This fic started out as two separate stories and somewhere along the way merged into one, based on both this writing prompt and the concept that the salute wasn't there for Tom to save the day with in the Series 2 finale. This is an alternate version of events set during and after the events of All Out War. A little angsty but I felt a continuation fic had to be put on a page in some form or another since it wouldn't stop buzzing around my head while I was supposed to be revising...
I hope you enjoy!
'Imagine that at some point, Person B died and was made Person A's guardian angel. A is unable to move on from B's death, becoming isolated and depressed. B decides to wipe A's memory of B so that A can move on and be happy.'
It would be easier that she was dead.
That's what Lexi tells herself, at least, as she lies dying amongst the wreckage of the spaceship.
Most people probably try to rationalise the situation, she guesses. When she can see that there's really no way her battered body is getting up again any time soon; when she can feel the jolt and crackle of toxic Zanti Scale unravelling her cells one by one, taking great pleasure over the destruction of every vital nerve in her spinal cord; when she can see the hopelessness in her brother's eyes as he clutches her too close to him to be natural.
She's dying. She knows this. Of course, she's hardly surprised: if the Contest had ended any other way she would have still been devoured by her father, having technically lost the competition by refusing to hunt down Tom Clarke, while her brother had had no such qualms. At least it would have been quick.
"My sister. I will mourn you."
Lexi can't bear hearing her brother's voice so broken. His fingers grip her shoulders so tightly that she can feel their pressure through the armour plate. His words imply he is ready to let go, but Lexi has always been able to tell when he is lying. For all the follies of human behaviour, at least their emotions are free to wander, to develop and to be expressed in whatever new way the humans see fit. Nekross emotions are suppressed to the point of snapping: to conceal them is their species' way.
Just by listening to the telltale crack in his usually impassive tone, Lexi can tell that his have finally given up the battle.
Tom only has one spell left. She doubts even that residue of magic will be enough to do what it must to save all of their lives, to send the entire armada home. He frets over a solution, the young wizard's gaze flickering from place to place, as if the darkened corners of the wrecked Flight Deck will offer any illumination to their predicament. Even now, from out the corner of her eye she can see Tom's feet: pacing out a dull rhythm on the Zarantulus' floor. Back, forth. Back, forth. As if it will help conjure up a solution from mid-air, so to speak.
"Take the salute," the wizard girl had said, apparently the magical mouthpiece to the disembodied voice of Tom's gran. It had given them all such hope, at least momentarily. A catch-all solution that could end the threat to Earth and to Nekron all in one go. An implausible notion, looking back on it, although a pleasurable one at the time.
But the salute was long gone, of course, sent back to their starving planet by a rare moment of compassion by Varg more than an hour previously. No doubt it had already been distributed around the starving population of the poorest Nekross, families grateful for every precious sip. Lexi doesn't regret it. How can she? Every planet she's ever plundered, every magical creature that she has sucked the lifeforce from their very bodies – they have all been to provide for her home planet. At least it's fairly symbolic, that the last action the Nekross royal family will probably ever carry out is to protect their starving civilisation. The wizards probably wouldn't agree, of course, but it is far too late now.
"I can't do it." Tom strides back into her line of sight, his facial expression conflicted and distraught. The princess can't help but pity the young wizard as he hunches down to take her hand once again; no-one should have to put themselves through this kind of emotional trauma, even when attempting to save his enemies and his planet in the same fell swoop. "I can't save you and Earth."
"Then you know what you have to do, don't you, Tom Clarke?" Lexi stares deep into the eyes she knows so well, and sees the knowledge in them, much as he may try to deny it.
It seems like an eternity before Tom nods reluctantly, beads of sweat on his palm moist against Lexi's scaled skin.
Somehow, she musters a smile, a smile that he tries to mimic. A half-smile that tugs at his tightened lips and reminds her of the old Tom, the Tom she grew up with in a now erased existence. "Together?" she prompts.
His eyes never leave hers as he once again mirrors her encouraging nod.
So it happens that the wizard and the alien crouch together at the end, both murmuring the incantation that will hopefully end the feud for good – and send Tom home. With her dying breath, Lexi utters the magical words that she dimly remembers having used to chorus with Tom and their son, their beautiful son. In another life.
Maybe it won't work.
Maybe even Tom – a being of such power that she has always grudgingly admired and simultaneously hungered after – won't have enough magic to end a war of this magnitude, of this desperation. Maybe they've come too far to ever see a way back.
