Disclaimer: Tytania belongs to Yoshiki Tanaka. If it were mine, forget Fan Hyulick, the anti-Tytania side would be all about the ladies.
Prompt: Femslash February 2022 Day 8 – Constellations (slightly late, and doesn't quite fit)
"Look how far we are,
I can almost catch a star
I think they look different
When seen from a distance."
–Dark Sarah, "Wish"
Sera had been in space before. When her father, God rest him, had been alive, he used to tour whole systems. She hadn't been up since his death left her stranded on Emmental.
Lira, on the other hand, hadn't been off-world since she was a baby, and that didn't count. She almost looked like a little kid, with the wide-eyed wonder she had leaning up to the viewscreen, which Miranda or Compton had very kindly set to show the external feed. Lira was awestruck, her mouth open in a big smile as she watched the planet she'd grown up on soar away from them.
Sera came and stood beside her. It felt almost hopeful to watch the takeoff with her. As if they hadn't both lost people important to them. Like the two of them were going to a performance by Sera's father in one of the top music halls on a Stygian moon.
God, that was all Sera wanted.
To take her mind off this depressing thought, Sera put her hand on Lira's and bumped against her.
Lira was slow to take her gaze away from the view outside – Emmental was shrinking rapidly, and they were surrounded by more and more stars – but she did look up at Sera after a moment.
"What do you think?" Sera asked. It wasn't what she wanted to say, exactly, but she didn't want to bring Lira's mood down too.
"It's amazing." Lira turned her gaze back to the viewscreen. "It really does go on forever, doesn't it?"
"Yeah." Sera leaned against her. "That's what the scientists say."
"I thought it would look . . . different," Lira admitted. "Like, you know how the pictures are, with the colors and the dust clouds and everything? This looks the same as the night sky, except we're in it."
Sera smiled a bit. "Yeah. If you get close to a particular star, or a nebula or something, you can see some pretty impressive sights, but space is so huge that mostly everything looks equally far away. The only real difference is that the patterns they make change."
"There are more stars out here than in the city, though." Lira peered out. The planet was rapidly fading away in the distance. "All the lights down below, you can barely see most of them."
"That's true."
"It's beautiful."
They watched space pass in quiet for a while, the hum of the Honest Old Man's engines below them the only sound.
Finally Lira broke the silence with a sigh. "I wish my grandma could see it."
And there it was, a reminder of the problem they were both running from, the war they'd both lost their only family to. Sera wished she could think of something to say that wouldn't sound trite. She'd heard enough, when her father died, that she knew what wouldn't be welcome, but that didn't mean she knew what the right words would be.
". . . Maybe she can," Sera said, when the need to say something grew stronger than her worry over saying the wrong thing. "I don't know where heaven is – it could be out in space. Or maybe, because you're thinking of her, and wishing she could see what you see, maybe she can."
Lira rested her head against Sera's shoulder. "That sounds nice."
Sera was glad she hadn't completely messed up. It was the kind of thing she'd thought about a lot, whenever something came up that she wanted to share with her dad. It just kept hitting you, over and over again, that they were gone and you'd never be able to show them anything, or tell them anything, ever again. And the worst part was, you just had to live with that knowledge.
After a moment, Lira said, "We'll get them." She turned her hand around under Sera's, so she could hold Sera's hand properly.
It was like she knew what Sera was thinking. She squeezed Lira's hand back. "Definitely. Tytania is just too big. They have to fall."
Lira's half-smile was reflected on the viewscreen. "It's just simple physics, right?"
They were just two girls who'd lost everything. But they'd made it out into the stars, and it felt like they could do anything at all.
A/N: Never would've thought my first Tytania fic would be a Femslash February fill for my crack ship, but here we are. Of course, i'm pretty sure i'm the only one who even remembers Tytania exists (possibly including Yoshiki Tanaka himself), so i don't see a problem with it.
