In a world where he lives, they would go to Earth. They would lay a map of the world on the table and point to a country to explore; would make a path that dipped into every crevice and curve of a city or town. They would learn whatever they could. She would force him to eat something that seemed particularly intimidating or disgusting simply for the pleasure of knowing that she could trick his memory into making that exact same face at any time; he would endure this for the memory of each snort of laughter that escaped her, which makes almost every one of those times worth it in every way.
She would grow her hair out in a personal promise to herself, and he would reap the benefits and frustrations that entailed. The beautiful feeling of silk gradually growing longer in his hands as time went by, and the nuisance of each individual strand eventually tangling up his scales; the knots, the tangles, the trimming of the curls she hasn't had since Mindoir.
In a world where he lives, they would make love in every beautiful country under the stars; would bask in the heat of every desert they came across until she was more burned skin than tanned, and then more freckled than warm golden skin. He would breathe the easiest in these times, and she would lay against his side and simply absorb the ease at which he breathed; the gentle, even swell of his chest in a mimicked pattern of Kahje's tides.
In a world where he lives, she would be happy, and nothing would have been able to hold them back.
However, she is an old woman, now, and this is not a world in which he lives.
She is weak, and brittle with time; her skin wrinkled and pale and her lips chapped more often than not. She has sunspots, not freckles, and when she manages to stand on her own two feet, her joints crackle so badly they seem like they're breaking with every step. She has no laugh lines like she would in that other world; instead those lines are at her forehead where it has creased too many times to number properly. The worries of rebuilding a galaxy have stooped her back and thinned her body to near nothing.
But she is wise; perhaps as wise as he always seemed, but definitely not more. Nothing could compare to her flawed yet perfect memories of him: the ever patience he exuded; the times when he would take her hands as they spoke; and the way he left this world, ready to go to the sides of his Gods.
She thinks that maybe it is her own time. She dreams more often of him, in ways she never has before. They walk along the edges of his Mistress' shores, and her back is sure and straight; once again she is taller than he is, looking down at him before she would bend herself slightly to kiss him. She tells him of what she has done; every little stepping stone jumped toward the finished goal; from agreements made to a new building created that reaches toward the skies; to the lessening number of bodies found; to a new family she has seen, the gentle expressions that gradually take over the grief of before.
He listens intently with each new tale, gently rubbing his fingers across her palms and wrists, and when she is done, her expression content but tired, he brings her close. They stand for a long time in the waters that have swelled to her thighs, and the longer she's there the more she feels the burn at the back of her eyes, the heat at her cheeks, the thickness in her throat reminding her of how much more she misses him every day.
She tells him, voice hoarse and choked and all together as raspy as his, that she loves him, and that she hopes she'll be able to find him when she comes here on her own, whenever that is.
Thane glides his fingers over her cheekbone, and presses his forehead to hers, hard enough that she knows she'll feel an imprint of his star-scale when she wakes, though there will be no evidence when she looks in the mirror. She stares into his tide-pool eyes, with the green hidden so deeply that only the faintest glimmer of the light reveals it.
"Soon, Siha," he says, as she opens her eyes to another day in a body aging with grief and patterned with responsibility. "Soon."