But the wizard does it, somehow, his voice straining to complete the sequence of enchanted words, alive with magic that Lexi's slightly hoarse tone can never hope to match. Even then, as they all stare at the screen that depict the fleet out amongst the glinting stars, without the salute that was apparently the key to fixing this hopeless situation, his magic is only enough to whisk around half of the armada into a handy portal before it swirls shut for good. The remaining ships are repelled from the unsuspecting planet, like a magnetic force that suddenly changed poles. It had only taken around ten seconds, but Lexi knew it had needed longer. It needed more magic. Magic which Tom just didn't have quite enough of any more: drained and still recovering from the recent semi-extraction that had sucked out and then returned a large quantity of the life substance to his cells. Not exactly ideal for performing a large spell straight after.
But maybe it would be just about enough to end the war.
The teenager breathes hard, the evident exhaustion clinging to his every feature. "I think it worke –" he starts tentatively.
And suddenly Tom is gone.
Just like magic.
Just in time, too.
The burning sensation that had been gripping her chest is now slowly retreating, replaced by a strange coolness, as if someone has spread a numbing salve across the scales of her skin. Lexi exhales slowly, her vision blurring as the Zanti Scale contamination reaches her eyes, each cell achieving that same almost fresh numbness. Varg is talking, saying something to her, shouting, perhaps, but she can no longer hear him properly.
And then she's smiling euphorically, as if at peace at last, and she's gazing sightlessly up into her older brother's concerned eyes, and she's so scared of dying, and that seventeen-year-old and that thirty-year-old Lexi are both telling her in unison that it's okay, it's all okay, you're only dying, it's going to be oka…
And as Lexi finally allows one last shred of consciousness to slip away, there's only her brother's voice pleading to an empty room to try and convince her otherwise.
The next sensation is one of floating.
Strange, Lexi thinks, gazing curiously down at the scene that she is fairly sure she's just left, feeling a dizzying sense of vertigo as she realises she can look down and not see her own body. Her enquiring scientist's mind is still present, analysing the verity of the situation, fascinated by what appears to be occurring, despite all that logic dictates about the universe. I wasn't aware this was actually what happened when you pass on. It's just like one of those human film plots.
Varg is shaking the armoured shoulder of the Lexi down there with vehemence, frantically repeating her name: at first softly, as if acting careful to wake her, then at a shouting pitch that still doesn't rouse the slumbering princess, whose eyes have drifted closed as if she's merely fallen asleep. The apparition-Lexi winces at how loudly her brother's words seem to penetrate into what used to be her eardrums, like the volume had been turned up full-blast on a headset. She'll miss having eardrums, she supposes. They could come in quite useful.
It's only then that the notion hits her full-on, snapping her out of the dizzying euphoria back into cold harsh reality.
She's dead.
The rest is a blur, really.
As Lexi hovers in mid-air above what used to be her home, having a definite form of existential crisis which is perhaps understandable under the circumstances, half of her consciousness somewhat halfheartedly tunes into what's going on below her.
Of course, the remainder of the royal family is forced to surrender. There's not really much choice besides sit hanging in space, watching as the fuel gauges slowly burn dry and life support gives up the ghost at last. It's Varg's job to admit defeat in the end, once he carefully lowers Lexi's prone torso to the floor, glancing around at the ruptured heart of the spaceship one last time before heading to one of the least shattered monitors and robotically linking communications back into the slave armada that has just won their war.
Kooth's ship wasn't one of those that was sucked into the swirling portal, ghost-Lexi notes with displeasure. The Chancellor looks slightly shaken and her traditional robes are creased and dishevelled, but that smug expression still gleams in her cruelly narrowed eyes as she scrutinises the prince through the monitor, the background of her ship looking as equally wrecked as their own. "Prince Varg. Your attack is over, I trust?"
"I would class it as defence," Varg counters surprisingly coherently. "Since I believe that you were the ones who attacked us."
She waves a hand airily. "Technicalities. Where did you send the other half of my slave fleet, might I inquire?"
"Home." Varg's voice is curt, formal, but his words are slightly too rushed to feign being fully natural. "Where else?"
"True." Kooth tilts her head to one side, taking her time over rounding the syllables of the question before she lets them loose. "So, what can I do for you? I take it this isn't just a social call."
The words don't come easily, even considering the desperation of their situation. Varg has never been one to concede on anything, let alone an entire war. Lexi's many bouts of sibling confrontation have taught her that at least. "This is a broadcast I make to formally admit defeat to my people," he says stiffly. "We would like to negotiate our terms of surrender."
Kooth looks suspicious, perhaps rightly so. "You surrender? Just like that?"
