Notes: Alternate universe. TW: domestic violence.
She is breathless, walking on Saturn's rings. Bare feet on ice and choking dust in her lungs. Hair drifting listlessly behind her, she looks again for the god that isn't there.
She used to live too close to the sun. She played outside, and it burned her skin red-raw. She doesn't remember the pain, but she remembers the light, the warmth on her bare arms and legs. The taste of ripened watermelon. The shafts of light filter through her memories, flitting from one to another before coming to rest.
"I promise to visit," she says earnestly, a note of apology in her voice for leaving in the first place. Overhead, the sun shines too brightly behind crisp white clouds.
He snorts derisively, the little boy with the old eyes. "Don't come back," he says, because he knows she will.
She turns this way and that, feeling at once proud and uncomfortable in her new clothes.
The white cotton robe hangs loosely on her thin frame. She took her vitamin D supplements this morning, as she has every morning, stretching back hundreds of years. She can still feel the pill sticking in her throat, and wonders at the bitter taste of all that sunlight.
She traces imaginary circles on her wrist with her other hand, feeling the weight of bruises that are no longer there. The voice echoes soundlessly, but she feels his words against the shell of her ear. She sees her life in stark black and white, her memories colored in.
She used to live in a small apartment at the city's center. The man who lived with her could kiss along the angry red welts he left on her skin, and she was in love. She doesn't remember the pain but she remembers his gentle smile, the way her hands fit in his. The smell of breakfast cooking. She catches the memory in her hands, but unclasps them and lets it fly away.
He holds her in his arms and she belongs, as he whispers gratitude and farewell. She cries from happiness, relief.
She tastes the acrid tang of her blood as waffles cook in another room.
She lies on the ground, a broken doll easily discarded. With her last breath, she prays to her invisible god, and is in love.
She doesn't believe in love, but her eyes still sweep across the sky as she walks on. She still believes in serendipity, after all.
So different, Earth, with its blue skies and wistful clouds. Different from this cold, swirling planet and its endless black. The watermelon grows under artificial light, the waffles taste like cardboard.
She was born to love and sunshine. She spent her whole life learning to forget. She walks across the rings, trying to remember. She feels herself standing at the edge of the world, the end of endless rings. She looks to heaven and back, seeing everything for the first time and nothing at all, seeing green eyes and a boy who is somewhere, still waiting for her. Unafraid, she steps out into the sky.