Thirty-Six

To my complete un-surprise, I spent the evening of Unity Day on my own causing talk nevertheless. Not that I moped or anything. It was just, really people. Really? How long in advance are invitations to such an event sent? Days? Weeks? Well, maybe weeks, but definitely more than one week.

"Can I just show up because people expect it?" I asked Thkela.

"Definitely not." She had been very clear about that. "There is a wave of last minute invitations a few days before the reception to fill in those places that have been unexpectedly vacated. But even that would have been an unexpected concession to popular curiosity."

"Thought so," I agreed. "I wouldn't have known what to do there anyway. I am not important, influential and not even very entertaining."

"You could have chosen a more displayable art," she said, but it was not a reproof. "Even then it is unlikely that you had gotten a chance to perform. The reception celebrates the peaceful unification of the Ruling Houses against external threats. Alien art would not be welcome."

I thought of Fenal and said nothing. Actually, I was sad and relieved at the same time. Sad that I had, again, not managed the impossible; relived because I did not have to handle the aftermath of achieving the impossible. Neither the social onslaught, nor facing the expectation that I would do the impossible again in the future.

Instead I took extra time to play with Sarah and put her to bed. I had another dinner with Rukh, relating some of the last events in the Lord of the Rings; he really liked the scouring of the Shire. We exercised some and when I looked out over the starlit garden, I dropped my knife. Rukh caught me under the ribs less than friendly. I hardly noticed.

"Look," I forced out on the last of my breath. "Stars."

He did turn. And though his alert stance did not waver for a moment, I could see the surprise on his small frame. Stars. Stars, indeed.

I got back to my feet and opened the double doors to the balcony. But the stars were still there. With my eyes glued to the sky, I went to the balustrade, curling my fingers around the cold stone. "Where did they come from?" I asked into the night.

"It must be a special feature for festive nights." Rukh came to sand beside me. "It must cost a fortune to power that."

"Did you look up on Diaspora Day?" I certainly had not. In general, I did not look up at the sky often enough. Well, had not looked up. Here, not looking up was comparable to a survival mechanism. If I didn't see the ice, it was not there.

"I did not," he replied. "I will make a note to do so next time."

"So will I." I wondered if they had taken the trouble to imitate the actual constellations, the brightness of the stars, the phases of the moons. "No moons," I whispered. It was almost sad.

"Likely too difficult to imitate credibly," Rukh chimed in on my thoughts. "The stars are likely fixed too, not following their actual course across the firmament."

We stood watching the stars in silence. After a while they made me sad. They did not flicker, their light was not glinting with the cold of space. They were beautiful, certainly, but beautiful as images of stars were beautiful, as stars by van Gogh or Friedrich, beautiful as a representation of stars. But in the end they were just not stars.

"There is a form of kharath called Stargazer and Sunrise," Rukh said into the heavy silence.

"You never told me about that one," I accepted the conversation.

"It is no good for self-defence, it trains muscle control and timing." He stared into the night. "It is nothing you could deploy in a fight."

"I don't think control over my movements is something I would not profit from," I offered. "You know what a klutz I can be."

"I know." He was silent for a long time. Then he took a step back and launched into the form. It was slow, sometimes excruciatingly so, like a person caught in a deep sleep walking about, the eyes raised to the sky, following the dance of the stars. It ended with a motion that brought the Noghri down to the ground in a low curling crouch only to unfold again. I realised where the sunrise came from.

"It is beautiful," I said after he had finished.

"I will teach you," he replied, "when you are more likely to kill your opponent with your knife than yourself.

"Fair enough." I feared I would never get around to this form this way, but when he had to decide between beautiful and useful, Rukh would always go for useful. Especially if it would help to keep me alive. "We better get back to working on that."

So we did. And after that I watched Sarah sleep for a while because I couldn't. The fake stars were grating on my nerves even now. And the letter had vanished and I was torn between hope and embarrassment. And Thrawn was light-years away and had real stars, real stars and real skies. How old would Sarah be before she saw her first real sky? The first ray of true sunlight?

Brooding on things like that wouldn't improve my mood any, but at least they kept me away from more personal pains. Why was I going to sleep in an empty bed each night? Why did it hurt sometimes? Why didn't it other nights? And if blankets couldn't fly, what was the fluffy thing doing, ending up in corners of the room some nights?

There was not enough chocolate, not enough tea or even alcohol to quench the impotent rage that would grab me. And I would get up with fists full of bite marks. But the pillow was long dried again and the blanket found its way back onto the bed and water washed all marks from my face. And I would go through another day and not know what the evening would bring.

The corridors are grey, but it is ice. I run and slip and don't get anywhere as doors rush by. The wind catches my hair, tugging my head this way and that. The sky is grey as well. A lonely black bird drops over it. I try to catch it but he bars my way.

I can't believe he has found me and don't mind being crushed against the icy grey bulkhead.

"But what have you done?" His voice is as dark as the fire in his eyes.

I have no answer and watch his lips as he continues.

"You are not supposed to gaze at the stars, Mellanna. Look at me."

I am sucked into the red vortex of his eyes, finding neither hand- nor foothold, going down, down down...

Protecting my head with my arms was painful, but it broke the fall. My legs were tangled up in the blankets as I stared at my topsy-turvy world. Even my dreams didn't know my real name any longer.

Go back to sleep, Mel, I told myself. Forget that name, it was never yours to claim; you never did anything with it. Hold on to what you have. It might mean something in the end. I would have given almost anything to be able to curl up against my Admiralship. It was ugly, going back to sleep after a nightmare on your own. But what choice did I have?

And this is the reason I didn't update here.