QUIETUS EST
Chapter One of One
"You know, the stars are much prettier from Earth."
She sat down beside him, staring at the same patch of space as he had been before glancing to see who it was that had interrupted his privacy, while he looked disapprovingly out of the corner of his eye, the remainder of his vision struggling to remain in contact with the stars, as she produced out of her pocket a bulky contraption, dressed in what seemed to be black synthetic plastic, that had wires attached. What ever it was, it was definitely not from the PLANTs.
"It's an mp3 player- antique, from Earth," she remarked casually. As usual, nothing had escaped her attention. He coughed slightly and looked back at the fabulous balls of fire, scowling internally like he sometimes did (of course he knew what an mp3 player is!) but he was still very unable to not continue the conversation.
"Such.. Patronage of Earth-" His mother's beliefs had obviously rubbed off on her son.
"Is it banned, prohibited?" she laughed to herself, "We've got such a fabulous code of conduct, don't we? Seriously, what enmity could Creative Technologies have with us?"
He glared at her, ignoring the stars completely, "In case you forget, they are-"
"They are who we come from, Sir. Human life started on Earth, and our race owes that other race their very existence." She looked at him softly.
"Earthis our enemy."
"No, they're not. They can't be. Earth isn't my enemy, at least. I know, half the people here are well, almost all of them, are absolutely against the Naturals, and they can come here to have their fill of the blood of innocents, but not me. I came here to save myself and help my people, not-" Her voice, her tone, was passionate. She fell silent. There were too many moles around. They had almost forgotten.
A little while paused, as was usual. She produced a cigarette from her sleeve, an ear shut by the plugs of the player, and lit it slowly. He declined her offer of the tobacco. Such a clean kid, she remarked to herself with a slight chuckle.
This was actually their longest conversation on something besides politics. Somehow, he regretted having rejected her every advance, and he wondered now what it had been that made her like him so much. Of course, it hadn't really been advances, just casual outings from base for lunch or a snack. A pity, for somehow the gossip-monger was always hanging out with him, or he always thought of the gossip-monger. What a thing to call a close friend… then again, hehad defected more than once…
"How's it going with the fiancé, sir?" she asked out of the blue. As usual, she started it. But he didn't notice it then. The word fiancée was too loud, too surprisingly loud. Not that he had one anymore… but… he decided to say nothing else for now.
"I haven't got a fiancée."
"I meant Miss Gaffney, sir. I know you're single now."
He turned to look at her. She grew uneasy with his gaze.
"I'm sorry, I… I saw them on your bed- when I was looking for you the other day… when you were out of base.. The pictures… your letters from her, they were all over the place, just floating around, and I thought of putting it all back for you… I-I'm sorry if you're offended by my invasion of your privacy…"
"She looked just like you."
"What?"
"She was just like you. Stargazing and fireworks and… cigarettes and antiques… everything… she was just a little heavier in thought, a little less enigmatic… and she looked… she looked just like you… I'm sure you noticed all of that, didn't you? Of course, she never apologized to anybody. Never…"
She nodded nervously, as if unsure of the answer. Her mouth that was hanging open previously was shut the moment he started talking about her. All the while, he had never taken his eyes off the Small Dipper.
"Sylvia…" he whispered, almost to himself.
"Where's she now?" she asked meekly, "her letters stopped very… suddenly…"
He handed her, almost threw hopelessly to her, a slip of paper, very faintly crumpled by the bending of his fingers, each sheet folded back again and again numerous times.
"She never did find happiness-when she was alive… she ran away last year… from life, from us all… from me.."
She looked up at him from the letter. In the artificial fluorescence, he looked old. It was probably just his hair, but in that light… he seemed to have advanced in his years by his passion. Love had made him grow old.
It was only too common an experience between them. Somehow, in the distance, out of the corner of her eye, among the stars, she thought she saw him from the past, floating in the vacuum, and waiting for her to be happy.
She smiled sadly to herself, inside, and held him small. She held him in a manner that he returned much later, but only when she, too, ran away, with tears in his eyes, in his heart.
It was only later, much later, when he was wizened and old, truly old and frail, that he realized something. She had been right all along. Despite the premature cigarettes, the pacifist nonsense that everybody dismissed and even sabotaged her for, the triple free fall, she was right. She had always been right.
He put down his pen, signing his last letter to Sylvia a little differently this time round, and sighed. Calm and peace finally reigned, but it still seemed too uneasy, like they had lost their support in the process of ensuring their survival. She had been their support. She was gone now.
Hands still shaking, he opened carefully a box made of cassia hardened by the years and added the fountain pen and ink to the collection inside that contained among other things a brandy flask, a leather-bound copy of a book whose named had faded long ago but had still been precious to her, a light yellow scarf, coffee-stained notebooks, clothes and letters and photographs of decades ago, and an antique mp3 player from Earth.
It is better to have loved once and lost than to have never loved at all.
But what is to be said of loving twice, and losing both times? Is it still better to have never loved at all?
-FreedomValentine-
Yay!! I'm back!! Yay!! Not really, actually. I've been really, really busy trying to get decent marks because i'm doing my A-Levels, and DUH it's really tiring. I know it's a fag of an excuse, but I've been really busy. But I'm not forsaking this place, really, I can't bear to do so. I've been working on those piles of tosh that have been lying around at the third chapter or so, but I keep finding that the mother throws them away and I find that I cannot rewrite it. So, really, you must trust me when I say that I'm getting on with it. -FV-