Caelestis shifted in her bed and let out a slow, even breath. She was pretending to be sleeping, just in case Gauri was still awake and waiting to give her another withering scowl. Ever since their argument earlier, Gauri had been even more cold and passive-aggressive to her. Caelestis had spent most of the day watching the television to avoid interacting or even looking at her, but by the time the evening fell, Gauri had scolded her for watching the "tube" and told her it would rot her brain. Caelestis, not really understanding television or electricity, believed her wholly and turned the thing off. Now she lay in the dark, covers pulled up to conceal her face, pretending to sleep. Across the room, she could hear Gauri's even breathing, though it did not reassure her that she was free from her scrutiny.
In the silence, Caelestis reflected on all that happened that day. She couldn't recall a time when she had ever been so aggressive or defensive. Her people put a high value on survival and any conflict was seen as a threat to the lives of everyone. It was quickly dismissed, put aside, or dealt with accordingly and never looked at again. She had spent her whole life being pitied and looked down by everyone, so why it should bother her now of all times was confusing to her. There were several points that made her feel a little guilty about the exchange, too. She knew that Gauri was never going to walk again, or do anything on her own again and that she had lost someone important to her-to her and her friends. That alone was enough for her to ignore the superior attitude Gauri displayed towards her. They had both lost so much, Caelestis and Gauri, that they should be supporting each other. Of all things, they should be able to find common ground but instead were constantly trying to assert dominance.
Some part of her understood her own frustration. Yes, she had dealt with similar attitudes for ages, and now she was in a new life. She wanted a fresh start. She didn't want to be at the bottom again, looked down on and a burden to all. She wanted to stand for something, to make her people proud and honor them, to prove that she was worthy of being somebody. Gauri had known nothing about her or her experiences and had automatically condemned her. She wasn't going to stand for that. She wanted a chance.
As she was turning this thought over in her mind, she heard the soft tread of footsteps echoing down the hall and into their room. In the quiet of the night, the steps were as loud as thunder and startled her. She held very still and listened attentively, wondering who was coming at this time of night. Don was gone, as were most of the day nurses. Perhaps a doctor was doing what they called "making the rounds?"
The steps halted, the sound ending abruptly in front of the foot of her bed, or perhaps the foot of Gauri's bed. She couldn't be sure. The curiosity of the late-night visitor was maddening to the point where Caelestis risked a shift in her position to catch a glimpse of who it was. It wasn't too difficult, as the person had stopped exactly where she had suspected, in between their beds and facing Gauri. The wavy white hair and short stature led her to assume that it was the Doctor, the same one whom everyone treated as if he were the king of the hospital. No one ever said his name. He was just The Doctor.
His hands were clasped behind his back as he waited patiently at the foot of Gauri's bed, rocking gently back and forth on his heels.
"I know you are awake, Gauri," he finally said in a surprisingly tenor. His voice was only slightly rusted with age, but strong and commanding. There was a rustle as Gauri sat up, but Caelestis could see nothing due to the Doctor standing in the way.
"Onyx send you again?" Gauri said coldly. "Well, the answer has not changed. No."
The Doctor moved without a word to the chair near the bed and sat down. Caelestis quickly shut her eyes just in case Gauri looked at her. She was tempted to hold her breath, but reminded herself that that was the surest way to draw attention to herself. She focused on trying to maintain a slow, even, sleep-like breathing pattern.
"Actually, it was your Mother and Father who asked me to talk to you," he said calmly. Caelestis ventured a peek and saw that he had crossed his legs and was leaning back casually in the chair. The light from outside was highlighting his hooked nose and narrow features.
"They shouldn't be contacting anybody," Gauri snapped angrily.
"They are worried about you, Gauri," the Doctor explained. "Your own mother is beside herself with tears and begging to be allowed to do the surgery—"
"I said NO!" Gauri almost shouted. She fell silent immediately and Caelestis could feel their eyes shift towards her. Deciding to play the part, she let out a low mumble and shifted again in her sleep to pretend to be disturbed. After a moment, Gauri continued. "Atlas is probably searching every rock and cranny to find them. Contacting me or anyone else is too dangerous, let alone coming here for a lost cause."