Varg inclines his head, alluding to the devastation behind him, the Chancellor no doubt taking pleasure in the product of her efforts as she gazes almost hungrily out of the screen. "Our ship has been demolished," he says distantly after another lengthy ten seconds. "The Zarantulus is an empty vessel, hanging in space with no engines, fuel or power. We have about three hours of life support left. I think you will agree we have little choice."
"And the king?" The Chancellor is evidently enjoying toying with Varg, even though she can see the truth in his slightly slumped posture. Defeat hangs heavy on the conquered. "Does he agree with your decision?" she inquires smoothly nonetheless.
Varg stiffens slightly further. "He is no longer in a position to intervene even if he did hold some countering opinion."
If Lexi listens – or perhaps imagines, it's difficult to distinguish when you theoretically don't have a tangible form any more – she can almost hear her father's soft moan that he had always liked to employ when things don't go his way.
Kooth's enjoying this moment far too much. "And might there be anything else swaying your decision?" she asks innocently, although she's practically licking her lips with anticipation, waiting to be able to go in and tear the monarchy apart for good.
Varg gives in, tells the gloating now-president what she obviously wants to hear. "My sister," is all he has to say before the audible crack in his voice finally gives way again, the loss of his emotionless tone revealing far too much to his enemy which he has just willingly yielded himself to.
Chancellor Kooth smiles unkindly. "I see."
As Lexi continues to drift across the Zarantulus ceiling, freaking out over her new state of non-existence, she vaguely registers Kooth asking for permission to board, Varg tiredly typing in a command to the mainframe and the familiar buzz of the Nekross teleport as Kooth shimmers into view on the Flight Deck, arriving with a flash of charred robes and a curl of ivory tentacles as she regally regards her beaten quarry with predatory relish.
Varg wastes little time in moving to the president, his gaze lowered but his shoulders shaking slightly with repressed fear and anxiety. The Nekross prince is suddenly urgent, impatient, juxtaposing his slow reluctance of surrendering just previously. "She's dying," he murmurs to her, no small-talk required. Suddenly it's like he's a child again, the gruff indifference gone from his voice with the worry left open and clear. "Zanti Scale Contamination."
"Indeed?" The other Nekross considers this for a fraction too long, head held high as she methodically takes in the annihilation her attack has caused on their proud spaceship. Still exulting in her power to toy with the beaten royal.
Varg's words jumble together in his haste to spit them from his lips. "She's dying," he repeats, as if it will make them any more true. "You have to help her. Your ships have medicine, doctors. You can heal her."
"A few minutes ago you were ready to watch her be devoured," Kooth points out, her tone harsh and sceptical.
He winces at the reminder, the memory that he had somehow caused his sister's demise still too raw in the forefront of his mind. "Please. Take me, do whatever you want to –" Varg casts a dark look at the sullen, silent silhouette against the far wall, that once both siblings had revered and now recoil from. Looks like knowledge really is power. The power to end a monarchy, seemingly. "Him. Just, please, save her. Save my sister."
Varg… Lexi wishes she could shout at him. He knows that she is long gone, just as well as she herself does. Surrendering now does no good on her account, even though she's grudgingly aware that the beaten Zarantulus crew has little other choice.
Delicately, Kooth bends, making a show of checking the princess' non-existent vitals. When she straightens again, Lexi hates her ever more for the note of fake pity she laces into her acidic voice. "Oh… Prince Varg," she says, her voice silken, laden with sympathy. "I hate to say it, but your sister's gone. You must know that."
Oh, he knows. Lexi doesn't take her eyes off her brother's face, not for an instant, even as her lifeless body is lifted and removed by two solemn guards, even as Kooth issues an instruction and two more secure the heavy-looking shackles around Varg's wrists, trapping them behind the back of his royal-blue armour, even as she floats helplessly after the cluster of triumphant anarchists as they teleport away, left alone in a suddenly silenced and derelict Flight Deck, as if someone has simply clicked the off-switch. He just doesn't want to say it. He just doesn't want to say goodbye.
That's not the end of it, of course.
Instead of slipping comfortably away into the Nekross afterlife, finding herself hunting in the spirit forests amongst her alien ancestors, Lexi's surroundings blur into a merge of greyish soup for a good few moments as she gazes around, the seventeen-year-old utterly bewildered by this point. It's true that she's never fully believed in the concept of the afterlife that has been promised on her home planet, but it is a comforting notion nevertheless. Her brother has always had more faith in their Nekross ancestors than she had. There again, her brother has always been better at the traditional Nekross thing in general, despite how jealous she always was at the fact he would be heir to the throne and she wouldn't. Varg swallowed up all those traditions and beliefs willingly from their childhood: from the trust in the afterlife to the typcal Nekross ruthlessness that she has never had fully. Still, finding herself in a peaceful forest would be nice.
