"Grey!" she cried, she was clinging.
Grey wished they had had more time.
They thought of all the moments they could have seen. The beauty of the Verse. Beyond this small planet, they had known in their thousands upon thousands of years of their life.
They thought about the fact that they had a name- that they were not simply their job, their status. I am Grey.
They thought of their Brood, and the pride they would have held for standing once again for what they had all died for.
"L-0182, how can you simply stand aside? Our Queen called them humans, as human as her! How can you simply let Lord Balem throw it all away?!" Their Elder, their parent, looked at them in horror, in fury so great that they thought they would set L-0182 aflame.
L-0182 remembers the look on the Entitled's face. There was something dark, twisted in his gaze. Something that had never been in Queen Seraphi's face in the few times she had sent them messages across the cycles. That had been absent in her face when they had seen her in person. The calmness of his rasp voice had been a stark contrast to his words, "If you do not return to your posts, you will be removed from your position. There will be no exception."
"I will not die for the sake of a lie," the words felt like ash in their mouth, "These Terriestials are just live-stock. They are not alive. Lord Balem has spoken."
They thought of vengeance. Of watching Balem Abrasax fall for all the harm he had done to them. I wish she will slaughter you as you have slaughtered millions across your accursed life. But I know she will not. I would have done it for her, had she but asked.
Grey wished they could have stood in the great, beautiful Verse that Jupiter would have carved from the ashes of the corrupt system that had killed her in the first life. But most Grey wished she would not be making it difficult to let go of their life. They had struggled for two hundred cycles to stay alive after their Brood had fallen… And it was all for this.
A gentle touch to her young face. Sweetness and beauty that had captured Grey's attention in the first place, the innocence in the face. They put the bag around her thin shoulders, pressed it into her stomach.
"Be well, Jupiter Jones."
Grey gripped the youngling and threw with all their might.