on the floor next to her chair that held her brown and blue speckled egg.
Cassie glanced up, surprised she recognized the song.
It was one some of the minders had sung to the fledglings in the Aviary when it was time to sleep.
When she’d been so small, small enough to still have her voice, she’d drifted off with that song.
It was probably what she would sing to Irio and the rest of the pups if she still had the ability.
“The song? Where did you learn it?” Cassie asked with the voice ?rim had given her.
“Hmm?” Eleri’s eyes lifted from the incubator. “Oh! The song? My mom used to sing it with me when we were waiting for the train. It’s popular on Gaia.” Her gaze dropped again. “I haven’t spoken with her in a few years now, but it’s nice to remember the good things.”
“Why?” Cassie asked before she could stop herself. She’d never had a mother. The Aviarist made that abundantly clear, so she found a strange fascination with understanding what it was like.
“She treated me very badly. It’s one of the reasons I left.
” Eleri took a sip of the tea and made a face before starting to cough.
“Stars and stones, that is awful. Don’t drink that, I’ll get you something else.
S’kasia is going to get an earful the next time I see her.
” She swiped both mugs off the table and returned with two glasses of fruit juice.
“I don’t have a mother,” Cassie said when she returned.
“Is that something that makes you unhappy?” Eleri’s question was quiet, careful.
“I don’t have anyone anymore.” The tears were back, angry and hot as they burned a path down her cheeks. “And you’re so nice to me. Even though I’m awful.” She smeared snot away from her nose with her sleeve.
Before she knew what was happening, Eleri was hugging her, and Cassie wasn’t pulling away. She leaned against her, letting her tears seep into her uniform.
“You’re not awful, Cassie. You’ve been through more suffering than most people can even imagine.
But you’re not alone. You have me and Aglao.
You have S’samph, if you want him. He’s kind of a jerk.
You have Wreeta and Grora and the pups. Even Ailairi has been asking where you are.
We all love you. I know you don’t feel that way today, and maybe not tomorrow either, but whenever you’re ready. ”
Cassie felt like she would dissolve against Eleri, but her friend held her until her sobbing resolved to soft gasps.
When she’d finally made it back upstairs to her room, she was feeling brave enough to answer Glia. Cassie pressed herself back against the tank, soothed by the ever-present hum of ?rim’s active energy core.
I’ll come see the pups soon. Tell them I’m sorry for being away for so long.
She sent the message quickly before she could reconsider. It was hard not to feel like a traitor. What right did she have to go on living while ?rim wasn’t? But she’d promised. She’d promised to stay. And that promise was the only thing she had left to give him.