But when has Lexi's life – or afterlife, for that matter – ever been that simple?
Her environment finally sharpens again, focusing in until she can fully make out the dark walls of the small, cramped room she finds her soul hovering in. As she imagines herself blinking to take it all in – this whole sort-of-life thing is going to take a lot of getting used to if it plans on sticking around – she realises she's looking at a makeshift cell, with bars on the single tiny window and dark drab walls that at least suit the purpose of the room.
With a jolt she realises Varg is in the room with her, and instinctively she reaches out to touch him, to make contact with her brother so she doesn't feel quite so alone and terrified. If she concentrates she finds out she can vaguely visualise her hand reaching out, the image fading in and out of reality as her attention level fluctuates. Still, her hand disappears through the armour of his shoulder, and she shudders in realisation that nothing has changed. Still dead, then.
Varg is sitting on a ledge that is probably supposed to serve as a bed, that juts at a right angle out of the wall. His face is a grimace of pent-up fear and dread and his scaly tentacles thrash side to side to themselves, a sure sign to his sister that he's overly tense. The handcuffs that she had witnessed before are still attached around both wrists, holding his arms uncomfortably behind his back, much as he shifts and struggles to adjust his sore position. It's clear to see that Kooth has already taken advantage of the success of her uprising - though there's no way of Lexi knowing how long it's been for Varg since the surrender - and placed the only possible opposition to her future reign in what Lexi assumes is the palace dungeon deep underneath her own former family home.
Speak of the devil.
Lexi allows herself to feel a tiny ounce of regret that the first view that she has had in eleven years of her home planet is of a dank prison cell, then swallows her selfishness and focuses back in on her brother and the sneering president who is entering the cell with seemingly wolfish glee.
Varg immediately stands, although Lexi doubts it's out of any form of respect for his newfound superior. "Where is my sister?" he demands, voice hoarse and so afraid it twists Lexi's immaterial chest in knots.
That same false pity as before twists the president's features into a sad smile. It looks more like a snarl, Lexi thinks privately. "I think you know where she is, Varg," she says, her tone condescending, as if she is addressing a halfling.
"I need to see her."
Kooth's patience is beginning to waver; she is evidently eager to move on to her prophesised greatness. "Your sister – is dead, Varg," she says gently.
Varg's eyes narrow into guarded slits. "You lie, traitor."
"I'm not sure it's I who is the traitor."
"Tell me where she is, Kooth!" Varg chooses the moment to hurtle himself at the open cell door, his only obstacle the sneer on the woman's face, who flinches momentarily. But then the shackles catch on his wrists and Lexi realises there's a long snaking chain leading from them to a bolt on the wall, and Varg falls back to the ledge with a pained wheeze.
"I think you'll find it's President Kooth, Varg," Kooth corrects, back to acting very much the unperturbed conqueror, looming over her defeated quarry.
"I think you'll find it's…" Lexi falters, the automatic defensive retort shrivelling and dying abruptly on her phantom lips. Prince Varg, her subconscious completes helpfully. Except the title wasn't strictly valid, not any more. Lexi highly doubted it ever would be again.
"You surrendered to my war. You are therefore a prisoner of aforementioned war."
The first glimmer of Varg's old brash assurance briefly alights on his face. "I doubt that's what Nekron thinks," he says with unexpected fire in his previously weary tone.
Kooth scowls at the reminder. "Yes. Perhaps. Fortunately for you, my people are aware that the children of the Royal House of Nekron are not as guilty as their father evidently is of treason against his planet. How you succeeded in convincing them I don't know, but they are conscious that you had no knowledge of how the King stole magic for himself, and did not aide or abet him in any way."
Varg nods expressionlessly. "Thank you. So my sister and I are not convicted of treason."
Kooth hates having to say it. Lexi is glad that Varg still has the ability to enjoy seeing their enemy squirm, proved by the slight spiteful furling of his tentacles. "You are not, no. But… I meant what I said about your sister."
She says not a word more, perhaps due to her malice or the way Varg had briefly made a mockery of her. She simply smiles virtuously as Varg screams at her to deny it, hands curling snakelike through the bars as she strides imperiously away, begging his president to let him see his sister one last time. Perhaps that's when he finally realises that the vindictive Nekross unusually isn't lying, that she knows she can hurt him all the more when every word she says is complete truth. Perhaps that's when he finally gives up hope.
And Lexi has to look away as Varg's legs give out from under him, as he slides unfeelingly down the steel bars of the door, as the first audible sob that wracks his chest is without a doubt the sound of her brother's heart breaking.