"You are the only one who thinks that, Gauri," the Doctor chided her gently.
"Then everyone else is a fool," Gauri concluded. "I have made my decision. This is my life now. This is what I have chosen to make amends. I can't turn back time, but I can atone in this way."
"Gauri, it wasn't your fault," the Doctor began.
"Spare me your pity, Doctor," Gauri said coolly. "Leave me be."
The doctor rose to his feet and made his way to the door. He paused in the doorway for a moment, looking at the room. He seemed like he wanted to say something, but decided against it and left.
Caelestis lay in the bed as silent as a tomb, trying to let the fading footfalls ease her anger, but it didn't seem to have any affect at all. As each step faded more and more, her anger increased. Everything was flooding through her at once, like lightning, and she had no control of it. It was like a tidal wave, all the words that had been spoken, everything she had been through and known, all of it sweeping around her and lifting her up into a chasm of bright hot fury.
In one smooth motion, the covers flew from her bed and Caelestis was on her feet. The paces between her and Gauri's bed were a blur, and the next thing she knew she was gripping the metal bar at the foot of Gauri's bed. Her knuckles were white, she was gripping so hard, and her eyes were wide with rage.
"You dew-beater!" Caelestis hissed. "Pile of Grimm Dung! You is the base of the stone, moss and scum! Imbecilic self-thinking hollow stone!"
Gauri's eye had widened to saucers, her body going tight as a spring at Caelestis' sudden approach.
"You…were listening?" she managed. As Gauri spoke, Caelestis focused hard on trying to bring herself down enough to use the language she needed to vent her anger.
"You is most self-thinking, ney kenning, string of Grimm spittle!" Caelestis spat out. "You cane have is life, is beyond twilight and yet you is here, like a leech, sucking from all."
"What do you know?" Gauri growled.
"I is kenning I have nothing," Caelestis shot back, her own tears flowing against her will. "I is have nay family, nay Ma nay Pa to see. Ma an' Pa, they is the greatest in life. All they is want is ye safe, ye healthy. But you spit on yer Ma an Pa. Ye throw them to the Hoppers like broken leather. Ye is nay punishing any but the loves and the lights. Onyx. Ma. Pa. The Doctor. They is reaching for ye and ye is spitting like a beowolf. Ye hurt them a mountain-size more than ye scratch ye."
Caelestis glared at Gauri with burning eyes, her whole body trembling. She knew that half of what she said was unintelligible and she desperately wanted to be heard this time. She tried again, trying to funnel all her chaos into simple words of the language she was still struggling with. "I hate you for what you have." The words were low, clipped and hollow. "I want my Ma to protect me. I want my friends to laugh with me. You have that. You have it all and you throw it away like trash. And the worst. You can live. You can do things. But you sit here, letting others take care of you so you can live lazy and do nothing. I hate you."
"I am not doing this to be lazy!" Gauri protested.
"How do you go to the bathroom?" Caelestis shot back. "How do you eat? How do you clean yourself? Everyone does everything for you! You speak of making amends. What amends? You insult this Kale, you throw her out of the Twilight and into the shadows."
Gauri seemed to sit up straighter. "What are you talking about?" she asked. Something had shifted in Gauri's demeanor, something important and Caelestis seized this.
"My people believe in two deaths," she explained, relaxing her hold a little on the metal bar as she spoke. "The death here is always present. We go to the Twilight, to enjoy life where there is no Grimm and no pain. Happiness and maybe the Goddess herself will visit. We can stay in the Twilight on two conditions. We must be remembered and we must be honored. As long as one remembers, we will remain. As long as we are honored, we can remain."
"Wait, so what if one person remembers and one doesn't? Or only one person honors you, but doesn't remember?" Gauri asked. She was gripping her blankets tightly with her one hand, her face desperately searching for something.
"It depends on which is stronger," Caelestis whispered. "Onyx honors this Kale with all her being. Perhaps that is keeping Kale in the Twilight, against your horrible dishonor to her."