They bury her body in the forests of Nekron's capital, situated in the grounds of the family palace where she grew up. The apparition-Lexi floats after the funeral procession, tugged slightly after her brother by their apparent new psychic link as they arrive in a clearing that she dimly recalls from playing in during her childhood here. It's a sombre affair, with some of the stauncher royalists crying quietly as the young alien princess' body is lowered into the ground, Nekron's brightest yellow flowers decorating the deep blue casket. It's almost laughable, if it hadn't been so scary. Lexi stares at the closed eyes of herself and longs to be suddenly sucked back in, to take a deep breath and know that she can try to do at least something to help her planet now.
But despite any amount of wishing, the soul of the princess stays resolutely up in the air, isolated from even herself.
Kooth has chosen a position regally aside from the scattered congregation, an expression of sorrow plastered on her face as she resides on her travel throne, wiping away fake tears for the benefit of the news coverage later. Gazing out over the crowd – it seems like the whole of Nekron has turned up for her funeral – Lexi searches it for signs of familiar faces, but finds only one.
Her cruelty may have been absolute in many ways, but President Kooth perhaps isn't so cruel that she could ban someone from their own beloved sister's burial.
Flanked by four guards, Varg stands motionless at the very foot of the coffin as the entire ceremony unfolds right before him. He no longer wears his regal blue armour, but is clad in dull grey cloth, what Lexi recognises as the universal prisoner outfit. Oddly, the usually proud posture of the prince seems dwarfed by his quartet of sentinels: he looks small, without the armour. Alone.
And his expression is impassive, blank.
From drifting around the dungeon in the last couple of days, Lexi has gathered that Varg's trial is due to take place in a couple of days, much use any of it is. Everyone is fully aware that he isn't actually guilty of anything even close to treason, and he will be freed straight after the hearing. But Kooth insists that her brother is guilty until proven innocent, and quite honestly seems to enjoy flaunting her power up until the last moment, including exhibiting him in the limelight at a funeral, sympathetic subjects trying and failing to meet his downcast eyes.
Kooth says a few false choked-up words at the end, which Lexi doesn't bother listening to. Instead the dead girl nestles close to her older brother, as she has done both previous nights in the murky prison as Varg falls into an unsettled sleep beside her. Although she knows he can't feel her presence, not really, she rests her phantom head lightly on his shoulder as the siblings watch Nekross workers throwing spadefuls of soil on top of the casket until it is buried from view.
Nekron's not a happy place even when Varg is set free. Lexi wanders after him – she has been practicing the art of pretending to walk along the ground instead of float, it helps with the otherwise absence of normality – and wishes he would raise his gaze from the greyish ground.
Although the trial had played out exactly as everyone had expected – the Nekross jury voting unanimously in favour of Varg's innocence – Varg was in no uncertain terms not royalty any more. Kooth had given one of her favourite fake virtuous smiles as Varg was permitted to leave the courtroom, the handcuffs unclipped from his grazed wrists. Upon his freedom, he had opted out of the blue armour that he had spent his entire life in, and instead wears a simple traditional Nekross tunic. The shirtplate is still a dull blue shade, but other than that nothing to imply that he had ever been royalty at all. If her brother had been his old self, doubtless he would have demanded his former armour and strode out of the courtroom, ready to fight for the throne. But as it was, as the small crowd of insistent royalists cluster around him, instant concern and query thick in the cloying air, Varg barely speaks, his head low as he pushes his way through the group, tentacles hanging limp at his neck.
Lexi can't blame them for following. Kooth had less than graciously allocated Varg some quarters in the housing area out of the centre of the capital. After all, Kooth had never exactly been a popular chancellor, and her rise to power had been anything but a democracy. There had been famine under the royal family's rule, but in general the Nekross King and his children had been admired and liked by many. In hindsight, the Chancellor had exaggerated their anger for theatrical effect, and to provoke the King into starting the Contest.
But the prince ignores their rapid questions, ignores their confused shouts, ignores their hope, as he finds his allotted quarters and locks himself inside, leaving the small gang of supporters on the other side.
Lexi stays with them, mingling with their pleas. Their desperation is easier to bear than seeing the dull nothingness on her brother's face.
President Kooth is quick to assume command of Nekron. Her calmly smiling face is emblazoned on flags and banners and hung all around the city, her teams of Nekross guards sent to patrol the streets. The more vocal supporters of the royal family express their arguments on the same streets, hang around Varg's sealed quarters begging for him to emerge, begin to disappear by around the third day. Lexi has no doubt about where they've gone; her current inability to sleep has meant she has come across more than one cluster of guards rounding on a royalist, forcing them to their knees. The young princess winces as their cries echo around the isolated buildings in the dead of night, cut off abruptly as they're dragged away.
The more fearful majority soon realise that it's not smart to oppose their president. They huddle at corners, hurry from place to place in ragged groups, avoid the gazes of the blank-faced guards capable of such cruelty. Soon little opposition is either left free or brave enough to challenge Kooth's rule.
And still Varg stays inside.
Lexi is starting to come to terms with her new state of being, if not exactly her purpose. From her distant memories of her studies into human proverbs and idioms, she considers her role to be some kind of guardian angel, brought back from the apparently dead to hover around their home city and – do what, exactly? That's the part that she agonises over as their president feeds the planet but also puts it under her control, able to interact with or change nothing. Why is she still here?
She feels guilty for the treacherous thoughts when she's with her brother, begging him to get up from his seat, to stop mourning her, even though she knows nothing can get him to change his mind when the typically stubborn Nekross prince has decided on a course of action.
Lexi had assumed it was a mistake at first. Guardian angels were supposed to go and watch over their significant other, weren't they? The person they loved the most in all the world. Try to make amends for leaving them by guarding them (the clue was in the name), and enjoy watching them live out their days under their spiritual gaze.
The human research had said nothing about watching your own funeral, sitting in a cramped house with your mute brother for days on end, and being trapped all alone, able to speak to no-one.
So Lexi - exhausted after countless days of silent patrol and the silent vigil of her brother – forces her consciousness up and away from her home planet, what's left of her willpower reaching out and searching for a foreign one so much smaller, weaker and freer than her own. Certain that someone out there must be aware of her, must still love her as she still loves him.
But when she finally finds Tom, he's smiling.
The levitating princess realises how much she's missed him; it seems like a very long time since they clutched hands on a ruined spaceship. Obviously, he can have no idea that she's dead – how could he know? All he knows that he cast his spell and sent as many of the Nekross fleet home as he could, as well as himself and his own family. In a way, it had worked on them as well: Lexi and Varg had indeed gone home for the first time in eleven years, albeit not in exactly the way they had expected.
She's glad he's happy. After all the misery and pain she's been witness to on her own planet, it's refreshing to see the young wizard grinning as he and his friends babble on about something inconsequential. There's a tiny part of her that wishes that he was also pining for her – but he deserves to live his life. The least Lexi can do is watch over him to ensure he can live it to the full.
Lost in daydream, the girl only realises she's drifted off when she senses a tugging motion, being pulled away from Tom, his features blurring into grey soup as her consciousness dissipates. Lexi struggles against it, searches again for her once-lover in the blizzard, but it's all a blur.
The next thing she sees is Varg.
Nothing much has changed; Varg still sits in his grimy tunic, unfocused stare levelled at a spot on the floor. Lexi mentally apologises to her brother and finds her way across space back to Tom, seeking any memory of past happiness she can selfishly salvage.
And once again, when she's had her fill of gazing wistfully at the teenage boy as he heads home from school, blissfully unaware of her ethereal presence, Lexi loses concentration and she loses him all over again, dragged right back to Varg.
She tries again and again.
While Lexi's disembodied self zips back and forth across the metaphorical chasm, from planet to planet, from Nekron to Earth and back again, part of her subconsciousness still zones into what's going on beneath her.
Kooth has evidently discovered that she's neither a natural nor an affable leader, and has resorted to cruelty and threats in the princess' absence. For all she had accused the Nekross royal family of causing widespread starvation, indirectly or otherwise, the new President's not doing an overly great job of preventing it herself.
And within a matter of weeks, there is a revolution and the new presidency dissolves as abruptly as it had been created.
Lexi watches in satisfaction as the woman who had caused her, her family and her planet alike such pain for almost two months is shoved from the doors of her family palace, angry civilians cheering as she glowers out from where she's flanked by her own armed sentinels at her 'beloved people'.
Jathro Kooth smiles uncertainly at the crowd as he avoids his mother's poisonous glare. It had been Jathro that had led the coup against his president, despite his integral part in bringing her to power originally. He hadn't been comfortable with the imprisonments and public brutality that had begun to encompass his city, and the ex-technician had done the right thing in the end, when it came to it.
But he's no leader.
Now that Nekron's masses don't fear being attacked and locked up for a word against their dictator, they begin to clamour publicly for the return of their royal family. Lexi observes the many communal memorials for their late princess with mild amusement; perhaps understandably Kooth had banned any mention of Lexi once her funeral was over.