The rage seemed to have mostly vented itself and Caelestis was left feeling oddly empty and unwilling to talk, but she had started this and could not flee anymore. Gauri was turning something over in her mind, and it was visibly having an effect. She could tell that Gauri didn't believe in these things, in gods and the Twilight, but that she was teetering about something important.
"Why do you do this?" Caelestis asked finally. Gauri was still thinking and didn't seem to hear her. Caelestis was about to repeat her question when she finally answered.
"She is dead because of me," Gauri said in a simple, empty voice. At first, Caelestis wasn't sure if she had heard her correctly. It was strikingly similar to her own thinking patterns when she thought of the death of her tribe, and it always lingered in the back of her mind. It stunned her that a person from such an advanced society could still harbor such illusions of fault and she didn't quite know how to react to it. Any response she gave would be a response to herself as well as Gauri, and she knew it. After a brief moment's reflection, she realized that there was only one response that she could give.
"Ye is the imbecile," Caelestis abruptly turned to walk away.
"You know nothing of what happened!" Gauri shot back.
"I will place leather that ye caned do nay then," Caelestis said with confidence. She kept her back to Gauri so as not to let her see her face, to see her own doubts about herself reflected in there. Now she understood. This simple confrontation had become a mirrored assault. Caelestis found herself fighting and defending her own thoughts and feelings, the same questions that had haunted her for ages rising up to be heard. Everything she held in her heart was reflected in another tortured soul, and it suddenly made her feel more confident in her own answer. "There were two chances: her death, or together you die. No other. If there was something else you found, tell me now." After collecting herself, she turned to face Gauri.
"I…I could have…" Gauri started. Caelestis crossed her arms and waited. "If I had moved sooner…"
"You is fast like the Hopper?" Caelestis demanded.
"Well, No…but it is my job—"
"Then what could you have done?" Caelestis took a moment to try and right her language a bit and push in some of the words she had already learned.
"I could have used a rope…" Gauri was pleading, begging for confirmation. It was like a shadow in her voice, reaching for hope. Caelestis would have none of it.
"And taken the same time. No. What could you have done?" Caelestis made the question into a demand, an order that it be answered immediately. Gauri was floundering, her eye searching through various scenarios and listing each one only to have it dismissed by Caelestis. Her face grew more taut with frustration, anger at not understanding how or why this bush girl could so easily dismiss her various ways of saving the day. Each and every one was shot down until Gauri had nothing left and Caelestis was exhausted.
"If ye had been the cause," Caelestis said finally. "Then I also am at cause. But I could have done nay for my kin and neither could you for your friend. If ye really want to punish yourself, find another way."
"How?" Gauri demanded desperately. "How else can I do it?" She seemed to really want to know how to punish herself for something she had no control over. Caelestis supposed guilt did that, no matter what world you came from. All their technology and they still struggled with the heart.
"If ye are set here," Caelestis said cautiously. Caelestis turned away and made her way back to her side of the room as she spoke. "Then live. Honor her. Be the best you can be and don't look back. That will be the greatest punishment to yourself because you do not wish to live." Caelestis mechanically began grabbing the things from her cabinet, checking the contents of her bag and then reached down for the bag that Onyx had brought earlier.
"What are you doing?" Gauri demanded.
"I cane nay stand to sight you," Caelestis said simply. "I is leaving."
"You can't just leave like that," Gauri snorted. Caelestis ignored her and made her way to the door. "The Doctor and nurses won't have it! You leave when they say." Caelestis ignored the desperate plea in Gauri's voice and left the room, holding tightly to both bags as she walked. She continued walking through the halls, undisturbed, until she found stairs. She took them down without question and continued on, walking like a zombie through the halls and looking for the exit. Her memory of coming here was foggy and she wasn't sure she was on the right path until she saw large, glass doors that showed the outside. She quickened her pace and managed to somehow push her way out. Nothing was locked or sealed and no one had questioned or stopped her, though she had felt someone following behind the whole way. Once outside, she looked around for something-anything-familiar and comforting. Her eyes fell upon a small tree planted into a square of grass surrounded by rock. Without hesitation she threw herself at the base and pressed her face against the rough bark. The smell of fresh green and water refreshed her, the cool night air clearing her mind and drying her skin of the tears. Never in her life had she been so angry, so full of hate. All she could think of at the time was everything she didn't have and how this girl was wasting it all. It had just consumed her so quickly, like fire. She had felt her blood burning, her eyes burning, everything. Now she desperately wanted silence and shade. She closed her eyes and remained curled up against the tree, confused and trembling in the night.