But the Nekross King's obviously never coming back. His children may not have committed any crimes knowingly against their planet, but stealing magic and causing global famine – that definitely counts as a concrete form of treason.
And the only other possible heir to the throne is most definitely indisposed. Lexi should know.
In most people's minds, that just leaves one option.
Varg doesn't get much say in the matter. The capital's council that Kooth had disbanded upon her instatement hurriedly reform, and several dishevelled members arrive at Varg's quarters, Lexi following close behind.
Upon first inspection to unknowing onlookers, Varg doesn't look much like the prince he's supposed to be. Lexi's not sure what they had been expecting when they rather rudely burst into his apartment – a proud king to spring fully formed into his role for his planet? All they find is the sight Lexi has become all too used to – a tired, beaten Nekross who misses his little sister.
They briefly fill him in on the situation, then usher him from his quarters with typical Nekross tact. To be fair, they do a good job of hiding their disappointment at the sorry state of their only hope, as he trudges towards the palace, saying not much at all.
The coronation isn't much more cheerful than the funeral had been. The crowds cheer wildly as the heavy crown is placed on Varg's head, much as they had when they first saw him ascending the steps of the palace once more, a flock of royal advisors scurrying around their prince. Lexi's spectral hand is tight around Varg's for the entire proceedings, sensing his every tension as the traditional speeches go by, smiling sadly as she imagines him admonishing her for yawning. Once he would have relished being made king – or King Regent, as is the new title they're calling it. But he's withdrawn and impassive, and retires as soon as he's able after the coronation to his new, considerably more lavish quarters in the palace's royal suite, even though brightly coloured fireworks still explode overhead.
As her brother falls into a restless slumber in a bed that's too big for him, Lexi chooses to visit Tom, watching him fall asleep in an alien room with a slight smile on his face.
Nekron may be a lot more content with the way it's ruled now, but Lexi privately thinks it's just cruel to install Varg back in the family palace where he and his sister grew up. It's like he's seeing ghosts every corner he paces around, his eyes constantly haunted by the shadows of their childhood selves. Lexi sees them too: a tiny giggling Nekross halfling grinning as she beats her older brother in their impromptu race to the kitchen; hiding in one of Nekron's famously towering trees from their angry nurse; snuggling up together in the huge bed that Varg now occupies alone, when Lexi has had some nightmare or other.
But he must do his duty as King Regent. Lexi can tell that the council grow more and more frustrated with the despondency of their ruler, but they can't exactly just order him to be happy, can they? To stop grieving?
Although the parties continue in the streets for weeks on end, the Royal Court of Nekron is by no means any less broken than the short-lived presidency had been. Lexi knows what is inevitably next from her childhood studies of Nekron law: an alliance. An alliance to cement their claim to power and align their laws with the Ringed Moons of Nekron so there's less chance of any future rebellion.
Varg doesn't have much choice in this either.
They make an imperial couple as the newly-weds wave from the palace balcony: the Lady Lyzera smiling charmingly and blowing air kisses to her thousands of devoted followers, King Regent Varg wearing a serious frown as he gazes out over the sea of strangers. Eleven years away is a long time.
As is traditional from the values of Nekron society, the marriage had been more political than it was about love; the two Nekross royals had only met once before their big day. Lexi finds an inherent dislike for the female ruler, as callous and vindictive as the previous princess had been soft-hearted. Still, she hopes ardently that Lyzera can make her brother happy again.
And to someone who didn't know him all that intimately, that would appear to be the case. The new King Regent parades his new Queen around borough after borough on their honeymoon tour, as is customary. And as the weeks fly by, you could almost kid yourself that the beam both royals plaster on their faces is genuine, as they kiss in front of every town's joyous audience.
But Lexi has always been able to read her brother far too well.
Once their tour is finally complete and they are back in the Nekron palace, behind closed doors Lyzera is obviously not as radiantly happy as she pretends to be for the people. She scorns at Nekron's customs, much preferring her own home on one of the Ringed Moons. She invades every inch of the palace, silver scales glinting everywhere you seem to look And, frustrated with her husband's listlessness and misery, devoid of little other emotion, she at first cajoles and then screams at him to sort it out, to act like the king he was born to be.
If anything, his wife's fury and ice-cold heart just seems to make Varg miss his compassionate, disobedient little sister more.
However, after six long months of drifting over her brother's new life, Lexi is beginning to realise that she's not quite as incapable of interaction as she had first thought.
Sure, she still can't touch anything around her, and no matter how loudly she yells, no-one can hear her lonely pleas.
She discovers her new power almost by accident.