Gauri sat in silence after Caelestis' departure, her own emotions a confusing whirlwind. Why had her choice been wrong? She had always prided herself on her logic, on her reasoning. She was good at picking the right circuit, the correct schematics, the proper routes and wiring. She could build a computer from two chips and a fan, but these things called emotions were an enigma to her. Logic had told her that she was the tank, the one to pull the punches and shield her team. She saw the arm pull back, saw the glowing device flying and had known what it would do. She could have stopped it. She could have leapt in the path and knocked it away.
But no, the flight through the air was short. Kale had been too close. She would have never made it time and would have most likely died with Kale. Even the bush girl saw that.
She could have thrown something to deflect or block the device. It would have been easy. But again, the bush girl—who knew nothing about explosives or electronics—said that it would have just made more things fly around and cause more damage, and still would have killed the girl. How could a bush girl know that!? She didn't even know the word for debris! It infuriated Gauri.
And then Caelestis had talked about the Twilight. Gauri had almost sneered at such stupid superstition until she remembered how much Onyx loved that kind of talk, and then something dawned on her. Perhaps there was a reason for such absurd thinking. Something about working with emotions and processing them. She had never considered something like this and had listened intently, hoping to find a clue as to how to direct her emotions and bring back the calm, cool logic she knew and understood. Everything Caelestis talked about was primarily about ensuring survival, of living the next day and working together as people. Much like a team. She saw the similarities instantly and starting doing comparisons between her own experiences with her team up until the moment of Kale's death. There was not much new as it was similar to what the school emphasized.
Finally, Caelestis gave her final words—Live. Honor her. It had made Gauri's blood go cold because she had felt like she was listening to someone else speaking. It was the kind of words that Kale might have said in any situation. It was what Onyx had been doing ever since the incident. "It's what Kale would have done." "I think Kale…" and so on. Onyx lived like Kale still lived. Gauri had thought it was just Onyx being unwilling to let go of the past. Now she wasn't so sure.
Gauri reached over to the draw near her bed and pulled it open. She lifted out her scroll and set it on the bed before her, staring down at it. A list of missed messages was sprawled across the screen. Some of them were from Onyx and a few classmates she occasionally spoke with in the lab. Most of them were from her parents, blinking still from having not been checked.
It would be dangerous, she realized. She would be responsible yet again for the death of people dear to her if they were discovered. Gauri closed her lavender eye for a moment, trying to push away the emotions and do things logically. She needed that. The emotions were just distracting her. The facts were simple. If she let her parents do the operation, she would be able to protect them and others; probably better than before. Sitting in bed would not allow her to protect anyone, especially her parents. They still needed her and they were really the only reason she hadn't thrown herself from the window yet. Onyx also needed someone to talk sense to her. Onyx too easily believed in ghost stories and did things too randomly to be safe. She could easily jeopardize anything the way she gambled with fate. Then there was Stav….
"Stav probably would like to string me from the rafters and disembowel me slowly," Gauri sighed to herself. She knew that Stav blamed her as much as she blamed herself. But she had already decided. Touching the phone, she closed her eyes and centered herself. Having come to the decision had suddenly calmed everything inside of her. She needed a secure line, and Jumping was the best way to ensure that. It was late enough that no one would distract her, so she could make the connection easily.
At her touch, her screen lit up and shined an eerie column of light around the room. Setting herself into a kind of mental rhythm, she let her mind shift and felt the world speed by suddenly in a strange, almost hypnotizing wave. Two faces were before her suddenly, one tired and haggard with deep circles under her eyes and hair flying wildly about her head. It was her mother. The moment she saw her, Gauri immediately burst into tears and lost the connection. She scolded herself for the sudden emotion and attempted to calm herself. It took her a while before she could bring back up the connection. This time, it was her mother's turn to cry.