Lexi has barely left her brother's side during the last couple of months, sticking close to him as he patrols his streets or stands alone out on the balcony, gazing unreadably out at his palace grounds. It's during one of these silent sessions that Lexi breaks and lays both hands on either side of the back of her brother's scaled head, her intangible tears falling straight through Varg's shoulder as she begs him to move on. If not wholly for his benefit, then at least for hers.
And she lets out a gasp as she feels a slight cloud lift from his mind, linked so closely with her own.
It's not permanent. But, unless it's just her strained imagination, Varg wears an altered expression as he looks out over the beauty of his native planet… one almost of acceptance.
Intrigued by her newfound ability, the princess experiments over the next couple of days, probing into his mind and finding memories there, both happy and so, so sad. It takes emotion, she finds out. If she concentrates hard, she finds she can pull one of the happier memories, like strands, to the front of his mind, cause a change in expression as she and her older brother rewatch one of the scenes from their shared childhood. Occasionally, if she lets emotion flood her ghostly form, she can push the other way, force all memories of her back a tiny amount. She notices the change in his gait almost instantly: Varg is more involved and talkative in everyday life, as if lead weights have been lifted from his shoulders. Lyzera sees it too, and Lexi smiles as the couple interact together like they never really got the chance to do before their rushed wedding ceremony. Maybe that's her purpose, having been inexplicably brought back to watch over her grief-stricken brother. Maybe she has to help him live again.
And then the bombshell is dropped.
Nekron had survived for the last half a year on the powerful magic contained in the salute, which the siblings had sent back to Nekron so long ago to end the famine. But even the most concentrated solution was never going to last infinitely, and the royal council call an urgent meeting with their Regent royals to explain the situation. Magic is running out, and they need to go out into space again to extract more. Technicians have already done their magic on the battered spaceship so another quest can be started out on. The future of their civilisation is relying on it.
Blah, blah, blah.
At first, she's hopeful. Earth is still the last place where natural magic exists in the universe, and Varg going back there will mean Lexi can watch over both him and Tom at once. Maybe they'll even form a peace treaty, since Tom helped them so much before. She could act as their joint invisible guardian angel, caring for her loved ones from afar.
But as Varg and Lyzera step into the remodelled Zarantulus an hour or so later – another decision which the royals never really had any say in – the horror in her brother's eyes tells her that this is a very bad idea.
For Lexi can see what he sees, without even probing into his mind: the brother and sister flying around the universe together, exploring planets and extracting magic together, rivals but also sharing the closest of friendships together, forever.
As Lyzera marches off to demand immediate alterations to the Flight Deck to make it a worthy vessel of a Lady of the Ringed Moons, Varg is once again that traumatised Nekross who desperately wants his sister back. And all Lexi can do is watch him shatter, painful memories cruelly brought to poignant life in front of his eyes.
It's almost a week later – though it feels like an eternity – that Lexi decides she can't bear it any longer.
It's a day before they're due to leave for the outer cosmos in their solar system, and Varg is back where he started six months ago, staring dully out at the forests where they used to hunt together, alone.
Lexi takes care placing her hands on either temple, caressing her older brother's scaled tentacles with ghostly fingers, trying to leave an imprint, anything she can even as she wordlessly whispers goodbye.
Earlier that day she had spent all the time she could with Tom, watching the boy she loved kiss another girl: a school friend who smiled as they pressed their lips together in the foyer of an abandoned theatre. Lexi had smiled too through her tears at the wonder on her little wizard's face as they beam at each other, the spell already working its – well – magic.
Lexi's so glad he found happiness in the end.
She had had it wrong, of course. Guardian angels are supposed to watch over the person they loved the most, right? That's what all the cheesy afterlife tales insist you believe, after all.
But maybe even they have it wrong.
Maybe it's the person who needs you the most.
So, as Lexi closes her eyes tight and senses her brother's every fleeting thought intertwined with her own, she finds her own happiness in their shared memories flashing before both of their eyes, using it to fuel the emotion she needs, even as she's pushing them out of his head.
Forcing him to forget.
"Goodbye, Varg."
It's the day of the leaving ceremony. Everything is a ceremony on Nekron, she thinks. Lyzera is yelling at her handmaidens to pick up the train of her elaborately embroidered robes, flashing a sickly sweet smile at the audience watching them leave. Nekron, starving though it may be, continues to cheer for their royal family, loyal to the last.
Lexi floats overhead as she has done for six long months, now struggling to cling to whatever scrap of consciousness she has left. It takes her an oddly long time to find Varg, even longer to recognise him.
But she finally picks him out of the crowd.
And for the first time in a very long and bitter war, he's smiling.
A/N) Why do I torture my heart so? Please review if you liked it! :)